ABUSE TRACKER

AUSTRALIA
ABC News

Adelaide Archbishop Philip Wilson has failed in his bid to stop proceedings on a charge of concealing child sex abuse.

Wilson had applied to Newcastle Local Court for a permanent stay on the case.

Wilson has pleaded not guilty to concealing the serious indictable offence of the now-dead paedophile priest James Fletcher in the 1970s.

He is the most senior Catholic clergyman in the world charged with concealing child sexual abuse.

During the hearing, the court was told the child sexual abuse cover-up charge laid against Wilson was invalid as there was no evidence the offence he is accused of concealing ever happened.

The crown asked to admit tendency evidence in a bid to show Wilson’s alleged actions were not isolated.

Prosecutor Gareth Harrison alleged Wilson was involved in paying a woman an amount of money so an allegation of indecent assault would go away.

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.

ILLINOIS
Daily Herald

A priest with ties to Aurora-area churches was arrested Thursday and charged with sexually assaulting a minor under the age of 13, officials said.

The Rev. Alfredo Pedraza was arrested at his home in Rockford, the Rockford Diocese said in a statement. Pedraza has been out of ministry since October 2014 while the allegations were being investigated.

Pedraza came to the diocese from Colombia in 2013. He worked in Hispanic Ministry in the DeKalb Deanery and assisted at Sacred Heart Parish in Aurora and Our Lady of Good Counsel Parish in Aurora.

He’s charged in Kane County with two counts aggravated criminal sexual abuse of a minor under the age of 13.

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

UNITED KINGDOM
The Northern Echo

Exclusive by Joe Willis, Regional Chief Reporter

A CATHOLIC priest suspended from his post at a Darlington church has been charged with abusing two schoolboys, The Northern Echo can reveal.

Father Michael Higginbottom will appear in court next month to face allegations that he assaulted the boys while working at St Joseph’s College, in Upholland, near Wigan, in the late 1970s.

Lancashire Constabulary said in a statement issued to the Echo last night: “Following consultation with the Crown Prosecution Service, Michael Higginbottom, 72, of West Farm Road, Newcastle, was charged on Monday, February 8 with six offences relating to non-recent sexual abuse.

“The offences were allegedly committed while Mr Higginbottom was working as a Catholic priest at St Joseph’s College in Upholland in the late 1970s.”

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

AUSTRALIA
ABC News

By Christine Kearney

Newly appointed bishops have been advised by the Vatican that it’s “not necessarily” their duty to report suspects of clerical child abuse to authorities.

The unofficial advice given to senior clergy at an annual global training course held last year was that only victims or their families should make the decision to report abuse to police.

Victims of the Catholic Church’s sexual abuse scandal are reacting angrily to the revelations.

The Australian Catholic Church said it agreed with victims, calling for an Australian federal law requiring the reporting of all abuse victims to police.

The papers were presented at what was described as an annual ‘Vatican crash course’ for about 185 newly named bishops around the world.

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.

ILLINOIS
WIFR

STATELINE (WIFR) – A priest in the Rockford Diocese has been charged with two counts of sexually abusing a child.

According to a press release from the Diocese, Father Alfredo Pedraza has been under investigation for two allegations in Kane County reported back in 2014.

Father Pedraza was arrested, Thursday, February 11 in his Rockford home. He came to the Diocese from Columbia, South America in 2013. The Diocese says he has been out of all ministry since the allegations surfaced in October 2014.

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.

ILLINOIS
Chicago Tribune

Gloria Casas
Elgin Courier-News

A priest who has been affiliated with two Aurora parishes was arrested Thursday on two counts of aggravated criminal sexual abuse of a minor, a Roman Catholic Diocese of Rockford press release stated.

Kane County Sheriff’s deputies and the U.S. Marshal’s office took the Rev. Alfredo Pedraza into custody on a warrant at his Rockford residence, said Patrick Gengler, director of administration for the sheriff’s office. Pedraza is charged with two counts of aggravated criminal sexual abuse of a minor under the age of 13, the release stated.

Each count is a felony, Kane County prosecutors said. Pedraza is expected at bond call Friday morning at the Kane County Judicial Center.

The Kane County Child Advocacy Center conducted the investigation, but the Kane County State’s Attorney has not released further information.

Authorities launched an investigation into Pedraza after receiving two reports of alleged abuse in 2014, according to the release. Pedraza was asked to remove himself from all ministries including the Hispanic Ministry in the DeKalb County Deanery, the release stated. He has not been active in any ministries since October 2014, the release stated.

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.

MEXICO
Telesur

[Former Mexican priest Alberto Athie Gallo said Mexico has the worst cases of pedophilia and child abuse within the Catholic Church.]

El ex sacerdote mexicano Alberto Athié Gallo reveló que México tiene los peores casos de pederastia y abuso a menores dentro de la Iglesia Católica.

Ante la inminente llegada del papa Francisco a México, vuelve a cobrar notoriedad los casos de pederastia en la iglesia católica y que han sido ocultados por la jerarquía de la santa sede.

Desde 1994 el ex sacerdote de la Arquidiócesis de México, Alberto Athié Gallo, no cesa en su lucha contra de la pederastia en la Iglesia Católica, cuando una víctima del fundador de los Legionarios de Cristo, Marcial Maciel Degollado, le contó su historia.

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.

MASSACHUSETTS
Daily Hampshire Gazette

Thursday, February 11, 2016

As an inspiring Pope lifts Catholic hopes worldwide with his call for inclusion and justice, the leader of the Springfield Diocese is using a Lenten tradition to reach out to disaffected Catholics. He is calling for the spirit of renewal, and forgiveness, to permeate the church in western Massachusetts.

Whether he succeeds depends on follow-through.

In a remarkable pastoral letter distributed this week, Bishop Mitchell T. Rozanski apologizes for a lot of things. Most notably, he says that pain “still echoes” over clergy sexual abuse, an injury that may feel fresh again because of “Spotlight,” the movie about the Boston Globe’s discovery that the church systematically concealed the truth about molestation and shuffled abusive priests to unsuspecting parishes.

Bishop Rozanski’s institutional mea culpa, expressed in a 2,300-word letter called “The Wideness of God’s Mercy,” seems heartfelt. He asks forgiveness from victims of clergy abuse, their families and friends “and all those scandalized by the Church’s failure to protect our young people and for any lack of diligence in responding.” While the bishop goes on to list several reasons people have distanced themselves from the church, the top complaint, no doubt, is clergy abuse. “There are many people hurting in our Catholic community from the pain caused by our past failures as a diocese, as well as the grievous actions of some who ministered in our church,” the bishop says in the letter, made public Wednesday.

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.

ILLINOIS
Roman Catholic Diocese of Rockford

[en espanol]

ROCKFORD, Ill– The Rockford Diocese has been informed by the Kane County Sheriff and the U.S. Marshall’s Office that Father Alfredo Pedraza was arrested today, Thursday, Feb. 11, 2016, at his residence in Rockford, Illinois.

Father Pedraza is being charged in Kane County with two counts of aggravated criminal sexual abuse of a minor under the age of 13 years.

Father Pedraza has been under investigation for two allegations reported to authorities and the Diocese of Rockford in 2014. Immediately after the first allegation was reported, Father Pedraza was asked to remove himself from all priestly ministry and from all Hispanic Ministry duties in the DeKalb County Deanery to which he was assigned at the time the first allegation was received and while the allegation was being investigated. He has been out of all ministry since October 30, 2014.

As we have during the investigation process, the Rockford Diocese remains in full cooperation with authorities.

Father Pedraza came to the Rockford Diocese from Colombia, South America in 2013. During his time with the diocese, he worked in Hispanic Ministry in the DeKalb Deanery and assisted at Sacred Heart Parish in Aurora and Our Lady of Good Counsel Parish in Aurora.

While everyone is presumed innocent until proven guilty, the Rockford Diocese takes allegations of misconduct in any form very seriously and must act accordingly to insure the safety and security of all our Catholic people as we conduct our worship and ministries together.

As always the policy of the Diocese of Rockford is that anyone who might be, or knows someone that has been, a victim of sexual abuse by a member of the diocesan clergy, religious, church employee or volunteer should first call police, then call the diocesan hotline at 815-293-7540.

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.

ILLINOIS
Rockford Register Star

By Chris Green
Staff writer

Posted Feb. 11, 2016

ROCKFORD — A priest residing in Rockford was arrested on child sex charges today at his home.

The Rev. Alfredo Pedraza, 50, was charged in Kane County with two counts of aggravated criminal sexual abuse of a minor under the age of 13. He is being held in the Kane County Jail on $50,000 bond.

The Rockford Diocese issued a news release today stating they were informed by the Kane County Sheriff and the U.S. Marshall’s Office that the Rev. Alfredo Pedraza was arrested at his residence in Rockford.

According to the release, Pedraza had been under investigation for two allegations reported to authorities and the Diocese of Rockford in 2014. Immediately after the first allegation was reported, Pedraza was asked to remove himself from all priestly ministry and from all Hispanic Ministry duties in the DeKalb County Deanery to which he was assigned at the time of the first allegation. He has been out of the ministry since Oct. 30, 2014, the release said.

Pedraza came to the Rockford Diocese in 2013 from Colombia, South America. During his time with the Rockford Diocese, he worked in Hispanic Ministry in the DeKalb Deanery and assisted at Sacred Heart Parish in Aurora and Our Lady of Good Counsel Parish in Aurora.

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

UNITED STATES
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Tuesday, Feb. 9, 2016

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

New Catholic bishops are NOT told to call law enforcement when abuse reports are made, according to a veteran Vatican reporter.

[Crux]

John Allen of Crux (formerly with the National Catholic Reporter) writes that the Vatican official who’s in charge of training new bishops

–“argued that bishops have no duty to report allegations to the police,” and

–“devoted just a few paragraphs” in a “long presentation” to “abuse prevention, using abstract language without concrete examples.”

Just troubling were the comments Monsignor Stephen Rossetti, who’s on the board of the Rome-based Gregorian University’s Centre for Child Protection. When asked “What should new bishops be told about sexual abuse?” Rossetti also made no mention of the need for church officials to call secular authorities.

In one sense, this isn’t surprising. As BishopAccountability.org has pointed out, “zero tolerance,” while often uttered by Catholic officials, isn’t even the official policy of the global church.

But it’s infuriating – and dangerous – that so many believe the myth that bishops are changing how they deal with abuse and that so little attention is paid when evidence to the contrary – like this disclosure by Allen – emerges.

(NOTE – the Vatican new bishops training was led by Paris-based Msgr. Tony Anatrella of the Pontifical Council for the Family and the Pontifical Council for Health Care Workers, who Allen acknowledges is “a psychotherapist controversial for his views on homosexuality and “gender theory.”)

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.

MISSOURI
News-Leader

Steve Pokin, SPOKIN@NEWS-LEADER.COM February 11, 2016

A former priest who reportedly confessed decades ago to a monk at the Assumption Abbey in Ava has been arrested in Arizona in connection with the 1960 slaying of a 25-year-old Texas schoolteacher.

The Maricopa County Sheriff’s Department (in Arizona) on Tuesday arrested 83-year-old John Feit. He faces a murder charge in the death of Irene Garza in McAllen, Texas. He is awaiting extradition to that state, according to the Associated Press.

For more than 50 years, police in McAllen, Texas, have suspected the former priest in the killing. The case was the subject of a 2014 “48 Hours” episode on CBS.

Authorities say Garza visited Sacred Heart Catholic Church in McAllen, where Feit was a 27-year-old priest, on April 16, 1960, the day before Easter. Garza was Miss All South Texas Sweetheart in 1958 and was the first college graduate in her family.

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.

TEXAS/MISSOURI
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

for immediate release: Thursday, Feb. 11, 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)

An ex-priest just arrested for murder reportedly admitted his crimes to at least one colleague in Ava. We call on Springfield Catholic officials to aggressively reach out to anyone in southwest Missouri who may have seen, suspected or suffered crimes by this former cleric.

[News-Leader]

More than 50 years after the rape and murder of young Irene Garza in Texas, John Feit has been charged with the crime. After her death, Catholic officials did what they’ve done for decades with known and suspected criminal clerics: they quickly and quietly sent Feit away, to a monastery in Ava.

While there, Feit reportedly admitted the murder to a monk named Dale Tacheny who now lives in Oklahoma City.

If the alleged murderer confided in one person at Ava, he may have confided in others. No matter how slim this chance may seem, if justice is to be served and the innocent are to be protected, it’s crucial that church officials take action.

Or another person in Ava may have seen or suspected or overheard some conversation or noticed some evidence that might make a difference.

It will be tough to resolve a case so old. But Catholic staff owe it to themselves and their flocks – and to Irene Garza’s still-grieving family – to help police and prosecutors learn the full truth of this horror.

Specifically, we urge every Springfield area Catholic employee – from custodian to chancellor – to spread the word, beat the bushes, and seek out anyone with information or suspicions about Feit’s crimes, using church bulletins, pulpit announcements, church websites and word-of-mouth.

Specifically, we urge the “College of Consultors” to act. They govern the Springfield diocese temporarily since there’s currently no bishop. These priests are Msgr. Thomas Reidy, chancellor, Fr. David Dohogne, Fr. J. Friedel, Fr. Hank Grodecki, CM, Fr. David Hulshof, Fr. Tom Kiefer, and Fr. Allan Saunders.

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.

TEXAS
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Wednesday, Feb. 11, 2016

Statement by Amy Smith, Dallas co-leader of SNAP (281-748-4050, watchkeepamy@gmail.com)

A convicted Austin child molester who was openly supported by several churches has lost his appeal. We are grateful that he’ll stay behind bars and hope he’ll stop appealing. And we hope that the clerics and congregants who publicly rallied for him will now apologize to his victims.

[Statesman]

In 2014, Greg Kelley was found guilty of sexually abusing a four year old. Before sentencing, Kelley voluntarily accepted a plea deal in which he admitted guilt. Two young boys testified against him. One mom testified that her son told her Kelley had molested him.

Still, officials and members at Generations Church in Leander held rallies for Kelley, a move which we believe was immoral, callous and which likely deterred other victims of other predators from coming forward.

It’s time for these misguided church staff and congregants to apologize for their insensitivity. To hold rallies for a convicted and admitted predator endangers kids by making it harder for those who see, suspect and suffer child sex crimes from speaking up.

Those who believe Kelley is innocent should visit him, pray for him, write to him and help his family. But they should do so in ways that do not scare other victims of other predators into staying silent.

By mounting public displays of support for a convicted and admitted predator, these misguided individuals are rubbing even more salt into the already – deep and still – fresh wounds of abuse victims and making it harder for police, prosecutors and employers to catch and oust child molesters.

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

UNITED STATES
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Thursday, Feb. 11, 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)

A bishop says that Vatican officials have approve his lifting of the suspension of a convicted predator priest. If this is true, this is an act of breath-taking recklessness and callousness.

Our heart ache for betrayed families in Minnesota and vulnerable families in India. Most of all, however, our hearts ache for one of the bravest victims we’ve ever met, Megan Peterson, whose courage helped get Fr. Joseph Jeyapaul charged, extradited, and convicted of child sex crimes in Crookston MN.

[UCA News]

Bishop Arulappan Amalraj of Ootacamund said Fr. Jeyapaul’s suspension ended last month after consultations with the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

Last year, Francis promoted and defended a complicit bishop in Chile while calling “dumb” the parishioners who expressed concern for the move.

This year, Francis lets a convicted predator priest go back to work, lets a papal panel oust an abuse survivor, and lets new bishops be taught that they don’t have to call police when abuse reports surface.

And some wonder why abuse victims “never seem satisfied.” The pope’s “Year of Mercy” is increasingly seeming like a “Year of Mercy for Corrupt Clergy.”

We hope this outrage will prod Catholics in India, Minnesota and elsewhere to condemn this callous church hierarchy, donate elsewhere and share what they know or suspect about clergy sex crimes and cover ups with secular authorities. And we hope that, once and for all, parishioners will give up on the comforting but obviously dead-wrong notion that Catholic officials will handle predators and abuse reports properly.

We also hope this dangerous injustice will prompt many more who saw, suspected or suffered clergy sex crimes and cover ups to speak up, expose wrongdoers, protect kids and start healing.

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

UNITED STATES
Catholic League

Bill Donohue comments on media distortions of Vatican policy on abuse reporting:

A statement by one French monsignor during a training course for new bishops is being interpreted by some major media outlets as if it were an official Vatican document. It is nothing of the sort. In a presentation that he made to some bishops, he contended that the clergy were not required to report suspected abuse cases to the authorities. That, however, was his opinion, and nothing more.

Most of these erroneous reports cited Crux journalist John Allen as their source. He wrote a splendid piece about Msgr. Tony Anatrella’s words to the new bishops. Nowhere, however, did Allen claim that Anatrella’s words amounted to a new Vatican policy or a “Vatican document.”

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

UNITED STATES
The Worthy Adversary

February 11, 2016 Joelle Casteix

Oh, Pope Francis. He’s got a good racket going.

Pope Francis’ fan base is huge. Recent trips to the U.S. and now Mexico show that people really like this seemingly humble and devout man. I mean, they “like him” like him.

But a pioneer in the prevention, prosecution, and exposure of child sex abuse? Not so much.

So, the next time your friend says, “Oh quit being such a pessimist. Pope Francis is changing things,” show them this:

Less than a week after a prominent child sex abuse victim appointed to Francis’ commission to prevent child sexual abuse was given a vote of no confidence (for the crime of actually trying to prevent child sex abuse):

* This morning, an Indian news outlet reported that a Catholic bishop there reinstated a priest who was recently convicted of child sexual abuse in Minnesota. The crimes were so bad that Interpol arrested the priest in 2012 and brought him back to the US to face charges. The bishop said that his decision was “not personal,” but was instead made with the full consultation and support of the Vatican.

* On February 7, leading Vatican observer John Allen reported that in the most recent training program for new Catholic bishops, the new prelates were told that they “have no duty to report allegations to the police.” Unless of course, they are required by local law (and, well, who’s more important: some cop … or the Holy Father?).

* In the same report, the new bishops were given no training on how to identify or prevent child sexual abuse.

That papal commission I mentioned earlier? They had no role or voice in the training. Looks like Pope Francis wants to control the message.

BUT

The commission did try to “ask” Pope Francis to remind bishops to return victims’ phone calls and to create a “Universal Day of Prayer.”

Yeah, that’s effective.

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.

VATICAN CITY
Yahoo! News

Molly Jackson
February 11, 2016

Survivors of clergy sex abuse and their advocates are dismayed by a document for new Catholic bishops which suggests they do not need to report abuse to legal authorities, released this month after being used at a September training session for new church leaders.

“According to the state of civil laws of each country where reporting is obligatory, it is not necessarily the duty of the bishop to report suspects to authorities, the police or state prosecutors in the moment when they are made aware of crimes or sinful deeds,” the guidelines say, according to the Guardian.

Criticism of the document was first launched by the Crux, a Catholic-news website.

Associate editor John L. Allen, Jr. also questioned why prevention strategies – drafted by Pope Francis’s Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors in response to a sex abuse crisis that has shaken the Church over the past two decades – were not part of new bishops’ training.

Although there are no exact numbers of victims and abusive priests worldwide, the Vatican investigated about 3,000 claims of priestly abuse between 2001 and 2010. According to Crux, American bishops have spent more than $260 million since 2002 to prevent abuse.

For those who had hoped Francis’s popular empathy and “human touch” would bring new healing between Church leaders and laity, the guidelines reopened feelings of betrayal. The Pope had promised to bring a “zero tolerance” attitude to sex abuse claims

“It’s infuriating, and dangerous, that so many believe the myth that bishops are changing how they deal with abuse and that so little attention is paid when evidence to the contrary … emerges,” said a statement from the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP).

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.

LOUISIANA
The Town Talk

Melissa Gregory, mgregory@thetowntalk.com, (318) 792-1807

A priest who worked in the LaSalle and Grant parishes area has been dismissed after being accused of sexual misconduct with a girl in the Baltimore area, according to a release.

A release from the Diocese of Alexandria on Thursday states that the Rev. Antonio Jorge Velez, a member of the Tertiary Capuchins, has been dismissed and prohibited from living within the diocese. The action was taken by the Most Rev. Ronald P. Herzog, bishop of Alexandria.

Herzog made the decision “after the Diocese of Alexandria was made aware of these allegations resulting from a time when Velez was stationed in the Archdiocese of Baltimore for some 10 years and was accused of inappropriate behavior with a female minor,” reads the release.

The release states that the Archdiocese of Baltimore has notified police and also will be conducting their own investigation. The Holy See also is being notified of the decision.

Velez holds citizenship in the U.S. and Colombia. According to the Diocese of Alexandria, Velez has served in Baltimore, Alexandria and “in numerous assignments in Colombia.” In the Diocese of Alexandria, Velez was the pastoral administrator of St. Mary Church in Jena and St. Edward in Fishville, reads the release.

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

UNITED STATES/INDIA
Jeff Anderson & Associates

Kochi, India/Crookston, MN) – Bishop Amalraj of the Diocese of Ootacamund, India, announced today that he has lifted the suspension of convicted predator priest, Father Joseph Jeyapaul. Jeyapaul’s suspension was lifted on January 16, 2016 after the Bishop consulted with the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

Statement of Jeff Anderson

On behalf of two survivors we have represented, and no doubt countless others Jeyapaul has abused, we are appalled that the Vatican and Bishop Amalraj lifted the suspension of convicted predator priest, Joseph Jeyapaul. It took years to reveal the truth of this predator’s history in Minnesota and as a result, he was criminally convicted.

The Vatican and Bishop have made a conscious choice to endanger children and time and time again they have chosen to protect the predator priests at the peril of children. There is no excuse for the indifference they have shown to the safety of kids in India. This is an outrage and again demonstrates the cavalier attitude of the Bishop and the Vatican that they can do what they want, when they want, at the grave peril to kids.

The two survivors we worked with, Megan Peterson who has previously publicly identified herself, and Jane Doe, courageously revealed the actions of Jeyapaul while he was working in the Diocese of Crookston. Jeyapaul repeatedly engaged in criminal sexual conduct with both survivors and we suspect he abused others as well.

This is a pattern, practice and every action belies the promises they made that they’re doing better. Bishop Amalraj stated the decision was “inspired by the year of mercy,” that began at the direction of Pope Francis. When will there be a year for justice, truth and child safety?

Contact Jeff Anderson: Office: 651.538.5049 Mobile: 612.817.8665
Contact Mike Finnegan: Office: 651.538.5049 Mobile: 612-205-5531

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.

SCOTLAND
STV

Victims of childhood abuse have vowed to put further pressure on Scotland’s education secretary to increase the scope of an independent inquiry.

Andi Lavery, who founded the support charity White Flowers Alba, said there had been “no movement whatsoever” from the Scottish Government during a meeting with Angela Constance in Edinburgh on Thursday.

The Scottish Child Abuse Inquiry, which is being chaired by Susan O’Brien QC, is not fit for purpose, he claimed, saying it would only look at a “small proportion” of abuse cases.

Campaigners at both White Flowers Alba and the In Care Abuse Survivors (Incas) group want the remit of the inquiry to be extended to include abuse at religious organisations and children’s groups such as the Boy Scouts.

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.

MEXICO
Los Angeles Times

Laura Tillman

As Mexico prepares for the Friday arrival of Pope Francis, not everyone is looking forward to the visit.

How much the trip is costing — and whether that money would be better spent combating poverty, disease, unemployment and other problems the Pope himself has championed — has become a vibrant debate in a country where more than 80% of the population is Catholic.

One newspaper, Milenio, estimated that state and municipal governments will have spent nearly $10 million by the end of the six-day visit.

One Twitter user, Luisa Grisales, cited that estimate in a tweet, saying it would be better spent on education, health and creating jobs. …

Other critics of the trip wanted to know: Why won’t Pope Francis be meeting with victims of sexual abuse by clergy? Will the visit draw much-needed attention to the country’s problems, or is it just a diversion from poverty and other problems?

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.

ROME
The Daily Beast

Barbie Latza Nadeau

ROME — One might think that a commission designed to rid the Catholic Church of its predator priests and try to heal decades of suffering by sex abuse victims might actually be involved in, well, doing just that.

On the contrary, it would seem that Pope Francis’s special Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors that he created in 2014 is not exactly getting its hands dirty when it comes to actually teaching bishops how to deal with the problems it has been tasked to deal with.

Writing in The Boston Globe’s Crux website, Vatican expert John Allen points an accusatory finger at the commission, led by a prominent Boston cardinal.

“What’s the point of creating a commission to promote best practices, and putting one of the Church’s most credible leaders on the abuse issue, Boston Cardinal Sean P. O’Malley, in charge of it, and yet not having it address the new leaders who will have to implement those practices?”

Allen asks on the heels of the commission’s third meeting in Rome that wrapped up last weekend.

During the conference, as Allen first reported, a French Monsignor with controversial views on homosexuality argued that bishops should have no obligation to report abuse of minors and that the onus should fall on victims and their families.

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.

MICHIGAN
MLive

By Andy Hoag | ahoag@mlive.com
on February 11, 2016

MOUNT PLEASANT, MI — A Central Michigan University student has filed a lawsuit regarding a sexual relationship she says she had with a now-former priest from the parish serving the school.

Megan Winans, through her Lansing attorney James Heos, filed the lawsuit in January in Isabella County Circuit Court, alleging the Rev. Denis Heames asked her to keep their sexual relationship a secret.

Winans is a senior at CMU, according to CM Life, the student newspaper at CMU.

Heames, 43, served as parochial administrator for St. Mary University Parish in Mount Pleasant until July, when he first was placed on administrative leave and then removed from his position for what the Catholic Diocese of Saginaw called “boundary violations.”

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.

LOUISIANA
KALB

Feb 11, 2016

ALEXANDRIA, La. (KALB) – The Bishop of Alexandria has announced the dismissal of Reverend Antonio Jorge Velez following allegations of sexual misconduct with a female minor made by the Archdiocese of Baltimore.

Rev. Velez served at St. Mary in Jena and St. Edward in Fishville.

The decision to remove Velez comes after the Diocese of Alexandria was made aware of the allegations resulting from a time when Velez was stationed in Baltimore for about 10 years and was accused of inappropriate behavior with a female minor. An investigation is currently being conducted in Maryland.

Bishop Ronald Herzog has released the following statement: “During this difficult time, I ask for your prayers for all who are affected by these accusations: victims, their families, the Church here and in Baltimore, his religious order and the accused. I urge any victim of clerical sexual misconduct to allow us the opportunity to help heal the wounds inflicted through such actions, and I invite any victims to come forward in order that healing may begin and justice can be served.”

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.

TEXAS
KFOR

[with video]

HIDALGO COUNTY, Texas – A former Catholic priest faces a first-degree murder charge for allegedly killing a onetime beauty queen who was last seen alive the night he heard her confession.

John Feit, 83, had long been the main suspect in the 1960 death of schoolteacher Irene Garza, but he wasn’t arrested until Tuesday in Scottsdale, Arizona.

According to an indictment unsealed Wednesday, a grand jury in Hidalgo County, Texas, decided there was enough evidence to charge that Feit, “with malice aforethought, (caused) the death of Irene Garza by asphyxiation in a manner and means unknown to the grand jury.”

Garza was last seen alive the night before Easter 1960, when Feit heard her confession at Sacred Heart Catholic Church in McAllen, Texas. Five days later, searchers found the body of the 25-year-old former Miss South Texas facedown in a canal.

In 2004, a grand jury heard the case but decided not to indict Feit. Authorities haven’t released details about what’s changed since then.

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.

TEXAS
Valley Central

[with video]

BY ANALISE ORTIZ THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 11TH 2016

When Noemi Siegler heard a Hidalgo County grand jury had finally indicted former priest John Feit — long suspected of killing her cousin, McAllen beauty queen Irene Garza — she started weeping uncontrollably.

“I was flooded with emotion, it completely took me off my feet,” said Siegler, who spent decades pushing county prosecutors for justice. “I cried at least six hours. I cried until I lost my voice.”

Seigler spoke exclusively with 48 Hours about her cousin’s murder.

On April 16, 1960, the 25-year-old teacher went to confession at Sacred Heart Catholic Church in McAllen. Five days later, investigators pulled her body from an irrigation canal.

Police suspected that John Feit, the priest who heard Garza’s confession, killed her. Prosecutors, though, didn’t indict him.

“I started losing faith, a little bit, in the legal system,” Siegler said.

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

NEW MEXICO
Gallup Independent

Published in the Gallup Independent, Gallup, N.M., Feb. 10, 2016

By Elizabeth Hardin-Burrola
Independent correspondent
religion@gallupindependent.com

ALBUQUERQUE – The Diocese of Gallup’s bankruptcy case is moving forward again, but without its future claims representative.

On Tuesday, about 40 minutes before U.S. Bankruptcy Judge David T. Thuma began another continued status hearing, attorneys for the Gallup Diocese filed a motion requesting Thuma authorize the resignation of Michael P. Murphy, the current future claims representative, also referred to as the unknown claims representative. Thuma was also asked to approve Michael R. Hogan, a retired U.S. District Court judge, as Murphy’s replacement.

“There’s been quite a bit of discussion this week with respect to the unknown claims representative,” diocesan attorney Thomas Walker told Thuma. “Mr. Murphy decided to resign.”

No explanation was given for Murphy’s resignation, either in the motion or in the court hearing, nor did Thuma request the information.

Attorneys for the Gallup Diocese nominated Murphy for the position in February 2015. As the appointed future claims representative, Murphy was an independent fiduciary authorized to act on behalf of any future abuse claimants.

Catholic Mutual conflict

In recent weeks, however, Murphy came into conflict with attorneys for Catholic Mutual, which provides liability coverage for the diocese. According to statements made in court last week, Catholic Mutual had agreed to finance the future claims fund.

Catholic Mutual and Murphy disagreed over how much of an inquiry Murphy could conduct into Catholic Mutual’s financial condition. David Spector, an attorney for Catholic Mutual, vehemently objected to the scope of Murphy’s possible inquiry. According to Spector, Murphy would only be allowed to view a financial balance sheet, and Murphy would first have to sign an “ironclad protective order” that would protect the confidential nature of Catholic Mutual’s financial information. Spector threatened to withdraw financing for the future claims fund if Murphy wouldn’t agree to those conditions.

Thuma then brokered a tentative compromise whereby Murphy agreed to cooperate with Catholic Mutual by signing the protective order and then reviewing the financial balance sheet. If the balance sheet convinced Murphy of Catholic Mutual’s financial well-being, he would give the court a “thumbs up” and not request any further financial information. If Murphy believed the balance sheet provided inadequate information, Murphy would give the court a “thumbs down,” and the dispute was likely to resume.

Whether Murphy ever reviewed Catholic Mutual’s balance sheet or even signed the protective order was not discussed during Tuesday’s court hearing. Instead, the diocese’s motion extended “appreciation and gratitude” to Murphy “for his service in this matter” and moved on to request approval for Hogan’s employment.

‘Perfect substitute’

Hogan served as a U.S. District Court judge for the District of Oregon from 1991 to 2012, and he previously served as a U.S. magistrate judge and a U.S. bankruptcy judge. After his retirement in 2012, Hogan established a mediation firm.

According to Hogan’s statement submitted to the court, he is currently serving as the future claims representative in the Diocese of Helena’s bankruptcy case and as the future claims adjudicator in the Diocese of Spokane’s case. Prior to that, Hogan mediated several dozen future claim matters pending against the Diocese of Spokane, and he was also involved in resolving a number of tort claims against the Archdiocese of Portland.

Susan Boswell, the diocese’s lead bankruptcy attorney, called Hogan “a perfect substitute” and said he comes to the Gallup bankruptcy case “with a greater level of information than perhaps somebody else might have,” allowing the case to proceed without losing much time.

Hogan has been in the news recently for his role in sentencing Oregon ranchers Dwight Hammond Jr. and his son Steven for less than the mandatory minimum time after they were convicted of committing arson on public land. An armed group of anti- government protesters took over the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in January after the federal government won its appeal of Hogan’s sentences and the Hammonds were ordered back to prison.

In the Diocese of Gallup bankruptcy, Hogan is requesting to be compensated at the rate of $550 per hour plus expenses. In addition, he is asking the diocese to reimburse him for reasonable out-of-pocket expenses.

Murphy’s agreement had called for him to receive a flat fee of $50,000 plus expenses, payable upon the effective date of any plan of reorganization.

Objections to Hogan’s employment must be filed by Thursday. If no objections are filed, the next continued status hearing will be held Feb. 19.

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

UNITED STATES
Catholic League

Bill Donohue comments on an editorial in today’s New York Times:

The New York Times slammed the Vatican today for not doing enough about priestly sexual abuse. It offers not one piece of evidence that the Church has turned its back on victims, nor does it provide data that this problem—which occurred mostly between 1965 and 1985—is ongoing today. The best it can do is say that a recently appointed bishop from Chile was “a close associate” of a guilty priest. Isn’t that what this newspaper calls “McCarthyism”? By this measure, everyone in Hollywood who worked with Michael Jackson should be condemned.

The editorial criticizes the removal of Peter Saunders, an alleged victim of priestly molestation, from a Vatican commission on sexual abuse. As I pointed out this week (click here), Saunders is not a credible source: his account has changed many times, raising serious questions about his veracity. If anything, he should never have been selected for this panel in the first place.

The Times really steps in it when it calls for “hierarchical accountability.” The editors should take some of its own medicine and commence an investigation of Mark Thompson, president of the New York Times Company. He headed the BBC at a time when child rapist Jimmy Savile was savaging kids in the “corridors, staircases and canteens” of the BBC’s headquarters (the venues are cited in the draft of an upcoming report on this subject). Yet Thompson claims ignorance.

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.

UNTIED STATES
Variety

Jenelle Riley
Deputy Awards and Features Editor
@JenelleRiley

Josh Singer earned his first Oscar nomination for original screenplay (with director Tom McCarthy) of “Spotlight.” The pair spent countless hours of research to craft the story of the Boston Globe journalists who investigated the cover-up of child sex abuse within the Catholic church. Singer, who is also favored to win the WGA Award this weekend, spoke to Variety at this week’s Oscar luncheon about the worldwide effect their film is having.

How did you find out about the Oscar nominations?

I won’t lie, my wife and I got up early. I was obviously nervous about screenwriting but wanted to see how we would do across the board. I was thinking if we got five it would be a pretty good morning. And we got six.

You share writing with Tom McCarthy, but he didn’t intend on being a co-writer at first?
Right, originally Tom wasn’t going to be a co-writer and we started going to Boston together for research. I love collaborating. Tom’s a great writer and a great guy so I’ll always enjoy spending time with him. Three or four months in he said, “Do you have any interest in writing this with me?” And I said, “We basically already are!”

The film is being seen everywhere; it screened last week for a Vatican commission on clerical sex abuse.

There’s been some interesting developments there. Pope Francis had created this commission in 2014, the Papal Commission for the Protection of Minors. He created it in 2014 and put two survivors on the commission; Peter Saunders is one of them. They screened our film at the top of the session on Thursday, which was terrific. Less terrific is that Peter Saunders has been pushed out of the commission because he was agitating for too much change. I think he was pushing the Pope to do more. One can read this several different ways but I have a real concern that this commission is a bit of a straw dog — it’s not actually affecting change, it’s just there for show. I think we all need to bring more pressure on the church to do more because I think they have not done nearly enough to protect children.

Did they give a reason for pushing him out?

They said he was perhaps more comfortable as an advocate as opposed to an adviser. And I understand it’s an advisory committee. But things he was advocating are things we all should want. The Pope announced there was going to be this tribunal to hold bishops accountable and yet hasn’t actually created the tribunal. Peter Saunders asked why. The Pope elevated a bishop in Chile and there are allegations he was involved in enabling and actually participating in a child abuse scandal involving a priest named Karadima. And the Pope has made some not-so-great comments about this when people have protested, calling people leftist and dumb. Peter Saunders asked why hasn’t he said more and why has this bishop been allowed to maintain this position? These are both good questions, I think. I was deeply disheartened to see Saunders pushed off that commission. If we don’t have our survivors speaking for other survivors and children, I think that’s a problem.

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.

VATICAN CITY
Catholic News Agency

Vatican City, Feb 11, 2016 / 12:42 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Media reports are wrong to claim that the Vatican is telling new bishops that they don’t have to report sexual abuse, Holy See spokesman Father Federico Lombardi said.

A reported comment from a Vatican consultant is “not in any way – as someone has mistakenly interpreted – a new Vatican document or a new instruction or new ‘guidelines’ for bishops,” Fr. Lombardi said Feb. 11.

The news reports concerned a statement from French Monsignor Tony Anatrella, who contributed to a 2015 formation course for new bishops organized by the Congregation for Bishops.

Msgr. Anatrella, a consultant to the Pontifical Council for the Family and the Pontifical Council for Health Care Workers, wrote a document with a section reflecting on countries’ civil laws that mandate abuse reporting.

The document said “it is not necessarily the duty of the bishop to report suspects to authorities, the police or state prosecutors in the moment when they are made aware of crimes or sinful deeds.” Msgr. Anatrella said that decision is up to victims and their families.

Some media reports depicted the monsignor’s statements as an encouragement to cover up sexual abuse or as a claim that it is “not necessarily” a bishop’s duty to report sexual abuse in cases where laws require it.

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

UNITED STATES
National Catholic Reporter

Michael Sean Winters | Feb. 11, 2016 D

Reading Marie Collins’ statement, published here at NCR yesterday, you could almost feel her pain coming through the screen of the computer. All the current issues and frustrations that attend her membership on the papal commission charged with child protection were palpable, and you could tell that they must reawaken very painful memories for her.

Empathy has its limits. I cannot imagine what it feels like to have been sexually abused as a child, especially by a priest. We all have had secrets, some more dark than others, that we would not like to shine a light on, but to have one’s personhood violated by someone whose vocation is to care with the love of Jesus Christ for his parishioners, well, that is a pain that I cannot even imagine.

Nor can I imagine the courage to continue fighting for the protection of children, knowing that every case you hear about, every obstacle you face in your attempts to reform the Church and to root out this sin, every interview you give to the press, will reanimate those dark memories of abuse. This residual pain is evident when Collins writes, “I have been asked about the Commission discussion and vote last Saturday at our Plenary. Why the silence and why have I not walked away? I have fought for transparency in the Church and in this case we must have transparency also, it is only fair to all those who feel they have once more been betrayed but the Church.” Even being at the Vatican, surrounded by so many clergy, must be an emotional challenge.

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.

SCOTLAND
Scotsman

CHRIS MARSHALL
Thursday 11 February 2016

A Catholic priest has attacked the Scottish Government for its “shameful” decision to exclude some child abuse survivors from a public inquiry into the issue.

Father Gerry Magee, chair of the campaign group White Flowers Alba, spoke out following a meeting with education secretary Angela Constance at Holyrood earlier.

Survivors want the Scottish Government to extend the remit of the inquiry so that it includes all of those abused by organisations such as the Catholic Church, not just those who were abused while in care.

Father Magee, a parish priest in Kilwinning, North Ayrshire, said there was “shameful lack of equality” across the UK, as separate inquiries in England and Northern Ireland are investigating abuse carried out by religious groups.

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

UNITED KINGDOM
Civil Society

Emily Corfe

The Charity Commission has defended its inquiry into the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society of Britain, following the Jehovah’s Witness charity’s fourth appeal against what it describes as an “unlawful investigation”.

The charity became subject to a Charity Commission statutory inquiry after revelations emerged that a man accused of child abuse was allowed to question his accusers as part of a “disfellowship” process to decide whether he should remain a member of the congregation.

The statutory inquiry into the charity’s safeguarding procedures has been the subject of a long-running legal case, with the Charity Commission attempting to access Watch Tower’s records since 2014 and the charity in turn accusing the regulator of conducting an unlawful investigation.

Watch Tower has launched a total of four appeals since 2014, against decisions by the High Court and Charity Tribunal which ruled in favour of the Charity Commission. The charity is seeking permission to challenge the statutory inquiry, but following yesterday’s hearing at the Court of Appeal, no decision was reached.

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

CANADA
Kamloops This Week

IN THE PHOTO: James Cruickshank was known as Bishop Jim to those in the church. He paved the way to hearing stories and apologizing to people in the Lytton area after sexual and physical abuse at the former St. George’s residential school. Cruickshank died on Dec. 30, 2015, at age 79. Anglican Journal photo

Kamloops’ Anglican community will come together tomorrow to celebrate the life of the last bishop to lead a diocese that once stretched from Lytton to Valemount.

James Cruickshank — Bishop Jim to those in the church — died on Dec. 30, 2015 at the age of 79.

Elected bishop of Cariboo in 1992, Cruickshank was the last to hold the post before the diocese shut down in 2001 after lawsuits over sexual and physical abuses at the former St. George’s residential school in Lytton left it bankrupt. He’d previously served as Canon of St. Paul’s Cathedral in Kamloops.

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

UNITED STATES
Catholic League

Bill Donohue comments on media bias in stories about an ex-priest:

John Feit was arrested this week for killing a young woman in 1960. The only newsworthy aspect of this story is that he is an ex-priest.

AP, CNN, NBC, as well as many other media outlets, accurately referred to Feit as an ex-priest. But not all were fair, the most prominent of which was the Washington Post. Its headline read, “Break in ‘Unholy’ Cold Case: Police Arrest Former Beauty Queen’s Priest in Her 1960 Killing.”

Notice that the victim is a former beauty queen, but her alleged victimizer is not a former priest. Indeed, the reader doesn’t learn of Feit’s former status until several paragraphs later.

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

UNITED KINGDOM
Daily Mail

[photos]

These are the haunting pictures from inside of an abandoned catholic seminary which was deserted more than twenty years ago and rocked by historic sexual abuse allegations.

St Joseph’s Seminary in Upholland, Lancashire, saw its last batch of pupils leave in 1992 and now the vast halls and dormitories hold just a few stark remnants of the hundreds of pupils that once flooded the halls and chapels.

A loan, rusty record player which would once brought music to entire classes of animated youngsters lies in the centre of a huge empty hall which is now blanketed in a thick layer of dust.

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.

ARIZONA
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Wednesday, Feb. 10, 2016

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

An ex-priest who worked in New Mexico and lives in Arizona has been arrested for murdering a Texas girl. We are deeply grateful that John Feit has finally been charged. Now, Catholic officials in all three states have a moral and civic duty to prod other witnesses to step forward.

[Monitor]

In the 1960s, Feit worked at the Jemez Springs-based Servants of the Paraclete, a Catholic facility where predator priests were housed and purportedly “treated.” That was “after his criminal problems in South Texas prompted his bosses to remove him from parish work” and he “had been convicted in a young woman’s sexual assault,” according to the Dallas Morning News.

[BishopAccountability.org]

We fear he may have hurt young women in New Mexico too.

We hope that this news brings some hope to Irene Garza’s brave and devoted family. We applaud them for their persistence and patience. And we hope that anyone who may have seen, suspected or suffered clergy crimes or misdeeds by Feit – or cover ups by his church supervisors will call police, expose wrongdoers, protect others and start healing.

We also hope that Santa Fe Archbishop John Wester, Phoenix Bishop Thomas Olmsted and Brownsville Bishop Daniel Flores will use personal appeals, parish bulletins, church websites and pulpit announcements to beg others with information or suspicions about Feit to call law enforcement immediately. Now is no time for Catholic officials to act powerless or for citizens to be complacent. Every shred of evidence – no matter how small, old or seemingly insignificant – should be withheld from police and prosecutors.

Three months ago, we wrote to Hildalgo County prosecutor Ricardo Rodriguez about this case. We are certain, however, that the diligence of the Garza family that made the difference here. Again, we are grateful to them for the courage and compassion they have shown throughout this ordeal.

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.

ARIZONA
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Thursday, Feb. 11, 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)

An accused murderer and ex-priest was “a regular church volunteer” in Phoenix, the Washington Post reports. In light of this revelation, it’s crucial that Bishop Thomas Olmsted break his silence, take decisive action and help prosecutors pursue Feit.

[Washington Post]

[The Monitor]

We call on Olmsted to disclose which local parish Feit volunteered at and who brought Feit to Phoenix and hired him at the St. Vincent de Paul Society. At the very least, this information will deter future recklessness.

We also call on Olmsted – and every Phoenix diocesan or parish employee – to beat the bushes, spread the word and seek out others who may have seen, suspected or suffered his crimes, and urge them to call 911.

With minimal effort, using cheap but effective communications tools like church websites, parish bulletins and pulpit announcements, Olmsted and church staff might turn up one more wounded person who is suffering in shame, silence and self-blame. Or they may find one victim or witness or whistleblower who could be the difference between success or failure in the criminal case against Feit.

This is what Jesus told us to do in the parable of the Good Shepherd: to go out into the cold, the dark and the rain to find that one lost, wounded sheep.

Feit was sent to New Mexico long before Olmsted was. So it’s no skin off Olmsted’s teeth to do this outreach. Even if it produced no results, the effort alone would burnish Olmstead’s image. There’s really little reason, besides timidity and tradition, for Olmsted to be passive and silent here, unless he’s afraid that a public plea will bring even more still-hidden clergy crimes or cover ups to the surface.

Olmsted isn’t the only bishop with an obligation for outreach here. Prelates in New Mexico, Texas and Missouri, where Feit also spent time, have this duty too.

Regardless of what Catholic workers do or don’t do, we in SNAP beg every single person who has any information or suspicions about Feit – no matter how small, old, vague or seemingly meaningless it might seem – to call police. That’s the least we can and should do to protect the vulnerable, heal the wounded and expose the truth.

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

UNITED KINGDOM
BBC News

A doctor who led an inquiry into the Jimmy Savile scandal is to chair a review of a former care home where it is claimed children were drugged.

Dr Sue Proctor is to chair a panel looking into the treatment of former residents at the Church of England’s Kendall House in Gravesend.

A 2009 BBC investigation found an ex-resident who said she was given drugs more than 1,200 times at the Kent home.

Dr Proctor led inquiries into sex abuse by Savile at Leeds General Infirmary.

Her report in 2014 found 60 people said they were abused at the Leeds hospital by the Ex-BBC DJ, between 1962 and 2009.

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

UNITED KINGDOM
National Secular Society

Posted: Thu, 11 Feb 2016

The National Secular Society has expressed its concern over guidelines for newly appointed bishops published by the Vatican which state that bishops do not always need to report clerical sex abuse to the authorities.

The guidance reportedly states that “According to the state of civil laws of each country where reporting is obligatory, it is not necessarily the duty of the bishop to report suspects to authorities, the police or state prosecutors in the moment when they are made aware of crimes or sinful deeds”.

The NSS, which has campaigned for ten years, including at the United Nations, to expose clerical abuse and the rape and sexual abuse of minors, strongly criticised the guidance for flouting secular law and the recommendations of the United Nations.

Keith Porteous Wood, NSS executive director, commented: “It is unfortunately no surprise that these guidelines encourage bishops not to report suspected abuse, rather than obligating them to do so as the UN recommended specifically to the Vatican in 2014.”

In 2014 the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child recommended to the Holy See that the Vatican “Establish clear rules, mechanisms and procedures for the mandatory reporting of all suspected cases of child sexual abuse and exploitation to law enforcement authorities.”

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.

MASSACHUSETTS
MassLive

By Dan Glaun | dglaun@masslive.com
on February 11, 2016

The Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, the victims advocacy group that has long clashed with the Catholic Church over its clergy sexual abuse scandal, is not accepting the Roman Catholic Diocese of Springfield’s apology.

In a pastoral letter released on Ash Wednesday, the Most. Rev. Mitchell T. Rozanski sought to welcome Catholics distanced or disillusioned with the Church back into the fold. The letter included a direct apology for the Diocese’s role in the sexual abuse scandal, which led to more than $12 million in settlements to dozens of victims.

“First and foremost, I apologize to the victims of clergy sexual abuse, their families and friends, and all those scandalized by the Church’s failure to protect our young people and for any lack of diligence in responding,” Rozanski wrote.

In his pastoral letter issued on Ash Wednesday, Bishop Mitchell Rozanski wrote that the church, inspired by the approachable tenor of Pope Francis’ approach to the papacy, is rededicating itself to evangelism.

“Springfield’s bishop is issuing an apology when he should be protecting kids, exposing predators, punishing enablers and releasing abuse records,” wrote Barbara Dorris, SNAP’s outreach director. “Tangible steps will do more to protect the vulnerable and heal the wounded that all the words, gestures and apologies.”

Allegations of sexual abuse in Springfield stretched to the top of the diocese; former bishop Thomas Dupre, who oversaw the first round of discipline against abusive priests when the scandal broke in the early 2000s, was himself accused of child molestation in 2004. Dupre resigned from the diocese and was criminally indicted, but those charges were later dropped due to the statute of limitations on the allegations.

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

IRELAND
Newstalk

A Vatican document for new bishops states it is “not necessarily” their duty to report claims of clerical abuse.

The Vatican recently released the guidelines, and are seeking feedback on them.

It did state that clergy must be aware of laws in the area they minister.

“According to the state of civil laws of each country where reporting is obligatory, it is not necessarily the duty of the bishop to report suspects to authorities, the police or state prosecutors in the moment when they are made aware of crimes or sinful deeds,” the training document states.

The Guardian reports that the training guidelines were written by French monsignor and psychotherapist, Tony Anatrella.

He also serves as a consultant to the Pontifical Council for the Family.

Maeve Lewis is the executive director of One in Four. She says she is deeply shocked by the news.

“Given the history of clerical abuse in this country, we all know the sort of culture that that can create – and the very dangerous position it leaves vulnerable children in”, she told Newstalk Breakfast.

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.

IRELAND
Irish Times

Patsy McGarry

Archbishop Diarmuid Martin has said all allegations of clerical abuse in Ireland must be reported to gardaí, responding to a new Vatican document saying bishops had discretion on reporting abuse to authorities.

“The norms in Ireland are very clear – all allegations must and are reported to the gardaí,” he said.
He added that co-operation with the gardaí has been very productive from the perspective of the Archdiocese.

“Gardaí have the ability and the expertise to investigate matters that diocesan personnel would not.

“Over the years, we have established very good working relationships with the Gardai which has been helpful to both sides.”

Earlier on Thursday the One in Four organisation expressed shock at the implications of the new Vatican document.

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

UNITED STATES
American Thinker

By Rick Moran

Two decades of scandals involving Catholic dioceses covering up allegations of sexual abuse of minors by clergy apparently hasn’t made much of an impression on the Vatican.

The coverups have come close to destroying the Roman Catholic Church. And yet, a new policy guideline for bishops released this month state that it is “not necessarily” the duty of bishops to report accusations of clerical child abuse and that only victims or their families should make the decision to report abuse to police.

Guardian:

A document that spells out how senior clergy members ought to deal with allegations of abuse, which was recently released by the Vatican, emphasised that, though they must be aware of local laws, bishops’ only duty was to address such allegations internally.

The training guidelines were written by a controversial French monsignor and psychotherapist, Tony Anatrella, who serves as a consultant to the Pontifical Council for the Family. The Vatican released the guidelines – which are part of a broader training programme for newly named bishops – at a press conference earlier this month and is now seeking feedback. …

It’s possible to read too much into these guidelines, but as a matter of public relations, it’s a disaster. If a bishop is made aware of a specific case involving clergy and the molestation of a child, urging the family to report the crime to police simply isn’t enough. That’s been the problem in the past – that the church basically looked away while predator priests were allowed to continue their attacks – usually in another parish. Pressure was placed on families by the church hierarchy to let the diocese handle the problem.

The guidelines suggest some sort of internal investigation before going to police. It appears that the Vatican is trying to strike some kind of balance between the rights of clergy not to be falsely accused and the rights of victims. On paper, that may be acceptable. But in practice, it still looks like a coverup – especially given recent history.

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.

ARIZONA/TEXAS
KRIS

[with video]

PHOENIX (AP) – The Latest on the arrest in Arizona of a former priest in the 1960 killing of a Texas schoolteacher (all times local):

4:10 p.m.

A man who told authorities that a former priest confessed to killing a Texas schoolteacher in 1960 says he’s relieved that the man has been charged in the case.

Former priest John Bernard Feit (fyt) was arrested Tuesday in Arizona after being indicted by a grand jury in Texas in the death of Irene Garza.

Dale Tacheny says he also is a former priest and was working at a Missouri monastery where Feit applied to live in 1963. Tacheny says Feit told him he’d killed a young woman as the two men talked during an evaluation process to determine whether Feit would be accepted to stay at the monastery.

Tacheny says he told a superior about the conversation, but the only result was that Fiet wasn’t invited to live at the monastery.

Tacheny says he continued thinking about the conversation over the years, but he didn’t learn until years later that the woman was Garza. Tacheny went to law enforcement in 2002.

Tacheny called Feit’s indictment “the right thing.”

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.

ITALY
Vanguard

Rome, Italy – A priest, a junior football coach and an HIV-positive man were among 11 people arrested in northern Italy on charges of paying for sex with minors, police said Thursday.

The arrests in the Lombardy and Emilia-Romagna regions follow a six-month investigation led by detectives in Brescia into a prostitution network which used social media to put the minors in contact with potential clients.

The investigation was triggered after a mother found suspicious text messages on the phone of her 16-year-old daughter.

The accused priest was named by his diocese as Diego Rota, 45, a parish priest in the village of Solza near the city of Bergamo.

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.

DEUTSCHLAND
Regensburger Nachrichten

[A victim of abuse at the Regensburg cathedral choir speaks about what happened there.]

Sie wurden geprügelt, sexuell missbraucht und gedemütigt. „Ich bin in die Finsternis gekommen. Es war ein Gefängnis mit Schlägen, Tritten und noch viel Schlimmerem“, erzählt Karsten G. (Name von der Redaktion geändert) von seinen traumatischen Erinnerungen an die Regensburger Domspatzen. Vor sechs Jahren wurden die ersten Missbrauchsfälle in dem berühmtesten Knabenchor Deutschlands bekannt, mittlerweile weiß man von mehr als 230 Fällen. Die Entschädigung? 2.500 Euro Schmerzensgeld, vielleicht – falls der Antrag vom Bistum nicht abgelehnt wird.

„Wenn die Erzieher, die sogenannten Präfekten, nachts ein Flüstern hörten, wurde man aus dem Bett geholt und in das Präfektenzimmer gebracht. Ich musste meinen Kopf zwischen seine Schenkel stecken. Bei jedem Schlag auf den Po rieb er sein Glied an meinem Hinterkopf.“ Karsten G. ist noch Jahrzehnte nach diesen Vorkommnissen schockiert, in seinen Augen stehen Tränen. „Es gab kein Entrinnen.“ Der 46-Jährige schwieg jahrelang, sprach mit niemandem darüber. Seit den 50er Jahren leben die Schüler in dem katholischen Internat der Regensburger Domspatzen, die Regeln waren streng. Erstmals 2010 brach der ehemalige Domspatz Alexander Probst das große Schweigen, er wollte eine Aufklärung und hoffte, damit endlich Frieden zu finden.

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.

CHILE
Cooperativa

[Juan Carlos Cruz: The Catholic Church does nothing specifically against sexual abuse.]

Juan Carlos Cruz, denunciante del caso Karadima, relató en Lo que Queda del Día la expulsión del abogado Peter Saunders de la comisión vaticana que aborda los casos de abuso sexual, donde él mismo fue vetado de una reunión donde expondría el caso del obispo Juan Barros. Calificó como “una vergüenza y una burla” lo que está pasando.

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

AUSTRALIA
Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse

11 February, 2016

The Royal Commission will hold a public hearing commencing Monday 22 February 2016 at the Ballarat Magistrates Court.

The scope and purpose of the public hearing is to inquire into:

The response of the Catholic Diocese of Ballarat and other Catholic Church authorities in Ballarat to allegations of child sexual abuse against clergy or religious.

The response of the Congregation of the Christian Brothers in St Patrick’s Province, Australia, to allegations of child sexual abuse against Christian Brothers.

Any related matters.

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

The Trench Room at Ballarat Town Hall will be made available for members of the community during the public hearing, including Cardinal Pell’s evidence.

For more information on Case Study 28 into the Catholic Church authorities in Ballarat please visit the Case Study 28 webpage

Date: Monday 22 February 2016
Time: 10.00am AEDT start
Location: Ballarat Magistrates Court, 100 Grenville St S, Ballarat VIC 3350

Any person or institution who believes that they have a direct and substantial interest in the scope and purpose of the public hearing is invited to lodge a written application for leave to appear at the public hearing by 15 February 2016.

Applications for leave to appear should be made using the form available on the Royal Commission website.

Parties who were granted leave to appear in the first or second part of the public hearing of Case Study 28 or Case Study 35 do not need to reapply.

Leave to appear will generally be granted when an applicant:

a. has been summoned to give evidence
b. is an institution, or is a representative of an institution, that is subject to the
inquiry to be undertaken
c. may be the subject of an adverse allegation.

It is not essential for a person who will appear as a witness in a hearing to apply for leave to appear – witnesses may appear and give evidence without applying for leave.

The form should be lodged with the Royal Commission via: Email: solicitor@childabuseroyalcommission.gov.au; or Mail: GPO Box 5283, Sydney NSW 2001

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

UNITED KINGDOM
ITV

The Bishop of Rochester – The Right Reverend James Langstaff – first announced the review of Kendall House in January last year.

He commissioned the independent panel on behalf of the dioceses of Rochester and Canterbury.

Former residents of the now-closed home say that they were heavily sedated with tranquilisers up to ten times the recommended dose.

The review will not however look at allegations that this led to birth defects in their own children.

The Bishop said the Church of England is not in a position to act as Judge and Jury in the absence of any birth defect related claims being made.

The Kendall House Review panel comprises of:

Sue Proctor led the major independent investigation into matters relating to Jimmy Savile, and chaired the NHS Savile Legacy Unit.

Samantha Cohen is a part time judge with some twenty years of experience as an independent barrister. She specialises in cases involving allegations of sexual abuse and

Ray Galloway retired from the police service in 2013 as a Detective Superintendent. Ray was the Director of the independent investigation into the activities of Jimmy Savile.

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

CALIFORNIA
Orange County Weekly

BY GUSTAVO ARELLANO

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 10, 2016

People have compiled histories of baseball in Orange County, of our long-gone walnut growers, of films shot here before the advent of talking movies. Chronicles about the Huntington Beach Fourth of July parade, about the Hippie Mafia, about a guy’s visit to the Santa Ana Valley in the 1860s. Tomes devoted to old railroads, orange-crate labels, even Aliso Viejo, where nothing remarkable has ever happened—ever.

But nowhere in OC’s many history books will you find much info on our most unsung industry: sex scandals. Few other places in the U.S. can boast such a hypocritical mix of prudish mores and a libido that matches any Tushy.com ingénue, which usually translates to shocking, sometimes hilarious incidents that no proper history ever bothered to jot down. Thankfully, we ain’t proper, so consider us the Herodotus of smut—but you knew that already, right?

The following is just a sampling of all the nasty, disturbing, crazy, insane or just plain embarrassing sex scandals that Orange County has seen through the ages, ones that sent tongues clucking and authorities scrambling to cover up the dirty deeds. Special attention was given to incidents involving people abusing their positions of power. We mostly excluded hot-for-teacher cases (save the most infamous one) because that deserves a whole volume of the Encyclopedia Britannica. We’re a bit light on stuff before the 1980s, but we’ll keep digging. …

1975: The Orange County district attorney’s office (OCDA) tells the Archdiocese of Los Angeles to start psychological care for Eleuterio Ramos, a priest at St. Joseph Church in Placentia, citing “a recent incident.” Ramos would go on to become the most prolific pedophile priest in Orange County history, molesting at least 25 boys and never serving a day in jail.

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.

MEXICO
NSS Oaxca

[Pope Francis rebuffs victims of sexual abuse in the church during his visit to Mexico.]

Fueron las palabras de Jesús Cabrero Romero, arzobispo de San Luis Potosí, las que dieron esperanza a las víctimas de abuso sexual de la Iglesia en México al asegurar que Francisco se reuniría con ellas como lo hizo en su visita a Estados Unidos, el año pasado. “El Papa traerá para ellos un mensaje y a nosotros una línea para poder responder a todas estas víctimas”, dijo el religioso en diciembre de 2015, cuando se organizaban los detalles de la primera visita de Francisco al país, que comienza este viernes. El Vaticano, sin embargo, ha revelado que no existirá tal encuentro. “Lo que hay que hacer es callar porque lo que han hecho aquí es proteger y encubrir”, señala la madre de un joven violado por el sacerdote Eduardo Córdova, uno de los mayores depredadores sexuales de la Iglesia en México.

El desaire de Francisco ha sido mal recibido en San Luis Potosí, a 350 kilómetros de la Ciudad de México. La capital del Estado de 2.4 millones de habitantes sufrió las vejaciones del padre Córdova. En abril de 2004, la madre de una de sus víctimas envió una carta al arzobispo Luis Morales. “Mi hijo fue violado en su persona, en su vida, en su respeto, en su integridad y sobre todo, en su fe”, escribió. “¿Cómo un sacerdote puede llegar a hacer tanto daño?” A esa carta siguieron varias más, de otros afectados, hasta noviembre de 2006. El arzobispo respondió que la información había sido enviada a Roma el 29 de junio de 2004 para pedir “indicaciones a seguir en el caso”.

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.

SCOTLAND
Scotsman

CHRIS MARSHALL

Survivors of historical child abuse have “no prospect” of obtaining justice from a national inquiry unless its remit is widened, it has been claimed.

Campaigners will meet education secretary Angela Constance tomorrow to press for the scope of the inquiry to be widened to include paedophile priests who abused children outwith residential care.

The inquiry, which officially opened in October under the leadership of Susan O’Brien QC, is investigating the physical and sexual abuse of children in care up until December 2014.

But survivors’ groups have complained that by focussing on the abuse of children in care, the scope of the inquiry is not wide enough and will exclude those abused by members of the Catholic Church.

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.

IRELAND
The Irish Catholic

By Greg Daly
February 11, 2016

Marie Collins, the Irish clerical abuse survivor who has been a member of Pope Francis’ child protection advisory panel since its foundation, has said she did not vote for the suspension of her colleague and fellow survivor Peter Saunders.

Following a February 6 discussion about the “direction and purpose” of the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors “it was decided that Mr Peter Saunders would take a leave of absence from his membership to consider how he might best support the commission’s work”, according to a statement.

Mr Saunders, founder of the UK-based National Association for People Abused in Childhood, said 15 committee members voted for his suspension, with one member being absent and another abstaining. Asked on Twitter whether she had voted for Mr Saunders’ suspension, Mrs Collins said she had not done so.

In a later statement, Mr Saunders, who has been outspoken on individual cases including allegations about Chile’s Bishop Juan Barros and Vatican finance chief Cardinal George Pell, said concerns had been raised about his speaking too much to the press and seeing himself as a campaigner. He insisted that he has not, however, left the panel, saying “I was appointed by Pope Francis, and I will only talk to him about my position on the commission”.

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.

MEXICO
Sin Embargo

[Former priest Alberto Athie Gallo, a former priest of the Archdiocese of Mexico, continues to fight against pedophilia in the Catholic Church which he has been doing since 1994 when a victim of the founder of the Legionaries of Christ – Marcial Maciel Degollado – told her story. In his opinion Mexico has the most curel pedophile church. In Mexico more than 500 cases of children raped by Catholic priests are known to date and there is a suspected cover-up involving the church and the Mexican justice system.]

Por Shaila Rosagel febrero 11, 2016

Ciudad de México a 11 de febrero (SinEmbargo).- Alberto Athié Gallo, ex sacerdote de la Arquidiócesis de México, no deja de luchar en contra de la pederastia en la Iglesia Católica desde 1994, cuando una víctima del fundador de los Legionarios de Cristo, Marcial Maciel Degollado, le contó su historia.

Rechazó ser Obispo a cambio de callarse y sorteó las presiones que, asegura, tuvo del Arzobispo Primado de México Norberto Rivera Carrera.

Exiliado en Estados Unidos, vivió de cerca el escándalo de los sacerdotes pederastas de Boston, Massachusetts, y el encubrimiento de la cúpula de la Iglesia Católica en esa zona. Luego de mucho andar y de conocer casos a nivel mundial, asegura en entrevista con SinEmbargo que México tiene a los pederastas más crueles e importantes de la Iglesia. Todos impunes y libres, “gracias a un mecanismo protector, diseñado desde la Santa Sede, que les permite encontrar en el clero, el lugar perfecto para violar niños”.

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.

MEXICO
IOL

By: Michael Day

Rome – Pope Francis begins a high-profile visit to Latin America on Friday in what should be a series of celebrations for the Argentinian pontiff.

Attention instead looks set to be fixed again on arguably the single most shocking case of multiple child abuse, cover-ups and conspiracy in a series of worldwide clerical paedophilia cases.

Even before Francis touches down in Mexico city, victims of serial abuser Marcial Maciel, the close friend of Pope John Paul II, and head of the Legionaries of Christ, are dismayed that Pope Francis will not find time to meet them despite him spending a whole week in Mexico.

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.

TEXAS
The Dallas Morning News

McALLEN — For more than half a century, the unsolved killing of a young schoolteacher and beauty queen who was last seen at church haunted this South Texas city.

But now, nearly 56 years after the bludgeoned body of 25-year-old Irene Garza was pulled from an irrigation canal, police have arrested the man long suspected in her slaying: the priest who apparently heard her final confession.

Using a walker, a frail-looking John Bernard Feit, 83, appeared in court Wednesday in Phoenix after being arrested a day earlier at his home in Scottsdale, Ariz., on a murder charge. He was jailed on $750,000 bail while he awaits transfer back to Texas.

“This whole thing makes no sense to me because the crime in question took place in 1960,” Feit said, adding that he plans to fight extradition to Texas.

Feit’s arrest followed other investigations over the years, including a grand jury probe in 2004 that concluded there was insufficient evidence to charge him.

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.

ARIZONA/TEXAS
Arizona Republic

[with video]

Megan Cassidy and Garrett Mitchell, The Republic

A connection to a slain beauty queen was John Feit’s worst-kept secret in the decade leading up to his arrest.

The 1960 killing of Irene Garza, a young schoolteacher, continued to dog the otherwise quiet life of Feit, an elderly Scottsdale resident and former priest known for helping the poor and the homeless in metro Phoenix for more than a quarter-century.

Since nearly a lifetime ago, Feit, 83, had been the sole occupant on detectives’ list of suspects, although he never had been arrested or charged.

Garza’s grisly slaying in the Rio Grande Valley in the southern tip of Texas inspired national crime documentaries and haunted investigators. It served as a political platform for the recent campaign of Hidalgo County Prosecutor Ricardo Rodriguez, who was asked by Garza’s family to examine the case once again.

No charges were brought after the initial investigation in 1960, conducted after Garza was found face down in an irrigation canal, five days after she was last seen heading to confession at a Catholic Church where Feit was a priest. A grand jury re-examined the case in 2004 but did not indict him. Last week, another grand jury did.

In a brief and unexpected 2014 interview with “48 Hours’ “Richard Schlesinger, Feit expressed disgust with the allegations. For the umpteenth time, Feit denied killing Garza.

“Get lost, brother!” he snarled, before slamming the door in the reporter’s face.

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

AUSTRALIA
news.com.au

AAP

The former head of the Catholic Church’s defence force diocese has denied he inappropriately touched boys and has blamed another priest and a brother for assaults at a college more than 40 years ago.

Bishop Max Leroy Davis is charged with six counts of being grossly indecent with five boys under the age of 15 between 1969 and 1972 at St Benedict’s College in New Norcia, northeast of Perth.

Davis, 70, testified in the West Australian District Court on Thursday that he never thought of children sexually or committed a child sex offence, describing it as wrong and inappropriate.

Defence counsel Seamus Rafferty has previously suggested two alternative suspects, who are now dead, including a Father Justin, who Davis had a role in removing as rector.

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

AUSTRALIA
ABC News

By Joanna Menagh

The Catholic Bishop of the Australian Defence Force has taken the stand and denied, under oath, that he ever sexually abused teenage boys 45 years ago.

Max Davis, 70, was on trial in Perth accused of abusing five boarders when he was a dormitory master at Saint Benedict’s College at New Norcia, north of Perth, between 1969 and 1972.

Davis, who voluntarily stood aside from his role as Catholic Bishop of the ADF when he was charged, was a teacher and dormitory master at the school and it is alleged he molested the boys on five separate occasions when they were aged about 13 or 14.

In his evidence Davis said he had no “independent recollection” of any of the complainants, and repeatedly denied that he had ever abused any of them.

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

AUSTRALIA
Brisbane Times

February 10, 2016

Nino Bucci
Crime reporter for The Age

The Archdiocese of Melbourne did not know a paedophile priest, who the church had put on paid leave, had left Australia.

The Age revealed on Wednesday that Father Peter Grasby, who was put on administrative leave in 2012, had left Melbourne for Malaysia and was seeking the company of “younger Asian men” using gay dating websites.

The church confirmed that the complaint against Father Grasby, which related to abuse at St Joseph’s in West Brunswick against a boy aged as young as 10, had been upheld in 2013.

The church said the complaint had also been referred to police, despite saying at the time that the victim had declined to report to the force.

Father Grasby was assistant priest at the time of the sexual abuse, which started in the late 1970s and may have continued until the early 1980s.

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.

FLORIDA
News-Journal

By Frank Fernandez
frank.fernandez@news-jrnl.com
Published: Wednesday, February 10, 2016

Edgewater Alliance Church and Warner Christian Academy were negligent in their hiring and supervision of Matthew Graziotti, according to the latest lawsuit filed in the case of the former teacher and summer camp director convicted for sexually preying on young boys.

The suit was filed Monday in Circuit Court by the parent of a child identified only as John Doe who lives in Volusia County. The family is represented by Morgan and Morgan, and one of the firm’s attorneys working on the case is Belvin Perry Jr., the judge who presided over the Casey Anthony case and retired from the bench in 2014.

Graziotti was sentenced on Jan. 26, 2015, to 210 years in federal prison. A federal prosecutor described him as a “skilled sexual predator” and said Graziotti sexually abused 29 children under the age of 12, some as young as 6.

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

AUSTRALIA
Sydney Morning Herald

February 11, 2016

Liam Mannix
Reporter

Call them the ‘Physicians for the comfort of George Pell’.

Dr Richard Sallie, a West Australian doctor, has been taking volunteers for a small medical team.
Their offer: a praetorian guard of personal physicians who could safely see Cardinal George Pell through the flight from Rome to appear before the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.

Cardinal Pell, 74, has been granted permission by the Commission to appear by video link in lieu of a personal appearance, because he is too sick to fly.

In a letter published in Fairfax Media newspapers Dr Sallie offered his expertise to help the Cardinal get home.

Reached in Western Australia, Dr Sallie admitted he was something of a veteran newspaper letter writer – his own mother even receives death threats, presumably meant for him, from time to time.

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

UNITED KINGDOM
The Argus

Jean Calder / Wednesday 10 February 2016

I’VE been saddened to see so many people rush to defend the reputation of Bishop George Bell – and by implication suggest the elderly woman who accused him of child sexual abuse is a liar.

The Church of England has accepted that the abuse took place and given its previous determination to keep abuse by its clergy under wraps, I suspect the evidence is compelling. I was pleased that Bishop Martin Warner apologised and defended the alleged victim from criticism.

In respect of prominent abusers, the modern Church of England has done better than the Church of Rome. Eric Gill, the famous artist and Roman Catholic adult convert was the son of a Church of England clergyman, also from Chichester.

Over many years, Gill sexually abused his sisters, servants and then his daughters, socially isolating the girls while using them as models for semi-erotic religious art. The abuse is catalogued in his own diaries but if you visit the Roman Catholic Westminster Cathedral, where his famous Stations of the Cross take pride of place and are publicised in the cathedral shop, there’s no mention of his history or his victims’ exploitation.

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.

IRELAND
Irish Times

The One in Four organisation has expressed shock at the implications of a new Vatican document on the reporting of claims of clerical abuse.

Maeve Lewis, executive director of One in Four, said she was shocked at the implication that bishops had discretion whether or not to report incidents of clerical abuse to the civil authorities.

She was speaking on the recently released the guidelines in a Vatican document for new bishops which states it is “not necessarily” their duty to report claims of clerical abuse in states where reporting was obligatory.

The guidelines did state that clergy must be aware of laws in the area they minister.

She told Newstalk Radio: “Given the history in this country we all know the dangers and what sort of culture that can create and the dangers to vulnerable children. It must be unbelievable to people like Bishop Diarmuid Martin who showed such leadership on this issue in this country.

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.

VATICAN CITY
Time

Rishi Iyengar @Iyengarish

Report says the church has told prelates that decision should be made by the victims and their families

The Catholic Church is allegedly telling newly ordained bishops that they have no obligation to report child-sexual-abuse allegations to law-enforcement officials, saying instead that the decision to take such claims to the authorities should be left to victims and their families.

The policy was first reported by a veteran Vatican journalist at Catholic news website Crux, who cited a presentation given by French Monsignor Tony Anatrella.

Anatrella, a consultant to the Pontifical Council for the Family and the Pontifical Council for Health Care Workers, also authored a training document for new bishops released by Church authorities last week, in which similar guidelines are laid out.

“According to the state of civil laws of each country where reporting is obligatory, it is not necessarily the duty of the bishop to report suspects to authorities, the police or state prosecutors in the moment when they are made aware of crimes or sinful deeds,” his document states, according to a citation in the Guardian.

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.

VATICAN CITY
TIMES Live (South Africa)

AFP

The Vatican is telling its newly appointed bishops that they do “not necessarily” have a duty to report their child abusing priests to the police according to a report.

“According to the state of civil laws of each country where reporting is obligatory, it is not necessarily the duty of the bishop to report suspects to authorities, the police or state prosecutors in the moment when they are made aware of crimes or sinful deeds,” a Vatican training document for new bishops reads, according to The Guardian.

Pope Francis has previously said, “everything possible must be done to rid the church of the scourge of the sexual abuse”.

The guidelines were written by Tony Anatrella. a controversial French monsignor and psychotherapist views who serves as a consultant to the Pontifical Council for the Family.

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.

CHICAGO (IL)
Chicago Sun-Times

WRITTEN BY MITCH DUDEK POSTED: 02/10/2016

A Cook County judge has ruled a victim who says he was abused by former Catholic priest Daniel McCormack will be able to seek punitive damages against the Chicago Archdiocese at trial — opening the door for other victims to do the same and effectively offering jurors the opportunity to punish the archdiocese for its oversight of the now-infamous child molester.

Judge Clare McWilliams signed off on punitive damages after deciding it was reasonably likely that plaintiff attorneys would be able to prove to a jury that McCormack’s previous misconduct as a seminarian were known to officials and the archdiocese acted in “utter disregard” in their “hiring, supervision and retention” of McCormack.

It was revealed at a court hearing last week that as an undergraduate at Niles College, McCormack allegedly sexually molested a drunken seminarian who had passed out. Another seminarian, who had also passed out after drinking, woke up to find McCormack putting his hands down his pants three different times. The alleged assaults were reported to a school counselor who stayed silent about the matter, Eugene Hollander, the attorney who represents the victim, said at the hearing.

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

PENNSYLVANIA
Tribune-Review

BY THE ASSOCIATED PRESS | Wednesday, Feb. 10, 2016

PHILADELPHIA — A Roman Catholic church official could soon seek bail after a Pennsylvania appeals court refused to review a decision to throw out his child-endangerment conviction.

Monsignor William Lynn has been in and out of prison as state appeals courts have split on the validity of his 2012 conviction.

Lynn, 65, is the first U.S. church supervisor ever arrested over his role in the alleged cover-up of priest sexual abuse.

A Philadelphia jury found in 2012 that he endangered an altar boy by sending a known pedophile priest to the boy’s parish in the late 1990s. The priest was at the top of a list of known or suspected predators that Lynn prepared while he was secretary for clergy at the Archdiocese of Philadelphia, a post he held from 1992 to 2004.

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

PENNSYLVANIA
New York Times

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
FEB. 10, 2016

A Roman Catholic church official could soon seek bail after a Pennsylvania appeals court refused to review a decision to throw out his child-endangerment conviction. The official, Msgr. William Lynn, has been in and out of prison as state appeals courts have split on the validity of his 2012 conviction. He is the first United States church supervisor ever arrested over his role in the suspected cover-up of sexual abuse by priests.

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.

TEXAS
KRGV

[with video]

BROWNSVILLE – A former priest, suspected in the murder of a second grade teacher decades ago, was volunteering at Sacred Heart Church in McAllen at the time.

The church is now part of the Catholic Diocese of Brownsville.

The relations director at the diocese said when a criminal case is presented with the church their duty is to immediately report it to the authorities.

Currently they do not have an open investigation concerning Irene Garza’s case. They sent CHANNEL 5 NEWS the following statement regarding the case:

“We hope and pray for healing for the family and everyone involved. It is our hope that justice is served in this case that dates back to 1960.”

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

AUSTRALIA/MALAYSIA
Malay Online

KUALA LUMPUR, Feb 11 ― A priest under investigation for child molest in Australia will be reported to his home country’s authorities for moving to Kuching, Sarawak without authorisation, the Catholic Church there said.

The Catholic Church’s Archdiocese of Melbourne said Father Peter Grasby had breached its 2013 instructions to remain in Australia when he shifted to Malaysia, where he is allegedly seeking “young Asian men”, without its knowledge.

“As Father Grasby did not inform the Archdiocese of his move to Malaysia contrary to the conditions imposed on him in August 2013, Archbishop Hart will now refer the matter to the Independent Commissioner for his consideration and recommendation,” the archdiocese’s spokesman was quoted saying in Australian daily The Age’s report last night.

The spokesman said Melbourne Archbishop Dennis Hart had previously rejected Grasby’s August 2013 request to move out from Australia.

“Archbishop Hart emphasised the need to know his whereabouts and that if he chose to leave Australia without permission, further advice would be sought from the Independent Commissioner regarding his situation,” the spokesman said.

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

AUSTRALIA
ABC News

By Joanna Menagh

A Perth court has heard a Catholic Bishop tell police he found it “distressing” and “horrifying” to have been accused of child sexual abuse dating back more than 45 years.

Max Davis, most recently the Catholic Bishop of the Australian Defence Force (ADF), made the comments when he was being interviewed by detectives three years ago about an allegation he abused a boarding student, 13, at Saint Benedict’s College in New Norcia in 1969.

A recording of the police interview was played to the District Court on Wednesday, where Mr Davis is on trial accused of abusing the boy and four others when he was a teacher and dormitory master at the school from 1969 and 1972.

At the time of the interview, in April 2013, police had received a complaint from only one former student alleging he was sexually abused after going to see Mr Davis about a sex education class he had given.

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

AUSTRALIA
Herald Sun

Shannon Deery
Herald Sun

THE child abuse royal commission has announced it will sit early to accommodate a request from Cardinal George Pell.

The Cardinal is expected to give evidence from the Vatican over three days from February 29.

He was expected to attend the hearings in person but was this week successful in an application to testify to via videolink because of ill health.

The decision was made by commission chair Justice Peter McClellan who said he would have preferred for Pell to return to Australia for the hearings.

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.

CONNECTICUT
Republican-Amercan

BY PAUL SINGLEY REPUBLICAN-AMERICAN

The Achdiocese of Hartford has agreed to pay $500,000 to settle sexual abuse allegations against a Roman Catholic priest who served at parishes in the Naugatuck Valley.

The settlement was reached two weeks before the case was to go to trial.

William Dotson, now 39, filed allegations of sexual abuse against the Rev. Stephen Bzdyra that stemmed from when Dotson served as an altar boy between 1985 and 1990, when Bzdyra was a priest.

Dotson, one of at least three people to file sexual abuse claims against Bzdyra, said the priest forced him to perform multiple sexual acts when he was an altar boy between 1985 and 1990 at St. Hedwig in Naugatuck, St. Francis in New Haven, and at a house in New Haven that Bzdyra owned.

Dotson’s New Haven-based attorney Joel T. Faxon said the church removed Bzdyra from the priesthood when the lawsuit was filed.

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.

MALAYSIA
The Star

BY P. DIVAKARAN

PETALING JAYA: A priest from Melbourne who is accused of child sexual abuse is reported to have moved to Malaysia to look for “young Asian men” while on paid leave.

The Sydney Morning Herald (SMH) said Wednesday that Father Peter Grasby had allegedly moved from Australia to Kuching, and was seeking the company of young men on a gay dating website.

The report said that Grasby’s profile on website Planetromeo showed that the 66-year-old “happens to like younger Asian men” aged between 18 and 35.

The profile, which has been visited 7,907 times, also listed details about his sexual preferences, and that he was “well-educated and really soft hearted mature GWM (gay-white male)”, said the report.

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.

MALAYSIA/AUSTRALIA
The Age

February 11, 2016

Nino Bucci
Crime reporter for The Age

Malaysian immigration officials have vowed to deport a paedophile priest who fled Melbourne last month despite being warned by the Archbishop it was against the conditions of his paid leave.

It was revealed on Tuesday that Father Peter Grasby, who the Catholic Archdiocese of Melbourne found had abused a boy aged as young as 10, had travelled to Kuching while on administrative leave, and had been using gay dating websites to seek the company of “younger Asian men”.

The archdiocese confirmed late Wednesday that they did not know Father Grasby had left the country until they had read The Age report.

Archbishop of Melbourne Denis Hart had explicitly told Father Grasby he was not to move overseas in August, 2013, a spokesman for the archdiocese said, and has written to him since the report directing his “immediate return”.

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.

MEXICO
Counterpunch

by JOHN HAZARD

Pope Francisco comes to Mexico for the first time this week. Will it be a “Meet the new boss—same as the old boss” experience? In the 1980s, John Paul II shamelessly performed a private mass for the family of then-president José Luis Portillo. (“Mexico deserves a mass in the presidential residence,” was that pope’s logic.) The current pope comes with a more populist stance, but, according to Vatican spokesperson Federico Lombardi, refuses to meet with parents of the 43 disappeared education students—as he has avoided doing since a group of mothers went to see him in Philadelphia in September—or with victims of pederast priests. In both cases, church authorities offer tickets to the mass the pope will officiate in Ciudad Juárez, which is about a 30-hour drive from the state of Guerrero.

Epifanio Álvarez, father of one of the missing students, responded that if the pope “were really different and wanted to do something for us, he would have made some kind of statement a long time ago.” Whether seeking papal intervention is the best strategy to fight state violence in Mexico is open to debate, but what cannot be disputed is that this pope has scheduled time to meet the family of the neo-liberal mayor of Mexico City—Miguel Ángel Mancera, friend of violent police officials and of real estate vultures who send thousands of poor people per year to live on the streets or to leave the city—but not to meet with families of the worst state-committed atrocity in Mexico’s recent history. (Alexandro Solalinde, a priest who is widely respected for his defense of Central American immigrants who pass through Mexico, believes that, in spite of the announcements to the contrary, the pope will meet with the families of the 43 students.)

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

UNITED STATES
The New York Times

EDITORIAL BOARD

FEB. 11, 2016

Pope Francis’ commission on the clergy’s sexual violation of children had a timely private screening in Rome last week of “Spotlight,” the Oscar-nominated film about the pedophilia scandal in Boston. The film offers the Vatican, if it will listen, an emphatic lesson in accountability. It dramatizes the decision by The Boston Globe to do more than enumerate the scope of the scandal by reporting on cases involving scores of abusive priests. The scandal was tracked up the church hierarchy to Cardinal Bernard Law, who eventually had to resign his leadership when the news media, not the church, documented his role as a protector of abusive priests.

Hierarchical accountability remains a pressing issue that the Vatican has not fully confronted in the numerous dioceses of the world where the scandal was suppressed. The pope’s 17-member commission presented fresh evidence of this failing when one of its two abuse-victim members, who had gone to the news media to criticize the slow pace of its work, was suddenly suspended on Saturday in a commission vote of no confidence.

To its credit, the commission, stressing it was only a policy body, had previously urged the pope to create a separate tribunal to judge bishops accused of shielding abusive priests. But Peter Saunders, the suspended commission member, and other abuse victims complained that there has been no progress since the tribunal’s creation last June. They were incensed as well over the pope’s appointment last year of a new diocesan leader in Chile, Bishop Juan Barros, a close associate of a Santiago priest the Vatican found guilty of child abuse in 2011. The pope nevertheless defended the bishop and was seen on a video complaining that protesters were “lefties” and “dumb.”

Mr. Saunders may have become an impatient and annoying dissident on a commission charged with developing advisory solutions for the problem, but he has a valid point that Pope Francis cannot afford to ignore. Regaining credibility among the church laity requires clear and timely investigation and punishment of prelates who covered up the rape of children with hush money and rotated abusers to new parishes to commit fresh crimes. “There must be consequences” for offensive church leaders, the laity panel appointed by the United States hierarchy warned over a decade ago.

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.

INDIA
UCA News

ucanews.com reporter, Kochi, India February 11, 2016

A Catholic bishop in southern India has lifted the suspension of a priest convicted last year of sexually abusing a 16-year-old girl in the United States.

The 2010 suspension order imposed on Father Joseph Palanivel Jeyapaul, 61, was lifted on Jan. 16 after consultations with the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Bishop Arulappan Amalraj of Ootacamund told ucanews.com Feb. 9.

“It was not a personal decision, but was done after extensive consultation and under the guidance of competent authorities,” Bishop Amalraj said.

Father Jeyapaul, posted to Crookston Diocese in Minnesota for parish work in 2004, returned home within a year following allegations of sexual abuse.

Interpol arrested him in 2012 to face charges in the U.S. of sexually abusing two girls while serving Crookston Diocese.

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.

MALAYSIA
The Star

BY SHARON LING

KUCHING: Sarawak’s immigration authorities are looking into news reports that a priest from Melbourne accused of child sexual abuse has moved to the state capital while on paid leave.

Incoming immigration director Ken Leben said the department was checking to see if Father Peter Grasby had entered the state.

“I have instructed my deputy to check (his) status,” he told The Star when contacted on Thursday.

Asked whether Grasby would be deported if found to be in Kuching, Ken said he would have to study the matter first.

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.

CHICAGO (IL)
WLS

By Chuck Goudie

CHICAGO (WLS) — An ex-Chicagoan and former Roman Catholic priest is now charged with killing a beauty queen in 1960, right after he heard her confession.

John Feit is a native South Sider who still speaks with an Irish-tinged accent. He became a Catholic priest and in 1960 was visiting a parish in McAllen, Texas, where he helping out on a busy Easter weekend when Irene Garza, 25, came in for confession. That was the last time she was seen alive.

Fifty-six years later, the former priest is charged with her murder. Feit appeared in court Wednesday in Phoenix, where he had been living and was arrested.

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.

ILLINOIS/WISCONSIN
Chicago Tribune

John KeilmanContact Reporter
Chicago Tribune

A Greek Orthodox priest charged with stealing more than $110,000 from a church trust fund has reached a tentative plea deal with prosecutors, authorities said Wednesday.

The Rev. James Dokos, who lives in Chicago, is accused of taking the money from a $1.2 million fund he controlled at Annunciation Greek Orthodox Church in Milwaukee and spending it on himself, family members and other church officials.

The Milwaukee County district attorney’s office charged Dokos with theft in 2014, two years after he had left Annunciation to become head of Sts. Peter and Paul Greek Orthodox Church in Glenview.

The suggested plea deal will be brought before a judge Feb. 22, a day before Dokos’ trial was due to start. Prosecutor David Robles said he could not discuss the deal’s particulars, and Dokos declined to comment. The priest’s attorneys did not immediately respond to a message seeking comment.

The church placed Dokos on unpaid leave following the criminal charge. His lawyers last year unsuccessfully tried to argue that the case was a violation of religious freedom, casting it as a dispute over the use of church property.

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.

CONNECTICUT
Hartford Courant

Dave Altimari

The Hartford Archdiocese has agreed to pay a former altar boy at a New Haven church $500,000 to settle a lawsuit alleging former priest Stephen Bzdyra molested the boy over a three-year period in the 1980s.

The case was scheduled to go to trial next month, but on Wednesday New Haven attorney Joel Faxon announced that his client, William Dotson, had settled the case for $500,000. Unlike many lawsuits against the church where the plaintiff uses a pseudonym, Dotson allowed his name to be public.

“The plaintiff’s position has always been that the Diocese should have taken action to eliminate Bzdyra’s ongoing and serious threat to children within the Diocese — especially to our client William Dotson, who Bzdyra repeatedly sexually abused over the course of several years,” said Timothy P. Pothin, an attorney with Faxon Law Group in New Haven.

The lawsuit, initially filed in 2010, alleged that while Dotson was an altar boy at St. Francis Church in New Haven in the 1980s, Bzdyra molested him repeatedly in the church rectory. The lawsuit also accused Bzdyra of paying Dotson hush money, including buying him a car and a new washer and dryer.

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

UNITED KINGDOM
BBC News

A former High Court judge is to review the Metropolitan Police’s handling of cases involving claims of historical child abuse by public figures.

Met commissioner Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe has asked Sir Richard Henriques to make recommendations about whether there are ways to improve procedures.

The Operation Midland inquiry into a 1970s and 1980s paedophile ring is among inquiries that will be examined.

The force has come under fire amid claims it over-reacted to allegations.

Former head of the Army Lord Bramall, 92, who last month found out he would not face any further action in connection with Operation Midland, had called for a review.

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.

ARIZONA
Houston Chronicle

PHOENIX (AP) — The Latest on the arrest in Arizona of a former priest in the 1960 cold-case killing of a Texas schoolteacher (all times local):

3:15 p.m.

The former priest arrested in the 1960 death of a Texas schoolteacher worked as a volunteer and administrator for many years at a Phoenix charity.

St. Vincent de Paul executive director Steve Zabilski said John Feit (fyt) was an employee at the Catholic charity up until about a decade ago. He later worked as a volunteer.

Zabliski said Feit worked with and trained volunteers in the charity’s many food pantries around the Phoenix area.

He said the charity knew about Feit being under suspicion in the death of Irene Garza, but continued to work there because he was never charged and denied involvement. Zabliski called Feit a kind, caring and compassionate employee, and said he was stunned about the news.
___

12:50 p.m.

A former priest accused in the 1960 killing of a Texas schoolteacher says he’ll fight extradition to the state following his arrest in Arizona.

John Bernard Feit (fyt) appeared in court on Wednesday in Phoenix, a day after he was arrested at his home in Scottsdale, Arizona, on a murder warrant from Texas’ Hidalgo County in the death of Irene Garza.

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.

MASSACHUSETTS
WAMC

[with audio]

By PAUL TUTHILL

The spiritual leader of Roman Catholics in western Massachusetts offered a broad apology today to people wounded by the clergy sex abuse scandal, to those embittered by church closings, and to people who were alienated from the church over racial and cultural differences or sexual orientation.

In a 2,300 word pastoral letter released on Ash Wednesday, Springfield Bishop Mitchell Rozanski asked forgiveness for “ our past failings as a diocese” and the “ grievous actions” of some who ministered in the church. He called on priests and lay leaders to be proactive in efforts to get lapsed Catholics to return, and vowed the church would be open to “self-examination and change.”

Speaking with reporters after the noon mass at Saint Michael’s Cathedral in Springfield, Rozanski said the pastoral letter titled “The Wideness of God’s Mercy” is his answer to a diocesan survey taken last September that generated nearly 3,000 responses.

” We know we’ve offended you in one way or another and if you are separated from us because of that please don’t let it stand in the way,” Rozanski said. ” Come back to the church.” …

David Clohessy, national director of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP), called the latest apology “public relations” and said Rozanski should take tangible steps to protect children from abuse.

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

UNITED STATES
Religion Dispatches

BY PATRICIA MILLER FEBRUARY 10, 2016

Pope Francis’ formation of a committee to advise him on long-term policies to stem clerical sexual abuse was hailed as a major step forward in the Catholic Church’s bungled handling of the abuse crisis. But an internal crisis within the committee—along with the glacial pace of any reforms—is raising questions about the credibility and effectiveness of the committee going forward.

Over the weekend, Peter Saunders, one of two actual survivors of sexual abuse serving on the committee, was booted off by a nearly unanimous vote of the other members. They asserted that the committee’s role is specifically advisory and limited to developing long-term policies to prevent abuse and that Saunders was upsetting the apple cart by advocating for more immediate action and intervention in specific cases.

What seems to have gotten Saunders in hot water is his continued opposition to Pope Francis’ appointment of Bishop Juan Barros to lead the diocese of Osorno, Chile, despite evidence that he covered up sexual abuse spanning two decades. Not only is Barros accused of covering up for Fr. Fernando Karadima, who was the Marcial Maciel of Chile, abusing a series of seminarians over the years with “a powerful cocktail of sexual guilt and secrecy” and using his “pious standing among the elite to conceal [his] depravity.” He was also “cited in the victims’ testimonies as having been present during sexual acts.”

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.

VATICAN CITY
Crux

By John L. Allen Jr.
Associate editor February 10, 2016

One could perhaps understand if Australian Cardinal George Pell, who was tapped by Pope Francis in 2014 as his point man for financial reform in the Vatican, was content these days to just sort of phone it in.

Pell turns 75 in June, the retirement age for Catholic bishops, and although cardinals often serve well beyond that threshold, the clock is ticking. His efforts to promote accountability have drawn resistance from the Vatican’s Italian old guard, and he’s facing an inquest from a Royal Commission in Australia about his handling of sex abuse cases decades ago.

Yet despite it all, Pell shows no signs of surrender.

Recently, the Vatican published a collection of papers presented to new Catholic bishops from around the world taking part in a Rome training course known informally as “baby bishops school.”

While several presentations were of dubious real-world value, not so with Pell’s. He was his usual no-nonsense self, wryly warning new bishops that “dishonesty is not unknown” in how Church personnel handle money.

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.

OHIO
WCBE

By JIM LETIZIA

Victims of the Catholic church sex abuse scandal are criticizing the Diocese of Steubenville for its handling of a now former central Ohio seminarian charged with trying to adopt a child for sex.

The group Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests says church leaders somehow overlooked a report that Joel Wright wanted to pay parents to babysit their children. Wright, a former student at the Pontifical College Josephinum, was recently arrested by federal agents. The diocese has declined comment.

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.

TEXAS
Texas Monthly

April 2005

By Pamela Colloff

It is the glory of God to conceal a thing, but the honor of kings is to search out a matter.—Proverbs 25:2

“You don’t know what a welcome surprise it was to hear from you,” Irene Garza wrote in her graceful longhand, in a letter to an old friend postmarked April 9, 1960. As she filled five pages of unlined paper, the 25-year-old schoolteacher seemed content for the first time in a long while. “I’ve made quite a few friends this year and am much happier than I’ve ever been,” she wrote. Of her love life, she reported that she had been dating two men but was coy with her friend about one of them: “I won’t mention his name, but we double-dated the last time you were here.” The other, she wrote without much enthusiasm, was an “Anglo boy—not real handsome, but cute and religious (which is important).” She noted that her ex-boyfriend had sent her several cards and a box of candy on Valentine’s Day. “I can’t lie—I think of him often and wonder if I’ll ever get over him (between you and me and the four walls),” she confided. “I pray constantly that if it be God’s will, I will get over him eventually.”

To her friends and admirers, Irene was many things: a natural beauty who had been crowned Miss All South Texas Sweetheart 1958; a former prom and homecoming queen at Pan American College; an accomplished teacher who worked with McAllen’s most disadvantaged children; a devout Catholic who was active in the Legion of Mary; the first person in her family to attend college and graduate school. But in her letter, Irene appeared more fragile than anyone might have suspected. At the elementary school where she taught second grade, she wrote, she had been elected secretary of the PTA. “This may not sound like much, but to me it means a great deal,” she explained. “It means I’m overcoming my terrible shyness and becoming surer of myself.” Her job was a source of great pride (“These children I am teaching have been such a joy to me”), but it was her faith, which she returned to again and again in her letter, that sustained her. “Remember the last time we talked, I told you I was afraid of death?” she wrote. “Well I think I’m cured. You see, I’ve been going to communion and Mass daily and you can’t imagine the courage and faith and happiness it has given me.”

The following Saturday, April 16, 1960, Irene borrowed the family car to go to church, promising her mother she would not be long. She left her parents’ house around six-thirty in the evening and made the twelve-block drive to Sacred Heart Church, where she planned to go to confession. Irene rarely went unnoticed; some would-be suitors came to mass just to admire her, and that night, as people waited for absolution, many caught sight of her. One parishioner noticed Irene make the sign of the cross as she entered the sanctuary. Another parishioner saw her kneeling by herself in a pew on the fifth row. A third remembered Irene asking if she might edge in front of her in the long confession line because she was running late. Some recalled her draping a white lace veil over her head, while others said she had stepped out of line, as if turning to go. Yet no one ever saw her leave the church that night. The next morning, Easter Sunday, her car was still parked down the street from Sacred Heart. Irene never came home.

A single high-heeled shoe, which had been cast to the side of the road, was the first clue that she was dead. A passerby named P. W. Miller happened upon it two days later, on an empty stretch of McColl Road, where it lay two inches from the curb. It was a small, beige, Fiancées brand pump, which fit a woman’s left foot; it was slightly scuffed, and its heel tap was missing. Irene’s family confirmed that she had worn the same shoe to confession.

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.

TEXAS
The Daily Beast

Brandy Zadrozny

When police found a Texas beauty queen floating in a canal, they suspected the last man to see her alive: her Catholic priest. Now he’s finally been arrested for the 1960 murder.

In the 56 years since the body of a south Texas beauty queen was found floating in a canal, her family, cold-case investigators and mounting evidence has pointed to one man: the ex-priest who heard her last confession, and who seemed to elude justice until his arrest on Tuesday.

John Feit, 83, was arrested by detectives with the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office in Scottsdale, Arizona, where he lives with his wife and family. Arizona law enforcement officials say he’ll be extradited to Texas where he’ll face charges of first degree murder by asphyxiation, according to a recently unsealed indictment reported by The Monitor in Texas. He faces up to life in prison.

At his arraignment, a Maricopa County judge set a $750,000 bond and Feit said he planned to fight extradition.

“This whole thing makes no sense because the crime in question took place in 1960,” Feit said. “In 2003 the same gentlemen were here and questioned me extensively and took DNA samples.

That was 13 years ago. I’m totally puzzled as to why something is coming up now after the fact.”

Though half a century old, the case has remained a fascination of crime reporters, townspeople, and local officials, who—no doubt because of the unholy nature of the crime—have refused to let the case go completely cold.

As told in an exhaustive 2005 Texas Monthly profile, Irene Garza, a second-grade teacher, was last seen on the night before Easter attending Sacred Heart Church in McAllen, Texas. The 25-year-old former pageant winner had found comfort in church, writing to a friend, “I’ve been going to communion and Mass daily and you can’t imagine the courage and faith and happiness it has given me.”

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.

PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Philly.com

by Jeremy Roebuck, STAFF WRITER.

A state appellate court on Wednesday refused to reconsider its decision last year to overturn what had been the first conviction nationwide of a Roman Catholic Church official for covering up child sex abuse by priests.

The Pennsylvania Superior Court denied a request from District Attorney Seth Williams to reargue the case against Msgr. William J. Lynn in front of a full panel of the court’s nine judges.

The decision came two months after a three-judge panel of the court ordered a new trial for Lynn, continuing what has become a drawn out legal fight for the 64-year-old cleric three year years after his original conviction on child endangerment charges.

Williams’ office could now appeal the Superior Court decision to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court or move forward with the new trial ordered by the Superior Court. “We are in the process of reviewing the decision,” a spokesman for the office said. .

The monsignor remains housed in a state prison in Waymart, northeast of Scranton, having completed more than two years of his three- to six-year term.

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

UNITED STATES
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Wednesday, Feb. 10, 2016

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

An Oklahoma man is a key witness in the case of an ex-priest who has just been arrested for murdering a Texas girl 56 years ago. We are deeply grateful that John Feit has finally been charged. But we’re especially grateful for the role Dale Tacheny of Oklahoma City has played in this case.

Tacheny has told prosecutors that Feit admitted to him that he killed Irene Garza. That move – disclosing this information to law enforcement – took considerable courage because, at the time, both men were priests. It’s exceedingly rare.

We applaud Tacheny’s courage and compassion, then and now.

( Tragically, however, a Catholic politician attacked Tacheny’s credibility and refused to pursue Feit.]

[SNAP]

Feit worked and lived in Arizona, lived in New Mexico and was convicted of assaulting another young woman in Texas. Now, Catholic officials in all three states have a moral and civic duty to prod other witnesses to step forward.

[The Monitor]

In the 1960s, Feit worked at the New Mexico-based Servants of the Paraclete, a Catholic facility where predator priests were housed and purportedly “treated.” That was “after his criminal problems in South Texas prompted his bosses to remove him from parish work” and he “had been convicted in a young woman’s sexual assault,” according to the Dallas Morning News.

[BishopAccountability.org]

We fear he may have hurt young women in New Mexico and Arizona too.

We hope that this arrest brings some hope to Irene Garza’s brave and devoted family. We applaud them for their persistence and patience. And we hope that anyone who may have seen, suspected or suffered clergy crimes or misdeeds by Feit – or cover ups by his church supervisors will call police, expose wrongdoers, protect others and start healing, like Tacheny has done.

We also hope that Santa Fe Archbishop John Wester, Phoenix Bishop Thomas Olmsted and Brownsville Bishop Daniel Flores will use personal appeals, parish bulletins, church websites and pulpit announcements to beg others with information or suspicions about Feit to call law enforcement immediately. Now is no time for Catholic officials to act powerless or for citizens to be complacent. Every shred of evidence – no matter how small, old or seemingly insignificant – should be withheld from police and prosecutors.

And we hope Oklahoma City Archbishop Paul Coakley will publicly praise Tacheny and urge anyone in Oklahoma with information or suspicions about crimes by clerics to call police and prosecutors, no matter how long ago the wrongdoing may have happened.

Three months ago, we wrote to Hildalgo County prosecutor Ricardo Rodriguez about this case. We are certain, however, that the diligence of the Garza family that made the difference here. Again, we are grateful to them for the courage and compassion they have shown throughout this ordeal.

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.

ST. LOUIS (MO)
Berger’s Beat

February 10, 2016 11:49 am | Author: berger

Years ago, at a monastery in Ava, MO, Fr. John Feit admitted murdering a young Texas beauty queen to a fellow priest, Fr. Dale Tacheny. Yesterday, 56 years after Irene Garza’s death, Feit was arrested. After the crime, Feit went to work for the Servants of the Paraclete, which is now based in our town. They run “treatment centers” for pedophile priests.

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.

VATICAN CITY
National Catholic Register

by EDWARD PENTIN 02/10/2016

VATICAN CITY — Members of a pontifical commission are asking Pope Francis to remind all Church authorities of the importance of responding directly to abuse victims who approach them.

The recommendation was just one of a series of proposals drawn up at the end of a weeklong plenary meeting of the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors, a body Pope Francis set up in in 2014 to propose initiatives to protect children from clerical abuse.

But media coverage of the meeting has focused on another, unexpected development: The commission’s announcement of the suspension of controversial commission member Peter Saunders.

Other plans put forward during the plenary included more transparency around canonical trials with the participation of external collaborators, the finalization of a Universal Day of Prayer and a penitential liturgy, and a new website to share best practices for the protection of minors worldwide.

In a Feb. 8 statement, the commission also reported on its work over the past year, saying its members are “actively in contact” with bishops’ conferences, and had presented measures on safeguarding minors to religious conferences and congregations.

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.

GUAM
Guam Daily Post

Jasmine Stole | Post News Staff

A group of local Catholics says a number of their concerns have still not been addressed by the Archdiocese of Agana leadership. The group is continuing to call attention to its concerns publicly even as the church enters the Lenten season.

Yesterday, Feb. 10 was Ash Wednesday which marked the start of the Lenten season – 40 days of fasting, prayer and repentance for Catholics. Thousands of Catholics attended Ash Wednesday Masses throughout the day yesterday. Each year, the village parishes schedule multiple Masses during the day to accommodate a large number of church-goers, with the larger parishes offering as many as six Ash Wednesday Masses. Ash Wednesday and Good Friday are obligatory days of fasting and abstinence for Catholics.

An estimated 85 percent of the local population is Roman Catholic.

“We’re really strong in our faith,” said Lou Klitzkie, a member of the Laity Forward Movement, who also attended Ash Wednesday Mass yesterday. “We don’t want to lose our Catholic church.”

The Laity Forward Movement has organized several silent protests in front of the Dulce Nombre de Maria Cathedral-Basilica in Hagåtña, the latest of which took place Jan. 31.

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.

CONNECTICUT
Fox 61

BY JIM MCKEEVER

NEW HAVEN — A lawsuit involving allegations of clergy sex abuse with a minor and an alleged cover-up in the Catholic Church was settled Wednesday for $500,000.

Just weeks before the trial involving a former Connecticut-based Catholic priest, Stephen Bzdyra, was to begin, the Diocese agreed to settle the claim.

For the past five years, the Diocese fully contested liability, denying knowledge of sexual and physical abuse that was committed by Bzdyra.

The defense was compromised when a Catholic nun testified that while serving at St. Francis Church in New Haven, she not only witnessed Bzdyra’s disturbing and inappropriate behavior towards an altar boy in the mid-1980s, but she even sent a letter to diocesan authorities expressing her concerns.

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.