ABUSE TRACKER

UNITED KINGDOM
The Argus

Joel Adams, Reporter

THE Church of England has been hit by a fresh blow after another clergyman was jailed for sex crimes involving teenage boys.

Peter Keeley-Pannett has been sentenced to 32 months in prison after he used the webcam application Skype to view underage boys whom he contacted through internet chat rooms, while working as an unpaid deacon at the St Nicolas Church, Portslade.

He pleaded guilty to making over 150 indecent images of underage boys, and to several counts relating to causing teenage boys between 13 and 15 to engage in sexual activity.

The Diocese of Chichester has been rocked by repeated sex abuse cases in the last two years but this is the first which relates to recent offences rather than historic cases dating from the 1970s and 80s.

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NEW JERSEY
NJ.com

By Cristina Rojas | For NJ.com
on November 20, 2015

TRENTON — A former Diocese of Trenton priest was sentenced to three years in prison Friday for molesting a 16-year-old boy in a Trenton home last year.

The Rev. Romannilo “Nilo” Apura was sentenced to three years in prison on Friday.
Mercer County Prosecutor’s Office

The Rev. Romannilo “Nilo” Apura was arrested last summer following a second incident when he attempted to remove the boy’s pants, authorities said at the time.

Apura, who was most recently a pastor at St. Martha Parish in Point Pleasant, will have to be registered as a sex offender, assistant prosecutor Jennifer Downing said.

A restraining order also bars him from contacting the victim or his family and he cannot have unsupervised contact with children under the age of 18, she said.

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PENNSYLVANIA
The Times

By Tom Davidson tdavidson@timesonline.com

PITTSBURGH — As the new movie “Spotlight” opens in theaters nationwide, it’s evident the wounds wrought by the Catholic sexual abuse scandal that rocked the American church more than a decade ago remain unhealed.

Pittsburgh Bishop David A. Zubik, an Ambridge native, offered an apology that was published on the front page of the Pittsburgh Catholic, the weekly diocesan newspaper that will be distributed in parishes during Masses this weekend.

The film tells the story of the Boston Globe reporters who broke the story in 2002, and it reveals “a painful, shameful part of Catholic history in our country,” Zubik wrote in the statement.

“I offer my apology to and lift up in my daily prayers all those who have been harmed by someone who was entrusted to represent Christ,” Zubik wrote.

“The church has learned from the mistakes of the past while working diligently to ensure that what is portrayed in this movie never happens again. Since 1988, our Diocese of Pittsburgh has followed a policy of zero tolerance, of removing any cleric who sexually abused a minor.”

Although the church has worked to address any accusations, Zubike wrote, “we know that victims-survivors continue to suffer great pain.”

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VATICAN CITY
The Journal (Ireland)

POPE FRANCIS TODAY described some Catholic priests as so scary and neurotic he keeps well away from them.

In comments at a conference on training for the priesthood, the 78-year-old pontiff revealed he is instinctively suspicious of overly pious candidates.

“I will tell you sincerely, I’m scared of rigid priests. I keep away from them. They bite!”

His remarks drew laughs from the audience, but Francis was making the serious point that some people drawn to a clerical career are fundamentally unstable, and that this inevitably creates problems for the church if they are not weeded out.

“If you are sick, if you are neurotic, go and see a doctor, spiritual or physical. The doctor will give you pills. But, please, don’t let the faithful pay for neurotic priests. ‘
‘
As well as assessing the spiritual state of candidates, seminaries should also seek to judge their physical and psychological condition, the Pope argued.

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CANADA
National Post

The Canadian Press

LONDON, Ont. — A London, Ont., college professor is facing sex charges dating back to the period when he was an Anglican priest at St. Andrew’s Anglican Church on the Chippewa-On-The-Thames Native Reserve outside London.

Police say they investigated allegations of sexual abuse involving three First Nation boys that began in 1977 when they were seven years old, and ended in 1983 when they were 12 years old.

It is alleged that the offences occurred at the home of the accused in London.

David Norton, 69, is charged with three counts of indecent assault on a male, and one count of sexual assault.

Police say the investigation is continuing and are asking anyone with information related to the alleged incidents, or similar incidents, to call investigators.

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WISCONSIN
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Thursday, Nov. 19, 2015

For more information: David Clohessy 314 566 9790, davidgclohessy@gmail.com, Peter Isely 414 429 7250, peterisely@yahoo.com

Two Milwaukee predators are exposed
Both admitted molesting kids in other states
Neither have ever been “outed” in Wisconsin before
One, an ex-seminarian, now faces pending criminal charges
SNAP: “Catholic officials should spread the word about them”

Two admitted child molesting Catholic clerics who spent time in Milwaukee are being publicly exposed as predators by a victims’ group. It’s urging local Catholic officials to help prosecutors convict one of them.

Leaders of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, are warning the public about Kevin Sloniker, an ex-seminarian who was arrested weeks ago in Menomonie for sexually abusing children and Fr. Eric Middlecamp who Catholic officials acknowledge molested kids and worked in Milwaukee.

Sloniker told police he sexually assaulted nine boys in recent years and Fr. Middlecamp told his church supervisors he’d committed child sex crimes.

In 2005, Sloniker was kicked out of a Winona MN seminary after reportedly trying to circumcise himself. Still, he later became a Catholic youth counselor in Idaho.

From 1995 to 2011, Fr. Middlecamp worked at the Salvatorian headquarters at 1735 Hi-Mount Blvd. and lived with other clerics at a place called “Jordan House” (3800 N. 92nd St., 414-463-7570).

In the 1990s, he was accused of sexually abusing boys and girls in the late 1950s through 1970s. When he admitted his crimes, his Catholic supervisors reportedly moved him to Milwaukee.

According to the Official Catholic Directory, Fr. Middlecamp spent much of his career in Wisconsin (including nearly 20 years, in several stints, New Holstein WI in St Nazianz WI at a seminary). He also worked in Washington DC, Sioux City IA, Oakland CA and Phoenix AZ.

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VATICAN CITY
Vatican Insider

Some young men are too rigid or fundamentalist and join the priesthood because of mental deficiencies. The Pope recalled the importance of the family and the personalisation of human formation. He told bishops: “Be present in your dioceses of resign”

IACOPO SCARAMUZZI
VATICAN CITY

“Be careful of who you admit to the seminary,” because there could be people with mental deficiencies among the candidates to the priesthood. Pope Francis said this in an audience with participants of a Conference sponsored by the Congregation for the Clergy marking the fiftieth anniversary of the proclamation of the Vatican II decrees “Presbyterorum ordinis” (Decree on the Ministry and Life of Priests) and “Optatam Totius” (Decree on Priestly Training) (Pontifical Urbaniana University, 19-20).

Speaking off the cuff, Francis told a story about when he taught the novices of the Society of Jesus. A “good” boy didn’t pass the psychiatrist’s test and she said to Bergoglio: “These boys are fine until they have settled, until they feel completely secure. Then the problems start. Father, have you ever asked yourself why there are policemen who are torturers,” the doctor apparently asked Francis. The Pope told clergy that they must think twice when a young man “is too confident, rigid and fundamentalist”. Hence, his invitation to them to beware when admitting candidates to the seminary: “There are mentally ill boys who seek strong structures that can protect them”, such as “the police, the army and the clergy”.

In his speech, the Pope remembered the reform Benedict XVI wanted to introduce. He put the Congregation for the Clergy, now headed by Cardinal Beniamino Stella, in charge of the seminaries so the dicastery “can start dealing with the life and ministry of the presbyteries from the moment candidates enter the seminary, working to ensure vocations are promoted and nurtured and can lead to priests living saintly lives. A priest’s path towards sainthood being in he seminary!”

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CANADA
London Free Press

By Jane Sims, The London Free Press
Friday, November 20, 2015

A retired Anglican priest who has taught First Nations history at King’s University College has been charged sexually assaulting three First Nations boys almost 40 years ago.

David Norton, 69, was the priest at St. Andrew’s Anglican Church at Chippewa-On-The-Thames just west of London in 1977.

He’s charged with three counts of indecent assault and one count of sexual assault.

London police said the complainants are three First Nations men who were just 7 in 1977. The abuses continued until 1983 when they were 12.

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MASSACHUSETTS
Boston Globe

By Michael Rezendes GLOBE STAFF NOVEMBER 20, 2015

How the world has changed in the 13 years since the Spotlight Team first revealed that the leader of the Catholic Church in Boston, Cardinal Bernard Law, allowed one of his priests to continue working even though Law knew that Fr. John Geoghan had spent his career sexually assaulting children.

Since the Globe uncovered a pattern of moving pedophile priests rather than stopping them, the scandal has spread to more than 100 cities across the nation and at least 100 more around the world. In the Boston archdiocese alone, more than 250 priests and brothers have been publicly accused of abusing minors. The Globe wrote 600 stories on priest sexual abuse in 2002 and won a Pulitzer Prize for revealing the coverup, which is chronicled in the new movie “Spotlight.”

But, when the Globe published the first story on Jan. 6, 2002, no one on the Spotlight Team imagined that a five-month investigation would lead to Law’s resignation and a global crisis for the Catholic Church that continues to this day.

“I don’t think any of us had a sense of what was going to happen,” recalls my Spotlight colleague Sacha Pfeiffer.

Today, more than a decade after American bishops pledged to better protect young people from sexual abuse, the scandal is still not over. Bishops in Kansas City and Minneapolis were recently removed from their posts for continuing to cover up for abusive priests.

And in Rome, Pope Francis established a commission chaired by Boston Cardinal Sean O’Malley to study clergy sexual abuse, along with a tribunal to hold bishops accountable for abuse in their dioceses. But survivors want to see more concrete action before they’ll be convinced these measures are more than public relations.

For the Spotlight Team — and many others at the Globe — the far-reaching impact of the investigation has yielded invaluable lessons.

One is the importance of investigative reporting in holding powerful institutions and individuals accountable for their actions — even those that profess to be paragons of probity and morality.

As the business model for newspapers across the country falters, many news organizations are cutting their investigative staffs or eliminating them entirely. And no wonder. Investigative journalism is expensive. The Spotlight Team’s investigation of the church started with four reporters and expanded to eight shortly after the initial stories were published. That whole group stayed on the story for the rest of the year.

But the Globe actually has increased its commitment to investigative reporting, shoring up the Spotlight Team’s traditional roster of four with two more reporters, creating a permanent six-person team.

The clergy abuse investigation also provided an early lesson in the power of the Internet. Although it may seem all-too-obvious today, the Globe’s decision to post church documents used in its reporting provided readers with powerful, direct evidence that Law and other church officials had spent decades covering up Geoghan’s abuses.

The Internet also helped spread the Spotlight Team’s stories — and the church’s internal records — worldwide, spurring lawsuits, investigations by other news organizations, and complaints from thousands of victims.

At the same time, the investigation underscored the importance of old-fashioned, shoe-leather reporting. Though new technologies have provided investigative reporters with an array of shiny tools, the series showed there is no substitute for knocking on doors for face-to-face encounters with reluctant sources who needed to be assured of a reporter’s sincerity or determination.

Perhaps most important, the investigation highlighted the need for vigilance, or a continuing commitment to cover and advance the story.

Since the publication of those early stories, the Globe has continued to hold the church accountable for its actions regarding clergy sexual abuse.

In 2012, the Globe revealed that a prominent Jesuit and trustee at Boston College played a major role in covering up decades of abuse by a Jesuit priest from Chicago. In 2014, the Globe reported that a prominent American cleric named by Pope Francis to prosecute cases of priestly abuse was himself involved in the coverup of molestations.

But the stories from 2002 take us back to a time before anyone knew how far the scandal would reach, a time when powerful people tried to deny that there was any scandal at all.

Michael Rezendes can be reached at michael.rezendes@globe.com.

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ST. LOUIS (MO)
Berger’s Beat

November 20, 2015 12:18 pm | Author: berger

Two bishops from our area won national posts in the U.S. Conference of Bishops this week. Archbishop Wilton Gregory of Atlanta, formerly of Belleville, was elected chair of the bishops’ Committee on Divine Worship.” And Cardinal Timothy Dolan of NY, a Ballwin native, was tapped to head the bishops’ Pro-Life Activities.”

TONIGHT, the highly-acclaimed movie, “Spotlight,” opens in our town and dozens of others. Last month, SNAP’s David Clohessy hobnobbed with some of the stars – Mark Ruffalo, Michael Keaton, Lev Schreiber and others – at the NYC and Boston openings. It’s the story of how journalists exposed 249 predator priests in one archdiocese through dogged investigations. Their work ultimately led to the resignation of Cardinal Bernard Law (formerly of Missouri), the first prelate to step down because of the church’s crisis. The movie also stars Rachel McAdams, Stanley Tucci and “Mad Men’s” John Slattery.

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VATICAN CITY
ANSA

(ANSA) Vatican City, November 20 – Pope Francis on Friday said the Catholic Church should choose its seminarians more carefully, saying some priestly hopefuls are men with psychiatric problems looking for a protective structure.

Francis warned clergymen to “keep their eyes open” with respect to the admission to seminaries of men wanting to join the priesthood.

“There are young men who are psychologically ill and are looking for strong structures to protect them,” the pope told the Congregation for the Clergy. These include “the police force, the army and the clergy,” he said. Francis went on to talk about the priestly vocation. Priests “are not professionals in pastoral care or evangelisation, who turn up and do what they have to, perhaps even well, but as if it were a job,” he said. They are not “philanthropists or public officials, but fathers and brothers” who are called “to be among people,” continued the pope, recalling also that formation does not happen “in a laboratory but within the family”. The pope also urged bishops to remain “close to” to their priests.

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CONNECTICUT
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

for immediate release: Friday, Nov. 20, 2015

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

A prosecutor claims she’s been told that a Hartford priest will ‘never be a priest again.’ We doubt that’s true.

[Journal Inquirer]

Earlier this week Fr. Paul A. Gotta was convicted in a plea bargain of second-degree breach of peace. Next month, he faces firearms charges. He’s accused of molesting a child.

Now is no time for complacency. We’ve seen far too many other priests – both credibly accused of crimes and proven guilty of crimes – who’ve been kept in or returned to parishes. (Remember: the Catholic church continues to experience a severe shortage of priests and seminarians. The pressure to keep them in the job, no matter how egregious their wrongdoing may be, is tremendous.)

[Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests]

We repeat what we said yesterday: Hartford Archbishop Leonard Blair should take Fr. Gotta’s passport so he can’t flee the country (as Fr. Augusto Cortez of the Rockville Centre diocese and dozens of other predator priests have done).

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MINNESOTA
Crookston Times

Posted Nov. 20, 2015

Crookston, Minn.

Former Crookston Diocese Fr. Charles J. Gormly was recently named as a serial predator priest by the Survivors Network of those abused by Priests (SNAP), a support group for clergy abuse victims. Several pages of previously-secret records of the priest were recently made public after a request by the Jeff Anderson & Associates firm during a clergy abuse trial against the Diocese of Duluth on priests accused of child sex abuse.

The documents were introduced into evidence in the Bill Weis vs. Diocese of Duluth civil lawsuit conducted in Ramsey County. They pertain to four priests accused of sexually abusing children while working in the Diocese of Duluth.

Until the documents were released, attorneys were not able to say that Gormly had been in the Diocese of Crookston or that he had offended in the Diocese of Crookston. They believe he served in Crookston in the late 1950s.

The newly-released records show a bishop admitting that Fr. Gormly “has a sexual problem that prompts him to molest small girls,” that “his record in Crookston was not the best” and that Fr. Gormly was sent for “treatment” to at least two facilities.

The SNAP network issued a news release Thursday urging victims of clergy sexual abuse or witnesses to it in the Crookston diocese or elsewhere to speak up.

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COLORADO
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Friday, Nov. 20, 2015

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

A new lawsuit has been filed against a predator priest who lives in Denver. Colorado Catholic officials should warn parents, police, parishioners, prosecutors and the public about him.

[Daily Herald]

He’s Fr. Henry Slade and he pled guilty in 1990 to sexual misconduct with a disabled 18 year old. He’s been sued for child sexual abuse before and Joliet’s bishop admits Fr. Slade is “credibly accused” of child sex crimes.

[BisopAccountability.org]

(This new suit also says another priest, Fr. Phillip Dedera, heard and ignored the boy’s screams for help and later offered him marijuana after the attack to “help him forget” it.)

Archbishop Samuel Aquila should personally visit the parishes near where Fr. Slade lives, begging victims, witnesses and whistleblowers to come forward. He should also use parish bulletins, church websites and pulpit announcements across the entire diocese to seek out others who may have been assaulted and are still suffering. And he should permanently post on his diocesan website the names, photos and whereabouts of every child molesting Denver are cleric, whether alive or dead, diocesan or religious order, or admitted, proven or credibly accused. (About 30 US bishops have done this. It’s the bare minimum a bishop should do to protect the vulnerable and heal the wounded.)

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NEW YORK
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Friday, Nov. 20, 2015

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

An accused predator priest from Long Island spent time in Staten Island. NYC Cardinal Timothy Dolan should aggressively seek out anyone he may have hurt in the archdiocese.

[Newsday]

The priest, Fr. Augusto Cortez, is believed to have fled the US and returned to Central America. But he could still be in NYC.

Common sense and decency tell us that Dolan, and Rockville Center Bishop William Murphy, have a moral responsibility to help law enforcement catch and convict Fr. Cortez. But instead of lending a hand, Murphy is making up excuses and Dolan’s staying silent.

We beg them both to stop hair-splitting and ducking and dodging behind the claim that Fr. Cortez belongs to a religious order and isn’t on their diocesan payrolls. It’s a Catholic bishop’s duty to protect and help his flock from any child molesting cleric, no matter who signs the predator’s paycheck.

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MINNESOTA
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Thursday, Nov. 19, 2015

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

Several pages of previously-secret records about a serial predator priest who worked in the Crookston diocese and abused in the Duluth diocese have been made public. They paint an unflattering view of the Catholic church hierarchy.

He’s Fr. Charles J. Gormly. Last December, “the Diocese of Duluth included Father Gormly on its official list of clergy members who have been credibly accused of child sexual abuse,” according to a Minnesota newspaper.

[BishopAccountability.org]

[Jeff Anderson & Associates]

The newly released records show a bishop admitting that Fr. Gormly “has a sexual problem that prompts him to molest small girls,” that “his record in Crookston was not the best,” and that Fr. Gormly was sent for “treatment” to at least two facilities.

We hope that every single person who saw, suspected or suffered clergy sex crimes or cover ups in Crookston will summon the strength to speak up. Kids are safer only when victims, witnesses and whistleblowers are courageous enough to act. Silence is tempting but it only helps wrongdoers.

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VERMONT
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Friday, Nov. 20, 2015

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

This week, Vermont Bishop Christopher Coyne takes charge of communication for the US Conference of Catholic Bishops. What irony: He takes over during the week that a film called ‘Spotlight’ opens nationally. That movie depicts horrific deceit and corruption in the Boston Archdiocese, where Coyne worked as Cardinal Bernard Law’s primary mouthpiece, a post he held from 2002-2005. (See Rocco Palmo’s blog “Whispers in the Loggia.”)

[BishopAccountability.org]

Pope Francis should never have promoted Coyne. Coyne’s brother bishops should have never given him this post. But now that he’s in this position, Coyne must lead by example and, at a bare minimum, do what 30 US bishops have reluctantly done: post names of proven, admitted and credibly accused child molesting clerics on his diocesan website.

[BishopAccountability.org]

For years in Boston, time and time again, Coyne repeated deceptive public relations spin about heinous child sex crimes and callous cover ups by Law and other Catholic officials. How does this qualify Coyne to lead America’s bishops?

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MEXICO
Daily Star (UK)

Alfredo Huerta Zavala, 56, took advantage of his trusted position to abuse the sisters over a four-year period in city of Oaxaca, in the southern Mexican state of the same name.

Police say the girls, who are now 13 and 14, would have been just 9 and 10 when the abuse began.

The girls were reportedly abused when they attended the congregation and estimate that they were raped more than 100 times.

According to statements, the child molester used the “name of God” and his religion to trick and convince the youngsters into allowing the abuse.

A local news portal reported: “He made them believe that he was chosen by Christ and for this reason they should trust in him unconditionally.”

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CONNECTICUT
Journal Inquirer

Friday, November 20, 2015

By Alex Wood
Journal Inquirer

Although the sexual-assault case against the former administrator of East Windsor’s two Roman Catholic parishes ended this week with his conviction only of a misdemeanor not involving sexual misconduct, the conviction should end his career as a priest, a prosecutor says.

The Rev. Paul A. Gotta, who formerly served at St. Philip Church on South Main Street and St. Catherine Church on Windsorville Road, was convicted in a plea bargain of second-degree breach of peace, under a provision of that law that deals with assaulting or striking another person.

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UNITED STATES
St. Louis Post-Dispatch

November 19, 2015 • By Calvin Wilson

Walter “Robby” Robinson (Michael Keaton) isn’t sure what to expect from Marty Baron (Liev Schreiber), the newly appointed editor-in-chief of the Boston Globe. Robinson is the leader of Spotlight — a team of journalists devoted to time-consuming and labor-intensive investigations — and he’s concerned that Baron might be a cost-cutter who’s out to dismantle it.

Baron has no such goal. An outsider to Boston, his interest is in surmising the lay of the land and, if necessary, shaking things up. And he’s barely had time to settle into his office when he suggests a project for Spotlight: looking into cases involving pedophile priests, and the role of the Catholic Church in protecting them.

Robinson is all too aware that, in a city that’s largely Catholic, the story is a powder keg. But it’s also a story for which the Globe must take responsibility, even if it does so belatedly.

Against a backdrop of opposition explicit and implied, reporters Mike Rezendes (Mark Ruffalo), Sacha Pfeiffer (Rachel McAdams) and Matt Carroll (Brian d’Arcy James) set out after the truth. And Robinson grapples with his own culpability in helping to perpetuate sexual abuse.

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UNITED STATES
America Magazine

November 30, 2015 Issue

The Editors

The new movie “Spotlight,” focusing on The Boston Globe’s coverage of sexual abuse by members of the Catholic clergy in Boston, reminds us of the need to be vigilant about abuse in the church—and indeed anywhere. And the Catholic Church has made great strides in combating abuse. That is why Pope Francis’ comments about the alleged cover-up by the recently installed bishop of the Diocese of Osorno, in Chile, were disheartening. “Please, don’t lose your calm,” Pope Francis said in October to a group of pilgrims at the Vatican in remarks that later became public. “Osorno is suffering, yes, but for being dumb.”

Bishop Juan Barros had been a protégé of the Rev. Fernando Karadima, a charismatic priest who has been accused of sexual abuse. Father Karadima has denied any wrongdoing but was nonetheless ordered to a life of “prayer and penance” by the Vatican, which clearly found sufficient cause to do so. (One victim accused then-Father Barros of being present during an incident of abuse.) The anger in Chile over this case was so intense that a raucous crowd showed up to protest at Bishop Barros’s installation Mass. But Osorno, said the pope, “has let its head be filled with what politicians say, judging a bishop without any proof.”

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TEXAS
Dallas Morning News

Tasha Tsiaperas

Police believe a former associate pastor at a Garland church may have sexually assaulted several children, officials said Friday.

Aaron Gaddis, 55, was charged last month with sexual assault of a child in connection with the 2002 rape of a 15-year-old boy, said Garland police spokesman Lt. Pedro Barineau.

At the time, Gaddis was an associate pastor at the Mt. Hebron Missionary Baptist Church in Garland. The assault allegedly occurred at Gaddis’ DeSoto home, police said.

The victim lived in Garland, and police believe Gaddis may have assaulted other children he met at the Garland church. Barineau said investigators are asking that anyone else with information about this assault or others call police.

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TEXAS
WFAA

Jordan Armstrong, WFAA November 20, 2015

GARLAND — A Garland pastor has been arrested and charged with sexual assault of a child, and police are asking any other potential victims to come forward.

The former associate pastor of Mt. Hebron Missionary Baptist Church, Aaron Gaddis, was arrested in October.

Police said in a release Friday that Gaddis may have assaulted other children while working for the church, and they’re asking anyone with information to call them at 972-205-1699.

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UNITED STATES
Catholic League

Bill Donohue addresses recent attacks on Cardinal Donald Wuerl:

The crazies on the Catholic right have set their sights on Cardinal Donald Wuerl, Archbishop of Washington. Why? Because he is close to Pope Francis, and they hate the pope. The attacks are coming from The Church Militant, a loose gang of angry right-wingers who specialize in character assassination, and American Spectator hater George Neumayr.

Three recent hit pieces by Church Militant author Christine Niles set the agenda. She says “today’s archbishop of Washington owns a penthouse in a complex valued at $43 million.” That is a lie. He owns not a centimeter of his third-floor “penthouse,” an apartment that sits atop Our Lady Queen of the Americas parish. Like bishops all over the world, he resides in a spot that was specifically designed for the local Ordinary. There is nothing scandalous about this Church patrimony.

Church Militant head Michael Voris says his unidentified sources claim that when Wuerl was the Bishop of Pittsburgh his gay-friendly approach earned him the nickname “Donna the Girl.” I taught at a Pittsburgh Catholic college during Wuerl’s years and never once did I hear anyone tag him as such. Voris also says that Wuerl stole a “Catechism work composed by Fr. John Hardon by simply putting his name to it.” That’s another lie. I guess Wuerl was channeling Hardon when he gave his TV series of lectures on the subject.

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UNITED STATES
Crux

By John L. Allen Jr.
Associate editor November 20, 2015

Next week Vatican representatives will again testify before a United Nations panel. If the past is prologue, it could be another missed opportunity if the independent experts on the panel grind ideological axes instead of posing legitimate questions that actually fall within their purview.

In early 2014, the Vatican – technically the “Holy See,” the term for the Vatican as a sovereign entity – appeared before two different UN bodies, the Committee on the Rights of the Child and the Committee Against Torture. In both cases, the panels pressed Vatican officials on the child sexual abuse scandals in Catholicism.

Experts wanted to know, for instance, why some priests accused of abuse in Europe or North America were seemingly able to escape punishment by relocating to developing nations, or why Church officials in some areas still resist full collaboration with police and prosecutors.

While insisting the Vatican is not responsible for supervising every one of the world’s 400,000 Catholic priests, a duty that instead falls to local bishops, officials of the Holy See recognized the importance of those questions, and they provided updates on reform efforts, in effect inviting the UN to help in the quest for best practices.

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UNITED STATES
United States Conference of Catholic Bishops

November 18, 2015

BALTIMORE—Reverend Monsignor J. Brian Bransfield, a priest of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia, was elected general secretary of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) during their Fall General Assembly, November 17.

“I’m grateful and humbled by the confidence Archbishop Kurtz and the body of bishops have placed in me,” Msgr. Bransfield said. “My predecessor, Msgr Ronny Jenkins, demonstrated exemplary leadership. I deeply appreciate his extraordinary contribution and comprehensive work.” Msgr Bransfield added, “The expert staff at the USCCB is always equal to the task. Their missionary spirit and talent is an ongoing inspiration.”

Elected to a five-year term, the general secretary coordinates all administrative matters of the Conference, and is responsible for the coordination of the work of the Conference Committees and staff. He likewise directs and coordinates the planning and operational activities of the various secretariats and offices in support of the work of the Conference.

Msgr. Bransfield has served as associate general secretary since 2011. From 2009-2011 he served as assistant general secretary for the implementation of the USCCB strategic plan. He has also served as executive director of the USCCB Secretariat for Evangelization and Catechesis.

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UNITED STATES
America Magazine

Nov 17 2015

Dennis Sadowski – Catholic News Service

The U.S. bishops Nov. 17 elected Msgr. J. Brian Bransfield as the new general secretary of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

He has been associate general secretary of the conference for five years, working alongside the current general secretary, Msgr. Ronny Jenkins, whose term is ending.

Msgr. Bransfield, a Philadelphia archdiocesan priest, will step into the position in 2016. His term will run for five years. The general secretariat oversees the work of the USCCB on behalf of the U.S. bishops.

The bishops chose Msgr. Bransfield over Father Shawn McKnight, executive director of the USCCB Secretariat of Clergy, Consecrated Life and Vocations. No vote tally was announced by Msgr. Jenkins.

The bishops also elected Archbishop Dennis M. Schnurr of Cincinnati as treasurer-elect. He received 126 votes to 110 for Bishop John M. LeVoir of New Ulm, Minnesota, on the second day of the USCCB’s annual fall general assembly in Baltimore.

Next year, Archbishop Schnurr will succeed the current USCCB treasurer, Bishop Kevin J. Farrell of Dallas.

The bishops also voted for chairmen-elect for six standing committees: Divine Worship; Migration; Domestic Justice and Human Development; Clergy, Consecrated Life and Vocations; Catholic Education; and Laity, Marriage, Family Life and Youth. Other elections were for the boards of Catholic Relief Services, the U.S. bishops’ overseas relief and development agency, and the Catholic Legal Immigration Network, or CLINIC.

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UNITED STATES
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Friday, Nov. 20

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

This week, Cardinal Bernard Law’s ex-spin doctor takes charge of public relations for America’s Catholic bishops. It’s a sad commentary on how little is changing in the church hierarchy on abuse.

During the week that a film called Spotlight opens nationally, Vermont Bishop Christopher Coyne becomes director of communications for the US Conference of Catholic Bishops. That movie depicts horrific deceit and corruption in the Boston Archdiocese, where Coyne worked as Law’s primary mouthpiece, a post he held from 2002-2005. (See Rocco Palmo’s blog “Whispers in the Loggia.”)

[BishopAccountability.org]

Pope Francis should never have promoted Coyne. Coyne’s brother bishops should have never given him this post. But now that he’s in this position, Coyne must lead by example and, at a bare minimum, do what 30 US bishops have reluctantly done: post names of proven, admitted and credibly accused child molesting clerics on his diocesan website.

[BishopAccountability.org]

For years in Boston, time and time again, Coyne repeated deceptive public relations spin about heinous child sex crimes and callous cover ups by Law and other Catholic officials. How does this qualify Coyne to lead America’s bishops?

[Burlington Free Press]

While a bishop in Indiana, we prodded Coyne to aggressively reach out to anyone who may have seen crimes by Fr. Francis Markey who was arrested by US marshals at his Indiana home in connection with the alleged rape of a 15-year-old boy twice, including the day of the boy’s father’s funeral.

As best we can tell, he ignored our request.

[SNAP]

And he’s done nothing – in Boston or Indianapolis or Burlington – that gives us any hope he’ll do any better on children’s safety in the future.

So we urge Catholics and citizens in Boston and Burlington to be skeptical and vigilant and report known or suspected clergy sex crimes and cover ups to secular authorities, not church officials.

And we urge Coyne to show that he’s capable of real leadership, not just PR spin, by posting predators’ names, photos and work histories on the Vermont diocesan website, to keep kids safe, help victims heal and deter more cover ups.

In his new post, Coyne will no doubt extol the virtues of “openness.” He must practice those virtues too. And he must start in the most critical area: the protection of children from predator priests.

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SINGAPORE
BBC News

Six senior officials of Singapore’s City Harvest megachurch have been jailed over a $50m Singapore dollar ($35m; £23m) fraud case.

The evangelical church’s pastor and founder, Kong Hee, was jailed for eight years – others received between 21 months and six years.

The court ruled last month the group had misused church finances to fund the music career of Kong’s wife, Sun Ho.

All denied the charges – the church had supported them during the trial.

State prosecutors said before sentencing it was “the largest amount of charity funds ever misappropriated in Singapore’s legal history”.

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VATICAN CITY
Vatican Radio

(Vatican Radio) Pope Francis said that the Church must not be obsessed by money or power, nor worship “holy bribes”. Instead her strength and joy should come from the words of Christ. He was speaking at the morning mass at Casa Santa Marta on Friday.

The Holy Father reflected on the reading from Maccabees, which tells of the people’s joy following the reconsecration of the Holy Temple, which had been destroyed by pagans and those obsessed by worldliness. The people of God celebrated, they rejoiced because they had rekindled “their true identity”. The Pope explained that “those who indulge in worldliness do not know how to celebrate – they can’t celebrate! At most, the worldly spirit can provide amusement, it can provoke excitement, but true joy can only come from faith in the Covenant”. In the Gospel, Jesus drives merchants away from the Temple saying “It is written: my house shall be called the house of prayer. But you have made it a den of thieves”. Pope Francis noted that at the time of the Maccabees, worldly desire “displaced the Living God”. But now, it is happening “in another way altogether”.

“The Gospel says the chief priests and scribes had changed things. They had dishonored and compromised the Temple. They had dishonored the Temple! The Temple was a symbol of the Church. The Church will always – always! – be subject to the temptation of worldliness and power. Jesus did not say ‘No, do not do this inside. Go outside instead.’ He said ‘You have made it a den of thieves!’ And when the Church enters into such a state of decline, the end is bad. Very bad indeed.”

The danger of corruption

“There is always a danger of corruption within the Church. This happens when the Church, instead of being devoted to faith in Our Lord, in the Prince of Peace, in joy, in salvation, becomes dominated by money and power. This is exactly what happens here, in this Gospel reading.

These priests, chief priests and scribes were driven by money, power and they ignored the Holy Spirit. And in order to be able to justify their actions, they poisoned the free spirit of the Lord with hypocrisy. In Matthew 23, Jesus speaks of their hypocrisy. These were people who had lost their sense of Godliness, and even the ability to rejoice, to praise God. They did not know how to worship the Lord because they were too distracted by money and power, and by a form of worldiness”.

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UNITED KINGDOM
BBC News

A church deacon who admitted encouraging a boy to expose himself on a webcam has been jailed.
Peter Keeley-Pannett, 71, from Brighton, used a webcam to meet boys as young as 13 in chatrooms.

He had pleaded guilty at Guildford Crown Court to making indecent images of children over a two-year period.

Judge Robert Fraser sentenced Keeley-Pannett to 32 months in prison and ordered him to remain on the sex offenders register for life.

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CALIFORNIA
Patch

By PAIGE AUSTIN (Patch Staff)
November 19, 2015

Another woman has come forward alleging a Lake Forest church youth pastor sexually assaulted her.

The woman came forward last week after the Orange County Sheriff’s Department announced the arrest of Sean Patrick Aday, a 38-year-old pastor at Grace Community Church in Lake Forest.

Aday was arrested Nov. 7 on suspicion of rape, sodomy, penetration with a foreign object and sexual assault. He allegedly assaulted several women, ranging in age from their late teens to early 20s, at the church.

Authorities believe there may be more victims who haven’t come forward yet.

Sometimes victims think they are the only ones, and they don’t come forward until they find out that others have been assaulted, said Orange County Sheriff’s Department spokesman Lt. Jeff Hallock.

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AUSTRALIA
Sky News

Abuse survivors who have been under-compensated by the Anglican Church in Queensland could have payments topped up, a royal commission has heard.

The Anglican Archbishop of Brisbane, Phillip Aspinall, who was continuing his evidence to a child sex abuse commission hearing into private school St Paul’s, said on Friday an independent umpire examine settlements already made by the diocese.

Dr Aspinall said he was satisfied recent payments met the benchmarks set by the royal commission, but there would be a review of all settlements made “without the benefit of those benchmarks”.

The diocese “will be very open to making some adjustments”, he said.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

There has been shock and disbelief in the wake of an ABC investigation that has revealed alleged Anglican clergy abuse had links to powerful sectors of the Hunter’s community.

Abuse allegations have gripped the diocese for almost a decade, culminating in the defrocking of several priests.

The ABC has revealed politicians, doctors, lawyers, teachers and business leaders are under investigation.

There is evidence alleged child sexual abuse within the Newcastle Anglican diocese stretched to the upper echelons of the church.

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AUSTRALIA
The Guardian

Australian Associated Press
Thursday 19 November 2015

The Anglican Church in Brisbane is still refusing to refund fees to former students who suffered abuse, despite the church’s clear policy to do so, a royal commission has been told.

A resumed inquiry into how the diocese handles child sex abuse complaints was told on Friday an abuse survivor’s request for school fees to be refunded was rejected this week.

The church’s director of professional standards in southern Queensland, Gregory Milles, told the abuse survivor it “wouldn’t be policy” for the church to refund fees, the inquiry heard.

The archbishop of Brisbane, Phillip Aspinall, said the refund policy was implemented “some weeks ago”.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

By Leonie Mellor

Brisbane’s Anglican Archbishop Phillip Aspinall has admitted to the child sexual abuse royal commission that protocols to deal with complaints have not always been followed.

Dr Aspinall resumed giving evidence to the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse in Sydney today, which has been looking at how two prestigious Brisbane boys schools handled sexual abuse complaints.

Last week, the Anglican Church said it would reimburse tuition fees for all students who suffered sexual abuse at their schools within the Diocese of Brisbane, which covers much of southern Queensland.

One of those schools, St Paul’s School at Bald Hills on Brisbane’s north side, employed two men who molested students, former school counsellor Kevin John Lynch and music teacher and convicted paedophile Gregory Robert Knight.

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AUSTRALIA
The Standard Times

Only days after Anglican Archbishop of Brisbane Phillip Aspinall made a public promise to refund the tuition fees of school sex crime victims, an abuse survivor who made the request was rebuffed, an inquiry has heard.

A public hearing into the abuse of dozens of boys at two Queensland private schools heard that redress policies for victims in the Anglican system were ignored.

The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse was told that an Anglican school abuse survivor who sought help on Monday was offered an apology rather than a refund of his school fees and told his counselling sessions would be rationed due to the expense.

Kevin Kelso, a lawyer representing a number of sex abuse victims, cross-examined Dr Aspinall on whether the Anglican Church Southern Queensland was genuine in its offer to assist victims.

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UNITED KINGDOM
The Argus

Press Association

A former church deacon who used Skype to make contact with vulnerable young boys has been jailed for 32 months for a string of sex offences.

Peter Keeley-Pannett, 71, stood quietly in the dock at Guildford Crown Court, Surrey, as Judge Robert Fraser told him that he “remains a high risk of serious harm to children”.

Pannett, of Brighton, was a non-stipendiary deacon in the Diocese of Chichester in West Sussex until his arrest last November.

Keeley-Pannett used a webcam to meet boys as young as 13 years old in chatrooms. His offences spanned around two years from 2010, the court heard.

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MINNESOTA
Duluth News Tribune

By Tom Olsen on Nov 19, 2015

A prosecutor has fired back against a Hibbing priest who is seeking to have his child sexual abuse charges dismissed, alleging that evidence shows the Rev. Brian Michael Lederer demonstrated a pattern of targeting young girls.

Assistant St. Louis County Attorney Jeff Vlatkovich said in a 13-page letter to 6th Judicial District Judge David Ackerson that allegations of inappropriate touching made by four girls, along along with suspected child pornography recovered from Lederer’s computer, point to “an aggressive and/or sexual intent.”

“The defendant’s conduct for a 28-year-old man can only be viewed as designed to obtain some sort of sexual gratification,” Vlatkovich wrote.

Lederer, who worked at Blessed Sacrament Parish and Assumption Catholic School in Hibbing, faces seven felony charges related to the alleged inappropriate touching of the girls and possession of child pornography.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

By Nick McLaren

A Catholic priest and former teacher has given evidence in court he has no recollections of the person he allegedly indecently assaulted 27 years ago.

On the second and final day of the hearing at Albion Park Local Court, Father Patrick Kervin said he taught commerce to the alleged victim in the 1980s, and recognised his own signature on the student’s report.

But apart from that, he said he had no recollection of what the student looked like, and rejected allegations he used the school public address system to call the student to his office.

Fr Kervin also denied indecently assaulting the then 15-year old.

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UNITED STATES
Lincoln Journal Star

by L. Kent Wolgamott | Lincoln Journal Star

The Reel Story: This accurate, involving drama that tells the story of the Boston Globe’s investigation of the Catholic Church sexual abuse cover-up is one of best journalism movies ever and one of the top films of 2015.

In 2001, a new editor arrived at the Boston Globe from the Miami Herald. A newcomer, Marty Baron notices a column about a local priest accused of having sexually abused dozens of young parishioners over three decades.

Ignoring resistance from veteran staffers and those outside the newsroom who said taking on the Catholic Church in overwhelmingly Catholic Boston would be dangerous and destructive, Baron instructs the paper’s Spotlight team to follow up on the column — and not just to seek out individual cases of abuse but to unearth the system that allowed the abuse to continue.

Two years later, the Spotlight team won the Pulitzer Prize for investigative journalism for its reporting of the Church’s cover-up of pedophilia perpetrated by more than 70 priests.

“Spotlight” tells the story of the reporting team and its investigation with accuracy, great detail and an understanding of the journalists and their world. The drama is a compelling detective story, even though the final outcome of the investigation is known.

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AUSTRALIA
The Australian

MEDIA FOOL OF THE WEEK
STEP FORWARD MIKE (‘I’M A SNEERING SECULARIST’) SECCOMBE

While on the topic of George Pell, let’s consider Australia’s most boring newspaper. Morry Schwartz’s The Saturday Paper — edited by Erik Jensen — goes to print on Thursdays and can be found in Melbourne and Sydney inner-city coffee shops on Saturdays. Being read by leftist sandal-wearers, weather and occupational health and safety concerns permitting. Per courtesy of such up-market advertisers (last week) as Aesop signature stores, the taxpayer subsidised Wheeler Centre, Mercedes-Benz, 166 Gertrude apartments (Fitzroy, of course), Laithwaite’s Wine People and — you’ve guessed it — Rolex.

Since there is rarely any news in The [Boring] Saturday Paper, Nancy’s (male) co-owner reads the Schultz/Jensen offering on Mondays. After lunch, of course. Last Monday the weekly-tabloid-for-Rolex-wearers arrived wrapped in its very own hoarding. Unravelled it read: “The Many Trials Of George Pell”. See below.

This was one of The Saturday Paper’s “Look mum no news” occasions. Mike Seccombe’s Page One lead, which spilled to cover the whole of Page Four, was also titled “The many trials of George Pell”. The header read as follows:

As Cardinal Pell prepares for another child sex abuse hearing, his “company man” style has made him enemies within the Vatican. Mike Seccombe reports.

Mike “Smirk” Seccombe was not born into the Catholic Church — nor has he converted to Catholicism. Moreover, Mr Seccombe has not demonstrated any expertise in theology or religious history. Seccombe’s piece was yet another Saturday Paper rant at Cardinal George Pell, who holds the position of Prefect of the Secretariat for the Economy — the third highest ranking official in the Holy See.

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UNITED STATES
MLive

By John Serba | jserba@mlive.com

on November 20, 2015

“Spotlight” is destined to be one of the great film procedurals. A true-story chronicle of The Boston Globe’s towering expose of the Catholic Church’s sexual-abuse scandal, its driving force is due diligence in the service of a moral imperative. In the spirit of its subjects – investigative newspaper reporters – it’s a workmanlike film, focused tightly on details. It’s not flashy, just committed.

Tom McCarthy directs with so much propulsive purpose, he renders the process of four journalists sifting needles from dozens of haystacks engrossing and suspenseful. He assembles a research montage, all quick cuts between libraries and cubicles, data entry and spreadsheets. A reporter makes a cross-town dash to a courthouse to request paperwork. One of the highest-drama moments is a slow zoom out from a speaker phone, the picture literally getting bigger as the source on the other end of the line tells four reporters some key information.

The probability of such moments being suspenseful and thrilling is low, but here we are, eyes on the screen, enraptured. “Spotlight” compels us to pay attention. And you’ll want to. Minutiae is drama when the stakes are high.

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NEW YORK
27east

By Erin McKinley

A Hampton Bays family is suing the Diocese of Rockville Centre and the Mission of St. Vincenet De Paul, saying they failed to protect an 8-year-old girl from being sexually assaulted by a now fugitive former priest.

Filed on November 13 in State Supreme Court, the suit stems from charges against Augusto Cortez for inappropriately touching a girl who was 6 years old at the time of the assault and, ultimately, giving her a sexually transmitted disease.

According to the suit, both the Mission of St. Vincent De Paul and the Diocese failed to protect the little girl by failing to remove him from the order of St. Vincent De Paul, and for lying about circumstances surrounding a previous case involving a 12-year-old girl in Brooklyn in 2008.

The Diocese of Rockville Centre is a district under the direction of the Roman Vatican that comprises of Nassau and Suffolk Counties, while the Congregation of the Mission of St. Vincent De Paul is a Roman Catholic order based in Pennsylvania.

The family first met Mr. Cortez when he was serving as a priest in the Vincentian Congregation based out of St. Rosalie’s Church in Hampton Bays, where he served until moving to St. John the Baptist Roman Catholic Church in Brooklyn in 2005. Although no longer on the East End, Mr. Cortez kept close contact with the family, often conducting religious ceremonies in the family home. Then in 2008, Mr. Cortez was arrested and charged with fondling the breasts of a 12-year-old student at the St. John the Baptist Catholic Parish School while the two were alone in a computer room.

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AUSTRALIA
Sky News

One Melbourne parish. Four pedophile priests. One after another.

For three decades, the chief spiritual leaders for Doveton’s Holy Family Parish were its child parishioners’ worst nightmares.

‘It’s like having a terrifying regime in there for a long period of time,’ victims’ advocate Helen Last said.

‘To have them being very sick, very dysfunctional, pathological and some of them very violent, that keeps the parish quiet, keeps them frightened, highly anxious, confused, paranoid, and so they don’t seek help.’

From the 1970s to the late 1990s, a string of priests abused children in the outer eastern Melbourne suburb of Doveton.

– See more at: http://www.skynews.com.au/news/local/melbourne/2015/11/20/doveton-parish-abuse-horrors-disclosed.html#sthash.OR6HqJqX.dpuf

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MINNESOTA
Grand Forks Herald

By Sarah Volpenhein

CROOKSTON — Catholic diocese records previously under seal show a priest with a history of sexually abusing young girls served in the Roman Catholic Diocese of Crookston likely in the 1950s.

The Rev. Francis Schenk, former bishop of the Catholic Diocese of Duluth, wrote several letters in 1960 and 1961 saying the Rev. Charles Gormly, now deceased, had a history of molesting girls. The Duluth diocese admitted last December the allegations against Gormly are credible.

In a 1961 letter, Schenk wrote Gormly had a sexual disorder which “prompts him to molest small girls” and the “same pattern showed up” in the Catholic Diocese of Crookston, where Gormly served “for some time.”

The letters do not say when Gormly was a priest in the Crookston diocese, nor which parishes he served in. But Mike Finnegan, an attorney with Jeff Anderson and Associates, a law firm renowned for litigating cases involving clergy sex abuse, said he believes Gormly served in the Crookston diocese in the late 1950s.

Gormly was ordained a Catholic priest in 1935 in the Diocese of Cheyenne, Wyo., but left Wyoming in the mid 1940s, according to Jeff Anderson and Associates’ website.

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UNITED STATES
Boise Weekly

By George Prentice

Among the things lost in the decay of some of our nation’s best daily newspapers is long-form investigative journalism and, as a result, the public’s hunger for the truth. There, dear moviegoer, lies the underlying moral of Spotlight, one of the finest American films about journalism and certainly one of the best movies of 2015. While critics and audiences continue to cheer Spotlight and its clarion warning of a culture without a robust fifth estate, our nation’s media outlets–and particularly owners of daily newspaper chains–continue to push out fewer and shorter local news stories interspersed with advertiser-sponsored content. Some days, it’s tough to tell one from the other and, as good journalism should, Spotlight’s reminder of how things ought to be might piss off a discerning news consumer.

“The last 10 years have been pretty difficult on newspapers. The information they get isn’t fact-checked or investigated,” Spotlight co-screenwriter Josh Singer (The West Wing) told Boise Weekly on the red carpet of the North American premiere of at the 2015 Toronto International Film Festival. “And when readers get just some kind of random information coming at them, that’s really not telling us what us need to know.”

In 2001, there was plenty the citizens of Boston needed to know, “need” being the operative word. There were many people—including a few staffers at The Boston Globe—who felt the newspaper’s team of investigative reporters, dubbed Spotlight, would impose to harsh a reality on their community if and when they exposed a systemic scandal of child sexual abuse at the hands of Catholic priests. Some argued Boston’s storied link to the Catholic Church was too strong and too important to compromise. The reporting team from the Globe felt otherwise but instead of looking for a hero, they turned to each other for strength and direction. As a result, the Pulitzer Prize-winning Spotlight team’s investigation had intense focus and clarity. Boston was knocked back on its heels by the series of articles, but the Globe reporters knew there were two forms of abuse to uncover: the sexual abuse committed by dozens of priests and the spiritual abuse perpetrated by a church-wide cover-up.

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UNITED STATES
dotCommonweal

Dominic Preziosi
November 19, 2015

The movie Spotlight depicts how the Boston Globe in 2002 broke the story that the Boston archdiocese was covering up the abuse of children by scores of priests. Coincidently, one of the abusers portrayed in the film, former priest Ronald Paquin, was just last month released from state custody after serving a criminal sentence for repeatedly raping an altar boy over a three-year-period beginning when the victim was twelve. (Paquin also admitted to molesting fourteen other boys.) Medical specialists determined Paquin no longer met the legal criteria for “sexual dangerousness,” and so the district attorney’s office had to withdraw its bid to keep him in custody.

“The church thinks in centuries,” one character remarks in Spotlight, and in watching it I thought of all the people—if you aren’t one you probably know one—who’ve decided to take the very long view themselves. Mark Ruffalo plays Globe reporter Michael Rezendes; in one scene, after learning of the archdiocese’s systematic cover-up, he says he used to like going to Mass as a child, and that he’d always expected to go back someday. “But now…” he says, leaving the obvious unspoken: Never.

Ruffalo’s is the best performance in a movie that for better and worse plays as a newsroom procedural. Director Tom McCarthy (who also did the screenplay) keeps things compelling and taut. Churches impose themselves into scenes of reporters seeking out victims, or loom in the background. Journalists attest to the movie’s accurate depiction of the trade, the sartorial haplessness of its practitioners, the office “decor.” Even Vatican Radio gives it a thumbs-up.

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UNITED STATES
Belleville News-Democrat

BY LYNN VENHAUS
For the News-Democrat

The best movie of the year to date, “Spotlight” is a game-changer.

It may boost the profile of methodical newspaper journalism and draw further attention to sexual misconduct cases, as it depicts issues that reverberate to this day. But it will indeed start a conversation.

In 2012, two American experts told a Vatican summit that in the United States there had likely been 100,000 victims of clerical sexual abuse and the church had spent $2.2 billion in settling litigation. This contemporary crisis has been the focus of news accounts for at least 25 years, and because of those revelations, concerned efforts to “Protect God’s Children” have been ongoing since the early 2000s.

The clarion call to action points to sweeping reforms across the globe after the Boston Archdiocese scandal was uncovered by the Boston Globe in 2002. And now, “Spotlight,” the first comprehensive film on the subject, provides meticulous details.

This unvarnished, true account of the Globe’s startling investigation chronicles how they gathered evidence on 90 priests who had been accused of molesting youths and the subsequent cover-up by church officials.

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UNITED STATES
The Salt Lake Tribune

By SEAN P. MEANS | The Salt Lake Tribune

If “Spotlight” simply delivered a heroic depiction of working journalists, fighting the good fight against long odds, it would be a great movie.

It also would be a great movie if all it did was detail the levels of official deceit and cover-up that allowed hundreds of Catholic priests in the Boston archdiocese to sexually abuse children over decades. Or if it merely showed how the chumminess of various Boston institutions — the courts, the church, even the newspaper that ultimately exposed the abuse — downplayed the severity of the problem.

The fact that director Tom McCarthy and his co-writer, Josh Singer, do all these things at once, while still telling a rattling good yarn — the sort of war story old-school newspaperpeople tell cub reporters over scotch after deadline — makes it one of the year’s best movies.

“Spotlight” gets its title from The Boston Globe’s team of investigative reporters, called Spotlight. In the summer of 2001, the Spotlight team, led by editor Walter “Robby” Robinson (Michael Keaton), had just finished a major project and was looking around for the next one. At the same time, the Globe had a new editor, Marty Baron (Liev Schreiber), relocated from the Miami Herald and tasked with examining the paper’s shrinking bottom line.

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UNITED STATES
The Times-Picayune

By Mike Scott, NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune
on November 19, 2015

Since the moment it arrived in theaters in 1976, Alan J. Pakula’s “All the President’s Men” has been held up, and deservingly, as the gold standard of journalism dramas. Chronicling the real-life efforts of two Washington Post scribes to unravel the many unanswered questions surrounding the Watergate break-in, it not only inspired a generation of noble-minded young reporters, but it was a cracking good bit of storytelling.

In fact, while the four intervening decades have brought no shortage of other films fueled by the built-in drama of the Fourth Estate, Pakula’s film has remained more or less in a class by itself.

Until now.

“Spotlight” arrives in theaters Friday (Nov. 20), and while one could make an argument that “All the President’s Men” is still the reigning champion of modern journo dramas, director Tom McCarthy’s gripping behind-the-scenes tale of shoe-leather journalism — which plays out with the pacing and momentum of a thriller — at long last makes the debate an interesting one.

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CONNECTICUT
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

for immediate release: Thursday, Nov. 19, 2015

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

Ten pages of previously-secret records about a serial predator priest who worked and abused in Connecticut have been made public. They paint an unflattering view of the Catholic church hierarchy.

He’s Fr. Bernard W. Bissonette (a.k.a. Bissonnette). At least nine men have accused him of child sex crimes. One of them, Thomas Deary, committed suicide. Members of the Deary family travelled to New Mexico to confront Fr. Bissonette.

[BishopAccountability.org]

In the 1960s, Fr. Bissonette worked in the Norwich diocese at parishes in Moosup, Putnam and Pawcatuck.

[BishopAccountability.org]

After he was transferred out of Connecticut, over the next 30 years, he went on to abuse children at nine parishes in New Mexico, Michigan, and Minnesota, according to

[BishopAccountability.org]

The records show Fr. Bissonette’s colleagues were concerned early in his career about his “peculiar behavior” and show that he “had trouble with boys” and was “sent out of the Norwich diocese because a (victim’s) father was threatening arrest.”

We hope that every single person who saw, suspected or suffered clergy sex crimes or cover ups in Connecticut will summon the strength to speak up. Kids are safer only when victims, witnesses and whistleblowers are courageous enough to act. Silence is tempting but it only helps wrongdoers.

It’s important that people with suspicions or knowledge of these crimes and cover ups call the independent professionals in law enforcement, not the biased amateurs in church positions.

Even if those who committed the abuse may be deceased or elderly, those who concealed the abuse may still face prosecution for failure to report abuse, endangering kids, destroying evidence and other offenses.

We call on Norwich Bishop Michael Cote to personally visit the parishes where Fr. Bissonette worked, begging victims, witnesses and whistleblowers to come forward. Cote should also use parish bulletins, church websites and pulpit announcements across the entire diocese to seek out others who may have been assaulted and are still suffering. And he should permanently post on his diocesan website the names, photos and whereabouts of every child molesting Norwich cleric, whether alive or dead, diocesan or religious order, or admitted, proven or credibly accused. (About 30 US bishops have done this. It’s the bare minimum a bishop should do to protect the vulnerable and heal the wounded.)

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WYOMING
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Thursday, Nov. 19, 2015

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

Several pages of previously-secret records about a serial predator priest who worked and abused in Wyoming have been made public. They paint an unflattering view of the Catholic church hierarchy.

He’s Fr. Charles J. Gormly and he worked at churches in Rock Springs, Pine Bluffs, Lander and Laramie. Last December, “the Diocese of Duluth included Father Gormly on its official list of clergy members who have been credibly accused of child sexual abuse,” according to a Minnesota newspaper.

[BishopAccountability.org]

[Jeff Anderson & Associates]

The newly released records show a bishop admitting that Fr. Gormly “has a sexual problem that prompts him to molest small girls” and that Fr. Gormly was sent for “treatment” to at least two facilities.

We hope that every single person who saw, suspected or suffered clergy sex crimes or cover ups in Wyoming will summon the strength to speak up. Kids are safer only when victims, witnesses and whistleblowers are courageous enough to act. Silence is tempting but it only helps wrongdoers.

And victims heal best when the truth about those who committed and concealed heinous crimes are exposed. We urge every victim in Wyoming to find the courage to seek help from independent professionals, not church officials.

We call on Wyoming Bishop Paul D. Etienne to personally visit the parishes where Fr. Gormly worked, begging victims, witnesses and whistleblowers to come forward. He should also use parish bulletins, church websites and pulpit announcements across the entire diocese to seek out others who may have been assaulted and are still suffering. And he should permanently post on his diocesan website the names, photos and whereabouts of every child molesting Wyoming cleric, whether alive or dead, diocesan or religious order, or admitted, proven or credibly accused. (About 30 US bishops have done this. It’s the bare minimum a bishop should do to protect the vulnerable and heal the wounded.)

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NEW YORK
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Thursday, Nov. 19, 2015

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

Earlier this year, Pope Francis said “Everything possible must be done to rid the church of the scourge of the sexual abuse of minors and to open pathways of reconciliation and healing for those who were abused.”

[Jerusalem Post]

Today, Rockville Centre Bishop William Murphy basically said “I disagree.”

Through one of his public relations staff, Murphy claims that he has “no responsibility” for a predator priest who worked in his diocese.

[Newsday]

The accused priest, Fr. Augusto Cortez, is believed to have fled the US and returned to Central America.

The courts will decide if Murphy has a legal responsibility for Fr. Cortez’ crimes. But common sense and decency tell us that Murphy has a moral responsibility to help law enforcement catch and convict Fr. Cortez. But instead of lending a hand, Murphy is making up excuses.

He’s hair-splitting and ducking and dodging behind the claim that Fr. Cortez belongs to a religious order and isn’t on the diocesan payroll. But it’s a Catholic bishop’s duty to protect and help his flock from any child molesting cleric, no matter who signs the predator’s paycheck. Again, listen to Pope Francis: “Earlier this year, Pope Francis said “Everything possible must be done to rid the church of the scourge of the sexual abuse of minors and to open pathways of reconciliation and healing for those who were abused.”

Instead of using his PR staff to brag about weak, meaningless church abuse policies, Murphy should be using them to aggressively seek out victims, witnesses and whistleblowers who might be able to help police and prosecutors pursue this predator priest. Today, Murphy is showing the same reckless, callous and deceitful behavior that characterized his track record in Boston of ignoring, minimizing, denying and enabling child sex crimes and cover ups.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

By Giselle Wakatama

Newcastle Anglican Bishop Greg Thompson has expressed shock that allegations of abuse gripping his diocese have alleged links to high profile sectors within the Hunter community.

Yesterday the ABC revealed allegations gripping the diocese have potential links to politicians, doctors, members of the legal fraternity, schools, children’s homes and community and business leaders.

Several paedophile rings allegedly operated across the region.

The web of abuse has shocked Bishop Greg Thompson, who is himself an abuse survivor.

“And I suppose people just didn’t want to know because there was a shame in even mentioning these matters,” he said.

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ILLINOIS
Daily Herald

Justin Kmitch

A former member of Lombard’s St. Pius X Catholic Church is suing the Diocese of Joliet and two former priests claiming he was sexually abused as an 11-year-old in 1976.

According to the suit, filed Nov. 6 in Will County, Rev. Henry Slade caught the boy “skipping Mass and ordered him to go into the rectory at St. Pius X, and specifically to Slade’s bedroom.”

When the boy refused to perform a sex act, the suit states Slade “physically attacked the plaintiff.”

The suit also claims Rev. Phillip Dedera heard and ignored the boy’s screams for help but later offered him marijuana after the attack to “help him forget” it.

Both priests are named in the Diocese’s published list of priests facing credible allegations of sexual abuse of minors.

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UNITED STATES
Kansas City Star

BY JON NICCUM
movies@kcstar.com

“You sure you want to hear this (expletive)?” a survivor of sexual abuse asks a reporter.

That’s a question you’ll probably ask yourself when debating whether to watch “Spotlight,” a “based on actual events” drama about the Boston Globe staffers who uncovered an epidemic of pedophile priests and cover-ups orchestrated by the Catholic Church.

The subject already provokes rage and/or revulsion without having to endure a step-by-step procedural. But this stark and effective prestige picture makes the experience palatable by approaching the material with journalistic tenacity.

Taking a page from “All the President’s Men,” “Spotlight” introduces a mismatched handful of reporters and editors working at the Globe in 2001. Looking to streamline the publication, solemn new editor Marty Baron (Liev Schreiber) focuses on the paper’s Spotlight team. This investigative branch is led by the dogged Walter “Robby” Robinson (Michael Keaton), dedicated to spending months on a single story.

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UNITED STATES
Columbia Daily Tribune

By ASHER GELZER-GOVATOS
Thursday, November 19, 2015

Movies about journalists face an uphill battle in engaging their audience. While the end result of a journalistic investigation might be fascinating, the process of getting there requires frequent repetition of activities that don’t exactly crackle with excitement: fact-gathering, source-checking, data collation.

“Spotlight,” about the Boston Globe investigative team that blew the lid off of the pedophile priest scandal in the Catholic Church, puts these mundane activities front and center but still manages to sizzle with energy.

Propelled along by Howard Shore’s rhythmic score, director Tom McCarthy (“The Visitor,” “Win Win”) methodically ratchets up the tension as the journalists — played by Michael Keaton, Mark Ruffalo, Rachel McAdams and Brian d’Arcy James — slowly peel back the layers of a cover-up that runs deep into the heart of a Boston institution.

The movie never sensationalizes their labor, instead highlighting many scenes of leg work and file digging that congeal into a love letter to the old-fashioned work of hard journalism.

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UNITED STATES
Charlotte Observer

BY LAWRENCE TOPPMAN
ltoppman@charlotteobserver.com

Philosopher John Stuart Mill said, “Bad men need nothing more to compass their ends than that good men should look on and do nothing.” The truth of that can be found in “Spotlight.”

Director Tom McCarthy, who wrote the script with Josh Singer, has made a film without heroes. This dramatization of the Boston Globe’s exposure of pedophile priests in 2002 – and the complicity of church officials as high as Cardinal Bernard Law – exposes a chain of failures that let depravity go on for decades.

Police refused to take abuse cases seriously. Prosecutors chose not to arraign culprits. Lawyers made a cottage industry of hushing up crimes, arranging settlements for victims in exchange for silence. The cardinal and his employees ignored parishioners’ complaints or moved priests to churches where no one knew them, so abuse continued. And the Globe, alerted more than once, failed to grasp the scope of the story or commit resources to uncovering it.

“Spotlight” depicts Boston at the turn of the 21st century as a huge and mostly homogenous village, where more than half the citizens are Catholic. The church has vast influence, which it often uses to do benevolent things. Only with the arrival of an outsider, Jewish editor Marty Baron (Liev Schreiber), does the Globe begin to push for the truth.

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NEW YORK
Newsday

Updated November 19, 2015
By BART JONES bart.jones@newsday.com

The Diocese of Rockville Centre on Thursday said it was not responsible for a priest accused of sexually abusing a girl in Hampton Bays, and its child protection measures are “admirable models” for all those entrusted with youths’ care.

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UNITED STATES
Capuchin Franciscans, Province of St. Mary

Monday, 19 January 2015

We offer our prayers for the repose of the soul of our brother Francis Mary Sparacino, O.F.M. Cap., [SJP] who died today at the age of 84.

Date of birth January 25, 1934
Investiture March 18, 1951
First Profession March 19, 1952
Perpetual Profession March 19, 1955

Brother Francis served the province of St. Joseph as provincial tailor for most of his religious life.

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CONNECTICUT
Journal Inquirer

By Alex Wood
Journal Inquirer

The former pastor of East Windsor’s two Roman Catholic churches who was accused of sexually assaulting a teenage parishioner was convicted Wednesday of a sharply reduced charge in a plea bargain and received a sentence without immediate prison time, court records show.

The Rev. Paul A. Gotta — who had been administrator of St. Philip Church on South Main Street and St. Catherine Church on Windsorville Road — was convicted in the Hartford Superior Court plea deal of a single misdemeanor count of second-degree breach of peace. The conviction was under a subsection of the breach-of-peace statute that deals with assaulting or striking another person.

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AUSTRALIA
The Australian

NOVEMBER 20, 2015

Tessa Akerman
Reporter
Melbourne

A split has emerged at the highest levels of the Catholic Church over how to deal with child sex abuse victims who testify before the royal commission.

The church’s Truth, Justice and Healing Council has been represented in the commission by law firm Gilbert and Tobin and has not cross-examined any of the survivor witnesses.

Cardinal George Pell will ­appear before the commission next month and has engaged a separate legal team to represent him and cross-examine witnesses who have given evidence.

TJHC chief executive Francis Sullivan reaffirmed the policy yesterday of not cross-examining abuse survivors. “We don’t cross-examine survivor witnesses,” he said. “It’s always been our policy. We don’t wish to run the risk of retraumatising them.”

A statement from Cardinal Pell’s office said he was not a party to the first part of the Ballarat case study when serious claims were made about him personally. “The TJHC and its lawyers represent church institutions and not individuals and given the claims that have been made, it was agreed that Cardinal Pell should have his own lawyers to assist him in responding to these claims,” it said.

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UNITED STATES
BishopAccountability.org

Summary of Case: Richard Powers was ordained for the Owensboro diocese in 1959 and went on to assist in and pastor parishes throughout the diocese. He left Kentucky in 1982 to serve as a military chaplain in Alaska, Virginia, New York, Washington DC, and Florida. He returned to Owensboro and parish work in 1989. Powers also served in the diocese as a Consultor and member of the Priests’ Council and Priests’ Personnel Committee. In 1995 a woman reported to the diocese that she had been sexually abused as a girl between 1962-1970 by Powers and two other priests. Powers denied the allegations; Bishop McRaith arranged payment for three psychiatric hospitalizations for the woman. In 1999 she received a confidential settlement from the diocese. She died by suicide in May 2003. The woman’s family filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the diocese and returned the settlement in November 2003. As of July 2006 the lawsuit was ongoing; a diocesan attorney stated that an investigation determined that the allegations were “frivolous.” Powers retired in 2007. In November 2015 he remains active in the diocese.

Born: October 6, 1932
Ordained: 1959

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UNITED KINGDOM
Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse

19 November

On Friday 27 November the Chair of the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse, Hon. Lowell Goddard DNZM, will make a formal update statement on the work of the Inquiry. The Chair will announce the investigations which will form the first phase of the Inquiry’s substantive work.

The full text of the statement will be published on our website on the day.

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CONNECTICUT
Record-Journal

HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) — Prosecutors have dropped the most serious charges against a former East Windsor priest accused of sexually assaulting a teenager.

Paul Gotta was facing charges of second-degree sexual assault and fourth-degree sexual assault. Authorities say Gotta sexually assaulted the 16-year-old boy between January 2012 and February 2013.

The Hartford Courant reports (http://cour.at/1O4MtkY ) prosecutors offered Gotta a deal to plead guilty to second-degree breach of peace. He pleaded Wednesday under the Alford doctrine. That means he didn’t agree with the state’s evidence but wanted to plead to a lesser charge instead of risking a trial and a greater sentence.

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NEW MEXICO
KOAT

[with video]

Sandra Ramirez

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. —Two more men have come forward to say they were abused by New Mexico priests.

They decided to tell their stories after hearing about the new movie “Spotlight,” which premieres Friday. It tells the story of how a group of journalists uncovered the sex abuse scandal in the Catholic Church.

The two men who say they were abused in New Mexico say they feel there’s still a bit too much secrecy at play.

“I won’t be anonymous anymore,” says Brian Gutierrez.

The movie is based on a true story of how the Boston Globe exposed what became a massive scandal of abuse involving Catholic priests.

Gutierrez and Ken Wolter say they lived that story.

“When I was a teenager I was abused by a priest named Sabine Griego,” Gutierrez says.

Gutierrez was a freshman at the University of New Mexico when he felt a calling to become a priest. But he says the priest who began as his mentor turned into his abuser.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Kirchen Zeitung

[The reactions to the abuse allegations against former bishop of Hildesheim Heinrich Maria Janssen outweigh the skepticism.]

Bei den Reaktionen auf die Missbrauchsvorwürfe gegen den ehemaligen Hildesheimer Bischof Heinrich Maria Janssen überwiegt die Skepsis.

Das „Beben im Bistum“ ist weitgehend ausgeblieben. Nachdem bekannt geworden war, dass Janssen Ende der 1950er bis Anfang der 1960er Jahre einen Messdiener missbraucht haben soll, konzentrieren sich die Reaktionen vor allem auf eins: Kaum jemand hält das für vorstellbar.

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LUXEMBURG
kath.ch

[More than 15 years after the discovery of the first abuse scandals in the Catholic Church have been adopted at least five national episcopal conferences have no guidelines on this subject, according to Father Hans Zollner who was speaking in Luxemburg. Zollner told the Catholic news agency (KNA), the defaulting Episcopal Conferences are located exclusively in West Africa and in East Asia. (KNA)]

Luxemburg, 18.11.15 (kath.ch) Mehr als 15 Jahre nach dem Bekanntwerden der ersten Missbrauchsskandale in der katholischen Kirche haben mindestens fünf nationale Bischofskonferenzen noch keine Richtlinien zu diesem Thema erlassen. Das beklagte der römische Missbrauchsexperte Hans Zollner am Mittwoch, 18. November, in Luxemburg. Er äusserte sich am Rande einer europaweiten Expertenkonferenz.

Die römische Glaubenskongregation hatte nach den Skandalen um sexuellen Missbrauch durch Kirchenmitarbeiter in Deutschland den Bischofskonferenzen in aller Welt eine Frist bis 2012 gesetzt, um Richtlinien zum Umgang mit diesen Verbrechen vorzulegen. Zollner sagte der Katholischen Nachrichten-Agentur (KNA), die säumigen Bischofskonferenzen seien ausschliesslich in Westafrika und in Ostasien angesiedelt. (kna)

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UNITED STATES
Citizen-Times

Bruce C Steele, bsteele@citizen-times.com November 19, 2015

The real stars of the fact-based movie “Spotlight” are the no-name actors who portray the survivors of childhood sexual abuse by Catholic priests. The familiar faces playing the Boston Globe investigative team — Michael Keaton, Mark Ruffalo, Rachel McAdams — do great work, yet you can’t entirely forget they’re actors.

But the journalists’ brief interviews with the damaged adults finally able to tell their stories — especially Michael Cyril Creighton as a gay man named Joe — put human, vulnerable faces on the atrocities covered up by the church across the world for decades. In those moments it’s not just a story. It’s a open wound at last given a chance to heal.

“Spotlight” may be the best movie about newspaper reporters since “The Killing Fields” or even “All the President’s Men,” a movie with which it has a lot in common, including a real-life editor named Ben Bradlee (John Slattery), here the son of the Washington Post editor. Mike (Rufallo) and Sacha (McAdams) are the Woodward and Bernstein, assisted by fellow reporter Matt (Brian d’Arcy James) and by Robby (Keaton), the leader of their investigative team, called Spotlight.

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NEW MEXICO
KRQE

SANTA FE (KRQE) – They no longer want to be called “John Doe.” Two New Mexico survivors of priest sex abuse are revealing their identities.

This comes just days before the new movie “Spotlight” hits theaters. It details the Boston Globe’s 2002 investigation into the Catholic Church’s cover-up of sex abuse cases.

On Wednesday, Brian Gutierrez and Ken Wolter say they will no longer keep silent.

They are suing the Archdiocese of Santa Fe. They say when the allegations were made, the archdiocese did nothing.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

By Laura Gartry

A former West Australian Anglican priest has pleaded not guilty to indecently assaulting a teenage boy 30 years ago.

Raymond Sydney Cheek, 83, is facing four charges including committing indecent practices between males, and indecent dealings with a child under 14.

Police allege the abuse took place while he was a priest in a town in WA’s South West in the 1980s.

It is alleged the offences were committed against a boy between January and October 1985.

Mr Cheek had his bail renewed when he appeared in Perth Magistrates Court on Thursday morning.

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UNITED STATES
PRN

Uncovering the systemic child-abuse in the Catholic Church. An interview with David Clohessy, Executive Director of SNAP (Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests.)

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VATICAN CITY
The Times (UK)

Tom Kington Rome

November 19 2015

Vatican investigators are close to arresting another suspected whistleblower after they interrogated the author of a book exposing corruption by priests.

The papal police suspect that an unnamed adviser at the Vatican’s investment arm may be leaking embarrassing documents, Italy’s La Repubblica newspaper reported.

A Spanish priest is already being held for allegedly leaking information about murky finances that he helped to collect while working for a clean-up committee appointed by Pope Francis.

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CALIFORNIA
Forward

Diana Crandall
November 18, 2015

A former executive of the Kabbalah Centre, a spiritual group rooted in Jewish mysticism and known for its celebrity devotees, went on trial on Tuesday in a lawsuit brought by a follower who says he plied her with alcohol and drugs, then groped her.

Yehuda Berg, 43, son of the late rabbi who founded the organization, testified that he struggled with substance abuse that led to his resignation as its co-director in 2014 but denied any sexual wrongdoing.

Berg, who is married, acknowledged offering a drink and the narcotic painkiller Vicodin to the plaintiff, Jena Scaccetti, and touching her leg to see if “anything intimate” might happen.
However, he insisted that he backed off when she rebuffed his advances, and walked her outside and put her in a cab when she was ready to leave.

“The reason I gave her Vicodin is because she had kidney stones. The reason I have her a drink is because she was coming over for a drink,” he testified, adding he “could not recall” forcibly restraining or intimidating his guest.

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AUSTRALIA
9 News

Cardinal George Pell’s decision to bring in the “big guns” to question victims of pedophile priests could pave the way for stronger grilling of senior church officials.

Cardinal Pell’s own legal team at the child abuse royal commission’s Melbourne hearing will cross-examine victims, in direct opposition to the Catholic Church’s stance that it will not question abuse survivors.

That was actually a good move as it meant Cardinal Pell would be cross-examined as well, victims’ group Broken Rites spokesman Wayne Chamley said.

Church officials were not cross-examined during the first public hearing into Ballarat abuse in May due to the church decision not to question victim witnesses, he said.

“Because there was that stand-off it meant no one was cross-examined including senior people, but this time round they’ll be cross-examined,” Dr Chamley said.

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ILLINOIS
Chicago Tribune

Duaa Eldeib and Jim NewtonContact Reporters
Tribune Newspapers

Church pastor accused of sexually abusing girl between 13 and 17 years old
A pastor at an evangelical church in Deerfield was charged with the sexual abuse of a minor after he approached police and confessed to the inappropriate relationship, authorities said.

The pastor, Samuel Kee, “just walked into the police station and said he had to confess to a crime,” Deerfield Deputy police Chief Tom Keane said. “We had to kind of work backward and locate the victim and talk to the victim and build the case.”

Kee, 39, who has since resigned from the North Suburban Evangelical Free Church, appeared Wednesday in Lake County court, where he pleaded not guilty to aggravated criminal sexual abuse.

Authorities said the allegations involve a 16-year-old girl who was a member of the church. Kee was charged Oct. 15, a day after police said he first contacted them.

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ALABAMA
AL.com

By Jeremy Gray | jgray@al.com
on November 18, 2015

An Alabama pastor might have escaped punishment for years of sexually abusing children if not for surprise testimony at a custody hearing two years ago.

Mack Charles Andrews Jr., 55, on Monday pleaded guilty to multiple charges of rape, sodomy, sexual abuse and attempted rape in exchange for 15 years in prison. Andrews will get credit for the two years – 783 days, to be exact – that he spent in the Clarke County Jail prior to sentencing.

Standing before Circuit Judge C. Robert Montgomery, Andrews was asked if he was entering the plea because he was guilty.

“I’m pleading in the best interest,” Andrews said as he stood there shackled with his back to his victims, family and the former church members who still support him.

Andrews might never have found himself in that Grove Hill courtroom if not for Donna ‘Shay’ Smith.

It was her testimony in an unsuccessful attempt to regain custody of her daughter that exposed how the pastor raped and abused young girls at First United Pentecostal Church and its school, Faith Christian Academy, in the 1980s and ’90s, authorities said.

Smith is angry Andrews may one day walk out of prison a free man.

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LOUISIANA
The New Orleans Advocate

BY JOHN SIMERMAN| JSIMERMAN@THEADVOCATE.COM
Nov. 18, 2015

Convicting the Rev. Kevin Boyd Sr. of repeatedly molesting a young member of his New Orleans flock during several years was never really an option in the jury room, said one member of the Criminal District Court panel that deadlocked Tuesday.

At the end of a weeklong trial and three hours of deliberation, the vote was 4-2 for Boyd’s acquittal, said juror Edwin Curry, who counted himself among the majority.

“We found the state didn’t do its job,” he said. “We didn’t find the guy innocent.”

One female juror held firm from the start that Boyd was guilty. The other guilty vote came near the end of deliberations, Curry said, after Judge Camille Buras ordered the split jurors to keep talking.

Because it was a six-member jury, not 12, the verdict needed to be unanimous.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

By Giselle Wakatama and staff

A web of child sexual abuse in the Newcastle Anglican diocese has alleged links to politicians, business people, doctors and members of the city’s legal fraternity, the ABC understands.

Inquiries into abuse incidents in the diocese are underway by a police strike force and the Royal Commission into Child Sexual Abuse.

Several alleged paedophile rings with links to local schools and children’s homes are also being investigated.

Newcastle’s Anglican Bishop Greg Thompson said there were also allegations of Anglican and Catholic clergy protecting each other.

“If your ministry team exists in a small town, they know each other,” he said.

“Then clearly there are questions to be asked about those relationships and how they operated and how they were protecting each other.”

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AUSTRALIA
Stuff

One Melbourne parish. Four pedophile priests. One after another.

For three decades, the chief spiritual leaders for Doveton’s Holy Family Parish were its child parishioners’ worst nightmares.

“It’s like having a terrifying regime in there for a long period of time,” the victims’ advocate Helen Last said.

“To have them being very sick, very dysfunctional, pathological and some of them very violent, that keeps the parish quiet, keeps them frightened, highly anxious, confused, paranoid, and so they don’t seek help.”

From the 1970s to the late 1990s, a string of priests abused children in the Australian outer eastern Melbourne suburb of Doveton.

Father Thomas O’Keeffe was a violent offender who tortured some of his altar boys in his time in charge of the Holy Family Parish in the 1970s, Ms Last said.

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NEW MEXICO
KOAT

By Doug Fernandez

JEMEZ SPRINGS, N.M. —For years, many priests suspected of sexual abuse and those who admitted to it were sent to the Servants of the Paraclete in Jemez Springs.

That wasn’t the original purpose of the facility, but over the years it’s become best known for that disturbing legacy.

In the late 1940s, the servants were founded in northern New Mexico and opened a center near Jemez Springs. Its original purpose was to help priests with alcohol or emotional problems.

Over the years the focus expanded.

In 1963, the Rev. Eugene Fitzgerald wrote a letter to the Vatican to address to the pope. In the pages was a summary of reverend Fitzgerald’s thoughts on problem priests, specifically pedophiles, wanting them removed from the active ministry.

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NEW MEXICO
The New Mexican

By Anne Constable
The New Mexican

Brian Gutierrez began serving as an altar boy at age 7, and for many years, he said, “I really did believe I had the faith and the calling to be a priest.”

That was before he was raped in 1986 by Sabine Griego, who was a pastor at Queen of Heaven Parish in Albuquerque, he said.

“I wanted to find out how to become a priest, and I was looking for him to help me with the vocation,” Gutierrez said.

He was 17 years old then. Now a 46-year-old engineer, he has brought a civil lawsuit against the Catholic Archdiocese of Santa Fe. Gutierrez says the archdiocese had known of sexual abuse by Griego going back decades.

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NEW MEXICO
Albuquerque Journal

By Olivier Uyttebrouck / Journal Staff Writer
Thursday, November 19th

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Two men suing the Archdiocese of Santa Fe alleging that as children they were sexually abused by priests gave up their anonymity Wednesday, saying they wanted to prod the church “to release secrets and truths” and encourage others to come forward.

“In order to heal this community, you must remember that there are a lot of victims out here,” said Brian Gutierrez, 46, of Albuquerque who had been identified only as “John Doe C” in a lawsuit he filed in May 2014. “We ask the archdiocese, and Archbishop (John C.) Wester in particular, to begin a new era of forgiveness.”

Joining Gutierrez at a media conference outside an Albuquerque church was Ken Wolter, 34, of Detroit, Mich., who sued the archdiocese in August 2014, identified as “John Doe D,” alleging that as a pre-teen he was repeatedly raped in the early 1990s by Arthur Perrault, then pastor at St. Bernadette Parish in Albuquerque.

During the event, Wolter held a framed photograph of himself at age 11 or 12 with Perrault standing beside him outside a church.

Perrault fled Albuquerque in 1992 after allegations of his sexual misconduct surfaced, and his whereabouts remain unknown, according to news reports.

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CONNECTICUT
The Hartford Courant

David Owens

HARTFORD — A prosecutor on Wednesday dropped the most serious charges against a Catholic priest who had been accused of sexually assaulting a teenager, resulting in a six-month suspended sentence on a lesser charge.

A series of pretrial rulings on excluding evidence by Hartford Superior Court Judge Juliett L. Crawford eviscerated the state’s case against the Rev. Paul Gotta, prompting prosecutor Debra Collins to offer Gotta the opportunity to resolve the case by pleading guilty to a charge of second-degree breach of peace.

Judge Carl E. Taylor accepted the plea and sentenced Gotta to a six-month suspended sentence and two years of conditional discharge.

Gotta entered the guilty plea under the Alford doctrine, meaning he did not agree with the state’s evidence, but wanted to plead guilty to the reduced charge rather than risk a trial and a greater sentence.

Gotta still faces a trial on federal firearm charges in February.

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WISCONSIN
WSAU

MILWAUKEE (WTAQ) – The Archdiocese of Milwaukee has reinstated a Cedarburg priest.

Archbishop Jerome Listecki says an investigation into allegations against Father Tom Eichenberger has been completed, and the complaint was found to be unsubstantiated.

Father Eichenberger expressed his appreciation to parishioners for their belief in him and support for him in a statement, saying he was falsely accused of sexual abuse in an incident dating back to 1977.

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CANADA
CBC News

A class-action lawsuit launched by former students of a church-run institute for the deaf in Montreal has been tentatively settled out of court for $20 million.

The former students had alleged that they were sexually abused by members of the Clerics of St-Viateur who worked at the school, formerly known as the Montreal Institute for the Deaf.

Students who attended the all-boys institute between 1940 and 1982 claimed that violent sexual assaults were commonplace.

Quebec’s Superior Court authorized a class-action lawsuit against members of the Clerics of St-Viateur in March 2012.

Allegations by the suit’s 64 claimants focused on 28 religious staff and six lay workers, only a handful of whom were still alive at the time it was launched.

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CANADA
CTV

A sorry chapter of Quebec’s history is coming to a close with a settlement in cases of serial abuse at a school for the deaf.

The Clerics of St. Viateur ran L’Institut des Sourdes de Montreal on St. Laurent Blvd. for decades, but under their watch hundreds of students were physically and sexually abused.

Victims have explained how those as young as five years old were sexually abused and beaten by priests between 1940 and 1982. In all, 38 abusers were identified, including 28 clerics.

“The parents confided their children to the care and custody of the school and it’s our position that the school is therefore responsible for what happened to the children,” said Robert Kugler, lawyer for the victims.

Five years ago, those who were abused applied for a class-action lawsuit against the priests and the school, asking for $200,000 per surviving student.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Altrincham Today

By David Prior 18th November 2015

A groundbreaking film about the sex abuse trial of a former Altrincham schoolteacher has won a Royal Television Society award.

The report was broadcast on Granada Reports on the day Alan Morris, a former chemistry teacher at St Ambrose College in Hale Barns, was jailed for nine years for decades of abuse.

And now the team behind it has been recognised with the prize for Best Regional Story at the Royal Television Society North West awards, held in Manchester on Saturday.

The idea for the story had originated from David Nolan, a former St Ambrose pupil and Morris victim who waived his right to give evidence at the trial in order to produce the behind-the-scenes film, which included unprecedented access to the police and victims involved in the trial – and even saw Nolan confront Morris outside Manchester Minshull Street Court.

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ITALY
Reporters With Borders

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) fully supports Italian journalist Gianluigi Nuzzi, who has cited his free speech rights as grounds for refusing to be interrogated by the Vatican judicial system as part of an investigation into the leaking of confidential documents.

Suspected of complicity in the leak, Nuzzi is one of two Italian journalists placed under investigation by the Vatican in connection with their books exposing Vatican mismanagement.

Nuzzi announced his refusal to appear for questioning in his blog yesterday. “In the Vatican, there is no impunity provision for those who exercise a right, as there is in Italy,” he wrote. “The possibility of freely expressing one’s thoughts is not recognized (…) The person who reveals information is liable to be punished.”

“By writing ‘Avarizia’ and ‘Via Crucis,’ Italian journalists Gianluigi Nuzzi and Emiliano Fittipaldi just exercised their right to provide information in the public interest and should not be treated as criminals in a country that supposedly respects media freedom,” said Alexandra Geneste, the head of the Reporters Without Borders EU-Balkans bureau in Brussels.

The two journalists are being investigated under a Vatican law adopted in July 2013, after the first “VatiLeaks.” It says: “Whoever illicitly obtains or reveals information or documents whose publication is forbidden is punishable by a sentence of six months to two years in prison or a fine of 1,000 to 5,000 euros.”

The other journalist, Emiliano Fittipaldi, did respond to the summons to appear before a Vatican prosecutor but said he did not answer the questions put to him “on the grounds of professional confidentiality, which is protected by the law, in Italy at least.”

According to the Vatican’s criminal code, the crime of which the two journalists are suspected is punishable both inside and outside the Vatican City and whether or not the perpetrator is a citizen of the small city-state ruled by the pope.

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UNITED STATES
Poynter

by Kristen Hare
Published Nov. 18, 2015

Reporters Without Borders | The New York Times | Associated Press

Italian journalists Gianluigi Nuzzi and Emiliano Fittipaldi are being investigated by the Vatican for work that uncovered mismanagement, Reporters Without Borders reported Wednesday. The press freedom organization expressed support for Nuzzi, “who has cited his free speech rights as grounds for refusing to be interrogated by the Vatican judicial system as part of an investigation into the leaking of confidential documents.”

“By writing ‘Avarizia’ and ‘Via Crucis,’ Italian journalists Gianluigi Nuzzi and Emiliano Fittipaldi just exercised their right to provide information in the public interest and should not be treated as criminals in a country that supposedly respects media freedom,” said Alexandra Geneste, the head of the Reporters Without Borders EU-Balkans bureau in Brussels.

The two journalists are being investigated under a Vatican law adopted in July 2013, after the first “VatiLeaks.” It says: “Whoever illicitly obtains or reveals information or documents whose publication is forbidden is punishable by a sentence of six months to two years in prison or a fine of 1,000 to 5,000 euros.”

Unlike Nuzzi, Fittipaldi submitted to questioning but refused to talk, The Associated Press reported Wednesday, “citing the protections journalists enjoy in Italy to shield their sources — protections which don’t exist in the Vatican legal code.”

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NEW JERSEY
United States Attorney’s Office – District of New Jersey

TRENTON, N.J. – A Brooklyn, New York, man was sentenced today to 48 months in prison for crossing state lines as part of a plan to violently coerce a recalcitrant husband to grant his wife a religious divorce, U.S. Attorney Paul J. Fishman announced.

Moshe Goldstein, 32, previously pleaded guilty before U.S. District Judge Freda L. Wolfson to an information charging him with traveling in interstate commerce to commit extortion. Judge Wolfson imposed the sentence today in Trenton federal court.

According to documents filed in this case and statements made in court:

On Oct. 9, 2013, Moshe Goldstein and a group of conspirators – including his brother Avrohom Goldstein, 36, his father, Jay Goldstein, 61, David Hellman, 33, Simcha Bulmash, 32, Binyamin Stimler, 40, Sholom Shuchat, 31, all of Brooklyn, and Ariel Potash, 42, of Monsey, New York – traveled from New York to a warehouse in Edison, New Jersey, with the intent of forcing a Jewish husband to give his wife a “get,” a document which, according to Jewish Law, must be presented by a husband to his wife to effect their divorce.

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UNITED STATES
San Antonio Current

By Kiko Martinez

It might not have all the complexity of journalists tracking down a serial killer, like in the 2007 crime thriller Zodiac, or the melodrama needed to spur scribes into breaking open a story on the suspicious death of a congressman’s mistress, like in the 2009 political thriller State of Play, but the relevancy of a newspaper reporter’s job is made evident in the sincere, insightful, fair and extremely well-paced Spotlight.

In a news industry where Buzzfeed headlines and Kardashian selfies are constantly trending for the mainstream masses, it’s refreshing (and equally discouraging) to know a majority of wordsmiths just a decade ago cared more about reporting the truth than creating click-bait content. Not only is Spotlight great cinema, it also has the power to remind audiences that a hard-hitting exposé should always be a crucial element of the ever-changing media landscape. Without professionals doing this kind of work (and not just recording grainy cell phone footage), how can anyone be held accountable?

Directed and co-written by Oscar nominee Tom McCarthy, whose track record has been so impressive (The Station Agent, The Visitor and Win Win) since breaking out in 2003 that we might one day forgive him for whatever the hell last year’s Adam Sandler vehicle The Cobbler was supposed to be. Spotlight brings the filmmaker back to true form. Set in the early ’00s, the drama tells the story of the Boston Globe’s investigative “Spotlight Team” of reporters who uncovered a global sex abuse scandal and cover-up rooted deep inside the Catholic Church that ultimately spawned criminal accusations against 250 Roman Catholic priests. For their work, the team was honored with the Pulitzer Prize for public service.

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UNITED STATES
The Pilot

FATHER ROGER J. LANDRY

Tuesday, November 17, 2015

Last week I was asked by a 25-year-old co-worker whether I was intending to see Spotlight, the movie detailing The Boston Globe’s investigative team’s month’s long Pulitzer-prize winning examination of the clergy sexual abuse of minors in the Archdiocese of Boston. She wanted to see the movie’s portrayal of the Church but worried whether doing so might be subsidizing anti-Catholicism.

I was planning to go to see the movie, I told her, both so that I might be able to respond to the various questions I was being asked by those who had already seen it as well as out of a sense of witness and reparation. When she asked me to elaborate about the latter, I said that I thought it would be important for movie-goers to see a priest to convey that the Church isn’t in denial about the evils committed and also to give them an opportunity to focus their anger if they should choose.

“You’re going to go dressed as a priest?,” she exclaimed, evidently worried about my safety. I replied that for a priest, clerical garb is like a wedding ring for married people, an external sign of sacramental identity, and that I had no desire to go undercover. Since 2002, I told her, I had gotten used to the occasional opprobrium, unprovoked insults, and, on a few occasions, spittle that have come to priests as a result of the abominations of some of our brothers, but that it’s important for priests to be able to take that suffering as co-redeemers with Christ, offering whatever comes up for victims and for the Church.

“Well, can I at least come with you?,” she protectively asked. I told her that that last thing that people needed was to see a priest accompanied by an attractive young woman to a movie on Saturday night!

So alone I went to see Spotlight, plopping down $15, the going rate for movies in Manhattan. I was surprised to see the rather large theater half-full for a 6 pm showing and, although no one should be startled to see young people at a movie on a Saturday night, I was somewhat shocked that so many older teens and young adults had chosen to come to a movie about journalists covering clergy sex abuse when there were 15 other theaters simultaneously showing more traditional Hollywood fare.

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CALIFORNIA
Los Angeles Daily News

By BILL HETHERMAN, City News Service

POSTED: 11/17/15

LOS ANGELES — The former co-director of Kabbalah Centre International plied a student with Vicodin and alcohol, then inappropriately touched her and tried to have sex with her, an attorney told a jury today.

Addressing a Los Angeles Superior Court jury hearing opening statements in trial of Jena Scaccetti’s lawsuit, lawyer Alain Bonavida said Rabbi Yehuda Berg’s intentions were clear.

“She’s alleging in this case he attempted to rape her,” he said.

But Berg’s attorney, John Cline, said his client mistakenly believed Scaccetti wanted to have sex.

“He made an awkward, inappropriate advance and she said no,” Cline said. “He stopped and she sued him 14 months later.”

Berg had been drinking that evening and was intoxicated when the incident occurred, Cline said.

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AUSTRALIA
Manny Waks

18/11/2015

It took some time but it’s finally worked out. I’m delighted that the Melbourne Yeshivah Centre is undertaking this ground-breaking and positive initiative. It’s precisely what I’ve wanted all along – to engage.

Only months ago no one thought this would have been possible. Not only me returning back to where it all started – but with Rabbi Glick by my side! Clearly the hard work is paying off.

I would like to encourage everyone to attend this event. Not only the Yeshivah Centre community, but all those who have questions to ask, comments to make, to vent – or simply to listen. As I told the organisers, from my perspective, anything and everything is on the table. There’s only one rule, let’s keep it respectful and civil.

Why did I go to the media – and why to the “antisemitic” The Age? Why did I pursue the Royal Commission option? Am I really anti-Orthodox/Chabad/Yeshivah? When will I cease criticising Yeshivah? Etc.

Absolutely any question is on the table. In fact, I’m happy to listen to comments as well.

From my perspective, the point of this evening is to engage and discuss. We may not walk away agreeing about everything but let’s at least put it all out there and be honest with each other. By the end of the evening, hopefully the level of animosity and disharmony will have been significantly reduced. And this can only happen through honest and open dialogue.

I urge the community – especially the Yeshivah community – to embrace this opportunity and to help break down the remaining barriers. And a profound thank you to the organisers for taking this bold step.

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CHICAGO (IL)
Haaretz

A Chicago rabbi was found guilty on Monday of sexually assaulting a 15-year-old boy in 2006.

Rabbi Aryeh “Larry” Dudovitz assaulted the boy when he was supposed to be counseling the teenager for questioning his Orthodox Jewish faith, Cook County Judge Evelyn Clay ruled Monday in the bench trial, the Chicago Tribune reported.

Judge Clay found Dudovitz guilty “after roughly two hours of testimony,” DNAinfo reported, and “ordered electronic monitoring for Dudovitz pending sentencing.” She also said Dudovitz is required to surrender his passport. Post-trial motions, which could include sentencing, are slated for mid-December.

The boy, now 22, had seen Dudovitz as a father figure, he said in 2013. He was initially reluctant to come forward due to, he says, his Orthodox community.

He told that court “I grew up with no sexual education at all — none whatsoever,” he testified of his insular Orthodox community, which did not urge him to come forward with allegations of abuse. “… It wasn’t spoken of and, unfortunately, it still isn’t,” the Chicago Tribune reported.

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FLORIDA
CBS Miami

[with video]

MIAMI (CBSMiami) – CBS4 has obtained the audio recording of a controlled call made under police supervision between a rabbi accused of molestation and the mother of the child. During the call, the rabbi maintains his innocence.

“There was never any touch. No sexual. Not any type,” Rabbi Steve Karro tells the mother.

The mother of a child he allegedly fondled doesn’t believe him.

“Rabbi Karro, she’s an 11-year-old girl. She’s very smart. She’s very intelligent. She knows herself when she’s uncomfortable. She mentioned to me something happened. She was very scared to tell me. We’re devastated Rabbi Karro. We’re devastated for what she’s going through right now,” she tells him.

In the 10 minute call, the mother claims the Rabbi attempted to kiss her daughter and touch her legs inappropriately.

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