ABUSE TRACKER

UNITED KINGDOM
The Guardian

Alan Travis, home affairs editor
Tuesday 3 March 2015

A new single national point of contact for whistleblowers trying to expose child abuse, and to spot patterns of failure across the country, is to be set up in the wake of the Rotherham scandal, the home secretary has announced.

The measure, along with a specialist national taskforce to help local authorities struggling to tackle this issue, is part of the package to be announced at the Downing Street summit on child sexual abuse.

Theresa May said it was clear that the huge scale of child sexual exploitation in Rotherham was only the tip of the iceberg and that a national response was required to the series of failures exposed by the inquiries conducted by both Prof Alexis Jay and Louise Casey.

“We need to address the culture of inaction and denial that led to victims being dismissed and ignored,” said the home secretary, as she published the official report responding to the Rotherham scandal.

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VATICAN CITY
Vatican Information Service

Vatican City, 3 March 2015 (VIS) – The Holy Father has approved the statutes of the new economic entities of the Holy See: the Council for the Economy, the Secretariat for the Economy and the General Auditor’s Office. The three statutes, signed 22 February 2015, feast of the Chair of St. Peter, were approved “ad experimentum” and entered into force on 1 March 2015, prior to their publication in the Acta Apostolicae Sedis.

The statutes may be consulted on the Vatican website: www.vatican.va

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VATICAN CITY
National Catholic Reporter

Joshua J. McElwee | Mar. 3, 2015

VATICAN CITY Pope Francis on Tuesday appointed an auxiliary bishop known for his focus on addressing poverty and stressing the role of mercy in church teaching as the new bishop of San Diego.

Robert McElroy, a San Francisco native who had served as a prelate in his hometown since 2010, is expected to be installed in his new role soon. He succeeds late San Diego Bishop Cirilo Flores, who died last year from cancer after less than a year as head of the diocese.

A prelate who has garnered attention both for his writings and his pastoral approach, McElroy in January said Francis is moving the church away from an ecclesiastical vision of “smaller but purer” to a church that embraces the wounded and frail.

Speaking in a presentation to Dominican women religious in San Rafael, Calif., the new bishop said the church has in the past focused too much on telling people how to live rightly instead of welcoming them and supporting them in their struggles.

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VATICAN CITY
Headlines from the Catholic World

Rome, Italy, Mar 3, 2015 / 05:01 am (CNA/EWTN News).- The Vatican announced Tuesday that Pope Francis has appointed San Francisco’s native auxiliary bishop, Robert W. McElroy, as the new head of the archdiocese of San Diego.

McElroy will succeed Bishop Cirilo Flores, who passed away from cancer in September just one year after assuming the position.

Born in San Francisco in 1954, Bishop McElroy, 61, grew up in San Mateo County and resided with his family in Our Lady of Mercy Parish in Daly City and Our Lady of Angels Parish in Burlingame.

After receiving a master’s of divinity degree from St. Patrick’s Seminary and University in 1979, he was ordained to the priesthood by Archbishop John R. Quinn in St. Mary’s Cathedral April 12, 1980.

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CITTA’ DEL VATICANO
Bolletino

Il Santo Padre Francesco ha nominato Vescovo di San Diego (U.S.A.) S.E. Mons. Robert W. McElroy, finora Vescovo titolare di Gemelle di Bizacena ed Ausiliare di San Francisco.

S.E. Mons. Robert Walter McElroy

S.E. Mons. Robert Walter McElroy è nato a San Francisco, California, nell’arcidiocesi omonima, il 5 febbraio 1954. Dopo aver frequentato il Saint Joseph Minor Seminary, ha ottenuto il Baccalaureato in Storia presso la Harvard University a Cambridge, Massachusetts (1975) e il Masters in Storia presso la Stanford University a Palo Alto, California (1976).

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DEUTSCHLAND
Kirchen Site

[The Munster diocese commissioned a study to find out why people are leaving the church.]

Bistum. Deutlicher konnten die Worte von Bischof Felix Genn kaum sein: “Die Entwicklungen schmerzen mich, und sie müssen uns alle alarmieren.” Oder: “Wenn mich diese Entwicklungen kalt ließen, würde ich meine Aufgabe als Bischof nicht verantwortlich genug wahrnehmen.” Oder: “Wir befinden uns in einer Abwärtsbewegung.”

Nach einem explosionsartigen Anstieg der Kirchenaustrittszahlen 2013 – um 78 Prozent im Vergleich zum Vorjahr auf 10.112 – hatte das Bistum Münster im Juli 2014 eine Studie in Auftrag gegeben, um verlässlichere Informationen über die Ursachen zu erhalten. Die Marketing-Experten Professor Dr. Heribert Meffert aus Münster und Professor Dr. Peter Kenning befragten mit ihren Teams dazu 1.000 Katholikinnen und Katholiken im Bistum Münster repräsentativ.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Saarbruecker Zeitung

[A former priest of the Trier diocese has joined the monastic community at Admont and is under investigation for sexual abuse.]

Von Dietmar Klostermann, 03.03.2015

Gegen einen ehemaligen Priester aus dem Bistum Trier, der 2009 ins Benediktinerkloster Admont/Österreich gewechselt ist, laufen Ermittlungen wegen sexuellen Missbrauchs an zwei Jungen. Wie der Sprecher der Staatsanwaltschaft Leoben/Steiermark Walter Plöbst der SZ sagte, werden die beiden jungen Männer, die zum mutmaßlichen Tatzeitpunkt mindestens 16 Jahre alt gewesen seien, derzeit vernommen. Dem Pater würden „geschlechtliche Handlungen mit über 16-Jährigen“ zur Last gelegt, sagte Plöbst. So wie es aussehe, liege kein Missbrauch eines Autoritätsverhältnisses vor. Der Pater sei ein Freund der betroffenen Familie gewesen. „In dieser Situation ist es passiert“, erklärte der Staatsanwalt. Der Benediktiner habe dabei weder als Seelsorger noch als Autoritätsperson gehandelt. Plöbst rechnet mit einem Abschluss der Ermittlungen in den nächsten vier bis sechs Wochen. Die Mutter der Jungen hatte den Mönch angezeigt.

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VEREINIGTE STAATEN
Gloria TV

USA. Die Bischöfe der USA und ihre Rechtsschutz-Versicherungen lassen Priester, die des sexuellen Missbrauchs beschuldigt werden, völlig alleine, auch wenn sie nachweislich unschuldig sind. Das schreiben David Shaneyfelt und Joseph Maher in der “Homiletic and Pastoral Review”.

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DEUTSCHLAND
News Locker

Katholisch

[The trauma in the house is still noticeable, says Father Tobias Zimmermann. The rector of Berlin’s Canisius College knows that the renowned Jesuit High School has the stigma of the past sexual abuse. But the school has prepared a comprehensive approach to prevention, to prevent such cases.]

Das Trauma ist im Haus noch spürbar”, sagt Pater Tobias Zimmermann. Der Rektor des Berliner Canisius-Kollegs weiß, dass das renommierte Jesuitengymnasium auch mit dem Stigma “Missbrauch” leben muss. Es hat ein umfassendes Präventionskonzept erarbeitet, um solche Fälle zu verhindern.

Zimmermanns Vorgänger Klaus Mertes hatte die sexuellen Übergriffe mehrerer Patres, die bis in die 80er Jahre geschahen, vor fünf Jahren öffentlich eingeräumt. Damit löste er eine Welle weiterer Enthüllungen in kirchlichen Einrichtungen, aber auch an der reformorientierten “Odenwaldschule” und anderen Einrichtungen aus. Sexueller Missbrauch ist seither ein Dauerthema in Politik und Gesellschaft.

Im Alltag der rund 800 Kinder und Jugendlichen am Canisius-Kolleg ist das allerdings nicht so. “Da war doch so ein Medien-Hype”, erinnert sich eine 16-jährige Schülerin eher belustigt. Fünf Jahre sind lange her für einen Teenager, der sich mit Notenstress und Beziehungsknatsch herumschlägt. Für die Canisius-Pädagogen hat die Zeit dagegen nicht gereicht, um einen Verhaltenskodex für haupt- und ehrenamtliche Mitarbeiter zu beschließen.

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UTAH
KSL

Marjorie Cortex

SALT LAKE CITY — The Utah House of Representatives unanimously passed HB277 Monday, which would eliminate the statute of limitations for lawsuits against perpetrators of child sexual abuse.

The bill, as amended by the House, applies only to perpetrators of child sex abuse as individuals.

Deondra Brown, co-founder of the nonprofit Foundation for Survivors of Abuse, was among a handful of supporters who sat with lawmakers as members of the House debated and voted on the bill. Other backers filled part of the House gallery.

The bill passed 74-0.

“It was so exciting for any of us who are victims to be able to see such support,” Brown said. “Today’s passage is another victory for victims across the state of Utah, so it’s an exciting day.”

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MONTANA
KTVQ

By Dennis Bragg – MTN News

COEUR D’ALENE –
A federal bankruptcy judge could resolve a pair of multimillion dollar cases this week that would settle legal claims over decades old sex abuse cases involving church-run schools in Montana.

The settlement agreements are aimed at resolving the suits filed on behalf of victims against the Catholic Diocese of Helena and the Ursuline Nuns of the Western Province, based out of California.

The suit filed against the Diocese involves 362 victims, with another 232 victims named in the suit against the nuns. The victims claim the abuse happened while they were attending Catholic-operated schools in St. Ignatius and other Western Montana communities.

The Diocese settlement is valued at $15 million, while the settlement total with the Uruline Nuns amounts to $4.45 million.

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AUSTRALIA
Broken Rites

By a Broken Rites researcher (article updated 3 March 2015)

When Broken Rites launched its national telephone hotline in September 1993, our first callers included former inmates of a Catholic orphanage (St Joseph’s Home, at Neerkol, near Rockhampton, Queensland). Some of these callers said they were sexually assaulted by Father Reg Durham, who was the “chaplain” at this orphanage from 1965 to 1997. We referred these callers to an appropriate unit of the Queensland Police, and this resulted in Father Reg Durham being jailed in 1999 for child sex crimes. In 2015, Australia’s national child-abuse Royal Commission is holding a public hearing in Rockhampton into child-abuse at this orphanage.

Meanwhile, as well as referring these victims to the police, Broken Rites also advised the victims about other ways of obtaining justice. As a result, the matter was raised in the Queensland Parliament in September 1996. Parliament was told about the physical and emotional abuse committed by nuns and sexual abuse committed by priests at the Neerkol orphanage from the 1940s to the 1970s. Rockhampton’s Bishop Brian Heenan immediately circulated a letter in his parishes, refuting the allegations of abuse as “scurrilous” and “scandalous”.

The allegations against Durham were investigated by Rockhampton detectives. In February 1997, Father Reginald Basil Durham was charged with counts of rape and 41 of indecent dealing, involving two girls and a boy, between 1960 and 1967. When Durham’s first committal hearing began in June 1997, some unpleasant secrets surfaced about sexual and physical abuse at Neerkol. One man, who was aged 59 in 1997, said that children who ran away from the orphanage were captured, stripped naked and flogged in front of the entire assembly.

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VATICAN CITY
Sydney Morning Herald

March 3, 2015

Paola Totaro

London: When Pope Francis gives the stamp of approval for his much anticipated reforms of the Vatican’s finances, it will also dramatically reshape the roll call of power behind the tiny city’s ancient walls.

Expected any day, the Pope’s decree will change the way the Vatican does business – and cement or unhinge the ascendant star of his “czar finanziario”, former Archbishop of Sydney, Cardinal George Pell.

The restructure of the Holy See’s financial activities began last April when the Pope anointed 73-year-old Pell to head a powerful new ministry known as the Secretariat for Economy and charged him with improving financial transparency and accountability in the historically shadowy Roman Curia.

During the past fortnight however, mounting internal tensions over the shape of his proposed reforms have erupted into the public domain with the publication of two devastating exposes in Italian current affairs magazine L’Espresso.

The first, titled “Peccati Cardinali” (“Cardinal Sins”) outlined in forensic detail his attempt to seize and centralise control of Vatican investments and the multimillion-dollar asset and property portfolio, including hospitals, into his bailiwick.

Fellow cardinals were reported to have mounted a “counter-attack to the Australian’s blitz”, seeking an audience with Pope Francis who blocked the transfer of property to Pell’s secretariat.

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VATICAN CITY
Catholic News Agency

By Andrea Gagliarducci

Vatican City, Mar 2, 2015 / 09:51 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Statutes of the Vatican Council for Economy, Secretariat for the Economy, and General Auditor went into effect March 1, having been signed Feb. 22 by Msgr. Bryan Wells, assessor of the Secretariat of State.

The text of the statutes have not been released by the Holy See Press Office, but can be seen in the Vatican’s Courtyard of San Damaso, where they are displayed.

The statutes of the Secretariat for the Economy stressed over which Vatican bodies the Secretariat exercises its functions of financial control and oversight, and clarified its relations with the Council of the Economy.

The statutes of the Council for the Economy clarify functions and competences of the Council. Cardinal Wilfrid Napier of Durban, one of the members of the Council for the Economy, told CNA Feb. 13, “the Council for the Economy will be mostly entrusted with providing financial policies that the Secretariat for Economy will then foster.”

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AUSTRALIA
Sky News

Former Knox Grammar headmaster Ian Paterson gave a glowing reference to a religious teacher with prior child-sex convictions who resigned after being seen masturbating outside another school.

Dr Paterson, headmaster at the prestigious Sydney boys school from 1969 to 1998, has told a royal commission hearing that the reference he gave religious teacher Chris Fotis was ‘grossly inappropriate’.

Fotis, a Knox old boy, had been hired without any reference check.

He left the school in 1989 and at that stage Dr Paterson was aware of a string of complaints against him.

One was that he was suspected of donning a balaclava, hiding under a dormitory bed and groping a 14-year-old boy.

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AUSTRALIA
9 News

Former Knox Grammar headmaster Ian Paterson has been grilled over his handling of a former teacher who watched hard-core pornography with male students.

Dr Paterson appeared at a hearing of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Abuse today, telling the commission he should have known about the abuse of boys in his care over a 30 year period between the 1970s and 1990s.

The commission heard evidence that former teacher Craig Treloar exposed students to images of bestiality and pedophilia, and was accused of asking boys to perform sexual acts of him, Fairfax Media reports.

Dr Paterson said he made a “silly mistake” when he failed to ask Treloar what type of material he showed, how many boys were involved, whether he had propositioned the boys or if it had happened before.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

By Nicole Chettle

A former headmaster of Sydney’s Knox Grammar School, Ian Paterson, “didn’t think” to alert police when a man wearing a balaclava allegedly indecently assaulted a student in his bed in 1988, an inquiry has heard.

At Sydney hearings of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Abuse, Dr Paterson rejected counsel assisting David Lloyd’s description of the incident as “very grave” and said he would reserve that term for rape.

Dr Paterson said he suspected former teacher Christopher Fotis was behind the attack on the sleeping student but had no proof.

An arrest warrant is outstanding for Mr Fotis for failing to appear at the commission.

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AUSTRALIA
Sydney Morning Herald

March 3, 2015

Rachel Browne and Melanie Kembrey

The former headmaster of Knox Grammar School Dr Ian Paterson dismissed a claim that former teacher Craig Treloar watched pornography with a student as just a “silly mistake”, a royal commission has heard.

He also told one boy who reported abuse at the hands of teacher Damien Vance to “go away and think about what he’d said.”

Another former student who was threatening the school with legal action over claims he had been molested by music teacher Barrie Stewart was ignored, the commission heard.

The long-serving former headmaster took the stand for the first time at the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse and spent most of the day giving evidence, following a heart felt apology to victims.

In evidence, he said he did not realise that it was a crime for a teacher to grope and sexually proposition a student nor was he aware of his legal obligation to report abuse.

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AUSTRALIA
Sky News

After an abject apology to Knox Grammar sexual abuse victims, the former headmaster of the elite Sydney boys school has defended his decision not to report the assaults to authorities.

Ian Paterson, head of the Wahroonga based school from 1969 to 1998 faced intense questioning on Tuesday at a royal commission hearing into the school, where five former teachers have been convicted of indecent assault on boys and three others stand accused.

The crimes all happened during Dr Paterson’s tenure and they were never reported to police.

‘I am deeply and profoundly sorry,’ Dr Paterson told the child abuse inquiry in Sydney.

‘I should have known and I should have stopped the events that led to the abuse and its tragic consequences for these boys in my care and their families.’

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AUSTRALIA
Daily Mail

‘His nickname at school was the Snake’: Former students of Knox Grammar reveal what they thought of headmaster Ian Paterson… who famous old boy Peter FitzSimons said acted like ‘the King’

By DANIEL PIOTROWSKI FOR DAILY MAIL AUSTRALIA

He ruled the prestigious Sydney school Knox Grammar with an iron fist and students nicknamed him The Snake because of it.

But a former Knox pupil told Daily Mail Australia one-time headmaster Dr Ian Paterson lived up to that reputation by ‘slithering away’ while providing evidence at the Royal Commission into Child Sex Abuse on Tuesday.

Dr Paterson, the school’s headmaster from 1969 to 1998, began the proceedings by reading out a statement apologising to students for what had occurred, accepting responsibility for ‘all that occurs during my headmastership’.

Further remarks provoked a loud groan from former students, relatives and support personnel watching on when he described an alleged sexual assault victim as a ‘drama boy who liked to exaggerate stories’ .

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AUSTRALIA
Sydney Morning Herald

[with video]

Royal commission: former Knox headmaster Ian Paterson’s testimony raises more questions than answers

After six days of damning claims that Dr Ian Paterson actively covered up evidence of child sexual abuse during his time as headmaster of Knox Grammar School, the time had come for him to explain the inexplicable.

Why did he fail to inform the police when he learned that teachers at his school were, at best, behaving inappropriately with students? Why did he allow one teacher, Craig Treloar, to continue working at the school after being caught watching hard core pornography with students? Why did he allow suspect teachers to “resign” with glowing references which allowed them to go on to work at other schools?

These are questions the 81-year-old former headmaster grappled with in the stand before a hearing room packed with old boys, their families and supporters at the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.

As is the case with many who give evidence at this royal commission, Dr Paterson issued a sincere apology before undergoing questioning by counsel assisting David Lloyd.

“As headmaster I am responsible for all that occurs during my headmastership,” he began.

“There were matters that I knew about and other matters that I did not. However, without doubt I should have known and I should have stopped the events which led to the abuse and its tragic consequences for those boys in my care and their families.”

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AUSTRALIA
Telegraph (UK)

Sydney school head apologises for ‘abject failure’ over decades of sexual abuse

By Jonathan Pearlman, Sydney 03 Mar 2015

A headmaster of one of Australia’s most exclusive boys’ schools has admitted he should have known about decades of sexual abuse that occurred under his watch, describing his failure to report an accused paedophile teacher as a “silly mistake”.

Following a week of graphic testimony about a culture of paedophilia and cover-ups involving at least eight teachers at Knox Grammar in Sydney, Dr Ian Paterson, the headmaster from 1969 to the 1998, finally took the stand at a royal commission into sexual abuse of children.

He proceeded to shock the public gallery when he said he did not immediately take a student’s claims of sexual abuse seriously because the fifteen-year-old was a “drama boy… who could build up situations”.

Asked about the student’s claim that he was molested, Mr Paterson said: “I was not aware that it was a crime.”

The shocking revelations about Knox have dominated headlines for days and prompted parents of current students to tie ribbons to the school’s wrought iron gates this week as a tribute to the numerous victims.

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SOUTH AFRICA
IOL

March 3 2015

By Shain Germaner

Johannesburg – A suspected satanic ritual at a Boksburg church is at the centre of a case in which a 9-year-old boy was allegedly raped and molested by his grandparents, uncle and pastor.

The case was originally not pursued in 2013, when the boy was younger.

However, the SAPS’s Occult-Related Crime Unit was later brought in to investigate, culminating in the arrest of all four alleged abusers last month.

On Monday, the two grandparents, a 29-year-old uncle and a 54-year-old pastor appeared in the Germiston Magistrate’s Court for a formal bail application.

During proceedings, the investigating officer described the boy’s terrifying ordeal.

Lieutenant-Colonel Hendrik de Jager said interviews with the child had revealed that over a period – possibly of several years – the group had allegedly raped and molested the boy multiple times.

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MINNESOTA
Star Tribune

Article by: JENNIFER BROOKS , Star Tribune Updated: March 2, 2015

Barnard to return to Minnesota on sex-crime charges. Woman was arrested, released.

A Minnesota cult leader accused of raping girls and young women was found hiding out in Brazil with a woman who had been a member of his congregation since she was in her teens.

Victor Arden Barnard, one of the most-wanted fugitives in the country, was arrested over the weekend, along with a woman whom Brazilian media identified as 33-year-old Maria Cristina Cajazeiras Liberato, a Brazilian-born member of his River Road Fellowship.

U.S. and Brazilian law enforcement agencies are working to return Barnard to Minnesota, where he faces 59 counts of sexual assault on young women in the secretive religious community he founded in Pine County. He stands accused of separating young girls from their families and sexually exploiting them for years on end, while assuring them that the abuse was God’s will.

Barnard was arrested Friday in the beach resort community of Pipa. According to local news reports, Liberato had spent months or years shuttling Barnard between hideouts in the northeastern state of Rio Grande do Norte.

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PENNSYLVANIA
Fox Philly

Offered-up to a cult leader by her own parents when she was just a child a local woman who escaped that nightmare is talking to FOX 29. The Camden County woman is also ready to talk in court against the very man who she says raped her and many others.

As FOX 29’s Jeff Cole reports that self-proclaimed pastor was on the U.S. Marshals Most Wanted List and they tracked him to a beach in Brazil just days ago. Victor Barnard sits in a jail in Brazil awaiting his return to the United States. When he hits U.S. soil, he’ll face dozen of counts of child molestation.

“I started to cry immediately. I felt like I was going to faint,” Lindsay Tornambe said.

The news nearly floored 28-year-old Lindsay Tornambe. Living in Harleysville, Pa. as a young girl, she moved to Minnesota with her parents to become followers of Barnard’s church–River Road Fellowship. She says the 53-year-old cult leader convinced her parents and others to give their first-born females to the church.

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SOUTH AFRICA
Destiny

The arrest of four people, including a pastor, for rape and molestation of a nine-year-old boy in an apparent satanic ritual has rocked a Boksburg community

The grandparents of a nine-year-old boy, his uncle, and a pastor are expected to again appear in court on Tuesday for a suspected satanic ritual that led to the boy’s alleged rape and molestation, The Star reported on Tuesday.

The two grandparents, the 29-year-old uncle, and the 54-year-old pastor appeared in the Germiston Magistrate’s Court on Monday for a formal bail application.

During the proceedings Investigating Officer Hendrik de Jager described the boy’s ordeal and said interviews revealed that over a period, possibly several years, the child was allegedly raped and molested multiple times by the group.

On one occasion the uncle and grandparents allegedly took the child to their place of worship, the Full Gospel Church of God in Witfield, Boksburg, where the pastor was based.

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SOUTH AFRICA
iAfrica

Article By: Megan Ellis
Tue, 03 Mar 2015

A Boksburg pastor appeared in the Germiston Magistrate’s Court on Monday for allegedly taking part in the rape and molestation of a nine-year-old boy during a satanic ritual.

The pastor is accused of taking part in the rape along with the boy’s grandparents and uncle.

The case was initially not pursued in 2013, but the SAPS Occult-Related Crime Unit was brought in to investigate and the four were arrested last month.

The rape and molestation of the boy had allegedly taken place multiple times, possibly over a number of years.

A satanic ritual allegedly took place at the Gospel Church of God in Witfield, where they four adults are said to have dressed in masks and red robes, praying in strange tongues while standing in a circle, The Star reported.

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CANADA
Cape Breton Post

SYDNEY — A former Glace Bay pastor will learn his sentence later this month after a Supreme Court justice reserved decision on Monday.

Harrington gets redemption on 17, and 1st PGA Tour win in 6 years at Honda

After hearing sentencing arguments from prosecutor Christa MacKinnon and defence lawyer Nash Brogan, Justice Robin Gogan adjourned sentencing until March 12.

Robert Stewart Lawther, 62, of Reserve Street, was convicted in December on a single count of sexual interference involving a girl under the age of 15. A Supreme Court jury returned a not guilty verdict on two other similar counts involving two other female complainants.

MacKinnon has recommended a two-year jail sentence followed by a one-year period of probation. She is also seeking a DNA order, an order to register as a sex offender for 20 years and an order to prohibit Lawther from visiting places where children are likely to gather, including pools, parks and playgrounds.

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NEW JERSEY
NJ.com

By Warren Reporter
on March 02, 2015

Talking with children about personal safety and prevention of abuse is not always easy, but it is absolutely necessary.

Professionals in the field of Child Abuse Prevention agree that children, who have discussed with adults what they could do in potentially dangerous situations, are safer than children who have never been given any prevention strategies.

“For most parents and many teachers, talking with a child about potentially abusive situations is a difficult proposition,” said Carole Ciurczak, coordinator of the Warren County Child Assault Prevention project at Catholic Charities, Diocese of Metuchen.

“Unfortunately, the increased violence in schools, on the internet, and in society in general also increases the need for children to learn how to deal with a variety of situations about which a generation prior may not have had to worry. The good news is that there are ways to talk to children that will not increase their fear but actually will help them feel safer and more confident. CAP’s motto is, “All children deserve to be safe, strong and free” and parents can teach this to their children.”

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INDIA
New Indian Express

KOCHI:The nun who was expelled from her congregation after she reportedly resisted sexual abuse by a priest and registered complaint against him is planning to intensify her agitation. Sr Anita, who has found shelter in the Janseva Sisubhavan, Aluva, is all set to launch an indefinite hunger strike in front of the Sisters of St Agata Convent at Thottakkattukara.

Sr Anita, a native of Kannur district, became a nun at the Sisters of St Agata on January 15, 2007. She was entrusted with the job of teacher at the Providence Convent HS, Pachore, Madhya Pradesh. According to her, the congregation authorities turned hostile towards her after she complained about an alleged attempt of sexual harassment by a priest in 2011.

She was transferred to the Mother House, Italy, in May 2012. She allegedly faced physical and mental harassment in Italy also.

“There were days when they refused to give me food. After a series of torture, I was thrown out of the convent on February 19. When I sought shelter in another convent, with the help of another nun, the congregation authorities bought air ticket to Kochi and asked me to leave Italy. When I reached the convent at Thottakkattukara, I was denied entry. My luggage was thrown out and I was asked to leave the convent . “It was the local people who took me to the Janaseva Sisubhavan,’’ Sr Anita said.

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AUSTRALIA
The Guardian

Amanda Meade
Monday 2 March 2015

The Australian Jewish News has denied sacking a senior journalist who helped the royal commission into institutional responses to child sexual abuse by supplying a damaging text message from a senior rabbi.

Adam Kamien was made redundant after nine years on the paper – including a stint as acting editor – after a text message he passed on to the commission resulted in the resignation of Rabbi Meir Shlomo Kluwgant.

Kluwgant, the president of the Organisation of Rabbis of Australasia, stepped down last month after the commission heard that he had called the father of three sons who were sexually abused a “lunatic” in a text message.

The text message, sent to the editor of the Australian Jewish News, Zeddy Lawrence, read: “Zephaniah is killing us. He is a lunatic on the fringe, guilty of neglect of his own children. Where was he when all this was happening?” …

Last week the paper told staff Kamien had been made redundant after a restructure.

Contacted by Guardian Australia, Kamien declined to comment as he had signed a confidentiality agreement.

But Zephaniah’s son Manny, the only Jewish victim of child abuse to be named at the commission, believes Kamien was sacked for leaking the text message.

“I am very disappointed with the AJN’s decision,” Waks told Guardian Australia from Paris where he is living. “I understand their dilemma as a media outlet in terms of protecting their sources but in the context of the royal commission, it was a moral imperative for them to do the right thing.

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AUSTRALIA
Sydney Morning Herald

Royal commission into sex abuse: Knox Grammar headmaster Ian Paterson ‘did not realise groping was a crime’

March 3, 2015

Rachel Browne
Social Affairs Reporter

The former headmaster of Knox Grammar School Ian Paterson did not realise that it was a crime for a teacher to grope and sexually proposition a student, a royal commission has heard.

Dr Paterson, who ran the school for almost three decades, also admitted he did not regularly conduct background checks on teachers employed at the elite boys school, nor was he aware of child protection laws introduced in the 1980s.

Appearing before the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, Dr Paterson admitted he was an “abject failure”.

Under cross examination by counsel assisting David Lloyd, Dr Paterson also admitted he provided glowing references to teachers whom he knew or suspected had inappropriate dealings with students.

Dr Paterson told the commission that a student complained to him in 1989 that teacher Damien Vance had groped him and propositioned him while they were smoking under the Knox chapel.

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AUSTRALIA
The Guardian

Bridie Jabour
@bkjabour
Monday 2 March 2015

A former Knox Grammar school headmaster did not believe a student who complained a teacher inappropriately touched him because he was a “drama boy”, an inquiry has heard.

Ian Paterson, who was headmaster at the prestigious Sydney school for more than three decades at a time when there were multiple allegations of child sex abuse, took the stand at the royal commission into institutional responses to child sexual abuse on Tuesday.

He began his evidence with a statement apologising to the victims of child sex abuse at the school but when questioned by counsel assisting the commission, David Lloyd, he said he did not know about the sex abuse at the time and was aware of only one complaint.

The inquiry heard that a student came to Paterson in the late 1980s to complain a teacher, Damian Vance, had touched him inappropriately and asked him to engage in mutual masturbation. Paterson told the boy to go to the library and “think about what he was alleging”, he told the inquiry.

“He was a drama boy,” Paterson said as explanation for why he did not immediately believe the boy.

Paterson said he eventually believed him and counselled Vance but said he did not report it to police. “I was not aware it was a crime,” he said.

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AUSTRALIA
The Australian

THE former long-serving headmaster of Knox Grammar, Ian Paterson, has issued a sweeping apology for failing to protect students from child sexual abuse by teachers over three decades.

But Dr Paterson, in his early testimony to an inquiry this morning, said he was unaware of any such incidents before one involving a teacher in 1989.

This contradicted evidence of other witnesses including a former policeman who was general duties manager, Stuart Pearson, who said he had in the mid to late 1980s reported sexual abuse by two other teachers, and a suspicion about a third.

Under cross-examination, Dr Paterson said that when he had been told by one 15-year-old student that the teacher had touched him in an inappropriate fashion on the bottom while the two smoked under the chapel, and made a sexual advance on him, he had told the boy to go to the library and think about what he had said.

“The boy was a drama boy … who could build up situations,” Dr Paterson said.

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AUSTRALIA
Sydney Morning Herald

THE PLAYERS

Five Knox teachers were convicted of multiple sex charges and one is wanted by police. These seven people are the key figures in the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Sex Abuse.

CONVICTED: Adrian John Nisbett

Popular English teacher who worked at the school from 1971-2004. Arrested over sexual offences in 2009 and given a suspended sentence. Current principal John Weeks told the royal commission in February 2015 he believed former head master Ian Paterson was covering for Nisbett, pictured above, and wanted to sack him when he became headmaster. Nisbett was allowed to resign. Unable to be summonsed, he now lives in South Africa and is working for a cheetah conservation reserve in Namibia.

CONVICTED: Damien Vance

English and French teacher who was asked to leave the school two years after indecently assaulting a student. Royal commission told Vance, pictured above, received a glowing reference from the school praising his teaching skills, despite having indecently assaulted one student and physically assaulted two others. Arrested in 2009, convicted and released on a good behaviour bond. Told the commission he had previously hit two boys at the school, in 1985 and 1986. Now a cleaner in Melbourne.

CONVICTED: Roger James

Science teacher between 1974-77. Resigned to take up a teaching position in New Zealand. Arrested for sex offences in 2009, convicted and given a suspended sentence. A 14-year-old victim told the royal commission in March 2015 he did not complain about the abuse at the time because of the culture of cover-up at the school. Boys who did speak up were “victimised and ostracised,” he said. “They were seen as weak and they became everybody’s bitch.”

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AUSTRALIA
news.com.au

[with video]

THE man accused of covering up child sexual abuse at Knox Grammar over three decades has admitted to ignoring a student’s claim he had been abused by a teacher and described his as “a drama boy” who was known to “exaggerate stories”.

Ian Paterson ran Knox Grammar school from 1969 to 1988, and is accused of failing to inform police about incidents of abuse.

He today confronted the claims amid new explosive accusations he engaged in abuse at the school himself, as he gives evidence at the Royal Commission into Institution Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.

In giving evidence, Dr Paterson admitted a 15-year-old student had complained to him about a teacher, Damien Vance, touching him inappropriately in 1987, and the then headmaster told him to think about the allegations.

“The boy was a drama boy,” he told the Sydney hearing.

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PENNSYLVANIA
Fox 43

[with video]

Democratic State Representative Mark Rozzi was sexually abused by his priest when he was a child. “He was somebody that I could trust and he thought it was in his best interest to teach me about sex,” said Rozzi. He was thirteen when it first happened and told no one for more than two decades. “For victims of sexual abuse this is not something that we want to discuss. We’re embarrassed, a lot of us we blame ourselves. Is this my fault? What did I do,” said Rozzi.

Currently in Pennsylvania, a victim of sexual abuse can’t file a civil claim against an abuser after the victim has turned thirty. Rozzi wants to increase that cutoff to age fifty. He points out it takes years for some victims to report their abuse. “This is about finding the healing and the recovery for the victims. We can’t change the past, but we can make it right,” said Rozzi.

Rozzi was also joined by Democratic State Representative Louise Williams Bishop. She introduced a separate bill that would remove the statue of limitations completely for victims of child sexual abuse. Meaning they could file a civil suit or the police could file criminal charges regardless of how much time has passed.

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UTAH
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Monday, March 2

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

We applaud Utah legislators who have passed a bill that will protect more kids from child molesters by reforming the state’s archaic, arbitrary and predator-friendly statute of limitations. We wholeheartedly endorse this long-overdue measure that will make families safer from predators. And we hope the Utah senate passes it quickly.

[Fox 13]

This measure will help ensure that more adults who commit or conceal heinous crimes against kids will be exposed, punished and stopped.

The vast majority of child sex offenders go undetected. That’s one reason why one in four girls and one in eight boys are molested.

One reason for such widespread trauma is because short, rigid statutes of limitations prevent victims from using the courts to publicly expose those who commit child sex crimes and deter those who conceal child sex crimes. These legal deadlines reward wrongdoers who successfully intimidate victims, threaten witnesses, discredit whistleblowers, destroy evidence, fabricate alibis and sometimes even flee overseas.

When lawmakers extend or eliminate these deadlines, criminals know they can no longer just “run out the clock” and evade justice.

Police and prosecutors are overworked and underfunded. Some victims find it hard to trust law enforcement. And the standard to win a criminal case is very tough.

So for those three reasons, reforming the civil statute makes good sense. Kids are safest when predators are jailed. But when that can’t happen, the next best option is to expose predators in civil courts. Utah lawmakers are smart to realize this and adjust their state law accordingly.

Adults can either make it harder or easier to catch child molesters. This law would make it easier. We beg Utah senators to vote for kids and against predators by passing this legislation.

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CALIFORNIA
Whispers in the Loggia

March 2, 2015

It’s being called the “Cupich appointment of the West,” and not without reason – resolving the highest-profile vacancy on the current US docket, at Roman Noon tomorrow the Pope is slated to name Bishop Robert McElroy, the 61 year-old auxiliary of San Francisco known as one of the Stateside bench’s most outspoken progressives, as the sixth bishop of San Diego and its 1 million Catholics in the nation’s seventh-largest city.

As reports of the appointment circulated for several days, three Whispers ops appraised of the move confirmed the news. Coming just shy of six months since the premature death of Bishop Cirilo Flores after a brief struggle with cancer, as reports here at the time indicated, the succession was indeed fast-tracked given both the relative freshness of the consultations leading up to Flores’ own selection in early 2012 and the diocese’s still-unsettled state from its 2007 bankruptcy amid a torrent of sex-abuse lawsuits, which was settled for $197 million.

While the projections of timeline panned out, the choice of a relatively junior auxiliary – even one hailed as among the “leading intellectual and pastoral lights” of the bench’s rising generation – is a significant surprise. That’s anything but to say, however, that McElroy isn’t ready for prime time – a Harvard undergrad with doctorates from both Stanford (in political science) and the Gregorian (moral theology), the San Diego pick served as vicar-general to his mentor, the retired San Francisco Archbishop John Quinn, before 14 years as a pastor during the tenure of then-Archbishop William Levada.

Beyond his assisting role until now in “The City,” the bishop is notably a member of the influential Administrative Committee of the USCCB – the 30-prelate group that is the body’s ultimate authority outside of the plenary session – as the regional delegate for the sprawling turf comprising California, Nevada, Utah and Hawaii (i.e. the area covered by the Golden State’s twin provinces).

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NORTHERN IRELAND
News Letter

Alleged abuse victims are refusing to sign statements to a major inquiry into historical offences at care homes unless they secure legal funding, the Court of Appeal has heard.

Concerns were expressed at the apparent increase in the number of potential witnesses said to be holding off.

Sir Anthony Hart, chairman of the Historical Institutional Abuse (HIA) Inquiry, is challenging a High Court verdict that he unfairly denied legal representation to a victim.

The woman at the centre of the case claims she was abused by a “very high-profile figure”.

She is due to give evidence at HIA hearings in Banbridge, Co Down, which are investigating child abuse in Northern Ireland residential institutions between 1922 and 1995.

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CALIFORNIA
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Monday, March 2

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

We’re disappointed that California’s highest court has struck down laws limiting where child sex offenders can live and we urge lawmakers to quickly adopt other measures that help protect kids from predators.

[Los Angeles Times]

New York’s highest court reached a similar conclusion recently:

[ABC News]

For at least decades, child sex abuse have been rampant. Relatively speaking, laws that restrict convicted child molesters are relatively recent. So at best, it’s likely premature to reach firm conclusions on whether or not these laws work.

We challenge those who oppose these restrictions on predators’ whereabouts: Before you try to block further restrictions, come up with a better plan.

One in four girls and one in eight boys is molested. So clearly, what our society is doing now to stop predators and protect kids is failing.

Advocates of relaxing or repealing virtually any child sex abuse law, therefore, have a moral duty to devise some other means of safeguarding kids first.

Those who just nay-say and nit-pick child safety laws endanger kids. Those who ambitiously and creatively try new approaches to child safety protect kids. That’s where our energies should be concentrated – trying harder, thinking smarter and pushing the legal envelop to devise and adopt new approaches to preventing horrific child sex crimes and cover ups.

Finally, convicted child predators aren’t the real threat to kids. The real threat to kids are the vast majority of child molesters who are never caught, convicted or exposed. That’s where our society’s focus should be – on making sure that they are at least publicly exposed.

So the single most effective step legislators could take to protect kids would be to rescind California’s predator-friendly statute of limitations, enabling anyone who was abused at any time by any predator to use the civil courts to warn parents and the public about those who commit and conceal child molesters. This is a cheap, quick and effective way to expose dangerous predators and prevent cover ups and repeat offenses.

We believe reforming California’s archaic, arbitrary and predator-friendly statute of limitations is crucial. Most California men and women who were raped, sodomized and fondled by child molesters now cannot take legal action against the predators who hurt them nor against the employers who ignored or hid these awful crimes.

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PENNSYLVANIA
ABC 27

By Myles Snyder
Published: March 2, 2015

HARRISBURG, Pa. (WHTM) – A group of Pennsylvania lawmakers has introduced legislation to increase the amount of time in which victims of child sexual abuse can seek justice in the courts.

Senate Bill 582 and a companion measure, House Bill 661, would raise the age from 30 to 50 years for adult victims of child sex abuse to seek civil action.

Another proposal, House Bill 655, would entirely remove the statute of limitations on civil and criminal complaints.

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PENNSYLVANIA
PennLive

By Charles Thompson | cthompson@pennlive.com
on March 02, 2015

Pennsylvania lawmakers spent a lot of time and effort in the last legislative session working to prevent future cases like the Jerry Sandusky child sex abuse scandal at Penn State.

In many ways, the state is still adjusting to those changes.

But advocates rallied at the Capitol Monday for one more change they say is needed to deliver justice to those who’ve already been abused: extending the time frames that former victims have to seek civil damages against their abusers.

Current state law bars a victim of childhood sexual abuse from bringing a civil case against a perpetrator after the victim turns 30.

It’s not long enough, advocates say, for many childhood victims to come to terms with what happened to them. As a result, it has the effect of sheltering too many perpetrators from accountability for their actions.

“It’s high time that we accept that delayed reporting (of sexual abuse by victims) is the norm,” said Kristen Houser, vice president of the Pennsylvania Coalition Against Rape.

“We have recently seen glaring examples of this in the Boy Scouts, in religious institutions, in schools and most recently with the allegations against Bill Cosby. It’s time for us to stop asking why… and finally change our laws so they are based in reality.”

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UTAH
Fox 13

MARCH 2, 2015, BY BEN WINSLOW

SALT LAKE CITY — In a unanimous vote, the state House has passed a bill that would eliminate the statute of limitations for civil lawsuits in cases of child sex abuse.

The House voted Monday on HB277 after emotional statements from Rep. Ken Ivory, R-West Jordan.

“Every day 22-year-olds are losing the right to make the perpetrator bear the cost of their actions,” he told his colleagues on the House floor.

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AUSTRALIA
Herald Sun

THE man who ran Knox Grammar School for 30 years is expected to be asked on Tuesday what he told students about a balaclava-wearing intruder who molested a 14-year-old boy.

IAN Paterson’s appearance at a royal commission hearing into the elite Sydney boys’ school has been delayed since Friday as more witnesses come forward.

Much of the inquiry, which is now in its second week, has concerned an incident in late 1988 when an intruder wearing a Knox tracksuit and a balaclava hid under a boy’s bed and tried to molest him in the early hours of the morning.

Stuart Pearson, the former general duties master at the school and a former policeman said a few days after the incident Dr Paterson told the boys police had arrested an “Asian man” for the break-in.

The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse can find no record that police were ever contacted and on Monday a former student told the commission he recalled Dr Paterson saying the intruder was an “old boy” with mental problems.

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AUSTRALIA
Sydney Morning Herald

Purple ribbons tied to the gates of Knox Grammar to honour sexual abuse victims were taken down by a security guard unaware of their significance, and have now been replaced, the school says.

Many in the school community expressed their anger that the purple ribbons, tied by Knox parents to the wrought iron gates on Monday to show support for the victims of sexual abuse at the school, were taken down.

A statement from the school said: “A number of Knox Grammar parents have tied ribbons to the school gate in honour of the brave men who came forward as survivors of sexual abuse at Knox. The school supports this initiative.

“Unfortunately, during the night they were removed by a security guard who was unaware of their significance. The ribbons have now been reattached to the gate.”

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AUSTRALIA
Courier-Mail

THE DAILY TELEGRAPH MARCH 03, 2015

PURPLE ribbons tied to the gates of Knox Grammar in support of victims who suffered abuse there have been removed.

Yesterday a group of parents from the exclusive north shore school posted photos of the ribbons to the Twitter account @concernedknox.

The group claims to be: “appalled at the lack of accountability of successive headmasters at Knox who allowed known sex offenders to remain on staff and put our children at risk”.

Last night however, the group reported the ribbons had been removed.

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UNITED STATES
National Catholic Reporter

Sarah MacDonald Catholic News Service | Mar. 2, 2015

ATHLONE, IRELAND The Catholic church is “no longer a safe haven for child abusers,” said a top priest psychologist who advises the U.S. bishops on child sexual abuse.

Msgr. Stephen Rossetti told hundreds of Irish delegates to the first national conference on safeguarding children that the Catholic church in the United States spent $43 million on child abuse prevention and education just last year.

The priest told Catholic News Service following his keynote address that secular organizations and other churches in the United States were now coming to the Catholic church to learn from its policies.

More than 5.2 million adults and children have gone through the safe environment training in the United States, and more than 3 million priests, lay employees and volunteers have gone through background checks.

He highlighted that in the United States, child abuse rates are dropping throughout society and the church.

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NEW MEXICO
Gallup Independent

Published in the Gallup Independent, Feb. 28, 2015

Kiran says audit will clear him of wrongdoing

By Elizabeth Hardin-Burrola
Independent correspondent
religion@gallupindependent.com

GALLUP — It’s been nearly five months since the Rev. Ravi Kiran abruptly left his assignment at St. Anthony Mission in the Pueblo of Zuni, and officials with the Diocese of Gallup still have not publicly answered questions about Kiran or his financial administration of the mission. Kiran, however, has spoken out in an effort to clear his name. In a series of five emails over the last several weeks, Kiran has claimed he has been cleared of any wrongdoing, and he has made the startling claim that the small mission church had $3.3 million in investments when he left the Diocese of Gallup in October.

Investment accounts

So how did a small Native American mission with just about 125 parishioners in the pews, about the same number of children in its PreK-8 school, and just a few hundred dollars in the weekly collection plate amass $3.3 million in investments?

Kiran did not say, but according to his emailed statements, it appears the little Zuni mission may have healthier finances than the Gallup Diocese, which had to borrow money in order to file for bankruptcy.

According to Kiran, when he arrived at St. Anthony’s in July 2012, the mission had $3.9 million or $4.1 million in investment accounts.

Franciscan friars, who ran St. Anthony’s for about 90 years before the Gallup Diocese took over the mission, reportedly built up a large investment portfolio. In addition, the mission reportedly has a development office that solicits financial donations from across the country. Diocesan officials, however, have repeatedly failed to answer any questions about the mission’s finances. “There were about 16 accounts all over Gallup, Albuquerque and Zuni,” Kiran wrote. “Several steps were taken to minimize the operational cost and the whole operation was simplified with 4 accounts.”

During his two years in Zuni, Kiran said he spent nearly $2 million for a “complete face lift” of the mission campus. When he left in October, Kiran said, the mission still had $3.3 million in investments.

Kiran provided the information in response to a series of media questions that had been emailed to him. Although he avoided many specific questions, Kiran defended his record and reputation.

Mission renovations

“When I took over Saint Anthony Indian Mission, the place was a dump, it was falling apart. Saint Anthony is a very historical mission and I could not see the place falling away,” Kiran said. “Now after restoration and renovations the place is beautiful and will serve another generation of Zuni community,” he added.

Kiran defended his renovations of the mission, which have been controversial among some parishioners, saying he “spent money to improve the facility to assure the safety of the children and to restore the legacy of Saint Anthony Indian Mission.”

Neither Kiran nor diocesan officials have answered whether Bishop Wall approved all of the renovations, which is required under the diocesan financial policy.

Officials have also declined to explain who purchased Kiran’s personal Mercedes-Benz and where the vehicle is now. Kiran, however, provided the names and phone number of the couple who gave him the vehicle.

In a telephone interview Wednesday, Carmen Pacheco-Smith confirmed that she and her husband, Kevin, purchased the Mercedes-Benz as a gift for Kiran after he served as their priest at Holy Trinity Parish in Flora Vista. Pacheco-Smith, who said she and her husband did not pay for insurance on the Mercedes-Benz, added they had purchased other vehicles in the past for another priest and a couple of Catholic sisters.

Pacheco-Smith said the Diocese of Gallup kept the vehicle until about a month ago. At that time, she said, the Rev. Kevin Finnegan, the diocesan chancellor and vicar general, told them they could pick it up.

Conflicting statements

According to Kiran, he has been cleared of all allegations of wrongdoing by two diocesan audits. Kiran said the first audit was completed in early December, and the second audit, which he said was requested by diocesan attorneys, was completed Jan. 10. “May be the chancery will be making a statement and publishing the audit results,” Kiran said in an email dated Jan. 15, adding that Finnegan could confirm his story.

Attempts to confirm Kiran’s claims with diocesan officials have been unsuccessful. Repeated questions to Suzanne Hammons, the Diocese of Gallup’s spokeswoman, have been met with promises to provide a summary of the audit sometime in the future. Hammons has continued to assert that the investigation into Kiran and the mission’s finances is ongoing.

As to the first audit, Kiran cited a statement Finnegan made to Zuni parishioners on Dec. 7, 2014, in which Finnegan said Kiran had been cleared of wrongdoing. And in fact, Finnegan did indeed make that statement, according to parishioners.

However, later that same week, Susan Boswell, the diocese’s lead bankruptcy attorney, and Hammons both contradicted Finnegan and asserted the diocese’s investigation was continuing.

Personal choice

Kiran said he left the diocese in October after Bishop James S. Wall met with him and informed him the diocese was doing an independent audit of the mission’s finances.

“He told me to go back to the parish. I came home and after two days I made a personal choice and decision to be away from the parish,” Kiran wrote. “I thought may be I should leave the parish so that the investigation and audit will be fair and just,” he added.

After returning to India, Kiran said he informed the bishop about his departure. Kiran did not address the fact that Catholic priests cannot simply leave their ministry assignments without permission of their local bishop, but he did say he served the Gallup Diocese longer than his contracted five years.

“I served in the diocese with integrity and honor,” Kiran said in a January email. “I gave myself to the fullest of my ability at every place I served.”

In his emails, Kiran repeatedly stated the diocese has cleared him of wrongdoing, and expressed frustration that the media has not been informed of that by diocesan officials.

“I fulfilled my obligations,” Kiran added in an email Thursday. “Wherever I was assigned I worked with dedication and commitment. Leaving the Zuni mission was my personal choice.”

Reporter’s Note: This online news story has been edited slightly from its original published version to correct a first reference error.

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NEW JERSEY
NJ.com

By MaryAnn Spoto | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com
on March 02, 2015

TRENTON — A Brooklyn man testifying in the trial of a Lakewood rabbi accused of ordering beatings to force divorce agreements told jurors on Monday that he and his roommate were victims of one of those attacks.

The testimony offered in the seventh day of the federal conspiracy trial of rabbi Mendel Epstein, did not directly link the religious leader to participating in the Aug. 22, 2011, attack, but it did potentially connect his son, who is also charged in the indictment, to the attacks that federal prosecutors say were orchestrated to force Orthodox Jewish men into giving their wives divorces.

However, Menachem Teitelbaum indirectly linked the rabbi to the incident when he said he heard one of his attackers mention the words “Epstein” and “father.”

Testifying to a jury of eight men and eight women before U.S. District Judge Freda Wolfson in Trenton, Teitelbaum said he had been asleep in his Brooklyn basement apartment for nearly an hour after returning from his job at a local grocery store when he was awakened by a man who punched him in the face.

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AUSTRALIA
Jerusalem Post

NEW YORK – Shaken by revelations that senior rabbis were complicit in covering up sexual abuse and intimidating the families of victims, high ranking members of the Organisation of Rabbis of Australasia (ORA) have split off to form a new rabbinic body, the Australian Jewish News reported.

While the rabbis have worked to distance themselves from their disgraced colleagues, the AJN itself has come under fire for terminating a reporter who leaked information that led to the resignation of ORA Rabbi Meir Kluwgant.

As rabbis and community members testified before a government commission investigating institutional responses to child molestation last month, Kluwgant reportedly sent a text message to AJN editor Zeddy Lawrence in which he called the father of an abuse victim “a lunatic on the fringe” who was out to destroy the ultra-Orthodox community.

Zephaniah Waks testified that three of his children, including prominent victim’s advocate Manny Waks, had been abused while in yeshiva.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Werbe Post

[A group wants solidarity with victims of the pastor.]

Erftstadt-Liblar (zi). Eine Gruppe “Solidarität mit den Opfern des Pfarrers” hat für die öffentlichen Solidaritätsaktionen – es gab unter anderem einen Schweigemarsch und eine Unterschriftenaktion – kein Verständnis. Die Gruppe besteht nach eigenen Angaben hauptsächlich aus Anwohnern der Stadt und Menschen, die selbst Opfer sexueller Übergriffe wurden.

“Bei aller Nachsicht über den Schock einer Kirchengemeinde, die ihren langjährigen und anerkannten Pfarrer verloren hat und nun vor den Trümmern einer bisher äußerst erfolgreichen Gemeindearbeit steht – hier wird der mutmaßliche Täter geschützt”, heißt es in einer Stellungnahme, die 28 Personen unterzeichnet haben. Mitglieder der Gruppe haben in der von Pfarrer Jansen betreuten Kirche St. Barbara in Liblar Blumen und Gedenkkarten als Zeichen des Mitgefühls und der Solidarität für die mutmaßlichen Opfer niedergelegt.

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AUSTRALIA
The Humanist

BY LUIS GRANADOS • 26 FEBRUARY 2015

You can get jaded reading too much news, especially too much religion news. Muslims murdering innocents in creative new ways … Jews kicking more non-Jews out of their Palestinian homes … Evangelicals squashing the teaching of basic science … the umpteen millionth manifestation of the Catholic sex abuse saga. Enough already!

Sometimes, though, an item is astonishing enough to command attention amid the squalor. Such is the case with the report of Australia’s “Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse” released earlier this month. This document is not the work of some quick-buck plaintiff’s lawyer or on-the-make journalist. It is a comprehensive, thoughtful investigation of how the response to these abuses unfolded, authored by the most respectable people in the land. The evil it reveals, at the highest levels, is hard to believe.

John Ellis was an Australian altar boy who was routinely assaulted by Father Aidan Duggan, starting at the age of thirteen and continuing for many years afterward. The psychological impact on Ellis was devastating, as it has been for many other victims—he could maintain neither a family nor a job because of his alternating depression and fits of uncontrollable anger.

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UNITED STATES
Christian Catholicism

Jerry Slevin

* A Maltese journalist, seemingly seeking to endear himself to the new Malta Archbishop Charles Scicluna, conveniently cites the Boston Globe’s John Allen, observing: “One of journalism’s most prolific of Vatican insiders and the leading American authority on the Holy See, John L. Allen, has dubbed Malta’s new archbishop a Catholic “hero” for his role in successful prosecutions of clerical sex abusers.

* The Maltese journalist continues his cite of Allen: “For years serving by the side of Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger as promoter of justice in the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Scicluna, 55, spent 10 years handling accusations of clerical sex abuse, gaining a reputation for treating victims with compassion and respect, and for insisting church officials respond to allegations clearly … His leadership on the church’s effort to recover from its child sexual abuse scandals, especially his role in the prosecution of the late Fr Marcial Maciel Degollado, have made him a hero to reformers everywhere. His appointment will thus be taken not only as an important moment for Malta, but also a sign that good guys don’t always finish last!” . (emphasis mine)

* Of course, John Allen has made a nice living, it appears, increasingly as the US “spinmeister of choice” for the Vatican and its wealthy allies. But can Allen be taken seriously here in his “over the top praise” of Scicluna, who perhaps more than any other Vatican bureaucrat facilitated the Vatican’s evident priest abuse cover-up strategy for years. Scicluna’s rewards for this troubling behavior were promotions to senior episcopal positions from all indications.

* Sadly, in a gathering of “moral midgets” that the Vatican’s priest child abuse cover-up team seems to represent, even a short guy like Scicluna may seem a giant. But let’s be honest, please.

* Scicluna’s latest promotion appears to be just more of the same decades’ old cover up strategy. Pope Francis, a reportedly very hands on manager, apparently selected recently the members of his advisory sex abuse commission to deal, slowly it seems, with his biggest challenge, the scandal of sexual predatory priests and their unaccountable bishop accomplices.

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CHILE
La Tercera

[The film El Bosque will be released in April. Starring Luis Gnecco and Benjamin Vicuna, it is based on the allegations of abuse against Chilean priest Fernando Karadima.]

por P. Reyes – 02/03/2015

La esperada película El Bosque de Karadima lanzó su trailer oficial. El film, del cineasta Matías Lira, difundió un adelanto de dos minutos y medio, que muestra las tensiones entre el párroco y uno de los abusados.

La cinta, protagonizada por Luis Gnecco y Benjamín Vicuña, se basa en hechos reales: las denuncias de abusos en contra del sacerdote chileno Fernando Karadima y en cómo el párroco y líder de la Iglesia más poderosa de la clase alta chilena -considerado “un santo en vida” entre los años 80 y 2000- comete abusos sostenidos contra Thomas, un adolescente en busca de su vocación. Tras la situación, decidirá hablar y enfrentar las redes de poder que protegen al cura.

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ST. LOUIS (MO)
Berger’s Beat

March 2, 2015 11:41 am | Author: berger
Carol Kuhnert, a local Catholic whose brother Fr. Norman H. Christian was a pedophile priest, has penned a new book, “No Longer on Pedestals.” In 2003. Christian was a arrested on sexual abuse charges and faced at least eight allegations. Still, then Archbishop Raymond Burke let Christian be buried as a “priest in good standing ” in 2004. Kuhnert’s book details how she had moved from blind trust of Catholic figures to actively supporting victims of child molesting clerics.

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UNITED STATES
New York Times

Bikram Choudhury’s Sexual Assault Lawsuits

By ERNESTO LONDOÑO

I succumbed to the spell of Bikram yoga during a cold winter in Washington. At the time, I was feeling depressed, lethargic and a bit chunky. During a routine physical, my doctor had discovered that my testosterone level was abnormally low for someone my age, while my blood pressure was high.

I had glanced at the sign outside a yoga studio near Dupont Circle countless times, but one afternoon, at the height of my malaise, its motto seemed to scream at me: “Change Your Body & Change Your Life.”

I knew nothing about Bikram Choudhury, the eccentric Los Angeles-based yoga mogul who has made a fortune marketing his guided series of 26 postures, or about the growing allegations by women who say he sexually assaulted them during teacher training workshops. I just knew I needed a jolt.

After walking up a narrow set of stairs and looking into the mesmerizingly placid eyes of the studio owner, I signed up for a $20 weekly trial of the 90-minute practice, which is held in studios set to 105 degrees with 40 percent humidity.

For the uninitiated, Bikram yoga can feel downright torturous. At first, I found the heat suffocating, the poses impossibly difficult to master and the instructors somewhat kooky.

Act with “English bulldog determination!” they commanded. Hold poses with “Bengal tiger strength!” After my first 90 minutes of misery, I staggered away from the puddle of sweat I left in the studio, took a cold shower and was rewarded with an electrifying high. I began taking classes almost daily and became evangelical about the workout.

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IRELAND
Irish Times

Mary Carolan

Mon, Mar 2, 2015

A priest is seeking permission to bring High Court proceedings aimed at halting his trial on charges of indecently assaulting 14 boys at a secondary school in Munster.

The charges relate to alleged offences between 1969 and 1990 and the priest contends his right to a fair trial has been prejudiced due to a “fatal deficit” of disclosure, Mr Justice Seamus Noonan was told.

Margery Farrelly SC, for the priest, said that deficit arose from the refusal of the Irish Examiner newspaper to disclose documents on foot of which it had published a number of stories concerning the alleged offences.

Following a request from lawyers for the priest, gardaí had asked the newspaper to disclose any documents in its possession related to the stories published.

The stories included interviews with some former pupils of the school, some of whom might be complainants in these proceedings and whose identities were protected via the use of pseudonym, she said.

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NEW YORK
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Sunday, March 1

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

Three women have been “repeatedly manhandled for three years by a leering, oversexed co-worker” while three Catholic priests did little or nothing to stop the assaults, according to court papers and the NY Post.

[New York Post]

Shame on Franciscan Friars John McVean, John Felice and Tom Walters, who allegedly ignored and tolerated intolerable assaults on underlings by Gyasi Bramos-Hantman at St. Francis Friends of the Poor in Manhattan.

It’s very hard to expose wrongdoing in Catholic institutions. They’re often oppressive work places, because the church is a rigid, secretive, largely-male monarchy that exploits ‘religious freedom’ laws to shield itself from scrutiny and keep employees largely powerless. They’re often hard to sue, because Catholic officials spend liberally on top-notch, aggressive defense lawyers who use scorched-earth legal tactics to discredit and attack victims, witnesses and whistleblowers.

So we applaud employees Donna Graves and Ann O’Leary and Maria Colon for their incredible courage, especially because these clerics allegedly “ruled with an iron fist and fostered a culture of intimidation.”

Those who see, suspect and suffer clergy sex crimes, misdeeds and cover ups must somehow find the strength these women have found and speak up. Only when church staff and members summon the bravery to expose wrongdoing will Catholic institutions become more safe and healthy.

We call on New York Cardinal Timothy Dolan to show leadership and publicly denounce these Franciscans and beg others who have knowledge of or suspicions about their irresponsible actions and inaction to step forward, get help, prevent assaults, deter cover ups and start healing.

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NEW YORK
ABC News

MINEOLA, N.Y. — Feb 23, 2015

By FRANK ELTMAN Associated Press

A decision by New York’s highest court striking down dozens of local laws that set boundaries on where convicted sex offenders may live has rekindled a debate over whether such laws really work to protect children.

New York’s Court of Appeals ruled unanimously last week that only the state has the power to tell offenders where they can and cannot reside, and generally only while they are on parole or supervised release. The ruling effectively struck down more than 130 local laws across the state, many of which went further than state law by imposing such restrictions on offenders for the rest of their lives.

Some lawmakers and advocates reacted by seeking to strengthen the state law, which currently bars more serious sex offenders on parole or supervised release from being within 1,000 feet any school grounds in a parked car or public areas adjacent to schools.

“We are very concerned,” said Laura Ahearn, executive director of a Long Island group called Parents for Megan’s Law. “Because certain registrants are no less dangerous the day after they complete their supervision.”

But several experts argue such residency restrictions may not provide the protection for children the laws envision.

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NEW YORK
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Monday, March 2

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

We’re disappointed a New York court has struck down laws limiting where child sex offenders can live and we urge lawmakers to quickly adopt other measures that help protect kids from predators.

[ABC News]

For at least decades, child sex abuse has been rampant. Relatively speaking, laws that restrict convicted child molesters are relatively recent. So at best, it’s likely premature to reach firm conclusions on whether or not these laws work.

We challenge those who oppose these restrictions on predators’ whereabouts: Before you try to block further restrictions, come up with a better plan.

One in four girls and one in eight boys is molested. So clearly, what our society is doing now to stop predators and protect kids is failing.

Advocates of relaxing or repealing virtually any child sex abuse law, therefore, have a moral duty to devise some other means of safeguarding kids first.

Those who just nay-say and nit-pick child safety laws endanger kids. Those who ambitiously and creatively try new approaches to child safety protect kids. That’s where our energies should be concentrated – trying harder, thinking smarter and pushing the legal envelop to devise and adopt new approaches to preventing horrific child sex crimes and cover ups.

Finally, convicted child predators aren’t the real threat to kids. The real threat to kids are the vast majority of child molesters who are never caught, convicted or exposed. That’s where our society’s focus should be – on making sure that they are at least publicly exposed.

So the single most effective step legislators could take to protect kids would be to pass Assemblywoman Marge Markey’s bill setting up a civil “window” enabling anyone who was abused at any time by any predator – for a short time – to use the civil courts to warn parents and the public about those who commit and conceal child molesters. This is a cheap, quick and effective way to expose dangerous predators.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Mirror

2 March 2015 By Amy De-Keyzer

A priest has been jailed more than 30 years after sexually abusing a boy under 16 at a children’s home.

Father Anthony McSweeney was found guilty of indecent assault of a boy, between January 1979 and July 1981, and three counts of making indecent photographs/pseudo photographs of children on or before January 15 2013.

Southwark Crown Court heard the incident was committed during his time working at Grafton Close Children’s Home in Hanworth.

The 68-year-old, of Crawley in Sussex, was convicted as part of Operation Fernbridge, part of the wider Operation Fairbank which was launched in 2012 to investigate allegations of child abuse at the home in the late 1970s and early 1980s.

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AUSTRALIA
Herald Sun

Knox Grammar general duties manager ‘put his job on the line’ to investigate ‘protected’ paedophile teacher

JANET FIFE-YEOMANS THE DAILY TELEGRAPH MARCH 02, 2015

THE former headmaster of Knox Grammer, Dr Ian Paterson, has been accused of sexually assaulting a 15-year-old girl in a startling development at the child sex abuse royal commission.

His police report, tendered to the commission, reveals that in 2009, a student from the exclusive girls’ school Roseville College claimed he had assaulted her while she was backstage after a performance at Knox Grammar.

The former student, Lucy Perry, told police that it was 1989 when she was 15.

According to the police statement, she said that she did not want to proceed with charges but had come forward to back up reports made by former Knox students which were being investigated by Strike Force Arika and led to five former Knox teachers being charged with sexual abuse.

“Perry stated that Paterson patted her on the bottom a few times and slid his hand underneath and toucher her in the genital area,” the police report stated.

“Perry said that it only lasted a few seconds and that she stepped forward to remove his hand.

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AUSTRALIA
Sky News

A key witness at a hearing into Knox Grammar has denied he’s trying to shift the blame for poor record keeping onto the former headmaster Ian Paterson.

Stuart Pearson, the former general duties master at the elite north shore Sydney boys’ school, reiterated his allegation Dr Paterson had lied when he said he had reported to police that an intruder wearing a balaclava had sexually assaulted a boy in 1988.

Solicitor Jim Harrowell, representing Dr Paterson cross-examined Mr Pearson, a former policeman, for more than an hour.

In a terse exchange he asked Mr Pearson if when he was a policeman he had a problem with record keeping and complained about the need to keep a lot of documents.

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AUSTRALIA
9 News

The chief executive of a women’s health charity says she was indecently assaulted by a former Knox Grammar School headmaster.

Lucy Perry has told a royal commission hearing into the elite Sydney north shore boy’s school that Ian Paterson groped her in 1989 when she was part of musical being produced by her school Roseville and Knox Grammar.

Ms Perry who is chief executive of Hamlin Fistula Ethiopia (Australia), said the assault happened in full view of students at the Knox school hall, and the boys who saw it “roared with approval”.

She reported the assault to NSW police in 2009 when numerous allegations about widespread sexual abuse at the school were coming out.

Ms Perry said at one of the rehearsals she was backstage talking to some of the boys at a production of Guys and Dolls when Dr Paterson pointed to her and one of the boys and said “you and you out”.

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AUSTRALIA
The Guardian

Australian Associated Press
Monday 2 March 2015

A senior church figure who was on the council of Sydney’s Knox Grammar has denied giving advice that school records should be destroyed.

James Mein, who was moderator of the Uniting Church in Australia and on the council of the Sydney school, said neither he nor any solicitor he knew advised the school to destroy records.

He was giving evidence at a royal commission into sexual abuse on Monday

Counsel assisting the commission David Lloyd said on Monday it was not his intention to recommend finding against Mein in relation to the records.

Lloyd said Dwane Feehley, whose email contained an allegation that a solicitor assisted by Mein was advising Knox to destroy records, was overseas and could not be compelled to appear.

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AUSTRALIA
The Guardian

Australian Associated Press
Sunday 1 March 2015

The head of discipline at Knox Grammar school quit in disgust when the headmaster put a suspected paedophile in charge of a boarding house, an inquiry has heard.

Stuart Pearson was general duties master at the elite Sydney school in the 1980s when Ian Paterson was headmaster.

Pearson told a royal commission hearing on Monday that one of his reasons for leaving Knox in 1990 was that four years after he recommended that Adrian Nisbett have nothing to do with students beyond the classroom, the teacher was given responsibility for boys at Kooyong Boarding House.

In 2010, Nisbett was convicted of two counts of committing acts of indecency on Knox boys in the 1980s and was released on a good behaviour bond.

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AUSTRALIA
Herald Sun

Jewish community members call on Yeshivah Centre board to resign after child sexual abuse royal commission revelations

SHANNON DEERY HERALD SUN MARCH 02, 2015

MEMBERS of Melbourne’s Jewish community have called for the immediate resignation of the board at the disgraced Yeshivah Centre in the wake of a damning royal commission probe.

While several high-profile rabbis have already ­resigned from positions — ­including the nation’s top rabbi, Meir Shlomo Kluwgant – the management committee has escaped the same level of scrutiny.

Now an online petition, ­individually naming seven people, has called for the entire committee of management to resign.

“We the individuals & families of the Yeshivah community, together with members of the wider Jewish community, call for the immediate resignation of the members of the Committee of Management,” it says.

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AUSTRALIA
Sydney Morning Herald

March 2, 2015

Rachel Browne

A senior Uniting Church figure denied destroying crucial documents relating to sexual abuse at Knox Grammar School, instead blaming pedophile teacher Adrian John Nisbett, a royal commission has heard.

James Mein, former moderator of the Uniting Church in Australia, synod of NSW and ACT, and an unnamed solicitor were implicated in the disappearance of documents in a series of emails sent by the church’s insurance manager in 2009.

“The solicitor who drafted this is the one who has been advising the school to destroy documents, with Jim’s assistance,” Dwane Freehely wrote in an email tendered in evidence to the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.

Mr Mein told the commission he did not destroy the documents and nor did anyone involved in a series of meetings held by the church, school council and lawyers after sex abuse allegations were reported to police in 2009.

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AUSTRALIA
Daily Telegraph

AAP

THERE is no evidence to support an allegation linking a former Uniting Church leader with the destruction of documents at Knox Grammar School, an inquiry has heard.

COUNSEL assisting the child abuse royal commission David Lloyd said on Monday it was not his intention to recommend finding related to the records against James Mein, the former moderator of the Uniting Church and former council member at the Sydney boys day and boarding school.

Mr Lloyd said Dwane Feehley, whose email contained an allegation that a solicitor assisted by Jim Mein was advising Knox to destroy records, was overseas and could not be compelled to appear.

There was no other evidence to suggest Mr Mein or former chairman of the Knox Council, solicitor Rob Wannan, made any such advice.

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MALTA
Malta Today

Matthew Vella 2 March 2015

One of journalism’s most prolific of Vatican insiders and the leading American authority on the Holy See, John L. Allen, has dubbed Malta’s new archbishop a Catholic “hero” for his role in successful prosecutions of clerical sex abusers.

Allen, formerly of the National Catholic Reporter and now writing for The Boston Globe, said Charles Scicluna – appointed on Friday as Malta’s new archbishop – was a highly respected churchman all across the Catholic world, apart from being a “gifted canon lawyer.”

For years serving by the side of Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger as promoter of justice in the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Scicluna, 55, spent 10 years handling accusations of clerical sex abuse, gaining a reputation for treating victims with compassion and respect, and for insisting church officials respond to allegations clearly.

“His leadership on the church’s effort to recover from its child sexual abuse scandals, especially his role in the prosecution of the late Fr Marcial Maciel Degollado, have made him a hero to reformers everywhere. His appointment will thus be taken not only as an important moment for Malta, but also a sign that good guys don’t always finish last!” Allen said.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

By Nicole Chettle

A woman has accused former Knox Grammar School principal Ian Paterson of indecently assaulting her while she was taking part in a musical he was directing.

Lucy Perry, the chief executive of women’s charity Hamlin Fistula Ethiopia, said she reported the alleged abuse to police after hearing students at the school had been abused.

Dr Paterson has not been implicated in any child abuse allegations, but a royal commission has been examining his handling of the issue at the school, where children were abused between the 1970s and 2003.

Ms Perry’s account is the only allegation of abuse by Dr Paterson heard by the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, which has been investigating the school for more than a week.

She told the Sydney hearing the assault happened in 1989 when she was a teenager.

She said Dr Paterson inappropriately touched her in front of the male performers, who laughed.

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AUSTRALIA
Daily Mail (UK)

Boys ‘cheered as former headmaster at Knox Grammar School groped a young girl’ during a rehearsal for a school musical

Boys from Knox Grammar roared with approval when their headmaster touched a young girl who was taking part in a school musical, an inquiry has heard.

Lucy Perry, who now heads an international women’s health charity, told the child abuse royal commission she was indecently assaulted by the elite Sydney boys school’s former headmaster Ian Paterson in 1989 when she was 15.

Ms Perry, chief executive of Hamlin Fistula Ethiopia (Australia), said the assault happened in full view of students at the Knox school hall and the boys who saw it ‘roared with approval’.

She reported the assault to NSW police in 2009 when allegations about sexual abuse at Knox were emerging.

Ms Perry’s school, Roseville College, and Knox Grammar had been jointly staging the musical ‘Guys and Dolls’.

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AUSTRALIA
The Standard

By ALEX SINNOTT March 2, 2015

A STITCH in time saves nine, the old adage goes, but a group of creative Catholic women have a more compassionate metaphor in mind.

The Quilt of Hope — assembled by volunteers from across the Ballarat diocese — was on display at Warrnambool’s St Joseph’s Church yesterday as a way of reaching out to sexual abuse victims.

The campaign was spearheaded by parishioners who wanted to show their compassion and support for those hurt by church-related sexual abuse.

Ballarat quilt-maker Beryl Andersen kick-started work on the quilt in May 2013 and the Moving Towards Justice group completed the piece just over a year later.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Exaro News

By Tim Wood

2 March 2015

Priest Tony McSweeney faces a fresh investigation over the sexual abuse of boys at a children’s home in the London borough of Richmond.

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AUSTRALIA
Sydney Morning Herald

March 2, 2015

Rachel Browne
Social Affairs Reporter

A former senior staff member of Knox Grammar School was “gobsmacked” to discover two paedophile teachers were still working at the school years after he reported their activities to then headmaster Dr Ian Paterson, a royal commission has heard.

Stuart Pearson, the former general duties master of the school, told the royal commission he reported Craig Treloar to Dr Paterson in 1987 after a boy alleged the teacher had propositioned him for sex.

Mr Pearson told the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse on Monday that the boy had come to him in tears following the incident with Treloar.

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“Through tears the boy told me he had been invited into Treloar’s room,” he said.

“Treloar had poured some alcohol. A tape had been put on. It was pornographic but he could not describe it . . . he was just a young boy.

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AUSTRALIA
The Australian

MARCH 02, 2015

Ean Higgins
Reporter
Sydney

THE general duties matter at Knox Grammar who investigated pedophile teacher Adrian Nisbett was shocked in 1990 to find headmaster Ian Paterson had given Nisbett a position in a Knox boarding house, four years after he had been removed from contact with students.

The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse this morning heard further evidence from Stuart Pearson, a former policeman, who held the general duties job at the Sydney private school in the 1980s.

Mr Pearson said Dr Paterson had initially discouraged him from investigating Nisbett, who among other improper actions against students, had rubbed boys in a sexual fashion in his darkroom.

Nisbett was arrested in 2009 and convicted of two counts of category 4 sexual assault.

Mr Pearson’s report to Dr Paterson in 1986 on Nisbett found a “pattern of behaviour”, and recommended he be removed from roles in which he would have contact with students, and Mr Paterson took actions to this effect.

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AUSTRALIA
Sydney Morning Herald

March 2, 2015

Michaela Whitbourn

Parents at private boys school Knox Grammar have tied purple ribbons to its gate in honour of the victims who came forward to report sexual abuse at the school over more than 30 years.

A Twitter account set up overnight, @concernedknox, posted photos of the wrought-iron gate on the Pacific Highway covered in ribbons of various hues of purple on Monday.

“In honour of the victims of Knox paedophiles,” a series of tweets posted on Monday morning said.

“All it takes for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.”

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AUSTRALIA
J-Wire

March 2, 2015

The Jewish Taskforce Against Family Violence Inc. has commended the courage of those victims who came forward to give evidence at the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.JTAFVA statement released by the group says: The victims were betrayed by organisations and people in authority at that time and those failures and omissions were categorically wrong. The victims and their families placed their trust in those organisations and people and that trust was manifestly broken. We also acknowledge and pay tribute to the courage of those whose disclosures led to the hearings themselves and bear witness to their ongoing pain.

The Jewish Taskforce Against Family Violence Inc. also acknowledges all other victims in our community whose abuse was not the subject of the Royal Commission’s enquiries but whose suffering and distress is also present.

We reiterate our earlier statements made during the enquiry that all institutions must have appropriate policies in place to safeguard children and all Rabbis and Rabbinical students as well as all teachers and any other people with children in their care must undergo appropriate training in the area of child protection.

We have served, and will continue to serve our community in the campaign for the elimination of all forms of family violence through community awareness and provide information and referrals to those who contact us on our support line on a confidential basis. We continue to commit to the health, safety and wellbeing of our community.

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AUSTRALIA
Sydney Morning Herald

Royal commission into sex abuse: CEO of global charity ‘indecently assaulted’ as a girl by former Knox headmaster

Rachel Browne
Social Affairs Reporter

The chief executive of a global women’s health charity was allegedly indecently assaulted by former Knox Grammar School headmaster Ian Paterson.

Lucy Perry, chief executive of Hamlin Fistula Ethiopia (Australia), has been called to give evidence to the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, which is holding a public hearing into the elite school.

Evidence tendered to the commission shows Ms Perry reported the assault to NSW police in 2009 when numerous allegations about widespread sexual abuse at the school were coming out.

In information provided to the police Ms Perry alleged that as a student at Roseville Ladies College she attended Knox Grammar on a regular basis to perform in plays and musicals.

She said that when she was 16 years old in 1989 Dr Paterson indecently assaulted her backstage after a performance.

A report compiled by the NSW Police and tendered to the commission reads: “PERRY stated that PATTERSON (sic) patted her on the bottom a few times and slide his hand underneath and touched her in the genital area. PERRY stated that it only lasted a few seconds and that she stepped forward to remove his hand . .. At the time. PERRY was wearing a leotard and fishnet stockings. PERRY is unaware if the incident was witnessed by anyone else.”

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AUSTRALIA
ABC Newcastle

By Sarah Shands

The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses into Child Sexual Abuse is the end of the road for one Newcastle man.

The man’s name is Stephen (he doesn’t want his surname revealed), and he was invited to share his story of abuse at a private hearing with the Royal Commission in Newcastle last week.

It’s been a harrowing journey for the 66-year old, who said he suffered abuse at school in Adamstown from when he was 13-years old.

“Looking back 50 years I can see it really stuffed up my life,” he said.

Stephen said abuse doesn’t just affect the survivor but their entire extended family.

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AUSTRALIA
Daily Telegraph

Former Knox headmaster lied about the arrest of a balaclava-clad man under the bed, inquiry heard

A former headmaster of Knox Grammar lied to students about police arresting a balaclava-wearing sexual predator at the school, one of his assistants has told an inquiry.

Stuart Pearson, former general duties master at the prestigious Sydney school, said Ian Paterson, the principal at Knox for 30 years, discouraged investigations of sexual misbehaviour by teachers.

Mr Pearson, a former policeman, was a resident master at the school from 1985 to 1990 and investigated infringements as part of his job.

He told the sex abuse royal commission there were no restrictions on investigating matters such as misappropriation of funds, but Dr Paterson’s “attitude was different when it came to inappropriate behaviour by teachers”.

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PENNSYLVANIA
We Are Central PA

[with video]

Christian Heilman

PHILIPSBURG — Sunday was the first service at Saints Peter and Paul in Philipsburg since the diocese placed Father Robert Kelly on leave. Parishioners are trying to understand what happened.

Mass started at 10 AM Sunday as parishioners filed into church. This time, a different priest was overseeing the service.

We talked with half a dozen people leaving church about Father Robert Kelly. They all said the same thing — that Father Kelly was a kind, intelligent man and they don’t believe he did anything wrong.

We spoke to a mother with children who said she had no reason to worry about Father Kelly.

No one wanted to speak on camera. During the service, Father John Gibbons told parishioners not to speak to the media.

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IRELAND
Newstalk

Caoimhseach Connolly

Sunday 1 March 2015

Events to remember women who lived and died in Magdalene laundries and convents took place around the country this weekend.

The Flowers for Magdalene events honour women who were sent to work in laundries run by religious orders. The fourth annual events have been taking place in Waterford, Glasnevin Cemetery in Dublin, Cork, Galway, New Ross and other locations.

It is said that is the first time that all cities and towns that had Magdalene laundries have been represented since the Flowers for Magdalene events began.

Last week the Justice For Magdalenes group criticised a report on the laundries, which they say ignored the testimonies of Magdalene survivors.

The group says the McAleese Report gives too much attention to the religious orders’ version of events, and ignores survivor testimonies.

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GUAM
Concerned Catholics of Guam

There will be a prayer service Monday, March 2 at 3:00pm at the gates of the Chancery, San Ramon Hill. Please bring your rosary.

A CCOG village meeting will be held at the Hagatna Mayor’s Office, across Hagatna swimming pool, on Thursday, March 5 at 6:00pm.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Main Post

[Abuse – An Open Wound]

Der Kirchenskandal: Seit 2010 wurden verstärkt bundesweit Fälle von Priestern bekannt, die Kinder missbraucht hatten. Der erste Fall in der Diözese Würzburg betraf einen Franziskaner-Minoriten-Pater. Seither läuft die kirchenrechtliche Untersuchung.

Vor fünf Jahren haben sich die Opfer an die Kirche gewandt. Auf Gerechtigkeit warten sie noch heute: Das kirchenrechtliche Urteil über einen prominenten Würzburger Franziskaner-Pater steht immer noch aus. Der stadtbekannte „Sportpater“ war im bundesweiten Missbrauchsskandal der katholischen Kirche 2010 der erste Fall in der Diözese Würzburg. Medienberichte brachten damals, Ende Februar, ans Licht, dass der Franziskaner-Minoriten-Pater in den 60er Jahren Schüler sexuell missbraucht haben soll. Kurz darauf weiteten sich die Vorwürfe auf die 70er und 80er Jahre aus.

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NEW YORK
USA Today

[with video]

Rick Hampson, USA TODAY March 1, 2015

NEW YORK – Our Lady of Vilnius Church, built by families of immigrant Lithuanian longshoremen, started out a century ago as a beloved worship space. Now, it’s a coveted real estate asset.

In 2013, six years after the church was closed, it was sold for $13 million to one of the city’s biggest developers. The following year that company flipped it like a pancake to another developer for $18.4 million.

Now the yellow brick church near the entrance to the Holland Tunnel awaits demolition to make way for an 18-story luxury apartment house.

“It makes you cynical,” says Christina Nakraseive, a former parishioner who supported the legal case against the church closing until it was rejected by the state’s highest court. “It seems like it’s all about real estate.”

The issue has taken on added significance since the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New York, citing declining attendance, rising costs and a looming priest shortage, announced plans to merge scores of parishes and close dozens of churches this year.

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IRELAND
98 FM

by Rebecca Horan 01st Mar 2015

Events to remember women who lived and died in Magdalene Laundries and convents, took place around the country this weekend.

The Flowers for Magdalene events honour women who were sent to work in laundries run by religious orders.

Last week the Justice For Magdalene group criticised a report on the Laundries, which they say ignored the testimonies of Magdalene survivors.

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DEUTSCHLAND
MKN

[Benedictine Abbot Barnabas Bögle is speechless after the confession of his confrere Father G. before the Landgericht München II. This was particularly bitter for him that the victim had to wait years for justice and were still subjected to a process. For the monastery this was a terrible blow.]

Benediktinerabt Barnabas Bögle ist nach dem Geständnis seines Mitbruders Pater G. vor dem Landgericht München II sprachlos. Besonders bitter sei für ihn, dass die Opfer jahrelang auf Gerechtigkeit warten mussten und noch einem Verfahren ausgesetzt wurden. Für das Kloster sei dies ein furchtbarer Rückschlag.

München/Ettal – Der Ettaler Benediktinerabt Barnabas Bögle ist nach dem Missbrauchsgeständnis eines Mitbruders weiter fassungslos. Fünf Jahre lang sei er nach Bekanntwerden der Vorwürfe von der Unschuldsvermutung ausgegangen, sagte der Abt dem “Münchner Merkur” (Samstag). Pater G., der im Prozess vor dem Landgericht München II am Donnerstag nach jahrelangem Abstreiten ein Geständnis abgelegt hatte, sei noch am selben Abend ins Kloster gekommen. “Um zu sagen, dass er mit der Wahrheit hinterm Berg gehalten hat. Ich war sprachlos”, erzählte Bögle.

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AUSTRALIA
Sky News

The former headmaster of an elite Sydney school where boys were sexually abused by teachers will give evidence at a hearing on Monday.

Ian Paterson, who was headmaster of Knox Grammar on Sydney’s north shore for 30 years until 1998 will be in the witness stand at a royal commission hearing into how the exclusive private school responded when boys alleged sexual abuse by teachers.

The commission heard evidence last week that Dr Paterson protected teachers in order to preserve the reputation of the school.

The former moderator of the Uniting Church in Australia Jim Mein will also give evidence.

Mr Mein is expected to deny an allegation contained in an email presented on Friday that linked him to advice given to the school to destroy pertinent documents.

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AUSTRALIA
The Australian

KATHERINE TOWERS THE AUSTRALIAN
MARCH 02, 2015

A SENIOR journalist has been made redundant from The Australian Jewish News after passing on information that helped a royal commission and led to the resignation of Australia’s most senior Rabbi.

Adam Kamien, who had worked for the paper since 2006, became the only person in the newsroom to be made redundant following an internal investigation into how text messages ended up being used by the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.

The text message, sent from the Rabbi Meir Kluwgant to the editor of the AJN, Zeddy Lawrence, and read out at the royal commission, described the father of an abuse victim as a “lunatic” who neglected his children.

“Zephaniah is killing us. Zephaniah is attacking Chabad. He is a lunatic on the fringe, guilting of neglect of his own children. Where was he when all this was happening?”

Under intense cross examination, Rabbi Kluwgant was forced to admit he sent the message to Mr Lawrence during the commission evidence of Zephaniah Waks, father of victim and whistleblower Manny Waks.

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UNITED STATES
Christian Catholicism

Jerry Slevin

>>>>>UNACCOUNTABLE CARDINALS & POPES

>>>>>CANNOT SUCCEED IN THE INTERNET ERA !

Pope Francis returned from his Lenten Retreat to face the latest “cardinal leak” scandal He tried unsuccessfully to give a “subject changing” speech on the current evils for the poor of global capitalism. Leaked scandals are inevitable occurrences, given the pope’s futile continuation of secrecy in the Internet Era, and the lack of transparent accountability of cardinals, and of the pope for that matter, in the past, now or in the foreseeable future. The new leak involved large and questionable expenditures of one of Francis’ more than a hundred unaccountable Cardinals, George Pell, the Vatican’s new finance czar. Pell seems to like to spend lavishly on almost everything but abuse survivors’ just claims.

The pope also faced continuing fallout from his unwise “Mexicanization comments” and from his difficult Angela Merkel meeting over the Vatican’s Ukraine, and women and children’s, positions discussed below. The top German Cardinal, Reinhard Marx, is reportedly currently nearly threatening to act in Germany on a seemingly important local “money matter” — divorced and remarried Catholics’ access to communion, regardless of what Francis’ futile “all celibate male” Final Family Synod, or even Francis, may decide in a matter of months. Unaccountable cardinals are, it seems, not much influenced by an unaccountable pope in his 79th year.

By serendipity, or providence perhaps, legendary investor, Warren Buffett, was at about the same time making relevant remarks on the need to hold managers accountable. Buffett had earlier made some surprising negative observations about global capitalism that were similar to some the pope just made in his new speech on the adverse effect of the current crony capitalist system on the poor.

Buffett, who was raised a Presbyterian, differs from the pope, significantly however, on the importance of top managers being held accountable and on the importance of family planning programs. Buffett is moving forward with his commitment to transfer most of his $75 billion fortune to the Gates Foundation — a major international advocate for accessible family planning programs. The priest child abuse scandal Francis faces, and the desperate plight of some poor families the world faces, are often exacerbated needlessly by couples having more children than they really want or can afford to provide even basic necessities.

Melinda Gates, the Foundation’s co-head and a Catholic, appears, in effect, to be on a collision course with Francis and his upcoming Final Family Synod over the Synod’s approving at least giving poor women access to affordable and effective family planning programs, including contraception. Please see, “Melinda Gates: ‘I’m a Catholic, but women need access to contraceptives‘ – video interview” here,

[The Guardian]

The former Archbishop from Australia, Pell, is still reeling, it appears, from a recent and devastating government report on his brutal treatment of Australian priest sex abuse survivors who sought minimal financial assistance to alleviate the adverse effects of their abuse, see “Pope Francis Must Fire Cardinal Pell Now ” here:

[Christian Catholicism]

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BRASIL
Jornal de Noticias

O líder de uma seita religiosa norte-americana, Victor Arden Barnard, de 53 anos, foi detido no Brasil para responder por 59 acusações de abuso sexual de menores, pelos quais era procurado pela Interpol.

A polícia deteve na sexta-feira no litoral sul do Rio Grande do Norte o norte-americano, que era procurado pela Organização Internacional de Polícia Criminal (Interpol) por suspeitas de crimes de abuso sexual cometidos entre 2000 e 2012, segundo o diário “Globo”.

O seu nome constava também na lista dos 15 indivíduos mais procurados pela agência US Marshal, organização policial norte-americana responsável pela busca e captura de fugitivos internacionais, acrescentou o diário.

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BRASIL
G1

Anderson Barbosa

A Polícia Militar prendeu na noite desta sexta-feira (27), no litoral Sul do Rio Grande do Norte, o americano Victor Arden Barnard, de 53 anos, líder de uma seita religiosa nos Estados Unidos e que responde a 59 acusações de abusos sexuais contra crianças e adolescentes, crimes que teriam ocorrido entre os anos de 2000 e 2012.

A Polícia Federal confirmou as informações e revelou que Barnard era procurado pela Organização Internacional de Polícia Criminal, mundialmente conhecida como Interpol, e que ele também figurava na lista dos 15 mais procurados pela agência U.S. Marshal, organização policial americana responsável pela busca e captura de foragidos internacionais.

“A agência U.S. Marshal oferecia uma recompensa de 25 mil dólares (o equivalente a aproximadamente 72 mil reais) para quem desse informações que levassem o acusado à prisão. Contudo, como a Polícia Militar cumpriu com sua obrigação constitucional, assim como a própria Polícia Federal, o dinheiro não será reclamado”, acrescentou o delegado Paulo Henrique Oliveira, superintendente em exercício da PF no Rio Grande do Norte.

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MINNESOTA/BRAZIL
New York Daily News

BY JOEL LANDAU NEW YORK DAILY NEWS Sunday, March 1, 2015

Brazilian police have captured a fugitive minister from the U.S. who dressed as Jesus and allegedly sexually assaulted young girls he kept in isolation as part of a religious cult.

The U.S. Marshals and Brazilian authorities announced Saturday the arrest of Victor Arden Barnard, 53. Barnard, who was on the Marshals’ Most Wanted list, faces 59 counts of criminal sexual conduct after two women stepped forward and claimed he had abused them for years beginning when they were 12 and 13 years old.

Authorities charge the self-described minister created a compound in Finlayson, Minn., about 90 miles north of Minneapolis called “Shepherd’s Camp.” He kept 10 virgin girls at the premises away from their families, police said.

The two women say that he abused one from age 13 to 22 and another from age 12 to 20. Officials tried to get other women to come forward but they refused.

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PENNSYLVANIA
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Friday, Feb. 27

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

An Altoona-Johnstown priest – Fr. Robert Kelly – has been accused of child sexual abuse. It’s not “misconduct.” That’s deceptive and hurtful.

[The Reporter]

Fr. Kelly is the 28th Altoona-Johnstown diocesan priest to be publicly accused of molesting kids. (See BishopAccountability.org) We believe the real number is two or three times higher.

Shame on Bishop Mark Bartchak. Like a slimy politician trying to do “damage control,” he disclosed Fr. Kelly’s suspension late on a Friday afternoon, knowing this news would be heard and seen by the fewest possible people and hoping he dodge reporters’ calls. He also knows that a late Friday release means the resulting news coverage will be shorter and less thorough. And shame on him for not putting his terse, callous news release on his diocesan website.

Bishop Bartchak should get busy. First, for the safety of kids, he should disclose Fr. Kelly’s whereabouts. Second, starting this weekend, he should go to every parish where Fr. Kelly worked, begging victims, witnesses and whistleblowers to step forward and call police.

Why?

Because that’s what will help ensure Fr. Kelly is kept away from kids the longest.

Because that’s what Bartchak owes his flock.

Because that’s how Bartchak will find others who have been hurt and are still suffering.

Because that’s how Catholic officials will begin to reverse centuries of secrecy, deceit, recklessness, callousness and inaction about child sex crimes and cover ups.

Because that’s how Bartchak will begin to earn the trust he says he wants to restore among parishioners.

Because with Pope Francis heading to Pennsylvania in a few months, Bartchak has a tremendous opportunity, through this kind of courageous and compassionate outreach, to show bishops across the globe the proper and effective way to respond when allegations of child sex crimes surface.

What a refreshing and reassuring move this would be. Imagine how thrilled and grateful Altoona-Johnstown Catholics would be to see their spiritual leader forging a new path and going beyond the bare minimum.

Sending a terse, carefully-crafted, lawyer-vetted four or five sentence media statement sends a weak and depressing signal to the flock. Sending the bishop himself to parishes, in person, to beg anyone with information or suspicions about Fr. Kelly to call 911, would send a strong and encouraging signal to the Altoona-Johnstown flock, especially to the hundreds (perhaps thousands) who have been sexually violated by priests, nuns, seminarians, brothers and other Catholic employees.

We beg those who have knowledge of or suspicions about clergy sex crimes or cover ups to find the strength to reach out, get help, expose wrongdoers, protect others and start healing.

If you saw, suspected or suffered clergy sex crimes or cover ups, we want to hear from you and will protect your confidentiality.

Doing and saying nothing keeps the church unhealthy and keeps kids in danger. Please, search your conscience, find some courage and call independent sources of help – a therapist or our group or police or prosecutors. Don’t call biased Catholic bureaucrats. Call the independent professionals in law enforcement.

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NEW YORK
Frum Follies

Posted on 03/01/2015 by Yerachmiel Lopin

The Brooklyn DA has charged Moses Braustein with trying to lure underage Boro Park boys with a promise of penis enlargement. His pending charges include, attempted luring of a child, acting in a manner injurious to a child under 17, and disseminating indecent material to a minor. He was arrested on February 25, 2015 for acts alleged to have been committed on February 12, 2015.

Nuchem Rosenberg’s blog offers up some Purim spin we can expect from his defenders. He was actually using penis as a euphemism in describing methods of growing peyos (sidecurls) longer. Perhaps he was promising them Chazon-Ish-sized beitzim.

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THAILAND
The Rakyat Post

NAKHON PATHOM (Thailand), March 1, 2015:

Phra Buddha Issara is a monk with a mission. From his Buddhist temple near Bangkok he is calling for a radical overhaul of Thai Buddhism, fearing millions of dollars in temple donations and a rapidly modernising nation are corrupting monks.

Surrounded by verdant green rice fields at Wat Or Noi temple, Issara said he wants better oversight of temple finances and to shake up the fossilised structure of Thai Buddhism.

“Buddhism in Thailand is a poisoned fruit. The highest level of the Buddhist religion has turned out to be the devious one,” he told Reuters in an interview.

Buddha Issara’s quest began last month when the Supreme Sangha Council (SSC), Thai Buddhism’s governing body, cleared the abbot of Dhammakaya temple over allegations by the military government’s National Reform Council (NRC) that he embezzled some 900 million baht (RM101 million) in donations.

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MINNESOTA
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Sunday, March 1, 2015

Statement by Barbara Dorris of St. Louis, Outreach Director of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests ( 314-503-0003, bdorris@SNAPnetwork.org )

A fugitive serial child molesting cult leader, last seen in Washington state, has been caught in Brazil. But prosecutors should also vigorously pursue those who suspected wrongdoing at his compound but kept silent about it.

[CBS Minnesota]

[Star Tribune]

News accounts quote several of Victor Barnard’s former Minnesota neighbors who said:

“I didn’t expect it to be anything good that was going on down there”

“It’s been the buzz around here [with regard to the sexual abuse allegations]”

We strongly suspect that some individuals in Washington also saw, suspected or suffered his crimes and stayed silent too.

We are appalled that these individuals – and who knows how many more – kept quiet about this. We also strongly suspect there are former Barnard cult members who could and should have called police long ago.

Anyone who knew about or suspected child sex crimes and refused to call 911 should be prosecuted and punished harshly.

There always have been and will be charismatic predators like Barnard. There’s probably little we can do to prevent them.

We can, however, help ensure they’re reported to law enforcement after their third crime, not their 33rd crime. The way to do that is simple: throw the book at those who stay silent in the face of known or suspected child sex crimes.

When will people finally realize that they should trust their instincts and call the police when anything unusual seems to be happening to or with children? When will people finally start erring on the side of acting responsibly instead of acting timidly? When will people finally understand that where there’s smoke, there very often is indeed fire? And when will people finally understand that we need not wait to see fire before calling police but should call police when we first see smoke.

It’s not too late. We call on each and every one person – in Washington, Minnesota, Brazil or anywhere – who saw or heard or experienced unusual behavior at Barnard’s compound to contact law enforcement officials immediately.

Barnard has been charged with dozens of counts of sexually assaulting young woman and girls. We commend the brave victims who have come forward and to law enforcement for tirelessly working to find this dangerous predator. But they need help, the help of witnesses, whistleblowers and other victims.

So we hope anyone who saw, suspected or suffered crimes by Barnard will immediately call police. It is never too late to report the truth and help protect other children and vulnerable adults.

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NEW YORK
New York Post

By Kathianne Boniello

March 1, 2015

Forgive me, fathers, for you have sinned.

Three Catholic priests who run homeless charities in Manhattan are anything but Christian behind closed doors, longtime female staffers at St. Francis Friends of the Poor claim in a lawsuit.

Franciscan Friars John McVean, John Felice and Tom Walters subjected the women to racist rants and took a veritable vow of silence as the ladies were repeatedly manhandled for three years by a leering, oversexed co-worker, court papers allege.

The trio “ruled St. Francis with an iron fist and fostered a culture of intimidation,” according to the Manhattan Supreme Court lawsuit. “The priests, who many at St. Francis suspect occasionally come to work drunk, often lashed out at employees and frequently screamed at subordinates.”

McVean, Felice and Walters — all friars in residence at St. Francis of Assisi Church on West 31st Street — launched their nonprofit in 1980 and now house 250 mentally ill men and women at three Manhattan locations. The charity is independent of the Archdiocese of New York.

McVean routinely referred to the building manager as “a goat-loving Muslim,” “an idiot Muslim” and “often said that ‘Muslims are dangerous,’ ” according to court papers. …

The most traumatizing experience, the women say, came at the hands of Friends of the Poor program director Gyasi Bramos-Hantman, who subjected the women to an atmosphere that “would not be tolerated in any locker room,” according to the lawsuit.

About “twice a month,” Bramos-Hantman would corner the women for unwanted hugs, rubbing himself against them and once embracing O’Leary so forcibly “it loosened [her] colostomy and drainage bag,” she claims.

The women turned to McVean, Felice and Walters for help, but were threatened with termination by the priests, who engaged in “a massive coverup,” they allege.

The three priests denied the allegations.

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