ABUSE TRACKER

UNITED STATES
The New Yorker

BY JOHN CASSIDY

The election of Pope Francis, in 2013, had the effect, among other things, of displacing the painful story of priestly sexual abuse that had dominated public awareness of the Church during much of the eight-year papacy of his predecessor. The sense that the Church, both during the last years of Benedict and under Francis, had begun to deal more forcefully with the issue created a desire in many, inside and outside the Church, to move on. But recent events suggest that we take another careful look at this chapter of Church history before turning the page.

During the past week, a German lawyer charged with investigating the abuse of minors in a famous Catholic boys’ choir in Bavaria revealed that two hundred and thirty-one children had been victimized over a period of decades. The attorney, Ulrich Weber, who was commissioned by the Diocese of Regensburg to conduct the inquiry, said that there were fifty credible cases of sexual abuse, along with a larger number of cases of other forms of physical abuse, from beatings to food deprivation.

The news received widespread attention not only because of its disturbing content but because the director of the Regensburg boys’ choir from 1964 to 1994 was Georg Ratzinger, the older brother of Joseph Ratzinger, who became Benedict XVI. Joseph Ratzinger was the Archbishop of Munich from 1977 until 1981, when he went to head up the powerful Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, which establishes theological orthodoxy and was also one of the branches of the Church that dealt with priestly sexual abuse.

The developments in Germany raised the question of what the two Ratzinger brothers knew about the abuse in the Regensburg choir. Most of the sexual abuse took place, apparently, at a boarding school for elementary-grade students connected to the choir. The chief culprit, according to Weber, was Johann Meier, the boarding school’s director from 1953 until 1992. The composer Franz Wittenbrink, a graduate of the school, told Der Spiegel magazine, in 2010, when the abuse scandal became public, that there was “a system of sadistic punishments connected to sexual pleasure.”

At that time, Georg Ratzinger, who was on the three-person supervisory board of the elementary school, acknowledged that some choirboys had complained about the punishments they received at the school. “But I did not have the feeling at the time that I should do something about it,” he told the Passauer Neue Presse, in 2010. “Had I known with what exaggerated fierceness he was acting, I would have said something.”

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

AUSTRALIA
ABC News

By the National Reporting Team’s Lorna Knowles
Posted January 15, 2016

A woman who was suing the Catholic Church over sexual abuse she suffered as a young child has been awarded an out-of-court settlement.

Gina Swannell was seeking damages in the NSW Supreme Court for sexual abuse she suffered when she was six years old at the hands the late Father Charles Holdsworth when she was a boarder at the St Francis Xavier school in Urana.

Last August, Ms Swannell spoke out publicly against the Church, telling the ABC the Church was failing to honour its pledge to treat sexual abuse victims with more compassion.

She now says she is happy with the settlement, but believes it would not have happened if she had not gone public.

“The apology is accepted but trust is denied,” Ms Swannell said.

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

UNITED STATES
National Catholic Reporter

Brian Roewe | Jan. 14, 2016

Two U.S. bishops who prematurely resigned their posts amid clergy sexual abuse scandals each have found new landing spots outside their previous dioceses.

A southern Michigan parish announced over the weekend that Archbishop John Nienstedt, formerly head of the St. Paul-Minneapolis archdiocese, will help out temporarily in the coming months, while Bishop Robert Finn, former head of the Kansas City-St. Joseph, Mo. diocese, began last month as chaplain for a Nebraska community of women religious.

Within the span of two months last spring, Finn, 62, and Nienstedt, 68, stepped down as shepherds of their respective dioceses, both of which teemed with anger and anguish for their church’s handling of child sexual abuse allegations. In the case of Finn, it was a 2012 misdemeanor conviction for failing to report suspected child abuse that drew a probationary sentence in civil court but no recourse from the church. For Nienstedt, his abdication, along with Auxiliary Bishop Lee Piché, came just 10 days after the Ramsey County prosecutor brought criminal charges against the archdiocese for its handling of abuse allegations.

Both Finn and Nienstedt now have new homes.

Nienstedt has agreed to assist in pastoral ministries at St. Philip Roman Catholic Church in Battle Creek, Mich., in the Kalamazoo diocese, or about two hours west of his hometown Detroit diocese. He took up residence in Battle Creek on Jan. 6.

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

ALASKA
Anchorage Press

It’s easy and tempting to say nice things about someone after he or she passes away. In the case of just-deceased Alaska Catholic Archbishop Francis Hurley, however, we hope Catholic officials are careful about overdoing it. Praising him, we in the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP) fear, rubs even more salt into the already-deep and often still-fresh wounds of hundreds of Alaskans who were sexually abused by priests during Hurley’s tenure, and thousands of parishioners who were betrayed by decisions Hurley made.

While Hurley surely accomplished much good during his career, frankly, his track record on protecting kids from predators was very poor. Evidence clearly shows that he repeatedly put children in harm’s way. In 2002, when US bishops—under extreme public pressure—finally adopted a nationwide abuse policy, Hurley argued against it. And just five years ago, he advocated returning some child-molesting clerics to ministry and relaxing the church’s already poorly-enforced “zero tolerance” policy.

Consider Fr. Timothy Crowley. He’s a priest who was removed from his Michigan parish when his church supervisors deemed him “credibly accused” of molesting a boy for eight years in the 1980s. (The Lansing diocese paid the victim $200,000.) But two years later, with little or no warning to parents, parishioners or the public, Hurley welcomed him to Alaska, housed him at Our Lady of Guadalupe church in Turnagain, and gave him a job as a spokesperson for the Archdiocese.

Or consider Archbishop Robert Sanchez. He’s the former Archbishop of Santa Fe who was accused of having sexual intercourse with at least 11 women, some of them teenagers. According to BishopAccountability.org, an independent archive of the church’s abuse crisis, Sanchez “also had extensive knowledge of the sexual abuse by priests and rarely did anything to punish or remove them.”

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

UNITED STATES
Integral Options Cafe

[NOTE: I have been actively involved in the newest Marc Gafni situation for the last two weeks, posting a lot of material on Twitter and Facebook. This post has been in process since Christmas day. I had originally written 34 pages of text, outlining each and every manipulation, episode of lying, and sexual abuse allegation. That is too much. This is likely only part one of several articles in the coming weeks.]

On December 25, 2015, The New York Times posted an article (in print, Dec. 26) called A Spiritual Leader Gains Stature, Trailed by a Troubled Past, by Mark Oppenheimer (with additional reporting from Jerusalem by Irit Pasner Garshowitz).

One of the many things missing in the NYT article, and most of the ones that have followed, is a recognition that Gafni’s pathology is not only emotional and sexual manipulation and other forms of abuse, it is also a sociopathic personality that almost hides the malignant narcissist within.

The NYT article exposed some of the controversies surrounding Gafni (which has led to the current outrage in the Jewish community and in the integral community, but in each instance allowed him to refute the allegations with no further exploration of the facts or statements by the victims. What could have been an important document revealing Gafni’s 35-year pattern of abuses–interpersonal, sexual, and control–became little more than a PR piece for him and his “think tank.”

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

UNITED STATES
Left Foot Forward

Jonathan Russell

As the captain of a cricket club, I occasionally pick young people to play in my team. Rightly, I had to be checked by the Disclosure and Barring Service to do this, and my fellow team-mates who coach our juniors have to complete additional safeguarding training. It seems fair enough to me – if parents are signing over their children to my supervision, they want to know I am accountable.

I was shocked to learn that parents who send their children to madrassahs or yeshivas are not afforded such courtesies, despite the fact that children are often under the duty of care of these institutions for more than six hours each week. Schools, or anyone who works with children for over 18 hours each week, are regulated, but these out-of-school settings are not.

The Department for Education has just closed the consultation period for new proposals to register, inspect, and, if necessary, sanction these institutions. The proposals want to protect young people from inadequate premises, unsuitable staff, poor management, corporal punishment, and the promotion of ideas that undermine British values or promote extremism. All of this is absolutely necessary in my book.

When Quilliam goes in to schools, we try to promote a ‘primary prevention’ approach. That is, not making an assessment of a child’s vulnerability or referring people to the Channel programme, but instead promoting things like human rights and critical thinking that can help everyone. However, there is little point in promoting such positive measures, unless we can guarantee a minimum standard for all young people that ensures they are safe when being educated. I am adamant that this must go for out-of-school settings as much as schools and colleges.

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

UNITED STATES
Boston.com

By Bryanna Cappadona @brycappa
Boston.com Staff | 01.14.16

Oscar nominations came in Thursday morning in Beverly Hills, announced by Newton-bred actor John Krasinski, Academy President Cheryl Boone Isaacs, and filmmakers Guillermo del Toro and Ang Lee.

As for main takeaways: Spotlight received six nominations, including Best Picture, Best Supporting Actress for Rachel McAdams, Best Supporting Actor for Mark Ruffalo, Best Director for Tom McCarthy, Best Original Screenplay, and Best Film Editing.

The Martian received seven nominations, including Best Picture, Best Actor for Matt Damon, and Best Adapted Screenplay.

The Revenant led with the most nominations, 12, and Max Max: Fury Road got 10.

The 88th Academy Awards air February 28 at 8:30 p.m. on ABC. Below, see the full list of nominees:

Best Picture
The Big Short
Bridge of Spies
Brooklyn
Mad Max: Fury Road
The Martian
The Revenant
Room
Spotlight

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VATICAN CITY
Vatican Information Service

Vatican City, 14 January 2016 (VIS) – The Holy Father has appointed:

– accepted the resignation from the pastoral care of the diocese of Mannar, Sri Lanka presented by Bishop Rayappu Joseph upon reaching the age limit. He appointed Bishop Joseph Kingsley Swampillai, emeritus of Trincomalee, Sri Lanka, as apostolic administrator of the same diocese.

– given his assent to the canonical election by the Synod of Bishops of the Greek-Catholic Ukrainian Church of Fr. Volodymyr Hrutsa, C.Ss.R., as auxiliary bishop of Lviv (area 3,767, population 1,067,200, Catholics 730,525, priests 468, permanent deacons 4, religious 513), Ukraine. The bishop-elect was born in Dobromyl, Ukraine in 1976, gave his religious vows in 2000 and was ordained a priest in 2001. He holds a doctorate in dogmatic theology from the University of Innsbruck, Austria and has served in a number of roles within his congregation, including director of studies of the Province of Lviv and master of novices of the same province, and lecturer of dogmatic theology at the Catholic University of Ukraine, the major seminary of Lviv and the seminary of Basilian fathers in Bryukhovychi.

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

UNITED STATES
Boston Globe

By Ty Burr GLOBE STAFF JANUARY 14, 2016

The nominations for the 88th annual Academy Awards are in, and Oscar is smiling upon Leonardo DiCaprio and “The Revenant.” The grueling historical epic was nominated for 12 Academy Awards, including best picture, actor, and director (Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu). “Spotlight,” the acclaimed drama about the Boston Globe’s reporting of the Catholic Church clergy abuse scandal, was nominated for best picture, director (Tom McCarthy), original screenplay, editing, and for the supporting performances by Mark Ruffalo and Rachel McAdams.

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

MICHIGAN
MLive

By Rosemary Parker | rparker3@mlive.com
on January 14, 2016

KALAMAZOO, MI — A Roman Catholic archbishop who was accused of failing to protect children from sexual abuse and resigned in the wake of the civil and criminal charges against his archdiocese of Minneapolis has taken on new work, assisting at St. Philip parish in Battle Creek.

A spokesperson for the Diocese of Kalamazoo confirmed Wednesday that Archbishop Emeritus John C. Nienstedt arrived at the Battle Creek parish Jan.6.

Just a few weeks earlier, the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis signed a 28-page settlement agreement that ended a civil lawsuit brought against the Roman Catholic archdiocese by three victims of sexual abuse by a priest. The lawsuit, and related criminal charges, were the first in the country ever launched against an archdiocese for complicity in sex abuse cases.

Criminal charges accusing the archdiocese of repeatedly ignoring complaints of priestly misconduct are still pending. The priest convicted in 2013 of molesting boys is now in prison.

Nienstedt, the imprisoned priest’s former boss, “has volunteered to assist temporarily the pastor of St. Philip Parish in Battle Creek in light of the pastor’s ongoing serious health challenges,” the statement from the Kalamazoo Diocese said.

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

GERMANY
Christian Today

Shianee Mamanglu-Regala 14 January 2016

More than 200 children at a famous choir school in Germany run by the brother of Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI fell victim to physical and sexual abuse, an ongoing investigation into the decades-long Catholic Church scandal revealed.

The investigation is centred on the Domspatzen, the official choir at the Regensburg Central dedicated to St. Peter in Bavaria state, and two feeder schools between 1953 and 1992.

Investigators received additional allegations of sexual and physical assault by priests on the members of the boys choir, according to Ulrich Weber, a lawyer hired by the church to look into the scandal.

Weber told a news conference in Berlin last week that at least 50 of the 231 alleged victims made “plausible” claims of sexual abuse.

The alleged sexual abuse encompassed offences such as fondling and rape, while the reported physical abuse included beatings and the withholding of food. He said the victims named 10 perpetrators, Agence France-Presse reported.

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

OKLAHOMA
The Free Thinker

An Oklahoma Bible study leader charged with dozens of sex crimes against a 14-year- old girl had form as a sex offender before joining the Calvary Christian Church in Del City, Oklahoma.

According to this report, Donnie Ray Schultz, 45, above, faces more than 50 charges for rape and “forcible oral sodomy”, along with counts of making and possessing child pornography.

Calvary spokesman Jason Sharp, a spokesman for the church, said the allegations came as:

A complete 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 added that Schultz was never in any paid, employee relationship with the church. He led the discipleship class as a volunteer.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Western Daily Press

A clergyman who was recently acquitted of four counts of sexual assault has thanked the community for their “incredible” support during the past 18 months.

At a hearing on Wednesday, January 6, at Bournemouth Crown Court, Judge Roberts ordered that a not guilty verdict should be entered after the prosecution offered no evidence in the case of Roy Catchpole, 69, of Milborne Port.

A spokeswoman for the Crown Prosecution Service said: “We had to offer no evidence as we were not going to pursue with a prosecution and in order to end the proceedings.”

Following the not guilty order, Mr Catchpole expressed his relief that the ordeal of the past 18 months was now over.

He said: “Throughout the process I have been aware that the wider public in Sherborne and surrounding area have been incredibly supportive. I have been nobly served by barristers whose energies have been directed to getting at the truth and delivering justice.

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

RHODE ISLAND
NBC 10

BY ADAM BAGNI, NBC 10 NEWS WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 13TH 2016

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — Alleged victims are continuing to call for the resignation of the headmaster at St. George’s School, even as the school announced a new independent investigator earlier this week.

The elite Middletown prep school is currently engulfed in a major sex abuse scandal.

Attorneys for the alleged victims say more than 40 people have told them they were sexually assaulted at St. George’s.

Of the three that have spoken publicly, all of them want the resignation of headmaster Eric Peterson.

“Eric Peterson has been covering this up since 2004 – my issue, as well as others,” said alleged victim Harry Groome.

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

FLORIDA
Action News Jax

[with video]

By Samantha Manning

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — Evangel Temple said it wants a full police investigation into claims a church member sexually assaulted children decades ago in St. Louis.

Roy Bay, 56, made the claims publicly Tuesday during a Jacksonville City Council meeting on the human rights ordinance, which he was speaking out against.

The expansion of the HRO would offer protections for the LGBT community in housing, employment and public accommodations.

“At the age of 10 to 12 years old, I was in restrooms, businesses, and I was sexually assaulted by the homosexual community,” Bay said to City Council.

Bay then spoke exclusively with Action News Jax about his claims. – See more at:

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TEXAS
Fox 28

[with statement from Trinity Fellowship Church]

BY BROOKE SELF WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 13TH 2016

AMARILLO, Texas (KVII) — A lawsuit is being filed against Trinity Fellowship Church in Amarillo — one of the largest churches in West Texas — over accusations that one of the volunteer pastors molested a girl.

The lawsuit is being filed by the law firm of Glasheen, Valles & Inderman, LLP on behalf of the child. The suit alleges the girl was subjected to sexual abuse by a volunteer youth group leader at the church.

In a statement provided by Trinity Fellowship Church the church stated that Randy Castillo served as an occasional volunteer in the Children’s Ministry from October 2012 to July 2014. They said Castillo was not, at any time, employed by the church, given the title of Pastor, or even referred to as such.

TFC said Castillo occasionally served on the volunteer team, where he worked with 4-year-olds in the early childhood ministry. He also served at the summer camp for 1st through 4th graders in 2014.

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

AUSTRALIA
Newcastle Herald

By JOANNE MCCARTHY
Jan. 14, 2016

THE Federal Government will announce whether it supports a national compensation and support scheme for survivors of historic child sexual abuse before the end of January.

Social Services Minister Christian Porter’s office has confirmed the government’s response to the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse recommendation for a national redress scheme is due in two weeks.

The commission proposed a $4.3 billion national scheme funded by institutions, including churches, responsible for the sexual abuse of children, and state and federal governments, with the scheme administered and underwritten by the federal government.

The scheme would treat all survivors equally, with compensation between $10,000 and $200,000, along with long term counselling and psychological care.

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CANADA
CBC News

By Terry Roberts, CBC News Posted: Jan 14, 2016

Allegations of abuse involving two members of the Jehovah’s Witness religious movement in Newfoundland have emerged, though details of the charges are protected by a court-ordered publication ban.

CBC News has learned that two men, including a former volunteer church elder and his son, are facing charges.

The former elder is charged with sexual assault and sexual exploitation relating to allegations dating from 2009 to 2012 in central Newfoundland.

According to court documents, a second man is charged with sexual assault, with the information referencing a period between May 2011 and December 2013 in a community on the Avalon Peninsula.

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

TEXAS
NewsWest9

[with video]

By Julia Deng

WINKLER COUNTY, TX (KWES) –
A lawsuit seeking $50 million in damages for “severe psychological pain and mental anguish” was filed Wednesday in Winkler County against an Amarillo church, claiming members kept quiet about molestation involving a former volunteer pastor.

Kermit resident Randy Steven Castillo, 28, was arrested in January 2015, Amarillo Police said, after an adult discovered inappropriate text messages he sent to a minor.

He reportedly met the unidentified girl while volunteering at Trinity Fellowship Church on Hollywood Road in Amarillo, authorities said.

“We sued Trinity Church because we have learned the church had information about ‘Pastor Randy’ asking junior high-aged girls for nude pictures,” said Kevin Glasheen, the anonymous plaintiff’s Lubbock-based attorney. “You could see that in their internal emails.”

Church members who were made aware of the inappropriate correspondence never alerted law enforcement or parents of the children, according to the lawsuit.

Failing to report child abuse is a crime in Texas. However, Castillo’s colleagues and supervisors at Trinity Fellowship Church were not arrested or charged.

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

FLORIDA
Action News Jax

[with video]

By Jenna Bourne

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — A Westside pastor faced his congregation for the first time since a member and former employee of his church made a disturbing confession at a Jacksonville City Council meeting Tuesday night.

Roy Bay said he molested boys for years in St. Louis public bathrooms as he was speaking out against an expansion of Jacksonville’s human rights ordinance to include the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community.

More than 200 churchgoers streamed through Evangel Temple’s doors Wednesday night.
Bay was one of them.

Action News Jax’s cameras were not allowed inside the church, although the church leadership welcomed our crew to attend the service and observe.

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NEW YORK
Utica Observer-Dispatch

By Micaela Parker

Under the gaze of church members, Lucas Leonard and Christopher Leonard were told to repent for their sins.

The teens stood in the small sanctuary of Word of Life Christian Church on the evening of Oct. 11.

Lucas, 19, already had been confronted during a service that day about his desire to leave the Chadwicks church, new court documents allege, but questioning took a different tone during the beatings that ultimately would result in the death of Lucas and severe injury to his 17-year-old brother Christopher.

Nine people are accused of varying degrees of involvement in the 14-hour counseling session that spanned the evening of Oct. 11 into the morning of Oct. 12. Of those nine defendants, one has accepted a plea offer from the Oneida County District Attorney’s Office while five, as of Wednesday, have rejected their offers.

The session, led by Pastor Tiffanie Irwin, focused on a number of allegations she made into the teens’ conduct, according to court documents obtained from the county District Attorney’s Office by the Observer-Dispatch via a Freedom of Information Act request.

Utilizing her authority within the church, something that includes congregants’ belief that she was a prophet, the documents allege that she accused the teens, who were barred from leaving of having sexually abused numerous minors, several of whom have family ties to the teens; having fantasized about engaging in sexual relations with the pastor; having practiced witchcraft; and having planned and/or taken initial steps to kill their parents.

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MINNESOTA
Fox 17

ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP/WXMI) — The former archbishop of the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis has a new post, in Michigan.

Former Archbishop John Nienstedt will help a pastor in Battle Creek, Michigan, as the pastor undergoes treatment for epilepsy.

The Star Tribune reports Nienstedt’s arrival was announced in the Sunday bulletin at St. Philip Roman Catholic Church.

The Rev. John Fleckenstein wrote that Nienstedt will help him and other priests until the summer. Fleckenstein says Nienstedt has not been formally assigned to the parish.

Nienstedt resigned from the Twin Cities archdiocese in June after the Ramsey County Attorney’s offices filed civil and criminal charges claiming that the church had failed to protect children from clergy sex abuse.

The Diocese of Kalamazoo wrote in a statement: “The Diocese of Kalamazoo is committed to providing safe environments for all people. As is the case for any priest or bishop ministering in the Diocese, Archbishop Emeritus Nienstedt begins his temporary ministry at St. Philip Parish as a priest in good standing, having met the Church’s stringent standards required to attain that status. As such he is welcome in the Diocese of Kalamazoo for the several months that he will be available to offer supplemental sacramental ministry to the people of St. Philip Parish.”

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UNITED STATES
Forward

No matter what happens at the Oscars, the very best film of 2015 was “Spotlight,” the improbable drama of how a team of newspaper reporters painstakingly revealed an institutional cover-up of child sexual abuse in the Catholic Church. The film’s excellence lay not only in its superb acting and storytelling, but in the way it humanized without sensationalizing the lasting pain of child abuse.

Who can forget the scene of a tough Bostonian recounting how a priest molested him when he was a vulnerable youngster? His confusion, embarrassment and shame were laid bare on the screen before us, allowing us to viscerally understand how it can take years for a young victim to comprehend what happened and to muster the courage to challenge a figure of religious authority.

That image needs to remain in our sights, alongside the images of the young men the Forward wrote about in 2012 and 2013 who bravely stepped up to reveal the abuse they suffered at the hands of esteemed rabbis at Yeshiva University High School for Boys.

And it should remain alongside the stunning essay by Sara Kabakov published in this week’s Forward, where she for the first time detailed how she was repeatedly molested in her home by the former rabbi and spiritual guru Marc Gafni when she was only a teenager and he was a rabbinical student.

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

MICHIGAN
WIN

Wednesday, January 13, 2016 by John McNeill

KALAMAZOO/BATTLE CREEK (WKZO) — A controversial former Archbishop who resigned from his position in St. Paul-Minneapolis after allegations involving sexual abuse by priests has been reassigned to work with the pastor of St. Phillip Roman Catholic Church in Battle Creek.

Archbishop John Nienstedt resigned last June after the local prosecutors filed criminal and civil charges that the church had failed to protect children from clergy sex abuse.

The national director of SNAP, Survivors Network of those abused by Priests, David Clohessy tells WKZO news that there are allegations that Nienstadt himself has sexually exploited seminarians. He was cleared of allegations of abusing a young boy, but his diocese was charged with hiding a predator priest.

Clohessy asks if any other employer would retain an employee with such a work history, and reassign him to a post where he is sure to come into contact with children? He calls it an outrage.

Clohessy says it’s part of a pattern, alleging the church still rigorously protects anyone who wears a collar despite promises of reform.

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

MICHIGAN
WWMT

KALAMAZOO, Mich. (NEWSCHANNEL 3) – A Catholic official accused of sexual misconduct and covering child sex crimes has been hired by the Kalamazoo diocese.

Newschannel 3 spoke to a group raising awareness on Wednesday, and got reaction from the Catholic Diocese of Kalamazoo.

There are no formal charges against a new assistant priest in the Battle Creek area, but there was an investigation into cover-up and alleged sexual abuse during his last leadership role.

Some say it’s important for the community in West Michigan to know.

It was Sunday’s newsletter at St. Philip Roman Catholic Church in Battle Creek, that welcomed new assistant priest John Nienstedt.

“Shouldn’t your community have been made aware of his past? Of his history?” asked Barbara Dorris, from the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests.

Nienstedt retired from his last role as Archbishop in Minneapolis, but SNAP, an awareness group, says he was forced out in the wake of a criminal investigation.

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

AUSTRALIA
Gold Coast Bulletin

[with video]

AUSTRALIA will know in two weeks whether it will have a national compensation scheme for survivors of shocking abuse in orphanages, children’s homes and other institutions.

A spokesman for Social Services Minister Christian Porter has confirmed to AAP that an announcement – the federal response to a royal commission recommendation for a national redress scheme – will be made by the end of January.

He declined to comment on whether the Turnbull government would back the $4.3 billion proposal, rejected as too complex and expensive when Tony Abbott was in power, but expectations are high the go-ahead for a single national scheme will be given.

Since the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse made final redress recommendations six months ago, tens of thousands of abuse survivors – as well as state and faith-based institutions who could have to collectively contribute billions of dollars – are anxiously awaiting federal direction.

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

MINNESOTA
Press TV (Iran)

A high ranking catholic priest in the US state of Minnesota, who was forced to resign after clergy in his church were charged with sexual abuse, has been appointed assistant priest at a church in Michigan state.

Saint Philip Roman Catholic church in Kalamazoo announced this week that it had appointed John Nienstedt, the former archbishop of St Paul and Minneapolis, to assist the parish while its head pastor dealt with medical issues.

Nienstedt resigned in June 2015, days after Ramsey County attorney John Choi filed criminal and civil charges against the archdiocese.

Choi had alleged that the archdiocese “time and time again turned a blind eye” to sex abuse by the clergy. It was the first time a US archdiocese had faced sex abuse charges in the past ten years.

The criminal charges are pending at the Ramsey County civil court.

The Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests (Snap) called on Pope Francis to reverse the decision and asked Michigan bishops to denounce Nienstedt’s appointment.

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ROME
National Catholic Register

by Edward Pentin 01/13/2016

Cardinal Oscar Rodriguez Maradiaga has confirmed the presence of a homosexual “lobby” in the Vatican and revealed that Pope Francis is trying “little by little to purify it.”

The Honduran Archbishop of Tegucigalpa, who coordinates the Council of Nine cardinals advising the Pope on reform of the Roman Curia and Church governance, was responding to a question from a Honduran newspaper reporter who asked him whether there had been “an attempt to infiltrate the gay community in the Vatican, or a moment when that had actually happened?”

Cardinal Rodriguez replied: “Not only that, also the Pope has said there is even a ‘lobby’ in this sense. Little by little the Pope is trying to purify it.” He added: “One can understand them [members of the lobby] and there is pastoral legislation to attend to them, but what is wrong cannot be truth.”

The Pope acknowledged the presence of a homosexual network of priests at the Vatican during a private conversation with leaders of a Latin American confederation of religious in June 2013. In the context of saying he found reform of the Roman Curia difficult, the Pope said: “The ‘gay lobby’ is mentioned, and it is true, it is there … We need to see what we can do.”

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MICHIGAN
WOOD

[with video]

BATTLE CREEK, Mich. (WOOD) — A Catholic official accused of covering up sexual misconduct will start working at St. Philip Parish in Battle Creek.

According to the Diocese of Kalamazoo, Archbishop Emeritus John Nienstedt volunteered to help Father John, who has ‘ongoing serious health challenges.’ The Diocese of Kalamazoo said Nienstedt moved to Battle Creek on Jan. 6. He’s expected to stay in Battle Creek for approximately six months.

Nienstedt resigned from the Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis last year after several accusations and charges of covering up sexual misconduct surfaced. The Minneapolis Star Tribune reported Nienstedt’s archdiocese became first in the nation to be charged with failure to “protect children.”

“One of the priests in his archdiocese in Minneapolis is in prison now for molesting kids in that diocese and he concealed that. This is the first archdiocese to have criminal charges against them for concealing child sex abuse. As a result of that, he resigned from that archdiocese,” said Bill McAlary, a Michigan leader of Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests.

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MINNESOTA/MICHIGAN
The Guardian (UK)

Amanda Holpuch in New York
@holpuch
Wednesday 13 January 2016

A Minnesota archbishop who was forced to resign when his diocese faced criminal and civil charges related to sexual abuse by clergy has been appointed assistant priest at a church in Michigan.

Saint Philip Roman Catholic church in Kalamazoo announced this week that it had appointed former St Paul and Minneapolis archbishop John Nienstedt to assist the parish while its head pastor dealt with medical issues.

Nienstedt resigned in June 2015, days after Ramsey County attorney John Choi filed criminal and civil charges against the archdiocese. Choi alleged at the time that the archdiocese “time and time again turned a blind eye” to clerical sex abuse. It was the first time a US archdiocese had faced such charges in a decade.

The civil suit was settled in December, but the criminal charges are pending in county court.

Pastor John Fleckenstein of Saint Philip Roman Catholic church in Battle Creek, Michigan, announced that Nienstedt would be assisting him in a church bulletin on 10 January.

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UNITED STATES
The Raw Story

DAVID EDWARDS
13 JAN 2016

A longtime evangelical mentor of the Duggar family responded to ten women who have accused him of sexual abuse by admitting that he had taken “ungodly and sinful” actions, but denied that he had committed any sexual crimes.

Earlier this month, a lawsuit filed by ten women accused Bill Gothard, founder of Institute in Basic Life Principles (IBLP), of rape, sexual abuse and harassment.

“Oh no. Never never. Oh! That’s horrible,” Gothard told The Washington Post at the time. “Never in my life have I touched a girl sexually. I’m shocked to even hear that.”

In a document titled “A Further Confession And Request,” which was obtained published by Radar Online this week, Gothard said that God had recently “revealed” to him “the gravity of my words and actions.”

The faith leader observed that he had wrongly selected “certain types of young people, especially young women, to serve at Headquarters, often as my personal assistants.”

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MINNESOTA
KSTP

Jennie Lissarrague
Updated: 01/13/2016

A lawsuit was filed Wednesday on behalf of a woman who said she was sexually abused by a Minnesota priest.

The law firm Attorney Jeff Anderson and Associates says Father Othmar Hohmann worked in several Minnesota dioceses, including the Diocese of St. Cloud, the Diocese of Duluth and the Diocese of Crookston in addition to churches in other states.

The lawsuit, which was filed in Stearns County, claims Hohmann repeatedly abused a young girl from 1961-1966. The young girl is now an adult.

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NEDERLAND
NRC

[A pastor was sentenced to three years in jail for sexually abusing a 15-year-old girl.]

Sjoerd Klumpenaar 13 januari 2016

Tegen een dominee die werkte in het Zuid-Hollandse Oud-Beijerland is woensdag drie jaar cel geëist, waarvan een half jaar voorwaardelijk. Dat meldt RTV Rijnmond. De 46-jarige man uit Streefkerk zou tussen 2009 en 2012 een meisje misbruikt hebben, terwijl hij werkte als haar vertrouwenspersoon.

Naast de celstraf wordt de verdachte onder toezicht gesteld van de reclassering en er zou tevens een schadevergoeding zijn geëist.

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ALEMANIA
RT

Un abogado de la Iglesia sostiene que el número de niños víctimas de abusos en el coro dirigido por el hermano del Papa emérito Benedicto en Ratisbona asciende a 231.

Ulrich Weber, un abogado contratado por la Iglesia católica, ha revelado nuevos casos de abusos de menores en el coro dirigido durante 30 años por el hermano mayor del Papa Benedicto XVI. La revelación se produce en el marco de su investigación sobre el escándalo en torno a Domspatzen, el coro oficial de la Catedral de Pedro en Baviera, Alemania.

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UNITED STATES
Catholic Whistleblowers

January 4, 2016
Cardinal Marc Ouellet, P.S.S.
Prefect, Congregation for Bishops
00120 Vatican City State
Europe

Re.: Request that the Congregation for Bishops investigate the behavior the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) for possible violations of canons 1389 and 1399 of the Code of Canon Law within the context of clergy sexual abuse of minors and vulnerable adults.

Dear Cardinal Ouellet,

We, members of the Catholic Whistleblowers Steering Committee, recognize our duty and our right to bring to your attention the request presented above because it involves the good of the Catholic Church and the good of the society at-large.

Summary of our concern

Why would the USCCB establish a commitment to Zero Tolerance and then work against its own commitment? What motivates such behavior?

The USCCB is to advance efforts that further the protection of minors and vulnerable adults from sexual abuse within the Church. The bishops commit to this as it applies to priests and deacons by saying: “Diocesan / eparchial policy is to provide that for even a single act of sexual abuse of a minor – whenever it occurred – which is admitted or established after an appropriate process in accord with canon law, the offending priest or deacon is to be permanently removed from ministry and, if warranted, dismissed from the clerical state.”1 This establishes Zero Tolerance as a USCCB policy.

1 See Article 5 of the Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People. Also see Norm #8 of the related Essential Norms.

However, in a deliberate and ongoing way, the USCCB reneges on its commitment. The Conference does not exercise the leadership necessary to assure that known sexually abusive priests and deacons are removed from the community and that the community is warned about the sexually abusive priests and deacons.

Three stunning realities focus our concern and explain the need for an investigation by the Congregation for Bishops into the behavior of the USCCB.

First, Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI changed the statute of limitations (prescription, as it is called in the Code of Canon Law) in the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) so that in effect cases of sexual abuse of a minor or of a vulnerable adult by a priest or a deacon cannot be barred from a Church court because of a failure to report the abuse within a prescribed time frame. Moreover, canon law provides that such cases can address both the crime of sexual abuse of a minor or of a vulnerable adult as well as the reparation for damages that result from the crime.

Furthermore, at various times state legislators have attempted to bring about changes to their state’s statute of limitations for criminal and civil actions in cases of child sexual abuse. The USCCB and its member bishops should follow the example of Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI by working to change the states’ statutes of limitations. It’s about protecting minors and vulnerable adults from sexual abuse, and about protecting their moral right to reparation. More details on this point are presented later in this letter.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Domradio

Erklärung des Aloisiuskollegs

[Aloisiuskolleg, a Jesuit school in Bonn, along with a victims group on Wednesday published a declaration that admitts sexual assault by Jesuits and other staff going back to the 1950s and also spoke of failure of the institution for looking away and not listening.]

Sechs Jahre nach Bekanntwerden der Missbrauchsfälle hat das Bonner Jesuiten-Gymnasium Aloisiuskolleg (AKO) eine Erklärung erarbeitet – gemeinsam mit der Opfergruppe “Eckiger Tisch Bonn” und der Bonner Beratungsstelle für sexualisierte Gewalt.

Das am Mittwoch veröffentlichte Dokument benennt nicht nur die Übergriffe durch Jesuitenpatres und andere Kollegsmitarbeiter seit den 1950er Jahren, sondern spricht auch vom “Versagen der Institution” durch “Wegsehen und Weghören”. Der “Eckige Tisch Bonn” begrüßte die Erklärung “als absolutes Novum im Umgang mit sexuellem Missbrauch an katholischen Einrichtungen in Deutschland”. Das Kolleg habe erkannt, dass die katholische Kirche, ihre Orden und Schulen nicht einseitig festlegen könnten, was wirkliche Aufarbeitung bedeute.

Zu jedem Zeitpunkt habe es in Schule, Internat und mit dem AKO verbundenen Institutionen Verantwortliche gegeben, die Vorwürfen nicht nachgegangen seien, so das Papier. “Wir haben von den Betroffenen gelernt, dass für sie das Versagen der Institution ein entscheidender Teil des Missbrauchs war und ist.”

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MINNESOTA
Minnesota Public Radio

Peter Cox Jan 13, 2016

Archbishop John Nienstedt, who stepped down in June as head of the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis, has taken on a temporary pastoral role at a church in Battle Creek, Mich.

Nienstedt resigned the Twin Cities post after Ramsey County prosecutors charged the

The charge followed two years of revelations about the failure of the archdiocese to protect children from sexual abuse at the hands of clergy. Nienstedt, who served eight years as Twin Cities archbishop, admitted no mistakes in his resignation letter.

David Clohessy, director of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, or SNAP, said Nienstedt should’ve been defrocked, not reassigned.

“This move sends precisely the wrong message to Catholic employees,” he said. “The message it sends is, no matter how severe your wrongdoing is, you’ll always have a job in the Catholic Church.”

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MINNESOTA
WJON

By Lee Voss January 13, 2016

ST. CLOUD — A woman alleging she was abused by a Catholic priest at the Church of St. Joseph in the early 1960’s has filed a lawsuit. Jane Doe 115 has filed suit against the St. Cloud Diocese, Order of St. Benedict and Church of St. Joseph.

The woman is claiming multiple incidents of abuse at the hands of the late Father Othmar Hohmann between 1961-1966 when she was 11-16 years-old.

Attorney Mike Bryant says the lawsuit is to provide financial relief to the victim, get all of the files on accused priests released and to encourage other victims to come forward.

Father Hohmann worked at churches in Stearns County, Crookston and Duluth. He died in 1980.

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MINNESOTA/MICHIGAN
CBS Minnesota

MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) — Archbishop John Nienstedt, who resigned from the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis after it was charged with failing to protect children from a priest convicted of child sex abuse, is moving out of Minnesota.

In a bulletin posted by the St. Philip Roman Catholic Church in Battle Creek, Michigan on Jan. 10, church officials say Nienstedt will be serving as an assistant priest at the parish – located in the Diocese of Kalamazoo.

The church says Nienstedt volunteered to temporarily assist the pastor of the parish in light of the pastor’s serious health challenges. Nienstedt took up a temporary residence in Battle Creek on Jan. 6, 2016.

“The Diocese of Kalamazoo is committed to providing safe environments for all people,” the church said. “As is the case for any priest or bishop ministering in the Diocese, Archbishop Emeritus Nienstedt begins his temporary ministry at St. Philip Parish as a priest in good standing, having met the Church’s stringent standards required to attain that status. As such he is welcome in the Diocese of Kalamazoo for the several months that he will be available to offer supplemental sacramental ministry to the people of St. Philip Parish.”

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MINNESOTA
Pioneer Press

Elizabeth Mohr
emohr@pioneerpress.com
POSTED: 01/13/2016

Seven months after embattled Archbishop John Nienstedt announced his resignation from the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis, a church in Michigan has announced he will be joining them as an assistant pastor on a temporary basis.

The announcement came Sunday, on Page 2 of the weekly bulletin for St. Philip Roman Catholic Church in Battle Creek, Mich.

The church’s pastor, Fr. John Fleckenstein, noted Nienstedt’s move midway through a memo written for parishioners, saying he’s known Nienstedt for about 20 years and that Nienstedt “will be joining us to assist in various pastoral ministries during this time.”

Fleckenstein said Nienstedt will remain in the St. Philip parish for about six months because the pastor needs help while he navigates health issues and while he takes time to “complete a couple of major projects for the Diocese in my role as Episcopal Vicar for Education.”

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MINNESOTA
St. Cloud Times

Sam Louwagie, slouwagie@stcloudtimes.com
January 13, 2016

WAITE PARK — A deceased priest with the Diocese of St. Cloud has been accused of sexually abusing a teenage girl more than 50 years ago.

Othmar Hohmann was a monk of St. John’s Abbey, and served as a pastor at St. Boniface Church in Cold Spring, Immaculate Conception Church in New Munich, and the Church of St. Joseph in St. Joseph. He retired to St. John’s Abbey in 1975, and died in 1980.

According to a lawsuit filed Wednesday in Stearns County, Hohmann had “unpermitted sexual contact” with a girl on multiple occasions between 1961 and 1966, while he was a pastor at the Church of St. Joseph. The girl was approximately 11-16 years old during that time. The Diocese of St. Cloud, St. John’s Abbey and St. Joseph Parish are named as defendants in the suit.

Hohmann moved between parishes 12 times before that time, serving in the Bahamas, North Dakota, Utah and Colorado in addition to Minnesota. Mike Bryant, attorney at Bradshaw & Bryant, said clergy moving around that often has historically indicated patterns of abuse.

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MINNESOTA/MICHIGAN
Star Tribune

By Jean Hopfensperger Star Tribune JANUARY 13, 2016

Former Archbishop John Nienstedt’s next post is in Battle Creek, Mich., where he will help the pastor of St. Philip Roman Catholic Church.

St. Philip’s pastor announced Neinstedt’s arrival in the Sunday bulletin. Nienstedt resigned from the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis in June after the Ramsey County attorney’s offices filed civil and criminal charges claiming that the church had failed to protect children from clergy sex abuse.

The Rev. John Fleckenstein wrote that Nienstedt will help him and other priests in the parish with various duties until the summer. He has not been formally assigned to the parish, he said.

“He will celebrate some of the weekend and weekday Masses, visit the sick in the hospital, visit the sick and homebound, and celebrate Mass for the nursing home and assisted living facilities. He will also celebrate some Masses on Sundays around the Diocese when there is a priest who needs to be away,” Fleckenstein wrote.

Fleckenstein said he is undergoing treatment for epilepsy at the Mayo Clinic and expected to be hospitalized in the Epilepsy Monitoring Unit.

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MINNESOTA/MICHIGAN
The Worthy Adversary

Posted by Joelle Casteix on January 13, 2016

What do you do with a disgraced bishop, whose involvement in the cover-up of child sexual abuse led to his being forced out (as well as a bankruptcy for his Archdiocese and criminal charges against the organization)? Put him in a parish, apparently.

Yesterday, former St. Paul and Minneapolis Chancellor (and whistleblower) Jennifer Haselberger published the parish bulletin from St. Philip Catholic Church in Battle Creek, Michigan.

John Nienstedt is going to be their new fill-in parish priest. What does this say to the faithful at that parish? We hope you don’t notice, but we are passing our trash to you. We know you go to church for spiritual growth and healing, but we hope you can just “forgive” the fact that we stuck you with a guy who covered-up sex abuse, has been accused himself, and who led his archdiocese down a criminal path of disaster.

In fact, I bet that Kalamazoo Bishop Paul Bradley and Twin Cities Archbishop Bernard Hebda are going to use the rhetorical device of “forgiveness” to shame Battle Creek Catholics into accepting Nienstedt.

Nienstedt shouldn’t be a priest anymore. He blew it. If Archbishop Hebda wants to throw Nienstedt a bone and let him keep the collar (and the pension), Nienstedt should live a life of quiet prayer and penance.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Mittelbayerische

[Professor Chrsitian Pfeiffer, a criminologist, has praised the investigation into abuse at the Regenburg cathedral choir.]

REGENSBURG.Der Kriminologe Professor Christian Pfeiffer wollte den sexuellen Missbrauch in der katholischen Kirche schon vor Jahren aufklären. Doch die Studie des Kriminologischen Forschungsinstituts Niedersachsen scheiterte Anfang 2013. Widerstand habe er damals insbesondere aus dem Bistum Regensburg gespürt, wie Pfeiffer am Mittwoch sagt. „Eine tragende Rolle bei dem Scheitern hatte der damalige Bischof Gerhard Ludwig Müller.“ Dass nun aber ausgerechnet dieses Bistum den Mut gefunden habe, einen unabhängigen Rechtsanwalt zu beauftragen, nötige ihm Respekt ab. Der Wandel sei sicher auf den neuen Bischof Rudolf Voderholzer zurückzuführen.

München und Regensburg stellten sich quer

Der vom Bistum und den Regensburger Domspatzen eingesetzte Aufklärer Ulrich Weber leiste vorbildliche Arbeit, lobt Pfeiffer. Das hätte man aber schon früher haben können. „Wir hätten die Akten genauso gründlich untersucht“, unterstreicht Pfeiffer. In der Startphase seiner Arbeit sei er auch auf Repräsentanten der Kirche getroffen, die mit ihm einen ausgewogenen Vertrag aushandelten, der die Auswertung kircheninterner Akten seit 1945 sowie eine umfassende Befragung noch lebender Opfer ermöglichen sollte. Dann wandelte sich jedoch die Stimmung im Forschungsbeirat. Der zuständige Münchner Generalvikar Peter Beer und der Regensburger Generalvikar Michael Fuchs forderten, wie Pfeiffer ausführt, dass der Beirat nicht nur eine beratende Funktion, sondern eine entscheidende Funktion bekommt. Sie pochten auf ein Recht der Kirche, Texte zu kontrollieren, Änderungen zu machen und über eine Veröffentlichung zu entscheiden. Aus wissenschaftlicher Sicht war das für Pfeiffer unzumutbar. Er lehnte diese Zensur durch die Kirche ab.

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MINNESOTA
Jeff Anderson and Associates

Lawsuit filed on behalf of sexual abuse survivor Doe 115

Filed Complaint
Othmar Hohmann Assignment History
Othmar Hohmann Docs
Othmar Hohmann Timeline
Othmmar Hohmann Photo

What: At a news conference today in St. Cloud, attorney Mike Bryant of Bradshaw & Bryant, co-counsel with Jeff Anderson & Associates, will:

• Release the priest file of Father Othmar Hohmann, OSB, who worked in several Minnesota dioceses including the Diocese of St. Cloud, Diocese of Duluth and Diocese of Crookston. Additionally, Hohmann worked in North Dakota, Utah, Wisconsin and the Bahamas and has been accused of abusing several children.

• Announce the filing of a sexual abuse lawsuit filed in Stearns County on behalf of sexual abuse survivor Doe 115 naming the Diocese of St. Cloud, St. John’s Abbey and St. Joseph Parish in St. Joseph, MN as defendants. The young girl, now an adult, was sexually abused by Hohmann for several years.

• Request that all dioceses in Minnesota release the files of credibly accused clergy like St. John’s Abbey has done. St. John’s released the files of several credibly accused clergy as part of a settlement in the Doe 2 case in 2015.

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ROME
Crux

By John L. Allen Jr.
Associate editor January 13, 2016

ROME — Two bits of data emerged recently which, taken together, confirm a disquieting reality for Pope Francis: His personal popularity doesn’t appear to be translating into notably greater enthusiasm for the Church he leads.

Last week, news agencies reported that the pontiff’s nine Twitter accounts had reached a worldwide total of 26 million followers, representing impressive growth indeed for papal accounts that have been around only since February 2012. (That’s when accounts in English, Italian, and French were started for Pope Benedict XVI; other languages were added soon after.)

That 26 million, by the way, includes a robust 411,000 people who follow the pope in Latin, suggesting that rumors of the death of the Church’s traditional tongue have been exaggerated.

TechnoAndroid, an Italian site that follows digital trends, also reported that in 2015, one of the most-used Twitter hashtags in Italy, for the entire year, was #PapaFrancesco.

All of which indicates the pontiff’s star power is undiminished.

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RHODE ISLAND
Crux

By Margery Eagan
On Spirituality columnist January 13, 2016

If you’re not from New England, you may have missed news of a devastating sexual abuse scandal engulfing St. George’s School, a prestigious Rhode Island prep school that educated President George H.W. Bush and other children of America’s aristocracy.

Two of the lawyers representing an ever-growing number of accusers there — Eric MacLeish and Carmen Durso — represented dozens of victims in the Catholic Church abuse scandal as well. And the patterns between the two cases are stunning.

Decades of abuse unreported to law enforcement. Institutional secrecy, cover-up, and denial. Perpetrators relocated, but not punished. Victims intimidated and harassed. And when the story made news, as in the Church case, emboldened accusers went public. The number of accusations skyrocketed.

The cover-up of abuse in the Church, which daily preaches morality, is a reason many Catholics cite today for leaving it. And surely there is no good news in the growing number of abuse stories being reported now in private and public schools. Durso has called educational abuse “the clergy abuse crisis of this century.”

Still, as defenders of the Church have long argued, the Church’s horrible performance is hardly unique. Teachers, too — trusted by parents and children alike — not only abuse, but are protected by other teachers and school bureaucrats in the same way Church leaders protected deviant priests.

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UNITED STATES
The Guardian (UK)

Henry Barnes
@HenryHBarnes
Wednesday 13 January 2016

On the homepage of the Boston Roman Catholic archdiocese website, next to information on preparing for marriage, is a box labelled “Support, Protection and Prevention”. You have to scroll to see the first reference to children and click a link to find any mention of abuse.

In 2002, the Boston Globe’s Spotlight team, a group of five investigative journalists, uncovered the widespread sexual abuse of children by scores of the district’s clergy. They also revealed a cover-up: that priests accused of misconduct were being systematically removed and allowed to work in other parishes.

The team’s investigation brought the issue to national prominence in the US, winning them the Pulitzer prize for public service. The journalists’ story, and those who suffered at the hands of the clergy, are the subject of Spotlight, a Hollywood movie starring Michael Keaton, Mark Ruffalo and Rachel McAdams. It is a love letter to investigative journalism and a reminder that, 13 years and some $3bn in settlement payments later, survivors in Boston and beyond are still waiting for satisfactory long-term action from the Vatican.

“The Catholic church often talks about this as pain that’s in the past,” says Spotlight’s co-screenwriter, Josh Singer. “I think the survivors would tell you they’re less interested in the church trying to make amends and more interested in the church protecting children in the future.”

Singer, who was a writer and editor on The West Wing, calls the Spotlight journalists of 2002 a “championship team”. Their player-manager was Boston native Walter “Robby” Robinson. His high school, which was across the road from the Boston Globe’s offices, employed three priests who were later suspended for misconduct. In the film, Robinson, played by Michael Keaton, represents the Globe’s old guard. He’s navigating a community that’s very Catholic and very close-knit, working on a contentious story for a paper that he says at the time was “too deferential to the church”.

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UNITED STATES
Good Letters

By Kenneth R. Morefield.

Continued from yesterday. Read Part 1 here.

Coninuing yesterday’s list of films, here are five other films (ranked) the 2015 Arts & Faith Ecumenical Jury recommended for Christian audiences, plus a list of honorable mentions (unranked): …

4) Spotlight—Tom McCarthy
spotlight-movie-posterSpotlight is pervaded by incredulity, pain, and anger, laced with sadness and guilt. Working with a script co-written by Josh Singer, director Tom McCarthy brings precision and persuasive detail to a portrait of a specific time, place, and perspective: Boston, seen through the eyes of The Globe‘s Spotlight Team around the turn of the millennium, at a time when reporters and editors were long familiar with cases of “pedophile priests,” but couldn’t yet imagine the extent of the cover-up culture in the Catholic Church.

The film’s polemic is not entirely directed at the Church; lawyers, law enforcement, and, notably, the press itself, and specifically The Globe, are all implicated. Still, it is the Church’s betrayal, a betrayal of a sacred trust and a form of spiritual abuse, that is the most deeply felt.

Spotlight makes painful viewing, but Christians tempted to circle the wagons and nit-pick the film to oblivion—a possible tactic with any two-hour dramatization of such a story—should resist the temptation: This defensive response is precisely what made the scandal possible in the first place. The Church is called to be the light of the world. We must not fear to turn a spotlight on ourselves.—Steven D. Greydanus

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VATICAN CITY
ANSA

(ANSA) – Rome, January 13 – Monsignor Angelo Becciu, substitute for general affairs at the Vatican, said that portraying the Holy See Vatican as a “den of theives” in the wake of the Vatileaks 2 scandal is “an absolute falsehood”.

“I find it supremely unjust that our employees, proud of working in service to the pope and for the church, for a while now have come to the point of feeling ashamed to tell people they work here,” Becciu said in a excerpts released Wednesday of an interview in weekly newsmagazine Panorama set to hit newsstands Thursday.

Two recently-published books written by investigative journalists documenting alleged Vatican waste and mismanagement and lavish spending by clergymen are at the heart of the document-leaking scandal and current trial, and the authors are two of five defendants.

The other three defendants – Monsignor Lucio Vallejo Balda, who is currently in a Vatican jail; PR expert Francesca Chaouqui, and Balda’s former assistant Nicola Maio – are charged with allegedly passing confidential Vatican financial documents to the journalists.

“The right of journalists to publish news in their possession is not under discussion,” Becciu said.

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UNITED STATES
Religion Dispatches

BY MICHAEL SCHULSON JANUARY 5, 2016

Over the holidays, the New York Times ran a punishing profile of Marc Gafni, an ex-rabbi who reinvented himself as a New Age spiritual leader.

A founder of the Center for Integral Wisdom and organizer of the Success 3.0 Summit, Gafni has built a New Age brand around two trademark concepts—Unique Self and Outrageous Love—which, like much of “Integral Theory,” seems to draw from psychotherapy, Eastern and Western religious traditions, and philosophy. Or as his website’s biography puts it, “[Gafni] teaches on the cutting edge of philosophy in the West, helping to evolve a new ‘dharma,’ or meta-theory of Integral meaning that is helping to re-shape key pivoting points in consciousness and culture.”

There’s also reason to believe that Gafni is a sexual predator. At the Times, religion journalist Mark Oppenheimer (a friend and mentor of mine) lays out the allegations in detail, which include assault, statutory rape, emotional abuse, and exploitation of the counselor-student power dynamic. “My personal opinion is that Marc Gafni has a pathology,” Rabbi David Ingber, a former associate of Gafni’s, told me.

Because Gafni writes books about crying and makes statements about “love intelligence and love beauty,” it’s easy to read his story as a straightforward tale of hypocrisy: a spiritual leader pledges universal love, even as he assaults girls and manipulates his followers. Cue the disgust.

That’s not an inaccurate read, but what’s so striking here is that none of the allegations are new. Scandal has followed Gafni for years. The most serious allegation—repeated, nonconsensual sexual contact with a middle school-aged girl, when Gafni was 19 and 20—happened years before he became a New Age leader. (Gafni has said that the encounters were consensual, and that the girl was “14 going on 35”).

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UNITED STATES
The Jewish Week

Wed, 01/13/2016
Gary Rosenblatt
Editor And Publisher

Fed up with ethical lapses among Jewish leaders that have “reached crisis levels,” more than 350 scholars, authors, rabbis, cantors and Jewish community activists have signed onto a “declaration” that is challenging individuals and organizations to act with more transparency and accountability, and in accord with Jewish values.

In the past several years, the New York Jewish community endured the embarrassment of prominent rabbis accused of sexual abuse; a leading Jewish communal official going to prison for accepting millions of dollars in a kickback scheme; and the financial collapse of FEGS, the mammoth social service agency that seemed to suddenly lose $20 million while no one was looking.

“Disturbing developments” like these, the strongly worded declaration states, “make a mockery of Jewish values, shatter the trust that we have placed in our community’s leaders, and alienate young people from Judaism.” News of the declaration is being reported here for the first time.

Rafael Medoff, a Holocaust historian and author in Washington, D.C., said he reached a tipping point a few months ago and felt he had to do something to “at least start a conversation in the Jewish community about ethical issues that will affect the future quality of American Jewry.”

He and several other academics have just launched a website (jewishleadershipethics.org) and a “Declaration on Ethics in Jewish Leadership,” a bold 10-point statement urging that “whistleblowers should be encouraged,” “excusing offenders’ conduct or blaming the victims for coming forward is intolerable,” and that “Jewish organizations should adopt term limits, to combat the phenomenon of entrenched and self-perpetuating leaders.”

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AUSTRALIA
Australia Network

Federal authorities have just convicted eight American men in connection with an international child pornography ring that had been operating secretly online.

“1,600 children have been drawn to at least two pedophile’s websites, one in the U.S. and the other in South Africa,” reported Fox News Insider from Johannesburg.

“The ring drew in children and pedophiles from the U.S., Canada, Sweden, Australia, Holland and South Africa.”

A bigger chunk of the children lured to these pornography websites were between the ages of 8 and 13. Sources say that pedophiles lured the kids into their crime ring first by befriending them on popular websites like YouTube and Facebook.

“There, the men played specially recorded videos of kids, as if they were live chats”.

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AUSTRALIA
Mamma Mia

Remember the days of the old school yard?
We used to laugh a lot. Oh, don’t you
Remember the days of the old school yard?

Ah, it’s lovely to reminisce.

We had simplicity and warm toast for tea, to quote Cat Stevens.

Why, we’d play in the street until dark! Kids weren’t molly-coddled like they are these days! All of that rough-and-tumble was character building!

Girls were girls and boys were boys; mum ran the home while dad was at work.

Life was easier in those days, wasn’t it…?

Well, the answer is “no”.

This week, writing my memoir, I revisited the ghosts of schools past.

My senior years, at Frawley College on the outskirts of Brisbane, held a rosy hue: the passion of the teachers; the camaraderie of schoolmates; the myth of “the best time of our lives”.

Anything that didn’t fit the Disney version of events was obviously an aberration.

That sick feeling in the stomach when a gang of boys yelled, “Show us your tits!” was just “boys being boys”.

The shiver up the spine when one of the Brothers grabbed a student’s arse was clearly an over-reaction.

And girls being told to ignore maths because they’d find a nice man to look after them seemed a logical conclusion.

Looking back, it was clear: misogyny, child abuse and bullying were on the curriculum.

A fish rots from its head: the corruption went all the way to the top.

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AUSTRALIA
Broken Rites

By a Broken Rites researcher (article posted 10 January 2016)

Broken Rites research has discovered how an Australian Catholic leader (Bishop William Brennan) covered up allegations of clergy sex-abuse in his diocese. Police charged one of Brennan’s priests (Father Bernard Connell) with allegedly abusing two boys in different parishes but Bishop Brennan hired an expert legal team to defeat the charges. One of these victims then asked Bishop Brennan for help but the bishop shunned him. The bishop’s main aim was protecting the church’s holy image, instead of protecting children.

The accused priest, Father Bernard M. Connell, belonged to the Wagga Wagga diocese in southern New South Wales. This diocese extends southward to Albury on the Victorian border. This is one of the eleven dioceses into which the state of New South Wales is divided. Bishop Brennan was in charge of the Wagga Wagga diocese from 1983 to 2002.

Bernie Connell, born in 1938, came from a large family in Cootamundra, southern NSW. He attended school at De La Salle Brothers in Cootamundra until 1951 and then completed his schooling at St Patrick’s College in Goulburn. He began training for the priesthood in 1957. He was ordained as a priest in 1983.

Bishop Brennan, too, was born in 1938. He started studying for the priesthood in Sydney but did some of his studies in Rome. Father Connell always belonged to the Wagga Wagga diocese, whereas Brennan started in another diocese and moved to Wagga Wagga to become its bishop.

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AUSTRALIA
The Australian

JANUARY 14, 2016

Dan Box
Crime reporter
Sydney

Former staff from a remote Catholic boarding school in far north Queensland say they reported ­alleged child abuse by a teacher to local education authorities years before he was charged by police, but were told that no action would be taken.

The Australian has previously revealed the dormitory master was one of three former employees of St Teresa’s Catholic College in Abergowrie, including two principals, currently facing child-sex charges in different states.

Several former employees of the school, many of whose pupils come from indigenous families across northern Australia, say they verbally reported their concerns about the man to senior execu­tives at the Townsville Catholic Education Office between 1991 and 1993.

These included allegations that he attempted to sexually assault a child. One former staff member said he was later told the alle­g­ations had been investigated and no further action would be taken; another said he was threatened with legal action as a result.

In October 1993, the teacher resigned “due to personal and family reasons”, according to a school newsletter from the time.

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ROME
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Wednesday, Jan. 13

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

An archbishop accused of committing sexual misconduct and concealing child sex crimes will start working in a Michigan parish. We call on Pope Francis to reverse this stunningly reckless and callous move. And we call on all of Michigan’s bishops to denounce it.

Last year, Archbishop John Nienstedt resigned his post as head of the Twin Cities archdiocese after his archdiocese became “the nation’s first (to be) charged with failure to protect children,” according to the Minneapolis Star Tribune. Nienstedt also allegedly sexually abused several seminarians.

[BishopAccountability.org]

And he’s accused of interfering with a church investigation into clergy sexual misconduct.

[BishopAccountability.org]

But now, church officials say Nienstedt will soon work at St. Philip Roman Catholic Church in Battle Creek and live at the nearly Church of Saint Joseph.

[Canonical Consultation]

[Star Tribune]

This is an outrage. Kalamazoo church officials are putting young people in harm’s way. It’s just that simple.

Shame on Kalamazoo Bishop Paul Bradley, Twin Cities Archbishop Bernard Hebda and on every single Catholic priest, employee and parishioner who silently approves or accepts this dangerous decision without protest.

This is a key reason clergy sex crimes, misdeeds and cover ups continue in the church: because those who commit these heinous acts are still usually protected – and sometimes promoted – regardless of how much harm they cause.

We urge Kalamazoo Catholics and citizens to learn about Nienstedt’s deceitful handling of the abuse and cover up crisis, especially the case of Fr. Curtis Wehmeyer, at BishopAccountability.org

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DEUTSCHLAND
inter-at.de

The following report was written by a former cathedral choir student. He wrote an eight-page letter to former Director of Music Georg Ratzinger. He has never received any reply. Of particular note is a description of punitive action in the presence of Ratzinger.]

Der folgende Bericht wurde von einem ehemaligen Domspatzenschüler bereits 2010 verfasst. Er hat sich damals in einem achtseitigen Brief an den ehemaligen Domkapellmeister Georg Ratzinger gewandt. Eine Antwort hat er nie erhalten. Erst im März 2015 erhielt er als einzige Reaktion den Serienbrief von Generalvikar Fuchs in dem ihm 2.500,- € „in Anerkennung des erlittenen Leids“ angeboten wurden. Besonders beachtenswert ist die Schilderung der „Strafaktion“ im Beisein von Georg Ratzinger.

Misshandlung im Vorschulinternat der Regensburger Domspatzen in Etterzhausen

Aufgewachsen in Riedenburg, im beschaulichen, aber etwas abgelegenen Altmühltal, war ich als 11-jähriger Junge ein ziemlich kleines, schmächtiges Kind – ein „Grischperl“ wie man in Niederbayern damals zu sagen pflegte. Gegen Ende der dritten Klasse machten sich meine Eltern wohl Gedanken über den weiteren schulischen Werdegang ihres Sohnes. Mein Vater leitete die örtliche AOK. Ich war kein schlechter Schüler und der Aufbruchsstimmung der frühen 60-er Jahre entsprechend, sollte es eine weiterführende Schule sein. Die nächstgelegenen Gymnasien, in Ingolstadt und Regensburg, waren beide etwas über 35 Kilometer entfernt. Für einen kleinen Fahrschüler schien dieser Schulweg zu weit. Deshalb empfahl der Klassenlehrer ein Internat. Das Internat der Domspatzen war billig und die kirchliche Trägerschaft entsprach dem Weltbild meiner Eltern, vor allem dem meiner Mutter. Folglich präsentierten mich meine Eltern in der Vorschule der Regensburger Domspatzen in Etterzhausen. Nach dem Vorsingen von „Großer Gott wir loben Dich“ war die Entscheidung gefallen. Ich sollte dort die vierte Volksschulklasse besuchen um anschließend auf das Gymnasium zu wechseln.

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DEUTSCHLAND
intern-at.de

Es ist mittlerweile zur Realsatire geworden: Das ungleiche Duo Georg Ratzinger und sein Haus- und Hofschreiber Karl Birkenseer (seines Zeichens „Journalist“ bei der Passauer Neuen Presse), aber offensichtlich Zwillinge im Geiste. Die Zeitung hatte bereits am Sonntag nach der ersten Pressekonferenz von Rechtsanwalt Weber, bei der erhebliche Vorwürfe gegen Ratzinger thematisiert wurden, das Interview für den nächsten Tag angekündigt. Seit gestern steht fest: dazugelernt haben beide nicht.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Regensburg Digital

Georg Ratzinger will weder etwas von der exzessiven Gewalt noch von Missbrauch bei den Domspatzen gewusst haben. Das behauptet der frühere Domkapellmeister in einem Interview mit PNP-Redakteur Karl Birkenseer – einem Mann, der seine schwindelerregenden Bezüge zu den Domspatzen nicht offenlegt und seine Position als Journalist dazu nutzt, um nur ja nichts auf die Domspatzen-Familie kommen zu lassen. Betroffene sind empört. Sie bezeichnen Birkenseer als Ratzingers „Haus- und Hofschreiber“ und „Rest einer jahrzehntealten Vertuschungskultur“.

Von Robert Werner und Stefan Aigner

„Dann schleifte er (Johann Meier, Anm. d. Red.) mich an den Haaren zu seinem Esstisch zurück und hob mich an den Haaren hoch, dass ich über dem Boden schwebte. Anschließend schlug er mich wie besessen, wo immer er mich treffen konnte, bis er nach wohl einem Dutzend Schlägen erschöpft aufhörte. Im großen Speisesaal war es totenstill. Ratzinger saß daneben und das Bild hat sich in mein Gehirn eingegraben wie schlecht verheilte Narben in einem jugendlichen Körper. Er lachte. Er hätte die Autorität gehabt, seinem Kollegen Einhalt zu gebieten. Es war mindestens Feigheit, wohl eher bewusstes kumpelhaftes Einvernehmen. Jetzt zu behaupten in der einzigen Filiale der Domspatzen seinen über zwei, drei Jahrzehnte Dinge geschehen, die ihm „nicht bekannt“ waren ist eine Verhöhnung der damaligen Schüler und Opfer. Da wird die Bitte um Verzeihung zur berechnenden Phrase.“

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MINNESOTA/MICHIGAN
Canonical Consultation

01/12/2016

Jennifer Haselberger

According to the January 10, 2016 bulletin of Saint Philip Roman Catholic Church in Battle Creek, Michigan, Archbishop Nienstedt has found a job serving as an assistant priest at the parish, which is located in the Diocese of Kalamazoo.

Per the Pastor’s Column (see below, page two), Nienstedt will have an office at the parish center, but will be living at the neighboring Church of Saint Joseph. His duties will include covering masses in the absence of the pastor, visiting the sick and homebound, and assisting with ‘various pastoral ministries’. TH

Apropos of my previous column suggesting some reasons for releasing the Greene Espel report, the article notes that Archbishop Nienstedt’s connection with the pastor dates back to when he (Nienstedt) was assigned to the Shrine of the Little Flower. This time period was of particular interest to the G&E investigators, as at least one of the complaints uncovered dated to this period.

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UNITED STATES
Catholica (Australia)

Yesterday the message below and the two attachments were sent to approximately 700 news media personnel throughout the US 50 states.

(Thanks to Fr Jim Connell for sharing this information).

All of this information is in the public forum so feel free to pass on the info to others, if you wish.

The Catholic bishops in the United States claim a Zero Tolerance policy regarding priests and deacons who have sexually abused a minor or a vulnerable adult. Yet, Church documents show otherwise and potential victims could be at risk now.

This misrepresentation by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) is deliberate and systemic in nature, and sexually abusive clergy still could be in ministry.

Thus, the Catholic Whistleblowers Steering Committee (http://www.catholicwhistleblowers.com/) has requested the Vatican to investigate the bishops’ handling of clergy sexual abuse in the United States.

A copy of this request is attached to this email. Please read our letter to the Vatican and then discuss the issues we raise with the Catholic bishop(s) in your area.

Also attached to this email is a document that contains copies of related correspondence in recent years with USCCB leadership members: Cardinal Francis George, Cardinal Timothy Dolan, Bishop R. Daniel Conlon, and Francesco Cesareo, Ph.D.

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MAINE
Portland Press Herald

Associated Press

A Freeport man who accused a Haiti orphanage founder of molesting boys is appealing a defamation verdict.

Paul Kendrick has accused Michael Geilenfeld, founder of St. Joseph Home for Boys, of being a serial pedophile. Geilenfeld denied the allegations and sued Kendrick for defamation.

In July, a federal jury awarded $7 million to Geilenfeld and $7.5 million to a North Carolina-based charity, Hearts of Haiti.

Kendrick’s attorneys contend Geilenfeld didn’t have jurisdiction to sue in federal court because he was living outside the U.S. when he filed his complaint. The appeal also contends his testimony was key to damages awarded North Carolina-based charity, Hearts with Haiti.

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UNITED STATES
PopeCrimes& Vatican Evils.

Paris Arrow

It’s a secular lawyer’s word versus a Catholic pedophile priest’s word. Again, and again.

It’s a secular lawyer’s word as he represents many sex abuse victims versus a Catholic hierarchy head’s word who covered-up many pedophile priests. Again, and again.

It’s the Vatican Machiavellian John Paul II strategy of “Deny and deny until you die”. Again, and again.

It’s the Vatican Devil-in-Angel’s-clothing strategy, “See No Evil. Hear No Evil. Speak No Evil”. Again, and again.

Georg Ratzinger ruled the Domspatzen boys’ choir for 30 years where almost a third of the boys were sexually and physically abused. Cardinal Bernard Law ruled as archbishop in Boston for 18 years where he aided and abetted more than 70 pedophile priests mentioned in movie Spotlight. John Paul II ruled as pope for 27 years and he never fired any his JP2 Army – John Paul II Pedophile Priests Army worldwide and he promoted Cardinal Law to Rome.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Hartlepool Mail

A former Jehovah’s Witness has won an international award for highlighting potential sex abuse risks within the church.

Steve Rose, from Rift House, Hartlepool, has received a Courage Award from the organisation Silent Lambs for campaigning against practices that he says make it difficult for allegations of child and other sex abuse to be uncovered or acted upon.

Mr Rose, 51, spoke out in an article in the Mail in November about a “two-witness rule”, which says Jehovah’s Witness church elders are not allowed to take action against allegations of wrongdoing unless it has been witnessed by at least two people.

Mr Rose, who used to be a member of Hartlepool’s Kingdom Hall, in Ashgrove Avenue, also raised concerns that convicted sex offenders are allowed to remain part of the church.

He was also interviewed by a national newspaper and featured in an article on an American website about allegations of cover-ups within the church.

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AUSTRALIA
The Tablet (UK)

13 January 2016 | by Mark Brolly

British priest received pension while avoiding authorities for alleged sexual abuse of 16 children

A suspected paedophile priest, British-born Ronald Pickering, reportedly received almost AU$200,000 (£97,000) from the Archdiocese of Melbourne for almost a decade after he evaded Australian authorities in 1993 and fled to his homeland, where he died in 2009.

The Sunday Age newspaper in Melbourne reported on 10 January that Pickering, who is believed to have abused at least 16 children but never faced justice, was one of a number of abusive priests who received pension, housing and private medical insurance benefits while victims received one-off payments of $31,000 to $37,000 under the church’s Melbourne Response redress scheme.

The paper said parishioners had unwittingly been partly funding the assistance through their donations into church collection plates, which they believed went towards the local church or fundraising for retired priests.

It said Archbishop Sir Frank Little, who led the Church in Melbourne from 1974-96, appointed Pickering “Pastor Emeritus” in 1993, entitling him to additional payments, even though he had been aware of complaints against Pickering as early as 1986. The current Archbishop, Denis Hart, stopped the payments in 2002.

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MAINE
Bangor Daily News

By Darren Fishell, BDN Staff
Posted Jan. 12, 2016
.
PORTLAND, Maine — A Freeport man ordered by a jury to pay $14.5 million for defaming a Catholic brother and a nonprofit based in Haiti is appealing his case to the U.S. First Circuit Court.

The attorney for Paul Kendrick, an advocate for children sexually abused by clergy, on Tuesday filed an argument with the court seeking to dismiss the case.

Catholic brother Michael Geilenfeld and the nonprofit Hearts with Haiti sued Kendrick for a campaign he launched against Geilenfeld and the North Carolina-based nonprofit for which he worked in 2011, alleging that Geilenfeld sexually abused children he had taken in at an orphanage in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, and that the nonprofit had turned a blind eye.

After hearing testimony, including from seven men who alleged that they were sexually abused by Geilenfeld in the 1990s, a jury in Portland awarded damages of $7.5 million to Hearts with Haiti and $7 million to Geilenfeld.

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UNITED KINGDOM
The JC

By Rosa Doherty, January 13, 2016

A leading campaigner against child sex abuse in the Orthodox community has called on Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis to issue an apology “on behalf of the rabbinate” over historical abuse cases.

Manny Waks made the suggestion at a meeting with Rabbi Mirvis, to discuss his own global initiative to tackle the problem.

Mr Waks, who himself was abused while studying at a yeshivah in Melbourne, Australia, said: “One thing I suggested was he issue a public apology on behalf of the rabbinate. I’m not saying he should take responsibility personally but to acknowledge and accept there have been serious failures over the years.

“I think it would send a powerful message to victims.”

The campaigner says that in the past, there has been a culture of intimidation of victims and a lack of support for them to come forward to report abuse.

Mr Waks also asked Rabbi Mirvis to take on a formal role in his campaign.

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PENNSYLVANIA
PhillyVoice

BY DANIEL CRAIG
PhillyVoice Staff

Police in Chester County say a pastor raped and impregnated a teenage girl, an accusation that has left the community at his former church “devastated.”

According to authorities, Jacob “Jake” Malone, 33, sexually assaulted the victim while she lived at his home in Exton.

Police had previously believed that Malone was eluding arrest and possibly left the country. But an attorney claiming to represent Malone, a resident of the 300 block of South Whitford Road in Exton, called detectives Tuesday saying his client was out of the country but was flying back in the wake of the allegations, authorities said.

Police are working with the attorney to determine where and when Malone will be returning, authorities added.

Malone reportedly met the victim when she was 12 while pastoring at a church she attended in Mesa, Arizona. In 2014, he reached out to the then-17-year-old girl and invited her to stay with him and his family at his new home in Minnesota, allegedly trying to have inappropriate contact with her.

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PENNSYLVANIA
PennLive

By Matt Miller | mmiller@pennlive.com
on January 12, 2016

A former Lancaster County youth pastor and junior high school basketball coach who filmed himself performing sex acts on a 13-year-old boy lost a bid Tuesday to void his 25 1/2- to 80-year state prison sentence.

A state Superior Court panel rejected Jonathan D. Masteller’s claims that his punishment was excessive.

Masteller, formerly the head junior high boy’s basketball coach for Pequea Valley School District was sentenced by a county judge in November 2014 after pleading guilty to 12 sex crimes involving abuse of the boy.

He had been the victim’s basketball coach and youth pastor, Senior Judge William H. Platt wrote in the state court opinion. The abuse was discovered in November 2013 when a pastor at the Family Center in Gap found photos of Masteller molesting the boy on Masteller’s work computer.

The boy later told police about the abuse, and Masteller admitted committing the crimes and using the camera in his cell phone to record the incidents. Masteller pleaded guilty to charges including involuntary deviate sexual intercourse, indecent assault. possession of child pornography, aggravated indecent assault and corruption of minors without having a sentencing deal with prosecutors.

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RHODE ISLAND
GoLocalProv

A teacher’s aide at a Providence Middle School who was arrested for sexually assaulting a minor had been working part time at the Cathedral of SS Peter and Paul in Providence, GoLocal has learned.

Anthony Tedeschi, who was arrested on January 8 by the Providence Police and Rhode Island State Police Violent Fugitive Task Force, had been under investigation for an incident that occurred at Esek Hopkins Middle School on October 23 where another aide observed Tedeschi “inappropriately touching” a 13 year old male student with autism.

Diocese Releases Info After GoLocal Inquiry

The Diocese would not give dates as to Tedeschi’s service or position, but only provided the following statement from Msgr. Anthony Mancini, Rector of the Cathedral of SS Peter and Paul, when GoLocal inquired on Monday.

“Anthony Tedeschi has not been an employee of the Cathedral of SS Peter and Paul in Providence for some time. He left his part time position of his own accord several months ago as a result of staffing changes at the Cathedral,” said Mananci.

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WEST VIRGINIA
Bluefield Daily Telegraph

Posted: Wednesday, January 13, 2016

By SAMANTHA PERRY Bluefield Daily Telegraph

BLUEFIELD — A transgender Bluefield man involved in youth ministry at local Episcopal churches was arrested Tuesday and charged with multiple counts of sexual abuse of a juvenile.

James “Jimmy” Lilly, 24, was charged with one count of incest, one count of second-degree sexual assault and 31 counts of first-degree sexual abuse, Detective K.L. Adams, with the Bluefield Police Department, said.

Adams said the victim in the case is a juvenile female. He said the abuse began in 2009 when the victim was 9 to 10 years old, and continued until she was 16.

The alleged abuse in the case took place at a home, and not a church, Adams said.

“Mr. Lilly, by his own admission, is transgender,” Adams said. “He is in the process of becoming a woman.”

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IRELAND
Irish Independent

Declan Brennan
PUBLISHED
13/01/2016

Former priest and serial abuser Tony Walsh has been sentenced to one year imprisonment for the sexual assault of a child in the early 1970s.

Walsh was a seminarian at the time of the offence, which is the earliest recorded case of child abuse by him. He went on to become known as the ‘Singing Priest’ for his role in a travelling all-priest group before he was defrocked after his abuse of young boys began to emerge.

Walsh (61), formerly of North Circular Road, Dublin, was convicted last December after a trial at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court of the indecent assault of a girl at St Luke’s, Kilbarron Park, Kilmore, Dublin, on a unknown date between April 17, 1973, and September 9, 1976.

He had pleaded not guilty. The victim was aged between seven and 10 at the time when Walsh locked her into a room and sexually assaulted her.

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MALTA
Times of Malta

Wednesday, January 13, 2016 by Ivan Martin

Prime Minister Joseph Muscat failed to condemn an aide yesterday who had made a public ‘priest child abuse’ dig at Archbishop Charles Scicluna.

Glenn Bedingfield, employed at the Office of the Prime Minister on a position of trust basis, shared a video clip Tuesday of Mgr Scicluna accompanied by the caption: “At least the Prime Minister didn’t go into any children’s bedrooms.”

In the clip, Mgr Scicluna is seen criticising Joseph Muscat’s controversial new year’s message during a television interview aired on Monday night. Mgr Scicluna told the interviewer he trusted that “the next time Dr Muscat visits a kitchen, it will be real”, a reference to the Prime Minister’s staged tete-a-tete with a young couple inside their designer kitchen.

Mr Bedingfield’s comment was a reference to sexual abuse by priests. Mgr Scicluna was the chief Church prosecutor in such cases when he served at the Vatican.

A spokesman for Dr Muscat said: “Mr Bedingfield’s comment should be taken as having been made in his personal capacity and as a commentator who presents a
satirical show on One radio.”

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MINNESOTA
Jeff Anderson and Associates

St. Cloud News Conference Wednesday

Priest File of Fr. Othmar Hohmann, OSB to be
Publicly Released Tomorrow

Lawsuit filed on behalf of
sexual abuse survivor Doe 115

What: At a news conference on Wednesday in St. Cloud, attorney Mike Bryant of Bradshaw & Bryant, co-counsel with Jeff Anderson & Associates, will:

• Release the priest file of Father Othmar Hohmann, OSB, who worked in several Minnesota dioceses including the Diocese of St. Cloud, Diocese of Duluth and Diocese of Crookston. Additionally, Hohmann worked in North Dakota, Utah, Wisconsin and the Bahamas and has been accused of abusing several children.
• Announce the filing of a sexual abuse lawsuit filed in Stearns County on behalf of sexual abuse survivor Doe 115 naming the Diocese of St. Cloud, St. John’s Abbey and St. Joseph Parish in St. Joseph, MN as defendants. The young girl, now an adult, was sexually abused by Hohmann for several years.
• Request that all dioceses in Minnesota release the files of credibly accused clergy like St. John’s Abbey has done. St. John’s released the files of several credibly accused clergy as part of a settlement in the Doe 2 case in 2015.

WHEN: Wednesday, January 13, 2016 at 11:00AM CDT

WHERE: Bradshaw & Bryant, PLLC
1505 Division Street
Waite Park, MN 56387

Notes:
• Documents from Hohmann’s file and the complaint will be available at the press conference and on our website tomorrow at www.andersonadvocates.com.

Contact Mike Bryant: Office: 320.259.5414 Cell: 800.359.0061
Contact Jeff Anderson: Office: 651.964.3473 Cell: 612.817.8665

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MINNESOTA
Inforum

HIBBING, Minn. — A June trial date has been scheduled for a Hibbing priest accused of sexually abusing four girls.

A five-day trial for Brian Michael Lederer, 30, is set to begin June 13 in State District Court in Hibbing, according to court records.

Sixth Judicial District Judge David Ackerson previously denied a motion to dismiss the charges, and not guilty pleas were entered on Lederer’s behalf on Nov. 30.

Authorities said four girls, ranging in age from 10 to 14, came forward to report incidents of inappropriate touching by Lederer, who worked at Blessed Sacrament Parish and the Assumption Catholic School.

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

UNITED STATES
Forward

Sara Kabakov
January 12, 2016

With all the accounts that have come out about Marc Gafni, the former rabbi and spiritual guru, you may wonder what more I have to offer. But this story is not over, even if Gafni never teaches or abuses again.

Right now there are children in the Jewish world, and in other communities, who are being abused and forced into silence. Their parents and teachers don’t know what is happening.

I know, because it happened to me. I am the woman Gafni molested when she was 13 years old. This is the first time I am telling my story in my own name.

If these children are lucky, someone will notice there is something wrong. But too often, the police are not involved, and these children are unlikely to be protected.

I wasn’t.

These children will grow up, and it may take years before they figure out how to speak the unspeakable, until they have the strength and courage to overcome the pressure to be silent.

And by then, their ability to seek legal recourse may have expired.

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

GERMANY
Daily Kos

By Walter Einenkel

Tuesday Jan 12, 2016

When Pope Benedict left the leadership position of the Catholic Church, after a rather short term, many speculated the Catholic Church realized that having a man who looks sort of scary—with a German accent, who may or may not have Nazi ties, and a lot of child sexual abuse skeletons in his closet, wasn’t the best idea. But maybe he was just a little too old for the torrid schedule of a Pope? Maybe it’s a family issue.

At least 231 children who sang in a boys’ choir led for 30 years by the brother of former Pope Benedict XVI were abused over a period of almost four decades, a lawyer investigating reports of wrongdoing said Friday.

The lawyer, Ulrich Weber, who was commissioned by the choir to look into accusations of beatings, torture or sexual abuse, said he thought that the actual abuse was even more widespread.

This breaks out to about a third of the children under Rev. Georg Ratzinger (Benedict’s brother).

Asked whether Benedict’s brother, the Rev. Georg Ratzinger, who conducted the Regensburg choir from 1964 to 1994, had known of the abuse, Mr. Weber said, “After my research, I must assume so.”

Most of the abuses are alleged to have been perpetrated by Johann Meier, a director of a school connected with the choir between the years 1953 until 1992. Meier has since died.

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

UNITED STATES
Hamilton and Griffin on Rights

Over the past few months, the film “Spotlight” has justifiably garnered a lot of attention and praise. It’s about how a team of Boston Globe reporters shined a long-overdue “spotlight” on the Boston archdiocese and its decades of successfully hiding clergy sex crimes.

For a few years afterwards, to a much lesser degree, other journalists did similar investigations in other US Catholic dioceses.

But public attention wanes quickly. And bishops aren’t dumb. They responded by doubling down on secrecy and hiring more expert public relations firms. They launched, and still relentlessly implement, a shrewd PR campaign: admitting what couldn’t be denied but minimizing it, shifting blame, offering apologies and making promises, while clamping down an even-tighter lid on their long-held, potentially devastating secrets.

So much remains hidden.

Here are nine places where “spotlights” are sorely needed now:

1—Church staff and defenders TALK of “zero tolerance.” But that’s the official church policy in only a handful of western democracies (as our colleagues at BishopAccountability.org point out). Across the vast majority of the world, bishops refuse to even promise – much less implement – “zero tolerance.” Why have virtually no news outlets reported this simple but telling fact?

2—Hundreds of priests who’ve been convicted, suspended or accused in one country have been sent or have gone abroad, only to work or live among unsuspecting families and colleagues. Not a single bishop, as best we can tell, has yanked a single passport from a single predator priest. Why is that? Not a single discussion has been held (unless behind closed doors) among church officials about this disturbing and likely growing practice. Why have just a few journalists (Brooks Egerton, Will Carless) reported this?

3—“We didn’t understand. We’re learning.” That’s the carefully-crafted, oft-repeated but disingenuous mantra of Catholic officials across the US (and increasingly, the rest of the world). If that’s true, and evidence suggests it’s not, then why has that “learning” stopped? Where’s the evidence that weak, vague, hastily-adopted church abuse policies are being strengthened, as bishops supposedly “learn” more about predators? It’s not happening.

4—Remember the National Review Board? That’s the body that was set up in 2002 to allegedly monitor whether US bishops were honoring their pledges of reform. Heard anything about or from them for the last few years? We haven’t either. Despite initially hopeful signs, they’ve become a “toothless tiger.” The purported “watchdog” has become a “lap dog.”

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

PENNSYLVANIA
Metro

Chester County police are searching for a pastor whom they say has fled after being charged with the rape of a teen he impregnated while she was living in his home.

Jacob Malone, who worked with Calvary Fellowship Church in Downingtown, was charged with rape and institutional sexual assault, CBS reported, adding that his whereabouts could be hard to determine because, as a pastor, he moved around frequently.

The charges against Malone stem from alleged sexual incidents with an 18-year-old woman who lived with him and his family in Exton, ABC reported. The woman has said Malone provided her with alcohol on two occasions and, in one instance, molested her while she was intoxicated.

The teen has told police that she is pregnant with the Malone’s child, investigators said to NBC.

Church leaders confronted Malone about the girl’s pregnancy in November, pastor Bill Bateman said in a related Philly.com article. When confronted, Malone admitted to impregnating her before resigning his position in mid-November.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Mittelbayerische

REGENSBURG.Der ehemalige Leiter der Regensburger Domspatzen, Georg Ratzinger, begrüßt die Aufarbeitung des Misshandlungs- und Missbrauchsskandals bei den Domspatzen. Das teilte der Sprecher des Bistums Regensburg, Clemens Neck, am Dienstagabend mit und trat damit einer Meldung des Bayerischen Rundfunks entgegen, wonach Ratzinger die Aufklärungsarbeit als „Irrsinn“ bezeichnet habe. Gegenüber der MZ teilte das Bistum mit, dass Ratzinger mit dem Vorgehen der Diözese uneingeschränkt einverstanden sei. Laut Neck hält es der ehemalige Chorleiter für richtig, dass alle Beschuldigungen rückhaltlos aufgeklärt werden. Ebenso befürworte Ratzinger, dass diese Aufgabe einem Rechtsanwalt übertragen worden sei, der unabhängig vom Bistum vorgehe.

Ratzinger war am Montag aus Rom von einem Besuch bei seinem Bruder Josef, dem früheren Papst Benedikt XVI., zurückgekommen.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Sueddeutsche Zeitung

[Georg Ratzinger called investigation of the Regensburg abuse scandal as “madness”.]

Von Andreas Glas, Regensburg

Der ehemalige Kapellmeister der Regensburger Domspatzen, Georg Ratzinger, hat die Aufklärung des Missbrauchsskandals als “Irrsinn” bezeichnet. “Diese Kampagne ist für mich ein Irrsinn. Es ist einfach Irrsinn, wie man über 40 Jahre hinweg überprüfen will, wie viele Ohrfeigen bei uns verteilt worden sind, so wie in anderen Einrichtungen auch”, sagte der 91-Jährige am Dienstag dem Bayerischen Rundfunk.

Für ihn sei das Thema abgeschlossen. Wenige Stunden später relativierte Ratzinger seine Aussage: Es sei richtig, alle Beschuldigungen rückhaltlos aufzuklären, heißt es in einer Stellungnahme des Bistums. Ratzinger, der den Knabenchor von 1964 bis 1994 geleitet hat, war am Montagabend aus Rom zurückgekehrt, von einem Besuch bei seinem Bruder, dem emeritierten Papst Benedikt XVI.

Körperlicher und sexueller Missbrauch in bis zu 700 Fällen

Am Freitag hatte ein unabhängiger Gutachter seinen Bericht vorgelegt, demzufolge wesentlich mehr Buben misshandelt wurden, als bis vor Kurzem bekannt war. Bis zu 700 Domspatzen sollen von Priestern und Lehrern körperlich oder sexuell missbraucht worden sein. In acht Monaten hat der Gutachter viermal so viele Fälle aufgedeckt wie das Bistum Regensburg in fünf Jahren.

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DEUTSCHLAND
BR

[Despite criticism from Georg Ratzinger, former director of the Regensburg boys choir, the diocese has stood by its decision to fully investigate the allegations of sexual abuse in which many instances of abuse occured during his time as director. Ratzinger said it was “madness” to investigate abuse that may have happened years ago.]

Im Zusammenhang mit dem Misshandlungs- und Missbrauchsskandal bei den Regensburger Domspatzen versucht das Bistum Regensburg, den in die Kritik geratenen früheren Domkapellmeister Georg Ratzinger aus der Schusslinie zu nehmen

Ratzinger habe auf Nachfrage erklärt, es sei richtig, alle Beschuldigungen rückhaltlos aufzuklären. Das teilte am Dienstagabend (12.01.16) der Sprecher der Diözese Regensburg, Clemens Neck, dem Bayerischen Rundfunk mit. Ratzinger sei mit dem Vorgehen des Bistums Regensburg uneingeschränkt einverstanden und er begrüße es, dass diese Aufgabe einem Rechtsanwalt übertragen sei, der unabhängig vom Bistum vorgehe.

Ratzinger sprach von “Irrsinn”

Bistumssprecher Neck sagte weiter, der 91 Jahre alte Ratzinger sei gesundheitlich angeschlagen. Damit relativiert das Bistum Regensburg Aussagen, die der Bruder von Papst Benedikt am Dienstagmorgen im Gespräch mit dem BR gemacht hatte. Georg Ratzinger hatte hier von einer “Kampagne” gesprochen. Wörtlich hatte er gesagt:

“Diese Kampagne ist für mich ein Irrsinn. Es ist einfach Irrsinn, wie man über 40 Jahre hinweg überprüfen will, wie viele Ohrfeigen bei uns verteilt worden sind, so wie in anderen Einrichtungen auch.”
Georg Ratzinger, 91

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RHODE ISLAND
Rhode Island Public Radio

By JOHN BENDER

A former Massachusetts Attorney General has been hired to spearhead a new investigation into allegations of sexual abuse at St. George’s prep school in Middletown, Rhode Island. Scott Harshbarger of Boston will take up the inquiry into the school.

A group of alumni has accused former teachers and faculty at the school of sexual misconduct in the 1970s and 80s.

That same group deemed an initial investigation not thorough or impartial enough, because the investigator worked for a law firm which also represented the school.

The alumni pressed the school for a new inquiry into the allegations with an investigator approved jointly by the group and the St. George’s board of trustees.

Harshbarger is a prominent Boston lawyer, and served as Attorney General of Massachusetts from 1991 to 1999.

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ALASKA
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Tuesday, Jan. 12, 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)

Before praising Alaska Archbishop Francis Hurley too much, Catholics and citizens should recall that he repeatedly put children in harm’s way, by quietly bringing a Michigan predator priest and a New Mexico predator bishop to work in Alaska while warning no one about their crimes.

[BishopAccountability.org]

And just five years ago, he advocated returning some child molesting clerics to ministry and relaxing the church’s “zero tolerance” policy.

[BishopAccountability.org]

[SNAP]

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IRELAND
The Journal

FORMER PRIEST AND serial abuser Tony Walsh has received a sentence of one year’s imprisonment for the sexual assault of a child in the early 1970s.

Walsh was a seminarian at the time of the offence, which is the earliest recorded case of child abuse by him.

He went on to become known as the “Singing Priest” for his role in a travelling all-priest group before he was defrocked after his abuse of young boys began to emerge.

Walsh (61), formerly of North Circular Road, Dublin was convicted last December after a trial at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court of the indecent assault of a female at St Luke’s, Kilbarron Park, Kilmore, Dublin on an unknown date between 17 April, 1973 and 9 September, 1976.

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IRELAND
Kildare Nationalist

A former priest and serial child abuser will have to serve an extra year behind bars for the sexual assault of a young girl in the 1970s.

Tony Walsh of North Circular Road in Dublin is already serving a 16-year sentence for the rape and abuse of three schoolboys.

In the late 1970s, Tony Walsh used to perform as an Elvis impersonator with an All Priests Show and became known as the “singing priest”.

But away from the stage act, he was a child abuser, who was eventually defrocked by Pope John Paul II.

In 2010, the 61-year-old was jailed for 16 years for abusing boys in the 70s and 80s. He will now spend an extra year in prison for indecently assaulting a young girl.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Premier

4. Archbishop of Canterbury commissions an independent review into the handling of sex offence allegations made against a bishop 20yrs ago

Sex abuse scandals involving young males within faith-based organisations is something more commonly associated with the Catholic Church. However, in October last year Peter Ball, the former bishop of Lewes and Gloucester respectively, was arrested for a string of offences against teenagers and young men in the Church. The Archbishop of Canterbury launched an independent review into the abuse by Ball, after claims of a cover-up (with one of the victims accusing the senior clergy at the time of being more concerned with the Church’s reputation than the victims) (BBC News 16.12.15).

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VATICAN CITY
Vatican Information Service

Vatican City, 12 January 2016 (VIS) – The Holy Father has:

– appointed Fr. Euzebius Chinekezy Ogbonna Managwu as bishop of Port-Gentil (area 22,850, population 128,000, Catholics 71,770, priests 11, religious 11), Gabon. The bishop-elect was born in N’Djamena, Chad in 1959 and was ordained a priest in 1992. He holds a licentiate from the Pontifical Theological Faculty “Teresianum”, Rome and has served in a number of pastoral roles, including parish vicar, parish priest, spiritual director and rector of the Saint Jean minor seminary in Libreville. He is currently episcopal vicar of the diocese of Libreville and pastor of the parish of Notre Dame de l’Ogooue.

– given his assent to the appointment, by the Synod of Bishops of the major archiepiscopal Syro-Malabar church, gathered in Mount Saint Thomas, Kerala, India, of Fr. Jose Pulickal as auxiliary bishop of the eparchy of Kanjirapally of the Syro-Malabars (area 2,017, population 1,365,900, Catholics 225,950, priests 344, religious 2,087), India. The bishop-elect was born in Inchiyani, India in 1964 and was ordained a priest in 1991. He holds a doctorate in biblical theology from the Dharmaram Institute of Bangalore, and has served in a number of pastoral roles, including vicar of the cathedral of Kanjirapally, director of catechesis, eparchial vicar and consultor. He is currently protosyncellus with responsibilty for the clergy.

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AUSTRALIA
The Age

Join leading investigative journalists Nick McKenzie and Richard Baker at an exclusive screening of the Golden Globe-nominated Spotlight, an investigative thriller starring Mark Ruffalo, Michael Keaton and Rachel McAdams.

Spotlight tells the true story of a team of Boston Globe journalists who exposed one of the biggest cover-ups of modern times.

After the screening, award-winning journalists McKenzie and Baker will lead a lively Q&A discussion, offering a rare insider’s perspective on investigative journalism, how it has evolved over the years and what it will look like in the future. Sharing their own experiences of reporting on high-profile crime and corruption within places high and low, while also answering questions from the audience, this stimulating Q&A is one not to be missed.

This exclusive event has limited seating, so get in quick!

Cost:
$15 for Fairfax readers including a glass of sparkling wine
$12.50 for Palace Movie Club members including a glass of sparkling wine
Where: Kino Cinema, Melbourne
When: 6:30pm, January 19th, 2016
Buy Now: Click here to buy tickets

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ROME
Crux

By John L. Allen Jr.
Associate editor January 12, 2016

ROME — Recently news broke in Germany about widespread sexual and physical abuse at a well-known Catholic boys’ choir, news that ricocheted around the world because when the abuse occurred, the choir was being directed by Monsignor Georg Ratzinger, the brother of emeritus Pope Benedict XVI.

The data was truly shocking: at least 231 children abused over four decades, from the 1950s to the 1990s, representing one out of every three boys in the famed Regensburg “Domspatzen” choir during that time.

A lawyer who compiled the report said that although there are no accusations of abuse against Ratzinger himself, who’s now 91, the research leads him to believe the pope’s brother must have known what was happening.

Around the same time, the Vatican was reeling from the latest twists in the “Vatileaks 2.0” saga, centering on leaks of secret papal documents revealing various kinds of financial corruption or dubious expenditures: cardinals living in swanky apartments, money being used to influence sainthood causes, all kinds of people who aren’t supposed to getting access to low-costs goods in the Vatican such as tobacco and gas, and so on.

(It’s called “2.0” in reference to the first Vatileaks scandal in 2012, involving the theft of documents from Pope Benedict by his then-butler.)

Both stories are embarrassing for the Vatican and for the Church, and both raise troubling questions: How could such misconduct have gone for so long without being detected, and what sort of accountability will be imposed so it doesn’t happen again?

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DEUTSCHLAND
BR

[George Ratzinger, former director of the Regensburg boys choir, said the campaign against abuse in the choir is “madness.” He said for him the issue is finished. He just returned from a visit with his brother, Emeritus Pope Benedict XIV. The lawyer who reported he found 231 victims of abuse – former choir members – said another 20 alleged victims have come forward since he gave his report.]

Der Regensburger Ex-Domkapellmeister Georg Ratzinger hat die Aufklärung des Missbrauchs- und Misshandlungsskandals bei seinem früheren Chor als “Irrsinn” bezeichnet. Das sagte er heute gegenüber dem Bayerischen Rundfunk.

“Für mich ist das Thema abgeschlossen”, sagte Ratzinger, der am Montagabend aus Rom von einem Besuch bei seinem Bruder Josef, dem früheren Papst Benedikt XVI., zurückkam.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Express

[The priest known as Georg K. was sentenced to six years in a German prison for abusing boys in South Africa. He appealed the sentence as being too harsh but this was rejected by the federal court. He now faces church action in Rome. The bishop has submitted his file to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.]

Willich/Aachen/Rom –
Wegen 25-fachen Missbrauchs von Jungen wurde der aus Südafrika ausgelieferte Willicher Sex-Priester Georg K. (40) zu sechs Jahren Gefängnis verurteilt.

Seine Revision gegen die „zu harte Strafe“ wurde vom Bundesgerichtshof abgewiesen. Jetzt muss er vors Kirchengericht in Rom. Sein Bischof hat seine Akte der Glaubenskongregation vorgelegt. K. droht die Entlassung aus dem Kirchendienst.

Nach den Missbrauchsfällen am Niederrhein hatte sich K. als Missionar nach Südafrika abgesetzt. Dort soll er sich erneut an Kommunionkindern vergriffen haben. Die Kirche ließ die Opfer alleine.

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UNITED STATES
Zen Peacemaker Order

Written by Roshi Eve Myonen Marko

Bernie and I went to the movies and saw “Spotlight” yesterday. It’s a terrific film about the group of Boston Globe journalists who reported on the extensive abuse of minors by many Catholic priests in Boston. I can’t recommend this movie highly enough.

I particularly appreciated that it didn’t portray the journalists as pure, white-horse knights going out to seek the truth and slay deniers and perpetrators. It showed, in fact, that they had received several tips in prior years about what was going on, and they’d shut their eyes to it, like many others, or didn’t bother to put the dots together and present the full story till much later, after many more children had been abused.

I thought of the abuse I’ve seen in dharma centers. It’s easy to say that it was nothing like the horrific scale of what went on in various Catholic dioceses across the world. It’s easy to point out that, at least in the West, children are almost never involved if only because most of our dharma centers don’t have family programs. But we’ve certainly had our share of abuse by teachers of students.

This morning I’m thinking about the silence that supports these things. I’m thinking about the subtle moments that some of us experienced, when there’s a dissonance between what I hear and what I see, and I withdraw and remain silent rather than ask uncomfortable questions. This goes both ways. I’ve watched teachers hide behind authority, and I’ve also seen students let go of responsibility. I’ve watched many practitioners, including me, seek in a like-minded group a refuge from living responsibly in the world, learning how to deal with money and each other, and accepting the consequences of our decisions and our actions. A place where we won’t have to grow up. Who has lived or practiced for years in a dharma center without witnessing some of these patterns?

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ALASKA
KTUU

Patrick Enslow, Multimedia Journalist and Weekend Producer, penslow@ktuu.com

ANCHORAGE –
Members of the Catholic Church and those around Anchorage are mourning the loss of former Archbishop of Anchorage Francis Hurley. The Archdiocese of Anchorage says the 88-year-old “peacefully passed away at home” on Jan. 10th.

Parishioners at Holy Family Cathedral in downtown Anchorage said a prayer for Hurley during mass on Monday. Down the road, those who knew him remember the legacy he left in Anchorage like the Brother Francis Shelter, Covenant House, and Clare House.

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GERMANY
Catholic News Agency

Regensburg, Germany, Jan 12, 2016 / 12:09 am (CNA/EWTN News).- The elder brother of retired Pope Benedict XVI said that he was unaware of any sexual abuse occurring at a choir boarding school he previously directed.

“These things were never discussed,” Fr. Georg Ratzinger told German newspaper Passauer Neue Presse. “The problem of sexual abuse that has now come to light was never spoken of.”

He also said that he was not aware of how serious physical abuse by one of the schoolmasters may have been, apologizing to victims.

His comments came after a lawyer charged by the Diocese of Regensburg with investigating alleged physical and sexual abuse at its cathedral’s children’s choir said his inquiry had found that more than 200 children may have been abused from the 1950s to the 1990s.

At a Jan. 8 press conference, Ulrich Weber said he had found 231 children who were allegedly physically or sexually abused by teachers or priests at the choir and its associated schools from 1953 to 1992.

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CHILE
La Nacion

[Priest Felipe Berrior said yesterday that the Catholic Church must break away from abuse of power.]

El sacerdote jesuita Felipe Berríos aseguró este lunes en el programa “Cadena nacional” del canal de cable Via X que para revertir la desaprobación, la Iglesia católica chilena necesita desprenderse del abuso de poder.

Al ser consultado por el periodista Francesco Gazzella por la relación de la Iglesia Católica chilena con sus seguidores y su baja en la aprobación ciudadana en algunas encuestas, sostuvo que para mejorar esto “no basta con que Karadima haya sido condenado, sino que también la Iglesia debe desprenderse de ese abuso de poder y eso, la jerarquía, todavía no lo hace”.

“Lo que comenzó a vivir la iglesia en los años 60 fue bruscamente frenado en los 70 incluso hubo un retroceso con Juan Pablo II como Papa (…) Nosotros vivimos eso en Chile, ese retroceso en la iglesia comprometida con los derechos humanos, alcanzamos a vivir esa primavera. Y ese retroceso lleva también a un abuso de poder”, agregó el sacerdote.

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NEDERLAND
Elsevier

door Emile Kossen 12 jan 2016

De Eritrees-orthodoxe kerk Tewahdo in Rotterdam is door het Centraal Orgaan opvang asielzoekers (COA) uitgeroepen tot verboden gebied voor minderjarige asielzoekers. Er zouden signalen zijn dat jonge vrouwelijke asielzoekers er op grote schaal werden misbruikt.

Hulporganisatie VluchtelingenWerk en voogdijinstelling Nidos klopten onafhankelijk bij het COA aan, meldde het Reformatorisch Dagblad maandag. Beiden spraken over een opvallend groot aantal ongewilde zwangerschappen bij jonge, gevluchte Eritrese vrouwen die de kerk in Rotterdam hadden bezocht.

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NETHERLAND
Sputnik International

The Dutch refugee agency COA advised unaccompanied minors against going to an Eritrean church in Rotterdam over sexual abuse concerns, local media reported Monday.

MOSCOW (Sputnik) — The church came under scrutiny of the agency, responsible for the reception of asylum seekers, after over 20 Eritrean young girls who frequented it became pregnant, the Reformatorisch Dagblad newspaper reported.

Concerns are the girls may have been sexually abused within the church community. The church previously allowed for parishioners to stay at its premises overnight. These included refugees of either sex, as well as marital status.

Church spokesman Teklit Girmazion told the outlet he was shocked by the allegations.

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KENTUCKY
Ledger-Independent

VANCEBURG | A former Lewis County preacher, currently facing sexual abuse charges, has been scheduled for a competency hearing.

Duncan Aker, of Greensburg, Ind. and formerly, Vanceburg, will appear at the hearing on Feb. 3, at 10 a.m. in order for the court to decide if he is competent to stand trial for his charges.

A pretrial hearing has also been scheduled for March 4.

Aker was arrested in May 2015, and charged with five counts of sexual abuse and four counts of sodomy after a Lewis County grand jury handed down an indictment against him in April 2015.

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