ABUSE TRACKER

UNITED STATES
San Francisco Chronicle

Editorial

If Rome won’t, maybe Hollywood will. That would be getting the Catholic Church moving on clerical sex abuse, a scandal more than a decade old that’s drawing pledges to reform but pathetically thin results.

The movie “Spotlight,” which depicts the Boston Globe’s disclosures of pedophile priests and an archdiocese that hid the problem, should galvanize a global public that is impatient with Vatican foot-dragging. Determined digging by the paper overcame an evasive and insulated church that masked the scandal of dozens of clerics who preyed on children. The movie underscores the timely and focused worth of serious journalism up against a powerful interest.

An Oscar should come in handy for another reason. The church is essentially rolling with the punch of this scandal. It’s hearing out critics and abuse victims and paying out enormous settlements in some cases. But Rome has stopped short of adopting the sweeping household rules that will prevent a recurrence and put church higher-ups on notice that they are responsible.

The infuriating stories spread far beyond Boston with church leaders in Los Angeles and Minneapolis shown as cover-up organizers. The church has been all too forgiving of itself. Boston’s Cardinal Bernard Law was kicked upstairs to a sinecure in Rome and never faced criminal charges or defrocking for his negligence.

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ROME
news.com.au

[with video]

MARCH 1, 2016

CARDINAL George Pell has formally declined an appeal to make available church funds in restitution to victims of Catholic Church abuse, conceding he had no sway in the Vatican.

Despite being the effective treasurer of the Holy See the cardinal said there was nothing available for Melbourne Response — a program he set up himself in 1996 when he was the archbishop of Melbourne.

Anthony Foster, the father of two girls sexual abused by the clergy who had travelled to Rome for answers, said after his impromptu meeting with Cardinal Pell it was clear he had washed his hands of the program.

The father of Emma and Katie, abused by Father Kevin O’Donnell in the 1980s, said the Cardinal had previously told him in a meeting in Sydney he could lift funds available to victims to somewhere near to $100 million.

Mr Foster had just finished a TV interview when he inadvertently bumped into the cardinal sometime after the second day of his testimony to the child abuse royal commission hearing.

“I offered my hand to him which he shook, it was pretty tough,” said an emotional Mr Foster who added he had been in contact with the cardinal over many years and always had a cordial association.

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ROME
ABC News

A man whose two daughters were raped by a priest has confronted George Pell, telling him “I am a broken man” after the Cardinal’s second day of testimony via video link to the child abuse royal commission.

Cardinal Pell faced the commission from a Rome hotel, drawing gasps from survivors as he declared the crimes of notorious paedophile priest Gerald Ridsdale were a “sad story” but “not of much interest” to him at the time.

Anthony Foster’s daughters Emma and Katie were raped by Melbourne priest Father Kevin O’Donnell when they were in primary school in the 1980s.

Mr Foster confronted Cardinal Pell outside the hearing at the Hotel Quirinale, saying he had given up hope the Cardinal would fix the church’s so-called Melbourne Response to the abuse scandal.

“He held my hand for the whole duration of the chat that we had and I expressed to him that he was holding the hand of a broken man, and he put his other hand on me and tried to I suppose connect in some way, but I didn’t feel it,” Mr Foster said.

“Quest over. It was the smooth Cardinal Pell, not the Cardinal Pell we saw on the stand.”

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AUSTRALIA
Daily Advertiser

A victim who was raped daily while living with notorious paedophile Gerald Ridsdale at a presbytery in Mortlake says he finds it unfathomable that Cardinal George Pell didn’t know he was being sexually abused.

Paul Levey was sent to live with Ridsdale in the Mortlake presbytery after his parents separated when he was 14 in 1982.

In a harrowing statement presented to the hearing Mr Levey said he was “sexually abused all the time just about every day”.

“I had my own bedroom at the presbytery but that was just a front. I always slept in Ridsdale’s room where there were two beds. No-one else lived in the presbytery,” it read.

Australia’s most senior Catholic accepted no responsibility for Ridsdale’s offending telling the inquiry he had no knowledge of his crimes.

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ROME
The Guardian

David Marr

Tuesday 1 March 2016

Here’s my theory. George Pell returned to Ballarat as a young priest with big plans. And why not? He’d gone from Rome to Oxford, where he reckons he was the first Catholic priest to earn a doctorate of philosophy since the Reformation.

Big things were expected of him back in Australia. He expected big things of himself. But for the next 25 years he found himself serving bishops whose record of handling paedophile priests was (in Ballarat) appalling and (in Melbourne) seriously flawed.

Pell is seeing out his career as cardinal in charge of the Vatican’s finances. But what would have happened to his mighty career if early on he had crossed those bishops?

Had young Pell made it his business to find why the paedophile Father Gerald Ridsdale was being shifted from parish to parish in the 1970s – in later years by a committee on which he himself sat – he might well be living the twilight years of his career not in Rome but the seaside parish of Warrnambool.

From Pell’s evidence on the second day of his Roman cross-examination there emerged a picture of an ambitious and capable young priest who decided, early on, to steer clear of this dangerous issue.

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UNITED STATES
Crux

By Sarah Kaplan
The Washington Post February 29, 2016

“I’m not here to defend the indefensible,” Cardinal George Pell told an Australian courtroom Sunday.

What he did was attempt to explain: how one of the most notorious pedophilia rings in the country could have taken place on his watch, how he could have heard about priests who engaged in “misbehavior” — kissing boys, swimming naked with students — and not reported it, how thousands of children were raped and molested by priests in Australia and elsewhere while the Church did nothing.

“The Church has made enormous mistakes and is working to remedy those,” he said via video conference from Rome. “But the Church in many places, certainly Australia, has mucked things up . . . has let people down.”

The investigation into the widespread sexual abuse of children in the city of Ballarat, where Pell was a priest, has brought allegations of exploitation and cover-up extraordinarily far up the Catholic Church’s chain of command; Pell is the Church’s secretary for the economy, a position described as the second most powerful in Rome, and he spoke from a hotel that was just blocks from the Vatican.

The hearings before Australia’s Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse also come at a time when the Catholic Church’s handling of child abuse is more generally under scrutiny. The film “Spotlight,” which depicts the Boston Globe’s Pulitzer Prize-winning investigation into serially abusive priests, won the Oscar for best picture just hours after Pell concluded his testimony.

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MASSACHUSETTS
Boston Globe

By David Filipov GLOBE STAFF FEBRUARY 29, 2016

The phones of clergy sex abuse survivors and their advocates were lighting up Monday, a day after “Spotlight,” the movie that tells their story, was awarded Oscars for best picture and best original screenplay. Most of the calls expressed a renewed sense of validation among those who first spoke up against a sweeping conspiracy in the Roman Catholic Church hierarchy.

But some of the calls reflected the reality that many victims have yet to tell their stories, their secrets still cloaked in guilt and shame that never should have been theirs.

“Very early this morning a person called me who is a survivor who had not come forward previously,” said Mitchell Garabedian, the Boston attorney who represented many of the victims in the scandal and is one of the heroes of the film, played by Stanley Tucci. “Because of ‘Spotlight,’ that survivor has regained lost dignity that was stolen by clergy sexual abuse.”

Garabedian, his voice still hoarse from cheering while watching the Academy Awards, said he still has 500 clergy sex abuse cases in which he has either filed a lawsuit or sought claims on behalf of his clients. Because of “Spotlight,” Garabedian said, he has been contacted by survivors from “Cambodia, Turkey, Australia, many, many countries.”

His hope, he said, is that the attention provided by the movie, which documents The Boston Globe’s investigation starting in 2001 into the abuse and the coverup by church officials, will empower other survivors to come forward.

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AUSTRALIA
Sydney Morning Herald

March 1, 2016

Beau Donelly, Jane Lee

As Cardinal Pell appears before the royal commision to answer questions about his role in the Catholic Church’s child abuse scandal, just who are some of the worst offenders in Victoria?

Father Gerald Francis Ridsdale

One Australia’s worst paedophiles, former Ballarat priest Gerald Ridsdale has been convicted of 138 sex offences against children – some as young as four – involving more than 50 victims.

Ridsdale was ordained at St Patrick’s Cathedral in Ballarat in 1961. The first complaint about his behaviour towards children was received by the church that same year. Ridsdale would continue to abuse children over the next three decades.

Ballarat Bishop Ronald Mulkearns moved Ridsdale to a number of parishes around Victoria and Sydney amid abuse allegations against him over many years before Ridsdale asked him for leave in 1988 “so that I may be removed from the kind of work that has proved to be a temptation and a difficulty to me”.

Cardinal Pell said he accepts no responsibility for Ridsdale’s movements when he was a member of the College of Consultors, which advised the Bishop on movements of parish priests.

Cardinal Pell said he was never told about Ridsdale’s offending while he was in Ballarat, including as an adviser to Bishop Mulkearns from 1977.

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ROME
ABC News (US)

By ROD MCGUIRK, ASSOCIATED PRESS CANBERRA, Australia — Feb 29, 2016

Interrupted by jeers from observers, one of Pope Francis’ top advisers on Tuesday denied an accusation that his testimony to an inquiry into child sex abuse was an attempt to deflect blame for the Catholic Church transferring Australia’s worst pedophile priest from parish to parish.

Australian Cardinal George Pell was a priest in the 1970s in the town of Ballarat where he advised Bishop Ronald Mulkearns about the placement of priests within the diocese.

Pell, now the pope’s top financial adviser, told the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse that he had no idea that priest Gerald Ridsdale was repeatedly transferred by the bishop for more than a decade because of pedophile accusations.

Pell rejected an accusation made by the lead counsel assisting the commission, Gail Furness, that his answers were designed to remove his own responsibility for Ridsdale’s crimes.

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CALIFORNIA
CBS SF Bay Area

OAKLAND (KCBS) – After the movie “Spotlight” won the Academy Award for Best Picture, advocates for victims of clergy sexual abuse are renewing their call for local Catholic bishops to release the names of accused priests.

Tim Lennon of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP) said there’s no reason the Archdiocese of San Francisco, the Diocese of Oakland and the Diocese of San Jose should not release the names of those accused.

“What I’m saying is the church has a responsibility, not only to help survivors like me, but they have a responsibility to reach out to those children that are harmed, that are suffering in the dark,” said Lennon, who said he was raped by a priest at the age of 12.

Melanie Sakoda of SNAP said the crisis is not over. She told KCBS of another member’s experience.

“Her abuser was convicted in Minnesota of raping her, and he also abused another girl. And the Vatican just freed him up to return to ministry in India,” Sakoda said.

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VATICAN CITY
Eyewitness News (South Africa)

Reuters

VATICAN CITY – The Vatican newspaper on Monday lauded the film Spotlight, which took home this year’s Oscar for best picture, for giving voice to the pain of the victims of sexual abuse by the clergy.

The film tells the story of how the Boston Globe uncovered a massive scandal of child molestation in the city’s archdiocese.

The Osservatore Romano said the film did not take a hostile position against the Church.

It gives “a voice to the shock and profound pain of the faithful who confront the discovery of this horrible reality”, said an opinion piece by columnist Lucetta Scaraffia.

“It’s by now clear that in the Church too many were worried about the image of the institution and not the gravity of the act.”

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ROME
The Advertiser

Cardinal George Pell said he did not know that notorious pedophile Gerald Ridsdale had a 14-year-old boy living with him in the presbytery in 1980s – despite widespread rumours about the priest’s abuse of children.

Paul Levey has previously told the royal commission into child sexual abuse that in Easter 1982, when he was 14, he was sent to live at the presbytery at Mortlake with Ridsdale for about six months.

He slept in the same room as the priest and was abused all the time.

Mr Levey said it was common knowledge he was living there.

Cardinal George Pell on Tuesday – his second day of evidence to the child abuse royal commission – said he did not know about it even though by then he was privy to the “scandalous” rumours about Ridsdale when he was in Ballarat in the 70s.

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UNITED STATES
Royal Gazette (Bermuda)

Christopher White

A new film serves as a painful reminder of one of the darkest periods in Roman Catholic Church history, where more than 200 priests and religious were accused of abusing minors and were reassigned in a cover-up.

Spotlight, which won Best Picture at the Oscars on Sunday night, chronicles The Boston Globe’s groundbreaking coverage of the clergy sexual abuse crisis in the Archdiocese of Boston that would go on to win the paper a Pulitzer Prize in 2003.

Reflecting on the ten-year anniversary of the Globe’s revelations, Boston Cardinal Sean O’Malley said that “the media helped make our Church safer for children by raising up the issue of clergy sexual abuse and forcing us to deal with it.”

And as New York Times columnist Ross Douthat observed in 2010: “The Catholic Church has always had enemies. … but Catholics — and especially Catholic leaders, from the Vatican to the most far-flung diocese — should welcome it, both as a spur to virtue and as a sign that their faith still matters, that their church still looms large over the affairs of men, and that the world still cares enough about Christianity to demand that Catholics live up to their own exacting standards.”

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ROME
BBC News

Cardinal George Pell says he was deceived by a senior clergyman over the activities of a paedophile priest.

Australia’s most senior Catholic is presenting evidence from Rome via video link over several days to an Australian Royal Commission into child sex abuse.

On Tuesday Cardinal Pell was questioned about paedophile Gerald Ridsdale, a priest who was repeatedly moved between parishes in the 1970s and 80s.

He accepted no responsibility for the failure to report Ridsdale’s abuse.

Survivors have flown to Rome to see the cardinal testify after he was excused from returning home due to ill health.

‘Implausible’

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CANADA
Metro News

By: Rosemary Westwood Metro Published on Mon Feb 29 2016

One well trodden story, about good people whose inaction clears a path for evil, won an Oscar on Sunday night.

Spotlight, the tale of how Boston Globe reporters broke a Catholic-priest sexual-abuse scandal, took home the best picture award, highlighting the need for such costly reportage just as media companies cut jobs.

The film charts the journalists’ triumphs, but also underscores how many people looked the other way for so long. Priests, cardinals, the Vatican; members of Boston’s Catholic community, lawyers, judges; even Globe journalists, who had been sitting on stories of priest abuse for years without much follow-up.

It’s particularly ironic, then, that when I went to see Spotlight, it was by accident. I was even dreading it. We wanted light fun, but we arrived too late. As a Catholic, I shrunk from yet another story of horrific abuse and the institution that, in effect, condoned it.

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MISSOURI
Fox 2

[with video]

(KTVI) – Spotlight was the surprise winner at the Oscars, but the investigative work done by the real life spotlight team was no surprise to one St. Louisan.

‘We were in touch with the Boston Globe investigative team before they wrote their first story and certainly throughout 2002 and 2003 when they ran almost 800 stories about predator priests,’ says David Clohessy, Director Snapnetwork.org.

The story of the Boston globe’s investigation into clergy sexual abuse in the Boston Archdiocese was turned into an Oscar-winning movie.

But for David Clohessy it’s not the closing of a chapter, but instead more work that still needs to be done.

‘The only thing that makes the Boston Archdiocese different if you will than the St. Louis Archdiocese is that there’s just been greater scrutiny,’ says Clohessy.

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AUSTRALIA
Daily Telegraph

Wendy Tuohy

He speaks in a monotone about issues that destroyed untold numbers of lives, he avoids eye contact with survivors of child sexual abuse (according to eyewitness reports from journalists), he dodges and weaves as well as Muhammad Ali ever did.

All that aside, some of Cardinal George Pell’s words to the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse have been breathtakingly callous.

Yes, yesterday the world’s third most powerful Catholic official did concede the Church’s handling of allegations of child sexual abuse by paedophile priests had been “catastrophic” and that he was not there to “defend the indefensible”.

Yet today he stunned people sitting in front of him who survived childhood assaults by those very priests and was able to describe the revolting serial abuse of 53 children by Father Gerald Ridsdale as “a sad story (that) wasn’t of much interest to me”.

The gasps of onlookers were audible and understandable.

Does this man still not get the pain, hurt, grief and anger still fresh in the hearts of victims, their families and supporters — a whole town — as a result of such insidious violations?

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ROME
news.com.au

A FATHER of two girls who were raped by a priest while in primary school said it was “the smooth Cardinal Pell” testifying to the child abuse Royal Commission from Rome.

Anthony Foster, whose daughters Emma and Katie were both assaulted by Melbourne priest Father Kevin O’Donnell, said he had “given up hope” that George Pell would fix the Church’s response to institutional paedophilia.

“Quest over,” said Mr Foster, according to the ABC. “It was the smooth Cardinal Pell, not the Cardinal Pell, we saw on the stand.”

The husband and father confronted Pell outside the hearing at the Hotel Quirinale after the Cardinal’s second day of testimony via video link, telling him “he was holding the hand of a broken man”.

After two of Mr Foster’s three daughters were raped, Emma became addicted to drugs, had eating disorders and self-harmed before overdosing on medication at 26. Katie was hit by a car after a drinking binge in 1999, leaving her brain damaged.

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ROME
9 News

AAP

George Pell says it would be hard to find another bishop whose actions were as “grave and inexplicable” as those of Ronald Mulkearns who knew about the crimes of pedophile priest Gerald Ridsdale but kept moving him from one parish to another.

In an extraordinary day of evidence to the sex abuse royal commission on Tuesday, Cardinal Pell squarely laid the blame on Bishop Mulkearns – his former mentor – for decades of cover-up which put hundreds of children at risk from Ridsdale.

As Bishop of Ballarat between 1971 and 1997, Mulkearns presided over decisions to move priests, including Ridsdale, between parishes rather than deal with child sexual abuse allegations.

Cardinal Pell told the royal commission Bishop Mulkearns deceived him, lied to him and described his former boss’s actions as “reprehensible” and “absolutely extraordinary.”

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ROME
9 News

AAP

Australian child sex abuse survivors danced “as if they won the Oscar” in a Rome hotel when a movie about exposing pedophile priests won best film at the Academy Awards.

But the survivors’ group who travelled to Rome to hear Cardinal George Pell give evidence by videolink to the child abuse royal commission sitting in Sydney were brought back down to earth on Tuesday by his testimony of denial and sheeting home blame to others.

The previous day they had detected a conciliatory tone in the cleric’s evidence, noting he had backed off blanket denials that he knew nothing of pedophile priests offending in the Ballarat diocese and Melbourne when he served there in the 1970s and 1980s.

After that day of evidence, members of the survivors’ group left the plush Quirinale Hotel where the cardinal’s evidence is being heard and went on to watch the Oscars in their hotel and be thrilled when best film was won by Spotlight.

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ROME
The Guardian

Ben Doherty and Melissa Davey
Monday 29 February 2016

Cardinal George Pell’s repeated insistence he knew nothing of paedophile priests being shielded by the church in the 1970s and 80s was “implausible”, the royal commission into child sex abuse has heard.

On Tuesday the most senior Australian Catholic was warned he would be “culpable too” if the commission decided he did know of abuse being covered up.

In a combative appearance, Pell resolutely defended his position that while he was a priest in Ballarat he was unaware paedophile priests were being moved between parishes to escape prosecution, and to protect the reputation of the church.

Pell claimed he knew nothing of the offending of priests, and that he was lied to and deceived by more senior church members who hid from him the activities of paedophiles in the clergy.

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CALIFORNIA
KEYT

SANTA BARBARA, Calif. –
Moviegoers will see Santa Barbara and other cities where priest sexual abuse occurred mentioned in the credits at the end of the film “Spotlight.”

“The Spotlight story really is a microcosm of a much larger story that has taken place in nearly every major city in this country, including here in Santa Barbara where we have seen the scandal at the Mission, at St. Anthony’s Seminary, at Our Lady of Guadalupe at nearly every Catholic church around town,” said attorney, Tim Hale.

Hale said awareness makes it easier for people to come forward and speak out about what they have been through. “Don’t look to institutions to change their ways. The way to make children safer is to empower people to come forward and report to law enforcement,” Hale said.

Hale is already working on a similar case involving the Presbyterian church. He said a hearing is scheduled for next Monday.

Hale represents victims of abuse on the central coast including the son of Ray Higgins.

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ROME
Daily Mail

By LUCY MAE BEERS FOR DAILY MAIL AUSTRALIA and AAP

A father whose two daughters suffered horrific sexual abuse at the hands of a priest has confronted Cardinal George Pell, telling him he is a ‘broken man.’

Anthony Foster cornered the former Archbishop of Melbourne outside his Rome hotel room after his second day of testimony via video link to the child abuse royal commission, but said the man he spoke to was the ‘smooth Cardinal Pell, not the Cardinal Pell [he] saw on the stand,’ The ABC reported.

Mr Foster’s daughter Emma was raped by Melbourne priest Kevin O’Donnell in the 1980s and she died in 2008 the age of 26 from a drug overdose and years of battling eating disorders, self harm and addiction.

His other daughter Katie, who was also raped by Father O’Donnell, became a binge drinker and requires round the clock care after being left disabled from a car accident in 1999.

Mr Foster said they held hands as they spoke, but admitted he felt no connection and instead said the Cardinal was ‘holding the hand of a broken man.’

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ROME
NBC News

by ALASTAIR JAMIESON

There were audible gasps Tuesday when Vatican treasurer George Pell said a notorious Roman Catholic Church sex-abuse case “wasn’t of much interest” to him.

The Australian cardinal — the highest-ranking Vatican official to testify on systemic sexual abuse of children by clergy — said senior clergy lied to him to cover up abuse in the 1970s.

He insisted there was no reason for him to know the extent of the abuse carried out by his one-time roommate — pedophile priest Father Gerald Ridsdale — who was later convicted of 138 offences against more than 50 children.

Pell denied there was any discussion of Ridsdale being a pedophile at a meeting he attended in 1982 where it was discussed that Ridsdale should be moved to another parish.

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INDIA
Hindustan Times

Paramita Ghosh, Hindustan Times, New Delhi | Updated: Mar 01, 2016

For Roman Catholics, February has not been a good month to be Christian. Pictures of one of its latest saints, the much-revered Pope John Paul II, surfaced, showing the late pope in the company of a married woman; one photograph is of them skiing. An exchange of letters also came to light that suggested a relationship of ‘more-than-friends-and-less-than-lovers’.

March, the month that did Macbeth in, seems to be no better. The 2016 Oscars, in which the journalism drama Spotlight won Best Picture , brought focus back on sex abuse by priests, a reality that intermittently stalks the Catholic Church and undermines the institution – mainly for its culture of cover-up.

Mitchell Garabedian, the Boston attorney for many victims who is also portrayed in Spotlight, said the film restored to survivors the “lost dignity that was stolen by clergy sexual abuse”.

Paedophilia and other instances of sexual coercion have blown up in the face of the church at a time when it is being forced to re-think many of its rigid controls. Some priests are demanding the right to marry while women are demanding the right to be priests. Celibacy, some say, is the Reformation moment of the Catholic church in this century. It is certainly a big challenge.

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ROME
TH Online

Tuesday, March 1, 2016
Associated Press

CANBERRA, Australia — One of Pope Francis’ top advisers told an Australian inquiry into child sex abuse on Tuesday that an Australian bishop had deceived him about the reason a pedophile priest was repeatedly transferred from parish to parish.

Australian Cardinal George Pell was a priest in the town of Ballarat in 1970s who advised Bishop Ronald Mulkearns about the placement of priests within the diocese.

Pell, now the pope’s top financial adviser, told the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse that while Mulkearns and another priest at the regular committee meetings, Monsignor Leo Fiscalini, both knew about serious sexual assault allegations against notorious pedophile Gerald Ridsdale, neither mentioned them.

“It probably would be possible to imagine a greater deception, but it’s a gross deception,” Pell told the Sydney inquiry via videolink from a Rome hotel.

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WASHINGTON
KUOW

By BILL RADKE & MATT MARTIN

Bill Radke talks with Mary Dispenza, director of SNAP (Survivors Network for those Abused by Priests) in Seattle, about her reaction to “Spotlight” winning Best Picture at the Oscars Sunday night. The movie tells the story of how Boston Globe reporters uncovered a massive child abuse cover-up by the Catholic Church.

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ROME
Newsday

By ROD McGUIRK (Associated Press)

CANBERRA, Australia – (AP) — One of Pope Francis’ top advisers told an Australian inquiry into child sex abuse on Tuesday that an Australian bishop had deceived him about the reason a pedophile priest was repeatedly transferred from parish to parish.

Australian Cardinal George Pell was a priest in the town of Ballarat in 1970s who advised Bishop Ronald Mulkearns about the placement of priests within the diocese.

Pell, now the pope’s top financial adviser, told the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse that while Mulkearns and another priest at the regular committee meetings, Monsignor Leo Fiscalini, both knew about serious sexual assault allegations against notorious pedophile Gerald Ridsdale, neither mentioned them.

“It probably would be possible to imagine a greater deception, but it’s a gross deception,” Pell told the Sydney inquiry via videolink from a Rome hotel.

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ROME
news.com.au

Cardinal George Pell says the Catholic Church leadership failed to protect children in a Victorian diocese but he accepts no responsibility for moving a pedophile priest.

Cardinal Pell said it was improper to assign responsibility to those like himself who were ignorant of the offending by priest Gerald Francis Ridsdale in the Diocese of Ballarat in the 1970s and 1980s.

“In the diocese of Ballarat certainly there was a gigantic failure of leadership,” Cardinal Pell told the child abuse royal commission from Rome.

Cardinal Pell, who was an adviser to the Ballarat bishop Ronald Mulkearns between 1977 and 1984, did not agree the church collectively failed to protect children in the diocese during the 1970s and 1980s.

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ROME
SBS

AAP

Child sex abuse survivors say it’s unbelievable a man of Cardinal George Pell’s intelligence was unaware of a pedophile priest’s offending when two Victorian communities and local clergy knew about it.

The cardinal told the child abuse royal commission on Monday night that while he was on a Ballarat diocese committee that advised on the transfers of priests he was never told of the offending of pedophile priest Gerald Ridsdale in the 1970s.

By videolink from Hotel Quirinale in Rome he told the commission sitting in Sydney that then Ballarat bishop Ronald Mulkearns and his advisor Monsignor Fiscalini had deceived him by not telling him Ridsdale was moved between parishes because of his offending.

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ROME
SBS

AAP

Cardinal George Pell has told the child sex abuse inquiry that the responsibility for the protection of children is not equal for all ordained clergy.

The cardinal was explaining why the shocking story of pedophile priest Gerald Ridsdale abusing children in the Victorian parish of Ballarat was not of much interest to him at the time.

In the second day of a hearing in which Cardinal Pell is giving evidence by video link from Rome, the counsel for the child sex abuse Royal commission Gail Furness SC pressed him of how it was that Ridsdale’s offences were common knowledge in at least two parishes but escaped his notice.

Ms Furness: “What was not of much interest to you?”

Cardinal Pell: “The suffering of course was real and I very much regret that, but I have no reason to turn my mind to the extent of the evils that Ridsdale had perpetrated.”

He was asked if it was not necessary to avoid repeat offences to fully understand the circumstances of cases like Ridsdale.

The cardinal said that everyone in the church approached the task differently according to their level of responsibility.

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ROMA
Vatican Insider

ANDREA TORNIELLI
ROMA

È stata la prima di tre o quattro audizioni, che si svolgeranno stanotte e nei giorni successivi: il cardinale George Pell, Prefetto della Segreteria per l’Economia e membro del consiglio di cardinali che collabora con il Papa per la riforma della Curia è comparso di fronte alla Commissione governativa australiana che indaga sugli abusi sui minori commessi da sacerdoti, religiosi o persone collegate alla Chiesa. Com’è noto, a causa delle sue condizioni di salute che non gli permettono di affrontare il lungo viaggio transoceanico, il porporato ha chiesto e ottenuto di fornire la sua testimonianza in videoconferenza, dall’hotel Quirinale di Roma. La prima audizione è iniziata poco dopo le 22 e si è conclusa alle 2.30 di questa mattina. Erano presenti dei seminaristi australiani e una rappresentanza delle vittime degli abusi, che hanno organizzato una raccolta di fondi per essere presenti dal vivo di fronte a Pell.

Finora dalla vicenda australiana è emerso un quadro non dissimile da quelli riferibili ad altri Paesi e ad altre situazioni: preti pedofili che invece di essere fermati e processati, sono stati dai loro vescovi semplicemente spostati di parrocchia, potendo così continuare a compiere le loro immonde azioni da un’altra parte. Le vittime e i loro familiari che, invece di essere accolte, sostenute, protette, accompagnate e risarcite, sono state tenute lontane, non credute e trattate come una minaccia al buon nome della Chiesa.

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CITTA’ DEL VATICANO
Corriere della Sera

Gian Guido Vecchi

CITTÀ DEL VATICANO – La Chiesa cattolica «ha commesso enormi errori, ma sta lavorando per rimediare. Ha causato gravi danni in molti luoghi, ha deluso i fedeli». Lo ha ammesso il cardinale George Pell, già arcivescovo di Melbourne e poi di Sydney e ora prefetto degli Affari economici del Vaticano, testimoniando in videoconferenza dall’Hotel Quirinale a Roma davanti alla Commissione d’inchiesta sulle risposte delle istituzioni agli abusi sessuali a minori negli anni 1970 e 1980. «Non sono qui a difendere l’indifendibile», ha aggiunto. In quei giorni la Chiesa era «fortemente propensa» ad accettare smentite degli abusi da parte di chi ne era accusato. L’istinto allora era più di «proteggere dalla vergogna l’istituzione, la comunità della Chiesa», ha detto fra l’altro il prelato, che ha tuttavia negato di aver avuto alcuna conoscenza delle malefatte dei preti pedofili che operavano nella diocesi di Ballarat in cui era viceparroco e assistente al vescovo Ronald Mulkearns.

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ROMA
CDN

ROMA, Sidney.- El cardenal australiano George Pell, el funcionario del Vaticano de más alto rango que ha testificado sobre casos de abusos sexuales cometidos por sacerdotes católicos, dijo el domingo que la Iglesia cometió “enormes errores” y “ha decepcionado a las personas” en el manejo del escándalo.

Ofreciendo su testimonio a víctimas de abusos desde una habitación de un hotel en Roma, Pell dijo a la Comisión Real de Australia sobre Respuestas Institucionales al Abuso Sexual Infantil que a los niños a menudo no se les creía y a los sacerdotes se los traspasaba de parroquia en parroquia.

“La Iglesia cometió enormes errores y está trabajando para remediarlos, pero la Iglesia en muchos lugares, sobre todo en Australia, estropeó las cosas, ha decepcionado a las personas”, dijo Pell través de una videoconferencia con la comisión en Sídney. “No estoy aquí para defender lo indefendible”, agregó.

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ROMA
Info Catolica

Ante la Comisión Real australiana para una Respuesta Institucional al Abuso Sexual de Menores, a través de una videoconferencia, Pell ha prometido que no iba a «defender lo indefendible» y ha declarado que la iglesia incurrió históricamente en errores graves al no abordar adecuadamente el problema y que ahora está trabajando para remediarlo.

«La Iglesia en muchos lugares, y ciertamente en Australia, ha estropeado las cosas y ha decepcionado a la gente», ha reconocido.

(EP) Sin embargo, el cardenal australiano ha negado que la propia institución sea la culpable de la gestión de los casos de sacerdotes que abusaron de niños aunque ha admitido que en el pasado la actitud general de la Iglesia hacia el abuso fue que «el niño lo tenía mucho, mucho más difícil para que se le creyera».

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ROME
3AW

Neil Mitchell has taken issue with part of Cardinal George Pell’s testimony at the child abuse Royal Commission.

Cardinal Pell was asked if he knew it was common knowledge in Inglewood that Ridsdale was interfering with children.

“It’s a sad story and it wasn’t of much interest to me,” he responded.

And with that there were gasps of incredulity from those watching on in Australia.

“That’s the whole essence of the problem,” Neil said.

“You’re a man of God, pledging to care for people, and you hear stories that the local priest is molesting children, and it’s not of much bloody interest to you?

“I’m not surprised that they’re angry.

“We’ve got to be fair to George Pell, but he hasn’t impressed me so far.

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ROME
news.com.au

Cardinal George Pell has faced an ominous warning from the head of the child abuse royal commission, being told he would be culpable if it was found he knew about the acts of a pedophile priest in Ballarat in the 1970s.

Cardinal Pell has told the royal commission he knew nothing of offences committed by pedophile Father Gerald Ridsdale, who was repeatedly moved to new parishes by Ballarat Bishop Ronald Mulkearns, where he continued abusing children.

Cardinal Pell was a consultor to the bishop but said he was deceived and lied to by the bishop and other priests who knew of complaints against Ridsdale.

Commissioner Peter McClellan said the inquiry had to determine a very serious issue.

“You see, you speak of the bishop’s culpability,” Commissioner McClellan said.

“If we were to come to the view that you did know, you would be culpable too, wouldn’t you?”

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ROME
Sydney Morning Herald

[with video]

Rachel Browne
Social Affairs Reporter

Complaints about a paedophile priest were “common knowledge” in the Catholic community and among two senior clergy members but Cardinal George Pell did not have “much interest” in them, he told a royal commission.

In his second day of questioning about what he knew of sexual offending by priests when he was in Victoria, Cardinal Pell’s admission drew an audible gasp from those listening to his testimony.

Giving his evidence via video-link from Rome, Australia’s most senior Catholic agreed that some people knew there had been complaints about Gerald Ridsdale in the 1970s, a former priest now serving a prison sentence for multiple child sex offences.

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ROME
The Guardian

Cardinal George Pell, giving evidence in Rome to Australia’s royal commission on institutional responses to child sexual abuse, says he did not know whether paedophile priest Gerald Ridsdale’s offending was common knowledge in the parish of Inglewood. Pell’s comment that, “It’s a sad story and it wasn’t of much interest to me”, drew an audible gasp from those listening to the videolink in Sydney. Pell added: “The suffering, of course, was real and I very much regret that, but I had no reason to turn my mind to the extent of the evils that Ridsdale had perpetrated.”

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NEW JERSEY
MyCentralJersey

WOODBRIDGE – The Hunterdon County priest who was serving a 33-year sentence for sexually assaulting an altar boy died Monday at the state’s Adult Diagnostic and Treatment Center.

John Banko, 69, was pronounced dead at 9:29 a.m. Monday, said Matt Schuman, a spokesman for the state Department of Corrections.

No foul play is suspected in Banko’s death, Schuman said, adding he can not give any circumstances because of federal HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act) regulations.

Banko, a former pastor at St. Edward the Confessor in Milford , was convicted twice of sexual abuse during his tenure at the church. Known to parishioners as “Father Jack,” Banko was convicted in December 2002 of molesting a former altar boy on two consecutive Sundays after Mass at the Milford church from September 1993 to September 1994.

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ARKANSAS
Democrat-Gazette

Story by Tracy Neal
Monday, February 29, 2016

BENTONVILLE — A teacher at Life Way Christian School was arrested Saturday in connection with sexually assaulting a student, according to court documents.

Richard Thomas Riley, 34, of Centerton was arrested on charges of sexual assault in the first degree, a Class A felony, and distributing, possessing or viewing matter depicting sexually explicit conduct involving a child, a Class C felony.

Riley’s bond was set at $50,000.

Life Way Christian School fired Riley on Saturday, according to administrator Luke Bowers.
Riley had worked for the school since 2013 teaching physical science and world history, primarily to ninth- and 10th-graders. He had served in the U.S. military before joining Life Way and has a master’s degree in education, Bowers said.

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ROME
New York Times

By ELISABETTA POVOLEDO
FEB. 29, 2016

ROME — When Pope Francis was chosen to lead the world’s 1.2 billion Catholics three years ago, he pledged to reform antiquated and troubled Vatican institutions.

He formed an inner circle of nine cardinals as his closest advisers, appointed a commission to deal with sexual abuse of children by the clergy, and another to reform the Vatican’s tangled finances. To pilot the financial reform and serve in his inner circle, Francis chose Cardinal George Pell.

So it was a matter of no small discomfort to the Vatican, and fascination to the world’s media, to see Cardinal Pell testify late Sunday — via video link from a hotel in Rome — before an Australian Royal Commission looking into institutional responses to child sexual abuse.

The questioning centered on how much the cardinal knew about a number of priests and brothers accused of pedophilia during the 40 years in which he rose through the ranks of Australia’s clerical hierarchy, and whether he failed to act on the abuses. Many of the accused offenders have been convicted.

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ROME
Daily Mail

AAP

Cardinal George Pell says Gerald Francis Ridsdale’s sexual abuse of children at a Victorian parish in the 1970’s was a ‘sad story’ that ‘wasn’t of much interest to me’ and that he was not told the priest was being moved because he was a pedophile.

Cardinal Pell, who was then a Ballarat priest, says he did not know that Ridsdale’s offending was common knowledge in the Victorian parish of Inglewood in 1975 and did not know about the allegations.

‘It’s a sad story and it wasn’t of much interest to me,’ he told the child abuse royal commission from Rome on Tuesday.

His comment drew gasps from some observers in the room, many of whom were victims of child abuse who had travelled to Rome to hear his testimony.

‘The suffering, of course, was real and I very much regret that, but I had no reason to turn my mind to the extent of the evils that Ridsdale had perpetrated,’ he later continued.

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MASSACHUSETTS
NECN

By Justin Michaels

It was a huge and surprising win for a movie that has its foundation at the Boston Globe.
Spotlight won Best Picture at the Academy Awards, and for the real people behind the movie characters, the win means much more than a gold statue.

Winning best picture at the Academy Awards, the film Spotlight shined a bright light on an issue sex abuse victim Alexa MacPherson knows intimately. She faced abuse from her priest, but as exciting as this moment was, it didn’t offer her something she longs for more than anything.

“Not a sense of closure, at least not for me,” said MacPherson, “It’s a sense of being understood. And not being called a liar.”

The movie is about the Boston Globe’s Spotlight investigation into the child sex abuse scandal in the Boston Catholic Church.

NECN spoke with Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Walter Robinson, who was part of the spotlight team that exposed the sex abuse scandal involving clergy. In spotlight, Robinson is played by actor Michael Keaton.

Robinson hopes with Spotlight’s now global fame, swift action will be taken in the Catholic Church.

“Perhaps it will move the church to move more quickly to Institute the reforms to make sure that this kind of Wholesale abuse of children doesn’t happen again,” said Robinson.

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UNITED STATES
Wear Your Voice

by Nancy Levine

The movie Spotlight won Oscar awards for best picture and best original screenplay at Sunday evening’s 82nd annual Academy Award presentation.

On the red carpet before the Oscar telecast, actor Mark Ruffalo, who played Boston Globe reporter Mike Rezendes in the movie, told ABC’s Robin Roberts:

“It’s still happening today. I was at a protest today in Los Angeles at the Cathedral with the SNAP group, with the survivors of priest sexual abuse. They were telling me that every day they have more and more people coming out of the darkness to tell their stories of sexual abuse by priests. And the more that happens, the closer we get to actually healing this wound, I think.”

Indeed, those stories continue to come forward. On December 25, 2015, The New York Times reported former rabbi Marc Gafni’s admission of sexual engagement with a minor, and Whole Foods CEO John Mackey’s position on Gafni’s nonprofit board of directors:

“He [Gafni] added, ‘She was 14 going on 35 … ‘”

“A co-founder of Whole Foods, John Mackey … is a chairman of the executive board of Mr. Gafni’s center … “

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ROME/AUSTRALIA
Reuters

ROME/SYDNEY | BY PHILIP PULLELLA AND JANE WARDELL

Australian Cardinal George Pell, the highest-ranking Vatican official to testify on systemic sexual abuse of children by clergy in the Roman Catholic Church, said on Monday that he has the full backing of Pope Francis.

Pell on Sunday told Australia’s Royal Commission into Institutional Response to Child Sexual Abuse that the church made “enormous mistakes” and “catastrophic” choices by attempting to cover up abuses in the 1970s.

Pell’s testimony has received global coverage. Because of his high position in the Vatican, the Australian inquiry into sexual abuse cases that occurred decades ago has taken on wider implications about the accountability of church leaders.

Pell, 74, has become the focal point for victims’ frustration over what they say has been an inadequate response from church leaders. Pell himself is not accused of sexual abuse and has twice apologized for the Church’s slow response.

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ROME
7 News

AAP

Cardinal George Pell says he was lied to and deceived by a bishop and priests who knew about the child sexual abuse crimes of a fellow clergyman, who was repeatedly moved to new parishes where he continued to offend.

Cardinal Pell told the child abuse royal commission that while he didn’t know why Father Gerald Ridsdale was moved on to new parishes in the Victorian diocese of Ballarat in the 1970s, Bishop Ronald Mulkearns and other priests knew of repeated paedophilia allegations.

Commissioner Justice Peter McClellan asked: “You say the bishop deceived you, is that right?”

Cardinal Pell replied: “Unfortunately, correct.”

An advisor to the bishop, Monsignor Fiscalini, deceived him as well, Cardinal Pell said.

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CALIFORNIA
Ventura County Star

By Tom Kisken of the Ventura County Star

Lee Bashforth wishes Oscar-winning “Spotlight” was made before he was molested at age 6 by a Catholic priest in the Conejo Valley.

“If this movie had been made 40 years ago, what happened to me would never have happened,” he said. “It’s that big of deal.”

The movie about The Boston Globe’s investigation of pedophile priests won best picture at the Academy Awards Sunday. Survivors said Monday the surprise victory helps their fight against clergy abuse.

“No pun intended but it puts our story back in the spotlight,” said Bashforth. He said he and his brother were molested by the Rev. Michael Wempe when the priest served at St. Jude Catholic Church in Westlake Village.

Wempe also served at other local parishes including St. Rose of Lima Church in Simi Valley, Sacred Heart Church in Ventura and St. Sebastian Church in Santa Paula. According to personnel records from the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, he admitted molesting 13 boys in the 1970s and 1980s.

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MINNESOTA
The Catholic Spirit

Maria Wiering | February 29, 2016

The Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis plans to move is central corporation offices to the 3M Company’s former headquarters in St. Paul. The archdiocese signed a lease Feb. 29 for the 75,000 square foot building in the Dayton’s Bluff neighborhood, northeast of downtown.

Built in 1939, the building at 777 Forest St. N. served as 3M’s headquarters from 1940-1962. It is part of the Beacon Bluff Business Park, which is under development by the St. Paul Port Authority. The St. Paul-based developer Exeter Group owns the building. The lease is subject to bankruptcy court approval, and its terms with renovation costs are also subject to archdiocesan and landlord approval. The archdiocese, which has 140 employees, does not expect to finalize anticipated renovation costs until mid-May.

In an email to archdiocesan employees, Father Charles Lachowitzer, the archdiocese’s moderator of the curia, said he expects the central corporation will move to its new offices in late fall. Archdiocesan leaders have been searching for new offices for more than a year.

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ROME
9 News

By Nick Alexander

Cardinal George Pell has drawn gasps from the survivors watching his testimony in a Rome hotel room, saying that the crimes of convicted pedophile Gerard Ridsdale were “a sad story and it wasn’t of much interest to me”.

Early on in the second day of his video testimony before a Royal Commission, Cardinal Pell was questioned about whether he knew of the dozens of sexual crimes committed by Ridsdale against children in Inglewood during the 1970s.

Gail Furness SC had put it to Cardinal Pell that his superior, Bishop Mulkearns, had been informed by a police officer, a Detective Sergeant Mooney, that Ridsdale was under investigation for interfering with children.

The abuse, DS Mooney was quoted as saying, was “pretty common knowledge all through the congregation. Pretty much everyone you would speak to knew about it.”

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TEXAS
The Dallas Morning News

Julieta Chiquillo

Before a 2002 Boston Globe investigation rocked the Catholic Church and inspired an Oscar-winning movie, Dallas reporter Brooks Egerton was unveiling the church’s systemic cover-up of pedophile priests.

Egerton was an editor at The Dallas Morning News in the early 1990s when Rudolph “Rudy” Kos was accused of molesting boys at several Dallas-area churches. The newspaper was covering the priest’s civil trial, but Egerton pushed for reporting that went beyond the courtroom.

He was aware of sexual abuse scandals involving priests across the country — most notably in Louisiana, where priest Gilbert Gauthe admitted he abused dozens of children — and saw a story much larger than one bad priest.

“The details of the South Louisiana stuff were just shocking, and to think that it could have happened anywhere, much less in multiple places, was kind of shocking,” Egerton said Monday.

Four years after the first suit was filed against Kos, Egerton — who by then was working as a reporter again — flew to San Diego to track down the suspended priest. The church was not defending Kos, who was attempting to keep a low profile as a paralegal in his new home.

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ROME
9 News

AAP

Children were put at risk when a Victorian bishop moved a priest after a child abuse complaint, Cardinal George Pell says.

Cardinal Pell said it was unacceptable that Ballarat Bishop Ronald Mulkearns moved pedophile Gerald Francis Ridsdale between parishes, including to Inglewood in 1975, after receiving a victim’s complaint.

“It’s unacceptable because of the risk it presented to children in Inglewood and that was exacerbated by the fact it doesn’t seem as though any effort was made to withdraw Ridsdale, at least for a period, for counselling or advice or help,” he said.

The commission has heard another complaint about Ridsdale was made in Inglewood and his offending was common knowledge in the parish, but Cardinal Pell said he did not know himself.

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ROME
BBC News

Cardinal George Pell has said he has the Pope’s “full backing”, as he testifies for a second day at a hearing into child sex abuse.

The Australian’s remarks came before he entered a Rome hotel where he is answering questions by video link.

Survivors have flown to Rome to see the cardinal testify after he was excused from returning home due to ill health.

The Vatican treasurer is being asked whether he knew if paedophiles were active in churches under his watch.

On the first day of the Royal Commission hearing, the cardinal said that the Catholic Church had made “enormous mistakes” in dealing with claims of sexual abuse.

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ROME
ABC News

By Europe correspondent Lisa Millar in Rome, staff

Cardinal George Pell has declared he has the Pope’s “full backing”, as he prepares for a second day of testimony in front of the child abuse royal commission.

Australia’s highest-ranking Catholic arrived at Rome’s Hotel Quirinale this morning ahead of another session giving video evidence to the commission on what he knew about abuse committed by Catholic priests.

The cardinal met Pope Francis yesterday, after his first four-hour session of giving evidence.

“I have the full backing of the Pope,” he told reporters outside the hotel.

Cardinal Pell’s office said the regularly scheduled meeting was in regard to his work as head of the Vatican Treasury.

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NORTHERN IRELAND
9 News (Australia)

An Irish clergyman is on indefinite leave from the Catholic Church after being caught snorting cocaine in a room full of Nazi memorabilia in his parish house.

Caught dead-to-rights on camera, Father Stephen Crossan, of County Downs in Northern Ireland, admitted imbibing the class-A drug after a party last year, but denied that he is a supporter of National Socialism.

“It was just the one night and that was it. I do not have an issue with drugs,” Fr Crossan told The Sun, adding that he collects relics from “all over the world”, and not just Nazi Germany.

“I know what they stand for, but I’m no Nazi. I collect historical stuff,” Father Crossan, who was on sick leave at the time.

One of his guests told the British tabloid, however, that the 37-year-old priest had given a Sieg Heil Nazi salute at the party.

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CALIFORNIA
Boston Globe

By Meredith Goldstein GLOBE STAFF FEBRUARY 29, 2016

Nicole Rocklin’s mom tried to be patient as she waited for her daughter to arrive at trendy Palihouse in West Hollywood on Sunday night.

“I just want to give her a hug,” she said, of her producer daughter, who with producer Blye Faust, started the film project that would eventually become “Spotlight.”

In 2009, Rocklin and Faust began optioning the life rights of the Boston Globe journalists who uncovered sexual abuse in the Catholic Church. Seven years later, the film won the best picture prize at the Oscars Sunday night.

Rocklin was one of the VIPs who got hugs – and big cheers – when she entered the “Spotlight” after-party, which was packed by 11 p.m. Party guests were the loudest when director and co-writer Tom McCarthy arrived at the bar. McCarthy immediately thanked production company Anonymous Content, which joined with Rocklin and Faust to get the movie made, and Open Road Films, which handled distribution.

Party guests included “Spotlight” stars such as Michael Keaton and Brian d’Arcy James, who play Boston Globe reporters Walter Robinson and Matt Carroll. Also making rounds was Michael Cyril Creighton, who plays sexual assault survivor Joe Crowley in the film. Creighton was spotted chatting with real-life Globe reporter Sacha Pfeiffer, who’s played in the movie by Rachel McAdams.

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UNITED STATES
Poynter

By Ben Mullin and Jim Warren • February 29, 2016

Walter Robinson is still a little hoarse.

It’s been less than 24 hours since “Spotlight,” the dramatization of The Boston Globe’s investigation into the Catholic Church’s sex abuse scandal, pulled off a stunning upset at the 88th annual Academy Awards.

Robinson, who led the depicted investigation as the editor of The Boston Globe’s Spotlight team, was in attendance Sunday night. When the movie won Best Picture, he did plenty of shouting.

“We’re just delighted,” said Robinson, who’s portrayed in the movie by Academy Award nominee Michael Keaton. “I think going into last night, we felt a little uncertain about Hollywood. We felt that ‘Spotlight’ was the most important movie of the year, but we didn’t know if Hollywood would equate that with Best Picture.”

Robinson and his Globe colleagues, who’ve been in Los Angeles since the end of last week, stayed out until after midnight celebrating the win with actors who portrayed them in the film. The festivities were a nice reminder that Hollywood, which often caters to America’s “baser desires,” has an appreciation for serious stories, Robinson said.

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MASSACHUSETTS
KIRO

by: DENISE LAVOIE, AP Legal Affairs Writer Updated: Feb 29, 2016

BOSTON (AP) — Victims of clergy sexual abuse are reveling in the Oscar won by “Spotlight” — the story of The Boston Globe’s investigation into the scandal — but say they don’t hold out much hope that the elevated status from the film’s Best Picture award will prompt changes at the highest levels of the Roman Catholic church.

“Spotlight,” starring Michael Keaton, Rachel McAdams and Mark Ruffalo, covers the Globe’s work to uncover how dozens of priests in the Archdiocese of Boston had molested and raped children for decades while church higher-ups covered it up and shuffled abusive priests from parish to parish.

The film was released in November to accolades from victims who said it gave them a sense of validation after years of struggling in silence. Even Boston Cardinal Sean O’Malley — appointed to replace Cardinal Bernard Law after he resigned in disgrace — called “Spotlight” a “very powerful and important film.”

But victims say they have little hope that the film’s new status as an Oscar winner will lead to some of the things they’ve called for over the years, including complete transparency by the church and the criminal prosecution of church leaders who knew about the abuse but didn’t report the perpetrators to police.

“I don’t think the Vatican or the archdiocese will necessarily do more,” said Robert Costello, 54, who was sexually abused by a Boston priest from the late 1960s through 1976.

“I think what (the film) is going to do is educate the general public as to what their response or lack of response has been,” said Costello, who agreed to a civil settlement with the archdiocese.

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ROME
The Guardian

Melissa Davey
@MelissaLDavey
Monday 29 February 2016 1

4m ago Audible shock heard in the room as Pell says rumours of abuse “wasn’t of much interest to me”

Another telling exchange

Furness is trying to get Pell to be clear on who was and was not responsible for protecting children in the care of the church at schools and other institutions. Furness says that surely all adults have a responsibility:

“So who isn’t responsible in the Church to ensure the safety of children who are taken in by the Church either as parishioners or as alter boys or in any other way operate within the Church? Who isn’t responsible?”

Pell: “Well it’s very difficult to answer these questions where we swing from one extreme to the other. Everybody has some sort of general responsibility. Individuals and especially office holders have particular responsibility for their areas of concern.

Furness: So if it was the case that a parish priest heard of events dangerous to children happening in a neighbouring parish or a parish distant from them, based on what you’ve said they’ve got no responsibility in relation to the children who are in danger ?Is that right?

Pell: Well very obviously I said nothing of the sort. I said that a person from a neighbouring parish or a distant parish has less responsibility for the care of children in those distant parishes than he does in his own. I’m not suggesting for a minute, especially in a neighbouring parish, that a neighbouring parish priest would have no responsibility at all. I never suggested that.”

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ROME
SBS

AAP

Cardinal George Pell has resumed giving his evidence to the child abuse royal commission from Rome.

Cardinal Pell is giving evidence via video link from Rome because he’s too ill to fly to Australia. He has appeared before the commission on two previous occasions in Australia.

The cardinal told waiting media earlier in the day that he had “the full backing of the Pope” after a weekly meeting with him earlier in the day.

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TEXAS
The Dallas Morning News

[Note: This is a 1993 story just reposted by The Dallas Morning News about the Rudy Kos investigation.]

By DANIEL CATTAU and JUDITH LYNN HOWARD
Staff Writers

The Catholic Diocese of Dallas had begun investigating a priest accused of sexually abusing minors before a lawsuit was filed Tuesday, an attorney for the diocese said Wednesday.

“It was not the lawsuit that prompted the investigation,” said Randal Mathis, a Dallas lawyer who is also serving as the diocesan spokesman. He said the investigation started several months ago and has no target date for completion.

Mr. Mathis added that the lawsuit was the first he knew of in the diocese that involves allegations of sexual abuse by the clergy.

Both the diocese and the Rev. Rudolph Kos, who is at a treatment center in Jemez Springs, N.M., were named in the suit, filed by Dallas lawyer Windle Turley. Mr. Turley is seeking unspecified damages for two unidentified men who say they were abused as boys.

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MASSACHUSETTS
Poynter

[with copy of the ad]

By Kristen Hare • February 29, 2016

Monday’s edition of The Boston Globe features a front-page image celebrating the actors who won the Best Picture Academy Award for “Spotlight.” On A3, the newspaper recognized everyone involved with the film — and the journalists who worked on the Pulitzer-winning investigation — with a full-page thank-you.

The possibility of running a house ad was brought up last week, but the paper didn’t finalize the decision until Sunday morning, said Boston Globe CEO Mike Sheehan. Because of print deadlines, the ad was running whether “Spotlight” won Best Picture or not. But it’s written in a manner that works either way.

“Generally, there’s a feeling throughout the organization that the movie really is a faithful telling of the story,” Sheehan said. “Everyone here is grateful for that.”

The ad also highlights the the team behind the journalism, not just the investigation seen in the movie.

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VATICAN CITY
Straits Times

VATICAN CITY (AFP) – Spotlight, the Oscar-winning film about sex abuse in the Catholic Church, faithfully portrays how the Church tried to defend itself despite a “horrible reality”, but is not anti-Catholic as such, the Vatican paper said Monday.

“Predators do not necessarily wear ecclesiastical vestments, and paedophilia does not necessarily stem from the vow of chastity. But it is now clear that, in the Church, too many people concerned themselves more with the image of the institution than the gravity of the act,” wrote an editorial in the Osservatore Romano.

“All of this cannot justify the very serious fault of whoever, as a representative of God, uses this authority to abuse innocents: it is well told in this film,” opined editorial-writer Lucetta Scaraffia, in the first official Vatican comment on the film’s Best Picture Oscar win Sunday night.

“The film is convincing by its narrative. And it’s not an anti-Catholic film,” she wrote.

But she did regret that the “long and tenacious fight” against paedophilia launched within the Church by Joseph Ratzinger, first as Dean of the College of Cardinals and then as Pope Benedict XVI, was not mentioned.

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VATICAN CITY
Religion News Service

Rosie Scammell | February 29, 2016

VATICAN CITY (RNS) Just hours after the movie “Spotlight” picked up the best picture prize at the Academy Awards, the Vatican newspaper praised the film for its portrayal of The Boston Globe’s investigation into clerical sex abuse in the U.S.

The Oscar win on Sunday (Feb. 28) was hailed by producer Michael Sugar as amplifying the voice of survivors. “Pope Francis, it’s time to protect the children and restore the faith,” he said in his acceptance speech in Los Angeles that was broadcast around the world.

Sugar’s voice apparently reached Rome as well, with a columnist for the Vatican’s semiofficial newspaper, L’Osservatore Romano, asserting that the film had a compelling plot and should not be considered “anti-Catholic.”

“It manages to voice the shock and profound pain of the faithful confronting the discovery of these horrendous realities,” wrote journalist Lucetta Scaraffia.

Scaraffia said the movie did not go into detail on what she called the “long and tenacious battle” against clergy abuse by Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI — formerly Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger — but she noted “one film cannot tell all.”

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ROME
news.com.au

[with video]

CARDINAL George Pell has met with Pope Francis at the Vatican ahead of his second day of testimony to the Australia Royal Commission into institutional responses to child sex abuse.

The 74-year-old’s discussion with the Catholic Church’s leader was prearranged, according to Italian media which is covering the hearing as it’s the first time a senior church figure has faced questions on sexual abuse since Józef Wesołowski.

The Polish former Vatican ambassador died of natural causes in August last year while awaiting trial over alleged sexual abuse of children committed in the Dominican Republic. He was also accused of possessing child pornography and seen as a key test of the Holy See’s commitment to investigating abuse within its ranks.

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ROME
USA Today

Rosie Scammell, Religion News Service February 29, 2016

ROME – Australian Cardinal George Pell met with Pope Francis on Monday, one day after he testified in a landmark clergy sex abuse inquiry that the Catholic Church made “enormous mistakes” in trying to deal with the scandal.

Speaking to an Australian commission investigating the church’s response to abuse, Pell, now a top adviser to the pope, testified Sunday that during the 1970s he was “very strongly inclined to accept the denial” of a priest accused of abuse. He has previously been archbishop in Sydney.

The 74-year-old Pell, who serves as the Vatican’s finance chief, appeared before the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse via video link from a Rome hotel because he said a heart condition prevented him from traveling.

The decision to allow Pell to testify via video has been strongly criticized by abuse victims, and a crowdfunding effort in Australia enabled 15 of them to travel to Italy to be present in the hotel conference room with Pell.

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ROME
Sydney Morning Herald

Nick Miller
Europe Correspondent

Rome: The Pope may accept Cardinal George Pell’s enforced resignation in June, if evidence to Australia’s Royal Commission links him to the relocation of priests suspected of paedophilia, ‘Vaticanista’ journalists believe.

Pope Francis and Cardinal Pell met face to face at the Vatican on Monday, just hours after the Australian cleric’s first session giving evidence by video link to the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.

The Vatican gave no details of the meeting, but Corriere della Serra reported it was one of a regular series of ‘di cartelli’ briefings the Pope gets from department heads.

Cardinal Pell is the Vatican’s prefect of the Secretariat for the Economy – he described himself to the Commission as the ‘treasurer’ of the Vatican, and is widely called the third most powerful man in the Holy See.

Corriere said it was “difficult to imagine” that the interview would not have touched on the cardinal’s video evidence to the Commission which took place late Sunday night, Rome time.

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By Elise Harris
Angelus

February 29, 2016 – Catholic News Agency

On the first day of his video testimony to Australia’s Royal Commission investigating institutional responses to child sex abuse cases, Cardinal George Pell said that while the Church has made “enormous mistakes” in the handling of abuse cases, he had no role in covering them up.

“Let me just say this as an initial clarification: I’m not here to defend the indefensible,” Cardinal Pell said during the hearing.

The Church “has made enormous mistakes and is working to remedy those,” he admitted, adding that in many places, and certainly in Australia, the Church “has mucked things up, has let people down.”

However, he also recognized that “there are very few countries in the world who have advanced as far as the Catholic Church has in Australia in putting procedures into place nearly 20 years ago.”

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INDIANA
News-Sentinel

Monday, February 29, 2016

Fort Wayne should be in awe of D’Arcy

Local audiences may recognize the name “John D’Arcy” in one of the most pivotal scenes of “Spotlight,” nominated for six Academy Awards. A Fort Wayne native who lives in New York City, I felt soaring pride that former Bishop D’Arcy fought against sexual abuse in his beloved Catholic Church.

When visiting, I often attended D’Arcy’s Christmas Eve mass at the Cathedral of Immaculate Conception. Raised Methodist, I respected him, even though I disagreed with his conservative politics. During the Oscars, I will celebrate D’Arcy and his brief mention in “Spotlight,” the story of a Boston Globe reporting team. Gently paced, the film exploded when Mike Rezendes (Mark Ruffalo) opened sealed documents containing damning evidence against the church.

Breathless, Rezendes read to fellow reporters a 1984 letter recommending the removal of a predatory priest with a “history of homosexual involvement with young boys.”

D’Arcy, then Auxiliary Bishop of Boston, was the concerned author. In this spectacular scene, Ruffalo finally lost impartiality and shouted to his editor: “We gotta nail these scum bags! We gotta to show people that nobody can get away with this. Not a priest or a cardinal or a freaking pope!”

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MICHIGAN
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Monday, Feb. 29, 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)

We’re grateful that an ex-priest has pled guilty to more child sex crimes. We hope this news will prod others that he has hurt to come forward. (See attorney general’s news release below.)

Fr. James Francis Rapp has already been convicted on other child sex charges and is imprisoned. So it would have been easy for law enforcement to look the other way when more victims surfaced.

But Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette filed more child sex charges against him for molesting kids at Jackson Lumen Christi Catholic High School in Jackson in the 1980s.

Once a child molester is convicted, many people who could be helpful get complacent. They assume his sentence will stand, his appeals will fail, and he’ll be kept away from kids for many years. But often, child molesters – especially clerics – get top notch defense lawyers, exploit legal technicalities, and escape with little or no jail time. Then, when other victims, witnesses and whistleblowers find this out, it’s too late for them to really make a difference.

So we’re glad Schuette was prudent, pro-active and successful here. Now, the odds that Rapp will ever walk free are even slimmer. And more of his victims feel vindicated.

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UNITED STATES
National Catholic Reporter

NCR Editorial Staff | Feb. 29, 2016

With “Spotlight” awarded the Oscar for best motion picture, the public humiliation for the Catholic church is now as thorough as one might expect in a culture where what is on screen is often the most persuasive element in fashioning public opinion.

In the case of priests sexually abusing children and bishops and others hiding their crimes, the biblical resonance might now finally be felt: the first have been ushered, publicly, to their place in the last seats. The last have been made first — and given a special place (even on stage with Lady Gaga). No longer need victims hide or fear to explain themselves. The mighty, indeed, have fallen from their thrones; the humble have been exalted.

As Barbara Blaine, founder of Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, said on Oscar night: “Exposing hundreds of thousands of people across the planet to a compelling, reality-based film about this crisis — people who might otherwise not pick up a book, go hear a speech or search the Internet for information about abuse — is, in itself, an incredible achievement and a real, life-changing ‘win’ for countless children.”

The movie powerfully illustrates what the church utterly failed to realize about itself: that the act of abuse, horrible as it is in any circumstance, was magnified in its unspeakable specifics because an all-male, celibate culture was so protective of its own status and privilege, so closed in on itself, that it was deaf to the searing pleas of children, parents, congregations and the few souls within its ranks who dared to speak the truth.

In the end it was, indeed, about a “system,” one presumed to be about the pursuit of holiness, that turned out to be despicably corrupt. It took outsiders — journalists, particularly — to question the institution’s rationale and turn it on its head. It took as well those who removed themselves from the worst of the clerical culture, notably Dominican Fr. Thomas Doyle, who understood he was dooming his clerical career when he decided not to turn away from victims, and former Benedictine priest Richard Sipe, a psychotherapist who deeply studied the priesthood and understood the dynamics of the scandal.

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ROME
The West Australian

Amanda Banks
March 1, 2016

The man who some label Australia’s worst paedophile priest was given “chance after chance after chance”, Cardinal George Pell admitted yesterday.

Former Ballarat priest Gerald Francis Ridsdale was the subject of repeated allegations and complaints of child sex abuse but was ultimately given freedom to seek out new victims as he was shifted around from one parish to another.

Ridsdale, who went on to be convicted of committing 138 offences against 53 victims, was even shipped off to the US for “treatment” and “therapy”.

Questioned about the handling of Ridsdale’s case by his then superiors, in particular former Ballarat Bishop Ronald Mulkearns, Cardinal Pell said he had recently read the file on the child sex offender.

“The way he was dealt with was a catastrophe,” Cardinal Pell told the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse. “If action had been taken earlier, an enormous amount of suffering would have been avoided.”

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UNITED STATES
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Monday, Feb. 29, 2016

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

Our hearts are filled with gratitude for the two outstanding Spotlight teams: the one that did the work and the one that did the film. At the same time, however, our hearts ache for every single victim of sexual violence, especially those whose perpetrators and enablers continue to live, work and cause more pain while under the radar.

The overwhelming majority of abuse victims never speak up. The overwhelming majority of predators and their allies are never “outed.” This must change if kids are to be safer.

We hope more journalists and editors and police and prosecutors will dig deeper and work harder. We hope every single person who has suspected or seen child sex crimes or cover ups – no matter how old, small or seemingly insignificant – will call independent, experienced sources of help, not church officials. And we hope every single survivor of these crimes and cover ups will overcome their fears, break their silence, expose the wrongdoers and help protect the children.

What else?

Let’s redouble our efforts to oust Fr. Joseph Jeyapaul, the convicted predator whose suspension from ministry was just overturned by Vatican officials and who is due back on the job soon.

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MICHIGAN
MLive

By Ryan Shek | rshek@mlive.com
on February 29, 2016

JACKSON, MI – On Monday, a former Jackson Lumen Christi High School priest pleaded no contest to six counts of criminal sexual conduct, which spanned a half decade of abuse at the school.

James Rapp, now 75, pleaded no contest to three counts of first-degree criminal sexual conduct as well as three counts of second-degree criminal sexual conduct Monday, Feb. 29, before Jackson County Circuit Court Judge Susan Beebe.

As part of the plea, 13 counts of criminal sexual conduct were dismissed, while Rapp will face anywhere from 20 to 40 years in prison as part of a sentencing agreement, Assistant Attorney General Angela Povilaitis said.

Dressed in blue Michigan Department of Corrections attire, Rapp appeared before Beebe and pleaded to the charges, often lowering his head or inspecting his shackled wrists.

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MICHIGAN
CBS Detroit

February 29, 2016

JACKSON, Mich. (WWJ/AP) – A former Roman Catholic priest has pleaded no contest to sexual abuse charges connected to his years at a Michigan high school in the 1980s.

James Rapp likely faces at least 20 years in prison, although the 75-year-old already is in prison for similar crimes in Oklahoma.

Defense attorney Alfred Brandt told a Jackson County judge that Rapp coerced students into having sexual contact while working as a teacher and wrestling coach at Lumen Christi High School. He appeared in court Monday.

An investigation began three years ago when victims approached the sheriff’s department. Attorney General Bill Schuette says teens were “robbed of a normal childhood” by Rapp.

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MICHIGAN
Fox 47

Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette said Francis Rapp 75 has pleaded no contest to 19 child sexual abuse charges.

He was a priest and teacher at Jackson Lumen Christi High School in the 1980s.

The AG office says Rapp was charged in January 2015 with 13 felonies in Jackson’s 12th District Court.

He was charged with three counts of First Degree Criminal Sexual Conduct and 10 counts of Second Degree Criminal Sexual Conduct.

Rapp was also charged with another six felonies in June 2015.

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ROME
The Guardian

Stephanie Kirchgaessner in Rome
Monday 29 February 2016

The Vatican used to be impermeable to horrific stories of child sexual abuse by priests – and complicit in attempts to whitewash the perpetrators’ reputations. It was a place where men such as Cardinal Bernard Law, who became a pariah within the US Catholic church after it became clear that decades of sexual abuse had been covered up within his archdiocese, could go for a comfortable retirement and to escape glaring media attention or, even worse, possible investigation.

But an unexpected confluence of extraordinary events has changed all that this week. The film Spotlight, the tale of the Boston Globe’s dogged investigation into clerical sexual abuse, won Hollywood’s most coveted prize of the Oscar for best picture.

More importantly, hours before the Oscar win was announced, one of the most senior officials within the Vatican hierarchy, Cardinal George Pell of Australia, admitted under oath for the first time that he had heard that an Australian Catholic schoolteacher may have engaged in “paedophilia activity”, but never followed up on the “one or two fleeting references” he heard about the “misbehaviour”. The teacher in question, Edward Dowlan, a Christian Brother, was later convicted of abusing 20 boys and is serving a six-year prison sentence.

Pell, in an appearance by videolink before the Australian royal commission into institutional responses to sexual child abuse that began at 10pm in Rome and ended at 2am, sounded contrite and sullen as he testified, often using short sentences. He called the church’s response to clerical sexual abuse of children by one serial offender, Gerald Ridsdale, “a catastrophe” for his victims but also for the church.

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CHICAGO (IL)
DNAinfo

By Kelly Bauer | February 29, 2016

CHICAGO — A Chicago-based group that has fought to expose pedophile priests for years is heralding “Spotlight,” the film that won best picture at the Academy Awards this year.

In a statement released Sunday even before “Spotlight,” which focuses on a team of Boston Globe reporters working to expose the abuse scandal, won the Oscar, Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests founder Barbara Blaine said: “kids are the real winners.”

“They are safer because the movie Spotlight has prompted hundreds of thousands to think, talk and take action about child sex crimes and cover ups, even or especially in trusted institutions,” she said.

“These adults are more careful now with babysitters. They are more attentive to changes in kids’ behavior. They more skeptical about claims by officials about alleged ‘openness,’ ‘care’ and ‘prudence’ about kids’ safety.

“We are deeply, deeply grateful for this fact. As a result, more children will be protected. As a result, more victims will be believed and more crimes will be prevented,” said Blaine in the statement.

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NORTHERN IRELAND
BBC News

A Catholic priest caught on video snorting what appeared to be cocaine has taken leave from the priesthood.

Fr Stephen Crossan is reported to have sniffed coke through a £10 note on a night of drinking in July 2015 in Banbridge, County Down.

He was in a room with Nazi memorabilia and seemed to say “I shouldn’t” as he snorted, the Sun on Sunday reported.

The bishop of Dromore said in a statement that he had no knowledge of the incident.
It allegedly occurred in the parochial house last July after a party.

The Sun on Sunday said it happened at what was then Fr Crossan’s parish home in the grounds of St Patrick’s Church, Banbridge, in July 2015.

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UNITED STATES
National Catholic Reporter

Brian Roewe | Feb. 29, 2016

“Spotlight,” the film that follows The Boston Globe’s investigation into the clergy sexual abuse scandal in the Catholic church, won best picture at the 88th Academy Awards held on Sunday night.

“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,” producer Michael Sugar said in accepting the Oscar.

“Pope Francis, it’s time to protect the children and restore the faith,” he added.

“We would not be here today without the heroic efforts of our reporters,” said Blye Pagon Faust, another “Spotlight” producer. “Not only do they affect global change, but they absolutely show us the necessity for investigative journalism.”

In January 2002, the Globe published its first report from its Spotlight investigative team uncovering the sexual abuse scandal in the Boston archdiocese. The stories that followed helped place the issue of clerical sexual abuse of children on the nation’s conscience and ultimately beyond U.S. borders. The Globe’s reporting added a major metropolitan voice to the work of other smaller publications in uncovering the abuse scandal, including a Boston-area alternative weekly, the Phoenix, and National Catholic Reporter, which published its first story on the abuse crisis in 1985.

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ROME
National Catholic Reporter

Joshua J. McElwee | Feb. 29, 2016

ROME
One of the Catholic church’s highest ranking cardinals, Vatican official George Pell, faced four hours of questioning about his role in the clergy sexual abuse crisis in his native Australia in an extraordinary overnight hearing Sunday, in which he admitted the church “has made enormous mistakes” in its handling of dangerous priests.

The cardinal, who has been among Pope Francis’ closest advisors in reforming the Vatican and now leads the city-state’s new centralized treasury department, also said that evidence of abuse brought forward by victims in past decades “were dismissed in absolutely scandalous circumstances.”

Pell, who formerly served as an auxiliary bishop and then archbishop of Melbourne and then archbishop of Sydney, was testifying via video-link from Rome in the hours between Sunday and Monday in a hearing taking place in his home country on the church’s historic response to clergy sexual abuse.

For the 270 minutes between 10:00 p.m. and 2:30 a.m. in Rome, Gail Furness, the lead counsel assisting Australia’s Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, led Pell through years of the church’s response to sexual abuse, fact by fact.

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MASSACHUSETTS
Boston Globe

by Ty Burr GLOBE STAFF
FEBRUARY 29, 2016

[with video]

The Oscars came home to Boston at the 88th Academy Awards Sunday night as “Spotlight,” a drama about the Boston Globe’s investigation of clergy sexual abuse and the cover-up by the Roman Catholic Church, was named best picture of 2015. In addition, the writing team of Josh Singer and director Tom McCarthy won the Oscar for best original screenplay.

“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,” said “Spotlight” producer Michael Sugar as he accepted the award while the film’s cast — and some of the people they portray — stood behind him on stage.

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UNITED STATES
First Post

by Swetha Ramakrishnan Feb 29, 2016

Only an investigative journalism team could carry out a report like the one documented in the Oscar winning film Spotlight. It requires patience, authenticity and people skills that may be lost to the generation of breaking news.

Spotlight is a story about a team of investigative journalists from The Boston Globe — over months, they dug around for information about a child sex abuse racket involving pedophile priests who were backed by the Church and lawyers (through a systemic encouragement of the abuse, by settling cases out of court, sealing the records and maintaining absolute silence on the issue).

Perhaps, the most poignant scenes in Spotlight are a succession of shots showing the reporters compulsively fact checking their research for the Pulitzer prize winning campaign in 2001. A quick web search on the real Spotlight team will show you that the actors who play their parts (which includes Mark Ruffalo, Michael Keaton, Rachel McAdams and Brian d’Arcy James) are cast so aptly that they have the mannerisms of the original reporters down to the most minute detail.

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USA
Katholisch

Kein Genre ist bei Kinogängern derzeit so beliebt wie Filme, die auf wahren Begebenheiten beruhen. Die Spanne reicht dabei von streng an der Realität orientierten Dokumentationen bis zu Dramatisierungen hochaktueller Ereignisse. Die Beschäftigung mit den Missbrauchsfällen katholischer Priester und deren weitreichende Publizität bot sich unter solchen Voraussetzungen geradezu an.

Regisseur Tom McCarthy widmet sich dem “heißen Thema” aber nicht zur Ausbeutung seines Sensationscharakters, sondern wie ein Forscher, der sich mit den allgemein zugänglichen Ermittlungen nicht zufriedengibt, weil er sich von den Vorgängen so aufgewühlt fühlt, dass er das ganze Ausmaß und die ganze Wahrheit offenlegen will.

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ROM
Kurier

Der ranghöchste Kardinal Australiens hat vor einer Regierungskommission eingeräumt, dass die Kirche Kindesmissbrauch durch Kirchenvertreter jahrelang heruntergespielt hat. “Ich bin nicht hier, um das Unhaltbare zu verteidigen”, sagte Kardinal George Pell, als Budgetverantwortlicher heute die Nummer drei in der Vatikan-Hierarchie.

Pell wird vorgeworfen, als Priester und Bischof selbst sexuelle Übergriffe von anderen vertuscht zu haben. Er hat dies stets zurückgewiesen. “Es waren meist persönliche Schwächen, kein Versagen der Struktur”, sagte Pell. “Der Instinkt war, die Institution, die Gemeinschaft der Kirche, vor Schande zu schützen.”

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ROM
Katholisch

Es sind denkwürdige Nachtgespräche in Rom. Der australische Kurienkardinal George Pell sagt diese Woche mehrere Tage hintereinander zu Missbrauchsfällen durch Kirchenleute in seiner Heimat aus. Da er wegen Herzproblemen den 21-Stunden-Flug nach Sydney nicht wagen kann, genehmigte ihm die australische Missbrauchskommission eine Aussage per Video-Schaltung. Kardinal Pell steht jeweils von 22 Uhr abends bis 2 Uhr morgens im römischen Hotel Quirinale unweit der Oper Rede und Antwort. Die erste Anhörung lief vergangene Nacht, die letzte ist für Mittwoch geplant. Wer will, kann im Konferenzraum des Hotels dabei sein. 14 Missbrauchsopfer aus Australien wollten das: via Internet sammelten sie umgerechnet 130.000 Euro Spenden und flogen damit nach Rom. Sie sagten, sie wollten dem Kardinal in die Augen sehen, während er spricht.

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ROM
Katholisch

Sydney/Rom – 29.02.2016

Der australische Kurienkardinal George Pell hat im Umgang mit Missbrauchsfällen “enorme Fehler” eingeräumt. Vor der australischen Missbrauchskommission erklärte er in der Nacht auf Montag, er werde “nicht das Unhaltbare verteidigen”. Die Kirche in Australien habe “die Dinge versaut und Menschen im Stich gelassen”, so Pell laut australischen Medienberichten.

Der Kardinal äußerte sich per Videoschalte aus Rom gegenüber der staatlichen Kommission zur Untersuchung des Umgangs von Institutionen mit Missbrauchsfällen in Sydney. Wegen eines akuten Herzleidens konnte er auf Anraten seiner Ärzte nicht zu der Anhörung nach Sydney fliegen.

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UNITED STATES
Newsmax

By Clyde Hughes | Monday, 29 Feb 2016

“Spotlight,” the surprise Best Picture winner at Sunday night’s Oscars, sent a message to Pope Francis: “it’s time to protect the children.”

The movie details the Boston Globe’s investigation into a sex abuse scandal at a local archdiocese, noted E! News, and producer Michael Sugar took advantage of his time on stage at the Academy Awards to blister the church on its sex abuse scandals.

“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,” Sugar said in his acceptance speech, “Pope Francis, it’s time to protect the children and restore the faith.”
Sugar continued on backstage, according to Entertainment Weekly, saying he hopes the movie will lead to reforms in the Catholic Church.

“I hope that you journalists in here and throughout the world will help resonate our message all the way to the Vatican, and maybe we can have some real change,” said Sugar. “That’s what we hope to accomplish. That’s what this is really about — for all of us is to talk about this film and what happened and because these things are still happening. The story of ‘Spotlight’ has really just begun.”

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CALIFORNIA
Los Angeles Times

Kenneth Turan

It was a year of two films. Until it wasn’t.

It was a year of small but well-placed surprises, right up to the end.

It was the year “Spotlight,” the third film on everyone’s list of top three finishers, came from behind and walked off with the best picture trophy.

An impeccable ensemble picture that polished classic Hollywood virtues to a splendid shine, “Spotlight” won the first Oscar of the night, for original screenplay, and then had to wait three-plus hours for another trip to the stage.

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CALIFORNIA
Los Angeles Times

Ryan Faughnder and Daniel Miller

20th Century Fox and Warner Bros. led their studio rivals at the Oscars on Sunday, thanks to robust showings from “The Revenant” and “Mad Max: Fury Road.”

Fox’s “The Revenant” took home three of the top prizes at the 88th Academy Awards: lead actor (Leonardo DiCaprio), director (Alejandro G. Iñárritu) and cinematography (Emmanuel Lubezki). Warner Bros.’ “Mad Max: Fury Road” scored six technical awards.

However, in a mild surprise, Open Road Films grabbed the biggest award of the evening — best picture — for the journalism drama “Spotlight.” The Tom McCarthy-directed picture also took home the Oscar for original screenplay. Open Road, a distributor based in Los Angeles, is co-owned by cinema chains AMC Entertainment and Regal Entertainment Group.

“Spotlight,” produced by Anonymous Content and Rocklin/Faust, and financed by Participant Media, represented the first best picture victory for Open Road, which was founded in 2011. “Spotlight” has grossed $62 million worldwide, according to Box Office Mojo.

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UNITED STATES
Counterpunch

by JOANN WYPIJEWSKI

I don’t “believe the victims”.

I was in Boston in the Spring of 2002 reporting on the priest scandal, and because I know some of what is untrue, I don’t believe the personal injury lawyers or the Boston Globe’s “Spotlight” team or the Catholic “faithful” who became harpies outside Boston churches, carrying signs with images of Satan, hurling invective at congregants who’d just attended Mass, and at least once – this in my presence – spitting in the face of a person who dared dispute them.

I don’t believe the prosecutors who pursued tainted cases or the therapists who revived junk science or the juries that sided with them or the judges who failed to act justly or the people who made money off any of this.

And I am astonished (though I suppose I shouldn’t be) that, across the past few months, ever since Spotlight hit theaters, otherwise serious left-of-center people have peppered their party conversation with effusions that the film reflects a heroic journalism, the kind we all need more of.

I don’t believe the claims of all who say they are victims – or who prefer the more tough-minded label ‘survivor’ – because ready belief is not part of a journalist’s mental kit, but also because what happened in 2002 makes it difficult to distinguish real claims from fraudulent or opportunistic ones without independent research. What editor Marty Baron and the Globe sparked with their 600 stories and their confidential tip line for grievances was not laudatory journalism but a moral panic, and unfortunately for those who are telling the truth, truth was its casualty.

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CALIFORNIA
Catholic Herald

The producer of Spotlight, which chronicles The Boston Globe’s investigation into the cover-up of clerical abuse, spoke out after the film won best picture at Sunday’s ceremony

One of the producers of Spotlight, which won the Oscar for best picture at Sunday night’s ceremony, used his acceptance speech to call on Pope Francis and the Vatican to protect children from abuse and “restore the faith”.

The film, which tells the story of The Boston Globe’s investigation into the cover-up of clerical abuse in the Archdiocese of Boston, also won the award for best original screenplay at the ceremony at the Dolby Theatre, in Hollywood.

In his acceptance speech, producer Michael Sugar said that Spotlight “gave a voice to survivors (of abuse)”.

“This Oscar amplifies that voice,” he said. “We hope will become a choir that will resonate all the way to the Vatican. Pope Francis, it’s time to protect the children and restore the faith.”

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MICHIGAN
Central Michigan Life

By Sydney Smith

When I first met Fr. Denis Heames in 2015, I was on assignment.

I was tasked with writing a “personality profile.” These are usually done on someone who’s unique in a community — someone with an interesting attribute, hobby or lifestyle.

He was an actor turned priest.

I went to St. Mary’s University Parish to interview him. We walked through the church and into his home, just a couple feet away. He was wearing plainclothes that day in February: jeans and a dark-colored long sleeve shirt. You couldn’t tell he was a priest except by looking at his left-hand ring finger, where he wore a silver crucifix-style ring.

His home was modest from what I remember, though I took note of the large windows; I could see students walking to class. Heames made me a cappuccino, and I settled on a black leather armchair for our interview.

The story wasn’t the highlight of my journalism career, but Heames stuck with me because of his charisma. I didn’t expect that in the future I’d be writing more stories about him.

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MICHIGAN
Central Michigan Life

Editorial Board

Eight months ago, the Catholic Diocese of Saginaw removed Father Denis Heames from St. Mary’s University Parish for “boundary violations.”

The diocese refused to say much more about Heames’ suspension. Bishop Joseph Cistone made sure to mention in a press release the issue “did not involve minors.”

What has become clear is the Catholic Church tried to cover up yet another scandal.

Cistone has a history of covering up scandal within his jurisdiction. In 2012, a judge found Cistone was a witness of shredding of documents in 1994 when he was a church official in Philadelphia. The documents identified 35 priests suspected of sexual abuse.

This scandal involves the sexual harassment of a Central Michigan University student, according to a university investigation.

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CANADA
The Globe and Mail

GLORIA GALLOWAY
OTTAWA — The Globe and Mail
Published Sunday, Feb. 28, 2016

Justice department lawyers have been accused of withholding documents that show a priest who worked at an infamous Indian residential school for nearly four decades was a serial sexual predator even as they persuaded an adjudicator to deny compensation to a former student who said the priest abused him.

The man, who was a student of St. Anne’s Indian Residential School in Fort Albany, Ont., is asking Justice Paul Perell of the Ontario Superior Court to rehear his claim in light of the evidence, which was not presented at his closed-door hearing in July, 2014, before an adjudicator of the Independent Assessment Process (IAP). That process was created under the Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement to provide compensation quickly to former students who were physically or sexually abused at the institutions.

In a document requesting directions that was filed in court late last week, Fay Brunning, the lawyer for the man, who is identified as H-15019, is asking that the lawyers for the Department of Justice be removed from any new hearing granted to her client. She also asks that those lawyers be prevented from arguing in any other closed-door IAP hearing for former St. Anne’s students that the police and court records documenting abuse at the school are inadmissible.

In her request for directions – which includes allegations that have not been proved in court – Ms. Brunning asks Judge Perell to, among other things, look at her client’s situation as a test case to determine whether other former students may have been denied compensation, or given less compensation than they were due, because of the lack of disclosure.

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ROME
9 News

AAP

KEY MOMENTS AND QUOTES OF GEORGE PELL’S TESTIMONY

* “The way he was dealt with, that was a catastrophe. A catastrophe for the victims and a catastrophe for the church,” Cardinal Pell said on the handling of pedophile priest Gerald Ridsdale by Bishop Ronald Mulkearns.

* “I am not here to defend the indefensible. The church has made enormous mistakes, and is working to remedy those,” Dr Pell when asked if there was a structural problem in the church.

There were one or two fleeting references to misbehaviour by Dowlan “which I concluded might have been pedophilic activity”, Cardinal Pell in reply to a question about what he knew about Christian Brother Ted Dowlan.

* “I never knew the nature of these, whether they were indiscretions or crimes,” on why Dowlan left the Ballarat parish.

* “Too many of them (complaints by children) certainly were dismissed and sometimes they were dismissed in scandalous circumstances,” when asked if the attitude in the 70s was not to believe children.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

By Danny Tran

In Cardinal George Pell’s home town of Ballarat in Western Victoria, the senior Catholic cleric’s evidence was coolly received.

More than 50 people gathered in the town hall to watch Cardinal Pell concede the Catholic Church had made mistakes.

“The Church has, in many places, certainly in Australia, has mucked things up, has let people down,” Cardinal Pell said.

“I’m not here to defend the indefensible.”

Regarding convicted paedophile priest Gerald Ridsdale, who preyed on dozens of children in Ballarat and across Western Victoria, Cardinal Pell told the royal commission the situation was handled disastrously.

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AUSTRALIA
Daily Mail

By RACHEL EDDIE FOR DAILY MAIL AUSTRALIA

A woman whose husband, brother and cousin were all sexually abused as children in Ballarat has hit back at controversial News Corp columnist Miranda Devine who said there had been a ‘lynch mob’ attacking Cardinal George Pell.

Ms Devine on Sunday wrote the opinion piece for the Daily Telegraph in response to growing dissatisfaction with Cardinal Pell who on Monday gave evidence into the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sex Abuse from Rome after his doctor provided a certificate that he was unfit to fly to Australia to give evidence in person.

Survivors of abuse suffered over past decades in Ballarat and their supporters instead journeyed to Rome to hear him give evidence in person, believing it would help overcome trauma.

Clare Linane later hit back on Facebook in a post that’s since been shared more than 2,000 times.

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