ABUSE TRACKER

MISSISSIPPI
Caller-Times

Rob Boscamp, Special to the Caller-Times January 1, 2017

Msgr. Louis F. Kihneman III will be ordained and installed as bishop of the Diocese of Biloxi on Feb. 17, 2017.

Rev. Msgr. Louis F. Kihneman III didn’t expect an early birthday gift from the Vatican.

In early December, the vicar general and moderator of the curia was getting ready to plan his November 2017 celebration of 40 years of priesthood in the Diocese of Corpus Christi.

A phone call from Archbishop Christophe Pierre changed his plans.

“When I heard the accent and he introduced himself as Archbishop Pierre, I said, ‘Oh my! He knows my name!’ ” Kihneman said, recalling the way he told the story to his congregation at St. Philip the Apostle Parish.

Pierre presented Kihneman with both an early birthday and Christmas present: Pope Francis had named him to serve as the fourth bishop of the Diocese of Biloxi in Mississippi.

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INDIA
Times of India

KOCHI: A Malayali couple settled in Haryana admitted their son in a boarding school near Moovattupuzha to get him acquainted with the culture of Kerala, police said on Sunday, after arresting the school principal on complaints of sexually abusing the boy.

Identifying the accused as Fr Basil Kuriakose, police said the 65-year-old abused the 11-year-old boy in the school dormitory on night of December 21. The incident happened when the other residents were on vacation.

“The accused stripped the boy before molesting him. He also tried to sodomise him,” police said.
The school was run by a private charitable trust, police said. The accused joined the institution after retiring from an aided school.

The priest denied charges of sexual assault, sub-inspector T Dileesh said. The accused, however, admitted in a statement that he had been with the boy on the date mentioned in the complaint.

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INDIA
International Business Times

Asmita Sarkar

A 65-year-old priest in Kerala was arrested on Sunday for indulging in unnatural sexual abuse with a 10-year-old boy in Kochi’s Kunnathunad area. The incident took place at a boarding school, King David International School, where the boy studied. Father Basil Kuriyakose was the principal of the school.

Kuriyakose was taken to a court on Sunday after the arrest. He was booked under Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code. Section 377 of IPC criminalises sexual intercourse against the order of nature. It also criminalises homosexual sex.

This was the first time that an incident like this was reported against Kuriyakose, the Kunnathunad police told International Business Times, India. The 10-year-old boy who studied in class five reported the incident to his elder brother who had gone to meet the child and then informed his mother about the incident. The mother lodged a complaint with the police, following which the offender was arrested.

In India, one out of every two children is sexually abused and most of it goes unreported. In most of the cases, the abuser is a male known to the child. National statistics reveal that about 53% children are abused. The highest number of cases were reported in Uttar Pradesh, Assam, Delhi, Andhra Pradesh and Bihar.

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ISRAEL
Rationalist Judaism

It’s hard to imagine a greater chilul Hashem than this. A former Chief Rabbi of the State of Israel is going to prison. For massive bribery and corruption. The classic antisemitic trope of the cheating, money-grabbing Jew is being displayed to the world in the person who holds the office that represents Judaism.

In case you haven’t seen the news yet, Rabbi Yona Metzger, Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi of Israel from 2003 to 2013, is accepting a prison term rather than going to trial. This is for pocketing about two million dollars in bribes and from funds that he was supposed to transfer to charity.

While the responsibility for the crimes is Rabbi Metzger’s alone, the responsibility for the chilul Hashem lies with others. Because long before the revelations of these particular crimes came to light – indeed, before Rabbi Metzger was appointed to the position of Chief Rabbi – there were numerous allegations of severe improprieties. In 1998, when Rabbi Metzger was about to be nominated as chief rabbi of Tel Aviv, a number of allegations surfaced against him, including fraud, sexual harassment, forged signatures on wedding contracts, and threatening other rabbis.

Rabbi Metzger’s certification to serve as chief rabbi of a large city was suspended, and a disciplinary hearing was established, presided over by Rav Eliyahu Bakshi-Doron, Rav She’ar Yashuv Cohen and Rav Simcha Kook. In the end, an agreement was reached whereby the inquiry would not be completed if Metzger would agree not to accept the role of chief rabbi of Tel Aviv.

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PENNSYLVANIA
Altoona Mirror

JAN 1, 2017

WALT FRANK
Staff Writer
wfrank@altoonamirror.com

Reassessment in Blair County and sexual abuse by church officials were among the top local stories of 2016.

The Mirror’s news staff voted in mid-December on the top stories from a ballot that contained 31 prominent local news items. The following is a look at the top stories, as chosen by the Mirror news staff: …

2. Sexual abuse by church officials

On March 1, then-Pennsylvania Attorney General Kathleen Kane said that hundreds of children were sexually abused by about 50 priests or church officials over more than 40 years in the Altoona-Johnstown Catholic Diocese, and some bishops attempted to cover up the crimes.

Kane stopped in Altoona to reveal the results of an extensive statewide grand jury investigation into child sexual abuse associated with the local diocese.

When they were in office, Bishops James Hogan and Joseph Adamec used their influence to get reports from victims or their parents, stymie police investigations and ward off inquiries by powerful court officials, Kane said. Adamec even created a chart outlining potential payments for victims based on the type of sexual abuse, the grand jury found.

The grand jury found it was Adamec’s practice not to call police when dealing with child sexual abuse cases involving priests or others.

Kane said 50 diocesan priests over the last 40 years or more have been identified as committing horrendous acts against hundreds of children.

Investigators reviewed more than 115,000 documents, many of them acquired by search warrants from diocesan “secret archives.”

Canon law requires each diocese to maintain such archives, she explained.

As of that point, Kane said, none of the criminal acts outlined in the grand jury report can be prosecuted.

In some cases, the perpetrators were deceased. In other cases, the victims were so traumatized that they could not testify in court, and in many cases, the statute of limitations, which can run up to 30 years for criminal cases, had expired. The grand jury recommended that the state Legislature do away with the statute of limitations.

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PHILIPPINES
Inquirier

By: Jodee A. Agoncillo – Reporter / @jagoncilloINQPhilippine Daily Inquirer / January 01, 2017

Boston Globe editor-at-large Walter Robinson gave this advice at a gathering of around 370 foreign journalists at the second the Global Investigative Journalism Conference (GIJC), which the Global Investigative Journalism Network (GIJN) stages every two years.

Robinson was the keynote speaker at the conference, held last September 23 to 25 Kathmandu, Nepal, with the theme “Uncovering Asia.”

The GIJN aims to promote the growth of investigative journalism by training and supporting journalists from around 51 countries. The first conference was held in Manila in 2014.

Back in 2001, as Globe assistant managing editor for investigations, Robinson led a Spotlight team in putting out an investigative series on sexual abuses by several Catholic priests. The series had a big impact in countries around the world, including the Philippines, and won for the paper the 2003 Pulitzer Prize for Public Service, which Robinson himself accepted.

The series was later adapted into an Oscar-winning film titled “Spotlight,” which starred Michael Keaton.

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