ABUSE TRACKER

ROME
Crux

January 6, 2016

By John L. Allen, Jr., Associate editor
john.allen@cruxnow.com

Pope Francis closed out the holiday season Wednesday by calling Catholicism to a new sense of missionary hustle, urging the Church to reach out to all the peoples of the world and insisting that “mission is her vocation.”

“To proclaim the Gospel of Christ is not simply one option among many,” the pope said, “nor is it a profession.” Instead, Francis said, it’s the “very nature” of the Church.

“There is no other way,” he said.

To accomplish that goal, the pope said, requires Christians “to go forth, to leave behind all that keeps us self-enclosed, to go out from ourselves and to recognize the splendor of the light which illumines our lives.”

In other words, for 2016 Pope Francis seems to want a Church on the move.

The pontiff made the comments in his homily for the traditional Jan. 6 Mass of the Epiphany, a feast that celebrates the moment when the Christmas star led the Magi, or three wise men, to the infant Jesus. On the Vatican’s calendar, the feast of Epiphany is considered to mark the close of the holiday season.

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LIBERIA
AllAfrica

The News

The Episcopal Church of Liberia has indefinitely suspended its priest assigned in Grand Kru County in connection with the alleged raping of a 10-year-old girl in the county.

In a release issued last evening from the Church, Archbishop Jonathan B.B. Hart said the church is shocked and dismayed about news report concerning the involvement of its priest in “this barbaric and heinous act.”

Bishop Hart, who is also Archbishop of the International Province of West Africa, explained that the priest will remain suspended from all functions of the Episcopal Church of Liberia until he can exonerate himself in a court of law.

He keeping with Canon XXIX, Bishop Hart constituted ‘The Ecclesiastical Court’ made up of three priests of the Episcopal Diocese to further investigate the allegation levied against the priest.

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MISSOURI
KMBZ

KANSAS CITY, Mo. – A Kansas City deacon has been placed on leave after the diocese says he admitted to having an affair with a woman, violating his marriage vows.

After receiving an allegation in October, the diocese conducted an investigation.

Deacon Dwayne Katzer admitted to the allegations, and has been removed from service as Director of the Diaconate and Diaconate Formation Offices.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse

5 January

Individuals and organisations that wish to be designated as a core participant in relation to the following investigations are being asked to submit their applications before 5 February 2016:

The Anglican Church
Lambeth Council
Cambridge House, Knowl View and Rochdale

A core participant has a formal role as defined by legislation. Core participants have special rights in the Inquiry process. These include receiving disclosure of documentation, being represented and making legal submissions, suggesting questions and receiving advance notice of the Inquiry’s report. It is not necessary to be a core participant in order to provide evidence to the Inquiry.

Applicants should read the guidance for potential core participants and the Inquiry’s FAQs. In particular applicants should note that applications should be set out in writing on no more than 4 sides of A4 paper and as a minimum should include the information set out at paragraph 14 of the guidance.

It will not be necessary for victims and survivors who attend a Truth Project session to be designated as core participants, as the Inquiry will not make individual factual finding on the basis of what is said during the private Truth Project Hearings. They will however enable the Inquiry to piece together a broader picture of the scale and nature of institutional child sexual abuse in England and Wales.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse

4 January

The research strand of the Inquiry is seeking to commission researchers to carry out a Rapid Evidence Assessment (literature review) to answer the following question;

“What can be learnt from different jurisdictions, outside of England and Wales, about the role of institutions in preventing child sexual abuse and exploitation?”

To express an interest in receiving the full tender documents, when they are published in the week commencing 18th January, please go to the Crown Commercial Services Contracts Finder website (notice SO16186) before the 15th January.

Please direct any queries about the research through the Contracts Finder website.

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MISSOURI
The Kansas City Star

BY IAN CUMMINGS
icummings@kcstar.com

A deacon in the Catholic Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph was removed from service after being accused of violating his marital vows with a woman, according to an announcement from the diocese on Tuesday.

Bishop James Johnston removed Deacon Dwayne Katzer from his position as director of the Diaconate and Diaconate Formation Offices. Deacons are ordained ministers of the Catholic Church who perform various tasks, including baptisms and officiating marriages and funerals. Married men can become deacons.

Katzer also was removed from all other ministerial duties and placed on administrative leave for an indefinite period, according to the statement.

Diocese officials said the allegation against Katzer came in October, prompting an investigation by diocese officials.

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UNITED STATES
Washington Post

By Sarah Pulliam Bailey January 6

Ten women on Wednesday filed a lawsuit against Bill Gothard, who for decades was a major force in the conservative Christian homeschooling movement, charging him and leaders in his ministry with sexual abuse, harassment and cover-up.

Gothard, who urged Christians to shun things like short skirts and rock music, is accused of raping a woman. The same woman says she was raped by one of the ministry’s “biblical counselors.”

The lawsuit is part of a battle between dozens of women and the Institute in Basic Life Principles, which was until recently an influential homeschooling ministry, and its charismatic leader Gothard, who urged Christians to focus on their “biblical character” and have large families. Gothard has never been married.

Gothard, 81, resigned from the ministry in 2014 after more than 30 women had alleged that he had molested and sexually harassed women he worked with, including some who were minors.

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AUSTRALIA
9 News

AAP

The child pornography market is expanding dramatically and viewing it could be the catalyst for some to engage in hands-on abuse of children, experts say.

The warning is contained in a research report to the child sex abuse royal commission as it tackles how to abuse-proof institutions where children are at risk.

The report on child exploitation material in the context of institutions says while there is no evidence to support a direct causal link between viewing child pornography and abuse, the “material may be a strong risk factor” for people already disposed to sexual aggression and deviancy with children.

The report prepared by University of Tasmania researchers says the market for child exploitation material is expanding and easy to access even within workplaces.

Jeremy Prichard and Caroline Spiranovic, who have published research on the explosion of child porn on the internet, point out that research in the area is relatively new and very few studies have examined child pornography in the context of workplaces.

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UNITED STATES
Verdict

Marci A. Hamilton

The movement to eliminate and revive expired statutes of limitations (SOLs) for child sex abuse made significant progress in 2015. It also inspired a new and related SOL reform movement for all rape victims, young and old, as the SOLs became a major factor in the dozens of out-of-statute allegations against Bill Cosby, as I discuss here. Finally, there is a decided trend in SOL reform that needs to be stemmed and reversed before our children will be safe: legislators’ willingness to let institutions off the hook.

The SOL reform movement is also increasingly global. There is a growing global movement to extend or eliminate the SOLs in many countries, and particularly in Australia, where the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse has conducted searching inquiries into many arenas of abuse, from churches to schools to sports.

The movement also hit the big screen with the release of the award-winning motion picture, Spotlight, which chronicles the Boston Globe journalists’ path to breaking the story of the Catholic hierarchy covering up priest abuse and illustrates how the SOLs blocked justice. It also educates the public on the dynamic of sex abuse cover up—it takes a connected set of adults to ignore the serial victimization of children while powerful men protect their positions of power. Like the Cosby revelations, Spotlight educates the public about the costs of abuse and the perils of blocking justice for the deserving.

The Good: Steps Forward in SOL Reform for Child Sex Abuse Victims

Following the trends of recent years, over a dozen states considered serious SOL reform in 2015, and a number of them made significant progress. As I discussed in my half-year review, here, Georgia took the most remarkable leap forward, while Pennsylvania and New York continue to be controlled by the viselike grip of the Catholic bishops, or, in other words, stalled. For a snapshot of all of the states in 2015, look here.

Other states continued to make incremental improvements as Florida eliminated its criminal SOL for 16- to 18-year-olds; Indiana extended its criminal SOL to age 31; and Utah eliminated the civil SOL against the perpetrator. While each of these reforms left much to do in each state, they were good developments for child protection and will identify hidden predators in the future.

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WISCONSIN
Chippewa Herald

LARRY ANNETT For The Herald

IF YOU GO
“Spotlight”
Now showing at Micon Cinema in Eau Claire
Rated R, 2hr., 20min.
Showtimes:
Wednesday, Jan. 6 -Thursday, Jan. 7, 7:25 p.m.
Friday, Jan. 8 – Sunday, Jan. 10, 9:40 p.m.
Friday, Dec. 25 – Thursday, Dec. 31: 1, 4, 7 and 10 p.m.

Spotlight (now playing at Micon — Eau Claire) is a lightly fictionalized story of the team of Boston Globe reporters who in 2002 exposed pedophile priests and the Catholic Church’s attempts to cover-up their behavior.

How do you make a movie about horrific child abuse without showing the abusers, much less the abuse itself? Even documentaries show the crime scene and dwell on the emotional recollections of the survivors. But writer/director Tom McCarthy has built an engaging narrative where the action is largely limited to watching reporters plead with their sources to tell them the truth.

Although this story eventually became an international scandal, its seeds could not have found a more fertile soil than Boston, a city obsessed with ethnic politics and a church that dominates the city’s working classes — a city where every confrontation carries the weight of tribal loyalties.

The movie’s story is not about child abuse per se, but about how a small group of tenacious reporters uncovered the priests’ behavior and how the church marshalled its resources to protect itself. As one of the reporters tells a church lawyer, “we’ve got two stories here: the sexual abuse by priests and the story of a group of lawyers who have turned child abuse by priests into a cottage industry. We’re going to print one — you decide.” The crimes may be unforgivable, but the cover-up is unconscionable.

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NEVADA
Las Vegas Now

[with video]

By Nikki Bowers | nbowers@8newsnow.com
Published 01/06 2016

LAS VEGAS

The jury in the Otis Holland trial was seated Wednesday evening.

The former Las Vegas pastor is on trial for allegedly sexually assaulting children. According to law enforcement officers, Holland lured young girls in his congregation by offering private counseling sessions.

After the allegations were made, Holland fled to Mexico, but he was eventually arrested in Tijuana.

The youngest victim is said to now be 12 years old.

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MINNESOTA
WXOW

WINONA, Minn. (KTTC) — –
A new civil lawsuit has been filed against the Diocese of Winona, alleging sexual abuse of a teenager in 1962.

The Hamilton James law group filed the lawsuit Tuesday on behalf of the victim. A criminal complaint says Fr. Richard Hatch was a priest at St. Mary’s Catholic Church in Winona when he allegedly sexually abused a boy who was 13 or 14 years old at the time.

The complaint alleges the Diocese knew about Hatch’s behavior, but did not not address the misconduct.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

A group of Catholic parishioners in Melbourne’s south-east are calling for their parish priest, Father John Walshe, to be removed, after it was revealed he was investigated over alleged sexual abuse.

The ABC revealed last month a Catholic Church investigation found Father Walshe had sexually abused an 18-year-old trainee priest in 1982.

In 2012 the church apologised to the victim John Roach and paid compensation of $75,000, but it did not make the finding public.

More than 100 people from the parish met to discuss the matter on Wednesday night.

A spokeswoman told the ABC they passed a resolution saying they had lost faith in Father Walshe and wanted him removed as their parish priest.

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RHODE ISLAND
People

[documents and video]

BY CHRIS HARRIS @chrisharrisment 01/06/2016

Two New England attorneys are saying they’ve been in touch with more than 40 alumni of an affluent Rhode Island boarding school that allege staff members or other pupils sexually assaulted them during the 1970s and 1980s.

PEOPLE spoke Wednesday with Eric MacLeish, one of the two lawyers behind a press conference held on Tuesday in which four graduates of the St. George’s School in Middletown accused school officials of covering up years of systemic abuse.

“I have never run across anything like this,” MacLeish, who has spent his career representing victims of childhood sexual abuse, tells PEOPLE; he’s a St. George’s alum.

“Officials were not reporting claims from students but instead, imposing gag orders on those victims,” MacLeish explains. “There are prosecutable crimes that occurred here and I expect more victims will be coming forward.”

At Tuesday’s press conference, MacLeish and his co-counsel, attorney Carmen Durso, issued a 36-page response to findings released by St. George’s headmaster, Eric Peterson, and the school’s Board of Trustees back in December.

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MASSACHUSETTS/RHODE ISLAND
NBC 10

BY ADAM BAGNI, NBC 10 NEWS WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 6TH 2016

NEW BEDFORD, Mass. — A former headmaster at St. George’s School in Middletown denies claims that he covered up, or ignored, student allegations of sexual abuse.

The elite prep school is currently engulfed in a major sexual abuse scandal.

Tony Zane, who ran the school from 1972-1984, spoke exclusively to NBC 10 News on the steps of his New Bedford home Wednesday.

“I never called her crazy,” he said.

The 85-year-old is fighting off allegations from the 1970s and ’80s. Alleged victims claim he protected sexual abusers and was anything but supportive.

“I walked into his office. I told him what happened. He looked at me and said, ‘You’re just a distraught young lady. You’re mentally unstable,'” said alleged victim Katie Wales Lovkay.

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FLORIDA
Tampa Bay Times

By Sara DiNatale, Times Staff Writer
Wednesday, January 6, 2016

TAMPA — Tampa Preparatory School has sent a letter to parents informing them of the private school’s connection to an unfolding sexual abuse scandal in Rhode Island.

Franklin Coleman, a Tampa Prep music teacher from 1997 to 2008, has been accused of sexually abusing boys while working at St. George’s School, an Episcopalian prep school in Middletown, R.I.

One of the accusers, Hawkins Cramer, spoke with the Tampa Bay Times on Tuesday and said Coleman sexually abused him while he was at St. George’s from 1981 to 1985.

Coleman did not respond to several attempts by the Times to contact him this week. He denied comment to a New York Times reporter outside his Newark, N.J. home Tuesday. He told the reporter to “talk to my lawyer,” but did not provide a name. He has not been charged with any crimes.

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PENNSYLVANIA/RHODE ISLAND
Episcopal Diocese of Central Pennsylvania

Author: Diocesan staff
Published: Wednesday, January 6, 2016

January 6, 2016
Feast of the Epiphany

Dear members of the Diocese of Central Pennsylvania,

You may have read in today’s newspapers that a member of our Central Pennsylvania clergy, the Rev. Dr. Howard White, is among the subjects of an investigation into widespread allegations of sexual abuse during the 1970s and 1980s at St. George’s School in Middletown, Rhode Island. The Rev. Dr. Howard White served at the school during this time and is now a retired priest who currently serves as a long-term supply priest at St. James Episcopal Church, Bedford (PA).

St. George’s School recently released the report of its investigation and the Rhode Island State Police are conducting a criminal investigation into episodes discussed in that report. Yesterday, former students of St. George’s named Fr. White as one of the alleged abusers described in the report.

I learned about this situation as it was developing from my colleague, the Rt. Reverend W. Nicholas Knisely, Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Rhode Island, who serves as an ex officio member of the board at the school. I have moved to immediately restrict Fr. White’s ministry and to provide for the pastoral care of the congregation that he currently serves. I have no information that leads me to believe that there have been any incidents of abuse at St. James, Bedford, but it is imperative that we employ all the safeguards that are available to us while the investigation of the Rhode Island State Police continues and while the formal ecclesiastical discipline process involving Fr. White unfolds. The Diocese of Central Pennsylvania is committed to upholding our policy of Zero-Tolerance of any adult sexual misconduct and/or child abuse by any member of the clergy, staff persons or volunteers.

If there are those in our diocese who have a need to talk about this or any related incidents, please know that I am ready to listen and respond in a confidential pastoral manner or make provisions for appropriate care.

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RHODE ISLAND
Providence Journal

By Karen Lee Ziner
Journal Staff Writer Posted Jan. 6, 2016

A Pennsylvania bishop moved swiftly to restrict the Rev. Dr. Howard White, former assistant chaplain at St. George’s School in Middletown, from his Pennsylvania church ministry following Tuesday’s revelation that White “is among the subjects of an investigation into widespread sexual abuse during the 1970s and 1980s.”

The Rev. Canon Audrey Cady Scanlan, Bishop of the Diocese of Central Pennsylvania, wrote a letter to members of her Episcopal diocese Wednesday that explains her decision. White is now a retired Episcopal priest serving as a long-term supply priest at St. James Episcopal Church in Bedford, PA.

White was named in a document released by three St. George’s alumnae at a Boston press conference Tuesday. The women, Anne Scott (Class of ’80), Katie Wales Lovkay (’80) and Joan Reynolds (’79), were sexually abused by the school’s former athletic trainer the 1970s.

Their document rebuts an investigative report that the school issued in December, and calls for an independent investigation and accuses the school of covering up the abuse for decades. The response document identifies by name several former St. George’s staff — White among them — whom the school’s report references as perpetrators, by number only.

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ROME
The Bookseller

Published January 6, 2016 by Natasha Onwuemezi

The International Publishers Association (IPA) and the Italian Publishers Association (AIE) have condemned the Vatican for attempting to jail two authors who alleged corruption and financial wrongdoing in the Holy See.

The authors – journalists Gianluigi Nuzzi and Emiliano Fittipaldi – are on trial along with three Vatican employees over documents leaked from the Vatican and then published in two new books: Avarice by Fittipaldi and Merchants in the Temple by Nuzzi.

The pair have been charged with criminal misappropriation and misuse of leaked documents. The three Vatican employees have been accused of illegally obtaining and leaking confidential documents.

According to the Telegraph, the books “lift the lid on alleged financial mismanagement within the Holy See, including the alleged use of charitable donations for refurbishing lavish apartments for cardinals and a former Vatican secretary of state.”

The IPA has joined with the AIE and European journalism and freedom of speech watchdogs to condemn the Vatican, with IPA president, Richard Charkin, calling the court case an “affront to the dignity of journalists and publishers everywhere.”

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UNITED KINGDOM
Altrincham Today

Two former victims of an Altrincham schoolteacher jailed for nine years over a “shocking abuse of trust” have collaborated on a new Radio 4 documentary telling the inside story of the trial.

The Abuse Trial, which will be broadcast on Monday at 8pm, will be presented by journalist David Nolan and executive produced by Phil Maguire of PRA Productions.

Both are former pupils of St Ambrose College in Hale Barns, and both suffered abuse at the hands of Alan Morris, who was subsequently jailed for nine years in August 2014 in a case that involved dozens of old boys.

Nolan waived his right to give evidence at the trial in order to work on a behind-the-scenes short film for Granada Reports, which went on to win a Royal Television Society award.

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MICHIGAN
The Detroit News

Candice Williams and Mark Hicks, The Detroit News January 5, 2016

Officials have released the names of three people killed Monday afternoon in a multi-vehicle crash in Livonia.

Joseph Sito, 80, of Livonia, Suzanne Wernette-Robb, 67, of Redford Township and Bernadine Karby, 88, of Livonia all died from multiple injuries in the crash at Five Mile and Levan, according to the Wayne County Medical Examiner’s Office on Tuesday. The manners of death have been ruled an accident.

According to police, Sito was heading west on Five Mile about 4 p.m. when he crossed the center line, striking an eastbound Ford Focus.

A Ford minivan also was involved in the crash; several occupants reported injuries, police said.

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MICHIGAN
The Detroit News

One of the three people killed in a multi-car crash this week at a Livonia intersection was a former priest at several Metro Detroit Catholic parishes who was defrocked over sex abuse allegations.

Joseph Sito, 80, of Livonia, who died in the Monday accident, was laicized by the Vatican in 2004, said Ned McGrath, a spokesman for the Archdiocese of Detroit. By laicizing Sito, the Vatican returned him to the status of layman and severed his ties with the archdiocese.

“It’s a tragic accident,” McGrath said Wednesday. “I guess he had a medical event. Three people are dead. It’s a terrible thing.”

According to police, Sito was westbound on Five Mile about 4 p.m. Monday when he crossed the center line and his car struck an eastbound Ford Focus. A Ford minivan also was involved in the crash, which also killed two occupants of the Focus: Suzanne Wernette-Robb, 67, of Redford Township, and Bernadine Karby, 88, of Livonia.

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MISSOURI
St. Louis Post-Dispatch

ST. LOUIS • Two women who sued a former St. Louis University president over abuse allegations — including one that claimed officials violated an agreement to bar her alleged abuser from teaching — have settled their cases for a total of $282,000, an activist group said Wednesday.

One suit claimed that the Rev. Daniel C. O’Connell sexually abused the student in 1983, while she was studying overseas and he was a chaplain. Both were associated with Loyola University Chicago at the time.

In 2003, she received a $181,000 settlement that included, among other things, promises that he would not teach again at a Jesuit institution and that he be barred from public ministry, according to the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests.

She sued in 2013, claiming Jesuit officials violated the agreement by allowing O’Connell to teach and speak at universities and engage in public ministry in Germany. Lawyers for O’Connell and Jesuit officials denied the allegations.

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MISSOURI
Lake News

Posted Jan. 6, 2016

Laclede County
After a mistrial in December, the trial of a California, Mo. man – accused of multiple counts of statutory rape and sodomy and one count each of forcible sodomy, forcible rape and sexual abuse from alleged incidents in 1998, 1999, 2000 and 2005 – has been moved and rescheduled.

Travis R. Smith, a former pastor in the region, is reset to begin April 18, 2016, at the Laclede County Courthouse. He was arrested in 2012 by the Missouri State Highway Patrol with additional charges filed later in Moniteau County Circuit Court.

The charges stem from allegations made by two different women.

Smith’s trial had formerly gotten under way with jury selection on Dec. 7, 2015. The trial was cut short though when the defense attorney requested the mistrial.

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UNITED KINGDOM
BBC News

A Roman Catholic priest has pleaded guilty to five charges in connection with more than 3,000 indecent images of children.

Paul Clarke, 71, from East Sussex but now living in Manchester, entered the pleas at Lewes Crown Court.

He had been charged with possessing an indecent image of a child, possession of prohibited images and making a total of 3,100 indecent images of children.

He is due to be sentenced on 5 February.

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NEW YORK
WABC

BETHPAGE, Long Island — A Roman Catholic priest from Long Island is facing drug charges after police said they caught him in what appeared to be a drug deal at motel in Nassau County early Wednesday morning.

Nassau County police said detectives were on an unrelated narcotics investigation at the Bethpage Motel on Hempstead Turnpike, when they saw two men exchanging money in the parking lot. One was in a car, the other staying at the hotel.

After the exchange, officers saw the driver of the car pull away – but they said he didn’t use a turn signal when pulling out of the lot, so they pulled him over.

Police said the driver, 32-year-old Michael Oyola of the Bronx, had a clear bag of a substance believed to be marijuana on him, and he was placed under arrest.

Officers then found 63-year-old Robert Lubrano of Farmingdale, who they saw go into the motel after the exchange.

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CANADA
The Catholic Register

BY MICHAEL SWAN, THE CATHOLIC REGISTER
January 6, 2016

A $21-million shortfall in Catholic fundraising has added another challenge to the task of reconciliation between Canadian churches and Native communities.

As the final report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission landed in Ottawa last month, accountants have been dealing with the failure of the “Moving Forward Together” campaign.

Catholic agencies, which ran more than 60 per cent of the federal government-mandated residential schools, were expected to raise $25 million as one part of the final settlement between aboriginal communities, churches and the government to cover the damage done by the schools to generations of young indigenous Canadians. But the “best-efforts” campaign raised just $3.7 million.

The four national churches which were party to the agreement have been sorting out final payments into the Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement. As a result of the Catholic fundraising campaign falling more than 80 per cent short of its goal, a reimbursement has been made to the Anglican Church of Canada in addition to some other adjustments.

As the largest operator of residential schools, the Catholics made the largest funding commitment to the Aboriginal Healing Foundation – $79 million.

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NORTHERN IRELAND
BBC News

Two former residents of a Protestant children’s home in County Antrim have told an inquiry they were sexually abused by an Army member.

One witness told the Historical Institutional Abuse (HIA) inquiry that the soldier abused him in a playroom and bedroom at Manor House in Lisburn.

He said his alleged abuser bought sweets and gifts for children at the former Church Of Ireland home.

The inquiry is examining child abuse in residential homes in Northern Ireland.

Meat

Giving evidence via videolink from Australia, the man, who is now in his 60s, said the soldier “manipulated us children”.

“I think he may have abused other children,” he added.

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NORTHERN IRELAND
Irish Times

Gerry Moriarty in Banbridge

Two men have said they were sexually abused as children by a visiting British soldier at a residential home run by Anglican missionaries, the North’s Historical Institutional Abuse Inquiry has been told. Both men are now resident in Australia.

One of the witnesses said that the soldier treated those he allegedly abused as “just pieces of meat” at the Manor House Children’s Home near Lisburn, Co Antrim during the 1960s.

That witness who gave evidence by video link on Wednesday said he did not complain at the time because “as children we were told never to open our mouths and that children should be seen and not heard”.

He said that he entered the home in 1964 after his family, which was originally from Northern Ireland, returned from Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe). He said his parents had divorced and his father, who seldom visited, was given custody.

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DEUTSCHLAND
NDR

[No new investigation after abuse in Hildesheim diocese]

Der Fall eines Missbrauchs an einem Mädchen durch einen Priester aus dem Bistum Hildesheim wird juristisch nicht wieder aufgerollt. Es hätten sich nach einer erneuten Prüfung keine Hinweise auf weitere Straftaten ergeben, sagte der Sprecher der Berliner Staatsanwaltschaft, Martin Steltner, dem NDR. Neue Ermittlungen gegen den inzwischen vom Bistum suspendierten Priester Peter R. seien damit ausgeschlossen. Ein Verfahren wegen Strafvereitelung gegen das Bistum komme nicht in Betracht. Der Mann hatte in einem Fernsehbeitrag des WDR im vergangenen November eingeräumt, im Jahr 2006 das damals elfjährige Mädchen aus Hildesheim in seiner Wohnung sexuell bedrängt zu haben. Im selben Beitrag wird dem Bistum vorgeworfen, die zentrale Rolle von Peter R. bei mehr als 100 Missbrauchs-Fällen am Berliner Gymnasium Canisius-Kolleg in den 1970er- und 1980er-Jahren vor der Staatsanwaltschaft verschwiegen zu haben. Seine dortigen Taten sind inzwischen verjährt.

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SCOTLAND
Scottish Catholic Observer

Motherwell’s Fr Paul Morton was cleared of historical allegations of abuse by police in May, but he remained away from parish until Church investigation was completed

A canonical investigation into a Motherwell Diocesan priest has cleared his name.

Fr Paul Morton (above) of St Bride’s in Cambuslang stepped away from his parish in 2014 after allegations of historical abuse t were made against him. In May last year, a police investigation found he had no case to answer.

A Church investigation was conducted following safeguarding procedure and has now concluded, with Bishop Joseph Toal of Motherwell recommending to the Holy See that no further action is required.

“I recently concluded the preliminary canonical investigation into the evidence available following the conclusion of the police investigation into the allegations made against Fr Paul Morton,” Bishop Toal said in a statement. “In forwarding the papers of the canonical investigation to the Holy See I recommended that no further canonical action is necessary.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Evangelisch

[The Berlin public prosecutor’s office does not want to continue the investigation into a case of abuse in the Catholic diocese of Hildesheim again, according to a NDR report.]

Die Staatsanwaltschaft Berlin will laut einem NDR-Bericht die Ermittlungen in einem Missbrauchsfall im katholischen Bistum Hildesheim nicht wieder aufrollen.
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Nach der erneuten Prüfung des Sachverhaltes hätten sich keine Hinweise auf weitere Straftaten ergeben, sagte der Sprecher der Staatsanwaltschaft, Martin Steltner, am Dienstag dem Sender. Auch ein Verfahren wegen Strafvereitelung gegen das Bistum komme nicht in Betracht.

Der WDR und “Spiegel Online” hatten dem Hildesheimer Bischof Norbert Trelle vorgeworfen, er sei Hinweisen auf Übergriffe des Priesters Peter R. (74) nicht konsequent nachgegangen. Der WDR hatte den bereits neun Jahre zurückliegenden, aber nicht verjährten Fall Ende November in einer Fernseh-Dokumentation wieder aufgegriffen. An Pfingsten 2006 soll der inzwischen suspendierte Peter R. in Berlin ein damals elfjähriges Mädchen aus Hildesheim sexuell bedrängt haben.

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CHICAGO (IL)
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

Victims to Archbishop: Fire your review board
They OK’ed admitted child predator for ministry, even after Priest yanked in LA for abusive past
Chicago board refused to meet with victim
Newly exposed documents say cleric would have no unsupervised contact with kids
But cleric still works with kids, presents himself as priest
Archdiocese, Cupich defies zero tolerance vow, group says

What: At a sidewalk news conference, victims of child sexual abuse in the Catholic Church will attempt to hand-deliver a letter to the Chicago Archbishop. The letter cites a Chicago Tribune story about an admitted predator priest in Chicago. It also demands that Archbishop Blase Cupich:

– Fire all members of the lay review board for allowing the admitted predator to be reinstated as a priest,
– Remove the cleric from any location and job where he can have access to kids, and
– Make public announcements, post online warnings to all churches, groups, and neighborhoods about the priest’s past.

The letter also:

– Exposes new letters to the victim from church officials that state that the cleric would not be allowed alone with children,
– Shows how Cupich is not following the letter or the spirit of zero tolerance, and
– Highlights how the cleric is still working as a priest around families and children.

Where: Outside of the headquarters of the Chicago Archdiocese
835 N. Rush St. (at Pearson) in Chicago
When: Wednesday, January 6 at 1:30 p.m.

Who: Two-three members of a support group called SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAPNetwork.org), including a Chicago woman who is the organization’s founder and long-time president

Why: Newly exposed documents show that the Archdiocese of Chicago and their lay review board reinstated a priest who admitted to sexually abusing a child, even after church officials promised the victim that cleric would have no unsupervised contact with kids.

As a result, sex abuse victims are giving a letter to Chicago Archbishop Blase Cupich demanding that he fire his lay review board members, take action to ensure that an admitted abuser has no contact with children, and keep his promises of zero tolerance when it comes to sexual abuse.

A new page one Chicago Tribune story reveals that a Chicago priest, Fr. Bruce Wellems, has admitted to sexually abusing a seven-year-old, while he was an older teen. Despite the admission and the fact that the priest was removed from the LA Archdioces for breaking the US Catholic Bishops’ policy of zero tolerance, the cleric was reinstated in Chicago and still works with families and children. The Chicago Archdiocese Lay Review Board, the group in charge of investigating sex abuse cases, did not meet with Wellems’ victim during their review of the case.

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UNITED STATES
The American Spectator

By Mary Claire Kendall – 1.6.16

“Continuing my walk I reflected that a Church which could inspire such confidence in a child, making its priests, even when unknown, so easily approachable could not be as scheming and creepy as so often made out. I began to shake off my long-taught, long-absorbed prejudices.”
— Alec Guinness, Blessings in Disguise, referring to an incident during filming of The Detective (1954)

The recent film Spotlight should be commended for featuring the Boston Globe’s storied investigative team and their Pulitzer Prize winning reporting that, as Cardinal Sean P. O’Malley, Archbishop of Boston, said in a late October statement to the Pilot, forced the church “to deal with what was shameful and hidden.”

Directed by Tom McCarthy, who also wrote the screenplay with Josh Singer, the film stars some of Hollywood’s brightest lights — Mark Ruffalo, Michael Keaton, Rachel McAdams, John Slattery, Stanley Tucci, Brian D’Arcy, Liev Schreiber, and Billy Crudup — and has solid production values.

But, it doesn’t get everything right.

The Church, the film posits, is institutionally flawed. Priests cannot possibly live a celibate life. Therefore, until the church reforms its rule requiring priestly celibacy, it will continue to have problems and lose adherents, including, notably, the reporter Sacha Pfeiffer, played by McAdams, whose faith, in contrast to that of her beloved grandmother, crumbles before our eyes; or in the case of Mike Rezendes, the lead reporter on the case, whose faith continues to lie fallow.

Yet, in his statement to the archdiocesan paper, O’Malley also said, “The Archdiocese of Boston is fully and completely committed to zero tolerance concerning the abuse of minors. We follow a vigorous policy of reporting and disclosing information concerning allegations of abuse.”

Would that Hollywood would adhere to the same strict rules when it comes to its own pedophiles which, in its case, are not just a small fraction but rather omnipresent.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but Hollywood’s own institutional child abuse scandal dwarfs by orders of magnitude that in the Church. Even child actress Shirley Temple was sexually abused by producer Arthur Freed when she was 12, according to her 1988 autobiography, Child Star.

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AUSTRALIA
Herald Sun

PARENTS at two Melbourne Catholic primary schools are demanding the resignation of their priest, who recently defended Cardinal George Pell.

In their first group protest meeting last night, parents from St Patrick’s Parish Primary in Mentone and St John Vianney’s in Parkdale are set to make a plan to call for scandal-hit Father John Walshe to quit his post.

In December, Fr Walshe gave evidence at the royal commission about his recollection of a 1993 phone call between Cardinal George Pell and a child abuse victim.

He had been asked to make a statement by Cardinal Pell’s legal team.

Shortly afterwards, it emerged Fr Walshe had some years earlier been accused of abusing a teenage seminarian in the early 1980s after the pair had been drinking together.

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UNITED KINGDOM
BBC News

Two men have denied abusing 26 children at a Catholic boys’ home in Bedfordshire more than 40 years ago.

James McCann, 79, of Suffield Court, Swaffham, Norfolk, is charged with 18 sexual assaults and 48 assaults in connection with St Francis Boys Home, Shefford, between 1963 and 1974.

John Cahill, 73, of Chandos Court, Bedford, has been charged with six sexual offences against four boys.

The pair pleaded not guilty to all charges at the Old Bailey in London.

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IRELAND
Irish Examiner

Wednesday, January 06, 2016

By Conall Ó Fátharta
Irish Examiner Reporter

The HSE expressed repeated concerns that the past actions of Bessborough adoption agency meant it had to be indemnified against any legal action taken by people seeking their records.

The concerns were raised throughout 2009 and 2010, in material released under Freedom of Information Act, as the Sisters of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary prepared to cease operating Bessborough as an adoption agency and transfer some 15,000-plus files to the HSE. An undated memo of a meeting the HSE held with the management group from the religious order notes its desire to “manage liability for past Bessboro responsibility and ongoing re their activities as an adoption agency when and if it arises”.

In a letter on February 8, 2010, to solicitors representing the order, childcare manager in the HSE South region, Mike van Aswegen, said the HSE needed this assurance, as it had reason to believe that the past practices of the agency had “not always been exemplary”.

“In your correspondence, you refer to the need for providing an indemnity. I believe that in this case we will need to be provided with this comfort, as we have good reason to believe that the practice from the agency has in the past not always been exemplary,” he wrote.

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RHODE ISLAND
NECN

[with video]

Former students who claim they were sexually abused at a Rhode Island Boarding school are asking those abusers to be held accountable, along with school officials, who they say covered up the abuse for years.

The alleged abuse happened in the 70’s and 80’s at St. George’s School, in Middletown, Rhode Island.

Those abused are saying they want to have criminal charges filed, and because there is no statute of limitations in Rhode Island, their wishes may be granted.

There are 40 formers students who have come forward saying they were abused by staff or older students. However, school officials, who have admitted they have conducted an internal investigation and found serious abuse, say they found 26, not 40 former students, who were abused.

Katie Wales Lovkay reminded herself to breathe before she shared her story of alleged sexual abuse with a roomful of reporters. She says nearly four decades ago — as a student at the elite Episcopal prep school St. George’s in Middletown Rhode Island — she was repeatedly molested by a male athletic trainer.

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RHODE ISLAND
Town and County Magazine

by SAM DANGREMOND
JAN 5, 2016

St. George’s School, a boarding school perched on an idyllic 125 acres overlooking the Atlantic Ocean in Middletown, RI, looks like an academic paradise.

But recent developments in a nascent sex scandal suggest that more than 40 students may have been the victims of abuse at the school—mostly in the 1970s and 1980s—according to the Boston Globe.

In December, St. George’s released the findings of an investigation it conducted into allegations of abuse. The report found that “23 students were sexually abused by three school employees in the 1970s and ’80s … The perpetrators were fired, but the prep school did not report them at the time to child protection services, as mandated by law.

“In addition, three other employees during the same period engaged in sexual misconduct with a single student apiece, bringing the total to 26 victims of staff abuse, according to the draft report to alumni, signed by headmaster Eric Peterson and board chair Leslie Heaney,” the Globe reports.

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FLORIDA
Fox 13

[with video]

By: Tina Jensen, FOX 13 News
POSTED:JAN 05 2016

TAMPA (FOX 13) – A choir director who was fired from a prep school in Rhode Island for sexual misconduct with students, went on to teach at Tampa Prep for more than a decade.

Attorneys for victims of students at St. George’s School say Franklin Coleman is accused of fondling students, “grooming” them by providing alcohol and companionship before abusing them. He was fired from the school in 1988 and began working at Tampa Prep in 1997.

Kevin Plummer, head of Tampa Prep, told FOX 13 News in an email that the school first learned about the allegations against its former choir director on Tuesday. Attorneys representing alleged victims of Coleman and other staff at St. George’s School say Tampa Prep was notified by at least one victim in 2004.

Coleman continued to work at the school until 2008, when he was given an award for outstanding faculty from Tampa Prep alumni, according to the school’s website. Plummer said Coleman left the school “of his own volition.”

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RHODE ISLAND
WGBH

Anne Scott, the woman who’s brought to light a growing sexual abuse scandal at St. George’s School in Rhode Island, says she was raped by a teacher there nearly 40 years ago. On Tuesday, the list of survivors grew by dozens. Scott, and two of her lawyers, Eric Macleish, a major player in the Catholic Church sex abuse crisis and Larry Lessig (@lessig) one-time candidate for president, both of who have a similar tale, discuss.

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RHODE ISLAND
GoLocalProv

Wednesday, January 06, 2016

GoLocalProv News Team and Kate Nagle

On Tuesday, at a press conference in Boston, three St. George’s School alumni and their attorneys called for an independent investigation into sexual abuse at the preparatory school Middletown, Rhode Island.GoLocal reported Tuesday that the Rhode Island State Police investigation into St. George’s is expanding, with the number of victims coming forth continuing to grow.

In an interview with one of the lawyers for the survivors — Carmen Durso – GoLocal received updated information on Tuesday.

Durso on Record

“The experience with situations like this where there a number of survivors — you only get a small percent of those who got abused to come forward,” said Durso. “When you have an unusual situation like this with so many coming forward and 700 plus publicly supporting them, that gets more people. I expect more to come forward. As for those going public, it’s up to each individual person. There are numbers of people who are able to tell someone but coming forward publicly is not something they can do.”

“Regarding the criminal investigation, it is my understanding there is no statute of limitations of rape in Rhode Island. It’s technical though — not everyone who was sexually assaulted was raped,” said Durso. “Therefore the elimination of the statute of limitations isn’t going to apply to everyone. There are some of the victims who said who said there are raped, and the RSIP have indicated they are pursuing these claims.”

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FLORIDA
Tampa Bay Times

By Sara DiNatale, Times Staff Writer
Tuesday, January 5, 2016

TAMPA — Hawkins Cramer said he found the courage to confront his abuser in 2004.

It was two decades after he said he was molested at a prestigious Rhode Island prep school. So he said he picked up the phone and called Franklin Coleman, the choral teacher who promised him a future in music but who Cramer said fondled him.

But Cramer said he was stunned to learn back then that Coleman was still teaching: at Tampa Preparatory School.

Cramer said he told Coleman to resign from teaching. He told his former teacher what happened was wrong.

“I was nervous and sweaty about it,” Cramer, 48, told the Tampa Bay Times on Tuesday, “and more just, like, angry, and I was kind of speaking through gritted teeth.”

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RHODE ISLAND
CBS Boston

[with video]

By Bill Shields

BOSTON (CBS) – “I was repeatedly raped by Al Gibbs for a two year period,” said an emotional Anne Scott. On Tuesday, Scott and other former students at the prestigious St. George’s School in Rhode Island gathered in the law offices of attorney Eric MacLeish to recount their horrific stories.

“It was horrible,” says Katie Wales, who says she was also raped by Al Gibbs, the school’s athletic trainer in the late 70’s. “I became known as the slut of the school, that I would show my body to anybody.”

Lawyers for the victims say they’ve identified seven former staff members who abused students there, at least 40 victims. “There is no explanation, quite frankly, for an environment like St. George’s School, which allowed these predators, dressed up like sheep, to prey like wolves, on children at this school,” said attorney Eric MacLeish.

“I was publicly raped while I was at St. George’s as a freshman in 1978 by a fellow student,” says Harry Groome, who was just 14 years old when the attack happened.

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RHODE ISLAND
CNN

By Ray Sanchez, CNN

(CNN)Rhode Island State Police are investigating allegations of sexual abuse of more than two dozen students by employees of the prestigious St. George’s School in the 1970s and ’80s — abuse the school admitted it “failed on several occasions” to report to authorities.

In a news conference Tuesday, victims of the alleged abuse and their lawyers called for an independent investigation of the abuse and criticized the school’s response to the allegations.

The school, in a statement released Tuesday, said it “deeply apologizes for the harm done to alumni” and for how its handling of the abuse “served to compound this harm.”

“We recognize the long-lasting impact of sexual abuse and are dedicated to working with survivors to aid them in healing from its painful aftermath,” the statement said.

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RHODE ISLAND
Boston Globe

By Bella English GLOBE STAFF JANUARY 05, 2016

Angry and tearful survivors of sexual assaults at St. George’s School called on the school Tuesday to scrap its own investigation and hire an independent investigator to fully unearth the extent of abuse at the prep school, much of it in the 1970s and ’80s.

Their comments came at a packed press conference called by attorneys Eric MacLeish and Carmen Durso, who say they have been contacted by more than 40 former students with stories ranging from molestation to rape at the oceanfront Episcopalian school in Middletown, R.I.

The attorneys revealed the names of two alleged staff perpetrators of the abuse; in an earlier report by St. George’s, the men had been identified only by number.

“Employee Perpetrator #2” was identified by Durso as the Rev. Howard W. White Jr. The school’s report said this perpetrator was fired in 1974 after a parent reported “inappropriate conduct” with a male student. St. George’s recent investigation revealed such conduct with at least three students, and said his name has been given to Rhode Island State Police.

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RHODE ISLAND
Washington Post

[Video: Victims speak out about abuse at Rhode Island prep school]

By Sarah Kaplan
January 6

Harry Groome was just 14, a newcomer from a small Pennsylvania town, eager to fit in at his tony New England boarding school. His tormentors were seniors, one was even a prefect. They had superior social standing, not to mention numbers and size. So when they told him to keep quiet, he did.

Not that his silence stopped the whole school from knowing what happened to him: the teenage Groome was forced to stand atop a trashcan, he told the Boston Globe, pull down his pants and underwear, and bend over while an assailant raped him with a broomstick.

Attacks like the one on Groome were something of an open secret at St. George’s School, the alma mater of Astors and Vanderbilts, the poet Ogden Nash and Sen. Claiborne Pell, where dozens of alumni say they were sexually abused. According to the Globe, a 1979 yearbook includes a photo of Groome in a trashcan, a hockey stick beside him. The caption reads, “It’s better than a broomstick!”

The perpetrators were never punished, and Groome carried the trauma of his abuse through three years of high school and the following two decades. When, in the early 2000s, he finally reached out to school officials, telling them what had happened, he says he was not taken seriously.

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RHODE ISLAND
San Francisco Chronicle

January 6, 2016

PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) — A statement released by the Episcopal bishop of Rhode Island calls for “appropriate disciplinary proceedings” against two clergymen and a third person named in reports of past abuse at a prestigious boarding school in Middletown.

The Providence Journal reports (http://bit.ly/1PMjNOv ) the Rt. Rev. W. Nicholas Knisely said Tuesday that he’s been in contact with state police and is “following their direction” as they continue to investigate allegations of abuse at St. George’s School during the 1970s and 1980s.

Knisely said one of the priests is accused of abusing students and the other allegedly failed to report claims of abuse as outlined by state law. The third person is also accused of sexual abuse.

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RHODE ISLAND
Providence Journal

By Karen Lee Ziner
Journal Staff Writer Posted Jan. 5, 2016

PROVIDENCE, R.I. — The Episcopal bishop of Rhode Island is calling for “appropriate disciplinary proceedings” against three people named in recent reports of sexual abuse at St. George’s School in Middletown in the 1970s and 1980s.

The Rt. Rev. W. Nicholas Knisely said in a statement Tuesday that he is in contact with Rhode Island State Police, “and I am following their direction as the investigation is being carried out” into the episodes discussed in a report issued by the school in December and in media coverage.

“As of this morning, two Episcopal priests and a third person who has worked in Episcopal congregations have been named in the report or ensuing media coverage,” Bishop Knisely wrote in a letter to clergy released shortly after a Boston news conference about sexual abuse at the elite private school.

“One of the priests allegedly committed abuse and the other allegedly failed to report allegations of abuse made against a St. George’s employee as mandated by state law,” Bishop Knisely wrote. “The third individual is alleged to have committed abuse.”

“I have been in touch with bishops in whose dioceses the three men reside, and am currently working with other church leaders to make sure that appropriate disciplinary proceedings are initiated in this case,” Knisely wrote.

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RHODE ISLAND
WBUR

By FRED THYS

BOSTON Attorneys say 40 credible victims have come forward alleging they were sexually assaulted during their time at St. George’s, a private Episcopalian boarding school in Middletown, Rhode Island. The allegations involve seven former staff members at the school and four former students.

Three former students traveled to Boston Tuesday afternoon to talk about their abuse.

Katie Wales would have graduated in 1980. She used to go see athletic trainer Al Gibbs, now dead, because she injured her back riding a horse. She said Gibbs would lead her through the boys locker room and lock her inside the training room.

“And there was the, ‘Oh, I have to work on your back but you can’t have your T-shirt or your bra on, because I can’t work on your muscles that way,’ ” Wales recounted during a press conference Tuesday. “And then that turned around into, ‘Well, I have to work the front muscles also.’ And then, ‘Oh, let me show you how to dry yourself on your private areas.’ ”

Anne Scott did graduate in 1980. She said Gibbs raped her repeatedly over a two-year period.

“I was threatened not to tell. If I told anyone, he would come after me and I would be in trouble,” Scott said. “I said nothing to anyone. I developed an eating disorder. I developed post-traumatic stress disorder, dissociative disorder, major anxiety and depression.”

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RHODE ISLAND
The New York Times

By KATHARINE Q. SEELYE
JAN. 5, 2016

BOSTON — The scope of a sexual abuse scandal at St. George’s School in Rhode Island widened substantially on Tuesday as lawyers reported that at least 40 former students had made credible reports of sexual abuse, and in some cases rape, by seven former staff members and four students over three decades.

At the same time, a spokesman for the school, which had made public its own investigation late last month, now characterized that investigation as “preliminary” and said that it would soon name who would be carrying the investigation forward. “The work remains ongoing,” the school said in a statement.

Lawyers for the victims said that the abuse took place from 1974 through 2004. Four of the seven former staff members are still alive, and in at least two cases appear to be working in settings with young people. None have been charged criminally.

Together, the school’s report, which said that staff members sexually abused 26 students in the 1970s and ’80s, and the lawyers’ reports of some 40 total victims, paint a picture of unchecked sexual misconduct at the elite prep school in Middletown.

“The magnitude and scope of this is already approaching the largest private school sexual abuse case that we’ve seen, which was at Horace Mann, where 62 victims came forward,” said Eric MacLeish, a lawyer who, with Carmen L. Durso, is representing some of the victims. The accusations at the Horace Mann School came to light in 2012.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Hull Daily Mail

Former priest Anthony McCallen and former headmaster James Carragher have been jailed for sexually abusing boys at the St William’s care home and approved school. Simon Bristow reports on how they were caught.

VULNERABLE boys sexually abused at a children’s home may have felt they had to go along with it to “stay alive”, the officer in charge of the inquiry has said.

James Carragher, 75, and Anthony McCallen, 69, were yesterday jailed for a total of 24 years for abusing children in their care at the former St William’s approved school in Market Weighton.

Former headmaster Carragher, a member of the Roman Catholic De La Salle order, which ran the school, was jailed for nine years for 24 sexual offences, including three now known as male rape, against seven boys.

Carragher, of Cearns Road in Prenton, Wirral, was cleared of a further 30 charges.

It was his third conviction for abusing pupils at St William’s, for which he was previously jailed for 21 years.

Former chaplain McCallen, an ordained Roman Catholic priest, was jailed for 15 years for 11 sex offences, including one now known as male rape, against four boys.

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AUSTRALIA
InDaily

Megan Neil

The Catholic Church knew it had pedophile “time bombs” in its midst.

It not only let them keep ticking away but also covered up the pedophiles’ evil deeds to protect its reputation.

The extent of the cover-up is still being dissected by the child abuse royal commission but victims advocacy group Broken Rites spokesman Dr Wayne Chamley expects its report will be absolutely scathing of the Catholic Church.

“The commission is unpicking a conspiracy,” Dr Chamley said.

“These bishops collectively have been running this conspiracy certainly since 1992.”

Minutes of a special issues committee meeting at the 1992 Australian Catholic Bishops Conference reveal: “It was agreed that there are serious ‘time bombs’ ticking away in a number of diocese at the present time.”

The focus was on treating the accused offender fairly, even though the minutes reveal the special issues committee – set up to deal with allegations against priests – agreed “the prognosis for offenders to be returned to any form of active ministry as a priest is not good”.

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RHODE ISLAND
Rhode Island Public Radio

By ELISABETH HARRISON

In a written statement, St. George’s School “deeply apologizes” for the harm done by employees and former students accused of sexual abuse.

“We recognize the long-lasting impact of sexual abuse and are dedicated to working with survivors to aid them in healing from its painful aftermath,” the school said on Tuesday.

The statement followed an afternoon press conference in which attorneys for several former students said they have received 40 “credible reports of abuse” from alumni, more than the school has previously acknowledged.

“Three quarters of these reports have been made in the last 20 days,” wrote the attorneys, Eric MacLeish and Carmen Durso in a response to the school’s internal investigation. “The total number of alleged staff perpetrators of abuse is seven, with the most recent in 2004. The total number of students reporting rape by other students is four.”

St. George’s School, in its investigation, found 26 credible accounts of abuse by former students, involving six former school employees. The school also found some evidence of student-on-student sexual violence.

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ST. LOUIS (MO)
TheMediaReport

Ever wonder about some of the characters who file questionable abuse accusations against Catholic priests? Well, look no further than the case of Rev. Xiu Hui “Joseph” Jiang, a falsely accused priest in St. Louis who has bravely filed a defamation lawsuit against his accuser as well as SNAP and the St. Louis police department.

Fr. Jiang and his lawyers have been trying to serve court papers on his accuser. But, lo and behold, his accuser – identified only by his initials in pleadings and represented by SNAP contributor/lawyer Ken Chackes – has never been found at the address listed for him publicly, his residence appears vacated, and by all appearances he has been actively evading service.

[**Click to read Fr. Jiang’s court filing regarding his accuser**]

And as a recent court filing now reveals, Fr. Jiang and his legal team have found that they are not the only ones trying to locate the guy. It turns out that Fr. Jiang’s accuser already has 2 liens and 16 judgments entered against him, and still other process servers are trying to serve him with even more legal papers.

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

ROME
Crux

By John L. Allen Jr.
Associate editor January 5, 2016

ROME — Sooner or later, it seems, every good cause in Catholicism gets its martyr.

St. Thomas More, for instance, is celebrated for his loyalty to the pope when England split from Rome in the 16th century, and more recently, Blessed Oscar Romero of El Salvador has become the patron saint of defending the poor.

Today, 34-year-old Francesca Immacolata Chaouqui, the woman at the heart of a controversial Vatican criminal trial over leaks of secret documents, is volunteering for the role — in fact, she’s basically clamoring for it — of martyr for Pope Francis’ much-vaunted project of financial reform.

In her case, “martyrdom” doesn’t mean death, but accepting a prison sentence — theoretically as many as eight years, but more realistically probably closer to two or three — for allegedly leaking those documents, despite vehemently claiming she didn’t do it.

She says that perhaps only the spectacle of sending an innocent woman to jail, forcing her to give birth to the child she’s expecting behind bars, may jar the consciences of the Vatican’s old guard. She fully expects to be convicted, and says that under no circumstances will she ask for, or accept, a papal pardon.

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MAINE
Maine Public Broadcasting

By SUSAN SHARON

PORTLAND, Maine — Six men, now in their 40s and 50s, have filed separate lawsuits against the Roman Catholic Diocese in Portland alleging that they were sexually abused by the same priest when they were altar boys. The men accuse Father James Vallely of sexual assault and inappropriate sexual conduct as far back as the 1950s and up until the late 1970s in several different parishes in Maine: St. Michael’s in South Berwick, St. Dominic’s in Portland and St. John’s in Bangor.

The lawsuits, filed in Cumberland County Superior Court, were brought by attorney Mitchell Garabedian who represented victims of the Boston clergy sex abuse scandal that is now the subject of the movie Spotlight. Garabedian has previously represented alleged victims of Father Vallely in Maine and says during his last litigation he came across evidence that shows Bishop Daniel Feeney of Portland had knowledge of what was taking place.

“In my last case it was discovered that Bishop Feeney, and this was discovered in a letter, knew in about 1956 that Father Vallely was sexually abusing children; yet he did not warn the public about the sexual abuse. He did not act to protect children,” says Garabedian.

Though the alleged abuse is decades old, Garabedian says under Maine law he can bring a cause of action under what’s known as “fraudulent concealment,” the idea that the Diocese had knowledge that Father Vallely ws a sexual predator and didn’t take action to disclose anything to the public until 2009. The statute of limitations in a fraudulent concealment case is six years and Garabedian says he has filed the lawsuits within that window. He says the abuse took place when the boys were between eight and 15 years old.

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MARYLAND
News-Tribune

CUMBERLAND – A former soccer coach at Bishop Walsh High School in Cumberland has been charged with having an inappropriate relationship with a student at the school.

According to the Allegany County Combined Criminal Investigation Unit (C3I), Catherine Martha Czapski, 24, of Cumberland, was arrested Tuesday after a criminal summons had been issued charging her with five counts of fourth degree sex offense by a person in a position of authority.

The charges are the result of an investigation into allegations that Czapski, who was the girl’s soccer coach at Bishop Walsh at the time, was engaged in an inappropriate sexual relationship with a 17-year-old female student at the school.

The allegations first came to light when the Archdiocese of Baltimore received information about the possible inappropriate relationship between Czapski and the student. The Archdiocese contacted the Allegany County State’s Attorney’s Office and the investigation was turned over to C3I.

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MAINE
WCSH

Chris Rose, WCSH January 5, 2016

PORTLAND, Maine (NEWS CENTER) – Six men who claim they were abused by a Catholic priest in Maine many years ago have filed civil lawsuits against the Roman Catholic Diocese of Portland.

The alleged abuse happened between 1958 and 1977. The statute of limitations for their allegations has expired but their attorney is moving forward with the cases anyway. Boston attorney Mitchell Garabedian filed the cases in Cumberland County Superior Court claiming something called Fraudulent Concealment.

Robert Hoatson is a former priest who now works with sexual abuse victims. Back in April he passed out copies of a letter written by a retired priest to a diocese official. It describes a conversation between the priest and another priest about five boys who had reported being abused at St. John’s Church in Bangor by Fr. James Vallely. Hoatson says the six altar boys who filed the lawsuits were abused after diocese officials were aware of those allegations.

“So we’re talking about twenty plus years when bishops new about this man’s abuse and did nothing, didn’t tell the public and didn’t do anything about it”, Hoatson said.

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RHODE ISLAND
Episcopal Bishop of Rhode Island

Just before Christmas, St. George’s School in Middletown released a report concerning numerous cases of sexual abuse at the school in the 1970s and 80s. The findings of the report have been widely reported by the media. St. George’s is an Episcopal school and I serve as an ex officio member of its board. For that reason, I want to speak to you about the role of the diocese in responding to these events.

As of this morning, two Episcopal priests and a third person who has worked in Episcopal congregations have been named in the report or ensuing media coverage. One of the priests allegedly committed abuse and the other allegedly failed to report allegations of abuse made against a St. George’s employee as mandated by state law. The third individual is alleged to have committed abuse.

I have been in touch with bishops in whose dioceses the three men reside, and am currently working with other church leaders to make sure that appropriate disciplinary proceedings are initiated in the case of the clergy named.

As has been reported in the media, the Rhode Island State Police are conducting a criminal investigation into episodes discussed in the report. I have been in contact with the State Police and I am following their direction as the investigation is being carried out. I can say little more at this point about the situation, but I want you to be aware that you may have people in your congregations or in the communities you serve whose lives have been touched by the terrible events at St. George’s, and that you may be called upon to respond to them with the utmost pastoral sensitivity.

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RHODE ISLAND
GoLocalProv

Tuesday, January 05, 2016
GoLocalProv News Team

Reverend W. Nicholas Knisely, Bishop of Rhode Island, has released a letter to the clergy of the diocese apologizing for the conduct at St. George’s School in Middletown.

Read the Letter Below

Just before Christmas, St. George’s School in Middletown released a report concerning numerous cases of sexual abuse at the school in the 1970s and 80s. The findings of the report have been widely reported by the media. St. George’s is an Episcopal school and I serve as an ex officio member of its board. For that reason, I want to speak to you about the role of the diocese in responding to these events.

As of this morning, two Episcopal priests and a third person who has worked in Episcopal congregations have been named in the report or ensuing media coverage. One of the priests allegedly committed abuse and the other allegedly failed to report allegations of abuse made against a St. George’s employee as mandated by state law. The third individual is alleged to have committed abuse.

I have been in touch with bishops in whose dioceses the three men reside, and am currently working with other church leaders to make sure that appropriate disciplinary proceedings are initiated in the case of the clergy named.

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MINNESOTA
KSTP

Jennie Lissarrague
Updated: 01/05/2016

A new lawsuit has been filed against the Diocese of Winona on behalf of a man who said he was abused by a priest in 1962.

The lawsuit says the victim, who was a parishioner and student at St. Mary’s Catholic Church and School, was abused by the Rev. Richard Hatch when the victim was 13-14 years old.

The Hamilton James law group filed the lawsuit, which claims the Diocese of Winona acted negligently by exposing the victim to Hatch and for failing to properly supervise Hatch.

The lawsuit says the church had information that Hatch was a threat to children before he was transferred to St. Mary’s, citing a May 1964 letter from the chancellor of the Diocese of Winona that said, “Father Hatch was a problem here in our Diocese during the years of his service” and “was accused of many indiscretions and much imprudence.” The letter also called Hatch “a very disturbed man,” according to the lawsuit.

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MARYLAND
WCBC

January 5th, 2016 by WCBC Radio

On 01/05/2016 Investigators with the Allegany County Combined Criminal Investigation Unit (C3I) charged 24 year old Catherine Martha Czapski, of Cumberland, after a criminal summons had been issued charging her with five counts of 4th Degree Sex Offense by a Person in Position of Authority.

The charges are the result of an investigation into allegations that Czapski, who was the girl’s soccer coach at Bishop Walsh High School at the time, was engaged in an inappropriate sexual relationship with a 17 year old female student at the school.

The allegations first came to light when the Archdiocese of Baltimore received information about the possible inappropriate relationship between Czapski and the student. The Archdiocese contacted the Allegany County State’s Attorney’s Office and the investigation was turned over to C3I.

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MARYLAND
Your 4 State

CUMBERLAND, Md.

A Cumberland woman is facing allegations of five counts of 4th degree sex offense by a person in a position of authority.

On Tuesday, Officials with the Allegany County Combined Criminal Investigation Unit (C3I) charged 24 year old Catherine Czapski, the girl’s soccer coach at Bishop Walsh High School, with the alleged crimes for an inappropriate relationship with a 17 year-old female student.

An investigation was launched when the Archdiocese of Baltimore received information about the alleged inappropriate relationship between Czapski and the student.

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MARYLAND
WTOP

CUMBERLAND, Md. (AP) — Allegany County law enforcers have charged a high school soccer coach with having sex with a 17-year-old female player.

Twenty-four-year-old Catherine Martha Czapski of Cumberland was charged in a criminal summons with five counts of fourth-degree sex offense by a person in position of authority. The charges were reported Tuesday in a news release by Allegany County Combined Criminal Investigation Unit.

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MARYLAND
Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Baltimore

January 05, 2016

The following is an official statement from the Archdiocese of Baltimore:

The Archdiocese of Baltimore has received an allegation involving Ms. Catherine Czapski, 24, who has served as soccer and track/cross-country coach and substitute teacher at Bishop Walsh School, a K-12 Catholic school in Cumberland, Maryland. Catherine Czapski is alleged to have engaged in sexual activity with a minor female student at the school.

The allegation was brought to the attention of the Archdiocese through an anonymous phone call to its Office of Child & Youth Protection. The Archdiocese was able to determine the source of the call and reported the matter to the Allegany County State’s Attorney’s Office and to the Department and Child Protective Services of the Department of Social Services. Today, civil authorities in Allegany County charged Catherine Czapski with five counts of fourth degree sex offense by a person in position of authority.

Catherine Czapski was informed Monday that she was prohibited from working or volunteering at any parish or school in the Archdiocese of Baltimore. Catherine Czapski served as a soccer coach at Bishop Walsh from 2013-15 and as a substitute teacher and track and cross-country coach from 2014-15.

Families of current students and recent school graduates are being informed about this matter. The Archdiocese and the school are encouraging anyone with information about this or any other possible incident of abuse to report it to civil authorities and to the Archdiocese and/or Bishop Walsh. The Archdiocese and the school have offered counseling assistance and pastoral care to the student and to others who may have been affected.

The Archdiocese of Baltimore and Bishop Walsh High School are unaware of any other allegation that Catherine Czapski engaged in sexual activity with a minor.

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RHODE ISLAND
International Business Times

BY JULIA GLUM @SUPERJULIA ON 01/05/16

A group of former prep school students from St. George’s School in Middletown, Rhode Island, were preparing to hold a news conference Tuesday to demand an independent investigation into a sex abuse scandal they say took place — and was covered up — in the 70s and 80s. The alleged victims and their attorneys planned to reveal their response Tuesday to a recent report released by the Episcopal boarding school confirming 26 such cases.

“We want the facts and the responsibility,” attorney Eric MacLeish told the Providence Journal. “The board report was a sanitized version of the truth.”

The 11-page report, which came out Dec. 23, found three former staff members “engaged in sexual misconduct with regard to multiple students,” the New York Times reported. Three other staffers abused single students, and some students abused other students.

Four of the six implicated employees were fired after the allegations surfaced years ago, but the institution “failed on several occasions to fulfill its legal reporting requirements,” according to the report. Some staffers went on to work at schools elsewhere in the country.

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RHODE ISLAND
Patch

By MARK SCHIELDROP (Patch Staff)
January 5, 2016

BOSTON, MA—Three women who were sexually abused decades ago as teenagers at St. George’s School in Middletown said Tuesday that the elite preparatory school’s administration is still trying to cover-up systemic rape, molestation and victimization of students that occurred there in the 1970s and 1980s.

All three were victimized by now-deceased former athletic director Al Gibbs, who was allowed to retire in 1980 after years of abusing girls. And in recent weeks, more than 40 more victims have come forward to report being abused not just by Gibbs, but a former chaplain, a former musical director and other students as well.

Calling for an outside independent investigation and a major change in how the school is handling sex abuse claims, the victims, Anne Scott (‘80); Katie Wales (‘80); and Joan “Bege” Reynolds (‘79), said at a Boston press conference in the office of their lawyers that the school’s current headmaster has continued a decades-long effort by the school to silence and intimidate victims to avoid a public scandal.

Victims are dissatisfied with the school’s own internal investigation of sexual abuse claims after learning that the investigator appointed by the school was described in an April alumni letter as independent but is actually a partner in the law firm that represents the school. The report also doesn’t address how the school failed to report an overwhelming number of sexual abuse reports from victims over the years to state authorities, including the police and the state Department of Children Youth and Families.

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RHODE ISLAND
Boston.com

By Eric Levenson @ejleven
Boston.com Staff | 01.05.16

More than 40 people have relayed stories of sexual abuse that occurred at St. George’s School in Rhode Island in the 1970s and ’80s, two attorneys representing the victims told The Boston Globe .

The attorneys, Eric MacLeish and Carmen Durso, and several victims plan to hold a press conference on Tuesday to call for a truly independent investigation into the alleged abuse, the Globe reports.

A report last month from St. George’s School said that an independent investigation had found 26 instances of abuse by six separate school employees from that time period. A total of 23 students were abused by just three employees, the report found.

However, several victims said that the “independent” investigative lawyer is the law partner of the prep school’s legal counsel.

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MAINE
Bangor Daily News

By Judy Harrison, BDN Staff
Posted Jan. 05, 2016

BANGOR, Maine — Six men who claim they were sexually abused between 1956 and 1977 by the Rev. James Vallely, who is now deceased, have sued the Roman Catholic Diocese of Portland claiming the bishop at the time knew the priest was abusive and fraudulently concealed it.

The complaints, dated Nov. 20, 2015, were filed in Cumberland County Superior Court, according to Mitchell Garabedian, the Boston attorney representing them.

The men are seeking unspecified compensatory and punitive damages. The Bangor Daily News is not naming them because they may be victims of sexual abuse.

Dave Guthro, spokesman for the diocese, declined Tuesday in an email to comment on the pending litigation.

“As always, [current] Bishop [Robert] Deeley encourages anybody who may have information about any case of sexual abuse of a minor by a church representative to contact civil authorities and Michael Magalski, director of the Office of Professional Responsibility for the Diocese of Portland,” Guthro said.

The diocese previously acknowledged there were credible abuse allegations against Vallely.

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MAINE
Boston.com

By Hilary Sargent
Boston.com Staff | 01.05.16

Six men who say they were sexually abused by a Catholic priest decades ago have filed civil lawsuits against the Roman Catholic Diocese of Portland, according to the Portland Press Herald.

The men are represented by Mitchell Garabedian, the Boston attorney who has worked for many victims of sexual abuse by Catholic priests, as well as Bangor attorney Brett Baber, the Press Herald reports.

The individual lawsuits were filed on November 20.

According to the Press Herald, which obtained copies of the complaints, the men say they were abused by Reverend James P. Vallely, who is now deceased, over a 19-year period beginning in 1958.

The six men were all altar boys, between the ages of 8 and 15, during the time the abuse allegedly occurred, the Press Herald reported.

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MAINE
Daily Mail (UK)

PORTLAND, Maine (AP) — Six men have sued the Roman Catholic Diocese of Portland, claiming church leaders concealed allegations that a priest sexually abused children for decades.

The suits, filed in November by men from Maine, New Hampshire and New York, were made public this week and accuse the diocese of covering up abuse by the Rev. James Vallely. The men say Vallely sexually abused them from 1958 to 1977 when they were ages 8 to 15.

Their lawyer, Mitchell Garabedian, said Tuesday that the suits claim the church “fraudulently concealed” Vallely’s abuse. Vallely died in 1997 in Florida.

The concealment claim opens the way to sue even though the statute of limitations for sexual abuse has expired. Garabedian said former Bishop Daniel Feeney, who led the diocese from 1955 until his death in 1969, knew Vallely abused minors but did nothing, allowing him to continue to abuse children.

The evidence that Feeney was aware of the abuse came from a letter revealed recently as part of a separate lawsuit that indicated the diocese knew about Vallely’s abuse in 1956, Garabedian said. The diocese had previously said it knew of credible allegations against Vallely going back only to 1977. Written in July 2005, the letter from one priest to another in the diocese says Feeney transferred Vallely to a different parish in 1956, shortly after learning of the sexual abuse allegations.

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RHODE ISLAND
SGS for Healing

We care about St. George’s School. We seek healing and accountability. This Tumblr page makes available all the information we have so far about allegations of sexual abuse at St. George’s School, a private co-ed boarding school in Newport R.I. We want this site to become the single repository for all the information and relevant documents, and we will keep it up to date. Please share any information you might have commenting in a reblog or emailing us: sgsforhealing@gmail.com.

Report: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B671iuPUPTPHbU01ME1QQ2lDcVk/view?usp=sharing

Exhibits A- N: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B671iuPUPTPHbk55cWh2TW12a3M/view?usp=sharing

Exhibits O-HH: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B671iuPUPTPHLTFLbHRvOXJQbGs/view?usp=sharing

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ALABAMA
AL.com

By Jonathan Grass | jgrass@al.com
on December 28, 2015

Mobile police have made an arrest in the case of a 17-year-old who was shot and stabbed earlier this month.

The male victim was found in the trunk of a car the morning of Dec. 13. The car was outside Corpus Christi Church on McKenna Drive.

Police say the teen was shot in the leg and also had a stab wound. His injuries were not life-threatening. He was treated at the hospital and later released.

Police have determined that the man who was taking care of the victim was responsible for the crime.

Reginald Michael Reed, 55, was arrested Monday and charged with first-degree kidnapping.

Mobile police spokeswoman Charlette Solis said Reed and the victim were staying at a hotel when the incident happened. Reed’s story differs greatly from the video evidence, according to investigators.

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ALABAMA
Fox 10

By Renee Dials, FOX10 News Anchor

MOBILE, AL (WALA) –
The man charged with kidnapping a 17-year-old appeared in court Wednesday morning for a bond hearing. Some new details involving the case were brought out in the hearing, including the first mention that the teenager may have been the victim of sexual abuse.

Reginald Reed, 55, appeared in court for his bond hearing this morning without an attorney. Reed is charged with kidnapping a 17-year-old boy who was found shot and stabbed inside the trunk of a vehicle in the parking lot of Corpus Christi Church on December 13.

Judge George Hardesty read the allegations from the complaint filed by a Youth Services Detective. The document contains the first mention of possible sexual abuse in the case.

It states Reed abducted the teenager; “with the intent to inflict physical injury”, or to “violate or abuse (him) sexually”.

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ALABAMA
Fox 10

By Bob Grip, FOX10 News Anchor

MOBILE, AL (WALA) –
Reginald Michael Reed, the suspect in the kidnapping of a 17-year-old boy who had been shot and stabbed and left in a car in the parking lot of Corpus Christi Catholic Church, was not required to undergo background checks before being hired to perform janitorial work at that church.

“Mr. Reed is an independent contractor,” explained Msgr. Michael Farmer, Vicar General of the Mobile Archdiocese.

Reed was not a short-term, temporary employee. In an e-mail sent to parents of children at Corpus Christi School, principal Joan McMullen wrote about Reed, “He has worked as the church’s maintenance person for many years. Recently, he has been helping with maintenance at the school.”

Reed, who is 55 years old, was arrested on December 28, 2015. Metro Jail records show Reed has an arrest record in Mobile County dating back to 1995 for crimes that include cocaine possession, marijuana possession, possession of a controlled substance, driving with a suspended license and improper tag.

In a statement sent to FOX10 News anchor Bob Grip, Msgr. Farmer wrote, “In accordance with archdiocesan policy, background checks and safe environment training are required of all employees and of volunteers who have substantial contact with minors.”

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NORTHERN IRELAND
Belfast Telegraph

A serving soldier admitted abusing a boy from a residential home run by Anglican missionaries in Northern Ireland but was never prosecuted, a public inquiry lawyer said.

The serviceman first came to Northern Ireland at the start of the Troubles in 1969 and visited Manor House Children’s Home near Belfast to take children on day trips and play football, his testimony to police said.

Stormont’s power-sharing administration has established an independent probe which has received allegations of physical and sexual wrongdoing at the institution run by the Society for the Irish Church Missions to the Roman Catholics.

Christine Smith QC, counsel for the Historical Institutional Abuse (HIA) Inquiry, said one alleged perpetrator was later interviewed by police.

“He took children on day trips, played football, and admitted having feelings for MH41 (one of the residents).

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NORTHERN IRELAND
Irish Times

Six people have made allegations of physical and sexual abuse at a residential home for children run by Evangelical Anglican missionaries in Northern Ireland, a lawyer has told the North’s Historical Institutional Abuse Inquiry.

The home was run by the Society for the Irish Church Missions to the Roman Catholics, which was established to convert Catholics to Protestantism.

It ran Manor House Children’s Home, near Belfast in Lisburn, Co Down, from 1927 to 1984.
The organisation also had links to the Church of Ireland.

Two people have already given public evidence on the allegations during an earlier module of the inquiry concerning the transfer of child migrants to Australia.

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ILLINOIS
Canton Daily Ledger

By Michelle Sherman
Editor

Posted Jan. 5, 2016

LEWISTOWN
A former youth pastor convicted of criminal sexual abuse pleaded guilty on Monday to one count of misdemeanor attempted unlawful presence in a daycare center.

Jason Phillips, 41, of Glasford, was sentenced to 300 days in Fulton County Jail, a $500 fine and $432 in court costs in Fulton County Court by Judge Thomas B. Ewing for the Class A misdemeanor.

Four Class 4 felony charges of being present on the property of a child care facility were dropped.

He was arrested Aug. 6 by Canton Police officers for allegedly dropping off two children at His Little Children Child Care Center in Canton on four separate occasions between July 31 and Aug. 6. On two of those occasions he was spotted inside the building, a violation of the terms of the sex offender registry.

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RHODE ISLAND
WPRI

[with video]

BOSTON (WPRI) — Former students of a Rhode Island private school came forward Tuesday with allegations of sexual abuse by school employees.

At a news conference in Boston, attorneys said 40 men and women claim they were abused at St. George’s School in Middletown in the 1970s and 1980s.

The alleged victims also accuse administrators of covering up the incidents and are now calling for an independent investigation at the school, according to the attorneys.

An internal investigation conducted by the school, which WPRI.com reported last month, found that more than two dozen students were sexually abused by six school employees. Two of the alleged perpetrators include a current Episcopal priest & an assistant school choir director in New York City.

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MAINE
Portland Press Herald

BY DENNIS HOEY STAFF WRITER
dhoey@pressherald.com | @DennisHoey | 207-791-6365

Six men who claim they were sexually abused more than 35 years ago by a Roman Catholic priest at parishes in Maine where they were altar boys have filed individual lawsuits against the Roman Catholic Diocese of Portland.

Copies of the complaints were provided to the Portland Press Herald on Monday by the plaintiffs’ attorney, Mitchell Garabedian of Boston.

Supporters of the men plan to hold a press conference in front of the diocese office in Portland Tuesday to discuss the lawsuits.

The six civil complaints were filed Nov. 20 in Cumberland County Superior Court in Portland. Garabedian said Brett Baber of Bangor will serve as his clients’ local attorney.

In the lawsuits, the plaintiffs allege that they were abused by the Rev. James P. Vallely between 1958 and 1977. All the men were altar boys at the time and ranged in age from 8 to 15 when the abuse allegedly occurred.

The plaintiffs are now between the ages of 46 and 59.

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UNITED STATES
Forward

Sam Kestenbaum
January 5, 2016

Marc Gafni, a once-promising Jewish leader dogged by allegations of sexual improprieties stretching back years, has returned to the public eye as a leader of a California think tank.
But his stunning re-emergence, trumpeted in a recent New York Times article, has elicited a new wave of condemnations from Jewish leaders.

Rabbi David Ingber, an influential Renewal rabbi in New York who once studied with Gafni but has long since severed ties, says anyone who knows Gafni has a responsibility to warn others about him.

“We are calling for other organizations to pull their support for him,” said Ingber. “We did not do enough before to warn people about this person. I feel responsible. I am implicated.”

Ingber organized a petition of denouncement, which carries the names of around 100 other Jewish leaders, including rabbis Donniel Hartman, Avi Weiss, Sharon Kleinbaum, Ebn Leader and Joseph Telushkin. The petition specifically names Whole Foods, whose co-founder and CEO, John Mackey, is on the board of Gafni’s think tank. Posted on December 30, it now has more than 2,500 signatories.

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ROME
BBC

Gianluigi Nuzzi, author of the book “Merchants in the Temple”, discusses his Vatican exposé. The allegations include using charitable donations to plug financial holes and accepting money from Philip Morris International in exchange for promoting cigarette products. Nuzzi is now on trial for using illicit means to obtain the documents. The Vatican declined to comment on the claims while Philip Morris issued the following statement:

“The allegations concerning Philip Morris in the book wrongly portray what is nothing more than a standard commercial contract related to the sale of duty free tobacco products in the Vatican State Tobacco Store.”

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AUSTRALIA
Broken Rites

By a Broken Rites researcher (first written in 2010, updated 2 Jaunuary 2016)

A prominent Australian Catholic Church leader, Archbishop Philip Wilson, has claimed (in 2010) that during his rise from junior priest to church administrator, he “knew nothing” about the sexually-abusive behaviour of fellow-priests — even though he lived and worked with some of these criminals. Does Wilson’s “know-nothing” attitude help us to understand his rise to the top of the Australian church hierarchy? Wilson’s senior roles eventually included the managing of the church’s response to clergy sexual abuse, as well as being appointed as the archbishop of Adelaide. In March 2015, Archbishop Wilson was charged by police with concealing child sex abuse allegedly committed by another priest during the 1970s. After being charged, Wilson went on indefinite leave from his archbishop role. However, he has decided now to resume work as the archbishop in January 2016, despite the fact that the concealment charge is still awaiting him in the court system.

From 1996 onwards, Wilson was a long-time member of the Australian bishops’ National Committee for Professional Standards — the body that was established to oversee the management of the church’s sexual-abuse crisis.

In 2001, Wilson’s fellow bishops elected him as the chairman of the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference — at a time when the worldwide Catholic hierarchy was being accused of having covered up clergy sex-abuse crimes. He held this top position for the next ten years.

This career rise is quite significant for someone who says he formerly “knew nothing” about clergy sex crimes.

Background

Philip Edward Wilson was born in 1950, the eldest of five children, and grew up within the Maitland-Newcastle diocese, north of Sydney. This is one of the eleven Catholic dioceses in New South Wales.

After finishing his schooling, he was accepted by the Maitland diocese as a candidate to enter a seminary in Sydney to study in for the priesthood.

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MINNESOTA
Noaka Law Firm

Posted on January 5, 2016 by patricknoaker

Bishop More Interested in Bank Loan Than Protecting Children from Child Predator

St. Marys Photo(Winona, Minnesota – January 05, 2016.) Today, the Hamilton James law group filed a civil lawsuit on behalf of a former Winona man against the Diocese of Winona relating to sexual abuse by Fr. Richard Hatch in 1962 when the boy was 13 – 14 years of age and a parishioner and student at St. Mary’s Catholic Church and School. Documents released by Hamilton James reveal that the Winona Bishop was more concerned about Fr. Hatch’s loan with the First National Bank of Pipestone than Hatch taking children with him to Florida.

In the civil Complaint, a man described as John Doe 121 brings claims of negligence against the Diocese of Winona for exposing him to alleged sexual predator Fr. Richard Hatch and for failing to properly supervise Fr. Hatch, thereby endangering children. According to the Complaint, Fr. Hatch sexually abused Doe on and around the premises of St. Mary’s Church and School in approximately 1962, when John Doe 121 was approximately 13 or 14 years old.

According to the Complaint, in a letter of July 13, 1961, the Bishop warned Hatch to be more careful with money, and then threw in a line about the protection of children. In the letter, the Bishop stated “I have spoken to you several times in regard to your apparent disregard and lack of concern for debts which you have and which you incur,” “Such actions jeopardize the good name and reputation of the Church and particularly of individual priests.”

The Complaint also states that the Diocese of Winona had information that Fr. Hatch was a threat to children. The Complaint also specifically cites another document showing the Diocese knew Fr. Hatch was a sexual threat to parish boys prior to transferring Hatch to St. Mary’s. In a May 28, 1964 letter from Msgr. Emmett F. Tighs, Chancellor of the Diocese of Winona, stated that “Fr. Hatch was a problem here in our Diocese during the years of his service.” In that same letter, Msgr. Tighs also confirmed that Fr. Hatch “was accused of many indiscretions and much imprudence” and Msgr. Tighs also described Fr. Hatch as “a very disturbed man.”

Professor and Attorney Marci Hamilton put this case in the national context: “Once again, a diocese failed to prioritize the protection of children, and instead focused on bureaucratic details while children suffered. While it is no longer surprising, it is no less of a shock to the conscience.”

“This case is very upsetting,” said Minneapolis attorney Patrick Noaker, a veteran child sex abuse lawyer, “because the Diocese could have easily avoided the sexual abuse of this boy entirely. “Patrick is one of the attorneys representing John Doe 121. “The Bishop knew that Fr. Hatch had been sexually inappropriate with parish boys in St. James and instead of removing him, the Bishop transferred him to St. Mary’s in Winona exposing unsuspecting parents and children to a dangerous sexual predator.”

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ITALY
Daily Mail (UK)

By SARA MALM and GIANLUCA MEZZOFIORE FOR MAILONLINE

A former nun has claimed that she was forced to engage in daily self-flagellation and encouraged to write her vows in her own blood while living in a convent in southern Italy.

The woman, now in her 30s, alleges that nuns of Franciscan Sisters of the Immaculate, which has its headquarters in Frigento, Avellino province in Campania, took part in the rituals in the 1990s.

In addition to the punishing rituals, she says she was fed out-of-date yoghurt and corned beef, which the nuns were told would not affect them if they ate it ‘with true obedience’.

In an interview with an Italian newspaper where she makes the damaging allegations, the former nun shows off a post card with her vows, signed by the head of the order.

She claims the vows were written using in her own blood, on the day of her initiation in 1996, when she was 17 years old.

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AUSTRALIA
The Australian

TOM KINGTON
THE TIMES
JANUARY 6, 2016

The Italian Renaissance philosopher who rejected Christian morality and kickstarted the cynical art of modern politics may have hated the church after he was sexually abused as a boy by a priest, a scholar has claimed.

Niccolo Machiavelli, whose 16th-century work The Prince defined the callous pursuit of power, probably was abused by his Latin teacher, a priest, leaving him with a bitter view of Catholic teaching, according to Robert Black, an emeritus ­professor of history at the University of Leeds whose findings have ben published in Italy.

Claims that Machiavelli was abused were first made a decade ago, based on a 1515 letter that the Florentine received from Francesco Vettori, a friend.

“Vettori wrote, ‘We are all corrupt thanks to the teachers our parents hired who had their way with us, and we have never got over it’,” Professor Black said.

Speculation grew that he was discussing Paolo Sassi da Ronciglione, a priest who taught ­Vettori and Machiavelli.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Independent Catholic News

Pope Francis: Untying the Knots; the Struggle for the Soul of Catholicism
By Paul Vallely, Second edition, Bloomsbury, 16.99

Rebecca Tinsley

This is an emotional roller coaster of a book. Like a cliff-hanging thriller, Vallely describes the institutional challenges facing Pope Francis, and the dark forces working against his attempts to reform the Church, “to let God’s Holy Spirit blow where it will along corridors and through rooms which were stuffy and airless.”

But fans of Francis should beware: Vallely’s recounting of Jorge Bergoglio’s now-infamous role in the arrest of two priests during Argentina’s dirty war will leave the reader unsettled. Equally uncomfortable is the author’s examination of the Pope’s tardiness in tackling clerical child abuse, and his patronising attitude to women.

Yet, Vallely paints a vivid, sympathetic picture of a remarkable man, surrounded by vicious Vatican vipers willing his failure. Anyone of faith reading Francis’s words in this volume cannot fail to be moved by the Pope’s courage, humility, and decency. Francis’s clear articulation of what it means to be a follower of Christ is bracing and life-enhancing to those who want an outwardly-looking, merciful church.

Other biographers have mused on how the stern Bergoglio became today’s embodiment of love, tolerance and forgiveness. Drawing on interviews with people who have known the Pope for decades, Vallely focuses on Bergoglio’s soul-searching exile in Cordoba, and his critical analysis of why he had so misplayed his Jesuit leadership back in Argentina.

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UGANDA
Citifmonline

During his November visit to Africa, the continent which now counts nearly 200m Roman Catholics, Pope Francis said that children were some of the greatest victims of Africa’s historical exploitation by other powers. He also urged young Africans to resist corruption.

But should the Vatican be doing more to put its own house in order? A BBC investigation has uncovered evidence that church land in Uganda is being used for child labour.

Alex Turyaritunga has first-hand experience of child exploitation, albeit of a more extreme kind. “I was a child soldier, nothing can take that away from my memory,” he tells the BBC. “I remember the war in 1994. I had a gun around my shoulder.”

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AUSTRALIA
9 News

AAP

Australia’s most senior Catholic Cardinal George Pell should not be a scapegoat for the church’s cover-up of child sexual abuse by clergy, a victim and advocates say.

Ballarat abuse survivor Andrew Collins says the Vatican’s third most senior official is in a unique position to address the cultural issues in the church being investigated by the child abuse royal commission.

“Do we want to see Cardinal Pell go? No. I think they’re in positions where they can do a lot of good,” Mr Collins told AAP.

“If he is a scapegoat that takes the focus off the culture in the church.

“He does have a position of power in Rome to actually change things for the better.”

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UNITED STATES
Washington Times

By Renee Garfinkel – – Monday, January 4, 2016

When I hear about the latest bone-chilling crime committed by a member of a group, I ask, “Is this the action of a few very bad apples, or is there something rotten about the barrel?”

The question becomes more poignant when the “barrel” in question is a religious community. If you’re fortunate enough to belong to a religious community, you know its many benefits — fellowship, mutual aid, spiritual connection and worship, to name a few. Perhaps the greatest spiritual gift is the opportunity for self-examination that supports moral change and personal growth. Every religion I know of includes the possibility for individual repair, repentance and renewal.

But what happens when the community itself is in need of repair? What if problems in the community implicate a “bad barrel?”

Too often, a religious community will resist facing the possibility of its own culpability in the moral failures of its members. The current movie “Spotlight” brings to the screen the real-life situation of pedophile priests in the Catholic Church. The church and the larger Boston community colluded in denial and cover-ups for many years.

Those who tried to expose the crimes found themselves sidelined, maligned and intimidated. It took an outsider with investigative resources and the power of the press, a new, non-Bostonian editor of the Boston Globe, to see that the problem was systemic. It led up through the highest levels.

Boston was indeed a bad barrel. Only when that truth was faced could the institution begin to change, its victims begin to heal.

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RHODE ISLAND
New York Daily News

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Tuesday, January 5, 2016

Former students who say they were sexually abused at a prestigious Rhode Island boarding school are holding a news conference in Boston to call for an independent investigation into the abuse.

St. George’s School in Middletown announced last month that it found 26 students were sexually abused by six school employees in the 1970s and 1980s. It acknowledged it did not report abusers to authorities at the time.

Lawyers for some of the victims say their own investigation found 16 additional victims. They say they also identified an additional staff member who abused children and seven ex-students who abused others.

They say they plan to release more information during Tuesday’s news conference.

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UNITED KINGDOM
National Secular Society

Posted: Mon, 04 Jan 2016 by Keith Porteous Wood

New revelations about the extent of the letter-writing campaign to help disgraced bishop Peter Ball escape charges raise urgent questions about the extent of the establishment cover-up, writes Keith Porteous Wood.

Former Bishop of Gloucester Peter Ball was recently jailed for 32 months aged 83 for offences relating to sexual activity with almost twenty young males. The Crown Prosecution Service had investigated allegations twenty years earlier but they had told Ball in 1993 that despite “sufficient admissible, substantial and reliable evidence” it was prepared to deal with the matter out of court. Ball was let off with a caution and resigned as bishop. The CPS have recently conceded that this was the wrong decision.

It is widely thought that Ball escaped more serious charges and a trial in 1993 because of a massive establishment cover-up; reportedly 2,000 letters were sent to justice authorities on Ball’s behalf.

Freedom of Information requests, including by the Telegraph and the BBC, have led to the release of a few of these letters and confirm that some were from key establishment figures. A former Home Office Secretary of State (now Rt Hon Lord Renton) wrote, seemingly accepting the accusations, that “the further shame of criminal action seems far too great a punishment”.

The Rt Hon Lord Justice Lloyd wrote to both the Detective Inspector and Chief Constable describing Ball as “the most … saintly man I have ever met”, thanking the former for “being so understanding when we spoke on the telephone”. Several senior masters from public schools also wrote.

Hopefully it will emerge, perhaps from the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse, who was responsible for organising this high level campaign, of such magnitude that it apparently succeeded in perverting the course of justice. That the letters were orchestrated is suggested by a phrase used in a letter from Radley College Abingdon: “I gather it may be helpful for you to hear from those who have known Bishop Peter Ball for a long period of time.” Who suggested that “it may be helpful”?

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UNITED KINGDOM
The Times

Sean O’Neill Chief Reporter

January 5 2016

Lord Carey of Clifton, the former Archbishop of Canterbury, pleaded for Peter Ball despite having a detailed report on sex abuse allegations against the bishop.

It was revealed last week that the peer had written in early 1993 expressing “urgent concern” to a chief constable whose force was investigating Ball, who resigned later that year, and to the director of public prosecutions.

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ILLINOIS
The Herald-News

By The HERALD–NEWS

JOLIET – Less than a week after the funeral of one Diocese of Joliet bishop, a former diocese auxiliary bishop has died.

The Most Rev. Daniel Ryan died Thursday in Naperville at age 85, according to a news release from the Diocese of Springfield, where Ryan served as bishop for 15 years.

Ryan was ordained a priest for the Diocese of Joliet in 1956 and was assigned to be assistant pastor at St. Paul the Apostle Parish in Joliet and chancery notary, according to the Joliet diocese website. After studying canon law at the Pontifical Lateran University in Rome, he returned to the diocese and was named assistant chancellor. He was appointed diocesan chancellor in 1965, before becoming vicar general in 1977.

Ryan then served as pastor of St. Michael Parish in Wheaton starting in 1979, before he was named auxiliary bishop in 1981.

In 1983, he was named the seventh bishop of Springfield, a position he held until his resignation in 1999.

Ryan’s resignation was abrupt, according to The State Journal-Register, and an independent investigative report in 2006 stated Ryan fostered “a culture of secrecy” that discouraged priests from coming forward about sexual misconduct. The report also stated that Ryan engaged in sexual misconduct with adults, which he used his authority to conceal, according to The State Journal-Register. Some Masses Ryan celebrated were picketed, but he was never charged or prosecuted.

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NORTHERN IRELAND
BBC News

Abuse allegations at a children’s home run by Protestant missionaries will be investigated by the Historical Institutional Abuse inquiry this week.

Manor House children’s home in Lisburn, County Antrim, was run by the Irish Church Missions (ICM), an organisation with links to the Church of Ireland.

Manor House closed in 1984.

The Historical Institutional Abuse (HIA) inquiry is investigating child abuse in residential institutions in Northern Ireland from 1922 to 1995.

Disputed

It has already heard testimony from former residents of Manor House, who alleged they were abused at the children’s home.

One man, a retired company director, told the inquiry in September last year that he became a teenage prostitute in Australia after suffering abuse at Manor House.

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RHODE ISLAND
Providence Journal

By Karen Lee Ziner
Journal Staff Writer Posted Jan. 4, 2016

BOSTON — Past and present St. George’s School administrators have attempted “to silence victims” to “prevent a scandal” over accusations of systemic sexual abuse dating to the 1970s and 1980s, says an attorney for three St. George’s alumni who are pressing the issue.

Attorney Eric MacLeish spoke in advance of a news conference Tuesday at which he and three women who say they were sexually victimized in the 1970s by the school’s former athletic trainer Al Gibbs, are scheduled to release a rebuttal to a Dec. 23, 2015, report by St. George’s School.

That report by St. George’s headmaster Eric Peterson and Board of Trustees Chair Leslie Heaney, based on a 10-month investigation, identified 26 victims of abuse by several staff in the 1970s and 1980s. It included an apology that underscored the school’s “regret, sorrow and shame that students in our care were hurt.” It stated that the school has forwarded information about other alleged perpetrators, including three students, to state police.

MacLeish and alumna Anne Scott, who says she was raped by Gibbs, have called the school’s report “a sanitized version of the truth,” and are calling for an independent investigation. They have challenged the school’s use of an investigator who works for the same law firm that represents the school.

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RHODE ISLAND
Boston Globe

By Bella English GLOBE STAFF JANUARY 05, 2016

Harry Groome is 52 now, a successful marketing man with a wife and two kids, but his freshman fall at St. George’s School is only a bad memory away. At age 14, he arrived at the prep school in Middletown, R.I, excited to be leaving his small Pennsylvania town and settling into dorm life.

Each floor had three prefects, seniors selected by the faculty for their leadership, whose job was to oversee the floor and make sure the boys were in their rooms at night. One prefect proved more terrifying than helpful, recalled Groome.

“If he was on duty, it was mayhem,” said Groome, who lives in Arlington.

One Saturday night in early November, when the other two prefects were away on college visits, the third prefect called the boys into the hallway. He had a few other seniors with him, perhaps a half-dozen boys in all, Groome recalled.

He commanded Groome to stand atop a heavy-duty plastic trashcan, pull down his pants and underwear and bend over, according to Groome. He then penetrated the boy with a broomstick, Groome said, in an assault that lasted about a minute.

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RHODE ISLAND
Boston Globe

By Bella English GLOBE STAFF JANUARY 05, 2016

Two attorneys representing victims in the burgeoning sex abuse scandal at St. George’s School say that more than 40 people have contacted them with stories ranging from molestation to rape by staff and students at the Episcopalian prep school in Middletown, R.I., most of it in the 1970s and ’80s.

Some of those victims and the attorneys will hold a press conference Tuesday criticizing the school’s own investigation, detailed in a report last month, which identified 26 victims of sexual abuse at the prestigious school. The critics are also expected to call on the school to hire an independent agency or law firm to look into what happened to students on the hilltop campus overlooking the Atlantic Ocean.

“Their report was just damage control,” said Hawk Cramer, a school principal in Seattle, who said he was molested by a St. George’s faculty member when he was a student there from 1981 to 1985.

Attorneys Eric MacLeish and Carmen Durso say that while most of the people who have come forth were abused by St. George’s staffers, the attorneys have also have heard from two male and one female alumni who report being raped by fellow students. All three “can name alleged perpetrators, and two can name witnesses,” said MacLeish.

Rhode Island State Police detective commander Joseph Philbin said that “a very active, ongoing investigation” began several weeks ago, though he would not comment on specific cases. Rhode Island is one of the few states that have no statute of limitations for rape.

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NORTHERN IRELAND
News Letter

A public inquiry into alleged child abuse will turn its attention on Tuesday to a residential home run by evangelical Anglican missionaries in Ireland.

The Irish Church Missions was established to convert Catholics to Protestantism. The conservative organisation ran Manor House Children’s Home near Belfast in Lisburn, Co Down, and had links to the Church of Ireland.

The Historical Institutional Abuse (HIA) Inquiry will begin hearing evidence of alleged wrongdoing at the home during public sessions in Banbridge, Co Down.

The missionaries are governed by Anglican evangelical clergy and laity who are concerned for Gospel growth in Ireland.

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