ABUSE TRACKER

UNITED KINGDOM
The Tablet

10 July 2014

The purpose of official inquiries into cover-ups is to uncover them. The clear risk that the Government is running with the inquiry to be headed by Baroness Elizabeth Butler-Sloss arises from the fact that the subject matter is an alleged cover-up of child sex abuse at the heart of the British Establishment. She herself, a former Tory parliamentary candidate, retired senior judge and daughter of a judge, is virtually the Establishment personified. Her impeccable rectitude and vast experience in these matters made her an ideal choice to head the inquiry – except for one thing, which has put her in an almost impossible position. It was her brother, Sir Michael Havers QC who later became Lord Chancellor, who was Attorney General at the time of events which have given rise to a strong suspicion that a paedophilia cover-up happened at the heart of Margaret Thatcher’s Government.

A dossier of allegations of systematic child abuse against prominent figures in Whitehall and Westminster was apparently “lost”. The allegations, collected by the late Geoffrey Dickens MP, were submitted to then Home Secretary Lord (Leon) Brittan, who promised they would be investigated. Nothing further appears to have happened, and a Home Office inquiry, separate from that to be led by Lady Butler-Sloss, is investigating why not.

At about that period, Dickens accused Havers of perpetrating “the cover-up of the century” by refusing to prosecute the late Sir Peter Hayman, a senior Foreign Office and MI6 official who was one of a group of men found to be in possession of images of sadistic child abuse. Havers gave as one of his reasons that Hayman was “a gentleman with a very distinguished career” with many honours, which almost sounds like an admission that the Establishment was protecting its own. So Lady Butler-Sloss may have to sit in judgement on her late brother’s conduct. Lord Tebbit, a member of the Thatcher Cabinet, said this week that he thought there may well have been an Establishment cover-up. It is not impossible Havers had been part of it.

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UNITED KINGDOM
3 News (New Zealand)

A wave of revelations about long-hidden child sexual abuse has left Britons wondering what is wrong with their country, but experts say they are simply facing up to a problem that exists the world over.

“Child sexual abuse thrives on denial and secrecy. It’s an incredibly difficult thing to admit to and to talk about, and the UK is not alone in that,” said Jon Brown, lead official on sexual abuse at the NSPCC children’s charity.

“But unfortunately we are now being forced to face it squarely and look at the reality of what’s been going on.”

Britain has seen high-profile child abuse cases before but the revelation in 2012 that late BBC presenter Jimmy Savile was a prolific sexual predator opened the floodgates.

Abuse by other celebrities such as Rolf Harris emerged later and ministers this week launched a review into decades-old rumours of a paedophile ring involving politicians and a cover-up by the establishment.

Ministers also announced a wide-ranging inquiry into how institutions have failed to protect children, after a myriad of claims of abuse in care homes, schools, hospitals and churches.

Jon Bird, a victim of childhood abuse who works for the National Association for People Abused in Childhood (NAPAC), says this official recognition of the scale of the problem is a breakthrough.

“It really is a sea change in attitudes – I never thought it would happen in my lifetime,” he told AFP.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Daily Mail

Westminster ‘chumocracy’ has protected itself from paedophile revelations, claims Cameron’s advisor on child abuse

By TOM MCTAGUE, MAIL ONLINE DEPUTY POLITICAL EDITOR

David Cameron’s advisor on child abuse has lashed out at the Westminster ‘chumocracy’ that has protected itself from allegations of paedophilia.

Tory junior minister Claire Perry said Parliament was full of ‘too many people with the same interests and the same out-of-touch sense of entitlement coming together to protect their own’.

Her damning remarks come amid allegations that a paedophile network was operating in Westminster and was being protected by senior politicians.

Home Secretary Theresa May this week launched an inquiry into organisations including churches, the security services and the BBC.

A separate review will also examine the failures in Westminster to properly investigate allegations of sexual abuse.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Western Morning News

Baroness Butler-Sloss is the right person to lead the inquiry into “revolting” allegations of child abuse and a subsequent cover-up by establishment figures, Nick Clegg has insisted.

The Deputy Prime Minister said he did not know whether there had been a cover-up but the claims were so “heinous” they deserved proper investigation.

Former High Court judge Lady Butler-Sloss, who lives near Exeter, 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.

But on his LBC phone-in show Mr Clegg said complaints about the appointment were “really unfair on her” and added: “I think that the idea that because she had a brother in politics at that stage disqualifies her from doing this work, I don’t accept that and I think it’s right that she has said she is going to carry on doing the job.”

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UNITED KINGDOM
Third Sector

11 July 2014 by Sam Burne James

The Charity Commision says it will investigate whether the independent school’s policies have dealt with the risks to the charity and its beneficiaries resulting from recent allegations

The Charity Commission has opened a statutory inquiry into the charitable independent establishment St Paul’s School in south-west London in relation to its safeguarding policy and handling of allegations of sexual abuse.

Since February, a total of six arrests have been made as part of Operation Winthorpe, a Metropolitan Police investigation into historical abuse allegations.

The commission said it had been engaging with the charity’s trustees since May 2014 in the wake of national press coverage of those arrests and investigations, before it opened its statutory inquiry on 11 June.

The commission’s inquiry will examine four areas: the creation, development, substance and implementation of the school’s safeguarding policy; how it dealt with risks to the charity and its beneficiaries arising from the alleged incidents; whether or not the trustees have complied with and fulfilled their duties under charity law; and whether there has been any misconduct or mismanagement on the part of the trustees.

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AUSTRALIA
Broken Rites

By a Broken Rites researcher (article posted 11 July 2014)

A seminary student, Paul Lane, committed child-sex crimes in the 1970s while he was training to become a Catholic priest in New South Wales. He eventually dropped out of the seminary. Forty years later, on 7 July 2014, one of his victims obtained justice by getting Lane convicted in court.

In Newcastle Local Court, Lane (aged 67 and living in Ashfield, Sydney, in 2014) was charged with four of incidents of indecent assault, committed against a 14-year-old boy in the Maitland parish in early 1975. [Broken Rites will refer to this boy as “Basil” – not his real name.] Lane agreed to plead guilty to two of the charges, and therefore the other two charges were dropped.

According to court documents, Lane was studying for the priesthood in the early 1970s at a Sydney seminary, aged in his mid to late twenties. When he was advanced in his training, Lane spent some time in the Maitland diocese, north of Sydney, gaining experience in parish work. Initially he stayed as a guest in the bishop’s house, where several other priests also lived, servicing the cathedral parish.

A senior priest from the cathedral parish took Lane to Basil’s house to introduce Lane to Basil’s family, who then invited Lane to visit them for meals. Lane took a special interest in 14-year-old son Basil. When Lane dropped out of his seminary course, this family offered to accommodate him in their home. As good Catholics, the parents trusted Lane having access to their young son.

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CANADA
Montreal Gazette

BY GEOFFREY VENDEVILLE, THE GAZETTE JULY 10, 2014

The Redemptorists religious order must pay as much as $150,000 in compensation to each former student of the St-Alphonse Seminary in Ste-Anne-de-Beaupré who suffered sexual abuse at the hands of members of the Catholic congregation, Quebec Superior Court ruled Thursday.

Victims of sexual abuse at the boys-only boarding school between 1960 and 1987 were to be awarded no less than $75,000 each, Judge Claude Bouchard decided.

A former student, Frank Tremblay, brought the class-action lawsuit forward four years ago in the name of all other victims against a teacher at the school, Raymond-Marie Lavoie, St-Alphonse College and the Redemptorists.

“This is a landmark decision,” said Tremblay’s lawyer, Robert Kugler. “The amount awarded, up to $150,000, is, I believe, more than any judge in Quebec has awarded to a victim of sexual abuse.”

At least 70 men said they were molested at the school when most were between the ages of 12 and 16, while authorities at the school turned a blind eye. As a result, many victims said they suffered from drug or alcohol addiction, depression and sexual confusion.

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UNITED KINGDOM
The Week

Establishment should look beyond its circle and appoint more credible and younger people to these roles

There is a grievous tradition in Britain (and apparently in the Vatican) never to think outside the box when it comes to appointing a committee chairman. Need an inquiry? Send for a tried and trusted member of the establishment. The press is up to no good? Call a senior judge. A scientist is driven to suicide after “leaking” accurate information? Reach for another judge.

Never, but never, think outside the box. Who knows what a loose cannon might get up to? In the eyes of the powers-that-be, committees are set up to soothe troubled brows, not dig the dirt.

The issue is never far away, but is raised this week by two appointments drawn from the usual list of insider suspects. The first is the choice of Lady Butler-Sloss, 80, to chair a panel that will examine the handling of child abuse allegations by public institutions: the second is the selection by Pope Francis of our very own Lord (Chris) Patten, 70, to head a committee to advise the Pope on media strategy.

What the Vatican does is its business. But choosing Patten, the Pooh-Bah of the British establishment since the voters of Bath booted him out of the Commons in the 1992 general election, is close to a joke. Who in their right mind in this age of social media calls a 70-year-old to switch on a computer, never mind devise a digital strategy to help the Pope improve contact with his worldwide flock?
Read more: http://www.theweek.co.uk/uk-news/child-abuse-inquiry/59404/butler-sloss-and-patten-are-there-no-better-candidates#ixzz379tSWlug

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VATICAN CIT
PR Week

by Ian Griggs

The Vatican, an institution not best known for its culture of openness, has announced the formation of an 11-strong committee to be led by Chris Patten that will oversee the modernisation of its communications.

The heart of the Catholic establishment has a long history and recent years have seen the Church endure the storms of scandal after scandal, with public outrage expressed over claims priests abused children, corruption at The Vatican bank and unsavoury links with mafia bosses.

But the election of Pope Francis 15 months ago has not only brought the winds of change to The Vatican’s bureaucracy, The Curia, it has also brought about something of a renaissance in how the world’s media, and by extension the public, view the institution and the man who leads it.

Pope Francis is saying all the right things, eschewing most of the trappings of office and castigating those within the Church who regard it as a route to a comfortable existence.

It is perhaps for this reason that the Vatican has decided to seize the moment and capitalise on the mood of public goodwill felt towards the Pope by modernising and adapting its communications to meet the needs of the 21st century.

“The Vatican is waking up the fact that it spends a lot of comms money on Vatican Radio and TV, which is like bringing a knife to a gun fight in the era of social media – that time has passed,” says Ben Ryan, a researcher at the religious affairs think-tank Theos.

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VATICAN CITY
Vatican Radio

[with audio]

(Vatican Radio) Following Pope Francis’ meeting with survivors of sex abuse this week, a leading Catholic child protection expert says the Church is “on track” with its safeguarding policies and is sharing expertise with secular organisations working in the same field.

Jesuit Fr Hans Zollner is a psychology professor at Rome’s Gregorian University and heads its Centre for the Protection of Minors. He also serves as a member of the recently established Vatican Commission on safeguarding and care of abuse victims. On Monday he accompanied two of the six abuse victims who spent almost three and a half hours sharing their stories with Pope Francis following Mass in his Santa Marta residence.

Fr Hans talked to Philippa Hitchen about those encounters, about the work of the Vatican Commission and about the way the Catholic Church is sharing its expertise with others….

The Commission met for the second time on Sunday…..we discussed membership issues, we want to add some members especially from those areas that are not represented now, Africa, Asia, Oceania……we discussed briefly statue issues, we learned that we will have soon an office here and we prepared for the meeting with the victims……

I was present as a translator for the two German victims in the encounter with the Holy Father, I can say it was amazing how much time he took…..and it was even more impressive to see the Holy Father’s reaction and these people’s reaction – all of them came out of the meeting with a sense of deep gratitude that they had been listened to…

I can say the two meetings went quite differently, the first one didn’t talk much about her own experience of the abuse that happened many years ago. She tried to interact with the Holy Father who replied so there was a real dialogue going on in which she explained about her whole journey over decades, what she has suffered from the moment she was abused and, as she said, ‘her soul disappeared from her body’ and then the little steps that helped her come back to herself…….she said Holy Father, you have to do something to help perpetrators not to offend again…

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OHIO
Toledo Blade

BY TK BARGER

When Gerald Robinson, a Roman Catholic priest for 50 years, died on July 4, two factors were unresolved.

The appeals process after his 2006 conviction of the 1980 murder of Sister Margaret Ann Pahl had not been exhausted and, with his death, the courts will not take further action, so officially and legally, he died a murderer who was convicted by a jury of his peers.

And, because he did not publicly confess to the crime, his life ended without good or evil being determined definitively, according to Catholic doctrine.

Because his appeal of the criminal conviction was ongoing, he remained a priest, according to church officials, even though he had been barred from giving public ministry.

He will be buried as a priest today, with interment at Calvary Cemetery after an 11 a.m. funeral at St. Hyacinth Church, 719 Evesham Ave.

In a statement from the Diocese of Toledo, the Rev. Charles Ritter, administrator of the diocese until Pope Francis names a new bishop, said, “Whether in the eyes of God, Father Robinson was or was not guilty of this crime, I do not know.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Brighton and Hove News

A cathedral steward who was jailed for sexually abusing boys over a 29-year period brought one of them to a sauna in Brighton.

Terence Banks, the former head steward of Chichester Cathedral and a BBC floor manager, was jailed for 16 years for abusing boys aged 11 to 15 years old.

Although his trial took place in May 2001, the details were contained in a church report, known as the Carmi Report, which was published this week although it was completed in 2004.

The report was published by the Diocese of Chichester, which has its main offices in New Church Road, Hove.

The diocese said that the report had proved invaluable in improving safeguarding procedures.

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UNITED STATES
Friendly Atheist

July 8, 2014 By Hemant Mehta

Yesterday, Pope Francis met with six victims of Catholic-priest-initiated sexual abuse and assured them that bishops would be “held accountable” for not doing enough. But unless he starts pushing pedophile priests out of the Church and into the hands of the criminal justice system, those words really mean nothing.

Even CNN didn’t seem to take him seriously, with an initial headline missing a key word. (Accidentally, of course…) Neither did Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP):

“Let’s not mistake this meeting today for real action,” SNAP President Barbara Blaine told CNN. “The meeting today will not make children safer.”

“I think that Pope Francis has yet to take strong action that will protect children and he could do that by firing the bishops who have been complicit and who are transferring predators,” she said.

What the Pope said sounds fine at the outset until you give it a deeper look:

Before God and his people I express my sorrow for the sins and grave crimes of clerical sexual abuse committed against you. And I humbly ask forgiveness.

I beg your forgiveness, too, for the sins of omission on the part of Church leaders who did not respond adequately to reports of abuse made by family members, as well as by abuse victims themselves. This led to even greater suffering on the part of those who were abused and it endangered other minors who were at risk.

On the other hand, the courage that you and others have shown by speaking up, by telling the truth, was a service of love, since for us it shed light on a terrible darkness in the life of the Church. There is no place in the Church’s ministry for those who commit these abuses, and I commit myself not to tolerate harm done to a minor by any individual, whether a cleric or not. 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.

I hate that he uses the word “sin” to describe the crimes… and I especially hate that he uses it first, before “grave crimes.” As if sinning is the bigger problem here, that those priests let down God. Asking for forgiveness may be nice PR, but the Pope didn’t abuse anyone, nor was he in charge when these incidents took place. He’s not the person who needs to be forgiven.

But he would be moving in the right direction by removing all priests accused of sexual abuse from their parishes immediately, kicking them out of the Church altogether if they’re found guilty of abuse (or covering it up), and supporting harsh criminal sentences against anyone involved. Let’s see him support criminal charges against bishops who transferred pedophile priests to new locations. Let’s see him open up all the Vatican’s books to secular authorities instead of impeding their investigations by limiting access.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Time

Martin Hickman July 10, 2014

As Scotland Yard triples the number of officers on high-profile child abuse cases, the UK struggles to find faith in its politicians

From politicians’ fraudulent expenses to phone hacking, Britain has become surprisingly scandal-strewn in recent years, but the latest reputational cyclone to sweep across its shores is casting an especially dark light: pedophilia in high places.

Newspapers and TV bulletins have been dominated for the past week by allegations that politicians with links to Margaret Thatcher’s government sexually abused vulnerable children in the 1980s and hid the truth for decades through their “chumocracy.” Suspicions of an establishment cover-up involving government departments, Scotland Yard and other elements of the establishment intensified in recent days when the law-and-order ministry, the Home Office, confirmed dozens of potentially-relevant files alleging sexual misconduct had gone missing from its archives.

The allegations—which centre around the suggestion that politicians of all parties and other VIPs preyed on children at a guest house in the London suburb of Barnes—have been given greater credence because in the past two years a string of national figures have been exposed as predatory pedophiles.

Most notoriously of all, Sir Jimmy Savile, a BBC children’s television presenter feted by the Royal Family and Downing Street, abused 450 victims, mostly boys and girls as young as eight over 50 years. While Savile had long been seen as odd, the scale of his offenses shocked the country, not least because he was allowed special access to hospitals and the authorities laughed at or ignored his victims, before he died a national hero. An ensuing police inquiry, Operation Yewtree – which has arrested 18 TV presenters, comedians, disc jockeys and other showbusiness associates – last month jailed fellow BBC children’s presenter Rolf Harris for indecent assaults dating back decades, on girls as young as 8.

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LOUISIANA
Philly.com

MELINDA DESLATTE, ASSOCIATED PRESS
POSTED: Friday, July 11, 2014

BATON ROUGE, La. – Catholics are decrying a recent Louisiana Supreme Court decision that reaches into the most sanctified of church places, the confessional booth.

The ruling revives a lawsuit that contends a priest should have reported allegations of sexual abuse disclosed to him during private confessions and opens the door for a judge to call the priest to testify about what he was told. The lawsuit was filed by parents of a teen who says she told the priest about being kissed and touched by an adult church parishioner.

If the priest was called to testify, Catholic groups say, it could leave him choosing between prison and excommunication.

“Confession is one of the most sacred rites in the Church. The Sacrament is based on a belief that the seal of the confessional is absolute and inviolable. A priest is never permitted to disclose the contents of any Confession,” Bill Donohue, president of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, said in a statement this week blasting the ruling.

Catholic groups and a national organization that tracks church sex-abuse cases said Thursday they weren’t aware of any other cases in which a priest has been compelled to discuss what’s said during a confessional. The local Catholic diocese said that the ruling violates constitutional separations between church and state and it would seek U.S. Supreme Court intervention.

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UNITED KINGDOM
BBC News

By Sanchia Berg
BBC Radio 4’s Today programme

A major inquiry has been launched into how historical allegations of child abuse were handled. The UK’s National Archives contain some appalling examples of abuse at children’s homes and approved schools from decades past.

In 1952 the Home Office gave clear guidance to managers of these schools – saying they had a duty to report allegations of crimes, including “indecent practices”, to the police.

But the files show that didn’t always happen.

The files – dealing with cases that the Home Office was alerted to – show how abuse was not taken as seriously as today, and how at least one institution wanted to allow a convicted abuser to return to work with children after his sentence had been completed.

All of the cases in these files deal with attacks on boys at homes or schools. Approved schools – somewhere between a children’s home and a youth detention centre – were disproportionately male. …

If you’ve been affected…

… the following organisations can help:

* The police if you have evidence of having suffered sexual abuse so an investigation can be made
* NSPCC charity specialises in child protection
* National Association for People Abused in Childhood offers support, advice and guidance to adult survivors of any form of childhood abuse

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AUSTRALIA
Church Times

by Muriel Porter, Australia Correspondent

Posted: 11 Jul 2014

CLERGY who hear confessions of serious offences, such as child sexual abuse, may not always be obliged to keep the confession secret after a legislative change made last week by the Australian General Synod. The priest is obliged to keep the matter confidential only if he or she is satisfied that the penitent has already reported the matter to police.

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AUSTRALIA
The Conversation

Renae Barker
Lecturer in Law at University of Western Australia

The Australian Anglican Church has put the interests of children and victims of crime ahead of tradition and doctrine. Priests who hear confessions about serious criminal offences, including child abuse, will no longer be required to keep the confession confidential.

At the tri-annual sitting of General Synod – the church’s “parliament” – Anglican Church leaders debated the church’s response to the Royal Commission into the Institutional Handling of Child Sexual Abuse. A particular thorny issue for the church is the confessional seal. Under church law, priests who heard private ritual confessions of sins were required to keep all confessions confidential, regardless of the nature of the confession.

The 1989 Canon Concerning Confession states:

If any person confess his or her secret and hidden sins to an ordained minister for the unburdening of conscience and to receive spiritual consolation and ease of mind, such minister shall not at any time reveal or make known any crime or offence or sin so confessed and committed to trust and secrecy by that person without the consent of that person.

Acting on abuse as a crime

The Anglican Church has revised its position. Priests will be permitted to break the seal of confession in some circumstances. The Canon Concerning Confessions 1989 (Amendment) Canon 2014 states that:

… where a person confesses that he or she has committed a serious offence an ordained minister is only obliged to keep confidential the serious offence so confessed where the ordained minister is reasonably satisfied that the person has reported the serious offence to the police.

The seal of confession will no longer apply to confessions of serious offences. This includes criminal offences involving child abuse, child exploitation material or crimes punishable by life imprisonment or imprisonment for five or more years.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Scotsman

ELIZABETH Butler-Sloss is a woman of admirable intelligence and integrity who has contributed a great deal to public life, notably as a High Court judge. She served as president of the High Court Family Division in England and Wales, and her inquiry into the Cleveland child-abuse scandal resulted in landmark legislation on child protection.

She is the very model of a public servant, who can be proud of a long and illustrious career. And yet, despite all this, she should recuse herself from the job she was given this week by Home Secretary Theresa May.

Ms May asked her to lead a wide-ranging inquiry into the handling of allegations of child abuse by politicians and other members of the establishment in public institutions such as churches, the NHS and the BBC over a number of decades.

But questions have been raised as to whether Baroness Butler-Sloss’s ability to carry out this task is compromised by family and other connections. Labour’s Simon Danczuk yesterday said her position was tainted because her late brother, Sir Michael 
Havers, was the Attorney General in the 1980s.

Legal decisions taken by the government during that period might well form part of the scope of the inquiry.

It matters little that the baroness can credibly claim that she would not allow anything to get in the way of producing an honest and transparent analysis of the situation as she finds it.

Rather, the question now is whether an inquiry into an alleged establishment cover-up can be carried out by someone who is absolutely a member of that very establishment.

Those arguing yesterday that Baroness Butler-Sloss was the right woman for the job are failing to recognise the depth of public distrust of key institutions at the heart of our public life.

Rightly or wrongly, in the wake of revelations about child-sex abuse in the churches and in private schools, and the blind eye turned to paedophile Jimmy Savile, the public is in no mood to have the establishment investigated by an insider.

The common view from the outside is that the establishment, at times of crisis, closes ranks and looks after its own.

Given this inconvenient perception, any report from Baroness Butler-Sloss that concluded there was no establishment cover-
up would inevitably be regarded by many as just another example of an establishment cover-up.

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UNITED KINGDOM
BBC News

[with video]

A man abused by a paedophile priest in Sussex says Baroness Butler-Sloss is the wrong person to lead an inquiry into how public bodies dealt with allegations of child abuse.

Phil Johnson says she told him she wanted to exclude his allegations of abuse at the hands of a bishop from a public report because she “cared about the church” and “did not want to give the press a bishop”.

Baroness Butler-Sloss has now been asked to look into how the government handled allegations of child abuse by senior politicians in the 1980s and has already faced calls to stand down.

Colin Campbell has this exclusive report.

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CANADA
CTV Montreal

Published Thursday, July 10, 2014

In a landmark class-action lawsuit, a Quebec judge has awarded up to $150,000 each in damages to victims who were sexually abused by priests.

The case involves at least 70 male students at the St. Alphonse Seminary, a boys’ school run by the Redemptorists order in St. Anne de Beaupre near Quebec City until it closed in 1987.

The former students, represented in the class-action by Frank Tremblay, attended the school, now called St. Alphonse College, between 1960 and 1987.

Superior Court Judge Claude Bouchard says it is ‘inconceivable’ that the religious order did nothing to stop the abuse by nine priests over nearly three decades.

Six of those priests have since passed away. All had taken a vow of poverty.

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CANADA
CBC News

Seventy men who launched a class action lawsuit against clergy accused of sexual abuse have been awarded compensation.

It’s the first time in Quebec that this type of case has gone to trial, instead of being settled out of court.

After three months of deliberation, Superior Court Judge Claude Bouchard ordered the Redemptorist Order of Catholic priests, the Seminaire St-Alphonse and Rev. Raymond-Marie Lavoie to pay $75,000 to each claimant.

According to the decision, the victims can make an application for that amount to be doubled if they believed the abuse suffered and the resulting damage was significant enough that it justifies additional compensation.

The main claimant, Frank Tremblay, who has already spoken publicly about the abuse he suffered as a student at Séminaire Saint-Alphonse was automatically awarded the doubled amount.

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CANADA
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Thursday, July 10, 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 group of victims who suffered abuse at a Catholic school in Quebec have won their unprecedented lawsuit. We are grateful to the brave victims who came forward and demanded truth and justice.

[CBC News]

In this first-ever lawsuit to go to trial, a group of priests, the Redemptorists, the Seminaire St-Alphonse and Fr. Raymond-Marie Lavoie were found guilty of abusing and covering up decades of child sexual abuse. At least 70 victims came forward in this case. We suspect that there are dozens of others who remain trapped in shame, silence, confusion and self blame.

We are grateful to the judge who found Catholic officials guilty of such heinous crimes. Because of the actions of these brave men, children will be safer.

We hope Redemptorists officials will work hard to reach out to anyone who saw, suspects or suffered child sex crimes and urge them to come forward and get help.

And we hope other clergy sex abuse victims throughout Canada will be inspired by the bravery of these victims and take similar steps to expose wrongdoers, protect kids and start healing.

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LOUISIANA
The Times-Picayune

By Emily Lane, NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune
on July 10, 2014

The Louisiana Supreme Court recently issued a ruling that could compel a Baton Rouge Catholic priest to testify whether or not he received confessions during the sacrament of reconciliation from a minor child in 2009 regarding sexual abuse she says she endured by a fellow parishioner.

The lawsuit, filed by the girl’s family, claims the priest and the Baton Rouge Catholic Diocese are liable for civil damages for the suffering caused by the sexual abuse because of their role in failing to properly adviser her and the priest’s failure to report the abuse as a mandatory reporter in accordance with the Louisiana Children’s Code.

The church says the ruling violates religious freedoms set forth in the first amendment of the U.S. Constitution, noting the priest could be excommunicated for violating the seal of confession. The Supreme Court ruled the confessions weren’t “confidential communication,” which would have exempted the priest from mandatory reporting laws, because the confessor waived her confidentiality privilege.

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WISCONSIN
Chicago Tribune

By Alexandra Chachkevitch
Tribune reporter
July 10, 2014

A north suburban priest who was due to report to a Milwaukee courtroom this afternoon on a felony theft charge was a no-show because of car trouble, his lawyer said.

The Rev. James Dokos, who was suspended from his duties at a Greek Orthodox church in Glenview after Milwaukee County authorities announced plans to charge him with felony theft, must return to court on Monday, said the court commissioner who oversaw the hearing.

Dokos, who had served Saints Peter and Paul Church in Glenview since 2012, is accused of improperly spending more than $110,000 from a trust fund he oversaw when he was previously pastor at Annunciation Church in Milwaukee.

Dokos was charged with felony theft this week for allegedly writing checks for tens of thousands of dollars to benefit himself, associates and family members from a trust fund that was set up primarily to benefit Annunciation church, according to a criminal complaint from Milwaukee County district attorney’s office.

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MINNESOTA
National Catholic Reporter

Brian Roewe | Jul. 10, 2014

For the second time in seven months, Twin Cities Archbishop John Nienstedt faces allegations of sexual misconduct.

The latest charges reportedly involve no minors or criminal acts, but that hasn’t silenced some corners of the St. Paul-Minneapolis archdiocese from sounding calls for a leadership change. Despite hearing those refrains, Nienstedt said he has “an obligation to preach and teach the Gospel,” and that any decision to resign does not lie with him.

“As a bishop, I made a promise to serve the Church. It is what God has called me to do, like a groom to the Church, for better or for worse. I have kept that promise since my ordination as a priest 41 years ago, and my episcopal ordination 18 years ago and I will continue to keep it,” he told NCR in an email.

Since the end of January, a Minnesota law firm hired by the archdiocese has examined numerous accusations that Nienstedt had engaged in improper sexual conduct with priests, seminarians and other men. News of the investigation broke July 1, when Commonweal magazine reported that lawyers with Minneapolis firm Greene Espel had interviewed former canonical chancellor Jennifer Haselberger about “sexual impropriety” by Nienstedt dating back to his time as a priest in his native Detroit archdiocese.

The archdiocese confirmed the report later that day in two press releases, one from Auxiliary Bishop Lee Piché, who said the archdiocese received misbehavior claims “several months ago,” and that Nienstedt appointed him to investigate. Piché said that the investigation by Greene Espel, which he hired, is ongoing. He noted the claims “did not involve anything criminal or with minors.”

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OHIO
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Thursday, July 10, 2014

Statement Lee Pahl, nephew of Sister Margaret Ann Pahl, who was murdered by Fr. Gerald Robinson

I don’t understand why the Catholic Church covered up Sister Margaret Ann’s murder in 1980. I don’t understand why the Catholic Church has covered up thousands of sexual abuse cases by priests and others. I don’t understand why the Catholic Church would not defrock a priest convicted of murder or why they would give him an honorary funeral.

What I do understand is that God tells us that if we don’t forgive we can’t be forgiven. Shortly after Sister Margaret Ann’s funeral, my family publicly forgave the murderer even though they didn’t know who had done it.

What I also understand is that Fr. Robinson’s real judgment has now taken place. If he did not repent for his sins we know he will be spending eternity in a worse place than the prison that has held him for the past 8 years.

(NOTE – Earlier this week, the Boston-based Voice of the Faithful wrote to Father Charles Ritter, the “administrator” or temporary head of the Toledo diocese, criticizing funeral plans for Fr. Gerald Robinson, who was convicted of murdering Sr. Margaret Ann Pahl. So too has NSAC, the National Survivors Advocate Coalition, and SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests.)

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UNITED KINGDOM
Telegraph

By Dan Hodges Politics
Last updated: July 10th, 2014

What would you do if you thought a child was being abused? Phone the police? Contact the social services department of your local authority? Or phone the Home Office and ask to be put through to Theresa May?

Before this week I think the answer to that question would be fairly obvious. Now I’m not so sure.

As we speak our government is on the hunt for paedophiles. It’s looking for them in the hospitals. In the broadcast media. The church. Among the judiciary. Our government is even hunting them within the government.

At the same time, Ministers have embarked on a hunt for the people who did not hunt the paedophiles. Apparently, there is a “magic file” in which all the paedophiles are named. Or at least some of the more high-profile ones. Or at least, we think they’re high profile. We don’t know for sure, because the file has gone missing. Why? Who made it vanish? Our government wants an answer.

Or does it? It’s emerged that the woman the Government has appointed Paedo-Finder General may herself be implicated in the “establishment cover-up” of these horrific crimes. Well, we don’t know if there have actually been any crimes. And therefore we don’t know if there’s been any cover-up. But they’re bound to be horrific none the less.

You see, Elizabeth Butler-Sloss’s brother – the former Attorney General – once failed to prosecute an infamous “establishment” paedophile by the name of Peter Haymen. Haymen was an “establishment paedophile”, as opposed to just an ordinary paedophile, because he worked for MI6. And Butler-Sloss’s brother let him off scot-free, on the spurious grounds there wasn’t enough evidence to stand up the case in a court of law. Which apparently raises questions about his sister’s independence.

Though not in the eyes of her nephew, the actor Nigel Havers, who has today claimed his aunt is herself the victim of “politically motivated” smears.

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VATICAN CITY
Financial Times

By Tony Barber in London

No sacrilege is intended in comparing today’s Roman Curia under Pope Francis with the Central Committee of the now-defunct Soviet communist party under Mikhail Gorbachev in the late 1980s.

Just as Mr Gorbachev subjected the grey-suited apparatchiks in Moscow to withering criticism of their party’s ossified mentality, so the Pope is putting his skullcapped prelates on alert that their encrusted habits fall short of modern requirements. Whether they like it or not, root-and-branch reforms are coming to the Vatican bureaucracy.

In this context, an overhaul of the Vatican’s financial and media operations that was announced this week is only the tip of the iceberg. The larger objective is to reshape the Curia, as the Pope underlined in a speech last December in the Sala Clementina, a Renaissance hall of the Vatican’s Apostolic Palace.

“When professionalism is lacking, there is a slow drift down towards mediocrity. Dossiers become full of trite and lifeless information . . . The Curia’s structure turns into a ponderous, bureaucratic customs house,” the Pope said, using what was almost Gorbachevian language.

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UNITED KINGDOM
The Spectator

Damian Thompson

There is a wearying inevitability to the announcement that Pope Francis’s reforms of the Vatican media will be overseen by Lord Patten of Barnes. Of course it was going to be him. It always is.

The man defies the laws of political gravity. As Margaret Thatcher’s environment secretary he was responsible for the poll tax. He walked away from the disaster unscathed, explaining that it was nothing to do with him, guv, it was Thatch. As Tory chairman he presided over Major’s 1992 victory but lost his own seat. He was made governor of Hong Kong, where he stood up to China. But he went native with a vengeance as an EU commissioner: according to Denis MacShane, former Europe minister, Patten was so Europhile that he might have been France’s candidate for Commission president in 2004 if only he spoke French.

In 2003 he was elected Chancellor of Oxford University (he read history at Balliol though I can find no reference to his class of degree: if he got a First he has been uncharacteristically modest about it). In 2010 he became chairman of the BBC Trust, in which troubled role he drew heavily on his blame-shifting skills. As Peter Oborne wrote in the Telegraph, ‘the hallmarks of Chris Patten’s chairmanship have been a lack of grip and repeated evasion of responsibility. The grotesque pay-offs made to executives; the incompetence of management; the mishandling of the Jimmy Savile scandal: none of this apparently has anything to do with Lord Patten.’

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TENNESSEE/KENTUCKY
The Raw Story

By David Edwards
Wednesday, July 9, 2014

Officials at a Kentucky church said this week that they knew their pastor was a registered violent sex offender when they hired him, and now he’s facing more charges for repeatedly raping a 14-year-old member of the congregation.

The Gallatin Police Department said in a statement this week that 46-year-old Pastor Roy Neal Yoakem had been arrested Monday on charges of aggravated statutory rape, sexual battery by an authority figure, statutory rape by an authority figure and fugitive from justice, The Tennessean reported.

Yoakem is accused of sexually assaulting a 14-year-old boy once inside New Gospel Outreach Church in Scottsville, Kentucky, and once at his home in Gallatin, Tennessee.

The pastor had been required to register as a violent sex offender after being found guilty in 2005 of abusing an 8-year-old boy in Kentucky.

“If (a convicted sex offender) has a secondary address or if they spend a certain amount of time a month in the state, they have to register here,” a statement from Gallatin Police Department spokesperson Bill Storment explained. So, his primary residence is in Kentucky, but the Gallatin residence is considered his secondary address.”

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UNITED KINGDOM
Belfast Telegraph

10 JULY 2014

Scotland Yard has tripled the number of officers investigating historic allegations of sex abuse in the wake of claims of a Westminster cover-up over a paedophile ring.

Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe said today that the number of officers looking in to decades-old allegations has been beefed up to “well over 20”.

However he also said that 130 staff, including 112 officers, are still working on the inquiries into alleged phone hacking and bribery by journalists.

Speaking to the Police and Crime Committee at London’s City Hall he said of the sex abuse claims: “We’ve tripled the number of people in there this week. Well over 20 people will be dedicated to that and we will make an assessment of the cases.

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IRELAND
Irish Times

Mike Milotte

Sat, Jun 28, 2014

The National Archives of Ireland contain just a few snippets, but they are enough to make clear that State officials in 1950s Ireland knew the country was a centre for illegal international baby trafficking. The number of children involved can’t even be guessed at, but we can be sure they were all “illegitimate”.

Ireland was regarded as a “hunting ground”, in the words of a senior civil servant, where foreigners in search of babies could easily obtain illegitimate children from mother-and-baby homes and private nursing homes, then remove them from the State without any formalities.

There were both legal and illegal adoptions. During the 1950s up to 15 per cent of all illegitimate Irish children born in mother-and-baby homes each year were taken to the United States with the full knowledge of the State. In total more than 2,000 illegitimate children were removed from the country in this way. Most were adopted by wealthy American Catholics.

But it seems that hundreds, if not thousands, more children were taken from the country without sanction or public record-keeping. Many were handed to foreigners. On October 8th, 1951, The Irish Times reported that in the previous year “almost 500 babies were flown from Shannon for adoption”, a number that the paper said “is believed to have been exceeded” during the first nine months of 1951. In the first week of October alone, it reported, 18 “parties” of children departed from the airport.

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NEW YORK
Time Warner Cable News

[with video]

By: Katie Gibas
Updated 07/08/2014

Child sexual abuse victims around the world are responding to Pope Francis’ apology this week. After meeting with several people who were abused by priests as children, Pope Francis begged for forgiveness for the church for failing to prevent the abuse. He also promised action to protect young parishioners, as well as to punish those who committed child sex abuse. But as Katie Gibas reports, while many church leaders are praising the Pope’s statements, some survivors said words aren’t enough.

Charles Bailey carried a dark secret with him for 40 years. At age 50, Bailey finally told someone he was abused by a Roman Catholic priest in the Syracuse Diocese in the early 1960’s when he was in fifth and sixth grade.

“It’s like your childhood is ripped from you in an instant. Up to that fall day when I was 10-years-old, I was a happy little kid with a big grin on my face. From that day forward, my childhood was gone. I didn’t fit in with my peers. I was too young to fit in with the adults. You feel like you’re solitary, alone, an outsider,” said Charles Bailey, a child sexual abuse survivor.

He said telling his family and getting counseling helped him get the support he’d needed for 40 years to begin to recover. In 2007, he published his story in a book called “In the Shadow of the Cross.” In addition to sharing what happened to him, he uses his writing as a way to help people manage their recovery.

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OHIO
PennLive

By John Luciew | jluciew@pennlive.com
on July 10, 2014

The man of the cloth was convicted of strangling a nun to death in northwest Ohio in 1980. The convicted Catholic priest, the Rev. Gerald Robinson, died July 4 at a hospice at age 76. On Friday, he will be buried in Toledo with a full Roman Catholic funeral mass befitting a priest, according to the Associated Press.

But the question remains: Should he be buried with full honors as a priest of the Catholic church?

After all, at the time of his death, Robinson was serving a life prison sentence for strangling Sister Margaret Ann Pahl at the hospital where they worked. Yet, Robinson remained a priest even after his murder conviction.

Organizations that help victims of clergy abuse don’t think that the convicted Robinson should be buried as a priest. These groups are upset that the Toledo diocese will observe the usual protocol for priests’ funerals, the AP reported.

For its part, the diocese says Robinson would receive a priest’s funeral because he remained a priest after his conviction, although he was not permitted to take part in public sacramental ministry, AP wrote

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KENTUCKY
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Thursday, July 10, 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 Kentucky pastor, who is also a registered violent sex offender, has been arrested again, this time for recent child sex crimes. We are grateful to the brave victim who came forward and we demand answers about how a registered sex offender was allowed to work as a pastor.

[Tennessean]

Roy Neal Yoakem, pastor at New Gospel Outreach Church in Scottsville, was recently arrested for abusing a young teenager. Yoakem is a convicted sex offender and is a registered violent sex offender in Tennessee. It is outrageous that such a dangerous man and proven criminal was given a position of trust and a chance to hurt more children.

New Gospel Outreach Church officials should immediately and publicly explain why they acted so recklessly. They should provide immediate and public outreach to all parishioners and members of the community, begging anyone who saw, suspects or suffered sexual abuse by Yoakem to come forward and report to police. Anyone who helped Yoakem get his position or helped cover-up his crimes should be investigated.

And we urge the broader Scottsville community to denounce and shun this church. Those who knowingly put innocent children in the path of a proven predator should be punished. We especially call on other ministers in and around Scottsville to use their pulpits and voices to harshly condemn New Gospel members and officials for behaving so irresponsibly.

Predators rarely abuse once and Yoakem already has a history of abusing children. We are concerned that others are suffering in silence and self-blame. We encourage them to be brave, report to police and start healing.

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CANADA/UNITED KINGDOM
The Globe and Mail

MARK MACKINNON
LONDON — Globe and Mail Update (includes correction)
Published Wednesday, Jul. 09 2014

He was a diplomat – and reputedly also a Cold War spy – who was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II in 1971 while serving as her High Commissioner to Canada. It would later come to light that Peter Hayman was also a member of an influential group that lobbied to legalize pedophilia in Britain.

The tawdry tale of the late Mr. Hayman’s secret life made headlines in 1981 after an envelope containing hard-core child pornography and diaries of his experiences and fantasies regarding sex with children was found on a London bus. Now it has emerged again as a key element in a seamy political scandal amid claims he was part of a wider network of child abusers who worked – and were protected – at some of the highest echelons of power in this country.

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OHIO
Fox 28

TOLEDO (AP) — A full funeral mass is set for Friday for a Roman Catholic priest convicted of killing a nun in northwest Ohio in 1980.

Organizations that help victims of clergy abuse are upset that the Toledo diocese will observe the usual protocol for priests’ funerals for the Rev. Gerald Robinson, who died July 4 in a prison hospice at age 76.

Robinson was a Catholic priest convicted of stabbing and strangling a nun 34 years ago in a hospital chapel will receive a funeral Mass.

An official with the Toledo diocese says the Rev. Gerald Robinson remains an ordained priest and his services will follow the usual protocol for diocesan priests’ funerals.

Robinson died Friday. The 76-year-old had been serving a prison sentence of 15 years to life in what church historians have characterized as the only documented case of a Catholic priest killing a nun.

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MASSACHUSETTS
NECN – Broadside

[with video]

July 9, 2014

Pope Francis recently met victims that were sexually abused by members of the clergy.

This was the first time a Pope has met with victims of sexual abuse inside the Vatican walls, as well as Pope Francis’ first time meeting with victims of sexual abuse since he was elected six months ago.

Anne Barrett Doyle of www.bishopaccountability.org and Attorney Carmen Durso, who spear-headed the Child Sex Abuse Prevention Act that just passed by the Massachusetts legislature, joined NECN to respond.

The guests suggested that the Pope has evolved since the beginning of his service, but needs to take more action.

“He has to clean house by removing Bishops and religious superiors who enable sexual abuse,” Barrett Doyle said. “The number one thing he has to do, in addition, is to require that every Bishop and religious superior report allegations of child sexual abuse.”

The guests continued by talking about Cardinal Sean O’Malley, who serves in Boston.

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UNITED KINGDOM
The Guardian

Suzanne Moore
theguardian.com, Tuesday 8 July 2014

It’s good, isn’t it, that we are finally talking about paedophilia openly, and that something is apparently going to be done about it through all the various inquires?

It’s good, too, that we have seen successful prosecutions for “historical abuse”. It’s good that survivors and victims are speaking out even if, like Vanessa Feltz, they are then subject to vile online insults. No wonder, as the Liberal Democrat MP Tessa Munt explained, it had taken her until she was expecting her first child in her 30s to talk about her own experience of sexual abuse: “When I was a child, I didn’t feel I was going to be believed”. It’s good, also, that after years of rumours about paedophile rings at the heart of the establishment, this will be investigated.

Hopefully then it can all be tucked away nicely into the past and everything can get back to normal; all decent people are appalled – and so why is there still such a silence? This unsaid thing is ringing in my ears as I listen to the competitive outrage about it; it is part of the refusal to confront the gender dynamic, the sexual politics. Put simply: who is alleged to have done the abusing? Who has gone to prison for abuse? Men in positions of power. I am not saying women never abuse children – they do – but the large scale cover-ups that are now to be finally investigated are about men; the light entertainers now dead or in prison are male. Their victims are both girls and boys, those deemed to be at the very bottom of society who seemed disposable.

Already there is a backlash to what is being called a moral panic. Have we not become hysterical seeing nice ordinary men as possible abusers when they are not? No, of course not. Are we overreacting? Let’s be clear, in these inquires we are looking to see if institutions enabled and covered up the rape and sexual assault of children in their care. If this is the case then that culture of culpability needs to be busted open.

We know better now. In some ways. Anyone who works with kids has to understand safeguarding, but we swing between excessive surveillance (a few years ago I had to have a CRB check to go on a school trip with my daughter) to outright denial that charming men are capable of doing anything so awful.

Something strange is happening here, a collective refusal to contemplate how patriarchy works. And I shouldn’t need to say this but it’s obligatory: just because some men abuse children does not mean all men do. Men like Keir Starmer have worked tirelessly for victims to be heard. But an analysis of how male power operates would be useful, and there are experts in this. We are called feminists. Child abuse isn’t a new story for us.

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FRANCE
Expatica

The French businessman named to head up the Vatican bank vowed Thursday that its days of scandal were a thing of the past.

Jean-Baptiste de Franssu, former chief executive of Invesco Europe, was on Wednesday put in charge of the Institute for Religious Works (IOR) — as the bank is known.

He takes over following a year of internal investigations that resulted in the closure or suspension of thousands of suspicious, ineligible or inactive accounts.

“I believe there has been a lot of hype and focus on this institution in the past,” de Franssu told France’s Europe 1 radio.

“That said, there were criminal acts. But those are behind us,” he said. “Today the rules are very strict.”

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IRELAND
Irish Independent

Elaine McCahill
Published 10/07/2014

Dublin priest Monsignor Paul Tighe has been appointed by Pope Francis to a new high-profile committee charged with reforming the Vatican media throughout the world.

Msgr Tighe will serve as secretary on the new Committee for Vatican Media which will be chaired by former BBC Trust chairman (Lord) Chris Patten and headed up by experts from the Vatican and around the world.

The committee will propose reforms for Vatican media including building on the Pontifex Twitter account.

Originally from Navan, Co Meath, Msgr Tighe studied civil law at UCD before going on to study for the priesthood at Holy Cross College in Dublin and the Pontifical Irish College in Rome.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Community Care

Social workers aware of allegations likely to have been under “extreme pressure to keep quiet”, says association’s professional officer

by Rachel Schraer on July 9, 2014

An amnesty for whistleblowers on institutional child abuse has been backed by the British Association of Social Workers (BASW), after the government announced an inquiry into historic abuse claims.

BASW professional officer Nushra Mansuri said protection from sanctions for social workers and other professionals who were aware of historic abuse allegations may encourage them to come forward.

Her comments follow a call from MP for Rochdale, Simon Danczuk for an “amnesty” for whistle blowers on child abuse to come forward to the government’s inquiry about cover-ups by their employers.

Mansuri said: “It is my belief that those working in child protection services that were aware of these allegations were probably under extreme pressure to keep quiet.”

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BOSTON (MA)
Newsmax

By John Blosser

The “Francis Effect” is being felt strongly in Boston, where the Boston Globe is planning the August launch of a new website aimed at followers of Pope Francis and the Catholic Church, according to the JimRomenesko.com journalism blog.

“Don’t think of this as the place you go to buy statues you bury in the backyard,” the new CEO of the Globe, Mike Sheehan, said, according to the blog. “It’s going to be news and analysis of all things Catholic.”

In an interview with Commonwealth magazine, Sheehan, who became CEO of the Globe in January, said, “It will have a global audience. There’s a natural audience for it.”

Prompting the initiative is response to the reporting of John L. Allen Jr., hired by the Globe this year from the National Catholic Reporter, who has broadened the Globe’s appeal with his coverage of the church.

“I look every day at what is being read digitally, and whatever John Allen writes is always in the top five, which means it’s relevant to people here, but also people from around the country are coming in to read it, too,” Sheehan told Commonwealth.

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UNITED STATES
Idaho State Journal

In what’s being called the Catholic Church’s most serious attempt yet to apologize for tolerating decades of priests molesting children, Pope Francis this week asked the abuse victims for forgiveness and promised to bring molester priests and their enablers to justice.

“I beg your forgiveness…for the sins of omission on the part of church leaders who did not respond adequately to reports of abuse made by family members, as well as by abuse victims themselves. This led to even greater suffering on the part of those who were abused and it endangered other minors who were at risk,” said the pope following his meeting at the Vatican this week with six people who as children were molested by Catholic priests.

The pope also promised that the church would make reparations to those who were molested, though it’s unclear how the Catholic Church could ever financially heal the wounds suffered by the numerous victims of the abuse in the United States and several other countries. Francis seemed to be equally angry at the church leaders who have tolerated the molester priests as he is with the abusers themselves, and the tone of his words made it clear that his sorrow and desire to change the church’s image are sincere.

He said, “There is no place in the church’s ministry for those who commit these abuses, and I commit myself not to tolerate harm done to a minor by any individual, whether a cleric or not…. Before God and his people, I express my sorrow for the sins and grave crimes of clerical sexual abuse committed against you. And I humbly ask forgiveness.”

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IRELAND
Irish Times

Mary McCaughey

Thu, Jul 10, 2014

‘Have the men had enough?”

In the Scottish Highlands, where my mother comes from, this was a well-known phrase used by the women at the end of meals before the menfolk went back to the fields. Indeed it remains current to this day and was used as the title of a novel reflecting that kind of society.

It’s a phrase that comes as we wring our hands and lament the hundreds of bodies of babies uncovered in Tuam.

So much talk of the mothers and their babies. So much said about the homes they found themselves in. So many so quick to crucify the nuns for their apparent ineptitude, cruelty or even illegal acts.

Changing attitudes to the “fallen women”, the Philomenas, the Ann Lovetts, have seen them begin to occupy a different space in our cultural context. There is a growing, sometimes grudging respect for the women who have managed to struggle through and beyond what was done to them to become poignant examples of strength and character for our daughters.

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IRELAND
Irish Times

Jacky Jones

Wed, Jul 9, 2014

The conviction of Rolf Harris is a reminder that child abuse is an abuse of power. The crime persists because perpetrators are not challenged and dealt with speedily by the criminal justice system. Children are still abused in Ireland every day.

The HSE Annual Report 2013 shows that 6,462 children were in care at the end of 2013 and 1,547 children were on the Child Protection Notification system.

The HSE expects to receive about 40,000 referrals to the Child and Family Agency in 2014. Between April 2013 and the end of March 2014, 164 allegations were made against priests and religious to the National Board for Safeguarding Children.

Many organisations that have contact with children, including sports organisations and the Catholic Church, don’t understand the relationship between the abuse of power and child abuse so their prevention strategies are inadequate.

The 2013 annual report of the National Board for Safeguarding Children in the Catholic Church in Ireland shows that the Catholic Church does not get it.

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VATICAN CITY
The Daily Beast

Barbie Latza Nadeau

Vatican City — When Cardinal George Pell, the Holy See’s new Prefect of the Secretariat for the Economy, addressed the Vatican press corpson Wednesday to lay out the new economic framework for the universal Catholic Church and introduce the Vatican Bank’s new president, he made what could easily be interpreted as a Freudian Slip. “We are working towards transcendence,” the cardinal said to the packed press room before quickly correcting his mistake. “I mean we’re working towards transparency.”

Pell could have just as easily stuck with the word “transcendence” given his enormous task to lift the Institute for Religious Works or IOR as the Vatican bank is officially called, from its sinful past to a loftier future. The IOR has been mired in a litany of scandals including the criminal corruption trial of its former general director and assistant, and the ongoing money laundering trial against a prelate referred to as Monsignor 500 for his penchant for big bills. The prelate, Nunzio Scarano, who once worked in the Vatican Treasury, is standing trial for allegedly trying to smuggle more than $25 million from Switzerland to a secret Vatican Bank account.

The bank was nearly closed by Pope Francis in 2013 before the pontiff decided to give the administrators one more chance. Since then, the bank has cleaned up its act, but not without a hefty price.

In conjunction with the not-so-surprising announcement that IOR president Ernst von Freyberg would be replaced by asset fund guru Jean-Baptiste de Franssu, the bank also released its 2013 Financial Report, in which it reported a somewhat dramatic 97 percent plunge in net revenue from €86.6 million ($118 million) in 2012 to a paltry €2.9 million ($4 million) in 2013.

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VATICAN CITY
Vatican Radio

[with audio]

(Vatican Radio) The meetings Pope Francis held this week with six survivors of sexual abuse were an “important and very positive” step on the road towards healing and better child protection in the Catholic Church. That’s according to an Irish abuse victim who now serves on the Vatican’s new Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors.

As a 13 year old girl, Marie Collins was abused by a hospital chaplain, who was then protected by his archbishop and went on to abuse and rape other children over a period of 30 years. This week she was in the Vatican to accompany one of the six abuse survivors from the Ireland, Germany and the UK for Mass and a series of private encounters with Pope Francis at his Santa Marta residence.

“It was wonderful to see the Pope listening so intently and the survivor to feel heard and have the opportunity to say everything they wanted to say…..what I was most impressed about the meeting was the fact the Pope gave so much time, there was no hurry….and I spoke to most of the survivors as they came out from their meetings and the general feeling was they felt they had said what they wanted to say and had been heard….

No matter how much you know about abuse, or you read about it in theory, I think sitting across from a survivor who’s telling you what abuse has done to their life and their family, how devastating it all is, it must be emotional and I certainly observed the Pope reacting to what he was being told and I think it must have been a hugely emotional morning for himself as well as for the survivors…

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SCOTLAND
STV

Two men appeared in court on Wednesday accused of carrying out years of sexual abuse on young boys at a school run by a controversial Catholic group.

Paul Kelly and John Farrell appeared at Dundee Sheriff Court over allegations of brutal sex attacks and beatings at the former St Ninian’s School in Falkland, Fife, between 1978 and 1983.

The pair face a total of 57 charges between them, including multiple accusations of having “unnatural carnal connections” with young boys at the school, sexual assaults, indecent assaults and using lewd, indecent and libidinous practices and behaviour towards children.

Kelly faces seven charges of using lewd, indecent and libidinous practices and behaviour as well as eight indecent assaults and two sexual assaults.

He if further alleged to have committed nine assaults on young boys, including dragging one boy to a river and forcing his head underwater.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Plymouth Herald

A Plymouth teacher has appeared in court in Scotland to face dozens of charges of physical and sexual abuse of children – including dragging one child to a river and forcing his head under water.

Paul Kelly, from Plymouth, and John Farrell are accused of carrying out years of horrific sexual abuse on young boys at a school run by a controversial Catholic group.

Kelly, who was a teacher at St Boniface School in Plymouth for 27 years and retired as head of Year Nine, and Farrell appeared at Dundee Sheriff Court today over allegations of brutal sex attacks and beatings at the former St Ninian’s School in Falkland, Fife, between 1978 and 1983.

The pair face a total of 57 charges between them – including multiple accusations of having “unnatural carnal connections” with young boys at the school, sexual assaults, indecent assaults and using lewd, indecent and libidinous practices and behaviour towards children.

Kelly faces seven charges of using lewd, indecent and libidinous practices and behaviour as well as eight indecent assaults and two sexual assaults.

He is further alleged to have committed nine assaults on young boys – including dragging one boy to a river and forcing his head underwater.

Kelly is also accused of three charges of having an “unnatural carnal connection” with boys at the school by repeatedly having sex with them.

One charge alleges that he forced a boy to watch while he “sexually assaulted other pupils”.

The charge further accuses Kelly of forcing other pupils to have sex with the boy.

Farrell faces six charges of assault, nine of indecent assault and two of sexual assault.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Plymouth Herald

TWO men appeared in court yesterdayaccused of carrying out years of horrific sexual abuse on young boys at a school run by a controversial Catholic group.

Former Plymouth teacher Paul Kelly and John Farrell appeared at Dundee Sheriff Court over allegations of brutal sex attacks and beatings at the former St Ninian’s School in Falkland, Fife, between 1978 and 1983.

The pair face a total of 57 charges between them, including multiple accusations of having “unnatural carnal connections” with young boys at the school, sexual assaults, indecent assaults and using lewd, indecent and libidinous practices and behaviour towards children.

Kelly faces seven charges of using lewd, indecent and libidinous practices and behaviour as well as eight indecent assaults and two sexual assaults.

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SCOTLAND
The Courier

By GRAEME OGSTON, 10 July 2014

Two men have appeared in court accused of a string of historical physical and sexual abuse charges at a Catholic school in Fife.

Paul Kelly and John Farrell face a total of 57 charges between them, allegedly committed at the former St Ninian’s School in Falkland between 1978 and 1983.

Kelly, 61, of Plymouth, and Farrell, 71, of Newarthill, Motherwell, appeared separately in private at Dundee Sheriff Court on Wednesday. Both made no plea or declaration.

Prosecutors allege they carried out a series of sexual and physical assaults on children.

Kelly faces eight charges of indecent assault, two sexual assaults and seven charges of using lewd, indecent and libidinous practices and behaviour.

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UNITED STATES
USA Today

Pope Francis on Monday met and prayed with six European victims of pedophile priests for the first time. Comments from Facebook and Twitter are edited for Clarity and grammar:

This is truly an amazing pope. I’m not Catholic, but my goodness! From cleaning up the Vatican bank to forcing the church to deal with sexual abuse, I say bravo.

This pope walks the walk like none other that I have seen.

— Nikato Muirhead

This step is not enough. The abuse spans decades if not more. A formal plan for combating sexual abuse and rape must be presented.

— @BaileyPittipat

Pope Francis says all the right things, but nothing has really changed. Just look at his comment about excommunicating the mafia. Unnamed people are now excommunicated. Is there a list of people who will be kicked out of Mass if they show up? No. Are women getting treated better? No. It’s all just talk.

— Ray Fleming

As long as the church and its leaders continue to see themselves as special in the eyes of God, nothing will ever change. There are far too many priests who believe that they are above all others, like spoiled children who believe that they can do no wrong.

— Thomas Cole

Francis has the same problem President Obama has. Taking the reins of an ungainly bureaucracy and trying to change the status quo is not as easy it as appears.

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UNITED KINGDOM
The Spectator

Rod Liddle 12 July 2014

I suppose we must accustom ourselves to the fact that some 30 years ago Britain was in the grip of a terrible paedo–geddon — even if, at the time, we did not quite know it. More shockingly still, it was not simply light entertainers who were fiddling about up and down the country, with their cunningly coded messages to children about having an ‘extra leg’ and sinister injunctions to restrain kangaroos. It was, it seems, everyone. The Home Office has announced an enormous inquiry into the whole business, covering a considerable number of major institutions — the government, the BBC, the Church of England and so on.

Some large organisations are missing from the current remit of this inquiry (which will, of course, be headed by an expensive QC): the AA, for example, and the Methodists. But there will surely be room for a separate investigation dealing with them and others like them. No stone will be left unturned, so long as it was a stone put there at least 30 years ago and the person hiding beneath it is either dead or as near dead as makes no practical difference.

This, so far, accords with a great British tradition — our much-cherished 30-year rule. If anything really scandalous occurs involving members of the establishment, we will only discover the truth three decades or so later, no matter how many inquiries are held in the interim. This was true of the Hillsborough tragedy and Bloody Sunday; it seems to me highly likely that in 2033 it will suddenly be revealed that Tony Blair misled the House of Commons and the public over the invasion of Iraq and the police will be seen carrying black plastic bags out of the retirement homes and hospices inhabited by former members of his cabinet, if black plastic bags have not been made illegal by then.

It is always 30 years because by then the people responsible have been well removed from even the most trivial levers of power, or have died. If the US were Britain, then round about now Woodward and Bernstein would be revealing to a shocked nation the true story of the Watergate break-in.

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TENNESSEE
Tennessean

By Josh Cross jcross@mtcngroup.com

Gallatin police have arrested a Kentucky church pastor on statutory rape charges involving a 14-year-old male member of his congregation.

Roy Neal Yoakem, 46, of Scottsville, Ky., was arrested Monday and is charged with aggravated statutory rape, sexual battery by an authority figure, statutory rape by an authority figure and fugitive from justice, according to a news release from the Gallatin Police Department.

According to police, Yoakem sexually assaulted the teenager on two occasions last month, once at New Gospel Outreach Church in Scottsville where he was the pastor and once at his Gallatin residence on Edgewood Drive.

Yoakem is also a convicted sex offender, according to the release. In 2005 he was convicted in Kentucky of second degree sexual abuse of an 8-year-old boy and is currently registered in Tennessee as a violent sex offender.

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TENNESSEE/KENTUCKY
WRCB

GALLATIN, Tenn. (AP) – Police say a Kentucky pastor who is a registered sex offender has been arrested in Tennessee on rape charges involving a juvenile.

The Tennessean (http://tnne.ws/1tk04Ma) reports 46-year-old Roy Neal Yoakem is charged with aggravated statutory rape, sexual battery by an authority figure and statutory rape by an authority figure. He is being held at the Sumner County jail.

The newspaper reports Yoakem is accused of having sex with a 14-year-old boy at the New Gospel Outreach Church in Scottsville, Kentucky, where Yoakem is a pastor, and at a residence in Gallatin, Tennessee. He is also facing charges in Kentucky.

His attorney in Kentucky wasn’t in the office Wednesday and didn’t immediately return a call seeking comment.

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UNITED STATES
PopeCrimes& Vatican Evils.

Paris Arrow

The 1.2 billion baptised Catholics in the world are all idiots. Which is more precise to say, “Idiot Catholics” or “Catholic idiots”?

For sure, Goliath-bully Bill Donohue of Catholic League would know the correct answer since he is the leader of the pack especially the “American idiot Catholics” or is it “American Catholic idiots”?

The biggest circus on earth is happening in the smallest country of the Vatican. It is the Octopus Dei Beast Circus starring Pope Francis with his one-man show of multiple acts with his trademark of his podgy papal butt and with the support of Vatican Pied Pipers headlines worldwide (see their articles below with our highlights and comments). The Vatican Circus is bigger than the Cirque de Soleil and the Roman Circus of Nero. From acting (preaching) St. Peter’s weep on sexual abuse to tackling the Mafia that now endangers his life (LOL – there’ll be soon stuntmen with rifles at St. Peter’s Square), Pope Francis is the fattest Golden Cow circus production ever created by the Opus Dei Beast Frankenstein Pope & Saint Factory since John Paul II the Great.

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UNITED KINGDOM
The Spectator

Douglas Murray

Who would trust MPs? Until recently most of us thought they were just in it for the expenses. Now it turns out they’re in it to abuse kids too.

We know because we’ve read it in the papers. Not that they’re any better, tapping Milly Dowler’s phone. Still, at least you can trust the BBC. Apart from their old stars, that is, or the higher-ups who covered for them or fingered the wrong paedos. Really, the police should have stepped in years ago. Except they were probably busy being racist.

So who will speak up for the kids? Once it could have been a bishop or something. Though not after what we now know about the Catholics. And the Church of England’s not much better. Frock-wearing paedos. Thinking about it could drive you to illness. Except you can’t take any chances these days. Not with the NHS just waiting to kill you with a superbug and then giving Jimmy Savile the keys.

Rarely since the last days of Rome can there have been such a dearth of authority in a society. One by one, in the lifespan of most people in Britain, the institutions which once defended and epitomised our country have fallen and now appear unable to get up again.

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UNITED STATES
Southcoast Today

July 10, 2014

True reconciliation only begins with with an apology.

It takes more than saying one is sorry to heal the wounds that come from hurting others. That takes justice — a commitment to make things right, to change whatever actions have caused harm, and to hold those responsible for that harm accountable for their actions.

Pope Francis on Monday met with a group of Roman Catholics who had suffered sexual abuse at the hands of Catholic clergy, and he offered a sweeping apology to them for the wrongs done against them when they were children. The meeting was orchestrated by by Cardinal Sean O’Malley of Boston, who serves on the church’s Commission for the Protection of Minors. It was the first in a series of meetings Francis plans to have with victims — a conversation that actually started under his predecessor, Pope Benedict XVI.

“I beg your forgiveness, too, for the sins of omission on the part of church leaders who did not respond adequately to reports of abuse…” Francis said. “This led to greater suffering on the part of those who were abused, and it endangered other minors who were at risk.”

But while the pope made it clear in his remarks that bishops who fail to take action against abusive priests betray the trust of the church and its 1.2 billion believers, the Vatican has been reluctant to discipline church higher-ups. In fact, former Boston Archbishop Bernard Law was promoted a decade ago to a prestigious post in Rome after his role in the archdiocese’s coverup of clergy abuse was exposed, a move that has been bitterly criticized by victims groups.

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OKLAHOMA
Tulsa World

Posted: Thursday, July 10, 2014

By BILL BRAUN World Staff Writer

A Tulsa pastor must face trial on nine counts of lewd molestation, a judge ruled Wednesday.
At the conclusion of a preliminary hearing that started Monday, Damien Keith Bonner Sr., 32, was ordered to face trial on charges involving three teenage girls.

Bonner most recently has been pastor of the Galilee Baptist Church, 721 E. Pine St., police said. Defense attorney Stan Monroe said Wednesday that Bonner was recently terminated from his preaching job there.

The charges allege that Bonner knew two of the girls through that church and the other girl through Mount Zion Baptist Church, 419 N. Elgin Ave., where he previously was a minister.

The charges allege that the molestations occurred at various places, including in Bonner’s car, at his apartment in Owasso and at Lacy Park in Tulsa.

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UNITED KINGDOM
The Argus

By Neil Vowles

Sexual abuse victims say a decision to publish a report into the crimes of a Cathedral steward ten years after it was compiled is “too little, too late”.

Support groups claim victims were denied justice because recommendations in the 2004 report, produced by the Diocese of Chichester in the wake of the conviction of serial offender Terence Banks, were not followed up.

Banks, who became head steward at Chichester Cathedral, was convicted in 2001 for 32 sexual offences over 29 years against 12 boys as young as 11.

The Bishop of Chichester Martin Warner said the report was published to “shed light on past events, to aid learning, build trust and foster openness”.

The report followed an investigation by Sussex Police and was commissioned by the former Bishop of Chichester, The Rt Rev Dr John Hind.

It reveals that, despite being banned from the Prebendal cathedral school in Chichester in the 1970s, Banks still had contact with pupils.

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ILLINOIS
Journal Courier

By Brett Luster bluster@civitasmedia.com

Pope Francis met in Vatican City this week with six victims of sexual abuse by Catholic priests, assuring followers that bishops would be held accountable for protection of minors, while not spelling out the concrete changes in enforcement of policies already in place.

A Catholic official representing the Springfield diocese, which includes Jacksonville and area parishes, says Pope Francis underscored the need for healing among Catholics since cases of priest sexual abuse surfaced in 2003, rocking the church across America.

Robert Gilligan represents all six Catholic dioceses across Illinois as the executive director of the Catholic Conference of Illinois. He said the church in Illinois already has policies protecting children who have been sexually abused.

He also said there is a zero tolerance policy regarding priests who have been accused of wrongdoing.

According to Gilligan, clerics alleged with sexual abuse with minors would be removed from ministry positions indefinitely so facts can be gathered and during such times the priests would not serve in positions in which they would have contact with children.

“We err on the side of caution,” he said. …

Kate Bochte, a leader of the Chicago-based Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, said church leaders need to do more to protect children from molestation.

She also said when people speak out from within, there are unintended consequences.

Bochte said she was shunned in 2003 when she and her husband began to speak out against alleged clergy sex abuse by being removed from positions in her former suburban Chicago parish.

Bochte said she recalled hearing abuse stories one-on-one from people who were molested by priests.

“That’s when I realized the whole story wasn’t getting out,” said Bochte, not a survivor herself. “There’s a lot of cover-up in the church.”

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MINNESOTA
Pioneer Press

By Emily Gurnon
egurnon@pioneerpress.com
POSTED: 07/09/2014

Newly released documents about a local priest disclose that the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis placed Joseph Wajda in a top position on the marriage tribunal after it moved him among eight parishes.

Those decisions came after Wajda, who was ordained in 1973, was accused a month into his priesthood of propositioning a boy for sex and continued to be the subject of allegations.

Wajda was accused of making a teenage boy walk around his office naked and masturbate, paying minors for sex, buying expensive presents for teens and taking boys to saunas, according to formerly secret documents released by the archdiocese in a court case.

The documents were made public Wednesday by attorney Jeffrey Anderson. Anderson represents the plaintiff in the case of Doe 1, a lawsuit filed against former priest Thomas Adamson last year.

Now 67 and living in Minneapolis, Wajda was removed from the ministry in 2003. He has repeatedly denied molesting children. The archdiocese has “requested that the Holy See remove him from the clerical state,” according to a written statement Wednesday by Vicar General Charles Lachowitzer.

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Alateia

Fr Dwight Longenecker

This week Pope Francis met privately with victims of priestly sex abuse from Ireland, Britain and Germany. They attended Mass with the pontiff at the chapel at St. Martha’s Guesthouse, shared a meal and then met privately to tell their stories. Their meeting took place after the second gathering of a special commission the pope has established to address the problem of sex abuse by priests.

The sexual abuse of minors by Catholic priests has been a horrible crime against young people, and Pope Francis is right to liken it to a “sacrilegious cult.” As Emeritus Pope Benedict XVI did, Pope Francis shared their struggles and asked forgiveness. Expressing the feelings of most Catholics, Pope Francis said, “Before God and his people, I express my sorrow for the sins and grave crimes of clerical sexual abuse committed against you. And I humbly ask forgiveness.”

Predictably, the critics of the Catholic Church are unsatisfied, Barbara Blaine, the president of Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP) dismissed the importance of Francis’ meeting. The Pope’s apology was not enough. Blaine demanded, “Francis must take decisive action right now” to address the scandal more directly. She dismissed the Pope’s call for reparations and said “stopping abuse and protecting children comes first…no child on earth is safer today because of this meeting.

With or without church officials, abuse victims can heal themselves. But only with church officials’ help can children protect themselves from child molesting clerics. That’s where the Pope must focus. And that’s where he’s refusing to act.”

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UNITED KINGDOM
The Guardian

Sadhbh Walshe
theguardian.com, Thursday 10 July 2014

The most promising pope in the modern history of the Vatican had quite the audience this week: Francis spent two days with six people who were sexually abused by priests. He begged their forgiveness, of course, for “an ugly crime” perpetrated by a kind of “sacrilegious cult”. That was pretty bold. But he also made a half-promise: “We must go ahead with zero tolerance”, the pope said on the papal plane, adding that his church should “weep and make reparation”.

As the Atlantic’s Ta-Nehisi Coates wrote in his brilliant treatise on another kind of reparations entirely, there is justice, and then there are practicalities; there are reparations, and then there is existentialism. And when you’re running the most existential institution on Earth – the Catholic Church – sometimes you have to get down to details, even if you’re talking basic penance to God, not amends to people. Sometimes you have to stop talking in empty promises and start cleaning house.

His Holiness sure knows how to say he’s sorry for this “sin of omission”, but as David Clohessy of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (Snap) told me on Tuesday, “We don’t need any more symbolic gestures or study panels to make recommendations – we need concrete actions that will protect vulnerable children.”

The past is not just the past, as the church well knows, and if you want evidence that that Francis’s zero-tolerance policy is merely a PR stunt, look back to the pope’s time in Argentina.

Then-Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio was closely involved in the case of Father Julio Cesar Grassi, who was sentenced to 15 years in prison after being found guilty of molesting a boy in his care. Details are murky, but Anne Barrett-Doyle, who runs the website Bishop-Accountability.org, which has tracked the case closely, told me this week that Grassi remained free on conditional release until September 2013, when his final appeal was rejected, at least in part because of a private report commissioned by Bergoglio that sought to prove Grassi’s innocence and, according to Barrett-Doyle, to discredit the victims.

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MISSOURI/MINNESOTA
KSDK

[with video]

Stephanie Diffin, KSDK July 9, 2014

ST. LOUIS (KSDK) – New secrets are spilling out about a priest sex abuse case out of Minnesota. A series of confidential documents became public Wednesday, and St. Louis Archbishop Robert Carlson’s name is in the paper trail.

The documents involve a de-frocked Minnesota priest, and they date back to the ’80s and ’90s when Archbishop Carlson was serving in Minnesota. For a time, he was among those in charge of the man accused of repeatedly abusing kids, whose name is Joseph Wajda.

“I have never abused anybody. I deny all these allegations. They’re false, they’re ridiculous,” Wajda told a KARE 11 reporter, our sister station in Minnesota, in December.

According to the documents released Wednesday, Wajda repeatedly denied allegations that he forced kids to get naked and brushed against them inappropriately, among other accusations. His repeated denial is recorded throughout the documents, including in a memo from Archbishop Carlson in 1987.

The paper trail shows Carlson was among those who questioned Wajda after learning about some of the accusations in 1981.

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UNITED KINGDOM
The Spectator

Isabel Hardman

Will Ed Miliband decide to attack David Cameron on the appointment of Lady Butler-Sloss to chair the child abuse inquiry when he stands up at Prime Minister’s Questions in a few minutes?

The government has been playing a desperate game of whack-a-mole on this issue, and it looked as though Butler-Sloss was an ideal answer to conspiracy theorists. Appointing Lady Butler-Sloss, a judge, to chair the inquiry, answered complaints about this not being a judge-led inquiry. Appointing Richard Whittam QC, a senior Treasury counsel, as the independent legal adviser who will oversee the review of the review quelled mutterings about documents held by the intelligence services because Whittam already has security clearance. Butler-Sloss also brings a wealth of technical experience in the field to the inquiry: she chaired the inquiry into the Cleveland abuse scandal, and who has more recently examined allegations of abuse by two Church of England priests in the Chichester Diocese.

But she has a link that means MPs who have been pursuing the child abuse allegations such as Simon Danczuk think she should step down from the Inquiry before it has even begun. Her brother, Sir Michael Havers, was the Attorney General at the time many of the allegations were raised.

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MINNESOTA
Roman Catholic Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis

Date: Wednesday, July 9, 2014

Source: Anne Steffens, Interim Director of Communications

Joseph Wajda is included in the John Jay list, which is posted on our website. We offer our assurances that today we handle things differently regarding priests who have been accused of sexually abusing children. The Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis permanently removed him from ministry in 2003. We have requested that the Holy See remove him from the clerical state (laicize).

We ask for forgiveness from and pray for hope and healing for all victims of sexual abuse and their families.

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ST. LOUIS (MO)
Roman Catholic Archdiocese of St. Louis

[with video]

July 7, 2014
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

For more information contact:
Gabe Jones
Community Relations Specialist
Phone: 314.792.7557

Today the Archdiocese of St. Louis and the sole plaintiff, a female known as Jane Doe 92, agreed to settle her lawsuit. A protective order in the case has precluded the Archdiocese from commenting on this matter until now. By the terms of the settlement agreement, other than this statement, the Archdiocese will not make any further statements or comments regarding this matter. At the request of the Plaintiff, the terms of the settlement agreement are confidential.

The Archdiocese has vigorously defended this case because it believes Jane Doe 92’s claims and allegations are false. Specifically, the Archdiocese denies that Jane Doe 92 was ever abused by Joseph Ross, a priest who was removed from ministry in 2002. We do not say this lightly. Jane Doe 92 made allegations in this case that her own family members dispute. She said her father witnessed the abuse by Ross and did nothing to stop it; her father denied this allegation under oath. In addition, Jane Doe 92 has been diagnosed, by her own treating doctors, with a medical condition that causes her to falsify claims, exaggerate symptoms and make inconsistent statements. Her own doctors and expert witnesses voiced doubts about her allegations and noted that they contained multiple inconsistencies. We simply do not believe her allegations are true.

In addition, as documented in public records, Jane Doe 92’s criminal charges against Father Ross were dropped by the government because the prosecution believed it could not prove her case. Father Ross was not the only person Jane Doe 92 has accused of rape. She previously alleged she was raped by another person. The government declined to prosecute charges against that person as well due to lack of evidence.

The purpose of a trial is to determine the truth. To allow the jury in this case to determine the truth, the Archdiocese actively sought to have Jane Doe 92’s treating doctors testify at trial because the Archdiocese believed the treating doctors would support the Archdiocese’s position that the abuse of Jane Doe 92 did not happen. Plaintiff took the highly unusual step of trying to block those doctors from testifying at trial.

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OHIO
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Wednesday, July 9, 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 )

Toledo Catholic officials are not relenting. They have announced that on Friday they will give a funeral with “fully priestly honors” to a murderer, even as a third national organization has criticized them for the move.

[Toledo Blade]

We are grateful there’s still time for church employees and members to object to this stunningly heartless act. We hope they will.

Earlier this week, the Boston-based Voice of the Faithful wrote to Father Charles Ritter, the “administrator” or temporary head of the Toledo diocese, criticizing funerals plans for Fr. Gerald Robinson, who was convicted of murdering Sr. Margaret Ann Pahl. So too has NSAC, the National Survivors Advocate Coalition, and our group.

It’s a clear choice for Fr. Ritter and his clerical colleagues: side with one guilty priest or with many innocent victims. Show compassion for one deceased adult who did wrong or for many living adults who are blameless.

A simple, private funeral hurts no one. An ostentatious public funeral hurts many.

We hope Toledo Catholic officials will reverse their painful decision.

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NEW YORK
Rockland County Times

News 12 this week aired a special report focusing on recent disturbing incidents of sexual abuse in the Village of New Square. The six-minute feature spotlighted the criminal case of Rabbi Moshe Taubenfeld, an accused predator indicted by a Rockland County Grand Jury for the repeated molestation of a young male victim over the span of several years. Unfortunately, News 12 Reporter Tara Rosenblum provided more fiction than fact in her poorly produced bit of “infotainment.”

Rosenblum’s dramatized piece is a masterful manipulation of the facts with at least six glaring factual errors. Even more troubling is that she never thought to contact my office for information critical to developing a credible news report.

News 12 management and staff should pride themselves on fair and accurate reporting, not sensationalism and fear-mongering. There is nothing journalistically ethical about playing it “fast and loose” with the facts. Local media organizations exist to serve the community, but Rosenblum’s sweeping inaccuracies and misinformation only serve to erode the trust only recently forged between my highly-skilled special victims prosecutors and the Hasidic community in Rockland County. By distorting the truth, I fear Rosenblum may have reversed much of the progress we’ve made.

Please know my Administration will continue to work closely with the Hasidic community to build confidence in our justice system to encourage more reporting from within. In the future, I would hope that News 12 – its reporters, writers, producers and editors – step up to provide our community with impartial and ethical coverage while standing for the principles of journalism.

Cordially,

Thomas P. Zugibe
Rockland County District Attorney

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NIGERIA
Christian Post

BY LEONARDO BLAIR , CP REPORTER
July 9, 2014

A self-styled 53-year-old pastor from Nigeria who impregnated more than 20 members of his congregation, including several married women and young girls, claiming that the Holy Spirit told him to have sex with them has been arrested for sexual abuse.

Ebere Amaraizu, DSP, a spokesman for the Enugu State Police Command told NaiJ that general overseer of Vineyard Ministry of the Holy Trinity, Pastor Timothy Ngwu, was arrested for abusing his female members.

“The pastor claims to be obeying prophetic/spiritual injunction to do the will of God, which is to impregnate any one chosen and revealed by the Holy Spirit, irrespective of whether the woman is married or not,” said Amaraizu.

“When the woman is delivered of the baby, the child remains in the ministry with the mother for life,” he added.

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ALABAMA
Associated Baptist Press

By Bob Allen

A former staff member at a Southern Baptist church in Alabama was arrested June 5 after two individuals came forward claiming they were sexually abused as children.

Jay Strickland, 50, a nurse anesthetist, paramedic and a former pastor at Sharon Heights Baptist Church in Birmingham, Ala., is charged with two counts of sexual abuse and one count of sodomy.

Police say an investigation was launched in April after a male victim came forward and reported he had been abused by Strickland when he was a child. During the investigation, detectives learned of a second victim, a female, who reported being abused as a child as well. Both alleged victims are now adults and live out of state.

Terry Trivette, senior pastor of Sharon Heights Baptist Church since 2013, said in a statement to media that legal authorities were notified and Strickland was placed upon an indefinite leave of absence from the church when the allegations surfaced.

After his arrest, Trivette said, Strickland “was formally relieved of his duties and is no longer employed by Sharon Heights Baptist Church.”

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UNITED KINGDOM
Independent

OLIVER WRIGHT WHITEHALL EDITOR Wednesday 09 July 2014

The judge appointed to lead the Government’s inquiry into allegations of an establishment paedophile ring is under growing pressure to stand down after it emerged that her brother had been implicated in the events she is due to investigate.

Baroness Butler-Sloss said she knew “absolutely nothing about” allegations that her late brother, the former Attorney General, Sir Michael Havers, had been passed a copy of a dossier naming suspected Westminster paedophiles but failed to act on the information which later went missing.

Sir Michael also backed the decision not to prosecute the diplomat Sir Peter Hayman for exchanging obscene material with members of the Paedophile Information Exchange. He also attempted to prevent the Conservative MP Geoffrey Dickens naming Sir Peter in the House of Commons.

But while Downing Street stood by the appointment, a growing number of MPs expressed their concern about her involvement – especially given that her inquiry is expected to focus on events which took place at her time when her brother had responsibility for prosecutions.

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UNITED KINGDOM
BBC News

The retired judge appointed to chair a child abuse review has insisted she will not quit – as the PM claimed she was the right person for the job.

Elizabeth Butler-Sloss was chosen by the home secretary to head the inquiry into allegations of historical abuse.

But Labour’s Simon Danczuk said her position was tainted because her late brother, Sir Michael Havers, was Attorney General in the 1980s.

Downing Street said the peer “commands widespread respect and confidence”.

Baroness Butler-Sloss was announced on Tuesday as head of a wide-ranging probe into how allegations of abuse by politicians and other powerful figures in public institutions such as the NHS, the church and the BBC in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s were handled.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Pink News

The retired judge appointed to chair a child abuse inquiry was one of the most vocal critics of the government’s decision to legalise same-sex marriage for England and Wales.

Baroness Butler-Sloss was appointed yesterday by Home Secretary Theresa May to chair an investigatory panel looking into how institutions like the government, the NHS, and the BBC handled allegations of paedophilia.

The government has been forced to defend its choice after several politicians and lawyers said the peer was tainted by the fact that her late brother, Sir Michael Havers, was attorney general at the time of the alleged abuses in the 1980s.

Sir Michael faced criticism after he sought to stop Conservative MP Geoffrey Dickens from naming in Parliament a top diplomat – Sir Peter Hayman – as a paedophile in the early 1980s.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Frankfurter Allgemeine

Der scheidende Chef der Vatikanbank, der Deutsche Ernst von Freyberg, beklagt Intrigen in der Führungsetage des Vatikan. „Manchmal hat man das Gefühl, dass sich gerade an der Kurie nicht nur die besten Köpfe, sondern auch große Intriganten tummeln“, sagte von Freyberg in einem Interview mit der „Bild“-Zeitung (Mittwoch).

Seine Mission sei erledigt, betonte der 55-Jährige: „Wir haben 16.300 Kunden geprüft. Die Bank ist jetzt sauber! Das war mein Ziel.“ Er habe 200mal Anzeige wegen Geldwäsche-Verdachts gestellt und 3000 Konten geschlossen. „Damit habe ich mir nicht nur Freunde gemacht.“

Kritisch äußerte sich von Freyberg auch zu den Beratern und Anwälten des Vatikan. Er habe „nahezu alle Beratungsverträge bei der Bank gekündigt“, aber manch einer „wittert jetzt natürlich wieder das große Geschäft“. Insgesamt hätten den Papst „zweifelhafte Investments aus der Vergangenheit gut 45 Millionen gekostet“.

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NEW YORK
New York Post

By Josh Saul
July 9, 2014

The victim of an Orthodox Jewish sex abuser tore into his attacker Wednesday as the pervert was sentenced to two years behind bars.

“He still wouldn’t apologize to me in person. He never apologized to me,” the teen, who is now in his 20s and had a therapy dog with him in court, said in Brooklyn Supreme Court before Baruch Lebovits, 62, was sentenced.

Lebovits pleaded guilty in May 2014 to engaging in oral sex with the then-teenage boy on eight different occasions in 2004 and 2005.

The sex abuser didn’t speak in court except to thank Judge Mark Dwyer, who acknowledged the high-profile nature of the case.

“I know this is a controversial case. I know this is a community that’s badly split,” said Dwyer.
“We’re all Americans and this American court is going to treat everybody the same.”

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NEW YORK
New York Times

By STEPHANIE CLIFFORD
JULY 9, 2014

A cantor whose sexual abuse case split the ultra-Orthodox Jewish community in Brooklyn was sentenced on Wednesday to two years in prison, as expected under a plea deal struck in May.

The cantor, Baruch Lebovits, is expected to serve only a few months of that sentence, because he received credit of 13 months for time served on a previous conviction on the same charge. An appeals court overturned that conviction in 2012.

The case was a prominent one for Charles J. Hynes, the former Brooklyn district attorney, who had vowed to fight sexual abuse among the ultra-Orthodox. Mr. Lebovits was convicted in 2010 of molesting a teenage boy on eight occasions. He was then sentenced to 10⅔ to 32 years in prison.

But after the conviction was overturned, on an evidentiary issue, Mr. Lebovits was released.

The office of Brooklyn’s new district attorney, Kenneth P. Thompson, had seemed to signal that it would pursue a new trial against Mr. Lebovits. But in May, at what was to be a routine hearing, prosecutors and defense lawyers discussed plea negotiations.

The judge, Justice Mark Dwyer of State Supreme Court, said then that he had researched normal prison terms for the type of felony Mr. Lebovits was accused of, and that two years was typical. The lawyers involved and the judge then agreed to two years.

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NEW YORK
New York Daily News

BY OREN YANIV
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS Published: Wednesday, July 9, 2014

A Brooklyn cantor was hauled to prison Wednesday for abusing a teenage boy, capping a controversial and convoluted case a full decade in the making.

An unapologetic Baruch Lebovits, 62, got shackled, waved goodbye to his son and was led away to serve a two-year stint in prison — which translates to only a handful of months after credit for good behavior and time served.

The Hasidic defendant, who copped in May to felony sex abuse against a 16-year-old in 2004, had already spent 13 months in prison after he was found guilty in a 2010 trial and sent to a maximum of 32 years behind bars — before the conviction was overturned on appeal.

In between then and now, a man accused of illegally meddling in the case was indicted and much later cleared, the competing prosecutions became fodder during last year’s district attorney election and numerous accusations of payoffs and witness intimidation have been lobbed.

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NEW YORK
Failed Messiah

Rabbi Baruch Leibovits Sentenced To Two Years For Felony Child Sex Abuse, Could Be Free In Only Weeks

Rabbi Baruch Lebovits was sentenced this morning to to two years for felony child sex abuse in a sweetheart plea deal. Because Leibovits already served time in prison for this and other counts but was freed after an error by the prosecution came to light, Leibovits could walk free in a matter of weeks when time served is counted.

It’s another travesty of justice in Brooklyn.

Rabbi Baruch Lebovits was sentenced this morning to to two years for felony child sex abuse in a sweetheart plea deal. Because Leibovits already served time in prison for this and other counts but was freed and slated for retrial after an error by the prosecution (which actually favored Leibovits) came to light, Leibovits could walk free in a matter of weeks when time served is counted.

His original sentence could have seen him serve more than 30 years in prison.

But witnesses were clearly tampered with and bribed, and two DAs did nothing about it – even after the newest DA, Ken Thompson, admitted to the court that it happened. And now another haredi child sex abuser will walk.

Bizzarely, one of Lebovits’ haredi victims – who was allegedly paid off by Leibovits’ family, a fact the DA knows – spoke today in court in support of the sweetheart plea deal as did this victim’s father, who used the opportunity to publicly thank the attorney who arranged that payoff from Lebovits’ family to his family.

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NEW YORK
The Jewish Week

07/09/14
Hella Winston
Special Correspondent

Baruch Lebovits was led out of Brooklyn Supreme Court in handcuffs Wednesday morning after being sentenced to two years in prison after pleading guilty to felony sex offenses with a minor. With time served and time off for good behavior, Lebovits is expected to serve only a few months in jail.

A lawyer for Sam Kellner had tried, unsuccessfully, to persuade Judge Mark Dwyer to reconsider the sentence in light of other alleged sex offenses for which Lebovits has not been convicted.

Before Lebovits was taken to prison, his victim, YR — accompanied by a therapy dog — stood up to address the court. He began by lashing out at anti-abuse activist Nuchem Rosenberg, claiming that he “is bullying me on the hotline,” a reference to comments made on a call-in line by Rosenberg about YR’s physical appearance. Rosenberg has also speculated on his hotline that YR was paid off in exchange for a promise not to testify against Lebovits at trial.

The Brooklyn district attorney has confirmed that YR did enter into a financial settlement with regard to his abuse by Lebovits and also that YR had expressed an unwillingness to take the stand were the case to go to trial.

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OHIO
Toledo Blade

Funeral arrangements have been scheduled for the Rev. Gerald Robinson, who died in an state prison medical facility last week.

Father Robinson‘‍s funeral Mass will be held at St. Hyacinth Church, 719 Evesham Ave., Friday at 11 a.m., and he will be buried at Calvary Cemetery. Father Robinson, who was arrested in 2004 and convicted in 2006 for the murder of Sister Margaret Ann Pahl in 1980, died Friday in a prison hospice at Franklin Medical Center in Columbus. He was serving a sentence of 15 years to life.

Visitations are scheduled for Thursday from 2 to 8 p.m. at W.K. Sujkowski & Son Funeral Home, 3838 Airport Hwy., and Friday at 10 a.m. at St. Hyacinth.

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VATICAN CITY
Religion News Service

Josephine McKenna | July 9, 2014

VATICAN CITY (RNS) Pope Francis’ promised reforms of the Vatican bureaucracy are starting to take shape, with new leaders appointed to oversee the troubled Vatican bank and plans to overhaul the Catholic Church’s approach to global communications.

Pope Francis on July 9, 2014, announced a number of reforms to the Vatican’s communication office and Vatican bank, including tapping Jean-Baptiste de Franssu to lead the bank as its new director.

French businessman Jean-Baptiste de Franssu on Wednesday (July 9) was named new president of the bank, formally known as the Institute for Works of Religion, replacing Ernst Von Freyberg, a German who has run the bank since February 2013.

Six new lay members, including Mary Ann Glendon, a former U.S. ambassador to the Holy See and Harvard law professor, will join the bank’s board.

Australian Cardinal George Pell, head of the Vatican’s economic secretariat, announced the latest changes, which he said are designed to improve vigilance and transparency.

“There are many challenges and much work ahead,” Pell said. “The Holy Father has made it clear these changes should move forward expeditiously.”

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VATICAN CITY
Al Jazeera America

July 9, 2014

The Vatican on Wednesday said it would separate its bank’s investment business from its Church payments work to try to clean up after years of scandal, and vowed to become a “model of financial transparency.”

French businessman Jean-Baptize de Franssu was named as the new head of the bank, officially known as the Institute for Works of Religion (IOR), succeeding German lawyer Ernst Von Freyberg, who has run the bank since February 2013.

Freyberg, who has said he is leaving for personal reasons, has introduced reforms to make the IOR more transparent and compliant with international norms against money laundering, and has closed many suspicious accounts.

The Vatican also plans to increase scrutiny on one of the two sections of the Administration of the Patrimony of the Holy See, or APSA — also hit by recent scandals — that runs Vatican properties, handles income and spending, prepares budgets and acts as a central accounting department and purchasing office.

Australian Cardinal George Pell, head of the Vatican’s recently formed Secretariat for the Economy, told a news conference that the move was necessary in order for his department to “exercise its responsibilities of economic control and vigilance” over all Vatican departments.

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VATICAN CITY
Boston Globe

By John L. Allen Jr. | GLOBE STAFF JULY 09, 2014

After a sweeping overhaul of the Vatican’s financial operations on Wednesday, one thing seems clear: If Australian Cardinal George Pell fails in getting the Vatican, as he puts it, “off the gossip pages” due to chronic financial scandals, it won’t be because the 73-year-old prelate lacks the power to do the job.

One way or another, changes announced Wednesday bring most of the Vatican’s important financial centers under Pell’s influence, including purchasing and human resources as well as administration of the Vatican’s several billion dollars of investments. They also place Pell confidantes in key positions.

Among the moves unveiled on Wednesday:

• A downsizing of the troubled Vatican Bank, formally known as the “Institute for the Works of Religion”. Administering investments from its estimated $8 billion in holdings will be taken over by a new Vatican Asset Management office, reporting to Pell.

• The “ordinary section” of the Administration of the Patrimony of the Apostolic See (APSA), responsible for personal and procurement, will be transferred to Pell’s Secretariat for the Economy.

• Appointment of French businessman Jean-Baptiste de Franssu as the bank’s new president. From 1990 to 2011 de Franssu was an executive with Invesco Europe, an investing firm with $35 billion in assets under management.

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VATICAN CITY
Sydney Morning Herald

July 10, 2014

Nick Miller
Europe Correspondent

Dublin: Australian Cardinal George Pell has taken personal control of the Vatican’s finances in a reform unprecedented in living memory – but says he is facing “sadness and antagonism” from the old guard at the heart of the Catholic empire.

In an exclusive interview with respected Vatican reporter John L Allen Jr, Cardinal Pell said his mission was “to be boringly successful, to get off the gossip pages”.

On Wednesday, Cardinal Pell held a press conference to announce his economic plan for the Holy See, building on a reform framework approved by the Pope earlier this year.

In February, Cardinal Pell was appointed prefect of the Secretariat for the Economy.

He revealed on Wednesday he had brought in Danny Casey, his former business manager of the archdiocese of Sydney, to head a new office to oversee some of the reform projects.

One of the biggest challenges is the restructure of the scandal-ridden Vatican Bank, which has previously acted as a conduit for money laundering.

Cardinal Pell’s plan gives the bank a new, smaller role in the church’s finances, sets up a new office to administer billions of dollars’ worth of investments, and reviews of the Vatican’s pension fund.

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MINNESOTA
Minnesota Public Radio

Madeleine Baran St. Paul, Minn. Jul 9, 2014

Attorney Jeff Anderson on Wednesday released more clergy documents from a massive lawsuit that has forced the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis to turn over more than 60,000 internal documents on priests accused of sexually abusing children.

The documents released today involve the Rev. Joseph Wajda, who was accused of sexually abusing children decades earlier. The archdiocese removed Wajda from parish assignments in 1991 and the Vatican decided to kick him out of the priesthood last year.

The allegations against Wajda are already well known. Then-Archbishop Harry Flynn named Wajda in 2002 as a priest accused of sexual abuse, and the claims received extensive media coverage.

Wajda, 67, has denied the abuse claims and said he has appealed his case to the Vatican.

The documents are part of a lawsuit that alleges the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis and the Diocese of Winona created a public nuisance by keeping information on abusive priests secret. The man who filed the suit claims he was sexually abused by the Rev. Thomas Adamson in the 1970s.

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MINNESOTA
Star Tribune

Article by: CHAO XIONG , Star Tribune Updated: July 9, 2014

The Rev. Joseph Wajda allegedly made one boy strip naked and bumped into his genitals.

Documents made public Wednesday in the ongoing sexual abuse lawsuit against the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis show that a priest who allegedly abused boys was allowed to continue working as a priest and in an administrative role in the church.

One month after the Rev. Joseph Wajda was ordained in 1973, there was an allegation that he propositioned a young boy, and his alleged misconduct carried on for several more years, according to documents released by attorney Jeff Anderson.

“The Wajda documents show how current Archbishop of St. Louis Robert Carlson, while serving in roles including chancellor and auxiliary bishop in the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis in the 1970s-1990s, along with other Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis officials, mishandled and minimized child sexual abuse allegations against Wajda,” said a statement from Anderson’s office.

A statement from the archdiocese was not immediately available.

Wajda, now 67, was permanently removed from ministry in 2003 and laicized in 2013. He lives in Minneapolis and has denied abusing children.

The archdiocese was court-ordered to produce thousands of pages of documents, including material chronicling Wajda’s alleged abuse, for a lawsuit filed by Anderson against the church and former priest Tom Adamson.

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OHIO
National Catholic Reporter

Brian Roewe | Jul. 9, 2014

The funeral Mass for a Toledo priest convicted of murdering a religious sister will follow “usual protocol for a diocesan priest’s funeral,” according to the Ohio diocese.

Fr. Gerald Robinson, 76, died Friday at a prison medical facility in Columbus. The Toledo Blade reported he was receiving treatment for heart troubles and had suffered a heart attack around Memorial Day.

In 2006, Robinson was found guilty of the 1980 Holy Saturday murder of Mercy Sr. Margaret Ann Pahl, who was strangled and stabbed 32 times before being covered with an altar cloth in what some deemed a satanic ritual. It was reported that Robinson presided at Pahl’s funeral Mass.

Robinson, who was serving 15 years to life in prison, maintained his innocence up to his death, which preceded a completion of the appeals process. While the appeals continued, he remained a diocesan priest but was restricted from public ministry.

Details about the time and location of Robinson’s funeral have yet to be released, but the Toledo diocese said it anticipates the family will do so Wednesday afternoon. Fr. Charles Ritter, diocesan administrator, is expected to celebrate the funeral Mass, which is open to the public but closed to the media.

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VATICAN CITY
Malta Independent

Gozitan priest Mgr Alfred Xuereb, who had been private secretary to Pope Benedict XVI and Pope Francis, has been appointed as non-voting secretary to the new board of the Vatican Bank.

Mgr Xuereb is already the secretary general of the new secretariat for economic affairs of the Vatican.

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VATICAN CITY
The New York Times

By JIM YARDLEY
JULY 9, 2014

VATICAN CITY — Pope Francis continued his efforts to modernize and reorganize the Vatican finances on Wednesday, by appointing a new leadership for the scandal-tainted Vatican Bank, streamlining other operations and signaling future changes to the church’s global media operations.

“Our ambition is to become something of a model in financial management rather than a cause for occasional scandal,” Cardinal George Pell, the pope’s recently appointed prefect on economic affairs, said at a news conference on Wednesday.

The most prominent move, rumored for weeks, was the appointment of Jean-Baptiste de Franssu as the new president of the Vatican Bank, officially known as the Institute of Religious Works, or I.O.R. Mr. de Franssu, a Frenchman who was formerly head of European operations for the investment management company Invesco Ltd., had been serving on an economic advisory council that Francis created in March. He replaces Ernst von Freyberg, a German industrialist appointed last year.

Cleaning up the Vatican’s murky finances has been a top priority for Francis, especially after many of the cardinals who elected him as pope in March 2013 spoke openly about their displeasure with the Vatican’s financial operations.

In recent years, the Vatican Bank has been under growing pressure to comply with international practices to fight money laundering and meet other global norms. In 2010, Italian prosecutors temporarily seized $30 million from two accounts at the bank as part of a financial investigation.

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MINNESOTA
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Wednesday, July 9, 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 )

More newly-released Catholic Church records show that St. Louis Archbishop Robert Carlson hid clergy sex crimes when he worked in Minnesota.

According to a Minnesota TV station:

“The documents fault Carlson, who was (a Saint Paul archdiocesan official) from the 1970s to 1990s.

According to the documents, Wajda allegedly began abusing children a month after his ordination in 1973. The allegations are that Carlson and other church officials “learned in 1981 that Wajda was molesting boys under the guise of counseling but waited five years before sending him to psychiatric care.”

We in SNAP are grateful to the brave Minnesota victims who continue to tear off layer and layer of unhealthy secrecy in church offices and files about abuse and cover up.

We’re also grateful to the Minnesota legislators who reformed their state’s child abuse laws so that cover ups like these can be revealed through civil lawsuits.

And we hope that the continually damaging disclosures about Carlson will prod St. Louis Catholic officials to get on the right side of history and share what they know about clergy sex crimes and cover ups here with law enforcement agencies and advocacy groups.

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MINNESOTA
KMOV

(KMOV) – Secret Archdiocese documents recently released show how the Archbishop of St. Louis Robert Carlson failed to take action on child sexual abuse allegations against former priest Joseph Wajda.

The allegations occurred when Carlson was part of the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis in the 1970s through the 1990s.

According to a news release, Carlson’s actions, along with other officials, allowed Wajda to continue to serve as a priest.

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MINNESITA
KSTP

By: Jennie Olson

Secret documents have been made public Wednesday that attorneys say show how a former official with the Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis mishandled child sexual abuse allegations against former priest Joseph Wajda.

The documents were released as part of a civil lawsuit against the Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis, the Diocese of Winona, and former priest Thomas Adamson.

The documents fault Archbishop of St. Louis Robert Carlson, who previously served as a chancellor and auxiliary bishop in the Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis from the 1970s to 1990s.

The documents say Carlson and other church officials mishandled and minimized allegations against former priest and accused child molester Wajda, which allowed Wajda to continue to serve as a priest.

According to the documents, Wajda allegedly began abusing children a month after his ordination in 1973. The allegations say church officials, including Carlson, learned in 1981 that Wajda was molesting boys under the guise of counseling but waited five years before sending him to psychiatric care.

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BOSTON (MA)
Talking New Media

Michael O’Loughlin has been hired as the site’s national reporter, while Christina Reinwald has been hired as web producer

Press Release:

BOSTON, Mass. – July 9, 2014 — Teresa Hanafin, the editor of The Boston Globe’s new standalone website dedicated to Catholicism, which is expected to launch by early September, announced her new team today.

“As you know, we hired John L. Allen Jr., the premier Vatican reporter in the country, if not the world, earlier this year from the National Catholic Reporter. His insightful reporting and analysis will be supplemented by on-the-ground event coverage by correspondent Ines San Martin, an engaging Argentinean journalist who has moved to Rome and just finished intense immersion in an Italian language course,” Hanafin said.

San Martin has a BA in social communications and journalism and a master’s degree in communication, both from Universidad Austral in Buenos Aires. She worked as a reporter and editor for Valores Religiosos, managed the international press office for World Youth Day in Rio de Janeiro, and was the community/social media manager, content director, and graphic designer for Conta con Nosotros.

Michael O’Loughlin has been hired as the site’s national reporter. O’Loughlin has local roots and a background in religion writing. He grew up in Dracut, Massachusetts, and graduated from St. Anselm College in New Hampshire and Yale Divinity School. He has written for America, National Catholic Reporter, Foreign Policy, The Advocate, and the Religion News Service, and is writing a book on the Catholic Church and millennials, to be published by Paulist Press in the fall of 2015. He has appeared on Fox News and MSNBC.

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BOSTON (MA)
WGBH

By DAN KENNEDY

John Henry’s vision for the Boston Globe is slipping more and more into focus, as the paper is edging closer to launching its website covering Catholicism and moving from Dorchester to downtown Boston.

The Catholic site will include three reporters and a Web producer, according to an announcement by Teresa Hanafin, the longtime Globe veteran who will edit the project. Look for it to debut in September.

In addition to John Allen, who’s been covering the Church for the Globe since being lured away from the National Catholic Reporter earlier this year, the team will comprise Ines San Martin, an Argentinian journalist who will report from the Vatican; Michael O’Loughlin, a Yale Divinity School graduate who will be the site’s national reporter; and Web producer Christina Reinwald.

Unlike the Globe’s new print-oriented Friday Capital section, which covers politics, the Catholic site will be aimed both at and well beyond Boston with national and international audiences in mind. “It will have a global audience. There’s a natural audience for it,” Globe chief executive officer Mike Sheehan said in a just-published interview with CommonWealth magazine editor (and former Globe reporter) Bruce Mohl.

Because of that, Globe spokeswoman Ellen Clegg tells me, the Catholic site will be exempt from the Globe’s paywall. It will be interesting to see how Sheehan, an ad man by trade, grapples with the difficult challenge of selling enough online advertising to make it work. Although this is pure speculation, I wonder if some of the content could be repackaged in, say, a weekly print magazine supported by paid subscriptions and ads.

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