ABUSE TRACKER

INDIA
Independent (UK)

Muneeza Naqvi

A Roman Catholic diocese in southern India is considering using security cameras and other measures to curb sexual abuse by priests after a vicar was arrested on charges of raping a teenage girl, a spokesman said Thursday.

The bishop of the Mananthavady Diocese has also removed the Reverend Robin Vadakkancheril from his job as vicar of St. Sebastian church in Kottiyoor and from conducting any priestly functions, said the Reverend Nobel Parackal, a media officer for the diocese in Kerala state.

Vadakkancheril was arrested late last month after a 17-year-old girl from his parish gave birth to a baby. Investigating officer Sunil Kumar said police are searching for at least five nuns who allegedly helped the priest cover up the rape and subsequent pregnancy.

Kumar said the girl, after initially refusing to name the father of the baby, said the priest had raped her in the place where the church provided computer lessons.

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VATICAN CITY
Catholic News Service

By Carol Glatz Catholic News Service
3.9.2017

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — When a child-protection advocate resigned from a papal advisory board in early March, she did so because of growing frustration with persistent resistance and a “toxic” sense of superiority from some in the Roman Curia.

A number of church leaders on the front lines promoting child protection policies have also long noted the biggest challenge they face is a cultural one — an aversion to the unknown, playing it safe rather than speaking up, and denial and defensiveness to protect an institution over a possible victim.

Despite four years of Pope Francis’ calls to break down walls erected out of fear and ivory towers built on arrogance, Marie Collins said a kind of enclave mentality could still be found in some corners of the Curia.

While there are many people who are “open and more willing to listen and learn,” the Curia and the Vatican tend to be “very much a closed-in system where people are talking to others with the same views and not being challenged at all, and so things appear normal that are not actually normal,” said Collins, an Irish survivor of clerical sex abuse, who had served on the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors since its inception in 2014.

So when anything from the outside challenges the way things have traditionally been done, “it is almost an instinct to resist it, and that is what’s so difficult,” she told Catholic News Service after her resignation.

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GUAM
The Guam Daily Post

Mindy Aguon | For The Guam Daily Post

Michael Chargualaf has held a secret for 41 years. A secret, he said, that changed the trajectory of his life forever, leading him to estranged relationships and an angry past.

When he was 13 years old, Chargualaf volunteered to become an altar boy at the San Isidro Church in Malojloj. His grandmother, Ignacia, had raised Michael and encouraged him to grow his Catholic faith by serving as an altar boy and attending Confraternity of Christian Doctrine (CCD) classes at the parish.

The first weekend he went to serve for Father Louis Brouillard, Chargualaf recalled sleeping at the back of the parish the night before to ensure he wouldn’t be late to help prepare for 6 a.m. Sunday Mass.

Chargualaf said he knocked on the rectory door and was surprised to see Father Brouillard open the door wearing a white bathrobe that hung open, showing no clothing underneath. He said Brouillard told him to come inside and find a seat. But with books and papers everywhere, Chargualaf said he was directed to the bedroom, where he sat at the foot of the bed.

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IRELAND
Leinster Express

PORTLAOISE’S PARISH PRIEST SAYS THE CHURCH IS ‘ASHAMED’ OF WHAT HAS EMERGED IN TUAM

By Conor Ganly 9 Mar 2017

A Catholic Bishop and Disocesan admistrator who oversee the majority of Laois parishes have signed up to a group statement of Irish Bishops in response to the shocking findings in Tuam and emerging revelations at other Mother and Baby homes run by the church.

While Portlaoise’s Parish priest has told parishioners the church is “ashamed” of what has emerged in Tuam, the Bishop of Kildare & Leighin Denis Nulty deferred to a joint statement from the Irish Bishops conference. Monsignor Michael Ryan, as Diocesan Administrator for Ossory is also co-signature of the statement.

In it the Bishops say the “appalling story of life, death and adoptions related to Mother and Baby Homes has shocked everyone in Ireland and beyond these shores”. They said that ‘sadly’, it is a reminder of a time when unmarried mothers were frequently judged and rejected.

“We remember in prayer the deceased who suffered so much and their loved ones who continue to experience emotional and psychological hurt,” said the statement.

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IRELAND
Irish Times

Conor Gallagher

A former priest has been convicted of orally raping a child in his parish 10 years ago.

The 63-year-old is already serving a lengthy sentence for sexually abusing a different child six years ago.

A Central Criminal Court jury on Thursday convicted him of six counts of oral rape, defilement and sexual assault in his home between 2005 and 2006.

The victim was aged between 10 and 11 at the time. The man had denied the charges.

The trial heard the priest befriended the boy before starting to invade his personal space and make sexual comments.

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IRELAND
Irish Independent

Conor Gallagher
March 9 2017

A former priest has been convicted of raping a child in his parish ten years ago.

The 63-year-old is already serving a lengthy sentence for sexually abusing a different child six years ago.

On Thursday, a Central Criminal Court jury convicted him of six counts of oral rape, defilement and sexual assault in his home between 2005 and 2006. The victim was aged between 10 and eleven at the time. The man had denied the charges.

The trial heard the priest befriended the boy before starting to invade his personal space and make sexual comments.

This progressed to several incidents of sexual abuse. At one stage the priest told the child to go home and “Google gay porn.” The boy’s father noticed this in the family computer’s internet search history and confronted the child.

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ITALY
USA Today

Josephine McKenna, Religion News Service
March 9, 2017

ROME (RNS) — Lurid accusations of priests involved in sex orgies, porn videos and prostitution have emerged from several parishes in Italy recently, sending shock waves all the way to the Vatican and challenging the high standards Pope Francis demands of clergy.

In the southern city of Naples, for example, a priest was recently suspended from the parish of Santa Maria degli Angeli over claims he held gay orgies and used Internet sites to recruit potential partners whom he paid for sex.

The allegations concerning the Rev. Mario D’Orlando were brought to the attention of the diocese when an anonymous letter was sent to a Naples bishop. D’Orlando denied the charges when he was summoned by the city’s archbishop, Cardinal Crescenzio Sepe, but is now facing a formal inquiry conducted by local church officials.

In the northern city of Padua, a 48-year-old priest, the Rev. Andrea Contin, is facing defrocking as well as judicial proceedings amid accusations he had up to 30 lovers, some of whom he took to a swingers’ resort in France.

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UNITED STATES
Catholic League

Bill Donohue comments on a protest of Irish nuns on March 10:

The lunacy behind the Tuam “mass grave” story continues to mount. On March 10, outside the Bon Secours Hospital in Renmore, demonstrators will assemble to protest the alleged mistreatment of children by this order of nuns in the first half of the twentieth century.

People Before Profit is organizing this event. It is a Marxist-inspired band of pro-totalitarian, pro-abortion, and anti-Catholic fanatics. Unlike commentators such as Niall O’Dowd of Irish Central, who routinely make unsubstantiated accusations, I cite data. So here it is.

Marxist-Inspired Band of Totalitarians

In Ireland’s legislative elections of 2011 and 2016, one of the registered parties was the “Anti-Austerity Alliance—People Before Profit (AAA-PBP)” party. Its ideology is identified as “Trotskyism-Socialism.”

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UNITED STATES
IrishCentral

Niall O’Dowd @niallodowd March 09, 2017

Now that gay groups are accepted in the parade Donohue is a shadow of his former self.

Instead, these days Bill is railing against the Irish media and politicians of all backgrounds. That’s because Irish authorities are calling out the Catholic Church in Ireland on its disgraceful record of abuse for out-of-wedlock children.

Those children who died in massive numbers in Catholic homes (and one Protestant one too, it must be stated) were starved, used as drug guinea pigs, sold to America, and many little bodies were sold for dissection after premature death.

Nothing to see there, says Donohue, who must have worn horse-sized blinkers not to be moved by the horrific treatment of generations of young, and incredibly vulnerable, children.

The Irish mother and baby controversy may be Bill’s last chance at the headlines he so deeply covets. He calls the stories ‘fake news,’ even when the AP, Irish Prime Minister Enda Kenny and the independent Commission of Inquiry all found otherwise.

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ITALIA
Rete L’Abuso

[The Supreme Court confirmed the 5 years and 3 months prison sentence for Fr Jesus Vasquez.]

Pronuncia Cassazione, confermati i 5 anni e 3 mesi stabiliti in appello per don Jesus Vasquez

Diventa definitiva, dopo la pronuncia della Cassazione sull’inammissibilità del ricorso della difesa, la condanna a 5 anni e 3 mesi stabilita dalla Corte di appello per don Jesus Vasquez (avvocato Marcello D’Auria), ex parroco di San Nicola Manfredi, accusato di abusi sessuali ai danni di due minori. Un’accusa emersa da un’indagine avviata dalla Squadra mobile dopo le querele presentate dai genitori dei ragazzi, parti civili con gli avvocati Angelo Leone e Sergio Rando.

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ITALIA
Rete L’Abuso

[Pescara: The trial of a priest accused of child abuse has been postponed.]

Pescara: prete accusato di violenza su minore, rinviato il processo. Non ha avuto inizio il processo a carico di don Vito Canto’, l’ex parroco di Spoltore rinviato a giudizio con l’accusa di abusi sessuali a seguito dei rapporti che avrebbe avuto negli ultimi anni con un ragazzino di 15 anni.

Oggi era prevista la prima udienza davanti al Tribunale collegiale di Pescara, presieduto dal giudice Maria Michela Di Fine, ma il processo e’ stato rinviato al prossimo 8 giugno, in attesa del pronunciamento della Cassazione, previsto per il 10 aprile, sulla questione del “ne bis in idem” sollevata dal difensore del prete, l’avvocato Giuliano Milia.

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SCHWEIZ
Neue Zurcher Zeitung

[A new report from the Infosekta office in Zurich deals with sexual abuse of children in Jehovah’s Witnesses. The conclusion is that most cases do not become public. The reason for this is the isolated system of the religious community, as well as the so-called two-witness rule, whereby a second person must have been aware of the deed in addition to the victim. Furthermore, the internal jurisdiction of the Jehovah’s Witnesses deterred their victims.]

Ein neuer Bericht der Fachstelle Infosekta in Zürich befasst sich mit sexuellem Missbrauch an Kindern bei den Zeugen Jehovas. Das Fazit lautet, dass die meisten Fälle nicht publik werden. Gründe dafür sind das abgeschottete System der Religionsgemeinschaft sowie die eigene sogenannte Zwei-Zeugen-Regel, wonach neben dem Opfer eine zweite Person die Tat mitbekommen haben muss. Weiter schrecke die interne Gerichtsbarkeit der Zeugen Jehovas Betroffene ab, ihre Erlebnisse bekanntzumachen.

Das System der Gemeinschaft funktioniert weltweit gleich. Ein Komitee aus Ältesten – so werden die Geistlichen bezeichnet, welche die Versammlungen leiten – urteilt über Vergehen. Laut Betroffenen, Therapeuten und Experten, mit denen die «NZZ am Sonntag» gesprochen hat, müssen Opfer vor dem Gremium detailliert schildern, was ihnen widerfuhr (siehe Infobox). Betroffen sind in der Regel Mädchen, die Täter Männer, oft mächtig und angesehen in der Gruppe. Anzeigen bei der Polizei versuche die Gemeinschaft möglichst zu verhindern, sagen Insider. Teilweise würden Vorsitzende der Zeugen Jehovas in der jeweiligen Landeszentrale einbezogen, um aus der Ferne über Fälle zu entscheiden.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Frankfurter Allgemeine

[Diocese: No evidence of abuse. A month ago allegations against a member of the Catholic Church shook the diocese of Limburg. There are no indications of potential abuse victims in the diocese.]

Einen Monat nach Bekanntwerden von Kinderporno-Vorwürfen gegen einen Mitarbeiter hat das Bistum Limburg nach eigenen Angaben keine Hinweise auf mögliche Missbrauchsopfer in der Diözese. Es habe sich bislang auch niemand mit entsprechenden Vorwürfen gemeldet, sagte ein Bistumssprecher am Dienstag.

Der Mitarbeiter wird beschuldigt, Kinderpornografie besessen zu haben. Der Mann wurde vom Dienst freigestellt. In dem Fall arbeite man weiterhin mit der Staatsanwaltschaft zusammen, sagte der Sprecher.

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ROM
Katholisch

[Zollner: Of course there is resistance. Marie Collins, the representative of the victims, has resigned from the Pontifical Child Protection Commission. How does it go from here? Catholic.de has spoken with Jesuit Hans Zollner.]

Bei ihrer Einsetzung 2014 gehörten der päpstlichen Kinderschutzkommission zwei Opfervertreter an: der Brite Peter Saunders und die Irin Marie Collins. Bereits im Februar 2016 hatte Saunders eine “Auszeit” angekündigt, weil er unzufrieden war. Vor einer Woche ist nun auch Collins zurückgetreten. Ihre Begründung: “hartnäckiger Widerstand” in der Kurie. Der Jesuit Hans Zollner gehört der Kommission ebenfalls an. Mit ihm hat katholisch.de über Collins’ Rücktritt, die Kompetenzen des Gremiums und das erschreckende Thema Missbrauch gesprochen.

Frage: Pater Zollner, die Kinderschutzkommission sollte auch den Opfern des Missbrauchs eine Stimme geben. Mit dem Rücktritt von Marie Collins gehört nun aber kein Betroffener mehr dem Gremium an. Ist die Kommission damit gescheitert?

Zollner: Natürlich sind der Schock und die Enttäuschung über den Rücktritt von Marie groß. Ich glaube aber, dass nicht einmal sie selbst von einem Scheitern der Kommission sprechen würde. Sie hat in all ihren Interviews seit dem Rücktritt betont, dass sie eine positive Bilanz der Arbeit der Kommission zieht. Marie wird auch weiterhin mit der Kommission sowie dem Kinderschutzzentrum CCP der Universität Gregoriana zusammenarbeiten. Ich selbst würde ebenfalls nicht von einem Scheitern sprechen. In nicht einmal drei Jahren haben wir einiges bewegt, das jetzt leider durch Maries bedauernswerten Rücktritt nicht gewürdigt wird.

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SCHWEIZ
Neue Zurcher Zeitung

[The events surrounding the new book by Daniel Pittet on misuse in Catholic institutions have attracted attention all over Switzerland (NZZ 25. 2. 17). Particularly the behavior of leading persons in the bishop’s office of the diocese has caused the public to doubt church leadership.]

Hanspeter Schmitt

Die Vorgänge um das neue Buch von Daniel Pittet über seinen in katholischen Einrichtungen erlittenen Missbrauch haben schweizweit Aufsehen erregt (NZZ 25. 2. 17). Besonders das Verhalten führender Personen in der Churer Bistumsspitze frappiert die Öffentlichkeit und lässt das Vertrauen in deren Leitungskompetenz in weiten Teilen der Kirche zusehends schwinden.

Dabei hatten die Schweizer Bischofskonferenz, der zuständige Bischof Morerod und Papst Franziskus in seinem Vorwort das Erscheinen dieses erschütternden wie umsichtigen Erfahrungsberichts vor drei Wochen beispielgebend flankiert: Sichtlich bewegt wurden die Offenheit und der Mut Pittets begrüsst, weiterführende unabhängige Aufklärung und Genugtuung zugesichert und andere mögliche Opfer zu ähnlichen, für sie angemessenen Prozessen ermutigt. Morerod engagierte sich auch persönlich, indem er Pittet mehrmals traf und ihn bei der Begegnung mit seinem damaligen Peiniger begleitete.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Katholisch

[The abuse scandal in the Catholic Church is also slowly becoming the subject of theology. The academic discipline had to be asked whether theological concepts and ideas contributed to the conditions under which clerics could abuse minors and cover up the deeds, says the Freiburgian fundamentalist theologian Magnus Striet.]

Der Missbrauchsskandal in der katholischen Kirche wird langsam auch Gegenstand der Theologie. Die akademische Disziplin müsse sich befragen lassen, ob theologische Konzepte und Vorstellungen zu Bedingungen beigetragen haben, unter denen Kleriker Minderjährige missbrauchen und die Taten vertuschen konnten, sagt der Freiburger Fundamentaltheologe Magnus Striet. An der Universität Freiburg tagen am Donnerstag und Freitag erstmals Dogmatiker, Moraltheologen, Historiker, Psychiater und Kriminologen zu dem Thema. Striet berichtet im Interview über das langsame Umdenken in der Theologie.

Frage: Prof. Striet, an der Uni Freiburg stellt eine Tagung Anfragen an die Theologie angesichts von sexuellem Missbrauch gegen Minderjährige in der Kirche. Das Thema ist relativ neu auf der Agenda der Theologie. Wie kam es zur der Veranstaltung?

Striet: Wir haben schon lange Kontakt zu dem Jesuiten Hans Zollner, der für den Vatikan weltweit für Prävention zuständig ist, und besuchen ihn regelmäßig mit Studierenden, damit er uns von seiner Arbeit berichtet. Schon seit langer Zeit wird von ihm darauf hingewiesen, dass die Theologie sich des Themas Missbrauch zu wenig annimmt.

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IRELAND
The Journal

FIANNA FÁIL LEADER Micheál Martin said today he believes that property interests still retained by the Catholic Church in hospitals should be handed over to the State.

In an interview with Sean O’Rourke on RTÉ Radio 1 today, he also said that he believes all mother-and-baby homes should be investigated, describing what happened to people such as survivor PJ Haverty, who was on the show before him, as “unchristian cruelty”.

He said that what occurred: “Speaks to a very dark side of our history where we had an invasive church governing, if you like, families and the whole ethos and the entire practice and life of people like that.”

Martin said that the situation also reveals the “evils of institutionalisation”.

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NEW MEXICO
Gallup Independent

Published in the Gallup Independent, Gallup, N.M., Feb. 22, 2017

By Elizabeth Hardin-Burrola
Independent correspondent
religion@gallupindependent.com

GALLUP – After postponing six healing services for clergy sex abuse survivors in recent weeks, Bishop James S. Wall will offer two services this week at Catholic parishes in Grants and Winslow, Arizona.

The services, designed to atone for clergy sexual abuse of minors, are a requirement of the nonmonetary provisions of the Diocese of Gallup’s Chapter 11 plan of reorganization. As part of the provisions, Wall agreed to visit every Catholic school or parish where a credibly accused abuser was either accused of abuse or assigned to ministry.

Wall’s first healing service this week will be at St. Teresa of Avila Church in Grants at 6 p.m. Thursday. According to the Gallup Diocese, the Rev. Conran Runnebaum, OFM, was the only Catholic priest assigned to St. Teresa’s who has been credibly accused of sexually abusing a minor. The Franciscan friar was assigned to St. Teresa’s from 1955 to 1958.

However, at least two priests accused of sexual misconduct involving an adult victim have been assigned to St. Teresa.

On Friday, Wall will offer a healing service in Winslow, a town with two Catholic churches whose parishioners have been subjected to at least 15 known pedophile clerics. The Winslow service will be at Madre de Dios Parish at 7 p.m. Friday.

According to the Diocese of Gallup, the following credibly accused priests were assigned to Madre de Dios, a mostly Hispanic parish on Winslow’s south side:

• John Degnan (1961).
• John T. Sullivan (1961-62).
• Robert J. Kirsch (1963-64).
• Samuel Wilson (1964-65).
• Clement A. Hageman (1965-75).
• Douglas McNeill (1969-70).
• Raul Sanchez (1975-76).
• John Boland (1981-83).

At the conclusion of both healing services, Wall will be available to meet privately with any abuse survivors and their family members who would like to speak with him.

Postponed services

When diocesan officials initially released the healing services schedule, the Gallup bishop was slated to hold 36 services across the diocese over a 15-month period, with the first service being held at Sacred Heart Cathedral Nov. 19. Since then, however, Wall has postponed six services.

Suzanne Hammons, spokeswoman for the diocese, said Wall postponed five services in January because he had a “mild medical condition” that required treatment in Phoenix. A sixth service, originally scheduled for Saturday in St. Johns, Arizona, has been postponed because of a scheduling conflict with the bishop’s annual Mardi Gras fundraiser celebration in Gallup. Hammons was asked in January about the postponed services, which still have not been rescheduled.

“We don’t have a rescheduled date yet because whenever a new date is posted, survivors must be given at least 30 days’ notice so they can plan accordingly,” Hammons wrote in an email Jan. 18. “We’re consulting with the Survivors’ Committee at the moment for their input on how far in advance they’d like a new date posted. When we have the new dates, I’ll send out a press release and post the updated schedule on the website.”

Catholic communities that need rescheduled services include those in Lumberton and Farmington as well as those in Chinle, Page, Tuba City, and St. Johns, Arizona.

Abuse survivors who do not want to attend a healing service can request a private meeting with the Gallup bishop. They should contact Elizabeth Terrill, the victims assistance coordinator pro tem, 505-906-7357.

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NEW MEXICO
Gallup Independent

Published in the Gallup Independent, Gallup, N.M. March 4, 2017

By Elizabeth Hardin-Burrola
Independent correspondent
religion@gallupindependent.com

GALLUP – Diocese of Gallup officials announced rescheduled dates for six postponed healing services for survivors of clergy sexual abuse Wednesday and at the same time rescheduled two more upcoming healing services.

All eight newly rescheduled healing services are slated to take place in March 2018.

Bishop James S. Wall initially scheduled 36 healing services in Catholic parishes and schools across the Diocese of Gallup over a 15-month period as a way to fulfill a nonmonetary provision of the diocese’s Chapter 11 plan of reorganization. According to the plan, the bishop is required to visit each operating Catholic parish or school in which sexual abuse occurred or where identified abusers served.

However, diocesan officials have yet to update their published list of 31 credibly accused sex abusers, which they released in December 2014. This list should include additional names of clerics named as abusers by bankruptcy court claimants who received financial settlements as part of the plan of reorganization. An updated list of credibly accused abusers would likely add more healing services to the bishop’s schedule.

In January, the bishop canceled services in Lumberton and Farmington in New Mexico and services in Chinle, Page and Tuba City in Arizona because of Wall’s illness and medical appointments. In February Wall canceled the healing service in St. Johns, Arizona, because it had been scheduled the same evening as his annual Mardi Gras fundraising event in Gallup.

More postponements

Suzanne Hammons, spokeswoman for the Gallup Diocese, said two more healing services, slated to be held in Overgaard and Snowflake, Arizona, in July are also being pushed back to March 2018. She said these latest postponements are because of Wall’s participation in the Tekakwitha Conference, a national organization for Native American Catholics.

“Bishop Wall is the Chairman for the (United States Conference of Catholic Bishops’) subcommittee on Native American Affairs, and in that capacity he was invited to celebrate the conference’s main Mass on Friday, July 21,” Hammons wrote in an email Thursday.

The 2017 Tekakwitha Conference is scheduled for July 19-23 in Rapid City, South Dakota.

The rescheduled dates for the eight postponed healing services are as follows:

• March 1, 2018, at 6 p.m. at St. Francis of Assisi in Lumberton.
• March 2, 2018, at 6 p.m. at Sacred Heart Parish and School in Farmington.
• March 9, 2018, at 6:30 p.m. at Our Lady of Fatima in Chinle, Arizona.
• March 10, 2018, at 6:30 p.m. at Immaculate Heart of Mary in Page, Arizona.
• March 11, 2018, at 1 p.m. at St. Jude in Tuba City, Arizona.
• March 15, 2018, at 6 p.m. at St. John the Baptist in St. Johns, Arizona.
• March 16, 2018, at 6:30 p.m. at Our Lady of the Assumption in Overgaard, Arizona.
• March 17, 2018, at 6:30 p.m. at Our Lady of the Snows in Snowflake, Arizona.

For survivors of clergy sex abuse who do not want to attend the Diocese of Gallup’s healing services, Elizabeth Terrill, the victims’ assistance coordinator pro tem, is available to schedule a meeting with the bishop in a different setting. Terrill is also responsible for coordinating counseling services for abuse survivors who request it.

Terrill can be contacted at 505-906-7357.

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GEORGIA
Legacy – Savannah Morning News

Henry Bowers Groover III, O.P. – SAVANNAH – Henry Bowers Groover III, O.P., 62, passed away on January 17, 2017. He was preceded in death by his parents, Henry Bowers Groover, Jr. and Carmel Register Groover. Hank is survived by his brothers, Michael Groover (Paula) and J. Nicholas Groover (Jodi), along with two nieces and two nephews. He enjoyed fishing, crabbing, gardening and spending time with his family and friends. Funeral services were held privately. Remembrances can be made to the Old Savannah City Mission. Please sign our online guestbook at www.foxandweeks.com Savannah Morning News February 19, 2017 Please sign our Obituary Guest Book at savannahnow.com/obituaries.

Published in Savannah Morning News on Feb. 19, 2017

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IRELAND
Herald

Gavin White – 09 March 2017

More than 300 human burials may be associated with the Donnybrook Magdalene laundry, Dublin City Council’s senior archaeologist believes.

Dr Ruth Johnson has reviewed two reports in estimating how many remains might be at the site, which is now the subject of a planning application for an apartment block.

The revelation comes as the Religious Sisters of Charity said that all those who died at the laundry were accounted for and there were no unmarked graves.

One report reviewed by Dr Johnson was from the Inter-Departmental Committee (IDC), chaired by Martin McAleese.

Its findings, published in 2013, reported 167 burials associated with the laundry between 1922 and 1992.

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FLORIDA
News4Jax

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – A cousin of Fred Laster, the 16-year-old whose dismembered remains were found 23 years ago outside a Lake City gas station, said he is not one bit surprised that Ronnie Hyde was charged with killing the boy.

“I’ve always from Day 1 blamed him,” John Kirkland said. “I never said he killed him, but I said he knew what happened to him.”

Kirkland said there were five siblings in the Laster family and that he lived next to them in Yulee. Family members told News4Jax Fred was one of six children being raised by elderly grandparents living on Social Security after their mother died of cancer and their father left the family.

“My grandma passed away brokenhearted,” Kirkland said. “She died on her deathbed saying she wanted Freddy.”

Fred Laster’s immediate family has asked for privacy, issuing a statement Wednesday saying they “have gathered together at this time to support each other as we experience the intense emotions caused by the heartbreaking loss of ‘Freddy’ and the arrest of his killer.”

Hyde, who Kirkland called Ron, was a youth pastor at the Oceanway church that the Laster family attended in the early 1990s. Kirkland said Hyde always wanted to hang out with the young boys — never the girls. He also tried to be with the boys one-on-one, never in a group.

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ILLINOIS
Belleville News-Democrat

BY BETH HUNDSDORFER
bhundsdorfer@bnd.com

St. Clair County State’s Attorney Brendan Kelly went before a Senate Committee on Tuesday to urge senators to pass legislation to eliminate the statute of limitations for felony sex crimes against children.

The bill, Senate Bill 189, passed unanimously and heads to the full Senate for consideration.

“There is no time limit for the pain and trauma endured by child victims of sex assault and there should be no time limit for our ability to reach justice for them,” Kelly told the committee, according to a press release.

Attorney General Lisa Madigan, Scott Cross, a survivor, and state Sen. Scott Bennett, the bill’s sponsor, joined Kelly to testify before the committee.

Read more here: http://www.bnd.com/news/local/article137255678.html#storylink=cpy

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WASHINGTON
KOMO

[with video]

by Lindsay Cohen
Wednesday, March 8th 2017

OLYMPIA., Wash. — For Dan Griffey, a public battle has a very personal story behind it.

Griffey, a state representative from Mason County, is sponsoring House Bill 1155, which would eliminate the statute of limitations for certain felony sex offenses, such as child rape and molestation.

“I don’t think that a monster should have a free moment from fear of prosecution,” Griffey said. “They should fear prosecution their entire life.”

Griffey’s fight is deeply personal. His wife, Dinah, survived years of sexual abuse at the hands of a relative. Part of the abuse happened when she moved to South Seattle.

“[The neighborhood] was nowhere near as scary as the man living in my home, I can tell you that much,” she said.

The abuse started at age 8 in the shower.

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AUSTRALIA
Catholic Leader

Posted by: Mark Bowling

PROTECTING children from sexual predators is uppermost in the minds of every good parent and guardian.

Even with the public spotlight on child sexual abuse, and with a raft of new legal and reporting practices in place, can we be assured of our kids’ safety?

It was at a dinner party three years ago, that Catholic mother-of-four Michelle Derrig heard about two incidents of local children abused by fellow students at school.

“I was horrified to hear that in both cases, the parents had been supervising their children at the time,” Ms Derrig, a member of the St John Bosco parish, Engadine, in Sydney’s south, said.

“It made me realise, that no matter how diligent you are as a parent, the reality is that we need to empower our children to protect themselves.

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INDIA
Outlook

After the arrest of a Kerala priest over charges of rape of a minor girl made headlines, an apparent supporter of his has invited protests and support alike from Facebook users after his post that is alleged to be pro-paedophile got viral.

According to a facebook post by Muhammed Farhad, translated in English, “all types of sexual activities are normal because you are feeling it when you do so. What is abnormal is when you restrict my sexual activity according to your interests.”

The post also mentioned Farhad’s ‘sexual attraction’ to a girl studying in 5th standard . He says he buys her a chocolate everyday to appease her and is now ‘enjoying every moment of the love she expresses for me.”

Muhammed Farhad’s facebook post is assumed to be a personal viewpoint on the arrest of catholic priest Robin Vadakumcherry in Kerala for raping and impregnating a 16 year old girl.

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IRELAND
Irish Times

Michael O’Regan

An interim report on the Tuam baby scandal is to be published by the end of the month, Minister for Children Katherine Zappone has said.

Taoiseach Enda Kenny came under strong Opposition pressure in the Dáil on Wednesday to have the report, compiled by the commission investigating the human remains on the Galway site, published.

“After decades and years of hard work, determination and unwavering commitment the truth has been laid bare for us all to see,’’ said Ms Zappone.

She told the Dáil on Thursday she would undertake “a scoping exercise’’ to examine expanding the commission’s terms of reference to cover all institutions, agencies and individuals involved with Ireland’s unmarried mothers and their children.

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INDIA
Associated Press

BY MUNEEZA NAQVI
ASSOCIATED PRESS

NEW DELHI (AP) — A Roman Catholic diocese in southern India is considering using security cameras and other measures to curb sexual abuse by priests after a vicar was arrested on charges of raping a teenage girl, a spokesman said Thursday.

The bishop of the Mananthavady Diocese has also removed the Rev. Robin Vadakkancheril from his job as vicar of St. Sebastian church in Kottiyoor and from conducting any priestly functions, said the Rev. Nobel Parackal, a media officer for the diocese in Kerala state.

Vadakkancheril was arrested late last month after a 17-year-old girl from his parish gave birth to a baby. Investigating officer Sunil Kumar said police are searching for at least five nuns who allegedly helped the priest cover up the rape and subsequent pregnancy.

Kumar said the girl, after initially refusing to name the father of the baby, said the priest had raped her in the place where the church provided computer lessons.

Kumar said the girl’s family was bitterly poor. Her child has been placed in a local orphanage and the girl is being looked after by the town’s child welfare committee, he said.

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IRELAND
Irish Times

Thursday, March 09, 2017

Prof James M Smith

Prof James M Smith says that the Church either knew what was happening in Tuam and did nothing or that its bishops never fulfilled their pastoral duty under Canon Law

The Archbishop of Tuam, Dr Michael Neary, is “horrified and saddened” by revelations confirming the presence of significant human remains, thought to be those of some 796 children, buried in an underground sewage treatment works at the former Sisters of the Bon Secours’ Children’s Home in the town.

Speaking last Sunday morning, Dr Neary reflected on a by-gone era: “This points to a time of great suffering and pain for the little ones and their mothers. I can only begin to imagine the huge emotional wrench which the mothers suffered in giving up their babies for adoption or by witnessing their death.”

Media coverage of the story in the intervening days suggests that the “time of great suffering and pain” continues unabated.

The point here is not to scapegoat one bishop. That said, it is telling that the Archdiocese has yet (at the time of going to print) to address the issue on its website, despite running a “breaking news” banner on its homepage.

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IRELAND
Irish Times

Mar 8, 2017

Kathy Sheridan

yone who enjoys ramble around old Irish cemeteries will recognise them. Fine edifices of marble and granite, rendering glory to the mortal remains of senior churchmen, trumpeting a temporal hierarchy even in death.

Meanwhile, stories of the despised unbaptised – stillborns and foetuses – denied a burial in sacred ground and destined for the loveless afterlife of limbo, lie deep in us still.

So, it is not just the disposal of foetal and infant remains in a disused waste facility that stuns the heart. It is the fact that a religious order buried even baptised children in unconsecrated ground – as it surely did, since a fifth of those identified in the death certificates were more than a year old.

Punch-drunk from stories of savagery in religious institutions, the one remaining excuse was that it was all about the twisted saving of souls. Tuam disproves that. Something else was afoot.

We know that many of the children who survived the mother and baby homes, ended up in the industrial schools, and that some of the mothers themselves ended up in the Magdalen laundries, all becoming, in effect, cogs in a vast interlocking system established by the Catholic Church.

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IRELAND
Newstalk

Simon Coveney says he’s concerned about extending the terms of the current commission of inquiry into Mother and Baby homes because it will delay the findings.

Coveney says that an extension could put off a lot of the work that’s already been done specifically in relation to the case in Tuam.

Yesterday the Taoiseach said there needs to be a period of reflection on what Ireland does as a nation in response to the scandal.

Enda Kenny said “No nuns broke into our homes to kidnap our children – we gave them up to what we convinced ourselves was that nuns care.

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IRELAND
Galway Advertiser

MARY O’CONNOR

The discovery of the remains of almost 800 children on the site of the former Bon Secours Mother and Baby Home in Tuam, over a five decade period must herald the beginning of an “honest appraisal” of what went on at all the other homes throughout the country, a local TD insisted this week.

Deputy Catherine Connolly said equally, the role that both the State and church played in the “incarceration of women and their babies” must also come under the spotlight.

“In this regard, the official reaction to Catherine Corless’ research almost two years ago does not give us much hope that we as a society and more particularly the Bon Secours Sisters have reached the point where we can both face the truth and learn from it,” stated the Galway West Independent TD.

She described the reaction of the Bon Secours Order as “simply appalling”. “Indeed, when Catherine Corless first spoke publicly of her research, the PR consultant for the Bon Secours Sisters went so far as to tell us ‘when you come here, you’ll find no mass grave, no evidence that children were ever so buried, and a local police force casting their eyes to heaven and saying ‘Yeah, a few bones were found – but this was an area where famine victims were buried. So?’

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IRELAND
Irish Times

Mark Hilliard

Catholic bishops have said the latest controversy surrounding the mother and baby home at Tuam is a reminder of “when unmarried mothers were frequently judged and rejected” in Ireland.

The Bishops’ Conference said it discussed such institutions during its three-day spring general meeting and reiterated its apology for the hurt caused by the church’s role in the system.

It also called for the proper marking of burial sites at parish level so that “the deceased and their families will be recognised with dignity and never be forgotten”.

The statement follows the continuing fallout from the controversy since the discovery of “significant” human remains at Tuam.

Minister for Housing Simon Coveney has warned that expanding the scope of the inquiry into other mother and baby homes could delay findings in relation to Tuam.

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IRELAND
Irish Times

Brendan O’Neill

There is something deeply disturbing, ghoulish even, in the media and political discussion of the Tuam mother and baby home.

No one, apart from a handful of Catholic extremists, denies that conditions in the home were grim, and that the women and children who lived and died there were gravely wronged.

But the mawkish discussion of Tuam, the transformation of it into fodder for tabloid outrage and ostentatious emoting on Twitter, is an ugly spectacle.

It seems designed not to work out what happened in the home, but to make it a symbol of evil that we decent people might contrast ourselves against.

It’s virtue signalling – an attempt to advertise one’s own moral rectitude by poring over the depravity of bygone eras.

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IRELAND
Irish Independent

Eilish O’Regan and Cormac McQuinn
March 9 2017

Catholic Bishops have called for burial sites near Mother and Baby homes to be properly marked to allow the dead and their families be recognised with dignity and not forgotten.

The call, made at the Spring General Meeting of the Irish Catholic Bishops’ Conference, puts more pressure on the investigating commission to carry out test excavations to ensure the remains of more dead babies, as discovered near the Tuam home, are properly respected.

The concern is that marked burial sites near the homes are not the only grounds where babies were placed many decades ago.

The bishops said the appalling story of life, death and adoptions related to the Mother and Baby Homes has shocked everyone in Ireland and beyond.

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IRELAND
The Irish Catholic

by Greg Daly
March 9, 2017

If we are to be horrified by what we are learning about the Tuam Mother and Baby Home, we should probably reserve our anger more for how the infant children of unmarried mothers were treated in life than in death.

The Mother and Baby Home Commission of Investigation has, as we know, conducted test excavations late last year and earlier this year by the site of the former Mother and Baby Home in Tuam, finding two large structures. One was a septic tank that had been decommissioned and filled in, the other being a long structure containing 20 chambers, at least 17 of which contained significant quantities of human remains from infants between 35 foetal weeks and two–three years, all dating from the period when the home was in operation.

Admitting to uncertainty about the purpose of the structure, the commission speculates that it had been built for the containment of sewage or waste water, adding that it does not yet know if it was ever used for this purpose.

Asking for the State authorities to take responsibility for the appropriate treatment of the remains, and stating that the Coroner has been informed, the Commission says it “is shocked by this discovery and is continuing its investigation into who was responsible for the disposal of human remains in this way”.

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IRELAND
Donegal Democrat

Declan Magee
9 Mar 2017

The investigation by the Mother and Baby Homes Commission could yet carry out similar excavations to the one at Tuam at two such homes in Donegal.

The discovery of the remains of a significant number of children at the Bon Secours Mother and Baby Home in Tuam was announced last week by the commission. The government has not ruled out such investigations at the other 17 mother and baby homes and county homes that are being investigated by the commission.

Two homes in Donegal, The Castle, Newtowncunningham, and Stranorlar County Home are being investigated by the commission as well.

The commission told the Donegal Democrat yesterday that no decision had been made on the issue.

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IRELAND
Irish Sun

By OLIVER CALLAN
9th March 2017

THE Tuam babies scandal has not only exposed horrors committed by the Catholic Church in mother and baby homes, but shows that everyone in society shared some responsibility for them.

The atrocities were carried out by a Church backed by the political and professional classes, with the acquiescence of those below them.

This week, a Taoiseach who has been a TD since 1975 expressed “shock” at learning about a scandal and cover-up that continued while he was still in the Dail.

The crime of being a woman who had sex outside marriage was enough to justify a lifetime of pain inflicted on them by an Ireland that is too often too fondly remembered.

That it happened at all is a shame on all society. That it was carried out mostly by nuns, women themselves, is almost impossible to comprehend. That we aren’t shouting from the rooftops demanding justice now is troubling.

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IRELAND
Breaking News

The line-up for this week’s Late Late show has been announced.

Joining Ryan Tubridy on the couch this week will be Tuam babies historian Catherine Corless and survivors of the Mother and Baby homes.

Catherine will be talking about why she was so determined to get to the truth and persevered despite coming under pressure from people who doubted the veracity of her claims.

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IRELAND
Daily Mail (UK)

By Estelle Shirbon

TUAM, Ireland, March 9 (Reuters) – Peter Mulryan’s little sister may lie buried among the bones of babies and toddlers found in the sewers of what was once a home for unmarried mothers in the Irish town of Tuam, but he wants to know for sure.

The announcement last week by an official inquiry that it had found “significant quantities” of remains at the site has horrified Ireland, reviving anguish over how women and children were once treated at state-backed Catholic institutions.

The number of bodies is unknown, but a trail of paper evidence suggests there could be close to 800.

For Mulryan, who was born to an unmarried mother in 1944 and spent the first four years of his life at the Tuam home before being fostered, the grim discovery brings hope that he may find out what happened to Marian, the younger sister he never knew.

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IRELAND
The Guardian

Tanya Gold

Thursday 9 March 2017

It is true, as survivors said it was. Under a small patch of grass by a playground in Tuam, County Galway, Ireland, the bodies of the children who died in the local Mother and Baby home lie in unmarked graves. The Mother and Baby homes of Ireland – the last of which closed in 1996 – were run like punishment hostels for unmarried pregnant women. Their children were taken for adoption, fostering or the horror of the industrial schools, or they died in their thousands, of malnutrition and neglect. In some cases the bodies were used for dissection in medical schools.

This was veiled until two years ago when an amateur historian, Catherine Corless, learnt that 796 children had died at Tuam between 1925 and 1961; but where, she asked, were the graves? An inquiry was established and has now partially excavated the Tuam site. (The home has been replaced with a housing estate. Hence the ghoulish – and preposterous – playground.) Remains of children aged from those prematurely born to three years old have been found; Corless, then, is vindicated.

You might say that, for survivors, stonewalled and ignored by the Irish state and Catholic church for decades, denied their birth records and medical histories – essentially, their identities – and thwarted in their attempts to find their families, this is a victory.

Enda Kenny, the Irish prime minister, has called the findings “appalling”, and the Tuam site “a chamber of horrors” and that is a major concession. Bitter, yes, but an acknowledgment of the truth, even if it took the dead to say it.

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IRELAND
The Irish Catholic

by David Quinn
March 9, 2017

It is very hard, three years after the story first broke, to write again about the Tuam mother and baby home and all the deaths that took place there in the years of its operation from 1925 to 1961. What else is left to say?

I read again what I wrote at the time for this and other newspapers and it still holds up even in light of last week’s announcement that a ‘significant’ number of infant bodies have been found on the grounds of the old home.

The announcement was made by the Children’s Minister. It spoke of two underground structures at the site of the old home, the first being the septic tank that dominated news reports three years ago.

The second structure, the one in which a ‘significant’ number of bodies has been found, is of an undetermined nature. It is thought it might have been part of a sewage system and if it was that, it is not yet known if it was ever used as such.

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IRELAND
Connacht Tribune

By Denise McNamara – March 9, 2017

When Catherine Corless arrived at the Connacht Tribune three years ago armed with her files which included the names of the 798 babies and children who had died at St Mary’s in Tuam, she exuded a quiet determination.

She wanted a proper memorial for the offspring of the unmarried mothers whom she was convinced were consigned to an old septic tank on the site of the mother and baby home run by the Bons Secours Order.

Little did she think that her quest for information on those deaths would have sparked the outcry that has since erupted.

After the Connacht Tribune published the results of her research – which led eventually to national and international coverage months afterwards – she had a steady succession of people coming to her trying to trace their family members.

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IRELAND
Midlands 103

A former resident of Sean Ross Abbey in Roscrea says religious orders and the government have a lot to answer for over the mother and baby homes scandal.

Dolores from Tullamore gave birth to a boy in 1969 and says she was given no say and just seven hours’ notice when he was adopted a couple of weeks later.

The Dáil is hearing statements today on the discovery of remains at the former home in Tuam.

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IRELAND
IrishCentral

John Spain @IrishCentral March 09, 2017

The revelation last Friday by the commission investigating the Tuam mother and baby home scandal that infant skeletons had been found in underground chambers at the site has led to horrified headlines, not just at home but around the world.

That’s not surprising. The story (not entirely accurate) that the remains of hundreds of children had been “dumped” in a “sewage pit” by the nuns who ran the home over several decades was shocking enough to get international coverage. On Friday night I saw it on the BBC, Sky News, and American and European TV channels.

Several elements gave the story a high level of interest. Although almost medieval in its horror, this had taken place in the recent past, in the four decades between the 1920s and 1960s. The unfortunate babies and children were in the home because they were illegitimate, born to unmarried young mothers. Above all, the home was run by nuns.

And it is true that the nuns have a lot to answer for. Last weekend there were calls for a criminal follow-up and prosecutions, although only two nuns who served in the Tuam home are still alive and they are in their 80s and may not have been directly involved. The Bon Secours order of nuns they belonged to who ran Tuam has shrunk to a handful of very elderly sisters.

But the idea that this scandal is all the fault of cruel and heartless nuns is a convenient way of dodging the wider truth. It wasn’t just the nuns who were to blame. It was Irish society at the time.

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IRELAND
Irish Examiner

Thursday, March 09, 2017

Children’s Minister Katherine Zappone has confirmed she will publish the interim report into mother-and-baby homes by the end of this month, writes Elaine Loughlin.

It comes after numerous calls in the Dáil to make public the Commission’s second interim report, which has been with the Minister since September.

During Dáil statements this morning on the scandal of the Tuam mother-and-baby home, Katherine Zappone said she acknowledged the calls made since Friday for an expansion of the terms of reference to cover all institutions, agencies and individuals that were involved with unmarried women and their children.

She confirmed she would announcing the detail of a scoping exercise to see if all institutions could be included in the inquiry in the coming weeks.

“What happened in Tuam is part of a larger picture,” she told the Dáil.

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UNITED KINGDOM
The Spectator

[with audio]

It is no secret in Rome that several cardinals want Francis to step down

Damian Thompson

On the first Saturday in February, the people of Rome awoke to find the city covered in peculiar posters depicting a scowling Pope Francis. Underneath were written the words:

Ah, Francis, you have intervened in Congregations, removed priests, decapitated the Order of Malta and the Franciscans of the Immaculate, ignored Cardinals… but where is your mercy?

The reference to mercy was a jibe that any Catholic could understand. Francis had just concluded his ‘Year of Mercy’, during which the church was instructed to reach out to sinners in a spirit of radical forgiveness. But it was also a year in which the Argentinian pontiff continued his policy of squashing his critics with theatrical contempt.

Before the Year of Mercy, he had removed (or ‘decapitated’) the leaders of the Franciscans of the Immaculate, apparently for their traditionalist sympathies. During it, he froze out senior churchmen who questioned his plans to allow divorced-and-remarried Catholics to receive Holy Communion. As the year finished, the papal axe fell on the Grand Master of the Knights of Malta, Fra’ Matthew Festing, who during an internal row over the alleged distribution of condoms by its charitable arm had robustly asserted the crusader order’s 800-year sovereignty. Francis seized control of the knights. They are sovereign no longer.

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RHODE ISLAND
Associated Press

PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) — A Rhode Island pastor who also is chairman of the Republican Party in Providence has been accused of molesting a boy over six years.

Roy D. Bolden Jr. was arraigned Wednesday on child molestation and sexual assault charges. Providence Police Sgt. Philip Hart says the 33-year-old pastor, an apostle of the Legions of Christ Ministries, will likely face more charges after the case moves to the attorney general’s office.

Messages were left seeking comment from Bolden’s Providence church.

City Police Maj. David Lapatin says a 21-year-old man told police Friday that he met Bolden at the church and that Bolden began sexually molesting him when he was 12 years old.

Bolden was arrested Monday.

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CANADA
The Catholic Register

Editorial

Pope Francis has been commended frequently as a forceful advocate for reform regarding the Church’s response to clerical sex abuse. But the resignation of a female member of the commission he established to steer those reforms has cast a shadow over his good intentions.

Marie Collins, a victim of sexual abuse as an Irish teenager, quit the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors after becoming fed up with the Vatican curia. As she put it, the refusal in some parts of the curia to cooperate with the Pope’s commission or implement its recommendations “when the purpose is to improve the safety of children and vulnerable adults around the world is unacceptable.”

Her biting resignation letter claimed the commission has been thwarted for three years by inadequate support and resources, and by the curia’s aversion to recommendations or to cooperation with the commission. She cited a “cultural resistance” even to proposals approved by the Pope.

One example, she said, was the establishment of a tribunal to address bishops who are negligent on matters of sexual abuse in their dioceses. The tribunal process was approved by the Pope in June 2015, but never implemented by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF).

Collins also questioned a Vatican refusal to disseminate guidelines the commission developed for bishops to consult when drafting local sexual abuse policies. In this case, she detected a general reluctance to incorporate any of the commission’s suggestions into the Vatican’s existing templates.

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RHODE ISLAND
Go Local Prov

Wednesday, March 08, 2017
GoLocalProv News Team

Roy Bolden the Chair of the Providence GOP and closely tied to Rhode Island Republican leaders was arraigned on Wednesday by Providence Police on charges of first-degree and second-degree child molestation, and third-degree sexual assault. Bolden was ordered held without bail.
Bolden has deep ties to RI GOP chair Brandon Bell. At a leading GOP event in 2013 — the inaugural meeting of the Roosevelt Society, Bolden weighed in on GOP and family values.

According to an article in Ocean State Current, published in 2013:

A former football player at the University of Rhode Island, Bolden founded Legions of Christ Ministries in Providence, which has as one of its ministries People United for Change, applying the moral and religious principles of the group more broadly, to economics and politics.

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GUAM
KUAM

Updated: Mar 09, 2017

By Krystal Paco

The Archdiocese of Agana’s Sexual Abuse Response Coordinator Deacon Len Stohr confirms that in the last two weeks, three individuals have phoned him relative to allegations of clergy sex abuse.

Those three, he confirms, have yet to file suit against the Church.

He could not disclose the gender of the three callers for confidentiality reasons.

As the Church SARC, Deacon Len is responsible for gathering the details of the allegations and forwarding that information to investigators. If the allegations are deemed substantial, they are forwarded to Archbishop Michael Byrnes.

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RHODE ISLAND
WWLP

Nancy Krause
Published: March 8, 2017

PROVIDENCE, R.I. (WPRI) — The leader of a Providence church is facing several charges in connection with a child molestation investigation.

Roy Bolden, 33, of Providence, was arraigned Wednesday morning on charges of first-degree child molestation, second-degree child molestation, and third-degree sexual assault. He was ordered held without bail.

Maj. David Lapatin said Bolden will likely face more charges once the case is handed over to the attorney general’s office.

Lapatin said police took a statement Friday from a 21-year-old Providence man who said Bolden molested him. The man told police the abuse started when he was 12 years old and lasted for six years.

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RHODE ISLAND
NBC 10

by CRYSTAL BUI, NBC 10 NEWS

PROVIDENCE, R.I. —
A Providence church leader is accused of molesting a boy for several years.

Providence police said Wednesday that a 21-year-old man came forward last week, claiming Roy Bolden molested him while Bolden was a leader of the Legions of Christ Ministries in Providence.

Police said the Providence man accused Bolden, 33, of molesting him when he was 12 years old and didn’t stop until he was an adult.

“The last incident was when he was 18-years-old,” said Providence Police Sgt. Philip Hartnett of the Special Victim’s Unit. “So he’s been — for the last three years — he’s just been sitting on this and finally he felt the need to come forward.”

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IOWA
The Daily Reporter

Wednesday, March 8, 2017
By Russ Mitchell, Northwest Iowa Publishing

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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INDIA
Times of India

KALPETTA: A day after the incident of brutal rape of seven minor girls who are inmates of an orphanage in Wayanad came to light, another shocking incident of child sexual abuse was reported in the district on Wednesday.

A Sunday school teacher who is also the coordinator of Mananthawadi diocese committee of Kerala Catholic Youth Movement (KCYM) was taken into custody by Panamaram police for raping a 17-year-old girl. The accused was Sijo George, 23, native of Mathissery under Cherukkattur village in Mananthawadi. The arrest of the accused would be recorded soon.

The girl who was raped on the promise of marriage had given birth to a baby girl at a private hospital in Kozhikode two months ago and the baby is now under the care of a Christian convent.

According to police, the accused started frequently interacting with the girl who performed well in the SSLC examination two years ago and he misused his position of religious teacher and an adviser, to sexually abuse the girl several times. After she got pregnant, the accused took the girl to a private hospital in Kozhikode city, with an aim to cover up the issue and the girl have birth to a baby girl in December. The new born baby had been shifted to a church convent in city on the promise of the marriage of girl. But later the accused failed to his promise after the parents and relatives of accused strongly opposed the marriage.

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ROME
Crux

Austen Ivereigh March 8, 2017
CONTRIBUTING EDITOR

When abuse survivor Marie Collins resigned last week from the pope’s anti-abuse advisory board she cited the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith’s failure to implement a tribunal for trying bishops who cover up abuse. But was that idea actually scrapped, or simply modified to achieve the same result?

The widely admired Irish clerical abuse survivor Marie Collins who resigned last week from the pope’s safeguarding commission in protest at Vatican obstruction was especially dismayed by two roadblocks in particular. Both were the result, in her view, of the resistance to Pope Francis by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF).

One was that the CDF had not agreed to respond directly to complaints from victims. Collins believes that the pope asked for this, and was rebuffed. “Last year at our request, the pope instructed all departments in the Vatican to ensure all correspondence from victims/survivors receives a response,” she wrote in a statement for the National Catholic Reporter, adding: “I learned in a letter from this particular dicastery last month that they are refusing to do so.”

In response, the CDF prefect, Cardinal Gerhard Müller, said he knew only that the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors had requested that his department write to victims to express their closeness to them in their suffering.

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IRELAND
Kilkenny People

Mary Cody
8 Mar 2017

Burial arrangements for unmarried mothers and their babies and children who died in the Thomastown County Home are being examined by a Commission of Investigation.

It is not known how many babies and young children died at the Home which operated from 1923 until it closed in the mid fifties.

In an extract from the Register of Deaths seen by the Kilkenny People there is a record of a three-month-old child who died at the home in February 1949 from enteritis.

The Commission has been established to investigate the experiences of mothers and children in 14 Mother and Baby Homes and a number of County Homes between 1922 and 1998.

A confidential committee has also been formed and is meeting with anyone who was a resident or worked or had specific knowledge of the homes.

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FLORIDA
Newsweek

BY ELIJAH WOLFSON ON 3/3/16

Mint-colored city buses and sherbet mid-rise apartment complexes with undulating facades. Women in polka-dot bikinis and men in wide-lapelled shirts unbuttoned halfway down their chests. Postcard-perfect white sand beaches and cocaine-addled nights that throbbed to a mix of brassy disco and tropical Cuban beats. It was 1981, and the 19-square-mile barrier island known as Miami Beach was on the verge of bursting into one of the most hedonistic scenes committed to the history books.

Somehow, in the midst of this Caribbean decadence, a very different community also thrived. Just a few blocks from the scantily dressed beachgoers and the drug lords in Armani silk were men in ill-fitting black suits and heavy beards, and women in thick wigs and long woolen skirts all year long, even as the wet heat of the Atlantic swept across the peninsula. The ranks of Miami’s ultra-Orthodox Jews, Hasidim, were swelling. They were insular and defiantly anti-secular, clinging to traditions that may have protected their community in a medieval world but in modern America would lead to tragic consequences for many of their youngest, most vulnerable members.

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

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

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NEW YORK
Village Voice

BY HELLA WINSTON

Former Brooklyn District Attorney, Charles Hynes is being sued by a hasidic father who claims Hynes prosecuted him as part of a conspiracy to protect a child molester in the Hasidic community.

The suit, filed Monday in Brooklyn federal court by a lawyer for the father, Sam Kellner, accuses Hynes’ office of malicious prosecution and violating Kellner’s constitutional rights in the service of a “criminal conspiracy to pervert the course of justice” for victims of a “notorious” Hasidic child molester. According to the complaint, which also names the city as a defendant, this occurred in the context of Hynes’ “special, preferential system of ‘justice’ for pedophiles within the community.”

In 2008, Kellner, a member of the Munkacs Hasidic sect, obtained rabbinic permission to go to law enforcement with allegations that his son had been molested by another member of the community, Baruch Lebovits. (There is a strong taboo in the Hasidic world against “informing” on another Jew to the secular authorities and even in the case of suspected child sexual abuse, many will do so only with a dispensation from a rabbi.) Kellner then worked closely with a sex crimes detective to identify and bring forward two additional Lebovits victims. One of those victims dropped out of the case as a result of what Sex Crimes prosecutors believed was intimidation, while the other went to trial. In 2010 Lebovits was convicted and sentenced to 10 ½ to 32 years in prison.

Within months of his conviction, as detailed in court papers, people connected to Lebovits — including his sons and attorneys — approached the Brooklyn DA with allegations that, prior to Lebovits’ trial, Kellner had attempted to extort money from Lebovits’ family in exchange for a promise to persuade the complaining victims to withdraw their claims against Lebovits. They also alleged that Kellner had paid the victim who backed out of the prosecution to testify falsely against Lebovits before a grand jury. During this time, according to the complaint, Hynes “surreptitiously dismissed” Kellner’s son’s still pending case against Lebovits. In 2011, prosecutors in the Rackets division of Hynes’ office sought and obtained an indictment against Kellner.

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INDIA
Kaumudi

KANNUR: The Thalassery court has set aside the petition given by the investigation team for getting the custody of Fr Robin Wadakkumchery, the main accused in the Kottiyur sexual abuse case. The plea will be considered tomorrow; it was not considered by the court, citing the negligence in attaching the affidavit to the petition.

The court has also postponed to March 14, the anticipatory bail plea submitted by three accused in the case.

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CANADA
The Suburban

By P.A. Sevigny
The Suburban

Following his third arrest on assorted sex charges that are alleged to have been committed between 1994 and 2011, police investigators now believe 56 year-old Brian Boucher – a Catholic priest – may have assaulted several more boys (minors) over the past decade and they want to hear about it. As of last week’s court appearance, Boucher now stands accused of sexual interference, sexual contact, sexual assault and at least one ‘break and enter’ after which he was released under very strict conditions and forbidden to be in the presence of minors.

When the police first began to hear allegations about the priest’s activities during the summer of 2015, they began to investigate assorted complaints with the full cooperation of the Archdiocese of Montreal. However, as Boucher was still a working priest in Montreal’s Town of Mount Royal when he was recently arrested, people want to know what the diocese knew about Boucher and why they continued to move him around from parish to parish all over the island during the twenty years that preceded his arrest. As Boucher worked out of churches located in Senneville, Dorval and Lasalle from 1985 to 2015, police have reason to believe that the priest may have assaulted several of his victims long before there were any questions raised about the priest’s erratic behavior – especially when he was working with children.

According to SPVM media spokesman Benoit Boiselle, Boucher was first arrested, then released (with conditions) back in January with a promise to appear back in court at a later date. Following more complaints, he was once again arrested after which he was relieved of his duties and sent to live in a convent in the east end of the city where he will remain until his trial. In a statement released last week following the Boucher arrest, Bishop Alain Faubert repeated that the Catholic Church had a ‘zero tolerance’ policy towards any kind of abuse, and that it offered its full cooperation with the police once it was aware of the allegations that were being made against Father Boucher.

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INDIA
The News Minute

The fact that an intricate network of multiple organisations spanning across two districts is working to thwart the investigation is clear.

Haritha John
Megha Varier

Wednesday, March 08, 2017

Ten days after the police arrested Fr. Robin Vadakkumchery, prime accused in the rape and subsequent impregnation of a 16-year-old girl from Kannur district, and with just one day to go for his judicial custody to end, the Kerala police is still trying to arrest the remaining seven accused in the case. These seven people include five nuns, an administrator and pediatrician at the hospital run by the church.

While Fr. Robin is the prime accused in the case, all the others have been booked for covering up the rape, pregnancy and delivery.

The police investigation so far has revealed that a network of various Christian institutions carefully planned and covered up the crime – to save their own face, and to save one of their own.

And as the investigation progresses, the fact that an intricate network of multiple organisations spanning across two districts is working to thwart the investigation is clear.

Although the police team has combed a number of convents in the district, police sources told The News Minute that they are facing “practical difficulties” with regard to arresting the remaining accused.

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OHIO
BishopAccountability.org

Summary of Case: Robert A. Stricker was ordained for the Archdiocese of Cincinnati in 1948. After two years of study in Rome he returned to Cincinnati, where he assisted at St. William’s in Price Hill and taught at Elder High School. In the mid-1950s he was a student of library science for a year at Catholic University in Washington DC. He went on to work for many years as a librarian for the Cincinnati archdiocese. In 1974 Stricker was assigned to parish work, as an assistant in White Oak and, from 1997 until his retirement in 1993, he was pastor of St. Boniface in Northside. He regularly celebrated mass during retirement at St. Theresa’s in Mount Airy.

In 1993 a man told archdiocesan officials that Stricker had sexually abused him as a boy in the 1950s at St. William’s. The allegations were deemed unsubstatiated and Stricker was kept in ministry. His accuser came forward again in May 2008, with additional information. Bishop Pilarczyk stated that the allegations had “some semblance of truth.” Stricker was placed on leave. An internal investigation found again that the allegations could not be substantiated and Stricker was returned to ministry in July 2008.

Ordained: 1948
Retired: 1993

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IRELAND
Irish Independent

Amy Molloy
March 8 2017

A mother has spoken out about the heartbreaking experience of losing her baby son – and how it took 34 years to get his death cert.

Kathleen Byrne, who is now 70, went into a maternity ward in Airmount Hospital in Waterford to have her second baby in 1966.

She went into labour while going to the bathroom and her baby fell down the toilet.

From then on, she claimed the nurses and a Sister Barbara in the hospital “took over everything”.

A week went by and Kathleen was told her son had “taken a turn” – the nurses sent for a priest and he was christened Patrick.

Nobody would tell her what was wrong with Patrick and he was sent to Dublin for a “minor procedure”.

She never saw Patrick again.

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UNITED STATES
Christian Today

James Macintyre 08 March 2017

A right-wing Catholic commentator has dismissed the Tuam mother and baby home atrocity as ‘fake news’, as the Irish Prime Minister said the home was a ‘chamber of horrors’.

Bill Donohue of the Catholic League in New York contradicted bishops as well as politicians by writing that accounts of up to 800 dead babies at the home in County Galway are a ‘lie’ and a ‘hoax’.

‘It was a lie in 2014 and it is a lie in 2017,’ he said. ‘There is no evidence of a mass grave outside a home for unmarried women operated by nuns in Tuam, Ireland, near Galway, in the 20th century. The hoax is now back again, and an obliging media are running with the story as if it were true.’

The comments come as the Irish Taoiseach Enda Kenny said the discovery represented a mass grave and ‘a social and cultural sepulchre’.

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IRELAND
The Journal

Updated 3.40pm

CATHERINE CORLESS HAS said she believes more remains of babies and children are likely to be buried under a playground near the former site of a mother and baby home in Tuam, Co Galway.

Galway County Council (GCC) has said there is no record to indicate any human remains were discovered during the construction of a housing estate adjacent to the former Bon Secours home in the 1970s.

In a statement to TheJournal.ie, the local authority also said there are no records of the discovery of human remains during the subsequent development of a playground at the site.

The council added that all relevant records have been made available to the Commission of Investigation into Mother and Baby Homes.

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IRELAND
Irish Times

Michael O’Regan, Eoghan MacConnell

Taoiseach Enda Kenny has said he sees no reason why an interim report from the Commission on Mother and Baby Homes to the Government should not be published.

Mr Kenny said he had not read the report which had been submitted to Minister for Children Katherine Zappone some time ago.

That report was furnished months before a statement from the commission last Friday in which it said it was “shocked” by the discovery of human remains of a significant number of babies and infants up to three years of age on the site of the former mother and baby home in Tuam, Co Galway. These were found during a test excavation carried out between last November and February.
Heated exchanges

The Taoiseach was responding in the Dáil to Independent TD Catherine Connolly amid heated exchanges during which she claimed he was insulting the women of Ireland.

“I am as committed as anybody else to seeing that we deal with this once and for all,” Mr Kenny responded.

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IRELAND
Meath Chronicle

Wednesday, 8th March, 2017

Story by Gavan Becton

OPINION: Time to rethink St Patrick’s Day in wake of Mother & Baby Home scandals
Just over a week from now, St Patrick’s Day will bring hundreds of thousands of citizens onto the streets and into the pubs to celebrate our Irishness, our heritage and our culture.

Enda Kenny will be on hand at the White House to present his last bowl of shamrock to the new American President Donald Trump while our cabinet ministers will scatter to the four corners of the world to bear witness to the greatest marketing exercise a country could ever hope to have.

But surely this year it must ring all so hollow and vacuous. Wearing silly hats, waving plastic shamrocks and cheering on the marching bands will all seem well, just wrong. Especially now.
The devastating revelations from the Mother and Baby Homes Commission investigation have been truly horrendous to read. And we’re told the discoveries in Tuam are just the ‘tip of the iceberg’. There could be upwards of 4,000 babies buried – or discarded – in unmarked graves and pits of institutions across the country, Paul Redmond, chairman of the Coalition of Mother and Baby Home Survivors said this week.

The investigating Commission chairman, Judge Yvonne Murphy described the extent of the horror unearthed at Tuam as “shocking.”

It’s against that backdrop that you try to imagine a public sickened to the core by events hidden in plain sight in recent decades wanting to dance a jig and proclaim to the world how wonderful it is to be Irish.

Maybe St Patrick’s Day should be an occasion for the Irish people to take a more introspective look at what happened here in our very recent past and reclaim 17th March in memory of all those tragic infants and their mothers – those who never stood a chance under a regime that visited unspeakable horror on them while masquerading as humble servants of God.

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IRELAND
Hot Press

08 Mar 2017
Niall Stokes

We Cannot Exonerate The Catholic Church In Relation To The Tuam Babies
Confirmation of the fact that the remains of hundreds of babies were buried in a so called ‘Mother and Baby’ home in Tuam, Co. Galway is testament to just how sick the attitude to sexuality promulgated by the dominant Church in Ireland really was. In special edition of The Message, on International Women’s Day, Hot Press editor, Niall Stokes reflects on an issue that has provoked outrage and anger.

So now we know. Catherine Corless was right.

A local historian from Tuam, in Co. Galway, Catherine had heard the stories about children dying and being placed in undocumented graves in the ‘mother and baby’ home in the town. It niggled away inside her, the feeling that it was wrong, that a terrible injustice had been done to the children who had died. And besides, what is history, if it isn’t about establishing the truth about what happened in the past? Would it not be right to establish their names and to erect a memorial plaque? She decided to start digging.

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IRELAND
Newstalk

8 Mar 2017
Kenneth Fox

President Michael D Higgins has called the recent findings of human remains in Tuam, a necessary step in “blowing open the locked doors of a hidden Ireland”.

Speaking at a reception to celebrate International Women’s Day 2017, President Higgins dedicated some time in his speech to the recent findings in Tuam.

Mr Higgins said “there are dark shadows that hang over our meeting, shadows that require us all to summon up yet again a light that might dispel the darkness to which so many women and their children were condemned, and the questions left unanswered as we moved on.

“The recent horrifying revelations of a mass grave of babies in Tuam, discovered as a result of the relentless work of local historian, Catherine Corless, is another necessary step in blowing open the locked doors of a hidden Ireland.

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IRELAND
Galway Bay FM

Galway Bay fm newsroom – The President is commending local historian Catherine Corless for her work in exposing the Tuam babies scandal.

Speaking at an International Womens’ Day reception at Aras an Uachtarain, Michael D Higgins described last week’s revelations of a mass grave at a former mother and baby home in the town as horrifying.

The President says he hopes the commission of inquiry into Mother and Baby homes will put the truth on the record.

He says he’d like to see it do so in a way that respects the memory of these children, their families, and their mothers.

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IRELAND
Breaking News

Update 7.40pm: There are calls for tests to be carried out in Tuam, where the Bon Secours sisters ran a hospital.

RTÉ reports that there are calls for the tests to be carried out at a former burial site as the HSE has secured approval for extensive works at the old Grove hospital in Tuam.

Claims have been made that children were buried on the site from 1950 to 1970.

The area is a different location to the former Mother and Baby home in the town.

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INDIA
The Hindu

The police on Wednesday arrested a youth under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act 2012 on charges of sexually assaulting a minor girl in the district.

According to the police, Sijo George,23, who was the coordinator of the Kerala Catholic Youth Movement under the Mananthavadi diocese, had allegedly molested a 16-year-old girl .

As a the coordinator of the movement, the accused sexually assaulted the girl who was brilliant in studies and she became pregnant, the police said. Sijo resigned from the post on March 3 after the vicar of of his parish directed him to resign when the inciden came to light, the police added.

The girl gave birth to a child at a private hospital in Kozhikode on December 28. Later the baby was shifted to an adoption centre under a church in Kozhikode district promising her family that the youth would marry the girl when she turned 18 years.

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INDIA
Kaumudi

MANANTHAVADY: Not long after the news of Fr Robin Wadakkumchery sending shock waves across the State, another startling news emerged from Manathavady diocese on Wednesday evening – a minor girl from Panmaram in Wayanad was allegedly abused and impregnated by Kerala Catholic Youth Movement (KCYM) diocese coordinator.

Based on a complaint, police took KCYM coordinator Sijo George into police custody. “The victim delivered a baby three months ago and the new born is now in a Kozhikode Orphanage,” the police said.

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AUSTRALIA
The Record

Dear Sisters and Brothers in Christ,

As we enter into the season of Lent this year, we do so immediately after the conclusion of the final hearing into the Catholic Church of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual abuse.

I recently issued a Pastoral Letter to our Catholic community in relation to this matter, and I would encourage you to read it if you can. Among the many urgent questions raised by this shocking reality of sexual abuse in our Church is the “how” question. How could this possibly have happened in a Church which is supposed to be the “salt of the earth and the light of the world”? How could clergy and religious, who were supposed to be living signs of the presence of the Lord among his people, betray this trust so cruelly and so comprehensively? How could people to whom we entrusted our children in schools and other Church settings cause so much pain?

There are many complex answers to these confronting questions. I will not rehearse them here. The Royal Commission has brought them out into the open and they must now be dealt with. One that perhaps has not yet been fully considered is the spiritual cause of this tragedy. It is this that I would invite you to reflect on as we enter our Lenten journey together in 2017.

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ILLINOIS
Northern Public Radio

Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan testified in support of Senate Bill 189. It would eliminate the statute of limitations for child abuse and assault crimes.

She cited the case of former U.S. House Speaker Dennis Hastert, who was convicted in a hush-money scheme related to several boys he admitted to molesting while a high school wrestling coach. Madigan said Hastert inflicted “unbelievable pain” on the youth he molested at the school, and only got a “slap on the wrist.”

She also said it can take abuse victims several years to come forward.

“We should never be in a position where a police officer or prosecutor tells an adult who survived a childhood sexual assault, and has courageously come forward, that there is no possibility of holding the offender accountable.”

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ILLINOIS
WSIU

AP

Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan, citing the actions of former U.S. House Speaker Dennis Hastert, is pushing for the elimination of statutes of limitations on child abuse and assault crimes.

Madigan on Tuesday testified before the Senate Criminal Law Committee in support of Senate Bill 189, which the committee passed and sent on to the full Senate for consideration. She said children who suffer sexual assault and abuse often spend a lifetime recovering from the violations.

Madigan said Hastert inflicted “unbelievable pain” on the youth he molested at the school where he coached wrestling before entering politics. She adds he only got a “slap on the wrist.”

The 75-year-old is serving a 15-month sentence in federal prison for violating banking laws as he sought to silence one of his victims with hush money.

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ILLINOIS
Capitol Fax

Wednesday, Mar 8, 2017

* From a press release received last night…

Attorney General Lisa Madigan today urged members of the Illinois Senate’s Criminal Law Committee to pass legislation to eliminate the statutes of limitations for felony criminal sexual assault and sexual abuse crimes against children.

Madigan testified today before the Senate Criminal Law Committee in support of Senate Bill 189 to eliminate Illinois’ statutes of limitations that can allow child predators to go unpunished. Joining Madigan in testifying was Scott Cross, a survivor, Sen. Scott Bennett, the bill’s sponsor, and St. Clair County State’s Attorney Brendan Kelly.

The bill passed unanimously and heads to the full Senate for consideration.

“Children who suffer sexual assault and abuse often spend a lifetime trying to recover from the violations they have experienced,” Madigan said. “There should be no limitation on the pursuit of justice for felony sex crimes committed against children. We must ensure survivors are able to come forward in their own time and receive the support they need and deserve.”

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iILLINOIS
News-Gazette

Tom Kacich

SPRINGFIELD — Legislation that would remove the statute of limitations for felony sex crimes committed against minors, such as the recent case involving former U.S. House Speaker Dennis Hastert, sailed through an Illinois Senate Committee on Tuesday.

SB 189, sponsored by Sen. Scott Bennett, D-Champaign, was approved unanimously by the Senate Criminal Law Committee.

Among those testifying in favor of the bill were Attorney General Lisa Madigan and Scott Cross, one of Hastert’s victims when the former Republican Party powerhouse was a wrestling coach at Yorkville High School in the 1970s.

Hastert was never charged with any state crimes because the statute of limitations — generally 20 years after a victim’s 18th birthday — had run out. But he was convicted of violating federal banking laws for paying hush money to one of four victims who prosecutors had identified.

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UNITED STATES
Catholic League

Bill Donohue comments on how the media have covered the Tuam, Ireland “mass grave” story:

No media outlet has done a more consistently accurate job reporting the “mass grave” story than the New York Times. Not only did it not fall for this bogus story when it first surfaced in 2014, it actually poked holes in it. Its coverage in 2017 has also been flawless. Kudos to the Cleveland Plain Dealer for picking up the Times story.

Unlike other Irish sources, the Irish Echo got this story correct.

The BBC fell for the “mass grave” bunk in 2014. Now in 2017, it had covered this story accurately, absent any sensationalistic talk about a “mass grave,” until late Tuesday, when it used the term in reporting on comments from Irish Prime Minister Enda Kenny.

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VATICAN CITY
Vatican Information Service – Bulletin

Appointment of auxiliary of Washington, U.S.A.

The Holy Father has appointed Rev. Fr. Roy Edward Campbell as auxiliary bishop of Washington, U.S.A. Rev. Fr. Campbell, of the clergy of the same archdiocese, is currently pastor of the “Saint Joseph Parish” in Largo, assigning him the titular see of Ucres.

Rev. Fr. Roy Edward Campbell

Rev. Fr. Roy Edward Campbell was born on 19 November 1947 in Pomonkey, Maryland, in the archdiocese of Washington. After attending the Archbishop Carrol High School in Washington (1961-1965), he obtained a bachelor’s degree in zoology, anthropology and chemistry from the Howard University of Washington (1965-1969) and a diploma in banking management from the University of Virginia in Arlington (1990-1992). For several years he worked in the banking sector, becoming vice-president and project manager of the Bank of America. He carried out his ecclesiastical studies at the then-Blessed John XXIII National Seminary in Weston in Massachusetts (2003-2007).

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WASHINGTON (DC)
Washington Post

By Julie Zauzmer March 8

The newest bishop helping to lead the Washington area’s Catholics will be a lifelong resident of the region who has served as a priest in several of its churches.

The Rev. Roy Edward Campbell Jr. will serve as auxiliary bishop, one of three bishops who assist Cardinal Donald Wuerl in running the Archdiocese of Washington, the church announced on Wednesday morning.

Campbell, currently priest at St. Joseph Catholic Church in Largo, replaces Bishop Martin D. Holley, who served 12 years as auxiliary bishop in Washington before Pope Francis appointed him Bishop of Memphis in August.

The archdiocese said that Campbell, 69, grew up in Southern Maryland and in the District. At Howard University, he majored in zoology with minors in anthropology and chemistry, the archdiocese said. He spent his career in banking while volunteering in Catholic churches, until eventually entering Pope St. John XXIII Seminary — a Massachusetts school for men who decide to enter the priesthood later in life — and being ordained in 2007. Since then, he has been a priest at several District churches: Saint Augustine’s, Immaculate Conception and Assumption.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Christian Post

BY FELIX N. CODILLA III, CHRISTIAN POST CONTRIBUTOR
Mar 7, 2017

The police in Hampshire, England are investigating a British barrister for sadistically beating teenage boys in Christian summer camps that he ran in the past five decades. Suspect John Smythe, 75, has spent that past three decades in South Africa, but is now reportedly in Bristol to face the accusations against him.

Dozens of victims, mostly in their 50s, have come forward to tell their ordeal under Smythe. One of them is Christian author Mark Stibbe, now 56. He recalled the time when he was 17 back in the ’70s and he first received a whipping for committing the sin of masturbation.

“I remember being so appalled by how vicious the first lash was that I couldn’t scream,” he told New York Times. “You’re in this tiny shed full of canes with this man. I felt utterly powerless,” he added. Stibbe received at least 30 more floggings that left him bleeding and collapsed on the floor.

Based on accounts, Smythe lured his victims from Winchester College, a top private school in Britain. He invited them to join a summer camp run by Iwerne Trust which he chaired at that time. He would befriend the boys who were yearning for a father figure in boarding school and gain their trust.

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IRELAND
Kildare Nationalist

TUESDAY, MARCH 07, 2017

The names of almost 800 children who died in two of the country’s largest mother and baby homes were given to the HSE by a religious order in 2011, writes Conall Ó Fátharta.

This revelation shows the State was aware of the vast number of deaths in Bessborough in Cork and Sean Ross Abbey Roscrea three years before the Tuam babies scandal made global headlines.

The Irish Examiner has previously revealed that concerns over infant mortality rates and other practices at Tuam and Bessborough were raised by senior HSE personnel in 2012.

A report about concerns over Bessborough deaths was forwarded to both the Department of Health and the Department of Children and Youth Affairs that year.

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IRELAND
Galway Bay FM

Galway Bay fm newsroom – An Taoiseach has described the mass grave at the site of the former mother and baby home in Tuam as a ‘chamber of horrors.’

In a powerful Dail speech this afternoon, Enda Kenny said the men of the time are not blameless.

He said that the nuns who ran the mother and baby homes didn’t kidnap the children, but society was responsible too.

In an emotional address to the Dail, he said the issue must be dealt with now, and not in 20 year’s time.

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IRELAND
Today FM

The Chairperson of the Coalition of Mother and Baby Home Survivors shares his story.

Paul Redmond, Chairperson of the Coalition of Mother and Baby Home Survivors (CMABS), shared his own personal story of the 33 years he spent trying to trace his birth mother.

In the wake of the Tuam mother and baby home scandal, Paul spoke about how difficult it was for him to find information about his mother. He finally had a 40-minute phone conversation with her, but as he explained, it wasn’t an easy situation.

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IRELAND
Irish Examiner

By JACK CAHILL
7th March 2017

RTE’s Prime Time was back on Irish screens tonight and Miriam O’Callaghan was reporting live from Tuam.

The topic was of course that of the mother-and-baby home in Tuam, Co. Galway.

Last week a Commission of Investigation confirmed that remains of infants and children were found buried in the grounds of the Bon Secours Mother and Baby Home in Tuam, Co Galway.

The ‘significant number’ of children’s remains dated back to the era when the home was operational on the site.

On tonight’s episode of Prime Time, Miriam O’Callaghan travelled to Galway to report directly from Tuam.

The show asked if similar excavations are now needed in other mother and baby homes and what Ireland should do next.

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IRELAND
Irish Examiner

Wednesday, March 08, 2017

By Elaine Loughlin
Political Reporter

An investigation into mother and baby homes could be widened to take in far more institutions as the Government has ordered a scoping exercise into the scandal.

The Government is to look at whether a probe should be, or indeed can be, expanded after the bodies of more than 700 babies were uncovered on the grounds of a former home in Tuam, Co Galway.

Children’s Minister Katherine Zappone confirmed to Cabinet she would be setting up the scoping exercise to find out whether or not it would be advisable to extend the inquiry. It is understood Ms Zappone is very “mindful” of public calls from both individuals and groups in the aftermath of the revelations of mass burials in a number of chambers in the Co Galway mother and baby home.

However, during yesterday’s cabinet meeting, ministers were told the details of the scoping exercise will not be announced until after the St Patrick’s Day Dáil break.

A small scoping exercise will then begin but the Government will also have to take the independent nature of the commission into consideration. It is understood the department is in close contact with the commission.

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IRELAND
Irish Examiner

Wednesday, March 08, 2017

Conall Ó Fátharta and Cormac O’Keeffe

Mother and baby home campaigners have said as many as 180 institutions that dealt with unmarried mothers and children need to be examined by the commission.

It comes as the Irish Examiner revealed two death registers listing almost 800 names of infants who died in Bessborough and Sean Ross Abbey mother and baby homes were handed over to the HSE in 2011 by the Sisters of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary.

Last week, the Mother and Baby Homes Commission confirmed “significant quantities” of infant remains were found at the Tuam site.

The Adoption Rights Alliance (ARA) and Justice for Magdalenes Research (JFMR) said hundreds of agencies dealt with unmarried women and their children, not simply 14 mother and baby homes.

“We are aware of over 180 institutions, agencies and individuals who were involved with Ireland’s unmarried mothers and their children. Little is known of the conditions and practices — including burial practices and grave locations— of these institutions, most of which are not on the commission’s terms of reference,” said a statement.

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IRELAND
Irish Times

Lorna Siggins

Galway County Council said on Tuesday night there was “no record to indicate” the discovery of human remains during the construction of houses on the Tuam mother and baby home site in the 1970s, or during subsequent development of a children’s playground.

In a statement, the local authority said it had “reviewed all relevant files connected with the development of houses and a playground, in the vicinity of the site”.

It said the “relevant files and records” had been made available to the Commission of Investigation into Mother and Baby Homes.

Last week an excavation of the site in Tuam found remains of a “significant” number of babies and infants. Local research records 796 infants and children as having died in the home run by the Bon Secours Sisters between 1925 and 1961.

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IRELAND
Irish Examiner

Wednesday, March 08, 2017

By Juno McEnroe
Political Correspondent

Infants were taken from their mothers and sold, starved, trafficked, and in some cases denied life itself, Taoiseach Enda Kenny said in relation to the Tuam buried babies scandal.

Addressing the Dáil on shocking revelations about the finding of infant remains at the Bon Secours site in Tuam, Mr Kenny failed to agree to amend the terms of the mother-and-baby inquiry. Instead, he insisted that the work of gardaí and the local Galway coroner must go ahead independently while there is a need to deal with the “sad legacies of the past”.

In a passionate response during leaders’ questions in the Dáil, an outraged Mr Kenny described how the Tuam site reflected the larger neglect of Irish society in years gone by.

“Tuam is not just a burial ground, it is a social and cultural sepulchre. That is what it is. As a society in the so-called ‘good old days’, we did not just hide away the dead bodies of tiny human beings, we dug deep and deeper still to bury our compassion, our mercy and our humanity itself,” declared Mr Kenny.

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IRELAND
Irish Times

Tim O’Brien

A Co Kildare woman has compiled a portfolio of artwork based on her impressions of life in the State’s Magdalene laundries and mother and baby homes.

Fiona Gordon (19), from Prosperous, produced the works based on her understanding of her mother’s adoption at just two months old from Sean Ross Abbey in Roscrea, Co Tipperary. The pieces were completed using materials such as charcoal and fabrics.

Ms Gordon decided to explore themes of maternal separation and adoption as part of her portfolio of art work at the Ballyfermot College of Further Education in Dublin.

The works depict documents including adoption papers, coffin orders, birth certificates and pinafores that would have been associated with the institutions.

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IRELAND
Irish Times

[with audio]

Lorna Siggins

“Everyday she’s on the boat
When it pulls out from the quay
Far from small town eyes she floats
Across the Irish Sea..”

Tuam band the Saw Doctors made reference to the State’s attitude to unintended pregnancy in the lyrics of their song Everyday.

The Bon Secours mother and babies home had been closed for 35 years when Leo Moran and Davy Carton wrote it, but Moran has never viewed attitudes to women as being particular to their town.

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IRELAND
Irish Independent

Eilish O’Regan and Cormac McQuinn
March 8 2017

A scoping exercise to examine if the Commission of Investigation into mother and baby homes should include more institutions was promised yesterday.

The Cabinet agreed that an exploratory exam should be carried out after calls for more county homes to be included in the investigation.

It followed the public outcry in the wake of the discovery of human remains at a former mother and baby home run by the Bons Secours sisters in Tuam, Co Galway.

The Government has made no decision as yet on the extent of the proposed scoping exercise.
But more details would be made public by Children’s Minister Katherine Zappone after the St Patrick’s weekend and it should last for around six weeks.

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FLORIDA
News4Jax

By Lynnsey Gardner – Investigative reporter , Jim Piggott – Reporter , Vic Micolucci – Reporter, anchor , Elizabeth Campbell – Reporter , Heather Leigh – Reporter , Francesca Amiker – Reporter , Erik Avanier – Reporter

JACKSONVILLE BEACH, Fla. – Investigators announced Tuesday that a dismembered body found at a Lake City gas station 23 years ago was identified last year as a 16-year-old Nassau County boy who had been reported missing from Jacksonville and that they had arrested a Jacksonville Beach man in connection with his death.

Ronnie Leon Hyde, 60, is charged with the 1994 murder of Fred Laster, and the FBI and Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office began exhaustive searches Tuesday of Hyde’s homes on Fourth Street in Jacksonville Beach and Thelma Street in Jacksonville’s Talleyrand neighborhood.

Columbia County investigators have worked the case since the body of a young man was found outside a dumpster at a BP gas station at the U.S. 441 exit of Interstate 10. Using DNA technology, the remains were identified last February as those of the teenager.

Fred Laster’s family may have jump-started the investigation. Years after the teen disappeared, one of his cousins said she started searching cold cases online and, in 2015, she spotted the cold case poster and showed it to his siblings, who recognized the photos on the flier.

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IRELAND
RTE News

The Religious Sisters of Charity who ran the former Donnybrook Magdalene laundry in Dublin have said they do not have any concerns that former residents may be buried in unmarked graves on the site or elsewhere.

Their statement follows concerns raised in a planning application for the redevelopment of the laundry that there may be unmarked graves on the site because of its past as a Magdalene laundry.

The site is due to be redeveloped into apartments by a Gibraltar-based property company.

An archaeological assessment attached to the planning application raises concerns about “the potential for burials in the area.”

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IRELAND
Dublin Live

BY BARRY ARNOLD
7 MAR 2017

Dublin city’s senior archaeologist warned a private developer that a Magdalene Laundry site in the capital could contain human remains.

Dr Ruth Johnson said the property at The Crescent, Donnybrook could contain remains in September 2016, five months before the shocking discovery inTuam last week.

Hundreds of remains were found at the Bon Secours Mother and Baby Home in Tuam, Co Galway.

“The proposed development consists of the former lands of Saint Mary’s Convent and the Magdalene Laundries.

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IRELAND
Irish Times

Sinead Pembroke

On hearing the reports in the media about the discovery of a mass grave at the site of the once mother and baby home in Tuam, it nearly feels as though we are discovering abuses perpetrated by the Catholic Church in Ireland, in State-funded institutions for the very first time.

Yet, this isn’t the first time, and as the daughter of a survivor of a Christian Brother institution, it feels like we’re back there again, when these abuses started to emerge in the media for the first time.

There have been numerous inquiries into institutions that were State-funded and run by Catholic congregations, and the type of revelations we have been hearing recently about mother and baby homes were already being told by survivors of these institutions, yet were largely ignored. Why is this information only coming to the forefront now? And why wasn’t this investigated properly before, along with the other institutions?

Reluctance

This comes down to the great reluctance of governments (both Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael) and the various public sector departments involved, in establishing these inquiries and redress schemes, in the first place. Usually they were established after years of campaigning from survivors, survivor groups and individuals.

For example, the Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse (CICA) was only established after Mary Raftery’s documentary series for RTÉ called States of Fear. The Magdalene Redress scheme was only set up after Justice for Magdalenes (JFM) went to the UN Committee against Torture (CAT) to make a case of State involvement with the Magdalene Laundries.

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IRELAND
Irish Independent

The Religious Sisters of Charity have said they are not concerned that former residents may be buried in unmarked graves on the site of a former Magdalene Laundry in Dublin 4.

An Gibraltar property firm is due to build an apartment complex on The Crescent in Donnybrook and in a planning application concerns were raised during the archaeological assessment about “the potential for burials in the area”.

The assessment reads:

“There are no clear records as to what happened to some of the women who operated within the laundries once they died. It remains a possibility that some are buried within the area of the proposed development.”

It also warns that “ground disturbances … will have an adverse and negative impact on archaeological deposits …This includes possible burials relating to the former use of the site as a Magdalene Laundry.”

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AUSTRALIA
Tamut and Adelong Times

By Frances Vinall – March 8, 2017

Current Catholic priest for the Tumut parish, Father Sijo Jose, has spoken about the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.

The Royal Commission has been investigating child abuse allegations against the Catholic Church, and other institutions, for over three years.

They revealed that 4,444 victims have made complaints to the church involving 1,880 alleged perpetrators within the Catholic hierachy over the past 35 years.

The true number of victims is estimated to be significantly higher, as that number only includes those who reported their abuse to the Dioceses.

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