UNITED STATES/ARGENTINA
The Tablet (UK)

[Pope Francis and Clergy Sexual Abuse in Argentina – BishopAccountability.org]

21 March 2014 12:14 by Isabel de Bertodano

Pope Francis has been accused of failing to take appropriate action in a number of cases of clerical child abuse that came to light while he was Archbishop of Buenos Aires.

According to the American organisation BishopAccountability.org, the cases all came to Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio’s attention, but he is accused of defending the perpetrators or declining to meet victims.

In the case of Fr Julio Cesar Grassi, who was convicted of abuse in a children’s home after a lengthy trial and appeal, the Argentine Bishops’ Conference commissioned a report after his conviction in 2009 which concluded he was innocent. The website’s main accusation against the Pope is that he was supportive of Fr Grassi and the children’s foundation set up by the priest before the accusations emerged. He also reportedly approved the commissioning of the report into Grassi, who is now in prison.

The abuse of five girls by Fr Mario Napoleon Sasso of Zarate Campana diocese between 2002 and 2003 in a community soup kitchen was allegedly covered up by his diocesan bishop. Cardinal Bergolio allegedly failed to respond when the families of the young girls asked to meet him.

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AUSTRALIA
Sky News

A school bus driver gained greater access to students because the level of trust grew between him and the principal, the royal commission into sex abuse has heard.

Former principal Claude Hamam said the driver, Brian Perkins, started volunteering around Adelaide’s St Ann’s Special School by helping out in the woodwork shed, doing repairs around the school and mowing the lawns.

‘At the time we had an element of trust that we had for all the staff there,’ he told the commission on Friday.

It is investigating the school and Perkins who sexually abused intellectually disabled children between 1986 and 1991.

Mr Hamam hired Perkins as a driver, telling the commission ‘he seemed to be suitable for the position’.

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AUSTRALIA
Newcastle Herald

By JOANNE McCARTHY March 21, 2014

THE Catholic Church has avoided an historic first trial against an Australian priest for allegedly concealing the child sex offences of another person after a Newcastle magistrate dismissed charges against Hunter priest Lew Fenton.

Magistrate Robert Stone found inconsistencies in evidence by a man, his mother and sister about an alleged sexual assault when the man was 9, which was allegedly disclosed to Father Fenton, were so significant there were no reasonable prospects a jury would convict him.

But Mr Stone, in Newcastle Local Court yesterday, found there was evidence to show the boy was sexually assaulted by Frank Tully, a salesman with the Post group of newspapers, then owned by the Newcastle Herald, at Birubi beach between 1982 and 1984.

Mr Stone dismissed a charge that Father Fenton, 81, knew Tully was going to indecently assault the boy in a room at the rear of Nelson Bay church, and assisted him.

This followed conflicting evidence from the man, his mother and sister, and after significant evidence from the man in court that did not appear in his statement to police.

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UNITED STATES
BishopAccountability.org

Summary of Case: A Jesuit of the Detroit Province ordained in 1977, Kurtz taught for many years at the Jesuit’s University of Detroit High School. He was quietly removed from his teaching position and his ministry was restricted in April 2001 after allegations surfaced that he had recently sexually assaulted a male minor in Denver, Colorado. The Official Catholic Directory shows that Kurtz subsequently lived in Temperance, MIichigan, in a Jesuit Community at Loyola University of Chicago and at the Colombiere Center in Clarkston, Michigan. The Jesuits maintain that they notified civil authorities in Detroit in 2001; Kurtz wasn’t arrested until November 2011.

Ordained: 1977

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CALIFORNIA
Modesto Bee

BY ROSALIO AHUMADA
rahumada@modbee.com
March 20, 2014

During his arraignment hearing Thursday in federal court in Fresno, an Oakdale youth pastor pleaded not guilty to a charge of downloading child pornography.

Tyler David Bliss, 27, of Oakdale is accused of downloading the child porn with computers at his home and his church, where he at times viewed some of the illicit images, according to a federal affidavit.

Bliss was served with a federal arrest warrant and taken away in handcuffs Wednesday afternoon shortly after local prosecutors dropped a state charge of child porn possession.

The following day, a federal grand jury indicted Bliss, charging him with one count of receiving and distributing child pornography, according to the U.S. attorney’s office in Sacramento. U.S. Magistrate Judge Barbara McAuliffe scheduled Bliss to return to court June 2 for a pretrial hearing.

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NEW YORK
New York Daily News

BY OREN YANIV / NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

FRIDAY, MARCH 21, 2014

A criminal case against a man with the odd name of Lemon Juice will be dismissed Friday, the Daily News has learned. The Brooklyn man was accused of tweeting out a photo of a sex-abuse victim during a high-profile trial.

Juice was charged with contempt in November 2012 after a photo of the teen witness was snapped in violation of a judge’s orders while she took the stand against her tormentor Nechemya Weberman.
“I’m happy it’s finally over,” Lemon Juice, 32, said Thursday.

The case against him was sour from the start.

Unlike his two co-defendants, Joseph Fried and Yona Weissman, Juice is a friend of the victim and her husband and came to court to support them — a fact prosecutors learned early on, court papers show. And the Twitter account that bore his name and photo continued posting while he was in custody.

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ROME
Irish Times

Patsy McGarry

Fri, Mar 21, 2014

The former Cardinal Archbishop of Boston Bernard Law, who resigned from the post in 2002 amid allegations of cover-up in the handling of clerical child sex abuse allegations, was one of the main guests at a special St Patrick’s Day lunch in Rome’s Irish College.

Another guest at the top tabe at the dinner was controversial Cardinal Raymond Burke, currently prefect of the Vatican’s Apostolic Signatura, its Supreme Court. Last December Pope Francis omitted to re-appoint him to the Vatican’s Congregation for Bishops.

The College trustees are Ireland’s four Catholic Archbishops, the Catholic primate Cardinal SeánBrady, Archbishop of Dublin Diarmuid Martin, Archbishop of Tuam Michael Neary and Archbishop of Cashel Dermot Clifford.

Also a guest at the lunch was Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation Richard Bruton. However, his spokeswoman said last night he “was not aware of other guests attending.”

In June of last year, during debate on the Protection of Life during Pregnancy Bill, Cardinal Burke said Taoiseach Enda Kenny’s description of himself as a taoiseach who happens to be a Catholic, but not a Catholic taoiseach, “does not make any sense”.

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INDIA
The Hindu

Nearly a year after the murder of Fr Thomas, the 65-year-old rector of St Peter’s Pontifical Seminary in Malleswaram, the Bangalore police have cracked the case with the arrest of three priests, who allegedly bludgeoned him to death after he caught them red-handed while stealing documents from Seminary.

On April 1, Fr Thomas was found dead with multiple head injuries in the seminary. The breakthrough in the investigations came after the police subjected a few suspects including the three priests, who were seminary on the fateful night of March 31, to narco analysis.

Additional Commissioner of Police (Crime) Pronab Mohanty, who headed the investigation, told reporters that the police had arrested William Patrick, the priest of the Seminary, who was sleeping in the adjacent room when the ghastly murder took place, besides Ilyas and Peter, both priests in the same Seminary.

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AUSTRALIA
7 News

ABC

BY COURT REPORTER CANDICE MARCUS
March 21, 2014

A former Adelaide school principal has admitted wrongly telling an inquiry he had done a police check on a bus driver who later molested pupils.

Reading a statement to the royal commission into child sexual abuse, Claude Hamam said he had made an “error of judgment” by telling an internal inquiry in 2001 that he had made the checks on Brian Perkins.

The royal commission is examining how St Ann’s Special School, the Catholic Church and South Australian police responded to allegations Perkins was sexually abusing intellectually disabled students.

“I made a mistake. It was an error of judgment on my part. I did not in any way fabricate the truth,” Mr Hamam said in a statement he read to the hearing before giving evidence.

“I admitted in a subsequent interview with Catholic Education that I had not done a police check, and I was accused of lying.

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AUSTRALIA
Daily Telegraph

Former St Ann’s school principal who hired paedophile Brian Perkins ‘made mistake’ over police check

SALLY BROOKS AT THE INQUIRY THE ADVERTISER MARCH 21, 2014

A FORMER school principal who employed paedophile bus driver Brian Perkins at St Ann’s Special School more than two decades ago has denied he lied about doing a police check on Perkins, but instead says he made a mistake.

Claude Hamam has told an inquiry into the handling of sexual abuse claims at the school that he deeply regrets stating that he did do a police check, at his first interview with the Catholic Education Office in 2001.

“I made a mistake. It was an error of judgment on my part. I did not in any way fabricate the truth,” he said.

“I admitted at a subsequent interview with Catholic Education that I had not done a police check and I was accused of lying.

“This left me shocked and devastated, as I had not intentionally lied but made a mistake.”

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AUSTRALIA
The Australian

DAN BOX THE AUSTRALIAN MARCH 21, 2014

THE Catholic Church failed in its “moral responsibility” to a victim of child sexual abuse during a court case in which it denied his mistreatment ever took place, despite having evidence to the contrary, the royal commission has heard.

Giving evidence this morning to the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, Cardinal George Pell’s private secretary, Michael Casey, said this was “a position we shouldn’t have taken”.

Mr Casey said the Archdiocese of Sydney continued to deny in court that the abuse took place, even after receiving evidence from a second victim that he too had been abused by the priest, Aidan Duggan.

The first victim, John Ellis, ultimately lost his case in 2007, in a decision the church’s lawyers described as providing “a significant protection to the Cardinal and trustees” against other similar claims brought by abuse victims.

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AUSTRALIA
The Guardian (UK)

Australian Associated Press
theguardian.com, Friday 21 March 2014

The Catholic church continued to dispute former altar boy John Ellis was abused even though it had evidence that supported his claim, a senior church official has told an inquiry.

Cardinal George Pell’s private secretary Dr Michael Casey told the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse he accepted the church should not have continued to dispute Ellis’s credibility in the supreme court.

The hearing in its second week is looking at how the church handled the complaint of Ellis, who was abused by a priest at Bass Hill in Sydney between 1974 and 1979.

Earlier evidence showed that the church accepted Ellis was a victim of abuse when he went through the internal process, and the veracity of his allegations was supported by a church-appointed independent assessor.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

[with audio]

The former principal of St Ann’s special school in Adelaide, Claude Hamam, has admitted to the Royal Commission into Child Sexual Abuse that he didn’t do a criminal record check or verify the references of Brian Perkins, a convicted paedophile who went on to abuse about 30 children at the school in the late 1980s and ’90s.

Transcript

PETER LLOYD: The former principal of an Adelaide special school has told the Royal Commission into Child Sexual Abuse that he did not do a criminal record check or verify the references of a bus driver who went on to abuse about 30 intellectually disabled children at the school in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

Claude Hamam also acknowledged that he bore some responsibility for allowing Brian Perkins to take some of the St Ann’s children on respite care weekends where they were abused.

Our reporter Samantha Donovan has been following the Royal Commission hearings in Adelaide and joins me now.

Sam, first remind us of what happened at the St Ann’s school.

SAMANTHA DONOVAN: Well, Peter, in the early 1990s it came to light, allegations came to light that about 30 intellectually disabled children had been abused at St Ann’s special school in Adelaide by the school bus driver, Brian Perkins. He not only drove the students but gave them woodwork lessons and even took some of them on respite care weekends.

Most of the children who were abused were unable to communicate what happened to them and that’s why I say about 30 of them were abused and most of the families weren’t told it was likely their children had been abused for more than a decade, and it took about that length of time to get Perkins into court and jailed where he later died.

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AUSTRALIA
Sky News

A senior Catholic Church official has denied he contrived a tactic to support the church’s legal dispute that former altar boy John Ellis was never abused.

Michael Casey had been asked by then archbishop, Cardinal George Pell, to check whether or not the internal church process had found in favour of Mr Ellis’s complaint of abuse by a priest at Bass Hill in Sydney in the 1970s.

Dr Casey, Cardinal Pell’s private secretary, told the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse he was shown a June 2005 email from him to the church legal team which said the church-appointed assessor did find ‘on the balance of probabilities’ Mr Ellis was abused by Father Aidan Duggan.

However, the email went on to say that the director of the Public Standards Office, Michael Salmon, had mentioned there were reservations about Mr Ellis’s evidence and that as such the church authority had discretion to reject the assessor’s findings.

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WASHINGTON (DC)
CBS DC

WASHINGTON — She was a 24-year-old swimming instructor who had a sexual affair with a male student under 16.

The woman was convicted in Virginia in 1993 of unlawful sex with a teenager and served 30 days in jail. She was listed on the state’s sex offender registry, and could have tried to get her name removed at some point, but didn’t.

Fifteen years later, the state passed a new law that reclassified her and thousands of others as violent sex offenders. The woman — identified in court papers only as Jane Doe — has unsuccessfully challenged the law, and now her lawsuit is on the agenda Friday when the justices of the U.S. Supreme Court meet in private to consider taking up new cases.

Her appeal comes as states around the country face growing public pressure to protect people from repeat sexual predators. Those labeled sex offenders are being subjected to a host of new limitations, including where they can live, work or travel. But the new restraints have not come without complaints, and courts in Georgia and Ohio have ruled that sex offender laws in those states went too far.

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WEST VIRGINIA
WVVA

[with video]

PRINCETON (WVVA) – A Mercer County man accused of sex crimes while serving as a church volunteer had his bond modified Thursday in light of a new sexual allegation.

Prosecutors say that on March 7, Timothy Probert solicited a sexual favor in exchange for $50 from a man who was going door-to-door in his neighborhood looking for work.

The man became aware of the charges against Probert after speaking with the pastor of the church where Probert had served when the alleged previous misconduct took place.

Probert was arrested in December 2013 on multiple charges of sexual abuse against minors that allegedly occurred while he served as a youth volunteer at Westminster Presbyterian Church in Bluefield.

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KANSAS
KWCH

FORD COUNTY, Kan. –
A Dodge City pastor accused of sexual assault remains on house arrest, but with a modified bond.

Dr. Jerrold Ketner, New Hope on the Plains minister, appeared in a Ford County courtroom Thursday afternoon. A judge modified Ketner’s bond to include visits to his doctor and attorney.

Ketner is charged with multiple felony charges including rape and blackmail.

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WEST VIRGINIA
Bluefield Daily Telegraph

By SAMANTHA PERRY
Bluefield Daily Telegraph

PRINCETON — Bond was modified Thursday for a former church youth volunteer accused of child sexual abuse after a judge heard testimony that he recently propositioned a man for sex.

Mercer County Circuit Court Judge William Sadler ordered Timothy Probert, 55, of Bluefield, to be placed on home confinement after a witness testified that Probert offered to pay him $50 to perform oral sex on him. Probert, who is facing 38 counts of child sexual abuse related charges, had previously been free on bond.

In response to questioning by Assistant Prosecuting Attorney George Sitler, John Wayne Harkless testified that he was in Probert’s South Bluefield neighborhood in early March going door-to-door and asking residents if he could do yard work to earn extra money. Harkless testified that he knocked on the door at Probert’s residence on Parkway Avenue between 11 a.m. and 1 p.m. and asked if he had any work. “He said he didn’t,” Harkless testified.

Harkless said Probert then called him back and offered to pay him $50 if he would allow him to perform the sex act.

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UNITED KINGDOM
The Tablet

20 March 2014 by Christopher Lamb and Elena Curti

The Church’s safeguarding office is to be relocated from Birmingham into the headquarters of the Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales at Eccleston Square in central London.

The Catholic Safeguarding Advisory Service (CSAS) will move to London before the lease expires on its current offices in February 2015. In a statement, the trustees for the Catholic Trust for England and Wales (the legal entity of the Bishops’ Conference) said the relocation will fulfill recommendations of the 2007 Cumberlege Commission, which called for CSAS to be fully integrated into mainstream church structures.

CSAS is funded by the bishops’ conference and advises the Church on child protection. In recent years it has completed safeguarding audits of all 22 dioceses in England and Wales. Its work is overseen by the National Catholic Safeguarding Commission (NCSC), which lists the same Birmingham address as CSAS on its website.

Both organisations replaced the fully independent Catholic Office for Child Protection and Vulnerable Adults (Copca) that was set up in compliance with the recommendations of the Nolan Report of 2001.

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WASHINGTON
Yakima Herald-Republic

By Donald W. Meyers / Yakima Herald-Republic
dmeyers@yakimaherald.com

The Diocese of Yakima concluded its defense in U.S. District Court on Thursday in a $3.1 million sex-abuse case filed by a former Zillah man.

Attorneys for the man, identified in court papers as John Doe, and the diocese will present closing arguments sometime in April, when their schedules can be coordinated with Judge Edward Shea, who heard the nonjury trial over the past two weeks.

Doe alleges that the diocese did not properly check Deacon Aaron Ramirez’s background before accepting him as a candidate for the priesthood in 1999. Doe also argues that the diocese failed to properly supervise Ramirez when he worked at Resurrection Catholic Church in Zillah.

Doe, in court papers, says Ramirez invited him to a trailer at the parish on July 29, 1999, for guitar lessons. Doe, who was 17 at the time, says that Ramirez gave him alcohol and repeatedly raped him.

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WASHINGTON
KIMA

[with video]

By Ada Chong Published: Mar 20, 2014

YAKIMA COUNTY, Wash. — A social worker and Zillah’s police chief testified in federal court Thursday in the abuse trial against the Yakima Diocese.

Chief David Simmons handled the sexual assault investigation surrounding plaintiff John Doe in 1999.

Simmons told the court about the incident report indicating Doe and his brother went to a trailer where clergyman Aaron Ramirez lived. Doe walked his brother home, then went back to the trailer. The report said Doe drank with Ramirez, then passed out and woke up naked in Ramirez’s bed.

Doe maintains the Diocese should have protected him.

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UNITED STATES
Religion News Service

Rachel Marie Stone | Mar 20, 2014

A friend recently posted some thoughts on Facebook on the movie ‘Frozen’ and the way it critiques the well-worn “love at first sight” trope that’s part of many other Disney movies:

“If a lonely, love-starved girl [see, for example, Tangled] has been sheltered in a castle her whole life, she might become more vulnerable to smooth-talking Prince Charmings ready to help her escape.”

The psychological set-up of earlier Disney princesses might parallel evangelical purity culture in some significant ways, he suggested, referencing a journal article dealing with clergy sexual misconduct.

As Samantha Nelson told me in a 2012 interview, clergy sexual misconduct is often described — even by the women themselves — as an “affair” with their pastor, rabbi, or priest. Even those who have been victims of sexual abuse often fail to see the ways in which the clergyperson abused his power in order to get sex.

And so they blame themselves.

My friend (and many of those who commented) reflected upon the stories of sexual misconduct emerging recently from fundamentalist Christianity — most notably, perhaps, the case of Bill Gothard, who has been teaching reprehensible things in the name of Jesus for decades but has finally been discredited after numerous stories of his sexual abuse of young women have come to light.

It is hard not to think that there is a causative relationship between Gothard (and Gothard-esque) teaching and sexual abuse, particularly of women and girls.

Purity culture teaches unquestioning submission to authority — and authority figures are almost invariably male.

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UNITED STATES
Religion News Service

Boz Tchividjian | Mar 20, 2014

Marginalize (verb) To treat a person as insignificant. (Oxford Dictionary)

Derogation – photo courtesy of David Goehring via Flickr
Show caption

“He has worked hard to convince everyone that I am crazy.” These were the words of a woman who was speaking about a relative who had sexually abused her as a child for years. This well-known and “respected” relative has been successful in keeping her abuse disclosures ignored for many years by convincing anyone that listens that she is an irrational and troubled individual. After years of being labeled “crazy” and being ignored, this survivor became silent and even found herself struggling with whether or not the baseless label was legitimate. Do you see what happened? A person who is well liked and well-respected in the community is accused of horrific behavior that the community prefers not to believe. The perpetrator provides the community with exactly what it wants in order for it to look the other way. Believing that the complainant is “crazy” gives the community the excuse to marginalize the victim and the disclosure, all the while showing support to the “unfairly” accused offender.

I recently watched the acclaimed Norwegian film, King of Devil’s Island. Based upon a true story, this movie was about the Bastoy Boy’s Home for delinquent boys located on an island off of Norway in the early 20th century. During the course of the film, a housefather named Bråthen sexually molests one of the resident boys who ends up committing suicide. Another resident eventually reports Bråthen’s abuse to the corrupt superintendent, Bestyreren, who confronts Bråthen. What follows are scenes that vividly illustrate some of the appalling ways sexual abuse survivors are marginalized by our communities:

Don’t Listen: When initially confronted about the reported abuse, Bråthen responds, “You can’t listen to them. They say whatever they want.” Survivors are marginalized when communities are all too willing to accept the claims made by perpetrators and their supporters that the individual disclosing the abuse is “crazy” and should be ignored. Disregarding the claims of a survivor communicates insignificance.

Helpless Souls: During the course of the confrontation with Bestyreren, Bråthen claims, “The only thing I have done is to try and help a boy who could not help himself.” Survivors are marginalized when perpetrators and their supporters paint them as helpless souls. Perpetrators are heralded as compassionate and the survivors are pitied as their disclosures are largely ignored.

Supporters Maligned: At one point, Bråthen identifies the boys who reported the abuse as “animals”, claiming that they were the real source of the victim’s harm. Survivors are marginalized when those who support them are maligned as being irrational and harmful. All too often this becomes the needed validation by some within the community to disregard allegations of abuse.

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INDIANA
Sun-Commercial

Posted: Friday, March 21, 2014

By Jonathan Streetman Jasper Herald

It’s been nearly 60 years since Norbert Krapf was a young altar boy at Holy Family Catholic Church in Jasper. But what happened to him there has stuck with the former Indiana poet laureate and Pulitzer Prize nominee and is the subject of his 26th book, “Catholic Boy Blues: A Poet’s Journal of Healing.”

The book of poems chronicles the sexual abuse Krapf said he endured as a boy serving at the church under Monsignor Othmar Schroeder in the mid-1950s. Schroeder, who died in 1988, has since been alleged to have sexually violated at least 15 boys during his 27-year tenure at the church he founded.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Peterborough Today

by Stephen Briggs
stephen.briggs@peterboroughtoday.co.uk
Published on the 21 March 2014

A former Peterborough priest and teacher is facing a lengthy prison sentence after being convicted of historical sexual abuse against young girls.

David Goodstadt was found guilty of rape and a number of other offences by a jury at Peterborough Crown Court on Friday (14 March).

Goodstadt, who had been on bail during a week-long trial, was remanded into custody by Judge Sean Enright.

He will be sentenced at the same court in April after reports have been written about Goodstadt’s offending.

The court was told the offences date back a number of years, when the victims were aged from under 10 to 16.

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AUSTRALIA
Newcastle Herald

By JOANNE McCARTHY March 21, 2014

WHENEVER I think about Cardinal George Pell – and I try not to, really, because life is too short – I think about Jesus.

Before concerned friends leap to the phone to check if I’ve succumbed to the demands of the past few years, can I just say I link Pell and Christ because the best way to consider the cardinal is by applying the ‘‘What would Jesus do?’’ test.

He’s the most prominent Catholic in Australia so we should be lining up his words and actions against the teachings of the first Christian. Only then can we answer the question, does Pell practise what the church preaches?

(A pause here to note I can’t lay claim to the ‘‘What would Jesus do?’’ test because it was Peter Gogarty – outspoken victim of child sex offender priest Jim Fletcher – who first suggested it, initially as a joke, but increasingly seriously.)

The ‘‘What would Jesus do?’’ test will come in handy next week when Pell gives much-anticipated evidence at the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.

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CALIFORNIA
The Worthy Adversary

Posted by Joelle Casteix on March 20, 2014

A breaking story today has kept my phone ringing off the hook: A southern California third grader has been accused of sexually assaulting a classmate numerous times during the past year. School administrators only found out about it when other students at an after-school program reported what they saw. (Kudos to those kids!)

Tragic? Yes. Horrifying? Yes.

Preventable. YES!

But fear, panic and over-reaction are not how to prevent this kind of abuse.

Remember: third graders know little to nothing about sex. For the victim in this case, authorities believe that he didn’t report because he didn’t even have the vocabulary to describe what was happening to him.

So, what do you do?

You go back to the four ways to protect your preschooler from abuse. Number 3 is the relevant lesson here:

3) Looking and touching
The bathtub is a good time to teach this lesson. Tell children that no one is to touch their private body parts and they are to never touch anyone else’s. Tell them that no one is to take pictures of them when they have no clothes on. Don’t use a tone of fear in the discussion – If you approach this the same way as you approach the rules of crossing the street or sharing toys, your child will not be scared or threatened.

As your children get older, you can tell them that even if what is happening feels good, they need to tell mom or dad right away.

I just had this discussion with my second grader this afternoon. I asked him what he would do if someone—an adult or another classmate—touched him or wanted my son to touch them. He said he would say “NO!” and go and tell mom.

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IOWA
Des Moines Register

Written by
Grant Rodgers

The father of a former Des Moines youth pastor who pleaded guilty to sexual abuse hopes his son will be allowed to return to Ohio instead of going to prison.

Ryan Matthew McKelvey, 27, pleaded guilty last month to one count of third-degree sexual abuse and two counts of sexual exploitation by a counselor or clergy after two female teenagers told police that they’d kissed and had sexual contact with McKelvey. McKelvey worked as a youth pastor at the Heritage Assembly Church and the two victims were students at the church’s unaccredited school, according to court papers.

Polk County District Court Judge Karen Romano is scheduled to sentence McKelvey on Monday morning. McKelvey could be sentenced to serve up to 20 years in prison.

McKelvey’s father, Keith McKelvey, is asking Romano to give his son a suspended sentence so he can return to the family’s home near Dayton, Ohio. In a letter last month written to the judge, the father wrote that his son will have a “support structure” and will receive counseling if he’s allowed to return home.

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AUSTRALIA
Herald Sun

SALLY BROOKS THE ADVERTISER MARCH 21, 2014

THE sexual abuse of intellectually disabled students was “shocking and appalling” and the handling of the case in 1991 was “unacceptable”, says the former director of the Catholic Education Office.

Allan Dooley also apologised to victims of paedophile Brian Perkins, who worked at St Ann’s Special School in Marion more than two decades ago.

“For the former students and families affected, I am deeply sorry that the abuse at St Ann’s ever occurred,” he said.

“In everything I did I tried to engage and work in an open and transparent way with all the different people and organisations that were involved in the Church’s response.’’

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

AUSTRALIA
ABC News

[with video]

Cardinal George Pell’s private secretary has told the royal commission into child sexual abuse the Catholic Church’s vigorous cross-examination of a victim during litigation was wrong.

The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse is examining allegations made by altar boy John Ellis, who was abused by Father Aidan Duggan in Sydney between 1974 and 1979.

Mr Ellis failed in his attempt to sue the Catholic Church in 2007, with the Supreme Court ruling the church was not an entity that could be sued.

Dr Michael Casey, who is Cardinal Pell’s private secretary, was the main contact point for lawyers defending the church against the compensation claim from Mr Ellis.

Though a church-appointed assessor concluded Mr Ellis had most likely been abused, when the case came to trial, the church decided to fight him on that.

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

AUSTRALIA
Gladstone Observer

Nicky Moffat and Scott Sawyer 21st Mar 2014

The diocese has used school newsletters to reassure Gladstone parents their children were safe from sexual predators.

The move was in response to the damning findings of the Royal Commission into Institutional Child Sexual Abuse, which unearthed decades-old horrific evidence of sexual abuse within the church’s ranks.

The Observer has seen the letter published in the newsletters of St Francis Catholic Primary School, Tannum Sands, and Chanel College, in Gladstone.

“As the director of Catholic education in the diocese of Rockhampton, I want to assure you that my highest priority is the safety of the children in our schools,” Rockhampton Diocesan director of Catholic education Leesa Jeffcoat wrote to parents.

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

MISSOURI
St. Louis Post-Dispatch

By JORDAN SHAPIRO Associated Press

JEFFERSON CITY • An attorney representing Oklahoma-based arts and crafts chain Hobby Lobby in its challenge of a federal contraception coverage mandate launched a nonprofit group in Missouri on Thursday that will focus on the issues of religious liberty and constitutional rights.

University of Missouri law professor Joshua Hawley is part of the legal team representing Hobby Lobby that is scheduled to argue its case before the U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday. The company sued to overturn a federal mandate that requires most employers to provide health insurance that includes birth control.

Hawley said the new group, the Missouri Liberty Project, will focus on raising awareness about religious liberty and constitutional rights issues. He filed the registration paperwork Thursday with the Missouri secretary of state’s office.

“These are issues I am very passionate about and want to bring attention to Missourians,” he said. “People are worried about the Constitution and feel like it is being threatened.”

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

MISSOURI
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Thursday, March 20, 2014

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

We’re highly skeptical of this group and its goals. Over the past 25 years, we’ve seen laws and rules that were ostensibly adopted to “protect religious liberty” have been abused to protect clergy who commit and conceal heinous crimes against kids.

[St. Louis Post-Dispatch]

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Catholics4Change

MARCH 20, 2014 BY SUSAN MATTHEWS

Due to prior commitments, Kathy and I won’t be attending the Healing Mass at the Cathedral of SS Peter and Paul in Philadelphia this Saturday. We would love to receive recap editorials from those who do attend. We will use your recaps as our next blog post. Use the private contact form to let me know you’d like to submit. Also, a reporter from The Philadelphia Inquirer is interested in interviewing victims of clergy sex abuse in regard to the Mass. If you are willing, please use the contact form to message me and I’ll connect you with the reporter privately via email.

One small victory for victims occurred due to Father Wintermeyer’s comment in a previous post on the Mass. Per his suggestion, the archdiocese requested that all parishes include petitions for the victims of clergy sex abuse during their Masses this weekend. This was confirmed by Ken Gavin, director of Archdiocesan communications. Maybe one day they’ll take the rest of the suggestions to heart and soul.

If nothing else, this Mass will shine another light on the issue of clergy abuse and needed legislative reforms.

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

AUSTRALIA
Gladstone Observer

Nicky Moffat 21st Mar 2014

THE Diocese of Rockhampton’s policies contradict themselves on child sex abuse. And they send mixed messages.

They state that anyone suspecting a child is in immediate danger should call the police, but also mandate that sexual abuse be reported to the principal or designated contact, and no one else.

Enter the Diocese of Rockhampton’s website and you will find 38 Catholic Education policies, none of which is explicitly aimed at preventing child sex abuse or responding to instances of suspected sexual crime against children.

A policy titled Student Protection refers to protecting children from harm, including self-harm, and points to student protection processes for detail on rules for dealing with abuse.

A one-page policy on sexual harassment and bullying provides no definition of either, and points to relevant legislation.

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CANADA
Nunatsiaq Online

DAVID MURPHY

Defence lawyer Malcolm Kempt says if he needed to write a textbook about witness collusion, he would focus on the Eric Dejaeger trial.

In what might be a foreshadowing of his final arguments in the trial, Kempt said there is an “outright certainty” that complainants fixed their stories before they testified at the Belgian ex-priest’s trial at the Nunavut Court of Justice in Iqaluit.

Dejaeger’s lawyer made the comments in court March 20 in response to a Crown application that seeks to allow similar fact evidence in the trial.

Similar fact evidence uses each complainant’s testimony to corroborate testimony made by other complainants.

Dejaeger faces 68 charges related to his time as a priest in Igloolik from 1978 to 1982, most of them sex-related crimes against children.

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MICHIGAN
Click on Detroit

DETROIT –
A trial is next for a Roman Catholic priest who is charged with stealing money from a fund set up to help poor people in Detroit, Hamtramck and Highland Park.

The Wayne County prosecutor says the Rev. Timothy Kane and an accomplice, Dorecca Brewer, approved false applications to the Angel Fund and pocketed thousands of dollars over a four-year period.

The Angel Fund is run by the Archdiocese of Detroit and funded by a single donor. It has granted more than $17 million to needy people since 2005.

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NEW YORK
Edge on the Net

by Jason St. Amand
National News Editor
Thursday Mar 20, 2014

Bill Donohue, the president of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, is not happy that New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio and Boston Mayor Marty Walsh sat out their city’s St. Patrick’s Day Parade events because organizers refused to allow LGBT people to openly march. He’s also miffed that beer companies like Guinness and Sam Adams withdrew sponsorship from the New York City and Boston parades, respectively.

His response? He’s applied to march in the New York City Gay Pride Parade, held June 29, while carrying a banner that reads, “Straight is Great!” …

Though NYC Pride officials praise straight allies, unless Donohue changes his tune in the next few months, he is anything but. Donohue has called the LGBT community sexual deviants and has been criticized for his lack of sensitivity towards victims of priest sexual abuse and victims of bullying.

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UNITED STATES
Bilgrimage

William D. Lindsey

I just wrote about a recent situation in which watchdog groups drew attention to an egregious misuse of “Catholic” beliefs, with a positive outcome to the protest of watchdog groups: as my posting notes, when Catholic lay leader Austin Ruse recently called for liberal university leaders to be taken out and shot, the group Faithful America petitioned for Monsignor Anthony Frontiero of St. Joseph’s Cathedral in Manchester, New Hampshire, who was on Ruse’s C-FAM board, to resign.

And so he did.

Here’s another recent story which demonstrates that when watchdog groups publicize decisions or actions by religious leaders that contradict core values of a religious group, positive things sometimes happen: last Saturday, retired New York Cardinal Egan was scheduled to preside at a special children’s choir Mass at St. Ignatius Loyola parish in Manhattan. The group Survivors Network for Those Abused by Priests called foul, given Egan’s deplorable record in the abuse crisis both in the Bridgeport, Connecticut, diocese and in New York.

After SNAP and other groups supporting abuse survivors made a stink about St. Ignatius’s decision to bring Egan in for this children’s event, his appearance at the Mass was cancelled. SNAP applauded this decision, but as its media statement about it notes, it’s unlikely that we’ll ever know who played the behind-the-scenes roles in making such a glaringly insensitive decision (to invite Egan to officiate at the children’s Mass) in the first place–because it is extremely doubtful

that even one church official – Cardinal Timothy Dolan, Egan, the local Jesuit provincial or St. Ignatius staffers – will break the deeply-rooted culture of secrecy in the church around child sex crimes, cover-ups and controversies to share this information.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

Survivors of child sexual abuse in Ballarat say they are concerned about the apparent little progress in implementing reforms recommended by last year’s State Parliamentary inquiry. The concerns come as private hearings are held in Ballarat this week.

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IRELAND
The Anglo-Celt

Paul Neilan

There were anguished scenes in Cavan Circuit Court last week when two men drew courage from turmoil to confront their priest abuser and gave evidence of the horrific effects his abuse had on them.
The two men were aged just 10 years when Fr Gerry Kearns abused them both. The Cavan priest, now 73, pleaded guilty in the court to four indecent assaults on one and a single assault on the other male, almost 30 years after his offences.

The priest, who will serve jail-time for his fondling and molesting of the males at a location in the county, did not speak throughout the three-hour sentencing hearing in contrast to the muffled, tearful moans of the victim and relatives, who sat at opposite ends of the gallery.

Fr Kearns was not charged with rape and during the hearing denied giving the boys alcohol.

Though the victims had already made statements to gardaí, which could have been read out to the court, they both made the agonising decision to speak of the harrowing after-effects.

“I lost all trust in everyone,” one told the judge. “I felt low all the time, I never trusted anyone, I lost all trust and tried to do away with myself twice.”

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UNITED STATES
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Thursday, March 20, 2014

For more information: David Clohessy (314-566-9790 cell, SNAPclohessy@aol.com), Barbara Dorris ( 314-862-7688 home, 314-503-0003 cell, SNAPdorris@gmail.com )

Lutheran minister arrested for child pornography
He admits molesting several young girls in WI & MN

A Lutheran minister has admitted – apparently for the first time, that he sexually abused children in Wisconsin and Minnesota. Yesterday, he was charged in Missouri with possession of child pornography.

[KSDK]

Matthew Luetke, a pastor at the Good Shepherd Evangelical Lutheran Church in O’Fallon, MO, told police he had exposed himself and allowed his genitals to be touched by female relatives when they were pre-school age when the family was living in Wisconsin and Minnesota. Those incidents are said to have occurred between 2004 and 2008.

Luetke is believed to have worked at Ascension Lutheran Church in Rochester , Minnesota and attended a Lutheran seminary just north of Milwaukee in Mequon, Wisconsin.

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UNITED STATES
New Times

By Kyle Swenson Thu., Mar. 20 2014

The Chicago-based megachurch leader with serious ties throughout Florida and in Broward has lost his flock due to a sex scandal. Since the ’60s, Bill Gothard has been preaching a submit-to-authority brand of Bible that excoriates rock music and free thinking: Listen to your parents, obey your husband, toe the line, etc.

From his perch at the Institute in Basic Life Principles, the preacher has given millions of seminars across the country on his value system. Red-state poster people Mike Huckabee and Sarah Palin are fans, not to mention the walking birth-control advertisement known as the Dugger family from TLC’s 19 Kids and Counting. And a decade back, Gothardism was pretty popular across Florida.

In the Gothard cosmos, divine authority is a trickle-down setup. We suckers on the bottom, we’ve got to obey our parents, husbands, bosses, political leaders and such because they derive their moral juice from God himself.

This was the ethos behind the Character First! programs that became controversial around the country in the early and mid-2000s. The program basically was moral education marching orders dripping with evangelical overtones — fine for your home, but not so much in a public school setting.

But former Gov. Jeb Bush and former DCF honcho Jerry Regier both pushed legislation that would put Character First! in public schools across the state. Both were fans of Gothard’s. The former governor implemented the Character First! program at his own charter school in Liberty City.

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OHIO
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Thursday, March 20, 2014

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

Cincinnati archdiocesan officials are ramping up the restriction on what Catholic teachers may say and do.

[Cincinnati Enquirer]

Top Catholic officials can keep tightening the screws on their flocks about legal speech and behavior. But their tough discipline is likely to ring hollow and be ineffective because they refuse to take similar action against their colleagues who ignore or conceal clergy sex crimes.

It’s ironic that Catholic teachers who say and do things that are legal face punishments while Catholic officials who say hurtful things about abuse victims and do illegal things about predator priests virtually never face punishments.

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AUSTRALIA
Brisbane Times

March 21, 2014

Catherine Armitage
Senior Writer

An email sent by the Catholic Church’s solicitor to its barristers suggested sex abuse victim John Ellis, as a boy of 14 or 15, used to “force himself” on the ageing priest who was sexually abusing him.

The email was sent during the court case in which Mr Ellis sought damages for abuse, which began when he was a 13-year-old altar boy at the hands of Father Aidan Duggan at the Sydney Archdiocese’s Bass Hill parish.

Tendered in evidence at the royal commission on child sex abuse, the email promises the barristers they will be “greeted with open arms at the Pearly Gates”.

Solicitor John Dalzell is now a partner at Gadens Lawyers but was then a senior associate at Corrs Chambers Westgarth, which was being instructed by Cardinal George Pell, who was a defendant.

The commission has been trying to establish who was responsible for the church’s conduct in the case, which not only left Mr Ellis a broken man, but also insulated the church against claims from other future victims.

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UNITED STATES
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Thursday, March 20, 2014

For more info David Clohessy 314 566 9790, SNAPclohessy@aol.com, Barbara Dorris 314 503 0003, SNAPdorris@gmail.com

Victims blast controversial speakers
SNAP objects to three prelates being honored
Each one, group says, concealed clergy sex crimes
In one case, three Catholic organizations also objected
And in that case, retired NYC Cardinal won’t attend event
Two top church officials should discourage such invitations, SNAP says

Three times last week, a victims’ group raised concerns about Catholic prelates who allegedly concealed child sex crimes speaking at church events, and one of those appearances was cancelled. Now the group is asking the head of the US bishops’ conference to urge his colleagues to avoid similar controversies.

Leaders of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, are writing Louisville Archbishop Joseph Kurtz and Joliet Bishop Daniel Conlon about public appearances by bishops who “protected predators and endangered kids.” Kurtz is the president of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops. Conlon heads the conference’s sex abuse committee.

SNAP recently objected to these prelates:

–Retired New York Cardinal Edward Egan was to preside over a children’s choir mass at St. Ignatius Loyola parish in Manhattan this month.

[New Haven Register]

[New Haven Register]

The parish had announced the event on its website. But last Friday, the parish announced that Egan would not be coming. http://www.stignatiusloyola.org/

–Retired Philadelphia Archbishop Cardinal Rigali, who is to be a featured speaker at the Catholic Men Servant Leaders annual conference at Lexington Catholic High School in Lexington, Kentucky on March 22.

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MISSISSIPPI
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Thursday, March 20, 2014

For more information: David Clohessy of St. Louis, Director of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests ( 314 566 9790, SNAPclohessy@aol.com )

Priest with child sex abuse allegations is promoted
He is accused of molesting at least four boys & was sued
But he went overseas and is second-in-command of a diocese
And at least one child sex lawsuit against him has been settled
Group wants Jackson bishop to reach out to victims & get priest defrocked

A Catholic priest who allegedly molested several boys is now second-in-command at a diocese in Paraguay. And a victims’ group wants Jackson Bishop Joseph R. Kopacz, who was once the cleric’s supervisor, to reach out to others he has hurt and urge the Pope to intervene and defrock him.

[Pocono Record]

Fr. Carlos Urrutigoity was accused of sexually abusing at least four boys in the Scranton Pennsylvania diocese, where Kopacz was in leadership positions, between 2002-2004. At least two civil suits were filed and one of them was settled for $454,550.

But last week, a Boston-based research group called BishopAccountability.org disclosed that Fr. Urrutigoity is now in the Diocese of Ciudad del Este, Paraguay and is its Vicar General.

Bishop Kopacz was in charge of investigating child abuse allegations in the diocese of Scranton while Fr. Urrutigoity worked there. Kopacz allegedly ignored a warning about Urrutigoity’s inappropriate behavior without even talking to the victim. In 1999, Kopacz and his Scranton church colleagues were warned by Minnesota church officials about allegations that Father Urrutigoity had abused a seminarian, according to a federal lawsuit.

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AUSTRALIA
The Australian

DAN BOX THE AUSTRALIAN MARCH 21, 2014

THE Catholic Church was wrong to deny in court that a Sydney priest had sexually abused a child, despite a previous church inquiry finding the abuse took place, Cardinal George Pell’s private secretary has said.

The former archbishop of Sydney has also moved to distance himself from the handling of the controversial case, saying it was “disproportionate to the objective and to the psychological state” of the abuse victim.

Giving evidence yesterday to the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, Michael Casey said he was “a conduit” between the church’s lawyers and Cardinal Pell, who rarely uses a computer or mobile phone.

The cardinal’s instructions had been to “vigorously defend” the claim, brought by former altar boy John Ellis, who was sexually assaulted by a Sydney priest over several years during the 1970s, Dr Casey said.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Main Post

Es melden sich immer weniger: Professor Klaus Laubenthal, Ansprechpartner in der Diözese Würzburg für Opfer sexuellen Missbrauchs, wurden ab März 2013 vier Vorwürfe übermittelt, drei davon gegen bereits verstorbene Kleriker (darunter ein Ordensmann). Der vierte Vorwurf gegen einen ehrenamtlichen Mitarbeiter in der kirchlichen Jugendarbeit betrifft nach Angaben des Bischöflichen Ordinariats eine Grenzverletzung unterhalb der Schwelle der Strafbarkeit.

Im Zeitraum 2012/13 erreichten Klaus Laubenthal noch neun Vorwürfe, 2011/2012 wandten sich 14 Missbrauchsopfer an ihn. Die meisten Opfer waren ab Ende Januar 2010 bereit, über ihren Missbrauch zu reden, nachdem die Fälle am Canisius-Kolleg in Berlin bekanntgeworden waren. Damals hatte der Lehrstuhlinhaber für Strafrecht und Kriminologie an der Universität Würzburg 62 Vorwürfe überprüft.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Wirral News

Church disciplinary procedures launched against Reverend Ian Hughes after he was handed a 12-month jail sentence in January

A disgraced Merseyside vicar is facing expulsion from his Church of England post after being jailed for making and possessing indecent images of children.

Church disciplinary procedures have now been launched against Reverend Ian Hughes after he was handed a 12-month sentence in January.

Under the guidelines issued to church leaders, Rev Hughes could be removed and banned from office for life.

The 46-year-old pleaded guilty to making and possessing thousands of child porn images at a crown court hearing earlier this year.

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AUSTRALIA
Newcastle Herald

by JOANNE McCARTHY March 20, 2014

IN a nursing home bed, a former Hunter nun, who was a priest’s sexual partner from the age of 15, spends her days in the silences of advanced dementia while her brother demands the truth from the Catholic Church.

The priest, Father Noel Geraghty of the Catholic order Oblates of Mary Immaculate, died in 2005 without the long-term relationship being acknowledged in public by the Church, although it has confirmed it in writing to the nun’s family.

There is evidence the former nun, 70, who has been in care from the age of 63, was not the priest’s only female sexual partner.

The former nun’s brother, a retired teacher who lives in the Hunter, is speaking about it for the first time as the Church faces a new crisis – exposure of its male clergy’s forbidden, secret and abusive relationships with adult women.

“There are so many women out there in this position,” said the former nun’s brother, David, who asked that the family’s identity not be disclosed.

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AUSTRALIA
Newcastle Herald

By Nicola Ross March 19, 2014

IN recent days reports have emerged about organised sexual abuse of teenagers in residential care in Victoria. We have also witnessed the devastating stories of adult survivors of child sexual and other abuse by the authorities into whose care they were entrusted when they were vulnerable children.

We hope that the royal commission’s investigations will lead to some outcomes to prevent similar stories being told in 20 years’ time. But is this likely?

At the very same time that the royal commission is in progress, we are hearing stories that must cast doubt on the question of whether we are really ready for change. The most recent story to emerge is related to paedophile gangs targeting children in residential state care in Victoria for sexual favours.

Most people would agree that where it is possible, children are better off in family settings and, thankfully, there are relatively few children and younger people in residential care. Yet there are now approximately 40,000 children in out-of-home care in Australia – with foster carers or in kinship placements (with grandparents or other family members) – and this number is growing. But this does not resolve the issue either, as abuse can or does occur in these settings.

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AUSTRALIA
Perth Now

South Australian magistrate threw out paedophile charges, Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse told

SALLY BROOKS THE ADVERTISER MARCH 20, 2014

POLICE had difficulty successfully prosecuting paedophiles almost two decades ago, with one case thrown out by a magistrate who was himself later charged with child sex offences, an inquiry has heard.

Detective Senior Sergeant Walter Conte has told the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse charges were laid against a paedophile following a raid in 1993 but the matter was dropped.

“The charges for some reason were brought before the Adelaide Magistrates Court whereas they were originally set down for a committal hearing at the Holden Hill Magistrates Court,” he said.

“I recall bringing along my witnesses, and essentially everything was thrown out by Magistrate (Richard) Brown, or perhaps there was no evidence tendered, or something like that.”

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AUSTRALIA
Courier Mail

BY MARGARET SCHEIKOWSKI AAP MARCH 20, 2014

A SENIOR Catholic education officer has apologised to the victims of “shocking and appalling” sexual abuse carried out by a bus driver who worked at an Adelaide special school.

Allan Dooley also said the school principal’s handling of the initial complaints in 1991 was “unacceptable”.

Mr Dooley, former director of Catholic Education in the Archdiocese of Adelaide, was giving evidence on Thursday at the royal commission into institutional responses to child sexual abuse.

It is investigating Adelaide’s St Ann’s Special School and its bus driver and volunteer, Brian Perkins, who sexually abused intellectually disabled boys between 1986 and 1991.

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AUSTRALIA
The Guardian (UK)

Australian Associated Press
theguardian.com, Thursday 20 March 2014

A lawyer accused of evading his “ethical obligation” not to mislead during a priest abuse case has told a royal commission he was working on the instructions of the Catholic church.

In a cross-examination at the child sex abuse hearing in Sydney on Thursday, commission chair Justice Peter McClellan questioned the ethical approach taken by solicitor John Dalzell.

The lawyer instructed the legal team, which disputed whether John Ellis had been abused by a priest.

The commission is looking at how the archdiocese of Sydney, led by then-archbishop George Pell, handled Ellis’s complaint that he had been abused while an altar boy by Father Aidan Duggan at Bass Hill from 1974 to 1975.

Dalzell was a senior associate with law firm Corrs Chambers Westgarth when they were employed by the archdiocese to defend the Ellis case.

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PENNSYLVANIA
The Kittanning Paper

A former Kittanning priest has been charged with theft after a series of investigations that began more than three years ago.

Father Emil S. Payer , pastor of Seven Dolors Parish, Yukon, in the Diocese of Greensburg, was arraigned March 11 before District Magistrate Charles D. Moore in Scottdale and charged with theft by deception, theft by unlawful taking, theft by receiving stolen property and theft by misappropriation of entrusted property.

Father Payer, who has been on administrative leave from the parish since Aug. 11, 2011, was released on a non-monetary bond.

The charges stem from an investigation that began when parishioners of Seven Dolors Parish approached officials of the Diocese of Greensburg in early 2011 with concerns about parish finances. As a result of that meeting, the diocese immediately began a review of parish finances with an independent auditing firm. Subsequently, diocesan officials held a meeting on April 6, 2011, with the Parish Pastoral Council and Parish Finance Council of Seven Dolors Parish and informed council members of the review.

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AUSTRALIA
7 News

ABC

BY COURT REPORTER CANDICE MARCUS
March 20, 2014

Police officers investigating a paedophile ring in South Australia were angered at the decision to prematurely shut down the inquiry, a royal commission has heard.

The inquiry into sexual abuse of children who went to St Ann’s Special School in Adelaide has heard the police investigation was closed in 1993.

Detective Senior Sergeant Walter Conte said no reason was given for closing the inquiry, but he had assumed it was due to a lack of resources.

“I know there was a lot of anger in the room about the decision because there was still a lot of exhibits that needed to be rationalised,” he said.

“Certainly there was room for a continued task force at that time. I think hence people were justifiably angry at the management decision to stop at that stage.

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UNITED STATES
National Catholic Register

JOAN FRAWLEY DESMOND

Cardinal Sean O’Malley of Boston has had a cardinal’s-eye view — shared by only a very select few — of the key events of the first year of Pope Francis’ papacy.

Cardinal O’Malley has devoted much of his vocation to ministering to Hispanic immigrants and working with the Church in Latin America, and he participated in the March 2013 conclave that elected Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio. Appointed subsequently to the eight-member Council of Cardinals formed to advise the Holy Father, the Boston archbishop has now taken on a more visible role in the global Church, working closely with Pope Francis on Church reforms, and announcing the formation of a new Vatican commission to address pastoral issues related to clergy sexual abuse and the protection of children.

On March 18, Cardinal O’Malley headlined “The Francis Factor,” an event sponsored by the Archdiocese of Baltimore that allowed the cardinal to share the rich and compelling insights about Pope Francis he has garnered during the past year. Before an audience of 3,000 people, Cardinal O’Malley spoke about Pope Francis as a “quintessential Ignatian Jesuit,” who is now sharing the fruits of his long practice of spiritual discernment, anchored in the discipline of the daily examan. …

You have labored to strengthen the Church’s response to the scourge of clergy sexual abuse, and you sent one of your own priests, Father Robert Oliver, to take over as the promoter of justice for the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, prosecuting cases that are brought to the Vatican. Are you confident that the Holy See is fully engaged in the effort to implement reforms in churches across the world that will help protect children?

We have tried to help the Holy Father understand [the need for a strong response to clergy sexual abuse]. I know he understands its importance. That is why a commission on child protection is being formed.

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AUSTRALIA
The Guardian (UK)

Australian Associated Press
theguardian.com, Thursday 20 March 2014

Cardinal George Pell has believed child sex abuse victims should be able to sue the Catholic church for some time, his private secretary has told a royal commission.

Dr Michael Casey, who has been the Sydney archbishop’s private secretary for more than a decade, said that while he had not heard Cardinal Pell express it in the terms quoted at the royal commission last week, he understood it was his view.

“I think it was certainly his view that people had the right to take civil action against the church or church entities for sexual abuse.”

The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse is looking at how the archdiocese of Sydney handled a complaint by John Ellis that he had been abused while an altar boy by Father Aidan Duggan at Bass Hill in Sydney’s southwest from 1974 to 1979.

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UNITED STATES
Catholic Culture

By Phil Lawler March 19, 2014

Stop me if you’ve heard this one. A judge has ordered a Catholic archdiocese to release documents pertaining to the handling of sex-abuse cases.

You already know that story, right? But wait; I’m talking about today’s headline story, not the story that appeared last month or the month before that or… virtually every month since early 2002. It’s all become a blur, hasn’t it? In case after case the archdiocese fights against public disclosure, loses the legal battle, and is forced to release the documents.

Frankly, I’m tired of writing up these news stories. By now I could do it in my sleep, working from a template, filling in the proper nouns for each new case. “Judge X ruled that the Diocese of Y had not made a convincing case that the release of personnel records would violate the religious-freedom protections of the First Amendment.” In today’s case, the Minnesota judge pointedly observed that archdiocesan lawyers had asserted a need for religious-freedom protection, but never made a plausible argument for that protection. Maybe the lawyers are getting tired of it all, too.

Time and again the same old story is played out, with results that are now painfully predictable. The archdiocese resists, and critics say that Church leaders have something to hide. The resistance eventually crumbles, the documents are released, and the critics have another opportunity to cite the misdeeds of the Catholic hierarchy. Whereupon the diocesan PR spokesman issue an improbable claim that the diocese was always anxious to cooperate with the court and ensure that all the facts were available.

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WASHINGTON
Yakima Herald-Republic

By Donald W. Meyers / Yakima Herald-Republic
dmeyers@yakimaherald.com

YAKIMA, Wash. — Lawyers for a man suing the Diocese of Yakima rested their sex-abuse case in federal court Wednesday.

Lawyers for John Doe, as he is identified in court papers, concluded with testimony from Bishop Emeritus Carlos Sevilla, who presided over the diocese in 1999, when Doe says he was raped by Deacon Aaron Ramirez at a Zillah parish office.

The diocese opened its defense Wednesday in U.S. District Court with a psychiatrist who said that the emotional problems Doe’s attorneys say he suffers from were more likely caused by abuse endured when he was 5 rather than the incident with Ramirez.

Doe is suing the diocese, alleging it failed to properly screen Ramirez before accepting him as a priesthood candidate, and that church officials did not supervise Ramirez when he worked at Resurrection Catholic Church in Zillah.

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NEW YORK
Saratogian

By Kyle Hughes, NYSNYS News
POSTED: 03/18/14

ALBANY >> Edward Scharfenberger, the Brooklyn priest picked to become the 10th bishop of the Albany Catholic Diocese next month, made his debut as an Albany lobbyist Tuesday, making the rounds and meeting with Gov. Andrew Cuomo.

“At this point, I’m doing a lot of listening,” he told reporters after a press conference with Cardinal Timothy Dolan about a bill to create a new school donation tax credit that would help both public and parochial schools. “I want to hear from people.”

“Needless to say I see myself as a person who wants to be a peacemaker, to bring people together, to give people a sense of respect: self-respect, respect for their traditions, respect for their beliefs,” he added.

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CANADA
CBC News

Justice Robert Kilpatrick has denied Crown prosecutor Doug Curliss’ application from Tuesday to revisit the testimony of one of the complainants in the trial of former Oblate priest Eric Dejaeger.

The 66-year-old is on trial at the Nunavut Court of Justice in Iqaluit.

He’s facing dozens of charges alleging sexual abuse against children in Igloolik, Nunavut.

After a short break Wednesday morning, Crown prosecutor Barry Nordin made another application to the court, this time to consider the evidence of each complainant to support the evidence of the other complainants.

In total more than 40 people have testified, mostly about alleged sexual acts involving young girls, boys and even dogs.

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NEW YORK
New York Daily News

BY GLENN BLAIN

Victims of clergy sex abuse are criticizing Timothy Cardinal Dolan’s efforts to boost charitable donations to schools.

Mary Caplan, co-director of the New York City chapter of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, issued a statement Wednesday blasting Dolan for lobbying Albany lawmakers this week to approve tax credits for those who donate to schools or other education-related groups.

“When they want money for their institutions, Catholic officials lobby hard and say they care deeply about kids,” Caplan said. “But when kids who were abused want a chance for justice, Catholic officials lobby hard to deny those kids their day in court. All across the US, Dolan and his brother bishops use all their political will and power and resources to block moves to reform archaic, predator-friendly statute of limitations laws that endanger kids and protect those who commit and conceal heinous child sex crimes.”

Dolan spent the day at the Capitol Tuesday urging Gov. Cuomo and legislative leaders to support legislation that would grant up to $300 million in tax credits to people who donate to schools and other educational organizations. He argued it would encourage more donations to both public and private schools while also boosting funds for scholarships to parochial schools.

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VATICAN CITY
Gazzetta del Sud

Vatican City, March 19 – The new head of the Vatican Council for the Economy said Wednesday that soon the scandal-plagued Vatican bank will no longer pose a threat to the Catholic Church’s image, while another institution will become the “true bank of the Vatican”. In statements published by Spanish news agency Europa Press, Munich Cardinal Reinhard Marx said “there won’t be future occasions for (the Vatican bank) to hurt the Holy See’s reputation”. Officially called the Institute of Religious Works (IOR), the Vatican bank has come under scrutiny for alleged money laundering and is now working with the Council of Europe’s Moneyval agency to bring it in line with international standards.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Telegraph

By Telegraph reporter 19 Mar 2014

An Islamic teacher who molested a girl as he taught her the Koran has avoided prison after claiming his family was dependent on him because his wife speaks “very little English”.

Suleman Maknojioa, 40, repeatedly rubbed the 11-year-old’s leg and reached underneath her headscarf to touch her chest while giving her and her two brothers private tuition in Arabic.

Maknojioa was said to have “favoured” the girl and believed the touching was “appropriate” to reassure her.

The girl was said to have become frightened of what the tutor would do to her. He was reported to police after the children’s mother overheard her sons, aged 13 and seven, talking about the incidents in the kitchen.

On the day he was arrested, Maknojioa, a father of six, was due to teach 30 children at a mosque near his home in Blackburn, Lancashire.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Express

IN A terrible betrayal of trust Suleman Maknojioa sexually abused a little girl of 11 as he taught her the Koran.

He had been brought into the family home by the parents to give lessons in the Islamic faith. The justice system has also betrayed this child and affronted public opinion by failing to hand down a tough sentence. Why?

Though Maknojioa was given a 40-week custodial sentence it was suspended for two years because Judge Michael Byrne decided that this man’s family was entirely dependent on him as his wife speaks very little English.

His wife’s inability to speak English is a separate issue but it is nonetheless a direct result of the doctrine of multiculturalism which indulges those who refuse to engage with British culture. It has a pernicious effect on many Islamic women who are thereby isolated and as this case shows totally dependent on their husbands.

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UNITED KINGDOM
This is Lancashire

By Jessica Cree, Crime reporter

AN ISLAMIC tutor who inappropriately touched a pupil during lessons has been handed a suspended prison sentence.

Suleman Maknojioa, of Audley Range, Blackburn, was found guilty of five counts of sexual activity with a child after a week-long trial.

Preston Crown Court heard how the defendant, 40, rubbed the girl’s lower leg, and touched her upper leg on top of her clothing.

He also touched the youngster on her chest area underneath her headscarf which she wore for prayers.

Maknojioa had denied the allegations, saying he only ever touched the girl to show encouragement.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Mirror

An Islamic teacher who molested a young girl was spared jail today after claiming his six children were dependent on him because his wife spoke “very little English”.

Suleman Maknojioa, 40, rubbed the 11-year-old’s leg and reached under her prayer headscarf to squeeze her chest while giving her and her two brothers private tuition in religion at their home.

The girl was left fearing the lessons, held over a period of nine months, and said of the touching: “I did not want it, but I was too afraid to say something.”

Maknojioa was arrested after the children’s mum overheard her sons, aged 13 and seven, talking.

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MINNESOTA
TheMediaReport

Back in December, police began a surreal criminal investigation into whether St. Paul and Minneapolis Archbishop John C. Nienstedt somehow “inappropriately touched” a boy four years ago in broad daylight in front of crowds of people outside a church following a public Confirmation ceremony.

If anyone needed another example of the wildly disparate treatment of Catholic clergy by the media and by law enforcement, one needs to look no further than this batty episode.

Common Sense on Vacation

Police finally concluded just last week what any clear-thinking individual would have known from the beginning: that nothing even remotely inappropriate ever took place.

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MISSOURI
St. Louis Post-Dispatch

By Susan Weich sweich@post-dispatch.com 636-493-96741

ST. CHARLES COUNTY • A Lutheran pastor is in jail after detectives with the county’s cyber crimes unit raided his home Tuesday and discovered child pornography on his computer, police say.

Matthew D. Luetke, 35, of the 5000 block of Danielle Drive, was charged today with promoting child pornography. He had been under investigation since December, when undercover detectives began trading child pornography with him, police said.

Luetke has been a pastor at Good Shepherd Evangelical Lutheran Church, 8425 Mexico Road, for about a year, police say. Before that he worked at churches in Wisconsin and Minnesota. Police say he had no previous criminal record.

A day care at the church is attended by about 50 children, police said, but they do not suspect Luetke had any improper contact with any of the children. The church is sending out a letter to parents about the arrest as a precaution, police said.

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MISSOURI
KPIR

March 19, 2014, by Chris Smith, updated on: 02:31pm, March 19, 2014

ST. CHARLES COUNTY, MO (KTVI) – The St. Charles County Cyber Crime Task Force has arrested 35-year-old Matthew D. Luetke in reference to a child pornography investigation. Luetke is the pastor at the Good Shepard Evangelical Luther Church located on Mexico Road in St. Peters.

Luetke was arrested after a search warrant was executed at his home in St. Charles. He’s charged with one count of promoting child pornography and his bond has been set at $100,000.

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MISSOURI
KY3

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports that Matthew Luetke, 36, was charged Wednesday with promoting child pornography as part of an undercover investigation that began in December. His cash-only bail was set at $100,000.

Luetke is a pastor at Good Shepherd Evangelical Lutheran Church in O’Fallon and previously worked at churches in Wisconsin and Minnesota. The evangelical church has its own daycare center, but police say they don’t suspect Luetke had any improper contact with children there. Church officials could not immediately be reached for comment.

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MISSOURI
KSDK

ST. CHARLES, Mo. (KSDK) – The St. Charles County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office charged a 35-year-old area pastor in reference to a child pornography investigation.

According to court documents, the St. Charles County Cyber Crime Task Force searched a home in the 5000 block of Danielle Drive for evidence of child pornography. Authorities found on a computer nine images of young girls between the ages of 9 and 13 in various poses and exposing themselves.

Prosecutors said the homeowner, identified as Matthew Luetke, confessed to being the sole operator of said computer, adding he’d developed a habit of viewing child pornography. Luetke further admitted to touching himself while viewing said images.

Luetke, a pastor at the Good Shepherd Evangelical Lutheran Church in O’Fallon, told police he had exposed himself and allowed his genitals to be touched by female relatives when they were pre-school age when the family was living in Wisconsin and Minnesota. Those incidents are said to have occurred between 2004 and 2008.

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MISSOURI
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Wednesday, March 19

Statement by Barbara Dorris of St. Louis, Outreach Director of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests ( 314 862 7688 home, 314 503 0003 cell, SNAPdorris@gmail.com )

We are very sad to learn that an O’Fallon MO minister admits child sex abuse and child porn. And we’re surprised and disappointed that police are already suggesting there are no local victims.

[KSDK]

Often, authorities want to quickly put worried parents at ease. But we believe that premature complacency is dangerous. We believe everyone should keep open minds here and not rule out that Rev. Matthew Luetke may have hurt kids here in Missouri as he did in Minnesota and Wisconsin.

We hope that every single person who attends or works at Good Shepherd Evangelical Lutheran Church

– or went or worked there in the past – will find the courage to call police right away if they saw, suspected or suffered clergy sex crimes or cover ups there.

(SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, is the world’s oldest and largest support group for clergy abuse victims. We’ve been around for 25 years and have more than 15,000 members. Despite the word “priest” in our title, we have members who were molested by religious figures of all denominations, including nuns, rabbis, bishops, and Protestant ministers. Our website is SNAPnetwork.org)

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CONNECTICUT
CT Post

Daniel Tepfer
Published 7:03 pm, Wednesday, March 19, 2014

Bishop Frank Caggiano has agreed to meet with representatives of national and local victim support groups who Wednesday called for him to hire an outside firm to investigate two priests who have been accused in the past of sex abuse — including a former prominent Greenwich pastor has who admitted he hid more than 40 years of abuse complaints.

But Barbara Blaine, president of the Chicago-based Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, said although she is willing to meet with Caggiano, she would prefer to do so after he agrees to the investigation.

“History has shown that meetings don’t always bear fruit, but actions speak louder than words,” Blaine said.

It would be the first time that a bishop of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Bridgeport agreed to meet with SNAP.

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ST. LOUIS (MO)
Berger’s Beat

March 19, 2014 3:21 pm | Author: berger

Brother Bernard Joseph Hartman of the St. Louis-based Marianists (the group that runs Chaminade and Vianney High Schools), goes on trial this week in Australia on charges of molesting four girls. In recent years, he lived in our town and also worked in Pittsburgh and Dayton. Hartman is accused of sexually abusing at least four children at St. Paul’s College between 1976 and 1982.

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UNITED STATES
The Worthy Adversary

Posted by Joelle Casteix on March 19, 2014

Book Review: The Vatican Diaries: A Behind the Scenes Look at the Power, Personalities, and Politics at the Heart of the Catholic Church; by John Thavis. Penguin Books

A year after the hardcover publication of The Vatican Diaries (a book whose hardcover release date coincided with the resignation of Pope Benedict XXIII XVI and the election of Pope Francis—a marketing and sales extravaganza if ever there were one), John Thavis‘ chronicle of Vatican shenanigans is now out in paperback.

A new afterward by the author is the icing on this cupcake of a book—a sweet, delectable, slightly naughty look inside the Vatican: a patchwork of quirky and outdated personalities tied together by allegiance, clericalism, protocol, and theater. While none of these things are very good for Catholics, clergy sex abuse victims or the Vatican state, Thavis expertly shows how the Vatican’s incompetency, callousness and failures reside in its humanity and its all-too-human worship of the most seductive power of all: information.

Thavis spent more than 25 years as a member of the Vaticanista, the group of journalists charged with covering the Vatican, the pope and other news surrounding the Holy See. As a writer for the Catholic News Service, Thavis was forced to balance the very delicate line between journalistic integrity and his own Catholicism.

He didn’t have an easy job. Without decent access to information or (the sometimes-kept) promises of transparency in many western governments, journalists covering the Vatican are forced to follow a path reminiscent of the childhood game of telephone. It’s about knowing the right person to call, capitalizing on people’s hot buttons, and most importantly, knowing whom to believe. Imagine The National Enquirer with all of the couture, but none of the good looks.

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GEORGIA
Dawson News

By Jennifer Sami, regional staff
editor@dawsonnews.com
UPDATED: March 19, 2014

CUMMING – A church youth ministry intern remained in the Forsyth County Detention Center on Wednesday following his arrest on felony counts of child molestation and enticing a child for indecent purposes.

According to the Forsyth County Sheriff’s Office, 28-year-old Sean E. Paul of Dawsonville turned himself in Friday. No bond has been set.

In addition to the two felony counts, he also faces one misdemeanor charge of electronically furnishing obscene material to a minor.

Paul was an intern for the youth minister at First Christian Church on Sawnee Drive in Cumming.

Stan Percival, the lead pastor of the church, said Paul “immediately resigned” from the position, which he had held for less than a year, when confronted with the allegations.

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UNITED STATES
Al Jazeera America

The Pope is not only the shepherd of a billion faithful. He is also the head of a business empire of global dimensions that employs millions of people. The Holy Roman Church owns hospitals and universities, gold stocks and works of art of inestimable value. It attracts donations from all over the world, owns huge swathes of very expensive real estate both in the USA, in Italy and in some very surprising places. Today, the Catholic Church is the richest religious institution in the world but it also has an extremely high rate of financial crimes. The “affairs” have shaken the confidence of Catholics around the world, and have involved the highest levels of the Vatican as well as small local parishes.

In fact, the money scandals were at the heart of the most anti establishment conclave in nearly 100 years. A cabal of cardinals demanded change. They got Pope Francis and his mission is to clean up the finances of the church, get rid of the rotten apples and prune the trees that bore them. Today, heads are rolling on St. Peter’s square. But the stumbling blocks on the road to Pope Francis’s newly announced reform are considerable and the stakes are sky high for all the parties involved in the Church’s finances.

Led by University College London Historian John Dickie, this documentary goes into the pockets of the Holy Father to reveal the money issues facing the Catholic Church. Through the stories of the most recent scandals, his investigation exposes the Church’s tortuous relationship with money: from the USA where a cardinal has allegedly concealed assets to reduce the compensation of victims of child abuse to a religious congregation that traded real estate for political favour; from a monsignor arrested for money laundering to the embezzling of Sunday donations.

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CANADA
Nunatsiaq Online

DAVID MURPHY

The trial of ex-Nunavut priest Eric Dejaeger will likely adjourn for a third time as lawyers continue to wrangle over the admission of certain pieces of evidence.

The court was supposed to hear final arguments and conclude the trial by March 21, but that doesn’t look possible now.

That’s because Crown prosecutors presented Justice Robert Kilpatrick with a third application March 19 to have the court consider certain evidence.

In this one, Crown prosecutor Barry Nordin seeks permission to have what’s called similar fact evidence admitted in the case.

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NEW YORK
Saratogian

By Michael Hill, The Associated Press
POSTED: 03/19/14

ALBANY >> New York City Cardinal Timothy Dolan and bishops from around the state made a lobbying push at the Capitol on Tuesday for a long-sought tax credit that could save Catholic schools from shuttering.

Dolan and the bishops met with Gov. Andrew Cuomo and legislative leaders to advocate for a tax credit for charitable donations made for educational purposes. The legislation would eventually be worth up to $300 million a year, with half going to public school programs and half going to scholarships for students who attend private schools.

Supporters believe the fresh infusion of scholarship money could save some struggling Catholic schools and help students in all types of schools.

“We’re not talking about different schools — charters, public, Catholic, Jewish, private. No. we’re talking about our kids. Our kids are going to benefit from this,” Dolan said, surrounded by lawmakers and bishops at a news conference.

Though a version of the measure has been approved in the state Senate, it has met resistance in the Democrat-led state Assembly. Supporters, which also include some labor unions, believe they can improve their chances of passage by folding the measure into the state budget due April 1.

Opponents claim the measure would not add money to education, but instead siphon it away from a finite pool of state money. Richard Iannuzzi, president of the New York State United Teachers union, likened it to a voucher system.

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NEW YORK
Survivor Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Wednesday, March 19, 2014

Statement by Mary Caplan of New York City, SNAP Leader, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests ( 917 439 4187, mcaplan682@aol.com )

New York’s Catholic bishops – including Cardinal Tim Dolan – are trying to get more tax breaks through a proposed bill about schools. Lawmakers should think long and hard before agreeing to this.

[Saratogian]

When they want money for their institutions, Catholic officials lobby hard and say they care deeply about kids. But when kids who were abused want a chance for justice, Catholic officials lobby hard to deny those kids their day in court. All across the US, Dolan and his brother bishops use all their political will and power and resources to block moves to reform archaic, predator-friendly statute of limitation laws that endanger kids and protect those who commit and conceal heinous child sex crimes.

[New York Times]

For at least three reasons, public schools are inherently safer than private schools. There is more openness and more accountability in public schools than private schools. And there’s less incentive to ignore or conceal child sex crimes in public schools than private schools.

First, law enforcement and fiscal authorities can more readily and easily audit and investigate public schools than private schools.

Second, citizens and journalists can better gain access to records in public schools than private schools.

Third, public school parents can attend and speak at regular, public school board meetings. They can oust board members, back other candidates, and run for those positions themselves.

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UNITED STATES
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

POSTED BY DAVID CLOHESSY ON MARCH 19, 2014

Fr. John Geoghan may be America’s most prolific predator priest, with at least 150 victims over a 36 year clerical career. (He’s not, however, the most efficient. That distinction goes to Mexico’s Fr. Nicholas Aguilar Rivera who, in just 10 months in Los Angeles, reportedly assaulted 26 kids.)

This year is the 60 year anniversary of perhaps the first “red flag” Catholic officials had about Geoghan. In 1954, the rector of Geoghan’s seminary expressed doubts about his suitability for the priesthood, in part because the seminarian was “decidedly immature.”

It’s also the 25 year anniversary of Cardinal Bernard Law sending Geoghan to St. Luke’s Institute (one of at least three treatment centers where Geoghan spent time), where he was diagnosed as “high risk.” Of course, he was still put back on the job in an unsuspecting parish.

And it’s the 15 year anniversary of a 1994 Boston archdiocesan memo, labeled “confidential,” that said that Geoghan would stay in a parishioner’s home who had eight kids “even when he was on a three day retreat because he missed the kids so much.” He “would touch them while they were sleeping and waken them by playing with their penises.”

(Incidentally, last year was the 50th anniversary of Paraclete founder Fr. Gerald’s Fitzgerald’s letter to the pope advocating “Laicization for any priest, upon objective evidence, for tampering with the virtue of the young” noting that “real conversions will be found to be extremely rare” and “leaving them on duty or wandering from diocese to diocese is contributing to scandal.” His advice was obviously ignored.)

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IRELAND
Irish Independent

Court of Criminal Appeal reserves judgement on appeal by ‘Singing priest’ and serial child abuser Tony Walsh

PUBLISHED 19 MARCH 2014

The Court of Criminal Appeal has reserved judgment in the case of former priest and serial child abuser Tony Walsh, who is appealing against separate sentences of 16 years and 15 months imposed on him for the rape and sexual abuse of young boys in the nineteen seventies and eighties.

Walsh, who was known as the “Singing Priest” for his role in a travelling all-priest vocal group before he was defrocked, is serving a 16-year sentence imposed on him in 2010 for the rape and abuse of three school boys.

The 59-year-old had pleaded guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court to two counts of indecently assaulting a male in a west Dublin church between November 1978 and April 1979.

He pleaded guilty to a further charge of indecently assaulting a male in a west Dublin school between January 1984 and December 1985.

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OHIO
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Wednesday, March 19, 2014

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

A “civil registry” of child molesters set up eight years ago by Ohio lawmakers has never been used, the Columbus Dispatch reports today.

[Columbus Dispatch]

The “civil registry” isn’t working because it’s an obscure, untested, and likely unconstitutional process that would require suffering child sex abuse victims to pay thousands of dollars to a lawyer, with no chance to even recover their costs, little chance of exposing their predator and no chance to expose the colleagues and supervisors who concealed their predator’s crimes.

It was a desperate move designed to give lawmakers ‘political cover’ and enable them to pretend they were doing something to stop child molesters.

On the contrary, the “civil window” that we’ve long advocated has since been adopted – and successfully used – in Delaware, Hawaii and Minnesota to protect kids by exposing those who commit and conceal heinous sex crimes against kids and deterring such wrongdoing in the future.

Now that it’s clear Ohio’s half-baked “civil registry” hasn’t helped expose a single predator, we hope lawmakers will reconsider reforming the state’s archaic, predator-friendly child sex laws and make it less difficult for those who were raped and sodomized as kids to take legal action against their perpetrators.

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PHILIPPINES
Sun.Star

By Noemi C. Fetalvero
Two empty bottles

Wednesday, March 19, 2014

RELIGION and faith are two intertwined subjects that may be considered very personal to an individual. Although I am taking a personal stance on the matter, I am sure hundreds of parishioners are affected by a certain issue.

Since the Archdiocese of Cebu decided to give clergymen under its pastoral care a second chance (meaning those priests found to have broken their vows, given a different parish assignment instead of being suspended). The consideration, I believe, has been abused by some priests.

In Jan. 16, I went to see Archbishop of Cebu Jose Palma to report a priest assigned in the southern part of Cebu who, I believe, was living a double life. In some days of the week, the clergyman functions as a parish priest. However, from Mondays through Wednesdays he is a regular visitor of a residential house where he is being introduced to neighbors as a husband and a father of two children. The children are both adults now.

Palma said he will look into it, saying that the church follows a certain protocol with regards to matters like these.

Months have passed and Bishop Palma has not met with the Board of Consultors who will create the investigating body to make the inquiry vis-à-vis the report.

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

AUSTRALIA
The Australian

MARK SCHLIEBS AND LOUIS MAYFIELD THE AUSTRALIAN MARCH 20, 2014

POLICE acted at the behest of Catholic Archbishop of Adelaide Philip Wilson in extraditing pedophile bus driver Brian Perkins in 2002 after earlier refusing attempts to bring him to justice in South Australia, the royal commission into child abuse heard yesterday.

South Australian child abuse investigator Detective Sergeant Gregory Ramm also told the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse that child pornography involving people linked to St Ann’s Special School in Adelaide was seized in Britain but never properly investigated.

Local detectives weren’t granted time to investigate “thousands” of photographs and videos received by police in 1993, he said, because of an order from the late assistant commissioner Colin Watkins that was later subject of an internal corruption investigation. The inquiry heard anti-corruption branch investigators did not criticise Watkins for shutting down Operation Deny – an investigation into an Adelaide-based international pedophilia ring – in their final report.

Perkins – who abused and produced pornography of several intellectually disabled children from St Ann’s between 1986-91 – was extradited from Queensland in 2002, 11 years after police seized photographs of students at his home. Sergeant Ramm said senior police and the Director of Public Prosecutions knocked back his recommendation to have Perkins extradited in 1998 because it was deemed too expensive.

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

CANADA
CBC News

A popular Ottawa priest who stole $130,000 from his church will spend one year in jail for his crimes.

Father Joe LeClair, a diagnosed pathological gambler, pleaded guilty to defrauding Ottawa’s Blessed Sacrament Church of the money over the course of five years.

He was sentenced to one year in jail and one year probation in an Ottawa courtroom on Wednesday morning, with Ontario Court Justice Jack Nadelle saying that breach of trust and the amount of money played into his decision.

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CANADA
Ottawa Sun

BY MEGAN GILLIS OTTAWA SUN

Father Joseph LeClair going to jail for one year for what a judge Wednesday called a serious breach of trust by a pathological gambler.

Blessed Sacrament Church’s popular former priest pleaded guilty in January to fraud and theft charges related to a five-year, $130,000 fraud on his church.

A psychiatrist diagnosed LeClair, 56, as a pathological gambler, but not all of his thieving had to do with gambling.

For instance, cut himself a $5,700 cheque to cover the cost of a vacation. He also directed that fees for the church’s marriage preparation courses be paid in cash. Over the five-year fraud only $13,000 of what should have been $157,000 in revenue made it into church bank accounts; LeClair later admitted some of the money went to gambling debts.

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BOSTON (MA)
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Wednesday, March 19, 2014

For more information: Barbara Blaine, SNAP Founder and President (312)399-4747, SNAPblaine@gmail.com and David Clohessy, SNAP Executive Director (314) 566-9790 cell, SNAPclohessy@aol.com

Fundraiser set for victims’ group
In honor of SNAP 25th anniversary
Group’s founder & president will speak

Massachusetts Citizens for Children is hosting a lecture and fundraiser this Sunday (March 23) to mark and honor the 25th anniversary of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests.

The event will be held at New England Law (classroom 301), 154 Stuart Street in Boston MA from 3:00 to 5:00 pm. Admission is a donation to SNAP (suggested amount is $25).

Barbara Blaine of Chicago, who founded SNAP, will speak. Other speakers include Vince Warren, Executive Director of Center for Constitutional Rights and retired Detroit Bishop Tom Gumbleton. Warren’s group helped SNAP submit testimony to the International Criminal Court and the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child about the Catholic Church’s child sex abuse and cover up scandal.

Gumbleton is the only Catholic prelate in the US to acknowledge having been molested as a child himself. He has helped SNAP lobby for legislative reforms that make it easier for child sex abuse victims to file lawsuits.

“We are deeply grateful to our friends at Massachusetts Citizens for Children for supporting us and for their outstanding work to protect kids too,” said David Clohessy of St. Louis, SNAP’s director.

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AUSTRALIA
Sky News

A paedophile school bus driver was extradited to Adelaide in 2002 only after pressure was put on police by the city’s Catholic Archbishop Philip Wilson, a royal commission has heard.

The Adelaide Archdiocese even offered to fund the extradition, after a top police officer, because of budgetary constraints, rejected a 1998 application to extradite Brian Perkins from Queensland.

Perkins sexually abused intellectually disabled boys between 1986 and 1991.

In 2002 Detective Sergeant Leonid Mosheev was told there was a direction from the Police Commissioner to bring Perkins back, he testified to the commission on Wednesday.

This came about because of pressure from the Archbishop Wilson who had visited the police commissioner, he said.

Beliefs about problems associated with evidence from an intellectually disabled boy were also part of the reason for the decision not to pursue the extradition, Det Sgt Mosheev said.

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UNITED KINGDOM
National Secular Society

Posted: Wed, 19 Mar 2014 by Richard Scorer

In England, Catholic leaders have fostered the impression that the English church has been relatively scandal-free, and that such problems as did exist were eliminated by the Nolan reforms. A new book by Richard Scorer, head of the abuse unit at Slater & Gordon lawyers, interrogates that claim.

The excellent campaigning work by the NSS on the Catholic abuse crisis has focussed on the Vatican, and with good reason: the Vatican stands at the apex of the worldwide Catholic Church, a uniquely centralised institution, and the Vatican must bear primary responsibility for the culture of denial and cover up which has now been exposed in Catholic institutions around the world. But in challenging the Vatican, we should not overlook events nearer home. In England, Catholic leaders have fostered the impression that the English church has been relatively scandal-free, and that such problems as did exist were eliminated by the Nolan reforms, a raft of changes to child protection introduced in 2001. In my book Betrayed: The English Catholic Church and the Sex Abuse Crisis, published on 27 March, I interrogate that claim. By examining the detail of cases over a 50 year period, I show that the patterns of institutional denial and cover-up that have characterised the Catholic abuse scandal in other parts of the world have been pervasive here too.

I also examine whether the Catholic Church in England has dealt successfully with past problems, as it claims. Underlying this issue is a tension between the secular approach to child protection and the approach mandated by canon law, the internal law of the Catholic Church.

At the heart of modern child protection is the ‘paramountcy principle’. This is the legal principle that the interests of children have primacy and so (for example) if a person is suspected on credible evidence of abusing children he/she may be suspended from contact with children whilst a full investigation takes place. Canon law operates very differently: a priest cannot be suspended without a full canonical trial and a verdict meeting the standard of ‘moral certainty’. That canonical trial, of course, would be presided over, in secret, by the suspect’s fellow priests, so as a mechanism for dealing with abuse allegations canon law is inherently unsuitable.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Domradio

[Summary: Jesuit priest Klaus Mertes has received an award from the Herbert-Haag Foundation. He revealed the biggest case of sexual abuse in the Catholic Church.]

Klaus Mertes hat den Preis der Herbert-Haag-Stiftung erhalten. Der Jesuitenpater machte einen der größten Missbrauchsfälle in der katholischen Kirche publik. Im Interview spricht der Rektor des Kollegs St. Blasien darüber, wie ihn das Thema verändert hat.

KNA: Pater Mertes, was bedeutet Ihnen die soeben erhaltene Auszeichnung?

Mertes: Der Preis bedeutet für mich eine Stärkung auf einem langen Weg. Es ist eine Stärkung aus dem Raum der Kirche, sozusagen von den “eigenen Leuten”. Das tut gut. Ein bisschen beschämt bin ich auch, weil ich weiß, dass nicht ich es war, der mit der Aufdeckungsarbeit begonnen hat, sondern die Opfer. Und weil ich auch weiß, dass ich ohne die Unterstützung vieler Mitbrüder und der Kolleginnen und Kollegen an unseren Schulen die Anstrengungen der letzten Jahre nicht durchgehalten hätte.

KNA: Die Herbert-Haag-Stiftung zeichnet Personen aus, die sich durch mutiges Handeln exponiert haben. 2010 thematisierten Sie in einem Brief an ehemalige Berliner Jesuitenschüler sexuellen Missbrauch durch zwei Patres, die als Lehrer und Seelsorger tätig waren. Brauchte es dafür Mut?

Mertes: Dazu brauchte ich keinen Mut. Das war ganz klar, dass ich auf das Gehörte antworten musste. Und ich wollte es auch. Ich ahnte jedoch nicht, was für Folgen das über meinen kleinen Gesichtskreis hinaus haben würde.

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AUSTRALIA
Australian Teacher Magazine

MELBOURNE, March 19 – A man allegedly abused by a Catholic Brother says he is still suffering more than 30 years after his innocence was stolen by a man of God.

American Brother Bernard Joseph Hartman, 74, allegedly abused two boys and two girls at Altona where he was a teacher at St Paul’s College between 1976 and 1982.

One of the victims told the Melbourne Magistrates Court the scars are still with him.

“In Year 11 in 1982 I wanted to kill him,” the man said in his victim statement to the court.

“I have lived a hard life because of my upbringing, all because of Brother Hartman.

“After more than 30 years I am still suffering.

“My innocence has been taken by a man of God.”

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

By court reporter Sarah Farnsworth

American Marianist Brother Bernard Hartman will stand trial over allegations he abused four children while a teacher at St Paul’s College in Melbourne more than 30 years ago.

Hartman is facing 18 charges, including indecent assault, act of gross indecency and assault dating back to the 1970s and 1980s

It is alleged Brother Hartman sexually assaulted two girls in their homes after he befriended their families.

He is also alleged to have molested two students at the all boys college.

One of his former students told a committal hearing in the Melbourne Magistrates Court, the biology teacher was a “Jekyll and Hyde type of person.”

The court heard he would regularly molest him and then beat him up.

“He was a bit of a sadist,” the man told the court.

“Mostly every time he abused me sexually, he would finish up physically belting me.

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AUSTRALIA
Broken Rites

By a Broken Rites researcher (updated 18 March 2014)

This Broken Rites article is the most comprehensive account available about how the Catholic Church harboured this child-abuser – Father Gerald Francis Ridsdale – for 30 years while his superiors and fellow-priests remained silent to protect the church’s public image. Gradually some of his victims, encouraged by Broken Rites, have spoken to detectives in the Victoria Police child-protection squad. Ridsdale, who is serving a 20-year sentence, is in court again in 2014 because some more of his victims have recently come forward. He is pleading guilty to these 30 new charges involving offences against 11 boys and three girls between 1961 and 1980. He will be sentenced later in 2014.

This photo helped to expose the cover-up

Broken Rites believes that this photo (below) raises two questions:

1. WHY did Bishop George Pell accompany Father Gerald Ridsdale to court on 27 May 1993 when Ridsdale received his first conviction for child-sex crimes?

2. WHY did no bishop, or even a priest, accompany the victims?

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

Ballarat abuse survivors say the State Government has not moved quickly enough to implement recommendations from a Victorian parliamentary inquiry into responses to child sex abuse.

Last November, the inquiry suggested a range of reforms on child safety, including changes to the criminal law and improvements to child protection standards.

Ballarat abuse survivor Andrew Collins says some victims are becoming impatient waiting for the recommendations to be implemented, saying they want a clearer time line from the Government.

“We need action, people are suffering, people are hurting, we want to make sure action is taken,” he said.

Premier Denis Napthine says the Government is acting on the report.

“We’ve already implemented a number of the other recommendations of the report but a full response will be made in a timely manner,” he said.

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AUSTRALIA
7 News

ABC

BY COURT REPORTER CANDICE MARCUS
March 19, 2014

Budgetary pressures prevented police from extraditing a paedophile school bus driver from Queensland to face court in Adelaide, an inquiry has heard.

Bus driver Brian Perkins sexually abused up to 30 intellectually disabled students in the late 1980s and early 1990s while working at St Ann’s special school.

He was finally extradited to South Australia from Queensland in 2002, more than a decade after his offending was discovered. He died in prison in 2009.

The royal commission into the case heard the police investigation was shut down, and when police later found out Perkins was living in Queensland, it was deemed too expensive to extradite him.

It also heard that the only reason Perkins was eventually extradited in 2002 was because the Archbishop of the Catholic Church in Adelaide met with the police commissioner about the matter.

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AUSTRALIA
The Age

March 19, 2014

Adam Cooper
Reporter for The Age

An American Catholic brother has been committed to stand trial on charges of sexually assaulting two boys and two girls more than 30 years ago.

Bernard Joseph Hartman, 74, who voluntarily returned to Australia from the United States last year after Victorian authorities initiated moves to have him extradited, will stand trial on 14 charges of indecent assault, two counts of gross indecency with a girl under 16 and two of assault.

After hearing more than two days of evidence in a committal hearing, magistrate Jo Metcalf on Wednesday found there was sufficient evidence for Brother Hartman to be found guilty.

Brother Hartman pleaded not guilty to the charges.

He is accused of sexually abusing two teenage boys in 1981 and 1982 while he was a teacher at St Paul’s College in Altona.

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