ABUSE TRACKER

LONDON (ENGLAND)
Anglican Communion News Service

May 22, 2018

By Garth Blake SC

The chair of the Anglican Communion’s Safe Church Commission, Australian barrister and Senior Counsel Garth Blake, reflects on its latest meeting.

The second face to face meeting of the Anglican Communion Safe Church Commission has taken place in the South African city of George. The meeting took place against the background of the recent public disclosure of complaints of sexual abuse against clergy in provinces (Southern Africa, Nigeria and Hong Kong) and government inquiries in Australia and England revealing inadequate responses to victims of child sexual abuse by Anglican churches.

There is a growing recognition in many provinces that some clergy and lay church workers have used their power to abuse and then to silence their victims, who are mainly women and children. This abuse has taken a variety of forms such as sexual, physical, emotional and / or spiritual. Sometimes abuse occurs though social media. The resulting harm done to these victims and others such as family and church members, is often far reaching, impacting on an individual’s view of themselves, their relationships and their faith.

Established in May last year, the Commission has 14 members from different parts of the Anglican Communion. Its principal function is to develop guidelines to enhance the safety of all persons especially children, young people and vulnerable adults, within the provinces of the Anglican Communion for consideration by the Anglican Consultative Council at its ACC-17 meeting next year in Honk Kong.

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TASMANIA (AUSTRALIA)
Australian Broadcasting Corporation

May 22, 2018

By Peta Carlyon and Rhiana Whitson

Tasmania will opt in to the national redress scheme for the state’s survivors of child sexual assault.

Attorney-General Elise Archer made the announcement on the floor of State Parliament this morning.

The national redress scheme comes into effect around the country on July 1.

It was a major recommendation of the royal commission into child abuse and is the first compensation scheme to cover all survivors of abuse in Tasmanian churches, state and non-state institutions.

Ms Archer said the decision had come after months of discussions with the Federal Government.

“The need to ensure that the scheme is best able to achieve its stated purpose has always been at the forefront of my mind,” she said.

“It is is to provide support to people who are sexually abused as children whilst in the care of an institution.”

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AUSTRALIA
The Washington Post

May 22, 2018

By Amanda Erickson

Archbishop of Adelaide Philip Wilson knew, the men told the court.

He knew that the Rev. Jim Fletcher had been sexually abusing young altar servers. He knew because they told him. He knew because they asked him for help.

Now, Wilson is going to jail.

The Roman Catholic leader was convicted of failing to act on reports of child sex abuse. He faces as much as two years in prison. The 67-year-old is the most senior Catholic leader to ever be charged with concealing abuse.

In the courtroom, Peter Creigh testified that Fletcher made him strip and kneel as he masturbated. He was abused at 10, he said, and he told Wilson about it in 1976, when he was 15. Wilson was a parish priest at the time. Another former altar boy said he brought his concerns to Wilson, as well. (Fletcher was found guilty of multiple counts of sexual assault of boys in 2004 and died two years later in prison.)

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UNITED KINGDOM
Forbes

May 22, 2018

By Emma Woollacott

Google’s autocomplete function is causing the company problems once again by revealing information that’s legally protected.

The company’s been accused of displaying the names of rape victims through its Autocomplete and Related Search functions – even when the victims have been granted anonymity by the courts.

The problem is that both features use data gathered from previous searches to predict what information the user is looking for and make suggestions. If enough people know a victim’s name and use it as one of their search terms, Google’s algorithm will provide a helpful prompt to those that don’t.

In the US, there’s no legal prohibition on publishing the names of rape victims, although the media tend to avoid doing so. In many countries, however, it’s against the law. And the UK’s Times newspaper has uncovered several cases in which Autocomplete and Related Search have revealed the names of rape victims and others who have official anonymity.

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UNITED STATES
The Guardian

May 22, 2018

Popes rarely admit their own mistakes. But Pope Francis has now done so, spectacularly, in a case of child abuse

Popes hardly ever pronounce infallibly: in fact they have only ever done so twice; on the other hand it is almost as rare that they admit to making mistakes. Last week all 34 bishops of the Roman Catholic church in Chile sent in their resignations to Pope Francis after he got the report of an investigation into the hierarchy’s attempts to suppress a child abuse scandal there. That’s shocking enough, if not entirely unprecedented: in 1801 Pope Pius VII demanded, and got, the resignation of all the French bishops as part of his deal with Napoleon. What may not ever have happened before is for a pope to admit to freely and so publicly that he himself had been wrong on a matter of great importance. Only five months ago the pope had been outspoken in defence of the bishops.

The church in Chile had been badly damaged, like many others, by sex abuse scandals. A powerful and charismatic priest, Fr Fernando Karadima, preyed for years on young men and boys from the country’s elite. He was protected by Fr Juan Barros. Pope Francis appointed Fr Barros a bishop in 2015, three years after Fr Karadima had been removed from public ministry by the Vatican when the criminal case against him collapsed. This appointment was furiously protested by both laity and clergy, but the pope doubled down on his visit to Chile this year, describing the allegations against Bishop Barros as “slander”, and being photographed embracing him. This led to even greater and more outraged protests around the world so Pope Francis sent the Maltese archbishop Charles Scicluna to investigate the story. Archbishop Scicluna served for many years as the Vatican’s chief prosecuting counsel in child abuse cases, and the 2,300 page report he delivered to the pope was the result of interviewing 64 people.

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UNITED STATES
Associated Press

May 22, 2018

DAVID CRARY

NEW YORK (AP) — Energized by the #MeToo movement, two national advocacy groups are teaming up to lodge sexual harassment complaints against McDonald’s on behalf of 10 women who have worked at the fast food restaurant in nine cities.

The workers — one of them a 15-year-old from St. Louis — alleged groping, propositions for sex, indecent exposure and lewd comments by supervisors. According to their complaints, when the women reported the harassment, they were ignored or mocked, and in some cases suffered retaliation.

The legal effort was organized by Fight for $15, which campaigns to raise pay for low-wage workers. The legal costs are being covered by the TIMES UP Legal Defense Fund, which was launched in January by the National Women’s Law Center to provide attorneys for women who cannot afford to bring cases on their own.

The complaints, filed with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, are being announced on Tuesday, two days ahead of the company’s annual shareholder meeting in Oak Brook, Illinois.

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GLOBAL
BBC News

From Australian country towns, to schools in Ireland and cities across the US, the Catholic Church has faced an avalanche of child sexual abuse accusations in the last few decades.

Recent high-profile cases and harrowing testimony given to public inquiries have kept the issue in the headlines.

Meanwhile alleged cover-ups continue to dog the Church, and victims groups say the Vatican has not done nearly enough to right its wrongs.

Here’s what you need to know – in about 500 words.

How did this all come to light?

Although some accusations date back to the 1950s, molestation by priests was first given significant media attention in the 1980s, in the US and Canada.

In the 1990s, the issue began to grow, with stories emerging in Argentina, Australia and elsewhere. In 1995, the Archbishop of Vienna, Austria, stepped down amid sexual abuse allegations, rocking the church there.

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NEW YORK (NY)
New York Times

May 21, 2018

By Jason Horowitz

Leer en español: Dios te ama así’, asegura Juan Carlos Cruz que le respondió el papa cuando le habló de su homosexualidad

Rome – A Chilean survivor of clerical sex abuse has said that Pope Francis told him in a private meeting this month that God had made him gay and that both God and the pontiff loved him that way, a remarkable expression of inclusion for the leader of the Roman Catholic Church.

“He said to me, ‘Juan Carlos that’s not a problem,’ ” said Juan Carlos Cruz, the abuse survivor, describing having told the pope he was gay in a long meeting in the Vatican. “You have to be happy with who you are. God made you this way and loves you this way, and the pope loves you this way.”

The Vatican declined to comment on the pope’s private remarks.

Mr. Cruz had already said that Francis had apologized in the meeting for the large-scale sexual abuse scandal involving Chilean clergy members, but over the weekend, he also told the Spanish newspaper El País about the pope’s remarks about his homosexuality. In a separate interview Sunday night, Mr. Cruz, through tears, explained that he had told Francis in their nearly three-hour private meeting that he had maintained his Catholic faith even though Chilean bishops had apparently told the pope that he had left the church “for a life of perversion.”

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GLASGOW (SCOTLAND)
The Herald

May 21, 2018

By Stephen Naysmith

Abuse survivors have criticised the Catholic Church for tokenism and a “lack of humility” and called for priests accused of child abuse to be named, as the Bishops Conference attempted to draw a line under the issue.

The comments came as the Church published new guidelines, titled “In God’s Image“, as a final response to the the 2015 McLellan Commission and its findings.

The independent commission, headed by former moderator of the Church of Scotland the Very Reverend Dr Andrew McLellan, called for sweeping changes to the church’s practices for protecting children and vulnerable people in parishes and demanded a prioritising of support for survivors.

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CHICAGO (IL)
Chicago Tribune

May 22, 2018

A man who was a Catholic priest at the time has been charged with sexually assaulting a 13-year-old boy at a hotel in Evanston in 2001, police announced Monday.

The former priest, Kenneth Lewis, 56, was arrested on a warrant by federal agents earlier this month when he arrived at the Atlanta airport on a flight from Ecuador, according to Evanston police. The Cook County sheriff’s police fugitive unit brought Lewis back to Illinois, and he was taken into custody by Evanston police Friday, authorities said.

The alleged abuse occurred while Lewis, then a priest in Tulsa, was on a trip to the Chicago area with the family of the victim, who was also a resident of the Oklahoma city at the time, Evanston police said in a news release.

Officials said the alleged 2001 assault was reported to Tulsa police in 2004 but that Lewis “could not be charged as part of the initial investigation.”

However, the case was reopened last year by the Cook County state’s attorney’s office and the Evanston police Juvenile Bureau, and authorities were able to secure a warrant for Lewis’ arrest just after Christmas, Evanston police said. They did not elaborate how authorities were able to bring charges this time.

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BALTIMORE (MD)
Baltimore Sun

May 21, 2018

By Meredith Cohn

The Archdiocese of Baltimore said Monday it has relieved a priest of his duties at Our Lady of Pompei in Highlandtown following accusations by a parishioner of abuse in the 1970s.

The alleged victim was not identified. The person accuses Father Luigi Esposito, 77, of abuse beginning when the alleged victim was 14 and occurring multiple times while the person was a minor.

Esposito denies the allegations, according to Sean Caine, a spokesman for the archdiocese. He said the priest was being cared for per church law at a private location and would not be available for comment.

Caine said the alleged victim made a complaint to the church earlier this month and the church reported it to the Baltimore Police Department. He said church officials did not approach Esposito so they would not interfere with any investigation.

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HARRISBURG (PA)
WHTM

May 22, 2018

By Thomas LeClair

Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro says the bishops of two Catholic dioceses are reversing their positions on a sexual abuse investigation.

Shapiro says the bishops of the Greensburg and Harrisburg dioceses have agreed to make public the results of a grand jury investigation of “widespread sexual abuse within the Catholic church.”

Shapiro says now all of the dioceses support the release of the investigations’s findings and results.

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UNITED STATES
First Things

by Philip Lawler

5 . 22 . 18

With the mass resignation of 34 Chilean bishops, we have reached the decisive moment of the Francis pontificate. How Pope Francis responds to this unprecedented gesture will determine how history judges him. Obviously, these dramatic resignations test the pontiff’s commitment to resolving the sex-abuse crisis. But there is even more at stake.

The resignations switch the focus of public attention from the Chilean hierarchy—which had clearly failed in its duties—to the pope. The Chilean bishops explained that they had decided to put their future “in the hands of the Holy Father and will leave it to him to decide freely” which prelates should step down. Now, which bishops will the pope dismiss, and which (if any) will he allow to remain in office?

Presumably some of the Chilean bishops are innocent of the “grave negligence” uncovered by the pope’s belated investigation. For now, they share in the general humiliation. Will they be exonerated? And will those who have been guilty of outright dishonesty (the pope cited the “destruction of compromising documents”) be identified and denounced? Or will the pope merely accept some resignations, and decline others, without public explanation?

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GUAM
The Guam Daily Post

May 22, 2018

Mindy Aguon | The Guam Daily Post

A third complaint alleging sexual abuse against former Archdiocese of Agana Chancellor Adrian Cristobal was filed Tuesday in the District Court of Guam.

J.E., 33, who used initials to protect his identity, alleges he was abused for two years while he was an altar server at San Vicente Ferrer/San Roke Catholic Church in Barrigada.

The victim, who now lives in Virginia, said the abuse began when he was 10 years old when Cristobal served as a priest at the parish.

The lawsuit alleges J.E. was instructed to massage Cristobal’s back at the parish and at the priest’s residence. After the massage Cristobal allegedly groped, fondled and squeezed the boy’s private parts causing extreme pain, the lawsuit states.

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ARIZONA
KTAR

BY ASSOCIATED PRESS

MAY 22, 2018

PHOENIX — Prosecutors said Monday they will not file criminal charges against an Arizona judge who was investigated on allegations that he sexually abused a girl from when she was 13 until she reached adulthood.

Charges will not be filed against Pinal County Superior Court Judge Steven Fuller because prosecutors don’t have the level of evidence needed to win a conviction, said Alan Goodwin, who leads the special victims bureau at the Pima County prosecutor’s office, which reviewed the investigation.

The alleged victim, now 25, told investigators last year that Fuller touched her genitals and buttocks repeatedly and also showed her pornography, according to a police report. Fuller, through his attorney, had vehemently denied the allegations.

The woman said she and the judge knew each other before the alleged abuse occurred but the Associated Press is not identifying her because it generally does not name alleged sexual assault victims.

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AUSTRALIA
NEPR

May 22, 2018

By SCOTT NEUMAN

Archbishop of Adelaide Philip Wilson has been found guilty of concealing child sex abuse by a fellow priest that he first learned of in the 1970s.

Wilson, 67, the senior-most Catholic cleric ever to be charged with concealing abuse, has been diagnosed with early stage Alzheimer’s disease. He denied under oath last month that two former altar boys told him of abuse by another priest, Father Jim Fletcher, in the 1970s, at a church in East Maitland, New South Wales. Fletcher, who was found guilty on multiple counts of sexual assault of boys in 2004, died of a stroke in jail two years later.

Wilson’s verdict was handed down by Magistrate Robert Stone in Newcastle Local Court at the conclusion of the eight-day trial.

The archbishop showed no emotion as the verdict was read inside a packed courtroom, according to The Sydney Morning Herald.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Catholic Herald

Christopher Altieri

21 May 2018

With their resignation en masse late last week, the bishops of Chile have put Pope Francis between a rock and a hard place. Basically, he has three options: accept all of them; accept some of them; accept none of them.

If he accepts them all, he leaves the Church in Chile headless, while owning utterly every awful thing that may yet emerge as the crisis unfolds – there is a great deal more in the way of awful things that must come out, if the Church in the country is to recover – and the Chilean crisis is far from over.

If he accepts some, his every decision will be scrutinised, and he is bound to make mistakes – and if he takes his time and does it right, as he ought to, the Church will remain paralysed in the meantime and the evil men he has heretofore at least tacitly (though not always tacitly) supported will have time and opportunity to maneuver. A few – like bishops Juan Barros of Osorno, Horacio Valenzuela of Talca, and Tomislav Koljatic of Linares – are no-brainers. These men were protégés of the disgraced celebrity paedophile priest, Fernando Karadima: they were just the sort of men abusers seek systematically to insinuate into power structures for their own protection and advancement. Others are not.

If he accepts none of them, he will have to try some of them. Those trials will presumably take place under the procedural rules laid out in the Apostolic Letter motu proprio, As a Loving Mother, though the dispositions given in that letter remain essentially untried. There will be a learning curve. There will also need to be significant investment in the Vatican court system, which is already overloaded, underfunded, and not exactly bursting at the seams with enthusiasm for the work. Confidence in the ability of the Vatican to administer justice is therefore also very low, indeed.

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AUSTRALIA
CBS News

May 22, 2018

NEWCASTLE, Australia — An Australian archbishop on Tuesday became the most senior Roman Catholic cleric in the world convicted of covering up child sex abuse and faces a potential two years in prison when he is sentenced next month. Magistrate Robert Stone handed down the verdict against Archbishop of Adelaide Philip Wilson in Newcastle Local Court, north of Sydney, following a magistrate-only trial.

Wilson, 67, had pleaded not guilty to concealing a serious crime committed by another person — the sexual abuse of children by pedophile priest James Fletcher in the 1970s.

Stone told the court that Wilson had concealed the abuse of two altar boys in the Hunter Valley region, north of Sydney, by Fletcher by failing to report the allegations to police.

Stone said he was satisfied one of the altar boys, Peter Creigh had been a “truthful and reliable” witness.

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WISCONSIN
Channel 3000

May 22, 2018

FORT ATKINSON, Wis. – A retired priest in residence at Our Lady Queen of Peace in Madison is facing more allegations since being charged with felony sexual assault last week.

According to a release Monday from the Diocese of Madison, William A. Nolan, 64, is being accused of sexual misconduct toward an adult male in 2009, two years after retiring from priesthood in 2007.

Diocese officials said during an initial investigation in 2009, the victim denied the allegations after someone else reported it.

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AUSTRALIA
The New Daily

Adelaide Archbishop Philip Wilson should be sent to jail for covering up child sex abuse by a pedophile priest, a NSW court has been told.

Wilson, the most senior Catholic official in the world to be charged with the offence, was on Tuesday found guilty in Newcastle Local Court of failing to report to police the repeated abuse of two altar boys in the 1970s.

Magistrate Robert Stone accepted the two boys told Wilson in 1976 that priest James Fletcher had repeatedly abused them in the NSW Hunter region but the clergyman did nothing.

Wilson faces a maximum two years in prison.

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AUSTRALIA
The Tablet (UK)

May 22, 2018

Australian Archbishop Philip Wilson has been found guilty of concealing child sexual abuse by a fellow priest in the 1970s

The Archbishop of Adelaide, Philip Wilson, has been found guilty of concealing child sexual abuse by a fellow priest.

He was convicted of concealing abuse by Fr James Fletcher in the 1970s, when the Archbishop was a young priest in his home Diocese of Maitland-Newcastle in New South Wales.

Magistrate Robert Stone announced his verdict in a 59-page judgement delivered to a packed courtroom at Newcastle Local Court, north of Sydney, today (22 May).

Archbishop Wilson, the most senior Catholic cleric to date to be convicted on a charge of concealing child abuse, faces up to two years in jail when sentenced on 19 June. Mr Stone has the option of suspending the sentence, but prosecutors are seeking a custodial sentence.

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PENNSYLVANIA
Sharon Herald

By DAVE SUTOR The Tribune-Democrat

May 21, 2018

HARRISBURG — Dioceses in Allentown, Scranton, Erie and Pittsburgh had already said they support releasing the findings of the investigation that has been underway since 2016.

“Today, in a reversal of their position, the bishops and dioceses of Greensburg and Harrisburg agreed to make public the results of a grand jury investigation of widespread sexual abuse within the Catholic Church. I commend Bishop (Edward) Malesic and Bishop (Ronald) Gainer for doing the right thing,” Attorney General Josh Shapiro said Monday.

“Now all of the dioceses support the release of the investigation’s findings and results.”

Robert Hoatson, founder of Road to Recovery, a support group for victims, expects there will be some “very damning conclusions from the grand jury.”

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

May 22, 2018

The verdict in the case of Archbishop Philip Wilson — the most senior Catholic to be charged with concealing child abuse — is already being declared a “landmark” case, with one legal expert predicting it could trigger a flood of other prosecutions.

Wilson — who became the Archbishop of Adelaide in 2001 — was found guilty of covering up abuse by priest Jim Fletcher in the NSW Hunter region in the 1970s.

Magistrate Robert Stone told the court he did not accept Wilson could not recall a 1976 conversation with the victim.

Prominent defence lawyer and co-chair of the South Australian Law Society’s criminal law committee Craig Caldicott said today’s verdict was important because of the precedent it set.

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PENNSYLVANIA
The Morning Call

May 21, 2018

Tim Darragh
Of The Morning Call

The release of a report detailing decades of sexual abuse within six Pennsylvania Catholic dioceses, including Allentown, was cleared Monday after two other dioceses gave up legal challenges.

Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro said Monday that the dioceses of Greensburg and Harrisburg were backing off legal challenges that could have possibly blocked release of the report.

“Today, in a reversal of their position, the bishops and dioceses of Greensburg and Harrisburg agreed to make public the results of a grand jury investigation of widespread sexual abuse within the Catholic church,” Shapiro said in a statement.

He commended Greensburg Bishop Edward Malesic and Harrisburg Bishop Ronald Gainer “for doing the right thing.”

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PENNSYLVANIA
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

PETER SMITH
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

MAY 21, 2018

EBENSBURG — Two dioceses reversed their position on a statewide grand jury investigating sexual abuse Monday, according to state Attorney General Josh Shapiro. The announcement came after a closed-door hearing before the presiding judge of the grand jury

“Today, in a reversal of their position, the bishops and dioceses of Greensburg and Harrisburg agreed to make public the results of a grand jury investigation of widespread sexual abuse within the Catholic Church. I commend Bishop [Edward C.] Malesic and Bishop [Ronald W.] Gainer for doing the right thing,” Mr. Shapiro said in a statement.

“Now all of the dioceses support the release of the investigation’s findings and results.”

The announcement followed a hearing in which Cambria County Judge Norman Krumenacker III presided. It was just days after statements from the diocese of Greensburg and Harrisburg calling for due process with the imminent release of a grand jury report.

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PENNSYLVANIA
PennLive

May 21, 2018

By Ivey DeJesus idejesus@pennlive.com

The Diocese of Harrisburg – one of six dioceses under state investigation for clergy sex abuse – on Monday walked back the suggestion that it might oppose the findings of a grand jury investigation.

In a statement to the media Attorney General Josh Shapiro applauded the decision, which was also taken by the Diocese of Greensburg.

Shapiro commended Bishops Ronald Gainer of Harrisburg and Bishop Edward Malesic of Greensburg for “doing the right thing.”

“Victims of this sexual abuse deserve the right to tell their stories to the people of Pennsylvania,” Shapiro said. “That is why my legal team and I have worked tirelessly to have each diocese agree to give victims the opportunity to be heard.”

The decision from the heads of the Harrisburg and Greensburg dioceses means that all six dioceses are in support of the release of the investigation’s findings and results and that the bishops will not stall the process.

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ARGENTINA
Yahoo!

AFP

May 21, 2018

Buenos Aires (AFP) – An Argentine court sentenced a Catholic priest to 25 years in jail on Monday for sexually abusing seven children over a period of years.

Justo Jose Ilarraz had initially been held under house arrest until the 25-year sentence was confirmed on appeal.

Ilarraz, 57, carried out the abuse at a diocesan school in the city of Parana, 600 kilometers (400 miles) north of Buenos Aires, where he was in charge of discipline and spiritual guidance.

Prosecutors said the victims, aged 13 and 14, were boarders at the seminary school and cut off from their families, whom they saw once a month.

The boys were sexually abused by Ilarraz at the seminary between 1985 and 1993, the prosecution said.

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VATICAN CITY
The Atlantic

May 21, 2019

EMMA GREEN

The Vatican is working through an extraordinary series of events related to child sex abuse. Last month, Pope Francis apologized for “grave errors” in the way the Catholic Church handled sex-abuse cases in Chile, where a bishop, Juan Barros Madrid, was accused of covering up the crimes of another priest, Fernando Karadima. On Friday, following an emergency meeting in Rome with the pope, all 34 Chilean bishops offered their resignation over their handling of the allegations, an apparently unprecedented move.

Then, on Monday, the Spanish newspaper El Paīs reported that Juan Carlos Cruz, a Chilean sex-abuse survivor, had spoken with Pope Francis about his gay identity during a long meeting. “It doesn’t matter that you’re gay. God made you that way and that is the way he wants you to be, and I don’t mind,” Francis said, according to Cruz. “The pope wants you this way, too, and you have to be happy with who you are.”

The quickly unfolding events suggest an aggressive redirection for Pope Francis, who elevated the Chilean scandal into a full-on crisis in January, when he vigorously defended Barros during a papal visit to Chile and Peru. As the Church continues to wrestle with the aftershocks caused by clergy sex abuse around the world, its efforts to make amends in Chile may be a sign of a new approach ahead—or the extreme difficulty of recovering from years of misconduct and mishandled allegations.

The Chilean Church has been publicly grappling with its sex-abuse scandal for more than a half decade. In 2011, the Vatican announced that it had found Karadima guilty of sexually abusing minors. Subsequent developments suggested that Chilean bishops tried to keep the voices of abuse victims from being heard. Leaked emails showed that two cardinals sought to block Cruz, the Chilean abuse survivor, from serving on Pope Francis’s commission for the protection of minors. Victims accused Barros, who spent more than 30 years working with Karadima, of witnessing and covering up the abuse. Yet in 2015, Francis appointed him bishop of a diocese in southern Chile. When protesters objected to the move, the pope called them “dumb,” saying they had no proof against Barros.

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HARRISBURG (PA)
Office of the Attorney General

May 21, 2018

“Today, in a reversal of their position, the bishops and dioceses of Greensburg and Harrisburg agreed to make public the results of a grand jury investigation of widespread sexual abuse within the Catholic Church. I commend Bishop Malesic and Bishop Gainer for doing the right thing,” Attorney General Josh Shapiro said.

“Now all of the dioceses support the release of the investigation’s findings and results.”

“Victims of this sexual abuse deserve the right to tell their stories to the people of Pennsylvania. That is why my legal team and I have worked tirelessly to have each diocese agree to give victims the opportunity to be heard.”

“I expect to speak publicly on this comprehensive investigation by the end of June. The only thing that could stop these findings from becoming public at that time is if one of the bishops or dioceses would seek to delay or prevent this public accounting.”

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VATICAN CITY
America

Gerard O’Connell

May 21, 2018

Pope Francis took many Vatican watchers by surprise on Sunday, May 20, when, after reciting the Regina Coeli and praying for peace in the Holy Land and Venezuela, he announced that he would create 14 new cardinals on June 29.

It had been expected that he would hold a consistory this year since the number of cardinal electors would have decreased from 116 to 115 on June 8 when Cardinal Amato of Italy turns 80. Given that this number would not change by reason of age for the rest of the year, it was logical for the pope to decide to hold it at the end of June. In this way, he ensures that the number of electors will remain close to the full complement of 120. With Sunday’s announcement, that number stands at 126 (125 after June 8).

This will be his fifth consistory since his election as pope on March 13, 2013, and Francis has adopted the same criteria in his choice of men to be cardinals: universality; attention to “the peripheries”; humble pastors with “the smell of the sheep”; reducing the overall number of Europeans and Italians in the electoral college; abandoning the tradition that appointment to certain sees automatically brings with it a red hat; and restricting the number of Roman Curia cardinals by reserving the red hat only for the prefects of congregations (or their equivalent).

Pope Francis is trying to ensure that those who elect his successor are humble men committed to “a church of the poor and for the poor.”

By carefully choosing the new cardinals, Pope Francis is trying to ensure that those who elect his successor are humble, spiritual men committed to “a church of the poor and for the poor,” a church that is “a field hospital” and puts mercy at the heart of its mission. The pope wants “a missionary church” that reaches out to the various peripheries of the world, a church, devoid of clericalism, that involves the whole people of God. Francis has now chosen 59 of the 126 current electors—roughly 47 percent of the electoral college. Benedict XVI named 46 of the others, while St. John Paul II created the remaining 20.

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VATICAN CITY
New York Times

By The Associated Press

May 20, 2018

VATICAN CITY — Pope Francis announced on Sunday that he had chosen 14 men to be the newest cardinals in the Catholic Church, among them his chief aide for helping Rome’s homeless and poor, as well as prelates based in Iraq and Pakistan, where Christians are a vulnerable minority.

“I am happy to announce that on June 29, I will hold a consistory to make 14 new cardinals,” Francis said, referring to a ceremony, in remarks to pilgrims and tourists in St. Peter’s Square.

“The countries of provenance express the universality of the church, which continues to announce the merciful love of God to all men on Earth,” he added.

The list of new “princes of the church” included names from Africa, elsewhere in Asia, and South America, as Francis continues to make the College of Cardinals less European than it had been in centuries past.

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CHILE
Catholic News Agencyi

By Elise Harris

Rancagua, Chile, May 21, 2018 / 12:23 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Over the weekend, Chilean Bishop Alejandro Goić Karmelić suspended several priests after allegations of sexual misconduct were raised against them. He apologized for not following up when the accusations were first brought to his attention.

“I would like to ask forgiveness for my actions in this case,” the bishop said in a May 19 statement.

Goić, who heads the diocese of Rancagua, said he “acted without the proper swiftness” when a woman came to him nearly a year ago with concerns regarding the conduct of Fr. Luis Rubio and other priests.

Goić’s apology came the day after a program detailing accusations against Rubio was aired on Chile’s TV13 channel, the same station that leaked Pope Francis’ 10-page letter to Chilean bishops chastising them for a systematic cover-up of clerical abuse and calling them to institute deep changes.

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ILLINOIS
WGN

MAY 21, 2018

BY BILL KISSINGER

EVANSTON, Ill. — A former priest has been charged with sexually assaulting a 13-year-old boy in an Evanston hotel room nearly two decades ago.

Kenneth Lewis, 56, was arrested after returning to the U.S. from Ecuador on May 9.

Lewis was never assigned to work as a priest in the Chicago area, but he attended the St. Mary of the Lake Seminary in suburban Mundelein between 1987 and 1991.

He served as a priest in Oklahoma where he faced an extensive history of sexual abuse allegations.

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SPAIN
El Pais

CARLOS E. CUÉ

May 21, 2018

Madrid

Juan Carlos Cruz is still recovering from the shock. Three months ago, Cruz, who was a victim of sex abuse by a Chilean priest named Fernando Karadima, clashed with Pope Francis during the latter’s trip to the South American nation.

The head of the Roman Catholic Church accused Cruz of making slanderous statements without proof against Bishop Juan Barros, who had once been a protégé of Karadima. According to Cruz, Barros had been present when Karadima abused him in the 1980s, but later tried to hinder an investigation into his mentor.

The pope is taking unprecedented steps, he knows that the whole world is watching

Some time after the public spat, and following a Vatican investigation, the pontiff invited Cruz to spend at week at his own residence in Santa Marta, where he apologized and said that he now believed his story.

Since then, all 34 bishops of Chile have offered to resign over the scandal, marking a milestone in the global fight by victims of Church abuse. In a telephone interview with EL PAÍS, an emotional Cruz said he trusts that Pope Francis’ change of heart is definitive.

Question. How did you take the news about the 34 bishops’ offer to resign?

Answer. I am overcome with emotion after spending a week at the Pope’s house and talking with him for hours, as though we’d been lifelong friends, and then seeing his letter to the Chilean bishops mentioning many of the things that we’d discussed together and which he took very seriously, such as the issue of corruption among the bishops, and how he accused them of concealing documents and minimizing things…I was touched that he took our conversation so seriously. I felt that our time together was not simply a protocol thing or a public relations stunt.

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IRELAND
Irish Times

May 20, 2018

Patsy McGarry

Ireland’s Catholic bishops considered resigning en masse following the publication of the Ryan and Murphy reports into child abuse in 2009, former president Mary McAleese has said.

“I do remember, at the time of our own problems with the Ryan and Murphy reports in particular, that there was a suggestion from a very senior cleric in Ireland that the Irish bishops might consider something like that,” she said in Dublin on Saturday. “It didn’t happen. I don’t really know if it was discussed.”

Ms McAleese was speaking in the context of the mass resignation by Chile’s 34 Catholic bishops last Friday after they were summoned to Rome to meet Pope Francis in connection with cover-up of clerical child sexual abuse in that country.

In a similar context, Ireland’s Catholic bishops were summoned to Rome in February 2010 to meet Pope Benedict XVI.

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VATICAN CITY
Associated Press

By NICOLE WINFIELD

VATICAN CITY (AP) — Pope Francis’ reported comments to a gay man that “God made you like this” have been embraced by the LGBT community as another sign of Francis’ desire to make gay people feel welcomed and loved in the Catholic Church.

Juan Carlos Cruz, the main whistleblower in Chile’s clerical sex abuse and cover-up scandal, said Monday he spoke to Francis about his homosexuality during their recent meetings at the Vatican. The pope invited Cruz and other victims of a Chilean predator priest to discuss their cases last month.

Cruz said he told Francis how Chile’s bishops used his sexual orientation as a weapon to try to discredit him, and of the pain the personal attacks had caused him.

“He said, ‘Look Juan Carlos, the pope loves you this way. God made you like this and he loves you,’” Cruz told The Associated Press.

The Vatican declined to confirm or deny the remarks in keeping with its policy not to comment on the pope’s private conversations. The comments first were reported by Spain’s El Pais newspaper.

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UNITED KINGDOM
The Guardian

Ruth Hunt

21 May 2018 1

It is immensely powerful to hear that Pope Francis, the leader of the Roman Catholic church, reportedly told Juan Carlos Cruz, a gay man: “God made you like this and loves you like this.”

Cruz is a survivor of clerical abuse who spoke privately with the pope a few weeks ago, and has since reported his conversation to Spanish newspapers. His abuser, Fernando Karadima, was found guilty of abuse by the Vatican in 2011.

As a practising Catholic, I find it deeply moving to have Pope Francis appear to confirm what many Catholics already know to be true: God made us just as we should be, there are no mistakes.

Lesbian, gay, bi and trans people exist in every community, from every ethnic background and in every religion. However, religion can often be the area of life that people find the most difficult to reconcile with their identity. Some people will say that LGBT people can’t exist in faith communities; that faith communities don’t accept same-sex relationships or those whose gender doesn’t match the one that they were assigned at birth. Some believe that LGBT people can and should be “cured”. As a result of these beliefs, LGBT people often need to find a way to God despite their leaders, rather than because of them. But the pope’s reported words are a striking affirmation that LGBT people of faith belong in church and in religious communities.

I have never felt excluded from the church and have always been made to feel welcome. But I have met many people who have had different experiences; people who have been damaged by being told to deny their sexuality or who feel rejected by God.

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MARYLAND
Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Baltimore

CATHOLIC REVIEW STAFF

MAY 21, 2018

The following news release was issued by the Archdiocese of Baltimore May 21 concerning the pastor of Our Lady of Pompei in Highlandtown:

The Archdiocese of Baltimore has learned of an allegation of child sexual abuse against Father Luigi Esposito, 77, pastor at Our Lady of Pompei Church in Baltimore. The alleged abuse occurred in the 1970s while Father Esposito was serving as Associate Pastor at Our Lady of Pompei. The alleged victim claims the abuse began at the age of 14 and occurred multiple times while the minor was at Our Lady of Pompei.

The Archdiocese has been cooperating and sharing information with the civil authorities and on May 17, after receiving permission from civil authorities to make contact with Father Esposito, representatives of the Archdiocese met with him to discuss the allegations. He denied all the allegations against him. The Archdiocese spoke a number of times with the alleged victim and the allegations were consistent. Pursuant to Archdiocesan policy, the Archdiocese suspended Father Esposito from ministry and removed his faculties to function as a priest, pending the outcome of its investigation.

Yesterday, representatives of the Archdiocese met with parishioners and staff at Our Lady of Pompei to inform them of the allegations and to answer questions. The Archdiocese is working with the parish and staff to provide pastoral care to the Our Lady of Pompei community.

In accordance with Archdiocesan policy, the Archdiocese has offered counseling assistance to those affected.

In 1964, Luigi Esposito was ordained a priest of the Congregation of the Mission of St. Vincent de Paul, a religious order also known as the Vincentians, in Naples, Italy. He was incardinated, the process whereby a diocesan or religious order priest becomes a priest of another diocese, into the Archdiocese of Baltimore in 2000.

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MARYLAND
WBAL

May 21, 2018

Tyler Waldman, WBAL NewsRadio 1090

The Archdiocese of Baltimore on Monday suspended the pastor of a Highlandtown church after someone alleged the pastor abused them multiple times in the 1970s.

Father Luigi Esposito, 77, is pastor at Our Lady of Pompei Church. The alleged abuse took place while Esposito was associate pastor there. The victim told the archdiocese that the abuse began when the victim was 14 and happened multiple times while the alleged victim was at the church.

“The Archdiocese of Baltimore is committed to protecting children and helping to heal victims of abuse,” archdiocesan officials said in a statement. “We urge anyone who has any knowledge of any child sexual abuse to come forward, and to report it immediately to civil authorities.”

In a statement, archdiocese officials said they have been cooperating with authorities and, with permission from investigators, met with Esposito last Thursday, May 17 to discuss the claims. He denied all allegations. Officials also spoke multiple times with the alleged victim, whose allegations remained consistent. Espositio was then suspended from ministry pending the outcome of its own investigation.

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VATICAN CITY
National Catholic Reporter

May 20, 2018

by Joshua J. McElwee

ROME — Pope Francis named fourteen new Catholic cardinals May 20, again diversifying representation in the most elite body of church prelates with selections from places as far-flung as Iraq, Pakistan and Japan and solidifying his influence on the group that will one day elect his successor.

In a surprise announcement at the end of his traditional Regina Coeli prayer with crowds in St. Peter’s Square, the pontiff said he would install the new cardinals during a consistory at the Vatican June 29.

As the pope began to give the names of those he would make cardinals, the first pronounced was notable: Chaldean Patriarch Louis Raphaël I Sako, an Iraqi who often speaks publicly about the suffering his people have encountered after the U.S.-led invasion of their country in 2003.

Others named included Karachi, Pakistan Archbishop Joseph Coutts; Huancayo, Peru Archbishop Pedro Barreto; Toamasina, Madagascar Archbishop Desire Tsarahazana; and Osaka, Japan Archbishop Thomas Aquinas Manyo Maeda.

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VATICAN CITY
Los Angeles Times

By TOM KINGTON

MAY 20, 2018

Pope Francis has reportedly told a gay man that “God made you that way and loves you as you are,” apparently pushing the pontiff’s acceptance of homosexuality to a new level.

Francis made the comments to Juan Carlos Cruz, a Chilean victim of priestly sexual abuse who recently spent days with the pope at the Vatican to discuss his ordeal as the pontiff moves to tackle decades of coverups and ostracism of victims in the Chilean church, according to the Spanish newspaper El Pais.

Cruz was quoted as having discussed his homosexuality with Francis. “He told me: ‘Juan Carlos, I don’t care about you being gay. God made you that way and loves you as you are and I don’t mind. The pope loves you as you are, you have to be happy with who you are.’ ”

A spokesman at the Vatican on Sunday declined to confirm or deny Francis’ comments, stating, “We don’t normally comment on the pope’s private conversations.”

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SCOTLAND
Scottish Sun

By Ben Archibald

21st May 2018

AN abuse victim has told how he suffered years of hell at a scandal-hit kids’ home run by nuns.

Paul Dallas, 45, claims he was beaten by the brutal sisters every day from the age of five.

And he revealed he was tied naked to railings during the physical and sexual abuse at Nazareth House in Lasswade, Midlothian.

Waiving his right to anonymity, Paul, of Govanhill, Glasgow, said: “I’ve never recovered.

“You were in constant fear. You’d hear kids screaming and wonder, ‘Who will get beaten next?’.

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ILLINOIS
Chicago Sun-Times

May 21, 2018

Nader Issa @NaderDIssa

A former Catholic priest with Chicago ties is facing criminal charges for the first time, nearly two decades after he resigned from his post amid several allegations of child sex abuse.

The case that eventually landed 56-year-old Kenneth Lewis in the Leighton Criminal Court Building on Saturday in Chicago stems from a decade-old allegation of child molestation in an Evanston hotel room, according to a police source in the northern suburb.

In that incident, “Father Ken,” a former pastor in Tulsa, Oklahoma, is accused of sexually assaulting a 13-year-old boy on a trip in late July 2001, in a hotel at 1501 Sherman Ave., the Evanston police source told the Chicago Sun-Times. The hotel at that address is now the Holiday Inn Chicago North.

The boy’s parents filed a report with Tulsa police in June 2004, nearly three years after the alleged assault. Authorities in Oklahoma referred the case to Evanston police, and now, 14 years later, Lewis has been criminally charged in the case.

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VATICAN CITY
Crux

Inés San Martín
VATICAN CORRESPONDENT

May 21, 2018

ROME – As part of the fallout of Pope Francis’ meeting with 34 Chilean bishops that led to the resignation of all of them, accused or at least suspected of covering up cases of clerical sexual abuse and destroying damning evidence, the survivors who met with him in April continue to share bits and pieces of their encounter with the pontiff.

“Juan Carlos, that you are gay doesn’t matter,” Francis reportedly told clerical sexual abuse survivor Juan Carlos Cruz. “God made you like this and loves you like this and it doesn’t matter to me. The pope loves you like this, you have to be happy with who you are.”

Cruz is one of three of the victims of Father Fernando Karadima who were in Rome in late April for a weekend meeting with Pope Francis. His comments came in an interview with Spanish daily El Pais.

Cruz was answering a question about his homosexuality, and was asked if he’d spoken with the pope about it and the suffering he was subjected to as a result of it. He answered affirmatively.

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VATICAN CITY
Daily Mail

By CHRIS PLEASANCE FOR MAILONLINE and REUTERS

21 May 2018

Pope Francis allegedly told a gay man: ‘That you are gay does not matter. God made you like that and he loves you like that’

Pope Francis told a gay man that ‘God made you like that’ and that being homosexual ‘does not matter’, it has been reported.

Juan Carlos Cruz, a victim of sexual abuse by bishops in Chile, claims the Pope made the remark during a private meeting at the Vatican three weeks ago.

Cruz was invited to the city and to the Pope’s private residence at Sancta Marta along with two other victims so the pontiff could apologise for failing to take their allegations seriously in the past.

During the meeting Cruz told Francis about being abused by Father Fernando Karadima and the fact that his sexuality had been used to discredit him.

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ROME (ITALY)
Los Angeles Times

May 20, 2018

By Tom Kington

Pope Francis has reportedly told a gay man that “God made you that way and loves you as you are,” apparently pushing the pontiff’s acceptance of homosexuality to a new level.

Francis made the comments to Juan Carlos Cruz, a Chilean victim of priestly sexual abuse who recently spent days with the pope at the Vatican to discuss his ordeal as the pontiff moves to tackle decades of coverups and ostracism of victims in the Chilean church, according to the Spanish newspaper El Pais.

Cruz was quoted as having discussed his homosexuality with Francis. “He told me: ‘Juan Carlos, I don’t care about you being gay. God made you that way and loves you as you are and I don’t mind. The pope loves you as you are, you have to be happy with who you are.”

A spokesman at the Vatican on Sunday declined to confirm or deny Francis’ comments, stating, “We don’t normally comment on the pope’s private conversations.”

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GUAYAQUIL (ECUADOR)
El Comercio

May 18, 2018

By Elena Paucar

20 years in prison for priest accused of rape

El sacerdote Pedro G. fue sentenciado a 20 años de pena privativa de libertad. El Tribunal lo declaró culpable de violación contra una menor, según informó la Fiscalía del Guayas este viernes, 18 de mayo del 2018.

El sentenciado fue párroco en una iglesia del centro-sur de Guayaquil, a la que llegó en el 2011. Un año después comenzó el acoso y el abuso sexual contra varias menores que acudían a la iglesia. Parte de sus víctimas eran integrantes de un coro que él ordenó crear.

El 11 de mayo se realizó la última audiencia en el caso denunciado por la madre de una menor, que actualmente tiene 16 años. La niña solo tenía solo 11 cuando fue violada por el expárroco, que tras la denuncia huyó. En el 2017 fue detenido en Quito.

[Google Translation: The priest Pedro G. was sentenced to 20 years of custodial sentence . The Court found him guilty of rape against a minor, according to the Attorney General’s Office of Guayas on Friday, May 18, 2018.

The sentenced person was a parish priest in a church in the center-south of Guayaquil , which he arrived in 2011. A year later, sexual harassment and abuse began against several minors who went to church. Part of his victims were members of a choir he ordered to create.

On May 11, the last hearing was held in the case reported by the mother of a minor , who is currently 16 years old. The girl was only 11 when she was raped by the pastor, who fled after the complaint. In 2017 he was arrested in Quito.]

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ROME
NPR (The Two-Way)

By Sasha Ingber

May 18, 2018

All 31 active bishops in Chile offered to resign Friday, following a meeting that Pope Francis called to examine the Chilean clergy’s failure to protect children from pedophiles.

The bishops started the conference by thanking the pope for his “brotherly correction” and the victims of sexual abuse for their bravery and perseverance in coming forward. Their statement was read aloud to the press in Spanish and Italian.

“We want to ask forgiveness for the pain we caused victims, the pope, the people of God and our country for the grave errors and omissions that we committed,” they said.

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UNITED STATES
Advocate

May 20, 2018

By Daniel Reynolds

The leader of the Catholic Church gave an affirmative message to a survivor of child abuse.

A gay victim of sexual abuse said he received a moving message of support from Pope Francis.

Juan Carlos Cruz met with the leader of the Catholic Church last week, in order to discuss the abuse he suffered at the hands of Father Fernando Karadima. The Chilean Catholic priest was found guilty of sexually abusing minors by the Vatican in 2011, and Cruz is one of the survivors.

In an interview with the Spanish newspaper El País, Cruz recounted how the subject of his sexual orientation came up during the meeting, because it was used against him by some Latin American media outlets, which sought to smear him as a pervert and a liar about his abuse.

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RANCAGUA [CHILE]
Diocese of Rancagua

May 14, 2018

[Google Translation: Information to the community: Live the priestly integrity]

[Note from BishopAccountability.org: This is an announcement from the Rancagua diocese about a public admission of “improper conduct” by Rancagua priest Luis Rubio Contreras. In this notice, the bishop admits that he had been notified previously about this priest but had ‘investigated the facts without results.’ Within a few days, the story had grown, revealing the victim’s very different account of Bishop Goic’s response as well as a reported sex abuse network involving 17 priests in the diocese.]

[Google Translation: The Bishopric of Rancagua informs the community, that we have become aware on Saturday, May 12 through the diocesan priest Luis Rubio Contreras, that he has incurred in improper conduct to his priestly status. We want to point out:

1.- The Bishopric of Rancagua received in reserve antecedents of these improper conducts, investigating the facts without results. Then the presbyter Luis Rubio recognized this Saturday the Vicar General of the diocese his improper behavior, noting that he had been contacted by a media outlet before which he accepted these facts. Faced with this situation, today, Monday, May 14, the measure to temporarily suspend the exercise of his ministry to the presbyter, as a precautionary measure, while inquiring and delivering to the Holy See the background of the case has been adopted.

2.- We have learned that this same means of communication has also interviewed other diocesan priests about these behaviors.]

El Obispado de Rancagua informa a la comunidad, que hemos tomado conocimiento el sábado 12 de mayo a través del presbítero diocesano Luis Rubio Contreras, de que ha incurrido en conductas impropias a su estado sacerdotal. Queremos señalar:

1.- El Obispado de Rancagua recibió en reserva antecedentes de estas conductas impropias, indagándose los hechos sin resultados. Luego el presbítero Luis Rubio reconoció este sábado al Vicario General de la diócesis su comportamiento impropio, señalando que había sido contactado por un medio de comunicación ante el cual aceptó estos hechos. Frente esta situación se ha adoptado hoy lunes 14 de mayo la medida de suspender temporalmente del ejercicio de su ministerio al presbítero, como medida cautelar, mientras se indaguen y entreguen a la Santa Sede los antecedentes de la causa.

2.- Hemos tomado conocimiento de que este mismo medio de comunicación también ha entrevistado a otros sacerdotes diocesanos sobre estas conductas.

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ROME
NPR

May 20, 2018

[AUDIO]

NPR’s Lulu Garcia-Navarro talks to Ines San Martin, a Vatican reporter with the news site Crux, about all 34 Catholic bishops offering to resign following a massive sex abuse scandal in Chile.

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NORTHERN IRELAND
RTÉ

May 20, 2018

By Joe Little

A Catholic priest has voluntarily stepped aside from his duties in the Northern diocese of Dromore while police investigate a historical allegation of abuse against him.

A statement from the diocese says that both it and the priest are co-operating fully with the ongoing PSNI investigation and that they will continue to do so.

In February, the Bishop of Dromore, John MacAreavey resigned because of criticism by victims of the paedophile Fr Malachy Finegan of the bishop’s handling of allegations against him.

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UNITED STATES
El País

May 19, 2018

By Carlos E. Cué

[“The Pope asked me for forgiveness, he is scared with the abuses, this is a tsunami”]

[Google Translation: Juan Carlos Cruz still does not recover from his stupor. Three months ago, this victim of the abuses of the Chilean priest Fernando Karadima carried out a dialectical clash with the Pope, who in full trip to the southern country accused him of launching “infamies” against Bishop Juan Barros, a disciple of Karadima, who according to Cruz was present when he abused him. Afterwards, the Pope took a 180 degree turn, invited him for a week to Santa Marta, his residence, asked for forgiveness and believed him. And now he has seen how the 34 Chilean bishops resigned forced by Francisco . An unprecedented success that marks a milestone in the struggle of victims around the world. Cruz answers by phone to EL PAÍS, very excited and confident that the turn of the Pope is final.

Question. How do you feel about the news of the resignation of the 34 bishops?

Answer. I’m over the top After spending a week at the Pope’s house talking to him for hours, as if I had known him all his life, and he was so affectionate, now to see that he in the letter to the Chilean bishops told them many things that we talked about, that he took it very seriously, as when he talks about the corruption of bishops, and accuses them of hiding documents, or of minimizing things. I was thrilled that he took what we talked so seriously. I felt that our visit was not a matter of protocol, of public relations.]

Juan Carlos Cruz aún no se recupera de su estupor. Hace tres meses, esta víctima de los abusos del sacerdote chileno Fernando Karadima protagonizaba un choque dialéctico con el Papa, que en pleno viaje al país austral le acusaba de lanzar “infamias” contra el obispo Juan Barros, discípulo de Karadima, que según Cruz estaba presente cuando abusaba de él. Después, el Papa dio un giro de 180 grados, lo invitó una semana a Santa Marta, su residencia, le pidió perdón y le creyó. Y ahora ha visto cómo los 34 obispos chilenos dimitían forzados por Francisco. Un éxito sin precedentes que marca un hito en la lucha de las víctimas de todo el mundo. Cruz contesta por teléfono a EL PAÍS, muy emocionado y confiado en que el giro del Papa es definitivo.

Pregunta. ¿Cómo vive la noticia de la dimisión de los 34 obispos?

Respuesta. Estoy sobrepasado. Después de pasar una semana en casa del Papa hablando con él horas, como si lo conociera de toda la vida, y él tan cariñoso, ahora ver que él en la carta a los obispos chilenos les decía muchas cosas de las que hablamos, que las tomó muy en serio, como cuando habla de la corrupción de los obispos, y los acusa de esconder documentos, o de minimizar las cosas. Me emocionó que él se tomase tan en serio lo que conversamos. Sentí que nuestra visita no fue una cosa de protocolo, de relaciones públicas.

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CHILE
France 24

May 18, 2018, updated May 20, 2018

By Nicole Trian

The Catholic Church is facing a widening crisis over claims of child sex abuse and cover-ups that triggered the unprecedented resignation of all 34 of Chile’s bishops on Friday after the pope accused them of “grave negligence.”

The decision to resign followed four days of emergency talks with Pope Francis in which the pontiff accused bishops of failing to investigate abuse allegations amid claims that evidence of sex crimes had been destroyed.It is the first time all of the most senior clerics of a country have volunteered to stand down over sex abuse claims. They asked forgiveness from the victims, the pope and all Catholics for their “grave errors and omissions” while vowing to repair the damage.

One of the resigning bishops, Alejandro Goic, apologised again Saturday for failing to respond to reports of cases of sexual abuse in his diocese, including one involving a priest who sent naked pictures of himself to a false Facebook profile in a sting operation.

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RANCAGUA [CHILE]
La Tercera

May 19, 2018

Bishop Goic notifies prosecution of possible abuses in Rancagua and asks for forgiveness

By Paola Moreno and Oscar Pérez

[Google Translation: After a story, the prelate suspended about 15 priests, of the 68 that are in the diocese, and acknowledged that he acted “without adequate agility.”]

[One by one. From his desk. By phone. This is how the bishop of Rancagua, Alejandro Goic, was today in the afternoon, calling each of the priests allegedly involved in “improper behavior” to inform them that they were suspended from their pastoral exercise while the situation was being investigated. There are 15 priests, out of a total of 68 in the diocese.

[The measures of the bishopric, however, were taken not from the allegations of the alleged victims, but after the broadcast of a report from Channel 13 about a group of priests who called himself “the family” and who, between other practices, they contacted young people online, holding conversations with sexual connotation. According to the complaint, one of the members of the group is the priest Luis Rubio, from the municipality of Paredones.]

Tras un reportaje, el prelado suspendió a cerca de 15 sacerdotes, de los 68 que hay en la diócesis, y reconoció que actuó “sin la agilidad adecuada”.

Uno por uno. Desde su escritorio. Por teléfono. Así estaba hoy por la tarde el obispo de Rancagua, Alejandro Goic, llamando a cada uno de los sacerdotes supuestamente involucrados en “conductas impropias”, para comunicarles que estaban suspendidos de su ejercicio pastoral mientras se investiga la situación. Se trata de 15 presbíteros, de un total de 68 que hay en la diócesis.

Las medidas del obispado, sin embargo, se tomaron no a partir de las denuncias de las supuestas víctimas, sino después de la emisión de un reportaje de Canal 13 respecto de un grupo de sacerdotes que se hacía llamar “la familia” y que, entre otras prácticas, se contactaban con jóvenes por Internet, manteniendo conversaciones con connotación sexual. Según la denuncia, uno de los miembros del grupo es el sacerdote Luis Rubio, de la comuna de Paredones.

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RANCAGUA [CHILE]
T13 Television

May 19, 2018

[VIDEO] Full statement of Bishop Goic for report of T13 “The end of silence”

El obispo de Rancagua reconoce no haber tenido “la agilidad adecuada” en el proceso indagatorio de las denuncias por conductas sexuales inapropiadas de sacerdotes de su diócesis, reveladas por una investigación periodística de T13.

[Google Translation: The bishop of Rancagua admits he did not have “adequate agility” in the process of investigating the reports of inappropriate sexual behavior of priests of his diocese, revealed by a journalistic investigation of T13.]

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RANCAGUA [CHILE]
T13 Television

May 18, 2018

[VIDEO] The end of silence: they denounce priests for alleged abuses

En medio de las duras críticas que realizó el Papa Francisco contra la jerarquía de la Iglesia, una nueva denuncia afecta a sacerdotes chilenos. Una investigación de T13 revela las conductas inapropiadas de presbíteros de la Diócesis de Rancagua y da cuenta de la versión de feligreses que aseguran que pusieron hace más de un año -sin resultados- los antecedentes en manos de Alejandro Goic, obispo de la zona y presidente del Consejo de Prevención de Abusos del Episcopado. “Yo no soy detective”, se defiende Goic.

[Google Translation: Amidst the harsh criticisms made by Pope Francis against the hierarchy of the Church, a new denunciation affects Chilean priests. An investigation of T13 reveals the inappropriate behavior of priests of the Diocese of Rancagua and accounts for the version of parishioners who say that they put more than a year ago – without results – the records in the hands of Alejandro Goic, bishop of the area and president of the Council for the Prevention of Abuses of the Episcopate. “I’m not a detective,” defends Goic.]

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SANTIAGO (CHILE)
Associated Press

May 20, 2018

A Chilean bishop apologized Saturday for not promptly investigating a reported case of sexual abuse in his diocese, a day after every bishop in the South American country offered to resign over what Pope Francis said was their negligence in protecting children.

“I want to apologize for my actions in this case,” said Bishop Alejandro Goic, referring to abuse allegations made in a report by Chile’s T13 television against priest Luis Rubio.

In the report, Rubio acknowledges having sent pictures of himself naked to a false profile of a minor set up on Facebook to catch him.

Elisa Fernandez, who worked in the youth ministry in the community of Paredones, told T13 that she repeatedly informed Goic about the abuses, but the bishop always demanded proof.

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CHILE
Rio Bueno Noticias (RBN)

May 19, 2018

[Juan Carlos Cruz on the Resignation Of Bishops: “Let Them Pack Their Suitcases”]

Juan Carlos Cruz, denunciante de los abusos sexuales al interior de la iglesia Católica, conversó con 24 Tarde para entregar sus impresiones respecto a la decisión de los obispos que este viernes pusieron su cargo a disposición del Papa Francisco.

Esto, luego que ayer finalizaran las tres jornadas de reflexión desarrolladas en Roma, donde los obispos fueron invitados a reflexionar y rezar los por hechos denunciados por las víctimas de los abusos.

Cruz señaló sentir emoción y tener sentimientos encontrados por lo ocurrido, señalando que sí sostuvo conversaciones con el Papa “y sabía más o menos lo que quería hacer, pero he estado en contacto con él y he estado dándole las gracias porque ha hecho lo que ha hecho, esto es inédito”, sostuvo.

En ese sentido, aseguró que el manejo de lo ocurrido no fue una sorpresa para él, agregando que “los obispos son una manga de corruptos que escondieron evidencia, que destrozaron documentos, que cometieron actos verdaderamente criminales”.

[Google Translation: Juan Carlos Cruz, a whistleblower of sexual abuse inside the Catholic church, spoke with 24 Tarde to give his impressions regarding the decision of the bishops who made their office available to Pope Francis this Friday.

This, after yesterday ended the three days of reflection developed in Rome, where the bishops were invited to reflect and pray for facts denounced by the victims of abuse.

Cruz said he felt emotional and had mixed feelings about what happened, saying that he did have conversations with the Pope “and I knew more or less what he wanted to do, but I have been in contact with him and I have been thanking him because he has done what he has done. fact, this is unprecedented, “he said.

In that sense, he said that the handling of what happened was not a surprise for him, adding that “the bishops are a bunch of corrupt people who hid evidence, who destroyed documents, who committed truly criminal acts.” ]

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NORTHERN IRELAND
Belfast Telegraph

May 19, 2018

By Jonathan Bell

A priest has stepped aside from his position to allow for a police investigation into a historic “safeguarding allegation”.

Police said they are investigating a complaint made in April.

The Diocese of Dromore confirmed the priest would be stepping aside in a statement on Saturday evening.

It said both the diocese and the priest were cooperating fully with the police.

“While this allegation is being investigated, and as part of the diocesan Safeguarding Procedures, the priest has voluntarily stepped aside from all public ministry pending the outcome of the investigation,” it said.

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ROME
The Guardian

May 20, 2018

By Stephanie Kirchgaessner in Rome

Juan Carlos Cruz, who was sexually abused, says pontiff told him God did not mind that he was gay

A survivor of clerical sexual abuse has said Pope Francis told him that God had made him gay and loved him, in arguably the most strikingly accepting comments about homosexuality to be uttered by the leader of the Roman Catholic church.

Juan Carlos Cruz, who spoke privately with the pope last week about the abuse he suffered at the hands of one of Chile’s most notorious paedophiles, said the issue of his sexuality had arisen because some of the Latin American country’s bishops had sought to depict him as a pervert as they accused him of lying about the abuse.

“He told me, ‘Juan Carlos, that you are gay does not matter. God made you like this and loves you like this and I don’t care. The pope loves you like this. You have to be happy with who you are,’” Cruz told Spanish newspaper El País.

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CHILE
Radio UChile

The “Karadima” of the other dioceses of Chile. During this week, Pope Francis met in the Vatican with the Chilean bishops who finally submitted their resignation. The situation of Juan Barros drew attention after being identified as a cover-up for the sexual abuse of Fernando Karadima. However, the crisis of the Chilean Catholic Church is observed several years ago. After many condemned the analysis focuses on the decisions and signals that have been given from the clerical leadership.

In Chilean criminal justice:
José Andrés Aguirre Ovarre, diocese of Santiago.
Víctor Carrera Triviño, diocese from Punta Arenas.
Jorge Galaz Espinoza, of the Work Don Orione.
Juan Henríquez Zapata, diocesen of Valparaíso.
Jaime Low Cabeza, diocese from Punta Arenas.
Marcelo Morales Márquez, of the Salesian Congregation (condemned for the production and storage of pornography).
Ricardo Muñoz Quinteros, diocese of Melipilla.
José Miguel Narváez Valenzuela, deacon of Ancud.
Eduardo Olivares Martínez, diocese of Valparaíso.
Juan Carlos Orellana Acuña, diocese of San Felipe.

* With canonical sentence:
Gerardo Araujo Sarabia, Peruvian Franciscan.
Jorge Baeza Ramírez, diocesen of Chillán.
Nibaldo Escalante Trigo, diocese of La Serena.
Fernando Karadima Fariña, diocesen of Santiago.
Juan Miguel Leturia Mermod, of the Society of Jesus.
René Benavides Rives, diocese of San Felipe.
José Román Zúñiga, diocese of the Illapel prelature.
Francisco Valenzuela Sanhueza, diocese of San Felipe.

19 de mayo 2018

Durante esta semana, el Papa Francisco se reunió en el Vaticano con los obispos chilenos quienes finalmente presentaron su renuncia. La situación de Juan Barros marcó la atención luego de ser señalado como encubridor de los abusos sexuales de Fernando Karadima. Sin embargo, la crisis de la Iglesia Católica chilena se observa hace varios años. Luego de numerosos condenados el análisis se enfoca en las decisiones y señales que se han dado desde la cúpula clerical.

“Spotlight” ganó el Óscar 2016 a Mejor Película. La cinta recordó la investigación de un grupo de periodistas de “The Boston Globe” que evidenció una serie de casos de abusos sexuales. Esto, remeció a la Iglesia Católica de Estados Unidos. En la ceremonia de premiación, uno de los productores, Michael Sugar, mandó un mensaje al Papa Francisco: “ha llegado la hora de proteger a los niños y restaurar la fe”.

Al cierre de la cinta se presenta una lista de lugares en todo el mundo donde también se revelaron estos casos. Nuestro país aparece citado 5 veces: Cottolengo, Maipú, Melipilla, Quilicura y Santiago.

Luego del escándalo por el Caso Karadima, la Conferencia Episcopal anunció en 2011 la creación del “Consejo nacional para la prevención de abusos contra menores de edad y acompañamiento a las víctimas”. Meses después entregó una lista oficial de sacerdotes condenados por abusos a menores.

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CHILE
ADN Radio

[The founder of the organization BishopAccountability.org , Anne Barrett-Doyle, underestimated the meetings between the Chilean bishops and Pope Francis in the Vatican to deal with cases of sexual abuse of minors.

In conversation with La Tercera , the researcher explained that “the meeting will be relevant for the entire Catholic Church, but in a limited extent .”

“I hope that the Pope will finally remove several guilty bishops, and I also hope that he will issue a harsh rebuke to the entire Chilean Episcopate, although very late, those sanctions by the Pope can have a dissuasive effect , at least in the short term,” he said.]

16/05/2018

La fundadora de la organización BishopAccountability.org, Anne Barrett-Doyle, le restó expectativas a las reuniones entre los obispos chilenos y el Papa Francisco en el Vaticano para enfrentar casos de abuso sexual a menores.

En conversación con La Tercera, la investigadora explicó que “el encuentro será relevante para toda la Iglesia Católica, pero en una magnitud limitada”.

“Espero que el Papa finalmente remueva a varios obispos culpables. Y espero también que emita una dura reprimenda a todo el Episcopado chileno. Aunque muy atrasadas, esas sanciones del Papa pueden tener un efecto disuasivo, al menos en el corto plazo”, detalló.

Sin embargo, para Barrett-Doyle “en el largo plazo, pienso que la relevancia del encuentro se va a limitar mayormente a Chile, más que establecer un nuevo patrón para la Iglesia global sobre estos casos”.

“El objetivo del Papa es acallar el clamor público generado por sus errores de relaciones públicas en Chile. Se va a esforzar por impresionarnos. Creo que hará mucho para crear la impresión de que está arrepentido y cambió”, puntualizó.

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CHILE
La Tercera

16 MAY 2018

[Founder of BishopAccountability.org: “The Pope will seek to create the impression that he is repentant and changed”. Since its founding in 2003 in Boston, following the scandals that led to the departure of the then archbishop of that city, Bernard Law, and marked a milestone in the history of cases of abuse in the Catholic Church, the organization BishopAccountability.org maintains a detailed record of the situation of the issue in the Catholic Church throughout the world. In relation to Chile, the group points to about 80 cases, mostly known from the year 2000 to date.]

Juan Paulo Iglesias / Roma

Anne Barrett Doyle, directora de esta entidad “observatorio” de abusos, se confiesa “escéptica” respecto del compromiso de Francisco para enfrentar el tema de los abusos de modo sistémico y desde dentro de la “cultura vaticana”. Dice que “tomó este paso después de que la primera estrategia, atacar la credibilidad de las víctimas, fracasó”.

Desde su fundación en 2003, en Boston, tras los escándalos que llevaron a la salida del entonces arzobispo de esa ciudad, Bernard Law, y marcaron un hito en la historia de los casos de abusos en la Iglesia Católica, la organización BishopAccountability.org mantiene un detallado registro de la situación del tema en la Iglesia Católica en todo el mundo. En relación a Chile, el grupo apunta a cerca de 80 casos, en su mayoría conocidos desde el año 2000 a la fecha.

Anne Barrett Doyle, una de sus fundadoras y actual miembro del directorio -donde también participan víctimas de abusos que fueron clave para destapar la situación en Boston, como Phil Saviano-, conversó con La Tercera sobre sus expectativas en torno a la reunión del Papa con los obispos chilenos.

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NEW YORK
New York Times

By Michael Cooper

May 18, 2018

Two months ago, the conductor James Levine, having been fired by the Metropolitan Opera for sexual misconduct, sued the company for breach of contract and defamation. Now the Met is suing him back, arguing in court papers filed on Friday that Mr. Levine harmed the company, and detailing previously unreported accusations of sexual harassment and abuse against him.

The filing paints the clearest picture yet of the investigation that led the Met to dismiss Mr. Levine, its longtime music director and its artistic backbone for more than four decades. The company says it found credible evidence that Mr. Levine had “used his reputation and position of power to prey upon and abuse artists,” citing examples of sexual misconduct that it says occurred from the 1970s through 1999, but does not name the victims.

When a 16-year-old artist auditioned for Mr. Levine in 1979, the suit says, Mr. Levine questioned him about his sex life. Two years later, it says, Mr. Levine entered the young man’s dressing room in a bathrobe to discuss an upcoming performance. Mr. Levine made sexual remarks or inappropriately touched the man at least seven times over a period of 12 years, the suit says.

After Mr. Levine offered to drive another singer home from an audition at the Met in 1985, the lawsuit says, he locked the car doors and groped and kissed the man against his will. After the encounter, it says, Mr. Levine placed him in “in a prestigious program” at the Met.

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UNITED STATES
New York Times

By Nancy Hogshead-Makar

Ms. Hogshead-Makar is the chief executive of Champion Women.

May 18, 2018

On Wednesday, Michigan State University announced it had settled with 332 victims of sexual abuse by Lawrence G. Nassar, a physician who worked with the school’s gymnastics program. The settlement will pay $425 million to 332 victims, or about $1.28 million each; it will set aside an additional $75 million in a trust for any future claims of sexual abuse against Mr. Nassar.

Half a billion dollars is a landmark settlement, one that couldn’t have been achieved without the courage and vulnerability of Mr. Nassar’s hundreds of victims. And it didn’t help that the university chose a strategy of maligning the victims, accusing one of them, Rachael Denhollander, of being in it “for the money.”

Until recently, though, this sort of strategy often worked. The difference this time is both the sheer number of victims and the intersection of the Nasser case and the #MeToo movement. Understanding the Michigan State settlement within that context is critical, because it points to where things need to go next: The #MeToo/#TimesUp movement is not limited to getting victims much-needed compensation and ousting powerful and abusive men from their professional careers; it means changing the systems and cultures that breed sexual harassment and abuse in the first place.

I know the culture of collegiate and Olympic sports particularly well. I am an eight-year veteran of the United States national swimming team, a two-time Olympian and a three-time gold medalist. My 1984 Olympic coach, Mitch Ivey, was barred from the sport for sexually abusing my teammate. He never hid his sexual contacts with multiple underage swimmers; he was open about their “relationship” — common parlance in the swimming community that normalized child molestation. Despite his well-known abuse, it took 30 years before USA Swimming barred him.

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UNITED STATES
The Open Tabernacle: Here Comes Everybody

May 19, 2018

by Betty Clermont

Most are familiar with the Crusades and Spanish Inquisition. Fewer know about Pius XII’s embrace of fascism, his cooperation with the CIA, John Paul II’s alliance with Reagan in support of dictators, the political consequences of his appointment of right-wing bishops in the U.S. and Latin America – including Pope Francis – and the current pontiff’s unknown history.

It is true that, from the beginning, Christians were recognized for their monumental works of charity and Western Civilization owes much to Catholic education, medicine, art, music, architecture etc. It is also true that popes have obstructed freedom and self-rule while choosing to collaborate with dictators and butchers.

While I was writing about Pope Francis’ obsequiousness towards Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin and his vociferous opposition to women’s and LGBTQ persons’ human rights, I thought that if readers were more familiar with papal history, this would be less surprising.

When asked for his opinion on abortion and same-sex marriage, Pope Francis said his position was identical to that of the Church. “I am a son of the Church,” he explained.

This is part of the tradition from which he emerges – remarkable considering Jesus’ “Great Commission” was only to preach the Gospel.

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UNITED STATES
Jeff Anderson and Associates

5/18/2018

Mike Finnegan

All around the world, from Pennsylvania, to Chile, to Australia, the Catholic Church continues to fight truth and transparency. By now, one would hope that the institution has learned from its past mistakes when it covered up the sexual abuse of children by the Church’s priests, bishops and other clerics. Unfortunately, this is not the case.

In Pennsylvania, the Attorney General is wrapping up investigations involving six Catholic dioceses, including Allentown, Scranton, Erie, Pittsburgh, Harrisburg and Greensburg. Three of the dioceses have publicly stated they will not challenge the release of the grand jury reports, while three bishops have remained silent, refusing to acknowledge whether they will challenge the release of the grand jury reports. Truth and transparency appear to be at the bottom of the bishops’ lists.

Meanwhile in Australia, Cardinal Pell, the highest ranking Vatican official to be charged with child sexual abuse, is facing two separate criminal trials. Recently, Australian prosecutors announced the filing of a “super injunction” to bar news coverage of Pell’s trial. One possible explanation of this rare and extreme request was to preempt Pell’s lawyers who will likely argue that the publicity of Pell’s case will prevent him from receiving a fair trial. Prosecutors have since narrowed their application for the media ban, but the story remains the same: Keep the dirty secrets and public scrutiny of the trial far away from the public eye.

In South America, sexual abuse survivors in Chile have been speaking out for years against several bishops who were complicit in covering up the child sex abuse scandal, including Bishop Juan Barros. After publicly defending Barros, Pope Francis changed course and finally took some semblance of action and sent Maltese Archbishop Charles Scicluna and Spanish Father Jordi Bertomeu, two officials at the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, to Chile to investigate the alleged cover-up of sexual abuse by Barros. After receiving a 2,300 page report containing interviews of 64 witnesses, Pope Francis did his best to keep the report under lock and key. Again, transparency and truth were at the bottom of the Vatican’s list.

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CHILE
America

Michael J. O’Loughlin

May 18, 2018

Victims of sexual abuse by clergy in Chile are reacting with praise and hope after every Chilean bishop offered to resign over a sex abuse and cover-up scandal.

José Andrés Murillo, a sexual abuse survivor who earlier this month spent hours discussing the scandal with Pope Francis at the Vatican, called the bishops delincuentes (“delinquents”) who deserve to go.

“For dignity, justice and truth, the bishops should leave,” he tweeted. “They didn’t know how to protect the weakest, they exposed them to abuse and then impeded justice. For this, they only deserve to go.”

In another tweet, Juan Carlos Cruz, the main whistleblower in the scandal, said the mass resignation was “unprecedented and good” and that this “will change things forever.”

“This is the pope that I met during my conversations in the Vatican,” Mr. Cruz told Chilean news site Emol on May 17. “I hope all [the bishops] resign and that the church in Chile begins to rebuild with true shepherds and not with these corrupt bishops who commit and cover up crimes, as the document states.”

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PENNSYLVANIA
PennLive

May 18, 2018

By Ivey DeJesus idejesus@pennlive.com

As early as next week, Catholics in Pennsylvania could learn the names of additional priests or lay people credibly accused of child sexual abuse.

At least one diocese – that of Erie – is expected to release additional names of priests or staff who face credible accusations of child sexual abuse or molestation.

That is according to an attorney who has been working closely with the diocese and its head, Bishop Lawrence Persico.

Mark Rush, of the Pittsburgh-based K&L Gates law firm, on Friday said the information will be posted to the website, in conjunction to the online announcement made in April by Persico publicizing a list of 34 priests and 17 lay people.

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PENNSYLVANIA
Go Erie

Ed Palattella
@ETNPalattella

May 18, 2018

Bishop Persico adds six names to initial list he released April 6. Number of those credibly accused is now at 57.

When he released a 51-name list of accused priests and laypeople on April 6, Erie Catholic Bishop Lawrence Persico described the list as a “living document” that the Diocese of Erie would update based on new information.

The first update occurred on Friday.

Persico added six names to a list after “new information came to light,” the diocese said.

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WISCONSIN
Channel 3000

Diocese releases info on Nolan’s background

By: Rose Schmidt

: May 18, 2018

FORT ATKINSON, Wis. – Parishioners in Fort Atkinson used the words “disbelief” and “shock” on Friday to describe their reactions to allegations that a former priest from their area sexually abused a teenage boy.

“Our kids are kind of heartbroken because it’s somebody — it’s almost like a teacher — someone that you trust and you’ve been taught that you could go to,” said Brenda Ciske, who attends St. Joseph’s Catholic Church.

William Nolan, 64, is facing felony counts after he allegedly sexually assaulted a boy in Fort Atkinson for years, according to documents filed in court Thursday.

According to the criminal complaint, more than 100 assaults took place between February 2006 and the summer of 2010, when the boy was 13 to 17 years old.

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GLOBAL
Manila Bulletin (Phillipines)

May 19, 2018

By Agence France-Presse

All of Chile’s bishops offered to resign Friday over child sex cover-up claims dating back decades, the latest in a series of abuse scandals facing the Catholic Church globally.

Here is a rundown of other notable cases:

Australia

The third-highest member of the Vatican hierarchy, Australian George Pell was ordered in May to stand trial on “multiple” historical sex charges, which he denies.

His case coincided with an Australian public enquiry that found that seven percent of priests were accused of paedophilic acts between 1950 and 2010.

Austria

Two scandals forced the Vatican to revoke two high-ranking ultra-conservative clerics, Viennese Archbishop Hans Hermann Groer in 1995 and the bishop of Sankt-Poelten, Kurt Krenn, in 2004.

Belgium

In 2010 the bishop of Bruges, Roger Vangheluwe, resigned after acknowledging sex abuse of two nephews. Since 2012 the Catholic Church in Belgium has received hundreds of complaints and paid almost 4.13 million euros ($4.8 million) in compensation.

Canada

In the late 1980s, a huge scandal broke out regarding the mistreatment of children at an orphanage in Newfoundland in the 1950s-1960s.

Chile

Some 80 members of the Chilean clergy have been implicated in a series of sex abuse affairs over the past few years.

Pope Francis caused outrage during a visit in January by appearing to support a bishop accused of covering up for paedophile priest Fernando Karadima during the 1980s and 1990s. This is the case over which the 34 Chilean bishops presented their resignations Friday.

France

Cardinal Philippe Barbarin and six others will face trial in January 2019 for allegedly covering up for a priest, Bernard Preynat, accused of abusing around 70 scouts in the 1980s. Germany

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PENNSYLVANIA
Tribune-Democrat

May 18, 2918

By Dave Sutor
dsutor@tribdem.com

A report from a grand jury investigation into alleged child sexual abuse in six of Pennsylvania’s Roman Catholic dioceses might soon be released.

Bishops from Erie, Allentown and Scranton said they will not attempt to prevent the information from becoming public. Erie even named 51 priests and other laypersons – both living and deceased – who were accused of abuse or failing to protect children.

Harrisburg and Greensburg issued separate statements saying they support releasing the report, but want to ensure due process. However, both dioceses are making a court challenge to the oath of secrecy placed on lawyers representing grand jury witnesses, according to an article in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

Bishop David Zubik, from the Diocese of Pittsburgh, told the Post-Gazette he does not oppose making the information known, but he wants to “read, review and respond” to the document first.

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UNITED STATES
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release, May 18, 2018

Statement by: Judy Jones, SNAP “Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests”, 636-433-2511,SNAPjudy@gmail.com

Pope Francis has responded to the brave clergy abuse victims of Chile. His harsh words to the Chilean Bishops are resonating loudly with other clergy abuse victims throughout the world.

[CBC News]

This behavior by bishops is not only a happening in Chile. The Catholic church hierarchy in all the dioceses throughout the world follow the same ego centered and callous behavior of enabling and covering up sex crimes against children. We are not aware of one single bishop who has lost his title, lost his job or been publicly denounced for protecting and shielding predators. Even Bishop Robert Finn of Kansas City who was criminally convicted of child endangerment did not lose his job.

The historic abuse and coverups by over twenty bishops is well documented by Bishop Accountability: http://www.bishop-accountability.org/bishops/accused/

While we are encouraged by the resignation of the bishops in Chile we urge vigilance. We hope that the Pope will not only accept the resignations, but he will also remove their titles and assign them to jobs without prestige. Cardinal Law left his position of power after the clergy abuse scandal exploded in Boston but was given an even more powerful and prestigious job at the Vatican.

We hope that Pope Francis accepts the resignations of the Chilean Bishops, in keeping with his word to no longer be a “part of the problem” of child sex abuse and cover-up in the Catholic Church. The bishops can always find other employment. The victims of Chile’s abuse can never get their innocence back.

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PENNSYLVANIA
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

PETER SMITH
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
petersmith@post-gazette.com

MAY 18, 2018

Roman Catholic Bishop David Zubik of Pittsburgh said he’s not opposed to the imminent release of a grand jury report into sexual abuse in the diocese but wants an opportunity to “read, review and respond” to it before its public release.

“We are not opposed to the release of the report,” Bishop Zubik said Friday in an interview. “We have cooperated fully” with the investigation. “We just want to be able to have an opportunity to read, review and respond to it.”

The 40th statewide grand jury has for nearly two years been investigating sexual abuse in six Pennsylvania Catholic dioceses as far back as the 1940s.

Three Catholic bishops this week — from Erie, Allentown and Scranton — said they would not contest the release of the report, while two others, in Greensburg and Harrisburg, made similar statements but emphasized the need for due process.

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VATICAN CITY
Associated Press

May 18, 2018

By NICOLE WINFIELD

VATICAN CITY (AP) — Four months ago, Pope Francis dug himself into the biggest hole of his papacy by strongly defending a Chilean bishop accused by sex abuse victims of witnessing and ignoring their abuse.

On Friday, he emerged from that debacle after strong-arming the entire Chilean bishops conference to resign for what he said were their “grave defects” in handling abuse cases. He accused them of destroying evidence of sex crimes, interfering with investigations and negligently placing children at risk of being raped by pedophiles.

By repenting for his original sin with what amounts to an ecclesial nuclear option, Francis has quite possibly ushered in the game-changer in the Catholic Church’s long-running sex abuse crisis.

The mass resignations marked the first time the Vatican has initiated decisive action to hold bishops accountable for covering up sex abuse by priests. And it forced complicit bishops to atone for their misdeeds in the most publicly humiliating way possible.

“This might be Chile right now, but this sets a precedent for every country in the world and every bishop in the world,” said an emotional Juan Carlos Cruz, whose yearslong campaign to expose wrongdoing in Chile’s Catholic hierarchy was responsible for the remarkable developments in Rome this week.

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UNITED STATES
National Catholic Reporter

May 18, 2018

by NCR Staff

Survivors of clergy abuse and their advocates praised Pope Francis for his confrontation with Chile’s bishops over their handling of abuse cases, which led to a mass resignation today, and the survivors and advocates urged the pope not to allow the momentum for reform to slow.

“We didn’t expect it and it is a powerful gesture,” said Juan Carlos Claret, spokesperson for Lay Catholic group in Osorno, Chile, who opposed the 2015 appointment of Bishop Juan Barros to Osorno because of his alleged complicity in covering up the sexual abuse of minors.

Claret told CNN Chile that the church is a mother for the community and “today’s big message is that they aren’t going to protect impunity in the church and this is important as Catholics because we can’t accommodate an injustice.”

“The en masse resignation of the Chilean episcopacy is as stunning as it is justified,” said Anne Barrett Doyle of the U.S.-based abuse watchdog group BishopAccountability.org. “Let’s hope Pope Francis accepts all of the resignations and begins to re-build this profoundly corrupt church.”

“The renunciation of the entire Chilean hierarchy might serve at least in the near term as a powerful deterrent to complicit bishops and religious superiors around the world,” Barret Doyle said in a statement May 18.

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VATICAN CITY
Reuters

Crispian Balmer

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) – In an unprecedented move, all Chile’s bishops offered to resign en masse on Friday after attending a crisis meeting this week with Pope Francis about the cover-up of sexual abuse in the south American nation.

It is the first time that all the senior Roman Catholic prelates of a country have taken such a step, a Vatican official said, underscoring the damage being wreaked on the church by seemingly never-ending clerical abuse scandals.

It was not immediately clear if the pope would accept all or any of the resignations of the 34 bishops, and a Vatican official declined to speculate on when he might make a decision.

“We have put our positions in the hands of the Holy Father and will leave it to him to decide freely for each of us,” the bishops said in a joint statement read out by a spokesman for them, Bishop Fernando Ramos.

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PENNSYLVANIA
PennLive

By Ivey DeJesus idejesus@pennlive.com

The head of the Diocese of Harrisburg on Friday signaled that he might have concerns with aspects of the grand jury investigation into six dioceses in Pennsylvania, including his.

Bishop Ronald Gainer stressed that the diocese was cooperating with the investigation, however, the diocese is “also concerned about due process rights,” he said in a statement released to PennLive.

That marks the first time since the 18-month-long state investigation was launched into potential clergy sex abuse of children that any diocese has suggested that it may have concerns about the process.

Gainer’s statement comes one day after three dioceses issued statements indicating they would not launch any legal challenges to the investigation by the state Office of Attorney General.

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VATICAN CITY
National Catholic Reporter

May 18, 2018

by Joshua J. McElwee

Jan. 15-18

Jan. 20
Boston’s Cardinal Sean O’Malley, a member of the Council of Cardinals and the head of the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors, releases a statement acknowledging that Francis’ defense of Barros was “a source of great pain” for abuse survivors.

The cardinal says expressions of doubt about survivors’ testimony “abandon those who have suffered reprehensible criminal violations of their human dignity.”

Jan. 22
In a press conference on the way home to Rome from Chile, the pope again calls the charges against Barros “calumny.” He repeatedly insists there is no evidence tying Barros to Karadima, despite public testimony of at least three abuse survivors.

Jan. 30
The Vatican announces that Francis has asked Maltese Archbishop Charles Scicluna, considered one of the church’s foremost experts on the abuse crisis, to go to Chile and take survivors’ testimony.

Feb. 17
Before heading to Chile, Scicluna meets Chilean abuse survivor Juan Carlos Cruz in New York. Cruz praises Scicluna’s demeanor and says he acted with “openness and transparency.”

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VATICAN CITY
The Guardian (UK)

Harriet Sherwood and agencies @harrietsherwood

May 2018

Chile’s bishops have offered to resign en masse over a sexual abuse and cover-up scandal that has embroiled Pope Francis and has been highly damaging to the Catholic church.

Thirty-one serving bishops and three retired bishops signed a letter of resignation on Friday. “We have put our positions in the hands of the Holy Father and will leave it to him to decide freely for each of us,” they said. “We want to ask forgiveness for the pain caused to the victims, to the pope, to God’s people and to our country for the serious errors and omissions we have committed.”

There was no immediate indication of whether the pope would accept their resignations.

The bishops’ move came after Francis said the Chilean church hierarchy was collectively responsible for “grave defects” in handling sexual abuse cases and the resulting loss of credibility suffered by the church.

He accused them of destroying evidence of sexual crimes, putting pressure on investigators to downplay abuse accusations and showing “grave negligence” in protecting children from paedophile priests.

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MARYLAND
Times of Israel

MAY 17, 2018

Dana Janine Diamond

This is one that is hard to begin. About a week ago, Hannah Dreyfus reported in The Jewish Week (also published in Times of Israel) on suspicions of corruption surrounding Reform Jewish summer camp programs on child sex abuse. For example, it seems that prevention is not actually on the agenda. That’s a head-scratcher. Additionally, they are using educators and leaders who are currently adversely embroiled in a current child sex abuse scandal, stemming from alleged assaults at a Baltimore camp.

Having lived in Baltimore, I know some of the individuals involved in this tragedy. And I understand all too well the power structure and financial influence that ill serves those most vulnerable in the summer camp industry — the children. For more insight, I strongly suggest reading excellent reporting by Hannah Dreyfus linked above, as well as another article she wrote, published several months ago in The Jewish Week.

As a writer, I was asked to sit in on numerous meetings on child sex abuse in Baltimore as far back as eight years ago. I was also following the many emerging stories in the international Chabad community. Suffice to say they related to people (victims) I knew. The preponderance of child sex abuse crimes in the Orthodox Jewish community was but one of the reasons I ultimately left.

I found my home again in Reform Judaism. And yet, in the wake of #metoo, we are seeing that child sex abuse is still not taken seriously enough, nor is rabbinic sexual misconduct — no matter the community. This is upsetting. Because it is all so ubiquitous.

And the cover ups are such a betrayal. It’s like a game of musical chairs, the powers that be keep sending abusers to the next camp, the next school, the next job… to continue abusing in some other city or country.

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CIUDAD DEL VATICANO
T13

May 18, 2018

[The complete transcript of the reserved document that the Pope delivered to the Chilean bishops.]

T13 tuvo acceso exclusivo a las duras críticas que emitió Francisco al actuar de la Iglesia chilena frente a los casos de abusos cometidos por algunos sacerdotes.

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VATICAN CITY
Associated Press

May 18, 2018

VATICAN CITY (AP) — The Latest on a sex abuse and cover-up scandal involving the Catholic Church in Chile (all times local):

2 p.m.

Victims of Chile’s most notorious predator priest are reacting with praise and hope after every Chilean bishop offered to resign over a sex abuse and cover-up scandal.

Jose Andres Murillo, who earlier this month spent hours discussing the scandal with Pope Francis at the Vatican earlier this month, called the bishops “delinquents” who deserve to go.

“For dignity, justice and truth, the bishops should leave” he tweeted. “They didn’t know how to protect the weakest, the exposed them to abuse and then impeded justice. For this, they only deserve to go.”

And in a tweet, Juan Carlos Cruz, the main whistleblower in the scandal, said the mass resignation was “unprecedented and good” and that this “will change things forever.”

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CHILE
T13

May 18, 2918

[Consulted by T13.cl, one of the victims of Karadima, expressed his happiness for the work done by the Vatican in the cases of abuse within the Church. “This is the Pope that I met in my conversations in the Vatican,” he said.]

Consultado por T13.cl, una de las víctimas de Karadima, manifestó su alegría por el trabajo realizado por el Vaticano ante los casos de abusos al interior de la Iglesia. “Este es el Papa que conocí en mis conversaciones en el Vaticano”, expresó.

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CIUDAD DEL VATICANO
T13

May 18, 2018

[Exclusive: The Pope’s reserved document to bishops reveals faults that he discovered in the Chilean Church.The ten-page text, which he handed to them in Rome on Tuesday, contains strong criticism of the actions of the Chilean Church in response to accusations of abuse. The pontiff speaks of “criminal acts”, “scandal” and “going beyond” the removal of people to solve the crisis.]

El texto, de diez carillas y que les entregó en Roma el martes, contiene fuertes críticas al actuar de la Iglesia chilena frente a las denuncias de abusos. El pontífice habla de “hechos delictivos”, “escándalo” e “ir más allá” de la remoción de personas para solucionar la crisis.

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VATICAN CITY
CBC News

AP

May 18, 2018

Every Chilean bishop offered to resign Friday over a sex abuse and coverup scandal, in the biggest shakeup ever in the Catholic Church’s long-running abuse saga.

The bishops announced at the end of an emergency summit with Pope Francis that all 31 active bishops and three retired ones in Rome had signed a document offering to resign and putting their fate in the hands of the Pope. Francis can accept the resignations one by one, reject them or delay a decision.

It marked the first known time in history that an entire national bishops conference offered to resign en masse over scandal, and laid bare the devastation that the abuse crisis has caused the Catholic Church in Chile and beyond.

Calls had mounted for the resignations after details emerged of the contents of a 2,300-page Vatican report into the Chilean scandal leaked early Friday. Francis had accused the bishops of destroying evidence of sex crimes, pressuring investigators to minimize abuse accusations and showing “grave negligence” in protecting children from pedophile priests.

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VATICAN CITY
BBC News

May 18, 2018

All of Chile’s 34 Roman Catholic bishops have offered Pope Francis their resignations in the wake of a child sex scandal and cover-up.

They asked forgiveness from victims and the Church for their “grave errors and omissions”.

It was not immediately clear whether the Pope had accepted the resignations.

He had been criticised in Chile for his decision to ordain a bishop who is accused of covering up sexual abuse committed by a priest.

He said in January that he felt “pain and shame” over the scandal, which has rocked the Catholic Church in Chile.

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VATICAN CITY
The Local

AFP

18 May 2018

Thirty-four Chilean bishops announced their resignation Friday over a child sex abuse scandal within the Church in Chile after three days of intense meetings with Pope Francis at the Vatican.
“We, all the bishops present in Rome, have tendered our resignation to the Holy Father so that he may decide freely for each of us,” the bishops said in a statement read out by a spokesman at the Vatican.

“We want to ask forgiveness for the pain caused to the victims, to the Pope, to God’s people and to our country for the serious errors and omissions we have committed,” the statement continued.

The striking announcement comes after Francis summoned the bishops to the Vatican over the scandal that has come to haunt his papacy.

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VATICAN CITY
Reuters

May 18, 2918

Crispian Balmer

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) – In an unprecedented move, 34 Chilean bishops said on Friday they had offered to resign en masse after attending a crisis meeting this week with Pope Francis about the cover-up of sexual abuse in their country.

It was not immediately clear if the pope would accept all or any of the resignations from the prelates, who hold all the top jobs in Chile’s Roman Catholic Church.

“We have put our positions in the hands of the Holy Father and will leave it to him to decide freely for each of us,” the bishops said in a joint statement read out by a spokesman for the churchmen, Bishop Fernando Ramos.

He said the bishops would stay in their roles until the pope had made his decision.

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WISCONSIN
WKOW

By David Johnson

May 18, 2018

MADISON (WKOW) — It was four years ago when Msgr. Ken Fiedler asked Father William Nolan to help out at Our Lady Queen of Peace Church in Madison.

“I invited him to come and stay in one of the houses here. Not knowing any allegations were out there. I certainly would not have if I knew anything,” Fiedler said. “Father Bill has been in residence, he’s retired, for the last four years. We have three rectories and he’s one of them. I have another retired priest.”

Nolan’s duties were mostly sacramental.

“Which means mass every day when they can, confessions, baptisms, occasional funerals. But that’s basically it. And I gave him a place to stay,” Fiedler said.

But the arrest of 64-year-old Nolan, accused of multiple counts of child sexual abuse, sent shockwaves through the close-knit church family.

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PENNSYLVANIA
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

PETER SMITH
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
petersmith@post-gazette.com

MAY 17, 2018

After Roman Catholic Bishop Lawrence Persico of Erie said Wednesday he would “forgo any legal challenges to the grand jury process and its work,” two more Pennsylvania dioceses quickly pledged the same on Thursday.

But two others, the dioceses of Pittsburgh and Harrisburg, would not explicitly rule out a legal challenge. They said they are cooperating with 40th statewide grand jury, which has been investigating sexual abuse by priests and others associated with the church over the past seven decades.

But they are not expressly disavowing some sort of challenge.

“Each diocese is separate and faces a different situation,” said a statement from the Diocese of Harrisburg. “We continue to consider all of our options in law as we move forward.”

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NEW YORK
New York Daily News

REUVEN BLAU
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

MAY 15, 2018

The president of the Shomrim neighborhood patrol accused of raping a teenager also serves as the campaign treasurer for state Assemblyman Dov Hikind’s handpicked successor, the Daily News has learned.

Jacob Daskal, 59, is the main money man for Simcha Eichenstein’s bid to take over the Borough Park, Brooklyn district, according to state campaign finance records.

Last month, Hikind announced he was stepping down after more than three decades in office. He immediately endorsed Eichenstein, 34, the former director of political and governmental services for the de Blasio administration.

He’s considered the front-runner for the coveted position, according to political insiders. The Democratic primary is in September and no challenger has surfaced yet.

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WISCONSIN
WISN

May 17; 2019

JEFFERSON COUNTY, Wis. —
A former Fort Atkinson priest has been charged with six counts of second-degree sexual assault of a child.

The Rev. William Nolan, 64, was arrested Tuesday.

The alleged victim, a former altar boy, told investigators the assaults by Nolan took place over a five-year span from the ages of 12 to 17, beginning in February of 2006.

The incidents occurred in Nolan’s office, Nolan’s home and the altar boy room at St. Joseph’s Catholic Church in Fort Atkinson.

The victim reported the sexual assault in last month.

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NEW YORK
New York Times

The state has sold itself as a standard-bearer of progressive virtue. So why do its
elected officials keep getting in trouble for sexual misconduct and corruption?

By GINIA BELLAFANTE

MAY 18, 2018

In New York, the week of May 7 began with the sudden resignation of the state’s attorney general, Eric T. Schneiderman, over allegations that he had physically abused four women he had been seeing, and ended with the conviction of Sheldon Silver, the state’s once powerful Democratic Assembly speaker, on federal corruption charges. Although not necessarily an ordinary week, it was certainly a symbolic one.

Abuses of power, sexual and ethical, have supplied the arc of the state’s political narrative for so long that it is hard to know how New York has managed to market itself as a standard-bearer of an imperious kind of liberal virtue — how it has convincingly sold itself as the center of the resistance. For many who oppose the president, of course, there would be very little to resist right now if New York City hadn’t incubated and rewarded the ambitions of Donald Trump for so many years. In the service of policy and his own public persona, Mr. Schneiderman was a Trump antagonist generally, and a feminist specifically; in his private dealings with women he was, according to those he is said to have victimized, a sadist.

Earlier this week, the actress Annabella Sciorra, one of Harvey Weinstein’s accusers, remarked on Twitter that a while back when she had disclosed that the producer’s spies were still contacting her, Mr. Schneiderman emailed to make sure that she was O.K. This sort of duality, however extreme in Mr. Schneiderman’s instance, is not unfamiliar in American politics.

We have been getting schooled in the mechanics of compartmentalization at least since the sex scandals of the Clinton presidency, and we have been given epic refreshers at the hands of New York Democrats. Eliot Spitzer, the father of daughters, frequently called himself a feminist and championed women’s causes and resigned as governor when it was discovered that he was sleeping with prostitutes. Anthony Weiner styled himself similarly, then left Congress over a nasty texting scandal, and moved on to prison when it was found that his habit included sending pornographic messages to teenage girls.

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WASHINGTON
Spectator

Sarah Haghi

May 17th, 2018

“Aware of Geoghan’s record, archdiocese still shuttled him from parish to parish.”

This is the subheading from the Boston Globe’s famous 2002 article exposing the years of cover-up practiced by the Archbishop for the benefit of a pedophilic priest. Seattle University is entangled in an similar situation as our own former Seattle Archbishop, Thomas Connolly, was revealed to have covered up the sexual misconduct of a priest named Michael Cody in the 1960s.

In 2016, the Seattle Times reported on letters from the 1960s, revealing that Archbishop Connolly knew Cody was molesting children. Instead of removing him—as Dr. Albert Hurley suggested in a letter from 1962—he transferred him to different parishes and kept it under wraps.

Seattle U’s fitness and recreation center has been named after Connolly since 1969. Now, two years after the Seattle Times’ report, the Seattle U Board of Trustees voted on May 4 to rename the Connolly Complex the Redhawk Center.

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Ines San Martín
VATICAN CORRESPONDENT

May 18, 2018

ROME— Heads will roll in the Chilean Church after the summit between Pope Francis and the 34 local bishops who met in Rome this week.

Though this was hinted at in a letter the Vatican made public on Thursday, a leaked document goes further, with the pontiff saying that removing people, though necessary, is not enough.

The problems facing the Chilean church today are not solved by “addressing the concrete cases and reducing them to the removal of people; this – and I say this clearly – must be done, but it’s not enough, we must go further.”

According to Francis, it would be “a serious omission” not to look into the roots and structures that allowed for the abuse – not only sexual, but also of power and conscience – to happen and to continue over time.

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