NEW YORK
USA Today

Michael Winter, USA TODAY March 5, 2015

Cardinal Edward Egan, who headed the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New York from 2000 to 2009, died Thursday after suffering a heart attack at his Manhattan residence. He was 82.

He was pronounced dead at NYU Langone Medical Center at 2:20 pm, the archdiocese announced..

“Thank God he had a peaceful death, passing away right after lunch today, with the prayers and sacraments of his loyal priest secretary, Father Douglas Crawford, in his residence at the Chapel of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary,” Cardinal Timothy Dolan, the current archbishop, said in a statement.

Egan succeeded Cardinal John O’Connor, a major figure among American Catholics. He was elevated to cardinal in May 2001, and retired in May 2009, a month after he was hospitalized and was outfitted with a pacemaker. …

The Bridgeport diocese was rocked by a sexual-abuse scandal involving priests. In 2002, he apologized in a in a letter read at Mass, saying, “If in hindsight we also discover that mistakes may have been made as regards prompt removal of priests and assistance to victims, I am deeply sorry.”

In 2009, the the Connecticut Supreme Court ruled that records detailing sexual abuse allegations by priests in the Bridgeport diocese should be released

Three years later, Egan he retracted the apology during a magazine interview, denying that sexual abuse occurred during his tenure.

“I never should have said that,” he told Connecticut Magazine. “I don’t think we did anything wrong.”

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NEW YORK
CBS News

Retired New York archbishop Cardinal Edward Egan died Thursday of cardiac arrest, archdiocese officials said. He was 82.

Egan was pronounced dead at 2:20 p.m. NYU Langone Medical Center, according to an archdiocese statement.

Born in Oak Park, Ill., Egan was ordained a priest in 1957 in the Archdiocese of Chicago. In 1985, he was consecrated as a bishop and served as Auxiliary Bishop and Vicar for Education of the New York archdiocese.

In 1988, he became bishop of the diocese of Bridgeport, Conn., named by Pope John Paul II, but returned to New York to serve as archbishop in 2000 as successor to the late Cardinal John O’Connor. He was named cardinal in 2001. …

Egan’s successor, Cardinal Timothy Dolan released a statement expressing grief at Egan’s passing:

“Thank God he had a peaceful death, passing away right after lunch today, with the prayers and sacraments of his loyal priest secretary,” Dolan said. “My sympathy to his natural family, who will grieve for their uncle, and to you, his spiritual family here in the Archdiocese of New York.”

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NEW YORK
International Business Times

By Zoe Mintz @ZoeMintz z.mintz@ibtimes.com on March 05 2015

Cardinal Edward M. Egan, the archbishop of the New York Archdiocese from 2000 to 2009, died of cardiac arrest on Thursday. He was 82.

“I am saddened to tell you that our beloved Cardinal Edward Egan … has gone home to the Lord,” Cardinal Timothy Dolan, who succeeded Egan, said in a statement. “Thank God he had a peaceful death, passing away right after lunch today, with the prayers and sacraments of his loyal priest secretary.”

In a statement officials at the Archdiocese of New York announced Egan died at NYU Langone Medical Center at 2:20 p.m. Funeral arrangements are pending.

Egan’s time as archbishop was rife with troubled church finances and changing demographics in a see with 2.5 million Catholics, according to the New York Times. During his term, the number of registered parishioners increased as did enrollment in Catholic schools and the budget of Catholic Charities. He was highly visible after the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, and escorted Pope Benedict XVI when he visited New York City in April 2008.

Still, Egan was not safe from controversy. He was a staunch opponent of gay marriage and abortion, once comparing the latter to the same reasoning behind Adolf Hitler’s actions during the Holocaust.

In 2012 he rescinded an apology he had given to victims of clergy sexual abuse in Bridgeport, Connecticut, The Associated Press reported. The diocese paid nearly $38 million to 60 victims of sexual abuse in 2001. Egan, who was bishop of Bridgeport from 1988 to 2000, wrote a letter to parishioners as cardinal in 2002 saying he was “deeply sorry” for any mistakes he made regarding removing priests from their posts or helping victims.

During his retirement in 2012, he told Connecticut magazine, “First of all I should never have said that,” Egan said. “I did say if we did anything wrong, I’m sorry, but I don’t think we did anything wrong.”

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NEW YORK
Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New York

March 5, 2015
For Immediate Release:
March 5, 2015

Edward Cardinal Egan, Archbishop-Emeritus , 12th bishop and 9th archbishop and 7th Cardinal of the See of New York, died today.

The cardinal was pronounced dead at NYU Langone Medical Center at 2:20 pm, cause of death was cardiac arrest. Funeral arrangements are pending.

Cardinal Egan was born on April 2, 1932, in Oak Park, Illinois. His Eminence was ordained a priest for the Archdiocese of Chicago on December 15, 1957.

Cardinal Egan was consecrated a bishop in 1985. From 1985 – 1988, Cardinal Egan served as Auxiliary Bishop and Vicar for Education of the Archdiocese of New York. In 1988 he was appointed the Bishop of the Diocese of Bridgeport by Pope John Paul II. In the year 2000, he was appointed Archbishop of New York and made a cardinal in 2001.

In May of 2009, at the age of seventy-seven, Cardinal Egan was retired as Archbishop of New York. He maintained and assisted in the works of the Archdiocese, while serving on a number of offices of the Vatican.

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NEW YORK
The Kansas City Star

ASSOCIATED PRESS
03/05/2015

NEW YORK
Roman Catholic Cardinal Edward Egan, the former archbishop of New York, has died. He was 82.

The Archdiocese of New York says Egan died Thursday afternoon at a New York hospital. The cause of death was cardiac arrest.

Pope John Paul II had appointed Egan as leader of the archdiocese in 2000 to succeed the late Cardinal John O’Connor.

Egan was archbishop during the Sept. 11 terror attacks during which he anointed the dead at a lower Manhattan hospital and presided over many funerals for victims.
Read more here: http://www.kansascity.com/news/nation-world/article12632474.html#storylink=cpy

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NEW YORK
New York Daily News

BY CHELSIA ROSE MARCIUS , CORKY SIEMASZKO NEW YORK DAILY NEWS Thursday, March 5, 2015

Edward Cardinal Egan, who was archbishop of New York City during the 9/11 attacks and led the city’s Roman Catholic faithful for nine turbulent years, died Thursday at age 82.

Egan, who battled polio as a child and relied on a pacemaker, died of cardiac arrest at a New York hospital at 2:20 p.m., church spokesman Joseph Zwilling said.

Funeral plans were still being finalized.

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CONNECTICUT
Darien Times

By Susan Shultz on March 5, 2015

Cardinal Edward M. Egan, who served as the head of the Diocese of Bridgeport from 1988 until he left in 2000 to become Archbishop of New York, has died. He retired in 2009.

Egan, 82, died at NYU Langone Medical Center at 2:20 p.m. of cardiac arrest, according to the New York Archdiocese. Funeral arrangements are pending.

Egan steered the Diocese of Bridgeport through some of its most difficult times, during years of accusations of sexual abuse by priests who were allegedly sent to other parishes instead of being removed from their roles.

Egan was born on April 2, 1932, in Oak Park, Illinois. He was ordained a priest for the Archdiocese of Chicago on Dec. 15, 1957. Egan was consecrated a bishop in 1985. For the next three years, he served as Auxiliary Bishop and Vicar for Education of the Archdiocese of New York. …

In 2002, Cardinal Egan apologized for the handling of sex abuse cases in both New York and Connecticut in a letter read at Masses.

While he was the Bishop of Bridgeport, several Fairfield County priests were accused of sexually abusing boys.

He later withdrew his apology in an interview with Connecticut Magazine in 2012 saying that he did an “incredibly good” job handling the crisis in Bridgeport.

“I never should have said that,” he said. “I don’t think we did anything wrong.”

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TEXAS
Fort Worth Star-Telegram

BY ELIZABETH CAMPBELLLIZ@STAR-TELEGRAM.COM
03/05/2015

FORT WORTH
A man who lives near Spokane, Wash., is suing the Fort Worth Roman Catholic Diocese saying he was sexually assaulted in the 1990s by a priest who was his seventh-grade history teacher at a Catholic school in Wichita Falls.

The victim, identified in court documents as John Doe 117, also named Fort Worth Bishop Michael Olson in the suit filed this week in Tarrant County district court.

The victim is seeking over $1 million in damages for emotional anguish, medical expenses and diminished earning capacity because of what is described in the suit as a “sadistic ritual of sexual abuse” by the late priest John Sutton.

Sutton, who died in 2004, told the student that if told anyone of their encounters that “I have the power to ruin your life,” according to the suit.

In a emailed statement to the Star-Telegram, diocese spokesman Pat Svacina wrote that there is an ongoing investigation of the victim’s claims of abuse.

“Bishop Michael F. Olson personally knows John Doe and his family. The Bishop travelled to Washington State in order to provide pastoral care to the former student and family members and to learn more about the allegations,” according to the statement.

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INDIA
Liberty Voice

A California woman has accused a priest in the city of Vrindavan, India, of physically and sexually abusing her. Days before the world celebrates Women’s Day on March 8, the horrific case of sexual abuse of a woman, allegedly at the hands of a priest, has come up. Local police located the woman while working on a tip. The woman hails from California, U.S., and was found in a tortured condition by the police.

The woman is a citizen of the United States and was visiting Vrindavan to celebrate Holi – the upcoming festival of colors, which is celebrated in India with much fanfare. She was said to have rented a guest house when she reached Vrindavan February 26. The woman was unaccounted for after the first day. The local police started their search operations and located her on Tuesday, March 3. It was reported that the woman was physically and sexually tortured by a priest, and there were wounds and bruises on her body.

The police reported that when they discovered the woman, she was in a drunken state. However, once she regained composure and sobered up, the woman alleged that she had been physically and sexually abused by a priest. Officers from the United States embassy visited Vrindavan on Wednesday, March 4, to get complete information about the incident. A First Information Report (FIR) has been registered against an unidentified priest. Police are currently looking for the priest accused of this crime.

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VATICAN CITY
Gazzetta del Sud

Vatican City, March 5 – The Vatican is in talks with the Italian authorities for a deal about bank secrecy and other tax issues to help track down Italian tax evaders, Holy See sources told ANSA on Thursday. Italy recently reached deals to end bank secrecy with Switzerland, Monaco and Liechtenstein. In an interview with weekly magazine L’Espresso, Premier Matteo Renzi said he was hopeful the Vatican would be the next State to sign a tax deal with Rome. The sources said an eventual deal would not regard the position of individuals with accounts in the Vatican, as this area has been effectively dealt with via recent reforms of the Vatican Bank, the Institute for the Works of Religion (IOR), and the closure of accounts of people who are not clergy or Holy See employees.

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PENNSYLVANIA
ABC 27

By Myles Snyder
Published: March 4, 2015

LANCASTER, Pa. (WHTM) – A former teacher at Lancaster Catholic High School has been arrested for alleged sexual contact with a 17-year-old student eight years ago.

James Scott Dwight III, 47, was taken into custody last week in Harvard, Massachusetts by the Massachusetts State Police and the United States Marshals Office, Lancaster police said in a news release Wednesday.

Police said the former student, now 25, reported last year that Dwight had sexual contact with her at his home in the 500 block of North Pine Street in June 2006.

Lancaster police charged Dwight with two counts of corruption of minors, and police in Massachusetts charged him with being a fugitive from justice.

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PENNSYLVANIA
WPMT

MARCH 4, 2015, BY HOWARD SHEPPARD

LANCASTER, PA (WPMT) A former Lancaster Catholic High School teacher is arrested on sexual assault charges involving a female student. James Scott Dwight III, was taken into custody on February 26 in Harvard, Massachusetts by U.S. Marshals and state police without incident.

The arrest resulted from an investigation that began after the victim, a 25 year old woman reported in February 2014, an incident in June 2006, when she was a 17 year old student at Catholic High. Dwight, who was then 38 years, reportedly had sexual contact with her at his home in the 500 block of North Pine Street.

Lancaster City Detective Aaron Harnish obtained an arrest warrant for Dwight and asked for the assistance of the U.S. Marshals Fugitive Task Force Service in locating Dwight. At the time of his arrest as a Fugitive from Justice, he was working at Mount Wachusett Community College in Massachusetts. Dwight has also worked as a part-time Adjunct Professor at Millersville University.

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ALASKA
Bulgarian Eastern Orthodox Diocese

As the Investigation into allegations against Archpriest Paisius DeLucia proceeds, His Eminence has established a Response Team to conduct additional witness interviews and inquiries, review affidavits and statements received by the Diocese, and engage in additional investigative efforts to address allegations and complaints. Reader Bede, a retired federal investigator, and Licensed Private Investigator with extensive alleged misconduct investigative experience, will serve as the contact person on behalf of the Diocese for this investigation. Reader Bede is not attached to this Diocese.

Witnesses are asked to kindly contact Reader Bede at 866-866-5252 or via KodIsland@gmail.com to provide statements. Intake of those witnesses who would like to appear, if possible, at the Spiritual Court proceedings will likewise be coordinated by him. Witnesses can be assured of a timely response to messages and emails received.

From: The Diocesan Chancery

In response to the allegations and complaints against Archpriest Paisius DeLucia, Rector of St. Innocent’s Academy, Kodiak, Alaska, filed at the Diocesan Chancery by a number of individuals, His Eminence Metropolitan Joseph has called the Diocesan Spiritual Court to convene on March 19-21, 2015.

An investigation by the Diocese is presently in progress and is being led by His Grace Bishop Daniil of Dragovitsa, the Metropolitan Vicar. Last week His Grace visited St. Innocent’s Academy in Kodiak and interviewed witnesses. On Feb 27-28, His Grace will meet with other witnesses in Syracuse, NY and on March 6-8 he will be visiting Indianapolis. All parties who are interested in giving their testimony may contact the Rectors of Holy Transfiguration Church, Syracuse and Joy of All Who Sorrow Church in Indianapolis for the schedule of meetings.

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ALASKA
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

AK–New church contact in probe of Kodiak school; victims’ group urges survivors to go to the police instead

For immediate release: Wednesday, March 3, 2015

Statement by Melanie Sakoda of Moraga CA, Orthodox Director of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests ( 925-708-6175, melanie.sakoda@gmail.com )

A new contact person has been designated in the church probe of an Orthodox priest on leave from a school in Kodiak. The clergyman has been accused of abusing current and former students physically, psychologically and spiritually.

On Sunday, March 1, the Bulgarian Eastern Orthodox Diocese of the USA, Canada and Australia announced on its website that “Reader Bede” will serve as the contact person for a newly created response team. The diocese is investigating complaints of abuse at Saint Innocent’s Academy in preparation for Archpriest Paisius DeLucia’s March 19-21 spiritual court.

[Bulgarian Eastern Orthodox Diocese]

A victims’ group is urging survivors to go to the police instead.

SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, is concerned that the Bulgarians are forging ahead with a spiritual court while a police investigation is still pending.

The Executive Director of SNAP, David Clohessy, put it this way.

“What’s the rush? Criminal behavior is best investigated by independent professionals in law enforcement. We hope that anyone who experienced, witnessed, or suspected abuse at the academy will report to the police, get help and begin healing.”

Trooper Robert Casey (907-486-4121, robert.casey@alaska.gov) is in charge of the criminal investigation.

Cappy Larson, also of SNAP, added, “Once again the victims are not being given complete information. While we’re still waiting to learn where Archpriest Paisius is, and who is replacing him at the academy, this new press release from the diocese raises even more questions. What is “Reader Bede’s” legal name, and with which Orthodox jurisdiction is he affiliated? Who else is on the response team and what are their qualifications?”

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ILLINOIS
CBS Chicago

Mike Krauser

CHICAGO (CBS) – Proposed legislation to close a loophole in the state’s sex offender laws serves as testament to the persistence of a Plainfield woman who would not take no for an answer.

Tina Estopare’s 15-year-old daughter had been molested by a neighbor in December 2011.
“What he did was fondled her, took her hand, and pleasured himself,” she said.

Prosecutors said the best they could get against her daughter’s molester was a misdemeanor battery conviction. Even the judge wondered aloud why it wasn’t a felony case.

“I squealed in court,” Estapore said.

Estopare has said charging her daughter’s abuser only with misdemeanor battery, there was no option to place him on the state’s sex offender database, because the current misdemeanor battery statute does not include a provision for sexually motivated battery.

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ROME
National Catholic Register

by EDWARD PENTIN 03/05/2015

ROME — The Church needs to have “very clear procedures” in dealing with bishops and religious superiors who have mishandled clerical sex-abuse cases “because, right now, it’s very unclear, and, as we see, it’s very open-ended,” Cardinal Sean O’Malley said.

Speaking to the Register Feb. 16, during a recess of a conference at Rome’s Pontifical Gregorian University, the cardinal-archbishop of Boston, who heads the newly formed Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors, told the conference that the failure of the Church to punish bishops who covered up for abusers has seriously harmed its credibility in central areas, such as defending human rights, the unborn and immigrants.

The conference provided an update on the Center for Child Protection, a Church-run resource founded in 2012 aimed at providing prevention and protection against abuse. Along with an e-learning program, the center, which moved its headquarters to Rome in January of this year, will offer in 2016 a course at the Gregorian dedicated to safeguarding minors against abuse.

The Church, Cardinal O’Malley said, must lead the way by “humbly making the commitment to accountability, transparency and zero tolerance.”

Canon lawyers and theologians are reviewing proposals to present to Pope Francis on increasing the accountability of bishops and religious superiors. The proposals were developed by the commission, which comprises experts and two survivors of abuse. “We cannot fail to do all that is possible to restore our credibility,” Cardinal O’Malley said.

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ILLINOIS
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Thursday, March 5

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

Six Chicago predator priests, who were ousted from local parishes in the 1990s, may have spent time in the Springfield are, we have learned.

[Journal-Star]

During one year – 1993 – all six Chicago predator priests were mysteriously listed in the Official Catholic Directory as having the same Springfield area phone number. Internet searches show that the phone – 217 324 4192 – is a land line in Litchfield, in the Springfield diocese. (The only Catholic facility in Litchfield is Holy Family parish.)

As best we can tell, neither Chicago or Springfield Catholic officials have told anyone about these six possibly being in Springfield. (All six have been deemed “credibly accused” by archdiocesan officials.)

It could be that there’s a simple explanation for this very unusual listing. If so, Springfield Bishop Thomas Paprocki and Chicago Archbishop Blasé Cupich should provide it. Otherwise, Springfield area Catholics will be left to wonder if their kids were around dangerous Chicago clerics. And Chicago area Catholics will be left to wonder if local predators were secretly or quietly sent out of town and if so, whether this reckless practice continues today.

If one or more of these predators were in Springfield, he or they may well have assaulted a Springfield boyr or girl. If so, that child, or those children are now adults and are likely still suffering. And if so, Archbishop Cupich and Bishop Paprocki have a moral duty to aggressively reach out to them.

Just to be clear: We suspect – but don’t know for sure – that at least one or more of the six priests spent time in the Springfield area. (If not, how can the 217 phone number be explained?)

If so, it’s possible other Chicago child molesting clerics were sent elsewhere too (maybe Springfield, maybe another city). Is that happening now?

We beg Cupich and Paprocki to clear this up. We beg them to honor their repeated pledges of “openness and transparency” by giving Catholics and citizens this information.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Focus

[Another victim has come forward to report abuse at Ettal monastery.]

Im Missbrauchs-Prozess gegen einen Benediktiner und früheren Internatslehrer in Kloster Ettal hat ein früheres Opfer am Donnerstag erstmals öffentlich ausgesagt.

Der Pater habe ihn im Schuljahr 2004/2005 in seinem Präfektenzimmer etwa zweimal in der Woche auf den Schoß gezogen und ihm unter die Hose gegriffen. „Ich war daran gewöhnt“, sagte der heute 24-jährige Student vor dem Münchner Landgericht. Er habe mit dem Pater „nie ein Problem“ gehabt, „ich hatte das beste Verhältnis zu ihm“, sagte der Zeuge. Er fühle sich durch die damaligen Vorkommnisse auch im Nachhinein nicht belastet. Als andere Schüler sich wegen des Religionslehrers an die Klosterleitung wandten, habe er sich „gewundert, warum sie das machen“.

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ILLINOIS
News Tribune

State Rep. Frank Mautino (D-Spring Valley) is backing legislation to protect victims of sexual abuse by expanding prosecutors’ ability to file charges against alleged rapists.

“Sexual assaults are hideous crimes that can leave victims traumatized for the rest for their lives. Their emotional pain is made worse when their attackers can’t even be arrested and held accountable,” Mautino said in a press release this week.

“Victims must be given every opportunity to see their attackers brought to justice.”

The measure calls for lengthening the statute of limitations in rape cases. Currently, the statute of limitations begins once the crime is committed. Under the bill Mautino supports, the clock on the statute of limitations would not begin until the evidence from the rape is collected, transmitted and analyzed by the state police.

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UNITED STATES
Chicago Tribune

By Trine Tsouderos

Soon after coming into office, Pope Francis began reforming the church’s secretive yet powerful institution, the Institute for the Works of Religion, also known as the Vatican Bank. He issued decrees speeding reviews and improving transparency. He created a commission to do a thorough review of its operations. He replaced much of its leadership with experts from the global banking industry, charging them with overhauling the institution.

Francis’ reforms included revising the mission of the bank too. The institution would leave its investment banking days behind to become a payment service and financial adviser to employees and other parts of the Catholic Church. As the prefect of the Vatican’s Secretariat for the Economy, Cardinal George Pell, said, “The ambition is to be boringly successful, to get off the gossip pages.”

Why all this reform? Wall Street-lawyer-turned-author Gerald Posner lays it out in his deeply researched, passionately argued book, “God’s Bankers: A History of Money and Power at the Vatican.” Posner, whose previous books include the best-seller, “Why America Slept,” about the U.S. government’s failure to prevent 9/11, is a merciless pitbull of an investigator, marshaling mountains of evidence to make his arguments.

Posner began researching “God’s Bankers” after working on “Mengele,” the 1986 biography he wrote with author John Ware on notorious Nazi doctor Josef Mengele. Posner and Ware obtained access to 5,000 pages of Mengele’s personal writings and photos, using this trove to paint a portrait of a monster. During his research, Posner writes that he repeatedly unearthed evidence pointing to church involvement with the Nazis.

While the book traces the history of the Vatican’s ongoing efforts to fund itself and its network, from sales of “indulgences” in the Middle Ages to the creation of the Vatican Bank to Pope Francis’ reforms after decades of scandal, the heart of “God’s Bankers” lies in chapters devoted to the church’s actions during and immediately after World War II. In these chapters, Posner dissects the church’s actions with the eye of a prosecutor.

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AUSTRALIA
The Australian

MARCH 06, 2015

THE current headmaster of Knox Grammar, John Weeks, has defended his actions in protecting students from potential harm at the hands of teacher and serial pedophile Craig Treloar.

Speaking yesterday to The Australian outside the inquiry into child sexual abuse at the school, Mr Weeks insisted that, despite contrary evidence from the NSW police inspector involved, he had in 2007 reported Treloar to the police child protection unit.

Mr Weeks arrived at Knox in 2004, and almost immediately launched an investigation into another pedophile teacher, ­Adrian Nisbett.

He was advised in 2007 by a former Knox general duties master, Stuart Pearson, that Treloar had in the 1980s shown a pornographic video to a student and “attempted to have a sexual ­encounter with this lad”.

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AUSTRALIA
Daily Telegraph

JANET FIFE-YEOMANS THE DAILY TELEGRAPH MARCH 06, 2015

A KNOX Grammar old boy has come forward to back up a claim his former headmaster Dr Ian Paterson “groped” a scantily-clad schoolgirl during ­rehearsals for Guys and Dolls.

The man told the child sex abuse royal commission ­yesterday he felt he needed to corroborate Lucy Perry’s story after he heard Dr Paterson’s lawyer accuse her of lying, which she denied.

Dr Paterson, 81, has ­vehemently denied touching Ms Perry during the rehearsal in the Knox assembly hall in 1989. This week he did, ­however, admit to covering up sex abuse of pupils by at least five of his teachers and deliberately lying to police.

Ms Perry, 41, claimed she was sexually assaulted by Dr Paterson as a 15-year-old during the rehearsals, when she was part of the chorus of girls wearing feather boas and fishnet tights.

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MILWAUKEE (WI)
WTMJ

[with video]

MILWAUKEE — A bankruptcy judge threw out nine of the ten sex abuse claims in the Milwaukee Archdiocese bankruptcy case Thursday.

According to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Judge Kelley said seven of the victims didn’t show evidence of fraud, and two others had already been dismissed by state courts.

The Archdiocese responded by saying in part “These rulings now allow the Archdiocese to move forward with its plan of reorganization to finally emerge from Chapter 11 and return its focus to its charitable, educational, and spiritual mission.”

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ARKANSAS
Arkansas Times

By Benjamin Hardy

On April 4, 2014, a 38-year-old resident of Bella Vista named Eric Cameron Francis was arrested by the Arkansas State Police for the rape of a 6-year-old girl in what the police said was his temporary care. Sexual crimes against children always attract a certain horrified attention, but this particular case earned additional scrutiny because Francis had recently worked as head teacher at a Christian preschool in West Fork owned by state Rep. Justin Harris (R-West Fork) and his wife, Marsha.

Harris, who said he was “devastated and sickened” by news of the abuse, told the Arkansas Times in April 2014 that Francis had been in his employ only about three months, from November 2013 to January 2014, before being fired for poor work attendance.

“He came with a pristine record,” Harris said at the time, noting that Francis was also a youth pastor at a church and had worked previously in early childhood education for the Bentonville School District and with a Head Start program. Harris added that he was confident nothing had happened to any of the children at Growing God’s Kingdom Preschool, because of strict security protocols (the classroom contains a continuously operating camera that generates a permanent record). Indeed, no further charges against Francis resulted from subsequent State Police interviews of families at the preschool, although investigators uncovered at least two other incidents of sexual abuse of children in the community outside of the school. In November, he was sentenced to 40 years in prison on a negotiated plea.

What Harris did not publicly disclose last spring, however, is how Francis came into contact with the 6-year-old victim. In prosecutor documents recently obtained by the Arkansas Times, state police investigators and multiple witnesses concur that the child was in fact the legally adopted daughter of Justin and Marsha Harris.

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ARKANSAS
Arkansas Matters

[with video]

LITTLE ROCK, AR — An Arkansas state lawmaker refused to answer questions Wednesday about allegations involving children he and his wife adopted.

The Arkansas Times reported Tuesday that two young children adopted from DHS by State Rep. Justin Harris ended up living with family friends where a six-year-old girl was raped.

Eric Francis was convicted last year and sentenced to 40 years in prison.

He was an employee at a preschool in Washington County owned by Harris.

According to the story, the child was one of two adopted by Harris and his wife. But after about a year living with them was sent to live with Francis’ in a process called “rehoming.”

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ARKANSAS
The New Civil Rights Movement

A Republican lawmaker who owns a religious pre-school adopted a little girl with his wife. He apparently later “re-homed,” or unofficially but permanently gave over the 6-year old to a man he would end up hiring as a pre-school teacher. That man later raped her.

Justin Harris is a conservative Arkansas State Representative who serves as the chairman of the Subcommittee on Children and Youth. A Tea Party Republican, Harris has voted to allow the Christian bible to be taught in public schools, and has co-sponsored anti-abortion bills. A Pentecostal Christian, he and his family belong to the Assemblies of God fellowship. Harris also owns a religious, Christian pre-school, named Growing God’s Kingdom.

In 2011, Americans United, an organization that advocates for separation of church and state, revealed that Harris’ Growing God’s Kingdom Preschool had “received over $1 million in state funds since 2005,” despite separation of church and state.

That revelation did nothing to discourage Rep. Harris, just two years later, from co-sponsoring a bill that would, as NCRM reported, “force the state to pay for ‘faith-based’ or religious daycare and pre-school, as long as the parent and not the state requests it.”

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VATICAN CITY
Time

John L. Allen, Jr./Rome @JohnLAllenJr

A veteran Vatican watcher sizes up Pope Francis

This article is adapted from the new book THE FRANCIS MIRACLE: Inside the Transformation of the Pope and the Church, published by Time Books.

Since his surprise election two years ago, Pope Francis has electrified and baffled the world in roughly equal measure. He’s launched Roman Catholicism on a reform path—though without altering its traditional ­teaching—and he’s tried to put a more compassionate and attractive face on its message. He has moved to address scandals and meltdowns that plagued the church under his predecessor and has done so in such a far-­reaching and unexpected fashion that some of the Cardinals who elected him may be getting more than they bargained for. But on some fronts, the ultimate impact remains unclear. Here’s where Pope Francis’ reform campaign stands on five key issues. …

3. Sex Abuse: PROMISING BUT INCOMPLETE
Pope Benedict XVI left behind a mixed legacy on Catholicism’s child-sexual-abuse scandals. He was the first Pope to meet victims and the first to embrace a zero-­tolerance policy. He moved aggressively to weed abusers out of the priesthood, removing more than 400 in his final two years alone. Yet critics say Benedict fell short of holding bishops around the world accountable for failing to deal with the scandals.

Francis has taken steps to try to complete Benedict’s unfinished business, including the creation of a Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors, which is led by Cardinal Seán P. O’Malley of Boston and includes two survivors of clerical abuse as members.

He has also launched a Vatican criminal trial for a former papal diplomat charged with abuse in the Dominican Republic, insisting that there will be no special privileges on his watch. In early February he dispatched a letter to all bishops saying “everything possible must be done to rid the church of the scourge of the sexual abuse of minors.”

Critics nevertheless charge that progress under Francis has been halfhearted and slow. In 2014 he approved an investigation of Bishop Robert Finn in Kansas City—to date the only American bishop found guilty of a crime for failure to report a charge of child abuse. Until victims see a prelate like Finn disciplined, many will argue that the Pope’s efforts deserve a grade of incomplete.

4. Vatican Finances: THE NUMBERS WILL TELL
Over the years, money has been a recurrent source of Vatican scandal. The roll call runs through the Vatican bank crises of the 1970s and ’80s all the way up to the arrest in summer 2013 of “Monsignor 500 Euro”—a onetime Vatican accountant indicted by Italian authorities as part of a cash-smuggling scheme.

Francis began his reform by creating an ambitious three-part structure: a Secretariat for the Economy with power to impose fiscal discipline and accountability; a Council for the Economy composed of heavy-­hitter Cardinals as well as business professionals to oversee operations; and an independent auditor general to keep everyone honest.

To run it all, Francis brought in a tough-as-nails Australian prelate named George Pell. In mid-February, Pell reported to all Cardinals that his team had discovered $1.5 billion in hidden assets and a shortfall of almost $1 billion in the pension fund.

Pell and his team have their critics. Some members of the Vatican’s old guard believe it’s a reform in the spirit of the classic Italian novel Il Gattopardo: “Everything must change so that everything can stay the same.” More will become clear when the secretariat submits its first audited financial statement later this year.

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LOUISIANA
The Times-Picayune

By Ken Daley, NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune
on March 04, 2015

The former youth minister who last month was fired from Lakeview’s First Baptist New Orleans church and arrested on accusations of indecent behavior with a juvenile was rebooked Wednesday (March 4) on a more serious charge of sexual battery involving the same underage girl.

Jonathan Bailey’s new arrest warrant said a second church has contacted New Orleans police to say it fired Bailey as youth minister about 10 years ago, because of similar allegations of an inappropriate relationship with a juvenile congregant. Court documents did not name the second church or say whether it’s located in New Orleans.

Orleans Parish magistrate commissioner Robert Blackburn on Wednesday set Bailey’s new bond at $35,000. At a court appearance, Bailey’s attorney, Townsend Myers, told the commissioner, “While this is a rebooking on a new charge, it’s a new spin on the alleged conduct he already has been arrested for.”

Bailey, 33, had been free on bond after being booked Feb. 23 with one count of indecent behavior with a juvenile. That arrest came after First Baptist New Orleans officials and the parents of a 14-year-old girl notified NOPD Special Victims Section Detective Corey Lymous of alleged inappropriate behavior between the youth minister and the student inside a church closet, and during an earlier out-of-state retreat in Mississippi.

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ILLINOIS
WICS

[with video]

The Survivors Network of those Abused by Priest (SNAP) is searching for answers from the Springfield Bishop Thomas Paprocki. SNAP director David Clohessy said there were two predator priests in the Springfield area decades ago, both are now deceased, and it’s his obligation to reach out to possible now-adult victims.

Neither of these priests had ever been charged with a crime, but Clohessy said Paprocki should post all predator priests.

“We’re asking him to post the names of Father Martinez and Father Fitzgerald and any other proven admitted or credibly accused child molesting cleric who spent any time in the Springfield diocese.

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CANADA
Medicine Hat News

BY PEGGY REVELL ON MARCH 5, 2015.
prevell@medicinehatnews.com
@MHNprevell

Hope for healing, hope for understanding, hope for the future.

“People are going to learn to get together from all of this … I feel it,” said Winston Wadsworth, following Wednesday’s banquet in honour of those like himself who are survivors of Canada’s residential school system — one of many ceremonies and events marking Healing and Reconciliation week in Medicine Hat, and organized by the Miywasin Centre and the Blood Tribe Department Inc.

For Wadsworth, the week has been a special one as it brings people together. He hopes it helps people understand what indigenous people have been through, to understand, for example, the “why” when they see a homeless aboriginal person.

The week has included often an emotional sharing of stories by elders and survivors like Wadsworth —of being taken away from their families at a young age for months and years at a time, of being beaten, abused, denied their culture and language, of growing up with parents who also survived residential schools, of how many turned to drugs and alcohol, of the friends and family they’ve lost.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Daily Mail

A paedophile priest, two bishops and a sickening conspiracy of silence: He married Frank Bruno and said Mass for Delia Smith. But behind the glitz was one of the Catholic Church’s dirtiest secrets

By RICHARD PENDLEBURY FOR THE DAILY MAIL

Father Tony McSweeney chalked up a number of notable additions to his CV during a lifetime supposedly devoted to the service of children and God.

He said Mass at Norwich City Football Club at the request of its celebrity cook owner Delia Smith, and conducted the marriage of world heavyweight boxing champion Frank Bruno.

He also received the prestigious Silver Acorn for decades of ‘dedication’ to the global Scout movement and his co-authorship of its official songbook.

Last week, he even boasted of being the ‘world expert’ on organising campfire get-togethers.

But now he must add a chilling new entry to his list of achievements: he has become the first paedophile to be tried and convicted after being linked to allegations of a VIP ring based at an infamous South London guesthouse who preyed on boys from a nearby care home.

And unless police make further progress with their investigations, he could well be the last.
For decades — culminating in his trial and conviction at Southwark Crown Court on Friday — McSweeney, 68, lied and lied.

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AUSTRALIA
Radio Australia

By Nicole Chettle

A former Knox Grammar School student tells a royal commission the sexual abuse he suffered destroyed part of his life and chance at a normal education.

A former student at Sydney’s Knox Grammar School has told a royal commission that sexual abuse had “destroyed a lot of [his] life” and that he was traumatised by the sight of the current and former headmasters at the inquiry.

The royal commission into child sexual abuse has been examining reports of abuse of students at the school from the 1970s through to 2003.

The man, who the ABC will not identify, told the hearing in Sydney that he was abused in 2003, when he was in year six, by Craig Treloar, who was later sentenced to 4.5 years jail for indecent assault.

The man said he had made several suicide attempts, and went from being a promising student to a troubled teenager who was unable to concentrate in class.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

By Nicole Chettle

The headmaster of Sydney’s prestigious Kings School has told an inquiry he is outraged by the handling of child abuse complaints at Knox Grammar, where he was a teacher in the late 1980s.

The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse was told Dr Tim Hawkes was boarding master at MacNeill House when a sleeping teenager was indecently assaulted by a man wearing a balaclava in around 1988.

Dr Hawkes said he alerted the headmaster at the time, Dr Ian Paterson, immediately, and trusted authorities would be informed.

“I felt that I had been faithful and effective in the exercise of my duty in alerting him to the incident,” he said.

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ILLINOIS
State Journal-Register

By Chris Dettro
Staff Writer

Posted Mar. 4, 2015

A national support group for clergy abuse victims on Wednesday called for more transparency from the Catholic Diocese of Springfield concerning two out-of-state “predator priests” who spent time in the diocese.

The Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, or SNAP, also wants an explanation as to why six priests ousted from their Chicago parishes in the 1990s appeared in an official Catholic directory for the Springfield Diocese, all with the same Litchfield phone number.

The group says it isn’t sure those six priests ever were assigned to or spent time in the Springfield Diocese, but it suspects that one or more did.

The two out-of-state priests are the Rev. Frank R. Martinez Jr. of Iowa and the Rev. James Vincent Fitzgerald of South Dakota, said David Clohessy, director of Chicago-based SNAP.

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MONTANA
Helena Independent

KATHRYN HAAKE Missoulian

BILLINGS, Mont. (AP) — Hundreds of victims of clergy sex abuse that spanned decades in Montana stand to receive payments totaling about $20 mi… Read more

COEUR d’ALENE, Idaho — Though a federal court has approved a $20 million settlement compensating hundreds of western Montana Catholics molested by nuns and priests, the trauma endured by the victims is far from over, they said Wednesday.

“This isn’t going to stop me from remembering,” said one of the victims following the bankruptcy hearing. “I walk past a church, I remember it. I walk past a priest, I remember it. I see a nun, I remember it.”

The bankruptcy settlement includes a $15 million payment from the Catholic Diocese of Helena and another $4.45 million from the Ursuline Nuns of the Western Province, who ran the Ursuline Academy of St. Ignatius.

Bryan Smith, who represented over 360 victims, said most attended school at the Ursuline Academy or the St. Ignatius Mission in St. Ignatius.

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CALIFORNIA
CBS Sacramento

SACRAMENTO (CBS13) — A North Highlands church choir director accused of having a sexual relationship with a minor is facing new charges.

Sacramento Police say Kareem Mitchell, 42, will face four additional charges, because another victim has come forward.

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NEW JERSEY
MyCentralJersey

Suzanne Russell, @SRussellMyCJ March 4, 2015

NEWARK – A Linden man who was a leader in a boys youth organization and a religious education teacher is accused of possessing more than 1,000 images and 43 videos of child sexual abuse.

Gregory J. Aker, 45, is charged with one count of possessing child pornography, according to U.S. Attorney Paul J. Fishman.

Aker is in state custody and scheduled to appear March 12 before U.S. Magistrate Judge Mark Falk here.

According to the complaint, Aker was a leader with a boys youth organization and a religious education teacher with his church. The name of the church was not identified by the U.S. Attorney’s Office.

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CALIFORNIA
Sacramento Bee

BY CATHY LOCKECLOCKE@SACBEE.COM
03/04/2015

Sacramento police report that additional charges have been filed against a man arrested last month on suspicion of assaulting a teenager he met while working as a church choir director. The new charges came after another alleged victim recently came forward.

Kareem Abdul Mitchell, 42, was arrested Feb. 3, following an investigation that began in September 2014, when police received a report of an alleged sexual relationship, initiated by Mitchell, that had occurred several years earlier and involved a minor in his late teens. The initial alleged victim, who is now an adult, indicated that the relationship began in 2005 and ended in 2008. The investigation revealed that Mitchell met the victim while working as a choir director at the New Testament Baptist Church in North Highlands, according to a Police Department news release.

Police said similar allegations were leveled against Mitchell twice before, while he was working as a choir director, but no charges were ever filed.

Mitchell was taken into custody Feb. 3 at police headquarters after being interviewed by detectives. He was booked at that time on suspicion of multiple sexual offenses.

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AUSTRALIA
Braidwood Times

By William Vallely March 5, 2015

A FORMER Ballarat parish priest has appealed a three month jail sentence after indecently assaulting a nine-year-old girl in the 1970s.

Eighty-four-year-old Leslie Sheahan, a Ballarat North priest in the 1960s, was on Thursday given a 12-month sentence by magistrate Michelle Hodgson – three of which were to be served immediately.

Ms Hodgson said the historical sex offence was indicative of the culture of silence and accountability by members of the clergy who have abused positions of trust.

“Slowly but surely we have come to recognise people in positions of power are taking advantage of people,” she said.

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CALIFORNIA
News 10

A former North Highlands church choir director faces addition charges of sexual assault of a minor after another victim came forward, the Sacramento County District Attorney’s Office said.

Kareem Mitchell, 42, was charged with four counts of oral copulation with a minor under the age of 18 during his arraignment Wednesday. According to the criminal complaint filed by the Sacramento County District Attorney’s Office, the abuse lasted between January 2001 and August 2001.

The victim, a teenage boy, reported Mitchell after he was arrested and charged with sexual assault on another teenage boy. Sacramento police said the abuse with that victim dated back to 2005 and lasted for three years.

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MINNESOTA
Star Tribune

Posted by: Jennifer Brooks Updated: March 4, 2015

Fugitive cult leader Victor Barnard is behind bars in Brazil, but getting him behind bars in Minnesota could take years.

Frustrated Pine County officials are waiting to hear whether Barnard is going to fight the extradition order that would bring him back to face 59 counts of sexual assault against young girls in his congregation. Barnard, 53, spent three years on the run in Brazil before his arrest Friday in the coastal resort town of Pipa.

“At the very earliest, one month. At the very latest, we’re talking three years,” said newly elected Pine County Attorney Reese Frederickson. “We don’t know. If he waives extradition, it will be one month. If he wants to fight it, it’s a one- to three-year process, depending on his life circumstances.”

Barnard left Pine County in 2010 bankrupt and under a cloud of suspicion for his behavior during his years at the head of the River Road Fellowship in Finlayson. After charges were filed a year ago, he was able to evade an international manhunt with the aid of one of his followers — a young woman from a wealthy Brazilian family.

The woman, identified by Brazilian media as 33-year-old Cristina Liberato, had been a member of the fellowship since she was in her teens. Former fellowship members identified her as one of Barnard’s “maidens,” young women between the ages of 12 and 24 he separated from their families and brought to live near him in the isolated religious community.

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MONTANA
KHQ

[with video]

by Victor Correa, KHQ Local News Reporter

COEUR D’ALENE, Idaho –
There was a sigh of relief on behalf of attorneys today in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho. This came after a judge approved a multi-million dollar settlement between the Catholic Diocese of Helena and more than 300 people who claimed they had been sexually abused by the diocese clergymen. Today marked the end of a three and half year legal battle that started in September 2011.

Abuse victim, Jane Doe, says the money is secondary to the suffering she and hundreds more endured.

“It doesn’t go away, the pain never goes away,” says Doe.

Doe says she was abused in 1954 when she was only 10 years old. Though the legal fight may be over, for her, it’ll never end.

“Every time you see a nun, a priest, every time you walk past a church, you’re reminded of it,” says Doe.

In 2011, people like Doe began to come forward, the numbers quickly grew from 30 to 362. Lawsuits were filed against the diocese of Helena for sexual abuse and the Ursuline Nuns of the Western Province for allegedly knowing about the abuse and even participating. The current Bishop said at the time all of these allegations were overwhelming.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

Another Christian Brother has appeared in a New South Wales court charged over historical sexual offences against children in the Goulburn area.

The 63-year-old man, who was arrested on Wednesday at Ryde in Sydney, is the fourth Christian Brother arrested in relation to allegations of abuse in Goulburn between 1978 and 1989.

Until recently, the teacher had been working at a Catholic school college in Chatswood.

He was stood down last week.

It is alleged he abused a teenage boy from 1984 to 1987, while working at a Catholic school in the Goulburn area in the state’s Southern Tablelands.

The first offence allegedly occurred when the boy was just 13 years old.

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AUSTRALIA
news.com.au

A FORMER Supreme Court judge says he told the headmaster of Knox Grammar to report an allegation to police that a teacher had been sleeping with a boy at the elite Sydney school for two years.

MORRIS “Dusty” Ireland, who was chairman of the Knox school council in the 1990s, has told the child abuse royal commission headmaster Ian Paterson told him in 1992 a student was threatening to sue the school and expose it “as a hotbed of homosexuality”.

The student, known as ATJ, also alleged another teacher – known as ARZ – had been having sex with a senior student, known as ATP, for two years.

Justice Ireland said he could not now remember full details, but recalled advising Dr Paterson not to approach the student and telling him the ARZ affair should be reported to police because it “might involve criminal conduct” depending on the student’s age.

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AUSTRALIA
Sky News

The child sex abuse royal commission has apologised for mentioning the name of a teacher who was alleged to have had a two-year affair with a Knox Grammar boy.

It says it will not be recommending any charges against the teacher, who has now been given the pseudonym ARZ.

David Lloyd, counsel assisting the commission, said he made an error in mentioning the teacher’s name when questioning witnesses about the allegation made by a former student who was threatening to sue the elite north shore Sydney school.

‘The error is as counsel assisting entirely mine and I apologise for it,’ Mr Lloyd said.

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AUSTRALIA
Sydney Morning Herald

March 5, 2015

Rachel Browne
Social Affairs Reporter

A former Knox Grammar School student witnessed the school’s then headmaster Ian Paterson allegedly grope a 15-year-old girl during rehearsals for a musical, a royal commission heard.

The former student, known as AUE, backed up evidence from former Roseville College student Lucy Perry.

Ms Perry told the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse that Dr Paterson touched her on the bottom and genitals during rehearsals for the musical Guys and Dolls in 1989.

The student came forward to the commission after hearing evidence from Ms Perry, now the chief executive of a global women’s health charity.

AUE said he clearly remembered seeing the incident while he was seated on the floor, facing the stage.

“Lucy had to almost jump out of his grasp and she turned – and she gave a small scream of surprise,” he said. “Then I noticed that Dr Paterson had a grin on his face.”

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

By Nicole Chettle

A former Knox Grammar School student has told a royal commission he witnessed former headmaster Dr Ian Paterson inappropriately touch a girl during a school musical rehearsal in 1989.

Lucy Perry told the Royal Commission into Institutional Child Sexual Abuse on Tuesday that Dr Paterson touched her buttocks and placed his hand near her genitals, on the outside of her costume.

On Wednesday, Dr Paterson denied groping Ms Perry, who is now the chief executive of the women’s health charity Hamlin Fistula Ethiopia.

The boy she was partnered with for the show, known as AUE, today told the inquiry he had a clear view of the incident from the floor of the school’s assembly hall.

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AUSTRALIA
Sky News

A royal commission has heard conflicting evidence about whether former Knox Grammar headmaster Ian Paterson groped a schoolgirl during a musical rehearsal at the school.

One witness AUE, a former student at the school who was in the Guys and Dolls musical with Lucy Perry in 1989, said he saw Ian Paterson, grope her.

He said the assault happened as Ms Perry, then known as Lucy Schaffler, walked off the stage.

‘As she completed her walk, when she turned around Dr Paterson hit her on the buttocks but I would not call it a pat, because his hand stayed there’, he said.

Brian Buggy, who was musical director at the school and who handled the orchestra in that production said he never saw it happen.

‘It would have been out of character for him and would have been, you know, the gossip around the school’, Mr Buggy, who is now musical director of the Sydney orchestra, said.

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UNITED KINGDOM
The Tablet (UK)

04 March 2015 by Danny Sullivan

David Cameron this week announced a consultation that could lead to custodial sentences for those in the public sector who fail to protect vulnerable children and young people. This is one of a number of recent developments in the field of safeguarding that has implications for the Church in England and Wales.

While the government consultation has come in response to recent cases of horrendous trafficking in Oxford and Rochdale, it raises questions. Why has the Government not introduced mandatory reporting of abuse allegations? Since the publication of the Nolan Report in 2001 the Catholic Church has been required to refer any allegation to the statutory services.

A number of reviews into serious abuse or neglect of children, while showing real failings, have also shown serious resource issues with social workers expected to carry unrealistic case loads. That injustice must be addressed – the service must be properly resourced.

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MONTANA
Missoulian

By Kathryn Haake

COEUR d’ALENE, Idaho – Though a federal court has approved a $20 million settlement compensating hundreds of western Montana Catholics molested by nuns and priests, the trauma endured by the victims is far from over, they said Wednesday.

“This isn’t going to stop me from remembering,” one of the victims said following the bankruptcy hearing. “I walk past a church, I remember it. I walk past a priest, I remember it. I see a nun, I remember it.”

The bankruptcy settlement includes a $15 million payment from the Catholic Diocese of Helena and another $4.45 million from the Ursuline Sisters of the Western Province, who ran the Ursuline Academy of St. Ignatius.

Bryan Smith, who represented more than 360 victims, said most attended school at the Ursuline Academy or the St. Ignatius Mission in St. Ignatius.

The diocese was forced to file for bankruptcy last year in order to settle a lawsuit filed by two groups of victims in 2011. U.S. District Judge Terry Myers approved the arrangement in a federal bankruptcy court in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, on Wednesday morning, without objections from either side.

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ILLINOIS
Journal Star

By Chris Dettro of Gatehouse Media Illinois

Posted Mar. 4, 2015

SPRINGFIELD — A national support group for clergy abuse victims on Wednesday called for more transparency from the Catholic Diocese of Springfield concerning two out-of-state predator priests who spent time in the diocese.

The Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, or SNAP, also wants an explanation as to why six priests ousted from their Chicago parishes in the 1990s appeared in an official Catholic directory for the Springfield Diocese, all with the same Litchfield phone number.

The group says it isn’t sure those six priests ever were assigned to or spent time in the Springfield Diocese, but it suspects that one or more did.

The two out-of-state priests are the Rev. Frank R. Martinez Jr. of Iowa and the Rev. James Vincent Fitzgerald of South Dakota, said David Clohessy, director of Chicago-based SNAP.

“Neither Bishop Thomas Paprocki (leader of the 28-county Springfield Diocese) nor his predecessors have told anyone about them,” Clohessy said at a sidewalk news conference held across the street from the Catholic Pastoral Center in Springfield.

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ILLINOIS
Holy Family Inclusive Catholic Community

What follows is a transcript of the statement I gave at the SNAP news conference that took place today, March 4, 2015, outside the Catholic Pastoral Center in Springfield.

My name is John Freml, and I’m a leader in the central Illinois chapter of Call To Action. The reason I’m here today – the reason why I wanted to assist David from SNAP – is to call for additional accountability from our diocese and from our bishop.

Now, Bishop Paprocki is a very smart man. He’s a civil lawyer and a canon lawyer, and he knows exactly what he’s doing. Don’t get me wrong – he’s done some good in our community, by establishing a legal service for low income people who otherwise wouldn’t be able to afford it.

However, we can’t forget that he is also the same man who – in Grand Rapids, Michigan, in 2007 – said, and I quote, “the principal force behind (sex-abuse lawsuits) is none other than the devil.”

Really. So it’s the victims who are doing the work of the devil, not the priests who harm children, or the bishops who protect them? According to Bishop Paprocki, it’s the victims.

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ILLINOIS
Holy Family Inclusive Catholic Community

This entry was posted on March 4, 2015 by John Freml
Bishop PaprockiOn Wednesday, March 4, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP) and Call To Action Central Illinois held a news conference in which the names of eight priests accused of sexual abuse of minors were released, all of whom are believed to have been transferred to various towns within the Springfield diocese.

What follows is a summary of the information that was released. (Disclaimer: This information was provided to us by SNAP.)

What we know for sure:

* Two out-of-state predator priests spent time in the Springfield diocese.
* Neither Bishop Thomas Paprocki nor his predecessors have told anyone about them.
* If they molested kids here, those kids are now adults and are likely still suffering.
* If so, Paprocki has a moral duty to aggressively reach out to them.
* Six predator priests ousted from their Chicago parishes in the 1990s, while Bishop Paprocki was the Chancellor of the Archdiocese of Chicago, were listed in the Official Catholic Directory as having a central Illinois area phone number, after they were ousted from their Chicago parishes for alleged abuse. The phone (217-324-4192) is a land line in Litchfield. Currently, the only operating Catholic facility in Litchfield is Holy Family parish.

More details:

The two out-of-state predator priests who spent time in the Springfield diocese are Fr. Frank R. Martinez Jr. of Iowa and Fr. James Vincent Fitzgerald of South Dakota, both deceased.

In 2008, Fr. Martinez was deemed “credibly accused” of child sex abuse by Davenport diocesan officials and reportedly molested at least one kid in Iowa. Later, he was sent to St. Mary’s hospital in Decatur (source).

Fr. Fitzgerald was a member of a Washington, DC-based religious order called the Oblates of Mary Immaculate (202-529-4505). In 2013, Fr. Fitzgerald was sued for reportedly assaulting one kid in Minnesota and in 2010 for molesting two kids in South Dakota. From 1994-2002, he lived at a church facility in Belleville (source, source).

Catholic officials must soon release more church records about Fr. Fitzgerald, thanks to a ruling last month in a pending civil abuse case against him in Minnesota (source, source)

The six priests ousted from their Chicago parishes in the 1990s and listed in the Official Catholic Directory in the 217 area code are: Fr. David F. Braun, Fr. Eugene P. Burns, Fr. William J. Cloutier, Fr. Norbert J. Maday, Fr. Robert E. Mayer and Fr. Kenneth C. Runge.
We believe Fr. Mayday and Fr. Mayer are alive, but are unsure.
Fr. Cloutier, Fr. Burns, and Fr. Braun are deceased.

The identities of these priests were revealed from long-secret church documents, made public recently through civil lawsuits.

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ILLINOIS
WAND

Posted: Mar 04, 2015

SPRINGFIELD – Members of Call to Action Central Illinois and the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests have released the names of eight priests who were believed to be transferred to the Springfield Catholic diocese and have allegedly committed predatory crimes against minors.

Members of both groups revealed the names of the alleged individuals during a press conference in Springfield Wednesday afternoon. SNAP Director David Clohessy and Call to Action Central Illinois spokesperson John Freml were in attendance.

The individuals who were named at the conference allegedly committed various crimes involving minors before being transferred to the Springfield Catholic diocese.

The press release from the event (information provided by SNAP officials) can be found at this link: http://www.inclusiveholyfamily.org/blog/predator-priests-in-the-springfield-illinois-catholic-diocese.

A statement regarding the release of the alleged individuals’ names from Call to Action spokesperson John Freml can be found here: http://www.inclusiveholyfamily.org/blog/john-fremls-statement-at-the-snap-news-conference-on-march-4-2015.

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AUSTRALIA
The Australian

MARCH 05, 2015

Ean Higgins
Reporter
Sydney

A FORMER student at Knox Grammar has backed up allegations that former headmaster Ian Paterson indecently assaulted a 16-year-old girl in 1989, putting his hand on her bottom during a musical he was directing.

The former student, who has been given the acronym AUE, told an inquiry this morning that he had a clear view of the alleged event, and the girl, Lucy Perry, had had to “almost jump out of his grasp” and “gave a small scream of surprise.”

AUE gave an account consistent with the evidence Ms Perry presented to the Commission this week in which she said Dr Paterson had put his hand on her bottom and touched her genitals.

The allegation was categorically denied by Dr Paterson in his evidence yesterday, who said he had not groped the teenager.

The alleged incident occurred during a full dress rehearsal of a cabaret scene in a Knox production of Guys and Dolls, directed by Dr Paterson.

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MILWAUKEE (WI)
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

[Corrections and clarifications
March 5, 2015

A story Thursday on the Archdiocese of Milwaukee bankruptcy case misidentified a childhood sex abuse victim of the late Rev. Lawrence Murphy. Although Arthur Budzinski also was molested by Murphy as a child, he was not the victim in the case discussed in the story.]

By Annysa Johnson of the Journal Sentinel March 4, 2015

The judge in the Archdiocese of Milwaukee bankruptcy on Wednesday dismissed nine sexual abuse claims involving priests and a counselor at a Catholic social service agency — the largest group of victims eliminated from the 4-year-old bankruptcy to date.

U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Susan V. Kelley threw out nine of 10 claims challenged by the archdiocese, saying seven of the victims failed to show evidence of fraud — the basis for their claims — and that lawsuits by two others had previously been dismissed by state courts.

The judge left one claim standing, at least for now: that of Arthur Budzinski, who was molested by the late Rev. Lawrence Murphy at St. John’s School for the Deaf as a boy in the 1970s.

Kelley said evidence suggests the archdiocese may have known as early as the 1950s that Murphy was molesting deaf boys at the school and failed to remove him, and that such disputes over facts must be litigated rather than dismissed on summary judgment as the archdiocese had asked.

The 10 claims taken up Wednesday had been seen by some as test cases that could be used to dismiss large numbers of similar claims.

Victims voiced anger and disappointment at Kelley’s dismissals of the nine. Even Budzinski drew little consolation from his victory.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Big Trial

By Ralph Cipriano
for Bigtrial.net

Judge Gwendolyn N. Bright asked Father Andrew McCormick if he was making his decision not to testify in his own defense of his own free will.

“I am,” the 59-year-old priest said.

It was the only time “Father Andy” has spoken in the courtroom since he pleaded not guilty to five sex abuse charges.

The jury did not hear Father Andy’s brief answers; they were in the back room on a break. And when it comes time to decide the priest’s fate tomorrow, the jury of 10 women and two men will have to try and reach a verdict without ever hearing a word from the defendant other than his repeated plea of “Not Guilty.”

Defense lawyer Trevan Borum told the judge that the decision for the defendant to not take the witness stand was “based on the Commonwealth’s evidence,” or presumably lack thereof. There is no physical evidence in the case, only the words of the alleged victim about an incident that supposedly happened behind closed doors of a church rectory 18 years ago.

But another factor in Borum’s decision had to be Father Andy’s disastrous performance on the witness stand a year ago during his first trial. William J. Brennan, Father Andy’s previous defense lawyer, conceded to that jury in his closing that Father Andy was “a bit of an awkward guy” who turned “beet red” on the witness stand and generally looked like “a deer in the headlights.”

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CANADA
The Peterborough Examiner

By Jason Bain, The Peterborough Examiner
Wednesday, March 4, 2015

A sentencing date has been set for a former pastor found guilty last month of sex-related charges involving a then-teenaged boy 25 years ago.

On Feb. 13, Mr. Justice Hugh O’Connell found Clifton Pelley guilty of sexual assault and gross indecency, but not guilty of three other charges involving a different man who alleged Pelley drugged him and sexually assaulted him as a teen.

The former pastor appeared Tuesday in court in Oshawa, where a sentencing date was set for March 19 at 9:30 a.m. in Superior Court of Justice in Peterborough, local trial co-ordinator staff said.

Last month, O’Connell told court he had no difficultly believing the testimony of the victim, who said Pelley had taken him into a church office after a trip to the U.S. in 1985 and told him he had the authority of the church and police to inspect his genitals.

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PENNSYLVANIA
Daily Local News

By Michael P. Rellahan, mrellahan@dailylocal.com, @ChescoCourtNews on Twitter
POSTED: 03/04/15

Philadelphia >> A federal judge on Wednesday agreed with the U.S. District Attorney’s office that a priest who had been assigned to parishes across the Delaware Valley should be held without bail pending a future trial on child pornography cases.

On Wednesday, U.S. District Judge Lawrence Stengel granted the government’s motion to hold defendant Mark Haynes in detention pending his trial. The prosecution had alleged that Haynes, even after his arrest in October on charges that he possessed and distributed child pornography, continued to seek out to connect with young girls.

The priest, who has been formally removed from his duties, had also molested at least three minor victims while he served as their pastor, the government claims.

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MILWAUKEE (WI)
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

Statement by Peter Isely, SNAP Midwest Director
CONTACT: 414.429.7259

Four years ago Milwaukee Archbishop Jerome Listecki petitioned the federal bankruptcy court for chapter 11, promising that court ordering sexual abuse cases into bankruptcy was necessary to bring “healing” and “resolution” to victims of pedophile clergy. That took cases out of state court and put them into bankruptcy court, where they decide if creditors should get paid their business debts or private companies reorganize themselves.

$22.5 million dollars in lawyers’ fees later, not only hasn’t a single one of the 575 victims that filed cases in Milwaukee received a penny of restitution, ten more representative cases were tossed out today in a confusing set of narrow rulings by Judge Susan V. Kelley. One can only wonder: why did it take four years and millions of dollars to figure out only now that these cases don’t have legal merit?

If it wasn’t before, it is now painfully clear that the federal court should never have accepted Listecki’s petition for bankruptcy. The archdiocese never intended to bring healing and restitution to victims. What it has done, besides increasing exponentially the pain and suffering of survivors and their families, is bar victims from seeking justice in state courts and herd them into federal bankruptcy. Now, instead of being a victim of child rape or a plaintiff in a terrible negligence act, you’re a consumer or a creditor trying to get you bill paid.

Which leads to the obvious point: bankruptcy court is no place for criminal child rape and institutional conspiracy cases. Yes, other church bankruptcies around the US were resolved quickly, leading to some actual restitution for victims, on average, $350,000 per survivor. But the bishops in the other bankruptcies, in retrospect, seemed to have decided that they would work in some significant way with victims and their attorneys to reach resolution. In Milwaukee, however, the lone wolf archbishop decided he was going to send his lawyers to destroy victim cases like heat seeking missiles. So far, they have done splendidly for themselves. The current offer on the table for restitution per victim, by the way, is under $7,000.

That is why Milwaukee is now the nation’s object lesson on exactly how not to resolve church sexual abuse cases, as was recently mentioned, very pointedly and publically, from the bench of at least two federal judges in other church bankruptcy filings, Gallup and Minneapolis. How, the judges mused, could lawyers be paid twice as much in Milwaukee as the total being offered to all victims?

Apparently the message to the community from the archbishop from this bankruptcy, the innocent and the criminal alike, is that you can get away with anything if only you have enough money, power and time.

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UNITED STATES
The Worthy Adversary

Posted by Joelle Casteix on March 4, 2015

If we can share our story with someone who responds with empathy and understanding, shame can’t survive.
– Brené Brown, Daring Greatly

One of the most common emails I get is from people who say, “Joelle, my friend just told me that s/he was sexually abused as a child. I don’t know what to do.”
Now, you have somewhere to start.

My latest book THE COMPASSIONATE RESPONSE: How to help and empower the adult survivor of child sexual abuse is now available. It’s available in paperback and for the Kindle—and because it’s such an important topic, I am also offering the ebook for free here.

This short, easy-to-read book will give you an understanding of the survivor’s need to disclose; why he or she may have decided to tell you; finding help, resources and referrals; reporting to law enforcement; and (most important) how to be a healthy, empathetic support system.

Originally slated to be a chapter in my upcoming book, this information was not relevant to a parenting toolkit. But it’s far too important to cut completely. By giving away the information for free, I hope that we can get more survivors to disclose and report and change civil and criminal laws to help victims of sex crimes.

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ROME
Crux

By Inés San Martín
Vatican correspondent March 4, 2015

ROME — Despite a frenzy in the conservative Catholic blogosphere, a high-profile priest who volunteers as an English-language assistant to the Vatican press office says he’s not planning to take legal action against a Canadian blogger who had criticized him, and considers the matter closed.

The Rev. Thomas Rosica, also a Canadian, said Wednesday he never planned to sue the blogger, and also insisted that he’s not a “high-ranking Vatican official” and hence there was never any prospect of the Vatican taking action.

On Feb. 17, Rosica sent David Domet, a musician who runs a blog called “Vox Cantoris,” a letter through the Toronto-based law firm Fogler, Rubinoff demanding the removal of nine statements that Domet had posted about Rosica. The letter said the statements were “false and defamatory for suggesting that the priest is dishonest, untrustworthy, and willing to act unethically to further his own agenda.”

When Domet posted the letter, it generated a mini-tempest among some Catholic commentators, often based on the impression that the Vatican was cracking down on conservative voices.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
CBS Philly

By Tony Hanson and Walt Hunter

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) — A federal judge today denied bail for a Chester County priest charged with internet sex crimes.

Meanwhile, the defense, which argued for bail, says it is eager to confront the charges against Father Mark Haynes, 55, who will plead not guilty to charges that include enticing a child to engage in sexual conduct and possession of child pornography.

Judge Lawrence Stengel ruled against bail for Haynes after reviewing the prosecution’s evidence, including new allegations that Haynes lied to authorities after his arrest, and that he concealed and tried to destroy an incriminating computer that authorities cannot find.

“If true, the allegations that have been advanced by the government this afternoon are very, very serious, and speak to an ongoing and persistent pattern of predatory conduct with respect to minor children,” Judge Stengel said.

And authorities add that since Haynes’ arrest, three people have come forward to claim they were sexually assaulted by Haynes as minors in the 1990s. They conceded, however, that those allegations are now beyond the statute of limitations.

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PENNSYLVANIA
Philadelphia Inquirer

JEREMY ROEBUCK, INQUIRER STAFF WRITER
LAST UPDATED: Wednesday, March 4, 2015

A lawyer for a suspended Chester County priest “emphatically denied” accusations his client abused three young parishioners as a federal judge ordered the man detained Wednesday on separate child pornography charges.

The mounting allegations against Mark Haynes prompted U.S. District Judge Lawrence F. Stengel to reverse a lower court’s decision releasing the priest. Stengel said the allegations, if true, establish a “consistent pattern of predatory conduct toward minor children.”

Haynes, 55, previously of SS. Simon and Jude Parish in Westtown, stands charged with trading hundreds of pornographic images of children over Instagram and enticing 25 teenage girls he met online to send him explicit photos of themselves.

According to court filings, he used the alias “Katie Caponetti” while communicating with the teens online.

But federal prosecutors on Tuesday revealed a host of other allegations that have surfaced since Haynes’ arrest in October, including reports from three accusers who say the priest molested them in the ’90s.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Netzfrauen

[Interview with Francesco Zanardi, founder of the Italian organization “Rete L’abuso.”]

Du bist der Gründer und Präsident der Organisation „Rete L’abuso“, die zur Zeit die einzige Organisation in Italien ist, die sich um das Problem des sexuellen Missbrauchs durch katholische Priester kümmert. Weshalb und wann hast du die Organisation gegründet?

Die Idee entstand Ende 2009, und zunächst ging es um eine Organisation zur Selbsthilfe für die Opfer. Dabei haben wir sehr bald gemerkt, dass wir alle nicht nur die Erfahrung des Missbrauchs gemeinsam haben, sondern auch das Bedürfnis, Gerechtigkeit zu erfahren für das, was wir als Kinder erlitten haben, und für die Folgen der Taten.

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OSTERREICH
Wien@ORF

[The Klasnic commission appointed by Cardinal Christoph Schonborn received reports of abuse from 138 victims last night and so far 20 million euros have been paid to victims.]

Nach den Missbrauchsfällen der katholischen Kirche melden sich noch immer Betroffene bei der von Kardinal Christoph Schönborn eingesetzten Klasnic-Kommission – 138 Opfer alleine im Vorjahr. Bisher wurden 20 Millionen Euro an Opfer gezahlt.

Im Jahr vor dem Aufbrechen des Missbrauchsskandals hatten sich weniger als 20 Opfer bei den Ombudsstellen der katholischen Diözesen gemeldet. Fünf Jahre danach waren es immer noch 138. Fälle von Gewalt und Missbrauch aus vergangenen Jahrzehnten – aber nicht mehr die allerschlimmsten, sagt Waltraud Klasnic: „Ich glaube, dass die schwersten Fälle in den ersten Jahren auf dem Tisch gewesen sind und dass es Menschen gibt, die sich nie melden werden, weil sie es nicht können oder weil sie vielleicht nicht mehr melden.“

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DEUTSCHLAND
Katholisch

[More attention to victims of abuse is needed on the part of the church, according to Jesuit Father Klaus Mertes. “The silence of the church is not neutral, but a form of violence,” the director of the College of St. Blaise said Tuesday night in Stuttgart.]

04.03.2015 – Stuttgart

Mehr Aufmerksamkeit für Missbrauchsopfer hat der Jesuitenpater Klaus Mertes von Seiten der Kirche gefordert. “Das Schweigen der Kirche ist nicht neutral, sondern eine Form von Gewalt”, kritisierte der Direktor des Kollegs St. Blasien am Dienstagabend in Stuttgart. Er beobachte eine Tendenz in der Kirche, die Opfer verloren zu geben. Dabei hätten viele von ihnen zwar mit den Tätern, nicht aber mit der Institution Kirche abgeschlossen.

Mertes forderte bei einer Diskussion zum Kinofilm “Verfehlung”, Missbrauchstäter dürften nicht wieder als Seelsorger arbeiten. Glaubwürdigkeit könne die Kirche nur dann wieder herstellen, wenn es ihr um mehr gehe als um ihre eigene Glaubwürdigkeit. Der Regisseur des Films, Gerd Schneider, sagte, in der Kirche mache man sich einerseits viele Gedanken, warum wiederheirateten Geschiedenen die Kommunion vorenthalten werde, während andererseits Täter eine zweite Chance bekämen. “Das beschädigt die Botschaft”, so der ehemalige Priesteramtskandidat.

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MONTANA
Wall Street Journal

By TOM CORRIGAN
March 4, 2015

A judge on Wednesday approved a $21 million plan to compensate about 380 people who allege they were sexually abused by the clergy of Montana’s Roman Catholic Diocese of Helena.

U.S. Bankruptcy Court Judge Terry Myers had been widely expected to sign off on the plan, which drew no objections and was approved by more than 98% of the alleged victims when put to a vote earlier this year.

The plan will settle about 380 sexual-abuse claims brought against the Helena diocese, 235 of which were filed jointly against both the diocese and the Ursuline Sisters of the Western Province, a religious order of nuns. The settlement also resolves the claims against the Ursuline Sisters.

The judge’s signature also clears the way for the diocese to exit Chapter 11 protection later this year.

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NEW JERSEY
Jewish Link

Teaneck—On Sunday, March 15, Project S.A.R.A.H. (Stop Abusive Relationships At Home) will hold its 9th annual community breakfast in recognition of its 18 years of serving victims and survivors of domestic violence and sexual abuse throughout the State of New Jersey.

The breakfast will begin at 9:30 am at Congregation Keter Torah on Roemer Avenue in Teaneck. The keynote speaker will be Jill Starishevsky, author of My Body Belongs to Me, and an assistant district attorney in New York City, where she has prosecuted thousands of sex offenders and dedicated her career to seeking justice for victims of child sexual abuse and sex crimes.

The Rabbinical Supporter Award will be presented to Rabbi Shmuel Goldin, senior rabbi of Congregation Ahavath Torah in Englewood, for his longstanding support of Project S.A.R.A.H.’s community-based work. He has participated in our rabbinic trainings, seeks our guidance when a crisis arises, refers congregants to our agency and has been a vocal supporter to members of his community.

The Aleinu Hero Award will be presented to Rabbi Jonathan Knapp, Head of School of Yavneh Academy in Paramus. Rabbi Knapp has invited Project S.A.R.A.H. into his school to train his entire faculty, students, and their parents on child safety through our Aleinu Safety Kid program. His consistent commitment to this training places Yavneh in a leadership role among all Jewish day schools.

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IRELAND
Newstalk

Lawyers for a detective charged with forging a document in relation to her investigation into a clerical child abuse allegation have described the investigation as one “nobody seemed to know anything about”.

Wicklow Detective Garda Catherine McGowan (48), who is based at Bray Garda Station, has pleaded not guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court to one count of forgery on January 15, 2009 at Bray Garda Station and two counts of using a false instrument at Bray Garda Station and at Harcourt Street Garda Station between June 21 and 22, 2011.

The instrument is alleged to have been a letter from the office of the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP), dated January 14, 2009.

The investigation of Gda McGowan’s handling of the case was prompted by the publication of the Murphy Report which investigated clerical sexual abuse in the Dublin area. The priest in Gda McGowan’s case was one of the clerics mentioned in the report.

The letter read: “Dear Sir, I (illegible) to yours. In (illegible) the statement of the complainant…could not possibly form the basis of a prosecution given that the complainant’s allegation of rape is only conjecture.”

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MONTANA
KULR

By The Associated Press

COEUR D’ALENE, IDAHO –
A federal judge has confirmed a bankruptcy reorganization plan for the Roman Catholic Diocese of Helena that calls for almost $20 million in payments to hundreds of victims of clergy sex abuse.

U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Terry Myers approved the plan during a Wednesday court hearing in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho.

Abuse claims from more than 360 victims will now go through an adjudication process to determine final payment amounts.

Each will receive a minimum of $2,500, and a trust will be established for victims who come forward in the future.

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TEXAS
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Wednesday, March 4

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

A startling new clergy sex abuse and cover up lawsuit charges that Ft. Worth Catholic Bishop Michael F. Olsen:

— illegally tape recorded a child sex abuse victim’s mom without her knowledge,
— also tape recorded a “trusting” and deeply wounded victim too,
— “betrayed,” “re-victimized” and “tried to silence” him until his statute of limitations expired,
— conducted a “virtual interrogation” of him “for fraudulent purposes: to limit or deny” any potential civil case (he) would have and to “elicit support for the diocese’s legal defenses” if he did sue,
— intended to “trick and betray” the mom “into testifying against her own abused and damaged son” with the “sole purpose of (using) her statements to defeat any potential civil claims he might justly have.”
— promised to contact the victim again “in a few weeks” but never did,
— led the victim “to believe he would go to Mass with him and pray with him but never did,
— said “how happy he was that (the victim) had not hired a lawyer to sue the diocese.”

The bottom line is that “As a trusting child, Doe was betrayed and victimized by a chaplain and as a trusting adult he was betrayed and then re-victimized by his bishop,” the suit asserts.

The perpetrator of the child sex crimes was Fr. Hugh John Sutton.

Under the guise of punishment, Fr. Sutton repeatedly inflicted “sadistic abuse” on the boy,” the suit charges, beginning in in 1990, when the boy was in the 7th grade at Notre Dame Middle-High School at Our Lady Queen of Peace Parish in Wichita Falls, Texas. During lunch hour in the school chapel, Fr. Sutton “disciplined” the boy by sexually assaulting him.

Fr. Sutton claimed, the suit says that “these excruciating, humiliating abuses were testimonies to God of his repentance for having plagiarized, and pleased Him” while also warning the boy to “not to tell anyone because no one would believe him,” and threatening “I have the power to ruin your life.”

A New York native, Fr. Sutton was ordained in Pueblo Colorado and worked as a teacher, chaplain or priest in Arkansas, California, Mississippi, North Dakota, Ohio, Guam and the US Navy. His only church assignment in the Ft. Worth diocese was apparently at Notre Dame (which he left in 1992). His last known location was at the Commons of Providence, a Catholic-affiliated assisted living facility in Sandusky, Ohio. He died in 2004.

The victim now lives out of state. He is represented by Dallas attorney Tahira Khan Merritt (214 503 7300). The suit, filed yesterday in Tarrant County court, seeks actual and punitive damages of more than one million dollars. It also says that in 2013, the victim “had a nervous breakdown, began to suffer debilitating panic attacks (which) flooded his sleeping and waking hours and wreaked havoc in his life” “as he recalled, for the first time, disturbing images of the serial rapes and sadistic abuses by Sutton.”

We applaud this brave man for his courage in exposing the Fr. Sutton’s horrific crimes and Bishop Olsen’s diabolical cover up of and manipulative response to those crimes.

We urge anyone who may have seen, suspected or suffered clergy sex crimes or cover ups in the Ft. Worth diocese – by this cleric or any church employee – to find the strength and courage to step forward, seek help, call police, expose wrongdoers, protect kids and start healing.

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MAINE
Bates College

The Bates lecture series Unusual Positions: Controversial Approaches to the Study of Religion and Sexuality continues with Refusing Redemption: Making Catholic Sex Abuse ‘Our’ Story, a talk by Kent Brintnall of the University of North Carolina Charlotte, at noon Wednesday, March 4, in Room 221-222, Commons, 136 Central Ave.

Presented by the religious studies department, the women and gender studies program and the humanities division at Bates, the lectures are open to the public at no cost. Attendees are welcome to bring a lunch to the noontime events. For more information, please call 207-786-8204 or visit bit.ly/unusual-positions.

In the third event of the series, Janet Bennion of Lyndon State College discusses changing attitudes toward polygamy in Progressive Polygamy in North America: Is Plural Marriage the New Civil Rights Frontier? at noon Friday, March 20, in Room 226, Commons.

Concluding the series is Christine Hoff Kraemer of Cherry Hill Seminary with the lecture Eros and Touch from a Pagan Perspective: Loving Touch as Divine Birthright at noon Wednesday, April 8, in Room 221-222, Commons.

“The relationship between religion and sexuality is complex, seemingly contradictory, often tense, yet full of possibility,” says series organizer Megan Goodwin, lecturer in religious studies and Mellon postdoctoral fellow in the humanities at Bates. “Our speakers address religious traditions and sexual practices on the margins of conventional scholarship.”

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PENNSYLVANIA
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Wednesday, March 4

Statement by Karen Polesir, Philly SNAP leader, 267 992 9463, karenpolesir@yahoo.com

Under no circumstances, we believe, should Father Mark Haynes be set free, no matter what restrictions the court may impose. Like most predator priests, he is well educated, well spoken, charming, and cunning. He should be given no more chances to intimidate victims, threaten whistleblowers, discredit witnesses, fabricate alibis, destroy evidence or even flee the country.

Archbishop Charles Chaput should personally visit each place this priest worked, begging victims, witnesses whistleblowers to call law enforcement immediately. For the safety of others, we in SNAP implore everyone who may have information or suspicions about any Philly cleric to call police or prosecutors now.

[The Morning Call]

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TEXAS
Times Record

Lynn Walker
Mar 4, 2015

A man who claims he suffered sexual abuse at the hands of a priest at Notre Dame Middle School in Wichita Falls has sued the Catholic Diocese of Fort Worth and its bishop, Michael F. Olson.

The plaintiff, who is identified in court papers only as John Doe 117, alleges he was abused by Father John Sutton, his history teacher and the school chaplain between 1989 and 1991.

The suit alleges that Sutton, who died in 2004, used the excuse that the boy had copied an assignment from an encyclopedia to require the boy to pay penance by accompanying the priest to a small chapel in the school building where the priest sexually assaulted him.

The suit claims Sutton kept “menacing ‘sex toys’” in a black bag he used to assault and torture the boy. It also claims the priest stuffed a towel into the boy’s mouth so his screams would not be heard.

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PENNSYLVANIA
Daily Mail (UK)

Priest, 55, already facing child porn and molestation charges ‘forced a teenage girl to perform oral sex on him while in the confessional’ over two decades ago

Three women have come forward to say that a Catholic priest already facing child sexual abuse accusations molested them in the 1990s and he allegedly forced one to perform oral sex while in the confessional.

Two of the three cases occurred when Rev. Mark Haynes was assigned to St. Ann’s parish in Phoenixville and all women were minors at the time, say police.

One of those three women said that Haynes attacked her when she confessed that she performed oral sex on a teenage boy. He then made her repeat the sex act on him.

Philly.com reports that Haynes, formerly assigned to SS. Simon and Jude Parish in Westtown hasn’t yet been charged with sexual abuse and has denied all allegations.

Spokesman Ken Gavin of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia is asking anyone with more information about Hayes to come forward.

Recent search terms on Haynes’ computer are ‘nude teen girls’ and ‘8th grade girls tumblr.’

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CALIFORNIA
The Telegraph

BY JULIE WATSON
Associated Press
March 3, 2015

SAN DIEGO — A history scholar selected by Pope Francis to be the new Roman Catholic bishop of San Diego said Tuesday that he will be a “friend” to the Latino community and called for comprehensive immigration reform.

Monsignor Robert McElroy made the comments during a news conference in San Diego hours after the Vatican announced his appointment. He called immigration “the vitality of our nation.”

“The border is a reminder to us of what we are called to do in our greatness as Americans and that we sometimes fall short of in how we deal with immigrants and how we must really confront the issues of immigration and resolve them with justice and have a comprehensive immigration reform that will do that,” he said.

The 61-year-old native Californian has been serving as an auxiliary bishop in San Francisco since 2010. He will be formally installed as the sixth bishop of San Diego during a Mass at St. Therese of Carmel Parish on April 15. San Diego’s Bishop Cirilo Flores died of cancer last year. …

Joelle Casteix, the western regional director of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, or SNAP, said McElroy has not done enough to speak out against priests accused of abuse.

McElroy said the church has come a long way in improving the way abuse cases are handled. But “we need to constantly reform our environments so that they maximize safety and security for children,” he said.

“We can never think we’ve done enough or that we have put it in the past,” McElroy said, adding later that “a constant notion of vigilance going forward needs to be in place.”

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PENNSYLVANIA
Patch

By Kara Seymour (Patch Staff)
March 4, 2015

A former Doylestown Catholic priest who is facing federal child pornography charges is now accused of sexual assault, after three parishioners said he molested them in the 1990s, according to reports.

One victim said Mark Haynes, 55, who previously served at Our Lady of Mt. Carmel, forced her to perform oral sex on him in a Phoenixville church confessional booth, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported.

Haynes already faces multiple felonies involving child pornography after being charged by Chester County authorities in October; he was arrested this week by the FBI on similar charges.

The Philadelphia Inquirer reports that three parishioners recently came forward with the allegations against Haynes, who is also accused of posting nude photos of children to Instagram as well as exchanging lewd emails with a 14-year-old girl, according to authorities.

Haynes served at Our Lady of Mt. Carmel from 1989-1991, according to the Archdiocese.

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CHICAGO (IL)
The Tablet (UK)

04 March 2015 11:49 by CNS

US Cardinal Francis George, archbishop emeritus of Chicago, was admitted to Loyola University Medical Centre this week to undergo several days of tests.

A statement from the Chicago Archdiocese said the tests were being conducted to evaluate his condition since he stopped treatment for cancer in late January.

“The cardinal continues to count on the prayers of so many who have written to wish him God’s blessings,” it said.

Until January Cardinal George was taking part in a clinical drug trial to treat his cancer. He was dropped from the trial being conducted by University of Chicago Medicine after scans showed the experimental treatment was not working for him.

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LOUISIANA
Bayou Buzz

Sheriff’s deputies Monday arrested a Baton Rouge therapist accused of inappropriately touching an 11-year-old client during a counseling session in early February.

The boy told investigators that the therapist, William Nicholas Abraham, 60, groped him on Feb. 3 during a counseling session at Abraham’s office on United Plaza Drive, according to a Sheriff’s Office report.

In an interview with deputies, Abraham denied touching the child inappropriately, saying the only physical contact he had with his client was when he put his arm around the boy after the session, the report says.

Jarrett P. Ambeau, Abraham’s attorney, described his client as being “absolutely innocent.” …

Abraham, a well-known local therapist, is a former Catholic priest who has written and performed contemporary Christian rock music in the Baton Rouge area.

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NEW YORK
New York Daily News

BY BEN KOCHMAN NEW YORK DAILY NEWS Published: Monday, March 2, 2015

He’s in limbo.

The disgraced former principal of a Bronx Catholic school who fessed to dipping into the academy’s alumni fund — before resigning amid charges of sexual misconduct — has one last chance to pay back $8,200 and avoid being tossed in jail.

Christopher Keogan, 58, has just two weeks to come up with $8,251 to pay back Cardinal Hayes High School, according to a deal hashed out Monday in Bronx Supreme Court.

The former Christian Brother resigned after being accused of having an affair with a male subordinate and having explicit images on his computer.

He was never formally charged, but was indicted in 2010 for allegedly stealing $50,000 from the south Bronx school’s alumni fund.

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AUSTRALIA
Broken Rites

At 8.05am on 4 March 2015, police arrested and charged a Christian Brother in Sydney regarding sexual and indecent assaults upon children. Police allege that the offences were committed three decades ago at Goulburn, in south-western New South Wales.

The detectives arrested the 63-year-old man at an address in Victoria Road, Ryde, a Sydney suburb. Until a few days before the arrest, he was working at a Catholic school in Chatswood (in suburban Sydney).

The offences allegedly occurred upon one boy aged between 13 and 17, while the man was a Christian Brother at a Catholic school in Goulburn between 1984 and 1987.

He was taken to Ryde Police Station, where he was charged with:

two counts of indecent assault;
two counts of sexual assault;
three counts of homosexual intercourse with a pupil; and
one count of committing an act of indecency.

He is the fourth Christian Brother to be arrested by a special unit of NSW Police detectives (called Strike Force Charish), which was formed in February 2014, to investigate allegations of child-sex offences said to have occurred between 1978 and 1989 at a Catholic college in Goulburn involving numerous victims. This unit it located at the Goulburn Detectives Office.

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VATICAN CITY
Los Angeles Times

By TOM KINGTON

Pope Francis has taken action that appears to confirm his faith in the controversial head of a task force he created to clean up the Vatican’s finances.

On the pope’s orders, new legal statutes were published Tuesday cementing most of the powers that were given to the Secretariat for the Economy, which Francis set up a year ago and is headed by the outspoken Australian Cardinal George Pell. The statutes went into effect Sunday.

The Vatican’s hitherto murky finances will be overseen by the Council for the Economy, made up of eight prelates and seven lay people. The council will formulate policy, and the Secretariat for the Economy will carry it out. An independent auditor will be given free rein to check the accounts of Vatican departments.

Pell, who has said he discovered millions of euros that did not show up on the Vatican’s books and has suggested that Italian accounting is slipshod, has ruffled feathers and faced accusations of centralizing power at the new secretariat, designed to bring transparency to the Vatican.

Proof that he was making enemies within the Vatican’s bureaucracy came Friday when an Italian magazine published leaked documents suggesting Pell had spent more than half a million dollars in six months on his new department, flying business class and paying assistants large salaries, while spending $2,800 on robes at a Rome tailor and more than $50,000 on furniture.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Frankfurter Allgemeine

[The Evangelical Luther Church of Bavaria will pay compensation to victims of sexual abuse.]

Munchen (dpa) – Die evangelische Landeskirche in Bayern entschädigt Opfer sexueller Gewalt. Die Kirche und die Diakonie im Freistaat übernähmen Verantwortung für das Leid, das den Opfern in ihren Kirchengemeinden oder diakonischen Einrichtungen zugefügt worden sei, teilte ein Sprecher in München mit.

Finanzielle Leistungen können Menschen bekommen, «die glaubhaft machen, dass sie sexuelle Übergriffe durch kirchliche oder diakonische Mitarbeitende erlitten haben und deren Ansprüche gegenüber den Tätern und den Institutionen inzwischen verjährt sind», heißt es. Über die Höhe der Zahlungen entscheidet eine unabhängige Kommission.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Oxfordshire County Council

Oxfordshire County Council accepts the findings of the serious case review into child sexual exploitation and apologises that the multi-agency child protection system failed to prevent horrific abuse of six girls.

The independent Serious Case Review into Child Sexual Exploitation in Oxfordshire was published today (Tuesday 3 March 2015) by the Oxfordshire Safeguarding Children Board. The serious case review followed a trial in 2013 in which seven men were imprisoned for a total of 95 years for their crimes which took place from 2005-2011.

Jim Leivers, Oxfordshire County Council’s Director for Children, Education and Families, said:
“Like the whole community we are horrified at what happened in Oxford. We fully accept that we made many mistakes and missed opportunities to stop the abuse.

“Like the whole community we are horrified at what happened in Oxford. We fully accept that we made many mistakes and missed opportunities to stop the abuse.

“After the trial, the council apologised to the girls for not stopping their abuse sooner, and I do so unreservedly again today. They suffered dreadfully at the hands of these violent men, and despite many attempts we failed to keep them safe while they were in our care.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Daily Mail

Was it a hate crime? Fears gangs of Asian paedophiles who preyed on hundreds of vulnerable white girls were racially motivated as PM brands it ‘abuse on an industrial scale’

By Martin Robinson and Matt Chorley, MailOnline Political Editor and Keiligh Baker

A total of 373 girls suffered sexual abuse in Oxfordshire, a report into ‘indescribably awful’ child sexual exploitation has found – and now fears have been raised that the abuse may have been racially motivated.

Over 15 years hundreds of victims as young as 11 were groomed, raped and forced into prostitution by gangs of men ‘predominantly of Pakistani heritage’, a serious case review has found.

The damning 114-page report said victims were in a ‘living hell from which they couldn’t extricate themselves’ after ‘hostile’ officials wrote some off as ‘difficult girls making bad choices’ when they begged for help.

The vulnerable girls were initially showered with gifts before being plied with alcohol and drugs including crack cocaine and heroin, making them dependent on the men who sexually abused them.

Today Thames Valley’s Police and Crime Commissioner, Anthony Stansfeld, said the abuse may have been a ‘hate crime’.

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AUSTRALIA
Herald Sun

Knox Grammar Royal Commission: Former headmaster Ian Paterson admits to hindering police investigation into paedophile ring

JANET FIFE YEOMANS AND AAP THE DAILY TELEGRAPH MARCH 04, 2015

THE man who ran Knox Grammar School for 30 years has admitted multiple failures which put vulnerable boys at the elite NSW school at risk.

Asked about these failures, by counsel for the child abuse royal commission, former headmaster Ian Paterson answered “correct”, with the qualifications “in looking back” or “in retrospect”.

Dr Paterson agreed he hadn’t delivered training for staff on mandatory reporting obligations; had no written policies on child protection; had no systems in place for interviewing or conducting reference or criminal checks for people applying to be housemasters and had never reported to police when students made allegations against teachers.

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AUSTRALIA
news.com.au

THE former headmaster of Knox Grammar denies he groped a teenage girl at a school musical production in 1989.

LUCY Perry, the CEO of a global women’s health charity has told a child sex abuse inquiry Ian Paterson cupped her bottom and put his hand near her genitals during rehearsals for a joint school production of Guys and Dolls.

Dr Paterson said on Wednesday it was “absolutely not” true that he had inappropriately touched the then 15-year-old girl.

He was asked about Ms Perry’s evidence that boys roared with approval when he groped her.
“Absolutely not. They were roaring approval for her performance.”

Ms Perry has told the commission she felt humiliated when students cheered and said Dr Paterson had a “creepy look of satisfaction” on his face.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

By Nicole Chettle

A former headmaster at the prestigious Sydney boys’ school, Knox Grammar, has told a royal commission he deliberately withheld information from police conducting an investigation into child sexual abuse.

The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse heard Dr Ian Paterson was approached by a policewoman from the Child Protection Enforcement Agency in December 1996.

Inspector Beth Cullen had received anonymous information alleging child sexual abuse by six people who had been employed by the school.

Dr Paterson told the royal commission’s counsel assisting David Lloyd he deliberately attempted to mislead Inspector Cullen.

David Lloyd: “You were deliberately attempting to mislead Inspector Cullen about matters that were centrally important to her investigation”.
Dr Ian Paterson: “I accept that”.
Lloyd: “And you did so with intention of protecting those teachers about whom she was making the inquiries”.
Paterson: “That’s the way it appears”.

Under questioning, Dr Paterson confirmed he did not share what he knew with police.

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AUSTRALIA
Sydney Morning Herald

March 4, 2015

Alan Dearn

Comment

We were sitting on the grass at the side of Knox Grammar School’s main oval in 1987; it must have been in my final few weeks of school. The memory of an awkward moment saying uncomplimentary things about Mr Fotis the religion teacher, while he was sitting behind me popped back into my mind when I saw his name deeply implicated in evidence before the royal commission into sexual abuse.

One of the things people who weren’t at Knox in my era find surprising was that the culture did not value learning or academic curiosity. After all, this was a school that closed its classics department and opened a business centre instead. What was valued was image. I vividly remember the headmaster, Ian Paterson, speaking in assemblies on topics like why Knox boys didn’t swear, because only members of the less privileged classes did that. Everything was appearance.

And sadly, I think that was what seduced my parents about the place. My father never finished school, spending a chunk of his adolescence in a Japanese internment camp instead. For him, Knox offered security, a network of old boys he thought would support his sons in later life, who would recognise the old school tie and help us on our way into our careers in the business world.

I nearly escaped in Year 11. The first couple of years were a bit of a blur of being miserable, sporadically bullied, and feeling constantly lonely. That never changed, although the bullying did. By Year 11, I was big enough and odd enough that people basically left me alone. I mainly lived in the library, to which fact I owe my encyclopaedic knowledge of World War II German military hardware. I did my work, so wasn’t generally bullied by the teachers either, and fortunately was neither a boarder, good looking or sporty. Nevertheless, Year 11 was a low ebb. I truanted, embraced depressing music and wrote awful poetry.

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AUSTRALIA
The Australian

MARCH 04, 2015

Ean Higgins

Reporter
Sydney

THE former headmaster of Knox Grammar has denied a sensational allegation that he indecently assaulted a schoolgirl 25 years ago.

Lucy Perry this week told the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse that in 2009 she reported to police that when she was rehearsing for a musical directed by the headmaster 20 years earlier, he had indecently assaulted her.

Ms Perry told the inquiry that while rehearsing for a strip club scene in Guys and Dolls when she was a 16 year old schoolgirl, Ian Paterson, in a deliberate act of misogyny to humiliate her, had put his hand on her bottom and touched her genitals, to a roar of delight of the Knox boys in the cast.

Dr Paterson said he remembered Ms Perry performing in the class, but categorically denied the groping incident took place.

As to the allegations that the boys roared at the time, Dr Paterson said: “They were roaring with approval for her performance as the sultry dancer.”

The inquiry also heard from Dr Paterson that when a former student threatened to sue the school for allegedly having been sexually molested by Stewart, and to publicly expose widespread homosexuality at Knox, he kept file notes that he made the decision not to tell the school council about it.

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AUSTRALIA
The Age

Royal Commission into child sex abuse: Knox Grammar headmaster Ian Paterson admits he could have stopped abuse

March 4, 2015

Rachel Browne and Melanie Kembrey

Former Knox Grammar School headmaster Ian Paterson told a royal commission that he could have stopped the child sexual abuse which pervaded the school over a 30-year period.

Dr Paterson agreed he had thousands of boys under his care during his time as headmaster between 1969 and 1998 but never attempted to find out about the impact of child sexual abuse despite multiple allegations coming to his attention as early as 1975.

Under questioning from counsel assisting the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, David Lloyd, Dr Paterson said he could have prevented boys from being abused.

“If you had done more to . . . make investigations into allegations of child sexual abuse that it is quite likely that a number of boys under your care would not have been abused,” Mr Lloyd said.

“Correct,” Dr Paterson replied.

In earlier evidence Dr Paterson admitted misleading a police officer from the child protection enforcement agency who quizzed him about child sex abuse claims at the school after receiving anonymous information in 1996.

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AUSTRALIA
Sky News

The man who ran Knox Grammar School for 30 years has admitted multiple failures which put vulnerable boys at the elite NSW school at risk.

Asked about these failures, by counsel for the child abuse royal commission, former headmaster Ian Paterson answered ‘correct’, with the qualifications ‘in looking back’ or ‘in retrospect’.

Dr Paterson agreed he hadn’t delivered training for staff on mandatory reporting obligations; had no written policies on child protection; had no systems in place for interviewing or conducting reference or criminal checks for people applying to be housemasters and had never reported to police when students made allegations against teachers.

Dr Paterson was insistent he did deal fairly with a boy who complained he had been propositioned by teacher Damien Vance.

He sent to the 15-year-old to the library to think about what he had alleged, before accepting his story.

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AUSTRALIA
Sydney Morning Herald

March 4, 2015

Rachel Browne and Melanie Kembrey

Knox Grammar School was Ian Paterson’s “life and empire” and the former headmaster told the royal commission he would go to great lengths to protect its reputation.

On Wednesday he admitted he tried to cover up potential litigation against the school, misled a police officer investigating child abuse allegations and hindered her inquiry into claims against six teachers.

The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse heard Inspector Beth Cullen spoke to Dr Paterson about the six teachers in 1996. At the time three of the teachers under suspicion were still working at the Wahroonga school.

Dr Paterson admitted to the commission he did not provide the officer with any information about sexual molestation claims but referred her to their staff files, in full knowledge they did not contain records of abuse.

Under questioning by counsel assisting, David Lloyd, Dr Paterson agreed that he deliberately misled Inspector Cullen and hindered the investigation but said he could not remember why.

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AUSTRALIA
9 News

Former Knox Grammar headmaster Ian Paterson has admitted he deliberately hindered a police investigation into claims of sexual abuse at the school.

During his appearance in the witness box today, Dr Paterson made a number of admissions, including that a number of boys under his care would not have been abused, had he taken action based on allegations of abuse that he was aware of.

In 1996 Inspector Beth Cullen, a police officer from the child protection enforcement agency, attended the school to investigate anonymous complaints of sexual abuse against five teachers.

Dr Paterson said he was aware of some allegations but said nothing at the time.

He suggested the detective should have questioned him more.

“I’m wondering why Inspector Cullen … didn’t question me more closely,” he said.

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AUSTRALIA
The Guardian

Australian Associated Press
Wednesday 4 March 2015

A former supreme court judge says he told the headmaster of Knox Grammar to report an allegation to police that a teacher had been sleeping with a boy at the elite Sydney school for two years.

Morris “Dusty” Ireland, who was chairman of the Knox school council in the 1990s, has told the child abuse royal commission headmaster Ian Paterson told him in 1992 a student was threatening to sue the school and expose it “as a hotbed of homosexuality”.

The student, known as ATJ, also alleged teacher Bob James had been having sex with a senior student, known as ATP, for two years.

Ireland said he could not now remember full details, but recalled advising Paterson not to approach the student and told him the James affair should be reported to police because it “might involve criminal conduct” depending on the student’s age.

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AUSTRALIA
Daily Mail

‘Sad, angry, disappointed’: Hugh Jackman watched every minute of inquiry into shocking abuse at exclusive Knox Grammar – where he was once school captain

By DANIEL PIOTROWSKI FOR DAILY MAIL AUSTRALIA

Hugh Jackman and his former classmates are ‘sad, angry and disappointed’ at the testimony of their former headmaster at the prestigious Sydney high school Knox Grammar at an inquiry into child sex abuse at the school.

Dr Ian Paterson, the school’s headmaster from 1969 to 1998, gave evidence at the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sex Abuse on Tuesday and Wednesday, today admitting to impeding a police investigation into allegations of paedophilia from teachers.

Jackman was among many who live-streamed Dr Paterson’s testimony in New York on Tuesday morning Australian time, exchanging emails with around eight of his former classmates at the exclusive school, according to best friend Grill Team radio presenter Gus Worland.

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NORTHERN IRELAND
Belfast Telegraph

BY ALAN ERWIN – 04 MARCH 2015

Judgment has been reserved in an historical abuse inquiry chairman’s bid to overturn a ruling that he unfairly denied legal representation to an alleged victim.

Sir Anthony Hart is appealing a High Court verdict that a bar had effectively been erected against the woman who claims she was molested by a “very high-profile figure”.

Senior judges hearing the challenge have been told alleged victims are now increasingly refusing to sign witness statements unless they secure legal funding.

The woman at the centre of the case is due to give evidence at the Historical Institutional Abuse hearings in Banbridge, Co Down, which are investigating child abuse in Northern Ireland residential institutions between 1922 and 1995.

The inquiry has so far heard from more than 100 victims and survivors of abuse, most of whom were in the care of the Catholic Church at homes in Derry and Kircubbin in Co Down.

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NEW ZEALAND
3 News

A former pastor and counsellor jailed for more than 12 years, has done incalculable harm to two girls and their family, a judge says.

Justice Mark Woolford was sentencing James Leyland Watkins, 65, in the High Court at Rotorua on 16 charges of sexual violation, one each of indecently assaulting girls of six and seven, three of inducing a child under 12 to do an indecent act on him and six of sexual violation by rape.

He ordered Watkins to spend at least five-and-a-half years behind bars before he’s to be considered for parole.

The court heard Watkins, a former pastor and counsellor in Rotorua and Tokoroa, had been extradited from Colorado in the United States to face the charges, which spanned a period between 2000 and 2006.

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ZIMBABWE
Nehanda Radio

By Tarisai Machakaire

HARARE – Most people have rooted their faith in “men of God” with the belief that they possess supernatural powers and are closer to God.

Some believe they possess the ability to solve all of their problems.

Women flock to churches in larger numbers than men. And consequently, they have often fallen prey to philandering “pastors”.

The local media has described such unscrupulous men of God as “rape pastors.”

Several such cases have been brought into the limelight.

And apparently, the offenders do not just abuse women and girls, they have also desecrated the places of worship by engaging in sexual activities on Holy ground.

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