ABUSE TRACKER

AUSTRALIA
Newcastle Herald

[live stream]

Joanne McCarthy
7 Feb 2017

10.08am The royal commission has resumed for its second day of evidence. Dr Tom Doyle has been sworn in.

Doyle became a Dominican novitiate in 1964. He said he wasn’t raised in a “churchy” household. His father was a scientist “and so there was, I think, a healthy amount of scepticism and realism in the family”.

He said he became a Dominican priest because they were “very much down to earth and normal”.

He began theological studies and obtained a PhD in canon law, or church law.

Doyle said he was working for the Archdiocese of Chicago as a judge in the ecclesiastical tribunal, when he was called to be the canon lawyer “vetting” potential bishops. He would send out confidential questionnaires to 20 or so people, with up to 50 questions.

The questions covered issues like the church’s doctrine on marriage of priests, women priests and homosexuality.

Doyle: “If you didn’t pass that, you didn’t get any further.”

The questions were sent out on the basis of being “under the pontifical secret” – a term that we’re going to hear more of in coming days in relation to the operation of canon law within the church, and its possible impact on how senior church representatives handle child sexual abuse allegations. In the context of the questionnaire, the pontifical secret prevented bishops from revealing anything about the process to anyone else.

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CALIFORNIA
The Worthy Adversary

February 6, 2017 Joelle Casteix

The era of secret child sex abuse settlements in California is over.

I am usually quick to beat up on California Governor Jerry Brown for his poor record on protecting institutions who cover-up child sex abuse. But a new law enacted January 1, 2017, slipped under my radar— and organizations who harbor men and women who prey on children should be on notice.

Assembly Bill 1682, introduced by Mark Stone and approved by Jerry Brown on September 30, 2016, says:

SECTION 1.

Section 1002 of the Code of Civil Procedure is amended to read:
(a) Notwithstanding any other law, a provision within a settlement agreement that prevents the disclosure of factual information related to the action is prohibited in any civil action the factual foundation for which establishes a cause of action for civil damages for any of the following:
(1) An act that may be prosecuted as a felony sex offense.
(2) An act of childhood sexual abuse, as defined in Section 340.1.
(3) An act of sexual exploitation of a minor, as defined in Section 11165.1 of the Penal Code, or conduct prohibited with respect to a minor pursuant to Section 311.1, 311.5, or 311.6 of the Penal Code.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Telegraph

Patrick Foster Peter Robertson
6 FEBRUARY 2017

Victims of a barrister facing child abuse claims say the Archbishop of Canterbury failed to expose the scandal, as a Bishop said that he had also been assaulted.

An open letter to the Most Rev Justin Welby, endorsed by eight alleged victims of John Smyth QC, calls on the Archbishop, a former colleague of the barrister, to come clean about the extent of his knowledge of the abuse claims.

The development came as the Bishop of Guildford revealed that he was one of 22 young men abused by Mr Smyth, who is accused of savagely beating beatings boys he met at Christian holiday camps in the late Seventies.

The Right Rev Andrew Watson said: “The beating I endured in the infamous garden shed was violent, excruciating and shocking; but it was thankfully a one-off experience never to be repeated.”

Hampshire Police last week announced an investigation into the abuse claims, which were reported to senior figures in the Church in 1982, and police sources said eight men have come forward to say that they were attacked by the barrister.

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AUSTRALIA
Northern Star

Mia Armitage | 7th Feb 2017

NEARLY 14% of Catholic priests serving in Lismore between 1950 and 2010 are alleged sexual abusers of children, national investigations have shown.

A final public hearing into Catholic Church authorities began in Sydney on Monday as part of an ongoing Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.

More than 37% of people reporting abuse in private hearings over the past four years said their experiences happened in Catholic institutions, Senior Counsel Gail Furness said in a speech when opening the 50th public hearing.

Workers for the commission liaised with representatives from the Truth Justice and Healing Council, a group set up by Australian Catholic authorities, to gather data on claims of child sexual abuse against Catholic Church staff or volunteers made between 1980 and 2015.

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ROME
AP News

By NICOLE WINFIELD

ROME (AP) — The most colorful protagonist in the Vatican’s leaks scandal — an ambitious, name-dropping communications consultant — has emerged from a bruising trial with a baby, a business and a book describing the behind-the-scenes drama of Pope Francis’ reform efforts.

“In the Name of Peter” hits Italian bookstores Tuesday, seven months after author Francesca Chaouqui received a 10-month suspended sentence for conspiring to pass confidential documents onto two journalists.

In an interview Monday, Chaouqui called the book her “testament of truth” and said she doesn’t fear a possible new Vatican trial for publishing confidential Holy See documents in her book.

“I’m ready to defend myself in Italy with all the strength that I have,” she told The Associated Press in an interview at a downtown Roman hotel. “I’m not the same person who went (to the Vatican) like an obedient puppy who they put on trial.”

Chaouqui was the lone woman on an eight-member papal reform commission tasked with compiling information about the Vatican’s vast financial holdings and recommending ways to improve efficiency and transparency.

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UNITED STATES
WAND

Updated: Feb 06, 2017
By JIM SALTER
Associated Press

ST. LOUIS (AP) – A victims’ support group that helped force the Roman Catholic Church to confront the problem of child-molesting priests is going through upheaval of its own, including the resignations of two top leaders and a potentially reputation-damaging lawsuit.

Barbara Blaine, who founded the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, or SNAP, in 1988, stepped down as president Friday, about a month after the resignation of long-time executive director David Clohessy.

The change in leadership was sandwiched around a Jan. 17 lawsuit accusing SNAP of exploiting the victims it purports to serve by taking kickbacks from lawyers.

Blaine and Clohessy said their resignations were planned months ago and were unrelated to the lawsuit. They said they simply decided it was time to step aside after decades with the nonprofit group.

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AUSTRALIA
AP News

By KRISTEN GELINEAU
Today

SYDNEY (AP) — Seven percent of priests in Australia’s Catholic Church were accused of sexually abusing children over the past several decades, a lawyer said Monday as officials investigating institutional abuse across Australia revealed for the first time the extent of the crisis.

The statistics were released during the opening address of a hearing of Australia’s Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse. The royal commission — which is Australia’s highest form of inquiry — has been investigating since 2013 how the Catholic Church and other institutions responded to the sexual abuse of children over decades.

The commission has previously heard harrowing testimony from scores of people who suffered abuse at the hands of clergy. But the full scale of the problem was never clear until Monday, when the commission released the statistics it has gathered.

Commissioners surveyed Catholic Church authorities and found that between 1980 and 2015, 4,444 people reported they had been abused at more than 1,000 Catholic institutions across Australia, said Gail Furness, the lead lawyer assisting the commission. The average age of the victims was 10.5 for girls and 11.5 for boys.

Overall, 7 percent of priests in Australia between 1950 and 2010 were accused of sexually abusing children, Furness said.

Francis Sullivan, CEO of the Truth Justice and Healing Council, which is coordinating the Catholic Church’s response to the inquiry, said the data reflected “a massive failure” by the church to protect children.

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AUSTRALIE
De Morgen

7 procent van de katholieke priesters in Australië heeft zich tussen 1950 en 2010 schuldig gemaakt aan seksueel misbruik van in totaal 4.444 kinderen. De meisjes zijn gemiddeld 10,5 jaar oud, de jongens 11,5 jaar. Dit blijkt uit de eerste resultaten van een koninklijke commissie die sinds 2013 onderzoek doet naar seksueel misbruik binnen religieuze instituten in Australië.

Jarenlang werd het misbruik verdoezeld. “Kinderen werden genegeerd of erger nog, gestraft”, zegt Gail Furness, de belangrijkste advocaat die de commissie bijstaat. “Beschuldigingen werden niet onderzocht. Priesters en religieuze broeders werden verplaatst. De parochies of gemeenschappen waarin zij werden verplaatst, wisten niets van het verleden. Documenten werden vernietigd of niet bewaard.”

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AUSTRALIE
La Croix

MARIE MALZAC, le 06/02/2017

La Commission royale d’enquête australienne sur les abus sexuels sur mineurs a publié le 6 février les résultats d’une enquête inédite, indiquant que 7 % des prêtres auraient été mis en cause pour des actes de pédophilie entre 1950 et 2010.

Que révèle l’enquête australienne ?

Après quatre ans d’investigation, la Commission royale d’enquête qui travaille sur les réponses institutionnelles apportées aux accusations de pédophilie en Australie a indiqué que 4 444 faits avaient été signalés à l’Église catholique entre 1980 et 2015.

Selon cette étude inédite, environ 7 % des prêtres australiens ont été des « auteurs présumés » entre 1950 et 2010. Dans certains diocèses, la proportion estimée a pu atteindre 15 %.Et même 40 % dans certains ordres religieux, comme celui de St John of God Brothers.

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AUSTRALIE
RT

L’Eglise catholique australienne est au cœur d’un scandale sans précédent, alors qu’une commission d’enquête publie le bilan accablant d’une enquête chiffrée. Plus de 1 900 prêtres seraient concernés.

Une commission royale chargée des questions d’abus sexuels sur mineurs en Australie a publié ce lundi 6 février un document concernant la pédophilie au sein de l’Eglise catholique. Les chiffres avancés confirment l’ampleur des enquêtes conduites jusqu’ici dans le pays. 7% des prêtres catholiques en Australie auraient déjà eu affaire à la justice dans des cas de violences sexuelles sur des enfants.

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FRANCE
Liberation

[Pedophilia in the Church: About 60 cases are in the hands of French justice.]

Les 106 diocèses de l’Hexagone ont été priés de livrer leurs données dans le cadre d’une enquête interne de la Conférence des évêques de France. Des chiffres inédits mais qui ne disent qu’une partie de la réalité.

Surtout pas de triomphalisme. «Neuf, c’est toujours neuf de trop», s’empresse de dire Ségolaine Moog, déléguée pour la lutte contre la pédophilie à la Conférence des évêques de France (CEF). Neuf ? C’est le nombre de clercs (c’est-à-dire des prêtres ou des diacres, le grade en dessous) actuellement incarcérés pour des faits d’abus sexuels sur mineurs. D’un point de vue judiciaire, les affaires de pédophilie concerneraient, selon une enquête interne de la CEF, une soixantaine de clercs catholiques. Parmi eux, 37 ont déjà purgé leur peine et 26 font l’objet d’une mise en examen. Depuis plusieurs mois, les évêques catholiques promettaient de donner des chiffres à la suite du scandale qu’a provoqué, à Lyon, l’affaire de l’abbé Bernard P. Aucun bilan n’avait été établi par l’institution depuis 2010 et les 106 diocèses de l’Hexagone ont donc été priés (non sans réticence pour certains) de livrer leurs données.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Gazette Live

A Jehovah’s Witness accused of sexually abusing three young girls told a court he had been ostracised by the church ever since the allegations arose.

Paul Shields, 57, who was living in Guisborough at the time of the alleged abuse, said that no-one within the organisation would talk to him because of the accusations which he insists were untrue.

York Crown Court heard that it was Jehovah’s Witness policy for church members to shun those who have wronged in such a way.

Even family members who are Jehovah’s Witnesses are told not to speak to the wrong-doer.

Shields, who vehemently denies any abuse took place during the 1990s, said even his mother, who is a Jehovah’s Witness, had not spoken to him since the allegations were made in 2014.

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OHIO
BishopAccountability.org

Summary of Case: Kenneth Schoettmer was ordained for the Archdiocese of Cincinnati in 1968. He assisted in Walnut Hills, Madisonville, Wyoming and Clifton parishes until 1982, when he was named pastor of a parish in Hamilton. He held that role for twelve years, leaving in 1994 to serve briefly as temporary administrator in North Fairmount. There is an unexplained gap in Schoettmer’s assignments in 1995. In 1996 he was assigned a pastorship in Millville.

Schoettmer was placed on leave by the archdiocese in June 2001, pending an investigation into allegations of inappropriate contact with young males. He told police that he had used a parish computer to download pornography and to contact juveniles. In a letter to parishioners, Schoettmer admitted to sexual contact with three different teenage boys between 1984 and 1999. He pleaded guilty in 2003 to fondling a 17-year-old boy in 1999. Charges of rape and sexual battery were dropped because his victim did not want to testify. Schoettmer was sentenced to five years’ probation and ordered to register as a sex offender. He was laicized in 2007.

Ordained: 1968
Laicized: 2007

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ITALIA
Rete L’Abuso

[Cardinal Sepe complained to the Pope: “I inquired of a pedophile priest.”]

Con la presente lettera intendo denunciare il cardinale Crescenzio Sepe, per grave negligenza nell’esercizio del proprio ufficio». È l’incipit di una lettera riportata dal quotidiano La Repubblica, inviata lo scorso 11 ottobre a Papa Francesco e al prefetto della Congregazione per i vescovi, il cardinale Marc Ouellet.

Nella missiva una persona di nome Diego, un nome di fantasia, ha raccontato che nel 1989, a soli 13 anni, avrebbe subito abusi sessuali da parte dell’insegnante di religione in una scuola media a Napoli. Nel 2010 l’uomo ha avuto il coraggio di svelare l’episodio a sua madre e a sua moglie. Test psicologici hanno poi confermato il passato di abusi sessuali.

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ITALIA
Rete L’Abuso

[A victim of abuse at the Provolo school for the deaf said they were subjected to years of abuse among a climate of fear and terror.]

Quegli anni al Provolo mi hanno devastato l’esistenza. I preti ci picchiavano e abusavano noi, c’era un clima di paura e terrore, non potevi parlare altrimenti anche le suore ci menavano. Noi sordomuti eravamo in trappola». A Piazza Pulita su La 7 le vittime tornano ad accusare i sacerdoti di averli molestati nella sede dell’istituto a Verona. Davanti al telecamere si fa intervistare Anna, che racconta di quando «quel prete mi alzò la gonna e mi toccò durante la confessione, poi quando io ho cercato di protestare lui mi ha risposto “Voi sordi siete animali, voi non avete l’anima».

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ROME
Yahoo! News

Ella IDE
AFPFebruary 6, 2017

Rome (AFP) – Italian police were on the hunt Monday for the authors of anti-pope posters which have been slapped around Rome, amid suspicions the campaign may be linked to an arch-conservative wing of the Catholic Church.

Dozens of the illegal fliers appeared mysteriously around the Italian capital Saturday picturing a stern-looking Pope Francis, a list of accusations against him, and the words “Where’s your mercy?” — turning the pontiff’s call for a more merciful church back on him.

Police were trawling through security camera footage to track down the culprits as Rome city council said it had pulled down 200 posters while those remaining had been covered up.

No group took credit for the stunt, but Vatican watchers said the fact the main complaint referred to the “decapitation” of the Knights of Malta made it likely they came from conservative quarters.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Daily Mail

By MARK DUELL FOR MAILONLINE

The Bishop of Guildford revealed today that he was a victim of a QC accused of sadomasochistic beatings of boys at Christian summer camps in the 1980s.

Andrew Watson said he had endured a ‘violent, excruciating and shocking’ beating at the hands of John Smyth QC.

Mr Smyth is being investigated by Hampshire Constabulary over claims he forced a string of boys to strip naked before beating them while at church camps he ran, which were also attended by the Archbishop of Canterbury.

Mr Watson said: ‘I am one of the survivors of John Smyth’s appalling activities in the late 1970s and early 80s.

‘I am also one of the Bishops in the Church of England. This has placed me in a unique and challenging position when it comes to the events of the past few days.

‘My own story is certainly less traumatic than that of some others. I was drawn into the Smyth circle, as they were, and the beating I endured in the infamous garden shed was violent, excruciating and shocking; but it was thankfully a one-off experience never to be repeated.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Independent

Tom Batchelor

A Church of England bishop has issued a statement alleging he was subjected to a “violent” beating by the head of a Christian charity accused of sadomasochistic attacks on young boys.

Andrew Watson, the Bishop of Guildford, said he was the victim of a “violent, excruciating and shocking” beating in a garden shed during the 1970s or 1980s.

It follows a Channel 4 News report containing allegations that John Smyth QC used holiday camps to groom teenagers, who he forced to strip naked before beating them.

Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby was forced to issue an “unreserved and unequivocal” apology on behalf of the church after admitting he had worked at the holiday camps.

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UNITED KINGDOM
The Guardian

Harriet Sherwood Religion correspondent
Monday 6 February 2017

A serving Church of England bishop has alleged that he was subjected to a “violent, excruciating and shocking” beating by John Smyth, the man at the centre of abuse allegations connected to summer camps for Christian youth.

Andrew Watson, the bishop of Guildford, claims he was beaten on a single occasion. He said he had contacted Hampshire police, the force investigating allegations made against Smyth, at the weekend.

Watson said in a statement: “I am one of the survivors of John Smyth’s appalling activities in the late 1970s and early 80s. I am also one of the bishops in the Church of England. This has placed me in a unique and challenging position when it comes to the events of the past few days.

“My own story is certainly less traumatic than that of some others. I was drawn into the Smyth circle, as they were, and the beating I endured in the infamous garden shed was violent, excruciating and shocking; but it was thankfully a one-off experience never to be repeated.”

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UNITED KINGDOM
Telegraph

Telegraph Reporters
6 FEBRUARY 2017

The Bishop of Guildford Andrew Watson has revealed he was one of the boys subjected savage sadomasochistic beatings by barrister John Smyth.

In a statement issued this afternoon, he said: “I am one of the survivors of John Smyth’s appalling activities in the late 1970s and early ‘80s. I am also one of the Bishops in the Church of England.

“This has placed me in a unique and challenging position when it comes to the events of the past few days. My own story is certainly less traumatic than that of some others.

John Smyth QC, a friend of the Archbishop of Canterbury, is being investigated by police over claims that he beat 22 teenagers in his garden shed in the late Seventies.

A report by the Iwerne Trust, the charity that ran the Christian camps at which Mr Smyth met many of the victims, documents how he persuaded one of the boys to assist with the attacks.

The Right Reverend Watson added: “I was drawn into the Smyth circle, as they were, and the beating I endured in the infamous garden shed was violent, excruciating and shocking; but it was thankfully a one-off experience never to be repeated.

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AUSTRALIA
The Australian

February 7, 2017

SAMANTHA HUTCHINSON
Reporter
Sydney

Peter Gogarty is anxious. A survivor of sexual abuse, he has been heartened as successive members of the clergy have been exposed and sent to jail for abusing children in their care, but now he wants lasting reform.

“I just need to know that what happens next fixes the problem for good,” he told The Australian.

“The last thing we need is an experience when people share these horrendous stories and then everyone says they’ve learned their lesson, they’ve done a bad thing and just move on. That just won’t work for me.”

The Newcastle-based advocate for survivors of sexual abuse spoke to The Australian yesterday as a royal commission hearing in Newcastle heard that 7 per cent of all Catholic priests and brothers in Australia over the past six decades were involved in abusing children.

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AUSTRALIA
9 News

AAP

Australia’s child abuse royal commission should not expect to change the Catholic Church with some “magic bullet”, priests have warned.

The commission needs to be realistic that changing the Catholic Church as a whole will not happen, Diocese of Broken Bay vicar general Dr David Ranson said.

“It’s not going to change the theology of the church. It’s not going to change the structure of the universal church. It’s beyond the ambit of the royal commission to do that.”

The commission is looking at issues such as the church’s structure and governance, canon law, and celibacy as it examines why widespread abuse occurred over decades in Catholic institutions.

Dr Ranson said the Catholic Church was a community of communities, each of which had to examine why abuse occurred in their particular community.

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AUSTRALIA
The Advertiser

Carleen Frost, The Advertiser
February 6, 2017

THE Catholic Church diocese of Port Pirie had one of Australia’s highest rates of alleged child-abusing priests over a 60-year period, disturbing new figures have revealed.

The Royal Commission into Institutionalised Responses to Child Sexual Abuse yesterday released the vile extent of systematic sexual exploitation committed by 1880 perpetrators across Australia, representing seven per cent of priests from 1950 to 2010.

In a survey of 10 religious institutes and 75 church authorities, the diocese of Sale in Victoria was listed as the worst with 15.1 per cent of its priests accused of abuse, with Port Pirie ranked third with 14.1 per cent.

In contrast, the Diocese of Adelaide had one of the lowest reports of abusers within the church at 2.2 per cent, with a total of 222 cases of reported abuse over six decades.

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AUSTRALIA
news.com.au

FEBRUARY 6, 2017

Australian Associated Press

BY THE NUMBERS – CHILD SEXUAL ABUSE AND THE AUSTRALIAN CATHOLIC CHURCH
THE EXTENT OF ABUSE

* 4444 alleged victims
* That’s only those who have made claims to church
* 1880 alleged perpetrators – 1265 priests or religious brothers/sisters
* More than 500 unknown offenders (can’t say if any are among 1880 identified perpetrators)
* More than 1000 separate institutions involved

THE PERPETRATORS:

* 7 pct of all priests alleged to have abused children
* More than 20 pct of some religious orders – 40 pct of St John of God Brothers
* 90 pct male
Of 1880 identified abusers:
* 597 (32 pct) religious brothers
* 572 (30 pct) priests
* 543 (29 pct) lay people
* 96 (5 pct) religious sisters

THE VICTIMS:

* 78 pct male, average age at time of abuse 11.6 years
* 22 pct female, average age 10.5 years
* 33 year gap on average between abuse and date claim made to church

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

Western Australia’s Benedictine Community of New Norcia rated among the worst for historical child sex offenders according to figures released by the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.

The commission found the number of alleged priests who were perpetrators in the Catholic church in WA was higher than the national average.

The report found 7 per cent of priests from all Catholic Church authorities who ministered from 1950 to 2010 across Australia were accused of child sexual abuse, but for the Benedictine Community of New Norcia, the amount was more than triple that at 21.5 per cent.

In the 1950’s, 17.6 per cent of the Benedictine Community of New Norcia was subject to an allegation, compared to a 2.7 per cent of priests of all Catholic Church authorities with priest members in a ministry that was subject to a claim.

Almost 60 per cent of the abuse survivors who contacted the commission reported being abused in faith-based institutions and two thirds of that group reported abuse in Catholic institutions.

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AUSTRALIA
Border Mail

Melissa Cunningham
@MeljCunningham

6 Feb 2017

Almost one in ten priests in the Diocese of Ballarat had allegations of child sexual abuse levelled against them between 1950 and 2010, an inquiry heard.

The magnitude of the Catholic Church’s child sexual abuse scandal has been brought to light with a royal commission hearing almost 4500 people have made claims of child sexual abuse over the past 35 years.

Data gathered by the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse revealed between January 1980 and February 2015, found 4444 people have come forward with alleged incidents of child sexual abuse in relation to 93 Catholic Church authorities.

Ballarat was found to have 8.7 per cent of alleged perpetrators and was ranked seventh worst in Australia.

The Diocese of Sale was ranked worst in Australia.

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AUSTRALIA
9 News

AAP

The Christian Brothers knew they may have pedophiles among them back in 1919.

More than 20 per cent of all Christian Brothers in Australia have now been revealed to have sexually abused children.

Six hundred religious brothers from the Christian Brothers and other Catholic orders are alleged to have been pedophiles, according to world-first data released by the child abuse royal commission on Monday.

Like the Christian Brothers, more than 20 per cent of Marist Brothers and Salesians of Don Bosco have been the subject of child sex abuse claims to the Catholic Church in Australia.

For the St John of God Brothers, it is 40 per cent.

Of the Catholic abuse cases already investigated by the royal commission, the accounts given by survivors of institutions run by the Christian Brothers in Western Australia have been “particularly harrowing”.

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GUAM
KUAM

Updated: Feb 06, 2017

By Krystal Paco

We can expect to see some movement in the lawsuits against the Archdiocese of Agana this week. We can also expect a 16th victim to file suit against the church for more allegations of child molestation.

Come Tuesday, attorney David Lujan says he’ll be motioning to dismiss all 15 cases of child sex abuse he’s filed to date against the Archdiocese of Agana. “I am dismissing everything tomorrow in superior court,” he promised. That’s because by Tuesday, he would’ve completely filed the same 15 cases at the District Court of Guam.

As we’ve reported, each of the judges at the Superior Court of Guam has disqualified themselves from the hearing the case due to conflicts. In addition, the suit is not just against the local Church, but also against the Vatican. Each of the plaintiffs is seeking $5 million in damages for alleged child molestation that occurred decades ago by the hands of church clergy.

Among this week’s filings, there will also be a 16th victim to file suit. That complaint, Lujan says, will be public later this week. “We’ll be filing that Wednesday or Thursday,” he said.

Among the clergy accused of sexually molesting altar boys is Archbishop Anthony Apuron, who faces a canonical trial in Rome. Lujan confirms with KUAM a priest from Boston College approached three of his clients for their depositions. Lujan says the request was made directly to his clients, not through him.

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AUSTRALIA
Herald Sun

Shannon Deery, Herald Sun
February 5, 2017

A BRIEF of evidence in a sex abuse investigation of Cardinal George Pell has been returned to prosecutors for review.

Police had first asked prosecutors to review the brief last year, but Director of Public Prosecutions John Champion, SC, returned it without making a recommendation, saying that any decision on potential charges was a police call.

On Monday, Natalie Webster, on behalf of Victoria Police, said that investigators had ­delivered the brief to the Office of Public Prosecutions for ­consideration.

Sano taskforce investigated multiple allegations, including that the cardinal abused up to 10 boys in 1978-2001, while a priest in Ballarat and while archbishop of Melbourne.

The cardinal, 75, has strenuously denied the allegations.

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AUSTRALIA
SRF

An official investigation of the Australian justice has brought frightening facts to light. Between 1980 and 2015, 4’444 children were sexually abused by Catholic clergy in Australia. On average the affected girls were one and a half years old and the affected boys were eleven and a half years old. SRF Australia correspondent Urs Wälterlin on the background of the investigation.

SRF News: What was the reason for this investigation? Was there a big case?

Urs Wälterlin: No, it was a slow process. There were always accusations of survivors and investigations, but not to this extent. The now published study is a state investigation, a so-called Royal Commission. It is managed at the highest level of the Australian justice system. Unfortunately – it must be said – it was worth it. 4500 cases of sexual abuse of children in the last thirty years in more than 1000 church institutions have been documented. They are churches, boarding schools, homes or other Catholic institutions.

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AUSTRALIEN
Tagesschau

Sieben Prozent der katholischen Priester haben in den vergangenen 30 Jahren Kinder sexuell missbraucht. So das Ergebnis einer Untersuchungskommission der Regierung in Australien. Das Ausmaß der Taten schockiert.

Von Lena Bodewein, ARD-Studio Singapur

Der Ton ist trocken, nüchtern, fast einschläfernd, wäre nicht das, was Gail Furness erzählt, so grauenvoll: “4444 Menschen sind innerhalb von 30 Jahren sexuell missbraucht worden”, berichtet er, “das haben sie ausgesagt, diese Fälle haben sich auf mehr als 1000 verschiedene katholische Einrichtungen in Australien verteilt.”

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AUSTRALIA
The Canberra Times

Katie Burgess

Seventeen people associated with Catholic religious orders have been accused of abusing children in the Catholic Archdiocese of Canberra-Goulburn over six decades, analysis of the church’s own data has revealed.

The ACT and southern NSW diocese also had an above average concentration of religious accused of sexually abusing children, with two orders implicated in abuse cases in Canberra counted among the most notorious.

A survey of church data by the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse revealed 8.4 per cent of the 211 religious who served in the archdiocese from 1950 to 2010 were believed to have abused children. This equates to one in 12.

Nationally, 7 per cent of religious were believed to have abused children over 60 years.

However, the Canberra Archdiocese had a far lower concentration of alleged perpetrators than the Diocese of Sale, where 15.1 per cent of members were implicated, the Diocese of Sandhurst (14.7 per cent) and the Diocese of Port Pirie (14.1 per cent).

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AUSTRALIA
The Australian

February 7, 2017

Tessa Akerman
Reporter
Melbourne
@TessaAkerman

Allegations of criminal misconduct against Cardinal George Pell have been sent to Victoria’s Office of Public Prosecutions for a ­second time, The Australian can reveal.

Cardinal Pell, Australia’s highest ranking Catholic, has been ­accused of sexual offences dating back to the 1970s but the child sex royal commission also heard submissions that he was made aware of allegations concerning pedophile priest Peter Searson in the Melbourne parish of Doveton but failed to take appropriate action to protect children from harm.

It is unclear from the police statement what the potential charges would relate to and Cardinal Pell has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing.

“Victoria Police investigators have delivered the brief to the ­Department of Public Prosecutions for consideration,” a police spokeswoman said.

Sending a second brief to the DPP is significant because it comes after extensive investigations that arose after the first brief was sent back to police by prosecutors, leaving it up to the force to decide whether any charges would be laid.

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AUSTRALIA
Reuters

Seven percent of Catholic priests working in Australia between 1950 and 2010 were accused of child sex crimes, but few were pursued, data from Australian church authorities showed on Monday, as hearings began over allegations dating back decades.

Last year, Australia’s most senior Catholic, Cardinal George Pell said the church had made “enormous mistakes” and “catastrophic” choices by refusing to believe abused children, shuffling abusive priests from parish to parish and over-relying on counselling of priests to solve the problem.

Monday’s data, seen as the most substantial to detail the extent of child sex abuse in the church, were compiled with the cooperation of the church as part of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.

Francis Sullivan, chief executive of the church’s Truth, Justice and Healing Council, said 1,265 Catholic priests and religious brothers had been accused between 1950 and 2010.

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ITALY
The Times (UK)

Tom Kington, Rome

February 6 2017

A Spanish priest jailed by the Vatican for leaking details of corruption in the priesthood was known to be gay and accredited his lover as his “butler” at the city state, a book has alleged.

Father Lucio Ángel Vallejo Balda, 55, was jailed for 18 months last July for giving journalists details of his work on a Vatican commission set up by Pope Francis to stamp out sleaze, in what became known as the Vatileaks scandal.

In court he claimed that he was seduced and pushed into leaking documents by Francesca Chaouqui, 35, another member of the commission, who received a ten-month suspended sentence.

Mrs Chaouqui has settled scores in her book, In the Name of Peter, in which she claims that on the night of the alleged seduction, Father Balda instead told her that he was gay.

“He told me about his lover, the reason he had been sent away from his diocese in Spain,” she wrote. “The Vatican, as always, calls back its lost sheep, which is why he was ‘promoted’ to the Vatican job.” Father Balda, his mother, and his lover moved into an apartment opposite an entrance to the Vatican, she said. “He successfully requested accreditation to enter the Vatican for his ‘butler’, even though this is usually given to relatives, but all the staff at the Vatican knew what was going on,” she added. His “young and impatient” partner soon left because he could “not tolerate the presence of the mother,” she wrote.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

By Philippa McDonald and Riley Stuart

More than 20 per cent of the members of some Catholic religious orders — including Marist Brothers and Christian Brothers — were allegedly involved in child sexual abuse, a royal commission hearing in Sydney has been told.

Nearly 2,000 Catholic Church figures, including priests, religious brothers and sisters, and employees, were identified as alleged perpetrators in a report released by the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.

The hearing is examining the current policies and procedures of the church’s authorities in Australia relating to child protection and child safety standards, as well as their response to allegations of abuse.

In her opening address, Gail Furness SC said a survey revealed 4,444 alleged incidents of abuse between January 1980 and February 2015 were made to Catholic Church authorities.

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ITALY
RT

An Italian Catholic priest – who is at the center of a scandal alleging he staged orgies, had up to 30 lovers and produced home porn videos – will most likely lose his job regardless of an investigation’s findings, the Bishop of Padua said.

The scandal involving Father Andrea Contin, a 48-year-old priest at the church of San Lazzaro in Padua, broke in December 2016. Since then media have released some very unholy details of his clerical life.

“I am incredulous and pained by the accusations [against Contin],” Padua’s bishop, Claudio Cipolla, said at a press conference on Thursday, as cited by the Local. He added that his position was like “a father of a son who has fallen into disgrace.”

“Even if, at the end of this affair, there are no legal consequences, we have a duty by canon law to take disciplinary action,” he said, adding that Pope Francis has been informed about the affair.

The Bishop has been traveling to diocesan missions in Latin America, but had to return earlier than initially planned “since the widening of the Paduan events, to address more directly the situation,” according to Italian media. In early January it was reported that the priest had been suspended from his clerical duties pending the investigation.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

By Stephanie Anderson

Forty per cent of the members of the Brothers of St John of God had allegations of child sexual abuse made against them from 1950 until 2010, the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse has revealed.

So who are the Brothers of St John of God?

The Catholic order first came to Australia in 1947, establishing a special school for boys with learning difficulties at Lake Macquarie in New South Wales.

They then opened schools at Cheltenham and Greensborough in Victoria, as well as a training farm at Lilydale.

Despite the similar name, the organisation is not linked to the Sisters of St John of God.

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AUSTRALIA
Mercury

JESSICA HOWARD and REBEKAH ISON, Mercury
February 6, 2017

HOBART Archbishop Julian Porteous has written an open letter to Tasmanians apologising on behalf of the Catholic Church for the damage done to victims of sexual abuse.

As the final hearing of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse continues, the letter said it would be a “distressing time” for victims and there would be shame brought on the Catholic community.

“Here in Tasmania I have initiated a program entitled ‘Safe Communities’ which is drawing on the outcomes from the Royal Commission and will ensure the highest level of safety for children and vulnerable people,” the letter said.

The royal commission heard that Catholics must hang their “heads in shame” after data on child sex abuse in the church in Australia showed 7 per cent of priests were alleged paedophiles.

The chief executive of the church’s Truth, Justice and Healing Council, Francis Sullivan, held back tears as he talked about the “massive failure on the part of the Catholic Church in Australia to protect children from abusers”.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Christian Today

Ruth Gledhill Editor 04 February 2017

A senior Church of England bishop has stated that people who attended John Smyth’s summer camps would have known each other and talked about allegations of abuse.

The Archbishop of Canterbury, a dormitory officer at the camps in the late 1970s, has insisted he was not part of the inner circle of friends and no-one discussed any allegations of abuse with him.

Bishop of Buckingham Alan Wilson was speaking out after police launched an investigation into claims that teenage boys from Britain’s leading public schools were violently beaten, in what’s been described as a “sadomasochistic cult” run by a lawyer with links to the Archbishop of Canterbury.

The Iwerne or “Bash” Christian summer camps were run by John Smyth QC, now a morality campaigner in South Africa.

Allegations of abuse that took place elsewhere, not at the camps themselves, have been subject of a series of investigative reports by Channel 4 News this week.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Christian Today

David Robertson 06 February 2017

I have a confession to make. I was not abused. This may come as a shock to those who think that being brought up in a Christian home, attending Sunday school and being sent on Christian summer camps made me a prime target. Despite the fact that as a child, teenager and adult I have attended many Christian summer camp with Scripture Union, the Free Church, Highlands and Islands Postal Sunday School and the Boys Brigade, I never came across any such abuse, nor have I ever heard of any.

This may be surprising to those whose knowledge of such camps is limited to such as some that appeared this weekend. For once the sensationalist headlines did justice to the sickening story contained in the body of the report and in the investigative reports that have been broadcast by Channel 4 News.

John Smyth has been accused of sadistically beating boys. Smyth was a leader of what were called the “Bash” camps run by the Iwerne trust. There is no suggestion the abuse took place at the camps themselves.

The details of the story are horrendous.But it gets worse, as Ruth Gledhill explains in this most helpful article on Christian Today. The Bishop of Buckingham, Alan Wilson, has made some extraordinary allegations. To him this is not about one man physically abusing a number of boys under his care. This is about a whole theology – the kind of evangelical theology espoused by EJ Nash, who set up the Bash camps, and taught by people like John Stott, Dick Lucas and others who were influenced by them. According to the bishop, “These camps had extraordinary influence. The theology that these people bring to the table very often has an element of violence and nastiness in it.”

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UNITED KINGDOM
talkRADIO

By Amy Southall – @AmySouthall

Monday, February 6, 2017

A barrister accused of subjecting teenage boys to savage beatings is also said to have forced a victim to join in with an attack.

Police are investigating John Smyth QC after claims were made that he attacked 22 teenagers in his shed during the late 70s.

The charity Iwerne Trust, who ran Christian camps where Smyth met his victims, compiled a report which documents how he persuaded a boy to contribute to a beating. The boy is known as “S.”

The report said: “There was considerable persuasion for anyone who held back. It has almost become a cult, with a powerful group dynamic.

“Immediately after the beating, the man lay on the bed, while [Smyth] and/or S would kneel and pray, linking arms with him and kissing him on the shoulder and back.”

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UNITED KINGDOM
Christian Today

Ruth Gledhill Editor 06 February 2017

A victim of alleged physical abuse by a prominent Çhristian lawyer has given an extraordinary testimony of the effect that thousands of beatings had upon him.

He was speaking after a series of disclosures by Channel 4 News about allegations of physical abuse inflicted on young male evangelical Christians by barrister John Smyth, who ran popular Christian summer camps attended also by the present Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby.

Speaking anonymously to the Telegraph, the victim, now 56, says he has contacted the police as a result of the Channel 4 reports.

Describing how it began, he says that as a “pretty” boy he was frequently molested by other boys at his prep and public schools.

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AUSTRALIA
The Age

Editorial

Our nation is going through heartbreak. The data emerging from the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse distils tragedy and crime that all but defies belief and can leave no rational person other than wrenched with grief and fury.

Before we ventilate some of that data, which was revealed on Monday as the royal commission resumed hearings that have been running for more than three years, we would like to pay profound respect to survivors who have shown such courage by speaking out. Their harrowing testimony will surely limit – and hopefully eradicate – the widespread sexual abuse of children by people within institutions.

The figures show the worst offender has been the Catholic Church, the focus of as many as 16 of the commission’s 50 hearings so far. The sheer number of paedophiles in its ranks – monstrous criminals it has finally admitted were in many instances protected by the church hierarchy – is damning.

As is the complicity and cover-up it has admitted, after years of external pressure – particularly during the royal commission – of shielding and shifting perpetrators. The punishing and tormenting that many of the children who sought to denounce the rapists faced is also unforgivable.

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TENNESSEE
Local Memphis

By Maria Hallas | mhallas@localmemphis.com

Published 02/05 2017

MEMPHIS

New claims of sex abuse at a former Germantown Church. After watching a Local I-Team Report about abuse allegations against a volunteer associate youth pastor, former church member stepped forward claiming she was raped by a Sunday school teacher.

“It was about five to six months from around the time he started talking me to when he forcibly raped me,” said Karen Trotter, claims abuse from church volunteer.

Trotter claims that she suffered almost two years of repeated abuse from a Sunday school teacher at Immanuel Baptist church 25 years ago. The Germantown church changed names, and no longer exists, but, for Trotter, the nightmares continue.

“I verbalized ‘stop no I don’t want this.’ And I believe he said ‘no you really do.’ And I physically tried to stop him. It was not up to me,” said Trotter.

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AUSTRALIA
Bendigo Advertiser

Adam Holmes@AdamHolmes010

6 Feb 2017

THE Sandhurst Diocese had the second highest rate of priests accused of child sexual abuse out of Australia’s 17 Catholic dioceses during a 60 year period.

Figures released from the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sex Abuse showed almost 15 per cent of priests who ministered in the Sandhurst Diocese between 1950 and 2010 were accused of child sexual offences.

The Sandhurst Diocese covers the area from Kerang to Mount Beauty, and includes the regional centres of Bendigo, Shepparton, Wangaratta and Wodonga.

The diocese was second only to the Diocese of Sale for the proportion of priests alleged to have sexually abused children between 1950 and 2010.

Proportionately, more priests allegedly committed offences in Sandhurst than the Ballarat Diocese, where the Royal Commission sat to hear evidence from residents and former students in 2015.

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PENNSYLVANIA
Reading Eagle

The Issue: A legislator reintroduces a measure aimed at broadening the rights of childhood sex abuse victims.

Our Opinion: Survivors should have the ability to go to court over what was done to them in the past.

We were pleased to see that state Rep. Mark Rozzi is not giving up on his long and difficult effort to broaden the rights of victims of child sex abuse. The Muhlenberg Township Democrat has reintroduced a bill that gained tremendous ground during the last legislative session.
Despite being a Democrat in a chamber dominated by Republicans, Rozzi was able to get his bill passed by the House last year after years of futile efforts. But the provision that mattered most to him was removed from the bill in the Senate, and the clock ran out on the legislation.

At issue is the question of whether survivors may file lawsuits in cases that took place years or even decades ago. A competing bill introduced in the state Senate would give future abuse survivors a longer window to bring civil and criminal charges, but it leaves out the retroactive provision that Rozzi believes is most important.

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AUSTRALIA
Illawarra Mercury

Kate McIlwain@kmcilwain

6 Feb 2017

More than one in every nine Catholic priests in Wollongong were alleged child molesters between 1950 and 2010, the Royal Commission into Institutional Child Sexual Abuse heard on Monday.

In the opening address of the Commission’s 50th public hearing, where dozens of senior church members are scheduled to appear over the next three weeks, the Diocese of Wollongong was listed as one of the five areas with the highest proportion of priests who were alleged child sex abusers.

“11.7% of priests from the Diocese of Wollongong were alleged perpetrators – Counsel assisting the royal commission Gail Furness”

“[Overall] 11.7 per cent of priests from the Diocese of Wollongong were alleged perpetrators,” counsel assisting the royal commission Gail Furness, SC, said in her opening address.

According to a detailed breakdown of the data, Wollongong’s history of abuse began in the 1960s, when 11.2 per cent of priests were alleged to be perpetrators.

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AUSTRALIA
9 News

AAP

Compulsory celibacy is misguided and shouldn’t be in place in the Catholic Church, an Australian priest says.

Celibacy is an ongoing struggle for some priests, a royal commission investigating the complex reasons behind widespread child sexual abuse in the Catholic Church in Australia has heard.

While the inquiry heard there’s no single reason for the abuse, Sydney parish priest and Aquinas Academy director Dr Michael Whelan argues mandatory celibacy is a huge issue for the church that needs to be addressed.

“I think the church’s law of compulsory celibacy is misguided and it should not be in place,” Dr Whelan told the inquiry on Monday.

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AUSTRALIA
news.com.au

Rebekah Ison
Australian Associated Press

Catholics must hang their “heads in shame” after shocking word first data on child sex abuse in the church in Australia revealed seven per cent of priests were alleged pedophiles, a royal commission has been told.

The chief executive of the church’s Truth, Justice and Healing Council held back tears on Monday as he talked about the “massive failure on the part of the Catholic Church in Australia to protect children from abusers”.

Royal commission research showed 4444 people had made allegations of abuse to 93 Catholic authorities between 1980 and 2015.

“These numbers are shocking. They are tragic and they are indefensible,” Francis Sullivan told the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse sitting in Sydney.
“As Catholics we hang our heads in shame.”

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AUSTRALIA
7 News

AAP on February 6, 2017

A brief of evidence concerning historical claims of sexual abuse at the hands of Cardinal George Pell has been delivered to prosecutors for consideration.

Victoria Police confirmed with AAP on Monday night that investigators had delivered the brief to the Office of Public Prosecutions.

It’s a significant development in the case since three police travelled to Rome in October to speak with the former Ballarat priest and Melbourne archbishop.

Cardinal Pell now resides full-time at the Vatican.

He cited ill-health as a reason he could not travel back to Australia to give evidence in last year’s royal commission into institutional responses to child sexual abuse, appearing instead via video link.

Allegations emerged in 2015 from two men who said they were groped as children by Cardinal Pell when he was a priest in Ballarat during the 1970s

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AUSTRALIA
In Daily

Seven per cent of Australia’s Catholic priests were alleged perpetrators of child sexual abuse between 1950 and 2010, according to an analysis released by the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.

The royal commission had sought information about claims received by the Australian Catholic Church between 1980 and 2015.

“Between January 1980 and February 2015, 4444 people alleged incidents of child sexual abuse made to 93 Catholic Church authorities,” counsel assisting Gail Furness SC said her opening address at a commission hearing in Sydney today.

The average age of abuse victims was 10.5 for girls and 11.6 for boys. And the average time between the alleged abuse occurring and the date a claim was made was 33 years.

The royal commission also asked 75 Catholic Church authorities about who ministered in Australia between 1950 and 2010. It also looked at information provided by 10 religious orders.

It found more than 40 per cent of St John of God Brothers were alleged perpetrators of child sexual abuse, along with 7.9 per cent of diocesan priests and 5.7 of religious priests.

“Overall, seven per cent of priests were alleged perpetrators,” Furness told the commission.

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AUSTRALIA
The Guardian

Christopher Knaus
Sunday 5 February 2017

Victims’ groups have warned that data on reports of child sexual abuse within the Catholic church, while shocking, still underestimates the scale of abuse.

On Monday the royal commission into institutional responses to child sexual abuse released damning statistics on the number of allegations of sexual predation the church was aware of.

Counsel assisting the commission, Gail Furness SC, said between January 1980 and February 2015 4,444 people made allegations of sexual abuse to 93 church authorities. On average the gap between the alleged abuse and the report was 33 years.

“A total of 1,880 alleged perpetrators were identified in claims,” Furness said. “Over 500 unknown people were identified as alleged perpetrators.”

Bernard Barrett, a researcher with Broken Rites, a website documenting Catholic abuse, said the figures were only indicative of the minimal number of perpetrators.

“It’s more than that. At least that many were offenders, that’s the very least,” Barrett told Guardian Australia. “The numbers are very seductive; people think that it’s an exact figure when, in reality, it’s indicative.

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AUSTRALIA
Business Insider

SIMON THOMSEN
FEB 6, 2017

The royal commission into institutional responses to child sexual abuse opened its first hearings for 2017 in Sydney today, once again turning its attention to the Catholic church.

Senior counsel assisting, Gail Furness SC, gave the opening address to case study 50, which is looking into the policies and procedures of Catholic church authorities.

She outlined shocking levels of alleged abuse, including 4,444 people allegedly abused between 1980 and 2015 in around 1000 different Catholic institutions.

Here is her opening address:

This is the Royal Commission’s 50th public hearing. Its scope and purpose is to consider:

a. The current policies and procedures of Catholic Church authorities in Australia in relation to child protection and child-safe standards, including responding to allegations of child sexual abuse.
b. Factors that may have contributed to the occurrence of child sexual abuse at Catholic Church institutions in Australia.
c. Factors that may have affected the institutional response of Catholic Church authorities in Australia to child sexual abuse.
d. The responses of Catholic Church authorities in Australia to relevant case study reports and other Royal Commission reports.
e. Data relating to the extent of claims of child sexual abuse in the Catholic Church in Australia.
f. Any related matters.

As with other review hearings being conducted by the Royal Commission, the purpose of this public hearing is not to inquire into individual sets of facts or particular events in a forensic manner as has occurred in previous Royal Commission case studies.

Over the last four years, the Royal Commission has conducted public hearings in relation to 116 institutions.

The matters examined in a public hearing were carefully chosen. There were a large number of institutions reported in private sessions and elsewhere and there were necessary limits on the Royal Commission’s resources.

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AUSTRALIA
Courier-Mail

Rebekah Ison, Australian Associated Press

The head of the Catholic Church’s Truth, Justice and Healing Council has held back tears as he talked about the “shocking” and “indefensible” number of alleged child sex abusers revealed by world-first data.

The research released by the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse on Monday found almost 4500 people made allegations of child sexual abuse to church authorities over 35 years.

Seven per cent of priests who were members of 75 surveyed Catholic authorities between 1950 and 2010 were alleged offenders.

In one of 10 religious orders examined, the St John of God Brothers, 40.4 per cent of members over the six decades were alleged abusers.

“Between January 1980 and February 2015, 4444 people alleged incidents of child sexual abuse made to 93 Catholic Church authorities,” counsel assisting Gail Furness SC said in Sydney on Monday.

“The average age between the alleged abuse and date a claim was made was 33 years.”

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AUSTRALIA
Newcastle Herald

Joanne McCarthy
6 Feb 2017

A CATHOLIC order that ran a Morisset residential school for troubled or disabled boys for five decades had a staggering 40 per cent of its members accused of sexually abusing children, the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse has heard.

The commission has been told 40.4 per cent of St John of God Brothers, who ran the Kendall Grange facility at Morisset between 1948 and its closure in 2000, were alleged perpetrators.

The figure is significantly higher than the Christian Brothers order, where 22 per cent were alleged perpetrators, the Salesians of Don Bosco Brothers (21.9 per cent), the Marist Brothers (20.4 per cent) and De La Salle Brothers (13.8 per cent).

The Royal Commission heard the shocking figures on the first day of its 50th public hearing, which is the final hearing into the Catholic Church and is expected to run for three weeks.

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AUSTRALIA
Daily Mail (UK)

By STEPHEN JOHNSON FOR DAILY MAIL AUSTRALIA and AUSTRALIAN ASSOCIATED PRESS

World-first data from the Catholic church has revealed seven per cent of priests are accused child sex abusers.

The shocking figures coincide with the Royal Commission Into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse’s 15th and final public hearing on the church, beginning in Sydney on Monday.

This is the first time in the world Catholic church records on child sex abuse have been analysed for public consideration, and it covers church records from to 1950-2010.

More than 20 per cent of the members of some Catholic religious orders — including Marist Brothers and Christian Brothers — were allegedly involved in child sexual abuse, the hearing was also told.

In her opening address, counsel assisting the royal commission Gail Furness , SC, said a survey revealed 4,444 alleged incidents of abuse between January 1980 and February 2015.

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AUSTRALIA
Coffs Coast Advocate

THE Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse has heard more than 20% of members of some Catholic religious orders were allegedly involved in child sexual abuse.

The commission in Sydney heard orders including Marist Brothers and Christian Brothers were involved, reports the ABC.

Gail Furness SC used her opening address reveal a survey which showed 4,444 alleged incidents of abuse between January 1980 and February 2015.

She also said private royal commission session revealed 60% of those who attended reported sexual abuse at faith-based institutions, two-thirds of which were Catholic.

Ms Furness called the victims’ accounts of abuse “depressingly similar”.

“Children were ignored or worse, punished,” she said.

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AUSTRALIA
Business Insider

SIMON THOMSEN
FEB 6, 2017

More than one in five members of the Christian Brothers order were alleged child sexual abuse perpetrators and 7% of Australian Catholic priests have allegedly perpetrated abuse since 1950, the royal commission into institutional responses to child sexual abuse has been told.

The commission reopened in Sydney today for its 50th case study, looking into the policies and procedures of Catholic church authorities. Six archbishops from across Australia have been called to give evidence in the coming weeks. It’s the 16th time the four-year-long inquiry has looked into the Catholic church and the first time figures have been released on abuse levels.

Senior counsel assisting, Gail Furness SC, outlined shocking levels of child sexual abuse in her opening address, saying 4,444 people were allegedly abused between 1980 and 2015 in around 1000 different institutions.

“Of priests from the 75 Catholic Church authorities with priest members surveyed, who ministered in Australia between 1950 and 2010, 7.9% of diocesan priests were alleged perpetrators and 5.7% of religious priests were alleged perpetrators,” Furness said. “Overall, 7% of priests were alleged perpetrators.”

The average age of the victims was just 10.5 for girls and 11.6 for boys. On average, it took around 33 years from the incident before claims of abuse emerged.

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UNITED STATES
The Worthy Adversary

February 5, 2017 Joelle Casteix

It’s been a roller coaster ride for SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests.

For those of you who are not familiar with the group, this is an organization where I donate a ton of time, and an organization that’s responsible for whom I have become as an advocate.

Lately, SNAP has been in the news far more than I would like: founder and president Barbara Blaine and executive director David Clohessy (both friends and colleagues) have stepped down after almost 30 years with the organization. On top of that—but totally unrelated—a former fundraiser has sued the group, claiming that they took “kickbacks” from attorneys. The fundraiser’s allegations are completely unfounded. The woman suing the group admitted that she never spoke to any of the dozens of volunteer leaders who do what I do.

What do I do?

My phone number is the first that many adult survivors of child sexual abuse and sexual assault call. I get tons of email messages every week from survivors, family members, spouses, cops, private investigators, concerned Catholics, parents, and others asking for help. I do my best to help these people find therapists, other survivors to talk to, find documents, locate alleged abusers, expose hidden offenders, get attorney referrals, and access the suicide hotline. I am very good at what I do.

I help survivors get healing and justice, no matter the abuser. I work every day to keep children safer from abuse, no matter where or when that abuse occurs. I show victims how to use their voice, the criminal justice system, the civil justice system, the media, the Internet, therapy, and available support systems to make sure that what happened to them never happens to another child. SNAP does not pay me.

But I am not unique

All of SNAP’s volunteer leaders do what I do with the same passion. Many answer their phones more often than I do. Others may show more compassion. Many don’t have young children and have much more time. We are able to do what we do with the support of the SNAP main office—who helps us training, materials, advice, social media, our network, a shoulder to cry on, answering our phone calls 24/7, and all of our media outreach.

The mission of the volunteer leaders is the same as SNAP, now led by Managing Director Barb Dorris and SNAP’s volunteer board of directors: Help survivors heal and stop the cycle of abuse.

Together, we will all give our time and talents (and yes, our donations) to make sure that no survivor falls through the cracks.

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AUSTRALIA
NT News

EDITOR ON DUTY: Carleen Frost

BETWEEN January 1980 and February 2015, 4444 people alleged incidents of child sexual abuse to 93 Catholic Church authorities, the Royal Commission into child sex abuse heard today.

Senior Counsel Assisting Gail Furness SC said: “These claims related to over 1000 seperate institutions. Where the gender of people making a claim was reported, 78 per cent were male and 22 per cent were female.”

The Commission has heard that of the 1,880 alleged perpetrators:

– 597 were religious brothers

– 572 were priests

– 543 were lay people

– 96 were religious sisters

Of all the alleged perpetrators 90 per cent were male.

Some of the most senior members of the Catholic Church in Australia are preparing to give evidence at the Royal Commission today.

Over the next month a total of 73 witnesses – including several archbishops, bishops, school principals, lawyers and parish priests – will address the factors that may have contributed to the occurance of child sex abuse and discuss the church’s response.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

By Philippa McDonald and Riley Stuart

More than 20 per cent of the members of some Catholic religious orders – including Marist Brothers and Christian Brothers – were allegedly involved in child sexual abuse, a royal commission hearing in Sydney has been told.

In her opening address to the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, Gail Furness SC said a survey revealed 4,444 alleged incidents of abuse between January 1980 and February 2015.

The data was damning for religious institutions, and particularly the Catholic Church.

Ms Furness said 60 per cent of survivors attending private royal commission sessions reported sexual abuse at faith-based institutions.

Of those, almost two-thirds reported abuse in Catholic institutions

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AUSTRALIA
Sky News

Almost 4500 people made allegations of child sexual abuse to Catholic authorities over 35 years, an inquiry has heard.

The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse had sought information about claims received by the Australian Catholic Church between 1980 and 2015.

‘Between January 1980 and February 2015, 4444 people alleged incidents of child sexual abuse made to 93 Catholic Church authorities,’ counsel assisting Gail Furness SC said in her opening address at a commission hearing in Sydney on Monday.

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AUSTRALIA
Herald Sun

EDITOR ON DUTY: Carleen Frost

SOME of the most senior members of the Catholic Church in Australia are preparing to give evidence at the Royal Commission into child sex abuse today.

Over the next month a total of 73 witnesses – including several archbishops, bishops, school principals, lawyers and parish priests – will address the factors that may have contributed to the occurance of child sex abuse and discuss the church’s response.

Today’s session is expected to hear from Diocese of Broken Bay Vicar General David Ranson, Aquinas Academy director Michael Whelan and American canon lawyer Father Thomas P Doyle.

Father Doyle is an expert consultant in areas of sexual abuse by clergy and religious leaders.

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AUSTRALIA
The Advertiser

Joanne McCarthy
6 Feb 2017

10.03am The Royal Commission hearing has started. Justice Peter McClellan is presiding, with counsel assisting the Royal Commission, Gail Furness, making her opening remarks which are expected to take 90 minutes.

We are expecting her to provide us with shocking figures about the extent of child sexual abuse allegations within the Catholic Church going back to 1950.

So far, since 2013, the Royal Commission has conducted public hearings involving 116 institutions, ranging from churches to schools, sporting organisations, government departments and welfare groups.

Furness said it was “plain” the commission needed to examine “faith-based institutions” given that 60 per cent of survivors reported abuse in church-based organisations. Of those, nearly two-thirds were complaints relating to the Catholic Church. More than 37 per cent of all private sessions were about the Catholic Church.

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AUSTRALIA
Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse

[live stream]

The Royal Commission will hold a public hearing to inquire into the current policies and procedures of Catholic Church authorities in Australia in relation to child-protection and child-safety standards, including responding to allegations of child sexual abuse.

The public hearing will commence on 6 February 2017 at the Royal Commission’s hearing rooms in Sydney.

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ITALY
Independent (UK)

Shehab Khan @shehabkhan

An Italian priest faces defrocking after allegations were made that he organised orgies on church property.

Don Andrea Contin, a priest in Padua, Italy, was accused of always carrying a “briefcase full of vibrators, sex toys, masks and bondage equipment”.

He is also accused of having as many as 30 lovers and taking trips with them to a naturist swingers’ resort in France, despite taking a vow of celibacy.

The 48-year-old also allegedly concealed pornographic home videos in covers with the names of various popes.

He is accused of farming out some of his lovers to men on wife-swapping websites, according to The Times.

“He always carried a briefcase full of vibrators, sex toys, masks and bondage equipment,” one of his accusers said in her police statement, according to the Corriere del Veneto.

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GUAM
Guam Daily Post

Chris Wong | Post News Staff

While the Archdiocese of Agana faces lawsuits filed on behalf of child sex-abuse victims, some of the vocal members of the island’s Catholic community continue to press for suspended Archbishop Anthony Apuron to be removed of his title permanently.

Apuron currently holds no administrative powers or duties in the archdiocese, and was recently found living in Fairfield, California while he’s facing a confidential trial in the Vatican on allegations of child sexual abuse. The Vatican canonical trial is separate from the dozen cases filed against the Archdiocese of Agana in the federal court, and other cases filed in the local courts in Guam.

“Just mentioning his name creates a lot of pain for people,” said David Sablan, president of the nonprofit organization Concerned Catholics Of Guam (CCOG).

Sablan spoke with the Post after completing their 29th week of protesting in front of the Dulce Nombre de Maria Cathedral-Basilica in Hagåtña.

According to Lou Klitzkie, of the Laity Forward Movement, these groups of protesters hope to raise attention to the issues of the Catholic faithful who have felt wronged, that their issues were not being properly addressed.

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ITALIA
Voce di Napoli

[One of the victims of the sexual activities in the rectory of St. Lawrence tells the church sex scandal.]

E’ diventato noto per un fatto di cronaca nera don Andrea Contin, il prete coinvolto nello scandalo delle orge di san Lorenzo. I sacerdoti della canonica spesso approfittavano di donne mentalmente deboli per mettere in atto le peripezie erotiche. Una di queste “vittime”, Claudia, ha raccontato cosa avveniva.

La donna ha detto a Radiocampus: “Sono stata con lui due anni, è un vero e proprio predatore sessuale. Ho iniziato questa relazione perché io ero in crisi profonda a causa della fine del mio matrimonio. Ero sprofondata in una depressione da cui non riuscivo ad uscire. Ho conosciuto questo sacerdote, giovane, che all’inizio mi ha aiutato dal punto di vista spirituale e mi è stato molto vicino, nel senso più puro del termine. Presto, però, ha cominciato a rivelare un interesse fisico verso di me. Quando andavo a trovarlo nel suo studio ha iniziato a chiedermi degli abbracci, che all’inizio erano fraterni ma che presto sono diventati più profondi e più intimi che poi sono diventati dei veri e propri rapporti sessuali, prima parziali, poi completi“.

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AUSTRALIA
7 News

AAP on February 6, 2017

Australia’s most senior Catholic leaders will have to explain why widespread child sexual abuse continued over decades while convincing a royal commission the church is acting to ensure it is not repeated.

Six of Australia’s seven Catholic archbishops and the leaders of its religious orders have been told to appear before the child abuse royal commission’s 15th and final public hearing focused on the church, beginning in Sydney on Monday.

World-first data revealing the shocking extent of child sexual abuse in the Catholic Church in Australia will be released on Monday.

The church’s Truth Justice and Healing Council chief executive Francis Sullivan has warned the data will reveal a horrific picture of the extent of claims of abuse by priests and brothers whose responsibility was to protect and care for children.

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ITALY
The Daily Beast

Ultra-conservative Father Andrea Contin is being defrocked after dozens of women came forward accusing him of preying on them sexually, including an attempt at bestiality.

Barbie Latza Nadeau

02.05.17

ROME—Father Andrea Contin apparently liked all kinds of sex—orgies, bondage and games with erotic toys. He also clearly liked all kinds of women, especially widows and those going through divorce. The 48-year-old priest from the northern region of Padua has been under investigation by the Catholic Church and local police for essentially preying on praying women for the better part of a month.

On Friday, his superior Monsignor Cladio Cipolla confirmed that he had initiated the process to have the priest defrocked, and that Contin had accomplices in the parish. “The behavior of Father Andrea was in complete contrast with the commitments he made to the Church,” Cipolla said. “He had an objectionable lifestyle and, as such, is not eligible to exercise the priestly ministry. His actions have also compromised him to such an extent he can no longer represent himself as a priest, even after his repentance.”

According to a separate police complaint filed by a 49-year-old woman reported as his “first lover” with whom he reportedly fathered a child, and with whom he wanted another, Contin often carried a briefcase “full of vibrators, sex toys, masks and bondage equipment.”

The woman also claimed that he wanted sex “night and day” and once coerced her to engage in bestiality by “attempting” to make her have sex with a horse. She and others said that his erotic games often spiraled into domestic violence, especially when they met in the church rectory, often after mass.

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NEW YORK
Newsday

February 5, 2017
By David Olson david.olson@newsday.com

The Episcopal bishop of Long Island met Sunday with parishioners of a Long Beach church after its priest was arrested Friday on child pornography and drug charges.

The Rev. Christopher King, 51, the priest at St. James of Jerusalem Episcopal Church, was arrested after investigators found images of boys engaged in sex acts on a computer at his church residence, authorities said Saturday. King also had crystal methamphetamine in his West Penn Street home office and bedroom, according to court records.

Bishop Lawrence C. Provenzano arrived at St. James at about 8:45 a.m. Sunday to speak with about a dozen leaders of the 137-year-old congregation.

“I’m here today to be with this congregation, to pray with them, to answer their questions, to try to provide pastoral support,” Provenzano said as he walked toward the small brick church, which is about two blocks from the Long Beach boardwalk. “And we’ll try to move forward.”

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ROME
The Guardian

Stephanie Kirchgaessner
Sunday 5 February 2017

A powerful American cardinal who is engaged in a bitter feud with Pope Francis has met Matteo Salvini, the rightwing Italian nationalist who is a staunch supporter of Donald Trump and has praised Benito Mussolini.

The reported meeting between Cardinal Raymond Burke and Salvini, the head of the Northern League party, is a sign that intense divisions between traditionalists and the pope are becoming increasingly political.

Pope Francis’s allies in the church, who back his message of inclusion and support for immigrants, are speaking out against the US president’s travel ban against refugees and immigrants from majority-Muslim countries. Cardinal Joseph Tobin of Newark, New Jersey, who was recently promoted by Francis, called Trump’s executive order a “dark day” for America. Tobin has also suggested that Trump is a conman.

At the same time, Francis’s harshest critics appear to be aligning themselves with the new Republican president and his acolytes around the world, including Salvini.

Burke, who is one of four cardinals who signed an open letter to Francis last year questioning new guidance allowing priests to decide whether divorced and remarried believers should be able to receive communion, praised Trump after his election in November. He said the surprise victory represented a clear win for pro-life causes and said the US president tended to surround himself with “very sound advisers”.

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TEXAS
ESPN

Paula Lavigne
Mark Schlabach

Former Baylor coach Art Briles and his assistant coaches actively intervened in the discipline of football players, worked to keep their cases under wraps and tried to arrange legal representation for their players, according to a series of emails and text messages released by three university regents in a legal filing Thursday.

The document filed in a Dallas County court was in response to a libel lawsuit that former football director of operations Colin Shillinglaw had filed Tuesday against the school and several members of its senior leadership.

The regents’ response alleges Briles and his coaching staff created a disciplinary “black hole” into “which reports of misconduct such as drug use, physical assault, domestic violence, brandishing of guns, indecent exposure and academic fraud disappeared.”

Shillinglaw and former assistant athletic director Tom Hill were fired in May, after lawyers with Philadelphia law firm Pepper Hamilton, hired by Baylor to assess the school’s handling of sexual violence complaints, found systematic failures in the way Baylor responded to allegations of sexual assault and other violence by students, including football players. The investigation led to the firing of Briles, the demotion and eventual departure of university president and chancellor Ken Starr, and the sanctioning and resignation of athletic director Ian McCaw.

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CALIFORNIA
San Francisco News

SAN FRANCISCO—City officials have ordered that the San Francisco Roman Catholic Archdiocese must pay $3 million in health care costs to its workers after city officials found the archdiocese violated a local health care ordinance for more than 1,000 of its workers.

San Francisco has also given $113,000 in penalties to the archdiocese.

“It’s important for us to ensure that workers are made whole,” said Pat Mulligan, director of San Francisco’s Office of Labor Standards Enforcement.

The violated law is called the Health Care Security Act, and requires businesses with more than 20 San Francisco employees who work more than eight hours a week to pay into a health care plan or a savings account for those employees.

A city audit of the archdiocese records show that from October 2009 to June 2016, they did not pay into those required funds for the majority of its 1,722 employees who are covered by the law.

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NEW YORK
Daily Mail (UK)

By JESSICA CHIA FOR DAILYMAIL.COM

A priest was arrested after police found child porn on his computers, along with drugs in both his church office and bedroom.

Reverend Christopher King, 51, had five pornographic videos on his computer, which showed sexual activity with boys as young as two or three, according to a felony complaint cited by the New York Daily News.

King, who lived and worked at the St. James of Jerusalem Episcopal Church in Long Beach, New York, was also found with 12 grams of crystal meth and unprescribed Xanax pills.

Nassau County police received an tip about King, and obtained a search warrant before raiding his home on Friday evening, officials said.

King had five child pornography videos on his computer, all of which involved boys under the age of 12, with some as young as two or three, the complaint said.

The videos showed the boys performing sex acts on each other, or with adult men, according to the Daily News.

Twelve grams of crystal methamphetamine were also found in both his home and church office, along with drug paraphernalia.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Telegraph

Patrick Foster Nicola Harley Peta Thornycroft, in Johannesburg
4 FEBRUARY 2017

A barrister accused of abusing boys at Christian summer camps told parents he planned to shower with their sons and would beat them “fairly liberally” with wooden bats.

John Smyth QC is being investigated by Hampshire Police over claims he subjected young men he met at camps attended by the Archbishop of Canterbury to savage sadomasochistic beatings.

The part-time judge moved to Zimbabwe in 1984 after the British assault allegations emerged in 1982, and founded a series of Christian camps at which it is claimed he again abused teenagers – some sent from the UK.

Mr Smyth was charged with culpable homicide in 1997 after a 16-year-old boy was found at the bottom of a swimming pool at a camp in Zimbabwe in 1992.

Several other boys came forward to claim he had beaten them and forced them to swim naked while he watched, although both cases against him collapsed.

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GUAM
Pacific Daily News

Haidee V Eugenio , heugenio@guampdn.com

Guam clergy sexual abuse trials could rip open secret archives that every bishop or archbishop is required to keep under canon law, U.S.-based experts on laws governing the Catholic Church said.

The church secret archives contain sensitive records that could pertain to priest misconduct such as their sexual abuse of children, substance abuse and alcoholism, as well as mental health challenges, lawyers said.

Noted canon lawyer Patrick J. Wall said, “Compiling and keeping records of various crimes by clerics, including childhood sexual abuse, is required by the Church’s own rules.”

Wall is a former Catholic priest and Benedictine monk who left the ministry in 1998 after it became apparent he was being used to cover up the sexual abuses of other priests.

“Every diocese including Rome is required to have secret archives,” said Wall, now lead researcher for Jeff Anderson & Associates, a Minnesota-based law firm representing victims of childhood sexual abuse.

Wall is helping dissect defenses that dioceses mount during trial. He co-authored “Sex, Priests, and Secret Codes,” a leading book on the 2,000-year history of sexual abuse in the Catholic Church.

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UNITED STATES
The Daily Beast

Brandy Zadrozny

For over 20 years, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP) has operated with a mission to expose clergy sexual abuse and its coverup—work that was highlighted by last year’s Oscar-award winning film Spotlight. But a new lawsuit alleges that the St. Louis-based charity actually exploits abuse survivors in a kickback scheme involving attorneys who file lawsuits against the Catholic Church.

In the lawsuit against SNAP, a former employee named Gretchen Rachel Hammond charges she was wrongfully fired as SNAP’s development director in 2013 after she confronted SNAP president Barbara Blaine with evidence the group had been “routinely accepting financial kickbacks from attorneys in the form of donations.”

Blaine, executive director David Clohessy, and outreach director Barbara Dorris are all named in the suit. Clohessy resigned a week after the lawsuit was filed, but has denied his departure has anything to do with the allegations. On Saturday Blaine announced she, too, was leaving her position with SNAP after 29 years. Like Clohessy, Blaine stressed that the timing was only coincidental, and explained in a statement to supporters that her decision to leave was a result of the organization “moving from a founder led organization to one that is board led.”

“Please know that the recent lawsuit filed against SNAP, as the others in the past which have no merit, had absolutely no bearing on my leaving,” Blaine wrote.

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UNITED STATES
New York Daily News

RICH SCHAPIRO
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
Saturday, February 4, 2017

The president and founder of a nonprofit dedicated to helping victims sexually abused by priests has resigned.

Barbara Blaine announced she was stepping down 10 days after her group Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, or SNAP, was hit with a lawsuit claiming that it routinely gets kickbacks for referring cases to lawyers seeking to sue the Catholic Church.

“The lawsuit had nothing to do with it,” Blaine told the Daily News after she informed her colleagues and members in a Saturday letter.

“We’ve been sued many times. We win every time, and we’re going to win this one. I just need a break.”

Blaine founded SNAP in 1989 after battling her demons for many years following a sexual assault by an Ohio priest when she was in the eighth grade.

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UNITED STATES
CBS St. Louis

CHICAGO (AP/KMOX) — The founder of the group that advocates for priest abuse victims has stepped down after three decades of campaigning to force the Catholic Church to recognize the extent of the scandal and compensate thousands of people affected.

Barbara Blaine, president and founder of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, said she was abused herself and the organization was created through her efforts to reach out to other victims.

“I knew there were other survivors out there and wondered if they felt the same debilitating hurt and if so, how they coped with it. I thought they might hold the wisdom I lacked. I looked for other survivors and asked if they would be willing to talk,” Blaine said in a statement.

Blaine did not say why she resigned. She and several other top SNAP officials were sued last month by a former employee who says she was fired shortly after asking superiors whether SNAP was referring potential clients to attorneys in return for donations.

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UNITED STATES
KTVN

By Associated Press

CHICAGO (AP) – The founder of the group that advocates for priest abuse victims has stepped down after three decades of campaigning to force the Catholic Church to recognize the extent of the scandal and compensate thousands of people affected.

Barbara Blaine, president and founder of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, said she was abused herself and the organization was created through her efforts to reach out to other victims, the Chicago Tribune reported (http://trib.in/2jMvDzJ ).

“I knew there were other survivors out there and wondered if they felt the same debilitating hurt and if so, how they coped with it. I thought they might hold the wisdom I lacked. I looked for other survivors and asked if they would be willing to talk,” Blaine said in a statement.

Blaine did not say why she resigned. She and several other top SNAP officials were sued last month by a former employee who says she was fired shortly after asking superiors whether SNAP was referring potential clients to attorneys in return for donations.

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AUSTRALIA
news.com.au

Megan Neil
Australian Associated Press

The Catholic Church in Australia believes it has come a long way from its dark history of child sexual abuse. The answer to just how far may rest with Rome.

Australia’s child sex abuse royal commission is devoting the next three weeks to trying to find out why widespread abuse occurred over decades in Catholic institutions.

Francis Sullivan, chief executive of the church’s Truth Justice and Healing Council, argues the church today is a very different place to what it was when most of the abuse examined by the royal commission took place.

“The type of outfit which we call the Catholic Church in Australia today is light years away from what it was in the ’60s and ’70s,” Mr Sullivan told AAP.

The commission will release data revealing the extent of child sex abuse in Catholic institutions in Australia, based on claims made to the church, as part of its 15th and final public hearing focused on the church that begins in Sydney on Monday.

Its scope is broad and covers issues fundamental to the Catholic Church as a whole: its structure and governance including the role of the Vatican, canon law, clericalism, mandatory celibacy, confession and the screening, training and supervision of priests and other religious.

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AUSTRALIA
SBS

AAP

An Australian priest used the confessional box to admit abusing altar boys, believing he was reconciling his continued offending with God.

Another laughed after getting absolution, knowing the priest could not break the seal of confession.

Whether what is heard in the confessional should continue to stay in the confessional is one of the matters being considered by the child sex abuse royal commission as it again turns its focus to widespread offending in the Catholic Church in Australia.

Former Victorian priest Paul David Ryan, jailed in 2006 for 18 months for indecently assaulting one victim, revealed during a 2015 private hearing that he confessed his sexual activity with adolescent boys to his confessor on multiple occasions.

Asked if that was the way he reconciled his actions with God, he said: “Yes. Well I thought I was. I know that was very seriously flawed.”

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CHICAGO (IL)
Chicago Sun-Times

Sam Charles
@samjcharles

The founder and president of the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests (SNAP) resigned this week as the organization faces lawsuit in which it was accused of colluding with attorneys.

Barbara Blaine, who founded SNAP 29 years ago, resigned effective Friday, according to a statement from SNAP.

“Her contribution to the survivors movement is unsurpassed,” Mary Ellen Kruger, chair of SNAP’s board, said in the statement. “Her tenacity and fortitude helped expose abuse globally during the past three decades.”

“We will carry on her vision of SNAP as we grow in new ways to better meet the needs of survivors coming forward today and in the future. We wish Barbara the best,” she added.

SNAP’s outreach director, Barbara Dorris, has assumed the role of managing director for the organization.

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UNITED STATES
St. Louis Post-Dispatch

By Joel Currier St. Louis Post-Dispatch

ST. LOUIS • Barbara Blaine, founder and president of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, has stepped down after 29 years, the organization said.

Blaine’s resignation from the nonprofit was effective Friday.

“It has been the greatest honor of my life to have found and been your president,” Blaine said in a statement.

Blaine and SNAP’s new managing director, Barbara Dorris of St. Louis, said Blaine’s decision has “absolutely nothing” to do with recent litigation. In the lawsuit, a former development director for SNAP claims she was fired in retaliation for confronting the organization for making referrals to lawyers in exchange for donations.

Dorris will now serve as the group’s highest ranking official. She said she will continue to work with SNAP’s board to help sex abuse survivors everywhere.

Blaine’s departure follows that of David Clohessy of St. Louis, who resigned as SNAP’s executive director Dec. 31. Clohessy started with SNAP in the late 1980s.

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NEW YORK
The Episcopal Diocese of Long Island

Saturday, February 4

This morning, I received notification that the Rev. Christopher King was arrested and charged with possession of child pornography and drug possession.

Father King had been licensed as a priest in our diocese since 2001 and was currently serving as the priest-in-charge of St. James in Long Beach.

The diocese and the entire Episcopal Church have a zero tolerance policy with respect to criminal conduct of any kind including the allegations made against Father King. As a result of these allegations, I have today terminated Father King’s license to function as an Episcopal priest in the Diocese of Long Island.

We will also provide pastoral care and consult with the congregation and any others impacted by these charges.

The Rt. Rev. Lawrence C. Provenzano
Bishop of Long Island

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NEW YORK
Newsday

February 4, 2017

By Sarah Armaghan and John Asbury

The bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Long Island on Saturday fired a Long Beach priest charged with possessing child pornography and drugs, officials said.

The Rev. Christopher King, 51, the priest at St. James of Jerusalem Episcopal Church of Long Beach, was arrested Friday after investigators found images of boys engaged in sex acts on a computer at his church residence, authorities said Saturday.

King also had crystal methamphetamine in his West Penn Street home office and bedroom, according to court records.

“The diocese and the entire Episcopal Church have a zero tolerance policy with respect to criminal conduct of any kind, including the allegations made against Father King,” Bishop Lawrence C. Provenzano said Saturday in a statement. “As a result of these allegations, I have today terminated Father King’s license to function as an Episcopal priest in the Diocese of Long Island.”

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UNITED STATES
TheMediaReport

Barbara Blaine, the founder and national president of the troubled and contentious group SNAP, has just resigned.

An email announcing the resignation was sent to members of SNAP earlier today (Sat., 2/4/17) (screenshot (jpg)) followed by a separate email with a statement by Blaine (screenshot (pdf)). It was then reported in the Chicago Tribune and other outlets.

Blaine’s announcement continues a tumultuous past few months for SNAP:

* Just a couple weeks ago, SNAP’s former director of development, Gretchen Hammond, dropped a bombshell lawsuit on SNAP, asserting that SNAP “exploits” victims and “routinely accepts financial kickbacks” from Church-suing contingency lawyers in the form of “donations”;

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UNITED KINGDOM
South Wales Argus

Press Association

A former bishop who sexually abused young men is believed to have walked free from prison after serving half of his jail sentence.

Peter Ball, a former Bishop of Lewes, was jailed for 32 months in October 2015 after pleading guilty to a string of historical offences, including two counts of indecent assault.

After 16 months behind bars, the early release of the 84-year-old from jail, understood to have been on Friday, has been branded an “affront to justice” and a “huge blow to his victims”.

While bishop, Ball selected 18 vulnerable victims to commit acts of “debasement” in the name of religion, such as praying naked at the altar and encouraging them to submit to beatings.

Richard Scorer, a specialist abuse lawyer at Slater and Gordon, who represent a number of Ball’s victims, said: “Ball’s early release after serving just half of his sentence is a huge blow to his victims.

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UNITED KINGDOM
BBC News

A man allegedly abused as a child by a former bishop has criticised his early release from jail as “a poor reflection on the criminal justice system”.

Peter Ball, 84, was jailed for 32 months in October 2015 after admitting a string of historical sex offences against 18 teenagers and young men.

The former bishop of Lewes and Gloucester was released from jail on Friday after serving 16 months.

Phil Johnson said he had served “less than a month for each of the victims”.

Ball was sentenced to 32 months for misconduct in public office and 15 months for indecent assaults, to run concurrently, after using “religion as a cloak” to carry out the abuse between the 1970s and 1990s.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Telegraph

Nicola Harley
4 FEBRUARY 2017

A disgraced Bishop who evaded prosecution for decades after intervention by a member of the Royal family, Cabinet Ministers and a Lord Chief Justice has been released from prison.

The former Bishop of Gloucester, now aged 84, groomed and abused 18 aspiring young priests over a period spanning 15 years and was jailed for two years and eight months.

He escaped justice over the same charges years earlier after he was given support by a member of the Royal family and Establishment figures.
Now, after serving 16 months behind bars, Ball was released early on Friday.

Richard Scorer, a specialist abuse lawyer at Slater and Gordon, who represent a number of Ball’s victims, said: “Ball’s early release after serving just half of his sentence is a huge blow to his victims.

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UNITED STATES
Questions from a Ewe

Sometimes a blatant but elusive reality just smacks you in the face. That happened to me in the past few weeks.

I had the honor of working with a Catholic school in Africa as it opened its school year in January. I knew that many countries with developing economies lacked enough seats to accommodate all primary level students in secondary schools. I also knew that placement in secondary schools is often based upon scoring well on the primary school leaving examination. In some countries that score determines not only if you can attend secondary school but which secondary school. The better you score, the better the school into which you are placed. I also knew that more boys attend secondary school than girls due to many families opting to send sons rather than daughters to school if they can only afford school fees for one child. All of that, I knew.

Here’s what hit me in the face last week.

The Catholic Church still has many minor seminaries in Africa. These are secondary schools which offer extremely strong academic programs, often among the strongest in a country. Though students who attend are not committed or required to attend major seminary where students actually pursue the priesthood, only boys are permitted to attend minor seminary. Thus, intrinsically, there are fewer secondary school seats available to girls at the outset of the placement process.

As the process works, high scoring male students get placed into all-male minor seminaries. This leaves the non-seminary secondary schools as options for high scoring girls and boys. However, if a boy who places into a minor seminary opts to not attend, he is usually given a seat in a top secondary school and his seat at the minor seminary goes to a lower scoring male. Thus, the reduced number of secondary school seats available to girls is reduced even further.

The Catholic hierarchy swears it does not discriminate against women and even goes so far as to believe it promotes women’s equality. I, therefore, would like to issue this challenge to every bishop who has a minor seminary: Admit girls into your minor seminary. If the minor seminary offers the strongest secondary education, that should not be exclusive to males. If attendance at minor seminary carries no requirement to attend major seminary in pursuit of ordination, then there is no reason other than blatant sexism to bar girls from attending the top secondary schools in a diocese and developing country.

Research shows that the poverty or prosperity of a nation, community or family follows the poverty or prosperity of its women*. Thus, if you want to end poverty, educate your female children. Pope Francis, if you truly advocate for the poor, please mandate that minor seminaries be open to both boys and girls so as to afford girls the same educational opportunities as boys.

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NEW YORK
New York Post

By Alex Taylor and Melkorka Licea February 4, 2017

A Long Island priest was busted for hoarding child pornography and drugs in his parish residence, police said.

Cops found five vile videos of children on Christopher King’s computer while conducting a search warrant at St. James Episcopal Church of Long Beach at around 6 p.m. on Friday, officials said.

The kiddie porn shows kids — as young as two years old to 12-years-old — being subjected to sexually explicit acts, according to court documents.

Police also found a stash of about 40 Xanax prescription pills and 12 grams of crystal meth in the parish priest’s bedroom, documents show.

King, 51, was cuffed and charged with five counts of possessing a sexual performance by a child and two counts of seventh-degree criminal possession of a controlled substance, police said.

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UNITED STATES
Religion News Service

By David Gibson

(RNS) The founder of a prominent advocacy group for children sexually abused by Catholic priests has resigned, the second major departure in the wake of a lawsuit filed last month by a former employee alleging that the organization colluded with lawyers to refer clients and profit from settlements.

In an email to supporters Barbara Blaine said her decision to leave SNAP, which stands for the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, had nothing to do with the legal action.

“(P)lease know that the recent lawsuit filed against SNAP, as the others in the past which have no merit, had absolutely no bearing on my leaving,” Blaine, herself a victim of clergy abuse as a child who started SNAP 29 years ago, said in an email sent on Saturday (Feb. 4). “The discussions and process of my departure has been ongoing.”

Blaine’s resignation was effective a day earlier, on Feb. 3.

The surprise announcement comes less than two weeks after David Clohessy, SNAP’s executive director and also a fixture in the organization for nearly 30 years, announced he too was leaving.

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CHICAGO (IL)
Chicago Tribune

After nearly three decades of leadership, the president and founder of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, Barbara Blaine, has stepped down, officials said.

Her resignation was effective as of Friday.

Blaine, who describes herself as a survivor, expressed gratitude for her supporters in an emailed statement.

“It has been the greatest honor of my life to have found and been your president for the past 29 years. Change however is inevitable,’’ Blaine said in the statement.

Mary Ellen Kruger, who is on the SNAP board, said in an emailed statement they are “Grateful for her 29 years of leadership.’’

“Her contribution to the survivors movement is unsurpassed. Her tenacity and fortitude helped expose abuse globally during the past three decades. We will carry on her vision of SNAP as we grow in new ways to better meet the needs of survivors coming forward today and in the future. We wish Barbara the best,’’ Kruger said in the statement.

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GUAM
Guam Daily Post

An attorney representing more than a dozen victims of sexual abuse by clergy members who once served in parishes on Guam said interest in a possible settlement by the Catholic Church is the first acknowledgement of guilt.

“A settlement is an explicit acknowledgement that the church, let’s say, is remorseful about what has happened to kids. When they pay money it’s an admission that they did something wrong,” attorney David Lujan said.

Coadjutor Archbishop Michael Jude Byrnes said last week that he would consider an out-of-court settlement in the child sexual abuse cases. “I can say that we’d be happy to settle, but then again, that’s a legal negotiation,” Byrnes said.

The Catholic Church faces $60 million in potential payouts to alleged victims of child sexual abuse by members of the clergy while assigned to parishes on Guam, based on a dozen cases that have been filed recently in the District Court of Guam. Byrnes said the church was considering all options, including possible bankruptcy protection, acknowledging that the lawsuits would take a financial toll on the Archdiocese of Agana.

“My interest is my clients,” Lujan told the Post, acknowledging that he and his clients are open to settlement discussions. “If it’s meaningful, we will engage in it.”

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VATICAN CITY
Deseret News

By Nicole Winfield
Associated Press
Published: Feb. 4, 2017

VATICAN CITY — Pope Francis named a top Vatican archbishop as his new envoy to the troubled Knights of Malta and gave him “all necessary powers” to help the religious order reform its constitutions and elect a new leader, a clear sign he intends to continue exerting control over the sovereign organization in the near term.

In a letter Saturday, Francis tapped the No. 2 official of the secretariat of state, Archbishop Angelo Becciu, as his special delegate. He said Becciu would serve as his “exclusive spokesman” with the order and that his mandate would last until the election of the new grand master, expected within three months.

Becciu’s mandate confirmed the marginalization of Cardinal Raymond Burke, the conservative American — and Francis critic — who until now had been the sole papal liaison with the ancient aristocratic order, which counts generations of Europe’s Catholic nobility as its members and runs a vast humanitarian organization around the world.

Burke was instrumental in the crisis that has convulsed the Knights for the past three months, resulting in the resignation of the order’s grand master, Fra’ Matthew Festing, after he did public battle with Francis over a condom scandal and lost.

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VATICAN CITY
Yahoo! News

NICOLE WINFIELD
Associated Press
February 4, 2017

VATICAN CITY (AP) — Conservative criticism of Pope Francis intensified Saturday after his intervention in the Knights of Malta order, with posters appearing around Rome citing his actions against conservative Catholics and asking: “Where’s your mercy?”

The posters appeared on the same day that Francis cemented his authority over the Knights by naming a top Vatican archbishop, Angelo Becciu, to be his special delegate to the ancient aristocratic order.

Francis gave Becciu, the No. 2 in the Vatican secretariat of state, “all necessary powers” to help lay the groundwork for a new constitution for the order, lead the spiritual renewal of its professed knights and prepare for the election of a new grand master, expected in three months.

The Vatican’s intervention with the sovereign group had provided fuel for Francis’ conservative critics, who until Saturday had largely confined their concern with his mercy-over-morals papacy to blogs, interviews and conferences.

On Saturday, dozens of posters appeared around Rome featuring a stern-looking Francis and referencing the “decapitation” of the Knights and other actions Francis has taken against conservative, tradition-minded groups.

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ROME
Crux

Inés San Martín February 4, 2017
VATICAN CORRESPONDENT

ROME- On Saturday, posters appeared around Rome featuring a stern-looking Pope Francis and asking “Where’s your mercy?” The unsigned images referred to the “decapitation” of the Knights of Malta and other actions Francis has taken against groups and individuals perceived as conservative.

“Ah Francis, you’ve taken over congregations, removed priests, decapitated the Order of Malta and the Franciscans of the Immaculate, ignored Cardinals… but where’s your mercy?” it reads.

All around the Vatican in Rome, but also in several other venues, many of the posters were quickly removed or covered by another, smaller one that said they were “Illegal Postings,” but by then the impression had already been made.

Though there’s no logo on the image, nor any clue as to who might be behind them, the content of the poster makes it clear that they come from conservative, if not traditionalist, quarters within the Catholic Church, many of whom feel ostracized, ignored and even attacked by the more progressive Argentine pontiff.

For instance, by talking of a decapitation of the Order of Malta, they mean Francis’s decision to interfere in the firing of the Grand Chancellor by the Grand Master and American Cardinal Raymond Burke.

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