ABUSE TRACKER

UNITED STATES
Religion News Service – Spiritual Politics

Mark Silk | Oct 25, 2015

Proving himself to be the best politician on the world stage today, the Pontiff of Immigrants succeeded in getting a fractious assembly of bishops from around the world to sanction a path to full ecclesiastical citizenship — i.e. Communion — for divorced and civilly remarried Catholics. Whether he was aided and abetted by the Holy Spirit I leave for others to determine.

During the three-week Synod of Bishops on the Family, those belonging to what the National Catholic Reporter’s Michael Sean Winters christened “Team Javert” weighed in early and often against any relaxation of the rules. “Team Valjean,” by contrast, held its fire until the final week, and then unloaded.

The key player, besides Francis himself, appears to have been the powerful head of the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Cardinal Gerhard Müller. A theological stickler appointed by Pope Benedict, he was among the 13 cardinals who signed a Javertian letter to the pope protesting the Synod’s ways and means. The letter was leaked to Sandro Magister, Francis’ leading critic among Vaticanistas and the journalist who became persona non grata at the Vatican after he published an almost final version of the pope’s environment encyclical Laudato si’ ahead of its embargoed release date.

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UNITED STATES
Bilgrimage

William D. Lindsey

As Chris pointed out in a comment here yesterday, in a section of his Religión Digital interview with the defrocked gay priest and Vatican employee Monsignor Krzysztof Charamsa, journalist José Manuel Vidal asks Msgr. Charamsa about what seems to be a glaring discrepancy between the alacrity with which Catholic officials defrock a priest who comes out of the closet, and their ability to tolerate (and hide) a pedophile priest for years. Brittmarie Janson Perez has sent me a translation of that section of the interview, which I’d like to share with you this morning.

Charamsa responds to Vidal’s question:

It is also true that pedophilia continues to be protected by the Church to save its image and not pay for the damage caused. I am going to give you an example. Toward the end of last summer, the Polish Nuncio, Archbishop Wesolowski, tried by the Congregation as a pedophile, died. That man had a funeral which lasted 10 days, between the Vatican and Poland. A 10-day funeral for a prisoner who had already been tried by an ecclesiastical tribunal for sexual abuse. That funeral started with a sung Mass celebrated by the closest collaboraors of the pope and ended 10 days later in Poland with the reading of a letter in which it was said that the acusations of pedophilia were only inventions of the Dominican Republic mafia. The Vatican allowed this spectacle instead of thinking of how to immediately indemnify the victims of this pederast bishop.

Seeing all this, one can reach the conclusion that there is a pedophile lobby in the Vatican. Yes, many pederast priests and bishops get special treatment and many go scot free. In the light of this Vatican reaction to a gay priest who tells the truth is a shameful automatic reaction. But that is the logic of the Church: everything must be hidden “for the good of the Church.” While it is covered up, nothing happens. But for the Church, “the devil” is the priest who tells the truth, who comes out into the light, out of the closet.

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VATICAN CITY
Religion News Service

David Gibson | October 25, 2015

VATICAN CITY (RNS) The most significant and contested gathering of Roman Catholic bishops in the last 50 years formally ended on Sunday (Oct. 25) after three weeks of debate and dispute, but the arguments over who “won” and who “lost” are only beginning.

The synod of 270 cardinals and bishops from around the world was the second in a year called by Pope Francis to address how and whether Catholicism could adapt its teachings to the changing realities of modern family life. Traditionalists had taken a hard line against any openings, especially after last October’s meeting seemed to point toward possible reforms.

While the delegates made hundreds of suggestions on a host of issues, two took center stage, in part because they represented a barometer for the whole question of change: Could the church be more welcoming to gays, and was there a way divorced and remarried Catholics could receive Communion without an annulment?

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ROME
Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Brisbane

Archbishop Mark Coleridge

October 25, 2015

When we returned to the Synod Hall yesterday afternoon for voting, there was another touch of high farce – an unscripted skit to finish this Synod of surprises. After we’d recited the Adsumus prayer (used daily at Vatican II), the president of the day welcomed us back and then passed the microphone to the Secretary General, as he normally did.

Cardinal Baldisseri began by reminding us that we had to remember the change from “ora legale” to “ora solare” – in other words, turn you clocks back. Glad he mentioned that; I would certainly have turned up an hour late for the closing Mass this morning. It was one of Cardinal Baldisseri’s finest moments.

He then proceeded in the normal way to register the presences in the Hall, which is something done at the start of each session. But this was more important than usual because we were about to vote on the final document. That’s where the farce began. At the first attempt, 259 registered as present. But then two more bishops arrived belatedly, so we had to start all over again. Now we had 261. But then, in slow succession, two more entered the Hall, the last (a Curial cardinal!) to resounding applause. So we had to start all over again. Some were getting tetchy, but I found it seriously comical. After a third registration, we had 263 and we were told that now the two-thirds vote required to pass a paragraph was 177. Finally we could begin the voting. We all looked furtively at the doors to make sure no more stragglers could be seen.

I should add that we have these little handsets at our seats on which you press any number from 1-9 to register your presence in the Hall. The handset also has one button saying “placet” (Latin for OK) and another saying “non placet” (Latin for not OK). We used these for voting. If you liked a paragraph (or at least thought it wasn’t offensive) you pressed “placet” and then another button saying “Confirmo”. If you felt slightly uneasy about it or hated it, you pressed “non placet” and then “Confirmo”. In all the pressing, you hoped to hell that the system worked. This evening it did, though the Archbishop of Sao Paolo had to call for a number of technicians at one point. They either fixed his handset or decided that his vote didn’t really matter.

We made our way through the 94 paragraphs of the final document in something like 90 minutes, pressing our buttons and recording the results. All paragraphs received the required two-thirds majority, a couple only just. This was a minor triumph in itself. Mind you, there were only a handful of paragraphs that proved controversial, and it’s not hard to guess what they were about. You’ll see what I mean when the document is published with the votes recorded. This was something the Pope announced at the end of the session – that the final document would be published with the votes. That’s good.

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CALIFORNIA
Los Angeles Times

Oct. 23, 2015

Teresa Watanabe

The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles abruptly dropped its support for efforts by the Los Angeles Unified School District to make it more difficult to hold institutions liable for employees who commit sexual abuse.

In a letter to the California Supreme Court this week, archdiocesan attorneys had objected to an appellate court’s ruling that plaintiffs only prove that an institution knew an employee had a “potential” for sexual abuse instead of a “dangerous propensity,” as the trial court judge had instructed jurors in the L.A. Unified case.

In that case, the district argued a 14-year-old girl was partly to blame for sexual abuse by her then-math teacher at Edison Middle School during 2010 and 2011. The teacher, Elkis Hermida, was convicted of lewd conduct with a minor and sentenced to three years in state prison, but the girl has filed a civil suit against L.A. Unified, claiming negligence.

A jury found that L.A. Unified was not liable because the girl and the teacher concealed their behavior from school officials. But the Court of Appeal reversed that decision last month, saying that L.A. Superior Court Judge Lawrence Cho erred in using the “dangerous propensity” standard and in allowing evidence of the girl’s past sexual history and arguments that she was partly to blame for her abuse. The appellate court ordered a new civil trial.

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VATICAN CITY
Reuters

[with video]

VATICAN CITY | BY PHILIP PULLELLA

Pope Francis, ending a contentious bishops’ meeting on family issues, on Saturday excoriated immovable Church leaders who “bury their heads in the sand” and hide behind rigid doctrine while families suffer.

The pope spoke at the end of a three-week gathering, known as a synod, where the bishops agreed to a qualified opening toward divorcees who have remarried outside the Church but rejected calls for more welcoming language toward homosexuals.

It was the latest in a series of admonitions to bishops by the pontiff, who has stressed since his election in 2013 that the 1.2 billion-member Church should be open to change, side with the poor and rid itself of the pomp and stuffiness that has alienated so many Catholics.

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VATICAN CITY
Washington Post

By Anthony Faiola October 25

VATICAN CITY — Pope Francis on Sunday delivered an extraordinary rebuke to church elders at the closing of a landmark summit on the family here, suggesting they had been too dogmatic and quick to exclude a broader array of people deserving of God’s grace.

In a Mass at St. Peter’s Basilica to mark the end of the three-week summit — known as a synod — Francis took aim at narrowness and false piety, focusing his homily on the biblical story of a blind man named Bartimaeus whom Jesus engages during a journey.

“None of the disciples stopped, as Jesus did,” Francis said in what a times sounded like a scolding tone.

He continued, “if Bartimaeus was blind, they were deaf. His problem was not their problem. This can be a danger for us. In the face of constant problems, it is better to move on, instead of letting ourselves be bothered. In this way, just like the disciples, we are with Jesus but we do not think like him.”

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ROME
The New York Times

By LAURIE GOODSTEIN and ELISABETTA POVOLEDO
OCT. 24, 2015

VATICAN CITY — After a three-week global assembly on family issues that exposed their deep divisions, Roman Catholic bishops produced a consensus document on Saturday that reinforced church doctrine but appeared to give Pope Francis enough support to advance his vision of a more merciful church.

The church doors opened just a crack for Catholics who divorced and remarried without receiving an annulment of their first marriages, and for those living together without being married. They remained firmly shut to same-sex marriage, even as the document said gay people should be treated with respect.

The document, which offers recommendations to the pope, was so carefully worded that it was immediately open to competing interpretations and allowed both the conservative and liberal flanks in the church to claim victory.

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ROME
The Guardian (UK)

Andrew Brown

Pope Francis appears to have been defeated after a bruising battle with conservative Catholic forces over his attempt to humanise the treatment of divorced and remarried couples. A second meeting of bishops from around the world, in a “synod on the family”, will probably end with no movement on the inflamed question of whether some divorced and remarried couples can be admitted to communion.

This may be scored as a draw between liberals and conservatives, but it has been contested as venomously as a Test match draw – and almost as publicly. Briefings, leaks, reports – vehemently denied – that the pope has a brain tumour, and threats of schism have all been used. According to the conservative Catholic blogger Damian Thompson, the next conclave – an occurrence which would require Francis’s resignation or death – can’t come soon enough for many conservatives. And this is the least hysterical language from that side.

The German delegation, broadly liberal, has issued a stinging denunciation of the conservative Australian Cardinal George Pell for language which was “false, imprecise and misleading.” In an interview with the French newspaper Le Figaro, Pell had accused the liberal German cardinal Walter Kasper of opposing Pope Benedict XVI, and this must have seemed a wholly unforgivable attack. The German cardinals said the words had “offended against the spirit of the synod and its fundamental rules … We distance ourselves decisively from this.”

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ROME
Voice of America

VOA News
Last updated on: October 24, 2015

Pope Francis said Saturday that a strongly divided gathering of bishops called to soften church doctrine on divorce, unmarried couples and homosexuals “laid bare” what he called “the closed hearts which frequently hide behind the church’s teachings and good intentions.”

The pontiff’s forceful critique of ultraconservative bishops came at the Vatican at the close of a three-week synod that saw conservatives resist papal calls to make the 1.2 billion-member church more welcoming and inclusive to gays and to divorcees who have remarried outside the church.

Francis accused those bishops of judging, “sometimes with superiority and superficiality, difficult cases and wounded families.”

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ROME
BBC News

Roman Catholic bishops have finished an often fractious synod on the family by reaching a compromise on divisive issues.

Doctrine towards divorcees has been softened but there is no change in the church’s stance on homosexuality.

In comments afterwards, Pope Francis appeared to criticise conservative bishops.

The church, he said, should confront difficult issues “fearlessly, without burying our heads in the sand”.

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UNITED STATES/CANADA
Orthodox Church in America

SYOSSET, NY [OCA]

During their annual fall session in Detroit, MI October 19-23, 2015, the members of the Holy Synod of Bishops of the Orthodox Church in America canonically deposed the retired Archbishop Seraphim from the status and all sacred functions of the episcopacy, removed him from the ranks of the clergy, and returned him to the status of a lay monk.

The letter of His Beatitude, Metropolitan Tikhon to the Archdiocese of Canada reads as follows.

PASTORAL LETTER TO ARCHDIOCESE OF CANADA
October 23, 2015

To the Clergy, Monastics and Faithful of the Archdiocese of Canada,

May the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God the Father, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you all.

The Holy Synod of Bishops of the Orthodox Church in America has concluded its Fall Session, held during the past week in Detroit, Michigan. One of the most difficult tasks of that meeting was the convening of the Synodal Court in Windsor, Ontario, to hear the case of the former Archbishop of Ottawa and Canada, His Eminence, Archbishop Seraphim. After much prayerful and intense deliberation, the Synodal Court determined that Archbishop Seraphim should be deposed from the episcopacy, removed from the ranks of the clergy and returned to the status of a simple monk.

The Holy Synod made this decision with much sorrow, but with the conviction that it was a necessary action both for the salvation of the now Monk Seraphim and for the preservation of the good order and stability of the flock of Christ. At the same time, we offer our prayers for the victims, their families and all those who have been affected by the events surrounding this case.

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IRELAND
Irish Mirror

BY CILLIAN O’BRIEN

Survivors of Protestant mother and baby homes will die before they get the compensation they deserve, a brave victim has claimed.

Derek Leinster, who was born in the Bethany in 1941, said he and others from such minority facilities have had no financial redress and that for many it is getting too late.

The Government launched a new commission of investigation into mother and baby homes earlier this year – more than 15 years after the first was established to seek redress for mostly Catholic survivors.

Judge Yvonne Murphy chairs the latest investigation and will issue a report in three years.

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UNITED STATES
The Open Tabernacle: Here Comes Everybody

Posted on October 25, 2015 by Betty Clermont

The following is a portion of the pope’s speech given yesterday at the close of the Vatican synod on the family:

[The synod] was about urging everyone to appreciate the importance of the institution of the family and of marriage between a man and a woman, based on unity and indissolubility, and valuing it as the fundamental basis of society and human life. …

We have seen, also by the richness of our diversity, that the same challenge is ever before us: that of proclaiming the Gospel to the men and women of today, and defending the family from all ideological and individualistic assaults.

[Pope Francis has called the movement in many countries to accept same-sex marriage as “ideological colonization that we have to be careful about that is trying to destroy the family.” In his recent speech to the UN, the pope “reminded the UN of their duty to recognize ethical limits, … ‘for carrying out an ideological colonization by the imposition of anomalous models and lifestyles which are alien to people’s identity and, in the end, irresponsible.’”]

The above quote from yesterday’s speech was omitted by the New York Times, Washington Post, Associated Press, Reuters and Religion News Service. As has been true for this pontificate, only the good stuff gets reported.

Reuters: “Pope Francis Ends Synod By Excoriating Bishops With ‘Closed Hearts’ And ‘Heads In The Sand’ – In his final address, the pope appeared to criticize ultra-conservatives, saying Church leaders should confront difficult issues ‘fearlessly, without burying our heads in the sand.’ He said the synod had ‘laid bare the closed hearts which frequently hide even behind the Church’s teachings or good intentions, in order to sit in the chair of Moses and judge, sometimes with superiority and superficiality, difficult cases and wounded families.’”

AP: “Pope Francis takes swipe at conservative bishops as synod on families ends – Catholic bishops … endorsed Pope Francis’ call for a more merciful and less judgmental church.” The last sentence above was repeated.

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KANSAS CITY (MO)
KSHB

Dia Wall

KANSAS CITY, Mo. – The catholic diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph is releasing its latest numbers on reported sexual abuse.

This week, the Office of Child and Youth Protection sent 41 Action News the latest information on investigations, training and victim’s services.

To date, there are:

6 pending investigations
4 substantiated claims
4 cleared cases
3 unsubstantiated cases
1 referred to religious community

Kansas City Royals player donates tickets to Game 5 to fire station, firefighters pay it forward

Carrie Cooper is the director of the child and youth protection office. She said after the Shawn Ratigan scandal of 2011 the church, “Really needed a concentrated effort that was direct and transparent and accountable after a trust was breached in our diocese.”

This is the fourth annual report her office has released since its creation.

In the last year, close to 12,000 children and youth have gone through specialized training on how to recognize and report suspected abuse. More than 2,000 adults took part in training as well.

Cooper said as a result, there has been a sharp increase in reports of boundary violations in situations like, “If someone kissed someone that was in a role where that wouldn’t be appropriate.”

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ROME
Rome Reports

[with video]

It was just after six o clock when the doors of the Vatican’s Paul VI Hall, opened, marking the end of the Synod on the Family.

After Bishops and Cardinals voted on the 94 points included in the final document, there was also some time for socializing.

Shortly after, Pope Francis walked out of the Synod Hall, with the final document in hand, as he made his way to his residence in Santa Marta.

Even though there disagreements at times, during the three week Synod, as a whole bishops seemed at ease with the final document.

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ROME
TheTablet

24 October 2015 by Elena Curti, in Rome

The Synod on the Family has ended with no consensus on the issue of Communion for divorced and remarried Catholics and the rejection of any change in the Church’s teaching on homosexuality.

The two-year process culminated today in the publication of a document prepared for Pope Francis that sets out the synod’s views on the Church’s mission to the family. The final document is notable for its warmth and pastoral tone, its emphasis on supporting families in difficulty and in particular the welfare of children.

It recommends more detailed and extensive marriage preparation and also support in the early years of marriage which are judged to be critical.

The document makes no direct mention of Communion for divorced and remarried Catholics but there is reference to a “path of discernment” and the “internal forum” which some priests and bishops already use to determine whether a person can be readmitted to the sacraments.

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VATICAN CITY
CBS News

VATICAN CITY – Catholic bishops called Saturday for a more welcoming church for cohabitating couples, gays and Catholics who have divorced and civilly remarried, endorsing Pope Francis’ call for a more merciful and less judgmental church.

Bishops from around the world adopted a final document at the end of a divisive, three-week synod on providing better pastoral care for Catholic families. It emphasizes the role of discernment and individual conscience in dealing with difficult family situations, in a win for liberal bishops.

Conservatives had resisted offering any wiggle room in determining, for example, whether civilly remarried Catholics can receive Communion since church teaching forbids it. While the document doesn’t chart any specific path to receiving the sacraments as originally sought by the liberals, the document opens the door to case-by-case exceptions to church teaching by citing the role of discernment and conscience.

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UNITED KINGDOM
The Spectator

Damian Thompson

This afternoon the Vatican Synod on the Family amended and approved the final document summing up three weeks of chaotic and sometimes poisonous debate – much of it focussing on whether divorced and remarried people should be allowed to receive communion.

The majority view of the Synod Fathers is that they don’t want the rules changed. They especially don’t want one rule to apply in, say, Germany and another in Tanzania. Pope Francis has just given a cautiously worded (but also, alas, rather waffly) address in which he acknowledges as much:

… we have also seen that what seems normal for a bishop on one continent, is considered strange and almost scandalous for a bishop from another; what is considered a violation of a right in one society is an evident and inviolable rule in another; what for some is freedom of conscience is for others simply confusion.

Significantly, the Fathers didn’t back a ‘solution’ suggested by liberal cardinals, whereby divorced and remarried Catholics could consult their consciences and their confessors over whether they should follow the rules.

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VATICAN CITY
Wall Street Journal

By FRANCIS X. ROCCA
Updated Oct. 24, 2015

VATICAN CITY—Catholic bishops handed Pope Francis an embarrassing defeat Saturday by withholding support for one of his signature initiatives— a pathway for Catholics who divorced and remarried to receive Communion—thus showing the strength of conservative resistance to the pope’s liberalizing agenda.

The pope responded with a speech that, while largely hopeful, betrayed his irritation with the bishops, complaining of “conspiracy theories and blinkered viewpoints” and “closed hearts which frequently hide even behind the church’s teachings, in order to sit in the chair of Moses and judge, sometimes with superiority and superficiality, difficult cases and wounded families.”

The final report of a bishops’ meeting on the family, called a synod, omitted any mention of the Communion question, the most fiercely debated topic during five weeks of discussion over the course of a year. Instead, the document called for greater integration of remarried divorcés in the church while “avoiding every occasion of scandal,” suggesting that such Catholics might be allowed to play a larger role in worship, education and other church activities.

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VATICAN CITY
Vatican Insider

All paragraphs of the final document have been approved with a two-thirds vote from the Synod Fathers. Number 85 was also only just approved (178 placets, 80 non placets and there was a qualified majority quorum of 177). The text does not introduce any general rules, nor has unconditional access to the sacraments been granted but it does build on the work Wojtyla started with the “Familiaris consortio”, advocating “discernment” on a case-by-case basis

ANDREA TORNIELLI
VATICAN CITY

The concluding text of the Synod, approved by participating bishops makes no changes to Church doctrine and values the family and Gospel teaching, but also shows greater understanding to remarried divorcees. Two paragraphs in particular address the attitude to adopt with regard to remarried divorcees – a hotly debated and controversial issue – and also the possibility of them participating in the sacraments in certain cases and under certain conditions.

The decision to entrust communion for remarried divorcees to the “discernment” of pastors has been approved by a two-thirds majority, with only one vote beyond the necessary two thirds (178 “yes” votes against the required 177 votes for a qualified majority). These are the result of the vote on the Relatio Sinodi. There were 80 “no” votes. Three of the text’s paragraphs – numbers 84, 85 and 86 – received consensuses that were higher than the required two-thirds (177) but only by a narrow margin.

Paragraph 85 quotes the following passage of John Paul II’s “Familiaris consortio” as a “general criterion”: “Pastors must know that, for the sake of truth, they are obliged to exercise careful discernment of situations. There is in fact a difference between those who have sincerely tried to save their first marriage and have been unjustly abandoned, and those who through their own grave fault have destroyed a canonically valid marriage. Finally, there are those who have entered into a second union for the sake of the children’s upbringing, and who are sometimes subjectively certain in conscience that their previous and irreparably destroyed marriage had never been valid.”

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VATICAN CITY
News.va

(Vatican Radio) Pope Francis addressed the Synod participants on Saturday evening after the vote on the final text by the XIV Ordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops on the Family.

Below, please find the official English translation of the Holy Father’s address:

Dear Beatitudes, Eminences and Excellencies, Dear Brothers and Sisters,

I would like first of all to thank the Lord, who has guided our synodal process in these years by his Holy Spirit, whose support is never lacking to the Church.

My heartfelt thanks go to Cardinal Lorenzo Baldisseri, Secretary General of the Synod, Bishop Fabio Fabene, its Under-Secretary, and, together with them, the Relator, Cardinal Peter Erdő, and the Special Secretary, Archbishop Bruno Forte, the Delegate Presidents, the writers, consultors and translators, and all those who have worked tirelessly and with total dedication to the Church: My deepest thanks!

I likewise thank all of you, dear Synod Fathers, Fraternal Delegates, Auditors and Assessors, parish priests and families, for your active and fruitful participation.

And I thank all those unnamed men and women who contributed generously to the labours of this Synod by quietly working behind the scenes.

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VATICAN CITY
Reuters

VATICAN CITY | BY PHILIP PULLELLA

Pope Francis, ending a contentious bishops’ meeting on family issues, on Saturday excoriated immovable Church leaders who “bury their heads in the sand” and hide behind rigid doctrine while families suffer.

The pope spoke at the end of a three-week gathering, known as a synod, where the bishops agreed to a qualified opening toward divorcees who have remarried outside the Church but rejected calls for more welcoming language toward homosexuals.

It was the latest in a series of admonitions to bishops by the pontiff, who has stressed since his election in 2013 that the 1.2 billion-member Church should be open to change, side with the poor and rid itself of the pomp and stuffiness that has alienated so many Catholics.

In his final address, the pope appeared to criticize ultra-conservatives, saying Church leaders should confront difficult issues “fearlessly, without burying our heads in the sand.”

He said the synod had “laid bare the closed hearts which frequently hide even behind the Church’s teachings or good intentions, in order to sit in the chair of Moses and judge, sometimes with superiority and superficiality, difficult cases and wounded families”.

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UNITED STATES
The Kansas City StarTIED ST

BY CINDY HOEDEL
choedel@kcstar.com

Dennis Coday is editor of National Catholic Reporter, ncronline.org, a daily online and biweekly print publication that covers the Roman Catholic Church for a national and international audience. The newspaper has an eight-person editorial staff in Kansas City, four full-time staffers in Washington, D.C., several correspondents on the West Coast and a correspondent in Rome.

Coday, originally from Nebraska, graduated from Rockhurst University and earned a master’s in journalism at Marquette. He worked for the Catholic Key newspaper in Kansas City, the Union of Catholic-Asian News in Bangkok and as a freelancer before joining NCR in 2003 as Web editor. In 2012, he took over as editor.

National Catholic Reporter was founded in 1964 in Kansas City. It is independently owned and governed by a lay board of directors.

The paper began publishing stories about sex abuse by clergy 10 years before the Boston Globe printed its investigative series that is the subject of the new film “Spotlight” (scheduled to open Nov. 20). In June, NCR published a retrospective of its coverage of the scandal over the past three decades. (The Star also had been reporting cases about priest sex abuse in the local diocese for two decades.)

NCR also is known for taking progressive stances in its editorials, including asserting that climate change is the most important pro-life issue facing the church.

This conversation took place in the paper’s newsroom on Armour Boulevard.

Q: What precipitated NCR’s reporting on clergy abuse?

A: The way stories like this develop is, you get a phone call. And there’s a hint of something going on, or it’s allegations that can’t be traced back. But gradually things build up. By 1985, Tom Fox and Arthur Jones, who were editors at that time, had accumulated enough information that they felt like they could start to write about this.

The breakout case was in Lafayette, La., which came to a head with a trial in 1985. Jason Berry, a reporter writing for a local alternative weekly, collaborated with NCR on an extensive report about what was happening in Lafayette, and Tom Fox and Arthur Jones put together a national overview of sex abuse cases. That reporting really started the ball rolling.

Q: The founder of Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests (SNAP), Barbara Blaine, credits NCR’s reporting with her coming out about the abuse she experienced and with founding her support group.

A: Yes, and the other piece of that is Father Tom Doyle, a Dominican priest who at the time was a canon lawyer working for (the pope’s ambassador in Washington, D.C.). He was tasked with finding out what was going on.

Tom tells this story in our retrospective that he and a lawyer and a clinical psychologist who was also a priest and a lawyer from Louisiana that was familiar with the cases put together a master plan that they proposed to the U.S. bishops (in 1985). Their position is that if the bishops had acted on that plan, it would have saved decades of abuse, of financial crisis, of scandal — it could have saved the reputation of the Catholic Church. But they didn’t act on it.

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ROME
The Tablet

24 October 2015 by Elena Curti

A standard-bearer of progressive thought at the Synod on the Family, Bishop Johan Bonny, admitted last night that he had been prevented from raising the issue of the pastoral care of gay Catholics in the gathering’s group discussions.

Bishop Bonny of Antwerp, who was in a group led by a senior African cardinal, Robert Sarah, said there had been no way of discussing the issue “in a peaceful way.”

Bonny was speaking at a press conference in Rome called by the three Belgian bishops at the synod on Friday night. Clearly alluding to tensions with Cardinal Sarah in the group, he said it was better to talk about the gay issue “in a positive way than in a bad atmosphere.”

In his synod intervention, Cardinal Sarah, Prefect for the Congregation for Divine Worship, reportedly compared “gender ideology” with Islamic State fundamentalism and Nazism.

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UNITED STATES
Bilgrimage

William D. Lindsey

Yesterday, the Spanish journal Religión Digital published an interview with the gay Polish priest who came out of the closet in a public way prior to the synod on the family — Monsignor Krzysztof Charamsa. Those following this story will know that Msgr. Charamsa was quickly defrocked by his bishop (in sharp contrast to the many priests who have abused minors and have been permitted to remain in ministry, have been moved about from parish to parish and hidden from public scrutiny).

The interview with Msgr. Charamsa in Religión Digital is a conversation between him and journalist José M. Vidal. To the best of my knowledge, this article has not yet been translated into English. I’m very grateful to my friend Brittmarie (Brittie) Janson Perez for sending me and others on her email list a quick translation of the article. As she notes, tools like Google Translate allow non-Spanish readers to have a fairly good, if somewhat rough, idea of what the article is saying.

If I spot an English translation or any Spanish-speaking reader of this blog wants to provide one (and Brittie herself may well have more commentary down the road), I may have further commentary on this interview. For now, here are highlights that leap out at me (whose Spanish is rudimentary, though I can make out quite a bit):

Vidal asks Msgr. Charamsa, “The church preaches mercy, but does it not keep on persecuting homosexuals?” (La Iglesia predica misericordia, pero ¿sigue persiguiendo a los homosexuales?). Charamsa replies:

Sí, hay una verdadera persecución por parte de la iglesia católica tanto de las personas como de la comunidad LGBTI en general. Es la persecución de las minorías sexuales que no pertenecen y no pueden pertenecer a la mayoría heterosexual. Se trata de un proyecto ideológico de la Iglesia. Mi Iglesia se permite afirmar que debe luchar contra los gays al igual que luchaba contra el nazismo. Nos comparan con los nazis, los enemigos de la humanidad. Esta afirmación ha salido en boca del cardenal africano Sarah justo en medio del sínodo, que en su lugar debería pensar con misericordia sobre las familias. La Iglesia está obsesionada con la homosexualidad, así como con la sexualidad humana en general.

Yes, he says, the Catholic church persecutes sexual minorities, the LGBTI community, in particular. It does so as an expression of the percecution of sexual minorities who do not and cannot fit into the heterosexual majority. This is treated as an ideological project by the church — something akin to the ideological battle against Nazism. LGBTI people are compared by church officials with the Nazis; they’re tagged as enemies of humanity. Cardinal Sarah made such an equation during the synod. The church is obsessed with homosexuality, as it is with human sexuality in general.

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VATICAN CITY
ABC 7

AP

[with video]

VATICAN CITY — Catholic bishops were voting Saturday on a final document to better minister to families following a contentious, three-week summit at the Vatican that exposed deep divisions among prelates over Pope Francis’ call for a more merciful and less judgmental church.

Conservative bishops had strongly resisted calls by more liberal bishops to offer a more welcoming approach to gays and divorced Catholics, citing church doctrine on sexuality and marriage. But it wasn’t clear that they had mustered the votes needed to close the door entirely on the core question of whether divorced and civilly remarried Catholics can receive Communion.

Austrian Cardinal Christoph Schoenborn said Saturday the final text, while not addressing the Communion issue head on, speaks obliquely about the “discernment” necessary to help couples in irregular situations.

“The situations are so different that we must look closely at each one, discern the situations and accompany them according to the needs of each one,” Schoenborn told reporters.

If he were looking for wiggle room to push the issue further, Francis could take that reference to discernment – reached through spiritual direction with a priest or bishop – as the opening he needs.

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VATICAN CITY
Vatican Information Service

Vatican City, 24 October 2015 (VIS) – The Holy Father has appointed:

– Archbishop Paolo Rocco Gualtieri, apostolic nuncio in Madagascar and the Seychelles, as apostolic nuncio in Mauritius.

– Fr. Aristide Gonsallo as bishop of Porto Novo (area 4,545, population 1,720,996, Catholics 650,000, priests 227, religious 124), Benin. The bishop-elect was born in Cotonou, Benin in 1966 and was ordained a priest in 1992. He holds a doctorate in theology from the Catholic University of Angers, France and a master’s degree and doctorate in modern letters from the state University of Angers. He has served as a teacher in the minor seminary of Parakou, and is currently pastor of the St. Martin parish in Panape and chaplain of the diocesan hospital, and is responsible for the reorganisation of the diocesan health service.

– Cardinal Charles Maung Bo, S.D.B., archbishop of Yangon, Myanmar, as papal legate for the 51st International Eucharistic Congress to be held in Cebu, Philippines from 24 to 31 January.

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LOUISIANA
The New Orleans Advocate

Charles G. Coyle III S.J.
Obituary

. . . and he grew in wisdom and stature and in favor with God and man . . . Charles G. Coyle III, S.J. entered the Heavenly Kingdom on July 1, 2015. A private Christian memorial service was held. He is survived by his sister Florence Coyle Treadway, his brother Robert D. Coyle, many loving nieces and nephews, foster-son Hamilton Armstrong, his wife Setsuko Miura Armstrong, and his beloved granddaughter, Ariel Miura Armstrong. Father Charley was born in New Orleans and graduated from Jesuit High School in 1949. He was president of his senior class and received the Senior Class Leadership Award. He matriculated at Spring Hill College and was awarded the Freshman Cup in 1950, Outstanding ROTC Award in 1951, and selected ROTC Battalion Commander in 1952. In 1952, he entered the Jesuit novitiate and began studies toward the priesthood. In 1958, he received a Master of Arts degree in Political Philosophy from Spring Hill College and from 1958-1962 taught at Jesuit High Schools in Dallas, Shreveport, and New Orleans.

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AUSTRALIA
The Age

October 24, 2015

Bianca Hall

A Melbourne man who was sexually abused as a child by Yeshivah Centre staff has taken out intervention orders against members of the Orthodox Jewish community, alleging his family was threatened after he spoke out about his abuse.

And several people who were subjected to sexual abuse as children at Yeshivah in Melbourne have now launched civil action against the ultra-Orthodox organisation.

The revelations are contained in a new ABC documentary to be aired on Tuesday night, Breaking the Silence, by film-maker Danny Ben-Moshe. It’s the sequel to Code of Silence, Ben-Moshe’s Walkley-winning documentary about Manny Waks, the whistleblower who lifted the lid on child sex abuse within Melbourne’s Orthodox Jewish community.

This time, Ben-Moshe has turned his sights to evidence presented to the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse against staff and directors from the Yeshivah Centre in Melbourne and the Yeshiva in Sydney.

After the Royal Commission’s hearings in February, Sydney’s Yeshiva Centre leaders publicly apologised to victims and introduced training for rabbis and education programs for children.
But while the Sydney centre was praised for its response, victims said change had come too slowly in Melbourne.

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UTAH
KSL

By McKenzie Romero | Posted Oct 23rd, 2015

FARMINGTON — A former counselor of the popular Especially For Youth religious seminar has pleaded guilty to sexual activity with a teenage boy he met through the program.

Keldon Severn “KC” Cook, 29, pleaded guilty earlier this week to one count of attempted sexual exploitation of a minor and three counts of unlawful sexual conduct with a 16 or 17 year old. All the charges are third-degree felonies.

Cook was originally charged with four counts of forcible sodomy, a first-degree felony; one count each of second-degree felony forcible sexual abuse and sexual exploitation of a minor; and one third-degree felony count of dealing in materials harmful to a minor.

Investigators say Cook met the boy, who was 14 at the time, at BYU in 2012 when he was assigned as his counselor during the weeklong program of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

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CALIFORNIA
Press-Telegram

By Greg Yee, Press-Telegram

A former member of a Mormon church in Long Beach was sentenced to eight years in state prison this week after pleading “no contest” to criminal charges in a sexual assault case.

Daniel Montoya, 55, entered the pleas on two counts of sodomy against the victim’s will with a minor 14 or older, according to Los Angeles County Superior Court records. He has previously been convicted of molesting two teen boys in the 1970s and was arrested again in October 2014 after additional victims came forward.

“The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has zero tolerance for abuse of any kind,” said Eric Hawkins, an LDS spokesman, in a statement. “Anyone who abuses a child is rightfully subject to both formal sanction from the Church — including loss of membership — and criminal prosecution. Montoya has been excommunicated from the Church, the most severe penalty we can impose. We have been supportive of the efforts of law enforcement to investigate and prosecute this case.”

One of the recent victims told police that Montoya called in April and began asking about his 8-year-old son, according to a police statement at the time of his arrest.

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PERU
America TV – Cuarto Poder

[con il video]

Desgarradores testimonios de exintegrantes del Sodalicio, una de las más importantes y conservadoras congregaciones religiosas del país, dan cuenta de presuntos abusos sexuales cometidos por los líderes de esta organización espiritual.

“Con mucha tristeza te digo, que hemos descubierto casos que señalan a Luis Fernando Figari, fundador del Sodalitium Christianae Vitae, como un abusador sexual, como un depredador sexual”, denunció el escritor Pedro Salinas y que da cuenta de ello en su libro “Mitad monjes, mitad soldados”.

Luis Fernando Figari Rodrigo, líder del Sodalicio, renunció en diciembre del 2010 al cargo de Superior general de la comunidad.

Para entonces, se empezaban a conocer las primeras acusaciones de abusos sexuales cometidos por parte de quien fuera su brazo derecho, el número dos de la congregación, el hoy fallecido Germán Doig Klinge.

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PERU
Peru Reports

Peru’s attorney general has opened a sexual abuse investigation into Luis Fernando Figari, founder of the Sodalitium Christianae Vitae (SCV) apostolic society.

Attorney general Pablo Sanchez said that a 60-day investigation was opened in wake of the revelations. However any crimes committed before 2004 would be ineligible for prosecution under Peru’s statute of limitations.

Last Sunday investigative news program Cuarto Poder featured a first look at the new book, “Half Monks, Half Soldiers” by journalists Pedro Salinas and Paola Ugaz. 30 former members alleged widespread sexual and psychological abuse within SCV. Three men who claimed to be abused by Figari himself.

“At times I literally felt nauseous, on the point of tears,” author Pedro Salinas said about writing the book. “Because they are such shocking testimonies, especially those who allege sexual abuse, that I doubt anyone would be unfazed. They are traumas people have carried with them for years, that cost them a lot to recount.”

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UNITED STATES
Washington Post

By Sarah Chang October 23

Sarah Chang is a federal prosecutor who specializes in child exploitation crimes.

During my first week as a federal prosecutor of sexual abuse crimes against children, one of my colleagues told me her chief coping mechanism: Turn the sound off when you have to watch a video multiple times. This advice scared me. I imagined children screaming, crying and shrieking in pain — the stuff of nightmares.

My office is responsible for investigating and prosecuting such crimes, namely the production, possession and trafficking of child pornography. My first case file contained multiple CDs and DVDs showing a young girl being sexually abused by her father, who filmed his crimes with a handheld camera. Despite my colleague’s warning, I knew I couldn’t remain deaf during my first pass at the evidence. I went to our forensic computer lab and braced myself.

But all I heard was silence. The 5-year-old girl said nothing — not even a sob. Disturbed, I continued to watch each video with the sound on. I tried to beat back the silence by turning the volume up as high as it could go. The quiet was too deafening, too defeating to accept. Surely, these children must make a sound?

But in video after video, I witnessed silent suffering. I later learned that this is a typical reaction of young sexual abuse victims. Psychiatrists say the silence conveys their sense of helplessness, which also manifests in their reluctance to report the incidents and their tendency to accommodate their abusers. If children do disclose their abuse, their reports are often ambivalent, sometimes followed by a complete retraction and a return to silence.

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NEW JERSEY
NJ.com

By Tom Haydon | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com
on October 23, 2015

LINDEN — From all appearances, Gregory Aker was solid member of his community, an assistant scoutmaster with the Boy Scouts in Clark and a volunteer religion teachers at a Linden church.

All that changed in February 2014 when Linden police responded to a domestic complaint between Aker and his wife, and then arrested the husband on charges of sexually assaulting two minors. That was followed by federal authorities searching the home and finding 600 images and dozens of videos of child sexual abuse, authorities said.

Today Aker appeared in U.S. District Court in Newark and admitted sexually abusing children and possessing images of child sexual abuse, U.S. Attorney Paul Fishman said in a statement.

Aker, now 46, pleaded guilty before U.S. District Court Judge Susan D. Wigenton to a charge of possession of child pornography.

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ROMA
Radio Vaticana

[con l’audio]

E’ stato presentato ieri sera fuori concorso alla Mostra del Cinema di Venezia uno dei film più attesi, “Spotlight” con il quale il regista statunitense Thomas McCarty ripercorre la storia della famosa inchiesta che nel 2002 portò alla luce lo scandalo e l’orrore della pedofilia tra i sacerdoti della diocesi di Boston. Dal nostro inviato a Venezia, Luca Pellegrini:

Proprio mentre a New York crollavano, in quel fatidico 2001, le Twin Towers centrate dagli aerei civili, portando con sé nel baratro centinaia di vittime innocenti, nella Boston cattolica le fondamenta di quella grande e antica diocesi cedevano non perché attaccate da qualche forma di terrorismo umano, ma dalla forza inesauribile e incontenibile della verità. Non secondario il fatto che fosse un manipolo di validi giornalisti del quotidiano “Boston Globe” a rendersi interpreti della loro più pura vocazione, quella cioè di trovare i fatti, verificare le fonti, raccontarli e rendersi, per il bene della comunità e di una città, paladini di un bisogno di giustizia. Grazie all’unità Spotlight – da qui il titolo del film di McCarty – il 6 gennaio del 2002 solennità dell’Epifania, una data scelta non a caso, uscì un numero storico del giornale che in prima pagina scoperchiava l’orrore già in parte noto e troppo a lungo da molti taciuto, quello della pedofilia diffusa tra i sacerdoti cattolici della diocesi americana, con centinaia di vittime sulla coscienza non solo di chi il crimine l’aveva operato, ma anche di chi lo aveva nascosto, ancor peggio negato.

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ROME
Crux

[A Venezia il film sulla pedofilia nella diocesi di Boston – Radio Vaticana]

By John L. Allen Jr.
Associate editor October 23, 2015

A new film about The Boston Globe’s coverage of child sexual abuse scandals in the Church 13 years ago has drawn strong praise from the Vatican’s official radio outlet, which described the movie as “honest” and “compelling.”

A Vatican Radio commentator also said the Globe’s reporting, upon which the film is based, helped the Church in the United States “to accept fully the sin, to admit it publicly, and to pay all the consequences.”

Artistic commentary from either Vatican Radio or the official Vatican newspaper, L’Osservatore Romano, is not tantamount to an endorsement of a work by either the pope or the Vatican, spokesmen have insisted over the years. Its appearance in a Vatican media outlet, however, creates at least the impression of approval.

Directed by Thomas McCarthy, the movie takes its title, “Spotlight,” from the name of the investigative unit at the Globe that documented a widespread pattern of abuse and cover-up in the Archdiocese of Boston, which eventually led to the resignation of Cardinal Bernard Law in December 2003.

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CALIFORNIA
CBS SF Bay Area

SAN RAMON (CBS SF) — A teen and his mother are seeking more than $25,000 in damages based on allegations in a lawsuit filed last week that a San Ramon school district and an Alamo church failed to deter child molestation by reporting it to police.

The lawsuit, filed in Contra Costa County Superior Court, names San Ramon Valley Unified School District and New Life Church as defendants. The plaintiff is a 16-year-old boy that was identified as one of three victims in a sexual abuse case.

The plaintiff was a victim in a case brought against Kevin Lopez, a former California High School head wrestling coach and a youth group program leader at New Life Church.

Lopez, 28, was sentenced in February to 10 years, eight months in prison after pleading guilty to eight felony counts of lewd acts on children between the ages of 14 and 15 and other related charges.

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UNITED KINGDOM
The Argus

A SEXUAL abuse victim has accused the Church of “systematic behaviour” in failing to act on allegations of assault after the sixth Sussex churchman in two years was exposed as an offender .

The claim comes after it was revealed on Thursday that former Bishop of Chichester George Bell, a man once tipped to be Archbishop of Canterbury, sexually abused a young child for a number of years.

Campaigners are now questioning the Diocese of Chichester’s ability to investigate itself, as historic cases continue to emerge despite five separate inquiries.

Additionally an inquiry into the Church’s handling of the Peter Ball case was commissioned on October 5 and the diocese is also co-operating with the national Goddard review into child sexual abuse.

Yesterday there was no clarification from the current Bishop of Chichester, Martin Warner, following his comment that there had been no cover up by the Church.

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CALIFORNIA
KRON

SAN RAMON (BCN) — A teen and his mother are seeking more than $25,000 in damages based on allegations in a lawsuit filed last week that a San Ramon school district and an Alamo church failed to deter child molestation by reporting it to police.

The lawsuit, filed in Contra Costa County Superior Court, names San Ramon Valley Unified School District and New Life Church as defendants. The plaintiff is a 16-year-old boy that was identified as one of three victims in a sexual abuse case.

The plaintiff was a victim in a case brought against Kevin Lopez, a former California High School head wrestling coach and a youth group program leader at New Life Church. Lopez, 28, was sentenced in February to 10 years, eight months in prison after pleading guilty to eight felony counts of lewd acts on children between the ages of 14 and 15 and other related charges.

And, the lawsuit alleges, the school district and the church might have known Lopez was engaging in this behavior with minors before police were alerted, but didn’t respond to it.

The lawsuit maintains that the district instead conducted its own investigation into a complaint that Lopez had potentially molested children, and made no further action.

It was a concerned parent’s accusation that while Lopez himself was a student at the school, he hosted parties with alcohol for middle school-aged children and may have inappropriately touched some of the minors.

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UNITED STATES
BishopAccountability.org

Summary of Case: A priest of the Oblates of Mary Immaculate ordained in 1950 in Belleville IL, Fitzgerald moved in and out of a number of dioceses during his career, including Belleville, Springfield and Peoria IL, St. Paul and Minneapolis, Duluth, Crookston and New Ulm MN, Sioux Falls SD, and Springfield-Cape Girardeau MO. He was involved with orphanages in Peoria IL and Sisseton SD. He returned to his Order in Belleville sometime in the early 1990s and died in 2009. Fitzgerald was accused in a 2010 lawsuit of having repeatedly sexually abused two residents of the Tekakwitha Indian Orphanage in the 1960s: a girl ages 4-13, and a 10 or 11-year-old boy. In a February 2014 lawsuit Fitzgerald was accused of sexually abusing a 13-year-old boy in around 1978. He had met the boy while at a pastoral education program at a parish in the New Ulm diocese, and invited him to serve as an altar boy for two weeks at his Squaw Lake MN parish. It is during those two weeks that the abuse is said to have occurred. The lawsuit also claims Fitzgerald sexually abused another child during his time in Squaw Lake, on the Leech Lake Indian Reservation near Bemidji MN. A civil trial related to the lawsuit began in October 2015.

Born: December 9, 1919
Ordained: May 1950
Died: September 7, 2009

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PERU
National Catholic Reporter

Barbara Fraser Catholic News Service | Oct. 23, 2015

LIMA, PERU
Accusations of physical, psychological and sexual abuse by leaders of a Catholic movement founded here in the 1970s led the group to pledge an internal investigation.

The allegations were described in a new book, “Mitad Monjes, Mitad Soldados” (“Half Monks, Half Priests”), by Pedro Salinas, a former member of Sodalitium Christianae Vitae, who interviewed about 30 other former members.

The interviewees, some of whom were minors when they joined the group and moved into one of its formation houses, recalled military-style physical exercise and separation from family and friends. Some said spiritual directors had ordered them to disrobe and then touched them, and there were several accounts of rape. One of those accused is the organization’s founder, Luis Fernando Figari.

Figari resigned as head of Sodalitium in late 2010, after the organization withdrew its proposal for the beatification of its deceased former vicar general, German Doig, in the wake of sex abuse allegations.

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UNITED STATES
Religion News Service – Rhymes with Religion

Boz Tchividjian | Oct 23, 2015

One of the many horrors about child sexual abuse is the inability to definitively assess who poses a danger to our children. Not only do decades of studies still leave us at a loss as to why offenders offend, but generations of abuse remind us that offenders are some of the most deceptive and dangerous people on the face of the earth. This combination is deadly. In order to help bring this horror to an end, we must acknowledge this deadly combination and help to equip our communities to understand so that all of us can be more proactive in protecting little ones from those inside and outside of our communities who want to destroy them.

I recently learned about an amazing individual who has committed his life to equipping the faith community to better understand the deceptions and dangers of offenders. Pastor Jimmy Hinton never grew up thinking that this would be his life’s calling. However, that all changed in 2011 when he was hit hard by a disclosure that forever changed his life. Pastor Hinton has spent the past few years collecting invaluable and unique insights into the dark mind of an offender who found himself loved and admired by an unsuspecting public that was deceived for decades. I am so glad and grateful that Jimmy Hinton has taken the time to share just a few of those insights with us today in this guest post. – Boz
_____________________________________________________________________________

It’s a cold February day and I’m standing on stage eyeing up my audience. It’s a seminar at a church on child sexual abuse and I’ve now shifted to speaking about prevention. I don’t want to lecture them about “red flag” behavior. I want them to experience deception. My colleague, a therapist who has logged over 9,000 hours counseling over 3,000 sex offenders in various prisons, has convinced me that we need to role play. He will play the firm church leader and I will play the pedophile. Days before, he assures me that he’s never seen anyone so naturally “get into role” as me. “It’s frightening! You’re too much,” he says. Our aim is to demonstrate to our unsuspecting audience how easily sex offenders cunningly win over the hearts of every person and gain access to children. It’s a scenario we both know too well. It will be, in his opinion, the most compelling and practical part of the entire weekend seminar. He was right.

We let them know that we were acting, but that several of them would find our routine eerily familiar. It’s a strange feeling to pretend to be the very thing you work so hard to fight against. Perhaps that’s why there is a profound shortage of specialists in this field. Nobody wants to plunge their minds into that level of darkness. Two minutes into my act, I could tell that most everyone was hooked. I improvised the entire thing. I had no idea what I was going to say or how I would say it but it just seemed to flow, and so did my tears. Several people in the audience were wiping tears from their own eyes, and we were only 3 minutes in. I used multiple layers of deception through words, pacing and leading, body language, and by hijacking and toying with their belief system. After only 5 minutes I was finished and, frankly, shocked at how easy it was. I asked the audience how many people would give me the benefit of the doubt and let me worship with them, unhindered. Every hand went up except for the church elders. One of the elders raised his hand—“We recently had a situation with a pedophile who gained our trust and eventually worked his way into a leadership position. Things got very ugly and it ended with him threatening lives. I swear, I had to take a second look and make sure that you were not actually that man standing on stage. You mirrored him exactly.” I had never met the man he spoke of, nor did I know any details about this church’s situation.

It’s a specialty I wish I didn’t need to develop, and I wish it wasn’t so personal. It’s taken its toll on me in so many ways, but I remain determined and understanding deception has become a niche. In 2011, a young adult disclosed to me, her pastor, that my own father had sexually abused her as a young child. Three days later, my mother and I were sitting in a police station reporting my childhood hero. How was this possible? I went into ministry because of his influence. He preached for decades at the same church I’m preaching at now. We were best friends. He confessed to over 20 victims, all of them prepubescent children at the time they were abused and is now serving a life sentence. I’ve maintained close contact with my dad, as well as the families of his victims. Learning about deception is woefully painful. Living in its wake is a nightmare.

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UNITED KINGDOM
The Spectator

Damian Thompson

Archbishop Mark Coleridge of Brisbane is one of the bishops who’ll be voting on the final report of the Synod on the Family at the Vatican tomorrow. He’s ‘quite a character’, I’m told by a priest who knows him. But anyone who’s been reading his startlingly frank and witty diary of the Synod, published on his diocesan website, will have already worked that out.

There are cardinals and bishops who, after a few jars, will let slip what really goes on at these occasions. And then there’s Archbishop Mark, who – although no doubt great company in the pub – doesn’t need any prompting to spill the beans.

He hasn’t broken any rules, mind. There are no leaks in his dispatches. But let’s just say that it’s lucky for him that Pope Francis doesn’t read English.

Coleridge’s latest entry, published today, is a gem. It’s a refreshing corrective to our mental image of cardinals wringing their hands in pious despair as they debate whether to give Holy Communion to the divorced and remarried. (They’ve decided against, by the way.)

Over to you, Archbishop:

We settled into the second round of voting for the Post-Synod Council which turned out to be a hoot. The first round of voting had been inconclusive, with votes scattering in all directions. This time we were given the names of the 10 bishops who had got the most votes in the first round in each of the four continental sections (Africa, America, Europe and Asia-Oceania). Of these we had to choose three.

Off we went, pressing our little voting machines at the seats. The trouble started when the technology failed in one of the three sections of the Hall. We were voting for Europe. We all agreed that Europe had always been a problem. Technicians were called and ran from all directions. I didn’t realise we had so many technicians looking after a system that is so erratic. It might be better to have a new system and fewer technicians … but the union mightn’t like that.

Enter the Secretary General of the Synod, Cardinal Lorenzo Baldisseri, whose finest hour this has not been. He handed the Fathers the draft of the final report:

The Secretary General then told us that it was our solemn duty to read the text carefully so that we could present proposed amendments the following morning. This was OK for those who know Italian. But the fact is that many of the bishops (and even some of the cardinals!) don’t know Italian … It would have taken a bit of money to hire professional translators to turn it into other languages quickly; but surely that would have been money well spent.

The fun and games started again when Cardinal Baldisseri told us that the draft document was so sensitive and super-secret that we couldn’t even take it home. At this, there were serious rumblings in the Hall. Boos were looming. Sensing mutiny, the Secretary General changed his mind: we could take it home but it was strictly for our eyes only. Not a whisper to anyone else. They weren’t even to know we had the document.

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

NORTHERN IRELAND
Belfast Telegraph

Sinn Fein has backed a call for interim compensation payouts to institutional abuse victims before a long-running inquiry into the crimes is completed.

However, the request for early payments has not yet been endorsed by the Office of First Minister and Deputy First Minister (OFMDFM), indicating Sinn Fein and the DUP have not reached a joint position on the issue.

Charity Survivors and Victims of Institutional Abuse (Savia) has warned that many former residents of institutions where abuse was committed are now old and cannot wait until the Historical Institutional Abuse Inquiry (HIA) finishes hearing evidence and produces an official report to Stormont.

Sinn Fein’s Jennifer McCann, who is an OFMDFM junior minister, said: “Sinn Fein supports some form of interim redress or acknowledgement payment, as has happened in other jurisdictions, given the age profile of some of the victims of the Historical Abuse Inquiry.”

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PERU
RPP

[The religious community apologized to the victims and said it will cooperate with any investigations in both ecclesiastical and judicial bodies.]

La comunidad religiosa pidió perdón a los afectados y aseguró que colaborará con las investigaciones en cualquiera de las instancias tanto eclesiásticas como judiciales.

Tras las denuncias de abusos sexuales contra el fundador del Sodalicio de Vida Cristiana, Luis Fernando Figari, la comunidad religiosa emitió un comunicado en el que piden perdón a las personas afectadas y aseguran que colaborarán con la justicia.

Del mismo modo, informan a la opinión pública que Figari se encuentra desde el 2010 en Roma en alejado de la vida pública.

“Expresamos nuestro profundo dolor y cercanía con todas aquellas personas que han sufrido y sufren por acciones cometidas por algunos de los miembros de nuestra comunidad. A ellas les pedimos perdón y les ofrecemos nuestra disposición de escucha y ayuda”, reza el comunicado.

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PERU
La Ley

En caso de que las víctimas hayan sido menores de 14 años, aún podría procesarse y, eventualmente, condenarse a Luis Fernando Figari y otros miembros del Sodalicio de Vida Cristiana que sean hallados responsables de abuso sexual. Sacerdotes y autoridades religiosas no tienen ningún privilegio ante la ley penal. Más detalles aquí.

Un medio de comunicación ha afirmado que ya no sería posible condenar a Luis Fernando Figari (fundador) y otros miembros del Sodalitium Christianae Vitae (Sodalicio de Vida Cristiana) por los abusos sexuales cometidos contra menores de edad entre 1999 y 2000. ¿La razón? Se asegura que ya habrían prescrito los delitos por los cuales estos personajes han sido denunciados en recientes investigaciones periodísticas y en el libro “Mitad monjes, mitad soldados” de Pedro Salinas con la cooperación periodística de Paola Ugaz.

Sin embargo, esta afirmación no es correcta. Aún resulta posible procesar y, eventualmente, condenar a los miembros de dicho movimiento católico que sean hallados responsables de haber cometido violación sexual en agravio de menores de 14 años de edad.

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PERU
The Tidings

The Sodalitium Christianae Vitae issued a statement on Wednesday announcing its commitment to the investigation of mistreatement, including sexual abuse, allegedly committed by its founder.

The Oct. 21 statement was released after the publication in Peru of a book containing testimonies against Luis Fernando Figari, founder of the Sodalitium Christianae Vitae.

“The testimonies refer to acts of abuse and mistreatment, including sexual abuse. It is a cause for deep grief and shame if such acts could have been committed by Luis Fernando Figari, the founder and for many years the Superior General of our community,” read the statement which bore the signature of Alessandro Moroni Llabrés, the community’s current superior general.

Moroni also stated that “we are creating an ad hoc committee, with the participation of experts from outside our community, that would be available to meet with any person who may have been affected.”

“At the same time we are committed to thoroughly investigating and clarifying the truth about the incidents, which are intolerable, because they involve grave suffering for persons who trusted our community, and they betray our deepest values.”

The Sodalitium Christianae Vitae is a society of apostolic life which was founded in 1971 in Peru, and granted pontifical recognition in 1997. Alejandro Bermúdez, executive director of CNA, is a member of the community.

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PERU
Reuters

LIMA | BY MITRA TAJ

Peru’s attorney general has launched an investigation to determine whether the founder and former head of an elite Catholic society sexually and physically abused children and former members of the secretive group.

The two-month inquiry into Luis Fernando Figari follows the publication of a book by an investigative journalist, in which three unidentified former members of Sodalitium Christianae Vitae accuse Figari of rape and molestation when they were boys. Others, out of 30 interviewed for the book, describe being brainwashed and physically abused.

Sodalitium said Figari lives in Rome and has denied all accusations. Figari could not be located for comment.

But the organization said the accounts in the book were plausible. “It pains and shames us that acts like that could have been committed by Luis Fernando Figari,” Sodalitium said.

“A corresponding investigation is being opened and if it is found necessary to bring him here that will be done,” Attorney General Pablo Sanchez said.

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AUSTRALIA
The Australian

October 24, 2015

John Lyons, Associate Editor

Victoria police are planning a major security operation for the appearance of George Pell at the child sexual abuse royal commission in response to concerns about protecting him from angry victims.

Cardinal Pell, the Vatican’s third most senior official, has retained one of Australia’s most expensive barristers, Allan Myers QC, for what could be a make-or-break appearance in Melbourne on December 14.

The Catholic Church will pick up Mr Myers’s bill, which could be up to $20,000 a day.

Among the security concerns, abuse survivors have suggested they will hold protests to coincide with the hearing. One has threatened a dramatic demonstration inside the hearing room in front of Cardinal Pell.

The commission begins hearings in Melbourne on November 24. The first two weeks will focus on Melbourne and the third week on Ballarat, after which Cardinal Pell will give evidence.

Hearings that had been scheduled for Ballarat have been moved to Melbourne, partly because of security concerns, police said. Many in Ballarat are angry at what they see as an insufficient response by the church to the abuse they suffered.

Cardinal Pell was not in charge of Ballarat but while he was a priest he lived for a time in the presbytery with Gerald Ridsdale. Based on number of convictions, Ridsdale is the worst pedophile in any Australian church.

After parents forced Ridsdale out of Mortlake, in the Ballarat diocese in September 1982, a committee decided to move him to another parish. Minutes show Cardinal Pell was at that meeting. It has not been established whether Ridsdale’s pedophilia was discussed.

Ridsdale, now in jail, was moved to different parishes for 26 years after first sexually abusing a child. His convictions involve 54 children aged between six and 16 between 1961 and 1987. He is believed to have raped hundreds more but most decided not to prosecute.
Cardinal Pell lived in the East Ballarat presbytery with Ridsdale in 1973, and has said he did not know Ridsdale was a pedophile.

Bishop Ronald Mulkearns was responsible for the Ballarat diocese. It is not known whether, for health reasons, he will be able to give evidence to the commission.

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OSTERREICH
der Standard

GUDRUN SPRINGER
21. Oktober 2015

Die Caritas ließ Missbrauchsfälle aufarbeiten und leitete einen Präventionsprozess ein

Wien – Die Caritas Wien hat historische Fälle von Gewalt, Missbrauch und sexuellen Übergriffen in ihren Großeinrichtungen aufarbeiten lassen. Dazu beleuchtete die Sozialpädagogin und Psychoanalytikerin Tanja Kraushofer seit Herbst 2012 Vorgänge in vier Einrichtungen. Am Mittwoch wurde ihr Bericht “Erinnern hilft vorbeugen” präsentiert: 48 von Gewalt betroffene Personen haben sich demnach bisher gemeldet.

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ITALIA
Rete L’Abuso

Estratto dagli atti;“io ricordo bene la notte in cui Pinetto mi invitò nel suo letto, in seminario: lui indossava un pigiama di flanella, giacca e pantaloni a righe azzurre e bianche: anche io avevo il pigiama, ma lui strofinò il pene sulla mia coscia, io ero un bambino di 12 anni ma non ero mica scemo: ricordo benissimo quando cercò di entrare la seconda volta nel mio letto, in camera con tutti i seminaristi, subito dopo avermi spalmato la crema sulla caviglia e aver cercato di massaggiarmi le parti intime“.

Anche per noi della Rete L’ABUSO sta diventando davvero imbarazzante denunciare ancora una volta, carte alla mano, la profonda disonestà intellettuale della diocesi di Savona – Noli, del suo vescovo Vittorio Lupi e di molti dei sacerdoti che la compongono. Quello che indigna ulteriormente è il messaggio altamente diseducativo che la chiesa savonese in questi anni, attraverso i diversi casi ha dato ai giovani, un messaggio che nella sostanza insegna che qualunque malefatta si può mettere a tacere, basta screditare chi la denuncia, fare un bel comunicato stampa, chiedere scusa e si ricomincia da capo.

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OSTERREICH
religion.orf

[Caritas reported cases of abuse in its institutions.]

Die Caritas hat ihren Bericht über Missbrauch von Kindern und Jugendlichen in ihren Großbetreuungseinrichtungen vorgelegt – bisher haben sich 48 Opfer gemeldet. Seit Herbst 2012 arbeitet die Caritas die Missbrauchsfälle auf.

Neben einer Entschuldigung für dieses „dunkle Kapitel“ in der Geschichte der Organisation, berichtete Caritas-Präsident Michael Landau am Mittwoch auch von künftigen Präventionsmaßnahmen. Durch die Aufarbeitung der Geschehnisse, Interviews mit Zeitzeugen und Berichte von Opfern, habe man „schmerzlich erkennen“ müssen, dass es auch in den Häusern der Caritas zu systematischer Gewalt sowie physischem, psychischem und sexuellem Missbrauch gekommen sei.

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OSTERREICH
Radio Vatikan

[In Vienna, children and young people were abused in Caritas facilities between 1950 and 1980 and this included psychological, physical and sexual violence. The abuse was documented in a 100-page report which was made public Wednesday.]

In Wiener Caritas-Einrichtungen haben Heimkinder und Jugendliche um die Jahre zwischen 1950 und 1980 psychische, physische und auch sexuelle Gewalt erfahren. Das verdeutlicht ein 100-Seiten-Bericht, der am Mittwoch in Wien präsentiert wurde. “Caritas-Einrichtungen gehören in die breite Reihe jener staatlich wie konfessionell betriebenen Fürsorgeanstalten, die in den vergangenen Jahrzehnten systematische und systemimmanente Gewalt aufwiesen,“ beschrieb Caritas-Präsident Michael Landau vor den Journalisten die Erkenntnis der Aufarbeitung, die unter Anleitung externer Experten in dreijähriger Arbeit erstellt worden ist.

“Heimkinder wurden geschlagen, misshandelt, gedemütigt und gequält, die Intims- und Privatsphäre vorenthalten”, fasste die Berichtsautorin Tanja Kraushofer die Ergebnisse zusammen. Schwere Prügeleien, sexueller Missbrauch und sexuelle Übergriffe sowohl von Seiten von Mitarbeitern wie auch unter Heimkindern seien durchaus ein geduldeter Teil des Alltags gewesen.

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MINNESOTA
Canonical Consultation

10/22/2015

Jennifer Haselberger

Yesterday, priests of the Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis received the following clarification from Tim O’Malley, Director of Ministerial Standards. As the email explains, while credit checks are required for persons who handle parish money in excess of $250, the definition of ‘persons’ vis a vis this policy does not include priests. Per O’Malley’s email, ‘credit checks are not required for priests’.

In case you are wondering why this is a cause for concern, please review my prior post ‘The Next Big Scandal in the Church‘, or the recent article on NJ.com. Obviously, credit checks don’t eliminate the potential for theft or exploitation, but they can be a useful tool in identifying problematic behavior and, when properly reviewed and acted upon, may help to prevent exploitation and other harm to vulnerable individuals.

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CANADA
Nunatsiaq Online

JIM BELL

Justice Susan Cooper has accepted four five-year concurrent jail sentences that lawyers submitted to her jointly this past Sept. 29 for four sex crimes that the pedophile ex-priest, Eric Dejaeger, now 69, committed against three children in Alberta nearly 40 years ago.

“It is likely that all victims of Mr. Dejaeger have now come forward,” Cooper said.

Dejeager, who earned his notoriety for molesting numerous Inuit children in Baker Lake and Igloolik, pleaded guilty to the four charges last month in Iqaluit.

That includes one count of indecent assault for his molestation of a nine-year-old Aboriginal altar boy in Grande Cache, Alta., on at least 10 occasions at home and on the land between 1974 and 1976.

Another two counts, attempted buggery and indecent assault, arise from offences he committed against an eight-year-old boy in Edmonton between 1975 and 1978.

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UNITED STATES
Recovering Grace

21 October 2015

Dear Recovering Grace Reader,

Late yesterday afternoon we received an email from a Texas-based law firm notifying us that a lawsuit had been filed against the Institute in Basic Life Principles (IBLP) and its current board members, John Stancil, Anthony Burrus, Gil Bates, Timothy Levendusky, Stephen Paine, and David York. The lawsuit (which we have reviewed in its entirety) was filed by five women who allege they experienced “sexual abuse, sexual harassment and inappropriate/unauthorized touching” while “participants, interns, or employees of IBLP.” Four of the plaintiffs have previously published their accounts here on Recovering Grace.

One of the law firms representing the plaintiffs is owned by David Gibbs III. You may recognize that name because his father, David Gibbs, Jr., has a long-standing relationship with Bill Gothard and the IBLP organization. In fact, it was Gibbs, Jr., who conducted the “internal investigation” paid for by the IBLP board in early 2014 (for a refresher of those events, review our response to the IBLP board statement from June 2014). Gibbs III has previously been quite outspoken against his father’s work, stating that it “helps cover for alleged and/or eventually convicted abusers, or the churches or ministries they work for.”

The lawsuit, which was filed in the Circuit Court for Dupage County (Illinois), alleges that IBLP was negligent over the past several decades by failing to properly address alleged sexual abuse and harassment by IBLP employees and that IBLP failed to properly report known or suspected abuse to the proper authorities. The lawsuit further alleges that IBLP’s conduct was “wilful and wanton” because IBLP demonstrated an “utter indifference to and/or [a] conscious disregard for a substantial risk of harm” to the plaintiffs, and that IBLP and its directors engaged in a civil conspiracy to cover up the allegations.

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UNITED STATES
The Raw Story

ARTURO GARCIA
22 OCT 2015

The Institute in Basic Life Principles, (IBLP) the homeschooling program used by the Duggar family, was accused of covering up sexual assault against underage girls in a lawsuit filed on Tuesday, the Washington Post reported.

The five plaintiffs, identified as Charis Barker, Rachel Frost, Rachel Lees, Gretchen Wilkinson and one Jane Doe, are each seeking $50,000 in damages, saying they were “at times minors” when they were subjected to the abuse and “inappropriate touching” during their association with the group.

While the institute is named as a defendant in the suit, founder and former director Bill Gothard, who was placed on “indefinite administrative leave” last year after being accused of sexually harassing and abusing employees, was not. Despite being cleared in an internal investigation by the group — which the lawsuit described as a “sham” — Gothard is not allowed to hold any sort of counseling or leadership role within the institute.

Despite not being named in the suit, Gothard is accused of abusive actions against the victims, who were as young as 13 or 14 years old when they took place. The womens’ attorney, David Gibbs III, said Gothard would offer counseling to them at the IBLP’s home office in Oak Brook, Illinois. He would them touch the victims inappropriately when they were alone, or in the back seat of the car if Gothard used a driver.

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UNITED STATES
Washington Post

By Sarah Posner October 22

Five women have sued the Institute in Basic Life Principles, once a leader in the Christian homeschooling movement, charging that the organization and its board of directors enabled and covered up sexual abuse and harassment of interns, employees, and other participants in its programs.

Each of the plaintiffs — Gretchen Wilkinson, Charis Barker, Rachel Frost, Rachel Lees and a Jane Doe — seeks $50,000 in damages, alleging that the organization and its board acted negligently, with willful and wanton disregard for them, and engaged in a civil conspiracy to conceal the wrongdoing.

The lawsuit is the latest chapter in a long-simmering scandal that has engulfed the ministry once admired by conservative Christian parents for teaching them how to raise obedient, devout and chaste children since the 1960s. The ministry has found dedicated followers in politics, including Rep. Daniel Webster (R-Fla.), who sought to replace Rep. John Boehner (R-Ohio) as House Speaker, and in entertainment.

Bill Gothard, founder of IBLP. (photo via RNS) Bill Gothard, founder of IBLP. (photo via RNS)
Last year, IBLP’s founder and longtime president, Bill Gothard, resigned amid allegations by more than 30 women that he had sexually harassed them. Former followers have said that Gothard was revered as an almost saint-like figure, and that members of IBLP’s homeschooling arm, the Advanced Training Institute, feared questioning him.

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CALIFORNIA
Sys-Con

BY PR NEWSWIRE

OCTOBER 22, 2015

NEWPORT BEACH, Calif., Oct. 22, 2015 /PRNewswire/ — Attorneys representing child abuse victims of the Roman Catholic Church and the Los Angeles Unified School District reacted with outrage to an attempt by Los Angeles Archbishop Jose Gomez to reduce the protections given to minor victims of sexual predators in California.

According to a breaking report by Norma Ribeiro on Univision, the Archbishop’s attorneys filed a petition on October 19th with the California Supreme Court asking them to “de-publish” the recent California Court of Appeals of decision in Sinai M. v. Los Angeles Unified School District, Case No. B253983, 2015 CalApp. LEXIS 814.

This highly publicized case condemned and overturned a trial court decision that allowed LAUSD to escape liability by blaming a thirteen-year-old girl for having sex with her 28-year-old math teacher. The LAUSD attorneys introduced the girl’s sexual history into the trial as part of their “blame the victim strategy.” They portrayed the thirteen-year-old victim as a willing partner in her own abuse.

The Court of Appeals stated, “The district’s position is as outrageous as it is wrong.”

Attorney John Manly, a leading advocate for child sex abuse victims, reacted angrily to the Archbishop’s petition, “I find it disturbing that the Los Angeles Archdiocese objects to the higher standard of protection for child sex abuse victims established by the court of appeals in the Sinai case. By seeking to de-publish this important decision, the Archbishop will make children throughout California more vulnerable to sexual abuse by priests, teachers, scoutmasters and other adults who are in a position to prey upon them.”

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AUSTRALIA
news.com.au

A WOMAN claiming to be the victim of a “VIP paedophile ring”, which involved three former prime ministers, has alleged she was prostituted to “paedophile parties” at Parliament House in Canberra.

Speaking to media in Sydney, Fiona Barnett detailed her alleged abuse by the alleged elite paedophile ring 40 years ago.

The 45-year-old said she was abused by the ring, which included high-ranking politicians, police and members of the judiciary, at the age of five and claimed there were thousands of other victims.

“My experiences were horrific beyond words,” she said. “But the way I’ve been treated for reporting the crimes I witnessed and experienced has been far worse than my original abuse experiences.”

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AUSTRALIA
Sydney Morning Herald

October 23, 2015

Rachel Browne
Social Affairs Reporter

A woman who alleges she was a child victim of the paedophile ring named by Liberal senator Bill Heffernan said she had repeatedly reported the abuse to authorities but no action had been taken.

Speaking outside the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, Fiona Barnett called on the authorities to investigate the alleged ring, which she believes is still operating.

Ms Barnett alleged the ring involved hundreds of perpetrators, including a political elte, such as a former governor-general and a former education minister, but she did not name them.

“Throughout my childhood I was a victim of Australia’s VIP child sex trafficking ring,” she said.

“The people involved in this elite paedophile ring included high-ranking politicians, police and judiciary.”

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AUSTRALIA
The Australian

AAP/ The Daily Telegraph

THE victim of an alleged child sex trafficking network claims she was prostituted at dozens of paedophile parties, which were attended by political elite at Canberra’s Parliament House.

Speaking to the media outside the Royal Commission in Sydney today, Fiona Barnett, from northern NSW, also claims she witnessed “hundreds of crimes” — including murder, rape, abduction and torture — at the hands of the so-called elite paedophile ring 40 years ago.

The network, which Ms Barnett maintains still operates today, included high-ranking politicians, and police and judiciary members.

Ms Barnett, 45, said she had reported the allegations to multiple health professionals, NSW Police in 2008 and the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse in 2013.

“My experiences were horrific beyond words … but the way I’ve been treated for reporting the crimes I witnessed and experienced has been far worse than my original abuse experiences,” she said.

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VATICAN CITY
Catholic World Report

Vatican City, Oct 23, 2015 / 04:06 am (CNA).- It hasn’t gotten a lot of media coverage so far, but the rampant affects of pornography on families worldwide has sparked concern and dialogue among the synod’s bishops – particularly the Americans.

“Porn demeans the best in the male spirit. It addicts them to a kind of cheap junk food, when real women with minds and hearts, beliefs and hopes, are much more interesting,” Archbishop Charles Chaput of Philadelphia told CNA Oct. 19.

“Happiness is built on reality, with all of its warts and joys – not on illusions. Pornography is nothing but illusions.”

The Vatican’s synod on the family was opened by Pope Francis on Oct. 4, and it will run until Oct. 25. This year’s event follows the theme “The vocation and mission of the family in the Church and the modern world,” and follows 2014’s extraordinary synod on the family, which focused on pastoral challenges regarding family life.

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NEW YORK
Washington Post

By Lindsey Bever October 22

After a Sunday service at Word of Life Christian Church near New Hartford, N.Y., two teenage brothers were told to wait around. The younger teen said the pastor called a “counseling session” to “talk about what we had done.”

Police said parishioners — including the teens’ parents and sister — purportedly wanted them to “confess to prior sins and ask for forgiveness.” When the teens wouldn’t talk, the teen said, the night turned violent.

Nineteen-year-old Lucas Leonard and his younger brother, Christopher, 17, were punched, kicked and whipped with a 4-foot, folded electrical cord during the hours-long beating that began Oct. 11 and continued to the 12th, Christopher Leonard said Wednesday during a court hearing.

Lucas Leonard was pronounced dead at a nearby hospital.

Christopher Leonard was hospitalized with serious injures.

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WASHINGTON (DC)
Washington Post

A former D.C. police officer pleaded guilty Thursday to sexually abusing two teenage girls who attended the Southeast Washington church where he served as pastor, prosecutors said.

Darrell Best, 46, a 25-year D.C. police department veteran, admitted to one count of first-degree sexual abuse of a minor and one count of second-degree sexual abuse of a minor. Best also pleaded guilty to a child pornography charge.

If approved by U.S. District Judge Reggie B. Walton, the plea agreement calls for Best to be sentenced to 18 years in prison, with a hearing date set for Feb. 26, according to the U.S. attorney’s office for the District.

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WASHINGTON (DC)
WUSA

[with video]

WASHINGTON (WUSA9) — A former D.C. police officer and pastor teared up in court Thursday while pleading guilty to multiple sex crimes.

Darrell Best, 46, is expected to spend the next 18 years in jail after pleading guilty to one count of producing child pornography, one count of first-degree sexual abuse of a minor and one count of second-degree sexual abuse of a minor.

The charges stem from incidents involving two female minors who knew him through the Southeast D.C. church where he served as head pastor. Prosecutors say one incident happened on December 3, 2014, at Metropolitan Police Department headquarters and another happened inside the church on February 14, 2015.

In both cases, Best was wearing his MPD uniform.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

By Margaret Paul

Geelong Grammar is looking to change the way it deals with victims of sexual abuse at the school, the commercial manager of the school has told the child abuse royal commission.

Andrew Moore gave evidence at the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse about the way the school dealt with victims of sexual abuse over several decades.

He was quizzed about the case of a former student, known only as BIW, who was abused by boarding house master Philippe Trutmann in 1989.

Trutmann was at the school’s Highton campus in the 1980s and 90s, and was eventually convicted of sexually assaulting 41 students during that time.

Counsel assisting the inquiry David Lloyd asked why the school refused to acknowledge key facts in BIW’s case even after Trutmann had pleaded guilty.

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UNITED STATES
Huffington Post

Daniel A. Olivas

The email came early one Tuesday morning two years ago, the kind of email that makes a writer’s heart beat with excitement and just a bit of fear.

It began: “I’m an editor at the Times opinion section, and we’re looking for someone in LA to write an essay for us about the sex abuse scandal in the church there….” The email address included the editor’s name followed by @nytimes.com. Yep. That Times.

I wondered why the editor had contacted me. True, I am an LA-based, Chicano writer. At the time, I had six books under my belt and I sometimes touched on the Church abuse scandal in my fiction. So, after some thought, I figured a simple Google search could have brought The New York Times editor to my inbox.

But I tried to stay cool and wrote this simple response to the editor: “Thanks for the email. I would be interested. Please send the guidelines.”

She quickly wrote back and offered an explanation of her own: “So we often ask novelists or literary writers to write essays off of a news event. The idea is to get some good, evocative writing into the paper (often with some personal anecdotes or stories), but also to offer some interesting argument or insight about the news. We were thinking you might have something interesting to say about abuse, Catholicism and Latinos in LA, but the angle would be totally up to you (and of course it would depend on whether you grew up in the church/feel like you can offer a personal perspective).”

Made sense to me. So, I hunkered down and wrote it. After some back-and-forth with the editor, it ran online on a Thursday evening and in the print edition that Sunday under the title, “The Priest That Preyed.”

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MASSACHUSETTS
Boston Globe

by Lisa Wangsness GLOBE STAFF OCTOBER 23, 2015

It started with a janitor at a Catholic school in Revere using a bathroom urinal with students present.

After a parent complained, the episode led to a community crisis: A second-grade teacher, the school principal, and the pastor of Immaculate Conception parish resigned. The police and Suffolk prosecutors swiftly cleared the janitor of criminal wrongdoing. Nearly 1,000 parents and parishioners signed a petition asking for a meeting with Cardinal Sean P. O’Malley, the archbishop of Boston.

Now, the former principal, Alison Kelly, is suing the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Boston for more than $1 million. She claims the church forced her to resign in January even though she had immediately reported the parent’s complaints to the pastor in charge of the school.

The ousting of Kelly, who was principal for about three years, and her colleagues “was a cold, calculated attempt by the church to do some face-saving at the expense of innocent people,” said Kelly’s attorney, Gerard F. Malone, in an interview.

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ROME
National Catholic Reporter

Joshua J. McElwee | Oct. 23, 2015

ROME
One of the prelates responsible for drafting the final document from the ongoing Synod of Bishops has said he does not anticipate that it will propose changes in the Catholic church’s practices towards the divorced and remarried.

Indian Cardinal Oswald Gracias — one of ten prelates who co-drafted the document after three-weeks of intense deliberations among some 270 bishops at the Oct. 4-25 Synod — said in particular that one specific proposal that might have allowed the remarried to take Communion would likely not be mentioned.

That proposal would have suggested that the church could use what is called the “internal forum” to allow some remarried persons to take the Eucharist on a private, case-by-case basis after seeking guidance, advice, and then permission from priests or bishops. …

Gracias gave three examples of work bishops’ conferences could be entrusted to do, saying they could perhaps handle marriage tribunals, clergy sexual abuse cases currently referred to the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, and even help in the selection of bishops.

Regarding sexual abuse cases, the cardinal said: “I think [bishops’ conferences] should take more responsibility because that’s far too heavy to have one office in Rome handling all the cases in the world. It’s practically, logistically, impossible.”

“Bishops’ conferences could also, I think, in the future — I’m not saying they would decide — assist more, have a greater role in the choice of bishops,” said Gracias, who is also a member of the Council of Cardinals advising the pope on reforming the Vatican. “That’s a very crucial decision for every church and bishops’ conference.”

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

By Nick McLaren

The victim in an alleged Wollongong historic child abuse case has repeatedly rejected claims in court he made up the allegations.

The alleged abuse involved former priest Father Patrick Kervin at Holy Spirit College in Bellambi.

The student was aged 15 when the alleged abuse occurred in the 1980s.

Now aged in his 40’s, the student who cannot be named, told the court Kervin called him to his office to console him as his mother was ill.

He described how Kervin put his hand on his knee then slid his hand up his leg, touching his genitals as he leaned in to kiss him.

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ILLINOIS
ABC 7

[with video]

RIVER GROVE, Ill. (WLS) — An administrator at a west suburban Catholic high school was arrested Wednesday for allegedly sexually abusing a student, school officials confirmed.

The individual, who is an assistant principal and music director, has not yet been charged. The 34-year-old male staffer had been at the school for six years.

The administrator at Guerin College Preparatory High School in River Grove was put on administrative leave after school officials learned of the accusations last month, said Steve Baldwin, Guerin president.

The school then emailed the parents of the 400 students enrolled at the school, Baldwin said. The email read, in part: “We are taking this situation very seriously. As soon as we were made aware of these allegations … was placed on administrative leave. We are cooperating with the authorities, including DCFS and the Chicago Police Department.”

Officials said the alleged abuse did not occur at the school and there is no indication that more than one student was involved. A parent told ABC7 that the student involved was a 17-year-old boy and that another student witnessed the incident.

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ILLINOIS
WGN

[with video]

BY TAHMAN BRADLEY, UPDATED AT 06:16PM, OCTOBER 22, 2015

RIVER GROVE, Ill. — Charges are pending against an assistant principal of a River Grove high school for allegedly sexually abusing a male student.

The president of the school says the victim is a student.

Yesterday, the Guerin College Prep sent home to parents a letter explaining the situation. The letter identifies the assistant principal by name. But because charges are pending on the 34-year-old, WGN is not naming the suspect.

Guerin College Prep says the assistant principal has been leave since the allegations first surfaced Sept. 10.

The alleged incident occurred outside of school in the 2600 block of North Sayre Avenue in Chicago.

Police say the victim is a 17-year-old male.

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ILLINOIS
Chicago Tribune

David Pollard
Pioneer Press

A Guerin Prep High School administrator has been arrested for allegations of inappropriate sexual contact with a student off campus.

The 34-year-old assistant principal at the River Grove high school was arrested Wednesday by members of the Chicago Police Department’s Special Investigations Unit on accusations of aggravated sexual abuse of a child, according to a Chicago Police Department spokeswoman.

Charges had not been filed as of Thursday afternoon, the spokeswoman said.

The man allegedly had inappropriate contact with a 17-year-old Guerin Prep student on Sept. 20 in the 2600 block of North Sayre Avenue in Chicago’s Galewood neighborhood, according to police.

While working at Guerin, the assistant principal was also the musical director at St. William Catholic Church, located at 2600 N. Sayre Ave., the block where the alleged incident took place.

The Archdiocese of Chicago acknowledged the arrest in an emailed statement.

“The Archdiocese of Chicago is aware of the situation and can confirm that the situation was properly reported to [the Department of Children and Family Services],” the statement said. “We are monitoring the situation and will continue to cooperate with the civil authorities.”

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AUSTRALIA
ABC – PM

TIM PALMER: The former head of one of Australia’s most elite schools has spent hours in the witness box at the royal commission into child sex abuse.

Robert Bugg was campus headmaster of Geelong Grammar, investigated for its response to several abuse allegations.

Previous witnesses gave evidence that Mr Bugg contributed to expelling a student who make allegations of abuse.

Today Mr Bugg denied that, saying if he’d been told at the time he would have acted.

Tom Nightingale reports.

TOM NIGHTINGALE: Robert Bugg was the master of Geelong Grammar’s Highton campus at a time when one staff member was committing devastating abuse.

Boarding house staffer Philippe Trutmann admitted to abusing 40 students over a decade ending in 1995.

Robert Bugg was questioned extensively about Trutmann today, and consistently denied knowing anything was wrong.

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CANADA
Global News

IQALUIT, Nunavut – A defrocked Arctic priest in prison for dozens of sex offences against Inuit children is appealing.

The news came out in a Nunavut court in Iqaluit on Thursday as Eric Dejaeger was sentenced for more child sex assaults in Alberta.

The former Oblate was given five-year sentences for acts committed against three children between the ages of six and nine in Edmonton and Grande Cache in the 1970s.

One of the victims, then a nine-year-old altar boy, was assaulted over four years. The other two were a brother and sister, eight and six, who were assaulted over a three-year period.

In victim impact statements, the brother told court he has become aggressive and has trouble controlling his impulses. His sister said she has suffered from substance abuse and depression.

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MISSOURI
Berger’s Beat

LAST YEAR, HE WAS RIDICULED FROM COAST-TO-COAST FOR repeatedly saying he “couldn’t recall” when he learned that child sexual abuse was a crime. Now, he’s running for a leadership post in the U.S. Conference of Catholic bishops. Our town’s Archbishop Robert Carlson is campaigning for the chairmanship of the USCCB’s Catholic Education Committee. Carlson was deposed in the case against Fr. Joseph Ross, who worked in Richmond Heights, Woodson Terrace, Pacific, U. City and elsewhere. The election is next month in Baltimore. Carlson’s opponent is the bishop of Youngstown, Ohio, says noted Catholic blogger Rocco Palmo. …

PRIESTS’ PENSIONS

October 21, 2015

Some funding levels for pensions of priests have fallen below 65 percent. The St. Louis Archdiocese now requires parishes to contribute to the retirement of their priests. Archdiocese CFO Robert Bouche tells Reuters: “Aggressive steps have been taken in recent years to increase funding levels.”

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UNITED STATES
Vanity Fair

BY RICHARD LAWSON

Sure, it’s only October, but that’s no reason why we can’t get the awards season rolling with the first awards nominations of the year. The Gotham Awards, which highlight the best independent films of the year (along with the actors, writers, and directors who made them happen), announced its 2015 nominations this morning, so let’s see if we can glean anything about the Oscar season from these first, very early tea leaves.

The big takeaway is probably that the Gothams took special care to invent an award for the ensemble cast of Spotlight, Tom McCarthy’s journalism procedural, which took the Toronto Film Festival by storm in September. Could this be an early indicator that Spotlight is, as we’ve intimated on these pages, the current front-runner for a best-picture Academy Award? I think so! Of course, there are still some unseen movies lurking on the horizon—Joy, The Hateful Eight, The Revenant—that could spoil it for Spotlight, but right now it’s the film to beat.

Elsewhere, Carol had a strong showing, nominated for best feature, best screenplay, and best actress. Cate Blanchett was the performer singled out here, which might further dilute her co-star Rooney Mara’s awards chances, even though Mara won the best actress prize at Cannes. Though, she’ll likely be run in supporting for the big dance, so this snub might not actually mean anything bad for her. Either way, the nominations are a good, important bump for the film, which has been received rapturously by critics at festivals, but has to sustain that buzz until it’s released next month, and beyond.

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CHILE
Publimetro

[A move in underway in Chile to have Pope Francis questioned as part of the civil law suit against priest Fernando Karadima. The request document after being drafted will be sent to the Supreme Court which will in turn forward it to the Chilean Foreign Ministry and ultimately will be sent to the Vatican. This action comes after publication of a video recorded by an Argentine citizen at the Vatican where the pope told Chilean Catholics that people in Osorno were stupid and led by “lefties” in their opposition to appointment of Bishop Juan Barros to the Osorno diocese.]

El documento, tras ser redactado, deberá ser enviado a la Corte Suprema, quien a su vez lo remitirá al ministerio de Relaciones Exteriores para comenzar su viaje a El Vaticano.

El ministro de fuero Juan Manuel Muñoz, que lleva adelante la demanda civil interpuesta por tres víctimas del sacerdote Fernando Karadima contra la Iglesia Católica chilena, dio luz verde para preparar un exhorto con la finalidad que sea respondido por el papa Francisco.

La acción se da tras la publicación de un video grabado por un ciudadano argentino en El Vaticano, donde el sumo pontífice relató a fieles chilenos que la gente de Osorno era “tonta” por creer acusaciones de “zurdos”, las cuales entregarían algún grado de responsabilidad al obispo de esa ciudad -Juan Barros- para encubrir las acciones del ex párroco de la iglesia El Bosque.

Los denunciantes de Karadina, James Hamilton, Juan Carlos Cruz y José Andrés Murillo, buscan obtener una indemnización superior a los 400 millones de pesos ya que, según su versión, la jerarquía de la iglesia criolla omitió y tuvo una actitud negligente al momento de conocer estas acusaciones.

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UNITED KINGDOM
The JC

By Simon Rocker, October 22, 2015

For some of the boarders at the exclusive Carmel College, a Saturday night treat was in store. A select group of half a dozen or so young boys would be invited up to watch Match of the Day in the flat of one of their teachers Trevor Bolton, who would give them fizzy drinks and crisps.

Bolton had arrived when he was 31 at the Jewish school, secluded in a pleasant rural campus outside Oxford, to teach French in 1968. He became master of the junior boarding house, looking after boys from 10 to 13 or 14.

When some of the boys became homesick or bullied, he would offer them comfort and a reassuring hug.

One former pupil recalled being “taken under his wing” when he was unhappy; the boy felt out of place at an institution where other pupils arrived in a chauffeur-driven Rolls while he came from modest circumstances.

Another pupil who also found life as boarder difficult said the teacher wanted to be a “second father”.

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UNITED KINGDOM
The JC

By Josh Jackman, October 22, 2015

Former Carmel College Trevor Bolton has been found guilty of all 25 counts of sexual assaulting students at a Jewish boarding school.

The jury at Oxford Crown Court returned a majority guilty verdict on four remaining counts on Thursday, having already convicted Bolton on 21 counts of abusing boys aged 11 to 15 at the Oxfordshire school College over a 20-year period.

The abuse, committed between 1968 and 1988, included 16 counts of indecent assault on a male person, six counts of indecency with a child and three other serious sexual offences.

Bolton was remanded in custody, with sentencing expected on Friday.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Borehamwood & Elstree Times

Jyoti Rambhai, Reporter / Friday 4 September 2015

THE co-founder of an American-style children’s camp in Bushey has been arrested on suspicion of conspiracy to cause cruelty to children.

Tal Landsman was one of the directors of LL Camps, based at St Margaret’s School in Merry Hill Road. He has been charged with conspiracy to cause cruelty to a child and conspiracy to pervert the course of justice.

The 25-year-old, of Admiral Drive, Stevenage, was arrested on Thursday, August 27, along with two others in an operation led by detectives at Hertfordshire Constabulary’s specialist joint child protection investigation unit.

Larry Lewis, 55, of Lullington Garth, Borehamwood, has been charged with conspiracy to pervert the course of justice.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Borehamwood & Elstree Times

Jyoti Rambhai, Reporter Thursday 22 October 2015

The director of an American-style children’s camp in Bushey faces further charges relating to taking indecent photographs of a child.

Ben Lewis, of Lullington Garth, Borehamwood, who ran LL Camps, has been charged with two counts of taking an indecent photograph of a child in Hertfordshire on or before May 6, 2015.

He has also been charged with making indecent photographs of a child in Hertfordshire on or before May 6, 2015 and attempting to observe another person doing a private act without consent for sexual gratification in Hertfordshire, on or between January 1, 2012 and December 31, 2012.

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NORTHERN IRELAND
BBC News

Victims of institutional abuse in Northern Ireland should be compensated now, say campaigners.
It is three years since the Historical Institutional Abuse inquiry was set up to consider allegations dating back to 1922.

Such is the scale of its task, however, that its final report is not expected until next year at the earliest.

With the inquiry examining cases stretching back over decades, many of those affected are now elderly.

Some abuse victims have died without receiving any compensation or form of recognition.

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CANADA
CBC News

Former Catholic priest Eric Dejaeger was sentenced in Iqaluit today to five years in prison for sex offences stemming from the mid-1970s when he was studying in Edmonton.

Dejaeger had pleaded guilty in September to two counts of gross indecency, one count of indecent assault on a female, and one count of indecent assault on a male. The crimes were committed when the former priest was studying at the Newman Theological College in Edmonton.

He had previously applied to have the charges heard in a Nunavut courtroom rather than in Alberta.

In February, Dejaeger was sentenced to 19 years in prison for sexually abusing children in Igloolik, Nunavut, more than 30 years ago. He was convicted of 32 sex crimes ranging from indecent assault to bestiality, dating back to his time as a priest in the community.

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VATICAN CITY
Catholic Herald (UK)

Pope Francis has announced the creation of a new Vatican department for laity, family and life.

He made the announcement at this evening’s session of the family synod in Rome.

The new dicastery was proposed by the Council of Cardinals, the Pope’s closest cardinal-advisers.

It is currently unclear if the new department will be called a council or a congregation. It is also not know who will lead it.

The statutes of the new body are expected to be released in December.

According to a Vatican statement, the Holy Father told the synod fathers: “I have decided to establish a new dicastery with competency for laity, family and life, that will replace the Pontifical Council for the Laity and the Pontifical Council for the Family. The Pontifical Academy for Life will be joined to the new dicastery.

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PERU
Telesur TV

The head of the wealthy and powerful Catholic organization called Solidatium is involved in cases of child rape and other physical and sexual abuses.

Journalist and author Pedro Salinas gave a press conference in Lima, the Peruvian capital, to speak of the impact his recent publication is having.

The book is titled “Half Monks, Half Soldiers” and in it Salinas documents the abuses by the Catholic cult called Sodalitium Christianae Vitae.

The publication has stirred up the organization and many sectors of the Peruvian society. Among a series of violations, the book shows five cases of child sexual abuse by leaders of the organization, including repeated rapes by the founder Luis Fernando Figari, who founded Sodalitium in Lima in 1971, and it acquired its canonical recognition from Pope John Paul II in 1977.

According to their website, Sodalitium is a “society of Apostolic Life made up of laymen and priests who live in community as brothers, and have fully given their lives to God, proclaiming the Gospel in the diverse circumstances of human life” and make commitments of “obedience and celibacy.” It operates in seven Latin American countries, the United States and Italy.

This content was originally published by teleSUR at the following address:
“http://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/Peru-New-Cases-of-Child-Abuse-by-Catholics-Documented-20151021-0044.html”. If you intend to use it, please cite the source and provide a link to the original article. www.teleSURtv.net/english

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OSTERRICH
Wiener Zeitung

Von Matthias Greuling

Vor rund zehn Jahren, da war die Welt der schreibenden Zunft noch in Ordnung. Da leistete sich ein Blatt wie der renommierte “Boston Globe” eigene Recherche-Teams, die oft monatelang hinter einem Skandal herrecherchierten, ohne auch nur ein einziges Wort darüber zu publizieren. Wenn am Ende dann die Bombe platzte, wurde schnell klar, wieso man solche Medien als “renommiert” bezeichnete: Weil sie die Kernaufgaben einer freien Presse nicht nur wahrnahmen, sondern regelrecht zelebrierten. Im Zeitalter der Blogger-Invasion und oberflächlichen Ja-Sager-Journaille sind solch edle Tugenden rar, weil unwirtschaftlich geworden.

Das befand auch Regisseur Tom McCarthy, der für “Spotlight” anhand eines handfesten Skandals die Tugenden des aufrechten Journalismus durchdekliniert. Es geht um den sexuellen Missbrauch von Kindern durch katholische Geistliche, den der “Globe” 2001 aufdeckte und der den Bostoner Kardinal Bernard Francis Law schließlich den Job kostete. Das spannend inszenierte Drama mit Michael Keaton, Rachel McAdams und Mark Ruffalo zeigt die beschwerliche Handarbeit, die Aufdeckerjournalisten leisten müssen, um hinter die Fassaden zu blicken.

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ROME
Crux

By John L. Allen Jr.
Associate editor October 22, 2015

ROME — A Synod of Bishops at the Vatican is always a sprawling, multi-headed creature, and that’s certainly been true of the 2015 edition devoted to issues facing the family.

There have been hundreds of speeches, three sets of reports from 13 small working groups, daily press briefings, more media interviews than anyone can possibly track, not to mention a daily avalanche of commentary from a staggering variety of voices.

On Saturday, the synod is expected to adopt a final document. It likely will be a long, complex text, and on some contested points, its language may be intentionally vague in order to attract consensus.

Given all that, in some ways it’s misleading to talk about “the” Synod of Bishops, singular. In terms of perceptions, there are actually several different synods, plural, depending on who’s trying to describe it and what agenda they bring.

As the end nears, three competing narratives seem to be floating around both inside and outside the synod hall. In shorthand fashion, they are:

* The “Everything’s Fine” narrative: This view holds that impressions of clash and rivalries have been exaggerated, that differences in the synod haven’t meant division, and that the bishops are united on a wide range of matters.

* The “Rigged Synod” narrative: This storyline holds that from the beginning, the people in charge of the synod have been pushing a progressive line, and that conservatives have had to fight back to try to level the playing field.

* The “Don’t Like the Pope” narrative: This way of framing the situation posits that concerns about the synod process are artificial, that the event is actually remarkably free and open, so such complaints are really a proxy for opposition to Pope Francis.

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GUAM
Pacific Daily News

Mari Flor L. Herrero October 22, 2015

This Aug. 16 , his excellency Archbishop Anthony Sablan Apuron celebrated the 43th anniversary of his ordination as a capuchin priest.

He was installed as the metropolitan archbishop of the Archdiocese of Agana on May 11, 1986. That is, he has been the spiritual shepherd of the Catholic Church in Guam for the last 29 years — no small feat!

It is obviously clear that when one is at the top of any organization, he/she is also the center of public scrutiny. No matter what you do, it will be scrutinized, and rightly so. There will always be someone who will find faults and shortcomings in every decision and circumstance. However, it will be the results of the decisions taken and the overall effect on the present and future of our Catholic Church in Guam that will eventually render a clear and fair judgment of our archbishop.

As for me, anyone in his right senses should acclaim and applaud Archbishop Apuron for his vision and foresight; actually he should be held in high esteem.

I still remember very vividly when I first came to Guam in the late ’70s and there were four Augustinian priests from Spain in various parishes of Guam. That made it very easy for me to attend Mass because I felt at home; I could understand what the priests were saying. That is not to say that everyone did, though; the language barrier was always there, but with a little bit of good will and lots of faith, all barriers can be conquered.

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ROME
Telegraph (UK)

By Nick Squires, Rome 22 Oct 2015

The Vatican alleged on Thursday that Pope Francis was the victim of an internal plot to undermine his authority after a false story was leaked to the Italian press claiming that he was suffering from a brain tumour.

The front-page story was published by Quotidiano Nazionale, an Italian daily, on Wednesday, but was indignantly denied by Vatican spokesmen.

It took to new heights the atmosphere of skulduggery and Machiavellian intrigue that swirls around the Holy See at the best of times.

Cardinals and others within the Catholic Church hierarchy suggested that the unfounded story about the tumour was an attempt by “enemies” of the 78-year-old Pope to discredit him and to suggest that his judgment was impaired.

They said the timing of the leak was deeply suspicious – it came just days before the conclusion of the Synod, a three-week meeting of 270 bishops and cardinals at the Vatican which has been discussing delicate issues such as divorce and the Church’s attitude towards homosexuality.

The bishops are due to present their final report to the pontiff on Saturday.

In a forthright notice, L’Osservatore Romano, the Vatican’s own newspaper, called the story about the tumour “false” and “unfounded”.

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PENNSYLVANIA
Butler Eagle

EAST BRADY, Clarion County — A former youth pastor at an East Brady church is accused of sexually assaulting a teenage girl in his charge.

New Bethlehem police on Monday arrested David T. Pesci, 24, of East Brady, alleging he kissed and fondled the teen, a member of his youth group at the East Brady First Baptist Church, on three occasions beginning last year.

District Judge Jeffrey Miller arraigned Pesci on three felony counts each of sexual assault by a volunteer or employee of a nonprofit organization and corruption of minors. He remains free on $10,000 bail.

In an e-mail statement this morning, the church said that Pesci resigned as youth pastor July 5.

At a church sleepover in early 2014, the teen recounted, Pesci kissed her in his home, which is the church parsonage.

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PENNSYLVANIA
WPXI

EAST BRADY, Pa. — A former youth pastor is accused of sexually assaulting a teenage girl who was a member of a church youth group.

David Pesci, 24, was the youth pastor at East Brady Baptist Church until he resigned in July.

Police told Channel 11’s Jennifer Tomazic the allegations came to light when they received an anonymous tip about inappropriate activity during youth group sleepovers at the pastor’s home.

The alleged victim, who is now 16 years old, told investigators the relationship began last November when she went to Pesci for advice. She was 15-years-old at the time.

According to the criminal complaint, the girl told police, “She was in the basement and went to a separate couch to go to sleep and Pesci then came over to her and kissed her.”

The paperwork goes on to say, “The kissing continued…she could recall Pesci kissing her on two separate occasions in the church, near the pulpit.”

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PENNSYLVANIA
CBS Pittsburgh

October 22, 2015 By Lisa Washington

EAST BRADY (KDKA)- A local youth pastor has been arrested for allegedly having a sexual relationship with a 16-year-old girl.

East Brady First Baptist Church youth pastor David Pesci has been charged with sexual assault and corruption of minors.

New Bethlehem Police say the relationship started when the girl began attending a youth group at the church when she was in ninth grade. She said that Pesci, 24, was her youth pastor.

According to the complaint, the teen went on to say that the two of them began texting and messaging on Facebook less than a year ago. She said she had a fight with her best friend and was looking for advice from Pesci.

Over the months, the 16-year-old said she became very close with him and would regularly spend the night at Pesci’s home, the church parsonage along with other youth group members and Pesci’s wife.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Chichester Observer

BISHOP LUFFA school will be urged to change the name of one of its houses by a charity supporting victims of rape and sexual abuse.

Maggie Ellis, director of Chichester-based charity Lifecentre said she would ask the school to change the name of ‘Bell’ house and would also be asking Chichester Cathedral to rename George Bell House, a former archdeaconry now used as a venue for away-days, meetings, quiet days, residential weekends, and conferences for up to 40 people.

The Diocese of Chichester has today apologised to a victim of the former Bishop of Chichester George Bell, who was abused as a child in the late 1940s and early 1950s.

“As a charity supporting survivors of rape and sexual abuse, we shall be writing to Bishop Luffa school to urge them to no longer name one of their ‘houses’ after Bishop Bell,” said Mrs Ellis.

“It is now clearly entirely wrong to have such a bishop held up as a person to be honoured by the school and as a figure head for children.

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ITALY
The Local

After a choppy few weeks for Pope Francis, a strongly denied report that he has a brain tumour has sent Vatican and Italian conspiracy theorists into overdrive.

“The timing chosen reveals the manipulative intention of throwing up a cloud of dust,” the Vatican’s Osservatore Romano claimed in its first edition after another newspaper, Quotidiano Nazionale, published its “scoop” about the pontiff’s health.

Italian media on Thursday largely concurred with the Vatican’s description of the story as baseless and commentators were quick to air their suspicions of a plot to undermine Francis’s authority in the run-up to this weekend’s conclusion of a synod on family that has divided the Church along progressive/conservative lines.

Massimo Franco, an editorialist for Corriere della Sera, said the episode should be seen in the context of a number of embarrassing, controversial or scandalous incidents Francis and his staff have had to react to recently.

Rather than a conspiracy orchestrated by one person or group, the sequence of events realed “a more heterogenous and diffuse malaise,” Franco wrote.

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VATICAN CITY
Catholic Herald (UK)

The group provided detailed suggestions for divorced and civilly remarried Catholics who want to receive the sacraments

When presenting its third synod report, the German-language group has said its members felt called to admit that “in an ill-conceived attempt to respect the doctrine of the Church, repeatedly we have had harsh and merciless pastoral attitudes that created suffering, especially for unwed mothers and child born out of wedlock,” cohabiting couples, homosexual persons and those who are divorced and civilly remarried.

“As bishops in our Church, we ask forgiveness,” said the report approved by the group’s members, who include Cardinal Gerhard Muller, prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, and Cardinal Walter Kasper, a theologian and former president of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity.

The German-speaking group also provided detailed suggestions for responding to divorced and civilly remarried Catholics who want to receive the sacraments but, members said, “the discussions demonstrated that there are no simple and general solutions.”

They cited St John Paul II’s statement in the 1981 exhortation Familiaris Consortio, that pastors “must know that, for the sake of truth, they are obliged to exercise careful discernment of situations. There is in fact a difference between those who have sincerely tried to save their first marriage and have been unjustly abandoned, and those who through their own grave fault have destroyed a canonically valid marriage. Finally, there are those who have entered into a second union for the sake of the children’s upbringing, and who are sometimes subjectively certain in conscience that their previous and irreparably destroyed marriage had never been valid.”

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UNITED KINGDOM
BBC News

A victim who was sexually abused as a young child by a former Bishop of Chichester who died in the 1950s has received compensation from the Church.

Allegations against the Rt Rev George Bell were first made by the victim in 1995 but were not investigated or referred to the police.

Bell was Bishop of Chichester from 1929 until his death in October 1958.

Current Bishop Dr Martin Warner issued a formal apology after the Diocese of Chichester settled the civil claim.

‘Remains bitter’

He paid tribute to the victim’s courage in coming forward to report the abuse.

“I am committed to ensuring that the past is handled with honesty and transparency,” he said.

The allegations of sexual offences against Bell date from the late 1940s and early 1950s and concern an individual who was at the time a young child.

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