ABUSE TRACKER

SCOTLAND
Express

By DAVID SCOTT
Tue, May 23, 2017

Two former pupils were giving evidence in the trial of 83-year-old Thomas Seed, also known as Father Benedict, and one told a jury that bullying was common at the Fort Augustus Abbey school on the shores of Loch Ness.

Tax inspector Sean Stone claimed the OAP beat him with a cane “in a rage”, until he was bleeding, after he retaliated against a school bully.

“I have a vivid memory of Father Benedict in his black cassock running towards me and striking me on the side of the head with his fist,” he said.

“Then, he took me by the scruff of the neck, bounced my head off the ground and punched me on the face.

“His anger was severe, shouting at me in an uncontrolled rage.”

The 52-year-old added: “I didn’t think it was a caning. This was a beating. Sitting down was impossible and I spent two days off school at home lying face down.”

He was giving evidence in the second day of Seed’s trial at Inverness Sheriff Court.

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CALIFORNIA
Orange County Weekly

TUESDAY, MAY 23, 2017

BY GUSTAVO ARELLANO

Bill Donohue, for those of you who aren’t mackerel snappers, is the Roger Ailes of the Catholic Church: a big, fat CHAVALA who depends on the elderly to fund his comfy lifestyle and be able to trash good people for a living. He’s the head of the Catholic League, which is as relevant to modern-day Catholics as the rhythm method yet still gets play in conservative media. We’ve featured Donohue’s whining before—like when he tried to accuse me of targeting only Catholic pedophiles instead of ALL pedophiles, or when he inadvertently defended Eleuterio Ramos, OC’s worst-ever pedophile priest, a guy who admitted to molesting “at least” 25 boys.

And now Donohue returns to Orange County with another whiny screed—although he doesn’t dare call out his target by name. In a May 18 press release titled “Victims’ Pros Lie about NY Archdiocese,” Donohue rails against the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests (SNAP), which has only been one of the most important organizations in the United States fighting against pedo-priests and their enablers in the Catholic Church. Donohue has never liked them because they do a great job, and he’s now mad that “someone whom we have never heard of has surfaced demanding that the New York archdiocese publish the names of six miscreant priests, the implication being that there is a cover-up.

“This is a non-starter,” Dononhue continues. “The names of the offending priests have already been published by the archdiocese. It is scurrilous to imply otherwise. The only real story here is how far some will go to try to discredit the Catholic Church.”

What the hell is the lace-curtain Irish crying about? He provides no links, no context, no nada in his write-up (which you can go ahead and Google on your own). But the person he was targeting is someone well-known to OC Weekly readers, a heroine we should all emulate.

Say her name, Billy: Joelle Casteix.

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SCOTLAND
BBC News

A former pupil of Fort Augustus Abbey school in the Highlands has told a court he was hit with a spiked golf shoe by a priest.

Clark Baxter, 51, accused Father Benedict Seed, 83, of hitting him “more than once” with the shoe.
Appearing under the name Thomas Michael Seed, he is charged with assaulting eight pupils in the 1970s and 1980s.

Father Seed, who is on trial at Inverness Sheriff Court, denies all the charges.

Mr Baxter, from the Wishaw area, told the court that he was frequently belted and caned by the former priest in his four years at school in Fort Augustus, which has since closed.

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IRELAND
National Board for Safeguarding Children in the Catholic Church

The National Board for the Safeguarding of Children in the Catholic Church in Ireland (NBSCCCI) published its annual report today. It details the work done by the Board and its National Office during the year ending 31st March 2017. During the 2016/17 period, 86 new allegations were received including 72 new allegations relating to sexual abuse as well as 10 allegations of physical and emotional abuse, 1 relating to boundary violation and 3 where the abuse was unspecified. The bulk of these allegations relate to the period from the 1950s through to the 1990s, with a sharp drop in numbers after the year 2000.This represents a significant reduction on previous years; from 153 during 2015/16 and 265 new allegations during 2014/2015. “The downward trend in allegations being made that we highlighted last year continues,” said Teresa Devlin, CEO, NBSCCCI. “But an examination of the trend dating back as far as 2009 when we started compiling these figures shows that we cannot assume the work is complete. Over those years there have been years where the figures rose and only constant vigilance will keep children safe.” Following the completion of the first set of reviews of practice and extensive consultations with affected parties, a revised set of standards was created along with a revised set of protocols for the next round of safeguarding reviews. This Annual Report emphasises two of the revised standards in particular.”>annual report today. It details the work done by the Board and its National Office during the year ending 31st March 2017.

During the 2016/17 period, 86 new allegations were received including 72 new allegations relating to sexual abuse as well as 10 allegations of physical and emotional abuse, 1 relating to boundary violation and 3 where the abuse was unspecified. The bulk of these allegations relate to the period from the 1950s through to the 1990s, with a sharp drop in numbers after the year 2000.This represents a significant reduction on previous years; from 153 during 2015/16 and 265 new allegations during 2014/2015.

“The downward trend in allegations being made that we highlighted last year continues,” said Teresa Devlin, CEO, NBSCCCI. “But an examination of the trend dating back as far as 2009 when we started compiling these figures shows that we cannot assume the work is complete.

Over those years there have been years where the figures rose and only constant vigilance will keep children safe.”

Following the completion of the first set of reviews of practice and extensive consultations with affected parties, a revised set of standards was created along with a revised set of protocols for the next round of safeguarding reviews. This Annual Report emphasises two of the revised standards in particular.

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IRELAND
Irish Times

Patsy McGarry

The Catholic Church’s child protection watchdog received reports of 72 new allegations of clerical child sex abuse as well as 10 of physical and emotional abuse in the year to March 31st 2017, as a downward trend in such allegations continues.

The National Board for Safeguarding Children (NBSC), based at Maynooth, also received one allegation relating to boundary violation during the year and three where the abuse was unspecified. Most allegations related to a period from the 1950s to the 1990s, with a sharp drop after the year 2000.

The figures were supplied in the latest annual report from the NBSC published on Tuesday morning. They represent a significant drop in new allegations, from 153 in 2015/16, and 265 in 2014/2015.

Teresa Devlin, NBSC chief executive, noted however that an examination of the downward trend “shows we cannot assume the work is complete.” Since 2009, when the NBSC began compiling such figures, “there have been years where the figures rose and only constant vigilance will keep children safe,” she said.

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SCOTLAND
Herald Scotland

By David Love

TWO businessman have told how they “lived in fear” of a Catholic priest who had used corporal punishment against them and other pupils at a Highland boarding school, a court has heard.

Hong Kong-based Paul Curran, 50, told a jury that he dreamt of being “haunted and hunted” by 83-year-old Father Benedict Seed for the five years he attended Fort Augustus Abbey.

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MINNESOTA
Roman Catholic Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis

Date: Thursday, May 18, 2017

Source: Tom Halden, Director of Communications

From Archbishop Bernard A. Hebda

Mark Huberty, who was a priest of this Archdiocese from 1996 until a leave of absence in 2013, was notified that he has been dispensed from the obligations of the clerical state by Pope Francis. Mark Huberty can no longer serve as a priest.

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MINNESOTA
Star Tribune

A Catholic priest acquitted in 2014 of inappropriate sexual contact with an adult parishioner has been relieved of his work as a priest by Pope Francis.

The Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis announced Mark A. Huberty’s departure from the church in a May 18 statement on its website, but did not explain why, or note whether it was linked to his old criminal case in Ramsey County.

“Mark Huberty, who was a priest of this Archdiocese from 1996 until a leave of absence in 2013, was notified that he has been dispensed from the obligations of the clerical state by Pope Francis,” the statement said. “Mark Huberty can no longer serve as a priest.”

Huberty was tried before jurors in 2014 on one count each of fourth and fifth-degree criminal sexual conduct for allegedly starting a sexual relationship with a married woman he had been counseling. The two met when he was pastor at Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary Catholic Church in Maplewood.

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NEW YORK
The Legislative Gazette

Written by KALEB H. SMITH, assistant editor on May 23, 2017

As the session enters its final weeks, child sex abuse victims are calling out the governor and Senate Republicans for not expanding their legal rights to hold their abusers accountable.

Sen. Brad Hoylman’s Child Victims Act, and related legislation, would extend the statute of limitations on legal actions for sex crimes against a minor, allowing abuse victims more time to prepare and file lawsuits against their attackers.

Victims and their advocates say the governor has forgotten them, and they accuse Senate Republicans — who have blocked the bill for years — of acting like hypocrites.

“The Senate Republicans seem to love to talk about domestic violence and sexual abuse and put out 10 different kinds of bills every other week about how to protect those victims,” said Assemblywoman Linda Rosenthal, a Manhattan Democrat. “However the grown-up victims, no one cares about. They think they’ll just go away. But we are here to say we are not going away. We will never go away until justice is done and we pass this bill into law.”

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AUSTRALIA
news.com.au

MAY 23, 2017
Sonia Kohlbacher
Australian Associated Press

A Queensland priest has been charged over an alleged sexual offence that occurred in the 1990s.

A statement issued by the Archdiocese of Brisbane on Tuesday said the priest had withdrawn from his duties after notifying the church of the charge.

The priest is not in custody and will face court later this month.

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SCOTLAND
Daily Record

BY DAVID LOVE
23 MAY 2017

A wealthy businessman yesterday told how he “lived in fear” of his priest headmaster.

The man, now 50 and living abroad, said Thomas Seed, known as Father Benedict, brutally beat him and “haunted my dreams”.

Seed, 83, the former 
headmaster at Fort Augustus Abbey boarding school, is on trial at Inverness Sheriff Court accused of assaulting the man and seven other pupils.

The alleged victim who gave evidence yesterday told the jury he was belted with a leather tawse, which left his hands and wrists bleeding, when he was 14 or 15.

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SPANIEN
Tagesschau

[From the 1930s to the 1990s, up to 300,000 babies were sold in Spain, estimated by victims’ associations. Doctors with political friends and forces of the Catholic Church had made sure that there were never any more investigations, they say.]

Wer gegen den Diktator Franco war, dem wurden die Babys gestohlen – was in Spanien in den 1930er-Jahren als politische Säuberung begann, entwickelte sich über Jahrzehnte zum lukrativen Geschäft für Ärzte, Notare und die Kirche. Betroffen sind bis zu 300.000 Kinder.

Von Sebastian Kisters, ARD-Studio Madrid

Irgendwann konnte Manuel L. nicht mehr. Es war 1982, erzählt er. Manuel L. und seine Frau hatten sich vergeblich ein Kind gewünscht. Da hörten sie von der Möglichkeit einer Adoption. Unkompliziert, unbürokratisch. Genau wollten sie es nicht wissen. Später wird Manuel sagen, er sei “so in die Sache reingerutscht”.

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SCOTLAND
Daily Record

Ayrshire Post

23 MAY 2017

A former priest at St Quivox Catholic Church in Prestwick has denied historic sex abuse.

Father Francis Moore, 81, was appointed to the parish in 1996.

Last week his lawyer Marco Guarino tendered not guilty pleas at the High Court in Glasgow.

The charges include a boy being attacked at a primary school in North Ayrshire and another at a leisure centure.

A third boy says he was a victim of Moore at Irvine Beach.

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SOUTH AFRICA
SABC News

Monday 22 May 2017

Lopang Alamu

A group, known as the Frankel Eight, are trying to overturn the statute of limitations for sex offenders. The eight claim to have been sexually abused by late billionaire Sydney Frankel.

It is estimated that 80% of sexually violated children were victimised by someone they know.

The Frankel eight have taken the first step in a lengthy legal journey. They claim they were abused over 30 years ago.

On Monday, the applicants petitioned the Johannesburg High Court. Their main task was to try and overturn a statute of limitations law. This states that after 20 years, victims of sexual abuse no longer have a criminal case against the perpetrator.

“Currently the courts are saying that sexual violence and sexual molestation is not as serious as rape because there was no form of penetration and the impact of being molested for years is much worse,” says Women and Men against Child Abuse’s Miranda Friedmann.

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NEW HAMPSHIRE
New York Times

By JESS BIDGOOD
MAY 22, 2017

There was an English teacher, the investigators said, who groped a student and had a sexual relationship with another. A female student said a music teacher sexually touched her in his car. And there was a sacred studies teacher, a minister, whom one student accused of rape.

On Monday, St. Paul’s School, an elite prep school in New Hampshire, named 13 former faculty and staff members who investigators said were involved in substantiated reports of sexual misconduct from 1948 to 1988. Ten more employees, accused of lesser offenses, were not named.

The report laid out publicly, in painful detail, what an earlier investigation by the school on the same subject had not. In 2000, spurred by alumni who had gathered for their 25th reunion and decided to tell the school of alleged sexual abuse, the head of the school at the time vowed an investigation. “The chips,” he said then, “will have to fall where they may.”

But that effort ended quietly, having delved into claims against only three teachers, with few answers for alumni and no full report issued to the public. Among those named in the 2017 report are some of the teachers the alumni had raised concerns about in 2000.

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KANSAS
The Kansas City Star

BY ERIC ADLER
eadler@kcstar.com

The family of two Johnson County sisters who in 2014 were sexually abused by a then-17-year-old boy who attended Westside Family Church of Lenexa has agreed to settle a civil case against the church.

The case centered on Kessler Lichtenegger, who in October 2015 pleaded guilty to raping a 13-year-old girl on the grounds of the church while a children’s service was underway. He also pleaded guilty to using a cell phone to sexually solicit the teen’s younger sister, then age 11. Lichtenegger, incarcerated in the Ellsworth (Kan.) Correctional Facility, is serving a 17-year sentence.

In the civil case, filed in 2016 in Johnson County District Court, the girls’ lawyer claimed that leaders of Westside Family had long been aware that Lichtenegger had a history of sexual assault.

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UNITED STATES
People

BY ADAM CARLSON•@ADAM_A_CARLSON

POSTED ON MAY 22, 2017

Marilyn Cesnik Radakovic’s journey to find out what happened to her older sister began nearly 50 years ago began last year when she read a news article with the headline “Buried in Baltimore.”

“And I looked at my husband and I said, ‘Oh my God,’ ” Radakovic remembers now.

It was early 2016 and the couple was at the California apartment of Radakovic’s mother, who had recently died. In the process of cleaning out her belongings, Radakovic discovered her mom had collected years of articles about the death of her eldest daughter, Radakovic’s sister, 26-year-old nun Sister Catherine “Cathy” Cesnik.

Cesnik was found on a freezing January day in 1970 in Baltimore County, nearly two months after she vanished near her apartment. Her body was partially naked and her head had been bashed in, but there was little physical evidence at the scene.

The homicide remains unsolved, and for decades Radakovic believed Cesnik was the victim of a “wrong place, wrong time” crime.

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IRELAND
Irish Times

Ruaidhrí Giblin

A priest who was jailed for indecently assaulting a schoolboy in the 1970s has had his conviction quashed over a trial judge’s decision not to warn the jury about the dangers of convicting in the absence of corroboration.

Tadhg O’Dalaigh (73), of Blackrock, Dublin had pleaded not guilty at Cork Circuit Criminal Court to one count of indecently assaulting a 16-year-old boy at Coláiste Chroí Naofa in Carrignavar, Co Cork on a date unknown in 1979.

He was found guilty by a jury and sentenced to five years’ imprisonment, with the final two suspended, by Judge Donagh McDonagh on December 18th, 2014.

O’Dalaigh successfully appealed his conviction on Monday, with the Court of Appeal holding the trial judge erred in refusing to give the jury a corroboration warning, in a case which lacked corroborative evidence.

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MARYLAND
WBAL

Monday, May 22, 2017
Sean Naylor, WBAL NewsRadio 1090

The Keepers, a Netflix documentary centered around the death of nun Sister Cathy Cesnik — who taught English and drama at the former, all-girls Archbishop Keough High School — and the Archdiocese of Baltimore’s sexual abuse allegations involving former priest A. Joseph Maskell, was released to the public on May 19.

Archdoicese Vice Chancellor Sean Caine spoke with WBAL NewsRadio 1090 Monday about the seven-part series.

“It was very difficult to watch and while I personally did not have any interactions with some of the women who shared their stories in the series, I of course read a lot about what they had said and been through and you can’t help but feel tremendous empathy and sadness for what they went through and the abuse they suffered,” he told WBAL News Now host Bryan Nehman.

The church has paid a number of settlements to those who alleged sexual abuse by Maskell, who denied one accusation before he died in 2001. Accusations against Maskell date back at least to 1992. He was defrocked in 1995.

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UNITED STATES
Elite Daily

Dylan Kickham
May 22, 2017

The latest true-crime series everyone’s talking about is The Keepers, a gasp-a-minute deep dive into the unsolved murder of a nun in the 1960s that was released on Netflix this past Friday, and Elite Daily had the chance to speak with the director of the docuseries.

The dark and grisly new series invites viewers into the mystery by introducing evidence of cover-ups and suspects that will have you theorizing about what really happened for weeks.

The crux of the whole series is a mysterious woman named Jane Doe, who revived the cold case of Sister Cathy Cesnik’s murder in the mid-’90s by anonymously stating her high school chaplain had taken her to see Sister Cathy’s dead body months before it was discovered, in order to threaten her.

The Keepers finally reveals the identity of this Jane Doe as Jean Wehner, and the reason the new docuseries was able to get this bombshell reveal is that its director Ryan White has actually been family friends with Wehner since he was a child.

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NEW HAMPSHIRE
NECN

[with video]

By Katherine Underwood and Marc Fortier

Officials at one of the most prestigious prep schools in the country say they have substantiated claims of sexual misconduct by 13 former faculty and staffers, some of them accused of raping students while on campus.

St. Paul’s School in Concord, New Hampshire, released a report Monday detailing allegations against a dozen men and one woman who worked at the school between 1952 and 1999. The list includes former teachers, chaplains and an admissions officer.

The investigation was sparked by the case of Howard White, who taught at St. Paul’s from 1967 to 1971. The former Episcopal priest pleaded guilty last week to sexually assaulting students from St. George’s School in Rhode Island in 1973.

The investigation reviewed the alleged conduct of 34 St. Paul’s School faculty and staff members from 1948 to 1988. In addition to the 13 substantiated claims of sexual misconduct, it found other reports of sexual misconduct by 10 former faculty and staff, and unsubstantiated allegations of sexual misconduct by 11 current and former faculty and staff.

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NEW YORK
Huffington Post

Ilgin Yorulmaz

Inspired by his oath of honesty when enlisting in the Navy, 21-year-old recruit Shaun Dougherty decided to be truthful about what had happened to him as a child. He finally opened up to his parents on his first Christmas break from the boot camp in 1991.

Dougherty told them about the three-year long sexual abuse he had endured in 1980 starting at age 10 as a fifth-grader at St. Clement School in Johnstown, Pennsylvania. His abuser was George Koharchik ― a longtime Catholic priest, pastor at St. Clement Church, and Dougherty’s basketball coach and religion teacher. His parents, who had attended the Mass conducted by Koharchik for many years at the same church where young Shaun was an altar boy, did not believe him.

Twenty-six years later, the 47-year-old married Navy veteran was in Albany last week, lobbying the New York State Assembly as part of the Coalition to Pass the Child Victims Act. The coalition includes a dozen survivors, faith leaders, and people who were victims or witnesses of sexual abuse as children, or who knew a loved one, friend or congregant who had gone through years of abuse.

Rabbi Ari Hart of the Hebrew Institute of Riverdale in the Bronx is one of the faith leaders of the coalition. He recently started an online petition in support of the Child Victims Act that has garnered close to 1,000 signatures, 300 of whom are the clergy from Jewish, Muslim and various Christian denominations.

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AUSTRALIA
9 News

A Catholic priest who sexually abused a young girl on four separate occasions in 1974 has been jailed for four months.

Anthony Colbourne pleaded guilty this morning to indecently assaulting his eight-year-old victim in the presbytery and his office on four separate occasions.

The Brisbane District Court heard Colbourne told the child her parents would not get into heaven if she told anyone what he had done.

He also threatened to prevent her mother from converting to Catholicism and to tell her stepfather, who beat her, that she had stolen a book.

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NEW HAMPSHIRE
Concord Monitor

By NICK REID
Monitor staff
Tuesday, May 23, 2017

An independent investigation into sexual abuse at St. Paul’s School – commissioned by the elite boarding school and carried out by a former Massachusetts attorney general – has substantiated claims against at least 13 former faculty members between 1948 and 1988.

In a yearlong inquiry, the Boston-based law firm Casner & Edwards also looked into 21 other claims that were less clear, 11 of which it deemed “unsubstantiated.”

Teachers, who live on the same West Concord campus as their students, repeatedly took advantage of the teenagers in their care, according to the 71-page report released by the school Monday. Some of the incidents from that period were reported by alumni in 2000 and never properly investigated, the report said.

The allegations, which range from boundary violations to rape, include explosive stories: One teacher, Larry Katzenbach, committed 10 acts of sexual misconduct, according to the report, including multiple sexual relationships with students. One of his students, who claimed he had groped her, reported his behavior to a trusted administrator in 1974 and received the reply, “What did you do to make him (Katzenbach) behave that way?”

In another case, a then-junior had a two-month-long consensual sexual relationship in 1973 with a French teacher, Robert Maurice Degouey. Five years later, after the student graduated, Rector William Oates learned of the relationship, met the male student in Boston and “accused him of ‘boasting’ about a sexual relationship with Mr. Degouey,” according to the report.

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AUSTRALIA
Daily Mail

By Daniel Peters For Daily Mail Australia

A predator Catholic priest who fondled an eight-year-old girl in 1974 will spend just four months behind bars after pleading guilty to the historic sexual abuse offences.

Friar Anthony Colbourne, now aged 75, pleaded guilty in the Brisbane District Court on Tuesday to indecently assaulting the girl on four separate occasions in the presbytery and his office.

In a police statement, the victim said Colbourne told her she had to fondle him because she was a ‘good girl who wants to go to heaven with your mummy and daddy’.

Colbourne was sentenced to 18 months in prison, to be suspended after he has served four months behind bars.

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GUAM
Pacific News Center

Written by Janela Carrera

Francis Charfauros says it was the testimony of Roy Quintanilla, who says the late Father Jack Niland ignored his cry for help when Quintanilla was sexually abused, that gave him the courage to finally share his story.

Guam – After numerous sex abuse lawsuits being filed by victims who have chosen to conceal their identities. The latest comes from a man who revealed his identity, noting that he now just wants closure.

Francis Charfauros spoke with us via Skype, opening up about his experience and sharing with us that he came forward because of others who came before him.

Charfauros’ lawsuit against the Catholic Church is now the 68th lawsuit to be filed involving civil claims of sexual abuse. It happened 35 years ago when Charfauros was just 14 years old. He never shared it with anyone and soon the abuse became repressed memories of a painful time in his life. It wasn’t until about a year ago when Charfauros heard about Roy Quintanilla’s story.

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NEW YORK
DNA Info

By Maya Rajamani | May 22, 2017

CHELSEA — A former Chelsea pastor who was barred from the priesthood last year for allegedly possessing child pornography claims in a new lawsuit that the Archdiocese of New York falsely accused him.

Rev. Keith Fennessy filed a lawsuit against the Archdiocese, Cardinal Timothy Dolan, archdiocese spokesman Joseph Zwilling and the archdiocesan newspaper Catholic New York in Manhattan Supreme Court on Friday, claiming they made “defamatory statements” about him last year, the filing shows.

All of the defendants “falsely alleg[ed] that… Fennessy possessed child pornography with at least reckless disregard as to the truth or falsity of the statements,” the suit adds.

Fennessy, a former Community Board 4 member, was the pastor at St. Columba Parish, on West 25th Street between Eighth and Ninth avenues, from August 2011 to June 2015. Before that, he served as pastor at St. Margaret Mary R.C. Church on Staten Island.

Zwilling on Monday said the Archdiocese could not comment on the suit, as it had not yet seen it.

“Please note that our Lay Review Board carefully examined his case and recommended that Fennessy not be allowed to function as a priest,” he wrote in an email. “Cardinal Dolan accepted their recommendation and thus Fennessy will not ever serve as a priest again.”

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SCOTLAND
BBC News

A former head teacher at a Catholic boarding school in the Highlands has gone on trial accused of assaulting boys in his care.

Father Benedict Seed, 83, is charged with assaulting eight pupils at the now closed Fort Augustus Abbey school in 1970s and 1980s.

Inverness Sheriff Court heard that the alleged attacks included hitting boys with a hockey stick and a golf shoe.

Appearing under the name Thomas Michael Seed, he denies all the charges.

The trial in Inverness, being held before Sheriff Gordon Fleetwood and a jury of nine men and six women, is expected to continue throughout the week.

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GUAM
The Guam Daily Post

Mindy Aguon | For The Guam Daily Post May 22, 2017

A 14-year-old altar boy who aspired to be a priest in the early 1980s is the latest victim to come forward alleging sexual abuse by a member of the clergy.

Francis Charfauros, who now resides in Arizona, filed a lawsuit in the District Court of Guam against the Archdiocese of Agana and the Capuchin Franciscans accusing the late Father John “Jack” Niland of sexually abusing and molesting him when he was a young boy.

The civil complaint, filed by Charfauros’ attorney David Lujan, alleges the abuse happened when Niland was assigned to Our Lady of Mount Carmel Church in Agat under then-Father Anthony Apuron.

Niland became a Capuchin in 1967 and was ordained as a Catholic priest in 1976, court documents state.

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IRELAND
Sunday Word

By Ruaidhrí Giblin

A retired priest jailed for indecently assaulting a schoolboy in the 1970s has had his conviction quashed over a trial judge’s decision not to warn the jury about the dangers of convicting in the absence of corroboration.

Tadhg O’Dalaigh (73), of Woodview, Mount Merrion Avenue, Blackrock, had pleaded not guilty at Cork Circuit Criminal Court to one count of indecently assaulting a 16-year-old boy at Colaiste Chroi Naofa in Carrignavar, Co Cork on a date unknown in 1979.

He was found guilty by a jury and sentenced to five years imprisonment with the final two suspended by Judge Donagh McDonagh on December 18, 2014.

O’Dalaigh successfully appealed his conviction today with the Court of Appeal holding that the trial judge erred in refusing to give the jury a corroboration warning, in a case which lacked corroborative evidence.

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UNITED STATES
SOME PEOPLE LIVE MORE IN 20 YEARS…

MAY 22, 2017
ASHER LOVY

Manis Friedman, inspirational religious leader, and well known speaker, renowned in the Chabad community, and well known for his infamous comparison of sexual abuse to a case of diarrhea, is headlining a shavuos retreat being organized by JEM Retreats, and the Illulian family. The same Illulian family that steadfastly protected registered sex offender, Mendel Tevel, and allowed him to be around children.

People might not understand the extent of the damage caused by this pairing. Let’s start with Manis. Many people feel that because Manis is such an influential figure, and because he’s “helped” and “inspired” so many people, he should get a pass for saying something that’s at worst insensitive. Like, what’s the big deal, right? So he compared sexual abuse and its devastating effects to diarrhea, he apologized, didn’t he?

His apology was half-baked, insincere, a non-apology apology that he forced out to get the “angry bloggers” off his back. But his attitude, and the attitude of the community that worships the ground that Manis walks on hasn’t changed at all. It’s the attitude that tells victims that the community’s comfort is more important than their safety, than their justice. It’s the attitude that would rather pretend that the problem either doesn’t exist, or that it’s not nearly as prevalent as activists would have you believe.

But let’s examine who’s hurt more by which. Sexual abuse is an uncomfortable topic. It’s horrific. It’s painful to think about. It turns the stomach. It offends the conscience to even think about the kind of evil required to commit such a heinous act. It’s almost inconceivable to believe that someone who has ostensibly accepted what they believe to be a moral way of life would be able to do such a thing and live with themselves. But while it may offend your sensibilities to accept that sexual abuse happens, that’s the most you’ll suffer in accepting it as reality.

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NEW HAMPSHIRE
NH1.com

CONCORD – St. Paul’s School said 13 former faculty and staff members engaged in sexual misconduct.

The school made the report public Monday after a yearlong investigation that followed the announcement that former teacher Howard White, who taught at St. Paul’s from 1967-71 had been terminated from St. George’s School in 1974 after admitting sexual misconduct.

The school reviewed allegations against 34 faculty and staff members.

The school substantiated 13 of those allegations, and said they had other reports of sexual misconduct by 10 former faculty and staff and unsubstantiated allegations by 11 current and former faculty and staff. Those claims were shared anonymously and could not be substantiated, the report states.

The investigation was performed by Casner & Edwards law firm in Boston and led by Former Massachusetts Attorney General Scott Harshbarger.

“We offer our most sincere apology to survivors for the wrongs that were done to them at St. Paul’s School,” said Rector Michael G. Hirschfeld in a letter to the St. Paul’s community that he co-signed with Board of Trustees President Archibald Cox Jr. “The failures uncovered in this report have hurt every member of our School community, none more so than the survivors of these abuses. It is with deep gratitude that we recognize the candor and courage of the survivors and witnesses who shared their experiences with Mr. Harshbarger and his team.”

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NEW HAMPSHIRE
WMUR

KC Downey
Digital Media Manager

CONCORD, N.H. —
Independent investigators substantiated claims of sexual misconduct against more than a dozen St. Paul’s School faculty members and staff over a 40-year period, the school announced Monday.

The report, by the Casner & Edwards law firm, covered abuse and misconduct claims from 1948 to 1988.

>> Read the report (.pdf)

Investigators said they fully substantiated claims against 13 former faculty members.

Unsubstantiated claims were made against 11 current and former faculty members. Investigators said they did not receive enough victim or witness accounts or find any documentation to support those allegations.

Investigators said another 10 former faculty members fall into a different category because they did not meet as many of the criteria as the substantiated cases.

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NEW HAMPSHIRE
Boston Globe

By John R. Ellement GLOBE STAFF MAY 22, 2017

A new investigation at the elite St. Paul’s School found that 13 former faculty and staff members engaged in “substantiated” sexual misconduct, a discovery that officials said showed school leaders had failed students.

The results of the independent investigation by a Boston law firm were released by the school Monday along with an written apology from top school leaders, Rector Michael G. Hirschfeld and Archibald Cox Jr., president of the board of trustees.

“We offer our most sincere apology to survivors for the wrongs that were done to them at St. Paul’s School,” the two men wrote in a letter sent to the school community. “The failures uncovered in this report have hurt every member of our School community, none more so than the survivors of these abuses.”

The two leaders credited survivors of the sexual misconduct for their persistence and insistence that the private Concord, N.H., school recognize its failures.

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IRELAND
Connacht Tribune

Galway Bay fm newsroom – The McAleese inquiry into Magdalene laundries was informed 5 years ago about “disturbing” infant death rates at the former Tuam Mother and Baby Home.
The information was sent by Professor Jim Smith of Boston College and the Justice for Magdalenes Research group, more than two years before the Tuam babies story made international headlines.

The figures sent to inquiry chairperson Martin McAleese reported infant mortality rates of 51% and 55% for children sent to the home from Galway and Mayo that year.
According to the Irish Examiner, the Department of Justice said the McAleese Committee “no longer exists and is therefore not in a position to respond to specific queries”.

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GUAM
KUAM

May 22, 2017

By Sabrina Salas Matanane
. –
The latest victim of clergy sex abuse had aspirations of becoming a priest, until he was sexually molested by one. 49-year-old Francis Charfauros now lives in Arizona. In his $5 million dollar lawsuit filed at the District Court of Guam on Monday, he details being sexually abused by Capuchin priest Father John “Jack” Niland in 1982. Father Jack was a priest under Father Anthony Apuron at Mt. Carmel Parish in Agat. Charfauros alleges he sought advice from Father Jack on how to become a priest. The priest suggested he come to live at the rectory which his parents agreed to. One night, however, Charfauros alleges he woke up to the priest performing oral sex on him. Despite his best effort to get up, the priest held him down. Charfauros returned home, his dreams shattered.

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INDIA
Independent (UK)

Samuel Osborne @SamuelOsborne93

An Indian woman cut off the penis of a Hindu holy man who tried to rape her and who she accused of sexually assaulting her for the past eight years, police said.

The 24-year-old law student was at home in the Kerala state capital of Thiruvananthapuram when she was allegedly attacked by Gangeshananda Theerthapada, who claims to be a spiritual healer.

The 54-year-old was reported to be in a stable condition after reconstructive surgery.

Police officer G Sparjan Kumar said the woman fled her home after the attack on Friday night and called police.

​When he again visited her home on Friday night and tried to force himself on her, she got hold of a knife and attacked him, Mr Kumar said.

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INDIEN
Badische Zeitung

[New Delhi (dpa) – A young Indian woman has cut off her penis from her alleged long-time rapist. The 54-year-old Hindu Guru had sexually abused her for eight years, the 23-year-old told the police in the state of Kerala.]

Neu Delhi (dpa) – Eine junge Inderin hat ihrem angeblichen langjährigen Vergewaltiger den Penis abgeschnitten. Der 54-jährige Hindu-Guru habe sie acht Jahre lang sexuell missbraucht, gab die 23-Jährige gegenüber der Polizei im Bundesstaat Kerala an.

Der selbsternannte Prediger war demnach immer wieder in das Haus der Familie gekommen, um Gebetszeremonien für den gelähmten Vater durchzuführen, so die Polizei. Als er am Freitagabend erneut versucht hatte, sie zu vergewaltigen, habe ihm die Frau mit einem Messer sein Geschlechtsteil größtenteils abgetrennt. Im Krankenhaus versuchten Ärzte vergeblich, den Penis wieder anzunähen. Die Polizei ermittelt gegen den 54-Jährigen. Den Beamten gegenüber sagte der Guru, er habe sich selbst kastriert.

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IRELAND
The Times (UK)

Sean O’Driscoll
May 22 2017
The Times

An independent TD has asked the health minister to reveal how long a former US priest who sexually abused schoolgirls was employed by the South Eastern Health Board as a psychologist.

Joseph Maskell, who is also suspected of involvement in the murder of a nun in 1969 and is the subject of a new Netflix documentary series, worked for the health board and in private practice in Wexford in the 1990s. The Ferns diocese warned the board to stop him from practising on a number of occasions, according to a file disclosed by the diocese.

Clare Daly, the Socialist Party TD for Dublin North, asked Simon Harris for details on Maskell’s employment after the HSE told The Times that the information would not be released because of data protection laws. Her question was sent in on Friday on the same day that Netflix launched The Keepers, a seven-part series on the crimes of Maskell, who is accused of sexually abusing girls at a Catholic high school in Baltimore, Maryland. He died in 2001.

The Ferns diocese said that he may also have worked in a Kilkenny hospital, after locating correspondence with the Kilkenny bishop. Maskell met with two South Eastern Health Board doctors to discuss his case in 1996. In March 1998 he gave a written undertaking to the board that he would not treat young people under the age of 18. In Baltimore he had used counselling as a front for sexually abusing teenage girls.

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GUAM
Pacific Daily News

Haidee V Eugenio , heugenio@guampdn.com Published May 22, 2017

Former Agat altar boy Walter Denton, who has accused Archbishop Anthony Apuron of raping him when he was a child, has said he told another priest — Father Jack Niland — about the rape at the time, but said Niland’s response was that “priesthood is a very lonely life.”

Niland, who died in 2009, is now accused of molesting Francis Charfauros, now 49. Charfauros, who said Niland was supposed to train him to be a priest, filed a lawsuit Monday in the U.S. District Court of Guam, suing the church for $5 million.

Father John “Jack” Niland is now the 12th Guam priest accused accused of sexually abusing children decades ago.

Charfauros, who now lives in Arizona, alleged in his complaint that Niland sexually abused him in 1982, when he was around 14, during a sleepover at the Our Lady of Mount Carmel Church rectory in Agat.

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SCOTLAND
Herald Scotland

Stephen Naysmith

A newly formed group of survivors of childhood abuse in care is planning a vigil in Edinburgh at the public launch of an inquiry expected to be Scotland’s largest ever.

The Scottish Child Abuse Inquiry (SCAI) will begin to hear evidence in public from May 31st, when campaigners say they will hold a vigil to help raise awareness of its work.

The new group SAFE (Seek and Find Everyone abused in childhood) is calling on politicians and the inquiry team itself to support a minute’s silence for abuse victims and says its aim is to encourage more people to come forward and give evidence to the inquiry.

However critics said that if people were already in two minds about revealing that they had been abused, the presence of a demonstration outside the venue for the inquiry was more likely to put them off.

The inquiry, which has so far cost more than £5.7 million, is charged with investigating abuse within state care at any time in the living memory of victims. This includes physical and sexual abuse, but also psychological and spiritual abuse, and settings range from council-run residential schools and children’s homes to church and charity-run projects and foster care.

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AUSTRALIA
Newcastle Herald

Joanne McCarthy
22 May 2017

“IT’S good to have you in your cathedral.”

With those eight words from Bishop Peter Stuart, and the standing ovation that followed, retiring Newcastle Anglican Bishop Greg Thompson was acknowledged and embraced at a thanksgiving service at Christ Church Cathedral on Sunday night.

There were tears from, and for, the Muswellbrook-born bishop whose stand against child sexual abuse led to strong opposition from some in the diocese, and a public concession by him that he was the bishop who was not welcome in his own cathedral.

“When the history of this diocese is written, yours will be known as the second shortest, but one that made a profound, lasting, deep cultural difference,” Bishop Stuart said.

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IRELAND
Irish Examiner

Monday, May 22, 2017

By Conall Ó Fátharta
Irish Examiner Reporter

The McAleese inquiry into Magdalene laundries was informed in 2012 about “disturbing” infant death rates in excess of 50% at the Tuam Mother and Baby Home.

The information was sent by Prof Jim Smith of Boston College and the Justice for Magdalenes Research group to the chairperson of the inquiry, then Senator Martin McAleese on 21 February 2012 — more than two years before the Tuam babies story made global headlines.

Prof Smith was submitting archival evidence demonstrating that the Department of Health always knew that mothers of children in the Tuam Home were recorded as “In the Magdalen”.

In the letter, Prof Smith informed Senator McAleese of a circular he had discovered relating to a 1948 Government survey which recorded the number of ‘illegitimate’ children who were born and died in Mother and Baby Homes and County Homes for the year ending March 31, 1947. All Public Assistance Authorities were asked to respond to the circular.

“According to the returns submitted to the government, 12 of the 22 ‘illegitimate’ children from Co Mayo born at the Baby Home, Tuam, died within the year. Likewise, 25 of the 49 ‘illegitimate’ children from Co Galway born at the Baby Home, Tuam, for the same period also died.

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AUSTRALIA
Now to Love

MAY 22, 2017

BY LORNA GRAY

A woman who was sexually abused when she was just 12 years old has broken her silence.

Lyndal was abused by housemaster Kevin Guy for eight months while boarding at the prestigious Toowoomba Prep, an Anglican Church private school.

Bravely speaking to 60 Minutes, Lyndal said:

“My will for life was stolen from me, at times I didn’t care about the world. Things like my first kiss were stolen from me. Having a first boyfriend. All those sorts of things, was all… taken. And without permission.”

During the time she was abused, she’d beg her parents not to take her back to school after holidays but she didn’t tell anyone about the abuse. Lyndal said the predator could “make her life hell” at school and repeatedly told her: “Don’t tell, no one’s going to believe you”.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

By Charlotte King

Abuse survivors in Ballarat say they are concerned the Federal Government’s planned redress scheme will not meet the ongoing needs of trauma survivors, and has ignored the lifelong impacts of non-sexual institutional abuse.

The Federal Government has set aside $33 million to establish the scheme, and has been working to convince states, territories and religious institutions to sign up before the planned rollout in 2018.

Over the weekend, around 150 survivors and their supporters marched through the regional Victorian city chanting “no more silence”.

The community was marching for the third time in support of the city’s child sexual abuse survivors.

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UNITED STATES
Movie Pilot

By Allanah Faherty, writer at CREATORS.CO

With one massively successful true crime docuseries already under their belt, Netflix released their brand new true crime series, The Keepers, just days ago. But while all the trailers and teasers for #TheKeepers promised one thing — a series delving into the unsolved murder of Sister Cathy Cesnik — it ends up delivering something else altogether, uncovering dark secrets about the Archdiocese of Baltimore, and decades of sexual abuse the church did nothing to prevent.

It’s this unexpected diversion that really separates The Keepers from most other true crime shows you’ve seen before, because this series isn’t one that predominantly focusses on those that committed the atrocities described, it’s about the incredibly brave people who survived it, and have now risked it all by talking about it.

All too frequently in a true crime series of any form, the story is told from the perspective of the person who either committed the crime, is alleged to have committed it or is suspected of having committed it. Victim are often left at little more than a name, a photograph, and perhaps a few sound bites from friends or family. Names such as Teresa Halbach, Hae Min Lee and Susan Berman may all sound fairly unfamiliar, but paired with the names Steven Avery, Adnan Syed and Robert Durst they suddenly click into place. However this is where The Keepers differs, placing the victims front and center, and offering them a chance to tell their story.

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AUSTRALIA
The Age

Cameron Houston

A retired Catholic priest from Melbourne has been charged with the sexual assault of four Aboriginal girls at a West Australian orphanage more than 50 years ago.

Father Allan Mithen, 78, was recently arrested in Clifton Hill over the sexual abuse that allegedly occurred when he served as rector at the Wandering Mission between 1965 and 1969.

The elderly priest was charged with one count of rape, six counts of indecent assault and a further six counts of indecent dealing with a girl under the age of 13.

The four alleged victims were aged between eight and 15 at the time of the attacks.

Detectives from the WA Police’s child abuse squad also charged two former teachers, aged 82 and 83, with sexually abusing Aboriginal girls at the mission, which housed orphans and members of the stolen generation.

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OHIO
The Columbus Dispatch

By Danae King
The Columbus Dispatch

Fifteen years after an investigation exposed widespread child sexual abuse in the Roman Catholic church, critics say little has changed.

The Columbus Diocese, however, says it put measures in place to prevent abuse and believes they’ve made a difference.

Though the investigation done by the Spotlight investigative reporting team at The Boston Globe and published in 2002 surely raised awareness about clergy sexual abuse, it didn’t seem to reverberate in Columbus as it did in other dioceses, even others in Ohio.

In Cincinnati, attorney Konrad Kircher heard from about 100 victims in the three years after the investigation and estimates that he’s talked to 300 overall in the past 15 years.

“Everything blew up,” said Kircher, now partner at Rittgers and Rittgers in Lebanon in southwestern Ohio. “The Spotlight articles … caused ripples throughout the nation.”

Kircher was among attorneys in the state who took on the cases, as well as one in Toledo and another in Cleveland. He said there wasn’t another attorney at the time taking cases in Columbus, which could be why there weren’t as many cases filed here.

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NEW YORK
Staten Island Advance

BY TRACEY PORPORA Porpora@siadvance.com

STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. — A former Midland Beach pastor is suing Cardinal Timothy Dolan and other Roman Catholic Church officials for $2 million for what he says were false child pornography claims, the NY Post reports.

The Rev. Keith Fennessy was barred from priestly ministry and booted from his position as pastor of St. Columba’s R.C. Church in Manhattan on June 15, 2015, by Cardinal Timothy Dolan, the archbishop of New York.

An archdiocesan review board determined that Rev. Fennessy had images of minors on his personal and office computers that violated the church’s Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People.

Dolan accepted the board’s recommendation that Rev. Fennessy would no longer be allowed to serve as a priest, according to Catholic New York and Joseph Zwilling, communications director for the archdiocese.

In legal papers, Rev. Fennessy says that the cardinal, the archdiocese and its spokesman Joseph Zwilling and the Catholic New York newspaper made accusations “with a reckless disregard” for the truth,” the report says.

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VATICAN CITY
Catholic News Service

By Cindy Wooden Catholic News Service
5.21.2017

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — Pope Francis announced he will create five new cardinals June 28; the new cardinals-designate come from Mali, Spain, Sweden, Laos and El Salvador.

Unusually, the group of prelates announced by the pope May 21 includes an auxiliary bishop whose archbishop is not a cardinal; he is Cardinal-designate Gregorio Rosa Chavez, 74, the current auxiliary bishop of San Salvador.

The other churchmen who will receive red hats are: Archbishop Jean Zerbo of Bamako, Mali, 73; Archbishop Juan Jose Omella of Barcelona, Spain, 71; Bishop Anders Arborelius of Stockholm, Sweden, 67; and Bishop Louis-Marie Ling Mangkhanekhoun, apostolic vicar of Pakse, Laos, 73.

After briefly talking about the day’s Gospel reading, leading the crowd in St. Peter’s Square in reciting the “Regina Coeli” prayer and greeting various groups present, instead of wishing everyone a good Sunday and a good lunch — the normal procedure at the noon prayer — Pope Francis made his announcement.

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VATICAN CITY
Reuters

By Philip Pullella | VATICAN CITY

Pope Francis is to elevate five Roman Catholic prelates from outside Italy and the Vatican to the rank of cardinal, the elite group of churchmen who are his closest advisers and can enter a conclave to choose his successor.

The pope, making the surprise announcement during his weekly Sunday address, said the men came from Mali, Spain, Sweden, Laos and El Salvador. The ceremony to elevate them, known as a consistory, would take place on June 28.

The fact that none of the five are Italian and none hold Vatican positions underscores Francis’ conviction that the Church is a global institution that should become increasingly less Italian-centric.

Naming new cardinals is one of the most significant powers of the papacy, allowing a pontiff to put his stamp on the future of the 1.2 billion-member Roman Catholic Church.

The new cardinals were named as Archbishop Jean Zerbo, 73, of Bamako, Mali, Archbishop Juan José Omella, 71, of Barcelona, Spain, Bishop Anders Arborelius, 67, of Stockholm, Bishop Louis-Marie Ling Mangkhanekhoun, 73, of Pakse, Laos, and Bishop Gregorio Rosa Chávez, 74, of San Salvador.

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UNITED STATES/IRELAND
IrishCentral

Dara Kelly @IrishCentral May 21, 2017

Were you adopted from Ireland? Or are you a mother whose child was adopted because you were unmarried there?

Were you born in a Mother and Baby Home, a County Home or similar place in Ireland?

Or are you a relative of an adopted person from Ireland? Or did you once work for an institution or agency involved with unmarried mothers and their children there?

The Adoption Rights Alliance and the Justice for Magdalenes Research group launched Clann in 2016 to gather the data and submit a group report to the ongoing Commission of Investigation into Mother and Baby Homes and Certain Related Matters in Ireland.

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GUAM
Pacific Daily News

Haidee V Eugenio , heugenio@guampdn.com May 20, 2017

Within a year since former altar boy Roy Quintanilla came forward on May 17, 2016 to accuse Archbishop Anthony S. Apuron of sexually abusing him in the 1970s, not only has the Vatican promptly stepped in but also placed a global spotlight on Guam’s clergy sex abuses.

“We’ve come a long way,” Quintanilla told Pacific Daily News. “We wouldn’t have come this far were it not for the Catholic community’s support. It’s amazing what we can do as a community.”

In a predominantly Catholic community, publicly accusing any priest, much less the Guam archbishop for some 30 years, was unthinkable, until Quintanilla and other former Agat altar boys stepped forward.

A year later, 66 clergy sex abuse lawsuits involving 11 Guam Catholic priests including Apuron have been filed in local and federal courts.

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ZIMBABWE
Nehanda Radio

Anglican Manicaland diocese priest, Reverend Gilbert Sambona, has been accused of having a romantic affair with a married parishioner.

Mr Clever Ndiringepi, a church member, claimed that the man of cloth was in an intimate relationship with his wife, Bridget. In November last year, Mr Ndiringepi wrote a two-paged letter of complaint to the Anglican Manicaland diocese leader, Bishop Erik Ruwona. “On the 1st of November 2016, I checked my wife’s (Bridget Ndiringepi) phone. I went through Whatsapp chats and came across a disturbing chat between her and a person saved as Mbona Rev, with the cell number +263 773 436 942 on the 31st of October 2016 and Sunday 30th October 2016.

“All these were love messages. It’s undoubted that the two are in love as per attached copies of the chat. I also noticed messages of the same nature between the two, even in my wife’s Netone number. “There were also Ecocash transfers from the Reverend to my wife… I have become very unsettled with this issue so much that I am now suffering from hypertension,” reads part of the letter.

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NEW YORK
New York Post

By Kathianne Boniello May 20, 2017

A Chelsea priest allegedly caught with child porn is suing Timothy Cardinal Dolan, among others, for $2 million, claiming he was falsely accused.

The Rev. Keith Fennessy was tossed from the pulpit at St. Columba Church in 2015 after the Archdiocese of New York said it discovered “pornographic material” on his computer. Fennessy was not criminally charged.

The priest now says in legal papers that the cardinal, the archdiocese and spokesman Joseph Zwilling and Catholic New York newspaper made the accusations with a “reckless disregard” for the truth.

In the 2016 Catholic New York article on the allegations being referred to the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office, Zwilling confirmed the images found on Fennessy’s computer were “of minors.”

The DA eventually declined to prosecute Fennessy, and he was never defrocked.

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ITALIA/ARGENTINA
Rete L’Abuso

[PROVOLO: The church does not hand over the documents to justice.]

Al di là dei proclami della Santa Sede puntualmente riportati dalla stampa, nel concreto l’ennesimo rifiuto della Santa Sede a collaborare con la giustizia.

PROVOLO la chiesa non informerà la giustizia

La commissione del Vaticano che indaga sulle denunce di abuso all’istituto Provolo, ha dichiarato che lo impedisce un accordo tra Vaticano e Argentina .

Il giorno prima di partire, dopo la sua seconda visita per l’indagine interna alla chiesa che vuole accertare se i due sacerdoti dell’istituto (già denunciati a Verona anni fa) sono colpevoli delle decine di abusi di cui sono accusati. Il vicario giudiziale del vaticano ha dato appuntamento ai giornalisti in un hotel del centro per una conferenza stampa , per parlare del suo lavoro.

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ILLINOIS
Journal Courier

AP

Illinois is set to eliminate the statute of limitations in child sex-abuse cases, a change prosecutors and a victim of former U.S. House Speaker Dennis Hastert called for after Hastert was imprisoned for violating banking laws while trying to silence a student he abused decades ago.

The Illinois House unanimously approved the legislation Thursday, sending it to Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner, who supports it.

State Attorney General Lisa Madigan argued Hastert’s case provided a prime example of why Illinois should join 36 other states and the federal government in removing its time limits for charging people accused of child-sex crimes.

A federal judge dubbed Hastert “a serial child molester” at his sentencing last year, saying the former speaker sexually abused at least four former students at Yorkville High School in suburban Chicago from 1965 to 1981.

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MARYLAND
Bustle

ByALAINA URQUHART-WHITE

With its new docuseries The Keepers, Netflix is diving into a cold case that has remained unsolved for decades. The series takes a deep look at the mysterious 1969 murder of Sister Catherine Cesnik, who was a beloved teacher at Archbishop Keough Catholic High School in Baltimore. But, the series isn’t only focused on Cesnik’s story. It also delves into the many allegations of sexual abuse against Keough’s chaplain, Father Joseph Maskell. Maskell was never charged with a crime and denied the allegations until his death in 2001, and told The Baltimore Sun in 1994 that “I never had sex with a kid … It is absolutely untrue.” Because of the allegations, The Sunday Times reports that Maskell was stripped of his ministry by the Archdiocese of Baltimore in 1994 but continued to gain employment after fleeing to Ireland in 1996. So, where else did Father Maskell work?

According to the Archdiocese of Baltimore website, before working as chaplain at Keough High School, Maskell served at Sacred Heart of Mary in Baltimore from 1965 to 1966. After that, he moved on to work at St. Clement in Lansdowne from 1966 to 1968. He then worked as the chaplain for Archbishop Keough Catholic High School from 1967 to 1975 and was also chaplain for the Baltimore police department during that time, according to The Times article. Additionally he worked at Our Lady of Victory from 1968 to 1970. Between 1970 and 1980, Maskell was living and “assisting” at St. Clement, while he served at the Division of Schools from 1975 to 1980. Between 1980 and 1982, he served at Annunciation before moving on to Holy Cross from 1982 to 1992. His final stint of employment in the United States before he fled to Ireland was for St. Augustine in Elkridge from 1993 to 1994.

The Archdiocese of Baltimore acknowledged the allegations against Maskell in a statement to Bustle.

“Since the 1990s, when the Archdiocese of Baltimore first learned of an allegation of child sexual abuse against Maskell, and on numerous occasions since, the Archdiocese has publicly acknowledged and apologized for the horrific abuse committed by him. The Archdiocese reported the allegations to civil authorities in the 1990s and cooperated fully in any investigation, removed Father Maskell’s faculties to function as a priest, apologized to victims and offered them counseling assistance, sought additional victims, and provided direct financial assistance to 16 individuals abused by Maskell.

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UNITED STATES
Romper

By Megan Walsh

Netflix’s upcoming true crime documentary series The Keepers revisits the 1969 murder of Sister Cathy Cesnik, who was brutally killed decades ago. Cesnik taught at the Archbishop Keough High School in Baltimore alongside the school chaplain Father Joseph Maskell and Director of Religious Services Father Neil Magnus, both of whom were allegedly abusing some of the girls (neither Maskell or Magnus was convicted of sexual assault, denying any part in accusations). Years later in the ’90s, two women came forward to share what happened to them during their time at Keough. One of those women was named Teresa Lancaster. But who is Teresa Lancaster on The Keepers?

Currently, Lancaster is an attorney living in Baltimore and a child sexual abuse activist who works with victims through the Survivors Network of Those Abused By Priests. But she was also one of the women who brought Father Maskell’s abuse to light. In 1994, she and another former Keough student named Jean Wehner filed a suit against Maskell, the Archdiocese of Baltimore, the School Sisters of Notre Dame (who ran the school), and a gynecologist named Dr. Christian Richter. Neither Lancaster nor Wehner truly saw justice served for what happened to them, but they did make public the abuse that had formerly been a closely-kept secret. (Like Maskell, Richter maintained his innocence and said he had not been part of any abuse.)

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UNITED STATES
The Open Tabernacle: Here Comes Everybody

Posted on May 21, 2017 by Betty Clermont

“There’s an expectation that the relationship between President Trump and Pope Francis will be difficult to establish [but] that is not the case at all,” Louis Bono, temporary charge d’affaires in the U.S. Embassy to the Holy See, said. When the pope and Trump meet on May 24, “They’ll have the opportunity to speak frankly if there are any areas of differences, but more so, to focus on those areas where we do have common ground and to identify how we can work together further,” Bono said.

In a White House Rose Garden ceremony on May 4, Trump decried the “attacks against the Little Sisters of the Poor” before signing his executive order on “religious freedom.” He invited the sisters present to stand beside him and shook the hands of two of them. Trump congratulated them and told the sisters that they “sort of just won a lawsuit.” He added, “I want you to know, your long ordeal will soon be over,” referring to their lawsuit against Obamacare that went all the way to the Supreme Court.

After Trump’s announcement, Sister Constance Veit, a spokesperson for the religious community, “summed up her hopes for what lies ahead with a football analogy. ‘We’re on the one-yard line, first down. We just have to get it over the goal line,’” she said.

Pope Francis met with the Little Sisters of the Poor while in the U.S. in support of their lawsuit. The year before, the pope granted a private audience to Hobby Lobby’s Green family, asking them “how their Supreme Court fight against President Obama’s contraception mandate was progressing.” …

“MY CARDINALS”

During the primaries, the USCCB video, “The Right to Religious Freedom,” showed a clip of Hillary Clinton while a voice-over intoned that “the government is stopping us from practicing our faith.”

When Wikileaks released the “hacked Democratic National Committee data from Russian intelligence” on Oct. 11, Clinton’s campaign chairman John Podesta’s emails were included. His correspondence relating to the Catholic Church was seized upon by the U.S. bishops, although it was several years old and had nothing to do with Clinton or any political campaign.

In short, the bishops’ attacks against Clinton and Podesta were hyperbolic, dishonest and highly partisan, including those made by the prelate of Wall Street, Cardinal Timothy Dolan, and Archbishop Joseph E. Kurtz, the elected president of the USCCB.

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MARYLAND
National Catholic Register

A question posed by the Netflix series is whether Sister Cathy Cesnik knew of a priest’s abuse – and whether that knowledge played a part in her murder.

Kathy Schiffer

A seven-part Netflix docu-series scheduled to air beginning Friday, May 19 will focus on priestly sexual abuse of high school students in Baltimore in the 1960s, and the subsequent murder of a 26-year-old nun who may have discovered the abuse.

“The Keepers” will no doubt titillate viewers with its sordid tale of sex and murder; but what it is not expected to do, say officials of the Archdiocese of Baltimore, is accurately reflect the Archdiocese’s efforts to deal with the abuse and to cooperate with the murder investigation of the nun.

The series will reportedly suggest a connection between the abuse cases and the death of Sister Catherine Ann Cesnik, S.S.N.D. – although the recent exhumation of the body of Fr. Joseph Maskell fails to substantiate that connection.

Does “The Keepers” Accurately Reflect the Archdiocese’s Role?

In their quest to produce a blockbuster exposé, the writers of “The Keepers” interviewed women who were sexually abused as high school girls in the 1960s and ’70s by Fr. Joseph Maskell, then chaplain of Baltimore’s Archbishop Keough High School. The victims allege that Fr. Maskell was involved in the death of Sister Cathy Cesnik, who once taught at the same school, and that there was a cover-up on the part of the Archdiocese – although they provide no evidence to support their claim. In fact, neither the abuse nor the suggestion that Maskell might be involved in the nun’s death were known to the Archdiocese or to the police until the 1990s.

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AUSTRALIA
The Courier

Jeremy Venosta
@jeremyvenosta

21 May 2017

Victims and their supporters made their voices heard in the fight against sexual abuse during a march on Sturt Street on Sunday afternoon.

Two years two the day after the Loud Fence movement first took to Ballarat’s streets, community members returned to make a stand and keep the issue at the forefront of public debate.

Loud Fence started during the Royal Commission into child sex abuse by the Catholic clergy in the Ballarat.

Its message was about giving support to victims so they felt comfortable enough to come forward and talk about their experience.

The Royal Commission has finished hearing from victims and maintaining support for them remains a key issue for Loud Fence members.

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NEW YORK
Lewisboro Daily Voice

A group of men who were sexually abused as children by Archdiocese of New York priests who worked in the Hudson Valley named their abusers as financial terms of settlements they received through the archdiocese’s new sexual abuse survivor compensation fund were released, according to the New York Times.

The lawyer for the seven victims said they had each received settlements of $150,000 to $350,000 each from the archdiocese, The Times reported.

The cases involved the following priests from the area:

* Rev. Gennaro “Jerry” Gentile, who was removed from the ministry in 2002, after working at Holy Name of Mary in Croton-on-Hudson, St. Mary’s in Wappingers Falls, St. Joseph’s Seminary and St. Eugene’s in Yonkers, St. Mary’s in Poughkeepsie, St. Denis in Hopewell Junction and Immaculate Conception in Tuckahoe.

* Rev. Richard Gorman, who worked at St. Barnabas Church in the Woodlawn section of the Bronx about a block away from Yonkers, was removed in January 2016 after being accused of abusing Westchester minors.

* Rev. Peter Kihm, who was removed from Good Shepherd in Rhinebeck in 2016 following abuse allegations after earlier working in Westchester and Rockland.

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ARGENTINA
Rete L’Abuso

[Shame, guilt and sadness. Ache. These are the words of monsignor Sergio Buenanueva, responsible for the prevention of sexual abuse against children in the Argentina episcopate.The church in the birth of the pope is going through a serious crisis following the scandal in the institute for deaf children “Provolo” in Mendoza.]

Intervista con Sergio Buenanueva, vescovo di San Francisco e presidente della Commissione dei Ministeri della Conferenza episcopale argentina, sulla risposta della Chiesa contro le violenze sessuali su minori

Vergogna, rimorso e tristezza. Dolore. Sono le parole di monsignor Sergio Buenanueva, responsabile della prevenzione degli abusi sessuali contro i minori nell’episcopato argentino. La Chiesa nel Paese natale del Papa sta attraversando una grave crisi a seguito dello scandalo nell’istituto per bambini sordomuti “Próvolo”, a Mendoza. Di questo e di altro Vatican Insider ne parla con il vescovo di San Francisco.

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ITALIA
Giornalettismo

[Teacher of religion accused of sexual acts with a student, 14.]

Un 48enne, sposato e con figli, a processo a Palermo

Un ex professore di religione dell’istituto Gonzaga di Palermo è finito a processo con l’accusa di aver fatto sesso con un’alunna di 14 anni. Per l’insegnante, 48 anni, sposato e padre di due figli, la Procura ha chiesto e ottenuto il giudizio immediato. Avrebbe abusato dell’allieva minorenne nel 2015. A maggio dello scorso anno è finito agli arresti domiciliari. Ha poi scelto il rito abbreviato. Il processo è iniziato da poco.

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ROME
Rome Reports

[with video]

2017-05-20

When a bishop receives news of an alleged sex abuse case, some may be surprised to know there is a process when handling each case.

MIGUEL YAÑEZ
Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors
“When this large number of cases exploded in some countries in the Church, in my opinion the greatest indignation was not only the existence of these cases, but the mismanagement by the leaders of the Church. I think that point is a point that is changing. Today there are some clear rules about what a bishop or religious superior must do when he receives a complaint from a victim.”

FR. JUSTIN WACHS
Canon Lawyer
“When a bishop receives an accusation, he’s going to do everything he can to make himself or his staff available to receive the alleged victim’s story and denunciation of the cleric: the priest or deacon or maybe even a bishop. That’s not an easy moment because that person usually comes hurting. It’s a very challenging moment.”

The first step is to question the truth and credibility of the case and reliability of the persons involved. There should be a clear statement of compliance with both civil and Church authorities, and requirements and neutrality in order to investigate the matter.

Once the bishop receives the news, he begins the process of the preliminary investigation, gathering all evidence from both sides. He must act quickly, but not react to the case without listening and considering both sides.

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CALIFORNIA
Fox LA

MAY 17 2017

(FOX 11) – An Alhambra teacher was arrested today for allegedly having sexual relations with a former student at an all-girls Catholic school.

Alhambra Police arrested 42 year old Diana Yniguez also known as Diana Wendel. They say she had unlawful sexual relations with her former 17 year old student

Police say the high school teacher met the girl in her class two years ago at Ramona Convent Secondary School.

On Tuesday, investigators say one of the girl’s family member saw sexual text messages the teacher had sent, and told the girl’s father, who showed police the phone.

Detectives say the relationship started in March of this year…and the interactions took place at school and in the teacher’s car.

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CALIFORNIA
ABC 7

ALHAMBRA, Calif. (KABC) — A female teacher was arrested on suspicion of having a sexual relationship with a student at an all-girls Catholic school in Alhambra, according to authorities.

Alhambra police said 42-year-old Diana Wendel, a teacher at Ramona Convent Secondary School for the past three years, was arrested Wednesday afternoon after a graphic text was found on a student’s phone by her relative on Tuesday.

Officials said the student’s father reported the text message and turned the cellphone over to police.

“A concerned relative of the female victim actually discovered the sexually graphic text messages and obviously alerted the parent who in turn came to the police department to report this,” Sgt. Steven Carr with the Alhambra Police Department said.

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CALIFORNIA
Daily Mail (UK)

By Emily Crane For Dailymail.com

A female teacher at an all-girls Catholic school has been accused of having a sexual relationship with a student after a graphic text message was allegedly uncovered by the girl’s parents.

Diana Wendel, a teacher at Ramona Convent Secondary School, was arrested on Wednesday in Alhambra, California.

The 42-year-old, who has taught at the school for three years, is accused of having a sexual relationship with the 17-year-old girl over the past two to three months.

The sexual contact allegedly took place on the school’s campus in Wendel’s car.

Police said the girl’s father alerted them to the situation after being made aware of a graphic text message on Tuesday night.

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NEW MEXICO
The Taos News

By Uriel J. Garcia
The New Mexican

A lawsuit filed in April against the Archdiocese of Santa Fe says a 2015 film about widespread child sexual abuse by Catholic clergy in the Boston area triggered a New Mexico’s man’s childhood memories of being sexually abused by two priests at an Albuquerque church.

Attorneys representing the man, identified as John Doe 66, filed the suit Thursday in the 2nd Judicial District Court in Albuquerque. It also names the Church of Ascension Parish in Albuquerque’s South Valley as a defendant.

The lawsuit, one of more than 60 similar complaints against the archdiocese filed in the last few years by the Law Offices of Brad D. Hall, comes as the archdiocese has asked a state judge in the First Judicial District in Santa Fe to seal records in a separate case alleging sexual abuse by one of its priests.

Filed in December, that suit says seven San Miguel County men, who are not identified, were molested as children by a priest at Our Lady of Sorrows Church in Las Vegas, N.M. The priest, Monsignor Hubert C. Lomme, died in 1986 at age 79. The men’s attorneys are asking a judge to reject the archdiocese’s request earlier this month to conceal documents in the case. The request is “overbroad, complex and limiting,” the attorneys say, calling it a “gag order.”

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MARYLAND
ABC 2

[with video]

Brian Kuebler

BALTIMORE – “The Keepers” dropped early Friday morning.

The seven part documentary lays bare all the theories surrounding the 1969 murder of Sister Catherine Cesnik and the role Father Joseph Maskell may have played in it.

But the abuse Maskell was accused of is also at issue.

“Oh I think it is a story that is highly relevant, needed to be told,” said attorney Sheldon Jacobs.

Jacobs represented 13 victims who alleged Maskell abused them some 45 years ago.

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NEW HAMPSHIRE
Union Leader

By KIMBERLY HOUGHTON

NASHUA — A local judge will consider next month whether the former principal at St. Francis of Assisi School, accused of stealing more than $152,000 from the private school in Litchfield, is now competent to stand trial.

It has been nearly four years since Shannon Dannible, 40, of Amesbury, Mass., was indicted on a felony count of unauthorized taking or transfer in connection with the alleged embezzlement; she has been free on bail since her arrest several years ago. Last August, Judge Jacalyn Colburn deemed that Dannible was incompetent to stand trial, but said at the time that if Dannible continued attending psychotherapy and treatment, her competency may potentially be restored within the year.

Dannible allegedly stole $152,468 from the Catholic school’s bank accounts by issuing herself checks, withdrawing cash for herself and directing school funds to pay off personal debts during a four-year period when she was an administrator at the school from 2007-2011.

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MASSACHUSETTS
Pokrov

Author: Melanie Jula Sakoda
Date Published: 05/18/2017
Publication: Pokrov.org

Memorandum of Decision and Order on Defendants’ Motions for Summary Judgment

Pokrov.org has obtained a copy of the Memorandum of Decision and Order on Defendants’ Motions for Summary Judgment in the case of Manter vs. Abdelahad. A copy of the order is linked above.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
CBS Philly

May 19, 2017 By Steve Tawa

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) — While the re-trial of Monsignor William Lynn in the church sex-abuse scandal may be a year away, lawyers were back in court for a hearing on whether his defense lawyer violated the judge’s gag order.

After a routine hearing recently, the Philadelphia Inquirer incorrectly described the charge Msgr. Lynn faces.

The caption below his photo read he is “accused of sexual misconduct.” He is not.

The 66-year old Lynn is charged with one count of child endangerment involving his supervisory role over priests accused of sexual misconduct.

Even though Judge Gwendolyn Bright imposed a gag order barring the lawyers and parties from publicly discussing the case, when defense lawyer Thomas Bergstrom opened his Inquirer the following morning, he admits to “losing his temper.”

He sent off a flurry of emails to longtime Inquirer reporter Joe Slobodzian, who had absolutely nothing to do with the error. His story was correct. The people who wrote the caption got it wrong.

Judge Bright did not fault Bergstrom for getting the paper to fix the mistake, but she did lay into him for cc’ing – copying his remarks – to another reporter who writes an on-line blog.

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CANADA
Hamilton Spectator

Waterloo Region Record
By Joanna Smith

OTTAWA — Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is expected to ask Pope Francis for a formal apology for the role of the Roman Catholic Church in the residential school system when the two meet during a private audience later this month.

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission included the demand for a papal apology — to survivors, their families and communities — among the 94 recommendations in its report on the dark history and legacy of residential schools.

Trudeau, who has promised to act on all 94 recommendations, has previously promised to speak to the Pope about an apology, but noted he could not compel him to agree.

“It is a conversation that is going to have to happen between the two gentlemen,” said a federal government official, who spoke on the condition that sources not be named.

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UNITED STATES
Questions from a Ewe

This might strike readers as unusual but sometimes I just don’t know what to say.

Earlier this month I received an email from the Pontifical North American College (PNAC) inviting me to join its rector on a pilgrimage. PNAC is the US bishops’ seminary in Rome. Somehow, I do not think of myself as being on the PNAC’s “A” list for invitations to anything. Nonetheless, I received the invitation.

Maybe some readers would like to join the PNAC trip so here’s a link to the flyer advertising the trip.

Receiving the invitation is not what left me speechless. It was the pilgrimage’s description and price…$7,699 per person for a 9 night luxury cruise on the Mediterranean. There is also an option for $12,399 per person for folks with more discerning tastes. The flyer describes free-flowing champagne, butlers, room service, shoe shine service, spas and marble-clad bathrooms…you know…all the amenities Jesus had. I am sure there will be reflection exercise on “where would Jesus cruise” and “what kind of marble would inspire Jesus to excrete.”

To put this in perspective, the global annual median salary in 2012 was estimated at about $1,225 USD. Thus, the modest per person pilgrimage package, in the name of Jesus, is equivalent to about 6 people’s annual income. About every day and a half on the cruise, each of these fine pious folks will burn through the equivalent of one person’s entire annual income. The more luxurious package equates to 10 people’s annual income, burning through more than a person’s annual income equivalent per day.

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ARGENTINA
El Dia

[According to Vatican envoys “the boys fall in love and denounce by spite”]

“Hay personas despechadas. Por ejemplo, una chica, un chico… se enamora de un sacerdote, y éste no le responde. Tan despechado puede ser el varón como la mujer. Entonces, lo denuncian”. En esos términos se refirió uno de los sacerdotes, que forma parte de la Comitiva enviada por el Vaticano a investigar los casos de abusos en el Instituto Provolo, al referirse al origen de las denuncias por ataques sexuales que involucran a miembros de la Iglesia Católica.

Según la mirada del cura Dante Simón muchas de las denuncias por abuso que se radican no son verdaderas y se fundamentan en “despechos” que tienen los denunciantes con los ministros religiosos por “no responder”. Simón se encuentra desde hace algunas semanas en Mendoza para tratar de echar luz sobre los sucesos ocurridos en el Instituto Antonio Próvolo de Luján de Cuyo. Junto a Juan Martínez encabezan la comisión investigadora.

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ARGENTINA
Buenos Aires Herald

In an interview addressing scandal in Mendoza, Father Dante Simón talks of kids who ‘fall in love with a priest’ and are rejected

A Vatican envoy sent to investigate a shocking paedophilia cover-up at the Antonio Próvolo Institute for deaf children in Mendoza province — where priests and employees have been accused of the systematic sexual abuse of minors over decades — has sparked outrage after describing some of the children who laid claims as “spiteful.”

Father Dante Simón, one of the two envoys sent by the Vatican to probe the scandal, suggested that some accusations have been dismissed because they were invented by “spiteful” boys who had fallen in love with priests and were rejected. Despite the fact that more than 60 former students have come forward with allegations involving sexual abuse at the institute, Simón chose to highlight “dismissed” cases.

“A few (cases) have been dismissed,” the priest told the Mendoza Post. “Because there are people who are spiteful. For example, a girl or a boy falls in love with a priest, and he doesn’t respond back. The boy can be very spiteful like a woman can. So, they denounce him (the priest),” Simón told reporter Martín Tejerina.

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IRELAND
The Journal

OVER SEVEN ACRES of school playing fields to be sold by the Christian Brothers to pay compensation for child abuse are already zoned for housing for any potential developers.

Yesterday, it emerged how the land surrounding Clonkeen College in Deansgrange, south Dublin, was to be sold without the prior knowledge of the Board of Management or parents of pupils.

The land, which is expected to fetch over €18 million, has been zoned for housing since as 1998, making it a desired target for developers.

The news has been condemned by locals and school officials. They said a lot of money has been put into the school’s facilities and that the strategy for the next 10 years revolved around keeping the fields.

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AUSTRALIA
The Australian

May 20, 2017

REBECCA URBAN
JournalistMelbourne
@RurbsOz

Lawyers acting for George Pell lobbied the Victorian state prosecutor over a new book about the senior Catholic figure in an apparent bid to thwart its planned release in the midst of an active police investigation.

Law firm Corrs Chambers Westgarth also wrote repeatedly to publisher Melbourne University Press to warn of potential legal consequences if the book made it to print.

The publisher’s chief executive, Louise Adler, confirmed she had received three letters from lawyers representing Cardinal Pell in the lead-up to the release of journalist Louise Milligan’s book Cardinal: The rise and fall of George Pell on Monday.

By Wednesday, Victoria Police confirmed the Office of Public Prosecutions, which had been considering a brief of evidence relating to historic sex-abuse allegations against Cardinal Pell since February, had provided official advice on whether charges should be laid.

The allegations have been vehemently denied by Cardinal Pell, a senior church official based at the Vatican.

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AUSTRALIA
The Australian

May 20, 2017

DENNIS SHANAHAN
Political EditorCanberra

Noel Pearson has delivered an ­impassioned plea for fair treatment for George Pell as concern grows about “journalistic vigilantism” in the form of allegations that risk undermining any chance of a fair trial.

The indigenous rights campaigner, lawyer and respected public advocate says what is happening to Cardinal Pell is “just not right”, and an abuse of process that threatens everyone’s rights.

“Those who seek truth and justice for victims of abuse should be alarmed at the way this journalistic vigilantism imperils fair legal process,” Mr Pearson said.

He said he was ashamed “more of us” had not spoken out and ­lifted “our heads above the parapets to face the certitude of these ­latter-day Robespierres”.

The Law Institute of Victoria has also raised concerns about publicity jeopardising Cardinal Pell’s chance of a fair trial should he face an Australian court.

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ILLINOIS
WSPY News

Tyler Bachman May 19, 2017

A bill that will eliminate statutes of limitations for child sex crimes and one that highlights former U.S. House Speaker Dennis Hastert’s child sex scandal is on its way to Illinois Gov. Bruce Rauner’s desk for a signature.

That measure passed in the Illinois House on Thursday and the Gov. has indicated his intention to sign the bill – ultimately doing away with any and all limitation against a felony Criminal Sexual Assault and Sexual Abuse crime against a child.

Current law states that serious sexual offenses against children must be reported and prosecuted within 20 years of the survivor turning 18. Two exceptions to the law are listed, one, in which physical evidence proved the abuse, and the second in which a mandated reporter didn’t report the abuse.

Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan and Scott Cross testified in 2016 about Hastert’s sexual abuse and their support of the bill that passed, Thursday.

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ILLINOIS
CBS Chicago

CHICAGO (CBS) — Pointing to former U.S. House Speaker Dennis Hastert’s admission he molested boys decades ago when he was a teacher and wrestling coach, Illinois lawmakers have passed legislation to do away with the statute of limitations on child sex crimes, and Gov. Bruce Rauner has vowed to sign it.

Hastert is serving a 15-month prison term for violating banking laws to cover up hush money payments to one of his victims. At his sentencing, he admitted to sexually abusing boys when he was a teacher at Yorkville High School. However, prosecutors were not able to charge him with sex abuse, because his crimes did not come to light until after the statute of limitations had passed.

One of his victims, Scott Cross, testified at an Illinois Senate hearing last year, urging lawmakers to eliminate the statute of limitations on child sex crimes. Cross was only 17 when he was abused by Hastert in the 1970s.

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SCHWEIZ
Neue Zurcher Zeitung

[There were cases of sexual abuse or other violence against children in several children’s homes.This is evidenced by a study. Graubünden plays a special role in coercive measures.]

von Jörg Krummenacher 18.5.2017

In jedem zehnten Bündner Kinderheim gab es Fälle von sexuellem Missbrauch oder sonstiger Gewalt gegen Kinder. Dies belegt eine Studie. Graubünden spielt bei Zwangsmassnahmen eine Sonderrolle.

Rund 150 staatliche und private Kinderheime gab es im Zeitraum zwischen den 1950er und den 1980er Jahren im Kanton Graubünden – eine im nationalen Vergleich hohe Zahl. Dass es in manchen Heimen der Schweiz wenig idyllisch zu und her ging, ist im Lauf der vergangenen Jahre bereits mehrfach ans Licht gekommen. Graubünden stellt dabei keine Ausnahme dar, wie nun eine 2015 von der Kantonsregierung in Auftrag gegebene Studie belegt. Das Autorenteam um Tanja Rietmann vom Zentrum für Geschlechterforschung der Universität Bern stellt fest, dass massive Schläge, Essensentzug, Einsperren oder Herabwürdigen gängige Praktiken waren. Zudem liessen sich für knapp zehn Prozent der Bündner Heime Fälle von sexuellem Missbrauch oder sonstiger Gewaltanwendung gegenüber Kindern in den Akten nachweisen.

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IRELAND
Irish Times

Lorna Siggins

Advice from international experts on the future of “significant” children’s remains found at a mother and babies home in Tuam, Co Galway will be considered by a Government inter-departmental committee on Friday.

The interdepartmental committee has been established by Minister for Children Katherine Zappone with a remit to source “appropriate” technical expertise, both national and international.

The remains were found during archaeological work initiated last year for the Commission on the Investigation of Mother and Baby Homes, and have been referred to the county coroner.

The inter-departmental group, which is chaired by her department’s secretary-general Dr Fergal Lynch, is expected to report back before the end of May on the best expertise to advise on the next stages.

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GUAM
The Guam Daily Post

Neil Pang | The Guam Daily Post May 19, 2017

Two more victims, who allege that former Guam priest Louis Brouillard sexually abused them, have filed lawsuits recently in the local court.

Attorney Michael Berman and his two clients, with the initials E.T. and J.S., filed complaints in the Superior Court of Guam earlier this month against the Archdiocese of Agana, Brouillard and the Boy Scouts of America Aloha Council Chamorro District. Both victims are former altar boys and Boy Scouts.

Berman is the latest attorney to join a growing list of attorneys who have filed, collectively, more than 60 sex-abuse cases involving former Guam priests.

The first, a 53-year-old man of Barrigada, E.T., alleged Brouillard sexually molested him between 1977 and 1979 when he was 13 or 14 years old and an altar boy at the San Roke Catholic Church in Barrigada.

According to court documents, Brouillard served as a priest in the Archdiocese of Agana and a scoutmaster for the Boy Scouts. Brouillard had access to his alleged victims through both church and Boy Scouts functions, the lawsuit alleges.

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NEW YORK
Catholic League

Bill Donohue comments on the way the New York Times covers stories on the sexual abuse of minors:

Newspapers are expected to print news, but that was most certainly not the case today with the New York Times.

It ran a story of almost 800 words on the compensation program of the New York Archdiocese for victims of sexual abuse. There was nothing new in the article: The names of the six priests, who committed their offenses in the 1970s and 1980s, had already been made public. So what was the point? None of the priests are in ministry and five were booted.

It could be argued that the New York Times has an obligation to cover everything and anything about the sexual abuse of minors. But that is simply not true, and I will prove it.

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AUSTRALIA
The Australian

May 20, 2017

GERARD HENDERSON
Columnist

If Cardinal George Pell was anything other than Australia’s best known Christian who happens to be a social conservative and holds the third most senior position in the Vatican, the civil libertarians in our midst would be calling for him to receive due process.

Instead, with the notable ­exception of lawyer Terry O’Gorman in Brisbane, there has been ­silence as a baying pack of jour­nalists and some politicians effectively have branded Pell guilty of historical child sexual abuse. ­Before charges have been laid or a trial conducted.

This is what we know of the ­allegations against Pell. In February last year, the Herald Sun revealed that he was to be subjected to a police investigation concerning crimes that allegedly took place at St Patrick’s Cathedral in Melbourne between 1996 and 2001. To accept this allegation you have to believe that Pell was an ­active pederast at the very time he set up the Melbourne ­Response to deal with child sexual abuse in co-operation with Victoria Police and after consulting the Victorian governor, premier and solicitor-general, along with male and female lawyers. Pell must have been completely reckless or is innocent of the allegations made against him.

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AUSTRALIA
The Australian

May 19, 2017

REBECCA URBAN
JournalistMelbourne
@RurbsOz

The federal government is expected to release draft legislation for the Commonwealth Redress Scheme for survivors of sexual abuse by August and is confident the states and territories, as well as non-government groups, will choose to take part.

Social Services Minister Christian Porter today met with state and territory attorney’s general as well as the heads of major churches and charities in a bid to work out arrangements for the scheme, which will provide financial compensation as well as support services to a potential 60,000 claimants across the country.

Mr Porter has encouraged them all to opt-in to the scheme, arguing that a national approach was the best way to ensure that victims received redress as recommended by the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.

“There was a large amount of good faith and very positive contribution.” he said following the meeting, which was held in Melbourne.

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AUSTRALIA/ISRAEL
Herald Sun

Shannon Deery, Herald Sun
May 19, 2017

A PRINCIPAL on the run from Victorian authorities is living overseas after beating attempts to have her extradited.

The first new picture of Malka Leifer emerged this week almost a decade after she fled Melbourne hours after allegations of her rampant sexual abuse were made public.

The mother of eight had been living under house arrest but is now free to come and go as she pleases while living in hiding in Israel.

She claimed she was psychotic to beat extradition attempts but was this week spotted enjoying herself during a traditional Jewish festival in the town of Meron.

The picture was taken by a Melbourne woman and has been verified by Leifer’s alleged victims.

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AUSTRALIA/ISRAEL
ABC News

By Middle East correspondent Sophie McNeill

Victims say they are angry a school principal wanted in Victoria on 74 charges of child sexual abuse has been allegedly spotted at a religious festival in Israel, despite her lawyers’ claims she is too ill to attend two years of extradition hearings.

Israeli prosecutors have told the ABC they are examining purported photos of Malka Leifer taken last week in a town in northern Israel.

Police want Malka Leifer returned to Melbourne, but for two years she has been fighting her extradition to Australia in the Israeli courts.

For the alleged victims of Ms Leifer’s abuse, like 29-year-old Dassi Erlich, the surfacing of the photo has turned her world upside down.

Starting when she was 15, Ms Erlich said she endured years of sexual abuse at the hands of Ms Leifer, then principal of her ultra-orthodox Jewish girls’ school in Melbourne.

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RUSSIA
RAPSI

ST. PETERSBURG, May 19 (RAPSI, Mikhail Telekhov) – The St. Petersburg City Court has extended detention of Russian priest Gleb Grozovsky, who stands charged with sexual abuse of children, until June 14, RAPSI learnt on Friday from the court’s press-service.

According to investigators, Grozovsky committed several crimes against minors in 2011 and 2013.

In 2013, he fled to Israel and applied for citizenship. However, his application was dismissed.

In April 2014, Grozovsky was put on the international wanted list. Israeli police arrested him in September. In January 2015, a court in Jerusalem ruled that the priest should be extradited to Russia pursuant to the European Convention on Extradition. The ruling was appealed but rejected. In April 2016, the Justice Minister signed an order on Grozovsky’s extradition.

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MASSACHUSETTS
Pokrov

Author: Melanie Jula Sakoda
Date Published: 05/10/2017
Publication: Pokrov.org

On May 1, 2017, the judge in the case of Manter vs. Abdelahad denied the defendants motion for summary judgment. Pokrov.org is working to obtain a copy of the memorandum denying the motion.

The case is currently scheduled for jury trial to begin on June 1, 2017. However, the defendants recently filed motions to postpone the upcoming court proceedings.

Susan Manter filed her lawsuit against the priest and others more than three years ago, in September of 2013.

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CANADA
The Standard

By Allan Benner, The Standard
Thursday, May 18, 2017

For the second time since 2010, former priest Donald Grecco pleaded guilty to charges related to the molestation of two boys more than 40 years ago.

He was in a St. Catharines courtroom last Friday, where he pleaded guilty to three counts of gross indecency, following the September 2015 arrest of the then-75-year-old by Haldimand County OPP officers.

The charges were related to incidents that took place between 1977 and 1982 in Niagara Falls, Haldimand County and in the United States at a time when Grecco was working as a priest at St. Thomas More Church in Niagara Falls, St. Kevin’s Church in Welland and St. Stephen’s Church in Cayuga.

Grecco is scheduled to return to court for sentencing on Sept. 7.

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IRELAND
Irish Times

Carl O’Brien, Tim O’Brien

The decision by the Congregation of the Christian Brothers to sell eight acres of playing fields in a Dublin school has “betrayed” its teachers, the school’s principal told parents last night.

Clonkeen College in Deansgrange will lose most of its playing fields after the Christian Brothers-created trust announced plans to sell off two-thirds of the school’s sports pitches.

Speaking before nearly 500 people at an emergency meeting last night, the school’s principal, Mr Edward Melly that he is “still in shock” after he learned of the sell-off plan. …

Redress payments

He said he was told €10m had to be paid to the Minister for Education as part of the Christian Brothers’ redress payments for abuse of children who had been in their care. Unspecified amounts of money from the sale would go towards sustaining the ageing Brothers community and legal costs.

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CONNECTICUT
CT Post

By Daniel Tepfer

BRIDGEPORT – A local lawyer has won a $20 million verdict against a prominent rabbi accused of sexually abusing a teenage student in 2002.

A federal court jury deliberated nearly two days before ordering New Haven Rabbi Daniel Greer and his Yeshiva of New Haven on Thursday to pay the plaintiff, Eliyahu Mirlis, now 28, $15 million plus $5 million in punitive damages.

“The justice system works,” said Mirlis’ lawyer, Antonio Ponvert III, of the local law firm Koskoff Koskoff & Bieder. “My client came forward showing great courage to right a wrong and to protect other children. Child abuse in all its forms must end and this is a step in that process.”

The lawsuit claims that beginning in the fall of 2002 and continuing for the entirety of the victim’s sophomore, junior and senior high school years, when he was 15, 16 and 17 years old, “Rabbi Greer repeatedly and continuously sexually abused, exploited, and assaulted him.”

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CONNECTICUT
WTNH

[with video]

By Jesse Gosselin, News 8 Digital Executive Producer
Published: May 18, 2017

NEW HAVEN, Conn. (WTNH) — A jury Thursday awarded $20 million to the victim in a sexual abuse case against a New Haven rabbi.

New Haven Rabbi Daniel Greer and his Yeshiva of New Haven were was ordered to pay the victim, 29-year-old Eliyahu Mirlis, $15 million, plus $5 million in punitive damages, after a jury in the federal civil case deliberated for nearly two days.

Mirlis filed the federal lawsuit against Greer in 2016. Greer was his former principal at Yeshiva of New Haven. The suit alleged that the rabbi had sexually abused him hundreds of times over the course of three years while he was a student.

The lawsuit was filed in federal court because the victim resides in New Jersey.

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CONNECTICUT
Fox 61

MAY 18, 2017, BY DOUG STEWART AND CARMEN CHAU

NEW HAVEN — A jury awarded $20 million to a man who accused a New Haven rabbi of repeated sexual abuse.

In the federal suit, Eliyahu Mirlis accused Rabbi Daniel Greer, founder of an Orthodox Jewish school and prominent neighborhood resident, of sexual abuse him while Mirlis was a student at the school.

The jury awarded $15 million to the plaintiff. He was also was entitled to punitive damaged of one third of the verdict by state law.

The lawsuit said Rabbi Daniel Greer, the principal and rabbi for the all-boys Yeshiva of New Haven / The Gan School, sexually abused the plaintiff, Eliyahu Mirlis, now 28. Attorneys filed the lawsuit in federal court last year.

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CONNECTICUT
New Haven Register

By Anna Bisaro, New Haven Register

HARTFORD >> A federal jury Thursday awarded a New Jersey man $15 million in his civil lawsuit accusing Daniel Greer, a prominent New Haven rabbi, real estate developer and founder of an Orthodox Jewish school of sexually abusing him for years while he attended Greer’s yeshiva.

The verdict was read at 3:40 p.m., with jurors in agreement that there was enough evidence to find Greer and the Yeshiva of New Haven legally liable over the victim’s accusations that Greer raped and sexually molested him over several years.

The jury was tasked with determining liability on civil counts against Greer and the yeshiva. The counts included negligence by the school, intentional infliction of emotional distress by Greer and the school, recklessness by the school and Greer and assault and battery against Greer.

The jury found there was sufficient evidence on each count.

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CONNECTICUT
New York Post

Associated Press

HARTFORD, Conn. — A federal jury on Thursday awarded $15 million to a New Jersey man who accused a prominent Connecticut rabbi of repeatedly raping and molesting him when he was a teenager.

Rabbi Daniel Greer and his Yeshiva of New Haven were ordered Thursday to pay the compensatory damages to Eliyahu Mirlis. Mirlis alleged in a lawsuit that Greer sexually abused him for three years while he was a student at the Jewish boarding school from 2001 to 2005.

Greer was the school’s principal. He has denied the allegations and has not been criminally charged.

The Associated Press generally doesn’t name people who say they were sexually abused, but Mirlis’ attorney said he wanted to come forward.

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