ABUSE TRACKER

GERMANY
Press TV (Iran)

More than 60 German clerics have been accused of sexually abusing minors and adults between 2000 and 2010, Germany’s Roman Catholic Church says.

According to a study conducted by three German forensic centers for research, at least 66 priests had been charged with 576 cases of sexual abuse of mostly male victims during the ten-year period.

The German Bishops’ Conference released the report on Friday, saying that nearly three-quarters of the 265 alleged targets of sexual misconduct were male.

The study further revealed that most of the priests found guilty of sexually abusing minors were psychologically normal.

The study was launched in April 2011 after hundreds of victims alleged that they had been sexually harassed as minors between the 1950s and 80s, creating a crisis for the church nearly two years ago.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Spiegel

Von Barbara Hans

Die meisten Priester, die sich an Jungen oder Mädchen vergangen haben, sind nicht pädophil. Zu diesem Ergebnis kommt eine Studie der deutschen Bischofskonferenz. Die Autoren haben sexuellen Missbrauch in der Kirche systematisch untersucht.

Hamburg – Die Antworten sind beruhigend und verstörend zugleich. Die meisten Geistlichen, die Mädchen und Jungen missbrauchen, sind weder psychisch krank noch pädophil. Zu diesem Schluss kommt die Studie “Sexuelle Übergriffe durch Geistliche in Deutschland”. Die Autoren haben forensische Gutachten aus den Jahren 2000 bis 2010 ausgewertet. Welche Männer werden zu Tätern? Haben sie eine auffällige Biografie, ein auffälliges Sexualverhalten? In welcher Beziehung stehen sie zu den Opfern?

Die Deutsche Bischofskonferenz hat die Untersuchung bei vier Psychiatern in Auftrag gegeben – dem bekannten Essener Gerichtspsychiater Norbert Leygraf und seinen renommierten Kollegen Hans-Ludwig Kröber, Friedemann Pfäfflin und Andrej König. Die Wissenschaftler werteten Gutachten über Priester und Ordensleute aus, die unter dem Verdacht des sexuellen Missbrauchs vor Gericht standen und psychiatrisch untersucht wurden.

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CHILE
Emol

SANTIAGO.- El Vaticano confirmó la existencia de “conductas abusivas” cometidas por el sacerdote Cristián Precht, en el marco de la investigación canónica llevada a cabo sobre el caso.

Así lo confirmó esta tarde un comunicado emitido esta tarde por el arzobispado de Santiago.

Según la determinación, la Congregación para la Doctrina de la Fe comprobó “las mencionadas conductas abusivas y la conformidad con la petición de derogar la prescripción, en atención a la gravedad de los hechos denunciados”.

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CHILE
La Tercera

Familia que denunció a Cristián Precht: “Esperamos que la Iglesia tome nota y revise su estructura”

por Angélica Baeza Palavecino – 07/12/2012

Luego de conocerse la sentencia de la Congregación para la Doctrina de la Fe, que sostiene que Cristián Precht cometió “conductas abusivas” con mayores y menores de edad, la familia de Patricio Vela Montero, que presentó una denuncia en contra del religioso, envío un comunicado de prensa en el que valoran de cierta forma la respuesta desde el Vaticano.

“Hoy, conociendo la sentencia de culpabilidad del presbítero Precht emitida por el Vaticano, tenemos la esperanza de que esto signifique un paso más decidido y claro hacia la protección de las víctimas de abuso sexual y de poder por parte de sacerdotes católicos”, sostienen.

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CHILE
Santiago Times

Written by Charlotte Karrlsson-Willis

The Vatican suspended Chilean priest Cristián Precht, in reaction to sexual abuse charges brought against him.

The suspension was handed down by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the body of the Vatican charged with defending the Church’s doctrine and morals.

“The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith prohibits Cristían Precht from public exercise of the priestly ministry for a period of five years,” the Vatican decreed in a letter to Santiago’s Archbishop Ricardo Ezzati Andrello.

Precht was first accused of sexual abuse in 2011, and more than 20 victims have since come forward. Ezzati asked for a judgement from the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith “for the sake of people, plaintiffs and the need for justice.”

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UNITED KINGDOM
Manchester Evening News

A Catholic priest has been quizzed by police over allegations he sexually abused a girl from the age of eleven.

Father Tim Hopkins, 44, was interviewed under caution by detectives investigating allegations a girl was molested on three occasions between 2004 and 2007. It is understood he was not arrested.

He has been suspended from his church duties by the Salford diocese as a ‘neutral act’ while the police probe continues.

His parishioners in Denton were informed Fr Hopkins had been temporarily relieved of his duties just before Sunday services at St John Fisher and St Mary’s churches.

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LOS ANGELES (CA)
Los Angeles Times

By Harriet Ryan and Victoria Kim, Los Angeles Times
December 7, 2012, 4:45 p.m.

In its landmark $660-million settlement with victims of sexual abuse five years ago, the Archdiocese of Los Angeles agreed to make public the confidential personnel records of all priests accused of molesting children.

Victims said the release of the files would provide accountability for church leaders who let pedophiles remain in ministry, and law enforcement officials suggested that the documents could lead to criminal cases against those in charge.

After years of delays and legal wrangling, the files are set to become public in coming weeks.

But the documents have been scrubbed of what many regard as the most important information: the identities of the members of the church hierarchy who reshuffled abusers.

The names of the former cardinal, Roger M. Mahony, and the bishops and vicars who handled molestation complaints for him have been redacted by church lawyers at the direction of a retired federal judge managing the files’ release.

In handing down that decision last year, the judge, Dickran Tevrizian, said that the archdiocese had endured enough criticism and that he wanted to prevent the files from being used to “embarrass or to ridicule the Church.” The documents in question include internal memos, Vatican correspondence and psychiatric reports.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Katholisch

Missbrauch | 07.12.2012 – Trier

Was läuft falsch bei Priestern, die Schutzbefohlene sexuell missbrauchen? Gab es Probleme in der sexuellen Entwicklung? Wurden bei der Ausbildung Fehler gemacht? Oder ist die Nähe zwischen Seelsorger und Schutzbefohlenem problematisch? Schwierige Fragen, denen sich Norbert Leygraf, Direktor des Instituts für Forensische Psychiatrie der Universität Essen-Duisburg, gewidmet hat.

Im Auftrag der Deutschen Bischofskonferenz (DBK) hat er die forensischen Profile von Geistlichen ausgewertet, die sich an Kindern und Jugendlichen vergangen haben. Die Profile wurden in den Jahren zwischen 2000 und 2010 erstellt, die Taten lagen meist viel weiter zurück. Die Ergebnisse der Untersuchung wurden am Freitag von Leygraf und Bischof Stephan Ackermann, dem Missbrauchsbeauftragten der DBK, in Trier vorgestellt.

Das wichtigste Resultat: Die wenigsten Priester, deren Profile im Rahmen der Studie ausgewertet wurden, sind pädophil. Leygraf und sein Team haben 78 Profile ausgewertet und sind zu dem Schluss gekommen, dass sich auffällig viele Täter in einer Sinnkrise befanden – sowohl beruflich als auch privat. “Da mag Einsamkeit eine Rolle gespielt haben, das Bedürfnis nach Nähe. Auch Unzufriedenheit mit dem Beruf”, kommentierte Leygraf. Auffällig sei zudem, dass die meisten Vorfälle um das siebte und achte Berufsjahr stattgefunden hätten.

Der Zölibat als Schutz?

Bischof Ackermann zieht daraus den Schluss, dass Strukturen geschaffen werden müssen, um die Priester mit ihren Problemen nicht alleine zu lassen: “Einen Ort oder einen festen Ansprechpartner, wo man das Gefühl hat, willkommen zu sein und sich aussprechen zu können.”

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GERMANY
Reuters

By Tom Heneghan, Religion Editor

PARIS | Fri Dec 7, 2012

PARIS (Reuters)- A German Catholic Church study showed most priests found guilty of sexually abusing minors were psychologically normal, according to survey results presented on Friday.

Only 12 percent of those surveyed were diagnosed as paedophiles, said the report released by Trier Bishop Stephan Ackermann, the church’s spokesman on abuse cases.

Psychological tests commissioned by priests’ dioceses around Germany found only five percent could be classified as ephebophiles – attracted to teenagers, it said.

“There are no significant differences to results found in the general population in Germany,” said Dr Norbert Leygraf, one of the experts reviewing reports on predator priests found out in the past decade.

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CALIFORNIA
The Press-Enterprise

Posted on | December 7, 2012

Long Beach police are not saying what a priest accused of sexual misconduct was doing in San Jacinto when he was arrested in July.

The Long Beach Post reported this week that Luis Jose Cuevas pleaded no contest to a felony count of committing a lewd act on a child and two misdemeanor counts of sexual battery.

Cuevas was a parish priest at St. Athanasius Catholic Church in Long Beach and lived on the grounds of the church for the last seven years. The incidents occurred in Los Angeles County.

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NEVADA
Reno Gazette-Journal

Written by
Jaclyn O’Malley

A defrocked priest who moved to Reno and briefly ran a halfway house for parolees, could be pleading guilty Monday in federal court in Denver related to masturbating on a commercial air flight while viewing pornography on his lap top.

Daniel Drinan is expected to appear for an arraignment Monday on a misdemeanor charge of crimes aboard an airplane for exposing his genitals to crew members of a Southwest Airlines that left the Baltimore-Washington International Airport headed to Denver on Sept. 8.

The hearing could turn into a guilty plea and subsequent sentencing, court documents show. The maximum punishment is 90 days in jail, and a $5,000 fine.

Drinan could not be reached for comment on Friday.

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MISSOURI
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

Posted by Barbara Dorris on December 07, 2012

We’re disturbed by Rev. Stan Archie’s response to allegations that he sexually exploited a church member.

It’s disingenuous to claim that a church investigates its own pastor and that and some other anonymous body allegedly did so too. Why refuse to name the organization that supposedly checked out the accusations? Because Rev. Archie’s denial of sexual misconduct is so vague and is issued through his lawyer, it rings hollow.

It’s also troubling to see a minister attacking his accuser, crying “extortion.” Usually, that’s a sign that a predator is trying to intimidate other victims, witnesses and whistleblowers from stepping forward.

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IRELAND
The Association of Catholic Priests

A meeting took place of Clogher ACP on Wednesday 28th November 2012. Eleven priests attended, seven sent apologies including our Bishop. Following on from our constant concern about the needs of our clergy, our topic for discussion at this meeting was our need for Pastoral Supervision/Reflection

A presentation was made by Fr. Declan Mulligan, a Down and Connor Priest. He spoke of how formal supervision/peer support was very much a part of the secular world. No comparable professional walk of life leaves the requirement for self-care absolutely to its own personnel; how essential it is then for a priest, who has to react to so many different and often challenging situations, to have this support/supervision, for to be human is to be in relationship with other people.

Declan presented supervision/reflection as a means of being accountable to ourselves, to our vocation, to our God. By connecting with our brother Priests we can share similar problems and experiences and receive support and a listening ear. It would be good to belong to a group that I value and that values me. It is of particular benefit to those who work in isolated situations, and can be very restorative.

There was also acknowledgement of some fears about opting into supervision/reflection, motivation, commitment, taking or getting time off, there is also the possibility that the support could remain on the margins of one’s experience, and so no growth in ministry might occur.

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IRELAND/UNITED STATES
The Association of Catholic Priests

Statement of Support for Fr. Roy Bourgeois

The Association of Catholic Priests (Ireland) is saddened and disappointed by the dismissal of Maryknoll priest Fr. Roy Bourgeois from the priesthood and from his religious congregation, and his excommunication from the Church that he has served for almost half a century. We believe that this type of action, ordered by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and implemented by the Maryknoll Order, is unjust, and ultimately counter-productive. Dismissing people because they have sincerely held views that are contrary to those of the Vatican, but which are widely shared by the Catholic faithful, will not end discussion and debate on these topics. In fact it will only serve to highlight the urgent need to face the problems around ministry in the Church. Participants in a year long ‘listening process’ in the diocese of Killaloe, a mainly rural diocese in Ireland, expressed the opinion that the ordination of women should be openly discussed, particularly in view of the projected shortage of priests in the next few years. Surely this is yet another of many examples of the sensus fidelium calling for change so that, in future, the Eucharist can be available to the Church community.

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IRELAND/UNITED STATES
National Catholic Reporter

by Dennis Coday | Dec. 7, 2012

The church reform group that represents about a quarter of Ireland’s Catholic priests issued a statement of support Friday for Roy Bourgeois, the U.S. Maryknoll priest that the Vatican laicization and dismissed from his order because of his support of women’s ordination.

The Association of Catholic Priests (Ireland) called on the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith “to cease this type of abuse, to restore Fr. Bourgeois to the full exercise of his ministry and to allow for open and honest discussion on issues that are of crucial importance for the future of the Church.”

“We believe that this type of action, ordered by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and implemented by the Maryknoll Order, is unjust, and ultimately counter-productive,” reads the statement from the association.

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MISSOURI
Missourian

Friday, December 7, 2012

BY The Associated Press

KANSAS CITY — The president-elect of the Missouri State Board of Education is denying allegations that he had an inappropriate sexual relationship years ago with a former member of his Kansas City church.

In the lawsuit, the woman alleges the Rev. Stan Archie, senior pastor at Christian Fellowship Baptist Church, began a sexual relationship with her while he was counseling her. The lawsuit also names the church, saying officials failed to protect her and hid previous reports of impropriety by Archie.

Archie’s attorney, Michael McCausland, said Archie and the church deny the allegations. He calls the lawsuit “an obvious attempt to extort money.”

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MISSOURI
St. Louis Post-Dispatch

By Jessica Bock jbock@post-dispatch.com 314-340-8228

The president-elect of the Missouri State Board of Education is defending himself against a civil lawsuit that accuses him of an inappropriate sexual relationship years ago with a former assistant and member of his Kansas City church.

The Rev. Stan Archie, who has been on the state board since 2006 and currently serves as vice president, is senior pastor at Christian Fellowship Baptist Church.

The woman, whom a judge allowed to hide her identity and proceed as “Jane Doe” in court documents, filed the lawsuit in January in Jackson County Circuit Court. The suit says Archie abused his position in the church to take advantage of the woman, who was vulnerable and depressed, and begin a sexual relationship as he gave her counseling, according to court documents. It also names his church in the suit, saying officials failed to protect her and others at the church by hiding previous reports of impropriety.

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AUSTRALIA
The Australian

Sid Maher
From:The Australian
December 08, 2012

THE states have agreed to give Julia Gillard’s royal commission into child sexual abuse maximum legal powers to conduct their investigations and have set an 18-month timetable for the inquiry to provide an initial report to the governments.

The Prime Minister said the state premiers were “predisposed” to issue letters patent to bolster the legal powers of the royal commission, declaring terms of reference would be announced before the end of the year.

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VATICAN CITY
Rome Reports

[with video]

December 7, 2012. (Romereports.com) The Pope’s private secretary, Monsignor Georg Gaenswein has two new titles. He’s been named Prefect of the Papal Household and also archbishop.

The dual appointment was carried out because the Prefect of the Papal Household, must also be an archbishop. Up until now, Gaenswein had not held that rank.

Previously the Prefect of the Papal Household was James Harvey. In November he left that post, when the Pope made him a Cardinal and the archpriest of the Basilica of St. Paul Outside the Walls.

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VATICAN CITY
Zee News

Vatican City: Pope Benedict XVI on Friday moved to shore up the papal household in the aftermath of the Vatican’s leaks scandal, naming his trusted secretary to also run the office that organizes his schedule.

German Monsignor Georg Gaenswein replaces American prelate James Harvey, who was recently made a cardinal, as papal household prefect. The prefect arranges the pope’s audiences and other events on his schedule and manages the papal household.

For nearly a decade Gaenswein, 56, was personal secretary to Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, the future Pope Benedict, at the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. He continued in that role after the German became pontiff in 2005. The Vatican said Gaenswein would likely remain on as papal secretary, adding the duties of the household prefect to his existing ones.

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VATICAN CITY
Vatican Information Service

Vatican City, (VIS) – The Holy Father appointed:

– Msgr. Georg Glaswein as prefect of the Pontifical House, at the same time elevating him to the dignity of archbishop. The archbishop-elect was born in Waldshutt, Germany in 1956 and was ordained a priest in 1984. He has served in the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments and in the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, where he held the role of personal secretary to the prefect. He has served as personal secretary to Pope Benedict XVI since his election to the pontificate.

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UNITED KINGDOM
International Business Times

By Dominic Gover

December 3, 2012

Two men in Cornwall have gone on trial accused of a string of child sex offences allegedly carried out during witchcraft rituals in which they dressed in robes and brandished knives.

Peter Petrauske, 72, and Jack Kemp, 69, both deny they abused underage girls during ceremonies over a period of 30 years until 2009. Petrauske, who was said to be high priest of the coven, denies one count of rape.

Truro crown court heard that victims as young as three were plied with alcohol and then stripped naked in front of a group of men who were dressed in robes.

Jason Beal, prosecuting, told the jury that some victims had their hands tied behind their backs during the abuse. Some allegedly had wax poured on to their bodies. Afterwards, they were given sweets in exchange for staying silent.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Western Morning News

An alleged victim of two men charged with sexually abusing her as a child as part of a witches’ coven told a court she did not speak out until recently because she was afraid.

Peter Petrauske, 72, and Jack Kemp, 69, face charges of sexually abusing children during pagan ceremonies from the 1970s onwards.

They are standing trial at Truro Crown Court and deny a series of sexual offences against young girls.

In 2005 a friend of the pair called Stanley Pirie was tried and convicted at the same court of child sex abuse.

One of Pirie’s victims who gave evidence during the trial has since accused Petrauske and Kemp of also sexually abusing her during the same period of her childhood.

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UNITED KINGDOM
The Packet

A murdered councillor with links to Budock and the Lizard Peninsula has been accused of child rape in a sensational turn of events at a trial into alleged sex abuse at pagan ceremonies.

Peter Solheim, who was murdered in 2004, was accused of raping the girl during a harrowing video interview, made by an adult woman during the trial of 72-year-old Peter Petrauske and Jack Kemp, 69.

Petrauske, who at the time of his arrest last December was living at The Beacon, Falmouth has denied raping one girl and three charges of assault.

Kemp, of Grenville Road, Falmouth, has denied aiding and abetting attempted rape and 15 charges of assault.

Giving evidence, a witness in the case has detailed the abuse and rape she allegedly suffered at the hands of men involved in a West Cornwall coven of white witches, during their trial at Truro Crown Court.

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UNITED KINGDOM
West Briton

ALLEGED victims of two Falmouth pensioners have told how they were “destroyed” by a witches’ coven where young girls were abused.

Peter “German Pete” Petrauske and Jack Kemp are on trial accused of a string of abhorrent attacks over three decades on girls between the ages of 3 and 15.

The trial at Truro Crown Court, which is expected to last three weeks, has already heard evidence of wife-swapping and claims that:

murder victim Peter Solheim, a Budock councillor, was involved in the rape of one child, aged 10, who has given a harrowing account of her experience decades later;

one of the alleged victims was also attacked by a friend of the pair, convicted paedophile Stanley Pirie;

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UNITED KINGDOM
Western Morning News

A man accused of being part of a witches’ coven that sexually abused young girls more than 30 years ago has denied he was involved.

Father-of-nine Jack Kemp, 69, is charged along with his friend Peter Petrauske, 72, known as “German Pete” of a series of sex attacks on young girls.

The jury at Truro Crown Court has already heard prosecutors argue the abuse involved people in hooded robes, daggers and chanting at various large houses across west Cornwall.

After Petrauske was arrested, police seized long flowing robes with pendants, books on witchcraft, spells, a black leather whip, a gold and china dagger, black and red eye-masks and a black-handled sword from his house.

Petrauske, of The Beacon, and Kemp, of Grenville Road, both in Falmouth, deny all allegations.

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MISSOURI
Catholic News Agency

By Michelle Bauman

Kansas City, Mo., Dec 7, 2012 / 04:08 am (CNA).- Calls for the resignation of Bishop Robert W. Finn of Kansas City-St. Joseph that have gained media attention are exaggerated and do not depict the real situation in the diocese, according to local Catholics.

Jack Smith, interim director of communications for the diocese, told CNA that a Dec. 2 article by the New York Times was “inaccurate” in suggesting a widespread lack of support for the bishop.

The New York Times said that it had obtained 32 responses from a survey of priests conducted by a consulting firm hired by the diocese and that “half of them seriously doubted whether the bishop should continue as their leader, and several suggested that he resign.”

Smith explained that for some time, the diocese had been planning a capital campaign to build a new high school. However, after the bishop’s trial, they decided to have a consultant, Church Development, conduct a confidential survey to see if the campaign should be delayed.

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AUSTRALIA
The Age

December 8, 2012

Barney Zwartz

BALLARAT Catholic bishop Ronald Mulkearns repeatedly and knowingly moved a paedophile priest around his diocese and overseas, where the predator constantly found new victims, the mother of one victim said yesterday.

Helen Watson’s explosive testimony to the state inquiry into clergy child sex abuse came as the parliamentary committee left Melbourne for the first time and heard from victims in Ballarat, the epicentre of the paedophile plague where up to 50 victims have taken their own lives. One of them was Peter Watson, abused at 15 by Father Paul David Ryan, and dead by his own hand at 24.

Before her evidence, her husband Tim at her side, Mrs Watson told Fairfax: ”For years I was in shock, and I couldn’t be angry at anyone. Now, I have the anger and can be a strong voice for victims. I’ve got fire in my belly this afternoon.”

She told the inquiry that each time his abuse of children in the Ballarat diocese became known, Ryan would be sent to the US, and when allegations surfaced there, he would be sent back to Australia. He was sent to the US seven times, and in 1993 was considered beyond help by a program in Mexico for clergy sex offenders.

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MISSOURI
The New York Times

By ERICA GOODE

Published: December 6, 2012

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — They found her, one leg curled under the other, in the back seat of a van at Longview Lake, a white plastic bag over her head, a purple pillow beside her, an empty pill bottle nearby.

Everyone assumed it was a suicide — the note found in the van seemed to indicate as much: “I did it because I wouldn’t be a real person and what is the point of living if it is too late for that?” it said, and, “Maybe Jesus will still forgive me.”

But in the weeks since the body of Bethany Deaton, a registered nurse who had ties to a charismatic Christian sect here that practices round-the-clock worship, was found, the circumstances of her death have become far less clear.

Three days after Ms. Deaton’s funeral, a 23-year-old man, Micah Moore, walked into the Grandview, Mo., Police Department and confessed to suffocating her.

“I killed her,” he told officers, according to court documents, adding that he had placed the bag over her head and “held it there until her body shook.”

Now, the authorities are investigating allegations that Ms. Deaton, 27, was drugged, sexually assaulted and killed on the orders of her husband, Tyler Deaton, 26, a man described by witnesses as a Pied Piper-like leader who gathered a band of young people around him and pressured them to engage in sexual practices under the guise of religious devotion. Mr. Moore has been charged with first-degree murder. Mr. Deaton and others are still under investigation.

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NEW YORK
New York Post

Satmar Hasidim — they’re just like everybody else!

New Yorkers got a look inside the insular culture of ultra-Orthodox Brooklyn this week thanks to the sexual-abuse trial of a prominent Hasidic leader in Williamsburg.

Despite all the outward oddities of the man on trial — his black suit, untrimmed beard and lengthy side-curls — it turns out he’s right smack in the mainstream of secular political life in New York.

He has a not-for-profit cash cow, too.

Nechemya Weberman, an unlicensed counselor accused of sexually abusing a 12-year-old girl in his care, testified Wednesday that he ripped off a charity he founded ostensibly to help poor Brooklynites.

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NEW YORK
New York Daily News

Joanna Molloy

If Nechemya Weberman had a guilty look in his eyes, the jurors never saw it. He didn’t look at them once as the prosecutor gave graphic details Thursday of the 88 counts of sexual torment he allegedly wrought upon a teenage girl he was paid to help.

If the jury finds Weberman guilty — now that lawyers have wrapped their case — the leaders of the insular Satmar Hasidic sect to which he belongs must ask themselves the same questions that dogged the Catholic Church in the wake of its own pedophilia scandals.

They must ask, did we enable him? Do our methods of reigning in rebellious young girls run counter to American law? Do we deny these girls freedoms they are entitled to, treating them as prisoners despite more than a century of hard-fought victories by women’s rights activists?

Instead, it seems this Williamsburg-based sect is operating under its own rules, some of which run counter to the law.

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CANADA
Cape Breton Post

SYDNEY — It is an event that 68-year-old Cecil Condo views with some trepidation
Topics : Truth and Reconciliation Commission , Canada , New Brunswick , Nova Scotia

On Saturday, he and 17 other survivors of Canada’s residential schools will lead a community procession in Waycobah to unveil a special monument and exhibit dedicated to survivors. The event is scheduled to begin at 2:30 p.m.

“My emotions are running wild thinking about it. I will be reminded of it every time I pass by the monument,” Condo said in an interview Thursday.

But Condo has resigned himself to knowing that, monument or not, the memory of those years will never fade as he and others move forward, having survived one of the darkest chapters in Canadian history.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC – 7.30

[with video]

Australian Broadcasting Corporation
Broadcast: 06/12/2012

Reporter: Chris Uhlmann

Provincial of the St John of God order, Brother Timothy Graham, joins 7.30 to address claims of abuse cover-ups levelled by a former nun of the order.

Transcript
CHRIS UHLMANN, PRESENTER: A short time ago I spoke with the Australian head of the Brothers of St John of God.

Brother Timothy Graham, welcome.

TIMOTHY GRAHAM, BROTHERS OF ST JOHN OF GOD: Thank you, Chris.

CHRIS UHLMANN: Can you imagine a worse crime that could be committed before the law or before your god than to sexually abuse an intellectually disabled child?

TIMOTHY GRAHAM: Absolutely not. I mean, …

CHRIS UHLMANN: And yet members of your order did that.

TIMOTHY GRAHAM: And I think we’re on the public record in the media over 20 years acknowledging that.

CHRIS UHLMANN: When did the order first become aware of the fact that it was taking place?

TIMOTHY GRAHAM: Complaints first started coming to us in about 1992.

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WYOMING
County 10

By Joshua Scheer, reporter, county10.com

(Lander, Wyo.) – Lander Police Chief Jim Carey said the investigation into former Wyoming Catholic College Chaplain Father Stuart MacDonald has concluded and no criminal acts were found.

“No criminal charges will be filed,” Carey said Thursday morning, later adding, “Our case is now closed.”

After conducting interviews and gathering information, he said LPD found no crimes.

“We’re confident no criminal acts were committed,” Carey said.

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WYOMING
KUGR

Wyoming Catholic College officials say the Lander school’s chaplain has been fired amid allegations of improper conduct with students. School spokesman Matthew Brasmer says the chaplain was dismissed effective Nov. 19. The termination follows an internal investigation by the college, which revealed conduct and a pattern of behavior Brasmer called unacceptable as a Catholic college chaplain.

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WYOMING
KUGR

Lander Police Chief Jim Carey says there will be no criminal charges filed against a former Wyoming Catholic College chaplain fired amid allegations of improper conduct with students. Carey says that he’s confident no criminal acts were committed and the case is considered closed.

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AUSTRALIA
The Courier

By TOM MCILROY
Dec. 7, 2012

BALLARAT’S Centre Against Sexual Assault has seen a significant increase in reporting by victims since the establishment of the Victorian parliamentary inquiry into clergy sexual abuse.

Senior counsellor Andrea Lockhart said Ballarat CASA had established special operating protocols to accommodate the increased reporting, which she said came as a result of media reports and community engagement.

“We have been prioritising victims of abuse who are making contact with us as a result of the Victorian inquiry, as it can be very difficult for those people to wait after they have made the first contact,” she said.

“Those people are seen almost immediately because we are aware of the sensitivity of this issue in the Ballarat region. We offer them the opportunity to talking about their experiences at their own pace, and allow them to remain in control of that process.”

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AUSTRALIA
The Age

December 7, 2012

Barney Zwartz

It was “another Eureka stockade moment, a massive day” for Ballarat on Friday as the state inquiry into child sex abuse came to town, one of the worst epicentres for paedophile activity by Catholic clergy, according to survivors spokesman Peter Blenkiron.

“But instead of being about gold and greed and licences, it’s about the greed of the Vatican protecting their gold-lined vaults. Rifles were used at the stockade, but we are using truth to fire the bullets.”

Today is the first time the parliamentary inquiry into how the churches handled sex abuse has left Melbourne, but there will be more regional visits, including a return to Ballarat next year.

Up to 50 child victims of clergy abuse in the Ballarat diocese have committed suicide.

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OREGON
Corvallis Gazette-Times

By CANDA FUQUA, Corvallis Gazette-Times

A Corvallis church is coming to grips with being named as a defendant in a $5 million sexual abuse lawsuit.

Portland law firm O’Donnell Clark & Crew filed suit in Benton County Circuit Court on Tuesday, claiming that the Boy Scouts of America and the host of Troop 2 in Corvallis, the First United Methodist Church, did not install proper safeguards or take precautions that could have prevented alleged abuse between a Scout leader and an 11-year-old boy.

The lawsuit alleges that former Scout leader, James “JJ” Jones, abused the firm’s client, referred to in documents by the pseudonym “Henry Doe,” about 50 times over the course of roughly one year starting in September 1984.

According to the complaint, the sexual abuse took place in the leader’s Scouting office at the church, on camping and hiking trips with the Scouts, at Jones’ home and other locations.

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MILWAUKEE (WI)
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

By Annysa Johnson of the Journal Sentinel

Dec. 6, 2012

The Catholic Archdiocese of Milwaukee’s 200-plus parishes are separate legal entities and their assets will not be consolidated with the archdiocese’s as part of its bankruptcy, U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Susan V. Kelley ruled Thursday in a major victory for the church.

But the parishes could still face separate lawsuits over more than $35 million in parish investment funds that the archdiocese moved off its books in 2005.

Kelley could decide as early as Friday whether to allow the bankruptcy creditors – including hundreds of sexual abuse victims, the archdiocese’s pension and health care funds, and others – to sue to recover at least a portion of those millions.

Attorneys for the creditors argued in a Thursday hearing that the archdiocese fraudulently transferred the money to shield it from sex abuse claims.

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AUSTRALIA
Sky News

Updated: 09:07, Friday December 7, 2012

Victoria’s parliamentary inquiry into sexual abuse by church members will hear evidence in Ballarat, the centre of some of the worst offending.

At least 40 former students of pedophile Christian Brothers Robert Best, Edward Dowlan, Stephen Farrell and priest Gerald Ridsdale at St Alipius Primary School in Ballarat have taken their lives and countless more are still scarred by the abuse they suffered as schoolboys four decades ago.

The conviction and 14-year sentence given to Best last year helped trigger the Victorian parliamentary inquiry, which on Friday will hear evidence in the central Victorian city for the first time.

Individual survivors of abuse will give evidence, while one man’s testament will be heard behind closed doors.

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HOUSTON (TX)
KHOU

HOUSTON – A Houston man accused of sexually abusing his ex-girlfriend’s young daughter over a four-year period once worked for CPS and as a minister.

Alexander Adams Jackson, 50, is charged with indecency with a child.

KHOU 11 News has learned that Jackson worked for CPS from 2008 to 2011 as a foster parent recruiter. He went to church congregations to recruit and train couples to become foster parents.

CPS said Jackson did not have contact with children during his time as a foster parent recruiter. But they are now looking further into his employment history.

We’ve also learned that Jackson once served as a minister at a small church in Galveston. The church rented a small chapel at the time, but is apparently no longer active.

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AUSTRALIA
Courier Mail

By Genevieve Gannon
From: AAP
December 07, 2012

A WOMAN whose son killed himself after allegedly being abused by a pedophile priest says powerful men in the Catholic Church should be charged for concealing the crimes of clergy.

Helen Watson has told an inquiry that Catholic leaders, including former Ballarat bishop Ronald Mulkearns, moved Father Paul David Ryan from parish to parish, as well as to America, where he “continually sexually abused innocent young males”, to save the reputation of the church.

She also voiced fears that gaps in the law meant her son’s alleged tormentor, who spent 12 months in jail on child sex offences after being charged in 2006, will never be tried for the crime because her son is dead.

“Bishop Mulkearns sent a known sex offender to Ararat where he sexually abused my son,” Mrs Watson told the Victorian parliamentary inquiry into child abuse inquiry in Ballarat on Friday.

“This abuse ultimately led to his death.”

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AUSTRALIA
7 News

ABC
December 7, 2012

The Catholic Church has been described as having a medieval mindset at the Victorian inquiry into sexual abuse by religious and other organisations.

The first hearing of the inquiry outside Melbourne was held today in Ballarat.

Local Catholic Carmel Moloney told the committee she was part of a support group for victims and their family members.

She described the parents and siblings of victims as secondary victims who had their sacrifice, loving care and nurturing trashed by perpetrators of abuse, and victims have to be protected throughout their lives.

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MISSISSIPPI
WTVA

SENATOBIA, Miss. (AP) — A 71-year-old Mississippi pastor remains in jail on a $1 million bond after he was arrested on charges of sexual battery of a child. He is accused of having sex with a boy who is now 18.

The Commercial Appeal reports Larry Singleton, pastor of Bay Springs Baptist Church in Abbeville, Miss., was arrested by investigators with the Tate County Sheriff’s Department Monday after they received a complaint days earlier from the victim, who accused Singleton of forcing him to have sex.

Sheriff Brad Lance said the sexual abuse allegedly began when the victim was 11 years old and continued for several years.

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BALTIMORE (MD)
The Baltimore Sun

December 06, 2012

Elizabeth Ann Murphy

Regarding Baltimore Archdiocese Vice-Chancellor Sean Caine’s recent letter justifying the church’s response to allegations of child sexual abuse, I am glad that in 1993 Maryland’s attorney general made it clear that all abuse cases should be reported (“Archdiocese acted responsibly,” Dec. 2). So much for the Catholic Church being a moral leader.

When I returned to the archdiocese in 1993 to again report the abuse I had suffered, it was through Fr. William Mannion. At that point I had been in touch with 17 other victims of John Merzbacher.

I was never contacted directly by the diocese. Instead I was sent a message from the diocese through Fr. Mannion: “The diocese is going to contact the police and give them your name only.” Eventually I and the other victims reached out to an attorney, who contacted the Baltimore City police. They reported the crimes to the state’s attorney’s office.

The archdiocese knew full well of my fear of contacting the police on my own after the death threats I had received at gunpoint from Mr. Merzbacher. Nor did the diocese contact any other former Catholic Community Middle School students during this time.

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AUSTRALIA
The Courier

By TOM MCILROY @TomMcIlroy
Dec. 7, 2012

MORE than seven months after it was established, Victoria’s parliamentary inquiry into child sexual abuse by members of religious organisations will hold its first regional hearings in Ballarat today.

Witnesses will tell the inquiry of the tragic legacy of abuse by Catholic priests and brothers in the Ballarat region as well instances of mishandled allegations which saw one priest offend against further victims in the United States.

Calls for an official inquiry grew too loud to be ignored after an internal Victoria Police report was leaked in April, linking as many as 40 suicides in Ballarat to abuse by Catholic clergy.

Witness Helen Watson will tell the inquiry that a Catholic priest who abused her son Peter in the early 1990s was moved around the Diocese of Ballarat before he abused children in the United States.

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AUSTRALIA
Courier Mail

A VICTIM of a paedophile priest who was “bullied” into accepting meagre compensation has told a parliamentary inquiry into church abuse that all cases of payouts should be reviewed by an independent authority.

As the inquiry headed by state MPs visits Ballarat where a “paedophile cluster” operated in the 1970s, a victims’ group has also called for a card scheme to be introduced so the Catholic Church can foot the bill for ongoing costs and distress.

Speaking at the inquiry this morning Philip Nagle, who was sexually assaulted by clergyman Stephen Francis Farrell at a Ballarat primary school as a nine-year-old in 1974, said the Catholic Church had coerced him and his family into signing release papers.

“We felt like we had no other choice,” he said.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC – PM

[with audio]

The Victorian Parliamentary Inquiry into the handling of the Sexual Abuse of Children has heard evidence in Ballarat where several paedophile priests have served. Victims and their families and supporters have told the inquiry that bishops were aware some priests were prone to abusing children but simply moved them to different parishes.

Samantha Donovan

Transcript

MARK COLVIN: Victoria’s inquiry into the handling of child sexual abuse has heard more harrowing stories of clerical abuse today.

For the first time, the inquiry sat outside Melbourne in the Victorian town of Ballarat.

Police are investigating whether dozens of suicides in the town can be directly linked to abuse suffered at the hands of Catholic clergy.

Samantha Donovan reports.

SAMANTHA DONOVAN: The Victorian town of Ballarat gained fame as a booming gold rush town in the 1850s. But now it’s also notorious as having been home to several paedophile priests.

One abuse victim, Philip Nagle, gave evidence at today’s inquiry.

PHILIP NAGLE: Ballarat’s St Alipius Primary School in Victoria Street was certainly not the place to be if you were a Catholic boy going to school in the 1970s.

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MILWAUKEE (WI)
WTAQ

MILWAUKEE (WSAU) Over 200 Catholic parishes in southeast Wisconsin breathed a huge sigh of relief yesterday. Federal Bankruptcy Judge Susan Kelley said the parishes will not put all of their assets at risk, as she decides how much the Milwaukee Archdiocese must pay to sex abuse victims and other creditors in its nearly two-year-old bankruptcy case.

Kelley ruled that the parishes are their own legal entities – but they’re not out of the woods just yet. The parishes could still be sued, as the creditors try to obtain $35-million the local churches obtained from the archdiocese in 2005. The creditors say the archdiocese committed fraud by taking the money off its books, to reduce its future legal liabilities related to the nationwide sex abuse scandal by Catholic priests. Archdiocese attorney Frank LoCoco calls the creditors’ allegation “ridiculous.”

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NEW YORK
The Jewish Week

12/06/12

Young woman’s testimony reveals tactics of freelance ‘purity’ guardians in Satmar community

Hella Winston
Special To The Jewish Week

For more than a week, spectators and members of the press have been packing the Brooklyn courtroom where a prominent chasidic man is on trial for sexually abusing a girl from the Satmar community who was sent to him for counseling. The case is noteworthy for a number of reasons, chief among them the fact that the young woman pressed charges in the first place.

Indeed, ever since she reported the abuse, the alleged victim of Nechemya Weberman — an unlicensed “therapist” to whom, testimony has indicated, Satmar schools referred “wayward” girls for “help” — has been subjected to intense pressure to withdraw her claim, including intimidation, harassment, social ostracism of her family and even a reported $500,000 bribe. Last spring, members of the Satmar community held a lavish fundraiser for Weberman’s defense. Not long after, four men were arrested and charged with witness tampering in connection with the case. And last Thursday, four chasidic men were arrested for taking the young woman’s picture — which was then posted online — as she testified in the courtroom.

The case is also significant for the amount of public support the alleged victim has received, if not necessarily from mainstream members of her community then from her family, close friends and advocates, many of whom have used social media to spread the word about the trial and appeared in court. After all, it was only three years ago that the late judge Gustin Reichbach issued a stinging critique of the religious community from the bench, noting at his sentencing of a bar mitzvah tutor convicted of molesting two of his students “a communal attitude that seems to impose greater opprobrium on the victims than the perpetrator.”

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NEW YORK
Jewish Chronicle

By Anna Sheinman, December 6, 2012

A prominent figure on the modesty committee of Brooklyn’s Chasidic Satmar community is standing trial accused of 88 counts of sexual abuse of a young girl, which included forcing her to watch and re-enact pornography.

The alleged victim, then aged 12, had been sent to 54-year-old Nechemya Weberman for counselling by her religious school because she was deemed rebellious, the New York Daily News has reported.

The girl’s mother told a Brooklyn court this week that she was forced to pay $12,800 for counselling sessions for her daughter who read magazines such as People and Cosmopolitan, wore tights that were not deemed thick enough and asked her teachers searching questions about religion.

The now 17-year-old girl said on the stand this week that in these sessions she was forced to watch pornography and then “copy what was in the porn”.

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NEW YORK
WABC

N.J. Burkett

NEW YORK (WABC) — Closing arguments were made Thursday in the trial of a well-known ultra orthodox member of the Jewish community in Brooklyn, accused of sexually assaulting a teenage girl he was supposedly counseling.

The jury could get the case Friday.

Nechemya Weberman left the courthouse with his wife and one of his 10 children on what could be his last night of freedom.

His attorneys insist that Weberman is being framed by a young girl who despises ultra-orthodox Judaism.

“She came to hate her community and she hated her religion,” Defense attorney Stacey Richman told the jury, “This is her opportunity to say, ‘I hate this.'”

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NEW YORK
Gothamist

In the latest round of testimonies at the trial of Nechemya Weberman—the ultra-Orthodox Jewish counselor accused of sexually abusing a teen girl in Brooklyn for years—Weberman himself took the stand. He was adamant that he “never ever” inappropriately touched the alleged victim, who saw him for counseling multiple times a week for a three year period starting when she was 12. But he did admit to defrauding his own charity.

Weberman admitted on the stand to using money from his nonprofit organization, B’lev V’Nefesh, to pay for his own child’s tuition at the United Talmudical Academy in Williamsburg, the same school which insisted to the victim’s parents that the teen meet with Weberman for counseling or else leave the school. “So you’re getting a salary and paying your children’s tuition?” asked Assistant District Attorney Kevin O’Donnell. “I did if I needed to,” Weberman replied. Weberman, who called himself a “rabbinical counselor” despite no training, said the non-profit was used to raise money for those who can’t afford his services.

But prosecutors brought up the fact that financial records show that the charity’s credit cards were used at BMG Corset & Lingerie, The Lingerie Shop and other undergarment stores. “Me, myself, I’m not aware of this,” Weberman claimed. “This is the first time I heard about it.” Weberman also described his first meeting with the teen: “She said, ‘Why should I trust you? Why should I talk to you? You look like a Hasidic f–k. You look like my father,’ ” Weberman testified.

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NEW YORK
CBS New York

NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) – The defense and prosecutors offered their closing arguments Thursday in the sex abuse trial of prominent Brooklyn ultra Orthodox leader Nechemya Weberman.

Weberman, 54, smiled as he left the courthouse with his wife on Thursday, seeming upbeat. But it could be his last night as a free man, CBS 2′s Sean Hennessey reported.

The jury will soon decide if Weberman used his Brooklyn home office as the place where he sexually abused a young girl he was counseling.

But with no physical or forensic evidence, the panel must decide whether to believe the rabbinical counselor or a teen girl who testified that she was abused for three years.

“From the time she was 12, he began sexually abusing her,” prosecutors said during closing arguments. They also alleged Weberman “wanted his sexual needs satisfied and he made her comply.”

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NEW YORK
New York Post

By JOSH SAUL
Last Updated: 7:50 PM, December 6, 2012

Prosecutors say he was a feared power broker in the most insular of Orthodox Jewish sects in Brooklyn who thought he could get away with anything — including the alleged sexual abuse of a 12 year old girl.

That’s the argument an impassioned assistant district attorney made to jurors today as the nearly two-week-long sex abuse trial of Hasidic counselor Nechemya Weberman drew to a close.

“What happens in the defendant’s office stays in the defendant’s office,” prosecutor Linda Weinman said, referring to the secrecy surrounding the small room where Weberman, 54, allegedly forced himself on the girl — and where he also admittedly hosted other pretty young Satmar women.

Prosecutors argued the now 18-year-old alleged victim was terrified to report the three years of abuse because of Weberman’s exalted status in the cloistered Satmar sect in Williamsburg.

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WISCONSIN
SNAP Wisconsin

Archdiocese reveals there are 120,000 pages of clergy sex abuse related documents under court review

Statement by Peter Isely, SNAP Midwest Director
CONTACT 414.429.7259

In a startling admission today in Federal Bankruptcy Court, Frank LoCoco, a lawyer representing the Archdiocese of Milwaukee conceded that at least 120,000 pages of abuse and financial related church documents have been turned over to the Creditors Committee and the Court. That’s 60,000 more than previously reported. Most of these documents are still under court seal because the Archdiocese, while claiming transparency, refuses to release these documents to Catholics or the public and are fighting motions by victim/survivors and Creditors to immediately release them.

Why are these documents so important for the protection of children? Because they detail decades of child sex crimes by scores of clergy and others working in the Archdiocese of Milwaukee. Many of these documents, including the 570 direct victim reports filed into the court, concern an institutional pattern and practice of fraudulently concealing and transferring known child sex offenders. According to attorneys representing 350 of these victims, there are at least 100 never before identified child sex offenders whose identities are contained in sealed court documents, 70 of whom are priests. Many are likely to be religious order clerics, such as Franciscans and Jesuits, others are clergy who might today be working in parishes and schools.

When you build a management structure of an organization to enable and then hide criminal acts, there are bound to be financial consequences, including fraud, which is what has brought the archdiocese to Federal Court in the first place.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

Victims of sexual abuse by the clergy and the Catholic Church hierarchy have gathered in Newcastle’s cathedral complex to acknowledge a family’s suffering after their son was raped by a priest.

Daniel Feenan, who was abused by a Hunter Valley priest, was there for the launch of his mother Pat’s book, Holy Hell.

The book documents the Feenan family’s rejection by fellow Catholics when they went to the police and how the priest was “tipped off” that he was under investigation.

Pat Feenan says she chose the cathedral complex for Thursday evening’s launch for maximum impact.

“I thought this is an appropriate place to launch it it’s the centre of the Catholic Church,” she said.

Ms Feenan received a standing ovation from around 200 supporters.

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CALIFORNIA
Patch

By Gina Tenorio

A priest arrested in July on sexual assault charges has pleaded no contest to three sex-related charges involving a 17 year-old girl and two women.

Luis Jose Cuevas, 68, was arrested in July at a home in San Jacinto, according to the Long Beach Post. Before his arrest, he had been living on the grounds of St. Athanasius Catholic Church in Long Beach, the paper reported.

He has reportedly entered his plea Tuesday. He was facing one felony count of committing a lewd act on a child and two misdemeanor sexual battery charges.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC – AM

[with audio]

Last night in Newcastle 36 year old Daniel Feenan spoke publicly for the first time about how he was raped as an altar boy by a Catholic priest and trusted family friend. The launch was held in the Newcastle cathedral complex, with victims of sexual abuse sitting side by side with the policeman who triggered a Royal Commission and the Newcastle’s bishop.

Philippa McDonald

Transcript

TONY EASTLEY: Last night in Newcastle 36 year old Daniel Feenan spoke publicly for the first time about how he was abused as a child at the hands of a Catholic priest and trusted family friend.

Daniel Feenan’s mother Pat Feenan has documented how her son was raped as an altar boy and how the entire family was betrayed by the church that was central to their faith.

What made last night’s launch more exceptional was that it was held in the Newcastle cathedral complex and victims of sexual abuse, as well as the policeman who triggered a royal commission and Newcastle’s bishop all sat side by side to acknowledge the Feenan family’s suffering.

Daniel Feenan spoke to the ABC’s Philippa McDonald.

DANIEL FEENAN: The last 10, 20 years have been a struggle. There is no doubt about that. Life is getting better but there is still the memories and the disappointment of where I am in life at the moment, I guess, to where I could have been.

I have three beautiful children and I have a very strong woman in my life as well but it is looking back and the realisation of actually what did happen. And in the last two to three weeks with everything that has been evolving, I guess smiling and thinking ‘No I did do the right thing at the end of the day’.

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CHILE
Publimetro

La magistrada del Séptimo Juzgado Civil de Santiago, Jenny Book se declaró incompetente para instruir la acción civil interpuesta por tres de los querellantes en contra del sacerdote Fernando Karadima para conseguir una indemnización de la Iglesia Católica por encubrir los abusos sexuales del ex párroco de El Bosque.

La jueza Book cita las exigencias que el Código Orgánico de Tribunales impone cuando el libelo es en contra del Arzobispo de Santiago, Ricardo Ezatti, representante legal de la Iglesia Católica capitalina.

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TENNESSEE
News Channel 5

Posted: Dec 03, 2012

NASHVILLE, Tenn.- Weeks after one plaintiff dropped his complaint against Mt. Zion Baptist Church, word has come that the one remaining case will be dismissed.

Early in 2012 former church member Valencia Batson filed a civil lawsuit accusing church leaders of sexual exploitation, battery and harassment. Later in the year another former member, Corey Corbin filed a similar lawsuit.

In his case, Corbin said he and his now ex-wife had sought marital counseling from Walker. Corbin alleges Walker started a sexual relationship with Corbin’s wife and ruined his marriage. In November Corey Corbin decided to drop his complaint against Mount Zion Baptist Church and its pastor, Bishop Joseph Walker.

During church service Sunday, Bishop Walker announced that the remaining lawsuit would be dropped.

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TENNESSEE
The Tennessean

Mt. Zion Baptist Bishop Joseph Walker faces amended sex lawsuit with more details

Written by
Bob Smietana
The Tennessean

On Sunday, Bishop Joseph Walker told members of his congregation at Mt. Zion Baptist Church that if they waited and had faith, God would deliver them from their troubles.

On Monday, Walker learned he might have to wait longer for his own to be over.

Two former church members sued Walker earlier this year, accusing him of using his authority to engage in sexual misconduct. One lawsuit was dismissed in November, and the attorney for the other plaintiff filed court documents to withdraw that suit.

But the attorney for former church member Valencia Batson filed an amended lawsuit Monday that includes intimate details of her alleged sexual relationship with Walker, as well as accusations of financial misdeeds at the church.

“This is not over,” said Connie Allison, Batson’s attorney. “It is not going away.”

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TENNESSEE
Christian Post

By Audrey Barrick, Christian Post Reporter

December 6, 2012

Bishop Joseph Walker was hit with an amended lawsuit Monday by a former church member who is accusing the charismatic preacher of sexual abuse.

Valencia Batson’s earlier lawsuit against Walker, pastor of Mt. Zion Baptist Church of Nashville, was essentially dropped after her attorney filed a voluntary nonsuit in November. But her attorney filed a new complaint this week, going into more detail about the alleged abuse.

“Plaintiff Batson was so severely damaged by the sexual assaults by her spiritual leaders that she developed PTSD (Post-traumatic stress disorder) and other debilitating conditions such that she was unable to take action within any usually applicable statutes of limitations,” the complaint reads.

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.

MALTA
Malta Today

Karl Stagno-Navarra

Just days after two former priests were sent to jail for their role in abuse on a number of victims at St. Jospeh’s Home in Hamrun, 12 victims have filed for financial compensation from the Archbishop’s Curia, the two priests who were jailed and the Missionary Order of St. Paul (MSSP).

The victims have called for a meeting to be held within a week in order to quantify the damages.

In their letter, victims Lawrence Grech, Joseph Magro, Leonard Camilleri, Jason Camilleri, David Cassar, Noel Dimech, Angelo Spiteri, Raymond Azzopardi, Charles Falzon, Oliver Goodram, Paul Cauchi and Joseph Mangion, claimed that the authorities knew that the people who were supposed to be looking after them were abusing them, but did nothing to stop it.

Defrocked priests Godwin Scerri and Carmel Pulis were left to keep their positions at the home, holding absolute control over their victims.

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.

MALTA
Times of Malta

The victims of sexual abuse by two former priests this morning filed an official letter demanding compensation.

The letter, from victims Lawrence Grech, Joseph Magro, Leonard Camilleri, Jason Camilleri, David Cassar, Noel Dimech, Angelo Spiteri, Raymond Azzopardi, Charles Falzon, Oliver Goodram, Paul Cauchi and Joseph Mangion was addressed to abusers Carmelo Pulis and Godwin Scerri, the Missionary Society of St Paul, the Archdiocese of Malta, the Prime Minister, the Education and Family ministers and the Attorney General.

In their letter, the victims claimed that the authorities knew that the people who were supposed to be looking after them were abusing them but did not do anything to stop what was happening. Mr Scerri and Mr Pulis were kept in a position in which they had absolute control over their victims.

The victims said they suffered damages because they could not lead a normal life.

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
The Kansas City Star

By JUDY L. THOMAS
The Kansas City Star

Another lawsuit alleging sexual abuse against a Kansas City priest has been dismissed. And like a similar lawsuit that was dismissed in October, the suit was dropped by the plaintiff in order to appeal a judge’s decision in the case.

Rebecca Randles, the attorney for David Tate — who filed the lawsuit in July 2011 against the Rev. Michael Tierney, Bishop Robert Finn and the Diocese of Kansas City St. Joseph — said the case would be re-filed after the appeal is resolved.

At issue is the judge’s dismissal of the diocese from the lawsuit. Jackson County Circuit Judge Peggy Stevens McGraw dismissed the diocese in April, finding that it only would be liable if Tierney had been engaged in activities within the scope of a priest’s employment. In doing so, Randles said, the judge was strictly interpreting some case law that has held that a diocese could not be considered liable if the alleged abuse occurred off church grounds.

The lawsuit, filed in Jackson County Circuit Court, accused Tierney of sexually abusing Tate at the home of Tierney’s mother and at a hotel swimming pool in Kansas City in the early 1970s when Tate was about 12 years old. It said the diocese knew of Tierney’s misconduct with children and covered it up.

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

MISSISSIPPI
WREG

[with video]

December 4, 2012, by Dennis Turner

(Senatobia, MS) ”Pastor Singleton, did you have an inappropriate relationship with that young man?” Seventy-one year-old Larry Singleton kept his head down and remained silent as he entered Tate County Justice Court Tuesday.

His arrest Monday night came after an 18-year-old man came to Deputies, saying he’d been forced into having sex with the man.

Investigators wouldn’t say how long it had gone one.

”That’s part of the investigation, is trying to determine exactly for how long it was going on, but it began when the man was 11-years-old, ” said Tate County Sheriff Brad Lance.

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VATICAN CITY
National Catholic Reporter

by John L. Allen Jr. | Dec. 6, 2012

ROME — Famously, the behavior of bureaucracies is often driven as much by compromise, by an effort to balance competing agenda, as by strict logic. It’s a rule of thumb that certainly applies to the Catholic church, and there’s probably no better recent example than the Vatican’s decision to strip Austrian Fr. Helmut Schüller of his title as “monsignor.”

It’s a rap on the knuckles obviously intended to make a statement, and yet no one in authority seems to want to say out loud quite what that statement is.

Beyond confirming that it happened, senior Vatican spokespersons have directed inquiries about the move to the Vienna archdiocese. Meanwhile, Michael Prüller, a spokesperson for Vienna’s Cardinal Christoph Schönborn, has told reporters that the decision “was made in Rome” and “has nothing to do with us.”

The result is that while the world knows Schüller is no longer a monsignor, there’s no official explanation as to why.

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UNITED STATES
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

Posted by David Clohessy on December 06, 2012

Watch closely the language that Catholic officials use when they try to distance themselves from accused clerics.

Bishops recruit, educate, train, ordain, hire, supervise, and often transfer and protect predator priests. But once allegations surface, top church staff often pretend they’ve never even met the accused. In many church notices, he was “Fr. Smith” on Tuesday, but suddenly, on Wednesday, became “Smith” or “Mr. Smith” the minute child sex abuse allegations arose.

It almost always takes years for the Catholic hierarchy to defrock a priest. So when one goes from being Fr. Jones to Mr. Jones in a matter of hours, it’s just a public relations maneuver.

Independent statistics are hard to come by, but we’re pretty convinced that the overwhelming majority of pedophile priests – even many of those who are convicted and imprisoned – are never defrocked.

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

UNITED STATES
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

Posted by David Clohessy on December 06, 2012

The priest always seems to land on his feet. He pled guilty to child sex crimes. Still, he was hired to work for the archdiocese.

And he was allowed to live in Cardinal Francis George’s Gold Coast mansion.

When a newspaper disclosed this, George pledged that the priest would leave Chicago.

Then, in 2008, the priest was again discovered quietly working in the archdiocese.

And now, the he has won a legal decision to keep his personnel records secret.

He is Fr. Kenneth J. Martin. Originally from Delaware, Martin pled guilty in 2001 to molesting a boy “for two and a half years, at least once a week,” according to a prosecutor. He was sentenced to probation.

Still, according to the Associated Press, this week Delaware Judge Christopher Sontchi issued a one-page order that Martin’s employment files would not be made public. The decision came “almost six months after hearing arguments behind closed doors and barring reporters from the courtroom,” the AP wrote.

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

CALIFORNIA
Santa Barbara Independent

Thursday, December 6, 2012

By Barney Brantingham

MOLESTED SCOUT: Tayln Lang, now 38, couldn’t understand why he kept losing job after job, year after year. Finally, determined to get to the root of the problem, “I took a long, hard look at my life and realized that it was due to a loss of self-worth,” the result of being molested by a Boy Scout leader, Lang told me Monday.

The sexual abuse he suffered from the age of 13 to 16, and its psychological effects, were inflicted by “a controlling, domineering, dominating” man with a wife and four children, Lang told me. Lang has just won a confidential settlement from the Boy Scouts of America (BSA) and the Mormon church, which sponsored Troop 275 in Oxnard.

The settlement not only brought a measure of closure and healing, Lang said, “but the most important thing is to ensure that this doesn’t happen to any other young man and is brought to light.” According to his lawsuit, filed in 2010, he was molested by Mark Gum, first in Oxnard and later in Butte County. Although Gum is named in the suit, his whereabouts are unknown, according to Santa Barbara attorney Tim Hale, who filed the suit.

Gum, according to the suit, took advantage of the fact that Lang was vulnerable because of his unhappy home life in a dysfunctional family and created “an overwhelming emotional dependency that rendered plaintiff desperate for the perpetrator’s attention, approval, and affection.” Gum “made plaintiff his sex toy,” according to the suit. The Scouts and the Mormon church (also known as the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, or LDS) knew or should have known that Gum presented a risk, the suit said.

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

AUSTRALIA
ABC Sydney – Mornings with Jill Emberson

How do you reconcile the implication of sexual abuse occurring within your religious organization with your personal belief in God?

Jill was joined three local Catholics to discuss their faith in light of new sex abuse claims, the Royal Commission and State Inquiry.

Former Australian Cricketer and Newcastle Port Chaplain Rick McCosker, former university lecturer and Maitland-Newcastle Diocese’s social justice council member Moira Gordan, and Chairperson of the St Vincent de Paul Social Justice Group Pam Tierney, who had walked away from the church for 3 years but has now returned, told their stories.

With all of these issues facing their personal connection with God and the institution they have come to rely on, Jill asked whether their faith had been reassessed and shaken by these revelations.

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
7 News

Premier Colin Barnett thinks the royal commission into child sex abuse may lead to a compensation bill of $2 billion or more.

State premiers met in Canberra today, ahead of a Council of Australian Government meeting on Friday.

South Australian Premier Jay Weatherill flagged a State leader’s discussion of the terms of reference for the inquiry with Prime Minister Julia Gillard.

“The outcome can’t be another set of volumes with a million recommendations to sit on a shelf gathering dust,” he said, referring to a South Australian Children in State Care Commission of Inquiry.

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.

VATICAN CITY
Vatican Information Service

Vatican City, (VIS) – The Holy Father appointed:

– Fr. Rudolf Voderholzer of the clergy of Munich and Freising, Germany, as bishop of Regensburg (area 12,081, population 3,588,232, Catholics 1,772,434, priests 1,244, permanent deacons 243, religious 2,878), Germany.

The bishop-elect was born in Munich, Germany in 1959 and ordained a priest in 1987. He obtained his doctorate in dogmatic theology from the University of Munich in 1997, and in 2004 became president of the Department of Faith and Science of Religions and Philosophy of the Faculty of Theology at the University of Fribourg, Switzerland. Since 2005 he has been professor of dogmatic theology at the University of Trier, Germany, and since 2008, director of the “Pope Benedict XVI” Institute at Regensburg.

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EUROPE/UNITED STATES
Surfky

BRUSSELS, BELGIUM (12/5/12) – Yesterday, SurfKY News reported on the Global Alliance Against Child Sexual Abuse Online at a ministerial conference in Brussels. Read more about the alliance by clicking here to view the original article.

The initiative, launched by Attorney General Eric Holder and European Union (EU) Commissioner for Home Affairs Cecilia Malmström, aims to unite decision-makers all around the world to better identify and assist victims and to prosecute the perpetrators.

The following is a transcript of Holder’s remarks today:
Thank you, Commissioner Malmström, for that kind introduction – and for welcoming me back to Brussels for today’s important conference. On behalf of President Obama, my colleagues across the United States government, and the American people we are privileged to serve, I also want to thank you for your efforts and leadership in helping to safeguard our most vulnerable citizens – and our common future – from exploitation and abuse.

It’s a privilege to count you as a colleague – and an essential partner – in advancing this work on a global scale. And it’s an honor to join with you in convening such a distinguished group of leaders, experts, and allies from around the world – as we mark the official launch of the Global Alliance Against Child Sexual Abuse Online, and renew our shared commitment to protecting the safety, rights, and best interests of all of our children.

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WYOMING
Catholic News Agency

By Kevin J. Jones

Lander, Wyo., Dec 6, 2012 / 04:03 am (CNA).- Wyoming Catholic College has discharged its new chaplain Father Stuart MacDonald following the discovery of a “pattern of misbehavior” around students such as excess drinking and bad language.

“I think it’s very sad that this happened. I think it’s particularly sad that it involved a priest of the Catholic Church,” college president Father Robert Cook told CNA Dec. 5.

“I really am very happy that we so quickly and so definitively dealt with this in what I believe was a totally proper and appropriate manner.”

The college discharged the chaplain on Nov. 19 after an investigation found he engaged in “very bad language” and “telling bad jokes” with students.

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

UNITED STATES
Pope Crimes & Vatican Evils…

Paris Arrow

Updated December 5, 2012

Australia is now debating on how to get rid of the “medieval law that needs to change”, meaning the medieval Catholic law of the “seal of Confession” that protects pedophiles and does nothing to protect children, and it neither seeks justice or compensation for victims of criminals. We offer here our related article to help non-Catholics and lawmakers in Australia and around the world to understand better how “sins and crimes are not synonymous” in the Catholic belief — with the sincere hope that they will get rid once and for all – this hypocritical “holy” Vatican Catholic Sacrament of Confession because it is the most corrupt system of injustice in the world because it protects criminals and persecutes their victims.

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.

VIRGINIA
The Virginian-Pilot

By Steven G. Vegh
The Virginian-Pilot
December 5, 2012

Retired Catholic Bishop Walter F. Sullivan has an inoperable liver tumor and was due to be released Wednesday from St. Mary’s Hospital in Richmond for hospice care at home, a diocesan spokesman said.

“He’s not in any pain,” said Stephen Neill, the editor of the Richmond diocesan newspaper, The Catholic Virginian.

Sulllivan was ordained a bishop in 1970 and became head of the Richmond diocese in 1974. He took mandatory retirement at 75 in 2003.

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CANADA
Sun News

KRISTY KIRKUP | QMI AGENCY

OTTAWA — The courts can decide if documents related to Canada’s residential schools can be released for a commission probing the dark legacy, Prime Minister Stephen Harper signalled Wednesday.

In recent documents filed to the Ontario Superior Court, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) suggested Ottawa was hampering the retrieval of documents related to its mandate.

After the government’s historic residential school apology in the House of Commons in June 2008, the TRC was mandated to learn about the government assimilation program that lasted 130 years.

Sexual abuse was commonplace in residential schools.

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NEW YORK
New York Post

By ANDREA PEYSER
Last Updated: 2:33 AM, December 6, 2012

This is not kosher.

Nechemya Weberman lumbered into a Brooklyn courtroom yesterday as big as a rabid bear in an oversized black coat and matching yarmulke, side curls tucked behind his ears.

The slimy bastard, 54, is charged with repeatedly and monstrously sexually assaulting a young girl he controlled by counseling the child in the office of his Brooklyn home deep inside the Orthodox Satmar religion, a cult-like sect more secretive than Scientology.

It’s a place where laws governing girls’ dumpy dress code are enforced by the masked men of the “modesty police’’ — a terrorist group that might well be called the Jewish Taliban.

He played your jolly old Yiddish uncle on the witness stand. With an arrogant smile, he described running a kind of Hasidic shelter for wayward girls under his own roof, doling out beds to at least three young ladies — including his niece — who had refused to cover themselves like mummies, just like Mom.

All were welcome, the less clad the better.

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NEW YORK
New York Post

By JOSH SAUL
Last Updated: 2:39 AM, December 6, 2012

He left himself wide open.

A Hasdic leader, on trial for allegedly molesting a 12-year-old girl, took the stand in his own defense yesterday — and ended up admitting that he raided his community nonprofit to pay for everything from his kid’s tuition to frilly lingerie.

Leaving himself vulnerable to a barrels-loaded cross-examination by Brooklyn prosecutors, accused child molester Nechemya Weberman denied sexually abusing a Williamsburg girl who had been sent to him for counseling sessions from the age of 12 to 15.

Defense attorney Michael Farkas asked him: “Mr. Weberman, have you ever inappropriately touched [the alleged victim]?”

To which Weberman answered, “Never ever.”

But once prosecutors got a crack at him, rather than hammer away at the sex-abuse allegations, they got the Satmar counselor to admit to a host of financial misdeeds.

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

NEW YORK
New York Magazine

By Adam Martin

The ultra-Orthodox man who’s accused of sexually abusing a girl he counseled testified on Wednesday that he “never ever” did so, but he didn’t deny dipping into the funds of a charity he founded, paying his kids’ private school tuition from the nonprofit’s coffers. “Did you use this not-for-profit for your own personal gain?” Assistant District Attorney Kevin O’Donnel asked Nechemya Weberman, according to the New York Daily News. “Yes I did,” he replied.

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NEW YORK
New York Daily News

Joanna Molloy

With a costumed crowd pressing against velvet ropes begging to be let in, the Brooklyn criminal courtroom resembled a nightclub Wednesday.

The iconoclastic garb of the Satmar Hasidic Jewish sect was unmistakable as members showed up to support Nechemya Weberman when he took the stand to defend himself against charges that he sexually molested a beautiful Satmar teenager while he was supposed to be her therapist. Lubavitcher and Modern Orthodox Jews showed up to support the woman, sequestered in another room, quietly celebrating, if you could call it that, her 18th birthday.

Ladies in wigs and hats, with long skirts and arms and legs covered, sat apart from the men in dark suits, wearing yarmulkes, their hair in forelocks, as the jury as diverse as Brooklyn itself stared out over the insular community and got a lesson in Hasidism 101 from the testimony.

Like the fact that what you wear is no joke, as the alleged victim found out when she began to break the dress code with short skirts and sheer tights, and when she began to share pop songs like “Love Can Kill You” and sneak off to Hollywood movies.

The recalcitrant teen had come to the attention of an internal committee of men called the Va’ad Hatznius, which helps enforce modesty rules — among 613 commandments Satmar members believe must be followed.

According to the testimony of another young woman who’d taken the stand Wednesday morning, you don’t want to mess with Va’ad Hatznius.

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NEW YORK
New York Daily News

Weberman testifies he ‘never ever’ sexually assaulted young girl, says he didn’t know anything about lingerie bought by charity he founded

By Oren Yaniv / NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

Wednesday, December 5, 2012

A prominent Hasidic counselor said he “never ever” sexually assaulted a beautiful Brooklyn girl, and testified he didn’t know anything about lingerie bought by a charity he founded.

Nechemya Weberman, taking the stand in a child-sex-abuse case, acknowledged Wednesday that he founded a charity and used it to pay for his salary and his kids’ education.

Weberman stands accused of forcing a Brooklyn teen to perform oral sex, as well as watch and reenact porn, over a three-year period, beginning when she was 12.

The 54-year-old defendant testified he did not inappropriately touch the alleged victim, who turned 18 Wednesday.

Prosecutors also raised the specter that Weberman may have sexually abused other teens — allegations that were also denied in court.

Presenting himself as a “rabbinical counselor,” Weberman, said he started a not-for-profit organization called B’lev V’nefesh, Hebrew for “in heart and soul,” around 2000. He said it was used to raise money for those who can’t afford his services.

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NEW YORK
The New York Times

By SHARON OTTERMAN

Published: December 5, 2012

Nechemya Weberman, the unlicensed ultra-Orthodox Jewish counselor charged with repeatedly sexually abusing a young girl in his care, testified in a Brooklyn courtroom on Wednesday that he had “never, ever” touched her inappropriately.

“What were you looking to do in terms of her?” asked Michael Farkas, a defense attorney, as Mr. Weberman testified in his own defense.

“To save her life,” Mr. Weberman said.

He spoke on the concluding day of witness testimony in a closely watched trial in State Supreme Court; it is one of the first times a prominent member of the insular Satmar Hasidic community of Williamsburg has faced child sexual abuse charges before a secular court. Closing arguments are expected to begin Thursday.

The unusual decision by Mr. Weberman, 54, to take the stand in his own defense turned the trial into a credibility battle between Mr. Weberman and the accusing witness, an 18-year-old who claimed over four days of testimony last week that she had been forced to perform oral sex on him during counseling sessions, when she was between the ages of 12 and 15.

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MONTANA
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

WHAT
Holding signs and childhood photos at a sidewalk news conference, clergy sex abuse victims and their supporters will urge the Great Falls/Billings Catholic bishop to

–do “aggressive outreach” to find others who may have seen, suspected or suffered crimes by a recently accused priest, and

–permanently post on his website the names, photos and whereabouts of all child molesting clerics who live or work (or have lived or worked) in his diocese.

They will also urge ALL current and former Montana Catholic employees to “come clean” about clergy sex crimes and cover ups by sharing everything they know and suspect with law enforcement officials (instead of assuming and hoping that the church hierarchy will handle such cases quietly and ‘in house.’)

WHEN
Thursday, Dec. 6th at 11:00 a.m.

WHERE
In front of St. Patrick’s Co-Cathedral 215 North 31st Street (corner of 3rd. Ave. N,) in Billings, MT

WHO
Two to three members of an international support group for victims of clergy abuse called SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAPnetwork.org)

WHY
Fr. Dennis Druggan was suspended in July because of allegations that he molested a child at St. Labre Indian School in Ashland, MT in the mid-1980s. But SNAP contends that the Great Falls-Billings Catholic diocese, and especially Bishop Michael Warfel has done little or nothing to tell his flock about the allegations, help police or prosecutors pursue Druggan or find and help others whomay have been hurt by him or have information about his crimes. (Druggan has denied the allegations.)

For a decade now, bishops have pledged to be “open and transparent” in clergy sex cases. And Pope Benedict has said that the church will “do everything possible” to help victims heal. So SNAP believes that Warfel has both a moral and civic duty to use his “vast resources” to try and find others who may have seen, suspected or suffered crimes by Druggan.

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

NEW YORK
Wall Street Journal

Associated Press

NEW YORK — A religious counselor accused of sexually abusing a girl under his guidance for three years testified in a Brooklyn court Wednesday, denying it ever happened.

Nechemya Weberman told a courtroom packed with his supporters that he “never, ever” inappropriately touched his accuser. He also said he never sexually abused anyone inside his office where he counseled patients.

Defense attorneys said she fabricated stories as an act of revenge. She revealed to Weberman that she had a boyfriend at age 15 — forbidden in her community — and believed he told her parents about it. Both Weberman and his accuser belong to an ultra-orthodox Jewish sect.

Weberman has pleaded not guilty to 88 charges of sexual abuse and misconduct.

The ongoing trial has rocked the insular, tight-knit group of ultra-orthodox Jews, not only because of the shocking charges, but also because the case is being played out in a public court and the guarded society strongly discourages going to outside authorities.

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
Business Spectator

AAP

State premiers are keen to have input in the development of terms of reference for the federal royal commission into child sex abuse.

South Australian Premier Jay Weatherill met with other state leaders in Canberra on Thursday ahead of a Council of Australian Governments (COAG) meeting on Friday.

“The overwhelming message from that is the outcome can’t be another set of volumes with a million recommendations to sit on a shelf gathering dust,” he told reporters, referring to a South Australian Children in State Care Commission of Inquiry.

“The way it is conducted will be absolutely crucial and we will be passing on our views to the commonwealth.”

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
Calgary Herald

A former church youth volunteer who admitted more than a year ago to sexually abusing boys and child pornography charges and was facing a long term offender hearing this week, now wants to vacate his guilty pleas.

Kim Ross, lawyer for Roderick Kyle Janssen, told provincial court Justice Catherine Skene on Wednesday that his client does not accept some of the agreed statement of facts presented by the Crown.

Skene, however, that before holding a hearing on vacating the pleas she wanted Ross and Janssen, 36, to review a transcript of the Oct. 31, 2011, court appearance in which he pleaded guilty to 18 charges related to the abuse of the boys over a five-year period and making and distributing child porn.

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
NEWS.com.au

WHAT HAPPENED

He’d had enough. Detective Chief Inspector Peter Fox of the NSW Police had investigated too many cases of child sex abuse over the length of his career to keep silent any longer.

He simply had to speak out. It cost him his career, as he knew it likely would, but he spoke out anyway.

By lifting the lid on years of sexual abuse cases in the Hunter region, and an alleged police cover-up of sex abuse in the Catholic Church, Peter Fox sparked nothing less than a sweeping Royal Commission into child sex abuse.

The details of many of the cases Fox investigated are horrific. He outlined some of those details in a revealing interview on late night television, and a nation was sickened to the core.

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
9 News

Ballarat will begin its healing process when Victoria’s inquiry into sexual abuse in the church arrives in the city – at the centre of some of the scandal’s worst offending.

At least 40 former students of pedophile Christian Brothers Robert Best, Edward Dowlan, Stephen Farrell and priest Gerald Ridsdale at St Alipius Primary School in Ballarat have taken their lives and countless more are still scarred by the abuse they suffered as schoolboys four decades ago.

The conviction and 14-year sentence given to Best last year helped trigger the Victorian parliamentary inquiry, which on Friday will hear evidence in the central Victorian city for the first time.

Individual survivors of abuse will give evidence, while one man’s testament will be heard behind closed doors.

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]

For 40 years many boys placed in institutions run by the order of St John of God were molested, raped and physically assaulted by some of the men who were supposed to care for them. Now a former nun who worked for the order speaks out about what she says is a culture of collusion within its ranks.

Lisa Whitehead

Transcript

CHRIS UHLMANN, PRESENTER: Among the litany of accusations that led to the recent announcement of a Royal commission into the institutional child sex abuse, none have been more shocking than those surrounding the Catholic order St John of God. For 40 years boys placed in the order’s care were molested, raped and physically assaulted. The story has hit the headlines this week with the arrest in New Zealand of a former brother accused of molesting 35 children in a home for intellectually disabled boys. Tonight a former nun who worked for the order speaks out about what she says is a culture of collusion within its ranks. In a moment I’ll be joined by the head of the order, Brother Timothy Graham, but first this report by Lisa Whitehead.

LISA WHITEHEAD, REPORTER: This is former Catholic Brother Bernard McGrath. He’s now facing possible extradition to Australia on 252 sex abuse charges. He’s accused of abusing 35 children.

The alleged offences occurred at the Kendall Grange boys’ home in Morisset, south of Newcastle. It belonged to St John of God, an order of the Church that’s accused of covering up decades of allegations of abuse of vulnerable children in its care.

WAYNE CHAMLEY, BROKEN RITES: It’s behaviour that’s endemic within the order and it’s been allowed to go on for decades.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

By Lisa Whitehead and staff

Among the litany of accusations that led to the recent announcement of a royal commission into institutional child sexual abuse, none have been more shocking than those surrounding the Catholic order Saint John of God.

A former nun, who worked for the order, has spoken to 7.30 about what she says is a culture of collusion within its ranks.

Most of the boys and young men placed in their care were intellectually disabled – the Brothers took a vow dedicating themselves to serving the church in the assistance of those who suffer and are in need.

But dozens of the boys in institutions run by SJOG have alleged they were subjected to horrifying sexual and physical abuse at the hands of some of the brothers.

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CALIFORNIA
Los Angeles Times

A well-known Orange County church has been roiled by allegations that a volunteer sexually assaulted children.

A Sunday school volunteer at Rock Harbor Church in Costa Mesa allegedly formed relationships with children in his church and went on to sexually abuse at least one of them multiple times between November 2009 and November 2011, according to church leaders and court documents.

Two families at Rock Harbor came forward with new allegations against Christopher Bryan McKenzie, the pool cleaner accused of years-long sexual relationships with at least three children younger than 14, pastors said Monday night.

McKenzie, 48, of Costa Mesa, attended Rock Harbor and applied to be a child-care volunteer at the 3,000-member campus in late 2007, Communications Director Jeff Gideon said.

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DELAWARE
The News Journal

Written by
From staff and wire reports

A Delaware bankruptcy judge has granted motions filed by two former priests who objected to release of their personnel files as part of the Catholic Diocese of Wilmington’s $77 million bankruptcy settlement.

Kenneth Martin and Charles Wiggins, who were removed from ministry by the late Bishop Michael Saltarelli in 2001 and 2003, respectively, had sought protective orders to prevent the diocese from releasing their files to members of a creditors committee for possible subsequent disclosure to the public.

Judge Christopher Sontchi on Tuesday issued one-page orders granting the motions, almost six months after hearing arguments behind closed doors and barring reporters from the courtroom.

The diocese agreed to a $77 million settlement with some 150 alleged victims of priest sex abuse to end its bankruptcy case. The agreement also required church officials to turn over internal documents detailing how the diocese handled pedophile priests.

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UNITED STATES
dotCommonweal

December 5, 2012

Posted by Grant Gallicho

Last Friday, Mollie did a superb job cataloging Bill Donohue’s shortcomings both as a crusader against anti-Catholicism (which obviously includes using the occasion of World AIDS Day to call people with HIV promiscuous) and as a surrogate for the conservative movement (giving Dick Morris a run for his money). Her conclusion was pointed: “Seriously, your excellencies and eminences: what will it take to make you rethink the wisdom of encouraging Bill Donohue to act as your public interpreter?” Wish I knew. Donohue has said lots of offensive things on a variety of topics, but his record on one subject in particular ought to give Catholic bishops considerable pause before lending him support: the sexual-abuse scandal.

Over the weekend, the New York Times reported that the clergy of the Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph are divided on the question of whether their bishop should resign after being found guilty of one count of failing to report suspected child abuse. (A diocesan school principal warned the diocese about about Fr. Shawn Ratigan’s “inappropriate behavior with children” in May 2010; seven months later disturbing photos of little girls were found on Ratigan’s laptop; Finn didn’t restrict Ratigan until February 2011; and the police weren’t notified until May 2011.) The Times story is ugly: One priest goes on the record recommending the bishop step down. Another says his liberal colleagues are using Finn’s travails to push for a new, less conservative bishop. More than one hundred thousand people have signed an online petition urging Finn to step aside. The diocese has spent $1.4 million on legal fees. And the Times spoke with two priests who say that at a recent meeting of diocesan clergy Finn denied any wrongdoing. Yet he agreed to a set of stipulated facts that led a judge to render a guilty verdict. “I truly regret and am sorry for the hurt these events caused,” Finn told the judge at the time. And now he’s privately telling priests that he did nothing wrong?

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MISSISSIPPI
The Democrat

By: Theron Fly
December 05, 2012

A 71-year-old pastor remains in Tate County Jail on charges of sexual battery of a child following a hearing at Tate County Justice Court Tuesday.

The suspect was identified by Tate County Sheriff Brad Lance as Larry Singleton, pastor of the Bay Springs Baptist Church in Lafayette County.

An arrest warrant for Singleton was enforced Monday night, days after an 18-year-old man came to deputies saying that he’d been forced into having sex with the man, Lance said.

According to Lance, the sexual abuse is alleged to have begun when the victim was 11 years old and continued for years.

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AUSTRALIA
The Standard

By MARY ALEXANDER
Dec. 6, 2012

THE south-west’s new Catholic bishop has promised to do his “utmost” to ensure the safety of children, both now and in the future.

“I hope to respond as well as I can to those who have been hurt in the past and to those who still carry a legacy of pain,” Ballarat diocese bishop Paul Bird said in a statement released yesterday.

His comments come as the state parliamentary inquiry into child sexual abuse prepares to sit in Ballarat tomorrow. It is the first time the joint investigative committee has held hearings outside Melbourne, with witnesses expected to appear from 11.30am.

“The inquiry will hear submissions particularly from those who have suffered abuse and those representing the people who have been hurt so deeply,” Bishop Bird said.

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WISCONSIN
Star Times

By Mike Tighe, Lee Newspapers

The Diocese of La Crosse is “not doing real well financially,” said Bishop William P. Callahan, who nonetheless sees a bright future as people respond to the church’s needs.

That future might include parish consolidations and different educational models, Callahan said in a rare, wide-ranging exclusive interview with the La Crosse Tribune.

A member of the Conventual Franciscan order who has presided over the 19-county diocese since August 2010, Callahan also acknowledged the economy’s effect on people’s ability to donate to the church.

“Our economy stinks,” he said. “Our people are suffering, so the expectation is not that we are going to be out there hitting them over the head saying give Callahan addressed the church’s problems with sexual abuse, his position against gay marriage and abortion, and the church’s recent battles with the federal government over mandates that religious institutions provide insurance coverage for their workers for contraceptives, sterilizations and abortion drugs.

Callahan became bishop shortly after the Rev. Patrick Umberger resigned as pastor at St. Patrick Parish in St. Onalaska after being charged with child pornography. Umberger, who was not accused of abusing children, died with the case pending.

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