ABUSE TRACKER

NEW YORK
Forward

Josh Nathan-KazisApril 20, 2016

In Boro Park, Brooklyn, there are two police forces.

One drives cars with flashing lights, is dispatched over walkie-talkies, and has a blue-and-black shield for a logo.

The other is the New York City Police Department.

The Shomrim security patrol, as the local civilian force is known, is in part a pastime for traditionally observant Jewish men who like dressing up as cops, and in part a dead-serious police force that’s accrued immense power in this insular, Yiddish-speaking Brooklyn neighborhood.

The group’s 100-plus members rush through Boro Park streets in black SUV’s and police-style cruisers, responding to emergencies reported to their private emergency hotline. In one 2010 incident, they beat a man bloody before cops arrived. When the police do show up, Shomrim snap pictures as police arrest the suspects the Shomrim have, at times, already detained.

Now, a sprawling FBI investigation into corrupt relationships between Orthodox activists and the NYPD is drawing new attention to longstanding concerns about the group’s influence in the neighborhood, and its unusually close ties to the NYPD’s 66th Precinct in Boro Park.

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NEW YORK
Jeff Anderson and Associates

To Reveal Truth, Abuse Survivor Releases Investigative Report to the Public

Investigative Report

(New York, NY) – Longtime teacher, coach and athletic director, Louis Tambini, abused girls at a prominent Jesuit, Catholic School in New York City. The yearlong investigation conducted by lawyers and school officials concluded with a report confirming both the reports of abuse and a lack of response by church and school officials.

The Report Findings:
* Investigation was sparked by a social media post on school Facebook page.
* Church and School officials protected Tambini for years before law enforcement was notified.
* Victims are barred from seeking justice in court because Statute of Limitations may prevent them.
* Tambini was quietly allowed to leave the school.

“The recent revelations memorialized in this report help us all to understand the gravity and urgency of the child protection movement,” according to New York City, Attorney Mike Reck of Jeff Anderson Associates. “Through the power of social media, one brave survivor of Tambini’s acts has sparked an investigation that shines a light on these dark acts. The mission of this survivor is shared by us advocates to ensure that a measure of justice is imposed on those responsible for the past and that children of the future are protected.”

One of the survivors interviewed by the investigators has chosen to release this report publically so that others will know they are not alone and in the hope that transparency will aid in the healing.

Contact: J. Michael Reck: Office: 646.649.4960 Cell: 714.742.6593
Jeff Anderson: Office: 651.927.7872 Cell: 612.817.8665

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NEW YORK
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Thursday, April 21, 2016

Statement by David Clohessy of St. Louis, Director of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (314 566 9790, 314 645 5915 home, davidgclohessy@gmail.com)

At least seven youngsters were sexually abused at a Jesuit school in New York, and Catholic officials have been keeping it secret for a year, according to a report being released today by a victim. We applaud that victim’s courage.

[Jeff Anderson and Associates]

http://www.andersonadvocates.com/Posts/News-or-Event/2102/7-Victims-Claim-Sexual-Abuse-at-Loyola-School-in-NYC.aspx

Cardinal Timothy Dolan should denounce and discipline Jesuit officials for their reckless and callous secrecy. He should use pulpit announcements, church bulletins and parish websites to warn others about Louis Tambini. He should insist that Jesuits do a thorough mailing to all current and former Loyola students, staff and alum, accurately describing the wrongdoing by those who committed and conceal this abuse and begging victims, witnesses and whistleblowers to call police.

The Jesuits should do all of this and more. But ultimately a bishop is responsible for the safety of his flock and for the actions of religious order clerics he allows to work in his diocese. So Dolan can’t duck, dodge and deny here. He must take clear, strong, public steps to expose wrongdoers, warn parents, protect kids and help victims.

No matter what church officials do or don’t do, we urge every single person who saw, suspected or suffered child sex crimes and cover ups in Catholic churches or institutions – especially in New York City – to protect kids by calling police, get help by calling therapists, expose wrongdoers by calling law enforcement, get justice by calling attorneys, and be comforted by calling support groups like ours. This is how kids will be safer, adults will recover, criminals will be prosecuted, cover ups will be deterred and the truth will surface.

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NEW YORK
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Thursday, April 21, 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)

The so-called “investigation” into abuse at a Catholic school is an arrogant sham designed for “damage control.” Shame on the Jesuits for hiring more lawyers instead of just telling the truth and contacting law enforcement.

The “report” shows that for at least a decade – and maybe three decades – Catholic officials hid abuse reports against Louis Tambini, a popular teacher and coach.

The private lawyers hired by the Jesuits arrogantly claim none of the wrongdoing they found could be prosecuted. That’s immoral and irrelevant. It’s the duty of every adult to tell police about known or suspected child sex crimes and cover ups. It’s law enforcement’s job – not the job of church-hired private lawyers – to decide whether any adult who committed or concealed child sex crimes can be prosecuted.

These “hired guns” echo the disingenuous excuse Catholic officials often spout – the claim that “societal understanding” of abuse in “that era” is a reason no one called the cops. That’s bogus. In the 1970s, 1980s, 1990s and 2000s, these highly educated Jesuits and their boatloads of expensive lawyers and public relations staffers all knew that raping or fondling or sodomizing a kid was illegal and should immediately prompt a call to police. But they chose to protect their own comfort, convenience and careers instead of protecting kids and helping victims.

This report is more proof that even now, Catholic officials work very hard – and usually with success – to keep child sex crimes and cover ups covered up. That’s one reason why New York’s archaic, predator-friendly statute of limitations must be reformed and why every person who saw, suspected or suffered abuse and cover up should call secular authorities, not church officials.

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MINNESOTA
Advocate Tribune

Following the release of the names of 16 credibly accused New Ulm Diocese priests of sexual abuse on March 29, a joint press release dated April 15 from the New Ulm Diocese and law firm Jeff Anderson and Associates names an additional three priests credibly accused of sexual abuse––and yet another, Fr. Bernard Steiner, served amidst local parishes.

By Scott Tedrick
News Editor

Posted Apr. 21, 2016

Following the release of the names of 16 credibly accused New Ulm Diocese priests of sexual abuse on March 29, a joint press release dated April 15 from the New Ulm Diocese and law firm Jeff Anderson and Associates names an additional three priests credibly accused of sexual abuse––and yet another, Fr. Bernard Steiner, served amidst local parishes.

According to the release, Fr. Steiner was ordained in February 1961, for the Diocese of New Ulm. He served as pastor of St. James, Dawson and the mission of St. Isidore, Clarkfield from 1965-1969 and from 1981 – 1982 as an Administrator St. Andrews in Granite Falls. Additionally, he was pastor of St. James and Dawson from 1978-1981; St. Clara, Clara City from 1982-1987; and was Administrator at the Sacred Heart and Raymond parishes from 1982 to 1987,
According to the release, the credible case of abuse occurred at the Church of St. Paul in Comfrey, Minnesota in the 1970s. Steiner retired from assigned ministry in 2005.

With the Steiner revelation, a total of four of the 19 priests credibly accused of sexual abuse served in either pastoral or administrative capacities at area churches, including all four at St. Andrew Catholic Church in Granite Falls.

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TEXAS
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Thursday, April 21, 2016

Statement by David Clohessy of St. Louis, Director of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (314 566 9790, 314 645 5915 home, davidgclohessy@gmail.com)

A spokesperson for the Austin-based Whole Foods Market claims the company’s CEO John Mackey is “no longer serves on Mr. Marc Gafni’s board and has no connection to (his) San Francisco-based Center for Integral Wisdom.”

Gafni, a former rabbi, has generated controversy by admitting to sexually abusing a youngster and essentially blaming her by saying “She was 14 going on 35, and I never forced her.”

[New York Times]

We hope it’s true that Mackey’s distancing himself from Gafni. If so, however, we disagree with the public relations staffer who claims “there’s nothing else to say on this matter.”

NOTE – The comments made in an email yesterday, Wednesday, April 20, to San Francisco activist Nancy Levine from Whole Foods public relations staffer Robin Rehfield Kelly – Robin.Rehfieldkelly@wholefoods.com.

Mackey should apologize for his callousness and publicly announce his resignation from the board. He should also remove the link to Gafni’s CIW site on his Whole Foods blog.

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VATICAN CITY
Catholic News Service

By Carol Glatz Catholic News Service
4.21.2016

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — In a continuing effort to protect children, the Catholic Church’s focus is now turning to religious orders of men and women.

Much of the attention had been on how dioceses and national bishops’ conferences have been responding to victims and protecting children.

But, religious orders and congregations are sometimes left out of that picture, even though they, too, have a duty to make sure every person in their care is safe. Also, the majority of the more than 300,000 Catholic schools and orphanages around the world are run by religious brothers and sisters whose charisms are to promote human dignity and Gospel values.

Pope Francis last year authorized the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith to investigate and judge claims of “abuse of office” by bishops who allegedly failed to protect minors and vulnerable adults from sex abuse. But that form of censure “wasn’t extended to superior generals, and it should be,” said Father John Fogarty, superior general of the Congregation of the Holy Spirit.

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CANADA/UNITED STATES
Jewish Community Watch

Canadian citizen Chisdai Ben-Porat pleaded guilty to indecent assault without the consent of others (18 Pa. C.S. § 3126) in 2014. His passport was taken from him and he was escorted to the Canadian border by U.S. Immigration upon his release. He was required to register as a sex offender in Pennsylvania under Megan’s Law and undergo a sex offender evaluation and treatments. Since moving back to Canada, authorities have been unable to locate him. He was last known to be in Montreal.

A civil lawsuit is being filed in conjunction with the child sexual abuse conviction. Until he is found, the victim’s family is unable to bring the lawsuit. If you see him, please contact JCW by phone at (718) 841-7056 or by email at info@jewishcommunitywatch.org

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UNITED STATES
Baptist News

BOB ALLEN | APRIL 21, 2016

Child abuse isn’t just a Catholic problem, it’s also a Calvinist problem, according to an April 20 podcast sympathetic to the so-called “young, restless and reformed” movement popular among evangelicals belonging to denominations including the Southern Baptist Convention.

Mortification of Spin, a weekly podcast from the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals — a coalition of pastors, scholars, and churchmen seeking to recover and promote biblical doctrines central to the Protestant Reformation — this week examined highly publicized scandals involving celebrity preachers accused of turning a blind eye at the expense of victims of child sexual abuse.

While they don’t say so explicitly, the program’s three cohosts appear to have in mind last week’s appearance at the Together for the Gospel conference in Louisville, Ky., by C.J. Mahaney, a T4G founder who for years has faced unanswered allegations of mishandling abuse as a pastor and ministry leader in a lawsuit thrown out of court on a legal technicality.

“When we’re dealing with pastors and elders, we’re not dealing with legal burden of proof,” Carl Trueman, a professor at Westminster Theological Seminary said, referring to a qualification in 1 Timothy 3:7 that an overseer “must be well thought of by outsiders so that he may not fall into disgrace and into a snare of the devil.”

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VATICAN CITY
Religion News Service

By Rosie Scammell

VATICAN CITY (RNS) The Vatican has put a stop to the work of international auditors just months after they were hired to review the city-state’s bookkeeping — a move said to have surprised Pope Francis’ handpicked financial czar, Cardinal George Pell.

The suspension earlier this month of the audit, well underway by the global firm PricewaterhouseCoopers, was also viewed as threatening the pope’s broader efforts to clean up the Vatican’s murky finances.

Italian Archbishop Giovanni Angelo Becciu, a top official in the Secretariat of State, announced the move in an internal Vatican letter dated April 12. In the note, Becciu said that previous orders by Pell to cooperate with PwC had been revoked by “superior provision,” according to the Catholic news site Crux.

The decision came just four months after PwC was appointed to review the financial statements at the heart of the Catholic Church. That moved followed years of scandals and misfeasance and the disclosure by the Vatican that 1.1 billion euros ($1.2 billion) in assets had not been declared by its various departments.

The Vatican did not provide further details about why the audit was suspended. Chief spokesman Federico Lombardi told RNS on Thursday (April 21) that an analysis was underway of “some aspects of the agreement” with PwC. The firm said it would not be able to comment on a client.

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VATICAN CITY
The Guardian

Stephanie Kirchgaessner in Rome
Thursday 21 April 2016

The Vatican has suspended its first audit by a major accounting firm in a move that raises new questions about the Catholic church’s commitment to cleaning up its finances. The Vatican’s chief spokesman, Federico Lombardi, said the audit by PricewaterhouseCoopers had been halted pending an analysis of “certain aspects” of the auditing arrangement.

The surprise decision has exposed a deep rift between the church’s old guard – a powerful Italian bureaucracy resistant to greater transparency – and supporters of financial reform, led by the Australian cardinal George Pell. Pell, a controversial senior figure, was handpicked by Pope Francis to lead the drive for reform.

The Holy See’s finances have long been seen as a mystery, with Pell himself acknowledging in 2014 that “hundreds of millions of euros” had been discovered “tucked away” and off the city-state’s balance sheets.

In 2014, when Pell was chosen to become secretariat of the economy, a new role, Francis endorsed a plan for the Vatican to adopt globally accepted accounting standards and better internal controls, transparency and governance of the church’s vast finances. That included a decision to allow “senior and experienced experts” in financial administration to help manage and oversee the church’s finances.

But what was then seen as the first major structural reform of Francis’s papacy is facing stiff headwinds, despite a recent spate of embarrassing revelations about the alleged mismanagement of church funds by senior officials, including claims in two recent books that describe lavish living arrangements for senior clergy members in Rome.

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VATICAN CITY
Irish Times

Paddy Agnew in Rome

An external audit of Vatican finances being carried out by global firm PricewaterhouseCoopers has been suspended by the Holy See.

The move raises further questions about whether Pope Francis continues to encounter internal resistance in carrying out reforms of the Vatican’s often haphazard and chaotic administration.
Since his election in 2013 the pope has made cleaning up the Holy See’s finances one of the key elements of his reform process.

To that end, he created two new bodies in 2014, the Secretariat for the Economy and the Council for the Economy, which were to exercise “oversight for the administrative and financial structures” of the Holy See and the Vatican City state.

It now seems that the Secretariat for the Economy, which is headed up by Australian cardinal George Pell, is on a collision course with the Vatican’s Secretariat of State, the traditional engine at the heart of Holy See administration.

This week, two senior figures at the Secretariat of State, Cardinal Pietro Parolin and Archbishop Giovanni Angelo Becciu, wrote to all Vatican entities to tell them that the ongoing audit by PricewaterhouseCoopers had been “suspended immediately”.

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UNITED STATES
Christian Times

CB Condez
21 APRIL, 2016

A survivor of sexual abuse is going to take legal action against a diocese in India for reinstating the priest that sexually assaulted her when she was a teenager.

According to New York Daily News, Minnesota attorney Jeff Anderson, the legal counsel of abuse victim Megan Peterson, will be filing a case against the Diocese of Ootacamund. Peterson believes that letting the offender, Joseph Palanivel Jeyapaul, go back to priesthood is akin to giving him the green light to prey on children once more.

“We hope Catholics in Minnesota, India and elsewhere bombard their bishops with calls and emails until this irresponsible move is reversed,” said David Clohessy, director of advocacy group Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests. “This may well be the worst case of callous and reckless actions by Catholic officials we’ve seen in 15 years.”

The now 26-year-old Peterson, who is a member of SNAP, was a choir member and altar server at a church in Minnesota during her early teenage years. At 14, she was sexually violated by Jeyapaul in his parish office, and continued to abuse her in the following months. The priest, according to the report, even went so far as to blame his victim and made her confess for making him “impure.” The school counselor and law enforcement officials were subsequently informed and, in 2010, he was charged for assaulting not only Patterson but also another girl. He fled to India but was arrested and extradited to the U.S. in 2012. A plea deal was reached and charges filed by Patterson were dropped.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Christian Today

Harry Farley JUNIOR STAFF WRITER 21 April 2016

A victim of clergy sex abuse will not cooperate with a Church review because “bullying and silencing” were not in the terms of reference.

Peter Ball was jailed for 32 months after he was found to have abused his position as the Bishop of Lewes in southern England.

Rev Graham Sawyer announced his decision in a letter to Dame Moira Gibb, who chairs an independent review of how the Church of England handled allegations made against Peter Ball, former Bishop of Lewes.

Ball, now 84, was jailed in October for abuses against teenagers and young men in the 1970s, 80s and 90s.

Sawyer, who waived his right to anonymity before Ball’s trial, said he objected because his alleged treatment by current senior Church officials would not be covered in the inquiry.

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UNITED STATES
The Worthy Adversary

April 21, 2016 Joelle Casteix

Finally there is some good news.

A reauthorization bill in the US Senate has a new provision that extends the federal civil rights of victims of child sex crimes, including child sexual abuse and child pornography.

Last week, the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee advanced a bill to reauthorize the Adam Walsh Act, a federal program enacted in 2006 that required states to classify sex offenders according to their crimes. The act also required states to implement a registration mechanism to monitor and control offenders’ whereabouts after (or in lieu of) jail time.

But the new provision added by Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and supported by Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) goes a step further in protecting the civil rights of victims by allowing them to use the courts to expose their abuse.

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MISSOURI
Lake News

By LAKE SUN
newsroom@lakesunonline.com

Posted Apr. 21, 2016

Laclede County

The outcome of a trial for a pastor accused of sex crimes involving teenagers took a last-minute turn when he pleaded guilty to the charges while the jury was deliberating following a two day trial in Laclede County on a change of venue.

Travis Ray Smith, 45, of California, will spend a total 4 years in prison on concurrent sentences for three different cases. The former pastor of a church in Stover and Pilot Grove, will be required to complete the Missouri sex offenders program wile in prison and register as a sex offender when he is released.

Smith’s trial got underway earlier this week in Laclede County. The plea deal was offered the jury had started their deliberations.

It was the second time Smith had been on trial for the same charges. The first proceeding, in December of 2015, was declared a mistrial after questions were raised regarding comments made by a potential juror about the defendant that that potentially tainted the entire jury panel.

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VATICAN CITY
Catholic Herald (UK)

by Ed Condon
posted Thursday, 21 Apr 2016

The blocking of the PricewaterhouseCoopers audit puts the Pope’s legacy as a reformer in peril

Yesterday, it was reported that the Vatican had suspended the independent audit of its finances by the firm PricewaterhouseCoopers. The company had been engaged only on December 5 of last year, and for the process to be halted this quickly, even temporarily, seems like a remarkable setback for Pope Francis’s crusade to haul the administration of the Curia, kicking and screaming, into the 21st century.

As he broke the news, the always well informed journalist Ed Pentin linked the story to an article in yesterday’s Italia Oggi newspaper, which claimed that manoeuvres were underway to replace Jean-Baptiste de Franssu, a Frenchman and the current president of the IOR, or Vatican Bank, whose term was not expected to come to an end in the immediate future. According to the article, the move to replace De Franssu was also a proxy move against Cardinal Pell, the prefect for the Vatican’s Secretariat for the Economy, who has been the major, if not sole, agent of real reform in the Vatican finances, and who has been the constant target of a campaign of leaks and gossip since taking office in 2014.

It has been suggested that curial officials are desperate to see Cardinal Pell removed and both the presidency of the IOR and the job of auditing the curial finances return to Italian hands, before the new rigours of full transparency get past the point of no return.

Perhaps the most intriguing aspect of yesterday’s news was the manner in which the suspension of the PwC audit was announced: by means of a letter circulated to all curial departments from the Secretariat of State and signed by Archbishop Giovanni Becciu, who oversees the day-to-day running of the Roman Curia from that department.

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NEW YORK
Catholic League

Bill Donohue comments on bias at the New York Times:

Yesterday, New York Times reporter Laurie Goodstein wrote a blog titled, “Sex Abuse and the Catholic Church: Why Is It Still a Story?” Because reporters, especially those at the Times, love to cover such stories, even if almost all of the abuse occurred decades ago. By contrast, stories of abuse happening right now in the public schools are of little interest.

It’s actually more profound than this. Two months ago, the Times did a story on a seminarian from Ohio who was arrested for seeking out young Mexican girls to molest. Yet the Times did not run a story today on yesterday’s sentencing of a middle school teacher from West Harlem who was convicted of sexual abuse.

In October 2015, Adiyemi Prowell was charged with sexually assaulting six students. When school officials initially learned of his predatory behavior, they did nothing. Here’s how it affected one student.

An 11-year-old girl who was molested in 2012 tried to get out of his class, but was denied. Her grades suffered so much that many thought she had a disability. In the fall of 2013, Prowell was removed from the classroom, and shortly thereafter the victim’s parents learned of what had happened: their daughter opened up to them.

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AUSTRALIA
Australian Jewish News

YESHIVAH–BETH Rivkah Colleges (YBR) will be governed by parents under the new structure that will be announced by the Governance Review Panel (GRP).

The proposal by the GRP – which was set up to restructure the Yeshivah Centre and its associated entities in the wake of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse – will state that the members of YBR will be the parents, and that five of the nine board members will be elected by parents, with at least one of those board members being a vocational Chabad rabbi.

The other four board members will include Rabbi Chaim Tzvi Groner and three members appointed by Yeshivah Centre Limited (YCL), the centre’s overarching roof body.

A third organisation, Chabad Institutions of Victoria Limited (CIVL), will be established to operate the Kollel, Chabad Youth, Ohel Chana and shuls.

For all three organisations – YBR, YCL and CIVL – each board member must be halachically Jewish, while each board must comprise a majority of Chabad-adherent members and have at least three vocational rabbis, defined as a rabbi engaged full time in a religious vocation such as a pulpit rabbi, a Jewish studies teacher or someone retired from such a position.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Focus

[The allegations of sexual abuse among children in a Catholic kindergarten in Mainz have not been confirmed by the investigations so far.]

Die Vorwürfe sexueller Übergriffe unter Kindern in einer katholischen Kita in Mainz haben sich nach den bisherigen Ermittlungen nicht bestätigt. Der polizeiliche Abschlussbericht liege inzwischen vor, bestätigte die Staatsanwaltschaft Mainz.

Demnach haben sich die Vorwürfe nach dem bisherigen Ermittlungsstand nicht erhärtet – dies war bereits das Ergebnis des Berichts zum vorläufigen Abschluss der Ermittlungen der Polizei vom November 2015. Darin hieß es auch, es hätten sich bislang überwiegend entlastende Erkenntnisse ergeben. Bei den Vorwürfen ging es um mutmaßliche sexuelle Übergriffe und Gewalt unter Kindern.

Der Skandal begann mit dem Brief einer Mutter: Darin war von massivem Missbrauch der Kinder die Rede, berichtet der SWR online. Die Mutter schrieb, mehrere Jungen hätten über Monate hinweg ihre Vorhaut zurückziehen müssen, damit ihnen andere Kinder auf den Penis schlagen konnten.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Frankfurter Allgemeine

[The Catholic Church in Germany is threatened with major financial turmoil: The pensions fund of the dioceses is missing 5.5 billion euros. At worst, it would result in insolvency of individual dioceses.]

20.04.2016, von DANIEL DECKERS

Die „Kirchliche Zusatzversorgungskasse“ (KZVK) des katholischen Verbands der Diözesen Deutschlands, mit 1,1 Millionen Versicherten und 150.000 Rentenempfängern einer der größten nichtstaatlichen Altersversorgungseinrichtungen in Deutschland, ist ein Sanierungsfall. Im vergangenen Herbst stellte sich heraus, dass die Bilanz der KZVK in einem Umfang von 22,5 Milliarden Euro zum 31. Dezember 2014 eine Deckungslücke von 5,5 Milliarden Euro aufweist.

„Veränderte Annahmen zur langfristigen Entwicklung der Verzinsung auf den Kapitalmärkten, die sich aus der Politik der EZB ergeben“, so ein Sprecher der KZVK gegenüber der F.A.Z., hatten eine Neubewertung der Verpflichtungen und die Bilanzierung eines Ausgleichspostens erforderlich gemacht.

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CANADA
The Globe and Mail

SEAN FINE AND GLORIA GALLOWAY
TORONTO and OTTAWA — The Globe and Mail
Published Wednesday, Apr. 20, 2016

The Canadian government abandoned an appeal of a controversial court ruling that let the Catholic Church out of its responsibility to raise millions of dollars for aboriginal healing programs, court documents show.

The appeal was dropped just six days after the Trudeau government took office.

The revelation comes in a week when the Liberal government has repeatedly said that it had no options for appeal. It did not mention, however, that an appeal had been commenced and then withdrawn.

The abandonment of the appeal means that a major element of Canada’s historic 2007 settlement – the contribution of the Catholic churches, which ran most of the residential schools, to the aboriginal community – was brought to an end by a lone Saskatchewan judge, in an informal hearing called a Request for Directions.

The ruling by Saskatchewan Court of Queen’s Bench Justice Neil Gabrielson on July 16 found that the former federal Conservative government had inadvertently released 50 Catholic entities from their contractual responsibility to try to raise up to $25-million for aboriginal healing pro- grams. He ruled that there was a “meeting of the minds” between a federal lawyer, Alexander Gay, and a lawyer for the Catholic entities, Gordon Kuski, on a re-lease from all obligations. He also found that Mr. Gay should be presumed in this dispute to have had the authority to negotiate on be-half of the Canadian government.

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VATICAN CITY
National Catholic Register

BY EDWARD PENTIN 04/21/2016

Cardinal George Pell, the prefect of the Vatican Secretariat for the Economy, has said he was “a bit surprised” by the decision of the Secretariat of State to suspend an independent audit of the Vatican’s finances.

In a short statement released this morning, he said he anticipates the audit will “resume shortly” after “discussions and clarification” of some issues, and added that the work of the “internal auditor which covers all areas has not been interrupted.”

Yesterday the Register reported that the Secretariat of State had sent a letter this week to all Vatican entities saying the first external audit aimed at raising the Vatican’s finances to international anti-money laundering standards had been suspended.

The Vatican had hired accountancy giant PricewaterhouseCoopers in December to conduct the audit on the instructions of the Council for the Economy, the 15-member monitoring body set up to oversee the work of the Vatican Secretariat for the Economy.

The move to suspend the initiative has been seen as a move not only to undermine the work of Cardinal Pell and the department he runs, but moreover the Council for the Economy which was responsible for appointing the auditors.

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

VATICAN CITY
Crux

By John L. Allen Jr.
Editor April 20, 2016

When Pope Francis’ landmark project of financial reform was announced two years ago, one lynch-pin was the idea that the world would no longer just to have to take the Vatican’s word for it in terms of how much money it has and where it’s going.

Instead there would be a credible audit carried out according to generally accepted business standards in the 21st century. That step, officials said, would represent a revolution in the direction of transparency and accountability.

As it turns out, it’s now a revolution delayed.

Crux has learned that on April 12, Italian Archbishop Giovanni Angelo Becciu sent a letter to all Vatican entities informing them that an audit being performed by the global firm Pricewaterhouse Coopers (PwC) has been “suspended immediately,” and that any letters of authorization those entities have already issued to permit the transmission of financial data to PwC are to be revoked.

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PERU
El Comercio

[With grief and indignation, Catholics in Peru are now down to our own chapter of the global abuse and pedophilia scandal that has plagued the Church in many countries over the past thirty years. It was not just a matter of the United States, Ireland or Canada. The same epidemic was also among us.]

Con pena e indignación, los católicos en el Perú estamos conociendo ahora nuestro propio capítulo del escándalo mundial de abuso y pederastia que ha asolado a la Iglesia en muchos países en los últimos treinta años. No era solo un asunto de Estados Unidos, Irlanda o Canadá. La misma epidemia estaba también entre nosotros.

Y con los mismos síntomas: personajes nefastos vinculados al clero o, en términos más amplios, a la conducción de grupos o entidades religiosas, aprovechando su condición de líderes, pastores o superiores, para obtener favores sexuales de menores de edad. Con idéntica dinámica de encubrimiento y distracción, en una mezcla escurridiza entre las sanciones eclesiales y la justicia penal. Hechos terribles que nunca se dan a conocer a menos que una investigación externa los consiga desentrañar.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Southwark News

OWEN SHEPPARD (21 April, 2016) CRIME

A church youth-leader from Peckham has been locked up for fifteen years for raping and sexually assaulting two “vulnerable” teenagers from his congregation.

Timothy Storey, 35, of Peckham Grove, was sentenced in Woolwich Crown Court on Friday for three counts of rape and one of assault by penetration.

The court heard how the Oxford-educated and ordained trainee vicar manipulated his victims into meeting up with him via sexting and social media messages.

The two young women Storey was found guilty of raping had given evidence following an appeal by Scotland Yard in May 2014. At that time, the paedophile had just been handed a three-year sentence for grooming girls aged ten to sixteen, and encouraging them to perform sexual acts via social media.

Storey made both of his “insidious” attacks on the two women, who were over the age of consent, in 2008 and 2009.

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FLORIDA
Raw Story

Tom Boggioni

A Florida school district is under fire for allowing a pastor who leads prayers with sports teams at the schools, to roam freely in and out of locker rooms, proselytizing students and then stalking them on Facebook where he gives them tips on sex and their lifestyles.

According to The Friendly Atheist, David Gaskill of the Fellowship of Christian Athletes is being allowed access to students by the School District of Hillsborough County where he not only leads teams in prayer but also accosts them in school parking lots and takes selfies with shirtless athletes which he posts on his personal Facebook page.

In testimony that Gaskill gives to congregations, he explained that he found Jesus while in jail on seven felony counts, admitting that his drug addiction was so bad he was buying cocaine by “the kilo.”

The Freedom From Religion Foundation has compiled extensive documentation of Gaskill’s contacts with students –most of which he has since deleted from Facebook — saying he is “behaving like a religious predator seeking out vulnerable prey.”

In a letter to the school district, the FFRF wrote, “It is clear that Gaskill has unlimited access to preach, pray, and proselytize to student-athletes whenever he desires. He is involved with every sport at multiple schools within HCPS. He shows up, sometimes invited by coaches but often on his own, at team events, including practices and games, and he is allowed to be in the dugout or on the field with the players at these events. He has the same level of access as a coach even though he has no affiliation with the school.”

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INDIANA
CBS4Indy

[with video]

BY CHARLIE DE MAR

INDIANAPOLIS, Ind (April 20, 2016)–An Indianapolis church is under fire for allegedly failing to report accusations of sexual abuse.

The Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests or SNAP, claims leaders of the Southport Presbyterian Church knew about an incident involving two of its members and did not take appropriate action.

A church member is partly responsible for blowing the whistle and bringing the allegations to light.

Last August, “Jane” heard that a 15-year-old was allegedly sexually abused at the hands of a 19-year-old. Both were members of the Southport Presbyterian Church.

“I went to the board of elders and tried to talk with them and I felt that their response minimized what happened to the young child,” said Jane.

Jane took the information to leaders at her church and assumed they would take the appropriate steps and call police. However, Jane says that never happened.

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WISCONSIN
The Capital Times

ROB THOMAS | The Capital Times | rthomas@madison.com

In the Oscar-winning “Spotlight,” there’s a scene in which one of the reporters is horrified to discover that a halfway house for pedophile priests is located just around the corner from his house.

Pablo Larrain’s “The Club” goes inside a house like that. Just as the Chilean director didn’t flinch from looking at the dark heart of political corruption in films like “Tony Manero,” he peers into the darkness of religious corruption in this new film. The film played Monday at Sundance Cinemas as part of the Wisconsin Film Festival.

The “retreat,” as the Catholic Church euphemistically calls it, is in a seaside house painted the yellow of caution tape. The four priests who live there are supposed to be doing penance, but they mostly drink, watch television and run their greyhound in the local dog races. And they don’t think or talk about what they’ve done. Larrain films the workings of the house in soft lights and blurred colors, a haze that’s physical as well as moral.

That peace is shattered when a new priest arrives at the house. One of the priest’s victims, full of vengeance and alcohol, has followed him, and stands outside the gates screaming in graphic detail all the things the priest made him do when he was an altar boy. The new priest kills himself.

This brings the attention of the Catholic Church; in particular, a hard-charging reformist from the Vatican named Father Garcia (Marcelo Alonso) who starts grilling the priests about their crimes. He threatens to close the house and expose the priests, but his motives, like so many in the film, are murky. We’re not even sure what the priests’ crimes even are — one claims that he was a political prisoner of the Pinochet era, not a sex criminal. But the truth has remained buried for so long that we may never dig it out.

The priests all seem like wounded, desperate men, more pathetic than truly evil. The most chilling member of the house is actually Sister Monica (Antonia Zegers), the nun who runs the house and keeps the men in line. She has a beatific smile, but beneath that smile is a heart of utter ruthlessness that goes to great lengths to preserve the house. That smile haunted me long after the film was over; it encapsulates the blandly superior façade of the Church that concealed such moral rot.

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NEW HAMPSHIRE
Nashua Telegraph

Wednesday, April 20, 2016

By KATHRYN MARCHOCKI
Staff Writer

CONCORD – The state adult parole board on Tuesday granted a formerly high-ranking Catholic priest’s request for parole after he served his minimum two-year sentence on two of his 2014 theft convictions.

The Rev. Edward J. Arsenault III, 54, was paroled to his third state prison sentence, which he will begin serving on April 21, the adult parole board’s executive assistant Andrea Goldberg said. He will be eligible for release in two years.

Arsenault, who remains a Catholic priest, was not present at the parole board hearing at the New Hampshire State Prison in Concord. He was represented by his attorney, Cathy Green, of Manchester, and communicated with the board on a conference telephone call by speaker phone, Goldberg said.

“He said that he was doing well and had no disciplinary” issues, Goldberg said after the brief parole hearing. Arsenault has been serving his sentence at the Cheshire County House of Corrections in Westmoreland since May 22, 2014, a state corrections official has said.

Arsenault was president and CEO of the St. Luke Institute in Maryland – one of the premier treatment centers for clergy and religious leaders in the country – when allegations surfaced in 2013 that he misused funds and had an inappropriate relationship with an adult man. He resigned the St. Luke post and Manchester Bishop Peter Libasci placed him on administrative leave while the criminal investigation into the allegations ensued.

Arsenault pleaded guilty on April 23, 2014, to three felony theft charges for stealing nearly $300,000 from Catholic Medical Center, the diocese, and the estate of the late Monsignor John Molan, who had been his mentor.

He was sentenced to concurrent four- to 10-year sentences with two years suspended from the minimum of each on two of the convictions. He will complete these terms on April 21 and immediately begin serving a third four- to 10-year sentence with two years suspended from the minimum that day, Goldberg said.

The diocese initiated the process of laicizing – or defrocking – Arsenault after his conviction. The Vatican has not yet made a determination, a diocesan spokesman has said.

Kathryn Marchocki can be reached at 594-6589, kmarchocki@nashuatelegraph.com or @Telegraph_KMar.

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FLORIDA
ABC Action News

[withv video]

Michael Paluska, Camille Spencer

POLK COUNTY, Fla. – A Polk County church is in crisis mode, after their priest was arrested Tuesday and charged with soliciting oral sex from a male undercover detective.

Stephen Glenn Charest, 66, of Lake Wales is the pastor of Holy Spirit Catholic Church .

Members of the church said Father Glenn had a great personality and was a positive addition to the church.

According to the church’s Facebook page Fr. Glenn had just been appointed as their head priest on March 8.

The post said, “The community of Holy Spirit would like to say a heartfelt thank you that God has placed Fr. Glenn Charest in the midst of our lives. Through the past three years we’ve seen the dedication, care, pastoral support and love you have for people…so we say thank you Fr. Glenn for becoming our pastor.”

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INDIA
UCA nEWS

Christopher Joseph, Kochi
India April 21, 2016

A diocese in southern India has started consulting legal experts after a 26-year-old woman in the United States filed a lawsuit against its bishop for “reinstating” a priest she said sexually abused her.

Megan Peterson filed a federal lawsuit in St. Paul, Minnesota on April 18 against Bishop Arulappan Amalraj of Ootacamund for allegedly reinstating Father Joseph Palanivel Jayapaul, who was convicted of abuse.

“It was like a slap in the face,” Peterson said in a video published on the website of her lawyer Jeff Anderson after learning Father Jayapaul was reinstated to active ministry.

Anderson said the suit is against the bishop and the diocese for creating a “dangerous” situation because of their decision to “reinstate” a “convicted predator priest” to the ministry.

Father Jeyapau, who served in the Crookston Diocese between 2004 and 2005, was arrested in India in 2012 and extradited to the U.S. on charges of sexually abusing two girls, including Peterson. He pleaded guilty to one count of sexually abusing a minor while working in Crookston. He was deported to India immediately after having already served the year and a day prison term handed down.

The case involving Peterson was dropped after a plea deal.

The 61-year-old priest’s suspension, imposed in 2010 after the sex abuse accusations came to light, was revoked on Jan. 16 after consultations with the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, diocesan officials said.

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AUSTRALIA
9 News

AAP

Retired Rockhampton Bishop Brian Heenan placed children at risk of abuse by a pedophile priest because of his inadequate response to complaints, a royal commission has found.

The sex abuse royal commission examined St Joseph’s Orphanage Neerkol, near Rockhampton, which was operated by the Sisters of Mercy between 1940 and 1975.

The commission has found the sadistic punishments dished out by some nuns were “cruel and excessive” and against regulations.

In April last year, 13 men and women – now aged from their 50s to 80s – recalled to a Rockhampton court the abuse they endured, including public floggings and having their genitals beaten.

Allegations of sexual abuse first emerged in the 1990s.

In a report released on Thursday, commissioners Justice Jennifer Coate, Professor Helen Milroy and Andrew Murray found Bishop Heenan failed to provide an adequate response to a complaint of sexual abuse at the hands of the disgraced former member of his clergy, Reginald Durham, in 1996.

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NEW YORK
New York Daily News

BY MICHAEL O’KEEFFE NEW YORK DAILY NEWS Wednesday, April 20, 2016

The sands of time should not protect sexual predators, Sen. Chuck Schumer said Wednesday.

The New York Democrat has added a provision to his Adam Walsh Reauthorization Act of 2016 that would extend the statute of limitations in federal civil cases for victims of sexual abuse, sex trafficking and other crimes related to child pornography.

“Justice should not come with an expiration date,” Schumer told the Daily News.

Current law prohibits victims of child sex crimes from filing civil litigation after their 21st birthday in federal court.

Victims of child sex crimes are currently barred from filing civil litigation after their 21st birthday in federal court against people who exploited them after. Schumer’s bill would extend the statute of limitations to their 28th birthday.

Victim advocates say it takes many years and sometimes decades for many survivors of sexual exploitation to publicly acknowledge the abuse they suffered. Victims of child pornography may not know that they were exploited until long after their 21st birthday. The Adam Walsh Reauthorization Act, named after the murdered son of “America’s Most Wanted” host John Walsh, will provide $56.8 million over the next two years for U.S. marshals to track down and apprehend fugitive sex offenders. The bill also calls for rape kits to be preserved and calls for a bill of rights for sex-assault survivors.

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VATICAN CITY
The Tablet

21 April 2016 | by Christopher Lamb in Rome

Letter from Secretariat of State announced the decision to halt cooperation with auditors PwC

The first external audit of Vatican finances by an internationally respected accountants has been halted.

In what will be seen as a blow to Pope Francis’ reforms, a letter on 12 April was sent to Holy See departments informing them the work of PricewaterhouseCoopers has been “suspended immediately”.

The letter, reported by Crux, was written by Archbishop Giovanni Angelo Becciu, one of the top officials at the Vatican’s Secretariat of State and explains that any permission to hand financial data to PwC has now been revoked.

Australian Cardinal George Pell, Prefect of the Secretariat for the Economy, had commissioned PwC to review the Vatican accounts, work which had previously been done by an Italian firm. The audit by PwC was the first of its kind and was going to provide a complete picture of Holy See finances including a valuation of all its assets.

But in his letter Archbishop Becciu said that Cardinal Pell’s instruction for Vatican bodies to co-operate with the firm had been overruled by “superior provision”. A spokesman for Pell said he was “surprised” by the suspension of the Vatican audit but expects it to resume shortly.

It leaves open the question as to whether this came from the Pope, his advisory body of cardinals or the 15-body council for the economy, led by German Cardinal Reinhard Marx, which oversees the work of Cardinal Pell’s department.

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WASHINGTON (DC)
Catholic Standard – Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Washington

Wednesday, April 20, 2016

Earlier this week, the Washington Post criticized our Holy Father, Pope Francis – and by extension the Catholic Church – for having “fallen short of his own promise: to come fully to terms with decades of child sex abuse by clergymen and the institutional cover granted to them by bishops and cardinals.”

It is clear that the scourge of child sex abuse has touched every segment of society. It has occurred within the Church – for which we continually express our sorrow and contrition – it has also occurred in public schools, juvenile detention facilities and youth groups, and it affects people of all backgrounds, occupations, and faiths. In fact, the Post itself highlights the breadth of this society-wide problem in its own reporting on this issue, which you can read here. Without minimizing or deflecting from the responsibility of Church authorities for what happened in the Church, it is likewise essential that we realize the full scope of this plague in our communities and of the failures in addressing this evil throughout society.

In the face of the destructive crime of sexual abuse, which robs children of their innocence and can leave behind substantial emotional and spiritual scars, the priority of us all must be to do everything we can to prevent it and help survivors to heal. The Church – and specifically the Archdiocese of Washington – has for many years been resolute and worked hard to institute safeguards, to deal openly and decisively in rooting out perpetrators, to help survivors to heal, and also to foster reassurance that our churches and schools offer a safe and secure environment. Just as important, the pro-active steps the archdiocese has taken can guide the rest of society as it considers how to address this darkness.

Since 1986, fifteen years before the extent of the child abuse scandal came to light, the archdiocese has had a comprehensive child protection policy. Under this policy overseen by the Office of Child and Youth Protection, seminarians, clergy, teachers, other employees and volunteers who work with children undergo comprehensive criminal background checks and are required to be trained in child protection. The children in our schools and programs receive safe-environment lessons to learn to recognize inappropriate behavior and teach them what to do if someone acts inappropriately toward them.

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OHIO
WHIO

CINCINNATI — A registered sex offender is now charged with abusing two young boys he met while volunteering as a Dayton church bus driver.

Jory Leedy, 46, of Franklin, was indicted today by a federal grand jury in Cincinnati for two counts of aggravated sexual abuse involving a minor, according to the U.S. Department of Justice. Each charge against Leedy is punishable by up to life in prison.

Leedy is accused of sexually abusing the boys, who were 7 and 8, he met through volunteer work as a fill-in volunteer bus driver for Target Ministries of Dayton that served low-income people in the Dayton area. He allegedly gave a fake name to the family and began visiting the boys’ home, taking them to church and on trips to Cincinnati Reds games, Kings Island and the Cincinnati Zoo & Botanical Garden. He is accused of abusing the boys over a two-year span. He said if they told anyone, he wouldn’t take them places or buy games and clothes for them, according to the federal indictment.

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TEXAS
Radar Online

Posted on Apr 20, 2016

Joel Osteen and his Lakewood, Texas, megachurch continue to dominate the pop religion realm in America, with several bestselling books, a Sirius radio station, and arena events across the country. But do his legions of fans know what goes on behind closed church doors?

RadarOnline.com has learned that in 2010, Lakewood was at the center of a Child Protective Services investigation after a church volunteer was accused of “inappropriate” sexual conduct with a special needs child at the facility!

According to court documents obtained by Radar, Alvaro Daniel Guzman “was a volunteer in the special needs children’s ministry at Lakewood,” known as the Champions Club, in 2010.

On February 13, 2010, a fellow volunteer “allegedly witnessed [him] touching the child assigned to [him] in an inappropriate fashion.” The woman relayed her claims to her superiors, the documents state, and they “advised her that she should contact Child Protective Services and report to them what she had witnessed.”

READ The Explosive Complaint

Before long, “CPS began an investigation into the allegation,” and on February 17, “Lakewood staff met with [Guzman] and advised [him] he would no longer be allowed to serve as a volunteer because an allegation of inappropriate touching had been made against him.” On February 25, the documents state, Houston Police detectives “interviewed Lakewood staff regarding the alleged incident.”

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AUSTRALIA
Stuff (New Zealand)

JAMIE MCKINNELL
April 21 2016

Sadistic nuns at a notorious Australian orphanage in Queensland dished out abuse in a toxic environment that festered due in part to inadequate government scrutiny, supervision and training, a royal commission has found.

The child sex abuse royal commission last year examined cruel treatment of 13 former residents of St Joseph’s Orphanage, which was operated by the Sisters of Mercy between 1940 and 1975.

The men and women – now aged from their 50s to 80s – recalled abuse at Neerkol, ranging from public floggings and being walked on in high heels to being made to drape urine-soaked sheets over their heads.

Commissioners Justice Jennifer Coate, Professor Helen Milroy and Andrew Murray explored the responses of the Sisters of Mercy, the Catholic Diocese of Rockhampton and the Queensland government to complaints, which had often fell on deaf ears.

The commission found punishment administered by some nuns was “cruel and excessive” and was against regulations in place at the time.

But some victims did not report sexual abuse because they had “little or no opportunity” to speak with department inspectors.

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INDIA
The Times of India

TNN | Apr 21, 2016

Udhagamandalam: Fr Jeyapaul Joseph Palanivel, the priest with a history of child sexual abuse charges and now accused of sexually abusing an American woman, has been given a residence by the Ootacamund diocese which refuses to divulge where he is.

“We cannot disclose the whereabouts of Fr Jeyapaul Joseph Palanivel,” said diocese spokesman Fr Sebastian Selvanathan on Wednesday.

He also refused to divulge the whereabouts of Ooty bishop A Amalraj.

Jeyapaul, who served as a priest in Crookston township of Minnesota in 2004 and 2005, was arrested in India in 2012 on charges of sexually abusing two girls in a congregation. He was extradited to the US. After serving his sentence for a year and one day, he was deported to India last year. Recently, advocacy group SNAP (Survivors Net work of those Abused by Priests) announced that one of the sexual abuse survivors in the US has sued the priest and the diocese.

Meanwhile, the Catholic Bishops Conference of India (CBCI) said the bishop of Ooty has not had any communication with them over the reinstatement of Jeyapaul. “Any priest facing allegations will be dismissed immediately and if allegations are found to be true legally, the church will defrock the priest,” said CBCI public relations officer Gyan Prakash Topno.

The Ooty diocese spokesman, meanwhile, said he was unaware of the sexual abuse charge by the American woman. Vidya Reddy of Tulir, Centre for the Prevention of Child Sexual Abuse, said if an institution was assisting in a cover up, it should also be considered guilty.

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AUSTRALIA
The Morning Bulletin

UPDATE 4.40PM: ROCKHAMPTON Bishop Michael McCarthy and Sister Berneice Loch from the Sisters of Mercy, have released a joint statement following the release of the Neerkol report.

“In response to the publication of the Royal Commission’s final report into St Joseph’s Orphanage, Neerkol, we commend the courageous survivors who shared their heartbreaking stories that have enabled the Royal Commission to prepare this important report,” they wrote.

“Our thoughts and prayers are with them and we hope the Royal Commission process may assist in their healing.

“Since last year’s hearing, the Diocese of Rockhampton has implemented a number of changes including the formation of a Child Safeguarding Committee to oversee all aspects of Child Protection within the Diocese, as well as the appointment of a Diocesan Child Protection Officer.

“The Sisters of Mercy have built on the measures that we have made available to survivors since 1997 through the offering of a wide range of assistance and support to meet their identified needs.

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AUSTRALIA
Brisbane Times

April 21 2016
Jamie McKinnell

Sadistic nuns at a notorious Queensland orphanage dished out abuse in a toxic environment that festered due in part to inadequate government scrutiny, supervision and training, a royal commission has found.

The child sex abuse royal commission last year examined cruel treatment of 13 former residents of St Joseph’s Orphanage at Neerkol, near Rockhampton, which was operated by the Sisters of Mercy between 1940 and 1975.

The men and women – now aged from their 50s to 80s – recalled abuse at Neerkol, ranging from public floggings and being walked on by high heels to being made to drape urine-soaked sheets over their heads.

Commissioners Justice Jennifer Coate, Professor Helen Milroy and Andrew Murray explored the responses of the Sisters of Mercy, the Catholic Diocese of Rockhampton and the Queensland government to complaints, which had often fallen on deaf ears.

The commission found punishment administered by some nuns was “cruel and excessive” and was against regulations in place at the time.

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AUSTRALIA
Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse

21 April, 2016

The Royal Commission will hold a further day of hearings in relation to Case Study 35 (Catholic Archdiocese of Melbourne) in Sydney on Wednesday 27 April 2016 at 11:15am.

The purpose of the hearing is to receive the evidence of four former officers of the Catholic Education Office, who have provided statements to the Royal Commission following the evidence of Cardinal George Pell from Rome in March.

All witnesses will be appearing in Sydney with some legal representatives appearing from Melbourne via video link.

Venue: Hearing Room 1, Level 17, Governor Macquarie Tower, 1 Farrer Place, Sydney.
Time: 11:15am – 4pm AEST
Date: Wednesday 27 April 2016. If necessary, the hearing may continue on Thursday 28 April 2016.

The directions hearing will be streamed live via webcast on the Royal Commission’s website here.

Join us on Twitter and Facebook for regular updates.

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AUSTRALIA
Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse

21 April, 2016

The Royal Commission’s report into Case Study 26 – the response of the Sisters of Mercy, the Catholic Diocese of Rockhampton and the Queensland Government to allegations of child sexual abuse at St Joseph’s Orphanage, Neerkol, was released today.

The report follows a public hearing held in April 2015 which inquired into the experiences of a number of people who were resident at St Joseph’s Orphanage, Neerkol operated by the Sisters of Mercy, between 1940 and 1975.

The Royal Commission heard evidence from 12 former residents of the orphanage who detailed the serious emotional, physical and sexual abuse by priests, nuns and grounds workers. Another survivor, who was not a former resident at the orphanage, also gave evidence of sexual abuse that she suffered by the parish priest, in Rockhampton.

Former residents gave evidence to the Royal Commission that they did not tell anyone about the abuse at the time it was occurring. Some did not tell anyone because they had no-one to tell and did not think they would be believed.

The Royal Commission heard evidence about the degrading treatment of the children at the orphanage by some of the Sisters and employees and the appalling conditions in which the children lived. The Commissioners found that the punishment administered by some nuns and employees was cruel and excessive and did not accord with the regulations in place under the relevant legislative framework.

The Commissioners also heard about a lack of Queensland departmental policies or procedures for reporting abuse by officers of the department.

The Commissioners were satisfied that the Queensland government had failed to adequately supervise and protect the children in the orphanage by not ensuring adequately trained staff were employed as department inspectors and by not ensuring adequate scrutiny over the circumstances in which the children were living.

Between 1993 and 1996, four former residents of the orphanage brought their experiences of sexual abuse directly to the attention of the Bishop Heenan and Sister Loch. Additionally, in 1993, another survivor who had not resided at the orphanage but who had been abused by the parish priest Father Durham, complained to Bishop Heenan.

The Commissioners are satisfied that Bishop Heenan and Sister Loch’s lack of training in detecting and responding to child sexual abuse undermined their capacity to deal effectively with complaints of child sexual abuse by former residents between 1993 to 1996.

By late 1996, the Queensland Police Service was investigating allegations of child sexual abuse against a number of former priests and lay workers who had worked or provided services at the orphanage.

By early 1997, criminal proceedings started against both parish priest Father Durham and former orphanage employee, Mr Baker. In early 1997, the Sisters formed the Professional Standards Steering Committee (PSSC) which formulated processes and guides for the response to, and prevention of, child sexual abuse. This is now known as the Professional Standards Office (PSO) and continues to operate today, providing assistance to former residents who experienced physical and sexual abuse at the orphanage.

The Commissioners are satisfied the Diocese and the Sisters settled compensation claims with former residents despite legal advice they were in a strong position to defeat the claims because of the age of the claims.

Read the full report here.

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AUSTRALIA
Courier Mail

AAP

SADISTIC nuns at a notorious Queensland orphanage dished out abuse in a toxic environment that festered due in part to inadequate government scrutiny, supervision and training, a royal commission has found.

The child sex abuse royal commission last year examined cruel treatment of 13 former residents of St Joseph’s Orphanage at Neerkol, near Rockhampton, which was operated by the Sisters of Mercy between 1940 and 1975.

The men and women – now aged from their 50s to 80s – recalled abuse at Neerkol, ranging from public floggings and being walked on by high heels to being made to drape urine-soaked sheets over their heads.

Commissioners Justice Jennifer Coate, Professor Helen Milroy and Andrew Murray explored the responses of the Sisters of Mercy, the Catholic Diocese of Rockhampton and the Queensland government to complaints, which had often fell on deaf ears.

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UNITED STATES
WBUR – CommonHealth

One day when we were in first grade and sitting on a rickety wooden bench under a large oak tree in her backyard, my best friend’s mother called her to come inside.

A few minutes later, I heard wailing like an animal being gutted. Squinting my eyes and looking perplexed, I turned to my friend’s younger sister who was sitting beside me. She whispered, “She’s just getting beat.” Beat? What’s that, I wondered. She explained. Depending on the severity of their perceived wrongdoings, they were administered one of three levels of physical punishment: a stick, a belt or a big slab of wood. Their parents had moved from Ireland to our small suburb in New Jersey.

The Catholic schools the parents had attended as children in Ireland were very strict and the nuns reportedly beat them until their knuckles bled. Here, as parents in New Jersey, they told their daughters to strip naked and mercilessly receive corporal punishment. (I learned this from her sister, and over the years, from my friend.)

This was not a onetime event. These were repeated, deliberate acts.

The occurrences did not seem to have predictable patterns, so my friend, I’ll call her Heather, couldn’t prepare herself for them. And the negative psychological effects for her were deep. Over time, Heather became highly anxious, constantly got in trouble at school, and started a pattern of severe substance misuse that led to even further problems, particularly violations at the hands of men and boys.

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AUSTRALIA
Daily Life

April 21, 2016

Ruby Hamad

This week, a Melbourne Catholic priest compared priests who sexually abuse children to women who have extra-marital affairs. Apparently trying to make a point about mercy in the face of public outrage, Father Bill Edebohls, head of schools in his parish in East Malvern, referenced the tale of the adulterous woman spared from stoning by Jesus with the words, “He who is without sin. Let him cast the first stone at her.”

“For our generation, where adultery is not regarded as a crime – and many have lost the moral sense of the destructive harm adultery does to family and community… we probably don’t get the power of the gospel story,” he wrote.

“Remember this was a sin, a crime that carried the death penalty… Maybe to get the real drama and effect of the story we ought to replace the adulterous woman with a paedophile priest. Then we might begin to understand the mob eager to stone and the outrageous and profligate mercy and compassion of God ever ready to forgive,” he concluded.

It’s not the first time a clergyman’s words have minimised clerical child abuse by reminding everyone that women are the real enemy; Cardinal George Pell once called abortion a “worse moral scandal than priests sexually abusing young people.”

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MISSOURI
St. Louis Review

By Joseph Kenny | jkenny@archstl.org | twitter:@josephkenny2

Parishes where suspended archdiocesan priest Father Thomas Graham served are being notified of a decades-old but recently reported allegation of sexual abuse against him.

The sexual abuse, deemed credible by the archdiocese’s Review Board, occurred in the 1980s at St. Alban Roe Parish in Wildwood, where Father Graham was serving as pastor. The Review Board advises the archbishop on matters related to sexual abuse by clergy and other archdiocesan personnel in order to provide assistance to those who have been abused and to ensure that those who have done harm are not allowed to do so again.

Due to a separate allegation from the 1970s, Father Graham, 82, is already on permanent administrative leave and is canonically suspended, which prohibits him from engaging in priestly ministry, including presenting himself publicly as a priest, wearing clerical attire, offering Mass publicly or administering the sacraments.

In 2006, the Missouri Supreme Court reversed a conviction of Father Graham, who had been found guilty and sentenced to 20 years in prison a year earlier for sexually abusing a minor in the 1970s.

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PERU
El Comercio

[Alessandro Moroni, current superior general of the Sodality of Christian Life, traveled to Rome to bring the final report of the Ethics Commission for Justice and Reconciliation which investigated suspected sexual, physical and psychological abuse allegedly committed by founder Louis Fernando Figari and other sodality members.]

El actual superior general del Sodalicio de Vida Cristiana, Alessandro Moroni, viajó a Roma y llevó consigo el informe final de la Comisión de Ética para la Justicia y la Reconciliación convocada por el Sodalicio y que acumuló toda la información en torno a la denuncia sobre los abusos sexuales, físicos y sicológicos perpetrados presuntamente por miembros de esta institución, entre ellos su fundador Luis Fernando Figari.

A través de un video grabado en Roma, Moroni señaló que llegó a esta ciudad para ponerse a disposición de la Iglesia. “He traído el informe de la comisión ética, que a pesar del primer dolor que me causó describe con mucha claridad el sufrimiento de las personas que hemos herido”, señaló el superior general del Sodalicio de Vida Cristiana.

Agregó que también presentará el reporte preliminar de los investigadores extranjeros y que el informe del visitador apostólico está en poder de la Santa Sede. “En estos momentos tan complicados pedimos oraciones. Estamos en manos de la Iglesia, que son las mejores manos”.

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MINNESOTA
Wanseca County News

By NANCY MADSEN nmadsen@stpeterherald.com

Waseca’s Church of the Sacred Heart parish and school were named in two lawsuits alleging sexual abuse by two church leaders.

“The claims being brought forward do not involve anyone currently at our parish or anyone active in ministry in the Diocese of Winona,” an April 15 letter to parishioners from the church’s current priest, Father Gregory Leif said.

In one lawsuit, Sister Benen Kent was accused of abusing possibly two minors from 1958-61, when she was at Sacred Heart parish. Kent died in 2003. Abuse by her involving at least two girls was publicized and the subject of a lawsuit against the Sisters of St. Francis in Rochester. That order was responsible for the administration of Sacred Heart School beginning in 1905.

In the other, Father Joseph Mountain was accused of abuse from 1988-95. He was priest at the church then. Mountain is now retired.

The diocese has not yet included the two on a list of those credibly accused of child sexual abuse.

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MISSOURI
St. Louis Post-Dispatch

ST. LOUIS • A retired Roman Catholic priest who has previously been accused of sexual abuse is facing new allegations.

The Archdiocese of St. Louis is informing the region’s Catholic community that a new allegation was recently reported against the Rev. Thomas J. Graham. The alleged abuse occurred in the 1980s St. Alban Roe Catholic Church in Wildwood.

According to a statement from the archdiocese, Graham is already on permanent administrative leave which prohibits him from engaging in ministry.

In 2005 Graham was convicted for allegedly engaging in oral sex with a teenager at the Old Cathedral downtown in the 1970s. He was sentenced to 20 years.

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NEW YORK
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Wednesday, April 20, 2016

Statement by David Clohessy of St. Louis, Director of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (314 566 9790, 314 645 5915 home, davidgclohessy@gmail.com)

Only one New York City prosecutor is brave, wise and caring enough to advocate repealing the state’s archaic child sex abuse deadline that endangers kids and helps predators.

[New York Daily News]

This is yet another reason why fixing the predator-friendly civil statute of limitations is crucial – because often, prosecutors are timid about taking on tough child sex cases against powerful institutions. When this happens, victims of horrific childhood sexual violence need and deserve the chance to expose wrongdoers in civil courts.

And often, prosecutors charge only those who commit abuse, not those who conceal it. So the perpetrator is exposed but the enablers – those who conceal the crimes – get off scot-free.

Often, supervisors and colleagues who protect child molesters are exposed only through civil lawsuits. And when they are exposed, others who are tempted to keep quiet about or cover up child sex crimes are deterred.

We applaud Queens District Attorney Richard Brown for his courage and compassion in backing this sorely-needed, long-overdue reform that will better safeguard New York children. We hope other New York prosecutors start moving more aggressively to stop child rapists.

It’s true that, over time, memories fade, witnesses die and evidence gets stale. (That’s true of all kinds of crime, not just child sexual abuse, so should we stop all prosecution of all crimes, because prosecuting criminals is tough?)

It’s also true that over time, scientific and forensic advances make some prosecution easier. And over time, more and more victims of one child molester gain the strength and courage to step forward, so sometimes dozens of devastated young adults are willing to pursue charges against a serial predator but can’t in New York because of an arbitrary, rigid and tight deadline.

And it’s true that some types of criminal cases are harder to win. That doesn’t mean, however, that those crime victims should all be barred from any kind of justice.

Over time, we’ve changed laws and practices to better address more complex crimes like terrorism, drug cartels and financial fraud. We can and must do the same with child sex abuse and cover ups.

Now the burden is on Brooklyn District Attorney Kenneth Thompson, Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr. and Bronx District Attorney Darcel Clark and the District Attorneys Association of the State of New York (headed by Robyn Pangi). One in four girls in their jurisdictions will be molested. So will one in eight boys.

So if these prosecutors aren’t backing the one reform most sought by crime victims, what ARE these prosecutors pushing in Albany to stop his horror?

Imagine if one in four NYC cars owned by women were stolen, or if one in eight NYC apartments rented by men were burglarized. Prosecutors would jump into action.

But one in four girls and one in four boys in New York City are raped, sodomized or fondled.

No matter what prosecutors, lawmakers or church officials do or don’t do, we urge every single person who saw, suspected or suffered child sex crimes and cover ups in churches or institutions to protect kids by calling police, get help by calling therapists, expose wrongdoers by calling law enforcement, get justice by calling attorneys, and be comforted by calling support groups like ours. This is how kids will be safer, adults will recover, criminals will be prosecuted, cover ups will be deterred and the truth will surface.

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ARKANSAS
Associated Press

JONESBORO, Ark. (AP) — A former Arkansas children’s pastor has been given two life sentences in prison without the possibility of parole in the rape of two young girls.

The Jonesboro Sun (http://bit.ly/1SmgsEB ) reports 39-year-old Anthony Waller pleaded guilty and was sentenced Tuesday.

Waller is a former employee of what used to be First Assembly of God Church in Jonesboro. Police say the girls were repeatedly raped in several locations, including the church.

Waller still faces 50 counts of video voyeurism and one count of child pornography.

A police detective testified he found 400,000 images of child pornography and videos of young females inside the church bathroom on an external hard drive of Waller’s. The detective says he found holes in the ceiling of the church bathroom and a place for a hidden camera nearby.

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ARKANSAS
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Wednesday, April 20, 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)

A Jonesboro church employee was sentenced yesterday for repeatedly raping the two girls but still faces charges of video voyeurism and child pornography.

[Associated Press]

Now, we challenge First Assembly of God Church staff and members to aggressively reach out to find others who saw, suspected or suffered crimes by Anthony Waller.

Why?

Because church officials gave Waller access to kids
Because Waller faces more charges
Because police and prosecutors need help pursuing predators
Because the more law enforcement knows about a criminal the more appropriately he can be sentenced.

Current and former First Assembly of God members and employees have both a civic and moral duty to “beat the bushes” to find and help other with information or suspicions about Waller and prod them to call police.

It’s immoral of them to sit back, do nothing, and leave the burden of keeping Waller away from kids to his victims and our court system.

Want more reasons they must act?

Because the girls were raped at the church
Because police found 400,000 images of child pornography and video of girls on Waller’s computer
Because some of the videos of the young girls were taken inside the church bathroom
Because holes were found in the church bathroom’s ceiling and a place for hiding a camera nearby
Because often child predators exploit technicalities and escape conviction
Because once convicted, often child predators get light sentences and later abuse again

It’s especially crucial that church staff and members seek out those who’ve left the church. Those families, who suddenly stopped coming to services, are most likely the ones whose kids were hurt or who suspected abuse, took action and were punished or ostracized or criticized.

All too often, in these cases,

–church officials and members do little or nothing to help police and prosecutors nail predator
–there are others in the church who ignored or hid these crimes
–those supervisors, colleagues and congregants can sometimes be prosecuted, and
–when they ARE charged and convicted, it deters other adults in other institutions who are tempted to disregard or conceal knowledge or suspicions of child sex crimes.

So First Assembly staff and congregants, summon some strength and do what the Bible taught us – go out into the cold and the dark and the rain and find the lost and wounded sheep. It’s what Jesus would do.

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INDIANA
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Wednesday, April 20, 2016

For more information: David Clohessy 314-566-9790, davidgclohessy@gmail.com, Barbara Dorris 314 503 0003, bdorris@SNAPnetwork.org

Abuse case sparks controversy
Victims write to Indy congregants
Group says child was abused by older teen
It wants open public meeting and more training
SNAP: “We suspect police weren’t promptly called”

A support group for abuse victims believes a child was recently molested by a member of an Indianapolis church and urging congregants to prod church staff to be more forthcoming about the incident.

Leaders of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, are writing to hundreds of members of Southport Presbyterian Church church says the organization “strongly suspects that law enforcement wasn’t promptly or properly notified” about the alleged abuse of a youngster in the church by an older teenager.

SNAP is “begging” church members to share any information or suspicions about possible child sex crimes or cover ups with police or prosecutors immediately,” saying it’s their “civic and moral duty.”

“All of us must share what we know, believe or have heard about possible child sex crimes with the experienced, impartial professionals in law enforcement,” the letter says. “When church members or staff take it on themselves to try and handle sensitive matters like sexual misconduct quietly and internally – even if they’re well-intentioned – it’s almost always a recipe for disaster.

“Several concerned individuals have asked for our help, so we thought this letter would be a positive first step,” said Barbara Dorris of St. Louis, the organization’s outreach director. “We work to protect the vulnerable, heal the wounded and deter the cover ups, and we hope some congregants will help us do this here.”

Church officials, SNAP says, should

—pay for “on-going counseling for the victim(s) from independent sources chosen by his/her family,”
—provide mandatory training for all staff and volunteers on how to prevent abuse and respond appropriately abuse reports, and
—hire an independent outsider or outside agency to “launch a thorough inquiry into which church staff and/or members knew what and when” and “include clear recommendations for making the church a safer place for all, now and in the future.”

Church members, SNAP says, should ask their youngsters “if anyone in the church – congregant, volunteer or staff member – ever touched them in a way that made them feel uncomfortable” and should “reach out to former church members and staff” and ask the same question.

“Often, when a youngster is hurt by a predator in a church, his or her family stop coming to services,” the letter contends. “Rarely do they explain why. So think about families who once came to church regularly and suddenly stopped coming. And contact them in a sensitive, loving way.”

“In every case of suspected child sex crimes, it’s safest and easiest to do nothing. But that’s irresponsible and endangers kids and helps predators,” said David Clohessy, SNAP’s director. “That temptation – to passively sit back and trust others to take action – is what we hope our letter will help overcome.”

Instead, SNAP advocates calling “independent, experienced and unbiased secular officials with any information or suspicions at all,” Clohessy said.

“It’s our job to share what we know or suspect about abuse with law enforcement,” the letter says. “It’s THEIR job to investigate and, if appropriate, to act. So do not assume that what you have seen, heard or suspected about wrongdoing is too vague, too old or too insignificant to be helpful.”

Church members should “ignore church staff or elders who caution against ‘gossip,’ because while “gossip is sometimes hurtful” silence about child sex abuse reports is “much worse” because “those who commit or conceal child sex crimes count on silence.”

And congregants should “resist talk of forgiveness,” SNAP advises. “Forgiveness is healthy but only AFTER the innocent are protected, predators are exposed and wrongdoers are held responsible. Premature forgiveness endangers kids and protects predators.”

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INDIA
Scroll.in

Officials of the Catholic Church in the Tamil Nadu region of Udhagamandalam have denied that they have reinstated a priest who recently served a prison sentence for sexually abusing a minor in the United States.

A lawsuit filed on Tuesday in a federal court in Minnesota, US, claims that the Diocese of Ootacamund (or Ooty, as it is known colloquially) has put Indian children at risk by reinstating Joseph Jeyapaul, a priest who spent one year in a US jail for sexually abusing a girl during his posting at a church in Crookston, Minnesota, between 2004 and 2005.

Jeyapaul returned to India in late 2015 after serving his sentence. In January, the Diocese of Ootacamund, as the church refers to its administrative district in Udhagamandalam, lifted his suspension from the ministry after getting approval from the Vatican. News of his reinstatement prompted a 26-year-old American woman, who was allegedly raped by Jeyapaul in 2004, to file a lawsuit against the Diocese. The Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, a US-based advocacy group, also condemned the Vatican’s decision to lift the suspension of the “predator priest” as an “irresponsible” move that would endanger more children.

An official at the Ootacamund Diocese, however, told Scroll.in that Jeyapaul has not been reinstated in a manner that would endanger children. “He is not reinstated, he has just been granted a residence for his stay,” said Father Selvanathan, the media spokesperson for the Ootacamund Diocese. “He will not hold any post or have any responsibilities.”

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INDIA/MINNESOTA
New Zealand Herald

Thursday Apr 21, 2016

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) A Catholic diocese in southern India is consulting attorneys about a lawsuit filed against it in the U.S. after it re-assigned a priest who was convicted of child sex abuse in Minnesota.

The federal lawsuit was filed in Minnesota this week on behalf of Megan Peterson, who says the Rev. Joseph Palanivel Jeyapaul abused her in 2004 when he served at her church in Greenbush, Minnesota. Peterson was 14 or 15 years old at the time.

Peterson said at a news conference Tuesday in Minnesota that she felt “abused, degraded and re-victimized all over again” when she learned that Bishop Arulappan Amalraj lifted Jeyapaul’s suspension in February after consulting with the Vatican.

“Children deserve to be protected in India and nobody is doing this at this point,” Peterson said.

Her lawsuit seeks unspecified damages in excess of $75,000 from the Ootacamund Diocese in India’s Tamil Nadu state.

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CANADA
The Telegram

Barb Sweet
Published on April 20, 2016

Mount Cashel civil trial recessed until June

The confidential seal of the confessional cannot be broken by a priest, but there are other options for a priest who hears of a sexual abuse allegation there, a witness suggested in Newfoundland Supreme Court today.

The priest risks ex-communication if he divulges what was said to him in confession, Fr. Thomas Doyle, a canon lawyer from the Washington D.C. area, told claimants’ lawyer Geoff Budden in the Mount Cashel civil trial.

The seal means nothing the confessor says in confession can be revealed in any way.

The John Doe lawsuit against the RC Episcopal Corp. of St. John’s seeks compensation and involves four test cases that claim the church should be held liable for the physical and sexual abuse of boys at the orphanage by certain Christian Brothers during the period late 1940s to early 1960s. The test cases represent about 60 claimants in the case being pursued by Budden and Associates.

The church contends it did not run the orphanage, therefore is not responsible for actions of the lay order Christian Brothers there.

Doyle said the most ordinary option taken by priests being told of abuse has been to tell the confessor to avoid the situation and to take penance.

Another option – in the case of a boy telling a priest in confession about being abused at an institution — would be for a priest to advise the boy to go to an authority at the institution and reveal what happened.

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VATICAN CITY
National Catholic Register

by EDWARD PENTIN
04/20/2016

VATICAN CITY — Just over four months since the Vatican announced that the Vatican would be subjected to an external audit by one of the world’s leading accounting firms, the Secretariat of State has said that it is pulling the plug on the initiative.

The Vatican announced the decision to suspend the audit, carried out by accountancy giant PricewaterhouseCoopers, in a letter sent to all Vatican entities this week.

On Dec. 5, the Vatican revealed that Pope Francis’ had brought in the auditing firm on the advice of the Vatican Secretariat for the Economy in a bid to reform Holy See finances and make them more transparent after a number of scandals. The audit began immediately after the announcement.

News of the audit’s suspension comes as an article appeared in today’s Italia Oggi newspaper alleging that a possible replacement for Jean Baptiste De Franssu, the current president of the Institute for the Works of Religion (IOR), colloquially known as the Vatican Bank, had turned down an offer.

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AUSTRALIA
Manny Waks

I am writing this post having just completed one of the four weekly therapy sessions which I am currently undergoing in Israel.

Earlier this morning I read an article in The Guardian entitled “What does depression feel like? Trust me – you really don’t want to know”. Much of it resonated with me, perhaps more than any other article I’ve read about depression. I set off for my therapy session feeling empowered, positive and happy.

Just before entering my session, a friend forwarded me an email from the Board of Trustees of Yeshivah, which included the updated recommendations of their Governance Review Panel (GRP) and the proposed governance restructure at Yeshivah. I couldn’t get myself to read it at that stage; I preferred to push it off a little. I’ve become accustomed to the negative impact these emails have on me so I try to read them when I’m in a safe space.
​
As I lay on the treatment bed and commenced my session, I spoke to my therapist about how uplifted I had felt this morning, mainly as a result of reading The Guardian article. I then mentioned the Yeshivah email. What happened next was quite unexpected. My heart started beating uncontrollably, my legs were shaking and I was overcome with emotion. All indications had been that the GRP were going to recommend the ongoing involvement of the Trustees in the new governance structure and I knew when I got this email that my worst fears were being confirmed. My body reacted involuntarily to the realisation that after everything that had happened over the last few years, and despite the pleas of so many victims, the seven remaining Trustees of Yeshivah are still refusing to simply go. Rather, they are proposing to formally embed themselves in the running of the Yeshivah Centre for the next few years, and in the case of Rabbi Chaim Tzvi Groner, for life (as per the previous GRP recommendations, which I didn’t expect would change).

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UNITED STATES
New York Times

By LAURIE GOODSTEIN
APRIL 20, 2016

I have interviewed many survivors of child sexual abuse over many years, but this was the first time I had ever interviewed a survivor who was also a politician. State Representative Mark Rozzi sat behind his office desk at the State Capitol in Harrisburg, Pa. As he spoke he fidgeted with a small figurine he kept on his desk — a little dog with four heads, all snarling — a gift from a fellow survivor. We were discussing his long fight trying to pass legislation to make it easier for survivors to press charges and file lawsuits against their abusers.

Well into the interview I asked him to tell me what had happened to him as a child. “The abridged version,” I said. I had read his story elsewhere, but needed to hear it directly from him, even though I knew it would not play a big part in the article I planned to write. I figured that as a politician, he would have a well-practiced, pithy rendition.

Twenty-five minutes of unrelenting trauma later, we had still gotten only as far as high school. Then, just as Mr. Rozzi was saying, “I’m going to tell you something I have never talked about to a reporter” — at that very moment — there was a knock at the door and his executive assistant came in to tell us that another legislator was waiting in the vestibule. Interview over.

As I rushed to gather up my notebook, laptop and recorder, I realized I had no idea what he was about to reveal, but I had just gotten the answer to another question I am often asked: Why does the sexual abuse scandal in the Catholic Church never seem to go away? Why is it still a story? It has been 31 years since National Catholic Reporter, an independent Catholic publication, broke the first story, about a serial abuser in Louisiana. It has been 22 years since I reported my first article about abusive priests (out on an Indian pueblo in New Mexico, for The Washington Post). Why is the news media still covering this?

The answer lies with the victims. Many, like Mr. Rozzi, are resilient and accomplished. (He is a businessman, a husband and a father, as well as a legislator.) Some are basket cases, unable to hold down a job or romantic relationship. But no matter where they are on this spectrum, the abuse they suffered is often so searing that it is the formative experience of their lives. Even if they have supportive family and friends, a financial cushion and plenty of time in therapy — all big “ifs” — they never entirely leave it behind.

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CANADA
The Globe and Mail

GLORIA GALLOWAY
OTTAWA — The Globe and Mail
Published Monday, Apr. 18, 2016

The federal government must pick up the tab for more than $20-million in compensation to survivors of Indian residential schools after its lawyer allowed the Catholic Church to renege on its obligations, according to the former national chief whose advocacy resulted in the largest class-action settlement in Canadian history.

Phil Fontaine, who has spoken publicly about the abuses he suffered as a child at one of the schools, helped to negotiate the Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement and says the government must ensure that its terms are met.

“The government is ultimately responsible for meeting all of the financial obligations,” Mr. Fontaine told The Globe and Mail on Monday in response to the news that miscommunication by a federal lawyer allowed the Catholic Church to walk away from its promise to try to raise $25-million to pay for healing and reconciliation programs for the survivors.

“I don’t know about legally, but there’s a moral obligation here,” Mr. Fontaine said. “We’re dealing with close to 80,000 survivors and it’s important for them that they be treated fairly and justly.”

The 50 Catholic organizations – known legally as the Catholic entities – that ran many of the schools collected a combined $3.7-million as part of a seven-year campaign in which their lawyer says they made their “best efforts” to raise $25-million as spelled out in the settlement agreement. The entities also had to pay an additional $29-million in cash and to provide $25-million in “in-kind” services – obligations that have been met.

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CANADA
CBC News

By Hilary Bird, CBC News Posted: Apr 19, 2016

Northern aboriginal leaders say they are furious that a court ruling let Catholic groups off the hook from fundraising tens of millions of dollars for healing programs for former students of residential schools.

The 2006 Indian Residential School Settlement required Catholic groups to pay compensation for its role in the abuse and trauma inflicted on thousands of aboriginal children.

The agreement required the Catholic entities to pay $29 million in cash to the now defunct Aboriginal Healing Foundation, $25 million in “in-kind” services, and to try and fundraise $25 million for healing programs for former students.

Pierre Baribeau, a lawyer for the Catholic groups told CBC that raising $25 million was simply a goal and that the settlements agreement states the Catholic groups were only obligated to put in their “best efforts.”

The Catholic entities were able to raise about $4 million of that $25 million goal.

“We had a very difficult time convincing public corporations to consider giving money to a Catholic-related foundation,” Baribeau said.

“Unfortunately, we did not get as much as one would have expected. The efforts were there and a lot of money was put into the campaign also.”

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CANADA
The Globe and Mail

JULIEN GIGNACERIC ANDREW-GEE
The Globe and Mail
Published Tuesday, Apr. 19, 2016

Vivian Ketchum, 51

Attended Cecilia Jeffrey residential school in Kenora, Ont., in the early 1970s.

News of the Catholic entities’ unfulfilled financial obligations made Vivian Ketchum “extremely angry,” she said. The money, she believes, could be used for a 24-hour youth crisis centre in Kenora, where indigenous youth suicide is epidemic.

“Why walk away from the table? Our youth are dying,” she said. “That’s basically what I’ve got to say.”

Ms. Ketchum was 5 or 6 when she was taken – under circumstances she doesn’t remember – from her home in Northern Ontario to the nearby residential school in Kenora.

She said she was abused by a “house mother,” who hit her with a shoe when Ms. Ketchum hid from a dentist appointment she feared. The blow broke one of the girl’s pinkie fingers.

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CANADA
The Globe and Mail

GLORIA GALLOWAY
OTTAWA — The Globe and Mail
Published Sunday, Apr. 17, 2016

A miscommunication by a federal lawyer allowed the Catholic Church to renege on its obligation to try to raise $25-million to pay for healing programs for the survivors of Indian residential schools.

Of that amount, the Church raised only $3.7-million, and a financial statement suggests less than $2.2-million of that was actually donated to help former students cope with the trauma inflicted by the residential schools.

The legal misstep occurred when Ottawa was pressing the Church to pay the entirety of a related cash settlement stemming from the Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement, the largest class-action deal in Canadian history.

The failing fundraising effort by the Church, which represented almost a third of its obligation under the settlement, was playing out as the Truth and Reconciliation Commission was travelling the country hearing gut-wrenching stories about what occurred behind the walls of the institutions that operated in Canada for more than 100 years.

The landmark settlement agreement required 50 Catholic groups that ran the schools, known in court documents as the Catholic entities, to pay a combined $79-million for their role in the abuse.

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UNITED KINGDOM
BBC News

A clergyman abused by a former bishop has said he will not cooperate with a review into the Church of England’s investigations.

Peter Ball, 84, was jailed in October for offences against 18 teenagers and young men in the 1970s, 80s and 90s.

One of his victims, Rev Graham Sawyer, said he had taken the decision because “bullying and silencing” were not in the terms of reference of the review.

The Church said the Ball case “was a matter of deep shame and regret”.

In February, it was announced Dame Moira Gibb was chairing an independent review of the Ball case to consider what information was available to the Church, who had it and when.
‘Worrying signal’

Mr Sawyer waived his right to anonymity before Ball, former Bishop of Lewes and Gloucester, was sentenced to 32 months in prison.

He said he objected to the fact the treatment he received from current senior officials in the church would not be covered by the terms of reference of the inquiry.

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MINNESOTA
Jeff Anderson and Associates

Bishop Amalraj, with permission from Pope Francis, returned Jeyapaul to ministry after his sexual abuse conviction in Minnesota

Joseph Jeyapaul Timeline
Peterson Complaint 4-18-16
5-8-2010 Jeyapaul Support Letter – 500 signatures
Jeyapaul – Petition to Enter Guilty Plea
Jeyapaul Photos

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UNITED STATES
Crux

By John L. Allen Jr.
Editor April 19, 2016

Some Catholics cheered last week, while others were either depressed or outraged, when news broke that Tony Spence, editor of the Catholic News Service (CNS) since 2004, had resigned unexpectedly. The move followed a controversy over three Tweets he posted about religious freedom bills, which critics saw as promoting a pro-LGBT agenda.

CNS is the official news agency of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, and Spence told media outlets he was informed on Wednesday, April 13, by general secretary Monsignor J. Brian Bransfield that he had “lost the confidence” of the conference.

The ouster came after several Catholic blogs and news outlets seen as sharply conservative took Spence to task. Spence, 63, had served in the bishops’ conference for twenty-five years in a variety of roles, and now says he’s returning to his native Tennessee to ponder other options.

Those inclined to a political reading of things may see Spence’s situtation in tandem with other notable departures at the bishops’ conference, including the resignation of the late Sister Mary Ann Walsh as the bishops’ spokesperson in summer 2014, and the more recent exit of Helen Osman as the conference’s Secretary for Communications.

All three had reputations as moderates, perhaps leaning a bit to the left. Some will style these transitions as a long-overdue opportunity for clarity at the conference, while critics will see them as an ideological putsch, but in any event a change in direction seems fairly evident.

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ESPANA
La Verdad

ALICIA NEGRE | MURCIA
19 abril 2016

Roberto P. S. admitió este martes ante la Audiencia Provincial de Murcia que abusó de nueve niños de siete años durante 2011. Lo hizo durante su etapa como profesor de Religión en el colegio católico San Vicente de Paul de la pedanía murciana de El Palmar.

El acusado llegó a un acuerdo de conformidad con las partes y, tras asumir los cargos, será condenado a un año de prisión por cada niño. La Fiscalía le reconoció las atenuantes de reparación del daño y dilaciones indebidas.

Una condena de nueve años de cárcel que, sin embargo, tras la última reforma del Código Penal, no le obligará a entrar en prisión. La norma, tras la reforma, establece que las condenas que individualmente no superen los dos años, podrán ser suspendidas siempre que el reo no cuente con antecedentes penales -Roberto P.S. no los tiene- y que las circunstancias lo aconsejen. El tribunal deberá fijar un plazo y, en el caso de que el procesado vuelva a delinquir, tendrá que cumplir estos nueve años de cárcel.

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SPAIN
The Local

A Spanish Catholic teacher who admitted to molesting nine young children won’t set foot in jail because of a legal loophole.

Catholic school teacher Roberto P. S. admitted before a Murcia judge on Tuesday that he did indeed molest eight girls and one boy, all seven years old at the time, a spokeswoman from the court confirmed to The Local.

But the religion teacher won’t have to go to jail unless he re-offends because of a reform to the criminal code.

Under an agreement reached between the prosecution and defense, because Roberto P. S. testified, he received a jail sentence of one year per child, or nine years total, according to broadcaster Cadena Ser.

But because he received individual sentences of one year, rather than one nine-year sentence, he qualified for a suspended sentence for each one, under a reform to the criminal code.

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ARGENTINA
La Nacion

[They apprehended a priest accused of sexual abuse of minors.He was denounced by the mother of a three-year-old girl who presented injuries. They also they arrested a school principal.]

José E. Bordón

SANTA FE.- Conmoción en el norte santafecino. Un sacerdote de Reconquista y el director de una escuela de Avellaneda, ambas ciudades del departamento de General Obligado, fueron detenidos en las últimas horas acusados de delitos contra la integridad sexual: en todos los casos, las víctimas son menores.

El sacerdote, identificado por las autoridades como Néstor Monzón, de la Parroquia María Madre de Dios, en el barrio Hospital de Reconquista, quien fue formador de adolescentes en el Preseminario Diocesano, fue detenido cuando regresaba a su parroquia.

El fiscal que investiga el caso, Rubén Martínez, confirmó: “La denuncia fue realizada por la madre de una menor de 3 años, en el Centro de Orientación de Víctimas de Violencia Familiar y Sexual de la Unidad Regional 19a de la policía provincial. Según consta en la denuncia, la niña y su primo, también de 3, fueron manoseados por el sacerdote en su zona anal y genital, en la misma residencia católica en la que vive”, relató.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Yorkshire Post

KNOWING that the man who subjected him to the most appalling abuse during his childhood is at last behind bars might just offer some comfort to Roy Blanchard. The fact that he has waited four decades to see such justice delivered, however, suggests it will be a crumb at best.

For in the intervening years, Mr Blanchard has been condemned to serve his own life sentence. His experience derailed his education and as an adult he grappled with alcoholism, doubtless in an attempt to drown his demons and the memories of the terror that clouded his formative years.

The man responsible for all this, Kenneth Endersby, was a monster. Even worse, he was a monster whose position as a choirmaster afforded him protection from the Church of England. When told of the abuse, local vicar Raymond Ward condemned Roy as a liar and a “filthy, disgusting and degenerate boy”.

The Church has since taken great strides toward ensuring that any inappropriate conduct is exposed, rather than concealed. It is also important to acknowledge that abuse arises in a variety of settings and that the Church is full of kind people who perform sterling work on a daily basis.

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ARGENTINA
La Gaceta

[The Church has revived research on priest Justo Jose Ilarraz and the interdiocesan Court of Santa Fee will be responsible for taking statements from victims who denounced the priest for sexual abuse.]

PARANÁ.- La Iglesia Católica argentina reactivó su investigación sobre el sacerdote Justo José Ilarraz, quien está siendo procesado por la Justicia entrerriana, acusado de haber abusado sexualmente de varios menores de edad hace 30 años. Además, citó a testigos para que se presenten a declarar en mayo ante el Tribunal Interdiocesano de Santa Fe.

Ilarraz fue acusado por ex seminaristas de haberlos sometido a abusos sexuales mientras estudiaban en el seminario de Paraná que dirigía el sacerdote, entre 1985 y 1993, cuando los pupilos eran menores de edad.

La decisión de la Iglesia de avanzar con la investigación interna se produjo dos semanas después de que el Tribunal de Apelaciones de la Justicia de Paraná confirmara el procesamiento de Ilarraz.

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AUSTRALIA
Goulburn Post

LOUISE THROWER
April 20, 2016

ARCHBISHOP Christopher Prowse on Friday apologised for what had happened to “innocent men, their families and communities” at Brother William Standen’s hands.

The Christian Brother has pleaded guilty to 17 charges of indecent assault and one act of indecency against boys aged 12-14 while he was a dormitory master at a Catholic School from 1978-81. He is awaiting sentence.

The Archbishop’s apology followed Standen’s sentencing hearing on Sydney on Friday.

While the Christian Brothers operate autonomously to the Archdiocese, the man appointed to head up a newly created protection body said the Archbishop felt impelled to act.

“His position is that the abuse occurred and there are people in the Archdiocese who were were either victims or were impacted by it,” Matt Casey said.

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TEXAS
KURV

Prosecutors and defense attorneys gathered in court Tuesday for a pretrial hearing in the 1960 Irene Garza murder case. Attorneys for the man charged with killing her, former McAllen priest John Feit, filed several routine motions, but also asked the judge to grant them access to Sacred Heart Catholic Church, where Feit heard the 25-year-old Garza’s confession the night she was raped and killed. 92nd District Court Judge Luis Singleterry granted the request. However, no decision was made on a bond reduction requested by the defense.

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VATICAN CITY
National Catholic Reporter

Joshua J. McElwee | Apr. 19, 2016

VATICAN CITY
A group of prominent global Catholic theologians, priests and bishops who have been criticized by the Vatican’s chief doctrinal office have come together to call for a new process for theological investigations in the church that would be marked by openness and transparency instead of deep secrecy.

In a letter sent to the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith last month, the theologians argue that current procedures for investigations — characterized often by a lack of adequate defense or possibility of appeal — are “contrary to natural justice and in need of reform.”

The writers sharply criticize current practice. They say that current norms are outdated and follow a model based on “the absolutism of sixteenth and seventeenth century Europe.” They identify that:

*The person under investigation is not allowed to meet or speak to their accusers;
* The doctrinal office often acts as “investigator, accuser, judge and jury” and also imposes any penalties and hears any appeals;
* The accused is often not in direct contact with the Vatican — the doctrinal office rather works through the person’s religious superior or bishop, and;
* Procedures can “drag on for years, with sometimes negative consequences for the mental and physical health of the accused.”

The last point carries special significance, as many who have been investigated by the Vatican describe the process as particularly debilitating.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Yorkshire Evening Post

TONY GARDNER
Wednesday 20 April 2016

AN ‘arrogant’ choirmaster and former magistrate has been jailed more than half a century after he began the relentless sexual abuse of a choirboy at a church in Leeds.

Kenneth Endersby was allowed to evade justice for decades after the vicar at St Stephen’s church in Kirkstall helped him cover up the abuse when it first came to light.

How Leeds church helped cover up abuse scandal

ABUSE VICTIM: “I can still remember the churning in my stomach the very first time he attacked me.”

Victim Roy Blanchard was called a liar and a “filthy, disgusting and degenerate boy” by Rev Raymond Ward after his family reported Endersby to the church when he was aged 15 back in 1970.

Rev Ward also made veiled threats to Mr Ward’s mother, telling her that life would be made very difficult for her family if she went to the police.

Mr Blanchard, now 64, bravely waived his right to anonymity to talk to the YEP about the devastating impact the abuse has had on his adult life and the torment he has suffered at not being believed for so many years.

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ILLINOIS
Daily Northwestern

Mariana Alfaro, Web Editor
April 20, 2016 •

Journalists Walter Robinson and Sacha Pfeiffer, winners of the Pulitzer Prize for their Boston Globe series that uncovered Roman Catholic Church sexual abuse cases, said they never expected to discover such deep networks of corruption when they first started working on the story. Last year, their work was adapted into the Academy Award-winning film “Spotlight.”

Robinson and Pfeiffer spoke Tuesday night to about 250 students after a screening of the film hosted by A&O Productions and Studio 22. During the Q&A session, moderated by Medill Prof. Mei-Ling Hopgood, Robinson and Pfeiffer spoke about their experiences writing the story and collaborating with the film’s actors and creators more than a decade after.

“This may be … perhaps the first major investigative story of the Internet age,” Robinson said. “It went viral. Within a day or two we were getting phone calls and emails literally from all over the world … the story just exploded.”

In the film, Michael Keaton plays Robinson, who led the Boston Globe’s 2002 coverage of the scandal, which resulted in international outrage against the Catholic Church and the resignation of Boston’s Archbishop. Rachel McAdams plays Pfeiffer, a portrayal the journalist said was “uncanny.”

Pfeiffer said the film reminded her of the power of Hollywood because she continues to receive emails from viewers worldwide who might have been unaware of the scandal before, even though the story was published more than a decade ago. Even the Catholic Church, she said, had a more positive reaction to the film than to the original story.

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JAPAN
South China Morning Post

Associated Press

Former students at a prestigious all-boys parochial school allege they were molested or raped by religious brothers who taught there decades ago. One former student says he was raped in the chapel by two brothers when he was 11

The Roman Catholic Church’s sex abuse scandal has stretched into one of the least Catholic countries: Japan, where former students at a prestigious all-boys parochial school allege they were molested or raped by religious brothers who taught there decades ago.

Three former students at St Mary’s International School in Tokyo said they were sexually abused by brothers there. One described “health checkups” in which a brother touched boys’ testicles. Another says he was raped in the chapel by two brothers at age 11.

That former student received an in-person apology from one of the men, Brother Lawrence Lambert, in 2014. The former student’s account of the meeting suggests Lambert might have initially confused him with yet another victim whose assault went unreported.

The former student said the school sent Lambert away after the 1965 attack, only to have him return to serve as elementary-school principal for nearly two decades.

Allegations from former students have been published in an English-language Tokyo newspaper but otherwise have received little attention in Japan. There are only about 500,000 Catholics in the country of 127 million, and the school is aimed at foreigners like the three former students rather than Japanese.

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WISCONSIN
Kenosha News

BY DENEEN SMITH
dsmith@kenoshanews.com

A Twin Lakes pastor charged with child enticement sent extremely sexually explicit text messages to a person he believed was a 13-year-old girl he met online before attempting to meet her in person, according to court documents.

Joshua C. Scheil, 28, pastor of Hope Lutheran Church in Twin Lakes, was charged with use of a computer to facilitate a sex crime, attempted child enticement and causing a child under 13 to view or listen to sexual activity.

A representative of Hope Lutheran Church said the church could not comment on the charges, referring calls to the South Wisconsin District synod offices. A call to the president of that office was not returned.

Scheil has been pastor of the Twin Lakes church since July 2013. Twin Lakes police said no local complaints have been brought to the department’s attention.

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CANADA
The Telegram

Barb Sweet
Published on April 19, 2016

If the archbishop of St. John’s knew of a serious problem or something criminally wrong going on at an orphanage or such institutions, he had the right to visit the facility and intervene, an expert in canon law testified at the Mount Cashel civil trial Tuesday at Newfoundland Supreme Court.

Father Thomas Doyle was accepted as a witness for the plaintiffs in the civil case — four former residents of the orphanage who have testified previously at the trial.

The John Doe lawsuit against the Roman Catholic Episcopal Corp. of St. John’s seeks compensation and involves four test cases that claim the church should be held liable for the physical and sexual abuse of boys at the orphanage by certain Christian Brothers during the period of the late 1940s to early 1960s. The test cases represent about 60 claimants in the case being pursued by Budden and Associates.

The church contends it did not run the orphanage, and therefore is not responsible for actions there of the lay order Irish Christian Brothers.

The church is expected to call its own canon law expert, but Doyle, a Washington, D.C.-area canon lawyer, interpreted the Catholic laws as giving archbishops power and responsibility over clergy and lay people in his archdiocese, to safeguard their spiritual and moral welfare.

“The archbishop’s responsibility reaches to anyone in his territory. In this case it would certainly include the boys at Mount Cashel as well as the Christian Brothers,” Doyle told the court during questioning by Geoff Budden.

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PENNSYLVANIA
Courier Times

By SUE A. FUGATE

The thought of child sexual abuse, past or present, stirs fear and anger. The recent grand jury report about crimes that date back as far as the 1950s in the Diocese of Altoona-Johnstown is the latest revelation.

I won’t pretend to know the pain a survivor of abuse experiences or the helplessness their families feel, but as a mother of two, I do empathize with their suffering and support their need for healing.

In the name of healing, some legislators have proposed to change Pennsylvania law and, in effect, open a window that would waive the civil statute of limitations for some — but not all — abuse survivors. To that, I respond as an attorney. I can’t ignore the law, nor should any elected official pledged to serving the public good.

Unless we face some uncomfortable truths, the Legislature will end up creating two classes of child victims in the name of emotional expedience. It will financially penalize innocent families — members of churches and parish communities — who had nothing to do with past evil actions by a criminal few.

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AUSTRALIA
Daily Mail

By EMILY CRANE FOR DAILY MAIL AUSTRALIA

Hundreds of church child sex abuse cases dating back decades are being reported to police again because the victim’s names were never given to authorities to properly investigate.

The Catholic church in NSW has stopped a controversial procedure known as ‘blind reporting’, which meant police were never given the victim’s name when the church passed on a child sex abuse allegation.

The practice of blind reporting meant many abuse allegations could not be investigated.

Documents obtained under freedom of information by NSW Greens MP David Shoebridge show NSW Police has received 1,476 blind reports of child sex abuse in NSW since 2009 – many of which relate to the Catholic church.

The church is now going back over their blind reports and giving the names of victims to police.
‘By accepting the Catholic church’s practice of blind reporting, police allowed victims to be denied justice and abusers to escape conviction,’ Mr Shoebridge told Daily Mail Australia.

‘One of the key problems with blind reports is that the police’s own protocol says when they get a blind report they don’t investigate it. They just file it as criminal intelligence and that means perpetrators are not being brought to justice.’

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INDIA
The Indian Express

A 26-year-old American woman on Tuesday filed a lawsuit against an Indian Bishop for reinstating a Catholic compatriot priest accused of sexually abusing her during his posting in the US between 2004 and 2005.

Attorney Jeff Anderson filed the federal lawsuit in Minnesota against Bishop Amalraj for reinstating Joseph Jeyapaul to ministry after consulting with the Vatican.

The victim said she felt “abused, degraded and re-victimised all over again” when she learned that Amalraj had lifted Jeyapaul’s suspension in February. She told reporters at a news conference in Minnesota that reinstating the Indian priest would endanger kids in India.

Jeyapaul who served as a priest in the Crookston city of Minnesota in 2004 and 2005 was arrested in India in 2012 and extradited to the US on charges of sexually abusing two girls in a congregation.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Northern Echo

Joe Willis, Regional Chief Reporter

AN alleged sex abuse victim has spoken of his anger after the Catholic priest he claims abused him apparently committed suicide hours before he was due to answer bail over historic child sex allegations.

Father Ernest Sands, 67, was found dead at his remote cottage in North Wales last Monday (April 11).

The Northern Echo has learnt prosecutors were looking to charge Mr Sands with the indecent assault of five boys aged between 11 and 15 and the priest was due to answer bail later that day.

The offences are alleged to have taken place at St Joseph’s College, in Upholland, near Wigan in the late 1970s and 1980s where Mr Sands was a music teacher.

Father Sands was a renowned musician who wrote several well-known hymns including one, Sing of the Lord’s Goodness, chosen for the enthronement of the Archbishop of Canterbury, George Carey, in 1991.

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ILLINOIS
North by Northwestern

By Danielle Cohen April 19 2016

They may be the subjects of Spotlight, the 2016 Best Picture Academy Award winner, but journalists Sacha Pfeiffer and Walter Robinson consider themselves anything but Hollywood royalty.

When asked about their Oscars experience, Pfeiffer and Robinson both stifled a laugh onstage Tuesday night in Ryan Auditorium. They recounted their trek up five balconies in Los Angeles’ Dolby Theater to get to what they called “the worst seats in the house.”

Though the two were quick to crack jokes at their complete outsider-ness to the Hollywood world, they also took the opportunity to discuss the importance of their work in a Q&A moderated by Medill Professor Mei-Ling Hopgood. Their conversation, which included questions submitted by students, followed a screening of the award-winning film. Both portions were sponsored by A&O Productions and Studio 22.

For the uninitiated, Spotlight recounts the Boston Globe’s coverage of sexual abuse in the Roman Catholic Church and the investigative team, called – wait for it – Spotlight, that broke the news. Pfeiffer and Robinson were two journalists on that team.

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NEW YORK
New York Daily News

BY STEPHEN REX BROWN NEW YORK DAILY NEWS Wednesday, April 20, 2016

One of the city’s district attorneys is in favor of extending the criminal statute of limitations on charges of sexual abuse of children — but the others refused to take a stand.

Queens District Attorney Richard Brown’s support of overhauling the oft-maligned law barring criminal charges after the victim turns 23 years old comes as the state Senate considers a bill to do just that.

“We have long been supportive of extending the criminal statute of limitations for young victims of sexual abuse,” Kevin Ryan, a Brown spokesman, told the Daily News.

But other district attorneys were more reluctant to tackle the issue.

The offices of Brooklyn District Attorney Kenneth Thompson, Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr. and Bronx District Attorney Darcel Clark all referred The News to the District Attorneys Association of the State of New York.

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MINNESOTA
Washington Post

By Associated Press April 19

MINNEAPOLIS — A Catholic priest who was deported to his native India after completing his jail sentence in Minnesota for sexually abusing a child is the subject of a new lawsuit against a diocese in India that allegedly returned him to ministry with Vatican approval.

Attorney Jeff Anderson filed the lawsuit in federal court in Minnesota on Monday on behalf of Megan Peterson, who says the Rev. Joseph Palanivel Jeyapaul abused her starting in 2004 when she was 14 or 15 and he was a priest at her church in the northern Minnesota town of Greenbush. Her lawsuit seeks unspecified damages in excess of $75,000 from the Ootacamund Diocese in India’s Tamil Nadu state.

“This is not only shocking, it’s a total break of the pledge Pope Francis has made that he will not return to the practices of the past,” Anderson said.

Peterson said at a news conference Tuesday that she felt “abused, degraded and re-victimized all over again” when she learned that Bishop Arulappan Amalraj lifted Jeyapaul’s suspension in February after consulting with the Vatican.

“Children deserve to be protected in India and nobody is doing this at this point,” Peterson said.

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MINNESOTA
Star Tribune

By Jean Hopfensperger Star Tribune APRIL 19, 2016

Megan Peterson was astounded to learn that the Vatican had reinstated a priest from India who was convicted last year of sexually abusing a teenage girl in northern Minnesota.

She took her fight to remove that priest, the Rev. Paul Jeyapaul, to federal court Tuesday, filing a lawsuit to prevent him from “harming the children of India.”

Jeyapaul is among a handful of foreign Catholic priests to be successfully extradited to the United States to face charges of sexually abusing a minor. He pleaded guilty to criminal sexual conduct against a teenager at his Minnesota parish in 2015.

Peterson accused Jeyapaul of rape and sexual abuse in a civil suit that was settled out of court in 2011.

“This Pope has said that bishops who cover up [sexual abuse] and the offending clerics have no place in the church,” Peterson said at a news conference in St. Paul Tuesday. “I feel like this is a slap in the face.”

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MINNESOTA
Valley News Live

ST. PAUL (Valley News Live) – A federal lawsuit was filed Tuesday against an Indian Bishop for reinstating a priest convicted of sexual abuse in Minnesota. The federal lawsuit names the Diocese of Ootacamund, India, as defendants.

A press conference was held at the law office of Jeff Anderson & Associates. They say Bishop Amalraj, with permission from Pope Francis, returned Father Joseph Jeyapaul to ministry after his sexual abuse conviction.

Survivor Megan Peterson will spoke publicly about the lawsuit, saying Jeyapaul’s return to ministry endangers kids in India.

In 2015, after his extradition from India, Jeyapaul pleaded guilty to criminal sexual conduct involving the sexual abuse of a minor girl while he worked in the Diocese of Crookston in 2005.

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MINNESOTA
New York Daily News

BY MICHAEL O’KEEFFE NEW YORK DAILY NEWS Updated: Tuesday, April 19, 2016

A Catholic diocese in India has put children at risk by reinstating the priest who allegedly assaulted a sexual abuse survivor, according to an explosive lawsuit filed Tuesday in Minnesota federal court.

The suit filed by veteran sex abuse attorney Jeff Anderson on behalf of former New Yorker Megan Peterson, who recently moved to Wisconsin, names the Diocese of Ootacamund in southern India as the sole defendant.

“This is about protecting children in India from the callous antics of the bishop of Ootacamund,” said Peterson, a member of the advocacy group SNAP (Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests).

Peterson, who grew up in Greenbush, Minn., says she was a devout 14-year-old altar server and church choir member when the Rev. Joseph Jeyapaul first raped her in his parish office.

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UNITED STATES
Washington Post

By Editorial Board
April 19

IN THREE years at the helm of the Catholic Church, Pope Francis has been a source of inspiration for millions of faithful around the world. In one critical respect, however, he has fallen short of his own promise: to come fully to terms with decades of child sex abuse by clergymen and the institutional cover granted to them by bishops and cardinals.

Francis has pledged “the zealous vigilance of the Church to protect children and the promise of accountability for all.” Yet there has been scant accountability, particularly for bishops. Too often, the church’s stance has been defiance and obstruction.

In his trip to the United States in the fall, Francis told victims that “words cannot fully express my sorrow for the abuse you suffered.” Yet his initiative to establish a Vatican tribunal to judge bishops who enabled or ignored pedophile priests has come to naught. Not a single bishop has been called to account by the tribunal, which itself remains more notional than real.

Meanwhile, church officials have fought bills in state legislatures across the United States that would allow thousands of abuse victims to seek justice in court. The legislation would loosen deadlines limiting when survivors can bring lawsuits against abusers or their superiors who turned a blind eye. Many victims, emotionally damaged by the abuse they have suffered, do not speak until years after they were victimized; by then, in many states, it is too late for them to force priests and other abusers to account in court.

Eight states have lifted such deadlines, known as statutes of limitations, for victims who are sexually abused as minors. Seven states have gone further, enacting measures allowing past victims — not just current and future ones — to file lawsuits in a finite period of time, generally a two- or three-year window.

In many more states, however, the bishops and their staffs have successfully killed such bills, arguing that it would be unfair to subject the church to lawsuits in which memories and evidence are degraded by the passage of time. Quietly, they also say the church, which has suffered an estimated $3 billion hit in settlements and other costs related to clergy sex abuse scandals nationwide, can ill afford further financial exposure.

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UNITED STATES
National Catholic Reporter

Michael Sean Winters | Apr. 19, 2016

The forced resignation of Tony Spence as editor-in-chief of the Catholic News Service is regrettable in the extreme. Spence has been a bulwark for maintaining the editorial independence of CNS, which is its value, even when that independence has rankled some of the bishops. If CNS were to lose its well-earned reputation for independent reporting, it would be worthless.

I normally would not write about a personnel matter. I was not at the meeting at which Spence says his resignation was demanded. Employers often have unspoken rationales for the decisions they make in these situations. But, it seems to me that this incident warrants attention for some reasons that transcend the particulars of the case.

The forced resignation came on the heels of stories in several right-wing blogs that called attention to the fact that Spence had sent out tweets offering a negative judgment on some legislative efforts to restrict LGBT rights. As the editor of a news agency, the tweets were ill-advised and confirmed me in my decision to use my Twitter account solely to send out links to my articles. But, a tweet can be taken down and an employee told not to tweet anymore. I do not see this as an offense worthy of firing. And, let’s not kid ourselves: If Spence had tweeted support for the anti-LGBT laws, I am confident he would still be at his desk this morning.

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MINNESOTA
CBS Minnesota

MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) — An Indian priest who was convicted of sexual abuse against a minor in Minnesota is now back in ministry.

Father Joseph Jeyapaul was convicted last summer for sexually abusing a girl when he was working at the Blessed Sacrament in Greenbush and St. Joseph’s in Middle River in 2004 and 2005.

Jayapaul was ordained in India and was assigned to the Diocese of Crookston, Minnesota.

Now, county attorneys say with permission from the Vatican, Jeyapaul is back to work in India.

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CANADA
CBC News

A Barrhaven high school teacher has been charged with sexual assault and sexual interference after several incidents involving one of his students earlier this year, Ottawa police say.

A police investigation into Naoum Abi-Samra was launched when the force received allegations the 57-year-old had “made sexual comments and inappropriately touched one of his students,” a media release issued Monday states.

He had been working at Pierre-Savard high school in Barrhaven since September 2012, but was suspended when the central east French Catholic school board, Conseil des écoles catholiques du Centre-Est (CECCE), became aware of the allegations on March 11, according to Celine Bourbonnais, the board’s spokesperson.

Prior to working at Pierre-Savard Abi-Samra taught at another CECCE school, but the board would not say which.

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NEW HAMPSHIRE
ABC News

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
CONCORD, N.H. — Apr 19, 2016

A Roman Catholic priest who served as the face of the church in New Hampshire during the sex abuse scandal was granted parole Tuesday on two of his convictions for stealing $300,000 from a hospital, a bishop and a dead priest’s estate. But he’ll still serve at least two more years in jail to complete his full sentence.

Monsignor Edward Arsenault pleaded guilty to three theft charges in 2014. He was granted parole on the first two charges but will not be eligible for parole on the third for two more years.

Prosecutors said Arsenault, who has also been ordered to repay the money, billed the church for lavish meals and travel for himself and often a male partner. He was convicted of writing checks from the dead priest’s estate to himself and his brother and billing Catholic Medical Center $250 an hour for consulting work he never did.

Arsenault held senior positions in the New Hampshire diocese from 1999 to 2009. He had been the top lieutenant for then-Bishop John McCormack, handling both a clergy sexual abuse crisis in New Hampshire and orchestrating the church’s new child protection policies.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

By the National Reporting Team’s Natasha Robinson and Alison Branley

Hundreds of cases of child sex abuse going back decades may be reopened after the Catholic Church publicly abandoned a controversial practice known as blind reporting.

Blind reporting occurs when an organisation passes on an allegation of child sex abuse, but strips the report of the name of the victim, meaning police are unable to investigate the report.

NSW Greens MP David Shoebridge has obtained documents under Freedom of Information (FOI) laws that, for the first time, reveal the extraordinary extent of blind reporting, which has potentially allowed hundreds of perpetrators to continue to abuse children.

The ABC has spoken to child sex abuse victims who are angry the allegations they reported to the Catholic Church some years ago were never fully reported to police.

The figures obtained by Mr Shoebridge reveal during the past eight years, NSW Police have received 1,476 blind reports from NSW organisations.

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TEXAS
KRGV

MCALLEN – A former priest facing charges in a 1960 murder case appeared in court today for a pretrial hearing.

John Feit is accused of killing McAllen school teacher Irene Garza. Garza disappeared after going to confession at Sacred Heart Catholic Church. Her body was found in a canal a week later.

In March, a judge set the 83-year-old’s bond at $1 million. Defense attorneys for Feit had filed for a bond reduction. However, the bond reduction wasn’t mentioned in this morning’s hearing.

Instead, defense attorney went over several other motions, which were all approved without any objections from prosecutors. They requested permission to examine all the physical evidence and get a copy of the witness list.

Feit’s attorneys asked the judge for a signed order granting them access to the church and the San Juan pastoral center. The defense lawyer said they were declined access earlier.

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