ABUSE TRACKER

MINNESOTA
KSTP

By: McKenzie Gernes

Another priest is facing allegations of sex abuse. Attorney Jeff Anderson says 74-year-old Richard Jeub was a priest for almost 50 years.

The file released Friday shows several women and teens came forward saying he sexually abused them. The allegations go back as far as 1966. Jeub had assignments in Hopkins, Edina, Minneapolis, St. Louis Park, Robbinsdale, Fairbault and Roseville.

Jeub was removed from Ministry in 2002. On the Archdiocese’s website he is listed as permanently removed from ministry and retired. His current location is listed as Crosby, Minnesota.

According to Anderson’s investigation, throughout the years he admitted to sexual relationships with parishioners and other women

The Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis has responded by asking for forgiveness. They say its sexual abuse reporting process is a lot different today and that they are accountable for protecting the people in their parishes.

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)
SF Gate

By M.L. JOHNSON, Associated Press
Updated 7:40 am, Saturday, September 6, 2014

MILWAUKEE (AP) — The Archdiocese of Milwaukee is returning to mediation with hundreds of sexual abuse victims Monday in an effort to bring its long and costly bankruptcy case to a close. Here are a few things to know while talks are going on:
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THIS IS ROUND TWO

A 2012 attempt at mediation failed because too many issues divided the archdiocese and its creditors, most of whom are sexual abuse victims. The archdiocese filed for bankruptcy in 2011, saying it wouldn’t have the money to pay if it lost lawsuits filed by victims of clergy sexual abuse. Now, the matter largely comes down to two key issues: how much money the archdiocese will borrow from a $55 million cemetery trust fund to pay victims and settle its debts and how the money will be divided among victims. The archdiocese has proposed setting aside $4 million to pay about 130 people abused by its priests. Victims say that’s too little and the offer leaves those abused by laypeople and religious order priests who worked in the diocese out in the cold.
___

TRUST FUND IS KEY

The key to a deal likely lies with the archdiocese’s willingness to use money from the cemetery trust fund set up by New York Cardinal Timothy Dolan when he was Milwaukee archbishop. The archdiocese says the money in the fund was given and must be used to maintain Catholic cemeteries, but its bankruptcy reorganization plan proposes borrowing $2 million from the trust fund to help cover its legal bills. Victims don’t see why the archdiocese can’t borrow more to better compensate them. That means resolution may lie in the hands of Archbishop Jerome Listecki, who leads the archdiocese and serves as the trust fund’s sole trustee. Listecki told reporters Wednesday that he is balance what’s best for the archdiocese with his responsibilities to the trust, but didn’t elaborate on what that means in terms of additional borrowing.

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
Bilgrimage

William D. Lindsey

Last year, as I tried to drum up discussion about what seems to me a serious shortcoming of the way National Catholic Reporter moderates comments at its discussion threads, I pointed out that the heavy reliance of NCR on a flagging system to weed out undesirable comments positively invites abuse, and lends itself to a lack of transparency. As I noted, individuals working in tandem with each other to make some people personae non gratae in NCR discussion threads clearly do gang up on those they choose to target and use the flagging system to draw negative attention on the part of NCR‘s moderators to these commenters.

And they do this under the guise of anonymity, both because their own usernames are quite frequently anonymous ones, and, more to the point, because the flagging system is set up to allow them to flag comments in a completely non-public way. That fact in itself invites abuse, and then when one adds to it the fact that the moderators make decisions about how to deal with flagged comments in a hidden way — apparently choosing to pay attention to flags in some cases, while completely ignoring them in other cases — one can only conclude that the system by which comments, or even commenters, are weeded out of NCR conversation threads is non-transparent. And ripe for abuse.

It’s ripe for abuse of particular people whom various other commenters may choose to target and drive from the discussion threads, because they dislike those individuals or their opinions, etc. Because that potential for abuse has concerned me for some time now, my comments about the recent censorship of Jerry Slevin by NCR have focused on the question of transparency and accountability in how NCR moderates its threads, and how it chooses to ban certain people from commenting at its site.

These issues should concern anyone promoting healthy, open, wide-ranging discussion of significant issues at Catholic blog sites, it seems to me. NCR has not chosen to engage in any kind of open discussion of how its moderators use the flagging system to moderate comments, and not even the persistent discussion of Jerry Slevin’s banning at NCR has provoked that kind of transparency on the part of the NCR managing staff about how its censorship system works.

Even so, that persistent discussion is now producing some interesting case studies in the problem. Take the thread following the editorial about Archbishop Nienstedt on which I concentrated yesterday. As that thread has continued and as it has tossed around the issue of Jerry Slevin’s banning, some commentators have stated overtly in the thread that they do, in fact, use the flagging system to drive people out of the discussion — off the NCR discussion threads altogether and into “billgrimspage oblivion,” as the anonymous user employing the Hindi name for Brahmin, ब्राह्मण, tells John David yesterday.

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
ABC 30

[with video]

By Sontaya Rose
Friday, September 05, 2014

FRESNO, Calif. (KFSN) — Fresno police have arrested a man they believe committed a sex crime at a popular church. It happened a few years ago, but investigators say the victim just came forward recently.

Casey Ogden, 26, is locked up for a crime police say happened at Peoples Church. Detectives say that on at least one occasion he had inappropriate sexual relations with a teenage girl.

Fresno police say Ogden was a technical director at Peoples Church in 2011 when he befriended a 15-year-old volunteer.

“During the relationship, Ogden molested the young girl at the church on the grounds, and they remained friends for several years after their relationship began,” said Pat Farmer with the Fresno Police Department.

Police say Ogden worked part time at the church from 2009 until 2012. It’s unclear why he left the job, but the criminal allegations were just brought up a few weeks ago when detectives say the victim told her parents.

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
The Fresno Bee

BY CARMEN GEORGE
The Fresno Bee
September 5, 2014

A former employee of Peoples Church of Fresno was jailed Wednesday night for allegedly sexually assaulting a 15-year-old girl who volunteered for the church.

Casey Ogden allegedly molested the girl in 2011 on church property, Fresno Police Deputy Chief Pat Farmer said Friday.

Ogden, who was 24 at the time of the alleged assault, was arrested on suspicion of having sex with a minor under the age of 16, Farmer said. Ogden remained in Fresno County Jail on Friday evening, with bail set at $50,000. Ogden didn’t have a prior criminal history, Farmer said.

Church leaders said Ogden worked as a part-time technical director from August 2009 to May 2012 and was never part of the pastoral staff.

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.

BOSNA
Vecernjilist

Hrvatski svećenik u Australiji Mato Križanac (60) osumnjičen je za seksualno zlostavljanje koje se navodno zataškavalo od osamdesetih, a nedavno je i razriješen službe. Rezultat je to jednogodišnje istrage nezavisnog crkvenog istražitelja Petera O’Callaghana i australske nadbiskupije Adelaide, gdje je zlostavljanje navodno počinjeno.

Zataškavali zlostavljanje

Klupko se počelo odmotavati kada su počela saslušanja žrtava seksualnih prijestupa koja su desetljećima zataškavana u Katoličkoj crkvi, a za hrvatskog duhovnika koji više od 30 godina bodri Hrvate u Australiji žrtvinu je šutnju, navodno, financijskom nagodbom kupila Katolička crkva. Tako je, prema pisanju australskih medija, žrtva nedoličnog seksualnog ponašanja za koje je svećenik osumnjičen odbila surađivati s policijom. Optužbe su iznesene i pred južnoaustralskom policijom u svibnju prošle godine, mjesec dana prije nego što je otac Križanac poslan na “službeni dopust”. Melbournski nadbiskup Denis Hart tada je ocu Križancu rekao da ga razrješava svih svećeničkih dužnosti, a njegovim je župljanima to ponovio na nedjeljnoj misi. O svemu je izvijestio i kardinala Vinka Puljića.

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

AUSTRALIA
Sydney Morning Herald

September 7, 2014

Cameron Houston and Chris Vedelago

A Catholic priest expelled from the Melbourne diocese for sexual abuse has been allowed to resume his duties in an overseas parish despite an explicit warning from Archbishop Denis Hart to the church hierarchy in Bosnia.

The decision to assign Father Mato Krizanac to a parish in Bosnia raises further questions about the church’s resolve to clamp down on clerical sex offenders and dismantle its entrenched culture of protecting abusers.

Father Krizanac, who spent more than a decade at the Croatian Catholic Church in Clifton Hill, was permanently stripped of all clerical duties in June by Archbishop Hart following a 12-month investigation into claims he abused an Adelaide girl in the mid-1980s.

But The Sunday Age can reveal that Father Krizanac immediately returned to a clerical role in Bosnia with the apparent permission of the Archbishop of Sarajevo, who ignored the damning findings of the church’s independent commissioner in Melbourne, Peter O’Callaghan, QC.

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

Donald Snyder | Sep. 6, 2014

Catholics in Poland are watching with interest the case of the Polish archbishop who has been laicized for sexually abusing minors while he served as papal nuncio to the Dominican Republic.

Most believe that Jozef Wesolowski, 66, a veteran Vatican diplomat who served as nuncio to the Dominican Republic from 2008 until he was recalled in August 2013, will be tried in a Vatican court.

The Vatican announced June 27 that a canonical court had investigated Wesolowski on charges of sex abuse and concluded by dismissing him from the “clerical state,” depriving him of all rights and duties associated with being a priest except the obligation of celibacy. Wesolowski would face a criminal trial under the laws of Vatican City State, the Vatican said at the time.

But the Vatican’s spokesman Jesuit Fr. Federico Lombardi, opened the possibility that Wesolowski could be extradited when he released a statement Aug. 25 that said when Wesolowski’s diplomatic activity ceased, so did his immunity.

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.

PUERTO RICO
Primera Hora

[Summary: Superior Court Judge Angel Pagan Ocasio on Friday gave the Arecibo diocese five days to deliver to the court in sealed enveloped the information required by the justice department as part of the agency’s investigation of allegations of child sexual abuse said to be committed by several priests. Priest expelled from 2011 to present are Tomas Pagan, Andres Davila, Edwin Mercado Viera, Pedro Hernandez, Efrain Montesinos and Jose Colon Otero.]

Los sacerdotes expulsados desde el 2011 al presente son Tomás Pagán, Andrés Dávila, Edwin Mercado Viera, Pedro Hernández, Efraín Montesinos y José Colón Otero.

El juez superior Ángel Pagán Ocasio concedió hoy, viernes, un plazo de cinco días a la Diócesis de la Iglesia Católica en Arecibo para que entregue al tribunal en sobres sellados la información requerida por el Departamento de Justicia, como parte de la investigación que esa agencia interesa llevar a cabo en torno a denuncias de abuso sexual contra menores atribuido a varios sacerdotes.

Pagán Ocasio emitió la solicitud amparado en una sentencia del Tribunal Supremo que condiciona la entrega de documentos de la Diócesis de Arecibo en este caso. El juez superior establece en su orden que debe entregarse la información en sobres sellados, marcados como confidencial, para examinarlos personalmente.

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.

HAITI
Haitian-Caribbean News Network

September 6, 2014

By Joseph Guyler C. Delva

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (HCNN) — Haitian police, under the authority of the capital’s top prosecutor, arrested and detained on Friday a US citizen accused of abusing children, housed in an orphanage he founded years ago, in the Caribbean country, officials say.

Michael Karl Geilenfeld, 62, was handcuffed at the Saint-Joseph orphanage in the Delmas district and taken to police custody on Friday behind a police pickup truck along with one of his aides, Lamarre Williams, who had been working for Geilenfeld for about six years, now.

The Port-au-Prince’s top prosecutor, Kerson Charles Darius, said Geilenfeld, who had been the object of numerous complaints for child abuses and other criminal activities, will be interrogated and prosecuted on crimes on minors and criminal conspiracy charges.

“Several people have filed complaints about Mr. Geilenfeld and about what is going on in this place,” Darius told the Haitian-Caribbean News Network (HCNN) on Friday as he left the orphanage where Geilenfeld was arrested.

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
San Antonio Express-News

BY GUILLERMO CONTRERAS : SEPTEMBER 5, 2014

SAN ANTONIO — Jacob Robert Holguin led two lives. In one, he was a doting father and family man who involved himself in his church.

But in front of a computer screen he was “friend of grimm,” who would seek out child pornography — enjoying watching bestiality and kids having awful things done to them.

Those two pictures emerged Friday as Holguin, 42, a former butcher at the Joint Base San Antonio-Randolph commissary, was sentenced to 20 years in prison for distributing child pornography.

He apologized for his actions. Chief U.S. District Judge Fred Biery gave him the maximum for the distribution charge and an additional 10 years for possessing child pornography, but ran that portion concurrent with the 20 years.

The judge also ordered Holguin to serve a lifetime of federal supervision when he gets out of prison.

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.

OHIO
Reuters

(Reuters) – An HIV-positive Cleveland priest on Friday pleaded guilty to attempting to solicit sex from a ranger in a city park, according to court and police records.

James McGonegal, 69, pleaded guilty to a felony charge of soliciting after a positive HIV test and misdemeanors charges of public indecency and abusing harmful intoxicants in Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court, online court records showed.

Judge Stuart Friedman ordered McGonegal to participate in an early intervention program and to perform 50 hours of community service. The judge also banned McGonegal from Cleveland Metroparks property, court records said.

On Oct. 11, 2013, McGonegal solicited sex from a plain-clothed ranger in Edgewater Park, according to the police report. The ranger said McGonegal started to masturbate before he was arrested, the report said.

A bottle filled with nail polish remover, which McGonegal said he sniffed to get high, was found in his vehicle, according to the report.

McGonegal also told investigators that he was HIV-positive, leading to the felony charge, the report 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.

OHIO
Columbus Dispatch

CLEVELAND (AP) — An HIV-positive priest has pleaded guilty to soliciting sex from a Cleveland-area park ranger.

The Rev. James McGonegal, 69, was arrested nearly a year ago after he solicited a park ranger near downtown Cleveland. He was charged with felony soliciting because he had previously tested positive for HIV, the virus that causes AIDS.

In a plea agreement entered yesterday, McGonegal pleaded guilty to the felony count of solicitation and to misdemeanor counts of abusing harmful intoxicants and public indecency. Under the agreement, he will enter a yearlong early-intervention program. If he completes the program, he will not be convicted.

McGonegal also is required to serve 50 hours of community service and stay out of all Cleveland Metroparks.

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.

HAITI
ABC News

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — Sep 5, 2014
By DANICA COTO Associated Press

A U.S. man who founded a boys’ orphanage in Haiti nearly two decades ago was arrested Friday following abuse allegations, authorities said.

Michael Karl Geilenfeld, 62, was detained at the orphanage on suspicion of charges of indecent assault and criminal conspiracy, Port-au-Prince General Prosecutor Charles Kerson told The Associated Press.

Geilenfeld was handcuffed and placed in the back of a police pickup truck and taken to a police station in the Petionville district of Port-au-Prince. He declined comment to an AP journalist before he was taken away, as did a manager of the orphanage who rode with Geilenfeld to the station.

Kerson said Geilenfeld did not resist arrest or say anything to police as they entered the St. Joseph’s Home for Boys in the Delmas neighborhood on Friday afternoon.

“Many people have brought complaints about this place,” Kerson said, adding that police will interrogate him. …

In June 2011, the board of directors of St. Joseph’s Home sent out a letter denying allegations of sex abuse publicized by Paul Kendrick, a co-founder of the Maine chapter of the Catholic lay reform group Voice of the Faithful who is an advocate for child abuse victims.

In February 2013, Geilenfeld and Hearts with Haiti, a North Carolina-based organization that raises money for the St. Joseph’s Home, filed a defamation suit in federal court in Maine against Kendrick, alleging that the activist “has published false and heinous allegations of plaintiffs’ involvement in child abuse” and “bullied” donors into withdrawing support for the organization.

The suit is scheduled to go to trial later this year.

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
Minnesota Public Radio

Madeleine Baran St. Paul, Minn. Sep 5, 2014

Leaders of the Twin Cities archdiocese kept a priest in ministry despite sexual contact with women under his pastoral care and didn’t report allegations of child sex abuse to police, according to documents released today in a clergy abuse lawsuit.

More than 1,000 pages from internal files show how church leaders protected the Rev. Richard Jeub for decades. The documents detail allegations that Jeub sexually abused two teenage girls and sexually exploited vulnerable women under his care. Jeub, 74, retired in 2002 – twenty years after the archdiocese received the first complaint against him. He moved to the Duluth area, where he failed to persuade the Catholic diocese to allow him to assist in parishes. No records exist of any reports to police. It’s illegal in Minnesota for a priest to have sexual contact with someone under his pastoral or counseling care.

In a 1989 memo, the Rev. Kevin McDonough, who would later serve as vicar general, told Archbishop John Roach that one of Jeub’s accusers “is being advised to file criminal and/or civil action against Father Jeub.”

McDonough wrote, “As you know, sexual exploitation by a therapist, including a clergy person in a therapeutic role, is a felony in Minnesota … There is no reporting requirement around this statute (unlike in the case of sexual abuse of minors or vulnerable adults) and, therefore, we are under no obligation to file a criminal complaint against Jeub.”

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
Northlands News Center

St. Paul, MN (NNCNOW.com) — Catholic diocese records have been released of a predator priest who has worked in the Northland.

Documents released indicate Father Richard Jeub had a history of sexual relations with underage girls and adult women.

One incident, he denied, involved a young girl.

A separate civil trial determined he did not engage in abusive behavior with another young woman.
Upon evaluation and treatment, a psychiatrist determined that Jeub had sexual relationships with a nun he was counseling, a blind woman he was caring for and a wife of a patient in a hospital in which he was chaplain.

He resigned from parish ministry in June 2002.

Jeub continued to exercise ministry as a lector and communion minister at a Duluth Diocese parish in Deerwood, Minnesota until at least 2009.

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 Times

Pamela Duncan

Sat, Sep 6, 2014

Religious congregations have paid less than a quarter of the €352.6 million which they had agreed to contribute to redress for victims of institutional abuse, internal documents in the Department of Education reveal.

The documents, published yesterday under the Freedom of Information Act, give an overview of the payments made by 18 congregations to date.

Following the publication of the Ryan report (the report of the Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse) in May 2009 the congregations agreed to pay €352.61 million in addition to €128 million committed to under a 2002 indemnity agreement. The €352.61 million comprised €108.6 million in cash, €238 million in property and €6 million in payments for counselling, the latter of which has been fulfilled.

The briefing documents, prepared for Minister for Education Jan O’Sullivan who took up her post in July, reveal that €71.6 million in cash has now been received.

Of the €238 million in property offers, €0.2 million worth has been transferred to date while some property offers were not accepted by the Government. The congregations were asked to sell some properties and provide cash, some €4.2 million of which has been received to date.

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.

ILLINOIS
Voices

By Reema Amin | Get In Touch: @ramin215 | ramin@suntimes.com

A woman who claims she was sexually abused almost 60 times before being impregnated by a Chicago pastor is suing him, another clergy member and two churches.

The 26-year-old woman filed the suit Friday against a senior pastor for both Pentecostal Tabernacle Bible and Mission of Christ Evangelical Lutheran churches, which are both listed at 1345 N. Karlov in the Humboldt Park neighborhood.

The woman, described as an active member of the churches, alleges the pastor had sexual contact with her 50 to 60 times when she was 17 until she turned 18–from November 2005 through March 2006, according to the lawsuit filed Friday in Cook County Circuit Court.

The pastor would take the woman to Cindy Lyn Motel in Cicero, “often driving [there] in the church van,” the suit claims. He would also take other women and minors to that location, the suit 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.

MINNESOTA
Star Tribune

Article by: ERIN ADLER and JEAN HOPFENSPERGER , Star Tribune staff writers Updated: September 5, 2014

Francis Hoefgen, 64, is accused of abusing an altar boy multiple times at a Hastings parish.

A priest accused of repeatedly raping a Hastings altar boy in the late 1980s and early ’90s pleaded not guilty in a Dakota County courtroom Friday.

Francis Hoefgen, 64, who has left the priesthood and now lives in Columbia Heights, wore street clothes and appeared subdued during the court appearance. He waived his right to a speedy trial.

Dakota County District Court Judge Thomas Pugh set a trial date of May 18 and granted Hoefgen permission to take an out-of-state trip at the end of the month.

Hoefgen was charged with two counts of first-degree criminal sexual conduct. According to the criminal complaint, Hoefgen abused the 10-year-old boy repeatedly at St. Elizabeth Ann Seton parish in Hastings between 1989 and 1992.

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.

OREGON
Hemiston Herald

A male in his mid-30s filed a lawsuit Thursday in Federal District Court alleging sexual abuse by a Capuchin priest who was, at the time, based in Hermiston, according to a press release from his attorneys, Anthony M De Marco and Kristian Roggendorf of Roggendorf LLC.

According to the press release, the victim was abused by Capuchin Franciscan priest Fr. Luis Jaramillo, who was born and ordained in Colombia, South America. The press release states the abuse took place from 1988 to 1989 at Our Lady of Angels Parish in Hermiston, in the Diocese of Baker. At the time, the male was between the ages of 9 and 10.

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
National Catholic Reporter

Dennis Coday | Sep. 5, 2014 NCR Today

An editing error led some readers of our editorial, Nienstedt should disclose findings of abuse investigation, to understand that the investigation into allegations of misconduct against Archbishop John Nienstedt by Auxiliary Bishop Lee Piche is complete. This is not correct, and the St. Paul-Minneapolis archdiocese has asked us to clarify that. Following is full text of a statement sent to us today from the archdiocese:

STATEMENT REGARDING INTERNAL INVESTIGATION
From Bishop Lee Piche, Auxiliary Bishop of the Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis

“Several months ago, the Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis received claims regarding alleged misbehavior involving Archbishop John Nienstedt. The claims did not involve anything criminal or with minors.

The Archbishop asked me to look into these claims, and the investigation is ongoing. We are still following up with individuals and information, which takes time depending on the availability of individuals and accessibility of information they may have. Any media report that the investigation is complete is inaccurate.

My interest is a thorough investigation with a focus on accuracy. To rush any part of this process would be a disservice to all involved.”

As the editorial says, in paragraph seven, “The archdiocese announced July 29 that the law firm doing the investigation, Greene Espel, had concluded its work. Piché said in a statement at that time the report ‘does not comprise’ the entire investigation.” As we note later in the editorial, this does raise a myriad of questions, especially, who will get to see the full report once it is done? That question still stands.

The main point of our editorial also still stands: Archbishop Nienstedt, disclose the findings of the investigation now.

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
Bilgrimage

William D. Lindsey

National Catholic Reporter’s Call for Archbishop Nienstedt to Be Transparent and Accountable: Sauce for Nienstedt’s Goose Also Sauce for NCR’s Gander, in Censoring Jerry Slevin?

As Jerry Slevin pointed out in a posting at his Christian Catholicism site yesterday, in various threads, readers of National Catholic Reporter articles continue to discuss his recent banning by NCR. As I noted in a posting a number of days ago, recently, when Jerry tried logging onto the NCR site to leave comments, he began receiving a message informing him that he had been banned from commenting at the site. Jerry also reported that he had contacted NCR managerial staff to ask why this had been done to him, but had received no explanation.

Dennis Coday, NCR’s editor, did eventually respond to Jerry about his banning, and Jerry published Coday’s email to him several days ago. Discussion of Jerry Slevin’s censorship by NCR has continued at the NCR site (and elsewhere) since that time, and as Jerry notes in a comment here today, a thread has developed just today in response to NCR’s editorial calling on Archbishop John Nienstedt of St. Paul-Minneapolis to be transparent and accountable, and to release the report the archdiocese had commissioned to investigate allegations that Nienstedt had had sexual relationships with adult men.

The editorial states,

The health of any organization, especially one holding itself to the high standards of a religious community that regularly presents itself as a public arbiter of personal morality, is dependent on mutual respect and trust. Those characteristics, in turn, are dependent on transparency and accountability, particularly on the part of bishops, who hold almost unlimited authority over the Catholic community.

And so, understandably, some folks responding to this NCR editorial today are asking about NCR’s own commitment to the standard of transparency and accountability as it censors people contributing comments to its website — e.g., people like Jerry Slevin. For instance, Rob Christopher writes,

I agree that report should be made public. This is a position we have consistently defended here. I also agree that people who argue for full disclosure should practice full disclosure, and not conceal information when it seems convenient to do so. I encourage the editors to disclose their reasons why some people have been barred from this site, while others — some of whom do their best to offend those with whom they disagree — are allowed to continue. To demand disclosure from everyone but oneself would be transparent hypocrisy.

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

JEFFREY R. ANDERSON

Sexual Assault Prevention Programming. For the first time, Minnesota has approved state funding for Sexual Assault prevention programming. As part of the Public Safety budget, $300,000 will be allotted to address risks, policies and practices with the goal of reducing the likelihood of sexual abuse.

Felony enhancement for repeat sexual offenders. Effective August 2014, this new law expands the probation period for 5th Degree Criminal Sexual Conduct convictions and enhances the sentence from a gross misdemeanor to a felony when the perpetrator has had a prior criminal sexual conduct conviction.

Data Sharing About School Personnel Requirement modifications. When an employee of a public or charter school commits an act of sexual misconduct with a student and resigns mid-investigation, the school district must release the perpetrator’s private personnel data to other school districts in if the employee applies for a job. The data released will not include any identifying information about the student ensuring the survivor’s identity and privacy is honored.

Safe Harbor Law Improvements. The Safe Harbor Law, enacted in 2011, has been reviewed this legislative session resulting in more funding to services for sexually exploited youth. As part of the legislation, eight regional navigators will be available to connect youth survivors with trauma-related resources across the state.

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.

CANADA
Northern Life

By: Heidi Ulrichsen – Sudbury Northern Life | Sep 05, 2014

‘Happy Hands’ Hod Marshall dead at 92

One of the Sudbury victims of a former Roman Catholic priest and St. Charles College staff member found guilty of sexual abuse said learning of his death earlier this summer at the age of 92 has brought a bit of closure.

The Windsor Star reported last month William Hodgson (Hod) Marshall died in Toronto on July 28.

But the victim, who cannot be identified due to a court-imposed publication ban, said his anger lingers despite his abuser’s death.

Marshall worked at St. Charles College for a total of 14 years in the 1960s and 1970s, part of the time as the school’s principal. He was given the nickname “Happy Hands” in the 1950s for his tendency to touch students.

He was convicted in Windsor in 2011 to 16 counts of indecent assault of minors and one count of sexual assault for incidents that occurred between 1952 and 1986 in Sudbury, Windsor and Toronto.

Marshall served a total of 16 months behind bars before being released in October 2012 on probation. After his release, he lived at Cardinal Flahiff Basilian Centre in Toronto, a home for retired and infirm priests.

On top of the criminal convictions, Marshall’s victims launched civil lawsuits against the priest in 2012.

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MINNESOTA
KSTP

By: Megan Stewart

The Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis is responding to a pointed editorial published by a well-known Catholic news organization Friday.

The editorial staff at the National Catholic Reporter says Archbishop John Nienstedt should release the findings of an investigation into allegations that he engaged in sexual misconduct, including claims that he made unwanted sexual advances toward a former Twin Cities priest, according to a report posted online in June by Commonweal Magazine.

Nienstedt has repeatedly denied the allegations and he initiated an independent investigation into the allegations.

Editors at National say the law firm Greene Espel finished looking into the claims on July 29 and say delaying the disclosure of information “point(s) to patterns of cover-ups.”

“We have completed our work for the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis. We have provided a written report as requested by the archdiocese,” Matthew Forsgren at Greene Espel told 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS on Friday.

“Any questions regarding the investigation and report should be directed to the archdiocese.” …

However, Auxiliary Bishop Lee Piche, who is in charge of the investigation for the archdiocese, says they cannot release the findings of the probe in question because it has not been completed.

Piche released the following statement in response to the editorial:

“Several months ago, the Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis received claims regarding alleged misbehavior involving Archbishop John Nienstedt. The claims did not involve anything criminal or with minors.

The Archbishop asked me to look into these claims, and the investigation is ongoing. We are still following up with individuals and information, which takes time depending on the availability of individuals and accessibility of information they may have. Any media report that the investigation is complete is inaccurate.

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MINNESOTA
Roman Catholic Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis

Date: Friday, September 5, 2014

Source: Anne Steffens, Interim Director of Communications

From Bishop Andrew Cozzens, Auxiliary Bishop of the Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis

Documents from the priest file of Richard Jeub given to the court earlier this year were released today by Jeff Anderson and Associates. This release is in the interest of public disclosure and accountability.

Four victim/survivors separately reported that Richard Jeub, while assigned at Our Lady of Grace in Edina in the late 1960s and St. Mark in the 1970s, sexually abused them when they were minors, about 20 years prior to their report. Lawsuits were filed against the archdiocese for Jeub’s reported abuse. In 2002, following media reports about Jeub’s sexual exploitation of adults and abuse of minors, the archdiocese removed Jeub from public ministry.

Today, when we receive an allegation of sexual abuse of a minor, we immediately report it to law enforcement, regardless of when the abuse happened. We are accountable to victims/survivors, parents and guardians, Church employees and volunteers, clergy and our entire faith community for our efforts to protect children and vulnerable adults. Where we have failed to protect, we acknowledge the pain of those who have been harmed and ask for their forgiveness.

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KANSAS
The Wichita Eagle

[Ex-area priest accused of sexual abuse]

[In 5 suicides, families blame Father Larson]

BY STAN FINGER
THE WICHITA EAGLE
09/05/2014

Robert Larson, the Catholic priest convicted of sexually abusing altar boys while serving in the Wichita diocese, has died.

Diocesan officials on Thursday said Larson died Aug. 27 at the age of 84. He was buried in his home state of Michigan.

“We pray for all victims of sexual abuse and for their families,” the Most Rev. Carl Kemme, bishop of the Wichita diocese, said in a statement following Larson’s death. “We continue to learn from them and we recommit ourselves to vigilance in protecting children and young people from the tragedy of sexual abuse.”

Larson pleaded guilty in 2001 in Harvey County District Court to abusing three altar boys and a 19-year-old man while he was pastor at St. Mary’s Catholic Church in Newton in the mid-1980s. He was sentenced to five years in prison.

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MINNESOTA
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Friday, September 05, 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 Hastings-area priest has entered a not guilty plea in a child sexual abuse case. We hope as this case heads to trial any other victims who might be suffering in silence and self-blame will find the courage to speak up.

Fr. Francis Hoefgen is charged with sexually abusing an altar boy while at St. Elizabeth Ann Seton parish. Were it not for Fr. Hoefgen’s brave victims, the public may have never learned the extent of the cleric’s crimes. In fact, he would probably still be working with vulnerable children.

We urge anyone who saw, suspects, or suffered child sex crimes to speak up, report to law enforcement, and start healing. Archbishop John Nienstedt should also use his vast resources to encourage victims, witnesses and whistleblowers to come forward and report to secular officials.

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OHIO
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Friday, September 05, 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)

An Ohio priest has pleaded guilty to soliciting sex and will be allowed to enter an early intervention program. We are disappointed by this outcome.

As part of Fr. James McGonegal’s plea deal once he has completed his early intervention program the case against him will be dismissed and wiped from his record. We believe this a dangerous move, because it will prevent parents, employers and guardians from having vital information about whom they let their children around.

It is not too late for any victims, witnesses or whistleblowers to come forward and report what they know about Fr. McGonegal.

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KANSAS
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Friday, Sept. 5, 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 notorious Wichita serial predator priest, Fr. Robert K. Larson passed away on Aug. 27. Catholic officials kept this secret, however, until yesterday.

We’re sad that Wichita’s bishop hid Larson’s passing until it was convenient for him to release it. We hope Larson’s death will provide some comfort to the hundreds who were hurt by his crimes against at least 17 children.

Crimes by Larson and cover ups by his Catholic supervisors attracted national attention in 2002. We are grateful and will always be grateful to the courageous victims who helped expose, prosecute and convict Larson. Our hearts ache for them and their families, especially the Pattersons, who worked tirelessly to protect other children and comfort other victims from coast to coast.

Wichita’s bishop should personally visit every parish where Larson worked and beg his flock to help him find and console every single child who was assaulted by this admitted criminal. We are sure the bishop will issue a statement expressing “sadness.” But that’s a public relations move, not a pastoral one. A truly compassionate shepherd would aggressively reach out to those in pain using every means possible, not just a terse, conveniently timed press release.

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OREGON
Catholic Sentinel

The Capuchin Franciscans, the Diocese of Baker and Our Lady of Angels Church in Hermiston are being sued for $8.1 million by a man who says a friar abused him 26 years ago.

The federal suit, which withholds the identity of the accuser, names Capuchin Father Luis Jaramillo for abuse allegedly committed in 1988 and 1989. The accuser says Father Jaramillo prepared him as an altar boy and abused him on parish grounds.

The suit says Father Jaramillo was transferred to Hermiston after committing abuse in California and that the priest admitted to the Hermiston incidents. The suit says Capuchin leaders dissuaded the boy’s mother from contacting local police.

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OHIO
WKYC

CLEVELAND — A westside Cleveland priest entered a plea of guilty to soliciting sex from a Cleveland Metroparks ranger.

Fr. James McGonegal, 68, was charged with soliciting sex, a felony charge, and two misdemeanor charges — abusing harmful intoxicants and public indecency.

According to the Cuyahoga County Prosecutor’s Office, the judge accepted his plea but did not enter a finding of guilty.

Prosecutors say McGonegal will be admitted to an early intervention program. Upon successful completion, the charge will be dropped and the case expunged.

McGonegal, a priest at St. Ignatius of Antioch Church on Lorain Avenue, offered $50 to a park ranger to touch him and exposed himself at Edgewater Park earlier in October.

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MINNESOTA
Pioneer Press

By Emily Gurnon
egurnon@pioneerpress.com
POSTED: 09/05/2014

A Dakota County judge entered a not guilty plea for a former Hastings priest charged with repeatedly raping and molesting an altar boy from about 1989 to 1991.

The Rev. Francis Hoefgen of Columbia Heights appeared with his attorney in court Friday and waived his right to a speedy trial.

The trial is scheduled to begin May 18 in Dakota County court, with Judge Thomas Pugh presiding.

An adult man went to the Hastings Police Department in November 2013 and said he had been sexually abused by Hoefgen when the priest served at St. Elizabeth Ann Seton parish and the now-aduilt man had served as an altar boy. When the alleged abuse began, the boy was 9 or 10, he told police.

Hoefgen touched his genitals and penetrated him orally and anally, according to a criminal complaint in the case.

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OHIO
The Plain Dealer

By James F. McCarty, The Plain Dealer
on September 05, 2014

CLEVELAND, Ohio – A West Side priest pleaded guilty this morning to soliciting sex from an undercover ranger at Edgewater Park last October while failing to divulge he was carrying the AIDS virus.

Under provisions of a plea bargain reached with prosecutors, the Rev. James McGonegal, 69, the former pastor of St. Ignatius of Antioch Church, will enter an early intervention program.

The agreement allows McGonegal to avoid a felony conviction if he successfully completes the program. At that point, the case would be dismissed and his record expunged.

“We’re glad that we have a resolution to this matter,” said defense attorney Henry Hilow. “Father has lived an exemplary life, with the exception of this incident, and we’re glad that this chapter of his life is concluded.”

McGonegal declined to comment.

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UNITED NATIONAL
UN News Centre

4 September 2014 – Violence against children is universal – so prevalent and deeply ingrained in societies it is often unseen and accepted as the norm – according to new, unprecedented data presented by the United Nations today.

A new UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) report, Hidden in plain sight: A statistical analysis of violence against children, draws on data from 190 countries in order to shed light on a largely undocumented issue.

The report found that about two thirds of children worldwide between ages 2 and 14 (almost 1 billion) are subjected to physical punishment by their caregivers on a regular basis. And yet, only about one third of adults worldwide believe that physical punishment of some kind is necessary to properly raise or educate a child.

Susan Bissell, the Chief of Child Protection at UNICEF said in interview that the data essentials show that “if there is one common aspect of human society right now, it is the fact that tremendous violence is committed against children.”

“It is important that we don’t simply go away with the message that violence is everywhere, we live in a horrific world; but in fact to say, there are tried, true, measured, evaluated solutions,” she said.

While the data focuses on physical, emotional and sexual violence in settings children should feel safe; their communities, schools and homes, there is a fundamental limitation to document violence against children.

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UNITED STATES
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

When reading UNICEF’s recently released report on violence against children I was struck by the very first line; “Violence against children is universal – so prevalent and deeply ingrained in societies it is often unseen and accepted as the norm.”

While I see this horrible truth at play on a daily basis, through the news and individual reports on clergy sexual abuse, it is still shocking that in this day and age our children are threatened by so much violence. I hope this report is a wakeup call to not just those in a position of authority, but also parents, guardians, teachers, coaches, and everyone who works with children.

The report also highlights six strategies to changing this violent trend towards kids. Two of the strategies that really resonate with SNAP’s mission are educating children about their rights and strengthening judicial, criminal and social systems.

Teach your children about safe touch and their rights and call your legislators and urge them to make changes to archaic statutes of limitations involving child sex crimes. Let’s work together to end the violence against our children!

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ST. LOUIS (MO)
Berger’s Beat

. .Bad news for Archbishop Robert Carlson from his hometown in Minneapolis. A judge had ruled that the first-ever lawsuit charging Catholic officials with causing a “public nuisance” will go to trial. The case will likely reveal more about Carlson’s role in hiding child sex crimes of Minnesota’s most prolific predator priest, the now defrocked Fr. Thomas Adamson. .

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UNITED KINGDOM
The Guardian

Owen Bowcott, legal affairs correspondent
theguardian.com, Friday 5 September 2014

The lord mayor of the City of London, Fiona Woolf, has been named as the chair of the independent inquiry commissioned by the government into historical child sex abuse.

Woolf, a corporate lawyer, will replace Elizabeth Butler-Sloss, who stepped down days after being appointed in July after questions were raised over potential conflicts of interest because her brother, Lord Havers, was attorney general at the time of some of the events to be investigated.

Professor Alexis Jay, author of the recent report into child sex abuse in Rotherham, is to act as an expert adviser to the panel, the Home Office said.

The inquiry will consider whether, and to what extent, public bodies and other institutions fulfilled their duty of care to protect children from sexual abuse. Its purpose, according to the Home Office, is to address public concern over successive child abuse scandals.

The inquiry still has to finalise membership of its panel and agree its terms of reference.

Woolf will be assisted by Graham Wilmer, a child sexual abuse victim and founder of the Lantern Project, and Barbara Hearn, the former deputy chief executive of the National Children’s Bureau. Ben Emmerson QC will serve as counsel to the inquiry.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Belfast Telegraph

05 SEPTEMBER 2014

The lord mayor of the City of London, Fiona Woolf, has been named as the chair of the independent inquiry commissioned by the Government into historic child sex abuse.

Ms Woolf, a leading tax lawyer, takes the place of Baroness Butler-Sloss, who stepped down days after being appointed to chair the inquiry in July, after questions were raised over potential conflicts of interest as her brother Lord Havers was attorney general at the time of some of the events to be investigated.

Professor Alexis Jay, author of the recent report into abuse in Rotherham, will act as an expert adviser to the panel, said the Home Office.

The inquiry, announced by Home Secretary Theresa May on July 7, will examine how the country’s institutions handled their duty of care to protect children from sexual abuse over a period of decades.

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UNITED KINGDOM
The Independent

Westminster child abuse scandal: Lord Mayor of London Fiona Woolf replaces Baroness Butler-Sloss as inquiry head

The first female Lord Mayor of the City of London will replace Baroness Butler-Sloss as the head of an inquiry into historic child sex abuse in Westminster.

Fiona Woolf has been named as the new head of the probe, which was announced in July to examine allegations that institutions including the Government and civil service covered up or failed to investigate abuse.

The 66-year-old is a renowned solicitor and the former president of the Law Society.

She said: “Ensuring lessons are learned from the mistakes which have been made in the past and resulted in children being subjected to the most horrific crimes is a vital and solemn undertaking.

“I was honoured to be approached to lead such an important inquiry, and look forward to working with the panel to ensure these mistakes are identified and never repeated.”

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MINNESOTA
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Friday, Sept. 5, 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 Twin Cities attorney has released long-secret Catholic Church records about a predator priest who worked in the Duluth area. He is Fr. Richard Jeub.

We’re sad that information about Duluth predator priests is still being kept secret by Duluth Catholic officials. It’s a shame that a victims’ lawyer must disclose information about child molesting clerics that should be released by Duluth’s bishop.

A copy of Fr. Jeub’s assignment history is available at BishopAccountability.org

We urge anyone who saw, suspected or suffered crimes by Jeub – or other clerics – to get help, seek justice and start healing. No one benefits when victims stay silent.

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UNITED STATES
Catholic Herald (UK)

By CATHOLIC NEWS SERVICE on Friday, 5 September 2014

The diocese of Baton Rouge has asked the US Supreme Court to reverse a Louisiana Supreme Court decision that a priest may be compelled to testify as to what he heard in the confessional in 2008 concerning an abuse case.

The legal step is the latest in a case involving Father Jeffrey Bayhi, pastor of St John the Baptist Church in Zachary, Louisiana, and the sanctity of the seal of confession.

The petition to the US Supreme Court comes after a Louisiana Supreme Court ruling in May outlining arguments that priests are subject to mandatory reporting laws regarding abuse of minors if the person who made the confession waives confidentiality. The state Supreme Court opened the door for a hearing in which the priest would testify about what he heard in the confessional.

Under canon law, the seal of confession is sacred under the penalty of excommunication.

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MINNESOTA
Jeff Anderson & Associates

(St. Paul, MN) – As part of an ongoing civil lawsuit, the once-secret priest file of Richard Jeub was publicly released today. Throughout his 40+ years as a priest of the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis, several survivors, including adult women and children, have come forward alleging sexual abuse by Jeub.

In late 1969, early 1970, Jeub and another child abuser, Father Jerome Kern, switched parishes. Kern left his assignment at St. Mark’s in St. Paul to become assistant pastor at Our Lady of Grace in Edina, while Jeub left his position at Our Lady of Grace, to work at St. Mark’s. While supposedly under restriction, Jeub continued in ministry until at least 2009 serving communion and working as a lector at a Duluth Diocese parish in Deerwood, MN.

“We release this file with sorrow in our hearts for the suffering so many have endured,” said attorney Jeff Anderson. “To all those who have suffered, take comfort in the truth being revealed. By this truth being known, others will be protected in the future.”

The entire priest file of Richard Jeub, a timeline, and documents are available on our website under News and Events 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

Richard Jeub Timeline
Key Documents in Richard Jeub File
kern-jeub 1969 transfer
Richard Jeub file, part 1
Richard Jeub file, part 2
Richard Jeub file, part 3

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MINNESOTA
National Catholic Reporter

NCR Editorial Staff | Sep. 5, 2014

EDITORIAL

The time has come for the St. Paul-Minneapolis archdiocese to fully disclose the results of an investigation by a local law firm into allegations of sexual misconduct with adults by Archbishop John Nienstedt.

The health of any organization, especially one holding itself to the high standards of a religious community that regularly presents itself as a public arbiter of personal morality, is dependent on mutual respect and trust. Those characteristics, in turn, are dependent on transparency and accountability, particularly on the part of bishops, who hold almost unlimited authority over the Catholic community.

For a host of very public reasons, the trust between Nienstedt and much of the Catholic and civic community in St. Paul-Minneapolis has collapsed. An unrelenting and damaging stream of reports have documented cases of clergy sex abuse and the failure of Nienstedt and other chancery personnel to report or discipline clergy suspected of molesting children, leaving countless children at risk. It is clear they spent more time and effort attempting to conceal their negligence than they did being candid with the people of the archdiocese. They failed to uphold the 2002 Dallas Charter for the protection of children, the only yardstick we have to judge church leaders’ pledges to keep children safe.

The erosion of trust between Nienstedt and the Catholics of the archdiocese has continued for months, leading prominent Catholics and local and national newspapers to call for his resignation.

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UNITED STATES
Catholic League

Catalyst September Issue 2014, Special Report

This is a special report which was originally published in the September 2014 issue of Catalyst.

The Catholic Church has many enemies these days, some of whom are ex-Catholics who left the Church a long time ago. They are joined by the disaffected, those who pretend (even convincing themselves) that they are Catholics in good standing. Most of these malcontents are lay men and women, but some are priests, and a few are nuns. All of them are animated by a strong rejection of the Church’s teachings on sexuality. Because they have the support of the secular media, they comprise a formidable group.

What motivates them today is the debased desire to take down a bishop. Not any bishop: They want to drop a bishop who is an outspoken defender of the faith. They really get excited when they learn of a diocese that was riddled with dissidents and is now almost dissident free.

Geopolitics is at work, as well. While they will work overtime to disable a bishop anywhere in the nation, they prefer to scalp a bishop from the Mid-West. Why? Because that’s where many of them live. It’s also because it is easier for activists to dominate the news in mid-size cities, as opposed to larger ones where it is much more difficult. Their attacks are orchestrated and well-coordinated: lawyers feed the activists and they feed the media.

Cardinal Raymond Burke, formerly the Archbishop of St. Louis and now the prefect of the Vatican’s highest court, has drawn the enmity of Mid-Western dissidents for years. He is despised because of his denunciations of Catholic public figures who reject the Church’s teachings that bear on public policy issues. Burke’s critics have no problem with the Nancy Pelosis who continually claim their Catholic status while doing everything they can to undermine the Church. They have a problem with him.

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OREGON
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Thursday, September, 4 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 priest who was accused of molesting in California was quietly sent to Oregon where he molested again. And when he admitting abusing in Oregon, the cleric was quietly sent out of state. Those allegations have surfaced in a new civil lawsuit against the Baker diocese.

This is another in a seemingly endless string of heartbreakingly clear cases of deceit and recklessness by Catholic officials. Fr. Luis Jaramillo admitted to his Capuchin supervisors that he sexually assaulted a boy. But he was sent with no warning to dioceses in Mexico and Argentina. And Catholic officials intimidated and guilt-tripped the victim’s parents into staying silent.

We hope anyone who saw, suspected or suffered Fr. Jaramillo’s crimes – in California, Oregon, New Mexico, Mexico or Argentina – will find the courage to speak up, get help, call police, expose wrongdoers and protect kids.

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VATICAN CITY
Crux

By Inés San Martín
Vatican correspondent

ROME — In another milestone along the path to financial reform, Pope Francis’ new “Council for the Economy” met for the third time Thursday, among other things working out details for transfering the Vatican’s power of the purse ever more completely to Australian Cardinal George Pell.

The Council for the Economy was established Feb. 24 by Francis, and is composed of eight cardinals and seven lay experts, marking the first time at such a senior level that laity have sat on a decision-making body in the Vatican as full equals with cardinals.

Cardinal Daniel DiNardo of Galveston-Houston is the lone American on the council.

The council’s function is to oversee financial operations, principally the new Secretariat for the Economy established by the pope in February and entrusted to Pell, who has moved quickly to bring the Vatican’s various financial centers under his control.

Francis has made the financial clean-up operation the leading edge of his broader project of Vatican reform, and the 73-year-old Pell is the man he’s tapped to make it happen.

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VATICAN CITY
Vatican Information Service

Vatican City, 2014 (VIS) – The Council of the Economy met yesterday, 4 September, in the Sala Bologna of the Apostolic Palace in the morning and evening session, under the presidency of Cardinal Reinhardt Marx and with the participation of Cardinals Pietro Parolin, secretary of State, and George Pell, prefect of the Secretariat for the Economy.

Among the members previously appointed (communicated on 8 March 2014), the following were absent: Cardinal Juan Luis Cipriani Thorne, due to heavy previous commitments, and Cardinal Jean-Baptiste de Frassu, who had presented his resignation following his appointment as president of the Institute for the Works of Religion (IOR) and will therefore be substituted.

The meeting focused mainly on the examination of the Statutes of the Secretariat for the Economy and the Auditor General, as well as the notice of the transfer of the Ordinary Section of the APSA to the aforementioned Secretariat (cf. Motu proprio 8.7.2014) and the instructions for Vatican bodies regarding budget preparation and accounting.

The next meetings of the Council for the Economy will take place on 2 December 2014 and on 6 February 2015. It is expected that these meetings will conclude the work of defining the Statutes of the main administrative organs (Council, Secretariat, Auditor General).

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UNITED STATES
Religion News Service – Rhymes with Religion

Boz Tchividjian | Sep 5, 2014

Those of us in the trenches confronting child abuse issues within the Church often find ourselves discouraged. Discouraged when we learn about yet another child victimized by an offender who exploits the faith to access, abuse and silence. Discouraged when we learn that a church has no child protection policy and doesn’t intend to develop one. Discouraged when we learn about yet another church leader who sacrifices the lives of little victims in order to protect the “reputation” of the church.

Discouraged when we learn of victims who are blamed for being sexually violated. Discouraged when we learn about professing Christian counselors and pastors who prefer to focus on the “sins” of the victim, instead of the heinous felony committed by the offender. Discouraged when we learn of congregations that find it much easier to embrace a perpetrator than to love and support a survivor.

You probably get my point.

This week has been different. I found myself refreshingly encouraged as I read a painfully transparent editorial by the associate publisher of World Magazine. A piece expressing regret for a second-guessing silence that he believes is partially responsible for the ongoing sexual abuse of at least two boys by the youth pastor at Kings Way Baptist Church, who was recently sentenced to prison for these crimes. The author writes about being an editor of a small Christian newspaper in the 1990s when he heard from some “credible people” about possible sexual offenses within a local church. Though his reporting of other improprieties within that church eventually led to the resignation of the senior pastor, he never followed up on the sexual offense claims. The pastor eventually opened up shop a few miles away and hired one of his sons, Bobby Price, as the youth pastor. The rest is a very dark and painful history.

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UNITED STATES
Crux

Margery Eagan
On Spirituality columnist @MargeryEagan

“We don’t want to gobble up a woman a day.”

The Religion News Service made this their Tuesday quote of the day.

How about the quote of the week, maybe even the year?

“Gobble up a woman?”

Who talks like that?

Unfortunately, the cardinal leading the church’s so-called “nunquisition” does. That’s the Vatican’s two-year-old investigation of American nuns for their alleged subversion of church doctrine. And as Crux has reported, Cardinal Gerhard Mueller insisted to the Vatican’s semi-official newspaper that, lest anyone suspect otherwise, “we are not misogynists” for demanding complete control over this dwindling number of mostly middle-aged and elderly women. As apparent proof, he used that stops-you-in-your-tracks phrase, “We don’t want to gobble up a woman a day.”

Maybe he thought we’d all feel relieved?

The Vatican has also criticized the nuns for being too feminist and too Obama-care friendly while failing to crusade hard enough against abortion. Yet in their legendary service to the marginalized and the poorest of the poor, these same nuns seem quite in tune with Pope Francis’ renewed emphasis on social justice. They are also a proud symbol to disenchanted Catholics looking for examples of true spirituality and holiness within the church. Mueller, meanwhile, seems to be operating in a different century, practically antediluvian in his condescension.

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OREGON
Oregonian

By Stuart Tomlinson | stomlinson@oregonian.com
on September 04, 2014

A man who said he was sexually abused as a boy in the late 1980s by a Capuchin priest in Hermiston filed an $8.1 million lawsuit Thursday against the Capuchin Franciscan Friars, the Roman Catholic bishop of the Diocese of Baker and a Hermiston church.

According to the federal suit, the boy was abused by Father Luis Jaramillo in the fall of 1988 and the winter of 1989. Now in his mid-30s, the man identified in the suit as “John JP Doe” says Jaramillo trained him as an altar boy and then regularly molested him on parish grounds at the Our Lady of Angels parish in Hermiston.

The suit alleges that Jaramillo was transferred from Los Angeles to Hermiston in 1987 after he was accused of molesting two boys.

After the Hermiston boy told his mother about the abuse and that Jaramillo threatened to kill him if he resisted, the mother complained to church officials, the suit alleges.

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AUSTRALIA
The Australian

SEPTEMBER 05, 2014

Graham Richardson
Political Columnist
Sydney

NO one has been more critical of Julia Gillard’s prime ministership than I have. During the past two or three years this column has criticised her political ineptitude on far too many occasions to remember. That is not to say, though, that she did not have her successes. She did make one brave game-changing decision for which she should never be forgotten.

For decades, child abuse, like domestic violence, was an almost taboo subject. It was easy to overlook and so it was. Thousands of Australia’s children were sexually and physically abused, and their suffering went unpunished and unrecognised. Their abusers roamed free to repeat their atrocities while the organisations to which they belonged conspired to protect them from the law.

When Gillard announced a royal commission into child abuse there were many in the churches and the charities who had cause to feel the ruffle on the hairs of the back of their necks. Most important, it gave an opportunity to the thousands mentioned above to ­finally tell their stories. For many of them it had been virtually impossible to speak about what was done to them.

These dark secrets had been suppressed for 30, 40 or even 50 years. The shame and embarrassment felt by the victims was in stark contrast to the escape from scrutiny experienced by their ­oppressors.

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NEW YORK
The New York Times

By BENJAMIN MUELLER
SEPT. 4, 2014

A federal appeals court panel ruled on Thursday that dozens of men who say Yeshiva University covered up their sexual abuse at the hands of rabbis cannot sue for damages because too many years had elapsed since the abuse took place.

In upholding the dismissal of the lawsuit, the three-judge panel for the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, in Manhattan, placed responsibility for pursuing signs of a cover-up sooner on the 34 men, who say they were abused from the 1970s through early 1990s by two rabbis at the university’s high school in Washington Heights.

At the time the students graduated from Yeshiva University High School, more than 20 years ago, their knowledge that the rabbis who abused them were still allowed to teach at the school “was sufficient to put them on at least inquiry notice as to the school’s awareness of and indifference to the abusive conduct by its teachers,” the judges wrote in their decision.

The plaintiffs argued that the clock did not start ticking on their case until Yeshiva’s role in hiding the rabbis’ conduct was revealed in a December 2012 article in The Daily Forward. But, the judges wrote, when “administrators rebuffed their complaints or otherwise failed to take remedial action” after some of the men reported their abuse, they should have realized that they could have filed suit against the school.

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PENNSYLVANIA
The News Eagle

Posted Sep. 4, 2014

LAKE ARIEL- Janine Edwards, Wayne County District Attorney, announced that Norman Theodore Faux, age 54, of Lake Ariel, was arrested on August 29, 2014, and charged with numerous counts of child sexual abuse, including Involuntary Deviate Sexual Intercourse with a Child.

According to the Affidavit of Probable Cause filed by Pennsylvania State Trooper John Strelish, Faux victimized a male child for several years starting in 2004 when the child was 9 years old. The victim is now 19 years old.

Faux was a United Methodist Pastor in Lake Ariel. Faux is also believed to have started a non-denominational-independent religious group in Lake Ariel after 2011 known as the Lake Ariel Faith Fellowship.

Faux appeared at the Wayne County Courthouse for Central Court Wednesday morning and he requested a preliminary hearing which will be scheduled before District Magisterial Judge Bonnie Carney in the near future. Faux is currently incarcerated in the Wayne County Prison in lieu of $150,000.00 bail.

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UNITED STATES
Catholic News Agency

Reform of LCWR hardly a ‘nunquisition’

By Kevin J. Jones

Washington D.C., Sep 4, 2014 / 05:54 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- The Vatican’s investigation of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious is not a ‘nunquisition,’ as one Time magazine writer has said, but an effort to renew the Church, according to a senior fellow with The Catholic Association.

“Is there a great ‘Nunquisition’? No, there’s not,” Ashley McGuire told CNA Sept. 4.

“That’s a total exaggeration. It’s just part of a bigger process that the Church regularly has to undergo to look into its various organs to make sure everything is doctrinally sound.”

Author Jo Piazza, writing in an Aug. 31 essay for Time.com, contended that contemporary religious sisters are “dying and not being replaced” and that their work is not sufficiently appreciated by Church leaders.

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NEW YORK
New York Law Journal

Mark Hamblett, New York Law Journal
September 5, 2014

It didn’t take long for a federal appeals court to hold that the statute of limitations had since expired on claims by dozens of former students that they had been sexually abused by a former principal and two others at Yeshiva University High School for Boys.

One week after oral arguments, Judges Reena Raggi (See Profile), Guido Calabresi (See Profile) and Denny Chin (See Profile) ruled the statute was not tolled by the plaintiffs’ belated realization of an alleged school conspiracy to cover up the abuse by one-time principal George Finkelstein and a former teacher and former student at the school.

The court held in Twersky v. Yeshiva University, 14-365-cv, that the Title IX claims of some 34 plaintiffs who were seeking $680 million in damages were “correctly dismissed as untimely” by Southern District Judge Koeltl (See Profile).

On Aug. 28, the three judges grilled plaintiffs’ lawyer Kevin Mulhearn on his contention that Koeltl erred in February by dismissing the case brought against Yeshiva and former high-ranking officials for deliberate indifference to the predations of Finkelstein, ex-teacher Macy Gordon and former student Richard Andron, a friend of Finkelstein’s.

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CANADA
Toronto Star

By: Tonda MacCharles Ottawa Bureau reporter, Published on Thu Sep 04 2014

OTTAWA—The federal government is “obstructing justice” by refusing to hand over unedited documents to former residents of St. Anne’s Residential School, says the NDP and a lawyer for several dozen aboriginal victims of abuse.

Nine months ago, an Ontario court ordered the federal government to hand over all documents that could help corroborate the stories of the school’s survivors, who say the documents will support their compensation claims.

About 12,300 documents — amounting to nearly 40,000 pages — were provided on Aug. 1. But the material, including trial transcripts, witness statements to police, even certificates of conviction, was heavily redacted — “nearly useless” in the words of lawyer Fay Brunning, who represents about 60 of hundreds of former students.

The names of perpetrators, the names of other potential witnesses to abuse — all key information that could help bolster people’s claims — were blacked out, she says.

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IRELAND
Irish Times

Supreme Court judge says Strasbourg has ‘very serious questions’ over new role

Ronan McGreevy

Fri, Sep 5, 2014

A senior judge has warned the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg may be exceeding its own powers by taking on cases that have not been fully heard in member states. Mr Justice Adrian Hardiman of the Supreme Court said it would appear from the recent Louise O’Keeffe judgment that the Strasbourg court’s interpretation of its own powers had been changed in a “radical and indeed a revolutionary way”.

At a legal conference in Dublin City University yesterday, Mr Justice Hardiman said that article 35.1 of the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, which set up the court, was specific in what cases it could hear. “The court may only deal with the matter after all domestic remedies have been exhausted,” it states.

However, Mr Justice Hardiman said that principal was exceeded in the case of the landmark judgment of Louise O’Keeffe v Ireland, in which Ms O’Keeffe successfully sued the State for liability over the sexual abuse she suffered at the hands of her primary school principal in Kinsale during the 1970s.

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KENTUCKY
Town Hall

Baptist Press | Sep 04, 2014

Matthew Fowler

KENTUCKY (BP) — I was in the first year of my first pastorate when things unraveled. I had experienced a few rough patches in previous ministry roles, but nothing to kill my dreams and make me question my calling. I was familiar with stories of petty pastoral terminations and “difficult deacons,” but I was convinced that it wouldn’t happen to me, at least not at this church. A phone call changed all of that.

I was out of town performing a friend’s wedding when a man from my church called very troubled about an issue. “Are you aware that there is a man in leadership at our church that has been sexually abusing his stepdaughter for 16 years?” he asked. I was shocked at the question and informed him that I knew nothing about it.

Evidently, the long kept secret had been shared by the victim in a college essay about what sexual abuse had done to her. The man calling me had somehow learned of this essay and had begun his own investigation. He told me that he expected me to accompany him to the police station upon my return home to make a report. I shared with my deacons what I had been told and later told the police. My deacons told me to “leave it alone” and the police said, “We will look into it.”

As quickly as I could, I met with the alleged perpetrator, his wife and a deacon. I shared with them what I had been told and that I hoped this was just some gross misunderstanding. The wife spoke up and said, “It’s true and if you want to know why I’ve stayed with him, I don’t know.” After a few moments of being speechless, I informed them of the need for thorough repentance and that he would have to step down from his leadership roles at the very least. I also stated that I was going to do everything I could to get their family help, particularly their daughter.

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FLORIDA
WFTV

[with video]

SEMINOLE COUNTY, Fla. — Channel 9 has learned the State Attorney’s Office is going after a Winter Springs pastor accused of failing to tell law enforcement he knew a church member was allegedly molesting young children.

According to investigators, Cesar Chin, 65, knew one of his members, Normail Reynoso, was allegedly molesting three young children, but he waited more than six months to alert deputies.

Records show Chin found out about the abuse in January but didn’t say anything to deputies until July.

After Chin’s arrest, his friend, Roger Diaz, told Channel 9 he forced Chin to do the right thing.

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UNITED STATES
The Raw Story

By Katie Halper
Thursday, September 4, 2014

Senator Ron Johnson (WI-R) challenged Senator Kristen Gillibrand’s claims of inappropriate comments and touching from her male colleagues. If I were Senator Ron Johnson, I wouldn’t go around challenging the veracity of sexual harassment allegations. Because in addition to testifying against a bill that would have made it easier for victims of child sexual assault to sue, Johnson served on the council of a Church that covered up the abuse of children. Whoops!

Let’s talk about the Gillibrand incident first. In her new book “Off The Sidelines,” Gillibrand reveals that one male colleague who ran into her in the gym ”Good thing you’re working out, because you wouldn’t want to get porky!” On other hand, another colleague said, ”You know, Kirsten, you’re even pretty when you’re fat.” And another male senator grabbed her waist and advised, “Don’t lose too much weight now. I like my girls chubby.” …

OK. Now, let’s go back to 2010 and review footage of Ron Johnson opposing The Wisconsin Child Victims Act. The 2010 bi-partisan bill would have done what several other states have already done: eliminated the civil statute of limitations in sex assault and rape cases involving children. In Wisconsin, people are barred from suing over child sexual abuse or rape after the age of 35, a totally arbitrary cut-off that makes it harder for victims to see justice and hold abusers accountable. Controversial? Sadly, to Johnson it was.

Why? Johnson said that he wasn’t sure that the “actual victims” would benefit from the bill but rather only “trial lawyers would benefit.” A combination of logic and the fact that all of the state’s major organizations against sexual abuse supported the bill could have resolved Johnson’s doubts about the whole “is justice good?” brain teaser. But Johnson was overwhelmed by concern for the “other victims,” warning, “it is extremely important to consider the economic havoc and the other victims [the law would] likely create.” Who were these other victims? The employers of child abusers. Who will speak for the institutions and corporations that condone abuse? Rob Johnson, that’s who! Giving voice to the voiceless.

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LOUISIANA
The Times-Picayune

By Emily Lane, NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune
on September 04, 2014

The Catholic Diocese of Baton Rouge has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to review a ruling by the state Supreme Court it says threatens the confidentiality of religious confessions.

The Louisiana Supreme Court’s ruling, rendered in May, laid out arguments that priests should be subject to mandatory reporting laws regarding abuse of minors if the person who makes the confession waives confidentiality. Normally, priests are exempt as mandatory reporters in the setting of confessions. The decision by the state’s high court stated confidentially is intended to protect the person who made the confessions, not the person who receives them.

“The Louisiana Supreme Court’s ruling strikes a very hard blow against religious freedom,” said the diocese in a press release sent Thursday (Sept. 4).

The original case involves a minor girl who alleges she confessed during the sacrament of Reconciliation to Baton Rouge priest Father George Bayhi that a fellow church parishioner had molested her.

Rebecca Mayeux, who was a minor at the time of the alleged confessions, said in an interview to WBRZ in July, at age 20, that Bayhi told her to “take care of it.”

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CHICAGO (IL)
NBC Chicago

By Mary Ann Ahern

The Chicago area’s more than 2.3 million Catholics aren’t the only ones wondering who will succeed Cardinal Francis George. The Italian newspaper La Stampa on Thursday also speculated whether it might be a surprising choice.

The article by the Vatican Insider notes that Phoenix Bishop Thomas Olmsted is a possible contender but also suggests the Pope might choose a Chicago priest who “is a favorite of the nuncio.”

While no name was given, sources told NBC 5 that priest is Father Robert Barron.

Barron is the rector of the seminary at Mundelein and well-known as an author of the series Word on Fire. He’s also been the go-to commentator for Vatican events for NBC News.

“That’s crazy,” Barron said by telephone. “I know nothing about it.” …

Sources say they believe the three names are Indianapolis Archbishop Joseph Tobin, Spokane’s Blase Cupich and Salt Lake’s Charles Wester. Tobin’s name has often been mentioned, while the others not as often.

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NEW YORK
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Thursday, Sept. 4, 2014

Statement by Mary Caplan of New York City, SNAP Leader, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests ( 917 439 4187, mcaplan682@aol.com )

An appeals court has ruled against child sex abuse victims and in favor of a school that hid child sex crimes.

Our hearts ache for the dozens of brave, wounded former Yeshiva students who still suffer because New York judges slam the courthouse doors to them. Judges couldn’t do this, however, if not for callous university officials who insist on exploiting archaic, predator-friendly statutes of limitations so that the complicity of other school staff will remain hidden.

This case is yet another in a long string of examples that clearly show New York continues to be a good place for those who commit or conceal heinous child sex crimes.

We are grateful these courageous victims will keep persisting in their heroic struggle to expose wrongdoers. But now more than ever, New York lawmakers must show courage and reform the statute of limitations. Right now, corrupt employers have an incentive to destroy evidence, intimidate victims, threaten witnesses, discredit whistleblowers, fabricate alibis and protect predators. Why? Because all they have to do is “run out the clock” until it’s too late for frightened and confused victims to take legal action. If kids are to be safer in New York, this must change.

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IRELAND
Irish Central

Charles R. Hale @irishcentral September 04,2014

Fallen Woman: a phrase that once described a woman or a girl who had lost her innocence or fallen from the grace of God. Two hundred and fifty years ago asylums were established in Europe whose purpose was to reform prostitutes and send them back into society. In Ireland the first was opened in 1765 and became known as the Magdalene Laundry, named after Mary Magdalene, once considered a converted prostitute who was rewarded by Jesus with forgiveness and love.

The institutions promised to reform the women and girls but in the early 1900s, the asylums became increasingly prison like. Inmates were forced to cleanse their sins through unpaid laundry work, long periods of prayer and enforced silence.

There are very few records to account for almost a full century of women and teenaged girls who were excluded, silenced, or punished. Due to a policy of secrecy, information about their circumstances, and the consequences of their incarceration are unknown. The last Magdalene asylum in Ireland was closed in 1996.

A little over a decade ago, Erin Layton heard a song by Joni Mitchell called “Magdalene Laundry.” Joni’s beautifully illustrated lyrics stirred and haunted Erin’s imagination as a playwright and as an actor. “Two years ago, I felt the pull to explore the land where it all began, in Ireland, to research the abandoned buildings that once housed these infamous Magdalene Laundries,” Erin said in a recent interview. “It was through speaking with the people who had intimate knowledge of the Laundries and through mining the remains of this hidden piece of Irish history that I felt driven to create a story about the lives of the present and the past.”

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AUSTRALIA
7 News

ABC

BY MIKE SEXTON
September 5, 2014

A confronting art exhibition in Adelaide exposes the cruelty suffered by women and girls who worked at Magdalene Laundries across Australia last century.

The exhibition entitled Enslaved is by New York-based artist Rachael Romero, who worked in the Adelaide laundry from the age of 14 in 1967 after she fled from her abusive father.

She remembers it as a workhouse like something from a Dickens novel and says women and girls were abused and injured.

“Women had hands like claws from the mangle, a woman with Down syndrome folded hankies next to loud machines and others had burns from the hot water,” she said.

Magdalene Laundries and dormitories operated across the world and the Australian ones were run by the Sisters of the Good Shepherd, training women and girls and providing income for the church.

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UNITED STATES
Huffington Post

Kristen Houghton Become a fan
Author of “FOR I HAVE SINNED A Cate Harlow Private Investigation

“What’s in the news is a fascinating story unto itself simply because it is true,” said a grad school writing professor of mine. He was right. True stories make for interesting reading and writers have found that combining raw truth in a fictional tale enhances a good book.

For over two years, my new novel For I Have Sinned was a work in progress, a story inside my head that wanted to be told. I wanted to take the ongoing publicly told scandal of sexual abuse in the Roman Catholic Church coupled with the fictitious cold case of a boy gone missing ten years ago, to weave a story that would become a thriller with several twists and unexpected turns.There was truth and fiction, neatly combined.

The fiction part was easy; a missing person cold case concerning a boy who simply disappeared years ago without a trace. A private detective digging into the missing boy’s past unexpectedly finds a bizarre connection between her own case and the recent grisly murder of a priest in New York City. The murder details are eerily similar to an unsolved murder investigation she worked on less than a year ago.So far so good.

I had already created the main character, a savvy and determined private detective named Cate Harlow who goes by a strong gut instinct when confronting obstacles. She’s smart, relentless, and tough when it comes to solving her cases. But I also wanted to make her a very human and compassionate person; one who, without vanity, reassuringly tells her clients, “I’m very good at what I do. Trust me.”

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CALIFORNIA
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Thursday, Sept. 4, 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 priest who was accused of molesting in Los Angeles was quietly sent out of state where he molested again. And when he admitting abusing in Oregon, the cleric was quietly sent out of state again. Those allegations have surfaced in a new civil lawsuit against the Baker Oregon Catholic diocese.

[KVEW]

This is another in a seemingly endless string of heartbreakingly clear cases of deceit and recklessness by Catholic officials. Fr. Luis Jaramillo admitted to his Capuchin supervisors that he sexually assaulted a boy. But he was sent with no warning to dioceses in Mexico and Argentina. And Catholic officials intimidated and guilt-tripped the victim’s parents into staying silent.

Shame on every single Catholic official involved.

We hope anyone who saw, suspected or suffered Fr. Jaramillo’s crimes – in California, Oregon, New Mexico, Mexico or Argentina – will find the courage to speak up, get help, call police, expose wrongdoers and protect kids.

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UNITED STATES
National Catholic Reporter

Jamie Manson | Sep. 4, 2014

Two years ago, when Cardinal Gerhard Müller criticized the Leadership Conference of Women Religious for promoting radical feminist themes, the head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith offered a stark reminder that feminism has no place in the Roman Catholic church.

In his most recent interview in L’Osservatore Romano (the Vatican’s “semi-official” newspaper), Müller further indicates that any suggestion of misogyny on the part of the hierarchy is a claim best answered with a punch line.

Sadly, it’s a comedic lesson Müller likely learned from his boss, the pope.

Back in July, when journalist Franca Giansoldati asked Pope Francis whether the pontiff’s tropes about the “church as a woman” and the “the church as a feminine word” were misogynistic, he responded with a joke about women as Adam’s rib. The pope then went on a roll of sorts, making another zinger about priests coming under the authority of female housekeepers.

Now Müller is taking his turn as the court jester. In his interview Monday (featured, by the way, in a special pullout section on “Women Church” in L’Osservatore Romano), when asked about the doctrinal congregation’s ongoing “reform” of LCWR, the cardinal insists, “We are not misogynists.”

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UNITED STATES
National Catholic Reporter

Maureen Fiedler | Sep. 4, 2014 NCR Today

Here he goes again! Cardinal Gerhard Müller, head of the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, has sounded off once more about the shortcomings of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious.

Some of his comments this time are so off the mark, it’s humorous. For example, he says LCWR members “do not represent all U.S. nuns, but just a group of North American nuns who form part of an association.” Just a group? LCWR represents 80 percent of American congregations of women religious. That’s four out of five, Cardinal Müller, not “just a group.”

In an apparent attempt to appeal to the feminists among us, he says, “Above all we have to clarify that we are not misogynists, we don’t want to gobble up a woman a day!” That’s really big of you, Cardinal Müller, but it’s hardly the point. Women are not interested in evading your dinner table.

We are interested in being your equals in the church and being treated as such. This phrasing is simply insulting.

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OREGON
KVEW

By Dan Thesman. Published Thursday, September 4th, 2014

Pendleton, OR — A man in his mid-30s brought a lawsuit today in Federal District Court alleging sexual abuse by a Capuchin priest who had been accused of child abuse before being transferred to Hermiston, Oregon, and claiming an effort by church officials to silence the family, allowing the then-admitted pedophile cleric to escape the country to avoid criminal prosecution.

The complaint alleges that the victim was abused by Capuchin Franciscan priest Fr. Luis Jaramillo, who was born and ordained in Colombia, South America. The abuse took place from 1988 to 1989 at Our Lady of Angels Parish in Hermiston, Oregon, located in the Diocese of Baker. At the time, the victim was between the ages of nine and ten. Before the Capuchins transferred him to Oregon, Fr. Jaramillo had been accused of abusing boys in the Archdiocese of Los Angeles.

According to personnel files obtained from the Los Angeles Archdiocese and the Capuchin Franciscan Order, Capuchin officials sent the priest to remote Hermiston in 1987. Consistent with the Diocese of Baker’s practice at the time, Jaramillo, then known to be an accused child molester, was accepted by the Diocese of Baker to work at Our Lady of Angels Parish. Within a few weeks or months of his arrival, the lawsuit says, Jaramillo began abusing the victim and threatened to kill him if he resisted.

The boy eventually told his mother, who reported the abuse to Capuchin officials in 1989. The complaint states that a Capuchin supervisor immediately interviewed Father Jaramillo, who admitted to the abuse. Despite the priest’s admission, the provincial—or “chief executive” of the Capuchin order—allegedly told the boy’s mother that if she attempted to have Father Jaramillo prosecuted, it would be her son’s word against the priest, and she would cause her family and son to be shamed and scorned. The complaint states that he also told her that she would have to “answer to her Maker” for any souls lost to God if she reported the abuse.

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NEW YORK
The Journal News

Steve Lieberman, slieberm@lohud.com

The lawyer for a Monsey rabbi accused of sexually abusing a 7-year-old boy says two police-controlled telephone calls involving the child will help prove the school administrator never touched the child.

Rabbi Gavriel Bodenheimer, 71, principal of Yeshiva Bais Mikroh, has rejected a plea agreement with state prison time and will fight the sexual abuse charges at trial, his attorney, Kenneth Gribetz, said.

In some sexual abuse investigations, the police have their victim call the abuser to get statements of guilt or attrition that can be used in the prosecution.

In two recorded conversations concerning sexual acts, Bodenheimer told the boy that he didn’t know what the boy was talking about “and he should go to the police if he has concerns,” Gribetz said.

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NEW YORK
The Jewish Daily Forward

By Paul Berger
Published September 04, 2014.

Thirty-four former students have lost their appeal of a judge’s decision to dismiss their $680 million lawsuit against Yeshiva University.

A three-judge federal appeals court panel ruled today that the students waited decades too long to file claims that they were abused during the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s at a Y.U.-run boys high school.

Under Title IX, students have three years from the time they become aware of a school’s deliberate indifference to their abuse to file a suit.

The students said that they first found out that Y.U. knowingly employed abusive staff members in a December 2012 article in the Forward.

But the judges found that the suit, “filed more than 20 years after the last plaintiff left [the school] was correctly dismissed” by a U.S. District court in January.

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NEW YORK
New York Daily News

BY MICHAEL O’KEEFFE , DAREH GREGORIAN
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS Published: Thursday, September 4, 2014

A federal appeals court Thursday upheld the dismissal of a $680 million sex abuse lawsuit against Yeshiva University.

In a nine-page ruling, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals found the 34 former students who sued the school had waited too long to try to make the school pay for covering up decades of sexual abuse there.

“This is a dark day for justice in New York State. Justice has been perverted,” said the victims’ lawyer, Kevin Mulhearn. “My clients, sex abuse survivors all, have been violated once again.”

The students’ suit said the abuse happened in the 1970s, ’80s and ’90s, and the decision notes that the case wasn’t brought until last year, “more than 20 years after the last plaintiff left” the all-boys’ school.

At a hearing last week, Mulhearn argued the victims couldn’t have sued earlier because they didn’t find out about the school’s culpability in the abuse until an expose on its inaction by The Forward newspaper in 2012.

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.

ILLINOIS
East Peoria Times-Courier

By Michael Smothers
Pekin Daily Times reporter
msmothers@pekintimes.com
Posted Sep. 4, 2014

Pekin
A former youth pastor with a Pekin church was charged this week with aggravated criminal sexual abuse of a child in Peoria County and is under investigation for a similar alleged crime in Pekin.

Nicholas Lawrence, 26, of Pekin, remained Thursday in Peoria County Jail on $100,000 bond that was set when he was charged in court Tuesday.

He served as pastor of youth services at Pekin Church of God from October 2012 until his dismissal June 30, the church’s pastor said Thursday.

“It’s an ongoing investigation,” said Pastor Johnny Creasong. “Until we know more we don’t have anything else to say.”

Details of the Peoria County charge against Lawrence were not yet available Thursday morning. The alleged victim, however, was “a young child,” said Pekin Police Public Information Officer Mike Eeten.

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.

PHILADELPHIA (PA)
TheMediaReport

Prosecutors in Philadelphia deliberately withheld evidence that would have exonerated a Catholic priest and a teacher wrongly convicted of sex abuse, according to an explosive new court filing recently uncovered in an eye-opening article by investigative journalist Ralph Cipriano.

This remarkable development now adds yet another layer to the convincing case that three men – Rev. Charles Engelhardt, former teacher Bernard Shero, as well as ex-priest Edward Avery – are most certainly in prison serving time for crimes they never committed.

The accuser at the center of this episode, Dan Gallagher (who has since moved from Philly to sunny Florida), has bizarrely and wildly claimed that during the 1998-1999 school year, when he was a 10-year-old altar boy in Philadelphia, he was viciously raped and abused – sometimes for hours on end – by three separate men (Engelhardt, Shero, and Avery), all of whom barely even knew each other.

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.

SOUTH CAROLINA
CarolinaLive

by Tonya Brown
Posted: 09.03.2014

Cathedral Bible College President Reginald Wayne Miller pleaded guilty to Fraud in Foreign Labor Contracting, Visa Fraud, and Willful Failure to Pay Minimum Wage Fraud on Wednesday in federal court.

According to a news release from the United States Attorney’s Office, evidence presented at the hearing showed that Miller recruited foreign students to attend Cathedral Bible College where he was president by means of false representations and promises regarding employment.

The release also says that Miller also made false statements on the related immigration documents for these student employees. And that once the students arrived in the United States, Miller violated the Fair Labor Standards Act by failing to pay the students the applicable minimum wage.

The maximum penalty for Fraud in Foreign Labor Contracting is 5 years in prision and/or a fine of $250,000, the maximum penalty for Visa Fraud is15 years in prison and/or a fine of $250,000, and the maximum penalty for Wage and Hour Violations is imprisonment for 6 years and/or a fine of $10,000.

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SOUTH CAROLINA
GoUpstate

The Associated Press
Published: Thursday, September 4, 2014
.
FLORENCE — The founder of a Bible college in South Carolina faces more than 40 years in prison after pleading guilty to federal charges stemming from overworking and underpaying international students.

Area media outlets report that Reginald Wayne Miller, the founder of Cathedral Bible College in Marion, pleaded Wednesday in federal court in Florence.

Miller pleaded guilty to four felony charges and two misdemeanors involving labor fraud, visa fraud and failing to pay minimum wages.

Prosecutors say the college classes were a sham and students were forced to live in substandard conditions and work at the college or Miller’s home for little pay. Authorities say students who refused to work were threatened with deportation.

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.

SOUTH CAROLINA
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Thursday, September 4, 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 popular religious official who founded Cathedral Bible Collage has pleaded guilty to forced labor charges. He’s also accused of sexual harassment.

The forced labor charges against Reginald Wayne Miller involve international students who came to the collage Miller founded. We hope Miller receives the maximum sentence.

We urge anyone who was hurt by Miller, either by forced labor or sexual harassment, will find the courage to come forward, report to police, and start healing.

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
News Letter

Columnist Nick Garbutt
Published on the 04 September 2014

The sickening stories emerging from the Historical Institutional Abuse Inquiry in Banbridge this week bring shame and infamy on the perpetrators of grotesque crimes against children.

Let’s be absolutely clear about this: the export of unwanted children to Australia was a form of ethnic cleansing which echoed the transportation of criminals to that continent in the previous century.

The cruelty involved and the pain and suffering that resulted from it is almost beyond comprehension – especially when you consider that those responsible for inflicting it included religious orders and respected charities.

Some of the witnesses have found that even giving evidence to the inquiry is deeply painful and traumatic and have complained that they have not had sufficient help and support to get them through the ordeal.

Let us hope that their courage in coming forward is not in vain and that justice is ultimately done.

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
Bilgrimage

William D. Lindsey

More in the ongoing discussion of the damage trolls (and heavy-handed censorship) are doing to online discussion spaces: at Salon yesterday, Colin McEnroe argues persuasively that if internet discussion sites don’t soon deal proactively with “orange-fanged morons” trolling these sites, the promise of the internet as a place for open, fruitful discussion of important issues affecting all of us will be choked in its infancy. As many other observers of the trolling phenomenon note, McEnroe points out that an overwhemling percentage of the online attacks target women.

He writes,

In recent days: a feminist culture critic was driven from her home by violent comments and emails; Jezebel, frustrated by the deaf ear of its Gawker father ship, published an open letter to management begging for help with rape GIF trolls; and over at Reddit, which would seem uniquely well-poised for self-policing its trolls, one subreddit was so overrun that it resorted to (wait for it) publishing an open letter to management begging for help.

McEnroe concludes,

Meanwhile, online publishers need their noses pushed into the following truth: your comment section really does say a lot about your whole operation. If it’s uncivil, indifferent to humanity, hostile to women, sub-literate, sloppily administered and shitty, well, maybe that’s you. I suppose here is the place to say I think Salon’s comments are pretty good. I mean, they’re negative and grumpy but suggestive of a well-informed, keen-eyed reader who inevitably thinks he could have done a much better job with this topic. I’ll take that any day.

But if your comments are full of racist taunts, rape GIFs, blowjob putdowns, and off-topic personal invective, please understand, that stuff is all sitting, metaphorically, in your lobby. You might want to tidy up.

Meanwhile, over at the National Catholic Reporter site, where a longtime commenter who writes exceptionally literate and thoughtful responses to news articles about Catholic issues, Jerry Slevin, recently found himself banned from commenting, other people continue to be given free rein to leave comments full of venom directed at certain targeted minority groups, notably gay folks and women. Just this morning, I opened my email inbox to find an email from a regular commenter at this blog, who also comments on NCR articles.

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SOUTH CAROLINA
The State

BY DAVID WREN
dwren@thesunnews.com
September 3, 2014

Cathedral Bible College founder Reginald Wayne Miller — whose ambition as a young adult put him briefly in the national spotlight before allegations of sexual improprieties chased his ministry from Florence to Myrtle Beach — pleaded guilty in federal court Wednesday to four felony charges and two misdemeanors related to labor fraud, visa fraud and failing to pay minimum wages.

The charges stem from Miller’s treatment of international students who came to the college, which re-located its main campus from Myrtle Beach to Marion in 2012, hoping to earn degrees in theology, ministry and other Christian studies.

Students told investigators earlier this year that their classes were a sham, they lived in substandard conditions and Miller forced them to work at the college or his home for little pay, according to court documents. If they refused to work, the students said, Miller threatened to deport them.

The charges carry a combined maximum of 41 years in prison and more than $1 million in fines. Miller, who had been in jail — first at the Florence County Detention Center and later at J. Reuben Long Detention Center in Conway — since his arrest on March 21, was released Wednesday on a $50,000 unsecured bond.

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.

MALTA
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Thursday, September 4, 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 Gozitan priest, who was accused of child sexual abuse in August, has been granted bail. We hope he is closely monitored so more innocent children are not put in danger.

Fr Jesmond Gauci was a school teacher and involved with the scouts and last month he was banned from contact with minors until his child sexual abuse case concludes.

We urge Catholic and secular officials to do their due diligence and warn families that Gauci is free on bail. Being banned from contact with minors does not necessarily shield children. It takes only a moment for a predator to shove his hand down a boy’s pants or his tongue down a girl’s mouth. We beg families and officials to be vigilant.

Anyone who saw, suspects, or suffered abuse should immediately report to police and start healing.

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.

MARYLAND
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Thursday, September 4, 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 former Maryland youth group leader has been sentenced to 16 years in jail for sexually abusing at least three boys. We are grateful to the brave victims who came forward and helped get a dangerous predator off the streets.

While Raymond Fernandez was working as a coach and youth group leader at Greater Grace World Outreach Church in Baltimore, he abused at least three boys. We are glad that he will be behind bars for 16 years and will have to register as a sex offender, but we are worried there are more victims suffering in silence and self-blame.

We urge Greater Grace World Outreach church to use their resources and seek out anyone else who might have been hurt by Fernandez. One of Fernandez’s victims came forward after seeing him at a church function as recently as 2013. If you or anyone you know was hurt by Fernandez, or any other church official, please do the right thing and come forward, report to police, and start healing.

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.

VIRGINIA
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Thursday, September 4, 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 former Virginia pastor and daycare operator has been sentenced to 6 years in prison. We are glad he will spend time behind bars, but believe children would be safer if his sentence was longer.

James Daley was the pastor at Beth Eden Lutheran Church in Luray and him and his wife operated a day care center out of their home. The allegations of abuse against Daley stem from his time as a pastor and from the day care.

We urge officials to reach out to everyone who attended the day care and Beth Eden church and ask them if they saw, suspect or suffered abuse. When victims find the courage to speak up predators are exposed and children are safer.

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.

MALTA
Times of Malta

The Gozitan priest accused of having molested three teenage girls in Gozo was today granted bail.

His bail, granted earlier, had been revoked following an appeal by the Attorney General.

He was released today because the victims have now testified.

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)
National Catholic Reporter

Marie Rohde | Sep. 4, 2014

MILWAUKEE
Milwaukee Archbishop Jerome Listecki said Wednesday that he is hopeful there will soon be a resolution to the bankruptcy that has shadowed the archdiocese for nearly four years but said it’s up to the survivors of sexual abuse to give him a counterproposal to the $4 million he offered for compensation of some of the victims.

In a rare public event, Listecki responded to questions from the media at a Milwaukee Press Club luncheon.

Creditors in the bankruptcy, filed in January 2011, include more than 500 sex abuse claimants — although the archdiocese has challenged all but 120 of the claims — who have rejected the $4 million settlement offer. Listecki said that’s all the archdiocese had available.

Since then, the archdiocese has spent some $14 million on legal fees, prompting some to question whether the initial offer was sincere. The judge hearing the bankruptcy case, Susan V. Kelley, has ordered all sides to enter into mediation. An earlier mediation, like the one that Listecki said prompted the bankruptcy filing, failed.

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
Get Religion

Dawn Eden

“Covering all things Catholic” is the slogan for the Boston Globe’s new online venture, Crux. Judging by the look of it — especially at the moment it went live yesterday — “all things Catholic” translates largely to “all things we think a middle-aged Catholic woman would like to read.” The site is heavy on opinion. Even the front-page headlines are opinionated in the way that the editors seem to imagine is “edgy” for a 50-something female audience, i.e. “Muller: Nuns are still being bad” — though the headline on the actual article is more newsy (“Vatican’s doctrinal chief renews criticism of US nuns”).

The initial Crux page included Lisa Miller’s agony-aunt column “OMG” oddly placed at top right, next to John L. Allen Jr.’s feature “Hard questions we’re not asking Pope Francis.” In the middle of the page was an ad seeking entrants for a liberal women’s religious order, featuring a cheery-looking sister in her 60s wearing outdoorsy plainclothes. Buried toward the bottom of the page, almost as an afterthought, was a sports article, as though some editor felt a bone should be thrown to male visitors.

As I write, the page’s layout has shifted somewhat: Miller’s column is now buried, but the overall feel of the page is still directed to Catholic women of a certain age (i.e. my age). In the top-right spot now is Margery Eagan’s “On Spirituality” column, the title of which suggests a desire to reach the Oprah-style “spiritual but not religious” crowd.

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.

MALTA
Gozo News

Gozitan priest Fr Jesmond Gauci, who was accused of child molestation last month, was granted bail during a hearing this morning at the Gozo Court.

The bail granted previously had been revoked following an appeal that had been filed by the Attorney General, and Fr Gauci was held in custody until the witnesses have given their testimony.

Bail was granted today against a deposit of €1,000 and a €5,000 personal guarantee, as the witnesses have now testified.

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
Minnesota Public Radio

Madeleine Baran St. Paul, Minn. Sep 3, 2014

In a sharply worded ruling, a Ramsey County judge has rejected a request by the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis to dismiss a massive clergy sex abuse lawsuit.

Judge John Van de North ruled that a jury should decide whether the archdiocese created a public nuisance by keeping information on abusive priests secret and was negligent in its handling of Thomas Adamson, a former priest who has admitted to sexual contact with minors.

The decision paves the way for a trial to start Nov. 3. It will be the first time in the country that a public nuisance claim against a Catholic diocese will go to trial, victims’ attorney Mike Finnegan said.

Van de North cited several abuse cases in a 17-page memorandum released Wednesday along with the order.

“The Court need look no further than Fathers Adamson and Curtis Wehmeyer as unfortunate examples of the horrendous consequences that can flow from intentional and misguided efforts to protect pedophile priests at the expense of minors,” Van de North wrote.

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
The Journal

IRISH WOMAN PHILOMENA LEE will today give a key-note speech at a major international conference on adoption law in Cork.

The woman’s story of forced adoption inspired the Oscar-nominated film Philomena. Lee is a former resident of a mother-and-baby home where her baby boy was taken from her and adopted by an American couple.

The boy, then known as Anthony, became Michael Hess, senior counsel under the Reagan and Bush administrations. He had died of AIDS in 1995, before his biological mother could find him.

However it emerged that he had travelled to Ireland a number of times trying to find her and had hit a brick wall with the sisters at the home, as had Lee when she tried to get information from them.

The two day conference at University College Cork (UCC) today is entitled ‘Redefining adoption in a new era: Opportunities and challenges for law and practice’ and will hear from intenational speakers from a number of different disciplines.

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MALTA
The Malta Independent

Jesmond Gauci, the priest accused of abusing three girls was today granted bail after the alleged victims testified behind closed doors in a Gozo court.

Sources close to the case said Father Jesmond Gauci attended a family BBQ in Gozo and was caught by the girl’s mother touching the girl “inappropriately”. It is understood that the girl’s mother has said she is willing to testify against the priest.

The Malta Independent is also informed that the police have discovered several text messages allegedly sent by the priest to at least one of the girls.

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UNITED STATES
Crux

By John L. Allen Jr.
Associate editor

At 64, Cardinal Timothy Dolan is poised to be a force in Catholic life for a long time. In late August, he sat down for a wide-ranging interview about Francis, anti-Christian persecution, the Obama administration, the Church’s sexual abuse scandals, hard choices in New York, and more.

(Read more about John Allen’s interview with Cardinal Dolan)

In Part 1 of Crux’s exclusive interview, which took place at his residence in St. Patrick’s Cathedral, Dolan talks about the “Francis effect,” including the non-ideological bishops this pope seems to want … and the climate of refreshing honesty – and occasionally irritating uncertainty — he seems to be creating in the Vatican.

* * * * *

Crux: Pope Francis is almost at the 18-month mark. What grade do you give him?

Dolan: Oh, I’d give him an unqualified A. I thank God for him every day, because he’s a gift to the Church.

What’s very clear to me is that he really listened to the General Congregations that anticipated the conclave. [Note: These are daily meetings of the cardinals in Rome before the papal election, designed to work out the main issues facing the Church.] He was extraordinarily attentive, he listened carefully, and we cardinals aren’t surprised by what he’s doing because we can recall that it was all talked about on the floor.

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UNITED KINGDOM
The Guardian

Amelia Gentleman
The Guardian, Wednesday 3 September 2014

In the highly charged fallout from the Rotherham report, Nazir Afzal, the Crown Prosecution Service’s lead on child sexual abuse and violence against women and girls, tries to offer a calm perspective. Unruffled by mounting media hysteria over the ethnicity of abusers in Rotherham, he suggests stepping back and taking a wider view of the nationwide picture of child sex abuse.

His role means he has oversight of all child sex abuse cases in England and Wales. “So I know that the vast majority of offenders are British white male,” he says, setting the number at somewhere between 80 and 90%. “We have come across cases all over the country and the ethnicity of the perpetrators varies depending on where you are … It is not the abusers’ race that defines them. It is their attitude to women that defines them.”

Afzal, 51, is resigned to the ongoing scrutiny of commentators on the right towards the role of Asian men in recent grooming cases, but thinks that the focus is an overreaction. He is also wary of the suggestion found in the report, and reiterated by home secretary Theresa May on Tuesday, that a culture of “political correctness” had contributed to the authorities’ decision to turn a blind eye to the abuse of at least 1,400 in Rotherham.

“I don’t want to play it down. The ethnicity of these perpetrators is what it is. It is a matter of fact. It is an issue that has to be addressed by the state, and the authorities and the community – but it’s important to contextualise this,” he says, racing rapidly through his arguments, twizzling a paper-clip in his fingers in time with his swift delivery.

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UNITED STATES
dotCommonweal

Luke Hill
September 3, 2014

When the Boston Globe hired John Allen away from the National Catholic Reporter earlier this year, it didn’t make sense. The Globe had closed its overseas bureaus years ago and—like every other newspaper in the country—had a shrinking newsroom.

With the launch this week of Crux (“Covering All Things Catholic”) as the Globe’s newest website, hiring the man George Weigel once called ““the best Anglophone Vatican reporter ever” makes sense—not as a newspaper strategy but as an online media strategy.

New Globe owner John Henry (also principal owner of the Boston Red Sox and Liverpool Football Club) made his fortune crunching numbers, analyzing data, and trading on the commodities futures markets. According to newsroom sources, the numbers Henry has crunched persuad him there’s an unmet demand for coverage of the Catholic Church; and that the Globe—with its long history as paper of record in one of the most Catholic metropolitan regions in the country—is well-positioned to capture a profit-making share of that market.

Crux launched with a small staff: Globe veteran (and former Boston.com editor) Teresa Hanafin edits the site, with Allen as her associate editor. Inés San Martín and Michael O’Loughling are the Vatican and US reporters, respectively. Longtime Boston Herald columnist Margery Eagan was hired away to write a column on spirituality; and Christina Reinwald is Crux’s web producer. At least for now, the site is fleshed out with stories from the wires: AP, Catholic News Service, and Religion News Service.

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CALIFORNIA
U-T San Diego

By Susan Shroder
SEPT. 3, 2014

SAN DIEGO — Bishop Cirilo Flores, head of the Roman Catholic Diocese of San Diego, has been diagnosed with an advanced stage of cancer, the diocese said Wednesday.

The disease, which is in his bones, is “widespread, very advanced and very aggressive,” Monsignor Steven Callahan said in a statement.

“Unfortunately, Bishop Flores is not a candidate for chemotherapy because of his very weak condition and the advanced stage of the disease,” the statement said.

Flores, 66, has been hospitalized at the USC Norris Comprehensive Cancer Center in Los Angeles, where he was being treated for prostate cancer, while still suffering some effects from a stroke he suffered in April, the diocese said last week.

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

The National Catholic Reporter (NCR) and its editor, Dennis Coday, via an e-mail, has permanently blocked my access to making comments on its website as described further here

[Christian Catholicism]

and here

[Bilgrimage]

NCR has so far ducked many questions, including those raised by bloggers at NCR and elsewhere, about this unwarranted and unreasonable censorship tactic. But the bloggers are pushing back, even some whom have often taken issue with some of my comments.

For example, please read these pertinent excerpts from bloggers who follow NCR:

robchristopher says:

… We routinely chastise the Vatican for deciding that they know best how to deal with certain people (read: nuns, women, etc.). How can we go along with the same treatment by NCR? …

Rita says:

I fully agree that censorship of comments that do not offend common decency is abhorrent….

DANNO says:

… Gerald Slevin has helped this victim of clergy rape and molestation on my journey to becoming a survivor and a relentless advocate for other survivors.
NCR has not responded to my request for information on the censorship of Mr. Slevin. I will not allow this to stand!!!!

NCR seems to be following step one (ignore) of the hierarchy’s playbook. Corruption needs secrecy and censorship to survive.

Ignore, deny, minimize, obfuscate, shift blame. apologize but continue the immoral behavior.
Too bad that the Church and NCR has forgotten about Jesus.
Jerry, I truly appreciate and admire your efforts and you have my complete 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.

PENNSYLVANIA
The Times-Tribune

BY TERRIE MORGAN-BESECKER
Published: September 4, 2014

Attorneys for the Rev. Philip Altavilla and the woman who claims he indecently assaulted her as a teenager have agreed to preserve certain evidence from his dismissed criminal case for possible use in a civil lawsuit the woman filed.

The agreement, approved Tuesday by Lackawanna County Judge Terrence Nealon, calls for the district attorney’s office and Scranton police to retain a photo album that reportedly contains pictures of the alleged victim’s feet and shoes. Police will also preserve copies of wiretap tapes.

Joseph Lenahan, attorney for the woman, filed a writ of summons last month notifying the Rev. Altavilla and the Diocese of Scranton that she intends to file a lawsuit. Mr. Lenahan confirmed the suit is related to criminal charges filed against the Rev. Altavilla for allegedly indecently touching the woman in 1998, when she was 13.

The Rev. Altavilla was charged with several offenses, including indecent assault and corruption of a minor, in connection with the incident. The case was dismissed by Judge Michael Barrasse on Aug. 1 because the statute of limitations had expired.

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AUSTRALIA
SBS

By Greg Dyett
Source World News Radio 4 SEP 2014

(Transcript from SBS World News Radio)

Substance abuse, failed relationships and, sometimes, even premature death are some of the devastating results for adults abused as children.

Their stories are being told at Australia’s royal commission into child sexual abuse, but that is not the only place.

Some of their voices are also being heard this week in Northern Ireland, at the biggest inquiry ever held in Britain.

Greg Dyett reports.

(Click on the audio tab above to hear the full report)

“Better late than never” is how Tony Costa characterises his journey back to Northern Ireland after first arriving in Australia in 1953 at age 11.

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MARYLAND
WBAL

TOWSON, Md. —A judge sentenced a former church youth group leader on Wednesday to 16 years in prison for sexual abuse of minors, Baltimore County prosecutors said.

Raymond Fernandez, 50, of Nottingham, was a youth group leader at the Greater Grace World Outreach Church. Prosecutors said he sexually abused three young boys between the ages of 12 and 17 on repeated occasions from 1996 to 1998.

Fernandez had been the youth group leader and coach for the victims during the time period that the abuse occurred. One of the victims disclosed the abuse after he saw Fernandez at a church function in June 2013.

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.