ABUSE TRACKER

MEXICO
Sin Embargo

[SLP: Outrage at the impunity of pedophile priests.]

Sometidos en su infancia por el padre Eduardo Córdova y otros religiosos potosinos, aún siguen sufriendo un gran daño emocional; para la iglesia, el de su ex apoderado jurídico es ya un asunto juzgado.

Por Leonardo Vázquez

San Luis Potosí, 9 de febrero (SinEmbargo/ Pulso).– Eran niños y fueron abusados sexualmente por sacerdotes, al día de hoy, siendo adultos hay quienes continúan bajo la amenaza de sus agresores, sin lograr superar el daño emocional que sufrieron, de los responsables ninguno ha sido sentenciado, todos están libres, unos absueltos, otros prófugos.

En abril de 2014 se hizo público el primero de los casos, el que implica a Eduardo Córdova Bautista, expulsado del ministerio católico al mes siguiente por decisión del Vaticano, a lo largo de ese año surgió una serie de casos de pederastia y abuso sexual que en total implicó a seis sacerdotes, todos sin castigo hasta el día de hoy.

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MEXICO
Sin Embargo

[Mexico City, February 19 – Priego Juan Jesus Rivera, spokesman for the Archdiocese of San Luis Potosi, said that the institution has no guilt that priests accused of abusing minors are fugitives from justice as in the case of Eduardo Cordova and Noé Bautista Trujillo.]

El vocero de la Arquidiócesis de San Luis Potosí dijo que la Procuraduría General de Justicia del Estado (PGJE) es “testigo” de la cooperación de la Arquidiócesis potosina, encabezada por Jesús Carlos Cabrero Romero, porque, aseguró, han brindado las informaciones pertinentes.

Por Ruben Pacheco

Ciudad de México, 19 de febrero (SinEmbargo/Pulso).– Juan Jesús Priego Rivera, vocero de la Arquidiócesis de San Luis Potosí, dijo que esa institución no es culpable de que curas acusados de abusar de menores sean prófugos de la justicia potosina, como es el caso de Eduardo Córdova Bautista y Noé Trujillo.

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MEXICO
Busca Noticias

En el caso del religioso Eduardo Córdova, implicado en al menos 100 casos de abuso sexual en San Luis Potosí en 2014, no hay avances, hay trabas por parte de la Iglesia católica, a la que las víctimas acusan de encubrimiento, y de la PGJE por no integrar las averiguaciones.

Por Oliver Guevara

Ciudad de México, 14 de febrero (SinEmbargo/Pulso).- Martín Faz Mora, activista y asesor legal de víctimas de abuso sexual cometido por el religioso católico Eduardo Córdova Bautista, dijo que la Procuraduría General de Justicia de San Luis Potosí (PGJE) no da el debido seguimiento a las denuncias aunque estén ”súper ratificadas” y que incluso “encontramos trabas”.

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FRANCE
BFM TV

[In late January, Father Bernard Peyrat was indicted because he is suspected of at least four sexual assaults on minors but the father of an alleged victims, his daughter, said the church knew about the alleged misconduct for years.]

18/02/2016

TEMOIGNAGES RMC – Fin janvier, le père Bernard Peyrat a été mis en examen car il est soupçonné d’au moins quatre agressions sexuelles perpétrées sur des scouts mineurs au milieu des années 80. Mais depuis le début des années 90 et jusqu’à l’été 2015, il aurait continué à agir selon le témoignage de ce père de famille qui fait part des gestes déplacés qu’a eu le prêtre, en 2003, sur sa fille.

Des années 1970 au début des années 1990, le père Bernard Preynat, septuagénaire originaire de la Loire, a dirigé le groupe de scouts Saint-Luc, à Sainte-Foy-lès-Lyon, dans la banlieue ouest de Lyon. Depuis la fin janvier, ce prêtre est mis en examen pour quatre agressions sexuelles perpétrées sur des ex-membres de ce groupe indépendant à l’époque et affilié depuis aux scouts d’Europe. Il a également été placé sous le statut de témoin assisté pour trois autres agressions qu’il a reconnu pendant sa garde à vue. Mais depuis le début des années 90 et jusqu’à l’été 2015, le père Preynat a continué d’exercer, près de Roanne dans la Loire, au contact d’enfants.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Erzbistum Berlin

[Until December 31, 2015 the Berlin archdiocese reported 49 allegations of sexual abuse or sexual assault on minors and adults by clerics. Eight new allegations were made in 2015. The allegations date back to 1947.]

18. Februar 2016 Stefan Förner Pressesprecher

Meldungen über Vorwürfe sexuellen Missbrauchs und sexueller Übergriffe an Minderjährigen und erwachsenen Schutzbefohlenen durch Kleriker, Ordensangehörige oder andere Mitarbeiterinnen und Mitarbeiter im kirchlichen Dienst

Bis zum 31. Dezember 2015 gab es im Erzbistum Berlin 49 Meldungen über Vorwürfe sexuellen Missbrauchs oder sexueller Übergriffe an Minderjährigen und erwachsenen Schutzbefohlenen durch Kleriker, vom Erzbischof beauftragte Ordensangehörige und andere Mitarbeiterinnen und Mitarbeiter im kirchlichen Dienst. Im Jahr 2015 wurden acht neue Vorwürfe erhoben. Insgesamt gehen die Vorwürfe bis auf das Jahr 1947 zurück, die Beschuldigten sind zum Teil verstorben. Seit dem Jahr 2002 werden Verdachtsfälle sexuellen Missbrauchs systematisch erfasst. In diesem Zwischenbericht werden erstmals auch die Vorwürfe sexueller Übergriffe mit gezählt.

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PENNSYLVANIA
Big Trial

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 17, 2016

By Ralph Cipriano
for BigTrial.net

He was a Catholic priest with a secret life, posing on the Internet as “Katie Caponetti,” a teenage girl.

The priest would email a photo of a girl’s naked torso, or a video of a naked girl masturbating, and claim it was “Katie.” Then he would ask the girls he met online to send back naked photos and videos of themselves.

“A predator” who sexually exploited both teenage girls and boys was how Assistant U.S. Attorney Michelle Rotella described Father Mark Haynes in federal court today. “He surrounded himself with children,” the prosecutor said. Throughout his 30-year career as a priest, he used his position to “sexually exploit and sexually abuse children.”

Defense Attorney Alan J. Tauber had a more entertaining explanation. He described the 56-year-old priest as a “woman occupying a man’s body.” According to Tauber, Father Haynes was a troubled soul who, while demonstrating an “extraordinary record of community service” as a priest at eight different parishes in the Archdiocese of Philadelphia, never came to terms with his own “gender identity issues.”

In the end, U.S. District Court Judge R. Barclay Surrick decided that although there was “no question he did a number of good things” as a priest, Father Haynes’s crimes against children were so “outrageous” that his victims would spend “the rest of their lives” trying to recover. So the judge gave the priest a 20 year sentence, a $15,000 fine, and, upon his release, 10 years of supervised probation.

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SCOTLAND
STV

A former priest has been reported to prosecutors over historic child sex abuse allegations.

Father Paul Moore, 80, from Kilmarnock was arrested in December and has now been reported for the procurator fiscal over the claims.

Police are investigating the allegations and prosecutors say they are considering the case. The incidents are alleged to have occurred over more than 20 years from 1975 to 1996

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SCOTLAND
Herald Scotland

Victoria Weldon, Reporter

A retired catholic priest has been arrested in connection with a string of historic child sex abuse allegations.

Father Paul Moore, a former parish priest in Ayrshire, is now facing possible charges of “lewd and libidinous behaviour” towards children, according to police.

The 80-year-old was the priest at the centre of allegations involving children made by a fellow Ayrshire clergyman Patrick Lawson, who was forcibly removed from his post by the church in 2013.

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AUSTRALIA
9 News

AAP

Attorney-General George Brandis says people should respect a decision by the child abuse royal commission to allow Cardinal George Pell to give evidence by videolink.

Speaking in Washington DC where he is attending the Five Country Ministerial meeting, Senator Brandis said it is not unusual to give evidence by video conference.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

Cardinal George Pell has hit back at criticism of his inability to return to Australia to appear in person before the child sex abuse royal commission, following a controversial song by comedian Tim Minchin.

Australia’s most high-profile Catholic is prepared to “meet with and listen to victims and express his ongoing support” after his testimony in Rome, a statement from his office said, adding that the past few days had seen a lot of “incorrect information” surface.

“Cardinal Pell has always helped victims, listened to them and considered himself their ally,” the statement said.

“As an archbishop for almost 20 years he has led from the front to put an end to cover-ups, to protect vulnerable people and to try to bring justice to victims.”

Anthony Foster, whose two daughters, Emma and Kate, were raped by their parish priest in suburban Melbourne, said he did speak to Cardinal Pell briefly after his testimony in New South Wales.

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AUSTRALIA
Sky News

[with video]

Ballarat clergy abuse victims say they know of no survivors who have come out better from a meeting with Cardinal George Pell.

Cardinal Pell has offered to “meet with and listen to victims and express his ongoing support” after giving evidence at the child abuse royal commission via videolink in Rome.

The statement from the cardinal’s office on Thursday says he has always helped victims, listened to them and considered himself their ally.

David Ridsdale, a member of the Ballarat Child Abuse Survivors group that wants to go to Rome to hear the evidence, says a meeting with the cardinal would be pleasant.

But he said he knew no survivor who had labelled any dealing with Cardinal Pell or the Church-instigated Melbourne Response “a positive experience”.

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AUSTRALIA
New York Times

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESSFEB. 17, 2016

CANBERRA, Australia — Pope Francis’ finance minister said Thursday that he is prepared to meet in Rome with Australian victims of clergy sex abuse who are angry the cardinal won’t travel to Australia to testify at a government inquiry.

Cardinal George Pell, whom the pope placed in charge of the Vatican’s finances in 2014, is to testify for a third time at Australia’s Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.

But the inquiry ruled two weeks ago that the 74-year-old cleric could give evidence by video from Rome on Feb. 29 because he was too ill to fly to Australia.

Many victims of sex abuse are angry that Australia’s highest-ranking Roman Catholic will not give evidence in person. Australian musician and comedian Tim Minchin has recorded a hit song in which he insults Pell and urges him to return to Australia.

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AUSTRALIA
Independent Australia

Tess Lawrence 18 February 2016,

Lawyers for Catholic Church sex abuse victims are applying to the Royal Commission for leave for their clients to appear with Cardinal Pell in Rome. Contributing editor-at-large Tess Lawrence reports.

NEWS FLASH!

IN A SENSATIONAL DEVELOPMENT, lawyers representing Catholic Church sex abuse victims are applying to the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, seeking leave to appear with Cardinal Pell in Rome.

Independent Australia has learned that Ballarat based Ingrid Irwin, of Irwin & Irwin Law, instructing solicitor for victims Andrew Collins and Stephen Woods and barrister Jim Shaw, of Gordon & Jackson, William Crocket Chambers are two lawyers seeking leave to appear.

Others lawyers are also expected to seek leave.

If leave is granted, it would go some way to mitigate what is publicly perceived to be a judicial and psychological imbalance of power, and unfair concession granted to the domineering Cardinal Pell.

On ill-health grounds Pell controversially sought and was granted the right to give testimony from Rome by video link, and thus has avoided returning to Australia and confronting victims in person in the Royal Commission’s Ballarat sittings.

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CALIFORNIA
Thousand Oaks Acorn

Directive from French monsignor deemed ‘opinion’

By Stephanie Bertholdo
sbertholdo@theacorn.com

News reports claiming that new Vatican guidelines excluding bishops from being liable for reporting clerical child abuse cases to the police are being refuted by the Archdiocese of Los Angeles and by some local churches.

According to recent media reports French monsignor Tony Anatrella told newly appointed bishops that they are not required to report abuse to law officials.

The duty, he said, is the responsibility of the victims and their families. Anatrella’s comments were reported in Catholic news sites and magazines, including Newsweek.

However, not every Catholic district agrees.

Adrian Marquez Alarcon, director of media relations for the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, said the Archdiocese “has a zero tolerance policy and reports incidents of abuse, whether by clergy, staff, volunteers or others to law enforcement and collaborates actively with law enforcement agencies to investigate and prosecute abuse.”

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AUSTRALIA
The New Daily

Feb 18, 2016

ANTHONY COLANGELO Reporter

Controversial Vatican finance chief Cardinal George Pell has responded to criticism of his refusal to face a child abuse royal commission in person.

The commission recently granted Cardinal Pell’s request, via his lawyers, to give evidence from Rome by video link on health grounds, dismaying victim advocates.

“It is ultimately a matter for the Royal Commission to determine the precise arrangements for the provision of evidence by the Cardinal in Rome,” Cardinal Pell’s office said in a statement on Thursday.

Cardinal Pell also indicated he would be prepared to “meet with and listen to victims and express his ongoing support” after giving testimony in Rome.

The statement explained he had appeared twice before the royal commission and once before a Victorian Parliamentary Enquiry previously.

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AUSTRALIA
The Morning Bulletin

Sherele Moody | 18th Feb 2016

CLERGY sex abuse victims have responded to Cardinal George Pell’s decision to “meet with and listen to” them.

The controversial Australian Catholic leader’s office released a statement early on Thursday following wide-spread anger over his refusal to return home to face victims of paedophile priests like the notorious Gerald Francis Ridsdale.

The statement also follows the release on Tuesday of comedian Tim Minchen’s parody song urging Cardinal Pell to appear in person at the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse later this month.

The song, Come Home (Cardinal Pell), is sitting at number one on the iTunes music chart.

“The past few days has seen a great deal of incorrect information relating to Cardinal George Pell and his upcoming royal commission appearance,” the statement from the cardinal’s office reads.

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AUSTRALIA
The Guardian

Melissa Davey
@MelissaLDavey
Wednesday 17 February 2016

Survivors of child sexual abuse have welcomed news that Australia’s most senior Catholic, Cardinal George Pell, will meet them in Rome, but say their priority is still seeing him give evidence before a royal commission.

David Ridsdale, who is the nephew and victim of notorious paedophile priest Gerald Francis Ridsdale, is one of those co-ordinating a group of child sex abuse survivors and their supporters to fly to Rome following the success of a fundraising campaign which has raised more than $170,000.

But Ridsdale said the purpose of flying there was to watch Pell give evidence before Australia’s royal commission into institutional responses into child sexual abuse, not to have a separate, private meeting with him.

“We will happily meet with him,” Ridsdale said.

“But this will be a very gruelling, triggering trip for everyone. We are putting ourselves through that to be in the same room as him and to see him be part of the royal commission’s process, which we have all been involved with. We can always meet him at a later date, but for me, there is little point going to Rome if we can’t see him give evidence, and that’s our priority.”

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AUSTRALIA
The Courier

By Melissa Cunningham
Feb. 18, 2016

St Patrick’s College principal John Crowley has shed many silent tears for past students at previous Royal Commission hearings into child sexual abuse.

They were tears for boys who were let down by a systematic failure of children in Ballarat which spanned decades.

Mr Crowley is bracing for another difficult week with the distressing history of the school set to be put under the spotlight again. A hearing into allegations of sexual abuse concerning the Christian Brothers begins at the Ballarat Magistrates Court on Monday.

Mr Crowley said for many survivors of sexual abuse, the Royal Commission hearings were an extremely difficult time. He said the school’s number one priority was to support and listen to victims.

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PENNSYLVANIA
The Intelligencer

By Christian Menno, staff writer

A former priest with ties to Bucks and Montgomery counties was sentenced in federal court Wednesday to 20 years in prison for child sexual abuse and exploitation.

Mark Haynes, 56, of West Chester, pleaded guilty June 8 to a variety of charges including using the internet to entice a minor to engage in sexual conduct, transferring of obscene material to a minor and distribution and possession of child pornography.

Haynes was ordained in 1985 and served in a number of area pastoral assignments including Our Lady of Mount Carmel in Doylestown (1989-1991), Archbishop Wood High School in Warminster (1990-1991), Saint John of the Cross in Roslyn (1991-1994) and Our Lady of Good Counsel in Upper Southampton (1994-2000), according to the Archdiocese of Philadelphia.

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RHODE ISLAND/WEST VIRGINIA
Providence Journal

By Karen Lee Ziner
Journal Staff Writer Posted Feb. 17, 2016

An Episcopal priest embroiled in a sex-abuse scandal at the elite St. George’s School in Middletown was sued 20 years ago by a West Virginia man who said the Rev. Howard W. White Jr. sexually molested him when he was approximately 11 years old.

The suit also asserts that The Protestant Episcopal Church in the Diocese of West Virginia (“the Diocese”) “conspired” to cover up White’s alleged misconduct to avoid “public knowledge, criminal prosecution, disgrace and scandal.”

In his 1996 complaint, Richard Albright stated that the Diocese “knew, or should have known” of White’s “alleged proclivity for deviant sexual behavior, but failed to alert its parishioners of the potential danger to their children,” and was vicariously liable for White’s actions.

Instead, the Diocese kept appointing White to various assignments “within the Diocese of West Virginia and elsewhere, without reporting the criminal sexual misconduct to law enforcement authorities.” White, the suit alleged, “is and was unfit” to be a priest, and “is and was a severe danger to persons who were his potential prey.”
The Journal located the documents this week.

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UNITED STATES
Boston Globe

By Peter Keough GLOBE CORRESPONDENT FEBRUARY 18, 2016

“The Club,” Chilean director Pablo Larraín’s oblique allegory about clerical criminality in the Roman Catholic Church, begins with a familiar quote from Genesis 1:4: “God saw that the light was good and he separated the light from the darkness.” Enigmatic, atmospheric, and seductive, the film unfortunately sheds little light on subjects that have too long been hidden in the dark.

The title refers to a group of four priests in a house overlooking the ocean in a Chilean village. At certain angles, the house looks like it belongs on a horror movie poster. Adding to the unwholesome atmosphere, each priest has the disreputable look of a bishop in Luis Buñuel films. As it turns out, each represents a different vice, of which the sexual abuse of minors is only the most obvious. And then there’s Sister Mónica (Antonia Zegers), the creepiest nun on screen since Vanessa Redgrave in “The Devils” (1971), who oversees the inmates and does housework.

Accustomed to isolation, the seedy group unexpectedly receives three visitors in as many days. The first, a new resident, doesn’t hang around very long. The second is a bearded young tramp who calls himself Sandokan (Roberto Farías); he stands outside their door and shouts obscene and terrible accusations. And the third, Father Garcia (Marcelo Alonso), comes from the Church hierarchy with an assignment to investigate the retreat and the clerics who live there.

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AUSTRALIA
BBC News

A provocative song and a public drive to raise funds to send child sex abuse victims to the Vatican have sparked fresh controversy around Australia’s most senior Catholic, writes Trevor Marshallsea.

In 2014, Cardinal George Pell, the Archbishop of Sydney, was summoned to Rome to become chief of the Vatican’s finances, a new position created by Pope Francis in the wake of scandals at the Vatican Bank.

But Cardinal Pell left another scandal behind him, and the anger over widespread sexual abuse of children by members of the Catholic clergy continues to rage in Australia.

The cardinal was once again under fire this week over his refusal, on medical grounds, to return home to front the Royal Commission which is investigating how various institutions responded to the child abuse allegations.

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CHICAGO (IL)
CBS Chicago

[with video]

By Dana Kozlov

(CBS) — Confusion, anger and depression. One Chicago man battled all of these emotions for more than ten years before he finally told someone he had been molested by former Catholic priest, Daniel McCormack.

The man, who we are not identifying, speaks out for the first time about the abuse and his lawsuit against McCormack and the Archdiocese of Chicago

“I figured it was time to get some help to tell my dark secret,” he said.

The young man, who we’ll call John Doe, isn’t ready to reveal his identity. He still struggles to talk about what happened inside Saint Agatha’s School on Chicago’s West Side, when he was alone with former priest, Daniel McCormack.

“Hey, I thought this guy, he was okay, so I kind of stuck to him like glue,” he said.

John says he trusted McCormack, and “It ended up turning into sexual abuse.”

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INDIA
Live Mint

Uday Bhatia

There are many great films about journalists, but only a few excellent ones about journalism. It’s easy to see why: journalists, those deadline-battling, chain-smoking mythical beings, make for naturally exciting cinema. But the actual stuff of journalism —the late nights and false starts, the endless cups of coffee, the decidedly unglamorous pursuit of a source for a quote—is tougher to weld into movie magic.

Tom McCarthy’s Spotlight is that rare film that is first and foremost about journalism.

Methodically but stirringly, it tells us of the time in 2001 when the Boston Globe —more precisely, the investigative “Spotlight” team of Michael Rezendes (Mark Ruffalo), Walter Robinson (Michael Keaton), Sacha Pfeiffer (Rachel McAdams) and Matt Carroll (Brian d’Arcy James)—stumbled upon, investigated and reported a story on the Boston Catholic Church shielding priests guilty of sexual abuse. It’s a film about the many things, big and small, mundane and pivotal, that go into reporting something of this magnitude. (Note that McCarthy played a journalist in the last season of The Wire, another forensic look at a newspaper office.)

We see the story’s genesis in a staff meeting, with the paper’s newly appointed editor, Marty Baron (Liev Schreiber), bringing up a column about a lawyer named Mitchell Garabedian (Stanley Tucci) who claims to have proof that the Archbishop of Boston knew of a particular priest who’d molested children but had done nothing about it. Baron asks Robinson, head of Spotlight, to follow up. The team speaks to Garabedian, then to some of the victims and church officials. As they continue to dig, they realize the cover-up is on a much larger scale than they or anyone else had imagined.

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UNITED STATES
PopZette

by Lawrence Meyers

A man exits prison, and his first stop is the apartment of a priest, whom he shoots in the head, splattering blood everywhere. Across the country, the man’s eldest son works as a “fixer,” operating beyond the boundaries of the law, beating stalkers with a baseball bat and cheating on his wife with a girl half his age. One of his brothers is an alcoholic and sexual anorexic, with the mind of a 12-year-old.

Welcome to the family of “Ray Donovan,” Showtime’s series about a Hollywood “fixer,” but whose subtext is about the long-ranging and devastating effects of sexual abuse at the hands of a priest. Every storyline is informed by the Donovan family’s grim past and, as such, elevates the drama and the societal issue far above the superficial treatment the same issue receives in the Oscar-nominated “Spotlight.”

“Spotlight” is a good film, with a solid script, and workmanlike performances from all involved. Yet it lacks any real exploration of the psychological and physical damage suffered by those who endured the abuse. The audience is provided a few scenes with victims, yet they are little more than generic stand-ins that exist more to push the plot forward than to provide any context or detail about life after abuse.

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INDIA
New Kerala

Film: “Spotlight”; Director: Tom McCarthy; Cast: Mark Ruffalo, Michael Keaton, Rachel McAdams, Live Schreiber, John Slattery, Brian d’Arcy James, Stanley Tucci, Billy Crudup, Paul Guilfoyle, James Sheridan and Len Cariou; Rating: ****

Based on actual events that occurred in Boston, USA, “Spotlight” is an intense film that deals with investigative journalism. It is the 2003 Pulitzer Prize winning team’s fight against the system that stirred a hornet’s nest in the locality and the Roman Catholic Church.

The film gets its name from the section of The Boston Globe which specifically deals with exploratory stories. This section is handled by a four-member team headed by editor Walter Robinson, also known as Robby, reporters Michael Rezendes, Matt Carroll and Sacha Pfeiffer.

With the appointment of the new editor Marty Baron in July 2001, the Spotlight team is assigned to investigate allegations against a defrocked priest John Geoghan, who was accused of sexually abusing children in his parish in 1976.

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ROME/AUSTRALIA
Global Post

Agence France-Presse
Feb 17, 2016

Vatican finance chief George Pell Thursday said he was ready to meet with child sex abuse victims after an outcry over his decision not to appear in person at an Australian inquiry.

Pell, an Australian, was due at the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse in the town of Ballarat, northwest of Melbourne, later this month but will give evidence via video-link from Rome instead, citing illness.

He has always denied knowing of any child abuse occurring in Ballarat, where he was once based, including by paedophile priest Gerald Ridsdale, who abused dozens of children over two decades.
The former Archbishop of Sydney’s decision to testify remotely sparked a crowdfunding campaign this week to send 15 victims to Rome to witness him giving evidence.

It has so far raised more than Aus$176,000 (US$126,000), easily surpassing the original Aus$55,000 target.

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AUSTRALIA
Sydney Morning Herald

February 18, 2016

Marissa Calligeros
Online reporter

Cardinal George Pell has responded to attacks on his refusal to travel to Australia to face the child abuse royal commission in person, including a provocative song penned by comedian Tim Minchin.

In a strongly-worded statement, Cardinal Pell said he considered himself an ally of abuse victims and was willing to meet with them, listen to them, and express his ongoing support.

“The past few days has seen a great deal of incorrect information relating to Cardinal George Pell and his upcoming royal commission appearance,” Cardinal Pell’s office said in a statement on Thursday.

“The Cardinal is anxious to present the facts without further delays.

“Cardinal Pell has always helped victims, listened to them and considered himself their ally. As an archbishop for almost 20 years, he has led from the front to put an end to cover ups, to protect vulnerable people and to try to bring justice to victims.”

The Cardinal has claimed he is too ill to travel to Australia to give evidence to the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.

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AUSTRALIA/ROME
Huffington Post

By Eoin Blackwell

Cardinal George Pell is willing to meet with abuse survivors in Rome, following a crowdfunding campaign to send representatives to hear his testimony before the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.

Survivors of abuse at Catholic institutions in Ballarat are hoping to attend the hearings in person, following a crowd funding campaign that raised more than $170,000 in three days, surpassing its aim of $55,000 on its first day.

Pell is expected to give evidence as part of the Commission’s inquires into how the Catholic Archdiocese of Melbourne and Catholic Church authorities in Ballarat responded to wide-spread abuse, and in early February it accepted medical evidence a long-haul flight posed risks to the Cardinal’s health.

“Cardinal Pell has always helped victims, listened to them and considered himself their ally,” Pell’s statement said.

“As an archbishop for almost 20 years he has led from the front to put an end to coverups, top protect vulnerable people and to try and bring justice to victims.

“As Cardinal Pell has done after earlier hearings, he is prepared to meet with and listen to victims and express his ongoing support.”

He said he was anxious to present all the facts without delay, and will cooperate with “whatever arrangements the Royal Commission determines”.

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AUSTRALIA
The Guardian

Comedian and singer-songwriter Tim Minchin has released a single, Come Home (Cardinal Pell), calling on George Pell to return to Australia to give evidence to the royal commission into institutional responses to child sexual abuse. In the song, which has been viewed hundreds of thousand of times, Minchin labels Australia’s most senior Catholic a ‘coward’ and a ‘pompous buffoon’. All proceeds from the song will go towards a campaign raising money to send child sexual abuse survivors and their supporters to Rome to see Pell give evidence via videolink on 29 February

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PENNSYLVANIA
Philly.com

by Jeremy Roebuck, STAFF WRITER.

By the time he was in high school, Mark Haynes felt called to devote his life to the Catholic priesthood.

But from a much earlier age, his lawyer said Wednesday, Haynes realized something else that set him apart – an unshakable feeling that by some accident of genetics he had been born a woman stuck in the body of a man.

Haynes’ therapist would later conclude the dissonance between his vocation and the condition he came to view as an affliction led him to an addiction to child pornography and a series of predatory sexual encounters with children that have now landed 56-year-old suspended prelate in prison.

But federal prosecutors balked at that explanation Wednesday as Haynes, most recently of SS. Simon and Jude Parish in Westtown, was sentenced to 20 years incarceration in a case as notable for the charges he will never face as those to which he pleaded guilty last year.

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AUSTRALIA
9 News

By Tyron Butson

Australian Cardinal George Pell has hit back at his detractors, saying there has been a “great deal of incorrect information” peddled following his successful bid to remain in Rome during a royal commission in to child abuse.

The 74-year-old clergyman will appear via a video link from Rome after the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse accepted a doctor’s report stating he would risk serious heart complications if he flew to Australia to testify in person.

The commission will question Cardinal Pell over his knowledge of sexual abuse by priests in the Victorian Catholic diocese of Ballarat. He served as a priest in the diocese before becoming a Bishop in Melbourne.

But the Cardinal’s decision not to return to Australia has triggered the ire of abuse victims and the public.

Performer Tim Minchin even penned a scathing song, labelling the clergyman a “coward” and “scum” for not facing victims face to face. …

But Cardinal Pell’s office today released a statement saying he had “always helped victims, listened to them and considered himself their ally”.

“The past few days has seen a great deal of incorrect information relating to Cardinal George Pell and his upcoming Royal Commission appearance,” the statement read.

“As an archbishop for almost twenty years he has led from the front to put an end to cover ups, to protect vulnerable people and to try to bring justice to victims.”

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PENNSYLVANIA
Fox 29

PHILADELPHIA (WTXF) Authorities announced on Wednesday a former priest was sentenced for child sexual abuse and exploitation.

Mark Haynes, 56, of West Chester, Pa., was sentenced to 20 years in prison.

Authorities say Haynes, a former parochial Vicar at Saint Simon and Jude’s Church in West Chester, pleaded guilty on June 8, 2015 to using the Internet to entice a minor to engage in sexual conduct, transfer of obscene material to a minor, distribution of child pornography, possession of child pornography, and destruction or concealment of evidence. In addition to the prison term, U.S. District Court Judge R. Barclay Surrick ordered 10 years of supervised release, a fine of $15,000, and a $700 special assessment

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PENNSYLVANIA
The Mercury

By Lucas Rodgers, lrodgers@21st-centurymedia.com, @LucasMRodgers on Twitter
POSTED: 02/17/16

PHILADELPHIA >> A former priest with ties to Montgomery and Chester counties was sentenced Wednesday to 20 years in federal prison for child sexual abuse and exploitation.

Mark Haynes, 56, of West Chester ,was a parochial vicar at Sts. Simon and Jude Parish in Westtown for about a year, until the time of his arrest, in February 2015.

Haynes pleaded guilty on June 8, 2015 to using the Internet to entice a minor to engage in sexual conduct, transfer of obscene material to a minor, distribution of child pornography, possession of child pornography, and destruction or concealment of evidence.

In addition to the prison term, U.S. District Court Judge R. Barclay Surrick ordered 10 years of supervised release, a fine of $15,000, and a $700 special assessment.

Around 2010, Haynes posed as a 15-year old girl named “Katie” on a teen pen pal site on Instagram. As “Katie,” Haynes would meet young teenage girls online, engage in sexual chats, and send them child pornography photos and videos in an attempt to entice them to take and send sexually explicit pictures of themselves. Haynes is also charged with distributing other images and videos of children being sexually assaulted over the Internet in 2014.

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PENNSYLVANIA
Houston Chronicle

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — A suspended suburban Philadelphia priest has been sentenced to 20 years in prison on a child pornography conviction.

Fifty-six-year-old Mark Haynes of West Chester pleaded guilty in June to using the Internet to entice a minor to engage in sexual contact as well as to possession and distribution of child pornography and destroying or concealing evidence.

Prosecutors said that around 2010 Haynes posed as a 16-year-old girl named “Katie” on a teenage dating website, met minor girls online and requested that they take and send sexually explicit pictures.

Officials said he was vicar of Saints Simon & Jude parish in Westtown Township since September 2013 and served in seven other suburban Philadelphia parishes.

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MASSACHUSETTS
MassLive

By Lindsay Corcoran | lindsay.corcoran@masslive.com
on February 17, 2016

WORCESTER – A Santeria priest has been indicted on nine charges of disinterment of a body in the theft of skeletons from Worcester’s Hope Cemetery last year.

Amador Medina, 32, of 245 Preston St., Apt. 2, Hartford, was indicted by a Worcester County grand jury on Wednesday in thefts from two mausoleum’s last year.

Medina had been arrested and charged in district court last December in connection with the theft of five skeletons from the Houghton-family mausoleum. He was held on $100,000 bail.

Police later discovered an additional three skeletons missing from another mausoleum in the cemetery. The ninth disinterment charge comes from a sixth casket opened in the Houghton-family mausoleum.

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PENNSYLVANIA
Metro

A Catholic priest from the Philadelphia area who pleaded guilty to child porn charges last year was sentenced to 20 years in prison on Wednesday.

Mark John Haynes, 56, a former priest at Saint Simon and Jude Church in West Chester, Pennsylvania, was arrested after federal investigators tracked child porn to a church computer — which he later destroyed in an attempt to conceal evidence.

He got two decades in prison after pleading guilty to child porn, destruction of evidence, and using the internet to entice a minor to engage in sexual conduct.

In 2010, Haynes created accounts for an imaginary 15 year-old-girl named Katie on social media websites including Facebook, Instagram, and dating sites.

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MICHIGAN
The Morning Sun

By Susan Field, sfield@michigannewspapers.com, @sfield_msun on Twitter

Negligent supervision and defamation, including being labeled a “Jezebel” by an employee of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Saginaw are among the claims a former Central Michigan University student is alleging in a civil suit in Isabella County.

Megan Winans, who is suing former St. Mary’s University Parish priest Denis Heames, the Saginaw diocese and one of its employees, Trudy McCaffery, said in the suit that Heames coerced her into having a sexual relationship with him, then revoked an internship when the relationship ended.

Filed in Isabella County Trial Court, the suit is not set for any court dates but indicates a jury trial in Chief Judge Paul Chamberlain’s courtroom is requested.

Winans is also asking for in excess of $25,000, attorney fees and costs in the 10-count suit, that accuses Heames, the diocese, St. Mary’s and McCaffery of battery, defamation, breach of fiduciary duty, fraud, negligent supervision and vicarious liability.

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PENNSYLVANIA
PhillyVoice

BY DANIEL CRAIG
PhillyVoice Staff

A former Chester County priest will go to prison for two decades for the distribution of child pornography, according to media reports.

Both Jeremy Roebuck of the Philadelphia Inquirer and FOX29 tweeted Wednesday that Mark Haynes was given a sentence of 20 years.

Details regarding the circumstances of his sentence were not immediately made available.

Haynes, 56, pleaded guilty to charges related to the distribution of child pornography in June.

Prosecutors said that Haynes, who last served as parochial vicar at Saints Simon and Jude Parish in West Chester before his 2014 arrest, posed as a 16-year-old girl to obtain sexually explicit photos from underage girls online.

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LOUISIANA
Evangeline Today

By: RAYMOND PARTSCH III
Managing Editor

For the first time in its 98-year history, a native of Evangeline Parish will serve as Bishop of the Diocese of Lafayette.

Rev. J. Douglas Deshotel, a native of Basile, was appointed Wednesday morning to serve as the seventh Bishop of Diocese of Lafayette, replacing Rev. Michael Jarrell.

Deshotel was born on Jan. 6, 1952 in Basile and would go on to attend Immaculata Minor Seminary High School in Lafayette. After graduation, Deshotel would attend Holy Trinity Seminary in Texas, where he obtained a Bachelor of Arts in Philosophy and then a Masters of Divinity from the University of Dallas.

Deshotel was ordained to the priesthood for the Diocese of Dallas on May 13, 1978 in his hometown church of St. Augustine’s in Basile. Deshotel was later ordained as Auxiliary Bishop of Dallas on April 27, 2010 in the Cathedral Shrine of the Blessed Virgin Mary of Guadalupe.

Deshotel’s assignments have included serving as associate pastor and pastor of church parishes in the Diocese of Dallas, as well as serving as Vice Rector of Holy Trinity Seminary in Irving, Texas.

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LOUISIANA
The Advertiser

[with video]

Dominick Cross February 17, 2016

As we know, Pope Francis named Bishop John Douglas Deshotel as the seventh Bishop of the Diocese of Lafayette.

Here are five things you may not know about the new bishop:

1. For his motto, Deshotel selected the Latin phrase, “Christus Caritas Urget Me” / “Christ’s love that urges him on.”

2. Deshotel’s Coat of Arms are composed of two main sections. The upper portion, known as a chief is blue, white and red, with a white star on the blue field, which is the arrangement of the Acadian flag, pointing to his Cajun roots — after all, the bishop is from Basile.

3. Deshotel celebrated his 64 birthday Jan. 6.

4. Deshotel is the third of eight children of Welfoot Paul Deshotel and Luna Marie Manual, of Basile.

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LOUISIANA
The Advocate

BILLY GUNN| BGUNN@THEADVOCATE.COM
Feb. 17, 2016

The Diocese of Lafayette announced Wednesday morning that the Most Rev. J. Douglas Deshotel has been appointed as bishop of the diocese, succeeding Bishop Michael Jarrell.

Deshotel is a native of Basile and was ordained to the priesthood for the Diocese of Dallas in 1978. He was ordained as Auxiliary Bishop of Dallas in 2010 and will continue to serve there until his installation as the seventh bishop of Lafayette.

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LOUISIANA
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Wednesday, Feb. 15, 2016

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

A new bishop has been picked to head the Lafayette Louisiana diocese (where more than 30 years ago, Fr. Gilbert Gauthe became the first pedophile priest in the US made national headlines.) We think this is another irresponsible move by Vatican officials.

A Louisiana native, Auxiliary Bishop Douglas Deshotel of Dallas has been in the “inner circle” in that diocese for years. He’s also been on the priest personnel board and the ‘review board’ that looks at clergy sex abuse reports. We have seen no evidence, however, that he has done anything noteworthy to protect kids and deter cover ups by exposing those who commit or conceal heinous crimes against children. So we are disappointed in Deshotel’s promotion.

According to BishopAccountability.org, there are 20 publicly accused predator priests in Dallas. We can find no instance in which Deshotel or his church colleagues voluntarily disclosed any information about any of them, made any of them live in a treatment center far away, or took any but the most minimal, mandatory steps regarding them.

In fact, Deshotel stayed silent when a proven Dallas predator priest was put back on the just two years ago: http://www.bishop-accountability.org/news2014/07_08/2014_07_29_David_Priests_TX-_priest.htm

This is reckless, callous and in violation of the countless “zero tolerance” promises by Catholic officials keep making but ignoring.

Roughly 30 US bishops have posted predator priests’ names on their websites. Sadly, neither Dallas nor Lafayette are among them.

As long as Catholic officials elevate clerics who show no genuine concern for the safety of kids, this long abuse and cover up nightmare in the church will continue.

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AUSTRALIA
The Australian

FEBRUARY 18, 2016 1

Want to attack the Catholic Church? Your ABC is happy to lend a helping hand.

Such a witty ditty. The Guardian Australia, Friday:

Tim Minchin has written a song about Cardinal George Pell, in which he lambasts Australia’s most senior Catholic cleric over the fact he won’t be returning from Rome to testify at the royal commission into institutional child abuse. “It’s a really nice song, the chorus just goes, ‘Come home, Cardinal Pell / We hear you’re not feeling well’,” Minchin said … “There’s also a bit where I call him a f..king coward.”

With the lyrics cleaned up it gets some lovely promotion in news bulletins on the commercial-free ABC. ABC News website, yesterday:

Tim Minchin released a song on Tuesday calling on Cardinal Pell to come back to Australia … “You’re a coward, Georgie, come and face the music,” Minchin sings. “You owe it to the victims, Georgie.”

Plus a handy plug on AM. ABC radio, also yesterday:

Reporter: Singer-songwriter Tim Minchin … wants … Pell to return to Ballarat to face victims of sexual abuse. The cardinal was due to give evidence in Ballarat, but he says he’s too ill to travel, so he’ll instead appear via video link from Rome.

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AUSTRALIA
9 News

AAP

Cardinal George Pell has responded to calls for him to return to Australia to give evidence to the child abuse royal commission by noting hearing arrangements are a matter for the inquiry.

The commission has agreed to allow Cardinal Pell to give evidence from Rome via an audiovisual link on health grounds, but abuse survivors groups believe he should come home and appear in person.

“It is ultimately a matter for the Royal Commission to determine the precise arrangements for the provision of evidence by the Cardinal in Rome,” his office said in a statement on Thursday.

“The cardinal will continue to co-operate with whatever arrangements the royal commission determines.”

This week a crowdfunding effort raised more than $160,000 to help Ballarat clergy abuse victims travel to Rome for the cardinal’s testimony due to be given on February 29.

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AUSTRALIA
Sunshine Coast Daily

A VICTORIAN bishop is making it possible for victims of past clergy child sex abuse to sue for damages.

Ballarat Bishop Paul Bird will put himself forward as a civil defendant so victims of his diocese can take legal action for past attacks.

The move stems from the nation’s Catholic dioceses and religious orders signing an agreement to provide “entities” for victims to sue.

Bishop Bird’s decision to stand in place of dead bishop James O’Collins means victims of notorious pedophile priest Gerald Francis Ridsdale can now sue for abuse at Ridsdale’s hands.

Ridsdale, 81, was jailed for more than 150 sexual abuse and indecent assaults against more than 50 children in the 1960s-1980s.

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PENNSYLVANIA
6 ABC

WEST CHESTER, Pa. (WPVI) — A suspended priest from West Chester, Pa. has been sentenced to 20 years in prison in a child pornography case.

56-year-old Mark Haynes pleaded guilty in June 2015 to using the Internet to entice a minor to engage in sexual contact, possession and distribution of child pornography and destroying or concealing evidence.

Before his suspension by the archdiocese following his 2014 arrest, Haynes had been vicar of Saints Simon & Jude parish since September 2013.

Prosecutors said Haynes had posed as a 16-year-old girl named “Katie” on a teenage dating website around 2010, met minor girls online, and requested that they take and send sexually explicit pictures.

While under court supervision, officials say Haynes had an 86-year old friend of his mother retrieve his computer from his apartment at the rectory. Haynes then destroyed the computer, discarding the hard drive in a dumpster in New Jersey.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Christian Today

Harry Farley JUNIOR STAFF WRITER 17 February 2016

Peter Ball was found to have abused his position as the Bishop of Lewes in southern England.
A sex abuse survivor has accused senior clergy in the Church of England of repeated attempts to prevent him from sharing his story.

Graham Sawyer was the victim of sustained abuse by Bishop Peter Ball, former Bishop of Lewes and Bishop of Gloucester, during the 1970s and early 1980s. In a fringe meeting of General Synod on Tuesday night, Sawyer said he experienced “enduring harassment, vilification and intimidation” from senior clergy when he tried to speak about his experiences.

Sawyer, one of Ball’s 17 victims, said that anyone who “lifts their head above the parapet and dares to give testimony of their experiences” suffers consequences.

Bishop Ball, 83, was jailed in December 2015, for misconduct in public office and indecent assault. He was cautioned in 1993 for one act of gross indecency against a 16-year-old but was allowed to work in churches until 2010.

Tuesday’s gathering, held in Methodist Central Hall, was organised by the Church Reform Group and the National Council of Hindu Temples. Sawyer, who is chair of the Church Reform Group, said Ball and some of his friends were behind a “web of hate and bullying” seeking to cover up abuse crimes.

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CANADA
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release Wednesday, February 17, 2016

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

About 60 former students of the Montreal Institute for the Deaf have settled their child sex abuse and cover up lawsuits against a Catholic group called the Clerics de St. Viateur.

[National Post]

The credit for this settlement lies squarely with the brave victims who had the strength to come forward, the wisdom to seek justice in the courts, and determination to persist despite years of expensive, futile and self-serving legal maneuvers by church officials.

No amount of money can possibly restore the shattered childhoods, the broken trust, and the devastated emotional lives of these courageous but wounded men and women. We hope they feel some healing and closure at this point. We know they have exposed horrific wrongdoing – both by predator priests and their complicit colleagues. And we’re deeply proud of and grateful to them for this.

We applaud these brave victims whose actions have helped protect kids. We hope this settlement will help victims continue to move toward healing.

We urge each of these victims to stay in therapy, keep attending support groups, and avoid the tempting assumption that this agreement will magically ‘cure’ depression, addictions, and other long term damaging effects of terrible childhood trauma and betrayal.

While many of those who committed the abuse have died, we hope that law enforcement will also investigate those that enabled, shielded and protected the predators. We encourage anyone who has been harmed to come forward and begin healing. We hope that anyone who has seen or suspected these crimes will contact law enforcement.

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TEXAS
The Vindicator

Posted: Thursday, January 19, 2012

August William Pucar, age 77, of Houston died Tues., Jan. 17, in Houston, Texas, of congestive heart failure.

He demonstrated great strength of character throughout his illness. He was born in Galveston, Texas to Frank and Melania Pucar, who predeceased August along with his sisters, Mary Anonsen and Catherine Ducoff, brother Frank Pucar, and niece, Cindy Ann Farine.

August graduated from Galveston’s Kirwin High School in 1952 and then worked for the Santa Fe Railroad in Galveston for three years before attending and graduating from St. Mary’s Seminary and being ordained into the priesthood in May 1963 at Sacred Heart Co-Cathedral. The Reverend “Augie” Pucar served in various capacities at churches throughout southeast Texas, including St. Mary’s in Orange, St. Anne’s in Beaumont, Immaculate Conception Church in Groves, All Souls Church in Silsbee, and its mission, Infant Jesus Church, in Lumberton. He served as pastor of St. Charles Church in Nederland before taking some time off from active ministry, but working weekends assisting various churches throughout the Houston area. He returned to the Beaumont Diocese and was loaned to the Victoria Diocese as pastor of the Yoakum Church. The Reverend Pucar celebrated his 30th anniversary as a priest in 1993 at Immaculate Conception in Liberty with a mass and reception with family, friends and parishioners. He retired in 2000 and moved to Houston where he said Mass at various churches for several years.

The Reverend Pucar stressed to his parishioners the need to accept people for who they are, regardless of their background. He also felt that we should obey the Lord’s command not to judge people and that no one was truly worthy of Christ’s mercy. He would say that, “Jesus said ‘Judge not lest you be judged’… that is how we should live our lives.”

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MICHIGAN
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Wednesday, Feb. 17, 2016

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

A Central Michigan University investigation has found that a priest “engaged in sexual harassment” of a teenager who he had counseled and hired.

[Central Michigan Life]

[MLive]

The cleric is Father Denis Heames. His boss, Saginaw Bishop Joseph Cistone, refuses to disclose Fr. Heames’ whereabouts.

Fr. Heames was removed from St. Mary’s University Parish, after a brave Central Michigan University student, Megan Winans, accused him of sexually exploiting her.

Shame on Fr. Heames for claiming his abuse of Winans was “a relationship between two adults.” And shame on Cistone for letting this deliberately self-serving and hurtful inaccuracy stand unchallenged. These are well-educated men. They know that no Catholic, especially not a teenager, can genuinely ‘consent’ to sex with a man who she’s been led to believe, since birth, is God’s representative on earth and who can forgive her sins and help her achieve eternal life, and a man whose bishop holds him out publicly as being a safe, celibate shepherd.

And shame on Fr. Heames for questioning if “someone is exploiting the system in order to harass another individual.” Again, this is self-serving. It’s an attack on a victim. It’s designed to deter others who have been hurt by Fr. Heames from speaking up like Winans has.
Let me repeat what SNAP director David Clohessy said about this case a few weeks ago: A Saginaw priest is being sued for sexually exploiting a college student. We applaud her courage while we deplore the secrecy of Saginaw’s bishop.

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TEXAS
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Wednesday, Feb. 17, 2016

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

An assistant Dallas bishop has been picked to head the Lafayette Louisiana diocese (where more than 30 years ago, Fr. Gilbert Gauthe became the first pedophile priest in the US made national headlines.) We think this is another irresponsible move by Vatican officials.

Auxiliary Bishop Douglas Deshotel has been in the “inner circle” in the Dallas diocese for years. He’s also been on the priest personnel board and the ‘review board’ that looks at clergy sex abuse reports. We have seen no evidence, however, that he has done anything noteworthy to protect kids and deter cover ups by exposing those who commit or conceal heinous crimes against children. So we are disappointed in Deshotel’s promotion.

According to BishopAccountability.org, there are 20 publicly accused predator priests in Dallas. We can find no instance in which Deshotel or his church colleagues voluntarily disclosed any information about any of them, made any of them live in a treatment center far away, or took any but the most minimal, mandatory steps regarding them.

In fact, Deshotel stayed silent when a proven Dallas predator priest was put back on the just two years ago: http://www.bishop-accountability.org/news2014/07_08/2014_07_29_David_Priests_TX-_priest.htm

This is reckless, callous and in violation of the countless “zero tolerance” promises by Catholic officials keep making but ignoring.

Roughly 30 US bishops have posted predator priests’ names on their websites. Sadly, neither Dallas nor Lafayette are among them.

As long as Catholic officials elevate clerics who show no genuine concern for the safety of kids, this long abuse and cover up nightmare in the church will continue.

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

NIGERIA
Daily Post

By David-Chyddy Eleke on February 17, 2016@dailypostngr

Worshipers at St Dominic’s Catholic Church, Adazienu in Anaocha local government area of Anambra State were shocked to their shells last weekend, when a US-based catholic priest, Rev Father Mike Steve Ezeatu attacked a 70 year old man after mass and beat him to coma.

Indigenes of the community said the Reverend Father had just finished celebrating a funeral mass and made to leave in his SUV, when he sighted the man identified as Mr Innocent Nwolisa and beckoned on him to come close.

First son of the victim, Ebuka Nwolisa who spoke to journalists narrated that his father was about to leave the compound of Ifedigbo in Ugweni Ojii, where the funeral mass of one late Ifeoma Ifedigbo had just been celebrated by Ezeatu, when he was called back by the priest.

“I think my father went because we are related to the priest, and they know each other, he may be calling him to give him special blessing, but what he got was beating. The only saving grace he had was that I was not around, that was why he got way with his action.”

Another eyewitness, Mr Arinze Ezeatu, who is a younger brother of the priest said, Father Mike complained that the old man was releasing evil powers at him while he was at the alter celebrating mass, and that was the reason for his action.

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CANADA
Journal de Montreal

MICHAEL NGUYEN
Mercredi, 17 février 2016

Plus de 150 personnes sourdes ayant été agressées sexuellement par les Clercs de Saint-Viateur recevront 30 millions $, du jamais-vu au Québec.

«Cela représente de loin l’indemnisation la plus élevée jamais payée au Québec pour des agressions sexuelles commises sur des mineurs», s’est réjoui Me Robert Kugler par voie de communiqué.

La somme s’élève à 200 000 $ en moyenne pour chaque victime.

Les agressions ont commencé dans les années 40, et le manège des Clercs a duré pendant 42 ans, à l’ancienne Institution des sourds de Montréal, située sur le boulevard Saint-Laurent au nord de Jean-Talon.

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AUSTRALIA
Reveal: The Center for Investigative Reporting

By Trey Bundy / February 17, 2016

A Jehovah’s Witnesses elder in Australia was put behind bars last week for sexually abusing minors, according to The West Australian.

Over seven years, David Frank Pople sexually assaulted two teenage boys he met through a congregation near Perth. One of his victims told elders about the abuse in 1997, but no one notified police until one of the victims filed a report in 2014. Pople pleaded guilty and was sentenced to three years in prison.

The details of Pople’s story mirror those of other abuse cases involving Jehovah’s Witnesses around the world. Elders failed to report child sexual abuse to secular authorities. The perpetrator was kicked out of the organization, only to be reinstated later.

Moreover, the story fits a pattern of Jehovah’s Witnesses leaders ejecting members who abuse children, not for the abuse, but for failing to show adequate repentance.

After Pople admitted to elders in 1997 that he had assaulted one of the boys, he was disfellowshipped – the Witnesses’ version of excommunication – for being “insufficiently repentant,” according to the newspaper’s story. A year later, after Pople requested reinstatement, the congregation welcomed him back.

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CANADA
National Post

Catherine Solyom, Postmedia News | February 17, 2016

A judge has ordered a religious order, the Clercs de St. Viateur du Canada, and the church-run Montreal Insitute for the Deaf to pay $30 million to a group of former students who were sexually assaulted by priests, making it the largest settlement for sexual assault in Quebec history.

At least 60 deaf students were assaulted by members of the religious community and lay people working at the school between 1940 and 1982. The school changed its name to the Institut Raymond-Dewar in 1984.

The judgment brings to an end a long and painful process that began with the authorization of a class action suit in 2012.

Represented by Robert Kugler, of the firm Kugler Kandestin, which also secured a landmark decision last week when its client was awarded $8 million for a hockey injury, the plaintiffs will now apply to an adjudicator, former Appeal Court Justice André Forget, in private, and with a sign-language interpreter.

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AUSTRALIA
The Australian

FEBRUARY 18, 2016

Rick Morton
Social Affairs reporter
Sydney

It will take the Catholic Church “two to three generations” to regain­ the moral authority it had before the revelations of widespread, global child-sex abuse and attempts to cover it up, according to a cultural adviser to the Vatican.

John Haldane — a Catholic philosopher in Australia for a semester professorship at Notre Dame University and a series of 13 lectures titled The Good Society, its Nature and Foundations — said the rebuilding of trust was “no small question” .

“Even within Catholicism itself it has been recognised that sexual exploitation by the clergy is a particularly heinous offence, so heinous that it cannot be ordinarily forgiven or absolved,” Professor Haldane told The Australian.

“The effect on the church … is for it to lose respect and authority. On this rebuilding, it is not going to happen in the lifetimes of people alive today. I think we are looking at two or three generations.”

Part of Professor Haldane’s lament­ about modern society is its inability to prosecute arguments in a reasonable and civil manner.

He said he was moved after hearing a “compelling, human argument” of the father of two sexua­l-abuse victims yesterday in which the father made the case for victims travelling to Rome to hear Cardinal George Pell give evidence to the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.

“This would, he said, create the conditions for the existential real­ity of that suffering to be present in the room at the same time in which he (Pell) was giving evidence,” Professor Haldane said.

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UNITED STATES
Bilgrimage

William D. Lindsey

Last week, I noted that it was being reported that the Vatican is informing newly appointed bishops that they do not have an obligation to report sexual abuse of minors by priests to criminal officials. As I noted, reports were indicating that, in issuing such advice to new bishops, the Vatican was relying on a training manual by French priest Tony Anatrella. Anatrella is a well-known opponent of “gender theory” and of more affirming approaches to LGBT people, and he seems intent on continuing the scapegoating meme that seeks to make gay priests responsible for the abuse crisis.

A footnote to the preceding report: as Rosie Scammell notes for Religion News Service yesterday, the head of the papal commission on abuse, Cardinal Seán O’Malley, underscored in a statement on Monday that church officials do have an obligation to report clerical abuse of minors to the civil authorities. In a report for The Guardian yesterday, Stephanie Kirchgaessner puts this statement into the broader context of a rift within the Vatican’s Curia about the handling of abuse cases.

She reports,

A battle is being waged within the Vatican over how senior clergy ought to handle accusations of sexual abuse amid signs that a special commission created by Pope Francis to handle the issue is being sidelined by senior church officials in Rome.

The rift was exposed after a report in the Guardian about a training course that was offered to new bishops last year in which a controversial French monsignor instructed them that it was “not necessarily” their duty to report accusations of abuse to law enforcement authorities if local laws did not require it.

That stance was rejected this week by Pope Francis’s point man on abuse issues, Boston cardinal Seán O’Malley, who heads a special pontifical commission to protect minors.

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VATICAN CITY
National Catholic Reproter

Carol Glatz Catholic News Service | Feb. 17, 2016

ROME
Every bishop and cardinal must watch the film “Spotlight,” so they realize reporting abuse — not silence — will save the church, said the Vatican’s former chief prosecutor of clerical sex abuse cases.

The film underlines the key problem of “omerta” or a code of silence, said Archbishop Charles J. Scicluna of Malta, according to the Italian daily La Repubblica Feb. 17.

“The movie shows how the instinct — that unfortunately was present in the church — to protect a reputation was completely wrong,” he said after a showing of the film in Valletta, Malta.

“All bishops and cardinals must see this film,” he said, “because they must understand that it is reporting that will save the church, not ‘omerta.'”

The archbishop, 56, is the head of a board within the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith that deals with appeals filed by clergy accused of abuse. Before he was named an auxiliary bishop in Malta in 2012, Scicluna spent 10 years as promoter of justice at the doctrinal congregation, handling accusations of clerical sex abuse.

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VATICAN CITY
Religion News Service

Rosie Scammell | February 17, 2016

VATICAN CITY (RNS) The Catholic Church is under fire for revoking the suspension of a priest in India, despite his previous extradition to the United States and conviction for sexual abuse.

Joseph Palanivel Jeyapaul, 61, was suspended by the southern Indian diocese of Ooty in 2010 and later turned over to the U.S. justice system. He was found guilty of abusing a girl between 2004 and 2005 while working as a priest in the diocese of Crookston in Minnesota.

Despite the conviction the Vatican lifted his suspension last month, on advice from an Indian bishop, news agency AFP reported on Wednesday (Feb. 17).

Ranjana Kumari, director of the Centre for Social Research, an advocacy group for the rights of women and girls, called the move “totally unacceptable.”

“The lifting of the suspension amounts to the Church condoning his actions,” Kumari reportedly said.

A spokesman for Ooty diocese, Sebastian Selvanathan, told AFP that despite the lifting of the suspension Jeyapaul would not return to active service.

The case has also been highlighted by the U.S.-based Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests, which published an article online asking: “Why has south India’s Catholic Church re-inducted a convicted child molester priest.”

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UNITED STATES
The Christian Century

Feb 17, 2016 by Christopher M. Bellitto

Nearly 15 years ago, the Boston Globe broke the story of the priest-pedophilia and bishop-cover-up crimes. The film Spotlight, which chronicles the investigative reporting behind the newspaper’s Pulitzer Prize-winning coverage, is now up for a Best Picture Academy Award. While this new film shines a light on what happened then, watching it now reveals how the Catholic landscape has changed (and not changed) since the story broke in 2002.

While the reporters depicted in Spotlight initially pursue the stories of particular priest-pedophiles, the editors see the bigger picture: the bureaucratic system, the hierarchy, and the mindset that allowed these priests to be moved from parish to parish without legal intervention. Who thought it was acceptable that these criminals weren’t arrested and prosecuted? Many in the pews said then and say now: “Who the hell do these people think they are?”

The movie correctly portrays how clericalism, hypocrisy, and arrogance enabled these criminals. For centuries good Catholics were told to say, “Yes, Father.” Abuse survivors in the film and in many other accounts relate that having a parish priest in your house for dinner or going with him on a trip felt like God was paying attention directly to you. Often, those who did stand up to these predators and their protectors were attacked, told to sit down and shut up, or even threatened: “How dare you attack this man? What could he do wrong? After all, he’s a priest.”

In the years since the events recounted in Spotlight there have been some steps forward, but not enough. Dioceses around the world have put into place greater oversight, reporting, and zero-tolerance measures. But survivor networks and watchdog groups remind us that compliance is not guaranteed. The United States witnessed the forced and overdue resignation of Cardinal Bernard Law in Boston in late 2002. And last year bishops in Minnesota and Missouri stepped down, again long after calls for them to do so. But open inquiries persist, including troubling cases in Chile and Germany. Measures are still not firmly in place to bring to legal account those bishops who were complicit in pedophilia by failing to call the police.

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AUSTRALIA
The Courier

By Melissa Cunningham
Feb. 17, 2016

The first time he was sexually abused Dominic Ridsdale remembers counting the tiny holes on the vinyl roof of his uncle’s car.

“I just wanted to remove myself from what was happening,” he said.

His uncle disgraced paedophile priest Gerald Ridsdale had taken him for a drive on the pretext of fixing the headlights on his car.

He was 12.

He remembers his uncle pulling the car over and getting out to check the headlights.

The shadow of Ridsdale was illuminated by the bright lights.

He could see his uncle, hands in pockets, staring at him through the windscreen.

It’s an image that still haunts him.

“A person’s hands are always large to look at for a child,” Dominic said. “But on this night, I felt like his hands reached from my neck to my knees.”

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FRAANCE
La Parole Liberee

[Letter to Pope Francis: Lyon, 02/12/2016 They are questioning the text written by Monsignor Tony Anatrella, consultant to the Pontifical Council for the Family, in which he said it is not always necessary for a bishop to resport instances of sexual abuse to the authorities.]

Lyon, le 12.02.2016

Très Saint Père,

Nous sommes les fondateurs et représentants d’une association d’Aide aux Victimes (La Parole Libérée) d’un prêtre pédophile récemment mis en examen pour agressions sexuelles sur mineurs de moins de 15 ans et ayant sévi dans un Groupe de Scouts entre 1970 et 1991 en France, dans la banlieue de Lyon, dans le diocèse du Rhône dirigé actuellement par le Cardinal Philippe Barbarin, Archevêque et Primat des Gaules, et pour lequel un de nos membres vous a déjà écrit en 2015 à deux reprises.

Nous nous en remettons à votre bienveillance et à votre écoute, après avoir découvert dans la presse qu’un texte émanant du Vatican et paru le 11/02/16 écrit par Monseigneur Tony Anatrella, consultant pour le Conseil pontifical pour la famille, remettait complètement en question vos propos sur votre priorité absolue à traiter avec la plus grande fermeté le lourd problème de la pédophilie au sein de notre Eglise. Il y est en effet écrit, entre autre, “qu’il n’incombe pas forcément à un évêque de signaler les suspects aux autorités, à la police ou à un procureur s’ils sont informés d’un crime ou d’un acte immoral”.

Or vous aviez, très Saint Père, appelé vous même à “une tolérance zéro” en la matière, en précisant sans ambiguïté que “tout doit être fait pour débarrasser l’Eglise du fléau des abus sexuels”. De même, la congrégation pour la Doctrine de la Foi, (en accord d’ailleurs avec la Conférence des Évêques de France) à écrit que “l’on suivra toujours les prescriptions des lois civiles en ce qui concerne le fait de déferrer les crimes aux autorités compétentes, sans porter atteinte au for interne sacramantel” Vous aviez également dit face à des victimes d’actes de pédophilie perpétrés par des religieux et rencontrés aux Etats-Unis en septembre 2015 que “Dieu pleure pour ceux qui ont été agressés. Ceux qui ont souffert sont devenus de vrais héros de la miséricorde” et que “les responsables répondront de leurs actes”.

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FRANCE
Sir

In these hours, the diocese of Lyon is in the grip of a case of sex abuse committed about 25 years ago by a priest, father Bernard Preynat, on some boy Scouts. The case was raised by a victim of the priest, who is now a cardiologist and co-founder, with other victims, of the association “La Parole liberée”. The event dates back to the Eighties, when the boy was just 10 years old. He thought the priest had died, but then he happened to see a photo of him, in a paper, surrounded by children, and he was “shocked”. Many are the children who have been abused by the priest. The case is undergoing criminal investigations, and the priest, who is now 71, has been indicted and put under court supervision “for aggravated sex abuse” after four reports were filed against him in May 2015. But it seems the case is not over yet: since December, the association’s blog was been literally bombarded with reports, and there seem to be about “45 self-confessed victims”. Asked about it by the Catholic newspaper “La Croix”, cardinal Philippe Barbarin tells that he became aware of the episode in 2007/2008, but also that he believed in the version the indicted priest had given him about what had happened: “Someone from Sainte-Foy-lès–Lyon – the cardinal says – told me about F. Preynat’s conduct in 2007-2008. So, I asked him for a meeting, so I could ask him if anything had happened in this respect since 1991. And he reassured me: ‘Nothing at all, I have been completely stung by this case’. Someone blames me for believing him … Yes, I did”.

“When I arrived in Lyon – the cardinal goes on – I did not know anything. Then, when I learnt about the events, we had no reports. I am waiting for the civil proceedings to end. If the lawsuit is statute barred, then I will open canonical proceedings, because the case must be judged: that’s why I will ask Rome to remove the statute barring that is provided under canon law”. Cardinal Barbarin also says that he asked cardinal Sean Patrick O’Malley, president of the Pontifical Committee for the Protection of Minors, set up in 2013, for advice. And then he adds: “I can say that, because I am a bishop, every time a case of abuse has been reported to me, I have immediately responded, I suspended the priest and alerted the judiciary system: it happened in Lyon in 2007 and in 2014. With father Preynat, the situation is very different, because these were old events for which there was no report or any sign of recurrence. My only concern has always been to make sure no evil is ever committed again”.

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OREGON
The Newberg Graphic

17 February 2016

Written by Seth Gordon

Case currently proceeding through discovery; trial readiness hearing not expected until spring
Although a trial date is not expected until this summer at the earliest, work on the child sex abuse lawsuit filed last year against Newberg Friends Church and the Northwest Yearly Meeting of Friends is well under way.

Attorneys for the plaintiff, referred to by his initials “A.J.” in the suit filed in Multnomah County in July, and for the five defendants are in the process of discovery.

There are no pending court dates, but Adam Kiel, an attorney with Portland firm Kafoury & McDougal representing A.J. in the case, said he expects a trial readiness conference, typically when a trial date will be set, to occur sometime in the spring.

Five of the defendants have retained counsel and filed answers to the charges, while a sixth, the Evangelical Friends Church of North America, was dismissed by Presiding Judge Nan Walker on Dec. 18.

Four of the defendants — Newberg Friends Church, the Northwest Yearly Meeting of Friends Church, the Friends Church Extension Fund and the Northwest Yearly Meeting of Friends Foundation — have retained Portland attorney Karen Vickers. The fifth, the Evangelical Friends Church International Council, has hired Portland attorney Jay Chock.

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BOSTON (MA)
The Gavel – Boston College

FEBRUARY 16, 2016

BY ELLA JENAK

It was the winter of 1993, and Phil Saviano was scouring microfilm in Boston College’s O’Neill Library, feeding reel after reel into the reader, copying and printing articles that would prove especially useful in his investigation.

He began his search at the Boston Public Library, but BC’s extensive collection of Catholic publications and its copies of the Catholic directories proved to be the most revealing, both for Saviano’s research and later, for the investigations of The Boston Globe’s ‘Spotlight’ team.

“If the people who run this library knew what I was looking for,” he says, “they wouldn’t approve and they’d probably ban me from the library.”

Saviano’s eyes were scanning indexes that listed hundreds, thousands of articles, looking for a few key words: clergy abuse, sex abuse—the phrasing varied, but the story was the same. Priests in parishes across the country were abusing children with remarkable frequency. The mystery to Saviano was, “How could this be and why wasn’t anybody doing anything about it?”

“I was investigating, and trying to sort things out and get to the bottom of what I thought was a really big story,” he says. “It was as if I was one of those Spotlight team reporters.”

The back and forth rapport between Saviano’s own probing and that of The Boston Globe began when Saviano saw an article published in the paper on December 17, 1992—just a month before he began researching at Boston College—which reported that former Massachusetts priest David Holley had been arrested in New Mexico on charges of child molestation.

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VATICAN CITY
Vatican Information Service

Vatican City, 17 February 2016 (VIS) – The Holy Father has:

– appointed Bishop John D. Deshotel, auxiliary of Dallas, U.S.A., as bishop of Lafayette (area 14,962, population 634,000, Catholics 332,000, priests 213, permanent deacons 94, religious 217), U.S.A. He succeeds Bishop Charles M. Jarrell, whose resignation from the pastoral care of the same diocese upon reaching the age limit was accepted by the Holy Father.

– appointed Fr. Ricardo Hoepers as bishop of Rio Grande (area 12,270, population 300,000, Catholics 211,000, priests 29, permanent deacons 29, religious 72), Brazil. The bishop-elect was born in Curitiba, Brazil in 1970 and ordained a priest in 1999. He holds a doctorate in theology and has served as lecturer in the faculty of philosophy and rector of the Bom Pastor seminary, professor, parish priest, diocesan coordinator for the clergy, member of the presbyterium and member of the ethical committee of the Federal University of Paran and the Brazilian Society of Moral Theology. He succeeds Msgr. Jose Mario Stroeher, whose resignation from the pastoral care of the same diocese was accepted upon reaching the age limit.

– appointed Fr. Richard Kuuia Baawobr, M.Afr., as bishop of Wa (area 18,476, population 700,000, Catholics 341,000, priests 104, religious 186), Ghana. The bishop-elect was born in Tom-Zendagangn, Ghana in 1959, gave his religious vows in 1981 and was ordained a priest in 1987. He has served in a number of roles within his order, as well as deputy Grand Chancellor of the Pontifical Institute for Arabic and Islamic Studies, and member of the Synod on the family, and is currently superior general of his order. He succeeds Bishop Paul Bemile, whose resignation from the pastoral care of the same diocese upon reaching the age limit was accepted by the Holy Father.

– appointed Fr. Carlos Alberto Breis Pereira, O.F.M., as coadjutor bishop of Juazeiro (area 58,397, population 515,900, Catholics 413,100, priests 26, religious 14), Brazil. The bishop-elect was born in San Francisco do Sul, Brazil in 1965, gave his religious vows in 1987 and was ordained a priest in 1994. He holds a licentiate in theology, has served as parish priest and has held numerous roles within his order. He is currently provincial minister of his order in Recife, Brazil.

– accepted the resignation of Bishop Dieter Bernd Scholz, S.J., from the pastoral care of the diocese of Chinhoyi, Zimbabwe, upon reaching the age limit.

– appointed Archbishop Robert Christopher Ndlovu of Harare, Zimbabwe, as apostolic administrator sede vacante of the diocese of Chinhoyi, Zimbabwe.

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AUSTRALIA
Broken Rites

A Sydney judge has released the name of a former Catholic priest, John Joseph Farrell (sometimes known as ‘Father F’), who will be sentenced for 50 sexual crimes against children in northern New South Wales. Farrell, now aged 61, has previously pleaded guilty to 40 of these offences. On 16 February 2016 a jury found him guilty of ten additional offences.

Farrell was tried for 17 offences he was accused of committing against three boys, aged 11 and 12, between 1980 and 1984. After two-and-a-half days of deliberations, a jury found Farrell guilty on 10 counts and not guilty on seven other charges.

After the jury’s verdict, Judge Peter Zahra lifted a suppression order, which had covered his Farrell’s for more than two-and-a-half years.

The court was told that Farrell has already pleaded guilty to 40 other child sex offences and is already in custody, awaiting sentencing for those crimes.

During the February 2016 trial at Sydney’s Downing Centre District Court, Crown prosecutor Bryan Rowe outlined a series of alleged incidents in which Farrell groped, molested, raped or forced oral sex on the boys.

He said one of the boys was the victim of 11 separate offences, including repeated indecent assaults during trips to a local swimming pool. Farrell contested all of these charges.

Farrell was tried on 17 charges when the trial began in Sydney’s Downing Centre District Court on February 2. After several days of evidence, Judge Zahra directed the 12- member jury to find the accused man not guilty on two counts on the indictment before the court.

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AUSTRALIA
Broken Rites

By a Broken Rites researcher (article updated 15 January 2016)

Research by Broken Rites has demonstrated how Catholic Church leaders kept quiet about a certain Australian priest, “Father F” (from Moree and Armidale in northern New South Wales), for THIRTY years. And in 2002, after George Pell became the new archbishop of Sydney, he too learned about Father F. The matter of Father F was finally revealed by Broken Rites and the media (not by the church) in 2012. Broken Rites (but not the church leaders) advised the victims to contact the Sex Crime Squad detectives of the NSW Police. The church leaders now need to explain why they remained silent for so long.

According to a church document, Father F admitted to church authorities in 1992 that, during the previous ten years, he had committed sexual offences against altar boys. These boys were 10 and 11 years old at the time of the offences. The church document quoted Father F as admitting that he began doing these things to the boys in his very first parish in the early 1980s.

According to this 1992 document, the church authorities feared that “one or some of the boys involved may bring criminal charges against [Father F] with subsequent grave harm to the priesthood and the Church.”

That is, according to this document, the church’s priority was to protect the church’s public image, rather than to protect the children. Indeed, the document made no mention of the welfare of the children. Thus, the church authorities did not help Father F’s former altar boys to consult the state’s child-protection police about Father F’s actions. So the church’s public image was protected — until 2012, when the media revealed the church’s “Father F” cover-up.

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AUSTRALIA
Herald Sun

February 17, 2016

Andrew Bolt
Herald Sun

CARDINAL George Pell is the victim of one of the most vicious witch hunts to disgrace this country. It is shameful. Disgusting. Frightening.

People pretending to be moral have competed with each other to slime Pell as the defender of paedophiles, if not a paedophile himself.

There is no mercy and no attention to the facts. There is just the joy of hatred. Check the snarling glee on the face of comedian Tim Minchin as he sang a hymn of hatred to Pell on Channel 10’s The Project on Tuesday.

“Scum,” he called Pell, who is too ill to fly from Rome to give evidence (for the third time) to our royal commission into child sex abuse.

“Coward,” he jeered, vilifying Pell for more than four minutes of prime-time television, falsely portraying him as a defender — even a friend — of paedophile priests.

(Note to Project host Waleed Aly: would you have screened four minutes of unbridled hatred for a Muslim cleric?)

Meanwhile, the ABC promoted a crowd-funding effort by Project presenters to raise the money to send former victims to Rome to “confront” the cardinal with “face-to-face contact”.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Smashing Life

Lord Lawson, who has the pedigree of being Margaret Thatcher’s chancellor in the 80s made the comments on the BBC’s ‘Andrew Marr Show’ on Sunday.

He said, “Security is essential. It’s vital. But I think the police are complaining a little bit too much. Look at how much the police is spending now on chasing up often unsubstantiated accusations of historic sex abuse. That’s got nothing to do with security. Those resources should be put where the need is.”

The comments were made in reference to UK police complaints regarding a lack of resources for national security work. Lord Lawson said that police should not complain about a lack of resources while they are putting so much effort into probes investigating historic child sex abuse cases.

Reports that have surfaced have estimated that the cost of the paedophile ring investigations total around 4% of the £8.2Bn central police budget, around £3.4m.

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FRANCE
Normandici

[Currently in theaters, Spotlight tells the story of American journalists who investigate pedophilia within the Catholic Church. In France, a case is mentioned in Calvados.]

by CaroNormandici
février 17, 2016

Actuellement en salle, Spotlight raconte l’enquête de journalistes américains sur la pédophilie au sein de l’Église catholique. En France, un cas est mentionné, dans le Calvados.

Actuellement sur les écrans, le film, Spotlight, inspiré de faits réels, suit l’enquête d’investigation menée par des journalistes du Boston Globe, l’un des plus célèbres journaux du Massachussets. Spotlight est le nom de l’équipe de journalistes qui a révélé au monde entier l’autre visage de l’Église catholique. À la fin du générique, les faits similaires qui se sont produits dans le monde sont recensés. Parmi eux, le cas du Père Pican, qui, évêque de Bayeux et Lisieux (Calvados), avait été condamné à trois mois de prison avec sursis pour « non-dénonciation des agissements pédophiles » d’un prêtre de son diocèse, le Père René Bissey, qui avait été condamné à 18 ans de réclusion.Spotlight entre malheureusement en résonance avec l’actualité : une plainte contre Monseigneur Barbarin pour non-dénonciation d’infraction sexuelle sur mineur devrait être déposée prochainement contre l’archevêque de Lyon (Rhône).

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MEXICO
El Economista

[The visit of Pope Francis to Mexico did not address the issue of victims of clerical pedophilia because that episode is part of a past history of the church whose authorities have faced the issue, according to Vatican spokesman Federico Lombardi.]

La visita del papa Francisco a México no abordó el tema de las víctimas de pederastia clerical debido a que ese episodio forma parte de una historia pasada de la Iglesia cuyas autoridades han enfrentado, informó el vocero del Vaticano, Federico Lombardi.

En conferencia de prensa celebrada en el marco de la visita del jefe de la Ciudad del Vaticano al país, Jorge Mario Bergoglio, a Morelia, Michoacán, el portavoz puntualizó que los casos de abuso sexual a menores por parte de sacerdotes católicos son significativos e importantes para el clero; sin embargo, “es parte de nuestra historia, pero no hay necesidad de continuar con toda la historia futura hablando de los problemas que hemos confrontado”.

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ITALIA
Brindisi Report

[The pastor told a youth he had to perform sexual acts in the sacristy in order to be an altar boy.]

di Stefania De Cristofaro
16 febbraio 2016“

BRINDISI – “Quel parroco, il prete della chiesa di Bozzano, mi obbligava a fare atti sessuali: succedeva anche in sacrestia, qualche volta mi ha dato spintoni e mi ha minacciato dicendo che se avessi parlato avrebbe fatto licenziare mio padre o fatto vendere la casa”.

Questa mattina ha fornito la sua versione dei fatti, il ragazzino brindisino ritenuto parte offesa nell’inchiesta per atti sessuali su minore in cui è indagato a piede libero don Francesco Caramia, ex parroco della chiesa San Giustino de’ Jacobis, al quartiere Bozzano di Brindisi.

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ITALIA
Farodi Roma

[The former Palermo bishop said it was not his job to report priest Roberto Elice for abusing a minor. He said he contacted the child’s mother and said it was her responsibility. He knew about the abuse for three years.]

Errori su errori hanno contraddistinto la carriera sacerdotale dell’ex arcivescovo Romeo, un uomo che ha sempre visto la carriera come fine ultimo e non si è mai dato apertamente agli altri cercando anzi di bloccare i bravi sacerdoti che con onestà portavano avanti il loro lavoro favorendo chi invece non lo meritava affatto. Il cardinale Romeo però ha compiuto un gesto ancor più grave, non ha denunciato don Roberto Elice, arrestato recentemente per pedofilia. L’ex arcivescovo di Palermo era da tempo a conoscenza degli abusi nei confronti di tre minori. La difesa sulle pagine di Repubblica è sterile: “Abbiamo informato la madre del suo diritto-dovere di sporgere denuncia. Non spettava a me denunciare don Roberto”. Solo scuse che offendono chi crede veramente nei valori della Chiesa che spinge all’aiuto verso il prossimo, e che vanno in netta controtendenza anche con le parole di Papa Francesco che ha sempre sostenuto che chi commette azioni penali va consegnato all’autorità giudiziaria e processato.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Freitag

[Covering up abuse rather than being open about it is not a Catholic specialty and always backfires.]

Domspatzen Missbrauch zu vertuschen statt aufzuklären, ist keine katholische Besonderheit. Wie immer geht das nach hinten los

Der Faktor liegt bei zehn. Jede Institution, die in Missbrauchsverdacht gerät, sollte sich diese Zahl vor Augen halten. Wer sexuelle Gewalt gegen Kinder nicht aufklärt, der wird mit zehnfacher Wucht von den Spätfolgen bestraft. Als vor einigen Jahren bekannt wurde, dass es bei den berühmten Regensburger Domspatzen zu Schlägen und sexuellen Übergriffen im Namen des Herrn gekommen war, da reagierte die Kirche, wie sie halt reagiert. Sie ließ sich missmutig auf eine interne Revision der Fälle ein. Nach einem Jahr Suche fand sie 78 Betroffene und eine Handvoll Täter. Zur Veröffentlichung des Berichts lud sie nur ausgewählte Presseleute ein. Und die Uhr begann zu ticken.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Regensburg Digital

Um Gewalt und Missbrauch bei den Domspatzen angemessen aufzuarbeiten, wurde nun ein eigenes Gremium ins Leben gerufen. Vor wenigen Tagen trafen sich die sechs Vertreter zum ersten Mal. Derweil versuchen andere, Vorfälle zu verharmlosen und umzudrehen. Diese Leute haben nichts dazugelernt. Sie sind Verhinderer.

„Wer aufklären will, muss einen Preis zahlen. Wer diesen Preis nicht zahlen will, behindert Aufklärung.“

Knapp neun Monate ist es her, seit Pater Klaus Mertes im Juni 2015 seine Erfahrungen als Leiter des Canisius-Kollegs einem Regensburger Publikum schilderte. 2010 hatten sich ehemalige Schüler gegenüber Mertes als Opfer körperlicher, psychischer und sexueller Gewalt geoutet. Er reagierte, schrieb einen Brief an etwa 600 ehemalige Schüler der Berliner Jesuiten-Schule und trat damit eine Welle des Aufdeckens von Missbrauchsfällen an schulischen Einrichtungen in ganz Deutschland los.

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FRANCE
20 Minutes

[By creating their association The Liberated Word (La Parole Liberee), alleged victims of Father Bernard Preynat wanted to get to the truth and break the code of silence around these alleged acts of pedophilia, that remained silent for over 25 years. Some weeks later, their case is widely publicized and relayed on social networks. The Lyon church has been plunted into turmoil.]

Elisa Frisullo
Publié le 16.02.2016

En créant leur association La Parole Libérée, les victimes présumées du père Bernard Preynat voulaient faire éclater la vérité et briser l’omerta autour de ces faits présumés de pédophilie, tus pendant plus de 25 ans. Quelques semaines plus tard, leur affaire, largement médiatisée et relayée sur les réseaux sociaux, a plongé l’église lyonnaise en pleine tourmente.

Un grand malaise qui n’épargne pas l’archevêque de Lyon, Philippe Barbarin, dont la stratégie de communication bien périlleuse de ces dernières semaines démontre tout l’embarras du diocèse sur ce sujet. A tel point qu’une proche du Primat des Gaules évoque même aujourd’hui une éventuelle démission…

Une affaire révélée par le diocèse de Lyon

En octobre dernier, c’est le diocèse de Lyon lui-même qui a médiatisé cette affaire, après l’ouverture d’une enquête préliminaire sur des faits présumés d’agressions sexuelles reprochés par d’anciens scouts du groupe Saint-Luc de Sainte-Foy-les Lyon au prêtre Bernard Preynat, 70 ans. L’archevêque de Lyon avait alors vivement condamné « des actes qui ont atteint des jeunes dans leur vie intime ».

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FRANCE
Le Progres

[Pedophilia in the Church: the Preynat case continues to swell. The Lyon archdiocese said Cardinal Phillippe Barbarin will not resign.]

Des victimes du père Bernard Preynat porteront plainte dans les jours qui viennent contre le cardinal Barbarin dont la démission n’est pas à l’ordre du jour selon l’archevêché.

L’association «La Parole Libérée», qui regroupe des victimes du père Preynat, déposera plainte dans les jours qui viennent contre le cardinal Barbarin pour «non dénonciation d’atteintes sexuelles sur mineurs», s’agissant d’abus sexuels commis sur des scouts du groupe Saint-Luc à Sainte-Foy-llès-Lyon, avant 1991.

D’autres personnes, dont Régine Maire, ancien membre du conseil épiscopal, sont visées par cette démarche judiciaire. «Le Progrès» consacre une enquête de deux pages à ce dossier, dans lequel s’expriment les principales personnes concernées, ainsi que de nombreux prêtres, qui rejettent les appels à la démission du cardinal Barbarin, tout en estimant qu’il y a eu des «failles évidentes qu’il faut analyser».

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FRANCE
Le Huffington Post

[Philippe Barbarin is in turmoil. In an interview with La Croix published Wednesday, February 10, the cardinal admitted being aware of the “behavior” of a Lyons priest indicted for sexual assault on young scouts yet he chose to keep him in his ministry until 2015. A person who grew up in Sainte-Foy-lès-Lyon told the cardinal about the behavior of Father Preynat in 2007-2008. He then made an appointment with the priest to ask if since 1991 he had done anything and he then assured me him “absolutely nothing,” said the Cardinal Archbishop of Lyon.]

RELIGION – Philippe Barbarin est dans la tourmente. Dans un entretien à La Croix paru mercredi 10 février, le cardinal a reconnu avoir été mis au courant des “comportements” d’un prêtre lyonnais, mis en examen pour des agressions sexuelles sur de jeunes scouts entre 1986 et 1991, “vers 2007-2008”. Il a pourtant choisi de le conserver dans son ministère jusqu’en 2015.

“Une personne qui avait grandi à Sainte-Foy-lès-Lyon m’a parlé des comportements du Père Preynat, vers 2007-2008. J’ai alors pris rendez-vous avec lui pour lui demander si, depuis 1991, il s’était passé la moindre chose. Lui m’a alors assuré : ‘Absolument rien, j’ai été complètement ébouillanté par cette affaire'”, raconte l’archevêque de Lyon et primat des Gaules à propos de ce religieux, qu’il dit avoir “cru”.

Des faits connus par les autorités ecclésiastiques dès 1991?

Mais selon son avocat, le père Bernard Preynat a déclaré “que les faits étaient connus par les autorités ecclésiastiques depuis 1991”. Résultat, La Parole Libérée, association de victimes du Père Preynat, veut attaquer Philippe Barbarin pour “non dénonciation de faits d’agressions sexuelles”. La démission du cardinal est même désormais évoquée par son entourage selon Lyon Mag.

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AUSTRALIA
Northern Daily Leader

By Emma Partridge
Feb. 16, 2016

A FORMER Catholic priest accused of sexually abusing three young altar boys in regional NSW in the 1980s has been found guilty of 10 child sex offences in a Sydney court.

John Joseph Farrell, also known as “Father F”, was tried for 17 offences he was accused of committing against the boys, aged 11 and 12, between 1980 and 1984.

Fairfax Media can reveal his identity after Judge Peter Zahra lifted a suppression order late yesterday, which had covered his name for more than two-and-a-half years.

Late yesterday, after two-and-a-half days of deliberations, a jury found Farrell guilty on 10 counts and not guilty on the other seven charges.

The court heard Farrell, who is no longer a priest, has already pleaded guilty to 40 other child sex offences and is awaiting sentencing for those crimes.

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AUSTRALIA
9 News

AAP

The Catholic Church in Australia could face a barrage of lawsuits from clergy abuse victims amounting to billions of dollars in compensation, a victims’ advocate says.

Cardinal George Pell and a former Victorian bishop’s appearances before the child abuse royal commission this month could get further key evidence on the public record to be used in class action lawsuits, victims’ advocacy group Broken Rites spokesman Wayne Chamley says.

The 1971-1997 Ballarat Bishop Ronald Mulkearns has terminal cancer and Dr Chamley says he has nothing to lose by telling the truth to the commission when he appears next week.

“He’s actually got everything to gain by telling them how much he did know and telling them if he spread the knowledge, and it’s beyond belief that he didn’t spread the knowledge,” Dr Chamley told AAP.

The commission has heard Bishop Mulkearns knew in 1975 that Australia’s worst pedophile priest Gerald Francis Ridsdale had abused boys but moved him between parishes.

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AUSTRALIA
9 News

AAP

WHAT CARDINAL GEORGE PELL HAS TO ANSWER BEFORE CHILD ABUSE ROYAL COMMISSION

WHY HE’S APPEARING AGAIN

Now the Vatican’s finance chief, the former Melbourne and Sydney archbishop and Ballarat priest will give evidence about abuse in the Ballarat diocese and Melbourne archdiocese.

Between 1973 and 1984 Pell was a Ballarat East priest, Episcopal Vicar for Education in the Ballarat diocese and an adviser to the Ballarat bishop.

Pell presided over St Alipius primary school where four Christian Brothers were pedophiles. He and another priest lived in a presbytery with Australia’s worst pedophile priest Gerald Ridsdale in 1973.

Pell was Melbourne auxiliary bishop (1987-1996), responsible for a region including Doveton which had a succession of pedophile priests, and then Melbourne archbishop (1996-2001).

CLAIM HE ATTEMPTED TO BRIBE A VICTIM

David Ridsdale claims when he told Pell in 1993 he had been abused by his uncle Gerald Ridsdale, Pell said: “I want to know what it will take to keep you quiet.”

Pell denies the allegation.

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UNITED KINGDOM
The Tablet

17 February 2016 | by Clifford Longley

Church of England compensates alleged victim despite Bishop George Bell dying in 1958

Has believing the victim policy sullied the name of a much-admired bishop?

Has Bishop George Bell – the Anglican Bishop of Chichester from 1929 to 1958, and one of the Church of England’s greatest figures – become a victim of the rule that people who complain of sexual abuse must always be believed? This principle was applied by police forces across the country in the wake of the Jimmy Savile affair, and has caused no end of problems. Now it has caused a major problem for the Church of England too, which has been accused of rubbishing the reputation of a good man and ignoring the presumption that someone accused of crime is innocent until proved guilty. Innocent may not be quite the right word, as the bishop is dead. But there is such a thing as the benefit of the doubt, and he should be given it.

On the basis of one complaint last autumn – about an alleged series of abusive episodes in the 1940s – the Church has formally apologised and paid compensation. In a statement, it implied not only that there were no reasons to disbelieve the victim, but that the allegations were actually true. It did not say why it thought so, and no further evidence has come to light.

Bishop Bell died in 1958, and has since become an iconic figure for his many brave interventions in public affairs not least for standing up to Winston Churchill to protest at the devastating bombing of German cities. He was also a key link with the plotters who tried to assassinate Adolf Hitler in 1944. If he really was a paedophile, as a headline in the
Daily Telegraph

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AUSTRALIA
The Age

February 17, 2016

Timna Jacks
Education Reporter

A Mentone pastor has supported local families in their call for Father John Walshe’s resignation, stating that church leaders must always be held “accountable” for their actions.

Senior minister at Mentone Baptist Church, Murray Campbell, has hit out at a decision to allow Father Walshe to retain his position as the Catholic Mentone-Parkdale parish priest in a blog post.

The parish services two local schools – St Patrick’s School in Mentone and St John Vianney’s school in Parkdale.

Dozens of parents from both schools boycotted Mass in recent weeks, in protest against Father Walshe, who abused an 18-year-old seminarian shortly after he was ordained.

Despite the protests, Father Walshe has retained his position. Pastor Campbell described the church’s silence as “helpful as clanging cymbals being hit half a beat behind the rest of the band”.

The Catholic Church paid $75,000 compensation to John Roach in 2012, after the Catholic archdiocese of Melbourne accepted he had been sexually abused by Father John Walshe in 1982.

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AUSTRALIA
PerthNow

AMY MARTIN
Entertainment Reporter
PerthNow

PERTH comedian-musician Tim Minchin’s latest song has taken aim at Cardinal George Pell, calling him a “pompous buffoon”, “a coward” and “scum”.

Come Home (Cardinal Pell) first aired on Channel 10’s The Project on Tuesday night and caused a swell of support on social media, despite outrage from the show’s co-host Steve Price.

Currently working in the Vatican, Cardinal Pell — the highest-ranking cleric in the Australian Catholic Church — was asked to return to Australia by the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse in the 1970s and 1980s.

The cardinal replied with a doctor’s certificate that said he was too unwell to fly back to Australia to give evidence on the case.

An arrangement has been made for him to give evidence via video link to the Royal Commission.

This prompted Minchin to write the musical attack, which went as far to say that if moral duty hadn’t compelled Cardinal Pell to return to Australia, then the opportunity to sue the singer for his song might.

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AUSTRALIA
Courier Mail

February 16, 2016

Wendy Tuohy
Herald Sun

IF people’s willingness to put their hand in their pocket to help fund something that makes them furious counts, then Cardinal George Pell’s abstention from coming home to face the child sex abuse royal commission is making him one unpopular guy right now.

People *really* want him to look child sex abuse victims in the eye, so much so in just 15 hours more than 75,000 have clicked on the scathing new song Come Home Cardinal Pell by hit Aussie comedian Tim Minchin, who released it to demand Pell speak face to face with the church’s victims.

A massive groundswell of protest about the Cardinal’s absence from the hearings of the Royal Commission into institutional child sex abuse (of which complaints against clergy make up the bulk of submissions) is peaking today as people put money and shares behind a campaign to get the churchman home.

To mangle the famous line from Hemingway’s For Whom The Bell Tolls, the priest is getting the message ‘Ask not for whom the Pell tolls, it tolls for thee’.

And isn’t it heartening to see how much the wider community cares about what happened to innocent little boys whose childhoods were stolen by paedophiles.

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AUSTRALIA
The Guardian

Melissa Davey
@MelissaLDavey
Tuesday 16 February 2016

Child sexual abuse survivors and their supporters have raised more than $90,000 to send a small group of their representatives to Rome to witness Cardinal George Pell, Australia’s most senior Catholic, give evidence before a child sexual abuse royal commission.

After lawyers for Pell tendered medical documents to the royal commission into institutional responses into child sexual abuse this month, the commission chair, Justice McClellan, agreed to allow Pell to give evidence via video link from Rome rather than in person.

It prompted the radio personality Meshel Laurie and the television presenter Gorgi Coghlan to launch a gofundme campaign to send survivors and a support network of psychologists and counsellors to Rome, where Pell is the Vatican’s financial head.

The target of $55,000 was far exceeded in just one day, with the campaign also supported by Loud Fence, a group for survivors of child sexual abuse in Ballarat religious institutions who are putting together a group of people ready to fly.

One anonymous person donated $10,000 to the cause, while other supporters have donated whatever they could afford, even if only a few dollars.

“After caring for victims of child abuse over the years I have seen the immense damage it has had on their lives,” one donator, Noelene Plummer, wrote. “I hope they can find some healing.”

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AUSTRALIA
Digital Journal

AFP

A crowdfunding campaign to send victims of child sex abuse to Rome to hear Vatican finance chief George Pell give evidence to an Australian inquiry has been overwhelmed by support, doubling its target in two days.

Cardinal Pell, formerly the top Catholic official in Australia, is too ill to travel to the Victorian state town of Ballarat to appear in person at a Royal Commission and is expected to give evidence via video-link from Rome later this month.

“The survivors of Ballarat and District child abuse feel the face-to-face hearing was important for healing and understanding,” campaigners wrote on their gofundme page.

“With the news that Cardinal Pell could not come here, it seems appropriate to get the survivors to Rome to sit in front of Pell as he gives evidence.”

Pell has always denied knowing of any child abuse occurring in Ballarat, including by paedophile priest Gerald Ridsdale who abused dozens of children over two decades.

The survivors group had hoped to raise Aus$55,000 (US$39,110) to send 15 people to Rome when they launched their campaign this week, but by Wednesday had raised more than Aus$111,000 with donations still coming in.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

Abuse survivors who are travelling to Rome after a successful crowdfunding campaign call on the royal commission into child sexual abuse to “flex a bit of muscle” and make sure they can be in the room when Cardinal George Pell gives evidence.

A GoFundMe page to send 15 people, including representatives from the City of Ballarat, survivors and support people, to the hearing has surpassed its target of $55,000, reaching $117,000 by Wednesday afternoon.

But the royal commission must give its approval for those travelling to Rome to watch the evidence in person, abuse survivor Stephen Woods said.

“We are still waiting for the royal commission to flex a bit of muscle, as we’re saying amongst survivors, so say that the population of Australia is really behind them, they need to hold the clergy to account,” Mr Woods said.

“There’s nothing like a presence of people showing those who have had power for literally centuries, to show the people will rise up and hold them accountable.”

Cardinal Pell, 74, will appear via video link from Rome after the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse accepted a doctor’s report that said he would risk heart failure if he flew to Australia to testify.

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UNITED STATES
Hollywood Reporter

FEBRUARY 16, 2016 by Peter Saunders

Peter Saunders, who is on an involuntary “leave of absence” from the Vatican commission to which he was appointed by the Pope, tells THR, “All Catholics and all thinking people should watch this film.”

It’s been an overwhelming few days, but also a really encouraging few days because so many people are coming forward and so many people are offering support,” Peter Saunders told me when we spoke by phone Tuesday morning.

Founder of the U.K.’s National Association for People Abused in Childhood, Saunders is a British survivor of sexual abuse by a Catholic priest that took place decades ago when he was a child. In 2014, Saunders became one of two survivors appointed by Pope Francis to serve on the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors, the group investigating the international scandal for the Vatican.

Saunders arranged a Feb. 4 screening of Spotlight — the Oscar-nominated film about Boston’s Catholic Church sex abuse scandal — for the commission. While the Vatican itself has not commented on the screening, Vatican Radio last fall called the film “honest” and “compelling.” After the screening, Saunders told the Los Angeles Times, “The film is extremely worrying about the cover-up of abuse in the Catholic Church, and I think it would be a good moment for the Pope to see it.”

Two days later, the Vatican announced that the other commission members had voted for Saunders to take a leave of absence. Saunders — who in the past had been critical of both the workings of the commission and of the Pope’s defense of Chilean Bishop Juan Barros, who has been accused of covering up clergy sexual abuse — refused to accept the commission’s decision and requested a meeting with the Pope.

Saunders tells me that he feels his freedom of speech has been violated and that he is now “thinking about whether or not to remain on the commission,” but that he has been heartened by those who have rallied to his defense for refusing to remain silent — including the co-writer and director of Spotlight. “When Tom McCarthy mentioned me by name at the BAFTA Awards, I was taken aback,” says Saunders, who’s a fan of the film, which he’s seen twice.

Saunders is well aware of the Oscar race in which Spotlight now finds itself. “All Catholics and all thinking people should watch this film for an education,” he says. “It would get my vote. It is a superb piece of film and makes a superb comment on the reality of our culture.” He subsequently sent THR the following remarks about the film.

* * *
It’s not often that a Hollywood film connects to my own life profoundly, but as a survivor of abuse from a Catholic priest, I relate to Spotlight on a visceral level.

I admire the work of the Boston Globe reporters who didn’t cower before the church’s threats. (After all, the church uses its power to perpetuate the secrets, the cover-up, the obscurity. Keeping secrets is second-nature for the church, and keeping secrets is what has allowed — and continues to allow — pedophile priests to abuse children.) And I identify with the survivors who demand to be heard, who refuse to be quiet, because we cannot afford to be silent. I learn this every day in working with millions of survivors through my nonprofit, the National Association for People Abused in Childhood. To be blunt: The safety of Catholic children around the world is at stake.

Spotlight has brought this discussion back to the forefront in a way that’s making it difficult for the Vatican to ignore. It’s no longer possible to hide this systemic lesion when audiences see the film and begin to understand that reform is imperative. This film really does have the power to create demonstrable change that will protect our most vulnerable.

I spent a portion of my life hiding what happened to me; as an adult, I am empowered by the truth. I will remain loud until the Vatican takes concrete steps to ensure that abuse is ended once and for all, and I will not be patient about demanding this reform. Protecting children cannot happen at a glacial pace.

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INDIA
The Citizen

SHOMA A.CHATTERJI

Wednesday, February 17,2016

Paying a tribute to a real life story on investigative journalism for a commercial Hollywood flick is not a common occurrence. Especially with reference to a story that is an expose on the Catholic Church and tackles the extremely fragile subject of child abuse. But it has happened and the film Spotlight (2015) will release across the country on Friday.

Directed by Academy-Award nominee Tom McCarthy, Spotlight is a taut, edge-of-the-seat thriller. Spotlight zeroes in on the Boston Globe investigations by its own Spotlight team of reporters and the series of stories published over one year on this fragile subject won the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service in 2003. The story investigated into allegations of abuse in the Catholic Church that revealed not only the abuse but more shocking was the decades-long cover-up at the highest levels of Boston’s religious, legal and government establishments that went to great lengths to see that the story did not get out and reach the public. The waves shook the entire world at the time. After the Spotlight team published its work, the team created a book about the events. Sacha Pfeiffer, one of the leading members of the team is a co-author of Betrayal: The Crisis of the Catholic Church. The consequences of this massive reveal rocked the world and had a ripple effect across the many major religious institutions.

In 2002, the Spotlight team published nearly 600 stories about sex abuse of children by more than 70 priests whose actions were concealed by the Catholic Church. In December 2002, Cardinal Law resigned from the Boston Archdiocese and was re-assigned to the Basilica di Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome. 249 priests have been publicly accused of sexual abuse within the Boston Archdiocese. As of 2008, 1,476 victims survived priest abuse in the Boston area. Nationwide 6,427 priests have been accused of sexually abusing 17,259 victims. In the years since Spotlight’s report, sexual abuse by Catholic Church priests has been uncovered in 105 American cities and 102 dioceses world wide. (Source: www.bishop-accountability.org, a database compiled by Terry McKiernan)

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INDIA
Zee News

New Delhi: Children`s activists in India on Wednesday criticised the Vatican for revoking the suspension of a Catholic priest who was convicted by a US court of sexually abusing a minor.

Indian priest Joseph Palanivel Jeyapaul, 61, was suspended by his local diocese in India five years ago after being accused of sexually abusing two girls during a posting to Minnesota.

He was later convicted of assaulting one of them, a 16-year-old, and served time in jail.

But the Vatican lifted his suspension in January following a recommendation by an Indian bishop.

“The lifting of the suspension amounts to the Church condoning his actions,” Ranjana Kumari, director of the Centre for Social Research, an NGO working on women`s and girls` rights, told AFP.

The decision was “totally unacceptable”, coming as the Vatican undertook to root out sexual abuse by the Church, she said.

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AUSTRALIA
Newsweek

BY MIRREN GIDDA ON 2/17/16

Fifteen Australian abuse survivors have raised over $85,000 through crowdfunding to travel to Rome. The group, who were sexually abused by priests as children, want to hear testimony in person from Australian-born Cardinal George Pell.

The cardinal, who was once tipped to become pope, will speak to the Australian court on February 29 via video-link from the Vatican, after his lawyers said health concerns prevent him from traveling to attend the hearing.

Pell, who is the Vatican’s financial controller, will be giving evidence about instances of child abuse that took place in his diocese. Last year, the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse heard testimony that while Pell was assistant priest for Ballarat East, priests suspected of abuse were shunted between parishes or put in church-appointed rehabilitation. He also lived with former priest Gerald Ridsdale in the 1970s, The Guardian reports. Ridsdale has been accused of multiple counts of child abuse, though Pell denies having any knowledge of it.

Pell’s decision not to attend the hearing in person angered abuse survivors. So, on February 14, they launched an online campaign to raise the money they needed to go to the Vatican and see his testimony for themselves. Australian comedian Tim Minchin released a satirical song about Pell’s no-show, Reuters reports. The track includes the lines: “You’re a coward Georgy / Come and face the music Georgy / You owe it to the victims Georgy.” Minchin donated the proceeds from the song to the crowdfunding campaign.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

A Jesuit priest and human rights lawyer has accused Tim Minchin of endangering the integrity of the royal commission into sexual abuse after the comedian penned a song describing George Pell as “scum” and inviting the Cardinal to “come home and frickin’ sue [me]”.

Father Frank Brennan has warned that turning the commission into a “laughing stock” runs the risk of derailing proceedings.

“I don’t think it’s altogether helped by having songs about a key witness, calling him scum, and a buffoon, and a coward and that sort of thing before the commission does its task,” Father Brennan told ABC’s the Drum program.

“Because if we turn it into a laughing stock, then the big losers … will be the victims themselves.”

But some survivors have already expressed anger at the royal commission for allowing the Cardinal to give evidence from Rome, rather than returning to Australia.

Minchin is donating the proceeds of the song, called Come Home (Cardinal Pell) to a GoFundMe page set up to send 15 representatives, including survivors, to Rome to witness Pell’s testimony in person.

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HAWAII
The Worthy Adversary

February 16, 2016 Joelle Casteix

Hawai’i’s adult victims of child sexual abuse only have until the end of April to come forward and use the civil courts.

The civil window, which was renewed in 2014, was an extension of a 2012 bill that gave victims of child sexual abuse the right to use the civil courts to expose their abuse and seek justice. The law, which applies to both public and non-public entities (including the Honolulu Diocese and the Kamehameha Schools), has resulted in upwards of 80 lawsuits, although an exact number is not available at this time.

Despite all of this, to date, the Diocese of Honolulu refuses to release a list of credibly accused clerics, like more than 30 other dioceses have done. But considering they would have to include a former bishop and a well-loved Kailua priest, it’s no shock why they are keeping names close to the vest. And those are just the deceased ones. The living? We don’t know who they are, where they are, or what they are doing.

If you or someone you love were sexually abused as a child in Hawaii, don’t wait. You owe it to yourself and to other current and potential victims to come forward and let your voice be heard.

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MARYLAND
Time

Elizabeth Dias @elizabethjdias

Child sex abuse in the Catholic Church is now widely known—Spotlight, a film about the Boston Globe journalists who documented the massive child molestation scandal and cover-up in the Catholic Church, is up for Best Picture at this year’s Oscars—but similar abuses in evangelical communities have not received the same public scrutiny.

The February issue of Washingtonian Magazine featured an exposé of long-buried sexual abuse of children in a prominent evangelical church network, Sovereign Grace Ministries. Freelance journalist Tiffany Stanley, a 2015 National Magazine Award finalist, spent 10 months uncovering reports of child rape and molestation in Sovereign Grace churches over the last three decades, particularly at the then-flagship Covenant Life Church in Gaithersburg, Maryland.

Her investigation, “The Sex Scandal that Devastated a Suburban Megachurch,” chronicles the inside story of crimes against children in D.C.-area Sovereign Grace churches, explores how church leaders including founder C.J. Mahaney did and did not respond, and recounts how victims’ mothers joined forces to seek justice.

Unlike the hierarchical Catholic Church, evangelical churches often function independently. But their influence is widespread—as Stanley points out, Wayne Grudem, an evangelical theologian at Phoenix Seminary, once described Sovereign Grace Ministries “as an example of the way churches ought to work.”

Stanley shares some insights from her investigation with TIME. Her reporting was subsidized in part by a Fund for Investigative Journalism grant.

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CANADA
Ottawa Citizen

SHAAMINI YOGARETNAM, OTTAWA CITIZEN

A former Sunday school teacher and husband of a children’s pastor has been charged by Ottawa police with human trafficking.

Matthew Valentini, 34, is charged with trafficking of a person under the age of 18, drug possession and driving with a suspended license. He was arrested last Friday for “offences relating to the sexual exploitation of a 15-year-old female over a period of time between 2013 and 2014,” police said on Tuesday.

Valentini is a former computer consultant who lived in Fredericton, N.B. before returning to Ottawa in 2011, according to his wife Miranda Valentini’s staff profile on the Sunnyside Wesleyan Church website. Miranda Valentini is the children’s pastor at the Ottawa church. A fall teaching schedule from 2011 lists Matthew Valentini as a Grade 5 Sunday school teacher. The schedule for this year’s Sunday school session appeared to have been removed from the church website by Tuesday morning.

The police allegations against Matthew Valentini do not relate to his role as a Sunday school teacher at the church, located on Grosvenor Avenue. The mission of the church, according to its website, is “to be one church of missional congregations of faithful followers of Jesus Christ scattered around the neighbourhoods of the National Capital Region.”

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AUSTRALIA
Sydney Morning Herald

February 17, 2016 –

Emma Partrdige

A former Catholic priest accused of sexually abusing three young altar boys in regional NSW in the 1980s has been found guilty in a Sydney court of 10 child sex offences.

John Joseph Farrell, also known as “Father F”, was tried in the Downing Centre District Court for 17 offences he was accused of committing against the boys, aged 11 and 12, between 1980 and 1984.

Fairfax Media can reveal his identity after Judge Peter Zahra late on Tuesday lifted a suppression order that had covered his name for more than 2½ years.

Late on Tuesday, after 2½ days of deliberations, the jury found Farrell guilty on 10 counts and not guilty on the other seven.

The court heard Farrell, who is no longer a priest, has already pleaded guilty to 40 other child sex offences and is awaiting sentencing for those crimes.

Farrell was remanded into custody by a Supreme Court judge last year, when he was denied bail. He remains in custody after Tuesday’s verdict.

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VATICAN CITY
Religion News Service

Rosie Scammell | February 16, 2016

VATICAN CITY (RNS) Catholic clergy have a “moral and ethical responsibility” to report sexual abuse, the cardinal tasked with reforming the Vatican’s approach to sexual crimes said after criticism of the Holy See.

Boston Cardinal Sean O’Malley sought to reaffirm the church’s position on reporting abuse in his role as head of the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors, which Pope Francis set up in 2014.

“Our obligations under civil law must certainly be followed, but even beyond these civil requirements, we all have a moral and ethical responsibility to report suspected abuse to the civil authorities who are charged with protecting our society,” O’Malley said in a statement Monday (Feb. 15).

O’Malley’s comments followed a report that a French priest told new bishops they were under no duty to report abuse allegations to the police.

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