LA JOLLA (CA)
Celibacy, Sex & Catholic Church

Posted August 8, 2019; revised July 30, 2019

By A.W. Richard Sipe, Marianne Benkert, and Thomas P. Doyle

[Note from Tom Doyle: In 1993 Attorney Stephen Rubino came up with the phrase “religious duress” to describe the internal constraint involuntarily experienced by people, in this case Catholics, who have internalized religious indoctrination to the extent that it can seriously impede a person’s capacity to accurately perceive and evaluate abusive actions perpetrated by clergy. In short, the effects of religious indoctrination made it nearly impossible for sex abuse victims to disclose the abuse.

Richard and Marianne Sipe and Tom Doyle developed the idea through extensive research and published several articles about it, including most recently the article linked above. The concept was used in civil cases to overcome the statute of limitations. It met with little success in the U.S. courts. Judges misunderstood it and erroneously thought it somehow violated the First Amendment.

On June 7, 2019 the Supreme Court of Canada rendered a judgment that used the concept extensively. A key article by Doyle and Marianne Sipe is quoted several times as is another by Doyle.]

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

ST. LOUIS (MO)
Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests

August 22, 2019

The Diocese of Burlington, VT has released the names of proven, admitted and publicly accused child molesting clerics today. This is a long overdue step towards transparency, and there is still more work to do.

With this move, church officials in Vermont are taking a belated step towards transparency and healing. Releasing these names publicly is crucial not only for the safety of children and healing of survivors, but also to encourage victims who may be suffering in silence to come forward and to deter future clergy sex crimes and cover-ups.

Still, the fact remains that this is a long-overdue move prompted by pressure from media, parishioners and the public that Bishop Christopher Coyne should have taken immediately upon arriving in Burlington four years ago.

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

BURLINGTON (VT)
Vermont Digger

August 22, 2019

By Kevin O’Connor

The statewide Roman Catholic Diocese of Burlington knew at least 40 Vermont priests faced accusations of sexually abusing children over the past seven decades but did nothing to alert the public or police, a lay-led church committee announced Thursday.
The committee, given unprecedented access to personnel files once seen by only Catholic leaders and lawyers, issued an online report that named the accused clergy — none whom are currently working but several who are still alive — and acknowledged past officials of the state’s largest religious denomination covered up the claims so as not to spark court suits or scandal.

“While most of these allegations took place at least a generation ago, the numbers are still staggering,” Vermont Catholic Bishop Christopher Coyne said Thursday. “These shameful, sinful, and criminal acts have been our ‘family secret’ for generations.”

The report showed no current misconduct. All but one of the allegations occurred before 2000.

While the report is public, detailed revelations about priest misconduct have not been made available to the press.

“Many abusers and their victims are deceased, so some might ask ‘Why engage in this process?’” the committee wrote. “Publication of a list may cause harm to the legacy of accused perpetrators, but the list also may offer some long-missed consolation to victims and their families and friends.”

“What is particularly painful is knowing how lives were changed irreparably by what happened to the victims when they were young,” the committee wrote. “For some there might have been the opportunity for healing, but for many there may have been a series of life choices intended to cover scars that only resulted in more pain and disappointment. Lives have been lost because of the abuse that occurred.”

Church leaders acknowledge publicizing the list of priests could subject the diocese to more lawsuits. More than 50 accusers have won nearly $31.5 million in settlements in the past several decades. Their shared lawyer, Jerome O’Neill of Burlington, still has six cases pending in court.

“My reaction is disappointment,” O’Neill said of the report he believes should have been released long ago by previous church leaders. “It was more important for those bishops that they protect the reputations of their child-abusing clergy and the diocese itself than to protect children from being sexually assaulted.”

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

NEW YORK (NY)
Irish Central

August 22, 2019

In advance of a mandated national third-party reporting system for allegations or complaints regarding bishops, the Catholic dioceses of four New England states have launched a third-party, independent system to report abuse by Catholic bishops.

The dioceses in Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Vermont and Maine make up the Boston Province, led by Boston Cardinal Sean O’Malley, who is the metropolitan archbishop of the province.

The bishops of the province have agreed to make a reporting system available now in the wake of Pope Francis’ document ‘Vos Estis Lux Mundi’ (‘You are the light of the world’) and the bishops’ vote during their spring general assembly in June to implement it.

The Pope issued the landmark document in May to help the Catholic Church safeguard its members from abuse and hold its leaders accountable.

The motu proprio was one of the measures that came out the Vatican’s February summit on clergy sexual abuse attended by the presidents of the world’s bishops’ conferences.

“I am grateful to Cardinal O’Malley for his leadership in implementing this important facet of ‘Vos Estis Lux Mundi’ here in the Boston Province,” Springfield Bishop Mitchell Rozanski said in a statement in response to the August 14 announcement of the Boston Province establishing the independent reporting system.

“This is an important step in assuring accountability for bishops in continuing to be vigilant in our Church for the safe environment of all our members, particularly our most vulnerable,” he said.

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

BURLINGTON (VT)
Free Press

August 22, 2019

By Elizabeth Murray

The Roman Catholic Diocese of Burlington will release the names of priests against whom credible and substantiated allegations of child sexual abuse have been made. The names will be released Thursday morning.

The report was compiled by a lay committee, appointed by Bishop Christopher Coyne, to examine priest personnel files. The committee was comprised of four men and three women, including one priest abuse victim and one non-Catholic.

The allegations against clergy who served throughout the state date back to the 1950s, the Diocese said.

According to a statement written by the Bishop on the Diocese’s website, there has only been one credible and substantiated claim of abuse in 16 years. The allegation involved an 18-year-old who formed an emotional relationship with a member of the clergy when that teenager was a minor.

“There are no priests in ministry who have had a credible and substantiated allegation made against them,” the Bishop wrote.

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

WASHINGTON (DC)
Washington Informer

August 21, 2019

By D. Kevin McNeir

Since his installation as the leader of the Archdiocese of Washington, May 21, Archbishop Wilton D. Gregory has provided needed leadership at a time when the Catholic Church has found itself inundated by troubling scandals and revelations.

Throughout his many years of service, Archbishop Gregory has remained a man known for and respected because of his principles and dedication to seeking truth and doing the right thing. That said, his first few months have seen him visiting parishes throughout the Archdiocese — offering solace, guidance and laying out a plan of action.

He spoke with The Washington Informer recently about his life, his new assignment and his plans to restore one of our most fragile human relationships: trust.

Washington Informer: How do you speak to people in today’s current atmosphere of fear in the U.S. when many say their faith has been shaken? How do you inspire people and what do you say particularly to Black Catholics?

Archbishop Gregory: I say the same thing to everyone, Catholic or not. I speak to their dignity as people recognizing the struggles they’ve endured and remind them of the importance of civil discourse. Yes, people are afraid in so many settings. Part of that fear is generated by a loss of the awareness of the dignity we each have as a child of God — no matter what religion or those who do not claim any religious affiliation, they still should be treated with dignity.

Second, you encounter people as Pope Francis says, by speaking and listening. Right now, not a lot of listening has been going on in the human dialogue. A lot of protestations, hostile language — but very little listening, sincere listening. I really try to listen and in that listening come to understand others and their opinions. Hopefully, in that kind of dialogue I can engender a mutual respect.

WI: There have recent challenges in the Catholic church in terms of leadership. Still, we hold those at the top to greater accountability. How do you restore that trust?

Gregory: Trust is a fragile virtue and while it takes time to establish it can be ruptured quickly. I hope to offer to the Archdiocese a strengthening, a reestablishing of trust. But I’m aware that it will not happen overnight, especially because the breakdown occurred within the leadership. Still, as the Bible tells us, to whom much is given, much is required. It will take time to reestablish those trusting relationships — that’s clear to me. There’s no way I can be naïve about the uphill battle I face.

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

WASHINGTON (DC)
Christian Post

August 21, 2019

By Leonardo Blair

When the late Bishop Eddie Long’s named successor, Bishop Stephen A. Davis, announced his resignation from New Birth Missionary Baptist Church in Lithonia, Georgia, after 16 months on the job, he cited the need to attend to his family and church in Alabama.

Last Wednesday during an altar call at New Birth Birmingham — a church planted under the spiritual guidance of Long — Davis revealed he left his spiritual father’s congregation because of the politics of corrupt leaders he described as “fools.”

In a somewhat cryptic segue near the end of a Facebook Live broadcast Davis, who was not available to elaborate when his church was contacted by The Christian Post on Tuesday, explained how he worked free for the entire time he led the church after Long’s death and buoyed the church financially as well.

“They didn’t say anything over there in Georgia when I gave $180,000. I worked the entire 16 months for free. Didn’t take a dime. Paid for my own condo for six months. Kept the debt off the Long family, $3,500 a month that they didn’t have to pay on Bishop Long’s condo. I paid it. I took the car back that I had given him as a gift, taking the pressure off the Long family. I gave $85,000 personally. They allowed wicked men to lead them. They lost their God sent. Now they have to settle for hirelings,” Davis said.

“I tithed every month. They didn’t know I made their payroll, those who work for New Birth Missionary Baptist Church. Without my funding they wouldn’t have been paid. I want every one of them to know, they lost the best thing that could have ever happened to you,” he said as his congregation applauded.

“Tommy George, Mike Roberts, threatened me,” he continued. “Told me they could have gotten rid of me. I told them they never had me. So go back to your ‘hellatious’ leaders and tell them I’m still coming to Georgia.

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

DEDEDO (GUAM)
KUAM News

August 22, 2019

Sweeping changes by the Roman Catholic Church and the sexual revolution of the ’60s and ’70s may be among the reasons for the rise in clergy sex abuse. That’s what Archbishop Michael Byrnes explained during a speech today before local business leaders.

In trying to explain why so many Catholic clergy, including here in Guam, became involved in the far-reaching child sexual abuse scandal, Archbishop Byrnes referenced the reflections of the retired Pope Benedict. He says the Pope believed that an unprecedented 1962 gathering of top religious leaders to discuss church doctrine known as the Vatican Council II lead to a transformation that not all clergy could adjust to.

“It was kind of, at least in the United States, there was just this mass defection of priests. I remember being in a parish in Detroit, the parish I grew up in, and in one year, four of our priests left the priesthood,” Byrnes said.

He says many became disaffected and unhappy, and not just with the doctrinal changes.

“A lot of the priests were used to praying like this, the idea was that the priest was leading the prayer and everyone was joining him and he didn’t have to look at the people,” Byrnes continued. “They literally were turned around and we’re comfortable with that now but some of these guys weren’t comfortable with that, but it wasn’t just that, it was a whole new idea of the priesthood, of engagement of the lay faithful.

“It’s not saying that that was bad, this was a time of upheaval, and I even remember my dad, his favorite priest, his friend left the priesthood, it hurt. It hurt.”

Byrnes says the changing attitudes toward sex in the 60s and 70s, may have also impacted the church’s training of priests, an example.

“It became the practice of teaching moral theology for the sake of confession was that they would show pornographic movies to these seminarians so that when they heard of particular sins they wouldn’t freak out somehow,” he said. “There’s probably a better way of doing that.”

His comment was met with laughter from the attending Rotarians.

But the archbishop says the cause may boil down to one thing.

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SYDNEY (AUSTRALIA)
The Catholic Weekly

August 22, 2019

By Dr. Philippa Martyr

What do you do when something doesn’t turn out the way you had hoped?

I can never read the life story of St Joan of Arc without experiencing a terrible emotional crisis towards the end. Joan’s fate in prison was not yet determined, and there was a chance she would be freed – but then she discovered she was going to be sold to the English armies.

Joan then tried to escape or commit suicide (or both) from her prison cell by leaping from the window, a drop of some 60 feet.

Finding God in suffering – easier said than done
She wasn’t injured, but she later realised that she had done the wrong thing by trying to escape. It showed a lack of trust in God’s plan for her, and she confessed her escape attempt to a priest.

I think this is one of the things that shows her sanctity: that she could completely lose heart and yet walk back from that, knowing that God had ordained a different type of suffering for her future.

Joan is behaving in the same way that Jesus did when He’s described as setting His face bravely towards Jerusalem. It’s an acceptance of the awfulness to come, even though you know it will be awful – and terribly unjust.

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MELBOURNE (AUSTRALIA)
The Age

August 22, 2019

The dismissal of Cardinal George Pell’s appeal against his conviction, vindicates and provides some solace to those who have spoken out against being sexually abused by priests and other paedophiles. May it give them some peace that their experiences have been believed and they have truly been heard. This judgment helps to restore one’s faith in the justice system, which so often seems to reward those with the most power and money.

Suzy and Nick Toovey, Beaumaris

Don’t blame judiciary, blame the hierarchy

For those Catholics feeling bad right now. Feeling hunted. Feeling let down. You have been. Not by the judiciary, but by your hierarchy. The time is now, not to circle the wagons but to look outwards. Look to your fellow Catholics whose lives have been ruined, through no fault of their own, because they or a loved one have been sexually assaulted as a child or because they have called out what they saw and lost their livelihoods as a result.

Julian Guy, Mount Eliza

Now, the defining moment has come

Today all print and TV media outlets are referring to convicted sex offender George Pell as Cardinal George Pell. Technically he is still a cardinal until and if the Vatican defrock him. However the media and the rest of society, if they need to speak of him at all, should refer him as George Pell convicted child abuser.

Peter Roche, Carlton

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MADRID (SPAIN)
Crux

August 22, 2019

By Inés San Martín

Chile’s President Sebastian Piñera, has urged for the Catholic Church to be investigated over clerical sexual abuse, and he gave his full support to new law that ends the statutes of limitations on abuse cases.

However, when it comes to the allegations made against his uncle, the world’s oldest living bishop, he’s having a hard time believing it.

Archbishop Bernardino Piñera, who served as Archbishop of Serena from 1983-1990 after previously serving as Bishop of Temuco, is being investigated by the Vatican over allegations that he sexually abused a minor 50 years ago. The news was announced by the Holy See’s embassy in Chile on Tuesday.

Soon after, the president said: “As a nephew, I find it hard to believe because I know his behavior, his attitude over a lifetime, and I find it hard to believe a complaint that is made against a man who’s 103 years old today, over an alleged event that occurred 50 years ago.”

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

BUFFALO (NY)
Buffalo News

August 22, 2019

By Bruce Andriatch

In the midst of last week’s long-time-coming lawsuit avalanche filed by people who say they were victims of sexual abuse by Catholic priests, a friend raised an interesting point.

Through the Child Victims Act, some of the plaintiffs were allowed to file anonymously, meaning they were permitted to keep their names a secret. But the men they accused were identified by name. My friend said that didn’t seem fair.

A two-word response immediately popped into my head. One of those words was: “Tough.” (Decorum prevents me from printing the other one.)

The Catholic Church and its leaders do not deserve an ounce of sympathy. Consider for a moment the centuries of damage inflicted on children, much of it tacitly sanctioned by the inaction of bishops and cardinals, all in the name of avoiding scandal and protecting predators, criminals who should have been in a prison, not on an altar. Then cry me a river flowing with milk and honey about “fairness.”

I say this as a Catholic. Disappointed, disillusioned and disgusted, but still a Catholic.

It took me a lifetime to get to this point. A year ago this week, The News published an open letter I wrote, in which I expressed horror that my church, which is like my family, had systematically looked the other way while countless innocent lives were being destroyed. My reason was the release of a Pennsylvania grand jury report documenting decades of despicable acts by hundreds of priests, yet another in a string of criminal and journalistic investigations that kept finding the exact same thing: abuse followed by denial followed by cover-up.

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

Patheos blog

August 21, 2019

By Anne Kennedy

“Oh Goodie,” says Jesus.

As I said yesterday, this week is full of all manner of little treats. Today let’s look at the completely un-astonishing and yet heartbreaking news that two people properly removed from ministry for the abuse of their pastoral offices and because of sexual sin, are going to leap back into the pulpit anyway, because of course they are, because what else are they going to do. Explains James MacDonald who has been out of the pulpit for what…fifteen minutes? If that:

“We have prayed to practice our biblical teaching on love and God has surely allowed us to be stretched. There is much we could say, as so much is not at all what has been portrayed. But we look to the Lord for forgiveness where I did fail as a leader and for vindication of false statements that will not cover forever what others have done,” he said.

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

CHARLESTON (WV)
Associated Press

August 21, 2019

By John Raby

A lawsuit accusing the former bishop of West Virginia’s Roman Catholic diocese of molesting boys and men has been settled.

The terms of the recent settlement are confidential, Wheeling-Charleston Diocese spokesman Tim Bishop said in a statement. The diocese declined further comment.

A former personal altar server sued ex-Bishop Michael Bransfield and the diocese in March, saying he was sexually assaulted in 2014 and harassed for years prior. The filing asserted Bransfield would consume at least half a bottle of liqueur nightly and had drunkenly assaulted or harassed seminarians.

Coming on the heels of a new wave of sex abuse allegations in the U.S., the Bransfield scandal added to the credibility crisis in the U.S. hierarchy. Several top churchmen received tens of thousands of dollars in church-funded personal gifts from Bransfield during his tenure in Wheeling-Charleston, which covers the entirety of one of the poorest U.S. states.

The Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, known as SNAP, said in a statement Wednesday it hopes the settlement encourages other clergy abuse victims to come forward.

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

NEW YORK (NY)
TIME Magazine

August 21, 2019

By Gina Martinez

An Australian appeals court on Wednesday upheld the conviction of Cardinal George Pell, who was found guilty earlier this year of molesting two 13-year-old choir boys in the 1990s. And yet, Pell still retains his title in the Catholic Church.

The Vatican said it is waiting for Pell to make his final appeal to the High Court, Australia’s supreme court, before launching its own investigation. It noted that Pell has always maintained his innocence. One abuse survivors’ group says the decision to hold off on discipline is “cowardly” and shows the Church hasn’t made it nearly far enough on responding to sexual abuse.

Pell, Pope Francis’ former finance minister, is the highest-ranking church official to ever be convicted of child sexual abuse. He has been imprisoned since an Australian court sentenced the 78-year-old to six years in prison in March.

Tim Lennon, the president of Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP), says the church should have been decisive following Pell’s conviction and immediately defrocked him.

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

SAN FRANCISCO (CA)
Bay Area News Group

August 21, 2019

By Joseph Geha

An East Bay priest who repeatedly sexually assaulted a child is facing nearly five years in state prison, officials said.

Hector David Mendoza-Vela on Friday pleaded no contest to five counts of lewd or lascivious acts on a child age 14 or 15, court documents show.

Last month, he pleaded not guilty to 30 criminal counts filed against him in April by the Alameda County District Attorney’s Office.

Mendoza-Vela is facing four years and eight months in prison under a plea agreement with the district attorney’s office, according to Teresa Drenick, a spokeswoman for the office.

He will also be required to register as a sex offender for life, and must stay away from the victim for 10 years, Drenick said.

As part of the agreement, the remaining 25 charges against him were dismissed, court records show. He will be sentenced on Sept. 27 at the East County Hall of Justice in Dublin.

Mendoza-Vela, also known as Father David Mendoza-Vela, had served as a priest in Alameda County since 2013, working at St. John’s Catholic Church in San Lorenzo and more recently at Corpus Christi Church in Fremont.

Prosecutors said previously that in an interview with authorities, Mendoza-Vela, “confessed to inappropriately touching” the genitals of a 14- or 15-year-old boy over his pants “at least 20 times” from June 2016 through December 2017, while he was a priest at St. John’s.

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BURLINGTON (VT)
WCAX TV

August 21, 2019

By Darren Perron

A 10-month investigation into potential pedophile priests is done. The Catholic Diocese of Burlington will release its report Thursday. But our Darren Perron obtained details of that report, revealing decades of abuse by 40 priests.

“I’m 66 years old… This individual had an elevated place in my family’s life. So, no, I never told my parents,” John Mahoney said.

He didn’t tell them that he was repeatedly abused by a priest starting in eighth grade. Mahoney kept the secret– until now.

“I’ve been wanting this for a long time,” he said. “There may be some small consolation that the world knows this person’s name.”

That name is Father Edward Foster. The former Burlington priest is one of 40 accused of child sexual abuse in a new report commissioned by the Catholic Diocese and Bishop Christopher Coyne.

“We needed to do this,” Bishop Coyne said. “We needed to get the family secrets completely out there.”

The bishop created a seven-member committee made up of laypeople to pore over thousands of documents, the files of more than 50 potential pedophile priests.

“If there was one substantiated and credible allegation against the priest, it was enough for his name to be placed on the list,” Coyne said.

But in many cases, there were multiple allegations. Some families were paid to keep quiet and priests were moved from parish to parish.

Reporter Darren Perron: Did the church fail these children?
Bishop Christopher Coyne: Oh, definitely. We failed these children. We failed the children, the teenagers, the families. These actions were criminal. They were sinful. They were immoral. They weren’t dealt with well. There are no excuses for what we did.

The committee’s report on the abuse took about 10 months to complete.

“The files, some of them were 1,000 pages or more. We wanted to make sure we got it right,” Mike Donoghue said.

Donoghue, a journalist, is on the committee.

“We expect that there will be some people coming forward,” he said.

Donoghue expects more allegations once the list of priests is published and he says the committee is still reviewing some files, so more names could be added to the 40.

“It’s a sad number,” the bishop said. “It’s an awful number.”

But Coyne points out all but one of the allegations happened before 2000. The one since is against former priest Stephen Nichols.

The bishop says protocols like background checks, ongoing training to spot abuse and abusers, audits, and mandatory reporting to police are helping to protect Vermont kids now.

“There is absolutely no priest working in the Diocese of Burlington that places children at risk,” Coyne said.

Darren Perron: Did it put more kids at risk by not releasing this information sooner?
Bishop Christopher Coyne: I want to put that concern to rest. None of these people have been in ministry since 2000 on.

“It took way too long,” attorney Jerry O’Neill said.

For about 20 years, O’Neill has represented more than 50 abuse victims suing the church, which has now paid out $31.5 million. Six cases are still pending.

O’Neill says he tried during settlement proceedings to get the diocese to release the files for 16 years. He says not doing so still put kids at risk outside the church.

“If they had released the files sooner, some of these perpetrators clearly could have been molesting in the meantime. Not within the church, but outside the church, they’re still perpetrators,” O’Neill said. “So many of the survivors are furious for how long it’s taken the church and this diocese to identify the people who were the molesters.”

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

JUNEAU (AK)
Juneau Empire

August 21, 2019

By Ben Hohenstatt

The Diocese of Juneau released the results of an Independent Commission’s review of sexual misconduct allegations since the diocese was established in 1951.

The report identifies seven local clergymen — six priests and one religious brother — that the commission found had been “credibly alleged” to have engaged with sexual misconduct involving minors and vulnerable adults.

The Independent Commission was established by the Diocese of Juneau in December 2018 to review files regarding allegations of sexual misconduct since the diocese was established nearly 70 years ago in 1951.

Those named in the report include:

• Francis A. Cowgill, who died in 2000, and is alleged to have committed sexual misconduct involving minors from 1956 to 1964. Cowgill was assigned to Pius X School in Skagway and Sacred Heart Church in Haines from 1952 to 1959, Holy Family Cathedral in Anchorage from 1959 to 1964 and St. Mary Church in Kodiak from 1964 to 1966.

• Javier Gutierrez, who was dismissed from the clerical state in 2018, and is alleged to have committed sexual misconduct involving minors and vulnerable adults in the 1980s. Gutierrez was assigned to Cathedral of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Juneau from 1982 to 1984 and in 1986, Holy Name Church in Ketchikan from 1984 to 1986, St. Peter’s Church in Douglas in 1986 and St. Therese of the Child of Jesus Church in Skagway and Sacred Heart Church in Haines from 1986 to 1988.

• Patrick Hurley, who returned to his religious order — Order of St. Benedict — in 1985, and is alleged to have committed sexual misconduct involving minors from 1984 to 1985. Hurley was assigned to Holy Name Church in Ketchikan in 1983, Cathedral of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary from 1984 to 1985 and St. Therese of the Child of Jesus Church in Skagway from 1984 to 1985.

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SANTA ROSA (CA)
Press Democrat

August 19, 2019

By Mary Callahan

Administrators at the Hanna Boys Center residential treatment facility and school will hire a private investigator to track down alumni from at least the past 3½ decades to root out any previously undiscovered cases of sexual abuse, however old, in an effort to try to make amends.

Once selected, the investigator will be tasked with locating up to 2,500 former students who attended the beleaguered institution dating back to 1983, Chief Executive Officer Brian Farragher said in an interview.

They’ll be asked if they were victimized in any way or if they know others who might have been. If it’s needed, Hanna will work to provide support and treatment and, “where appropriate,” even make restitution, Farragher said.

“We believe that it’s the only way forward for us,” he said.

Farragher revealed the proposal as part of Hanna’s rollout of a long-term strategic plan designed to turn a corner on a period of turmoil at the nearly 75-year-old institution that includes accusations of abuse against Farragher’s predecessor and a high-profile criminal case involving former clinical director Kevin Thorpe, who is in state prison.

Staffers at the Sonoma-area residential center also are suffering through significant cultural upheaval as they adjust to a new treatment framework called trauma-informed care. It has also undergone a reorganization that involved significant layoffs that included many veteran employees who had committed their careers to working with the facility and its population.

Despite speculation among some longtime workers that Farragher might plan to phase out residential care altogether, he and board chairman Tullus Miller said they foresee a future in which Hanna both operates as a model home for at-risk youths and develops national leadership in the area of trauma-informed care through its new research and training arm, the Hanna Institute.

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MANHATTAN (KS)
Manhattan Mercury

August 21, 2019

By Savannah Rattanavong

A victim advocacy group is calling for the Catholic Diocese of Salina to show more transparency in revealing details of sexual abuse by clergy members.

At a meeting with members of the media Tuesday outside the Seven Dolors of the Blessed Virgin Mary Catholic Church, where two former priests who have been credibly accused worked, David Clohessy and Larry Davis of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP) accused the diocese of withholding names of three more priests with substantiated abuse claims. The men all worked in the diocese’s area at some point. One of the men, Father Donald McCarthy, served in Manhattan in the 1960s and 1980s, but the claim of abuse didn’t take place in town.

SNAP also staged protests at other locations across Kansas Tuesday.

“All those people in the church (who were involved or complicit) need to be brought to justice,” Davis said. “Then also that can start the healing process for the victims. We hope that it finally breaks loose. We want to bring to people who are suffering an avenue for peace and justice.”

In March, the diocese, which oversees the Manhattan area, released a list of 14 clergy members who had substantiated allegations of sexual abuse of a minor. The report included three priests who had served in Manhattan since the 1950s, and several more who served at other area churches. The list included priests William Merchant, who died in 1975, and John Moeder, who died in 2012. Both served at Seven Dolors.

SNAP called for the diocese to include photos, locations and work histories of all “proven, admitted and credibly accused clerics,” name and punish the individuals responsible for “covering up” the abuse and admit wrongdoing in not thoroughly investigating past claims of sexual abuse.

Clohessy, SNAP’s Missouri director, and Davis said they would like to see more consequences through the law or the church for people who have had substantiated claims against them. Clohessy said this endeavor is not only about seeking justice after the fact but also preventing abuse from happening in the first place.

“(Adults) can heal ourselves,” Clohessy said. “It’s a lot easier if people in power positions can help us, but we can take care of ourselves. Kids can’t. The easiest way (to prevent abuse) is to put every name of every predator out there, even if a priest hasn’t been in this diocese for 30 years.”

In a statement Tuesday, the Salina Diocese said it has been cooperating with the KBI investigation looking into sexual abuse of minors by members of the Kansas Catholic clergy, as well as with past investigations into priests.

The diocese said SNAP alleged it had omitted the names of Father Donald McCarthy, who died in 2017, and Ronald Gilardi and Thaddeus Posey, two priests from the Capuchin Province of St. Conrad, Colorado.

The Capuchin Province also released a list of substantiated allegations in March, which included Gilardi and Posey.

The Salina Diocese said it cooperated with law enforcement when Texas officials tried McCarthy in 2007. He was found not guilty. The statement said the diocese’ Lay Review Board also reviewed the allegation from Texas, but could not substantiate the claim.

McCarthy’s duties in Manhattan included assistant pastor at Seven Dolors from 1962 to 1963, guidance counselor at Luckey High School from 1963 to 1965 and superintendent at Manhattan Catholic Schools from 1984 to 1986.

“The Lay Review Board of the Salina Diocese continues to evaluate allegations, and cooperate with the KBI as new allegations are made,” it said. “When an allegation is proven to be substantiated, the diocese will add the name of the clergy member to its list, which can be found at salinadiocese.org/home/clergy-abuse.”

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

DAYTON (OH)
WDTN TV

August 21, 2019

A former Dayton and Beavercreek priest, who was indicted on nine counts of rape on Monday, pleaded not guilty to all charges in court Wednesday.

Geoffrey Drew, 57, faced a judge on Wednesday in Hamilton County where he pleaded not guilty to all nine counts of rape against him. Drew’s bond was set at $5 million.

According to WLWT in Cincinnati, Drew said through his lawyer that he had no idea who his accuser was or how he would have come in contact with him.

Drew is accused of raping a young alter boy while he served as Music Minister at St. Jude School in Cincinnati. He was employed at St. Jude from 1984 to 1999, although the acts allegedly took place between 1988 and 1991. Drew was not a priest at that time.

Drew was ordained in 2004 and was a parochial vicar at St. Luke in Beavercreek from July 1, 2004 to June 30, 2005, according to the Archdiocese of Cincinnati. He then became pastor of St. Rita in Dayton from July 1, 2005 to June 30, 2009.

“This is absolutely sickening,” Hamilton County Prosecutor Joe Deters said. “I will never understand how someone in a position of authority and trust abuses that trust by sexually assaulting young children.”

“The Archdiocese of Cincinnati has fully cooperated with this investigation and will continue to do so,” Archdiocese of Cincinnati Archbishop Dennis Schnurr said. “The protection of young people is of paramount importance and can never be compromised.”

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NEW YORK (NY)
Newsweek

August 21, 2019

By Jake Maher

A retired bishop in New York State announced he was taking a leave of absence two days after a lawsuit was filed alleging he molested an teenage boy.

On August 16, Bishop Emeritus Howard Hubbard of the Diocese of Albany took an absence from the Diocese of Albany. In a suit filed August 14, a plaintiff identified only as P.R alleged Hubbard sexually abused him repeatedly in the mid-1990s, when P.R. was 16.

Hubbard “used his position as a priest to groom and to sexually abuse” the then-teen between 1994 and 1998, according to WNYT.

The lawsuit was filed the first day New York’s Child Victims Act (CVA) went into effect. The statute, which will remain in effect for one year, removes the statute of limitations on filing a lawsuit alleging child sex-abuse. It’s already been used to sue the Governing Body of the Jehovah’s Witnesses for covering up abuse, and legal experts expect more religious institutions and community organizations to face similar suits.

Hubbard, who notified current bishop Edward Scharfenberger of his decision to take a leave of absence, maintains his innocence.

“With full and complete confidence, I can say this allegation is false. retired in my life,” he said in a statement. “I have been a priest for 55 years. My ministry is my life. But stepping aside temporarily now is the right thing to do.”

He added that Catholics—and the larger community—”must be assured that our church leaders, active or retired, and indeed all clergy are living in accord with the highest standards that our sacred ministry requires.”

It’s not the first time Hubbard has been accused of sexual misconduct: In the early 2000s, a California man alleged his brother had a sexual relationship with Hubbard before his brother’s death by suicide in 1978, at age 25. Another man claimed Hubbard had solicited sex from him when he was a teenage sex worker in Albany in the 1970s.

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ST. PAUL (MN)
Catholic News Service

August 21, 2019

By Joe Ruff

Paula Kaempffer, a survivor of clergy sexual abuse she suffered as an adult working in the Church, knows firsthand about the kind of healing that can take place.

And as the new outreach coordinator for restorative justice and abuse prevention for the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis, she said healing “takes a lot of personal work” and “a lot of inner strength to recapture the power that has been taken away from you.”

She said she is grateful that she has done that work and “come out on the other side.”

Now she intends to help other victims/survivors and others across the archdiocese seek ways to move from anger and other difficult emotions into healing.

“I think most parishes have not had an opportunity to talk about this issue,” she said.

Kaempffer’s office also is offering a listening ear and resources to help people who might face a variety of challenges, including the emotions of a property crime or homicide, said Janell Rasmussen, deputy director of Ministerial Standards and Safe Environment, the archdiocesan office that oversees its child protection efforts.

“Her outreach will be much broader than sexual abuse,” Rasmussen said.

Kaempffer said her faith was an integral part of her own healing.

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ROME (ITALY)
Crux

August 21, 2019

By John Allen

Although Australian Cardinal George Pell’s appeal of a conviction on child sexual abuse charges was rejected Wednesday, that ruling may not be the end of the legal road. As of this writing, Pell’s attorneys were still weighing whether to file a final appeal to Australia’s High Court.

Those attorneys told reporters that Pell continues to maintain his innocence, as he has since the charges first became public in June 2017.

Though Pell’s judicial odyssey may not be over, Wednesday’s ruling likely does represent the final word on another aspect of the case: George Pell is now officially the Alfred Dreyfus of the Catholic abuse crisis, meaning that opinions about his guilt or innocence are at least as much a reflection of one’s ideological convictions as about the actual evidence in the case.

Dreyfus, of course, was the French artillery officer of Jewish descent charged with treason in 1894 for allegedly passing military secrets to the Germans, spending five years on Devil’s Island. Dreyfus was eventually acquitted and reinstated to his army position, but for more than a decade, opinions about his guilt or innocence functioned as a bellwether for broader political and cultural tensions, pitting Catholic and traditionalist “anti-Dreyfusards” against pro-Republican and anti-clerical liberals.

One could, by the way, just as easily compare Pell to Alger Hiss, the urbane American diplomat accused in 1948 of being a Soviet spy. Like Pell, Hiss was tried twice, with the first ending in a hung jury and the second resulting in a conviction. In that case, too, opinions for a long time were far more about the clash between hawks and doves during the Cold War than the facts.

Similarly, opinions about Pell today often reveal far more about the prejudices of the observer than about the actual reality of what happened.

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MORGANTOWN (WV)
Dominion Post

August 20, 2019

By David Beard

A lawsuit brought by a former seminarian who alleged that former Bishop Michael Bransfield sexually assaulted him and that Bransfield regularly drank himself drunk before engaging in “grossly inappropriate” sexual behavior with other young seminarians has been settled.

The settlement came abruptly, though the reasons haven’t been revealed.

The civil suit was filed in Ohio County Circuit Court in May. The accuser, who goes by the initials J.E., now lives in Pocahontas County, but during the period covered in the suit lived in St. Clairsville, Ohio, and attended the Cathedral of St. Joseph in Wheeling.

Along with Bransfield, the defendants were the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), the Diocese of Wheeling-Charleston and 20 “John Does.” Ten of the John Does are employees or agents of the USCCB and 10 are employees or agents of the diocese.

Diocese spokesman Tim Bishop said in an email exchange, “The Diocese can confirm that the case has been dismissed. The case was settled by agreement of the parties. At the request of the plaintiff, the terms of the settlement are confidential. The Diocese will have no further comment regarding the case.”

J.E. was represented by Warner Law Offices of Charleston. The Dominion Post left phone messages and emails over the course of several days seeking information and comment, but neither of his attorneys responded.

J.E. alleged that Bransfield was a binge drinker, consuming nightly a half or full bottle of Cointreau, an orange liqueur. He would “drink until he was intoxicated, at which point he would engage in grossly inappropriate behavior, including … making sexually suggestive gestures, hugging, kissing, inappropriately touching and fondling seminarians.”

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ST. LOUIS (MO)
Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests

August 20, 2019

A Catholic priest may face criminal child sex abuse charges in North Dakota. We call on church officials to use all their resources to encourage anyone with knowledge about these allegations to call law enforcement immediately.

In early April, the Diocese of Fargo disclosed that police were investigating Fr. Wenceslaus Katanga on allegations of child abuse. Just today the Cass County Attorney’s Office announced there are “no corroborating witnesses or physical evidence to support” the accusations in their county.

However, during the probe more allegations against the priest surfaced in another county, and there is a chance charges can be filed by prosecutors in McHenry County.

We believe it is crucial that serious accusations like this be thoroughly examined by law enforcement professionals. If church officials want what is best for children in their diocese, they should want this a complete investigation too. We call on Bishop John Folda of the Diocese of Fargo to use church bulletins, parish websites and pulpit announcements to reach out to anyone who may have information about these allegations. He should urge current and former churchgoers and staff with pertinent knowledge to immediately call police or prosecutors.

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MANHATTAN (KS)
KSNW TV

August 20, 2019

An advocacy group is calling on the Salina Catholic Diocese to be more transparent in allegations of priest sexual abuse.

Standing in front of a Manhattan church where two accused priests once served, David Clohessy and Larry Davis are demanding action.

“We want to bring the people that are suffering, an avenue for peace and justice,” said Davis.

Davis and Clohessy are members of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, Clohessy serving as the Missouri Director. They said they chose the Seven Dolors parish in Manhattan, because two of the priests that served at this parish, were listed as priests with substantiated allegations of abuse against minors.

The Salina Diocese released a list of 14 names of priests in March of 2019 along with the parishes they served in and the estimated time of abuse. Among the names, Father William Merchant, who died in 1975, and Father John Moeder, who died in 2012. Both served at Seven Dolors, although the Diocese does not list when they served there, or where the men were serving when the alleged abuse happened. That’s one of the things that both Davis and Clohessy are asking to be released.

“The Bishop didn’t disclose their whereabouts, didn’t share their photographs and didn’t go into the full details of their work history, we think that’s the absolute bare minimum he should do to both protect kids and heal victims and help the church turn a page,” said Clohessy.

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KANSAS CITY (MO)
National Catholic Reporter

August 21, 2019

By Michael Sean Winters

A three-judge panel in Australia has upheld the guilty verdict against Cardinal George Pell. On two of the claims put forward by Pell for overturning the verdict, the three judges were unanimous. On the third claim — the key issue of reasonable doubt — they divided two to one. Pell is already serving a six-year sentence for abusing a minor.

In announcing their decision, the justices emphasized that they found Pell’s accuser credible. In the Anglo-Saxon legal system, great deference is given to a jury’s assessment of credibility. An appeals court may overturn a lower court decision based on an issue of law, but rarely would they overturn a conviction based on a jury’s assessment of credibility. But, the judges went further, positively stating that they agreed with the jury in finding the accuser credible. They also slammed Pell’s attorneys who wanted to present an animation of the scene that the judges labeled “tendentious in the extreme.”

The other fact that was obvious in the judges’ statements was that these cases of sexual abuse rarely have a corroborating witness. That is not how sex abuse works: The perpetrator always tries to conceal the crime. The jury is almost always faced with a “he said/he said” situation. Rarely is there a blue dress offering forensic evidence.

Those of us who were never great fans of Pell can take no delight in this decision: The tragedy of abuse is cancerous, and it affects not only the victim, not only other priests who do not abuse children, not only the entire Body of Christ, but it seems obvious to me that the perpetrator is always himself a sad and sick person, to be pitied as much as punished.

This case, like that of former Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, has left Pell’s friends reeling. Many of them could not bring themselves to believe what 12 jurors found credible. Perhaps they never will.

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CHICAGO (IL)
WLS TV

August 20, 2019

By Chuck Goudie, Christine Tressel and Ross Weidner

Amid a protracted state investigation of child sex abuse by Roman Catholic clergy, Illinois’ top law enforcement official has met with Chicago Cardinal Blase Cupich, the ABC7 I-Team has learned.

The one-hour, one-on-one discussion took place at Attorney General Kwame Raoul’s office in the State of Illinois Thompson Center about two weeks ago. The Archdiocese of Chicago and Illinois’ five other Roman Catholic dioceses have been subjects of an ongoing investigation by the state attorney general’s office for the past year.

In an exclusive interview with the I-Team on Wednesday, Attorney General Raoul said it was important for him to personally meet with the leader of the Catholic Church here-even as his staff investigators have been carrying the caseload in the rest of Illinois. Raoul told the I-Team that both his discussion with the cardinal and the state investigation are aimed at “making sure that there’s reconciliation for survivors and make sure abuse doesn’t happen anymore.”

A spokesperson for Cardinal Cupich and the Archdiocese of Chicago confirms the meeting and says that it was requested by Cardinal Cupich. We are awaiting a full statement from the Church.

The state investigation began under former attorney general Lisa Madigan. Shortly before leaving office last December, Madigan announced that the investigation found child sex accusations against at least 500 priests and clergymen in Illinois had never been made public. Madigan had opened a case here after a Pennsylvania grand jury investigation discovered more than 300 “predator priests” in a “systematic cover-up.”

When Raoul was sworn in last January and assumed the clergy sex abuse investigation, he said that it might be necessary to issue subpoenas to Catholic Church leaders in Chicago, Joliet, Rockford, Peoria, Springfield and Belleville if there wasn’t sufficient voluntary cooperation. On Tuesday the attorney general said that no subpoenas have been necessary-although information “hasn’t all come at the same speed. It’s taking prodding at some point and asking more questions.”

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ROME (ITALY)
Daily Beast

August 21, 2019

By Barbie Latza Nadeau

On Monday, the shutters of Australian Cardinal George Pell’s lavish apartment in the shadow of St. Peter’s Basilica were open and cleaners could be seen dusting the window sills. Pell had clearly hoped that he would be free to return to this upper-floor flat and to the life he once enjoyed. But on Wednesday, three Melbourne judges decided that Pell will be staying in an Australian jail after being convicted of child sexual abuse.

“By a majority of two to one, the court of appeal has dismissed Cardinal Pell’s appeal against his conviction,” Chief Justice Anne Ferguson announced.

Pell was said to have been sitting with his head bowed as the decision was announced, while cheers from outside the building could be heard as Ferguson explained the decision.

Ferguson dismissed an argument made by Pell’s defense that there was room for reasonable doubt by the jury.

“It is not enough that the jury might have had a doubt, but they must have had a doubt,” she said. “This was a compelling witness, clearly not a liar, not a fantasist and was a witness of truth.”

Last February, Pell, 78, was convicted on charges he sexually abused two choir boys in a Melbourne cathedral in the late 1990s. He was sentenced to six years in Melbourne Assessment Prison last February, and has spent the last 175 days in solitary confinement.

Prior to his sentencing, his lawyer, Robert Richter, who has since been dismissed, pleaded for a lenient sentence, calling Pell’s abuses, a “plain vanilla sexual penetration case where the child is not actively participating.” That clearly did not help his client, who denied he had committed the act.

The Vatican did not oppose Pell’s efforts to reverse the verdict.

The day before the verdict, a Vatican spokesperson pointed The Daily Beast back to its original statement on the matter. “Cardinal Pell has reiterated his innocence and has the right to defend himself to the last degree,” it said in a statement. “Waiting for final judgment, we join the Australian bishops in praying for all the victims of abuse.”

Now that Pell’s appeal has been denied, Pope Francis is in a tight corner. Vatican policy has for years centered on placing blame for the sex-abuse scandal on local dioceses and on the bishops in charge of perverted priests. But in the case of Cardinal Pell, the highest-ranking church official to be convicted, only the pope can decide what to do now. Will he defrock the cardinal who was once in his inner circle? Will he finally take him off the Vatican website, where he is still listed as head of the Holy See Secretariat for the Economy?

Apparently not. The day of the ruling, the Vatican doubled down on its support of Pell’s innocence. “While reiterating its respect for the Australian judicial system, as stated on 26 February after the first instance verdict was announced, the Holy See acknowledges the court’s decision to dismiss Cardinal Pell’s appeal,” the Vatican said in a carefully worded statement. “As the proceedings continue to develop, the Holy See recalls that the Cardinal has always maintained his innocence throughout the judicial process and that it is his right to appeal to the High Court.”

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MELBOURNE (AUSTRALIA)
Wall Street Journal

August 20, 2019

By Robb M. Stewart

Australian judges rule 2-1 to uphold conviction for assaulting two young choir boys

Cardinal George Pell, the most senior Catholic cleric ever to be jailed for child sexual abuse, has lost his appeal of his conviction.

A panel of Australian judges ruled 2-1 on Wednesday to uphold the cardinal’s conviction for assaulting two young choir boys inside the cathedral that was the center of his diocese in the late 1990s.

Three judges in the Supreme Court of Victoria, the southeastern state where the 78-year-old cleric first served as a priest and later was archbishop of Melbourne, had been deliberating for months and held an appeal hearing in June.

Cardinal Pell is widely expected to challenge the decision in the country’s top court, the High Court of Australia.

In December, a jury convicted Cardinal Pell on five counts of sexually abusing two choir boys inside a sacristy at a Melbourne cathedral in late 1996 and one of the boys in a cathedral corridor in early 1997, not long after he became archbishop of Melbourne. The former Vatican finance chief was sentenced to six years in prison earlier this year.

The main argument of the cardinal’s appeal was that the guilty verdicts were unreasonable based on the evidence. The cardinal’s lawyers also argued that mistakes were made that prevented him from getting a fair trial. The prosecution countered that the cardinal’s accuser was a compelling and believable witness, who gave testimony a jury could accept.

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MELBOURNE (AUSTRALIA)
The New York Times

August 20, 2019

By Livia Albeck-Ripka

An Australian court on Wednesday upheld the sexual abuse conviction of Cardinal George Pell, the highest-ranking Roman Catholic leader ever found guilty in a criminal court in the church’s child sex abuse crisis.

The cardinal, 78, who was once an adviser to Pope Francis, had been sentenced to six years in prison in March.

“He will continue to serve his sentence,” said Chief Justice Anne Ferguson of the Supreme Court of the state of Victoria in Melbourne, who presided over the appeals case with two other top judges.

Cardinal Pell was found guilty in December of molesting two 13-year-old choirboys after a Sunday Mass in 1996 at St. Patrick’s Cathedral in Melbourne, and groping one of them again months later. A gag order meant the verdict was not unsealed until February, after a second trial involving Cardinal Pell was canceled.

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LONDON (ENGLAND)
The Guardian

August 20, 2019

By Michael McGowan

Archbishop Mark Coleridge, the president of the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference, has released a statement on the appeal.

He says the conference believes “all Australians must be equal under the law and accept today’s judgement accordingly”.

“The bishops realise that this has been and remains a most difficult time for survivors of child sexual abuse and those who support them,” Coleridge said in the statement.

“We acknowledge the pain that those abused by clergy have experienced through the long process of the trials and appeal of Cardinal Pell. We also acknowledge that this judgement will be distressing to many people.

“We remain committed to doing everything we can to bring healing to those who have suffered greatly and to ensuring that Catholic settings are the safest possible places for all people, but especially for children and vulnerable adults.”

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ST. LOUIS (MO)
Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests

August 20, 2019

Six months ago, one of the world’s most senior Catholic officials was sentenced to six years in prison for sexually abusing children. Today, that cleric has had his appeal denied.

We are grateful for this news and hope it brings comfort to survivors of clergy abuse throughout Australia. Denying the appeal mounted by Cardinal George Pell helps send the message that no matter how powerful a person is, they are still subject to the rule of law. It is extremely rare for any church official to see time behind bars and given the crimes he has been convicted of committing, a prison sentence is clearly deserved.

The sentence imposed on Cardinal Pell – a mere six years in prison – was already light, so we are glad that the sentence was not reduced further on appeal. We are grateful to the police and prosecutors in Australia who have been involved with this case since the beginning and hope that today’s news will encourage others who may have experienced abuse at the hands of Cardinal Pell – or any priest, nun, deacon or other church official – to come forward, find help and start healing.

We also call upon all priests, nuns, prelates and other lay people in the church that have witnessed Cardinal Pell’s behavior over his career to follow Pope Francis’ new motu proprio and report any suspicions about abuse they have. And while the Pope’s law only requires internal reporting, we hope that those with information will report to law enforcement as well. Pope Francis’ new law protects whistle-blowers from punishment or retribution, so we hope that whistleblowers will come forward. Where Catholic leaders once sought to cover up abuse in a dangerously misguided attempt to protect the Church, the pope himself has now demanded the opposite.

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LAWRENCE (KS)
Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests

August 20, 2019

They ‘out’ 2 new priests accused of abuse
The clerics are not on the archdiocesan list
But other church officials say their accusers are “credible”
So group launches eastern Kansas ‘outreach drive’ to find more victims

WHAT
Holding signs and childhood photos at a sidewalk news conference, clergy sex abuse victims and their supporters will
–ask the KS archdiocese why these two clerics are not on its list,
–reveal the names of two publicly accused priests who are/were in Lawence but have received virtually no attention here, and
–beg those with information or suspicions about abuse to contact the Kansas Bureau of Investigation
They will also hand out fliers door-to-door near churches listing several other accused priests who work/live or worked/lived in Lawrence.
WHEN
Tuesday, August 20 at 10:45 a.m.
WHERE
Outside St. John the Evangelist Catholic Church, 1234 Kentucky St. (corner of E. 13th) in Lawrence (785 843 0109), where a priest accused of exploiting a vulnerable adult worked

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NASHVILLE (TN)
The Tennessean

August 20, 2019

By Anita Wadhwani

Former Nashville Catholic Bishop Edward Kmiec has been named in a sweeping lawsuit filed in New York by 22 plaintiffs alleging the Diocese of Buffalo systematically covered up sexual abuse of minors by pedophile priests.

Kmiec served as Bishop of the New York diocese between 2004 and 2012. He served as Bishop of the Diocese of Nashville between 1992 and 2004. He is now retired.

Kmiec is one of dozens of Catholic leaders and institutions named in a lawsuit filed last week in state court in Tonawanda, New York.

The lawsuit was filed under anti-racketeering laws — also known as RICO statutes — alleging a conspiracy of “harassing, threatening, extorting, and misleading victims of sexual abuse committed by priests” and of “misleading priests’ victims and the media to prevent reporting or disclosure of sexual misconduct.”

Kmiec is singled out for his role in transferring more than $90 million in assets to protect church holdings from victim claims, according to the lawsuit.

A spokeswoman for the Diocese of Buffalo did not respond to request for comment from Kmiec and the Diocese.

The plaintiffs filed anonymously. The lawsuit came on the first day of a one-time year-long window under New York state law to file civil suits alleging sexual abuse beyond the statute of limitations.

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WASHINGTON (DC)
Ms. Magazine

August 20, 2019

By Carrie N. Baker

For years, child survivors of sexual abuse have been blocked from suing their perpetrators for damages by laws requiring these lawsuits be filed within a short period of time. In New York, survivors had to file by their 21st birthdays.

But in January—after years of fierce opposition from the Catholic Church, insurance companies and the former Republican-led state Senate—the New York State Assembly passed the Child Victims Act, extending the time survivors have to file civil suits against perpetrators until they turn 55 years old. The law opens up a one-year “lookback window,” allowing survivors to file civil actions against perpetrators no matter how long ago the abuse occurred.

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NEW YORK (NY)
Staten Island Advance

August 20, 2019

By Daniel Leddy

New York’s Child Victims Act is well-intended. The sexual abuse of a child is an act of such depravity that it can inflict catastrophic, lifelong damage on an especially vulnerable class of victims. So it’s certainly reasonable that those who commit such atrocities be subject to criminal prosecution and answerable in civil proceedings for compensatory damages.

But – and it’s a huge but – precisely because the sexual abuse of a child is such a heinous act, and an allegation of its commission so damaging to the reputations of those accused, fundamental fairness requires that they be accorded a reasonable opportunity to defend themselves. And therein lies the problem with the Child Victims Act. For far from protecting the due process rights of defendants, the legislation’s dramatically lengthened statute of limitations significantly undermines them.

Its most problematic provision is the creation of a one-year window, which opened last Wednesday, during which any previously time-barred cause of action for child sex abuse can be asserted regardless of how long ago it’s alleged to have occurred. This invites not only questionable claims but cleverly contrived ones, particularly where the individuals cited as abusers are either dead or so incapacitated that they cannot interpose a defense. This, in turn, is extremely prejudicial to the institutions for which they worked or were otherwise affiliated, the real targets of suits under the Child Victims Act. Since these entities are rendered similarly defenseless, the statute effectively gives plaintiffs and their attorneys a license to plunder their treasuries.

Cakewalk to victory

Contrary to a common misconception, a plaintiff need not produce corroborating evidence of claimed abuse. Rather, he can prevail on his word alone, a highly likely outcome in the absence of anyone to challenge the plaintiff’s testimony. It’s this precise cakewalk to victory that has so many lawyers aggressively soliciting cases under the statute.

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TOPEKA (KS)
Capital Journal

August 20, 2019

David Clohessy and Larry Davis stood on a busy Topeka street corner Tuesday for a moment of silence on behalf of people who committed suicide after abused by priests.

“A lot of people who endure this horror don’t survive and end up taking their own lives dealing with the pain,” said Clohessy, representing the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, also known as SNAP.

Both men had plenty to say, however, across the street from Topeka’s Mater Dei Catholic Church about their belief Archbishop Joseph Naumann, of the Archdiocese of Kansas City in Kansas, hadn’t been proactive enough in reaching out to victims nor in identifying alleged perpetrators involved with Catholic churches.

Evidence of a shortcoming, Davis said, was that the Kansas Bureau of Investigation launched an inquiry of claims of misconduct in four Catholic dioceses in Kansas.

“Because of the lack of proactive behavior on the part of Archbishop Naumann, for the lack of the archdiocese being totally open and truthful, the Kansas Bureau of Investigation is now investigating,” said Davis, of Olathe.

In January, Naumann released a list of 22 clerics against whom substantiated allegations of sexual abuse of a minor. The list reflected acts occurring from the 1940s to 1990s. Of the 22, served as priests of the Kansas City archdiocese. When the list was published, 11 were deceased and seven others had been withdrawn from clerical duties.

“I thank all victims who have courageously come forward with allegations in order to prevent someone else from being victimized, as well as to assist with the progress of their own healing process,” Naumann said.

The KBI’s inquiry of abuse began in February. In July, the attorney general’s office reported the FBI had opened 74 investigations in 33 counties.

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PITTSBURGH (PA)
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

August 20, 2019

By Peter Smith

A Pittsburgh man is suing the Roman Catholic Diocese of Pittsburgh and Holy Family Institute, alleging he was subjected to the “torture” of sexual abuse by two priests when he was a boy living at the Emsworth children’s home in the 1970s.

The lawsuit was filed Aug. 16 in Allegheny County and accuses two priests of sexually molesting him on multiple times.

The lawsuit identifies the alleged perpetrators as the Rev. Larry Smith and a “Father Gerdes.”

Father Smith is a retired diocesan priest. A diocesan statement said as of Tuesday morning, it had not been served with the lawsuit, but it said Father Smith would not engage in public ministry until the diocese could learn more about the allegation. Father Smith “categorically denies the allegation,” the diocese said.

The lawsuit doesn’t give a first name for Father Gerdes but claims he belonged to a religious order, the Spiritans (of the Congregation of the Holy Spirit). However, the order’s Province of the United States says it never had a priest with that or a similar name.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC Radio Melbourne

August 14, 2019

The Catholic Archbishop of Melbourne has said he would rather go to jail than report admissions of child sexual abuse made in the confessional.

A bill which would make it mandatory for priests to report suspected child abuse to authorities, including abuse revealed in the confessional, was introduced to Victoria’s Parliament on Wednesday morning.

The Catholic Church last year formally rejected the notion that clergy should be legally forced to report abuse revealed during confessions.

Interviewed on ABC Radio Melbourne on Wednesday, Archbishop Peter Comensoli said he did not see the principles of mandatory reporting and the seal of confession as being “mutually exclusive”.

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MELBOURNE (AUSTRALIA)
The Guardian

August 19, 2019

By Melissa Davey

Senior Catholic cleric has been in custody in Melbourne since being sentenced in March to six years in prison

On Wednesday the most senior Catholic cleric to be convicted of child sexual abuse, Cardinal George Pell, will find out if his appeal has succeeded and if he will be released from custody.

The 78-year-old has been in Melbourne assessment prison since being sentenced in March to six years in prison for sexually abusing two 13-year-old choirboys in 1996 when he was the archbishop of Melbourne. He was ordered to serve a non-parole period of three years and eight months.

The jurors heard Pell sexually assaulted the two boys after Sunday solemn mass at St Patrick’s Cathedral in Melbourne in the priest’s sacristy. Pell orally raped one of the boys during this incident and indecently assaulted both of them. Pell offended a second time against one of the boys one month later, when he grabbed the boy’s genitals in a church corridor, once more after Sunday solemn mass. He was convicted on four counts of an indecent act with a child under the age of 16 and one count of sexual penetration with a child under the age of 16.

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AUSTRALIA
Australian Associated Press

August 19, 2019

CARDINAL GEORGE PELL’S CAREER

JUNE 8, 1941 – Born in Ballarat, Victoria

DECEMBER 16, 1966 – Ordained a Catholic priest

1971-1972 – Assistant priest Swan Hill parish

1973-1983 – Assistant priest Ballarat East parish

1973 – Shared St Alipius presbytery with Gerald Ridsdale (later revealed as Australia’s worst pedophile priest) and Monsignor William McMahon

1973-1984 – Episcopal Vicar for Education in Diocese of Ballarat; founding member of Catholic Education Commission of Victoria

1981-1984 – Principal of Institute of Catholic Education (now merged with Australian Catholic University)

1984 – Administrator of Bungaree parish

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MELBOURNE (AUSTRALIA)
Associated Press

August 20, 2019

By Rod McGuirk

The most senior Catholic cleric found guilty of sexually abusing children will learn the outcome of his appeal on Wednesday though the verdict still may not be the final word on his convictions for molesting two choirboys in an Australian cathedral more than two decades ago.

The Victoria state Court of Appeal heard arguments from Cardinal George Pell’s lawyers and prosecutors in June. In recognition of the intense public interest, the court is taking the unusual step of livestreaming its judgment on his appeal.

The 78-year-old former Vatican finance minister would walk free if the three judges acquit him of the five convictions. They also could order a retrial, in which case Pell would be released on bail, or they could reject his appeal.

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NEW YORK (NY)
New York Post

August 16, 2019

By Reuven Fenton and Susan Edelman

A Florida man who says he was sexually abused decades ago by two Brooklyn rabbis — one of them accused serial molester Rabbi Joel Kolko — has filed suit under New York’s new Child Victims Act.

Alleged victim Baruch Sandhaus claims the rabbis “would inappropriately touch” his private parts on various occasions between 1978 and 1980, when he was a student at Yeshiva Torah Temimah in Midwood, according to papers filed Friday in Brooklyn Supreme Court.

“Kolko and [Rabbi Joel] Falk exploited their positions of power and trust … with easy access to the then [underage] plaintiff in committing heinous acts of sexual abuse,” the lawsuit contends.

Prior to the passage of the act, which went into effect Wednesday, New York’s statute of limitations resulted in the dismissal of a suit Sandhaus filed in 2006.

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NEW YORK (NY)
Rockland/Westchester Journal News

August 16, 2019

By Frank Esposito

Shorty after midnight Wednesday, lawyers flooded the New York state civil court system with hundreds of new lawsuits accusing a variety of institutions and individuals of an array of sexual abuse incidents dating back decades.

One law firm even live-streamed the filings on Facebook.

By the time courts closed for the day, attorneys had filed 427 sex abuse cases against institutions that many had speculated would be named. Chief among them were several Roman Catholic dioceses, the Boy Scouts of America and Rockefeller University Hospital in New York City.

Filings were drastically down on Thursday with only five cases filed in four counties.

Wednesday was the first day to file suits under the Child Victims Act, which allowed anyone to file a lawsuit against organizations in New York despite the statute of limitations.

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WASHINGTON (PA)
Observer-Reporter

August 14, 2019

By Mike Tony

Today marks the opening of a one-year window allowing people to file civil lawsuits that were previously barred by state statute of limitations – in New York.

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WASHINGTON (PA)
Observer-Reporter

August 14, 2019

By Barbara Miller

As parishioners exited Immaculate Conception Roman Catholic Church in Washington last week, the afternoon was warm and blue-sky sunny, much like Aug. 14, 2018, in this area when state Attorney General Josh Shapiro released an 884-page report based on grand jury testimony on a very dark topic: decades’ worth of sexual abuse by priests.

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UNITED STATES
NBC Washington

August 15, 2019

Boys & Girls Clubs of America has a congressional charter to work with at-risk youth in communities across the country

At least 250 people have said they were sexually abused as children by employees, volunteers and others at Boys and Girls Clubs of America affiliates, according to an investigation by Hearst Connecticut Media.

The review of criminal convictions and civil lawsuits dating to the 1970s turned up 95 abuse cases in 30 states involving people associated with the nonprofit youth development organization, which serves more than 4.5 million young people a year at its 4,600 local centers. Some of the cases involve more than one accuser.

The cases include allegations that leadership at clubs knew about abuse and did not report it to law enforcement, among other examples of local clubs failing to adhere to national protocols, and that, in some instances, background checks apparently failed to keep adults with violent convictions from working with children.

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VATICAN CITY
La Croix International

August 13, 2019

by Nicolas Senèze

Chapter 1: The man of scandal This book tells how three popes were informed of sexual abuses committed by an American prelate and how this case sparked an attack against Pope Francis

A dazzling rise

Before going any further, we must first look at the face of the man who caused the scandal: Former Cardinal Theodore McCarrick. The accusation filed by Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò is based above all on the fact that the former cardinal would have long benefited from the Vatican’s indulgence – that is far from false – but also that Pope Francis himself would have covered it up, which is much less certain.

Now 88 years old, McCarrick was one of the leading figures of the American Church. The son of a merchant navy captain who died of tuberculosis when he was 3 years old, this New Yorker completed brilliant studies that led him to the prestigious Fordham University in New York City before he entered the seminary.

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MELBOURNE (AUSTRALIA)
9News.com.au

August 20, 2019

By Benjamin Ansell

Tomorrow, the world’s most senior Catholic to be found guilty of historic child sexual abuse, Cardinal George Pell, will find out whether his appeal has been successful.

Pell, 78, has spent the past five months in the Melbourne Assessment Prison after he was sentenced in March to a maximum of six years in prison for sexually abusing two 13-year-old choirboys in 1996.

Pell was found guilty in December of sexually assaulting the boys at St Patrick’s Cathedral in the priest’s sacristy after Sunday mass.

He was convicted on four counts of an indecent act with a child under the age of 16 and one count of sexual penetration with a child under the age of 16.

Pell’s appeal was heard in June before a full bench of the Supreme Court, made up of Chief Justice Anne Ferguson, the President of the Court of Appeal Chris Maxwell, and Justice Mark Weinberg.

Pell’s conviction was appealed on three grounds by high-profile barrister Bret Walker SC, with the defence relying most heavily on the argument that the jury was “unreasonable” in reaching its verdict.

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SYDNEY (AUSTRALIA)
Washington Post

August 20, 2019

By A. Odysseus Patrick

The most senior priest jailed for child abuse in the 2,000-year history of the Catholic Church will face a 21st century form of justice: a decision on his appeal beamed live over the Internet.

Australian Cardinal George Pell will appear before three judges of the Victorian Supreme Court on Wednesday morning in Australia, and learn if he has been able to overturn a conviction for sexually assaulting two choir boys.

Justices Anne Ferguson, Chris Maxwell and Mark Weinberg could uphold the conviction, order a retrial, or dismiss some or all of the charges and allow the 78 year-old to walk out of the court building in downtown Melbourne a free man.

The global broadcast is ironic given the judge who oversaw Pell’s original trial threatened to charge many of Australia’s top newspaper editors, and some overseas, for flouting a gag order covering Pell’s guilty finding by a jury last December.

The Washington Post was among the media outlets that reported on the verdict. Some of the journalists were cited for contempt of court charges that are still pending. The gag order was dropped two months later.

Huge domestic and global interest then led to the broadcast, live on Australian television, of Pell’s sentencing to six years in jail on March 13, and Wednesday’s planned live stream of the appeal decision. The broadcast will be delayed by 15 seconds to allow the court to censor any interruption or other unexpected event.

Lawyers said it was impossible to predict if the cardinal’s appeal would succeed. In their submissions, Pell’s lawyers argued the original trial was unfair because the cardinal wasn’t able to present evidence they say demonstrated it would have been impractical for him to molest the boys given the amount of time available after conducting mass at Melbourne’s grand Catholic cathedral, St Patrick’s, in December 1996.

Pell, who oversaw the Vatican’s finances before he was charged, was found guilty of sexually assaulting two 13-year-old boys who had snuck into his change room, or sacristy, and drunk sacramental wine.

The conservative prelate’s fate has created a schism among Catholics. Supporters believe Pell, who was convicted on the testimony of a single witness, a victim, is being used to punish an entire church for decades of child abuse around the world.

Detractors say Pell, as Australia’s most senior Catholic, personifies the church’s institutional indifference to the welfare of thousands of boys and girls who were abused in its care.

David Hamer, a professor of evidence law at the University of Sydney, said the case would hinge on the perceived credibility of the alleged victim, whose identity has never been revealed to the public.

Although the three appeal judges didn’t hear from the man in person, they watched a video recording of his allegations against Pell, and the cardinal’s denials in an interview with police detectives.

“So the appeal court, in this sense, can put itself in the position of the jury,” Hamer said in an email. “And appeal courts are more prepared to intervene where cases turn on circumstantial evidence — in this case, the argument that it would have been impossible for Pell to commit the crime.”

Last August the church publicly apologized for the thousands of victims of abuse in Australia and pledged that it would never happen again.

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MANHATTAN (KS)
KWCH TV

August 20, 2019

A group working to raise awareness on the issue of clergy abuse accuses the Catholic Diocese of Salina of holding names of priests linked to cases of abuse.

Tuesday, the Survivors Newtork of those Abused by Priests (SNAP) organized protests across the state, including a small group gathered outside the Seven Dolors Catholic Church in Manhattan.

The group has a message for Bishop Gerald Vincke to come clean. In March, the Catholic Diocese of Salina said an investigation found 14 clergy members with “substantial allegations of abuse by a minor.”

Vincke hired outside counsel to conduct that investigation and only released names of the 14 clergy members in the investigation.

Members with SNAP chose to gather at the church in Manhattan because they say two priests on the bishop’s list worked there at one point. The group also says it found other priests, “credibly accuses” of abusing minors, and says the bishop’s list should include these names.

Tuesday afternoon, the Catholic Diocese of Salina released a statement addressing SNAP’s allegations that it omitted names of of priests credibly accused of abuse.

“SNAP alleges the Salina Diocese omitted the following names: diocesan priest Father Donald McCarthy, who died in 2017, and two priests from the Capuchin Province of St. Conrad, based in Denver: Capuchin Father Ronald Gilardi and Father Thaddeus Posey,” the Catholic Diocese of Salina says. “The Capuchin Province released a list of substantiated allegations at the same time the Salina Diocese released its list. Both Father Gilardi and Father Posey were mentioned in the Capuchin list when it was released in March.”

The Cathlic Diocese of Salina says it’s cooperated with any agency involved with investigating abuse claims, including the Kansas Bureau of Investigation.

Full statement from Catholic Diocese of Salina

Today (Tuesday), the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP) organized protests across the state of Kansas, including one in Manhattan. A statement dated Aug. 20 on the group’s website claims the Salina Diocese failed to include the names of three priests when the report of substantiated cases of clergy abuse of minors was released by the diocese in March.

SNAP alleges the Salina Diocese omitted the following names: diocesan priest Father Donald McCarthy, who died in 2017, and two priests from the Capuchin Province of St. Conrad, based in Denver: Capuchin Father Ronald Gilardi and Father Thaddeus Posey.

The Capuchin Province released a list of substantiated allegations at the same time the Salina Diocese released its list. Both Father Gilardi and Father Posey were mentioned in the Capuchin list when it was released in March.

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Full Heart, Empty Arms blog

August 16, 2019

By Ivy Blonwyn

Jeffrey Epstein, with his ever present little pædo smile, was a horrible person but his victims were spared one thing: he didn’t abuse, groom and rape them with a Bible in his hand. He considered it though. James Stewart writes in the New York Times that Epstein was seriously considering becoming a minister to earn trust and maintain secrecy in 2018.

There are many like him. But they don’t merely ‘consider’ it. They actually do it. College, seminary, ordination, a ‘calling’, sermons, funerals, Bible studies, praying at deathbeds. They do it all with their motivation carefully hidden: easy access to obedient, brainwashed, intimidated, shame-filled children.

The problem is that it’s terribly hard to tell which clergymen enter the ministry for all the right reasons and which ones have these horrifying ulterior motives. If adults can’t tell, imagine how hard it is for their targeted victims: trusting children. Children who might have an instinctive distrust of certain members of the ministry, but are shamed into submission and obedience.

Although Jeffrey Epstein has allegedly gone to his Eternal judgement for the horrible things he did in life, what about all the ‘Jeffrey Epsteins’ still running around free, leveraging their clerical collar to dominate, their Bible to groom and the privacy of Sunday school classrooms to carry out horrific acts of sexual abuse on children? Who are they? Where are they?

Beyond the physical, sexual and psychological wounds they inflict, they are alienating their victims from God because all the accoutrements of religion bring horrific memories flooding back. What about that? No cash settlement can comfort your soul.

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DENVER (CO)
National Catholic Register

August 20, 2019

By Father Raymond J. de Souza

In the discussion of clerical sexual abuse, Cardinal George Pell now occupies a unique place. He is in fact the highest-ranking Catholic official ever to be criminally charged with the sexual abuse of minors. Other cardinals have had allegations confirmed against them in Church processes — Theodore McCarrick of Washington, Hans Hermann Groër of Vienna — but faced neither criminal charges nor subsequent conviction to date.

The appeals-court verdict, to be delivered Wednesday morning in Melbourne (Tuesday evening in North America), is supremely important, not least for Cardinal Pell’s liberty. But the facts of the case are now widely known, and the appeals-court verdict may not change very many minds. Cardinal Pell, should the conviction be upheld, will remain a man falsely convicted in the considered judgment of many, including this writer.

Should the conviction be overturned, those who have been after Cardinal Pell — including the Melbourne police, who confessed to want to “get Pell” long before there were any allegations against him — will remain convinced that he is guilty of horrible crimes. They were convinced of that before there was any evidence and will remain convinced even if the appellate court rules that that evidence is false.

But before that story dominates the days and weeks ahead, it is important to remember that Cardinal Pell was a key figure in the Church’s sex-abuse scandals long before the current charges were made in 2017. He was, in fact, widely considered to be a pioneering reformer. The travails of the past two years have obscured that.

In two major respects, the Church universal is catching up to where Cardinal Pell was decades ago.

George Pell was named an auxiliary bishop of Melbourne in 1987 and elevated to archbishop in August 1996. Seventy-five days later he established the “Melbourne Response” for victims of alleged sexual abuse.

The Melbourne Response invited victims to come forward, established an independent body to investigate claims and provided apologies, counseling and compensation — at the time, up to $50,000 in Australian currency. (It was later increased to $75,000, and then to $150,000, after Cardinal Pell had left Melbourne.)

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Patheos blog

August 16, 2019

By Mark Shea

They write:
I want to start by saying the I appreciate your writings, especially on poverty. I was coming to the conclusion that American churches alignment with Ayn Randian economics was related to “faith alone”/antinomian theology, which claims that the Christian life ought to require no sacrifice, and you expressed these thoughts very well in your books and blogging. Some protestants have also come around to that idea, as articulated in David Platt’s book.

I’m unfamiliar with Platt, but I am struck by how much conservative Catholicism in particular (in the US) has taken on the flavor, culture, and sometimes the theology of Evangelicalism. The false political soteriology that opposition to abortion (and voting Republican) taketh away the sins of the world is, in particular, everywhere in the culture right now, to the degree that Trump and FOX, far more than the Holy Father and the Magisterium, tend to form the thoughts and minds of conservative Catholics. This deeply troubles me, as you have no doubt noticed. The idea of comparing one’s thinking to the Magisterium and not to Democrats is foreign to many American conservative Catholics now. And the idea of the Catholic both/and (expressed in, among other things, the concept of the Seamless Garment) is regarded with reflexive contempt. Much that I loved and appreciated in coming into the Church, precisely because it was more capacious than American Evangelicalism’s cramped either/or is now dismissed with a sneer. The Rules, rather than the Person, have come to matter most. The Randian habit of subjecting the person to diagrams, property, and things is one manifestation of this. It breaks my heart.

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BUFFALO (NY)
Buffalo News

August 20, 2019

By Jay Tokasz

It took Ann Fossler more than 25 years to reveal that she had been repeatedly molested when she was as young as 6 years old.

Fossler said she first confided in a counselor in the 1980s that a Buffalo Diocese Catholic priest who was a close family friend sexually abused her for several years and that she kept it secret because she feared her parents, who adored the priest and were devout Catholics, would be crushed by the revelation.

“Basically, he said, ‘I can listen, but there isn’t anything you can do about any of this because of the statute of limitations,’ ” said Fossler. “So, then, my decision becomes, do I blow up the family by coming out when there isn’t anything I can really do about this anyway?”

Fossler, 68, stayed silent for decades more.

She’s making a statement in court now, though, joining more than 100 plaintiffs who have filed or will file lawsuits in Western New York under the Child Victims Act, alleging they were sexually abused as children.

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Some of the abuse alleged dates back as far as 1948.

CHILD VICTIMS ACT
WHY IS THE CHILD VICTIMS ACT ‘LOOK-BACK’ WINDOW SO SHORT?
Does Catholic Church have bigger abuse problem than other religions?
Batches of Boy Scouts lawsuits could be next
Sean Kirst: 40 years after a child’s days of pain, a search for justice
What is New York State’s Child Victims Act?
Child Victims Act filings detail heart-wrenching stories of sexual abuse
The statute of limitations for childhood sex abuse victims to file civil claims going forward changes to age 55, from age 23, under the Child Victims Act. The new law also includes a one-year look-back window that opened Wednesday and allows childhood abuse victims of any age to file claims that previously were time-barred.

Experts said it’s common for childhood victims of sexual abuse not to tell anyone about it for many years. A 2014 study out of Germany found that the average age for disclosing childhood sex abuse was 52. Another study last year showed that it took 24 years, on average, for childhood sex abuse victims to disclose the abuse to anyone.

Marci A. Hamilton, law professor at the University of Pennsylvania and expert on the effects of child sexual abuse, said children don’t understand sex and don’t have a framework of experience to distinguish a truly loving adult from someone who is taking advantage of them.

“These are people who don’t have life experience to help them through situations they just don’t understand and can’t possibly process,” said Hamilton, who founded and runs Child USA, a national think tank and child advocacy organization.

In addition, the trauma of the sex abuse often produces psychological and physical ailments in victims, including post-traumatic stress disorder, depression, thoughts of suicide and alcohol and drug abuse.

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CINCINNATI (OH)
WPCO TV

August 20, 2019

The Rev. Geoff Drew, suspended last month after allegations of inappropriate behavior, now stands charged with nine counts of rape — all for incidents that allegedly happened before he entered the priesthood. Dan Frondorf, a local leader of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, said Drew never should have been able to become a priest — and the Catholic church should develop a better process for keeping predators out of its clergy.

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WASHINGTON (DC)
Raw Story

August 16, 2019

By Tom Boggioni

According to a report at TMZ, a real-life priest who played Father Dyer in the 1973 film “The Exorcist” has been accused in court documents of sexually assaulting a student during the ’80s while teaching at McQuaid Jesuit High in Rochester, New York.

The report states that Father William J. O’Malley is one of multiple alleged assailants listed in a recently filed lawsuit and accuses him of abusing a then-17-year-old student “multiple times” in 1985 and 1986.

According to the lawsuit, those assaults occurred, “in a classroom, in school hallways and also at school-sponsored events.”

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FARGO (ND)
Bismark Tribune

August 20, 2019

By April Baumgarten

A Catholic priest in south-central North Dakota will not face criminal charges after being accused of sexual misconduct involving a child in Fargo, but the case could go to a prosecutor in McHenry County after an investigation revealed one incident allegedly happened there.

The Cass County Attorney’s Office announced Monday it would not pursue a criminal case against the Rev. Wenceslaus Katanga, who has served as a priest at three North Dakota churches in McIntosh County since 2010. The Fargo Diocese announced in early April that the Fargo Police Department was investigating Katanga concerning “interaction with a youth while ministering at Sts. Anne and Joachim Catholic Church in Fargo.”

Prosecutors will not be able to prove Katanga allegedly had sexual contact with the child twice in Fargo because there are “no corroborating witnesses or physical evidence to support” the accusations, Cass County Assistant State’s Attorney Joshua Traiser said in a letter declining charges.

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ST. LOUIS (MO)
Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests

August 19, 2019

Two more priests from the Diocese of Pittsburgh have been named in a lawsuit and accused of child sexual abuse.

The complaint alleges that Fr. Joseph Girdis and Fr. Larry Smith both abused the same unnamed plaintiff when he was 12-years-old and living at the Holy Family Institute in Emsworth, PA. Since neither priest was named in last year’s bombshell grand jury report that examined 6 dioceses, including Pittsburgh, we call on Bishop David Zubik and other Pittsburgh church officials to use every means at their disposal to publicize these accusations and urge anyone who may have information related to them to contact law enforcement immediately.

We also hope that this news will encourage others who may have been abused in Pittsburgh to come forward, make a report to police and prosecutors, and find support from family, independent therapists, or support groups like ours.

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LONG ISLAND (NY)
Long Island Weekly News

August 19, 2019

By Marco Schaden

Since Aug. 14, hundreds of lawsuits have been filed across New York State related to the Child Victims Act, which went into effect that day. The law, signed in February by Governor Andrew Cuomo, gives a one-year grace period, eliminating the statute of limitations for sexual abuse victims. Suits have already been filed against every Catholic diocese in the state, Boy Scouts of America, Rockefeller University, schools, hospitals, nonprofits and other organizations.

In the coming months, more lawsuits are expected to be filed. Other states have passed a similar law, including California, Delaware, Hawaii, Minnesota, Arizona and New Jersey, whose grace period starts in December. California is looking at legislation for a second grace period.

“It just makes this whole thing very real,” Brian Toale said, a member of Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP) who filed a lawsuit against the Diocese of Rockville Centre and Chaminade High School. “At this point, I really want to get a lot of information and [a lawsuit] is the only way to get it. But to actually have it done—to get a text from my lawyer saying your ‘complaint has been filed’—I don’t think it has really sunk in yet.”

Marsh Law Firm PLLC and Pfau, Cochran, Vertetis, Amala PLLC filed a suit against Rockefeller University on Aug. 14 with 45 plaintiffs. They claim to represent 200 sexual abuse survivors of Dr. Reginald Archibald, a professor and physician employed at the university for approximately 40 years. Several of the plaintiffs that filed suit are from Long Island.

“It’s probably one of, if not the largest, sexual abuse cases in the United States,” said attorney Michael Pfau.

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BUFFALO (NY)
WIBV TV

August 19, 2019

In a graphic and disturbing case filed under the Child Victims Act, three priests are accused of sexually abusing a seven-year-old at St. Francis High School in the late 1970s.

The anonymous plaintiff says that in 1977, Father James Smyka, Father Aurelian Brzezniak and Father Patrick Mendola sexually abused him in a shower room in front of an audience of between 15 to 20 other priests.

The complaint states that afterward, they would console him while he cried, only to sexually abuse him again at least 15 times in a single night.

The lawsuit states the abuse continued until the boy was eight years old.

Both Mendola and Brzezniak are deceased.

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CINCINNATI (OH)
WCPO TV

August 19, 2019

A priest who was placed on leave from St. Ignatius of Loyola last month has been indicted on nine counts of rape, according to the Hamilton County prosecutor.

Hamilton County Prosecutor Joe Deters announced the indictment for Rev. Geoffrey D. Drew during a Monday afternoon press conference.

The incidents occurred between 1988 and 1991 when Drew was employed as a music minister at St. Jude School in Green Township, Deters said. He was not a priest at the time; he was ordained in 2004.

A Hamilton County Grand Jury handed down the indictment Monday. If convicted, Drew faces life in prison, Deters said.

A 41-year-old man testified before a grand jury last week after the meetings at St. Ignatius of Loyola were publicized, Deters said. The man said he was 10 and 11 years old and was an altar boy when the incidents occurred, Deters said.

“It was very emotional,” Deters said. “It was emotional for him. It was emotional for the grand jury. It was a very emotional piece of testimony. And he deserves a lot of credit for coming forward, as difficult as it is. He could’ve just said, ‘I’m moving on with my life,’ but he wanted to stop this behavior. And he’s going to.”

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CASPER (WY)
Northern Wyoming News

August 19, 2019

More people who say they’re victims of sexual abuse at the hands of Wyoming clergymen have come forward since the release in early June of a list of 11 men who the Diocese of Cheyenne deemed had faced substantiated accusations of abuse.

That list identified 30 known and substantiated victims of the 11 men. Twenty-nine victims were juvenile boys and girls, while one was identified by the diocese as a vulnerable adult. It’s unclear how many more victims have come forward since the list was released in the diocese’s newsletter and on its website June 12.

“The Diocese of Cheyenne respects the privacy of all victims and survivors of sexual abuse and therefore does not publish their names,” Patti Loehrer, the diocese’s chancellor, told the Star-Tribune in an emailed response to a list of questions previously sent by the newspaper.

Loehrer said the diocese’s list is a “living document and will be updated on the diocesan website if new allegations are made and substantiated.”

The list has not been updated to include new victims or new clergy since it was published two months ago, suggesting the diocese has not completed any subsequent investigations brought by the new victims who’ve come forward. Loehrer said the diocese “does not publicize if it is conducting an investigation. We publicize the results.”

As part of its process in crafting the list of credibly accused priests, Loehrer wrote, the diocese hired Nussbaum Spier LLC, which has a history of conducting such reviews. The law firm interviewed victims and reviewed files, a process that included considering bishops, 253 priests and 45 deacons.”

Diocese “files were studied, and they reflected the previous reports of allegations,” the chancellor added.

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NIAGARA FALLS (NY)
Niagara Gazette

August 19, 2019

By Philip Gambini

Lawsuits filed in Niagara County reveal the details of abuse suffered by scores of children over the past several decades.

The filings are among the hundreds of court documents that flooded state courts after the opening of the Child Victims Act “look-back window,” which allows survivors to submit civil lawsuits against their abusers that may have lapsed due to the legal statute of limitations.

The majority of the civil legal complaints accuse clergy or employees of the Diocese of Buffalo of sexual and physical abuse. The diocese has named the majority of the accused as having substantiated claims of sexual abuse lodged against them.

More lawsuits are expected to arrive over the next year.

Paul Barr, a local attorney, was among the first in Niagara County to publicly discuss a personal account of abuse by a member of the clergy. Barr said Freeman, who died in 2010, used his position and stature at Sacred Heart parish in the City of Niagara Falls to take advantage of him as a young man.

According to the lawsuit, Freeman served beer to Barr, who was then a minor, while the two were alone in the parish rectory about 1980. The priest told the intoxicated Barr a false story about a medical condition he had encountered as a chaplain at the nearby airbase.

Freeman could examine Barr, but it required Barr to remove his pants and underwear to do so, the priest said, according to Barr. Freeman then backed Barr onto a couch and forcibly fondled Barr’s genitals. When he tried to leave, he found the door dead bolted. Freeman unlocked it and Barr left.

“Barr was scared and confused by Freeman’s conduct,” the lawsuit said. “He felt conflicted and betrayed because these unspeakable acts were being committed by a figure cloaked with spiritual authority and benevolence: the pastor whom Barr had come to trust and admire, and who had claimed that he was simply acting in Barr’s best interest,” the lawsuit said.

Barr refused a $45,000 settlement offer from the diocese Independent Reconciliation and Compensation Program (IRCP), a fund established by the faith-based organization as a compensation mechanism for survivors, earlier this year.

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ST. LOUIS (MO)
Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests

August 19, 2019

Less than a month after being placed on leave, a Cincinnati-area priest has been indicted on nine counts of rape. We hope that today’s charges bring comfort to his victim and encourages others who may have seen, suspected, or suffered his abuse to come forward and make a report to police and prosecutors.

Fr. Geoff Drew, the former head of St. Ignatius Loyola Paris, allegedly abused a young boy while he was employed as the Music Minister at St. Jude School in Cincinnati. Our hearts ache for the victim and we hope that he is finding help as he navigates his healing journey.

While we are glad that Fr. Drew has been indicted, we cannot help but worry that there are other survivors who have yet to come forward. However, we know that the Archdiocese of Cincinnati had been warned about Fr. Drew’s inappropriate behavior for at least six years without taking action to keep him away from children, so we are afraid that there are others who are suffering in silence. We call on Archbishop Dennis Schnurr to personally visit every parish where Fr. Drew worked or attended and beg others who have information to come forward to police and prosecutors now.

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OLEAN (NY)
Times Herald

August 19, 2019

By Danielle Gamble

A lawsuit filed last week brought the number of Cattaraugus County priests accused of sexual abuse to four.

The Rev. Duane G. Fimbel was accused of sexually abusing a child more than 40 years ago while serving as pastor of Sacred Heart Roman Catholic Church in Portville by an anonymous plaintiff in a Child Victims Act lawsuit filed Wednesday.

Fimbel, who died in 2011 at age 80, is accused of sexually abusing a then-14-year-old child from 1976 to 1977. Defendants in the case include the Catholic Diocese of Buffalo and the Basilica of St. Mary of the Angels, as Sacred Heart merged with St. Mary’s in 2007.

The Rev. Patrick Melfi, pastor of the basilica, said he was not aware of the lawsuit until reached by the Times Herald on Friday.

“We certainly are heartbroken by these stories that are coming out and we continue to pray for the victims, and certainly call for healing in these situations,” Melfi said, directing further comment to the diocese.

Olean Times Herald archives show Fimbel became pastor of Sacred Heart on June 27, 1976. It was announced a year and a half later, Dec. 17, 1977, that Fimbel would be transferred to Frewsburg to become pastor of Our Lady of Victory.

According to his obituary published in The Buffalo News, Fimbel was born in Buffalo and served in 10 locations in the Buffalo area in addition to serving at Sacred Heart.

Fimbel was also a graduate of St. Bonaventure University, according to archived articles.

His case was one of more than 250 suits filed last week in New York state by Jeff Anderson & Associates, a Minnesota-based law firm, under the new “lookback” window established under the Child Victims Act, or CVA. The one-year opening gives sex abuse victims a chance to file formerly expired claims in civil court.

Fimbel was one of 14 priests accused by the firm last week as a sex abuser who had not been previously named by the diocese.

Another former Sacred Heart priest accused of abuse was the Rev. Norbert Orsolits, who kicked off Western New York’s priest sexual abuse scandal in 2018 by admitting to The Buffalo News that he sexually abused “probably dozens” of teenage boys during the late 1970s and early 1980s.

Orsolits became pastor in Portville in 1983 after serving as associate pastor at St. Mary of the Angels Church in Olean. He also taught at Archbishop Walsh High School.

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PARIS (FRANCE)
Agence France-Presse

August 19, 2019

The father of one of the victims of jailed Australian Cardinal George Pell said Monday he hoped “justice would prevail” as a court prepared to rule on an appeal against his conviction of child sex abuse crimes.

Pell, the former Vatican number three, is appealing against his conviction on five counts of sexually abusing two 13-year-old choirboys in the 1990s, with a court due to hand down its decision on Wednesday.

The case against the 78-year-old relied solely on the testimony of Pell’s surviving victim, as the other — who never spoke of the abuse — died of a drug overdose in 2014. Neither man can be identified for legal reasons.

Lawyer Lisa Flynn, who represents the dead man’s father, said he was anxious about the judgment, as were victims of child sexual abuse worldwide.

She told AFP they were waiting with “bated breath” ahead of “one of the most significant legal decisions in recent history”.

“He just wants closure so he can try to get on with his life and stop thinking about it every single day,” she said of her client.

“He has expressed that he would like to see justice prevail and George Pell kept behind bars where he cannot prey on more unsuspecting children.”

Pell was convicted in December of sexually abusing the two boys in 1996 and 1997 at St Patrick’s Cathedral shortly after he was appointed Archbishop of Melbourne.

The prosecution called the surviving victim “a witness of truth” and defended the jury verdict as “unimpeachable”.

A three-judge panel deliberating since a two-day appeal hearing in early June can either dismiss the appeal, order a retrial or quash his conviction.

Lawyers for Pell, the most senior Catholic church figure to be convicted of child sex abuse, branded the verdict “a disturbing failure of our jury system”.

They raised 13 objections to his convictions including that it was “physically impossible” for the cleric to have committed the crimes in a crowded cathedral.

If the judges accept these arguments and rule in Pell’s favour, he could walk free immediately.

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ST. LOUIS (MO)
Associated Press

August 18, 2019

The first U.S. Catholic priest to be labeled sexually violent when he was convicted in Illinois has been sentenced to 10 years in prison for abusing two boys in Missouri in the 1990s.

Fred Lenczycki pleaded guilty in May to two counts of sodomy for abuse that occurred at a St. Louis County parish in Bridgeton. Lenczycki is 75.

Lenczycki was removed from the ministry in 2002, when he was charged with abusing three boys in the 1980s in Illinois. He pleaded guilty in 2004 and was sentenced to five years in prison.

In 2008, he was labeled sexually violent under Illinois’ Sexually Violent Persons Commitment Act. Church and court files show that Lenczycki has admitted abusing up to 30 boys in Illinois, Missouri and California over 25 years.

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

Vanishing Predators blog

August 19, 2019

By Daniel Carlson

Growing up, I had the immense good fortune to spend a great deal of time at the home of my grandparents. While each of them influenced me in very powerful and positive ways, it was my grandmother who guided me in the world of the Catholic Church. An unwavering example of faith and devotion, it was she who introduced me to that important part of my life.

Through her, I learned the language and rituals of my religion … prayer … regular confessions … the Rosary … Stations of the Cross … Holy Days of Obligation … and, for those who remember the “old” days … no meat on Friday … no such thing as Saturday Mass … and, of course, if receiving Communion on Sunday, nothing to eat after midnight on Saturday.

Today, though, living the Catholic religion requires much more than simple knowledge of historic liturgical rituals and prayers. Instead, a modern working vocabulary for the faithful has been expanded to include terms like … credibly accused … statute of limitations … laicization …and mandatory reporting. And, of course, if you are a parishioner interested in volunteering in any capacity, make sure you have completed your Safe Environment training.

Clearly, things have changed in the Catholic Church, and the tumult continues. In New York State, for example, the newly enacted Child Victims Act extended the statute of limitations for future acts of child sex abuse, while providing a one-year “look back” window during which charges can be brought regardless of when the abuse occurred. This new legislation, which went into effect on August 14, is expected to result in hundreds of new lawsuits against the Catholic Church and other entities in New York.

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Patheos blog

August 19, 2019

By Mark Shea

They say:

Thank you for getting back to me with this reply. Although I appreciate all of it, two things in it stand out in particular:

While the ChurchMilitant crowd does call out sin in the hierarchy, it fundamentally has a false view that the problem can be fixed by replacing everyone without conservative views or who is gay. So many of those implicated in the abuse crises as enabling abusers, like the Diocese of Lincoln or Cardinal Hoyos, were theologically Orthodox and defenders of the Latin Mass.CM and others in that crowd are, in their own way, covering up the problem by trying to pin everything on one side of the church.

Precisely. Recently, news broke that the Trad priest who happens to be Michael Voris’ priest not only was accused of abuse and removed from his duties but he was co-founder of a group that helped priests accused of abuse under the radar, including priests who had confessed to abuse.
Instead of his customary railing at the evil corrupt Church of Damn Libruls, Voris’ response has been to do nothing but instruct Premium Subscribers that Fr. Perrone categorically denies the charges.

How does Voris Just Know the priest is innocent? Well, he’s a Traditional priest, of course.

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ALBANY ⁠(NY)
Times Union

August 19, 2019

By Rachel Silberstein

A female gym teacher who allegedly groomed and sexually abused a 13-year-old girl at a western New York middle school in the 1970s gained access to the pupil by visiting her home to offer comfort when the girl’s mother died.

A former science teacher at Buffalo Public Schools is accused of harassing, exposing, and molesting a male student approximately five days a week over the course of two years in the 1980s when the teen was 14 and 15. He was placed in the alleged pedophile’s care for study hall, class, tutoring, after-school activities, and summer school, according to court documents.

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SCOTTSDALE (AZ)
National Catholic Reporter

August 16, 2019

By Dan Stockman

Catholic sisters must face the reality that they have also been part of the sexual abuse scandal in the church, said the president of the leadership conference representing most women religious in the United States.

Holy Cross Sr. Sharlet Wagner, the 2018-2019 president of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR), spoke on the issue in her Aug. 15 presidential address at the organization’s annual assembly, which drew nearly 700 women religious and guests to the Aug. 13-16 event.

“We have all been affected by this scandal. We have listened to the trauma of survivors, and we have felt shame for the church we love and outrage over the crimes committed,” Wagner told the assembly. “We have journeyed with our lay sisters and brothers as they have grappled with what it means to continue to be faithful in this moment in our church. And we have heard the stories of women religious, both in the United States and around the world, who have themselves been abused by clergy or other religious.”

But the guilt does not fall on priests and bishops alone, she said.

“It is a source of deep pain for us that in some instances, our own sisters have been perpetrators of the abuse,” she said. “This is a truth we must not attempt to avoid.”

Wagner said sisters must also recognize that abuse has made it difficult for many to see religious leaders as signs of hope.

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BUFFALO (NY)
Buffalo News

August 19, 2019

By Lou Michel and Qina Liu

Buffalo News readers have asked a number of questions since Wednesday, when the Child Victims Act opened a one-year window for filing civil lawsuits over old allegations of childhood sexual abuse.

The questions ranged from why the look-back is only a year long to why steps are not being taken against the Vatican.

To answer the questions, The News gathered information from attorneys representing people who say they were abused, attorneys representing priests accused of molesting children, the Buffalo Catholic Diocese and past stories in The News.

Digital Engagement Editor Qina Liu helped compile questions from readers.

From Tim Finnegan: Is the Catholic diocese performing better screening of new priests and all the old priests to make sure there are not any more child abusers in the Catholic diocese?

Answer: Don Blowey, safe environment coordinator for the Catholic Diocese of Buffalo, said the diocese conducts criminal background checks every six years on all adults, including active priests and deacons, who work with “youth or vulnerable persons” on behalf of the diocese. These checks involve national data sources and checks of where the person lived in the last seven years. Follow-up checks are conducted on a quarterly basis.

Each month, the diocese sends a list of all new employees or volunteers who work with young people and vulnerable adults to New York State’s Sex Offender Registry, according to Blowey. That enables the diocese to determine if the individuals have been designated in any of the three offender classification levels.

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WESTPORT (NY)
North Country Public Radio

August 19, 2019

By Brian Mann

Lawsuits filed last week under the Child Victims Act claim children were targeted by abusers and pedophiles over a period of decades in dozens of communities across the North Country. The Boy Scouts are named in at least one of the suits, but most of the cases target the Roman Catholic Diocese of Ogdensburg.

More than 400 lawsuits were filed statewide last week under the Child Victims Act, after New York temporarily lifted the statute of limitations on sexual violence cases.

At a press conference in Watertown, attorney Taylor Stippel unveiled 14 new lawsuits against the Diocese of Ogdensburg.

Stippel said she and other attorneys are still trying to understand the scope of the sexual violence that happened here.

“Over one third of the list that the diocese has deemed as credibly accused [priests] are still alive,” said Stippel, with the firm Anderson Advocates. “We don’t know where they are. That’s a problem. That’s a public safety hazard.”

North Country Bishop Terry LaValley has officially identified 30 priests who face credible allegations of abuse – the most recent case nearly 20 years old. But Stippel says these lawsuits already name four clergy not on the official list.

“How many more survivors have come to the diocese with reports of what they suffered? How many perpetrators are not on that list?” Stippel said.

Stippel says one case filed last week identifies a priest, Father John Downs, still living and working in semi-retirement in Ogdensburg.

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ROCHESTER (NY)
USA TODAY and Rochester Democrat and Chronicle

August 16, 2019

By Steve Orr, Rochester Democrat and Chronicle

Father Bill O’Malley, an outgoing Jesuit teacher who became a Rochester, New York, celebrity after a star turn in the supernatural film “The Exorcist,” has been accused of sexually abusing one of his students at McQuaid Jesuit High School three decades ago.

The Rev. William J. O’Malley S.J. joined the McQuaid faculty in 1965. By the time he left the Brighton school in the mid-1980s, he was one of the best-known clergy members in town.

He now lives, at age 87, in the Jesuit community at Fordham University in the Bronx. He is widely known not only for his Hollywood stint, but as the author of more than three dozen books and as a lively ambassador for the Jesuit order and Catholic faith.

Until last week, his reputation had been sullied only by his abrupt dismissal in 2012 from Fordham Prep, whose authorities told the New York Post that O’Malley’s old-school teaching style was too “abrasive.”

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UNITED STATES
The Catholic Thing (blog)

August 18, 2019

By Adam A.J. DeVille

Catholics today are caught between two understandable but equally incomplete approaches to the sex-abuse crisis. On the more “liberal” side, Massimo Faggioli has recently rightly written that in an age of profound corruption in the Church, we must resist the temptation of “institutional iconoclasm,” the mentality that leads some people to say “burn the whole thing down.” No serious Catholic can support that.

On the more “conservative” side, Bishop Robert Barron says something similar in Letter to a Suffering Church: A Bishop Speaks on the Sexual Abuse Crisis, which seems incapable of considering any sort of institutional change. This, too, is unworthy of support from Catholics who are truly serious about major and lasting reform.

What is good in both Faggioli and Barron is the awareness, as Faggioli acknowledges, that “we keep institutions because institutions keep us. On the other hand, institutions need change.” But which institutions? What changes? What if those institutions, even dramatically reformed, prove insufficient to our present moment? Surely there is room in the Church today to contemplate the recovery of institutions that were once common but have, often for no good reason, fallen into desuetude?

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OKLAHAMA CITY (OK)
The Oklahoman

August 18, 2019

By Carla Hinton

The “monster” that haunted Nick Yascavage for decades didn’t come creeping out from under his childhood bed.

It wasn’t some faceless stranger that his parents had warned him about.

The Oklahoma City man’s nightmare walked into his parents’ Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, home one afternoon as a revered guest of honor.

The “monster” came wearing a clerical collar and eventually asked his mother and father if 12-year-old Nicky wanted to go with him to get ice cream

This was no troll or bogeyman. The nightmare was real.

It was the new priest in town.

Yascavage, 53, has spent more than 40 years trying to repress the memories of his encounters with the man who started out as his youth pastor only to turn into his abuser.

The U.S. Army veteran and one-time restaurateur told only one person, a spouse, about the experiences that tainted his childhood.

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ARIZONA
Arizona Daily Star via Tucson.com

August 18, 2019

By Renée Schafer Horton

The following column is the opinion and analysis of the writer.

Last August in this space, I wrote about the Pennsylvania grand jury report detailing Catholic clergy abuse against more than 1,000 children. The report, which covered a 70-year period ending in the early 2000s, provided evidence that bishops had hid the abuse over decades and that some recently retired bishops knew about this duplicity.

Nearly 17 years after Catholics had been assured our house was swept clean, we discovered that the system that hid abuse hadn’t actually changed. It was a come-to-Jesus moment for many Catholics and I wrote that the only way to prod the U.S. Catholic Conference of Bishops to get their act together was to hold back donations.

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

UNITED STATES
Irish Central

August 18, 2019

An Irish American bishop defrocked for sexual abuse has been named in several suits on the first day of a ground-breaking new child sex abuse law in New York.

August 15 was the first day of a one-year window which will allow victims of child sexual abuse to file lawsuits, regardless of age, including those victims whose cases had expired under the old statute of limitations. Over 400 lawsuits were filed in the state on the first day, reports the Catholic News Agency.

Sexual abuse victims in New York were previously required to file civil lawsuits by their 23rd birthdays. Under the Child Victims Act, which was approved in January, individuals now have until age 55, and for this first year of the law, they can be any age.

Former archbishop Theodore E. McCarrick, who was defrocked earlier this year for sexual abuse, was named in a number of the suits.

The 89-year-old former cardinal and archbishop of Washington, was expelled from the priesthood in February this year, marking the first time a bishop has ever been defrocked in the history of the church.

McCarrick, who in 1990 was awarded the Ellis Island Hall of Fame membership in honor of his Irish immigrant roots, was defrocked, or laicized, from the Roman Catholic Church after being found guilty of decades of sexual abuse of minors and adult seminarians. According to Susan Gibbe, his former spokeswoman, McCarrick is currently living in a friary in Kansas.

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LEHIGH VALLEY (PA)
The Express-Times

August 18, 2019

One year after an investigating grand jury gave Pennsylvania legislators all the evidence they needed to update laws on child sexual abuse — in fact, Pennsylvania’s groundbreaking work led to reforms in other states, including New Jersey — the response in Harrisburg has been little more than “we’ll get to it.”

Someday.

The grand jury report identified more than 300 priests as sexual predators and thousands of victims. It spawned investigations by other states’ attorneys general and a probe by the U.S. Department of Justice.

Instead of acting to extend the legal redress of survivors who suffered at the hands of Catholic Church clergy throughout the state, as painstakingly detailed by the Pennsylvania grand jury, state Senate Republican leaders have balked at proposals to set up retroactive “windows,” which would allow long-ago victims to file civil claims in court.

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ALLENTOWN (PA)
The Morning Call

August 18, 2019

By Bishop Alfred A. Schlert

The one-year anniversary of the Pennsylvania grand jury report on clergy sexual abuse provides an opportunity for me to report on what the Diocese of Allentown has done, and what we will continue to do, to prevent abuse and to keep children safe.

On this issue, we can never forget the victims, we can never erase the past, and we can never let down our guard.

We have taken many concrete actions during the past year, in addition to the robust prevention and safety programs we already have in place. My first priority is keeping our children safe.

The grand jury acknowledged in its report that much had changed for the better in the Catholic Church in the previous 15 years. Here’s a look at what we have done in the Diocese of Allentown over the past 12 months:

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

ALLENTOWN (PA)
The Morning Call

August 18, 2019

By Bishop Alfred A. Schlert

The one-year anniversary of the Pennsylvania grand jury report on clergy sexual abuse provides an opportunity for me to report on what the Diocese of Allentown has done, and what we will continue to do, to prevent abuse and to keep children safe.

On this issue, we can never forget the victims, we can never erase the past, and we can never let down our guard.

We have taken many concrete actions during the past year, in addition to the robust prevention and safety programs we already have in place. My first priority is keeping our children safe.

The grand jury acknowledged in its report that much had changed for the better in the Catholic Church in the previous 15 years. Here’s a look at what we have done in the Diocese of Allentown over the past 12 months:

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

CLAYTON (MO)
Associated Press via KSDK-TV (Channel 5)

August 18, 2019

Fred Lenczycki pleaded guilty in May to two counts of sodomy for abuse that occurred at a St. Louis County parish in Bridgeton.

The first U.S. Catholic priest to be labeled sexually violent when he was convicted in Illinois has been sentenced to 10 years in prison for abusing two boys in Missouri in the 1990s.

Fred Lenczycki pleaded guilty in May to two counts of sodomy for abuse that occurred at a St. Louis County parish in Bridgeton. Lenczycki is 75.

Lenczycki was removed from the ministry in 2002, when he was charged with abusing three boys in the 1980s in Illinois. He pleaded guilty in 2004 and was sentenced to five years in prison.

In 2008, he was labeled sexually violent under Illinois’ Sexually Violent Persons Commitment Act. Church and court files show that Lenczycki has admitted abusing up to 30 boys in Illinois, Missouri and California over 25 years.

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

CLAYTON (MO)
Associated Press via KSDK-TV (Channel 5)

August 18, 2019

Fred Lenczycki pleaded guilty in May to two counts of sodomy for abuse that occurred at a St. Louis County parish in Bridgeton.

The first U.S. Catholic priest to be labeled sexually violent when he was convicted in Illinois has been sentenced to 10 years in prison for abusing two boys in Missouri in the 1990s.

Fred Lenczycki pleaded guilty in May to two counts of sodomy for abuse that occurred at a St. Louis County parish in Bridgeton. Lenczycki is 75.

Lenczycki was removed from the ministry in 2002, when he was charged with abusing three boys in the 1980s in Illinois. He pleaded guilty in 2004 and was sentenced to five years in prison.

In 2008, he was labeled sexually violent under Illinois’ Sexually Violent Persons Commitment Act. Church and court files show that Lenczycki has admitted abusing up to 30 boys in Illinois, Missouri and California over 25 years.

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

SAN DIEGO (CA)
Catholic News Service via Crux

August 18, 2019

By Aida Bustos

Bishop Robert W. McElroy of San Diego gathered all 2,500-plus diocesan employees for the first time in its history to announce an expansion of the fight against the sexual abuse of children not just within the local church but in the greater society.

U.S. Church reforms adopted in the early 2000s have contributed to a dramatic decline in cases of child abuse by clergy. The San Diego Diocese has not had a confirmed incident of sexual abuse of a minor by any of its priests in the past 20 years, records show.

But much more remains to be done to confront abuse, McElroy told the employees at the Aug. 13 meeting at the University of San Diego.

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SAN DIEGO (CA)
Catholic News Service via Crux

August 18, 2019

By Aida Bustos

Bishop Robert W. McElroy of San Diego gathered all 2,500-plus diocesan employees for the first time in its history to announce an expansion of the fight against the sexual abuse of children not just within the local church but in the greater society.

U.S. Church reforms adopted in the early 2000s have contributed to a dramatic decline in cases of child abuse by clergy. The San Diego Diocese has not had a confirmed incident of sexual abuse of a minor by any of its priests in the past 20 years, records show.

But much more remains to be done to confront abuse, McElroy told the employees at the Aug. 13 meeting at the University of San Diego.

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

CHARLESTON (SC)
WCIV-TV (ABC affiliate)

August 18, 2019

The bishop of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Charleston will be staying out of the public eye as a sexual abuse lawsuit is ongoing.

ABC News 4 has learned that Bishop Robert Guglielmone said in a letter to Diocese of Charleston churches that he will step back from public appearances until the lawsuit is settled.

More: Lawsuit accuses Charleston Catholic bishop of sex abuse in 1970s

In a letter to @DioceseChas churches, Bishop Robert Guglielmone says he’ll step back from public appearances until a lawsuit against him is settled. He’s accused of sexual abuse of a minor in NY. The bishop denies wrongdoing. @FOX24Charleston #chsnews

The lawsuit alleges that Guglielmone sexually abused a minor in the late 70s while he was a priest at St. Martin of Tours Catholic Church in Amityville, New York, according to the diocese.

He has denied what he calls “baseless” allegations, and is cooperating with an investigation requested by the Vatican, according to Charleston Diocese spokesperson Maria Aselage.

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

CHARLESTON (SC)
WCIV-TV (ABC affiliate)

August 18, 2019

The bishop of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Charleston will be staying out of the public eye as a sexual abuse lawsuit is ongoing.

ABC News 4 has learned that Bishop Robert Guglielmone said in a letter to Diocese of Charleston churches that he will step back from public appearances until the lawsuit is settled.

More: Lawsuit accuses Charleston Catholic bishop of sex abuse in 1970s

In a letter to @DioceseChas churches, Bishop Robert Guglielmone says he’ll step back from public appearances until a lawsuit against him is settled. He’s accused of sexual abuse of a minor in NY. The bishop denies wrongdoing. @FOX24Charleston #chsnews

The lawsuit alleges that Guglielmone sexually abused a minor in the late 70s while he was a priest at St. Martin of Tours Catholic Church in Amityville, New York, according to the diocese.

He has denied what he calls “baseless” allegations, and is cooperating with an investigation requested by the Vatican, according to Charleston Diocese spokesperson Maria Aselage.

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

ALBANY (NY)
Catholic News Service via Crux

August 17, 2019

Retired Bishop Howard J. Hubbard of Albany said in a statement Aug. 16 he “never sexually abused anyone” and is taking a voluntary leave of absence from the Diocese of Albany to deal with the allegations.

The Evangelist, Albany’s diocesan newspaper, reported that a lawsuit filed Aug. 14 accuses Hubbard of sexually assaulting a 16-year-old in the late 1990s. The suit was filed the day New York state’s Child Victims Act went into effect.

The new law opens a yearlong “window” in the statute of limitations, allowing suits to be filed by victims alleging abuse by priests, church workers and employees of public schools, hospitals and other institutions no matter how long ago the alleged abuse occurred.

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

ALBANY (NY)
Catholic News Service via Crux

August 17, 2019

Retired Bishop Howard J. Hubbard of Albany said in a statement Aug. 16 he “never sexually abused anyone” and is taking a voluntary leave of absence from the Diocese of Albany to deal with the allegations.

The Evangelist, Albany’s diocesan newspaper, reported that a lawsuit filed Aug. 14 accuses Hubbard of sexually assaulting a 16-year-old in the late 1990s. The suit was filed the day New York state’s Child Victims Act went into effect.

The new law opens a yearlong “window” in the statute of limitations, allowing suits to be filed by victims alleging abuse by priests, church workers and employees of public schools, hospitals and other institutions no matter how long ago the alleged abuse occurred.

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

ALBANY (NY)
Albany Times-Union

August 17, 2019

By Brendan J. Lyons

It could take years, and protracted legal battles, for victims of rape and sexual abuse to receive any compensation from the hundreds of lawsuits they began filing across the state last week against their alleged childhood predators or the organizations that employed them.

The lawsuits were among the first round of what are expected to be thousands of claims that will be filed in the coming year, after New York lifted its civil statute of limitations on sexual crimes and opened a one-year window for victims to sue those responsible.

The one-year period was enabled by the Child Victims Act, which was signed into law by Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo in February. Its ratification suddenly became a reality last November — after more than a decade of political gridlock in the state Legislature — when Democrats who long supported the measure seized control of the Senate chamber from Republicans.

That political shift also provided a months-long warning to abusers and the institutions that harbored them that the Democratic-controlled state Legislature may pass the measure, lowering a shield that had long protected the abusers from being sued for allegations dating back decades.

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

ALBANY (NY)
Albany Times-Union

August 17, 2019

By Brendan J. Lyons

It could take years, and protracted legal battles, for victims of rape and sexual abuse to receive any compensation from the hundreds of lawsuits they began filing across the state last week against their alleged childhood predators or the organizations that employed them.

The lawsuits were among the first round of what are expected to be thousands of claims that will be filed in the coming year, after New York lifted its civil statute of limitations on sexual crimes and opened a one-year window for victims to sue those responsible.

The one-year period was enabled by the Child Victims Act, which was signed into law by Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo in February. Its ratification suddenly became a reality last November — after more than a decade of political gridlock in the state Legislature — when Democrats who long supported the measure seized control of the Senate chamber from Republicans.

That political shift also provided a months-long warning to abusers and the institutions that harbored them that the Democratic-controlled state Legislature may pass the measure, lowering a shield that had long protected the abusers from being sued for allegations dating back decades.

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

VICTORIA (AUSTRALIA)
1 News, TVNZ, New Zealand

August 18, 2019

Victoria’s premier says the culture of covering up child sexual abuse must end after Melbourne’s most senior Catholic said he’d rather go to jail than reveal if someone confessed to him.

Archbishop Peter Comensoli also said priests who hear confessions have a similar privileged relationship to journalists and their sources, or lawyers and their clients.

Victoria is introducing new laws making it mandatory for religious leaders to report allegations of child abuse, including if they’re made during confession.

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

VICTORIA (AUSTRALIA)
1 News, TVNZ, New Zealand

August 18, 2019

Victoria’s premier says the culture of covering up child sexual abuse must end after Melbourne’s most senior Catholic said he’d rather go to jail than reveal if someone confessed to him.

Archbishop Peter Comensoli also said priests who hear confessions have a similar privileged relationship to journalists and their sources, or lawyers and their clients.

Victoria is introducing new laws making it mandatory for religious leaders to report allegations of child abuse, including if they’re made during confession.

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

AUSTRALIA
The Australian

August 18, 2019

By Rachel Baxendale

Child sex abuse survivor Richard Jabara was among 52 Catholic Church abuse survivors who lit up the In Good Faith Foundation’s switchboard with phone calls expressing their disgust earlier this month, after The Australian reported the Melbourne Archbishop Peter Comensoli had bought himself a country retreat with an indoor pool as the Church sacks dozens of people as part of his reform agenda.

The charity, which provides case management, advocacy and support services to those affected by institutional sexual abuse, received another flood of calls last week when Archbishop Comensoli told ABC radio he would sooner go to jail than comply with the Andrews government’s proposed law compelling priests to report evidence of abuse revealed in the confessional.

Archbishop Comensoli meanwhile maintains that he does not believe mandatory reporting of abuse and preservation of the sanctity of confession are mutually exclusive, and that he was “deeply hurt” by the reaction to his private purchase of the country property with money left to him by his parents.

Mr Jabara, who was raped as a 13-year-old by Catholic priest and serial child abuse Terrence Pidoto, said he was deeply disappointed in Archbishop Comensoli, who commenced his role just over a year ago.

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

AUSTRALIA
The Australian

August 18, 2019

By Rachel Baxendale

Child sex abuse survivor Richard Jabara was among 52 Catholic Church abuse survivors who lit up the In Good Faith Foundation’s switchboard with phone calls expressing their disgust earlier this month, after The Australian reported the Melbourne Archbishop Peter Comensoli had bought himself a country retreat with an indoor pool as the Church sacks dozens of people as part of his reform agenda.

The charity, which provides case management, advocacy and support services to those affected by institutional sexual abuse, received another flood of calls last week when Archbishop Comensoli told ABC radio he would sooner go to jail than comply with the Andrews government’s proposed law compelling priests to report evidence of abuse revealed in the confessional.

Archbishop Comensoli meanwhile maintains that he does not believe mandatory reporting of abuse and preservation of the sanctity of confession are mutually exclusive, and that he was “deeply hurt” by the reaction to his private purchase of the country property with money left to him by his parents.

Mr Jabara, who was raped as a 13-year-old by Catholic priest and serial child abuse Terrence Pidoto, said he was deeply disappointed in Archbishop Comensoli, who commenced his role just over a year ago.

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