ABUSE TRACKER

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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ROME
Sydney Morning Herald

Cardinal George Pell has ceded just enough ground at the child abuse royal commission to give victims a glimmer of hope. There is a vague hint that senior Catholic Church leaders are seeing that the culture of turning a blind eye must change.

But the commission has yet to hone in on the key questions raised by victims’ testimony relating to the extent of Cardinal Pell’s specific knowledge of abuse from the 1970s and whether he was open to accepting or acting on it.

In his third appearance at the commission, the Cardinal admitted that “in those days if a priest denied (sexual abuse) activity I was strongly inclined to accept that denial”.

Granted, some adults then might have trusted a priest’s word above a child’s. But Cardinal Pell’s testimony revealed a deeper malaise. Despite knowing of abuse cases, and hearing the “gossip” among colleagues, he still believed adults with vested interests over the children or their carers. He even reminded the commission that the alleged offender John Day in Mildura had a strong body of supporters, including “a wonderful woman” whom the Cardinal knew.

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ROME
BBC News

By James Reynolds
BBC News, Rome

When Vatican treasurer Cardinal George Pell delivered his long-awaited testimony to an Australian government inquiry into child sex abuse, the BBC’s Rome correspondent James Reynolds was in the room.

Cardinal George Pell entered the hotel ballroom one minute before the scheduled starting time of 22:00 (21:00 GTM). He walked with a slight stoop to a table set up next to a video screen.

One-hundred-and-fifty people gathered to watch him give evidence. Two Vatican security guards sat discreetly on the aisles near the front.

More than a dozen victims of abuse from Australia were also in the audience. They’d raised the money to fly here to Rome. Some wore red T-shirts printed with the words “No More Silence”.

Technicians dimmed one of the room’s chandeliers and opened the video link with the Royal Commission in Australia. The opening questions were easy.

“Are you the number three in the Vatican?” the counsel asked.

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CALIFORNIA
7 News

Hollywood (United States) (AFP) – “Spotlight,” which chronicles The Boston Globe’s investigation into sexual abuse in the Catholic Church and institutional efforts to cover up the crimes, landed the Oscar for best picture — a surprise win.

The journalism drama, which boasts a star-studded ensemble cast including Michael Keaton, Mark Ruffalo and Rachel McAdams, is based on a series of stories by the real “Spotlight” team that earned the paper a Pulitzer Prize in 2003.

“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,” co-producer Michael Sugar told the audience at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood.

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

“Spotlight” was instantly tipped as a contender for glory at the 88th Oscars from its world premiere in September. The film also took home honors for best original screenplay, after earning a total of six nominations.

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New Europe

Spotlight, the movie about Boston Globe’s investigation of clergy sexual abuse and the cover-up by the Roman Catholic Church, won the Oscar 2015 award and reminded to the public the numerous worldwide child sex abuse scandals which hit the Catholic Church in the past years.

The Associated Press reported today that one of Pope Francis’ top advisers acknowledged that the Catholic Church “has made enormous mistakes” in allowing thousands of children to be raped and molested by priests over centuries as he testified at an extraordinary public hearing of an Australian investigative commission just a few blocks from the Vatican.

According to AP, the head of the Vatican Bank George Pell testified via videolink for four hours from Sunday night to early Monday morning from a Rome hotel to the Royal Commission sitting in Sydney. On 3 April 2013, the Australian authorities opened a national inquiry to investigate thousands of child sex abuse cases concerning Catholic priests in Australia.

Pell told to the lead counsel assisting the commission, Gail Furness: “I’m not here to defend the indefensible. The church has made enormous mistakes and is working to remedy those.” He added that the church had “mucked things up and let people down” and for too long had dismissed credible abuse allegations “in absolutely scandalous circumstances.”

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UNITED STATES
News-Press

USA Today

You can’t expect a movie, even one as riveting as Spotlight, to change the culture of a centuries-old institution like the Catholic Church. But perhaps the film can remind the church of its unfinished business in confronting a decades-long cover-up of rampant child molestation.

The movie depicts an investigation by the Spotlight reporting team at The Boston Globe, which broke the news in January 2002 and brought international attention to a sickening scandal in Boston that has since engulfed the church around the world. In the United States alone, more than 17,000 victims have reported sexual abuse, going back as far as 1950, involving about 6,400 priests in 100 cities.

Yet, not once in the past 14 years has a single U.S. bishop, let alone a cardinal, been removed from ministry for a role in the scandal. Perhaps the church could not have prevented child molesters from entering the priesthood, but bishops and cardinals could have stopped the crimes of serial predators. Many children would have been spared had religious leaders done what you’d expect any decent person to do: Report alleged crimes to authorities and, at the very least, keep molesters away from children. Often, they did neither.

Reports of abuse were ignored. Predator priests were sent for “treatment,” then shuffled off to other parishes, often to molest again. When lawsuits threatened to blow the church’s cover, the cases were settled secretly.

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BOTSWANA
The Voice BW

Daniel Chida

A self styled pastor and former teacher suspected to have sexually abused several children before he was caught has finally been hit with a defilement charge.

Pastor Mandla Keipheditse who hastily quit teaching under dubious circumstances last year to start a church is facing a single charge of sexually abusing a child under the age of 16.

The current case this week however prompted parents of 13 other children who claim to have been molested by the 30- year -old pastor when he was a teacher at Marakanelo Junior School to come forward.

Spokesperson for the aggrieved family that has already laid a charge against the pastor, Isaiah Mabote lambasted the notorious pastor for ruining, not one, but two of their children’s lives.

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ROME
Sydney Morning Herald

February 29, 2016

Melissa Cunningham

Ballarat clerical abuse survivors say Australia’s most senior Catholic is holding back on his knowledge of paedophile priests who sexually abused scores of children over decades.

During his evidence to the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, Cardinal George Pell said he was not there to “defend the indefensible” and denied knowing about paedophile priests operating in the Ballarat diocese in the 1970s.

He said the Catholic Church had made “enormous” mistakes in its handling of child sex crimes and had let victims down but was working to repair it.

Standing outside of the Hotel Quirinale in Rome where Cardinal Pell gave evidence via video link back to Australia, clerical abuse victim David Ridsdale said thousands of people were still suffering as a result of the church’s failure to protect children.

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ROME
The Guardian

David Marr
Monday 29 February 2016

George Pell has shifted ground. The news from his latest stint in the box at the royal commission into institutional responses to child sexual abuse is that he wasn’t deaf and he wasn’t blind back in the old days in Ballarat.

The cardinal took no body blows. He endured interrogation by Gail Furness SC, counsel assisting the commission, with almost perfect calm. His energy didn’t fail him. In his leathery voice he answered over and again, “That is correct.”

So much of his testimony was familiar. He expressed his regrets. He condemned the failings of the church which he put down to original sin rather than “the divine structure of the church that goes back to the New Testament”.

But he brought something new to the Albergo Quirinale: admissions that he had heard rumours about priests abusing children in the diocese of Ballarat. He had heard complaints. He even admitted knowing about priests kissing and swimming naked with children.

He was not entirely out of the loop.

Since his last appearance in the box, Pell has engaged a team of first-rate lawyers. Perhaps they’ve encouraged him to reflect more deeply on his years in Ballarat when he returned from Oxford with a great career before him in the church.

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VATICAN CITY
Vatican Radio

(Vatican Radio) The Prefect of the Secretariat for the Economy, Cardinal George Pell, this weekend visited the Our Lady of Lourdes Grotto in the Vatican Gardens to pray for all survivors of abuse.

The Cardinal testified overnight on Sunday to the Royal Commission investigating institutional sexual abuse in Australia, and will do so again over the next few days.

Cardinal Pell also offered his support for the Loud Fence movement by tying a yellow ribbon on the fence at the grotto.

Beginning in Ballarat, in the Australian state of Victoria, the Loud Fence movement encourages people to tie brightly-coloured ribbons on the fences of Catholic institutions, as a symbol of solidarity with survivors of sexual abuse, their families and communities.

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ROME
Religion News Service

Rosie Scammell | February 29, 2016

ROME (RNS) Australian Cardinal George Pell, now a top adviser to Pope Francis, 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 — who had previously been archbishop in Sydney — also said that during the 1970s he was “very strongly inclined to accept the denial” of a priest accused of abuse.

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 late Sunday (Feb. 28) via video link from a Rome hotel because he said a heart condition prevented him from traveling.

As he rose through the ranks of the Australian church, Pell recalled that numerous allegations “certainly were dismissed and sometimes they were dismissed in absolutely scandalous circumstances.”

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ROME
Crux

By Inés San Martín
Vatican correspondent February 29, 2016

ROME — One of the Vatican’s most senior officials admitted that the Catholic Church “has made enormous mistakes” in allowing children to be sexually abused by priests, as he testified via video link to a Royal Commission in Australia investigating institutional responses to child sexual abuse.

Australian Cardinal George Pell also admitted that he often believed priests over alleged victims who came forward: “I must say in those days, if a priest denied such activity, I was very strongly inclined to accept the denial.”

“I’m not here to defend the indefensible,” Pell said at the beginning of a grueling four-hour hearing late Sunday night via video from a Rome hotel. In order to be take place in the morning in Australia, Pell has agreed to appear beginning at 10 p.m. Rome time and continue until roughly 2 a.m. each day. The hearing is expected to last three or four days.

“The Church has made enormous mistakes, but is working to remedy them,” he said. “In many places, the Church certainly has mucked things up, has let people down.”

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ROME
The Daily Beast

Barbie Latza Nadeau

ROME — Dingy sage-green curtains and three enormous shiny golden chandeliers in the Verdi Room of Rome’s Quirinale Hotel, a stone’s throw away from the main train station, provided an odd setting for one of the most important clerical sex-abuse hearings a senior Vatican official has ever faced.

The squeaky parquet-floored room, which is normally used for wedding receptions and first communion parties, was transformed into a makeshift courtroom for Cardinal George Pell, head of the Vatican’s Secretariat for the Economy, who was called to answer questions by the Australian Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.

Pell was supposed to travel to Australia for the hearings last year, but ill health (backed up by ample doctor certification) apparently prohibited the 74-year-old from making the long journey. So the commission decided to come to Rome and conduct the questioning by video link, Australian time, which means the four-hour hearings started at 10 p.m. in Rome—and could last three or four days.

On Sunday, the first night of the inquiry, Pell was whisked into the room through a side door and sat at a table covered with a green cloth at the front of a room filled with about 50 journalists, several dozen priests and Australians supporting Pell, and some 20 survivors of sexual abuse, who used crowd-funding to pay for their trip to Rome

The Cardinal never looked out at the crowd. Instead, his eyes were fixed solidly on the little silver camera in front of him as Gail Furness, a lawyer assisting the Royal Commission in what amounts to a prosecutorial role, asked questions from a courtroom in Sydney. At times the scene resembled one of those awkward Skype calls with either Furness or Pell talking over each and apologizing for the interruption.

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ROME/AUSRALIA
The Guardian

Ben Doherty in Sydney and Stephanie Kirchgaessner in Rome

The Catholic Church was more concerned with protecting its own reputation than helping victims of clergy abuse, and had a “predisposition not to believe” children who made complaints, Cardinal George Pell has told the royal commission into institutional responses to sexual child abuse in Australia.

“At that stage, the instinct was more to protect the institution, the community of the church, from shame,” he told the commission in Sydney via videolink from Rome.

On the first day of four scheduled days of evidence before Australia’s royal commission on Monday, Pell, Australia’s most senior Catholic, conceded the church’s handling of child sexual abuse in the case of paedophile priest Gerald Ridsdale was a “catastrophe”.

“I’m not here to defend the indefensible, the church has made enormous mistakes and is working to remedy those, but the church has in many places, certainly in Australia, has mucked things up, has let people down. I’m not here to defend the indefensible.”

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CALIFORNIA
Deadline

By Dominic Patten

Spotlight tonight took the big prize at the 88th Academy Awards with a Best Picture victory. Nominated for a total of six Oscars tonight it also was the big winner Saturday at the Independent Spirit Awards. The Open Road-distributed and Tom McCarthy-directed drama about the Boston Globe’s Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative team’s exposes of rampant sexual abuse of children by Catholic priests and the subsequent cover-ups was chosen as one of the top 10 films of 2015 by AFI. McCarthy lost on Best Director on Sunday to The Revenant’s Alejandro G. Inarritu.

“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 producer Michael Sugar onstage, surrounded by Spotlight‘s cast and creatives. “Pope Francis, it is time to protect the children and restore the faith.”

Before tonight’s ceremony, McCarthy, actor Mark Ruffalo and co-writer Josh Singer were among protesters outside L.A.’s Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels. “Standing with the survivors of priest sexual abuse,” Ruffalo tweeted on Sunday in solidarity with the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests demanding the public release of the names of pedophile members of the clergy.

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ROME
ABC News

By Dan Smith, staff

The Catholic Church made “enormous mistakes” and “let people down” in its handling of child sexual abuse by priests, Cardinal George Pell told the child abuse royal commission this morning.

Australia’s most senior Catholic testified via video link from a hotel in Rome, giving evidence about Catholic abuse in Ballarat and Melbourne.

He said he was “not here to defend the indefensible”, and admitted children at the time were unlikely to be believed if they had come forward with allegations of abuse.

When asked if the general attitude of the church was to not believe a child, he said it “certainly was much, much more difficult for the child to be believed then … the predisposition was not to believe”.

“…Too many of them certainly were dismissed and sometimes they were dismissed in absolutely scandalous circumstances,” he said.

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CALIFORNIA
The Drum

The film Spotlight based on the Boston Globe’s expose of sexual misbehaviour by scores of local priests won the Oscar for Best Picture in Los Angeles last night.

The film has been widely credited with setting off investigations into priestly wrongdoing worldwide.

The film detailing The Boston Globe’s coverage of sexual abuse in the Catholic Church actually won two awards: it was named Best Original Screenplay opening the telecast and and at the end it it collected the the Best Picture Oscar .

“This film gave a voice to survivors and this Oscar amplifies that voice, which we hope will become a choir that resonate all the way to the Vatican,” said Spotlight producer Michael Sugar while accepting the award.

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ROME
Sky News

Cardinal George Pell heard rumours about pedophile priests and suspected a Christian Brother might have been involved in ‘pedophilic activity’ but insists he was unaware of sexual abuse and cover-ups across the Ballarat diocese in the 1970s.

Child abuse survivors from Australia had a front-row seat in Rome as they watched Cardinal Pell sit late into the night to give evidence to the child abuse royal commission via a video link back to Sydney.

Their reaction was mixed: welcoming of a more conciliatory tone but cautious about what they saw as the cardinal’s careful choice of words.

The Australian cleric now in charge of the Vatican’s finances told the commission he had heard rumours of abuse and inappropriate behaviour by priests and brothers in the Victorian diocese of Ballarat in the early 1970s.

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ROME
RTE News (Ireland)

Australian Cardinal George Pell, the highest-ranking Vatican official to testify on clerical sexual abuse, said the Catholic Church made “enormous mistakes” and “let people down”.

Giving evidence in front of abuse victims in a Rome hotel room, Cardinal Pell told Australia’s Royal Commission into Institutional Response to Child Sexual Abuse that children were often not believed and abusive priests shuffled from parish to parish.

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

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

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ROME
NBC News

by CLAUDIO LAVANGA and ALASTAIR JAMIESON

ROME — Vatican treasurer George Pell admitted Sunday that the Roman Catholic Church had “mucked things up” as he became the highest-ranking church official to testify on sexual abuse.

Giving evidence in front of abuse victims, the Australian cardinal said the organization reflected society as a whole and there was a “tendency to evil in the Catholic Church, too.”

He held up a bible as he took the oath in a Rome hotel room where he began to give evidence by video link to Australia’s Royal Commission into Institutional Response to Child Sexual Abuse.

Pell was expected to clarify whether he knew that a number of priests were abusing children in the diocese near Melbourne where he served as a senior priest and vicar between 1973 and 1983. Among them was Australia’s most notorious pedophile priest, Gerald Ridsdale, with whom Pell shared a house and who has been convicted for abusing more than 50 children over three decades.

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CALIFORNIA
GMA News (Philippines)

‘Spotlight’ actor Mark Ruffalo didn’t just make the Academy Awards his focus on Sunday (February 28), where he was nominated in the best supporting actor category.

Earlier in the day, he attended a protest outside the Cathedral of Our Lady of Angels in downtown Los Angeles alongside the Oscar Best Picture winning film’s director Tom McCarthy and writer Josh Singer.

“So we were with SNAP today,” he told Reuters on the Oscars red carpet, “which is a survivors’ organisation of priest sexual abuse and they were down at the cathedral downtown where the archdiocese basically protesting to continue the lack of transparency of the Roman Catholic Church and Rome and the Vatican and most of the archdiocese here in the United States on sexual abuse. There are 2,800 priests who they know are absolute sexual predators whose names have still not been released and not been released here in the United States. Thousands more throughout the United States and the Vatican today is still dragging its feet on making any real reforms. So we were there today to try to bring justice closer to the hands of these poor people, this horrible thing that’s happened to these people.”

Ruffalo failed to win the best supporting actor Oscar but believed that ‘Spotlight’ had had an effect on the issue at the heart of the film. He plays real life journalist Mike Rezendes who along with the team of Spotlight investigative journalists uncovered widespread child abuse by Catholic priests in Boston.

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AUSTRALIA/ROME
Wall Street Journal

By ROB TAYLOR in Canberra and
FRANCIS X. ROCCA in Rome

A top adviser to Pope Francis on Monday told an Australian inquiry that the failure to halt child abuse by clergy decades ago in the country was “a catastrophe” for both victims and the church. But he denied knowledge of any crimes while he was a priest there at that time.

Cardinal George Pell, who is the Vatican’s financial chief, made the church’s most conciliatory and detailed comments yet regarding accusations of sexual abuse of hundreds of Australian children in the 1970s and 1980s in testimony to a government-appointed Royal Commission.

“It certainly was much, much more difficult for the child to be believed then. The predisposition was not to believe,” Cardinal Pell, 74 years old, told the Australia-based inquiry by video-link from Rome. “The instinct was more to protect the institution, the community of the church, from shame.”

The Australian panel was formed in 2012 to investigate accusations of serious child abuse over decades within institutions including churches, schools, orphanages and sporting clubs. It will eventually report back to government.

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CALIFORNIA
The Independent (UK)

Maya Oppenheim

Just hours before the Oscars were due to start, Spotlight actor Mark Ruffalo took part in a protest against sexual abuse in the Catholic church in downtown Los Angeles.

Joined by Spotlight director Tom McCarthy and co-writer Josh Singer, the three spent their day at the Cathedral of Our Lady of Angels marching alongside the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests.

Brandishing banners which displayed childhood pictures of the victims of the sexual abuse, the protest called for the names of the priests who have been convicted of abusing minors to be made public.

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ROME
The National

SYDNEY // Vatican finance chief Cardinal George Pell admitted on Monday the Catholic Church “mucked up” in dealing with paedophile priests and vowed he would not “defend the indefensible” before an Australian inquiry.

Cardinal Pell gave evidence from a hotel in Rome via video-link to the Royal Commission into institutional responses to child sexual abuse in Sydney. He did not appear in person as he has a heart condition.

The inquiry is currently focused on the Victorian state town of Ballarat, where Cardinal Pell grew up and worked, and how the church dealt with complaints – many dating back to the 1970s – against the Catholic clergy.

Cardinal Pell, who rose to be the top Catholic official in Australia, said the church historically made grave errors in not properly addressing the issue and was now working to remedy them.

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ROME
Washington Post

Sarah Kaplan
February 29

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

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 Catholic 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 Secretariat for the Economy, a position described as the second most powerful in Rome, and he spoke from a hotel that was just blocks from Vatican.

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CALIFORNIA
Star Tribune

By JAKE COYLE Associated Press FEBRUARY 29, 2016

LOS ANGELES — In an underdog win for a movie about an underdog profession, the newspaper drama “Spotlight” took best picture Sunday at an Academy Awards riven by protest and outrage, and electrified by an unflinching Chris Rock.

Tom McCarthy’s film about the Boston Globe’s investigative reporting on sexual abuse by Roman Catholic priests won over the favored frontier epic “The Revenant.” McCarthy’s well-crafted procedural, led by a strong ensemble cast, had lagged in the lead-up to the Oscars, losing ground to the flashier filmmaking of Alejandro Inarritu’s film.

But “Spotlight” — an ode to the hard-nose, methodical work of a journalism increasingly seldom practiced — took the night’s top honor despite winning only one other Oscar for McCarthy and Josh Singer’s screenplay. Such a sparsely-awarded best picture winner hasn’t happened since 1952’s “The Greatest Show On Earth.”

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

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CALIFORNIA
Reuters

LOS ANGELES | BY JILL SERJEANT

Catholic Church abuse movie “Spotlight” was named best picture, the top award at Sunday’s Oscars ceremony, after a night peppered with pointed punchlines from host Chris Rock about the #OscarsSoWhite controversy that has dominated the industry.

In a ceremony where no single movie commanded attention, Mexico’s Alejandro Inarritu nabbed the best directing Oscar for “The Revenant”, becoming the first filmmaker in more than 60 years to win back-to-back Academy Awards. Inarritu won in 2015 for “Birdman.”

“The Revenant” went into Sunday’s ceremony with a leading 12 nominations, and was among four movies believed to have the best chances for best picture after it won Golden Globe and BAFTA trophies.

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CALIFORNIA
Entertainment Weekly

BY WILL ROBINSON

Spotlight won Best Picture at the Academy Awards on Sunday night, upsetting the heavily favored The Revenant.

The ensemble drama about The Boston Globe’s 2002 reporting of the Catholic Church child sex abuse scandal had only one other win on the night, for Best Original Screenplay. The cast basked in their victory after picking up their golden statuettes.

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CALIFORNIA
Hollywood Reporter

[with video]

“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 producer Michael Sugar.
Spotlight was named best picture at the 88th annual Academy Awards on Sunday night.

The drama showcasing the Boston Globe’s reporting on the Catholic Church sex abuse scandal beat out The Big Short, Bridge of Spies, Brooklyn, Mad Max: Fury Road, The Martian, The Revenant and Room.

“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 producer Michael Sugar. “Pope Francis, it’s time to protect the children and restore the faith.”

Producer Blye Pagon Faust thanked the real-life reporters from The Boston Globe’s Spotlight team, and journalists at large: “Not only do they affect global change, but they absolutely show us the necessity for investigative journalism.” Faust’s producing partner Nicole Rocklin added of the cast, “If there ever was a perfectly calibrated ensemble, you are it.”

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UNITED STATES
Breaking News (Ireland)

Newspaper drama Spotlight has upset all the glitzy Hollywood predictions with an underdog best picture Oscar.

The film was the surprise winner at the 88th Academy Awards, where remarks on lack of diversity dominated the proceedings.

Tom McCarthy’s film about the Boston Globe’s investigative reporting on sexual abuse by Catholic priests won over the favoured frontier epic The Revenant.

Spotlight, led by a strong ensemble cast, had lagged in the lead-up to the Oscars, losing ground to the flashier film-making of Alejandro Inarritu’s film starring Leonardo DiCaprio, who won the best actor statuette.

But Spotlight, an ode to the hard-nosed methodical work of a form of journalism now practised seldomly, took the night’s top honour, despite winning only one other Oscar for McCarthy and Josh Singer’s screenplay.

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CALIFORNIA
Deadline

by Anthony D’Alessandro
February 28, 2016

Open Road’s Spotlight is already out on DVD/VOD and it’s in its 17th weekend at the box office with $39.1 million. So how much juice can possibly be left in this film at the domestic box office? While exhibitors typically have a policy against booking titles that are already out on VOD/DVD, there’s always a want to get a best picture winner back into theaters. An Open Road insider confirmed earlier tonight that there’s a plan to take Spotlight back up to 1,000 engagements. It’s currently in play at 685 locations. Should that plan hold, industry estimates see Spotlight‘s total cume rising by another 4% to 12% for a final take between $40.7M-$43.8M.

Interestingly enough, Spotlight finds itself in similar scenario to last year’s best picture winner Birdman. By Oscar night a year ago, that Fox Searchlight release was also a played-out fall release that was already out on DVD with $37.8M in its 19th frame. Searchlight jumped its theater count from 407 venues during Oscarcast weekend to 1,207 the following week. Following its best picture win, Birdman‘s total cume jumped by 12% to $42.3M, ending its run during mid April. The average B.O boost for a best picture winner between the night of the ceremony and the end of its run has hovered around 20%.

Heading into the tonight, many though 20th Century Fox/New Regency’s The Revenant was going to take best picture, and if that was the case, that title stood to make another $10M-$15M at the box office. Fox will expand by a few hundred theaters and the thinking is that its best actor win for Leonardo DiCaprio will continue to send folks to the multiplex. However, a best picture win would have fueled the ultimate gain. While a number of contenders got lost in autumn’s bloodbath at the B.O., The Revenant, was the only best picture contender to play the 2016 side of the awards season, and reaped the benefits of doing so in a market that had already O.D.ed on Star Wars: The Force Awakens. Since noms were announced on January 14, The Revenant actually saw the biggest boost out of all the best pic noms –+215%– jumping from $54.1M to $170.5M through this weekend.

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CALIFORNIA
New York Times

by MICHAEL CIEPLY and BROOKS BARNES
FEB. 28, 2016

LOS ANGELES — In a ceremony that became a raucous diversity lesson under the guidance of its host, Chris Rock, Tom McCarthy’s “Spotlight,” a newspaper drama about the Roman Catholic Church cover-up of sexual abuse by priests, snatched top honors at the 88th Academy Awards on Sunday. It beat out “The Revenant,” which had been widely viewed as the favorite, but which nevertheless earned a best actor prize for Leonardo DiCaprio, his first Oscar, and a best director award for Alejandro G. Iñárritu.

Michael Sugar, a “Spotlight” producer, said he hoped the win would “resonate all the way to the Vatican.”

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ROME
Business Insider

HARRY TUCKER

Cardinal George Pell gave his long awaited four-hour testimony at the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sex Abuse earlier this morning.

The testimony covered many things around Pell’s time at various positions throughout various dioceses in Victoria and his knowledge of the behaviour of alleged paedophile priests.

The Rome-based Cardinal, who is the Secretariat for the Economy, responsible for the Holy See and Vatican’s finances, was forced to give evidence from the Italian capital because he is ill and unable to fly back to Australia to appear before the Royal Commission. His memory also appeared to be causing him trouble during testimony today.

Several times during his four hour appearance he said “I can’t remember any such examples but my memory might be playing me false”, or similar statements.

Here’s a list of the things the man in charge of the Catholic Church’s finances couldn’t recall or didn’t know anything about during his testimony today.

1. Whether he was ever approached about priests being “overly affectionate” with kids.

2. Whether he was approached for advice before a special tribunal was established to judge bishops accused of covering up priests who sexually abused children.

3. Whether paedophile priest Paul David Ryan was sent to the US for special treatment for his sexual offences.

4. Whether he knew anything about Paul David Ryan’s US trip at all.

5. Whether Bishop Ronald Mulkearns from Ballarat was aware of child abuse within his diocese.

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ROME
Sydney Morning Herald

February 29, 2016

Nick Miller

You would not find a more remarkable bunch of blokes than this group from Ballarat.

They are survivors of horrible sexual abuse, scarred for life, in varying states of health, but drawing on such deep wells of strength that up they came, in the teeth of a storm, to the Hotel Quirinale to face the third most powerful man in the church that betrayed and abandoned them.

Thunder and lightning cracked overhead, fat drops of Mediterranean winter rain bounced off the cobbles around them, serried media spotlights swung their way.

And they calmly said their pieces, posed for the flashes, and trooped into the opulent depths of the Quirinale.

The contrast couldn’t be stronger to Cardinal George Pell’s arrival, several hours earlier. As his car swung up to the hotel’s side entrance, a TV camera and reporter were waiting – the networks had pooled their resources to make sure he couldn’t go in unseen.

But a group of burly Italian security guards roughly pushed the journalists back – it was unclear on whose orders: Cardinal Pell later denied they were his team, blaming Italian police.

He then disappeared up to his room on the fifth floor, where rumour has it he will dwell until the hearing is over – except when he takes the stand.

It may not be quite the Vatican style that Cardinal Pell is used to but he’s not roughing it.
Rome specialises in luxurious locations. It’s kind of its thing.

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CALIFORNIA
Boston.com

By Bryanna Cappadona @brycappa
Boston.com Staff | 02.28.16

Oh, would ya look at that? In a glitzy room full of ravishing movie stars, Academy Awards host Chris Rock turned everyone’s attention to some of the real people who inspired some of this year’s Oscars-nominated movies. One of those people was The Boston Globe reporter Michael Rezendes, who is portrayed by Mark Ruffalo in Spotlight.

“It’s always fascinating to meet the real people that the movies are based on,” Rock said. “And some of them are here tonight. From Joy, the real Joy Mangano is here. Give it up for Joy. From Spotlight, The Boston Globe reporter the real Mike Rezendes is here. Give it up for Mike.”

Hi, Mike!

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CALIFORNIA
Variety

Dave McNary
Film Reporter
@Variety_DMcNary

“Spotlight’s” Academy Award win for best original screenplay for Tom McCarthy and Josh Singer shone a light on the important work of investigative journalists.

“We made this film for all the journalists who have and continue to hold the powerful accountable, and for the survivors whose courage and will to overcome is really an inspiration. We have to make sure this never happens again.” McCarthy said in his acceptance speech for the first award of the evening.

The script, exploring the Boston Globe’s investigation into pedophile priests, topped screenplays for “Bridge of Spies,” “Ex Machina,” “Inside Out” and “Straight Outta Compton.”

“Spotlight” has been the screenplay frontrunner through the awards season as it won at the Writers Guild and at the Spirit Awards, where it received standing ovations Saturday. McCarthy, who also directed, and Singer have made the rounds describing the courage of the Globe journalists portrayed in the film — both for their Pulitzer Prize-winning work in exposing the systematic clergy abuse and for giving wide access to the production team and actors.

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CALIFORNIA
Boston Globe

Just minutes into the Oscar telecast on Sunday night, Josh Singer already knew he’d be going home with at least one little gold man.

The evening’s first award, best original screenplay, went to Singer and Tom McCarthy for “Spotlight,” their telling of the Boston Globe’s Pulitzer Prize-winning investigation of clergy sexual abuse in the Roman Catholic Church. Accepting the award, Singer, a Harvard Law grad whose previous writing credits include “The West Wing” and “The Fifth Estate,” thanked the “Spotlight” cast and crew, and his father, “who taught me how to dream.”

McCarthy, who also directed, dedicated the screenwriting award to survivors “whose courage and will to overcome is really an inspiration.” He added, “We made this film for all the journalists who have and continue to hold the powerful accountable.”

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ROME
NT News

AAP

The term “bum buddies” never came to the attention of Cardinal George Pell in reference to a Christian Brother who was later jailed for abusing 31 boys.

The Cardinal was answering questions about his time as a priest in the Ballarat East parish in Victoria from 1973 to 1994 when he was also the episcopal vicar for education in the diocese.

In a video link from Rome the Cardinal has repeatedly told the Royal commission into child sexual abuse that he could not recall detail of exactly who told him what about problems at the local Christian Brothers school, St Patrick’s College.

He said he remembered being told of one brother who was kissing boys but said he never heard the ‘bum buddies’ term, which one witness, a former student at the school, has told the commission was used openly about boys who were abused by Brother Ted Dowlan.

Dr Pell agreed the term would certainly suggest sexual abuse.

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ROME
Sydney Morning Herald

Rachel Browne
Social Affairs Reporter

Cardinal George Pell was aware of the existence of clerical sexual abuse in the early 1970s but failed to recognise widespread offending when he was a junior priest in Ballarat, despite gossip that Christian Brothers there were assaulting children.

Cardinal Pell gave his long-awaited evidence into his knowledge of alleged sexual offences in Ballarat to the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse by video link from Rome on Monday.

In a hearing expected to last four days, Cardinal Pell told the commission that abuse by Catholic clergy was “on the radar” in the 1970s due to offending by Monsignor John Day, who died in 1978.

The commission heard a 1971 police investigation found that Monsignor Day had molested children in Victoria over 13 years.

Cardinal Pell told the commission Monsignor Day’s case made him aware of sexual abuse among clergy but he did not recognise signs of abuse among Christian Brothers in Ballarat, where he was assistant parish priest from 1973-83.

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ROME
9 News

AAP

Cardinal George Pell says he didn’t know of sexual abuse perpetrated by pedophile priests in Victoria in the 1970s and has labelled a bishop’s handling of one notorious case as “catastrophic”.

On the first of four days of evidence to the child abuse royal commission via video link from Rome, Cardinal Pell was adamant he was unaware of predatory behaviour by priests and brothers when he was a junior priest in the diocese of Ballarat.

Cardinal Pell said the former Ballarat bishop Ronald Mulkearns knew in 1975 that notorious pedophile Father Gerald Ridsdale had abused boys but continued to move him to new parishes.

“The way he was dealt with, that was a catastrophe, a catastrophe for the victims and a catastrophe for the church,” Cardinal Pell told the hearing from a conference room inside Rome’s Hotel Quirinale.

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ROME
ABC News

By London bureau chief Lisa Millar

Cardinal George Pell’s testimony to the royal commission in Rome left abuse survivors slightly mollified, but ultimately unconvinced. Lisa Millar reports from the Hotel Quirinale.

After so much anticipation, it was hardly surprising that the hearing began in such a dramatic fashion.

Three hours before his evidence was due to start, Cardinal George Pell was driven to the side entrance of the Hotel Quirinale, where a cameraman and reporter trying to film his arrival were treated roughly by security.

The scuffle threatened to overshadow the start of this unusual session.

The Royal Commission has heard from witnesses before via videolink, but never under these kind of circumstances — in a hotel on the other side of the world, with 120 people in the audience who were not seen or heard from because of a ban on filming or photographs.

They remarked that Cardinal Pell had not acknowledged them as he entered the room. His mind was probably focused on the table on the side where he sat facing a video screen.

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AUSTRALIA/ROME
The Age

February 29, 2016

Konrad Marshall
Senior writer

It was 8:46am when the crowd of more than 60, gathered in the Trench Room at Ballarat Town Hall, murmured with disapproval. They hung their heads, shook their heads, and looked up in disbelief.

Cardinal George Pell’s testimony had only been going 45 minutes when he acknowledged that his recollections would be imperfect – that his memory might fail him in this hearing.
“I can’t remember,” Cardinal Pell said.

“I’m struggling to remember,” he said later.

“I can’t clearly recall,” he noted.

The people there listening – a mix of clergy abuse survivors and counsellors and family members – had previously been silent. Now they offered a muffled collective scoff, and pained laughter.

Tim Lane, 44, had been waiting for this. Lane was abused in his home as a child – one of six Ballarat siblings to fall prey to Brother Grant Ross. Lane has followed the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sex Abuse, and been pleased with the result in his home town.

He has seen people throughout the city wearing “Some Don’t Remember – Some Won’t Forget” T-shirts. He has watched ribbons of support blow in the wind, tied to every school and church and tree. He has attended various civic receptions for survivors, and been listened to by his community. And it has been cathartic.

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CALIFORNIA
Bostoinno

Alex E. Weaver Lifestyle Editor

Chances are, you’re at or near a TV, paying varying degrees of attention to the 2016 Oscar winners, hosted by the often funny and always controversial Chris Rock. (Who, yeah, spent some time chatting about #OscarsSoWhite.)

This year’s Oscar Awards holds a special level of interest if you’re a Massachusetts resident or native: Spotlight, the portrayal of the 2001 Boston Globe shakedown of the rampant child molestation occurring within the Roman Catholic Church (and even more so, the subsequent systemic cover-up), is up for a host of awards, including Best Picture, Actor in a Supporting Role, Actress in a Supporting Role, Directing, Film Editing and Writing (Original Screenplay).

And while the Best Picture is still a ways off, Spotlight has won an Oscar for Writing (Original Screenplay).

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CALIFORNIA
Entertainment Weekly

Tom McCarthy and Josh Singer took home Oscar gold for telling the real-life story behind the Boston Globe’s Spotlight team.

McCarthy and Singer won the Best Original Screenplay Oscar for Spotlight, after winning in the same category at the Writers Guild Awards earlier this month. In their screenplay, McCarthy — who also directed the film — and Singer follow the investigative team at the Boston Globe as they fight uncover the truth about systemic child abuse inside the Catholic Church.

The film is nominated for several other awards, including Best Director for McCarthy and Best Picture.

“We made this film for all the journalists who have and continue to hold the powerful accountable,” McCarthy said. He also dedicated the award to survivors, “whose courage and will to overcome is really an inspiration.”

Backstage, McCarthy continued, “I think if Josh and I came away with anything from this, it’s just what hardworking dedicated curious and committed professional these reporters are. And for any profession you take your hat off to people like that. For us it felt more like a social calling than it did a job, with these people, it was incredibly inspirational.”

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ROME
The Australian

BY LLOYD JONES, AAP EUROPE CORRESPONDENT

Child abuse survivors in Rome to hear Cardinal George Pell’s testimony to a royal commission say he struck a more conciliatory and constructive tone, but there’s a long way to go.

Cardinal Pell is making his third appearance before the inquiry into how institutions like churches handled child sexual abuse complaints and is giving evidence by videolink after he was deemed too ill to return to Australia for questioning.

He’s being questioned about what he knew about pedophile priest activity in Ballarat and Melbourne when he served there.

A survivors’ group who travelled to Rome to hear his evidence listened quietly through just over three and a half hours of testimony in the Quirinale Hotel late on Sunday night and early into Monday morning.

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CALIFORNIA
ABC 7

LOS ANGELES — “Spotlight” took home the first award of the night at the 2016 Oscars on Sunday.

The journalism drama won the Oscar for the best original screenplay. The script by Josh Singer and Tom McCarthy tells the story of the Boston Globe’s Pulitzer Prize-winning investigation of sex abuse by Catholic priests.

McCarthy said they made the film for all the journalists who hold those in power accountable.

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CALIFORNIA
Los Angeles Times

Susan King

Tom McCarthy and Josh Singer won the Academy Award on Sunday for original screenplay for “Spotlight,” the drama revolving around the Boston Globe’s investigative reporters uncovering a massive cover-up by the Catholic Church of priests molesting young boys.

The film won praise from journalists for its realistic depiction of the newspaper world; many considered it the best film about newspapers since “All the President’s Men.” And in fact Washington Post Watergate journalist Carl Bernstein endorsed the film in Oscar season advertising. The screenplay was heralded for its attention to detail and its thriller-like pacing.

In accepting the Oscar, McCarthy referred to the survivors of the abuse scandals, noting: “We have to make sure this never happens again.”

Going into the 88th Academy Awards, “Spotlight” was considered the odds on favorite to receive the screenplay Oscar. Singer and McCarthy had won the vast majority of the major awards this season, including the BAFTA, Spirit Award, Gotham Independent Film Award, the Los Angeles Film Critics Assn. and National Society of Film Critics honors and the Writers Guild award.

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CALIFORNIA
Hollywood Reporter

[with video]

“We made this film for all the journalists who have and continue to hold the powerful accountable, and for the survivors whose courage and will to overcome is really an inspiration to all,” said Tom McCarthy.

Spotlight was named best original screenplay at the 88th Annual Academy Awards on Sunday night.

The film’s screenplay beat out those of Bridge of Spies, Ex Machina, Inside Out, and Straight Outta Compton.

“We made this film for all the journalists who have and continue to hold the powerful accountable, and for the survivors whose courage and will to overcome is really an inspiration to all,” said Tom McCarthy, alongside co-writer Josh Singer. “We have to make sure this never happens again.”

Emily Blunt and Charlize Theron presented the first award of the night. The order of awards was changed to illustrate the filmmaking process itself.

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ROME
9 News

The Catholic Church has denied Cardinal Pell’s security clashed with Australian news crews outside the hotel where he is giving evidence in the sex abuse inquiry, saying the men were Italian police officers.

Video from the encounter shows the police, originally thought to be the Cardinal’s bodyguards, obstructing and jostling a news cameraman and crew outside the Hotel Quirinale in Rome.

The Archdiocese of Sydney rejected claims the cardinal’s security were involved in the altercation.

“Cardinal Pell is sorry to hear of an incident involving two members of the media and Italian police just prior to giving evidence to the Royal Commission via video link in Rome,” a spokeswoman said.

“The Italian Police are in charge of security outside and inside the hotel where the hearing is taking place and have been liaising with Commission staff.

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ROME
SBS

AAP

Italian police and not Cardinal George Pell’s security staff were involved in a scuffle with media outside a Rome hotel, the cardinal’s office says..

SBS Europe Correspondent Brett Mason said Cardinal Pell’s security team had been heavy handed, “manhandling” him and a cameraman as they attempted to film the arrival.

Cardinal Pell is sorry to hear of the incident with an SBS reporter and cameraman but it did not involve his security staff as has been reported, his office said in a statement.

“The Italian police are in charge of security outside and inside the hotel where the hearing is taking place and have been liaising with commission staff,” the statement said.

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ROME
Courier Mail

[with live stream]

CARDINAL George Pell is giving evidence to the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse via video link from Rome.

Cardinal Pell’s office issued a statement as he was giving evidence saying he will meet with abuse survivors who have flown to Rome from Victoria.

Key Events

10.32AM: Cardinal Pell believes reading a newspaper article in 1972 was the first time he became aware of allegations of abuse by clergy.
More

9.21AM: Cardinal Pell said in the 1970s if a priest denied allegations of paedophilia he was inclined to accept their denial
More

9.04AM: Cardinal Pell says the handling of Gerald Ridsdale was “catastrophe” for the victims and the church
More

8.57AM: Cardinal Pell says the instinct was to protect the institution of the church from shame
More

8.55AM: Cardinal Pell has denied he was aware of priests including Gerald Ridsdale being sent off for treatment

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ROME
Daily Examiner

THE way the Australian Roman Catholic Church dealt with a paedophile priest in Ballarat was a “catastrophe”, according to Cardinal George Pell.

Giving evidence from Rome, Cardinal Pell was asked his view on former Bishop Ronald Mulkearns, who has long been accused of ignoring sex abuse within the church.

When Cardinal Pell was asked if he was critical of Bishop Mulkearns’ conduct, the Cardinal said the bishop’s handling of paedophile Gerald Risdale was “a catastrophe”.

“I have just re-read the file of Ridsdale. The priest. Ex-priest,” Cardinal Pell said.

“And the way he was dealt with was a catastrophe.

“A catastrophe for the victims and a catastrophe for the church.

“If effective action had been taken earlier, an enormous amount of suffering would’ve been avoided.”

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AUSTRALIA
Herald Sun

AAP

There is a case for a judicial tribunal to consider how Bishop Ronald Mulkearns handled clergy accused of child sexual abuse, Cardinal George Pell says.

In evidence via videolink from Rome, Dr Pell said he could not give “book, chapter and verse” about what Bishop Mulkearns knew and did not act upon at particular times.

Bishop Mulkearns, who is now in his 80s and dying of cancer, was bishop in Ballarat, Victoria, from 1971 to 1997.

Dr Pell told the sex abuse royal commission there was a purpose to the way Bishop Mulkearns dealt with Gerald Ridsdale and other alleged pedophile priests.

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LOS ANGELES (CA)
Los Angeles Times

Frank Shyong

About 20 protesters who rallied against sexual abuse in the Catholic church in downtown Los Angeles were joined by “Spotlight” actor Mark Ruffalo, the film’s director Tom McCarthy and its writer Josh Singer on Sunday.

Protesters, many of whom identify as victims of abuse by Catholic priests, marched and brandished banners outside the Cathedral of Our Lady of Angels Sunday morning.

Ruffalo, Singer and McCarthy, who were invited by the group to appear, joined them in calling on the church to take greater action against sexual abuse and release the names of known abusers.

The “Spotlight” creators each held a section of a banner printed with the victims’ childhood photos and addressed the protesters before heading to pre-Oscar parties and the red carpet.

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“I’m here to stand with the survivors and the victims and the people we’ve lost from Catholic priest childhood sex abuse,” Ruffalo told protesters.

The protest, organized by the group Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, was one of 20 rallies Sunday urging greater transparency at Catholic cathedrals across the nation, said Barbara Blaine, the president and founder of the group. Organizers wanted to use the Academy Awards, which takes place Sunday night, was a way to draw attention to their cause, Blaine said.

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LOS ANGELES (CA)
Boston Globe

By Mark Shanahan GLOBE STAFF FEBRUARY 28, 2016

Before the Academy Awards started Sunday, “Spotlight” actor Mark Ruffalo, director Tom McCarthy, and co-writer Josh Singer joined with members of SNAP, the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests, for a protest outside the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels in downtown Los Angeles. According to The Hollywood Reporter, the “Spotlight” gang was there to support the survivors’ demand that the names of pedophile priests be released. Ruffalo, nominated for his role in the film, tweeted: “Standing with the survivors of Priest sexual abuse!” The Oscar-nominated “Spotlight” tells the story of the Boston Globe series exposing the many pedophile priests in the Catholic church.

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LOS ANGELES (CA)
People

BY KATHY EHRICH DOWD @kathyehrichdowd 02/28/2016

Mark Ruffalo took part in a protest outside a Los Angeles Catholic Church on Oscars Sunday, joining others who continue to criticize the religious institution for its handling of the worldwide sexual abuse scandal.

Ruffalo, 48, joined Spotlight director and co-writer Tom McCarthy, co-writer Josh Singer and members SNAP, the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests, at the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels in downtown Los Angeles Sunday to call for the names of priests accused of pedophilia to be released, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

Ruffalo is nominated for Best Supporting Actor for his portrayal of Mike Rezendes, a member of The Boston Globe’s Spotlight team, whose meticulous reporting to uncover the scandal is dramatized in the film up for Best Picture.

The actor and activist confirmed his participation in the protest Sunday on Twitter.

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ROME
SBS

AAP

Cardinal George Pell has denied any knowledge of pedophile priests being sent for psychiatric treatment by the bishop of Ballarat when he was based in the Victorian diocese.

Cardinal Pell, giving evidence to the child abuse royal commission via video link from Rome, said he was “certainly not” aware the former Bishop of Ballarat Ronald Mulkearns was sending priests off to be treated for sexual offending.

“I wasn’t aware of Mulkearns sending anyone off for sexual offending,” he said.

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ROME
The Australian

AAP

Cardinal George Pell says he would have believed a priest who denied sexually abusing children in the early 1970s.

Cardinal Pell said it was a great scandal when Monsignor John Day was accused in 1971 and 1972 of indecently assaulting children while the parish priest in Mildura.

Cardinal Pell, who as an assistant priest in the Swan Hill parish at the time, said he heard some gossip about Monsignor Day being accused of some sort of pedophilia activity.

“I must say in those days if a priest denied such activity I was very strongly inclined to accept the denial,” Cardinal Pell told the child abuse royal commission from Rome.

Cardinal Pell, who was overseas from 1963 until 1971, said the gossip he heard likely came from fellow priests.

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ROME
9 News

AAP

Italian police and not Cardinal George Pell’s security staff were involved in a scuffle with media outside a Rome hotel, the cardinal’s office says.

Reporters outside the hotel say Cardinal Pell’s security team was heavy-handed, pushing camera crews aside as he entered to give his videolink evidence to the child abuse royal commission.

Cardinal Pell is sorry to hear of the incident with an SBS reporter and cameraman but it did not involve his security staff as has been reported, his office said in a statement.

“The Italian police are in charge of security outside and inside the hotel where the hearing is taking place and have been liaising with commission staff,” the statement said.

Cardinal Pell asked a member of his team to speak to the reporter to check on his wellbeing, it said.

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LOS ANGELES (CA)
The Guardian (UK)

Henry Barnes and agencies
@HenryHBarnes
Sunday 28 February 2016

Mark Ruffalo has joined survivors of paedophile priests in a protest outside downtown LA’s Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels, hours before he is due to attend the Academy Awards.

Ruffalo, who is nominated in the best supporting actor category for his performance in Spotlight, joined members of the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests (SNAP) to call for the names of priests who had been convicted of abusing minors to be made public.

Spotlight follows a 2002 investigation by reporters from the Boston that uncovered the widespread sexual abuse of children by scores of the district’s clergy. Ruffalo plays Mike Rezendes, a veteran on the Globe’s investigative journalism team, which the film is named after.

The film details the cover-up of sexual abuse cases by Boston’s then archbishop Cardinal Bernard Francis Law. In 2013 SNAP accused the Catholic Church in LA of a similar cover-up and demanded that Cardinal Roger Mahony, archbishop of the LA archdiocese in the 1980s, reveal the names of all priests who had been relocated after an incident of abuse. It’s one of a series of protests taking place across the US. “In LA and nine other US cities, SNAP urged bishops to disclose and post on church websites the names, photos, whereabouts and work histories of all predator priests,” said SNAP’s national director David Clohessy.

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ROME
Reading Eagle

By NICOLE WINFIELD, Associated Press

ROME (AP) — One of Pope Francis’ top advisers acknowledges that the Catholic Church “has made enormous mistakes” in allowing thousands of children to be raped and molested by priests over centuries in testimony at an extraordinary public hearing of an Australian investigative commission just a few blocks from the Vatican.

Cardinal George Pell testified late Sunday via videolink from a Rome hotel to the Royal Commission sitting in Sydney. In the front row of the conference room were two dozen Australian abuse survivors and their companions who had travelled across the globe to be on hand for Pell’s testimony.

The lead counsel assisting the commission, Gail Furness, is questioning Pell about current Vatican efforts to address the scandal as well as Pell’s past in Australia, including how he dealt with abuse allegations.

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ROME
Daily Mail

By FREYA NOBLE FOR DAILY MAIL AUSTRALIA

Cardinal George Pell’s security have been accused of ‘pushing and punching’ Australian media in Rome as he arrived to give evidence to the Royal Commission into Child Abuse.

Cardinal Pell is speaking to the commission in Ballarat, Victoria, via video link from a hotel near his home at the Vatican in Rome despite public pressure to bring him home for the event.

As he arrived at the high-end hotel, heavy-handed security are said to have forcefully pushed waiting media away from Pell as he arrived through a side door.

Channel Nine reporter Amelia Ballinger told the Sydney Morning Herald one reporter was punched, while cameramen were pushed and shoved out of the way.

‘Before he even got out of the car a number of big, burly security guards got out before him and they basically assaulted, I guess, for want of a better word, the [television] crew that was waiting there for him,’ Ballinger said.

She added that a journalist waiting to question Pell was ‘punched in the stomach’, and Pell entered the building without having to face any questions.

Italian Police have been informed of the alleged incidents and the Royal Commission have been notified

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ROME
Daily Examiner

CARDINAL George Pell has admitted the church had a “general practice” of not calling the police when it learned of sexual assaults, instinctually acting to protect the institution ahead of victims.

Cardinal Pell was being asked about his views — given in the 1980s — that the church generally did not believe children when they made these allegations.

The Cardinal said he believes those were now an “over-statement” but conceded that children were often not listened to.

He said there was no formal policy to dismiss such allegations but unofficially, “sometimes they were dismissed in absolutely scandalous circumstances”.

These were when victims made “very, very,very plausible allegations made by responsible people that were not followed up sufficiently”.

Cardinal Pell said the instinct of many was to protect the church and its community “from shame”.

When asked if there was a tendency not to refer such incidents to police, Cardinal Pell said it was “general practice” but that people were not prevented or impeded “but they were certainly rarely encouraged”.

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ROME
9 News

AAP

Cardinal George Pell says a number of complaints of clergy abuse of children were wrongly dismissed.

“I don’t have the statistics on that but too many of them certainly were dismissed and sometimes they were dismissed in absolutely scandalous circumstances,” Cardinal Pell told the child abuse royal commission via videolink from Rome.

He said the tendency to dismiss complaints was more about protecting the church.

“At that stage, the instinct was more to protect the institution, the community of the church, from shame,” he said.

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ROME
9 News

By Nick Alexander

Cardinal George Pell has begun testifying before a Royal Commission via video-link from Rome under the watchful gaze of 15 Australian abuse survivors, who are present in his room at the Hotel Quirinale.

Having sworn on a Holy Bible to tell the truth Cardinal Pell began his third appearance before the Royal Commission by saying that he does not intend to “defend the indefensible”.

“The church has made enormous mistakes and is here to remedy those,” Cardinal Pell said, but conceded that the church has “mucked things up and let people down.”

“Unfortunately original sin is alive and well, the tendency to evil in the Catholic Church too,”Cardinal Pell said.

“For good or for ill the church follows the patterns of the society in which it lives.”

Cardinal George Pell has begun testifying before a Royal Commission via video-link from Rome under the watchful gaze of 15 Australian abuse survivors, who are present in his room at the Hotel Quirinale.

Having sworn on a Holy Bible to tell the truth Cardinal Pell began his third appearance before the Royal Commission by saying that he does not intend to “defend the indefensible”.

“The church has made enormous mistakes and is here to remedy those,” Cardinal Pell said, but conceded that the church has “mucked things up and let people down.”

“Unfortunately original sin is alive and well, the tendency to evil in the Catholic Church too,”Cardinal Pell said.

“For good or for ill the church follows the patterns of the society in which it lives.”

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LOS ANGELES (CA)
Hollywood Reporter

‘Spotlight’ director Tom McCarthy and screenwriter Josh Singer also took part.

Hours before the 88th Oscars were set to start, the Spotlight team of actor Mark Ruffalo, director-cowriter Tom McCarthy and co-writer Josh Singer joined a protest outside the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels in downtown Los Angeles. They stood with members of SNAP, the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests, outside the cathedral calling for the names of pedophile priests to be released.

Ruffalo confirmed on Twitter on that he participated in the protest, tweeting, “Standing with the survivors of Priest sexual abuse!”

Spotlight follows the Boston Globe investigative journalists who uncovered the Catholic church scandal of priests involved with child molestation. The film has earned Ruffalo an Oscar nomination for best supporting actor as well as five other nominations, including best picture, best director and best original screenplay. On Saturday, it took home five trophies at Film Independent’s Spirit Awards, including best feature.

SNAP is also hosting a viewing party for the Oscars at the Next Door Lounge, at 1154 North Highland Avenue, in Hollywood.

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UNITED STATES
Newsweek

BY ZACH SCHONFELD ON 2/28/16

At the 49th Academy Awards, two instantly iconic depictions of journalism on film—one fictional, the other stranger than fiction—competed for top prizes.

It was 1977. Network, the ever-quotable portrait of a “mad prophet” TV anchor whose on-air breakdown leads to soaring ratings, nearly swept the acting categories: Peter Finch (in a posthumous victory) won Best Actor for his performance as Howard Beale; Faye Dunaway took home Best Actress; and Beatrice Straight won Best Supporting despite spending a record-short five minutes on screen. All the President’s Men, the sprawling, step-by-step unraveling of the Watergate investigation that inspired a generation of reporters, garnered eight nominations and four wins, including Best Supporting Actor (Jason Robards).

And in the Best Picture category, for which both movies were nominated, the award went to—well, it went to Rocky.

Movies about the news media get Best Picture nominations. They just don’t seem to win. The pattern is an old one. Citizen Kane, the story of a newspaper mogul loosely based on William Randolph Hearst, got a nomination in 1942 but lost to John Ford’s How Green Was My Valley. The prior year, Alfred Hitchcock’s Foreign Correspondent—starring Joel McCrea as an American reporter tracking enemy spies—lost to a very different Hitchcock film, Rebecca. Broadcast News lost to The Last Emperor at the 1988 awards, several years after The Killing Fields lost to Amadeus. More insultingly, Good Night, and Good Luck, George Clooney’s thoughtful depiction of a McCarthy-era Edward R. Murrow, lost to a movie sometimes considered the worst Best Picture winner in Oscars history: 2005’s Crash.

It has been nearly 70 years since a journalism movie won Best Picture. The deserving Gentleman’s Agreement (1947) has Gregory Peck as a reporter assigned to write an article about anti-Semitism, so he poses as a Jew to experience prejudice firsthand.

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CALIFORNIA
Los Angeles Times

Christie D’Zurilla

Call it what you want — this was a “Spotlight” celebration.

Liev Schreiber, Michael Keaton and Mark Ruffalo, with wife Sunrise Coigney, all made it to “Spotlight” producer Michael Sugar’s pre-Oscar party just hours after the film took four Independent Spirit Awards, including best feature.

The film is up for six Oscars, with nominations including supporting actor for Ruffalo, supporting actress for Rachel McAdams and best picture.

The event, co-hosted by Sugar’s Anonymous Content colleagues Steve Golin (also a “Spotlight” producer) and Doug Wald, started late Saturday and ran over into Sunday morning high atop Sunset Tower in West Hollywood.

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AUSTRALIA
The Australian

AAP

A black ribbon has been tied around a tree outside the abuse royal commission hearing room in Sydney where Cardinal George Pell’s evidence by video link will be transmitted from Rome.

The ribbon was put there to mark the death on Sunday of 71-year-old Gary O’Neill, who was raised in a Catholic Church boys’ orphanage in Westmead Sydney, said Leonie Sheedy who heads up a survivor support organisation.

Members of Care Leavers’ Australasia Network, linked hands and held a silent vigil for Mr O’Neill and hundreds like him, who suffered at the hands of Catholic clergy.

Ms Sheedy said Mr O’Neill had suffered awful abuse as a child at the St Vincent’s Boys’ Orphanage.

People have been gathering outside Governor Macquarie Tower in Sydney’s CBD where the commission is sitting on Monday.

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ROME
Gold Coast Bulletin

AAP

Cardinal George Pell says he is “not defending the indefensible” in the Catholic Church’s handling of child sexual abuse by clergy.

Cardinal Pell says the church has made enormous mistakes and is working to remedy them.

“The church in many places, certainly in Australia, has mucked things up, has let people down. I’m not here to defend the indefensible,” Cardinal Pell told the child abuse royal commission from Rome.

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ROME
7 News

The cardinal, who was too ill to return to Australia for questioning, is testifying via videolink from the Hotel Quirinale in Rome in front of a group of survivors from Ballarat.

Before giving evidence, he swore on the Bible that he would tell the truth.

He will be questioned over three to four days about what he knew of historic pedophile activity by priests when he served in Ballarat and Melbourne.

First up, he detailed his role at the Vatican, describing it as “something equivalent to a treasurer” but would not concur that he held the third most senior position in the church.

“I wouldn’t say it was. People like to make these hypothetical lists. Some people would see the financial affairs of the Vatican as very low on the list,” he said.

“I’m a senior official in the Roman curia.”

He was then asked about financing of compensation for victims of clergy abuse.

He said he had given advice, as one of the nine cardinals on an informal council advising the pope, prior to the establishment of the pontifical commission for the protection of minors in March 2014.

Cardinal Pell, under questioning, said child sex abuse had been an issue for centuries.

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

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

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ROME
Reuters

ROME/SYDNEY | BY PHILIP PULLELLA AND JANE WARDELL

Australian Cardinal George Pell said on Sunday the Catholic Church had made “enormous mistakes” as he became the highest-ranking Vatican official to testify on sexual abuse of children in the Church.

Pell, 74, held up a Bible as he was sworn in to answer questions by Australia’s Royal Commission into Institutional Response to Child Sexual Abuse in front of victims in a Rome hotel room.

Around 15 abuse victims and support staff traveled to Rome on the back of a crowd-funding campaign to see the Vatican’s treasurer give evidence after he said he was unable to travel to his native Australia because of heart problems.

While strictly speaking an Australian affair concerning events decades ago, the hearing has taken on wider implications about accountability of Church leaders because of Pell’s high position in the Vatican, where he serves as finance minister.

“The Church has made enormous mistakes and is working to remedy those but the Church in many places, certainly in Australia, has mucked things up, has let people down,” Pell said as he began answering questions via video link to the commission in Sydney. “I’m not here to defend the indefensible.”

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ROME
ABC News

Cardinal George Pell is giving evidence about sexual abuse in Ballarat and Melbourne, with his testimony live-streamed to Australia via video link from a Rome hotel.

The hearing will run for three days and hear four hours of evidence each day.

Follow our live blog for updates.

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ROME
The West Australian

Cardinal George Pell has started giving testimony from a Rome hotel to the royal commission into child abuse.

A group of survivors of child sex abuse at the hands of priests has arrived at the hotel where Cardinal Pell is giving evidence.

Cardinal Pell arrived earlier, three hours ahead of the scheduled 10pm (0800 AEST) start of the special hearing at the elegant Hotel Quirinale.

He was too ill to return to Australia for questioning and will give his videolink testimony to the commission in Sydney.

Reporters outside the hotel say Cardinal Pell’s security team was heavy handed, pushing camera crews aside as he entered the hotel.

He will be questioned over three to four days about what he knew of historic pedophile activity by priests when he served in Ballarat and Melbourne.

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ROME
7 News

Natasha Christian
February 29, 2016

Australian journalists were allegedly shoved and punched by ‘extremely aggressive’ security guards surrounding Cardinal George Pell in Rome.

Cardinal Pell arrived at the hotel via side gate on Monday, where he will make his third appearance before the Royal Commission into Child Sexual Abuse

Cameramen were reportedly pushed and shoved and another reporter was punched.

Channel Seven reported Chris Reason said the visiting abuse survivors were not surprised by the heavy-handed tactics.

“We’re used to it,” Victim Anthony Foster said.

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ROME
Huffington Post

By Cayla Dengate

A cameraman and journalist were allegedly punched and shoved by private security guards surrounding Cardinal George Pell ahead of his video link appearance in the Royal Commission into Child Sexual Abuse.

SBS News Europe Correspondent Brett Mason said security guards ‘obscured’ his camera crew while they were waiting for Pell’s arrival at a Rome hotel and Italian Police were reviewing the footage.

Journalists who observed the scene outside Hotel Quirinale said an Australian crew were punched and shoved.

In footage shared by Channel 9 News, an Australian can be heard saying: “…excuse me, we have a right to be here, this is a public street” as several men approached.

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ROME
The Australian

[with live stream from Rome]

FEBRUARY 29, 2016

Jacquelin Magnay
European correspondent

John Lyons
Associate Editor
Sydney

7.55am: I am inside the Verdi Room at the Hotel Quirinale and it is already full, reports Jacquelin Magnay. Several priests are standing alongside the walls, looking very prominent. Everyone just chatting at the moment.

Cardinal Pell will give his evidence in an area at the front of the room. He will have his own large TV screen to be able to watch the royal commission in Sydney. Adjacent to him in Rome will be one of his lawyers, although his barrister is back in Sydney.

All of the questioning of Cardinal Pell will occur from Sydney – there will be no cross examination from anyone in Rome.

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UNITED STATES
Peter Borre

Spotlight and the Oscars: Hooray for Hollywood – A look behind the camera (February 27, 2016)

Summary

American viewers (almost 37 million last year) will tune in for the Oscars’ pageant on Sunday evening, February 28. One of the contenders will be Spotlight, the true story of how the Boston Globe’s specialized team of investigative reporters, known as The Spotlight Team, broke wide open in early 2002 the story of clergy abuse of minors in the Archdiocese of Boston. The movie’s six Oscar nominations are for:

Best picture; Best director; Best supporting actor and actress; Best editing; Best original screenplay.

From anecdotal information, many moviegoers have stayed away from Spotlight fearing that it is a graphic portrayal of child abuse. Not so. The center of gravity of the movie is the real-life tension in the Globe’s newsroom, and the relentless efforts of the Spotlight team that would not be pushed off the story. The movie has just about broken even, with box office receipts through mid-February of $38 million which is almost double the production budget of $20 million. That is close to break-even under the Hollywood 2:1 rule of thumb for box office coverage of post-production marketing and distribution costs. But one of the executive producers, Pierre Omidyar, has truly deep pockets, a net worth of almost $9 billion thanks to his eBay and Paypal investments. Interesting that a French-born member of the Iranian diaspora chose to bankroll this movie.

IMO, Spotlight is the best media movie since All the President’s Men and the Watergate scandal; and there is a family link between these two pictures:

Ben Bradlee père, was the Washington Post’s managing editor who stood up to major heat from the Nixon White House; and Ben Bradlee Jr fils, was #2 in the Globe’s newsroom hierarchy, but in the movie he seemed to curb his enthusiasm when it came to support for the Spotlight team.

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ROME
9 News

Cardinal George Pell will give evidence to the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, via video link from a hotel room in Rome this morning.

He will answer questions over Case Study 28 in the commission, concerning how Cardinal Pell handled allegations of child sex abuse in the Catholic church in Ballarat and Melbourne.

We will bring you the live stream of Cardinal Pell’s testimony here on 9news.com.au. The hearing is expected to begin at 8am (AEDT).

Cardinal Pell will be asked to address allegations as outlined below.

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ROME
3AW

Italian Police are investigating after private security guards surrounding Cardinal George Pell allegedly assaulted journalists this morning.

The incident happened while Cardinal Pell was arriving at the Rome in which he is due to give evidence via videolink to the Royal Commission into Child Sexual Abuse.

It’s believed a cameraman was shoved and a journalist was punched.

The Royal Commission has been notified.

Channel 10 reporter Joe Hill in Rome told Ross and John the atmosphere was “tense”, fuelled by the presence several security companies and a worldwide media contingent.

“This is a story that will be heard around the world,” he said.

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ROME
Sydney Morning Herald

February 29, 2016

Marissa Calligeros

Members of the Australian media have allegedly been shoved and punched by security guards surrounding Cardinal George Pell in Rome.

The Cardinal arrived at an elegant Rome hotel, where he will make his third appearance before the Royal Commission into Child Sexual Abuse, via a side gate three hours early on Monday.

As the Cardinal was arriving at the hotel however, his security guards allegedly took forceful action to protect him from the waiting media.

Channel Nine reporter Amelia Ballinger said cameramen were pushed and shoved, while one reporter was punched.

“Before he even got out of the car a number of big, burly security guards got out before him and they basically assaulted, I guess, for want of a better word, the [television] crew that was waiting there for him,” Ballinger said.

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ROME/AUSTRALIA
Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse

[live stream from Rome]

Case Study 28, February 2016, Ballarat

Cardinal George Pell will give evidence from 29 February 2016 by video link from Rome concerning Case Study 28: Catholic Church authorities in Ballarat and Case Study 35: Catholic Archdiocese of Melbourne. The Royal Commission will sit in Sydney and, in accordance with a request from Cardinal Pell, the hearing will commence at 08:00am AEDT.

Please be aware that the content of the public hearings can be distressing for viewers. Visit support services to find services near you, or for immediate support call the Royal Commission on 1800 099 340 or Lifeline on 13 11 14.

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ROME
Corriere Quotidiano

E’ arrivato all’Hotel quirinale di Roma il cardinale australiano George Pell, Prefetto della Segreteria per l’Economia vaticana. Il chierico è giunto, poco dopo le 19 in albergo, da dove, a partire dalle 22 e fino alle 2 di domani, farà la sua deposizione via video con la Royal Commission australiana che indaga sugli abusi del clero sui minori. Pell è chiamato a rispondere sugli abusi commessi da sacerdoti quando era responsabile delle diocesi di Sidney e Melbourne. Pell è stato fatto entrare nell’albergo da una porta secondaria protetto dalla sicurezza.

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ROME
news.com.au

FOR three months, child sex abuse survivor Paul Levey has been carrying a dog-eared envelope with him.

Addressed simply, to “Cardinal George Pell, The Vatican” the one page inside puts into words what he has not been able to say to his face — his thoughts on the abuse he suffered as a child and what needs to be done to fix it.

“It’s very to the point,” he said, standing jet-lagged outside his Rome hotel. “I want to hand him that letter…It’s about I am a survivor and I want to be heard.”

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ROME
9 News

[with video]

Bodyguards believed to be protecting George Pell appear to have manhandled an Australian news crew as the cardinal arrived at the Italian hotel where he will testify before a Royal Commission later today.

The footage, shot on the rain-slicked street outside the Hotel Quirinale in Rome, show men purported to be in the cardinal’s service apparently attempting to obstruct Australian media workers.

“Let go of me, you have no role at all,” one of the crew can be heard saying, as another man strides over and appears to grab at the camera.

“Excuse me, we have a right to be here, this is a public street,” the Aussie journalist says, telling his cohort to “go around” the street so they can keep filming.

Cardinal Pell’s appearance today, expected to be the first of three or four gruelling sessions before the Royal Commission, is hotly anticipated.

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ROME
The Australian

Cardinal George Pell has arrived at the Rome hotel where he will make his third appearance before the child sexual abuse royal commission.

A group of survivors will watch the cardinal, who was too ill to return to Australia for questioning, give his videolink testimony to the commission in Sydney from a conference room at the Hotel Quirinale from 8am Monday (Australian time).

The cardinal arrived at the hotel via a side gate three hours early.

Reporters outside the hotel say Cardinal Pell’s security team was heavy handed, pushing camera crews aside as he entered the hotel.

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EL SALVADOR
La Pagina

POR JOSÉ NAPOLEÓN MORALES

El arzobispo de San Salvador, José Luis Escobar Alas, confirmó este domingo la suspensión del sacerdote José Antonio Molina por estar implicado en dos casos de abuso sexual.

Molina Nieto estaba destacado en la iglesia Santa Cruz de Roma, del municipio de Panchimalco, en San Salvador.

Escobar Alas reveló que se trata de dos casos ocurridos hace más de 20 años y que éstos fueron denunciados en las oficinas episcopales. Asimismo informó que el acusado -quien no ha aceptado las acusaciones- se encuentra recluido en su casa al lado de su familia.

Sin entrar en mayores detalles sobre el delito cometido por el religioso, Escobar Alas afirmó que investigan al respecto y reiteró que no están dispuestos a tolerar esa situación ya que la Iglesia está de lado de las víctimas.

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EL SALVADOR
barrigaverde

[SAN SALVADOR, February 28, 2016 (PL) .- The archbishop of San Salvador, Jose Luis Escobar, revealed today the suspension of priest Jose Antonio Molina for being involved in sexual abuse. Molina served as parish priest in Santa Cruz de Rome in the town of Panchimalco.]

SAN SALVADOR, 28 febrero, 2016 (PL).- El arzobispo de San Salvador, José Luis Escobar, reveló hoy la suspensión del sacerdote José Antonio Molina por estar implicado en otro hecho de abuso sexual.

El párroco Molina se desempeñaba en Santa Cruz de Roma, de la localidad de Panchimalco, en el departamento de San Salvador, y quedó suspendido desde el pasado 15 de este mes de febrero.

Escobar, quien dijo que la Iglesia católica salvadoreña no está dispuesta a tolerar ese tipo de hechos, aseguró que el caso está en investigación.

El prelado religioso recalcó en conferencia de prensa este día, que están del lado de las víctimas.

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UNITED STATES
KCCI

By Brian Stelter

NEW YORK (CNNMoney) —The six journalists featured in “Spotlight” have spent the past three months answering questions instead of asking them. They’re ready to get back to their day jobs — but not before getting a taste of Hollywood life via the Academy Awards.

“Spotlight,” a contender for Best Picture, has already been praised as the most influential and critically acclaimed movie about journalism since “All The President’s Men” in 1976. It is a contender for the Best Picture award on Sunday night.

The movie dramatizes the 2001-2002 investigation by the Boston Globe’s Spotlight unit into sex abuse by Catholic priests. CNNMoney spoke with the journalists at the heart of the story: Marty Baron, editor: Liev Schreider Ben Bradlee Jr., projects editor: John Slattery Walter “Robby” Robinson, Spotlight team leader: Michael Keaton Sacha Pfeiffer, reporter: Rachel McAdams Mike Rezendes, reporter: Mark Ruffalo Matt Carroll, reporter: Brian d’Arcy James

Hollywood stories

What have the journalists learned from the awards season experience?

SACHA PFEIFFER: People keep asking us, ‘Is this fun?’ I say it’s more fascinating than fun.

MATT CARROLL: It’s been totally surreal. Surreal.

BEN BRADLEE JR.: It’s been heady and quite fun in all honesty.

MIKE REZENDES: We’ve been given this opportunity to spread the word. I always pivot the conversation to, A, the survivors, and B, the importance of investigative reporting.

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ROME
ABC News

By Michelle Brown

Cardinal George Pell will today give evidence to the child abuse royal commission via video link from Rome about the Catholic Church’s response to allegations of child sexual abuse.

Cardinal Pell has been called to give evidence about two case studies — number 28 about the Diocese of Ballarat and number 35 about the Archdiocese of Melbourne.

The time frame for the case studies stretches from the 1960s through to the 1990s.

Case Study 28 deals with the response of the Christian Brothers in Victoria to allegations of child sexual abuse involving six brothers — all of whom spent time working at schools in the Diocese of Ballarat.

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ROME
euronews

By Philip Pullella

ROME (Reuters) – Australian Cardinal George Pell on Sunday becomes the highest-ranking Vatican official to testify on sexual abuse of children in the Catholic Church at a hearing that victims have flown half way around the world to attend.

Pell, 74, who said he was unable to travel to his native Australia because of heart problems, will answer questions from a Rome hotel put via video link by Australia’s Royal Commission into Institutional Response to Child Sexual Abuse.

While strictly speaking an Australian affair concerning events decades ago, the hearing has taken on wider implications about accountability of Church leaders because of Pell’s high position in the Vatican, where he serves as finance minister.

After the Commission allowed Pell to testify from Rome, it bowed to demands by victims’ groups to observe. A national crowd funding campaign raised the money to fly about 15 victims and supporters so they could be in the same room with Australia’s most senior Catholic clergyman.

“This is the most Catholic city in the world, in every sense,” Andrew Collins, who was a abused by priests as a boy and is one of the victims who travelled to Rome, told the Australian newspaper The Courier.

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ROME
news.com.au

Stefanie Menezes
AAP

A Sydney man who confronted Cardinal George Pell when he first gave evidence to the child abuse royal commission two years ago says he hopes Australia’s most senior Catholic finally “tells us the truth”.

John Hennessy, 80, will join dozens of other abuse victims at a public hearing in Sydney on Monday morning to watch Cardinal Pell give evidence via video link from a hotel in Rome.

“We hope he does the right thing. We hope everything finally comes clean,” Mr Hennessy, a former deputy mayor of Campbelltown Council, told AAP.

Cardinal Pell is expected to be questioned about several different matters on Monday including claims that he knew offending priests were moved from parish to parish.

“I cannot believe he didn’t know what was going on,” Mr Hennessy said on Sunday.

“It’s up to Cardinal Pell. He must tell us what really happened,” he said.

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ROME
Herald Sun

Former police inspector Peter Fox, who alleged church and police cover-ups of pedophile priest offending in NSW’s Hunter Valley, has turned up to support abuse victims attending the testimony of Cardinal George Pell in Rome.

Mr Fox, who calls himself a “self-funded retiree”, is in Rome on holiday with his wife, Penny, but on Monday will be at the elegant Quirinale Hotel to hear Australia’s senior Catholic cleric give evidence by video link to the child abuse royal commission sitting in Sydney.

Cardinal Pell will be questioned over three to four days about what he knew of historic pedophile activity by priests when he served in Ballarat and Melbourne.

He is chief of the Vatican’s finances and has asked to give evidence by video link because of a heart condition that prevents him travelling to Australia.

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ROME
St. Louis Post-Dispatch

By NICOLE WINFIELD

ROME (AP) — A group of Australians who were raped and molested by Catholic priests when they were children are hoping to learn the truth about what a top Vatican cardinal knew about their attackers when he testifies Sunday before an investigative commission at a Rome hotel.

Thanks in part to a crowd-funding campaign, about two dozen Australian sex abuse survivors and their companions travelled across the planet to be on hand when Cardinal George Pell testifies via video link before Australia’s Royal Commission. It’s the third time that Pell, Pope Francis’ top financial adviser, has testified about the sex abuse scandal, but the current round has generated intense international attention because it is taking place a short walk from the Vatican.

The commission, which is half-way through a 435 million Australian dollar ($300 million) government-authorized probe into how all Australian institutions dealt with abuse, agreed to let Pell testify from Rome because he was too ill to travel home. Two weeks ago, it also agreed to let victims be on hand to re-create the type of public hearing that Pell would be subject to in Australia.

David Ridsdale, who was abused for four years by his uncle, the notorious pedophile Gerald Ridsdale, said he had done 17 press interviews before Pell’s testimony even began — and was grateful that the horror of what transpired in Ballarat was finally getting known outside of Australia.

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AUSTRALIA
BBC News

Vatican treasurer Cardinal George Pell is to testify from Rome via video link to an Australian inquiry into child sex abuse.

Cardinal Pell, Australia’s most senior Catholic, will be asked whether he knew if paedophiles were active in churches under his watch.

Abuse survivors have flown to Rome to face the cardinal, who was excused from returning to Sydney due to ill health.

The hearing is expected to run at least three days.

The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sex Abuse is holding its second round of inquiries into child sex abuse that occurred in the city of Ballarat in Victoria state.

Cardinal Pell was a priest in Ballarat and lived in a seminary with a notorious paedophile priest, Gerald Ridsdale, in the early 1970s.

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UNITED STATES
The New York Review of Books

Garry Wills

Investigative reporting got a boost in 1976, after the movie All the President’s Men showed what a small team (two men) could do if an editor and owner like Ben Bradlee and Kay Graham at The Washington Post let them keep digging for a long time. Another such coup was brought off by The Boston Globe in 2002, when its own investigative team of four people, called “Spotlight,” broke the story of Cardinal Law’s protection of priests who sexually preyed on children. In this case, Spotlight, which normally chose its own subjects, had not followed up on leads fed to the paper. It took an outsider, Martin Baron (played by Liev Schreiber), who had become editor of the paper in 2001, to jog the team into action. Baron was sent by the Globe’s new owner, The New York Times, to trim costs, yet he spent heavily on the priestly abuses scandal. An instinctive deference to the Church had inhibited the press in this Roman Catholic city from recognizing a scandal in its own backyard. Baron was not subject to that thrall. He was initially thought of as outside the Boston culture—an unmarried man, a Jew, not interested in the sacred Boston Red Sox.

In Tom McCarthy’s Spotlight—which has received six Oscar nominations, including for Best Film and Best Director—The Boston Globe story has been given a movie treatment like that of The Washington Post story. Both films retain some of the clichés of such tales—the resistance of society to what the enterprising reporters are trying to do, the difficulty of prying evidence from fearful witnesses, the final victory of the good guys over powerful resistance. But there are many differences. Woodward and Bernstein were outside the normal political reporting of Washington. The “Spotlight Four,” though not churchgoers, were all Catholic-raised or influenced. The crimes being investigated were more personal and religious, combining sexual and theological inhibitions.

As the team begins, lethargically, to go into the one case that had been superficially handled in the Globe, the serial abuses and regular moves of Father John J. Geoghan, they saw that other priests had been treated the same way—four, they turned up; then eleven. In diocesan records they began tracing the patterns of such frequent shiftings-about for priests. They were stunned as they found that large numbers of priests fit the pattern. They called on Richard Sipe, a former Benedictine monk and psychotherapist who has studied priestly sexual activity for decades. (He is a respected scholar whom I have consulted for my writing and speaking on priests.) He tells the Spotlight team over the phone (his voice supplied by the actor Richard Jenkins) that he had found a high quotient of predatory priests in America, almost uniformly protected by bishops, and by that quotient the number of offending priests in Cardinal Law’s domain would be ninety—which was eerily close to the number they had turned up in diocesan records—seventy-six.

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CALIFORNIA
Los Angeles Times

Steven Zeitchik and Mark Olsen

“Spotlight” was the big winner at the Film Independent Spirit Awards on Saturday, as Hollywood’s debate over diversity also took center stage.

Tom McCarthy’sa tale of the Catholic Church sex-abuse scandal and the newspaper investigation that uncovered it scored best feature, director, screenplay and editing ‎prizes at the annual indie-movie ceremony in Santa Monica, as well as the previously announced ensemble-oriented Robert Altman Award‎.

“It is very rare to make a film that has impacted the world as significantly as this one has,” said “Spotlight” producer Michael Sugar upon accepting the feature prize. “By honoring it,” he added, “more lives can be spared from abuse‎.”

Co-screenwriter Josh Singer, accepting the writing prize with McCarthy, paid tribute to abuse survivor Phil Saviano, who was given a huge standing ovation. Many of the real-life‎ Boston Globe journalists portrayed in the film also were at the show and took the stage for the final prize.

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