ABUSE TRACKER

[Archbishop accuses Pope of protecting Barros, Errázuriz and Ezzati]

CHILE
La Tercera

August 26, 2018

By Fernanda Rojas

El arzobispo Carlo Maria Vigano publicó una carta en la que acusa al Papa Francisco y a altos cargos del Vaticano de encubrir escándalos de abusos en Estados Unidos. Pero también lanza dardos contra el Pontífice por su rol en Chile.

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

IRELAND
The Irish Times

August 27, 2018

By Sorcha Pollak

Irish data laws preventing full accountability for church sexual abuse, says victim group

The Catholic Church’s culture of secrecy, coupled with Ireland’s “strict protection around defamation and data protection”, is making it impossible to ensure accountability for crimes of sexual abuse, a victim’s support group has said.

Anne Barrett Doyle, co-director of the BishopAccountability.org website which runs a public “abuse-tracker” of offending clergy, highlighted on Monday the Irish State and church’s continued failure in making perpetrators of sexual abuse accountable for their actions. Last week, the group launched the Irish leg of its online database which identifies 94 priests and brothers who have been convicted of sexually abusing children.

Speaking outside the former Magdalene Laundry on Sean McDermott Street on Monday, Ms Barrett Doyle announced that seven new names had been added to the database following Pope Francis’ visit to Ireland over the weekend. The names included in the database are just “a fraction” of the total number of abusers in the Republic and Northern Ireland, she said, adding that Irish data protection laws had prevented the group from adding additional names.

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

IRELAND
Irish Independent

August 27, 2018

By Conor Feehan

Survivors of clerical abuse have branded the visit of Pope Francis as “abysmal and appalling” because he failed to identify an action plan about what he is going to do to address the issues of hurt caused by the Church in Ireland.

Speaking after the Pontiff admitted he was not aware of the Magdalene Laundries or the mother and baby homes, they questioned how he could be so out of touch with the deep pain and ongoing anguish that emanated from such institutions.

“It is unbelievable. It’s an inescapable reality and truth to us here in Ireland. No matter what happened he should have been fully briefed about what he was coming to regarding the pain and suffering here,” said Mark Vincent Healy, who was abused by two priests in his time in school in Dublin.

“One thing is for certain, he didn’t know. You can blame it on himself for not asking questions, or those who surrounded him. I can’t imagine that the Archbishop didn’t brief him, and there are other service providers to the Pope who are feeding him information on what he’s coming to in Ireland,” he added.

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

IRELAND
Shropshire Star

August 27, 2018

The pontiff’s visit to Ireland focused attention on historic incidents of wrongdoing by clergy.

Victims of clerical sexual abuse have called on the Pope to deliver a plan of action to tackle child abuse scandals.

During his two-day visit to Ireland, Pope Francis begged forgiveness for the crimes of the Church.

But campaigners urged him to take that one step further and take concrete action to solve the issue.

Members of two global groups aimed at holding the Catholic church to account gathered outside a former Magdalene Laundry on Dublin’s Sean McDermott Street on Monday to give their reaction to the pontiff’s trip to Ireland.

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.

MALTA
The Times of Malta

August 27, 2018

By John Guillaumier, St Julian’s

Ongoing exposures of sexual abuse by Roman Catholic priests show there is a lot of corruption behind the ‘holy doors’.

In Chile, the police recently raided the headquarters of the Catholic Church’s Episcopal Conference, thus ending “the impunity of the Chilean hierarchy”, as Anne Barrett Doyle, of BishopAccountability.org, said.

In the United States, Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, the former archbishop of Washington, DC has been asked by the Vatican to cease public ministry after he was accused of molesting minors and seminarians. He is among the highest-ranking of the more than 6,700 Roman Catholic clerics in the US to be accused of sexually abusing children since the Church’s sex abuse scandal broke out in 2002 (BishopAccountability.org.).

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.

DUBLIN (IRELAND)
The Associated Press

August 27, 2018

The Latest on Pope Francis’ trip to Ireland (all times local):

11 p.m.

Pope Francis is facing a lukewarm reception and scattered protests on his trip to Ireland.

Even his vow to rid the church of the “scourge” has been dismissed as a disappointment by some of Ireland’s wounded victims.

But others who met with him in private say they’re heartened that he would respond to their plight, including two of the thousands of children who were forcibly put up for adoption for the shame of having been born to unwed mothers.

Survivors of one of Ireland’s wretched mother and baby homes plan to hold a demonstration Sunday at Tuam, site of a mass grave of hundreds of babies who died at a church-run home.

Francis isn’t scheduled to visit, but he says the description of the site “still echo in my ears.”

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.

HARRISBURG (PA)
Irish Examiner

August 24, 2018

The US report on child sex abuse and cover-ups in Pennsylvania has led to calls to extend time limits for more victims to bring cases to court, writes Bette Browne.

THE Pennsylvania probe of child abuse crimes and cover-ups that landed like a bombshell before the Pope’s visit here is far from over as US lawmakers fight for legal tools that would give victims more time to bring perpetrators to justice before the courts.

The Pennsylvania probe of child abuse crimes and cover-ups that landed like a bombshell before the Pope’s visit here is far from over as US lawmakers fight for legal tools that would give victims more time to bring perpetrators to justice before the courts.

Investigators and politicians in Pennsylvania are seeking to change time limits for prosecutions under US statute-of-limitation laws. If they succeed it will boost similar moves under way in other states, with potentially devastating consequences for the Catholic Church.

Advocates for victims have been pushing to amend these statutes for some time — after the Pennsylvania revelations, their campaign has become more urgent.

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.

HARRISBURG (PA)
Penn Live

August 27, 2018

By Jennifer Storm

Attorney General details abuse report findings

These are unprecedented times. Not because there were no victims within the church before today.

Not because there were no cover-ups, bribes, threats, secret marriages and divorces, private stashes of child pornography, golden crosses used to mark children who had already been groomed.

Because today, we stand with these courageous survivors. Today, we don’t “play it safe” as Richard Lavinthal would have us do in his recent op-Ed for PennLive.

Today, the words of the grand jury ring around the world and shatter the darkness with the light of truth. Today, we are proud to be Pennsylvanians led forward in the fight for justice by our citizens, by our communities, by our Attorney General and his office.

Attempting to misrepresent or distract from the true purpose and message of last week’s media release is a tried and true method of further silencing survivors. And we say no.

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.

BURLINGTON (VT)
Insider

August 27, 2018

By Kelly McLaughlin

– An investigation into Catholic orphanages in the US revealed systematic abuse that many children faced from nuns in the 20th century.
– Former residents said they were forced to kneel or stand for hours, were dangled outside windows and over wells, and were locked in cabinets and closets.
– At St Joseph’s Catholic Orphanage in Burlington, Vermont, former residents say the abuse sometimes led to death.
– The investigation by Buzzfeed News comes weeks after a Pennsylvania grand jury report accused the Catholic Church of covering up the abuse of 1,000 children.

Former residents of a now-closed Catholic orphanage in Vermont say nuns killed and tortured foster children who were staying at the facility between 1930 and 1970, according to an investigation from Buzzfeed News.

The investigation reveals the systematic abuse many children allegedly faced from nuns at St. Joseph’s Catholic Orphanage in Burlington, as well as other orphanages across the US.

It comes weeks after a Pennsylvania grand jury report accused the Catholic Church of covering up the abuse of 1,000 children at the hands of hundreds of priests across six dioceses.

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

UNITED STATES
CNN

August 27, 2018

By Rosa Flores, Meridith Edwards and Susannah Cullinane

Since the 1980s, the Catholic Church in the United States and its insurance companies have paid out more than $3.8 billion in lawsuits and claims involving allegations of clerical sexual abuse, according to a monitoring group.

BishopAccountability, a non-profit that tracks allegations of abuse in the Catholic Church, says the payouts involved cases filed by more than 8,600 survivors who were allegedly sexually abused by an undisclosed number of clergy since the 1950s.

Spokesman Terry McKiernan told CNN the number of associated clergy is difficult to calculate because some settlement announcements omit the number of predator priests.

The monies have not gone solely to survivors, McKiernan said. Attorneys get a cut, too. And not all the money comes out of the coffers of the Catholic Church, because the church maintains insurance policies that cover a portion of the settlement payments.

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.

BURLINGTON (VT)
The Week

August 27, 2018

By Kathryn Krawczyk

Throughout the early 1900s in Catholic orphanages around the world, children were locked in cabinets and attics for days, government reports have found. They had to eat their vomit. They were sexually abused. Some were even murdered, former residents have said under sworn oath. And while these accusations have led to massive government investigations in Australia, Canada, and beyond, it’s all gone relatively unnoticed in the U.S.

As Catholic priests and leadership undergo a reckoning amid a wave of child sex abuse revelations, attention has largely bypassed American nuns who also had power over children. But a report from BuzzFeed News detailing incredible physical, mental, and sexual abuse at Catholic orphanages might change that.

BuzzFeed News dug up evidence corroborating abuse allegations from children who once lived in orphanages across the the U.S. But the children of St. Joseph’s Orphanage, run by sisters in Burlington, Vermont, were able to truly shed light on their stories with a 1996 court case uncovered by BuzzFeed News. Speaking to a lawyer, Joseph Barquin alleged that a nun forcibly fondled him under a flight of stairs, while other children were beaten or shaken into shock. Another former St. Joseph’s resident, Sally Dale, recalled in a deposition the time she saw a child thrown from a fourth-floor window.

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.

BURLINGTON (VT)
BuzzFeed News

August 27, 2018

By Elamin Abdelmahmoud

Nuns killed children, say former residents of St. Joseph’s Catholic Orphanage

Good morning,

Take a deep breath, because this is an explosive and difficult story. Millions of American children were placed in orphanages. Some didn’t make it out alive.

After hearing whispers that seemed almost too awful to believe, BuzzFeed News investigative reporter Christine Kenneally embarked on a four-year-long journey to find out what really went on in these institutions. Today, BuzzFeed News publishes her special investigation, with a powerful video, revealing the systematic abuse and even the alleged murder of children by nuns.

Her searing report — part true crime drama, part ghost story — cracks open a secret history of American life, and adds a vast new dimension to the Catholic church’s mistreatment of children.

From a world shrouded in secrecy, she tells the story of Sally Dale, Joseph Barquin, Dale Greene, and other former residents of St. Joseph’s Orphanage in Burlington, Vermont, who somehow found the courage to come forward and tell the world what they had witnessed, begging to be heard and believed. The local Catholic diocese put up the fight of a lifetime.

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.

BURLINGTON (VT)
BuzzFeed News

August 27, 2018

This is the haunting story of children who survived horrors in American orphanages, and their fight to make the world believe them.

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

BURLINGTON (VT)
BuzzFeed

August 27, 2018

By Christine Kenneally

It was a late summer afternoon, Sally Dale recalled, when the boy was thrown through the fourth-floor window.

“He kind of hit, and— ” she placed both hands palm-down before her. Her right hand slapped down on the left, rebounded up a little, then landed again.

For just a moment, the room was still. “Bounced?” one of the many lawyers present asked. “Well, I guess you’d call it — it was a bounce,” she replied. “And then he laid still.”

Sally, who was speaking under oath, tried to explain it. She started again. “The first thing I saw was looking up, hearing the crash of the window, and then him going down, but my eyes were still glued—.” She pointed up at where the broken window would have been and then she pointed at her own face and drew circles around it. “That habit thing, whatever it is, that they wear, stuck out like a sore thumb.”

A nun was standing at the window, Sally said. She straightened her arms out in front of her. “But her hands were like that.”

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

UNITED STATES
U.S. Catholic

August 2018

By Kevin Clarke

After this summer of sex abuse revelations, it is time for a relentless examination of institutional conscience.
This summer the revelations of past assault on children and harassment committed by Cardinal Theodore McCarrick roiled the U.S. church. Other exposés of abuses by individual priests and of institution dysfunction followed including the devastating grand jury report in Pennsylvania that named more than 300 priests who for decades abused thousands of children which six dioceses covered up.

They all make a mockery of clerical formation. In a moment unprecedented for the church, Pope Francis accepted the resignation of McCarrick from the College of Cardinals and soon after that of an Australian archbishop after his conviction for covering up the abuse of children. Will stories of other retired bishops or men in active leadership roles emerge as well?

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.

LOS ANGELES (CA)
Los Angeles Times

August 26, 2018

By Soumya Karlamangla and Victoria Kim

Olivia Vela sat in the courtyard of the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels on Sunday as she waited for the 10 a.m. Mass to begin. After a decades-long absence, she said she returned to the church a year and a half ago after she was diagnosed with ovarian cancer.

Vela said she is now in recovery and started attending services again because she is so grateful to be alive.

But the 52-year-old nurse is still struggling to reconcile her beliefs with the sex abuse scandals that continue to plague the Catholic Church and the latest news that Pope Francis may have knowingly hid allegations about the now-disgraced American Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, the former archbishop in Washington.

“I’m trying to come back. I’m trying to come back,” Vela said, sounding weary.

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.

BURLINGTON (VT)
The Burlington Free Press

August 27, 2018

By Sam Hemingway

EDITOR’S NOTE: This story was first published on May 17, 1998. The Burlington Free Press is republishing stories about sexual abuse that took place at the St. Joseph’s Orphanage in Burlington in the 1950s and 1960s.

For the first time, nuns and priests have confirmed some children at the now-closed St. Joseph’s Orphanage in Burlington were sexually and physically abused.

Their acknowledgments, made in sworn depositions, involve isolated incidents and are much less sweeping than the allegations of systematic abuse made by dozens of former residents of the home.

Nonetheless, the statements by four nuns and two priests who worked at the orphanage weaken claims by the Roman Catholic Diocese of Burlington that abuse charges cannot be corroborated.

More than 100 former St. Joseph’s residents have charged in recent years that they and others were beaten and molested, tormented and humiliated. Twenty-four have suits pending against the diocese and related organizations.

They found some support in court depositions filed last week. Monsignor Edward Foster, for example, worked at the orphanage as a seminarian in the late 1940s. The now-retired priest recalled a young boy, Roger Barber, who was brought to him by two nuns in 1947 or 1948. The boy’s buttocks had been burned so badly by an orphanage janitor that he could not sit down.

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.

UNTIED STATES
CNN

August 27, 2018

By Michelle Krupa

At night, when her young daughters want a special lullaby, they ask for the Celtic Alleluia, a hymn that most any cradle Catholic could sing by heart.

But in the mornings, as she drives to work, Susan Reynolds finds herself pondering how to articulate her role in a church again battered by revelations of its own clergy sexually abusing children as its leaders hid the alleged crimes.

“One of the most painful things is this deep question I have of: Do I trust my church with my kids?” said Reynolds, an assistant professor of Catholic studies at Emory University in Atlanta.
“And the answer right now is: Kinda, no.”

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

IRELAND
BBC News

August 27, 2018

The head of the Catholic Church in Ireland has said that Pope Francis was “moved and shocked” by his meetings with survivors of abuse.

On Saturday, in Dublin, the Pope spent 90 minutes with eight survivors, telling them he viewed clerical sex abuse as “filth”.

Archbishop Eamon Martin said the encounters led the pontiff to write a “personal, handwritten” prayer.

Pope Francis made a two-day trip to Ireland over the weekend.

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.

VATICAN CITY
Al Jazeera English

August 27, 2018

A senior Vatican official has called on Pope Francis to resign, accusing the pontiff of failing to act sooner on sexual abuse allegations against former Cardinal Theodore McCarrick.

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

UNITED KINGDOM
Yahoo News UK

August 27, 2018

By Christopher Lamb

Pope Francis says he will “not say one word” in response to explosive allegations from a retired Vatican official claiming the pontiff covered up sexual abuse and should resign.

Talking to reporters on board the papal plane returning to Rome from Dublin, the Pope dismissively said Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano’s testimony “speaks for itself” and he urged people to read the material carefully and judge for themselves.

In the 11-page memo – released on Sunday during the Pope’s trip to Ireland – the former Vatican ambassador to the United States says he warned Francis about allegations of sexual misconduct and abuse by former Archbishop of Washington, Theodore McCarrick.

The document was an unprecedented broadside against a pope from a senior figure inside the Church and included a long list of US and Vatican officials of being told about McCarrick’s behaviour.

“I will not say one word on this,” he told reporters during his in-flight press conference. “I believe the statement speaks for itself. And you have sufficient journalistic capacity to draw your own conclusions.”

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

BREMERTON (WA)
Kitsap Sun

August 24, 2018

By Ed Palm

The Catholic Church’s sex-abuse scandal is back in the news — this time, bigger and more troubling than ever. On August 14, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court released the results of a two-year grand jury investigation revealing what the Washington Post has labeled a “criminal conspiracy” to cover up the abuse of “at least 1,000 victims” by “some 300 priests” in “six of the state’s eight dioceses.”

As a Catholic-school survivor, I’ve had more than a passing interest in this controversy and have even advanced my theory about why this has been happening (“The risk in the old Catholic ‘calls,’” March 13, 2016). More about that anon. My immediate concern is how this latest report hits home, geographically and personally.

Within a few days of Pennsylvania’s blockbuster report, all of us who had graduated from the Salesianum School for Boys in Wilmington, Delaware, received an email from Brendan Kennealey, the school’s current president. Kennealey revealed that two of the priests named in the Pennsylvania report were members of the religious order that had established and still oversees Salesianum, the Oblates of St. Francis de Sales (OSFS), and that they had taught at the school. In the interest of full disclosure, Kennealey acknowledged that 12 oblates had been named in 34 lawsuits brought by 39 victims against the school and the Oblates. In 2011, the victims and the order reached a global settlement to the tune of $24.8 million.

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.

SAN FRANCISCO (CA)
The Catholic World Report

August 26, 2018

By Christopher R. Altieri

The testimony Archbishop Viganò offers is neither perfectly crafted, nor immune to criticism, but it is wide-ranging, detailed, and devastating

The former Apostolic Nuncio to the United States, Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, has written a letter alleging systematic coverup of the disordered and abusive behavior of the former Archbishop of Washington, Theodore McCarrick, who has resigned from the College of Cardinals and awaits canonical trial on charges he molested at least one minor. Since that charge became public on June 20th, other accusers have come forward, some of them alleging they suffered abuse in seminary or as priests, while at least one other accuser — the first person McCarrick baptized as a priest — alleges his abuse began when he was aged 11 years.

McCarrick’s behavior appears to have been an open secret, though high-ranking prelates close to McCarrick claim they were unaware of any hint of impropriety. They include McCarrick’s successor, Cardinal Donald Wuerl, and Cardinal Kevin Farrell of the Dicastery for Laity, Family and Life. The records of both men deserve the most careful and relentless scrutiny, but not here.

Here, the concern is the set of assertions Archbishop Viganò has made in his letter, in which he details a nearly two decades’ coverup of McCarrick’s misconduct. It involves three popes and three Secretaries of State, as well as at least a half-dozen other high-ranking Vatican officials.

Archbishop Viganò, who was Nuncio from 2011 to 2016, asserts that Cardinal Angelo Sodano, when he was Secretary of State under Pope St. John Paul II, knew of the allegations against McCarrick. Viganò strongly suggests Sodano was nevertheless instrumental in securing McCarrick’s appointment to the See of Washington, DC. Viganò speculates that Sodano would have been able to pass McCarrick’s nomination across the desk of the weak and sickly Pope St. John Paul II, from whom he would have kept information regarding McCarrick’s habits.

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.

DUBLIN (IRELAND)
The Associated Press

August 25, 2018

By Nicole Winfield and Maria Grazia Murru

Pope Francis declared Saturday as he arrived in Ireland that he shares the outrage of rank-and-file Catholics over the cover-up of the “repugnant crimes” of priests who raped and molested children, and vowed that he was committed to ending the “scourge.”

Seeking to respond to a global outcry over sex abuse by priests, Francis cited measures taken by his predecessor, Pope Benedict XVI, to respond to the crisis. But Benedict never acknowledged the Vatican’s role in fueling a culture of cover-up, and Francis provided no new details of any measures he would take to sanction bishops who fail to protect their flocks from predator priests.

“The failure of ecclesial authorities — bishops, religious superiors, priests and others — to adequately address these repugnant crimes has rightly given rise to outrage, and remains a source of pain and shame for the Catholic community. I myself share these sentiments,” the pope said in a speech to government officials and civil authorities at Dublin Castle.

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.

ST .Louis (MO)
St. Louis Post-Dispatch

August 25, 2018

I am wondering if the long-standing and thorough concealment of clerical sexual abuse doesn’t have a lot to do with the top-down character of the Roman Catholic Church.

Who appoints and promotes bishops? Well the pope does, or, maybe apostolic delegates and nabobs in the Curia tell him whom to appoint. In any case, in a top-down regime the main thing the higher-ups want from the lower-downs is no trouble.

If everything is running trouble-free, the lower-downs are assumed to be doing a good job. If there is any trouble, even the trouble of cosseted members of the laity or politicians among the clergy complaining against desperately needed reform, the higher-ups will wonder what the lower-down bishop is doing wrong, why things are getting out of hand. He must not be running his diocese very well if the Vatican is receiving complaints from big donors and ultramontane clergy. He must have no skill in the arts of secrecy if scandals in the diocese are getting into the local news media.

So, if his excellency wants to abide in the Vatican’s favor, if he has dreams of advancement to a more prestigious see, if he wants to avoid early retirement, he had better get with the program and keep his diocese trouble-free whatever the price.

Daniel Sheerin • Kirkwood

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

NEW CUMBERLAND (PA)
WHTM

August 25, 2018

By Priscilla Liguori

Instead of turning away from God during a time of hurt and sadness, the people at a prayer vigil in New Cumberland turned toward Him. The goal of the ceremony was to heal the community, broken by the truth exposed in the grand jury report on clergy sex abuse, released last week.

“Help us to live gracefully inside this tension,” said Tina Moyer, who spoke at the vigil.

Eight local churches of different denominations prayed together for survivors of clergy sex abuse.

People in the pews of Baughman United Methodist Church wore white ribbons to support survivors and their families.

“What I saw tonight was everybody coming together,” said Bruce Chambers, an Etters resident who went to the vigil. “Hopefully, in this whole situation with the Catholic Church, what we’ll see is some changes.”

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.

Pittsburgh (PA)
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

August 27, 2018

By Mary Lou Walter

Holy smoke! It appears that the ruby red Prada slippers that Benedict XVI wore are now on the other foot.

How ironic that members of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops were complicit for decades about protecting known abuser priests. The same feckless organization, however, was totally enthusiastic to participate and endorse the Apostolic Visitation into America’s provinces of nuns — a witch hunt in every sense begun to ease the fears of U.S. bishops that the nuns were running amok, what with their abandonment of religious garments and living independently outside of convents, not to mention forming radical feminist ideas about their organizations.

What were the results of the investigation?

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

CHEYENNE (WY)
Wyoming Public Media

August 24, 2018

By Kamila Kudelska

The Cheyenne Police Department is seeking information from any victims or witnesses of sex abuse crimes related to any church official.

It comes after a release from the Roman Catholic Diocese in Cheyenne with new information found in a sex abuse case involving Bishop-Emeritus Joseph Hart between the 1970s through the 1990s. The department has since re-opened that case which has been closed for 16 years.

The announcement comes just a week after a Pennsylvania grand jury released a report accusing 300 priests of sexually abusing over 1,000 victims across the state.

Spokesman officer Kevin Malatesta said this has nothing to do with the Pennsylvania case but it does speak to the nature of what is going on around the country.

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

IRELAND
The Times

August 27, 2018

By Katie O’Neill

Thousands of people who gathered in Dublin city centre yesterday to honour victims of clerical abuse were told they represented “the new Ireland”.

The Stand 4 Truth demonstration, organised by Colm O’Gorman, the executive director of Amnesty International Ireland and a clerical sex abuse survivor, began at 3pm, the same time as the papal Mass in Phoenix Park.

The singers Hozier, Mary Black and Brian Kennedy, and Marian Keyes, the novelist, were among those to take to the stage outside the Garden of Remembrance.

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

IRELAND
UPI

August 25, 2018

By Sommer Brokaw

During a visit to Ireland, Pope Francis spoke Saturday about the Catholic Church’s handlings of clerical abuse — calling it a “grave scandal.”

“I cannot fail to acknowledge the grave scandal caused in Ireland by the abuse of young people by members of the Church charged with responsibility for their protection and education,” the Pope told political leaders and dignitaries at Dublin Castle.

“The failure of ecclesiastical authorities — bishops, religious superiors, priests and others — adequately to address these repellent crimes has rightly given rise to outrage, and remains a source of pain and shame for the Catholic community,” he said.

“I myself share those sentiments.”

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

IRELAND
Irish Central

August 26, 2018

By George Dillon

Yes, the church did wrong on child abuse and Magdalene Laundries, but there were plenty of Irish in leadership roles who turned a blind eye.

The Irish, from their ruling class right down to the general populace, have created a convenient narrative about these abuses.

In this account, no Irish person bears any guilt or responsibility, save the clerics who carried out the abuse.

That, of course, is self-serving garbage. The mistreatment and abuse could not have occurred without the aid of a whole network of lay people and government officials and politicians. These institutions where the young were mistreated were subject to regular inspection by government officials.

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.

WATERLOO (IA)
The Courier

August 26, 2018

By Jerry Kopacek

The Catholic parishes in Waterloo will host a forum on the sexual abuse crisis in the Catholic Church on Thursday.

The forum is an extension of the parishes’ Summer Forum Series and will be held from 7 to 8:30 p.m. in the Church Hall at St. Edward Parish.

Dave Cushing, director of adult faith formation for the parishes, said the forum will offer local Catholics an opportunity to express their feelings and concerns about recent reports of extensive sexual abuse in the Catholic dioceses of Pennsylvannia and allegations of abuse against a high ranking retired American cardinal.

A panel of pastoral ministers will be present to respond to participants’ concerns. The panel includes the Rev. Jerry Kopacek, Mary Pedersen, Dr. Len Froyen and Joan Hoffmann.

Although most of the incidents reported in a grand jury report took place prior to 2000, Cushing said many Catholics have grave concerns about why the abuse occurred and why it was not revealed before now.

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

PHILADELPHIA (PA)
The Philadelphia Inquirer

August 26, 2018

By Maria Panaritis

Victims and investigators brought the truth out; Catholic leaders only protected the abusers.

Thank God for the criminal investigators and prosecutors.

Thank God for the grand jury subpoenas. For they extracted — like rotting teeth — clergy-abuse personnel files in unreachable corners of six Pennsylvania Roman Catholic dioceses serving 1.7 million people.

Thank God for the courage of the victims. For without them, Attorney General Josh Shapiro and his team would have had no real cause to root out and unveil decades of depravity and systemic abuse by clergy, overseen by complicit superiors.

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.

BUFFALO (NY)
WBFO

August 27, 2018

By Michael Mroziak

In light of recent news involving alleged sexual abuse and how Catholic Church leaders have managed it over many years, calls are being renewed to pass the Child Victims Act in New York State. A State Senator who strongly supports the bill says the votes are there but the current leadership in that house won’t bring it up for a vote.

The Child Victims Act would ease current statutes of limitation that currently give victims until the age of 23 to sue for justice in childhood incidents. It has stalled in the State Senate for a dozen years.

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.

DUBLIN/KNOCK (IRELAND)
Reuters

August 26, 2018

By Graham Fahy and Conor Humphries

Pope Francis on Sunday begged forgiveness for the multitude of abuses suffered by victims in Ireland at the hand of the church over decades as he concluded a tour of the once deeply Catholic country watched by parishioners and protesters.

After meeting privately with abuse victims on Saturday on the first papal visit to Ireland in almost four decades, Francis apologized to mothers estranged from their children in church-run homes, children abused by priests and those exploited in religious schools, calling it a “state of shame.”

“To survivors of abuse of power, conscience and sexual abuse, recognizing what they have told me, I would like to put these crimes before the mercy of the Lord and ask forgiveness for them,” Francis told a mass attended by more than 100,000 people at Dublin’s Phoenix Park.

“We apologize for some members of the hierarchy who did not take care of these painful situations and kept silent.”

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.

DUBLIN (IRELAND)
The Washington Post

August 26, 2018

By Chico Harlan, Stefano Pitrelli, Michelle Boorstein

A former Vatican ambassador to the United States has alleged in an 11-page letter that Pope Benedict XVI and Pope Francis — among other top Catholic Church officials — had been aware of sexual misconduct allegations against former D.C. archbishop Cardinal Theodore McCar­rick years before he resigned this summer.

The letter from Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, who was recalled from his D.C. post in 2016 amid allegations that he’d become embroiled in the conservative American fight against same-sex marriage, was first reported by the National Catholic Register and LifeSite News, two conservative Catholic sites.

The accusations sent a shock wave across the reeling Roman Catholic Church, but the letter offered no proof of its claims, and Viganò on Sunday told The Washington Post that he wouldn’t comment further, beyond confirming that he was the letter’s author.

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.

KNOCK (IRELAND)
New York Post

August 26, 2018

By Ruth Brown

Pope Francis on Sunday begged forgiveness for child sexual abuse in the Catholic church — a day after a former Vatican official accused him of covering up allegations against an American cardinal.

Speaking at the Marian shrine in the Irish town of Knock, the pontiff said the “open wound” of the scandal required the church to be “firm and decisive in the pursuit of truth and justice.”

“I beg forgiveness for these sins and for the scandal and betrayal felt by so many others in God’s family,” he told the tens of thousands gathered at the shrine, according to the Guardian.

“None of us can fail to be moved by the stories of young people who suffered abuse, were robbed of their innocence and left scarred.”

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.

BUFFALO (NY)
The Buffalo News

August 25, 2018

By Jay Tokasz

Parishioners of St. Mary’s Church in Swormville responded to Bishop Richard J. Malone’s statement of apology Saturday with a mix of anger, disappointment and frustration over his handling of a sexual abuse scandal that has been unfolding in media reports for six months and now includes Malone’s cover-up of a priest who sexually harassed grown men.

“Words only,” said church member Jay Christopher of Clarence. “What that letter said was meaningless to me. I don’t need an apology. I need actions. Do something about it.”

Malone did not show up at the parish. He sent Auxiliary Bishop Edward M. Grosz to read a 10-paragraph statement prior to a 4 p.m. Mass at St. Mary’s. It came the day after a businessman and deacon of the church, a Catholic radio station and three public officials, including U.S. Rep. Brian Higgins, D-Buffalo, called for Malone to resign.

“Let me be clear that the handling of claims from some of our parishioners – which you may have read about in news reports – has fallen short of the standard to which we hold ourselves and each other. We can and will do better,” Grosz said in reading the bishop’s letter.

The statement made no mention of the calls for Malone to step down.

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.

MALTA
The Times of Malta

August 26, 2018

By Andrew Azzopardi

There is no greater issue in the Catholic Church today than that of child abuse. The Church’s credibility and future depend on how this problem is handled and solved.

The Pennsylvania Grand Jury report detailing claims of sexual abuse of over 1,000 children by 301 priests makes for very painful reading. The accounts are truly horrific and display the pain and suffering experienced by victims. My thoughts are with all the victims, survivors and their loved ones. They have shown great courage by coming forward.

When examining the Church leadership’s response to child abuse cases it’s important to recognise that times have changed and what was acceptable decades ago is considered differently now. This does not excuse the mishandling of cases in the past but it’s important to keep a sense of perspective.

With this perspective in mind, I quote Cardinal Sean O’Malley, President of the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors, who said: “The clock is ticking for the Church leadership to take action”. This is very true. The Church needs to take firm steps to acknowledge the wrongs of the past and make sure Church leaders take proper responsibility for whatever actions they take or fail to take. This needs to be done today without further delay.

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.

MALTA
The Times of Malta

August 26, 2018

The Letter to the People of God issued some days ago by Pope Francis in response to the latest developments in the unfolding sex abuse scandal crippling the Catholic Church in America is a remarkable document in many ways. Not surprisingly, it is also controversial. Some have hailed it as a turning point in the public pronouncements by the Church on this issue while others – including some victims – have dismissed it as more of the same.

The language and purpose of the Letter needs to be understood in the context of Pope Francis’s attempted reform of the Church. From the very beginning, Francis has tried to break the culture of ‘clericalism’, meaning attempts to maintain or increase the power of the religious hierarchy and to protect it from any accountability. This struggle has played out in multiple fora, such as in the Church’s finances, and in attempts to bring to justice high-ranking prelates who ignored, protected or perpetrated abuse.

This culture, and the resultant power struggles within the Vatican, was one of the drivers that led to Pope Benedict’s resignation. Pope Francis has regularly publicly admonished his top Curia officials, much to their anger and dismay, about the “cancer” of cliques and plots within the Vatican “that leads to a self-referential attitude” and the hoarding of money and power. Francis once compared the difficulties of reforming the Church to cleaning the Sphinx of Egypt with a toothbrush.

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.

DUBLIN (IRELAND)
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

August 26, 2018

By Peter Smith

Pope Francis began his final Mass in Ireland on Sunday with a litany of repentance for victims of sexual abuse and of abuse “of power and conscience.”

And as the pope was seeking repentance, there was a call for his resignation from Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano, who was the papal nuncio to Washington, D.C., before Francis recalled him in 2016.

The archbishop’s letter contended that Francis had allowed former Cardinal Theodore McCarrick to retain his influential role despite knowing for years of allegations of sexual misconduct against him. The cardinal was banned from ministry and resigned earlier this year when it became publicly known he sexually abused boys and exploited young adult seminarians.

Francis essentially fired Archbishop Vigano from his diplomatic post. The latter is part of a conservative camp that blames the pope for being part of a liberal group tolerating homosexuality in the church.

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

ROME
LifeSiteNews

August 26, 2018

By John-Henry Westen

“The corruption and filth which have entered into the life of the Church must be purified at their roots,” said Vatican Cardinal Raymond Burke in response to a LifeSite request for comment on the release of Archbishop Carlo Viganò’s testimony. The 11-page letter issued by the former papal representative in the United States released to LifeSiteNews and a few other outlets is filled with revelations of scandals within the hierarchy.

“The declarations made by a prelate of the authority of Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò must be totally taken to heart by those responsible in the Church,” said Burke. “Each declaration must be subject to investigation, according to the Church’s time-tried procedural law.”

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

DUBLIN (IRELAND)
The Washington Post

August 26, 2018

A former Vatican ambassador to the United States has alleged in an 11-page letter that Pope Benedict XVI and Pope Francis — among other top Catholic Church officials — had been aware of sexual misconduct allegations against former Washington, D.C., archbishop Cardinal Theodore McCarrick years before he resigned this summer.

The letter from Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano, who was recalled from his D.C. post in 2016 amid allegations that he’d become embroiled in the conservative American fight against same-sex marriage, was first reported by the National Catholic Register and LifeSite News, two conservative Catholic sites. The letter offered no proof, and Vigano on Sunday told The Washington Post he wouldn’t comment further.

“Silence and prayer are the only things that are befitting,” he said.

The accusations landed as Francis was wrapping up one of the most fraught trips of his papacy, coming face-to-face with the church’s damaged credibility in a country reeling from decades of abuse. In a Mass at Dublin’s Phoenix Park, Francis spoke in Spanish and asked for forgiveness for what he called “abuses of power, conscience, and sexual abuse perpetrated by members with roles of responsibility in the church,” according to a translation of his remarks by Vatican News.

“We ask forgiveness for some members of the church’s hierarchy who did not take charge of these painful situations and kept quiet,” Francis said.

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

BUFFALO (NY)
WKBW

August 23, 2018

By Charlie Specht

Editor’s Note: In March 2018, the Diocese of Buffalo released a list of 42 priests accused of abuse. 7 Eyewitness News has learned that two priests who were in ministry at that time were originally considered for inclusion on that list, but were removed before the list was made public.

This is the second part of a two-part investigative series on Bishop Richard J. Malone’s handling of those priests.

You can read part one here

Kyle is a devout, faithful Catholic from Buffalo.

“I have a deep respect for the virtues of piety and obedience,” he said.

Which is why it almost pains him to tell the story of Father Robert Yetter, the longtime pastor of St. Mary’s Catholic Church in Swormville.

In 2013, Father Yetter offered Kyle what was supposed to be a helping hand. The young man was 25 and searching for answers in life when Yetter offered to take him to see “Captain Phillips” at the Walden Galleria cinema. The two planned to watch the movie and talk about faith over dinner at Jack Astor’s.

“This was my first opportunity to be able to really ask him some deep questions about the faith so that I could get some answers for what I was searching for,” Kyle said.

But then Kyle said something happened that he never expected.

“We were like lightly laughing about something that was mildly funny and then he just kind of finished the laughter and then just like slaps his hand right here,” Kyle said, pointing to his inner thigh.

His first reaction was to freeze.

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.

MALTA
manueldelia.com

August 23, 2018

The Bishop of Gozo, Mario Grech, has engaged lawyers to threaten a UK Catholic blogger who commented on allegations already reported by Malta Today in 2015 with criminal and civil action.

The report concerns the case of Gozitan cleric Joseph Bezzina and the allegation Bishop Mario Grech shielded him from any consequence after allegations of abuse of pubescent boys. The blog by Catholic writer Mark Lambert, says the dossier about Joseph Bezzina’s case has “disappeared”.

Mark Lambert’s report also refers to the case of Dominic Camilleri that was convicted by a Malta church tribunal in 2003 but had still not been defrocked by 2015. This was covered in a Malta Today report by Jurgen Balzan from the time.

The blogger says these cases, and a claim by members of the Gozitan clergy that accuse Bishop Mario Grech of “professional misconduct”, raise uncomfortable questions about the Gozitan curia’s commitment to take action on child abuse.

In a letter to Mark Lambert, Mario Grech’s lawyer denies the allegations and threatens “civil and criminal procedures” against the author.

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.

BUFFALO (NY)
WGRZ

August 24, 2018

Several local lawmakers are calling on Buffalo Bishop Richard Malone to resign for his handling of the on-going priest sex abuse issue in the Diocese.

Several local lawmakers are calling on Buffalo Bishop Richard Malone to resign for his handling of the on-going priest sex abuse issue in the Diocese.

Congressman Brian Higgins tweeted Friday afternoon that Bishop Malone has exhibited poor leadership and knew about children and others put in harm’s way, in calling for the Bishop’s resignation.

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.

BUFFALO (NY)
WKBW

August 24, 2018

By Charlie Specht and Christine Streich

I-Team investigation revealed current cover-up

Calls are mounting for Buffalo Bishop Richard J. Malone to resign in the wake of a 7 Eyewitness News investigation that revealed a continuing cover-up of sexual abuse in the Catholic Diocese of Buffalo.

Three elected officials from South Buffalo — the region’s most heavily Catholic enclave — including a United States Congressman, said Malone must resign immediately because he has lost the trust of much of the region’s nearly 600,000 Catholics.

In addition, they are pushing for a criminal investigation of the Diocese of Buffalo.

Rep. Brian Higgins said, “Overwhelming evidence recently released clearly shows that Bishop Malone has exhibited poor leadership and knew about children and others put in harm’s way. He must resign.”

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.

BUFFALO (NY)
The Buffalo News

August 24, 2018

By Dan Herbeck

Public pressure mounted on Bishop Richard J. Malone on Friday as a congressman, two other public officials and a prominent Buffalo businessman who serves as a church deacon called upon him to resign because of his handling of clergy abuse cases.

A Catholic radio station in Buffalo – WLOF-FM, Station of the Cross – posted a statement on its website, saying Malone “covered up for predatory priests” and should resign “immediately” as bishop of the Catholic Diocese of Buffalo.

Paul L. Snyder III, chief executive officer of the Snyder Corp., told The Buffalo News it is time for thousands of Catholics in Western New York to “rise up” and insist on changes in their church.

Snyder, a longtime church volunteer who serves as a deacon in his parish, said he believes that recent news reports about Malone’s handling of clergy abuse allegations show that he and other top diocesan officials have been involved in a “cover-up” and that it is time for Malone to resign.

In his letter to Malone, Snyder said the bishop’s “conduct to mask the truth from our Community, demonstrates that you have been seriously negligent in your duties as the leader of our Diocese,” Snyder wrote to the bishop. “I … respectfully ask for your resignation from the Catholic Diocese of Buffalo.”

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.

DUBLIN (IRELAND)
The Associated Press

August 25, 2018

By Nicole Winfield and Trisha Thomas

Pope Francis faced a lukewarm reception and scattered protests Saturday on his trip to Ireland, with even his vow to rid the church of the “scourge” of sexual abuse and his outrage at those “repugnant crimes” dismissed as a disappointment by some of Ireland’s wounded victims.

But others who met with him in private left heartened that he would respond to their plight, including two of the thousands of children who were forcibly put up for adoption for the shame of having been born to unwed mothers. They said Francis described the corruption and cover-up in the church as “caca” — translated by the Vatican translator for the English speakers as “filth as one sees in the toilet.”

The abuse scandal — which has exploded anew in the U.S. but has convulsed Ireland since the 1990s with revelations of unfathomable violence and humiliation against women and children — took center stage on the first day of Francis’ two-day trip. The visit was originally intended to celebrate Catholic families.

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.

KNOCK (IRELAND)
The Associated Press

August 27, 2018

11:59 p.m.

Pope Francis says parents of gay children shouldn’t condemn them, ignore their orientation or throw them out of the house. Rather, he says they should pray, talk and try to understand.

Speaking to reporters after closing out a Catholic family rally in Ireland, Francis said: “There have always been gay people and people with homosexual tendencies.”

Francis was asked what he would tell a father of a child who just came out as gay. Francis said he would first suggest prayer.

“Don’t condemn. Dialogue. Understand, give the child space so he or she can express themselves.”

Francis said it might be necessary seek psychiatric help if a child begins to exhibit “worrisome” traits, but that it’s something else if an adult comes out as gay.

He urged parents not to respond with silence. “Ignoring child with this tendency shows a lack of motherhood and fatherhood.”

He said: “This child has the right to a family. And the family not throwing him out.”

___

11:45 p.m.

Pope Francis is defending his procedures to hold bishops accountable for covering up priestly sex abuse, saying a tribunal isn’t necessary and that his ad-hoc approach works better.

Francis was asked en route home from Ireland on Sunday about demands from abuse survivors to implement his 2015 decision to create a tribunal section inside the Vatican to judge negligent bishops.

Francis scrapped the idea in 2016 and instead laid out legal procedures to use the existing Vatican bureaucracy to investigate complaints, and then for a college of legal experts to weigh in and advise the pope.

Francis said a full-fledged tribunal “wasn’t viable or convenient because of the different cultures of the bishops who must be judged.” Instead, he said the ad-hoc jury system “works better” and that “several” bishops had already been judged.

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

IRELAND
The Wall Street Journal

August 26, 2018

Pope Francis issued a sweeping apology for the sexual abuse charges surrounding the Catholic church at the end of his two-day visit in Ireland.

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.

ABOARD THE PAPAL PLANE
Reuters

August 26, 2018

By Philip Pullella

Pope Francis said on Sunday he would not respond to a former top Vatican official who accused him of having known for years of allegations of sex abuse by a prominent U.S. cardinal, calling on the pontiff to resign in an unprecedented broadside against the pope by a Church insider.

Francis, speaking to reporters on the plane returning from a trip to Dublin, said dismissively that a statement containing the accusations “speaks for itself”.

In a detailed 11-page bombshell statement given to conservative Roman Catholic media outlets during the pope’s visit to Ireland, Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano accused a long list of current and past Vatican and U.S. Church officials of covering up the case of Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, who resigned last month in disgrace.

In remarkably blunt language, Vigano said alleged cover-ups in the Church were making it look like “a conspiracy of silence not so dissimilar from the one that prevails in the mafia”.

“Pope Francis has repeatedly asked for total transparency in the Church,” wrote Vigano, who has criticized the pope before.

“In this extremely dramatic moment for the universal Church, his extremely dramatic moment for the universal Church, he must acknowledge his mistakes and, in keeping with the proclaimed principle of zero tolerance, Pope Francis must be the first to set a good example for cardinals and bishops who covered up McCarrick’s abuses and resign along with all of them,” Vigano said.

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

IRELAND
ABC News

August 26, 2018

Pope Francis’ visit to Dublin, Ireland, was met with harsh protesting and breaks from prepared speeches to ask for forgiveness on behalf of the church for its abuse of power, sexual assault and more.

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.

ROME
AFP

August 27, 2018

By Catherine Marciano with Joseph Stenson in Dublin

Pope Francis has declined to comment on a claim he personally ignored sexual abuse allegations against a senior clergyman, after a visit to Ireland dominated by Church scandals.

Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano, a former Vatican envoy to the United States, said he had told Francis of the allegations against prominent US cardinal Theodore McCarrick in 2013.

But rather than punish McCarrick, who was forced to resign last month, Vigano said Francis had lifted sanctions imposed on him by his predecessor Pope Benedict XVI.

Vigano called on Francis to resign in a letter published Saturday in the National Catholic Register.

He said the pope “knew from at least June 23, 2013, that McCarrick was a serial predator,” adding that “he knew that he was a corrupt man, he covered for him to the bitter end”.

But the pope refused to address the brewing scandal on Sunday.

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

NEW YORK (NY)
CBS News

August 26, 2018

Dublin – Pope Francis issued a sweeping apology Sunday for the “crimes” of the Catholic Church in Ireland, saying church officials regularly didn’t respond with compassion to the many abuses children and women suffered over the years and vowing to work for justice. Francis was interrupted by applause as he read the apology out loud at the start of Mass in Dublin’s Phoenix Park.

Hundreds of miles away, somber protesters marched through the Irish town of Tuam and recited the names of an estimated 800 babies and young children who died at a Catholic Church-run orphanage there, most during the 1950s.

“Elizabeth Murphy, 4 months. Annie Tyne, 3 months. John Joseph Murphy, 10 months,” the protesters said in memory of the children who were buried in an unmarked mass grave whose discovery was confirmed only last year.

Francis, who is on a weekend visit to Ireland, told the hundreds of thousands of people who turned out for Mass that he met Saturday with victims of all sorts of abuses: sexual and labor, as well as children wrenched from their unwed mothers and forcibly put up for adoption. Abuse allegations have taken their toll in the country, and church attendance has plummeted.

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.

WASHINGTON (DC)
Washington Post

August 25, 2018

By Siobhán O’Grady

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2018/08/25/last-time-pope-visited-ireland-homosexuality-was-crime-now-irish-prime-minister-is-gay/

In 2015, when Leo Varadkar was serving as Ireland’s health minister, he came out as a gay man on national radio.

The country was preparing to vote in a same-sex marriage referendum, and Varadkar told the radio host that his sexuality is “not a secret, but it’s not something that everyone would necessarily know.”

He also said, “It’s not something that defines me.”

Two-and-a-half years later, Varadkar, whose father was an Indian immigrant, was named prime minister. He is Ireland’s first openly gay leader, the first leader from a minority background and, at 38 at the time of his appointment, the country’s youngest prime minister.

On Saturday, Varadkar welcomed Pope Francis to Ireland, a nation that has radically changed since the last papal visit, in 1979. At that tim, homosexuality was still a crime. Now, the country’s prime minister is gay.

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.

YORK (PA)
York Daily Record

August 22, 2018

By Geoff Morrow

https://www.ydr.com/story/news/2018/08/22/york-county-da-evidence-clergy-sexual-abuse-likely-destroyed-grand-jury-report/1068448002/

No records exist at the York County District Attorney’s Office in relation to a decades-old clergy abuse case referenced in the recently released Pennsylvania grand jury report, the district attorney’s office said Wednesday.

The report on widespread child sex abuse at the hands of priests alluded to investigative records and evidence being forwarded to the York County DA’s office in 1995, which was then investigated by the York City Police Department.

According to the grand jury report, the Diocese of Harrisburg turned over “photographic negatives and videotape cassettes” to the DA’s office in 1995. The grand jury report details sexual abuse in six Catholic dioceses in Pennsylvania.

Allegations specifically about the Rev. Herbert Shank, one of more than 300 priests named in the grand jury report, were passed along in 1995 to York County law enforcement.

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.

YORK (PA)
York Daily Record

August 22, 2018

By Candy Woodall

There were several warning signs in the Rev. Francis Bach’s past, but that didn’t stop a diocese from assigning him to multiple churches in central Pennsylvania.

In 1967, he was “relieved of his duties” with a young adult ministry in Harrisburg.

That was a few years after he served at St. Patrick Catholic Church in York, where a man in 2016 said Bach abused him as an altar boy in 1960.

Ten years later, Bach had more blemishes on his employment history and more work in York. He’s one of several examples in central Pennsylvania, according to a state grand jury report released last week on priest sex abuse, of the diocese shuffling predator priests, or “passing the trash.”

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.

YORK (PA)
York Daily Record

August 21, 2018

By Sam Ruland

https://www.ydr.com/story/news/2018/08/21/pennsylvania-priest-sex-abuse-some-took-their-own-lives-others-considered-suicide-grand-jury-report/1042459002/

In a detailed letter to the Diocese of Pittsburgh, a man outlined the extensive abuse he endured at the hands of a priest while serving as an altar boy in his hometown parish.

He classified his experiences as sexual, physical and emotional abuse — memories that plagued his mind for years, and ones he certainly couldn’t escape.

*

Almost two years later, in March 2010, the diocese told the victim they would no longer pay for his mental health treatment. A reason or explanation was not given in the grand jury report. It is not certain if the victim was given one himself.

But what is certain is that the victim took his own life two months later.

And while his story is tragic, it’s not the only one of its kind. The grand jury report documents 12 other priests whose victims either attempted suicide or died by suicide. One instance involves the priest himself, who died by suicide, claiming he also was a victim of abuse.

These are their stories, according to the grand jury report:

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.

CARTERSVILLE (GA)
Daily Tribune News

August 25, 2018

By James Swift

It was a solemn service at St. Francis of Assisi Catholic Church in Cartersville Thursday evening.

The Holy Hour observance called for “reparation of the damage done by clergy in the past, healing for the victims and purification of the Church.” The ceremony came just three days after Pope Francis issued an open letter urging the Catholic Church to stand in solidarity with victims of clergy sexual abuse and to “condemn these atrocities and join forces in uprooting this culture of death.”

A little under 100 people turned out for the observance at 850 Douthit Ferry Road in Cartersville. About half of the attendees were middle-aged and senior Caucasians, the other half predominantly middle-aged Hispanics and their children.

Father Juan Francisco Anzora presided over the service, alternating his sermon in English and Spanish.

He prayed for the communities affected by “suppressions of abuse” — as well as the friends and families of the abused and their abusers alike — and for their feelings of “shock and horror” to be replaced by feelings of trust and optimism.

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.

YORK (PA)
York Daily Record

August 23, 2018

By Brandie Kessler

John Delaney knows what’s happening in the hearts and minds of those whose abuse is detailed in the recently released grand jury report on Pennsylvania priest sex abuse.

He lived through what they’re all going through now — the range of emotions from anxiety and excitement, to embarrassment and exhaustion.

Delaney, 47, was in their shoes back in 2005, when a grand jury investigation into the Philadelphia archdiocese was presented.

Delaney, born and raised in Philadelphia but now living in Tennessee, was sexually abused and raped for years by a priest in his parish beginning when he was 10 or 11 years old.

Fifteen years ago, when Delaney testified before the grand jury investigating the archdiocese, he disclosed things he hadn’t ever processed.

“I spent weeks telling them things that had happened that I hadn’t really mentioned before,” Delaney said. “It was long, and it was exhausting.”

Delaney’s abuser, Father James Brzyski, was called one of the archdiocese’s “most brutal abusers.”

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.

PHOENIX (AZ)
Arizona Republic

August 25, 2018

By Michael Kiefer,

A Pennsylvania grand-jury report has reignited international interest in the history and cover-up of sexual abuse by priests, especially abuse of children.

And it brought back memories of a similar crisis 15 years ago in the Phoenix diocese of the Roman Catholic Church.

In 2003, former Maricopa County Attorney Rick Romley forced then-Bishop Thomas O’Brien into an admission of cover-up after an investigation that involved hundreds of thousands of pages of diocese records and the testimony of a priest who wouldn’t look the other way.

Six priests were indicted; two fled the country; others were sued in civil court.

And the Phoenix diocese was made to accept conditions to try to prevent future abuses.

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.

WASHINGTON (DC)
The Hill

August 22, 2018

By Melanie Jula Sakoda

A grand jury report released in Pennsylvania last week detailed years of sexual abuse of minors by Catholic clergy in six dioceses in that state. The report said that 301 priests abused more than 1,000 children since 1947.

Even more disturbing, the investigation concluded that the bishops “followed a playbook for concealing the truth.” Grand jurors believed that, even today, the bishops were still working hard to protect themselves and that there were more victims who have yet to come forward.

Governmental investigations in Ireland and Australia also found the same consistent pattern of cover up by top Catholic officials.

The Catholic Church is the largest organization in the world, and young people have been hurt by its clergy everywhere it operates. Catholic officials around the globe have covered up these crimes and hindered their prosecution.

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.

RANCHO CUCAMONGA (CA)
Inland Valley Daily Bulletin

August 23, 2018

By Richard K. De Atley

A Banning school administrator who pleaded not guilty to charges that he tried to lure a minor to have sex is on “inactive leave” as a Roman Catholic priest, the Los Angeles Archdiocese said Thursday.

Charles Patrick Mayer, 55, of Menifee, is “not in ministry and living privately, since September of 2000 due to a failure to adhere to Archdiocesan policies concerning interaction with youth and young adults. The Archdiocese has no record of allegations of sexual misconduct by Charles Mayer,” the statement read.

The statement was part of a bulletin to parishioners at Our Lady of Lourdes Church in Northridge, which was Mayer’s first assignment as a priest after his 1996 ordination until 2000.

The bulletin asked “anyone who may have information concerning misconduct by Charles Mayer to please contact Detective Donald Patton of the San Bernardino Sheriff’s Department at 909-774-2852.”

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

NEW YORK (NY)
New York Post

August 25, 2018

By Melkorka Licea

A man who has accused a Queens priest of sexually molesting him as a boy has rejected a $200,000 offer from the Catholic Church because the money “doesn’t even come close” to delivering justice.

“I choose to stand on the side of survivors who want to fight,” Paul J. Dunn, 53, told The Post. “There’s no amount of money that will make me feel better.”

The Diocese of Brooklyn, which also covers Queens, offered Dunn a cash settlement in June after he detailed four occasions when priest Cornelius T. Otero coerced him into performing oral sex and forced him to pose naked in “hundreds” of photos when he was a boy, diocese records show.

For the first time, Dunn is coming forward with his story, detailing his suffering to The Post and explaining why he’s turning down a settlement.

Dunn was 10 or 11 when he and Otero, who died in 1998, grew close at St. Joan of Arc Church summer camp in Jackson Heights in 1977 or 1978. Dunn doesn’t recall the exact year.

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

DUBLIN (IRELAND)
Associated Press via Miami Herald

August 26, 2018

By Nicole Winfield

Note: See also Viganò’s “Testimony” in English translation and the Italian original; Richard Sipe’s 4/20/08 letter to Pope Benedict XVI and Sipe’s 7/28/16 letter to Bishop McElroy of San Diego, both cited by Viganò.]

The Vatican’s retired ambassador to the United States has penned an 11-page letter accusing senior Vatican officials of knowing as early as 2000 that the disgraced former archbishop of Washington, ex-Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, regularly invited seminarians into his bed but they still promoted him to cardinal.

The letter, an extraordinary j’accuse from a one-time Holy See diplomat, also accuses Pope Francis of having initially rehabilitated McCarrick despite being informed of his penchant for young seminarians in 2013, soon after he was elected pope.

The National Catholic Register and another conservative site, LifeSiteNews, published the letter attributed to Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano on Sunday as the pope was wrapping up a two-day visit to Ireland.

Vigano, 77, a conservative whose hard-line anti-gay views are well known, also urged the reformist pope to resign over the issue. He and the pope have long been on opposite ideological sides, with the pope more a pastor and Vigano more a cultural warrior.

The Vatican didn’t immediately comment on the letter or confirm its authenticity.

In it, Vigano accused the former Vatican secretaries of state under the previous two popes of having ignored detailed denunciations against McCarrick for years. He said Pope Benedict XVI eventually sanctioned McCarrick in 2009 or 2010 to a lifetime of penance and prayer, but that Francis subsequently rehabilitated him.

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.

IRONDALE (AL)
National Catholic Register

August 25, 2018

By Edward Pentin

[Note: See also Viganò’s “Testimony” in English translation and the Italian original; Richard Sipe’s 4/20/08 letter to Pope Benedict XVI and Sipe’s 7/28/16 letter to Bishop McElroy of San Diego, both cited by Viganò.]

In a written testimony, Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò claims Pope Francis withdrew sanctions against Archbishop Theodore McCarrick.

In an extraordinary 11-page written testament, a former apostolic nuncio to the United States has accused several senior prelates of complicity in covering up Archbishop Theodore McCarrick’s allegations of sexual abuse, and has claimed that Pope Francis knew about sanctions imposed on then-Cardinal McCarrick by Pope Benedict XVI but chose to repeal them.

Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, 77, who served as apostolic nuncio in Washington D.C. from 2011 to 2016, said that in the late 2000s, Benedict had “imposed on Cardinal McCarrick sanctions similar to those now imposed on him by Pope Francis” and that Viganò personally told Pope Francis about those sanctions in 2013.

Archbishop Viganò said in his written statement, simultaneously released to the Register and other media, (see full text below) that Pope Francis “continued to cover” for McCarrick and not only did he “not take into account the sanctions that Pope Benedict had imposed on him” but also made McCarrick “his trusted counselor.” Viganò said that the former archbishop of Washington advised the Pope to appoint a number of bishops in the United States, including Cardinals Blase Cupich of Chicago and Joseph Tobin of Newark.

Archbishop Viganò, who said his “conscience dictates” that the truth be known as “the corruption has reached the very top of the Church’s hierarchy,” ended his testimony by calling on Pope Francis and all of those implicated in the cover up of Archbishop McCarrick’s abuse to resign.

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.

DUBLIN (IRELAND)
Irish Times

August 25, 2018

By Ronan McGreevy

Survivors tell pope he must hold to account religious orders who ran Mother and Baby Homes

Pope Francis has met survivors of clerical sexual abuse in Ireland and also those who spent time in industrial schools, seminaries and Mother and Baby Homes.

The pope was asked at the hour and a half long meeting on Saturday afternoon to use his influence to get the religious orders who ran the Mother and Baby Homes to “acknowledge their actions and issue an open and unqualified apology” to mothers and their children.

The meeting took place at the Papal Nuncio’s residence on Dublin’s Navan Road on the first day of the pope’s visit to Ireland, the first by a pope in 39 years.

Eight victims were present. Among them were Marie Collins, who resigned from the Vatican’s Commission for the Protection of Minors, Clodagh Malone, a survivor of St Patrick’s Mother and Baby Home, and Paul Redmond who was born in a Mother and Baby home and has written the book entitled ‘The Adoption Machine’.

Fr Paddy McCafferty, who was abused as a seminarian in Wexford, and Bernadette Fahy who spent much of her childhood in the notorious Goldenbridge Orphanage, were also there.

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.

ST. LOUIS (MO)
St. Louis American

August 24, 2018

By Chris King

http://www.stlamerican.com/news/local_news/attorney-for-victims-says-hawley-s-investigation-of-archdiocese-is/article_2eba9cca-a7eb-11e8-96a7-ff9f66824fe9.html

She challenged archbishop to release any victims who settled from gag agreement

“Victims of sexual abuse of any kind deserve to have their voices heard, and Missourians deserve to know if this misconduct has occurred in their communities,” Missouri Attorney General Josh Hawley stated on August 23, when announcing an independent review of the Archdiocese of St. Louis regarding allegations of sexual abuse by clergy members.

That’s what Hawley – who is running for U.S. Senate as a Republican in the November 6 general election – said when the archbishop called. “By inviting this independent review, the archdiocese is demonstrating a willingness to be transparent and expose any potential wrongdoing,” Hawley stated.

Nicole Gorovsky, an attorney with clients who claim to have been sexually abused by priests in Missouri, said she and her clients did not receive the same warm welcome from Hawley when they asked him to investigate the church.

“I stood outside your office with survivors of childhood sexual abuse to ask you to organize an investigation into abuses within the Catholic Church in Missouri. We asked for an investigation like the one that occurred in Pennsylvania which revealed over 300 perpetrators and likely over 1,000 victims,” Gorovsky wrote to Hawley on August 24 in a letter that she shared with media.

“You responded that you did not have the power to do such an investigation.”

Indeed, Hawley claimed, in announcing his investigation, that he was empowered to do so by an invitation from Archbishop Robert J. Carlson.

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.

ATLANTA (GA)
CNN

August 25, 2018

By Kara Fox

Leixlip, Ireland – Fiona and her husband aren’t religious. They don’t go to Mass, take communion or recite the Holy Rosary.

But twice in recent years, the couple have driven halfway across Ireland to baptize their children at their families’ community parishes.

The reason? Their children’s education.

The sacrament — and the certificate that comes with it — has long held the key for parents hoping to secure a place for a child’s first day at school in Ireland, where approximately 90% of primary schools have a Catholic ethos.
Although those schools are state-funded, their Catholic Church patrons set the admission guidelines, giving Catholic children priority enrollment over non-Catholics in a crowded system.

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

PITTSBURGH (PA)
Post-Gazette

August 24, 2018

By Peter Smith

Dublin – Roisin Galvin was 12 years old the last time a pope came to say Mass at Dublin’s vast public space, Phoenix Park.

The year was 1979, and the pontiff was a still-vigorous John Paul II, greeted enthusiastically by an overwhelmingly Catholic population.

Back then, all of Ms. Galvin’s friends went to Mass regularly, but now she finds it difficult to raise her five children Catholic in a culture in which many Irish have left the faith or keep it in name only.

“There is only one Mass where I live on a Sunday, and all the priests are very elderly, ” said Ms. Galvin, who lives in a village in County Dublin. “I’m wondering what’s going to happen. Most of them are octogenarians.”

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.

DUBLIN (IRELAND)
Irish Times

August 25, 2018

By Simon Carswell

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/social-affairs/religion-and-beliefs/victims-group-calls-on-pope-to-name-clerical-sex-abusers-1.3606741

End Clergy Abuse group wants zero tolerance of sex abuse under church law

Clerical sex abuse is “a global problem” requiring “a global solution”, a worldwide group of abuse victims meeting in Dublin has said. End Clergy Abuse, which represents clerical abuse survivors and activists, called on Pope Francis to follow the example of survivors who have come forward and take action to name clerical sex abusers and hold bishops who covered it up to account.

The group wants the pope to bring zero tolerance of clerical sex abuse into force under church law, remove from office bishops who covered up sex crimes by clergy, and publish a global registry of confirmed clerical abusers held by the Vatican.

“The time of words should be over and the time of action should start now,” Matthias Katsch, an abuse survivor from Germany, told a press conference on the eve of the pope’s arrival in Ireland for a 36-hour visit, the first by a pontiff since 1979.

Clerical abuse victims and campaigners from Ireland, the UK, Belgium and the US came together in Dublin for only the second meeting of global campaigners. They spoke to reporters near the Catholic Church’s World Meeting of Families at the RDS where they were earlier invited to listen to a panel discussion on “Safeguarding Children and Vulnerable Adults” and the Vatican’s response to the latest allegations of clerical child sex abuse and cover-up by the church.

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

PITTSBURGH (PA)
Tribune-Review

August 24, 2018

By Deb Erdley

A Pennsylvania grand jury report that detailed seven decades of allegations of sexual abuse of 1,000 children by Catholic priests and subsequent cover-ups is reverberating across the Midwest, as church and law enforcement officials here continue to clock more reports on hotlines.

State attorneys general in Missouri and Illinois on Thursday announced reviews of Catholic Church records there, citing interest generated by the Pennsylvania report.

Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan specifically referenced Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro’s grand jury report. She said the report identified at least seven priests with connections to Illinois.

“The Chicago Archdiocese has agreed to meet with me. I plan to reach out to the other dioceses in Illinois to have the same conversation and expect the bishops will agree and cooperate fully. If not, I will work with states’ attorneys and law enforcement throughout Illinois to investigate,” Madigan said Thursday.

The same day Missouri Attorney General Josh Hawley announced he was opening an independent review of the Archdiocese of St. Louis regarding allegations of sexual abuse by priests.

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

DUBLIN (IRELAND)
Irish Times

August 25, 2018

By Simon Carswell

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/social-affairs/religion-and-beliefs/pope-francis-speaks-of-failure-to-address-repugnant-crimes-of-clerical-sex-abuse-1.3607788

Failure ‘rightly given rise to outrage and remains a source of pain and shame for the Catholic community’

Pope Francis, in the first speech of his visit to Ireland, has recognised how the Church’s failure to address the “repugnant crimes” of clerical sexual abuse “remains a source of pain and shame” for Irish Catholics.

Speaking at Dublin Castle almost two hours after landing in Ireland, the pontiff in addressing the scandal that has damaged the Church’s standing since the last visit of a pope almost four decades ago, said he was “very conscious” of the circumstances of “our most vulnerable brothers and sisters.”

Speaking after a speech by the Taoiseach, the pope specifically made reference to “women who in the past have endured particularly difficult situations” – a veiled reference to the treatment of Irish women in the Magdalene Laundries and other Church-run institutions.

“With regard to the most vulnerable, I cannot fail to acknowledge the grave scandal caused in Ireland by the abuse of young people by members of the Church charged with responsibility for their protection and education,” Francis, speaking in Italian, told an audience that included Taoiseach Leo Varadkar.

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.

PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Reuters

August 24, 2018

By Vanessa Johnston

Mike McDonnell was an altar boy who loved to sing Latin hymns at his church in suburban Philadelphia, but his Roman Catholic faith became a source of torment at age 12 when he woke up to find a priest molesting him in the vacation bed the clergyman forced him to share.

“From that day forth, I would never be that same child,” said McDonnell, now 49. “I went into shock mode and shut down. I would hold onto those secrets for 20-plus years.”

McDonnell, now a peer counselor at a drug and alcohol treatment facility, agreed to share his personal story with Reuters in the wake of a stunning grand jury report of Roman Catholic priests accused of abusing more than 1,000 children across Pennsylvania. He said he wanted to encourage other victims to emerge from the shadows to begin their own healing.

While the incident at age 12 broke him, he said the abuse started at age 10, when another priest molested him. “At that age, I wasn’t sure the things that were going on,” he said.

His decades-long road to recovery was fraught with alcohol abuse, broken marriages and even a criminal record. The Archdiocese of Philadelphia paid for McDonnell’s counseling sessions but he seldom attended. Instead he forged receipts and eventually was convicted of pocketing more than $100,000 in a theft he called payback for the abuse.

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.

PITTSBURGH (PA)
Action 4 News

August 24, 2018

By Bob Mayo

Philadelphia – In the wake of the findings by a Pennsylvania grand jury, U.S. Sen. Bob Casey is calling for strengthening laws to better protect children from sexual abuse.

“The grand jury report was a chronicle of pure evil. Pure evil. There’s no other way to say it,” Casey, D-Pa., said at a news conference in Philadelphia on Friday.

Casey, a Catholic, feels the issue is larger than the six dioceses the grand jury examined.

“We should all be angry,” Casey said. “You don’t have to be a Catholic. You don’t even have to be an American. Just as a human being, we should be angry.”

Casey is proposing federal action to press for tougher and more uniform standards across Pennsylvania and all states. His bill would seek to require that suspected child abuse be reported directly to law enforcement or state authorities.

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.

ALLENTOWN (PA)
Morning Call

August 24, 2018

By Steve Esack

[See also a copy of the Supreme Court ruling.]

Harrisburg – The Pennsylvania Supreme Court has tweaked secrecy rules related to how defense lawyers can share testimony or evidence related to clients called before grand juries.

The 5-2 ruling issued Tuesday stemmed from a legal dispute that arose during the statewide grand jury investigation of clergy child sex abuse in six Catholic dioceses, including Allentown. The justices ruled that a grand jury nondisclosure form, created by the attorney general’s office, unfairly muzzled defense lawyers’ rights and their abilities to serve their clients.

The ruling allows defense lawyers to seek their clients’ permission to publicly share the content and scope of their testimony to the grand jury, which operates in private. Witnesses have always been permitted to disclose their own testimony.

“The obligation of confidentially generally extends to all matters occurring before the grand jury, which includes, but is not limited to, what transpires in a grand jury room,” wrote Chief Justice Thomas Saylor. “A lawyer otherwise subject to secrecy, however, may disclose a client’s own testimony to the extent that the client would otherwise be free to do so under applicable law.”

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

YORK (PA)
York Daily Record

August 24, 2018

By Mike Argento

“The church was our life,” Bortz said. “We didn’t do anything that didn’t involve the church. It was our life.”

When she was in ninth grade at Allentown Central Catholic High School, her religion teacher was Father Francis “Frank” Fromholzer. She didn’t know him very well; she was more acquainted with the priests who were friends of the family. At one point, Fromholzer suggested taking Bortz and her best friend on a trip to the Poconos. It wasn’t all that unusual, Bortz said. Priests were always taking kids from the parish on outings, such as roller skating or bowling; for many of the kids from working-class and troubled families, it was a treat that their own families could ill afford.

While driving to the Poconos, according to testimony by Bortz and her friend to the grand jury, Fromholzer fondled the girls. In the Poconos, Bortz recalled, the priest laid out a blanket and started kissing her. He did other things. She recalled it hurt, she told the grand jury. “It was confusing,” she told the grand jury, “because – you were always told you were going to hell if you let anybody touch you. But then you’ve got father doing it…”

Fromholzer, according to her grand jury testimony, continued to harass her through the ninth grade. It stopped, she told the grand jury, when she entered 10th grade and was in a different building. She didn’t report the abuse immediately. It just wasn’t something you talked about, she said.

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

ALLENTOWN (PA)
Morning Call

August 24, 2018

By Tim Darragh

Fourteen people claiming to have been sexually abused by priests and not previously reporting it have contacted the Allentown Diocese since the Aug. 14 release of a grand jury report investigating six Pennsylvania dioceses, a spokesman said Friday.

The spokesman, Matt Kerr, said none of the priests identified by the accusers is in ministry.

The increase in accusers comes as calls to a state hotline specifically set up by Attorney General Josh Shapiro’s office to field calls about clergy sex abuse continue to surge. As of Friday, 656 people had contacted the hotline, said Shapiro’s spokesman, Joe Grace. At the beginning of the week, the hotline had received 400 calls.

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.

CORK (IRELAND)
Irish Examiner

August 24, 2018

Clerical abuse victims have called for a zero-tolerance approach to be taken against priests involved in the child abuse scandals.

A global survivors group also proposed a list of abusive priests be made public in an effort to protect others.

Members of the Ending Clerical Abuse (ECA) group – aimed at holding the Catholic church to account for clerical sex abuse – gathered in Dublin today to recount their abuse stories on the eve of the Pope’s visit to Ireland.

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.

DUBLIN (IRELAND)
Irish Independent

August 25, 2018

By Kevin Doyle

https://www.independent.ie/irish-news/pope-francis-in-ireland/pope-francis-speech-calls-clerical-abuse-scandal-in-ireland-repugnant-makes-thinlyveiled-reference-to-abortion-referendum-37250833.html

– Pope Francis speech: Calls clerical abuse scandal in Ireland ‘repugnant’, makes thinly-veiled reference to abortion referendum
– Pope: Measures must be taken in response to ‘betrayal of trust’
– Warns about culture that doesn’t respect the unborn
– Varadkar: Church must acknowledge same-sex families and adopt zero tolerance towards abusers

MEASURES must be taken in response to the “betrayal of trust” and “repugnant” abuse inflicted on abuse victims in Ireland, Pope Francis has said.

In his first public statement since arriving in Dublin, the Pontiff said the Catholic Church must work to “remedy past mistakes and to adopt stringent norms meant to ensure that they do not happen again”.

Speaking in front of Taoiseach Leo Varadkar in Dublin Castle, Pope Francis also risked raising the temperature around his visit with a thinly-veiled reference to the abortion referendum.

He questioned whether a “materialistic ‘throwaway culture’” has made people “increasingly indifferent to the poor and to the most defenceless members of our human family, including the unborn, deprived of the very right to life”.

However, the Taoiseach told the audience that Ireland has “voted in our parliament and by referendum to modernise our laws – understanding that marriages do not always work, that women should make their own decisions, and that families come in many forms including those headed by a grandparent, lone parent or same-sex parents or parents who are divorced”.

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.

CHICAGO (IL)
Chicago Tribune

August 24, 2018

By Angie Leventis Lourgos

Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan wants to meet with Catholic church leaders throughout the state to ensure “a complete and accurate accounting” of alleged child sex abuse by priests with local ties who were named in the Pennsylvania grand jury report.

At least seven of the more than 300 Roman Catholic priests named in the Pennsylvania report this month have Illinois connections.

The Chicago Archdiocese has agreed to meet with Madigan, and she plans to speak with other Catholic bishops throughout the state, she said in a statement released Thursday.

“The Catholic Church has a moral obligation to provide its parishioners and the public a complete and accurate accounting of all sexually inappropriate behavior,” she said.

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

NEW YORK (NY)
New York Times

August 25, 2018

By Jason Horowitz

Nearly 40 years since the last papal visit to Ireland, Pope Francis arrived on Saturday to a transformed country where the once-mighty Roman Catholic Church is in tatters, its authority buffeted by deepening secularization and a global sex abuse crisis challenging Francis’ papacy.

“I’m happy for this visit,” Francis said on the papal plane before he landed in Dublin, where he was greeted on the tarmac by local bishops and children who offered him flowers. He added that it “touches my heart to return to Ireland after 38 years. I was here for nearly three months to practice English in 1980. And for me this is a great memory.”

For Catholics around the globe, this return visit promises to be more memorable.

As recently as a few weeks ago, the pope’s visit to Ireland mostly promised an awkward encounter in an estranged relationship. Since the last papal visit — by John Paul II in 1979 — Ireland, once a cornerstone of the church, has abandoned its teachings by legalizing divorce and gay marriage. The country now has a gay prime minister, and just a few months ago voted to lift a ban on abortion.

But recent revelations in the United States and Chile of the institutional covering-up of sexual abuse by clerics have lent sudden urgency to the pope’s visit, where he will speak at the church’s ninth World Meeting of Families. The issue now threatens to overshadow the visit by Francis, who has struggled to grasp the enormity of the scourge throughout his papacy.

Catholics worldwide wait to see whether he will use Ireland, with its own painful history of abuse, as a symbolic stage upon which to announce concrete measures to combat a crisis that threatens the future of his church. It is not clear that he will.

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.

DUBLIN (IRELAND)
Irish Times

August 25, 2018

By Sorcha Pollak et al.

LIVE: The Pope in Ireland

[The Irish Times is maintaining a Live Blog of the visit of Pope Francis to Ireland.]

13:02 “Today, as in the past, the men and women who live in this country strive to enrich the life of the nation with the wisdom borne of their faith. Even in Ireland’s darkest hours they found in that faith a source of courage needed to forge a future of freedom and dignity, justice and solidarity. The Christian message has been an integral part of that experience… it is my prayer that Ireland will not be forgetful of the powerful strains of the Christian message.”

12:56 Pope Francis: “I am very conscious of the circumstances of the our most vulnerable brothers and sisters, I think of those women who have in the past endured difficult situations. I cannot fail to acknowledge the grave scandal caused in Ireland of the abuse of young people by the members of the church…”

12:53 Speaking of the Northern Irish conflict, the Pope said: “We give thanks for the two decades of peace that have followed this historic agreement with the hope that the peace process will overcome every remaining obstacle and give birth to a future of mutual trust.”

12:52 The Pope has spoken of the “intractable conflicts and violence, contempt for human dignity and human rights and the growing divide between rich and poor. We need to recover in every instance of political and social life the sense of being a true family of peoples.”

12:50 Pope Francis is now speaking at Dublin Castle

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.

SHAVERTOWN (PA)
The Associated Press

August 24, 2018

By Michael Rubinkam

A lacerating grand jury report on sexual abuse by Catholic clergy in Pennsylvania is especially difficult reading for a church where five of the accused priests served as pastor.

For parishioners of St. Therese’s Church, outside Wilkes-Barre in northeastern Pennsylvania, the report dredged up painful memories of broken trust and provoked disgust at church leaders who kept abusive priests on the job. At least two instances took place at the church, according to the grand jury. St. Therese’s lost a pastor over sexual misconduct as recently as 2006.

Yet for all the heartbreak, the pews were full last weekend. And while it’s too early to tell whether the bombshell revelations will affect attendance or giving at St. Therese’s, a vibrant parish serving about 1,500 families, church members say they separate their faith from the evil acts of supposedly holy men.

“Do we know that our priests are men and that sometimes they do bad things? Yes, we do. Do we want them in our community anymore? No, definitely not,” longtime parishioner Kathie Kemmerer said after morning Mass this week. But “inasmuch as we’re upset about everything and we feel terrible for the victims, we’ll keep coming. We’ll keep coming because this is the place to get God’s grace.”

The grand jury found that some 300 predator priests sexually abused more than 1,000 children since the 1940s, abetted by bishops and other high-ranking church officials who orchestrated a cover-up to avoid public scandal and financial liability. The Pennsylvania report, along with recent sexual abuse allegations against the retired archbishop of Washington, ex-Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, has plunged the Catholic Church into crisis more than 15 years after the clergy abuse scandal first broke in Boston.

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

IRELAND
BBC News

August 24, 2018

Abuse survivor Marie Collins says she wants to hear a clear plan of action on dealing with clerical sex abuse from Pope Francis during his two-day visit to the Republic of Ireland.

Earlier this week, it was confirmed that he would meet some victims during his Irish visit.

She was speaking to Martin Bashir, the BBC’s Religion Editor, ahead of the first papal visit to the country in 40 years.

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

IRELAND
Yahoo View

August 23, 2018

Length: 3:04

The past few weeks have been tumultuous for the Catholic Church in the wake of a devastating Pennsylvania grand jury report that detailed decades of child sex abuse at the hands of priests.

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

ST. LOUIS (MO)
National Public Radio

August 24, 2018

By Vanessa Romo

Updated at 9:37 a.m. ET

The St. Louis Archdiocese is handing over its records to the state Attorney General’s office for an investigation into the Missouri church’s handling of sexual abuse accusations against clergy members.

Archbishop Robert Carlson made the announcement that he was voluntarily opening church files at a press conference on Thursday. Carlson said he made the invitation to Attorney General Josh Hawley in a letter, adding that he was prompted by “several letters” he had received urging greater transparency.

“Second,” he said, “we have nothing to hide.”

The move by Carlson follows the recent release of a Pennsylvania grand jury report detailing decades of alleged sexual abuse by more than 300 priests and cover-ups by high-ranking clergy leaders.

Carlson said Hawley will have “unfettered access” to the Archdiocese’s comprehensive files.

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.

ERIE (PA)
Erie News Now

August 23, 2018

By Paul Wagner

Abuse Calls Continue to Come Into Erie Catholic Diocese

More calls about clergy sex abuse are coming into the Erie Catholic Diocese.

Since the Pennsylvania Attorney General grand jury report was released last week, the diocese has received 22 new complaints of sexual or physical abuse against minors, plus 5 new complaints alleging sexual abuse with adults.

The allegations are against 12 priests, 5 that are not included in the grand jury report, plus 8 lay people, all newly accused.

So the totals are 13 newly accused of abuse, 5 priests and 8 lay people.

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

SCOTLAND
The Guardian

August 23, 2018

By Severin Carrell

Police examining claims of abuse over decades at Catholic home charge 12 people

Police in Scotland have arrested and charged nuns and a number of other former staff in an investigation into alleged child abuse at a Catholic children’s home.

The nuns are among 12 people who have been charged by detectives investigating detailed allegations of systematic physical and sexual abuse of children over many decades at Smyllum Park in Lanark.

Police Scotland said another four former staff at the Catholic institution would be reported to the Crown Office, Scotland’s prosecution service, later on Thursday.

The force would not release any further details about the identities of those charged or the offences they face, pending final decisions by prosecutors.

“Twelve people, 11 women and one man, ages ranging from 62 to 85 years, have been arrested and charged in connection with the non-recent abuse of children,” it said.

“All are subject of reports to [the] Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal. A further four individuals will be reported today. Inquiries are continuing, it would be inappropriate to comment further.”

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.

WASHINGTON (DC)
Catholic News Service

August 23, 2018

By Zita Ballinger Fletcher

Sexual assault victims say they were hurt not only by individual priests, but by church officials and ordinary Catholics who treated them with intolerance and indifference.

Four survivors of sexual assaults by priests shared their stories with Catholic News Service. They are: Jim VanSickle and Mike McDonnell of Pennsylvania, Michael Norris of Houston and Judy Larson of Utah.

Many of them have not been to a Catholic church in years. They say the hardhearted attitudes of diocesan officials, staff and ordinary churchgoers and an atmosphere at their parishes allowed the abuse.

“Being raised Catholic, I remember — you don’t speak out against your own church,” said VanSickle. “Nobody’s going to listen to you.”

Most of them belonged to what they described as extremely traditional parishes and said they were attacked as vulnerable children. Their view of Catholicism changed when fellow believers showed them no compassion and acted to protect selfish interests.

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.

PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Philly.com

August 19, 2018

By John Baer

There’s an ugly irony in last week’s release of a statewide grand jury report on decades of sex abuse of children, and its cover-up, by Catholic clergy.

Turns out the state with the fullest examination of the globally troubling problem is also the state offering some of the nation’s weakest recourse for those who’ve been abused.

And you can guess why: Pennsylvania’s legislature.

It has long lagged in helping victims ease at least some suffering endured at the hands of evil.

Just one more category in which we trail most states. And, in this case, not by a little.

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.

DULUTH (MN)
Anderson Advocates

August 23, 2018

Bishop Paul Sirba Refuses to Testify, Withholds Information Regarding Father William Graham from Jury

Tonight, a Duluth jury returned a verdict in favor of a courageous sexual abuse survivor, Doe 446, concluding the survivor did not intentionally inflict emotional distress upon Fr. William Graham after Doe 446 named Fr. Graham in a sexual abuse lawsuit in 2016.

The survivor requested that Bishop Sirba testify and Bishop Sirba refused, instead sending a lawyer to fight this request. Bishop Paul Sirba refused to testify to the details of the investigation and refused to provide Fr. Graham’s file to the court and the public. Further, the details surrounding Fr. Graham’s administrative leave from the Diocese of Duluth, and his non-existent contract, were withheld from the jury. Because Bp. Sirba refused to testify, and chose to conceal the situation from the jury, the jury found that Doe 446 interfered with his contract.

“Bishop Sirba’s refusal to testify and his continued concealment of Fr. Graham’s file and the subsequent investigation is outrageous and criminal,” said Mike Finnegan, one of the attorneys representing Doe 446. “This survivor had the courage to come forward and disclose his abuse to the diocese and he was once again re-victimized by Bishop Sirba, the Diocese and its lawyers. We will continue to fight for justice on behalf of Doe 446.”

After Doe 446 came forward and named Fr. Graham in a lawsuit, the Diocese of Duluth conducted an internal investigation into the abuse allegations. The information gathered during the investigation was presented to the Diocesan Review Board and Doe 446’s allegations were found credible.

On August 5, 2018, the Diocese of Duluth added Fr. Graham’s name to its list of priests with credible allegations of child sexual abuse.

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.

PITTSBURGH (PA)
WTAE

August 22, 2018

By Paul Van Osdol

At least five former priests named in the grand jury report worked as state-licensed counselors or social workers, Action News Investigates has learned.

In four of the five cases, no criminal charges had been filed, so state officials knew nothing about the child sex abuse allegations when the former priests applied for state licenses.

Arthur Merrell was a chaplain at the Allegheny County Jail and the Shuman Juvenile Detention Center until 1998, after the grand jury says he was accused of inappropriately touching a boy younger than 15 and having sexual relations with a mentally ill man.

The grand jury says Merrell admitted to the acts, then left the priesthood.

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

ERIE (PA)
GoErie

August 24, 2018

Editorial Board

Worn levers and a tired script were within easy reach of Catholic Diocese of Erie Bishop Lawrence Persico when protesters showed up Tuesday at the seat of Catholic power in Erie.

He could have retreated behind the walls of St. Mark Catholic Center and held the protesters at legalistic bay on a distant public sidewalk.

Persico exercised a greater power instead. He stepped into the chancery parking lot and invited the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests to hold their demonstration on church property.

“Down there, what good is it?” he asked, referring to the sidewalk, as detailed by reporter Ed Palattella.

The church deserves every ounce of opprobrium heaped upon it right now. Charged with a divine saving mission, it put the interests of the institution and the men who control it above the protection of children, whom some priests defiled.

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.

KANSAS CITY (MO)
National Catholic Reporter

August 21, 2018

By Brian Roewe

A lax following of church teachings on sexuality in the wider culture a recurring theme

This article was updated at 5 p.m. Central Time to include comments from theologian Todd Salzman.

Accusations of sexual abuse and misconduct by former Cardinal Theodore McCarrick and within several U.S. seminaries have rematerialized past charges placing gay priests and homosexuality at the root of the church’s escalating crisis, positions backed in recent days by a handful of bishops.

“It is time to admit that there is a homosexual subculture within the hierarchy of the Catholic Church that is wreaking great devastation in the vineyard of the Lord,” wrote Bishop Robert Morlino in an Aug. 18 letter to Catholics in the Diocese of Madison, Wisconsin.

Morlino said the revelations around sexual abuse in recent weeks — from the Pennsylvania grand jury report, and allegations against McCarrick, which included grooming and sexually abusing seminarians and young adult priests — have left him tired: “of people being hurt … of the obfuscation of truth … of sin.”

He pointed to a deeper crisis of acceptance and diminishment of sin, saying “we have refused to call a sin a sin,” and urged the church to resist becoming a refuge for sin, including “deviant sexual — almost exclusively homosexual — acts by clerics.”

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.

PITTSBURGH (PA)
Trib Live

August 23, 2018

By Roy Bourgeois

As a Catholic priest, I did the unspeakable. I called for the ordination of women in the church. The Vatican was swift in its response. The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith informed me that I was “causing grave scandal” in the church and that I had 30 days to recant my public support for the ordination of women or I would be expelled from the priesthood.

I told the Vatican that this was not possible. Believing that women and men are created of equal worth and dignity and that both are called by an all-loving God to serve as priests, my conscience would not allow me to recant. In my response, I felt it was also important to make clear that when Catholics hear the word “scandal,” they think about the thousands of children who have been raped and abused by Catholic priests — not the ordination of women.

In 2010, the Vatican called the ordination of women as priests a crime comparable to that of the sexual abuse of children. Judging from its actions, however, it would appear that the Vatican views women’s ordination as a crime substantially more serious than child abuse. Among the thousands of priests who raped and sexually abused children, the vast majority were not expelled from the priesthood or excommunicated. Every woman, however, who has been ordained to the Catholic priesthood has been excommunicated by the Vatican.

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

AUSTRALIA
9News

August 21, 2018

By Mark Burrows

Pope Francis’ letter to the world’s 1.2 billion Catholics condemning child sex abuse has been described as all words no action by abuse survivors in Australia and overseas.

The Pontiff’s letter to the “People of God” said sex abuse was a “crime” and an “atrocity”.

He slammed the clerical cover-ups and called for an end to the “culture of death” in the Church.

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

ST. LOUIS (MO)
OAN Newsroom

August 24, 2018

The grand jury’s horrific report on child abuse in Pennsylvania has led victims and officials across the nation to look into Catholic parishes in their states.

Missouri Attorney General Josh Hawley said his office is launching a “thorough and robust investigation” of potential clergy sex abuse in the archdiocese of Saint Louis.

This comes after Archbishop Robert Carlson sent a letter to Hawley, saying the church will open its records and allow a thorough impartial review of potential clergy abuse.

“The files that we are taking about are actually files of anyone who has been accused of sexual abuse and while we don’t know the protocols yet that the attorney general’s office will use, any files that they want to see will be available to them,” Carlson explained.

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

FRANCE
La Croix

August 23, 2018

Recueilli par Gauthier Vaillant

Father Pierre Vignon: “Cardinal Barbarin is no longer able to fulfill his ministry”

Le père Pierre Vignon, prêtre du diocèse de Valence, explique les raisons qui l’ont décidé à rédiger une pétition demandant la démission de l’archevêque de Lyon.

La Croix : Pourquoi pensez-vous que le cardinal Barbarin doit remettre sa démission ?

Père Pierre Vignon : Le cardinal Barbarin est tellement marqué par cette affaire qu’on ne parle plus d’affaire Preynat, mais d’affaire Barbarin. Il a présenté des excuses, mais il ne suffit pas de dire « c’est ma faute ». Car quoi qu’il dise maintenant, quel que soit le sujet sur lequel il s’exprime, c’est toujours l’ombre de cette affaire qui prédomine. On n’écoute plus ce qu’il dit. Il n’est donc plus en mesure de remplir son ministère.

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