FRESNO (CA)
Fresno Bee

March 5, 2019

By Yesenia Amaro

Rev. Joseph V. Brennan will take the reins of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Fresno in May amid a large-scale sex abuse scandal in the Catholic church and an ongoing investigation in the diocese.

Brennan will succeed Bishop Armando Ochoa, who has served in that position for seven years. Brennan will be the sixth bishop of the diocese when he takes over the day-to-day leadership duties May 2.

The diocese made an official announcement Tuesday during a news conference.

Ochoa said he turned 75 last April — retirement age for Catholic leaders — and submitted his resignation letter to Rome, as advised under the Code of Canon Law.

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SANTIAGO (CHILE)
Associated Press

March 5, 2019

By Eva Vergara

Chile’s Roman Catholic church, already the target of Vatican sanctions, was being shaken Tuesday by yet another allegation of priestly abuse and high-level cover-up.

Daniel Rojas Alvarez, a 43-year-old indigent man, appeared on a state television broadcast Monday night saying that a priest at the Santiago Cathedral had drugged and raped him in 2015. He said Cardinal Ricardo Ezzati had given him money when told of the attack and told him not to report it.

“The case is terrible, unacceptable,” said Fernando Ramos, secretary-general of the Chilean bishop’s conference, at a news conference Tuesday ahead of his trip to the Vatican for a worldwide meeting of bishops on preventing sexual abuse.

The Santiago archbishop acknowledged in a statement that it had received a complaint against the priest, Rigoberto Rivera, in the summer of 2015 and said he had been forbidden to celebrate public Mass since last year. His attorney, Sandra Pinto, denied the allegations.

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MINNEAPOLIS (MN)
Star Tribune

March 5, 2019

By Mary Lynn Smith

As a Catholic priest, Thomas Adamson won the trust of the boys he coached and others he came to know in the parishes he served from southern Minnesota to the Twin Cities.

But by the time he was ousted from the ministry after more than 25 years, he admitted to molesting 10 boys and was accused of sexually abusing dozens more.

It was the cases against Adamson that soon exposed a sex abuse scandal involving hundreds of priests, even more victims and a coverup by the church.

Removed from ministry in 1985 and the priesthood in 2009, he lived out his final days in Rochester. He died last week at age 85.

“Even though he has passed, there’s a legacy of pain and sorrow,” said Twin Cities attorney Jeff Anderson.

Anderson began to uncover the sex abuse scandal when he filed suit on behalf of one of Adamson’s victims, “John Doe 1,” in 1983.

His parents came to Anderson in 1982 after learning their son had been raped by Adamson years before. They went to the archdiocese but were ignored, Anderson said. The parents were bewildered and heartbroken.

After Anderson filed suit against the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis, other suits followed.

“I pulled on the string and the scandal and coverup unraveled,” he said Tuesday. “It was the beginning of a revelation of the peril that priests posed that Adamson was emblematic of — and of the practice employed by the bishops in concealing it.”

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ROCHESTER (NY)
Democrat and Chronicle

March 5, 2019

By Julie Philipp and Virginia Butler

As the Lenten season begins, Catholics are being called to reflect upon their faith at a time of horrific scandal and growing concern about the future of the church. Those observing Lent are required to make personal sacrifices, even as they gain greater understanding of the church’s own astounding hypocrisy. They are devoting themselves to prayer amid a growing chorus of pain from people victimized by church leaders.

With all of this turmoil, how does it feel like to be Catholic today?

I recently sat down with four area parishioners who remain very committed to their faith:

Ben Anderson is a software engineer who lives in Fairport, where he and his wife are raising their six children “in a Catholic environment where they live and breathe Catholicism.”
Steve Barnhoorn is from Honeoye. His Catholic roots originate in Holland, where his father’s family held on to their beliefs despite near starvation during a famine at the end of World War II.
Judy Dickinson of Irondequoit and her husband were born into the church and have spent years studying its teachings. “My whole family are Catholics, both sides of the families. Most of my friends are Catholic,” she says.
Marcia Mendola grew up going to St. Michael’s on N. Clinton Ave, but has attended St. Louis Church in her hometown of Pittsford for the past five decades. “You hear that ‘you are what you eat,'” she says of the Eucharist. “Well, I happen to eat Jesus himself so he becomes part of me, and frees me to do his work.”
With the camera rolling, they talked about being devoted Catholics and how they view the Church during these turbulent times.

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WASHINGTON (DC)
Washington Post

March 5, 2019

By Marc Thiessen

On Ash Wednesday, the holy season of Lent begins — and so do the annual fundraising drives by many of the nation’s Catholic bishops known as the bishops’ Lenten appeals.

My advice to my fellow Catholics? Don’t give them a dime.

Last fall, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops was supposed to vote on a resolution to create a special commission, including six lay members, to investigate bishops who cover up sexual abuse. At the last minute, Pope Francis barred the bishops from holding the vote. But it’s not clear the resolution would have passed. After all, the bishops did vote on a nonbinding resolution that declared, “Be it resolved that the bishops of the USCCB encourage the Holy Father to release all the documentation that can be released consistent with canon and civil law regarding the misconduct of Archbishop [Theodore] McCarrick.” As they debated the wording, the National Catholic Register reports, “they could not even agree on the inclusion of the word ‘soon.’”

Even the watered-down resolution was rejected 137 to 83, with three bishops abstaining. Want to know how your bishop voted? You can’t. When I asked the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops for the roll call vote, a spokesman replied, “Sorry, the votes are anonymous so we don’t know who voted for what.” That’s their idea of transparency.

The situation in Rome is no better. This year, Francis reportedly informed Boston Cardinal Sean O’Malley that he would not authorize a full-fledged investigation into the McCarrick coverup. In 2015, O’Malley and a special Vatican advisory group Francis appointed him to lead made a simple recommendation: If any Vatican office receives a letter from an abuse survivor, it must acknowledge the letter. The pope approved the recommendation, but Cardinal Gerhard Muller, prefect of the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, has refused to comply — with no consequences from the pope.

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MULLUMBIMBY (AUSTRALIA)
Echo Net Daily

March 5, 2019

I was raised a Catholic. I grew up going to church at least once a week. During my early years the Catholic community were an integral part of my life. My mother was widowed at just 27 and the church stepped in with a significant pastoral role in our lives. A nun who taught me as a little girl gave me a letter to tell me that of all the children she had known I was the one that she thought of most often. It was actually very beautiful loving letter written by a childless woman who had felt a strong maternal love for me. I wish I still had it.

When I was selected to play basketball for Queensland, it was the Catholic ladies who baked lamingtons and raised money so I could go to the national championships in Perth. We were poor, and without their kindness I would never have been able to go. On school holidays I would spend two weeks each year volunteering in the kitchen of the Catholic summer school where I’d peel potatoes and make tapioca pudding for the 100 or more kids who went to state schools and were interned to get their sacraments.

When I was eight I wanted to be a nun. Partly because of my faith, and partly because I wanted to be like Sally Field in the Flying Nun, meet a Greek millionaire and be able to fly. I read the Bible. I prayed regularly to my glow in the dark Jesus. Priests were regular visitors to our family home. I trusted them. With no father figure in my life, they were often the closest thing I had to contact with an adult man.

When I was 16, a priest came to our parish for a short stay, and he quickly made himself known to my mother. It was only a matter of weeks before he became a regular at our house. I was 16, my mother was 36. He would have been in his early thirties. He was charming and worldly and incredibly charismatic. He told me that in a few months when I finished school and moved to Brisbane to go to university that I should get in contact and he would show me around, as I would be a country girl on her own in the ‘big city’ with no friends.

So I did. It was nice, because being in the city was incredibly lonely at first, and the priest showed me warmth and connection. We had fun together. He took me to galleries, to restaurants, and eventually he took me to an apartment at the Gold Coast and seduced me. I had just turned 17. I was a year younger than my son, who is in year 12, is now. When I think about what happened and how young I was the adult in me is appalled.

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CHARLOTTE (NC)
WSOC TV

March 5, 2019

By Dave Faherty

There are new calls for the Charlotte Diocese to release a list of local priests who were accused of sexual abuse with children.

On Tuesday, a man filed a police report in Boone claiming two priests abused him as a teenager in the early 1990s.

Channel 9 was there as Doug Dickerson walked into police headquarters to talk with investigators about three separate allegations of sexual assaults involving two priests at St. Elizabeth of the Hill Country Catholic Church.

“He was showing me what an altar boy would be, what my responsibilities would be doing and the first assault happened on the property of St. Elizabeth’s behind the altar,” Dickerson said.

Dickerson said that assault involved Father Cornell Bradley, a Jesuit priest, who came to North Carolina in the late 1980s after working primarily in Washington, D.C. and Maryland.

In December, the Maryland Province of Jesuits included Bradley on a list of priests who have “a credible or established offense against a minor.”

“At 13 I attempted suicide after the assault with Bradley by jumping off the side of the church, and since that point forward, it’s been a revolving door in and out of psychiatric institutions trying to get treatment and discussing the assaults that took place,” Dickerson said.

The Diocese of Charlotte said it was unaware of allegations involving Bradley during his time in North Carolina.

Dickerson said he was assaulted two more times by a second priest from Boone on a trip to Carowinds and near the Catholic Campus Ministry.

The Diocese of Charlotte confirmed to Channel 9 that priest, Father Damian Lynch, was later removed from his “priestly ministry” during the 1990s after the Diocese learned of a separate allegation. Officials told us Tuesday they believe the allegations of abuse made against Lynch at the time were credible.

“The Bishop here has repeatedly expressed profound sorrow over the incident of child sexual abuse. If that’s the case here, the first thing the most important thing we can say is we’re sorry,” David Hains with the Charlotte Diocese said.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
CBS 3 Philly

March 5, 2019

A Philadelphia pastor has been arrested in connection to an allegation of rape and sexual abuse of a minor. Philadelphia police arrested 49-year-old Armand Garcia on Monday morning.

Garcia, who is a pastor at Saint Martin of Tours Parish in Philadelphia, was placed on administrative leave last March while police investigated a report of alleged misconduct with a minor, according to a spokesman for the Archdiocese of Philadelphia.

According to the archdiocese, at the time of the allegation, Garcia had a clean criminal background and passed child abuse clearances.

The alleged crimes happened from 2014 to 2017.

Garcia has been charged with rape, sexual abuse, and corruption of minors.

Garcia was ordained in 2005. He served at the following parishes, schools, and offices: Saint Joseph, Downington (2005-2008); Saint Eleanor, Collegeville (2008-2009); Saint Katherine of Siena, Philadelphia (2009-2010); personal leave (2010-2011); Our Lady of the Assumption, Strafford (2011); Immaculate Heart of Mary, Philadelphia (2011-2017); and Saint Martin of Tours, Philadelphia (2017-2018).

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MEMPHIS (TN)
Commercial Appeal

March 5, 2019

By Katherine Burgess

Pope Francis has appointed Bishop David P. Talley of Alexandria, Louisiana, the new bishop of the Catholic Diocese of Memphis, according to an announcement from the Vatican.

Talley’s appointment follows the removal of Bishop Martin Holley in October. Since then, Archbishop Joseph Kurtz of Louisville has been apostolic administrator for Memphis.

Here’s what people are saying about Talley, who was ordained a priest of the Archdiocese of Atlanta in 1989 and became bishop of Alexandria in 2017.

Archbishop Joseph Kurtz of Louisville, apostolic administrator for Memphis:

“(Talley) has served well as a diocesan bishop of Alexandria in Louisiana and as a canon lawyer,” Kurtz said in a written statement Tuesday. “Most importantly, he brings the heart of a pastor and a sterling reputation as a good shepherd devoted to Jesus Christ and His Church, deeply concerned for those he serves, humble, and wise.

“I’m glad that Bishop David accepted to come, because he brings a lot of good qualities and talents with him that he has,” Steib said. “In particular, he’s very pastoral, very listening and knows how to work with people. I think that’s going to be his best feature.”

The Diocese of Alexandria, Louisiana

“In all things Bishop Talley fostered a spirit of unity and hope in planning for the future of the diocese while building on its long history,” according to a statement from Talley’s curent diocese. “As a diocese we wish him well in his new appointment as we give heartfelt thanks to God for his time and work among us here in Central Louisiana.”

SNAP (Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests) of Tennessee:

SNAP of Tennessee issued a statement Tuesday saying they are “encouraged” that Talley has been a caseworker for abused and neglected children, but are “also cautious,” particularly since Talley’s diocese of Alexandria, Louisiana, did not attach work histories to a list of clergy accused of abuse.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC Ballarat

March 4, 2019

By Charlotte King

Days after he led a prayer for Cardinal George Pell from inside the city’s prison, an Ararat cleric has delivered a stirring homily calling for urgent reform in the Catholic Church.

Ararat’s Father Andrew Hayes told a congregation of about 50 parishioners: “This weekend, as we begin our mass, our Cardinal is in jail”.

“I am so sorry for what the church has done to you … the lifetimes of torment and loss of life,” he said.

“Thank you for coming to mass today, it would have been reasonable to stay home — I am also ashamed, and embarrassed.”

Cardinal George Pell, Australia’s most senior Catholic cleric, was last year convicted of sexually abusing two choirboys in 1996. He will be sentenced on March 13. An appeal against the conviction has been lodged.

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WASHINGTON (DC)
The Atlantic

March 4, 2019

By David I. Kertzer

After decades of controversy, Pope Francis has announced that he will open the records of Pius XII’s papacy to researchers—along with other restricted Church holdings.

On Monday, 80 years after Pius XII’s election to the papacy, Pope Francis announced that the archives of the controversial wartime pontiff would be opened to scholars next March. The decision follows more than half a century of pressure. Pius XII—a hero of Catholic conservatives, who eagerly await his canonization as a saint, while denounced by his detractors for failing to condemn the Nazis’ genocidal campaign against Europe’s Jews—might well be the most controversial pope in Church history.

Less noticed in initial accounts of the announcement is the fact that Francis’s opening of the Pius XII archives makes available not only the 17 million pages of documents in the central Vatican archives, but many other materials in other Church archives. Not least of these are the archives of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (formerly known as the Holy Office of the Inquisition) and the central archives of the Jesuit order. They, too, are likely to have much that is new to tell us.

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COLUMBUS (OH)
The Columbus Dispatch

March 4, 2019

By Danae King

Several local survivors and victims advocates are calling a “token measure” the Roman Catholic Diocese of Columbus’ release Friday of a list of 34 clergy members who have been “credibly accused” of sexually abusing minors, saying it was “too little, too late.”

“It makes me angry,” Ken Wilcox said Monday.

The 55-year-old Olde Towne East resident says he was molested by the late Monsignor Thomas Bennett as a teenager at St. Charles Preparatory School in Bexley in the early 1980s.

“What I see is what’s missing,” he said of the list. “It’s monumentally maddening for a survivor.”

The most-recent abuse case on the list occurred more than 25 years ago, according to the diocese.

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AUSTRALIA
Australian Broadcasting Corporation

February 27, 2019

[Video Length: 1:59]

ABC radio presenter Jon Faine says the overwhelming response on talkback radio to George Pell’s conviction has been one of disgust. He also cast doubt on Cardinal Pell’s chances of a successful appeal, saying the Catholic Church had already spent significant resources on the case.

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LOS ANGELES (CA)
USA TODAY Opinion

March 4, 2019

By Elisabeth Treadway

I spent only 10 minutes with George Tyndall during my sophomore year in 1999 — an accused sexual predator employed by the University of Southern California as the sole gynecologist at the student health center. That short, seemingly insignificant amount of time would prove detrimental to my self-esteem and self-worth for the next 20 years of my life.

But those 10 minutes will not ruin the next two decades of my life.

No amount of money will ever change our past or heal our pain, but the settlement USC has agreed to is an important step in holding the university accountable. By finally acknowledging the hundreds of survivors, this settlement has allowed me to find purpose in my pain — to promote healing and to prevent this from ever happening again.

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AUSTRALIA
Australian Broadcasting Corporation

March 4, 2019

By Natasha Johnson

As an award-winning journalist on Australia’s premier current affairs program, Louise Milligan is used to tackling difficult stories and upsetting people in power, but her three-year investigation into allegations of child sexual abuse against George Pell, the country’s most senior Catholic, was daunting.

“Without a doubt this is the toughest story I have ever done,” Milligan said.

“This is a person who had immense political and cultural power so taking that on is enormous and very, very stressful.

“Being at the centre of this storm, it doesn’t get any harder than that as a journalist.

“Having said that, it pales into comparison with what this ordeal has been like for the people who made complaints about George Pell, and their families.”

On Four Corners, Milligan secured exclusive interviews with the family of a choirboy, (who died of a heroin overdose), that Pell has been convicted of abusing on one occasion at St Patrick’s Cathedral in 1996.

Pell has denied the offence took place and is appealing his conviction.

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NEW JERSEY
North Jersey Record

March 1, 2019

By Mike Kelly

When she talks about the Catholic Church, you can hear the sound of Phyllis Hanratty’s breaking heart.

Hanratty’s son, Edward Jr., said he was abused by a Catholic priest for several years in the late 1980s when the family lived in Ridgefield Park and were loyal members of St. Francis of Assisi parish.

Edward Jr., now 42 and living in West Milford with his wife, kept his secret to himself until last summer. And when he finally told his parents — and the world, in an NBC news interview — Phyllis felt her faith crumble.

“My church lied to me,” she said in a recent interview at the apartment in Lyndhurst that she shares with her husband. “I’ve been robbed of my faith in the Catholic Church.”

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VATICAN CITY
The Associated Press

March 4, 2019

By Frances D’Emilio

Declaring that the church “isn’t afraid of history,” Pope Francis said Monday he has decided to open up the Vatican archives on World War II-era Pope Pius XII, who has been criticized by Jews of staying silent on the Holocaust and not doing enough to save lives.

Describing that criticism as fruit of “some prejudice or exaggeration,” Francis told officials and personnel of the Vatican Secret Archives that the documentation would be open to researchers starting March 2, 2020.

The move could speed up Pius’ path to possible sainthood, a complex process that in Pius’ case bore the weight of questions of what he knew and did about Nazi Germany’s systematic killing of Europe’s Jews.

Pius was elected pope on March 2, 1939, six months before World War II erupted in Europe. He died on Oct. 9, 1958, at the Vatican summer residence at Castel Gandolfo, near Rome.

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LITTLE ROCK (AR)
Arkansas On Line

March 4, 2019

Was the Vatican’s just-completed summit on child sex abuse, convened by Pope Francis amid a crisis of credibility that has crippled the Catholic Church’s moral authority, really intended simply to pre- pare the way for genuine reforms in the indefinite future?

Victims’ groups had hoped for much more, as had many of the faithful in the United States and elsewhere. They were heartened, briefly, when the pope opened the unprecedented four-day conference by demanding what he called “concrete” measures to deliver something real that would uproot the scourge of clerical sex abuse and hierarchical coverup.

In the end, those concrete mea- sures were a chimera—widely debated, held up to intense canonical scrutiny, but ultimately put off to some future date. The contrast with the pope’s own more disappointing.

A meaningful and, yes, concrete agenda for the U.S. bishops would start with taking up measures they were on the verge of adopting last November when the Holy See intervened to stop them. That would include establishing

a code of conduct for bishops, who have been instrumental in covering up the church’s crimes, as well as a commis- sion of lay Catholics to review allegations of misconduct by bishops. In addition, it would mean reversing the church’s steadfast opposition to chang-

es in state laws that prohibit survivors of pedophile priests from filing lawsuits years after the abuse took place. More- over, it would mean a shift in rheto- ric that would recognize not only the church’s obligation to root out abuse but also its unique history as a safe haven for abusers

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PRATO (ITALY)
ANSA

March 5, 2019

An Italian paedophile priest got a jail term of four years and four months in Prato on Tuesday.

Father Paolo Glaentzer was convicted of sexually abusing a 10-year-old girl.

The court also ordered damages of 50,000 euros for the girl.

Her parents were refused damages.

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NEW YORK (NY)
America Magazine

March 5, 2019

By Michael J. O’Loughlin

A group of nearly 200 Catholic leaders including cardinals, lay experts and philanthropists, who met in Washington last month to discuss the church’s ongoing sexual abuse crisis, released a report with dozens of recommendations just days after a global summit of bishops in Rome concluded their gathering about the same topic.

Kim Smolik, the head of the church reform group Leadership Roundtable, said in a March 1 statement that the recommendations “demonstrate how the church can create a new culture of leadership, as well as a new culture of how to respond to abuse.” The report, which included ideas for bishops and laypeople, called for “Catholic leaders to take swift and bold action.” When it comes to the role of the laity, the report’s authors said women, theologians and philanthropists must be utilized more by church leaders in order to create cultural change.

The Leadership Roundtable’s suggestions include developing a “code of conduct” for bishops and other ministers that “recognize[s] abuse of power not only against children, but also adults.” The report includes a call for greater transparency in a number of areas, including church finance—especially when it comes to donations and sexual abuse settlements—and in the process for selecting bishops. It suggests including laity in that process, empowering laypeople to assess how a potential bishop has handled allegations of abuse by priests.

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AUSTRALIA
Australian Broadcasting Corporation

March 4, 2019

By Louise Milligan

The family of one of the boys sexually abused by George Pell have revealed their sadness and anger at watching their son’s life spiral out of control in the wake of his abuse.

The boy was one of two 13-year-old choirboys molested by Pell in the priests’ sacristy at St Patrick’s Cathedral in 1996.

His father has told Four Corners how they watched their son change from a cheerful young kid — with no idea why.

“He went from being this lovely boy, who used to come to the football with me, who used to go and help his grandparents and helped around the house, to this boy wanting to go out all the time,” he said.

“His schoolwork, I noticed that it started slipping. His whole attitude changed. His whole being just, he was a different boy.”

Andrew La Greca was a member of the choir at the time the boys were abused and he also noticed the change in one of the victims.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
The Hawk

March 5, 2019

By Megan Piasecki

The world of Catholicism was turned on its head when Cardinal George Pell was convicted of sexual abuse against minors this past week and was refused bail.

This is just the latest account in the string of abuse charges against Catholic Church officials. Pell’s case is particularly jarring being that he is the highest ranked figure within the Church to be charged for sex abuse crimes towards minors.

Although the topic of abuse is deeply saddening, I think that it is incredibly important to see these men brought to justice and their victims speak out about the heinous crimes committed against them.

And Catholicism has taken a huge blow from these scandals.

As a devout Catholic, I do not believe every priest is a pedophile, however this stereotype does force me to look at the bigger issue at hand; this abuse has gone on for too long.

Although the issue is deeply rooted, we can work to combat the problem. A few ways to do so can be through supporting the victims so they can share their stories, as well as better vetting of our priests to prevent abuse like this from happening again.

The fact that it has taken this long for Church officials to be held accountable for their actions is despicable.

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NEW YORK (NY)
Rockland/Westchester Journal News

March 5, 2019

By Frank Esposito

A Westchester Country grand jury today indicted the Rev. Thomas Kreiser, a former Bronxville priest, on charges of sex abuse and endangering the welfare of a child.

Kreiser was accused of inappropriately touching a young girl while.serving at St. Joseph’s parish.

He’s charged with three counts of first-degree sexual abuse, a felony, and three counts of endangering the welfare of a child, a misdemeanor.

Bruce Bendish, Kreiser’s attorney, entered a not guilty plea on Kreiser’s behalf.

Kreiser previously worked at St. Patrick’s Church in Yorktown and St. Gregory Barbarigo Church in Garnerville, where he ran into legal troubles.

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

March 5, 2019

Victims blast Mississippi bishop
“He should disclose accused priests’ names,” they say
SNAP: “And he should include their photos & whereabouts”
Group ‘outs’ two alleged abusive clerics; one lives here now

WHAT
Holding signs and childhood photos at a sidewalk news conference, clergy sex abuse victims and their supporters will disclose the names of two publicly accused priests who are or were in the Jackson diocese but have largely been ‘under the radar.’

They will also prod Jackson Catholic officials to
–reveal the names of ALL priests who have proven, admitted or ‘credible’ allegations of child sexual abuse,
–permanently and prominently post their photos, whereabouts and work histories on church websites, and
–‘aggressively reach out’ to anyone who may have been hurt by church staff.

WHEN
Tuesday, March 5 at 3:00 PM

WHERE
On the sidewalk outside the Jackson Catholic diocese headquarters, 237 E Amite St, Jackson, MS 39201

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

March 5, 2019

Reports are that Bishop David Talley of Alexandria, Louisiana, will be annouced today to be the new bishop of Memphis, Tennessee. What can Memphians expect from Bishop Talley? SNAP of Tennessee (Survivors Network of those Abuse by Priests) has the following observations.

In the wake of the revelation that the first bishop of Memphis, Carroll T. Dozier, was a pedophile listed on the “credibly accused” list of pedophile priests recently released in the Diocese of Richmond, Virginia, SNAP of Tennessee certainly hopes there will be a better track record than has been seen in the past in Memphis.”

Do the prospects of this happening look promising given Talley’s recent stand on release of names in his own diocese in Louisiana? We’re not sure.

We’re encouraged that Bishop David P. Talley has worked as a caseworker for abused and neglected children.

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LONDON (ENGLAND)
The Tablet

March 5, 2019

By Christopher Lamb

The Church is grappling to come to terms with Cardinal George Pell’s conviction for sexually abusing two 13-year-old choirboys, with a febrile atmosphere in Australia seeing heavy criticism of the Archbishop of Sydney and a university vice-chancellor for their responses to the verdict.

The former Vatican financial tsar, who was charged by police in 2017 with multiple sex abuse allegations spanning decades, is currently spending 23-hours-a-day in solitary confinement in a Melbourne prison as he waits for a 13 March hearing where he will be handed down a sentence for his crimes.

Pell, 77, never took the stand during his trial but has strenuously maintained his innocence telling police the claims against him were “deranged nonsense” and is appealing the verdict.

Nevertheless, the man who was once the public face of Australian Catholicism and a dominant figure in the Church scene globally is expected to be sent to prison for somewhere between ten and 14 years and is already facing a civil claim for sexual abuse from another complainant.

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MARION (OHIO)
Marion Star

March 5, 2019

By Sarah Volpenhein

At least five of the 34 clergy on a list of clergy credibly accused of sexually abusing minors released by the Diocese of Columbus Friday were pastors or Catholic school teachers in Marion.

While three of those priests had been publicly named and defrocked, the other two were not publicly known.

Both Bernard J. McClory, who was a pastor at St. Mary Catholic Church at least from 1983 to 1991, and Alan M. Sprenger, assistant pastor at St. Mary from 1960 to 1962, were revealed in the diocese’s release to have been credibly accused of sexually abusing a minor. Sprenger also taught at Marion Catholic High School, according to his obituary.

The Star could not find any prior public accusations against McClory or Sprenger. Both priests have since died.

The remaining three priests on the list who had been stationed in Marion were R. Michael Ellifritz, Michael F. Hanrahan and Thomas L. McLaughlin, all of whom have been defrocked.

Both Hanrahan and McLaughlin were criminally charged in connection to sexual abuse of children and spent time in prison.

The list of clergy released by the Catholic Diocese of Columbus Friday did not include the parishes where the accused clergy worked. But in searching its archives, the Star was able to identify five priests who had worked as pastors or Catholic school teachers in Marion.

The list also did not include any details on the allegations, such as where the abuse was alleged to have occurred or when.

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SYDNEY (AUSTRALIA)
Australian Broadcasting Company

March 5, 2019

By Damian McIver

Top barrister, Robert Richter QC, will no longer represent Cardinal George Pell in court for his sentence and appeal, saying he is too emotional and angry about the guilty verdict handed down by the jury.

Richter says he will be available to help Pell’s team and is angry and upset at the outcome

He denies his decision is linked to an apology he made after describing Pell’s offending as “plain vanilla”

The senior barrister says he continues to have every faith in Pell’s case

Pell was convicted of sexually abusing two choirboys while he was the archbishop of Melbourne in the 1990s.

He is due to be sentenced on March 13 but has already lodged an appeal.

“I’m too angry and upset at the outcome to bring the objectivity that an appeal requires,” he said.

Mr Richter said he will still be available to help Pell’s legal team and is convinced he had a strong case in overturning what he called “a questionable conviction”.

“I will not be arguing the appeal myself simply because I believe the Cardinal deserves someone who can be dispassionate enough to present the case to the Court of Appeal,” he said.

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PROVIDENCE (RI)
Providence Journal

March 4, 2019

“Gay currents in the Church?” Did Bishop Thomas Tobin’s tweet about rampant clericalism (“Bishop Tobin uses Twitter to weigh in on church sex-abuse summit,” news, Feb. 22) refer to pedophile priests?

Tobin speaks of “occasion of sin.” It has been reported that sexual abuse has existed in the Catholic Church since at least as far back as the 11th century. That’s quite a lengthy occasion!

Let’s get up to speed on the fact that the abused include mostly boys but also girls, some as young as 3 years old, with the majority between 11 and 14. Gays have been the whipping party for many religions, especially the Catholic Church.

Almost everyone will applaud “spiritual renewal of the Church,” provided it includes full disclosure of past “occasions of sin,” transparency going forward and where necessary compensation to include payment for counseling to those abused by priests and church hierarchy.

The Rev. John R. Warner
Cranston

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PITTSBURGH (PA)
Pittsburgh Current

March 5, 2019

By Sue Kerr

Lent is arriving in Pittsburgh and that means fish fry season is upon us.

A mainstay of Catholic culture in Pittsburgh, this is the first fish fry season since the release of the Grand Jury Report in August 2018 describing sexual violence by nearly 100 priests in the Diocese of Pittsburgh and the complicity of Diocesan officials in covering up that abuse.

For decades, fish fries have been important fundraisers for parishes throughout the region, staffed by stalwart volunteers of all ages.

Fish fries have also expanded to fire halls and local restaurants and the sheer volume of events that have cropped up in recent years has led to many media outlets to launch bracket challenges, Facebook groups, and a Google map. You can find fish fries with hipster themes, locally sourced fries, and everything from fish tacos to fish pizza to help meet the Lenten obligation when you tire of a 29-inch piece of fried cod on a hamburger bun.

For the past several years, I’ve featured a blog series called Fish Fry Fridays, essentially my reviews of assorted fish fries throughout the region. I dive into the food quality, portions, and price, but I also consider the accessibility of the venue, the friendliness and welcoming attitudes of the community, any evidence of recycling, and more. Examining the tension between my personal experience of Catholic culture and our shared experiences at the fish fries has been a useful starting point for some of my reviews.

But the whole time I wrote these, I knew about the sexual violence occurring in the Church. I was one of the kids who grew up knowing that most of the priests in our parish (Holy Spirit in West Mifflin) were just terrible. That was proven true when I discovered that the parish was staffed by child predators for at least 23 consecutive years. My friends were preyed upon and still deal with those scars today. I have never been unaware of the magnitude of sexual violence in the Catholic Church or Christianity writ large. It has shaped my life in ways that are difficult and painful to describe.

I read accounts of local parishes struggling to reconcile the realities of the grand jury report and hear very little acknowledgement of how these remaining parishioners were complicit in these events. Instead, people focus on what they will lose — their church buildings might close, their schools might be consolidated, their losses are potentially catastrophic. But very few people take that next step of considering that all of these things were built on a culture that has been skewed toward violence, abuse, and power hoarding for the past several millenia. Christianity, and Catholicism in particular, have violent histories.

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Patheos blog

March 4, 2019

By Bob Seidensticker

Nonprofit organizations in the U.S. make a contract: society allows donations to be tax deductible, and in return those organizations make their financial records public to show that they used that income wisely. Every nonprofit fills out an annual IRS 990 form to make its cash flow public—every nonprofit, that is, except churches.

Not only is this exemption unfair, it makes churches look like they have something to hide. Given past financial scandals, some do, but this secrecy makes most churches look undeservedly bad. Christians should demand that this exemption be removed. This change would improve the reputation of American churches at a time when a little reputation polishing would be welcome.

This article has four sections: a brief overview of the problem enabled by the exemption, arguments against removing the exemption, arguments for removing it, and a conclusion.

Church scandals
This isn’t an indictment of all churches, just the bad actors hiding behind the good ones.

One problem enabled by secrecy is fraud. “In 2000, an estimated $7 billion was embezzled by leaders of churches and religious organizations in the United States. Several other studies have suggested that about fifteen percent of all individual churches will suffer embezzlement.”[1] Worldwide, the estimate of fraud is $35 billion annually.[2]

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KINGSTON (JAMAICA)
Jamaica Observer

March 4, 2019

Another Jamaican claiming sexual abuse, allegedly at the hands of a local Roman Catholic priest, has come forward.

This was disclosed on the weekend to the Jamaica Observer by Denise Buchanan, the 57-year-old Jamaican who insists she was raped at the age of 17 by a then novitiate, although Archbishop of Kingston, Most Rev Kenneth Richards has said the priest in question, Father Paul Collier, said the relationship was consensual.

Buchanan is also a founding member of the international advocacy group Ending Clergy Abuse (ECA), which is on a mission to compel the Roman Catholic Church to end abuse by clerics, especially child sexual abuse. The group is now calling on the archbishop of Kingston to apologise to victims of clerical abuse after comments made in a letter to the Observer last week.

The other victim, according to Buchanan, reached out to the ECA after reading the Jamaica Observer front page story last Friday, which reported on the archbishop’s response to an Agence France Presse (AFP) article published by the newspaper, in which Buchanan said she was raped, impregnated and had to do two abortions due to her alleged abuse at the hands of Father Paul.

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LYON (FRANCE)
Agence France Presse

March 5, 2019

A French court on Thursday will deliver its verdict in the case of Cardinal Philippe Barbarin, accused of covering up sexual abuse of minors by one of his priests.

The 68-year-old archbishop and five former aides went on trial in Lyon at a time when the Catholic Church has been hit by abuse scandals in countries as far afield as Australia, Brazil, Chile and the United States.

The outcome of the trial, which began in January, has been long awaited in France where Barbarin is the highest-profile Catholic cleric to be caught up in a paedophile scandal.

“I cannot see what I am guilty of,” Barbarin told the court. “I never tried to hide, let alone cover up these horrible facts.”

The case broke three years ago and lawyers for nine adult plaintiffs – former boy scouts allegedly abused by priest Bernard Preynat – took legal action.

Since the abuse relates to acts committed before 1991, prosecutors had declined to press charges because of the statue of limitations.

The trial went ahead only because alleged victims went around the prosecutor’s office and insisted, as they are entitled, to put their case before a court.

Under French law, the court can still convict and even jail the suspect, regardless of the prosecutor’s position.

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NEWBURYPORT (MA)
Daily News

March 5, 2019

To the editor:

“We may be surprised at the people we find in heaven. God has a soft spot for sinners. His standards are quite low,” Desmond Tutu once said.

God’s mercy is uniform, constant and unwaveringly applied to all who seek it. Justice, however, is a flawed mimicry of it because it is a human invention and therefore subject to discretion.

The fabric of the Catholic Church is torn and there’s no repair in progress. Once again after a cacophony of recent news of abuse by high-ranking clergy, at the conclusion of a summit of bishops in Rome to address the issue, the pope disappoints.

In a faux response, the church announced through The Associated Press that it would issue a “new law” creating a child protection policy that covers the internal bureaucracy at Vatican City. Perhaps, the pope and the hierarchy missed the proverbial memo.

Criminal sexual abuse of children has become institutionalized throughout the world for decades by the church as well as its cover-up. There is neither nothing new about this condition, nor are the crimes localized within the walls of Vatican City. Certainly, the application of the law directed at “bureaucracy” provides a “line in the sand” whereby high-ranking officials are now finally at risk of being held materially accountable. Certainly, this is a novel approach.

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Above the Law blog

March 4, 2019

By Toni Messina

Every time I force myself to read more of the 1,356-page grand jury report detailing sex abuse in the priesthood in the state of Pennsylvania, I wonder anew: How did the church get away with this for so long?

The cover-up lasted for decades. It was initially not in the church’s interest to let the world know just how deep and wide the sex abuse went, but now, due to a confluence of factors, they can’t deny it further. As the Pope himself said at the recent conference of bishops called to discuss the scandal, what’s gone on “is utterly incompatible with [the church’s] moral authority and ethical credibility.”

There were high hopes that the recent summit would thrust a new set of initiatives, guidelines, and mea culpas before the public; that the church might get ahead of this crisis and salvage its credibility. The Pope opened the meeting acknowledging that “the People of God were expecting concrete, effective measures” to combat clerical abuse and not just the repetition of “simple and predictable condemnations.”

But in reality, the meeting produced nothing concrete, no future agenda, no timetable. The church’s decision to hold the conference dedicated to sex abuse, while remarkable because there was a meeting at all, produced much of the same — promises and a recognition of a need for rules on how to deal with misconduct, but no rules themselves.

Why not agree to form study groups on why men with predatory interests are attracted to the priesthood? Why not mandate that priests accused of sex crimes, when the source is credible and corroborated, be immediately defrocked? Why not rethink the very nature of celibacy itself and permit priests to marry? Why not begin a discussion on permitting women to become priests?

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HUNTINGTON (WV)
Herald Dispatch

March 5, 2019

By John Patrick Grace

Full disclosure: I have been a longtime fan of Pope Francis. The first pope from Latin America, the first pope who is a Jesuit, and yet, curiously, someone who took his papal name from St. Francis of Assisi, the barefoot troubadour who founded the Franciscan order in the hills of Umbria.

The images are endearing: Francis asking the throng at St. Peter’s Square to “pray for me” before he delivered from the balcony his first discourse as pope. Francis hefting his own luggage from his hotel room as a limousine waited below to ferry him to his new quarters in the Vatican. And Francis riding around Rome in a modest black sedan, an ordinary car, not a limo, sometimes right in the front passenger seat next to the driver.

I have had the personal privilege of meeting two popes: Pope John XXIII, while I was spending my college junior year abroad in Rome, and Pope Paul VI, whom I covered as a journalist working for The Associated Press. I see in Francis personality pieces that remind me of John XXIII, “the peasant pope from Bergamo.” Humility, plain and simple.

Thus I had sky-high hopes for the recent summit of 100 bishops convoked to the Vatican by Pope Francis to debate the worldwide clerical sexual abuse scandals that have ravaged Catholic communities.

I’d told more than one friend that Francis “would do more than Popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI combined” to cleanse the church from the stench of thousands of cases of priests, and sometimes even bishops, committing acts of predatory sexual abuse on minors, predominantly young male children.

Serious — not partisan left or right types — Catholic commentators who followed the summit between Francis and the bishops have, however, scored the event as “a letdown” that fell far short of expectations, especially those of survivors of clerical sexual abuse. Two of these commentators are veteran Vatican watcher John Allen, who writes for a variety of Catholic media outlets, and Monsignor Charles Pope, a regular columnist for the weekly Our Sunday Visitor newspaper.

Allen credited Francis for issuing a heartfelt call for the church to heed “the silent, choked cry” of abuse victims, and for his remark that “in people’s justified anger, the Church sees the reflection of the wrath of God.”

The American journalist then went negative, quoting Bishop Accountability, a watchdog group, as suggesting that Pope Francis’ final remarks at the summit did not indicate the hoped-for zero-tolerance crackdown on offending clerics and bishops.

Nonetheless, the Vatican vowed to issue a new anti-abuse guideline book for bishops, conferences and dioceses, and follow up with other gatherings to take stock of progress, Allen allowed.

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COLUMBUS (OH)
Columbus Dispatch

March 4, 2019

By Theodore Decker

My favorite time was right after Mass, when the church emptied, and I was free to move about the altar and sacristy with a confidence born of routine. I extinguished the candles, readied everything for the next Mass and often engaged in an easy banter with the priest.

That in particular felt like a tremendous secret: that priests could be funny and spoke of regular things, such as baseball.

When I picture my childhood parish, St. Christopher in Parsippany, New Jersey, it is always summer. I see the stained-glass windows angled open to draw in cooler air, a futile gesture on the hottest days. Once every summer, Father Al treated the altar boys to a day down at the shore, on the boardwalk at Seaside Heights.

The Roman Catholic Diocese of Columbus released a list on Friday of 34 priests who had been “credibly accused” of sexually abusing minors. The news prompted me to look for similar lists in New Jersey and upstate New York, where I continued as an altar server through high school. I prayed I wouldn’t see the names from my childhood — Father Cassidy, Father McGinley, and Father Al, a priest so familiar to me that I remember only his first name.

Their names didn’t appear, but I found the names of three other priests with connections to St. Christopher.

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BALLYSHANNON (IRELAND)
Donegal Democrat

March 5, 2019

The notorious paedophile priest Father Eugene Greene has died.

Father Eugene Greene was jailed for 12 years at Donegal Circuit Court in 2000 when he pleaded guilty to 41 sample charges of sexual assault against 26 children in Donegal parishes between 1965 and 1982.

He had been charged on over 100 counts. The trial heard that many of his victims were altar boys, who suffered repeated assault and buggery.

Sentencing him, Judge Matthew Deery noted some of his victims had turned to drink to try to erase the pain of their childhood abuse which he described as “horrific”.

It has not been confirmed when Father Eugene Greene passed away.

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SYDNEY (AUSTRALIA)
Morning Herald

March 5, 2019

I appreciate Reverend Michael Jensen’s sincerity in responding to the pain of victims of abuse and the distress of church members (‘‘Only hope for institutional Christianity lies in truth’’, March 5).
As one who has spent many hours with depressed and traumatised victims not only of church abuse, but also the more subtle and strangling experiences of the tendrils of church power, I suggest that the church could respond in a more constructive manner by examining how its institutional practices perpetuate the problems so decried. While you have only men in leadership positions claiming this is the created order for relationships between men and women, you have the potential for abuses of power to increase exponentially. – Josie McSkimming, Coogee

For all the doubters and defenders of Cardinal Pell I quote the remarks of his barrister, Robert Richter (who was actually present for the whole trial), in his apology for his inappropriate remark: ‘‘The seriousness of the crime was acknowledged at the outset by the concession that it merited imprisonment. In seeking to mitigate the sentence I used a wholly inappropriate phrase.’’ People who have difficulty with plain English should consult their dictionary. – Jan Carroll, Potts Point

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BATHURST (AUSTRALIA)
Western Advocate

March 4, 2019

By Joanne McCarthy
.
THE Vincentian Catholic order has denied liability for notorious child sex offender priest Brian Spillane’s abuse of a Bathurst school student despite Spillane’s conviction for the crime, and despite Pope Francis’s vow at a Vatican summit that the church would give survivors “all the support they need”.

Spillane was “on a frolic of his own” when he indecently assaulted Damien Sheridan, 13, at St Stanislaus’ College in 1985 after the homesick boy sought help from the school chaplain, the Vincentians said in response to Mr Sheridan’s 2018 civil suit.

In the same response, the Vincentians did not admit the abuse occurred despite Spillane’s conviction the previous year.

The order is also yet to join the National Redress Scheme, after avoiding Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse scrutiny because of the number of outstanding prosecutions against the Vincentian boarding school’s former priests, brothers, teachers and lay workers.

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NEW YORK (NY)
Newsweek

March 4, 2019

Bt Christina Zhao

A priest from the Roman Catholic Diocese of Oakland fled the country last month after he was accused of sexually abusing a male minor.

On January 31, the diocese placed father Alex Castillo on administrative leave upon receiving an allegation against him for inappropriate behavior from a child male victim.

Church officials were able to contact Castillo up until February 21, but after that date, several people were unsuccessful in their attempts to reach the embattled priest, diocese spokesperson Helen Osman told SFGate. The diocese then searched for Castillo in every jail and hospital in the area before they finally reported him missing to authorities two days later, on February 23.

Last Friday, Oakland police told church officials that Castillo had been “found,” although they did not reveal his current whereabouts, according to Osman.

“They would not provide us with information on his whereabouts, except that he has left the country,” she said. “They also informed us they have completed their criminal investigation.”

The investigation, handled by the Alameda County district attorney’s office, has not yet been made public. “It should be noted during this investigation so far, it has not been determined any crimes have been committed in the City of Oakland,” Johnna Watson, an Oakland Police spokeswoman, said.

Meanwhile, a diocesan review board is reevaluating whether Castillo is eligible to return to the church. The group, which includes mental health advocates, two diocese officials and criminal justice experts, will then present their evaluation to Bishop Michael Barber, who will make the final decision.

The Diocese of Oakland in February released a list of clergymen and religious brothers who were “credibly accused” of sexually abusing minors.

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VANCOUVER (CANADA)
CTV News

March 3, 2019

A Coquitlam woman has returned home from a trip to Vatican City, calling it intensely emotional.

Leona Huggins was there last month to meet fellow survivors of sexual abuse at the hands of the Catholic Church.

“It’s always empowering when we share our stories together and recognize that we are not alone,” Huggins said.

At the same time, bishops from around the world were called in by Pope Francis for a landmark summit on sexual abuse.

“The power of an organization versus the vulnerability of a little child; I’m here for the little children,” Huggins told CTV News while she was marching through the streets of Rome.

She and fellow advocates demanded a zero tolerance approach towards priests abusing children and church officials covering it up.

Huggins said she was abused in 1973 by a Catholic priest in New Westminster who was convicted decades later.

“He was a predator looking for prey and I fit the definition of prey,” she said. “I was 13 when he began.”

That priest served a jail term but continued working as a priest in Alberta and Ontario before his death last year.

Pope Francis ended the summit vowing to confront the problem head on – promising to change the culture within the Catholic Church.

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Patheos blog

March 4, 2019

By J. H. McKenna

Can a Pope sin?

Anyone with even a fragmentary knowledge of the history of the papacy is compelled to answer ‘yes.’ Vatican intrigues, illegitimate children, mistresses, murders—a few Popes went as far as all this.

Nowhere but in an official enunciation of Church dogma is a Pope considered infallible. It is assumed that any Pope is hobbled by the aboriginal injury of Eve’s choice, making a Pope susceptible to sinning.

And a Pope must participate in the sacraments, one of which is Reconciliation—again, thus presuming that a Pope has either sins of omission or sins commission on his conscience.

Every Pope has a Confessor, a priest to whom the Pope confesses sins.

The question on everyone’s mind is, Did the current Pope admit to his Confessor a sin of omission regarding priestly pedophiles?

Did the Pope acknowledge to his Confessor that he the Pope failed to alert secular authorities to the sexual criminality of Catholic priests?

Or did the Pope divulge to his Confessor a sin of commission in suppressing evidence of misconduct among Catholic priests?

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HONOLULU (HI)
Honolulu Civic Beat

March 5, 019

By Anita Hofschneider

Last summer, a Minnesota law firm published a 50-page booklet listing Hawaii priests accused of child sex abuse.

The alphabetical list started with Marc Alexander, who is currently serving as Honolulu’s housing director and has denied 2016 allegations by a minor in Kailua. It ended with Douglas Zlatis, who was accused by two students at Father Damien Memorial School and died in 2009.

Overall, the compilation names nearly 60 members of the clergy who have been accused of molesting children in the islands.

But advocates for survivors believe there may be a lot more. That’s why some are backing a Hawaii Senate resolution that calls on the attorney general’s office to investigate Hawaii’s Catholic clergy.

The Diocese of Honolulu opposes a resolution calling for the attorney general to investigate claims of child sexual abuse within the church in Hawaii.

The proposal comes in the wake of a Pennsylvania grand jury report that found at least 1,000 children were abused by more than 300 priests over several decades in that state. The Washington Post reported that the 1,400-page report prompted attorneys general in 14 states and Washington, D.C., to launch similar inquiries.

Hawaii wasn’t among them.

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BOSTON (MA)
Boston Herald

March 4, 2019

By Jessica Heslam

When the Catholic Church sex abuse scandal broke, the pressing question was “how did this happen?”

There were so many signs missed. I got a similar feeling watching the latest, disturbing Michael Jackson documentary “Leaving Neverland,” which aired on HBO Sunday and Monday nights.

When the late King of Pop was parading around the world, always with a young boy by his side, it’s shocking to me why no one questioned what was going on. Looking back, and after watching this haunting footage, it’s even more shocking.

Just as the Catholic Church protected pedophile priests, it’s pretty clear that Jackson had a system in place to facilitate his relationships with young boys. His handlers made sure that Jackson had hotel suites to sexually abuse these young boys that were located far away from their families. There were protocols in place that made sure Jackson had a lot of time alone with these young boys at hotels and Neverland, his ranch north of Los Angeles.

The documentary focuses on two men who say Jackson befriended them when they were boys and molested them for years.

Wade Robson, 36, met Jackson when he was 5 years old, after winning a dance contest in Australia. Jackson, he claims, began molesting him two years later and the sexual abuse lasted for seven years.

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KANSAS CITY (MO)
National Catholic Reporter

March 4, 2019

By Paul Collins

Tuesday, February 26, 2019, will go down as probably the worst day yet in the entire 231 year-long history of Australian Catholicism. We thought we’d seen it all during the four years of Royal Commission into Child Sexual Abuse, especially as terrible stories of mistreatment of children by clergy and in Catholic institutions were recounted. But George Pell’s conviction leaves that shame for dead. Australian Catholics are stunned, outraged and angry at the lack of accountability and betrayal as we are left utterly leaderless by bishops who seem to have run for deep cover from faithful Catholics and everyone else.

First, the facts of Pell’s conviction. There were two sets of charges. The first concerned two incidents in December 1996 and early 1997 in Melbourne’s St. Patrick’s Cathedral soon after Pell was appointed archbishop there. After a three-week trial, he was found guilty on December 11, 2018, of sexually penetrating a 13-year-old choirboy, as well as four charges of indecent acts with the same choirboy and another choirboy.

However, there was another set of charges of indecent assault of boys in a swimming pool in Pell’s hometown of Ballarat in the 1970s when he was a priest. These charges had not come to trial, so Judge Peter Kidd imposed a media gag order so that potential jurors would not know and be influenced by the cathedral convictions. But in the social media age, such gags are useless and when the Ballarat charges were dropped by prosecutors last Tuesday, the order was lifted and the firestorm began.

Pell strongly maintains his innocence and has appealed; it will probably be several months before the appeal is heard. Some Catholics, among them progressives, think the appeal is based on strong grounds and that Pell will be found innocent. They see him as a scapegoat for all of the failures and mistakes of Catholic leadership. Other Catholics accept the guilty verdict and feel the appeal is based on flimsy grounds.

There is seething anger within the wider Australian community, much of it fanned by social media, about sexual abuse and church cover-ups. Following Pell’s conviction this has exploded. “Catholicism” is now a dirty word in Australia, and as in most Anglophone countries there’s deep-seated sectarian bigotry against Catholics which surfaces in times like these.

Beyond anger and outrage, what is really going on here?

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VISALIA (CA)
Visalia Times-Delta

March 4, 2019

By James Ward

A Roman Catholic priest who once served in Visalia was put on leave after new allegations surfaced about a Kings County sexual assault he was acquited of in 2002.

Bishop Armando Ochoa announced the news Sunday to parishioners about the Rev. Miguel Flores of east Bakersfield’s St. Joseph Catholic Church.

“The current allegation relates to a previous allegation of sexual abuse of a minor that was litigated in 2002, at which time Fr. Flores was acquitted,” Diocese spokeswoman Teresa Dominguez wrote in a press release. “The current disclosure is considered credible which gave cause to reopen a diocesan investigation into the matter.”

In 2002, Flores was found not guilty of three counts of rape, two counts of witness intimidation and one charge of criminal threats for allegedly sexually assaulting a teenage girl in Hanford.

The girl, who was hired by Flores to do clerical work, told police the priest assaulted her Feb. 16, 2002 in his living quarters at Immaculate Heart of Mary Church.

Flores has been a Catholic priest since 1995.

He has been at St. Joseph Church since 2007. Before that, he had also worked at churches in Arvin, Fresno, Tranquility, Orange Cove and Squaw Valley.

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PITTSBURGH (PA)
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

March 4, 2019

By Peter Smith

Bishop David Zubik is pledging to provide additional support for victims of sexual abuse by priests, to put more eyes on how the Diocese of Pittsburgh handles abuse allegations and to provide a full accounting of how much it has paid to victims, lawyers and accused priests.

Those are some of the highlights of a pastoral letter released Monday by Bishop Zubik in response to “listening sessions” held late last year at various Roman Catholic parishes in response to a 2018 grand jury report into the history of sexual abuse in the diocese.

“Our wounds are still open,” Bishop Zubik said in the letter, dated March 6 for Ash Wednesday, the start of penitential season of Lent. “It is impossible to undo the heinous actions committed in the past. So we must turn to God and, with His divine love and guidance, do everything possible to foster healing and to restore trust.”

In his letter, Bishop Zubik is pledging that by July, the diocese will publish the total sum of payments made to victims of sexual abuse since 1991, without naming the recipients. Bishop Zubik said that’s the earliest date of such a settlement.

He also pledged to account for legal fees related to abuse as well as the subsistence salaries and other compensation the diocese has paid, as dictated by church law, to priests removed from ministry due to abuse.

By 2020, the diocese will also account for a current, ongoing round of compensation payments.

Bishop Zubik, who held four listening sessions around the diocese, acknowledged the anguished and angry statements by many, which included some calls for his resignation and others for him to stay and “continue to lead with a pastoral heart”. While he did not directly respond to such calls in the letter, Bishop Zubik said in an interview he has prayed about the matter and is staying on the job.

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

March 4, 2019

A bill has been introduced in the California Assembly that would help protect children and support survivors by amending the state’s statutes of limitations on felony child sex crimes.

AB-218, introduced by Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez, is a great step forward for survivors and advocates in California. Among others, the most critical reforms in AB-218 will allow survivors of sexual violence to bring their cases forward until they are 40 years old, a massive increase from the current age of 26 and a serious help to survivors who have been suffering silence. The bill will also open a three-year “window” that would allow claims that have been previously barred by statutes of limitation to be heard.

These are major steps forward that reflect the realities of sexual violence. Survivors often take decades to come forward about their abuse – the average age of a survivor coming forward is 52 – and are often barred from seeking justice by statutes like those that AB 218 seeks to amend.

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Legal Reader blog

March 4, 2019

By Ryan Farrick

Petitioning lawmakers last week, the Diocese of Providence admitted to hundreds of sex abuse claims for tens of millions of dollars.

Trying to ward off Rhode Island lawmakers, officials from the Catholic Diocese of Providence have acknowledged settling more than $21 million in clergy sex abuse claims.

The total amount, writes the Providence Journal, includes $21 million set aside for “legal settlements” and another $2.3 million reserved for counseling. In total, the archdiocese has attempted to resolve some 130 claims of abuse in its church-run schools and parishes.

The Journal notes that the diocese reported the payouts in written testimony submitted to the Rhode Island Catholic Conference and filed with the House Judiciary Committee for presentation at last Tuesday’s hearing on impending legislation.

Survivors also shared their stories, some in graphic detail.

Ann Hagan Webb, a 66-year old psychologist and sister of the Rhode Island lawmaker who introduced the legislation, identified the late Monsignor Anthony DeAngelis as a prolific and brutal predator.

“Usually we save ourselves, and you, the pain by using generalities like ‘child abuse’ or ‘molestation’ and leave it at that,” Webb said. “It’s time to rip the scab off.”

Crosses. Some states are contemplating changes to their statute of limitations for child sex abuse as a consequence of church scandals. Image via PxHere. Public domain.
Her testimony included claims of DeAngelis raping her with a crucifix and forcing her to perform oral sex. She says the abuse took place repeatedly and over a seven-year period, beginning when she was kindergarten.

Sponsored by Webb’s sister and co-sponsored by most of the state’s House representatives, the bill extends the time victims of child sex abuse have to file lawsuits against predators and perpetrators’ employers. Previously granted seven years of leniency, the proposal would boost the cap to thirty-five.

Despite the church’s attempts at transparency, the Providence Journal notes its reports’ shortcomings. While the Conference acknowledged its settlements, it didn’t specify when or within which time period the alleged abuse occurred. Neither did it indicate the extent of victimization or name the priests accused.

Nevertheless, the archdiocese has taken aim at the legislation, recommending amendments and extensive rewrites. Among the “serious” flaws identified by the group and reported by the Providence Journal are a lack of distinction between “actual perpetrators” and “non-perpetrators who are alleged to have committed unintentional negligence”; an “unconstitutional” look-back period for the filing of claims; and an inappropriate emphasis on extracting financial settlements from the Church rather than abusers or abuse in the abstract.

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TORONTO (CANADA)
National Post

March 4, 2019

By Philip Mathias

The governance of the Catholic Church has to change — that’s the real lesson arising from the priest pedophile scandal. For a thousand years, the Church has been run like a medieval monarchy with a “king” at the top — the Pope — who is surrounded by princes (the Cardinals and bishops), all of whom are guided by God. The pedophile scandal deflates that model, making it more wishful thinking than reality, by revealing the Church’s leaders as very ordinary men, who have buried harm to children by priests to cover the Church’s failures. A new model must be developed, one that makes the oh-so-fallible rulers of the Church accountable to the faithful, as much as to their monarch, the Pope.

The heart of the scandal is not that perhaps as many as 10 per cent of Catholic priests have molested children. There are pedophiles in other churches, other institutions, and in all walks of life. The scandal is that bishops all over the world have left the wicked priests in ministry, and moved them to new parishes where they could commit their crimes all over again, and then tried to browbeat their little victims into silence. This vile conduct appears to have been universal and may have been secretly ordered by the Vatican to avoid scandal. If that is the case, the “Bride of Christ” has promoted an evil practice. If not, that evil practice was endemic in a Church that teaches others the highest morality.

Now, civil authorities in the United States (and elsewhere) are trying to identify more pedophile priests. Clearly, this scandal will continue, perhaps for decades. Meanwhile, the recent Vatican conference to address child abuse produced little in the way of concrete, enforceable measures. Pope Francis tried to take pressure off the Church by saying that child abuse is widespread in society, with 69 per cent of it within families, according to one study. He said the Church must confront this evil throughout society, as well as within the Church, which will employ unspecified “disciplinary … processes.” But he condemned those who constantly attack the Church (presumably the unrequited victims) as friends of “the Devil.”

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[Priests say key witness against Francisco Cox is feeling pressured by Ezzati and others]

CHILE
BioBioChile

March 3, 2019

By Manuel Stuardo and Estefanía Bustamante

Curas cercanos al sacerdote Manuel Hervia, acusan presiones de altos cargos de la Iglesia Católica por ser testigo clave de abusos sexuales a menores cometidos por sacerdotes como Francisco José Cox, exarzobispo de La Serena, actualmente investigado por la justicia.

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[Expert on new abuse case: “It’s time for some to leave the Chilean Catholic Church and Ezzati is one”]

SANTIAGO (CHILE)
Emol

March 4, 2019

By Fernanda Villalobos D.

Marcial Sánchez se refirió al caso de violación al que está acusado Tito Rivera, ex rector de la Iglesia Las Agustinas y nombrado por el cardenal de Santiago, quien se enteró de los hechos.

Un nuevo caso de abuso en la Iglesia Católica se reveló este domingo: Tito Rivera, ex rector de la Iglesia Las Agustinas y nombrado por el cardenal Ricardo Ezzati, fue acusado de drogar y violar a un hombre de 40 años que fue a pedir ayuda porque tenía a su hija enferma en 2015. Según informó Radio Bío Bío, la Fiscalía de Rancagua está investigando una demanda por indemnización de perjuicios por $350 millones en contra del Arzobispado de Santiago, dado que Ezzati conoció el hecho de boca de la víctima y, según la acción judicial, sólo lo abrazó, lo conminó a rezar por su victimario y le entregó $30.000.

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[Rape in the cathedral: The dark sexual plot of the priest Tito Rivera implicates Ricardo Ezzati]

CHILE
BioBioChile

March 4, 2019

By Jorge Molina Sanhueza

Una investigación de la Fiscalía de Rancagua reveló uno de los secretos mejor guardados del Arzobispado de Santiago desde 2015: habitaciones en el principal templo religioso de Chile, donde se se cometió una violación y abusos con jóvenes de clase media baja que fungían como acólitos. El autor es el presbítero Tito Rivera, exrector de la iglesia Las Agustinas, nombrado por el cardenal Ricardo Ezzati. Este último conoció los hechos de boca de una de las víctimas, cuando el caso estaba plenamente aclarado por la “investigación previa” que otorgó verosimilitud a los relatos y solo un año y medio después -en noviembre de 2016- inició el proceso canónico penal, sin enviar los antecedentes al Ministerio Público ni darlos a conocer a la ciudadanía. Al afectado que le relató cómo fue violado, Ezzati solo lo abrazó, lo conminó a rezar por su victimario y le entregó 30 mil pesos.

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[Laity and abuse survivors call for Ezzati’s removal after case of rape in the cathedral]

CHILE
BioBioChile

March 4, 2019

By María José Villarroel and Nicole Martínez

Un reportaje de La Radio reveló uno de los casos que hasta ahora se mantenía en reserva: una violación a un mayor de edad dentro de la Catedral Metropolitana, cometida por el presbítero Tito Rivera. El denunciante, que llevó el caso a la justicia, dijo haberle contado sobre el caso al cardenal Ricardo Ezzati, quien según su testimonio pidió rezar por el sacerdote y le dio $30 mil en efectivo. Sobrevivientes de abusos y laicos consideran que esto amerita sacar lo antes posible a Ezzati como arzobispo de Santiago.

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VICE News

March 4, 2019

By Hind Hassan and Sean Stephens

The Catholic Church’s recent summit on protecting children was supposed to be a significant event for an institution that’s long grappled with its much criticized response to a litany of clerical sex abuse scandals.

But from the outset, the Vatican stressed that there wasn’t going to be any magic solution to the problem. And many young Catholics are afraid for the future of the Church.

Almost 200 cardinals and bishops traveled from around the globe to the Vatican for the four-day event, designed to show the world the Church was committed to tackling the decades-long, systemic abuse of children.

Pope Francis was keen to play down expectations ahead of the event but spoke passionately to delegates. “I make a heartfelt appeal for an all-out battle against the abuse of minors, for we are dealing with abominable crimes that must be erased from the face of the earth,” he said.

During the summit, a list of 21 guidelines for bishops was distributed, but as a response to the crisis, it seemed surprisingly basic. Suggestions included creating a handbook for members of the clergy on what to do when a sex abuse case emerges, and instructing all clergy to tell law enforcement about accusations.

Church leaders insisted the point of the meeting wasn’t to do damage control on their brand.

“I do believe that we cannot make decision solely based on self-interest, in terms of increasing the numbers of people coming to church,” one of the key organizers of the summit, Cardinal Blase Cupich of Chicago , told VICE News. “The pathway forward is not to do things simply to make us more palatable to people, but our first job is to make sure that children are safe. I believe that if we get that right, things will fall into place.”

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DENVER (CO)
Crux

March 4, 2019

By Christopher White

A new report by one of the nation’s leading organizations promoting best practices in leadership within the Catholic Church chronicles the “twin crises” within the Catholic Church, that of sexual abuse and its cover-up.

The report, released on Friday by Leadership Roundtable, comes just days after Pope Francis’s historic meeting with the heads of bishops’ conferences around the world in which he pledged an all out war on sexual abuse.

The forty-page report serves as a compilation of recommendations that emerged from the organization’s Catholic Partnership Summit, which took place in February in the nation’s capital, and brought together a mix of clergy and lay Catholic leaders, and seeks to promote a way forward with a “preferential option for abuse victims and families.”

Participants in the Catholic Partnership Summit included Cardinals Blase Cupich of Chicago, Sean O’Malley of Boston, Joseph Tobin of Newark; Father Hans Zollner of the Center for Child Protection in Rome; Kathleen McChesney, a retired FBI agent who established the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops’ (USCCB) Office of Child Protection; John Carr, the USCCB’s former point man on Capitol Hill and current director of the Initiative on Catholic Social Thought and Public Life at Georgetown University; and a range of academics, theologians, and leaders from 43 dioceses in the United States.

Since the clergy sexual abuse crisis reemerged in the summer of June 2018, Leadership Roundtable notes that more than 50 dioceses throughout the country have sought their assistance in responding to the crisis.

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WAUSAU (WI)
Wausau Daily Herald

March 4, 2019

By Laura Schulte

A former Wisconsin priest accused of molesting several boys in the 1980s has pleaded not guilty to all charges.

According to online court records, Thomas Ericksen entered pleas of not guilty in the four open cases against him in Sawyer County. He is facing two charges of second-degree sexual assault of an unconscious victim, one count of first-degree sexual assault of a child and one count of second-degree sexual assault of a child.

Ryan Reid, Ericksen’s defense attorney, did not return a phone call from USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin on Friday, requesting comment on the pleas.

Ericksen, 71, is being held in the Sawyer County Jail in Hayward on a combined $510,000 bond in all four cases. The charges stem from his time at St. Peter’s Catholic Church in the town of Winter, Wisconsin, where he served as a priest from 1982 until 1983. Victims went to investigators in 2010 and 2011, alleging that they were abused by the former priest. Charges were filed against him in November 2018, two weeks after USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin filed open records requests with the Sawyer County district attorney seeking investigative documents.

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BINGHAMTON (NY)
WSKG TV

March 4, 2019

By Gabe Altieri

A priest who served at Ithaca College and Cornell University has been accused of sexual abuse of a minor. That’s according to the Ithaca Journal.

Reverend Carsten Martensen has served in campus ministry at both schools since 2007.

The abuse allegedly occurred in the 1970’s. Martensen has stepped down from all current assignments and public ministry until an investigation by the USA Northeast Province of Jesuits wraps up.

He was not on a list of Jesuit priests with credible accusations released by that group in January.

Full disclosure: Cornell University is a WSKG Underwriter.

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LONDON (ENGLAND)
The Tablet

March 4, 2019

By Patrick McCafferty

Along with Fr Joe McDonald, I am also a survivor of clerical sexual abuse and a priest.

Fr McDonald argues that sexual offenders should not be dismissed from the priesthood and he cites “practical”, “theological” and “pastoral” reasons.

I reject those reasons given by Fr McDonald. The penalty of dismissal from the priesthood is entirely fitting and appropriate, for those who are guilty of these egregious crimes.

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BAKERSFIELD (CA)
The Bakersfield Californian

March 4, 2019

The Rev. Miguel Flores of east Bakersfield’s St. Joseph Catholic Church has been placed on administrative leave while senior officials take another look at 17-year-old sexual misconduct allegations involving him and a then-16-year-old girl, the Fresno Diocese told The Californian Monday.

During Mass Sunday afternoon, Bishop Armando Ochoa, from the affiliated Fresno archdiocese, informed parishioners that Flores had been placed on leave while officials reopen an investigation into the accusation — for which Flores was tried and acquitted.

“There has been ongoing communication with law enforcement since the third party report was received,” Diocese spokeswoman Teresa Dominguez told The Californian in an email.

“The current allegation relates to a previous allegation of sexual abuse of a minor that was litigated in 2002, at which time Fr. Flores was acquitted. The current disclosure is considered credible which gave cause to reopen a diocesan investigation into the matter.”

Flores was cleared of three counts of forcible rape, three counts of sex with a minor and single charges of making threats and intimidating a witness in 2002, after it was alleged that he raped a San Joaquin girl who worked as his office assistant at churches in Tranquillity and Hanford. He was found not guilty of all charges.

Flores’ suspension is presumably part of a review of possible sexual transgressions involving clergy that the Fresno Diocese announced last month it would undertake. Ochoa made that announcement at diocese headquarters in Fresno on Feb. 2.

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PITTSBURGH (PA)
KDKA TV

March 4, 2019

Bishop David Zubik has released his “Pastoral Letter of Response” following several listening sessions about the church sexual abuse scandal.

“The Church Healing” was expected prior to the church’s observance of Ash Wednesday.

Bishop Zubik said, with the report, he wants those who attended listening sessions to know he heard their concerns, and is responding with actions.

The letter lays out a five-point plan, including:

Healing and Enhanced Support for Victims/Survivors, Their Families and Loved Ones
Greater Financial Transparency
Increased Accountability
Ongoing Spiritual and Human Formation for Clergy and Seminarians
Continued Listening to Seek Truth and Reconciliation

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ANNAPOLIS (MD)
Maryland Matters

March 4, 2019

By Bruce DePuyt

Maryland Attorney General Brian E. Frosh (D) should be doing much more to publicize his investigation of the Baltimore Archdiocese, a leading advocate for clergy sex abuse victims said on Sunday.

And a legislator who has questioned the way Frosh has tackled the investigation has raised new concerns about the resources the state has marshaled to locate victims and prosecute both the priests who committed the abuse and the bishops who covered it up.

Frosh has consistently refused to confirm that he launched an investigation in the wake of a damning report by Pennsylvania’s attorney general in 2018 on sexual abuse by priests, though he did concede in an interview on Thursday the gist of a recent Maryland Matters report about his office’s work.

“It’s not a secret. You know all of this stuff,” Frosh said. “I think the word is out.”

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TUCSON (AZ)
KOLD News 13

March 3, 2019

By Heather Janssen

As he held a photo of his 12-year-old self on Sunday afternoon, Tim Lennon, recounted the memories of violent rape and abuse by his priest in Iowa.

The Tucson man is a survivor.

“The priest that abused me used to take me to baseball games, to the park, to a movie, and molestation was always a part of that,” he explained.

Lennon repressed the memories for decades. The alleged abuse happened when he was 12-years-old. But one day the memories of trauma came flooding back.

“I basically froze. I didn’t say anything, didn’t do anything, and the memories were buried for 30 years,” he said. “When at twelve … I couldn’t fight back. Now I can.”

He’s turned the anger he felt over the abuse into a passion for helping survivors everywhere.

He now leads the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests.

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CHICAGO ( IL)
The DePaulia

March 4, 2019

By Brian O’Connell

Pope Francis and some of the world’s most influential leaders in the church gathered at the Vatican Feb. 21-24 for an unprecedented summit on counteracting clerical sexual abuse of minors.

Pope Francis convened the historic summit to further address the same issue that has dampened the church’s reputation for decades.

The church has been facing immense pressure because of the lack of concrete solutions it has put into place to address the problem, as well as the slow pace of reforms.

Judy Jones, the Midwest regional leader at Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, said victims are not pleased with the actions that took place at the summit.

“Victims are very disappointed with Pope Francis and the papal summit; it ended with just more words and not decisive actions,” she said.

At the summit, the pope encouraged bishops to take stern action against abusive clergy members and to embrace accountability in protecting faithful Catholics in their respective dioceses.

But Jones believes that abuse should be immediately reported to law enforcement instead of being dealt with internally by the church.

“SNAP calls for the pope to compel bishops around the world to turn their files over to law enforcement for independent investigations into their handling of clergy sex abuse cases,” she said.

While victims and their advocates generally remained dissatisfied with the outcome of the event, some say momentous strides were made last weekend in Vatican City. William Cavanaugh, a professor of Catholic studies at DePaul, said the summit proved that the problem of clergy sex abuse needs to be dealt with on a global stage.

“There are parts of the world where people in the church are denying that it is a problem. The summit showed that this is something that needs to be dealt with in a worldwide manner,” he said.

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

March 4, 2019

An Oakland Diocese priest, Alexander Castillo, fled the United States after Oakland, California police opened a criminal investigation into allegations that he sexually abused at least one minor male.

Castillo was a “rising star” within the diocese. He last job was as a lead outreach coordinator for the Hispanic community diocese-wide. He operated at the right hand of Bishop Barber for much of the past five years. Among his duties was to evangelize among Spanish speaking populations in the Bay Area and in his native Costa Rica.

We hope that Bishop Barber cooperates with law enforcement to locate Castillo so that a full reckoning of what he did can be discerned.

Bishop Barber published a woefully inadequate list of “credibly accused” priests on February 18th, 2019. Despite the active criminal investigation focused on Castillo, Castillo was left off the list. Now that he has fled, Bishop Barber should, at a bare minimum, do the following:

• Add Castillo to the list, delineate his work assignments and overview his personal relationship with Castillo; SNAP has heard that Barber has mentored Castillo since Castillo’s time in seminary at St. Patrick’s, Menlo Park.

• Personally visit each parish Castillo served (Our Lady Guadalupe in Fremont, St. Anthony’s in Oakley) and beg all witnesses or other victims of this priest to come forward to law enforcement.

• Freeze Castillo’s paycheck and use the money to buy full page ads in major Bay Area newspapers asking victims and witnesses to come forward. The ads should be in Spanish and English and should emphasize that if victims are undocumented, they can obtain “U Visas” in connection with reporting any crimes committed against them.

At least 132 priests credibly accused of abusing minors have ties to the Oakland Diocese, including about half a dozen who still are working at the diocese despite’s the bishop’s “zero tolerance” pledge. SNAP provided that list of 132 to Barber on February 23rd. To make kids safer and to help survivors heal, we believe Bishop Barber should prominently display that list on the diocese website and provide law enforcement phone numbers for reporting abuse. In addition, SNAP believes Bishop Barber should publish the Attorney General’s website for reporting clergy abuse and beg witnesses and victims to register their concerns with the Attorney General.

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

March 4, 2019

Over the weekend, HBO aired the first part of a powerful documentary on the topic of child sexual abuse, renowned abusers, and the reactions that victims experience when they come forward.

In Leaving Neverland, Wade Robson and James Safechuck discuss the grooming and abuse they say they experienced at the hand of international superstar Michael Jackson. While these allegations have bubbled up and simmered back down over the past several decades, one thing has stayed constant: the disbelief that survivors experience.

Whenever allegations are made against powerful and beloved men, those allegations are instantly disbelieved by their followers. Whether it was Barbara Blaine in 1985 or Anita Hill in 1991, survivors who bring forward allegations do so bravely and in the face of fierce opposition. Whether it was Fr. Chester John “Chet” Warren in 1985, or Michael Jackson in 1993 or Michael Jackson in 2019, there are usually those who cannot believe that the person who stood behind the pulpit or whose music they loved could also be the cause of so much pain to someone else.

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MASSACHUSETTS
CNN

March 4, 2019

By Eliott C. McLaughlin

Kevin Spacey’s sex abuse case returns to a Massachusetts court Monday, as his defense team works to obtain cell phone records and other evidence from the actor’s accuser.

A judge previously ruled that Spacey, who has pleaded not guilty to battery and indecent assault, does not have to attend the pretrial hearing, but he must be reachable by phone.

Charges against the 59-year-old stem from a July 2016 night at The Club Car, a restaurant and bar on the island of Nantucket, during which a busboy alleges Spacey bought him drinks and groped him.

The busboy, 18 at the time of the alleged assault, came forward to report Spacey more than a year later, telling police he did not want Spacey to victimize others, according to a criminal complaint. CNN does not identify alleged victims of sexual assault.

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ROME (ITALY)
National Catholic Reporter

March 1, 2019

By NCR Editorial Staff

Just inside St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome, to the right, is Michelangelo’s arresting sculpture, the Pietà. Layers upon layers present themselves for pondering. The wonder, initially, is that a piece of Carrara marble could yield such a luminous rendering of maternal agony. The young woman is resolute. She appears utterly exhausted in this moment of dismal uncertainty. The bloodied head of a son whose unpredictable, itinerant life ended on a hill of horrors, droops beyond her right arm. Her worry and anxiety are spent. Her burden now is death, a moment of emptiness.

It is from this raw instant of humiliation, of futility and apparent abandonment — the joke in the legend proclaiming “King of the Jews” — that our hope springs. No Resurrection occurs without it.

Throughout the church in the United States, in varying degrees, people are wondering some version of: “What do we do next? What can we do?”

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KOCHI (INDIA)
National Catholic Reporter

February 28, 2019

By Saji Thomas

As the Vatican grapples to devise stronger protocols and responses following a historic summit focused on clergy sex abuse of minors, five nuns in India complain of church repression for their support of a former superior general who was allegedly raped by a bishop.

“The Catholic Church leadership has been treating us as outcasts after we went public against Bishop Franco Mulakkal [of Jalandhar]. Even the Vatican has not bothered to acknowledge our complaints,” says Sr. Anupama Kelamangalathuveli, the spokesperson for five Missionaries of Jesus nuns who in September last year staged a sit-in for the bishop’s arrest.

The sisters seek attention from the Vatican to the plight of women religious abused by clergy, with clearer protocols and more protection. For now, the five sisters are living with the victim in a convent in Kerala, refusing orders to return to their own communities while the case is ongoing. They are caught in a wrangle between a bishop who supports their refusal and their congregational leadership. Meanwhile, they endure the rancor of sisters in their community who ridicule them and discount the victim’s allegations.

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AUSTRALIA
National Catholic Register

March 1, 2019

By Father Raymond J. de Souza

Cardinal George Pell was exactly where he should have been Wednesday night in Melbourne: in jail.

Let Henry David Thoreau explain: “Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also a prison” (Civil Disobedience).

Now that the peculiar “suppression order” in Australia has been lifted, we are free to state what has been evident for several years now. The prosecution of Cardinal Pell has been a monstrous miscarriage of justice, a religious persecution carried out by prosecutorial means.

Cardinal Pell was convicted last December for sexually assaulting two 13-year-old boys in 1996. The process that led to the convictions was, from the start, a sustained and calculated strategy to corrupt the criminal-justice system toward politically motivated ends.

And now Cardinal Pell is in jail, awaiting his sentencing next month. There is no shame that Cardinal Pell is in jail; the shame is sufficiently abundant to be worn by all those who put him there

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AUSTRALIA
The Guardian

March 4, 2019

By Melissa Davey

Counsellors say defence of cardinal in the media has been distressing for people affected by child sexual abuse

A specialist counselling service that supports victims of childhood sexual abuse has been inundated with calls since the conviction of Cardinal George Pell, with many survivors saying they have been traumatised by high-profile support for the disgraced prelate.

The president of the Blue Knot Foundation, Cathy Kezelman, said demand for the childhood trauma service spiked when a suppression order lifted on 26 February, revealing Pell was guilty of five charges, including sexually penetrating a 13-year-old choirboy.

“It’s been so challenging, as we’ve had double the normal amount of calls since then,” Kezelman said. “Some people are acutely distressed. The story is playing out in public in such a way that it’s impossible, almost, to avoid it.”

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MELBOURNE (AUSTRALIA)
Wall Street Journal

February 27, 2019

By Robb M. Stewart

Vatican’s former finance chief was found guilty of sexually abusing two choirboys in Australia decades ago

Prosecutors sought a lengthy prison term for the Vatican’s former finance chief, Cardinal George Pell, who was taken into custody Wednesday to await sentencing after he was found guilty of sexually abusing two choirboys in Australia decades ago.

Later in the day, the Vatican announced the start of a process that could lead to the cardinal’s dismissal from the priesthood.

At a Melbourne hearing, Chief Judge Peter Kidd revoked Cardinal Pell’s bail following a conviction in December on five counts of sex abuse and said sentencing would take place in two weeks. After bowing to the judge, Cardinal Pell was escorted from the courtroom to be taken to Melbourne Assessment Prison.

Each of the charges carries a maximum sentence of a decade in prison. Prosecutors have argued against each sentence being served concurrently, despite Cardinal Pell’s advanced age of 77 years. Cardinal Pell, the most senior Vatican official ever to stand trial on sex-abuse charges, continues to maintain his innocence and is appealing the conviction.

On Wednesday, defense attorney Robert Richter urged the judge to take Cardinal Pell’s age into account, along with his history of cardiac problems. He also said Cardinal Pell’s position as Australia’s highest-ranking Catholic in a church enveloped in years of abuse scandals would make him a target in prison.

Judge Kidd rejected a defense argument that Cardinal Pell’s offenses amounted to lesser examples of sexual abuse. “I see this as callous, brazen offending…[involving] a degree of impunity,” he said.

A jury of 12 men and women in December found Cardinal Pell guilty of four counts of an indecent act with or in front of a child under 16 and one count of sexual penetration of a minor. His accuser said the attack occurred in late 1996, just months after the priest became Archbishop of Melbourne, in the city’s St. Patrick’s Cathedral.

On Wednesday, the Vatican spokesman said the Vatican’s doctrinal office, which has responsibility for disciplining clergy guilty of sex abuse, would “now handle the case following the procedure and within the time established by canonical norm.”

According to church law, reports of sex abuse trigger a preliminary investigation to determine if a church trial is warranted. Cardinal Pell could eventually be punished by dismissal from the priesthood, commonly known as defrocking.

Earlier this month, former Cardinal Theodore McCarrick of Washington became the first U.S. cardinal in history—and possibly the first cardinal globally—to be defrocked, after a church trial found him guilty of sexual abuse of minors and sexual misconduct with adults.

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AUSTRALIA
Daily Beast

March 4, 2019

One of the alleged victims in a clerical sex-abuse case that was thrown out against Australian Cardinal George Pell has filed a civil lawsuit against the former Vatican No. 3. The 50-year-old man says Pell and a nun abused him when he lived at the St. Joseph’s School for Boys in Ballarat, Australia, in the 1970s. Pell was convicted in December 2108 in a separate case involving abuse that was allegedly carried out in a cathedral. The second trial, in which the alleged abuse was carried out in a swimming pool, was dismissed by the prosecutor in the case. Lawyers for the plaintiff say they are now seeking damages against the cardinal for psychiatric injury, loss of wages, and medical expenses. “David [not his real name], was one of the four complainants dubbed the ‘swimmers,’ and alleges he was sexually assaulted by Pell in a swimming pool in Ballarat,” the lawsuit states. “He was devastated when the prosecution decided not to proceed with his case.

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AUSTRALIA
SBS News

March 4, 2019

A man will sue George Pell in the Supreme Court of Victoria, saying the disgraced cardinal abused him in Ballarat in the 1970s.

A man who says he was molested by George Pell when he was a boy in the 1970s will file a lawsuit against the disgraced cardinal in Victoria’s Supreme Court.

The suit, expected to be lodged this week, names Pell, the trustees of the Sisters of Nazareth (formerly St Joseph’s), the Catholic Archdiocese of Melbourne and the State of Victoria.

The complainant alleges he was a victim of physical and sexual abuse while in care at Ballarat’s St Joseph’s Boys Home between February 1974 and 1978.

The 50-year-old was a complainant against Pell in a criminal trial over allegations the cardinal indecently assaulted boys in Ballarat in the 1970s.

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AUSTRALIA
Daily Mail Australia

March 1, 2019

By Hannah Moore

* Cardinal George Pell, 77, was found guilty of child sex offences from 1996
* He was due to face a second trial, focused on allegations from the 1970s
* It was thrown out due to issues with evidence, but accuser’s family are not upset
* Sister of accuser Lyndon Monument says family thinks justice has been served
* Senior legal counsel have suggested if Pell testified he may have walked free

The sister of a man who claims Cardinal George Pell sexually assaulted him in a public pool in the 1970s has released a statement on behalf of her family following his conviction.

Karen Monument, sister of Lyndon Monument, told The Age the four years since her brother came forward publicly with allegations against Pell had been dark and difficult.

In her family’s first statement since Pell’s conviction for sexually assaulting two 13- year-old choirboys in a separate case, Ms Monument slammed those who had come out in defence of Australia’s top Catholic in the wake of his conviction, saying it was ‘her turn to speak’.

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DUBLIN (IRELAND)
The Journal

March 4, 2019

By Shane Dunphy

The summit heard that the canon law protection of ‘pontifical secret’ had been applied to numerous clerical abuse cases. Bizarrely, it was suggested that this practice should not continue – indicating that it is ongoing, writes Shane Dunphy.

FOR A WHILE, I thought Pope Francis was a good man.

I was quite moved when he comforted a child who had been told one of his parents was going to hell due to his atheism, telling him a loving God would never do such a thing.

He spoke openly about reforming the monolith the Roman Church has become, and I was delighted. Here, I thought, was the kind of leader the church needed in the 21st century.

But alas, the mask quickly began to slip.

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ROCHESTER (NY)
Rochester Democrat & Chronicle

February 28, 2019

By Steve Orr and Sean Lahman

A new wave of allegations against Roman Catholic clergy will emerge in New York as a result of the new Child Victims Act.

After decades of anguish and argument over sexual abuse in the Roman Catholic Church, a final reckoning may be coming for New York parishioners.

Over the last quarter century, sexual abuse allegations, some of them horrendous, have been lodged in fits and starts against more than 400 priests and others associated with the church in New York state. The church hierarchy has been accused of concealing the truth about sexual misconduct as well.

But the number of past accusations and admissions pale in comparison to what’s happening today, and what will happen in the months ahead. The Democrat and Chronicle has found this confluence of events:

* More than 1,260 sexual abuse claims have been resolved and at least $228 million paid in compensation over the last two years under a systematic reconciliation program adopted by New York’s eight Catholic dioceses. Rochester is lagging, however, and has resolved about a half-dozen claims. By contrast, Ogdensburg, in less-populous St. Lawrence County, has already settled 39.

* A wave of lawsuits alleging child sexual abuse by Catholic clergy will begin arriving soon in New York courtrooms and peak starting this summer. Big law firms are flocking to New York to take advantage of a new state law that eases stringent limits on who can file such suits.
The cases, which will number in the many hundreds at least, will lay bare new details of past horrors and could push some of New York’s diocese to the brink of bankruptcy. What may be the first suit brought under the new law, filed Friday in Buffalo, is seeking $300 million for a single victim.

*The state Attorney General’s investigation of church sexual abuse has given investigators access to private diocesan records that will document still more instances of sexual misconduct and could well reveal past efforts by church officials to shield abusive clergy from discovery.

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ROCHESTER (NY)
Rochester Democrat & Chronicle

March 4, 2019

Court documents reveal that 430 people have claimed they were abused by members of the Irish Christian Brothers order.

Despite bankruptcy, victims may still sue dioceses where specific schools are located

A well-known figure in the science education world is among several Irish Christian Brothers accused of sexually abusing students at Irish Christian Brothers schools in New Rochelle in the 1960s and 1970s, lawyers for former students alleged.

Two men alleged that Brother Robert Pavlica of Iona Prep and Brother Michael John of the Blessed Sacrament High School abused them when they were students, said lawyer Mike Reck, attorney at Jeff Anderson and Associates of New York City.

Pavlica, who died in 2007, created the Authentic Science Research Program, which would later become the model for science research programs in New York and around the country.

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ROME (ITALY)
Crux

March 4, 2019

By Inés San Martín

Everyone within the Catholic Church, from the bishops to the laity, are called to work together to stop clerical sexual abuse, according to one of Mexico’s top bishops.

Mexican Archbishop Rogelio Cabrera Lopez of Monterrey, the president of Mexico’s bishops’ conference, spoke to Crux about the Feb. 21-24 Vatican summit on the protection of minors.

“I would highlight three themes [from the meeting]: The responsibility we have as bishops, but also that of the Church in general, to fight against the abuse of minors; the importance of accountability to God, the Church, civil justice and society; and the importance of good communication, so that people know what is happening,” Cabrera Lopez said. “This way, they can help us find a solution to these criminal acts that are always reprehensible: Harming boys and girls.”

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NEW YORK (NY)
Crux

March 4, 2019

By Christopher White

A new report by one of the nation’s leading organizations promoting best practices in leadership within the Catholic Church chronicles the “twin crises” within the Catholic Church, that of sexual abuse and its cover-up.

The report, released on Friday by Leadership Roundtable, comes just days after Pope Francis’s historic meeting with the heads of bishops’ conferences around the world in which he pledged an all out war on sexual abuse.

The forty-page report serves as a compilation of recommendations that emerged from the organization’s Catholic Partnership Summit, which took place in February in the nation’s capital, and brought together a mix of clergy and lay Catholic leaders, and seeks to promote a way forward with a “preferential option for abuse victims and families.”

Participants in the Catholic Partnership Summit included Cardinals Blase Cupich of Chicago, Sean O’Malley of Boston, Joseph Tobin of Newark; Father Hans Zollner of the Center for Child Protection in Rome; Kathleen McChesney, a retired FBI agent who established the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops’ (USCCB) Office of Child Protection; John Carr, the USCCB’s former point man on Capitol Hill and current director of the Initiative on Catholic Social Thought and Public Life at Georgetown University; and a range of academics, theologians, and leaders from 43 dioceses in the United States.

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

March 4, 2019

Over the weekend, HBO aired the first part of a powerful documentary on the topic of child sexual abuse, renowned abusers, and the reactions that victims experience when they come forward.

In Leaving Neverland, Wade Robson and James Safechuck discuss the grooming and abuse they say they experienced at the hand of international superstar Michael Jackson. While these allegations have bubbled up and simmered back down over the past several decades, one thing has stayed constant: the disbelief that survivors experience.

Whenever allegations are made against powerful and beloved men, those allegations are instantly disbelieved by their followers. Whether it was Barbara Blaine in 1985 or Anita Hill in 1991, survivors who bring forward allegations do so bravely and in the face of fierce opposition. Whether it was Fr. Chester John “Chet” Warren in 1985, or Michael Jackson in 1993 or Michael Jackson in 2019, there are usually those who cannot believe that the person who stood behind the pulpit or whose music they loved could also be the cause of so much pain to someone else.

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GREEN BAY (WI)
Associated Press

March 3, 2019

A Roman Catholic diocese in Wisconsin, says it’s removing the name of a former bishop from a center at St. Francis Xavier Cathedral in downtown Green Bay.

According to the Green Bay diocese’s newspaper, The Compass, Bishop David Ricken wrote a letter to parishioners saying Bishop Aloysius Wycislo failed to adequately address claims of clergy abuse while he was bishop from 1968 to 1983. The letter said Wycislo has not been accused of sexual misconduct.

The facility will be renamed Cathedral Center.

Ricken wrote that he hopes removing Wycislo’s name will help victims in their healing as the diocese tries to be more accountable for the issue of clergy abuse. The diocese in January released the names of 46 clergy members with substantiated allegations they sexually abused a minor.

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LOS ANGELES (CA)
Los Angeles Times

March 3, 2019

By Ruben Martinez

To write that now seems to beg an explanation. How can I continue to profess the faith within the bounds of an institution so thoroughly corrupted by the gravest of sins? How can I accept the host from the hands of men who themselves may have abused, or covered up for those who did?

I owe my faith to my grandmother and the Virgen de Guadalupe. In her American life, my Mexican grandmother rarely set foot in a church, but she hung a huge, sepia-toned print of the virgin in her living room, a votive always aflame before it. It was the heart of the house, the image of a mother who would never waver in protecting her child. I am struggling to hold on to that image amid the nightmare of predator priests betraying the Mother Church.

Roman Catholics who lapsed long ago — and certainly many survivors of sexual abuse — may ask why it took me so long to reach this moment of reckoning.

The answer is I don’t know what my faith would be without my church. I don’t know what my life would be like without my faith. And despite the onslaught of scandal after scandal, I’ve held on to the hope that the crisis would somehow open up the possibility of a profound conversation about the church’s identity — including priestly celibacy, gender and sexual orientation. Indeed, there were hints at the beginning of Francis’ papacy that such a dialogue could take place. But the conversation — such a complicated one, among more than a billion faithful on every continent — never seems to gain momentum before another scandal hits.

When the pope and cardinals speak, they never seem to address the laity’s confusion and deep spiritual turbulence.

As I came of age and ran up against the moral conservatism of the church, I was still able to find a community among kindred spirits in the faith who fought the good fight — many of them members of the Jesuit order, which was at the forefront of social movements in the United States and Latin America in the 1970s and ’80s. There were plenty of moralizing homophobes in the church, but so too were there figures who followed the radical spirit of the Gospels, like Father Gregory Boyle, the famous “gang priest” of Boyle Heights, or Father Michael Kennedy, who was instrumental in establishing a sanctuary for refugees from Central America in the 1980s.

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NEW YORK (NY)
Newsday

March 3, 2019

By Pat McDonough

Sixteen years of Catholic education. A family life infused with the rich traditions of Catholicism. A Lynbrook parish where we worshipped and witnessed the Sisters of Mercy serve unselfishly alongside a faith-filled laity and dedicated clergy. Grace was laced through all of it and the desire to devote my life to ministry led to a 35-year career in the Diocese of Rockville Centre.

I’ve worked in our schools, parishes and diocesan offices as an educator, psychologist and director of youth ministry, always with talented teams of priests, religious and lay men and women dedicated to the mission of the Gospel. I married a high school religion teacher and our kids went to Catholic schools. I wrote a syndicated column for the Long Island Catholic newspaper, served on dozens of diocesan committees, gave retreats and parish missions, and took Long Island teens on service trips to meet impoverished people, those whom Jesus loved.

I was all in, until I wasn’t.

In 1995, a vulnerable, anxious adolescent struggling with his sexuality told me things about our parish priest that no one wants to hear. He asked me to help him because his parents wouldn’t, couldn’t or didn’t know how. I brought the boy’s story to the diocese, naively assuming that appropriate actions would be taken to help the priest and protect the boy. That didn’t happen.

I was devastated to discover that the priest’s abuse of a minor came without consequences. I grew despondent while the priest grew more brazen. He took his young victim to a gay bar where, at age 14, he was served a martini and molested by men unknown to him. The priest continued to sexually abuse the boy in his rectory and at his lake house.

The torment continued until a suicide attempt brought the boy and his horrific history to a hospital where a psychiatrist listened. The Suffolk County district attorney listened, too, and that led to a grand jury investigation of sexual abuse and corruption within our diocesan clerical system. Its findings, published in 2003 on the heels of shocking revelations of similar episodes in Boston, showed an established pattern of abuse and cover-up in the Diocese of Rockville Centre. The notoriously inadequate statute of limitations that existed then prevented criminal prosecution of abusers and their protectors.

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DUNDEE (SCOTLAND)
The Sunday Post

March 3, 2019

By Janet Boyle & Marion Scott

A Catholic priest accused of abuse in Scotland and California has faced allegations from five separate children, we can reveal.

The number of allegations against Joseph Dunne has increased calls for a full explanation from the Catholic Church as to when concerns were first raised.

He was told to leave Scotland but later got a berth at a church in California where similar allegations of inappropriate behaviour towards young girls.

A woman, now in her 50s, is the latest alleged victim to come forward to voice concern about Dunne’s behaviour when she was a 15-year-old girl attending his Glasgow church.

She says the priest, who denies all allegations of wrongdoing, encouraged her to wear a short skirt at tennis matches he organised, and once offered her money to go with him to the seaside.

Dunne was sacked by the Archdiocese of Glasgow in 1988 after complaints about his behaviour by two other schoolgirls.

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ITHACA (NY)
WSYR-TV

March 3, 2019

The Roman Catholic Diocese of Rochester notified Cornell and Ithaca College of an allegation of sexual abuse of a minor against Reverend Carsten Martensen.

Father Martensen has served in campus ministry at Cornell University and Ithaca College since 2007.

“To our knowledge the allegation dates from the 1970s and does not correlate with Cornell, past or present. Father Martensen is not an employee of Cornell University, so the investigation is being led by the Jesuits USA Northeast Province,” said John Carberry, Senior Director of Media Relations and News at Cornell.

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BALTIMORE (MD)
WTOP News

March 3, 2019

By Keara Dowd

Maryland’s House of Delegates is considering a bill that would eliminate the statute of limitations in civil claims of child sex abuse.

The House Judiciary Committee heard testimony on the bill on Thursday from survivors and advocates. Among them were the bill’s sponsor, Del. C.T. Wilson, who was sexually abused as a child himself.

“There are people here, who probably won’t be here next year,” Wilson said in his opening statement to the committee. “And some of them are going to take their own lives, or their lives will end early because of what they went through.”

“If I don’t make it to next year, I’m going to give you guys one hell of a fight this year,” Wilson tearfully concluded.

In addition to firsthand accounts of abuse, the committee heard from various survivor organizations, as well as those who deal with legally pursuing sex abuse cases.

No one at the hearing spoke in opposition to the bill.

Susan Kerin of Catholics for Action, an organization allied with the Survivor Network for those Abused by Priests, says the legal process is an important one for survivors.

“It’s a healing process to have their day in court,” Kerin said.

While the bill only applies to civil claims and not criminal cases, Kerin said that the legislation can end up having an impact on those criminal prosecutions.

“Civil cases are an avenue for survivors to collect evidence that can be used in criminal cases,” said Kerin. “Prosecutors are not going to take a case unless they have really strong evidence, and this is a way for them to collect that and really control the process.”

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KANSAS CITY (MO)
Kansas City Star

March 3, 2019

By Ian Cummings nd Judy Thomas

An Overland Park priest announced at Mass this weekend that abuse allegations had once again been raised against him and that he denied the allegations.

The Rev. William Bruning made the announcement at the Queen of the Holy Rosary Church, saying that a woman in her early 30s had accused Bruning of abusing her when she was a minor attending the Most Pure Heart of Mary School in Topeka. Bruning insisted the allegation was false.

In a written statement, the Archdiocese of Kansas City in Kansas said the woman had raised the allegations twice before, in 2015 and in 2018. Each time, a review board at the archdiocese found the allegations could not be substantiated.

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LONDON (ENGLAND)
BBC News

March 3, 2019

A former pupil of St Aloysius’ College in Glasgow has said he was sexually abused at the school in the 1960s.

The man, now aged 66, made allegations against two Jesuit priests, one of whom was a teacher at the college.

Police Scotland confirmed inquiries were carried out in 2017, but there was insufficient evidence to pursue the matter further.

The college said it has “clear and robust safeguarding ­procedures” in place.

Patrick McGuire, a partner with Thompsons Solicitors, told BBC Scotland: “My client has spent the last 50 years in hell.

“Only now has he felt strong enough to come forward.

“He has taken that brave step and we want to do everything we can to obtain the justice he is looking for.”

Mr McGuire also urged anyone with similar experiences to come forward.

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BERKSHIRE (MA)
Berkshire Eagle

March 3, 2019

By Ruth Bass

For too long, the world has either pretended that sexual assault wasn’t there or treated it as something that could be taken care of in a quiet corner and with no records kept. So, colleges — landlords to thousands of our vulnerable offspring — didn’t call the police when one of their citizens attacked another. They might have had a meeting of the student disciplinary committee, they might have told the parents, they might have conducted a meeting in a dean’s office. But as often as not, nothing much happened. The victim might still find him or herself in the library next to the person who had committed what would be a felony if it had happened on North Street. It was as if colleges were like Native American reservations with their own courts and laws.

Colleges do better, much better, on these things now, although Education Secretary Betsy DeVos is trying to make life easier for the attacker and thus much less easy for the victim. Today it’s a police matter when boy assaults girl (or girl assaults boy, in fact). It’s seen as a felony. But the Catholic Church has a long way to go when it comes to sexual assault. And the church is not dealing with college dorm, boy-girl assault. It’s faced with adult priests molesting children.

Still, despite the fact that the church’s ruler, Pope Francis, keeps waffling, things are happening. American bishops who did not move criminal priests around as if they were just pieces on a chess board have asked for more action. And most recently, in this state where The Boston Globe put its spotlight on the priest/boy scandal, several district attorneys have put their oar in.

In offices in Hampden, Berkshire, Franklin and Hampshire, the district attorneys announced that they would now be in the front line to help families affected by clerical sexual abuse. The DAs have started by setting up a telephone hotline that will allow victims of abuse to report directly to law enforcement, bypassing the need to complain to church officials or just suffer in silence. The hotline, the DAs said, would be staffed by state police detectives who are trained to deal with sexual abuse.

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ITHACA (NY)
Ithaca Journal

March 3, 2019

By Katie Sullivan Borrelli

A priest who served at Ithaca College and Cornell University has been accused of sexual abuse of a minor.

In an Intercom message sent out to the campus community, Hierald Osorto, Ithaca College’s director of the Office of Religious and Spiritual Life, said the Roman Catholic Diocese of Rochester alerted the school it had received notice of an allegation against Rev. Carsten Martensen, who has served in campus ministry for both schools since 2007, for abuse that allegedly occurred in the 1970s.

Martensen has stepped down from all current assignments and public ministry, the diocese said, pending completion of an investigation by the USA Northeast Province of the Jesuits and future recommendations by its independent review board.

According to Cornell’s Catholic community website, Martensen was ordained a priest in 1977. He has taught at a summer day camp in the South Bronx and at Fordham Prep School, where he has also served as chaplain.

“I know that those within our Catholic community as well as the wider Ithaca College community will find this news upsetting and difficult to process,” Osorto said. “While the Diocese stated that it has never received an accusation against Father Carsten from his time in the Diocese of Rochester and that a full investigation is pending, this allegation is nonetheless deeply troubling to me, to President Collado, and to the college’s senior leaders, and we want to make sure above all else that our community receives the support that it needs.”

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TOPEKA (KS)
Topeka Capital-Journal

March 3,2019

By Katie Moore

A Catholic priest is denying an allegation of sexual abuse made by a woman who contends she was abused as a minor while attending Most Pure Heart of Mary School in Topeka.

Rev. William Bruning announced at Mass services over the weekend at Queen of the Holy Rosary Church in Overland Park that a woman in her 30s has accused Bruning of abusing her.

“Father Bruning emphatically denies the allegation and intends to fully defend his reputation against what he insists is a false allegation,” the Archdiocese of Kansas City in Kansas said in a statement.

Bruning is a priest in good standing, according to the archdiocese, who first learned of the allegation in June 2015 when Bruning was at Blessed Sacrament Parish in Kansas City, Kan.

The archdiocese said the allegation was based on recovered memories. They reported it to law enforcement, and Bruning was asked to refrain from public ministry pending the outcome of an investigation. The archdiocese’s report investigator interviewed Bruning, the alleged victim and others.

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[When the abuse report is not created: the case file of a deaf child]

MADRID (SPAIN)
El País

By Íñigo Domínguez

March 1, 2019

La historia de un presunto caso en un colegio de Salamanca, sobreseído de forma provisional en 2015, muestra la complejidad de estas acusaciones. El menor dice que acudirá a los tribunales a los 18 años

El problema de los abusos de menores para salir a la luz no es solo que no se denuncian, sino que las denuncias de presuntos casos muchas veces no prosperan. El reciente proceso del colegio del Opus Dei en Gaztelueta (Bizkaia) es emblemático. Los padres del menor denunciaron, la causa fue archivada y desistieron por consejo médico por el desgaste que sufría su hijo, pero cinco años después el chico, al llegar a la mayoría de edad, lo denunció él mismo. Fue entonces, el pasado mes de noviembre, cuando los tribunales le dieron la razón. Condenaron a 11 años a un profesor, aunque el colegio sigue diciendo que es mentira.

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POCATELLO (ID)
Idaho State Journal

March 3, 2019

By Leonard Hitchcock

Last week, over a hundred Catholic bishops gathered in Rome for a conference that addressed the problem of child sexual abuse by priests.

The church, and the general public, have known about this problem since the 1980s, when complaints began to surface in the United States. The Vatican chose, at first, to regard it as a localized phenomenon.

Then, over the ensuing decades, thousands of reports of abuse came in from Canada, Ireland and Australia, then from the continental European countries, and finally from Asia, Africa and South America. The church has finally been forced to acknowledge that the problem is a global one.

The Vatican has made some efforts to address the problem, but its reluctance to take measures to punish the higher-ranking church officials who have participated in the cover-up of the crimes of the priesthood has been conspicuous. It has acted, it seems, only when public outrage has left it no choice.

No doubt the conference was a positive step, though critics of the church pointed to a problematic, age-old conviction of the Vatican, viz. that it, and it alone, has the responsibility of disciplining priests, even when they commit civil crimes that the secular justice system is willing, and able, to deal with.

After four days of discussion, the Pope closed the event with a proposal for a new set of corrective measures. Most observers were disappointed at his failure to suggest concrete and decisive steps to solve the problem.

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BALTIMORE (MD)
Baltimore Sun

March 3, 2019

By Patricia M. Dwyer

Last month, Pope Francis met with bishops and cardinals from around the world to address the child abuse scandal that has devastated countless victims, rocked the faith of practicing Catholics and drawn outrage and disbelief from the global community. Several weeks earlier, we learned that for years clergy had been sexually abusing nuns. And recently, headlines revealed that gay priests, faithful to their vows, are being stigmatized as child abusers and that secret housing exists for infants and children from clergy’s illicit or consensual sexual relationships.

Something has got to change.

In addressing the nun’s abuse scandal, Pope Francis dismissed the notion that the abuse represented “temptations of the flesh,” but instead pointed to “clericalization,” clergy’s abuse of power due to their privileged status. I would wager we could expand that analysis and see power’s influence in all the sordid details shaking the church at its core.

As a Catholic nun from 1969 to 1991, I knew firsthand the ecclesial pecking order, with nuns playing back-up to the featured act: clergy forgave sins, developed and imposed doctrine, changed bread into the body of Christ. At one point of my career, I served as leader of a community of 13 sisters. Post Vatican Council, a sister who formerly had been deemed a “mother superior” was now called a “local coordinator,” a term meant to emphasize the collaborative nature of governance. We had monthly “house meetings” to make decisions together about the mundane (upkeep of the house, cooking and other responsibilities) and the visionary (our local community goals, our outreach in the parish or justice issues we would commit to). As the local coordinator, I was one of many voices; my role was to tap the energy and talents of the sisters with whom I shared a home and community life. Together we came to important decisions. This took time and dialogue, but the outcome was always worth it, as we discovered common ground to build on. It wasn’t perfect. It sometimes got messy. But that approach reflected who we were as a community.

That model was mirrored at the macro level of decision making as well. When major congregational issues were discussed, groups of sisters across geographic regions where we served would gather to share insights and discern possible paths forward. Results of these meetings were collected and reviewed by our president and council, and decisions were based on input from us as well as the leadership team.

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.

ROCHESTER (NY)
Rochester Democrat and Chronicle

March 2, 2019

By David Andreatta

Christina Grana can’t forget the principal she and her classmates at St. Margaret Mary School in Irondequoit called “Hawk.”

“She was the monster in my dreams,” Grana recalled the other day. “She was the monster in my closet. She was the monster under my bed.”

She was Sister Janice Nadeau, a nun described by those who worked and lived with her as a “harsh,” “stern,” “aggressive,” and “heavy-handed” school administrator who was known to “pick on” children.

To Grana, she was a “predator” who forever altered the trajectory of Grana’s life with an outburst that culminated in a violent sexual assault in February 1977, when Grana was 12 years old and in the seventh grade.

“That single incident defined who I am as a person,” said Grana, now 54 and a mother of two living in Webster.

The alleged assault could not be corroborated by an investigator commissioned by the Diocese of Rochester, whose 33-page report on the matter Grana provided to the Democrat and Chronicle.

Even those who worked closely with Nadeau and described her in unflattering terms expressed astonishment at the allegation against her, according to the report.

But the administrator of the diocese’s abuse victims’ reconciliation program found Grana’s description of the events “completely credible,” and offered her a five-figure settlement intended to compensate for “pain and suffering” by which the diocese has agreed to abide.

The payout would be the first in the diocese known to involve an allegation of sexual abuse against a nun.

Nadeau arrived at St. Margaret Mary School in 1976. In her forties at the time, she had held a previous teaching post at McQuaid Jesuit High School, and set out to make an impression on her new students.

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MANKATO (MN)
Mankato Free Press.

March 2, 2019

The Vatican summoned bishops from around the world for four days of prayer and debate last week over the Roman Catholic Church’s continuing crisis over clerical sex abuse.

While Pope Francis called for “all-out battle” against “abominable crimes that must be erased from the face of the earth,” the prelates departed a week ago today without any concrete action. Nothing about abusive parish priests, nothing about the bishops who look the other way.

This is particularly disappointing considering that last November the Vatican blocked the U.S. Conference of Bishops from voting on proposals that would have sharpened policing of bishops in large part by involving lay experts.

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BUFFALO (NY)
Buffalo News

March 2, 2019

It has been one year since Michael Whalen went public with accusations of abuse by Rev. Norbert F. Orsolits, and Orsolits admitted to Buffalo News reporter Jay Tokasz that he had molested “probably dozens” of young boys. That began the uncovering of decades of abuse involving more than 100 priests in the Diocese of Buffalo, a harrowing story that is still unfolding.

As victims of rape or other abuse have come forward, a common thread is the awful toll the crimes took on their lives. Depression, anxiety, alcohol and drug addiction, eating disorders, thoughts of suicide and troubled relationships were common. For innocent lives to be shattered like that is unconscionable.

The misdeeds among some in the Catholic Church have metastasized into a worldwide crisis. Cardinal George Pell of Australia, once an adviser to Pope Francis, in December was convicted of molesting two choirboys in 1996. Pell will be sentenced this week, just a few days after the pope concluded a four-day global summit in Rome on clerical sex abuse.

Some 190 bishops, priests and monks heard Francis use strong language in his closing speech at the summit; tough policies from the Vatican need to follow.

One phrase that victims’ advocates were hoping to hear from the pontiff was “zero tolerance.” Activists called for him to declare a universal “one strike and you’re out” rule, but no such announcement came.

The summit was still a big step forward in the Vatican’s acknowledgment of the horrors inflicted upon children who were raped by clergymen. The pope referred to men of God who “let themselves be dominated by their human frailty or sickness and thus become tools of Satan.”

The church leaders in attendance listened to stirring testimony from sexual abuse survivors, including four women. One, a canon lawyer and under-secretary in the Vatican’s laity office named Linda Ghisoni, had observers in tears as she described her own abuse, five years of rape by a priest.

“Engraved in my eyes, ears, nose, body and soul, are all the times he immobilized me, the child, with superhuman strength,” Ghisoni said.

We can only hope that the moving words of the four women might inspire the church to revisit its patriarchal structure that keeps females in subservient roles.

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DUBLIN (IRELAND)
Irish Times

March 2, 2019

“There are about 20 of us in my seminary. Seven are clearly gay. About six others have, we might say, tendencies. That agrees more or less with the usual percentage: between 60 and 70 per cent of seminarians are gay. Sometimes I think it’s as many as 75 per cent,” Axel tells me.

The young man would like to join the Rota, one of the three tribunals in the Holy See, and the initial reason for him attending the seminary.

Ydier wants to become a teacher. He wears a white cross on his shirt, and has dazzling blond hair. I mention this. “Fake blond! It’s fake! I have brown hair,” he tells me.

The seminarian goes on: ‘The atmosphere at my seminary is also very homosexual. But there are important nuances. There are students who really live out their homosexuality; others who don’t, or not yet.

“There are homosexuals who are really chaste; there are also heterosexuals who are practising for want of women, out of substitution, one might say. And there are others who only live it out secretly. It’s a very unique atmosphere.”

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