ABUSE TRACKER

UNITED KINGDOM
The Guardian

Harriet Sherwood Religion correspondent
@harrietsherwood
Thursday 22 October 2015

The Church of England has issued a formal apology for sexual abuse committed by one of its most senior figures after settling a civil claim brought against George Bell, the late bishop of Chichester, who died 57 years ago.

The bishop abused a young child, whose identity and gender has not been disclosed, in the 1940s and 50s. The survivor first came forward 20 years ago, but the matter was not investigated or referred to police at the time.

Bell, who sat in the House of Lords, was once tipped as a possible archbishop of Canterbury, although his opposition to the bombing of German civilians by the RAF during the second world war was thought to have counted against him.

The church settled the claim at the end of September and on Thursday released a letter from the serving bishop of Chichester, Martin Warner, to the survivor expressing “deep sorrow” and apologising for a “devastating betrayal of trust”.

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VATICAN CITY
Washington Post

By Anthony Faiola October 22

VATICAN CITY — At one point during a major summit of the Roman Catholic hierarchy that ends this weekend, a senior conservative bishop took the floor inside the Vatican’s assembly hall and promptly charged his liberal peers with doing the devil’s work.

The three-week gathering, known as a synod, has erupted into a theological slugfest over Pope Francis’s vision for a more inclusive church, displaying the most bitter and public infighting since the heady days of Catholic reform in the 1960s.

Archbishop Tomash Peta of Kazakhstan captured the intensity of the divide, raising eyebrows — and even a few incredulous laughs — as he decried some of the policy changes being floated at the synod as having the scent of “infernal smoke.”

It was just another day at a synod that — more than any single event since Francis began his papacy in 2013 — has highlighted the extent his outreach to once-scorned Catholics has triggered a tug-of-war for the soul of the Catholic Church. More important, it underscored just how hard it may be for Francis to recast the church he serves in his image.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Chichester Obsever

A sex abuse victim of former Bishop of Chichester George Bell remains ‘bitter’ an earlier complaint was not followed up, according to a solicitor.

The Bishop of Chichester in 1995 Eric Kemp was told of the allegations but did not refer it to police, according to the victim’s solicitor Tracey Emmott.

“The new culture of openness in the Church of England is genuinely refreshing and seems to represent a proper recognition of the dark secrets of its past, many of which may still not have come to light,” she said.

“While my client is glad this case is over, they remain bitter that their 1995 complaint was not properly listened to or dealt with until my client made contact with Archbishop Justin Welby’s office in 2013.

“That failure to respond properly was very damaging, and combined with the abuse that was suffered has had a profound effect on my client’s life.

“For my client, the compensation finally received does not change anything. How could any amount of money possibly compensate for childhood abuse?

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POLAND
Yahoo! News

Warsaw (AFP) – A Polish bishop on Wednesday defrocked a high-ranking Catholic priest fired by a furious Vatican earlier this month after he came out as gay on the eve of a key synod on the family.

Bishop Ryszard Kasyna has decided that Krzystof Charamsa should no longer be able to celebrate mass, administer sacraments like communion and baptism or wear a cassock, according to a statement on the website of their northern Pelplin diocese.

Charamsa had held a senior position working for the Vatican office for protecting Catholic dogma, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

The 43-year-old priest sparked outrage at the Vatican on October 3 by publicly declaring his homosexuality — and presenting his Catalan boyfriend Eduardo — on the eve of a bishops’ synod set to touch on the divisive issue of the Catholic Church’s relationship to gay believers.

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ITALY
Breitbart

A progressive Sicilian Catholic priest who took a commendable interest in the welfare of young African migrant boys is facing a significant jail sentence for extorting sex from them in return for residency permits.

Monsignor Don Sergio Librizzi, who sat on the local committee handling asylum claims to Italy and who was involved in a number of local charities and initiatives promoting the welfare of young boys was arrested last year and admitted his guilt, allowing him to be released from prison, reports La Repubblica. Although he is now under house arrest and wears an electronic tag, Sicily prosecutors are now seeking a 10-year custodial prison sentence for his having sex with young illegal migrants, reports TheLocal.it.

The charges against Msgr. Librizzi include sexual extortion and sexual violence, relating to his treatment of young migrants under his care as a manager of immigration centres, a member of the committee processing their applications, and an organiser of charities providing food, work, and training to young migrant men and boys. It is alleged he gave the boys money and political refuge papers in return for sexual favours.

La Repubblica reported in June that the priest had also been accused of abusing seminarians under his care in the 1990s. The youths allegedly involved were then aged between 14 and 16 years old, but decided to come forward to report the assaults as adults after his arrest. Msgr. Librizzi is also under investigation for mismanagement of charities.

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MINNESOTA
Minnesota Public Radio

Madeleine Baran Oct 21, 2015

Attorney Jeff Anderson asked jurors in Ramsey County Wednesday to award $11.7 million to a man who says he was sexually abused by a priest in the Diocese of Duluth when he was a teenager in the late 1970s.

The case is the first clergy sex abuse lawsuit to be argued in front of a jury in Minnesota since state lawmakers passed the Child Victims Act in 2013, according to available court records. The law opened a three-year window for people to file lawsuits for older incidents of abuse.

For decades, most clergy sex abuse cases in Minnesota had been settled privately or were tossed out of court. Earlier this year, the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis prevented hundreds of cases from going to trial when it filed for bankruptcy.

Anderson has represented thousands of victims of clergy sex abuse across the country, but his cases are rarely decided by a jury. Two of his cases that went before juries in Minnesota attracted national attention — one in 1990, the other in 1996.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Brighton and Hove News

By : Frank le Duc

A payout has been agreed to the victim of child sexual abuse at the hands of a man tipped to become Archbishop of Canterbury.

The Church of England settled the case relating the former Bishop of Chichester George Bell 20 years after the victim first complained.

The news comes just two weeks after another Bishop from the diocese – former Bishop of Lewes Peter Ball – was jailed for sexually abusing boys and young men.

The diocese covers Brighton and Hove and has its administrative offices in New Church Road, Hove.

The current Bishop of Chichester Martin Warner has written to Bishop Bell’s victim to express his “deep sorrow” in a formal apology sent after the church agreed an out of court settlement.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Telegraph

By John Bingham, Religious Affairs Editor
22 Oct 2015

A former Church of England bishop revered as a peacemaker – and granted the closest thing Anglicanism has to a saint’s days – was a paedophile, the Church has acknowledged.

George Bell, who was bishop of Chichester for 30 years until his death in 1958, sexually assaulted a young boy, who is still alive, in the late 1940s and early 1950s.

The Church of England has issued a formal apology to the victim, who wishes to remain anonymous, and settled a legal claim for compensation.

The man first came forward in 1995 but his complaint was effectively ignored by the then Bishop of Chichester, Eric Kemp, who died in 2009.

It was not until he contacted the office of the current Archbishop of Canterbury, the Most Rev Justin Welby, two years ago that the allegations were finally investigated properly.

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VATICAN CITY
The New York Times

By LAURIE GOODSTEIN and ELISABETTA POVOLEDO
OCT. 21, 2015

VATICAN CITY — Pope Francis had encouraged bishops from more than 120 countries to speak freely when they gathered at the Vatican nearly three weeks ago for a broad discussion of family matters to guide the world’s 1.2 billion Roman Catholics. And speak freely, they have.

The result has been the most momentous, and contentious, meeting of bishops in the 50 years since the Second Vatican Council, which brought the church into the modern era. The meeting has exposed deep fault lines between traditionalists focused on shoring up doctrine, and those who want the church to be more open to Catholics who are divorced, gay, single parents or cohabiting.

As the bishops face a deadline Saturday to present their report to the pope, it is increasingly clear that Francis is struggling to build consensus for his vision of a more inclusive and decentralized church. The question is whether the pope, who has won the hearts of those in the pews, can persuade the bishops to help create a church that fully welcomes people with the kinds of family situations it now condemns.

“This is a pivotal moment of this pontificate,” said Roberto Rusconi, who teaches the history of Christianity at the University of Rome Tor Vergata, a state school. Pope Francis is sounding out the world’s bishops “to better understand whether they are going to follow his line or not.”

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NEW YORK
Times Newsweekly

BY AUXILIARY BISHOP PAUL R. SANCHEZ

In reference to her Oct. 1 op-ed in The Queens Courier and Ridgewood Times, I agree with Assemblywoman Margaret Markey that our state and nation must do everything we can to eliminate child sex abuse and bring those accountable for such crimes to justice. Where Markey and the Catholic Church part ways is in her methodology.

To be clear, Assemblywoman Markey is not proposing changes to the criminal statute to allow offenders to be brought to trail and imprisoned. Indeed, the church has supported changes that would extend the period of statute of limitations for just such a purpose. Moreover, the church has supported extending the statute of limitations in a reasonable way so that both individuals and institutions might be civilly liable.

What we do not support is a half measure that fails to protect all our children and only seeks “justice” for some. Due to the extra protections given to public institutions in existing law, Assemblywoman Markey’s bill would not offer the same opportunities to bring time-barred lawsuits against public schools and municipalities as it would for the Catholic Church and other private institutions.

In the last decade, the Catholic Church, not unlike other institutions both public and private, has become painfully aware of our past failures to protect children. Today, no institution private or public is more diligent in the protection of young people and transparent when crimes and misconduct occur.

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NEW MEXICO
New Mexico Survivors of Catholic Priest Abuse

Why was I ‘chosen’ to be abused? This is the first question I wanted answered. The fact is that I was not chosen for whom I was, but for the opportunity, I presented. This perpetrator did not go to find me on the street or break into my house, but unfortunately, due to my Catholic upbringing and the trust it fostered in me for all things Catholic, I delivered myself to his literal doorstep. In most priest-abuse cases, there is a proper and trusting relationship that develops before the abuse. In my case, I made contact with my abuser because I was eager to learn about the priesthood, since it was vocation that I was seriously considering. He did not abuse me the first or second time we met. It took a number of interactions where I now realize that he was grooming me for that ‘perfect’ opportunity. He leveraged the fact that I had spent a significant portion of my childhood listening to him every Sunday morning delivering mass on the radio and that I believed he was a priest that represented the values that I believed were universally Catholic and had been instilled in me through my weekly attendance of mass in the various parishes of the Archdiocese of Santa Fe I had belonged to.

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VATICAN CITY
Japan Today

By NICOLE WINFIELD and DANIELA PETROFF
Associated Press

OCT. 22, 2015

VATICAN CITY —
A Japanese brain cancer specialist identified in an Italian news report as having diagnosed a brain tumor in Pope Francis has denied ever examining the pontiff and says the reports are “completely false.”

Dr Takanori Fukushima, director of the Carolina Neuroscience Institute in Raleigh, North Carolina, issued a statement Wednesday through Duke University.

He said: “I have never medically examined the pope. These stories are completely false.”

Citing unnamed sources, the Italian news outlet National Daily said Fukushima had examined the pope and determined that the small dark spot on Francis’ brain was a tumor that could be treated without surgery.

The Vatican denied the reports Wednesday.

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CALIFORNIA
KPCC

Statutes of limitations set limits on how long a person has after an event to take legal action pertaining to that event.

The idea is to protect the defendants from being accused for long periods of time and to encourage plaintiffs to be diligent about pursuing legal action. But where is the line between protecting defendants from being accused of a crime for years and protecting defendants from ever seeing the inside of a courtroom.

Joelle Casteix argues these laws are more likely to do the latter in a recent L.A. Times op-ed titled “Don’t let time shield sex predators.” Casteix was a victim of sexual abuse in her teens and says while she was able to prosecute the person who assaulted her, many other victims aren’t so fortunate. She says California’s sex crimes laws are “abysmally complicated” and that the deadlines for victims to come forward are “arbitrary — and downright confusing.”

How do you feel about statutes of limitations as they pertain to sex crimes? Would you support a reform of state statutes of limitations on certain crimes? When is a statute of limitations appropriate and when is it not?

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AUSTRALIA
ABC – The World Today

ELEANOR HALL: One of Australia’s most prestigious schools is back in the spotlight today over allegations it covered up sexual abuse at the school for decades.

A former headmaster at the Geelong Grammar School’s Highton Campus has taken the stand at the Royal Commission Into Institutional Responses to Child Sex Abuse.

Jessica Longbottom has been following the proceedings and she joins us now.

Jessica, former students who’ve alleged they were harmed have been waiting on the evidence of this former headmaster. What are the key allegations against him?

JESSICA LONGBOTTOM: Well Eleanor, at previous hearings we’ve heard that abuse flourished at Geelong Grammar in the 80s and 90s when at least two paedophiles were operating at the school.

And it was when Robert Bugg, who was the headmaster of the school’s Highton campus from 1981 to 1993, when he was in charge it was when one of the worst paedophiles was operating.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

By Nick McLaren

An organisation supporting victims of child sex abuse has called for a full investigation into an alleged incident involving abuse of a primary schoolboy by a Wollongong priest in the 1980’s.

The claims against the priest, who is now an academic at the University of Wollongong, were aired as part of a court case into another Wollongong Catholic priest and former teacher, Father Patrick Kervin.

The allegation was aired in Albion Park local court on October 16, 2015.

The case was previously investigated by the Wollongong Archdiocese of the Catholic Church.

It was also referred to the NSW Police Commissioner Andrew Scipione and the Sex Crimes Squad with no charges laid.

But Nicky Davis from the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, or SNAP, says a more thorough investigation is needed.

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ROME
The Irish Catholic

Those affected by abuse need extra special care – expert

Catholics who are too angry, disillusioned or afraid to return to the Church because of clerical sexual abuse need very special care, according to an observer attending the Synod of Bishops.

Maria Harries, a member of Australia’s Truth, Justice, Healing Council said in an interview that abuse by clergy has led to a crisis of faith and a loss of trust in the Church’s moral authority.

Explaining that many people no longer go to Mass, “because of the abuse and we have to work out ways to deal with that,” she said that the shockwaves of abuse and its mishandling can be felt across multiple generations and among extended families and friends.

Asking “how do you address now a community of pain, a community of agony and a community of trauma?” she also pointed out that those hurt by abuse include members of religious congregations who have been accused of doing little or nothing to stop abuse. Such religious who have “always lived good lives and who feel terribly tainted and embarrassed and traumatised by what their brothers have done” are also shattered or disoriented, making them “another set of victims” that needs recognition and a pastoral response, she said.

– See more at: http://www.irishcatholic.ie/article/synod-briefs#sthash.BWRXclYJ.dpuf

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UNITED KINGDOM
Church of England

22 October 2015

The Bishop of Chichester has issued a formal apology following the settlement of a legal civil claim regarding sexual abuse against the Right Reverend George Bell, who was Bishop of Chichester from 1929 until his death on 3rd October 1958.

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

Following settlement of the claim the serving Bishop of Chichester, the Right Reverend Dr. Martin Warner, wrote to the survivor formally apologising and expressing his “deep sorrow” acknowledging that “the abuse of children is a criminal act and a devastating betrayal of trust that should never occur in any situation, particularly the church.”

Bishop Warner paid tribute to the survivor’s courage in coming forward to report the abuse and notes that “along with my colleagues throughout the church, I am committed to ensuring that the past is handled with honesty and transparency.”

Tracey Emmott, the solicitor for the survivor, today issued the following statement on behalf of her client:

“The new culture of openness in the Church of England is genuinely refreshing and seems to represent a proper recognition of the dark secrets of its past, many of which may still not have come to light. While my client is glad this case is over, they remain bitter that their 1995 complaint was not properly listened to or dealt with until my client made contact with Archbishop Justin Welby’s office in 2013. That failure to respond properly was very damaging, and combined with the abuse that was suffered has had a profound effect on my client’s life. For my client, the compensation finally received does not change anything. How could any amount of money possibly compensate for childhood abuse? However, my client recognises that it represents a token of apology. What mattered to my client most and has brought more closure than anything was the personal letter my client has recently received from the Bishop of Chichester.”

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UNITED KINGDOM
Daily Echo

James Johnson, Senior Reporter

A WOMAN broke down in tears in court as she relived the moments she claimed to have been sexually abused by a former Hampshire teacher and church youth leader.

Michael McKenna, 72, is alleged to have indecently assaulted the woman over a period of six years.

Bournemouth Crown Court saw an interview recorded with the alleged victim in which she claimed McKenna abused her hundreds of times from the age of 13.

The former science teacher taught at Applemore Technology College and is accused of carrying out the assaults at his home on Springfield Avenue, Holbury.

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NORTHERN IRELAND
Belfast Telegraph

Victims abused in church, voluntary and state-run children’s homes in Northern Ireland should be offered interim compensation payments before a long-running inquiry in to the crimes is completed, campaigners have urged.

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

Retired judge Sir Anthony Hart is leading the HIA probe, one of the UK’s largest inquiries into physical, sexual and emotional harm to children at homes run by the church, state and voluntary organisations.

The inquiry was formally established in January 2013 by the Northern Ireland Executive to investigate child abuse which occurred in residential institutions over a 73-year period from 1922 to 1995.

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ARMENIA
Hetq

The Vatican says it will investigate long standing rumors that a Catholic priest serving in the Samtskhe-Javakhk village of Tzghaltbila has sexually abused boys serving in the church.

The priest in question is Reverend Father Anatoly Ivanyuk, who has served as pastor in the Armenian-populated village, where most are Catholic, for the past 25 years.

The boys who allege to have been sexually abused by the priest haven’t raised the issue, either to local police or to the Vatican hierarchy. It’s a traditional and religious community and any such charges of pedophilia and homosexuality wouldn’t be taken seriously for starters. The boys are also fearful of being ridiculed by friends and family. They also are fearful of Father Anatoly.

Hetq has obtained testimony from some of the boys claiming to be sexually molested by the clergyman. They describe, in detail, what Father Anatoly did to them between 2001 and 2007 when serving as church acolytes.

The boys claim that Father Anatoly invited them to bathe in his house and that the incidents took place afterwards. (Naturally, we will not publish the names of these boys.)

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MINNESOTA
Star Tribune

By Chao Xiong Star Tribune OCTOBER 21, 2015

John Doe 30 grew up in rural Minnesota the youngest of seven. He loved animals. He loved the Catholic Church.

But he didn’t fit in, his attorney Jeff Anderson said Wednesday, and he paid the price.

His brothers and classmates called him derogatory names because they thought he was effeminate.

The boy sought refuge at St. Thomas More parish in Lake Lillian, Minn. There, he met the Rev. James Vincent Fitzgerald, who took the boy, then 15, on a trip across the state in 1978 and sexually assaulted him while working for the Diocese of Duluth, Anderson told jurors.

“The evidence will show that [Doe 30] has lost his ability to trust …,” Anderson said in the opening statements of his civil case against the diocese, the first under the Minnesota Child Victims Act to go to trial. The 2013 law has allowed older claims of child sex abuse previously barred by statutes of limitations to have their day in court.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Anglican Diocese of Chichester

The statement to follow communicates news that has brought us a bewildering mix of deep and disturbing emotions. In touching the legacy and reputation of George Bell, it yields a bitter fruit of great sadness and a sense that we are all diminished by what we are being told.

Our starting point is response to the survivor. We remain committed to listening to all allegations of abuse with an open mind. In this case, the scrutiny of the allegation has been thorough, objective, and undertaken by people who command the respect of all parties. We face with shame a story of abuse of a child; we also know that the burden of not being heard has made the experience so much worse. We apologise for the failures of the past.

The revelation of abuse demands bravery on the part of a survivor, and we respect the courage needed to tell the truth. We also recognise that telling the truth provides a legitimate opportunity for others to come forward, sometimes to identify the same source of abuse.

We also believe that in the Church of England as a whole, and certainly in the diocese of Chichester, we have done all we can to ensure that our safeguarding policies reflect best practice, and are fully and evenly implemented. The statement below speaks of an earlier report of this case, in the 1990’s. There will no doubt be some who allege a cover-up by the Church. We acknowledge that the response then would not be adequate by today’s standards, although that falls far short of a cover-up. In the present context, the diocese of Chichester has worked with Police and other agencies to ensure that we have sought the fullest understanding possible of what happened.

Please hold in your prayers all victims of abuse, especially those who have never been able to seek or receive help and a proper response. Please pray for all who are affected by this news, especially those who are our ecumenical partners, those unable to comprehend its implications, and those whose faith is damaged by it. Please pray for the diocese of Chichester, for each other, lay and ordained, as we seek to remain faithful to our apostolic mission in spite of much that could discourage and deter us.

+Martin

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UNITED KINGDOM
Premier

Thu 22 Oct 2015
By Antony Bushfield

The Church of England has issued a formally apology and said it feels “deep sorrow” for failing to properly deal with allegations of sexual abuse against the former Bishop of Chichester, Rt Revd George Bell.

Accusations that Bell abused a young child between the late 1940s and early 1950s were made in 1995 but the Church has now admitted the response “fell a long way short”.

The survivor told the then Bishop of Chichester, Eric Kemp, about the abuse in August 1995 but he was only offered pastoral support and the allegations were not referred to the police.

The Church said from the information it has, it seems Bishop Kemp did not investigate the matter further.

It was not until the claim was made to Lambeth Palace in 2013 that the survivor was put in touch with the safeguarding team at the Diocese of Chichester who referred the matter to the police and offered personal support and counselling to the survivor.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Chichester Observer

The Bishop of Chichester Martin Warner has today apologised after former diocese bishop George Bell was revealed as a paedophile.

The Right Reverend George Bell died in 1958 and he was Bishop of Chichester from 1929 until his death.

The apology follows the settlement of a legal civil claim regarding sexual abuse.

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

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UNITED KINGDOM
Wigan Today

A FORMER Wigan vicar has been jailed at the age of 91 for child abuse.

Rev Frank Baldwick is now facing excommunication, having earlier this year been found guilty of two counts of sexual assault against a boy more than 35 years ago.

The frail pensioner, who had denied the attacks at vicarages in both Bolton and Atherton, was sentenced at

Manchester Crown Court and the diocese which oversees his two former parishes says the conviction will ultimately lead to his being de-frocked.

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AUSTRALIA
The Record

The days of the Church in Australia conducting its own investigations into child ¬sexual abuse “must be over”, according to the Chief Executive of the Truth, Justice and Healing Council, Francis Sullivan.

Mr Sullivan’s comments were published in The Weekend Australian on 16-17 October in response to a call for a national ¬redress scheme to compensate ¬victims of abuse.

“More than anything else, abuse survivors have been calling for fair and compassionate redress,” Mr Sullivan said.

“With the decisions about what this looks like taken out of the hands of the institutions responsible for the abuse,” he said.

“In the case of the Catholic Church, the days of the Church ¬investigating itself must be over.”

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MINNESOTA
Duluth News Tribune

By Elizabeth Mohr, St. Paul Pioneer Press

ST. PAUL — There’s no dispute that the Rev. James Vincent Fitzgerald sexually abused a Minnesota teen in 1978, according to opposing attorneys in a lawsuit filed by the victim.

The question for a jury: Who supervised the priest when the abuse took place?

The victim’s attorney, Jeff Anderson, said during his opening statement Wednesday that the Diocese of Duluth was charged with overseeing the priest while he worked in one of its parishes, where the abuse took place.

The diocese’s attorney, Susan Gaertner — former Ramsey County attorney-turned-defense attorney — said that because Fitzgerald was an oblate priest, a member of a religious order, the leader of his order was in charge of his oversight, not the diocese where the order placed him.

“Doe 30” filed his lawsuit in early 2014 in Ramsey County District Court against the Diocese of Duluth, the Oblates of Mary Immaculate and the Diocese of New Ulm. The Duluth diocese is the sole remaining defendant; the oblates order settled with Doe 30 and the court dismissed the New Ulm diocese earlier this year.

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UNITED STATES
Stop Baptist Predators

Christa Brown

“A life of wholeness does not depend on what we experience. Wholeness depends on how we experience our lives.”
— Desmond Tutu

I felt so honored when retired judge Sheila Murphy invited me to contribute a chapter for a book on restorative justice that Archbishop Desmond Tutu was supporting and writing an introduction for. I had never met Sheila before, but after my speech at the 2013 SNAP convention for clergy sex abuse survivors, Sheila introduced herself and pressed into my palm a yellow post-it note with these words: “Yoga as Restorative Justice.” That was the topic she wanted me to write about. I looked at my palm, looked at her, and then said, “Huh?”

Fortunately, Sheila wasn’t deterred by my monosyllabic response. “You may not have used the language of restorative justice,” she said, “but I think it’s what you were really talking about just now in your speech.”

“It was?” Again, any pretense of wit or wisdom eluded me.

But ultimately, the more we talked, the more I decided that Sheila was right. It’s funny how communication is a two-way street like that. Sometimes, what gets communicated depends as much on what’s in the mind of the listener as it does on what comes out the mouth of the speaker. Sheila had heard more in my speech than what even I had realized I was saying.

So, I wrote the chapter, and the book has recently been released. You can read my chapter here: “Yoga as a Practice of Restorative Justice.”

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VATICAN CITY
Religion News Service

David Gibson | October 21, 2015

VATICAN CITY (RNS) Barrels of ink, digital and real, have been spilled by journalists trying to convey the gravity of the high-stakes debate on church teaching in Rome this month, as the melodrama that a closed-door Vatican gathering of some 270 churchmen almost guarantees.

The synod, as it’s called, has it all: steady leaks to the press, rumors of lavish dinners and reports of intense lobbying, plus open disagreements over doctrine. It’s a steady diet of soap opera and theology, and almost too much for any reporter to keep up with.

Which is why, if you want to know what it’s like to be a player in such an event, and in the extracurricular socializing where much of the work is done, you have to read the blog of Australian Archbishop Mark Coleridge.

The 67-year-old head of the Archdiocese of Brisbane has been writing his online diary nearly every day since he left for Rome on Oct. 1, offering witty, chatty postings that provide equal helpings of dish and doctrine. It’s made him something of an Internet sensation back home and the media star of the Anglophone world at the Vatican.

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CHICAGO (IL)
Chicago Sun-Times

WRITTEN BY MITCH DUDEK POSTED: 10/21/2015

In an unprecedented public relations maneuver, top Chicago Archdiocese officials met with several newspapers this week — days before the big screen release of a star-studded Hollywood drama depicting the Boston Globe’s 2002 expose on clergy sex abuse — to say, basically: “Don’t confuse us with Boston.”

Vicar General Ronald Hicks, second-in-command to Archbishop Blase Cupich, explained the proactive stance to the Sun-Times’ editorial board earlier this week.

“We think there’s a possibility that there’s going to be new energy and new questions around this and what we want to do is make sure that the media knows that Chicago is extremely different in handling the case of clerical sexual abuse of minors than Boston and how it’s being portrayed in the movie.”

Actors Michael Keaton, Rachel McAdams and Mark Ruffalo play the journalists behind the Pulitzer-Prize-winning stories that shook the world in 2002, and ultimately encouraged a large number of victims in other cities, including Chicago, to come forth with their own tales of abuse, setting off a global crisis for the church.

The film, “Spotlight,” debuts locally at the Chicago Film Festival Oct. 29 and is scheduled for wider release Nov. 6.

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NEW MEXICO
Gallup Independent

Published in the Gallup Independent, Gallup, N.M., Oct. 17, 2015

Thuma warns he may remand abuse cases back to state court

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

ALBUQUERQUE – As the Diocese of Gallup’s Chapter 11 case nears its second year in bankruptcy court, U.S. Bankruptcy Judge David T. Thuma expressed frustration that the case has yet to be settled.

“I’m trying to figure out the best way to get this case resolved,” Thuma told nearly a dozen attorneys during a court hearing Thursday. “I’m not sure it’s anybody’s fault, but we’re here two years in the case and we don’t have a settlement, and the parties are very much at odds at the moment.”

Attorneys for the Gallup Diocese requested the hearing Thursday to address an emergency motion to continue a final hearing slated for Nov. 10. That final hearing, which was also referred to as a trial, centered on motions to lift the bankruptcy case’s automatic stay that prohibits civil lawsuits against the diocese from moving forward.

Phoenix attorney Robert E. Pastor, who represents 18 clergy sex abuse claimants in the case, had filed the lift stay motions. Prior to the Diocese of Gallup filing its Chapter 11 petition, Pastor had filed 13 clergy sex abuse lawsuits against the diocese in Flagstaff’s Coconino County Superior Court. With the lift stay motions, Pastor was requesting Thuma to allow two or three of his lawsuits to be remanded back to state court for trial.

The Official Committee of Unsecured Creditors, which advocates on behalf of the interests of clergy sex abuse claimants, is supportive of Pastor’s efforts. Both Pastor and attorneys for the committee have argued that trying the cases before a Flagstaff jury will “educate” the diocese and its insurance companies about the value of the claims.

“If I believed that letting these cases go forward would prompt settlement, I wouldn’t be standing in front of you,” Susan Boswell, the lead bankruptcy attorney for the diocese, told Thuma.

Boswell said the Gallup Diocese had an obligation to oppose lifting the stays because diocesan officials believe there would be a detrimental impact to the estate as a whole, including to all the claimants and other creditors.

Settlement roadblocks

During the hearing, Thuma heard opposing statements from Boswell, Pastor and Ilan Scharf, an attorney for the committee, about discovery requests concerning documents and depositions of witnesses related to the lift stay final hearing on Nov. 10.

Thuma, however, seemed more interested in the larger picture of what roadblocks were continuing to impede a settlement among the various parties. Throughout the hearing, the judge asked a number of questions of the attorneys, particularly questions about negotiations with insurance companies.

According to Boswell, the diocese had no insurance coverage before 1965. From 1965 until Dec. 1, 1977, the diocese was covered by a company that later went into receivership. Claims under that company are now covered by the New Mexico Property Casualty Insurance Guaranty Fund. And since Dec. 1, 1977, the diocese has been covered by insurance from Catholic Mutual.

Boswell told Thuma the diocese was attempting to resolve a dispute with the New Mexico Guaranty Fund over insurance coverage. However, the possibility of filing a declaratory judgment action against the Fund was still a possibility.

Thuma questioned why the three cases named in Pastor’s lift stay motions include one claim that is not covered by insurance and two claims that are under the limited coverage of the New Mexico Guaranty Fund. He expressed reluctance to allow Pastor’s first case, which was four months away from trial when the Gallup Diocese filed its Chapter 11 petition, to be the “test case” since it is the claim not covered by insurance.

Scharf explained the case involved a perpetrator who abused many claimants, and the other two cases were representative claims with respect to particular abusers or co-defendants.

Warning to attorneys

At the hearing’s conclusion, Thuma agreed to the diocese’s request to grant a continuance on the final hearing on the stay relief motions. In its place he scheduled a status conference Nov. 10.

Because another session of formal mediation talks is scheduled for Dec. 3-4, and both Boswell and Scharf agreed that informal mediation discussions continue to be ongoing, Thuma stressed the importance of achieving a settlement of the case by the end of the year.

If that doesn’t happen, Thuma warned the attorneys, he will consider granting stay relief for two cases — but two cases with insurance coverage — so the diocese’s estate won’t be burdened with the defense costs.

“What I want to do is to have a status conference shortly after mediation, and if the thing isn’t moving toward settlement, I want Mr. Pastor and the committee to go through their list of claims and tell me which claims against New Mexico Guaranty or Catholic Mutual can get teed-up the quickest,” Thuma said. “And I’m inclined to grant stay relief just to try it out … I’m ready to try something if we’re not palpably closer to settlement in December than we are today.”

“There’s so much very expensive litigation we can do in this case before the net recovery to the abuse victims is zero,” Thuma said. “Everyone needs to think about that a little bit harder than they have been because you’re not doing a service to your clients if that’s your result.”

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POLAND
Fox News

AP

WARSAW, Poland – A Polish priest who lost his job at the Vatican earlier this month after revealing that he is gay and has a boyfriend has been suspended by the church in Poland from performing the functions of a priest.

Krzysztof Charamsa, 43, came out as gay and criticized the Vatican for its approach to homosexuality on the eve of a major meeting of world bishops in Rome. The Vatican immediately fired him from his job with the Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith.

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AUSTRALIA
Sydney Morning Herald

[with video]

October 21, 2015

Jane Lee and Latika Bourke

A former royal commissioner has hit back at claims by senator Bill Heffernan that he failed to properly investigate lawyers who allegedly attended a “boy brothel”, as new details emerge of a “secret list” containing the names of high-profile alleged paedophiles.

The controversial Liberal senator used parliamentary privilege on Wednesday to claim that a former Australian prime minister was on the list, which he claims forms part of a police document.

Many of the people on the list and otherwise named in the documents were “prominent”, Senator Heffernan said: “They were delivered to me by a police agency some time ago because no one seems to want to deal with them.”

He also claimed every Commonwealth attorney-general since Philip Ruddock had seen the list.
Fairfax Media understands Mr Ruddock referred Senator Heffernan’s list to his department when he was the federal attorney-general in the Howard government between 2003 and 2007.

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AUSTRALIA
Sydney Morning Herald

Paul Kalina
Deputy TV Editor

Filmmaker Danny Ben-Moshe had no interest at first in making a follow-up to Code of Silence, the Walkley-winning documentary about Manny Waks, the whistleblower who lifted the lid on child sex abuse within Melbourne’s Orthodox Jewish community.

But listening to the testimony presented to the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sex Abuse, he was dumb-struck at what he describes as the “phenomenally preposterous” answer a prominent rabbi gave to a question about appropriate adult conduct.

What was meant to be a jokey remark about making a sequel became reality, and 48 hours later he was filming outside Melbourne’s County Court.

The clincher was that the leaders of Melbourne Yeshivah Centre, who had refused to talk to the filmmakers in Code of Silence, were now under the spotlight in the courtroom making cringeworthy and clumsy confessions. Rabbi Yosef Feldman, among others, had unwittingly given them a gift.

“It was the prevarication, the obfuscation, the denials, the twisting,” recalls Ben-Moshe of the courtroom testimony.

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VATICAN CITY
The Nation

John Lloyd
Reuters October 21, 2015

The Catholic Bishop of Accra, Ghana, Charles Palmer-Buckle, sometimes can’t sleep at night. He’s tormented by the distance between the Vatican’s teaching and his flock’s behaviour.

Unusually for an African bishop – the continent’s Catholic hierarchy is renowned for the strictness of its doctrinal observation – he sways towards accommodating the behaviour of the flock.

Describing, in an interview earlier this year, a parishioner married to the same man for 35 years, with children together, but sharing her husband with two other wives, he said: “If I want to apply the law as it is, I must tell her to quit the marriage. But if I do that, she and her children are going to say, ‘The Church destroyed my family.’ As a bishop, I tell you, I have sleepless nights… If a person is wounded in marriage and is having difficulty, what do you do? That’s what the Church is struggling with.”

Bishop Palmer-Buckle will struggle with this and more dilemmas with his brothers-in-Christ in the Vatican’s ongoing Synod on the Family. It’s been billed as the most serious internal debate on sexuality in its various forms that the Church has ever had. It may live up to that billing.

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VATICAN CITY
National Catholic Reporter

Joshua J. McElwee | Oct. 21, 2015

VATICAN CITY
The group of German speaking prelates at the ongoing Synod of Bishops — which includes a rather diverse range of so-called progressive and conservative voices — has presented a way that certain divorced and remarried Catholic persons might be allowed to take Communion in the church.

But while their arguments are being echoed by prelates of at least one other language group at the gathering, they have clearly not found support in others — which have closed all openness to any possibility on the matter.

Catholics who remarry are currently prohibited from taking Communion unless they obtain annulments of their first marriages. The issue of the church’s practice in the matter has become one of the most discussed during the Oct. 4-25 Synod, called by Pope Francis to focus on family life issues.

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MALTA
Times of Malta

by Fr Joe Borg

The Bristol Comic Expo in 2005 brought with it the publication by Michael Molcher of the semi-annual fanzine titled The End Is Nigh. Each issue deals with themed Apocalypses foretelling the end of the world.

Judging from a number of media coverages throughout the Synod of bishops on the family currently in its final phase at the Vatican one might be led to think that a similar magazine proclaiming the end of Church would be so popular that it would fill the coffers of its publishers with easy money.

Damian Thompson’s blog in The Spectator (13 October) was titled: “This week the Catholic Church is in chaos.” And true to his ultra-conservative colours, Thompson told us that the “Pope Francis is to blame.” The article is followed by the anti-Francis vitriolic comments of those brave Catholics who hide behind a pseudonym.

Similar comments are common posts in Crux, a website purporting to cover all things Catholics. A certain Tanyi Tanyi wrote that “Francis thanks he can manipulate the whole Church and govern in an authoritarian fashion” while proposing a cherry on the cake with the statement “May God protect this Church from Francis.”

Another conservative blog said that the Synod was about “blasphemy, Heresy, Schism and the “Collapse” of the Church (but, hey, at least the bishops will get to vote).” Others predicted that Pope Francis would become an Anglican.

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MINNESOTA
Northlands News Center

[with video]

[part 1]

[statement from the Duluth diocese]

By Barbara Reyelts

October 20, 2015

Duluth, MN (NNCNOW.com) — The Duluth Catholic Diocese is under fire from a lawsuit claiming the sexual abuse, by priests, of children from 1956 through 1974.

The Diocese has been ordered by the St. Louis County District Court to turn over all records on child sex abuse by clergy during those years.

While it may seem like it all happened long ago, experts say the tragic effects of child sexual abuse continue to plague victims throughout their lives.

“It was very traumatic for me,” Gene Saumer, who lived at St. James Orphanage.

“I couldn’t deal with these feelings, I felt inadequate,” Larry Dickinson, who lived at St. James Orphanage from 1968-70, said.

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OCTOBER 22, 2015

John Lyons
Associate Editor
Sydney

The Catholic Church has described its history regarding child abuse in Australia as “shameful, corrosive and complicit”.

The church says it now expects its liability exposure to be potentially $1 billion on top of payments already made.

Catholic spokesman Francis Sullivan said the church’s history was “littered with examples of cover-ups and crimes and of church leaders failing in one of the very basic tenets of their calling”.

Mr Sullivan is leading the church’s support for a national redress scheme to compensate victims of abuse. The scheme has been recommended by the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.

In a speech to the Australian Catholic University, Mr Sullivan said it was important Catholics did not succumb to a feeling that the commission or media were out to “get” the church.

“The facts are we are at the very centre of the royal commission because collectively the Catholic Church is responsible for more abuse than any other institution in Australia, public or private,” he said on Tuesday night.

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ROME
Washington Post

By Michelle Boorstein October 21

At Pope Francis’s closed-door meeting in Rome this month, top clergy are intensely debating whether the church should bend more to the messy realities of modern families, and on Wednesday released some early reports revealing their deep divisions. In daily life, however, contemporary messiness has already changed the Catholic Church.

Questions on the agenda at the rare, high-level meeting that ends this weekend include whether those who divorce and remarry outside the church can receive Communion, and whether there is a place in Catholic life for same-sex couples. Changing Catholicism’s stance towards such things could begin to unravel the unity of the world’s largest church, say opponents who see the debate in Rome as directly tied to the future of Catholicism. But in many parts of the world – the West in particular – the church has for years quietly been making changes to engage with Catholic families who are transforming in ways that mirror the rest of the society.

Seminaries and theology schools have added classes on sex and family that were absent a decade or two ago. Some of the highest-level bishops are open about not denying Communion outright to anyone, even if the person appears to be violating church teachings on the family. And Pope Francis has changed the entire conversation about what threatens family stability by emphasizing things like economic stress and cultural isolation rather than a deviation from orthodox sexual ethics.

The first real reports from the dozens of bishops at the synod were released Wednesday, staking out varied and often highly nuanced positions. The 13 working groups are divided by language. The majority of the four English and three French groups appeared to either dismiss any significant changes or reserve judgment, while delegates from Germany and some Spanish speaking nations were calling for progressive changes, including one proposal from the Germans to allow priests to make exceptions to teachings prohibiting communion for divorced and remarried Catholics.

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VATICAN CITY
Vatican Information Service

Vatican City, 21 October 2015 (VIS) – The Holy Father has appointed:

– Fr. Henrique Aparecido De Lima, C.SS.R., as bishop of Dourados (area 38,125, population 535,000, Catholics 375,000, priests 59, permanent deacons 11, religious 154), Brazil. The bishop-elect was born in Toledo, Brazil in 1964, gave his religious vows in 1995 and was ordained a priest in 1999. He has served in a number of pastoral roles including parish vicar, pastor and administrator of the diocese of Jardim, and deputy provincial of the Redemptorists. He is currently superior of the Redemptorist Province of Campo Grande. He succeeds Bishop Redovino Rizzardo, C.S., whose resignation from the pastoral care of the same diocese upon reaching the age limit was accepted by the Holy Father.

– Fr. Jose Reginaldo Andrietta as bishop of Jales (area 12,788, population 400,000, Catholics 323,000, priests 36, religious 15), Brazil. The bishop-elect was born in Pirassununga, Brazil in 1957 and ordained a priest in 1983. He holds a master’s degree in catechesis from the Institut de Catechese et Pastorale Lumen Vitae in Brussels, Belgium and a licentiate in pastoral theology from the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium. He has served in a number of pastoral, academic and administrative roles in the diocese of Limeira, Brazil and in Brussels, Belgium, including parish vicar, parish priest, professor of pastoral theology and member of the presbyteral council. He is currently pastor of the “Sao Judas Tadeu” parish in Americana. He succeeds Bishop Luiz Demetrio Valentini, whose resignation from the pastoral care of the same diocese upon reaching the age limit was accepted by the Holy Father.

– Msgr. Paulo Bosi Dal’Bo as bishop of Sao Mateus (area 15,496, population 469,000, Catholics 335,000, priests 46, religious 49), Brazil. The bishop-elect was born in Colatina, Brazil in 1962 and was ordained a priest in 2000. He holds a degree in accounting sciences and master’s degrees in social communications and psychology of education. He has served in a number of roles in the diocese of Colatina, including director of the “Nossa Senhora Mae dos Pobres” house of formation, parish vicar and parish administrator, pastor, rector of the diocesan seminary and president of the Organisation of Seminaries and Philosophical and Theological Institutes in Brazil. He is currently vicar general of the diocese and parish priest.

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VATICAN CITY
Vatican Information Service

Vatican City, 21 October 2015 (VIS) – The director of the Holy See Press Office, Fr. Federico Lombardi, S.J., issued the following statement this morning:

“The circulation of entirely unfounded news regarding the health of the Holy Father by an Italian newspaper is gravely irresponsible and unworthy of attention. Furthermore, as is clearly evident, the Pope is carrying out his very intense activity in an totally normal way”.

Subsequently, during a briefing on the Synod, he added the following further information:

“I fully confirm my previous statement, having verified the facts with the appropriate sources, including the Holy Father.

No Japanese doctor has visited the Pope in the Vatican and there have been no examinations of the type indicated in the article. The competent offices have confirmed that there have been no arrivals of external parties in the Vatican by helicopter; similarly, there were no arrivals of this type during the month of January.

I am able to confirm that the Pope is in good health.

I reiterate that the publication of this false information is a grave act of irresponsibility, absolutely inexcusable and unconscionable. It would be equally unjustifiable to continue to fuel similarly unfounded information. It is hoped, therefore, that this matter be closed immediately”.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

A Catholic brother will stand trial in the Newcastle district court, accused of more than 200 child sexual abuse offences.

The man, referred to as BM for legal reasons, was extradited from New Zealand last year, accused of more than 250 offences.

They are alleged to have happened in the Lake Macquarie region in the 1970s.

He faced court today via video link, dressed in prison greens, shuffling paperwork in front of him and staring at the floor for long periods of time.

The Director of Public Prosecutions today withdrew 39 charges, meaning BM is now accused of 218 offences.

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UNITED STATES
National Catholic Reporter

Donald Cozzens | Oct. 21, 2015

A STILL AND QUIET CONSCIENCE: THE ARCHBISHOP WHO CHALLENGED A POPE, A PRESIDENT, AND A CHURCH
By John A. McCoy
Published by Orbis, $26

It is one thing to suffer for the church, but quite another to suffer from the church. We understand that any Christian trying to bear witness to the Gospel will encounter pushback from the consumer-oriented, self-satisfied corners of our society. One would be naive to think otherwise. But to suffer public censure and humiliation from the church itself for bearing witness to the Gospel is particularly hurtful.

John McCoy’s biography of Archbishop Raymond “Dutch” Hunthausen paints the painful story of a bishop’s conscience and Rome’s determination to hold fast to institutional control.

Whether or not Hunthausen’s withholding of half his federal income tax as protest against nuclear weapons marked “a pivotal point in the history of the U.S. Catholic Church” as McCoy contends, it was unprecedented as a prophetic voice from an American Catholic bishop — and raised alarm bells in the halls of the Roman Curia.

Hunthausen, transformed by the profound breakthroughs of the Second Vatican Council, made the pastoral care of his priests, religious and laity a priority. In doing so, he would earn the disdain often accorded to a prophet and raised the suspicions of Rome. In the eyes of the entrenched church leaders committed to at least containing, if not reversing, the reforms of the council, a bishop whose pastoral judgment didn’t always square with canon law and the church’s official teachings was indeed dangerous.

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MISSOURI
Berger’s Beat

There were few dry eyes at the Hi Pointe Backlot as two dozen media types viewed the film “Spotlight,” which is already generating Oscar buzz. Featuring Mark Ruffalo, Michael Keaton and Rachel McAdams, it’s the gripping story of how the Boston Globe’s investigative team broke open the long-simmering but largely invisible yet widespread crimes by pedophile priests. (Eventually the paper ran almost 600 stores that one year and helped expose 249 child molesting clerics and led to the resignation of Cardinal Bernard Law, who once ran the Springfield, MO diocese.)

AT THE SCREENING: Kevin Steincross of KTVI, Calvin Wilson of the P-D and Lynn Venhaus of the Belleville News Democrat (who in the 1990s wrote many stories about predator priests in southern Illinois.) The film was especially moving to victims’ attorney Ken Chackes, SNAP’s David Cohessy, who spent hours on the phone with Globe editors and reporters during their investigation and a Webster Groves mom whose young son took his own life after being abused by two predators – Fr. James Funke and teacher Jerome Robbins – at DuBourg High School

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SINGAPORE
The Guardian (UK)

Associated Press
Wednesday 21 October 2015

The founder of a popular Singapore church was found guilty on Wednesday of misappropriating more than $35.5m in donations to support his wife’s singing career in Asia before helping her break into the US market for evangelization purposes.

Kong Hee, the founder and senior pastor of City Harvest church, was found guilty with five other church leaders of stealing S$24m ($17m) designated for building and investment-related purposes through sham bond investments.

The state court also found they used another S$26m ($18.5m) to hide the first embezzlement from auditors. It is a rare case of corruption of such magnitude in the city state, which has an image of being highly law-abiding and largely graft-free.

Presiding judge See Kee Onn said in finding Kong guilty on three counts of criminal breach of trust: “They were not genuine transactions because the accused persons controlled these transactions.”

“Evidence points to a finding that they knew they were acting dishonestly, and I am unable to conclude otherwise,” he told a courtroom packed with church supporters, who formed long queues since early morning to get seats.

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VATICAN CITY
BBC News

The Vatican has rejected as “seriously irresponsible” an Italian media report that says Pope Francis has a small but curable tumour on his brain.

The Quotidiano newspaper said the Pope had travelled by helicopter to Tuscany to see a world-renowned Japanese brain surgeon.

The Pope was diagnosed with a small, dark spot but did not need surgery, the paper said.
A Vatican spokesman said the report was totally unfounded.

“As everyone can see, the Pope is carrying out his extremely intense activities in an absolutely normal manner,” Father Federico Lombardi said.

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ITALIA
Quotidiano

Pisa, 21 ottobre 2015 – Arrivano le prime conferme sulla notizia diffusa dal nostro giornale circa il tumore al cervello di Papa Francesco. Il Vaticano ha smentito: “Nessuna fondatezza”, ma l’Ansa ora conferma quanto scritto da Qn sulla presenza del medico Takanori Fukushima in Vaticano. L’esperto di tumori al cervello sarebbe stato in Vaticano “a fine gennaio”, “probabilmente”, scrive l’agenzia di stampa, “per occuparsi dello stato di salute di Papa Bergoglio”.

IL VOLO DA SAN ROSSORE – Un volo dell’elicottero della clinica San Rossore con a bordo l’esperto di tumori al cervello e aneurismi partì allora da Pisa. Fu proprio il medico, da anni consulente della struttura, secondo quanto appreso da ambienti vicino alla clinica, a chiedere la disponibilità di un elicottero per organizzare in tempi rapidi una visita in Vaticano. Da qui, come ha scritto oggi Qn, la diagnosi per Bergoglio di un piccolo tumore al cervello per il quale non sarebbe necessario un intervento chirurgico.

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VATICAN CITY
Business Standard

AFP | Vatican City
October 21, 2015

The Vatican today dismissed an Italian media report that Pope Francis has a treatable brain tumour as “unfounded and seriously irresponsible.”

Quotidiano Nazionale (QN), the newspaper which made the claim, said it stood by its story that a “small dark spot” had been detected on the 78-year-old pontiff’s brain earlier this year.

The paper said it was discovered by Japanese physician Takanori Fukushima during an examination at the San Rossore di Barbaricina clinic near Pisa in central Italy.

The professor reportedly concluded that the tumour was treatable and that no surgery was required.

“The publication of completely unfounded reports on the health of the holy father by an Italian newspaper is seriously irresponsible and not worthy of attention,” Vatican spokesman Federico Lombardi said in a statement.

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VATICAN CITY
Sun-Times

On Wednesday, Vatican spokesman Fr. Federico Lombardi dismissed a report in the Italian newspaper Quotidiano Nazionale that Pope Francis has a small, curable tumor in his brain, calling it “absolutely baseless” and “a complete lie.” In a statement, Lombardi said that “as everyone can see, the pope is always carrying out his intense activity without interruption, in an absolutely normal way.”

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MISSOURI
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Tuesday, Oct. 20, 2015

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

A serial predator priest is being sued for sexually assaulting another child. We commend this brave man for seeking justice and exposing wrongdoers. We hope his courage will prompt others who were hurt as kids by clerics to step forward.

In 2013 – 31 years after child sex abuse allegations against him first emerged – Fr. Leroy A. Valentine was “permanently remove him from active ministry.” Though archdiocesan officials have paid settlements to at least three of his victims, Fr. Valentine has apparently still not been defrocked. And we believe, but are not certain, that no one from the archdiocese has been supervising or monitoring Fr. Valentine for at least the last 12 years.

In 1982, when a North County mother reported that he sexually assaulted her three sons. The St. Louis Archdiocese paid the boys a settlement – believed to be around $20,000 each – and reportedly sent Valentine for treatment and then transferred him to another parish where he kept working. Catholic officials insisted that the boys never speak publicly about the abuse or the settlements

In 2002, Valentine was an associate pastor at St. Thomas the Apostle in Florissant with an adjoining parochial school. He was one of “at least three St. Louis priests who have been accused in civil court of sexual abuse remain active in the archdiocese today, two in contact with children,” according to the New York Times and the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

(The other two were Fr. Bruce Forman who was – and still is – the director a youth choir in Soulard and Fr. Thomas Graham who was chaplain at a south St. Louis County nursing home. Graham was convicted in a criminal trial of molesting another boy but the jury’s verdict was later overturned. )

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SOUTH DAKOTA
Argus Leader

Mark Walker, mwalker@argusleader.com

A former South Dakota pastor has been sentenced to three years in prison after pleading guilty to having sex with a minor while employed by a Canton church.

Tony Haglund was sentenced on Friday on one count of felony child abuse. He was originally charged with three counts of sexual penetration by a psychotherapist, sexual contact with a child under 16 and sexual contact by a psychotherapist.

He was ordered to pay a $10,000 fine or up to that amount restitution to the family.

Haglund was arrested on Oct. 6 in Sumter County, Fla., last year where he worked as a real estate agent.

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SOUTH DAKOTA
Press & Dakotan

Associated Press

CANTON, S.D. (AP) — A former South Dakota pastor who authorities accused of having sex with a teenager has been sentenced to three years in prison.

Fifty-year-old Tony Haglund earlier pleaded guilty to one count of child abuse. The Argus Leader (http://argusne.ws/1Go9j5g ) reports Haglund was ordered to pay a $10,000 fine or up to that amount in restitution to the family of his victim.

Haglund was indicted last year on three counts of sexual penetration by a psychotherapist, sexual contact with a child under 16 and sexual contact by a psychotherapist. He was arrested on October 2014 in Florida, where he worked as a real estate agent.

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MINNESOTA
Pioneer Press

By Elizabeth Mohr
emohr@pioneerpress.com
POSTED: 10/20/2015

The Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis said Tuesday that it is temporarily removing from ministry a priest who was acquitted last year of sexual misconduct with a female parishioner.

The archdiocese launched its investigation into the Rev. Mark Huberty after the criminal case ended and determined the priest might have violated canon law, according to a statement from Archbishop Bernard Hebda.

While the internal investigation, or canonical process, unfolds, Huberty is barred from performing ministerial duties; he cannot “wear a Roman collar or present himself as a priest publicly,” the statement said.

“Removing a priest from ministry, even temporarily, is gravely serious to me and to the Church,” Hebda’s statement said. “But based on the evidence and testimony from those involved, this is the proper course of action.”

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AUSTRALIA
Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse

21 October, 2015

The Royal Commission has published 24 submissions from organisations and those with professional experience in response to its issues paper on police and prosecution responses to institutional child sexual abuse.

Royal Commission CEO Philip Reed said the responses reflected the importance the community places on issues of criminal justice.

“In particular, the submissions indicate the community’s concern over institutional failures in reporting, investigating and responding to allegations and incidents of abuse,” he said.

“We’ve received submissions from a range of organisations including advocacy groups, the legal fraternity and agencies representing young people, people with disability and victims of crime.

“We have also received a number of submissions from individuals giving details of their personal experiences of police and prosecution responses to institutional child sexual abuse.

“We are reviewing these submissions for privacy and procedural fairness concerns, and they are not being published at this stage.”

Mr Reed said the Royal Commission’s terms of reference require it to look into what governments should do to address or alleviate the impact of past and future child sexual abuse in institutional contexts.

“This includes in ensuring justice for victims through processes for referral for investigation and prosecution,” he said.

Mr Reed said all of the submissions to the issues paper will be considered along with research the Royal Commission has commissioned on this topic, as well as relevant case studies and the personal experiences shared by survivors of abuse in private sessions.

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MINNESOTA
Star Tribune

AP

ST. PAUL, Minn. — The Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis has temporarily removed a priest from ministry after he was acquitted on sexual misconduct charges in December.

Interim Archbishop Bernard Hebda made the announcement Tuesday about the Rev. Mark Huberty. A Ramsey County jury acquitted Huberty of criminal sexual conduct involving an adult female parishioner he was counseling.

Since Huberty’s acquittal, his case was reviewed by a new ministerial review board. The board found sufficient evidence to suggest Huberty may have committed a serious offense under canon law and recommended proceedings to resolve the allegations.

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NEW JERSEY
The Record

BY JAMES GOODNESS
THE RECORD

THE RECORD’S coverage during the week of Oct. 12 about principles that Archbishop John J. Myers had shared with the priests of the archdiocese to help them deal with people in different situations regarding married life and maintain church teaching is misdirecting people from the truth of the document.

It is important to put the document and the coverage into perspective.

The document, “Principles to Aid in Preserving and Protecting the Catholic Faith in the Midst of an Increasingly Secular Culture,” very clearly says that these are principles. They are not “rules” or “particular law” being set down. In his role as primary teacher of the faith in this archdiocese, it is appropriate and central to Archbishop Myers’ ministry to give advice and direction to priests and others involved in parish ministry as they deal directly with people facing some of the challenges about married life and living according to the faith. It is also important to make sure that this is done in line with the laws and teaching of the church.

In particular, the principles call on priests to walk with the people as they journey through their situations, and to cherish and welcome them to participate in the life of the church to the extent they can.

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AUSTRALIA
news.com.au

PRIME Minister Malcolm Turnbull is under pressure to launch an investigation into elite paedophile rings in Australia, after allegations surfaced of a former prime minister on a police list of suspected paedophiles.

Child sex abuse survivors advocates have backed calls from Liberal Senator Bill Heffernan to expand the royal commission into child sex abuse.

The calls for an urgent inquiry follow the Senator’s sensational claim yesterday that he has a police list which names 28 prominent people, including a former PM, as suspected paedophiles.

Nicky Davis, the leader of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP) urged the Mr Turnbull to act, saying the government should immediately announce a thorough investigation of elite paedophile rings in Australia, similar to one already underway in the UK.

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ROME
Chiesa

It took this South African archbishop to clarify in public the true reasons for the letter, which he signed with the others. It all started with the 2014 synod and the maneuvers of some to force its results. Here he is, word for word

by Sandro Magister

ROME, October 21, 2015 – Already four days before the letter of the thirteen cardinals to Francis became public knowledge, he was singled out among the “conspirators” who wanted to sabotage the synod and lash out against the pope himself:

> The Letter of the Thirteen Cardinals. A Key Backstory

And after the publication of the letter, the aggression against him and the other signers continued with even greater vehemence, with the de facto support of the Vatican managers of synod information.

Until the day came, yesterday, Tuesday October 20, on which Cardinal Wilfrid Fox Napier, archbishop of Durban, South Africa, was finally able to speak his mind on the synod and on the letter of the thirteen to the pope, in the official context of the daily press conference moderated by Fr. Federico Lombardi:

> Press briefing…

Napier took part in the press conference in his capacity as joint president delegate of the synod. An obligatory presence. And it was the first time that one of the thirteen signers of the letter appeared in the Vatican press office after the chaos exploded.

An “ad hoc” question for him couldn’t be left out. And in fact it came, timely and polemical, from a leading journalist of “liberal” American Catholicism, Robert Mickens, founder and director of “Global Pulse Magazine”.

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VATICAN CITY
Catholic Herald (UK)

The full report of Circulus Anglicus ‘D’

Members of English circle D again stressed the need to support the many families that already live the Catholic understanding of marriage and family life joyfully.

Members of our group revisited the importance of the Church acknowledging the role of women and mothers and men and fathers. Our ecumenical representative felt the document should address the whole Christian community and not simply the Catholic Church. Much discussion took place about the importance of funerals in the lives of families. Members felt this matter deserves far more attention, along with the role of the family in situations of illness and death.

Members felt that when the document talks about the Word of God, it needs to more fully convey the meaning of that term in the tradition of the Church. The Word of God refers to Jesus personally, to the written word of Scriptures, but also to the word proclaimed in the community.

Bishops said that the text paid inadequate attention to chastity formation. This work should begin very early in life and should not be delayed until marriage preparation. The danger of government authorities doing sex education caused great concern for many group members.

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VATICAN CITY
Catholic Culture

Auditors at the Synod of Bishops have spoken on topics ranging from the role of women to medical ethics and the persecution of Christians.

The auditors—whose talks were delivered on October 15 and 16, and made public on October 20—included:

* Agnes Offiong Erogunaye, a Nigerian woman who spoke on how many African women care for their households by themselves.

* Sister Maureen Kelleher, an American religious who asked Church leaders “to recognize how many women who feel called to be in service of the Kingdom of God but cannot find a place in our Church.

* Lucetta Scaraffia, an Italian history professor, who said: “Women are great experts in the family: leaving abstract theories behind, we can turn in particular to women to understand what must be done.”

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UNITED KINGDOM
BBC News

A retired Church of England priest from West Sussex has admitted making sexual advances towards four of his alleged male victims but not the two youngest.

Vickery House, who faces indecent assault, denied any inappropriate contact with two teenage boys.

He told the Old Bailey he was ashamed of his actions in the 1970s and 80s, but said they were not sexual assaults.

Mr House, 69, denies eight charges of indecent assault against six males aged 15 to 34, between 1970 and 1986.

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MINNESOTA
CBS Minnesota

MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) — A Twin Cities priest who was previously acquitted of criminal sexual conduct charges has been temporarily removed from the ministry.

Rev. Mark Huberty was arrested in 2013 and charged with one count each of fourth- and fifth-degree criminal sexual conduct.

The complaint said that Huberty and a woman met in 2008 when she came to him for counseling at Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary Catholic Church in Maplewood. He was accused of engaging in a sexual relationship with someone he was counseling and of groping her without consent.

In 2014, a jury found Huberty not guilty.

On Tuesday, Archbishop Bernard Hebda said, “I have the sad responsibility of communicating that Rev. Mark Huberty has been temporarily removed from ministry for the duration of a formal canonical process that has been initiated to address some serious allegations that have come to the attention of the Archdiocese.”

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MINNESOTA
Roman Catholic Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis

Date: Tuesday, October 20, 2015
Source: Tom Halden, Director of Communications

From Archbishop Bernard Hebda

Today, I have the sad responsibility of communicating that Rev. Mark Huberty has been temporarily removed from ministry for the duration of a formal canonical process that has been initiated to address some serious allegations that have come to the attention of the Archdiocese.

In 2013, Rev. Huberty was arrested and charged with two counts of sexual misconduct with an adult woman. Rev. Huberty has been on a voluntary leave of absence since that time. A Ramsey County jury acquitted him of those charges last December.

During the criminal investigation and court process, the Archdiocese cooperated with civil authorities and did not conduct its own review to preserve the integrity of the police investigation and the fairness of the court proceedings—which is our protocol.

Since the acquittal, Rev. Huberty’s case, which does not involve sexual abuse of a minor, has been investigated by the Archdiocese’s Office of Ministerial Standards and Safe Environment, and that investigation has been reviewed by its director, Judge Tim O’Malley, and the recently-formed Ministerial Review Board (MRB). The MRB consists of ten lay members and two priests, who have expertise in sexual abuse, domestic violence, psychology, medicine, criminal justice, law enforcement, and related fields.

The MRB found that there was sufficient evidence to suggest Rev. Huberty may have committed a serious offense under canon law and recommended that any questions of law or fact be resolved through a canonical process so that the truth of the matter may be determined and an appropriate penalty, if any, may be imposed. Judge O’Malley was present for all MRB deliberations, reviewed the case, and has agreed with the Board’s recommendation.

Removing a priest from ministry, even temporarily, is gravely serious to me and to the Church. But based on the evidence and testimony from those involved, this is the proper course of action.

During the canonical process, Rev. Huberty is prohibited from celebrating Mass in the presence of laity, hearing confessions, preaching, assisting at weddings or funerals or otherwise engaging in any priestly ministry. He is not permitted to wear a Roman collar or present himself as a priest publicly. Imposition of these precautionary measures reflects the seriousness of this matter, but should not be viewed as a presumption of guilt. Rev. Huberty is to be accorded the presumption of innocence during this time.

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MINNESOTA
Minneapolis Sun-Times

WRITTEN BY TWIN CITIES PIONEER PRESS POSTED: 10/20/2015

The Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis said Tuesday that it is temporarily removing from ministry a priest who was acquitted last year of sexual misconduct with a female parishioner. The archdiocese launched its investigation into the Rev. Mark Huberty after the criminal case ended and determined the priest might have violated canon law, according to a statement from Archbishop Bernard Hebda.

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VATICAN CITY
National Catholic Reporter

Thomas Reese | Oct. 20, 2015

VATICAN CITY
With time running out, the synodal fathers appear no closer to resolving their conflicts over issues facing the family than they were a year ago. One of the principal sticking points is over Communion for divorced and remarried Catholics who do not have an annulment. Another controversy is over the language to be used in speaking about homosexuals.

The Synod of Bishops concludes this Sunday after meeting in Rome since Oct. 4. The synod has been discussing issues facing families, the same issues discussed at a similar gathering of bishops last October.

The pope and the bishops argue that the synod is about the family and decry the media’s focus on homosexuality and divorce, but there is no question that these are the topics around which the bishops have conflict. There is little disagreement over other issues.

One group of bishops, led by Cardinal Walter Kasper, would like to see a pastoral solution that would allow a penitential process leading to Communion for such Catholics, but this is opposed by others, perhaps a majority, who feel that this would violate church doctrine.

Many bishops hoped that they could find a pastoral solution that would not involve a change in doctrine, but conservative bishops are not buying this approach.

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ITALY/MASSACHUSETTS
Xaverian Missionaries

Fr. EUGENIO CUMERLATO
Bassano del Grappa, 20 febbraio 1910
Parma, 4 dicembre 1989

di Bassano d. Grappa – VI
Lavorò nelle nostre case: in Italia, specialmente in USA e Messico
Di anni 80. Numero di professione 204
Sepolto a Parma

Fr. Cumerlato nacque a Bassano del Grappa il 20 febbraio 1910.

Era nel fiore degli anni quando scoprì che niente come l’ideale missionario poteva dare senso pieno alla sua vita. Perciò net 1932 entrò nello Istituto Saveriano e, fatta la professione religiosa, chiese d’essere mandato in missione. “Oso domandare e sperare – scrisse nel 1936 al Superiore Ge-nerale – d’essere ammesso a questa fortunata spedizione” (di partenti per la Cina). Aggiungeva Però: “Saprò accettare con allegria anche un bel rifiuto, sapendo che dappertutto si può piacere a Dio”.

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UNITED KINGDOM
The Guardian

Rajeev Syal
Tuesday 20 October 2015

The detective who quit as head of the VIP paedophile inquiry after reportedly being undermined by Tom Watson, Labour’s deputy leader, will appear before a select committee on Wednesday despite objections from senior Met officers.

DCI Paul Settle, who stepped away from Operation Fernbridge last October, will give evidence to the home affairs select committee, followed by Watson. Both will be grilled about their alleged roles in the rape and paedophile investigations into Leon Brittan, the late Conservative peer.

The Met’s deputy commissioner Craig Mackey wrote to the committee arguing that MPs should not ask a relatively junior officer to appear before parliament. In a letter to Keith Vaz, the committee’s chair, Mackey said Settle’s appearance was inappropriate and had significant implications for the operational independence of the police.

“In our view this would create an unhelpful precedent and may lead to anxiety amongst officers taking operational decisions that they may subsequently have to justify the detail of those decisions before a committee of the House of Commons,” he wrote.

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AUSTRALIA
Sky News

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull must immediately launch an investigation into elite pedophile rings in Australia, says a survivors’ network for people abused by priests.

The call follows a claim by Liberal senator Bill Heffernan that he has a police list which names 28 prominent people, including a former prime minister, as suspected pedophiles.

The senator didn’t name names but on Tuesday called on Attorney-General George Brandis to expand the child abuse royal commission to include the legal fraternity.

Nicky Davis, the leader of SNAP (Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests) said the government should immediately announce a thorough investigation of elite pedophile rings in Australia, similar to one already underway in the UK.

Senator Heffernan’s revelations came as no surprise to many survivors of child sexual abuse, Ms Davis said in a statement early on Wednesday.

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MISSOURI
KMOV

By Stephanie Baumer, Online News Producer

ST. LOUIS, Mo. (KMOV.com) – A lawsuit has been filed against the Archdiocese of St. Louis by a man who claims he was sexually abused between 1977 and 1981.

The lawsuit alleges that Father Leroy Valentine sexually abused the plaintiff while he was a student at the Church of the Immacolata.

According to the lawsuit, Father Valentine has been accused of childhood sexual abuse multiple times in the past and resigned as an associate pastor at St. Thomas the Apostle in 2002 after another child sexual abuse allegation. In 2013, Archbishop Robert Carlson stated that an allegation of child sexual abuse against Father Valentine was found to be credible.

“I approached the Archdiocese multiple times for help and tried to get assistance without getting lawyers involved,” the plaintiff, called John Doe 121 in the lawsuit, said in a statement. “Filing a lawsuit was my last resort and due to their inaction.”

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ROME
Chiesa

He is Timothy Dolan, one of the thirteen cardinals of the letter to the pope. A living example of that “parresia,” that candor of word and thought, so desired by Francis

by Sandro Magister

ROME, October 19, 2015 – In the uproar unleashed by the publication of the letter of the thirteen cardinals to the pope, the Vatican authorities who manage communication – from Santa Marta more than from the Apostolic Palace – have in fact fomented attacks not so much against the one responsible for the publication, but much more against the synod fathers who signed the letter.

And yet these are personalities of the highest rank, archbishops of important dioceses like New York, Toronto, Houston, Utrecht, Bologna, Durban, Nairobi, Caracas. Not to mention three pillars of the Roman curia old and new like George Pell, Gerhard Müller, and Robert Sarah, themselves bishops in the past of dioceses like Sydney, Regensburg, and Conakry.

There was so much aggression in the media against this towering and tightly knit representation of the worldwide hierarchy – accused of “conspiring” against the pope even before the letter was published – that it brought up another unresolved question on top of those raised in the letter: concerning the management of the communication of what happens in the synod.

It is enough to see how Fr. Thomas Rosica, the official media liaison at the synod for the English-language media, has immediately circulated with his own enthusiastic approval the most virulent and authoritative attack against the thirteen signers of the letter, made by Washington archbishop Donald Wuerl, one of Bergoglio’s preferred cardinals, in an October 18 interview with “America,” the magazine of the “liberal” New York Jesuits:

The fact is that, in spite of these reactions, the letter of the thirteen cardinals has gotten results. And it got them above all after its publication, which allowed a larger number of synod fathers to become acquainted with it and recognize themselves in it, and therefore to exercise firmer pressure on those who govern the synod, in order to obtain answers more satisfying than the ones given until then.

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ROME
dotCommonweal

Grant Gallicho
October 20, 2015

ROME—In the beginning was the letter. And the letter was published. By Sandro Magister, longtime Vaticanista, sometime critic of this papacy, and current insinuator of the idea that one of those responsible for leaking the text may be the most famous resident of Casa Santa Marta.

Last week, Magister published a letter sent by several cardinals to Pope Francis, criticizing the synod process for favoring those who want to change church practice on a range of contested issues. The letter, which was sent to the pope before the synod began, received a direct response when Francis delivered an unscheduled address on the second day of the proceedings. He reminded the synod fathers that he had personally approved of the synod process, and urged them not to fall victim to a “hermeneutic of conspiracy.” (That memorable line was amusingly interpreted by the camptastically named “Xavier Rynne II”—who has been aiming his firehose of verbiage at the goings-on here since the synod began. And by George if he doesn’t think the pope’s phrase wasn’t really referring to those who have been hoping for some change out of this meeting. XR2 assures that the leak “certainly did not involve the Holy Father.” So that’s a relief.)

Later it was reported that Magister got several of the signatories wrong. Some who acknowledged putting their names on a similar letter said that the version Magister published wasn’t the one they signed. This occasioned not the slightest hint of regret from Magister. Instead, he published a follow-up piece noting this correction but basically saying he was right all along. He still hasn’t explained how he got the letter, what the version he published actually was, or how he managed to botch the list of signatories.

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VATICAN CITY
Crux

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

ROME – As the Oct. 4-25 Synod of Bishops on the family nears its end, two features of the process seem especially striking. One is how much the bishops have left to do; the other is how much uncertainty still surrounds exactly what they’re doing.

The final result is to be a document to be presented to Pope Francis. It’s designed to be based on a working document distributed before the synod, but there’s been enough dissatisfaction with that earlier text that it’s possible the 10-member drafting committee could essentially start from scratch.

That drafting committee includes:

* Cardinal Peter Erdo, archbishop of Esztergom-Budapest and the synod’s relator general
* Cardinal Lorenzo Baldisseri, secretary of the synod
* Archbishop Bruno Forte, archishop of Chieti-Vasto, Italy
* Cardinal Oswald Gracias, archbishop of Bombay, India
* Cardinal Donald Wuerl, archbishop of Washington, DC
* Cardinal John Dew, archbishop of Wellington, New Zealand
* Archbishop Victor Manuel Fernandez, rector of the Pontifical Catholic University of Argentina
* Bishop Mathieu Madega Lebouakehan, bishop of Mouila, Gabon
* Bishop Marcello Semeraro, bishop of Albano, Italy
* The Rev. Adolfo Nicolas, head of the Jesuit order

Whether the group overhauls the original working document, called the Instrumentum Laboris, or goes back to the drawing board, it’s supposed to incorporate the hundreds of suggestions made by the synod’s 13 small working groups.

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MICHIGAN
Memorial Networks

Reverend Fr. Loren F. O’Dea
June 11, 1928 – October 14, 2015

Age 87, of Waterford, died early Wednesday morning, October 14, 2015, at Lourdes Senior Community, Waterford.

Father Loren was born June 11, 1928, the son of the late Joseph Daniel Sr. and Harriet O’Dea.

Father Loren had a career as a social worker, then Director of Mental Health at Pontiac General Hospital. In retirement, he returned to Sacred Heart Major Seminary where he was ordained a priest in 1993. He served Our Lady of Sorrows Parish in Farmington.

In addition to his parents, he was preceded in death by siblings, J. Daniel Jr., Paul (Kathryn), Catherine, Robert (Lois), John “Jackie”, and Michael (Joan).

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MISSOURI
St. Louis Post-Dispatch

ST. LOUIS • A new sexual abuse lawsuit has been filed against the Archdiocese of St. Louis and Archbishop Robert Carlson over a priest who has been accused multiple times in the past.

Father Leroy Valentine, also a defendant, is accused in the suit of repeatedly abusing a young student who attended the Church of the Immacolata between approximately 1977 and 1981, starting when the boy was age 11.

Attorneys from Chackes, Carlson and Gorovsky filed the suit last week in St. Louis County Circuit Court. The petition says Valentine told the boy the abuse was “special training” required for becoming an altar boy.

Valentine has been accused of childhood sexual abuse multiple times in the past.

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UNITED KINGDOM
This is Lancashire

A FORMER vicar aged 91 has been jailed for three years for sexually abusing a boy in vicarages in Bolton and Atherton.

Frank Baldwick was sentenced today after previously being convicted by a jury of nine men and three women at Bolton Crown Court.

They took just 90 minutes, in August, to return guilty verdicts on the two counts of indecent assault.

The offences — which date from the late 1970s when Baldwick was the Church of England vicar of St Michael’s Great Lever, and then of St Anne’s Hindsford, Atherton — were committed against a boy aged between 11 and 13 at the time.

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VATICAN CITY
National Catholic Reporter

Joshua J. McElwee | Oct. 20, 2015

VATICAN CITY
One of the 13 cardinals said to have signed a letter to Pope Francis sharply criticizing the ongoing Synod of Bishops has said he no longer has concerns about the gathering and is even optimistic about its outcome.

South African Cardinal Wilfrid Napier told reporters at a briefing Tuesday that Francis’ response to the letter — addressing the entire bishops’ gathering on its second day of work Oct. 6 — “made a huge difference … in the scale of confidence and of trust” in the pope and the synod process.

After hearing the pontiff that day, Napier said he felt “that the concerns had registered, they were being taken care of and therefore, from there on, everyone was going to work at the synod with all they’ve got.”

“I think that’s what I’ve experienced and that has been why I feel that this synod takes up where that first week of the last one had left off, when we were all optimistic and looking forward to really looking together on the issues as a team,” said the cardinal, referring to an earlier synod held in 2014.

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VATICAN CITY
Vatican Radio

[with audio]

(Vatican Radio) The Synod of Bishops on the family winds up its small language group work on Tuesday, with participants discussing further changes they’d like to see reflected in the concluding document.

Over the past two weeks the Church leaders have been seeking to resolve tensions between two different visions of family life and ministry, one focused more on the traditional teaching of the Church and the other searching for new ways of engaging with people living in relationships outside of that Church teaching.

Maria Harries is one of the 30 women attending the Synod as an auditor or specialist in different areas of family life. She chairs the Catholic Social Services in Australia and works with survivors of clerical sex abuse as a member of the Australian Catholic bishops’ Truth, Justice and Healing Council. She talked to Philippa Hitchen about her appeal to Synod fathers to broaden their vision of family life and to acknowledge the healing that still needs to take place for families devastated by the impact of sexual abuse…

Maria speaks first about the importance of listening to and engaging with different cultures, as she has learn through her own experience with Australia’s Aboriginal people. She explains how they have a very different family model which is not nuclear but rather a kinship or broader family system where a child can have many mothers or fathers…

She also talks about the lasting damage done by sexual abuse to both survivors’ families and the wider communities of the Church where people learn of crimes committed in their parish or religious organisation.

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VATICAN CITY
Vatican Information Service

Vatican City, October 2015 (VIS) – The role of the woman in the family, in society and in the Church, cultural differences, concerns regarding ethics in medicine, the situation of persecuted Christian families and the testimonies of those engaged in family catechesis were main themes of the interventions by auditors in the Synod Hall during the general congregations of Thursday 15 and Friday 16 October, published today.

The national president of the Catholic Women Organisation in Nigeria, Agnes Offiong Erogunaye, reminded the Synod Fathers that African women are known for taking care of their families with or without the contributions of their spouses, and the Boko Haram insurgency in Nigeria indicates the strength and role of “a typical woman and mother determined to keep her family together in the face of helplessness and calamity”. She added, “From my experience with women in this difficult moment, I can boldly say that although the man is the head of the family, the woman is however the heart of the family, and when the heart stops beating the family dies because the foundation is shaken and the stability destroyed. In Nigeria, Catholic women are not just homebuilders. They are a strong force to be reckoned with when it comes to spirituality and economy, and growth in the Church”.

Sister Maureen Kelleher from the United States of America quoted the paragraph in the Instrumentum laboris that states, “The Church must instil in families a sense of ‘we’ in which no member is forgotten. Everyone ought to be encouraged to develop their skills and accomplish their personal plan of life in service of the Kingdom of God”. She called upon the Church, “my family”, to “live up to the challenge to instil in our family the Church a sense of ‘we’, to encourage each person – male or female – to develop their skills to serve the Kingdom of God”. She added, “I ask our Church leaders to recognise how many women who feel called to be in service of the Kingdom of God but cannot find a place in our Church. Gifted though some may be, they cannot bring their talents to the tables of decision making and pastoral planning. They must go elsewhere to be of service in building the Kingdom of God. In 1974, at the Synod on Evangelisation, one of our sisters, Margaret Mary, was one of two nuns appointed from the Union of Superiors General. Today, forty years later, we are three”.

“The Church needs to listen to women … as only in reciprocal listening does true discernment function”, emphasised Lucetta Scaraffia, professor of Modern History at the University of Rome. “Women are great experts in the family: leaving abstract theories behind, we can turn in particular to women to understand what must be done, and how we can lay the foundations for a new family open to respect for all its members, no longer based on the exploitation on the capacity for sacrifice of the woman, but instead ensuring emotional nourishment and solidarity for all. Instead, both in the text and in the contributions very little is said about women, about us. As if mothers, daughters, grandmothers, wives – the heart of families – were not a part of the Church, of the Church who encompasses the world, who thinks, who decides. As if it were possible to continue, even in relation to the family, pretending that women do not exist. As if it were possible to continue to forget the new outlook, the previously unheard-of and revolutionary relationship that Jesus had with women”.

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INDIA
UCA News

ucanews.com reporter, Bhopal
India
October 20, 2015

A Catholic bishop has sought the intervention of Indian president Pranab Mukherjee to look into a case in Chhattisgarh state where a priest was accused of allegedly raping a fourth-grade student.

Bishop Patras Minj of Ambikapur wrote to Mukherjee pleading for him to initiate a probe by the Central Bureau of Investigations into the sex charges leveled against Father Joseph Dhanaswami.

The state police are “working under pressure from extremist groups and political parties,” Bishop Minj said in his Oct. 17 letter. Chhattisgarh state in central India is run by the ruling Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party.

Father Dhanaswami, principal of Jyoti Mission High School of Ambikapur Diocese in Chhattisgarh state, along with hostel warden Samaritan Sister Christ Maria and a maid were arrested Sept. 11 following a complaint by the mother of a fourth-grade student.

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ITALIA
LiveSicilia

L’ex direttore della Caritas è accusato di concussione e violenza sessuale.

TRAPANI – La condanna a 10 anni dell’ex direttore della Caritas di Trapani, don Sergio Librizzi, è stata chiesta oggi al giudice Cavasino che presiede il processo che si svolge col rito abbreviato. Librizzi fu arrestato nel giugno dell’anno scorso dagli agenti della sezione di pg della Forestale, con le accuse di concussione e violenza sessuale: avrebbe preteso prestazioni sessuali da alcuni richiedenti asilo politico in cambio del proprio aiuto all’interno della commissione prefettizia della quale faceva parte.

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ITALY
The Local

Prosecutors in Sicily are seeking a 10-year prison term for a priest who allegedly extorted sex from asylum seekers in return for helping them to obtain residency permits.

Father Sergio Librizzi, who was arrested in June last year on aggravated sexual assault charges, allegedly preyed on asylum seekers staying at centres in the Trapani area, LiveSicilia reported.

He had been working on a committee which handled asylum claims when the alleged assaults took place. At the time of his arrest, investigators found a box containing some €10,000, which is thought to have been used as “offerings” to entice asylum seekers.

A former director at the Trapani branch of the Catholic charity, Caritas, Librizzi is also being probed in connection with separate charges related to the management of the centres, Ansa reported.

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MISSOURI
Riverfront Times

Posted By Sarah Fenske on Tue, Oct 20, 2015

The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of St. Louis was sued Friday over sex abuse allegedly suffered by a young boy who attended school at the Church of the Immocolata in Richmond Heights.

The suit, filed by a pair of anonymous parents on behalf of their son, alleges that Fr. Leroy Valentine began abusing the boy when he was eleven — eventually sodomizing him in the rectory. The abuse allegedly continued for four years, from 1977 to 1981.

Valentine was a priest within the Archdiocese from 1977 to 2002, when he was removed from active duty, according to the lawsuit. But, the suit alleges, “although his church privileges were permanently removed in 2002, he was never laicized” — that is, officially defrocked.

In 2013, Archbishop Robert Carlson found allegations of sexual abuse against Valentine, then 71, to be substantiated.

The suit was filed by attorney Kenneth Chackes of Chackes, Carlson and Gorovsky, who frequently handles such chases against the Archdiocese.

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MINNESOTA
BishopAccountability.org

Summary of Case: Raymond Cossette was ordained a priest of the Duluth diocese in 1955. He ministered in parishes and was involved in high schools as an instructor, athletic director, chaplain and principal. He was also Diocesan Superintendent of Schools for a time in the 1960s, and served on the Diocesan Tribunal. For twenty years he was chaplain at Brainerd State School and Hospital. His assignments took him from Hibbing to Duluth, Biwabik, Brainerd and Hillman. He retired in 1995 and is last known to have been living in Brainerd. Cossette’s name was included on a list released by the diocese in December 2013 of clergy who had been credibly accused of sexual abuse of young persons while serving in diocese. His status at the time was “re-investigation initiated.”

Born: December 24, 1929
Ordained: 1955
Retired: 1995

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AUSTRALIA
Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse

20 October, 2015

The Royal Commission will hold the second part of the public hearing regarding Catholic Church authorities in Ballarat at the County Court of Victoria, Melbourne.

This hearing will be co-ordinated with the public hearing regarding the Catholic Archdiocese of Melbourne and evidence from witnesses common to each hearing will be received. It is anticipated that the hearing regarding Catholic Church authorities in Ballarat will commence around 7 December 2015 depending on the progress of the hearing into the Catholic Archdiocese of Melbourne.

The scope and purpose of the second part of this public hearing is to inquire into:

1. The response of the Catholic Diocese of Ballarat and of other Catholic Church authorities in Ballarat to allegations of child sexual abuse against clergy or religious.

2. The response of Victoria Police to allegations of child sexual abuse against clergy or religious which took place within the Catholic Diocese of Ballarat.

3. Any related matters.

Cardinal Pell is expected to give evidence during the last week of the hearing.

Any person or institution who believes that they have a direct and substantial interest in the scope and purpose of the public hearing is invited to lodge a written application for leave to appear at the public hearing by 12 November 2015.

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AUSTRALIA
Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse

20 October, 2015

The Royal Commission will hold a public hearing to inquire into the response of the Catholic Archdiocese of Melbourne to allegations of child sexual abuse. The public hearing will commence on 24 November 2015 in Melbourne at the County Court of Victoria.

This hearing will be co-ordinated with the continuation of the hearing regarding Catholic Church authorities in Ballarat and evidence from witnesses common to each hearing will be received.

The scope and purpose of the public hearing in relation to the Catholic Archdiocese of Melbourne is to inquire into:

1. The response of relevant authorities within or associated with the Archdiocese of Melbourne to allegations of child sexual abuse against Catholic clergy associated with the Holy Family Parish, Doveton, and the Holy Family Primary School, Doveton.

2. The response of the Archdiocese of Melbourne to allegations of child sexual abuse against other Catholic clergy, including Fr Wilfred Baker; Fr David Daniel; Fr Nazareno Fasciale; Fr Desmond Gannon; Fr Paul Pavlou; and Fr Ronald Pickering.

3. Any related matters.

Any person or institution who believes that they have a direct and substantial interest in the scope and purpose of the public hearing is invited to lodge a written application for leave to appear at the public hearing by 5 November 2015.

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AUSTRALIA
news.com.au

AAP

LIBERAL senator Bill Heffernan claims he has a police list which names 28 prominent people, including a former prime minister, as suspected paedophiles.

Senator Heffernan didn’t name any names but called on Attorney-General George Brandis to expand the child abuse royal commission so that it includes the legal fraternity.

He told a Senate estimates hearing in Canberra today he had provided the commission with documents, one naming the alleged paedophiles including “a whole lot of prominent people.”
Senator Heffernan is a vociferous campaigner against paedophiles, but his information hasn’t always been right.

In 2002 he used parliamentary privilege to falsely accuse a judge of using commonwealth cars to procure young men for sex. He said there was sadly a compromise at the highest levels.

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AUSTRALIA
The Australian

OCTOBER 20, 2015

Sarah Martin
Political reporter
Canberra

A Liberal senator has told a parliamentary inquiry that a list of 28 “prominent” pedophiles, which allegedly includes a former Australian prime minister and members of the judiciary, should be investigated by the royal commission into child sexual abuse.

NSW senator Bill Heffernan said he had been advised that the list of names, which he claims was uncovered during the Wood Royal Commission into the NSW Police Force and given to him by a police officer, was outside the scope of the commission’s inquiry.

Speaking under the protection of parliamentary privilege in a Senate estimates hearing this afternoon, Senator Heffernan asked Attorney General George Brandis to consider pursuing the “institution of the law” through the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.

He said “disturbing” documents he had given to the commission chief executive Phillip Reed included a list of 28 alleged paedophiles, which he claimed had not been investigated by the Wood Royal Commission because of concern it may tarnish the reputation of the judiciary.

“We have in Australia sadly a compromise at the highest of levels. There is a former prime minister on this list and it is a police document.

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AUSTRALIA
Newcastle Herald

By JOANNE McCARTHY Oct. 20, 2015

NEWCASTLE priest Campbell Brown was found dead in his home on Sunday as the Anglican Church prepared for a hearing into child sexual abuse allegations against him from the 1960s.

Reverend Brown, 80, died only hours after attending a service at Newcastle’s Christ Church Cathedral where people were asked to say a prayer for survivors of child sexual abuse and to stand with those who had been abused.

He died two days after former Grafton Bishop Keith Slater was defrocked for failing to act when allegations against Reverend Brown and fellow Newcastle clergyman Allan Kitchingman were raised with the Anglican Church in 2005.

Reverend Brown died two years after the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse heard evidence that he had ‘‘made an implied admission of guilt’’ about sexually assaulting a boy at Lismore’s North Coast Children’s Home in the early 1960s.

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AUSTRALIA
The Morning Bulletin

Chris Calcino | 20th Oct 2015

AN ANGLICAN priest suspected of sexual offences against children in northern NSW has been found dead in his home.

Reverend Campbell Brown was awaiting and internal church professional standards hearing when his body was discovered in his Hunter Valley home on Sunday.

The 80-year-old was accused during the 2013 Royal Commission into child sexual abuse of making an “implied admission of guilt” that he had sexually assaulted a young boy at the North Coast Children’s Home in Lismore about five decades earlier.

His death came two days after former Grafton Bishop Keith Slater was removed from holy orders for failing to report claims of Rev Brown and another priest’s alleged crimes to police.

The former bishop was stood-down by the same standards board that was due to look into Rev Brown’s alleged admission.

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SCOTLAND
Herald Scotlan

A leading social worker and an expert on child abuse have been appointed to Scotland’s public inquiry into the historical abuse of children in care.

Panel members Glenn Houston and Professor Michael Lamb will help chair Susan O’Brien QC with the work of the inquiry, which formally began at the start of the month.

Mr Houston is the chief executive of Northern Ireland’s independent health and social care regulator, the Regulation and Quality Improvement Authority, and has more than 30 years’ experience working in the field.

Mr Lamb is a professor of psychology at the University of Cambridge and headed a research unit at the US National Institute of Child Health and Human Development in Washington DC for 17 years.

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IDAHO
KBOI

EAGLE, Idaho (KBOI) — A married couple from Eagle, who worked as house parents at a local Christian church ranch, have pleaded guilty to sexually abusing children, according to Idaho court records.

Michael P. Magill and his wife, Jennifer, pleaded guilty to sexual abuse of a minor 16 or 17 and sexual abuse of a minor under the age of 16.

An investigation into the couple began back in August after detectives were notified of abuse from a family member from one of the victims. Police then interviewed the girls, searched the Christian Children’s Church Ranch in Eagle, and then arrested the couple the following day.

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MINNESOTA
Pioneer Press

By Elizabeth Mohr
emohr@pioneerpress.com
POSTED: 10/19/2015

Jury selection began Monday in a clergy sex abuse lawsuit against the Diocese of Duluth, marking what attorneys say is the first such a case to go to trial under Minnesota’s Child Victims Act.

The Child Victims Act, enacted by the Legislature in 2013, suspended the statute of limitations for victims of child sex abuse who wished to sue, even if the abuse took place decades ago. The previous law prevented legal action after victims reached age 24. The new law allows such claims to be brought until May 2016.

Until now, many claims brought under the law have been settled before trial, or rolled into the bankruptcy case of the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis, or dismissed for other reasons.

In the case filed by “Doe 30,” the Diocese of Duluth denies the allegations — that it was aware that the Rev. James Vincent Fitzgerald had been previously accused and that it failed to adequately supervise him.

Initially, the lawsuit, filed in February 2014, also named as defendants the Diocese of New Ulm and Oblates of Mary Immaculate. The Oblates order settled with the plaintiff, and a judge dismissed claims against the New Ulm diocese.

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AUSTRALIA
NT News

AAP

THE Catholic Church’s handling of two decades of abuse by pedophile priests in a Melbourne parish will be the focus of a royal commission hearing featuring Cardinal George Pell.

CARDINAL Pell, now the Vatican’s finance chief, will give evidence to the commission’s public hearing into the Catholic Archdiocese of Melbourne’s response to child abuse as well as its continuing inquiry into widespread abuse by clergy in the Ballarat diocese.

The month-long hearings will begin on November 24 in Melbourne and Cardinal Pell is expected to give evidence during the sitting’s final week, which will be from December 14 to 18, the royal commission said on Tuesday.

The former Melbourne and Sydney archbishop and Ballarat priest has already appeared twice before the child abuse royal commission on other issues.

Cardinal Pell came under fire following claims again aired during the first stage of the Ballarat hearing in May that he tried to bribe one abuse victim to keep quiet, ignored complaints and was complicit in moving Australia’s worst pedophile priest, Gerald Francis Ridsdale, to a different parish. Cardinal Pell has repeatedly denied the claims.

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MINNESOTA
Northlands News Center

[with video]

By Nick Minock

October 19, 2015

St. Paul, MN (NNCNOW.COM) — One of the several lawsuits filed in connection with sexual abuse in the Catholic Church began Monday morning in St. Paul.

The lawsuit, that is filed by Jeff Anderson and Associates, involves the Diocese of Duluth.
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The lawsuit claims that Father J. Vincent Fitzgerald abused a teenage altar boy in 1978.

The lawsuit claims the now deceased priest molested the boy “on a daily basis.”

The priest was working at St. Catherine’s Church at the time under the Diocese of Duluth.

The lawsuit is set to go to trial.

“Victims of sexual abuse who come forward to tell their stories do a public service,” the Diocese of Duluth said in a statement. “They help society seek justice. They help all of us, including the church, to do a better job of preventing sexual abuse.”

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MINNESOTA
Star Tribune

By Chao Xiong Star Tribune OCTOBER 19, 2015

A judge ordered the Diocese of Duluth on Monday to produce more priest files as it prepared to defend itself in a civil trial involving alleged clergy sex abuse.

The diocese failed to abide by a January court order to turn over all documents about alleged abuse it possessed before 1978, Ramsey County District Court Judge John Guthmann said Monday.

“I do not think this was in bad faith,” the judge said, “but it needs to be rectified.”

Guthmann also sanctioned the diocese $1,250 for failing to turn over all of the necessary documents to attorneys Jeff Anderson, Mike Finnegan and Elin Lindstrom. The three attorneys are representing a former altar boy, named Doe 30 in the case, who is suing the diocese.

The case is significant because it is the first lawsuit under the Minnesota Child Victims Act to go to trial. That 2013 law has allowed older claims of child sex abuse previously barred by statutes of limitations to have their day in court.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Newsweek

By Felicity Capon 10/19/15

Child sex abuse survivors in Britain have called for an immediate investigation into revelations that testimonies they had given to an inquiry into the abuse was “instantly and permanently deleted” due to a technical error.

A statement posted on the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse’s website last week, explained that due to a change in the website address, information that had been submitted through the “share your experience” page between 14 September and 2 October was deleted before it reached the investigation’s engagement team.

The inquiry was set up last July, prompted by claims from politicians and campaigners that paedophiles operated in Westminster during the 1980s. Its intention, as stated on its website, is to investigate whether “state and non-state institutions have failed in their duty of care to protect children from sexual abuse and exploitation” in England and Wales. The site also says it “will support victims and survivors to share their experience of sexual abuse.” The inquiry’s panel is led by New Zealand judge, Lowell Goddard.

Addressing the recent loss of the testimonies, a message on the inquiry’s site reads, “We are very sorry for any inconvenience or distress this will cause and would like to reassure you that no information was put at risk of disclosure or unauthorised access. Due to the security measures on our website, your information cannot be found or viewed by anyone else as it was immediately and permanently destroyed.”

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MINNESOTA
Northlands New Center

[with video]

Duluth, MN (NNCNOW.com) — The ongoing news of the child sex abuse lawsuits against the Diocese of Duluth, has awakened some very troubling and painful memories for some.

For almost 70 years a Northland man has kept his silence about abuse he says he and his brothers suffered at the hands of priests at St. James Orphanage in Duluth.

Gene was just nine years old when he his two older brothers had to move into the orphanage just off Woodland Avenue.

Now as he ages, and faces a debilitating disease, Gene Saumer decided it was time to speak out.

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MINNESOTA
Northland News Center

Duluth, MN (NNCNOW.com) – Statement of Father James Bissonette, vicar general

“Victims of sexual abuse who come forward to tell their stories do a public service. They help society seek justice. They help all of us, including the church, to do a better job of preventing sexual abuse. They may find it helpful in their own healing. They give us a chance to tell them we’re sorry and that we want to help them. And importantly they let other people who have been sexually abused know that they’re not alone, that it’s OK to come forward and that it’s not their fault. So we are grateful to people who come forward, and we continue to ask anyone who has been hurt in this way to do so. We offer them our deepest apologies and sympathy, and we offer to support them in any way we can, as we continue our efforts to make our parishes, schools and other facilities the safest places they can possibly be for children and young people.”

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NEW MEXICO
KRQE

By Chelo Rivera
Published: October 19, 2015

ALBUQUERQUE (AP) – A judge says he is getting frustrated as a New Mexico diocese nears its second year in bankruptcy court.

The Gallup Independent reports that U.S. Bankruptcy Judge David T. Thuma said during a Thursday court hearing that he’s not pleased the Diocese of Gallup’s case is still going on.

He agreed to the diocese’s request to postpone its final hearing, originally scheduled for next month. He scheduled a status conference in its place.

Thuma hasn’t yet ruled on a request from Phoenix attorney Robert E. Pastor, who represents 18 people who say they were sexually abused by the diocese’s clergy.

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