LONDON (ENGLAND)
The Guardian

March 2, 2019

George Pell is arguing his child sexual abuse convictions should be overturned or he should receive a retrial, because of a “fundamental irregularity” that prevented him from entering a not-guilty plea in front of his jury.

The Victorian court of appeal has released Pell’s grounds for appeal against his December conviction for sexually abusing two 13-year-old choirboys at St Patrick’s Cathedral in Melbourne in December 1996 and early 1997, when he was the archbishop.

“There was a fundamental irregularity in the trial process, because the accused was not arraigned in the presence of the jury panel as required,” the appeal, filed by Pell’s barrister, Robert Richter QC, reads.

It is one of three grounds for his appeal that were filed on 21 February.

Pell also takes aim at the reliance of the jury on only one victim’s evidence.

“The verdicts are unreasonable and cannot be supported, having regard to the evidence, because on the whole of the evidence, including unchallenged exculpatory evidence from more than 20 crown witnesses, it was not open to the jury to be satisfied beyond reasonable doubt on the word of the complainant alone,” his first appeal ground says.

If the court of appeal accepts that, it could dismiss the case.

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LONDON (ENGLAND)
The Guardian

March 2, 2019

By Christos Tsiolkas

I have been angry with Cardinal George Pell for a long time. That anger was first stirred by his absolute disdain for extending compassion to people living with Aids, and also by his refusal to accept queer people into Catholic fellowship.

I was also made furious by his perverting of the teachings of the Gospels, most clearly visible in his prioritising of political alliances with the rich and the powerful rather than offering ministry and care to those most in need.

So I understand the righteousness that many people are feeling and expressing, now that he has been convicted of the sexual abuse of two young boys. A hypocrite has been caught out and is being punished. Of course we are going to exalt in that.

Except, on seeing him being led out of the courthouse and into the media scrum, my anger fell away and all I felt was an immense sadness.

The ugly story of sexual and physical abuse in the Catholic church is one of the defining stories of our age. As we all do, I know many people who were raised in that church who now find it impossible to remain loyal to the faith. The betrayal, especially for those who have suffered the abuse, is too great.

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OWENSBORO (KY)
WLKY TV

March 2, 2019

A Catholic priest who was often seen on the bench alongside Rick Pitino’s Kentucky and Louisville basketball teams has been suspended on allegations he sexually abused a minor in the 1980s.

Father Joseph Edward Bradley was “temporarily suspended” by the Diocese of Owensboro, according to a statement Friday. The diocese received a report that he had sexually abused a minor “in the 1980s while he was principal at Owensboro Catholic High School.”

The Lexington Herald-Leader reports Bradley was a fixture on the University of Kentucky bench during the Pitino coaching era in the 1990s. Bradley also served as an unofficial chaplain to Pitino’s University of Louisville teams.

Bradley, 75, retired from ministry in 2011 but has been the volunteer chaplain at Owensboro Catholic High School since then, the diocese said.

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JERSEY CITY (NJ)
Jersey Journal

March 3, 2019

By Rev. Alexander Santora

Late last month, Pope Francis convened an unprecedented meeting of the heads of national conferences of bishops throughout the world and achieved his goal.

“The church has now become increasingly aware of the need not only to curb the gravest cases of abuse by disciplinary measures and civil and canonical processes, but also to decisively confront the phenomenon both inside and outside the church,” Francis said at the summit’s opening. He rejected criticism that identifying abuse more widely is minimizing the church’s culpability.

But some victims of abuse by clergy and other critics of the church’s plan call it insufficient. And the lack of church reform undercuts the church’s determination to move forward.

The pope offered 21 points for consideration by the bishops, curia officials and heads of religious orders, including a small group of nuns. Among the points were to remove perpetrators, prepare a practical handbook, establish protocols to handle accusations against bishops, and establish pastoral care for those injured by abuse so they can move toward recovery.

“To decide that priests and bishops guilty of sexual abuse of minors leave the public ministry” was one of the more urgent points Francis shared.

This is what people wanted to hear. What they did not see is a change in church law to back it up.

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CASPER (WY)
Caspar Start Tribune

March 3, 2019

By Seth Klamann

Catholic leaders in Wyoming continue to compile a full list of credibly accused clergymen stretching back to 1950, more than five months after the work began and three months after the diocese announced the effort to its parishioners.

The internal investigation was announced in early December, three months after the Star-Tribune first inquired about the records and the vicar general of the Diocese of Cheyenne said the work would begin. Since that September request, the diocese has repeatedly told the newspaper that its records inquiry was underway and that no timeline existed for the completion of the work.

Diocese vicar general Rev. Carl Gallinger and Bishop Steve Biegler reiterated that position last week in answer to questions sent by the newspaper. The list will include all living or dead clergymen who faced credible accusations going to back to 1950, the officials said.

Gallinger told the Star-Tribune previously that the diocese’s “commitment” to the review predated September, though the work had not begun until the Star-Tribune requested the records that same month.

Biegler said the church had posted signage in every Catholic church in the state, encouraging victims to come forward.

“We have no other way of finding victims,” he wrote.

He said that no other victims have been identified by the diocese since an August announcement that a third alleged victim of former Bishop Joseph Hart was identified by the church. He noted, though, that he did not have access to any information law enforcement may have.

Through an attorney, Hart has denied any wrongdoing.

The scrutiny and work by the diocese here arose after church officials in Cheyenne announced that sexual misconduct allegations against Hart were credible and that 2002 investigations by Cheyenne Police and the Natrona County District Attorney’s Office were flawed. Both agencies recommended the case be closed, citing a lack of evidence, according to documents obtained by the Star-Tribune.

But Gallinger has said that the presence of the 2002 victim who sparked that investigation provided enough evidence to indicate the claims were credible.

Biegler said that no other law enforcement agencies in the state have been contacted as a part of the diocese’s investigation.

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JEFFERSON CITY (MO)
News Tribune

March 3, 2019

By Joe Gamm

Admittedly, he’s been impatient — waiting on the Vatican for actions dealing with clergy sexual abuse — said Bishop W. Shawn McKnight, of the Catholic Diocese of Jefferson City.

And because of the size of Pope Francis’ summit on child sex abuse, gathering the church’s world leaders in Rome over four days last week, McKnight feared the simple bureaucracy surrounding such a large, short event would prevent much from being accomplished.

But the results surprised McKnight.

“I’m hopeful because I see a green light coming from the Vatican for what we were trying to do as (U.S.) bishops back in November,” he said. “We were asked to cease and desist until this summit were to take place. The indication I’m getting is that we are moving full speed ahead.”

That’s a reversal from the feeling U.S. bishops had late in 2018.

Last November in Baltimore, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops held its annual meeting — to promote the greater good the church can do for humankind, according to the conference website — with a priority of adopting a strategy to deal with the growing clergy sexual abuse scandal. However, as the event began, the Vatican asked the conference to delay a vote until after last week’s worldwide meeting of the presidents of bishops.

U.S. bishops were disappointed by the delay, they said. They’ve been dealing with the crisis for decades.

On his own, McKnight had already voluntarily included the local diocese in a statewide investigation of clergy abuse and implemented a protocol for dealing with clergy abuse in his diocese. Within that protocol, any allegation of sexual abuse made against a bishop would be referred to an independent investigator who would make an initial determination of whether there is any truth to it. If so, the bishop would request a leave of absence from the pope until a preliminary investigation could be completed and a report submitted to the Review Board of the Archdiocese of St. Louis. That board would then make a recommendation to the apostolic nuncio (the pope’s representative in the United States).

Knowing the church has not done a good job of policing itself, McKnight and other bishops hoped to rely on the laity to provide external investigative services into accusations of abuse. They worried after being asked to not implement a U.S. strategy in November that the Vatican was blocking their plans.

The conclusion of the Rome meeting has given U.S. bishops confidence, McKnight said.

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LONDON (ENGLAND)
Daily Mail

March 3, 2019

Sydney’s top Catholic urged parishioners to be patient as Cardinal George Pell’s case heads for an appeal, at the first mass since the conviction became public.

Archbishop of Sydney Anthony Fisher said the process was in God’s hands and people should not be ‘too quick to judge’ either way.

‘If we are too quick to judge we can end up joining the demonisers or the apologists, those baying for blood or those in denial,’ he said on Sunday morning.

‘Our readings remind us that things are not always what they seem, that we must look beneath the surface and allow truth and justice to unfold in God’s good time.’

Pell was on Wednesday remanded in custody two months after he was found guilty of raping a choirboy and molesting another in Melbourne in 1996.

Archbishop Fisher told worshipers at St Mary’s Cathedral that unlike others he would not comment on the substance of the case, according to the Sydney Morning Herald.

He said final conclusions shouldn’t be drawn until the Court of Appeals judges reviewed the case and decided whether to quash his conviction.

‘Amidst the heated emotions of the present I also pray for public calm and civility,’ he said.

Archbishop Fisher, who replaced Pell in his role when the 77-year-old was promoted to cardinal, admitted the case would shake the faith of many Catholics.

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AUSTIN (TX)
Spectrum News

March 1, 2019

By Reena Diamante Austin

While the Vatican summit on clergy abuse marked a major turning point for the Catholic Church, many survivors felt the meeting of 200 religious superiors from around the world did not meet expectations. Pope Francis vowed to confront abusers with the “wrath of God.”

“They have the information they need to truly take action for zero tolerance. The Pope talked about zero tolerance, but talking about it is not enough,” said Carol Midboe, the Austin support group leader, for the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests.

Midboe is back in town after attending the historic four-day summit with other survivors of sexual abuse. To describe how she felt leaving the summit in one word, Midboe said she was “disappointed.”

“We were hopeful that this time that we would see concrete actions taken and action provided with a timeline at the end of the summit and that didn’t happen,” Midboe said. “We’ve heard this rhetoric before from the Church.”

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SCOTTSBLUFF (NE)
Scottsbluff Star Herald

March 3, 2019

By Terry Mattingly

At the end of the movie “Spotlight,” the screen went black before a message appeared noting that in 2002 alone, The Boston Globe’s investigative reporting team published nearly 600 stories about sexual abuse by Catholic clergy.

The next screen noted, “249 priests and brothers were publicly accused of sexual abuse within the Boston Archdiocese.”

But there was more. The first time Sister Veronica Openibo of Nigeria saw this film — which won the Oscar for Best Picture in 2016 — she was stunned to see four screens packed with the names of 223 American dioceses and nations in which major abuse scandals had been uncovered.

“Tears of sorrow flowed,” she said, speaking at the Vatican’s global summit on clergy sexual abuse. “How could the clerical church have kept silent, covering these atrocities? The silence, the carrying of the secrets in the hearts of the perpetrators, the length of the abuses and the constant transfers of perpetrators are unimaginable.”

Didn’t any of these priests and bishops, she asked, go to confession? Didn’t they wrestle with their sins while talking with the spiritual directors who guide their lives? Later, she went further, asking why these clergy were allowed to remain in ministry after committing these atrocities. Why weren’t they defrocked?

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ROME (ITALY)
Crux

March 3, 2019

By John L. Allen Jr.

Whenever there’s a big Vatican shindig, it’s never just one experience. It’s almost always a tale of multiple events, depending on one’s angle.

To offer just a partial list, there’s the event as it’s experienced by those actually taking part; the public face that the Vatican’s PR machinery tries to apply; the way the event is covered by the media; and the circus that unfolds around the event in protests, parallel meetings, news conferences, snarky tweets, polemical essays, and so on.

Analyzing how these differing perspectives coincide, and where they diverge, usually reveals a good deal about where things stand in terms of the politics of the Catholic Church at any given moment.

Such was again the case with the Feb. 21-24 summit on clerical sexual abuse convened by Pope Francis, and perhaps nowhere is that clearer than discussions of homosexuality, gay clergy, and whether a supposed “gay lobby” within the Church’s power structure has anything to do with the abuse scandals.

Beginning with the statistical fact that a 2004 John Jay report in the United States found that 81 percent of abuse cases involved interaction between priests and minor males, there’s long been an active discussion as to whether homosexuality has anything to do with the crisis.

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SAN JOSE (CA)
Mercury News

March 2, 2019

By Erin Baldassari

An Oakland priest who was suspended from his duties following allegations of child sexual abuse, is believed to have fled the country, officials with the Oakland diocese said Saturday.

Rev. Alexander Castillo, who served at Saint Anthony Parish in Oakley and Our Lady of Guadalupe in Fremont, was placed on administrative leave Jan. 30 and stripped of his authority to function publicly as a priest.

He had been living at Our Lady of Lourdes rectory in Oakland, the diocese’s chancellor, Steve Wilcox, said during a February interview with this news organization. At the time, Wilcox said the church was not aware of Castillo’s whereabouts but believed he was living in the area.

He said he knew that Castillo was at Our Lady of Lourdes immediately after his leave of absence, but that he was also looking for “groups of friends to live with for a few days until things calm down.”

“I don’t know whether he found someone to live with, whether it was in San Francisco or some other place,” Wilcox said. He added, “But he didn’t move. He wasn’t officially asked to move.”

Diocese officials last spoke to Castillo on Feb. 20, said Helen Osman, a spokeswoman for the church. But, attempts to reach him the next day, on Feb. 21, were unsuccessful, she said. Diocesan staff attempted to file a missing persons report on Feb. 22, she said, but were told to first contact “every jail and hospital in the area” before the police would accept the report. They did, she said, and filed the missing persons report the next day, on Feb. 23.

Oakland police informed diocesan officials on Friday that Castillo, a native of Costa Rica, had been located, though Osman said officers would not tell them where he had been found, except that he had left the country.

Multiple calls to Oakland police were not returned, and a spokeswoman for the Alameda County District Attorney’s Office said she was not able to provide any information about the case on Saturday.

Melanie Sakoda, a leader in the Survivors Network for those Abused by Priests, or SNAP, blasted the church’s handling of the case. Officials waited three days after a victim reported the abuse to church officials before Castillo was removed from his duties, Wilcox said in February. The diocese sent out a press release the day following Castillo’s suspension, but didn’t report it to police until five hours later.

Wilcox also said in February that he was in contact with Oakland police regarding both the evidence surrounding Castillo’s case and the timeline for reporting the allegations to police.

“This is what we were concerned about with their delay in reporting,” Sakoda said, “that he would flee the country.”

She said she hoped it would not be a repeat of what happened in the case of Francisco Xavier Ochoa. The Sonoma ex-priest fled to Mexico in 2006, several days after meeting with the bishop of the Santa Rosa diocese and other church officials and admitting to offering a boy $100 to strip dance in front of him. He also confessed to kissing other boys on the lips, the Press Democrat reported. He died quietly of lung cancer in Mexico three years later.

His victims, Sakoda said, never had a chance to confront him in court.

“He was never able to be brought back for justice,” she said. “It feels like another betrayal.”

Castillo came to the U.S. in 2008 and was ordained in 2011. Fluent in Spanish and English, he organized and directed missionaries in Costa Rica, and, beginning in 2010, taught at the Serra Catechetical Institute for parents and instructors in the faith. He directed the reopening of the Escuela de Ministerios Pastorales in 2013, where he was an academic dean and taught several courses. In 2014, he was appointed as Secretary to the Bishop and Episcopal Master of Ceremonies, in which capacity he assisted Bishop Michael Barber in public sermons.

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AUSTRALIA
news.com.au

March 3, 2019

By Rebecca Franks

Marco Fabbro was sadistically raped by a twisted paedophile priest at Melbourne’s prestigious Xavier College aged just 11 years old. The violent and horrific experience left him humiliated, disgusted, ashamed and really, really angry.

“At school, I turned to the Church because there was a sense of belonging and love that I wasn’t getting in my family. I became a choirboy, I looked up to the divinity and Christianity and the belief system very avidly,” Marco tells news.com.au.

That was until the day his innocence was stripped away from him in a brutal and sadistic attack in 1971 on the grounds of Xavier College’s preparatory school Burke Hall in a small room behind the Jesuit priest Father John Byrne’s office.

Marco has tried to block details of the attack from his memory; of being whipped and sexually assaulted on a leather couch by Father Byrne during school hours while the 59-year-old priest mumbled Latin behind him.

“I became very rebellious, very angry,” Marco says. “At school I was what you would call the class clown or the ‘village idiot’ because I didn’t want to be taken seriously, due to the seriousness of what happened.”

Soon after, Marco was sent to St Ignatius College Riverview, an exclusive Catholic boarding school on Sydney’s lower North Shore which includes former prime minister Tony Abbott and former deputy PM Barnaby Joyce as alumni.

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READING (PA)
Readiing Eagle

March 1, 2019

By Carol Balinski:

One of the recent reports from a state’s Roman Catholic dioceses listing names of priests credibly accused of sexual abuse of children hit close to home for me.

When I saw news reports last month that New Jersey’s dioceses had released the names of 188 priests and deacons, I felt compelled to go online to see if any of those priests had served at my childhood parish in the Camden Diocese. At the same time, I felt a sense of foreboding. There was one priest in particular whose name I dreaded seeing on the list. He was a priest whom my late mother had held in high regard and who presided at my wedding ceremony. Finding out he had been accused of sexual abuse would feel like a betrayal of my mother’s trust in him.

I breathed a sigh of relief when I did not find that priest’s name on the list. There was only one priest on the list who served my home parish, but his tenure came after I had left home for college and converted to Protestantism. I did not know him.

But, for a moment, I understood more fully what many Catholics and former Catholics in Berks County went through last August when the groundbreaking Pennsylvania grand jury report identified priests who had been accused of sexual abuse. Some, like me, may have felt relief at not finding names of beloved priests on the list. But, for others who saw names they recognized, feelings of disbelief, sadness, betrayal or anger must have been overwhelming.

The New Jersey list was the result of an internal review spurred by a law enforcement investigation announced last year after Pennsylvania led the way with its grand jury report.

According to www.vox.com, at least 13 other states and Washington, D.C., have launched investigations into allegations of sexual abuse or cover-ups involving the Catholic Church. In addition to New Jersey, those states are New Mexico, New York, Nebraska, Missouri, Illinois, Michigan, Vermont, Maryland, Florida, Virginia, Kentucky and Wyoming.

On Monday, the Diocese of Sioux City, Iowa, published a list of priests who have been credibly accused of sexual abuse involving minors.

The Diocese of Sioux City, Iowa, released the following statement Monday: “As you review the list, it is important to remember the accusations, while considered credible, are not the equivalent of conviction in a court of law. Many of the accused priests are deceased and cannot defend themselves.”

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SANTA FE (NM)
Santa Fe New Mexican

March 1, 2019

By Rebecca Moss

The New Mexico Attorney General’s Office this week searched a trove of records at the Archdiocese of Santa Fe on two former Albuquerque priests accused of repeatedly raping a child over several years in the 1980s.

Both were identified by the Catholic Church as “credibly accused” sexual abusers.

The accuser, now 44, told investigators that the abuse began at Our Lady of the Assumption Catholic Church in Albuquerque. He alleges he was raped by then-Rev. Ronald Bruckner beginning in 1984, when he was 9.

According to a search warrant affidavit filed Thursday in state District Court in Albuquerque, the accuser said that within two years, the Rev. Robert Malloy also began raping him. The abuse extended for at least four years, the affidavit says, with the two men assaulting the boy not only on church property, but also in Albuquerque hotel rooms, at state parks and during church events.

Much of the abuse occurred during Boy Scouts trips throughout the New Mexico wilderness, the accuser told investigators, as both former priests had served as Scout leaders.

In addition to raping the boy, the affidavit says, the priests filmed him performing sexual acts.

The accuser spoke with the Attorney General’s Office investigators in a Feb. 15 interview, saying he had lived close to the church and that his family was deeply immersed in the church community.

Malloy, 61, denied the allegations Friday. “I can only say that I unequivocally deny all of it,” he said when reached by phone. “Nothing like that happened. It is very disturbing. That did not occur — at any time.”

He declined to comment on how he has spent his time since leaving the clergy in 1998, when he faced criminal charges of soliciting teen boys for prostitution.

Most of the counts were dismissed as part of a plea deal.

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Healing From Complex Trauma blog

I have been asked several times, how to identify if an adult is/has been groomed for sexual abuse, by an abuser.

I was ‘groomed’, by a narcissistic pastor. I was very vulnerable, and he used that for to his advantage. Seeking to get me alone, talking about highly inappropriate things – like telling me how many pastors have affairs, discussing sexual intimacy with me in detail, inappropriate touching and hugging, all whilst alone with him, in my home. He told me he had feelings for me, he should only have for his wife. So, clearly did not see me as a sister, which was how he termed his ‘feelings’, earlier on in the grooming process.

He broke every rule of pastoral counselling, didn’t keep any records, hadn’t told his senior pastor where he was, and then lied about it all.

This below is great info about adult grooming.

http://outofthefog.net/CommonBehaviors/Grooming.html

Definition: Grooming is the predatory act of maneuvering another individual into a position that makes them more isolated, dependent, likely to trust, and more vulnerable to abusive behavior.

Description: Grooming is a insidious predatory tactic, utilized by abusers. Grooming is practiced by Narcissists, Antisocial predators, con-artists and sexual aggressors, who target and manipulate vulnerable people for exploitation.

Child grooming is the deliberate act of establishing an emotional bond with a child, to lower the child’s resistance. Child grooming can result in the minor falling victim to physical, sexual and emotional abuse, or specifically, to manipulate children into participating in slave labor, prostitution, and/or the production of child pornography.

Adult grooming is correspondent to child grooming and applies to any situation where an adult is primed to allow him or herself to be exploited or abused. While it is a common assumption that grooming is only practiced on the very young, identical emotional and psychological processes are commonly used to abuse or exploit adults the elderly, and those with compromised mental facilities.

An predator will identify and engage a victim and work to gain the target’s trust, break down defenses, and manipulate the victim until they get whatever it is they are after. Overt attention, verbal seduction (flattery / ego stroking), recruitment, physical isolation, charm, gift-giving, normalizing, gaslighting, secrecy, and threats are all hallmarks of grooming.

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LONDON (ENGLAND)
The Guardian

March 2, 2019

By Harriet Sherwood

A woman who was sexually abused as a teenager by a Catholic priest has expressed anger and disappointment that the church’s leader in England and Wales declined to meet her before attending the Vatican’s abuse summit last month.

The woman, who does not want to be named, wrote to Cardinal Vincent Nichols, the archbishop of Westminster, several times in the run-up to the Rome summit asking him to hear about shortcomings in the way the church handled her disclosure. The cardinal’s private office replied to say his diary was too full to arrange a meeting.

“I feel incredibly frustrated, but in some ways not surprised,” she told the Observer. “I’ve not been listened to throughout the whole process. I’ve been made to feel like I’m the enemy. I’m just about clinging on as a member of the church, but I’m not sure for how much longer, to be honest.”

Pope Francis, who convened the high-profile sexual abuse summit at the Vatican, asked all cardinals, bishops and other senior church figures attending to meet abuse survivors in their own countries before travelling to Rome in order to get a better understanding of the issues.

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SYDNEY (AUSTRALIA)
Sydney Morning Herald

March 1, 2019

By Geoffrey Robertson

News of George Pell’s conviction was a fitting end to a papal summit on child abuse which achieved nothing and began with other cardinals attributing the problem to homosexuals in the priesthood.

The reality is that priests abuse small boys not because they are gay but because they have the opportunity. Most are not even paedophiles, but rather sexually maladjusted, immature and lonely individuals unable to resist the temptation to exploit their power over children who are taught to revere them as the agents of God.

A church that has tolerated the sexual abuse of tens of thousands of children – a crime against humanity in any definition – needs to face unpalatable truths and to make drastic reforms.

Cover-ups are no longer an option. The magnitude of the crimes is well-established and the evidence of how the Vatican and its bishops hushed them up in order to protect the reputation and finances of the Catholic Church is fully proved.

By insisting upon its right to deal with allegations under medieval canon law weighted in favour of the defendant and providing no effective punishment, the church itself became complicit.

It has allowed abusive priests to confess without fear of any report to police; it has encouraged bishops to withhold information from prosecuting authorities; it has refused to allow Vatican envoys (papal nuncios) to co-operate with government inquiries on the excuse that it is a state and hence they have diplomatic immunity.

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COLUMBUS (OH)
Columbus Dispatch

March 1, 2019

By Danae King

The Roman Catholic Diocese of Columbus released a list Friday of 34 clergy members who were “credibly accused” of sexually abusing children. The latest abuse case on the list occurred more than 25 years ago.

The diocese said that it reviewed files on almost 2,000 clergy members who served in the diocese since it was founded in 1868.

“I share with the faithful of our diocese sorrow, sadness, and anger over such behavior,” Columbus Bishop Frederick Campbell, said in a letter posted on the diocese website with the list. “I apologize to all victims for the abuse suffered, and hope that these disclosures will help bring healing to all victims and their families.”

The diocese’s list does not include when the accusations were made, when the alleged abuse occurred or where the clergy members served in the diocese. Of the 34 clergymen, 21 were listed as deceased.

None of the abuse cases involving clergy who are still living happened within Ohio’s statute of limitations for prosecution, Franklin County Prosecutor Ron O’Brien said in a statement.

In response to the list’s release, six victim advocates said it likely wasn’t comprehensive and pointed to media reports, which show at least two more recent cases.

“I’m aware of priests who have abused who aren’t on the list,” said Carol Zamonski, leader of the Central Ohio Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP).

Columbus is just the latest of 112 dioceses nationwide that have released similar lists, said Terry McKiernan, co-president of Bishop Accountability, an organization that works to track allegations of abuse by Catholic officials.

An increase in releases began soon after an August grand jury report released by Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro detailed widespread child sexual abuse in the Catholic Church in that state.

Ohio lawmakers have said in the past that the state’s home-rule laws put sexual-abuse investigations in the hands of county prosecutors. Joe Grace, Shapiro’s spokesman, said 15 other state attorneys general have publicly acknowledged investigations into clergy abuse and the U.S. Department of Justice is conducting a nationwide investigation.

“This is a matter of concern and discussion between me and my senior staff,” Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost said of the fact that his office has no jurisdiction over clergy sexual-abuse cases. “Speaking as a voice for victims, the lack of information does nothing to bring closure to people who may have been abused by a trusted authority figure,” he said.

O’Brien said in a statement that the Columbus Diocese has regularly reported allegations to police, children services agencies and the prosecutor’s office since 2002.

George Jones, spokesman for the diocese, said the list had not been cross-checked with lists released by other Ohio dioceses, but the diocese plans to do so.

Campbell, who declined to speak with The Dispatch on Friday, said in the letter that he hoped the release of the information would “restore the confidence of all faithful in the church and in its clergy.”

Bishop Accountability co-president Anne Barrett Doyle said releasing lists of perpetrators is helpful to victims.

“Transparency is the ultimate act of compassion,” she said. “When you release a name of an accused priest, even if we already know the name, it provides instant validation to the victims and families.”

Still, the lists are almost never complete.

“Almost every time a bishop releases a list of those credibly accused there are omissions,” said Donna Doucette, executive director of Voice of the Faithful, a Boston-based organization that supports victims of priest sexual abuse. ”… It’s just been too many years with too many people to ever say it’s complete.”

SNAP Midwest Regional Leader Judy Jones said in a statement that the release is an important first step in protecting children, preventing future cases of abuse and healing survivors, but more information needs to be included.

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.

EVANSVILLE (IN)
Evansville Courier & Press

March 2, 2019

By Jon Webb

The rules were specific.

Last week, when the Evansville Diocese released the names of clergy who had been “credibly accused” of sexual misconduct against minors, it made it clear that each name had to meet narrow criteria.

The accusations must be deemed “credible”: a term defined by the Diocesan Review Board and Bishop Joseph Siegel. Either that or the accused had to admit to the crime.

The abuses had to be committed against minors or someone who “habitually has only the imperfect use of reason,” (i.e. the mentally handicapped).

The report didn’t state this outright, but apparently the accused had to be directly – not just closely – tied the diocese.

But any Google search of abusive priests in Evansville will turn up names that didn’t make the Feb. 22 release.

In 2003, the diocese itself said 15 priests had been accused of misconduct. Sixteen years later, that number had somehow winnowed to 12.

The list didn’t include two priests – David Fleck and the late Raymond Kuper – whose cases are still winding through the diocese. It also omitted multiple priests who were cleared only through diocesan review – not by law enforcement.

That includes a now-dead clergyman who, when he was still living, had two women level accusations against him in 2002. In the first case, a board selected by then-Bishop Gerald Gettelfinger believed the abuse did happen, but that it was committed by a different priest. That shadowy person’s identity was never revealed.

As for the second allegation, the board refused to consider it. The accuser was 18 at the time of the reported abuse. They only investigated claims involving minors, they said at the time.

Some cases weren’t as ambiguous. Here are two examples.

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.

OWENSBORO (KY)
KPR TV

March 2, 2019

By Lisa Autry

The Catholic Diocese of Owensboro has temporarily suspended a priest while he’s being investigated on child sexual abuse allegations.

Fr. Joseph Edward Bradley was suspended as the volunteer chaplain at Owensboro Catholic High School after a complaint was received on Tuesday. The allegation refers to sexual abuse by Fr. Bradley in the 1980s while he was principal at Owensboro Catholic High School.

A statement from the diocese says the allegation was immediately reported to the local Commonwealth Attorney’s Office and the Diocesan Review Board which removed Fr. Bradley from his volunteer role until the investigation is complete.

Fr. Bradley, who was ordained a priest of the diocese in 1975, became a staff member at Owensboro Catholic High School in 1976 and served as principal from 1980-1985. He pastored five parishes in the Diocese of Owensboro before retiring from public ministry in 2011. That’s when he began his role as volunteer chaplain at Owensboro Catholic High School.

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.

Brent Detwiler’s blog

February 28, 2019

I hope you will read the entire article in order to fully grasp why the action taken by Al Mohler in cutting all ties to C.J. Mahaney and Sovereign Grace Churches, Inc. was so necessary. It has taken me three weeks to write this documentary account. It preserves a historical record but more importantly it illustrates what I consider to be the greatest problem in the evangelical church. Elders, pastors, overseers are not held accountable to the qualifications of Scripture found in 1 Timothy 3:1-7 and Titus 1:5-9. The examples are endless and it has done extraordinary harm to the gospel.

Evangelical leaders must resolve to act without partiality and favoritism when dealing with fellow leaders who are not above reproach (1 Tim. 5:19-22). Witnesses must be heard, evidence examined, and corrective action taken. This has not been the case with C.J. Mahaney or the leaders of Sovereign Grace Churches over the past 8 years. Tragically, so many of our top Bible teachers, authors, bloggers, professors, seminary presidents, parachurch leaders, and church planting experts have shown no discernment and refused to study the evidence. The good ole’ boy network has covered up for one its own. And yet, no one is fessing up to it.

In the providence of God, Al Mohler was forced to reveal his severing of ties but there is much more for him to do. Here are some highlights from my article followed by the full length article. I hope you take the time to read it all.

##

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GREEN BAY (WI)
Press-Gazette

March 1, 2019

By Haley BeMiller

The Catholic Diocese of Green Bay has removed a former bishop’s name from a cathedral center because of the bishop’s reported mishandling of clergy complaints.

The Bishop Wycislo Center, an addition to the St. Francis Xavier Cathedral, will now be called the Cathedral Center.

In a Feb. 23 letter that the Press-Gazette obtained, Bishop David Ricken explained to parishioners of St. Francis why former Bishop Aloysius Wycislo’s name would no longer be on the cathedral center.

Ricken said Wycislo was never accused of sexual misconduct. Still, he said, removing Wycislo’s name allows community members with concerns about how he handled complaints to “move forward on a path to healing.”

“With the release of the disclosure list it is clear that a majority of the problems and challenges in the Diocese of Green Bay occurred during the 1960s and ’70s,” Ricken wrote.

Wycislo was bishop from 1968 to 1983.

The diocese last month released a list of 46 priests with substantiated allegations of sexual abuse of minors against them, 15 of whom are still alive. Ten of those priests were accused after they died.

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.

SPRINGFIELD (MA)
WGGB/WSHM TV

March 1, 2019

Just days after the Hampden County District Attorney’s office launched a hotline to make it easier for victims of clergy sex abuse to report, calls are coming in.

D.A. Anthony Gulluni said that he can’t elaborate on just how many calls they have been receiving since announcing the hotline on Tuesday, but that they are coming in and, as promised, are being handled by troopers with the state police.

Gulluni told Western Mass News that the hotline is operating indefinitely and for 24 hours a day, seven days a week. He wants to encourage everyone to continue to use it.

The reason it was launched was because of recent disclosures by the Roman Catholic Diocese of Springfield.

There is a statue of limitation of 20 years of when the crime was allegedly committed, but Gulluni said that there is a nuance when it comes to these cases.

“We still have the capacity to work with vicitms, provide them with services, point them in right direction in terms of counseling and all the resources that might be there. Certainly, collaboratively with the diocese in making sure the victims are dealt with appropriately and given their opportunity to certainly be heard and respected,” Gulluni explained.

Gullini said that they have a responsibility to victims of all kinds, so although there is a focus on clergy sex abuse with this hotline, anyone can use it.

Meanwhile, Diocese spokesperson Mark Dupont said that they support this effort by the D.A.’s office, but “would advocate that it beJust days after the Hampden County District Attorney’s office launched a hotline to make it easier for victims of clergy sex abuse to report, calls are coming in.

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.

OAKLAND (CA)
The Catholic Voice

March 1, 2019

By Michele Jurich

Five representatives of SNAP — Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests — stood on the Harrison Street sidewalk, with the Cathedral of Christ the Light behind them, on Feb. 22 to present their response to the Diocese of Oakland’s release earlier that week of the names of 20 diocesan priests and 25 religious deacons and priests and priests from other dioceses who served here who, the diocese said, have been credibly accused of sexual abuse of a minor.

“It’s not 45; it’s 132,” said Dan McNevin, representative for SNAP, in introducing the list compiled by SNAP.

“The diocese put out a list of 45 names. It was surprising to us, and disappointing. What surprised us was that there were 13 new names to us, five of those names are brand new to the world. They were priests who served in Oakland and never been revealed.

“That troubles us because survivors need to know that the abuse they went through has been noticed,” McNevin said. “In the case of those five, they were kept hidden from view, which means those survivors didn’t have that advantage.”

Those priests, he said, were “under the cover of darkness” and could have abused others.

“We want priests who have been credibly accused to be stripped of their ministry,” said McNevin, who is a survivor of clergy sex abuse in Fremont.

SNAP leaders read a litany of priests’ names, many from religious orders, who remain in active ministry. They also named two diocesan priests; the diocese does not list them among the credibly accused. The SNAP list included lay teachers at Catholic high schools in the diocese.

SNAP’s list was held aloft at the press conference by Joey Piscitelli, who was awarded $600,000 by a civil court jury in Contra Costa County in 2006 for sexual abuse while he was a student at Salesian High School in Richmond, three decades earlier.

Piscitelli noted the sources on SNAP’s list include the bishopsaccountability.org website, a list provided at the press conference by Minneapolis attorney Jeff Anderson last October, newspaper articles and the Official Catholic Directory.

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

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

March 1, 2019

Today, Bishop David Ricken of the Green Bay diocese announced he is removing the name of former Bishop Aloysius Wycislow from the cathedral center for “failure to adequately handle sex abuse cases”. In other words, covering up child sex crimes, not reporting predators to the police, transferring offenders to new parishes where they abused more children, and misleading Catholics.

While this gesture is welcome, it raises a lot of questions. What exactly did Bishop Wycislow do that his name is being removed? What specific cases did he cover up or mismanage? Where is the documentation and evidence? These facts can only come from the abuse files of the Green Bay diocese. But the diocese says they mostly destroyed these files under former Bishop David Zubik. That document destruction, admitted under oath in a civil case, has yet to be investigated by a single law enforcement official in Wisconsin.

Interestingly, if Ricken had a building named after him in his former diocese of Cheyenne, Wyoming, they would have to remove his name. He himself “mismanaged” the case of Cheyenne former bishop, Robert Hart. Several victims had come forward and filed lawsuits against Hart by 2005. One of their demands was that Hart’s name be removed from a building at St. Joseph’s Children’s Home in Torrington. Ricken said no name change would occur since “none of the accusations against Bishop Hart have been deemed credible.” Yet, the new bishop of Cheyenne, Stephen Biegler, last year removed Hart from ministry because the allegations against Hart were, in fact, credible–the same allegations that Ricken said were not. Along with removing Hart from ministry, Biegler removed his name from the building.

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

NEW 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., 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.”

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.

ROME/VATICAN CITY
La Croix International

March 1, 2019

By Robert Mickens

Bishops make more promises to get it right this time as the Church continues to implode
Organizers of the recent Vatican “summit” on the protection of minors, and a number of the bishops who attended it, are trying to assure the world that the four-day meeting brought about a “change of heart” in the Church’s leaders, especially those who — up to now — have underestimated the clergy sex abuse crisis.

In fact, before the Feb. 21-24 meeting even got started its chief planners indicated that a main goal would be to convince all the bishops in the world that the abuse of minors was not just a “Western” problem.

When it was all done and over, one those organizers, Jesuit Father Hans Zollner, said the highly-publicized event marked a “quantitative and qualitative leap” in the global Church’s response to abuse. He called it an important new step on the slow and painful journey of “turning things around.

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.

UNIONTOWN (PA)
Christian Chronicle

March 1, 2019

By Bobby Ross Jr.

After a longtime youth minister’s recent conviction on corruption of minors and indecent exposure charges, a judge in this western Pennsylvania community did what the Uniontown Church of Christ’s elders refused to do.

The judge told Clyde E. Brothers Jr. to stay away from church services.

Brothers, 70, served for many years as the volunteer youth minister for the 100-member Uniontown congregation. Since at least the 1980s, he also interacted with hundreds of children as a founding board member for Camp Concern — a Bible camp directed and sponsored by members of Churches of Christ.

Generations of parents entrusted Brothers with instilling Christian faith and values in their children in this city of 10,000 that originally grew with the development of coal mines and the steel industry.

Victims’ relatives point to a problem that they say plagues not just the Roman Catholic Church and the Southern Baptist Convention — both embroiled in major sex abuse scandals — but also the nation’s 12,000 autonomous Churches of Christ.

“It truly is an epidemic, such sickness,” said one victim’s mother, a former Uniontown church member whose name is being withheld to protect her son’s identity.

The allegations that Brothers used his volunteer church and camp positions to prey on young boys were traumatic enough, several current and former Uniontown church members told The Christian Chronicle.

But church leaders’ decision to allow Brothers to keep worshiping with the congregation made it worse, they said.

“I was told I had hatred in my heart, and I needed to forgive,” said member Debbie Williams, a former youth group sponsor who had traveled with Brothers and church teens to numerous Bible bowls and youth rallies.

Another longtime member said her son, now in his 30s, was one of four victims whom Brothers identified by name to the Pennsylvania State Police.

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.

SYDNEY (AUSTRALIA)
10 Daily

February 27, 2019

Monica Hingston, 78, is shortlisted in the Faith category at this Friday’s Australian LGBTI awards. She’s flying from Melbourne to Sydney for the ceremony, along with nine friends and family members.

Her story isn’t as well known as her cousin’s, because Monica is an intensely private person. She was a nun for 27 years. Humility has been a guiding principle of her life. But her story, which I persuaded her to tell me last year in a magazine feature, deserves to be known.

It deserves to be known because it’s one full of juxtaposition and irony and it’s the ultimate example of love winning, despite all obstacles.

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.

BALTIMORE (MD)

WBAL TV

February 28, 2019

Maryland delegates are mulling a bill concerning child sex abuse and the time limit for victims to file civil litigation.

The bill concerns civil cases, not criminal matters. Supporters said they have been trying to get the legislation passed for two decades.

Survivors of child sex abuse spoke out Thursday on Lawyer’s Mall, including David Lorenz, who held a photo of his 16-year-old self. He said he was abused by a priest at his parochial school.

“I always remembered it. I never forgot about it. (I) wrestled with it, had insomnia about it, had anxiety about it, never told anybody,” Lorenz said.

House Bill 687 would eliminate the statute of limitations for child sex abuse victims to file civil claims. The current cutoff is age 38.

“It takes years and years for victims of abuse to identify their experience,” said Pat Cronin, executive director of The Family Tree.

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ONEONTA (NY)
State Times

March 1, 2019

By Tara O’Leary

Trigger Warning: This Article Contains Sensitive Materials, Sexually Violent and Abusive in Nature

The Catholic Church has faced scandal in the past as reports of priests targeting children for sexual abuse have run rampant. More recently, it has come to the public’s attention that minors are not the only victims; nuns have been targeted over the years as well.

Pope Francis publicly acknowledged this for the first time within the past month. He admitted to the issue during a news conference while returning to Rome from the United Arab Emirates. “It is true,” said Francis. “It’s not that everyone does this, but there have been priests and bishops who have.” His response came just two weeks before hosting a gathering of bishops, intended to build a global response to the issues of priests targeting children. It also comes before Francis is expected to decide the fate of ex-cardinal Theodore McCarrick, who was accused of abuse. “I think it is still going on because something does not stop just because you have become aware of it,” the Pope stated. “Should we do something more? Yes. Is there the will? Yes. But it’s a path that we have already begun.”

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.

QUEENS (NY)
Queens Daily Eagle

March 1, 2019

By David Brand

With the Child Victims Act now law in New York State, advocates and attorneys for survivors of clergy sexual abuse are stepping up demands for accountability through court settlements and a statewide forum where survivors can face church leaders.

Starting in August, the new law will open a one-year window that enables survivors of sexual abuse to take civil action, even if the statute of limitations has expired. Days after the conclusion of a sexual abuse summit at the Vatican, survivors’ advocates have also called for New York Catholic church leaders to host their own summit and announce concrete policy actions here in the state.

“They miss the boat when they do not take into account and ignore the voices of survivors, and don’t make them the focus of change. That’s what the summit would be about,” said attorney Michelle Simpson-Tuegel, who has represented 70 survivors of clergy sexual abuse, as well as survivors of U.S. Gymnastics physician Larry Nasser. “There are so many survivors impacted in the state of New York and they can discuss it among themselves, but [a forum with the church] is where it’s really going to create change.”

Pope Francis told attendees at the Vatican conference that victims deserve “concrete and efficient” actions.

“Faced with the scourge of sexual abuse committed by men of the church against minors, I wanted to reach out to you,” he said.

The Vatican summit was criticized for not arriving at any tangible actions, however.

Simpson-Tuegel said dioceses in New York should enact a stronger zero tolerance policy and automatically dismiss anyone credibly accused of abusing a child. She said churches and Catholic schools should more proactively address abuse and educate parishioners.

Manhattan resident Rafael Mendoza, 37, grew up in Queens and said he was abused by a guidance counselor, who was also a priest, at his Catholic high school.

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FRESNO (CA)
Fresno Bee

March 1, 2019

By Andrew Fiala

We too easily accommodate evil and corruption. We adapt to it. We laugh it off. We shrug our shoulders and tell ourselves that there is nothing we can do. It is often easier to be flexible. And sometimes it is wise to ignore things over which we have no control.

But when evil is left alone it festers. If it is not confronted, it becomes habitual. If it is not extirpated, it metastasizes and weaves its way into everything.

This is the lesson of the events unfolding in Washington, Rome, Florida, and elsewhere. Michael Cohen has been testifying about corruption in the Trump organization, including the Stormy Daniels affair. The Vatican has been discussing the plague of priests who rape children. And billionaires have been busted in Florida for soliciting prostitution

It is the systematic nature of these problems that is outrageous. Religious folks might say that the second sin is worse than the first. In non-Biblical language, we say the cover-up is worse than the crime. The original sin might be explained as a violent, spontaneous, stupid, or ignorant act. But those who cover up know what’s going on. They make conscious choices that accommodate evil.

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.

ROCHIESTER (NY)
Rochester Democrat and Chronicle

March 1, 2019

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 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.

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RICHMOND (VA)
WRIC

February 22, 2019

By Kerri O’Brien

A group that documents abuse in the Catholic Church says names are missing from a list of accused sex abusers recently released by the Diocese of Richmond.

8News has been combing over the Diocese of Richmond list and comparing it to an online group’s that has been tracking abuse allegations for years.

“It is really important not to let names fall through the cracks,” said Terence McKiernan, president of BishopAccountability.org.

McKiernan spoke to 8News over Skype from Massachusetts about BishopAccountability.org, a website which maintains a database of priests and nuns accused of abuse.

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NANTUCKET (MA)
USA TODAY

February 28, 2019

By Maria Puente

Ahead of a first preliminary hearing Monday in his sex-crime case, Kevin Spacey’s legal team filed a series of motions seeking access to documents and other potential evidence, including the cellphones of his accuser, a then-teenage busboy in a Nantucket Island restaurant bar.

The motions, filed Wednesday, are part of the discovery process in a criminal trial, in which defense lawyers and prosecutors exchange information and the defense seeks any evidence that might show the defendant as not guilty or aid in his defense.

Spacey has pleaded not guilty to a felony sexual-assault charge, denying that he groped anyone in a crowded island bar in the summer of 2016.

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VATICAN CITY
CBS NEWS

February 25, 2019

Three clergy abuse survivors all want to know why the Catholic Church still has not laid out concrete steps to stop child sex abuse. “CBS This Morning” has followed their fight for justice since last year, all the way from the U.S. to Rome, where they attended a summit with church leaders and called for a zero-tolerance policy for abuse.

On Sunday Pope Francis addressed the crowd in St. Peter’s Square, promising to confront abusers with “the wrath of God,” end the cover-ups by church officials, and prioritize the victims of what he termed “brazen, aggressive and destructive evil.”

But the survivors told CBS News correspondent Nikki Battiste they all want to know why the Catholic Church still has not laid out concrete steps to stop child sex abuse.

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VATICAN CITY
PBS

February 25, 2019

The unprecedented Vatican summit focused on clerical sexual abuse concluded over the weekend, with Pope Francis insisting the Catholic Church must end its long history of covering up child sexual abuse. The pope called for an “all-out battle” but didn’t offer many specifics, prompting criticism from survivors. Judy Woodruff talks to Becky Ianni of the victim support group SNAP for her reaction.

Read the Full Transcript

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DENVER (CO)
FOX 31 Denver

February 19, 2019

By Joe St. George

Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser announced Tuesday there will be a third-party review of Colorado’s Catholic Dioceses and their handling of child sex abuse.

Weiser’s actions are the latest move by attorneys general nationwide after a Pennsylvania grand jury investigation into the church’s handling of abuse.

The review will be led by former U.S. Attorney Bob Troyer.

“This is the process we will be going through to get to the bottom of the pain,” Weiser said.

Weiser made clear during a news conference on Tuesday that state law does not allow him to convene a grand jury under these circumstances.

However, any criminal negligence found will be open to possible criminal prosecution, he said.

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BUFFALO (NY)
The Buffalo News

February 6, 2019

By Jay Tokasz

Retired Buffalo Bishop Edward U. Kmiec is being criticized for his handling of a clergy sex abuse allegation during his time as bishop of the Nashville Diocese.

The Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests of Tennessee said that Kmiec allowed the Rev. James A. Rudisill to retire as a priest in good standing and remain in ministry, despite the priest’s alleged admission in 1994 that he had molested a 12-year-old girl in the 1950s.

Kmiec was Nashville bishop from 1992 to 2004, and Buffalo bishop from 2004 until his retirement in 2012. He is now bishop emeritus of Buffalo and resides in the area.

A call to his residence was referred to Buffalo Diocese spokeswoman Kathy Spangler, who did not comment on the criticism of Kmiec.

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

March1, 2019

Today, the Diocese of Columbus publicly named 34 priests that have been removed from their duties due to “credible” allegations of sexual abuse.

We’re glad that Bishop Frederick Campbell and Columbus church officials have taken this first step towards transparency. The releasing of names is an important step for the protection of children, prevention of future cases of abuse and the healing of survivors today. Still, it is only the first step.

First, Bishop Campbell and other church officials should amend their list by adding critical information that has currently been left off the list. Most importantly, church officials should include information on when the allegation against each priest was first received, what action was taken upon receiving the allegation, and when the priest was finally removed. Similarly, church officials should include on this list the work history of each cleric and aggressively seek out victims, witnesses, or whistleblowers in each location staffed by these abusive men.

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COSTA RICO
The Tico Times

March 1, 2019

By Agence France Presse

A Costa Rican priest was arrested Thursday a day after the Catholic Church had removed him from his parochial office for a complaint of “improper behavior toward a minor,” the prosecutor’s office said.

Priest Manuel Guevara Fonseca was arrested in the early hours of Thursday morning in front of a house in the city of Heredia, 8 km north of San José, the prosecution stated in a statement.

“He is being investigated as a suspect in the alleged crime of sexual abuse against a minor,” the prosecution’s statement read.

The prosecution authorities will take a statement from Guevara and will consider the possibility of requesting precautionary measures against him.

The Archdiocese of San José announced Wednesday night that Guevara had been removed from his position as priest in the district of Santo Domingo, north of the capital, while the church resolves a canonical complaint “for improper behavior against a minor.”

The case of Guevara occurred after the Vatican expelled Costa Rican priest Mauricio Víquez from the clergy last Monday. He faces nine complaints of sexual abuse of minors when he served as parish priest in different districts near the capital.

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KINGSTON (JAMAICA)
Jamaica Observer

March 1, 2019

While acknowledging that the Catholic community has been hurt by the sex scandals that have rocked the Church globally, Archbishop of Kingston Most Rev Kenneth Richards says the Jamaican priest fingered by one alleged victim has said their relationship was consensual.

In fact, the archbishop, in a letter to the Jamaica Observer, said that the priest, whom he identified as Father Paul Collier, has since submitted a letter of resignation from the priesthood and asked pardon for all the hurt or scandal caused by him.

Jamaican Denise Buchanan, now 57 years old and an academic who is a leading member of the international organisation, Ending Clerical Abuse — which is trying to pressure Pope Francis to take a tougher line on child abuse by clerics — told Agence France Presse ( AFP) recently that she was 17 when she was raped by the then novitiate, who continued to abuse her when he became a priest.

Buchanan, who now teaches at a university in Los Angeles and works as a psychiatric neurologist, said she was living in Kingston when her sister introduced her and her family to the future priest, then known as Brother Paul, a theology student and a member of the Congregation of the Passion of Jesus Christ.

She told AFP that one day he invited her into the rectory and “showed (her) to his bedroom”, where he sexually assaulted her.

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COLUMBUS (OH)
WBNS Channel 10

March 1, 2019

The Catholic Diocese of Columbus has released the names of clergy who have served in the Diocese who have been credibly accused of sexual abuse of a minor.

Click here for the list of names

Letter from Most Reverend Frederick F. Campbell:

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ:

I am releasing today a list of the names of clergy who have served in the Diocese of Columbus, and who have been credibly accused of sexual abuse of a minor. I share with the faithful of our diocese sorrow, sadness, and anger over such behavior.I apologize to all victims for the abuse suffered, and hope that these disclosures will help bring healing to all victims and their families. The Diocese of Columbus is committed to maintaining a safe environment for all children and youth, and I am hopeful that the release of this information will help restore the confidence of all faithful in the Church and in its clergy. I urge anyone with claims of abuse by clergy or Church personnel to contact law enforcement immediately and also our Victim’s Assistance Coordinator at 614-224-2251, 866-448-0217, or helpisavailable@columbuscatholic.org.

In compiling this list, Diocesan staff reviewed the files of nearly 2,000 clergy who served in the Diocese of Columbus since its beginning in 1868. The list is organized into five sections:

The first section contains the names of clergy incardinated in the Diocese of Columbus (officially a member of the Diocese’s clergy) against whom a credible allegation of sexual abuse of a minor was made and investigated while the cleric was living.
The second section contains the names of clergy incardinated in the Diocese of Columbus against whom a credible allegation of sexual abuse of a minor was made after the cleric’s death. This distinction recognizes that an allegation

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SYDNEY (AUSTRALIA)
Morning Herald

February 28, 2019

By Simone Fox Koob

Defence barrister Robert Richter, QC, has apologised for describing acts of sexual abuse carried out by Cardinal George Pell against two choirboys as “no more than a plain vanilla sexual penetration case”.

The prominent Melbourne-based barrister was heavily criticised after he made the comments during a pre-sentencing hearing on Wednesday for Pell, who has been convicted of sexually abusing two boys in a sacristy after Sunday Mass in 1996.

“After spending a sleepless night reflecting upon the terrible choice of phrase I used in court during the course of a long and stressful process, I offer my sincerest apologies to all who were hurt or offended by it,” Mr Richter said in a statement released on Thursday evening.

“No offence was intended. It was not intended to evade the seriousness of what had been done. The seriousness of the crime was acknowledged at the outset by the concession that merited imprisonment.

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DES MOINES (IA)
KWIT Radio

February 27, 2019

By Mary Hartnett

The Catholic Diocese of Sioux City releases a list of priests who were credibly accused of sexual abuse of minors. However, some victims of abuse by Catholic priests say it may be too little, too late.

Also, as we celebrate Mardi Gras, a look at the 300-year history of New Orleans.

That and more coming up on The Exchange, Wednesday at noon and Friday at 9:00 at SPM>

This is The Exchange on SPM; I’m Mary Hartnett. This week was a major turning point for the Roman Catholic Church as Pope Francis ended a Vatican meeting on clerical sexual abuse by calling “for an all-out battle against the abuse of minors” and insisting that the church needed to protect children “from ravenous wolves.”

Despite the Pope’s vow “to combat this evil that strikes at the very heart of our mission,” many critics say the speech was short on the sort of detailed battle plan demanded by many Catholics around the world. Pope Francis had barely finished speaking before some abuse victims, and other frustrated faithful began expressing outrage and disappointment at his failure to outline immediate and concrete steps to address the problem.

The Diocese of Sioux City named 28 priests who have been “credibly accused of sexual abuse of minors from 1948 to 1995. Most of those priests are now deceased. A diocesan board reviewed all allegations of sexual abuse of minors, and Bishop Nicklaus accepted all recommendations. At a press conference today Bishop R. Walker Nicklaus added that no one on the list was allowed to work with young people and their names have been submitted to the authorities, although they have not necessarily been charged or convicted in a criminal case. “Accusations of sexual abuse deemed to be within the realm of possibility, the. Most expansive definitions used by any diocese were included.

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CHICAGO (IL)
Chicago Tribune

March 1, 2018

By Meredith Colias-Pete

As Pope Francis called bishops worldwide to Rome last weekend for the Vatican’s first summit on clerical sex abuse, local reactions varied on what it accomplished.

Francis closed out his extraordinary summit on preventing clergy sex abuse by vowing to confront abusers with “the wrath of God” felt by the faithful, end the cover-ups by their superiors and prioritize the victims of this “brazen, aggressive and destructive evil.”

But his failure to offer a concrete action plan to hold bishops accountable when they failed to protect their flocks from predators disappointed survivors, who had expected more from the first-ever global Catholic summit of its kind.

Clear action is needed to ensure transparency and accountability, said Larry Antonsen, 72, a leader in the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests’ Chicago chapter, who said an Augustinian order priest abused him at 15.

“They had a chance in Rome to do something monumental to get their credibility back,” he said. “They did nothing. They did nothing to help themselves.”

Francis delivered his remarks at the end of Mass before 190 Catholic bishops and religious superiors who were summoned to Rome after more abuse scandals sparked a credibility crisis in the Catholic hierarchy and in Francis’ own leadership.

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LONDON (ENGLAND)
Daily Mail

March 1, 2019

By Miranda Aldersley

France called on the Vatican to take action on Friday and revoke the diplomatic immunity of its envoy to Paris after sex abuse charges were filed against him.

French judicial sources said in mid-February that they were investigating 74-year-old papal ambassador Luigi Ventura for allegedly molesting employees at the Paris mayor’s office.

Italian-born Ventura has been based in Paris since 2009 and serves as a diplomat for Pope Francis.

From 2001 to 2009 he served as the Vatican envoy to Canada, where he is also being investigated for alleged sexual assault.

‘I am waiting for the Holy See to assume its responsibilities,’ French European Minister Nathalie Loiseau told CNEWS television when asked if Ventura should see his diplomatic immunity lifted.

‘At this stage he (Ventura) has diplomatic immunity, but the Holy See obviously knows about the serious charges against the nuncio, and I have no doubt the Vatican will take the right decision,’ Loiseau said.

Ventura is accused of molesting a man at the town hall in Paris on January 17 when Mayor Anne Hidalgo gave a New Year’s address to diplomats, religious leaders and civil society figures.

‘During the ceremony, a city employee was repeatedly groped on the backside, in three instances, once in front of a witness,’ a town hall source said.

‘It was quickly decided to report the matter to the public prosecutor,’ said Patrick Klugman, deputy mayor responsible for international relations.

Prosecutors launched a probe into the alleged ‘sexual aggression’ on January 25 – a day after the mayor’s office filed a complaint.

The investigation is being conducted by Paris police, according to a judicial source not authorised to speak publicly because the investigation is ongoing.

A similar complaint has also been filed by a former Paris city employee for a case that allegedly took place a year ago, city hall officials said.

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DUBLIN (IRELAND)
Irish Times

February 28, 2019

By Maeve Lewis

It is more than 30 years since the scandal of child sexual abuse in the Catholic Church began to emerge across the English-speaking world.

At first a few isolated survivors told their stories, soon followed by an avalanche of revelations. Regardless of the location, the same patterns appear: disclosures followed by cover-ups, priests relocated to abuse again. The church’s response has been abysmal, and it is only through investigations by the civil authorities that we now know the full truth. In Ireland, the Ferns, Ryan, Murphy and Cloyne reports each revealed the same dismal pattern: children were recklessly endangered to protect the status of the church.

While bishops’ conferences in some countries have put in place good child safeguarding procedures, both they and the Vatican have struggled to develop an adequate response to the bishops and cardinals who were part of the cover-up. The recent long-delayed defrocking of American cardinal Theodore McCarrick and the conviction of Australian cardinal George Pell for sexual offences show that sexual predators exist in the highest echelons of the church, but there has been little effort to hold accountable those leaders who concealed sexual crimes by priests under their authority.

When Pope Francis was elected, many survivors hoped for a fresh and vigorous approach to child protection. From putting in place a Vatican Commission for the Protection of Minors in 2014 to calling a Vatican Summit on Child Protection last week, hopes were high that an era of zero tolerance had begun.

Sadly, the reality has been different, from failing to implement the recommendations of his own commission to calling Chilean survivors liars. The Pope has refused to create a Vatican tribunal to try bishops who ignore or cover up abuse. In November the Pope forbade the American bishops’ conference from holding a vote on the introduction of penalties for senior churchmen.

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CHICAGO (IL)
CBS TV

February 28, 2019

A new report on sexual misconduct allegations against former suburban megachurch pastor Bill Hybels finds that the allegations were true.

Willow Creek Community Church commissioned the report by an independent panel to investigate the allegations that led to Hybels’ resignation.

The report concludes “Bill Hybels verbally and emotionally intimidated both female and male employees.”

It reads, “Allegations of sexually inappropriate words and actions by Bill Hybels… are credible.”

The Willow Creek founder stepped down in April 2018.

The report shows allegations started surfacing back in 2014. It claims Hybels initiated mentoring relationships with staffers who later accused him of sexual misconduct.

And male staffers claimed Hybels verbally abused them during power trips.

The independent panel investigating was made up of four evangelical leaders from churches across the country.

They say they tried to access church emails connected to the scandal but were not able to recover any.

The panel says the church board was not prepared to handle the scandal.

They recommend the church pay for counseling for alleged victims and that Hybels seek counseling himself.

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LONDON (ENGLAND)
The Spectator

March 1, 2019

By Theo Hobson

I have heard surprisingly few Catholic responses to this week’s news of the conviction of Cardinal George Pell. I guess those who are not in denial are in shock. Let me interrupt the stunned silence with an outsider’s perspective.

This is not just another paedophile priest story – Pell was a key figure in the Vatican under the last three popes – and a major public face of the church’s moral conservatism. So will his fall bring a new level of Catholic soul-searching, a new critique of the Church’s entire moral culture?

Pope Francis himself often seems to call for such critique. Last week he warned against the potential dangers of moral rigidity, while speaking about the child sex abuse scandal in general. ‘Behind rigidity something always lies hidden’ he said. ‘In many cases, a double life’. It’s a line he has used repeatedly in the last few years – while upholding the Church’s moral teachings, he has urged priests to interpret them in a flexible, humane way.

Some people will reply to this with annoyed bafflement – if the pope sees moral rigidity as dubious, shouldn’t he be in a different job? For surely priestly celibacy is a form of rigidity that has served as a cover for paedophilia? It’s a bit like his oddly detached response when asked for his view on homosexuality: ‘Who am I to judge?’

To liberal Christians like me, it’s a bit dubious for the pope to play ‘good cop’ so charmingly. Roman Catholicism seems wedded to a flawed moral conservatism, and an excessive emphasis on rules. Surely Christianity emerged in opposition to rigid moral laws, we protest.

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[Abuse of children by Manuel Briñas spanned three decades and two schools]

BARCELONA (SPAIN)
El País

By Oriol Güell

February 28, 2019

La orden de los marianistas recibe también denuncias de exalumnos del Santa María del Pilar de Madrid

La publicación el pasado día 13 por EL PAÍS de un caso de abusos cometido por el marianista Manuel Briñas ha acabado por destapar lo que durante más de tres décadas fue una rutina de agresiones sexuales a niños en dos colegios de Madrid: el Hermanos Amorós, en el barrio de Carabanchel, y el Santa María del Pilar, en el distrito de Retiro. Este diario ha recabado más de una docena de testimonios de exalumnos que detallan cómo entre 1964 y 1997 y cuando tenían entre 7 y 13 años sufrieron desde “tocamientos y caricias” a “masturbaciones y felaciones” por quien también fue durante 20 años responsable de la cantera del Atlético de Madrid.

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SYDNEY (AUSTRALIA)
Morning Herald

March 1, 2019

By Wendy Tuohy

There is water cooler talk, and then there’s water cooler rage, and the emotions expressed by parents following the revelation Cardinal George Pell was convicted of five counts of child sexual abuse are firmly in the second category.

At the school gate, on the sidelines at sport training and around workplace coffee machines, parents have bonded over the shock, pain and fury produced by the knowledge that someone in whom so much faith and trust was invested was found guilty of sexually molesting children.

That is not to say only parents experienced these responses, but for many mothers and fathers to whom I have spoken and listened, the emotional clout of the verdict was unexpectedly sharp.

You cannot help but personalise such a finding.

The first response is primal: were that my child, and had I discovered this happened, I don’t know how I could restrain myself. It can be confronting to discover the extent to which such a base crime plays to your most-base, protective instincts.

Just as powerful is the sense of empathy for, and immense anger on behalf of, the children upon whom a crime with the potential to detonate their safe journey to adulthood has been committed.

As senior public health specialists explained this week, of all the childhood abuses with potential to alter the course of a person’s life, sexual abuse is the worst.

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AUSTIN (TX)
KXAN TV

February 28, 2019

By Russell Falcon

After a list of Austin Diocese Catholic priests accused of sexual abusing children was released in late January, it appears essentially zero investigations have resulted from the claims.

In the weeks since the release, KXAN’s Investiagtive Team has continued checking in with local law enforcement agencies to find out what has come of the revelations.

According to law enforcement, depsite the fact that at least 22 priests who are or were in the Austin Diocese were named on the list, APD says there has been no progress with investigations and the Child Sex Crimes Unit has not moved forward yet.

Additionally, police have confirmed that no new victims have come forward as a result of the revelations.

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DENVER (CO)
Crux

March 1, 2019

By Charles Collins

After the conclusion of the unprecedented Vatican summit on child abuse last week, one issue that was repeated was “accountability.” However, despite this mantra, the problem of what to do with bishops who have themselves been accused of abuse remains.

Right now, bishops can be judged by the pope alone. Although a special tribunal to handle accusations against bishops was authorized by Pope Francis, he later backtracked and decided to use specially constituted bodies in cases against bishops.

The U.S. bishops had proposed a plan to constitute a special lay review panel to receive and investigate complaints against bishops, but the Vatican squashed the idea, saying there was not enough time to review it in Rome and overcome the difficulties of reconciling the plan with Church law.

However, a plan by one U.S. archbishop to give more power to archbishops in dealing with accusations against members of the hierarchy looks like it is gaining favor in Rome.

The so-called “metropolitan model” was first suggested by Cardinal Blase J. Cupich of Chicago during the USCCB meeting in November, after the vote on the original plan of a national lay review board was stopped by the Vatican.

Cupich gave more details of the proposal on Feb. 22, during a press conference at the Vatican summit.

Basically, the metropolitan archbishop – now a largely symbolic role – would be in charge of investigating abuse complaints against the bishops in his territory, called a province.

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MILWAUKEE (WI)
Journal Sentinel

March 1, 2019

By Steven Martinez

Prosecutors on Feb. 18 asked a Waukesha County Circuit judge to bar a Pewaukee priest accused of sexually assaulting a teenage congregant and his attorneys from making “extrajudicial” statements about the case.

The motion, commonly referred to as a “gag order,” argues that statements made by the priest, Chuck Hanel, and his attorney, Jerome Buting, could unfairly prejudice the case or “disseminate otherwise inadmissable or irrelevant information.”

Hanel was charged in September with second-degree sexual assault of a child about five months after a teenage girl told police Hanel groped her in a confessional at Queen of Apostles Church. After the charge was filed, both Hanel and Buting told various media outlets that Hanel, in 35 years in ministry, had never engaged in any inappropriate behavior with a minor.

Assistant District Attorney Michael Thurston argued in the motion that such statements “are absolutely irrelevant for purposes of whether (Hanel) sexually assaulted the victim (in December 2017).”

Buting argued in his response that the state mischaracterized the remarks, which were made “in response to the inflammatory prejudicial nature of the state’s one-sided criminal complaint and preliminary hearing testimony.”

Buting said his and his client’s statements “neatly fit” within the “safe harbor exception,” which allows an attorney to make statements that they believe will protect their client from the “substantial likelihood of undue prejudicial effect.”

According to court records, no date has been set for Judge Michael Maxwell to rule on the motion.

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Get Religion blog

March 1, 2019

By Julia Duin

I hadn’t been following the child abuse charges against Australian Cardinal Pell all that much because I assumed, based on the evidence, that they were somewhat plimsy and would never stick.

But they did — in a series of trials that are as odd as they come. At the heart of the proceedings there was a single witness and what appeared to be “recovered memories” of abuse.

The end result? A cardinal is now in jail and a bunch of journalists have been handed the Aussie equivalent of contempt-of-court charges.

This is a complex story that I’ll do my best to break down, starting with what CruxNow ran in December:

NEW YORK — In a decision that will undoubtedly create shockwaves around the globe, Cardinal George Pell, the most senior Church official to stand trial for sexual abuse, was found guilty on Tuesday by a Melbourne court.

In one of the most closely watched trials in modern Catholic Church history, after nearly four full days of deliberations, a jury rendered unanimous guilty verdicts on five charges related to the abuse of two choirboys in 1996.

The trial, which began on November 7, has been subject to a media blackout at the request of the prosecution, and follows a first trial in September ended after a jury failed to reach consensus.

Pell, who is 77 years old, is currently on a leave of absence from his post as the Vatican’s Secretary for the Economy.

In June 2017, Pell was charged by Australian police with “historical sexual assault offences,” forcing him to leave Rome and return home vowing to “clear his name.”

Technically, CruxNow wasn’t supposed to run that story because of this media blackout, aka a suppression order, that media around the world were supposed to follow. Of course, lots of news sources outside of Australia’s borders refused to go along.

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DENVER (CO)
Catholic News Agency

February 28, 2019

By Carl Bunderson

The Archdiocese of Omaha and the Diocese of Lincoln intend to ask a Nebraska court to suspend subpoenas compelling the Catholic institutions of the state to provide all records related to child sex abuse, CNA learned on Thursday.

The state attorney general’s office issued subpoenas Feb. 26 to more than 400 Catholic churches and institutions, seeking any records related to child sexual assault or abuse.

Last year, the office had requested that the state’s three dioceses voluntarily provide information on sexual abuse and other misconduct committed since 1978. Each of the dioceses have indicated their cooperation with that request.

An official of the Omaha archdiocese told CNA Feb. 28 that that archdiocese, along with the Lincoln diocese, are preparing to apply for injunctive relief from the subpoenas, in part to clarify their scope.

The attorney’s general office announced Tuesday that “The Nebraska Department of Justice has appreciated the voluntary cooperation demonstrated by the churches. However, the Department believes that subpoenas are necessary in order to ensure all reports of impropriety have been submitted to the appropriate authorities.”

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ANN ARBOR (MI)
The Michigan Dailly

February 28, 2019

On Sunday, Pope Francis concluded an unprecedented global summit addressing the widespread issue of clerical sex abuse in the Catholic Church. The Church has been at the center of a massive scandal involving sexual misconduct, implicating members of the Church from local priests to the highest-ranking cardinals. It has also become clear that clerical sex abuse was something of an open secret among members of the clergy, creating a culture of cover-ups and protection of offending priests. Though Pope Francis delivered strong words against perpetrators of abuse in his closing remarks, declaring an “all-out battle”against sexual predators, many were left unsatisfied by what seemed to be a speech devoid of tangible solutions.

As an editorial board, we express our solidarity with victims of clerical abuse and urge serious ramifications and judicial impositions on members of the Catholic Church on both local and national levels, so as to encourage true change within the institution.

Pope Francis will soon issue a document motu proprio — a rescript initiated and issued by the pope of his own accord and apart from the advice of others, as defined by Merriam Webster — which shows his commitment to offering some concrete proposals. But how realistic is it to believe that the same institution that sponsored this abuse will now root it out? Defrocking priests who engage in sexual abuse should have been a consistent policy of the Catholic Church. Instead, we know that the opposite occurred.

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NEW YORK (NY)
Slate

March 1, 2019

By Mary Harris

For years now, survivors of Catholic clergy sexual abuse have sought accountability at the local level, taking claims to their parish or bishop. But the Roman Catholic Church is a global institution, and experts say its cover-up of child abuse reaches the upper echelons of church leadership. What would it take to go after the Vatican?

Guest: Marci Hamilton, founder of CHILD USA.

This episode first aired on Nov. 14, 2018.

Tell us what you think by leaving a review on Apple Podcasts or sending an email to whatnext@slate.com.

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BOCA RATON (FL)
WPTV

February 28, 2019

By Sam Smink

A former priest from Boca Raton is accused of abusing a minor while serving as a priest in New Jersey.

Earlier this month, the Diocese of Paterson, New Jersey released a list of 28 priests they found to have credible accusations of sexual abuse against minors.

Father John Sutton, once a priest at Saint Joan of Arc in Boca, was on that list. Here is a list of all 28 priests: https://rcdop.org/list

Officials from the Diocese of Paterson, New Jersey, tell me the abuse allegation against Father John Sutton came into their office in 2005.

The victim told investigators they had been abused as a minor, by Sutton, 29 years before that, in the 70s.

According to a diocese lawyer, Father Sutton went on a leave of absence from the Diocese of Paterson in 1979. In 2000, he asked if he could resign and join the Diocese of Palm Beach instead.

Father Sutton officially joined the Diocese of Palm Beach in January 2000, according to Paterson records, and Sutton’s family says he served at Saint Joan of Arc in Boca Raton. He passed away in August of 2000.

The Diocese of Paterson, New Jersey says it investigated the abuse claim in 2005, along with their local prosecutor’s office, and found the accusation to be credible.

Contact 5 spoke to his sister Margaret by phone. She says she thinks the church is out of line for releasing his name after his death.

“I know my brother, he did not do anything like that. It besmirches his name and he cannot defend himself,” said Margaret.

The bishop in Paterson said they released the names in an effort to promote healing for all victims of child sexual abuse.

We emailed and called the Diocese of Palm Beach multiple times to see if they would provide a statement regarding the accusation. They have not responded.

Earlier this month, we also asked the Diocese of Palm Beach if they would release a similar list of all priests with credible claims of abuse , like more than 112 other dioceses have done. They told Contact 5 “no response.”

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WASHINGTON (DC)
Religion News Service

February 28, 2019

By Mark Silk

Pope Francis, background third from left, attends a penitential liturgy at the Vatican on Feb. 23, 2019. The pontiff hosted a four-day summit on preventing clergy sexual abuse, a high-stakes meeting designed to impress on Catholic bishops around the world that the problem is global and that there are consequences if they cover it up. (Vincenzo Pinto/Pool Photo Via AP)

The consensus view is that the Vatican pretty much flunked its summit on the protection of minors. Yes, there was some good rhetoric, some powerful statements above all by women presenters, but what was accomplished? Where were the concrete steps that Pope Francis called for when he opened the meeting?

As a New York Times editorial concluded, “[A] malignancy whose primary victims are trusting children must be treated by immediate and radical measures, not by appeals or hand-wringing.”

Part of the explanation for the consensus is that news stories about anything to do with clergy sexual abuse almost invariably quote the reaction of leaders of victims’ groups. And these leaders find it very hard to say anything good about the church.

For example, in welcoming the conviction of Australian cardinal George Pell earlier this week, David Greenwood, secretary of the U.K.-based Minister and Clergy Sexual Abuse Survivors (MACSAS), told Newsweek, “We have tried to work with and encourage Catholic organizations to make changes to their treatment of children and survivors of abuse but have been rebuffed. It has become clear to us that the Catholic Church is incapable of change from within.”

Actually, that depends on what you mean by “from within.” Over the centuries, the impulse for change—reform—has indeed come from the outside: the Swabian monarchy in the 11th century, popular heresy in the 13th, the Protestant Reformation in the 16th, modernity in the 20th.

But in each case, the reform was not imposed from without. It came from within, as it must.

We’ve seen such a process take place in this country. After the Boston Globe‘s Spotlight Team ushered in a nationwide firestorm of exposés in 2002, the country’s bishops put in place what can only be called “immediate and radical” measures to get the sexual abuse of minors by priests under control.

If you don’t think the Dallas Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People worked, consider that the lists of priests credibly accused of abuse now coming out of dioceses around the country include just a handful of cases since 2002.

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DENVER (CO)
Catholic News Agency

February 28, 2019

The Nebraska Department of Justice on Tuesday issued subpoenas to more than 400 Catholic churches and institutions, seeking any records related to sexual assault or abuse of children.

“The Nebraska Department of Justice has appreciated the voluntary cooperation demonstrated by the churches. However, the Department believes that subpoenas are necessary in order to ensure all reports of impropriety have been submitted to the appropriate authorities,” read a Feb. 26 statement from the attorney general’s office.

“It is our goal that all reports of abuse are subject to complete law enforcement review and investigation as warranted.”

The subpoenas, issued to institutions such as parishes and schools, as well as the dioceses, “request all records or information related to any child sexual assault or abuse that has occurred by those employed or associated with each church or institution, whether previously reported or not.”

Each of the state’s dioceses have indicated their cooperation with a request made by the attorney general in September 2018 voluntarily to provide information on sexual abuse and other misconduct since 1978.

The Archdiocese of Omaha announced Nov. 30 that it had submitted to the attorney general “documents pertaining to church personnel accused of criminal sexual misconduct since 1978.” The documents included information on alleged abuse or misconduct with minors that dated back as far was 1956, but was not reported to the archdiocese until 1978.

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DES MOINES (IA)
Sioux City Journal

February 28, 2019

By Erin Murphy

Charges of sexual assault and other sexual crimes against minors could be tried at any time under legislation being considered by state lawmakers.

The proposal would eliminate Iowa’s current statute of limitations on those crimes.

Currently, sexual assault charges must be brought within 10 years of the alleged victim turning 18 years old or within three years of an alleged perpetrator being identified by DNA evidence.

The proposal to eliminate that statute of limitations is working its way through the Iowa Capitol in the wake of the latest round of revelations of decades-old sexual abuse committed by Catholic priests against minors, most recently in Northwest Iowa.

The Sioux City diocese on Monday released the names of 28 priests credibly accused of sexually abusing more than 100 children while serving the diocese, which covers 24 counties in Northwest Iowa. Six of the priests are still living, but the most recent case of abuse occurred in 1995.

“We continue to see case after case unfold of predators who have been allowed to continue preying on our children,” said Janet Petersen, a Democratic state senator from Des Moines. “Our laws not only benefit perpetrators, but they also benefit organizations that have covered up crimes against children, and that is simply wrong.

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LONDON (ENGLAND)
The Guardian

February 28, 2019

By Melissa Davey

Cardinal George Pell’s appeal against his convictions of sexually assaulting and penetrating choirboys is likely to be granted and has a good chance of succeeding on the basis of unreasonableness, according to legal experts and defence lawyers.

Pell’s defence barrister, Robert Richter, told the sentencing hearing on Wednesday that his client’s appeal would be based on three key grounds: unreasonableness, the prohibition of video evidence in the closing address, and composition of the jury.

Experts spoken to by Guardian Australia agreed that while the latter two appeared flimsy, an appeal on the basis of unreasonableness may have a high chance of success. This argument says the jury delivered a verdict that was not supported by the evidence.

University of Melbourne law school’s criminal appeals and procedure expert, Professor Jeremy Gans, said this was a commonly used grounds for appeal.

“Prosecutors would be completely prepared for an appeal based on this,” he said.

“And it’s not a rare grounds to succeed on. This is the defence’s best shot and carries a bonus for them in that if they win there can almost certainly be no new trial. Because once a court decides a guilty verdict is unreasonable it means they don’t think guilty should be the verdict in the next trial either. They would almost certainly acquit. Basically on this grounds of appeal, the court gets to decide if the jury got it right.”

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SPARTA (NJ)
Sparta Independent

February 28, 2019

In September 2018, I established a statewide task force to investigate allegations of sexual abuse by clergy in the Catholic dioceses of New Jersey. I am pleased to see that our task force’s grand jury investigation has prompted the dioceses to finally take some measures to hold predator priests accountable.

While this is a positive first step towards transparency and accountability, I hope this spirit of openness continues during the course of our ongoing investigation and in response to our requests for records and information.

Despite the recent actions by the dioceses, our investigation remains ongoing because no institution or individual is immune from accountability. We know from the hundreds of calls that we have received over our tip line that there are many others who were abused as children and as adults, both by diocesan clergy and clergy members in various religious orders. The investigative work of the task force continues so that we may assure that all survivors of clergy abuse are heard and all abusers and institutions are held accountable for their acts. To this end, we anticipate taking criminal action wherever appropriate and releasing comprehensive information at the conclusion of our investigation.

We urge survivors and others with information to contact our toll-free tip line, 855-363-6548, which is staffed by trained professionals on a 24/7 basis.

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GREENVILLE (SC)
Greenville News

February 28, 2019

By Mike Ellis and Nathaniel Cary

The headmaster of St. Joseph’s Catholic School in Greenville sent a letter Tuesday to alumni and parents of students to address allegations of sexual abuse that a graduate made about a priest who used to perform sacraments at the school. The headmaster also defended a current teacher whom the graduate now believes could have known about the abuse.

Michael Cassabon, a 1998 St. Joseph’s graduate, told The Greenville News he was abused by Hayden Vaverek multiple times over the course of at least two years while Cassabon was a student at the school.

Cassabon reported the alleged abuse in 2013. The Diocese of Charleston, which comprises the state of South Carolina, and the Greenwood County Sheriff’s Office investigated. Vaverek was removed from the priesthood in 2016 after the diocese found Cassabon’s allegations “credible.”

Cassabon didn’t pursue a criminal charge against Vaverek, and Vaverek has not been criminally charged.

Cassabon, who was himself a priest at the time of the investigation in 2013, told The News that he wanted the matter to be handled by the church and feared that Vaverek would be killed in jail if he were convicted.

Multiple attempts to reach Vaverek by phone and email were unsuccessful Wednesday.

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GREENVILLE (SC)
Greenville News

February 28, 2019

By Mike Ellis and Nathaniel Cary

Michael Cassabon told The Greenville News he was abused by Hayden Vaverek multiple times over the course of at least two years while Cassabon was a student at St. Joseph’s Catholic School in Greenville.

He reported the alleged abuse in 2013. The Diocese of Charleston and the Greenwood County Sheriff’s Office investigated. Vaverek was removed from the priesthood in 2016.

Cassabon didn’t pursue a criminal charge against Vaverek, and Vaverek has not been criminally charged. Vaverek was defrocked, however, and the diocese said the claim of abuse was “credible.”

Here’s more on who Cassabon is:

► Michael Cassabon, 38, is a Catholic priest who now lives in Toronto, Canada. He’s said he was sexually assaulted by a priest while he was a student at St. Joseph’s Catholic School in Greenville

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GREENVILLE (SC)
Greenville News

February 28, 2019

By Mike Ellis and Nathaniel Cary

Hayden Vaverek, 53, is a laicized Catholic priest who’s been accused of sexually abusing a former student at St. Joseph’s Catholic School in Greenville.

Michael Cassabon, a 1998 St. Joseph’s graduate, told The Greenville News he was abused by Vaverek multiple times over the course of at least two years in the 1990s.

Cassabon reported the alleged abuse in 2013. The Diocese of Charleston and the Greenwood County Sheriff’s Office investigated. Vaverek was removed from the priesthood in 2013.

Cassabon didn’t pursue a criminal charge against Vaverek, and Vaverek has not been criminally charged, though the diocese said Cassabon’s claim of abuse was “credible.”

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BELFAST (NORTHERN IRELAND)
Belfast Telegraph

February 28 2019

By Sarah MacDonald

A priest from Co Tyrone who claims he was pushed out of his US parish because he refused to cover up for another priest’s sexually inappropriate behaviour with an underage boy is taking his case to the US Supreme Court.

Fr John Gallagher (51) alleges that Bishop Gerald Barbarito and the Diocese of Palm Beach ruined his reputation and career as a priest because he reported the sexual misconduct of another cleric, Joseph Palimattom, who had come to serve in his parish, the Holy Name of Jesus, in December 2014.

The Indian priest showed child abuse images to a 14-year-old parishioner, who complained about the cleric’s actions in January 2015.

Police believe Palimattom was grooming the teenager.

The priest was later convicted of showing obscene material to a minor and served a six-month sentence.

He was then deported from the US back to India.

Fr Gallagher alleges that because of his whistleblowing, he was placed on medical leave by the diocese, the locks on his parochial home were changed and his belongings moved while he was in the hospital.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

February 26, 2019

By Meghan Keneally

The revelation that a Catholic cardinal in Australia was convicted of molesting boys marks the most senior member of the church to face prison time for sexual abuse.

The charges against Cardinal George Pell — who was not only a major figure in Australia’s Catholic church but also a close adviser to Pope Francis — were not publicly released until Tuesday because of a law in the country’s court system.

In December, he was convicted of molesting two choir boys in the 1990s, but under Australian law, all details of that trial — including the fact that the trial was held at all — were suppressed because Pell was set to be subject to a second trial.

But the suppression order was lifted after additional charges relating to allegations that Pell had also abused boys in his hometown of Ballarat in the 1970s were dropped, prompting details of the first trial and conviction to be made public for the first time, according to the Associated Press.

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[Rodrigo Polanco, the influential UC priest denounced for sexual abuse that troubles Ignacio Sánchez]

CHILE
El Mostrador

February 28, 2019

By Felipe Saleh

“La formación integral de los estudiantes es un deber de las universidades”, escribió Ignacio Sánchez en una columna publicada ayer por El Mercurio. En el contexto del año académico que parte la próxima semana, el rector de la Pontificia Universidad Católica (PUC) incluyó un mensaje a los estudiantes. “Dentro de los atributos del perfil del egresado resulta relevante que los estudiantes sean capaces de discernir sobre las implicancias éticas de sus decisiones y actuar con integridad en todas las instancias del proceso formativo. En nuestra institución, hemos implementado el Código de Honor, documento que se firma al ingresar a la universidad que implica actuar con rectitud y honestidad, respetando los principios y valores que rigen a la UC.”

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

February 28, 2019

Despite being singled out for “further inquiry” into their handling of allegations of sexual abuse, Southern Baptist Convention leaders moved quickly this week to exonerate seven of those ten churches.

Baptists should be outraged that top denominational officials moved so quickly to exonerate these churches that were just in the spotlight over clergy sex abuse and cover up allegations. It is clear that, despite recent worldwide attention into cases of sexual abuse by SBC ministers, the church is still dragging its feet in moving towards change.

The SBC panel responsible for this travesty, including chairman Ken Alford, should be ashamed of rushing this investigation. As has been reported, the culture of abuse and cover-up runs deep in the SBC, so for the Executive Committee to so quickly and recklessly dismiss the serious allegations is an astonishing mis-step.

We believe that the 10 churches listed should go through the same kind of independent investigation by police and prosecutors that we demand of catholic churches who have similarly failed to respond properly to cases of sexual abuse. No institution can police itself, only independent, secular officials can get to the bottom of these cases.

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[Spanish Church is reluctant to investigate sexual abuse: bishops conference leaves investigations in hands of dioceses]

MADRID (SPAIN)
El País

February 28, 2019

By Julio Núñez

La Conferencia Episcopal deja en manos de las diócesis y de Roma las medidas contra la pederastia

La Iglesia española se resiste a tomar medidas concretas contra la pederastia a la espera de que el papa Francisco le indique las normas que debe seguir para afrontar los casos de abusos. Dicen no tener autoridad para ello y lo dejan en manos de las diócesis y de los dictados que lleguen de Roma. Pero una semana después de la cumbre en el Vaticano para tratar el tema, ni allí ni en la Conferencia Episcopal Española (CEE) se han anunciado las acciones que, previsiblemente, iban a tomar para luchar contra uno de los problemas que más fuerte ha golpeado a la Iglesia universal en los últimos años.

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

February 28, 2019

We are members of a support group called SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests. We exist for two reasons: To protect the vulnerable and to heal the wounded. We are here today for three reasons.

First, we are begging anyone with information or suspicions about crimes or cover ups by Arkansas church officials to come forward. Every victim heals in a different way. But it almost always starts with a brave disclosure. Maybe a spouse or best friend. Maybe a sibling or a therapist. But please, if you were sexually violated, do not try to carry that burden alone. Trust is difficult. But trust SOMEONE and share your pain. That’s how you can begin to move forward.

And if you did not suffer abuse, but saw or suspected it, come forward. Tell police or prosecutors or groups like ours. That’s your moral and civic duty. And that’s how we stop this horror.

Second, we are revealing the names three publicly accused abusive clerics who spent time in Arkansas and have been left off Bishop Anthony Taylor’s “accused” list, which was unveiled last September and updated this month.

— Fr. John H. Sutton who’s accused of abuse in the 1990s in Texas, an allegation that “was found to have a semblance of truth,” according to Ft. Worth church officials.

— Fr. Daniel De Dominicis, who was included in the San Bernardino diocese’s list of clergy credibly accused of child sexual abuse.

— Fr. Joseph D. Ross, who was convicted in 1988 of the sexual abuse of a boy in 1986. In 2008, he was again arrested, this time by Little Rock police, on charges of rape of a St. Louis girl. He was defrocked.

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CHARLESTON (SC)
WCSC TV

February 28, 2019

Last Sunday, Pope Francis ended his unprecedented summit at the Vatican on preventing clergy sexual abuse. At the same time, the Charleston Diocese is preparing to take its own unprecedented measure.

A spokeswoman for the Diocese confirmed earlier this week that the diocese is still on track to release its list of priests credibly accused of sexual abuse by the end of March, a move that will surely spark plenty of conversation in the “Holy City” once the list is revealed.

“While universal protocol has not been approved, the National Conferences of Bishops have been given clear mandates to address and deal with the problems of sexual abuse of minors in their respective countries,” Bishop Robert E. Guglielmone said in a statement.

During mass last Sunday, Pope Francis vowed to confront abusers with “the wrath of God,” and prioritize victims of what he called “brazen, aggressive and destructive evil.”

Francis summoned 190 presidents of bishops conferences around the world for the summit. The Vatican also announced it will soon issue a child protection policy and guidelines for preventing sexual abuse of minors for Vatican City State.

“I am confident that we in our country can produce the accountability that is so necessary for us to move toward prevention of these abuses in the future,” Guglielmone said.

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

February 28, 2019

Though a Michigan priest was supposedly “permanently removed from ministry” in 2002, he was recently working as a sacristan and alone around boys in church according to a new report.

In 2016, Gaylord Bishop Steven J. Raica received a letter complaining that Fr. James A. Holtz was seen helping an altar boy with his belt. Then, six months later, he received a second letter.

It was only then that Raica supposedly began taking action. But he should have shouted from the rooftops and called police the minute he heard Fr. Holtz was working again in a church. Tragically, Bishop Raica did not. He kept quiet instead. We shudder to think of how many children were put at risk because of this reckless decision.

Given how easily Fr. Holtz was able to begin working again in a new parish, we can only help but wonder how many other suspended or even defrocked priests are functioning in other roles around vulnerable kids and unsuspecting families in churches throughout the US.

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

February 28, 2019

A former priest from the Diocese of Green Bay has been arrested again for exposing himself to children.

Former priest Richard L. Thomas was defrocked just last year, even though he was arrested in 1990 and again in 1993 for similarly exposing his genitals to kids (he was convicted in the latter case). We are relieved that Thomas will again be jailed and that kids in Wisconsin will be safer.

Because his behavior is so unrelenting, we feel confident that a thorough outreach effort by church staff in Green Bay would bring forward other victims, witnesses and whistleblowers. That might enable the justice system to keep Thomas away from kids forever.

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NEW YORK (NY)
Time

February 28, 2019

By Ciara Nugent

Pope Francis arrived at the Vatican in 2013 promising “decisive action” on the child sex-abuse crisis that has racked the Catholic Church for at least three decades. Survivors around the world had told of horrific assaults by priests and callous cover-ups by senior clerics; in the U.S. alone, a 2004 church-commissioned report recorded over 10,000 accusations against more than 4,000 priests. Since then, the evidence has only grown. Yet advocates say Francis has offered little to restore the moral authority of the church beyond strong words.

Much then was left riding on the landmark summit the Pope called for Feb. 21–24. Nearly 200 bishops, Cardinals and other senior clerics gathered in the Vatican to hear recorded testimony from survivors, listen to speeches and hold group discussions, all with the aim of getting on the same page. As if to announce a new seriousness of purpose, the church expelled the former Archbishop of Washington, D.C., Theodore E. McCarrick, just days before, on Feb. 16–the first Cardinal to be defrocked over the sexual abuse of minors in modern times. Francis used the summit to call for an “all-out battle” against abuse, and church leaders hailed it as an unprecedented confrontation with the ugliest parts of their organization. “I am convinced that this was a moment of deep transformation,” Father Hans Zollner, one of the church’s top experts on child protection and the summit’s organizer, tells TIME.

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CHARLOTTE (NC)
Charlotte Observer

February 28, 2019

By Billy Maddalon

Catholic dioceses around the country have released names of priests credibly accused of sex abuse, Charlotte is not one of them.

Last week was another difficult week for local Catholics. As the Church convened a worldwide summit dealing with the endless sex abuse crisis, the Diocese of Richmond released a list of clergy who had been credibly accused of sexual abuse of a minor. On that list were two monks who previously served in the Charlotte Diocese, which has refused to disclose its list of credibly accused priests. If that list is ever released, the name of Joseph Kelleher will appear. He was the parish priest at Our Lady of Assumption, my childhood church and school, a relatively small faith community in what was then a much smaller Charlotte.

Coincidentally, going through old photos recently, one in particular caught my attention. It was my 8th grade class graduation photo. There we were, all 18 of us standing on the steps of the church, looking like a million bucks, posing with our school principal, our teacher, and our larger than life parish priest, Joseph Kelleher. And that’s where the memories get complicated. In 2010, Kelleher was charged with and admitted to police that he sexually assaulted a student in Albemarle in 1977, shortly before being moved to Charlotte. We also know he’s been accused of assaulting at least one of my classmates in 1981. Looking back, I can’t say I’m completely surprised. Kelleher was a big hugger and often encouraged me to sit on his lap. On more than one occasion, he either had an object in his pocket or … well, you get the picture. I never pulled away and I never ran. What happened to my classmate could have easily happened to me.

But this isn’t really about me or Kelleher. It turns out he is just one of many … or dozens … or hundreds of predatory priests in the Diocese of Charlotte. I say “or” because we really don’t know. We won’t know unless Bishop Peter Jugis decides to release a list of “credibly accused” abusers in his diocese. The Archdiocese of Atlanta, the dioceses of Raleigh, Charleston, Savannah, Richmond, Arlington, Nashville and Knoxville, have all released their own lists. Unlike his peers, Jugis is waiting on “additional instruction” before he decides to join this “stampede” of transparency, said Diocese spokesperson David Hains. With no apparent shame, he’s hiding behind survivors as an excuse to remain silent, saying he doesn’t want to “pile on” and cause further harm by releasing a list of offenders. What a bunch of cowardly hooey.

I’ve never met Jugis, but what I know about him suggests he’s a coward and a hypocrite. He fired a gay Charlotte Catholic High teacher because he got married, saying there would be scandal if the diocese didn’t officially respond to such a “contradictory message” from an employee. That’s rich, because in 2014 Jugis himself chose to preside over a memorial mass for deceased priest Joseph Kelleher. Yes, that Kelleher, the admitted abuser. And not one word was mentioned about a scandal caused by sending a contradictory message.

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AUSTRALIA
10 daily

February 27, 2019

By Josh Butler

Warning: This story discusses child sex abuse.

Stephen Woods is still “furious” about what happened to him.

The Victorian man, a survivor of abuse at the hands of paedophile priest Gerald Ridsdale and other clergy members, remembers in horrific detail what happened to him as a boy in Ballarat.

After being molested by Catholic brothers as a pre-teen, Woods told 10 daily he went to seek the guidance of a priest.

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GREEN BAY (WI)
WBAY TV

February 28, 2019

A former Green Bay priest who was convicted of exposing his genitals to a child has been sent to jail for violating probation.

Documents obtained by Action 2 News detail recent allegations against Richard Thomas, 81.

Once of the documents is a letter sent by the Department of Corrections to Judge Timothy A. Hinkfuss. The letter states that Thomas had violated rules of supervision by having unapproved verbal and physical contact with children.

In 2016, Thomas was sentenced to 36 months on supervision after he was found guilty of two counts of Exposing Genitals/Pubic Area/Intimate Parts to a Child. Thomas had exposed himself to a teenager while living at Grellinger Hall, a residence for retired priests.

Conditions of probation include lifetime registry on the Wisconsin Sex Offender list and no contact with minors unless approved by a parole agent.

Thomas has been living in the community since Feb. 24, 2017. In the letter to Judge Hinkfuss, the Wisconsin Department of Corrections says it was reported that Thomas had been “intentionally seeking out minors” at Green Bay’s Bay Motel and Family Restaurant to “engage them in conversation.”

Thomas was asking the children about where they go to school and what grade they are in. He reportedly asked one child what city he lived in.

The DOC says Thomas admitted to having physical contact with a boy, “placing his hand on this minor’s shoulder making him feel uncomfortable.”

Thomas also admitted to telling an underage girl that he thought she was attractive “and if he was her age he would date her.”

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ROCHESTER (NY)
Rochester Democrat and 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. Matthew Leonard, Rochester Democrat and Chronicle

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.

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SYDNEY (AUSTRALIA)
Sydney Morning Herald

February 28, 2019

By John Ellis

I have hesitated in weighing in to add to the thousands of words written this week about the publication, at long last, of the details of the conviction of George Pell last December on child sex abuse charges.

It may surprise many to know that I have not followed the criminal process at all, know few details of it (even now), and have no opinion as to what may or may not happen in the balance of that criminal process.

However, as a survivor of sexual abuse by a priest over a period of more than 12 years, and having faced myself the opinion apparently held by those close to George Pell (and perhaps by Pell himself) – as to how inherently unlikely it was that a holy monk of God would have so openly engaged in such debased and abhorrent acts against a young boy – I feel saddened that the experiences of the complainant have been so disrespected by many commentators who feel the need to express doubt over what a jury of 12 has been satisfied beyond reasonable doubt.

George Pell apologised to me for the legal abuse perpetrated by the church under his watch as Archbishop of Sydney. Before he departed for Rome in 2014, he famously recited a public apology not to me but to the assembled audience at the conclusion of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse public hearing. I had a cup of tea with him. While that was a private meeting and will remain so, I can say that I have never felt any warmth from the man. I was not left with a sense of any acceptance of personal responsibility for how he sought to crush me or any appreciation of the impacts of his own actions.

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DUBLIN (IRELAND)
Irish Catholic

February 28, 2019

By Michael Kelly

In his closing remarks to the summit on the protection of minors at the weekend, Pope Francis summoned the bishops and religious superiors with somewhat of a battle cry. The time has come, the Pontiff said, for an “all-out battle” against the abuse, erasing this abominable crime from the face of the earth.

Since the problem is present on every continent, the Pope said he called leaders of the world’s bishops and religious superiors to Rome because “I wanted us to face it together in a co-responsible and collegial way”, he said.

“We listened to the voice of victims, we prayed and asked for forgiveness from God and the people hurt, we took stock of our responsibility, and our duty to bring justice through truth and to radically reject every form” of sexual abuse and the abuse of power and conscience, he said.

“We want every activity and every place in the Church to be completely safe for minors,” he said, which means taking every possible measure so that such crimes never happen again.

If the main purpose of the summit was to ensure that every part of the Church is on the same page on the issue of abuse, it seems safe to cautiously hail the gathering as a success. Some victims and survivors expressed disappointment over what they perceived as a lack of concrete action, but organisers were keen to ask people to wait just a little bit longer for such progress.

What Francis did make clear is that never again will a religious leader be able to say they were unaware of the issue of abuse. Speaking in the Sala Regia, the Pope told some 190 cardinals, bishops and religious superiors from around the world, “the time has come, then, to work together to eradicate this evil from the body of our humanity by adopting every necessary measure already in force on the international level and ecclesial levels”.

“I make a heartfelt appeal for an all-out battle against the abuse of minors both sexually and in other areas, on the part of all authorities and individuals, for we are dealing with abominable crimes that must be erased from the face of the earth,” he said.

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QUEBEC CITY (CANADA)
Catholic News Service

February 28, 2019

By Philippe Vaillancourt

The apostolic nunciature in Ottawa, Ontario, confirmed Feb. 26 that it received a first complaint of sexual misconduct concerning Archbishop Luigi Ventura, the Vatican’s ambassador to Canada from 2001 to 2009.

Ventura, now 74, is under investigation for similar allegations in France, where he has served as nuncio since 2009.

The alleged incident took place July 26, 2008, at the shrine of Sainte-Anne-de-Beaupre. Ventura was there for the feast of Ste. Anne, as the shrine was celebrating its 350th anniversary.

Christian Vachon, then 32, was part of the youth pastoral team. He told Presence info that, on that day, he was asked to help by providing service at the tables during a banquet. He alleged that Ventura touched his buttocks at least twice while he was serving him. He said he thought it was done inadvertently the first time, but that that there was no doubt after the second time.

He said the nuncio tried to engage in conversation with him, but he did not want to speak.

“During the meal, I was on edge. I was shocked. I was shocked by what he did. This is the complete opposite of the dignity that comes with its function. I was scandalized,” he told Presence info, a French-language Canadian news service.

Vachon said he felt “depressed” during the afternoon.

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WASHINGTON (DC)
The Federalist

February 28, 2019

By John Daniel Davidson

The Vatican’s four-day summit on protecting minors ended Sunday with a whimper. There were no new “concrete, effective measures” to hold Catholic bishops accountable for ignoring and covering up sexual abuse, as Pope Francis had called for before the summit began. There were likewise no discussions of the link between sexual abuse and homosexuality among the clergy, the rampant abuse of adult seminarians by their superiors, or the case of disgraced former Archbishop Theodore McCarrick.

Instead, the summit concluded with a 3,000-word speech by Francis that contained little of substance but was heavy on defensiveness and bureaucratese. Francis rattled off a list of “best practices” for ending violence against children compiled by the World Health Organization, and offered a meandering discussion about how a “great number of” abuse cases are “committed within families”—an obvious attempt to deflect attention from the putative subject of the summit: clerical sexual abuse.

In the end, the summit accomplished almost nothing because it was designed to accomplish nothing. It was narrowly tailored to address only the sexual abuse of children, and only in a generalized way, without reference to the McCarrick affair or the problems it exposed in the American hierarchy.

Never mind that the revelations about McCarrick’s sexual abuse of minors and seminarians precipitated this meeting, after Francis was accused of ignoring reports about McCarrick back in September. Never mind that more than 80 percent of abuse victims have been teenage males, or that the first reported victim of McCarrick was 17 at the time he was abused.

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ROME (ITALY)
National Catholic Register

February 27, 2019

By Edward Pentin

Three concrete initiatives to better handle clerical sex abuse, greater powers to help the laity hold bishops accountable, and changes to a papal decree aimed at closing legal loopholes that have allowed bishops to cover up such crimes with impunity, were some tangible achievements of the recent Vatican summit on child protection in the Church.

The 114 episcopal conference presidents taking part in the Feb. 21-24 gathering mostly welcomed the meeting’s outcome and the rare opportunity to discuss face-to-face these issues from a global perspective.

The meeting was “very useful, very necessary and very timely,” Cardinal Oswald Gracias of Bombay, India, told reporters at the end of the conference. He welcomed bringing the “whole world together” to address the abuse problem, which is now a “common priority.” All are now conscious “this is a real serious problem,” he added.

“These have been challenging, fruitful days,” said Cardinal Daniel DiNardo, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, in a Feb. 25 statement. “We owe survivors an unyielding vigilance that we may never fail them again.”

But many others were disappointed, angry or frustrated with the meeting’s outcome. Victim-survivor groups largely viewed the event as not radical enough and a deflection from effectively preventing abuse, achieving real accountability and ending a cover-up culture in the Church.

“My fears have been answered,” Shaun Dougherty, who was abused by a priest when he was 10 to 13 years old, told the Register. “I don’t believe that the bishops and cardinals are any more equipped to police themselves than they were last week, before the conference began.”

The meeting was also overshadowed by accusations that Pope Francis had himself been covering up for clerical abusers, including most recently Argentinian Bishop Gustavo Zanchetta, accused of inappropriate behavior with seminarians and having homosexual pornography on his cellphone.

Others saw discussion of ex-cardinal and priest Theodore McCarrick’s crimes of abuse of minors, seminarians and priests of a homosexual nature as deliberately omitted and suppressed. This was despite outrage over the McCarrick scandal providing much of the impetus for the summit. It was also seen as a lost opportunity in dealing with causes of abuse that encompass vulnerable adults as well as minors.

Pope Francis opened the meeting expressing hope that the participants would “hear the cry of the little ones who plead for justice” and that they discuss “this evil” in a “synodal, frank and in-depth manner.” He also issued 21 points to consider as “starting points” for discussions on improving the handling of abuse cases, at least half of which reflected the American experience since the crisis first broke in 2002.

The meeting’s program centered on nine presentations on a theme dedicated to each of the three days: responsibility on the first, accountability on the second, and transparency on the third, interspersed by working-group sessions and testimonies from abuse victims.

The presenters — five cardinals, one archbishop, a religious sister and two laywomen — covered a wide range of issues: the need for the Church to draw close to the wounds of victims, acknowledge faults and mistakes, and ask for forgiveness to regain credibility and ensure children are safe. They highlighted areas of prevention and clarified bishops’ responsibilities and the need for collegiality and synodality in dealing with abuse.

Also proposed was a 12-point proposal for better accountability, including having metropolitan bishops hold other bishops accountable. Other suggestions were revising and possibly rescinding use of the “pontifical secret” in abuse cases and inviting Church leaders to see the media as allies rather than enemies in uncovering abuse and bringing predator priests to justice.

At a penitential liturgy on the final evening of the summit discussions, bishops made an examination of conscience, confessed to covering up abuse, and asked for pardon. In his homily at the summit’s closing Mass the next day, Archbishop Mark Coleridge of Brisbane, Australia, acknowledged that at times abuse victims have been seen “as the enemy” and that “we have not loved them; we have not blessed them.”

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PARIS (FRANCE)
LaCroix International

February 28, 2019

About five years ago, a 17-year old girl took her newborn child to church for baptism in the central Philippine city of Cebu. Instead of blessings, a Redemptorist priest heaped scorn on the young mother.

“You should be ashamed and hide. We should close this church out of shame because you would have this child baptized without a husband,” thundered the priest. “The disgrace will be passed on to the child,” he warned.

Amid the drama of breast-beating during the recent Vatican summit on clerical sex abuse, there was hardly any mention of acts of cruelty and self-righteousness like the one displayed in Cebu. The omission betrays a lack of discernment.

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NEW YORK (NY)
Irish Central

February 28, 2019

By Niall O’Dowd

The Catholic Church abuse scandals have now impacted on Buffalo’s St. Patrick’s Day Parade celebrations as a leading cleric is forced to cancel marching in city’s parade.

The Bishop of Buffalo, New York, has been forced to drop out of the city’s St. Patrick’s Day Parade after a whistleblower on “60 Minutes” accused him of a cover-up and criticism from a local forced his hand. There has also been an online petition calling for him to drop out. The Buffalo St. Patrick’s Day Parade is one of the largest in the United States.

Bishop Richard Malone is accused of covering up scores of old abuse cases and currently covering for up to nine priests in his parish who have allegedly abused young children. His handling of the pedophile issue was the subject of a scathing “60 Minutes” report in November.

Explaining the decision to not march a press release from the Archdiocese stated:

“To prevent the Saint Patrick’s Day Parade from being used as a platform to address unrelated issues – however important those issues may be – Bishop Malone, with immense regret, has decided not to march in the Parade this year…. It is not the proper forum for controversy.”

The United Irish American Association, which runs the parade, had stated it was up to the diocese to decide who represented them.

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DALLAS (TX)
NBCDFW 5

February 27, 2019

By Dana Branham

Southern Baptist Convention officials cleared two of the three North Texas churches that the convention’s president singled out last week for scrutiny in the wake of a sex abuse scandal.

President J.D. Greear targeted 10 churches in a speech last week, saying the denomination should kick out churches that show a “wanton disregard for sexual abuse and for caring for the survivors.”

The three North Texas churches Greear listed were First Baptist Church in Bedford, Bolivar Baptist Church in Sanger and Arapaho Road Baptist Church in Garland.

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KANSAS CITY (MO)
National Catholic Reporter

February 28, 2019

The recently completed meeting at the Vatican of heads of bishops’ conferences from around the globe was the latest and most elaborate of the hierarchy’s transactions with members of their own church and with the wider culture over clergy sex abuse.

For a church that proclaims Jesus, this has been a long, slow slog toward truth-telling and accountability. The transactions — from denial to reluctant reform — have been going on since the scandal was first reported nearly 34 years ago.

The recent meeting has the potential to mark a large step forward in the church’s efforts to deal with the scandal and regain the trust of Catholics and others. It is essential, however, to note two factors that significantly qualify the meeting’s success.

First, the gathering itself, extraordinary as it may have been, was, like most other advances in dealing with the crisis, forced by outside circumstances. The bishops were not called to Rome because it was the right thing to do. They were summoned, in part, because of extreme pressure that had built up behind ongoing revelations in a grand jury report of hierarchical malfeasance and because of the abuse of a child and seminarians by a well-known cardinal.

Second, the bishops returned home having yet to answer that ancient question, a line from the poet Juvenal, “Who will guard the guards?”

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DAVENPORT (IA)
Quad Cities OnLine

February 28, 2019

By Scott Reeder

The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing. — Edmund Burke

Michael Leathers is a good man who did something.

And it cost him his job.

Back in 2002, he was the editor of Illinois Baptist, a newspaper covering Southern Baptist congregations across the Land of Lincoln.

When he learned that a pastor, Leslie Mason, was criminally charged with sexually abusing girls in Olney, Ill., he reported it. One of the girls apparently was only 13 years old.

Instead of receiving praise for informing Baptists about a potential predator in their midst, he found himself in a room with a lawyer and his boss Glenn Akins, who then ran the Illinois Baptist State Association.

They wanted him gone.

According to Leathers, Akins offered a peculiar complaint about the story: writing about one pastor who committed sex crimes was unfair because that “ignores many others who have done the same thing.”

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Kansas City (MO)
National Catholic Reporter

February 28, 2019

By Heidi Schlumpf

The November 2018 bishops’ meeting was Bishop W. Shawn McKnight’s first as a prelate, having been named to lead the Diocese of Jefferson City, Missouri, a year earlier. Normally, a new bishop would refrain from speaking from the floor, but after the surprise announcement to delay action on sex abuse until after the Vatican global summit on the topic in February, McKnight couldn’t keep silent. He approached the microphone and shared how “heartbroken” and concerned he felt for the future of the church.

Now that the Feb. 21-24 Vatican summit has concluded, McKnight — and several other newer, younger bishops — are ready to implement changes that would hold accountable bishops who cover up abuse, or are abusers themselves.

McKnight believes the summit has given the bishops the “green light” to move forward at the upcoming June meeting of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops in Baltimore, where he sees “the themes of transparency and accountability coming to some sort of concrete decision.”

“The validity and the success of the summit will depend on the concrete outcomes,” the 50-year-old bishop told NCR, adding that he believes action is necessary. “Right now that’s what people want to see.”

In his own diocese, McKnight has already required religious communities ministering there to commit to releasing names of credibly accused abusers by end of 2019. He also developed a protocol in which any accusation against him would be reported to the lay review board in St. Louis, similar to Chicago Cardinal Blase Cupich’s proposal to involve “metropolitan” bishops.

Although McKnight is “not sold on any one particular proposal” for consideration at the national meeting in June, it must include meaningful lay participation, which is the only way to address the root problem of clericalism, he said.

“That needs to be part and parcel of how we structure ourselves and make decisions at every level of the church,” he said, referencing a shared style of leadership based in Scripture. “Maybe that’s all we need is a return to an older way of how we exercise power and authority as bishops.”

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ROME (ITALY)
Crux

February 28, 2019

By John Allen and Claire Giangravé

Although the Vatican has come under fire in the UK for its alleged lack of cooperation in a public sex abuse probe, sources have told Crux it was actually Vatican financial intelligence that led to the arrest and conviction of the abuser priest at the heart of the inquiry.

“This is an important fact,” one source told Crux. “It’s a game-changer, because it shows that the new legislation [adopted by Pope Francis] on reporting duties is working.”

In fact, the story captures an intersection of reform efforts on the two most persistent sources of scandal for the Vatican in recent decades – sexual abuse and money.

The sources spoke to Crux on background.

At present, a public inquiry in the UK is examining the case of the Benedictine monastery of Ealing Abbey in West London, where a former abbot, Andrew Soper, and a former deputy head teacher of its junior school, David Pearce, both have been jailed for abuse of children.

David Enright, a prominent lawyer representing victims of abuse in Catholic schools, has written to British Prime Minister Theresa May, urging her to expel the pope’s ambassador in the country, American Archbishop Edward Adams, for refusing to hand over documents requested by the probe.

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PITTSBURGH (PA)
Dusquene Duke

February 28, 2019

By Timothy Rush

On Feb. 22, the Vatican began a four-day meeting of 190 church leaders to address the ongoing issue of sexual abuse within the Church. The meeting was called “The Protection of Minors in the Church,” with an emphasis on listening to abuse victims and tackling the issue head-on — something that many church officials had hoped for, especially following the Pennsylvania grand jury peport last year.

Preparations began for the meeting on Feb. 18. Church officials spoke at a news conference at the Vatican, with prelates (high-ranking members of the clergy) speaking on how the Church must hold bishops accountable for addressing sexual abuse and further emphasizing that homosexuality was not a cause for the sexual abuse amongst church officials.

Cardinal Blase Cupich of Chicago expressed his hope “that people see this as a turning point,” and that it would be a moment to rally for bishops. In another massive shift toward transparency, the meeting had segments streamed despite it being closed-doors.

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CHARLOTTE (NC)
WBTV

February 28, 2019

By Nick Ochsner

An Asheville man who says he was abused by two priests as a young teenager is calling for the Charlotte Diocese to take new steps to publicly address sexual abuse by priests.

Douglas Dickerson was 13 when he said he was first abused by a priest at Saint Elizabeth’s of the Hill Country Catholic Church in Boone, NC.

“I definitely wasn’t prepared to handle it, and my reaction was to attempt suicide actually on the church grounds,” Dickerson said in an interview with WBTV News.

Dickerson has never before spoken publicly about the abuse he said he suffered at the hands of not one but two priests at the same parish in the early 1990’s.

The first priest Dickerson said abused him was Father H. Cornell Bradley, a Jesuit priest who came to North Carolina in the late 1980’s after working primarily in Washington, D.C. and Maryland.

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ROME (ITALY)
Crux

February 28, 2019

By Inés San Martín

German Jesuit Father Hans Zollner is a man on a mission to guarantee the safety of minors within the Catholic Church. This aim, he knows, is a task that will require responsibility, transparency and accountability, and the path forward “will not be an easy ride.”

A psychologist by training, Zollner is a member of the pope’s Commission for the Protection of Minors, the president of the Centre for Child Protection at Rome’s Gregorian University and in 2010 he was a member of the “Round Table on Child Abuse” commissioned by the German government.

For years he’s been traveling the world, training priests, bishops, religious and laity on the protection of minors. Education has long been his main focus, and hence he’s often not one to comment on specific cases.

For instance, on Theodore McCarrick, removed from the priesthood by Francis after the former cardinal was found guilty of sexually abusing minors, Zollner simply said, “It’s my understanding that [the Vatican] is working on the release of some information, some kind of documentation, of what can be said with regards to this topic.”

Cardinal Sean O’Malley of Boston, who leads the papal commission on minors, went further at a press conference on Friday, when he said he wants to see a report from the Vatican detailing who knew what and when about McCarrick. He also said he believes that report will include information sent to the Holy See by the four dioceses where McCarrick served, meaning New York, Metuchen, Newark and Washington, D.C.

Zollner was also one of the four churchmen tapped by Pope Francis to organize the Feb. 21-24 Vatican “Meeting on the Protection of Minors in the Church,” often described more simply as the pope’s “anti-abuse summit.”

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