ABUSE TRACKER

AUSTRALIA
The Chronicle

Chris Calcino | 14th Jul 2014

THE long-awaited launch of former Toowoomba Diocese bishop Bill Morris’ tell-all book Benedict, Me and the Cardinals Three will happen tonight at the Empire Church Theatre.

The behind-the-scenes and often-secretive machinations of the Catholic Church will be thrust into the limelight, with Emeritus Bishop Morris going into detail about the Vatican dealings that led to his dismissal in 2011.

“It relates, from my perspective, the dealings I had with various congregations of the Vatican’s Curia, and with certain cardinals and officials, as well as with Pope Benedict XVI, regarding pastoral activities and a letter I wrote to the diocese in Advent of 2006 while the Bishop of Toowoomba,” he said.

“The book details the background and events which led to my being asked by Pope Benedict XVI to resign as Bishop of Toowoomba when I had a meeting with him in Rome on June 4, 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.

VATICAN CITY
New Zealand Herald

The level of paedophilia in Catholicism is at two percent, and includes bishops and cardinals, according to an Italian newspaper which had interviewed Pope Francis.

The interview also quoted the Pope as saying the Catholic Church could eventually lift a ban on priests being able to marry, but was quickly refuted by the Vatican.

Interviewed by Italy’s La Repubblica daily, Francis condemned child sex abuse as a “leprosy” in the Church and cited his aides as saying that “the level of paedophilia in the Church is at two percent”.

“That two percent includes priests and even bishops and cardinals,” the Pope was quoted as saying.

Asked whether priests might one day be allowed to marry, Francis pointed out that celibacy was instituted “900 years after Our Lord’s death” and that clerics can marry in some Eastern Churches under Vatican tutelage. ,,,

But Vatican spokesman Federico Lombardi said the quotations in the newspaper on the existence of paedophile cardinals and the possible reform of priestly celibacy did not correspond to what the Pope actually 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.

VATICAN CITY
New York Daily News

The spiritual leader made the comments to the Italian newspaper La Repubblica in a conversation that was published Sunday. The Pope likened the issue to a leprosy within the church and would do more to stop it. The Vatican issued a statement that said the published conversation is not a verbatim transcript and denied the Pope said the transgressors also included cardinals.

BY JOEL LANDAU NEW YORK DAILY NEWS Sunday, July 13, 2014

Pope Francis said he has been told that 2% of the Catholic priests engage in pedophilia, but vowed to do what he can to eradicate the problem within the church, which he compared to leprosy.

The spiritual leader made the comments in an hour-long conversation with Eugenio Scalfari, the 90-year-old founder and former editor in chief of the Italian newspaper La Repubblica, which were published in a story Sunday.

In the story, the Pope is quoted as saying the corruption of a child “is the most terrible and unclean (act) imaginable” — especially when committed by someone with a family or friend connection to the children.

Francis said he has studied “reliable data” that assesses pedophilia within the church at about 2% of priests, and even bishops and cardinals. …

But a few hours after the interview was published, the newspaper reported the Vatican’s spokesman, Father Federico Lombardi, noted that the interviewer Scalfari did not make an official recording of the conversation and the story was published using the Pope’s words from his memory. The Vatican also notes the Pope did not approve the story.

The Vatican denied the Pope said there are pedophile cardinals and that he would find a solution to the topic of celibacy.

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

UNITED STATES
Waiting for Godot to Leave

Kevin O’Brien

Pope Francis has recently stated that he’s been informed that 2% of Catholic clergy – 1 in 50 – are pedophiles.

But the number is certainly higher than that.

SNAP quotes BishopAccountability.org …

“U.S. bishops have reported receiving allegations of abuse by 6,427 priests in 1950-2013, or 5.9% of the 109,694 U.S. priests active 1950-2002, according to the John Jay report. Including the 5,356 priests ordained since 2002 brings the total to 115,050, of whom 5.6% have been accused of abuse,” according to BishopAccountability.org.

I have elsewhere read parts of the John Jay Report that indicate a figure closer to 4%.

There is apparently no telling how these rates compare with the prevalence of pedophiles in the general population, as that number is not known, though Time Magazine says …

Dr. John Bradford, a University of Ottawa psychiatrist who has spent 23 years studying pedophilia–which is listed as an illness in the manual psychiatrists use to make diagnoses–estimates its prevalence at maybe 4% of the population. (Those attracted to teenagers are sometimes said to suffer “ephebophilia,” but perhaps because so many youth-obsessed Americans would qualify, psychiatrists don’t classify ephebophilia as an illness.)

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 KINGDOM
Telegraph

By Steven Swinford, Senior Political Correspondent 13 Jul 2014

The former judge leading an investigation into an establishment cover-up of child abuse could be joined by a co-chairman after criticism of her links to the establishment.

Theresa May, the Home Secretary, appointed Baroness Butler-Sloss to lead the investigation despite the fact that her late brother, Sir Michael Havers, was Attorney General at the time of the alleged abuses in the 1980s.

Sir Michael, father of the actor Nigel Havers, reportedly tried to stop Tory MP Geoffrey Dickens from using parliamentary privilege to name diplomat Sir Peter Hayman as a paedophile. He was accused of a “whitewash” after failing to criticise Sir Peter.

Baroness Butler-Sloss, 80, has said that she “knew absolutely nothing” about her brother’s role in the controversy and both she and Downing Street have rejected suggestions she should step down.

However James Brokenshire, a Home Office minister, yesterday suggested said that the Home Office is “working on” the idea of appointing a co-chairman.

Asked about the idea, he said: “Well I think it’s this precise detail that we are working on at this stage because it is important that we do draw on the right experts.

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 KINGDOM
Telegraph

The retired judge – whose appointment as the head of a major review of child sex abuse allegations is under fire – said warnings could not be issued about dangerous paedophiles

By David Barrett, Home Affairs Correspondent 13 Jul 2014

Baroness Butler-Sloss, the retired judge appointed to investigate claims of an establishment child sex abuse cover-up, was responsible for a controversial ruling which prevented warnings being issued about dangerous paedophiles.

Senior social workers attacked her decision – made when she was an Appeal Court judge – and warned that it would have “major ramifications”.

As the Government faced growing pressure to review its decision to appoint Lady Butler-Sloss to the major new inquiry, one child protection expert said the peer’s involvement in the ruling had the unintended consequence of allowing paedophiles to get away with their crimes.

Lady Butler-Sloss was appointed by Theresa May, the Home Secretary, last Tuesday to lead an overarching review of allegations of child sex abuse by prominent politicians and other figures in institutions such as the Church and the BBC.

But critics have claimed the judge cannot be impartial because her late brother, a former Attorney General, played a key role in the affair in the early 1980s, and it has also been claimed she kept allegations about an Anglican bishop out of a report she wrote three years ago into a paedophile scandal in the Diocese of Chichester.

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 KINGDOM
Independent

Alderman Alfred Roberts, revered father of Margaret Thatcher and inspirer of her Victorian values, sexually harassed young female assistants working in the grocer’s shop where she grew up, according to the distinguished political biographer Professor Bernard Crick.

Writing in the satirical magazine Punch, the political theorist, commentator and biographer of George Orwell recounts claims from contemporaries of the one-time Methodist preacher, pillar of society and Mayor of Grantham, Lincolnshire, that he “was a notorious toucher-up”.

The assaults supposedly took place about 60 years ago, behind the counter of the shop, next to the “splendid mahogany spice drawers with sparkling brass handles (and) large, black, lacquered tea canisters”, recalled in her autobiography by Baroness Thatcher, whose decisive endorsement of William Hague as Conservative leader last week has renewed her influence with the Tory right.

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

VATICAN CITY
International Business Times

Pope Francis has described child abuse among Catholic priests as “a leprosy” among the Catholic clergy, and revealed an analysis by the Church claims that as many as one in 50 priests may be a paedophile.

The extraordinary admission by the leader of the Catholic Church, made in an interview in the Italian newspaper La Repubblica, comes after Pope Francis met with victims of child abuse by Catholic priests, and after he pleaded for forgiveness for abuses by priests.

In the interview, Pope Francis was quoted as saying that his advisers had told him that 2% of Catholic priests are paedophiles, or around 8,000 priests worldwide.

“Among the 2% who are paedophiles are priests, bishops and cardinals. Others, more numerous, know but keep quiet. They punish without giving the reason,” Pope Francis is quoted as saying.

“I find this state of affairs intolerable,” he went on, and vowed to root out and punish paedophilia by Catholic priests “with the severity it demands”.

La Repubblica ran the headline: “Pope says: Like Jesus, I shall use a stick against paedophile priests.” But a Vatican spokesman said the Pope had been misquoted in the interview.

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

VATICAN CITY
Vatican Radio

(Vatican Radio) In yet another conversation with former editor and founder of the Italian daily ‘La Repubblica’, Eugenio Scalfari, Pope Francis has touched upon a series of issues including pedophilia in the church, the mafia, the education of young people and knowledge.

In an article published Sunday in ‘La Repubblica’, Scalfari points out that it is the third time he has been to Casa Santa Marta in the Vatican for an open-hearted conversation with the Pope.

Scalfari reports that Pope Francis is extremely sensitive to and preoccupied by the question of pedophilia in the Church. He says Francis revealed that, intending to reassure him, some point out that reports show that there is only a tiny percentage – 2% – of priests affected by pedophilia in the Church, but Francis considers even this figure extremely serious and unacceptable. And regarding this same issue, the Pope forcefully condemns those who, within the Church are silent or perhaps mete out punishment without publically denouncing the crime. And he reaffirms his intention to continue tackling without compromise what he calls “the leprosy of pedophilia”.

Another theme with which the Pope is very concerned – Scalfari says – is the problem of the mafia which he will continue to denounce constantly. And he expressed his desire to get to know better the way the mafia thinks and the way “Mafiosi” profess to practice their religion.

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

VATICAN CITY
Al Jazeera America

In an interview, the pontiff also hinted that ban against marriage for priests may one day be lifted

July 13, 2014

One in 50 clerics are pedophiles, Pope Francis said in an interview published Sunday, in which he also hinted that the mandate of priestly celibacy may one day be lifted.

Francis condemned child sex abuse as a “leprosy” in the Church and cited his aides as saying that “the level of pedophilia in the Church is at two percent.” That figure includes priests “and even bishops and cardinals,” Italy’s La Repubblica daily quoted Francis as saying.

The figure represents around 8,000 priests out of a global number of about 414,000, according to the latest statistics from the Vatican.

Pope Francis also promised “solutions” to the issue of priestly celibacy, the Italian publication reported, raising the possibility that the Catholic Church may eventually lift a ban on married priests.

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

VATICAN CITY
Mirror (UK)

Jul 13, 2014 By Katie Davies

Many survivors of abuse by priests are angry at what they see as the Vatican’s failure to punish senior officials who have been accused of covering up scandals

The Pope today claimed around 2 per cent of clergy in the Catholic Church are paedophiles according to reliable data.

Pope Francis said that abuse of children was like “leprosy” inflicting the church and that the estimation – which would represent around 8,000 priests out of global number of about 414,000 – came from advisers.

He vowed to “confront it with the severity it demands” and said he believed “solutions” existed to problems posed by the prohibition on priests marrying, in an interview with the Italian La Repubblica newspaper.

“Among the 2% who are paedophiles are priests, bishops and cardinals,” said Pope Francis.

“Others, more numerous, know but keep quiet. They punish without giving the reason. I find this state of affairs intolerable.”

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

VATICAN CITY
Express (UK)

POPE Francis has reportedly said today that thousands of priests in the Catholic Church are paedophiles and described the child abuse as “leprosy”.

By: Dion Dassanayake
Published: Sun, July 13, 2014

The Pontif allegedly said it was infecting the “house” of Catholicism and that reliable data showed one in every 50 clergy members are paedophiles.

The Pope also vowed to confront child abuse within the church “with the severity it demands”, according to the Italian La Repubblica newspaper.

He was quoted as saying: “Among the two per cent who are paedophiles are priests, bishops and cardinals.

“Others, more numerous, know but keep quiet.

“They punish without giving the reason.

“I find this state of affairs intolerable.”

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

VATICAN CITY
Daily Mail (UK)

By HANNAH ROBERTS

Pope Francis has revealed that one in every fifty Catholic priests is a paedophile, it has been reported.

The pontiff was quoted as saying that advisors had told him that reliable figures show that ‘paedophilia inside the church is at the level of two per cent.’

The Pope reportedly told Italian newspaper la Repubblica that abuse of children was like ‘leprosy’ infecting the Church.

Francis said the ‘corruption of a child is the terrible and unclean thing imaginable’ and vowed to ‘confront it with the seriousness it demands’.

He said that paedophilia was unfortunately common and widespread. He said: ‘The church is fighting for the eradication of the habit and for education that rehabilitates. But this leprosy is also present in our house.’

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

VATICAN CITY
Sun

(VATICAN CITY, ROME)

Pope Francis has revealed that “reliable data” collected by the Vatican suggests that one in every 50 members of the Catholic clergy is a paedophile.

Speaking in an interview with La Repubblica, the Pope said his advisers had tried to “reassure” him that paedophilia within the Church was “at the level of two per cent”.

He pledged that he would drive away the “leprosy” of child abuse that was infecting the “house” of Catholicism.

“I find this state of affairs intolerable,” he said.

Pope Francis said his advisers at the Vatican had given him the 2 per cent estimate, which included “priests, bishops and cardinals”.

He also warned of much greater figures for people who were aware of the existence of abuse – sometimes within their own families – but who stayed silent because of corruption or fear.

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

VATICAN CITY
Sky News

Pope Francis has condemned child sex abuse as a “leprosy” and believes one in 50 people in the Church is involved in paedophilia.

In an interview with Italy’s La Repubblica newspaper, he also promised “solutions” to the issue of priestly celibacy and raised the possibility the Catholic Church may eventually lift its ban on married priests.

The Pope, who has previously said he would show zero tolerance for clergy who abused children, cited his aides as saying that “the level of paedophilia in the Church is at 2%”.

“That 2% includes priests and even bishops and cardinals,” he said.

Asked whether priests might one day be allowed to marry, Francis pointed out that celibacy was instituted “900 years after Our Lord’s death” and that clerics can marry in some Eastern Churches under Vatican tutelage.

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

VATICAN CITY
La Repubblica

Once again, Pope Francis appears to be out of step with conventional wisdom in the Vatican. In his third conversation with Eugenio Scalfari, La Repubblica’s founder and former editor-in-chief, the pontiff implied that there was room for manoeuvre on the issue of celibacy, that there were paedophiles among the cardinals, and that not enough priests condemned the mafia. But the Vatican immediately issued a statement suggesting he had been misquoted.

The Pontiff recalled that celibacy for priests was not instituted until the 10th century, “900 years after Our Lord’s death”, something which the church usually prefers to overlook. He also recalled that clerics could marry in some Eastern Catholic Churches. There were solutions to the “problem” of celibacy, “and I will find them.”

This unusually open approach to the issue follows on from his comments in May, when he told reporters on the plane returning from Israel that “celibacy is not a dogma”. He added: “It is a rule that I appreciate very much… but since it is not a dogma, the door is always open.”

This is the third time that Scalfari has met Francis since the pontiff first shocked the paper’s newsroom last September with his open letter to the paper’s eminence gris. A few weeks later, he invited the confirmed atheist for an extensive and unprecedented interview.

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.

CITTA’ DEL VATICANO
La Repubblica

di EUGENIO SCALFARI
13 luglio 2014

Sono le 5 del pomeriggio di giovedì 10 luglio ed è la terza volta che incontro Papa Francesco per conversare con lui. Di che cosa? Del suo pontificato, iniziato da poco più di un anno e che in così breve tempo ha già cominciato a rivoluzionare la Chiesa; dei rapporti tra i fedeli e il Papa che viene dall’altra parte del mondo; del Concilio Vaticano II concluso 50 anni fa solo parzialmente attuato nelle sue conclusioni; del mondo moderno e la tradizione cristiana e soprattutto della figura di Gesù di Nazaret. Infine della nostra vita, dei suoi affanni e delle sue gioie, delle sue sfide e del suo destino, di ciò che ci aspetta in uno sperato aldilà o del nulla che la morte porta con sé.

Questi nostri incontri li ha voluti Papa Francesco perché, tra le tante persone di ogni condizione sociale, di ogni fede, d’ogni età che incontra nel suo quotidiano apostolato, desiderava anche scambiare idee e sentimenti con un non credente. Ed io tale sono; un non credente che ama la figura umana di Gesù, la sua predicazione, la sua leggenda, il mito che egli rappresenta agli occhi di chi gli riconosce un’umanità di eccezionale spessore, ma nessuna divinità.

Il Papa ritiene che un colloquio con un non credente siffatto sia reciprocamente stimolante e perciò vuole continuarlo; lo dico perché è lui che me l’ha detto. Il fatto che io sia anche giornalista non lo interessa affatto, potrei essere ingegnere, maestro elementare, operaio. Gli interessa parlare con chi non crede ma vorrebbe che l’amore del prossimo professato duemila anni fa dal figlio di Maria e di Giuseppe fosse il principale contenuto della nostra specie, mentre purtroppo ciò accade molto di rado, soverchiato dagli egoismi, da quelle che Francesco chiama “cupidigia di potere e desiderio di possesso”. L’ha definito in una nostra precedente conversazione “il vero peccato del mondo del quale tutti siamo affetti” e rappresenta l’altra forma della nostra umanità ed è la dinamica tra questi due sentimenti a costruire nel bene e nel male la storia del mondo. È presente in tutti e del resto, nella tradizione cristiana, Lucifero era l’angelo prediletto da Dio, portatore di luce fino a quando non si ribellò al suo Signore tentato di prenderne il posto e il suo Dio lo precipitò nelle tenebre e nel fuoco dei dannati.

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

VATICAN CITY
Inquisitr

Pope Francis is known for being one of the more outspoken and candid Popes of recent times but this time it seems the Pontiff has gone even further and admitted that the Catholic church has a problem with peadophilia, a big problem.

In a frank interview with the Italian newspaper La Repubblica, the Pope is quoted as saying that in his opinion at least one in 50 Catholic priests are paedophiles. As he confirmed that his advisors had informed him that: “Paedophilia inside the church is at the level of two per cent,” and is a “leprosy” for the church, in his own words.

The Pope continued that: “Corruption of a child is the terrible and unclean thing imaginable,’”and promised to, “confront it with the seriousness it demands.”

In saying that, the Pontiff added that: ‘The church is fighting for the eradication of the habit and for education that rehabilitates. But this leprosy is also present in our house,” admitting for the first time officially that the Catholic church has issues in this area.

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

VATICAN CITY
Huffington Post

Reuters | By Philip Pullella
Posted: 07/13/2014

ROME, July 13 (Reuters) – About two percent of Roman Catholic clerics are sexual abusers, an Italian newspaper on Sunday quoted Pope Francis as saying, adding that the pontiff considered the crime “a leprosy in our house”.

But the Vatican issued a statement saying some parts of a long article in the left-leaning La Repubblica were not accurate, including one that quoted the pope as saying that there were cardinals among the abusers.

The article was a reconstruction of an hour-long conversation between the pope and the newspaper’s founder, Eugenio Scalfari, an atheist who has written about several past encounters with the pope.

“Many of my collaborators who fight with me (against pedophilia) reassure me with reliable statistics that say that the level of pedophilia in the Church is at about two percent,” Francis was quoted as saying.

“This data should hearten me but I have to tell you that it does not hearten me at all. In fact, I think that it is very grave,” he was quoted as saying.

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

UNITED STATES
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Sunday, July 13

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 )

Today, Pope Francis called the on-going clergy sex abuse and cover up crises a “leprosy” and said Vatican officials believe that two percent of the world’s priests are pedophiles.

Once again, on abuse, Francis talks when he should act.

Enough with the gratuitous and distracting denunciations of clergy sex crimes. It’s time for dramatic decisions about the continuing cover ups of those crimes. Increasingly shrill words do not save one boy from being sodomized or one girl from being raped.

There have always been, and will always be, predators in the priesthood. Decreasing their numbers will be harder to do.

There needn’t be, however, “enablers” in the church hierarchy. Decreasing their numbers could not be more easier. They should be fired, period. And fired now, not years from now when the latest in a seemingly-endless string of church abuse panels proposes some superfluous protocols. And dozens of them must be fired, not one or two scapegoats.

Finally, “U.S. bishops have reported receiving allegations of abuse by 6,427 priests in 1950-2013, or 5.9% of the 109,694 U.S. priests active 1950-2002, according to the John Jay report. Including the 5,356 priests ordained since 2002 brings the total to 115,050, of whom 5.6% have been accused of abuse,” according to BishopAccountability.org.

Here are more specific numbers, from BishopAccountability.org:

–After the March 2009 release of audit documents by the NH AG, the names of 74 accused Manchester priests are known, or over 8.9% of the 831 diocesan priests, which extrapolates to 9,768 nationally

–Covington diocese states that 9.6% of its priests have been accused, which extrapolates to 10,531 nationally

–Over 10% of Providence RI priests have been accused, which extrapolates to over 10,969 nationally

–Richard Sipe estimates that 9% of U.S. priests have offended, which extrapolates to 9,872 priests nationally

The real percentage of predator priests is of course much higher. And in the far larger developing world – where the power imbalance between clergy and congregants is far greater and where bishops enjoy far more status and deference – we believe the rate is higher still.

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 AFRICA
IOL

Durban – A pastor has been arrested for the murder of a three-year-old boy after his body parts were found at a church in Pongola, KwaZulu-Natal police said on Wednesday.

Police received information about a body at a church in Ncontshane and when they went there on Saturday they found a plastic bag containing body parts, said Captain Thulani Zwane.

“It is suspected that the parts were of a boy who was reported missing on 2 July [the previous Wednesday] in the area,” he said.

Some body parts of the child were still missing and police were searching for them.

A case of murder was opened. Zwane did not say when the pastor was arrested, or disclose the name of the church.

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 AFRICA
IOL

July 13 2014
By Liam Joyce

Durban – The police are on high alert after the pastor accused of murdering four-year-old Lungisani Ntuli was released from police custody.

The army, and the Public Order Policing unit have been sent to the area after threats were issued by members of the community.

Angry Pongola residents threatened to avenge the murder of the boy after the pastor who was arrested in connection with the crime was released from police custody on Friday.

Lungisani went missing on July 2 and parts of his dismembered body were found last Saturday, in a green shopping bag in a rondavel on the property of St John’s Apostolic Faith Mission church. The child’s torso is still missing.

Residents in Ncotshane village, who spent Friday waiting outside Simdlangetshe Magistrate’s Court for the pastor’s appearance, said they would continue burning public and municipal buildings in the area.

In the past week residents destroyed the church where the body parts were found, the pastor’s home and a resident’s home after they accused her of witchcraft. They also set alight part of the magistrate’s court, destroying a building and van. Not even an intervention by politicians earlier in the week could deter them from violence. …

Mabongi Khuzwayo, a member of St John’s Apostolic Faith Mission church, which was destroyed, defended the pastor, “It can’t be him, I do not believe it at all. Let us just allow the law to sort this out and not destroy things,” she 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.

SOUTH AFRICA
eNCA

DURBAN – Police in KwaZulu-Natal are searching for the limbs of a Pongola toddler whose mutilated body was discovered last weekend.

Four-year-old Lungisani Ntuli disappeared last Wednesday. His body was found, at the weekend, stuffed in a plastic bag with some of his limbs missing.

The family says it’s hard to find closure if they only get to bury parts of their child’s body.

A local priest has been arrested in connection with his death and angry community members reacted by burning the church down.

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 KINGDOM
Express

By: Helen Barratt
Published: Sun, July 13, 2014

The Most Rev Justin Welby said he was braced for horror stories to materialise saying there were bad stories “in almost every institution in this land”.

He has called for transparency in the Church from now on, admitting “for many, many years things were not dealt with as they should have been dealt with”.

Asked about the potential for damning revelations to be made as part of the inquiry, Archbishop Welby told The Andrew Marr Show said: “I would love to say there weren’t, but I expect there are. There are in almost every institution in this land.

“It’s something I deal with every day and it is becoming clearer and clearer that for many, many years things were not dealt with as they should have been dealt with.

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 KINGDOM
BBC News

Fresh allegations of child sex abuse against the Church of England (CofE) are likely to surface, the Archbishop of Canterbury has warned.

The Most Rev Justin Welby said he was braced for an abuse inquiry to reveal “bad stories” about the Church.

He told the BBC’s Andrew Marr Show that he dealt with the issue daily and that the Church needed to be transparent.

It comes after the Home Office backed Baroness Butler-Sloss as the right person to lead that inquiry.

Concerns have been raised about her over a previous review role in which she is alleged to have told an abused choirboy that she wanted to exclude some of his allegations in order to protect the CofE.

She has said she never put institutions before victims.

Archbishop Welby said abuse survivors needed to be shown justice and called for transparency from the Church in how it dealt with the issue

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

UNITED KINGDOM
Mirror

Jul 12, 2014
By Nick Buckley, Keir Mudie

Margaret Thatcher personally covered up child abuse ­allegations made against one of her senior ministers, according to explosive new claims.

The Sunday People reports Tory Prime Minister is said to have held a high-powered meeting with the rising star, who was being tipped for promotion, and told him: “You have to clean up your sexual act.”

It followed an allegation that the minister had sexually abused young boys at the home of one of his political allies in 1982.

However the minister apparently ignored the warnings.

It is claimed that four years later he was spotted by police seeking young boys for sex at Victoria railway station in London.

But no action was taken.

The extraordinary claims – made to the Sunday People by a source with inside knowledge of Scotland Yard in the early 1980s – are now expected to be put before the Westminster child abuse ­inquiry announced last week by the Prime Minister. …

The Home Office was forced to defend Baroness Butler-Sloss, 80, after it was claimed she buried allegations about a bishop from a child-abuse review in 2011.

She reportedly told a victim she did not want to include the allegations in a review of how the Church of England dealt with two paedophile priests because she “cared about the Church” and “the Press would love a bishop”.

A Home Office spokesman said: “The integrity of Baroness Butler-Sloss is beyond reproach and we stand by her appointment unreservedly.”

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

VATICAN CITY
Channel News Asia

VATICAN CITY: Pope Francis promised “solutions” to the issue of priestly celibacy in an interview on Sunday that raised the possibility the Catholic Church could eventually lift a ban on married priests, but was quickly refuted by the Vatican.

Interviewed by Italy’s La Repubblica daily, Francis also condemned child sex abuse as a “leprosy” in the Church and cited his aides as saying that “the level of paedophilia in the Church is at two per cent”.

“That two per cent includes priests and even bishops and cardinals,” the pope was quoted as saying.

Asked whether priests might one day be allowed to marry, Francis pointed out that celibacy was instituted “900 years after Our Lord’s death” and that clerics can marry in some Eastern Churches under Vatican tutelage.

“There definitely is a problem but it is not a major one. This needs time but there are solutions and I will find them,” Francis said, without giving further details.

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.

NEDERLAND
Trouw

[Abuse victims again feel insulted by the Catholic Church. The Wim Deetman committee in 2011 issued a report about sexual abuse of minors in Catholic institutions between 1945 and 1981. It was a bomb. Deetman investigated 2,100 reports of abuse but said the actual number is many times higher and could be 10,000 or 20,000.]

Misbruikslachtoffers voelen zich voor de zoveelste keer geschoffeerd door de katholieke kerk. Nu omdat de klachtencommissie definitief stopt. ‘Dit is zó arrogant.’

Van de in totaal 1600 meldingen moet het meldpunt er nog 500 afwikkelen
Het is 16 december 2011. De commissie-Deetman komt met haar eindrapport over seksueel misbruik van minderjarigen in katholieke instellingen tussen 1945 en 1981. Het rapport slaat in als een bom.

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
NYR

Garry Wills

Pope Francis has acted fast on his preferred issues—poverty and economic justice. Nothing in that to criticize. He has been slower—too slow, say some—to deal with the long-festering problem of sex abuse by priests. He has at last taken some of the steps people were calling for—see victims and apologize to them, authorize a panel to study the problem, promise reforms that will prevent a recurrence of these crimes. OK so far—but Pope Benedict had begun all that before him.

Why did Francis hesitate to continue what was already being done? Is it because all these things are beside the point? Very likely, they are. Without addressing structural issues in the Vatican, meaningful action to restore trust in the priesthood and church authority cannot get far. There are four such interlocking problems:

1. Celibacy. Yes, celibacy does not directly and of itself lead to sexual predation. There are many unmarried men and women who are not predators. But Catholic celibacy is not simply an unmarried state. It is a mandatory and exclusive requirement for holding all significant offices in the Church. This sets up a sexual caste system that limits vision, empathy, and honesty. It enables church rulers to be blithely at odds with the vast majority of their own people. According to a 2011 Guttmacher Institute study, 98 percent of American Catholic women of child-bearing age have had sex—and, of that 98 percent, 99 percent have used or will use some form of contraception. Yet celibate priests tell us they know what sex is really about (by their expertise in “natural law”), and in their view it absolutely precludes birth control. There is an induced infantilism in such cloistered minds, an ignorance that poses as innocence. This prevents honesty at so many levels that any trust on sexual matters begins in a crippled state, handicapping all treatment of sexual predation in the Church.

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
Our Love and Support to Archbishop Seraphim (Storheim)

With tears of joy and deep gratitude we publish the official letter of support to Archbishop Seraphim from the HOLY SYNOD OF BISHOPS OF THE ORTHODOX CHURCH OF PORTUGAL

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 KINGDOM
Sunday Mail

By PRESS ASSOCIATION

An inquiry into allegations of child sex abuse at the heart of the establishment is likely to turn up fresh claims about the Church of England, the Archbishop of Canterbury has admitted.

The Most Rev Justin Welby said it was something he dealt with daily and it was becoming clearer that “for many, many years things were not dealt with as they should have been dealt with”.

Abuse survivors must now be shown justice and the Church must be “absolutely transparent” every step of the way, he told BBC One’s Andrew Marr Show.

Asked if he was braced for the inquiry to uncover “bad stories”, Archbishop Welby replied: “I would love to say there weren’t, but I expect there are. There are in almost every institution in this land.

“This is, it’s something I deal with every day and it is becoming clearer and clearer that for many, many years things were not dealt with as they should have been dealt with.

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 KINGDOM
BBC News

Esther Rantzen, the founder of ChildLine, has added her voice to those who think that Baroness Butler-Sloss may be the wrong person to lead an inquiry into how the government handled allegations of child abuse by senior politicians in the 1980s.

Last week Phil Johnson, who was abused by a paedophile priest in Sussex, claimed Baroness Butler-Sloss wanted to exclude some of his allegations in a bid to protect the Church of England.

Baroness Butler-Sloss said she had never put institutions before victims. The Home Office has backed her as the right person to lead an inquiry.

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 KINGDOM
The Observer

Andrew Rawnsley
The Observer, Saturday 12 July 2014

It is a question of our age – arguably the question of our age – which links every story that is probably interesting you right now. It screams out of the allegations that a paedophile ring operated at Westminster. It is triggered again by the government’s desire to rush through emergency surveillance legislation in the name of combatting terrorism. It is at the heart of the debate about the future of the NHS. It bedevils the arguments over independence for Scotland. It will be up front and central and decisive at the next British general election. Whom do you trust?

Comes an answer that is as popular as it is succinct: trust no one.

Trust me, I’m a banker. Don’t think so. Trust me, I’m a doctor. Did you ever work at Mid-Staffs? Trust me, I’m from the intelligence services. And what did you have to do with rendition and torture? Trust me, I’m a police officer. How many innocent people did you shoot or stitch up to today? Trust me, I’m a bishop. Catholic or Anglican? Child abuser or investor in Wonga? Trust me, I’m a supermarket. How much horse is there in your burgers? Trust me, I’m from the newspapers. When does your trial begin? Trust me, I’m from the BBC. And what did you know about Jimmy Savile? Trust me, I’m a celebrity. How much tax are you avoiding? And were you mates with Rolf Harris?

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 KINGDOM
Irish Mirror

Jul 13, 2014 By Vincent Moss, Matthew Drake

Margaret Thatcher was warned that senior ministers were involved in a child sex ring, a former Tory activist claims.

Anthony Gilberthorpe says he sent her a 40-page dossier in 1989 accusing Cabinet members of abusing underage boys at drug-fuelled conference parties.

Mr Gilberthorpe, who claims he was ordered to recruit boys for the ministers, says he posted the “graphic” allegations to Mrs Thatcher after befriending her. …

Her former Parliamentary Private Secretary Sir Peter Morrison has already been named in connection with a probe into the Bryn Estyn children’s home in Wrexham where Jimmy Savile allegedly molested boys.

Mrs Thatcher lobbied for Savile to be given a knighthood and he visited her at Chequers on at least 11 occasions. …

Details of Mr Gilberthorpe’s evidence emerged as retired judge Baroness Butler-Sloss came under growing ­pressure to stand down as head of the Westminster child abuse inquiry.

She is accused of keeping allegations about a bishop out of a review of how the Church of England dealt with two paedophile priests because she “cared about the church.”

In a statement yesterday, Lady Butler-Sloss insisted that she has “never” put the reputation of an institution ahead of justice for victims.

In another ­development yesterday a former social ­services official said his warnings about the threat of a Westminster-based paedophile network were ignored because “there were too many of
them there”.

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
Bray People

BRAY native Marie Kane met Pope Francis at the Vatican on Monday where they discussed her abuse.

Bray native Marie Kane met Pope Francis at the Vatican on Monday where they discussed her abuse.

Marie (43), who now lives in Carlow, was one of a group of six victims to meet the pope.

She asked him to allow priests marry and sack bishops who do not act on abuse in their diocese.

She said that the meeting was a very positive experience and a huge vindication for her, according to the Irish Independent.

‘I am 11 years trying to get justice in some shape or form and it hasn’t happened,’ she told the newspaper, adding that the Pope ‘seemed genuinely sorry.’

She reported that he listened intently to what she had to say, at times seeming frustrated by what he was hearing.

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.

LOUISIANA
The Advocate

[state supreme court ruling]

HEIDI R. KINCHEN
hkinchen@theadvocate.com

A legal battle over whether a Louisiana priest should have reported a teenager’s claims of sexual abuse by a parishioner is pitting state laws meant to protect children against the age-old secrecy surrounding religious confessions.

The case involves a woman who claims that in 2008, when she was 14, she told her pastor she was sexually abused by a now-deceased church parishioner, but that the priest, the Rev. Jeff Bayhi of Our Lady of the Assumption Catholic Church in Clinton, told her to “sweep it under the floor and get rid of it.”

Rebecca Mayeux — whom recent court rulings in the sealed case did not name but who identified herself as the alleged victim in a TV interview with WBRZ — has sued Bayhi and the Roman Catholic Diocese of Baton Rouge, arguing that the priest neglected his duty under state law to report the alleged abuse to the authorities.

The Baton Rouge Diocese has said Bayhi responded appropriately because the information came to him through confession, a sacrament that includes a seal of confidentiality no priest can break.

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

NEW MEXICO
ABQ Journal

By Olivier Uyttebrouck / Journal Staff Writer
PUBLISHED: Sunday, July 13, 201

New Mexicans first met Michael Sheehan in April 1993 when the 53-year-old bishop was tapped by the Vatican to lead the Archdiocese of Santa Fe in a time of mounting crisis.

The leaderless archdiocese had been rocked by allegations of clerical sexual abuse.

Just three weeks earlier, the popular Archbishop Robert F. Sanchez had resigned after five women alleged he had sexually molested them when they were teenagers. New Mexicans were shocked to hear several women describe those abuses on “60 Minutes,” CBS’ news program.

Sanchez was one of at least 14 priests accused of sexual abuse at the time Sheehan arrived and lawsuits were beginning to pile up. Sheehan ultimately dismissed an estimated 20 priests as a result of the scandal.

Then-Bishop of Lubbock, Sheehan was met by a phalanx of reporters at his first news conference in Albuquerque.

“I want to put the household of faith in order,” Sheehan said following a flight from Texas. “But I cannot do it alone, nor can I do it overnight.”

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 KINGDOM
Sunday Mail

I was asked to find underage boys for sex at drink and drug-fuelled Tory party conferences, claims former activist

By MATT CHORLEY, MAILONLINE POLITICAL EDITOR

Senior Tory politicians took part in drink and drug-fuelled sex parties with underage boys during seaside conferences, it was claimed today.

Former activist Anthony Gilberthorpe says he was handed cash and told to ‘fetch entertainment’ – code for young boys – by members of Margaret Thatcher’s government.

But the claims were today rejected as ‘tittle-tattle’ by former Conservative minister David Mellor, who insisted those named were dead and unable to defend themselves. …

He told the Sunday Mirror how boys as young as 15 were plied with alcohol and cocaine at Conservative gatherings in Blackpool and Brighton in the 1980s.

He named former former-Education Secretary Keith Joseph, ex-local government minister Rhodes Boyson, and Michael Havers, the former attorney general who is the brother of Baroness Butler-Sloss. All of those Mr Gilberthorpe names are now dead. …

Mr Gilberthorpe alleges that in 1981 he went to a party in Blackpool where ‘several boys who were clearly aged between 15 and 16’ were performing sex acts on MPs.

He claims he saw Sir Michael Havers there. Baroness Butler-Sloss has faced calls to stand down from her role leading the panel inquiry because her brother was in the Cabinet at the time many of these allegations date from.

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.

PHILIPPINES
Sun.Star

By Atty. Ignacio R. Bunye
Speaking Out
Sunday, July 13, 2014

POPE Francis recently backed with strong action his pronouncements to hold officials accountable in connection with the sex scandals that have shaken the Catholic Church.

On his assumption as pontiff, Pope Francis announced “zero tolerance” for the sex abuses, which he called “the shame of the Church.” He further said that dealing with the sex abuse allegations was “vital to the Roman Catholic Church’s credibility.”

Last December, he announced the creation of a Vatican committee that will help fight child abuse in the Church.

Three weeks ago, BBC reported that the Vatican tribunal convicted a Polish archbishop and stripped him of his priesthood because of sexual abuse.

The archbishop is the highest ranking Church official so far investigated. He was found guilty of charges that he had abused boys in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic during his assignment in that city as a papal ambassador.

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 KINGDOM
Scotsman

by DANI GARAVELLI
Published on the 13 July 2014

Ensuring victims of child abuse have a voice is just as important as uncovering any evidence of a mass cover-up over historic cases, writes Dani Garavelli

WHEN IAN McFadyen saw the former head­teacher of Caldicott Prep School in Slough jailed for child abuse in February, he expected to feel a sense of closure. After all, Peter Wright had been at the centre of a paedophile ring that had preyed on prepubescent boys at the school for almost a quarter of a century – a ring that McFadyen had dedicated several years of his life to exposing.

McFadyen had not been abused by Wright, now 83, but by several other teachers, one of whom, John Addrison, is also in prison. His principal abuser, George Hill, who assaulted him repeatedly, committed suicide without being charged, while another teacher, Hugh Henry, threw himself in front of a train hours before he was due to be sentenced. …

The confusing tangle of scandals at the heart of the new inquiries has been on the radar for several decades, but, it is alleged, covered up to protect the reputations of those involved. The allegations against Smith were first investigated by Lancashire Police in the 1960s, until, according to retired detective Jack Tasker, those involved were told to back off by Special Branch. Allegations about child abuse at Elm Guest House, a gay brothel shut down after a raid in 1982, surfaced eight years later during the inquest of co-owner Carole Kasir. And in 1992, officers investigating paedophile Peter Righton, a consultant to the National Children’s Bureau convicted of importing images of child abuse, are said to have gathered box-loads of evidence pointing to the existence of a nationwide paedophile ring.

The catalyst for their re-investigation was, of course, the death of Jimmy Savile. As the scale of his offending emerged, those involved in other scandals began to raise their heads above the parapet. Most significantly, former child protection officer Peter McKelvie, who helped convict Righton and had spent 20 years wondering why important leads had not been followed up, took his concerns to MP Tom Watson, who has been questioning the government ever since.

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

VATICAN CITY
Boston Globe

By John L. Allen Jr. | GLOBE STAFF JULY 12, 2014

As anyone who paid attention in history class knows, when Spanish explorer Hernán Cortés landed in what’s now Mexico in 1519, he promptly scuttled his ships, thereby leaving his men no choice but to press on in conquest of the Aztec empire. For centuries, that rash act has loomed as an object lesson in total commitment.

This week Pope Francis scuttled some ships of his own, on two fronts which have been sources of scandal and heartache for the Catholic Church: sex and money.

On Monday, Francis held his first meeting with victims of clerical sexual abuse. Two days later, the Vatican announced a sweeping financial overhaul, including new leadership and a sharply limited role for the troubled Vatican bank.

There’s such hunger in the world to believe Francis is the real deal that it’s tempting to confuse announcing a plan for reform with actually implementing it. To be clear, what happened this week was not reform itself — it was more like a prelude to action, an attempt to create the conditions for something good to happen.

In both cases, the key effect was to commit Pope Francis definitively to a particular course of action.

On the abuse front, the fact that Francis met with victims was no novelty, as Benedict XVI held such encounters six times. Likewise there was no breakthrough in his plea for forgiveness, since such apologies date all the way back to 1993 when John Paul II voiced sorrow for the sins of “some ministers of the altar.” They became sharper under Benedict XVI, who first used the magic words “I’m sorry” in Australia in 2008.

Nor was Francis’ pledge of zero tolerance a novelty. The classic papal statement comes from an April 2002 speech by John Paul II to American cardinals: “There is no place in the priesthood and religious life for those who would harm the young.”

Yet the July 7 meeting wasn’t entirely old hat, because Francis had something groundbreaking to say on accountability. Here’s the line: “All bishops must carry out their pastoral ministry with the utmost care in order to help foster the protection of minors, and they will be held accountable.”

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.

UNITEDKINGDOM
Scriptonite Daily

Scriptonite Daily / December 18, 2013

For decades, vulnerable children from care homes and other institutions were booked to order by rich and powerful men, for sex. This is the allegation put forward in ‘Nightmares at Elm Guest House’, in an interview with Chris Fay of the National Association for Young People in Care. As another significant member of the Conservative party is about to be outed this weekend, we take a closer look at these allegations and ask: how much longer can the UK establishment keep this story suppressed?

In 1974, a group of child sex abusers launched the Paedophile Information Exchange (PIE). This group was legal at the time, and sought to promote the rights of ‘paedophiles’. The group espoused the view that children had the right to indulge in their sexual feelings with adults, and argued the age of consent should be lowered to four years old, or abolished altogether.

This was not some fringe group, hidden away. They had thousands of members, many from senior positions in the media, the security services, politics and other establishment positions.

The members were public and built affiliations with the Gay Liberation Front, the Campaign for Homosexual Equality, mental health charity Mind, and even human rights organisation Liberty (previously named The National Council for Civil Liberties). The leaders of PIE shared platforms with Harriet Harman, Patricia Hewitt, and others.

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 KINGDOM
RT

A former official from the UK’s social services has said that an alleged pedophile network in Westminster and Whitehall was ignored because “there are too many of them over there.”

David Tombs, a former official who ran Hereford and Worcester social services for 20 years, warned the government about the possible pedophile network after the arrest of notorious pedophile Peter Righton in 1992.

Tombs claims he became aware of the pedophile behavior through a police investigation.

“I had no particular names, but that was the impression I was getting,” he told a BBC Radio current affairs program.

“It was coming across to me at the time that there were names linked into the establishment, if you like,” he said.

But when he approached representatives from the Department of Health, he was told that he was “probably wasting his time” as there were “too many of them over there” in Westminster and Whitehall.

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 KINGDOM
The Times

Frances Gibb Legal Editor

July 12 2014

Baroness Butler-Sloss was facing the toughest battle of her long career last night after it emerged that she withheld allegations against an Anglican bishop from a report she wrote into paedophile priests in 2011.

The decision this week to appoint the former president of the Family Division of the High Court, 80, to head a new overarching inquiry into child sex abuse has been criticised because her brother was the
late Lord Havers, attorney general from 1979 to 1987, the periods of some of the present controversy over the failure to prosecute child abuse.

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

AUSTRALIA
WA Today

David Ellery
Reporter for The Canberra Times.

The Catholic Church Insurance company CCI is staying mum on whether or not it will try to recover almost $9 million that may have been wrongly paid out on behalf of the Marist Brothers.

The payments, made to Canberra victims of serial sex abusers “Kostka” John Chute and Gregory Sutton, might not have been made if CCI had been told the Marist Brothers had known for decades that the men were paedophiles and did nothing to remove them from contact with children.

In 2008 senior members of the order took advice from their lawyers on how to prevent CCI from learning Chute had been offending as early as 1960.

Details on how both the Marist Brothers and CCI responded to the abuse of dozens of children in the ACT over many decades by Sutton and Chute were revealed at the Canberra hearings of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse last month.

Francis Sullivan, the Canberra-based CEO of the church’s Truth, Justice and Healing Council, sat through the hearings.

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 KINGDOM
The Guardian

Shane Hickey and agencies
theguardian.com, Saturday 12 July 2014

The Home Office has again been forced to defend the appointment of Lady Butler-Sloss to run the inquiry into allegations of historical child abuse amid claims she refused to go public about a bishop implicated in a scandal.

The retired high court judge is reported to have told a victim of alleged abuse that she did not want to include some of his allegations in a review of how the Church of England dealt with two paedophile priests because she “cared about the Church” and “the press would love a bishop”.

The peer allegedly made the remarks to Phil Johnson, who was abused by priests when he was a choirboy, during a private meeting in the House of Lords in 2011, according to the Times.

The Home Office has again insisted it stands by the crossbench peer’s appointment “unreservedly”. Earlier this week it was forced to defend the appointment when critics pointed out that her late brother, Sir Michael Havers, was attorney general from 1979 to 1987 when some of the controversy over the failure to prosecute child abuse cases could have arisen.

Butler-Sloss insisted in a statement that she had never put the reputation of an institution ahead of justice for victims.

“Throughout many years of public service I have always striven to be fair and compassionate, mindful of the very real suffering of those who have been victims of crime or other injustice. I have never put the reputation of any institution, including the Church of England, above the pursuit of justice for victims,” the statement 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.

UNITED KINGDOM
Independent

Westminster abuse inquiry: Baroness Butler-Sloss accused of hiding claims of bishop’s paedophile allegations

LIZZIE DEARDEN Saturday 12 July 2014

A retired judge leading the Government’s investigation into child sex abuse kept allegations about a bishop out of a report because she “cared about the Church” it has been alleged.

Baroness Butler-Sloss reportedly told an alleged victim that she did not want the bishop implicated in a review of how the Church of England dealt with two paedophile priests because “the press would love a bishop”, the Times reported.

The 80-year-old made the comments in a meeting with Phil Johnson, who was abused by priests when he was a choirboy, during a meeting at the House of Lords in 2011, the paper said.

Lady Butler-Sloss insists she has “never” put the reputation of an institution ahead of justice.

In a statement, she said: “Throughout many years of public service I have always striven to be fair and compassionate, mindful of the very real suffering of those who have been victims of crime or other injustice.

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
RT

An Australian judge has incurred the wrath of child protection and gay rights advocates after stating that incest and pedophilia may no longer be considered taboo – just as gay relationships are now more accepted than they were in the 1950s and 60s.

District Court Judge Garry Neilson was recorded as saying that sexual contact between adults and children or siblings may no longer be regarded by society as “unnatural” or “taboo.”

Just as same-sex relationships were once considered socially unacceptable, “a jury might find nothing untoward in the advance of a brother towards his sister once she had sexually matured, had sexual relationships with other men and was now ‘available,’ not having [a] sexual partner,” he said, as quoted by Australia’s Fairfax Media.

Neilson said that the primary reason for incest still being a crime is the high risk of genetic abnormalities in any children born as a result of the relationships.

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 KINGDOM
The Australian

JACQUELIN MAGNAY THE AUSTRALIAN JULY 12, 2014

FINDING an Establishment figure who is sufficiently distant from Westminster, but with the gravitas to oversee a far-reaching investigation into political misconduct and cover-up of child abuse, is proving a headache for the British government.

Also troubling is the idea of using as a potential template Australia’s handling of widespread child-abuse claims, with its royal commission and mandatory reporting being criticised by some here.

Just how Britain responds to persistent allegations of historical child abuse and institutional cover-ups at the highest levels, ­including parliament, has been at the forefront of 10 Downing Street conversations all week.

First came the outcry about child abuse following the jailing of Rolf Harris and outpourings of his assaults on others.

Then came the revelation that 114 files from the 1980s that named Establishment pedophiles — including eight believed to be high-profile political figures — had gone missing from the government’s Home Office building.

The inability of the government to explain the loss of the files amid fears of a whitewash has triggered a maelstrom of concern and plummeting public confidence in Westminster.

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 KINGDOM
International Business Times

By Nick Assinder Political Editor
July 11, 2014

When ministers announced that Baroness Elizabeth Butler-Sloss was to head the over-arching investigation into child sex abuse in Britain the backlash was swift and loud.

Distinguished and unimpeachable though she is, her brother, former Tory attorney general Sir Michael Havers, had been criticised for not taking action against alleged establishment paedophiles in the 1980s when he was in post.

What surprised many of those MPs leading the demands for an inquiry was that it appeared the prime minister David Cameron and Home Secretary Theresa May had not spotted the potential conflict of interest.

Shadow attorney general, Emily Thornberry, told the BBC: “I don’t question this admirable, extraordinary woman’s integrity … but I’m surprised the home office didn’t look at this, because I think they have put her in a very difficult position.”

There was a very simple reason why the apparent problem was overlooked. It was because the creation of the Hillsborough-style inquiry and appointment of its head had been done in a huge rush in order to get the story off the front pages.

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 KINGDOM
The Week

Revelation prompts renewed calls for Baroness Butler-Sloss to step down

The retired judge heading the Westminster child abuse inquiry hid allegations about a bishop in a review of how the Church of England dealt with two paedophile priests because she “cared about the Church”, reports The Times this morning.

According to the report, Baroness Butler-Sloss told a victim of alleged abuse that she did not want his claims to be made public because “the press would love a bishop”.

Her comments were made three years ago during a meeting at the House of Lords with Phil Johnson, who suffered abuse by two priests when he was a choirboy in the Church of England Diocese of Chichester. Johnson, who kept a detailed record of the meeting, says he felt “pressured” into withholding allegations against the bishop.

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 KINGDOM
Home Office

With permission, Mr Speaker, I would like to make a statement about the sexual abuse of children, allegations that evidence of the sexual abuse of children was suppressed by people in positions of power, and the government’s intended response.

Mr Speaker, in my statement today I want to address two important public concerns. First, that in the 1980s the Home Office failed to act on allegations of child sex abuse. And second, that public bodies and other important institutions have failed to take seriously their duty of care towards children.

As I do so, I want to set three important principles. First, we will do everything we can to allow the full investigation of child abuse and the prosecution of its perpetrators, and we will do nothing to jeopardise those aims. Second, where possible the government will adopt a presumption of maximum transparency. And third, we will make sure that wherever individuals and institutions have failed to protect children from harm, we will expose these failures and learn the lessons.

Concern that the Home Office failed to act on allegations of child abuse in the 1980s relates mainly to information provided to the department by the late Geoffrey Dickens, a member of this House between 1979 and 1995.

As the House will be aware, in February 2013, in response to a Parliamentary question from the Hon Member for West Bromwich East, the Permanent Secretary of the Home Office, Mark Sedwill, commissioned an investigation by an independent expert into information the Home Office received in relation to child abuse allegations, including information provided by Mr Dickens. In order to be confident that the investigation would review all relevant information, the investigation reviewed all relevant papers available relating to child abuse between 1979 and 1999.

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 KINGDOM
BBC News

The Home Office has backed Baroness Butler-Sloss as the right person to lead an inquiry into allegations of historical child abuse, after claims about her over a previous review.

Phil Johnson, who was abused while a choirboy, claims she wanted to exclude some of his allegations in a bid to protect the Church of England.

He says she told him she “cared very much about the Church”.

Baroness Butler-Sloss said she had never put institutions before victims.

The Rt Rev Peter Ball, who was bishop of Gloucester and bishop of Lewes in East Sussex, was charged with two counts of indecent assault and one of misconduct in a public office, following her investigation into abuse in the diocese of Chichester during the 1970s and 1980s.

A court heard in April that the 82-year-old retired bishop was too unwell to answer the allegations.

Mr Johnson’s claims add to pressure on Baroness Butler-Sloss, who was appointed by Home Secretary Theresa May last week to head a review of how allegations of abuse linked to public institutions in the 1970s, 80s and 90s were handled.

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 KINGDOM
ITV

The Home Office again has insisted it stands by the appointment of Baroness Butler-Sloss “unreservedly”, amid claims made by The Times (£) that she refused to go public about a bishop implicated in a scandal. A spokesman said:

[Lady Butler-Sloss’] work leading the Cleveland child abuse inquiry and as president of the High Court’s Family Division make her the perfect person to lead this important piece of work.

As the permanent secretary (Mark Sedwill) told the Home Affairs Select Committee this week, the integrity of Baroness Butler-Sloss is beyond reproach and we stand by her appointment unreservedly.

– HOME OFFICE

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 KINGDOM
Christian Today

Published 12 July 2014 | Ruth Gledhill

Baroness Butler-Sloss, the retired judge heading the UK government’s inquiry into child sex abuse, came under increasing pressure today after a report emerged that she kept allegations about a Church of England bishop out of an important review into paedophile priests in one diocese.

The Times on its front page reports today that Lady Butler-Sloss told a victim of alleged abuse that she did not want the claims about the bishop to be in the public domain because she “cared about the Church” and “the press would love a bishop.”

The report is by one of the country’s top crime journalists, Sean O’Neill, who has consistently led the field with accurate reports of his investigations into child abuse.

According to The Times, the revelations have prompted fresh calls for the peer to step down as chair of the new inquiry.

The newspaper reports that her comments were made in 2011, during a meeting at the House of Lords with Phil Johnson, a survivor of assaults by clergymen when he was a choirboy in the Chichester diocese. Mr Johnson, who is now a member of a national safeguarding panel for the Church of England, kept a detailed record of the meeting. The Times reports that he felt “pressured” into agreeing to withhold the allegations from the review.

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 KINGDOM
Daily Mail

By DANIEL MARTIN

The retired judge appointed this week to head an inquiry into VIP child abuse kept allegations about a bishop out of a report into a paedophile scandal, it was claimed last night.

Baroness Butler-Sloss is said to have told a victim of alleged abuse she did not want the claims to be in the public domain as she ‘cared about the Church’.

The former choir boy claims she said: ‘The Press would love a bishop.’

Labour MP Simon Danczuk, who has helped expose claims paedophiles were operating in Westminster in past decades, renewed his call for her to step down as chairman of the new inquiry.
Her appointment has already come under fire as she is the brother-in-law of Sir Michael Havers, a former Attorney General in the 1980s – when the abuse is alleged to have taken place.

Her comments were reportedly made in 2011 during a meeting at the House of Lords with Phil Johnson, who suffered assaults by a number of clergymen when he was a choirboy in the Church of England Diocese of Chichester.

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 KINGDOM
Breitbart News

by NICK HALLETT 12 Jul 2014

The head of an inquiry into historic allegations of child abuse by politicians and other famous people allegedly kept accusations about a Church of England bishop out of a previous report, as she wanted to protect the church, the Daily Mail reports.

Baroness Butler-Sloss is reported to have told the victim of an alleged abuse that she did not want the claims to be made public as she “cared about the church”. She is also alleged to have said: “The press would love a bishop”.

She allegedly made the comments in a 2011 meeting at the House of Lords with Phil Johnson, a former choirboy who suffered sexual assaults from members of the clergy during his time in the Anglican diocese of Chichester.

Baroness Butler-Sloss last night responded to the allegations, saying: “I have always striven to be fair and compassionate, mindful of the very real suffering of those who have been victims of crime or other injustice.

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
Toledo Blade

Commentary

TK Barger

Sister Margaret Ann Pahl was once known as Sister Mary Annunciata, but she reclaimed her family name after Vatican II. Born in Edgerton, Ohio, in 1908, she entered the Sisters of Mercy religious order at Our Lady of the Pines in Fremont when she was 19. She remained a nun for more than 52 years.

When she was 26, she graduated from St. Rita’s Medical Center in Lima as a trained nurse and began a hospital-oriented career. After serving as a nurse in hospitals in Ohio and Michigan, she became a nursing supervisor in Tiffin. Then she moved to Toledo in 1954 to be a supervisor at St. Charles Hospital, then after five years an administrator. In 1962, she was director of nursing service at Mercy Hospital in Toledo, and for the next decade she held that position at the hospital where she was trained in Lima and at Our Lady of Mercy Hospital in Coldwater, Ohio.

In 1971, the year she turned 63, her hospital work shifted from medical to pastoral care, and she was the main sacristan, in charge of the sacred items for the two chapels in Mercy Hospital on Jefferson Street.

Sister Margaret Ann’s life ended a day before she was to turn 72, which was also a day before Easter. It was a hospital death, but not one of care and comfort surrounded by doctors, tubes, machines, and family. Sometime between 6:45 and 8 a.m. on April 5, 1980, she was strangled and stabbed 31 times in the sacristy of St. Joseph’s Chapel, on Mercy’s first floor. According to prosecutors and a jury, there was one person present at her death, the hospital chaplain—but the chaplain was her murderer, the Rev. Gerald Robinson, 41 at the time.

Sister Margaret Ann was an “old school” nun who “demanded everything to be done exactly as she wanted it done, and on time,” a detective wrote after interviewing another sister. Did her old-school ways lead to her death?

The story of Sister Margaret Ann and Father Robinson, of a nun killed by a priest, will now fade, after 34 years. My predecessor as Blade religion editor, David Yonke, covered the story extensively, and other Blade staff contributed. Our courts reporter, Jennifer Feehan, kept tabs on Father Robinson’s recent legal efforts.

Father Robinson was suspected in 1980, but he was not arrested until 2004, after cold-case investigators reexamined the details; they even exhumed Sister Margaret Ann’s body from St. Bernardine Cemetery in Fremont after Father Robinson‘‍s indictment. Father Robinson was convicted in 2006, sentenced to 15 years to life, and died in a prison hospice at age 76 on July 4.

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 KINGDOM
Channel 4

Baroness Butler-Sloss, who is to lead an inquiry into allegations of an establishment child-abuse cover-up, denies claims she refused to expose allegations about a bishop.

Lady Butler-Sloss has come under renewed pressure over her role heading an inquiry into allegations of an establishment cover-up over child abuse claims.

The Home Office has defended her appointment after claims she refused to go public about a bishop implicated in a child abuse scandal she was investigating.

She allegedly told a victim of claimed abuse that she did not want to include allegations regarding a bishop in a review of Church of England handling of two paedophile priests because she “cared about the church” and “the press would love a bishop”, said The Times.

Lady Butler-Sloss made the comments in a meeting with Phil Johnson, who was abused by priests when he was a choirboy, during a private meeting in the House of Lords in 2011, the paper 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.

ILLINOIS
Chicago Tribune

Tribune articles on Oct. 29, 2013, and June 20, 2014, contained an inaccuracy about checks written by a Greek Orthodox priest accused of improperly spending money from a private trust fund. The Rev. James Dokos, while serving at a Milwaukee parish, wrote checks from the trust fund account totaling $6,700 — not $6,750, as previously reported — to Bishop Demetrios of Mokissos, the No. 2-ranking official at the Greek Orthodox Metropolis of Chicago, according to documents obtained by the Tribune.

The Tribune regrets the errors.

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
Huffington Post

Maurice Chammah

While reporting recently on abuse allegations at a home for troubled teens, I realized that the article I was writing had been written before.

Sure, nobody had written about the Anchor Home for Boys, founded in Corpus Christi in the 1960s and reopened as Anchor Academy in Montana and then Missouri. Nobody had written about the boys who accuse the school of forcing them to spend hours exercising in freezing conditions with improper clothing, of barring them from speaking to anyone but a direct superior, of giving them nothing but peanut butter sandwiches to eat, of sleep deprivation and group beatings.

“Put your back against the wall and put your leg at a 90-degree angle and raise your arms,” one young man told me of a punishment he saw meted out. “If you drop your leg I’d punch you. If you drop your arms I’d punch you. If you say no I’d punch you. I’d say that’s torture.” (A short version of the article appeared at the Juvenile Justice Information Exchange, and a longer version is at The Revealer. The reporting was supported by the Fund for Investigative Journalism).

But I wasn’t the first one to find these sorts of stories, not by a long shot. Over the past two decades, dozens of unlicensed residential facilities for teens struggling with drug problems and various behavioral issues have been accused of physical and sexual abuse. A handful of these programs are based in Baptist thinking about the necessity of physical discipline in correcting a sinful path (“Those who spare the rod hate their children, but those who love them are diligent to discipline them,” Proverbs 13:24). The Anchor Home for Boys was one of many homes founded by a magnetic Baptist preacher and radio personality named Lester Roloff.

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

VATICAN CITY
The Economist

A shake-up of Catholic finances

Jul 12th 2014 | VATICAN CITY

AS HE unveiled an extensive shake-up of the Vatican’s financial structures on July 9th, Cardinal George Pell said Pope Francis would soon name an auditor-general, free to “go everywhere and anywhere” in the walled city-state to root out pecuniary lapses. The appointment of the new official would help the Vatican work towards “transcendency”, the cardinal added, before correcting himself to say “transparency”.

Religion and finance have always sat together uncomfortably, nowhere more so than in the Catholic church. The Vatican City is a natural tax haven. Its Institute for the Works of Religion (IOR)—better known as the Vatican bank—has been wreathed in mystery and tainted by scandal since its involvement in the collapse in 1982 of Banco Ambrosiano (the bank’s chairman, Roberto Calvi, was found hanged under Blackfriars Bridge in London).

But as a result of reforms initiated by Pope Benedict XVI and pursued vigorously by Francis, the outlines are emerging of a more transparent, rational system. Cardinal Pell, a no-nonsense Australian appointed in February to head a new secretariat for the economy, announced two main changes.

The first concerns the Administration of the Patrimony of the Holy See (APSA). Less well-known than the IOR, APSA generates most of the cash to pay for the Vatican’s administration. It has two sections. One oversees the property left to the Vatican after the occupation and eradication of the Papal State during Italy’s unification in the 19th century. The other section invests the papal “nest-egg”: the cash Italy’s fascist dictator, Benito Mussolini, gave the papacy in 1929 to compensate it for the loss of its territories. The first section is to be hived off into Cardinal Pell’s “finance ministry”; the second will become, in effect, the Vatican’s central bank.

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

VATICAN CITY
The Stanly News and Press

July 11, 2014

Foreign Policy

Friday, July 11, 2014 — The Vatican Bank’s history reads more like Dan Brown than the financial pages, but its worst — and weirdest — days may be behind it. After a year of reorganization and reform that saw a 97 percent drop in profits, the Holy See installed a new set of overseers that includes a man who made his reputation closing down North Korea’s illicit bank accounts.

But what is the Vatican Bank and why do the Catholic Church and its 1.2 billion adherents need their own financial institution? Officially dubbed the Institute for Works of Religion (IOR) and founded in 1942, the bank’s history has been defined by scandal, secrecy and non-compliance with the West’s standard anti-fraud measures. In fact, calling the IOR a bank may be stretching the term. It doesn’t issue checkbooks or make loans, there are strict criteria and background checks for clients, and some of its clients-only ATMs have a Latin option.

In reality, the IOR acts more like a discrete “off-shore” institution for holding funds than it does a typical bank — in fact, in 2012 officials eschewed the “bank” title. Carlo Marroni of Il Sole 24 Ore, an Italian financial daily, has written that the bank mostly invests its nearly 8 billion euros in currency and bond markets — and lots and lots of gold. When the bank’s reported profit dropped by more than 80 million euros (about $109 million) from 2012 to 2013, 16.4 million of that reduction was “tied to writedowns and fluctuations in the value of the IOR’s gold reserves.”

Pope Francis has made reforming the bank one of his top priorities, and the bank is in now in full clean-up mode. When logging on to the IOR website, visitors are greeted with a message that reads like an admission of guilt and apology. “The IOR is engaged in a process of comprehensive reform, to foster the most rigorous professional and compliance standards,” the letter says. “We are conducting an extensive evaluation of all our clients’ accounts, with the aim of closing down those relationships that are not in line with the IOR’s mission.”

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

ARIZONA
KFYI

(KFYI News) He was a volunteer at Phoenix First Assembly of God and Highlands Church in the Valley. 28-year-old Christian Turcios pleaded guilty to six charges that include child molestation, aggravated assault and sexual exploitation of a minor.

The victims ranged in age from 6 to 14 years old. The abuse occurred during a 7 year span.

Turcios volunteered at summer church camps and was a custodian at Highland Church. He was arrested over two years ago after police found child porn at his residence. As part of the plea, the judge sentences Tucios to 30 years in prison and lifetime probation.

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.

LOUISIANA
KATC

[Louisiana Supreme Court ruling]

by Kari Beal

A Louisiana lawsuit is trying to force a priest to testify what he was told in confession.

It dates back to a 2009 lawsuit with Our Lady of the Assumption Catholic Church in Baton Rouge. The parents who filed the lawsuit said Rev. M Jeffrey Bayhi ignored information that their daughter was sexually abused by Parishioner George Charlet Junior. This week, the Louisiana Supreme Court ruled that if the daughter testifies what she said in her confession, the priest must come forward and testify if it is true.

Now the Catholic Diocese is firing back, saying this completely goes against its religious vows.

“When a priest hears someone’s confession he cannot talk about that. It’s something so sacred that everyone priest knows when a priest is ordained what is told to him, he cannot tell anyone,” Rev. Msgr. Richard r. Greene a spokesman for the The Roman Catholic Diocese of Lafayette and Priest of Sacred Heart of Jesus Christ in New Iberia.

UL student Kaitlin Davis with Our Lady of Wisdom Church said she agrees.

“It’s personal, it’s your salvation and Christ is giving it to you personally,” Davis 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.

UNITED STATES
The Daily Beast

Jason Berry

Innocent people persecuted by a legal system out of control? In The Witch-Hunt Narrative, Ross E. Cheit argues the media and courts have gone too far in dismissing evidence of abuse.

In 1993, a young man dying of AIDS gave a tearful interview on CNN after filing a lawsuit alleging that Chicago Cardinal Joseph Bernardin had sexually abused him many years before. Bernardin defended himself eloquently at a press conference. Several months later, when reporters unearthed information about plaintiff Steven Cook that cast doubt on his veracity, he withdrew the suit, saying he could not trust his memory.

Newsrooms turned on a dime. Time’s cover pictured Freud as a disassembling picture puzzle. National coverage shifted from a focus on bishops concealing predators to “false memory,” hysteria fueled by the suggestibility of young victims, faulty investigators, quack therapists, and a court system hard-pressed to safeguard presumption of innocence.

In 1996, Philip Jenkins, then a history professor at Pennsylvania State University, argued in Pedophiles and Priests that the earlier coverage of clergy abuse was a “putative” crisis, one “constructed” by the media and church critics.

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

ARIZONA
Arizona Republic

Catherine Calderon, The Republic | azcentral.com July 11, 2014

A former church volunteer was sentenced on Friday to 30 years in prison with lifetime probation in connection with the molestation of children in his care as a church baby-sitter and camp counselor.

Christian Salvador Turcios, 28, pleaded guilty in Maricopa County Superior Court to multiple counts of child molestation, aggravated assault and attempted sexual exploitation of a minor.

Turcios worked at Phoenix First Assembly of God and Highlands Church in Scottsdale. Police said the molestations took place over seven years.

Prosecutor Rachel Mitchell was joined in court on Friday by the families of Turcios’ young victims who spoke of the emotional distress his actions caused them.

One victim’s mother narrated her son’s struggle at school and need to seek out therapy, which has proved ineffective. The family was unable to visit the church for a long time, she 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.

UNITED KINGDOM
Western Morning News

The Home Office has again been forced to defend the appointment of Westcountry peer Baroness Butler-Sloss to run the inquiry into allegations of an establishment cover-up of child abuse amid claims she refused to go public about a bishop implicated in a scandal.

Lady Butler-Sloss, who lives near Exeter,told a victim of alleged abuse she did not want to include the allegations in a review of how the Church of England dealt with two paedophile priests because she “cared about the Church” and “the press would love a bishop”, according to The Times.

The peer made the remarks in a meeting with Phil Johnson, who was abused by priests when he was a choirboy, during a private meeting in the House of Lords in 2011, the newspaper said.

It puts fresh pressure on the former High Court judge, who has faced calls to step down after reports that her brother Sir Michael Havers tried to prevent ex-MP Geoffrey Dickens airing claims about a diplomat in Parliament in the 1980s.

In a statement, Lady Butler-Sloss insisted that she has “never” put the reputation of an institution ahead of justice for victims.

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 KINGDOM
Express

THE Home Office has again been forced to defend the appointment of Baroness Butler-Sloss to investigate a potential cover-up of child abuse amid claims she put the church reputation ahead of outing an implicated bishop.

By: Helen Barratt
Published: Sat, July 12, 2014

Lady Butler-Sloss told a victim of alleged abuse she did not want to include the allegations in a review of how the Church of England dealt with two paedophile priests because she “cared about the Church” and “the press would love a bishop”, it has been claimed.

The peer made the remarks in a meeting with Phil Johnson, who was abused by priests when he was a choirboy, during a private meeting in the House of Lords in 2011, The Times reported.

It puts fresh pressure on the former High Court judge, who has already faced calls to resign after claims her brother Sir Michael Havers tried to prevent ex-MP Geoffrey Dickens airing claims about a diplomat in Parliament in the 1980s.

Meanwhile a former social services boss said his warnings about people in power abusing children were ignored because there were “too many”.

In a statement, Lady Butler-Sloss insisted that she has “never” put the reputation of an institution ahead of justice for victims.

She said: “Throughout many years of public service I have always striven to be fair and compassionate, mindful of the very real suffering of those who have been victims of crime or other injustice. I have never put the reputation of any institution, including the Church of England above the pursuit of justice for victims.

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.

NIGERIA
International Business Times

By Johnlee Varghese

July 11, 2014

A 53-year-old Pastor in Nsukka, Enugu state has been arrested by the Nigerian police for tricking several women into having sex with him, after claiming that he was being directed by the Holy Spirit.

The arrested Pastor, identified as Timoty Ngwu of Ministry of Holy Trinity, works among the Umudikwere community.

The man is said to have had sexual relations with several women in the name of God. However, his wife Veronica could no longer ignore his fraud, especially after he impregnated her teenage niece.

The Pastor locked up his wife, after she confronted him about his deeds. However, Veronica managed to escape with one of her daughters. She then approached the Criminal Investigations Department unit, which handles child sex abuse cases, and lodged a criminal case against her husband.

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
Public Catholic

July 11, 2014 By Rebecca Hamilton

If a priest reveals what he’s heard in confession, will he go to hell?

I’ve read that a priest who violates the seal of confession suffers automatic excommunication which only the Holy See can remove. So, I would guess that a priest who reveals what he hears in confession is, at the least, in danger of hell.

That’s a serious question, for the simple reason that, in this anti-Catholic climate, we’re going to see more and more attempts to coerce priests to break the seal of confession. That would be a great triumph for Satan, since it would destroy the confidence of Catholics and break what has always been a powerful bond between them and their Church.

Catholics know that whatever they do, they can be forgiven by God. All Christians know this. But Catholics have the benefit of being able to actually confess their sins out loud and hear the words of absolution, applied directly to them. It does not matter what the sin is, they can do this in the confessional.

They also receive incredibly healing graces in this sacrament.

There is something about the cleansing power of the Sacrament of Confession that can make people who would not otherwise be able to approach communion feel worthy to do so. Confession heals, in and of itself. The sinner does not have to wonder if they’ve had the right attitude or if they’ve really been saved. All they have to do is confess and mean it. They can then draw a line under those bad things and walk out of that confessional, safe and secure in God’s grace.

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
The Tablet (UK)

Why I agitated for confessions in the Australian Anglican Church to no longer be bound by confidentiality

11 July 2014 by Garth Blake QC

While a court in the US has ordered a priest to reveal what a young girl told him in the confessional amid fears she may have told him she was being abused by a parishioner – which his diocese has stated he will not do – an Australian Anglican explains why he lobbied for his Church to make exceptions

Anglican clergy in Australia are no longer compelled to keep confessions of serious crimes confidential, following a decision made by the General Synod of the Anglican Church of Australia last week.

Since 1989 clergy have been required by canon law to keep confessions confidential, except where the penitent consented to its disclosure. This decision amending canon law provides that a member of the clergy who hears the confession of a serious offence, including criminal offences involving child abuse or child exploitation material, does not have a duty to keep the confession confidential.

Confidentiality will only be required if the penitent has already reported the offence to the police and, where applicable, the Director of Professional Standards.

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.

LOUISIANA
Supreme Court of Louisiana

PER CURIAM

This writ presents the issue of whether a party is precluded from offering any evidence of her confession and whether a priest has a duty to report allegations of sexual abuse perpetrated on a minor parishioner. For the following reasons, we grant the plaintiffs’ writ, reversing and vacating the court of appeal’s judgment and reinstating the trial court’s judgment.

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.

LOUISIANA
The Times-Picayune

[Louisiana Supreme Court ruling]

By Julia O’Donoghue, NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune
on July 11, 2014

As he considers a run for president in 2016, Gov. Bobby Jindal has spent quite a bit of time articulating his concerns about religious liberty in the United States over the last six months.

“One of the most important struggles of our time is to stand up for our First Amendment religious liberty rights,” he said at the Iowa Republican State Convention in June.

The governor has accused President Barack Obama and other Democrats of waging a battle on American religious freedom several times during appearances around the country. He made the issue a central theme of his commencement speech at Liberty University in Virginia this May. It was also the thrust of his talk at the Ronald Reagan library in California last winter.

But Jindal, a practicing Catholic, is declining to weigh in on a high-profile legal case involving religious freedom that is happening in his own hometown and involves his own church diocese.

A Louisiana Supreme Court ruling could potentially force a priest from the Baton Rouge area to testify about what he was told during private confessions. The court’s ruling has revived a lawsuit that was filed by parents of a teen who says she told a priest about being fondled by a male parishioner.

The woman, now an adult, said she told the priest on three separate occasions in the confessional booth about the molestation. The Catholic Church tried, unsuccessfully, to block the woman from testifying about her confidential confessions. But the state Supreme Court said if she waived her right to keep her confessions private, the priest “cannot then raise it to protect himself.”

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
Twin Cities Daily Planet

By Emily A. King, Minnesota Women’s Press
July 11, 2014

Madeleine Baran isn’t used to being in the spotlight. The Minnesota Public Radio reporter is more comfortable asking the questions and listening to others’ stories.

But when she took the lead on an investigative story about sexual abuse by local Catholic priests, she started getting noticed. Her use of documents and interviews shed light on coverups and inaction by top-level church officials and prompted legal authorities to dig deeper into allegations.
And that, Baran said, is a victory for her profession.

“It shows the value of journalism, because here’s a story where the public did not know about it, and it was important and it required journalism – it required doing interviews, knowing how to fact-check things” and analyzing documents, she explained. “People want investigative reporting. It resonates with people. It’s what people think that journalists should be doing.”

Baran, who mostly grew up in Milwaukee, has a master’s degree in journalism from New York University. She was drawn to journalism because of “curiosity about other people and the way things work,” she said. “I know it’s kind of cliché, but it’s true that as a reporter you have this really amazing excuse for coming and asking people questions about their lives.”

She landed at MPR News in 2009 – doing online and radio pieces – but she has been a part of several other hard-hitting investigative stories, including pieces about the St. Paul police crime lab, the FBI files on the late Sen. Paul Wellstone and Minnesota’s mental health system.

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
PopeCrimes& Vatican Evils.

Paris Arrow

While Pope Francis the Opus Dei Beast fattest clown-in-white is doing his one-man show in the
Vatican Circus for Idiot Catholics, read more here VATICAN CIRCUS for IDIOT CATHOLICS. Opus Dei Beast PR Stunts: Vatican Bank’s profit plummet 97%. Pope Francis life in danger for tackling abuse & mafia LOL next door, at the Jesuit Gregorian University want a piece of the action. Today, Jesuit Fr Hans Zollner,a psychology professor at Rome’s Gregorian University and head of its Centre for the Protection of Minors said on Vatican Radio, that the Church is “on track” with its safeguarding policies and want to share its expertise with secular organizations working in the same field. WTF?

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 KINGDOM
Telegraph

The former judge appointed to investigate allegations of an establishment cover-up of child sex abuse kept allegations about a bishop out of the public domain because the ‘press would love a bishop’

By Alice Philipson 12 Jul 2014

The retired judge appointed to lead the Government’s major review of child sex abuse allegations kept allegations about a bishop out of a report on a paedophile scandal because she “cared about the Church”, it has emerged.

Baroness Butler-Sloss told a victim of alleged abuse that she did not want to include the claims because “the press would love a bishop”.

It comes days after Lady Butler-Sloss was forced to apologise for “inaccuracies” in a previous inquiry into two paedophile priests.

Bishop Ball, 82, the former Bishop of Lewes and Bishop of Gloucester, was charged this year with indecent assault offences and misconduct in a public office.

During a meeting at the House of Lords in 2011, Lady Butler-Sloss told Phil Johnson that she would “prefer not to refer to him” because he was “very old now” and she wanted the focus of any press coverage to be two priests who were prolific abusers – one of whom was dead and the other in 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.

UNITED KINGDOM
The Times

Sean O’Neill Crime Editor

July 12 2014

The retired judge leading the Westminster child abuse inquiry kept allegations about a bishop out of a review of how the Church of England dealt with two paedophile priests because she “cared about the Church”, The Times can disclose.

Baroness Butler-Sloss told a victim of alleged abuse that she did not want the claims to be in the public domain because “the press would love a bishop”.

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 KINGDOM
The Times

Frances Gibb Legal Editor

July 12 2014

Baroness Butler-Sloss was facing the toughest battle of her long career last night after it emerged that she withheld allegations against an Anglican bishop from a report she wrote into paedophile priests in 2011.

The decision this week to appoint the former president of the Family Division of the High Court, 80, to head a new overarching inquiry into child sex abuse has been criticised because her brother was the late Lord Havers, attorney general from 1979 to 1987, the period of some of the present controversy over the failure to prosecute child abuse.

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

UNITED KINGDOM
The Times

Baroness Butler-Sloss cannot be trusted with the inquiry into institutional abuse

July 12 2014

The government’s decision this week to order a wide-ranging inquiry into allegations of child abuse in major public institutions was a mistake. The inquiry’s scope is too broad to offer any realistic hope of a timely or worthwhile outcome. It is now clear that the appointment of Baroness Butler-Sloss to lead the inquiry only compounds the original mistake.

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 KINGDOM
Community Care

The public inquiry has been announced, but what does it all really mean? We take you through step by step

by Rachel Schraer on July 9, 2014

* Home secretary Theresa May announced the inquiry into historic allegations of child sex abuse in parliament this week.
* Last February, Home Office permanent secretary Mark Sedwill commissioned an investigation into documents relating to child abuse. The investigation covered information passed to the Home Office between 1979-1999.
* In carrying out this investigation, Sedwill found that 114 potentially relevant files were missing, presumed lost or destroyed.
* This included files that were part of a dossier MP Geoffrey Dickens brought to the Home Office alleging child sex abuse perpetrated from within Westminster.
* NSPCC head Peter Wanless has been tasked by Theresa May to review the Sedwill investigation, and look into how various public bodies handled abuse allegations.
* In addition to Wanless’s review, there will be a broad panel inquiry into public bodies with a duty of care to children, which is not expected to report until after the election in 2015.

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 KINGDOM
Western Daily Press

Hundreds of child abuse victims and their loved ones have contacted MP Tessa Munt asking for her help since she admitted she had been abused as a child.

Survivors, families, friends, police solicitors and social workers have all been in touch, urging her to ensure the issue is not swept under the carpet.

The Wells MP says being inundated with the stories of victims has made her more determined than ever to try and expose any organised cover up and fight for justice.

Mrs Munt was one of seven MPs who set the ball rolling on a campaign which eventually led to Home Secretary Theresa May announcing an inquiry into historical paedophile allegations against the establishment.

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.

MASSACHUSETTS
The Republican

By Suzanne McLaughlin | smclaughlin@repub.com
on July 11, 2014

LUDLOW – A new bill has been signed into law by Gov. Deval Patrick that extends the statute of limitations for sex abuse victims to file suit against their abusers.

The new law allows any childhood sex abuse victim up to the age of 53 to file civil charges against their alleged abuser. Prior to the passage of the new law sex abuse victims only had until age 21 to file civil suits against their abusers.

The law was signed by Patrick after it was unanimously approved in the House and Senate.

Kathy Picard, 51, of Ludlow, who says she is the victim of childhood sexual abuse, says she worked for 12 years for passage of the bill. She said she now has filed suit against a male family member who abused her between the ages of 7 and 17.

Victims of childhood sexual abuse should have the right to seek justice, Picard said. She said there is no statute of limitation for charging that someone committed murder.

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
Religion News Service

Boz Tchividjian | Jul 11, 2014

A few months ago, I was contacted by an individual from Florida who simply wrote to encourage me. As we exchanged emails, I learned that this man is a child sexual abuse survivor who credits an amazing (and generous) counselor for saving his life. He was so moved by this experience that he decided to commit his life to helping other survivors connect with qualified counselors who can guide them through the healing process. In 2011, he took the bold step towards this commitment and started an amazing organization called Together-We-Heal.

Below is my interview with David Pittman, a man whom I admire greatly for rolling up his sleeves and getting into the trenches to love and serve survivors. I’m also blessed to call him my friend:

Boz: Thanks for taking the time to be interviewed. What is your connection to child sexual abuse?

David: My connection to this subject is two-fold. First, I am a survivor of childhood sexual abuse. From the time I was 12 until around 15 years old, I was molested by my youth minister at Rehoboth Baptist Church in Tucker, Georgia. My other connection is through an organization I have started called, Together-We-Heal. The purpose of this organization is to help sexual abuse survivors get connected with qualified counselors . We help raise awareness on all matters concerning child sexual abuse through public speaking, presentations and workshops. We also help to facilitate the change of laws that will better protect children from and that require more severe penalties for the offenders (i.e. statute of limitation law reform).

Boz: What ever happened to the man who abused you?

David: Years after the abuse, I informed the church about what happened and who abused me. The pastor reluctantly removed him from being a paid staff member, but allowed him to volunteer as a music leader. To my knowledge, he is still there and continues to have access to little boys. What I don’t understand is why anyone would allow their children to be around him when they know that he’s an admitted child molester.

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
SFGate

Pope Francis has washed the feet of Rome’s homeless and spoken tolerantly about gays, creating a humble, fresh image for the leader of a tradition-bound institution. But he’s moved cautiously in dealing with a decade-old sex-abuse scandal, one of the Vatican’s most pressing problems.

The pope has defrocked several church insiders and formed a commission to look into the issue and suggest reforms. But until last week he hadn’t met with victims, as the previous leader, Pope Benedict XVI, had, or spoken in the heartfelt terms he often uses.

This careful distance may be fading. Last week, Francis met with six survivors – two each from Germany, Ireland and Britain – in one-on-one sessions. He followed that with remarks that signaled a sharper direction in both his emotional thinking and church directives.

“I beg for your forgiveness,” he said in remarks at a Mass he shared with the six. He went a step further: The church was to blame “for the sin of omission on the part of church leaders who didn’t respond adequately to reports of abuse.”

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

CALIFORNIA
Bus Byway

Lawsuit Against Rock Church Ministries Drug and Alcohol Recovery Program Expands with Seven Additional Plaintiffs

Thirteen Plaintiffs Are Now Part of the Updated Court Complaint Filed by the Zalkin Law Firm on June 12

(PRWEB) July 11, 2014

In May, The Zalkin Law Firm filed a civil lawsuit in the San Diego Superior Court, Central Division, (Case No: 37-2014-00014773-CU-PO-CTL) on behalf of five female participants and one employee of the Rock Church Recovery Ministry drug and alcohol recovery program. On June 12, seven additional participants in the Rock Recovery Program joined that lawsuit and allege additional claims, including a claim of sexual abuse of one plaintiff who was a minor at the time.

In the complaint filed last month, the plaintiffs alleged that the defendants, David Powers, Tina Powers, Fred Murray, ABC Sober Living, L.L.C., Recovery Housing, L.L.C., and the San Diego Rock Church, Inc. offered drug and alcohol rehabilitation services through the Rock Recovery Ministry, a Christian twelve-step based ministry. These plaintiffs allege that they were subjected to unlawful sexual battery, harassment, fraud, and negligent care as detailed in the complaint.

The plaintiffs allege in the complaint that the defendants, David Powers, Tina Powers, Fred Murray, ABC Sober Living, L.L.C. Recovery Housing, L.L.C.; Rock Church Ministries, Inc. and the San Diego Rock Church, Inc. operated the “Rock Recovery Ministry,” a Christian twelve-step ministry that offers faith-based live-in and outreach drug and alcohol recovery programs through Defendants ABC and Recovery Housing. As participants of that program, the plaintiffs were alledgedly subjected to unlawful sexual battery, harassment, fraud and negligent care as detailed in the complaint.

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

VATICAN CITY
Rome Reports

[with video]

2014-07-09

The Vatican’s supreme authority on economic affairs, the Council for the Economy, cleared up any doubts about the soundness of the Pension Fund for workers of the Holy See and the Vatican City State.

“The Council recognized and acknowledged that the pensions, which are being paid today to all the employees of the Holy See, as well as the Governatorato, as well as all the pensioners, and also for the next generation are safe.”

Italian press had speculated about the existence of a “black hole” in the pension fund, worth an estimated 800 million euros. The Vatican referenced the uncertainty surrounding pension funds in many Western countries, due to the economic crisis. But, it dispelled any cause for concern.

However, to avoid headaches and to guarantee the system’s solvency in the future, the Council created a technical committee to analyze the state of the Pension Fund, and adapt it to the new economic-administrative structure of the Holy See.

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
POPE FRANCIS the CON-Christ.

July 11, 2014

Paris Arrow

Catholics should imitate a man in Scotland who is demanding the statue of St. Michael the Archangel which includes fonts for holy water to be removed from Dumbarton church because it was created by sculptor Eric Gill who was a sexual deviant known to have had intimate relations with two of his daughters and his sisters. Sculptor Eric Gill works are also on display at high-profile locations in Westminster Cathedral in London, the BBC’s Broadcasting House and the European HQ of the United Nations in Geneva.

Dumbarton man Stuart Coleman told the Lennox Herald: “I find it detestable that art by such a man can be happily displayed publicly… I just find it at least inappropriate and at most absolutelyshocking and appalling that children will be regularly touching this statue to take from it holy water. It makes the skin crawl to think it was hand-crafted by a publicly known paedophile and put on display in such a prominent way.”

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
Fox News

Published July 11, 2014
Associated Press

TOLEDO, Ohio – A few nuns joined about 200 mourners for the funeral of a Roman Catholic priest convicted of killing an Ohio nun in 1980.

A full funeral Mass was held Friday in Toledo for the Rev. Gerald Robinson. He died July 4 in a prison hospice at age 76.

The Blade newspaper reports that among the people attending the service were priests, deacons and nuns from across the Toledo diocese.

Organizations that help victims of clergy abuse are upset that the diocese observed the usual protocol for priest’s funeral.

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
Toledo Free Press

In 2006, when Toledo Catholic Diocesan priest Father Gerald Robinson was convicted of the brutal murder of Sister Margaret Ann Pahl, many wanted to believe he was just a “bad apple” and that the Toledo Catholic Diocese was not a “bad pie.” However, the controversy surrounding diocesan administrator Father Charles Ritter’s decision to bury Robinson as a Catholic priest, arguably weakens that position.

Since Robinson’s passing, we’ve heard from many upset groups.

First, there are Catholics, some offended that a convicted murderer is being buried as a “priest in good standing.” Then, there are victims of violent crimes and their loved ones, distraught that Catholic officials show such disregard for those whose loved ones have been murdered. Next, there are child sex abuse victims, devastated that Robinson is being afforded such honors, because he’s also an accused child molester. Finally, there are average citizens. Some have called this callous move by Robinson’s church supervisors another example of their flagrant disregard for anyone outside of their exclusive membership.

For each person who has reached out to us, we share all of their pain and outrage. What good could come from the Toledo Catholic Diocese honoring a convicted murderer? It is apparent that the feelings of those slighted don’t matter much to key diocesan decision-makers. It seems the feelings of Robinson’s church colleagues are weighted higher, and those colleagues apparently feel it’s appropriate to bury a convicted murderer in full priestly robes with full priestly honors. They seem blind to the fact that this rubs even more salt into the already-deep and still-fresh wounds of so many others who aren’t part of the privileged clerical caste.

The single church official who is perhaps most responsible for this callousness is Father Ritter, who has been vocal that they’ll follow the usual protocol for a diocesan priest’s funeral, as if somehow “business as usual” is OK when dealing with a murderer. Why is Pahl’s life comparatively being so devalued? Is it because she’s an elderly woman and nun? Since priests convicted of murder are exceedingly rare and Robinson is believed to be the first to be convicted of murdering a nun, what protocol covers this unique contingency?

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
Toledo Blade

[homily by Rev. Thomas J. Extejt]

[closing remarks from Rev. Charles Ritter].

At the same church where he celebrated his first Mass as a newly ordained Catholic priest, family members, supporters, and fellow priests gathered today for the funeral of the man believed to be the first Catholic priest convicted of killing a nun.

Gerald Robinson was found guilty by a jury in Lucas County Common Pleas Court in 2006 of murder for the April 5, 1980, slaying of Sister Margaret Ann Pahl. The 71-year-old Sister of Mercy nun was strangled, then stabbed 31 times in the sacristy of the chapel at the former Mercy Hospital.

More than 200 people filled the pews of St. Hyacinth Church for the funeral Mass for the priest.

“Father Robinson for many years carried a heavy burden. Whether or not it was a burden of guilt or a burden of a miscarriage of justice, I do not know,” said the Rev. Charles Ritter, administrator of the Diocese of Toledo. “We do not know. Either way, that burden is lifted for him now.”

Father Ritter officiated at Robinson’s funeral Mass, where the Rev. Thomas J. Extejt, pastor of St. Anthony Church in Columbus Grove, delivered the homily, also speaking of Robinson‘‍s conviction and imprisonment.

“We‘‍re not here to accuse or excuse,” Father Extejt said, but just to offer prayers to Robinson’‍s family and the Sisters of Mercy.

Priests and deacons from across the diocese were seated at the front of church. Sisters — some in traditional habits — also attended the funeral.

Robinson, 76, remained a priest after his conviction but was barred from performing public ministry. He died July 4 at Franklin Medical Center in Columbus while serving a 15-year to life sentence for the crime.

Born in Toledo in 1938 and ordained in 1964, Robinson was to be buried at Calvary Cemetery. His death came a day after a federal court judge denied his motion to be released from the prison hospital to come home to spend his final days with his brother and sister-in-law in Toledo.

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
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Friday, July 11, 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 )

Today, Toledo’s top Catholic official needlessly and callously raised doubts about whether a police, prosecutors, jurors and a judge wrongfully convicted a priest of murdering a nun.

Whether Fr. Robinson carried “a burden of guilt or a burden of a miscarriage of justice, I do not know,” said Fr. Charles Ritter.

Fr. Ritter could have said nothing about the unanimous jury verdict. Out of respect for crime victims, and for the family of Sr. Margaret Ann Pahl, he could have avoided speculating about Fr. Robinson’s guilt or innocence. But he chose to make hurtful remarks rather than compassionate remarks.

No justice system is flawless. But very few believe that Fr. Robinson was innocent. Remember, from the outset, Fr. Robinson lied: At first claimed that someone else confessed to the murder. Later, he admitted that that was not true. (Did a single Toledo cleric discipline or denounce Fr. Robinson for lying to police? Nope.)

Fr. Robinson was the leading murder suspect from day one. He very likely would have been convicted and imprisoned decades ago – and considerable fear would have been lifted from the shoulders of many – if a top Toledo Catholic official, Msgr. Jerome Schmit, hadn’t deliberately interfered with a police investigation. (Did a single Toledo cleric discipline or denounce Msgr. Schmit for obstructing justice? Nope.)

Church officials say Fr. Robinson’s appeals had not been exhausted. They don’t mention, however, that most of those appeals were based on technicalities, like the fact that years passed between the crime and the conviction. Again, however, that was the direct fault of Toledo Catholic officials who acted improperly.

For a week now, Toledo Catholic officials hurt and insulted crime victims and Sr. Pahl’s family. Now, one of them added police, prosecutors, jurors and a judge to the list of those they have been smeared, all because these clerics selfishly wanted to bury one of their own with full honors.

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.

GERMANY
Bangor Daily News

By Reuters,
Posted July 11, 2014

VATICAN CITY — The Vatican has appointed the archbishop of Berlin, seen by German media as part of a “new generation” of less dogmatic clergy, to take over the Cologne archdiocese, the largest and richest in Germany, it said on Friday.

The move makes Rainer Maria Woelki, who turns 58 next month, one of the most influential Roman Catholic cardinals and is an indication of the type of person Pope Francis wants to see in prominent Church roles.

Berlin’s Tagesspiegel newspaper called him “the prototype of a new generation of bishops … not grumpy and dogmatic … these men speak of mercy and mean it. They’re open to people, even their critics, to a point and have a heart for the disadvantaged. Still, they’re theologically conservative.” …

They also noted that he did his doctorate in theology at a pontifical university in Rome run by the conservative Catholic movement Opus Dei.

But Woekli surprised Berliners by saying he respected all people and would gladly meet with gay activists.

A year later, in 2012, he said: “If two homosexuals take responsibility for each other, if they are loyal to each other over the long term, then one should see this in the same way as heterosexual relations.”

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

CALIFORNIA
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Friday, July 11, 2014

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

A California priest, found guilty of child sexual abuse by a jury, is being promoted. We are deeply concerned about this move and urge Catholic officials to reconsider.

[Visalia Times]

Fr. Eric Swearingen is the new pastor of a Catholic church in Visalia. He will oversee four parishes and a school. This is a dreadfully irresponsible decision.

No one knows more about the child sex abuse charges against Fr. Swearingen than the 12 impartial jurors who listened to days of evidence and testimony. By a 9-3 margin, they voted that it was “more than likely” that he molested a boy. So parents can choose to believe a charming accused child molester or his boss. Or they can choose to believe unbiased citizens who looked closely at all the facts.

You can choose to be prudent and keep your kids away from Fr. Swearingen. Or you can choose to be reckless.

Because Fr. Swearingen is charismatic and eloquent, we worry that parents will not be vigilant about protecting their children around him. We beg parents to exercise caution.

We urge Fresno Catholic officials to reverse this dangerous decision and tell parishioners about the allegations against Swearingen and the jury’s decision. We also urge parishioners to be compassionate and support victims instead of predators.

We hope anyone who was hurt by Fr. Swearingen or any other Catholic official will find the courage to come forward, call 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.

PARAGUAY
The Tablet (UK)

11 July 2014 by Isabel de Bertodano

A diocese in Paraguay is to receive an apostolic visitation as part of an investigation into the activities of a priest accused of sex abuse. Fr Carlos Urrutigoity is accused of abusing boys when he worked as a priest in Scranton, Pennsylvania, over a decade ago. Fr Urrutigoity is Argentinian, and is now vicar-general at the Diocese of Ciudad del Este in Paraguay.

Earlier this year a statement from the Diocese of Scranton said that Bishop Rogelio Livieres Plano had been warned that the priest posed “a serious threat to young people” and cautioned him “to not allow Fr Urrutigoity to incarnate into his diocese”.

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

VATICAN CITY
National Catholic Reporter

Thomas Reese | Jul. 11, 2014 Faith and Justice

The work of reforming the Roman Curia is not easy, but it is going well, according to Honduran Cardinal Oscar Rodriguez Maradiaga, chair of the Council of Cardinals appointed by Pope Francis to advise him on reform of the Roman Curia. Rodriguez hopes that the council will have a new constitution for the Curia by December to replace Pastor Bonus, the 1988 apostolic constitution of Pope John Paul II.

I interviewed Cardinal Rodriguez and Cardinal Oswald Gracias of Mumbai, India, another member of the council, when they visited Washington, D.C., at the beginning of June.

The work of the council began with each of the eight members collecting suggestions from his part of the world. For example, most of the bishops’ conferences in Asia asked Cardinal Gracias why liturgical translations could not be done at the conference level, especially for languages in which Rome has no expertise.

Cardinal Gracias recognized the irony of this suggestion coming to him — he is a member of Vox Clara, the group appointed by the Vatican to oversee the recent English translation of the liturgy.

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 KINGDOM
BBC News

An MP has accused Nottinghamshire police and the county council of losing and destroying files relating to child sex abuse allegations.

John Mann made the allegations in the House of Commons calling for the cases to be included in the independent inquiry led by Baroness Butler-Sloss.

The county council said all historical abuse claims are taken seriously.

The police said an investigation into three victims was ongoing and they will review a further two cases.

‘They deserve justice’

In a question for the Home Secretary Theresa May, Mr Mann accused the county council of destroying files while he claimed the police had lost details of the allegations.

Speaking outside the Houses of Parliament, he said they were “horrendous cases” of child abuse dating back up to 20 years but not one of them had resulted in a prosecution.

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
Visalia Times-Delta

Kyle Harvey, kharvey@visaliatimesdelta.com July 10, 2014

The Catholic Church of Visalia on Sunday will welcome the Rev. Eric Swearingen as its new pastor, a man who has strong support from many parishioners and has what some say is a troubled past.

As pastor, Swearingen will assume the leadership role overseeing Visalia’s four Catholic parishes, George McCann School and the Bethlehem Center. For Swearingen, the transfer from Fresno to Visalia is a homecoming. He grew up in Visalia, attending George McCann and graduating from Redwood High School in 1979.

In a brief telephone interview with the Times-Delta Thursday, Swearingen said he has fond memories of stopping for a soda at Glick’s Meat Market while biking home from George McCann.

“I left here in 1979,” he said. “A lot’s changed since then.” …

Lawsuit

It was while Swearingen was conducting ministry in Fresno in 2006 that he was accused of molesting a teenage altar boy many years earlier.

No criminal charges were ever filed by either the Fresno or Kern County district attorneys but the alleged victim — who came forward nearly two decades after the alleged abuse occurred — brought a civil suit in Fresno against the pastor and the Roman Catholic Diocese of Fresno.

Juan Rocha said that Swearingen allowed him to stay temporarily in two rectories, one in Fresno and one in Bakersfield. Swearingen reportedly gave him refuge from a troubled home life that included an alcoholic father — a story Swearingen verified, according to media reports at the time.

But the two testimonies diverged after that, with Rocha saying he was abused and Swearingen denying it.

The defense

The diocese, presided over at the time by the late Bishop John T. Steinbock, adamantly defended Swearingen. Defense attorneys sought to discredit Rocha’s testimony by showing him to be dishonest, but the judge threw out the evidence.

Rocha, who Fresno media reported at the time was an Army sergeant first class, received an administrative discharge from the Marines after a military psychologist ruled he possessed an anti-social disorder that made him a risk to himself and others. …

Local reaction

Parishioners attending mass at St. Mary’s on Wednesday and Thursday expressed confidence in church leadership, who they said they trust to make the right decisions about their pastor. Some had knowledge of the 2006 incident and some did not.

Marco Rinaldi, of Cutler, was one of Swearingen’s supporters.

“I’m 100 percent confident,” he said. “Not only do I trust church leadership, but I feel the proper process was done and that should be behind him. We’re very glad to have him here.”

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
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Friday, July 11, 2014

Statement by Claudia Vercellotti 419 345 9291, SNAPtoledo@aol.com

We want to express our sympathy first for those hurt by Fr. Gerald Robinson, especially Sr. Pahl’s family. They deserve respect. They should not have had to experience the pain they felt this past week.

We also want to express our sorrow and sympathy for Fr. Robinson’s family. They should have been able to bury their relative without controversy, had not Toledo Catholic officials stubbornly and selfishly insisted that “full priestly honors” be bestowed on him.

And we want to express our sympathy for Toledo Catholics who must endure officials who are so stunningly insensitive in their diocese.

We’re here today for three reasons.

First, we want to make a desperate, last-minute plea to Catholic officials: Change these burial plans. Put the well-being of crime victims ahead of your own preferences. Stop acting selfishly and honoring a criminal. Start acting compassionately and respecting his victims.

We know it’s late. But we feel duty bound to try one last time – as we’ve tried repeatedly for a week – to help Toledo Catholic officials see just how hurtful they’re being.

Second, no matter how Fr. Robinson’s funeral is conducted, there are two more honors for another wrongdoer priest. These honors are permanent. But they shouldn’t be. They should be rescinded.

A youth athletic complex and a downtown street are named after Msgr. Jerome Schmit. In 1980, Fr. Robinson was the prime suspect in Sr. Pahl’s murder. He was being questioned by police. But that questioning came to a sudden end when Msgr. Jerome Schmit barged into the police station and took Fr. Robinson away.

This is not speculation or opinion. It’s fact. It’s the sworn testimony of two police officers who were there when it happened.

Let me repeat that. Let that sink in for a minute: A top Toledo Catholic official interfered in a murder investigation by police. And because of that, a proven murderer and an accused child molester walked free for decades.

Who knows how many crimes Fr. Robinson may have committed because Msgr. Schmit blocked the police probe. This much we do know: many Toledo citizens and Catholics, including Sr. Pahl’s family, worried for years about a murderer on the loose. And those fears could and would have ended much sooner, if not for the selfish and irresponsible actions of Msgr. Schmit.

Now, Catholic officials are comfortable honoring Msgr. Schmit. And city officials are too. That’s dead wrong. That’s callous and hurtful. That breeds cynicism. It’s is precisely what leads many crime victims to shrug their shoulders and stay silent about criminals, because they’re convinced that the powerful and popular will never be brought to justice.

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
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

Group makes “last ditch” effort
They oppose “honors” at priest’s funeral
And they want two other honors for another cleric rescinded
Catholic official is name is on street & youth athletic complex
But he interrupted a police murder investigation, two cops say

WHAT
Holding signs and childhood photos, clergy sex abuse victims will

— make a final plea to Toledo Catholic officials to change burial plans for a murderer/priest,
— beg them to «aggressively seek out» anyone he may have molested and
— help them try to get other honors for another wrongdoer priest rescinded.

WHEN
Friday, July 11 at 9:15 a.m.

WHERE
Outside the Toledo Catholic diocese HQ, 1933 Spielbusch Ave. in Toledo

WHO
Two-three members of a support group called SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, including one who is a long-time leader in the organization

WHY
For days now, Catholic officials have insisted that they will give a funeral with “fully priestly honors” to Fr. Gerard Robinson, a convicted murderer and accused child molester.

And regardless of how the funeral is done, SNAP is urging local priests help get an athletic complex and street re-name. Both honor a once-powerful but now deceased cleric, Monsignor Jerome Schmit.

Two police officers have testified under oath that Schmit interrupted a 1980 police interrogation of Fr. Robinson for murder case, enabling Robinson to walk free, and perhaps hurt others, for decades.

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