ABUSE TRACKER

UNITED KINGDOM
Wigan Today

A Catholic priest accused of historical sex abuse at a former Wigan seminary appeared in the dock today.

Father Michael Higginbottom pleaded not guilty at Liverpool Crown Court to six sex offences allegedly involving two young boys in the late 1970s.

The 73-year-old, who now lives in the North East, is currently suspended from St Augustine’s Roman Catholic Church, in Darlington.

The priest, who was wearing a dark suit and blue shirt and tie, pleaded not guilty to two offences of indecently assaulting one boy who was aged 12-13.

He also denied two offences of indecently assaulting the other boy, also aged 13 and two offences of buggery against him.

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FRANCE
La Depeche

Cellules d’écoute partout en France, commission d’expertise “indépendante”: l’Église catholique a annoncé mardi une série de mesures visant à faire “la lumière” sur la pédophilie dans ses rangs, y compris sur les faits les plus anciens, après les révélations en cascade qui l’ont ébranlée.

Ces annonces étaient très attendues de la part d’un épiscopat sous le feu des critiques ces dernières semaines. Premier visé: le cardinal Philippe Barbarin.

Archevêque de Lyon depuis 2002, Mgr Barbarin est ciblé par deux enquêtes pour “non-dénonciation” d’agressions sexuelles, notamment à la suite de la mise en examen fin janvier d’un prêtre, Bernard Preynat, pour des actes pédophiles commis il y a plus de 25 ans sur de jeunes scouts lyonnais.

À l’origine de ces enquêtes, qui ont mené à des perquisitions à l’archevêché: des plaintes de victimes regroupées dans une association, La Parole libérée, qui reprochent au cardinal Barbarin de ne pas avoir informé la justice des anciens agissements du Père Preynat, laissé en poste jusqu’en 2015.

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FRANCE
Le Point

AFP

Le président de la Conférence des évêques de France (CEF), Mgr Georges Pontier, s’est engagé, mardi, à mettre en place une série de mesures pour mieux lutter contre la pédophilie dans l’Église, dont la création de « cellules d’écoute » des victimes dans tous les diocèses ou provinces. La CEF a annoncé ces nouvelles dispositions à la presse à l’issue d’une réunion de son « conseil permanent », l’exécutif de l’épiscopat, alors que l’Église catholique en France est ébranlée depuis plus de deux mois par des révélations d’affaires de pédophilie ou d’agressions sexuelles impliquant des prêtres.

L’une de ses figures, le cardinal Philippe Barbarin, archevêque de Lyon, est actuellement visé par deux enquêtes pour non-dénonciation, notamment à la suite de la mise en examen fin janvier du père Bernard Preynat pour des actes pédophiles commis il y a plus de 25 ans sur de jeunes scouts lyonnais. « Dans l’histoire des diocèses, des cas particuliers demeurent, même anciens, sur lesquels il est nécessaire de faire la lumière. Nous nous engageons à faire ce travail comme nous le faisons sur les cas portés à notre connaissance, notamment par les victimes », a déclaré mardi Mgr Pontier.
Un site internet

Des « cellules d’accueil et d’écoute » seront mises en place au niveau des diocèses ou des provinces ecclésiastiques (regroupements de diocèses), a annoncé le président de la CEF. « Un site internet dédié, notamment à l’accueil des victimes, permettra à celles-ci d’entrer en contact avec cette cellule locale. Dès aujourd’hui et dans l’attente de la mise en place du site internet, l’adresse mail paroledevictimes@cef.fr est ouverte aux victimes », a-t-il poursuivi.

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FRANCE
The Local

The Catholic Church in France on Tuesday pledged to shed light on all cases of paedophilia, including “historic cases”, following a scandal over an archbishop accused of covering up a priest’s crimes.

The bishops’ conference also decided that special groups would be set up to listen to complaints from victims of sexual abuse and an “independent national commission” would be created to investigate alleged cases.

“Individual cases remain in our dioceses, even historic cases, and we need to shed light on them,” said Archbishop Georges Pontier, president of the French bishops conference.

“We pledge to do this work just as we treat cases brought to our attention, particularly by victims,” he said.

So-called “listening cells” will be set up in every diocese to hear complaints from victims, Pontier added.

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PENNSYLVANIA
Huffington Post

Jennifer Sabin
Writer, editor, self-styled political pundit, and former ABC News journalist

Pope Francis just issued his long-awaited statement, Amori Laetitia, calling for less judgment and more tolerance of gays, non-traditional families, and people who are divorced. I applaud his more compassionate approach. But his statement would have had a more profound impact if he had also written the reverse and called for more judgment, less tolerance of Catholic priests who rape children and the bishops who protect them. When is this popular pontiff going to take a stronger stand on sexual abuse?

There’s a line in the movie Spotlight that I haven’t been able to get out of my head:

“If it takes a village to raise a child, it takes a village to abuse one.”

The sentiment is attributed to attorney Mitch Garabedian (played by Stanley Tucci), who has represented many victims of pedophile priests and was one of the Boston Globe‘s primary sources for the groundbreaking story that is the basis for the Oscar-winning film. It took a village – a city – to protect Boston priests and cover up atrocities against children, and it took a village in Pennsylvania as well – the Diocese of Altoona-Johnstown – to permit and cover up the abuse of hundreds of children by fifty Catholic priests. A recently released grand jury report details that abuse and its aftermath, and it is a dark reminder that this has happened all over the country, and indeed, the world. And so it will take a world leader – Pope Francis – to make meaningful change that will begin to fix this horrific problem.

The grand jury report says church officials, including two bishops, “placed their desire to avoid public scandal over the well-being of innocent children.” For over forty years they continued to allow pedophile priests to work with children, did little or nothing to help victims, and kept the law out of their business. In a number of cases, as in Spotlight, those charged with carrying out the law protected the priests and the Catholic Church itself.

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KENTUCKY
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

Victims to protest huge Protestant conference
Several controversial ministers are set to speak
Their denomination is accused of hiding predators
It’s now based in Louisville and has 70 churches as members
Group says ministers’ roles “will deter others from reporting abuse”
SNAP: “And it rubs salt into the deep wounds of those hurt on their watch”

WHAT
Holding signs, clergy sex abuse victims and their supporters will hand leaflets to church members outside a big Protestant conference. The fliers urge attendees to

–tell conference organizers they’re wrong to let a minister who’s accused of hiding child sex crimes speak at the event, and
–boycott conference sessions led by several controversial clergymen

WHEN
Tuesday, April 12, noon until 2:00 p.m.

WHERE
Near the fountain outside the T4G conference at KFC Yum! Center in Louisville KY

WHO
About five members of a support group called SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, including some whose loved ones were sexually violated by members of a controversial Louisville-based Protestant denomination

WHY
A support group for clergy sex abuse victims is protesting at a major religious conference because a pastor who has allegedly concealed child sex crimes by at least 15 accused offenders will speak, along with other ministers in his controversial, Louisville-based denomination.

Rev. C. J. Mahaney is the former head of Sovereign Grace Ministries (SGM), now known as Sovereign Grace Churches (SGC). It has roughly 70 churches across the US (mainly in eastern states) and in Australia, Bolivia, Ethiopia, Great Britain, Germany and Mexico.

He is a plenary presenter at the biennial international Together for the Gospel (T4G16) conference which is expected to draw 8,000 participants to Louisville on April 12-14.http://t4g.org/, http://t4g.org/speakers/

But in October, Mahaney was accused in civil lawsuits of ignoring and hiding known and suspected child sexual abuse by church staff and members while he led SGM and Covenant Life Church in Maryland. And last month, SNAP leaders urged conference organizers to rescind their invitation to Mahaney, but they ignored SNAP’s request.

Even before that, alleged victims of SGC/SGM predators and their family members and other concerned individuals privately and individually conveyed to T4G conference organizers and scheduled speakers their strong objections to Mahaney and SGM officials having any role at the event.

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PENNSYLVANIA
CBS Philly

April 11, 2016 By Tony Romeo

HARRISBURG, Pa. (CBS) — A bill that would give victims of child sex abuse more time to seek justice is now teed up for a vote in the state House this week.

The House Monday debated amendments to a bill that would eliminate the statute of limitations for criminal prosecutions, and would give victims of child sex abuse until the age of 50, instead of the current age of 30, to bring civil cases.

The House passed one amendment that would make that extension for civil cases retroactive. Republican Thomas Murt of Philadelphia and Montgomery County offered another amendment that would suspend the civil statute of limitations to create a two-year window for past victims to sue.

“I resent anyone saying that this issue is being driven by special interests, by trial lawyers,” Murt said. “This issue is being driven by victims.”

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NORTHERN IRELAND
Belfast Telegraph

By Rebecca Black
PUBLISHED
12/04/2016

A key witness in the Kincora child abuse scandal says he will not give evidence to the Institutional Abuse Inquiry in Northern Ireland.

Roy Garland has claimed the Banbridge-based Hart Inquiry cannot find the answers for generations of victims who suffered abuse at Kincora Boys Home in east Belfast because it does not have the power to compel witnesses to give evidence.

Last week the High Court refused an application by a Kincora victim for a judicial review of Secretary of State Theresa Villier’s decision not to include the former home in the more powerful UK-wide Goddard inquiry.

Mr Garland said the Historical Institutional Abuse inquiry (HIA) asked him to attend and he agreed on the premise it was a “serious inquiry”. Now, after voicing disappointment at the refusal to include Kincora in the Goddard inquiry, Mr Garland said he will not give evidence to the HIA.

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VATICAN CITY
Catholic Herald (UK)

by Cindy Wooden
posted Tuesday, 12 Apr 2016

Nicola Maio said he was put under ‘psychological pressure’ while working on the commission set up to investigate Vatican finances

The man who served as executive secretary of a commission Pope Francis established to study Vatican finances said he never gave documents of any kind to Italian journalists and, in fact, met the two reporters only when he and they entered a Vatican courtroom to face charges connected to the leaking of the documents.

Nicola Maio, former executive secretary and assistant to Spanish Mgr Lucio Vallejo Balda, secretary of the Prefecture for the Economic Affairs of the Holy See, testified at the criminal trial in the Vatican on April 11.

Maio is on trial along with the monsignor and Francesca Chaouqui, a member of the former Pontifical Commission for Reference on the Economic-Administrative Structure of the Holy See, for “divulging news and documents concerning fundamental interests” of the Vatican.

In addition, the Vatican has charged two Italian journalists — Gianluigi Nuzzi, author of Merchants in the Temple, and Emiliano Fittipaldi, author of Avarice of soliciting the documents and exercising pressure on the defendants, especially Mgr Vallejo Balda.

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VATICAN CITY
National Catholic Reporter

Joshua J. McElwee | Apr. 12, 2016

VATICAN CITY
Pope Francis has replaced the Vatican’s ambassador to the United States just days after he was lauded by the country’s bishops at their seminary in Rome during a posh annual honors banquet.

Italian Archbishop Carlo Viganò — who has represented the Vatican in Washington since 2011 but came under scrutiny when his name surfaced last year in questions over how Francis came to meet controversial Kentucky county clerk Kim Davis during his September U.S. trip — will be succeeded by French Archbishop Christophe Pierre.

The replacement of what is formally known as the apostolic nuncio to the United States, which had been rumored for months, was announced by the Vatican Tuesday. Viganò had turned 75, the traditional retirement age for Catholic bishops, in January.

Until his new appointment, Pierre had been serving as the Vatican’s representative in Mexico. In that role since 2007, he has previously served as apostolic nuncio in both Uganda and Haiti.

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WASHINGTON (DC)
WTOP

By Neal Augenstein | @AugensteinWTOP
April 11, 2016

WASHINGTON — Saying he has “waited long enough,” the ex-lawyer of “D.C. Madam” Deborah Jeane Palfrey has released some of the names of companies, government agencies and organizations that had called her escort service between 2000 and 2006.

In a court filing in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia obtained by WTOP, Montgomery Blair Sibley included the names of 174 of the entities that had dialed Palfrey’s business, Pamela Martin & Associates. No individuals’ names were listed. …

Others listed in the filing include the Archdiocese of Washington, Embassy of Japan, Bethlehem Steel, Constellation Energy/BGE, Hewlett-Packard, Johns Hopkins University, Washington Gas and several large law firms.

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GUAM
Pacific News Center

Written by Janela Carrera

Father Luis Camacho was arrested last year and charged with custodial interference. He resigned as priest of two Southern churches as a result.

Guam – Another member of the Catholic Church is calling for the resignation of Archbishop Anthony Apuron, but not over recent concerns over the Redemptoris Mater Seminary. Teri Untalan says a priest who was accused of sexual misconduct with a minor last year is now once again in active ministry involving youth.

Teri Untalan is a member of the Santa Barbara Catholic parish but is not part of any formal group. She wrote to Archbishop Anthony Apuron yesterday calling for his resignation.

“I wrote this letter on my behalf and on behalf of all anonymous Catholics I suppose, friends of mine, people that I know that have come up to me and asked what can we do, what can be done,” explains Untalan.

Untalan says she and many others recently became aware of the whereabouts of Father Luis Camacho. Father Camacho resigned as pastor of the two churches he was overseeing last year March here on Guam after he was arrested and charged with custodial interference for picking up a 17-year-old student without permission from school and taking her to a secluded beach.

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VATICAN CITY
Catholic Culture

April 12, 2016

Pope Francis has appointed Archbishop Christophe Pierre as apostolic nuncio to the United States of America.

Archbishop Pierre succeeds Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, who has served in the position since 2011 and reached the retirement age of 75 in January.

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CITTA’ DEL VATICANO
Bollettino

[Pope Francis has appointed Christophe Pierre as papal nuncio to the United States.]

Il Santo Padre Francesco ha nominato Nunzio Apostolico negli Stati Uniti d’America S.E. Mons. Christophe Pierre, Arcivescovo titolare di Gunela, finora Nunzio Apostolico in Messico.

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CANADA
Sudbury Star

Catholics who grew up in the 1950s and 60s were taught that priests were next to God, filled — emboldened even — with the Holy Spirit to do God’s work. They had influence and enjoyed respect.

They were, of course, just men, then as today. In too many cases, Catholics in Sudbury and northeastern Ontario have discovered in recent years, an alarming number of their priests were not particularly good men, as far from God or the Holy Spirit as one could imagine.

Bernard Cloutier, Donald Holmes, William Hodgson “Hod” Marshall, Thomas O’Dell, Gerald Roy and John E. Sullivan are priests who served in Sudbury and northeastern Ontario who have been found guilty during the last decade of sex crimes, some more horrible than others. One of them, Marshall, was even principal for a time at St. Charles when it was a prestigious all-boys school.

Most of their victims were young boys, either altar boys or other members of their congregation put into their care. They acted as predators, exploiting their positions as trusted members of their clergy to act on their baser instincts.

The pain inflicted by their perversions resurfaced in a Sudbury courtroom this week. A man identified only as P.J.J. had brought a $3-million lawsuit against the Episcopal Corporation of the Diocese of Sault Ste. Marie and Sullivan. However, Sullivan, who was 90, died on Easter Sunday, and on Wednesday of last week, the church fired its lawyers.

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PENNSYLVANIA
ABC 27

By Dave Marcheskie
Published: April 11, 2016

HARRISBURG, Pa. (WHTM) – Dozens of sex abuse survivors rallied in the state Capitol to urge lawmakers to reform Pennsylvania’s statute of limitations.

Gut-wrenching stories were shared at the bottom of the Rotunda steps Monday morning as survivors relived the most traumatic and painful experience of their lives with strangers.

“It doesn’t go away,” one woman said. “It stays fresh in our minds and our hearts.”

A woman whose brother was murdered by his significant other discussed the traumatizing ordeal of seeking justice in a fragile system.

“We could not take a chance she could walk free and not pay for this horrible crime,” she said.

Dozens filled the Rotunda with signs urging lawmakers to grant certain rights to survivors.

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AUSTRALIA
Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse

12 April, 2016

The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse has just completed its 5,000th private session.

The 5,000th private session took place in Brisbane with a man in his 60’s who shared his experience of child sexual abuse in out-of-home care in the 1960s.

As well as completing its 5,000th private session, the Royal Commission has now made over 1,000 referrals to authorities, including police.

Private sessions allow survivors of child sexual abuse in an institution to share their story directly with a Commissioner in a private setting.

Royal Commission Chief Executive Officer Philip Reed said that private sessions are an essential and ongoing component of the work being undertaken by the Royal Commission, alongside public hearings and policy development.

“There is a great need for many survivors to be able to tell their story,” Mr Reed said.

“The Royal Commission acknowledges the courage of those people who have shared their story.

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CANADA
The Telegram

Barb Sweet
Published on April 11, 2016

Some 60 years ago, two boys without winter coats dragged a cardboard box of meagre belongings through the snow together after being expelled from Mount Cashel.

Neither spoke to each other about sexual abuse nor could they fathom ever being listened to about it, they told The Telegram outside court Monday in St. John’s.

Parting after one stayed with the other’s family for a short time, the boys — now men in their late 70s — said they did not speak for decades.

Then they bumped into each other at the police station as a result of the 1989 Hughes Inquiry into the scandal surrounding sexual abuse of a different era of young boys at Mount Cashel — during the 1970s and 1980s.

“I thought he was dead,” one man said of the other of that long-ago chance meeting at the station, where neither was privy to what either said to police.

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PENNSYLVANIA
WITF

Written by Mary Wilson, Capitol Bureau Chief | Apr 11, 2016

A long-sought measure to retroactively change the statute of limitations on child sex abuse cases has been queued up for a final vote in the state House.

The proposal would erase the statute of limitations in criminal cases of child sex abuse going forward, and extend the limit for civil cases from the victim’s 30th birthday to when he or she turns 50.

House lawmakers also approved a tweak on Monday that will apply the civil suit extension retroactively to victims whose cases have already been time-barred. That means child sex abuse victims older than 30 would be able to bring a civil suit until their 50th birthday under the proposal.

The amendment was offered by Democratic Representative Mark Rozzi of Berks County, who said victims should have more time to bring suit, since they often take decades to speak about their abuse.

“My amendment does not help everyone but it at least opens the door,” said Rozzi in a speech on the House floor before his amendment passed overwhelmingly. “More work needs to be done. We can’t change what happened to the innocents of the past, but we can make it right.”

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AUSTRALIA
Sydney Morning Herald

April 12, 2016

Beau Donelly

The nine-year-old girl who always volunteered to sit on the priest’s lap to steer his car – knowing what he would do to her – because she wanted to protect her younger cousin from being touched.

A family driven out of town by their neighbours after the father reported a local teacher for abusing his daughter. The Aboriginal boys on the mission who laughed off the abuse at the hands of their superintendent. A toddler tied up in the kitchen and abused by her foster father.

These are some of the more than 5000 stories recounted by victims in private sessions to the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse over the past three years.
The abuse was perpetrated by adults against children. It happened across the nation in homes, schools, places of worship, sporting clubs, workplaces, orphanages, health services, juvenile justice centres.

Data from the royal commission shows survivors were, on average, aged 10 years old when they were first abused. A third of girls and almost one fifth of boys were aged under eight.

It also shows that:

* On average, the abuse continued for 2.8 years.
* Most people were abused multiple times.
* About 90 per cent of offenders were male.
* It took survivors an average 24 years to disclose their abuse.
* Almost nine in 10 survivors said they now experience poor mental health.
* 60 per cent say they have relationship difficulties.

The private sessions, which are held in motel rooms in all capital cities and many regional areas, allow victims and people who are aware of child abuse to share their stories one-on-one with a commissioner.

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SCOTLAND
Scotsman

CHILD sex abuse shames society, but suggesting the Catholic church has a disporporionate problem is a terrible deception writes Peter Kearney

The Catholic church in Scotland has been reasonably criticised in recent years over failings in the field of safeguarding. The media attention given to the church has been significant and for the most part, negative. It has however, become very difficult to determine whether or not the criticism is proportionate, balanced or fair.

Last year, a commission chaired by Dr Andrew McLellan and charged with examining Safeguarding in the church, put forward eight recommendations – all of which were accepted. Three months later, the Church published its “Implementation Plan”, setting out the action it will take, with timescales and accountability.

The McLellan Commission took just under two years to complete its report, implementing its recommendations will take a similar timescale, but they will all be completed by December 2017.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

By Sally Brooks

The child sex abuse royal commission’s probe into an Aboriginal school in Alice Springs has raised questions about who is ultimately responsible for student and staff welfare at non-government schools, a former staff member said.

On Monday, the ABC reported the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse requested more than two decades of information from the Lutheran Schools Association about Yirara College in Central Australia.

There is no information to suggest that the inquiry is investigating any specific allegations of child sexual abuse at the school.

Karl Bajzik worked as boarding house parent at Yirara College for about 18 months, from late 2010, and met with royal commission staff about the school in Alice Springs in January.

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ARIZONA
Fox 10

TOLLESON, Ariz. (KSAZ) – Robert Jerez is now being housed at the 4th Avenue Jail after police arrested and charged him with nine counts of sexual conduct with a minor and one count of sexual abuse.

Jerez made his initial court appearance Monday, beyond his name he had nothing else to say.

The pastor of the Grace Walk Community Church Joe Calloway says last Thursday night a 15-year-old girl who attends the church came to him and says she had been having sex with “Pastor Tony” which some kids at the church called Jerez.

Calloway says Jerez is an adult leader, not staff at the church.

“We never allow our adults to be alone with them, but I guess she had come to him with some struggles she had, and evidently he got her phone number, and they began to communicate off campus,” said Joe Calloway.

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ARIZONA
Arizona Republic

Sarah Anderson, The Republic | azcentral.com

A community church pastor in Phoenix has been charged with nine counts of sexual conduct and one count of sexual abuse, according to Maricopa County Superior Court documents.

An employee at Grace Walk Community Church on West Lower Buckeye Road in Phoenix first reported to the Tolleson Police Department on April 7 that an underage girl had talked about having a sexual relationship with Robert Jerez, 35, according to court documents. Jerez is a youth leader at the church and is known there as “Pastor Tony,” police said.

The victim told police that she had sex with Jerez more than 10 times since November 2015 and that the two of them exchanged nude photos via text messages. According to court documents, Jerez was aware of her age from the beginning, as she had filled out paperwork with her date of birth when she sat in a youth group with him.

The victim told police their first sexual encounter happened after church, when Jerez came to her apartment after her father went to work, and that she took one of her father’s oxycodone pills beforehand because she was nervous.

The victim also told police she would sometimes say no when he asked her to perform a sexual act, and he would coerce her into it anyway, or he would sometimes have sex with her without her explicit consent, the court document said. The last time they had sex, the victim said she was high on pills, according to court documents.

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ARIZONA
12 News

Trisha Hendricks, KPNX

The pastor of a church in Tolleson is condemning a youth leader who’s accused of having sex and doing drugs with a teen parishioner. Pastor Tony, as he’s known, has admitted to all of it and the girl’s father has the “sexts” to back up the sickening stories.

Robert Anthony Jerez is behind bars facing nine counts of sexual conduct with a minor and one count of sexual abuse.

The lead pastor of the church he volunteered at called police as soon as he found out.

“I was angry, I mean very, very angry,” said Joe Calloway, lead pastor at Grace Walk Community Church.

Calloway spoke with 12 News about Jerez, a former volunteer leader at his church near 79th Avenue and Lower Buckeye Road.

“It’s brought a sense of shock,” he said. “Nobody saw this coming, nobody believed this was something that could possibly happen.”

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PENNSYLVANIA
The Morning Call

Steve Esack
Call Harrisburg Bureau

HARRISBURG — At a lectern on the House floor, far below a ceiling mural that depicts the celestial passage of time, a lawmaker spoke of the pain and suffering that never ends for him and other victims of child sex abuse.

As he has done repeatedly since his election in 2013, Rep. Mark Rozzi, D-Berks, explained how he and his childhood friends were raped by an Allentown Catholic Diocese priest while growing up in Reading. One of those friends, Rozzi said, committed suicide this Good Friday after a lifetime of therapy and drug abuse.

“He was 44,” Rozzi said of the suicide victim.

Then Rozzi urged his colleagues, silent and listening closely, to remove legal deadlines for bringing criminal charges against child abusers and that prevent child-abuse victims from suing them and perhaps their employers in civil court.

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PENNSYLVANIA
We Are Central PA

Harrisburg, Dauphin County

Local advocates rallied in Harrisburg to change the laws to better protect child sex abuse victims. The rally was organized after the priest sex abuse scandal in our region.

Victim advocates and survivors kicked off National Crime Victims’ Rights Week at the state capitol Monday.

As Victim Advocate Diane Brannigan says, “The whole thing is more for people to discuss this, talk about this, not make people feel so shamed if this did happen to them.”

Attorney Josh Shapiro added, “To see so many victims, survivors and advocates coming out of the shadows, coming together gives me great hope.”

Leaders from victim advocate organizations stood before a crowd, demanding change.

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TEXAS
San Antonio Express-News

By Elaine Ayala
April 11, 2016

Father Virgilio Elizondo calls himself a sinner and asks for forgiveness and mercy in a typewritten suicide note released Monday, but does not refer to last year’s accusation that he molested a young boy who came to him for help more than 30 years ago.

A month after his death from a self-inflicted gunshot, the one-page document was released to local media Monday by attorney Thomas J. Henry, who represents a man, known only as John Doe, who alleges he was abused as a boy by a former priest named Jesus Armando Dominguez. The lawsuit alleges that when the boy reported the abuse by Dominguez to Elizondo in 1983, Elizondo kissed and fondled him.

The typed, unsigned note, titled “Farewell,” said Elizondo hoped his death would “bring healing to anyone that I might have hurt” and said his life had been “dedicated to serving others.”

Elizondo, who was 80, notes his fatigue, failing health and feeling “empty.” He quoted the Gospel of John — “Greater love no one has, (than) to lay down his life for his friends” — and said he was “offering my life as a final gift.”

“I freely choose my moment and way of giving my life to others,” the note said. “This is not a suicide but a farewell gift. I pray that the gift of my life may bring healing to anyone that I might have hurt.” …

The Archdiocese of San Antonio did not comment but released a prepared statement Monday about the note.

“Out of respect for the privacy of the Elizondo family, the Archdiocese of San Antonio feels that it would be inappropriate for us to try to interpret or comment on the meaning of the message left by Father Virgilio Elizondo,” it stated. The statement also clarified that outside of this pending litigation, the archdiocese has not been made aware of any allegation against Elizondo of sexual abuse of a minor. …

David Clohessy, executive director of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, said that argument — that survivors who wait so long after their alleged abuse don’t remember it accurately — has been particularly hard on survivors.

Clohessy, a survivor himself, has worked for the organization for more than 25 years. He said he has read dozens of suicide notes written by accused priests.

He called Elizondo’s “typical. He essentially admits it, albeit somewhat obliquely.

“Sadly, few child molesters, even as they’re dying, summon the courage to tell the truth,” he said. “Often, they come very close, and I think that’s what Father Elizondo did here. It would have been extraordinarily quick and easy to say, ‘I didn’t do this.’ Yet he didn’t.”

“It’s horrifying on so many levels,” said Clohessy, which is why he said SNAP asked San Antonio church officials “to low-key” Elizondo’s funeral.

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KENTUCKY
The Courier-Journal

Matthew Glowicki, @MattGlo
April 11, 2016

The leader of a local church who had been associated with allegations of sex abuse cover-ups is scheduled to speak this week at a religious conference for preachers, drawing the criticism of a support group for clergy sexual abuse survivors.

C.J. Mahaney, the current senior pastor of Sovereign Grace Church in Louisville, is set to speak at the Together for the Gospel conference, a gathering expected to draw thousands to town Tuesday-Thursday at the KFC Yum! Center.

Leaders with the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests plan to protest outside the conference Tuesday from noon to 2 p.m. by speaking out about the allegations against Mahaney and the church he formerly pastored, Sovereign Grace Ministries. It was a denomination comprised of a network of dozens of churches now known as Sovereign Grace Churches. The denomination moved its headquarters from Maryland to Louisville.

A 2012 civil lawsuit filed in Maryland accused Mahaney of helping to cover up sex abuse by both church leaders and members in the Maryland church, the Courier-Journal previously reported.

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ARIZONA
ABC 15

Joe Enea
Apr 11, 2016

TOLLESON, AZ – A Tolleson youth pastor has been arrested for having a sexual relationship with an underage member of his church.

Court records show 35-year-old Robert Anthony Jerez had a three-month relationship with the female victim, during which they had sex more than 10 times and shared drugs and alcohol.

Tolleson police on Thursday got a call from an employee of Grace Community Church, near 78th Avenue and Lower Buckeye Road, saying a young female churchgoer told a friend that she had a sexual relationship with “Pastor Tony.”

The victim’s father was also told this information and he relayed to police that Pastor Tony and his daughter were in a relationship from October 2015 to December 2015. The father also provided police with his daughter’s cell phone which contained texted photos between the two that were sexual in nature.

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PENNSYLVANIA
PennLive

By Ivey DeJesus | idejesus@pennlive.com

The laws that govern how long victims of child sex abuse have to bring their predators to justice came one step closer to being reformed on Monday.

A bill that would reform the statute of limitations cleared a hurdle in the House as lawmakers approved two amendments to House Bill 1947, which would eliminate civil and criminal statutes of limitations to most sex crimes, especially child sex abuse cases – all going forward.

The House agreed to attach an amendment introduced by Rep. Mark Rozzi (D-Berks) that would retroactively raise the age limit for civil lawsuits in sex abuse cases from 30 to 50.

Speaking before a House session that was notably boisterous with chatter all day, Rozzi brought the chamber to a hushed silence as he spoke about friends and victims who had either committed suicide or suffered decades of anguish after being sexually abused by priests.

Rozzi’s amendment would raise the age limit for victims to seek charges – retroactively — from 30 to 50.

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SOUTH DAKOTA
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Monday, April 11, 2016

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

Victims urge bishop to act on abuse
Group wants “outreach” about SD predator
He was just sued for child sex crimes in Texas
But he’s an SD native and worked here too

A support group for clergy sex abuse victims is urging South Dakota Catholic officials to “aggressively reach out” to victims of a recently-sued predator priest.

Last month, Fr. Milton “Milty” Eggerling was accused for the first time in Texas sex abuse and cover-up lawsuit. In it, the victim charges that Eggerling lured him with special treatment, gifts of money, and outings before sexually abusing him. The abuse, which took place in the 1970s, began when the boy was 11 years old.

The lawsuit also says that Austin, Texas, church officials—including the bishop—knew or should have known about the abuse and did little to nothing to stop it.

[Statesman]

SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAPnetwork.org)—the nation’s largest support group for men and women sexually abused in religious and institutional settings—wants Sioux Falls Bishop Paul J. Swain to reach out to anyone who may have encountered Eggerling during his time in the state.

The group fears that there may be more victims who are suffering in shame and silence. SNAP also wants to encourage witnesses and whistleblowers to come forward and share what they know.

Eggerling was a native of South Dakota, born and raised in the Sioux Fall Diocese. After his ordination into the priesthood, he worked at churches and schools in Lennox, Worthing, Howard, Marion, Aberdeen, and Sioux Falls, SD from the 1950s to the early 1970s.

[BishopAccountability.org]

“We’re concerned because our experience has shown us that Eggerling may have victims across the Sioux Falls Diocese,” said David Clohessy of SNAP. “Predators never have just one victim. Bishop Swain has a moral duty and the Christian obligation to reach out to anyone who may be hurting or who may have information about Eggerling in South Dakota.”

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UNITED STATES
Brent Detwiler

Sunday, April 10, 2016

The Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals is a coalition of pastors, scholars, and churchmen who hold the historic creeds and confessions of the Reformed faith and who proclaim biblical doctrine in order to foster a Reformed awakening in today’s Church.

The organization has a website called Mortification of Spin (i.e., the killing of deceit). Carl Trueman, Todd Pruitt, and Aimee Byrd are featured bloggers on the site.

It is significant, therefore, that Todd Pruitt called for C.J. Mahaney’s removal from Together for the Gospel yesterday (link). The conference starts on Tuesday. He said, “I appeal therefore to the organizers of T4G to remove C.J. Mahaney not only from the roster of speakers but also from the organization itself.”

Pruitt also called upon Mark Dever, Ligon Duncan, and Al Mohler to make “a humble statement asking forgiveness for not acting sooner” in the removal of Mahaney from Together for the Gospel and exhorted them to take a “posture of solidarity with the victims of the abuse in SGM churches.”

I’ve included his post below.

Mahaney used to be a Council Member on the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals along with the men listed below in 2011. That’s the year I sent out The Documents. The Council has since been disbanded but the Alliance remains active, influential and well connected in the Reformed Church.

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NEW YORK
Catholic League

Bill Donohue comments on a bill that will soon be introduced in Albany that will eliminate the statute of limitations for sexual abuse crimes against minors:

On April 1, I issued a news release that was critical of New York State Senator Brad Hoylman for sponsoring a bill that would exclude public institutions from legislation eliminating the statute of limitations for sexual abuse crimes.

I now commend him for pivoting. According to an exclusive by Ken Lovett of the Daily News (he has covered this issue better than anyone), Hoylman, and State Senator Andrea-Stewart Cousins, will submit a bill that covers all institutions equally, whether public or private. That is how it should be: justice demands that young victims of sex crimes be treated equally, independent of the venue of the offense.

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VATICAN CITY
Rome Reports

[with video]

2016-04-11

On Monday, the former executive secretary of the Cosea Commission, working under Monsignor Vallejo Balda, Nicola Maio made some declarations, as he has also been accused in the Vatileaks 2 case.

He acknowledged that he had access to all documents relating to the Cosea Commission and the Secretariat for the Economy but denies stealing the information and providing it to the two journalists, Fittipaldi and Nuzzi whom, he said he does not know. He further indicated that Francesca Chaouqui never asked him steal this information.

He assured that the only thing he felt pressured by was the responsibility of the work he was doing. He explained to the judge that the tasks entrusted onto him were that of the “will of the Pope.”

He said that he could not negate what Vallejo Balda asked him to do because he was his superior and only did what he asked. He explained that he had no way to checking if what Vallejo Balda was asking him to do was lawful or not because the chain of command was headed by Pope, then by Vallejo Balda and he was the last chain of command. “The only way to know the truth was to knock on the Pope’s door to find out and that was impossible,” he said.

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VATICAN CITY
CT Post

VATICAN CITY (AP) — A secretary on trial in the leaks of confidential Vatican documents has testified that he was compelled to do what his boss wanted because the monsignor reported directly to the pope and he was in no position to refuse.

Nicola Maio testified Monday that he did have legitimate access to documentation, given he was executive secretary of a papal reform commission. But he denied leaking it to two journalists, whose blockbuster books detailed waste, greed and mismanagement in the Holy See administration.

Maio said when his boss, Monsignor Angelo Lucio Vallejo Balda, asked him to get a document, he did so: “Who was I to say no?”

Vallejo has admitted he leaked the papers.

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INDIANA
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Monday, April 11, 2016

For more information: David Clohessy 314 566 9790, 314 645 5915 home, davidgclohessy@gmail.com, Barbara Dorris 314 503 0003 cell, bdorris@SNAPnetwork.org

Notre Dame prof publicly discounts abuse allegations
Survivors urge his superior to denounce “this hurtful move”
University head should discipline the cleric, support group says
SNAP: “President should also use this opportunity to educate the rest of his staff”

A Notre Dame professor who is also a priest recently defended a fellow faculty member and a cleric who has been accused of child sexual abuse in Texas. A victims’ group wants the university’s president to discipline the professor for his “hurtful” public remarks.

Father Daniel Groody (574-631-3233, dgroody@nd.edu) is an Associate Professor of Theology at Notre Dame, as well as the Director of Immigration Initiatives at the Institute for Latino Studies. The priest spoke at the funeral of Father Virgilio Elizondo.

In a pending San Antonio lawsuit, Fr. Elizondo is of groping an orphan who confined in the priest that he had suffered long term abuse at the hands of another clergyman. However, Fr. Elizondo took his own life before he could give testimony in the case.

[The Observer]

[Daily Mail]

During a service last week, Fr. Groody claimed that Fr. Elizondo was accused of abuse “not because he was a serial abuser, but because he was a highly visible, accomplished, respected cleric. …” However, although Elizondo denied the allegations when he was alive, members of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, believe that the suicide note Elizondo left suggested that he was indeed guilty.

[The Observer]

[Daily Mail]

Two SNAP leaders are writing to Father John I. Jenkins, the President of Notre Dame (574-631-3903 president@nd.edu), urging him to discipline Groody for his remarks, saying that they were not only extremely hurtful but could also deter other survivors from coming forward. The text of the letter, sent earlier today by email, is below.

“Many abusers tell their victims that no one will believe them over a respected man of the cloth,” said David Clohessy, SNAP’s director. “When clergy members dismiss out of hand allegations against other priests, it sends a very chilling message to those who have been abused and are considering coming forward.”

“While we understand that Fr. Groody and Fr. Elizondo were colleagues and may even have been friends, it is not appropriate for a clergyman to express public support for a credibly accused molester,” said Barbara Dorris of SNAP. “Not only does this discourage other victims from coming forward, it also rubs salt into the wounds of already damaged survivors. Ultimately, by discouraging other victims, witnesses and whistleblowers, it makes the church and schools less safe.”

Clohessy also said “Universities pride themselves on open-mindedness, yet here we have a university official trying to pass on his personal opinion as fact, in the absence of any evidence.”

Following Fr. Elizondo’s death SNAP had urged his supporters to show restraint and sensitivity, saying, “It will be tempting to publicly profess his innocence. … We as adults face a simple choice. We can either make it easier for child sex abuse victims to come forward, or harder. Publicly rallying around Fr. Elizondo makes it harder. It makes the church more dangerous.”

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ARKANSAS
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Monday, April 11, 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)

An Arkansas priest once suspended after child sex crimes were reported is getting a new parish. We worry about this move and about Arkansas Bishop Anthony Taylor’s continuing secrecy about clergy sex crimes, sexual misconduct and cover ups.

[BishopAccountability.org]

As best we can tell, besides just one notice in 2011, Bishop Taylor has never updated parishioners or the public about Fr. Ruben Quinteros who was temporarily taken off the job and “threatened” after a man reported that a priest had molested his child.

[Bishop Accountability.org]

Now, Fr. Quinteros is being sent to Immaculate Heart of Mary Church in North Little Rock. http://www.arkansas-catholic.org/news/article/4647/Leadership-changes-coming-to-parishes-diocesan-offices#.dpuf

In 2011, Bishop Taylor says St. Joseph Parish in Fayetteville “received a phone call in Spanish to warn us that a priest was in danger of suffering bodily harm at the hands of a man who believed that his child had been touched improperly (in Springdale) by a priest” and that Fr. Quinteros was being “threatened” but Taylor believed it “may be a case of mistaken identity.”

Bishop Taylor claims he “could not follow up on the call because the number was blocked” but that the priest was temporarily removed from ministry, the State Child Abuse Hotline was called, but neither church officials nor the police “were able to locate the alleged victim.” He also said a church panel “determined that the allegation against was not credible” and Fr. Quinteros resumed “his ministry in De Queen.”

Notice the wording in Bishop Taylor’s written 2011 message: The abuse of a child is portrayed as possible (“alleged”), but the threat to a priest is portrayed as real (“The priest being threatened is Father Ruben”), even though the source of both pieces of information is the same. That wording, we feel, shows the inherent bias that religious figures bring to clergy sex abuse and cover up cases.

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NEW YORK
New York Post

Editorial

Kids in New York’s public schools aren’t learning because the education model is broken. But students in ultra-Orthodox yeshivas aren’t learning, critics charge, because they just aren’t being taught.

State law requires private and parochial schools to provide instruction “at least substantially equivalent” to that in public schools.

But last week, parents and former students claimed 39 ultra-Orthodox day schools in Brooklyn and Queens don’t provide even the most basic instruction in subjects like English, math and science.

Students between the ages of 7 and 13, they charge, get only six hours a week of English and math — and no science or history at all. English instruction for boys stops completely after age 13, leaving them lacking in basic skills and unprepared for the workforce.

Last summer, the Department of Education agreed to look into the complaints, though not with on-site inspections. Instead, it agreed to query the yeshivas and evaluate the responses.

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CANADA
Daily Courier

KENTVILLE, N.S. – A prominent Toronto pastor has pleaded not guilty to decades-old sex-crime allegations in Nova Scotia.

Reverend Brent Hawkes is accused of indecent assault and gross indecency related to allegations of a sexual assault in the 1970s.

As expected, Hawkes did not appear in provincial court today in Kentville. Halifax lawyer Joel Pink appeared on behalf of Hawkes’ lawyer, Clayton Ruby.

Not guilty pleas were entered on the charges and trial dates set for seven days starting Nov. 14.

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PENNSYLVANIA
The Morning Call

Bill White

Parishioner speaks out about bishop’s letter

I mentioned in Sunday’s column that I had heard from a woman who was dismayed at the letter inserted into her church bulletin two Sundays ago. Bishop John O. Barres was lobbying parishioners to contact their state legislators in opposition to bills that would extend the statute of limitations for child sex abuse cases.

She was not the only churchgoer I heard from about this. In fact, one of them wrote a letter to Barres and sent me a copy, hoping it could be published in some way.

It’s too long for a letter to the editor and kind of short for a Your View, so I agreed to use it here.

Before I get to it, I’ll remind you that the state House is expected to vote today on a bill that would eliminate the statute of limitations for criminal cases of child sex abuse and extend the age when civil suits can be filed from 30 years old to 50. A proposed amendment — a compromise with those who won’t accept a two-year window in which anyone can file a civil suit, even if they’re blocked by the statute of limitations at the time they were abused — would allow any victim to sue up until age 50.

This would give many more victims access to the courts to identify and expose their abusers, but it wouldn’t help older victims. As a practical matter, the compromise would affect 20 years worth of victims. Those who are older than the present age limi of, 30 would have until 50 to file suit under the amendment.

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NEW YORK
New York Daily News

BY KERRY BURKE, REUVEN BLAU NEW YORK DAILY NEWS Sunday, April 10, 2016

A Borough Park businessman at the heart of a police bribery probe leaned on his police buddies to squash two assault raps involving his nephew, according to the victims of a pair of attacks.

Borough Park business honcho Jeremy Reichberg is being investigated by the feds for allegedly plying NYPD brass and at least one officer in the 66th Precinct with gifts in return for favors, according to multiple sources.

His nephew, Shlomo Reichberg, was part of a gang of disassociated Hasidic teens called Grouplech, which means forks in Yiddish, community sources said. The Hasidic hooligans were involved in two reported violent attacks in 2012, according to the victims.

In one scary encounter, Micha Kaplan, 45, says a group of Hasidic teens put him in the hospital for several days after a severe beating. The alleged beatdown started after the teens cut him off as he was driving in Borough Park.

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CANADA
Western Star

Barb SweetPublished on April 11, 2016

To save money on hot shower water, boys would be forced by the Christian Brothers into the orphanage swimming pool with a bar of Sunlight soap to wash up, a witness told the Mount Cashel civil trial this morning, while recounting how he was dragged onetime from the locker room into the pool.

The witness is the fourth former resident to testify among four test cases in a trial to determine whether the RC Episcopal Corp. of St. John’s is liable for physical and sexual abuse by some Christian Brothers at the orphanage during the period — 1940s to 1960s. There are 60 claimants in all represented by the test cases. (As well various other law firms, in have 20 similar cases in total.)

The witness said he would hide in the locker room to avoid the swimming pool bathing ritual and would cry out in anguish over why he was placed in the orphanage and why his father had to die. He told the court last week that his father died in a hit and run accident when the witness was a young boy. He was placed in Mount Cashel and girls in the family were sent to Belvedere orphanage.

The witness recalled some boys were whacked on the hands as many as 50 times a day in front of their class and the worst he saw it for harsh discipline at the orphanage was in the period 1946-50.

The witness is being cross-examined today by Chris Blom, one of the Ontario lawyers representing the Roman Catholic church, which contends it did not run the orphanage and therefore is not liable. It maintains the facility was solely operated by the lay order Christian Brothers.

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PENNSYLVANIA
PennLive

By Ivey DeJesus | idejesus@pennlive.com

Michele Gonsman hasn’t had the chance to take to court the man who sexually abused her when she was a child.

The statute of limitations on the crime had expired by the time she was ready to come forth.

Gonsman hasn’t given up hope of getting justice. On Monday — just two hours before the Pennsylvania House of Representative was scheduled to hold a hearing on a bill that would reform the law — she joined scores other victims of child sexual abuse and sex crimes to push for its passage.

Gonsman said the issue of reforming the law is not an issue of the Catholic Church— a grand jury report concluding that priests in the Altoona-Johnstown diocese abused hundreds of children is an impetus for the bill — but one that affects thousands of other victims across the county. Gonsman was abused by a neighbor.

“They have no idea how many people they are impacting,” she said.

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UNITED STATES
News Everyday

By R. Siva Kumar(writer@newseveryday.com)

David Clohessy was lured to a Missouri trip and abused by a Roman Catholic priest. It was only after decades that he became the director of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, or SNAP.

Last Friday morning, he got frustrated after reading Pope Francis’ 264-page document—“Amoris Laetitia,” or “The Joy of Love,”—asking church leaders to open their arms in welcome to gay, lesbian, divorced or remarried followers, but not mentioning clergy abuse survivors.

The group is very upset over the Pope’s inaction. The members point out that Pope Francis tackles everything from climate change to Cuban diplomacy, but does not mention sex crimes and cover-ups in the church.

“It’s very tough for us to understand how seemingly every other issue takes precedence – especially because on everything else, the pope really is powerless,” said Clohessy, who lives in St. Louis. “But instead of taking real action that makes a real difference, he’s content to do, and, in fact is masterful at, these meaningless feel-good gestures that are essentially public relations maneuvers.”

“Amoris Laetitia” mentions the word “abuse” just six times, and does not refer to the sex scandal in the Catholic Church at all. The Pope merely mentions that “the sexual abuse of children is all the more scandalous when it occurs in places where they ought to be most safe, particularly in families, schools, communities and Christian institutions.”

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VATICAN CITY
Vatican Information Service – Bollettino

Vatican City, 11 April 2016 – Today at 10.30 a.m. a new hearing began in the ongoing trial for the dissemination of reserved information and documents in Vatican City State Tribunal, according to information provided by the director of the Holy See Press Office, Fr. Federico Lombardi, S.J. It was attended by the members of the Tribunal (Professors Giuseppe Dalla Torre, Piero Antonio Bonnet, Paolo Papanti-Pelletier and Venerando Marano), the Promoter of Justice (Professors Gian Pietro Milano and Roberto Zannotti), and the defendants Ángel Lucio Vallejo Balda, Francesca Immacolata Chaouqui, Nicola Maio, Gianluigi Nuzzi, with their respective legal representatives Emanuela Bellardini, Laura Sgrò, Rita Claudia Baffioni and Roberto Palombi. The defendant Emiliano Fittipaldi was absent, but was represented by his lawyer Lucia Teresa Musso.

The hearing was dedicated fully to the interrogation of the defendant Nicola Maio by the President, the Promoter of Justice, his lawyer and then the counsels for the defence of the other defendants. Finally, the report of the examination was read and approved. The hearing ended at approximately 1.20 p.m.

The next hearing will take place on Wednesday, April at 10.30 a.m

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VATICAN CITY
Vatican News Service – Bollettino

Vatican City, 11 April 2016 – This morning the fourteenth meeting of the Holy Father with the Council of Cardinals took place in Vatican City. The work of the “Council of Nine” will continue until Wednesday, 13 April.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Frankfurter Allgemeine

[A Catholic priest under suspicion of abuse in the Fulda diocese. The 36-year old priest was suspended by the diocese. According to prosecutors, the events occurred on the night of Good Friday in the youth room of the parish in Mittelkalbach. There was a written statement from Vicar General Gerhard Stanke relating to “to acts with young people in connection with alcohol consumption”.]

Die Staatsanwaltschaft Fulda ermittelt gegen einen katholischen Pfarrer aus dem osthessischen Kalbach wegen des Verdachts des sexuellen Missbrauchs. Es werde geprüft, ob „Delikte aus dem Sexualbereich“ vorliegen, sagte Staatsanwalt Harry Wilke am Montag. Der Pfarrer habe sich am Donnerstag selbst angezeigt und über seinen Anwalt eine schriftliche Erklärung abgegeben. Details zum Fall und den Betroffenen machte die Staatsanwaltschaft nicht, um die Opfer zu schützen.

Der 36 Jahre alte Pfarrer wurde wegen des Missbrauchsverdachts bereits vom Bistum Fulda suspendiert. Laut Staatsanwaltschaft ereigneten sich die Vorkommnisse in der Nacht zum Karfreitag im Jugendraum unter der Pfarrei in Mittelkalbach. Dort kam es einer schriftlichen Erklärung von Generalvikar Gerhard Stanke zufolge „zu Handlungen mit Jugendlichen im Zusammenhang mit Alkoholkonsum“.

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AUSTRALIA
Herald Sun

April 11, 2016

Shannon Deery
Herald Sun

CATHOLIC bishop Ronald Mulkearns has been buried, taking dozens of secrets and unanswered questions about his handling of child sexual abuse to his grave.

As bishop of Ballarat between 1971 and 1997 Bishop Mulkearns facilitated the abuse of hundreds of kids by shuffling paedophile priests around large diocese.

Under his watch some of Australia’s worst Catholic paedophiles, including Fr Gerald Ridsdale and Br Robert Best, abused scores of innocent children.

Bishop Mulkearns admitted, just weeks before his death, that he had failed the children, and failed as a bishop.

The admission, in what turned out to be his deathbed confession, followed years of silence about his handling of abuse and allegations of a widespread coverup.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

By Charlotte King

The Catholic bishop who presided over the Ballarat diocese during some of its worst years of child sexual abuse by priests has been laid to rest.

Retired Bishop Ronald Mulkearns spent 26 years heading up the Ballarat diocese between 1971 and 1997, but his funeral went almost unnoticed.

Around 30 friends and family attended the small service at the chapel adjoining his Ballarat nursing home, Nazareth House.

The bishop died last week from cancer at the age of 85.

The clergy presence was purposefully minimal but Father John McKinnon, a close friend of the retired Bishop, emerged shortly after the service.

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PENNSYLVANIA
We Are Central PA

Altoona, Blair County, Pa.

The fight to abolish the statue of limitations for child sex abuse crimes continues. Tomorrow, a group will rally in Harrisburg as part of Crime Victim’s Advocacy Day.

“There’s no statute of limitations on murder because murder is heinous. and I don’t know anything more heinous than sex abuse.” Said Michele Gonsman.

She is a survivor of child sex abuse. Gonsman’s made it her mission to bring survivors together and to abolish the statute of limitations.

“My abuser goes free because of the statute,” she said.

Gonsman is contacted daily by other victims wanting to share their stories. On Monday, she and 30 others will take their fight to Harrisburg. There, they will rally for Crime Victim’s Advocacy Day.

Their bus will leave from Ebensburg, and stop at Logan Valley Mall, before traveling to Harrisburg. Gonsman says her fight is not with the Catholic church but rather with the institutions who cover up these crimes.

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

NEW YORK
New York Daily News

BY KENNETH LOVETT NEW YORK DAILY NEWS ALBANY BUREAU CHIEF

Sunday, April 10, 2016

ALBANY — State Senate Democrats are introducing a bill that would not only eliminate the time limits for child sex abuse victims to bring criminal or civil cases, but also make it easier for them to sue public institutions like schools, the Daily News has learned.

Sponsored by Senate Democratic Minority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins and Sen. Brad Hoylman, the bill would be the most comprehensive in the Legislature in making it easier for victims and law enforcement to go after predators.

“This is a crucial step to ensuring that all victims of child sex abuse get their day in court and that the predators at fault are held criminally and civilly responsible,” said Stewart-Cousins (D-Yonkers). “We must protect victims no matter where or when the heinous crime took place.”

The legislation borrows components from several bills that are already out there to address the issue.

But it also goes further by doing away with a requirement that kids abused at public institutions like schools or the foster care system file an intent to sue the government entity within 90 days of the incident occurring.

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PENNSYLVANIA
Verdict

11 APR 2016

MARCI A. HAMILTON

As the Pennsylvania House gets closer than it has ever been to meaningful statute of limitations reform for child sex abuse victims, it is interesting to watch how prosecutors across the state are acting. As I discussed in my last column, the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office and Pennsylvania Attorney General have issued a series of scathing grand jury reports on seriatim and systematic child sex abuse in major trusted institutions, like Penn State, the Philadelphia Archdiocese, and the Altoona-Johnstown Diocese. In a related though not identical arena, the Montgomery County DA’s race became a referendum on failure to prosecute Bill Cosby for rape, with the win going to the candidate who sided with the rape victims.

Other Pennsylvania district attorneys have hewn to the increasingly outdated position that they owe allegiance to the Catholic bishops, with the Allentown DA most recently expressing this sentiment.

Sadly for the vast majority of sex abuse survivors, the DAs’ discussions about whether to prosecute or to change the statute of limitations have mostly been about the Catholic bishops’ cover up. I say “sadly,” because there are other institutions putting children at risk, and they get swept away in the loud and persistent denunciations of SOL reform by the Catholic Conference.

For this reason, I will examine the strange position Bucks County DA David Heckler has taken with respect to child sex abuse and sex assault victims. His office has a pending grand jury that, if a report were issued, would make the case for SOL reform for child sex abuse victims beyond the Church. Yet the grand jury, which was initiated in the fall of 2014, has yet to issue a report, leaving many victims wondering why.

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

NEW YORK
New York Daily News

Thanks to some long-overdue moral fortitude by Senate Democrats, maybe, just maybe, time is running out on New York’s absurdly restrictive statute of limitations covering sexual abuse of minors.

New York is a national outlier — and moral disgrace — with respect to abused minors being able to seek justice in either criminal or civil courts. Under current law, the criminal and civil statutes of limitations for a young man or woman to pursue justice expires when they turn 23.

Which gives people haunted by crimes committed against them as children far too little time to reckon with the horror of being victimized.

For a victim seeking redress against an institution that enabled a predator, the deadline is even earlier: The victim must act by the time he or she turns 21. Reform has been blocked thanks to a dastardly pair of only-in-Albany excuses: The Republican-controlled Senate won’t move, they say, because the Democratic-controlled Assembly refuses to do away with a crazy rule protecting public institutions alone from these suits unless notice to sue is filed within 90 days.

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SOUTH AFRICA
Eyewitness News

Mia Lindeque

JOHANNESBURG – Fugitive rabbi, Eliezer Berland, is recovering in a Johannesburg hospital after he was rushed to a doctor from the Sandton police station.

The rabbi is wanted in Israel for a number of sex crimes, and has been on the run for over four years.

He was arrested this week, when he was admitted to hospital due to his medical condition.

Rabbi Berland is under strict police guard in hospital.

ER24 could not confirm the identity of the man whom they treated at the Sandton Police Station, saying only that a suspect suffered from a medical condition and needed urgent attention.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

Exclusive by Sally Brooks

The royal commission into child sexual abuse has requested more than two decades of information from the Lutheran Church about an Aboriginal boarding school in Alice Springs.

Yirara College of the Finke River Mission is ultimately run by the Lutheran Schools Association, a mission arm of the Lutheran Church of Australia, located in North Adelaide.

Indigenous secondary students from remote Northern Territory communities and other jurisdictions travel hundreds of kilometres to board at the school.

In a statement, the Lutheran Schools Association for South Australia, the Northern Territory and Western Australia said the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse had asked for information spanning 23 years.

“We confirm that the royal commission has sought information about Yirara College for the period 1992-2015,” the association’s executive director John Proeve said.

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FRANCE
Change.org

[A petition is being circulated online in France to change the statute of limitations so that victims have a chance to seek justice.]

Séverine MAYER France

Aujourd’hui en France, il existe un délai de prescription concernant les violences faites aux enfants : tortures physiques et/ou psychologiques, viols, violences incestueuses. Nous ne pouvons plus tolérer que des faits d’une gravité insupportable ayant des conséquences sur la vie entière des victimes puissent être prescrits et que donc, les coupables puissent ne jamais avoir à répondre de leurs actes.

On ne peut pas décider de quand une victime est prête à parler, à entamer une action en justice, c’est-à-dire devoir revenir sur les faits, dans leurs moindres détails, et replonger dans la douleur. Parce que les victimes sont cassées psychologiquement et qu’il faut des années pour parvenir à se reconstruire, des années pour trouver la force de parler, la force d’affronter le déni des autres (familles, entourage), voire même des années pour être capable de ne pas juste s’effondrer en larmes ou avoir envie de hurler : « NON ». Parler d’abord, prendre conscience ensuite, et envisager un jour de porter plainte : des étapes différentes qui prennent du temps.

J’ai mis bien plus de 20 ans pour être prête à parler vraiment. Des années de souffrance, de solitude, de peurs, de cauchemars, de séquelles… Une partie de ma vie foutue en l’air. Trop de temps, estime la justice, pour pouvoir traîner mon bourreau devant un tribunal. Comme pour des milliers de victimes. Aujourd’hui celui qui a brisé mon enfance, mon adolescence et une partie de ma vie est mort. C’était un monstre, mais sans condamnation, il s’est éteint en laissant le doute dans l’esprit de ses proches, il est mort sans jamais avoir eu le courage et la décence de reconnaître les faits. Ce n’est pas juste.

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ARGENTINA
MDZ

[One of Argentina’s most influential national newspapers on April 6 interviewed Sergio Buenanueva, bishop of San Francisco, Cordoba. He headed the ministries commission that integrated with the Argentina Episcopal Conference. He was talking about the scourage of clergy sexual abuse in general and in particular that protocol the bishops developes and applied one its was reliably informed of sexual abuse. The tenor of the interview should not go unnoticed. The Catholic Church continues its poliicies that violate the rights of victims.]

El 06 de abril pasado uno de los diarios nacionales de mayor influencia entrevistó al obispo de San Francisco, Córdoba, Sergio Buenanueva, responsable de la Comisión de Ministerios que integra la Conferencia Episcopal Argentina (1).

El motivo de la nota fue hablar sobre el flagelo de los abusos sexuales del clero en general, y en particular, del protocolo que la CEA elaboró y que se aplica una vez que se tiene noticia fehaciente del abuso sexual.

El tenor de la entrevista no debe pasar desapercibido, no sólo por haber ratificado que la iglesia católica continúa con su política violatoria de los derechos de las víctimas sino por el tremendo fariseísmo del preboste.

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UNITED STATES
Jewish Philanthropy

By Shira M. Berkovits

It is critical for leaders of youth-serving organizations (YSOs) to adopt child-protection policies proactively, before they are faced with a problem. Policies clarify acceptable and unacceptable behaviors that guide adults to model safe interactions with children. When a policy is well communicated, it becomes integral to institutional culture and its violations are easily identifiable, making it possible for bystanders to intervene and institutions to respond. Without policies, leaders may forget or dismiss important response steps, become more susceptible to pressure, and introduce their organizations to increased liability. Having a policy provides organizations with a plan to act on before a situation escalates. Finally, a good policy can function as a deterrent, sending a clear message to potential abusers: Abuse is not tolerated here and will be reported immediately.

The following are ten recommendations for inclusion in an organization’s policy. This list is meant as a starting point for conversation, and is not exhaustive. Organizations should consult with child protection experts when considering these suggestions, as guidelines that reduce risk in one organization or setting may increase risk in another.

1. Screen prospective employees and/or volunteers.

Individuals who sexually abuse children do not end up in YSOs by accident; they work hard to get there. This makes sense – YSOs provide easy access to children and give a respectable cover to perpetrators. However, many YSOs do not screen prospective hires and volunteers – or do so only minimally. When possible, screenings should include a criminal background check; a check of the state’s central registry for perpetrators of child abuse and neglect; Internet/social media searches of an individual’s names, nicknames, screen names, and email addresses; an interview; and reference checks. An organization’s policy developers should consider instituting screening measures for employees and volunteers; lay leaders; subcontractors (e.g., bus drivers, catering staff, course instructors); hosts with- in or without the community (e.g., shabbaton hosts); visitors who request Shabbat hospitality; and others who have repeated interactions with children (e.g., “candy men”) or hold the keys to communal spaces (e.g., mikveh attendants). Not all screening measures are appropriate or practical for all individuals, but organizations should try to anticipate the various categories of individuals who will come in contact with children and determine which screening mechanisms to employ.

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ESPANA
El Pais

[The Church lives its own judicial ordeal in Galicia.]

SILVIA R. PONTEVEDRA
Santiago de Compostela 27 MAR 2016

Desde que en 2012 la investigación por el robo del Códice Calixtino revolvió las entrañas de la catedral de Santiago y sacó a la luz secretos insospechados del corazón de la Iglesia católica gallega, los casos judiciales se suceden y salpican a varias diócesis de la comunidad. Hay, en estos momentos, cuatro causas en marcha con 17 personas investigadas, de las que cuatro son monjas; otra, un fraile; y 12 más, miembros de la Orden eclesiástica y Mandato de San Miguel Arcángel, una secta que hasta finales de 2014 medró como asociación de fieles amparada por el Obispado de Tui-Vigo.

La primera investigación que se abrió, y probablemente la última que se cierre, por la demora que han provocado hasta tres cambios de juez instructor, es la conocida como Operación Bebé de Lugo, en la que, además de varios funcionarios del servicio de Menores de la Xunta, trabajadores sociales y personal sanitario, en las últimas semanas han tenido que prestar declaración en calidad de imputadas tres hermanas terciarias franciscanas del Rebaño de María vinculadas al Hogar Madre Encarnación. La denuncia partió de un puñado de abogados de oficio que descubrieron las semejanzas existentes entre varios casos de retiradas administrativas, supuestamente irregulares, de niños a sus madres biológicas para su entrega en acogimiento y posterior adopción. Poco a poco, en los juzgados fueron recalando episodios similares hasta juntarse como víctimas en unas mismas pesquisas una docena de familias afectadas. Varios de los menores reclamados por sus progenitores desde hace años pasaron por esta casa religiosa de acogida concertada por la Xunta antes de que fueran entregados a terceros y de que sus parientes perdieran definitivamente su rastro.

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GUYANA
Le Monde

[A priest was arrested in Guyana and is facing allegations of sexual abuse of minors.]

Par Laurent Marot (Cayenne, correspondance)

Il a été signalé par son propre évêque. Vendredi matin, à 8 heures (heure de Guyane), un prêtre de 65 ans, curé à Macouria, en Guyane française, a été placé en garde à vue à la gendarmerie de Kourou. Le père H. est soupçonné d’attouchements sexuels sur un mineur de 14 ans. Une enquête avait été ouverte à la suite du signalement de ce prêtre par l’évêque de Cayenne, Mgr Emmanuel Lafont, et plusieurs plaintes ont été déposées contre lui.

« Selon le jeune garçon, les faits présumés se seraient passés au dernier trimestre 2015 », explique au Monde Eric Vaillant, procureur de la République. « Le jeune en a parlé à sa mère il y a quelques jours, qui l’a dit à des membres du clergé, puis à l’évêque », précise le procureur. « Lundi soir, la mère et l’enfant sont venus me voir à l’évêché », confie au Monde Mgr Laffont. Selon eux, les faits présumés ont eu lieu « chez le prêtre », précise le prélat. « Le lendemain, il était convoqué à l’évêché : il a nié les faits. Je lui ai demandé de quitter sa paroisse, et de se rendre à la gendarmerie », poursuit Mgr Laffont.

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ESPANA
El Pais

[A Caceres priest was arrested Friday on allegations of child sexual abuse.]

Madrid 9 ABR 2016

El párroco de Arroyomolinos (Cáceres) ha sido detenido este viernes por un supuesto delito contra la libertad sexual de los menores, fuentes de la Policía Nacional citadas por Europa Press. El Obispado de Coria-Cáceres ha apartado al religioso de Arroyomolinos hasta la “conclusión del proceso judicial”. El caso está bajo secreto de sumario y el sacerdote está detenido en los calabozos a la espera de pasar a disposición judicial.

En un comunicado, el obispado ha expresado su “profunda consternación” por el hecho de que un sacerdote “haya podido cometer algún delito, sea del carácter que sea, cuando se espera de él una conducta ejemplar conforme al Evangelio que predica”. El Obispado de Coria-Cáceres ha ofrecido su “completa disposición” a colaborar con la justicia “en lo que sea necesario y en las formas que esta estime oportunas”.

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ARGENTINA
La Nacion

[The pain of the victims of the priest accused of pedophilia in Argentina.]

Jorge Riani
PARA LA NACION
DOMINGO 10 DE ABRIL DE 2016

PARANÁ.- Luis Schunk es docente y directivo de una escuela barrial de nivel secundario en Paraná. Está casado y tiene dos hijos. Antes de repartir sus horas entre la familia y el trabajo, como lo hace ahora, su vida discurría en parroquias, sacristías y confesionarios. Luis fue cura durante cinco años.

Un día sintió la necesidad de contar una historia que le pesaba, que le hacía daño, que le quemaba en su interior. Llamó al obispo de Paraná. Estuvo cuatro horas delante del prelado intentando una y otra vez contar lo que le había sucedido, el daño que le habían hecho.

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ITALIA
Rete L’Abuso

[A few weeks ago we published the first release of the map showing sexual abuse committed in Italy by members of the clergy against minors and adolescents. The map showed117 priests have been convicted and about 60 are currently under investigation or into hiding following complaints.]

Poche settimane fa avevamo pubblicato il primo rilascio della mappa degli abusi sessuali commessi in Italia da membri del clero nei confronti di minorenni e adolescenti. La mappa contava 117 sacerdoti condannati in via definitiva e circa 60 attualmente sotto indagine o resi irreperibili a seguito delle denunce.

Avevamo ancora una riserva di circa 60 nominativi dei quali però non riuscivamo a trovare alcun riscontro, almeno sul web. Avevamo quindi pensato di chiedere alle vittime sparse sul territorio italiano di attivarsi e controllare nelle rispettive zone, presso gli archivi delle Regioni e dei giornali, pezze giustificative che permettessero di ricostruire i casi mancanti.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Osthessen News

[Shock, grief, horror: Pastor Jens Clobes (36) is “suspended from duty”. This Catholic priest allegedly sexually abuse minors.]

Schock, Trauer, Entsetzen: Pfarrer Jens CLOBES (36) “vom Dienst suspendiert”

Der Schock bei den Einwohnern von Kalbach (südlicher Kreis Fulda) sitzt tief. Ihr katholischer Pfarrer Jens Clobes (36) ist vom Dienst suspendiert worden. “Es ist zu Handlungen mit Jugendlichen im Zusammenhang mit Alkoholkonsum gekommen”, heißt es in einer offiziellen Erklärung des Bistums Fulda, unterzeichnet von Generalvikar Prof. Dr. Gerhard Stanke. Nach Informationen von OSTHESSEN|NEWS soll es sich um sexuellen Missbrauch von Minderjährigen, in der Nacht von Gründonnerstag auf Karfreitag im Pfarrheim von Mittelkalbach, handeln. Über nähere Details – ob einmalig oder wiederholt – gibt es allerdings keine Informationen.

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AUSTRALIA
Sydney Catholic

Catholic Communications, Sydney Archdiocese,
8 Apr 2016

Bishop Ronald Mulkearns will be a small, private funeral mass on Monday

A private funeral mass will be held on Monday in the Nazareth House Nursing Home chapel in Ballarat for Bishop Ronald Mulkearns.

The former Victorian bishop died before completing his evidence to the child abuse Royal Commission about the Catholic Church’s handling of pedophile priests during his 1971-1997 years in charge of the Ballarat diocese.

Bishop Mulkearns,85, died from cancer in the nursing home on Monday.

Current Ballarat Bishop Paul Bird said the small gathering would be for family and close friends and Bishop Mulkearns would not be be interred in the crypt of St Patrick’s Cathedral, Ballarat where all former Ballarat bishops have been laid to rest.

The Royal Commission heard during his time as bishop, numerous pedophile priests, including Gerald Ridsdale, were moved across the region. The bishop gave evidence in February via videolink from the nursing home but said he could not remember much of what had taken place during his time although he acknowledged he had made some tragic mistakes during his time as bishop and expressed sorrow for these mistakes.

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UNITED STATES
The Open Tabernacle: Here Comes Everybody

Posted on April 10, 2016 by Betty Clermont

The pope’s “apostolic exhortation, Amoris Laetitia (Latin for Joy of Love) On Love in the Family” was presented on Friday. The document is more than 60,000 words. Jesus spoke 2026 words in Gospels and the four Gospels combined are 64,766 words. The pontiff stated his own conclusions based on two synods (meetings) of bishops from around the world held in October 2014 and October 2015. Both were closed to the public and the press.

In his exhortation, Pope Francis urged that his prelates and priests be more “welcoming” to those who are in what the Church refers to as “irregular” unions – that is not married by a priest. He changed no doctrine. Due to the “invincible ambiguity that characterizes the pronouncements of Pope Francis … anyone will be able to dig out from among the 200 pages of the document the passage that he likes most, and act accordingly,” wrote veteran Vatican reporter, Sandro Magister. Another Vatican insider: “the pope’s studied ambiguity [leads] each to find something in the pope’s text to back up his thesis.” Another experienced Vatican reporter, John L. Allen Jr., stated the document “changes little on the ground.”

For example, Pope Francis recently extended the Holy Thursday foot-washing ritual to include women which was already being done for decades if the pastor approved. The pope’s appointed prefect in charge of liturgy announced soon after Pope Francis’ statement that no priest was obligated to include women.

Disregarding the suffering and deaths in families caused by Catholic officials, both synods concentrated on the question of whether divorced and civilly remarried Catholics should be allowed to receive communion, an issue left unsettled by the pope in “Joy of Love.” According to New York Cardinal Timothy Dolan, most divorced Catholics who ignore their Church’s imperative that they must obtain an annulment before remarrying have either left the Church or receive communion anyway. The comparatively few who broke the remarriage prohibition yet obey the communion rule have learned to live with it.

Pope Francis Can, but Won’t, Prevent Further Child Sex Abuse

Within the first six months of his pontificate, Pope Francis found the allegations of child sex abuse by two of his bishops credible enough to secretly dismiss them from their positions without notifying the civil authorities or the public.

Bishop Gabino Miranda Melgarejo of Ayacucho, a poor Andean region in southern Peru, is still at large as best as I can tell.

Archbishop Josef Wesolowski, the pope’s ambassador to the Dominican Republic, accused of oral sex abuse of poor street boys, remained a free man for over a year during which time he acquired more than 100,000 computer files of pornography with disturbing photos of children who were likely victims of human trafficking. The Italian newspaper, Il Corriere della Serra, reported that Wesolowski was not brought inside the Vatican until “there was a serious risk that the ambassador would be arrested on Italian territory at the request of the Dominican authorities and then extradited.” Wesolowski died mysteriously just before a Vatican trial would have brought the above facts to public attention.

Other than meeting with a handful of his Church’s more than 100,000 sex abuse victims, Pope Francis has done nothing to console the survivors or prevent the sexual assault of thousands of children in the future. The commission he formed in response to rare media criticism in December 2013, dismissed the only member who expressed any criticism. The pope still hasn’t provided adequate funding for the commission.

During the in-flight interview from Mexico back to Rome on Feb. 16, Pope Francis said that a bishop who moves a pedophile priest to another parish should resign. Since then, a French cardinal and Italian bishop said this meant that they were under no obligation to report the clerical child sex abuse which happened under their watch to civilian authorities. Under Pope Francis’ leadership, pedophile priests are still being moved from the United States and Europe to less-developed countries.

By his most recent remarks, Pope Francis signaled his prelates around the world that he would continue to do nothing to prevent them from, or hold them accountable for, aiding, abetting and covering-up these crimes and then persecuting the victims and families.

This was the sickening and systemic pattern revealed not only by the movie, Spotlight, but also by grand jury reports in Philadelphia, Westchester County and Suffolk County (NY) and attorney general reports in New Hampshire, Massachusetts and Maine. The Pennsylvania Attorney General released a grand jury report on March 1 2016, on an investigation of the Altoona-Johnstown Diocese showing the same appalling tactics as the prior reports.

All stated that revising the statutes-of-limitations would be the most effective way to prevent future child sex abuse because many victims do not speak up until later in life, citing shame or fear, to expose their tormentors.

When Pope Francis was in the US in September, he praised his bishops for their “courage” in handling the scandal, and consoled them for how stressful it had been. The pope ignored “the litigation and legislative tactics of his bishops” which have denied all American victims of child sex abuse access to justice. “It is the bishops who have blocked any kind of meaningful reform,” said Marci Hamilton, a professor at the Cardozo School of Law in New York who studies statutes of limitations. “The bishops and the pope have a lot of explaining to do as to why it would be in their mission to keep all of these victims from seeking justice.”

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UNITED STATES
Crux

By John L. Allen Jr.
Editor April 10, 2016

To be sure, there’s plenty of text in Pope Francis’ sweeping new document on the family, titled Amoris Laetitia, which was released by the Vatican on Friday. It runs to 60,000 words and 264 pages in the English version, making it a whopper.

Yet from a news point of view, perhaps the most fascinating – and certainly the most controversial – parts of the document come not in the text, but in the footnotes.

Numbers 336 and 351 in Amoris Laetitia may go down as among the most famous footnotes in papal history, since that’s where the key language occurs about how discernment in cases of divorced and civilly remarried Catholics could lead to a change in their ability to receive the sacraments.

If the devil is always in the details, in the case of Amoris Laetitia, one might say, the fireworks are in the footnotes. …

Abuse scandals

Given the way that clerical sexual abuse scandals in various parts of the world have damaged the Church’s image and moral authority, precisely in terms of its care for children and families, it’s striking that there’s only one clear reference to those scandals in Amoris Laetitia.

“The sexual abuse of children is all the more scandalous when it occurs in places where they ought to be most safe, particularly in families, schools, communities and Christian institutions,” the pope writes in paragraph 45.

Sexual exploitation of children comes up five other times in the document, but in the context of abusive parents or wider social ills rather than anything specifically to do with the Church.

Critics already skeptical of Pope Francis’ resolve on the anti-abuse front may find that a worrying omission.

Others, however, may conclude the pontiff is indirectly suggesting that abuse hardly occurs only in the Church, and that an undue focus on its failures can become a distraction from addressing the wider social challenges.

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AUSTRALIA
The Advertiser

Nigel Hunt and Michael McGuire
The Advertiser

GRIEF and satisfaction were the overriding emotions for departing Anglican Archbishop Jeffrey Driver on Sunday when he told his flock the time had come for him to retire.

The satisfaction came from a job well done over an 11-year tenure, the grief from the fact that so much of that time was spent dealing with the problem of child sexual abuse perpetrated by members of the Anglican Church.

Archbishop Driver was elected in 2005 at a time when the church was deeply demoralised following the damaging Brandenburg child abuse scandal that cost former Archbishop Ian George his job.

“I saw that was something that needed to be done, not just because it was a problem, but because God calls on us to act well in those sort of circumstances,’’ Archbishop Driver said yesterday.

“We had huge issues relating to abuse, child sexual abuse. That’s doesn’t just affect the immediate survivors but whole communities are affected as well, and related to that there is a loss of morale and confidence in the church.’’

Archbishop Driver’s first major task was to grapple with a multimillion-dollar class action launched by more than 70 abuse victims and the subsequent financial impact it had on the diocese.

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PENNSYLVANIA
Tribune-Review

BY BRAD BUMSTED | Saturday, April 9, 2016

HARRISBURG

Attorney General Kathleen Kane might end the year wearing an orange jump suit as a state inmate or celebrating an amazing turn-around of her fortunes with an acquittal in criminal court that proves her critics wrong.

Either way, the crowning achievement of her final months in office might be the no-holds-barred grand jury report detailing sexual abuse of children by Roman Catholic priests and a series of diocesan cover-ups in the Altoona-Johnstown region.

Don’t be surprised if that investigation is expanded to other dioceses — if there’s probable cause for search warrants established from 250 phone calls to a hotline established following the March 1 grand jury release.

When Kane began as attorney general in 2013, she resisted using grand juries, perhaps out of stubbornness, after criticizing former Attorney General Tom Corbett’s lengthy investigation of serial pedophile Jerry Sandusky through use of a statewide grand jury. Sandusky is behind bars for life.

Professional prosecutors in her office persevered. She eventually relented and to her credit approved the use of the grand jury, perhaps because, in her mind, it was different from the Sandusky grand jury because no one was charged.

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

PENNSYLVANIA
Tribune-Democrat

By John Finnerty
jfinnerty@cnhi.com

HARRISBURG – Amid outrage over hundreds of cases of child sexual abuse committed by priests, lawmakers are now divided over how much time victims should have to seek justice.

A proposal to lift the time limit for prosecution of sex-abuse crimes, in current form, only looks to the future but does nothing for victims of long-ago crimes.

Rep. Mark Rozzi, D-Berks, calls it a “slap in the face.”

Rozzi, himself a survivor of sexual abuse by a priest, has led efforts to eliminate statutes of limitations.

He plans a proposal to allow victims of old crimes to sue their abusers, he said, which will bring forward victims “from every corner of the state.”

Debate is unfolding in the aftermath of a grand jury’s finding that priests in the Altoona-Johnstown Roman Catholic Diocese abused hundreds of children, over four decades – actions that the report says were covered up by church leaders.

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.

CANADA
Montreal Gazette

JASON MAGDER, MONTREAL GAZETTE

Only about a dozen people, gathered around John Edward Sullivan’s open casket Saturday afternoon in a small room on the second floor of the Magnus Poirier funeral complex on Sherbrooke St. E., near Langelier Blvd.

Standing at the door of the visitation room was a family member who told a journalist he was not welcome to speak to any of the well-wishers, and sternly asked the journalist to leave the funeral home. The priest officiating the funeral services declined to comment about Sullivan.

Sullivan, who died on Easter Sunday at age 90, is a convicted sex offender; his crimes dating back to the 1960s.

His obituary, which was published in the Montreal Gazette, said Sullivan “carried out his priestly ministry in various parishes throughout the Diocese until his appointment to the Matrimonial Tribunal.”

He was in the spotlight this past week, when the Sault Ste. Marie Diocese settled a lawsuit filed by a man who said the church covered up years of sexual abuse suffered at Sullivan’s hands, and moved him from parish to parish, knowing full well he had molested children.

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PENNSYLVANIA
The Morning Call

Bill White

Lobbying over child sex abuse bills reaches church bulletins

“We were dismayed to find this letter inserted in our church bulletin this past Sunday,” wrote a local Catholic who contacted me last week about a letter from Allentown Diocese Bishop John Barres.

Barres’ letter outlined the diocese’s child sex-abuse prevention efforts — and then lobbied against state legislation that would change the statutes of limitations for such cases, asking parishioners to contact their legislators about its “detrimental effects.”

This appeal to a captive audience fits right in with the church’s furious lobbying effort, largely focused on blocking bills that would open a two-year window for civil suits by victims who are blocked by the state’s restrictive statutes. Such a window has been recommended by the Pennsylvania grand juries that exposed decades of rampant child sex abuse and official cover-ups within the church.

I wrote recently that the Pennsylvania Catholic Conference, which has played a big part in keeping statute-of-limitations legislation bottled up for years in legislative committees, spent $3.5 million on lobbying in Harrisburg between 2010 and 2015, according to Department of State records.

The Catholic Conference’s website now includes an Action Alert with a proposed email you can send to your legislators, urging them to oppose the proposed two-year window. It includes standard talking points, including complaints that sovereign immunity statutes unfairly shield public entities such as public schools.

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AUSTRALIA
PerthNow

April 9, 2016
DANIELLE LE MESSURIER
PerthNow

SCRAPPING the time limit on when sex abuse victims can sue for compensation has won Barnett Government support.

The move could open the floodgates for scores of massive damages claims.

Under the statute of limitations, survivors of child sexual abuse are unable to claim damages after six years from the date of the alleged offence.

A private member’s Bill proposed by Liberal MP Graham Jacobs seeks to remove the limitation period completely for personal injury, including psychological injury suffered by victims of child sexual abuse.

Attorney-General Michael Mischin said the Government was sympathetic and supportive of the aims of the Bill.

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PENNSYLVANIA
Sharon Herald

By JOHN FINNERTY CNHI Harrisburg Correspondent

HARRISBURG – Amid outrage over hundreds of cases of child sex abuse committed by priests, lawmakers are now divided over how much time victims should have to seek justice.

A proposal to lift the time limit for prosecution of sex-abuse crimes, in current form, only looks to the future but does nothing for victims of long-ago crimes.

Rep. Mark Rozzi, D-Berks County, calls it a “slap in the face.”

Rozzi, himself a survivor of sex abuse by a priest, has led efforts to eliminate statutes of limitations. He plans a proposal to allow victims of old crimes to sue their abusers, he said, which will bring forward victims “from every corner of the state.”

Debate is unfolding in the aftermath of a grand jury’s finding that priests in the Altoona-Johnstown Catholic Diocese abused hundreds of children, over four decades – actions that were covered up by church leaders.

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

UNITED STATES
International Business Times

BY JULIA GLUM @SUPERJULIA ON 04/09/16

When David Clohessy was young, his Roman Catholic priest would regularly take him on overnight trips to go camping, skiing or canoeing in Missouri. And then, once the sun had set and Clohessy was sleeping, the priest would assault him.

Decades later, Clohessy doesn’t want any child ever to be in that situation. That’s why he’s fighting for justice as the director of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, nicknamed SNAP, and that’s why he was so frustrated Friday morning after reading the newest statement from Pope Francis.

In keeping with his modern image, the leader of the Roman Catholic Church issued a 264-page document called “Amoris Laetitia,” or in English “The Joy of Love,” urging church leaders to be more welcoming toward followers who may be gay, lesbian, divorced or remarried. But there’s one group of people still waiting for that kind of recognition: clergy abuse survivors. They said Francis, who’s been hailed for tackling everything from climate change to Cuban diplomacy, again skipped over the international scandal that’s implicated thousands of suspects in sex crimes and cover-ups. Before writing policy documents, they argued, he needs to solve the ongoing crisis in the church.

“It’s very tough for us to understand how seemingly every other issue takes precedence — especially because on everything else, the pope really is powerless,” said Clohessy, who lives in St. Louis. “But instead of taking real action that makes a real difference, he’s content to do, and, in fact is masterful at, these meaningless feel-good gestures that are essentially public relations maneuvers.”

“Amoris Laetitia” mentions the word “abuse” only six times. It’s linked with the church once, to say that “the sexual abuse of children is all the more scandalous when it occurs in places where they ought to be most safe, particularly in families, schools, communities and Christian institutions.” The Catholic Church’s sex scandal is otherwise left out.

The worldwide crisis includes more than 17,200 Americans who have alleged they were abused by more than 6,400 clerics from 1950 to 2013, according to a review of data by BishopAccountability.org, a website and nonprofit that tracks reports of sexual misconduct in the church. An award-winning 2002 Boston Globe investigation is widely credited with exposing the U.S. part in the scandal, which resurfaced this past November with the release of “Spotlight,” a movie that showcased the reporting process and recently won the Oscar for Best Picture.

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MASSACHUSETTS
Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Boston

Category: A. Cases That Have Been Concluded Canonically, Either By Dismissal or Sentence to Life of Prayer and Penance, or Criminally, Either By Plea or Conviction.

Year Of Ordination: 1976
Status
Dismissed (2016)

Assignment History:

Administrative Leave
10/24/12

Pastor
Saint Helen Mother of the Emperor Constantine
Norwell 09/10/01 – 10/24/12

Pastor
St. Jeremiah
Framingham 03/30/98 – 09/10/01

Temp. Parochial Vicar
St. Joseph
Needham 02/01/98 – 03/30/98

Priestly Renewal Program
01/16/97 – 02/01/98

Temp. Parochial Vicar
St. Thomas Aquinas
Bridgewater 06/04/96 – 01/12/97

Parochial Vicar
St. John Evangelist
Canton 06/15/89 – 06/04/96

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NEW YORK
Staten Island Advance

By Maura Grunlund | grunlund@siadvance.com

STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. — A former Midland Beach pastor will not face charges from the Manhattan district attorney’s office after child pornography was allegedly found on his computers.

The Rev. Keith Fennessy was barred from priestly ministry and booted from his position as pastor of St. Columba’s R.C. Church in Manhattan on June 15, 2015, by Cardinal Timothy Dolan, the archbishop of New York.

An archdiocesan review board determined that Father Fennessy had images of minors on his personal and office computers that violated the church’s Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People. Dolan accepted the board’s recommendation that Father Fennessy no longer be allowed to serve as a priest, according to Catholic New York and Joseph Zwilling, communications director for the archdiocese.

The archdiocese referred Father Fennessy’s case to the district attorneys’ offices in both Staten Island and Manhattan. A Staten Island source with knowledge of the investigation said that the case was handled by the Manhattan district attorney’s office.

“This matter was referred to our office in mid-2015,” said Joan Vollero, director of communications for the Manhattan district attorney’s office. “The investigation has concluded and no criminal charges were brought.”

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MINNESOTA
Star Tribune

By Editorial Board Star Tribune APRIL 8, 2016

Catholics in the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis finally have the intelligent, healing leadership they deserve in newly named Archbishop Bernard Hebda, who, after first serving as interim, has been appointed to the post permanently by Pope Francis.

Hebda’s formal installation mass next month will mark a new chapter in a community that has suffered deeply in recent years, both from the botched handling of numerous cases of priest-involved child sex abuse and from the bitter and costly fight over same-sex marriage launched by the previous archbishop.

Hebda brings skills that have served him well in the nine months since his arrival. At 56, he has a broad, sophisticated worldview shaped by degrees in political science and law from Harvard and Columbia, and by years spent practicing law before he became an ordained priest at age 30. He has served at many levels in the church — as a parish priest, a diocesan leader, an interpreter of canon law at the Vatican and, finally, as a coadjutant archbishop for Newark, N.J., where he had fully expected to return as archbishop. That Francis instead redirected him to St. Paul and Minneapolis speaks to the depth of the crisis in this archdiocese and the urgent need for a new vision.

Those who have worked with him as an interim administrator say Hebda’s interest in people and diverse viewpoints, his humor, and his incisiveness have been warmly welcomed in a church community wearied to exhaustion from the struggles of the last decade. “He is very attentive and approachable, and wants to hear from everyone, not just people with one point of view,” said Paula Ruddy of the Catholic Coalition for Church Reform. “I am very hopeful that he will be able to bring people together and heal the divisions we’ve been experiencing.”

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DEUTSCHLAND
hpd

From Evelin Frerk

[Break the walls of silence. Zero tolerance against sexual abuse in area church as well as in the global Catholic Church is the objective of Peter Wensierski. He is putting his footprint in Germany with his journalistic work. His scope is impressive.]

Von Evelin Frerk

8. APR 2016

BERLIN. (hpd) “Null-Toleranz” gegenüber sexuellen Missbrauch im Raum der Kirchen, auch der weltweit agierenden katholischen Kirche, ist das formulierte Ziel von Peter Wensierski. Mit seiner journalistischen Arbeit setzt er dazu in Deutschland seinen Fußabdruck. Seine Beiträge leistet er selbstverständlich und ohne jeden Wirbel. Der Umfang ist beeindruckend.

Die Besonderheit seiner Arbeit ist hier referiert anhand der Anzeige von Alexandra Wolf: Am 26. März 2016 macht der Spiegel die Anzeige ihres Missbrauchs erstmals öffentlich. Zugrunde liegt die Recherche von Peter Wensierski. Die ging an den Behörden nicht vorbei, die Staatsanwaltschaft Würzburg nahm am erst möglichen Arbeitstag nach der Veröffentlichung ihre Ermittlungen auf.

In dem Missbrauchsvorwurf gegen den von 2002 bis 2010 im Bistum Würzburg eingesetzten Missbrauchsbeauftragten hatte zuvor die Katholische Kirche ihre Akten geschlossen. Das Signal dazu kam aus Rom von der Kongregation für die Glaubenslehre am 12. Dezember 2015 mit der Begründung: “Der Missbrauch könne nicht bewiesen werden.”

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DEUTSCHLAND
Main Post

[Abuse allegation in the Diocese of Würzburg: An exchange of words.]

Karl-Peter Büttner ist der Vorsitzende des Würzburger Diözesanrats. In der aktuellen Ausgabe des „Würzburger Katholischen Sonntagsblatts“ ist sein Leserbrief abgedruckt. Er habe ihn als Privatmann verfasst, er sei an den „Spiegel“, die „Main-Post“ sowie an den Bayerischen Rundfunk gerichtet.

Büttner habe sich veranlasst gesehen, zum „Spiegel“-Artikel „So ein bisserl liebevoll“, der am Ostersamstag, 26. März, erschienen ist, Stellung zu nehmen. Darin erhebt die 44 Jahre alte Alexandra Wolf aus dem Raum Würzburg schwere Vorwürfe gegen den ehemaligen Missbrauchsbeauftragen der Diözese. Er habe sie 1988 in einem Raum des Exerzitienhauses Himmelspforten in Würzburg zum Oralverkehr gezwungen (wir berichteten).

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NEW YORK
New York Daily News

BY KENNETH LOVETT NEW YORK DAILY NEWS Saturday, April 9, 2016

ALBANY — Disgraced ex-Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver was all about pay to play — and sexually abused kids were the ones to pay the price.

Silver stopped pushing for a bill to aid victims of predators after the state Catholic Conference hired his former long-time aide as a lobbyist, says a controversial former lawyer who has taken on the Church.

John Aretakis, of upstate Troy, made the alarming charge in a scathing letter he sent to a judge who in May will sentence Silver on an unrelated federal corruption conviction.

“Mr. Silver met with and looked into the eyes of many victims of clergy sexual abuse, and he promised his continuing support. … As soon as money lined his pockets, or the pocket of his trusted and loyal allies, he dropped us,” he wrote.

Aretakis, who as a lawyer and victim’s advocate represented a host of clients who sued the Catholic Church over abuse cases, wrote that Silver had been a supporter of a bill to extend the age that an adult who was sexually abused as a kid could bring a case.

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AUSTRALIA
The Australian

APRIL 9, 2016

Gerard Henderson
Columnist

I write in defence of the memory of the Australian Jesuit priest Patrick Stephenson and in support of my friend Charles Moore’s campaign to honour the life of the British Anglican bishop George Bell. Both men have been accused, decades after their deaths, of sexual impropriety with unnamed ­minors.

I knew, but did not like, Father Stephenson (1896-1990) when I was a student at Xavier College, Melbourne, in the late 1950s and early 1960s. I always regarded the Irish-born “Stevo”, as we all called him, as a bit of a snob with undue admiration for judges, surgeons, lawyers, doctors and the like. Moreover, he was a truly dreadful teacher. Stevo’s geography classes, which we termed “townography”, consisted of teaching and learning the names of countries, states, cities, rivers and so on throughout the known world. They are accurately, and wittingly, described in Paul Henderson’s 2005 book Xavier Behaviour.

Yet, unlike some of his Jesuit colleagues, Stephenson was a gentle man. He was committed to good works focusing on the less successful Xavier students as well as the poor and the oppressed outside the college’s gates. Perhaps because he was neither a scholar nor a sportsman, Stephenson devoted his life on the Xavier campus to counselling students. He invited students to his room for discussions about how they were faring and showed genuine interest in them and their families.

I have never been into “deep and meaningfuls” with priests or psychologists and soon ignored Stephenson’s invitations “to come up and see me sometime, boy”. What’s more, I did not much like the fact that he sat on a chair and grabbed the top of my knee during the discussions.

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MISSOURI
Riverfront Times

By Doyle Murphy on Fri, Apr 8, 2016

Dojo Pizza owner Loren Copp arrived handcuffed and shackled at the ankles on Friday in federal court for his first appearance since his arrest on child pornography charges.

His attorney had dropped him overnight. Some of his strongest supporters have backed away now that the FBI says it has photographic proof he sexually abused a girl over the course of several years, starting with a stomach-churning snapshot of the two of them in a sex act when she was just twelve years old. …

Tauna Cowin, whose two oldest daughters lived with Copp most of their lives, says she cried all night after reading the newly revealed allegations.

“If he did do this, I hope he rots in jail,” she told the Riverfront Times. “I’m sorry, but I hope he rots in jail.”

Cowin knew Copp, a former pastor, through her kids’ school and church. When she was losing her home about a decade ago, she sent a son and the two girls to live with him and his wife at the time. The boy eventually moved on, but the girls stayed and began calling Copp “Dad” even though he wasn’t their biological father.

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PENNSYLVANIA
PennLive

By Ivey DeJesus | idejesus@pennlive.com

By the time Mike Berkery was in high school, Stanley Gana, then a priest in the Archdiocese of Philadelphia, had raped him hundreds of times.

Gana, a spectacled man of 300 pounds, began grooming Berkery in 1978 when the boy, whose family attended Ascension Church in Philadelphia, was in eighth grade.

Gana sodomized the boy repeatedly, forcing him to have oral and anal sex in locations around Philadelphia and New Jersey, and as far away as Disney World, Notre Dame University, New York and Canada.

In textbook grooming, Gana alienated Berkery from his friends and family. He bought him gifts and gave him money, and put him in charge of the animals at his farm in northeastern Pennsylvania. By the time Berkery was 16, Gana had given him the keys to a new car.

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RHODE ISLAND
GoLocalProv

Friday, April 08, 2016
GoLocalProv News Team

St. George’s School sent out a letter to the school community this week announcing that a faculty member under investigation had been placed on administrative leave back in January, prompting victims’ lawyer Carmen Durso to ask why the school took so long in disclosing the move.

The communication marks the latest development in the ongoing investigation into claims of sexual abuse at the Middletown prep school. In December, GoLocal reported “St. George’s…which reports assets of over $200 million, has admitted that after decades of denial that at least 23 students were molested by multiple faculty and staff.” In January, Rhode Island State Police Colonel Steve O’Donnell told GoLocal that the State Police investigation was expanding although he would not comment on the number of individuals being investigated for sexual assault.

The letter sent by St. George’s on April 6 states that “longtime faculty member Bob Weston has been on leave from his position as Associate Head for External Affairs since January of this year” — and Durso raised questions as to why the letter was just sent out.

READ: See the letter from St. George’s to the school community BELOW

“Back in January we received info that Weston, who had once been a dorm parent, had been removed from that position because there were complaints that he would come into girls’ rooms when they were in a state of undress,” said Durso. “This is what we got, and along with that, he at some point was removed from that position.”

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ISRAEL
The Daily Beast

SHIRA RUBIN

The case of Malka Leifer, accused of molesting eight girls in Australia and holded up in a religious community in Israel, is just one of many.

TEL AVIV — A years-long delay in the extradition of an ultra-Orthodox educator, who fled to Israel from Australia after being accused of abusing her female students, has child protection advocates worried that Israel has become a haven for international sex offenders.

Malka Leifer, a dual Israeli-Australian citizen who from 2003 to 2008 served as principle of the Adass Israel Girls School in Melbourne, was accused of sexual abuse eight years ago. Only hours after the first accusations came to light, Leifer reportedly received funds and logistical help from members of her insular ultra-Orthodox community in Melbourne, which enabled her to fly to Israel in the dead of night along with her husband and five children.

Miriam Friedman, the director of Magen, an NGO which defends children at risk of sexual abuse in religious towns in Israel, said that alleged sex offenders from the international Jewish community have for years been taking advantage of Israel’s reputation for lax extradition practices.

“When an investigation is opened or suspicions start to circulate, abusers suddenly make aliyah—Jewish immigration to Israel—and Israel’s law of return makes it easy for them to pass under the radar, because nobody asks questions about why they are coming,” said Friedman. Since 1950 the law has entitled every Jew worldwide to apply for Israeli citizenship.

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INDIANA
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Friday, April 8, 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 suicide note strongly suggests that a high profile accused predator priest who worked at Notre Dame is guilty of child sex crimes.

[Daily Mail]

[SNAP]

According to the Daily Mail Online, Father Virgilio Elizondo “left a chilling suicide note in which he claims he took his own life as ‘a final gift’ to anyone he ‘might have hurt.’” The publication says the note “appears to be a veiled admission of guilt.”

A child sex abuse and cover up lawsuit filed in San Antonio, where Fr. Elizondo also lived and worked, says Fr. Elizondo sexually assaulted a boy when the boy went to him to report abuse by another priest, Father Jesus Armando Dominguez, a fugitive from justice believed to be in Mexico.

We agree with Thomas J. Henry, the lawyer representing Fr. Elizondo’s alleged victim, who says Fr. Elizondo’s not is “self-serving and manipulative.” It’s also hurtful to victims, many of whom will almost certainly think “Why speak up? Predators always duck, dodge and deny, right up until the end, and many still think they’re innocent.”

No matter what 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 Catholic churches or institutions – especially at Notre Dame – to protect kids by calling police, get help by calling therapists, expose wrongdoers by calling journalists, get justice by calling attorneys, and get comfort 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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CANADA
The Telegram

Barb Sweet
Published on April 08, 2016

Man also says he told priest in confession of sexual incidents

A former Mount Cashel orphanage resident broke down this morning in testimony at Newfoudland Supreme Court as he shook and covered his face.

“I don’t know why I am doing this,” said the 77-year-old Avalon Peninsula man, who is retired from the military.

The man had said he loved band, but when his lawyer Geoff Budden began asking him about the band instructor, the witness stopped and began shaking.

Subsequently in his testimony in the Mount Cashel civil trial, he said he was molested one night by the bandleader, a Christian Brother he initially liked.

The man is the fourth claimant among four test cases that have been brought before the civil court, representing about 60 former residents at the orphanage from the 1940s to the 1960s. They say the RC Episcopal Corp. of St. John’s should be held liable for the sexual and physical abuse of boys by certain Christian Brothers during that period.

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NORTHERN IRELAND
Belfast Telegraph

A judge has rejected a bid to overturn a decision to exclude the Kincora Boys’ Home in east Belfast from a child abuse inquiry at Westminster.

Mr Justice Treacy told Belfast High Court the timing of the judicial review was wrong.

He said: “The court considers that the application is premature and misconceived. Therefore the application for judicial review must be dismissed.”

There have been allegations of a paedophile ring linked to British intelligence services at Kincora.

The legal action was taken by Gary Hoy, a former resident abused by two men who were subsequently convicted.

He was challenging the decision not to bring Kincora under the remit of an independent inquiry established by Home Secretary Theresa May and chaired by Justice Lowell Goddard, which covers England and Wales and has the power to compel witnesses.

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GEORGIA
Surivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Friday, April 8, 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)

Atlanta’s top Catholic official is misleading his flock instead of protecting it.

He refuses to post predator priests’ names on church websites. He’s making deceptive claims about his dealings with pedophiles. And despite repeated pledges to be “open” about predator priests, he’s refusing to answer questions about six of them who were “outed” for abuse elsewhere but worked or spent time in his archdiocese.

Two days ago, in response to questions from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution (AJC) Archbishop Wilton Gregory claimed “Our archdiocese has one of the most stringent safe environment policies in the country, including zero tolerance for abuse.” We challenge him to prove this. We strongly believe this isn’t true.

We’ve asked Gregory twice to protect kids by warning his flock about these predators and posting their names on church websites. We’ve asked him to aggressively reach out to anyone else they may have been hurt, because many victims are suicidal, agoraphobic, addicted, depressed and trapped in silence, shame and self-blame.

Gregory ignores us. And when the AJC asks him questions about these child molesting cleric, he rebuffs them.

And honestly, even if Gregory’s archdiocese does have stronger policies, that’s virtually meaningless. Church abuse policies are rarely followed. Bishops adopt them for selfish reasons, because church public relations staff and defense lawyers and insurers tell them they’ll look good with written abuse protocols on the books.

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MISSOURI
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Friday, April 8, 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)

KC Catholic officials keep holding self-serving “healing” events when they should be focused on protecting vulnerable kids, not winning back upset parishioners. (There’s one set for April 21.)

Their priorities are backwards.

[Kearney Courier]

Such services are nothing more than public relations. They don’t protect a single child, expose a single predator, punish a single concealer or deter a single cover up.

Notice the slogan or tag line for this program: “Healing our Parishes Through Emphathy.” That’s their goal: restoring parishioners faith in church officials. Not stopping abuse. Not helping victims. “Healing parishes.”

Instead, Bishop James Johnston should take tangible steps so that the church no longer will need to hold such events. The goal should be no more victims.

For example, 30 US bishops have posted names of predator priests on their websites. That both protects the vulnerable, heals the wounded and deters the cover ups. That’s what Bishop Johnston should do.

Victims can heal from clergy sex crimes with or without bishops’ words. Kids, however, cannot protect themselves from predator priests without bishops’ actions. Johnston should warn parents, parishioners, police, prosecutors and the public about two priests who molested in Kansas City are still priests now but live out West, unsupervised, among unsuspecting families.

They are

–Fr. Thomas Cronin of Nevada, who is reportedly involved with a homeless women’s shelter despite a civil lawsuit in Kansas City (now settled) that charges him with sexually violating a young woman.

[BishopAccountability.org]

–-Bishop Joseph Hart of Wyoming who, as a priest in KC, molested at least six boys. (They have sued and those suits have settled.)

Johnston should take immediate steps to alert police, prosecutors, parishioners, parents and the public about Cronin and Hart. These two predator priests could be assaulting kids and young people today. They could be in Kansas City today or this weekend, visiting old parishioners and hurting their kids.

With real outreach by Johnston, Cronin and Hart might even be prosecuted, convicted and imprisoned, sparing others decades of devastating pain.

Presumably, Bishop Robert Finn’s resignation was intended to bring healing to Kansas City Catholics and victims. But wounded adults can heal themselves, with or without action by bishops. Innocent kids and vulnerable adults, however, cannot protect themselves from predators without action by bishops.

Johnston should put announcements in every parish bulletin at the first opportunity, begging those who saw, suspected or suffered crimes by Cronin or Hart to step forward and call police.
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 to protect kids by calling police, get help by calling therapists, expose wrongdoers by calling journalists, get justice by calling attorneys, and get comfort 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.

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.

MARYLAND
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Friday, April 8, 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)

It’s heartbreaking that a Maryland legislator has been betrayed three times, first by a pedophile, then by a predator-friendly justice system and now by his timid colleagues.

We commend Maryland Delegate C.T. Wilson (D-Charles) for his courage and compassion. We are very sad that his hard, brave work to help protect the vulnerable and heal the wounded has ended in vain, at least for now.

We’re even more sad because more Maryland children will be hurt in the months and years ahead because lawmakers won’t stand up to the self-serving lobbying efforts of corrupt Catholic officials and enable more child sex abuse victims to expose child molesters in court.

We urge Mr. Wilson to continue his battle. We are confident that he will succeed, hopefully sooner than later.

No matter what 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 Catholic churches or institutions in Maryland to protect kids by calling police, get help by calling therapists, expose wrongdoers by calling journalists, get justice by calling attorneys, and get comfort 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.

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

CALIFORNIA
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Friday, April 8, 2016

Statement by Joelle Casteix of Orange County, SNAP volunteer western regional director, 949 322 7434, jcasteix@gmail.com

We are glad that an archbishop is forcing his corrupt predecessor to withdraw from a church service. And we are deeply grateful to concerned parishioners who are speaking out against honoring a prelate who ignored and concealed heinous sex crimes against kids.

[Signal SCV]

Los Angeles Archbishop Jose Gomez is reversing himself and not letting Cardinal Roger Mahony preside over confirmations at Saint Kateri Catholic Church on April 29.

This is a step forward. But the broader question is why do Catholic officials let their disgraced and complicit colleagues keep ministering in public and ignore their horrific and deceitful wrongdoing? Why do they let men like Mahony keep rubbing salt into the already deep and still fresh wounds of thousands of clergy sex abuse victims and hundreds of thousands of betrayed parishioners?

Gomez could and should have done more sooner to prevent Mahony from presenting himself in churches as an honorable person. Still, we are glad Gomez is acknowledging the pain of St. Kateri Catholics by removing Mahony.

Disciplining those who conceal child sex crimes deters others from concealing child sex crimes. But it takes courage to do this, and sadly, precious few in the Catholic hierarchy seem to be able to summon such courage.

We urge every single person who saw, suspected or suffered child sex crimes and cover ups in Catholic churches or institutions in the LA area protect kids by calling police, get help by calling therapists, expose wrongdoers by calling journalists, get justice by calling attorneys, and get comfort 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.

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

AUSTRALIA
The Australian

APRIL 9, 2016

Dan Box
Crime reporter
Sydney

The victims of a pedophile Catholic priest have told a court he was protected by the church, who accused the children of lying about their abuse, allowing him to keep committing crimes.

John Joseph Farrell, also known as ‘‘Father F’’, appeared in Sydney’s District Court yesterday, after being found guilty of 62 offences involving sexual ­assaults on 12 victims during the 1980s.

Farrell operated “with complete immunity as an ongoing representative of, and with the protection and facilitation from, the Australian Catholic Church”, one victim told the court. “In fact, the church denied the allegations against Farrell, protected Farrell … and stated the allegations were completely preposterous and outright lies.

“I was made to feel as if it was all my fault. Meanwhile, I had lost my innocence, my youth.”

The majority of those Farrell assaulted were altar boys in the Moree parish in northern NSW, the court heard.

Farrell left the parish after senior church officials were warned of his behaviour and was appointed as a priest elsewhere. In the early 90s, he was appointed to a parish in western Sydney, where he abused an altar boy.

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.

SCHOTTLAND
cath.ch

[A Scottish monk was sentenced to seven years is prison for sexual abuse of minors.]

London, 8.4.16 (kath.ch) Ein vorbestraftes Mitglied des katholischen Männerordens der Schulbrüder (»De-La-Salle-Brüder») ist in Schottland unter anderem wegen sexuellen Missbrauchs von Jungen zu sieben Jahren Gefängnis verurteilt worden. Wie die BBC und schottische Zeitungen (8. April) berichteten, war der als Bruder Benedict bekannte Michael Murphy Lehrer am St. Joseph’s im schottischen Tranent nahe Edinburgh, einer Schule for straffällige Jungen.

Der 82-Jährige wurde vom Obersten Gericht in Edinburgh wegen insgesamt 15 Fällen von Körperverletzung und sexuellem Missbrauch an acht Jungen in der Zeit von 1971 bis 1981 verurteilt.

Damalige Opfer, die heute 40 oder 50 Jahre Jahre alt sind, beschrieben den Angaben zufolge, wie Murphy Jungen Elektroschocks versetzte und dabei gelacht habe. Dabei habe ein Junge Verbrennungen an den Händen erlitten; ein anderer sei in Ohnmacht gefallen, hiess es. Ein Jugendlicher wurde den Angaben zufolge von Murphy und einem Komplizen in der Dusche vergewaltigt. Dem Teenager wurde gedroht, er würde seine Eltern nie wiedersehen, wenn er jemandem von dem Missbrauch erzählte.

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.

FRANCE
L’Obs

[Lyon: The sexual abuse cases that poison the diocese.]

Celine Rastello

“On a ouvert une boîte de Pandore”, estime le président de l’association “La Parole Libérée” François Devaux, victime présumée, comme d’autres, du père Bernard Preynat quand il était enfant. Depuis la révélation des accusations de pédophilie visant cet ancien chef scout de la banlieue huppée de Sainte-Foy-lès-Lyon, les affaires s’enchaînent. Plusieurs prêtres du diocèse de Lyon sont mis en cause -ou l’ont été- dans différentes affaires d’agressions sexuelles. A la tête de l’évêché depuis 2002, le cardinal Philippe Barbarin, entre autres responsables, est accusé d’avoir eu connaissance de faits et de ne pas les avoir dénoncés. On lui reproche aussi d’avoir maintenu des prêtres dans leurs fonctions. De quelles affaires parle-t-on ? Où en sont-elles ? “L’Obs” fait le point.

Barbarin, le cardinal qui aimait la lumière

1. L’affaire Preynat

Révélée par des victimes du père Bernard Preynat, cette affaire est celle par laquelle tout commence. Fin janvier, l’ancien chef scout est mis en examen pour agressions sexuelles sur mineurs de moins de 15 ans pour des faits présumés entre 1986 et 1991, puis placé sous contrôle judiciaire. En garde à vue, il reconnaît les faits, ainsi que trois viols, pour lesquels il est placé sous le statut de témoin assisté. “La Parole Libérée” assure avoir reçu une soixantaine de témoignages de victimes sur la période allant de 1970 et 1991, quand l’abbé encadrait les jeunes scouts. Sur la quinzaine de plaintes déposées, une dizaine reposent sur des faits trop anciens, d’emblée prescrits.

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.

FRANCE
France 3

[A priest in the Lyon diocese who sexually assaulted a young adult in 2008 was simply moved to another parish before being sentenced in 2010 to a six-month suspended sentence.]

Un prêtre du diocése de Lyon qui avait commis à Longes (Rhône) une agression sexuelle sur un jeune majeur en 2008 a été simplement déplacé dans une autre paroisse avant sa condamnation en 2010 à 6 mois de prison avec sursis.

C’est une nouvelle affaire embarrassante pour le diocèse de Lyon. L’un de ses prêtres s’en prend dans la nuit du 10 au 11 janvier 2008 à un jeune majeur que nous appellerons Thomas, afin de préserver son anonymat ..

Les faits se déroulent à Longes (Rhone). Il est fait état “d’une atteinte sexuelle commise par surprise ou sous la contrainte” sur le jeune homme, des faits établis par la justice. Thomas en sort très perturbé. Il dépose une plainte que la justice va mettre deux ans à instruire.

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.