ABUSE TRACKER

CONNECTICUT
National Catholic Reporter

Brian Roewe | Sep. 11, 2014

As part of a series of diocesan changes, the bishop of Bridgeport, Conn., announced Tuesday plans to repurpose his nearly 9,000-square-foot home and possibly relocate his diocesan offices but said he will leave solutions to larger pastoral questions to Fairfield County’s first synod in 33 years.

In a “state of the diocese” address at All Saints Catholic School in Norwalk, Bishop Frank Caggiano discussed current administrative challenges ($32 million in diocesan debt), progresses (the 2014 fiscal year is expected become the first in many years ending without a deficit) and future plans (diocesan reorganization).

“I need you to know all of the facts because we are family and we are all in this together,” he told the audience of more than 500 lay leaders and clergy, 350 of whom are synod delegates.

As for pastoral challenges — such as declines in sacraments and Mass attendance (about 80,000 of 470,000 Fairfield County Catholics attend Mass weekly) and fortifying Catholic schools and enrollment — Caggiano mainly deferred to the diocese’s fourth synod to find solutions.

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INDIA
Odisha Sun Times

New Delhi, Sep 11 :

The Delhi High Court Thursday sought response from the central government on the plea of Catholic priest Rev Joseph Palanivel Jeyapaul, accused of molesting a child in the US when he was there during 2004, against his extradition order.

Justice Pratibha Rani issued notice to government and asked it to respond on the plea of Jeyapaul, 59, challenging the order of trial court here recommending his extradition to the US to stand trial there.

The trial court recently said that “prima facie” case was made out for his extradition. If extradited, Jeyapaul will stand trial on charge of a “first degree criminal sexual conduct” in Minnesota, USA.

The priest, a fugitive from US law, has been charged with molesting a 14-year-old girl in the US in 2004 when he was at a pastoral ministry at Roseau county of Crookston Diocese in Minnesota. The priest had allegedly met the girl at a youth conference in 2004, and abused her for nearly a year till he left for India on Aug 28, 2005, after which he maintained a low profile.

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UNITED STATES
Christian Catholicism

Jerry Slevin

Pope Francis indisputably showed this week that the welfare of families, especially of children, is less important to him than protecting Vatican cardinals and worldwide bishops from prosecution. Francis’ latest actions irrevocably raised publicists’ carefully crafted curtain on the latest Papal Wizard’s “Happy Pope” illusion. The Vatican spin machine has finally run out of mystical smokescreens to Tweet.

Pope Francis has now shown beyond any objective doubt that he is “one of the boys” at the Vatican. It is now too clear that Francis was elected a year and a half ago by frightened cardinals, primarily, to save themselves from outside government prosecutors investigating numerous child abuse and corruption scandals.

Neither Francis’ billionaire “allies”, Francis’ “heavy hitter” investment banker supporters, nor even Francis’ seemingly captive new “cheerleaders” at the National Catholic Reporter (NCR) and the Boston Globe’s new Crux websites, will likely be able “to put lipstick” on Francis’ latest shameful actions. But surely they will try! Money still talks loudest.

Argentina’s team lost the World Cup recently and its most famous fan is about to lose the world’s media. For some additional background see below and my recent remarks at :

[Christian Catholicism]

Francis signaled strongly this week that:

(1) on “contraception’, Catholic couples must keep “mass producing Catholic babies”, especially in light of the “escalating Islamist threat”, no matter what is best for couples’ other children. This dangerous farce is clearly directed at salvaging the “papal power myth” of infallibility tied to recent popes’ “infallible banning” of birth control, and at buttressing, pre-the US November elections, Francis’ right wing US political allies’ contrived fear of a growing radical Islamicist “threat” to the Vatican; and

(2) on curtailing priest child rape, Francis’ new “child abuse commission” will continue to try to protect clerics before children. Just to make sure, Francis appointed two hardliner priests as the key staffers on Vatican child abuse handling.

Jesus ordered all of us to protect children first, last and always. Francis, following his recent predecessors now says, in effect, we must protect children, unless it puts cardinals and bishops at risk of criminal prosecution.

Even Francis’ usually loyal Jesuit apologist and Vatican expert at NCR, Tom Reese, and as well as some perceptive and honest bloggers at NCR, appear to be throwing in the towel on Francis.

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ST. LOUIS (MO)
Berger’s Beat

In a recent interview, Cardinal Timothy Dolan expressed frustration at how long it takes to defrock a pedophile priest. “Although we bishops have sympathy for the workload of the Holy See, we still cringe at the slow pace of even clean-cut cases that need to be dealt with decisively,” he told Crux, a new on-line Catholic news source. . .Two local men – Kirkwood native Bryan Bacon and St. Charles resident Chris Wimmer – are featured in an investigative report by a Pittsburgh newspaper that says 157 adults have accused 31 members of the U.S.-based Marianists of child sexual abuse. Eight of the alleged offenders worked in our town. Bacon was allegedly abused by Brother William Mueller of Vianney and Wimmer was allegedly abused by Brother Louis Meinhardt and Brother John Woulfe at Chaminade. . .

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NORTHERN IRELAND
Irish Times

Gerry Moriarty

Thu, Sep 11, 2014

The Sisters of Nazareth have accepted that there was a “grave injustice” done to some 130 children who were sent to Australia from care homes in Northern Ireland as part of a child migration programme that mainly ran from the late 1920s to the mid 1950s.

Sister Brenda McCall, representing the Sisters of Nazareth, acknowledged the suffering caused to the children who were sent to Australia as part of a scheme by the Australian government to bring “white” children of “good stock” into the country.

Sister Brenda told the North’s Historical Institutional Abuse inquiry in Banbridge, Co Down today that the Sisters of Nazareth were involved in sending about 111 children to Australia in the scheme which seems to have petered out in the mid to late 1950s.

The former St Joseph’s Home, Termonbacca, Derry, where Des McDaid (70) was admitted as a child in 1946. He was then sent to Australia in 1953. Photograph: Trevor McBrideMan (70) tells inquiry he was abused in NI institution and in Australia as child

Although the witness had a happy childhood in Australia, she said feelings of “abandonment and isolation came to the surface” when she got engaged.Witness suffered feelings of ‘abandonment and isolation’

“In hindsight looking back there was a grave injustice done to these children in sending them out. And not just to the children but to their families as well,” she said.

“I think no matter the most eloquent apology or the most beautiful monument or no matter how much money they receive it will never make up for what we took from them,” she added.

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PENNSYLVANIA
Fox 43

BY HOWARD SHEPPARD

LEBANON, Pa (WPMT)-Former Methodist pastor Arthur “A.B” Schirmer, 66, is sentenced to 20 to 40 years for killing his first wife Jewel Schirmer in April 1999. The couple had been married for 31 years.

The prosecution contended that Jewel Schirmer was beaten in the head multiple times with a crowbar or something similiar. Schirmer claimed his wife died from injuries as the result of her falling down the basement stairs of their North Lebanon Township home. The cause of her death was at first declared Undetermined.

In 2011, the Lebanon County District Attorney’s Office, using an outside biomedical engineering firm, came up with tests results that proved Jewel Schirmer’s injuries were not the result of a fall down a flight of stairs.

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CANADA
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Thursday, September 11, 2014

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 Canadian search warrant was recently made public, which shows troubling allegations of repeated child abuse in the ultra-Orthodox sect Lev Tahor.

We are glad that officials in Israel, Canada and Interpol have worked together to establish a criminal case against this sect and are hopefully able to bring the perpetrators to justice. The investigation began when Rabbi Shlomo Helbrans’ son left the group and reported to officials about widespread abuses within the group.

We are grateful to the brave victims who found the courage to speak up. We hope more victims, witnesses and whistleblowers find the courage to come forward, speak up, help protect children and start healing.

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MICHIGAN
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Thursday, September 11, 2014

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

Recently unsealed documents show than a Michigan Christian radio host’s secret life involved child sexual crimes and plans to ask a friend to destroy evidence. We applaud the whistleblower who called police instead of helping a criminal thwart prosecution.

John Balyo who is awaiting sentencing for taking pornographic images of a 12 year old boy and sex acts with a child. We urge the judge in his case to sentence him to the maximum term, which is 50 years in jail. This is a dangerous predator and he should be kept away from children for as long as possible.

We also urge parents and officials in Kalamazoo County who may have had contact with Balyo to share any suspicions they have and talk to their children. Every church or school group where Balyo spoke or spent time with should also do aggressive outreach to find others who may have seen, suspected or suffered his crimes.

Finally, we applaud Balyo’s former boss Chris Lemke for doing the right thing and calling police instead of making a phone call for Balyo. His actions quite possibly helped preserve evidence and will keep a dangerous predator away from kids.

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CANADA
CTV

A police affidavit obtained by a media consortium that includes CTV has revealed a lengthy collection of unproven allegations against the Lev Tahor sect, an ultra-Orthodox group of about 45 families once based in Ste. Anne des Monts.

The police affidavit presents a list of reasons explaining why they should be given a search warrant to investigate the sect.

SQ police detective Normand Dion said in the report that there was reason to suspect that leaders forged passports and other identification documents in aims of throwing police off the scent of misdeeds inside the community.

The 14-pages of partially-redacted testimony offers a timeline of events, based on allegations made by former adherents.

In April 2012 police opened an investigation into the unproven allegations after receiving a letter alleging that the sect:

* Employed physical violence as a teaching tool.
* Sometimes kept disobedient children in a basement.
* Had girls as young as 14 marry adult men.
* Had children placed into other families if their parents were judged to be inadequate teachers.
* Medicated sect members in order to psychologically manipulate them.
* Took government cheques from members.

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CANADA
Toronto Star

By: Allan Woods Quebec Bureau, Published on Wed Sep 10 2014

MONTREAL—Police believed leading members of the radical Jewish sect Lev Tahor were involved in human trafficking and forgery when officers raided their Ontario homes last January, court documents reveal.

Released to the Toronto Star and other media Wednesday, the set of documents, called an Information to Obtain, were used by the Sûreté du Québec to seek a search warrant, following allegations that people in the 200-member cloistered community were being held and moved against their will.

Police were seeking credit cards, financial documents, travel documents, power-of-attorney forms, marriage certificates, coupons to obtain food and medical prescriptions.
The allegations in the document have not been tested in court.

The raid, carried only out after Lev Tahor members had fled their homes in Ste-Agathe-des-Monts, north of Montreal, was prompted by interviews with several community members, notably Adam Brudzewsky.

Brudzewsky fled in 2012 with the help of a local Orthodox rabbi, along with his pregnant wife, after he questioned edicts of the group’s leader, Rabbi Shlomo Helbrans, who reportedly runs Lev Tahor with iron discipline.

Documents say Brudzewsky told police he was instructed to hit children to enforce discipline in the community-run school and that children were married off before the legal age of 16.

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CANADA
Montreal Gazette

BY JASON MAGDER, THE GAZETTE SEPTEMBER 10, 2014

MONTREAL — Sûreté du Québec investigators got help from Interpol and authorities in Israel to establish a criminal case against the ultra-Orthodox sect Lev Tahor.

These are among several new revelations from search warrants unsealed by a judge on Wednesday. The warrants were issued by a Quebec judge to SQ investigators to search the homes of Lev Tahor members in Chatham-Kent, Ont., last Jan. 28.

The warrants allege members of the community falsified government documents, and engaged in human trafficking.

The community of about 250 lived in Ste-Agathe-des-Monts for about a decade before youth protection authorities were alerted to allegations of widespread abuse and neglect. The Department of Youth Protection in the Laurentians ordered the parents of 14 children to appear in court last November, but the community fled en masse to Chatham-Kent, Ont. Last March, the community relocated again to Guatemala, though two of its members remain in foster families in Toronto.

The case against Lev Tahor began in April of 2012, after the SQ received a letter from the lawyer of Nathan Helbrans, the adult son of the group’s leader, Rabbi Shlomo Helbrans. Nathan had left the sect earlier that year, telling Israeli media his resistance to orders brought him in conflict with the community’s leaders. Several members twisted his legs until they broke, he said.

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AUSTRALIA
The Age

September 11, 2014

Jane Lee and Richard Baker

Senior rabbinical leaders will be called to give evidence to a royal commission about alleged cover-ups of historic sexual abuse against children.

The royal commission into child sexual abuse began inviting Jewish victim-survivors to tell their stories in recent weeks, publishing advertisements in the Australian Jewish News.

“Anyone who experienced child sexual abuse while in the care of a Jewish institution, such as a school, youth program or sporting club, and wishes to share their story, can make contact with the royal commission,” the advertisement says.

Fairfax Media has been told that senior rabbis will also be called to give evidence in Australia’s first national investigation into child sexual abuse in Jewish schools and other organisations.

This comes as the NSW Ombudsman, NSW Police and Victoria Police continue to investigate senior rabbis’ failure to report allegations of child sexual abuse at the Yeshivah centres in Melbourne and Sydney to authorities.

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NORTHERN IRELAND
BBC News

The Congregation of the Sisters of Nazareth has told an inquiry it has to “put its hands up” over its involvement in a child migrant scheme to Australia.

The Historical Institutional Abuse Inquiry (HIA) is examining child abuse in religious and state-run institutions in Northern Ireland from 1922 to 1995.

The current phase is examining what happened to children sent to institutions in Australia.

One hundred and eleven children were sent there by the Sisters of Nazareth.

On Wednesday, Sister Brenda McCall said: “The most eloquent apology, the most beautiful monument, no matter what money they receive, will never make up for what we took from them in sending them there.

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PENNSYLVANIA
Big Trial

By Ralph Cipriano
for Bigtrial.net

Father Charles Engelhardt spends his days in prison reciting prayers, psalms and hymns from the Liturgy of the Hours.

“That’s his anchor,” Father Jerry Dunne says about Engelhardt’s daily devotion to the official prayer book for the Catholic clergy.

Dunne visits Engelhardt every month at the State Correctional Institution in Coal Township, Northumberland County, some 2 1/2 hours northwest of Philadelphia. That’s where Engelhardt, 67, is serving a six to 12 year sentence after he was convicted on Jan. 30, 2013 of endangering the welfare of a child, corruption of a minor and indecent assault. The “victim” in the case is the credibility-challenged former altar boy known as “Billy Doe.”

Dunne has known “Charlie” Engelhardt for more than 40 years. The two priests are fellow oblates of St. Francis DeSales. They went to the seminary and college together, and worked along side each other at a couple of archdiocesan high schools, as well as in the same parish.

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MINNESOTA
Minnesota Public Radio

[with audio]

Madeleine Baran St. Paul, Minn. Sep 10, 2014

Ramsey County Attorney John Choi on Wednesday rejected criticism he’s done little to investigate clergy sex abuse, but acknowledged he does not expect to file charges in 10 abuse cases investigated by St. Paul police.

County prosecutors have expanded their probe of sex abuse claims against Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis priests in recent months, but the nature of the work has made it difficult to “appease the public” in its demand for information, Choi said in an interview.

“Everything is on the table with respect to looking at what happened and what type of responsibility is out there in terms of how all of this happened,” he said. However, search warrants are not “necessary right now,” he said, adding that the investigation “should not be about a witch hunt.”

Betrayed By Silence: An MPR News investigation
Explore the full investigation Clergy abuse, cover-up and crisis in the Twin Cities Catholic church

Choi, who is seeking re-election in November, said he plans to announce charging decisions for the St. Paul cases within 30 days. But he acknowledged the statute of limitations will make it difficult or impossible to file charges.

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MICHIGAN
WOOD

Court documents in the John Balyo case have been unsealed. It’s been revealed the Christian Radio DJ was leading a secret gay lifestyle with another man who had no idea who Balyo really was, and had no idea Balyo was raping children. Balyo had given this man a computer to hide for him. After he was arrested he called his radio station boss and asked him to break into his car and get his friends phone number out of the glove box. It was meant to be code to the friend for get rid of the computer. Balyo’s boss did no such thing, and he called the police instead. Balyo’s wife recently filed for divorce in Kent County.

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MICHIGAN
MLive

By Angie Jackson | ajackso3@mlive.com
on September 10, 2014

GRAND RAPIDS, MI — John Balyo, the former Christian radio host who has admitted to molesting young boys and creating child porn, spoke “cryptically” to a male companion after asking to store a computer at the friend’s house, court records show.

Balyo, before the allegations against him came to light in June, requested the man hold the computer and told him “if it all goes south, you’ll know what to do,” according to search warrant records filed by investigators in Kent County District Court.

The documents, which shed more light on Balyo’s secret lifestyle, were recently unsealed after being suppressed for 56 days under state law. The records do not show what was contained on the computer, which was turned over to authorities by the man who identified himself to police as having a sexual relationship with Balyo. The man said he never took the computer out of the box Balyo left it in.

Balyo first met the friend two years ago in a gay online chat room, documents state. The friend told investigators they had a continued relationship until Balyo got married earlier this year. The man said his interactions with Balyo did not involve children.

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UNITED STATES
Room with a Pew

“It is difficult to imagine that individuals and societies governed by the seeking
of pleasure–as much as or more than by the avoidance of pain–can survive at all.”
–Antonio Damasio, from his book Descartes’ Error: Emotion, Reason and the Human Brain

Back in 2004, the mother of a boy who had been abused while a student at Saint Anthony’s Seminary in Santa Barbara in the eighties, contacted me through SafeNet out of concern for her son’s mental health. His condition worsened after he began menacing a local parish priest (unrelated to his abuse) with veiled threats. Upon meeting with the family at their home in Northern California, immediate care for the son was obtained with the help of county health officials and professional evaluations. At the mother’s insistence, the Franciscans were never formally notified of the abuse. But it was the emotional state of another family member, an older cousin who had also attended Saint Anthony’s at the same time, that helped me realize how deeply the wounds of clergy sexual abuse had affected other former students who were secondary survivors.

The son first revealed the details of his abuse through family interventions and later in sessions with his therapist. It was during his freshman year at the seminary that his family learned how a Franciscan friar, who would later be implicated in a number of alleged assaults of minors, had sexually molested him on several occasions in a music room on campus and in the friar’s bedroom. The survivor’s mother, a devout Catholic, immediately began offering up her son’s pain (and her own) with daily intentions for the promise of deliverance.

The older cousin, Raymond (not his real name) had long since rejected the Catholic faith and dismissed any belief in the church’s teaching on suffering and redemption. He no longer felt any connection to the man on the cross who suffered and died for the sins of others. For years he wrestled with guilt and remorse as he watched his younger cousin slip slowly into mental illness. He had been a couple of classes ahead of him at Saint Anthony’s and, while he himself had not been molested during his time at the school, had come to blame himself for what had happened to his cousin.

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ALABAMA
WAAY

MUSCLE SHOALS, Ala. (WAAY) – A former Muscle Shoals Youth Minister is back in Colbert County, after being extradited from Texas. He faces sexual abuse charges.

Charles Kyle Adcock, 31, was arrested in Texas earlier this month on charges stemming in Muscle Shoals back in 2012.

The Muscle Shoals Police Department confirms Adcock was a Youth Minister at Woodward Avenue Baptist Church when the accusations occurred. The alleged incidents took place at his Muscle Shoals home.

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ALABAMA
Fox 54

Posted: Sep 10, 2014

A former Muscle Shoals Youth Minister is back in Colbert County, after being extradited from Texas. He faces sexual abuse charges.

Charles Kyle Adcock, 31, was arrested in Texas earlier this month on charges stemming in Muscle Shoals back in 2012.

The Muscle Shoals Police Department confirms Adcock was a Youth Minister at Woodward Avenue Baptist Church when the accusations occurred. The alleged incidents took place at his Muscle Shoals home.

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MINNESOTA
National Catholic Reporter

Brian Roewe | Sep. 10, 2014 NCR Today

A lawsuit filed Wednesday seeks to compel the bishop of New Ulm, Minn., to become the latest and final diocese in the state to disclose its list of known priests credibly accused of sexually abusing children.

The lawsuit is brought by two plaintiff, Doe 37 and Doe 38, who claim they were sexually abused by Fr. Michael Skoblik between 1967 and 1971 when they were altar servers at St. Joseph Parish in Silver Lake, Minn.

Attorney Jeff Anderson said at a press conference that Skoblik, who died in 1989, is believed one of at least 12 priests the New Ulm diocese listed for the 2004 John Jay College of Criminal Justice study on clergy sex abuse. In August his firm released eight names of priests, including Skoblik, accused of sexual misconduct that emerged from a January deposition of Fr. Francis Garvey, director of priest personnel in the early 2000s.

Anderson characterized the lawsuit as a public invitation to Bishop John LeVoir of the rural southwestern Minnesota diocese to follow the lead of fellow bishops in the state in disclosing the names of credibly accused priests.

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AUSTRALIA
The Age

September 11, 2014

Mark Russell
Court Reporter for The Age

Former Catholic priest David Rapson’s use of his office to allegedly abuse young boys was “a very significant common feature” in the case against him, according to the Court of Appeal.

“What is distinctive about his use of the office, apart from anything else, is that it was a location which embodied, and reinforced, his authority over the boys at the school,” said Court of Appeal president Justice Chris Maxwell and Justices Geoffrey Nettle and David Beach on Thursday.

The appeal judges said evidence from two victims allegedly abused by Rapson in his office would be admissible at his new trial in the coming months.

The judges last month ordered Rapson’s release after he had been jailed for a minimum 10 years.

A County Court jury had found Rapson, 61, guilty last year of abusing eight boys between the mid-1970s and 1990 but he appealed his conviction.

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MALTA
Times of Malta

Thursday, September 11, 2014, 00:01 by Ramona Depares

Malta has recently been hit by a spate of court cases involving abuse of minors. I am not going to write about the merits of the individual cases.

Since I was not there to witness any alleged incidents, it would be presumptuous to attempt an opinion about what did, or did not, happen. Not that this is stopping the world and his wife from doing precisely that. Few people realise that spouting uninformed opinions on social media pending judgment can only damage both sides of any case.

Apart from the public’s seeming omniscience, two other issues immediately – and worryingly – leap to the eye.

The first is the apparent inconsistency on the part of the courts when it comes to publishing the names of defendants. The identity of a defendant is made public as a matter of course.

The duty of the press to keep the people aware of court proceedings is actually a corollary to articles six and 10 of the European Convention of Human Rights: the right to a fair and public hearing and the right to receive and impart information respectively.

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UNITED KINGDOM
EDP 24

David Bale
Thursday, September 11, 2014

A former Norfolk catholic priest accused of sexually abusing boys more than 30 years ago appeared in court yesterday charged with similar offences.

Father Tony McSweeney, 67, and former children’s home manager, wheelchair-bound John Stingemore, 72, allegedly molested the youths at Grafton Close Children’s Home in Hounslow, west London.

McSweeney – who officiated at the 1990 wedding of boxing legend Frank Bruno and his ex-wife, Laura – was a trainee priest at the time of the alleged attacks.

The once part-time chaplain at Norwich City FC was leading the congregation at St George’s Church in north Norwich when the claims against him emerged.

Both pensioners are accused of targeting children while Stingemore was in charge of the council-run home between February 1980 and July 1981.

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CALIFORNIA
Pasadena Star-News

By Lauren Gold, Pasadena Star-News
POSTED: 09/10/14

SAN GABRIEL >> Representatives from Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP) clashed with parishioners Wednesday after raising questions about a former San Gabriel Mission Parish pastor.

SNAP spokeswoman Joelle Casteix said the organization sought answers as to why Father Bruce Wellems was removed from the church in June and more information about an alleged incident of sexual abuse that occurred when Wellems was a teenager. SNAP held simultaneous press conferences in San Gabriel and Chicago, where Wellems now lives.

Casteix said SNAP found out about the incident recently via two letters sent by officials from the Claretian Missionary Fathers order in Chicago to the parish notifying parishioners of Wellems’ departure. Casteix called the letters a “smoking gun.”

“Now that the letters are out there we want answers. All we want is truth and all we want is transparency,” Casteix said. “Everyone gets hurt when the truth is not told. We don’t know what the truth is, but from what’s here it doesn’t look very good. We want the truth about why they yanked the guy from this parish.”

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MINNESOTA
Pioneer Press

By Emily Gurnon
egurnon@pioneerpress.com
POSTED: 09/10/2014

David Swinarski was 12 when his parish priest in Red Wing, Minn., invited him to dinner and a performance of “Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat” in Minneapolis.

The Rev. Larry R. Johnson had met the Swinarski family shortly after arriving at St. Joseph parish in July 1992, and David’s parents were suspicious almost immediately about the attention Johnson showed him.

Dee Swinarski “felt this request carried inappropriate sexual overtones,” according to a lawsuit.

She reported her concerns to church deacon and custodian Jerry Elsen. Elsen passed that information to William Fallon, then chancellor for the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis.

A spokesman for the archdiocese said officials there had never received a report of sexual abuse of a child by Johnson and never investigated. The spokesman would not say whether Johnson had been investigated for misconduct or boundary violations, saying the archdiocese did not have Johnson’s permission to disclose that information.

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MINNESOTA
Star Tribune

Article by: CHAO XIONG , Star Tribune Updated: September 10, 2014

The trial involving a priest, the Winona Diocese and St. Paul and Minneapolis Archdiocese is to start Nov. 3.

A high-profile lawsuit alleging clergy sexual abuse of minors and a coverup by the Catholic Church will be tried in Ramsey County, the Minnesota Court of Appeals has ruled.

The appeals court rejected the Diocese of Winona’s request for a change of venue in the case of Doe 1 vs. Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis, Diocese of Winona and Thomas Adamson.

“We were definitely glad to get the news that this trial will move forward,” Mike Finnegan, an attorney for Doe 1, said Wednesday.

The trial is scheduled to start Nov. 3.

The diocese filed a motion in Ramsey County District Court in July to move the trial to Olmsted County, St. Louis County or Clay County. In doing so, the diocese said that “intense prejudicial” pretrial publicity and the “media frenzy” surrounding the case would make it impossible to have a fair trial in Ramsey County.

Ramsey County District Judge John Van de North had ruled Aug. 4 that the trial should stay in Ramsey County.

The suit, filed last year, alleges that former priest Thomas Adamson sexually abused Doe 1 in the 1970s.

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KENTUCKY
WHAS

by Whitney Harding
WHAS11.com

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WHAS11) — Coming from a large Catholic family in Louisville, faith was a big part of Michael Norris’s childhood.

“You know you’re raised to believe that the church is good and the church is there to help people and you know to take care of you; know the people in need,” he said. “That’s not what I’ve seen from the church.”

As a boy in the 1970s, Norris went to Camp Tall Trees which was a Catholic church camp that used to be located inside Otter Creek Park in Meade County. What happened there would shape rest of his life.

“I was sexually abused 40 years ago when I was a child and it took me a long time to come to terms with the abuse,” he shared.

Norris alleges that his abuser was Father Joseph Hemmerle, a priest who worked at the camp for about 30 years.

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VATICAN CITY
DFW Catholic

Vatican City, Sep 10, 2014 / 04:28 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- The protection of minors from sexual abuse is a number one priority for Pope Francis, says the new secretary of a papal commission to protect minors, who believes that the global Church can play a leading role against abuse.

“Protecting children, protecting those who are defenseless against those who would harm them, especially because they are in difficult situations, because they are poor, because no one is looking after them – this is a gospel priority,” Monsignor Robert Oliver told CNA Sept. 10.

“The Lord had quite strong words about caring for his children. I think the Holy Father really sees this as an important priority.”

On Sept. 10, it was announced that Msgr. Oliver was appointed secretary of the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors, which is headed by Cardinal Sean O’Malley of Boston.

Prior to the appointment, Msgr. Oliver has spent years helping the U.S. Church implement reforms to prevent and respond to abuse of minors.

“I deeply think this is a very important area for the Church,” the priest said. “We have a responsibility to our children. Everyone around the world knows the pain and suffering that our children have gone through, that our Church has gone through.”

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INDIA
The American Bazaar

By The American Bazaar Staff

WASHINGTON, DC: Roman Catholic priest Rev. Joseph Palanivel Jeyapaul, who has been incarcerated at the Tihar Jail in New Delhi for two years, is likely to be extradited soon by the Indian government to face trial in Minnesota, over allegations of sexual assault of a teenage girl during his time of service there nearly 10 years ago.

It’s now up to the federal government to decide whether Jeyapaul should be sent to the U.S. to stand trial, said Naveen Kumar Matta, a public prosecutor for India’s Ministry of External Affairs, reported the Associated Press. The United States had requested in 2011 that Jeyapaul be extradited.

Jeyapaul had evaded arrest on criminal charges in Minnesota, and returned to India, in 2005, and was appointed as the director of community education at Ooty diocese, but was placed under suspension in 2010 when the charges surfaced, reported the Deccan Chronicle.

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MINNESOTA
Jeff Anderson & Associates

Media Advisory

September 10, 2014

(Duluth, MN) – Tomorrow at 1:00 PM in St. Louis County District Court, the Diocese of Duluth will ask the Court to issue a protective order to keep confidential the files and documents pertaining to clergy accused of sexual misconduct in the Diocese.

The Duluth Diocese released a list of 17 names of priests with credible allegations of child sexual abuse in December 2013 and its request for a protective order demonstrates a step in the wrong direction. Keeping clergy abuse documents and testimony secret puts kids at risk.

*Jeff Anderson and Mike Finnegan, attorneys representing two sexual abuse survivors of Father John Nicholson and Father Robert Klein will be available to answer questions tomorrow afternoon immediately following the hearing.

St. Louis County Courthouse
Judge David Johnson’s Courtroom
1:00PM Hearing
Thursday, September 11, 2014
100 North 5th Ave. W.
Duluth, MN 55802

Contact: Jeff Anderson: Office/651.227.9990 Cell/612.817.8665
Mike Finnegan: Office/651.227.9990 Cell/612.205.5531

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CHICAGO (IL)
WGN

[with video]

BY JULIAN CREWS

The Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests is calling Francis Cardinal George to address concerns about a priest who used to serve in the Back of the Yards neighborhood.

Father Bruce Wellems is a widely admired Claretian missionary priest.

SNAP obtained documents detailing his abrupt resignation from a California mission.

In a written press release, Claretian spokespeople acknowledge the decision pointing to inappropriate conduct with a fellow minor when Bellems himself was a youth.

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OHIO
Sidney Daily News

Greg Sowinski gsowinski@civitasmedia.com

WAPAKONETA — The former director of education at St. Augustine Catholic Church in Minster pleaded guilty Tuesday to two felony theft charges.

Jane Boeke, 54, will face up to three years in prison when she is sentenced on the two counts that each are fourth-degree felonies. A sentencing date has not been set but Judge Frederick Pepple said it likely will be in the next two months.

Boeke agreed to pay $190,000 restitution to the Archdiocese of Cincinnati. The amount only covers the thefts, not any cost of the investigation by the Archdiocese or police agencies. The parish in Minster and the archdiocese agreed to the amount, Auglaize County Prosecutor Ed Pierce said.

Boeke stole the money by using two separate credit cards, a VISA and a Sam’s Club card, to make purchases from 2001 to 2013. She was issued the cards but only was allowed to make purchases for the parish, Pierce said.

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PENNSYLVANIA
Pottstown Mercury

By Kelly Lyons, klyons@21st-centurymedia.com
POSTED: 09/10/14,

MALVERN — When Justice4PAKids co-founder Bob Riley wanted to organize a fundraiser for his new organization with a distinct mission, he wanted to raise money in a unique way. So the motorcycle enthusiast started the event Motorcycle Ride4PAKids.

“Everybody has a golf tournament,” Riley said. “We wanted something new and different.”

Now in its second year, participants will meet for the Ride4PAKids between 9:30 and 11 a.m. on Saturday, Sept. 20, at The Office Bar & Grille in Charlestown. The ride will start at 11 a.m. and finish at about 1 p.m. The 3-year-old nonprofit Justice4PAKids focuses on raising awareness of sexual abuse of children through seminars for adults and body-safety coloring books for children.

Riley said he became more interested in the issue when a grand jury report released in February 2011 alleged that the Archdiocese of Philadelphia allowed priests to continue working after they were accused of pedophilia.

“Frankly as a dedicated Catholic, I said I really don’t want to bring the Catholic Church down, but I really want to do something to remedy the situation,” Riley said. “I have to become more educated about the situation.”

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VATICAN CITY
Latin Post

By Olivia Demarinis (staff@latinpost.com)

With orders from the Vatican, two priests from the United States have been placed in key roles in the Catholic Church’s anti-abuse commission. The appointments of the priests, Cardinal Sean P. O’Malley and Rev. Robert Oliver, came from Pope Francis himself.

O’Malley, a veteran of the Boston archdiocese, was named the president of the new commission, which is formally called the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors and was created in December 2013 following numerous child sexual abuse scandals. Before this announcement, the Vatican had referred to O’Malley’s role only as a member of the commission, but sources at the Crux said he was instrumental in organizing the group’s activities.

Oliver has ties to the Chicago area but worked as an advisor to O’Malley in Boston on abuse-crisis related issues until 2012.Since then he has been doing work in the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. He has now been named the Secretary of the anti-abuse commission.

During a phone interview, Oliver said he was proud of the church’s steps to fighting against abuse.

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DOMINICAN REPUBLIC
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Wednesday, Sept. 10, 2014

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 judge on Monday declined to order a Catholic archbishop to be extradited from the Vatican to the Caribbean to face child sex charges.

We’re deeply disappointed. And we’re worried that the cleric may disappear before prosecutors and police in Italy, Poland and the Dominican Republic can apprehend him.

He’s Archbishop Józef Wesolowski (though he was recently defrocked). In September 2013, he was exposed as credibly accused child molester, but only after Vatican officials had quietly whisked him to Rome.

We don’t understand this ruling, nor the delays by law enforcement officials in three nations to pursue this dangerous cleric. We hope this ruling will be quickly overturned or that secular authorities in other countries will arrest him.

We hope Vatican officials do all they can to help police and prosecutors pursue Wesolowski and we hope that every single person who saw, suspected or suffered his crimes will find the courage to come forward, report to police, and start healing.

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VATICAN CITY
U.S. Catholic

By Josephine McKenna
2014 Religion News Service

VATICAN CITY (RNS) Pope Francis’ decision to appoint two U.S. priests to key positions aimed at tackling the Vatican’s sex abuse crisis drew an angry response from abuse victims.

In the shake-up the Rev. Robert Geisinger, a canon lawyer previously based in Chicago, was named chief prosecutor responsible for abuse cases. He replaces his U.S. colleague, the Rev. Robert Oliver, who was named to the Vatican’s anti-abuse commission, created by Francis last year.

Cardinal Sean O’Malley of Boston, who organized the pope’s first meeting with victims of abuse from England, Ireland and Germany at the Vatican in July, has now been confirmed as president of that commission.

Oliver, a Boston priest and canon lawyer, worked on the explosive abuse crisis in his own archdiocese before being appointed as the Vatican’s promoter of justice last year. He is expected to work with O’Malley as he seeks to add new members to the commission from Asia and Africa.

The appointment of both Geisinger and Oliver was slammed by SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, which claimed both had failed to do enough to stop abuse while they were in the U.S.

Oliver’s appointment to O’Malley’s commission provoked an angry response from abuse victims who said the pope needed to adopt far “bolder measures.”

“The pope has just promoted a priest from Boston with a disappointing track record,” said Barbara Dorris, SNAP’s outreach director, in a statement.

“For a pontiff who shows boldness in other areas, when it comes to abuse, he moves very slowly and timidly. Bolder measures are needed.”

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MINNESOTA
Winona Daily News

The Diocese of Winona’s request to move the civil suit over a former priest accused of abuse has been denied.

The diocese had argued that the lawsuit couldn’t be fairly tried in Ramsey County District Court, and had requested that it be moved. A three-judge state court of appeals panel disagreed in a ruling released Wednesday, concluding that the district court’s earlier dismissal of the change of venue claim was justified.

The case is scheduled to go to trial Nov 3. The plaintiff, a Twin Cities man identified only as John Doe 1, is seeking unspecified financial damages on negligence claims and the disclosure of more documents on a public nuisance claim. He has claimed to have been sexually abused by Thomas Adamson, a former Winona diocese and Archdiocese of St. Paul-Minneapolis priest, nearly 40 years ago.

That public nuisance claim was also disputed by the diocese, which sought to dismiss it. Earlier this month, the Ramsey County judge presiding over the case, John Van de North, declined to dismiss the suit, clearing the way for it to reach trial. It will be the first clerical sexual abuse case nationwide to use the public nuisance theory at trial, attorneys for the plaintiff have said. The public nuisance claim has already led to the unprecedented disclosure of tens of thousands of church documents and the names of dozens of accused priests.

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MINNESOTA
KEYC

By Maytal Levi, News Reporter

The New Ulm Diocese is named in a sexual abuse lawsuit filed today in Brown County.

This isn’t the first time the New Ulm Diocese has been in the media in connection with the states sexual abuse scandal.

Today a lawsuit was filed on behalf of two former altar boys who say they were sexually abused by Father Michael Skoblik at St. Joseph’s Parish in Silver Lake.

Skoblik served in the New Ulm Diocese from 1965 to 1988.

He died in 1989.

This is the 8th claim, Jeff Anderson and associates have filed against the New Ulm Diocese.

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MINNESOTA
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Wednesday, Sept. 10, 2014

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

There’s a simple reason, we believe, why New Ulm’s bishop refuses to disclose the names of all predator priests in his diocese. He’s protecting his predecessor who is now Minnesota’s top Catholic official: Archbishop John Nienstedt of the Twin Cities.

Nienstedt is now under tremendous heat – and rightfully so – for ignoring and concealing clergy sex crimes and cover ups in St. Paul-Minneapolis. For years, he has clearly kept dangerous clerics on the job, despite multiple reports of child sexual crimes, sexual misdeeds, and inappropriate, hurtful and troubling wrongdoing.

(See many stories at Minnesota Public Radio’s website.)

Nienstedt headed the New Ulm diocese from 2001 to 2008. We’re certain that he acted as irresponsibly in New Ulm as he has acted in the Twin Cities. And some of the church officials in New Ulm who committed or concealed child sex crimes might face prosecution (because their crimes were relatively recent). So from the Catholic hierarchy’s point of view, it’s crucial that these secrets remain secret for as long as possible.

We are convinced that New Ulm Bishop John LeVoir is just doing now what his colleagues and predecessors across the globe in the catholic hierarchy have done for centuries – putting the reputation and power of a colleague ahead of the safety of kids and the healing of victims.

We hope that Bishop LeVoir will change course, show courage, and expose those who committed abuse and concealed predators in his diocese – whether they are archbishops or custodians. We aren’t confident that he will, unless forced to do so by a judge or by public pressure.

Roughly 30 US bishops have posted predator’s name on their websites. LeVoir should do this pronto. It’s the quickest and cheapest and easiest way he can safeguard the vulnerable.

Finally, we are glad Winona Bishop John Quinn lost his bid to have a clergy sex abuse and cover up trial moved elsewhere.

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DOMINICAN REPUBLIC
Dominican Today

Santo Domingo.- A judge in the Dominican Republic on Monday refused to issue a warrant to arrest former Vatican envoy Józef Wesolowski, charged with sexually abusing minors.

National District instruction judge Román Berroa ruled that since the country forms part of the Vienna Convention, a diplomat cannot be prosecuted outside the State which he represents.

The judge also notified the decision to National District prosecutor Yeni Berenice Reynoso, who heads the effort to extradite the former bishop, the highest ranking official of the Catholic Church to face such indictment.

In her request, Reynoso said the Vatican’s former representative should face charges in the country of allegedly paying boys to perform sexual acts

In that regard Justice minister Francisco Domínguez has stated that the Vienna Convention precludes Wesolowski’s extradition to the Dominican Republic.

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REPUBLICA DOMINICANA
Listin Diario

[Summary: A judge has refused to issue an international arrest warrant against former Apostolic Nuncio Jozef Wesolowski, who is accused for forcing children to perform sex for pay. Judge Roman Berroa Hiciano said the warrant is unnecessary because the country is a signator of the Vienna Convention which ruled that a diplomat cannot be prosecuted outside of the state he represents. The judge also notified National District Prosecutor Yeni Berenice Reynoses of his decision.]

Ramón Cruz Benzán
Santo Domingo

La orden de captura internacional y arresto en contra del exnuncio apostólico Józef Wesolowski, quien está acusado de obligar a menores a ejercer favores sexuales por paga, fue rechazada por el juez coordinador de los Juzgados de la Instrucción del Distrito Nacional.

El magistrado Román Berroa Hiciano adoptó la decisión por considerar que no procede, porque el país es signatario de la Convención de Viena, la cual descarta que un diplomático pueda ser enjuiciado fuera del Estado que representa.

Asimismo, el juez notificó sobre la decisión a la fiscal del Distrito Nacional, Yeni Berenice Reynoso, quien con su pedimento buscaba allanar el camino para solicitar la extradición del exdecano del cuerpo diplomático acreditado en el país.

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SOUTH AFRICA
IOL

September 10 2014

By Botho Molosankwe

Johannesburg – A fugitive Israeli rabbi wanted for sexual crimes in his country has once again evaded police.

The elderly Rabbi Eliezer Berland fled from the police on Monday night, ramping pavements in a car and knocking over plants as he fled.

Hawks spokesman Paul Ramoloko confirmed on Wednesday morning that their investigators received information that Berland was in Sandringham, Joburg.

On Monday night they waited for him and saw him drive up the road. Ramoloko said Berland was travelling with a group of men and they do not know their affiliation to the rabbi.

“Our team tried to nab him. We had a mini roadblock and as soon as he saw that, he jumped out of the car he was travelling in and into a BMW that was nearby. The BMW climbed on the pavements and drove on them, hitting people’s trees and pot plants as they fled. We could not shoot at him because it is not how we wanted to operate this. We know that we will get him,” he said.

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MINNESOTA
Jeff Anderson & Associates

Court document

News Release

September 10, 2014

Decision in Doe 1 case to be discussed at today’s 1:00PM press conference

(St. Paul, MN) – Today the Minnesota Court of Appeals denied a motion for a writ of mandamus by the Diocese of Winona in the Doe 1 v. Archdiocese of St. Paul & Minneapolis, Diocese of Winona and Thomas Adamson civil lawsuit.

The Diocese was seeking to compel Ramsey County District Court Judge John Van de North to change venue in the Doe 1 case. The Minnesota Court of Appeals determined the District Court did not abuse its discretion in denying the Diocese of Winona’s motion to change venue.

· Today’s Order and additional information can be found on our website at www.andersonadvocates.com.

Contact Jeff Anderson: Office/651.227.9990 Cell/612.817.8665
Contact Mike Finnegan: Office/651.227.9990 Cell/612.205.5531

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LOUISIANA
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Wednesday, September 10, 2014

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 Louisiana newspaper has revealed that a Lafayette area predator priest was quietly sent to Alexandria where he worked for the church.

He is Fr. Joseph Pelletieri, who was a priest and school principal in Crowley, but also worked in Wisconsin, Alexandria, and Baton Rouge. It’s unclear whether he’s still alive or if so, where he may be now.

Secretly and repeatedly moving a credibly accused child molester like this demonstrates the callousness of Catholic officials’ when it comes to children’s safety.

We fear that Fr. Pelletieri may have abused other children in each of the dioceses he was quietly sent to. As far as we can tell there was no warning given to parents, parishioners, or the public about this dangerous predator being sent to work in these dioceses among unsuspecting congregants, colleagues and neighbors.

And we strongly suspect that Alexandria Catholic officials knew about the child sex abuse allegations against Fr. Pettetieri before he arrived there.

Regardless of when Alexandria’s Bishop Ronald Herzog knew about Fr. Pettetieri, within hours of The Lafayette Advocate’s Sunday story about these allegations, the bishop should have told parishioners, police, prosecutors and the public about them. That’s the absolute bare minimum that a caring shepherd would do.

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NORTHERN IRELAND
Irish Times

Gerry Moriarty

Wed, Sep 10, 2014

A woman who was sent to Australia from a Belfast care home when she was a child has told the North’s Historical Institutional Abuse inquiry that she suffered feelings of “abandonment and isolation” when as an adult she became engaged to be married.

The 63-year-old native of Co Tyrone who was giving evidence by video link from Australia to the inquiry in Banbridge, Co Down, today said she was transported to Australia in 1955 when she was aged four.

Prior to that she had been in care at the Nazareth House home run by the Sisters of Nazareth in Belfast. The woman, who asked to maintain her anonymity, was one of approximately 130 children who were sent to Australia as part of a child migration programme between 1922 and 1995.

Some 50 men and women have made statements to the inquiry with 11 of them providing oral evidence from Australia over the past two weeks.

While some witnesses in this module of the inquiry gave evidence of suffering sexual and physical abuse in Australia the Dungannon woman, who is the last to provide oral evidence from Australia, said she had a fortunate experience as a child in the Melbourne area.

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CHICAGO (IL)
Emes Ve-Emunah

Clarity. That is the beauty of the fine mind of Rav Gedalia Dov Schwartz, the Zaken Ha’ir – Chicago’s rabbinic elder. Not only is his mind perfectly clear, he has the character to match. He is fearless in his determination to protect our daughters and see justice done. Smear campaigns by people with agendas other than the justice at hand – do not faze him. He does what is right. He stands up and tells it like it is.

This is what he has done in a letter he wrote and signed (on behalf of the Special Chicago Beis Din) to Aaron Twersky, the attorney for the four seminaries trying to get their name back; reinstate the accreditation so necessary to attract American – tuition paying – students; and restore the approval needed to receive various types of federal funding which requires compliance to its rules regarding sexual abuse. That letter has been made available to the public. Information contained therein sheds new light on this case and will be incorporated in the words below. My thanks to Yerachmiel Lopin for disseminating it on his blog.

As most people who read this blog know by now, Rabbi Schwartz is the Av Beis Din of the RCA and the Rosh Beis Din of the CRC. He is part of the Special Beis Din here in Chicago (CBD) set up for the exclusive purpose of dealing with cases of sexual abuse. There are four prominent and highly respected Rabbonim available to serve on this Beis Din: Rav Schwartz; Agudah Moetzes and Telshe Rosh HaYeshiva, R’ Avrohom Chaim Levin, Agudah of Illinois Dayan and Talmid Muvhak of R’ Moshe Feinsten, Rav Shmuel Fuerst, and Rabbi Zev Cohen, Rav of Congregation Adas Yeshurun and Rosh Kollel of the Choshen Mishpat Kollel that grants its graduates the special Semicha given to Dayanim called Yadin Yadin.

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UNITED STATES
Crux

By John L. Allen Jr.
Associate editor

From the eruption of the sexual abuse scandals in the Catholic Church almost a decade and a half ago, one classic mode of denial in the Vatican and around the Catholic world has been to dismiss the crisis as an “American problem.”

Famously, when a senior Vatican official first faced the press in 2002 with regard to abuse cases, most questions came in English. Colombian Cardinal Dario Castrillon Hoyos testily called that an “x-ray” of the problem – meaning, it was basically an American issue.

Both out loud and in private, some churchmen in Rome and other parts of the world often have said that while abuse of minors by priests is reprehensible, the idea of a “crisis,” and the perceived need for aggressive measures to combat it, has been driven by the sensationalistic media culture and litigious judicial system of the United States and nations most in its sphere of influence.

In a recent Crux interview, Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York confirmed that this prejudice is still alive.

“We find it very demoralizing to hear bishops in other parts of the world, even some leaders in Rome, who still feel this is an Anglo-Saxon problem,” Dolan said, adding that some of his fellow bishops see the abuse issue as restricted to “the United States, England, Ireland, and Australia.”

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UNITED STATES
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Wednesday, Sept. 10

Statement by Barbara Dorris of St. Louis, Outreach Director of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests ( 314 503 0003, SNAPdorris@gmail.com )

A Chicago priest who was promoted today by Pope Francis has some links to the case of a notorious, serial convicted predator priest who has ties to Mother Teresa.

Fr. Robert Geisinger will move to Rome to deal with child sex abuse and cover up cases. We’re anxious to hear from him about his dealings with Fr. Donald McGuire, a once high profile but now-imprisoned Jesuit in Fr. Geisinger’s own province who – despite multiple reports of abuse – was allowed to keep ministering until law enforcement officials finally arrested him.

In 2002, Fr. Geisinger was sent a detailed, three page, single spaced letter from a colleague (Fr. Rick McGurn) about Fr. McGuire:

[BishopAccountability.org]

Notice the phrase: “long list” of Fr. McGuire’s “inappropriate behaviors.”

Not until 2005 were criminal charges brought against Fr. McGuire. We see no evidence that Fr. Geisinger ever helped police or prosecutors investigate Fr. McGuire, or any child molesting cleric. We challenge him to produce such evidence if he has any.

The letter show s that Fr. McGuire is repeatedly warned about his contact with children. But Fr. McGuire does exactly what he wants. More and more abuse reports and complaints against Fr. McGuire surface over time, yet neither Fr. Geisinger nor his colleagues take any effective action whatsoever. (At this time, Fr. Geisinger was in charge of “all matters of canon law” for the Jesuits. In other words, he was a high ranking cleric with the power to make a difference.)

The letter shows that Jesuit officials – including Fr. Geisinger – go on and on worrying about following canonical rules and whether or not Fr. McGuire will cause problems for them. There’s no mention or concern evidently about the kids that he has assaulted or is assaulting kids. It is clear from the letter that Fr. Geisinger knew – or at a least strongly suspected – that Fr. McGuire was a criminal. Yet Fr. Geisinger went along with the plan to keep Fr. McGuire under wraps and away from law enforcement.

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AUSTRALIA
Newcastle Herald

By JOANNE McCARTHY Sept. 10, 2014

A CATHOLIC priest who admitted having regular secret sex with a woman, despite his vow of celibacy, has been stripped of his right to minister as a priest.

Father Tom Knowles had his faculties removed after the Church acknowledged Central Coast woman Jennifer Herrick had ‘‘endured a great deal of emotional and psychological pain and suffering’’ because of the secret relationship.

‘‘This is permanent and he cannot minister publicly as a priest again, either in Melbourne or anywhere else in the Catholic Church,’’ Father Graeme Duro, the head of Father Knowles’s order, the Congregation of the Blessed Sacrament Fathers, said.

The priest’s right to minister in public was withdrawn last year but only confirmed to the Newcastle Herald by the Church this week.

The action was taken by Archbishop of Melbourne Denis Hart after Ms Herrick complained about the devastating impact of the secret relationship on her life.

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UNITED STATES
Catholic Culture

By Dr. Jeff Mirus
Sep 10, 2014

The decision of Pope Francis to appoint an American Jesuit to spearhead the Church’s prosecution of clerical sex abuse cases is very likely also a shot across the bows of the Society of Jesus itself. It is an excellent way to buttress forces of renewal within the Jesuits by utilizing one of their number in what we may describe, with extreme understatement, as an internally sensitive role.

The Society of Jesus is, unfortunately, known for defending homosexuality, including the admission of gay men to the priesthood, despite the Church’s 2005 ban on this practice (see the instruction from the Congregation for Catholic Education, On Priesthood and Those with Homosexual Tendencies). The anecdotal evidence is overwhelming for a lavender mafia in Jesuit seminaries, and a search of our news archives will bring up numerous reports of Jesuit universities working very hard to make their campuses gay-friendly.

The Jesuit magazine America has led the fight against barring seminarians with marked homosexual tendencies from ordination. In 2002, America attempted to forestall any such restrictions by, among other things, making the absurd claim that the sexual abuse crisis was unrelated to homosexuality. Five years after the ban, America published a protracted argument by a Jesuit priest that for a Church which relies heavily on gay priests, it shows “cognitive dissonance” to attempt to keep more such men from being ordained.

This problem is so obvious that every Catholic observer knows that both active homosexuality and the not-so-subtle defense of active homosexuality are significant characteristics of the Society of Jesus in our time.

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

UNITED STATES
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Wednesday, Sept. 10, 2014

Statement by Barbara Dorris of St. Louis, Outreach Director of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests ( 314 503 0003, SNAPdorris@gmail.com )

The Pope has just promoted a priest From Boston with a disappointing track record, ties to Cardinal Bernard Law and a narrow and legalistic view of the abuse and cover up scandal. For a pontiff who shows boldness in other areas, when it comes to abuse, he moves very slowly and timidly.

Here, in 900+ words, are a half dozen specific reasons we oppose the appointment of Fr. Robert Oliver.

In March of 2013 and again in March of this year, we called on the pope to demote Fr. Oliver because he has led Boston church officials in quietly “backsliding” on abuse measures over most of the past decade.

In May, we criticized Fr. Oliver for claiming that “procedures” must be “developed” to deal with bishops who enable or hide clergy sex crimes. That’s patently ridiculous.

Catholic officials quickly bring the hammer down on Catholic writers who write something they consider wrong or Catholic teachers who say something they consider wrong. Like most monarchs, Catholic officials don’t quibble over ‘procedures,’ they just exercise their nearly limitless power.

Often, when Vatican wrongdoing is exposed – like the UN’s Committee Against Torture did on the day Oliver’s claim was publicized – church officials immediately ratchet up their promises to give the impression that they’re taking action. Fr. Oliver’s remarks were another example of this old public relations ploy.

To pretend that now somehow there’s some suddenly uncovered and unspecified “procedure” deficit that prevents popes and bishops from quickly demoting or disciplining the proven wrongdoers (like Cardinal Bernard Law or Bishop Robert Finn or Monsignor William Lynn) or credibly accused wrongdoers (like Archbishop Josef Wesolowski who’s accused of molesting several kids in Poland and the Caribbean or Fr. Carlos Urrutigoity, who is accused of repeated sexual misconduct but was second-in-command of a diocese in Paraguay) is absurd at best or deceitful at worst.

This crisis won’t end as long as Catholic officials keep promoting other Catholic officials who’ve shown little or no real courage in addressing it. Bolder measures are needed.

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

MILWAUKEE (WI)
Fox 6

MILWAUKEE (AP) — No deal has been reached after two days of mediation in the Archdiocese of Milwaukee’s bankruptcy case.

Attorneys for the archdiocese, victims of clergy sexual abuse and others involved in the case met Monday and Tuesday in Minneapolis to try to come up with a settlement.

Archdiocese spokesman Jerry Topczewski said Wednesday no deal was reached but two more days of mediation are scheduled for Sept. 22 and 23.

Topczewski says mediation is confidential and he can’t discuss details but archdiocese officials remain optimistic.

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

UNITED STATES
Waiting for Godot to Leave

Kevin O’Brien

I just wrote about how an allegedly abusive English teacher was using art and literature not at the service of others or of understanding and appreciating God and life, but for selfish and twisted reasons.

Australian Archbishop Mark Coleridge says the same thing about certain priests (my emphasis) …

Archbishop Coleridge reflected on the “Holiness Code” as found in the Book of Leviticus.

“We can imagine not just in terms of geography, but in terms of people. [Out of] all the tribes of the earth, God has chosen one nation: Israel. Within Israel, God has chosen one tribe to exercise the priestly office. Out of one tribe, God has chosen one man, the high priest, who is the only man who can enter the Holy of Holies.”

He said it is “an evermore intense choosing and separating of peoples and a person in the end for the sake of the mediation of the blessings; a call of separation for the sake of service”.

On the other hand, “clericalism involves a separation, but not for the sake of service of others”.
“It’s all one way traffic. It’s about me,” Archbishop Coleridge said. “And I think this touches upon sexuality in eucharistic overtones. If you take the language of the Eucharist, ‘This is my body which is given to you’. That implies a eucharistic vision of sexuality that is utterly contradicted by sexual abuse. Because what [sexual abuse] says, in fact, is ‘this is your body taken for me’. It’s anti-Eucharist.”

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

MINNESOTA
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Wednesday, Sept. 10, 2014

Statement by SNAP leader Frank Meuers of Plymouth ( 952-334-5180, frankameuers@gmail.com )

Ramsey County’s prostoecur doubts he can bring criminal charges against ten Twin Cities predator priests. We believe he should try harder, do more aggressive outreach and keep scouring the statutes vigorously.

Remember: Al Capone was nailed on income tax evasion. And remember: Often, where there’s a will, there’s a way. And also remember: to the overwhelming majority of victims, even a failed prosecution is better than none at all, because it may deter future crimes.

We believe that prosecutors and police chiefs in all the 12 counties covered by the St. Paul-Minneapolis archdiocese should ask every pastor for:

–permission to speak at masses about this scandal and use any such opportunity to beg victims witnesses and whistleblowers to step forward, and

–a page of their parish bulletin to issue the same plea in writing.

Then they should also individually ask every Catholic employee in their jurisdictions (especially clerics), in writing and over the phone, to voluntarily share what they know or suspect about clergy sex crimes and cover ups.

Each church staffer – lay or ordained – should be given a firm deadline. And the police and prosecutors should then publicize, by name, those who refuse to cooperate.

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

UNITED STATES
Waiting for Godot to Leave

Kevin O’Brien

There’s a scene in the novel Catcher in the Rye in which Holden Caulfield is taken in by a teacher who appears to be trying to comfort him and offer him refuge, when in fact this teacher tries to molest him. There are more than a few real life characters like that, men who can only be described (as Caulfield describes them) as phonies.

***

This long New Yorker article on a man named Berman who is alleged to have been a sexual abuser and a kind of cult leader is hard to read. It’s hard to read because I had a mentor who, in the 1970’s, was also a kind of cult leader and who was said to have abused a number of girls over the course of his career, and who, like the English teacher described in the New Yorker article, used his charismatic personality and a penchant for mind games to fascinate and manipulate his fawning followers.

But it’s helpful to read things like this for at least one reason.

Some men are simply frauds. Sometimes it’s good to realize that certain authority figures are not the least bit interested in exercising their authority for the good of others, but for their own sordid and sick interests. This can be true with priests and bishops, and it can be true for English teachers and cult leaders. In the same way that some abusive priests don’t give a fig about God except in so far as He can serve as a cover for their behavior, some dilettantes don’t give a fig about art or literature except in so far as it can make them feel superior to others and control them.

Scott Rosenberg, a 1977 graduate who became a co-founder of Salon.com, took Berman’s class and struggled with the contradiction between Berman’s authoritarian approach and his love of art. In an essay for the class, Rosenberg wrote, “I have read a modest amount – not a great deal but enough to be able to judge works for myself. I enter a class in which the teacher tells me my opinion is worth nothing … the teacher himself seems to be deciding who the ‘great’ men are, what the ‘great’ works are, and all other matters of ‘greatness’.”

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

VATICAN CITY
National Catholic Reporter

Carol Glatz Catholic News Service | Sep. 10, 2014

VATICAN CITY
Pope Francis appointed two U.S. priests to top positions at the Vatican for dealing with the sexual abuse of minors.

The pope named U.S. Fr. Robert Oliver to be the new secretary of the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors, and appointed Jesuit Fr. Robert Geisinger to replace Oliver as the promoter of justice at the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith — the Vatican’s chief prosecutor of sex abuse crimes.

The Vatican made the announcement Wednesday.

Oliver fills a new full-time position of secretary for the pontifical commission, which Pope Francis established in December.

A Vatican source told Catholic News Service there would be another announcement “soon” of more new members to be added to the commission, as it aims to expand the number of representatives from around the world, especially from Africa and Asia.

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

CALIFORNIA
U-T San Diego

By Susan Shroder
SEPT. 9, 2014

SAN DIEGO — A vigil and funeral Mass are scheduled next week for Bishop Cirilo Flores, who died Saturday, and a diocesan administrator was elected Tuesday, the Diocese of San Diego said.

Monsignor Steven Callahan was unanimously elected as administrator by the six members of the College of Consultors, the diocese said in a statement.

Callahan has been vicar general of the diocese since January 2003.

Flores, who was appointed bishop last September, died at Nazareth House in San Diego after a battle with prostate cancer. He was 66.

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

CALIFORNIA
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Wednesday, September 10, 2014

Statement by Joelle Casteix of Newport Beach, CA, Western Regional Director of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests ( 949-322-7434 cell, jcasteix@gmail.com )

A controversial priest has been chosen as “temporary administrator” of the San Diego diocese.

We were dismayed to hear this.

The blogger is Rocco Palmo of Whispers in the Loggia. The cleric is Msgr. Steven Callahan, the long-time vicar general for the diocese, who has a troubling history.

We are sad that San Diego clerics chose an “administrator” with a such a tarnished reputation of complicity in clergy sex abuse and cover up cases.

— In a 2004 deposition, Callahan admitted that he destroyed secret personnel files which contained valuable evidence about child sex abuse and cover-up.

— In 2011, Callahan was vicar general when Fr. Alexis Davila was reinstated as a priest after pleading guilty to sexually assaulting a young woman. Davila was only removed after victims informed the press.

— Callahan was Bishop Robert Brom’s “right-hand man” in 2007 when the diocese sought bankruptcy protection to avoid embarrassing child sex abuse and cover up trials. The behavior of the diocese in the bankruptcy process was so awful that the federal judge in charge of the case called Brom and his attorneys “disingenuous” and “lacking candor.”

The only way to ensure that the status quo of child sex crimes and cover-ups end is to stop promoting wrongdoers. The next diocesan administrator should have been a cleric with no history in the diocese. That way, Catholics could have been assured that the administrator’s loyalty is to safety and child protection, and not to powerful local men and women who commit or cover-up sex abuse.

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

UNITED STATES
These Stone Walls

Editor’s Note: The following is a guest post by William Donohue, Ph.D., President of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, to mark the 20th anniversary of the unjust imprisonment of Father Gordon MacRae.

His troubles began in 1983. Father Gordon MacRae was working at a clinic for drug-addicted youths in New Hampshire when a 14-year-old told his psychotherapist that the priest had kissed him; there was nothing to the story, so nothing came of it. Three years later, when the young man was expelled from a Catholic high school for carrying a weapon, he started telling his counselor how MacRae had fondled him. It turns out that the adolescent was quite busy at the time making accusations: he said two male teachers also molested him. An investigation into all of these cases was made, and they were all dismissed.

Ten years after the first charges against MacRae were tossed, the same man resurfaced with new accusations. The preposterous nature of the charges meant they would go nowhere, but as fate would have it, they would nonetheless play a role in helping to bolster a criminal charge against MacRae one year later.

It wasn’t over for MacRae, not by a long shot. In 1988, a teenager at a hospital that treats drug abusers told the priest about sexual encounters he allegedly had at the hospital and then exposed himself. MacRae, taking no chances, reported this to his superiors. While they believed him, they nonetheless suspended him pending an investigation. But the effect that this incident had on a local detective was not sanguine. In fact, he proved to be a zealot who made it his duty to get all the goods on MacRae, even to the point of making some details up.

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

NORTHERN IRELAND
BBC News

A witness at the Historical Institutional Abuse Inquiry has appealed for help to trace her Irish family’s medical records.

The woman was shipped from Nazareth House in Belfast to Australia when she was four.

Now in her 60s, she said she wanted to see her records because two of her children had died at a young age.

She said the information was “extremely important” as she had other children and grandchildren.

She told the inquiry sitting in Banbridge on Wednesday that she was born to a Catholic mother in Dungannon and said she found out in recent years that her father was “a Protestant landowner”.

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

TEXAS
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Wednesday, September 10, 2014

Statement by Barbara Dorris of St. Louis, Outreach Director of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests ( 314 503 0003, SNAPdorris@gmail.com )

A Catholic cleric who molested in El Paso is back in the news. A Louisiana newspaper reports that he made regular visits recently to a school, but now has reportedly stopped doing so after his trips were made public.

Br. Samuel Martinez was reportedly visiting the Holy Family Community on the campus of John Paul The Great Academy in Lafayette on weekends. He is credibly accused of molesting at least ten children.

Br. Martinez belongs in a remote, secure treatment center run by independent professionals, not church officials. And Catholic officials – in El Paso and in Louisiana – should personally visit every parish where he worked, even briefly. They should stand up at masses and beg anyone who may have information or suspicions about Br. Martinez’ crimes or misdeeds to contact law enforcement immediately.

We urge parents, parishioners, and the public to not let Br. Martinez’s alleged ill health lull them into a false sense of security. It takes just seconds for a predator – even one who may be sick – to stick his hands down a boy’s pants or his tongue in a girl’s mouth. So Br. Martinez is still a dangerous predator.

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

CALIFORNIA
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

SF Catholic church group is sued for cover up
Priest threatened to kill a young boy he molested
And his supervisors guilt-tripped the boy’s mother
They threatened her with “eternal damnation” over “lost souls”
SNAP to priest’s boss: “Tell parishioners where offender is now”
“Put him in treatment center and explain your deceit,” they say
Group seeks help from archbishop in “reaching out” to other victims

WHAT

Holding signs and childhood photos, clergy sex abuse victims will urge Bay Area Catholic officials to

–disclose the whereabouts of an admitted child molesting cleric who was sued last week and was quietly sent at least twice to unsuspecting parishes without warning,
–put the predator priest in a secure treatment facility where he can’t be near kids,
–explain why they allegedly transferred the cleric out of the US, and
–discipline a priest whose still on the job who deceived parishioners and refused to tell them their pastor admitted molesting a boy.

WHERE

Outside of Capuchin Religious Order Provincial headquarters, 1345 Cortez Ave. in Burlingame CA
(A church and school are on the same campus: http://www.olaschoolk8.org/

WHEN
Wednesday, Sept. 10 at 1:00 p.m.

WHO
Three-four men and women who are members of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAPnetwork.org), the nation’s largest and oldest support group for men and women abused in religious and institutional settings

WHY
Last week, a Burlington-based Catholic religious order was sued because it allegedly concealed the child sex crimes of a priest. The priest, Fr. Luis Jaramillo, first molested in Los Angeles, then admitted molesting in Oregon in 1988-89. But his supervisors never told law enforcement and successfully threatened and guilt-tripped the boy’s mother into staying silent.

[Oregonian]

His church supervisors refuse to say where he is now but some believe he is in Mexico or Argentina.

After being accused of molesting two boys in Los Angeles, Fr. Jaramillo was transferred from Los Angeles to eastern Oregon in 1987, the suit says. Then, he abused again. “A Capuchin Franciscan supervisor asked Fr. Jaramillo about the alleged abuse; court documents say Fr. Jaramillo admitted to ‘kissing the boy on the mouth and petting his legs and fondling his genitals,’” according to The Oregonian, After the boy told his mother about the abuse and that Fr. Jaramillo threatened to kill him if he resisted, the mother complained to church officials, the suit alleges.

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

VATICAN CITY
The Tablet (UK)

10 September 2014 13:45 by Liz Dodd

Pope Francis has appointed two US priests to senior roles in the Vatican’s campaign to tackle sexual abuse crimes.

An American Jesuit and canon lawyer, Fr Robert Geisinger, has been named the Vatican’s chief prosecutor for serious violations of canon law like child abuse, assuming the role of promoter of justice at the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF).

His predecessor in the role, Fr Robert Oliver, from Boston, Massachusetts, has been named secretary of the new Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors.

Fr Oliver’s time at the CDF was overshadowed by accusations from survivor groups that he had helped to cover up sexual abuse in the Archdiocese of Boston.

While admitting they had no evidence to substantiate this claim, a spokesman for the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, SNAP, pointed to Fr Oliver’s role as an advisor to Cardinal Bernard Law, who was forced to resign over revelations that he had covered up abuse.

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

VATICAN CITY
Vatican Information Service

Vatican City, 10 September 2014 (VIS) – The Holy Father has appointed: …

– Rev. Fr. Robert J. Geisinger, S.J., (U.S.A.), as procurer general of the Society of Jesus.

– Msgr. Robert W. Oliver of the clergy of the archdiocese of Boston, as secretary of the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors. Msgr. Oliver was formerly promoter of justice of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

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

UNITED STATES
Waiting for Godot to Leave

Kevin O’Brien

Calvary. See it.

It’s got some rough language and some violence, but it’s the most serious attempt to deal with the Sexual Abuse scandal I’ve seen. It’s also about a Good Priest. And it’s about the sacrifice of Christ, played out in the life of a Good Priest. The acting, writing and directing are brilliant. The characters are mesmerizing.

It is a fully Catholic movie, deeply spiritual, but set in a very modern, realistic believable anti-christian setting.

It is the most Christian film you’re bound to see.

* And you’d never see it on EWTN (the Catholic network – even if the foul language were bleeped and the violence edited out).

* The Media Report would hate it and condemn it.

* That Donohue guy would denounce it.

* And Super-Catholic Michael Voris may very well miss the point and rail against it, if he ever sees it.

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

VATICAN CITY
Crux

John L. Allen Jr.
Associate editor
@JohnLAllenJ

Two priests from the United States, one with ties to Chicago and the other a veteran of the Boston archdiocese, have been named to key Vatican roles by Pope Francis in his clean-up effort with regard to the Church’s child sexual abuse scandals.

​Fr. Robert Oliver, who served as a key advisor to Cardinal Sean P. O’Malley of Boston on issues related to the abuse crisis until 2012, has been named to the new position of Secretary to the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors.

​That body was created by Pope Francis in December 2013 to lead the charge for reform on the fight against sexual abuse, and includes O’Malley as a member.

​The appointment effectively means that Oliver will run the council’s day-to-day operations, and will serve as chief of staff for O’Malley and the other members of the commission, which also includes an abuse survivor from Ireland named Marie Collins.

​Oliver had previously served as the Promoter of Justice in the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, a role akin to a District Attorney’s position in the United States with regard to offenses under church law which fall under the congregation’s jurisdiction.

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

MAINE
Bangor Daily News

By Judy Harrison, BDN Staff
Posted Sept. 09, 2014

PORTLAND, Maine — A plaintiff in a slander suit pending in federal court has been taken into custody in Haiti after being accused of sexually abusing children, according to The Associated Press.

Michael Geilenfeld, executive director of St. Joseph Family of Haiti and a former Catholic brother, was detained Friday by police in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, his Maine attorney, Russell Pierce of Portland, confirmed Tuesday.

“He’s been detained without an arrest warrant,” Pierce said. “It’s arbitrary, illegal, and it was done without proof and no due process.”

Geilenfeld’s detention most likely will delay the trial in the defamation case scheduled to begin Oct. 7 in U.S. District Court in Portland.

Hearts With Haiti Inc., based in Raleigh, North Carolina, and Geilenfeld, 62, of Port-au-Prince in February sued Paul Kendrick, 64, of Freeport. The plaintiffs alleged that Kendrick’s false allegations that Geilenfeld has sexually abused children defamed Geilenfeld and the organization, causing fundraising events in the U.S. to be canceled.

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

IRELAND
Irish Examiner

By Ann Cahill
European Correspondent

The Government has been urged to broaden the investigation into how unmarried mothers and their children were treated to include all the institutions from which up to 100,000 children were adopted.

A large group of Irish women, some of them mothers, others who had been child victims of the system, spoke of their horrific experiences during a hearing in the European Parliament organised by Sinn Féin.

They fear the terms of reference, due to be announced by the Government this month, will concentrate on around nine institutions identified as mother-and-baby homes.

But Dr Sean Lucey, a healthcare and welfare historian in Queens University Belfast, warned that this would not be enough to fully address the issue.

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

UNITED STATES
National Catholic Reporter

Thomas Reese | Sep. 9, 2014 NCR Today

The list of those attending the Synod of Bishops on the Family is a disappointment to those hoping for reform of the curia and for those who hope that the laity will be heard at the synod.

The appointment of 25 curial officials to the Synod on the Family is a sign that Pope Francis still does not understand what real reform of the Roman Curia requires. It makes me fear that when all is said and done, he may close or merge some offices, rearrange some responsibilities, but not really shake things up.

According to current law, moto proprio Apostolica Sollicitudo, an extraordinary synod is made up of major episcopal leaders of the Eastern Catholic churches, presidents of episcopal conferences, and three religious chosen by the Union of Superiors General. It also states, “The cardinals who head offices of the Roman Curia will also attend.” The pope may also appoint additional bishops and clerical and lay observers.

Having curial officials as members of a synod fails to recognize that they should be staff not policymakers. They could attend the synod as staff but should not be voting members. For the most part, they should be observers and not speakers. They have all the other weeks of the year to advise the pope. This is the time for bishops from outside Rome to make their views known.

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

VATICAN CITY
Catholic Culture

Catholic World News – September 10, 2014

Pope Francis has appointed an American Jesuit as the Vatican’s top prosecutor in sex-abuse cases.

Father Robert Geisinger, a canon lawyer who serves as the procurator general of the Society of Jesus, is assuming the position of promoter of justice at the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

Father Geisinger succeeds Father Robert Oliver, a Boston archdiocesan priest who was appointed to the position in late 2012. Pope Francis has named Father Oliver the secretary of the recently established Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors.

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

VATICAN CITY
Omaha.com

Associated Press

VATICAN CITY (AP) — Pope Francis has named a fellow Jesuit to be the Vatican’s new sex crimes prosecutor after deciding to move the current one to be the No. 2 on his new sex abuse commission.

The Rev. Robert Geisinger, an American, is currently the top canon lawyer at the Jesuit order’s headquarters in Rome.

He replaces Monsignor Robert Oliver as the “promoter of justice” at the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, which processes all sex abuse cases.

The Vatican said Wednesday that Oliver would be the No. 2 in Francis’ commission to protect children and promote the best practices to combat abuse in the church. The commission, which has been slow to get off the ground, is headed by Oliver’s old boss, the archbishop of Boston, Cardinal Sean O’Malley.

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

VATICAN CITY
Vatican Radio

(Vatican Radio) Pope Francis has appointed Fr. Robert J. Geisinger SJ to the post of Promoter of Justice for the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF). He takes over from Fr. Robert W. Oliver, who has held the position since Jan. 3, 2013.

Fr. Geisinger has served as the General Procurator for the Society of Jesus and is a member of the Chicago Province. Fr. Oliver, of the Archdiocese of Boston, has been appointed Secretary to the Vatican Commission for the Safeguarding of Minors.

The Promoter of Justice is often referred to as the CDF’s ‘chief prosecutor’ and is charged with investigating canon-law offenses that are regarded as being the most serious, including crimes against the sanctity of the Eucharist, violations of the seal of confession and allegations of the abuse of minors by clergy.

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UNITED STATES/ISRAEL
Frum Follies

Breaking- No Accreditation for Seminaries until Other Staff Testify, Some Staff are Fired, and Meisels Surrenders Control

The Chicago Special Beis Din (CBD rabbinical court) notified the Israeli Beis Din (IBD, this past Thursday (9/4/14), of their conditions for recommending the restoration of accreditation by Touro and HTC Colleges to the seminaries controlled by Meisels. The letter was signed by Rabbi Gedalia Dov Schwartz (RGDS), Av Beis Din (head of the rabbinical court) on behalf of the whole CBD and addressed to the IBD’s attorney, Aaron Twersky (AT). The full text is below the article complete with Exhibit A, an article by Rabbi Menachem Mendel Shafran, Av Beis Din of the IBD.

Conditions for Accreditation Recommendation

(Direct quotes unless labelled comment)

(Bolding was added by blogger, Yerachmiel Lopin)

Remedial measures … are necessary in our view to ensure a safe environment for students…

The Beis Din would like to hear additional testimony from certain staff members before finally determining the appropriate remedial measures.

Comment: A number of members of the seminary refused to testify to the CBD. I am guessing these are staff accused of enabling abuse. This demand is an obvious rejection of the IBD/3IRs claim that allegations of enabling were investigated and all existing staff were deemed to have a chezkas kashrus (presumption of being trustworthy). The CBD insists a proper investigation still needs to conducted with and about staff.

That determination can and will be made promptly following the completion of that testimony, and the Beis Din will withdraw its prior statements [here and here] as soon as those remedial measures [below] are satisfactorily implemented…

Comment: The carrot is rapid reinstatement of accreditation. The CBD makes a case that US accrediting colleges would otherwise be at risk of violating U. S.“Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972” because, as defined by that act there was “sexual violence” and some other employees were “aware of both specific Instances of misconduct and, more generally, gross violations of the norms of behavior in seminaries, and (ii) enabled this behavior by failing to take action to stop it”

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UNITED KINGDOM
The Guardian

Simon Danczuk
The Guardian, Tuesday 9 September 2014

Just when it looked as though the inquiry into child sex abuse could finally get under way, it once again has to face whitewash accusations. After the absurd appointment of Lady Butler-Sloss, which ensured the inquiry got off to a farcical start, Theresa May has made the equally dubious appointment of a replacement chair in Fiona Woolf. This time it emerges the chair has close links with Lord Brittan. Yes, Leon Brittan, the former home secretary who has been accused of covering up a massive child abuse scandal.

May’s inquiry was supposed to reflect the change in attitudes to these crimes, showing a willingness to bring perpetrators to justice and face failings that have destroyed lives. Above all, it was about telling the story of people who have been ignored for far too long.

Until now I’ve not questioned the home secretary’s judgment on the inquiry. I was pleased she resisted calls from within her party against the need for a child abuse inquiry. And I accepted that perhaps a genuine mistake was made in the appointment of Butler-Sloss. But I’m beginning to wonder if she doesn’t want this inquiry to ever really see the light of day. After all, even the most basic of checks would have revealed glaring problems with Woolf that were always going to cause difficulties and ensure victims had no confidence in the process.

I spoke to the home secretary last week about the appointment, and she politely went through the people she wanted to lead what will be a victim-oriented inquiry. I was a little unsure of the chair, given her obvious lack of knowledge about the matters she would be investigating, but I accepted there was a robust panel in place to guide her.

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

CALIFORNIA/ILLINOIS
The Worthy Adversary

Posted by Joelle Casteix on September 9, 2014

This is a long story of anonymous emails, research, and vigilance. And it’s all coming to a head tomorrow.

Victims expose secret sex abuse and cover-up letters

Chicago youth activist and LA priest accused of abuse

Official demanded all emails about allegations destroyed

Church officials “quietly removed” cleric from LA parish

He’s now working with youngsters in Chicago

Where is the often-promised church “transparency?” group asks

WHAT:
At news conferences in Chicago and Los Angeles, victims of child sex abuse will expose for the first time previously secret letters that show church officials are currently covering up for a high-ranking priest and Chicago youth activist. The letters show that:

– the priest has a credible accusation of child sexual abuse against him,
– a church official told priests to “destroy” incriminating emails, and
– Chicago archdiocesan staff wanted the allegation kept secret

Victims will also

– demand complete transparency from Chicago and LA church officials
– urge both archbishops to reach out to parishes where the priest worked, and
– offer support to parishioners who have been “kept in the dark.”

WHERE AND WHEN:

CHICAGO: At 1:30 PM outside of the Chicago Archdiocese – 835 N. Rush St (corner of Pearson)
LOS ANGELES: At 11:00 AM Outside of San Gabriel Mission Parish- 428 S. Mission Drive (at Ramona) San Gabriel

WHO:
Three or four adults who were abused as kids by clergy and belong to a support group called SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (including a Chicago woman who is the SNAP president and a California woman who is the SNAP volunteer Western Regional Director).

WHY:
A Chicago church official recently ordered the destruction of incriminating emails about an LA priest who was recently sent back to Chicago where he previously worked – and now works – as a youth activist.

The secret letters about Claretian priest Fr. Bruce Wellems were written in May by his supervisor, Claretian provincial Fr. Rosendo Urrabazo, who has a history of quietly moving credibly accused predator priests.

The letters, which were written while Wellems was pastor at San Gabriel Mission in the Los Angeles archdiocese, were obtained by SNAP.

The first letter says that Wellems engaged in “inappropriate behavior with a younger child when he was a teen.” The allegations were allegedly “rediscovered” in a file review. A second letter says that the Chicago Archdiocese was “reconsidering” any public announcement about the allegations and that priests should destroy all copies of both letters.

Wellems was quietly sent back to Chicago from Los Angeles in May or June where he is now a “missionary” working with inner-city youth. Before working in LA, he was the executive director of Boys Town Chicago, Inc, a short-term residential assessment center in the Back of the Yard.

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

MILWAUKEE (WI)
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

By Annysa Johnson of the Journal Sentinel Sept. 9, 2014

The Archdiocese of Milwaukee and its bankruptcy creditors have failed to reach a settlement after two days of negotiations, but the parties have agreed to continue settlement talks in two weeks.

The parties are scheduled to return to the negotiating table for two more days of talks Sept. 22 and 23, said Michael Finnegan, whose St. Paul, Minn., law firm represents most of the 575 men and women who have filed sex abuse claims in the bankruptcy.

He declined to comment on the round of talks that concluded Tuesday in Minnesota, or to speculate about prospects for a settlement.

Jerry Topczewski, chief of staff for Archbishop Jerome Listecki, who was in Minnesota for the meetings, could not be reached for comment.

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

UNITED STATES
Waiting for Godot to Leave

Kevin O’Brien

The Media Report comments on my post We Must Do what our Bishops will Not …

I cannot help but notice that folks like Kevin and SNAP keep on creating these new, unheard-of-before “standards” for how the Church is supposed to behave.

Since when are organizations under a moral obligation to notify victims upon the death of a perpetrator?

*When* has this *ever* happened??

Ever?

It seems Kevin and the bigots at SNAP want to bludgeon the Church for failing to uphold a standard that has never even existed before.

I’ll be willing to grant The Media Report’s point. I’ll be willing to say that bishops should not be held to the pastoral standard of reaching out to victims when the man who abused their son repeatedly over several years and drove him to suicide dies. Yes, comforting the afflicted is asking a bit too much of bishops. They have more important things to do, clearly. And, if you can believe the commenter at Rod Dreher’s article, most bishops showed “indifference or contempt” when the victim’s suicide letter was read aloud to them. So clearly they’re busy men preoccupied with more important things than common human decency.

I’ll grant all of that.

* But when they know one of their priests is taking pornographic pictures of children, including infants, they should tell parishioners. They should not make sure the evidence gets destroyed. They should not spend $1.4 million of diocesan money to defend themselves from two misdemeanors. They should not allow their brother bishops and that guy Donohue to lie about what they’ve done, especially when the evidence about their enabling of sex abuse exists in a report they themselves have commissioned.

* They should not blame the mother of a boy who was molested by a priest who parked his trailer in the parish parking lot and lured boys inside it. They should not insist that they are upholding the Dallas Charter when they’re not. They should not make covering their asses their primary goal.

* They should not tacitly identify victims by issuing press releases questioning their motivation for accusing their favorite priest of abuse. They should not settle civil cases out of court when abundant evidence such as texts and emails would come to light if the case went to trial. They should not answer dishonestly in a deposition and then spin their dishonest answer by creating a false context that the transcript of the deposition does not support.

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

CALIFORNIA
San Jose Mercury News

By Malaika Fraley
Oakland Tribune
POSTED: 09/09/2014

HAYWARD — A former staff member at a Hayward private school was order to trial Tuesday on 10 felony sex crime charges for allegedly sexually abusing a student over a two-year period.

Oakland resident Mia Cummings, who turns 30 Thursday, had been an after-school care assistant at All Saints Catholic School since 2005 when she was arrested late last year and jailed in lieu of $800,000 bail.

Alameda County deputy district attorney Samantha Kim said that Cummings first began being inappropriate with the male victim through Facebook contact.

Cummings is accused of sexually abusing the child beginning in December 2011 when he was 12 through 2013. Police began investigating her based on a report from another staff member.

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

UNITED STATES
The Valley Catholic

By John Mulderig
NEW YORK (CNS) — Set in rural Ireland, the bleak but powerful serio-comedy “Calvary” (Fox Searchlight) kicks off with a startling premise. In the confessional, a grown victim of childhood sex abuse by a priest tells Father James Lavelle (Brendan Gleeson), the dedicated pastor of a County Sligo parish, that in a week’s time he intends to avenge himself by killing the innocent clergyman.

With the perpetrator of the crimes against him dead, and despairing of being healed by therapy, the victim reasons that to take the life of a cleric would draw people’s attention.

As writer-director John Michael McDonagh chronicles the seven days that follow Father James’ life-threatening encounter, we learn that this thoroughly decent but otherwise ordinary man of the cloth is a widower and father ordained after his wife’s death.

He deals with his emotionally fragile daughter (Kelly Reilly) and with the variety of errant or merely eccentric souls who make up his small flock (including Chris O’Dowd, Orla O’Rourke, Dylan Moran, Aiden Gillen and M. Emmet Walsh), all the while wavering about how to respond to the threat on his life.

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

UNITED STATES
Cornell Daily Sun

By SEAN DOOLITTLE

“Do not despair, one of the thieves was saved. Do not presume; one of the thieves was damned.”

Those familiar with the musings of St. Augustine or, much more likely, the works of Samuel Beckett, will no doubt recognize the above quote which introduces Calvary. The quote concerns itself with the two thieves crucified atop Calvary (or Golgotha, what have you) alongside Jesus, one penitent and one impenitent. To St. Augustine, our fates are almost entirely left up to chance, and whether or not we are saved or damned is out of our control; embracing destiny is the only option.

Beckett cited the quote as a major influence in writing the enigmatic Waiting for Godot, the play that kickstarted the “Theatre of the Absurd” movement and put the Irish playwright on the map. In the play, Vladimir and Estragon find themselves hopelessly meandering, searching without reason, for Godot, for purpose, for God, for meaning. Caught in a cycle, the characters never achieve anything; things just happen.

Thus is the ongoing theme of Calvary, John Michael McDonagh’s second directorial outing following 2011’s The Guard. McDonagh, much like his brother Martin McDonagh (writer and director of some of the best black comedies of the past decade ever, including In Bruges, Seven Psychopaths and my personal favorite, The Pillowman) is no stranger to the absurd and the tasteless. A clear lineage can be traced between the works of the McDonagh brothers and their pioneering countryman, Beckett. While Beckett and both McDonagh’s past work have more or less equally balanced the humor with the darkness, Calvary is often much more gallows than gallows humor. But that isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

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

ARIZONA
The Arizona Republic

[with video]

Police have accused a Phoenix man of taking advantage of his position as a minister to sexually abuse at least two women and two girls in his congregation.

Jorge Vasquez, 47, was arrested Thursday and is being held in a Maricopa County jail on suspicion of six counts of child molestation, two counts of sexual conduct with a minor, four counts of sexual abuse, two counts of sexual assault and four counts of kidnapping, among other allegations.

Detectives from the Family Investigations Bureau of the Phoenix Police Department first learned about the allegations earlier this month, according to a police statement issued Friday.

Investigators say they developed probable cause to believe Vasquez engaged in sexual contact with females ages 12 to 33 against their will during counseling sessions or on other occasions during his 7-year tenure as pastor at La Roca, or the Rock Church, near 21st Avenue and Buckeye Road.

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

UNITED STATES
The New York Times

Ross Douthat

My Sunday column dealt with the extremely grim subject of the recent revelations about rape and official indifference in the English city of Rotherham, where Pakistani gangs “groomed” and sexually assaulted hundred and hundreds of (mostly white) girls and young women while social workers and cops seemed to look the other way. My piece tried to contextualize the grievous failure of the English authorities by linking the disaster to other high-profile cases of sexual abuse — in Roman Catholicism, of course, but also in New York’s private schools, at Joe Paterno’s Penn State, in Hollywood, elsewhere — and after the column appeared I noticed a few readers and Twitterers suggesting that as a Catholic I have an ulterior motive in generalizing about sex abuse, because generalizations are a good way to evade or minimize the particular sins of my own church.

I don’t think that’s a particularly fair reading of what I actually wrote, and I don’t think a browse of my past writings suggests that I have any interest in evading the issue of the church’s scandal. But there’s a grain of truth here, in the sense that I doubt I would have as strong an interest in these kind of stories, or have accumulated as much knowledge (perhaps more than is healthy, I sometimes think) about the ways and means of sexual abuse, if I weren’t a Catholic journalist with a vested interest in understanding exactly what happened in my own church. And to self-scrutinize a little bit, when you’ve spent a long time in the darkest basements of a family you still proudly belong to, an institution whose fundamental claims you still accept, there probably is a horrible, “it’s not just us” reassurance that comes with researching different-but-similar horrors in other contexts, recognizing commonalities and patterns and the universality of certain kinds of sins.

So readers should, by all means, keep that background and those possibilities in mind when I (or other Catholics, for that matter) write on patterns of sex abuse and rape in society writ large. But at the same time, they should also recognize that it’s possible to come up out of those dark basements with some hard-earned wisdom, wisdom that might be particularly worth sharing with those precincts of the culture — liberal, secular, tolerant, cosmopolitan — that pride themselves on being least like the ancient, hierarchical, dogmatic Catholic Church. Because it was very easy, I think, for people in those precincts who paid a kind of cursory attention to the Catholic scandals to come away with the assumption that there wasn’t all that much there that was applicable to their own contexts and situations — that Catholicism just had a celibacy-plus-hierarchy problem, which created warped people and warped incentives that wouldn’t have existed in a more egalitarian and less repressed environment.

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

MINNESOTA
The Republic

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
September 10, 2014

ST. PAUL, Minnesota — A county attorney in Minnesota says some allegations of priest abuse may be too old to prosecute.

Ramsey County Attorney John Choi says the statute of limitations in 10 cases of sexual abuse of minors by Catholic priests will be a barrier to prosecution, unless a loophole can be found.

St. Paul police have been investigating claims of clergy abuse involving the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis. A series of lawsuits have been filed against the archdiocese because of a change in state law which allows the litigation for claims dating back decades.

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

WASHINGTON
Care2

by Robin Marty
September 9, 2014

Mega church pastor Mark Driscoll has made headlines this week in the wake of an announcement that a number of his churches will be closing down. Driscoll has been well-known for his incendiary comments about Christianity, patriarchy, homosexuality and Biblical morality, but the most recent revelation — that he once referred to women as “penis homes” — has left a number of people wondering how a person like Driscoll could have had enough followers to fill one church, much less a series of them.

Sadly, his metaphor (“Knowing that His penis would need a home, God created a woman to be your wife and when you marry her and look down you will notice that your wife is shaped differently than you and makes a very nice home.”), was penned in 2001. Here are four more recent and just as problematic quotes from Pastor Driscoll.

1) “‘Serve‘ your husband.“ How do you show your love and obedience to God? According to Driscoll, oral sex on your husband does the trick. “I said, ‘You need to go home and tell your husband that you’ve met Jesus and you’ve been studying the Bible, and that you’re convicted of a terrible sin in your life. And then you need to drop his trousers, and you need to serve your husband. And when he asks why, say, “Because I’m a repentant woman. God has changed my heart and I’m supposed to be a biblical wife. She says, ‘Really?’ I said, ‘Yeah. First Peter 3 says if your husband is an unbeliever to serve him with deeds of kindness.’” Of course, there’s no mention of a husband serving his wife with anything in return.

2) “I would not have married her.“ Driscoll is a happily married man. Possibly. But in his own book he outs his own wife’s “sin” of being a victim of sexual abuse, blaming her for hiding her secret and allowing them to have really bad sex because of it. “My previously free and fun girlfriend was suddenly my frigid and fearful wife. She did not undress in front of me, required the lights to be off on the rare occasions we were intimate, checked out during sex, and experienced a lot of physical discomfort because she was tense… One night, as we approached the birth of our first child, Ashley, and the launch of our church, I had a dream in which I saw some things that shook me to my core. I saw in painful detail Grace sinning sexually during a senior trip she took after high school when we had just started dating. It was so clear it was like watching a film — something I cannot really explain but the kind of revelation I sometimes receive. I awoke, threw up, and spent the rest of the night sitting on our couch, praying, hoping it was untrue, and waiting for her to wake up so I could ask her. I asked her if it was true, fearing the answer. Yes, she confessed, it was. Grace started weeping and trying to apologize for lying to me, but I honestly don’t remember the details of the conversation, as I was shell-shocked. Had I known about this sin, I would not have married her.”

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

NEW ZEALAND
NZ Catholic

by ROWENA OREJANA

AUCKLAND — Clericalism is at the heart of the sexual abuse issue that has plagued the Catholic Church in Australia.

Brisbane Archbishop Mark Coleridge told more than 100 priests of Auckland diocese that there is a “whirlpool effect” in the Australian Catholic Church, and the two powerful cross-currents at work are: the Royal Commission, and Pope Francis’s apostolic exhortation,Evangelii Gaudium.

“A strange point of convergence [between the two cross-currents] is … what is often called clericalism. [Clericalism] is somehow central to the cultural difficulties, or the cultural
phenomena that enabled abuse to happen,” he said. “Somehow, we thought the law doesn’t apply to us.”

In the priests’ reflection of what clericalism is, Fr Anthony Malone provided a definition that his group, which included Auckland Bishop Patrick Dunn, came up with.

“We said it is focused on status, the misuse of power, and it’s allowing people to make others elite and allowing those people to see themselves as elite. They are aloof and non-available, and the opposite of that is total service,” explained Fr Malone.

Archbishop Coleridge agreed. “The power is certainly entrusted to the ordained. But how do you use the power: to create or to destroy? That’s when power is dangerous, and religious
power can be particularly dangerous. That is one of the things that emerges very clearly in these cases of sexual abuse,” he said.

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

IRELAND
International Business Times

By Bindu Jacob | September 10, 2014

Cardinal Seán Brady resigned from his position as the leader of the Catholic Church in Ireland, and the Vatican accepted his resignation.

Cardinal Seán Brady resigned from the position as leader of the Catholic Church in Ireland, and the Vatican accepted his resignation. Cardinal Seán Brady resigned on an account of child sex abuse scandals by clerical and his attempt to hide the case

Cardinal Seán Brady’s term was beset with clerical child sex abuse scandals — and he confessed that he helped cover up one case.

In 1975, when Brady was a young priest, he swore two teenage sex abuse victims to secrecy during an internal church meeting. The two boys were one of the countless victims of the infamous paedophile priest, Fr. Brendan Smyth.

Cardinal Brady, however, resigned on age grounds — and not for his sex abuse cover-up. The canon law states that a bishop must resign from service as soon as he turns 75 years old, and the Pope decides whether to accept it. The Cardinal turned 75 last Aug. 16 and his resignation was approved by Pope Francis just within a month, which was deemed unusually fast.

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

MINNESOTA
Star Tribune

Article by: CHAO XIONG , Star Tribune Updated: September 10, 2014

Criminal charges against priests in 10 cases involving the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis are not likely.

Criminal charges are not likely to be filed in 10 cases of alleged sexual abuse of minors by Catholic priests because the incidents are so old, Ramsey County Attorney John Choi said.

The statute of limitations in each case “is going to be a barrier,” he said, unless loopholes can be found to circumvent time constraints. “But,” Choi added, “I’m pessimistic about that.”

Choi’s comments follow nearly a year of investigation by St. Paul police into cases of alleged clergy abuse involving the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis. The criminal investigations in Ramsey County followed a series of lawsuits filed against the church since a 2013 state law allowed the filing of suits for claims dating back decades.

The cases have gripped the state and church while taxing local law-enforcement resources.

Choi said that he expects to announce official charging decisions in about a month regarding the 10 cases, one involving a deceased suspect.

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

UNITED STATES
Christian Catholicism

Jerry Slevin

Pope Francis’ Synod in three weeks, Wall Street’s pre-US election push with Vatican help, the National Catholic Reporter (NCR) censorship strategy, the disappointing start for the Boston Globe’s Crux website for Catholics, the “new rolling of the Nuns on the Bus” and efforts to protect children from priest rapists — these are all seemingly about to collide!

The apparent conservative takeover of NCR continues. Its “lifting” of David Gibson’s Religion News Service (RNS) report, about Sr. Simone Campbell (of the Nuns on the Bus) and “dark money”, has been “planted”, apparently, where it is inaccessible to NCR blogger comments. It inexplicably has been placed in NCR’s conservative “Hilton Foundation funded Global Sisters Happy Talk private enclosure” on NCR’s website. Other RNS “lifted” stories are not usually so restricted by NCR. Why is this being sealed off from comments?

NCR’s “spin tricks” continue to proliferate, it seems, no? For more background, please see my “What Is Really Up At the National Catholic Reporter?” here

[Christian Catholicism]

Of course, “dark money” manipulation apparently may include some of NCR’s donors, not just the Koch Brothers (who donated $1 million recently to the US bishops’ Catholic University of America), no?

Who do you suppose are behind some of NCR’s key donors and advertisers, such as FAIDICA’s Hilton Foundation and the National Leadership Roundtable on Church Management? Hardly Mother Teresa types, to be sure!

Please see, for example:

[FADICA – Foundations and Donors Interested in Catholic Activities]

and

[The National Leadership Roundtable on Church Management]

I now have to wonder who suggested to billionaire financier, John Henry, to set up the Boston Globe’s new website, Crux, and to call and hire for Crux John Allen, NCR’s former chief “papal spinner”, now replaced at NCR by Tom Reese, a pliable and obedient Jesuit who is still swooning over a Jesuit Pope, even one who reportedly was quite disliked by many Argentinian Jesuits.

John Henry obviously has many Wall Street contacts, likely including some associated with key donors and advertisers at NCR. Disappointingly, Crux’s early efforts seem to me mostly to indicate just another papal spin outlet. This is what I had expected it would be, especially given Allen’s extensive history of”softball” papal promotions at NCR. A reporter like Allen apparently can get more interviews “pitching softballs” and accepting uncritically papal propaganda, than by being an objective and critical thinker. Allen may not understand that there is a difference between journalism and cheer leading.

I hope the Boston Globe newsroom has, at least, put some drapes over its earlier Pulitzer Prize for its game changing stories a decade ago about Cardinal Law and the Catholic hierarchy’s broader priest child abuse cover-ups. Wow, does the Vatican papal media machine recover quickly, or not?

Of course, Pope Francis had earlier worked closely with Cardinal Law and Carl Anderson in Spain, well after the Boston scandal disclosures, on a Curial Commission about “family matters”.

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

MINNESOTA
Jeff Anderson & Associates

Media Advisory

September 9, 2014

St. Paul Press Conference Wednesday
Survivors, advocates pursue transparency and disclosure

What: At a news conference on Wednesday in St. Paul, attorneys Jeff Anderson and Mike Finnegan will:

· Announce the filing of a sexual abuse lawsuit in Brown County on behalf of two former altar boys, Doe 37 and Doe 38, who were sexually abused by Father Michael Skoblik at St. Joseph’s parish in Silver Lake, Minnesota. The lawsuit includes a claim of public nuisance naming the Diocese of New Ulm as the defendant.

· Demand Bishop John M. LeVoir release the names of 12 priests who have been accused of child sexual abuse in the Diocese of New Ulm. To-date, New Ulm is the only diocese in Minnesota who refuses to release the names of credibly accused priests.

WHEN: Wednesday, September 10, 2014 at 1:00 PM CDT

WHERE: Office of Jeff Anderson & Associates
366 Jackson St. Suite 100
St. Paul, MN 55101

Notes: Copies of the complaint will be available at www.andersonadvocates.com.

Contact: Jeff Anderson: Office/651.227.9990 Cell/612.817.8665
Contact: Mike Finnegan: Office/651.227.9990 Cell/612.205.5531

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MICHIGAN
Battle Creek Enquirer

Trace Christenson September 9, 2014

A former Grand Rapids Christian radio host pleaded guilty Tuesday to raping an 11-year-old boy in Battle Creek.

John Richard Balyo, 35, pleaded guilty to first-degree criminal sexual conduct in the May 17 assault in a Beckley Road motel room.

He faces a minimum of 25 years in prison and could be sentenced to a maximum of life.

Balyo also faces a minimum of 15 years in prison after pleading guilty in July in U.S. District Court to sexual exploitation of a child and possession of child pornography. He will be sentenced there Nov. 6 and in Calhoun County on Nov. 10.

The sentences will be served concurrently.

Balyo, dressed in an orange Calhoun County jail uniform, appeared with his attorney, David Dodge, before Circuit Judge Conrad Sindt.

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MICHIGAN
MLive

By John Tunison | jtunison@mlive.com
on September 09, 2014

CALHOUN COUNTY, MI — John Balyo, the former Christian radio host accused of molesting young boys in at least two counties, has pleaded guilty to a felony in Calhoun County Circuit Court.

Balyo already is awaiting sentencing in U.S. District Court in Grand Rapids after admitting he photographed sex acts with a 12-year-old boy at a Kalamazoo County hotel.

Balyo, 34, was a former morning show host for WCSG in Grand Rapids.

He pleaded guilty to first-degree criminal sexual conduct Tuesday, Sept. 9, in Calhoun County District Court and will be sentenced Nov. 10.

A charge of second-degree criminal sexual conduct will be dismissed at sentencing, a Calhoun County Circuit Court clerk said.

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

NEW YORK
Survivors Network of Those Abused by priests

For immediate release: Tuesday, Sept. 9, 2014

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

Thirty four abuse victims from Yeshiva University are asking the Second Circuit Court of Appeals to re-examine a recent ruling against them. We desperately hope the court listens.

As adults, we can either make it harder or easier for victims of rape and child abuse to report crimes. The three judge panel that sided with Yeshiva officials over these victims is making it harder to report crimes. That, in turn, leads to more adults and kids being sexually assaulted.

If more predators are to be caught, we must relax or repeal archaic laws that protect the guilty and endanger the innocent.

We commend these brave victims for persisting in their struggle for justice. It’s clear that Yeshiva officials hid and enabled heinous crimes against students. This will become even clearer if New York’s justice system will give these wounded but courageous victims their ‘day in court.’

We beg the Second Circuit judges to let these pained men have this opportunity

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AUSTRALIA/NORTHERN IRELAND
The Guardian

Henry McDonald, Ireland correspondent
theguardian.com, Tuesday 9 September 2014

Children abused in Northern Ireland’s children’s homes and orphanages who were shipped to Australia were painted black in order to entertain passengers on their voyages, a victim told an inquiry on Tuesday.

A former child migrant who was transported from a care home in Derry to western Australia revealed at the historical institutional abuse inquiry that “our faces were painted black to make us look like Aborigines” as part of on board “entertainment” for paying passengers.

The man is now in his 70s and asked for anonymity when he gave evidence to the inquiry at Banbridge courthouse in County Down. He had to wipe away tears as he described the humiliation on board the ship and later the abuse he suffered in an Australian care home. After being abused in the Termonbacca care home run by the Catholic church in Derry he was sent to Australia in 1953.

Describing the impact of the abuse both in the Derry home and later in Australia, he said: “I had no idea how to parent my children, or even how to cuddle and love them. I really don’t know what love is.”

Another witness to the long-running tribunal into decades of abuse in the region’s care homes and orphanages told the courthouse that the abuse he had endured in the Bindoon home in Australia was even worse than what he had suffered in Termonbacca. The ex-Australian Air Force recruit said: “After Bindoon, Termonbacca turned out to be a holiday camp.”

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NORTHERN IRELAND
Derry Journal

A man once housed at a Catholic Church run home in Derry has told the inquiry into institutional abuse in Northern Ireland that he and other young boys who were shipped to Australia had their faces painted black in order to make them look like Aborigines.

Now in his 70s, the man told the inquiry sitting at Banbridge Courthouse that he was sent to Australia from Termonbacca in 1953.

He also said he was the victim of both physical and sexual abuse and continued by saying that on the boat journey to Australia the child migrants were made to entertain paying passengers and “our faces were painted to make us look like Aborigines.”

Another witness who later joined the Austrailian Airforce said he was beaten to “exact the most fear and terror” at Termonbacca and then suffered physical and sexual abuse at a Catholic training in Bindoon in Australia.

“After Bindoon, Termonbacca turned out to be a holiday camp,” he said.

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KENTUCKY
WDRB

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) – A Meade County grand jury has indicted a priest on charges of sexual abuse.

The Louisville Archdiocese says they received a report in May of this year from a man who says he was sexually abused in the 1970s by Rev. Joseph Hemmerle.

Hemmerle was a priest at the St. Francis and Holy Cross Parishes in Marion County; the alleged abuse took place in Meade County.

A grand jury indicted Hemmerle on Sept. 9 on three counts of sexual abuse and six counts of sodomy involving a child under the age of 12.

The Archdiocese says Hemmerle is on administrative leave pending a police investigation.

The Archdiocese of Louisville released the following statement concerning the allegations:

“The Archdiocese of Louisville learned today that Father R. Joseph Hemmerle has been indicted in Meade County on several counts of sexual abuse. The Archdiocese has cooperated with law enforcement officials as they have investigated these allegations and will continue to fully cooperate. Archbishop Joseph Kurtz places Father Hemmerle on administrative leave in May of 2014 after an individual came forward who reported that he had been sexually abused by Father Hemmerle in the 1970s. Father Hemmerle had been serving as a pastor of Holy Cross Parish in Holy Cross, Ky. and St. Francis Parish in St. Francis, Ky. The Archdiocese encourages victims of sexual abuse to report their abuse to the police, and we hold all victims of abuse in our prayers.”

Barbara Dorris, Outreach Director for the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, also released a statement:

“A Louisville priest has been charged with child sex crimes stemming from allegations by a second victim. We hope church officials take this more seriously than they apparently did after the first allegations were reported. We are also grateful to the brave victims who have come forward and are giving courage to others to do the same thing. In May, Fr. Hemmerle was removed from ministry again after a second victim came forward. He has now been charged with nine counts of sexual crimes against children. Fr. Joseph Hemmerle was first accused of abuse in 2001, after a man came forward and told the Archdiocese of Louisville. The Archdiocese put Fr. Hemmerle back in ministry, falsely claiming police had cleared him. These alleged internal church investigations often exonerate priests who are later civilly sued or criminally charged with child sex crimes. Ironically, if there’s one prelate in the U.S. who should get this right, it’s Louisville Archbishop Joseph Kurtz. He’s the head of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. His Archdiocese has faced more than 250 abuse and cover up lawsuits and has at least 63 proven, admitted and credibly accused child molesting clerics. But Kurtz and his staff put back on the job a priest who’s now been arrested and has had 12 or 13 more years to assault kids. We hope every single person who saw, suspected or suffered clergy sexual abuse, by Fr. Hemmerle or any other official will find the courage to come forward, report to police, help others and start healing. As this case clearly shows, when victims come forward they give courage to others who have been suffering in silence and self blame.”

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KENTUCKY
WHAS

Posted on September 9, 2014

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WHAS11) — A Catholic priest and former Trinity High School student was indicted on charges of sexual abuse.

The Reverend Joseph Hemmerle is charged with six counts of sodomy and three charges of sexual abuse.

The allegations stem from a case in Meade County in the 1970s.

The alleged victim was under the age of 12.

Hemmerle was placed on leave from the archdiocese back in May.

He had been serving as the pastor at St. Francis Assisi and Holy Cross parishes in Marion County, Ky.

The Archdiocese of Louisville issued this statement surrounding the case of Joseph Hemmerle, a Catholic priest indicted on multiple counts of sexual abuse:

The Archdiocese of Louisville learned today that Father R. Joseph Hemmerle has been indicted in Meade County on several counts of sexual abuse.

The Archdiocese has cooperated with law enforcement officials as they have investigated these accusations and will continue to fully cooperate.

Archbishop Joseph Kurtz placed Father Hemmerle on administrative leave in May of 2014 after an individual came forward who reported that he had been sexually abused by Father Hemmerle in the 1970s. Father Hemmerle had been serving as a pastor of Holy Cross Parish in Holy Cross, Ky. and St. Francis Parish in St. Francis, Ky.

The Archdiocese encourages victims of sexual abuse to report their abuse to the police, and we hold all victims of abuse in our prayers.

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NEW YORK
The Jewish Daily Forward

By Paul Berger
Published September 09, 2014

A group of former students who say they were sexually abused at Yeshiva University High School for Boys have asked a full federal appeals court to reconsider a smaller judicial panel’s ruling that upheld the dismissal of their lawsuit.

The students’ attorney, Kevin Mulhearn, submitted a petition September 8 calling for an en banc, or full court, hearing of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit after a three-judge panel from the same court supported the dismissal of the students’ $680 million lawsuit.

The appeals followed an earlier judge’s rejection of the suit on the grounds that the statute of limitations for trying it had passed.

Calling the three-judge panel’s conduct “manifestly unjust, grossly improper, and…a blatant abuse of judicial power,” Mulhearn argues in his petition that the court “improperly assumed the role of Yeshiva University’s advocate and attorney.”

If the court refuses to rehear his case, Mulhearn has vowed to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.

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NEW YORK
New York Daily News

Tuesday, September 9, 2014

BY MICHAEL O’KEEFFE

The lawyer for 34 men who claim Yeshiva University covered up decades of sexual abuse picked a fight on Tuesday with the appeals panel that shot down a $680 million lawsuit last week, accusing the three judges who denied his appeal of being in the tank for the Washington Heights school.

Attorney Kevin Mulhearn didn’t pull any punches in papers filed on Tuesday asking the full Second Circuit Court of Appeals to rehear the case.

“The panel decision mocks the law, ignores the facts, insults the survivors of childhood sexual abuse and diminishes the dignity and integrity of this court,” Mulhearn wrote. “The panel decision is grossly flawed, intellectually dishonest and antithetical to well-settled Supreme Court and Second Circuit jurisprudence.”

Mulhearn called out three Second Circuit judges who upheld U.S. District Court Judge John G. Koeltl’s decision to toss the case, accusing them of acting as attorneys and advocates for Yeshiva rather than as objective jurists.

“If the Second Circuit Court upholds the panel decision, it will diminish its own honor and prestige,” Mulhearn said, accusing the panel of acting like a “a kangaroo court.”

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KENTUCKY
The Courier-Journal

Chris Kenning, ckenning@courier-journal.com 1:06 p.m. EDT September 9, 2014

Four months after he was removed from his ministry following an allegation of abuse, the Rev. Joseph Hemmerle was indicted Monday on six counts of sodomy and three counts of sexual abuse involving a minor, according to Meade County court officials.

Debbie Medley, the Meade County Circuit Court Clerk, said Hemmerle was arrested after the grand jury indictment and released after posting $5,000 of a $25,000 bond. She said the charges indicate the alleged victim was under 12 years of age.

Hemmerle, who could not be reached Tuesday, had been serving as pastor at St. Francis of Assisi and Holy Cross parishes in Marion County.

According to a May 8 letter from Archbishop Joseph Kurtz to parishioners, Hemmerle was placed on administrative leave after the archdiocese was “contacted by an individual who reported that he had been sexually abused by Father Hemmerle in the 1970s.”

He also said the matter was being relayed to authorities in Meade County.

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