ABUSE TRACKER

UNITED STATES
National Catholic Reporter

Peter Feuerherd | Feb. 2, 2016

Some, but not all, dioceses and parishes are taking a new look at securing offertory collections, and that’s a good thing, say critics of how the church has handled money.

“The bishops are finally recognizing that embezzlement doesn’t help their moral standing,” Charles Zech, the director of the Center for Church Management and Business Ethics at Villanova University, told NCR.

Zech noted that diocesan-wide procedures are in many ways answering long-time critics, such as Michael W. Ryan, who have long argued that collection procedures in parishes needed tightening. “He’s been crying out in the desert,” said Zech.

Such cries are being heard in dioceses and archdioceses as diverse and geographically spread as Boston, Miami and San Bernardino, Calif. Videos on archdiocesan websites for Boston and Miami offer how-tos on best practices for parish collections to assure that cash dropped into the collection baskets each Sunday actually gets to the parish bank account. An estimated 40 percent of Sunday collections comes from cash donations, seen as particularly vulnerable to pilfering.

The Diocese of San Bernardino is presenting a conference in February that will address parish collection security.

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AUSTRALIA
Sky News

By the early 2000s most victims approaching Tasmania’s Anglican church complaining of sexual abuse by priests were seeking financial assistance, a royal commission has been told.

Bishop John Douglas Harrower was the leader of the diocese of Tasmania for 15 years from July 2000 and one of his first moves in the job was to make a public apology for child-sex offences linked to the church.

“I was made aware of what had happened and I thought it was horrendous and I felt it was important to make an apology,” Bishop Harrower said in evidence to the commission on Tuesday.

Subsequently the bishop received 10 complaints from 10 men about their childhood abuse by former priest Garth Hawkins.

While police were investigating the matters, Bishop Harrower said the church could take no disciplinary action against suspects but moved to offer support to the victims by funding counselling and other support.

– See more at: http://www.skynews.com.au/news/local/hobart/2016/02/02/bishop-sought-funds-for-sex-abuse-victims.html#sthash.1cdU8ZWH.dpuf

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AUSTRALIA
The Conversation

Kathleen McPhillips
Lecturer, School of Humanities and Social Science, University of Newcastle

It’s a frontrunner to win Best Picture at the Oscars, has cleaned up the critics’ awards and won extraordinarily high ratings from filmgoers.

But I wouldn’t be surprised if you haven’t seen the recent release Spotlight yet. In a summer dominated by the return of Star Wars, who wants to watch a movie about Boston journalists exposing the Catholic Church for decades of child abuse and cover ups?

But I hope more people do see it, because as the final moments of the film make clear, Spotlight is not just a movie about historic wrongs in one US city. It’s a story about too many people, in too many countries, including my home town of Newcastle, north of Sydney.

Australia’s current Royal Commission into institutional child abuse was set up after years of dogged work by survivors, supporters and journalists to uncover abuse across many institutions but particularly the Catholic Church. Like Boston, Australian towns where the Catholic church is dominant, such as Newcastle, Wollongong and Ballarat, have been badly affected.

When I went to see Spotlight in a Newcastle cinema on a Saturday afternoon, I wasn’t surprised by who else was in the audience: I recognised survivors, families and supporters of victims, and Catholic community members, including a number of priests.

But even as a researcher who’s attended and written about the Catholic Church at the Royal Commission and the NSW Special Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse, Spotlight’s finale came as a shock.

Just before the final credits roll, the filmmakers list dozens of other American cities affected by clerical abuse, which have all been tracked by the website Bishop Accountability. That US list is followed by towns and cities worldwide. The names go on and on, over several screens: from Auckland, Beunos Aires and Cape Town, to Manchester to Manila and beyond.

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UNITED STATES
Religion Dispatches

BY PATRICIA MILLER FEBRUARY 2, 2016

Fast on the heels of the news that a Bavarian boys choir directed by Pope Benedict’s brother was a hotbed of physical and sexual abuse for decades, comes the allegation that Cardinal Gerhard Müller covered up the abuse when he was the bishop of Regensburg.

According to the National Catholic Reporter, the allegation is being made by the former head of the lay diocesan council in Regensburg, Germany, who said that Müller and a deputy “systematically” covered up the abuse, disbanded the diocesan council to thwart outside investigation, and installed at least one known abuser priest in a parish who then committed more acts of abuse.

Müller has served as head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the second most powerful position in the Vatican, since 2012 and has emerged as one of the most outspoken opponents of Pope Francis’ efforts to modernize church practices around marriage and divorce and the treatment of gay Catholics.

He also oversaw the disciplining of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR) for its supposed disobedience to the Vatican and was widely criticized for the public dressing down he gave the nuns in 2014.

If the allegations hold up, Müller will be the third prefect of the CDF to be accused of turning a blind eye to reports of sexual abuse. Benedict has been accused of allowing serial abuser Father Marcial Maciel to hold an exalted position in the church for decades while he was prefect of the CDF despite credible charges of abuse.

Cardinal William Joseph Levada, who held the position after Benedict, came under fire for how he handled charges of abuse when he was the bishop of Portland and San Francisco. Like Benedict, who was given a report on Maciel that he disregarded, Levada reportedly received a brief in the mid-1980s from a three-priest panel on the brewing U.S. abuse scandal that he ignored.

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AUSTRALIA
The Tablet (UK)

02 February 2016 | by Mark Brolly

The Australian bishops warned it makes uncomfortable viewing but is an opportunity to re-double efforts to support victims

Two Australian bishops have encouraged Catholics to see the film Spotlight, while warning it makes uncomfortable viewing.

Archbishop Timothy Costelloe of Perth said the film about The Boston Globe’s uncovering of sex abuse in the Catholic Church in Boston Archdiocese “is an opportunity for all of us in the Church to acknowledge the extent to which some of our brothers and sisters, including our leaders, have failed so badly, also here in Australia, to be the signs and bearers of God’s love and compassion they were expected, and appointed, to be.

“More importantly it can be an opportunity to re-double our efforts to assist those who have been the victims, and now survivors, of this terrible abuse and for whom the screening of this movie might well open up painful wounds. And it must reinforce our shared determination to make our parishes and other institutions and agencies places of absolute safety for our children and young people.”

Archbishop Costelloe said survivors had lost so much, “including perhaps your faith in the Church”. “Please do not give up on God.”

“The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse continues its vital work of investigating this terrible scourge which is, to our great shame as a nation, far more widespread in institutional settings than any of us have previously realised,” he said.

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ARKANSAS
Arkansas Online

By Jaime Dunaway

A former substitute teacher at Catholic High School for Boys surrendered to authorities Tuesday on a charge of sexual assault in the first degree, prosecutors said.

Erica Suskie appeared in North Little Rock District Court on Tuesday morning and entered a plea of not guilty, Arkansas Democrat-Gazette reporter Scott Carroll said on Twitter.

Suskie was with her husband, former Arkansas Public Service Commission chairman Paul Suskie, at the brief hearing.

The Suskies were friends with the family of the alleged victim, who went to school at Catholic High in Little Rock, Pulaski County Chief Deputy Prosecutor John Johnson said.

Catholic High principal Steve Straessle said he reported the misconduct to a hotline, as required by law, when rumors about it developed in October. He declined to offer details about what the rumors suggested had occurred.

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ARKANSAS
Arkansas Matters

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. – A substitute teacher at Catholic High School has been taken into custody after surrendering to police on sexual assault charges.

Police say Erica Suskie turned herself in this morning to face charges in the case.

On October 26 of last year, the North Little Rock Police Department received a report from the Arkansas State Police Crimes Against Children unit about the alleged abuse.

Officials with Catholic High School say they addressed the issue three months ago when the allegations were made, and took measures to protect their students.

Suskie’s arrest affidavit says that an alleged male victim said he had sexual contact and intercourse with Suskie, who’s a family friend and was his Algebra tutor.

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UNITED KINGDOM
The Guardian

Tara Conlan
Tuesday 2 February 2016

Use of the words “historic”, “victims” and “child pornography” should be avoided when reporting on children who have been abused, according to new media guidelines from the National Association for People Abused in Childhood.

In the wake of revelations about abuse carried out years ago by Jimmy Savile and other celebrities, the term “historic child abuse” has been widely used in newspapers and television as part of broader discussion of the issue. But Napac’s guidelines put forward language survivors would prefer journalists to use and also offer case studies.

As rapes or murders are not referred to as “historic” Napac says the word should be avoided to describe sexual abuse because, “there is nothing historic” for those who survived abuse as many are still living with the consequences.

Instead the organisation suggests reporters use the phrase “non-recent child abuse” or state the decade in which the alleged crime took place.

Napac also says that “many adults who were abused as children prefer to be known as ‘survivors’ rather than ‘victims’”, although it recognises that the word “victim” often has to be used in a legal context.

And the guidelines also ask the media to avoid using the terms “rent boy” and “child pornography” and instead write “indecent images of children or child abuse images” and “sexually exploited child”.

When speaking to those who have been abused, Napac advises reporters to “not generalise or make assumptions about the impact of child abuse on an individual survivor”.

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AUSTRALIA
Manny Waks

2/2/2016

​I have deliberately stayed silent on the proposed governance ‘reforms’ that have been recently disseminated by the Melbourne Yeshivah Centre in response to last year’s Royal Commission. Some of the proposed ‘changes’ are concerning and appear no more than an attempt by the existing trustees to entrench their power when the only proper course of action is for them to resign. But rather than criticise, I wanted to afford the Yeshivah Centre the opportunity to properly consider its position and, to the extent that they’re prepared to speak up, to hear what the rest of the Yeshivah/Chabad community had to say.

However, it now seems that the Yeshivah Centre has been vetoed by the organisation that apparently has always had ultimate power, authority and responsibility: Chabad Headquarters, which is based in Brooklyn New York. It is important to note that since this scandal became public in 2011, Chabad Headquarters have remained silent for the most part, other than a solitary statement issued following the Royal Commission.

The intervention by Chabad Headquarters raises a number of questions about their responsibility for the child sexual abuse cover-ups within Yeshivah and their failure to speak out against the leadership and communal bullying and harassment of child sexual abuse victims, their families and supporters. At the same time, it again exposes the incompetence of the Yeshivah leadership who can’t even seem to clean up their own mess properly. I have briefly addressed each of these issues below, and reproduced the letter from Chabad Headquarters and the 1973 Merkos Guidelines they reference in their letter.

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UNITED STATES
The Mennonite

Anna Groff is executive director of Dove’s Nest and chair of the Sexual Abuse Panel appointed by Mennonite Church USA and Mennonite Education Agency.

Ervin Stutzman is executive director of Mennonite Church USA.

Mennonite Church USA Executive Board, Mennonite Education Agency and the Sexual Abuse Prevention Panel are extending a broad invitation to any individuals interested in confidentially disclosing if they have been approached or abused by Luke Hartman, formerly of Eastern Mennonite University (EMU) in Harrisonburg, Virginia.

Mennonite Church USA has named Linda Gehman Peachey, Lancaster, Pennsylvania, and Regina Shands Stoltzfus, Goshen, Indiana, as the individuals to receive any complaints regarding Hartman’s behavior.

Hartman was the former vice president for enrollment at EMU. He also served as a professor in the EMU teacher education program and an instructor in the master of education program for the past 12 years.

With great sadness, we received the news that Hartman resigned from EMU on Jan. 12 as a result of a Jan. 8 misdemeanor charge of solicitation of prostitution by Harrisonburg Police Department. We pray for God’s grace upon Hartman, his family, friends, and the EMU community. At the same time, we feel called to extend an invitation to persons who may have been hurt by Hartman’s actions.

To be clear, this invitation does not presume Hartman’s innocence or guilt regarding the charge of solicitation of prostitution before him. Neither are we accusing Hartman of abuse. We do not have any knowledge that he hurt any individuals connected to his work at EMU or elsewhere.

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AUSTRALIA
9 News

AAP

Australia’s former governor-general, Peter Hollingworth, is due to front a royal commission to give his account of how the Anglican Diocese of Brisbane responded to allegations of child sex abuse when he headed it.

Dr Hollingworth, the former Anglican archbishop of Brisbane, is listed to appear in Hobart on Wednesday when he is expected to make an apology to abuse victims, citing a serious error of judgment on the church’s handling of the matters.

Some evidence linked to Dr Hollingworth relates to John Elliot, who was a lay member of the Church of England Boys’ Society from the late 1950s, including in Tasmania.

The first report of Elliot’s misconduct was made to the Brisbane diocese in mid-1993 and was immediately escalated to Dr Hollingworth, the commission has been told.

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OHIO
ABC 22

BY LISA SMITH MONDAY, FEBRUARY 1ST 2016

DAYTON — An unbelievable case of alleged international human trafficking with ties to Ohio. Joel Wright, a former seminary student in Columbus, was in federal court Monday, on charges related to an attempt to adopt a baby in Mexico for sex. Experts on human trafficking here in the Miami Valley say it’s the reality and we shouldn’t be surprised.

“No. It’s not hard to believe,” said Diane Ream, program director for Oasis House in Dayton. “It’s really the world we live in because you can purchase anything on Craigslist, and so, to sell a human being is not unthinkable,” said Ream.

Oasis House is a local organization that helps women get on their feet after escaping human trafficking. Their walls are decorated with drawings by former human trafficking victims. It shows the pain of years of abuse.

“Most people think it only happens in third world countries, but it actually happens here,” said Ream. “A lot of the women that we work with have gone through that life, growing up in that life.”

Ream said the easy access to the interstate highways creates numerous hot spots around the Dayton area where human trafficking takes place. She said children and young girls are targeted by predators through secret gifts.

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OHIO
10TV

[with video]
[timeline]

By Tylar Bacome
Monday February 1, 2016

COLUMBUS, Ohio – Joel Wright appeared on a Vermont CBS affiliate WCAX not once but twice, at 16-years-old and 13-years-old; both times he was excited about a planned trip to a papal mass.

It was a sharp contrast to the 23-year-old seminary student who appeared in federal court on Monday on two felony charges for allegedly planning a trip to Tijuana, Mexico to buy a 1-year-old and 4-year-old for sex.

Homeland Security Agents arrested Wright Friday morning in San Diego between connecting flights.

Speaking to 10TV from the Vermont home where she raised Wright, his mom Teresa Poquette says her son was set up. “He didn’t do it he’s innocent. I still do not believe it’s true,” she said.

When asked why her son was traveling to Tijuana, Mexico when he was arrested on his connecting flight out of San Diego, she responded, “I don’t know.”

Poquette said life for her son as one of roughly 15 pre-theology students at the Josephenum wasn’t easy. She claims his path to priesthood was a bumpy road filled with dozens of rejections because of his cataracts and developed glaucoma.

“I stopped counting after 45 rejections of how many diocese and religions orders that declined him for his physical disability, for his vision, for his orthopedic for his health impairment.”

Wright was eventually admitted to Franciscan University in Steubenville where he spent two years before his studies as a pre-theology student majoring in Philosophy at the Josephenum. Both schools say Wright passed two thorough criminal background checks and psychological assessments before beginning the journey to priesthood he’d spoken about for years.

A Josephenum spokesperson said despite strict rules not to leave campus without permission, Wright emailed the school at 6:00 a.m. the day he was arrested, saying he was traveling for the weekend and would be back Tuesday.

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IRELAND
Irish Examiner

Tuesday, February 02, 2016

Joe Leogue

The commission of investigation into mother and baby homes has cost the State €1.78m to date, Children’s Minister James Reilly has revealed.

The commission, which is due to publish its findings in February 2018, was set up last year to determine whether women and children in mother and baby homes were subject to forced separation or mistreated, and if these abuses were subsequently covered up.

The three-person commission is comprised of chairwoman Judge Yvonne Murphy and commissioners William Duncan, an international legal expert on child protection and adoption, and Prof Mary E Daly, a historian.

Mr Reilly revealed the costs in his reply to a parliamentary question from Renua leader Lucinda Creighton.

He said the €1.78m spent to date includes set-up costs and costs incurred by his department in supporting the commission.

The commission’s terms of reference have been criticised by survivors groups for being too narrow.

In December the Coalition of Mother and Baby Home Survivors delivered a letter to the offices of the commission of investigation to demand that the terms of reference be widened.

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IRELAND
Irish Examiner

By Stephen Rogers
Irish Examiner Reporter

Two clerical abuse victims have criticised a homily by the Bishop of Kilmore in which he described the abuse at the hands of the clergy as an “aberration”.

Bishop Leo O’Reilly said the religious of Ireland have experienced “the prophet’s rejection in recent times in a very painful way”.

“Indeed the whole Church in Ireland has experienced it,” he said. “In the media reaction, some years ago, following the publication of the Ryan Report, and in other media productions and commentary since, you could be forgiven for thinking that the story of religious life in Ireland, and indeed of the Church as a whole, was one of unmitigated evil and abuse.

“There was evil and abuse of course, and it was right that it be exposed and condemned. But that evil was a very small part of the story, an aberration and an exception.”

Clerical abuse victim Colm O’Gorman said Bishop O’Reilly’s comments were another example of the Church attempting to rewrite history.

“Too often bishops fail to recognise that they are uniquely responsible for the enormous decline in the authority of the Roman Catholic Church,” he said.

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AUSTRALIA
Sydney Morning Herald

February 2, 2016

Paul Bibby
Court Reporter

A Catholic priest repeatedly sexually abused three young altar boys in regional NSW in the 1980s, including raping one child at the church’s altar, a court has heard.

The man, who cannot be named for legal reasons, is being tried for 17 offences allegedly committed against the boys, aged 11 and 12, between 1980 and 1984.

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

In his opening to the ex-priest’s trial in the Downing Centre District Court on Tuesday, Crown prosecutor Bryan Rowe outlined a series of alleged incidents in which the accused groped, molested, raped or forced oral sex on the boys.

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

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UNITED STATES
Reveal: The Center for Investigative Reporting

By Trey Bundy / February 1, 2016

In 2013, 30-something Katheryn Harris Carmean White confessed to elders in her Jehovah’s Witnesses congregation that she had repeatedly had sex with a 14-year-old boy.

The two elders didn’t tell police. They, and the congregation, now face a lawsuit from the Delaware attorney general accusing them of violating the state’s mandated reporting laws. The defendants claim the elders were protected from having to report the abuse by a legal exemption for clergy.

The case highlights the struggle of courts to interpret a convoluted web of clergy reporting laws that stretches across U.S. Elevating the tension is the fact that Jehovah’s Witnesses explicitly are instructed not to report child sexual abuse to secular authorities unless required by state law.

Clergy are mandated to report child abuse in 45 states, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. But laws in 32 of those states contain some version of a loophole called a clergy-penitent privilege. Those exceptions allow clergy to withhold information from authorities if they receive it from members seeking spiritual advice.

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NEBRASKA
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release, February 1, 2016

January 27, 2016

Dear Bishop Conley:

We are members of a support group called SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAPnetwork.org). Our goal is to protect the vulnerable and heal the wounded.

Recently, we learned that you have invited Bishop Robert Finn into your diocese and are letting him minister to nuns at Lincoln’s School Sisters of Christ the King convent.

As you are well aware, he was convicted of refusing to tell police of suspected child sex crimes by Fr. Shawn Ratigan. He resigned as head of the Kansas City diocese. And he signed a contract

with 40+ victims, agreeing to take steps to prevent future abuse. But he was found by an arbitrator to have broken his word and his diocese was forced to pay $1.1 million to those brave victims.

[BishopAccountability.org]

The Ratigan case is far from the only case of known or suspected child sex crimes in which Finn acted recklessly, callously or deceitfully. For example, another credibly accused child molesting cleric, Fr. Michael Tierney, was kept on the job by Finn for more than six months despite multiple child sex abuse allegations against him in at least two lawsuits.

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AUSTRALIA
Broken Rites

By a Broken Rites researcher, article posted 1 February 2016

Australia’s national child-abuse Royal Commission will officially inquire in early February 2016 whether Cardinal George Pell is prepared to appear in the witness box in Australia later in February to answer questions about how the Catholic Church, historically, has dealt with clergy sexual abuse in two Australian cities — Melbourne and Ballarat. At present, Pell seeks to remain in the Vatican, instead of re-visiting Australia.

Since May 2015, the Royal Commission has been holding a series of occasional public hearings to obtain information about the archdiocese of Melbourne (covering the Melbourne metropolitan area) and the diocese of Ballarat (covering the western half of the state of Victoria). The Melbourne inquiry is Case Study 35, while Ballarat is Case Study 28.

George Pell, who was born in Ballarat, was originally a priest in the Ballarat diocese. He was later the archbishop of Melbourne (from 1996 to 2001) and then became the archbishop of Sydney before gaining his current senior role in the Vatican.

During a four-weeks public hearing in November-December 2015, the Royal Commission examined a series of submissions concerning clergy sexual crimes in Melbourne and Ballarat. The Royal Commission heard from victims in Ballarat and Melbourne who alleged that church leaders had been ignoring or concealing these crimes. The Commission also questioned priests from Ballarat and Melbourne who replied to many of the Commission’s questions by stating: “I do not remember” or “I cannot recall”.

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AUSTRALIA
Herald Sun

Shannon Deery

MELBOURNE’s troubled Yeshivah Centre has been banned from making changes to the school’s leadership in the wake of its sexual abuse crisis.

Following a damning probe by the child abuse royal commission last year the centre announced it would replace its board of trustees and committee of management.

Many of the centre’s leaders were blamed for decades of cover-ups that led to an epidemic of sexual abuse that has shamed the Yeshivah community.

A string of former staff members have been jailed in recent years for heinous crimes committed against children.

A Governance Review Panel was setup to create a new constitution for the centre with all trustees and the interim committee of management expected be stood down by last December.

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PENNSYLVANIA
Tribune-Review

BY LIZ ZEMBA | Monday, Feb. 1, 2016

The attorney for a Somerset County priest convicted in federal court of sexually molesting boys at a Honduran orphanage is seeking a new trial based on newly discovered evidence and allegations that prosecutors withheld evidence favorable to the defense.

The Rev. Joseph D. Maurizio Jr., 70, was to be sentenced Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Johnstown. But the former pastor of Our Lady Queen of Angels Church in Central City instead will appear before Judge Kim R. Gibson for an evidentiary hearing on motions for a new trial.

Federal prosecutors said Maurizio used a self-run charity based in Johnstown, Humanitarian Interfaith Ministries, to visit the orphanage numerous times between 1999 and 2009, promising candy and cash to boys to watch them shower, have sex or fondle them.

Maurizio did not testify during his trial in September. Through his attorney, Steven Passarello of Altoona, he has maintained his innocence.

Gibson denied an earlier motion seeking a new trial that was based on insufficient evidence but dismissed one of the jury’s five guilty verdicts.

Passarello is again seeking a new trial, this time in two motions filed under seal.

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CANADA
CBC News

By Martha Troian, for CBC News

The Department of Indigenous and Northern Affairs Canada (INAC) has located thousands of people accused of physically and sexually abusing students at Indian residential schools — though the public may never learn any of their identities.

As part of the mandate set out in the Indian Residential Schools Settlement agreement, INAC located 5,315 alleged abusers, both former employees and students at these schools.

To do this, 17 private investigation firms were contracted, at a cost of $1,576,380, beginning in 2005, according to information provided by the department.

The alleged perpetrators were tracked down not to face criminal charges, however, but only to see if they would be willing to participate in hearings to determine compensation for residential school survivors. The Independent Assessment Process (IAP) is the out-of-court process for resolving the most severe abuse claims coming out of the residential schools system

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CANADA
The Daily Courier

TORONTO — A well-known Toronto pastor who officiated at Jack Layton’s state funeral is denying accusations of sex crimes in Nova Scotia that police allege date back four decades.

“I want to be crystal clear: I am innocent of these allegations,” Rev. Brent Hawkes said in a statement on the website of the Metropolitan Community Church of Toronto.

“The purported events simply did not take place.”

RCMP Staff Sgt. Craig Burnett said Monday that Hawkes has been charged with indecent assault and gross indecency related to allegations of a sexual assault in the 1970s.

Hawkes, 65, and a native of Bath, N.B., officiated over the state funeral for NDP leader Jack Layton in Toronto in August 2011, and has been a senior pastor at the Metropolitan Community Church for decades.

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TEXAS
Fort Worth Star-Telegram

BY DEANNA BOYD
dboyd@star-telegram.com

Days into his trial on charges that he molested a teenage church member more than a decade ago, the former pastor of Cowboy Way Church in Alvarado pleaded guilty Monday to indecency with a child in exchange for seven years’ deferred adjudication probation.

Under the sentence, if Dan William Haby Jr. abides by the terms of his probation, the case will be dismissed with no conviction on his record.

If he violates probation, he can be sentenced to a maximum of 20 years in prison.

Either way, Haby is now required to register as a sex offender for life.

Afterward, the victim, now 31, said Haby’s plea gave him a “freedom that I haven’t had in 16 years.”

“It forced him to tell everyone that he’s guilty and admit to what’s he done, and that is a freedom for me not to have to carry the burden of what’s been 16 years of a lie,” the victim said. “I pray that he finds forgiveness and that he seeks the healing … and the counseling he needs to get better.”

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LOUISIANA
KSLA

By Theresa Schmidt

LAKE CHARLES, LA (KPLC) –
A jury in a former priest’s sex abuse trial heard graphic testimony Monday from a man who said he was sexually assaulted by Mark Broussard.

The witness’s testimony portrayed Broussard as a predator who groomed the boy for sexual activity, eventually accelerating to rape.

Mark Anthony Broussard is charged with molestation of a juvenile, oral sexual battery, aggravated oral sexual battery and two counts of aggravated rape. The allegations revolve around Broussard’s time as a priest at Our Lady Queen of Heaven and St. Henry Catholic Church, from 1986-91. The charges against Broussard are based on allegations of two men who were altar boys. Broussard, who is free on $1.5 million bond, was initially indicted on 224 counts of sexual abuse, but the charges were reduced to five, which reflect the entirety of the accusations.

KPLC’s Theresa Schmidt is covering the trial. Follow her at twitter.com/KplcTschmidt.

The man who took the stand Monday said he was about 8 years old and riding his bike around the parking lot of St. Henry when a stranger stopped him. That man was Broussard.

According to the witness, Broussard befriended him and eventually fondled, molested and raped him as the sexual contact accelerated over the course of about a year.

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AUSTRALIA
The Advertiser

Nigel Hunt

A VICTIM of notorious paedophile Robert Brandenburg was threatened with legal action on two occasions by a senior Anglican Church official when he reported the abuse, an inquiry has been told.

In astonishing evidence to the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, Adelaide man Mark King detailed how he reported his abuse in 1993 to then Archdeacon Brian Smith — only to be dismissed and threatened with legal action if he spoke about it to others.

Mr King, who was also abused by a Church of England Boys Society leader, fellow members and Brandenburg after he joined the Plympton branch when aged 10, said Archdeacon Smith was “aggressively defensive’’ about Brandenburg and had told him he had known him for more than 30 years.

He said Archdeacon Smith was president of CEBS when Brandenburg was the CEBS Commissioner for South Australia. Archdeacon Smith had also told him that Brandenburg had often been to his house and he vouched for his good character.

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CALIFORNIA
10 News

A seminary student accused of traveling from Ohio to San Diego with the intent of going to Tijuana to have sex with female infants should be held without bail because he is a flight risk and a danger to the community, a prosecutor told a federal judge Monday.

Joel Alexander Wright, 23, was arrested at Lindbergh Field on Friday and charged with traveling with the intent to engage in illicit sexual conduct and aggravated sexual abuse of a child.

The defendant, clad in white jumpsuit with a chain between his ankles, was advised of the charges against him and had an attorney appointed to represent him.

Magistrate Judge Bernard Skomal scheduled a detention hearing for Thursday.

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AUSTRALIA
Mercury

ANDREW DRUMMOND

BY the early 2000s most victims approaching Tasmania’s Anglican Church complaining of sexual abuse by priests were seeking financial assistance, a royal commission has been told.

Bishop John Douglas Harrower was the leader of the diocese of Tasmania for 15 years from July 2000 and one of his first moves in the job was to make a public apology for child-sex offences linked to the church.

“I was made aware of what had happened and I thought it was horrendous and I felt it was important to make an apology,” Bishop Harrower said in evidence to the commission on Tuesday.

Subsequently the bishop received 10 complaints from 10 men about their childhood abuse by former priest Garth Hawkins.

While police were investigating the matters, Bishop Harrower said the church could take no disciplinary action against suspects but moved to offer support to the victims by funding counselling and other support.

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AUSTRALIA
SBS

AAP

More than four decades after the childhood sexual abuse his mind had repressed, a car crash brought the memories flooding back.

The victim, who cannot be named for legal reasons, on Tuesday told a royal commission that as an Adelaide teenager in the late 1960s he was abused by five men, each with links to the Anglican church.

But he had no recollection of the abuse until 2010, after an accident when his car rolled.

“I started having flashbacks about the car accident and then I started to have flashbacks about the sexual abuse,” the man told a public hearing in Hobart.

“These flashbacks escalated over the next month and began occurring every day.”

It made the man remember the abuse he suffered after joining the Church of England Boys’ Society at St Richard’s in the Adelaide suburb of Lockleys.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

By Emilie Gramenz

Peter Hollingworth, a former Anglican archbishop of Brisbane and Australian governor-general, was warned a paedophile priest “posed a risk of re-offending”, a psychiatrist has told an inquiry.

The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse is investigating the Anglican Church and its youth group, the Church of England Boys Society (CEBS).

Brisbane psychiatrist Dr John Slaughter told a hearing in Hobart he consulted with Anglican priest John Elliot in 1993.

Mr Hollingworth had asked the psychiatrist to see Elliot after an allegation of abuse, and Elliot allowed information about the sessions to be relayed back to the then-archbishop, Dr Slaughter said.

The inquiry heard Elliot told Dr Slaughter about previous offences, disclosing that he remained sexually attracted to boys and preferred boys who were around puberty.

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AUSTRALIA
9 News

AAP

A former NSW Catholic priest accused of molesting young altar boys in churches and pools is already in custody awaiting sentence for 40 other child sex offences, a jury has heard.

The trial of the 61-year-old man began on Tuesday, with Sydney’s District Court hearing allegations he abused three altar boys in the early 1980s, all from the same church.

They were then aged about 11, and the accusations range from grabbing genitals to raping a boy on a church altar.

The former regional priest, who can’t be identified, also repeatedly targeted one victim in a local pool, crown prosecutor Bryan Rowe said.

After drinking tea with the alleged victim’s family the former priest would take the boy to a local pool and during several trips he allegedly pinched the boy’s buttocks, pinned him against the pool wall and rubbed the boy’s penis.

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AUSTRALIA
Sydney Morning Herald

February 2, 2016

Henrietta Cook
Education Reporter at The Age

Concerned parents and students at a Melbourne Catholic school have boycotted mass after calling for their priest to resign over abuse allegations.

A group of parents at St Patrick’s School in Mentone and St John Vianney’s School in Parkdale have been demanding that parish priest Father John Walshe stand down.

The Catholic priest defended Cardinal George Pell at the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse and has been accused of sexually abusing an 18-year-old seminarian in 1982.

He was in his early 20s at the time and had been recently ordained. He denied the abuse and said the incident was consensual.

It was revealed in December that the victim received $75,000 in compensation after the Catholic Archdiocese of Melbourne apologised and accepted that he had been sexually abused by Father Walshe.

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OHIO
WTOV

[with video]

STEUBENVILLE, Ohio — A Catholic seminary student who was arrested Friday on child sex charges was confirmed to have attended Franciscan University for two semesters.

Joel Wright, 23, was taken into police custody in California on allegations that he planned to adopt a three-year-old girl from Mexico for the purpose of raping her.

Franciscan University issued a statement Monday. School officials said they are not permitted to go into detail, but Wright was a student in the fall 2015 and spring 2015 semesters.

The statement went on to say “Franciscan University cooperates fully with law enforcement agencies on any issues of concern. Any questions regarding an ongoing criminal investigation need to be directed to legal authorities.”

Wright was a student at Pontifical College in Columbus before he was arrested. He has since been expelled.

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CANADA
CBC News

Brent Hawkes, a prominent Toronto pastor, has been charged with committing sex crimes in Nova Scotia, lawyer Clayton Ruby confirmed to CBC News.

Ruby said his client was charged by the RCMP in December with indecent assault and gross indecency in Kings County, N.S. The incidents allegedly occurred in the 1970s.

The 65-year-old, who delivered the eulogy at former New Democratic Party leader Jack Layton’s 2011 funeral, has been the senior pastor at the Metropolitan Community Church of Toronto for nearly 40 years.

Hawkes is well-known in the LGBT community and has been recognized for his work by the City of Toronto, the United Nations Toronto Association, York University and the New Brunswick Human Rights Commission.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

By Emilie Gramenz

Former Tasmanian bishop Philip Newell “must have known about” a paedophile priest who was abusing boys, his son’s former girlfriend has told the royal commission into child sexual abuse.

A public hearing in Hobart is investigating the Anglican Church and its youth group, the Church of England Boys Society (CEBS).

In the 1980s, Catherine Hutchinson dated Christopher Newell, the son of former bishop Phillip Newell.

Their relationship lasted about five years.

Ms Hutchinson told the commission Christopher Newell made comments about the conduct of paedophile priest Louis Daniels in 1984, prior to any official complaints being made.

“He said, when Lou Daniels is around at CEBS camps, there will be CEBS with sore bottoms,” she said.

Counsel Assisting Naomi Sharp then asked “did you ever pursue with Christopher Newell what he meant when he made these comments?”

“No, I didn’t,” Ms Hutchinson said.

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WASHINGTON
Bellevue Reporter

A week after the Reporter revealed that a list of Seattle-area priests who had sexually abused children failed to include employees of the Archdiocese of Seattle who had been accused of the same crime, the organization said they will review the list and determine if more names need to be added.

“We will continue to review the list to determine if additional information or names should be included,” the archdiocese said in a statement. They also encouraged anyone with information about sexual abuse by a member of the clergy, employee or a volunteer to come forward.

The archdiocese had released the list with the aim of transparency, with spokesperson Greg Magnoni telling the Reporter that it is an ongoing effort.

Seven priests included on the archdiocese’s initial list had worked in Bellevue over sexual decades and had been accused multiple times in the past. More priests who had served across the Eastside were named by the archdiocese as sexual abusers, including three with ties to Mercer Island, one in Kirkland, one in Bothell and 13 in Kenmore.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC – PM

MARK COLVIN: At the child sexual abuse Royal Commission hearings in Hobart, a former Anglican bishop of Tasmania has denied both joking about little boys with sore bottoms, and covering up complaints against a priest in the 1980s.

But Philip Newell was forced to concede that he had failed to remove the priest from duties involving young boys.

He admitted that that was “a very serious oversight”.

Samantha Donovan reports.

SAMANTHA DONOVAN: The Royal Commission is examining how the Anglican Diocese of Tasmania handled allegations priests were sexually abusing boys in the 1980s.

One priest, Louis Daniels, was eventually convicted and jailed for the sexual abuse of 11 boys. He settled a civil claim brought by a 12th boy.

Witness Sue Clayton, a former lay reader of the Church, has told the Commission that in 1987, she accompanied two boys to a meeting with the then-Bishop of Tasmania, Philip Newell.

The boys reported to him they had been sexually abused by Daniels. Ms Clayton gave evidence that Bishop Newell responded to the boys with sensitivity.

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VERMONT
WCAX

By WCAX News

SAN DIEGO –
New details about a former Vermont man arrested for allegedly seeking to have sex with infants and young girls in Mexico.

Investigators say 23-year-old Joel Wright was carrying $2,000 in cash along with baby clothes and a bottle in his luggage when he was arrested in San Diego on Friday. According to the criminal complaint, Wright wrote explicit online messages about what he hoped to do with an infant and a 4-year-old girl.

Wright, who went to Burlington High School, was until recently a seminary student in Ohio.

“Shock and sadness that someone who could potentially be entrusted with such sacred trusts could betray them in such a great way. Again, presently the charges against him are allegations. They’re grave and they’re shocking and they’re serious,” said Rev. John Allen with Pontifical College.

Joel Wright was featured in several Channel 3 News stories when he was a teenager because he was huge fan of the pope and said he planned to become a priest.

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OHIO
10TV

MOUNT VERNON, Ohio – A criminal complaint against a man who was studying to be a priest at a Columbus seminary has revealed appalling new details of how he tried to adopt infants to rape and sexually abuse.

(WARNING: Some of what you are about to read is upsetting and graphic. Discretion is advised.)

July 2014: Joel Wright travels to Tijuana, Mexico after communicating with a person (only known as “reporting person” in a criminal complaint) via Craigslist in hopes of “obtaining” a child. In a Tijuana hotel, Wright paid the person an adoption fee. The person then left the hotel and did not return, scamming Wright out of the so-called “fee.”

Wright returns to the United States the same month.

July 2015: The reporting person began to communicate with Wright again via Craigslist using a different e-mail address. In this case, Wright was looking for a tour guide in Tijuana for “a medical appointment, meeting a woman to marry, and adopting a child.”

Wright explained to the reporting person that he wanted to engage in sex with a female infant. When asked if he had done this before, he stated he never had sex with a child, but had “made it very close.”

November 2015: The reporting person contacts the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children about his communication with Wright.

December 3, 2015: Undercover federal agents take over the reporting person’s e-mail and resume communicating with Wright, who goes on to describe in graphic detail how he would rape and molest infants.

He also offers to give the agent a 4-year-old he was planning to adopt and rape “as a present.”

December 10, 2015: The undercover agent buys an airline ticket for Wright to fly to Tijuana with the intent of raping at least two children (ages 4 and 1).

December 11, 2015: Wright suddenly backs out of the travel plans without explanation and tells the undercover agent to have no further contact with him.

December 28, 2015: Wright places a third ad in the community section of the Tijuana Craigslist for a female tour guide.

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LOUISIANA
KATC

Former priest Mark Broussard appeared in court Monday morning for trial on molestation charges stemming from incidents in the 1980s.

Broussard was living in Duson when he was arrested in 2012 on rape and battery charges after a letter surfaced in late 2011, alleging that the former priest had sexually abused a Calcasieu Parish man as a child.

Broussard was a priest in Lake Charles during the 1980s at St. Henry Catholic Church. The victim who wrote the letter claimed most of the sexual abuse occurred in and around the church.

Broussard resigned from the priesthood in 1994, nearly 18 years before his arrest.

On Monday, prosecutors began opening statements, telling jurors that Broussard took advantage of young boys in the congregation who were too young and scared to tell anyone that they were being abused by a priest.

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HAWAII
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release, February 1, 2016

Statement by Joelle Casteix, SNAP Western Regional Director, 949-322-7434, jcasteix@gmail.com

[Hawaii News Now]

We are proud of the brave men and women who came forward to expose their abuse and hold the Diocese of Honolulu accountable. In the next few weeks—when previously secret documents are made public and we learn more about the scope and scale of the crimes—these survivors will also receive the justice and vindication they deserve.

These victims are no longer forced to suffer in shame and silence. By coming forward, they are a source of pride for their families. They stood up, stopped the cycle of abuse, ensured keiki safety, and held wrongdoers accountable to the law.

There is still time for the child victims of Hawai’i to come forward and seek justice. No victim of child sex crimes should ever be denied the opportunity to use the court system for justice.

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UNITED STATES
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

By David Clohessy

On Sunday in Georgia, we leafletted a church about pedophile priests. (Thanks Barb!)

[SNAP]

On Monday in California, we exposed public school officials who are putting young victims through legal hell even though their predator has been convicted AND in Georgia, we outed seven predator priests.

(Thanks Tim L, Melanie S, Tim S, Michael S and others.)

[SNAP]

[WTOC]

On Tuesday in Michigan, Florida and South Carolina, we did three separate outreach Greg, Phillip, Bill, David, Linda, Alan S & others!)

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AUSTRALIA
9 News

AAP

An overseas witness will give evidence to a royal commission that a member of senior Anglican clergy in Australia knew of sexual abuse rumours linked to the Church of England Boys’ Society.

British woman Catherine Hutchinson will on Tuesday be beamed by video link into a Hobart public hearing to give her account of dinner conversation at the home of former state leader of the Anglican diocese, Bishop Phillip Newell.

In 1984 and 1985, when Ms Hutchinson was aged about 18 and dating one of Bishop Newell’s sons, she said quips were made around the family’s Hobart dinner table of CEBS boys having “sore bottoms”.

She alleges Bishop Newell responded to the comments, telling his sons “let’s not have that at the dinner table”.

But in evidence on Monday the bishop denied any such conversation took place.

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UNITED STATES
Huffington Post

Kerry Walters
William Bittinger Professor of Philosophy and Peace and Justice Studies, Gettysburg College

I rarely cry at movies. But I did a few days ago while watching Spotlight, the film about the Boston Globe’s 2002 exposure of Roman Catholic priests who sexually abused children and the prelates who covered up for them.

The Globe’s story was only the first wave of what became a tsunami of scandal. Fifteen years later, hundreds of similarly sordid cases of clerical misconduct and ecclesial concealment have come to light, not only in the United States but also throughout Europe, Australia, and Canada.

Watching Spotlight brought back all the shame, anger, and grief that seared me fourteen years ago when the scandal first broke. The sexual exploitation of children is horrible enough. But that the predators were priests, servants of God revered, trusted, and upheld as role models by the very families they betrayed, was a body blow no one saw coming.

For generations of American Roman Catholics, it was simply unimaginable that priests were capable of such things. As one man abused as a child told the Globe, “We were taught that priests were God’s representatives on earth. A priest would walk in and nuns would bow.”

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UNITED STATES
Washington Post

By Michelle Boorstein January 31

God, what are you calling me to do here, prayed the priest. Come out, or stay in the closet ?

After 23 years in Chicago parishes, the question had pushed its way to the surface.

He weighed his options. He thought about his parishioners. Many, he knew, were accepting of gay people, even of same-sex marriage, but others — less so. He had grown up in a large Catholic family; he understood what people’s faith meant to them. He didn’t want to harm his flock, or the Catholic Church.

He wondered if he could be penalized in his job. And, in truth, he considered his status. He knew many Catholics had what he might call a romanticized view of the priesthood: Priests are supposed to be pure, almost above the world of sexuality, selflessly willing to give up creating a family of their own to serve God. This would mean falling from that pedestal.

Then, he weighed these factors against the impact his coming out could have on the lives of young gay people in treatment for addiction or who are suicidal, on the parents and grandparents who feel they must choose between their gay child and their church. For some, knowing their priest is gay — and at peace with it — could be healing, he felt.

He thought of his complex feelings. He had no ax to grind, and he wasn’t an advocate.

He set the rules at the outset: He did not want to be identified in this article. But at the end of the first conversation, he said: I’m leaning towards using my real name.

At a time when the phrase “coming out” is starting to sound almost quaint, the Catholic priesthood may be one of the last remaining closets — and it’s a crowded one. People who study gay clergy believe gay men make up a significant percentage of the 40,000 ordained priests in the United States, including some who believe they may even be the majority. Meanwhile, the number who are out is minuscule.

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LOUISIANA
KPLC

By Theresa Schmidt

Testimony begins today in the trial of a former priest accused of molesting altar boys.

Mark Anthony Broussard is accused of sexually assaulting boys when he was a priest in Calcasieu between 1986 and 1991. He faces five sex charges – two counts of aggravated rape, one count of aggravated oral sexual battery, one count of oral sexual battery and one count of molestation of a juvenile.

Jury selection lasted a week and was completed on Friday.

Broussard, who is free on $1.5 million bond, was initially indicted on 224 counts of sexual abuse, but the charges were reduced to five, which reflect the entirety of the accusations.

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CANADA
CTV

The Canadian Press
Published Monday, February 1, 2016

ST. JOHN’S, N.L. — The federal government is attempting to settle a lawsuit from more than 1,200 Metis, Inuit and Innu plaintiffs seeking an apology and damages for abuse and cultural losses at residential schools in Newfoundland and Labrador.

The lawsuit was adjourned Monday morning as opposing lawyers meet Tuesday with a retired judge in an effort to settle the case.

If no agreement is reached, the federal lawyers will begin their defence arguments on Feb. 29. The suit alleges both sexual and physical abuse.

The plaintiffs’ lawyer said the settlement efforts reflect a dramatic shift in attitude following the change of government in Ottawa.

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UNITED STATES
Catholic League

Bill Donohue comments on remarks made by “Spotlight” stars on the occasion of the SAG Awards Saturday night:

“Spotlight,” which is about the Boston Globe’s coverage of the abuse scandal in the Archdiocese of Boston, has given rise to a steady stream of wild statements about the Catholic Church. The latest irresponsible comment was made at the SAG Awards by star Mark Ruffalo. “Many of the archdioceses that have had molestations happening in them still haven’t released the names of the priests who are known to be child molesters and rapists.”

Between 1950 and 2002, 4 percent of Catholic priests had an allegation made against them; only half of the allegations were substantiated. Moreover, between 2005 and 2014, an average of 8.4 credible accusations were made against roughly 40,000 priests. Ergo, it is a monumental smear to tar the entire Catholic Church. That is what many pundits, and some of those associated with “Spotlight,” are doing.

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VATICAN CITY
Yahoo! News

AFP

Vatican City (AFP) – Pope Francis told gossip-loving priests and nuns to bite their tongues on Monday, and warned those breaking their vow of obedience to fall into line sharpish.

“If you get an urge to say something against a brother or a sister, to drop a gossip bomb, bite your tongue! Hard!” the pontiff said in an improvised speech to members of the clergy marking the end of the Year of Consecrated Life.

The Argentine warned against those abusing their religious vows of chastity, poverty and obedience, describing “anarchy” as the “daughter of the devil”.

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MICHIGAN
Lansing State Journal

– Greg Guggemos is a former longtime East Lansing resident and adjunct professor of law at Cooley and Vermont Law Schools. He is a standing member of SNAP.

I recently saw the movie “Spotlight,” along with my wife, Mary. It’s a suspenseful, accurate portrayal of how a team of dedicated Boston Globe reporters began exposing what eventually became more than 250 accused child molesting clerics in one archdiocese and the shrewd cover up of those crimes for years by top Catholic officials. “Spotlight” made a lasting impression on us for many reasons. First, it emphasized the absolute necessity for a free press. Second, it spoke to the courage of editors and their dedicated journalists to a commitment for investigative reporting. Third, it exposed the hypocrisy of the Catholic church leadership and its centuries-old policy of protecting pedophile priests and its complete disregard of the emotional trauma suffered by countless children who were and continue to be victims of this insidious policy.

Just last week an incident occurred in Western Michigan again demonstrating the need for a free press and investigative reporting. John Nienstedt, a recently resigned former Archbishop from Minnesota, was appointed as pastor at St. Joseph’s Catholic parish in Battle Creek. After announcement of the appointment, representatives of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP) issued two press releases denouncing the appointment. Following considerable public pressure after the announcement, Paul Bradley, Bishop for the Kalamazoo diocese, which includes Battle Creek, rescinded Nienstedt’s appointment and publicly apologized to his parishioners.

While Bradley’s recession appears laudatory, the real question is why would the hierarchy of the Catholic church allow Nienstedt’s reassignment to occur in the first place? Nienstedt has been credibly accused of committing several acts of sexual abuse in Minnesota. The Archdiocese of Minnesota currently faces criminal charges for refusing to report child sex crimes by pedophile priests which occurred during Nienstedt’s watch. Victims of this sexual abuse have filed affidavits in these criminal proceedings, detailing the suffering they sustained as a result of Nienstedt’s conduct as Archbishop. Was Bradley, the Bishop for the Kalamazoo diocese, not aware of the widely reported criminal proceedings in Minnesota and Nienstedt’s resignation?

I was sexually abused by a priest when I was 5 years old and living at St. Vincent’s orphanage in Lansing. The exposure by the Boston Globe and its courageous reporters of the scandal in Boston, together with the assistance of SNAP, gave Mary and me the courage in 2010 to publicly share the sexual abuse I suffered as a child, after I settled my sexual abuse claim with the Lansing diocese.

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VATICAN CITY
Catholic News Service

By Cindy Wooden Catholic News Service
2.1.2016

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — Although the number is not high, it is no longer “exceptional” to have priests turn down an appointment as bishop, said Canadian Cardinal Marc Ouellet, prefect of the Congregation for Bishops.

Speaking Feb. 1 about the annual course his office sponsors for new bishops, the cardinal was asked about rumors that more and more priests are saying they do not want to be a bishop and declining an appointment even when the pope, on the recommendation of Cardinal Ouellet’s office, has chosen them.

“Yes, that’s true. Nowadays you have people who do not accept the appointment,” he said, adding that he would not provide statistics on how often it happens, although he insisted the number was not huge.

Priests decline for a variety of reasons, Cardinal Ouellet said, pointing to the example of a priest who was chosen, but then informed the congregation that he had cancer and had not told others of his illness. “It was a sign of responsibility not to accept the appointment,” he said.

Others decline because of something in their past or because they think they cannot handle the responsibility, he said. In the latter case, he said, “normally we insist” because often people are not the best judges of their own abilities. But when a person makes “a decision in conscience,” the Vatican respects that.

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MARYLAND
Leon J. Podles

Note: Mr. Podles sent this letter in December but has yet to receive and answer. The YouTube link cited in the letter is no longer operational. Mr. Podles is author of Sacrilege and writes a blog called Leon J. Podles: Dialogue.

December 2015

Most Rev. William E. Lori, Archbishop of Baltimore
The Catholic Center
320 Cathedral St.
Baltimore, MD 21201

Dear Archbishop Lori,

While the Church has made progress in dealing with sexual abuse and other irregularities, I think that the situation of a recently-reinstated priest in the archdiocese, Dominic Cieri, needs scrutiny.

**********************************************************************************
For some reason he came up in conversation and I googled him to see what had happened to him. I discovered that had had been reinstated as a priest and was in the chaplaincy at St. Joseph’s hospital. He also has public web sites, and on his You Tube site (https://www.youtube.com/user/241Doow/feed)

he lists many sexually-explicit channels to which he subscribes, including this one:

BoyonBoyLoving. A selection of clips with boy on boy loving.

In his autobiographical blog he discusses his homosexuality, and among the You Tube channels he subscribes to are ones such as:

Cute Males Studio: In Between Men – Episode 5 – Muscles and Manbags by PIANETAGAY

MANTASTICMALES2011.This is a gay channel, featuring videos with homosexual or hot guy content. Slide vids, fan vids, gay themed music vids, short films and excerpts with a similar theme.

The reason he had left the archdiocese was financial irregularity. The Baltimore Sun (July 7, 2007) reported:

“The Rev. Domenic L. Cieri, who led St. Bernadette Catholic Church in Severn for nearly 15 years, received salary and Mass stipends above the scales approved by the archdiocese, according to an audit conducted in October. Archdiocese spokesman Sean Caine said Cieri also received a housing allowance to live in northern Baltimore County, although his parish has a rectory.
For the fiscal year that ended last June, Cieri earned nearly $48,000 a year, about 70 percent more than the $28,122 that the archdiocese says he was to earn as a pastor ordained for 25 years.
In addition, Cieri received $6,300 in Mass stipends. Priests have the choice of receiving Mass stipends for individual Masses or a lump sum of $2,000, an amount set by the archdiocese, Caine said.

“He was also reimbursed nearly $36,000 for rectory expenses, though Caine said the priest did not live in the rectory attached to the church but rather at a house in Baldwin, in northern Baltimore County. And he received more than $14,000 as a housing allowance, which Caine said is not normally given to priests assigned to churches with rectories.”

Cieri had been and is still living with the Rev. Larry Johnson in a $458,000 house in Baldwin, far across the metropolitan area from St Bernadette’s.

I question the prudence of assigning a priest to a situation in which he has access to vulnerable people, including boys and adolescent males, when he has publicly demonstrated his sexual interest in young males and has also demonstrated financial manipulation and a disregard for archdiocesan polices.

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UNITED STATES
Catholics4Change

FEBRUARY 1, 2016 BY SUSAN MATTHEWS

Click here to read: “Ohio Seminary student arrested, charged with trying to arrange sex with infants,” by Elizabeth Faugl, abc6onyourside.com, January 29, 2016

Editors note:

This unfathomable crime happens more often than sane people can comprehend. The perpetrators come from all walks of life, but we don’t expect them among our Seminary students or priests. What are the standards for acceptance to Seminaries? With a priest shortage can we expect more or less diligence in screening?

I fear there will be less. We try to keep a narrow focus on this blog. Our topics are within the context of current doctrine and clergy child sex abuse. But perhaps it’s impossible not to discuss the priest shortage in connection with the clergy child sex abuse cover up.

The shortage leaves rectories more empty and with less oversight. It leaves good priests with an enormous amount of responsibility. Elderly priests are coming out of retirement to fill the gaps. Just covering Masses is difficult. What about Last Rites, the parishioner struggling with a crisis or a newcomer with faith questions.

In these situations, does “any priest is better than no priest” mode kick in at the administration level?

The same clericalism that allows child sex abuse to go unchecked will be the same that destroys any opportunity to minister to Catholics when they most need it.

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CHILE/UNITED STATES
YouTube

Published on Jan 31, 2016

Boston SNAP activist and character in movie “Spotlight” offers words of support to the Catholic clergy abuse victims fighting for recognition in the South American country of Chile.

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ILLINOIS
Daily Herald

Kerry Lester

Pope Francis has proclaimed 2016 the “Year of Mercy” for Catholics, and that theme is being vividly demonstrated at a Mount Prospect parish.

In the coming weeks, St. Raymond de Penafort parish will begin housing a retired priest who was convicted of theft in 2008 for stealing roughly $40,000 from a Chicago church and using the money on vacations, laptops, massages and personal training sessions.

Cook County prosecutors said the Rev. Steve Patte, who formally retired last year, issued checks and wired money to his personal accounts as reimbursement for expenditures that never occurred. He was sentenced to four years of probation.

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GUAM
Pacific News Center

Written by Janela Carrera

The Forward Laity Movement held their first prayer protest of the year.

Guam – The first Catholic prayer protest of the year was held yesterday and again, the message is clear, the Laity Forward Movement wants the Archbishop out.

The protest was held across the street from the Dulce Nombre de Maria Cathedral Basilica in Hagatna. This follow numerous protests held throughout last year in which members of the Concerned Catholics of Guam voiced their concerns about Archbishop Anthony Apuron.

There’s no sign, however, that the Archdiocese will concede as they have in the past sent out statements contesting claims and rumors of misdeeds.

Some of the demands the protesters made have to do with the controversial multimillion dollar Redemptoris Mater Seminary as well as the removal of certain priests.

Mae Ada is with the Laity Forward Movement. She explains why the group held the protest.

“To remind the archbishop that we need to get back our seminary away from the RMS and to restore the two priests, Father Paul Gofigan and Msgr. James Benavente. We need them back and we want the neo to be out of our diocese. They cannot continue to control the archbishop and to control Guam. We want our church back,” she says.

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AUSTRALIA
Mercury

PATRICK BILLINGS
Mercury

TASMANIA’S most senior Anglican clergy did not discuss how to reduce the risk posed to children by a pedophile priest after he was forced to resign, as they believed police prosecution was imminent.

But Burnie archdeacon Louis Daniels was not prosecuted until five years later, during which time he held teaching positions in the Australian Capital Territory.

Former assistant bishop of Tasmania Ronald Stone gave evidence today in Hobart at a Royal Commission into child abuse.

Mr Stone and then Tasmanian bishop Phillip Newell forced Daniels to resign in 1994 after child abuse allegations resurfaced.

Commissioner Justice Jennifer Coate today asked Mr Stone what discussions were held between him and bishop Newell about reducing the risk if Daniels took up a job where he had “access to children” after his departure.

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AUSTRALIA
NT News

The former leader of the Anglican church in Tasmania has apologised for failing to alert police after boys raised allegations of sexual abuse by a priest.

Bishop Phillip Keith Newell on Monday ended his evidence to a royal commission with an admission, adding it was “too much” to ask forgiveness from the victims.

“I made a wrong judgment,” said the ageing Bishop.

“If I had acted then … and done the adult thing and gone to the police, so much suffering would have been avoided.”

As a father of three sons, Bishop Newell said he has questioned his response if it had been one of his children giving the account of abuse, which he described as outrageous, gross and criminal.

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AUSTRALIA
Insights

The President of the Uniting Church in Australia Stuart McMillan has welcomed the commitment by the Federal Government to develop a national approach to redress for survivors of institutional child sexual abuse.

“This commitment by the Government is important, because a nationally consistent approach has been identified as best meeting the needs of survivors,” said Mr McMillan.

“The Royal Commission recommended a single national redress scheme and it’s a principle that we strongly support.”

“The Government previously thought a single national scheme was too complex and difficult to resource, so we acknowledge and thank the Government for its principled change of position towards a national approach.”

“It is the Uniting Church’s view that the outcome of this approach must deliver adequate funding to implement and sustain a national response that includes flexible arrangements for counselling and psychological care for survivors and funder of last resort arrangements.”

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MASSACHUSETTS
Boston Globe

By Meredith Goldstein GLOBE STAFF JANUARY 31, 2016

We’ll call the results of the Screen Actors Guild Awards a win for Massachusetts.

The Boston film “Spotlight” — the drama about the Globe’s Spotlight team investigation of the Roman Catholic Church sex abuse scandal — took home the night’s big prize, the award for outstanding performance by a cast in a motion picture. Star Michael Keaton, who plays the Globe’s Walter Robinson in the film, moved the crowd by saying that the film is not just for the survivors of sexual abuse in the church, but also for all of the disenfranchised. “This is for every Flint, Mich., in the world,” he said, referring to the Midwest city’s water crisis. “This is for the powerful who take advantage of the powerless.”

The “Spotlight” cast includes Newton’s John Slattery, Mark Ruffalo, and Rachel McAdams, whose date to the show was her real-life counterpart, the Globe’s Sacha Pfeiffer. After the win, Liev Schreiber, who plays former Globe editor Marty Baron in the film, tweeted a pic of his SAG statue with the note, “Thanks Marty this one’s for you.”

Medfield’s Uzo Aduba brought her prom date to the Screen Actors Guild Awards on Saturday night. After winning the prize for outstanding performance by a female actor in a comedy series for her scene-stealing role on “Orange Is the New Black,” she tweeted to fans that the man at her side was Mark Crowley, who also went to Medfield High. “He asked me to the prom, I said yes. I asked him to SAGs, he said yes,” she tweeted with photos of both events. Aduba graduated in 1999.

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AUSTRALIA
Newcastle Herald

By JOANNE MCCARTHY
Feb. 1, 2016

TROY Ronald Walker was a Bible-loving, God-fearing Christian who impressed fellow churchgoers with his passion for helping troubled youths.

He will spend at least 10 years in jail after convictions for sexually abusing young people for more than two decades, including inciting a teenage boy to have sex with a 14-year-old girl while he photographed them.

Walker, 45, was convicted of offences against six young people in the Lake Macquarie area after he used his associations with the Salvation Army and an evangelical Christian church to gain access to children through their families.

A woman sobbed in Sydney Downing Centre Court on Monday as Judge Peter Zahra told how Walker had sexual intercourse with her after meeting the girl’s mother at Bible study. He offered to counsel the girl because she kept running away from home. The court heard the girl was sexually abused by her father.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

By Emilie Gramenz

A former Tasmanian Anglican bishop’s sons would joke about members of a church boys’ society having sore bottoms, a royal commission hearing in Hobart has heard.

The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse is examining the Anglican Church and its youth group, the Church of England Boys Society (CEBS).

Philip Newell was Bishop of the Diocese of Tasmania from 1982 until his retirement in 2000.

Counsel Assisting Naomi Sharp asked Mr Newell about a woman who dated his eldest son in the 1980s and attended family gatherings.

“She has given evidence … the brothers would, in your presence, occasionally talk about Louis Daniels and CEBS with ‘sore bottoms’,” she said.

“And you would shush them and say, ‘Come boys, let’s not have that at the dinner table’.

“What do you say to that?” Ms Sharp said,

“I don’t believe it,” Mr Newell answered.

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UNITED KINGDOM
This is the West Country

SPOTLIGHT (15) 129 mins. Starring Michael Keaton, Mark Ruffalo, Rachel McAdams, Liev Schreiber and John Slattery.

AT its best, investigative journalism is a scalpel that slices through fatty rhetoric and cuts readers to the bones of institutions that should be defending our interests.

In early 2002, the Spotlight Investigations team of the Boston Globe ran a series of meticulously researched articles, exposing the sexual abuse of minors in the Boston archdiocese.

Coverage of the scandal rippled far beyond the city, causing untold problems for those behind it, even before publication of the shocking revelations.

The expose compelled other victims to come forward, which sent shockwaves through the Roman Catholic Church.

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AUSTRALIA
Adelaide Review

This all–too–true story from co–writer/director Tom McCarthy is superbly cast and strongly played but flatly handled at times. Yet the tale is so appalling it has real power anyway and should leave any audience enraged.

The facts behind the Boston Globe’s Pulitzer Prize–winning investigation into child sexual abuse in the Catholic Church are depicted in the build–up to a series of articles that began running in January 2002. The ‘Spotlight’ team are Walter ‘Robby’ Robinson (Michael Keaton) and three reporters, Michael Rezendes (Mark Ruffalo), Sacha Pfeiffer (Rachel McAdams) and Matty Carrol (Brian d’Arcy James), and while an uneasy change in management takes place and a new editor, Marty Baron (Liev Schreiber), comes on board, the team start investigating a priest named John J. Geoghan, whose crimes took place years beforehand.

The non–Bostonian Baron clashes with deputy editor Ben Bradlee Jr (Mad Men’s John Slattery) while the Spotlight gang realise that they’ve truly opened a can of worms, as they approach opposing lawyers Eric Macleish (Billy Crudup) and Mitchell Garabedian (Stanley Tucci) to help encourage traumatised and now–adult victims of other abusers to come forward. These survivors question why the Globe is suddenly so interested, and we’re even treated to a deeply uncomfortable scene where Baron attends a meet–and–greet and shakes hands with Cardinal Bernard Law (Len Cariou), who says that the Globe could work with the Church in ensuring only good–news Catholic stories are printed.

With the expected sequences showing the Spotlight members arguing and grappling with their consciences as September 11, 2001 proves a distraction and their personal lives intrude at times, McCarthy’s film’s key facts won’t prove a surprise for punters who have heard such stories over and over (and over) again. While this isn’t quite on par with something like All The President’s Men, the performances and the quiet anger make it worth catching, as you sit wondering where God is in this whole unholy mess.

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OHIO
10TV

By Evan Anderson
UPDATED: Monday February 1, 2016

COLUMBUS, Ohio – Joel Wright – a “priest in training” at the Pontifical College Josephinum was arrested Friday by Homeland Security agents after flying to San Diego from Columbus with the intent of having sex with young children.

The case was opened last November when federal authorities say an undercover agent posing as a tour guide in Mexico began chatting with Wright online. During the conversations, they he laid out his intentions to adopt or own a girl under 3-years-old and have sex with the child.​

Wright was supposed to continue on to Tijuana, Mexico from San Diego, where federal agents say he was allegedly going to carry out the unthinkable with a baby. Federal agents say Wright had more than $2,000 in cash, along with baby clothes and a bottle in his luggage when he was arrested in San Diego.

He has been charged with two felony counts of traveling with the intent to engage in a sexual act with a minor and attempting to engage in illicit sexual conduct in a foreign country.

Officials say the 23-year-old left his seminary in Columbus without permission, and because of the disturbing and sick allegations, his ties to the school were immediately severed.

“We certainly do not want to admit anyone into our program with whom there is any inkling that that person might pose a threat to any person, especially to the young and to the vulnerable,” Father John Allen explained to 10TV.

Carol Zamonski with SNAP – an international survivors network for people who have been abused by priests or clergy – says she’s not surprised by these allegations.

“This is common, sexual abuse of children of this age is. This is not a shockingly isolated incident. This is human trafficking. This is sexual abuse within a religious context. This is possibly a perpetrator who was himself abused at some time.”

Wright is from Burlington, Vermont, and was featured in a number of feel-good stories in his hometown. He was praised for his work in reaching out and helping others overcome disabilities. He was diagnosed with Glaucoma when he was an infant and said he wanted to become a priest to encourage others.

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OHIO
Fox 28

BY JAMES JACKSON SUNDAY, JANUARY 31ST 2016

COLUMBUS — Shock and sadness. That’s the reaction from a Columbus seminary community tonight, after a man, studying to become a priest is accused of trying to adopt a baby, in Mexico, for sex.

Right now, Joel Wright is in federal custody, in Southern California. Wright was a student at the Pontifical College Josephinum, in North Columbus. Homeland security investigators say he placed ads on Craigslist looking to travel to Tijuana to adopt. They arrested him yesterday in San Diego, as they say he made his way to Mexico.

School leaders found out about the alleged incident yesterday. They say they have a no tolerance policy for it and will do what they can to help investigators piece together what happened.

It’s rich traditions are steeped in protecting everyone, especially children, according to the Pontifical College Josephinum’s Reverend John Allen. “Preserving a climate of perfect transparency where the flourishing of each person can be assured,” Reverend Allen said.

But, that climate of faith was interrupted, when authorities arrested the former student. According to a federal complaint: Wright traveled to Tijuana, Mexico in July 2014, but the person who was supposed to help him with the adoption process backed out. Homeland security got involved. In the complaint, wright stated in an email dated January 14, “I want to adopt/own a baby girl under the age of 3 and I want to have intercourse with her after I own her but don’t be telling people that.”

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AUSTRALIA
news.com.au

PATRICK BILLINGS
Mercury

TASMANIA’S most senior Anglican clergy did not discuss how to reduce the risk posed to children by a pedophile priest after he was forced to resign, as they believed police prosecution was imminent.

But Burnie archdeacon Louis Daniels was not prosecuted until five years later, during which time he held teaching positions in the Australian Capital Territory.

Former assistant bishop of Tasmania Ronald Stone gave evidence today in Hobart at a Royal Commission into child abuse.

Mr Stone and then Tasmanian bishop Phillip Newell forced Daniels to resign in 1994 after child abuse allegations resurfaced.

Commissioner Justice Jennifer Coate today asked Mr Stone what discussions were held between him and bishop Newell about reducing the risk if Daniels took up a job where he had “access to children” after his departure.

“No that discussion did not happen,” Mr Stone said.

However, he said he believed police prosecution of Daniels was imminent.

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UNITED STATES
New York Daily News

BY JASON SILVERSTEIN
Sunday, January 31, 2016

A seminary student from Ohio got busted in California Friday for allegedly plotting to have sex with an adopted infant in Mexico, police said.

Joel A. Wright, a priest-in-training at Pontifical College Josephinum in Columbus, was arrested after his plane landed in San Diego International Airport. He had planned to continue to Tijuana, where he would go to a hotel and buy the baby for sex, police said.

Federal agents started investigating Wright after learning in July 2014 he tried paying for someone to adopt a Mexican child for his pleasure, police said. Last November, an undercover agent started talking to Wright online, posing as a tour guide in Mexico, authorities said.

During their talks, the accused sicko said he wanted to adopt or purchase baby girl under the age of 3, have sex with her and film it, officials said. He expected to meet the tour guide in San Diego.

Wright, 23, now faces two federal sex charges. He was immediately expelled from his seminary school.

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CALIFORNIA
Fox 5 San Diego

SAN DIEGO — A 23-year-old Ohio man was arrested by federal agents in San Diego on Friday for allegedly planning to have sex with multiple infants in Mexico, authorities said.

Joel A. Wright, 23, is seen in a photo provided by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Editor’s note: This article contains disturbing descriptions of an alleged crime.

Joel A. Wright, a seminary student and resident of Columbus, was charged with two felony counts: crossing state lines with the intention to engage in a sexual act with a minor, and attempting to travel “in interstate and foreign commerce” for the purpose of engaging in illegal sexual conduct with another person, according to a criminal complaint filed in U.S. District Court by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of California.

Wright is expected to be arraigned on Monday, according to news release obtained by KTLA.

The suspect was taken into custody at San Diego International Airport by special agents with U.S. Immigration and Custom Enforcement, following a monthslong investigation into child sexual exploitation, according to a news release from the agency.

Dave Shaw, special agent in charge of ICE’s Homeland Security Investigations in San Diego, said in a statement: “Pedophiles who mistakenly believe they can escape justice by committing child sex crimes outside the U.S. should be on notice that HSI will seek to vindicate the rights of those victims regardless of where they live.”

“Fortunately, in this instance, our perseverance and diligence prevented the sexual exploitation of yet another innocent victim,” Shaw added.

According to the criminal complaint, an undercover ICE agent received a tip that prompted the agent to take over an email account and begin corresponding with Wright.

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UNITED STATES
Heavy.com

[with copy of the criminal complaint]

By Tom Cleary

A 23-year-old man who was studying to be a priest at an Ohio seminary is accused of trying to pay to rape a 1-year-old baby and a 4-year-old girl in Tijuana, Mexico.

Joel Wright was arrested Friday by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in San Diego, the agency said in a press release.

Wright has previously tried to adopt a baby from Mexico, according to court documents.

He is charged with traveling with the intent to engage in a sexual act with a minor and attempting to engage in illicit sexual conduct in a foreign country, both felonies, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of California said.

“This investigation opens a window into a secret world where sexual predators prey on young children around the globe” Dave Shaw, special agent in charge for ICE’s Homeland Security Investigations office in San Diego. “Pedophiles who mistakenly believe they can escape justice by committing child sex crimes outside the U.S. should be on notice that HSI will seek to vindicate the rights of those victims regardless where they live. Fortunately, in this instance, our perseverance and diligence prevented the sexual exploitation of yet another innocent victim.”

(Warning: The story below contains graphic sexual content from court documents.)

Here’s what you need to know:

1. Wright Said He Wanted to Adopt a ‘Baby Girl’ & ‘I Want to Have Intercourse With Her After I Own Her’

Federal authorities were tipped off about Wright in November 2015 from a Tijuana, Mexico, resident who had responded to an advertisement on Craigslist soliciting the adoption of infants. The ad had allegedly been posted by Wright, according to court documents.

The tipster told ICE agents he had lied to Wright and told him he could help him adopt a child. They first met in July 2014 when Wright traveled to Tijuana and paid him money as an adoption fee, the person said. He told Wright he was going leave to get the child and then come back, but he never returned.

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OHIO
Access WDUN

By The Associated Press

CLEVELAND (AP) — A former Ohio seminarian arrested for allegedly seeking to have sex with infants and young girls in Mexico was carrying $2,000 in cash along with baby clothes and a bottle in his luggage, a Department of Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokeswoman said Sunday.

Joel Wright, who was arrested Friday in San Diego, had previously traveled to Tijuana in an unsuccessful attempt to adopt a child, authorities said.

According to the criminal complaint, the former student at Pontifical College Josephinum in Columbus tried in 2014 to adopt a child in Mexico — going so far as to hand over an “adoption fee” in a Tijuana hotel room — and more recently spelled out in explicit online messages what he hoped to do with an infant and a 4-year-old girl.

Asked in an email if he’d previously had sex with infants, Wright allegedly responded: “I have not gone all the way before but I have made it very close in the past so I do have experance (sic).”

Wright, 23, has been charged with travel with intent to engage in illicit sexual conduct and aggravated sexual abuse of a child. He is scheduled to appear in court in Monday.

Court records do not indicate that Wright has an attorney. His mother, Teresa Wright Poquette, told The Associated Press on Sunday that she didn’t believe the allegations.

Poquette, who lives in Vermont where Wright grew up, said she couldn’t say anything more.

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CALIFORNIA
Deadline

By Patrick Hipes January 30, 2016

Open Road’s Spotlight won the marquee Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture honor tonight at the SAG Awards. The win gives solid Oscar Best Picture momentum to the the pic, which centers on the Boston Globe‘s Pulitzer-winning investigation into the Catholic Church child abuse scandal in Boston. The ensemble cast features Michael Keaton, Mark Ruffalo, Rachel McAdams, Liev Schreiber, Brian d’Arcy James, John Slattery, Stanley Tucci and Billy Crudup.

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AUSTRALIA
7 News

AAP

Amid troubling times for Tasmania’s Anglican Diocese in November 1994, it was assistant bishop Ronald Francis Stone who played fix-it man.

A boy had complained to police about sexual abuse by a priest, leaving Bishop Phillip Newell “physically as well as emotionally distressed”.

In the years prior now-Bishop Stone said his superior had tried to manage allegations of abuse against priest Louis Daniels.

“He appeared to me to be really struggling with what to do,” Bishop Stone has told a royal commission hearing.

But once the police were involved, his level of distress saw responsibility handed to the deputy.

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CALIFORNIA
Awards Daily

By Sasha Stone
@awardsdaily
Jan 30, 2016

If Bernie Sanders needs to win Iowa to show he’s got the goods, Spotlight needed a big guild award for the same reason. Had it not won the SAG Award tonight, Spotlight probably would have been out of the Best Picture race. But a plurality tally of 160,000 film and television actors (as well as broadcast journalists, radio announcers and on-air television news talent) picked Spotlight to win.

At first, the night seemed like it might be headed in Straight Outta Compton’s or Beasts of No Nation’s direction, once Idris Elba won Supporting Actor, beating Christian Bale and Mark Rylance. For a while there, people were thinking the SAG voter’s display of diversity might end with Compton winning Outstanding Ensemble. But ultimately SAG maintained its tradition of awarding its Ensemble Award to one of Oscar’s Best Picture nominees. The other option was The Big Short, which many of us thought was poised to win. The reason being that the more dramatic and overall flashy performances usually win the day with SAG voters.

Perhaps the most important thing about Spotlight’s win was the way they made the most of it. The actors didn’t spend a lot of time at the mic thanking people personally, but went right to the heart of the film’s message about the widespread abuse of the Catholic Church and the countless victims left in its wake. They even said something like “the good guys win.” That puts it in direct contrast to The Big Short, where the bad guys definitely win, and pointedly so.

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CALIFORNIA
Hollywood Life

What a gang! The cast of ‘Spotlight’ took home the Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance By A Cast In A Motion Picture. With stars like Mark Ruffalo, Michael Keaton, and Rachel McAdams, it’s hard to deny that ‘Spotlight’ totally deserved it!

The lineup of films nominated for this year’s Screen Actors Guild Awards was chock-full of incredible casts, but it was the ensemble in Spotlight that caught the attention of the voters. The Spotlight squad, including Michael Keaton, Rachel McAdams, and Mark Ruffalo, was honored for their amazing performances in the film with the award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture! As if the names in the cast aren’t enough to justify their win, their acceptance speech certainly did!

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SOUTH CAROLINA
Greenville Online

A 62-year-old Taylors man is in jail in a child-sex case including one incident that dates back nearly 27 years, authorities said.

Arthur Edwin Lehr, of 104 Walker Springs Road, is charged with two counts of criminal sexual conduct with a minor third degree and engaging a child for sexual performance, according to warrants.

Investigators charge that Lehr inappropriately touched the victims in a lewd and lascivious manner, according to warrants and deputy Drew Pinciaro, spokesman for the Greenville County Sheriff’s Office.

In one case, the incidents occurred on several occasions starting on Feb. 2, 1989, according to a warrant.

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SOUTH CAROLINA
WYFF

GREENVILLE COUNTY, S.C. —A man accused of sex crimes against a child has been arrested, Deputy Drew Pinciaro of the Greenville County Sheriff’s Office said.

Arthur Edwin Lehr, 62, is charged with two counts of thier-degree criminal sexual conduct with a minor and one count of engaging a child for sexual performance, Pinciaro said.

Lehr is accused of inappropriately touching the victims in a lewd and lascivious manner.

One of the incidents dates back to 1989, leading investigators to believe that there may be additional victims, Pinciaro said.

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SOUTH CAROLINA
News 2

[with video]

A Greenville County pastor is under arrest and facing criminal sexual misconduct of a minor charges. Two of the three incidents date back to 1989, and authorities say there could be more victims yet to come forward.

According to the arrest warrant, 62-year-old Arthur Lehr is charged with two counts of criminal sexual misconduct of a minor and one count of engaging a minor for sexual performance.

The warrant states he touched minors in a sexual manner.

His neighbors tells us, Lehr was a pastor in Greenville County–hosting bible studies at his house in Taylors from time to time.

Therapists say other victims may be too ashamed to speak out.

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ISRAEL/SOUTH AFRICA
Arutz Sheva

By Cynthia Blank

A rabbi wanted in Israel for the alleged indecent assault of women and hiding out in South Africa has issued a death threat against the country’s chief rabbi, Warren Goldstein.

According to the Johannesburg Sunday Times, the threat was made by followers of Rabbi Eliezer Berland in his name and on his website.

It came after South African Police Service officers, acting on behalf of Interpol, raided a hotel in Samrand, where the 78-year-old rabbi has been staying with several of his disciples.

Berland apparently escaped before police stormed rooms belonging to him and followers of his Hassidic sect; he is now in hiding.

The head of Yeshivat Shuvu Bonim in Jerusalem, Berland fled Israel in 2012 after several women as well as a 15-year-old girl laid charges of sexual harassment against him.

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ISRAEL/SOUTH AFRICA
Times of Israel

BY LEE GANCMAN January 31, 2016

An on-the-run rabbi wanted in Israel for sex offenses has threatened South Africa’s Chief Rabbi Warren Goldstein with death under Talmudic law after police raided his hideout.

Followers of Rabbi Eliezer Berland made the threats on his website in his name following a police raid on his hotel room in Samrand, north of Johannesburg, where he had been staying for several months, the Johannesburg Sunday Times reported.

Berland’s followers accused Goldstein of alerting police to his location, and claimed that he should be put to death.

According to the Talmudic din rodef, or the “law of the pursuer,” extra-judicial killing is permitted against “one who pursues his fellow to kill him.” In this case, the accusations that Goldstein informed police were interpreted by Berland’s followers to mean that he was seeking their mentor’s death.

The raid was carried out 10 days ago by South African police at the request of Interpol; Berland escaped and avoided arrest.

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SOUTH AFRICA
Haaretz

Jeremy Gordin Jan 30, 2016

A fugitive rabbi on the run from Interpol has issued a death threat against the chief rabbi of South Africa, Warren Goldstein.

The threat, made by followers of the Jewish sect’s leader in his name and on his website, has rattled the South African Jewish community.

South African Police Service officers, acting on a request from Interpol, 10 days ago raided a hotel in Samrand, north of Johannesburg, where 78-year-old Rabbi Eliezer Berland has been staying on and off for five months with a number of his disciples.

Berland, one of the leaders of the Bratslav Hasidic movement in Israel and head of Yeshivat Shuvu Bonim in Jerusalem —and considered a holy man by his followers — has been on the run since 2012 when allegations were made by female followers in Israel that he had sexually harassed or raped them.

He has managed to live under the noses of authorities from Morocco to the Netherlands and Zimbabwe.

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CALIFORNIA
U.S. Customs and Immigration Enforcement

[the criminal complaint]

HSI special agents arrest defendant at local airport

SAN DIEGO – An Ohio seminary student suspected of travelling to San Diego to have sex with multiple infants in Mexico was taken into federal custody Friday at Lindberg Field by special agents with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI).

Joel A. Wright, 23, of Columbus, Ohio, is charged in a criminal complaint with two felony counts, including travelling with the intent to engage in a sexual act with a minor; and attempting to engage in illicit sexual conduct in a foreign country within the Southern District of California. Wright is expected to be arraigned in federal court Monday. Wright’s arrest follows a months-long undercover child sexual exploitation investigation conducted by HSI special agents in San Diego. The case is being prosecuted by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of California.

“This investigation opens a window into a secret world where sexual predators prey on young children around the globe,” said Dave Shaw, special agent in charge for HSI San Diego. “Pedophiles who mistakenly believe they can escape justice by committing child sex crimes outside the U.S. should be on notice that HSI will seek to vindicate the rights of those victims regardless where they live. Fortunately, in this instance, our perseverance and diligence prevented the sexual exploitation of yet another innocent victim.”

According to the criminal complaint, after receiving a tip, an undercover HSI special agent took over an email account and began chatting with Wright. Wright believed he was still communicating with a Mexico-based male tour guide he met after placing an online ad. During the email chats with the undercover investigator, Wright allegedly stated he wanted to travel to Tijuana to adopt or own a child under 3 years old and have intercourse with the child.

Subsequently, Wright booked his flight to San Diego and made arrangements to meet the friend of a tour guide at San Diego’s Lindberg Field. Investigators allege the plan was for Wright and the tour guide to then travel to a hotel in Tijuana where he would meet the female infants. Wright was taken into custody by HSI special agents after his plane landed at Lindberg Field Friday morning.

This investigation was conducted under HSI’s Operation Predator, an international initiative to protect children from sexual predators. Since the launch of Operation Predator in 2003, HSI has arrested more than 12,000 individuals for crimes against children, including the production and distribution of online child pornography, traveling overseas for sex with minors, and sex trafficking of children. In fiscal year 2014, more than 2,300 individuals were arrested by HSI special agents under this initiative and more than 1,000 victims identified or rescued.

HSI encourages the public to report suspected child predators and any suspicious activity through its toll-free Tip Line at 1-866-DHS-2-ICE or by completing its online tip form. Both are staffed around the clock by investigators. From outside the U.S. and Canada, callers should dial 802-872-6199. Hearing impaired users can call TTY 802-872-6196. Suspected child sexual exploitation or missing children may be reported to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children, an Operation Predator partner, via its toll-free 24-hour hotline, 1-800-THE-LOST.

For additional information about wanted suspected child predators, download HSI’s Operation Predator smartphone app or visit the online suspect alerts page. HSI is a founding member and current chair of the Virtual Global Taskforce, an international alliance of law enforcement agencies and private industry sector partners working together to prevent and deter online child sexual abuse.

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OHIO
newsnet5

An Ohio man was taken into custody at Lindbergh Field on suspicion of traveling to San Diego to have sex with infants in Mexico.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials said 23-year-old Joel A. Wright, of Columbus, Ohio was arrested and “charged in a criminal complaint with two felony counts, including travelling with the intent to engage in a sexual act with a minor; and attempting to engage in illicit sexual conduct in a foreign country within the Southern District of California.”

Dave Shaw, special agent in charge for Homeland Security Investigations in San Diego, said, “This investigation opens a window into a secret world where sexual predators prey on young children around the globe. Pedophiles who mistakenly believe they can escape justice by committing child sex crimes outside the U.S. should be on notice that HSI will seek to vindicate the rights of those victims regardless where they live. Fortunately, in this instance, our perseverance and diligence prevented the sexual exploitation of yet another innocent victim.”

ICE officials said: “According to the criminal complaint, after receiving a tip, an undercover HSI special agent took over an email account and began chatting with Wright. Wright believed he was still communicating with a Mexico-based male tour guide he met after placing an online ad. During the email chats with the undercover investigator, Wright allegedly stated he wanted to travel to Tijuana to adopt or own a child under 3 years old and have intercourse with the child.”

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UNITED STATES
KTLA

[the criminal complaint]

WARNING: This article contains descriptions of an alleged crime whose details may be disturbing to some readers.

A 23-year-old Ohio man was arrested by federal agents in San Diego on Friday for allegedly planning to have sex with multiple infants in Mexico, authorities said.

Joel A. Wright, a seminary student and resident of Columbus, was charged with two felony counts: crossing state lines with the intention to engage in a sexual act with a minor, and attempting to travel “in interstate and foreign commerce” for the purpose of engaging in illegal sexual conduct with another person, according to a criminal complaint filed in U.S. District Court by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of California.

Wright is expected to be arraigned on Monday.

The suspect was taken into custody at San Diego International Airport by special agents with U.S. Immigration and Custom Enforcement, following a monthslong investigation into child sexual exploitation, according to a news release from the agency.

Dave Shaw, special agent in charge of ICE’s Homeland Security Investigations in San Diego, said in a statement: “Pedophiles who mistakenly believe they can escape justice by committing child sex crimes outside the U.S. should be on notice that HSI will seek to vindicate the rights of those victims regardless of where they live.”

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CALIFORNIA
Fox 59

CNN Wire

LOS ANGELES, Cali. (January 31, 2016) — “Spotlight” took the limelight at the 22nd annual Screen Actors Guild Awards on Saturday night, winning the top prize: outstanding cast in a motion picture.

A breathless Mark Ruffalo thanked the creative team, particularly writer-director Tom McCarthy and writer Josh Singer for not taking shortcuts and honoring the survivors of the Catholic church sexual abuse scandal. The film concerned the Boston Globe reporters who investigated sexual abuse in the church.

Added co-star Michael Keaton, “This is for every Flint, Michigan, in the world. This is for the powerless. It comes down to two things. There’s fair and unfair. And I’m always going to vote for fair. I’m always going to vote for the good guys.”

The victory cements “Spotlight’s” status as the front-runner for the best picture Academy Award.

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CALIFORNIA
Yahoo! Movies

Meriah Doty
January 30, 2016

Spotlight won the night’s most coveted prize at the 2016 Screen Actors Guild Awards. And the victory gave star Michael Keaton a platform to deliver a powerful speech.

Capping Saturday night’s ceremony in Los Angeles, the Spotlight ensemble received the accolade for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture. Keaton, accompanied by fellow stars Mark Ruffalo, Brian d’Arcy James, Rachel McAdams, Liev Schreiber, and John Slattery, took the stage.

First up, Ruffalo spoke on behalf of the group, addressing the victims of the Catholic Church abuse case, which was the subject of the film. “[I am] honored these people, these victims who are dead, and the survivors who are still alive [after] one of the most horrific things that our culture has allowed to happen. This movie allows them to be seen in a world that has been blind to them.”

He passed the microphone to Keaton, who channeled his inner Tom Joad, extending Ruffalo’s sentiment. “Honestly this is not only about the survivors of this horrific situation but for me, personally — and I’m only speaking for me — this is really for the disenfranchised everywhere,” said the 64-year old actor. “This is for every Flint, Michigan, in the world,” he went on to say, referencing the city suffering through a tainted-water scandal.

“This is for the powerless, this is for the powerful who take advantage of the powerless. And you can hang me for that. I don’t really care. That’s why I’m proud to be part of this, thank you very much. It comes down to two things: There’s fair and there’s unfair. And I’m always going to vote for the fair, I’m going to pull for the good guys. Thanks for this. This means a lot.”

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CALIFORNIA
NBC News

Reuters

Journalism drama “Spotlight” won the SAG ensemble cast award in a night that was dominated by a diverse roster of winners.

“Spotlight” won the cast award over “Beasts of No Nation,” “The Big Short,” “Straight Outta Compton” and “Trumbo.”

Solidifying his front-runner status, Leonardo DiCaprio has won the SAG Award for Best Actor for “The Revenant” for his role as a fur trapper bent on revenge. Brie Larson won Best Actress for her role as a tormented mother in “Room.”

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CALIFORNIA
People

[with video]

The Screen Actors Guild has crowned the night’s big winner: Spotlight.

Demi Moore presented the award for outstanding performance by a cast in a motion picture on Saturday night, prompting Mark Ruffalo, Michael Keaton, Rachel McAdams, John Slattery, Liev Schreiber, Brian d’Arcy James and Billy Crudup to head to the stage.

The film tells the true story of the Boston Globe’s investigation into the Catholic priest sex abuse scandal.

“I have to thank our producers, Tom McCarthy and Josh Singer, who just took every single opportunity to tell the truth,” said Ruffalo, 48. “They didn’t take any cheap way, it was always the truth and honored these people. These victims who are dead, and the survivors who are still alive, of one of the most horrific things that our culture has allowed to happen.”

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OSTERREICH
Tiroler Tageszeitung

[Country home abuse victims in Austria were fobbed off cheaply.]

Von Brigitte Warenski

Innsbruck, Wien – Am 13. März 2010 hatte ein Artikel in der Tiroler Tageszeitung für einen Sturm der Entrüstung gesorgt. Erstmals erzählte ein ehemaliges Tiroler Heimkind (Erwin Aschenwald) über exzessive Gewalt, Demütigungen und sexuellen Missbrauch an Mitzöglingen in der Bubenburg der Kapuziner. Erstmals gestand die Kirche ein, „im Umgang mit Anschuldigungen Fehler gemacht“ zu haben, so Manfred Scheuer, bis vor Kurzem Innsbrucker Diözesanbischof.

In den folgenden Jahren kamen immer mehr unfassbare Details über seelische und körperliche Gewalt in städtischen und Landesheimen sowie kirchlichen Institutionen von den 50er- bis in die 80er-Jahre an die Öffentlichkeit. Aber nicht nur in den Heimen, in die vor allem Kinder von ledigen Müttern und gesellschaftlichen Randgruppen zwangseingewiesen wurden, gab es österreichweit Tausende Opfer. Der Missbrauchsskandal machte in Tirol, wo die Heimdichte bundesweit am größten war, auch vor Vorzeigeeinrichtungen wie dem Paulinum in Schwaz nicht Halt.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Gegen-Missbrauch

Politik verschleppt weiterhin wichtige Anliegen von Betroffenen sexualisierter Gewalt

Anfang letzten Jahres hatte der Verein gegen-missbrauch e.V. einen Rückblick auf das Jahr Vorjahr geworfen. „Eigentlich hätten wir die Rückschau auf das Jahr 2014 glatt wieder veröffentlichen können“, so Ingo Fock, 1. Vorsitzender des Vereins. „Wahrscheinlich wäre es kaum jemanden aufgefallen, denn in der Zwischenzeit hat sich nicht merklich etwas zum Wohle der Betroffenen bewegt. Ganz im Gegenteil.“

Fonds Sexueller Missbrauch (FSM)
Die Uhr tickt. Nur noch bis zum 30. April diesen Jahres haben Betroffene sexuellen Missbrauchs aus dem familiären Bereich Zeit, um Leistungen aus dem FSM zu beantragen. Für Betroffene aus dem institutionellen Bereich läuft die Frist noch bis zum 31. August diesen Jahres.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Kontext: Wochenzeitung

Von Susanne Stiefel
Datum: 27.01.2016

Öffentlich wurde der Skandal 2014. Vor einem Jahr übernahm Mechthild Wolff die Aufgabe, die dunkle Heimvergangenheit der Evangelischen Brüdergemeinde in Korntal auszuleuchten. Große Hoffnungen wurden in die Landshuter Professorin gesetzt. Was ist geblieben?

Zunächst einmal Empörung. “Ich höre doch nicht auf, ich fange erst an”, versucht Mechthild Wolff gegenüber Kontext die Wogen zu glätten. Doch wenn sich die Vertreter der Evangelischen Brüdergemeinde und der Korntaler Heimopfer am 10. Februar treffen, wird dies das letzte Mal sein. Die Chefin der Aufarbeitung beschränkt sich auf die Wissenschaft. Das ist aus Sicht der Erziehungswissenschaftlerin verständlich. Ein Forschungsprojekt verspricht Reputation, auch ein Buch schadet dem Image nicht, und dazu braucht man vor allem Ruhe.

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WASHINGTON
The Seattle Times

By Lewis Kamb, The Seattle Times

SEATTLE — Two prominent legal professionals and practicing Catholics want straight answers from the Seattle Archdiocese to questions about its recently published list of clergy members identified as admitted or credibly accused child-sex abusers.

Terry Carroll, a retired King County Superior Court judge, and Mike McKay, former U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Washington, said they’re frustrated with what appears to be more of a public-relations move than a sincere effort at transparency and accountability.

In 2004, the two men headed an appointed review panel charged with examining clergy sex-abuse cases that recommended the archdiocese publicize names of credibly accused clergy. This month, the archdiocese essentially did that — disclosing names of 77 priests and others “for whom allegations of sexual abuse of a minor have been admitted, established or determined to be credible.”

The list is posted on the archdiocese’s website. For each offender, it offers a name, a current status with the church and details about dates and assignments within the archdiocese spanning from the 1920s to 2007.

But the accounting provides no details about when and where the alleged sex abuse occurred — information Carroll and McKay contend parishioners and the public deserve to know.

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IRELAND
Irish Independent

Maeve Sheehan
PUBLISHED
31/01/2016

Religious orders have contributed less than a sixth of the €1.46bn cost of compensating the former residents of children’s homes and residential institutions who suffered physical and sexual abuse, as the redress scheme winds down.

Eighteen orders of nuns and religious brothers who ran the schools on behalf of the State committed to paying a total of €480m to the cost of the scheme, but have so far contributed a package of property and cash worth €211m.

The State has paid close to €1bn in compensation

The contributions are far short of the €750m or 50:50 share that the Government promised in its programme for government to make the religious orders contribute.

The religious orders originally agreed to contribute €128m in cash and property towards the scheme in 2002 in an indemnity agreement with the State.

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AUSTRALIA
news.com.au

AAP

Anger and confusion has followed a federal government announcement indicating it is not likely to implement a key recommendation of the child abuse royal commission that it establish a national redress scheme for victims of institutional child sexual abuse.

Support groups for survivors of child sexual abuse have given different interpretations to the announcement on Friday that the federal government will lead development of a nationally consistent approach to redress but that responsibility should rest with state and territory jurisdictions where the abuse occurred.

Care Leavers Australia Network (CLAN) executive officer Leonie Sheedy said the commonwealth’s position that states and territories would bear responsibility for abuse that happened in their jurisdictions would be unfair to people who suffered abuse in state-run institutions.

“They are sending (responsibility) back to the state governments who abused them,” Ms Sheedy told AAP.

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UNITED STATES
ABC News (Australia)

Spotlight, a drama about a newspaper’s investigation into sexual abuse in the Catholic church, has taken out top honours at the 22nd Screen Actors Guild (SAG) Awards.

The awards, seen as a bellwether of the all-important Academy Awards, were being closely watched as they took place amid a controversy over the lack of African-American and minority-ethnic actors nominated for an Oscar this year.

Spotlight took the prize for outstanding performance by a cast in a motion picture — the SAG equivalent of an Oscar.

The film tells the true story of how a group of investigative journalists from the Boston Globe uncovered and proved child molestation and its cover-up were rife within their local Catholic church in 2001.

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UNITED STATES
Crossmap

By Brian Nixon – ASSIST News Service On January 30, 2016

ALBUQUERUQE, NEW MEXICO (ANS – January 28, 2016) — In the new Hollywood movie, Spotlight, the story is told of how journalist of the Boston community took on the Roman Catholic Church over the issue of sex abuse. The priest at the center of the abuse was John J. Geoghan.

According to the Boston Globe, the “church allowed abuse by priest for years.” Writer Matt Carrol and Michael Rezendes, state, “By 2002, more than 130 people had come forward claiming that former priest, John J. Geoghan, allegedly fondled or raped them [1].”

This is all-too-common and disturbing news; something any denomination or group of godly clergy never want to hear coming from it’s ranks. But it’s the truth. It happens. And hopefully the truth will set the church free, finding healing, help, and hope for both the victims and the perpetrators of abuse. Justice and judgment need to be enforced, but so, too, does love and longsuffering-extending support and spiritual sustenance to those affected by clergy abuse.

I recently participated in a Spotlight type event in Albuquerque, New Mexico. A few months back I was approached by a friend who told me his story of being raped by a priest in New Mexico at the age of 12. I was horrified by what I heard. As clergy, my heart broke, and my sense of justice was ignited. We talked, prayed, and I listened.

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OHIO
WTOV

STEUBENVILLE, Ohio — A seminary student with ties to Steubenville has been arrested on two felony counts, including traveling with the intent to engage in a sexual act with a minor and attempting to engage in illicit sexual conduct in a foreign country.

Joel Wright, a first year pre-theology student at the Pontifical College of Columbus, was arrested Saturday on suspicion that he planned to adopt a three-year-old female child in Mexico for the purpose of raping her.

Wright was discerning ordination to the priesthood for the Diocese of Steubenville.

Immediately upon learning of the allegations against Wright, Diocese Bishop Jeffrey M. Monforton suspended him from the studies.

According to Pat DeFrancis, of the Steubenville Diocese, Wright attended Franciscan University before moving on to his studies in Columbus.

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OHIO
NBC4i

By Dan Pearlman
Published: January 30, 2016

COLUMBUS, Ohio (WCMH) — New details are emerging about the now-former Columbus seminary student who is accused traveling to California, with the intent of adopting a young Mexican child for sex.

Joel Wright, 23, was arrested at Lindberg Field, in San Diego, and he is now charged with traveling with the intent to engage in a sexual act with a minor and attempting to engage in illicit sexual conduct in a foreign country.

According to federal investigators, Wright’s arrest comes on the heels of a months-long investigation.

In the criminal complaint, a special agent with the Department of Homeland Security states Wright engaged in frequent email communications, indicating his interest in sexually assaulting children between the ages of one and four.

Wright was a first-year student at the Pontifical College Josephinum, according to seminary leadership. He joined the seminary in August, after clergy said he passed a rigorous background check which included a psychological evaluation, a criminal history check and personal interviews.

“We certainly do not want to admit anyone into our program if there is an inkling that that person might pose a threat to any person, especially to the young and the vulnerable,” said Father John Allen, Vice President for Advancement at the seminary.

Allen said Wright did not not have a disciplinary record at the college.

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CALIFORNIA
10TV

SAN DIEGO, Cali. – (Warning: some of the details in this story may be disturbing to some readers)

An Ohio seminary student from Columbus has been accused of traveling to California to have sex with infants in Mexico.

Joel A. Wright, 23, was taken into federal custody Friday in San Diego by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) special agents.

According to the criminal complaint, Wright is charged with two felony counts of traveling with the intent to engage in a sexual act with a minor and attempting to engage in illicit sexual conduct in a foreign country.

Wright was arrested after a months-long undercover child sexual exploitation investigation conducted by HSI agents.

“This investigation opens a window into a secret world where sexual predators prey on young children around the globe,” said Dave Shaw, special agent in charge for HSI San Diego. “Pedophiles who mistakenly believe they can escape justice by committing child sex crimes outside the U.S. should be on notice that HSI will seek to vindicate the rights of those victims regardless where they live. Fortunately, in this instance, our perseverance and diligence prevented the sexual exploitation of yet another innocent victim.”

In the criminal complaint, agents received a tip about Wright and began to exchange emails with him through an account they had taken over.

According to ICE, Wright believed he was communicating with a male tour guide in Mexico he met after placing an online ad.

In the email exchanges, Wright allegedly said he wanted to travel to Tijuana to adopt or own a child under 3 years old and have sex with the child.

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