ABUSE TRACKER

UNITED KINGDOM
Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse

18 January

We have today updated our investigation section to include the definition of scope document in relation to the investigation into allegations of child sexual abuse involving Lord Greville Janner and the institutional responses to those allegations.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse

The Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (the Inquiry) is committed to engaging with victims and survivors across all communities throughout England and Wales including the need to reach out to minority groups, including those in secure environments.

The Truth Project allows victims and survivors of child sexual abuse to share their experience with the Inquiry during a private session either with a member of the Inquiry or via a written statement.

The Inquiry is recruiting a number of facilitators to support the Truth Project. The roles will involve work in various locations across England and Wales – London and the South East, Midlands, North West, North East, South West and Wales. ​

Working with us means a chance to make a real difference in supporting victims and survivors to share their experience of sexual abuse. We seek to attract the brightest new recruits to join our Inquiry.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse

The Inquiry has today published guidance on the protocol on the redaction of documents. The document can be found on our library pages.

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AUSTRALIA
Broken Rites

In January 2016, police have charged two men (now elderly) regarding sexual offences (including buggery) which allegedly were committed fifty years ago against an 11-year-old Catholic schoolboy in Liverpool, a suburb in south-western Sydney. These offences allegedly occurred at a church-owned address after school had finished for the day. Details will become clearer during court proceedings later in 2015. Until the late 1980s, Catholic boys in Liverpool were taught by Patrician Brothers, who lived nearby in a Brothers’ residence in George Street, Liverpool. The Brothers had access to facilities provided by a nearby girls’ school (then known as St Mary’s but now called All Saints). Liverpool detectives want to hear from any former students (at either the girls’ or boys’ school) who can assist in this investigation. Nowadays, Liverpool’s Catholic boys and girls are taught by lay teachers.

The charges in 2016 were laid after Liverpool detectives received information from one former student, a male, who alleged that the assaults on him occurred in 1974. One alleged offender, who was in his twenties in 1974, is charged with four assaults against this boy. The other alleged offender, who was in his late thirties in 1974, is charged with being “an accessory after the fact” (this can mean, for example, that after an offence was committed by the first man, the second man had some knowledge about the first man’s offence).

On 22 January 2016, the New Wales Police issued the following media release:

“Liverpool Police have charged two men with historical sexual assaults at a Catholic educational facility dating back to the 1970s.

“Following the receipt of information from the Royal Commission into Institutional Sex Abuse, investigators from Liverpool Local Area Command commenced inquiries into the alleged sexual assaults at the facility on George Street.

“Police will allege that in 1974, the 11-year-old boy who was in Year Five at the time, was assaulted after school had finished for the day.

“1. On Thursday 21 January 2016, a 77-year-old man attended Wyong Police Station. He was later charged with indecent assault upon a male (x 3) and buggery. The man was granted conditional bail to appear at Liverpool Local Court on 2 March 2016.

“2. On Friday 22 January 2016, an 89-year-old man attended Mt Druitt Police Station. He was later charged with buggery (accessory after the fact). The man was granted conditional bail to appear at Liverpool Local Court on 2 March 2016.

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UNITED STATES
Whispers in the Loggia

Rocco Palmo

While today was long scheduled to bring the traditional release of the Pope’s message for World Communications Day, as he ever tends to do, Francis suddenly gave the news something of a Turbo Boost: a week after granting the first private audience in memory to a leading corporate executive – the Google chief Eric Schmidt – the noontime Holy See briefing announced that the pontiff met this morning with the Apple CEO Tim Cook (above).

Unless Vatican diplomacy’s amazingly been called upon for mediation between the oft-warring Silicon Valley titans, the dots look to be lining up for something very interesting in terms of the church’s digital engagement. Yet even beyond the massive institutional significance of the Roman pontiff receiving the head of the world’s most valuable company in the Vatican – a moment without precedent in itself – given Cook’s 2014 disclosure of his sexuality, today’s encounter appears to be the first time an openly gay person has ever been hosted for a full-tilt private audience in the Papal Apartment.

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GERMANY
Il Sismografo

(Christa Pongratz-Lippitt)

A former official in the Diocese of Regensburg (Germany) has accused Cardinal Gerhard Müller, prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF), of systematically covering up sexual abuse cases during his decade as bishop of the Bavarian diocese.

Fritz Wallner, who once worked as chairman of Regensburg’s lay diocesan council, claims that the then-Bishop Müller and his vicar-general, Mgr Michael Fuchs, introduced what Mr Wallner called, “The Regensburg System”, which prevented such abuse cases from coming to light.
He made the claims in a long interview in the 14 January issue of the prestigious German weekly Die Zeit.

The interview came as former members of the Regensburger Domspatzen and other witnesses continued to reveal more stories of physical and sexual abuse by priests inside Germany’s most famous boys’ choir. Their allegations have officials asking why clerical abuse was hushed up for so much longer in Regensburg than in most other German dioceses.

Cardinal Müller was Regensburg’s bishop from late 2002 until the summer of 2012 when Benedict XVI called him to Rome to head the Vatican’s doctrinal office (CDF).

In the Die Zeit interview Mr Wallner attempted to describe how the so-called “Regensburg System” came about under Müller and the consequences it caused. Among other things, he said Mgr Fuchs, who is still vicar-general of the diocese, should step down.

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UNITED STATES
Main Line Media News

By Bonnie Squires
For Main Line Media News

Looking back over 2015, probably the biggest thing that happened in our part of the world was the whirlwind visit of Pope Francis. Parts of Lower Merion and Wynnefield, and Saint Joseph’s University, will forever carry the honor of having housed or seen Pope Francis at their addresses. His message of compassion and love touched all of us, Catholics and non-Catholics alike.

Even though most of us watched non-stop on television, we felt a kinship with Pope Francis. I got a chance to wave to him on City Avenue as he was driven from the seminary and Saint Joseph’s campus to the Parkway for the giant Mass. This pope gives off an aura, just as his predecessor did in 1979.

With this in mind, I thought it was very courageous of Juliet Goodfriend and the Bryn Mawr Film Institute to schedule showings of the new film “Spotlight” during the Christmas holidays.

Spotlight” is the fact-based dramatic story of how the Boston Globe dug in under a new editor, Marty Baron, and ultimately exposed the pedophile priest scandal and cover-up in the Boston Archdiocese.

Even though we all know what happened, “Spotlight” manages to maintain tension and drama, as we see reporters who are all Catholics, albeit lapsed, wrestle with their feelings and fears about attacking the Catholic Church and all the powerful people in Boston. Friendships are strained as people continue to sweep the dirty business under the rug, refusing to confirm information which has been kept secret with pay-offs by the church to the many child victims.

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MICHIGAN
MLive

By Julie Mack | jmack1@mlive.com
on January 23, 2016

What were they thinking?

Did the officials in Catholic Diocese of Kalamazoo really see it as no big deal to bring in John Nienstedt, the former St. Paul and Minneapolis archbishop, as a visiting priest at St. Philip parish in Battle Creek?

They truly didn’t anticipate this would blow up into a big controversy, one likely to end badly?

Nobody considered whether this would underscore — once again — the inexplicable obtuseness of Church officials in regards to issues around clergy sex abuse?

To those who haven’t been following the story, here’s the basic outline.

Nienstedt resigned as Twin Cities archbishop in June. That resignation came in the wake of criminal charges filed against the archdiocese for “failure to protect children” in ignoring numerous red flags involving a former priest currently in prison for abusing two boys.

In fact, the archdiocese’s track record on protecting predatory priests was so bad it filed for bankruptcy last year, citing liabilities from lawsuits.

There also are accusations Nienstedt himself made inappropriate advances toward other priests years ago. Findings of an internal investigation have never been released, but Minnesota Public Radio has said it included affidavits that had Nienstedt’s advisors urging him to resign in 2014.

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MASSACHUSETTS
Roman Catholic Diocese of Worcester

January 21, 2016

Unrealized losses account for significant deficit

January 21, 2016, WORCESTER, MA — Following a complete audit of its financial accounting, the Diocese of Worcester has issued online Financial Statements and online and printed editions of the Annual Report on Financial Activities for the fiscal year ending August 31, 2015.

In his letter, Most Reverend Robert J. McManus, S.T.D., Bishop of Worcester, wrote that the Diocese was challenged on a number of fronts, including $840,001 in unrealized losses on investments. The Bishop referred to the unrealized losses as “primarily a reflection of the state of the market when our year ended on August 31.” The Statements of Activities showed an operating deficit of $1,192,704 after expenses totaling $25,178,740 for 2015 compared to a surplus of $1,276,057 the previous year, primarily from unrealized gains, on expenses totaling $25,271,377.

Bishop McManus wrote that even with a subsidy of $800,000 from Partners in Charity, Priests’ Retirement Care operated at expenses over revenues by $1,230,247, up from the previous year’s difference of $993,535. He expressed his gratitude to the committee that coordinated the Second Annual Celebrate Priesthood event held in the fall of 2015 which raised $150,000 for the current fiscal year. He also noted that the Diocese has established an ad-hoc committee “which is developing innovative ways to reduce costs while providing quality care for those retired priests who dedicated their lives to showing the face of God’s mercy through their priestly ministry.” The total expenses incurred for retired priests care were 4% higher than the previous year.

The other area which he noted as a challenge is the need to service outstanding debt, which cost Central Administration $976,315 in interest. He noted the increasing number of parishes which are reporting operational deficits in their annual reports and announced that “the Diocesan Finance Committee is exploring alternatives in order to remedy this unsustainable situation.”

The Diocesan Expansion Fund, which is “essentially a savings and loan for the parishes and the diocese,” ended the year on a positive note at $1,618 after unrealized losses on investments of $541,820.

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MASSACHUSETTS
Telegram & Gazette

Posted Jan. 23, 2016

The Roman Catholic Diocese of Worcester reported a total operating deficit of almost $1.2 million in a financial statement released Thursday after an audit of its fiscal 2015 financial activities.

The operating shortfall was after diocese expenses totaling $25,178,740 for the fiscal year. In the 2014 fiscal year, there was a surplus of nearly $1.2 million. The financial report was exclusively of diocesan operations and did not reflect the financial operations of the parishes.

In a letter, Bishop Robert J. McManus said the diocese was challenged on a number of financial fronts, including $840,001 in unrealized losses on investments. Those losses, however, are “primarily a reflection of the state of the market when our year ended on August 31,” he wrote.

Central administration departments and Partners in Charity agencies operated within their budgets, thanks in part to shared management and other cost-cutting measures in force for years to avoid unnecessary expenditures, the bishop said.

Shortfalls were experienced in the areas of Central Catholic Schools, St. John Cemetery System, interest payments on the line of credit held by the Diocesan Expansion Fund and the Catholic Free Press newspaper, which required a “subsidy” of $145,522 primarily because of uncollected receivables from the parishes.

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UNITED STATES
Bilgrimage

William D. Lindsey

Does anyone but me ever have the sense that Catholic pastoral authorities have played and continue playing an ugly game with the rest of us about the abuse situation in the Catholic church? (I’m being facetious, of course: we all know that they’ve long been playing games with us about this.)

That nagging question is in my mind yet again today as I read Brian Roewe’s report in National Catholic Reporter about St. John’s Abbey in Minnesota, the largest Benedictine monastery in the Western hemisphere. Roewe notes that, under pressure, St. John’s has just released documents regarding 18 monks who “likely offended” sexually against minors, with allegations dating back to the 1960s. Further information about this release of documents is to be found at the website of the Minnesota Transparency Initiative, to which Roewe’s report links.

Here’s a powerful, thought-provoking statement by a reader of Roewe’s report, mokantx, that in my view perfectly summarizes the problem we have as we try to deal with the continuous game-playing of the pastoral leaders of the Catholic church re: the abuse situation: mokantx writes,

This Abbey’s problems capture perfectly, the problem with the scandal in the church. Think about this sequence, from the article:

1: June 1985: The Abbey hosted the U.S. bishops for a conference devoted to the issue of sexual abuse of children by priests.

2: In 1992, the abbey received an allegation against one of their own from a former college student. The Abbey recalled the priest from his assignment in Japan and sent him to the St. Luke’s Institute in Maryland. There, he admitted as many as 15 “sexual contacts” with college students, leading an evaluation report to conclude the priest represented “a very serious moral, legal and financial risk to the Benedictine Order and to St. John’s University.” Still, the trips abroad continued as other allegations came in. Lawsuits as of 1992 accused five monks of sexual abuse.

3: In 1993, it held another conference, titled “Sexual Trauma and the Church,” which brought together leading Catholic experts on the abuse issue, along with ministers from other faiths, victims’ advocates, abuse victims and clergy abusers in recovery. In the invitation to this conference Benedictine Abbot Timothy Kelly “insisted he wanted the truth; we were to resist any temptation to mere image repair or litigation control.” He and his community wanted to understand the scope, causes and nature of sexual abuse by clergy, which has resulted in such trauma to the church.”And he wanted action,” Sipe wrote.

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CANADA
National Observer

By Elizabeth McSheffrey January 22nd 2016

Former students and accusers of John Furlong at Immaculata Catholic School in central British Columbia have filed a complaint against B.C. Supreme Court Justice Catherine Wedge, who last year ruled in his favour in a highly-publicized defamation case against investigative journalist Laura Robinson.

The Canadian Judicial Council confirmed the complaint, filed on Jan. 8 on behalf of the Lake Babine Nation’s hereditary chiefs, who say their voices were never heard during Furlong’s trial.

“The Canadian Judicial Council will make public the outcome of the review once a decision is made about the complaint,” Norman Sabourin, executive director and senior general counsel told National Observer.

Sabourin said the complaint is still in the “early screening stages.”

John Furlong, once CEO of the Vancouver Organizing Committee (VANOC) for the 2010 Olympics, was a phys-ed teacher at Immaculata Catholic School between 1969 and 1970. In 2012, Laura Robinson published an article in The Georgia Straight reporting on claims of physical and emotional abuse towards his former students.

In one of two defamation lawsuits that followed, Justice Wedge ruled that damning public statements made by Furlong after the article was published had not defamed Robinson, and further determined that the memories of abuse brought forward by the Indigenous students may have been “contaminated” by Robinson’s reporting methods.

Their stories were never heard in court, despite eight of Furlong’s former students having sworn to statutory declarations describing their mistreatment. Wedge ruled that these affidavits were inadmissible in the trial. Many of his students were Lake Babine First Nation members.

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MICHIGAN
WWMT

[with video]

BY LOGAN CRAWFORD SATURDAY, JANUARY 23RD 2016

KALAMAZOO, Mich. (NEWSCHANNEL 3) – The Bishop of the Catholic Diocese of Kalamazoo spoke to Newschannel 3 Friday night, after an Archbishop abruptly resigned due to fallout from allegations of covering up sex abuse in a different diocese.

Bishop Paul Bradley tells Newschannel 3 that he didn’t mean to hurt people when appointing Archbishop John Nienstedt in Battle Creek.

He says he agrees with the Archbishop’s decision to leave, and Bishop Bradley hopes he can regain trust in the community.

Archbishop John Nienstedt was appointed by Bishop Bradley to temporarily lead St. Philip Church, in Battle Creek.

This was after he left a Minnesota Archdiocese that had just been indicted on charges it covered up sex abuse.

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RHODE ISLAND
Boston Globe

By Bella English GLOBE STAFF JANUARY 23, 2016

Three boys came to administrators at the prestigious Rhode Island prep school St. George’s in 2004 with disturbing allegations: their dorm master had touched them inappropriately. Timothy Richards, then dean of students at the Episcopal school in Middletown, said he and the headmaster, Eric Peterson, interviewed the students.

The accused staffer left the school abruptly, and students were told he had taken a personal leave of absence. But a former school official says the school never reported the allegations to child welfare officials, as is required for credible accusations of abuse.

Instead, the headmaster concluded that the employee “did not engage in sexual misconduct” and allowed him to return to work the next school year. Richards, now headmaster at another private school, said Peterson told him that “outside counsel” had advised him that reporting the matter to authorities was not warranted.

This week, with St. George’s embroiled in a growing sexual abuse scandal, Richards said he would have reported the 2004 incident. “If the decision was up to him, he would have reported it to the appropriate agency in Rhode Island,” said Richards’s spokesperson, Karen Schwartzman. “In the situation at St. George’s School, he’s relying on the judgment of his boss, who is head of school and also an attorney.”

The incident intensifies the spotlight on Peterson, who is still St. George’s headmaster and was already facing calls for his resignation for what victims say is his failure to respond appropriately to numerous allegations of unreported past abuse. On Dec. 23, the school released a report on its own investigation into sexual abuse there, mostly in the 1970s and ’80s, describing six staff and three student perpetrators. But it did not include the 2004 incident, even though the father of one alleged victim says he described the case in detail to the investigator.

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UNITED STATES
Salina Journal

By TIM HORAN Salina Journal

“So I guess we just got lucky. You and me.”

That line was from the Oscar-nominated movie “Spotlight,” recently shown at the Salina Art Center Cinema. It also recently won the best picture at the Critics’ Choice Awards.

In the movie, Robby Robinson, a Boston Globe editor who grew up a good Catholic in Boston, was told by a classmate that when the classmate was younger that Father James Talbot sexually abused him.

Later in the movie, Robinson, played by Michael Keaton, asked a Jesuit Boston College High School alumni if he played sports.

“Yeah. Football. Why?”

Robinson said he ran track.

“Father Talbot coached the hockey team,” Robinson said. “So I guess we just got lucky. You and me.”

The classmate who’d been abused said he always wondered why Talbot picked him. The only answer was that the classmate was a member of the hockey team.

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COLORADO
The Tribune

Greeley’s Sen. John Cooke, the former Weld County Sheriff, wants to remove the statute of limitations on sexual assault crimes.

The Republican senator is working across the aisle with Rep. Rhonda Fields, D-Aurora, to completely repeal Colorado’s 10-year statute of limitations on felony sexual assault crimes, such as rape.

Although the bill has garnered a lot of attention in the wake of the sex-abuse allegations against actor Bill Cosby — including allegations from at least two Colorado women — advances in technology and evidence collection motivate Cooke, he said.

“Law enforcement is like any other profession. You grow and you learn, and there are always new ways to investigate,” he said Thursday. “Evidence collection is better than it was 20 years ago, 30 years ago, and it continues that way all the time.”

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UNITED STATES
The Open Tabernacle: Here Comes Everybody

Posted on January 23, 2016 by Betty Clermont

Last April, 56% of Americans surveyed viewed Pope Francis “in a positive light … By contrast, only 44% of Americans viewed Barack Obama in a positive light.” A Gallup poll published December 28 showed 17% of Americans named President Obama as their most admired man in the world; the pope and Donald Trump were tied for second with only 5% each.

Attendance in 2015 at the public audiences with Pope Francis at the Vatican was down almost by half compared to the previous year.

Although Pope Francis was prepared to intervene in the Paris Climate Change Conference in December, no one asked him to do so. No representative of the Vatican was in attendance.
Of greater consequence for this pontificate, after the Vatican indicted the authors of two books on November 21 for exposing financial corruption (Pope Francis: “I gave the judges the concrete charges because what is important to the defense is the formulation of the accusations”), freedom-of-the-press organizations quickly criticized the Vatican and called for the criminal charges against the journalists to be withdrawn. Among them were the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), Reporters Without Borders, Italy’s National Order of Journalists, the Committee to Protect Journalists, the Foreign Press Association in Rome, the association of reporters accredited to the Vatican (AIGAV), the International Press Institute (IPI), the National Federation of Press in Italy (FNSI) and the European Federation of Journalists (EFI).

As a result, other than the pope’s trip to Africa and the routine Christmas message, the last time Pope Francis received the usual widespread fawning news coverage by the mainstream media was before the indictment when the two books, Avarizia (“Avarice – the deadly sin as a parasite in the fiber of the Church”) by Emiliano Fittipaldi and Merchants in the Temple by Gianluigi Nuzzi, were released on November 5. The books documented Vatican fraud, theft, trade scams and withholding money donated for charity from the poor during this pontificate. Unanimously, it was reported that the books proved that the pope’s “enemies” were blocking his “reform” of the Vatican, and that he was bringing transparency and accountability to his “Church of the poor.”

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ALABAMA
WIAT

By Jaime Ritter
Published: January 22, 2016

ETOWAH COUNTY, Ala. (WIAT) — Former Rainbow City youth pastor 38-year-old Ryan Lance Roberson was charged with producing obscene matter of a person under 17.

According Detective Justin Gillilland, Roberson was arrested after police obtained a video allegedly taken by Roberson that showed a girl under 17 that he was “close with.”

Roberson is accused of taking the video and sharing it with an acquaintance, who then told police about the video.

Roberson’s bond is set at $25,000, and he is forbidden to have unsupervised contact with the underage victim or any person under 18 years of age.

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MISSISSIPPI
Sun Herald

BY ROBIN FITZGERALD
rfitzgerald@sunherald.com Twitter: robincrimenews

WIGGINS — A former Stone County preacher has been found guilty in the sexual battery of a girl at the church he previously led, District Attorney Joel Smith said.

Carlos Smith, 55, of Saucier, was pastor of Unity Baptist Church and the girl was 11 when the sexual abuse began in 2011 and continued for three years, said the DA, no relation to Carlos Smith.

A Stone County jury delivered a guilty verdict Friday after deliberating about two hours.

Circuit Judge Roger Clark set Carlos Smith’s sentencing for Feb. 15 and ordered him taken into custody.

He faces 20 years to life in prison. Because of the nature of the crime, his prison term must be served with no consideration for early release.

It wasn’t clear how long he had been pastor at the Wiggins church.

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MISSISSIPPI
The Dispatch

Associated Press

WAYNESBORO, Miss. (AP) — Bond has been set for a Wayne County pastor accused of sexual misconduct.

WDAM-TV reports (http://bit.ly/1PK82nm ) Christopher Beam made his initial appearance in court on Thursday, and his bond was set at $100,000 per count which totaled $1 million.

Beam remains jailed on five counts of lustful touching of a child and five counts of enticing a child under 18 years of age with an electronic device for sexual purposes. It was unknown if he has an attorney who could comment on the case.

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NEW YORK
News 10

DELMAR, N.Y. (NEWS10) – Police arrested a Delmar man for alleged sexual contact with a minor.

Police arrested 41-year-old Ian O’Brien as a result of an ongoing investigation into a complaint that was made to the state child abuse hotline. According to police, information was developed that O’Brien had inappropriate sexual contact with a person under the age of 15 during the previous summer.

O’Brien was charged with Forcible Touching and Sexual Abuse in the Third Degree. He was arraigned in the Town of Bethlehem Court and released under the supervision of the Albany County Probation Department.

He is scheduled to return to court at 4 p.m. on February 16.

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NEW YORK
WNYT

[with video]

A man facing sex abuse charges was also a CYO basketball coach at Mater Christi Parish in Albany.

Ian O’Brien, 41, is accused of sexual abuse and forcible touching. NewsChannel 13 first reported his arrest on Wednesday.

The Roman Catholic Diocese of Albany announced Friday that O’Brien has been removed from all volunteer roles with the parish and the school.

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IRELAND
The Argus

Olivia Ryan
PUBLISHED
23/01/2016

Dundalk woman Andrea O’Connor has scored another Director’s Guild of America (DGA) nomination, for her role in the making of star studded new movie ‘Spotlight.’

Andrea, from Cedarwood Park, was second assistant director on the film which has been nominated in the category for Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Feature Film.

Spotlight was written and directed by Tom McCarthy, and is based on the true story of a newspaper’s investigation into allegations of sexual molestation in Boston in the 1990’s, and the Catholic Church’s response to the events.

Speaking to the Argus about the movie, and her nomination, Andrea explained:

‘I was asked to go to Boston to shoot new scenes and re-shoot some old ones, as most of the movie, like ‘Brooklyn’, was actually shot in Canada.’

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IRELAND
Irish Times

Simon Carswell

Shortly after the Boston Globe began to break stories about sexual abuse by priests and the decades-long cover-up by the Catholic Church, in 2002, the newspaper’s editor, Marty Baron, received a letter.

It was from a prominent Bostonian, complaining about the coverage by the newspaper and its Spotlight investigative team. He wrote that such a story would never have been pursued under previous editors of the Globe. The editors all had Irish Catholic names.

“I was very upset over that letter and sent a stern letter in response,” says Baron, who is now executive editor of the Washington Post. It was a clear warning that he was taking on something sacred in Boston. At the time of the exposé Baron was less than a year in the editor’s seat at the Globe.

The veteran newspaperman, who is Jewish, interpreted the letter as “borderline anti-Semitic, if not over the line”. When they met, the man insisted that his letter was not meant that way, and apologised.

Baron’s decision to pursue the investigation and rattle Boston’s biggest cage was ultimately vindicated. The reports revealed the sexual abuse of hundreds of people by dozens of priests. They told how the city’s Catholic hierarchy had turned a blind eye and even permitted the abuse, shuffling serial-molesting priests around parishes.

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AUSTRALIA
Broken Rites

In 1993, Broken Rites Australia began researching — and exposing — the Catholic Church’s sex-abuse cover-ups throughout Australia. Ten years later, in 2002 and 2003, the Boston Globe newspaper revealed similar cover-ups in the United States, Now, people can see the Boston story told in a major film, Spotlight, which is being released in Australian cinemas on 28 January 2016.

In the United States, where Spotlight was released in cinemas in November 2015, it is being hailed as one of the best movies of 2015.

In late January 2016, Australian newspapers have begun publishing reviews of Spotlight.

In a review for the Sydney Morning Herald and the Melbourne Age, Paul Byrnes writes:

“Wisely, the movie is not about child abuse. It’s about how a newspaper, The Boston Globe, had the guts to go after the Catholic Church in a town full of Catholics, knowing that their own heavily Catholic readership would not like it. It’s about the way the Catholic Church, a powerful institution in Boston (as everywhere), tried to conceal the knowledge that almost 250 of its priests were implicated in child sexual abuse – some of them repeatedly, in other dioceses, before they were given new positions supervising children in Boston…

” This is one of the better films about what good, hard, deep reporting is like: the long hours, frustrations and knockbacks, the team work and dead ends, the occasional moments of luck and reward. We see here why investigative reporting costs so much and takes so long. We see how hard it is, in emotional terms, to challenge institutions that the reporters themselves may hold in high regard. Most of the reporters are, or were, raised Catholic. So are many of the actors and this director.”

In a review for the Sydney Morning Herald and the Melbourne Age, Stephanie Bunbury writes:

“Spotlight is about a real-life team of investigative reporters at the Boston Globe who worked for months to document and finally reveal the cover-up by the local Catholic church of the sexual abuse of children by priests. ..

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CHICAGO (IL)
Daily Herald

Mary Jane Doerr, associate director in the Secretariat of Child and Youth Protection of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, will take over Feb. 8 as director of the Office for the Protection of Children and Youth in the Chicago Archdiocese.

She replaces Jan Slattery, who recently retired after 10 years.

Originally from Chicago Heights, Doerr joined the U.S. Conference in 2008, helping dioceses across the country implement their safe environment programs and draw up auditing mechanisms to make sure dioceses adhere to the Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People.

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CHICAGO (IL)
Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Chicago

Doerr Joins from the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops

Chicago, IL (January 22, 2016) – Archbishop Blase J. Cupich today announced the appointment of Mary Jane Doerr as the Director of the Office for the Protection of Children and Youth. The appointment is effective beginning on February 8, 2016. Ms. Doerr was Associate Director in the Secretariat of Child and Youth Protection of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB). Ms. Doerr replaces Jan Slattery, who recently retired after ten years in this position.

“We are pleased to have attracted a national leader in child protection to the Archdiocese of Chicago,” said Blase J. Cupich, Archbishop of Chicago. “We look to Ms. Doerr to continue and build on the fine work of Jan Slattery. Over her tenure, Jan established a nationally recognized approach to preventing abuse, and led an office that provides help and healing to victims and their families and cooperates with civil authorities in a prompt and transparent manner.”

Ms. Doerr, who joined the USCCB in 2008, supported dioceses across the country in implementing their safe environment programs and assisted in the development of mechanisms to audit adherence to the Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People. Ms. Doerr served as the Safe Environment Coordinator for the Diocese of Kalamazoo for five years, where she was responsible for implementing the Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People in all diocesan parishes and schools. Additionally, she has more than 20 years’ experience in Catholic school systems as a classroom teacher, an elementary school principal and a college instructor.

A native of Chicago Heights, Ms. Doerr attended Marian Catholic High School in Chicago Heights. She holds a BA in Behavioral Sciences from Nazareth College, Kalamazoo and a MA in Educational Leadership from Western Michigan University.

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CHICAGO (IL)
Daily Southtown

Angela Denk
Daily Southtown

The Archdiocese of Chicago announced Friday that Chicago Heights native and Marian Catholic High School graduate Mary Jan Doerr has been named director of its Office for the Protection of Children and Youth.

Her predecessor, Jan Slattery, held the position for a decade before retiring late last year.

According to a press release from the diocese, Doerr comes to the job with more than 20 years of experience in Catholic education, having taught at the elementary and college levels, and also having served previously as a school principal. She joined the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) in 2008, and was previously appointed its director for the Secretariat of Child and Youth Protection.

Doerr also spent five years as the safe environment coordinator for the Diocese of Kalamazoo, Mich., where she was responsible for implementing the Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People which, according to the USCCB website, “is a comprehensive set of procedures … for addressing allegations of sexual abuse of minors by Catholic clergy.”

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RHODE ISLAND
Greenwich Times

By Robert Marchant Friday, January 22, 2016

A former Brunswick School teacher, now in jail, has been linked to an unfolding scandal involving sexual abuse at a Rhode Island prep school.

A Boston lawyer who has been representing former students at St. George’s School in Middletown, R.I., named Timothy Tefft as one of the previously unidentified alleged perpetrators of abuse at the Rhode Island school.

Tefft is currently serving five years in federal prison after his guilty plea in 2014 to a child pornography charge.

The former teacher and newspaper editor was at the center of abuse allegations at Brunswick School in Greenwich. Tefft, who taught at Brunswick School in the 1970s and 1980s, was accused in 2013 by three former students of molesting them in the 1980s. The abuse allegedly occurred in New York state. No criminal charges or lawsuits were ever brought. Brunswick School officials had no comment on Tefft this week.

Tefft, who was 65 at the time of his arrest in 2013, acknowledged possessing dozens of files of child pornography.

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NORTHERN IRELAND
BBC News

A priest who was investigated but never charged after concerns were raised about the safeguarding of children is to retire after a Church inquiry.

Fr Paul Symonds stepped aside from ministry in County Antrim in 2009 to facilitate a police investigation.

After a decision was made to not to prosecute him, the Catholic Church resumed its internal inquiry.

The Down and Connor diocese said this concluded he will “live as a retired priest without any public ministry”.

Fr Symonds is originally from England, but was working as a priest in Ballymena, County Antrim, when the police investigation began.

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NEW YORK
Church Militant

by Joseph Pelletier • ChurchMilitant.com • January 22, 2016

The archdiocese of New York has suspended the faculties of Fr. Richard Gorman

NEW YORK (ChurchMilitant.com) – A longtime Bronx priest is under investigation for allegedly molesting several young boys.

According to a statement released Thursday by the archdiocese of New York, the Rev. Richard Gorman has been accused of sexually abusing several minors nearly three decades ago. Archdiocesan spokesman Joseph Zwilling reports at least two purported victims have come forward, and investigators are planning on speaking with a possible third accuser.

In light of an ongoing investigation by the Westchester County district attorney, the archdiocese has suspended Fr. Gorman’s faculties as part of the clergy. The official newspaper for the archdiocese, Catholic New York, notes that while law enforcement has “deemed the allegations to be credible,” they have “not yet been substantiated.” They confirm that Fr. Gorman is “not permitted to publicly function as a priest until the matter is resolved.”

The abuses allegedly took place in the 1980s while Fr. Gorman was pastor of St. Barnabas Church in the Woodlawn section of the Bronx, says Michael Reck, a lawyer representing one of the victims. “[The alleged victim] decided to come forward now because he was at a stage of his life where he was aware of the trauma and realized the perpetrator could still access children,” Reck said.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Catholics4Change

JANUARY 22, 2016 BY SUSAN MATTHEWS

Whether or not Billy Doe was telling the truth, the Church DID cover up decades of clergy child sex abuse. The internal archdiocesan documents that emerged from the trial revealed the depravity of the institution. We saw the memos that Msgr. Lynn received and sent. We were able to share the list Cardinal Bevilacqua kept of problem priests.

Justice should prevail. We hope it has in this particular case. If it hasn’t, we hope a light shines on the truth. As a journalist, I’ve found Ralph Cipriano to be unrelenting and fair in reporting facts. However, I err on the side of believing anyone who says they are a victim. Statistically, false claims are rare. No matter which side you take, pray for all involved and remember that the institutional Church is guilty of a cover up.

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BRAZIL
Daily Mail (UK)

[with video]

By Gerard Couzens and Gianluca Mezzofiore For Mailonline

A priest yanks hard on children’s hair and kicks one up the backside as he tries to avoid him in this astonishing video filmed inside a Brazilian church.

The images have caused controversy throughout south America where the footage is going viral.

The youngsters are said to have been preparing for their First Communion and the unnamed holy man was reported to have been giving them an unorthodox blessing.

He grabs each child by the hair as they parade past him at the altar and pulls their head from side to side.

One of the youngsters in the line-up covers his hair with his hands to avoid the bizarre treatment.

Another infant crawls underneath him on the floor when her turn comes round, but still gets a kick up the bottom as she is on the floor.

An adult mixed in with the children is left alone when she walks past the priest – and doesn’t appear to offer any protest at the treatment he is meting out.

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NEW YORK
The Journal News

Matt Spillane, mspillane@lohud.com January 22, 2016

A Bronx priest has been suspended amid allegations that he sexually abused minors in Westchester County about 30 years ago, officials said.

The Rev. Richard Gorman was a priest at St. Barnabas Church in the Woodlawn section of the Bronx, a block away from Yonkers, when the alleged abuse occurred, according to media reports. It is unclear where in Westchester the alleged abuse occurred.

Gorman, now the director of prison chaplains for the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New York, “is not permitted to publicly function as a priest until the matter is resolved,” the archdiocese said in a statement Thursday.

“As usual, the archdiocese immediately reported the allegations to law enforcement officials for investigation, who have deemed the allegations to be credible, although they have not yet been substantiated,” said the archdiocese, which urged people with information or concerns to contact the Westchester County District Attorney’s Office.

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NORTHERN IRELAND
Irish Times

Patsy McGarry

The diocese of Down and Connor in Northern Ireland has decided a priest who faced child abuse allegations but was not charged by the civil authorities should remain out of public ministry.

In a statement on Friday the diocese said that in October 2009 it was notified by the civil authorities “of concerns of a safeguarding nature raised against Fr Paul Symonds”.

In accordance with church policy it said Fr Symonds “stepped aside to facilitate a full investigation by the civil authorities”.

However “in 2011, after statutory investigation, with which the diocese and Fr Symonds co-operated fully, and during which Fr Symonds was never charged with a criminal offence,” it said “the determination of the Prosecution Service was not to prosecute”. After which, as is procedure, “the church’s own internal canonical inquiry resumed”.

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MICHIGAN
The Freethinker

A Catholic Archbishop forced to resign after a major sex abuse scandal is now whining that people who object to his homophobia are out to wreck his reputation.

John Clayton Nienstedt, above, served as the Archbishop of St Paul and Minneapolis for seven years but resigned last June, shortly after a prosecutor announced criminal charges and a civil suit against the archdiocese for allegedly covering up child sex abuse.

A separate archdiocese investigation into Nienstedt focused on his alleged sexual conduct with seminarians, priests, and other men.

Nienstedt called those allegations false, and:

A personal attack against me due to my unwavering stance on issues consistent with church teaching, such as opposition to so-called same-sex marriage.

Nienstedt, according to this report, is in the midst of a fresh controversy, having moved to a new church in Battle Creek, Michigan.

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UNITED STATES
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

By David Clohessy

Last week, in less than 24 hours, SNAP was in at least seven news outlets in three cities last week. Why? And why is this important?

The “why” is simple: we have dedicated volunteer leaders across the country (and increasingly, the world) who are:

–smart enough to recognize outreach opportunities, and

–generous enough to quickly drop their other responsibilities and seize those opportunities.

When abuse scandals surfaced in Seattle, Oakland and Kalamazoo, SNAP leaders Mary Dispenza, Bill McAlary, Tim Lennon and Melanie Sakoda dropped what they were doing, overcame their hesitation, summoned their strength and used these scandals to further expose church wrongdoing, raise the expectations bar, and beg those with knowledge or suspicions about abuse to come forward.

Why is this important?

Again, the answer is simple. Because virtually no one else is doing this. Virtually no one else relentlessly urges people who can make kids safer to take action.

And it’s important because it works. It might be years until these efforts bear fruit. But they WILL bear fruit. We in SNAP will at some point hear from victims, witnesses and whistleblowers in or near these three cities. Their phone messages or emails will include this some version statement: “I saw your group in the news in January of 2016 and I’m just now able or willing to step and do something.”

That, in a nutshell, is why I do what I do: because I get to work with and help tremendous leaders like Mary, Bill, Tim and Melanie. And together, we help others still trapped in shame, silence and self-blame and make kids safer by exposing those who commit and conceal child sex crimes.

It’s just that simple. And that wonderful.

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NEW YORK
CBS News

New York, NY — The Archdiocese of New York has announced the removal of Fr. Richard Gorman from ministry after an investigation was launched into allegations he sexually abused minors 30 years ago, according to the official newspaper of the Archdiocese of New York.

Gorman, director of prison chaplains for the archdiocese and also the longtime chairman of a Bronx community board, was accused of sexually abusing a 13-year-old male victim. The man’s attorney, Mike Reck of Jeff Anderson & Associates, said his client came forward to church and law-enforcement officials around mid-2015, and that the allegations were deemed credible.

“The investigation then unearthed additional survivors and witnesses,” Reck said.

Reck said at least one other person from St. Barnabas has come forward alleging abuse.

Reck’s client claims Gorman abused him decades ago, when Gorman was a leader at St. Barnabas Church in the Bronx. Reck said it was there that Gorman “used that position of power to access a child, who was a parishioner. He transported him to another church-owned facility and that’s where that incident of abuse occurred.”

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DEUTSCHLAND
SWR

[The bishop of Rottenburg-Stuttgart has accepted the resignation of a priest. The pastor on leave is suspected to have shown porn movies to young people. The result of the preliminary investigation will be sent to the Vatican.]

Seit Oktober ist der katholische Pfarrer beurlaubt – weil er seine Gemeinde seelsorgerisch vernachlässigt haben soll. Aber es gibt noch einen schlimmeren Verdacht.

Bischof Gebhard Fürst von der Diözese Rottenburg-Stuttgart hat das Gesuch des Pfarrers von St. Franziskus in Weilheim/Teck im Kreis Esslingen angenommen, auf seine Gemeinde zu verzichten. Pfarrer Hermann Ehrenspergers Amtsführung hatte zu Unstimmigkeiten in der Gemeinde geführt. Eine eigens eingerichtete Untersuchungskommission stellte jetzt fest: Der Pfarrer habe ungenehmigt Urlaub genommen, er sei Dekanatskonferenzen ferngeblieben und habe Personen Wortgottesdienste, eine Beerdigung und eine Taufe vornehmen lassen, die nicht die Qualifikation dafür und auch keinen bischöflichen Auftrag hatten.

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RHODE ISLAND
Portland Press Herald

BY AND DENISE LAVOIE
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

MIDDLETOWN, R.I .— For more than a century, St. George’s School has been part of the pedigree of some of America’s richest and most influential families. Astors, Vanderbilts and Bushes have attended the exclusive boarding school, where students can go sailing, play on world-class squash courts or simply enjoy a sweeping view of the sea from the hilltop campus.

But since at least the 1970s, leaders at St. George’s kept a secret.

The school’s current leadership has characterized the abuse as a problem of the past and said it discovered the extent of the misconduct only recently. But many accusers have disputed that, and much of their anger has fallen on Eric Peterson, headmaster since 2004.

Peterson was told in 2004, 2006, 2011, 2012 and 2015 about numerous allegations of abuse, according to interviews with alumni and documents obtained by The Associated Press.

Many alumni are calling on Peterson to step down. Some want the entire board swept clean.

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NEW YORK
The New York Times

By SHARON OTTERMANJAN. 21, 2016

A Roman Catholic priest also active in Bronx politics has been suspended from priestly duties because of allegations that he sexually abused minors three decades ago, church officials said on Thursday.

The priest, the Rev. Richard Gorman, is the director of prison chaplains for the Archdiocese of New York, with an office at the archdiocese’s headquarters in Manhattan. He lives in the northeast Bronx, where he has been chairman of Community Board 12, which weighs in on zoning and other matters, since the late 1980s.

Father Gorman stepped down from the board on Thursday.

Reached at the board’s office, George Torres, the district manager, said the mood was “a little surreal right now.”

“A lot of people are in disbelief,” he said.

The abuse was alleged to have occurred in Westchester County, and the Westchester district attorney’s office said it had opened an inquiry into the allegations. According to a notice published on Wednesday in Catholic New York, the newspaper of the New York Archdiocese, law enforcement “had deemed the allegations to be credible, although they have not yet been substantiated.”

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NEW YORK
Gawker

Brendan O’Connor

On Wednesday, the Archdiocese of New York announced, through its official newspaper, that Father Richard Gorman, the archdiocese’s director of prison chaplains, as well as a prominent local political leader, was suspended after being accused of sexually abusing minors 30 years ago.

The archdiocese said that it reported the allegations to law enforcement immediately, and that, while they were determined to be credible, they have not yet been substantiated. As such, Gorman is not permitted to perform the public duties of a priest until the matter is resolved.

Mike Reck, a lawyer for one of the victims, said the alleged abuse took place in the ‘80s, when Gorman was a priest at St. Barnabas’ Church, in the Woodlawn neighborhood of the Bronx. There, Reck said, Gorman “used that position of power to access a child, who was a parishioner. He transported him to another church-owned facility and that’s where that incident of abuse occurred.” According to CBS News, that facility was in Westchester County.

“He decided to come forward now because he was at a stage of his life where he was aware of the trauma and realized the perpetrator could still access children,” Reck said.

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RHODE ISLAND
Post-Star

DON LEHMAN dlehman@poststar.com

A Greenwich man who is serving a state prison sentence for possession of child pornography is the subject of a police complaint of child sexual abuse at a prestigious prep school in Rhode Island.

The school is embroiled in an unfolding sex scandal, according to a lawyer and media reports.

Timothy H. Tefft was identified as one of five former employees of St. George’s School in Middletown, Rhode Island, who had been accused of sexual abuse by former students, according to a report in Thursday’s Boston Globe newspaper.

Tefft was editor of the Greenwich Journal weekly newspaper in Greenwich, until his arrest in 2013 for possessing child pornography. He is serving a five-year federal prison sentence for the pornography conviction.

The public identification of Tefft in the Rhode Island case this week comes as more than 40 former students have come forward, alleging they were sexually abused decades earlier by staff members and older students.

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RHODE ISLAND
The American Lawyer

Jennifer Henderson, The Am Law Daily
January 21, 2016

A week after a storied New England boarding school hired former Massachusetts Attorney General L. Scott Harshbarger to lead an independent investigation into an onslaught of sexual abuse allegations against former employees and students, the former Proskauer Rose senior counsel has been abruptly replaced by Foley Hoag.

On Wednesday, St. George’s School in Middletown, Rhode Island, and SGS for Healing—a group comprised of more than 40 alleged victims working to hold the elite Episcopalian institution accountable in a decades-old sex scandal and provide others with support—announced the hire of Foley Hoag partner Martin Murphy in Boston to conduct the inquiry.

Murphy, who focuses his practice on complex investigations, civil litigation and regulatory work, will replace Harshbarger as the private school’s new independent investigator. (Harshbarger left Proskauer late last year to join Casner & Edwards, where he is now senior counsel in the Boston firm’s litigation and nonprofit groups.)

In a joint statement, St. George’s School and SGS for Healing said the decision to replace Harshbarger, who was hired on Jan. 11, came “after being unable to reach agreement on legal terms of engagement” with Harshbarger and his firm. The statement did not provide any further reason for the switch, and a spokesman for the school did not return a request for comment Thursday.

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CHINA
CCTV

Michael Keaton’s portrayal of investigative journalist Walter Robinson is so accurate, that Robinson has joked he will sue the actor for identity theft! Keaton, along with Mark Ruffalo and Stanley Tucci, stars in the film “Spotlight”, which has just premiered in the U.K.

Having beaten “The Revenant” and “The Big Short” to take home the Critics Choice Award for Best Picture, “Spotlight” is being touted as one of this year’s Oscar frontrunners.

The film has been nominated for six Academy Awards, including Best Picture, and Best Director for Tom McCarthy.

“Spotlight” tells the true story of a team of journalists with The Boston Globe newspaper who broke the Massachusetts sex-abuse scandal within the Catholic Church and won the Pulitzer Prize for doing so in 2003.

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NEVADA
La Vegas Sun

Associated Press
Published Thursday, Jan. 21, 2016.

A former Las Vegas area church pastor who became an international fugitive on accusations that he sexually assaulted girls as young as 7 in his congregation has been found guilty.

A Clark County District Court jury on Thursday found Otis Holland, 59, guilty of 17 felony charges, including child sexual assault, lewdness, conspiracy to destroy evidence and bribing a witness. He faces life in prison, with sentencing scheduled for March 16.

The long-delayed trial started early January, but Holland has been in jail since his arrest in January 2012 in Tijuana, Mexico. A prosecutor said he had fled the country following his initial arrest in December 2010. Known to his United Faith Church congregation in Henderson as “Reverend Otis,” he was also featured before his arrest on the television show “America’s Most Wanted.”

Prosecutors said Holland focused on sex as a path to spirituality. He taught from the pulpit that most women have burning desires blocked by sexual hang-ups that he could teach them to get past, if given the chance.

Multiple women have testified that they had sex or sexual contact with the former pastor when they were teens. They said they didn’t talk at the time about the abuse with their parents, who had sent them to Holland for counseling against misbehavior like skipping school or smoking cigarettes.

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NEVADA
KLFY

CBS News

LAS VEGAS — A former Las Vegas area pastor who fled the country after he was accused of sexually assaulting girls as young as 7 in his congregation has been found guilty.

A Clark County District Court jury on Thursday found Otis Holland, 59, guilty of 15 felony charges, including child sexual assault and lewdness. He faces life in prison, with sentencing scheduled for March 16.

Prosecutors filed 22 new charges against Holland Thursday afternoon after five additional victims came forward, CBS affiliate KLAS reported. The new allegations involve victims from age 6 to adults.

The long-delayed trial started in early January, but Holland has been in jail since his arrest in January 2012 in Tijuana, Mexico. A prosecutor said he had fled the country following his initial arrest in December 2010. Known to his United Faith Church congregation in Henderson as “Reverend Otis,” he was also featured before his arrest on the television show “America’s Most Wanted.”

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HAWAII
Church Militant

by Joseph Pelletier • ChurchMilitant.com • January 21, 2016

HONOLULU (ChurchMilitant.com) – The Catholic Church of Hawaii is suing an insurance company over allegations the diocese is being denied promised coverage of sex abuse settlements.

The lawsuit, filed January 14 with the Honolulu 1st Circuit Court, claims the First Insurance Company of Hawaii is rejecting requests from the diocese of Honolulu to honor a contract made decades ago in its liability policies with the Hawaiian Catholic Church.

The Church is seeking to compensate approximately 60 individuals who were sexually abused by a “number of priests or brothers.” The liability policies purchased from the First Insurance Company, ranging from $100,000 “per occurrence” to $1 million, were intended to cover payouts related to bodily harm or property damage inflicted by the Church.

A statement on the matter from Bp. Larry Silva was released by a spokesman for the Catholic Church in Hawaii:

The Roman Catholic Church in Hawaii is committed to providing victims of sexual abuse with compassionate resolution, but with limited resources, it cannot do so on its own. We remain hopeful that First Insurance Company of Hawaii will assist us in our efforts by honoring the insurance coverage the Church purchased in years past.

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MICHIGAN/MINNESOTA
Catholic Spirit

Maria Wiering | January 21, 2016

Following complaints by some Catholics and leaders of an organization for victims of clergy sexual abuse, Archbishop John Nienstedt is leaving a temporary position with a parish in Battle Creek, Michigan, the parish’s pastor announced in a Jan. 21 letter.

“After discussion with the archbishop conveying the expressed concerns by the faithful people of our community, he offered to withdraw from the diocese and I agreed,” wrote Father John Fleckenstein, pastor of St. Philip Catholic Church in Battle Creek, to the area’s Catholics. “Archbishop Nienstedt has a deep concern for the Church, and in light of the unintended discord that his presence was causing, he decided that this would be the best course of action so the Church can remain focused on its mission.”

Father Fleckenstein announced Archbishop Nienstedt’s arrival to the parish Jan. 10 in his parish’s bulletin. He noted that the archbishop would be assisting him with some pastoral ministries for about six months, which would allow the pastor to complete projects for the Diocese of Kalamazoo and attend to some health issues. He said he has known Archbishop Nienstedt for 20 years, since the archbishop was pastor of a parish in Royal Oak, Michigan.

Archbishop Nienstedt resigned as leader of the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis in June following the Ramsey County Attorney’s Office’s filing of criminal and civil charges against the archdiocese alleging the archdiocese had not protected children in the case of Curtis Wehmeyer, a former priest. Bishop Lee Piché, an auxiliary bishop of St. Paul and Minneapolis, resigned the same day. On the day of his resignation, Archbishop Nienstedt said he stepped down because his “leadership has unfortunately drawn away from the good works of [Christ’s] Church and those who perform them.”

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WASHINGTON
Bellevue Reporter

by ALLISON DEANGELIS, Bellevue Reporter Staff Writer
Jan 21, 2016

Seven priests who served in Bellevue and were accused of sexually abusing children over nearly four decades were among the names on a list released by the Archdiocese of Seattle last week as part of their self-proclaimed commitment to transparency.

“This is an ongoing effort for us. The disclosure of this list was determined to be a step that would contribute to our accountability and transparency,” said Greg Magnoni, spokesperson for the Archdiocese of Seattle.

But some say the list is too little, too late.

“At least the archdiocese, ostensibly, released the list in an effort to be transparent. But it raises the questions of why now and why did it take so long to release this?” said Seattle attorney Michael Pfau, who has represented over 150 plaintiffs in cases of sexual abuse by priests, including many in Bellevue and on the Eastside.

Bellevue priests Barry Ashwell, Edward Boyle, John Marsh, Harold Quigg, Stephen Trippy, Dermot Foyle and David Fleckenstein were identified in the archdiocese’s list of 77 priests in Western Washington. They served in Bellevue for anywhere from one to seven years between 1955 and 1989.

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MICHIGAN
Grand Forks Herald

By St. Paul Pioneer Press on Jan 21, 2016

BATTLE CREEK, Mich. — Two weeks after he arrived in Battle Creek, Mich., to help an old friend with pastoral duties, former Twin Cities Archbishop John Nienstedt has left amid a swirl of criticism.

“After discussions with the archbishop conveying the expressed concerns by the faithful people of our community, he offered to withdraw from the diocese and I agreed,” the Rev. John Fleckenstein wrote in a letter to parishioners Thursday. “Archbishop Nienstedt has a deep concern for the church, and in light of the unintended discord that his presence was causing, he decided that this would be the best course of action so the church can remain focused on its mission.”

Nienstedt, who became archbishop of the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis in 2008, had been a controversial figure leading up to his resignation in June of last year.

He had come under fire for his stance on gay marriage and his refusal to step down after a whistleblower said in 2013 that he and other top brass had played a role in protecting credibly accused predatory priests.

He resigned 10 days after the Ramsey County attorney’s office filed criminal charges against the archdiocese, saying church leadership failed to protect children by covering up for a sexually abusive priest now in prison. Nienstedt and Auxiliary Bishop Lee Anthony Piche resigned simultaneously.

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IRELAND
Irish Times

Noel Whelan

I got to an early screening of the new film Spotlight before Christmas. It was a fascinating and dramatic film, although it was disturbing on many levels. I think it will really have an impact in Ireland as people go to see it.

The film tells of the Boston Globe’s investigation into the cover-up of clerical sexual abuse in the local Catholic archdioceses. The similarities between what happened in Boston and what happened in Ireland at or about the same time are striking. The extent of the abuse and the cover-ups was the same.

The first set of revelations in Ireland culminated with the resignation of Brendan Comiskey as Bishop of Ferns in 2002. The work of the Boston Globe’s Spotlight investigation team was published the same year, and culminated in the resignation of Cardinal Bernard Law.

The church on both sides of the Atlantic initially denied the problem existed. It then saw child abuse as a moral defect rather than a criminal activity. It placed offending priests on sick leave or shifted them from parish to parish. When in later life victims began litigation the church sought to buy silence in early settlements.

There was an organised pattern of resistance to disclose documents and records, and when these ultimately had to be handed over they revealed how the instinct almost always was to protect the institution above victims.

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MICHIGAN
WIN

BATTLE CREEK (WKZO-AM) — A controversial leader in the Catholic church who came to Battle Creek to help out in the St. Phillips Parish has decided to bow out of the temporary appointment, following revelations about his past.

Archbishop Emeritus John Nienstedt stepped down from his leadership position in the St. Paul-Minneapolis Catholic community following charges filed by the local prosecutor that the diocese had covered up the misdeeds of a particular priest and failed to look out for the interests of children. There were also specific allegations against Nienstedt that were either determined to be unfounded or never pursued.

He left as a priest in good standing with the church, and it was with that status that he offered to fill in for Father John Fleckenstein as he pursued treatment for a medical problem.

That’s when the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests, an organization that represents priest sexual abuse victims, contacted local media and made them aware of the archbishop’s history.

Nienstedt claimed he was targeted because of his hard-line adherence to Catholic policy on gay-marriage and other issues.

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MINNESOTA
National Catholic Reporter

Brian Roewe | Jan. 22, 2016

St. John’s Abbey, one of the largest Benedictine monasteries in the U.S., released more than 15,000 pages of documents Tuesday related to 18 priests it said “likely offended” sexually against minors dating back to the 1960s.

The disclosure comes as the latest chapter in the jagged history for the Benedictine community in Collegeville, Minn., on the issue of clergy sexual abuse, one that at times has seen it attempt to lead in understanding the epidemic but at others fall ill to the plague of its horrors. Like many others before them, the disclosed documents provide a recounting of what the abbey knew when regarding each monk — nearly half of whom have died — and often the attempts to shuttle them from place to place to avoid possible lawsuits and scandal.

In an accompanying statement on the disclosure website, MNtransparencyinitiative.com, the Abbey stressed that no incident of sexual abuse of a minor by one of its monks has occurred in more than two decades.

“The release of the files is an acknowledgement of the harm that has been done. … We in the monastic community grieve the pain and suffering of those who have been harmed, whose lives have been diminished by the pain they suffered,” said Benedictine Fr. John Klassen, abbot of St. John’s Abbey, in a statement.

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MICHIGAN
The Worthy Adversry

Posted by Joelle Casteix on January 21, 2016

There are two very amazing and interesting aspects of today’s news about disgraced Twin Cities Archbishop John Nienstedt. After national media attention and huge (and righteous) push back from Michigan Catholics, Nienstedt has been forced to leave a temporary position in a Michigan parish.

If you’re just catching up to the story, Kalamazoo Catholic officials didn’t think it would be a big deal for Nienstedt to work in a Battle Creek parish, even though, according to MLive: Nienstedt and his high-ranking clergy in the Archdiocese of Minneapolis and St Paul are accused of repeatedly ignoring warnings that went on for years about sexually abusive priests, and of failing to contact law enforcement to report possible criminal acts they knew about.

He resigned from his post after the archdiocese was charged with civil and criminal complaints last summer. There are also five allegations that Nienstedt made sexual advances to seminarians.

But the real news in this story is this: Catholics pushed back. They made it perfectly clear that they didn’t want a priest who covered up sexual abuse (and may not be able to keep his hands to himself) in their parish, period. Good for them. It’s THEIR church, funded by THEIR donations. It’s THEIR children’s safety.

And Battle Creek Catholics aren’t going to let some guy in another city tell them who will baptize their children, marry them, and assume moral authority over their community.

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UNITED STATES
Religion Dispatches

BY PATRICIA MILLER JANUARY 21, 2016

In the wake of the startling revelation that well over 200 boys were abused over a 40-year period in a Bavarian choir conducted for 30 of those years by the Rev. Georg Ratzinger, the brother of former Pope Benedict, many questions remain unanswered about exactly what the Ratzinger brothers knew and when.

The lawyer who disclosed the abuse after an investigation commissioned by the Diocese of Regensburg said he assumes that Georg Ratzinger was aware of what one survivor called “a system of sadistic punishments connected to sexual pleasure” meted out by Johann Meier, the head of the school that housed the choir. Less clear is what Joseph Ratzinger knew, either during his time as the Archbishop of Munich or after 1981, when he became Pope John Paul II’s right hand man as the head of the powerful Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

What is clear is that Ratzinger’s tenure at the CDC, including the period which coincided with the last decade of the abuse (Meier died in 1992), was marked by an energetic punishing of his own—of liberal Catholics who challenged John Paul’s conservative orthodoxy on sexuality. Numerous theologians, priests and nuns who supported liberal interpretations of church teaching were disciplined by “God’s Rottweiler” for their transgressions.

For instance, in 1986, Ratzinger stripped renowned progressive theologian Father Charles Curran of his right to teach at Catholic universities because he held it was possible to dissent from non-infallible church teachings, especially those on abortion, contraception and homosexuality.

That same year, Ratzinger stripped Seattle Archbishop Raymond Hunthausen of much of his authority after he allowed gay Catholics to celebrate mass at St. James Cathedral and allowed Catholic hospitals in his diocese to perform contraceptive sterilizations. Shortly thereafter, Ratzinger declared homosexuality an “intrinsic moral evil.”

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NEW MEXICO
KRQE

By Chelo Rivera and Candace Hopkins

SANTA FE (KRQE) – A Santa Fe art teacher was arrested and charged after confessing that he inappropriately touched a 6-year-old student.

The Santa Fe County Sheriff’s Office says Aaron Dean Chavez was taken into custody Wednesday. Chavez is a teacher at Santo Nino Regional Catholic School.

Officials say Chavez’s arrest comes after the mother of a 6-year-old student reported that Chavez touched her daughter after he told her to “tuck in her shirt” and put his hand down the girl’s pants. The woman told police that Chavez put his hand in the girl’s underwear and that this might not be the first time he inappropriately touched the girl.

Chavez was arrested and was questioned. SFCO says Chavez ultimately admitted to having physical contact with the child while they were painting.

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NEVADA
ABC News

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
LAS VEGAS — Jan 21, 2016

A former Las Vegas area church pastor who became an international fugitive on accusations that he sexually assaulted girls as young as 7 in his congregation has been found guilty.

A Clark County District Court jury on Thursday found Otis Holland, 59, guilty of 17 felony charges, including child sexual assault, lewdness, conspiracy to destroy evidence and bribing a witness. He faces life in prison, with sentencing scheduled for March 16.

The long-delayed trial started early January, but Holland has been in jail since his arrest in January 2012 in Tijuana, Mexico. A prosecutor said he had fled the country following his initial arrest in December 2010. Known to his United Faith Church congregation in Henderson as “Reverend Otis,” he was also featured before his arrest on the television show “America’s Most Wanted.”

Prosecutors said Holland focused on sex as a path to spirituality. He taught from the pulpit that most women have burning desires blocked by sexual hang-ups that he could teach them to get past, if given the chance.

Multiple women have testified that they had sex or sexual contact with the former pastor when they were teens. They said they didn’t talk at the time about the abuse with their parents, who had sent them to Holland for counseling against misbehavior like skipping school or smoking cigarettes.

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MICHIGAN
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Thursday, Jan. 21, 2016

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

Lest anyone feel too positive about Archbishop John Nienstedt’s leaving Michigan, let us make a sad, simple point: It should not take outrage by parents, parishioners and the public to get a Catholic official who’s credibly accused of committing and concealing clergy sexual misdeeds and crimes out of ministry.

[MLive]

Catholic officials in Michigan and Minnesota continue to ignore the fact that six or eight or ten seminarians have accused Nienstedt of “unwanted sexual advances” against them. One reports that he faced retaliation for rejecting Nienstedt’s inappropriate and hurtful sexual moves. Several have apparently filed formal affidavits detailing their suffering.

In letters today, Kalamazoo Bishop Paul Bradley Bradley (269-903-0153, officeofthebishop@diokzoo.org) cites “the emotional reaction” and “the emotional factors” surrounding Nienstedt. Fr. John D. Fleckenstein of Battle Creek (269-903-0227, fatherjohn@bcacs.org) cites his flock’s supposed “anger” and “fear.”

These are self-serving and hurtful remarks. It’s perfectly legitimate and logical for people to oppose giving credibly accused sexual abusers, or their “enablers,” more positions of power. That’s a rational response, not an irrational one. Parishioners should be praised, not put down.

Bishop Bradley and Fr. Fleckenstein are subtly blaming prudent parishioners for some sort of alleged “mob mentality” when in fact these lay people are simply bring careful with their loved ones, as well they should be. It is disingenuous and insulting for their “shepherds” to claim or suggest otherwise.

And it’s hurtful to the seminarians who Nienstedt tried to sexually exploit when Bishop Bradley asks parishioners to pray for Nienstedt but ignores Nienstedt’s victims.

Fiinally, it’s selfish for Bishop Bradley (269-903-0153, officeofthebishop@diokzoo.org), Detroit Archbishop Allen Vigneron, St. Paul Archbishop Bernard Hebda, St. Paul Auxiliary Bishop and Vatican officials to ignore these serious, credible allegations, some of which were made in signed, formal affidavits.

We say it all the time. We’ll say it again now: It’s crucial that people speak up with any information or suspicions about clergy sex crimes, misdeeds or cover ups. That’s how innocent kids and vulnerable adults will be protected. That’s how the truth will be revealed. And that’s how wrongdoing will be deterred.

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NEW YORK
News 12

The Archdiocese of New York says it has removed Rev. Richard Gorman due to child sex abuse allegations.

Church officials says Gorman has been a part of the Archdiocese in New York for decades, including St. Barnabus in the Bronx.

Multiple individuals have come forward reporting claims of sexual abuse.

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NEW YORK
Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New York

January 21, 2016

The Archdiocese of New York has received allegations of abuse of minors against Father Richard Gorman, the director of prison chaplains for the archdiocese. The alleged abuse would have occurred 30 years ago. As usual, the archdiocese immediately reported the allegations to law enforcement officials for investigation, who have deemed the allegations to be credible, although they have not yet been substantiated. In keeping with the policy and practice of the archdiocese, and in conformity with the promises the bishops of the United States made in the Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People, Father Gorman is not permitted to publicly function as a priest until the matter is resolved. The archdiocese will follow its policy for dealing with priests who have been accused of abuse, including having the entire matter reviewed by professionals and our lay review board.

Anyone with information or concerns about Father Gorman should contact the Westchester District Attorney. You may also contact the Victims Assistance Coordinators for the archdiocese, Sister Eileen Clifford or Deacon George Coppola at 917-861-1762 or victimsassistance@archny.org.

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NEW YORK
New York Daily News

BY BEN KOCHMAN NEW YORK DAILY NEWS Thursday, January 21, 2016

A priest and respected long-time local leader in the Bronx has been accused of molesting minors, the Archdiocese of New York said Thursday.

The Rev. Richard Gorman can no longer serve in the clergy while authorities investigate claims that he sexually abused minors 30 years ago, the archdiocese announced in a press release.

The archdiocese doesn’t say when the allegations were made, but says it “immediately reported” them “to law enforcement officials for investigation.” It said investigators “have deemed the allegations to be credible, although they have not yet been substantiated.”

For over 20 years, Gorman has been the chairman of his north Bronx local community board, advocating on behalf of residents in Wakefield, Williamsbridge, Edenwald and Woodlawn. He had also served as director of the Catholic Church’s services to the state’s prisoners and their families.

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RHODE ISLAND
Gawker

Allie Jones

A tony New England prep school that has educated the likes of Howard Dean, George H.W. Bush’s father Prescott Bush, and Tucker Carlson is now embroiled in a sex abuse scandal that has been covered up, victims say, since the 1970s. At least 40 former students of St. George’s School in Rhode Island have come forward to say they were abused at the school. The latest known case of abuse allegedly occurred in 2004.

The Associated Press reports that administrators at the $56,000-a-year Episcopal school may face charges for failing to report abuse. St. George’s is conducting its own investigation into the allegations, while Rhode Island state police are “looking into possible sex-crime charges and other offenses.” As the AP notes, there is no statute of limitations on rape in Rhode Island.

The Boston Globe first made the school’s problems public in December, when it reported on the case of alumna Anne Scott. Scott says she was raped multiple times by an athletic trainer named Al Gibbs when she was a 15-year-old student at St. George’s in the 1970s. Scott tried to sue the school in the 1980s, the Globe reported, but the school pushed back, and she dropped the case. (Her lawyer was none other than Eric MacLeish, the man who would go on to represent sexual abuse victims of the Catholic Church in Boston in the 1990s. Billy Crudup played him in Spotlight.)

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IRELAND
RTE News

Lawyers for the State have asked the High Court to strike out a decision that it can be sued, along with the Christian Brothers, by three alleged sexual abuse victims following a European court ruling in the landmark Louise O’Keefe case.

Two years ago the European Court of Human Rights ruled Ms O’Keeffe’s rights under the European Convention had been breached by the failure of the State to protect her from abuse by her school teacher, Leo Hickey, in the 1970s.

Ms O’Keeffe had previously lost High and Supreme Court cases which found the State could not be held liable for the abuse as the school was not operated and managed directly by the State but by an independent board of management.

Ms O’Keeffe, who won her action against the abuser, argued the State, as the payer of the teacher’s salary and supervisor of other matters related to the school, was also responsible. The Supreme Court disagreed.

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IRELAND
Irish Times

The State has asked the High Court to strike out a decision permitting it to be sued, along with the Christian Brothers, by three alleged sexual abuse victims following a European court ruling in the landmark Louise O’Keeffe case.

In January 2014, the European Court of Human Rights ruled Ms O’Keeffe’s rights under the European Convention of Human Rights had been breached by the failure of the State to protect her from abuse by her school teacher, Leo Hickey, in the 1970s.

Ms O’Keeffe (48) had previously lost High and Supreme Court cases which found the State could not be held vicariously, or separately, liable for the abuse as the school was not operated and managed directly by the State but by an independent board of management.

Won action

Ms O’Keeffe, who won her action against the abuser, had argued the State, as the payer of the teacher’s salary and supervisor of other matters related to the school, was also responsible. The Supreme Court disagreed.

Following the European decision in her case, three men, who had damages actions pending against teachers and the two Christian Brothers’ schools where those teachers taught, successfully applied to have the Minister for Education and the State joined as defendants in their cases.

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MINNESOTA
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Thursday, Jan. 21, 2016

Statement by Verne Wagner of Duluth, SNAP director Northern Minnesota (218-340-1277, lwagsmn@yahoo.com)

More than 900 pages of long-secret records about a child molesting cleric who worked in Duluth have been released and are now on-line, because abuse victims insisted on the disclosure as part of a legal settlement. Duluth Catholic officials should tell parents, parishioners and the public about him and his crimes. Duluth parents and parishioners should read up about him and tell others about him. If he hurt even one child during his six years in northern Minnesota, we want that suffering person to know that he or she is not alone.

He’s Father Brennan Maiers. (His photo is at BishopAccountability.org) In the 1990s, he worked as a chaplain at three places in Duluth: St. Scholastica Monastery, St. Mary’s Medical Center and the Duluth Federal prison camp. He now lives at Saint John’s Abbey in Collegeville.

[Star Tribune]

In 1984, Fr. Maiers was arrested for soliciting an undercover officer at adult movie theater. In 1988, Fr. Maiers was first sued for abusing a nine year old in 1966. That suit settled out of court in 1992.

He also admitted to sexual relationships with a woman and two men in New York in 1970s. In 2002, he was permanently removed from ministry 2002. Fr. Maiers’ name appeared on lists of credibly accused child molesting clerics in two dioceses: St. Cloud diocese (in 2014) and St. Paul (in 2013).

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MICHIGAN
WWMT

BATTLE CREEK, Mich. (NEWSCHANNEL 3) – A newly added priest at a Battle Creek Catholic church is now leaving the parish amid concerns from the community.

Archbishop John Nienstedt had been serving as an assistant priest at Saint Philip Roman Catholic Church in Battle Creek.

His appointment was controversial because the archbishop resigned in Minnesota after the Twin Cities Archdiocese was indicted on charges of covering up sexual abuse.

Nienstedt was also accused of sexual misconduct and covering up child sex crimes, but was never criminally charged.

Thursday morning we learned through a letter on the St. Phillip’s website that Neinstedit is leaving, effective immediately.

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MICHIGAN/MINNESOTA
Minnesota Public Radio

Associated Press

Archbishop John Nienstedt is leaving a Battle Creek parish as some members of the southwestern Michigan diocese became angered to learn that he led a Minnesota archdiocese during a clergy sex abuse scandal.

Pastor John Fleckenstein wrote in a letter Thursday to members of St. Philip Catholic Church that Nienstedt decided to discontinue his work there “in light of the unintended discord that his presence was causing.”

He stepped in at St. Philip earlier this month while his friend Fleckenstein recovered from an illness.

Nienstedt resigned the Twin Cities post after Ramsey County prosecutors charged the archdiocese with failing to protect children from a predatory priest.

The charge followed two years of revelations about the failure of the archdiocese to protect children from sexual abuse at the hands of clergy.

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MINNESOTA
Canonical Consultation

Jennifer Haselberger

01/21/2016

This morning, the following letter was sent by the pastor of Saint Philip of Battle Creek, Reverend John Fleckenstein, and reprinted by the Battle Creek Enquirer. Many will no doubt see this as a victory, but I am less sanguine. First, because it raises the question of where he will go next (most likely back to Saint Paul), and also because there is a certain inconsistency in terms of our expectations. We object vociferously to Nienstedt being given a new appointment in the Church, but he was far from the only Church employee, or even the only priest, to be soundly criticized in the Ramsey County petition and charging documents. Yet, with the exception of Bishop Piche, most of those individuals are still in their jobs, with little concern expressed about their fitness or the danger they pose to children. This situation deserves our attention as well.

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MINNESOTA
Star Tribune

By Jean Hopfensperger Star Tribune JANUARY 21, 2016

Former St. Paul and Minneapolis Archbishop John Nienstedt has resigned from a temporary post at a Michigan church, “in light of the unintended discord that his presence was causing,” the priest at the church wrote to parishioners Thursday.

The Rev. John D. Fleckenstein, pastor at St. Philip Catholic Church in Battle Creek, said that “anger and fear” had surfaced as a result of Nienstedt’s assignment, which started just two weeks ago. Nienstedt was expected to stay about six months.

Nienstedt resigned from the Twin Cities archdiocese last June after the Ramsey County attorney’s office filed civil and criminal charges claiming that the church had failed to protect children from clergy sex abuse under his watch.

Fleckenstein informed his parishioners in a Jan. 10 church bulletin that Nienstedt would be helping him at the church as he underwent medical treatment. He did not mention Nienstedt’s controversial time in Minnesota.

The move was immediately condemned by victims of clergy abuse, and picked up by national news media.

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BATTLE CREEK (MI)
St. Philip Roman Catholic Church – via Battle Creek Enquirer

January 21, 2016

Dear members of the Battle Creek Area Catholic Community,

I wish to inform you that Archbishop John Nienstedt has decided to discontinue his pastoral assistance for St. Philip Parish, effective immediately. After discussions with the Archbishop conveying the expressed concerns by the faithful people of our community, he offered to withdraw from the diocese and I agreed. Archbishop Nienstedt has a deep concern for the Church, and in light of the unintended discord that his presence was causing, he decided that this would be the best course of action so the Church can remain focused on its mission. At the same time, the Archbishop shared with me the deep gratitude he has for the hospitality he received from so many of our parishioners.

A very regrettable circumstance of Archbishop Nienstedt’s presence within our community has been anger and fear.

I’m proud of the good works of our parishes and our Catholic schools as well as our valuable place in our community. I wish for us to continue growing and striving. My hope is that we can move forward together. I wish Archbishop Nienstedt well and I know many of you do as well. In this Jubilee Year of Mercy, as called for by Pope Francis, I pray we may find peace, support, and healing for ourselves and with each other, and that we continue to care for all people with charity.

Sincerely, Very Rev. John D. Fleckenstein, V.E. Pastor

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MICHIGAN
Roman Catholic Diocese of Kalamazoo

Dear Sisters and Brothers in Christ,

Today I write to all the faithful people in the Diocese, and in particular to the Catholic community of Battle Creek, regarding the temporary assistance that Archbishop Emeritus John Nienstedt has been offering at St. Philip Parish, while living in residence in a house on the property of St. Joseph Parish.

Archbishop Nienstedt’s presence has unintentionally brought about a sense of disunity, fear, and hurt to many of you during this brief period of time. As your spiritual father and shepherd, I regret that more than words can express. While I made every effort to ensure that there were no canonical restrictions regarding the exercise of Archbishop Nienstedt’s priestly ministry at St. Philip Parish, I should have foreseen the full impact and strong emotional reaction to his presence in the Diocese.

Even though we followed all the proper protocols (including appropriate background checks), it quickly became clear to me as the issue evolved that I had not anticipated well enough the emotional factors. I appreciate those who communicated with me about your concerns and your fears; I also am grateful to those who offered constructive criticism and feedback about this matter. I listened to each one, and I have tried to respond to many of them directly. All of your concerns made it abundantly clear to me that this situation had to be resolved immediately.

The Diocese of Kalamazoo rightfully takes great pride in the high standards and zero tolerance followed by me and established and built by my predecessors. I am very grateful to all those priests, deacons, religious sisters, and members of the laity who have worked so hard to maintain these high standards which has resulted in a very safe environment for our children and vulnerable populations, as well as the security of all our faithful people. As your Bishop that is my sacred responsibility, and I deeply regret even a momentary questioning of that safety and security. I assure you that priority remains sacred to me, and I will do my very best to maintain
that standard absolutely.

As you may know, Archbishop Nienstedt has chosen to withdraw from the Diocese effective immediately for the good of the Church which we all love. I ask God’s grace and guidance as we begin the healing process that is so important for all of us. In charity, I hope you will join me in praying for Archbishop Nienstedt.

For the hurt this situation has caused and the fears that have been raised, I am truly sorry and I ask for your forgiveness. It would never be my intention to bring harm to our beloved local Church. While I am personally convinced that at no time was anyone in any danger, I acknowledge the concerns expressed. I pray that with this matter now resolved, we will all be able to move forward. I want to regain your trust where that has been damaged or lost, and continue to strengthen our local Church here in the Diocese of Kalamazoo.

Knowing your goodness as I do, I earnestly ask that we move forward in hope together with a spirit of openness to mutually advance the mission of the Church here in this part of the Kingdom of God. Let us pray that we will receive the assistance of the Father’s grace and guidance, Jesus’ merciful love, and the Holy Spirit’s abiding Presence, along with the intercession of our Blessed Mother.

Assuring you of my constant prayers for each of you, and humbly asking for your prayers for me, I remain

Faithfully yours in Christ,
Most Rev. Paul J. Bradley
Bishop of Kalamazoo

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MICHIGAN
MLive

By Rosemary Parker | rparker3@mlive.com
on January 21, 2016

KALAMAZOO, MI – The bishop of the Diocese of Kalamazoo told Catholics today that he should have anticipated their distress at news that an archbishop embroiled in a sex scandal in Minnesota had been accepted in Battle Creek for parish work.

Archbishop John Neinstedt’s departure from this diocese was announced Thursday morning, just two weeks after his quiet arrival in Battle Creek, where he had planned to stay for six months to help the pastor there, an old friend, who is ill.

There was an immediate hue and cry from parents, community members, former clergy sex abuse victims and other who objected to Nienstedt’s move here, especially since there was only late mention of his notoriety after stories in Minnesota and Michigan detailed his history.

Nienstedt and his high-ranking clergy in the Archdiocese of Minneapolis and St Paul are accused of repeatedly ignoring warnings that went on for years about sexually abusive priests, and of failing to contact law enforcement to report possible criminal acts they knew about. He resigned from his post after the archdiocese was charged with civil and criminal complaints last summer.

In a letter distributed to priests in the Kalamazoo diocese Thursday and posted on the Diocese of Kalamazoo’s website and Facebook page, Bishop Paul Bradley wrote that he “should have foreseen the full impact and strong emotional reaction” to the presence of the archbishop.

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MICHIGAN
National Catholic Reporter

Brian Roewe | Jan. 21, 2016

Less than a month after arriving to assist at the Battle Creek, Mich., parish of a friend, Archbishop John Nienstedt has decided to leave.

Nienstedt, the former head of the St. Paul-Minneapolis archdiocese who resigned the position in June amid accusations of mishandled allegations of clergy sexual abuse, offered to assist at St. Philip Roman Catholic Church to help his friend Fr. John Fleckenstein, who has recently experienced health issues. Nienstedt arrived at the parish Jan. 6 and was expected to serve at the parish for six months. His duties included celebrating Masses and visiting the sick and homebound. The Kalamazoo diocese said last week that the archbishop passed its standards for ministry and viewed him “as a priest in good standing,” noting he was not appointed or assigned but there on a temporary basis.

In a letter dated Thursday, a copy of which the Battle Creek Enquirer published on its website, Fleckenstein informed parishioners that Nienstedt had decided to leave the parish “effective immediately.”

“After discussions with the Archbishop conveying the expressed concerns by the faithful people of our community, he offered to withdraw from the diocese and I agreed. Archbishop Nienstedt has a deep concern for the Church, and in light of the unintended discord that his presence was causing, he decided that this would be the best course of action so the Church can remain focused on its mission.” Fleckenstein wrote.

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MICHIGAN
WOOD

KALAMAZOO, Mich. (WOOD) – An archbishop formerly accused, but not charged, with covering up sexual misconduct has removed himself from a temporary position with the Diocese of Kalamazoo.

Bishop Paul Bradley wrote in a letter to parishioners that Archbishop Emeritus John Nienstedt, who was set to volunteer at St. Phillip Parish in Battle Creek, had decided to discontinue pastoral assistance due to concerns in the community.

The archbishop was supposed to volunteer in Battle Creek for about six months while Father John Fleckenstein, a priest in the parish, dealt with health issues.

Nienstedt resigned from the Archdiocese of St. Paul in Minneapolis in 2015 after receiving several accusations of a cover-up. He was never charged.

But in the letter to parishioners, Bishop Bradley wrote that even though the diocese had followed protocol and had conducted background checks, “It quickly became clear to me as the issue evolved that I had not anticipated well enough the emotional factors.”

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MICHIGAN
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Thursday, Jan. 21

Statement by Statement by Barbara Blaine of Chicago, SNAP president (312-399-4747, bblaine@snapnetwork.org)

Accused Archbishop John Nienstedt is leaving his Battle Creek Michigan post. But Catholic officials in Rome, Kalamazoo and St. Paul should have ordered him to leave. For the safety of the parishioners and the public, he should not ever be put back into ministry. Doing so would be a risky, callous move that would reward and encourage more recklessness and deceit.

[MLive]

We hope every single person who saw, suspected or suffered crimes, misdeeds or cover ups by Nienstedt or other church officials will find the strength to call police, expose wrongdoers and protect kids.

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MICHIGAN
Battle Creek Enquirer

[with copy of the letters from Rev. John Fleckenstein to parishioners and from Bishop Paul Bradley]

The controversial former Minnesota archbishop who came to Battle Creek to assist the Rev. John Fleckenstein is departing immediately, St. Philip Catholic Church parishioners were informed today.

A letter from Fleckenstein to parishioners dated Thursday said Archbishop John Nienstedt chose to leave in the face of concerns from churchgoers, and Fleckenstein agreed.

Nienstedt had resigned last summer as archbishop of the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis,10 days after the archdiocese was criminally charged for its leaders’ handling of allegations of sexual abuse by its priests. One, Curtis Wehmeyer, pleaded guilty to sexually abusing two boys and possessing child pornography; he’s serving a five-year prison sentence.

A longtime friend of Fleckenstein, Nienstadt offered to help out at St. Philip while Fleckenstein underwent health treatments. He was to serve here for six months.

Some parishioners expressed concern about the safety of children in the church in the presence of a leader who had resigned in the face of the Minnesota scandal.

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ISRAEL/AUSTRALIA
The Australian

Katherine Towers, Cameron Stewart
The Australian
January 22, 2016

Family friends of a Melbourne woman sexually molested by her school headmistress have ­accused the former principal of seeking to exploit the Israeli justice system to avoid being extradited to Australia.

A family friend of the victim, has accused serial sex offen­der Malka Leifer of manipulating a Jerusalem court and exploiting legal loopholes to avoid charges of sexually abusing female students while principal of the ultra-orthodox Adass Israel School in Melbourne.

“We know their lawyer insisted from the start she will never come to Australia,” said the friend who asked not to be named. The friend believes Ms Leifer is attempting to “exploit the justice system and foil the extradition.”

The accusations come after another failed attempt by Aus­tralian authorities to have the Jerusalem District Court hear an application to extradite Ms Leifer, a mother of eight, to Victoria on more than 70 child sex offence charges.

She is under house arrest in the ultra-orthodox enclave of Bnei Brak in central Israel after fleeing Australia in the middle of the night following revelations she had sexually abused more than eight Jewish girls at the school.

Despite extradition proceedings being launched more than 12 months ago, Ms Leifer has avoided all court hearings ­because “panic attacks” were stopping her from attending.

Lawyers for Ms Leifer have ­applied to the court to reject the application because of her mental health.

The Jerusalem District Court has heard evidence from mental health doctors claiming her panic attacks were genuine and the ­result of the extreme pressure of the court hearing.

Victim advocates have called on the court to hear the application at Ms Leifer’s home or via video link to avoid the stress of appearing in a courtroom.

The Times of Israel reported that the court has released a statement saying those options are not viable as a “hearing cannot be held in the presence of Malka Leifer … No (tranquillising pill) can help (calm her down) before a court hearing”.

Last year, one of her victims received one of Australia’s biggest payouts for such abuse when the Victorian Supreme Court awarded her more than $1.2 million.

Judge Jack Rush found the girl had been sexually abused and preyed upon by Ms Leifer from the ages of 15 to 18 at the school in Melbourne’s southeast.

He was scathing of the behaviour of school board members, whom he accused of helping to squirrel Ms Leifer out of the country.

Victoria Police launched an investigation into the action of Adass Israel School board members, who could face criminal charges for impeding an investigation.

A police spokeswoman said yesterday that the investigation “remains ongoing”.

The Israeli-based group acting for the victims says the delay in forcing Ms Leifer to return to Australia to face the charges had become “intolerable” for victims, who were angry and frustrated with the alleged delaying tactics.

Head of the Israel National Council for the Child Yitzhak Kadman warned that Israel could become a haven for Jewish paedophiles fleeing authorities in other jurisdictions if the Leifer extradition application was thrown out of court.

The Jerusalem District Court will decide on the extradition ­application next month.

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AUSTRALIA
Manny Waks

21/1/2016

​One of Malka Leifer’s courageous alleged victims has asked me to publish the following:

​I have been quiet so long – suffering in silence, reading the news, hearing the filtered, censored updates of where Malka Leifer is holding,

The day she was arrested in Israel rocked my world, in a good and difficult way. Difficult because it brought on a fresh wave of emotions and triggers and good because finally, FINALLY the Jewish Orthodox world will give validation that I and many others were horrifically abused by this smiling charismatic monster.

What can I say except that as the months roll by and the manipulative woman that us students all knew so well is playing her games again, albeit at a much higher level and with a bulldog of a lawyer by her side who vowed that she will never return to Australia.

The nightmares, constantly, the days where food does not matter, the constant flashbacks every time her name is mentioned , the shroud of secrecy because you don’t want to be ostracised for wanting justice to prevail. The copious tears and alternating feelings of utter numbness. In this case, time does not heal, time is not healing. Time is prolonging the dreadful, all-consuming pain as month after month after month of this perilous heart wrenching journey, that smiling sick woman evades justice yet again and again.

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NEW MEXICO
Gallup Independent

Published in the Gallup Independent, Gallup, N.M., Jan. 20, 2016

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

ALBUQUERQUE – If predictions by the Diocese of Gallup’s attorneys are accurate, the diocese will be filing its Chapter 11 reorganization plan in early February.

Details about the settlement agreement with clergy abuse claimants, however, are being kept under wraps.

In a status hearing Tuesday, Thomas Walker, the diocese’s Albuquerque bankruptcy attorney, told U.S. Bankruptcy Court Judge David T. Thuma that a proposed plan had been circulated last week to various parties who had participated in mediation, including unnamed “funding participants,” and the proposed plan was eliciting a number of detailed comments.

“We are hoping to get all of those back by the end of this week or the beginning of next week and put together another draft promptly,” Walker said.

Walker and Susan Boswell, the diocese’s lead bankruptcy attorney from Tucson, agreed they were hoping to file the plan the first week of February.But exactly who will be the primary funders of the plan has not been publicly revealed. Attorneys representing various parties repeatedly referred to “funding sources” throughout the hearing but did not identify them by name.

Last spring Thuma ordered 10 parties into mediation: the Gallup Diocese, the New Mexico Property and Casualty Insurance Guaranty Association, the Catholic Mutual Relief Society of America, the Catholic Relief Insurance Company of America, the Franciscan Province of St. John the Baptist in Ohio, Gallup’s Sacred Heart Cathedral, St. John the Baptist Parish in Arizona, the Catholic Peoples Foundation, St. Bonaventure Indian Mission and School and the Official Committee of Unsecured Creditors that represents the interests of clergy sex abuse claimants.

Unidentified funding sources

In Tuesday’s hearing, Boswell said there are two other funding sources that did not participate in the mediation. Copies of the settlement plan will be provided to them before the plan is filed, she said. Boswell also confirmed that two funding sources are drafting their own separate settlement agreements.

James Stang, legal counsel for the Unsecured Creditors Committee, reported to Thuma that attorneys for the committee are currently working on preparing a trust that will hold the settlement funds to be distributed. In addition, he said, they are consulting with the private attorneys who represent abuse claimants about allocation protocols for distributing the settlement funds, as well as talking to possible candidates for the position of claims reviewer.

A problem raised in a previous hearing is apparently being resolved, but once again attorneys declined to identify the funding source being discussed.

Young Kim, an attorney for Michael P. Murphy, the future claims representative, had complained to Thuma that one of the parties in the case had not been returning his calls. Because Murphy has been appointed to represent any possible abuse claimants that might come forward in the future, a fund has to be established to address such claims.

On Tuesday, Kim said he had begun talking with an attorney for that unnamed funding source. Legal issues of due diligence and the creation of a confidentiality agreement between the parties remain unresolved.

Thuma urged all the attorneys to keep focused on the diocese’s projected timeline.

“It would be great if we could get this plan on file in early February and go to a confirmation hearing in probably April and get this case behind us,” he said. “All our constituencies would be well served, so let’s try to get that to happen if we can.”

Thuma scheduled the next status hearing Feb. 2.

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UNITED KINGDOM
The Guardian

Nicola Slawson
@nicola_slawson
Thursday 21 January 2016

A leaked draft report into the BBC’s practices at the time of the Jimmy Savile scandal has revealed the full extent of the former DJ’s predatory sexual activity.

The report, published by the investigative news website Exaro and led by Dame Janet Smith, is said to include “devastating detail” of the corporation’s “sheer scale of awareness” of the late star’s activities.

The report is said to point to a “deferential culture”, “untouchable stars” and “above the law” managers at the corporation. However, the BBC cannot be criticised for failing to uncover Savile’s “sexual deviancy”, it says.

The retired judge’s report outlines multiple rapes and indecent assaults on children by Savile, which she claims were all “in some way associated with the BBC”.

A BBC spokesman said they would not be commenting as they had not yet seen the final report or the draft. He said: “We cannot confirm the authenticity or contents of the leaked report and we don’t believe Exaro has the full version.”

Smith responded to the leak on Thursday morning, saying in a statement that the “document is out of date and significant changes have been made to its contents and conclusions. The document should not have been made public and cannot be relied upon in any circumstances.

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UNITED KINGDOM
The New York Times

By KIMIKO DE FREYTAS-TAMURA
JAN. 21, 2016

LONDON — A culture of deference to “untouchable stars,” an “above the law” attitude among members of management and a climate of fear at the BBC allowed Jimmy Savile, the disgraced British television personality, to carry out sexual assaults on children for decades, according to a leaked draft of an inquiry published on Thursday.

The 500-page draft, which was published by the news website Exaro, said the inquiry had heard from many BBC employees who knew of Mr. Savile’s predatory behavior, called the broadcaster’s investigations “wholly inadequate” and raised the possibility that other pedophiles could still be at the BBC.

Dame Janet Smith, a retired judge who has been leading a three-year independent investigation on behalf of the BBC into the broadcaster’s practices during the years it employed Mr. Savile, from 1964 to 2007, said in the draft that the multiple rapes and sexual assaults committed by him were all “in some way associated with the BBC.”

The draft also said that the atmosphere regarding whistle-blowers at the BBC had worsened since the revelations about Mr. Savile, and that people were now even less likely to come
In a statement, the inquiry said that the document was out of date and that “significant changes” had been made to its contents and conclusions. The final report is expected to be released within six weeks.

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ITALIA
Rete L’Abuso

[Today is the 3rd day of a hunger strike by Diego Esposito, a victim of the priest Silverio Mura. He is not satisfied that actions has been taken by the curia against the priest.]

Oggi è il 3° giorno di sciopero della fame per Diego Esposito, vittima del sacerdote Silverio Mura, che con questa protesta civile e non violenta chiede alla curia di Napoli, a 6 anni dalla sua prima denuncia, legittime risposte sui provvedimenti presi.

Ma pare proprio che la curia di Napoli di provvedimenti non ne abbia preso proprio nessuno, come lo stesso Diego denuncia con questa sua protesta, per l’ennesima volta pare che il sacerdote sia stato nuovamente spostato in un’altra scuola, sempre a contatto con adolescenti, come quando adescò Diego alla scuola media Borsi 2 di Ponticelli.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Spiegel

[Abuse allegations: Hildesheim diocese pays money to a young woman.]

Nach den Missbrauchsvorwürfen gegen den früheren Pfarrer Peter R. zahlt das Bistum Hildesheim einer jungen Frau eine Geldsumme als Anerkennung ihres Leids.

Die damals 14-Jährige hatte im März 2010 in Hildesheim schwere Vorwürfe gegen Pfarrer R. erhoben. Er stand damals schon im Zentrum des Missbrauchsskandals am Berliner Canisius-Kolleg mit mehr als hundert Opfern. Doch das Bistum Hildesheim gab die neuen Hinweise nicht gleich an die Staatsanwaltschaft weiter (mehr zu dem Fall lesen Sie hier).

Hildesheims Bischof Norbert Trelle räumte Ende Dezember Fehler ein, wies den Vorwurf der Vertuschung aber zurück.

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FRANCE
Fdebranche

[There’s a sex abuse scandal at the Catholic school of St. Martin de Sartrouville. A teacher of 36 years was arrested Monday at his home in Chanteloup-les-Virgnes before being placed in custody in Viroflay. He is suspected of assaulting three children ages 8-1.]

Un instituteur d’une école catholique soupçonné de pédophilie

Scandale à l’école catholique Saint-Martin de Sartrouville. Un instituteur de 36 ans a été interpellé, lundi à son domicile de Chanteloup-les-Vignes, avant d’être placé en garde à vue à Viroflay. Les enquêteurs de la brigade de protection de la famille (BDPF) le soupçonnent d’avoir, durant l’année 2015, agressé trois enfants âgés de 8 et 11 ans, dont deux élèves en classe de CE 2 et CM 2 et le troisième, passé en classe de sixième, cette année.

Jeudi dernier, des parents portent plainte au commissariat de Sartrouville. Ils accusent l’enseignant d’avoir pratiqué des caresses et des fellations aux enfants. Les faits auraient eu lieu dans les parties communes de l’école à des moments où l’instituteur était seul avec les élèves. Mais aussi à son domicile.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Express

Von Christof Ernst

Bonn –
So hautnah und authentisch kann Theater sein: Am morgigen Donnerstag hat in der Werkstattbühne des Bonner Theaters das Stück „Bilder von uns“ Premiere. Es geht um den Missbrauchs-Skandal am Aloisiuskolleg in Bad Godesberg.

Das Brisante: Geschrieben hat das Drama Thomas Melle (40), der selbst 1994 an der Skandal-Schule Abitur machte. Im Mittelpunkt seines Stückes steht Jesko Drescher (Benjamin Grüter). Der ist 40 Jahre alt und rundum zufrieden – bis eines Tages ein brauner Umschlag in seinem Briefkasten liegt.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Evangelisch

[German dioceses have paid out a total of 6.4 million euros to victims of abuse.]

Mehr als 6,4 Millionen Euro haben die Bistümer laut einem Bericht in den vergangenen fünf Jahren an Opfer sexuellen Missbrauchs gezahlt. Die Deutsche Bischofskonferenz wollte die Summe nicht kommentieren.

Die Bistümer in Deutschland haben einem Zeitungsbericht zufolge in den vergangenen fünf Jahren mehr als 6,4 Millionen Euro an Opfer sexuellen Missbrauchs gezahlt. Die Summe wurde an mehr als 1.000 Antragssteller ausgegeben, wie die “Neue Osnabrücker Zeitung” (Mittwochsausgabe) unter Berufung auf eine Umfrage unter den 27 Diözesen berichtet.

Die Deutsche Bischofskonferenz wollte die Summe nicht kommentieren. Pressesprecher Matthias Kopp wies darauf hin, dass bei der zentralen Kommission bisher mehr als die von der Zeitung angegebenen 1.054 bewilligten Anträge eingegangen seien. 1650 Anträge von Missbrauchsopfern seien über die Bistümer und Ordensgemeinschaften angekommen. Die Kommission habe mehr als 95 Prozent der Anträge mit der Empfehlung zurückgegeben, eine materielle Anerkennung zu zahlen. In der Gesamtzahl der Zeitung sind mögliche Anträge bei Ordensgemeinschaften nicht enthalten.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Neue Westfalische

[The Paderborn archdiocese Paderborn has paid 352,000 Euro to victims of abuse.]

Aufklärung: Die katholische Kirche zieht nach fünf Jahren eine Zwischenbilanz

Paderborn. Das Erzbistum Paderborn hat in den vergangenen fünf Jahren rund 352.000 Euro an Missbrauchsopfer ausgezahlt. Von März 2011 bis Dezember 2015 haben 105 Personen entsprechende „Anträge auf Leistungen in Anerkennung des Leids, das Opfern sexuellen Missbrauchs zugefügt wurde”, gestellt, teilte Thomas Throenle von der Presse- und Informationsstelle im Erzbistum Paderborn nw.de auf Anfrage mit. Etwa ein Drittel der Antragsteller seien Frauen, zwei Drittel seien Männer.

Zuständig für die Anträge ist die Zentrale Koordinierungsstelle (ZKS) in Bonn, angesiedelt beim „Büro für Fragen sexuellen Missbrauchs Minderjähriger im kirchlichen Bereich” der Deutschen Bischofskonferenz. Wird in Paderborn ein Antrag eingereicht, wird er nach erster Prüfung nach Bonn weitergeleitet. Den Empfehlungen der Kommission folge das Erzbistum in der Regel, so Throenle. 62 Anträge aus Paderborn wurden der ZKS vorgelegt, 60 erkannte die Kommission an, 2 wurden abgelehnt.

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VATICAN CITY
Vatican Information Service

Vatican City, 21 January 2016 (VIS) – The Holy Father has appointed:

– Rev. Can. Marco Brunetti as bishop of Alba (area 1,050, population 157,526, Catholics 142,526, priests 137, permanent deacons 10, religious 293), Italy. The bishop-elect was born in Turin, Italy in 1962 and ordained a priest in 1987. He holds a licentiate in theology and health pastoral ministry, and has served as parish priest, member of the Presbyterium and of the national council for health pastoral ministry.

– Msgr. Giuseppe Russo, Italy, as under-secretary of the Administration of the Patrimony of the Apostolic See (APSA).

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OKLAHOMA
Tulsa World

By KYLE SCHWAB The Oklahoman

OKLAHOMA CITY – A sex offender convicted in 1995 has been charged with dozens of sex crimes against a 14-year-old girl who, investigators say, attended a religious course he taught at a Del City church.

Donnie Ray Schultz, 45, of Del City, was charged Monday in Oklahoma County District Court with 19 counts of second-degree rape, 31 counts of forcible oral sodomy, one count of manufacturing child pornography, one count of possession of obscene material involving the participation of a minor under the age of 18 and engaging in a pattern of criminal offenses in two or more counties.

Investigators reported Schultz, also known as Shultz, became friends with the girl through the bible class he taught at Calvary Christian Church and later began a sexual relationship with the girl.

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OKLAHOMA
Independent Journal

BY KAYLA BRANDON

Donnie Ray Schultz is a self-employed repairman by trade, but in his spare time, he used to volunteer as a religious teacher at an Oklahoma church.

As KFOR News reports, the 45-year-old was arrested outside his home December 18 for a crime that has since stunned the church community.

A Calvary Christian Church spokesperson tells the Oklahoman they’re in utter shock:

“While (Schultz) led a small group Bible study on church doctrine, he was one of seven members who took turns teaching the class. The class was for adults only, but apparently some participated in the class before they were eighteen. (He) was never in any paid, employee relationship with the church. He (led) the discipleship class as a volunteer.”

The victim – a teen – told investigators that Schultz would sometimes record their time together on his computer and cell phone.

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OKLAHOMA
Fox 25

BY BILL SCHAMMERT TUESDAY, JANUARY 12TH 2016

A former volunteer bible teacher at Calvary Christian Church in Del City has been charged in Oklahoma County court. Donnie Ray Schultz, 45, is facing 19 charges of second degree rape, 31 charges of forcible oral sodomy, one charge for manufacturing child pornography, one charge for possessing child pornography and one charge for a pattern of criminal offenses.

Fox 25 first told you about Schultz last month. The former registered sex offender was arrested on December 18 outside his home.

According to court documents, the alleged rapes happened to one victim between July of 2014 and August of 2015. Authorities say Schultz and the victim would engage in sexual activity in a variety of spots, including his home, the victim’s home, and other homes where Schultz was doing home repair. The victim was between 14 and 15 years old at the time of the alleged incidents.

The probable cause affidavit says the victim told police, Schultz would often use his iPhone to take pictures or video of the sexual acts.

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OKLAHOMA
Addicting Info

Yet another victim of sexual abuse can thank a church for introducing her to her assailant. The Calvary Christian Church in Del City, Oklahoma was the scene of a brainwashing that led to more than 50 counts of sexual abuse charges against 45-year-old Donnie Ray Shultz.

Shultz, who has a history of sexual abuse, was allowed to volunteer to teach a class on church doctrine, in spite of his sordid past. While the class was supposed to be for adults, a spokesman said , “apparently some participated in the class before they were eighteen.”

In this case, four years before. Even though the church was aware of Shultz’s past when he joined 19 years ago, they are still “shocked” at the allegations. The girl told police that she had intercourse with Shultz 20-30 times and engaged in oral sex several times as well. Police are investigating Shultz for the possibility that there are other victims.

You have to wonder how things like this continue to happen. The Catholic church, plagued by arrests and lawsuits over molested altar boys, still manages to let a priest or two through the cracks every now and then. People like Josh Duggar, who consider themselves to be of a higher moral fiber than the rest of us because of his relationship with Jesus, astound us with incredible acts of hypocrisy that can somehow be explained away with “a moment of weakness” and set aside because with enough prayer God forgives you.

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UNITED STATES
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

By David Clohessy

Bing Crosby’s niece, Sister Dolores Crosby, has just been “outed” as a child molester in Seattle.

[HeraldNet]

Why do we mention this?

Because abuse by nuns remains a deeply hidden part of this crisis. Because victims of predatory nuns often feel ignored and misunderstood. And because somewhere, a nun might be molesting a child today.

Remember when ultra-conservative Vatican officials picked three bishops (Peter Sartain, Leonard Blair and Thomas Paprocki) to “examine” US nuns? Here’s what we wrote to those three:

“We suspect that fewer nuns molest than priests. (Research suggests that more men are sexual predators.) At the same time, however, that’s just speculation. And regardless of the rates or percentages of abuse, two other facts are important. First, there are more nuns than priests. (55,944 nuns in the US versus 41,406 priests) Second, many more nuns had more access to more kids, largely because they worked and work in schools.

Ultimately, however, the numbers or percentages are not especially relevant. If there are 400 or 4,000 or 40,000 adults who were victimized by nuns in this country, every single one of them deserves help. And if there are 4 or 40 or 400 children who may be victimized in the future by nuns in this country, they need protection.”

Check out the link on our home page called “Abuse by Women Religious.” Or click here: http://www.snapnetwork.org/nun_abuse

We urge you to share that link with current and former Catholics you know. Together, maybe we can find and help one suffering individual who was sexually exploited by a nun or protect one vulnerable kid who might be tomorrow.

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NEW ZEALAND
New Zealand Herald

One of the child abuse victims whose story inspired Spotlight has praised the filmmakers over their handling of the sensitive subject matter.

Phil Saviano was molested by a Catholic priest as a youngster and he later helped a team of Boston Globe journalists break a story about child abuse within the church.

The 63 year old is played by actor Neal Huff in the movie, which is directed by Tom McCarthy and features an all-star cast of Mark Ruffalo, Michael Keaton, Rachel McAdams, Liev Schreiber, John Slattery, and Stanley Tucci.

Spotlight has become an awards season favourite in recent weeks.

It is tipped as a potential Best Picture winner at the upcoming Academy Awards, and Saviano is adamant the cast and crew deserve recognition for their work on behalf of abuse victims.

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NEBRASKA
Omaha World-Herald

By Michael O’Connor / World-Herald staff writer

An advocacy group for clergy abuse victims is raising concerns about the appointment of a retired bishop to a chaplain’s post in the Lincoln Diocese.

Bishop Robert Finn, convicted in Missouri of not reporting suspected child abuse, has become chaplain at the School Sisters of Christ the King convent in Lincoln.

David Clohessy, executive director of the national organization Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, said it is wrong for Finn to be serving in any ministry position.

“In any church job, Finn may well again have the chance to report or conceal child sex crimes and repeat his offense,” Clohessy said. “Why take the risk?”

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FLORIDA
TCPalm

By Lisa Broadt of TCPalm

STUART — During an era of sweeping changes, and in the face of increasing government resistance, local media must continue to fight for journalism, Washington Post Editor Marty Baron said Wednesday at Temple Beit HaYam.

Baron — one of the journalists portrayed in the Oscar-nominated film “Spotlight” — addressed more than 500 attendees during a 90-minute question-and-answer session that touched on issues including democracy and freedom of the press, and Baron’s newfound “celebrity journalist” status.

The event was moderated by Treasure Coast Newspapers Editor Mark Tomasik and included questions submitted by the audience, several of which touched on the status of Washington Post reporter Jason Rezaian, who on Saturday was freed from an Iranian prison after more than a year of confinement.

Rezaian, the Post’s Tehran bureau chief, last year was convicted of espionage in a closed-door trial, and while Post reporters and editors brought attention to Rezaian’s case and consistently advocated for his release, there was a real concern that he “could be in jail for many years,” according to Baron.

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ISRAEL
The Jerusalem Post

By HANNAH BROWN \ 01/21/2016

Directed by Tom McCarthy With Michael Keaton, Mark Ruffalo, Rachel McAdams Running time: 128 minutes Rating: R (for some language, including sexual references) Many of my colleagues at the New York Post were educated at Catholic schools and, after a few drinks, they liked to reminisce. I used to think that their stories about the cruelty of the nuns and priests were exaggerated for comic effect.

But now I wonder whether the brutal corporal punishment they described wasn’t just a small part of the abuse they endured.

The worldwide revelations of pedophilia in the Catholic Church have reached up to high levels of the Vatican in recent years.

Perhaps some people have become jaded about this issue, particularly those of us who are not Catholics and never put our faith in anyone from the Church.

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NEVADA
Las Vegas Now

By Patrick Walker | pwalker@8newsnow.com

LAS VEGAS

The fate of a former pastor, who is accused of sexually assaulting underage girls, is now in the hands of a jury.

Attorneys wrapped up closing arguments in the Otis Holland trial Wednesday evening. Jurors began deliberations shortly after 4:30 p.m

Holland is facing 17 felony counts of sexual assault and lewdness, along with misdemeanor counts of witness tampering and conspiracy to destroy evidence.

It’s taken four years for Holland to go on trial. When Holland was first charged, he fled to Mexico.

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