ABUSE TRACKER

UNITED STATES
Questions from a Ewe

I must offer a deep respectful bow in the direction of Opus Dei Cardinal Juan Luis Cipriani Thorne, archbishop of Lima, Peru. The best I can tell, he unabashedly stands for what the Roman Catholic hierarchy is all about…money.

Last week I visited Lima and tried unsuccessfully to visit its cathedral. Here’s a recap of my effort.

Cashier: (As I tried to just walk in the church door.) Excuse me, you must buy a ticket.
Me: A ticket? For a church? I’ve visited many of the greatest cathedrals in the world and never paid.
Cashier: You have to pay to visit the Religious Art Museum.
Me: We don’t want to visit the Religious Art Museum. We want to visit the Cathedral.
Cashier: The cathedral is only a church when there are services. The rest of the time it is a museum. It’s free only when there are services.
Me: (Thinking any cathedral I’ve visited has oodles of services) Well, when is the next service?
Cashier: Saturday (This was Monday, by the way.)
Me: Saturday? When does the cathedral have services?
Cashier: Saturday and Sunday mornings only.

Canon 1221 states, “Entry to a church at the hours of sacred functions is to be open and free of charge.” This leaves the option to charge for things like sacred music concerts offered in a church. One probably assumes a cathedral for an active bishop has many hours of sacred function. But Cardinal Cipriani has whittled his cathedral’s sacred function times down to 2 Masses: Saturday at 9 a.m. and Sunday at 11 a.m. He even schedules confessions to occur during Sunday Mass, conveniently minimizing those pesky hours of sacred function which interfere with making money.

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

IRELAND
The Irish Catholic

by Greg Daly
March 16, 2017

The religious sisters at the centre of controversy surrounding the Tuam Mother and Baby Home feel unable to comment on the issue due to legal constraints, The Irish Catholic understands.

Recent revelations about the excavation of a general grave at St Mary’s Mother and Baby Home have been commented on both by Archbishop Michael Neary of Tuam and Dublin’s Archbishop Diarmuid Martin, the latter saying that: “Everything must be done to enable the truth to emerge.”

The home was run by the Bon Secours sisters, and the order has been sharply criticised by media commentators for not issuing a response to the interim report of the Mother and Baby Homes Commission of Investigation.

In his second homily addressing the subject, Dr Neary said he hoped the commission’s report will enable the truth to surface in a clear and objective manner, “no matter how unpalatable it may be to those on whichever side of the present discussion”.

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SCOTLAND
Scotsman

Child sexual abuse is ­written about everywhere in the media nowadays. Systematic sexual exploitation of ­children in places like Rotherham and ­Derby, high-profile offenders like Jimmy Savile, the historical abuse of ­children in institutional ­contexts like care homes and faith settings. Every day we are subjected to descriptions of unimaginable harm that leave us angry and distressed.

There’s been more over the last few weeks. A Scottish ­Government committee recently examined a bill to allow victims of abuse to claim compensation beyond the ­current time bar. If passed, it could ­permit claims dating back to 1964. The ­current time bar of three years has been a major barrier for ­survivors of sexual abuse achieving justice.

Police Scotland’s Detective Chief Superintendent Lesley Boals told the committee that the force last year examined files for the ongoing Scottish child abuse inquiry and identified 2,300 relating to 4,400 victims in the Strathclyde area alone. She argued this was “a small proportion of children who have been abused or neglected in ­Scotland across the years”.

How big a problem is child sexual abuse in Scotland? It’s difficult to estimate as only around one in eight cases of sexual abuse are ever known to police and social work.

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VATICAN CITY
The Economist

ONE area where Francis has managed to make progress is in cleaning up the Vatican’s largely secret financial machinery. Most of the accounts at the Institute for the Works of Religion (IOR), or Vatican bank, that belong to people not directly associated with the church have been closed. The Vatican has invited scrutiny by Moneyval, an international financial watchdog. It has acquired an auditor-general. And by the end of last year the Holy See’s regulatory body, the Financial Information Authority (AIF), had found 23 cases of suspected financial hanky-panky and sent them to the Promoter of Justice, the Vatican’s prosecutor.

Until last year none had led to a prosecution. But according to the Promoter of Justice’s annual report, submitted last month, the first two cases went to court in 2016. According to a Vatican source (Vatican justice is not exactly transparent), one of the trials concerns the renovation of a penthouse apartment for Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, formerly the Vatican’s most senior official. Two defendants, not including the cardinal, are charged with using the project to launder cash. Six cases have been shelved. Of the others, one is said to have included a fraud perpetrated on the IOR requiring investigation in several countries.

That points to a question familiar in other micro-states: whether the Vatican has the resources to handle complex financial crime. It certainly enjoys some advantages. At least one Catholic country that normally refuses to co-operate with foreign investigators swiftly supplied vital information to the AIF. Last year the Vatican’s deputy prosecutor was put in charge of a new section to deal with financial offences. The Vatican police, the Gendarmeria, has hired officers with experience in the field. But that still leaves the judges, most of whom are experts in church law, who may struggle to follow intricate financial dealings.

Another question is how far the clean-up will reach into the Vatican administration, which handles large volumes of cash. Last month Italian police froze assets worth €2.5m ($2.7m) belonging to Giampietro Nattino, an Italian banker who is alleged to have ramped up the price of shares in his own bank, Banca Finnat Euramerica, by secretly routing purchases through a Vatican department. He denies wrongdoing.

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ROME
PRI

March 16, 2017

By Matthew Bell

When Pope Francis named two victims of clergy sexual abuse to a new Vatican commission on the protection of minors in 2014, some observers took it as a sign that the pope was getting serious about the issue.

But Marie Collins says there was still some skepticism.

“A lot of people felt that I was just being asked [to join] the commission as a sort of token survivor,” says Collins, who was sexually abused as a child by a Catholic priest in Ireland. “I wanted to be sure that the commission was sincere.”

Collins went ahead and joined the Vatican commission. If there was a chance for finding solutions to this problem in the Catholic Church, she wanted to be part of it.

Nearly three years later, however, Collins decided she had to resign. She officially stepped down from the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors on March 1, which was also Ash Wednesday.

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CALIFORNIA
The Worthy Adversary

March 16, 2017 Joelle Casteix

The problem with child sex abuse is that for the victims and their families, the pain never goes away.

This month, the family of one of the alleged victims of one of Orange County’s most notorious predator priests filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the Diocese of Orange and the Archdiocese of Los Angeles.

The wife alleges that her husband committed suicide as a result of years of inner torture after being sexually abused as a child by Fr. Eleuterio Ramos in the 1970s at Placentia’s St. Joseph’s Parish.

Fr. Eleuterio “Big Al” Ramos was a bad dude and left debris and disaster at every church where he was assigned.

This is the second lawsuit in just a few weeks. Will the Diocese of Orange try lie to the press about this one, too?

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CANADA
Nunatsiaq Online

STEVE DUCHARME

A Nunavut judge has overturned a decision by Nunavut’s legal services office that denied legal aid funding to ex-priest Eric Dejeager, clearing the way for Dejaeger to appeal some of his sex crime convictions.

Justice Neil Sharkey ordered that a lawyer be appointed to represent Dejeager after hearing submissions from Dejeager and the Crown March 15 at the Nunavut Court of Justice in Iqaluit.

“I think the case… is a compelling one and I’m persuaded that there is merit to your request for court appointment counsel,” Sharkey said.

A white-haired and bearded Dejeager appeared via video link from the medium-security Warkworth Institution in Ontario, sitting alone at a conference table and wearing baby-blue prison issue attire.

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UNITED STATES
Catholic League

Bill Donohue comments on leading critics of the “mass grave” story and their positions on abortion and gay marriage:

Not everyone who supports gay marriage favors abortion rights, but it is hard to find someone who is pro-abortion and opposed to same-sex marriage. This is especially true of activists. When it comes to leading critics of the “mass grave” story in Tuam, Ireland, virtually all of them are pro-gay marriage, and none is associated with pro-life causes.

Why does this matter?

The number of human remains found outside the Mother and Baby Home in Tuam does not come close to 800, but that there are any is disturbing. It seems logical to think that those who are truly concerned about these deceased children—some of whom were unborn—would be pro-life. But among the elites, they are not. They are also pro-gay marriage.

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UNITED STATES
Catholic News Service

WASHINGTON (CNS) — Pope Francis has named Father Steven Biegler, a priest of the Diocese of Rapid City, South Dakota, to head the Diocese of Cheyenne, Wyoming.

Bishop-designate Biegler, who turns 58 March 22, is currently vicar general of his diocese and pastor of the Cathedral of Our Lady of Perpetual Help in Rapid City.

The appointment was announced March 16 in Washington by Archbishop Christophe Pierre, apostolic nuncio to the United States.

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NEW YORK
BishopAccountability.org

Summary of Case: George Boxelaar was a native of Holland, ordained at some point for the Carmelite Order. He was in the U.S. as early as 1954, assigned to the Carmelite’s priory in Mantzville PA 1954-56, then to Our Lady of Mt. Carmel parish in Middletown NY 1956-57. The Official Catholic Directory shows a gap in his assignments 1957-62, after which he is shown again as at Our Lady of Mt. Carmel for many years, until 1985. Boxelaar was involved with a number of the mission parishes affiliated with the parish; it is not clear whether he was assigned to all of the missions or to the parish’s stations.

In 1973 a 7-year-old boy told his father that Boxelaar forced his hand down the boy’s pants during confession at Our Lady of Mt. Carmel parish school. The boy’s father reportedly confronted Boxelaar, who denied misconduct. The boy’s mother contacted a lawyer and some mothers of other boys at the school; the mothers said Boxelaar had also molested their boys, but they wanted to keep it quiet. The boy’s family decided not to press charges so that their son would not have to testify. Another mother complained to the church about Boxelaar in 1981, and again in 1985. Boxelaar threatened her with excommunication if she ‘created scandal.’ Along with other parents of boys allegedly molested by the priest, the mother went to state police. When the parents were told their sons would have to testify, they decided not to press charges. Boxelaar was quietly sent to Holland to “retire.” He died in 1990.

In 2002, after news reports of Boxelaar’s abuse of little boys, at least 25 more men came forward to say that they, too, were sexually abused as children by the priest. Carmelite Provincial, Rev. Michael Driscoll, acknowledged that the Order had received one complaint about Boxelaar in the 1970s, and five in the 1980s.

Ordained: ?
Retired: 1985
Died: 1990

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WASHINGTON
TDN

Editorial

A Washington state legislator is using his life experience with sex abuse to sponsor a bill that would eliminate the statute of limitations for certain felony sex crimes, including molestation and child rape. House Bill 1155 was introduced in January 2017 and, if passed into law, would allow the offender to be prosecuted at any time after commission of the crime.

We think this bill should be passed into law.

It’s all too often we read about victims of sex abuse and their journey to gain closure. What about the victims that choose to remain silent for years, how do they find closure?

Being the victim of sexual assault is traumatizing enough, but unfortunately for some it can take years to gain the courage to report the crime. This means sometimes the offender may go free.

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NEW MEXICO
KOB

Chris Ramirez
March 15, 2017

Many times, victims of childhood sex abuse don’t come forward about the abuse until they are adults, years after it happens. In fact, that happens very frequently.

Senate Bill 91 aims to help victims get through the legal process of holding their predators accountable.

“This is an epidemic,” said Levi Monagle, an attorney who has represented dozens of adults who were victimized as children. “One in five children will be sexually abused before the age of 18 and only 12 percent of that abuse is ever reported to authorities.”

Right now, New Mexico’s statute of limitations to allow a victim to hold his or her abuser accountable in civil court is vague. Sometimes victims are turned away by lawyers because New Mexico’s laws aren’t on their side.

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AUSTRALIA
Australian Jewish News

ALL members of the Rabbinic Council of NSW (RCNSW) could have an opportunity to vote on the status of Rabbi Pinchus Feldman as an RCNSW member.

Child sexual abuse victim Manny Waks contacted RCNSW last year and asked that Rabbi Feldman step down or be removed.

He cited six reasons, including some of Rabbi Feldman’s public comments and that, as dean of Yeshiva Bondi, he failed to ensure the school had a formal child abuse policy, failed to ensure the school recorded complaints of child sexual abuse and failed to undertake formal training for child sexual abuse matters.

“I wrote the formal complaint to the RCNSW in my role as a victims’ advocate on behalf of numerous victims,” Waks wrote to the RCNSW.

At the time the complaint was made, Rabbi Feldman’s lawyer told The AJN, “Rabbi Pinchus Feldman has not been the subject of even the slightest negative finding by the Royal Commission of impropriety or misbehaviour in personal, official or public office.”

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IRELAND
The Irish News

ALLISON MORRIS
16 March, 2017

WHEN reporting the awful, needless, miserable deaths of almost 800 babies and toddlers at a Catholic-run mother and baby home in Tuam, Co Galway it is easy to dismiss the shameful episode as a sin from a bygone era.

However, the truth is much more unpalatable.

The home only ceased to operate in 1961, the year my own mother turned 17. That was the same age as many of the young mums locked behind the walls of the institution and also the age I was when I found out I was pregnant with my son.

While I was cared for and my child adored by my family, the young women of my mother and grandmother’s generation were ostracised and forced into joyless workhouses, their children forcibly adopted or dead within months from neglect.

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IRELAND
Galway Advertiser

Mary O’Connor

The fact that some survivors of the Tuam Mother and Baby Home may have to take High Court cases to access records of family members has been described as an “obscenity”.

Deputy Catherine Connolly says access to such files for survivors and next of kin is a “basic right”.

Welcoming confirmation that the second interim report from the Mother and Baby Homes Commission will be published by the end of March, she said this however must be accompanied by an explanation as to why there has been such an unacceptable delay in its release.

“It would seem that the minister has been awaiting a response from the various departments and approval from the government before it can be published, which begs the question as to what is in the report and why the hesitancy in publishing it. Such delay does not inspire confidence in the process.”

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AUSTRALIA
Associated Press

MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) — An Anglican bishop who says he was warned by churchgoers that he was not safe in his own Australian diocese over his work to address decades of child sexual abuse has announced his resignation.

Newcastle Bishop Greg Thompson, who was sexually molested as a teenager by bishop who died in 1988, said in a statement Thursday he was quitting to focus on his health.

The 60-year-old said he had witnessed firsthand the culture and conduct from some sections of the church, both as an abuse victim and in his work to address the diocese’s abuse legacy.

“When I started this journey to right the wrongs of child abuse in the diocese, I didn’t expect to be in this position, nor did I expect to uncover systemic practices that have enabled the horrendous crimes against children,” Thompson said.

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AUSTRALIA
The Guardian (UK)

Australian Associated Press
Wednesday 15 March 2017

An Anglican bishop and advocate for child abuse survivors is resigning after being subjected to harassment, including being warned about his personal safety.

Greg Thompson will step down as Newcastle bishop to focus on his health after being ostracised by some of his own parishioners since revealing he was abused as a young man by senior church clerics.

Thompson said he had witnessed firsthand the culture and conduct from some sections of the church, both as an abuse victim and in his work to address the Newcastle diocese’s abuse legacy.

“When I started this journey to right the wrongs of child abuse in the diocese I didn’t expect to be in this position, nor did I expect to uncover systemic practices that have enabled the horrendous crimes against children,” he said on Thursday. “The decision to resign was not an easy one, it weighed heavily on my heart. However, I must place the wellbeing of my family and my health above my job.”

The child abuse royal commission has heard of a deep division in the Newcastle diocese, with some people believing a number of priests were unfairly disciplined over sex abuse allegations.

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GUAM
Pacific Daily News

Haidee V Eugenio , heugenio@guampdn.com

March 16, 2017

Archbishop Michael Jude Byrnes asked the Neocatechumenal Way to put a one-year pause on the formation of its new communities, and to celebrate Mass in accordance with the Catholic Church’s general instructions and norms.

That means celebrating Mass at a consecrated altar and consuming the Eucharist as soon as the person receives it.

The Neocatechumenal Way is a movement within the Catholic church whose practices sometimes are at odds with those of Guam’s traditional Catholic community.

The archbishop issued a March 15 pastoral letter to try to balance concerns about the way in which the Neocatechumenal Way celebrates Mass in Catholic churches on Guam and the good that the group has done for many people on island.

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GUAM
The Guam Daily Post

Neil Pang | The Guam Daily Post

The Archdiocese of Agana has asked for a halt on the formation of new Neocatechumenal Way communities across the island in an effort to promote healing between the division among Guam’s Catholic faithful.

The request was issued to NCW leaders by Coadjutor Archbishop Michael Byrnes, who said in a statement that he was in the process of developing church policies that would balance the concerns of traditional Catholics with the “blessing” the NCW has been for many.

“I have asked the lead catechists here in Guam to put a ‘pause’ on the formation of new communities for a period of about a year,” Byrnes said in the release. “During this time, I intend to appoint a priest delegate to help me discern the effects of our efforts, to review the Catechetical Directory of the Neocatechumenal Way and to ensure that catechists are sufficiently formed and certified for their important role. By this I wish to create a kind of moral and spiritual space in which healing can begin.”

While Byrnes affirmed the NCW as a Catholic community recognized and approved by the Holy See that has brought many into the fold of the Catholic faith, he also acknowledged the many appeals from “a significant number of the faithful about the way the Eucharist is celebrated” by the NCW.

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GUAM
Pacific News Center

Written by Janela Carrera

“From listening to many of you I realize that a number of factors have contributed toward the divisions,” Byrnes said in his pastoral letter.

Guam – Archbishop Michael Byrnes has made an unprecedented move, issuing a moratorium on some of the practices of the Neocatechumenal Way. In a pastoral letter he issued yesterday, Byrnes says many of the NCW practices have contributed to the deep divisions within the Catholic Church.

Byrnes’ pastoral letter addresses three major issues within the NCW practices. Byrnes says he came to this decision after he was approached by many in the Catholic community on nearly a daily basis about concerns of the NCW practices.

“From listening to many of you I realize that a number of factors have contributed toward the divisions,” Byrnes said in his letter.

The first action he takes is a moratorium on the formation of new NCW communities. The moratorium will last for a year, during which time Byrnes says he will appoint a priest delegate to “help me discern the effects of our efforts,” as well as to review other matters by which the NCW practices the formation of new communities.

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CALIFORNIA
Patch

By Ashley Ludwig (Patch Staff) – March 15, 2017

PLACENTIA, CA — A widow has alleged her 50-year-old husband committed suicide due to depression suffered from being molested by a priest years earlier in Placentia. Now, she has taken his case to court, filing the lawsuit in Los Angeles Superior Court, on be half of herself and her four children, suing the archdioceses of Los Angeles and Orange.

Robin Ward Agrusa alleged wrongful death and negligence and naming St. Joseph Catholic Church and St. Joseph Catholic School as additional defendants.

Representative of the two archdioceses could not be immediately reached.

The suit states that Mark Paul Agrusa was born into a family of devout Catholics and attended St. Joseph’s Church and its school from 1974-78.

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AUSTRALIA
The Border Mail

Olivia Shying
@oliviashying

16 Mar 2017

A surge in reports of historical sex abuse offences may be behind Ballarat recording one of the highest numbers of sexual offences in the state in 2016, data shows.

Crime Statistics Agency data released today showed a 26.2 per cent rise in the number of sexual offences in Ballarat during 2016 compared to statewide 9.1 per cent increase.

Statewide Victoria Police recorded 12,956 sexual offences in 2016 with an offence rate of 214 offences per 100,000 people.

In five years, the number of sexual offences increased by 45 per cent, up from 8936 offences in 2012.

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ISRAEL
Arutz Sheva

Prof. Phyllis Chesler, 17/03/17

Many Catholics disagree with Vatican policies. Some no longer follow tradition. Many such Catholics still enter churches at times of birth, baptism, marriage, and death. Some Catholics take confession–but continue sinning. Many Catholics celebrate only the major holidays–and many Catholics are either life-long and devoted members of the flock or return to the faithful fold after a crisis or revelation.

Oddly enough, disaffected Catholics–those who mock priestly hypocrisy; expose sexual abuse scandals with relish; and strongly oppose the Church’s stand on many issues, including birth control, abortion, gay rights, divorce, and the Latin liturgy–nevertheless, do not launch full-scale, decades-long, global campaigns against the Vatican and the democratically elected Pope.

Catholics do not call for a boycott of the Vatican nor do they use the UN as a venue to de-legitimize or defame it among the nations. They do not infiltrate the Vatican or work with fifth columnists within the Papal State who also wish to bring the Pope and his minions down. Catholics do not demand that the Vatican end its “occupation” of Italy or turn over global church property and wealth to those who despise Catholic doctrine.

Catholic-Americans have not repeatedly enlisted leading-light academics and celebrities to join them in denouncing Vatican policies nor have they dis-invited, refused to invite or, black shirt style, drowned out the words of Catholic lecturers known to favor Vatican policies. Likewise, they have not helped create on-campus displays that attack the Church–year after year, and at which they physically and verbally assault students and teachers who are known Church-goers.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

By Edith Bevin

Another former teacher at an elite girls’ school in Hobart, St Michael’s Collegiate School, has admitted having sex with a student.

It is the second time the Anglican-run school has had a teacher charged with similar offences.

The now 56-year-old man, who cannot be named, was charged a month ago and has pleaded guilty to maintaining a sexual relationship with a 16-year-old student for nine months in the 1990s.

In an email to former students, current principal Judith Tudball said she understood the school community could be upset by the revelation.

“It is my sad and disappointing duty to inform you that I have been notified by Tasmania Police that a former member of the St Michael’s Collegiate School staff has been charged in relation to an allegation of conducting a relationship with a minor,” she said.

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PENNSYLVANIA
Daily Local News

By Michael Rellahan, Daily Local News
POSTED: 03/15/17

WEST CHESTER >> The former pastor at a Uwchlan megachurch intends to enter a guilty plea to criminal charges brought in the case of a teenager he allegedly raped and impregnated, a prosecutor said Wednesday.

Assistant District Attorney Emily Provencher of the DA’s Child Abuse Unit told Common Pleas President Judge Jacqueline Carroll Cody in court that Jacob Matthew “Jake” Malone had made it clear through his attorney that he would plead guilty and be sentenced.

However, the alleged victim, who is now 20 years old and lives in Arizona, has made it clear that she would like to be present for the proceeding. Thus, Provencher and defense attorney Evan Kelly of West Chester, who represents Malone, have been attempting to arrange a mutually agreeable date to present the plea and proposed sentence to Cody, who is overseeing the case.

The prosecutor said that they had initially hoped to appear before Cody the last week of March. Cody, however, said she had meetings that would keep her away from the courthouse that week, so the parties are expected to formalize a date in April later this week. Provencher did not detail the proposed sentence, and Kelly declined comment when contacted Wednesday.

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AUSTRALIA
Newcastle Herald

Joanne McCarthy
16 Mar 2017

NEWCASTLE Anglican Bishop Greg Thompson has announced his resignation only months after exposing shocking opposition to his strong stand on child sexual abuse in Newcastle diocese, and a day before giving evidence at a Royal Commission public hearing into the Anglican Church in Australia.

“When I started this journey to right the wrongs of child abuse in the diocese I didn’t expect to be in this position, nor did I expect to uncover systemic practices that have enabled the horrendous crimes against children,” Bishop Thompson said in a statement released to the media on Thursday morning.

“The decision to resign was not an easy one, it weighed heavily on my heart. However, I must place the wellbeing of my family and my health above my job.”

He is the second senior member of the diocese to resign for their strong opposition to child sexual abuse in the diocese, after former diocese business manager John Cleary resigned on February 27. Mr Cleary was recognised by the diocese for being “dedicated and diligent in uncovering child sexual abuse in the diocese and providing crucial support to survivors”.

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MARYLAND
The Baltimore Sun

Pamela Wood
The Baltimore Sun

Year after year, Del. C.T. Wilson gathered his courage, told his colleagues about how he was abused as a child and urged them to allow victims more time to file lawsuits against their abuser.

And year after year, Wilson saw the bill die in a House of Delegates committee without ever being called for a vote.

That changed Wednesday.

The House Judiciary Committee — where the bill had been bottled up — voted to advance Wilson’s bill to the full chamber, where he expects the bill to pass easily.

“I had no idea it was going to pass,” said Wilson, a Charles County Democrat. “I figured I would fight every year.”

Wilson said he found out just hours beforehand that the committee would hear more testimony on the bill and hold a vote. He said it was a relief after spending the past three years giving painful testimony.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

By Giselle Wakatama

Anglican Bishop of Newcastle Greg Thompson has resigned after three years of dealing with issues related to clerical abuse and cover ups.

An emotional Bishop Thompson last year told the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse his efforts to expose a decades-old culture of abuse and cover-ups had led to a concerted push to get rid of him.

The bishop is himself an abuse survivor and said he was resigning to put his health and family first.

“The impact of leading the diocese at various levels and addressing that culture has had a personal impact on my health, and I think has been something that got me thinking about how long I could have done it for,” Bishop Thompson said.

“I’ve given my all and my legacy, I think, here in Newcastle is the issues of social justice for survivors.”

The bishop said he had worked hard to end a culture of not listening.

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AUSTRALIA
Newcastle Herald

Joanne McCarthy
16 Mar 2017

BISHOP Greg Thompson was the right man to lead Newcastle Anglican diocese after the Australian Government in November, 2012 established the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.

When Bishop Thompson was endorsed as the Hunter’s new Anglican head in late 2013, those who voted for him could not have known how right the appointment was.

He was the former “son of the diocese”, who grew up in the area and returned home after a church career that included work in some of the toughest parts of Australia.

He returned to Newcastle and confronted the past – both his own, and the diocese’s. He gave evidence at the shocking Newcastle Anglican Royal Commission public hearings in August and September, about being sexually abused by the late Bishop Ian Shevill. Returning to Newcastle meant confronting ugly memories.

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CALIFORNIA
Orange County Register

By SEAN EMERY / STAFF WRITER

A widow has filed a wrongful-death lawsuit against the Orange and Los Angeles dioceses, alleging that her husband killed himself in 2015 because of depression over having been molested by a “notorious pedophile” priest years before while attending St. Joseph Catholic Church in Placentia.

Attorneys for the wife filed the lawsuit this week in Los Angeles Superior Court, alleging that her husband was haunted by the abuse he allegedly suffered at the hands of the Rev. Eleuterio Ramos from 1975 through 1978.

“The horror and betrayal associated with years of sexual abuse drove (him) into severe depression, he became suicidal,” attorney Raymond Boucher wrote in the complaint. “Though he fought valiantly for years to overcome the sense of betrayal and mistrust, he ultimately succumbed to the depression and sense of worthlessness.”

Officials with the Los Angeles Diocese said they have not received a copy of the lawsuit and could not comment. The Diocese of Orange acknowledges in a statement that it has settled several cases “related to the abhorrent conduct of Ramos. …

“The Diocese of Orange continues to work to promote healing and reconciliation with past victims and their families and remains vigilant in ensuring the events of the past (are) not repeated,” it says.

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GUAM
Pacific Daily News

Haidee V Eugenio, heugenio@guampdn.com March 16, 2017

Superior Court Judge Vernon P. Perez recused himself this week from hearing two new clergy sex abuse cases, filed in local court March 7 and March 9.

Perez’s recusals in the cases filed by former altar boys Anthony C. Flores and Michael Chargualaf marked the 85th and 86th disqualification memos by local judges assigned to hear childhood sexual abuse lawsuits against the Archdiocese of Agana and Catholic priests since November.

Perez said his “impartiality might reasonably be questioned.” He cited his fairly close relationship with the Archdiocese of Agana’s leadership, his active involvement in his parish in Ordot, and acquaintance with other former altar boys who filed similar lawsuits, including those against Archbishop Anthony S. Apuron.

A review of all disqualification memos filed between Nov. 10, 2016, and March 16, 2017, shows all of Guam’s eight trial court judges have recused themselves from hearing anywhere between two and 14 clergy abuse cases. Perez filed 14 disqualification memos, the latest one involving Flores and Chargualaf’s lawsuits.

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GUAM
The Guam Daily Post

By Mindy Aguon | For the Guam Daily Post Mar 16, 2017

A 70-year-old Father Duenas Memorial School alumnus filed a lawsuit in the District Court of Guam alleging he was sexually abused and molested by his former teacher after being served church wine in the rectory of the Our Lady of Peace and Safe Journey Church in Chalan Pago during Holy Week in 1962.

William Payne, 70, alleges that former FD instructor and priest Father Antonio C. Cruz offered to give him driving lessons and then made him drink church wine in the rectory until he became mildly intoxicated when he was 15 years old, court documents state.

The lawsuit alleges that Cruz, who was Payne’s Algebra and Spanish instructor, told him, “You’re one of my good students, I like you” and then proceeded to molest Payne despite his efforts to make him stop before driving him back home.

Payne was in “a state of utter shock, fear and confusion in that Cruz was forcibly abusing him, and during Holy Week,” the lawsuit states.

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GUAM
Pacific News Center

Written by Janela Carrera

William Payne says he was a student at Father Duenas Memorial School and only 15 years old when it happened.

Guam – Back to back lawsuits filed against the Catholic Church as today, another victim has come forward with allegations against the late priest and former Father Duenas Memorial School teacher Father Antonio Cruz.

The latest lawsuit is filed by William Payne who is now 70 years old. Payne says when he was 15 years old and studying at FDMS, Cruz picked him up from his house under the guise of teaching him how to drive. After their lesson, Payne says Cruz took him to the Chalan Pago parish rectory where he drugged Payne with church wine and then molested him.

After this incident, Payne says he avoided Cruz as much as possible at school and even stopped trying to make good grades in Cruz’s class. Despite this, Payne says Father Cruz still gave him good grades.

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IRELAND
The Irish Catholic

by Michael Kelly
March 16, 2017

It’s hard to get across to younger generations today the enormity of the scandal that was the revelation in 1992 that Bishop Eamonn Casey had secretly fathered a child years earlier.

One got a sense of the impact this week by the fact that the country’s largest-selling daily newspaper The Irish Independent carried a special eight-page supplement to mark Bishop Casey’s death after a long illness on March 13.

There’s something strangely fitting that Bishop Casey – a man who spent so much of his time and energy advocating for the rights of young Irish people forced to emigrate out of economic necessity – died in the week of St Patrick’s Day. Today, a new generation of Irish chaplains is working with Irish communities in far-flung parts of the world, particularly in the US where the so-called ‘undocumented’ are facing such uncertainty.

Exposed

When his sin was publicly exposed, many Irish Catholics were scandalised. They winced as many journalists who had long since harboured grudges against the Church delighted in tearing down a once-mighty edifice. Journalists delighted in exposing hypocrisy, and God knows the Church has provided enough examples of hypocrisy over the years.

It was ever thus, of course – the only way not to be a hypocrite is to hold no standards to be judged by. The very fact of trying to live a set of beliefs means that we will be judged for the times we are shown not to live up to these beliefs. It’s like the story often told about a non-Massgoer who complains to the parish priest that they don’t go to church on Sunday because “the place is full of hypocrites”. Knowing the human condition all too well, the parish priest replies: “But, there’s always room for one more.” Many a theological truth is contained in a one-liner.

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ITALIA
Rete L’Abuso

[Former priest abused a 11-year old. The judge accuses: “The Church of Foggia was superficial.”]

Le parole del giudice nelle motivazioni della sentenza che a Bari ha condannato a otto anni Giovanni Trotta, il quale sarà processato a Foggia per abusi su altri nove minorenni

Parla di “atteggiamento quantomeno superficiale delle locali autorità religiose” il gup barese Giovanni Anglana nelle motivazioni della sentenza con cui nei mesi scorsi ha condannato Giovanni Trotta, ex sacerdote ed ex allenatore di una squadra di calcio giovanile della provincia di Foggia, a otto anni di reclusione per violenza sessuale su un 11enne. Trotta sarà inoltre processato a partire dal prossimo 5 giugno dinanzi al tribunale di Foggia per abusi su altri nove minorenni.

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IRELAND
Connacht Tribune

A city councillor has called for the Western Distributor Road in Knocknacarra to be renamed in memory of the children who died in Mother and Baby Homes nationwide.

Councillor Cathal O’ Conchuir says the scandal is ‘our holocaust’ – and the most innocent and precious lives that passed away in the homes must be remembered.

He’s to request that the road be renamed ‘Bothar Mathair agus na Leanai’.

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VATICAN CITY
Catholic News Service

By Carol Glatz Catholic News Service
3.15.2017

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — Recent exchanges in the media between the head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and a former member of a papal advisory commission have highlighted a lack of clarity and transparency when it comes to finding better ways to make bishops and religious superiors more accountable for how they handle allegations of sexual abuse.

The first muddying of the waters occurred in early June 2015 when a Vatican press office briefing and bulletin announced, “The Holy Father approved proposals and authorized that sufficient resources” be provided for a new “judicial section” in the doctrinal congregation in order for the congregation “to judge bishops with regard to crimes of abuse of office.”

While officials told reporters that the Council of Cardinals and Pope Francis approved the proposal presented by Cardinal Sean P. O’Malley of Boston, head of the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors, it was not a “papal fiat,” but rather just a green light for the offices involved to flesh out what procedures could uphold greater accountability, a source familiar with the situation told Catholic News Service.

However, at the time of the announcement, the media and commission members, according to Marie Collins — the newly resigned commission member — were led to believe it was “a done deal” that just awaited implementation. Further proof that the recommendations never carried any legislative weight is that they were never published in “Acta Apostolicae Sedis,” the Vatican’s official bulletin of record.

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NEW YORK
Hudson Valley News

11-11-16

By Jay Behrke

MIDDLETOWN – In this extension of Thursday’s breaking story, Lex Filipowski – abused at the hands of his childhood priest at Holy Cross Church in South Centerville – goes into more detail on the issues troubling him since he was too young to fully comprehend them.

“I have been attempting to get justice for what happened to me from the Catholic Church for 25 years,” said Filipowski, 52, who says he was abused by Father George Boxelaar from 1971-1974. “And I’ve been dismissed for the last 25 years by some of the most arrogant and self-righteous people that have no care for what happened to me, or thousands and thousands of other children who were sexually abused by priests.”

Father Michael Kissane, Prior Provincial of the Carmelites in Middletown, acknowledged that there were several credible accusations of abuse against Boxelaar that were made public in the early 1980s; and that Boxelaar was “removed from ministry” at that time, moving back to his native country, the Netherlands, where he died in the early 1990s.

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ResearchGate

Mark Farmer, Anne-Marie McAlinden, and Shadd Maruna

Abstract

Sex offending is typically understood from a pathology perspective with the origin of the behavior thought to be within the offending individual. Such a perspective may not be beneficial for those seeking to desist from sexual offending and reintegrate into mainstream society. A thematic analysis of 32 self-narratives of men convicted of sexual offences against children suggests that such individuals typically explain their pasts utilizing a script consistent with routine activity theory, emphasizing the role of circumstantial changes in both the onset of and desistance from sexual offending. It is argued that the self-framing of serious offending in this way might be understood as a form of ?shame management,? a protective cognition that enables desistance by shielding individuals from internalizing stigma for past violence.

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INDIA
La Croix

T.K. Devasia, Kochi
India

The southern Indian High Court in the state of Kerala has ordered those accused of attempting to cover up for a Catholic priest arrested for allegedly raping a minor girl to surrender to the police.

A priest, two nuns and a laywoman, all working in Manathavady Diocese in Kerala are absconding. The four had applied for “anticipatory bail” but the court ruled that they should first surrender to police and then seek bail in a lower court.

Police arrested 48-year-old Manathavady Father Robin Vadakkancherry on February 28 for the alleged rape of a 17-year-old girl from his parish. In India, girls under the age of 18 years are considered minors and consensual sex with a minor is viewed as rape.

Father Vadakkancherry, parish priest of St. Sebastian’s Church in Kottiyoor, was arrested after an investigation proved his involvement, according to police.

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ITALIA
AGI

di Salvatore Izzo
Vaticanista

Dopo una trentina di anni di “vacche grasse” – frutto del nuovo sistema di sostentamento del clero scaturito dagli accordi di revisione del Concordato firmati nel 1984 dall’allora premier Bettino Craxi e dal cardinale Agostino Casaroli – la Chiesa Italiana vede assottigliarsi i suoi introiti. Le offerte fiscalmente deducibili finalizzate direttamente al sostentamento del clero sono in picchiata: oltre un terzo in meno in 10 anni, passando dai 18 milioni del 2005 agli 11 del 2014.

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UNITED STATES
Catholic League

Bill Donohue comments on the alleged number of persons who died in Ireland’s Mother and Baby homes in the twentieth century:

Paul Redmond is chairman of the Coalition of Mother and Baby Home Survivors. He was born in one of the homes in 1964, and was adopted 17 days later. He has become the leading activist involved in the search for answers to what actually happened in these homes.

As with many others associated with this cause, Redmond’s “evidence” is slippery.

* On January 30, 2015, the Irish Mirror reported that Redmond claimed he had evidence of 7,000 babies and children who died in homes across Ireland in the last century.

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IRELAND
Irish Times

Tim O’Brien, Patsy McGarry

A referendum on giving the Government powers to seize lands owned by the Catholic Church in order to recoup a shortfall in payments for abuse victims would probably be lost, Minister for Social Protection Leo Varadkar has said.

Mr Varadkar was speaking after Minister for Health Simon Harris said there would be “significant merit” in seizing hospital and school property in light of a report which showed shortcomings in the church’s contribution to a redress scheme for those abused in Catholic institutions.

Mr Harris called on the Vatican and Irish church leaders pressurise religious orders to pay half the cost of the scheme, which the Comptroller and Auditor General (C&AG) found had hit €1.5 billion at the end of 2015, with just €192 million coming from the church.

Mr Varadkar said there was a constitutional impediment to seizing lands in order to try to make up the shortfall even though “the Government is really determined” to ensure as much as possible is recovered.

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NORTH CAROLINA
WLOS

by Tanja Rekhi

ASHEVILLE, N.C. (WLOS) —
A local district attorney wants to find out if his employees had any involvement with allegations of physical abuse at the Word of Faith church.

David Lerner, district attorney in Burke, Caldwell and Catawba counties, asked the SBI to investigate two assistant prosecutors after the Associated Press reported Frank Webster and Chris Back provided legal advice, helped at strategy sessions and did a mock trial with congregants charged with harassing a former member.

John Huddle left the Spindale church in 2008. He said Webster is church founder Jane Whaley’s son-in-law. He didn’t interact with Webster much while he was living at the church and said Webster and his wife were in the “Young Marrieds” group. He and his wife were in the “Middle Marrieds.”

“The defense of religious freedom stopped a long time ago when abuses increased,” Huddle said. “This is not religion. This is not about worship. This is not about freedom to worship. This is about protecting people from being emotionally and physically harmed and having their faith used against them.

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INDIA
International Business Times

A madrasa teacher has been arrested for sexually exploiting at least four minor girls aged between 8 and 11 at a madrasa at Iritty in Kannur. The accused, identified as Muhammed Rafi, was arrested after the parents of the girls approached the police and registered a complaint.

Muhammed Rafi, a native of Tharuvana in Wayanad, has been booked under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act (POCSO). The local media reports that the accused has confessed to the crime and will be produced in court on Wednesday, March 15. Police suspect that the accused could have abused many other children in a similar manner.

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MICHIGAN
Alpena News

MAR 15, 2017

JORDAN SPENCE
News Staff Writer
jspence@thealpenanews.com

ROGERS CITY — The sexual assault case where Rev. Sylvestre Obwaka is accused of raping another priest has been sent to trial.

The defense asked for the case to be dismissed, which was denied by Judge Don McLennan, Tuesday in 89th District Court. This means there was enough evidence presented to the court to move to trial.

Obwaka, who is on administrative leave from his duties as St. Ignatius’ priest, was charged on two counts of criminal sexual conduct Feb. 21. He was charged with a count of first-degree criminal sexual conduct with personal injury, and third-degree criminal sexual conduct force or coercion.

During court Tuesday the alleged victim, a 28-year-old priest with the Diocese of Gaylord testified.

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MICHIGAN
Alpena News

JORDAN SPENCE
News Staff Writer
jspence@thealpenanews.com

ROGERS CITY — The request for bond to be posted for Rev. Sylvestre Obwaka was denied by Judge Donald McLennan during a preliminary hearing on Monday.

“We ask bond be $50,000 and we post 10 percent,” Matt Wojda, one of Obwaka’s attorneys, said. “If it’s higher than that we’ll pledge realty.”

He said it’s a two step process to decide the bond issue. First, he said, there must be enough proof of guilt.

“And if they’re a flight risk is another issue,” Wojda said.

Obwaka is a native of Kenya, not a citizen of the United States, and he was assigned to St. Ignatius in 2013.

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GUAM
KUAM

Updated: Mar 15, 2017

By Krystal Paco

Yet another multi-million dollar suit has been lodged against the Archdiocese of Agana, but not by a former altar boy. 37-year-old Timothy Ryan Shiroma filed his complaint in the District Court of Guam on Wednesday. Court documents state he was only 9 when he was sexually molested by former priest Raymond Cepeda.

Shiroma was a student at the Cathedral Grade School, which was adjacent to the Hagatna Cathedral. While using the church phone after school to call his ride, he alleges Cepeda pinned him to the ground, stuffed his head in his backpack, and sexually molested him. From then on, he rode the bus home and would fake sick to avoid attending mass at the Cathedral.

KUAM News files show Cepeda was laicized – removed as a priest – in December 2009.

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MICHIGAN
WLNS

ROGERS CITY, Mich. (AP) – A Roman Catholic priest accused of sexually assaulting another priest in a church rectory has been ordered to trial in northern Michigan.

A judge found enough evidence against the Rev. Sylvestre Obwaka, pastor at St. Ignatius Church in Rogers City.

Obwaka is charged with first-degree and third-degree criminal sexual conduct against a 28-year-old priest, who testified Tuesday. Police say the alleged crimes occurred on Feb. 1 while the man was sleeping.

Defense attorney Matthew Wojda says “there’s no question” there was sexual activity. But he says it was consensual, not an assault.

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ITALIA
Rete L’Abuso

[Special pedophilia – CLERICAL pedophilia: CAN NOT BE SILENT.]

Allineandosi all’orientamento della stampa nazionale ed oltre, anche “Il Corriere delle Donne” spezza il silenzio sul devastante fenomeno della pedofilia clericale e mette in campo le sue specialiste. Quello che segue, infatti, è uno speciale a più voci che si conclude con un’intervista a Francesco Zanardi, fondatore della Rete L’Abuso.

“La pedofilia nella Chiesa è opera del diavolo – dice Bergoglio – è una malattia diabolica… dobbiamo esserne convinti per curarla. I pedofili vanno capiti e perdonati”.

Ma davanti al dato statistico che la pratica della pedofilia clericale è diffusa in tutto il mondo ed ha proporzioni spaventose, l’opinione pubblica è ormai profondamente indignata e non condivide queste affermazioni assolutorie, al contrario, le ritiene i soliti inflazionati escamotage per continuare a coprire i pedofili e aiutarli a sottrarsi alla giustizia.

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ROME
The Times (UK)

Ellen Coyne
March 15 2017
The Times

The clerical abuse survivor who resigned from the Catholic church’s commission on child safety has claimed that Vatican officials are “defending the indefensible” by dismissing her concerns.

A row has broken out between Marie Collins and a Vatican department over her claims that basic steps to protect abuse victims are being blocked. Ms Collins, who was abused by a Dublin hospital chaplain when she was 13, was one of two victims on the 16-person Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors.

The commission was set up in 2014 within the central body of the church to propose child protection initiatives. Ms Collins resigned on March 1, citing the obstructive behaviour of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, a Vatican body which oversees the theology of the church and has been increasingly involved in child protection measures.

She said that the congregation was not responding to letters from victims and had refused to co-operate with the establishment of a tribunal into alleged abuse, which was announced by Pope Francis and promised significant resources in 2015. The tribunal has since been scrapped.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

By Gavin Coote

There are mounting calls for a public hearing into child sex abuse in the central west New South Wales city of Bathurst.

The St Stanislaus boarding school has been at the centre of shocking allegations, which have led to protracted criminal court cases.

Last month, Father Brian Spillane, who has been serving 11 years for sexually assaulting students, was sentenced to a further nine years in jail for yet more sexual assaults at St Stanislaus College in Bathurst.

After years of investigations and court cases involving Spillane, some of the survivors and their families came together at forum in the city last night.

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UNITED STATES
Crux

Fr. Dwight Longenecker
March 15, 2017
CRUX CONTRIBUTOR

Vigorous debate over various aspects of Francis’s papacy is entirely appropriate, since the Church is a big Italian family and arguing is what they do. However, what we don’t need is a revolution along the lines of the Protestant Reformation, which ended with everyone being their own pope.

At a church gathering the other day, I quizzed a conservative friend about one of Pope Francis’s latest media bombshells. My friend is a good and cheerful Catholic, but he thought for a moment, then smiled and said, “Every day I pray for the pope…then I ignore him.”

His response reflects a growing discontent with Pope Francis in conservative circles. Anti-Trump protesters wave signs reading, “Not My President.” Perhaps conservative Catholics will soon march on the Vatican waving signs reading, “Not My Pope.”

The reality is not too far from the fantasy: last month Rome itself was plastered with posters picturing a disgruntled Pope Francis. Written in local Roman dialect, the signs charged that the pope had “removed priests; decapitated the Knights of Malta” and “ignored Cardinals.”

The critics are not only wild-eyed right wing conspiracy theorists. Respected journalist Phil Lawler regards Francis’s papacy as “disastrous.” Rod Dreher has joined the chorus of those who not only question Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia’s involvement with a homoerotic mural in a church, but also his appointment by Pope Francis as president of the Pontifical Pope John Paul II Institute for Studies on Marriage and Family.

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AUSTRALIA
news.com.au

Kathy McCabe
News Corp Australia Network

COMEDIAN and composer Tim Minchin is up for Song of the Year with his controversial, fundraising, viral hit Come Home (Cardinal Pell) at the annual APRA Music awards for songwriters.

Minchin’s song was written to raise funds to send survivors to Rome to witness Cardinal Pell’s evidence before the Royal Commission into child sexual abuse.

It has been nominated alongside master craftsman Nick Cave’s haunting Skeleton Key and the works of breakthrough young artists including Hottest 100 hero Amy Shark (Adore), DD Dumbo (Satan) and Julia Jacklin (Pool Party).

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AUSTRALIA
The West Australian

Simon Collins, Music Editor
Tuesday, 14 March 2017

Tim Minchin’s controversial call for Cardinal George Pell to face the music has been nominated for Australia’s highest peer-voted songwriting award.

Written in response to Australia’s highest-ranking cleric’s claims he was too ill to give evidence in person at the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, Come Home (Cardinal Pell) is one of five songs in line for the 2017 APRA Song of the Year.

The song, which raised money to send survivors of abuse to Rome to front the Vatican-based Pell, is nominated alongside compositions from Nick Cave, Amy Shark, Julia Jacklin and D.D Dumbo.

After becoming “infuriated” by Pell’s statements, Minchin wrote and recorded Come Home (Cardinal Pell) in two days before it first aired on television’s The Project in February.

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AUSTRALIA
Daily Mail (UK)

By Hannah Paine For Daily Mail Australia

Tim Minchin’s charity single criticising Catholic cardinal George Pell has been nominated for APRA song of the year.

The song, which labeled the cardinal ‘scum’ and a ‘pompous buffoon’, was released by Tim last March after the religious leader failed to leave the Vatican to testify in personal at the Royal Commission into child sexual abuse.

The singer-songwriter told The Daily Telegraph he was proud of the single’s recognition because ‘It managed to be funny about something that’s incredibly painful’.

Come Home (Cardinal Pell) raised money for survivors of child sex abuse to travel to Rome, where George testified via video link in March last year after claiming he was too ill to fly and give testimony in person.

The controversial single was criticised by supporters of George, however, won widespread praise for bring awareness and funds to child sex abuse victims of the Catholic church.

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IRELAND
Galway Independent

Galway County Council has said it will facilitate consultation with the local community regarding the future of the former Tuam Home site.

Since the Mother and Baby Home Commission confirmed the presence of remains at the site, council staff, including its Social Work Team, have made a number of home visits to households in the vicinity.

A council spokesperson said it recognises that there are varying views about the future of the site. A number of former residents have requested that the remains be removed and reinterred on consecrated ground.

“The timeline for the consultation process will, of necessity, be influenced by the continuing work of the Commission, the statutory role of the Coroner and the potential for involvement by other authorities,” said the council, adding it will continue to approach the issue with “sensitivity and compassion”.

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IOWA
Storm Lake Pilot-Tribune

Tuesday, March 14, 2017

By RUSS MITCHELL Special to the Pilot-Tribune

Former Spencer pastor Kevin Grimes appears to be taking steps toward a plea agreement stemming from a 2016 sexual misconduct investigation.

District Court Judge Nancy Whittenburg on Tuesday set a 10 a.m. plea hearing Monday, May 15, at the Clay County Courthouse for Grimes. The judge also ordered the Department of Corrections to prepare a pre-plea investigation report for the possible sentencing process.

Clay County Attorney Kristi Kuester emphasized that “no finalized agreement” for a plea had been reached as of Wednesday.

“I think we’re getting down to the final details of it,” Kuester said. “It still could go to trial at this point, you just never know — but it seems like, within the next couple of months, we’ll probably be looking at getting the plea finalized.”

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MINNESOTA
KAAL

March 14, 2017

A former Cottage Grove pastor pleaded guilty in federal court to distribution of child pornography Thursday.

Forty-seven-year-old William Leonard Helker of Pine City was arrested in October at his home. The arrest came after Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension agents with the Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force executed a search warrant at his home and All Saints Lutheran Church in Cottage Grove.

The agency was tipped off by Facebook and Instagram that a user was suspected of possessing child porn.

Investigators said they found Helker communicated with a man in Finland, planning to trade images of preteen and teenage girls, according to the criminal complaint.

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JAMAICA
Jamaica Observer

Wednesday, March 15, 2017

SAVANNA-LA-MAR, Westmoreland — Head of the Centre for the Investigation of Sexual Offences and Child Abuse (CISOCA), Superintendent Enid Ross Stewart, says she is pleased with the recent sentencing of a minister of religion to 20 years in prison for having sexual intercourse with a 13-year-old girl.

“You would have heard that at least one of our pastors got 20 years, and I am extremely proud of that. Because… I remember when that report came to CISOCA, I remember,” Superintendent Ross Stewart said while addressing a Kiwanis Club of Westmoreland Capital Early Childhood Institution Quiz Competition opening ceremony on Monday at the Hotel Commingle in Savanna-la-Mar.

Fifteen early childhood institutions are participating in this year’s competition which will see the winner walking away with $35,000, plus other prizes.

The minister of religion, Paul Hanniford, was sentenced to 20 years in prison for having sexual intercourse with a minor when he made an appearance in the Home Circuit Court last Friday.

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Christian Truther

By Nate Brown – 03/14/2017

Pope Francis, the first Jesuit pope, has rescinded his policies regarding the crack down on pedophilia, Catholic officials claim. In fact, the last abuse survivor of the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors recently left the commission, citing resistance coming from Vatican offices against implementing recommendations.

It is not clear exactly where the opposition is coming from within the Catholic Church, claimed the last abuse survivor Marie Collins, on the Pontifical Commission. However, she resigned as a direct result of the Catholic Church’s inability to implement recommendations that could curb sexual abuse within the Catholic Church.

In Australia, the cases of abuse are quite prevalent, and according to the chief executive of the church’s Truth Justice and Healing Council, Francis Sullivan; “You have to seriously wonder whether this isn’t the Pope backsliding on what has been a strong and determined crackdown on offending priests and the circumstances that allowed abuse to take place,”

According to Sullivan, it is a very dangerous time, he cites both the resignation of Marie Collins, and the resistance from the Church to curb pedophilia. “Together these two developments paint a picture of the Vatican establishment, its bureaucrats, and courtiers, doing all they can to either undermine the Pope or driving an agenda that is about maintaining the status quo and protecting the institution.” …

The Jesuit is coming out.

Before Jorge Mario Bergoglio became Pope Francis, he was potentially involved in at least five abuse cases. The following comes from Bishop-Accountability:

1 Fr. Julio César Grassi
Grassi was convicted in 2009 of molesting a boy who had lived in a home for street children that Grassi founded. After Grassi’s conviction, Bergoglio commissioned a secret study to persuade Supreme Court judges of Grassi’s innocence. Bergoglio’s intervention is believed to be at least part of the reason that Grassi remained free for more than four years following his conviction. He finally was sent to jail in September 2013. See our detailed summary of the Grassi case with links to articles.

2 Fr. Rubén Pardo
In 2003, a priest with AIDS who had admitted to his bishop that he had sexually assaulted a boy was discovered to be hiding from law enforcement in a vicarage in the archdiocese of Buenos Aires, then headed by Bergoglio. Pardo also was reportedly hearing children’s confessions and teaching in a nearby school. One of Bergoglio’s auxiliary bishops, with whom he met every two weeks, appears to have lived at the vicarage at the same time. Typically, an ordinary must give permission for a priest to live and work in his diocese. It is unlikely that Pardo lived and ministered in Buenos Aires without Bergoglio’s approval. See our detailed summary of the Pardo case.

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MICHIGAN
WOOD

[with video]

Barton Deiters
Published: March 14, 2017

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (WOOD) — The lawsuit against the Catholic Diocese of Grand Rapids and schools by the teen victim of sexual abuse by a tutor has been dismissed.

That includes the case against the tutor, 34-year-old Abigail Simon, who remains in the state women’s prison.

The spectacular 11-day trial in November 2014 was the subject of national attention — due in no small part to Simon’s defense that she was the victim of rape by a 15-year-old Grand Rapids Catholic Central High School student, not the other way around. But evidence including recorded phone messages and thousands of text messages convinced a jury that Simon was the sexual aggressor. She was convicted of four felony charges and sentenced to prison for eight to 25 years.

About a year after the conviction, the victim filed a lawsuit against the school, its leaders and the diocese, which oversees the schools.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

By Bridget Judd

A push to remove the name of disgraced former Ballarat bishop Ronald Mulkearns from schools across western Victoria is gaining momentum.

St Joseph’s Primary School at Warrnambool is the latest to replace a plaque bearing the former bishop’s name.

The former bishop oversaw the Ballarat diocese during a notorious period of sexual abuse by clergy, and was accused of moving paedophile priests, including prolific offender Gerald Ridsdale, around western Victoria.

Mr Mulkearns died last year.

In its weekly newsletter, St Josephs Primary School announced the move after referring the issue to its school advisory council last month.

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AUSTRALIA
The Australian

RASHIDA YOSUFZAI
Australian Associated Press
March 13, 2017

Hundreds of Catholics are refusing to donate to the church until it apologises to the elderly mother of an alleged sexual abuse victim.

Eileen Piper, 92, is demanding an apology and compensation over her daughter’s alleged sexual abuse at the hands of Pallottine priest Gerard Mulvale.

Her 32-year-old daughter Stephanie killed herself in 1994, a year after she told her mother of about being sexually abused as a teenager.

Police charged Mulvale after Stephanie made a complaint, but she died before it came to trial. Mulvale was later convicted of sex crimes against two teenage boys.

Ms Piper last month met in private with Melbourne Archbishop Denis Hart on the sidelines of a royal commission into child abuse hearing in Sydney.

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ITALY
The Local

Three men have been arrested in Turin for raping an underage girl under the pretext of carrying out sacred rites, local police said on Tuesday.

Sixty-nine-year-old Paolo Meraglia, who claimed to be a sorcerer, abused the girl for months.

The victim’s boyfriend at the time, a 19-year-old; his mother; and a 73-year-old friend of Meraglia also took part in the abuse, police said in a statement.

Officers on Monday arrested the three men for gang rape, aggravated by the use of sedatives and the fact their victim was a minor. Police did not say whether the mother of the girl’s ex-boyfriend would face charges.

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AUSTRALIA
The Standard

ANDREW THOMSON
15 Mar 2017

THE name of the former bishop of Ballarat will be removed from a plaque at Warrnambool’s largest catholic primary school out of respect for victims of clerical sexual abuse.

In its weekly newsletter, St Josephs Primary School announced the move after a victim of abuse requested action in relation to plaques on churches and schools two months ago.

The victim became emotional on Tuesday when told of the move.

“I know to many people this will seem a very small thing but the school’s decision recognises the wrongs of the past,” the tearful victim said.

“We are not trying to rewrite history, just to acknowledge what has happened.”

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CALIFORNIA
MyNewsLA

POSTED BY TONI MCALLISTER ON MARCH 14, 2017

A widow sued the archdioceses of Los Angeles and Orange Tuesday on behalf of herself and her four children, alleging her husband committed suicide at age 50 because he was depressed about being sexually molested by a priest years earlier in Placentia.

Robin Ward Agrusa filed the lawsuit in Los Angeles Superior Court, alleging wrongful death and negligence and naming St. Joseph Catholic Church and St. Joseph Catholic School as additional defendants.

Representative of the two archdioceses could not be immediately reached.

The suit states that Mark Paul Agrusa was born into a family of devout Catholics and attended St. Joseph’s Church and its school from 1974-78. During that time, he met the Rev. Eleuterio Ramos, who “set his sights on Mark’s youthful vulnerability,” the suit alleges.

Agrusa became an altar boy and served sacraments during Mass with Ramos, who began sexually molesting him and warned him not to tell anyone, the suit alleges.

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AUSTRALIA
Catholic Leader

March 15, 2017

Posted by: Mark Bowling

IN the wake of the Catholic Church’s final hearing before the Royal Commission into child sexual abuse, Church leaders from across Australia have held a day of “reflection and conversation” on child safety.

The three-week Royal Commission hearing investigated the Church’s response to a crisis of child sexual abuse by members over six decades, and particularly the Church’s plans for child protection protocols and institutional change.

The commission heard that over the past 35 years, 4445 people made complaints of child sexual abuse in Catholic Church institutions, and seven per cent of priests were identified as alleged perpetrators.

National Professional Standards Office executive officer Fr Tim Brennan said New Horizon Day, convened in Sydney on March 9, aimed to assist “in the work of safeguarding children” and “to grow in an understanding of the complexities in which we work at this point in the life of our nation, and our Church”.

“It is a moment of enormous transition,” Fr Brennan said.

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GUAM
Pacific News Center

Written by Timothy Mchenry

Timothy Shiroma was just 9 years old when he says the former priest sexually assaulted him.

Guam – Another sex abuse lawsuit was filed against the Archdiocese of Agana, naming for a second time former priest Raymond Cepeda as the perpetrator.

The lawsuit was filed by Attorney David Lujan on behalf of Timothy Ryan Shiroma, 37, who says Cepeda sexually assaulted him when he was 9 years old. According to the complaint, it happened at the Agana Cathedral when Shiroma was inside the office to borrow the telephone. Shiroma says he struggled and attempted to fight off Cepeda but was unsuccessful.

Shiroma is the second alleged victim to accuse Cepeda of sexual abuse in the form of a lawsuit, the first was Edward Roberto Chan. Cepeda has since been laicized from the church as a result of the other sex abuse allegations filed against him.

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GUAM
The Guam Daily Post

Mindy Aguon |For The Guam Daily Post Mar 15, 2017

Lawsuit alleges sex abuse at Cathedral in late 80s

A former Catholic school student is the latest victim to come forward and file a lawsuit against the Archdiocese of Agana alleging sexual abuse at the Agana Cathedral. All of the 28 lawsuits filed thus far alleged incidents of abuse at parishes around the island in the 1960s and 1970s.

The new case filed by Timothy Ryan Shiroma, 37, alleges sexual abuse that occurred in the late 80s.

According to court documents, in 1988 Shiroma was attending Cathedral Grade School, next to the Dulce Nombre de Maria Cathedral Basilica. After school, Shiroma would pass the time playing football with other kids near the cathedral until his grandfather picked him up, or he walked over to his office nearby.

On one occasion, Shiroma stopped by a nearby hot dog stand before heading to his grandfather’s office. When he noticed that his grandfather’s car wasn’t in the office parking lot, Shiroma returned to the cathedral, looking for him there.

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ROME
Catholic News Agency

By Elise Harris

Rome, Italy, Mar 15, 2017 / 02:50 am (CNA/EWTN News).- When reports came out recently about Pope Francis’ decision to modify the penalties for several priests found guilty of abusing minors, the question arose as to whether the Pope was being too merciful in his decision.

Another concern was whether priests found guilty of abuse of minors would continue to be dismissed from the clerical state, or “laicized.”

To address these issues and clear up some of the grey area on this topic, CNA spoke with a canonist, Fr. Damián Astigueta, SJ.

A professor at the Pontifical Gregorian University with a specialty in criminal proceedings, Fr. Astigueta offered insights on what dismissal from the clerical state is, why the Church doesn’t always choose to dismiss from the clerical state priests who are guilty of abuse, what those condemned to a life of prayer and penance actually do, the role of bishops in abuse cases, the lessening of sentences, and more.

What is dismissal from the clerical state?

While frequently used in the media, the term “laicization” doesn’t really exist anymore among canonists, Fr. Astigueta said, and has been widely replaced by the term “loss of the clerical state.”

When a priest loses his clerical state, either because he requested it or because it was taken from him, he is “‘dismissed from the clerical state,’ because this is a juridical status,” Fr. Astigueta explained.

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AUSTRALIA
Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse

15 March, 2017

The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse has released a new research report that finds there are limited programs and services to help prevent child sexual abuse and those that do exist are not well coordinated.

The Royal Commission contracted researchers from the Institute of Child Protection Studies, Australian Catholic University, to examine the potential service needs of a range of target groups, with a focus on individuals concerned that they or someone they know may sexually harm or abuse a child.

The research report, Help-seeking needs and gaps for preventing child sexual abuse, finds there is no coordination of prevention programs for these target groups. It also suggests that the development of programs are often unregulated and their outcomes under-evaluated.

It also finds there is a lack of confidence in the community about how to recognise and respond to concerns about child sexual abuse.

Royal Commission CEO Philip Reed said according to the research, there is a lack of access to information, education and programs that focus on preventing child sexual abuse.

“The report also suggests that there is a gap in support for individuals who have problematic sexual thoughts about children but have not offended.”

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MINNESOTA
Canonical Consultation

03/12/2017

The following was sent to priests of the Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis from Archbishop Hebda:

From Archbishop Bernard A. Hebda

In January of 2014, before I arrived in the Archdiocese, Rev. Peter Laird petitioned Pope Francis for a dispensation from the obligations of the clerical state, commonly referred to as a “request for laicization.” I have recently been informed that the Holy Father has granted Peter’s request, dispensing him from all the obligations of the clerical state, including that of clerical celibacy. That means that Peter, who had withdrawn from public priestly ministry in 2013, will live as a lay person and will not be able to return to ordinary public ministry without permission of the Holy Father. I am frequently reminded that Peter served this Archdiocese generously from the date of his ordination, May 31, 1997, until his withdrawal from ministry, including as Vicar General and Moderator of the Curia. While his priestly ministry will be missed by many, I am hopeful that Pope Francis’ decision will allow Peter to serve out his baptismal calling in new ways.

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MINNESOTA
National Catholic Reporter

Brian Roewe | Mar. 14, 2017

A former vicar general of the St. Paul-Minneapolis archdiocese who resigned early in the region’s three-year-plus clergy sexual abuse scandal, has now left the priesthood altogether.

Peter Laird in January was granted by Pope Francis a “request for laicization,” or dispensation from the obligations of the clerical state, according to a March 10 statement from Twin Cities Archbishop Bernard Hebda. Laird had made the request in January 2014. This May would have marked his 20th anniversary of his ordination.

“While his priestly ministry will be missed by many, I am hopeful that Pope Francis’ decision will allow Peter to serve out his baptismal calling in new ways,” Hebda said.

Laird had not been in public priestly ministry since his withdrawal from it in late 2013. That October, Laird stepped down as vicar general and moderator of the curia in the wake of news reports that the archdiocese had mishandled allegations child sexual abuse by diocesan priests.

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INDIA
NDTV

KOCHI: The Kerala High Court on Tuesday directed a Catholic priest, two nuns and another woman, to surrender within five days to the police in connection with the rape of a 17-year-old school girl, allegedly by a Catholic parish vicar.

All the four accused are on the run after the police investigating team found that they were involved in helping prime accused Robin Vadakkanchery, a 49-year-old Catholic parish vicar near Kannur, who has been arrested for allegedly raping a 17-year-old school girl, who gave birth to a baby boy last month.

The court gave this direction to the four after hearing their anticipatory bail and also directed the police to ensure that they are given bail the same day by the trial court after the police questions them.

Mr Vadakkanchery was picked up last month when he was on his way to Cochin International Airport to catch a flight to Canada.

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ROME
The Tablet

14 March 2017 | by Christopher Lamb

Prefect of Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith claimed Collins claim was a ‘cliche’ he ‘couldn’t understand’

Marie Collins dismisses Cardinal Muller’s claim he didn’t resist work of child protection commission

A clerical sexual abuse survivor has launched a stinging rebuke to a cardinal who denied his department resisted the work of a papal child protection commission.

Marie Collins resigned from Pope Francis’ safeguarding body in frustration at what she described as resistance from inside the Vatican to their work, with the main opposition coming from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF).

In response Cardinal Gerhard Muller, the prefect of the congregation, hit back in an interview with Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera saying it was a “cliche” to talk of resistance in the Roman Curia, that he “couldn’t understand” the claim about his department not co-operating and that he had never met Collins.

But in a letter published this week by the National Catholic Reporter, Collins points out that she met Muller at a small dinner in Dublin where the commission was discussed. She also states in her letter that it took more than a year before the CDF started to engage with the commission.

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INDIA
The New Indian Express

KOCHI: The Kerala High Court on Tuesday directed four accused in a case related to the rape of a minor girl by a parish priest in Kannur to surrender before the Investigating officer within five days.

The court issued the order while disposing off the bail pleas filed by Fr Thomas Therakam, former Child welfare Council (CWC) Chairman of Wayanad District, Sister Betty Jose, former member of CWC Sister Ophilla, Superintendent- Holy Infant Mary’s Girls Home Adoption Center, Vythir, Wayanad and a midwife- Thankamma.

It is alleged that Fr. Robin Vadakkanchery, former vicar of the Neendunokki parish near Kottiyur under Mananthavadi Diocese of the Syro-Malabar Church had raped a Class XI student, a resident of Neendunooki in Kottiyoor. The victim delivered a baby on February 26, and the child was later sent to Holy Infant Mary’s Girls Home Adoption Center, Vythiri, Wayanad.

The investigating officers, who visited the hospital-where the child was delivered- and the orphanage found huge discrepancies. The police have registered cases under Protection of Child Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act and Juvenile Justice Act against six women including five nuns and a doctor.

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WISCONSIN
Wauwatosa Now

Chris Barlow , christopher.barlow@jrn.com March 14, 2017

The case against Robert Marsicek will continue after a Milwaukee County judge ruled that there is probable cause to move the proceedings forward.

The former St. Pius Church and School priest known as “Father Bob” is accused of three counts of felony first-degree sexual assault of a child. He appeared before a judge as part of a preliminary hearing at the Milwaukee County Courthouse March 6.

The church and school are located at 2520 Wauwatosa Ave.

Marsicek is now scheduled for an arraignment March 23. At this stage the defense has several options to consider, including settling on a plea agreement with the DA’s office, asking for another status like an adjournment, requesting a substitute judge, or asking for more time to discuss the case with Marsicek.

At the preliminary hearing, Milwaukee County Assistant District Attorney Kevin Shomin appeared for the state. LeBell and the defense team made a motion to dismiss, which was denied by the court when they found probable cause to continue. Shomin said the motion to dismiss is often done at this stage of any case.

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UNITED STATES/IRELAND
Irish Mirror

BY OLIVIA KELLEHER
14 MAR 2017

A nun based in the States has indicated that she was sold to a family in America after a deal was arranged at the Bessborough Mother and Baby Home in Cork.

Sr Brigid O’Mahony says she was bought by a Texan family in 1954 after an Irish priest facilitated her adoption from Ireland.

Sr O’Mahony, who is based in New York with the Missionaries of the Heart of Jesus, told the Irish Post as soon as she could think, her parents told her she was from a work home in Ireland.

“They explained to me that babies were sold to American parents and that I was lucky enough to be sold to them as many of the children in those homes never got out.

“I was adopted first, I came over just before I was two-years-old, and then they went back to Bessborough and got my brother Gerard who was five at the time.”

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ROME
Crux

Abuse survivor Marie Collins, who quit a papal anti-abuse commission citing resistance to reform from the Roman Curia, has written an open letter to the Vatican’s doctrine czar saying “No longer can dysfunction be kept hidden behind institutional closed doors.”

In an open letter to the Vatican’s top doctrinal official, clerical abuse survivor Marie Collins, who recently resigned from the pope’s anti-abuse commission citing frustrations over resistance to reform within the Roman Curia, warns against a “denial and obfuscation” and insists that key reform moves recommended by the commission have been disregarded.

The open letter from Collins to German Cardinal Gerhard Müller, Prefect of the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, was published Tuesday by the National Catholic Reporter.

After Collins announced her resignation from the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors on March 1, Müller spoke to the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera about her claims that his congregation was part of the Curial resistance to the commission’s work. Collins’ letter was styled as a response to comments Müller made in that interview.

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ROME
Katholisch

[Child protection: Collins wants clarifications from Müller.]

Von Widerständen in der Kurie gegen die Missbrauchsaufklärung könne nicht die Rede sein, sagte Kardinal Gerhard Ludwig Müller. Das irische Opfer Marie Collins hat einige Fragen zu dieser Aussage.

Missbrauch | Rom – 14.03.2017

Das irische Missbrauchsopfer Marie Collins hat Kurienkardinal Gerhard Ludwig Müller zur Klärung einiger Fragen zum Kinderschutz im Vatikan aufgefordert. In einem Offenen Brief, den der “National Catholic Reporter” (Dienstag) veröffentlichte, macht das frühere Mitglied der päpstlichen Kinderschutzkommission den deutschen Kardinal auf mögliche Unstimmigkeiten in seinen Aussagen aufmerksam. Sie halte es für nötig, auf diese Weise zu einem Interview Müllers in der italienischen Zeitung “Corriere della Sera” (5. März) Stellung zu nehmen. Müller ist Präfekt der Glaubenskongregation, die im Vatikan für die Ahndung sexuellen Missbrauchs durch Priester zuständig ist.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Badische Zeitung

[Why is the Catholic Church so hard in dealing with sexual abuse in its ranks? The difficulties at the beginning of March were finally apparent: The Irishwoman Marie Collins left the papal child protection commission in protest. This is explosive because she was thirteen-year-old abused by a cleric and was the last victim in the commission.]

In Freiburg haben Theologen und Psychologen den Umgang der katholischen Kirche mit sexuellem Missbrauch diskutiert.

Warum tut sich die katholische Kirche so schwer im Umgang mit sexuellem Missbrauch in ihren Reihen? Zuletzt offenkundig wurden die Schwierigkeiten Anfang März: Die Irin Marie Collins verließ aus Protest die päpstliche Kinderschutzkommission. Das ist brisant, weil sie selbst als Dreizehnjährige von einem Kleriker missbraucht worden war und als letzte Opfervertreterin in der Kommission saß.

Das Fass zum Überlaufen gebracht habe wohl der Entschluss der Glaubenskongregation, Briefe von Missbrauchsopfern nicht zu beantworten, vermutet Hans Zollner von der Päpstlichen Universität Gregoriana in Rom. Er war einer der drei Teilnehmer einer Podiumsdiskussion an der Universität Freiburg, die sich mit sexueller Gewalt gegen Minderjährige in der katholischen Kirche beschäftigte.

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VATICAN CITY
Marie Collins

Published 14th March 2017 – National Catholic Reporter

Dear Cardinal Muller,

I read with interest the answers you gave to Corriere della Sera March 5 in reply to items in my statement following my resignation from the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors. There are some things you say in this interview to which I feel I need to respond.

You state you “cannot understand the talk of lack of cooperation” between the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) and the pontifical commission.

Maybe I can help with an example. In 2015, invitations went to your Congregation from some of the commission’s working groups asking that a representative attend their upcoming meetings in Rome to discuss issues of mutual interest.

The invitations were declined and then the members were informed by the Commission Secretary, Msgr. Robert Oliver, that face-to-face meetings would not be possible and any communication with dicasteries must be done in writing.

Things changed eventually, but this took over a year. It was September 2016 before a representative of the CDF was made available and attended Commission working group meetings. The discussions which ensued were very helpful, hopefully for your Congregation as well as the Commission.

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VATICAN CITY
Associated Press

BY NICOLE WINFIELD
ASSOCIATED PRESS

VATICAN CITY (AP) — The clash between a former member of Pope Francis’ sex abuse advisory commission and the Vatican heated up Tuesday, as prominent Irish abuse survivor Marie Collins challenged a top Vatican cardinal over his claims that his office had cooperated with the commission.

In an open letter, Collins pressed her case that the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith had ignored or scuttled commission proposals to protect children and care for abuse victims that had been approved by the pope.

Collins pointedly corrected Cardinal Gerhard Mueller’s assertion that one of the congregation’s staffers was a member of the board, when in fact he had stopped participating in 2015. And she noted that the commission’s 2015 invitation to have another congregation official attend its meetings was flat-out rejected, though someone eventually attended a session last year.

Collins resigned from the commission March 1 citing the “unacceptable” lack of cooperation from Mueller’s office, which processes canonical cases against pedophile priests. Her departure left the commission without any abuse survivors and dealt another blow to Francis’ record on combatting sex abuse.

In the days after Collins’ departure, Mueller responded to her criticisms by telling Italy’s Corriere della Sera newspaper that it was time to do away with what he called the “cliche” that the Vatican bureaucracy was resisting Francis’ initiatives.

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IRELAND
KCLR

A walk to remember the mothers and babies who are buried beside St Columba’s Hospital in Thomastown has been organised for this Mothers’ Day.

St Columba’s was formerly a county home and mother and baby facility and has been included in the representative sample being investigated by the Commission into Mother and Baby Homes.

Many of those who died there – especially babies and infants – were buried in what’s known as the Shankyard.

Gillian Grattan is one of the organisers of the walk that’ll take place on Sunday the 26th of March.

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IRELAND
The Southern Star

Monday, 13th March, 2017

Story by Jackie Keogh

A WEST Cork priest was applauded for a sermon he gave on Sunday, castigating the church for its failure to safeguard the innocent, follwing the Tuam babies revelations.

Fr Ger Galvin’s sermon at the Sacred Heart Church in Durrus resonated with parishioners who were horrified by the revelations that an estimated 796 bodies were discarded in a sewerage system in Tuam.

Fr Galvin told The Southern Star: ‘It began with Pope Francis asking for a day of prayer on Friday, March 3rd, for victims of child sexual abuse within the Catholic Church. I decided to move it to Sunday so that the whole community would have an opportunity to remember and pray for victims, their families, and the families of the perpetrators.’

However, on Friday, the initial findings of the Tuam Mother and Baby Home Commission were made known and Fr Galvin said he was ‘sickened’ by what he heard. And his sermon on Sunday reflected that. When he was ordained in 1979, Fr Galvin said: ‘I assumed that I was becoming a priest in an institution that would be guided always by the words and the life of Jesus, but I have since discovered that that was a rose-tinted illusion.’

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IRELAND
Irish Times

Fintan O’Toole

In that most searing exploration of the Irish psyche, Eugene O’Neill’s Long Day’s Journey Into Night, James Tyrone urges his ghostlike wife: “Mary! For God’s sake, forget the past!”

Mary Tyrone, “with strange objective calm”, replies: “Why? How can I? The past is the present, isn’t it? It’s the future, too.”

In Ireland, we don’t live in the past – but the past lives in us.

The abusive relationship between church, State and society may, like the dead babies that have haunted us in recent weeks, be buried beneath the surface of our postmodern globalised reality.
But its consequences still lurk in our bloodstream and until we understand them, the past will be our present and our future too.

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IRELAND
IrishCentral

Cahir O’Doherty @randomirish March 14, 2017

You might not expect to hear it from this columnist, but I don’t solely blame the religious orders for what happened at the Tuam mother and baby home in Co. Galway.

Some commentators have called the Tuam baby story a tragedy. It was not.

A ship that sinks after hitting a looming iceberg is a tragedy. An institution that buries infants in an underground “sewage treatment works” is following a policy.

Did you know that when spirited young women fled these ghastly institutions – the mother and baby homes, the Magdalene laundries – they were usually picked up by the Irish police force and returned to them like escaped convicts?

It’s because we so easily conceptualized unwed mothers as criminals then. We thought them people of low character that society should be shielded from.

That’s how they stopped being our daughters and sisters and cousins and started being a dangerous moral contagion. Irish parents often dropped them off at the gates themselves.

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IRELAND
Irish Examiner

Tuesday, March 14, 2017

The Government, seeking redress for the Magdalene women, found a religious community unwilling to contribute, writes Conall Ó Fátharta.

The McAleese report into Magdalene laundries was published in early 2013. A State apology by Taoiseach Enda Kenny to the women who worked for no pay in these institutions quickly followed.

Within days of the publication of the report, behind the scenes, the government was writing to the four religious orders that ran the laundries requesting that they contribute money to a redress fund.

What it found was a religious community absolutely unwilling to make any form of financial contribution to the women who went through its laundry doors and who worked for no pay.

In the same month as the apology, the private secretary to the then justice minister Alan Shatter wrote to the orders — the Sisters of Mercy, Sisters of Our Lady of Charity of Refuge, the Good Shepherd Sisters, and the Sisters of Charity — asking them to make “an appropriate contribution” to the redress scheme.

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IRELAND
Irish Examiner

Tuesday, March 14, 2017

By Conall Ó Fátharta
Irish Examiner Reporter

A religious order that ran two Magdalene Laundries told the Government that its decision not to contribute any money to the redress scheme for survivors was based on the findings of the McAleese Report.

It comes as Taoiseach Enda Kenny urged the Catholic Church to “measure up” and “get on with it” in relation to compensation it owes to abuse survivors.

A report from the Comptroller and Auditor General showed 18 religious orders have contributed to just 13% of the €1.5bn fund for victims of institutional abuse.

To date, the four orders that ran Magdalene Laundries — the Sisters of Mercy, Sisters of Our Lady of Charity of Refuge, the Good Shepherd Sisters, and the Sisters of Charity — have refused to contribute any money to the redress scheme set up in 2013 to compensate women.

The McAleese committee had no remit to investigate allegations of torture or other criminal offences that occurred in the laundries.

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AUSTRALIA
Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse

14 March, 2017

The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse has released a new research report examining carer recruitment, training and support policies and processes in place across Australia that aim to enhance the safety of children in out-of-home care and prevent sexual abuse.

The report, A national comparison of carer screening, assessment, selection and training and support in foster care, kinship and residential care, was commissioned by the Royal Commission and prepared by Inca Consulting.

Children in out-of-home care, which includes foster care, kinship care and residential care settings, are particularly vulnerable to child sexual abuse due to a range of factors. These include previous sexual harm and other victimisation, social or economic deprivation, family trauma and dislocation from family.

The research found that significant attention is paid to the issue of child sexual abuse in out-of-home care.

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UNITED KINGDOM
The Northern Echo

Julia Breen, Deputy Chief Reporter (Tees Valley) / @juliabreenEcho

A NORTH-East man who was honoured earlier this year for his fight against sex abuse risks within the church has spoken of his “grave concerns” about evidence given to an official inquiry.

Steve Rose, from Hartlepool, who was once a member of the Jehovah’s Witnesses but has now been “shunned” after he raised concerns, said elders had refused to reform the “two witness rule” which they required to throw a member out of the church.

The Royal Commission in Australia is looking into institutional child abuse and requested the governing body of Jehovah’s witnesses to give evidence – but they declined.

Mr Rose said: “The elders wouldn’t budge on the two-witness rule, a 2,000 year rule in the Bible where you need two witnesses to a wrongdoing.

“They also won’t accept women to make a decision at a hearing on child abuse. This can be intimidating for the child or even another woman who has to go in front of three elders in a private room.”

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UNITED STATES
Huffington Post

Celia Wexler, Contributor
Journalist, feminist and nonfiction author, celiawexler.com

03/13/2017

Today marks the fourth anniversary of Pope Francis’s election as pope. It is clear that the Pope has changed the tone of the church, stressing social justice over adherence to strict sexual conduct norms. He’s also spoken out against clerics who are full of themselves, and made protecting our environment the theme of an encyclical – he’s only written two.

I am willing to give the Pope a bit of a pass on his blind spot about women, and his refusal to understand the injustice of not ordaining women to the priesthood. I do not excuse it, but I realize that an 80-year-old prelate from Argentina may find it difficult to really “get” women’s issues.

It certainly riles me when he says that he’s for feminism, as long as it does not “negate motherhood” and “demand uniformity,” whatever that means. I don’t like the fact that the Vatican has not given up on complementarity – the notion that gender determines our character and our mission in life, with women the designated nurturers and dolers-out of empathy and kindness.

But some of the Pope’s actions truly are unforgivable. The Pope has demonstrated some serious weaknesses, particularly when it comes to policing priest pedophiles.

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KENTUCKY
The Courier-Journal

Deborah Yetter , @d_yetter March 13, 2017

Lori Brent knew something was seriously wrong with her infant son from his piercing wail.

“His cry was totally different,” she said. “It was a cry I’d never heard before.”

But Brent was stunned when emergency room doctors told her that the 4-month-old had a broken arm, a broken leg and a fracture from a previous injury. In what she called “a mother’s worst nightmare,” she learned a babysitter was suspected of inflicting the injuries.

Now, eight years later, the Henry County mother is speaking out for Senate Bill 236, a far-reaching measure to give parents, school systems and others who run youth programs access to confidential information about whether someone has committed child abuse or neglect, as found by state social service officials.

Besides allowing parents access to such information — which doesn’t show up on a background check — the bill would require public schools, for the first time, to check when people seek employment and deny a job to anyone listed on the confidential registry as having committed child abuse or neglect.

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IRELAND
Irish Examiner

Tuesday, March 14, 2017

Michael Clifford

Each new revelation in the succession of scandals to envelope the Catholic Church cast the transgressions of Bishop Casey in an ever more benighn light, writes Michael Clifford

THE rain was bucketing down for much of the morning, but nobody really minded, least of all the man who was up there on the stage in front of a crowd heading for 300,000.

The occasion was Pope John Paul’s appearance at Ballybrit Racecourse in Galway, as part of his Irish visit. It was September 29, 1979, and Eamonn Casey was in his element.

He had been selected as the man to be the warm-up act for Pope John Paul II.

The pope was at the height of his popularity, but so too was the Kerryman who could credibly claim to be a link between the hierarchy and a young flock that was straying in droves from the fold.

Casey was the human face of the Irish hierarchy of the day, somebody who took his pastoral duty seriously, but came across as personable and down-to-earth, capable of enjoying life beyond his calling.

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IRELAND
Irish Independent

Sarah MacDonald
March 14 2017

A 2006 article in the ‘Chicago Tribune’, titled ‘How Catholicism Fell From Grace in Ireland’, points to the Bishop Eamonn Casey scandal as the beginning of the end for the Catholic Church in Ireland.

The revelation in May 1992 that one of the hierarchy’s most high-profile prelates had fathered a son following an affair with an American woman when he was Bishop of Kerry in the 1970s was, up to that point, the worst scandal to hit the Irish Church. It shocked the Irish faithful and resulted in a storm of international media headlines.

When Annie Murphy went public, telling her story to newspapers and famously appearing on the ‘Late Late Show’ with Gay Byrne, there was deep resentment towards her among Catholics. The frosty reception she received from Mr Byrne mirrored the initial attitude of many, who refused to believe that the story was true – until Bishop Casey resigned and fled the country. She was then resented for her role in the downfall of a popular bishop.

Bishop Casey was known within clerical circles to be a disciplinarian where his young priests were concerned. So the revelation that he had been preaching one thing and doing another was the cause of his long 14-year exile – even when worse clerical crimes of child sexual abuse by others were revealed subsequently.

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AUSTRALIA
news.com.au

Rohan Smith
news.com.au
@ro_smith

CHILD sexual assault is a secret crime carried out by men and women who do everything they can to avoid detection.

Which is why one passage in the Bible is a Get Out of Jail Free card for offenders, particularly when adhered to so strictly by those within religious organisations.

Timothy 5:19: demands followers “do not entertain an accusation against an elder unless it is brought by two or three witnesses”.

It’s a message echoed in Matthew 18:16: that reads, among other things, “ … at the mouth of two or three witnesses every matter may be established”.

The two passages became the focus this week of a royal commission into institutional child sexual abuse within the Jehovah’s Witness church in Australia, of which there are 65,000 followers.

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IRELAND
Irish Examiner

Tuesday, March 14, 2017

TP O’Mahony

The revelations of May 1992 robbed the country of a bishop with energy and vision, writes TP O’Mahony.

Ireland awoke in May 1992 to shocking news — Eamonn Casey, the popular Bishop of Galway, had fathered a child with an American woman, Annie Murphy, and had fled the country hours before the story of their affair broke.

The affair, which began when the 25-year-old New Yorker came to Ireland in 1974 to stay with Casey, who was her father’s distant cousin, was kept secret for 18 years.

Annie Murphy was seeking solace in this country after the break-up of an unhappy marriage, and her father arranged for her to stay with Casey, who was Bishop of Kerry at the time.

She recalled that when he met her at Shannon, after her flight from New York, he had a “puzzled look”.

“Maybe he thought, as a result of my father’s letter, he would be meeting someone gaunt and haggard. Instead, there was this relaxed, slim, young lady of 110 pounds in suede high heels and a flattering mauve dress, with small polka dots.”

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