ABUSE TRACKER

GUAM
Pacific News Center

Written by Donna De Jesus

For the first time, Guam’s Capuchin Franciscan Order has been named as a culpable party.

Guam – More lawsuits have been filed alleging sexual misconduct of local Catholic Priests — and for the first time, Guam’s Capuchin Franciscan order has been named as a culpable party.

Earlier today, Attorney Michael Pfau announced his client, identified only as J.M. was seeking damages from the Archdiocese of Agana, and the Capuchins — to include the Province of St. Mary located in the Northeastern United States. Attorney Pfau and his firm, according to a release, “has handled claims against the Capuchins and other religious orders in other jurisdictions.”

This complaint alleges that during a 3-year period in the 1970s, the alleged victim: 10-years-old at the time, was abused by Father Sigmund Hafemann at the Mount Carmel Church in Agat. The accused clergy member has since passed away, according to Attorney Pau’s release. No specific amount of damages sought was detailed in the media notice.

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

PENNSYLVANIA
WPXI

Updated: Apr 11, 2017

PITTSBURGH – A grand jury has been meeting behind closed doors about sexual abuse allegations in the Catholic Diocese of Pittsburgh.

Jurors heard testimony on Tuesday during the secret proceedings about cases that could date back 70 years.

Target 11’s Rick Earle learned one man who testified claims that he was abused by a priest and nun. Earle previously spoke with Johnny Hewko about the allegations.

Hewko said he was abused over a nearly three-year span of time.

“I’d have to say, on average, maybe once a week would be around right,” he told Earle in February.

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

ESPANA
El Mundo

11/04/2017

“No existe acreditación alguna de los hechos que son imputados al procesado, ni en lo esencial ni en lo accesorio o circunstancial”. Bajo esta premisa, la Sección Segunda de la Audiencia Provincial de Granada despacha el ‘caso Romanones’ de supuestos abusos del sacerdote Román Martínez a un monaguillo de su parroquia con la absolución del cura, en una larga sentencia dada a conocer este martes a las partes en el juicio, que en sus 80 folios niega credibilidad al denunciante ‘Daniel’ -nombre supuesto-, al que condena al pago de las costas procesales.

El tribunal, presidido por el magistrado José María Requena, recoge las conclusiones de la Fiscalía, que si en un principio pedía cárcel para el sacerdote terminó retirando la acusación, y de la defensa de Román Martínez, que ejerció el letrado Javier Muriel: la sentencia, ya en el primer párrafo de los fundamentos de derecho anticipa que “prácticamente la totalidad” de los hechos denunciados ” o bien no están acreditados, o bien se ha probado la inexactitud y falta de certeza de la versión ofrecida por el denunciante”, sobre el que el fallo judicial descarga las múltiples contradicciones en que incurrió en la vista oral y otros testimonios del joven durante la fase de instrucción.

En este panorama, el tribunal entiende una “conducta desleal” en el denunciante, “al ir aportando datos de manera sucesiva, de menor a mayor gravedad, mintiendo respecto de circunstancias objetivas”, entre las que menciona la fecha de la llamada telefónica del Papa, “o pretendiendo ocultar otros al negar su presencia en determinadas fotos o fecharlas en un momento equivocado”.

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

ESPANA
Confilegal

Carlos Berbell 11 Abril, 2017

El tribunal de la Sección Segunda de la Audiencia Provincial de Granada ha absuelto al sacerdote granadino, Román Martínez, de 63 años, de los abusos sexuales de los que le acusaba un joven por la “inconsistencia del relato del acusador particular, sin apoyo periférico alguno y, al mismo tiempo que determinadas circunstancias que él daba por ciertas e inequívocas, han sido desmontadas a través del material probatorio que obraba”, dice la sentencia, que consta de 80 folios.

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

SPAIN
New York Times

By RAPHAEL MINDER
APRIL 11, 2017

Ending a sexual abuse case in which Pope Francis intervened three years ago, a Spanish court on Tuesday cleared a parish priest in Granada who had been accused of molesting an altar boy.

The court found no evidence that the Rev. Román Martínez had sexually abused one of his former altar boys more than a decade ago.

An investigation began after David Ramírez Castillo wrote to Pope Francis in 2014, detailing the sexual abuse that he said he and others suffered repeatedly when they were teenagers at the hands of a group of priests led by Father Martínez.

Pope Francis phoned Mr. Ramírez Castillo and urged him to pursue his complaints. The pope also ordered a church investigation into the case, demanding complete transparency.

In an 81-page ruling, the court said it had exonerated Father Martínez not only because of the lack of evidence against him but also because the testimony of Mr. Ramírez Castillo included elements that were “completely implausible.”

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

NORTHERN IRELAND
News Letter

BY DEBORAH MCALEESE, PRESS ASSOCIATION

Tuesday 11 April 2017 The political crisis at Stormont has stalled the implementation of recommendations made in the Historical Institutional Abuse Inquiry, including financial compensation for hundreds of victims. Here are some of their stories.

Kate Walmsley, 60

“I was put into Nazareth House in Belfast at the age of two. At the age seven I was transferred to Nazareth House Bishops Street (in Londonderry).

I was moved around to other homes until I was released at 15. I then lived in a derelict house in Derry and stole food to survive.

“I have wanted for so long to go out to America to see my eldest son and my two wee grandchildren. They are in Wisconsin. When I heard about the compensation I put a deposit down on flights.

The money has not come through and now I won’t be able to go. “I have another son who lives in Derry and he hasn’t been well. I really wanted to help him with the money.

“I feel like nobody cares. The government don’t care about us. We are not a priority. It seems that the victims of the Troubles are more a priority than we are.

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

NORTHERN IRELAND
Sunday World

Historical abuse survivors have accused Northern Ireland’s politicians of putting their own needs before victims as they continue to wait for financial payments promised 17 months ago.

Victims have warned that many have been left suicidal or facing financial ruin as the current Stormont impasse means that the findings and recommendations of a four-year inquiry into state and church abuse have still not been presented to the assembly.

The report, which was published just days before Stormont collapsed in January, promised victims state-backed compensation payments of up to £100,000. Victims and government bodies were advised in November 2015 that the report would be recommending financial redress.

However, the failure of the region’s two largest parties, the Democratic Unionist Party and Sinn Fein, to form a powersharing government has meant the inquiry’s recommendations have not been implemented.

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

GUAM
The Guam Daily Post

Mindy Aguon | For The Guam Daily Post

A former priest “seized” upon every opportunity to molest and sexually abuse young boys when he served in Guam, said a new civil lawsuit filed in the District Court of Guam Tuesday against the Archdiocese of Agana, the Boy Scouts of America and Louis Brouillard.

The lawsuit, filed by an individual using the initials “P.J.M.S.,” alleges Brouillard raped and sexually abused him when he was 11, and serving as an altar boy at San Vicente Ferrer-San Roke Church in Barrigada. At the time, the plaintiff was also a Boy Scout with the Barrigada troop.

The victim, now 48, recalled the abuse in the lawsuit, alleging the abuse happened between 1978 and 1980 on the parish grounds and at Boy Scout outings.

The lawsuit alleges Brouillard would swim naked and order young boys to do the same, while groping and touching their private parts under the guise of teaching the boys to swim.

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

GUAM
The Guam Daily Post

Neil Pang | The Guam Daily Post

The Archdiocese of Agana has asked the District Court of Guam to dismiss the 36 pending child sexual abuse cases that have been filed against it.

The archdiocese contends the recently passed law, which prompted the filing of the suits, does not actually provide for claimants to file such actions against third parties.

“The plaintiffs assert that (Bill 326-33, now Public Law 33-187) revives these long-expired claims against the archdiocese,” court documents state. “It does not.”

In supporting arguments made in court documents, a legal counsel for the Archdiocese of Agana, John Terlaje, explained the law eliminates the statute of limitations for future claims, “attempts” to revive expired claims against “alleged perpetrators,” but “does not revive expired claims against third parties such as the archdiocese.”

Pointing to both what he termed the “plain language” of the final version of Bill 326 as well as the legislative history, Terlaje said it was clear the law did not permit any of the plaintiffs who have come forward so far to file claims against the archdiocese.

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

AUSTRALIA
The Guardian

Kristina Keneally

There was a time I would attend church every day of Holy Week. Not this year – it is too hard to reconcile a church that makes special claims to grace with the findings of the royal commission into child sexual abuse

It’s Holy Week, the most sacred time in the Catholic liturgical calendar. Between Thursday and Saturday, Catholic liturgies will recount the last days of Jesus of Nazareth, including his last supper with his followers, his condemnation to death, his crucifixion and his burial.

There would have been a time in which I would have attended church every day of this week. Holy Week marks the key message of the Catholic Christian faith: that Jesus suffered, died, was buried and on the third day he rose again, breaking the bonds of death and redeeming humanity.

In short, Jesus’ death and resurrection saves us from our sins.

This Holy Week I won’t be at church.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m no saint. I make no claim to sinlessness. I could use some of that forgiveness and redemption. But it is hard to take seriously a church that, in its very organisation, seems so sinful.

If Jesus’ death and resurrection imparts some saving grace to humanity, how is it that the very institution that is meant to mediate Christ to his followers can be so intrinsically flawed?

I know the church hierarchy is made up of human beings, and human beings are not perfect. But these particular human beings make special claims to holiness and grace, and yet they spawn and support an institution that grotesquely violates children.

Jesus said that children are special, that they are holy. The royal commission into institutional responses to child sexual abuse says that there have been nearly 4,500 reported cases of alleged abuse of children in Catholic institutions over the past 35 years. No doubt many more remain unreported.

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

UNITED STATES
America

Michael O’Loughlin
April 11, 2017

Archbishop Wilton Gregory, who led the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops during the tumultuous years when the wide scope of the clergy sexual abuse scandal was brought to light, said in a new interview that clericalism is still hampering efforts to address the issue, even at the highest levels of the church.

“I would say there is a resistance to do the hard thing,” the Atlanta archbishoptold NPR affiliate WABE in a March interview broadcast on April 10. “I think it’s culturally driven as much as it is ideologically driven.”

Archbishop Gregory addressed allegations by Marie Collins, an Irish laywoman and survivor of sexual abuse who resigned from the pope’s child protection commission. She complained that the Vatican refuses to implement recommendations from the group, even with the backing of Pope Francis himself. Ms. Collins, the archbishop said, “has touched on a truism.”

“It is the ugly face of clericalism that unfortunately still has too much influence in our church,” Archbishop Gregory said. “Marie Collins is a very brave woman, and she is a very determined woman, and I believe she’s a grace for the church.”

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

TENNESSE
The Tennessean

Andy Humbles , USA Today Network – Tennessee

April 11, 2017

A Lebanon college student sexually abused as a teenager by her youth pastor has progressed from victim to survivor, but there is another step.

Courtney Greene, 21, told her story last year to The Tennessean just after Christopher D. Ross pleaded guilty to two counts of statutory rape by an authority figure in March 2016. Ross was sentenced to six years in prison.

Just over a year after her case was closed legally, Greene will speak publicly for the first time April 22, at a kickoff event for a new Wilson County organization whose mission includes helping women who have experienced tragedy.

“You aren’t magically healed when the plea is entered or the verdict is given,” Greene said. “The immediate danger has subsided, but the residual damage is very much still in place. That’s what I’m fighting now.”

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

IRELAND
Midlands 103

The Government has rejected immediate redress for children from mother and baby homes.

A second interim report of the Commission on Mother and Baby homes recommends the Government reconsider excluding residents of the homes from the state redress scheme.

Children’s Minister Katherine Zappone said the Government is conscious that the commission has made no findings to date regarding abuse or neglect and that it would not be appropriate to deal with the question of redress in advance of any conclusions.

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

UNITED STATES
Los Angeles Review of Books

APRIL 10, 2017

By Arthur McCaffrey

This is a story about institutional crime and social justice. At times, it may seem there is too much of the former and not enough of the latter. That’s the bad news. The good news is, when the institutional crime involves the abuse and exploitation of children, a number of different governments, in different countries, in different parts of the world, are finally beginning to do something. Unfortunately, the US government is not one of them.

Fifteen years ago, the Boston Globe won a Pulitzer Prize for its exposé of the criminal abuse of children inside the Catholic Church; the movie about those Globe reporters, Spotlight, won an Oscar. As the Boston conflagration spread to other cities and dioceses around the country, more hidden abuse was exposed, more predators identified, and their institutional cover blown. But the task of exposure fell primarily to local media, local judiciaries, and local attorneys who brought victims’ lawsuits against their offending archdioceses. The nation’s fourth estate, a free press, did the bulk of the heavy lifting — collecting and broadcasting the evidence in Philadelphia, Los Angeles, Minneapolis, Chicago, Portland, Milwaukie, and everywhere else religious institutions had colluded. But to date, in contrast to public initiatives in some other countries, there has been no national-level, governmental investigation of child abuse in America.

The wheels of justice, even if they grind exceeding fine, still grind exceeding slow. While grassroots victim-advocacy groups sprung up quickly enough after the Boston stories, it usually takes much longer to jumpstart official public inquiries — especially those with enough clout to do some far-reaching, consequential investigation into the historical record of public and private institutions charged with the welfare of children assigned to their care.

But now those wheels have momentum, and we are experiencing a spate of public inquiries around the globe, which are producing voluminous reports on their investigations into the institutional abuse of children. Serious students of social justice should make room on their bookshelves for this burgeoning library of official publications.

Ireland

Ireland, which was probably wounded earliest and longest by Catholic criminality, has produced the Murphy (2009), Ryan (2009) and Cloyne (2011) reports dealing with, among other things, sexual abuse in Catholic industrial schools, and the role of both church and state in (mis)handling cases of sexual abuse of children by local diocesan priests. These reports helped expose orphanages, homes, workhouses, asylums, and other religious institutions where former residents made claims of emotional, physical and sexual abuse against nuns and priests.

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

FLORIDA
Orlando Weekly

Posted By Cameron Meier on Mon, Apr 10, 2017

The 19th annual Sarasota Film Festival wrapped up over the weekend with an awards and red-carpet ceremony at the Sarasota Opera House and appearances by Rosanna Arquette, Kenny Anderson, Aisha Tyler, Stanley Tucci and Diane Lane. The last three also participated in “conversation with” Q&A sessions at the Florida Studio Theatre. …

I asked the same of Tucci.

“Every movie is different,” he says. “[I look at] the director, the other people in the film, the location, the money – all those things. They’re all factors.”

I also asked how he prepared for his role in the Oscar-winning Spotlight.

“I looked at a lot of video of that fellow [Mitchell Garabedian],” Tucci explained. “He’s a really interesting, more-than-interesting guy. There’s a lot of footage [of] him on the internet. So that was very helpful. … All he’s trying to do is sort of fight the good fight.”

Though Tucci said, at Sunday’s Q&A session, that he never met or spoke with Garabedian before filming Spotlight, he admitted that Garabedian was so impressed with the finished product that the two became friends after the movie’s release.

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

NEBRASKA
Courthouse News Service

TED WHEELER
April 7, 2017

OMAHA, Neb. (CN) – In a lawsuit against the Jesuit order and Catholic church, a woman who gave her child up for adoption decades ago claims the church ran a “for-profit adoption conspiracy scheme” that forced hundreds of unwed mothers to give up their infants.

In a strongly worded statement, the Jesuit order denied the allegations in Kathleen Chafin’s lawsuit.

“These allegations are false and it can prove that these allegations are false,” the Jesuit order said. “The Province did not ‘conspire’ with anyone and it did not ‘profit’ from the adoption of any infants, Ms. Chafin’s included. Indeed, many of the allegations in the complaint are known to be untrue and can be shown to be untrue.”

Chafin sued the Wisconsin Province of the Society of Jesus (also known as the Jesuit order) and the Catholic Archdiocese of Omaha on April 4 in Douglas County Court.

The Jesuit order was founded in 1534 by Ignatius of Loyola, and approved as an apostolic order in 1540 by Pope Paul III. Its members take vows of chastity and poverty and, later, obedience.

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

GUAM
Pacific Daily News

Haidee V Eugenio , heugenio@guampdn.com
April 11, 2017

A former altar boy filed a lawsuit on Tuesday, alleging that former priest Louis Brouillard raped and sexually abused him multiple times around 1978 through 1980.

The man, identified in court documents only by his initials P.J.M.S. to protect his privacy, is the 47th person to file a clergy sex abuse lawsuit against the Archdiocese of Agana.

He said he was only about 10 to 12 years old when the rape and abuses happened on Catholic church grounds and during Boy Scouts of America activities.

P.J.M.S. is now 48 and living in Barrigada. He also named the Boy Scouts of America, its Aloha Council Chamorro District and Brouillard as defendants. Brouillard was P.J.M.S.’ scout master and the parish priest in Barrigada at the time.

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

UNITED STATES/PHILIPPINES
BishopAccountability.org

Summary of Case: John W. Lennon was ordained for the Maryknoll order in 1955. After a year of studies in New York, the Philippines, Massachusetts and Ireland, he settled into ministry in the Philippines. There for over a decade, Lennon pastored several parishes, directed high schools, was a college president and served as superintendent of schools for the Tagum diocese. He was also a U.S. Military chaplain. Lennon returned to the United States in the late 1960s, teaching pastoral ministry for a short time at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, followed by a brief stint as associate pastor of St. Anthony’s in New York’s Bronx borough. In 1970 Lennon was assigned to New York’s Cardinal Hayes High School where he he served as a teacher, administrator and moderator of athletics. He appears to have left the Maryknolls in approximately 1975. In 1981 he left Hayes to pastor St. Gregory’s parish in Manhattan, remaining there until 1989 when he became pastor of St. John the Baptist in Yonkers.

In April 2002 Lennon was suspended from ministry after an accusation emerged that he had molested a Hayes High School student in the mid-1970s. His accuser said that he was on the school’s hockey team when Lennon was in charge of athletics, and that the abuse occurred during weekend trips. Lennon denied the accusation.

In April 2008 it was reported that Lennon had been “quietly” laicized by the Vatican. He died in December 2012.

Born: January 20, 1928
Ordained: June 11, 1955
Educated: Maryknoll Jr. Seminary, Maryknoll Jr. College, Maryknoll Major Seminary
Laicized: 2008
Died: December 16, 2012

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

MISSOURI
The Media Report

A civil jury in Missouri took merely minutes to decide what many of us have already known for a long time: that Rev. Xiu Hui “Joseph” Jiang and the Archdiocese of St. Louis are completely innocent of wild charges related to sex abuse of a teenage girl.

To illustrate how clear it was to the jury that the charges against Rev. Jiang were ridiculous: The jury was given the case at 12:30pm. And even with the staggering anti-Catholic atmosphere in the St. Louis area, and even though the trial’s arguments and testimony took a full two weeks, the jury returned its exonerating verdict by 3pm, and that included a lunch break.

More lunacy from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch

Yet if one were to get their information from the local St. Louis Post-Dispatch – who has a well-established track record of animus against the Catholic Church – a reader missing the headline would barely even understand that a jury had cleared Fr. Jiang.

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

GUAM
KUAM

Updated: Apr 11, 2017

By Krystal Paco

The number of lawsuits continues to climb. Filed today in the District Court of Guam, 48-year-old “PJMS” alleges he was sexually molested by Father Louis Brouillard in the late 1970s.

PJMS was an altar boy and boy scout for the Barrigada parish.

One night during a sleepover at the rectory with other boys, alleges he woke up to Brouillard penetrateing him. He cried and begged the priest to stop, but the priest stated “keep calm, don’t worry. I’m not going to hurt you.”

PJMS is suing for $10 million. He is represented by attorneys David Lujan and Gloria Rudolph.

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

AUSTRALIA
mnnews

[with video]

The ancient Hebrew people, like every other human society, had to try to make sense of their world. And like every society, part of what they saw around them was a certain prevalence of greed, selfishness, violence and all the things we collectively call ‘evil’. Like our own indigenous people, the Hebrews used to explain their world to themselves by telling stories of the things that had happened to the ancestors long, long ago to make things the way they are now. So it was they told stories around their campfires of how the first ancestors had had it good but had broken God’s rules and a world of troubles had flowed from that.

One significant part of that Adam and Eve story is what happens after the first sin. All we’re told is that Adam and Eve feel shame. They hide, they literally cover themselves up, and then they start blaming each other and the wretched serpent. That’s shame. It’s not feeling proper guilt, the pangs of conscience when you recognise and take responsibility for the wrong you’ve done. And neither of these, shame or guilt, measures up to the Christian idea of repentance. Repentance is deep sorrow for the wrong done, a decision to do whatever you can to make it right and, above all, a determination to change. ‘Repentance’, as the Latin root of the word suggests, is a ‘re-thinking’ of the direction of your life, of how you’re living, of what you’re on about.

Our church in these past years has been living through a period of experiencing all these reactions to our wrongdoing. Great evil has been done by some of our people and leaders. Sexual abuse of children. As this has come to light, there has certainly been shame. But as always, shame is an utterly inadequate response, what with its hiding, its covering up, its looking for excuses and its blaming others. There has been proper guilt too in many quarters, with its sorrow for the harm done and acceptance of responsibility. Of course most Catholics, most of you, have no personal responsibility for the crimes or cover-ups. But many of us are still deeply uneasy, to say the least, that perhaps there was something in our Catholic way of doing things, in our habits of mind, our ways of relating, in the way we put value too much value on some things and not enough on others – in what the Royal Commission calls ‘the Catholic Culture’ – that first allowed abuse to go undetected and then allowed it not to be exposed, punished and stopped. Some of us feel a sort of community guilt about that, a communal responsibility. But where we need to get to is repentance.

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

GUAM
KUAM

[with video]

Updated: Apr 11, 2017

By Krystal Paco

Prayers were answered. Just a month after the Archdiocese of Agana announced the establishment of a $1 million settlement fund for clergy sex abuse victims, a third-party custodian has been identified. Announced in a press conference today, Attorney Michael Caspino of California will serve as Executive Director of the non-profit group, Hope and Healing Guam.

It may have been divine intervention. “I was on the way to work one day listening to Catholic Radio in Orange County and I heard about the settlement program,” Caspino announced. “What that turned into is here I am here today.” The mainland-based Caspino is a longtime attorney whose handled hundreds of clergy sexual abuse cases. Today, he was announced as executive director of Hope and Healing Guam, a separate entity from the Archdiocese of Agana charged with addressing claims.

The announcement follows the establishment of a million-dollar settlement fund last month giving victims an option to a lengthy legal battle – what Caspino says only re-victimizes the victim. “Litigation just doesn’t solve these cases,” he said. “Slugging it out in court just makes victims a victim twice – we’re putting the victims first here. That’s the whole emphasis of what we’re trying to do here.”

“Over the years, we’ve learned better ways to resolve these types of cases.”

Hope and Healing Guam will also provide victims with much-needed services, including counseling and spiritual guidance. Caspino said, “There is a great deal of pain on this island that has been caused by this abuse and we want to do everything we can to help in that pain.”

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

GEORGIA
Associated Press

BRUNSWICK, Ga. (AP) — A Georgia jury has convicted a pastor of molesting two teenagers who attended his church in coastal Brunswick.

Media outlets report 57-year-old Kenneth Adkins was found guilty Monday of eight criminal counts, including aggravated child molestation.

Prosecutors said the pastor pressured two teenagers – a boy and girl, both 15 – to have sex while Adkins watched in his office at Greater New Dimension Church in 2009. They said the pastor also touched the girl inappropriately.

The male victim testified against Adkins during his trial. But the young woman testified the allegations were false.

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

GEORGIA
WJCT

BRUNSWICK, GEORGIA — After a six-day trial of a Brunswick pastor on sexual molestation charges, a Glynn County jury deliberated less than an hour Monday, finding Ken Atkins guilty of all charges.

Adkins was convicted of two counts of aggravated child molestation, five counts of child molestation and one of enticing a child. He faces up to life in prison on the charges when he is sentenced, which is scheduled for April 25.

Adkins’ defense on accusations that he molested a teenage boy years ago centered on whether the young man had reached the age of 16 — the age of consent in Georgia — and if he remembered the dates and events correctly.

In her closing argument, Assistant District Attorney Katie Gropper said Adkins took advantage of the teenager and wanted to take him for everything he had — sex, women and money. She said all the victim wanted out of this trial was to be able to sleep again.

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

AUSTRALIA
Catholic Leader

April 11, 2017

By Mark Bowling

AN official leading the Church response to child sex abuse has told priests in Brisbane, “we created the abuse”, now it is time for parish priests to listen to their communities, including people who have been abused and are angry with the Church.

“We created the abuse. That is the harsh reality,” chief executive of the Church’s Truth, Justice and Healing Council Francis Sullivan said, addressing about 180 priests from the Archdiocese of Brisbane attending an annual convocation.

“Our culture grew the abusers and our culture protected the abusers and our culture for so long denied the victims.

“We didn’t listen. We didn’t believe.”

Mr Sullivan, through the TJHC, has led the Church’s response to the four-year child sex abuse royal commission.

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

GUAM
Pacific News Center

Written by Donna De Jesus

Retired Saipan Bishop Tomas Camacho wants the charges against him to be dismissed because nearly 50 years have passed since the alleged incident.

Guam – After being accused of raping a Guam altar boy in the early 1970s, the now-retired Saipan bishop, Tomas Camacho, of the Diocese of Chalan Kanoa, has moved to dismiss the complaint.

55-year-old Melvin Duenas accused Camacho of locking him in a room when he was 10 years old, and sexually assaulting him almost nightly at the rectory of the St. Joseph Catholic Church in Inarajan when he was an altar server.

Camacho’s attorney, William Fitzgerald, filed in court documents that the claims made by Duenas are time-barred and were not revived by the passage of Guam Public Law 33-187 in 2016.

Atty. Fitzgerald remarks “by retroactively changing the statute of limitations involving sexual abuse in Guam, the Guam Legislature unconstitutionally impaired vested rights, opened the door to unverifiable and potentially undefendable claims.”

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

AUSTRALIA
National Catholic Register

John Power

MELBOURNE, Australia — A far-reaching national inquiry into institutional child sex abuse in the Church in Australia is fueling debate on whether the law should be changed to force priests to divulge information received in the confessional.

The ongoing Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse has been examining what role, if any, the seal of confession played in the cover-up of child sex abuse within the Church, as well as issues such as celibacy, priest selection and Church governance.

The scrutiny of the sacrament comes after the commission sent shockwaves throughout the Church and Australian society last month by revealing that 7% of priests who worked between 1950 and 2009 had been accused of child sex crimes.

Since the royal commission’s establishment, politicians, including former Prime Minister Julia Gillard, have argued that priests should have to report information they receive about child sex abuse, even if it means breaking the confessional seal, considered inviolable under canon law.

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

MASSACHUSETTS
Cape Cod Times

By Haven Orecchio-Egresitz

BOSTON — Eight men who say they were sexually abused by a Cape Cod priest in the 1970s and 1980s have reached an $880,000 settlement with the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts religious order and the Roman Catholic Diocese of Fall River.

The men, who were between 10 and 20 years old at the time, say they were abused by the Rev. James Nickel while he was a priest at Holy Trinity Church in West Harwich and Our Lady of the Annunciation Chapel in Dennis Port.

Three of the men, including the son of former Boston Red Sox player Jimmy Piersall, spoke of the settlement and told stories of years of abuse at a press conference in Boston on Monday.

“It screwed up my life for a long time,” one of the victims, Christopher Hopkins, said at the press conference. “I look back and he was a sick person and my anger isn’t with him, it’s with the hierarchy.”

Nickel died in 2008. He was executive director of Damien Ministries, an HIV/AIDS organization in Washington, D.C., at the time of his death.

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

AUSTRALIA
Catholic Leader

April 11, 2017

By Emilie Ng

PRIESTLY vocations might be fewer in number and “chastened” by the Royal Commission’s hearings into abuse in the Catholic Church but “the gift of priesthood will remain”, Archbishop Mark Coleridge said.

The Archbishop reiterated the anointed call of men to the priesthood during the Chrism Mass at St Stephen’s Cathedral on April 6, where priests of Brisbane archdiocese renewed their vows publicly and oils used throughout the liturgical year were blessed.

The Mass coincided with the final day of the annual Convocation of Priests, where recommendations following the Royal Commission’s final hearing into the Catholic Church response to sexual abuse were discussed, including clericalism as a primary cause of abuse.

Archbishop Coleridge used his homily to explain a concept questioned by the Royal Commission, notably the profound ontological change that occurred in men ordained to the priesthood.

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

GUAM
Pacific Daily News

Haidee V Eugenio , heugenio@guampdn.com April 11, 2017

The Archdiocese of Agana says a 2016 Guam law that retroactively lifted the statute of limitations on childhood sexual abuse cases is not only unconstitutional but would apply only to the alleged perpetrators, and not institutions such as the church.

Dozens of former altar boys have sued priests, the archdiocese, and in some cases the Boy Scouts of America in federal court, asking for millions of dollars in damages for sexual abuse they said happened decades ago, when they were children.

The Archdiocese late Monday for the first time provided the federal court with the specific reasons it believes the lawsuits should be dismissed. Its attorneys challenged the idea that the statute of limitations can be lifted retroactively and also the idea that institutions such as the church could be retroactively held liable, in addition to the alleged perpetrators.

The archdiocese’s attorneys said while not every retrospective law violates the due process clause of the island’s Organic Act, extending an expired civil limitations period can unconstitutionally infringe upon a vested right.

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

GUAM
The Guam Daily Post

Neil Pang | The Guam Daily Post

Attorney David Lujan amended two more suits filed on behalf of plaintiffs accusing Guam clergy of child sexual abuse, to include the Boy Scouts of America as a named defendant and double the amount sought in damages to $10 million.

The complaints filed in the District court of Guam on behalf of plaintiffs Norman Aguon and Felix Manglona were amended yesterday to allege the Boy Scouts of America knew, of should have known, that then-Guam priest Louis Brouillard was abusing boys under his care in Troop 24 when he served as both a priest with the Archdiocese of Agana and a scoutmaster for the Aloha Council of the Boy Scouts of America.

Both plaintiffs allege Brouillard abused them multiple times during the early 1970s when Manglona and Aguon served as altar boys at the San Isidro Catholic Church of Malojloj and members of Boy Scout Troop 24.

According to Aguon’s complaint, Brouillard abused him at the Carmelite Convent multiple times over a four-year period when the priest sought and obtained permission from Aguon’s parents to have Aguon spend the night at the convent, using as an excuse that Brouillard did not want Aguon to be late to serve the next day as an altar boy for mass.

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

GUAM
KUAM

Updated: Apr 09, 2017

By Krystal Paco

Dressed not in Sunday’s best, but with signs demanding Archbishop Anthony Apuron be defrocked.

Sunday marked the 42nd week of pickets in front of the Hagatna Cathedral for members of the Concerned Catholics of Guam and the Laity Forward Movement. Apuron is four-times accused of sexually abusing former altar boys at Mt. Carmel Parish in Agat, resulting in lawsuits filed in the federal court.

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

MASSACHUSETTS
Boston Globe

By Jan Ransom GLOBE STAFF APRIL 10, 2017

The Diocese of Fall River has agreed to an $880,000 settlement with eight men who as children were sexually abused by a West Harwich priest, the victims’ attorney announced Monday.

The late Reverend James Nickel, who served at Holy Trinity Parish in West Harwich, allegedly sexually abused at least eight boys in the early 1970s and 1980s, some as many as 50 times over several years. Attorneys for the men suspect there are more victims.

“Father Nickel was a serial pedophile,” Mitchell Garabedian, the attorney for the victims, said at a press conference. “Once again, we have a coverup at the highest level of our religious order.”

Garabedian said that Nickel sexually abused boys in various parishes throughout the country and in the Bahamas, including Marsh Harbour, West Harwich, Illinois, New York, Washington D.C., Rhode Island and New Hampshire. Nickel died in 2008.

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

SVERIGE
SVT

[The language of this video is Swedish.]

[A television program from Sweden reveals sexual abuse within the Catholic ultra-conservative Brotherhood SSPX.]

Del 13 av 16. Uppdrag granskning avslöjar sexuella övergrepp mot barn inom det katolska ultrakonservativa brödraskapet SSPX. Med tystnad och lögner skyddas prästerna och brödraskapet – på barnens bekostnad. Programledare: Karin Mattisson.

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

UNITED KINGDOM
Bristol Post

BY LEWIS PENNOCK
10 APR 2017

A Catholic priest found guilty by his peers of sexually abusing a boy was transferred to a Bristol retreat near a primary school.

The unnamed priest, known as ‘Father S’ and formerly a member of the traditionalist Catholic splinter group the Society of St. Pius X (SSPX), was accused of abusing a boy in 2006 while based in France.

The priest, who was found guilty of abuse at an internal SSPX trial, was transferred by the society to its Bristol ‘retreat house’, St Saviour’s House in Knowle , and made to undertake several years of therapy and counselling.

He reportedly spent six years at St Saviour’s House, in St Agnes Avenue, which is just a few hundred metres away from Knowle Park Primary School, before moving to London in 2012.

Details of the abuse allegations are reported in a Swedish documentary about an alleged mishandling of several sexual abuse charges by SSPX. It is claimed the international society knew of several abuse cases involving priests but failed to enforce a ‘zero tolerance’ policy.

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

UNITED KINGDOM
BBC News

A former Catholic boarding school pupil who accused a priest of “horrific” sexual abuse made up the claims to get compensation, a court has heard.

Father Michael Higginbottom, 74, is accused of subjecting a teenage boy to repeated sexual abuse in the 1970s.

The assaults are said to have taken place when he was a teacher at St Joseph’s College in Lancashire.

The priest denies four counts of a serious sexual offence and indecent assault.

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

GUAM
Pacific Daily News

Haidee V Eugenio , heugenio@guampdn.com

April 10, 2017

The Archdiocese of Agana asked the federal court to dismiss dozens of clergy sex abuse lawsuits, based on a challenge to a seven-month-old law that lifted the statute of limitations for childhood sexual abuse cases.

Attorney John Terlaje, one of the attorneys for the archdiocese, along with U.S.-based lawyers, filed on Monday a report on the April 24 scheduling and planning conference. It referred to at least 37 sex abuse cases with claims he said were from 30 to 36 years ago. To date, the archdiocese is facing 46 clergy abuse lawsuits, including a handful filed in local court.

“The Archdiocese and Archbishop (Anthony) Apuron have filed motions to dismiss based on a challenge to the newly-passed statute of limitations relating to child sex abuse codified at 7 GCA 11301.1,” he said.

The law, signed on Sept. 23, 2016, allows victims of child sex abuse to sue their abusers, and the institutions with which they are or were associated, at any time.

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

TEXAS
The Brownsville Herald

By LORENZO ZAZUETA-CASTRO | STAFF WRITER

EDINBURG — A former priest could not receive a fair trial in Hidalgo County because of the biased media coverage of his case.

The attorney for a former priest accused of killing a McAllen schoolteacher doesn’t believe his client can get a fair trial in HidalgoCounty, citing among some of his reasons, the overflow of coverage into the case that spans nearly 60 years.

O. Rene Flores, a criminal defense attorney based in Edinburg, and the man who has been by John Bernard Feit’s side since before he opted to waive his extradition from Arizona to HidalgoCounty, formally filed a motion to have the trial’s venue changed, arguing that his client will not receive a fair trial in the county.

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

FRANCE
Le Monde

AFP

[After the resignation of the bishop of Dax for “inappropriate attitudes” towards young people, a new affair affects the church. A priest in a commuity near the Andelys in the Eure was relieved of his duties after child pornography allegations. The Evreaux bishop said that Abbe Olivier Lemesie, 44, of Gaillard-sur-Seine has been suspended from ministry.]

Après la démission de l’évêque de Dax pour « attitudes inappropriées » envers des jeunes, une nouvelle affaire touche l’Eglise. Un curé d’une commune proche des Andelys, dans l’Eure, a été relevé de ses fonctions pour avoir consulté des sites pédopornographiques, selon un communiqué du diocèse d’Evreux consulté vendredi 7 avril par l’AFP. L’homme fait parallèlement l’objet de poursuites judiciaires.

Dans un discret communiqué publié fin mars sur le site du diocèse, l’évêque d’Evreux, Mgr Christian Nourrichard, indique que l’abbé Olivier Lemesle, 44 ans, curé de la paroisse de Gaillard-sur-Seine, aux Andelys, n’exercera plus son ministère.

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

IRELAND
Irish Examiner

Monday, April 10, 2017

By Conall Ó Fátharta
Irish Examiner Reporter

Justice Minister Frances Fitzgerald and her department have been accused of misleading the UN by claiming the McAleese report made “no finding” in relation to State liability with regard to Magdalene Laundries.

Ms Fitzgerald told the Dáil in February that a State apology was issued to the women who worked in Magdalene Laundries despite the fact that there was “no finding in the McAleese Report which indicated that the State had any liability in the matter”.

This was also stated in Geneva at a hearing of the UN Convention of Equality Against Women by a Department of Justice representative.

However, the McAleese report states categorically that over one-quarter of all referrals to Magdalene Laundries were facilitated by the State.

In the State apology offered by Taoiseach Enda Kenny to the women in 2013, he also explicitly acknowledged the State’s “direct involvement” in the Magdalene Laundry system.

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

TEXAS
KRGV

[with video]

EDINBURG – The defense team representing former priest John Feit is asking for change of venue for his upcoming murder trial.

Attorneys O. Rene Flores and Ricardo Flores submitted the court documents on April 4. The motion suggests that Feit would not be able to receive a fair and impartial trial in Hidalgo County.

The document goes on to state that a jury comprised of people who are from the area would not be able to consider the evidence without outside influence. The motion cites local and national media coverage as a reason Feit might not get a fair trial in the Rio Grande Valley.

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

TEXAS
The Monitor

EDINBURG — A former priest could not receive a fair trial in Hidalgo County because of the biased media coverage of his case.

The attorney for a former priest accused of killing a McAllen schoolteacher doesn’t believe his client can get a fair trial in Hidalgo County, citing among some of his reasons, the overflow of coverage into the case that spans nearly 60 years.

O. Rene Flores, a criminal defense attorney based in Edinburg, and the man who has been by John Bernard Feit’s side since before he opted to waive his extradition from Arizona to Hidalgo County, formally filed a motion to have the trial’s venue changed, arguing that his client will not receive a fair trial in the county.

Flores on Tuesday filed a memorandum to the court containing more than 700 pages of documented evidence in support of his argument that the former priest has been over covered by local, state, national and international media.

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

IRELAND
The Journal

THE NEWS THAT a significant number of human remains were discovered at the site of a former mother and baby home in Co Galway shocked people in Ireland and beyond when it emerged last month.

On 3 March, the Commission into Mother and Baby Homes said the remains were discovered in a structure that appeared to be “related to the treatment/containment of sewerage and/or wastewater” at the former site of a Bon Secours property in Tuam.

At the time, Children’s Minister Katherine Zappone said the “sad and disturbing news” confirmed rumours about the possibility of a mass grave at the site.

“Today is about remembering and respecting the dignity of the children who lived their short lives in this Home. We will honour their memory and make sure that we take the right actions now to treat their remains appropriately,” she added.

TheJournal.ie has, under the Freedom of Information Act, obtained the correspondence between the commission and Zappone in the days before the news was made public.

‘The decisions need to be made urgently’

On 1 March, two days before the official announcement, commission chair Judge Yvonne Murphy wrote to the minister about the shocking discovery.

“The Commission members are shocked by what has been discovered and recognise that there are many family members and local residents who will also be very shocked.

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

BELGIUM
The Brussels Times

Sunday, 09 April 2017

At the initiative of victims, the Mensrechten in de Kerk work group and Cardinal Jozef De Kesel, there was an installation ceremony for the piece “Esse est Percipi” (To exist is to be recognised).
It is dedicated to the memory of all victims of sexual abuse by Church members. The ceremony was held in the Koekelberg basilica at 11am on Saturday.

More than 150 people attended the ceremony, including many Church representatives. It was paid for by victims and victim’s families. The statue, which is a little infant’s dress, was unveiled during the ceremony. It is similar to other statues in Antwerp and Bruges, and symbolises destroyed childhood and fragility.

Linda Opdebeeck, the President of the Human Rights within the Church workgroup (Mensrechten in de Kerk), and someone from the association gave speeches in the name of the victims. They said although the beginning of their involvement with the Church was traumatising, they were able to appreciate the Church’s progressive acceptance of the severity of the incidents. This acceptance had started to forge a path to reconciliation.

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

AUSTRALIA
The Courier

Olivia ShyingOlivia Shying
@oliviashying

8 Apr 2017

Some Ballarat clergy abuse survivors have called on the Ballarat Catholic Diocese to alter all plaques bearing disgraced Bishop Ronald Mulkearns’ name.

Bishop Mulkearns blessed nearly every Catholic building opened in the Ballarat diocese between 1974 and 1996. Paedophile priests Robert Best and Gerald Ridsdale abused children in the diocese while Bishop Mulkearns oversaw the region.

Survivor Peter Blenkiron, who was abused at the age of 11, believes the plaques should be altered but not removed. He said one of the aim of any changes should be to protect children from future abuse.

“Don’t remove the plaques. Put a line through and add something down the bottom as a reminder of what happened,” Mr Blenkiron said.

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

AUSTRALIA
Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse

10 April, 2017

The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse has released a new research report that finds Australian oversight bodies have inconsistent scope and powers in protecting children from sexual abuse in institutions.

Professor Ben Mathews from the Queensland University of Technology was contracted by the Royal Commission to examine the strengths and weaknesses of existing regulatory and oversight bodies in protecting children from sexual abuse.

The research report, Oversight and regulatory mechanisms aimed at protecting children from sexual abuse: Understanding current evidence of efficacy, finds there are differences across jurisdictions in presence, nature, scope and powers.

The oversight bodies examined included ombudsman’s offices, reportable conduct schemes, children’s commissions, community visitors schemes, child advocates and children’s guardians and crime and misconduct commissions. The report also examines regulatory systems across a range of sectors including non-government schools, early childhood and care, the medical sector and sport and recreation.

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

MASSACHUSETTS
Road to Recovery

SON OF MAJOR LEAGUE BASEBALL GREAT JIMMY PEARSALL, CHRIS PEARSALL, AND OTHER MEN WILL ANNOUNCE A SETTLEMENT OF $880,000.00 FOR CLERGY SEXUAL ABUSE CLAIMS AGAINST FATHER JAMES NICKEL, SS.CC. ATTORNEY MITCHELL GARABEDIAN REPRESENTS THE EIGHT (8) CLERGY SEXUAL ABUSE VICTIMS

THE CONGREGATION OF THE SACRED HEARTS RELIGIOUS ORDER, BASED IN FAIRHAVEN, MA, AND THE DIOCESE OF FALL RIVER, MA, RECENTLY SETTLED EIGHT (8) CLERGY SEXUAL ABUSE CASES OF MINOR CHILDREN AGAINST FR. JAMES NICKEL, SS.CC., WHO SERVED AT HOLY TRINITY PARISH, WEST HARWICH, MA, ON CAPE COD, AND AT ST. FRANCIS DE SALES PARISH, MARSH HARBOUR, ABACO ISLAND, THE BAHAMAS, FOR SEVERAL YEARS

What
A press conference announcing a settlement of $880,000.00 for eight (8) clergy sexual abuse victims of Fr. James Nickel, SS.CC., a deceased member of the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts religious order, who abused several minor children when he was assigned to Holy Trinity Parish, West Harwich, MA, on Cape Cod, and St. Francis de Sales Parish in Marsh Harbour, Abaco Island, the Bahamas. Fr. James Nickel sexually abused in West Harwich, MA; Marsh Harbour, Abaco Island, the Bahamas; Illinois; New York; Washington, DC; Rhode Island; and, New Hampshire.

When
Monday, April 10, 2017 at 11:30 AM

Where
In a third floor conference room of the Hilton Hotel, 89 Broad Street, Boston, MA, 02110

Who
Chris Pearsall, son of former Major League baseball star, Jimmy Pearsall, and other men who were sexually abused by Fr. James Nickel, SS.CC., when they were minor children and members of Holy Trinity Parish in West Harwich, MA, on Cape Cod; their attorney, Mitchell Garabedian of Boston, MA; and, Dr. Robert M. Hoatson, President of Road to Recovery, Inc., which has provided assistance to the victim/survivors and their families

Why
Fr. James Nickel, SS.CC., a deceased member of the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts religious order which was or is based in Fairhaven, MA, was assigned to Holy Trinity Parish in West Harwich, MA, on Cape Cod for several years in the 1970s. Chris Pearsall, as a child, attended Holy Trinity Parish, as did a number of other victims who were sexually abused by Fr. James Nickel, SS.CC at the parish and on trips to St. Francis de Sales Parish, Marsh Harbour, Abaco Island, the Bahamas, and several other States and cities. Fr. Nickel’s religious order, the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts, and the Diocese of Fall River, MA, recently found all of the men’s accounts of having been sexually abused as children credible, and settled eight (8) cases for $880,000.00

Contacts
Robert M. Hoatson, Ph.D., Road to Recovery, Inc., 862-368-2800 – roberthoatson@gmail.com

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

AUSTRLIA
JWire

April 6, 2017 by Vivien Resofsky

Part One of a three-part series: A comparison between NSW and Victoria’s institutional child protection reforms.

Part 1 – NSW

The child sexual abuse incidents that were revealed in 2015 at the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse (Case 22) hearing involving Sydney’s Yeshiva and Melbourne’s Yeshivah sent shock waves throughout the Australian Jewish and non-Jewish communities.

Case 22 highlighted the fact that communal organisations did not support victims of abuse and that this compounded the already unimaginable pain for victims/survivors and their families.

It took the Royal Commission, with all its powers, to get answers as to how the Chabad Lubavitch dealt with child sexual abuse. By now, we all know about the non-reporting of abuse by certain Rabbis due to messirah and the punishment for repercussions for those who reported the crimes.

Now, two years later, as the Royal Commission winds down, Jewish communal leaders were re-called by the Royal Commission for another public hearing.

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

AUSTRALIA
The Australian

April 10, 2017

DAN BOX
Crime reporterSydney
@DanBox10

The father of the man who leads the Salvation Army’s powerful Eastern Territory will appear in court next month charged with 14 sexual offences, including a series of alleged indecent assaults on girls under the age of 16.

Ray Pethybridge, whose son Lieutenant Colonel Kelvin Pethy­bridge is the chief ­secretary-in-charge of the church across NSW, Queensland and the ACT, has not yet entered a plea to the alleged offences.

The revelation demonstrates how exposed the organisation has become to the global scandal surrounding church child abuse and follows evidence, uncovered recently by a royal commission, of horrific assaults committed by its officers and staff.

Mr Pethybridge, a former court chaplain who also worked in the church’s Sydney hostels providing accommodation for the homeless and poor, is among three of its former officers currently before the courts on child sex offences.

Another officer and a Salvation Army soldier were convicted of multiple sexual assaults late last year, while evidence before the royal commission identified at least 19 people in the organisation who allegedly abused children over decades.

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

UNITED KINGDOM
Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse

The Inquiry is looking to expand the Victim and Survivors Consultative Panel (VSCP) and appoint someone who can provide a Welsh perspective on the work that the Inquiry undertakes.

The VSCP is a key part of the Inquiry. Its role is to provide consultative advice on all areas of the Inquiry’s work, including: communications, engagement, research, and future recommendations. The VSCP work to ensure that the needs and perspectives of victims and survivors are reflected in the Inquiry’s on-going work.

As a member of the VSCP, you may be required to undertake any or all of the following:

* Advise the Inquiry on the way in which it engages with victims and survivors, including how we reach out to victim and survivor groups and networks, how to engage people in the Victims and Survivors Forum, and how to spread the Inquiry’s messages to wider victim and survivor communities.

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

UNITED KINGDOM
Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse

On Wednesday 12 April an Inquiry Seminar will be held on preventing and responding to Child Sexual Abuse and learning about best practice from overseas.

On the same day, the Inquiry will publish a report prepared by the University of Central Lancashire on what can be learnt from jurisdictions outside England and Wales about protecting children from sexual abuse. The Seminar will hear from experts about what England and Wales can learn from best practice overseas.

The Seminar will be held in the International Dispute Resolution Centre (IDRC), London and will be live streamed, subject to a five minute delay, on our website.
.

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

IRELAND
The Sunday Times (UK)

Justine McCarthy
April 9 2017
The Sunday Times

A group of mothers formerly resident in mother and baby homes has written to Máire Whelan, the attorney-general, asking her to prosecute the state for genocide on the basis that their children were adopted without valid consent.

They have also asked the International Criminal Court to informally assist Whelan with such a prosecution.

Irish First Mothers, which says it represents 70 women, wants Whelan to rely on the UN convention on the prevention and punishment of the crime of genocide. It defines genocide as the intended destruction of “a national, ethnic, racial or religious group” by means including the forcible transfer of their children.

In a letter to Whelan, Kathy McMahon, the founder of Irish First Mothers, accused religious congregations who supervised Ireland’s mother and baby homes of wanting to destroy unmarried mothers as an identifiable cohort.

“We assert that the perpetrators were malignly motivated by their own Catholic ideological characterisation of us as a religiously defined group: a caste of so-called ‘fallen women’,” McMahon said. “Irish society has a historic, deep Catholic veneration of the ‘virgin mother’ as a deity figure. Thus unmarried mothers were automatically deemed offensively faithless; viewed culturally by perpetrators as bereft of rights.”

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

UNITED KINGDOM
Telegraph & Argus

Jenny Loweth

A DISGRACED former church treasurer will spend at least four years behind bars for sexually abusing a six-year-old boy.

David Barras, 63, cunningly contrived to be alone with the child, instructing him to strip naked and repeatedly trying to persuade him to commit a disgusting sex act.

Barras, of Broadstone Way, Holme Wood, Bradford, was on prison licence after plundering more than £30,000 from a deprived parish in the city, when he incited the little boy to engage in sexual activity after luring his grandmother away.

Prosecutor Stephen Wood told Bradford Crown Court that Barras, a former chartered accountant, had displayed an astonishing lack of insight and contrition about what he had done to his young victim.

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

AUSTRALIA
SBS

They are the next generation of Catholic priests who want to ensure the horrors of the past – highlighted by the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse – are not repeated.

By Greg Dyett
Source: SBS News 9 APR 2017

Two years ago, SBS World News spoke to a handful of young men as they started their journey to the priesthood as first year students at a seminary in Melbourne.

The rest of the training they receive – it’s a seven-year process – is likely to be influenced by the recommendations of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, that is due to deliver its findings in December.

The priest in charge of Corpus Christi College in Melbourne, Father Denis Stanley, told SBS World News he has encouraged the trainee priests to take note of what has emerged at the commission.

“The work of the Royal Commission is now part of the context in which we live, it’s part of our time and place,” he said.

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

PENNSYLVANIA
Standard Speaker

OPINION / PUBLISHED: APRIL 9, 2017

Enabling victims of child sexual abuse to seek damages after they become adults is a no-brainer in concept. But the tortured path of a bill in the state Legislature to expand that opportunity demonstrates that the matter is far more complex in practice.

State law gives child sexual abuse victims until they are 30, or 12 years after they become adults at 18, to sue alleged perpetrators for damages. Victims’ advocates argue that the window is too narrow because of the psychological damage that many victims suffer. They contend that it takes longer than the allowed time period for many victims to fully realize the implications of the abuse they suffered as children.

Legislators generally are sympathetic. Last year the House passed a bill, 180-15, to vastly expand that window to age 50, and to make it retroactive. It exempted public institutions such as school districts and maintained liability caps under sovereign immunity law, meaning that the change mostly would affect private institutions, especially the Catholic Church. The bill passed the House amid revelations of sex abuse charges in the Johnstown-Altoona Diocese.

The legislation died amid powerful push-back from the church and the insurance industry.

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

GUAM
Pacific Daily News

Haidee V Eugenio , heugenio@guampdn.com April 9, 2017

The world’s largest network of priest abuse survivors says Guam’s clergy sex abuse cases could reach into the hundreds over the next couple of years, from 46 at present.

Guam children were allegedly abused by Catholic clergy between 1956 and 1988, based on lawsuits filed in local and federal courts between Nov. 1 and April 6.

“I would not be surprised if you saw 150 to 200 cases over the next couple of years,” said Joelle Casteix, volunteer western regional director for the St. Louis-based Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, or SNAP.

Casteix said her estimate may seem high but Guam children faced a very influential Catholic leadership.

Based on lawsuits, former altar boys said their parents and other adults they knew, were devout Catholics who did not believe them when they tried to tell them about a priest abuse. Others did not attempt to tell adults at all, out of fear they won’t be believed, lawsuits say.

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

UNITED STATES
Let’s Think This Out

Bruce R. Nelson
Posted on April 8, 2017

I am told there is a special perch in hell for anyone who speaks ill of the country’s largest Christian denomination on the eve of Holy Week. It’s a risk I am willing to take, because I’ve really had it with corporate Catholicism and its relentless and unforgiving campaign against the victims of pedophile priests. This is a tragedy of gigantic proportions that keeps finding new ways of inflicting pain on those whose suffering is beyond comprehension.

In the beginning, there was the cover up. The Catholic hierarchy was well aware that many of its priests were molesting and raping children. For years, the Church did everything possible to keep the sexual attacks quiet, moving its collared pedophiles from parish to parish when things got hot, letting them start from scratch with a new crop of unsuspecting altar boys.

That routine began to slowly fail in the 1980s when, one by one, victims of the Church’s atrocity stepped out of the shadows with stories the bishops could no longer silence. According to informed estimates, 17,651 American children were sodomized by their parish priest, a number that keeps growing as people now in their 50s and 60s finally come to grips with the pain they’ve silently carried for decades.

Until a few days ago, I figured this story had ended, except for the healing. I hadn’t thought much about it since I saw “Spotlight”, the 2015 film based on the Boston Globe’s stellar coverage of this nightmarish scandal. Then I came across a local news item about the Maryland Legislature finally passing a bill to extend the statute of limitations on filing child molestation suits. It was an intriguing piece. A legislator had tried unsuccessfully for years to change the law so that adults had more time to sue over childhood sexual assaults. The old law banned such litigation after the victim’s 25th birthday. The rationale for the change seemed solid: abused children bury the pain and trauma for decades. By the time they are ready to deal with it, the filing deadline has passed. The bill’s sponsor should know. C.T. Wilson, a Democrat from Charles, MD, was repeatedly raped by his adoptive father between the ages of 8 and 16.

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

PENNSYLVANIA
Daily Item

Pennsylvania lawmakers have a chance to swing a hammer regarding penalties for child abusers. Instead, they have so far chosen not to.

Legislation to alter the statute of limitations for child sex crimes is heading to the House floor following votes this week. But the bill lacks a controversial provision that would allow victims to sue institutions — such as the Catholic church — that allegedly covered up the crimes for years or decades.

The House Judiciary Committee approved a bill that made a number of changes, but without even a discussion regarding a long-sought proposal to allow victims of child abuse to sue after the statute of limitations in their cases has expired.

The new bill would allow that moving forward, but would not make that ability retroactive.

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

BELGIEN
Flandern Info

[The Belgian Catholic Church in 2016 church paid 218,000 euros to abuse victims.]

Im vergangenen Jahr hat die katholische Kirche in Belgien den Opfern von sexuellem Missbrauch, trotz Verjährung, insgesamt 218.000 Euro gezahlt. Seit 2012 belaufen sich die gezahlten Entschädigungen auf rund 4,13 Millionen Euro. Das hat Monseigneur Herman Cosijn, der Vorsitzende der belgischen Bischofskonferenz der Presseagentur Belga mitgeteilt.

Über die Anlaufstellen in den Bistümern und bei den Ordensgemeinschaften sind 2016 16 Akten abgeschlossen worden und wurden insgesamt 113.000 Euro Schadenersatz verteilt. Über die Schiedsstelle für sexuellen Missbrauch in der Kirche wurden weitere 7 Akten mit Schadenersatzzahlungen von rund 105.000 Euro abgeschlossen. Die Schiedsstelle war von der parlamentarischen Kommission eingerichtet worden, die den sexuellen Missbrauch durch Vertreter der belgischen Kirche untersucht hat. Ihre Arbeit wurde nach 4 Jahren im Juni 2016 eingestellt. In dieser Zeit behandelte die Stelle 628 Akten von Missbrauchsopfern.

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

MEXIKO
Radio Vatikan

[For the first time, the Catholic Church in Mexico has publicly admitted repeated misconduct by bishops regarding the sexual abuse of minors by priests. According to Alfonso Miranda Guardiola, secretary-general of the Mexican Bishops’ Conferences, the children were “martyrs of our time.”]

Erstmals hat die katholische Kirche in Mexiko öffentlich wiederholtes Fehlverhalten von Bischöfen im Umgang mit sexuellem Missbrauch von Minderjährigen durch Priester eingestanden. Betroffene Kinder seien „Märtyrer unserer Zeit“, die Verfolgung innerhalb der Kirche erlitten hätten, sagte Alfonso Miranda Guardiola, der Generalsekretär der Mexikanischen Bischofskonferenz, bei einer nationalen Gebetsaktion für Missbrauchsopfer am Mittwoch. Die Kirche bitte um Vergebung für die Verbrechen, nehme die volle Verantwortung dafür auf sich und fordere eine Bestrafung der Täter.

Miranda sprach von einer „klerikalen Struktur mit Anzeichen von Machtmissbrauch“. Die Kirche habe sich schuldig gemacht, tatenlos zugesehen und verheimlicht zu haben und oftmals Komplizin gewesen zu sein. Noch viel zu wenig sei bewusst, dass das gesamte kirchliche Wirken weniger wiege als die Zerstörung eines Menschenlebens. „Durch eine schlechte Tat, durch ein einziges Verbrechen und ein einzigen Missbrauch wird alles zerstört und umgeworfen“, so der Generalsekretär. Den Opfern schulde die Kirche Gerechtigkeit: Priester müssten bei diesen Verbrechen auch die Konsequenzen tragen, es dürfe keine Straflosigkeit geben.

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

DEUTSCHLAND
B.Z.

NICOLE DOLIF
7. April 2017

[Peter R. is said to have abused children and adolescents at the Canisius College in Tiergarten. Now the Archbishopric of Berlin has initiated a trial against the 76-year-old.]

NICOLE DOLIF

Peter R. soll am Canisius-Kolleg in Tiergarten Kinder und Jugendliche missbraucht haben. Jetzt hat das Erzbistum Berlin ein Verfahren gegen den 76-Jährigen eingeleitet.

Die letzten sieben Jahre konnte Priester Peter R. (76) ungestört seinen Ruhestand in Berlin genießen. Dabei wird dem früheren Jesuitenpater, der von 1970 bis 1982 am Canisius-Kolleg gearbeitet hat, vorgeworfen, Kinder und Jugendliche sexuell missbraucht zu haben. Juristisch sind die Taten verjährt. Aber jetzt hat das Erzbistum Berlin ein Verfahren gegen Peter R. eingeleitet.

„Zur Erstellung einer Klageschrift benötigt der kirchliche Anwalt, dem weltlichen Recht vergleichbar, belastbare und zuordenbare Aussagen von Zeugen und Betroffenen“, sagt Stefan Förner, Sprecher des Erzbistums Berlin. Bisher lägen die Beschuldigungen nur in anonymer Form vor.

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

BELGIUM
7 News

Brussels (AFP) – The Catholic Church in Belgium on Saturday took part in a day of recognition for victims of sexual abuse by priests, seven years after a paedophile scandal rocked the institution.

Church leaders and victims of sex abuse spoke to an audience of around a hundred people in a ceremony in the National Basilica of the Sacred Heart also known as the Koekelberg Basilica in the Belgian capital.

The event demonstrates the Church’s will to “resist a culture of silence”, said Cardinal Jozef De Kesel.

In April 2010 the former bishop of Bruges, Roger Vangheluwe, resigned after acknowledging he had abused two nephews.

Thousands of people later came forward to complain they had been victims of sexual abuse as children by members of the Belgian clergy.

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

CANADA
Toronto Star

By JESSE WINTER
Staff Reporter
Fri., April 7, 2017

Under threat of a lawsuit, the federal government has started releasing thousands of long-sought internal documents that could explain why it withheld police records of horrific abuse from survivors of the notorious St. Anne’s residential school.

Survivors of the school in Fort Albany, Ont., say they were the victims of appalling treatment including sexual abuse, being shocked by an electrified chair and being forced to eat their own vomit.

The Ontario Provincial Police investigated the abuses in the 1990s, conducting interviews with more than 700 survivors and creating thousands of records about the abuse. Five former employees at the church-run school were convicted.

But when survivors of the school — like one woman referred to in court documents as K-10106 — applied for compensation under the residential school’s settlement process, those critical police records were withheld even though the government was duty-bound to provide them.

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

FRANCE
Sudouest

[The prosecutor in Dax has decided to open an investigation in order to clarify the suspicions and accusations brought by young people and families against Bishop Herve Gaschignard, who has resigned after allegations of misconduct were made.]

Le procureur de la République de Dax a décidé d’ouvrir une enquête, afin de tirer au clair les soupçons et accusations portées par des jeunes et des familles à l’encontre de Mgr Gaschignard, dont le pape a accepté jeudi la démission

Le procureur de la République de Dax Jean-Luc Puyo a confirmé ce vendredi qu’il avait décidé d’ouvrir une enquête préliminaire, dans le but de tirer au clair les soupçons et accusations portées par des jeunes landais et leurs familles, à l’encontre de Monseigneur Hervé Gaschignard, évêque des Lande jusqu’à l’acceptation de sa démission par le Saint Siège ce jeudi. Le but de ce retrait est de “faciliter la recherche de la vérité” et sortir d’une situation devenue intenable entre le prélat et ses ouailles.

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

FRANCE
Liberation

[It puzzled the little French Catholic community. There were rumors in the past few days. But where was the Bishop of Aire and Dax, Hervé Gaschignard? Why had he suddenly left his diocese just after the plenary assembly of the bishops in Lourdes? In fact, the prelate was forced to abandon his post, a departure officially announced on Thursday by the French Bishops’ Conference (CEF).]

Par Bernadette Sauvaget — 6 avril 2017

Déjà soupçonné en 2011 de faits similaires, l’ecclésiastique aurait eu des «comportements inappropriés» avec des jeunes.

Cela intriguait beaucoup le petit monde catholique français qui, ces derniers jours, bruissait de rumeurs. Mais où était donc passé l’évêque d’Aire et Dax, Hervé Gaschignard ? Pourquoi avait-il brutalement quitté son diocèse juste après l’assemblée plénière des évêques à Lourdes ? Empêtré dans de troubles affaires avec des jeunes, le prélat a, en fait, été contraint d’abandonner son poste : un départ annoncé officiellement, jeudi, par la Conférence des évêques de France (CEF). «Sur la suggestion du nonce apostolique [l’ambassadeur du Vatican, ndlr], il avait proposé sa démission», souligne un communiqué du président de la CEF, Georges Pontier. Un départ accepté, selon les procédures de l’Eglise, par le pape lui-même. En tant que telle, cette «sanction» est très rare et ébranle l’épiscopat, déjà sous pression à cause des scandales récurrents de pédophilie.

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

IRELAND
Irish Times

Patsy McGarry

The last public Mass by a Norbertine priest in Ireland was celebrated on Sunday September 25th, 2016. As of that date all public ministry by the Norbertines on the island ceased.

This is referred to, almost in passing, in the review of child protection practices at the Norbertines published last Wednesday by the church’s child protection watchdog, the National Board for Safeguarding Children in the Catholic Church in Ireland (NBSCCCI).

It marks an innocuous end to the notorious “Ireland chapter” of a religious congregation which brought down a government, severely damaged the reputation of two cardinal primates of All-Ireland, two other Catholic bishops, two Irish abbots, three other religious congregations but, above all, the lives of more children than will ever be known.

It was the conclusion to a shameful history on this island of a respected European congregation founded in France by St Norbert in 1120.

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

FRANCE
La Croix

[The decision of the pope to accept the resignation of Bishop Hervé Gaschignard as necessary is brutal for all. And it durably undermines the bond of trust so necessary in the church.]

Il faut penser d’abord aux familles et enfants, déstabilisés par certains comportements de leur évêque « inappropriés à l’égard de jeunes ». Il faut aussi penser aux catholiques de Dax, malheureux et désorientés après la démission de leur pasteur. Et à ce dernier, et à sa souffrance. Et enfin à tous les catholiques de France, qui, après une année de scandales, abordent cette semaine sainte avec un sentiment mêlé de malaise et de colère.

Décision du pape nécessaire mais brutale

La décision du pape d’accepter la démission de Mgr Hervé Gaschignard, pour nécessaire qu’elle soit, est brutale pour tous. Et elle met durablement à mal le lien de confiance si nécessaire dans l’Église, alors même que, à travers cet évêque, c’est aussi tout l’accent mis depuis les années Jean-Paul II sur la jeunesse qui se trouve en cause. Le geste romain révèle de sérieux problèmes de gouvernance dans l’Église de France : au niveau du choix des évêques, évidemment : l’évêque est en théorie chargé de la « vigilance » dans son diocèse.

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

NORTHERN IRELAND/CANADA
BBC News

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) says it will not reveal whether it is looking into the case of a retired pastor and self-confessed child sex abuser living in Canada.

Henry Clarke, 75, admitted to authorities in Northern Ireland that he abused three boys there in the 1960s and 70s.

Mr Clarke moved to Canada in the late 1970s.

Canadian officials were informed of his admissions last year.

BBC News Northern Ireland made a 4,000 mile journey to find Henry Clarke in a small northern Canadian town hundreds of miles from the nearest city. He confirmed his previous abuse, and says he has never been contacted by Canadian authorities.

In response to a series of questions sent to the RCMP by the BBC, spokeswoman Annie Delisle would not confirm or deny any Canadian investigation of Clarke.

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

IRELAND
Irish Times

Mark Hilliard

Survivors of the mother-and-baby home in Tuam raised various concerns, including about the future of the burial site, at a meeting with Minister for Children Katherine Zappone and Minister for Housing Simon Coveney on Friday.

About 30 survivors are understood to have attended the private meeting, which was arranged by the historian Catherine Corless, whose research uncovered the mass grave.
Publication of mother and baby homes report delayed

During the two-hour meeting, the women raised various issues, particularly relating to access to their personal files and what would be done with the site in the future.

The meeting was also attended by Galway County Council chief executive Kevin Kelly, as the local authority owns the land.

“It was a very open and frank meeting, and the Minister came to listen; that was the role of the meeting,” a spokesman for Ms Zappone said afterwards. “Clearly they have identified a number of actions they want taken, and the Minister will examine what can be done to address their concerns.”

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

NEBRASKA
Omaha World-Herald

Nebraska lawmakers approached a difficult issue the right way this week. They had to think through how to provide justice in child sexual abuse cases while not running afoul of the Constitution’s protections for those accused.

Sen. Bob Krist of Omaha sponsored Legislative Bill 300, which would remove the statute of limitations on the ability to file civil lawsuits against individuals involving alleged sexual assault of a child. Eight states so far have taken that action.

Nebraska has no statute of limitations for filing criminal charges against someone accused of sexual assault of a child.

“I brought this bill on behalf of people who were damaged as children at the hands of an adult,” Krist told his colleagues during floor debate Wednesday. Krist said he drew up the legislation “so that those people who suffered from those injuries could find their own peace in their life.”

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

NEW HAMPSHIRE
New Hampshire Union Leader

By PAT GROSSMITH
New Hampshire Union Leader

Edward J. Arsenault III, a former monsignor and the face of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Manchester in the early 2000s when it was rocked by a sexual abuse scandal involving priests and children, has been formally dismissed from the priesthood.

On Friday, the diocese announced that Pope Francis has stripped Arsenault of his clerical duties.

“By virtue of this decree, Edward J. Arsenault has no faculties to act, function, or present himself as a priest,” the diocese stated. The action also dispenses him “from all obligations subsequent to sacred ordination, including that of celibacy.”

The Rev. Georges de Laire, judicial vicar for the diocese and a canon lawyer, informed Arsenault in person on Thursday of Pope Francis’ decision, which was decreed on Feb. 28. The paperwork first made its way to the Pope’s ambassador in Washington, D.C., and then to the diocese which received it on March 28.

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

UNITED STATES
Catholic Culture

By Phil Lawler Apr 07, 2017

For someone who covers the news every day, it’s frustrating to read a story and know that important information has been left out. In such cases, when I have no good way to dig out the missing details for myself, I’m left with the uneasy feeling that I don’t know the real truth; I only know that I haven’t seen it yet.

Let me give a few examples from this week’s news stories, and the questions they have left in my mind:

* Why doesn’t Uppdrag Granskning want to see a rapprochement between the Vatican and the Society of St. Pius X? Uppdrag Granskning is a Swedish television program, which has popped up on my radar screen only twice. In 2009, it broadcast an interview with Bishop Richard Williamson, then of the SSPX, in which the bishop denied the severity of the Holocaust. This past week it broadcast a documentary program charging that the SSPX had covered up sexual abuse. The timing of these two broadcasts is interesting, to say the least. The 2009 program aired immediately after Pope Benedict lifted the excommunications of SSPX bishops; this week’s broadcast followed immediately after Pope Francis announced that SSPX priests could be authorized to preside at Catholic weddings. Clearly Uppdrag Granskning timed the broadcasts to do the maximum damage to the cause of regularization for the SSPX. Why? What does a Swedish television program have against a traditionalist Catholic group? Who is feeding information to Uppdrag Granskning to discredit the SSPX? If Pope Francis goes through with the reported plan to establish the SSPX as a personal prelature, will Uppdrag Granskning broadcast another bombshell?

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

UNITED STATES
Lexology

Gordon & Rees LLP

Katharine Thompson
USA April 6 2017

In Diocese of Duluth v. Liberty Mutual Group, et al., case no. 16-05012 (Mar. 30, 2017), the Bankruptcy Court for the District Court for Minnesota was faced with determining trigger and the number of “occurrences” related to negligence claims asserted against the Diocese of Duluth by victims of priest sexual abuse. These negligence claims drove the Diocese to file for bankruptcy, and as part of that Bankruptcy proceeding, the Diocese filed an adversary proceeding seeking coverage from five of its insurers. These insurers had issued policies covering several decades. The Court ruled in favor of the Diocese, finding that multiple years of coverage could be triggered and that multiple “occurrences” could be found in each policy year as each victim was a separate “occurrence.”

The Diocese successfully argued that each alleged act of abuse constituted a separate “occurrence” under all insurer’s policies, while conceding that the “occurrence” language in the policies (“arising out of continuous or repeated exposure to substantially the same general conditions shall be considered as arising out of one occurrence”) consolidated multiple instances of abuse of the same victim by the same priest in the same year into one “occurrence” for that year.

Most of the insurers argued for the interpretation that there was only one “occurrence” – the ongoing act of negligent supervision by the Diocese in allowing the continuous and repeated exposure of the victims to the abusive priests – regardless of the number of victims or perpetrators involved. The Continental Insurance Company also argued for one occurrence, or at most, one occurrence per priest or per bishop abuser because all the injuries arose from the Diocese’s decision to allow the abusers access to the children.

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

PENNSYLVANIA
The Times-Tribune

BY THE EDITORIAL BOARD / PUBLISHED: APRIL 8, 2017

Enabling victims of child sexual abuse to seek damages after they become adults is a no-brainer in concept. But the tortured path of a bill in the state Legislature to expand that opportunity demonstrates that the matter is far more complex in practice.

State law gives child sexual abuse victims until they are 30, or 12 years after they become adults at 18, to sue alleged perpetrators for damages. Victims’ advocates argue that the window is too narrow because of the psychological damage to many victims. They contend that it takes longer than the allowed period for many victims to fully realize the implications of the abuse they suffered as children.

Legislators generally are sympathetic. Last year the House passed a bill, 180-15, to vastly expand that window to age 50, and to make it retroactive. It exempted public institutions such as school districts and maintained liability caps under sovereign immunity law, meaning that the change mostly would affect private institutions, especially the Catholic Church. The bill passed the House amid revelations of sex abuse charges in the Johnstown-Altoona Diocese.

The legislation died amid powerful push-back from the church and the insurance industry.

Earlier this year the Senate passed a bill eliminating any time limit to sue and reducing the threshold from “gross negligence” to negligence. Tuesday, a House committee amended it to include what victims’ advocates called a “poison pill,” a provision to ensure its failure.

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

UNITED STATES
National Review

A priest offers an invitation to anyone who has been hurt. Are you hurting?

Do you know someone who is? Has institutional religion — or people representing it — only made matters worse? If any of these sound familiar, a new book by Father Thomas Berg might be for you.

I first met Father Berg back when he was a member of the Legionaries of Christ, a religious order founded by Father Marcial Maciel, who was uncovered to have been a serial abuser; today Father Berg is a priest of the Archdiocese of New York. His new book, Hurting in the Church, tells some of that story. But it is even more an invitation for healing to anyone who has had a close encounter with abuse, sin, and shortcomings in the institution of the Church or people in it.

Every time he is standing at a pulpit, he looks out and sees “hurting individuals,” he writes. “We hurt first and foremost because life hurts: hurting is part of the human condition.” He adds, “When pain experienced in and through the Church is layered on what life itself already deals us the suffering can be all the more acute.”

He writes as someone with experience on both ends of the pain. We talk about the book and the way forward for a hurting people and a Church that has not always been an exemplar of loving one another as made in the image of Christ.

KATHRYN JEAN LOPEZ: There were allegations against the founder of the Legionaries as early as 1997, and we were among those who were wrong to believe the denials. What’s the best way to think about those days? What is the best approach to such memories? Should we think “maybe I could have done something”? Now that we know there was abuse and we know we were wrong to believe there wasn’t, are we unintentionally complicit? But there’s nothing we can do now.

FATHER THOMAS BERG: We need to invite our Lord to show us how to approach those memories and how to understand that time of our lives. In his light, we might, on the one hand come to serenely understand that, sure — objectively — there were things we might have done differently. In my case, there were questions I might have asked. I might have been more insistent. As I explore in my book, regarding my own case, in hindsight, my initial period of discernment with the Legionaries was far too precipitated, too forced.

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

TEXAS
WTVR

APRIL 7, 2017, BY ALIX BRYAN

FORT WORTH, Tx. — A Texas court denied the appeal from former Richmond pastor Geronimo Aguilar, who was convicted in 2015 of sexually abusing multiple juveniles.

Aguilar, known locally as Pastor G, was convicted on two counts of aggravated sexual assault of a child under fourteen years of age, three counts of sexual assault of a child under seventeen years of age, and two counts of indecency with a child by contact.

A judge sentenced Aguilar to 40 years on the first two charges, and to 20 years for each of the others. The seven sentences are allowed to run concurrently.

Aguilar’s basis of appeal was that the court abused its discretion and admitted evidence of extraneous bad acts and testimony which allegedly constituted backdoor hearsay.

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

CANADA
CBC News

By Gabrielle Fahmy, CBC News Posted: Apr 07, 2017

After paying out millions of dollars in damages to more than 100 victims of sexual abuse, the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Moncton may owe even more money.

Three new lawsuits have been filed in recent weeks by victims of sexual abuse against the priests accused of molesting them.

The lawsuits involve former priest Yvon Arsenault, who is serving a four-year prison sentence after he pleaded guilty to sex crimes against nine young boys, and Paul Breau, former chaplain at the University of Moncton and Dorchester Penitentiary, whose trial date has yet to be set.

The most recent civil suit was filed Wednesday against both Arsenault and Breau.

One individual says they sexually abused him at St. Joseph’s Parish in Shediac in the early 1980s, when he was between 13 and 16 years old.

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

NORTHERN IRELAND
BBC News

A child sex-abuse victim has challenged his abuser to return to Northern Ireland to face him.

Retired church pastor Henry Clarke, 75, admitted he had abused three boys at Northern Ireland care homes, including Billy Brown in 1968.

Mr Clarke, who now lives in Canada, confessed his crimes to police in 1985, but has never been prosecuted.

Mr Brown said he had gone “through hell” since the abuse, and called for Clarke to prove his remorse is genuine.

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

IRELAND
IrishCentral

Dara Kelly @IrishCentral April 07, 2017

When you can’t win an argument you attack the person making it. It’s a bait and switch ploy as old as politics. It’s what you’re reduced to when the jig is really up.

Bill Donohue, president of the Catholic League, has finally made that calculation about Catherine Corless, the woman whose painstaking research uncovered the truth about the 796 babies buried without a marker in the Tuam Mother and Baby Home in County Galway.

The Tuam mother and baby home was described as “a chamber of horrors” by the Taoiseach (Irish Prime Minister) Enda Kenny. Last month a state-appointed inquiry found “significant human remains” in several underground chambers at the Tuam site and tests confirmed the bodies ranged from premature babies to three-year-olds.

But instead of thanking Corless for her persistence in bringing the horrifying tale to light, Donohue this week blasted her as a credential-lacking charlatan who isn’t qualified to conduct the meticulous research that led to the discoveries.

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

NEW HAMPSHIRE
NH1

MANCHESTER — A former Manchester priest who was convicted of stealing nearly $300,000 from the local Diocese, a hospital and a deceased priest’s estate was defrocked by the Pope.

In a decree dated Feb. 28, Pope Francis dismissed Edward Arsenault from the clerical state. Arsenault plead guilty to three theft charges in 2014.

“By virtue of this decree, Edward J. Arsenault has no faculties to act, function, or present himself as a priest,” the decree read.

Arsenault was sentenced to serve concurrent four- to 10-year sentences in the State Prison for two of the theft charges; two years were suspended from the minimum of each sentence.

Last April, he was granted parole on those two charges and began serving his third sentence. He’s eligible for parole on that charge in 2018.

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

NEW HAMPSHIRE
New Hampshire Public Radio

[with audio]

By JACK RODOLICO

Pope Francis has dismissed a New Hampshire priest from the clergy.

Monsignor Edward Arsenault was the public face of the Diocese of Manchester during the Catholic sex abuse scandal in the mid-2000s.

Arsenault later pleaded guilty to stealing $300,000 from a hospital, a bishop and the estate of a deceased priest.

Father George DeLaire, vicar for canonical affairs for the diocese, says Arsenault has been unable to repay the money he embezzled.

“One of the reasons for which the Diocese of Manchester brought a case against Ed Arsenault was due to the amount of damage that was caused to the community,” DeLaire says.

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

SCOTLAND
Glasgow Live

BY KATHLEEN SPEIRS
7 APR 2017

A care establishment in Glasgow will be investigated by the Scottish child abuse inquiry this year.

St Vincent’s School for Deaf/Blind will be under investigation as part of an inquiry that aims to look at care establishments run by Catholic organisations as part of the second phase of its hearings.

The Glasgow school is one of five institutions run by the Daughters of Charity of St Vincent de Paul which will be assessed in autumn.

A further four children’s homes run by Sisters of Nazareth will be looked at in 2018, including Nazareth House in Cardonald.

Anyone with experience of the homes have been asked to get in touch with the Scottish child abuse inquiry.

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

SCOTLAND
Evening Telegraph

A former orphanage run by the Catholic Church in Dundee is among those which will be at the centre of the second phase of the Scottish child abuse inquiry.

The inquiry is examining historical allegations of the abuse of children in care and has been taking statements from witnesses since last spring.

Officials said the first part of the second phase starting in autumn will focus on homes run by the Daughters of Charity of St Vincent de Paul, such as Roseangle Orphanage (St Vincent’s) in Dundee, Smyllum Park in Lanark, Bellevue House in Rutherglen, St Joseph’s Hospital in Rosewell and St Vincent’s School for the Deaf/Blind in Glasgow.

In early 2018, the inquiry will examine homes run by Sisters of Nazareth, investigating Nazareth House sites in Aberdeen, Cardonald, Kilmarnock and Lasswade.

A statement released on behalf of the inquiry said: “Evidence given at hearings will supplement written statements taken from witnesses in advance and documents which have been recovered by the inquiry team during the course of investigations.

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

SCOTLAND
The Press and Journal

JON HEBDITCH
April 7, 2017

A national abuse probe will investigate a former Aberdeen children’s home run by Catholic nuns next year.

Nazareth House, on the city’s Claremont Street, was founded by six women from the Sisters of Nazareth in London in 1862 and was once home to more than 300 children.

But the home has been dogged by allegations of historical abuse by the nuns for more than twenty years.

Now the Scottish Child Abuse Inquiry will investigate practices at institutions ran by the Daughters of Charity of St Vincent de Paul and the Sisters of Nazareth throughout Scotland.

Hearings into Nazareth House will begin in 2018.

Police probed the house in 1997 and investigated more than 40 complaints by former residents.

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

SCOTLAND
Evening Express

A public inquiry investigating historic child abuse allegations at an Aberdeen children’s home will start next year.

The Scottish Government inquiry is examining the alleged abuse of children in care and has been taking statements since last spring.

Officials said the second stage of the inquiry will focus on five homes run by the Catholic Church.

They will examine homes run by the Daughters of Charity of St Vincent de Paul and the Sisters of Nazareth.

In early 2018, the inquiry will look at four Nazareth House sites, which includes Aberdeen.

People with experience of the homes are being asked to contact officials.

A statement issued on behalf of the inquiry said: “Evidence given at hearings will supplement written statements taken from witnesses in advance and documents which have been recovered by the inquiry team during the course of investigations.

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

LOUISIANA
The Times-Picayune

By Ken Daley, NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune

A New Orleans jury has begun deliberations in the trial of Kenneth “Kenny” Klein, the nationally known Wiccan priest and folk music performer from the Garden District facing 20 counts of possessing and distributing child pornography. Jurors retired to decide the case at 5:38 p.m.

Klein, 62, is charged with one count of pornography involving a juvenile under the age 13, and 19 counts of possession with intent to distribute pornography involving juveniles under the age 17. He faces 10 to 40 years in prison if convicted of the first count, and 5 to 20 years on each of the other 19 counts.

The three-day trial has been remarkable for its gut-wrenching nature. It marked the first time in the eight-plus years of District Attorney Leon Cannizzaro’s tenure that illicit images of children engaging in sexual activity have been shown to a trier of fact in Orleans Parish, be it a judge or a jury. Security was tight. Discs containing the contraband videos were hand-carried to and from the courthouse by a DA’s office investigator in a locked case, and after conclusion of the trial were placed into court custody under seal.

The panel of nine women and three men deciding the case appeared agonized Wednesday, as excerpts from each of the 20 videos Louisiana State Police investigators said were recovered from Klein’s computer were played over the course of about 35 minutes inside the darkened, silent courtroom of Criminal District Judge Byron C. Williams. Tears welled in the eyes of several jurors, while others clutched their chests tightly. Some ultimately closed or averted their eyes after viewing just a few seconds of each new exhibit.

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

OHIO
Toledo Blade

Two men were arrested today by the FBI on accusations they were involved in the sex trafficking of children.

Cordell Jenkins, 46, and Anthony Haynes, 37 were taken into custody early today at their Toledo residences without incident, according to a media release by the FBI.

Both are accused of knowingly recruiting, enticing, harboring, and transporting people they knew were younger than eighteen years old to engage in commercial sex acts, the press release shows.

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

OHIO
NBC4i

TOLEDO, OH (WCMH) — The FBI has arrested two pastors in Toledo for sex trafficking of children, NBC 24 reports.

Cordell Jenkins, 46, and Anthony Haynes, 37, were arrested Friday. They are “accused of knowingly recruiting, enticing, harboring, transporting, providing or obtaining a person(s) that the defendants knew was less than eighteen years old to engage in commercial sex acts,” according to the FBI.

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

OHIO
13 ABC Action News

TOLEDO (13abc Action News) – Two Toledo Pastors are under arrest and charged with sex crimes against kids. The FBI is investigating this case.

Agents have arrested and charged pastor Cordell Jenkins and pastor Anthony Haynes for alleged sex crimes against children. FBI agents are searching pastor Jenkins’ home on Barrington. They’ve been there since 7:30am Friday.

The FBI’s Crimes Against Children’s task force is executing several search warrants around town at homes and at churches. There are numerous agencies working this case. The Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation has been going in and out of homes with evidence bags.

The alleged crimes were brought to the FBI’s attention in the last few weeks and they launched an investigation. Investigators say the activity the pastors are charged with has been going on for some time.

“Both are charged with sex trafficking of children they will have appearances in federal court this afternoon. Right now I can’t reveal a lot of details but you are welcome to look for that this afternoon in the documents. Right now those items are sealed but they have both been taken into custody and we have some other law enforcement activity going on in the community,” said FBI spokeswoman Vicki Anderson.

Pastor Cordell Jenkins is head of Abundant Life Ministries on Glendale. Pastor Anthony Haynes is over Greater Life Christian center on Detroit.

FULL STATEMENT FROM THE FBI:

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Cleveland Division, Toledo Resident Agency, and the United States Attorney’s Office, Northern District of Ohio, announce the arrest of Cordell Jenkins, age 46, and Anthony Haynes, age 37, pursuant to a federal complaint and arrest warrant for sex trafficking of children.

Agents placed Jenkins and Haynes into custody early this morning at their residences in Toledo without incident. Additional law enforcement activity occurred today in regards to this ongoing investigation.

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

GUAM
The Guam Daily Post

Neil Pang | The Guam Daily Post

Legal counsel representing 13 plaintiffs who have accused Guam clergy of child sexual abuse has filed documents in the District Court of Guam amending the complaints to both double the amount sought in damages and to accuse a third party of culpability in the abuse.

Court documents filed Thursday and Friday by attorney David Lujan on behalf of 13 former Boy Scouts state each plaintiff is now seeking a minimum of $10 million for all general, special, exemplary and punitive damages.

The suits now also name as a defendant the Boy Scouts of America, in addition to the Archdiocese of Agana and former Guam priest Louis Brouillard.

Court documents state Leo Tudela was abused at two different archdiocesan properties by two different clergymen. Tudela also alleged he was abused during outings with the Boy Scouts troop for which Brouillard was a troop leader.

Bruce Diaz’s suit states he was abused by Brouillard about four times a week over a four-year period when he was between the ages of 8 and 12 and an altar boy at the San Roke Catholic Church in Barrigada, where Brouillard served at the time. The suit states Diaz was abused both on parish grounds and at Boy Scout outings.

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

UNITED KINGDOM
Echo

BY LYNDA ROUGHLEY
7 APR 2017

A Catholic priest accused of sexually abusing a young boy nearly 40 years ago has strenuously denied the allegations.

Father Michael Higginbottom told a jury that none of the allegations were true.

He also told Liverpool Crown Court that he did not even remember the alleged victim, who is now in his 50s.

The complainant has claimed that while he was a pupil at St Joseph’s College, a seminary for prospective priests, in Upholland, near Ormskirk, Higginbottom repeatedly seriously sexually assaulted him.

Fr Higginbottom, now aged 74, of West Farm Road, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, denies eight offences – four of buggery and four of indecent assault – alleged to have taken place between September 1978 and March 20, 1979.

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

UNITED KINGDOM
Chronicle Live

BY LAURA HILL

A Roman Catholic priest who stole £50,000 from his parish after falling in love with his housekeeper and lavishing gifts on her family has been spared jail.

Judge Christopher Prince said Father John Reid’s fraud was an “aberration” which persisted over 40 months while he was in charge of St Cuthbert’s Church in Chester-le-Street , County Durham.

The portly, white-haired 70-year-old priest was handed an 18-month suspended sentence at Durham Crown Court after he admitted fraud by abuse of position at a previous hearing.

He has agreed to pay back the £50,000 within three months.

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

NEW HAMPSHIRE
Metro

CONCORD, N.H. — Le pape François a renvoyé un prêtre du New Hampshire qui a été reconnu coupable d’avoir volé 300 000 $ US à un hôpital, à un évêque et à la succession d’un collègue décédé.

Le père Edward Arsenault, qui a défendu l’Église de cet État au plus fort du scandale des prêtres pédophiles, avait plaidé coupable en 2014 à trois des cinq accusations de vol qui pesaient contre lui.

Il a été assigné à domicile plus tôt cette semaine et sera admissible à une libération conditionnelle en février 2018.

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

NEW HAMPSHIRE
WRCB

Updated: Apr 07, 2017

By MICHAEL CASEY
Associated Press

CONCORD, N.H. (AP) – Pope Francis has dismissed a Roman Catholic priest from New Hampshire who was convicted of stealing $300,000 from a hospital, a bishop and a deceased priest’s estate.

Monsignor Edward Arsenault, who served as the face of the church in the state during a sex abuse scandal, pleaded guilty to three theft charges in 2014. He was transferred Tuesday to home confinement and is up for parole Feb. 19, 2018.

The Diocese of Manchester said Friday that Arsenault was removed from the priesthood Feb. 28 and no longer has “faculties to act, function, or present himself as a priest.”

“Dismissing a priest from the clerical state is very serious and taken very seriously by the Holy See,” said Father Georges de Laire, the Diocese’s vicar for canonical affairs, who conveyed the decision to Arsenault on Thursday.

“It is not a decision that is reached lightly as it implies pain for the former cleric and those who may have been affected by him,” he said.

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

MISSOURI
Catholic League

Bill Donohue

A jury in a civil trial in Lincoln County, Missouri has exonerated Father Joseph Jiang of allegations that he had inappropriate contact with a high school girl back in 2012. The jury cleared the Archdiocese of St. Louis, which was also targeted in the lawsuit, of any wrongdoing as well.

Hopefully, this will finally bring an end to the persecution of Father Jiang that has gone on for far too long.

He was first charged criminally, but those charges were dropped back in 2013. He was hounded by the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP)—until the judge in the case reprimanded SNAP’s then-executive director, David Clohessy, for defaming Father Jiang and for defying the court’s order to turn over information it claimed to have against the priest. SNAP, of course, is now itself imploding, its leadership having resigned in disgrace amid allegations of rampant corruption.

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

MISSOURI
Berger’s Beat

ARCHBISHOP Robert Carlson’s testimony in the trial of an accused predator priest this week marks the first time a local bishop – sitting or retired, archbishop or auxiliary bishop – has been forced to answer questions in court about alleged child molesting clerics. (The only other civil trial in this archdiocese was back in 1999 against Fr. James Gummersbach, jurors found for the victim.)

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

ISRAEL
Haaretz

Yaniv Kubovich Apr 06, 2017

Bratslav Hasidic Rabbi Eliezer Berland will be released from jail Thursday in accordance with the ruling of Israel’s parole board on March 6 after serving five months.

His release comes after the State Prosecutor’s Office said they had decided not to file an appeal against the ruling.

The warden of Nitzan prison will sign his release forms Thursday and Prison Service guards will leave the hospital ward where Berland is a patient.

Berland was convicted of sexual assault last November after spending years abroad as a fugitive and finally being arrested in South Africa. He was then extradited to Israel and sentenced to 18 months in prison by the Jerusalem Magistrate’s Court in a plea bargain.

On Tuesday, Israel’s parole board ordered his release, shortening his sentence from 18 months to one year.

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

AUSTRALIA
Herald Sun

ELLIE TURNER, NT News
April 7, 2017

SOME of the children who lived in the old Retta Dixon home were stolen from their people, some were surrendered.

But once they were in care under the Commonwealth’s assimilation policy, the non-denominational religious organisation that ran the “half caste” home failed to ensure they were protected. Instead, many vulnerable children were indoctrinated, humiliated and exploited.

Some of the survivors of physical and sexual abuse at Retta Dixon made history with a class-action lawsuit against the Commonwealth, Australian Indigenous Ministries and convicted paedophile Donald Henderson.

And a settlement has been reached.

The 71 former child residents of Retta Dixon involved in the civil case will be compensated for the wrongs perpetrated against them by people they should have been able to trust.

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

NEW HAMPSHIRE
WMUR

KC Downey
Digital Media Manager

MANCHESTER, N.H. —
Pope Francis ordered that a former Manchester priest sentenced to prison for stealing from a hospital and parishioners be dismissed from the clerical state.

In the decree dated Feb. 28, Pope Francis released Edward Arsenault from all obligations to sacred ordination, including celibacy.

“By virtue of this decree, Edward J. Arsenault has no faculties to act, function, or present himself as a priest,” the decree read.

Arsenault was sentenced to four years in prison in 2014 and ordered to pay $300,000 in restitution.

He pleaded guilty to stealing $185,000 from Catholic Medical Center, the estate of a dead priest and the Diocese of Manchester.

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

NEW HAMPSHIRE
Associated Press

CONCORD, N.H. (AP) — Pope Francis has dismissed a Roman Catholic priest from New Hampshire who was convicted of stealing $300,000 from a hospital, a bishop and a deceased priest’s estate.

Monsignor Edward Arsenault, who served as the face of the church in the state during a sex abuse scandal, pleaded guilty to three theft charges in 2014 and is serving a jail sentence.

The Diocese of Manchester said Friday that Arsenault no longer has “faculties to act, function, or present himself as a priest.”

Prosecutors said Arsenault billed the church for lavish meals and travel for himself and often a male partner.

He was convicted of writing checks from the dead priest’s estate to himself and his brother and billing a hospital $250 an hour for consulting work he never did.

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