ABUSE TRACKER

PENNSYLVANIA
Fox 43

[with video]

BY CAITLIN SINETT

HARRISBURG, Pa. — Pennsylvania Rep. Mark Rozzi spoke out about the child sex abuse scandal in Altoona-Johnstown.

Two bishops from that diocese are accused of allowing priests to sexually abuse hundreds of children.

For Rozzi, it’s personal.

“At first I was definitely appalled, outraged, here we go again,” he said.

He was abused sexually by a priest when he was a child and had friends who were sexually abused at a young age.

“I had three childhood friends who have committed suicide, the recent one just on Good Friday of this past year. So when people say, ‘Is it personal?’, you better believe it is,” he said.

He said victims of sexual abuse sometimes blame themselves, and it’s difficult for them to face their abuser.

“I didn’t do anything then, but I can do something now. I can stand up for the voiceless and give all these victims out there that are struggling with alcohol, drugs, that have committed suicide, I can be their voice here in the Capitol.”

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.

PENNSYLVANIA
The Morning Call

Kate Giammarise
Of The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (TNS)

PITTSBURGH — A 147-page grand jury report that outlines decades of child sexual abuse in excruciating detail in the Diocese of Altoona-Johnstown has revived calls for Pennsylvania to eliminate its statute of limitations for that crime.

A statewide grand jury report made public this week by the attorney general’s office detailed how hundreds of children were sexually abused over a period of at least 40 years by priests or other religious leaders in the Diocese of Altoona-Johnstown. No one was charged because some of the perpetrators have died, and because the statute of limitations has run out on the crimes, some of which dated to the 1940s.

Statutes of limitations are laws that set a time limit on how long after a crime it can be prosecuted. The main rationale for such laws is that the longer it takes to prosecute alleged wrongdoing, the more stale the evidence gets and the less reliable it is. Witnesses may have forgotten the events or have died, and it may be impossible to get physical evidence. Another reason for time limits is that plaintiffs have a responsibility to pursue their claims in a timely manner, and that it is unfair for them to hold out the possibility of prosecution for an extended period.

Advocates say the grand jury’s report — coupled with the fact that victims of child abuse often take decades to report it — highlights why the law needs to change.

“We know that delayed disclosure is the norm in cases of sexual violence, so we need to have laws that provide safety, healing and path to justice when victims do come forward,” said Jennifer Storm, victim advocate for the commonwealth.

“Child sex crimes are just different than other crimes,” said Barbara Dorris, outreach director of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP). “Most kids don’t have the words to report the crime nor the emotional ability to report the crime,” she said.

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

MINNESOTA
Sun-Current

Published March 3, 2016

After multiple calls to Edina Police throughout the past few years, Edina Police executed a search warrant Feb. 18 for possible possession of child pornography at a Fridley priest’s Edina apartment.

The priest, who has not been charged with any crime, is not being named by the Sun Current at this time. Edina Police searched his home among allegations of child pornography possession.

Neighbors in his Edina apartment complex reportedly called police several times over the past four years to report noises of a child who seemed to be crying or in distress, according to the Police Department’s search warrant. Each of the calls found there to be no children present in the apartment.

The priest, who serves as a pastor at Church of St. William in Fridley, took a voluntary leave of absence following the search, according to a statement from the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis on Feb. 19.

“The Archdiocesan Office of Ministerial Standards and Safe Environment has cooperated, and continues to cooperate, with the Edina Police Department,” according to the statement.

The statement said the priest was cooperating with the police department and would remain on leave of absence pending the results of the investigation.

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.

PENNSYLVANIA
WFMZ

ALTOONA, Pa. – The bishop of a central Pennsylvania diocese has apologized and promised reforms after the state attorney general released a scathing report on clergy sex abuse of children and created a hotline seeking more accusations.

Officials said the hotline has fielded more than 100 calls since Attorney General Kathleen Kane said Tuesday that two former bishops either covered up or didn’t do enough to respond to hundreds of abuse allegations by more than 50 priests in the Altoona-Johnstown Diocese from 1966 to 2011.

Bishop Mark Bartchak called a news conference on Thursday to apologize and promise to reform the diocese’s training and background check program and the review board that vets allegations of clergy abuse.

“I have been bishop for five years,” Bartchak said. “During this time, we have re-examined allegations, removed clergy from ministry, reported allegations to civil authorities, and strengthened our training program. I am committed to doing even more to protect children.”

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.

PENNSYLVANIA
Washington Times

By The Associated Press
Thursday, March 3, 2016

ALTOONA, Pa. (AP) – The bishop of a Pennsylvania Catholic diocese apologized Thursday and promised reforms two days after the attorney general released a scathing report on clergy sex abuse of children involving allegations against dozens of priests.

“I acknowledge there are a number of recommendations made in this report involving how we respond to allegations of abuse. I take them seriously,” Bishop Mark Bartchak said from a prepared statement at a news conference.

Bartchak heads the Altoona-Johnstown diocese, home to more than 90,000 Roman Catholics in eight counties in central Pennsylvania.

A hotline Attorney General Kathleen Kane created to solicit information about additional victims has gotten more than 100 calls since she issued her 147-report based on secret diocesan archives and other sources on Tuesday.

Among other things, Bartchak promised to publish a list of all priests who are the subject of credible abuse allegations on the diocesan website, as well as their ministerial status. The bishop also promised a “full review of our diocesan policies and procedures regarding child protection and will make all changes that should be made.”

The diocese will review its training, background checks and procedures for reporting of abuse allegations to law enforcement. It will also examine the diocesan review board, whose members appointed by the bishop vet abuse allegations.

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.

PENNSYLVANIA
Roman Catholic Diocese of Altoona-Johnstown

Bishop Mark Bartchak, in response to grand jury report, issues heartfelt apology and lays out plan for the future

March 3, 2016

As Bishop of the diocese, I extend my most heartfelt and sincere apology. I apologize to the victims, to their families, to the faithful people of our diocese, to the good priests of our Diocese, and to the public.

I acknowledge there are a number of recommendations made in this report involving how we respond to allegations of abuse. I take them seriously.

I appreciate the grand jury’s recognition of the progress we have made. I have been bishop for five years. During this time, we have re-examined allegations, removed clergy from ministry, reported allegations to civil authorities, and strengthened our training program. I am committed to doing even more to protect children.

In addition to reporting allegations, I have met with victim-survivors. Their words and their pain have deeply affected me. I pledge to them and to all families to do all that I can to ensure children are safe.

Someone recently shared the expression, “when you know more, you can do more.” With the grand jury report, we know more, and we will do more. Let me start with a significant commitment to transparency, past and future.

I will publish a list of all priests who have been the subject of credible allegations, along with each priest’s current status. The list will be posted on our website.

This Diocese will continue to report to law enforcement, in writing, all allegations it receives of any type of sexual misconduct involving a minor by any clergy or religious (living or deceased), regardless of when the conduct occurred, whether or not the victim is now a minor and whether or not the victim or another person already has made the report.

In addition, I will undertake a full review of our diocesan policies and procedures regarding child protection and will make all changes that should be made. This review will be comprehensive and will include our training and background check programs, the diocesan review board, and communication on reporting requirements.

I urge anyone who has information about suspected abuse to call the Attorney General’s hotline, 888-538-8541. In addition, the diocesan victim assistance coordinator, Jean Johnstone, may be contacted at 814-944-9388, for additional support.

We are people of faith. I will share a message with the people of our Diocese this weekend through their pastors, and plans are being made for special Prayer Services for Mercy in the coming weeks.

Finally, I ask that we turn to our Lord for comfort and healing from these wounds as we pray for those who have been harmed, for all who have been affected, and for the many priests in our Diocese who have been faithful to their vocation and to the people they serve.

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.

PENNSYLVANIA
Catholic News Service

HOLLIDAYSBURG, Pa. (CNS) — Bishop Mark L. Bartchak of Altoona-Johnstown committed the Pennsylvania diocese to be transparent in its efforts related to the sexual abuse of minors by clergy and to make public the names of all priests found to have a credible allegation of abuse against them and the status of each man within the diocese.

The pledge came during an afternoon news conference March 3 at diocesan offices in Hollidaysburg, two days after a state grand jury issued a report saying that at least 50 priests or religious leaders were involved in the sexual abuse of hundreds of children over several decades and that diocesan leaders systematically concealed the abuse to protect the church’s image.

The list of priests accused of abuse will be published on the diocesan website, www.ajdiocese.org, Bishop Bartchak said.

The diocese made a copy of the statement Bishop Bartchak read to the media available online.
The bishop apologized to abuse victims, their families, people of the diocese and priests.

Bishop Bartchak also said that the diocese will continue sending to law enforcement authorities written reports of allegations it receives of “any type of sexual misconduct involving a minor” by a living or deceased clergyman or religious, “whether or not the victim is now a minor and whether or not the victim or another person already has made the report.”

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

UNITED STATES
Religion News Service

Cathy Lynn Grossman | Mar 3, 2016

We’ve all seen some sad spectacle about the Catholic Church this week.

“Spotlight” – portraying Boston Globe’s shattering expose of Cardinal Bernard Law’s archdiocese sheltering, promoting and protecting sex-abusive priests – won the Academy Award for Best Picture prize.

The next day, Australian Cardinal George Pell testified to a Vatican commission that he cared little or nothing about the victims of sex abuse – even as he called such neglect “indefensible.”

Thursday (March 3) , he met with Australian abuse victims and pledged to work with them on care and compensation for people who had experienced abuse.

Is that enough?

Between Law and Pell, two princes of the church, we have witnessed decades of the church staggering to recognize and apologize for its failure to protect uncountable numbers of victims.

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

UNITED STATES
Emes Ve-Emunah

Everything you ever wanted to know about abuse in the Chasidic world is in Newsweek. In what has to be the most comprehensive story ever published in the non Jewish media, Newsweek discusses cases of physical abuse and mostly sex abuse where survivors were victims of rabbis, teachers and others.

While the article focuses on Chabad, they are not alone in how poorly abuse has been dealt with. It is not limited to Chabad or other Chasidim. It happens in similar ways in the non Chasidic world of Yeshivos too. Modern Orthodoxy is not exempt from this either.

In all cases, there have been attempts to cover up sex abuse at the expense of the victims. Some more egregious than others but cover-ups at one level or another seems to be a universal response by religious institutions of any hashkafa (or any religion – as the move ‘Spotlight’ showed about the Catholic Church for example). Religious institutions simply do not want to damage their reputations. After all, they represent God. That there was sex abuse going on at their religious institutions is the antithesis of being Godly.

The problem with that of course is that keeping things like this quiet ends up increasing the frequency of its occurrence. Abusers don’t get punished and are merely kicked out of the institution and maybe the city they were caught doing it – only to find another one to do it, where nobody knows who they are or what they did.

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.

PENNSYLVANIA
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Thursday, March 3, 2016

Statement by David Clohessy of St. Louis, Director of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (314 566 9790, 314 645 5915 home, davidgclohessy@gmail.com)

No one with a bit of sense should believe Altoona bishop when he, once again, pledges reform about child sex crimes and cover ups.

[WPXI]

For centuries, Catholic officials have dealt with abuse reports. In the US, for more than 30 years, these scandals have surfaced publicly. The first Altoona priest was sued in the mid-1980s. Bishop Mark Bartchak and his predecessors have had years to “reform.” But they haven’t and they won’t.

We’re glad he says he’ll post predators’ names on his website. But he should put them on parish websites too, and post them prominently, permanently and promptly. He should also include ALL predators – living or deceased, diocesan or religious order, and regardless of whether they are priests, nuns, brothers, seminarians, bishops or other church employees. He should have done this years ago. And he should include their photos, whereabouts and work histories.

Bartchak’s pledge to reform internal church policies is worthless. Bishops rarely follow their own policies. They are secretive monarchs. There are no checks and balances on a king. So Bartchak and his staff can promise anything. But there’s no way anyone will know if he keeps these promises. And when he breaks them, there will be no punishment. So church abuse protocols, policies and procedures are meaningless.

The solution lies in the secular sphere. Victims, witnesses and whistleblowers must call law enforcement. Police and prosecutors must investigate, charge and convict those who commit and conceal clergy sex crimes. Lawmakers must reform predator-friendly statutes of limitations. Parents, parishioners and the public must pressure Catholic officials to take tangible steps to protect the vulnerable and expose the truth – not empty gestures like “healing services.”

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.

MAINE
Roman Catholic Dicoese of Portland

PORTLAND—Bishop Robert P. Deeley has designated Friday, March 4, as a diocesan-wide Day of Prayer and Penance to seek forgiveness for past harm while offering prayers for the healing of victims/survivors of sexual abuse in the Catholic Church. The day will also reaffirm the Diocese of Portland’s continuing pledge to provide a safe and peaceful environment for children.

Bishop Deeley will celebrate Mass on the Day of Prayer and Penance at 12:15 p.m. at the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception in Portland.

On March 4, priests throughout the diocese will be encouraged to observe the Day of Prayer and Penance by offering Masses that include prayers for victims/survivors of abuse for their healing; for perpetrators of abuse to seek and find repentance and justice; for diocesan clergy, employees and volunteers to serve with a spirit of respect and humility; and for families to create a safe, loving, and peaceful environment for their children.

In 2002, the Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People was implemented by the Catholic Church in the United States, mandating that any representative of the Church who sexually abuses a minor will be permanently removed from ministry. The Charter, which is reviewed every two years, also calls for the reporting of all complaints to civil authorities, thorough investigations of all complaints, and reimbursement for therapy to victims/survivors. Since the implementation of the charter, over 14,000 Church employees and volunteers (including all priests and educators) in Maine who work with children have been trained in a safe environment program and have gone through mandated background checks. An independent, on-site audit of safe environment procedures found the Diocese of Portland in full compliance with the Charter for the 2014/2015 audit period.

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.

MAINE
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Thursday, March 3, 2016

Statement by David Clohessy of St. Louis, Director of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (314 566 9790, 314 645 5915 home,davidgclohessy@gmail.com)

Maine Catholic officials have scheduled a “healing mass” for abuse victims. At worst, this is a cynical public relations move. At best, it misses the mark. (See details below.)

[Portland diocese]

Bishop Robert Deeley’s focus should be on real reforms that actually make kids safer, not symbolic gestures that make him seem nicer or that make a few adults temporarily feel better. And events like this imply that the crisis is past when in fact it’s not. By focusing on “healing,” Deeley wants us all to believe that prevention is no longer needed. That’s backwards. Only when every cleric who has committed or concealed child sex crimes are identified, punished and kept away from kids should bishops concentrate on healing.

Deeley’s first job should be protecting the vulnerable. And much remains to be done on this front. There are 49 publicly accused Maine predator priests. Where are they now?

Deeley should permanently and prominently post – on parish websites – the names, photos, whereabouts and work histories of these proven, admitted and credibly accused clerics. (About 30 US bishops have done this.)

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

VIRGINIA
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

PRESS STATEMENT March 3, 2016, For immediate release

Statement by Barbra Graber, Leader, Anabaptist-Mennonite Chapter of *SNAP, 540-214-8874, mennonite@SNAPnetwork.org

After a Mennonite university official was accused of soliciting prostitution, our group urged anyone who might have seen, suspected or suffered any misdeeds by him to come forward. We have since heard from others who he hurt.

He is Luke Hartman, a former Vice President at Eastern Mennonite University in Harrisonburg, VA. In January, he was arrested and he resigned his post. Days later, the Anabaptist-Mennonite Chapter of SNAP responded with a public statement urging anyone with more information to speak up.

We thank The Mennonite and other news outlets for posting our appeal. We thank those concerned persons who have come forward to us via our confidential email at mennonite@snapnetwork.org and by word of mouth.

Hartman has reportedly harmed vulnerable women in the church before he was caught in a sting operation by Harrisonburg Police Department and Rockingham County Sheriff’s Office. We believe Eastern Mennonite University, Mennonite Church USA, and Virginia Mennonite Conference officials may have withheld information concerning possible criminal behavior of Hartman. The pieces of the puzzle we have received put together a picture of a sexually coercive, exploitative, and abusive church employee whose superiors gave him continued access to vulnerable students, staff and church members.

Today we repeat our invitation. If anyone has seen, suspected, or suffered misconduct at the hands of Luke Hartman or any other Mennonite church official, we urge them to report to local law enforcement professionals, a civil attorney, a therapist or crisis counselor trained in sexual abuse, or an independent survivors’ group like SNAP. All information SNAP receives is confidential. Due to potential conflicts of interest, we do not recommend reporting to employees or appointees of the Mennonite church or its institutions or agencies.

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

UNITED STATES
Washington Post

Michelle Boorstein March 3

For advocates of child sex abuse survivors, this has been a dramatic week: On Sunday, the movie “Spotlight” won an Oscar for its depiction of the uncovering of Boston’s clergy abuse scandal, and two days later, a Pennsylvania grand jury report came out alleging a dramatic 40-year cover-up involving dozens of priests and bishops in a small Catholic diocese.

The report, announced Tuesday by Pennsylvania Attorney General Kathleen Kane, relied upon a secret diocesan archive opened this summer and alleges that more than 50 religious leaders abused or moved around or covered up abuse in the Altoona-Johnstown Diocese.

As dramatic as the report’s allegations are, however, it does not recommend criminal charges, mainly because the statute of limitations has expired. The same is true for potential civil cases. The contrast between the misdeeds alleged in the report and in “Spotlight” and the lack of charges highlights the ongoing battle over statutes of limitations, which bar cases from going forward after a set time. Survivors and their advocates say the laws are deeply unfair to victims of sex crimes, who often need decades to voice their experience.

Marci Hamilton, a constitutional law scholar at Yeshiva University and prominent attorney for child sex abuse survivors, said advocates are hopeful that lawmakers will see this past week’s as more reason to ease the statutes. State laws vary widely, but in Pennsylvania they ban criminal charges after the victim turns 50, and civil litigation after they turn 30.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Dunstable Today

Adam Parris-Long
adam.parrislong@jpress.co.uk

Though nearly five decades have gone by, the horrors of the Magdalene asylums are still fresh in the memory of Mary Currington.

After being raised by nuns in her native New Ross, County Wexford, she worked on a farm and then from the age of 18 she toiled in the sewing room of a complex in Cork.

On her first day in the Magdelene asylum in 1963 Mary had her possessions seized, her hair cut and her name changed.

She told the Luton News/Dunstable Gazette: “I was given their shoes, their clothes and their haircuts. I earned pots of money for them every day without seeing any of it.

“We never even thought to ask and they never paid a stamp for us, I worked my fingers to the bone.”

Prior to her arrival in Cork, Mary, now aged 70 and living in Houghton Regis, endured a difficult upbringing in a convent after she was taken from her unmarried mother.

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ROME
Rome Reports

[with video]

2016-03-03

Cardinal George Pell met in Rome with victims abused by priests.

They have traveled from Australia to Rome to witness their responses in the interrogation of the Australian commission investigating how the country’s institutions responded to allegations of abuse.

“We’ve just had an extremely emotional meeting with cardinal Pell. We met on a level playing field, we met as people from Ballarat, and cardinal Pell has agreed to make a public statement.”

CARD. GEORGE PELL

MEETING WITH ABUSED VICTIMS

“It was hard; an honest and occasionally emotional meeting. I am committed to working with these people from Ballarat and surrounding areas.”

COLLABORATION

“We all want to try to make things better actually and on the ground especially for the survivors and their families and I undertake to continue to help the group work”. “The church-going people of Ballarat diocese are known for their loyalty and for their charity. And I urge them to continue to cooperate with the survivors to improve the situation.”

TAKING ACTION TO STOP SUICIDES

“One suicide is too many. And there have been many such tragic suicides. I commit myself to working with the group to try to stop this so that suicide is not seen as an option for those who are suffering.”

Cardinal Pell was not questioned as a defendant. He offered to testify before the Australian Commission investigating the country’s institutions such as churches, schools or sports clubs for allegations of child abuse.

He was the adviser to the Bishop of Ballarat in the years in which several priests were accused of abusing minors. Others priests were also committing several crimes in his diocese when he was the auxiliary Bishop of Melbourne.

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.

PENNSYLVANIA
WPXI

The Associated Press

ALTOONA, Pa. — The bishop of a central Pennsylvania diocese has apologized and promised reforms after the state attorney general released a scathing report on clergy sex abuse of children and created a hotline seeking more accusations.

The hotline has fielded more than 100 calls since Attorney General Kathleen Kane on Tuesday said two former bishops either covered up or didn’t do enough to respond to hundreds of abuse allegations in the by more than 50 priests in the Altoona-Johnstown diocese from 1966 to 2011.

Bishop Mark Bartchak called a Thursday news conference to apologize and promise to reform the diocese’s training and background check program and the review board that vets allegations of clergy abuse.

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

AUSTRALIA
BBC News

By Trevor Marshallsea
Sydney

An accused paedophile priest, who threatened a girl with a knife and killed a bird with a screwdriver in front of children, has again been the subject of horrific claims at an Australian inquiry.

(Some readers may find the contents of this article disturbing)

The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sex Abuse has heard many allegations in its two-year history, but none more disturbing than those against Catholic priest Peter Searson.

Apart from allegations of repeated child sex abuse, the late Searson is said to have made children kneel between his legs during confession, tape-recorded confessions he found titillating, killed a cat by swinging it over a fence by its tail, showed children a dead body, shoplifted and misappropriated parish money.

Not for the first time, Searson’s name was brought up at the commission on Wednesday when Australia’s most senior Catholic, Cardinal George Pell, continued giving evidence.

As the commission heard that the Church failed to act against Searson despite multiple claims of child abuse, Cardinal Pell described him as “one of the most unpleasant priests I have ever met”.

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ROME
Voice of Americai

March 3, 2016.

Sharee Devose

A top Vatican official vowed Thursday to work to better protect children in his Australian hometown acknowledging he failed to act on an allegation of clergy sexual abuse decades ago.

Pope Francis’ top financial adviser Cardinal George Pell met with victims of abuse who traveled from Australia to Rome to witness his four days of testimony delivered to Australia’s Royal Commission via satellite.

The commission is investigating how the Catholic Church, as well as other institutions, handled cases of sex abuse of children over a span of decades.

Pell was called to testify each night from around 10 p.m. to 2 a.m. about his time as a priest in Ballarat and an auxiliary bishop in Melbourne. The 74-year-old cardinal said that he was a junior priest at the time that an unnamed student at St. Patrick’s College reported that Christian Brothers teacher Edward Dowlan was “misbehaving with boys.”

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
news.com.au

IT WAS a big week at the Royal Commission for Cardinal Pell.

With nearly 20 hours of testimony given over four nights covering four decades in country Victoria, there was a lot to get through.

As the evidence flowed thick and fast containing some extraordinary admissions, here are the crucial points you might have missed:

A BOY COMPLAINED TO PELL AND HE DID NOTHING

While much of the testimony centred around what Pell indirectly knew or didn’t know, there was a crucial moment in which Pell admitted a boy complained directly to him about Father Edward Dowlan “misbehaving with boys” and he did not follow it up.

“I didn’t do anything about it,” Pell told the Royal Commission adding that he eventually “enquired of the school chaplain.”

“With the experience of 40 years later I certainly agree I should have done more,” he said. When asked why he needed 40 years hindsight to have realised he should have done something he trotted out a now familiar line of “people had different attitudes then.”

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AUSTRALIA
Sky News

A senior federal government minister hopes Ballarat child sexual abuse survivors get an audience with the Pope, after they met with Cardinal George Pell in Rome.

Frontbencher Christopher Pyne has praised the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, set up by the Gillard Labor government, for putting the suffering of survivors on the national agenda.

‘I hope they get an audience with the Pope,’ Mr Pyne told Nine Network on Friday.

‘This is a very awful part of our society, which we have to face up to, and I think it’s good the royal commission has put these issues on the agenda.’

Cardinal George Pell emerged from a meeting with Ballarat victims of paedophile priests on Thursday , saying he is committed to working with them to combat the ‘scourge of sexual abuse’.

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ROME
ABC News

By Europe correspondent Lisa Millar

Cardinal George Pell has held what he called a “hard and honest” meeting with Australian survivors of clergy sex abuse in Rome.

The meeting came just hours after Cardinal Pell finished testifying before the royal commission, admitting he had once ignored a child’s warning about an abusive priest.

Reading from a handwritten statement, he said he was committed to working with Ballarat to try to help those suffering.

“I heard each of their stories and of their suffering,” Cardinal Pell said.

“It was hard. An honest and occasionally emotional meeting.”

He said he was committed to working with survivors from Ballarat and surrounding areas.

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ROME
Vatican Radio

(Vatican Radio) Cardinal George Pell on Thursday met for nearly two hours with about a dozen victims of sexual abuse from the Australian Diocese of Ballarat at the Quirinale hotel in Rome.

Cardinal Pell has been giving testimony this week to the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses into Child Sexual Abuse, which looking into sexual abuse at different institutions in Australia.

The Diocese of Ballarat, located in the State of Victoria, has had several clerics and religious accused of abuse during a 30-year period from the 1960’s, and over a dozen suicides have been attributed to the abuse. Cardinal Pell was ordained for the Diocese of Ballarat in 1966.

After the meeting, Cardinal Pell called the encounter “honest and occasionally emotional,” and acknowledged “the evil that was done.”

“We all want to try to make things better actually and on the ground especially for the survivors and their families and I undertake to continue to help the group work effectively with the committees and agencies that we have here in the Church in Rome and especially the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors,” Cardinal Pell said.

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AUSTRALIA
The Age

Konrad Marshall
Senior writer

A school principal who blew the whistle on abusive priest Peter Searson – and was then exiled from the Catholic education system – says he feels “vindicated” by the testimony of Cardinal George Pell this week.

Graeme Sleeman was principal at the Doveton Holy Family school when the notorious Searson arrived in 1984 and began abusing children. It was a school where children lived in fear of the unhinged priest: altar boys did not want to serve, and everyone feared the confessional, where Searson spent far too much time (and he liked children to kneel between his legs), Mr Sleeman resigned in 1986.

He had hoped to force the hand of the church and the Catholic Education Office to remove the paedophile priest. Instead Mr Sleeman lost his career, health and financial security, as the church preferred to keep the now disgraced Searson in Doveton, at one of the most disadvantaged parishes in Melbourne. Mr Sleeman never fully regained his career trajectory.

“I was more than shocked – I was totally disillusioned,” Sleeman said of the episode. “In many ways I had a naivety about the church. But boy oh boy, was my faith tested beyond belief.”
On Thursday, though, Mr Sleeman said he was pleased that his own role in trying to stop Searson was noted.

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ROME
The Guardian

David Marr
Thursday 3 March 2016

Pity poor George Pell. He was such a sensitive young priest that even reading about child abuse caused him pain. He did it as little as he could.

“I have never enjoyed reading the accounts of these sufferings,” he confessed on Thursday. “I tried to do that only when it was professionally absolutely appropriate because the behaviour is abhorrent and painful to read about.”

Pell’s pain …

That he said this to a roomful of survivors gathered in the Albergo Quirinale in Rome defies belief. And just as incredible is the fact that Pell offered this line to clarify his earlier “very poor” words about paedophilia in Ballarat being a “sad story” that didn’t interest him much.

Was there no one to tell the cardinal what a terrible idea it was to appeal for sympathy in the face of such pain? Where were his advisers? Are they the same crew that let him argue last year that paedophile priests and their victims are like truck drivers and hitchhikers?

Character is the great subject of cross-examination. Pell has emerged from four days harshly exposed. There is so much missing.

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ROME
Sky News

Cardinal Pell has met with a group of men in Rome, who were abused as children by paedophile priests in Victoria.

‘We’ve just had an extremely emotional meeting with Cardinal Pell, we met on a level playing field, we met as people form Ballarat and Cardinal Pell has agreed to make a public statement,’ survivor David Ridsdale told media in Rome.

Pell addressed media after the meeting.

”I’ve heard each of their stories and of their suffering. It was hard and honest and occasionally emotional meeting,’ he said.

I owe a lot to the people and community of Ballarat, I acknowledge that with deep gratitude.’

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ROME
The Australian

[with video]

Jacquelin Magnay
European correspondent

Cardinal George Pell stood in a busy Rome street vowing to help Ballarat survivors establish a national research centre to advance healing and improve protection of survivors.

The cardinal made the commitment after meeting a group of survivors who had travelled to Rome to hear him give evidence to the child abuse royal commission.

Cardinal Pell said it had been a sometimes emotional meeting and it was agreed to explore the possibility of establishing a research centre in Ballarat to “enhance healing and improve protection”.

“I am committed to working with these people from Ballarat and surrounding areas,” he said. “I know many of their families and I know the goodness of so many people of Catholic Ballarat; the goodness that is not extinguished by the evil that was done.”

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ROME
9 News

Cardinal George Pell has committed himself to work with child sex abuse survivors to protect children from sexual abuse in the Victorian town of Ballarat.

The cardinal made the commitment on Thursday after meeting with a group of survivors who had travelled to Rome to hear him give evidence to the child abuse royal commission.

The cardinal said it had been a sometimes emotional meeting and it was agreed to explore the possibility of establishing a research centre in Ballarat to “enhance healing and improve protection”.

Ballarat became a hotbed of pedophile activity in the 1970s and 80s including members of the Christian Brothers and Australia’s worst pedophile priest, Gerald Ridsdale.

Cardinal Pell, who held senior roles in the church in the Ballarat diocese at the time has been accused of turning a blind eye to pedophile offending, accusations he denies.

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ROME
Sydney Morning Herald

[with video]

March 4, 2016

Nick Miller and Melissa Cunningham

Cardinal George Pell has pledged to help those “wounded by the scourge of sexual abuse”, in the final act of his appearance at the child sex abuse Royal Commission.

“One suicide is too many, and there have been many such tragic suicides,” the cardinal said on the doorstep of the Rome hotel where over four nights he was grilled about what he knew of paedophile priests in Melbourne and Ballarat in the 1970s and 1980s.

“I commit myself to working … to try to stop this so that suicide is not seen as an option for those who are suffering,” the cardinal said.

The statement, handwritten on hotel notepaper, was the product of an hour-long meeting he held with a group of survivors who had travelled to Rome to watch the cardinal give video evidence to the Commission.

Cardinal Pell said he had heard each of their stories and of their suffering.

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ROME
The Globe and Mail (Canada)

PHILIP PULLELLA AND JANE WARDELL
Rome and Sydney — Reuters
Published Thursday, Mar. 03, 2016

Cardinal George Pell, under fire for his handling of sexual abuse of children by priests in Australia, on Thursday acknowledged “the evil that was done” and vowed to work with survivors to enact better protection measures.

Pell, who gave four days of evidence via video link to an Australian government commission, made the comments after a nearly two-hour meeting in a Rome hotel with about a dozen Australian survivors who had flown to Rome for the hearings.

Pell, now the Vatican’s treasurer, and the survivors met for nearly four times as long as scheduled. Both the cardinal and a spokesman for the survivors said it was highly emotional.

David Ridsdale, a survivor who alleges that in 1993 Pell tried to bribe him to keep quiet about abuse by Ridsdale’s now jailed priest uncle, said survivors were satisfied that the encounter took place on “a level playing field”.

Pell, who has denied the bribery accusation, told reporters that the goodness of the people of Ballarat, where much of the abuse took place in the 1970s when Pell was a priest there, “was not extinguished by the evil that was done”.

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ROME
Newsday

Associated Press

CANBERRA, Australia – A top Vatican official has vowed to work to put an end to the rash of suicides in his Australian hometown over the church sex abuse scandal after meeting with victims and acknowledging that he failed to act on an allegation decades ago.

Cardinal George Pell met with some Australian abuse victims who had travelled to Rome to witness his four days of remote, video-link testimony to Australia’s Royal Commission. The commission is investigating how the Catholic Church and other institutions responded to sexual abuse of children over decades.

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PENNSYLVANIA
Verdict

3 MAR 2016

MARCI A. HAMILTON

The Attorney General of Pennsylvania has issued yet another grand jury report on orchestrated sex abuse and adults not paying attention. First, there was the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office investigating the Philadelphia Archdiocese. Three times. Then there was the Attorney General’s Penn State-Sandusky grand jury report. Now there is the AG’s Report on abuse in the Altoona-Johnstown Catholic Diocese. (And many are waiting for the Bucks County grand jury report on long-term abuse in the Solebury School.) It is crystal clear now that the plague of child sex abuse and cover up spans the state (and the country). The only question left to ask in Pennsylvania is: who is investigating the Pittsburgh and Harrisburg dioceses?

The Altoona Report introduces new perpetrators and, tragically, many victims to our collective consciousness, but the paradigm is the same: heartless and callous adults trivialize and ignore unmistakable evidence of deep child suffering. Honestly, if you want to understand it at a deep level, see the Oscar Best Picture winner: Spotlight.

True, the motion picture is about Boston, but the pattern is always the same. First, arrogant, powerful adults fail to protect children. Second, child victims (those who survive the all-too-strong temptation of suicide) struggle as adults. Third, their families suffer when they learn about it. Fourth, it’s not over, which Spotlight brilliantly captures with a running list of dioceses worldwide with the “Boston problem.” It leaves audiences stunned and silent. I do not remember a motion picture that triggers the same level of quiet shock since the Deer Hunter.

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UNITED STATES
Newsweek

BY ELIJAH WOLFSON ON 3/3/16

Mint-colored city buses and sherbet mid-rise apartment complexes with undulating facades.

Women in polka-dot bikinis and men in wide-lapelled shirts unbuttoned halfway down their chests. Postcard-perfect white sand beaches and cocaine-addled nights that throbbed to a mix of brassy disco and tropical Cuban beats.

It was 1981, and the 19-square-mile barrier island known as Miami Beach was on the verge of bursting into one of the most hedonistic scenes committed to the history books.Somehow, in the midst of this Caribbean decadence, a very different community also thrived.

Just a few blocks from the scantily dressed beachgoers and the drug lords in Armani silk were men in ill-fitting black suits and heavy beards, and women in thick wigs and long woolen skirts all year long, even as the wet heat of the Atlantic swept across the peninsula.

The ranks of Miami’s ultra-Orthodox Jews, Hasidim, were swelling. They were insular and defiantly anti-secular, clinging to traditions that may have protected their community in a medieval world but in modern America would lead to tragic consequences for many of their youngest, most vulnerable members.

Twelve-year-old Ozer Simon hadn’t grown up Hasidic, but after his parents divorced, his mom became a baal teshuva, a secular Jew who has “returned” to religious ways, and enrolled him at a yeshiva. He immediately fell behind because the other kids had been studying Hebrew since they were toddlers, so when Rabbi Joseph Reizes, a new teacher recently arrived from Brooklyn, offered to tutor the child, his mother jumped at the opportunity.

But when she asked Simon how his first lesson went, she could tell “something was really wrong.” Simon told her the rabbi hadn’t taught him anything; instead, he’d asked the boy to lie down and take a nap. When he did, the older man lay down on top of him. The next school day, Simon’s mother went to Rabbi Avrohom Korf, principal of the boy’s school, and told him what had happened. “I said to him, ‘If Reizes continues to teach here, I’m going to go to the newspaper. Or whatever it takes,’” she recalls. “The next thing I know, the guy is gone.”

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NEW YORK
Riverdale Press

By Shant Shahrigian
Posted 3/2/16

The Bronx District Attorney’s office says it did not learn of any criminal activity after speaking with 20 people about Rabbi Jonathan Rosenblatt, the longtime leader of the Riverdale Jewish Center (RJC) who came under fire for a years-long habit of bathing nude with boys at a sauna.

“We did not receive any first-hand information about conduct that constituted criminal activity, and any conduct was outside the statute of limitations of New York. We remain available to speak with members of the community who would like to share information with us, and to offer counseling and other services,” DA spokeswoman Patrice O’Shaughnessy said in a Tuesday email statement.

Details of the investigation, conducted by the DA’s Child Abuse/Sex Crimes Bureau, were not immediately known. The DA had asked anyone with information about possible criminal activity to come forward following a May New York Times article that said the rabbi habitually played racquetball with boys and led them nude into the sauna in the 1980s and 1990s, though there were no allegations of sexual touching or criminal conduct.

Last week, the president of RJC sent an email to congregants saying Rabbi Rosenblatt is “stepping aside from the Senior Rabbinate” of the synagogue.

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WASHINGTON
The Daily Beast

Brandy Zadrozny

A new lawsuit seeks to find out what Mark Driscoll did with millions in tithes to Seattle’s now-shuttered Mars Hill megachurch.

Just when controversial pastor Mark Driscoll was hoping to make a new start, former members of his old stomping grounds at Seattle’s Mars Hill Church have filed a lawsuit alleging Driscoll and his chief elder ran the now-shuttered megachurch like an organized crime syndicate, in which church members became unwitting participants.

The lawsuit was filed on Monday in the Western District of Washington U.S. District Court in Seattle under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, a law originally created for prosecution of Mafia figures.

Former members have been threatening to file such a lawsuit for months to find out just where the members’ tithes—some $30 million yearly, according to church reports—actually went.

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ROME
National Catholic Reporter

Joshua J. McElwee | Mar. 2, 2016

ROME
Cardinal George Pell, one of the highest-ranking officials at the Vatican, has admitted to an Australian government commission that when a schoolboy came to him decades ago to report that a Catholic teacher was “misbehaving with boys” he did not report the matter to authorities.

Pell, who served as the leader of two Australia archdioceses before becoming the head of Pope Francis’ new centralized Vatican treasury department two years ago, said that when the boy came to him in the mid-1970s “he just mentioned it casually in conversation; he never asked me to do anything.”

The boy, the cardinal said, was complaining about a member of the Edmund Rice Christian Brothers named Edward Dowlan, who would later be convicted of abusing at least 20 boys at six Australian schools starting in 1971.

Pell told the Australian Royal Commission via video testimony from Rome late Wednesday night Rome time that the child came to him to say “something like ‘Dowlan is misbehaving with boys.'”

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AUSTRALIA
Lakes Mail

By David Stewart
March 3, 2016

THE Catholic Bishop for the local region has called for a national redress scheme and uniform child protection standards in the wake of evidence heard at the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.

Bishop Bill Wright heads the diocese of Maitland-Newcastle, which includes the parishes of Morisset, Toronto, and Booragul.

Bishop Wright said evidence provided by Cardinal George Pell at the Royal Commission had “helped to complete the disturbing picture of how badly the church performed when dealing with reports of child sexual abuse” at the time.

“Anyone who is a survivor of abuse or has lived their life in the Catholic Church will be finding it difficult to hear the manifold failings of the church to protect children, and this is especially true for those within our local community with the sad history of abuse in our region,” he said.

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ROME
Sydney Morning Herald

Nick Miller
Europe Correspondent

Rome: Was Tim Minchin wrong? Hilariously, outrageously, toe-tappingly wrong?

As this week of hearings in Rome went on, there has emerged a theory that the interests of transparent, feet-to-the-fire justice have been better served by Cardinal Pell not ‘coming home’ after all.

By sitting on his little dais in front of his video screen in the back room of the Hotel Quirinale, this theory goes, Cardinal Pell placed himself in the hot glare of the world’s attention.

TV cameras from around Europe covered his arrival and departure at the hotel – and sought out, regularly, the voices and outrage of the abuse survivors who crossed the globe to face him.

The survivors themselves acknowledged this. After the first day of the hearing they expressed to me their satisfaction with arrangements – the international media interest in their stories and wishes has been large, varied and sustained.

Back in Australia, it’s unlikely so many media would have invested the time and effort. Their curiosity may never have been piqued, it would have been something distant and obscure. And of course, in Rome, this whole odd Australian judicial adventure is taking place just down the road from the Vatican itself.

‘Vaticanisti’ media and observers came along to the hearings out of curiosity, and ended up glued to the video evidence.

Cardinal Pell revealed that on Monday, he met with the Pope and “I arranged for him to have a summary of each day’s activities provided to him and to the Secretary of State”.

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ROME
Catholic Herald (UK)

by Dan Hitchens
posted Thursday, 3 Mar 2016

The cardinal met a group of survivors this morning after four days of questioning by an Australian royal commission

A survivor of child abuse has said that Cardinal George Pell “gets it” after a meeting with the cardinal in Rome.

Phil Nagle, who was among a group of child abuse survivors who met Cardinal Pell this morning, told reporters: “We talked about the future not the past… I think he gets it.”

Nagle said Cardinal Pell had discussed ways in which the Church could do more to help survivors of child abuse.

“We talked about counselling, we talked about care, we talked about what the future’s going to be for our survivors and how the Church is going to help with that, from George’s level down,” he said.

Nagle was abused by a priest at a school in Ballarat in the 1970s. At the time, Cardinal Pell was Ballarat’s episcopal vicar for education. The cardinal has repeatedly said that he did not know the extent of abuse and thought it was being dealt with by others.

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ROME
Sydney Morning Herald

March 3, 2016

Nick Miller

Rome: An exhausted but positive Cardinal George Pell said the most difficult moment of his cross examination by the child sex abuse Royal Commission was reading the evidence from abuse survivors.

“It’s been a hard slog at least for me, I’m a bit tired but the Royal Commission process is designed to try to make the situation better for the future for the survivors and to prevent the repetition of all this suffering in the future,” he said.

“So I hope that my appearance here has contributed a bit to healing, to improving the situation.

“All the leadership of the church in Australia is committed to avoiding the repetition of the terrible history of the past and to try to make things better.

“Cardinal Pell said he grieved for the suffering of the people he regarded as “his own people” in Ballarat. He would meet some abuse survivors later on Thursday and “please God that’ll take us a little bit forward”.

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ROME
Sydney Morning Herald

March 3, 2016

Jane Lee
Legal affairs, health and science reporter

When it comes to responses to child sexual abuse, there have always been two George Pells.

For four days, they have fought tooth and nail for air in a Roman hotel room.

Either he did not know enough about child sexual abuse to try to stop it from happening or he did, but didn’t act.

No one expected the Cardinal to abandon the best version of himself, which he has defended for decades, including in media statements whenever his name is uttered at the royal commission.

No surprises, then, when he consistently distanced himself and the Catholic Church from the handful of aberrant church officials who he blamed for covering up child abuse in Ballarat and Melbourne.

He refuses to admit that his negligence also likely allowed more children to be abused.

​At the height of his career, his only regret is that he had not been more curious, which is tempered by his belief that others prevented him from doing more.

Yet his latest testimony revealed how little weight this carries in a world that has learned so much in a few years about what Pell and those who surrounded him knew about children being sexually abused, how much children suffered and how little the church cared for them.

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ROME
Sydney Morning Herald

March 3, 2016

Andrew P Street
Writer

Pell in a Handbasket

Cardinal George Pell has wrapped up his testimony into the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, and it’s fair to say that he’s not exactly distinguished himself.

Among his testimonial highlights was admitting that he’d heard rumours that children were being raped by priest Gerald Ridsdale, but that “was a sad story and wasn’t of much interest to me,” as he memorably put in on Tuesday.

His marvellously selective memory had forgotten this quote a day later, when he railed against lawyer Jim Shaw for repeating the quote to him.

“I said nothing of the kind,” Pell angrily responded to his exact words, “as I have endeavoured to explain this evening.”

Shaw, oddly, begged to differ: “I’m quoting you from the transcript, Cardinal.”

Pell wasn’t having a bar of it: “I would like you to do so.”

Shaw obliged: “I just did. ‘A sad story and it wasn’t of much interest to me.'”

Pell: “That’s a selective quotation.”

In Georgie’s defence, how is he supposed to remember things he said on camera, under oath, during a Royal Commission, a matter of hours earlier?

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ROME
9 News

AAP

WHAT GEORGE PELL KNEW AND DIDN’T KNOW
ABOUT BR EDWARD DOWLAN

Was told fleeting references about Dowlan “touching boys” which Cardinal Pell said was “misbehaviour by Dowlan which I concluded might have been pedophilic activity”.

A student at Ballarat’s St Patrick’s College student told him in 1974 Dowlan was “misbehaving” with boys.

The cardinal said the boy “mentioned it casually in conversation” and did not ask him to do anything.

“I didn’t do anything about it,” Cardinal Pell said, although he went to the school chaplain who said the Christian Brothers were dealing with it.

He also heard “unfortunate rumours” that were vague and unspecific about Dowlan’s activity with young people from other priests.

Asked if he understood it to include sexual activity with young people: “Yes, and possibly excessive discipline or violence but certainly the first was, an element was present.”

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ROME
Herald Sun

AAP

Survivors of child sex abuse who were crowdfunded to Rome to see George Pell give evidence before a royal commission say they’ve achieved “times a thousand” what they set out to do.

The group, many of whom were sexually abused as children by priests and brothers in the Victorian town of Ballarat, hugged and shed tears at the end of Cardinal Pell’s four nights of testimony from a Rome hotel.

The survivors vowed to continue their campaign to ensure children are protected from sexual abuse, including ensuring the Catholic Church changes its systems to prevent such abuse.

They meet with the cardinal later on Thursday and hope to meet with Pope Francis on Friday to put their case and explain the reality of trauma for abuse victims.

Survivor group spokesman David Ridsdale said they had achieved “times a thousand more” than they set out to do, with their campaign gaining global media attention.

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PENNSYLVANIA
Catholic World Report

Pittsburgh, Pa., Mar 3, 2016 / 12:52 am (CNA/EWTN News).- The Bishop of Altoona-Johnstown is calling for prayers after a Pennsylvania grand jury released its report on the alleged sexual abuse of hundreds of children by priests in the diocese in past decades.

The report covers cases dating back to the 1940s and charges that previous bishops put abusive priests back to ministry.

“This is a painful and difficult time in our diocesan Church,” Bishop Mark L. Bartchak of Altoona-Johnstown said March 1. “I deeply regret any harm that has come to children, and I urge the faithful to join me in praying for all victims of abuse.”

On March 1 a grand jury released its 147-page report on the diocese’s response to sex abuse by clergy. The report in part drew on evidence from diocesan archives that were opened through a search warrant. Over 115,000 documents were seized, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reports.

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ROME
Sydney Morning Herald

Melissa Cunningham

Ballarat clergy sexual abuse survivors want Vatican law rewritten to protect future generations of children.

The group, which is still pushing to meet Pope Francis, will put the request to Australia’s most senior Catholic, Cardinal George Pell, when they meet with him.

They will also meet a member of the Pontifical Commission for Protection on Minors, an institution which deals with the rampant sexual abuse of children at the hands of Catholic clergy.

Survivors initially rejected a meeting with the Cardinal after he was accused of “designing” his evidence at the Royal Commission into Institutional Response into Child Sexual Abuse to deflect blame from himself.

But after the Cardinal dropped restrictions, including that survivors not speak to the media about the meeting, they had a change of heart.

For several victims, the idea of meeting Cardinal Pell following his evidence this week is too painful and they have rejected the offer.

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ROME
The Guardian

Kristina Keneally

“ … on that Monday 24 March I watched Cardinal Pell being questioned in the royal commission and I woke up at 4.40 the next morning and thought, ‘It’s too disgusting, the way he threw his men to the wolves to protect himself.’”

So said church historian Father Edmund Campion at the Catholic Institute of Sydney on 27 May 2014.

So he could have said on 2 March 2016.

Cardinal George Pell’s evidence this week to the royal commission on institutional responses to child sexual abuse is – to many – shocking. Audible gasps can sometimes be heard from the public gallery in Sydney.

The criticism of Pell emanates along a spectrum from Ray Hadley to David Marr. Even Andrew Bolt was moved to condemnation – though that position didn’t last. Bolt came to his senses, so to speak, and remembered that he was, after all, Andrew Bolt.

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CANADA
Toronto Star

By: Michael Coren Published on Thu Mar 03 2016

Something deeply significant occurred at the Academy Awards this year. Beyond the glamour, the talent and the entirely valid concerns about lack of diversity, Spotlight was named best movie. Frankly, I didn’t think it would happen. A film about the child rape crisis within the Roman Catholic Church was given international acclaim and acknowledgement.

Let me take you back to 1989. I was working for the CBC, making documentaries. One of them was about Covenant House, the essential and entirely noble shelter in Toronto that cares for street kids. With origins in 1960s New York, Covenant House now has international branches.

One of its founders, and very much its public face, was the Franciscan priest Father Bruce Ritter, and after spending weeks speaking to people who worked at the centre and to many of the kids who lived there, we flew Ritter from New York to Toronto.

He was, shall we say, a difficult man. He was rude to the crew and to me, highly demanding and insisted on only meeting with boys at Covenant House. “No girls, no,” he told us. It was explained by his handlers that he was uncomfortable with girls and thought it might look awkward. I didn’t believe a word.

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ROME
news.com.au

Charles Miranda in Rome
News Corp Australia Network

CARDINAL George Pell has said he is committed to working with sex abuse survivors in Ballarat, admitting their stories “were hard to listen to”.

After meeting with victims of child sex abuse in Rome, the Cardinal said he owed a lot to the people of Ballarat and that he supported a centre to enhance healing.

He also said that he was committed to “making things better”, as “one suicide is too many”.

His comments come after four days of interrogation in which he gave evidence via videlink to the royal commission into child abuse.

Meanwhile, amid talk of conspiracies and cover-ups, power, deceit and betrayal among priests forced to make hushed promises to hold secrets on original sin, sex orgies, torture and even murder, there is just something a bit tooDa Vinci Code, too clichéd, to pitch as a potential new Dan Brown novel.

But this is not fiction but rather extraordinary revelations by a senior figure from the Vatican about the institution that he rightly declared has existed since the days of the Roman Empire and would continue into some form into the next millennia.

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AUSTRALIA
Al Jazeera

Jarni Blakkarly | 03 Mar 2016

Sydney, Australia – Sitting alone on a bench in Sydney’s busy financial district, Darren Chalmers is surrounded by dozens of placards condemning the Roman Catholic Church’s response to child sex abuse victims like himself.

Inside the building behind him, around 50 people, including a dozen victims, watch one of the Vatican’s most powerful clergymen, Cardinal George Pell, testify, via a videolink from a hotel in Rome, as to what he knew about decades of sexual abuse within the church.

Over four days of hearings for the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sex Abuse, 48-year-old Chalmers, who was sexually abused at the age of 14 at a boy’s school in Melbourne, sat outside with signs, some which read “Pell go to hell” and “Pope Sack Pell Now”. He wasn’t able to bring himself to join the other victims inside the hearing.

“Being in there feels too uncomfortable, it brings back memories of things I try and forget. But sitting out here, I do feel proud, people see me and I’m helping myself and other victims who can’t be here,” Chalmers told Al Jazeera.

After he swore on the Bible on Monday, Pell’s gruelling questioning lasted almost 20 hours over the four days and focused on what he knew about sexual abuse in his small hometown of Ballart and in the city of Melbourne between the 1970s and 1990s as he rose in the Catholic Church hierarchy.

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AUSTRALIA
The Conversation

Timothy W. Jones
Senior Lecturer in History, La Trobe University

Cardinal George Pell returned this week to the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse in relation to the Ballarat and Melbourne case studies.

Giving evidence over the course of four days, via video link from Rome, Pell modified slightly his previous public positions. But, fundamentally, he insisted that he knew little, and fulfilled his duties in relation to what he did know.

On several occasions, counsel assisting the royal commission suggested that Pell’s claims to be ignorant of child sex offending in various contexts was implausible. If everyone around Pell knew, how could he not have known?

The forms of denial

One of the most important lessons we have learnt from Pell’s appearance is the church was – and still is – in a state of denial. It is in denial about the harms of sexual abuse, and about the adequacy of its responses to allegations of abuse.

Being in denial is a curious thing. In denying something, you implicitly admit that there is something to deny.

The late sociologist Stanley Cohen examined this phenomenon in his last book. Cohen argued that we have myriad techniques of keeping disturbing knowledge at bay: there are many ways of not knowing.

The simplest is literal denial. We saw plenty of this from Pell. He repeatedly said that he never knew of allegations of abuse; that he never heard rumours of Gerald Ridsdale’s offending when they shared a presbytery in Ballarat.

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PENNSYLVANIA
PennLive

By Ivey DeJesus | idejesus@pennlive.com

In 1987, Richard Serbin, an Altoona attorney, took on a lawsuit filed by Michael Hutchinson, a former altar boy at St. Therese Catholic Church in Altoona.

Hutchinson was seeking justice from the Altoona-Johnstown Diocese and, specifically, Francis Luddy, who was priest and religious leader at St. Therese.

Hutchison, who was about 20 when he met Serbin, claimed that Luddy had begun sexually molesting him when he was 10 years old in 1977. The molestation lasted until 1982, when his family left Altoona.

Up against the formidable resources of the diocese, the case lasted for over 20 years. The diocese spent more than $2 million in attorney fees to protect and defend Luddy, even though, he had admitted to sexually molesting 10 children and was a known-child predator.

The case put Serbin, a 1970 graduate of theUniversity of Pittsburgh and 1974 graduate of Duquesne University School of Law, on a new path: representing the children who had been sexually molested by priests and church leaders of the Altoona Diocese.

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PENNSYLVANIA
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

By David Clohessy

Most folks won’t wade through all 147 pages of the new grand jury report disclosing rampant child sex abuse and cover ups in the Altoona-Johnstown diocese. So here, in our view, is the shortest, clearest summary of the most alarming and recent wrongdoing it contains.

In short, the report shows that diocesan abuse deceit is continuing. Here’s how PennLive reported it:

The bishop controlled the Allegation Review Board.

Bishop Adamec created the Allegation Review Board to allegedly determine the credibility of an allegation of abuse.

However, the purpose of creating the board, the grand jury said, was to convince people that the days of a mysterious bishop deciding how to handle a scandalous and heinous report of child molestation were over.

“In reality, the bishop still exclusively makes the decision how or what to do with a report of child molestation,” the grand jury said. “Nothing has changed but the trappings of how a report is procedurally made.”

The grand jury said victims who believed they were reporting to a board of unbiased and neutral observers “would be sadly mistaken.”

Diocese ‘victim advocate’ looked out for the church, not the victims.

The grand jury concluded, upon interviews with victims and reviews of documents, that the diocese “victim advocate” is an advocate for the diocese against the interest of the victims. The victim advocate was identified as Sister Marilyn Welch.

“Where the advocate can shuffle a victim into the Allegation Review Board without the involvement of legal representation for a victim, she does so,” the grand jury reported.

“Money is offered. Confidentiality and release claims are signed by victims and the diocese to avoid public scrutiny.”

So much for all those claims of ‘reform’ by bishops. .

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COLORADO
Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Denver

An adult woman who lives in Colorado has reported that she was a victim of sexual abuse by a religious order priest approximately 35 years ago. The woman’s report is that the abuse took place in the 1980s when she was a student at Marycrest High School in Denver.

The priest named in the complaint is Father Ben Colucci, a retired member of the Capuchin Franciscan religious order. The woman first reported the abuse to the Capuchin Franciscans in 2015 and the order’s Review Board, which is tasked with investigating complaints of abuse and misconduct by its priests, thoroughly reviewed the matter. Based on the information received, the Review Board has advised that the complaint should be treated as credible.

Protective steps were taken upon learning of this complaint. The Capuchin Franciscans have confirmed with the woman that she reported the matter to law enforcement. The order has also separately contacted proper authorities to report the matter. It is the policy of the Archdiocese and the Capuchin Franciscans to cooperate fully with law enforcement agencies investigating complaints of abuse.

Because Father Colucci has not been in active ministry for many years, it was not necessary for the Capuchin Franciscans to remove him from ministry as a result of the complaint. Father Colucci served in Colorado from 1970 to 1993 at Marycrest High School, Annunciation Parish, and the Samaritan House. Father Colucci has not served or lived in Colorado since 1993, when he was removed from ministry by the Archdiocese of Denver for reported misconduct.

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COLORADO
The Denver Post

By Kieran Nicholson
The Denver Post
POSTED: 03/02/2016

A Colorado woman says she was abused by a Catholic priest about 35 years ago, when she was a student at Denver’s Marycrest High School during the 1980s.

The woman has reported the accusation of sexual abuse to the Archdiocese of Denver, which is investigating her claims, according to a Wednesday media release from the Roman Catholic Church.

“The woman first reported the abuse to the Capuchin Franciscans in 2015 and the order’s Review Board, which is tasked with investigating complaints of abuse and misconduct by its priests, thoroughly reviewed the matter,” according to the release. “Based on the information received, the Review Board has advised that the complaint should be treated as credible.”

The priest named in the complaint is Father Ben Colucci, a retired member of the Capuchin Franciscan religious order.

Colucci served the church in Colorado from 1970 to 1993 at Marycrest High School, Annunciation Parish, and the Samaritan House. Colucci hasn’t lived in Colorado since 1993, when he was removed from ministry by the Archdiocese of Denver for “reported misconduct.”

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ROME
The New Daily

Mar 3, 2016

ROSE DONOHOE Reporter

Cardinal George Pell has finished his fourth and final day of giving evidence via video link from Rome to the Royal Commission on Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse in Sydney.

On Thursday morning (AEDT) the hearing kicked off with Cardinal Pell being asked why so many paedophile priests were placed in Ballarat during the 1970s and ’80s, to which he said it was a “disastrous coincidence”.

By the end of the day’s proceedings he fronted a media pack for the first time since the hearing began on Monday.

“I hope that my appearance here has contributed a bit to healing,” Cardinal Pell told reporters just before 4am Rome time.

When asked if he believed that he was the victim of a witch hunt, Cardinal Pell replied “I’ll leave that to you to figure out”, before heading home to bed.

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PENNSYLVANIA
Fox 43

CLINTON COUNTY — A grand jury investigation into sexual abuse by Catholic priests in Pennsylvania determined dozens of priests in the Altoona-Johnstown diocese molested children for decades.

Now some of those alleged victims are speaking out to share their stories.

The men, now in their 50s, spoke with WNEP because they say they want people to know the truth.

They say they were 6 or 7 when they were molested by Father Joseph Bender, but kept the memories of abuse tucked away for decades.

Robert Holtzapple told WNEP, “He led you to believe that he cared about you and he loved you. You know what I mean? That’s what he did. He manipulated you mentally as well as physically.”

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ROME
Telegraph (UK)

By AFP

Vatican finance chief Cardinal George Pell said that it was a “disastrous coincidence” that five paedophile priests preyed on children in the Australian town where he was based, as survivors accused him of lying.

On Thursday Cardinal Pell gave evidence for a fourth and final day to the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse in Sydney via videolink from Rome and came under intense questioning from lawyers representing victims of abuse by the clergy.

The cardinal has consistently denied any wrongdoing during his time in the town of Ballarat and the city of Melbourne where he grew up and worked in the 1970s and 1980s. During the same years paedophile priests abused dozens of children.

Cardinal Pell, who revealed Pope Francis had been given a summary of each day’s evidence, has claimed at least two archbishops and other people in authority deceived him by not revealing what was happening during a period of what he called “crimes and cover-ups”.

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ROME
The Express Tribune

SYDNEY: Vatican finance chief Cardinal George Pell said Thursday it was a “disastrous coincidence” that five paedophile priests preyed on children in the Australian town where he was based, as survivors repeatedly accused him of lying.

Pell gave evidence to the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse via videolink from Rome for a fourth day and came under intense questioning from lawyers representing victims of abuse by the clergy.

He has consistently denied any wrongdoing during his time in the town of Ballarat and the city of Melbourne in the state of Victoria, where he grew up and worked, in the 1970s and 80s, when paedophile priests abused dozens of victims.

Pell, who revealed Pope Francis was being given a summary of each day’s evidence, has claimed at least two archbishops and other people in authority all deceived him by not revealing what was happening during a time of what he called “crimes and cover-ups”.

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ROME
7 News

Sydney (AFP) – Vatican finance chief Cardinal George Pell admitted Thursday he “should have done more” to follow-up on claims a priest was abusing boys, as survivors accused him of lying about what he knew.

Pell gave evidence for a fourth and final day to the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse in Sydney via videolink from Rome and came under intense questioning from lawyers representing victims of abuse by the clergy.

He has consistently denied any wrongdoing during his time in the town of Ballarat and the city of Melbourne in the state of Victoria, where he grew up and worked, in the 1970s and 80s when paedophile priests abused dozens of children.

Pell, who revealed Pope Francis was being given a summary of each day’s evidence, admitted a boy complained to him in 1974 about Christian Brother Edward Dowlan.

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ROME
The Daily Telegraph

Andrew Carswell
The Daily Telegraph

CARDINAL George Pell chose not to report a serious allegation that a priest was sexually abusing boys at a Victorian Catholic school because the student who warned him about the abuse “wasn’t asking me to do anything about it’’.

In his final day in the witness stand in Rome in front of the royal commission into child sexual abuse, Australia’s most senior Catholic confirmed a St Patricks College student complained to him in 1974 that priest Ted Dowlan was “misbehaving with boys’’.

Cardinal Pell confessed he did nothing with the “very serious” allegation.

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ROME
The Daily Beast

Barbie Latza Nadeau

An Australian royal commission on clerical crimes finds damning evidence that the Vatican’s most senior cardinals turned a blind eye to sex abuse. So why doesn’t the pope fire him?

ROME—Whatever one’s religious affiliation or belief, it must be argued that the Gods of Glorious Coincidence were at work this week. Just as the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences was handing out the Oscar statuette for Best Picture to Spotlight last Sunday night, Cardinal George Pell, the Vatican’s no. 3 official, was seated in a dingy hotel event room testifying by video link about the very same sort of systematic clerical sex abuse exposed in the film.

But in what is really an unfathomable disconnect, accolades for breaking the silence and exposing serious clerical sex abuse in the United States seemed completely lost in Rome.

Pell, who heads the Vatican’s Secretariat on the Economy, was called to give voluntary evidence to Australia’s Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.

The 74-year-old spent a total of four very late nights answering a slew of questions about a number of clearly predatory priests in Australia from the time he was a young cleric to when he was the Archbishop of Melbourne. The hearings started at 7 or 8 a.m. in Sydney, which meant they began at 9 or 10 p.m. in Rome. The latest of the hearings wrapped up around 3 a.m. local time.

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ROME
ABC News

For four days, the child abuse royal commission has forensically questioned Cardinal George Pell over his knowledge of alleged abuse within Australia’s Catholic Church.

Abuse survivors and their supporters watched on as evidence was extracted from Australia’s most senior Catholic — some of it, they said, “beggared belief”.

Here are some of the key moments in his testimony and the reactions it drew.

Day one:

* Cardinal Pell said the church made ‘enormous mistakes’
* He said the ‘predisposition was not to believe’ children’s claims of abuse
* Cardinal Pell said the instinct was to protect the church

He was questioned specifically on two case studies — number 28 about the Diocese of Ballarat and number 35 about the Archdiocese of Melbourne.

These case studies included complaints about Monsignor John Day, Brother Gerald Leo Fitzgerald and Gerald Ridsdale.

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ROME
The West Australian

[with video]

Amanda Banks Legal Affairs Editor
March 3, 2016

Cardinal George Pell has said he hoped his appearance before the Royal Commission into child sexual abuse had “contributed a bit to healing, to improving the situation”.

Speaking in Rome after he gave evidence over four days, he said: “All the leadership of the church in Australia is committed to avoiding any repetition of the terrible history of the past and to try to make things better.”
He will meet a group of survivors from Ballarat who are in Rome to watch his testimony.

“I grieve for the suffering of the people whom I regard as my own people,” he said.

Giving evidence today, Cardinal Pell denied an explosive allegation that he offered a bribe to a victim of child sex abuse to “keep quiet”, saying the accusation is implausible and based on a “radical misunderstanding”.

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ROME
Daily Telegraph

[with video]

ANDREW CARSWELLThe Daily Telegraph

CARDINAL George Pell has told the Royal Commission into child sexual abuse why he chose to infamously accompany paedophile priest Gerald Ridsdale, in full priestly robes, to his first court hearing, earning the scorn of victims.

While admitting he now regretted walking alongside Ridsdale, Pell said he deemed it at the time as the right Christian thing to do; to be kind to the lowest of lows.

“I walked with him following the Christian conviction that it’s an appropriate activity to, to be kind to prisoners,’’ Pell said in his final day in the witness stand.

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ROME
The Guardian

Ben Doherty
@bendohertycorro
Wednesday 2 March 2016

Cardinal George Pell will meet with victims of child sex abuse at a private meeting in Rome, just hours after stepping down from the witness box of the royal commission into institutional responses to child sexual abuse.

After more than 16 hours of at times combative questioning before the commission over what he knew of abuse within the Catholic church, Pell will sit down with some of the victims of that abuse at 11.30am, local time, in Rome.

“There are a few things we will say,” abuse survivor David Ridsdale said in Rome, “but we as a group have made a commitment to ourselves to be diplomatic and dignified.”

David Ridsdale was molested by his uncle, and Pell’s one-time housemate, the former priest Gerald Ridsdale, who is now in prison. Pell walked in support of Ridsdale into court in 1993, an action, Pell conceded yesterday was “a mistake”.

Many of those who will attend Thursday’s meeting were abused at schools and in churches in the diocese of Ballarat, where Pell grew up and where he was a priest in the 1970s and 80s.

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ROME
9 News

AAP

Cardinal George Pell denies lying about being told nothing about the real reason Victorian pedophile priest Gerald Francis Ridsdale was being moved.

Cardinal Pell said he would have remembered if pedophilia was mentioned as the reason for Ridsdale being moved at meetings of then Ballarat bishop Ronald Mulkearns’ advisers in the 1970s and 1980s.

A victims’ barrister Jim Shaw told Cardinal Pell: “I suggest very directly you are lying about this to protect your own reputation.”

Cardinal Pell said: “I say that that is completely untrue and unjustified by any evidence. It is a baseless allegation.”

Bishop Mulkearns knew about abuse complaints against Ridsdale when he moved him between parishes in Victoria’s Ballarat diocese.

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ROME
9 News

AAP

Cardinal George Pell was “in the loop” over serious complaints about pedophile priest Peter Searson after worried parents wrote to education authorities, the child abuse royal commission has heard.

Cardinal Pell said he would have been aware of concerns raised by parents from the Victorian parish of Doveton in a 1991 letter to the Catholic Education Office that said Searson was going into the boys’ toilets, watching boys in the shower and taking children into the presbytery without permission.

He said he did not investigate the matter because it was the responsibility of the CEO and the Vicar General.

“If they’d asked my opinion I would have given it,” he said.

He agreed that he was “in the loop as far as knowledge of Father Searson being a risk to children” but said the issue was the level of risk and “just what could be done within church and state law”.

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PENNSYLVANIA
PennLive

Altoona-Johnstown Diocese sex abuse: what each priest is accused of (warning: graphic content)

By Christian Alexandersen | calexandersen@pennlive.com

Law enforcements officials knew about the rape of children by leaders in the Roman Catholic Diocese of Altoona-Johnstown and did nothing to stop it, according to a damning grand jury report.

Attorney General Kathleen Kane released a report Tuesday that detailed the sexual abuse of hundreds of children by more than 50 diocesan priests and religious leaders. The abuse took place over the last four decades.

One of the most shocking aspects of the report was that law enforcement had been complicit in the coverup of sexual abuse against children.

Kane said there were instances where law enforcement looked the other way, worked with the diocese to allow priests to retire and allowed priests to go through a psychiatric facility in lieu of criminal charges.

When asked whether or not public officials could be charged as a result of the grand jury report, Kane said “The investigation is ongoing.”

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PENNSYLVANIA
PennLive

By Christian Alexandersen | calexandersen@pennlive.com

A hotline set up to learn about the sexual abuses performed by priests and religious leaders within the Roman Catholic Diocese of Altoona-Johnstown has already gotten dozens of calls.

State Attorney General Kathleen Kane announced the hotline Tuesday morning amid the release of a grand jury report documenting the rape of hundreds of children by diocese leaders over 40 years. Spokesman Jeff Johnson said the hotline — 888-538-8541 — had received 85 calls by 1 p.m. Wednesday.

“We believe that one phone call could change everything,” Johnson said. “The right information could create a new investigative lead that could result in charges.”

The hotline is being staffed by attorney general agents or attorneys fluent in the Altoona-Johnstown diocese abuse case.

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UNITED STATES
TMZ

Father Robert Sirico — a celebrity in his own right for his political and cultural commentary — eviscerated the Academy for embracing “Spotlight” while it celebrated a child molester in its own ranks.

We got the Catholic Priest — who writes for the NY Times — and asked about the church scandal that became the centerpiece of the movie.

You gotta hear his answer … and he’s right. Roman Polanski won Best Director in 2003 for “The Pianist,” the same time The Boston Globe was breaking the molestation stories.

Polanski pled guilty to having sex with a 13-year-old girl and then fled the country … he’s never returned.

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PENNSYLVANIA
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement

PITTSBURGH – A priest of the Diocese of Altoona-Johnstown, Pennsylvania, was sentenced Wednesday to 200 months in prison followed by lifetime supervised release for offenses related to his sexual abuse of two minor boys during trips to Honduras over a five-year period. The sentencing caps an extensive child sex tourism probe by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI).

In addition to the prison term, Joseph D. Maurizio Jr., 70, of Central City, Pennsylvania was also ordered to pay a $50,000 fine and $10,000 in restitution to each of the two minor victims. Maurizio was convicted on Sept. 22, 2015, following an eight-day jury trial, of engaging in illicit sexual conduct in foreign places, possession of child pornography and international money laundering.

“Child sex tourism is a scourge: adults preying on the young and vulnerable to satisfy dark desires,” said David Abbate, assistant special agent in charge of HSI Pittsburgh. “As an agency, HSI is committed to the difficult but necessary task of ending this scourge–despite cost, distance, and international boundaries. There can be no place for the abuse of children here or abroad.”

“It is important to recognize the courage of the victims, the tenacity of the investigators and the resolve of the prosecutors to bring this child predator priest to justice,” stated U.S. David Attorney Hickton. “This sentence ensures that Joseph Maurizio will never again have the opportunity to travel beyond our nation’s borders to victimize children.”

“IRS Criminal Investigation will diligently work with our law enforcement partners to pursue those who violate the laws of the United States,” said Akeia Conner, IRS-CI special agent in charge. “Our partnership with HSI in this investigation demonstrates that we will work together to address the full scope of an individual’s illegal activity, and we will follow that trail wherever it may lead us.”

According to the evidence introduced at trial, in 2001 Maurizio created a charitable organization, then known as Honduras Interfaith Ministries (HIM), which was funded by donations from community members, including parishioners of Our Lady Queen of Angels Church in Central City. HIM became the largest donor for Pro Niño, a non-profit organization that provided shelter and rehabilitative services to poor, abandoned and at-risk children residing in a rural town near San Pedro Sula, Honduras. Between 2004 and 2009, Maurizio used HIM moneys to fund 13 separate trips between the United States and Honduras, during which he sexually abused two minor boys living at Pro Niño shelters.

Evidence presented at trial demonstrated that Maurizio used his position with HIM, Pro Niño’s largest donor, to gain unfettered access to the minors, as well as to purchase them gifts, including clothes, shoes and jewelry, in order to build the boys’ trust and to ensure their compliance during his sexual abuse. During his final trip to Honduras, Maurizio paid two minor boys to engage in sexual acts with him.

In addition, trial evidence showed that Maurizio kept digital media depicting the minors he sexually abused and other images of child sexual exploitation in the Our Lady Queen of Angels Church rectory.

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PENNSYLVANIA
Courthouse News Service

By KEVIN LESSMILLER

(CN) – A Pennsylvania priest was sentenced Wednesday to more than 16 years in prison for sexually abusing two boys living at shelters in Honduras.

Joseph Maurizio Jr.’s 200-month sentence comes after an eight-day trial last September, after which a jury found him guilty of engaging in illicit sexual conduct in foreign places, possession of child pornography and international money laundering.

Maurizio, 70, created a charity called Honduras Interfaith Ministries (HIM) in 2001, according to the U.S. Justice Department. HIM eventually became the largest donor to Pro Niño, a nonprofit that provided shelter and other resources to poor and at-risk children in a rural Honduras town.

The priest reportedly used HIM funds to go to Honduras 13 times between 2004 and 2009, during which he sexually abused two young boys living at shelters.

Evidence at his trial showed that Maurizio used his charity position to get access to the boys and purchase them gifts, thereby gaining their trust. The Central City, Pa., resident also paid the boys to engage in sexual acts with him on his last trip to Honduras, according to the Justice Department.

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PENNSYLVANIA
ABC 27

By Dave Marcheskie

HARRISBURG, Pa. (WHTM) – The lead prosecutor in a grand jury investigation that alleges widespread child sexual abuse in the Altoona-Johnstown Catholic diocese is calling for changes to the state law that sets time limits on charging offenders.

The grand jury found two former bishops worked to conceal the abuse of hundreds of children by at least 50 priests and other religious leaders for 40 years or more.

“What struck me was in some ways the way that it happened in broad daylight,” Deputy Attorney General Daniel Dye said. “Some of these priests were seen in groups of young boys in parishes and they got away with it because they were priests.”

Dye said the attorney general’s office began to investigate in 2014 when the Cambria County district attorney’s office referred the case to the state, citing a conflict of interest because the DA is Catholic. He said the county was investigating sex abuse allegations against a friar when authorities in the DA’s office realized the scope.

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PENNSYLVANIA
WNEP

[with video]

BY KRISTINA PAPA

CLINTON COUNTY — One day after the announcement that dozens of Roman Catholic priests in the Altoona-Johnstown diocese molested children for decades. Two of those alleged victims reached out to Newswatch 16 to share their stories. The diocese includes Catholic churches in both Centre and Clinton counties.

The alleged victims we spoke with on Wednesday tell us they were 6 or 7 years old when they were molested by Father Joseph Bender in Renovo. Now, in their mid to late 50s, they contacted Newswatch 16 because they want people to know the truth. They want people to hear their stories.

At 55 years old, Robert Holtzapple remembers a lot about his childhood and his time as an altar boy at St. Joseph’s Catholic Church in Renovo.

“Benderites, I don’t know where that came from. They called us bender boys,” said Holtapple.

Holtzapple kept some memories about Father Joseph Bender tucked away for decades.

“He led you to believe that he cared about you and he loved you. You know what I mean? That’s what he did. He manipulated you mentally as well as physically,” said Holtzapple.

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ROME
9 News

AAP

Cardinal George Pell believed an “effeminate” priest accused of abusing children a week after his ordination was sent overseas to study.

The cardinal has previously told the child abuse royal commission he always had reservations about Father Paul Ryan and was never supportive of his priestly vocation.

This was because Ryan had a “rather effeminate manner”, Dr Pell told the commission via audio visual link from Rome on Thursday.

Cardinal Pell shared his concerns about Ryan with other priests, but he could not recall who.

Ryan was sent to the US in 1977 and 1979.

In 2006, when he was 57, he was jailed after pleading guilty to assaulting an altar boy in his parish house.

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CONNECTICUT
WTNH

By Stephanie Simoni

SEYMOUR, Conn. (WTNH) — Police say a former priest of St. Augustines is accused of stealing from his flock.

“There were rumors in the church you know? Very sad to hear it,” said an 84 year old woman who did not want to be identified and says she’s been attending St. Augustine’s ever since she was born. She knows the accused, Father Honore Kombo, 50, and the man who police say entrusted Kombo with his money.

“He was an older man who died. He was alone left a lot of money,” she said. “Everyone liked him [Kombo]. He was a happy priest. Very sad to hear what happened.”

Police say a large chunk of cash was supposed to be dispersed every year for 5 years, but the church only saw 4 years of the money. Officers say church leaders got wind of the missing 5th installment and called them.

“It was a very tedious investigation. There’s a lot of interviews to conduct, phone records to go through, bank records, statements,” said Seymour Police Department’s Deputy Chief Paul Satkowski.

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UNITED STATES
France 24

A day after a grand jury in Pennsylvania revealed that bishops had covered up the sexual abuse of hundreds of children by at least 50 Catholic priests over four decades, FRANCE 24 spoke with clergy abuse expert, Patrick J. Wall.

The report found that former Altoona-Johnstown Diocese Bishop James Hogan, who died in 2005, and his successor, Joseph Adamec, who retired in 2011, worked to cover up for the pedophile priests and that some local law enforcement agencies also turned a blind eye to the abuse allegations, said state Attorney General Kathleen Kane.

“The allegations from [Altoona-Johnstown] are consistent with what we’ve been finding across the US and Ireland and various countries where we’ve worked on these cases – that six percent of Roman Catholic clergy in their lifetime will sexually offend against a minor,” Wall, who has worked on behalf of abuse victims since 2002, told FRANCE 24.

Clergy abuse expert Wall believes that, “The bishops honestly don’t care about the children, they have no empathy.”

Wall went on to say that the Vatican must hand over all its files on paedophile priests if they want to prove they are committed to ending abuse.

“They need to turn over all of the files that they have to civil authorities… One of the great tragedies from the [Altoona-Johnstown] grand jury report is that they found, even though there’s been a zero tolerance policy in the United States since 2002, there were perpetrators in ministry [still serving the church] all the way until October 2015,” said Wall.

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ISRAEL
Haaretz

The trial of Rabbi Ezra Sheinberg, the former head of the Orot Ha’ari Yeshiva in Safed, charged with perpetrating sex crimes against 12 women seeking his treatment and advice, began on Wednesday behind closed doors at the Nazareth District Court.

Sheinberg made no comment before the session began.

Dozens of Yeshiva students demonstrated outside in solidarity with the victims. Also protesting where women from a Galilee rape crisis counseling center. Demosntrators carried signs that read:

‘We believe you and salute you, stand behind you,’ ‘You aren’t alone, the Orot Ha’ari community condemns Ezra Sheinberg and his actions.’

Rabbi Avraham Engel, of the Orot Ha’ari Yeshiva said their group had come all the way from Safed “to support and encourage the brave women standing at the frontlines of justice.”

A former student remarked: ‘For the first time, he is silent, and we are smiling.”

Chen Beck, from the education department at the rape crisis center for Galilee and the Golan said “this story is difficult for someone outside the community to understand. There was no violence. It is very difficult to understand this from the outside.”

Sheinberg was charged in July for having sex with 12 women after “exploiting the fact that he is considered to be a righteous person with special powers, that they had unconditional faith in him, and that they saw what he said to be the words of a living god.”

According to the indictment the rabbi assaulted the women during personal meetings or video sessions in which he asked them to undress. During the incidents most of which occurred during the last decade, Sheinberg had headed the Orot Ha’ari Yeshiva and was a community leader. He was considered an authority figure in the community at large where many, religious and secular people alike, would seek out his advice.

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UNITED STATES
The Worthy Adversary

March 2, 2016 Joelle Casteix

Less than 48 hours after Spotlight nabbed the best picture Oscar, a grand jury report and an Australian cardinal are showing the world that the clergy sex abuse scandal is far from over.

Yesterday in Altoona, Pennsylvania, a grand jury released a 147-page report outlining sex abuse and cover-up in the Diocese of Altoona-Jonestown.

From the Pittsburgh Post-Gazzette:

Hundreds of children were molested, raped and destined to lasting psychological trauma by clerics whose abuses were covered up by their bishops, other superiors and even compliant law-enforcement officials in Blair and Cambria counties, the report said.

The conspiracy amounted to “soul murder,” the report said, with abuse happening everywhere from camps and homes to the historic cathedral itself. That description echoes that of similar grand jury probes into the Archdiocese of Philadelphia in 2005 and 2011 that found cardinals and other clerics shifted numerous known abusers from one unsuspecting parish to another.

Attorney General Kathleen Kane called it a “day of reckoning” for abusers and their enablers but lamented that no one could be criminally charged.
But that’s not all.

Simultaneously in Rome, an Australian Cardinal testified (via satellite) about what he knew about sex abuse and cover-up in his home country.

It didn’t go too well.

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AUSTRALIA
9 News

Cardinal George Pell has admitted to the Royal Commission that he did nothing to investigate an abuse claim made against Father Ted Dowlan by a St Patrick’s schoolboy in 1973.

Cardinal Pell has always denied the claim, which was made by Peter Blenkiron, one of the survivors who travelled to Rome to watch the testimony.

The explosive admission may prove the first domino in the cardinal’s undoing after a morning that has seen a succession of lawyers go after him with especially aggressive questions.

“(Green) said something like ‘Dowlan is misbehaving with boys’,” Pell admitted.

A lawyer asked Pell whether he should have done something about it straight away.

“With the experience of 40 years later, certainly I would agree that I should have done more,” replied Pell.

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ROME
9 News

AAP

Cardinal George Pell says it was a mistake to walk pedophile priest Gerald Ridsdale to court in 1993.

A photograph of Dr Pell, who was then an auxiliary bishop in Melbourne, and Ridsdale walking together is often used by critics of the Catholic Church as evidence it was more inclined to support pedophile priests rather than victims of child sexual abuse.

Giving evidence on Thursday, Cardinal Pell said he was asked in May 1993 to either give evidence or give Ridsdale a reference.

There were prolonged discussions with Ridsdale’s lawyer, he told the child abuse royal commission by audio visual link from Rome.

“I made it quite clear that I was not going to dispute any of the allegations, that I was not going to imply any disrespect for the victims, the survivors,” Dr Pell said.

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ROME
9 News

Australian survivors of sex abuse by Catholic clergy look set to meet with Cardinal George Pell in Rome and are hopeful of a meeting with the Pope.

The cardinal has been giving evidence by videolink to the child abuse royal commission, answering questions on what he knew of offending by pedophile priests in the Ballarat and Melbourne dioceses when he served there in the 1970s and 1980s.

A group of abuse survivors who travelled to Rome to hear his evidence has been scathing of his denials and blame-shifting and counsel for the commission has labelled some of his evidenced “completely implausible”.

The survivors want to press for better systems within the church to prevent child sexual abuse by clergy.

Survivors’ group spokesman David Ridsdale told reporters on Wednesday night outside the hotel where the cardinal is giving evidence that a “positive response” from him meant a meeting looked set for Thursday.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

By Liz Farquhar and Emma Tonkin

The Catholic bishop of Maitland-Newcastle Bill Wright says Cardinal George Pell’s evidence to the Royal Commission completes a ‘disturbing picture’ of how the church dealt with child sexual abuse.

Bishop Wright issued a statement in the wake of this week’s evidence from Rome by Cardinal Pell to the Royal Commission into Child Sexual Abuse.

He said he would not be providing a running commentary on his evidence, which he said was ultimately the Royal Commission’s role to hear and assess.

But Bishop Wright acknowledged Hunter region survivors of abuse would be finding it difficult to hear the ‘manifold failings’ of the church to protect children.

He said the evidence made clear the need for structured, thorough and independent oversight of all organisations providing services to children.

“It also shows the need for a consistent response to those who have suffered abuse,” he said.

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ROME
9 News

AAP

Cardinal George Pell has admitted he did nothing after a boy complained to him about a pedophile Christian Brother abusing children at a Victorian school but denied he could have stopped more abuse occurring.

The child abuse royal commission has heard a student at St Patricks College in Ballarat told Cardinal Pell that Brother Edward Dowlan was “misbehaving” with boys in 1974.

Cardinal Pell said the boy “mentioned it casually in conversation” and did not ask him to do anything.

Asked by Commissioner Peter McClellan what he did with the information, Cardinal Pell replied: “I didn’t do anything about it”.

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ROME
The Guardian

Cardinal George Pell tells the royal commission into institutional responses to child sexual abuse he regrets his choice of words when he described offending by the paedophile priest Gerald Ridsdale as a ‘sad story’ that ‘wasn’t of much interest to me’. Pell says: ‘I was very confused. I responded poorly.’ Cardinal Pell says it’s ‘completely untrue’ he didn’t have much interest in what David Ridsdale told him about the crimes of his uncle. When asked if his ‘primary interest’ was protecting the church, Pell says: ‘Not in the slightest’

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MICHIGAN
Michigan Radio

By JOSH HAKALA

James Francis Rapp, a former Roman Catholic priest, recently pleaded no contest to charges that he had sexual contact with students while he was a wrestling coach and a teacher at Lumen Christi High School in Jackson.

Rapp faces up to 20 years in prison. The trouble is, he’s already in prison.

Rapp, 75, is currently serving a 40-year sentence for sexually abusing a pair of teenage boys in Oklahoma.

David Clohessy, the director of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP), joined Stateside to talk about the case and how rare it is for someone who is already in prison to be brought up on charges for a separate incident.

“It might be the only case that we know of in the country where an already imprisoned predator priest has been charged and convicted of more charges,” said Clohessy.

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ROME
9 News

AAP

Cardinal George Pell has emphatically denied telling another priest that Fr Gerald Francis Ridsdale was abusing boys again.

Former altar boy BWE has testified he overhead Cardinal Pell tell Fr Frank Madden before a funeral in Ballarat in 1983: “Ha, ha, I think Gerry’s been rooting boys again.”

Cardinal Pell again denied the claim during his fourth day of evidence to the child abuse royal commission from Rome.

“Let me begin by saying that nearly every detail in this allegation is manifestly false,” he said.

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ROME
SBS

Facing questioning from sex abuse victims’ lawyers on his fourth day on the stand in Rome, Cardinal Pell has again denied asking a nephew and victim of pedophile priest Gerald Francis Ridsdale what it would take to keep him quiet.

David Ridsdale has told the commission when he told Cardinal Pell in 1993 he had been abused by his uncle, the then Melbourne bishop asked him: “I want to know what it will take to keep you quiet.”

Cardinal Pell said he felt sorry for Ridsdale, but repeatedly denied the claim, which he did again before the commission on Thursday.

Mr Ridsdale’s lawyer Stephen Odgers SC asked: “Was it the case that you didn’t have much interest in what David Ridsdale told you about the crimes of Gerald Ridsdale?”

Cardinal Pell replied: “That’s completely untrue and David has never claimed that.”

Asked if his primary interest was to protect the church, Cardinal Pell said “not in the slightest”.

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ROME
news.com.au

CARDINAL George Pell is facing another day of testimony, giving evidence via videolink from Rome on day four of the royal commission.

It is expected to be the last day Cardinal Pell, who elected to give testimony during the unusual late timeslot (9pm to 3am), will be in the witness box.

Today he will be questioned by lawyers for victims that have contradicted his evidence.

Follow our live coverage below for all the updates.

LIVE COVERAGE

8.39am AEDT: BWF’s lawyer tells Pell that BWF’s ex-wife also remembers her ex-husband telling her he went to Pell and told him about Dowlan’s abusing.

The lawyer points out BWF and his ex do not have a good relationship and she had no reason to help him, yet supported his evidence that he told Pell of the abuse.

BWF “might have had a fantasy” that the conversation with him happened, Pell suggests.

8.29am AEDT: Abuse survivor spokesman David Ridsdale said the group will meet the pontifical commission tomorrow morning and most likely Cardinal Pell, Victoria Craw reports from Rome.
They will confirm if their request for an audience with Pope Francis has been accepted later in the evening.

“We’ve put forward our request… I can say we’ve had a much more positive response,” Mr Ridsdale said ahead of an extended final session on day four of the hearing.

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MASSACHUSETTS
WBUR

Attorney Mitchell Garabedian has represented hundreds of survivors of clergy sexual abuse and was featured prominently in the film “Spotlight” – he was played by Stanley Tucci.

Garabedian tells Here & Now’s Robin Young that since “Spotlight” came out, and particularly since it won the award for Best Picture at the Academy Awards on Sunday night, the phones at his Boston law firm have been lighting up with calls from more abuse victims coming forward.

Note: Here & Now reached out to the Boston Archdiocese for comment on our interview with Mitchell Garabedian. Spokesman Terrence Donilon referred us to the below statement from October 2015, as well as to this document that offers a summary of the Boston Archdiocese’s “efforts over more than a decade.”

Interview Highlights: Mitchell Garabedian

On the news in Pennsylvania yesterday that a grand jury concluded 50 priests abused hundreds of children over 40 years, and two bishops led a cover-up

“Well, it’s not surprising at all unfortunately. The cover-up continues, the sexual abuse continues, and there needs to be transparency. There needs to be an independent investigation.”

The abuse is still going on now?

“Oh, I have no doubt that it’s going on. You have an entity which is the most powerful in the world, most influential, has trillions of dollars, they’ve operated through secrecy for centuries.”

After Spotlight won the Oscar for Best Picture on Sunday night, what happened in your office on Monday?

“In my office, my phone was ringing off the hook. Victims were contacting me, survivors were contacting me and even church people were contacting me to let me know that I should continue to do my work.”

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WEST VIRGINIA
Charleston Gazette

by Erin Beck, Staff Writer

People who work to prevent child abuse and help abuse victims in West Virginia are concerned that a bill up for a final vote in the Legislature on Wednesday could be used to justify child abuse in the name of “religious freedom.”

The bill (HB 4012), which is similar to “religious freedom restoration acts” in other states, establishes a legal process for courts to follow when people or businesses believe the government is violating their religious beliefs.

The law would establish a balancing test for courts to use when determining whether the person is being substantially burdened by government action, and whether the state has “compelling governmental interest” in ensuring the law is followed.

Governmental actions could include civil rights laws, including local LGBT-inclusive nondiscrimination ordinances, so civil rights advocates fear the law will be used to allow discrimination against the LGBT community and other historically-discriminated against groups.

Proponents of the bill have openly said support stems from opposition to same-sex marriage.

Jim McKay, state coordinator for Prevent Child Abuse West Virginia, is worried about effects on another vulnerable group — children. He wonders if “governmental action” would also include laws to protect children.

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PENNSYLVANIA
Tribune-Democrat

By David Hurst
dhurst@tribdem.com

A former Central City priest received more than 16 years behind bars for sex acts committed on Honduran orphans during mission trips.

U.S. District Judge Kim R. Gibson handed down the sentence Wednesday following a hearing that included passionate pleas for leniency by the Rev. Joseph Maurizio’s friends and family, while prosecutors urged the judge to give the suspended priest as many as 30 years behind bars for “shamelessly” preying on poor street boys.

Gibson’s sentence credited Maurizio for his prior military service, lack of a prior criminal history and decades of good deeds but also ordered him to register as a sex offender.

Maurizio, 70, would be in his mid-80s once released and would serve probation for the rest of his life, according to the ruling.

He is the former pastor at Our Lady Queen of Angels Roman Catholic Church in Central City.

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AUSTRALIA
news.com.au

SHE is calm, persistent, and downright terrifying.

The Sydney barrister taking Cardinal George Pell to task at the Royal Commission into child sex abuse has Australians asking: Who is this woman?

Gail Furness, SC, has forced admissions of regret and slammed as “implausible” testimony from Australia’s most senior Catholic as she tirelessly grills him over his knowledge of and failure to protect children suffering abuse within the church.

Her take-no-prisoners approach to questioning and intolerance for evasive answers is causing the Cardinal to squirm on the stand like we’ve never seen before.

While it’s clear the stoic clergyman has met his match, it’s not the first time the pair have come face to face.

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ROME
Huffington Post

By Eoin Blackwell

Survivors of sex abuse committed by Catholic clergy have contacted Pope Francis to ask for a meeting to discuss protecting children, as Cardinal George Pell begins his fourth day of evidence to a Royal Commission.

During the first hour of Thursday’s hearing, Pell attempted to wind back his earlier statement that abuse committed by paedophile priest Gerald Ridsdale was a “sad story and it wasn’t of much interest to me”.

Pell has already agreed to meet with survivors of clerical sexual abuse, but victims have said they lost faith in him following his second day in the witness box, and began a push to meet the Pope.

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ROME
Herald Sun

[live stream]

CARDINAL George Pell has started a marathon six-hour session at the royal commission into child sexual abuse from Rome, quizzed by lawyers for victims.

The Cardinal arrived at Hotel Quirinale about two hours before he was due to appear.

The commission has had to extend the sitting hours from 9pm-3am Rome time to allow for further evidence to be taken.

Cardinal Pell declined to comment whether he still enjoyed the confidence of Pope Francis following claims by senior counsel directing the inquiry overnight that his evidence was implausible.

It is expected to be the last day the 74-year-old Cardinal Pell, who elected to give testimony during the unusual late timeslot, will be in the witness box.

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ROME
7 News

AAP

Cardinal George Pell has again denied asking a nephew and victim of pedophile priest Gerald Francis Ridsdale what it would take to keep him quiet.

David Ridsdale has told the child abuse royal commission when he told Cardinal Pell in 1993 he had been abused by his uncle, the then Melbourne bishop asked him: “I want to know what it will take to keep you quiet.”

Cardinal Pell has repeatedly denied the claim, which he did again before the commission on Thursday.

The hearing via video link from Rome began an hour earlier at 9pm Rome time, 7am Sydney time.

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ROME
Sky News

George Pell has entered his last day in the witness stand at the sex abuse royal commission under pressure.

The Cardinal has been questioned on how he acted when a victim went to him and wanted his help, after reporting abuse from Father Ridsdale at Inglewood.

On Tuesday Cardinal Pell said Father Ridsdale interfering with children at Inglewood was “a sad story and it wasn’t of much interest to me”.

Today the Cardinal said he regretted his statement .

‘I was very confused, I responded poorly…it was badly expressed.’

‘I have never enjoyed reading the accounts of these sufferings and I tried to do that only when it was professionally and absolutely appropriate because the behaviour’s abhorrent and painful to read about.’

Cardinal Pell told the commission on Wednesday the church in the 1970s and 1980s was a world of crimes and cover ups and he was left in the dark about serious sex abuse allegations against priests and brothers in Ballarat and Melbourne.

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PENNSYLVANIA
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Wednesday, March 2, 2016

Statement by David Clohessy of St. Louis, Director of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (314 566 9790, 314 645 5915 home,davidgclohessy@gmail.com)

We’re grateful that a central Pennsylvania predator priest will spend 16 years behind bars. We hope now that law enforcement agencies will pursue his church colleagues and supervisors who ignored or hid his crimes.

[WJAC]

We hope that all Catholic officials in Pennsylvania and Honduras will use their vast resources to find and help others who were assaulted by Fr. Joseph Maurizio or who helped conceal his crimes.

[ABC News]

Like nearly all child molesters, Fr. Joseph Maurizio claims he wasn’t given a fair trial. We’re relieved that U.S. District Judge Kim Gibson rejected this claim. And we’re glad that Maurizio will be kept away from kids for a long possible time.

It’s crucial that Altoona-Johnstown Bishop Mark Bartchak aggressively seek out other victims, witnesses and whistleblowers and urge them to call law enforcement immediately.

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ROME
Sydney Morning Herald

March 2, 2016

Beau Donelly
Reporter

Comment

Who knew that conservative writer and broadcaster Andrew Bolt was also a master at the art of satire?

In his latest piece, published on Wednesday, the News Corp columnist delivers a sobering analysis of Cardinal George Pell’s second day of testimony to the child abuse royal commission.

In doing so, Australia’s most powerful Catholic appears to have lost one of his staunchest defenders.

And loyal readers have been left in a state of perpetual shock, asking if this might be the “backflip of the century”.

Some wondered if Bolt’s latest views would compromise his chance at an exclusive interview with the Cardinal on Thursday for Sky. And it’s not certain. Sky is hedging its bets when asked to confirm.

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