ABUSE TRACKER

BOSTON (MA)
WGBH Frontline

December 21, 2017

By Patrice Taddonio

[Note: Includes streaming link to the Hand of God documentary about Paul Cultrera and Fr. Joseph Birmingham. See also an a resource page for the movie and assignment history of Birmingham with links to documents.]

Cardinal Bernard Law, a key figure in the clergy sex abuse scandal that continues to haunt the Roman Catholic Church, died this week at the age of 86.

Law was the archbishop of Boston when starting in 2002, a Boston Globe investigation found that for years, he had transferred priests who sexually abused children within his archdiocese. After the stories broke, Law’s name became synonymous with the abuse scandal. He apologized and resigned from his post after the Globe’s revelations, but he continued to hold his title as cardinal up until his death on Tuesday.

All told, approximately 1,000 people would come forward alleging clergy sex abuse within the Archdiocese of Boston, exposing the depth of a scandal that had been largely hidden from public view under Law’s tenure.

Among the many people impacted by abusive priests within the archdiocese was Paul Cultrera, whose story was the focus of the 2007 Frontline documentary Hand of God (watch below).

Cultrera grew up in a Catholic home in Salem, Massachusetts, where pictures of popes and cardinals hung in the hallway. He was molested in the 1960s by Father Joseph Birmingham, who allegedly abused nearly 100 other children, and who would eventually be one of the priests named in the Boston Globe’s reporting.

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

BILLINGS (MT)
KTVQ

December 19, 2017

By Erik Olson

More than $70 million in assets at Catholic parishes in Eastern Montana, including in Billings, could be at stake as part of the regional diocese’s bankruptcy amid claims of sexual assault stemming back to the 1950s.

Survivors of sexual assault at the hands of priests and nuns dating back to the 1950s say the Great Falls-based diocese has understated its total assets by not including properties held in local parishes, according to documents filed Monday in federal bankruptcy court in Butte.

The Diocese of Great Falls-Billings filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in March, a move that church officials said would help develop a compensation fund for victims and set aside money for more who come forward.

“The resolution of this litigation is critical to (the diocese) … because it will determine the magnitude of distributions to its creditors, including the survivors of the childhood sex abuse enabled by (the diocese) or whether (the diocese) can continue to avoid being held accountable to the survivors,” attorneys for the survivors wrote.

A total of 86 victims are involved, according to an October story by the Great Falls Tribune. The abuse cases took place over decades, mostly in rural and reservation parishes.

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BILLINGS (MT)
KTVQ

December 20, 2017

Great Falls – The bishop of the Catholic Diocese of Great Falls-Billings is now responding to a new filing in the diocese’s bankruptcy case.

In that lawsuit, attorneys for 86 victims who were sexually abused by eastern Montana priests dating back to the 1950s contend that as much as $70 million of church assets should be included as part of the bankruptcy estate.

Those assets include 14 parishes within the Great Falls-based diocese, four in Billings.

While the plaintiffs contend those assets should be available for the settlement, the diocese maintains the parishes are held in trust by the diocese and are therefore exempt..

“The distinction is we are under the corporation of the Roman Catholic Bishop of Great Falls. All the parishes come under that cooperation, but we hold assets only in trust, we don’t own any of the parish assets. And that’s the contention,” Bishop Michael Warfel told MTN News Wednesday.

Attorney Jim Stang, who represents the 86 victims, said Wednesday his goal is to reach a settlement with the diocese.

He told MTN news that under Montana law, the parishes do not exist on their own, and those assets should be available to creditors.

But in the end, that issue will be decided by a federal bankruptcy judge.

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ROME
The Guardian

December 22, 2017

By Stephanie Kirchgaessner

The Vatican has at last broken its silence on priests who become fathers, as their children reveal the pain of secrecy

When he was a boy, Vincent Doyle spent most weekends with a priest he believed was his godfather.

Every Friday night they would watch MacGyver and Vincent would stay in a room that the priest, who was called JJ, kept for him. And every morning before school, he would call Vincent to wish him well.

It was not until years later when Doyle, a psychotherapist based in Galway, was sitting in the kitchen with his mother, leafing through old poems the late priest had written, that he asked the question he innately knew the answer to. “I said: ‘He was my father, wasn’t he?’ And I saw a tear come out of her,” Doyle says.

Catholic priests have been breaking their vows of celibacy and fathering children for decades, if not centuries. For just as long, the Vatican has not publicly addressed the question of what, if any, responsibility the church has to provide emotional and financial support to those children and their mothers. Until now.

A commission created by Pope Francis to tackle clerical sexual abuse will develop guidelines on how dioceses should respond to the issue of the children of priests.

The pontifical commission for the protection of minors has been criticised for doing too little on child sexual abuse. Its decision to take up the issue of priest fathers comes after Irish bishops published guidelines this year that have been hailed as a global model.

They say a child’s wellbeing must be the first consideration of a priest father, and that he must “face up” to his personal, legal, moral, and financial responsibilities.

Acknowledgement of the issue has come about in part because people such as Doyle, who has launched an organisation designed to help priests’ children cope with their difficult childhood circumstances, are speaking out like never before.

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AUSTRALIA
Warwick Daily News

December 22, 2017

By Marian Faa

TWO LOCAL priests reflected with sadness on the history of child sexual abuse within Catholic institutions after the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse presented its final report to the Governor General on Friday, December 15.

After 54 years working as a Catholic priest in the Darling Downs and beyond, Fr Terry Hickling said the thought of abuse within the Church shocked and disappointed him.

“I am very, very sad that these things have occurred and that priests religious and people involved in our Church have been involved in pedophilia,” Fr Hickling said.

“It saddens me and turns my stomach upside down.”

Catholic institutions were vastly over-represented in reports of abuse taken from more than 8,000 survivors over the five years the Commission was conducted.

Nearly 65 per cent of victims identified as male, and most perpetrators of institutional child sexual abuse were teachers and persons in religious ministry.

The final report included 189 new recommendations, two of which have caused controversy within the Catholic Church.

They included introducing voluntary celibacy for priests and requiring priests to report matters relating child abuse disclosed in confession.

Parish priest Franco Filipetto the Church had committed itself to working with other authorities to implement the recommendations of the royal commission but it was only those two recommendations that had become particularly problematic.

“In my opinion these two recommendations cannot be resolved by the church at a national level,” Fr Filipetto said.

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BILLINGS (MT)
Associated Press

December 21, 2017

BILLINGS, Mont. – Representatives of sex abuse victims and their survivors are suing a bankrupt Roman Catholic diocese in Montana in an effort to ensure more than $70 million in assets are available for those abused by church officials.

The Diocese of Great Falls-Billings entered bankruptcy protection in March as part of settlements involving more than 400 people in sex abuse lawsuits. Church officials said at the time the diocese and its insurers would contribute to a fund to compensate victims and set aside additional money for those who had yet to come forward.

Mediation has not produced a settlement so far.

A committee of unsecured creditors representing eight sex abuse survivors sued the diocese in U.S. Bankruptcy Court this week, aiming to reach a negotiated settlement. California attorney James Stang, who represents the committee, said the complaint was “part of the process,” the Billings Gazette reported.

U.S. Catholic leaders have been grappling with a clergy sexual abuse crisis that exploded in 2002 following reporting by The Boston Globe. Nationwide, the church has paid several billion dollars in settlements since 1950. More than 6,500 clergy members have been accused of abuse and hundreds have been removed from church work.

In the Montana bankruptcy case, the church says the disputed assets are held in trust for its parishes and therefore unavailable for creditors. The creditors argue the property is part of the church’s estate and should be available for victims.

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ENGLAND
Agence France-Presse

December 21, 2017

A priest was jailed for 18 years on Thursday for sexual abusing boys at a top British Catholic school in crimes dating back to the 1970s.

Andrew Soper, 74, fled to Kosovo in 2011 to avoid prosecution over charges that he molested boys while headmaster at St Benedict’s School in London.

He was extradited in 2016 to face 19 counts of indecent assault and buggery against 10 former pupils in the 1970s and 1980s.

A jury at the Old Bailey central criminal court in London found him guilty of all charges on December 6.

Sentencing him Thursday, judge Anthony Bate said that Soper’s conduct was “the most appalling breach of trust” and that he had “subverted the rules of the Benedictine order and teachings of the Catholic Church”.

Bate said Soper’s life would now be “overshadowed by the proven catalogue of vile abuse”.

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PORTLAND (OR)
Associated Press

December 22, 2017

By Gillian Flaccus

Clergy abuse victims who went public to force change in the Roman Catholic Church see haunting similarities between their experience and the experiences of women now describing abuse at the hands of powerful men.

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — Thousands of clergy abuse victims went public over the past two decades to shed light on sexually abusive priests within the Roman Catholic Church.

Now, many of these victims are being reminded of their abuse by the sexual misconduct scandals gripping Hollywood and Washington, D.C.

They see haunting similarities between their experience and the experiences of women coming forward about abuse at the hands of powerful men. They include fear of retribution, impossible power disparities, and confidential settlements that bury complaints.

Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein has denied allegations that he raped three women and sexually assaulted or harassed dozens of others. In the fallout, dozens of other high-profile men have been publicly accused of misconduct.

The Catholic church has paid more than $3 billion to settle clergy abuse cases since 1950, including a record-breaking $660 million settlement in Los Angeles a decade ago.

Copyright 2017 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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UNITED STATES
USA TODAY

December 21, 2017

By Alfred P. Doblin

Law became the face of this institutional evil, and his legacy will remain solely that, for generations to come.

There was a time when “men of the cloth” were revered. To have a priest in the family was a sign of pride for many a Catholic parent. Priests were good men, focused on helping others.

Then there was the time of Boston Cardinal Bernard Law. And nothing would be the same again.

In fairness to Law, who died Wednesday in Rome at age 86, he was not the only prelate who enabled predator priests to destroy the lives of hundreds upon hundreds of children. But through the great reporting of The Boston Globe that pulled back the drapes on this sordid system, Law became the face of this institutional evil, and his legacy will remain solely that, for generations to come.

I spent 1988 to 1998 working in the Catholic press, including stints as editor of the archdiocesan newspapers for Detroit and Los Angeles. During those years, I can’t recall a pedophilia case coming to my attention. In retrospect, that is not surprising, since during that time bishops were still able to keep a firm lid on accusations. Priests could be reassigned for many reasons, and unless you were connected into a particular parish you would have no idea if there was a nefarious reason for the shift. And even then, facts would have been hard to come by.

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BRAINTREE (MA)
Catholic News Service

December 21, 2017

By Mark Labbe

BRAINTREE, Mass. (CNS) — Journalists crowded into a room in the Archdiocese of Boston’s Braintree headquarters Dec. 20 as Cardinal Sean P. O’Malley answered questions following the death of Cardinal Bernard F. Law, whose death was officially announced by the Vatican earlier that day.

The former archbishop of Boston, Cardinal Law resigned in 2002 amid allegations of mishandling cases of sexual abuse of minors by priests in the archdiocese. In 2004, the cardinal was named archpriest of a basilica in Rome, where he died at age 86.

“This is a very difficult day for survivors and all of us in the Archdiocese of Boston and for me,” said Cardinal O’Malley at the news conference.

“We have anticipated this day, recognizing that it would open a lot of old wounds and cause much pain and anger in those who have suffered so much already, and we share in their suffering,” he continued.

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NEW YORK (NY)
CRUX

December 22, 2017

By Christopher White

NEW YORK – At a press conference in Boston on Wednesday, Cardinal Sean O’Malley was asked whether he believed Cardinal Bernard Law, his predecessor who became the public face of the Church’s child sexual abuse scandals, would be welcomed into heaven.

Law died in Rome on Wednesday, and is largely remembered for his damning cover-up of clergy sexual abuse.

O’Malley told reporters that he hoped everyone would be welcomed into heaven – while also adding that he was not the one to judge. He also said that there was more to Law than his mistakes – a means of acknowledging the obvious, while also pulling a page from Shakespeare in an effort to perhaps signal that discretion is the better part of valor.

While Law’s death did not exactly elicit the sounds of silence that some had predicted, and indeed, some had even hoped for, it was by no means the usual fanfare that typically surrounds the death of a United States cardinal.

When Cardinal William Keeler, who led the archdiocese of Baltimore from 1989 to 2007, died in March of this year, his death was met with an outpouring of tributes from fellow U.S. bishops. In the days following his death, Keeler received a grand send-off with his reposed body given viewings at two locations, and Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York served as homilist for the funeral mass.

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ROME
The Washington Post

December 21, 2017

By Sarah Pulliam Bailey

Survivors of clergy sexual abuse reacted Thursday with outrage after the Catholic Church honored disgraced former Boston Archbishop Bernard Law with a full cardinal’s funeral, despite his role in a major coverup from which the church is still reeling. Law died Wednesday at age 86.

Law was honored with the standard funeral Mass of cardinals who live at the Vatican, as he did. The ceremony did not include mention of his role in the Boston archdiocese scandals that spanned decades. Pope Francis led a short benediction at the service.

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ROCKVILLE CENTRE (NY)
Newsday

December 20, 2017

By Bart Jones

New Jan. 31 date is set mainly because victims, with painful memories, are finding it difficult to complete paperwork, administrator says.

People who previously filed complaints with the Diocese of Rockville Centre that they had been sexually abused by clergy will have an extra month to apply for a new compensation and reconciliation program, officials said Wednesday.

The diocese is shifting the deadline of the program’s first phase from Dec. 31 to Jan. 31 largely because many victims are struggling to complete the paperwork, which involves reliving painful memories, said Camille Biros, one of the program’s administrators.

“Some of them are so traumatized that it is difficult for them to now start to reopen the process and put it down on paper,” Biros said.

The Independent Reconciliation and Compensation Program, announced in mid-October, will provide victims with financial compensation if they agree not to take legal action against the diocese in the future. It was modeled after programs launched over the past year in the Archdiocese of New York and the Diocese of Brooklyn.

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FARGO (ND)
MENAFN – Asia Times

December 22, 2017

A US court has set the bail for a Catholic priest charged 15 years ago with child sex abuse at US$5 million after finally getting him back from the Philippines, where he fled after the charges were filed.

Fernando Laude Sayasaya was extradited to the US on December 15 after he was arrested in the Philippines on November 19. He now faces charges that were filed in Cass County District Court in North Dakota in late 2002.

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GUAM
The Guam Daily Post

December 22, 2017

By Kevin Kerrigan

The number of sex abuse cases accusing former Guam priests of sexual abuse decades ago now total 147.

And there are more cases to come, said attorney Michael Patterson, who is representing the Archdiocese of Agana, in a hearing yesterday in the District Court. “There are a couple more to be added on here soon,” he said.

In reviewing the cases, Chief Judge Frances Tydingco-Gatewood observed that there are now more abuse cases on Guam than there were in Hawaii, which has been dealing with a similar series of clergy abuse cases.

Currently, 103 of the Guam cases are in federal court before Tydingco-Gatewood. Superior Court Judge Michael Bordallo presides over 44 others. Tydingco-Gatewood said she’ll meet with Bordallo in January to work out procedures for handling the local and federal cases going forward.

In April 2016, nearly 150 victims of child sex abuse filed lawsuits against Hawaii’s Catholic Church and other local institutions in the past four years, hawaiinewsnow.com reported. This includes more than two dozen lawsuits that were filed within the last two weeks in April 2016, which was the deadline to sue, the news website reported.

The Guam sex abuse plaintiffs’ lawsuits collectively seek close to $500 million, Post files show.

In yesterday’s hearing, Tydingco-Gatewood expressed disappointment that the mediation protocols in the clergy sex abuse cases have not yet been completed.

As a result, the start of the mediation process has been pushed back to June, from March next year.

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GUAM
The Guam Daily Post

December 22, 2017

By Mindy Aguon

A former priest allegedly paid a young boy to lie face down on a mat during an outing at the Lonfit River and then raped him in the early 1970s, according to a new lawsuit filed in the Superior Court of Guam on Wednesday.

J.M., who used initials to protect his identity, filed a lawsuit against the Archdiocese of Agana, the Boy Scouts of America and retired priest Louis Brouillard.

The former Barrigada altar boy and Boy Scout alleges he was subjected to Brouillard exposing himself before Mass and providing the altar boys with pornographic magazines to make them more pliable to his sexually deviant wishes, court documents state.

J.M. also said he would swim naked during Boy Scout outings and let Brouillard grope and touch him because he would be rewarded after swimming with restaurant food that he and his family could not afford.

During one outing when J.M. was 14, Brouillard allegedly took him aside and paid him money to lie down on a mat and then raped the boy. J.M. jumped up and screamed in pain and was later forced to defecate in his pants due to the “evil imposed upon him,” the lawsuit states.

Upon returning home, J.M told his grandmother what Brouillard had done to him.

The next day, J.M.’s grandmother went to her nearby Catholic church with her grandson and behind closed doors yelled at the priest in protest as to what Brouillard had done to J.M.

The lawsuit seeks $10 million in damages.

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LOUISVILLE (KY)
Louisville Courier Journal

December 21, 2017

By Darcy Costello

A Roman Catholic priest found guilty of molesting a boy at summer camp in the 1970s will not be immediately released on parole.

The Kentucky Parole Board instead voted to give Father Joseph Hemmerle a 24-month deferment, meaning his case will be considered by the board again in two years, Department of Corrections spokeswoman Lisa Lamb said Thursday.

Hemmerle was sentenced in February to seven years in prison after being found guilty at trial in November 2016 of a single count of immoral or indecent practice with a child. He is being held at Green River Correctional Complex, Lamb said.

The 24-month deferment was a unanimous decision from the two-member panel, Lamb said. It came after a victim impact hearing held Monday.

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AUSTRALIA
The Newcastle Herald

December 21, 2017

By Joanne McCarthy

AUSTRALIA’S largest Pentecostal Christian church has denied any knowledge of child sex allegations against a predatory church youth leader who was jailed only days before the church was criticised in the child abuse royal commission final report.

Christopher Laban Bridge, 69, of Yarramalong – a prominent member of the Generation City Church at Hamilton – was jailed on December 13 for sexually assaulting four boys at Assemblies of God churches in Dubbo and the Hunter in the 1970s and 1980s.

He moved to the Hamilton church in the mid 1970s after a Dubbo victim’s parents reported Bridge’s sexual assaults to Dubbo Assemblies of God pastor, the late Jack Allsopp. No action was taken after the report, a court was told.

Australian Christian Churches (the former Assemblies of God) said it had no record of any child sexual abuse allegations against Bridge until 2014, despite a Hunter victim’s mother saying she told a senior church pastor in the early 1980s about her son’s description of explicit sex acts committed by Bridge.

“The first time the ACC movement was made aware of Christopher Bridge’s paedophile activities in the 1970s and 1980s was when a victim spoke of his experiences to an ACC pastor in October 2014,” a church spokesperson said on Wednesday.

But a Hunter victim backed his mother’s account, saying the failure of the senior church pastor to act had devastating consequences for him and his family.

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United States
TIME Magazine

December 21, 2017

By Abigail Abrams

The conversation this fall around sexual harassment and abuse has led millions of women to speak out about their experiences and begin demanding change in their industries. Now the movement has reached a new community: evangelical Christians.

More than 140 evangelical Christian women published a statement this week calling on churches to support women who come forward with stories of abuse, and to address what they see as silence by many church leaders and congregations.

Within about 24 hours of the statement’s release on Wednesday, it garnered more than 3,000 signatures, including prominent Christian women like authors Jen Hatmaker and Ann Voskamp, poet Amena Brown and Lynne Hybels, co-founder of one of the country’s largest churches. The statement features the hashtag #SilenceIsNotSpiritual and kicks off a campaign that will run through Easter.

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GUAM
Kuam News

December 21, 2017

By Krystal Paco

Plaintiffs’ counsel had plenty to say about Father Louis Brouillard, who is named in majority of the 150 clergy sexual abuse lawsuits filed to date.

According to plaintiffs’ attorney David Lujan during a status conference this week in the federal court, Brouillard is “as sharp as they come” and “no question he’ll testify in favor of us.”

Parties met with Brouillard in Minnesota earlier this year to interview the priest.

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NEW ALBANY (OH)
WOSU Radio Public Media

December 21, 2017

By Steve Brown

The Roman Catholic Diocese of Columbus says a New Albany priest who was suspended over questionable contact with a minor has committed suicide.

An emailed statement from the diocese says Father James Csaszar took his own life in Chicago on Wednesday. No other details about his death were given.

Csaszar had been on leave from position at the Church of the Resurrection in New Albany since November 7, when diocese officials say they learned about what they called “excessive and questionable” text and telephone contact with a minor.

The statement says the diocese was also looking into the potential misuse of church funds when Csaszar served at the St. Rose Parish in New Lexington.

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ITALY
Link Iesta

December 21, 2017

By Carmine Gazzanni

[Google Translate: Since 2000, 136 pedophile priests have been condemned or confessed. After the UN accusations and several attempts, the first question arrives in Parliament that systematically addresses the age-old question of pedophile priests]

Dal 2000 ad oggi sono stati 136 i preti pedofili condannati o reo confessi. Dopo le accuse dell’Onu e diversi tentativi, arriva in Parlamento la prima interrogazione che affronta in maniera sistematica l’annosa questione dei sacerdoti pedofili

Centotrentasei. Tanti sono i sacerdoti condannati o reo confessi per violenze e molestie a danno dei minori. E parliamo soltanto dei casi dal 2000 ad oggi, cui si aggiungono un altro centinaio di prelati indagati o imputati per le stesse ragioni. Sono numeri, questi, forniti da Rete l’Abuso, l’associazione che raduna i sopravvissuti agli abusi dei sacerdoti. «E il dato è evidentemente parziale», ci dice il presidente Francesco Zanardi, anche lui vittima, quando era ragazzo, di violenza sessuale. Un buco nero entro cui sono finiti in tanti. E il caso raccontato in questi giorni da Le Iene di abusi addirittura all’interno delle mura vaticane, non è che l’ultimo esempio di una lunga serie, resa possibile anche dai pesanti silenzi dello Stato italiano. Un silenzio, però, rotto ora da un atto che lo stesso Zanardi definisce «epocale». È stata, infatti, presentata la prima interrogazione parlamentare che affronta in maniera sistematica l’annosa questione dei sacerdoti pedofili, chiedendo un intervento fattivo al governo italiano.

Già, perché lo Stato avrebbe potuto e potrebbe fare molto di più. Basti questo: a differenza della gran parte degli altri Paesi dell’Unione europea, non c’è in Italia una commissione parlamentare ad hoc. Certo, ci sarebbe l’Osservatorio «per il contrasto della pedofilia e della pornografia minorile», che fa capo direttamente al dipartimento per le Pari opportunità; peccato che non intervenga quando di mezzo c’è l’abito talare. E, ancora, c’è il certificato anti-pedofilia introdotto in Italia già nel 2014, ma alcune categorie sono esentate dal presentarlo. Tra queste, proprio i sacerdoti.

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PERTH (AUSTRALIA)
The West Australian

December 19, 2017

By Nick Butterly

A Catholic priest has stood down from a Perth parish amid claims he engaged in “inappropriate behaviour with adults”.

Perth’s Catholic Archbishop Timothy Costelloe wrote to worshippers at the Midland parish at the weekend to confirm Father Kenneth Asaba had offered his resignation after an internal investigation.

In a statement, Archbishop Costelloe said about two years ago allegations were made against Father Asaba and the complainants were encouraged to take the issue to the WA professional standards office of the Catholic Church.

The details of the complaints have not been made public.

That investigation found against Father Asaba.

The priest requested an independent review of the finding. This was conducted by a barrister.

The review again found against Father Asaba.

Archbishop Costelloe said Father Asaba, who is originally from Kenya, was now taking time to consider his future.

In the statement, the Church said he had been barred from acting as a priest in the diocese.

“This has been a distressing experience for every-one concerned,” Arch-bishop Costelloe said.

“This distress has been added to by the time it has taken to reach that point.

“I apologise for this but can only say that the process must be undertaken with care, thoroughness and impartiality — and this takes time.”

Archbishop Costelloe admitted many parishioners would be confused by the situation and possibly angry about the process.

He said those who made the complaints would receive continuing support from the church pro-fessional standards office.

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AUSTRALIA
The West Australian

December 19, 2017

By Gemma Tognini

I was on the phone to a friend talking about a tricky dynamic she’d been trying to navigate between her and a colleague. My friend is strong, successful and capable.

She is generous and kind, bloody hilarious and great with people in general. Still, she’d been having problems with a particular chap and couldn’t nail down why.

She said part of it was his demeanour, the way he spoke to her, the way she felt belittled by him, but even that wasn’t enough to explain her overwhelming sense of paralysis and nausea.

Her need to run to the bathroom after each difficult interaction they had. In short, she felt incapable of navigating a situation she would normally have sailed through.

As I listened to her talk, it got quiet on the other end of the phone. Then I heard crying. A soft, heavy sobbing. In an instant, almost like the gentle cracking of an eggshell, it had dawned on her why she had reacted this way.

“He reminds me of the man who sexually abused me when I was a little girl,” she said.

I’m sharing this story with my friend’s permission, even though you’ll never know her name.

And I’m sharing this story because last week when the report of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sex Abuse was handed down, there was one response that sparked a flame of rage within me that I have been unable to extinguish.

The swiftness with which the Catholic Church defended what it calls the “seal of the confessional” stunned me, to be honest, though it shouldn’t have. It’s a response that was entirely on form.

Now, before I go on let me make a couple of things clear. I’m writing this as a Christian, a singularly dull fact in my view, but relevant in the context of this column. I’m not a church hater, an atheist, hater of any faith, let alone the Catholic faith.

I went to a Catholic school and had a terrific experience there. My own evolution of faith over the past 40-odd years took me from being a kid who had Catholicism chosen for her, to a person who, as a teenager found a home, if you like, in a contemporary Christian congregation.

What I’m saying is that I’m not taking aim from the sidelines as a spectator in this game. I am well and truly in the arena.

So, back to this confessional thing and let me recap and get straight to the point.

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NEW YORK (NY)
The Times of Israel

December 19, 2017

By Cathryn J. Prince

After an internal investigation, the movement cuts ties with its longtime youth head. But a leading child advocate says it shouldn’t take one person’s courage to change a system

NEW YORK — An anonymous November 9 Facebook post cracked a dam of silence surrounding a decades-long child sex scandal as allegations of abuse began trickling forth from the dozens of alleged victims of Jules Gutin, the longtime and much lauded director of the Conservative movement’s youth movement.

Earlier this week the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism (USCJ) severed ties with Gutin, 67, after an internal investigation substantiated an allegation of child sexual abuse dating back 33 years.

For many former USY members, the airing of the abuse allegations is a moment of reckoning that is late in coming — and not entirely embraced by all.

Speaking from his Jerusalem office, former United Synagogue Youth (USY) leader Arnie Draiman said he wasn’t shocked late last week to hear USCJ had severed ties with Gutin, but is dismayed by the shattering silence from his cohort in the announcement’s wake.

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

UNITED STATES
Entertainment Weekly

December 21, 2017

By Olivia Munn

Since sharing her own experience with sexual harassment in Hollywood, actress Olivia Munn has become a vocal advocate for change. She opens up to EW about an industry she says has a history of forgiving abusers — and punishing victims.

In an interview with the BBC [in the wake of allegations against Harvey Weinstein, which Weinstein denies], Woody Allen said he felt sad for Weinstein and warned of a “witch-hunt atmosphere…where every guy in an office who winks at a woman is suddenly having to call a lawyer to defend himself.” However, the possibility of an overcorrection is much less worrisome than all of the injustices that led us to this moment. Woody’s gut instinct to fear what this might become would be better suited to a gut instinct to hold back an urge that could be wrong.

My experience with [director] Brett Ratner enforced in me the belief that I deserve to be here and that I should be able to reach for my dreams without being harassed and abused, no matter what economic or social position I find myself in. [Munn is one of six women who in the Los Angeles Times on Nov. 1 accused Ratner of sexual misconduct. Ratner disputes their claims.] How will anyone know you’re worth it if you don’t?

In our world today — and it’s not just Hollywood, it’s the same for girls and women all over the world who have survived sexual abuse and/or harassment — abusers don’t usually get in trouble unless the victim is broken first, because the violating act alone is not damaging enough to spark society’s outrage. It’s a marathon towards self-destruction in order to gain credibility and a vicious circle of victim-blaming.

When people ask how these men in powerful positions were able to hurt so many people for so many years, I look to the people at the top and ask those questions.

The system that lets men like Ratner and Allen back in, is the same system that creates disparity. It’s tilted to roll back into their favor while the rest of us are saddled with a Sisyphean task.

Imagine Hollywood as a mountain with all of the powerful people positioned at the top. The rest of us have to push a boulder up this hill while running through numerous gauntlets and any abuse we encounter is just par for the course and accepted. I know it’s acceptable abuse because no matter how badly certain people f— up, they fall right back to their position of power while most people have to go to the back of the line and earn their way back up.

This is not a “women’s” issue, this is an abuse-of-power issue…and until we eradicate the diseased roots of our infrastructure and make foundational, systemic changes, nothing will change.

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UNITED STATES
Yahoo Sports

December 20, 2017

By Dan Wetzel

The need for a single, powerful law enforcement agency to fully investigate all aspects of Larry Nassar’s reign of terror is reaffirmed with each new detail in this sick, sordid scandal.

The Department of Justice. The FBI. A state attorney general’s office that’s truly committed, the way Pennsylvania was in not just convicting former Penn State football coach Jerry Sandusky on 45 counts of molestation, but jailing his administrative enablers also.

So far everything has been patch-work, slow and inefficient. Nassar, 54, is serving 60 years after being sentenced this month on federal child pornography charges. He still faces additional state prison time after pleading guilty to sexual assault. And in all likelihood, he will never see the outside of a prison again for a sexual abuse scandal that on scale is exponentially greater than Sandusky.

The fog of confusion, however, will only increase until there are true investigations into Michigan State, where he worked, the United States Olympic Committee and USA Gymnastics, where he volunteered and, Twistars Gymnastics Club, the Lansing-area operation with which he associated.

Wednesday brought word that in 2016, USA Gymnastics paid gold medal winner McKayla Maroney a reported $1.25 million to not publicly mention that she was abused by Nassar. It is a vomit-inducing revelation about the USAG, an organization that grew rich off the talents of young female athletes. Anyone with even cursory knowledge of it should resign immediately.

The news came not via law enforcement, though, but a civil suit filed in Los Angeles. Maroney previously chose to break the non-disclosure and detail Nassar’s attacks on social media and in a court-filed victim impact statement. The suit argues such agreements are illegal in California, where Maroney lived. Her attorney explained she made the deal only because she was, at the time, suicidal due to the trauma.

“She couldn’t function,” attorney John Manly told ESPN. “She couldn’t work. [The USGA was] willing to sacrifice the health and well-being of one of the most famous gymnasts in the world because they didn’t want the world to know they were protecting a pedophile doctor.”

The civil suit continues a trend in this vast and terrible story. The truth has come not from official investigative channels, none of which stopped Nassar. Every report, review and administrator failed the victims, either via incompetence, disorganization or, perhaps, worse.

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UNITED STATES
Yahoo Sports

December 20, 2017

By Jay Busbee

Note: This story contains graphic details of abuse which some readers may find disturbing.

A lawyer for Olympic icon McKayla Maroney is charging that USA Gymnastics paid her to keep silent about abuse she suffered at the hands of former team doctor Larry Nassar.

John Manly, an attorney for the gold medal-winning gymnast, has filed suit on her behalf against USA Gymnastics in Los Angeles Superior Court. He contends the organization sought to buy her silence, paying her a reported $1.25 million, according to the Wall Street Journal, while she was emotionally traumatized from the effects of Nassar’s abuse.

“I want people to understand that this kid had no choice. She couldn’t function. She couldn’t work,” Manly told ESPN. “They [USAG] were willing to sacrifice the health and well-being of one of the most famous gymnasts in the world because they didn’t want the world to know they were protecting a pedophile doctor.”

Nassar has pleaded guilty to 10 counts of criminal sexual conduct, and is scheduled to be sentenced in Michigan in January. He is already serving 60 years in prison on child pornography charges. Nassar, who served as USA Gymnastics’ doctor during four Olympic Games, also faces civil lawsuits charging he abused more than 140 women during medical exams.

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EDINBURG (TX)
The Monitor

December 21, 2017

[Note: This article includes a link to Bishop Flores’ full letter. See also a PDF of the original Pawlicki letter.]

Bishop Daniel E. Flores of the Diocese of Brownsville issued a statement Wednesday expressing the sorrow of the Catholic Church regarding the 1960 murder of Irene Garza by a member of the clergy.

“As a Catholic, as bishop of this local church, and as a human being I am horrified by this,” the bishop wrote in a message posted on the diocese website. “The suffering caused to so many by this crime in incalculable.”

“On behalf of the church, for the sinful actions of members of the church, I express this sorrow to the family, and to those whose faith has been injured by these events,” the message continued.

Read Bishop Flores’ full letter.

John Feit, 85, who served as a priest in the McAllen area in 1960, was sentenced to life in prison on Dec. 8 after a jury found him guilty of Garza’s murder. An autopsy report confirmed that the schoolteacher died by asphyxiation, likely by suffocation.

Addressing evidence introduced during the trial that suggested a conspiracy between the church and law enforcement at the time shielded Feit from prosecution, the bishop said he has no answers.

“The Diocese of Brownsville did not exist back then and I have no special insight into what was done or not done by civil and church authorities in the aftermath of the crime,” Flores said in the statement. “And answers to many questions about what people around the investigation were thinking and doing in 1960 were not given in the verdict.”

Jurors were shown an October 1960 letter between clergy officials regarding the case that suggested that officials feared bad publicity from the conviction of a priest would trigger political ramifications extending from the Rio Grande Valley to the White House.

Rev. Joseph Pawlicki, a pastor at a church outside Austin, wrote to Rev. Lawrence Seidel, the head of the Oblates of Mary Immaculate order to which Feit belonged, urging him to hire a private investigator to find “loopholes” in the state’s case against Feit.

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NEW YORK (NY)
The New Yorker

December 20, 2017

By James Carroll

In the spring of 1989, a group of black-clad clergy gathered to bury one of their own—a Boston priest named Father Joseph Birmingham. Presiding at the funeral was their leader, Cardinal Bernard Law, who died himself on Wednesday, in Rome. As the obsequies for Birmingham drew to a close and the crowd began to disperse, Law was confronted by a man named Thomas Blanchette. He identified himself as having been sexually abused as a child by Birmingham, who would ultimately be accused of having molested more than forty boys. In 2002, Blanchette told the Boston Globe what happened next; Law “laid his hands on my head for two or three minutes. And then he said this: ‘I bind you under the power of the confessional never to speak a word of this to another.’ ”

Law never admitted saying such a thing, but why would Blanchette make it up? Of all the gruesome details that surfaced during the Globe’s investigation into Law’s years-long protection of rapist priests, this incident, for a Catholic, epitomizes the perversion. What Law did in response to a traumatized victim was to reverse the meaning of the Seal of the Confessional, the solemn Catholic mandate that forbids priests from revealing anything said by a penitent in the sacred forum of the Sacrament of Penance. In doing so, he was seeking to protect not only the one priest but also the clerical structure of power to which, even dead, that priest still belonged. Law was prepared to twist the Sacrament itself to his own foul purpose, even exploiting the ritual gesture of hands imposed on a vulnerable penitent’s head. This was a savage abuse of Catholic piety, obviously intended to intimidate and silence. It amounted to a sacrilege.

But then, of course, the entire saga of Catholic sex abuse—thousands of priests harming tens of thousands of young people; the worldwide Catholic episcopate protecting the abusers instead of the children—is a sacrilege. And, no, it has not yet been finished with. Law’s death is a reminder not only of the hierarchy’s grievous failure during the sex-abuse crisis but of the way in which the Church has yet to reckon with what the crisis laid bare.

Law’s own fate offers an object lesson in Vatican denial. After he was forced to resign as Archbishop of Boston, in 2002, he was rescued from disgrace by Pope John Paul II, who appointed him to one of the most prestigious positions in Catholicism—Archpriest of the Basilica of St. Mary Major. It was a clear signal of support. After all, Law had merely implemented the Vatican’s own policy of reserving to Church jurisdiction, instead of civil authority, the abuse of children by priests. As a 2001 directive from Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, who later became Pope Benedict XVI, put it, crimes “perpetrated with a minor by a cleric . . . are subject to the pontifical secret.” That Law, banished from Boston, was then protected in Rome meant that the entire structure of misogynist clericalism—all male, sexually repressed, blatantly dishonest—was protected, too. That structure is intact, protected still, even by the otherwise liberalizing Pope Francis. On Thursday, Law will be laid to rest in Rome with the full panoply of observances due an honored prince of the Church, with Francis himself pronouncing the final blessing. The ongoing grief, rage, and heartbreak of abuse survivors will not, one presumes, be acknowledged.

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BOSTON (MA)
Boston Herald

December 21, 2017

By Peter Gelzinis

No hiding sins of the cloth from God

“Bless me Father, for I have sinned.”

To grow up Catholic is to have those words burned into your consciousness by the age of seven. When I recited them for the first time, I was kneeling in the dark, confessing what few sins I could imagine to a voice on the other side of an opaque window.

But I still recall feeling “cleansed” when the priest forgave my childish sins and told me to say three “Hail Marys” and a good Act of Contrition.

In time, Catholics come to understand that the sacrament of penance, or confession, is actually a dress rehearsal for Judgment Day, when we will all have to come clean for real before the Lord.

For Cardinal Bernard Francis Law, Judgment Day arrived Tuesday, when at age 86, he departed the splendid banishment of the Basilica di Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome.

Exactly where he now dwells in the afterlife — heaven, hell or purgatory — none of us can say. But among a sprawling community of victims, sexually abused in silence by priests who were quietly shuttled around various parishes in Boston for decades, Bernard Law most likely rests in a place of eternal torment, where he cannot take refuge behind lawyers or non-disclosure agreements.

As a prince of the church, you can’t say you didn’t know. Or I thought I was doing the right thing. Or we couldn’t have the whole archdiocese knowing about this stuff.

Bernard Law had a Harvard degree. God is certainly aware of that. It’s one thing to try to play Mickey The Dunce down here, as he managed to do for years. It’s quite another to try to play that card with the Almighty.

God is simply not going to buy that.

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ROME
National Catholic Reporter

December 21, 2017

By Thomas Reese

Cardinal Bernard Law, who died Dec. 20 in Rome at age 86, began his priestly life as a journalist, but rose quickly up the ecclesiastical ladder only to come crashing down in scandal and disgrace. May God have mercy on his soul.

As editor of the Natchez-Jackson, Miss., diocesan newspaper in the 1960s, Fr. Law bravely supported the civil rights movement. He even had to hide in the trunk of a car when his life was threatened. He also spent time at the U.S. bishops’ conference in Washington, where as head of the office of ecumenism he worked on improving relations with Protestants and Jews.

As a result, by the time he became bishop of Springfield-Cape Girardeau in 1973, he had solid progressive credentials in both ecumenism and social justice. While in Missouri, he became friendly with the Bush family through George H.W. Bush’s brother, who had financial interests in the state.

In 1984, Law was promoted to archbishop of Boston, where he was the first archbishop to have attended Harvard University. His arrival was greeted with great hope.

He soon saw his role as a national and international leader. His connection to the Bush family proved invaluable and probably moderated his political views. He strongly supported the pro-life agenda of the pope and the American bishops, but not the consistent ethic of life espoused by Chicago Cardinal Joseph Bernardin.

Even so, Law was not afraid to use his influence to support the policies of the bishops’ conference. One staff person reports he was well-briefed and effective when meeting with Cabinet secretaries. His phone call was also put through to Air Force One to complain when the Reagan administration attempted to classify ketchup as a vegetable in school lunches.

As a loyal supporter of John Paul II, Law also played an active role in the church as a cardinal. The Vatican used him in communicating with the Bush White House, especially prior to the pope’s historic visit to Cuba. In return, the Vatican often followed his recommendations for episcopal appointments in the U.S.

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ROME
Crux

December 21, 2017

By John L. Allen Jr.

ROME – Before an unusually small congregation of mourners, albeit one that featured U.S. Ambassador to the Holy See Callista Gingrich and her husband, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, a funeral Mass for Cardinal Bernard Law was celebrated behind the main altar in St. Peter’s Basilica on Thursday afternoon.

Pope Francis took part in the ritual, not celebrating the Mass but offering final prayers at the end, reading the prescribed prayers for the final commendation of the deceased to God and the final valediction.

The Vatican’s foreign minister, British Archbishop Richard Paul Gallagher, was also on hand for the funeral Mass.

The main celebrant for the liturgy was Italian Cardinal Angelo Sodano, acting in his capacity as the Dean of the College of Cardinals. His role was controversial, given that like Law himself, Sodano has a checkered history when it comes to the child sexual abuse scandals within the Catholic Church.

For much of the late 20th century, Sodano was a patron of the late Mexican Father Marcial Maciel Degollado, founder of the Legion of Christ, whose pattern of sexual abuse and misconduct was eventually recognized by his own order following a Vatican investigation that Sodano had opposed.

In 2010, Sodano again stirred controversy when he suggested during an Easter homily that critics of Pope Benedict XVI’s handling of sexual abuse controversies were engaging in “petty gossip.”

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ROME
CNN

December 21, 2017

By Laura Smith-Spark and Delia Gallagher

Pope Francis is expected to give the final blessing at the funeral Thursday of Cardinal Bernard Law, the former Boston archbishop who resigned in disgrace during the Catholic Church’s sex-abuse scandal, prompting outrage from abuse survivors.

Francis’ role in the ceremony, which got underway Thursday afternoon, has fueled the controversy over the decision to grant Law a full cardinal’s funeral at St. Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican.

Law, who died early Wednesday in Rome following a long illness, became a symbol of the sex-abuse scandal after a Boston Globe investigation revealed that he and other bishops had covered up child abuse by priests in the Boston Archdiocese.

The story was made into a celebrated movie, “Spotlight,” and the scandal forced the Catholic Church to rethink the way it dealt with child abuse in the church.

It is protocol for the Pope to give the “final commendation,” or blessing, at a cardinal’s funeral when he dies in Rome, Vatican officials told CNN. Cardinal Angelo Sodano, dean of the College of Cardinals, is presiding over the Mass.

The occasion is a funeral, not a tribunal nor a judgment of Law’s life, the Vatican added. The Pope will give a commendation for the cardinal to be judged by God, officials said.

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BOSTON (MA)
WBUR 90.9

December 21, 2017

By Eileen McNamara

He is being buried today from St. Peter’s, from the heart of the Vatican, on the darkest day of the year. His funeral is being broadcast live on the Vatican’s television network. Pope Francis himself will bless the remains of Cardinal Bernard Law, the prelate who facilitated and covered up the crimes of predatory priests across decades in the Archdiocese of Boston.

It was not enough that the misguided men of Rome provided Law safe haven at a Roman basilica for 15 years after the depth and breadth of his obstruction of justice was exposed. They have to honor the un-indicted co-conspirator in the sexual abuse of children with a saint’s send-off in the sacred seat of the Roman Catholic Church.

It astounds the imagination, even among those of us who thought all the pope’s men had long ago exhausted our capacity for outrage.

Let’s leave it to The New York Times and The Washington Post to refuse to speak too ill of the dead, to balance the ledger with an even-handed accounting of his good deeds and bad. In Boston, Law deserves an obituary as unvarnished as his rank ambition and craven evasion of responsibility.

First the disclaimers: He championed the cause of civil rights in Mississippi in the 1960s; his initiatives improved relations between Catholics and Jews from Missouri to Massachusetts; he embraced the Haitian, Hispanic and Southeast Asian immigrants who were fast replacing the Irish and Italians in the pews of Dorchester and Lowell and Lynn when he arrived in the Archdiocese of Boston in 1984. But it was less than a year later that Auxiliary Bishop John M. D’Arcy warned Law of the danger of his decision to transfer the Rev. John J. Geoghan, a serial child molester, from St. Brendan’s in Dorchester to St. Julia’s in Weston. Parishioners, D’Arcy wrote, would rightly “be convinced the Archdiocese has no concerns for their welfare and simply sends them priests with problems.” Law ignored D’Arcy and Geoghan resumed his sexual assaults on children.

“I only wish that the knowledge that we have today had been available to us earlier,” Law wrote in 2001 in the Pilot when the extent of his complicity was beginning to emerge. That was a transparent lie, part of a pattern of deceit that would be Law’s undoing. In 1985, medical and legal experts had delivered a 92-page report to the National Conference of Catholic Bishops on sexually abusive priests; Law had urged that the independent study be undertaken.

How had he escaped accountability for so long? It is hard to remember now that Law was the darling of the ascendant conservative wing of the Catholic Church when he moved into the mansion on Lake Street in Brighton. When Pope John Paul II elevated the Harvard-educated archbishop to cardinal within a year, his long-shot ambition to become the first American pope seemed a credible dream to the moneyed swells with whom he mingled so effortlessly at his annual garden party.

Credit his arrogance for the overreach.

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WASHINGTON (DC)
The Washington Post

December 20, 2017

By Amy B Wang

On March 13, 1964, a tiny diocesan newspaper edited by a young Catholic priest with no prior journalism experience laid out the case for racial desegregation in Mississippi.

The editorial in the Mississippi Register, headlined “Legal Segregation is Dying,” was stunning for its controversial position at the time, particularly in a racially charged state at the center of the American civil rights movement. Only months before, a prominent civil rights leader had been shot in the back and killed.

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BOSTON (MA)
Boston Herald

December 21, 2017

By Chris Cassidy, Marie Szanislo, Matt Stout

Pope to preside over final prayers for Law

Cardinal Bernard Law’s funeral today inside St. Peter’s Basilica — one of the holiest shrines in Catholicism — where Pope Francis will attend has enraged survivors of clergy sex abuse who say the disgraced cleric doesn’t deserve the high honor.

“One of the big things that bothers me is he’s going to have this huge funeral in the Vatican at St. Peter’s Basilica with all the pomp and circumstance. He doesn’t deserve it,” said Ann Hagan Webb, a priest abuse survivor and Wellesley psychologist who treats other victims. “Pope Francis should have the presence of mind to just give him a quiet funeral and not incite the retraumatizing of victims.”

Law’s death at the age of 86 reopened nightmarish memories of rampant, unchecked child molestation throughout the archdiocese by Catholic priests taking advantage of their pristine image and moral authority in the community to avoid accountability.

Law transferred pedophile priests from parish to parish, keeping them in contact with young children and their predatory crimes a secret.

“His death just brings back all of the pain and suffering he allowed to happen, and he was the cause of it,” said Robert Costello, 56, of Plainville, a priest abuse victim from the first through eighth grades. “There’s not a day that goes by that I don’t remember what happened to me. … Bernie Law was a cruel, selfish bastard.”

Nonetheless, the Vatican plans the same customary funeral arrangements as any other cardinal living in Rome at his time of death.

Cardinal Angelo Sodano, the dean of the College of Cardinals, will preside over the funeral Mass this morning, alongside other cardinals and bishops, according to the Catholic News Agency.

The pope will preside over the final prayers. Law will then be buried at Rome’s Basilica of St. Mary Major.

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BOSTON (MA)
Reuters

December 21, 2017

“What the #MeToo movement shows is the public is now willing to assign blame. They are naming names and part of that is naming the legislators who are not willing to pass these laws.”

The death on Wednesday of Roman Catholic Cardinal Bernard Law, who covered up the church’s child sex abuse scandal for decades, prompted US activists to reflect on how far their efforts have come to make sure abusers can be prosecuted and how many hurdles remain.

Thousands of people worldwide came forward to say they were child victims of priest abuse after the scandal broke in 2002. But many in the United States found that state laws protected their attackers from criminal prosecution or even civil lawsuits for crimes that were years or decades old.

That sparked a drive by advocates to reform statutes of limitations, reflecting research showing that many people sexually abused as children do not report the fact until well into adulthood. That effort has gained support from the #MeToo movement this year as millions of women have shared their stories of being sexually harassed or assaulted.

“Powerful institutions have protected abusers and kept them in place just as Cardinal Law did,” New York state Senator Brad Hoylman, author of a bill that would eliminate the statue of limitations on reporting new child sex abuse and allow a one-year period to file civil suits over older allegations.

“It’s taken us a long time to move on these issues but I think we’re at a point of culmination where change could occur next year.” US statutes of limitations for criminal and civil cases vary widely by state, making for a patchwork system determining victims’ rights to seek redress in the courts.

This year eight states passed laws giving child sex abuse victims more time to legally confront their abusers, according to Child USA. Bills were introduced but not passed in four: New York, Pennsylvania, North Carolina and Washington state.

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BOSTON (MA)
The Associated Press

December 21, 2017

Pope Francis prayed Thursday for a merciful final judgment for Cardinal Bernard Law, symbol of the Catholic Church’s failure to protect children from pedophile priests and its arrogance in safeguarding its own reputation at all costs.

In a final blessing at Law’s funeral Mass, Francis blessed his coffin with incense and holy water at the foot of the back altar of St. Peter’s Basilica and recited the ritual prayer commending him to God.

“May he be given a merciful judgment so that redeemed from death, freed from punishment, reconciled to the Father, carried in the arms of the Good Shepherd, he may deserve to enter fully into everlasting happiness in the company of the eternal King together with all the saints.”

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BOSTON (MA)
The Conversation

December 21, 2017

By Mathew Schmalz
Associate Professor of Religion, College of the Holy Cross

Cardinal Bernard Law died on Wednesday, Dec. 20, in Rome. Law was Archbishop of Boston, a position of prestige in the Roman Catholic Church in the United States. He had wide political connections, including with the Bush family. He publicly denounced Catholic politicians who supported abortion rights.

But this power and influence came to an end when The Boston Globe revealed how Cardinal Law had concealed sexual abuse committed by priests.

When Law was forced to resign in 2002, it did not mark the end of Catholicism’s struggle with sexual abuse in its ranks. Although reforms in the United States have made it mandatory for priests to report instances of sexual abuse, much work remains to be done in the Catholic Church worldwide.

From my perspective as a Catholic scholar of religion, one of the challenges in tackling this issue is the hierarchy of the church itself.

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VATICAN CITY
The Associated Press

December 21, 2017

VATICAN CITY – Pope Francis is set to preside over the final rites in the funeral Mass for Cardinal Bernard Law, symbol of the Catholic Church’s failure to protect children from pedophile priests and its arrogance in safeguarding its own reputation at all costs.

The dean of the college of cardinals, Cardinal Angelo Sodano, will celebrate Law’s funeral Mass on Thursday behind the main altar of St. Peter’s Basilica. Following the typical protocol, Francis is expected to preside over a final prayer, a blessing with incense and the sprinkling of holy water around Law’s coffin.

U.S. Ambassador-designate Callista Gingrich and her husband, Newt, as well as some other members of the diplomatic corps were on hand in the pews, along with the Vatican foreign minister, Archbishop Paul Gallagher.

Turnout was otherwise limited, with the basilica ushers stacking extra rows of empty seats before the Mass began.

One of the opening prayers reads: “O God, who chose your servant Cardinal Bernard Law from among your priests and endowed him with pontifical dignity in the apostolic priesthood, grant, we pray, that he may also be admitted to their company forever.”

Law, who died Wednesday at age 86, resigned in disgrace as archbishop of Boston in 2002 after revelations that he covered up for dozens of priests who raped and sexually molested children, moving them to different parishes without telling parents or police.

The scandal, exposed by The Boston Globe and memorialized in the Oscar-winning film “Spotlight,” then spread throughout the U.S. and world, with thousands of people from all continents coming forward in ensuing years with claims their priests sexually abused them when they were children.

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UNITED STATES
NBC News

December 21, 2017

By Corky Siemaszko

Before Harvey Weinstein, there was Cardinal Bernard Law.

While Law’s sin was covering up for pedophile priests in Boston, not allegedly assaulting actresses, his ouster some 15 years ago paved the way for today’s torrent of takedowns of powerful men like Weinstein who have been accused of sexual harassment and worse, experts said Wednesday.

“What happened with Law emboldened people to come forward. It made them realize they can challenge a powerful institution like the Catholic Church and that change can happen,” said Jennifer Drobac, an Indiana University law professor and an expert on sexual harassment in the workplace.

The downfall of Law, who died Wednesday at the Vatican, was “a cultural change and not just in the Catholic Church,” Drobac added.

“What happened has had a ripple effect on all kinds of other institutions in our country, and it has a ripple effect all over the world,” she said. “We don’t even know how wide the ripple effect will go.”

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AUSTRALIA
ABC Ballarat

December 18, 2017

By Charlotte King

Catholics in the Victorian town of Ballarat — referred to as an epicentre of child sexual abuse — say the church must accept grassroots involvement from parishioners to enact changes recommended by the royal commission.

The Royal Commission into Child Sexual Abuse issued a damning report about the Ballarat Catholic Diocese earlier this month, describing its handling of clergy child sex abuse as a “catastrophic failure of leadership”.

The Commission’s final report, released on Friday, also called for sweeping reforms for the Catholic church including that bishops draw upon advice from lay people in relation to the admission of individuals to the priesthood.

In a statement, Pope Francis said the findings “deserve to be studied in depth” while the Archbishop of Melbourne, Denis Hart, said the church would seriously consider all of the royal commission’s 189 new recommendations, but rejected calls for priests to be forced to break the seal of confessional.

The Ballarat Catholic Diocese said it was open to a recommendation that would see parish priests stripped of their power over schools.

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GUAM
Pacific Daily News

December 21, 2017

By Haidee V. Eugenio

Formal mediation to try to settle nearly 150 Guam clergy sex abuse cases won’t start until June 2018 to allow for the deposition of each of the plaintiffs.

This will allow the local Catholic Church’s insurance carrier, a subsidiary of AIG, to help evaluate claims for damages and liability, attorneys told the federal court Thursday.

Each of the plaintiffs will be deposed for up to four hours each. They will provide sworn statements to the parties’ attorneys, said Seattle-based attorney Michael Patterson, co-counsel for the Archdiocese of Agana.

The archdiocese is a named defendant in all the clergy sex abuse cases filed in the U.S. District Court of Guam and the Superior Court of Guam.

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SCOTLAND
BBC

December 21, 2017

By Mark Daly

Fears are growing that an Australian former monk accused of sexually abusing children at a Catholic boarding school in Scotland may never face trial.

Father Denis “Chrysostom” Alexander is in custody in Sydney and is contesting moves to extradite him back to Scotland, on the grounds of ill health.

The 81-year-old was among several monks accused in a BBC Scotland documentary in 2013 of sexual and physical abuse at the Fort Augustus Abbey school.

Fr Alexander denies the allegations.

Strong criticism

Meanwhile, the Crown Office, Scotland’s criminal prosecution service, confirmed it was dropping five further Fort Augustus abuse cases which had lain “under consideration” for two and a half years.

It said the “passage of time presented particular challenges” in the investigations, especially around important witnesses who were either dead or not able to take part.

It said extradition proceedings with Australian authorities were under way in the case of Fr Alexander.

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ROME
THE PULSE (via Catholic Culture)

December 20, 2017

By Phil Lawler

December 20, 2017 (Catholic Culture) – As of yesterday, the Pope’s special commission on sexual abuse formally ceased to exist.

The Commission for the Protection of Minors was established by Pope Francis in 2013, for a four-year term that began on December 17 of that year. That term has now officially expired.

Vatican-watchers fully expect that Pope Francis will extend the group’s mandate (or, at this point, renew it)—although nobody knows whether or not he will renew the terms of the current members. And the group wasn’t likely to hold meetings during the Christmas season anyway, so no real harm has been done by allowing the group’s formal authority to lapse.

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GREAT FALLS-BILLINGS (MT)
The Billings Gazette

December 21, 2017

By Clair Johnson

A Committee of Unsecured Creditors in the bankruptcy of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Great Falls-Billings is suing the church, alleging that more than $70 million in real property and other assets are part of the church’s estate and should be available for creditors and survivors of sex abuse by church officials.

The adversarial complaint, filed late Monday in U.S. Bankruptcy Court, said getting the disputed assets issue resolved “is critical” to the church’s estate because it will “determine the magnitude of distributions to its creditors, including survivors of the childhood sex abuse enabled by (the diocese) or whether (the diocese) can continue to avoid being held accountable to the survivors.”

Attorney James Stang, of Los Angeles, California, who represents the unsecured creditors committee, said on Wednesday the committee’s goal is to reach a negotiated settlement and that the complaint is “part of the process.”

The committee represents eight sex abuse survivors, Stang said.

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KANSAS CITY (MO)
NCR

December 20, 2017

After resigning as archbishop of Boston in December 2002, Cardinal Bernard Law, who died in Rome early this morning, took refuge in a convent in Clinton, Maryland, owned by the Sisters of Mercy of Alma.

A year and a half later, in May 2004, he was appointed archpriest of St. Mary Major Basilica, one of the oldest and most important shrines in Rome, and settled into an influential, albeit quiet, role in the Vatican Curia.

Five years after Law’s resignation, NCR ran a profile of the cardinal detailing his life in the heart of the Vatican. The article ran under the headline: “After the fall: Law finds normality in an unremarkable role in Rome.”

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MANCHESTER (NH)
WMUR

December 20, 2017

By Jennifer Crompton

Clergy sex abuse victims and advocacy groups are speaking out Wednesday after the death of Cardinal Bernard Law, who, as archbishop of Boston, shuffled pedophile priests from one parish to another without alerting parents or police.

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ROME
CRUX

December 20, 2017

By Cardinal Sean Patrick O’Malley

SPECIAL TO CRUX: Cardinal O’Malley statement on the death of Cardinal Bernard Law

[Editor’s note: Cardinal Bernard Law died Thursday morning in Rome at the age of 86. The following is a statement released by Cardinal Sean Patrick O’Malley, Law’s successor in Boston.]

Cardinal Bernard F. Law, my predecessor as Archbishop of Boston, has passed away at the age of 86 following a prolonged illness.

I recognize that Cardinal Law’s passing brings forth a wide range of emotions on the part of many people. I am particularly cognizant of all who experienced the trauma of sexual abuse by clergy, whose lives were so seriously impacted by those crimes, and their families and loved ones. To those men and women, I offer my sincere apologies for the harm they suffered, my continued prayers and my promise that the Archdiocese will support them in their effort to achieve healing.

As Archbishop of Boston, Cardinal Law served at a time when the Church failed seriously in its responsibilities to provide pastoral care for her people, and with tragic outcomes failed to care for the children of our parish communities. I deeply regret that reality and its consequences. Since the day I arrived in the Archdiocese of Boston, my primary objective has been to work for healing and reconciliation among survivors, their families and the wider community of Catholics for whom the abuse crisis was a devastating experience and a great test of faith. In the midst of these groups that were most affected have stood priests and religious sisters of the Archdiocese who have tried to minister to any and all seeking assistance, even when they have been deeply challenged by the crisis that unfolded in the Church.

It is a sad reality that for many Cardinal Law’s life and ministry is identified with one overwhelming reality, the crisis of sexual abuse by priests. This fact carries a note of sadness because his pastoral legacy has many other dimensions. Early in his priesthood in Mississippi Cardinal Law was deeply engaged in the civil rights struggle in our country. Later, he served in the Archdiocese and nationally as a leader in the ecumenical and interfaith movement following the Second Vatican Council, developing strong collaborative relationships with the Greek Orthodox and Jewish communities in Boston. He was well known for visiting the sick, the dying and the bereaved at all hours of the night and day, a ministry that extended to the rich and poor, the young and elderly, and people of all faiths. He also held the care for immigrants and their families in a special place in his ministry.

In the Catholic tradition, the Mass of Christian Burial is the moment in which we all recognize our mortality, when we acknowledge that we all strive for holiness in a journey which can be marked by failures large and small. Cardinal Law will be buried in Rome where he completed his last assignment. I offer prayers for him and his loved ones as well as for all the people of the Archdiocese.

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ROME
National Catholic Register

December 20, 2017

By Matthew E. Bunson

The cardinal, who played a major role in the promulgation of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, will be remembered more for his role in the clergy sex-abuse scandal.

ROME — Cardinal Bernard Law, whose time as archbishop of Boston from 1984 to 2002 ended in the scandal and cataclysm of the clergy sex-abuse crisis, died in Rome in the early morning of Dec. 20, after a long period of declining health and a brief hospitalization for heart problems. He was 86.

During much of his time as shepherd of the Archdiocese of Boston, Cardinal Law was one of the most prominent Catholic leaders in the United States and an influential member of the College of Cardinals. That ended in 2002, however, as a result of the clergy sexual-abuse scandal, and controversy followed him even as he departed Boston to become archpriest of the Patriarchal Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome in May 2004.

Faced with multiple allegations that he had moved priests accused of child sexual abuse from one assignment to another, he resigned Dec. 13, 2002. It was one of the darkest moments in recent American Catholic life. In his resignation letter, Cardinal Law begged forgiveness from the victims of sexual abuse.

“It is my fervent prayer that this action may help the Archdiocese of Boston to experience the healing, reconciliation and unity, which are so desperately needed,” wrote Cardinal Law. “To all those who have suffered from my shortcomings and mistakes, I both apologize and from them beg forgiveness.”

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VATICAN CITY
The Associated Press, Religion News Service

December 20, 2017

By Rachel Zoll

VATICAN CITY — Cardinal Bernard Law, the disgraced former archbishop of Boston whose failures to stop child molesters in the priesthood sparked what would become the worst crisis in American Catholicism, died early Wednesday, the Vatican said. He was 86.

Law had been sick and was recently hospitalized in Rome.

Law was once one of the most important leaders in the U.S. church. He broadly influenced Vatican appointments to American dioceses, helped set priorities for the nation’s bishops and was favored by Pope John Paul II.

But in January 2002, The Boston Globe began a series of reports that used church records to reveal that Law had transferred abusive clergy among parish assignments for years without alerting parents or police. Within months, Catholics around the country demanded to know whether their bishops had done the same.

Law tried to manage the mushrooming scandal in his own archdiocese by first refusing to comment, then apologizing and promising reform. But thousands more church records were released describing new cases of how Law and others expressed more care for accused priests than for victims. Amid a groundswell against the cardinal, including rare public rebukes from some of his own priests, Law asked to resign and the pope said yes.

“It is my fervent prayer that this action may help the archdiocese of Boston to experience the healing, reconciliation and unity which are so desperately needed,” Law said when he stepped down as head of the Boston archdiocese in December of that year. “To all those who have suffered from my shortcomings and mistakes, I both apologize and from them beg forgiveness.”

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ROME
CNN

December 20, 2017

By Emanuella Grinberg

(CNN) Cardinal Bernard Law, the former Boston archbishop who resigned in disgrace during the Catholic Church’s sex abuse scandal, has died, the Vatican confirmed. He was 86.

Law died in Rome, where he had served as archpriest of the Papal Liberian Basilica of St. Mary Major after he was forced to resign in 2002 as archbishop of Boston.

Law’s name became emblematic of the scandal that continues to trouble the church and its followers around the globe after it was revealed that he and other bishops before him had covered for pedophile priests in the Boston Archdiocese.

Law at the time apologized during a news conference to victims of abuse by a priest, John Geoghan, who had been moved from parish to parish, despite Law’s knowledge of his abuse of young boys. Law insisted Geoghan’s abuse was in the past.

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Fargo (ND)
The Associated Press

December 20, 2017

FARGO, N.D. – A judge has set bail at $5 million cash for a Catholic priest accused of molesting two boys in North Dakota in the 1990s.

KFGO radio reports that Fernando Laude Sayasaya appeared in court on Tuesday via video from the Cass County Jail. He’s facing two counts of gross sexual imposition.

Sayasaya was recently returned to the United States from the Philippines, where he had been since 1998. A Philippines court ordered his extradition in 2010. He appealed, lost and was ultimately arrested last month.

Prosecutors allege that Sayasaya abused two underage siblings from 1995 to 1998, while he was assigned to the Blessed Sacrament Catholic Church and St. Mary’s Cathedral in the Fargo area.

They argued that Sayasaya was a flight risk. He didn’t oppose the bail amount.

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SAN JOSE (CA)
The Mercury News

December 19, 2017

By Sharon Nogushi

Catholic school allegedly violated law by conducting own investigation into complaints

SAN JOSE — Over thee decades, Presentation High School administrators repeatedly violated state law and failed to report sexual abuse claims to police and the county’s child protection agency, according to allegations in two cases made public Tuesday.

In one case, an alleged victim’s mother said her daughter was sexually assaulted by an instructor in 2013-’14. Classmates reported to administrators the teacher’s troubling behavior — touching, sending multiple daily texts and sexual SnapChat photos — Dina Leonis said. The school, however, did not report the matter to police, she said.

“My daughter suffered extreme emotional distress,” said Leonis, who notified police.

The latest sexual abuse claims follow previous allegations by other alumnae, who contended they and classmates were groped and sexually victimized by a teacher in 1990 at the prestigious Catholic girls school. After those students came forward, the school placed two teachers on leave as it looked into two separate incidents, one of which they reported to police.

“All reports of sexual harassment that have come to Presentation High School have been handled properly by the school administration,” said Principal Mary Miller in a prepared statement. “Some of the other claims made today we are hearing for the first time.”

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VATICAN CITY
National Catholic Reporter

December 19, 2017

By NCR Editorial Staff

In December 2013, Pope Francis sparked hope that the Catholic Church was (finally!) taking the scandal of clergy sexual abuse seriously. He created a group to advise him and future popes on how the church worldwide could protect children, appointing experts on the issue and even survivors of abuse to a new Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors.

Now, as of this writing four years later, that commission has lapsed into an inactive state. Its members’ terms of office, as set by the group’s Vatican-approved statutes, expired Dec. 17. Neither the pope nor the Vatican have made known when or if the current members will be reappointed or new members found.

That Francis has allowed this lapse to occur is worrisome. A commission without validly appointed members ceases to be a commission; its members may carry on their work but if they do, they do so as individuals without legal standing or vested authority to back them. What work could they carry on? This never should have been allowed to happen.

That the Vatican felt no need to offer an official explanation is just as worrisome, because it suggests that the protection of children is not as high a priority as statements from the Vatican say it is. That decision makers in the Vatican apparently didn’t realize — or didn’t care — that this lapse would be perceived negatively is also troubling. A lack of an official response sends a tone-deaf and disappointing message to Catholics and the world. It points to the causal negligence at the heart of the scandal that has plagued the church for decades and demonstrates why the church can’t shake allegations that its leaders “just don’t get it.”

We cannot forget that less than 10 months ago, Marie Collins, an original appointee and a survivor of clergy abuse, resigned from the commission out of frustration with an intransigent Vatican bureaucracy.

We’ve been told not to read too much into the vacant commission. It’s just a bureaucratic snafu, we’re told, and it will be corrected by April, when the commission’s next plenary assembly is set. The office in the Curia meant to support the work of the commission will continue its work, we’ve been told. These statements, meant to be assurances, sound too much like hollow promises of the kind we’re been programmed to hear from church officials when it comes to the abuse of minors by clergy.

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VATICAN CITY
Daily Mail/Associated Press

December 20, 2017

By Michelle Ganney

– Cardinal Bernard Law, former archbishop of Boston, dies at age 86 in Rome
– He was highest-ranking official in history of US church to leave office in disgrace
– It was revealed Law failed to remove sexually abusive priests from the ministry
– His actions and silence led to a sense of betrayal among many Boston Catholics
– The abuse extended over six decades harming 789 children involving 237 priests
– After the scandal Pope John Paul II appointed him archpriest of the Patriarchal Basilica of St. Mary Major, which is when he moved to Rome

Cardinal Bernard Law, the disgraced former archbishop of Boston, died at the age of 86 in Rome on Tuesday.

Law, whose failures to stop child molesters in the priesthood sparked what would become the worst crisis in American Catholicism, had been sick and was recently hospitalized in Rome.

The official who confirmed the death was not authorized to make the announcement and asked to remain anonymous. The Vatican is expected to make a statement on Wednesday.

Law, who moved to Rome two years after resigning from his position in Boston due to the scandal, was once widely recognized as one of the most important leaders in the U.S. church.

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VATICAN CITY
Redazione ANSA

December 20, 2017

Pope condolences, will attend funeral

(ANSA) – Vatican City, December 20 – Cardinal Bernard Law, the former archbishop of Boston at the centre of a child-sex-abuse scandal in the American city, has died at the age of 86, sources said Wednesday. Law, who had recently been taken into hospital in Rome, was forced to quit as the archbishop of Boston in 2002 after it emerged he had failed to stop priests who sexually abused children, moving them from parish to parish without informing the authorities.

He was controversially brought to Rome by the Catholic Church to run the Basilica of Saint Mary Major from 2004 to 2011.

The scandal was brought to light by the Boston Globe’s Pulitzer-prize-winning Spotlight investigation, made into an Oscar-winning film in 2015.

Pope Francis voiced his condolences for Law, saying “may God welcome him in peace”.

The pope will attend Law’s funeral in St Peter’s Basilica on Thursday.

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ROME
The Associated Press

December 20, 2017

Key dates in the life of Cardinal Bernard Law, who died early Wednesday at age 86.

— Nov. 4, 1931: Bernard Law is born in Torreon, Mexico; the only child of a U.S. Air Force colonel and a mother who converted to Roman Catholicism from Presbyterianism.

— 1953: Law graduates from Harvard University with a degree in medieval history.

— 1961: Law is ordained as a priest.

— 1968: Law takes a job at the ecumenical office of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

— 1973: Law is named bishop of the Diocese of Springfield-Cape Girardeau in Missouri.

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ROME
SKY News

December 20, 2017

US Cardinal Bernard Law was widely blamed for failing to stop child molesters in the priesthood during his tenure in Boston.

Cardinal Bernard Law, the former archbishop of Boston who became a symbol of the Roman Catholic Church’s sexual abuse scandals, has died at 86.

Cardinal Law died in a hospital in Rome, where he had been living.

The Vatican did not give a cause as it announced his death, but the Cardinal was believed to have been suffering from complications of diabetes and liver failure, among other ailments.

Cardinal Law was archbishop of Boston, one of the most prestigious and wealthy American archdioceses, for 18 years.

The late Pope John Paul reluctantly accepted his resignation in 2002 after the Catholic Church was rocked by worldwide sex abuse revelations.

The scandal was uncovered by the Boston Globe’s Spotlight team, which showed how priests who sexually abused children had been moved from parish to parish for years rather than being sacked or reported to the authorities.

Cardinal Law was widely blamed for allowing that to happen.

The report soon began a trickle-down effect around the world, as the cover-up techniques used in Boston were discovered to have been used in country after country.

“It is my fervent prayer that this action may help the archdiocese of Boston to experience the healing, reconciliation and unity which are so desperately needed,” Cardinal Law said upon resigning.

“To all those who have suffered from my shortcomings and mistakes, I both apologise and from them beg forgiveness.”

Still, he retained support in the Vatican. In 2004, a year before John Paul’s death, he was appointed archpriest of the Basilica of St Mary Major, one of four principal basilicas in the Italian capital.

Mitchell Garabedian, a Boston lawyer who has represented victims of the sex abuse scandal, said the Cardinal’s death had reopened old wounds.

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ROME
Agence France-Presse

December 20, 2017

Pope Francis paid his respects to the late US Cardinal Bernard Law on Wednesday, without mentioning the sex abuse scandal that forced the once-influential church figure to resign, an omission bound to rile victim associations.

“I raise prayers for the repose of his soul,” Francis said in a telegram after Law, 86, died in Rome.

The former Boston cardinal had fallen from grace after he allegedly shielded priests involved in a wide-reaching sex abuse scandal that shook the Roman Catholic Church and eclipsed his long and at one-time venerated career.

It is traditional for the pope to issue a message of condolence and prayer after the death of the red-hatted church seniors.

But the telegram made no reference to the paedophilia scandal, and neither did the official biography issued by the Vatican.

The biography merely said that Law, who was appointed Archbishop of Boston by John Paul II in 1984 became “Archbishop emeritus of Boston, 13 December 2002”.

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ROME
Associated Press

December 20, 2017

Pope Francis sent a telegram of condolences Wednesday to the dean of the College of Cardinals, Cardinal Angelo Sodano, for the death of Cardinal Bernard Law and said he is praying for his soul.

The letter made no mention of Law’s role as the former archbishop of Boston, where he was responsible for covering up for sexually abusive priests in a scandal that erupted across the nation and eventually cost the American church some $3 billion in legal fees.

Rather, Francis’ telegram referred to Law’s final position as archpriest of the St Mary Major basilica in Rome.

In it Francis said: “I raise prayers for the repose of his soul, that the Lord, God who is rich in mercy, may welcome him in His eternal peace, and I send my apostolic blessing to those who share in mourning the passing of the cardinal.”

An advocacy group for survivors of sex abuse called for Pope Francis to keep survivors in mind when he celebrates Cardinal Bernard Law’s funeral Mass.

SNAP, which gained prominence as the US abuse scandal erupted in Law’s Boston in 2002, said no victim of sexual abuse will ever receive the same attention and pomp that Law received in life and is due to receive in death.

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VATICAN CITY
Reuters

December 20, 2017

Prior to his resignation, Law spent two decades as one of the highest-ranking Catholic officials in the United States.

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) – Cardinal Bernard Law, the former archbishop of Boston who became a symbol of the Roman Catholic Church’s worldwide sexual abuse scandals, died on Wednesday, the Vatican said. He was 86.

Law, whose resignation from his Boston post in 2002 shocked the Church and brought abuse into the open, had been living in Rome and was in declining health in recent years.

The Vatican did not give a cause of death but sources close to Law, who died in a hospital in Rome, said he had been suffering from the complications of diabetes, liver failure and a build-up of fluids around the heart, known as pericardial effusion.

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BOSTON (MA)
CBS/AP

December 20, 2017

BOSTON (CBS/AP) — The death of Cardinal Bernard Law, the disgraced former archbishop of Boston whose failures to stop child molesters in the priesthood sparked what would become the worst crisis in American Catholicism, has drawn little sympathy from survivors.

Since 1950, more than 6,500, or about 6 percent of U.S. priests, have been accused of molesting children, and the American church has paid more than $3 billion in settlements to victims, according to studies commissioned by the U.S. bishops and media reports. As the leader of the archdiocese at the epicenter for the scandal, Law remained throughout his life a symbol of the church’s widespread failures to protect children.

Mitchell Garabedian, a Boston attorney who has represented dozens of people who say they were sexually abused by priests, said Law’s death has reopened old wounds.

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ROME
WCVB

December 20, 2017

Bernard Law, the former Archbishop of Boston who resigned in disgrace during the clergy sex abuse scandal, has died at age 86 in Rome.

The Vatican released a brief statement Tuesday night confirming his death: “Cardinal Bernard Law died early this morning after a long illness.”

Boston Cardinal Sean P. O’Malley released a statement on the death of his predecessor Wednesday morning.

“I recognize that Cardinal Law’s passing brings forth a wide range of emotions on the part of many people. I am particularly cognizant of all who experienced the trauma of sexual abuse by clergy, whose lives were so seriously impacted by those crimes, and their families and loved ones. To those men and women, I offer my sincere apologies for the harm they suffered, my continued prayers and my promise that the Archdiocese will support them in their effort to achieve healing,” Cardinal Seán P. O’Malley said in a statement. “As Archbishop of Boston, Cardinal Law served at a time when the Church failed seriously in its responsibilities to provide pastoral care for her people, and with tragic outcomes failed to care for the children of our parish communities. I deeply regret that reality and its consequences.”

In a statement, Pope Francis expressed condolences to the College of Cardinals, adding may God “who is rich in mercy” welcome Law in his eternal peace.

“I raise prayers for the repose of his soul, that the Lord, God who is rich in mercy, may welcome him in his Eternal peace, and I send my apostolic blessing to those who share in mourning the passing of the cardinal,” his statement read in part.

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VATICAN CITY
The Associated Press

December 20, 2017

The Latest on the death of Cardinal Bernard Law, the disgraced former archbishop of Boston who was a central figure in the clergy sex abuse scandal. (all times local):

3:05 p.m.

Pope Francis is sending his condolences for the death of Cardinal Bernard Law and says he is praying for his soul.

Francis sent a telegram of condolences Wednesday to the dean of the College of Cardinals, Cardinal Angelo Sodano. The letter makes no mention of Law’s role as the former archbishop of Boston, where he was responsible for covering up for sexually abusive priests in a scandal that erupted across the nation and eventually cost the American church some $3 billion in legal fees.

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ROME
NPR

December 20, 2017

By Tovia Smith

Once considered among the most influential prelates in America, the Archbishop was forced to resign amid the church’s growing sex abuse scandal, which indelibly stained his reputation

Cardinal Bernard Law, the former Archbishop of Boston — once widely seen as America’s most influential prelate before resigning in disgrace amid the growing clergy sexual abuse scandal — has died in Rome.

The Holy See’s press office confirmed Law’s death “after a long illness.” He was 86.

In a carefully worded statement, reflecting the ongoing anger at the longtime prelate for his role helping to cover up the sins of pedophile priests, his successor, Cardinal Sean P. O’Malley said, “I recognize that Cardinal Law’s passing brings forth a wide range of emotions …particularly … all who experienced the trauma of sexual abuse by clergy.” He offered “sincere apologies [and] continued prayers and … support.”

O’Malley went on to say, “It is a sad reality that for many, Cardinal Law’s life and ministry is identified with one overwhelming reality, the crisis of sexual abuse by priests … because his pastoral legacy has many other dimensions,” from civil rights and ecumenical work, to his care for the poor and immigrants.

The Vatican today also released a statement expressing condolences, praying “for the repose of his soul,” but making no mention of the clergy’s sexual abuse scandal.

Law was at ground zero of the crisis when it exploded in Boston in 2002. He remained the face of the scandal, as it swelled to the tsunami that engulfed the Catholic Church worldwide.

Law’s response to the growing crisis only fueled the rage. For example, shortly after the scandal broke, he showed little compunction, issuing a carefully worded, Nixonian concession.

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ROME
Inquisitr

December 20, 2017

By Lorenzo Tanos

Law, who earned controversy in 2002 for his alleged mishandling of sexual abuse allegations against Boston-area priests, died in Rome on Wednesday at the age of 86.

Cardinal Bernard Law, the former archbishop of Boston who allegedly turned a blind eye to decades of child molestation accusations against his archdiocese’s priests, died early Wednesday morning in Rome. He was 86.

As of this writing, Cardinal Bernard Law’s cause of death has yet to be announced, but a report from the Associated Press indicated that the disgraced former archbishop was recently hospitalized, and had been feeling sick in the time leading up to his death. According to the Guardian, Pope Francis has yet to comment on Law’s passing, but will likely be sending an official telegram of condolence on Wednesday, and celebrating his funeral mass, as is the tradition with Rome-based cardinals.

Born in Torreon, Mexico on November 4, 1931, Bernard Francis Law graduated from Harvard University in 1953, and was ordained as a priest in 1961. As a young priest, Law was active in the fight for civil rights in the 1960s, before he spent some time with the national bishops’ conference. Following a stint as bishop of the Diocese of Springfield-Cape Girardeau in Missouri, Law was named archbishop of Boston in 1984, and was known for making public comments against government officials who favored abortion rights. Per the Guardian, he was also “beloved” by Pope John Paul II, who served as the head of the Catholic Church until his death in 2005.

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ROME
Reuters

December 20, 2017

By Philip Pullella

Cardinal Bernard Law, a once-influential church figure, who became a symbol of the Roman Catholic Church’s worldwide sexual abuse scandals after failing to stop pedophile priests, has died, the Vatican said Wednesday. He was 86.

Law, whose resignation from his Boston post in 2002 shocked the Church and brought abuse into the open, had been living in Rome and was in declining health in recent years.

The Vatican did not give a cause of death but sources close to Law, who died in a hospital in Rome, said he had been suffering from the complications of diabetes, liver failure and a build up of fluids around the heart, known as pericardial effusion.

Law was archbishop of Boston for 18 years when Pope John Paul – who in 1984 had appointed Law to run one of the most prestigious and wealthy American archdioceses — reluctantly accepted his resignation on Dec. 13, 2002, after a tumultuous year in Church history.

A succession of devastating stories by the Boston Globe’s Spotlight team showed how priests who sexually abused children had been moved from parish to parish for years under Law’s tenure without informing parishioners or law authorities.

The resignation sent shock waves through the American Church and began a trickle down effect around the world, as the cover-up techniques used in Boston were discovered to have been used in country after country.

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VATICAN CITY
Catholic News Agency

December 19, 2017

Cardinal Bernard Law has died after a brief hospitalization due to congenital heart failure, according to sources close to the cardinal and a report from the Boston Globe. He was 86 years old.

Law was appointed Archbishop of Boston in 1984, and resigned from the position on Dec. 13, 2002, after reports revealed that he did not disclose multiple allegations of clerical sexual abuse to the police or to the public, or intervene to remove priests accused of sexual abuse from priestly ministry.

“It is my fervent prayer that this action may help the Archdiocese of Boston to experience the healing, reconciliation and unity which are so desperately needed,” Law wrote at the time of his resignation.

After his resignation, Law moved to Rome. He was assigned as the Archpriest of the Basilica of Saint Mary Major in 2004 by Pope John Paul II, a largely ceremonial position from which he retired in 2011, at the age of 80. The appointment was controversial, especially as many in the US continued to call for his criminal prosecution.

Law was born on November 4, 1931 in Torreon, Mexico, the son of a Catholic father, an Air Force colonel, and a Presbyterian mother.

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ROME
Religion News Service

December 20, 2017

By Cathy Lynn Grossman

(RNS) — When a leading cardinal in the Catholic church dies, his legacy of caring for priests and believers are usually the highlights of remembrances.

Not so with Cardinal Bernard Law, driven out in disgrace as Archbishop of Boston in 2002. His priests and his people had demanded he step down after a year of painful revelations that the diocese had known about — and sheltered — scores of priests who sexually abused children and teens.

After Law died Wednesday (Dec. 20), his successor, Cardinal Sean O’Malley, issued a statement that began with an apology to “ … all who experienced the trauma of sexual abuse by clergy, whose lives were so seriously impacted by those crimes, and their families and loved ones.”

O’Malley offered them his “sincere apologies,” and continued prayer and support for healing, before turning again to the tragic legacy of Law, putting him in the context of a wider church failure.

“As Archbishop of Boston, Cardinal Law served at a time when the Church failed seriously in its responsibilities to provide pastoral care for her people, and with tragic outcomes failed to care for the children of our parish communities. I deeply regret that reality and its consequences….”

Cardinal Daniel DiNardo, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, went directly to the same point, beginning his statement by urging any victim today to contact both their church and their local law enforcement.

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ROME
Daily Beast

December 20, 2017

By Barbie Latza Nadeau

Bernard Law, the American cardinal who became of the face of the Catholic clerical abuse scandal in America, is dead at the age of 86, but his cover-up legacy lives on.

ROME—Cardinal Bernard Law, the former archbishop of Boston who resigned in shame at the height of the American clerical sex-abuse scandal in 2002, who died early Wednesday morning in a Roman hospital, never rose above the disgrace that brought him down—at least not outside the Vatican’s protective walls.

He was sent to Rome in 2004 by Pope John Paul II, and, despite making a public apology for his failings and culpability in the cover up of rampant clerical sex abuse against children, he remained active in policy-making dicastery departments of the Holy See. He was allowed to resign honorably from those duties in 2011 when he turned 80, the official age all cardinals cease such roles.

He seemed to escape any scrutiny or punishment by the church for his well-known crimes, and instead remained part of the Vatican elite under John Paul II, Pope Benedict XVI and Pope Francis, enjoying celebrity status that is akin to a clerical club membership bestowed on all top cardinals in Rome. He was often spotted dining with high-ranking cardinals at Rome’s better restaurants.

Law, whose sins were laid bare in the Oscar winning film Spotlight, was also the frequent object of protesters who picketed and left posters with the faces of the many victims of sex abuse by predatory priests in front of the majestic Saint Mary Major basilica in Rome, where he has served as the chief priest. Much as devout Catholics make a Vatican stop part of any trip to Rome, victims of clerical sex abuse paid similar homage to the basilica where Law preached.

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VATICAN CITY
Catholic News Service

December 20, 2017

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — Cardinal Bernard F. Law, who had been one of the United States’ most powerful and respected bishops until his legacy was blemished by the devastating sexual abuse of minors by priests in his Archdiocese of Boston, died early Dec. 20 in Rome at the age of 86.

Before the abuse scandal forced his resignation in 2002, Cardinal Law had been a leading church spokesman on issues ranging from civil rights to international justice, from abortion to poverty, from Catholic-Jewish relations and ecumenism to war and peace.

Cardinal Sean P. O’Malley of Boston said in a statement Dec. 20, “As archbishop of Boston, Cardinal Law served at a time when the church failed seriously in its responsibilities to provide pastoral care for her people, and with tragic outcomes failed to care for the children of our parish communities.”

Cardinal O’Malley also recognized that his predecessor’s death “brings forth a wide range of emotions on the part of many people. I am particularly cognizant of all who experienced the trauma of sexual abuse by clergy, whose lives were so seriously impacted by those crimes, and their families and loved ones. To those men and women, I offer my sincere apologies for the harm they suffered, my continued prayers and my promise that the archdiocese will support them in their effort to achieve healing.”

Cardinal O’Malley said Cardinal Law would be buried in Rome, where he had his last assignment. According to the Vatican, his funeral Mass was to be celebrated the afternoon of Dec. 21 in St. Peter’s Basilica with Cardinal Angelo Sodano, dean of the College of Cardinals, presiding. Pope Francis, as is customary for cardinals’ funerals, was to preside over the final rites at the end of Mass.

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ST. PAUL (MN)
Twin Cities Pioneer Press

December 18, 2017

By David A. Dana And Susan P. Koniak

Our courts and our legislators are guilty. Over the past few weeks, we have seen how our legal system has empowered and encouraged sexual predators to continue abusing women through secret settlements and nondisclosure agreements, despite knowing how dangerous silence can be.

Now is different, we’re told. A “cultural moment.” Laws will be reformed. Courts will change their rules. Lawyers, corporations, the American Bar Association and think tanks such as the Heritage Foundation will do a 180 and end their hawking of secrecy.

And pigs will fly.

It has been 15 years since we learned how court-sanctioned secrecy and nondisclosure agreements protected pedophile priests, allowing them to continue abuse that included the rape of children. And our courts and legislatures, with a precious few exceptions, have done nothing to stop the legally sanctioned secrecy that protected those priests from exposure and prevented parents from keeping their children safe.

More recently, the public has turned its outrage to an obscure congressional fund used to secretly settle sexual harassment claims against lawmakers with taxpayer money. If Congress is going to use taxpayer money for these complaints, the public has a right to know.

But Congress is not alone.

Some local and state government agencies also use taxpayer funds to secretly settle in cases of police brutality and other serious wrongs, leaving the public in the dark on the facts.

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ITALY
Pocket News

December 18, 2017

[Google Tranlsate: Do not miss the twists in the trial against Don Mauro Galli, the former priest of Rozzano and Legnano accused of pedophilia for alleged abuses on a boy, who is celebrating at the Court of Milan. There are two innovations that emerge from the trial. The first concerns the family of the victim who would have withdrawn the civil partnership. The reason? One hundred thousand euros would be credited as compensation. The problem is that it is still not clear who has paid them.]

La Diocesi accusata di “omessa vigilanza” e intanto nei giorni scorsi alla famiglia sono stati versati 100mila euro perché ritiri la costituzione di parte civile

Non mancano i colpi di scena nel processo a carico di don Mauro Galli, l’ex prete di Rozzano e Legnano accusato di pedofilia per presunti abusi su un ragazzino, che si sta celebrando al Tribunale di Milano. Sono due le novità che emergono dal dibattimento. La prima riguarda la famiglia della vittima che avrebbe ritirato la costituzione di parte civile. Il motivo? Le sarebbero stati accreditati centomila euro come risarcimento. Il problema è che non è ancora chiaro chi li abbia versati.

Il silenzio

La seconda novità riguarda la diocesi milanese. Dalle carte raccolte dagli investigatori e consegnate ai giudici, emergerebbe il coinvolgimento di Mario Del Pini e Pierantonio Tremolada, arcivescovi di Milano e di Brescia. Secondo l’accusa, entrambi sapevano quel che combinava Mauro Galli ma tutti e due prima hanno taciuto, poi hanno permesso che il prete pedofilo continuasse la sua attività a contatto con i bambini.

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QUEENSLAND (AUSTRALIA)
Newburgh Gazette

December 19, 2017

By Dwayne Harmon

A Catholic priest in Queensland has told his congregation the church is a flawed institution, and Australian archbishops must fight for change to stop sexual abuse.

Of survivors who reported abuse in religious institutions, more than 60% cited the Catholic church, which demonstrated “catastrophic failures of leadership”, particularly before the 1990s, the report said.

Melbourne Archbishop Denis Hart, the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference president, said the bishops would take the royal commission’s recommendations seriously and present them to the Holy See.

It said priests should report abuse confided to them, even in the secret context of the confessional.

“I revere the law of the land and I trust it but this is a sacred, spiritual charge before God which I must honor and I have to respect and try to do what I can do with both”, Hart said.

“I would feel terribly conflicted and I would try even harder to get that person outside confessional, but I can not break the seal”, Hart told reporters.

Archbishop Fisher, like most of the Australian bishops who testified to the commission, said in a December 15 statement he was “appalled by the sinful and criminal activity of some clergy, religious and lay church workers (and) I’m ashamed of the failure to respond by some church leaders, and … We know very well that this happens in families that are certainly not observing celibacy”, he said.

On the call for voluntary celibacy, he said it was up to the Vatican to decide.

He further noted that the celibacy recommendations would be relayed to the Vatican, but added that “I believe that there are real values in celibacy”. “But it’s a hard thing”, Archbishop Hart said.

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AUSTRALIA
The Saturday Paper

December 16, 2017

When the royal commission sat for the final time, the church was not there. Senior figures were not present. It fell to a layperson to attend, to Francis Sullivan, whose self-critical stewardship of the Catholic Church’s Truth, Justice and Healing Council has been the only redemption of an institution built on the preaching of forgiveness.

“I think it would have been a real sign of solidarity with the victims if we’d had some members of the hierarchy and senior figures from the church here,” Sullivan said afterwards. “One can only assume they didn’t feel comfortable coming here.”

The absence is terrible and unsurprising. The recurrent theme in five years of testimony at this commission has been abandonment. It is an abandonment of children and of responsibility.

The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse investigated more than 4000 institutions. There were tens of thousands of victims. The 21-volume report from the commission was delivered to the governor-general on Friday.

The commission’s chair, Justice Peter McClellan, confirmed the greatest number of abusers were hidden in Catholic institutions. This surprised no one. In hearing after hearing, an image emerged of an organisation that not only housed but enabled abuse. Paedophiles were shielded. Victims were disbelieved. Elaborate legal structures were built to deny rights.

When the commission was announced, George Pell’s mind was fevered with conspiracy. He fumed and preened and blamed the press for a “persistent campaign” against the Catholic Church. He insisted Catholics were not the “only cab on the rank”. Later, on the stand, he compared the church’s culpability to a trucking company whose driver “picks up some lady and then molests her”.

The commission’s final report is an extraordinary document, extraordinary for the fact it exists. A redress scheme must now be set up. The thousands of lives hurt by institutional deviancy must not be left without repair. Other changes must be made and are among the recommendations.

But there is one larger change that must also take place. It is not called for in the official documents, but it is urgent and necessary. The church must no longer be allowed to interfere with public life.

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WALES
BBC News

December 18, 2017

By Jordan Davies

Eight men allegedly abused by a head teacher thought to be one of Wales’ most prolific paedophiles have received £140,000 in settlements.

Jon Styler is said to have abused boys in schools in Newport and Worcestershire in the 1970s and 1980s.

He killed himself in Newport in 2007, having strongly denied the allegations.

Newport council has agreed out-of-court settlements with the men, with no admission of liability, but said it could not comment further.

A spokesman said: “However, we would like to stress that the allegations in relation to Mr Styler are historical and there are no links between the schools where he taught many decades ago and those schools today.”

Solicitors believe Mr Styler may be one of Wales’ most-prolific sex offenders, with more than 100 victims.

Newport council inherited liability from the old Gwent County Council, which employed Mr Styler when he worked in Wales.

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FARGO (ND)
KVRR

December 18, 2017

By TJ Nelson

HE FLED TO THE PHILIPPINES AROUND CHRISTMAS OF 1998

FARGO, ND — An arraignment for a former Fargo priest who has been extradited from the Philippines to stand trial on child sexual abuse charges has been delayed.

Fernando Sayasaya was set to appear in Cass County District Court today but the hearing was moved at the last minute to Tuesday.

Sayasaya was removed from the Fargo Diocese in August 1998 after two brothers accused him of sexually assaulting them.

The priest was an associate pastor at St. Mary’s Cathedral in Fargo and Blessed Sacrament in West Fargo.

He fled to the Philippines around Christmas of 1998.

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AUSTRALIA
SBS News

December 18, 2017

A Bishop has vowed an elderly priest who was released from a NSW prison after being convicted of abusing young girls won’t return to his parish.

The Bishop of Broken Bay has promised his community that a paedophile priest released from a NSW prison won’t be allowed to return to his former parish.

Catholic priest Finian Egan was released from Long Bay Prison on Tuesday morning after serving four years of an eight-year sentence for raping and abusing young girls for nearly three decades.

Coinciding with his release, the Diocese of Broken Bay has begun the process of laicisation, more commonly known as “defrocking”, by presenting its case to Rome to have the 83-year-old stripped of his priesthood.

If successful, Egan will no longer be regarded as a priest and the church will no longer be responsible for him.

“These processes can be complex given that the one Roman office deals with all requests that are submitted from all over the world,” the Bishop of Broken Bay the Most Reverend Peter Comensoli explained in a statement on Tuesday.

While Egan has the right to argue his case, the bishop has already used his power to immediately dismiss him from the public ministry.

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FRANKFORT (KY)
WDRB

December 18, 2017

By Katrina Helmer

FRANKFORT, Ky. (WDRB) — A parole board held a victim impact hearing Monday afternoon in the case of Fr. Joseph Hemmerle, who was convicted of abusing a 10-year-old boy in 1973.

Michael Norris testified in November 2016 that Hemmerle sexually abused him more than 40 years ago when he was a camper at Camp Tall Trees. Hemmerle worked at the Catholic-run youth camp in Meade County. Norris said he got poison ivy, and when Hemmerle offered to treat it, the priest sexually abused him.

“Mr. Hemmerle’s act took about 15 minutes,” Norris said to the board. “For his 15 minutes of pleasure, I’ve endured 44 years of heartache. And I will be coping with this for the rest of my life.”

In February, a judge sentenced Hemmerle to seven years in prison for “indecent or immoral practices with a minor.”

Then in June 2017, Hemmerle pleaded guilty to sexual abuse charges brought forward by another victim. A judge sentenced Hemmerle to another two years in prison on top of the existing seven.

After about 10 months in prison, Hemmerle is up for parole. A parole board must consider his sentence, the details of the case, his inmate history and a victim impact hearing.

Norris also expressed concern Hemmerle would continue to abuse children if the board decided to release Hemmerle on parole.

“He hasn’t come to terms with what he is: a pedophile,” Norris told the board members. “And as far as I’m concerned, he needs to stay where he’s at, where he can’t hurt other children.”

Norris said the jury was under the impression Hemmerle would serve at least 18 months in prison before being considered eligible for parole.

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ROME
America Magazine

December 15, 2017

By Gerard O’Connell

Pope Francis will renew the mandate of the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors for another three years, informed sources told America this week. Its membership, however, will not be announced until the New Year. While many of its current members will be renewed for a second three-year term, others will be replaced.

The news, which is expected to be announced in the coming days, comes after Francis met the full commission in a private audience in the Vatican on Sept. 21. He indicated then that he wished the P.C.P.M. to continue its work, or as he put it, “to continue to be of great assistance in the coming years to the pope, the Holy See, bishops and major superiors throughout the world.”

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ALTOONA (PA)
Tribune Review

December 18, 2017

By Stephen Huba

The attorney for a Blair County woman who sued a Catholic priest is considering an appeal now that a judge has thrown out the lawsuit.

Blair County Common Pleas Judge Jolene Kopriva, whose term expires at the end of the year, said Renee Rice’s civil suit was filed after the statute of limitations had expired.

“I intend to review with my client her right to appeal Judge Kopriva’s opinion,” Altoona attorney Richard Serbin said in a statement.

Rice and her sister, Cheryl Haun, sued the Rev. Charles Bodziak last year over allegations that he fondled them in the 1970s, when they were ages 7 and 9. At the time, he was serving at St. Leo’s Catholic Church in Altoona.

The sisters also sued the Diocese of Altoona-Johnstown, which was the subject of an investigation by the Pennsylvania attorney general over allegations of clergy sexual abuse spanning decades. A special grand jury released a 147-page report in March 2016 detailing the alleged abuse of hundreds of minors by more than 50 priests in the eight-county diocese.

The lawsuit alleged counts of fraud, constructive fraud and conspiracy against retired Bishop Joseph Adamec and the estate of Bishop James Hogan.

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QUEENSLAND (AUSTRALIA)
Brisbane Times (AAP)

December 18, 2017

A Catholic priest in Queensland has told his congregation the church is a flawed institution, and Australian archbishops must fight for change to stop sexual abuse.

Father Peter Schultz used his homily on Sunday to personally apologise to anyone who’d suffered abuse, which he said was the fault of the church hierarchy.

“We are a flawed institution and we have to own that fact,” he told followers at St Thomas More’s Church in South Toowoomba, just a few days after the royal commission into institutional abuse handed down its final report.

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PERTH (AUSTRALIA)
Eureka Street

December 18, 2017

By Helena Kadmos

A small group of lay Christians in Perth, including myself, were so worried that our institutions might not wholeheartedly embrace the recommendations of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Abuse that we decided not to wait to find out.

On Saturday 9 December, ahead of the full release of the commission’s findings, 130 people accepted our invitation to gather on the banks of the Swan River to express our gratitude to the commissioners, survivors and their families.

Day of Lament was an ecumenical picnic and liturgy organised without any clerical input by lay people of different church backgrounds, including Catholic, Anglican and Uniting, the Salvation Army and an Independent Community Church. Our group comprised teachers, a pastoral practitioner, psychologist and community worker. We sought input and feedback from survivors and organisations representing survivors.

Planned over several months, Day of Lament grew out of a determination to express unequivocal support for authentic justice for survivors, at whatever cost. Lay people might not hold the purse strings of our churches but we are the living hands and feet that comprise it. Through our physical presence in a public space we aimed to make a stand that was five-fold: to lament the silence surrounding child abuse in our institutions, acknowledge the pain suffered, say sorry, pray for healing, and commit to justice.

We accepted that we could not hope to grasp the full complexity of the impacts of child sexual abuse on everyone affected by it, and therefore we made no claims to represent anyone other than ourselves. But our invitation was open to people of the same, different or no faith backgrounds: If you felt as we did, you were welcome to join us.

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MELBOURNE (AUSTRALIA)
Catholic News Service

December 18, 2017

MELBOURNE, Australia (CNS) — After five years of hearings, nearly 26,000 emails, and more than 42,000 phone calls from concerned Australians, the Royal Commission Into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse released its 17-volume final report Dec. 15.

Among its 400 recommendations, 20 were aimed specifically at the Catholic Church, whose leaders spent three weeks in February testifying at a “Catholic wrapup.”

Several of the recommendations related to the Australian Catholic Bishops’ Conference working with the Holy See to change the Code of Canon Law “to create a new canon or series of canons specifically relating to child sexual abuse.”

One recommendation was for the Australian bishops to work with the Holy See to determine if the absolute secrecy concerning matters discussed during confession also applies to a child confessing he or she has been abused sexually. The report also said the church should consider if “absolution can and should be withheld” if a person confesses to perpetrating child sexual abuse.

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PELHAM (NY)
ABC7

December 18, 2017

PELHAM, New York — A shocking report out of Australia suggests ending mandatory celibacy for Catholic priests could help protect children from sexual abuse.

The study claims tens of thousands of children in Catholic churches, schools, orphanages and sports clubs have endured sexual abuse over the recent decades, and draws a connection between celibacy and pedophilia.

Father Edward Beck, a commentator on religion and the Catholic church, argues the report’s findings are “nonsensical.”

“We’re seeing in this country right now, issues of pedophilia, especially with bold-name faces, right? Celebrities, who are married. You are certainly not celibate and they are pedophiles,” Beck said. “So celibacy does not cause pedophilia.”

Beck argues pedophilia occurs often in families, between brothers and fathers, not celibate people.

“This is a disease,” Beck said. “Now, certainly, you have instances of it with people who are celibate. But there’s not a cause and effect there, so to say, ‘If we get away from celibacy, that we’ll no longer have pedophilia,’ that’s just a non sequitur. It doesn’t follow.”

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AMSTERDAM (Netherlands)
DutchNews.nl

December 18, 2017

In total, 3,712 people have reported being victims of sexual abuse within the Catholic church to a special hotline set up in 2010 and the cost of dealing with the eight-year scandal could be as much as €60m.

Of all the reported cases to the hotline, 2,062 became official complaints and 1,002 cases were declared justified. Several hundred were not accepted because of a lack of supporting evidence, the final report from hotline officials said.

In 941 cases, the victims were given financial compensation, taking total payouts to €28.6m. Sixty-five victims who went through the most serious forms of abuse were given the maximum payout of €100,000.

According to the NRC newspaper, the real bill to the Catholic church is far higher. It says 403 victims reached secret deals with the church authorities, and received an estimated €12.8m in compensation.

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LONG ISLAND (NY)
Newsday

December 18, 2017

By Bart Jones

The Child Victims Act would lift the statute of limitations for one year and allow victims to sue their perpetrators.

Advocates on Monday gathered outside the offices of two state senators to press them to help get a long-stalled bill passed in Albany that would temporarily lift the statute of limitations in child sex abuse cases.

The dozen protesters, including victims, university professors and supporters, said the “#MeToo” movement exposing sexual harassment against women is giving renewed life to their campaign, which started more than a decade ago.

“I think I am more hopeful than I have ever been,” said Marci Hamilton, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania and a leading advocate on the child sex abuse issue. “This is the best chance we’ve ever had with the Senate because of the #MeToo movement.”

The protesters gathered at the offices of state Sens. Elaine Phillips in Mineola and Carl Marcellino in Oyster Bay, both Republicans who narrowly won in the 2016 election. The advocates, who have formed a group called New Yorkers Against Hidden Predators, said they want the senators to pressure Senate Majority Leader John Flanagan (R-East Northport) to release the Child Victims Act out of committee so it can be voted on.

The bill passed the state Assembly this year, but was not taken up by the Senate, where it has languished for years.

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SYDNEY (AUSTRALIA)
7News Sydney

December 19, 2017

By Laura Banks

A former Catholic priest who sexually assaulted young girls over three decades has been released from jail after spending four years behind bars.

Now 81, he was freed at the earliest possible opportunity, but when confronted by Seven News there was no apology for his actions.

His stint behind bars over, Finian Egan had ample opportunity to show his contrition but he did not say a word when confronted.

Asked if he felt any remorse for what he had done, or if he had anything to say to his victims, he remained silent.

Egan was convicted of sexually assaulting three young girls.

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BOSTON (MA)
CNS News

December 18, 2017

By Michael W. Chapman

The Boston Globe, which has turned stories about child sexual abuse by Catholic priests into a cottage industry, refuses to publish the names of its own staff members who have been charged with sexual harassment, according to Bill Donohue, president of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights.

“Sexual abuse is still going on at the Globe,” Donohue wrote in a Dec. 18 press release. “In March, a young woman employee filed a complaint against a male journalist with human resources. She said he propositioned her to have sex with his wife. But nothing came of it.”

“One year ago, the same man propositioned her to have sex with him,” reported Donohue. “He was allowed to stay on the job, until, that is, more accusations were made against him from outside the office.”

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BOSTON (MA)
LifeZette

December 19, 2017

By Michele Blood

As noted on ‘The Ingraham Angle,’ one publication has insisted on full exposure of alleged violators — but not within its own house

The Boston Globe on December 8 published the results of a self-examination of its corporate culture in the wake of the #MeToo movement. Curiously, although the examination uncovered a recent instance of alleged sexual impropriety that resulted in the resignation of at least one reporter, the publication declined to name that reporter — describing the scandal as a “confidential personnel matter.”

This same organization has gone after the Catholic Church for sexual impropriety and abuse by priests — with demands for transparency from the church over sexual abuse allegations lodged against several priests.

“The Ingraham Angle” on Monday night took the Globe to task on the hypocritical stance. Host Laura Ingraham noted that the Globe’s reasoning for choosing not to reveal the name of the reporter included the fact that the incident did not involve physical violence.

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BOSTON (MA)
New Boston Post

December 19, 2017

Cardinal Bernard Law, the long-serving archbishop of Boston who resigned under pressure during the height of the clergy-sex-abuse scandal, is “facing his final illness” at a hospital in Rome, according to a well-connected Vatican journalist.

Rocco Palma, who runs the web site Whispers in the Loggia, reported that church officials are in “active preparation for the death” of Law, 86.

According to Palma, Law is expected to be buried in Rome.

While Palma noted that Law’s standing in the United States – and especially in Boston – is “radioactive,” as a cardinal his death will not go unnoted by high-ranking members of the Church. Cardinal Sean O’Malley, Law’s successor as archbishop of Boston, will be expected to make a substantive statement and may consider going to Rome to concelebrate the funeral Mass. Pope Francis will also likely send an official message of condolences and, if he follows usual Vatican custom, will participate in Law’s funeral liturgy.

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QUEENS (NY)
QNS

December 19, 2017

By Robert Pozarycki

Four dozen priests who worked at Queens churches over the last half-century were accused of child sex abuse, according to a report released by a legal group representing victims. The Diocese of Brooklyn and Queens, however, charged that the report isn’t completely accurate.

Lawyers Helping Survivors of Child Sex Abuse issued “Hidden Disgrace,” a 22-page summary which lists the names of 65 clergy members in the Diocese of Brooklyn and Queens who have been accused of sexually abusing children; in some cases, the abuse occurred more than 50 years ago. An examination of the report found that 48 of the priests had been assigned to Queens churches, schools and institutions.

The report came out a week before the Dec. 21 deadline for child sex abuse survivors to enroll in the Independent Reconciliation and Compensation Program (IRCP). The Diocese of Brooklyn launched the voluntary settlement program in June to provide restitution to those who had been abused by a priest or deacon but who could not seek legal remedies because of an expired statute of limitations. Survivors can come forward on their own or with legal representation to file a claim.

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LOUISVILLE (KY)
WLKY

December 19, 2017

By Lauren Adams

A Louisville priest twice convicted of sexually abusing young boys could be released from prison after serving only months of his sentence.

One of Joseph Hemmerle’s victims testified before the parole board on Monday, arguing against his abuser’s freedom.

“When I was sexually abused by Mr. Hemmerle two things were taken away from me that I will never get back, my innocence and my spirituality,” Michael Norris said.

When testifying before the board Monday in Frankfort, Norris was at times fighting back tears.
The abuse happened at a Meade County camp in the 1970’s. Norris, now 55, was just 10 years old. Decades would pass, marked with drug and alcohol abuse, even a suicide attempt before Norris went public with the abuse.

Now, one year after Hemmerle’s conviction, he is eligible for parole.

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ALTOONA (PA)
Altoona Mirror

December 19, 2017

By Kay Stephens

Hollidaysburg — A local attorney said Monday that he is disappointed with the recent ruling by a Blair County judge, concluding that the statute of limitations has expired for a woman who last year filed a civil lawsuit, revealing that she was sexually molested, as a youth, by her priest.

The ruling prevents Renee Rice from having her day in court, Altoona attorney Richard Serbin said Monday.

Rice and her sister, Cheryl Haun, last year sued the Altoona-Johnstown Catholic Diocese and the Rev. Charles Bodziak, a former priest at St. Leo’s Church in the 1970s when Rice and Haun were growing up. The women accused Bodziak of groping, fondling and kissing them in the 1970s when they were children and he was their priest.

Bodziak denied the charges and on Monday, his attorney, R. Thomas Forr, said he thought Kopriva’s conclusion was valid.

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SYDNEY (AUSTRALIA)
ABC

December 19, 2017

By James Thomas

A survivor of abuse by Catholic priest Finian Egan has slammed the church for protecting the convicted paedophile and says there are more victims out there.

“He’s evil and a monster. He preys on children,” Kellie Roche told 7.30.

“What kind of person does that?”

Finian Egan was released on parole today after serving the minimum four-year term of an eight-year sentence.

“You’d think that a paedophile would serve its full sentence. Because if anyone’s going to serve their full sentence, shouldn’t it be someone who is a threat to children?” Ms Roche said.

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BROOKLYN (NY)
Brooklyn Eagle

December 19, 2017

By Colin Mixson

A flock of legal eagles on Thursday released a list of Kings County’s most corrupt Catholic priests that they hope will encourage sexual-abuse victims to apply for compensation from the Diocese of Brooklyn before it’s too late, according to one of the lawyers.

“We’re hoping to raise awareness with this report about the Brooklyn Diocese, the availability of this program for survivors, and specifically that the clock is running and there’s a hard deadline,” said Jerry Kristal, who works for law firm Weitz and Luxenberg, which released the list as part of a multi-firm collective called Lawyers Helping Survivors of Child Sex Abuse.

The document, entitled “Hidden Disgrace,” identifies 65 priests within the local diocese who were accused or convicted of sex crimes against children. In June, the Diocese of Brooklyn launched a fund to compensate sexual-abuse victims, but survivors have a Dec. 21 deadline to report incidents in order to be eligible for money from the program.

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BALLARAT (AUSTRALIA)
The Courier

December 17, 2017

By Michelle Smith

The very visible sign of Ballarat’s child sexual abuse history – the fluttering ribbons of the Loud Fence of St Patrick’s Cathedral – have been removed and placed in a reflection garden in the church grounds.

On Sunday, about 60 parishioners removed the hundreds of ribbons that survivors had placed there from the early days of the Royal Commission hearings in to child sexual abuse in the Ballarat diocese.

The removal of the ribbons drew mixed reactions from survivors and families, as did their placement in a glass-topped chest.

A lack of consultation about the process and timing of the ribbon removal, just days after the Royal Commission in to Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse handed down its final recommendations, also angered many.

Sexual abuse survivor Phil Nagle said the ribbons belonged on the fence, and said survivors would return and replace the ribbons.

“The ribbons are our voice and a voice for all the people who can’t stand up and talk,” he said.

“I think you will find this week, if there’s no proper consultation the ribbons will keep coming back.”

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VICTORIA (AUSTRALIA)
The Age

December 17, 2017

By Rachel Kleinman

Dassi Erlich was sitting in a Jerusalem restaurant last month with her sisters, Elly Sapper and Nicole Meyer, inside a cavernous space dominated by funky light fittings, when an ultra-Orthodox Jewish teenager approached the table.

The girl had recognised the three women from Israeli television coverage. As she spoke, they listened with tears in their eyes.

“She shared a similar story to ours,” Erlich says. “An insular school, vulnerable students, a female principal abusing her power … As soon as she said it, you could see the fear. She wouldn’t tell us her name or what school she went to.

“[But] seeing us, our story and the campaign on TV had given her the courage and understanding to stop what was happening to her.”

It was a rare spontaneous encounter for the three siblings in a tightly-packed, gruelling nine-day visit to Israel.

They met with Israeli Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked, Israel’s top prosecutor Yuval Kaplinsky and members of the Knesset, Israel’s parliament. They were trailed by Israeli and Australian camera crews.

But the approach from the teenage sexual abuse survivor was a pivotal moment.

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