ABUSE TRACKER

AUSTRALIA/ROME
Daily Mail

By AAP and HARRY PEARL FOR DAILY MAIL AUSTRALIA

Australia’s most notorious pedophile priest was a tense and unusual man but not someone Cardinal George Pell came to know well despite sharing a house with him.

‘I didn’t warm to him but we never clashed,’ Cardinal Pell told Sky News on Friday, speaking of the 10 months he lived with Gerald Ridsdale at the Ballarat East presbytery where Ridsdale molested an 11-year-old girl in the 1970s.

The country’s now most-senior Catholic said Ridsdale in essence was ‘a mystery man’.

Cardinal Pell said Ridsdale was undoubtedly a capable man and was not someone people complained about to him at the time, even though they might have about other priests.

‘I once celebrated mass after him and I remember his vestments were there and they were sopping wet from some tension or something like that, and I remember noticing that at the time, and I thought him a very tense man,’ he said.

‘But that’s the only particular characteristic [of Ridsdale’s] that I can remember.’

Cardinal Pell also revealed during a lengthy interview with Sky that he later learned a psychiatrist treating Ridsdale in 1975 was contacted by police who said they had held concerns about him but were pleased something was finally being done about him.

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ITALY
The Local

[with maps]

An Italian organization seeking to bring paedophile Catholic priests in Italy to justice has developed a detailed map showing all reported cases from the last 10 years.

The map of Italy below paints a highly disturbing picture.

In the last decade alone, there have been 120 definitive convictions, marked on the map by red pins, against child abusers among the clergy.

Yellow pins mark instances of abuse that have been confirmed by a court, but the perpetrator has not been sentenced, most commonly due to court cases expiring under the statute of limitations.

Black pins mark cases in which foreign priests in Italy, who are under investigation abroad, are being protected by the Vatican.

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ROME
SBS

Cardinal George Pell has made his final appearance before the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse via video link from Rome.

Survivors of child sexual abuse who were in Rome to watch him testify will soon get the chance to ask questions of their own.

Cardinal Pell has scheduled a meeting with them for tomorrow morning.

It is the key question that remains unanswered in the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse:

How could so many paedophile priests come to be working in the same town at the same time?

On his last day of giving evidence to the commission, Cardinal Pell has been asked for an explanation.

(Lawyer:) “Cardinal, what in your view were the reasons behind so many child sexual abusers aggregating in Ballarat East in the 1970s?”

(Pell:) “I think that was a disastrous coincidence.”

(Lawyer:) “At the time, there were approximately four or five persons with very similar predilections, specifically a sexual attraction to boys of a similar age, in the same suburb. You believe that’s a coincidence?”

(Pell:) “Um, yes, I do.”

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OHIO
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Thursday, March 3, 2016

Statement by Judy Jones, Associate Midwest Director of SNAP, Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (636-433-2511, SNAPJudy@gmail.com)

At least one of the 50+ wrongdoers just exposed by Pennsylvania authorities attended a Columbus Catholic seminary (the same one recently-arrested seminarian Joel Wright attended). We urge Bishop Frederick Campbell to tell his flock about the predator and actively seek out and help anyone he may have hurt in Ohio.

The child molesting cleric is Msgr. Harold J. Burkhardt of the Altoona PA diocese. He worked at the Pontifical College of Josephinum in Columbus for almost a quarter century (between 1947 and 1971).

On Tuesday, Pennsylvania Attorney General Kathleen Kane released a scathing 147 page grand jury report that detailed decades of abuse involving hundreds of children by Catholic officials. It exposed Msgr. Burkhardt as a predator for the first time. (Catholic officials knew of or suspected his crime long ago, however.)

That report says Msgr. Burkhardt “perpetrated sexual child abuse on a 9 year old boy.” The victim also recalled “being fondled through his clothes and being forced to suck Burkhardt’s penis.” Also, “Burkhardt would pull down the victim’s pants and insert a finger into his anus.”

The victim reported to the diocese in 2005. The diocese responded by hiring detectives to investigate the victim and did not take the matter to police.

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UNITED STATES
Complex

BY CLAIRE LANDSBAUM

As anyone who’s seen Spotlight is well aware, the Catholic church doesn’t have the best reputation when it comes to child abuse. Over the years hundreds of allegations of sexual abuse have been leveled at priests, pastors, and even Cardinals as ever more survivors have come forward. However, as an in-depth investigation published in Newsweek today reveals, the problem isn’t limited to organized Catholicism. It also exists—and to an equally severe degree—in the Hasidic Jewish community, and ultra-orthodox sect of Judaism whose members are raised in a rigidly traditional setting.

That setting is in part to blame for the rampancy of abuse, writes Newsweek editor Elijah Wolfson. Boys and girls are separated from a young age, and all talk of sexuality, and even of their own bodies, is taboo. Thus they don’t know when an interaction with an older mentor crosses the line between casual and sexually charged. Wolfson spoke to Ozer Simon, who was abused by his Rabbi; Manny Vogel, who was abused by an older classmate; Chaim Levin, who was abused by an older cousin; and Schneur Borenstein, who was molested by a Rabbi. He also interviewed Mendy Raymond, who was physically abused by a teacher.

In all of these cases, the abusers were protected. Even when victims, who were anywhere from grade school students to pre-teens at the time, told their parents or a trusted friend what had happened, their abusers were swept under the rug until the drama blew over. No abuse — either sexual or physical — was ever reported to the police. The silence is mostly due to outdated customs in the Hasidic community. As Wolfson writes:

There’s widespread belief that reporting abuse to secular authorities constitutes heresy. Traditional religious law prohibits mesirah, or “handing over”—a Jew may not snitch on another Jew to a secular government. Mesirah arose in the Middle Ages, when a European Jew charged with a crime would not get a fair trial—it was a prohibition designed, essentially, to protect against institutionalized anti-Semitism.

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AUSTRALIA
The Australian

Jared Owens
Reporter
Canberra

Anthony Albanese has urged the Catholic Church to “show a lot more humility” about its handling of child sexual abuse, after his former school principal this week pleaded guilty to abusing 18 children.

The opposition frontbencher’s comments came after Bill Shorten this week shared “very personal” feelings about child abuse, noting his childhood priest allegedly abused 56 youngsters and was in jail.

Mr Albanese told the Nine Network: “It’s very obvious that for so many years, senior people in the Church put what they saw as the institutional interests of the Church before the actual parishioners and when you are talking about young kids it is very disturbing.

“The Catholic Church needs to come out and just say sorry, and make recompense and show a lot more humility than we have seen up to this point.”

Mr Albanese said his former principal at St Mary’s Cathedral College in Sydney, Brother David Standen, pleaded guilty on Wednesday to routinely sexually abusing boys in his care under the guise of tuition or discipline.

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AUSTRALIA
Geelong Advertiser

March 3, 2016

Fr Kevin Dillon
Geelong Advertiser

LAST Monday, events in three cities, thousands of kilometres apart, shared a common link.

In Sydney, members of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Abuse assembled to hear evidence from Cardinal George Pell. The focus was his time in Ballarat as a member of the Bishop’s senior Advisory Committee, the diocesan “Consultors”.

In the Hotel Quirinale in Rome, Cardinal Pell faced cameras and microphones that took his evidence to the royal commission, and to innumerable internet viewers and listeners around the world.

In the same room were around 20 Catholic Church-related sexual abuse victims. Most were from Ballarat. They had travelled there, along with families and supporters, intent on providing an “authentic” backdrop to the cardinal’s interview.

And in Los Angeles, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences gathered for the Oscars.

In recent years, movies based on true events have featured strongly in the Best Picture category, either winning or being one of the nominees. Argo, Bridge of Spies, Captain Phillips, Selma, The Theory of Everything and The Imitation Game all originate from true-life stories, and most are reasonably accurate re-creations of the original events they depict.

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UNITED STATES
Washington Square News

Patrick Seaman, Staff Writer
March 4, 2016

It’s a wacky world we live in. Donald Trump is the Republican frontrunner in the 2016 presidential election, Leonardo DiCaprio won an Oscar for the first time in his career and Cuba and the U.S. have finally buried the hatchet. However, in light of Cardinal George Pell, one of Pope Francis’ top advisers, testifying on Monday that the Catholic Church made a massive error in allowing the abuse and molestation of children within the Church to continue for centuries, there’s a clear winner in this year’s Crazy Olympics.

One might think that the most insane part is that the Catholic Church, an organization known for sticking to its guns even when astronomical evidence has been compiled to prove it wrong, admitted its mistakes, but that’s not it. The real craziness, to me at least, is that the apology is coming so late. As a former Catholic, for whom the revelations of child abuse within the Church was the breaking point, I’m frankly appalled at the weakness of the statement released by Cardinal Pell.

The Church does not have a good track record when it comes to their handling of child abuse cases throughout history, and it seems as though the Vatican, under the direction of Pope Francis, is unwilling to rectify the egregious errors they have made in their dealings with sexual abuse scandal. The Holy See has ultimate authority over the Catholic Church, and as the leader of the Church, Pope Francis needs to personally apologize and address the issue of child abuse within the Church. The lack of transparency in the Vatican’s investigations into those responsible for child abuse, as well as the apparent failure to prevent further abuse cases, is a blemish on the Church’s already precarious reputation.

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SCOTLAND
Daily Record

There are times when saying sorry is completely, utterly and entirely inadequate.

The “profound apology” for the many instances of clerical abuse of children and vulnerable persons from the Catholic Church is one of them.

It’s been a remarkable week of sympathy for sexual abuse sufferers following widespread publicity surrounding the publication of former Dumbarton social work chief executive Alexis Jay’s report on the scandal in Rotherham.

That report has led to the jailing of six people, including three brothers and their uncle, who have been convicted of the “systematic” sexual abuse of teenage girls.

There is more to come.

One can only hope that the Catholic Church is listening and that this news has sent shivers down the spine of the hierarchy.

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ROME/AUSTRALIA
Sydney Morning Herald

[with video]

March 4, 2016

Marika Dobbin
Reporter for The Age

Cardinal George Pell has welled up in a live interview from Rome when talking about a victim of sexual abuse by a paedophile priest, but said he would not resign over the issue.

In the first display of raw emotion from Australia’s most powerful Catholic, Pell choked up and stopped talking momentarily when speaking about a meeting with victims that followed his testimony to the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.

Pell responded during the TV interview with News Corp Australia columnist Andrew Bolt to claims that he appears unmoved or unsympathetic to victims.

“The fact that somebody seems a bit wooden doesn’t mean they aren’t feeling anything inside,” he said. “I found the meeting emotional, but I am a bit buttoned up. That was how I was trained.”

Pell spoke about his “deeply moving” reconciliation with David Ridsdale, the nephew of notorious paedophile priest Gerald Ridsdale, who has accused Pell of bribing him not to go to police.

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AUSTRALIA/ROME
The Guardian

Melissa Davey
@MelissaLDavey
Friday 4 March 2016

Australia’s most senior Catholic, Cardinal George Pell, has said he will not resign from his position as the chief financial controller of the Vatican, because to do so would be “an admission of guilt” that he failed to respond to child sexual abuse.

He also said he has reconciled with one of the most vocal critics of the church and abuse survivor, David Ridsdale, describing their meeting on Thursday as “deeply moving”.

In an exclusive interview with conservative media commentator Andrew Bolt for Sky News, Pell was questioned for an hour about his past four days of evidence before Australia’s child sex abuse royal commission.

Pell’s answers to Bolt were similar to those he gave to the commission, but were more relaxed and in a few moments, less dispassionate and, according to Bolt, less “wooden”.

“Cardinal George Pell is the most hated man in Australia, if you believe the media,” opened Bolt in the interview that aired live at 9am Rome time Friday.

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UNITED STATES
Vanity Fair

“We continue to seek the forgiveness of all who have been harmed by the tragedy of clergy sexual abuse.”

BY JULIE MILLER

Upon winning best picture at the Oscars on Sunday, Spotlight producer Michael Sugar used the stage to send a message to the Vatican. Speaking about the drama, which chronicles The Boston Globe’s Pulitzer Prize–winning investigation into the Catholic Church’s sex-abuse cover-up, Sugar said, “This film gave a voice to survivors and this Oscar amplifies that voice, which we hope will become a choir that will resonate all the way to the Vatican.” Appealing to the church’s leader, he added, “Pope Francis, it’s time to protect the children and restore the faith.”

Spotlight specifically addresses the archdiocese of Boston’s elaborate cover-up of sexual abuse. And in the hours after the film’s best-picture win, Cardinal Seán P. O’Malley, Boston’s current archbishop, released a lengthy statement acknowledging the film’s importance, crediting it for helping the Church confront its failings, and describing how the archdiocese has implemented policies and procedures to prevent those tragedies from happening again.

The complete statement ahead, per The Pilot:

Spotlight is an important film for all impacted by the tragedy of clergy sexual abuse. By providing in-depth reporting on the history of the clergy sexual abuse crisis, the media led the Church to acknowledge the crimes and sins of its personnel and to begin to address its failings, the harm done to victims and their families and the needs of survivors. In a democracy such as ours, journalism is essential to our way of life. The media’s role in revealing the sexual abuse crisis opened a door through which the Church has walked in responding to the needs of survivors.

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MASSACHUSETTS
East Boston Times-Free Press

By John Lynds

Michael Rezendes, who Mark Ruffalo plays in the Oscar Award winning drama about the Boston Globe’s investigative reports into the widespread Archdiocese clergy sexual abuse scandal during the early 2000s, shared a Pulitzer Prize for his reporting on the subject.

Spotlight, which won Best Picture Sunday night at the 88th Annual Academy Awards, has resuscitated the importance of investigative journalism in the U.S. and Rezendes has emerged as a national figure in that endeavor. Ruffalo got a Best Supporting Actor nod from the Academy for playing Rezendes.

However, some here might not know the award winning journalist got his start in Eastie first writing and later as editor of the former East Boston Community News. There is even one scene in Spotlight were Rezendes (Ruffalo) and Ben Bradlee Jr. (John Slattery) share a box of Santarpio Pizza–one of the real life Rezendes favorite haunts. Story is Rezendes brought Spotlight writers Tom McCarthy and Josh Singer to ‘Tarp’s and they loved it so much they snuck the pizza into the movie for a little more Boston authenticity.

Rezendes attended Sunday’s Academy Awards, was shown on television several times throughout the evening and even got a shout out from host Chris Rock.

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UNITED STATES
America

Kevin Clarke | Mar 3 2016

It has been a grim couple of days reading about and listening to testimony related to past abuse of children by Catholic priests, revelations from reports and documents that have been moldering in diocesan archives for decades. On March 1, as Cardinal Pell began his extraordinary testimony in Rome regarding acts of sexual assault over decades in Australia that led to scores of suicides, Pennsylvania Attorney General Kathleen G. Kane, who had forced open the files of the Diocese of Altoona-Johnston, released yet another grand jury report on clerical abuse.

Though elements of the story of abuse in Altoona-Johnston were already known because of press reports, this grand jury report marked the first, detailed and gruesome accounting of decades of criminal acts by at least 50 priests or religious leaders and attempts to obscure those crimes and hide away those offenders by diocesan officials.

Today, Altoona-Johnston’s current leader Bishop Mark Bartchak, acknowledging the report and its indictment of past episcopal leadership in the diocese, made a renewed commitment to respond to past clerical abuse of children and to efforts to prevent such acts in the present.

After extending his “heartfelt and sincere apology… to the victims, to their families, to the faithful people of our diocese, to the good priests of our Diocese, and to the public,” Bartchak pledged “to do more” to protect the children of Altoona-Johnston. “Let me start with a significant commitment to transparency, past and future.”

A list of “all priests who have been the subject of credible allegations, along with each priest’s current status” will be posted to the diocesan website, he said.

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PENNSYLVANIA
WTAE

By Jackie Cain

Brian Gergely says he has vivid memories of the sexual abuse he says he endured as a young boy inside Holy Name Catholic Church in Ebensburg.

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ROME
News Weekly

I accuse! A travesty of justice

by Peter Westmore

ROME: Over four long nights, I have sat through many hours of accusations by counsel assisting the Royal Commission into Child Sexual Abuse, Gail Furness SC, that Cardinal George Pell was complicit in or covered up the disgusting sexual abuse of children in Ballarat where he served for many years as a priest, then in Melbourne as an auxiliary to Archbishop Frank Little from 1987.

Cardinal Pell was directly and repeatedly accused of lying to the commission, of covering up evidence of sexual abuse of children, and of blame-shifting to exonerate himself.

These allegations were broadcast live on television and online to Australia, were featured in press, radio and TV coverage, and formed the basis of the most damaging allegations of criminal activity and impropriety against a religious leader that I have heard in my life.

Cardinal Pell’s repeated denials were mocked and ridiculed. He was subject to vicious character assassination arising from these allegations in the Australian media, particularly social media.

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INDIA
The News Minute

Chintha Mary Anil| Friday, March 4, 2016

In one of his interviews, Pope Francis is heard joking about how egocentric Argentians are: “Do you know how an Argentinian kills himself? By climbing over his own ego and jumping!”

And that aptly captures the Roman Catholic Church’s megalomaniac obsession with its existential worldly grandeur thereby plunging itself into a downward spiritual spiral of its own making.

Christians believe that Christ came into the world to reconcile humans with their Creator by shedding His Blood on the Cross. Yet the Catholic Church seems hell-bent in converting itself into a white-washed tomb –the exact phrase Christ used to describe the self-righteous moralists of his day.

The expediency with which the Roman Catholic Church has sought to sustain the church’s divine status in the eyes of her believers at the expense of a massive cover-up of sexual abuse by its clergy is mind-boggling.

Right from the 1980s when the first case of sexual abuse was reported till recently, the Church purposely chose to look the other way whenever any such case was reported.

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AUSTRALIA/ROME
Sky News

[with video]

Sky News contributor Andrew Bolt sat down with Cardinal George Pell , the only one on one interview given by Australia’s most senior Catholic.

Cardinal Pell has just finished giving four days of testimony to the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.

Pell gave the evidence via video link from the Vatican in Rome where he is now stationed.

He was unable to travel to Australia on the grounds of ill health.

Pell’s testimony covered what he was told about a number of peadophile priests operating in dioceses throughout Victoria.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC Radio

audio presentation

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AUSTRALIA
news.com.au

A SYDNEY priest of 30 years has slammed Cardinal George Pell’s “appalling” performance while facing the royal commission in to child sex abuse in a damning radio interview.

Father Michael Kelly, a well-known Jesuit priest, took to the ABC airwaves to say what he really thought about the Australian cardinal who he has known for more than 30 years.

“He’s one of the best developed narcissists I’ve ever met in my life,” he told interviewer Wendy Harmer.

“He’s astonishing at the way in which he can deploy his insensitivity; he seems just impervious to human experience.”

The Catholic priest, who conceded at one point he was sacked by Pell, was very critical of Pell’s four days on the stand at the commission, where he gave evidence and was interrogated over his knowledge of systemic sex abuse within the church. But Father Kelly said he wasn’t surprised.

“I think I share the dismay and disgust of a great many people, Catholic and others, with the Cardinal’s display, and the interesting thing about it of course is it’s just made plain to the world who he is and what he’s like. This is something of international reach, but I must say I’m not surprised,” he said.

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PENNSYLVANIA
PennLive

By Christian Alexandersen | calexandersen@pennlive.com

The Roman Catholic Diocese of Harrisburg does not plan to discuss a grand jury report at mass this weekend that found hundreds of children were raped by priests at another diocese.

The report uncovered evidence that more than 50 religious leaders with the Roman Catholic Diocese of Altoona-Johnstown had sexually abused children over 40 years. Altoona-Johnstown Diocese spokesman Tony DeGol said Bishop Joseph Adamec has asked all the priests to read a message regarding the report at this weekend’s masses.

In Harrisburg, however, no message will be read.

The reason, according to Harrisburg Diocese spokesman Joseph Aponick, is because the diocese religious leaders read a message in January that covered the issue of sexual abuse at the hands of priests.

The message was that the Harrisburg Diocese was in compliance with the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ charter to protect children. It’s an area the diocese is audited on every year.

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PENNSYLVANIA
WJAC

BY LAUREN HENSLEY THURSDAY, MARCH 3RD 2016

ALTOONA, Pa.– The bishop of the Altoona-Johnstown Catholic Diocese broke his silence Thursday. Two days after a grand jury report into the Altoona-Johnstown Catholic Diocese was made public, Bishop Mark Bartchak, who spoke with the medi, broke his silence with an apology.

“I apologize to the victims, to their families, to the faithful people of our diocese to the good priest of our diocese and to the public,” Bartchak said.

During Attorney General Kathleen Kane’s press conference Tuesday, she said the grand jury commended Bartchak for removing accused priests during his five years as bishop and called his action positive steps to help protect children.

But the grand jury report condemned deceased Bishop James Hogan and retried Bishop Joseph Adamec. The report said the two covered up the sex abuse allegations. Adamec remains a fixture in the Blair County community, but that is changing.

“He said that he would not be celebrating mass at this time and anything that would happen further would not be for me to say because Bishops are subject to disciple from our superior who is the Pope,” Bartchak said.

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PENNSYLVANIA
PennLive

By Ivey DeJesus | idejesus@pennlive.com

The volume of calls to the hotline set up to field calls regarding the investigation into child sexual abuse by priests and religious leaders in the Roman Catholic Diocese of Altoona‑Johnstown has been so high, authorities have set up another line.

State Attorney General Kathleen Kane on Thursday said the hotline had, within 24 hours of being established, received approximately 80 calls, and that the call volume was increasing so rapidly, another dedicated line was opened.

“The information is coming in as we expected it to,” Kane said on Thursday.

The hotline – 888-538-8541 – was established amid the release of a grand jury report documenting the rape of hundreds of children by diocese leaders over 40 years. The report, released Monday, found that more than 50 priests and leaders from the eight-county diocese had for decades molested children, the youngest of them six years old. The report found that, in some cases, law enforcement authorities had given the diocese on pass and opted not to investigate further.

The investigation is ongoing, and officials from Kane’s office have indicated that one phone call could change everything. The statute of limitation has expired for all the cases detailed in the grand jury report, Kane said. Richard Serbin, an Altoona attorney who has handled hundreds of cases involving victims of sexual abuse from the Altoona-Johnstown Diocese told PennLive on Wednesday that he knows of scores of cases involving priests who are not named in the grand jury report and for whom, the law could still be applicable.

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AUSTRALIA
Daily Mail

By DANIEL PIOTROWSKI FOR DAILY MAIL AUSTRALIA

A priest who has known Cardinal George Pell for 30 years has launched a scathing attack on the Catholic leader, describing him as a ‘bully’ and ‘the best developed narcissist’ he knows.

Father Michael Kelly, a Jesuit priest and journalist, told ABC Radio he has been dismayed and disgusted with Pell’s appearance at the child abuse Royal Commission this week.

‘It’s now made plain to the world just who he is and what he’s like… But I must say I’m not surprised,’ he said.

‘I’ve known Cardinal Pell for over 30 years. And I really think he’s one of the best developed narcissists I’ve ever met in my life,’ he continued.

‘He’s astonishing at the way in which he can deploy his insensitivity.

‘He seems just impervious to human experience’.

Fr Kelly – who claimed Pell had ‘got me the sack’ from a publishing organisation once before – said of the embattled Vatican number 3: ‘He’s a bully, he’s just a bully.’

‘He gets exactly what he wants by standing over people.

‘As one priest in Melbourne said to me recently, he’s lived by the sword, he’s gonna die by the sword’.

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AUSTRALIA
Business Insider

SIMON THOMSEN

It was 1993 when Gerard Ridsdale, Australia’s most notorious paedophile priest, was first convicted of child sexual abuse, the beginning of an avalanche of charges over the next 20 years involving more than 50 children, including his nephew, David. As the Ballarat priest headed to court dressed in civilian clothes, wearing dark glasses, he was accompanied by a colleague, George Pell, in the black robes of a priest. The two men once shared a house together in the diocese during the 1970s.

Just three months earlier, David Ridsdale attempted to alert Pell about the abuse he suffered at the hands of his uncle. Pell denies knowing anything about father Ridsdale’s abuse until that point. The cardinal also disputes David Ridsdale’s recollection of their discussions.

Gerard Ridsdale’s first 18-year imprisonment occurred the same year Forrest Gump was released. With apologies to the creators of the much-loved movie, we have learned in recent days that Pell is, a lot like the central character in Forrest Gump: his life is strewn with inflection points of historical and moral import; times that reasonable observers look back on now and see, at many points, opportunities to intervene.

But the man at the centre of it all had no idea what was happening around him.

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UNITED STATES
Catholic Culture

By Phil Lawler

Mar 03, 2016

For nearly 15 years, I have been waiting for a Catholic bishop to say, for the record, that another bishop’s handling of the sex-abuse scandal had been negligent. This week it finally happened.

Think about that. Heaven knows there has been plenty of evidence of negligence. Some bishops have resigned; others have cut deals with prosecutors. Scores of bishops have acknowledged that the crisis has been handled badly, and in many cases one could read between the lines and recognize implicit criticism of an individual. But I cannot recall a single instance in which Bishop A said that Bishop B had proven himself unfit for his post.

There was a time, back in 2002, when the leaders of the American bishops’ conference were summoned to Rome to discuss the crisis, and one prelate—speaking under condition of anonymity—suggested to reporters that Boston’s Cardinal Bernard Law should resign. But anonymous quotes and implicit criticisms are not the same as forthright statements.

The issue is, and always has been, accountability. Priests should be held responsible for their conduct. Bishops should be held responsible for their handling of priests under their charge. If a bishop is clearly negligent, then he should be held responsible by his brother bishops.

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PENNSYLVANIA
Fox 43

[with video]

BY CAITLIN SINETT

HARRISBURG, Pa. — Pennsylvania Rep. Mark Rozzi spoke out about the child sex abuse scandal in Altoona-Johnstown.

Two bishops from that diocese are accused of allowing priests to sexually abuse hundreds of children.

For Rozzi, it’s personal.

“At first I was definitely appalled, outraged, here we go again,” he said.

He was abused sexually by a priest when he was a child and had friends who were sexually abused at a young age.

“I had three childhood friends who have committed suicide, the recent one just on Good Friday of this past year. So when people say, ‘Is it personal?’, you better believe it is,” he said.

He said victims of sexual abuse sometimes blame themselves, and it’s difficult for them to face their abuser.

“I didn’t do anything then, but I can do something now. I can stand up for the voiceless and give all these victims out there that are struggling with alcohol, drugs, that have committed suicide, I can be their voice here in the Capitol.”

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
The Morning Call

Kate Giammarise
Of The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (TNS)

PITTSBURGH — A 147-page grand jury report that outlines decades of child sexual abuse in excruciating detail in the Diocese of Altoona-Johnstown has revived calls for Pennsylvania to eliminate its statute of limitations for that crime.

A statewide grand jury report made public this week by the attorney general’s office detailed how hundreds of children were sexually abused over a period of at least 40 years by priests or other religious leaders in the Diocese of Altoona-Johnstown. No one was charged because some of the perpetrators have died, and because the statute of limitations has run out on the crimes, some of which dated to the 1940s.

Statutes of limitations are laws that set a time limit on how long after a crime it can be prosecuted. The main rationale for such laws is that the longer it takes to prosecute alleged wrongdoing, the more stale the evidence gets and the less reliable it is. Witnesses may have forgotten the events or have died, and it may be impossible to get physical evidence. Another reason for time limits is that plaintiffs have a responsibility to pursue their claims in a timely manner, and that it is unfair for them to hold out the possibility of prosecution for an extended period.

Advocates say the grand jury’s report — coupled with the fact that victims of child abuse often take decades to report it — highlights why the law needs to change.

“We know that delayed disclosure is the norm in cases of sexual violence, so we need to have laws that provide safety, healing and path to justice when victims do come forward,” said Jennifer Storm, victim advocate for the commonwealth.

“Child sex crimes are just different than other crimes,” said Barbara Dorris, outreach director of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP). “Most kids don’t have the words to report the crime nor the emotional ability to report the crime,” she said.

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.

MINNESOTA
Sun-Current

Published March 3, 2016

After multiple calls to Edina Police throughout the past few years, Edina Police executed a search warrant Feb. 18 for possible possession of child pornography at a Fridley priest’s Edina apartment.

The priest, who has not been charged with any crime, is not being named by the Sun Current at this time. Edina Police searched his home among allegations of child pornography possession.

Neighbors in his Edina apartment complex reportedly called police several times over the past four years to report noises of a child who seemed to be crying or in distress, according to the Police Department’s search warrant. Each of the calls found there to be no children present in the apartment.

The priest, who serves as a pastor at Church of St. William in Fridley, took a voluntary leave of absence following the search, according to a statement from the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis on Feb. 19.

“The Archdiocesan Office of Ministerial Standards and Safe Environment has cooperated, and continues to cooperate, with the Edina Police Department,” according to the statement.

The statement said the priest was cooperating with the police department and would remain on leave of absence pending the results of the investigation.

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
WFMZ

ALTOONA, Pa. – The bishop of a central Pennsylvania diocese has apologized and promised reforms after the state attorney general released a scathing report on clergy sex abuse of children and created a hotline seeking more accusations.

Officials said the hotline has fielded more than 100 calls since Attorney General Kathleen Kane said Tuesday that two former bishops either covered up or didn’t do enough to respond to hundreds of abuse allegations by more than 50 priests in the Altoona-Johnstown Diocese from 1966 to 2011.

Bishop Mark Bartchak called a news conference on Thursday to apologize and promise to reform the diocese’s training and background check program and the review board that vets allegations of clergy abuse.

“I have been bishop for five years,” Bartchak said. “During this time, we have re-examined allegations, removed clergy from ministry, reported allegations to civil authorities, and strengthened our training program. I am committed to doing even more to protect children.”

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
Washington Times

By The Associated Press
Thursday, March 3, 2016

ALTOONA, Pa. (AP) – The bishop of a Pennsylvania Catholic diocese apologized Thursday and promised reforms two days after the attorney general released a scathing report on clergy sex abuse of children involving allegations against dozens of priests.

“I acknowledge there are a number of recommendations made in this report involving how we respond to allegations of abuse. I take them seriously,” Bishop Mark Bartchak said from a prepared statement at a news conference.

Bartchak heads the Altoona-Johnstown diocese, home to more than 90,000 Roman Catholics in eight counties in central Pennsylvania.

A hotline Attorney General Kathleen Kane created to solicit information about additional victims has gotten more than 100 calls since she issued her 147-report based on secret diocesan archives and other sources on Tuesday.

Among other things, Bartchak promised to publish a list of all priests who are the subject of credible abuse allegations on the diocesan website, as well as their ministerial status. The bishop also promised a “full review of our diocesan policies and procedures regarding child protection and will make all changes that should be made.”

The diocese will review its training, background checks and procedures for reporting of abuse allegations to law enforcement. It will also examine the diocesan review board, whose members appointed by the bishop vet abuse allegations.

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
Roman Catholic Diocese of Altoona-Johnstown

Bishop Mark Bartchak, in response to grand jury report, issues heartfelt apology and lays out plan for the future

March 3, 2016

As Bishop of the diocese, I extend my most heartfelt and sincere apology. I apologize to the victims, to their families, to the faithful people of our diocese, to the good priests of our Diocese, and to the public.

I acknowledge there are a number of recommendations made in this report involving how we respond to allegations of abuse. I take them seriously.

I appreciate the grand jury’s recognition of the progress we have made. I have been bishop for five years. During this time, we have re-examined allegations, removed clergy from ministry, reported allegations to civil authorities, and strengthened our training program. I am committed to doing even more to protect children.

In addition to reporting allegations, I have met with victim-survivors. Their words and their pain have deeply affected me. I pledge to them and to all families to do all that I can to ensure children are safe.

Someone recently shared the expression, “when you know more, you can do more.” With the grand jury report, we know more, and we will do more. Let me start with a significant commitment to transparency, past and future.

I will publish a list of all priests who have been the subject of credible allegations, along with each priest’s current status. The list will be posted on our website.

This Diocese will continue to report to law enforcement, in writing, all allegations it receives of any type of sexual misconduct involving a minor by any clergy or religious (living or deceased), regardless of when the conduct occurred, whether or not the victim is now a minor and whether or not the victim or another person already has made the report.

In addition, I will undertake a full review of our diocesan policies and procedures regarding child protection and will make all changes that should be made. This review will be comprehensive and will include our training and background check programs, the diocesan review board, and communication on reporting requirements.

I urge anyone who has information about suspected abuse to call the Attorney General’s hotline, 888-538-8541. In addition, the diocesan victim assistance coordinator, Jean Johnstone, may be contacted at 814-944-9388, for additional support.

We are people of faith. I will share a message with the people of our Diocese this weekend through their pastors, and plans are being made for special Prayer Services for Mercy in the coming weeks.

Finally, I ask that we turn to our Lord for comfort and healing from these wounds as we pray for those who have been harmed, for all who have been affected, and for the many priests in our Diocese who have been faithful to their vocation and to the people they serve.

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
Catholic News Service

HOLLIDAYSBURG, Pa. (CNS) — Bishop Mark L. Bartchak of Altoona-Johnstown committed the Pennsylvania diocese to be transparent in its efforts related to the sexual abuse of minors by clergy and to make public the names of all priests found to have a credible allegation of abuse against them and the status of each man within the diocese.

The pledge came during an afternoon news conference March 3 at diocesan offices in Hollidaysburg, two days after a state grand jury issued a report saying that at least 50 priests or religious leaders were involved in the sexual abuse of hundreds of children over several decades and that diocesan leaders systematically concealed the abuse to protect the church’s image.

The list of priests accused of abuse will be published on the diocesan website, www.ajdiocese.org, Bishop Bartchak said.

The diocese made a copy of the statement Bishop Bartchak read to the media available online.
The bishop apologized to abuse victims, their families, people of the diocese and priests.

Bishop Bartchak also said that the diocese will continue sending to law enforcement authorities written reports of allegations it receives of “any type of sexual misconduct involving a minor” by a living or deceased clergyman or religious, “whether or not the victim is now a minor and whether or not the victim or another person already has made the report.”

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UNITED STATES
Religion News Service

Cathy Lynn Grossman | Mar 3, 2016

We’ve all seen some sad spectacle about the Catholic Church this week.

“Spotlight” – portraying Boston Globe’s shattering expose of Cardinal Bernard Law’s archdiocese sheltering, promoting and protecting sex-abusive priests – won the Academy Award for Best Picture prize.

The next day, Australian Cardinal George Pell testified to a Vatican commission that he cared little or nothing about the victims of sex abuse – even as he called such neglect “indefensible.”

Thursday (March 3) , he met with Australian abuse victims and pledged to work with them on care and compensation for people who had experienced abuse.

Is that enough?

Between Law and Pell, two princes of the church, we have witnessed decades of the church staggering to recognize and apologize for its failure to protect uncountable numbers of victims.

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
Emes Ve-Emunah

Everything you ever wanted to know about abuse in the Chasidic world is in Newsweek. In what has to be the most comprehensive story ever published in the non Jewish media, Newsweek discusses cases of physical abuse and mostly sex abuse where survivors were victims of rabbis, teachers and others.

While the article focuses on Chabad, they are not alone in how poorly abuse has been dealt with. It is not limited to Chabad or other Chasidim. It happens in similar ways in the non Chasidic world of Yeshivos too. Modern Orthodoxy is not exempt from this either.

In all cases, there have been attempts to cover up sex abuse at the expense of the victims. Some more egregious than others but cover-ups at one level or another seems to be a universal response by religious institutions of any hashkafa (or any religion – as the move ‘Spotlight’ showed about the Catholic Church for example). Religious institutions simply do not want to damage their reputations. After all, they represent God. That there was sex abuse going on at their religious institutions is the antithesis of being Godly.

The problem with that of course is that keeping things like this quiet ends up increasing the frequency of its occurrence. Abusers don’t get punished and are merely kicked out of the institution and maybe the city they were caught doing it – only to find another one to do it, where nobody knows who they are or what they did.

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PENNSYLVANIA
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Thursday, March 3, 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)

No one with a bit of sense should believe Altoona bishop when he, once again, pledges reform about child sex crimes and cover ups.

[WPXI]

For centuries, Catholic officials have dealt with abuse reports. In the US, for more than 30 years, these scandals have surfaced publicly. The first Altoona priest was sued in the mid-1980s. Bishop Mark Bartchak and his predecessors have had years to “reform.” But they haven’t and they won’t.

We’re glad he says he’ll post predators’ names on his website. But he should put them on parish websites too, and post them prominently, permanently and promptly. He should also include ALL predators – living or deceased, diocesan or religious order, and regardless of whether they are priests, nuns, brothers, seminarians, bishops or other church employees. He should have done this years ago. And he should include their photos, whereabouts and work histories.

Bartchak’s pledge to reform internal church policies is worthless. Bishops rarely follow their own policies. They are secretive monarchs. There are no checks and balances on a king. So Bartchak and his staff can promise anything. But there’s no way anyone will know if he keeps these promises. And when he breaks them, there will be no punishment. So church abuse protocols, policies and procedures are meaningless.

The solution lies in the secular sphere. Victims, witnesses and whistleblowers must call law enforcement. Police and prosecutors must investigate, charge and convict those who commit and conceal clergy sex crimes. Lawmakers must reform predator-friendly statutes of limitations. Parents, parishioners and the public must pressure Catholic officials to take tangible steps to protect the vulnerable and expose the truth – not empty gestures like “healing services.”

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MAINE
Roman Catholic Dicoese of Portland

PORTLAND—Bishop Robert P. Deeley has designated Friday, March 4, as a diocesan-wide Day of Prayer and Penance to seek forgiveness for past harm while offering prayers for the healing of victims/survivors of sexual abuse in the Catholic Church. The day will also reaffirm the Diocese of Portland’s continuing pledge to provide a safe and peaceful environment for children.

Bishop Deeley will celebrate Mass on the Day of Prayer and Penance at 12:15 p.m. at the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception in Portland.

On March 4, priests throughout the diocese will be encouraged to observe the Day of Prayer and Penance by offering Masses that include prayers for victims/survivors of abuse for their healing; for perpetrators of abuse to seek and find repentance and justice; for diocesan clergy, employees and volunteers to serve with a spirit of respect and humility; and for families to create a safe, loving, and peaceful environment for their children.

In 2002, the Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People was implemented by the Catholic Church in the United States, mandating that any representative of the Church who sexually abuses a minor will be permanently removed from ministry. The Charter, which is reviewed every two years, also calls for the reporting of all complaints to civil authorities, thorough investigations of all complaints, and reimbursement for therapy to victims/survivors. Since the implementation of the charter, over 14,000 Church employees and volunteers (including all priests and educators) in Maine who work with children have been trained in a safe environment program and have gone through mandated background checks. An independent, on-site audit of safe environment procedures found the Diocese of Portland in full compliance with the Charter for the 2014/2015 audit period.

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MAINE
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Thursday, March 3, 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)

Maine Catholic officials have scheduled a “healing mass” for abuse victims. At worst, this is a cynical public relations move. At best, it misses the mark. (See details below.)

[Portland diocese]

Bishop Robert Deeley’s focus should be on real reforms that actually make kids safer, not symbolic gestures that make him seem nicer or that make a few adults temporarily feel better. And events like this imply that the crisis is past when in fact it’s not. By focusing on “healing,” Deeley wants us all to believe that prevention is no longer needed. That’s backwards. Only when every cleric who has committed or concealed child sex crimes are identified, punished and kept away from kids should bishops concentrate on healing.

Deeley’s first job should be protecting the vulnerable. And much remains to be done on this front. There are 49 publicly accused Maine predator priests. Where are they now?

Deeley should permanently and prominently post – on parish websites – the names, photos, whereabouts and work histories of these proven, admitted and credibly accused clerics. (About 30 US bishops have done this.)

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VIRGINIA
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

PRESS STATEMENT March 3, 2016, For immediate release

Statement by Barbra Graber, Leader, Anabaptist-Mennonite Chapter of *SNAP, 540-214-8874, mennonite@SNAPnetwork.org

After a Mennonite university official was accused of soliciting prostitution, our group urged anyone who might have seen, suspected or suffered any misdeeds by him to come forward. We have since heard from others who he hurt.

He is Luke Hartman, a former Vice President at Eastern Mennonite University in Harrisonburg, VA. In January, he was arrested and he resigned his post. Days later, the Anabaptist-Mennonite Chapter of SNAP responded with a public statement urging anyone with more information to speak up.

We thank The Mennonite and other news outlets for posting our appeal. We thank those concerned persons who have come forward to us via our confidential email at mennonite@snapnetwork.org and by word of mouth.

Hartman has reportedly harmed vulnerable women in the church before he was caught in a sting operation by Harrisonburg Police Department and Rockingham County Sheriff’s Office. We believe Eastern Mennonite University, Mennonite Church USA, and Virginia Mennonite Conference officials may have withheld information concerning possible criminal behavior of Hartman. The pieces of the puzzle we have received put together a picture of a sexually coercive, exploitative, and abusive church employee whose superiors gave him continued access to vulnerable students, staff and church members.

Today we repeat our invitation. If anyone has seen, suspected, or suffered misconduct at the hands of Luke Hartman or any other Mennonite church official, we urge them to report to local law enforcement professionals, a civil attorney, a therapist or crisis counselor trained in sexual abuse, or an independent survivors’ group like SNAP. All information SNAP receives is confidential. Due to potential conflicts of interest, we do not recommend reporting to employees or appointees of the Mennonite church or its institutions or agencies.

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UNITED STATES
Washington Post

Michelle Boorstein March 3

For advocates of child sex abuse survivors, this has been a dramatic week: On Sunday, the movie “Spotlight” won an Oscar for its depiction of the uncovering of Boston’s clergy abuse scandal, and two days later, a Pennsylvania grand jury report came out alleging a dramatic 40-year cover-up involving dozens of priests and bishops in a small Catholic diocese.

The report, announced Tuesday by Pennsylvania Attorney General Kathleen Kane, relied upon a secret diocesan archive opened this summer and alleges that more than 50 religious leaders abused or moved around or covered up abuse in the Altoona-Johnstown Diocese.

As dramatic as the report’s allegations are, however, it does not recommend criminal charges, mainly because the statute of limitations has expired. The same is true for potential civil cases. The contrast between the misdeeds alleged in the report and in “Spotlight” and the lack of charges highlights the ongoing battle over statutes of limitations, which bar cases from going forward after a set time. Survivors and their advocates say the laws are deeply unfair to victims of sex crimes, who often need decades to voice their experience.

Marci Hamilton, a constitutional law scholar at Yeshiva University and prominent attorney for child sex abuse survivors, said advocates are hopeful that lawmakers will see this past week’s as more reason to ease the statutes. State laws vary widely, but in Pennsylvania they ban criminal charges after the victim turns 50, and civil litigation after they turn 30.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Dunstable Today

Adam Parris-Long
adam.parrislong@jpress.co.uk

Though nearly five decades have gone by, the horrors of the Magdalene asylums are still fresh in the memory of Mary Currington.

After being raised by nuns in her native New Ross, County Wexford, she worked on a farm and then from the age of 18 she toiled in the sewing room of a complex in Cork.

On her first day in the Magdelene asylum in 1963 Mary had her possessions seized, her hair cut and her name changed.

She told the Luton News/Dunstable Gazette: “I was given their shoes, their clothes and their haircuts. I earned pots of money for them every day without seeing any of it.

“We never even thought to ask and they never paid a stamp for us, I worked my fingers to the bone.”

Prior to her arrival in Cork, Mary, now aged 70 and living in Houghton Regis, endured a difficult upbringing in a convent after she was taken from her unmarried mother.

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ROME
Rome Reports

[with video]

2016-03-03

Cardinal George Pell met in Rome with victims abused by priests.

They have traveled from Australia to Rome to witness their responses in the interrogation of the Australian commission investigating how the country’s institutions responded to allegations of abuse.

“We’ve just had an extremely emotional meeting with cardinal Pell. We met on a level playing field, we met as people from Ballarat, and cardinal Pell has agreed to make a public statement.”

CARD. GEORGE PELL

MEETING WITH ABUSED VICTIMS

“It was hard; an honest and occasionally emotional meeting. I am committed to working with these people from Ballarat and surrounding areas.”

COLLABORATION

“We all want to try to make things better actually and on the ground especially for the survivors and their families and I undertake to continue to help the group work”. “The church-going people of Ballarat diocese are known for their loyalty and for their charity. And I urge them to continue to cooperate with the survivors to improve the situation.”

TAKING ACTION TO STOP SUICIDES

“One suicide is too many. And there have been many such tragic suicides. I commit myself to working with the group to try to stop this so that suicide is not seen as an option for those who are suffering.”

Cardinal Pell was not questioned as a defendant. He offered to testify before the Australian Commission investigating the country’s institutions such as churches, schools or sports clubs for allegations of child abuse.

He was the adviser to the Bishop of Ballarat in the years in which several priests were accused of abusing minors. Others priests were also committing several crimes in his diocese when he was the auxiliary Bishop of Melbourne.

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PENNSYLVANIA
WPXI

The Associated Press

ALTOONA, Pa. — The bishop of a central Pennsylvania diocese has apologized and promised reforms after the state attorney general released a scathing report on clergy sex abuse of children and created a hotline seeking more accusations.

The hotline has fielded more than 100 calls since Attorney General Kathleen Kane on Tuesday said two former bishops either covered up or didn’t do enough to respond to hundreds of abuse allegations in the by more than 50 priests in the Altoona-Johnstown diocese from 1966 to 2011.

Bishop Mark Bartchak called a Thursday news conference to apologize and promise to reform the diocese’s training and background check program and the review board that vets allegations of clergy abuse.

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AUSTRALIA
BBC News

By Trevor Marshallsea
Sydney

An accused paedophile priest, who threatened a girl with a knife and killed a bird with a screwdriver in front of children, has again been the subject of horrific claims at an Australian inquiry.

(Some readers may find the contents of this article disturbing)

The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sex Abuse has heard many allegations in its two-year history, but none more disturbing than those against Catholic priest Peter Searson.

Apart from allegations of repeated child sex abuse, the late Searson is said to have made children kneel between his legs during confession, tape-recorded confessions he found titillating, killed a cat by swinging it over a fence by its tail, showed children a dead body, shoplifted and misappropriated parish money.

Not for the first time, Searson’s name was brought up at the commission on Wednesday when Australia’s most senior Catholic, Cardinal George Pell, continued giving evidence.

As the commission heard that the Church failed to act against Searson despite multiple claims of child abuse, Cardinal Pell described him as “one of the most unpleasant priests I have ever met”.

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ROME
Voice of Americai

March 3, 2016.

Sharee Devose

A top Vatican official vowed Thursday to work to better protect children in his Australian hometown acknowledging he failed to act on an allegation of clergy sexual abuse decades ago.

Pope Francis’ top financial adviser Cardinal George Pell met with victims of abuse who traveled from Australia to Rome to witness his four days of testimony delivered to Australia’s Royal Commission via satellite.

The commission is investigating how the Catholic Church, as well as other institutions, handled cases of sex abuse of children over a span of decades.

Pell was called to testify each night from around 10 p.m. to 2 a.m. about his time as a priest in Ballarat and an auxiliary bishop in Melbourne. The 74-year-old cardinal said that he was a junior priest at the time that an unnamed student at St. Patrick’s College reported that Christian Brothers teacher Edward Dowlan was “misbehaving with boys.”

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ROME
news.com.au

IT WAS a big week at the Royal Commission for Cardinal Pell.

With nearly 20 hours of testimony given over four nights covering four decades in country Victoria, there was a lot to get through.

As the evidence flowed thick and fast containing some extraordinary admissions, here are the crucial points you might have missed:

A BOY COMPLAINED TO PELL AND HE DID NOTHING

While much of the testimony centred around what Pell indirectly knew or didn’t know, there was a crucial moment in which Pell admitted a boy complained directly to him about Father Edward Dowlan “misbehaving with boys” and he did not follow it up.

“I didn’t do anything about it,” Pell told the Royal Commission adding that he eventually “enquired of the school chaplain.”

“With the experience of 40 years later I certainly agree I should have done more,” he said. When asked why he needed 40 years hindsight to have realised he should have done something he trotted out a now familiar line of “people had different attitudes then.”

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AUSTRALIA
Sky News

A senior federal government minister hopes Ballarat child sexual abuse survivors get an audience with the Pope, after they met with Cardinal George Pell in Rome.

Frontbencher Christopher Pyne has praised the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, set up by the Gillard Labor government, for putting the suffering of survivors on the national agenda.

‘I hope they get an audience with the Pope,’ Mr Pyne told Nine Network on Friday.

‘This is a very awful part of our society, which we have to face up to, and I think it’s good the royal commission has put these issues on the agenda.’

Cardinal George Pell emerged from a meeting with Ballarat victims of paedophile priests on Thursday , saying he is committed to working with them to combat the ‘scourge of sexual abuse’.

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ROME
ABC News

By Europe correspondent Lisa Millar

Cardinal George Pell has held what he called a “hard and honest” meeting with Australian survivors of clergy sex abuse in Rome.

The meeting came just hours after Cardinal Pell finished testifying before the royal commission, admitting he had once ignored a child’s warning about an abusive priest.

Reading from a handwritten statement, he said he was committed to working with Ballarat to try to help those suffering.

“I heard each of their stories and of their suffering,” Cardinal Pell said.

“It was hard. An honest and occasionally emotional meeting.”

He said he was committed to working with survivors from Ballarat and surrounding areas.

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ROME
Vatican Radio

(Vatican Radio) Cardinal George Pell on Thursday met for nearly two hours with about a dozen victims of sexual abuse from the Australian Diocese of Ballarat at the Quirinale hotel in Rome.

Cardinal Pell has been giving testimony this week to the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses into Child Sexual Abuse, which looking into sexual abuse at different institutions in Australia.

The Diocese of Ballarat, located in the State of Victoria, has had several clerics and religious accused of abuse during a 30-year period from the 1960’s, and over a dozen suicides have been attributed to the abuse. Cardinal Pell was ordained for the Diocese of Ballarat in 1966.

After the meeting, Cardinal Pell called the encounter “honest and occasionally emotional,” and acknowledged “the evil that was done.”

“We all want to try to make things better actually and on the ground especially for the survivors and their families and I undertake to continue to help the group work effectively with the committees and agencies that we have here in the Church in Rome and especially the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors,” Cardinal Pell said.

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AUSTRALIA
The Age

Konrad Marshall
Senior writer

A school principal who blew the whistle on abusive priest Peter Searson – and was then exiled from the Catholic education system – says he feels “vindicated” by the testimony of Cardinal George Pell this week.

Graeme Sleeman was principal at the Doveton Holy Family school when the notorious Searson arrived in 1984 and began abusing children. It was a school where children lived in fear of the unhinged priest: altar boys did not want to serve, and everyone feared the confessional, where Searson spent far too much time (and he liked children to kneel between his legs), Mr Sleeman resigned in 1986.

He had hoped to force the hand of the church and the Catholic Education Office to remove the paedophile priest. Instead Mr Sleeman lost his career, health and financial security, as the church preferred to keep the now disgraced Searson in Doveton, at one of the most disadvantaged parishes in Melbourne. Mr Sleeman never fully regained his career trajectory.

“I was more than shocked – I was totally disillusioned,” Sleeman said of the episode. “In many ways I had a naivety about the church. But boy oh boy, was my faith tested beyond belief.”
On Thursday, though, Mr Sleeman said he was pleased that his own role in trying to stop Searson was noted.

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ROME
The Guardian

David Marr
Thursday 3 March 2016

Pity poor George Pell. He was such a sensitive young priest that even reading about child abuse caused him pain. He did it as little as he could.

“I have never enjoyed reading the accounts of these sufferings,” he confessed on Thursday. “I tried to do that only when it was professionally absolutely appropriate because the behaviour is abhorrent and painful to read about.”

Pell’s pain …

That he said this to a roomful of survivors gathered in the Albergo Quirinale in Rome defies belief. And just as incredible is the fact that Pell offered this line to clarify his earlier “very poor” words about paedophilia in Ballarat being a “sad story” that didn’t interest him much.

Was there no one to tell the cardinal what a terrible idea it was to appeal for sympathy in the face of such pain? Where were his advisers? Are they the same crew that let him argue last year that paedophile priests and their victims are like truck drivers and hitchhikers?

Character is the great subject of cross-examination. Pell has emerged from four days harshly exposed. There is so much missing.

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ROME
Sky News

Cardinal Pell has met with a group of men in Rome, who were abused as children by paedophile priests in Victoria.

‘We’ve just had an extremely emotional meeting with Cardinal Pell, we met on a level playing field, we met as people form Ballarat and Cardinal Pell has agreed to make a public statement,’ survivor David Ridsdale told media in Rome.

Pell addressed media after the meeting.

”I’ve heard each of their stories and of their suffering. It was hard and honest and occasionally emotional meeting,’ he said.

I owe a lot to the people and community of Ballarat, I acknowledge that with deep gratitude.’

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ROME
The Australian

[with video]

Jacquelin Magnay
European correspondent

Cardinal George Pell stood in a busy Rome street vowing to help Ballarat survivors establish a national research centre to advance healing and improve protection of survivors.

The cardinal made the commitment after meeting a group of survivors who had travelled to Rome to hear him give evidence to the child abuse royal commission.

Cardinal Pell said it had been a sometimes emotional meeting and it was agreed to explore the possibility of establishing a research centre in Ballarat to “enhance healing and improve protection”.

“I am committed to working with these people from Ballarat and surrounding areas,” he said. “I know many of their families and I know the goodness of so many people of Catholic Ballarat; the goodness that is not extinguished by the evil that was done.”

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ROME
9 News

Cardinal George Pell has committed himself to work with child sex abuse survivors to protect children from sexual abuse in the Victorian town of Ballarat.

The cardinal made the commitment on Thursday after meeting with a group of survivors who had travelled to Rome to hear him give evidence to the child abuse royal commission.

The cardinal said it had been a sometimes emotional meeting and it was agreed to explore the possibility of establishing a research centre in Ballarat to “enhance healing and improve protection”.

Ballarat became a hotbed of pedophile activity in the 1970s and 80s including members of the Christian Brothers and Australia’s worst pedophile priest, Gerald Ridsdale.

Cardinal Pell, who held senior roles in the church in the Ballarat diocese at the time has been accused of turning a blind eye to pedophile offending, accusations he denies.

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ROME
Sydney Morning Herald

[with video]

March 4, 2016

Nick Miller and Melissa Cunningham

Cardinal George Pell has pledged to help those “wounded by the scourge of sexual abuse”, in the final act of his appearance at the child sex abuse Royal Commission.

“One suicide is too many, and there have been many such tragic suicides,” the cardinal said on the doorstep of the Rome hotel where over four nights he was grilled about what he knew of paedophile priests in Melbourne and Ballarat in the 1970s and 1980s.

“I commit myself to working … to try to stop this so that suicide is not seen as an option for those who are suffering,” the cardinal said.

The statement, handwritten on hotel notepaper, was the product of an hour-long meeting he held with a group of survivors who had travelled to Rome to watch the cardinal give video evidence to the Commission.

Cardinal Pell said he had heard each of their stories and of their suffering.

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ROME
The Globe and Mail (Canada)

PHILIP PULLELLA AND JANE WARDELL
Rome and Sydney — Reuters
Published Thursday, Mar. 03, 2016

Cardinal George Pell, under fire for his handling of sexual abuse of children by priests in Australia, on Thursday acknowledged “the evil that was done” and vowed to work with survivors to enact better protection measures.

Pell, who gave four days of evidence via video link to an Australian government commission, made the comments after a nearly two-hour meeting in a Rome hotel with about a dozen Australian survivors who had flown to Rome for the hearings.

Pell, now the Vatican’s treasurer, and the survivors met for nearly four times as long as scheduled. Both the cardinal and a spokesman for the survivors said it was highly emotional.

David Ridsdale, a survivor who alleges that in 1993 Pell tried to bribe him to keep quiet about abuse by Ridsdale’s now jailed priest uncle, said survivors were satisfied that the encounter took place on “a level playing field”.

Pell, who has denied the bribery accusation, told reporters that the goodness of the people of Ballarat, where much of the abuse took place in the 1970s when Pell was a priest there, “was not extinguished by the evil that was done”.

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ROME
Newsday

Associated Press

CANBERRA, Australia – A top Vatican official has vowed to work to put an end to the rash of suicides in his Australian hometown over the church sex abuse scandal after meeting with victims and acknowledging that he failed to act on an allegation decades ago.

Cardinal George Pell met with some Australian abuse victims who had travelled to Rome to witness his four days of remote, video-link testimony to Australia’s Royal Commission. The commission is investigating how the Catholic Church and other institutions responded to sexual abuse of children over decades.

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PENNSYLVANIA
Verdict

3 MAR 2016

MARCI A. HAMILTON

The Attorney General of Pennsylvania has issued yet another grand jury report on orchestrated sex abuse and adults not paying attention. First, there was the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office investigating the Philadelphia Archdiocese. Three times. Then there was the Attorney General’s Penn State-Sandusky grand jury report. Now there is the AG’s Report on abuse in the Altoona-Johnstown Catholic Diocese. (And many are waiting for the Bucks County grand jury report on long-term abuse in the Solebury School.) It is crystal clear now that the plague of child sex abuse and cover up spans the state (and the country). The only question left to ask in Pennsylvania is: who is investigating the Pittsburgh and Harrisburg dioceses?

The Altoona Report introduces new perpetrators and, tragically, many victims to our collective consciousness, but the paradigm is the same: heartless and callous adults trivialize and ignore unmistakable evidence of deep child suffering. Honestly, if you want to understand it at a deep level, see the Oscar Best Picture winner: Spotlight.

True, the motion picture is about Boston, but the pattern is always the same. First, arrogant, powerful adults fail to protect children. Second, child victims (those who survive the all-too-strong temptation of suicide) struggle as adults. Third, their families suffer when they learn about it. Fourth, it’s not over, which Spotlight brilliantly captures with a running list of dioceses worldwide with the “Boston problem.” It leaves audiences stunned and silent. I do not remember a motion picture that triggers the same level of quiet shock since the Deer Hunter.

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UNITED STATES
Newsweek

BY ELIJAH WOLFSON ON 3/3/16

Mint-colored city buses and sherbet mid-rise apartment complexes with undulating facades.

Women in polka-dot bikinis and men in wide-lapelled shirts unbuttoned halfway down their chests. Postcard-perfect white sand beaches and cocaine-addled nights that throbbed to a mix of brassy disco and tropical Cuban beats.

It was 1981, and the 19-square-mile barrier island known as Miami Beach was on the verge of bursting into one of the most hedonistic scenes committed to the history books.Somehow, in the midst of this Caribbean decadence, a very different community also thrived.

Just a few blocks from the scantily dressed beachgoers and the drug lords in Armani silk were men in ill-fitting black suits and heavy beards, and women in thick wigs and long woolen skirts all year long, even as the wet heat of the Atlantic swept across the peninsula.

The ranks of Miami’s ultra-Orthodox Jews, Hasidim, were swelling. They were insular and defiantly anti-secular, clinging to traditions that may have protected their community in a medieval world but in modern America would lead to tragic consequences for many of their youngest, most vulnerable members.

Twelve-year-old Ozer Simon hadn’t grown up Hasidic, but after his parents divorced, his mom became a baal teshuva, a secular Jew who has “returned” to religious ways, and enrolled him at a yeshiva. He immediately fell behind because the other kids had been studying Hebrew since they were toddlers, so when Rabbi Joseph Reizes, a new teacher recently arrived from Brooklyn, offered to tutor the child, his mother jumped at the opportunity.

But when she asked Simon how his first lesson went, she could tell “something was really wrong.” Simon told her the rabbi hadn’t taught him anything; instead, he’d asked the boy to lie down and take a nap. When he did, the older man lay down on top of him. The next school day, Simon’s mother went to Rabbi Avrohom Korf, principal of the boy’s school, and told him what had happened. “I said to him, ‘If Reizes continues to teach here, I’m going to go to the newspaper. Or whatever it takes,’” she recalls. “The next thing I know, the guy is gone.”

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NEW YORK
Riverdale Press

By Shant Shahrigian
Posted 3/2/16

The Bronx District Attorney’s office says it did not learn of any criminal activity after speaking with 20 people about Rabbi Jonathan Rosenblatt, the longtime leader of the Riverdale Jewish Center (RJC) who came under fire for a years-long habit of bathing nude with boys at a sauna.

“We did not receive any first-hand information about conduct that constituted criminal activity, and any conduct was outside the statute of limitations of New York. We remain available to speak with members of the community who would like to share information with us, and to offer counseling and other services,” DA spokeswoman Patrice O’Shaughnessy said in a Tuesday email statement.

Details of the investigation, conducted by the DA’s Child Abuse/Sex Crimes Bureau, were not immediately known. The DA had asked anyone with information about possible criminal activity to come forward following a May New York Times article that said the rabbi habitually played racquetball with boys and led them nude into the sauna in the 1980s and 1990s, though there were no allegations of sexual touching or criminal conduct.

Last week, the president of RJC sent an email to congregants saying Rabbi Rosenblatt is “stepping aside from the Senior Rabbinate” of the synagogue.

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WASHINGTON
The Daily Beast

Brandy Zadrozny

A new lawsuit seeks to find out what Mark Driscoll did with millions in tithes to Seattle’s now-shuttered Mars Hill megachurch.

Just when controversial pastor Mark Driscoll was hoping to make a new start, former members of his old stomping grounds at Seattle’s Mars Hill Church have filed a lawsuit alleging Driscoll and his chief elder ran the now-shuttered megachurch like an organized crime syndicate, in which church members became unwitting participants.

The lawsuit was filed on Monday in the Western District of Washington U.S. District Court in Seattle under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, a law originally created for prosecution of Mafia figures.

Former members have been threatening to file such a lawsuit for months to find out just where the members’ tithes—some $30 million yearly, according to church reports—actually went.

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ROME
National Catholic Reporter

Joshua J. McElwee | Mar. 2, 2016

ROME
Cardinal George Pell, one of the highest-ranking officials at the Vatican, has admitted to an Australian government commission that when a schoolboy came to him decades ago to report that a Catholic teacher was “misbehaving with boys” he did not report the matter to authorities.

Pell, who served as the leader of two Australia archdioceses before becoming the head of Pope Francis’ new centralized Vatican treasury department two years ago, said that when the boy came to him in the mid-1970s “he just mentioned it casually in conversation; he never asked me to do anything.”

The boy, the cardinal said, was complaining about a member of the Edmund Rice Christian Brothers named Edward Dowlan, who would later be convicted of abusing at least 20 boys at six Australian schools starting in 1971.

Pell told the Australian Royal Commission via video testimony from Rome late Wednesday night Rome time that the child came to him to say “something like ‘Dowlan is misbehaving with boys.'”

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AUSTRALIA
Lakes Mail

By David Stewart
March 3, 2016

THE Catholic Bishop for the local region has called for a national redress scheme and uniform child protection standards in the wake of evidence heard at the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.

Bishop Bill Wright heads the diocese of Maitland-Newcastle, which includes the parishes of Morisset, Toronto, and Booragul.

Bishop Wright said evidence provided by Cardinal George Pell at the Royal Commission had “helped to complete the disturbing picture of how badly the church performed when dealing with reports of child sexual abuse” at the time.

“Anyone who is a survivor of abuse or has lived their life in the Catholic Church will be finding it difficult to hear the manifold failings of the church to protect children, and this is especially true for those within our local community with the sad history of abuse in our region,” he said.

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ROME
Sydney Morning Herald

Nick Miller
Europe Correspondent

Rome: Was Tim Minchin wrong? Hilariously, outrageously, toe-tappingly wrong?

As this week of hearings in Rome went on, there has emerged a theory that the interests of transparent, feet-to-the-fire justice have been better served by Cardinal Pell not ‘coming home’ after all.

By sitting on his little dais in front of his video screen in the back room of the Hotel Quirinale, this theory goes, Cardinal Pell placed himself in the hot glare of the world’s attention.

TV cameras from around Europe covered his arrival and departure at the hotel – and sought out, regularly, the voices and outrage of the abuse survivors who crossed the globe to face him.

The survivors themselves acknowledged this. After the first day of the hearing they expressed to me their satisfaction with arrangements – the international media interest in their stories and wishes has been large, varied and sustained.

Back in Australia, it’s unlikely so many media would have invested the time and effort. Their curiosity may never have been piqued, it would have been something distant and obscure. And of course, in Rome, this whole odd Australian judicial adventure is taking place just down the road from the Vatican itself.

‘Vaticanisti’ media and observers came along to the hearings out of curiosity, and ended up glued to the video evidence.

Cardinal Pell revealed that on Monday, he met with the Pope and “I arranged for him to have a summary of each day’s activities provided to him and to the Secretary of State”.

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ROME
Catholic Herald (UK)

by Dan Hitchens
posted Thursday, 3 Mar 2016

The cardinal met a group of survivors this morning after four days of questioning by an Australian royal commission

A survivor of child abuse has said that Cardinal George Pell “gets it” after a meeting with the cardinal in Rome.

Phil Nagle, who was among a group of child abuse survivors who met Cardinal Pell this morning, told reporters: “We talked about the future not the past… I think he gets it.”

Nagle said Cardinal Pell had discussed ways in which the Church could do more to help survivors of child abuse.

“We talked about counselling, we talked about care, we talked about what the future’s going to be for our survivors and how the Church is going to help with that, from George’s level down,” he said.

Nagle was abused by a priest at a school in Ballarat in the 1970s. At the time, Cardinal Pell was Ballarat’s episcopal vicar for education. The cardinal has repeatedly said that he did not know the extent of abuse and thought it was being dealt with by others.

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ROME
Sydney Morning Herald

March 3, 2016

Nick Miller

Rome: An exhausted but positive Cardinal George Pell said the most difficult moment of his cross examination by the child sex abuse Royal Commission was reading the evidence from abuse survivors.

“It’s been a hard slog at least for me, I’m a bit tired but the Royal Commission process is designed to try to make the situation better for the future for the survivors and to prevent the repetition of all this suffering in the future,” he said.

“So I hope that my appearance here has contributed a bit to healing, to improving the situation.

“All the leadership of the church in Australia is committed to avoiding the repetition of the terrible history of the past and to try to make things better.

“Cardinal Pell said he grieved for the suffering of the people he regarded as “his own people” in Ballarat. He would meet some abuse survivors later on Thursday and “please God that’ll take us a little bit forward”.

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ROME
Sydney Morning Herald

March 3, 2016

Jane Lee
Legal affairs, health and science reporter

When it comes to responses to child sexual abuse, there have always been two George Pells.

For four days, they have fought tooth and nail for air in a Roman hotel room.

Either he did not know enough about child sexual abuse to try to stop it from happening or he did, but didn’t act.

No one expected the Cardinal to abandon the best version of himself, which he has defended for decades, including in media statements whenever his name is uttered at the royal commission.

No surprises, then, when he consistently distanced himself and the Catholic Church from the handful of aberrant church officials who he blamed for covering up child abuse in Ballarat and Melbourne.

He refuses to admit that his negligence also likely allowed more children to be abused.

​At the height of his career, his only regret is that he had not been more curious, which is tempered by his belief that others prevented him from doing more.

Yet his latest testimony revealed how little weight this carries in a world that has learned so much in a few years about what Pell and those who surrounded him knew about children being sexually abused, how much children suffered and how little the church cared for them.

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ROME
Sydney Morning Herald

March 3, 2016

Andrew P Street
Writer

Pell in a Handbasket

Cardinal George Pell has wrapped up his testimony into the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, and it’s fair to say that he’s not exactly distinguished himself.

Among his testimonial highlights was admitting that he’d heard rumours that children were being raped by priest Gerald Ridsdale, but that “was a sad story and wasn’t of much interest to me,” as he memorably put in on Tuesday.

His marvellously selective memory had forgotten this quote a day later, when he railed against lawyer Jim Shaw for repeating the quote to him.

“I said nothing of the kind,” Pell angrily responded to his exact words, “as I have endeavoured to explain this evening.”

Shaw, oddly, begged to differ: “I’m quoting you from the transcript, Cardinal.”

Pell wasn’t having a bar of it: “I would like you to do so.”

Shaw obliged: “I just did. ‘A sad story and it wasn’t of much interest to me.'”

Pell: “That’s a selective quotation.”

In Georgie’s defence, how is he supposed to remember things he said on camera, under oath, during a Royal Commission, a matter of hours earlier?

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ROME
9 News

AAP

WHAT GEORGE PELL KNEW AND DIDN’T KNOW
ABOUT BR EDWARD DOWLAN

Was told fleeting references about Dowlan “touching boys” which Cardinal Pell said was “misbehaviour by Dowlan which I concluded might have been pedophilic activity”.

A student at Ballarat’s St Patrick’s College student told him in 1974 Dowlan was “misbehaving” with boys.

The cardinal said the boy “mentioned it casually in conversation” and did not ask him to do anything.

“I didn’t do anything about it,” Cardinal Pell said, although he went to the school chaplain who said the Christian Brothers were dealing with it.

He also heard “unfortunate rumours” that were vague and unspecific about Dowlan’s activity with young people from other priests.

Asked if he understood it to include sexual activity with young people: “Yes, and possibly excessive discipline or violence but certainly the first was, an element was present.”

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ROME
Herald Sun

AAP

Survivors of child sex abuse who were crowdfunded to Rome to see George Pell give evidence before a royal commission say they’ve achieved “times a thousand” what they set out to do.

The group, many of whom were sexually abused as children by priests and brothers in the Victorian town of Ballarat, hugged and shed tears at the end of Cardinal Pell’s four nights of testimony from a Rome hotel.

The survivors vowed to continue their campaign to ensure children are protected from sexual abuse, including ensuring the Catholic Church changes its systems to prevent such abuse.

They meet with the cardinal later on Thursday and hope to meet with Pope Francis on Friday to put their case and explain the reality of trauma for abuse victims.

Survivor group spokesman David Ridsdale said they had achieved “times a thousand more” than they set out to do, with their campaign gaining global media attention.

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PENNSYLVANIA
Catholic World Report

Pittsburgh, Pa., Mar 3, 2016 / 12:52 am (CNA/EWTN News).- The Bishop of Altoona-Johnstown is calling for prayers after a Pennsylvania grand jury released its report on the alleged sexual abuse of hundreds of children by priests in the diocese in past decades.

The report covers cases dating back to the 1940s and charges that previous bishops put abusive priests back to ministry.

“This is a painful and difficult time in our diocesan Church,” Bishop Mark L. Bartchak of Altoona-Johnstown said March 1. “I deeply regret any harm that has come to children, and I urge the faithful to join me in praying for all victims of abuse.”

On March 1 a grand jury released its 147-page report on the diocese’s response to sex abuse by clergy. The report in part drew on evidence from diocesan archives that were opened through a search warrant. Over 115,000 documents were seized, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reports.

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ROME
Sydney Morning Herald

Melissa Cunningham

Ballarat clergy sexual abuse survivors want Vatican law rewritten to protect future generations of children.

The group, which is still pushing to meet Pope Francis, will put the request to Australia’s most senior Catholic, Cardinal George Pell, when they meet with him.

They will also meet a member of the Pontifical Commission for Protection on Minors, an institution which deals with the rampant sexual abuse of children at the hands of Catholic clergy.

Survivors initially rejected a meeting with the Cardinal after he was accused of “designing” his evidence at the Royal Commission into Institutional Response into Child Sexual Abuse to deflect blame from himself.

But after the Cardinal dropped restrictions, including that survivors not speak to the media about the meeting, they had a change of heart.

For several victims, the idea of meeting Cardinal Pell following his evidence this week is too painful and they have rejected the offer.

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ROME
The Guardian

Kristina Keneally

“ … on that Monday 24 March I watched Cardinal Pell being questioned in the royal commission and I woke up at 4.40 the next morning and thought, ‘It’s too disgusting, the way he threw his men to the wolves to protect himself.’”

So said church historian Father Edmund Campion at the Catholic Institute of Sydney on 27 May 2014.

So he could have said on 2 March 2016.

Cardinal George Pell’s evidence this week to the royal commission on institutional responses to child sexual abuse is – to many – shocking. Audible gasps can sometimes be heard from the public gallery in Sydney.

The criticism of Pell emanates along a spectrum from Ray Hadley to David Marr. Even Andrew Bolt was moved to condemnation – though that position didn’t last. Bolt came to his senses, so to speak, and remembered that he was, after all, Andrew Bolt.

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CANADA
Toronto Star

By: Michael Coren Published on Thu Mar 03 2016

Something deeply significant occurred at the Academy Awards this year. Beyond the glamour, the talent and the entirely valid concerns about lack of diversity, Spotlight was named best movie. Frankly, I didn’t think it would happen. A film about the child rape crisis within the Roman Catholic Church was given international acclaim and acknowledgement.

Let me take you back to 1989. I was working for the CBC, making documentaries. One of them was about Covenant House, the essential and entirely noble shelter in Toronto that cares for street kids. With origins in 1960s New York, Covenant House now has international branches.

One of its founders, and very much its public face, was the Franciscan priest Father Bruce Ritter, and after spending weeks speaking to people who worked at the centre and to many of the kids who lived there, we flew Ritter from New York to Toronto.

He was, shall we say, a difficult man. He was rude to the crew and to me, highly demanding and insisted on only meeting with boys at Covenant House. “No girls, no,” he told us. It was explained by his handlers that he was uncomfortable with girls and thought it might look awkward. I didn’t believe a word.

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ROME
news.com.au

Charles Miranda in Rome
News Corp Australia Network

CARDINAL George Pell has said he is committed to working with sex abuse survivors in Ballarat, admitting their stories “were hard to listen to”.

After meeting with victims of child sex abuse in Rome, the Cardinal said he owed a lot to the people of Ballarat and that he supported a centre to enhance healing.

He also said that he was committed to “making things better”, as “one suicide is too many”.

His comments come after four days of interrogation in which he gave evidence via videlink to the royal commission into child abuse.

Meanwhile, amid talk of conspiracies and cover-ups, power, deceit and betrayal among priests forced to make hushed promises to hold secrets on original sin, sex orgies, torture and even murder, there is just something a bit tooDa Vinci Code, too clichéd, to pitch as a potential new Dan Brown novel.

But this is not fiction but rather extraordinary revelations by a senior figure from the Vatican about the institution that he rightly declared has existed since the days of the Roman Empire and would continue into some form into the next millennia.

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AUSTRALIA
Al Jazeera

Jarni Blakkarly | 03 Mar 2016

Sydney, Australia – Sitting alone on a bench in Sydney’s busy financial district, Darren Chalmers is surrounded by dozens of placards condemning the Roman Catholic Church’s response to child sex abuse victims like himself.

Inside the building behind him, around 50 people, including a dozen victims, watch one of the Vatican’s most powerful clergymen, Cardinal George Pell, testify, via a videolink from a hotel in Rome, as to what he knew about decades of sexual abuse within the church.

Over four days of hearings for the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sex Abuse, 48-year-old Chalmers, who was sexually abused at the age of 14 at a boy’s school in Melbourne, sat outside with signs, some which read “Pell go to hell” and “Pope Sack Pell Now”. He wasn’t able to bring himself to join the other victims inside the hearing.

“Being in there feels too uncomfortable, it brings back memories of things I try and forget. But sitting out here, I do feel proud, people see me and I’m helping myself and other victims who can’t be here,” Chalmers told Al Jazeera.

After he swore on the Bible on Monday, Pell’s gruelling questioning lasted almost 20 hours over the four days and focused on what he knew about sexual abuse in his small hometown of Ballart and in the city of Melbourne between the 1970s and 1990s as he rose in the Catholic Church hierarchy.

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AUSTRALIA
The Conversation

Timothy W. Jones
Senior Lecturer in History, La Trobe University

Cardinal George Pell returned this week to the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse in relation to the Ballarat and Melbourne case studies.

Giving evidence over the course of four days, via video link from Rome, Pell modified slightly his previous public positions. But, fundamentally, he insisted that he knew little, and fulfilled his duties in relation to what he did know.

On several occasions, counsel assisting the royal commission suggested that Pell’s claims to be ignorant of child sex offending in various contexts was implausible. If everyone around Pell knew, how could he not have known?

The forms of denial

One of the most important lessons we have learnt from Pell’s appearance is the church was – and still is – in a state of denial. It is in denial about the harms of sexual abuse, and about the adequacy of its responses to allegations of abuse.

Being in denial is a curious thing. In denying something, you implicitly admit that there is something to deny.

The late sociologist Stanley Cohen examined this phenomenon in his last book. Cohen argued that we have myriad techniques of keeping disturbing knowledge at bay: there are many ways of not knowing.

The simplest is literal denial. We saw plenty of this from Pell. He repeatedly said that he never knew of allegations of abuse; that he never heard rumours of Gerald Ridsdale’s offending when they shared a presbytery in Ballarat.

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PENNSYLVANIA
PennLive

By Ivey DeJesus | idejesus@pennlive.com

In 1987, Richard Serbin, an Altoona attorney, took on a lawsuit filed by Michael Hutchinson, a former altar boy at St. Therese Catholic Church in Altoona.

Hutchinson was seeking justice from the Altoona-Johnstown Diocese and, specifically, Francis Luddy, who was priest and religious leader at St. Therese.

Hutchison, who was about 20 when he met Serbin, claimed that Luddy had begun sexually molesting him when he was 10 years old in 1977. The molestation lasted until 1982, when his family left Altoona.

Up against the formidable resources of the diocese, the case lasted for over 20 years. The diocese spent more than $2 million in attorney fees to protect and defend Luddy, even though, he had admitted to sexually molesting 10 children and was a known-child predator.

The case put Serbin, a 1970 graduate of theUniversity of Pittsburgh and 1974 graduate of Duquesne University School of Law, on a new path: representing the children who had been sexually molested by priests and church leaders of the Altoona Diocese.

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PENNSYLVANIA
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

By David Clohessy

Most folks won’t wade through all 147 pages of the new grand jury report disclosing rampant child sex abuse and cover ups in the Altoona-Johnstown diocese. So here, in our view, is the shortest, clearest summary of the most alarming and recent wrongdoing it contains.

In short, the report shows that diocesan abuse deceit is continuing. Here’s how PennLive reported it:

The bishop controlled the Allegation Review Board.

Bishop Adamec created the Allegation Review Board to allegedly determine the credibility of an allegation of abuse.

However, the purpose of creating the board, the grand jury said, was to convince people that the days of a mysterious bishop deciding how to handle a scandalous and heinous report of child molestation were over.

“In reality, the bishop still exclusively makes the decision how or what to do with a report of child molestation,” the grand jury said. “Nothing has changed but the trappings of how a report is procedurally made.”

The grand jury said victims who believed they were reporting to a board of unbiased and neutral observers “would be sadly mistaken.”

Diocese ‘victim advocate’ looked out for the church, not the victims.

The grand jury concluded, upon interviews with victims and reviews of documents, that the diocese “victim advocate” is an advocate for the diocese against the interest of the victims. The victim advocate was identified as Sister Marilyn Welch.

“Where the advocate can shuffle a victim into the Allegation Review Board without the involvement of legal representation for a victim, she does so,” the grand jury reported.

“Money is offered. Confidentiality and release claims are signed by victims and the diocese to avoid public scrutiny.”

So much for all those claims of ‘reform’ by bishops. .

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COLORADO
Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Denver

An adult woman who lives in Colorado has reported that she was a victim of sexual abuse by a religious order priest approximately 35 years ago. The woman’s report is that the abuse took place in the 1980s when she was a student at Marycrest High School in Denver.

The priest named in the complaint is Father Ben Colucci, a retired member of the Capuchin Franciscan religious order. The woman first reported the abuse to the Capuchin Franciscans in 2015 and the order’s Review Board, which is tasked with investigating complaints of abuse and misconduct by its priests, thoroughly reviewed the matter. Based on the information received, the Review Board has advised that the complaint should be treated as credible.

Protective steps were taken upon learning of this complaint. The Capuchin Franciscans have confirmed with the woman that she reported the matter to law enforcement. The order has also separately contacted proper authorities to report the matter. It is the policy of the Archdiocese and the Capuchin Franciscans to cooperate fully with law enforcement agencies investigating complaints of abuse.

Because Father Colucci has not been in active ministry for many years, it was not necessary for the Capuchin Franciscans to remove him from ministry as a result of the complaint. Father Colucci served in Colorado from 1970 to 1993 at Marycrest High School, Annunciation Parish, and the Samaritan House. Father Colucci has not served or lived in Colorado since 1993, when he was removed from ministry by the Archdiocese of Denver for reported misconduct.

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COLORADO
The Denver Post

By Kieran Nicholson
The Denver Post
POSTED: 03/02/2016

A Colorado woman says she was abused by a Catholic priest about 35 years ago, when she was a student at Denver’s Marycrest High School during the 1980s.

The woman has reported the accusation of sexual abuse to the Archdiocese of Denver, which is investigating her claims, according to a Wednesday media release from the Roman Catholic Church.

“The woman first reported the abuse to the Capuchin Franciscans in 2015 and the order’s Review Board, which is tasked with investigating complaints of abuse and misconduct by its priests, thoroughly reviewed the matter,” according to the release. “Based on the information received, the Review Board has advised that the complaint should be treated as credible.”

The priest named in the complaint is Father Ben Colucci, a retired member of the Capuchin Franciscan religious order.

Colucci served the church in Colorado from 1970 to 1993 at Marycrest High School, Annunciation Parish, and the Samaritan House. Colucci hasn’t lived in Colorado since 1993, when he was removed from ministry by the Archdiocese of Denver for “reported misconduct.”

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ROME
The New Daily

Mar 3, 2016

ROSE DONOHOE Reporter

Cardinal George Pell has finished his fourth and final day of giving evidence via video link from Rome to the Royal Commission on Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse in Sydney.

On Thursday morning (AEDT) the hearing kicked off with Cardinal Pell being asked why so many paedophile priests were placed in Ballarat during the 1970s and ’80s, to which he said it was a “disastrous coincidence”.

By the end of the day’s proceedings he fronted a media pack for the first time since the hearing began on Monday.

“I hope that my appearance here has contributed a bit to healing,” Cardinal Pell told reporters just before 4am Rome time.

When asked if he believed that he was the victim of a witch hunt, Cardinal Pell replied “I’ll leave that to you to figure out”, before heading home to bed.

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PENNSYLVANIA
Fox 43

CLINTON COUNTY — A grand jury investigation into sexual abuse by Catholic priests in Pennsylvania determined dozens of priests in the Altoona-Johnstown diocese molested children for decades.

Now some of those alleged victims are speaking out to share their stories.

The men, now in their 50s, spoke with WNEP because they say they want people to know the truth.

They say they were 6 or 7 when they were molested by Father Joseph Bender, but kept the memories of abuse tucked away for decades.

Robert Holtzapple told WNEP, “He led you to believe that he cared about you and he loved you. You know what I mean? That’s what he did. He manipulated you mentally as well as physically.”

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ROME
Telegraph (UK)

By AFP

Vatican finance chief Cardinal George Pell said that it was a “disastrous coincidence” that five paedophile priests preyed on children in the Australian town where he was based, as survivors accused him of lying.

On Thursday Cardinal Pell gave evidence for a fourth and final day to the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse in Sydney via videolink from Rome and came under intense questioning from lawyers representing victims of abuse by the clergy.

The cardinal has consistently denied any wrongdoing during his time in the town of Ballarat and the city of Melbourne where he grew up and worked in the 1970s and 1980s. During the same years paedophile priests abused dozens of children.

Cardinal Pell, who revealed Pope Francis had been given a summary of each day’s evidence, has claimed at least two archbishops and other people in authority deceived him by not revealing what was happening during a period of what he called “crimes and cover-ups”.

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ROME
The Express Tribune

SYDNEY: Vatican finance chief Cardinal George Pell said Thursday it was a “disastrous coincidence” that five paedophile priests preyed on children in the Australian town where he was based, as survivors repeatedly accused him of lying.

Pell gave evidence to the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse via videolink from Rome for a fourth day and came under intense questioning from lawyers representing victims of abuse by the clergy.

He has consistently denied any wrongdoing during his time in the town of Ballarat and the city of Melbourne in the state of Victoria, where he grew up and worked, in the 1970s and 80s, when paedophile priests abused dozens of victims.

Pell, who revealed Pope Francis was being given a summary of each day’s evidence, has claimed at least two archbishops and other people in authority all deceived him by not revealing what was happening during a time of what he called “crimes and cover-ups”.

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ROME
7 News

Sydney (AFP) – Vatican finance chief Cardinal George Pell admitted Thursday he “should have done more” to follow-up on claims a priest was abusing boys, as survivors accused him of lying about what he knew.

Pell gave evidence for a fourth and final day to the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse in Sydney via videolink from Rome and came under intense questioning from lawyers representing victims of abuse by the clergy.

He has consistently denied any wrongdoing during his time in the town of Ballarat and the city of Melbourne in the state of Victoria, where he grew up and worked, in the 1970s and 80s when paedophile priests abused dozens of children.

Pell, who revealed Pope Francis was being given a summary of each day’s evidence, admitted a boy complained to him in 1974 about Christian Brother Edward Dowlan.

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ROME
The Daily Telegraph

Andrew Carswell
The Daily Telegraph

CARDINAL George Pell chose not to report a serious allegation that a priest was sexually abusing boys at a Victorian Catholic school because the student who warned him about the abuse “wasn’t asking me to do anything about it’’.

In his final day in the witness stand in Rome in front of the royal commission into child sexual abuse, Australia’s most senior Catholic confirmed a St Patricks College student complained to him in 1974 that priest Ted Dowlan was “misbehaving with boys’’.

Cardinal Pell confessed he did nothing with the “very serious” allegation.

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ROME
The Daily Beast

Barbie Latza Nadeau

An Australian royal commission on clerical crimes finds damning evidence that the Vatican’s most senior cardinals turned a blind eye to sex abuse. So why doesn’t the pope fire him?

ROME—Whatever one’s religious affiliation or belief, it must be argued that the Gods of Glorious Coincidence were at work this week. Just as the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences was handing out the Oscar statuette for Best Picture to Spotlight last Sunday night, Cardinal George Pell, the Vatican’s no. 3 official, was seated in a dingy hotel event room testifying by video link about the very same sort of systematic clerical sex abuse exposed in the film.

But in what is really an unfathomable disconnect, accolades for breaking the silence and exposing serious clerical sex abuse in the United States seemed completely lost in Rome.

Pell, who heads the Vatican’s Secretariat on the Economy, was called to give voluntary evidence to Australia’s Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.

The 74-year-old spent a total of four very late nights answering a slew of questions about a number of clearly predatory priests in Australia from the time he was a young cleric to when he was the Archbishop of Melbourne. The hearings started at 7 or 8 a.m. in Sydney, which meant they began at 9 or 10 p.m. in Rome. The latest of the hearings wrapped up around 3 a.m. local time.

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ROME
ABC News

For four days, the child abuse royal commission has forensically questioned Cardinal George Pell over his knowledge of alleged abuse within Australia’s Catholic Church.

Abuse survivors and their supporters watched on as evidence was extracted from Australia’s most senior Catholic — some of it, they said, “beggared belief”.

Here are some of the key moments in his testimony and the reactions it drew.

Day one:

* Cardinal Pell said the church made ‘enormous mistakes’
* He said the ‘predisposition was not to believe’ children’s claims of abuse
* Cardinal Pell said the instinct was to protect the church

He was questioned specifically on two case studies — number 28 about the Diocese of Ballarat and number 35 about the Archdiocese of Melbourne.

These case studies included complaints about Monsignor John Day, Brother Gerald Leo Fitzgerald and Gerald Ridsdale.

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ROME
The West Australian

[with video]

Amanda Banks Legal Affairs Editor
March 3, 2016

Cardinal George Pell has said he hoped his appearance before the Royal Commission into child sexual abuse had “contributed a bit to healing, to improving the situation”.

Speaking in Rome after he gave evidence over four days, he said: “All the leadership of the church in Australia is committed to avoiding any repetition of the terrible history of the past and to try to make things better.”
He will meet a group of survivors from Ballarat who are in Rome to watch his testimony.

“I grieve for the suffering of the people whom I regard as my own people,” he said.

Giving evidence today, Cardinal Pell denied an explosive allegation that he offered a bribe to a victim of child sex abuse to “keep quiet”, saying the accusation is implausible and based on a “radical misunderstanding”.

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ROME
Daily Telegraph

[with video]

ANDREW CARSWELLThe Daily Telegraph

CARDINAL George Pell has told the Royal Commission into child sexual abuse why he chose to infamously accompany paedophile priest Gerald Ridsdale, in full priestly robes, to his first court hearing, earning the scorn of victims.

While admitting he now regretted walking alongside Ridsdale, Pell said he deemed it at the time as the right Christian thing to do; to be kind to the lowest of lows.

“I walked with him following the Christian conviction that it’s an appropriate activity to, to be kind to prisoners,’’ Pell said in his final day in the witness stand.

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ROME
The Guardian

Ben Doherty
@bendohertycorro
Wednesday 2 March 2016

Cardinal George Pell will meet with victims of child sex abuse at a private meeting in Rome, just hours after stepping down from the witness box of the royal commission into institutional responses to child sexual abuse.

After more than 16 hours of at times combative questioning before the commission over what he knew of abuse within the Catholic church, Pell will sit down with some of the victims of that abuse at 11.30am, local time, in Rome.

“There are a few things we will say,” abuse survivor David Ridsdale said in Rome, “but we as a group have made a commitment to ourselves to be diplomatic and dignified.”

David Ridsdale was molested by his uncle, and Pell’s one-time housemate, the former priest Gerald Ridsdale, who is now in prison. Pell walked in support of Ridsdale into court in 1993, an action, Pell conceded yesterday was “a mistake”.

Many of those who will attend Thursday’s meeting were abused at schools and in churches in the diocese of Ballarat, where Pell grew up and where he was a priest in the 1970s and 80s.

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ROME
9 News

AAP

Cardinal George Pell denies lying about being told nothing about the real reason Victorian pedophile priest Gerald Francis Ridsdale was being moved.

Cardinal Pell said he would have remembered if pedophilia was mentioned as the reason for Ridsdale being moved at meetings of then Ballarat bishop Ronald Mulkearns’ advisers in the 1970s and 1980s.

A victims’ barrister Jim Shaw told Cardinal Pell: “I suggest very directly you are lying about this to protect your own reputation.”

Cardinal Pell said: “I say that that is completely untrue and unjustified by any evidence. It is a baseless allegation.”

Bishop Mulkearns knew about abuse complaints against Ridsdale when he moved him between parishes in Victoria’s Ballarat diocese.

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ROME
9 News

AAP

Cardinal George Pell was “in the loop” over serious complaints about pedophile priest Peter Searson after worried parents wrote to education authorities, the child abuse royal commission has heard.

Cardinal Pell said he would have been aware of concerns raised by parents from the Victorian parish of Doveton in a 1991 letter to the Catholic Education Office that said Searson was going into the boys’ toilets, watching boys in the shower and taking children into the presbytery without permission.

He said he did not investigate the matter because it was the responsibility of the CEO and the Vicar General.

“If they’d asked my opinion I would have given it,” he said.

He agreed that he was “in the loop as far as knowledge of Father Searson being a risk to children” but said the issue was the level of risk and “just what could be done within church and state law”.

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PENNSYLVANIA
PennLive

Altoona-Johnstown Diocese sex abuse: what each priest is accused of (warning: graphic content)

By Christian Alexandersen | calexandersen@pennlive.com

Law enforcements officials knew about the rape of children by leaders in the Roman Catholic Diocese of Altoona-Johnstown and did nothing to stop it, according to a damning grand jury report.

Attorney General Kathleen Kane released a report Tuesday that detailed the sexual abuse of hundreds of children by more than 50 diocesan priests and religious leaders. The abuse took place over the last four decades.

One of the most shocking aspects of the report was that law enforcement had been complicit in the coverup of sexual abuse against children.

Kane said there were instances where law enforcement looked the other way, worked with the diocese to allow priests to retire and allowed priests to go through a psychiatric facility in lieu of criminal charges.

When asked whether or not public officials could be charged as a result of the grand jury report, Kane said “The investigation is ongoing.”

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PENNSYLVANIA
PennLive

By Christian Alexandersen | calexandersen@pennlive.com

A hotline set up to learn about the sexual abuses performed by priests and religious leaders within the Roman Catholic Diocese of Altoona-Johnstown has already gotten dozens of calls.

State Attorney General Kathleen Kane announced the hotline Tuesday morning amid the release of a grand jury report documenting the rape of hundreds of children by diocese leaders over 40 years. Spokesman Jeff Johnson said the hotline — 888-538-8541 — had received 85 calls by 1 p.m. Wednesday.

“We believe that one phone call could change everything,” Johnson said. “The right information could create a new investigative lead that could result in charges.”

The hotline is being staffed by attorney general agents or attorneys fluent in the Altoona-Johnstown diocese abuse case.

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UNITED STATES
TMZ

Father Robert Sirico — a celebrity in his own right for his political and cultural commentary — eviscerated the Academy for embracing “Spotlight” while it celebrated a child molester in its own ranks.

We got the Catholic Priest — who writes for the NY Times — and asked about the church scandal that became the centerpiece of the movie.

You gotta hear his answer … and he’s right. Roman Polanski won Best Director in 2003 for “The Pianist,” the same time The Boston Globe was breaking the molestation stories.

Polanski pled guilty to having sex with a 13-year-old girl and then fled the country … he’s never returned.

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PENNSYLVANIA
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement

PITTSBURGH – A priest of the Diocese of Altoona-Johnstown, Pennsylvania, was sentenced Wednesday to 200 months in prison followed by lifetime supervised release for offenses related to his sexual abuse of two minor boys during trips to Honduras over a five-year period. The sentencing caps an extensive child sex tourism probe by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI).

In addition to the prison term, Joseph D. Maurizio Jr., 70, of Central City, Pennsylvania was also ordered to pay a $50,000 fine and $10,000 in restitution to each of the two minor victims. Maurizio was convicted on Sept. 22, 2015, following an eight-day jury trial, of engaging in illicit sexual conduct in foreign places, possession of child pornography and international money laundering.

“Child sex tourism is a scourge: adults preying on the young and vulnerable to satisfy dark desires,” said David Abbate, assistant special agent in charge of HSI Pittsburgh. “As an agency, HSI is committed to the difficult but necessary task of ending this scourge–despite cost, distance, and international boundaries. There can be no place for the abuse of children here or abroad.”

“It is important to recognize the courage of the victims, the tenacity of the investigators and the resolve of the prosecutors to bring this child predator priest to justice,” stated U.S. David Attorney Hickton. “This sentence ensures that Joseph Maurizio will never again have the opportunity to travel beyond our nation’s borders to victimize children.”

“IRS Criminal Investigation will diligently work with our law enforcement partners to pursue those who violate the laws of the United States,” said Akeia Conner, IRS-CI special agent in charge. “Our partnership with HSI in this investigation demonstrates that we will work together to address the full scope of an individual’s illegal activity, and we will follow that trail wherever it may lead us.”

According to the evidence introduced at trial, in 2001 Maurizio created a charitable organization, then known as Honduras Interfaith Ministries (HIM), which was funded by donations from community members, including parishioners of Our Lady Queen of Angels Church in Central City. HIM became the largest donor for Pro Niño, a non-profit organization that provided shelter and rehabilitative services to poor, abandoned and at-risk children residing in a rural town near San Pedro Sula, Honduras. Between 2004 and 2009, Maurizio used HIM moneys to fund 13 separate trips between the United States and Honduras, during which he sexually abused two minor boys living at Pro Niño shelters.

Evidence presented at trial demonstrated that Maurizio used his position with HIM, Pro Niño’s largest donor, to gain unfettered access to the minors, as well as to purchase them gifts, including clothes, shoes and jewelry, in order to build the boys’ trust and to ensure their compliance during his sexual abuse. During his final trip to Honduras, Maurizio paid two minor boys to engage in sexual acts with him.

In addition, trial evidence showed that Maurizio kept digital media depicting the minors he sexually abused and other images of child sexual exploitation in the Our Lady Queen of Angels Church rectory.

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PENNSYLVANIA
Courthouse News Service

By KEVIN LESSMILLER

(CN) – A Pennsylvania priest was sentenced Wednesday to more than 16 years in prison for sexually abusing two boys living at shelters in Honduras.

Joseph Maurizio Jr.’s 200-month sentence comes after an eight-day trial last September, after which a jury found him guilty of engaging in illicit sexual conduct in foreign places, possession of child pornography and international money laundering.

Maurizio, 70, created a charity called Honduras Interfaith Ministries (HIM) in 2001, according to the U.S. Justice Department. HIM eventually became the largest donor to Pro Niño, a nonprofit that provided shelter and other resources to poor and at-risk children in a rural Honduras town.

The priest reportedly used HIM funds to go to Honduras 13 times between 2004 and 2009, during which he sexually abused two young boys living at shelters.

Evidence at his trial showed that Maurizio used his charity position to get access to the boys and purchase them gifts, thereby gaining their trust. The Central City, Pa., resident also paid the boys to engage in sexual acts with him on his last trip to Honduras, according to the Justice Department.

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PENNSYLVANIA
ABC 27

By Dave Marcheskie

HARRISBURG, Pa. (WHTM) – The lead prosecutor in a grand jury investigation that alleges widespread child sexual abuse in the Altoona-Johnstown Catholic diocese is calling for changes to the state law that sets time limits on charging offenders.

The grand jury found two former bishops worked to conceal the abuse of hundreds of children by at least 50 priests and other religious leaders for 40 years or more.

“What struck me was in some ways the way that it happened in broad daylight,” Deputy Attorney General Daniel Dye said. “Some of these priests were seen in groups of young boys in parishes and they got away with it because they were priests.”

Dye said the attorney general’s office began to investigate in 2014 when the Cambria County district attorney’s office referred the case to the state, citing a conflict of interest because the DA is Catholic. He said the county was investigating sex abuse allegations against a friar when authorities in the DA’s office realized the scope.

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