ABUSE TRACKER

MONTREAL (CANADA)
Canadian Broadcasting Corporation

May 9, 2019

The Supreme Court of Canada has rejected an attempt by triple-murderer Jesse Iemson to appeal a lower court decision that called into question claims that childhood sexual abuse contributed to his lethal behaviour as an adult.

Imeson was found guilty of killing three people in Southwestern Ontario in the summer of 2007.

On July 19, he strangled 25-year-old Carlos Rivera, a Windsor bartender. Four days later the bodies of Bill and Helene Regier, who had been shot to death, were found in their farmhouse near Grand Bend, northwest of London.

In October 2008, Imeson, then 23, pleaded guilty to three counts of second-degree murder and was sentenced to life in prison with no chance of parole for 25 years.

While in prison in 2009, Imeson alleged that he had been sexually assaulted by Tony “Doe”, a former child and youth worker with Maryvale Adolescent and Family Services in Windsor.

In 1996-1997, Imeson spent a few months at the residential institution, which cares for troubled youth.

He also alleged that about a year after leaving Maryvale and while in foster care, he was sexually abused by Father Howarth, a now deceased priest of the Roman Catholic Diocese of London.

In September, 2016, a jury found Maryvale vicariously liable for sexual assaults allegedly committed against Imeson by “Doe”.

Chronology leading to SCC decision

The jury did not accept Imeson’s claim that he was also sexually abused by the deceased priest, and the action against the Roman Catholic Diocese of London was dismissed.

During that trial, Imeson sought to call Dr. Kerry Smith, a mental health clinician employed in the British Columbia prison system who had seen and counselled Imeson over a long series of therapeutic sessions.

Lawyers for Maryvale tried to block Dr. Smith’s evidence on the grounds that he lacked the necessary training and expertise to give an opinion on childhood sexual abuse. But the trial judge ruled Smith was qualified to provide “expert opinion with respect to certain issues.”

The Ontario Court of Appeal ruled in 2018 that Smith’s opinions did not qualify as expert evidence and that the trial judge erred by allowing it to be heard.

As a result, the court ordered a new civil trial between Imeson and Maryvale.

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.

COLUMBIA (MO)
KOMU TV

May 9, 2019

By Monica Madden

Pope Francis issued new rules Thursday requiring all priests and nuns to report clergy sexual abuse and instances of cover-up to address global abuse.

This comes in response to the long-running issue of widespread sexual misconduct and cover-ups within the Catholic church.

A local member of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, said although this is progress for the church, it doesn’t fully address the problem.

“It is movement in a positive direction but it doesn’t sound to me like it has any teeth,” survivor Don Asbee said. “If it were a superintendent shuffling around a pedophile teacher from school to school, he would be arrested, plain and simple.”

The Pope’s new law mandates that all priests and nuns are required to inform church authorities when they learn or have reasons to believe that a cleric or sister has engaged in sexual abuse of a minor, sexual misconduct with an adult, possession of child pornography — or that a superior has covered up any of those crimes.

Asbee said he doesn’t think abuse should be handled internally, but by the state or outside law enforcement agencies.

“It is a crime to abuse children or cover it up. You have to recognize that it’s not just a sin it’s against the law, it’s a criminal offense,” he said.

Asbee was raised Catholic and was nine years old when he said he was first groomed and abused by his priest.

He said several other “vulnerable” boys in his church were also deemed “special” by the priests and later assaulted.

“I never understood fully what was going on. I knew something was wrong but I didn’t put it together until I was 50,” he said. “And it was pretty much just stated to me by the priests that you kind of brought this upon yourself. The guilt was all mine to bear.”

Asbee said he was one of the thousands of children in Pennsylvania who experienced this and is now a vocal member of SNAP in an effort to end the cycle.

Father Rich Litzau, a priest at the St. Thomas More Newman Center in Columbia, said he recognizes the church has made its mistakes.

“I think it’s time that those kind of things be pretty well legitimized and formulated so that it makes it very clear that the church’s intention is the make sure that the problems that have existed in the past are resolved,” he said.

Litzau said he thinks Pope Francis’ new decree makes this set of rules and procedures standardized across the globe and is a step in the right direction.

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BOSTON(MA)
Boston Globe

May 9, 2019

By Laura Crimaldi

Mitchell Garabedian, the Boston attorney who pulled back the curtain on clergy sex abuse in the Catholic church, finds himself in an unusual position in federal court in Philadelphia: He’s being sued by a boarding school teacher who claims Garabedian and his client falsely accused him of being a child molester.

The lawsuit alleging defamation and intentional infliction of emotional distress was filed on April 10 against Garabedian and one of his clients, a 40-year-old man who lives in Milwaukee. The teacher, a resident of Ohio, filed the complaint under the pseudonym John Doe, citing a fear of “severe harm.”

Philadelphia magazine first reported on the lawsuit on May 3. The 13-page complaint alleges Garabedian, acting on behalf of his client, falsely accused the teacher of child molestation in an April 2018 letter addressed to the headmaster of The Hill School in Pottstown, Pa., where the teacher has worked for more than 25 years.

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COLUMBUS (OH)
Channel 10 News

May 9, 2019

By Glenn McEntyre

Carol Zamonski represents the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, or SNAP.

When she learned the Pope had issued new rules governing reporting of sex abuse, her expectations were low. After reading the church’s new guidelines, so is her assessment.

“This is not satisfactory. It’s not going to solve the problem. It doesn’t indicate to me that there’s a will to actually solve the problem. This is just a great PR move,” Zamonski said.

Among the changes:

Each diocese is to establish systems for the public to confidentially report abuse and cover-up within a year.
All clerics and church officials are obligated to report abuse and cover-up, and there can be no retaliation against whistle-blowers.
Archbishops or clerics must immediately inform the Vatican of an accusation, and the Vatican has 30 days to respond.
But the rules do not require law enforcement to be involved.

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NEW YORK (NY)
America Magazine

May 9, 2019

By Michael J. O’Loughlin

Catholic leaders greeted the news on May 9 that the Vatican will require all bishops to adopt procedures aimed at holding church leaders accountable for reporting sexual abuse with optimism. Victim advocacy groups appear more cautious, however, saying the new measure is only a first step.

Cardinal Blase Cupich, the archbishop of Chicago who in November floated an idea for bishop accountability similar to the outline released by the Vatican, called the new measure “revolutionary” and said it “closes a loop” when it comes to holding church leaders accountable.

“What’s quite extraordinary about this is that if in fact there is a mishandling by a bishop who’s responsible for an investigation, then he is liable to be investigated for any cover-up,” he said in an interview with America.

Under the decree, bishops will have just over a year to establish a system available to the public to report the sexual abuse of minors or adults, the use of violence to coerce adults into sex, and the creation, possession or distribution of child pornography. The new measure also addresses bishops or religious superiors who cover up any of those crimes.

Anne Barrett Doyle, a co-director of BishopAccountability.org, said in a statement that the new law is “a step forward,” specifically for protecting whistleblowers, prohibiting a requirement of secrecy for those making allegations and requiring bishops to adopt procedures for reporting allegations.

“Yet it’s not nearly enough,” she continued, pointing out that the church law does not include language relating to penalties. “[I]t’s still entirely possible for a bishop to punish a child-molesting priest with a slap on the wrist and to keep his name hidden from the public. The new law does nothing to enact zero tolerance for child sexual abuse or for cover-up.”

The Survivors Network for Those Abused by Priests also offered some praise, saying in a statement that “mandated reporting is a good thing” and highlighting that the new law applies to both children and “vulnerable adults.” While the new law requires bishops to comply with local civil law with respect to reporting abuse, it does not require all bishops to report claims to police. SNAP said it is concerned by the possibility of keeping some investigations within the church.

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NEW YORK (NY)
NBC News

May 9, 2019

By Corky Siemaszko

Victim advocates said Thursday that the fatal flaw in Pope Francis’ new mandate that priests and nuns report clerical sex abuse is that it requires the church to police itself, instead of notifying law enforcement.

They say it’s not enough that Francis has required whistle-blowers to report any abuse or cover-ups to their superiors.

“We’re already seeing this ‘new’ church plan described as ‘groundbreaking’ and ‘sweeping,’ but that’s irresponsible,” said David Clohessy, director of Survivor Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP). ”These are promises, plain and simple. They might lead to change. They might not. But children need concrete action, not more pledges from a complicit church hierarchy.”

Popes, said Clohessy, “have always had the power to defrock, demote and discipline bad bishops.”

“They just refuse to do so,” he said. “And that’s why clergy sex crimes keep happening. What’s needed is courage, not policies. Until heads roll, until a few dozen bishops are fired for hiding predators, little will change.”

“We’re disappointed that the pope still refuses to simply tell church employees they must call the police. Any policy or pledge that still largely enables the Catholic hierarchy to handle crimes internally is doomed to continue both abuse and cover-up.”

Clohessy said the silver lining in Francis’ latest effort to tackle the sex abuse scandal, which some say has wrecked the credibility of the Roman Catholic Church’s hierarchy — and resulted in the church’s paying millions of dollars to settle lawsuits — is that priests and nuns are required to report even decades-old abuse allegations.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Philadelphia Inquirer

May 9, 2019

By Jeremy Roebuck

Pope Francis on Thursday issued a sweeping set of new Catholic Church laws aimed at better policing how the hierarchy investigates claims of clergy sex abuse and cover-up, marking his most concrete effort to date to respond to a crisis that has threatened to overwhelm his papacy. Here are some of the highlights:

1. Mandatory reporting

The new policies, outlined in what is known within the Church as a motu propio, require for the first time that all of the world’s 415,000 Catholic priests and 660,000 religious sisters inform Church authorities of all reports of abuse.

But the directive stops short of requiring them to go to police or other civil authorities — a nod to the Vatican’s long-held concern that doing so could endanger clerics in parts of the world where Catholics are a persecuted minority.

Bishops in the United States adopted a similar but tougher policy in the early 2000s, amid the first wave of the clergy sex abuse crisis here. The U.S. version requires dioceses to report suspected abuse to police.

2. Making it easier for victims to come forward

The Church also will require every diocese to create a public, easily accessible, confidential system to field complaints of sexual abuse and cover-up.

Most dioceses in the United States already have established protocols that meet this minimum requirement, but there have been calls for further reform.

For instance, after complaints that seminarians and priests feared repercussions if they came forward to accuse their superiors, bishops here launched a confidential third-party hotline last fall for reporting abuse.

The rules issued Thursday by the Vatican establish whistleblower protections, saying that those reporting misconduct from within the Church may not suffer “prejudice, retaliation, or discrimination.” It also requires that victims be notified of the outcome of any investigation.

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GALVESTON (TX)
Baptist Press

May 9, 2019

By Art Toalston

A San Antonio church has been removed from the Southern Baptists of Texas Convention for retaining a pastor listed on the Texas Public Sex Offender Registry.

The action involving New Spirit Baptist Church was taken by the SBTC’s Executive Board during an April 22-23 meeting in Galveston, the Southern Baptist TEXAN reported May 2.

The TEXAN reported that representatives of the convention’s credentials committee had met with the church, which subsequently chose to retain the pastor, Erbey Valdez.

“The board reported that due to the church’s position, it was in violation of the Baptist Faith & Message,” the TEXAN reported, referencing the Southern Baptist Convention’s doctrinal statement, which has also been adopted by other Baptist bodies.

New Spirit Baptist Church reported on the SBC Annual Church Profile a weekly average attendance of 24 in 2018.

Valdez, 47, a former middle school principal, was charged in a case dated July, 8, 2010, involving a 17-year-old and Texas Penal Code 43.25 (d), “Sexual Performance by a Child,” a second-degree felony.

The section states in part, “A person commits an offense if, knowing the character and content thereof, he employs, authorizes, or induces a child younger than 18 years of age to engage in sexual conduct or a sexual performance.”

The Texas registry states that Valdez is on probation/community supervision in that case.

Valdez was arrested in February 2010, the San Angelo Standard-Times reported on Feb. 15 of that year, for what the newspaper described as “indecency with a child.” Valdez posted a $25,000 bond.

He had been indicted in January 2010, the Standard-Times reported, by a grand jury in Sutton County on “two felony counts of allegedly having sex with a high school student.” He had been placed on administrative leave from the school district after an October 2009 arrest on a charge described by the Standard-Times as “an improper relationship between an educator and a then-17-year-old student.”

The bylaws workgroup of the SBC’s Executive Committee became aware of the situation, and of action taken by the SBTC, soon after the TEXAN article was published, said D. August Boto. Boto, the EC’s interim president and executive vice president, told Baptist Press, “I have spoken with the chairman of that workgroup, who has said that the matter will be considered fully in the regular course of the workgroup’s work.”

Boto went on to say that because the workgroup, and the entire Executive Committee, is composed of committed and involved laypersons, ministers and pastors, “Southern Baptists can be confident that its review will be handled in a thoughtful and responsible way, and its ultimate recommendation or determination will reflect the values held by the vast majority of the Convention’s congregations.”

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WASHINGTON (DC)
Religion News Service

May 9, 2019

By Thomas Reese

Learning from what he calls “the bitter lessons of the past,” Pope Francis has issued the most comprehensive response of his papacy to the sex abuse crisis.

The new document requires bishops, priests and religious to report sexual abuse and cover-ups to church officials and sets up new procedures for investigating bishops.

It also tells bishops to follow local laws governing reporting of abuse to civil authorities.

This is a major step forward for the Vatican. In dealing with not only abuse but also cover-ups, the pope has responded to demands that bishops be held accountable for not protecting children from abusive priests. It also responds to those who complained that the February sex abuse summit in Rome, to which the pope called leading bishops from all over the world, was all talk and no action. Now Francis has acted.

The new norms apply not only to abuse of minors (those under 18) but also to abuse of other vulnerable people, as well as anyone forced “by violence or threat or through abuse of authority, to perform or submit to sexual acts.” This includes adult seminarians, novices and women religious.

The May 9 document, “Vos estis lux mundi” (“You are the light of the world”), applies to all bishops, priests and religious throughout the world. It also encourages lay people to report abuse or cover-up. Those reporting must be protected from any “prejudice, retaliation or discrimination.” Nor can accusers or victims be required to keep silent about their accusations. And if the victims request it, they must be informed of the results of the investigation.

Bishops are required to set up procedures for reporting and investigating accusations against priests by June 1, 2020. U.S. dioceses already have such procedures, but they are lacking in many dioceses in the Global South. In the U.S. the procedures currently apply only to priests, not bishops.

Under the new norms, accusations of abuse or cover-up against a bishop are to be reported to his archbishop, also called a metropolitan, or to the Vatican. The metropolitan reports the accusations to Rome, which then empowers him to investigate. If an archbishop or cardinal is accused, it is reported to Rome, which will assign a prelate to investigate him.

Status reports on any investigation must be sent by the archbishop to Rome every 30 days, with the final report within 90 days, although extensions can be granted when needed.

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MANHASSET (NY)
Manhasset Press

May 9, 2019

By Marco Schaden

In front of the St. Agnes Cathedral in Rockville Centre, Janet Klinger of Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP) called on the Rockville Centre Diocese to release a list of sexual abuse accused clergy.

The Rockville Centre Diocese is the largest diocese in the nation that has not come out with a list of names of clergy accused of sexual abuse.

“Every day that a predator’s name is hidden, kids are at risk of horrific abuse,” said Klinger standing alongside members of SNAP and sexual abuse survivors. “[Bishop John O.] Barres must post credibly accused clerics’ names immediately. It’s never premature to warn the public about potentially dangerous men.”

In January, the USA Northeast Province Jesuits released a list of accused Jesuits—four of whom were in Manhasset during their time as part of the clergy. SNAP brought attention to these priests as evidence that there has been maligned behavior in the diocese. According to the report from the Jesuits:

Father Joseph Towle was accused of sexual abuse in 1971 and was based at Inisfada, a Jesuit retreat house in Manhasset that was sold to developers in 2013, from 1968 to 1971. Father Edward D. Horgan was accused of sexual abuse in 1966 while he was at Regis High School and also stayed at Inisfada from 1983 to 1994. Father John Garvey was accused of abuse in 1978-79 and was based at Inisfada from 1978 to 1987. Father Joseph Fitzpatrick was accused of abuse in the 1980s and from 1971 to 1983 he was at St. Mary’s parish in Manhasset. His whereabouts from 1984 to 1986 are unknown, but he started to work again in 1987 at St. Mary Church in Marlboro, New York.

“At the very least, Barres should tell us those alleged predators who are alive and may pose threats to children right now,” said Klinger.

However, Bishop Barres has been involved in covering up sexual abuse cases going back to his time as Bishop of Allentown from 2009 to 2016.

A grand jury report by the Pennsylvania Attorney General published in 2018 revealed that Bishop Barres failed to remove Father Michael S. Lawrence after he abused two minors, ages 12 and 13. In 2014, Bishop Barres wrote a letter to the Vatican stating that Lawrence would “remain under this supervised way of life,” and not be removed from the church.

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ST. LOUIS (MO)
Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests

May 9, 2019

A lack of policies or procedures has never been the main problem in the clergy sex abuse scandal. Rather, it has been a lack of accountability for hierarchs who conceal sex crimes and a deficit of courage and willingness to take immediate, decisive action on those who have enabled those crimes to occur.

Mandated reporting is a good thing. Yet while this new law will compel priests and nuns to report abuse, it requires them to do so internally, to the very Church structures and offices that have been receiving and routing allegations of abuse for years. We would have been far more impressed if this new law required church officials to report to police and prosecutors instead. Oversight from external, secular authorities will better protect children and deter cover-ups.

It is notable that this new law contains whistleblower protections for those who come forward. But we can only wonder if Church officials will simply be able to retaliate against whistleblowers in different ways, as we have seen in the recent case of Fr. John Gallagher.

While we remain skeptical of this new law, we recognize some good things within it. For example, we are glad that the Vatican is specifically recognizing the plight of vulnerable adults by acknowledging “the abuse of authority,” regardless of a victim’s age. We are also glad that the Vatican has pledged to move quickly on internal investigations.

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ST. LOUIS (MO)
Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests

May 9, 2019

We are very sad that any law enforcement officer would face threats for doing his or her job and we are distressed that the Michigan attorney general has suffered in this way. We hope Michigan’s bishops quickly and harshly condemn this hatred. Violence is never the answer.

For decades, police and prosecutors who pursued clerics who commit and conceal child sex crimes have been stonewalled, and Church officials have contributed to the unhealthy atmosphere that leads to threats of violence. While the Church hierarchy often postures as being the victims of governmental overreach, the reality is that they were often treated with too much deference in the past.

AG Nessel has been steadfast and strong in pursuit of the truth in Michigan. Such dedication should be met with thanks, not threats.

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BAKERSFIELD (CA)
ABC 23 News

May 8, 2019

By Kelly Broderick

An attorney representing a Bakersfield man who says he was inappropriately touched by Monsignor Craig Harrison says he has been trying to file a police report for the past week with Bakersfield Police on behalf of his client, but has received mixed messages of where to file the report.

According to Dr. Joseph George, a clinical psychologist and attorney out of Sacramento, his office got in touch with the head of the BPD Special Victims Unit, and will be filing a report on Wednesday, May 8.

George said his client was 13 to 14 years old when he became involved with Monsignor Harrison in Bakersfield. According to George, the alleged victim met Harrison prior to him becoming an Assistant Pastor in 1989.

The man says he attended St. Francis Elementary and was always around prior to Harrison relocating to Mojave. The man says he was an altar server, serving mass daily for years, five days a week.

The alleged victim admits he idolized Harrison, coming from a less fortunate family. At one point, the alleged victim said Harrison asked his mother if he could adopt him and the mother told Harrison he could not.

According to the man, the Monsignor gave groceries to his family and would give gifts to his friends.

The alleged victim said the sexual contact began through wrestling with Harrison, then grabbing and feeling through clothing.

Between 1989 and 1992, he says he would spend the night at Harrison’s rectory. According to the attorney, his client would sleep on the couch and he said several of his friends would sleep on the bed with the Monsignor.

According to the alleged victim, between the ages of 13 and 16, there were 8 to 12 instances of sexual contact.

The attorney said his client still holds Monsignor Harrison in high esteem, saying “I still love him and I hate him.”

The alleged victim said the contact was never skin on skin, but wrestling, where Harrison would pin him against the wall and grind on him with an erection.

The attorney said he is also representing an alleged victim from Merced, who reported lewd and lascivious conduct with the Monsignor.

Monsignor Harrison has been on administrative leave since late April, pending investigations surrounding sexual misconduct allegations with minors.

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ROME (ITALY)
National Catholic Reporter

May 9, 2019

By Joshua J. McElwee

Pope Francis issued sweeping new laws for the Catholic Church on the investigation of clergy sexual abuse May 9, mandating for the first time that all priests and members of religious orders worldwide are obligated to report any suspicions of abuse or its cover-up.

The pontiff has also established a new global system for the evaluation of reports of abuse or cover-up by bishops, which foresees the empowering of archbishops to conduct investigations of prelates in their local regions with the help of Vatican authorities.

The new norms, contained in a brief apostolic letter titled Vos estis lux mundi (“You are the light of the world”), are exhaustive in scope, applying in some way to every ordained or vowed member of the 1.3 billion-person church. They also encourage lay people to make reports of abuse, and provide for involvement of lay experts in investigations.

In his introduction to the document, which goes into effect June 1, Francis says he has created the new laws so the church will “continue to learn from the bitter lessons of the past, looking with hope towards the future.”

“The crimes of sexual abuse offend Our Lord, cause physical, psychological and spiritual damage to the victims and harm the community of the faithful,” the pope states. “In order that these phenomena, in all their forms, never happen again, a continuous and profound conversion of hearts is needed, attested by concrete and effective actions that involve everyone in the Church.”

The norms are the second set of laws Francis has issued on abuse in the three months since he held a global summit on the issue with the presidents of bishops’ conferences in February. They follow release of a new child-protection policy for Vatican City and for the church’s global ambassadors.

The new investigatory process could be a significant achievement for the pope, who has struggled for four years to implement an effective and transparent procedure of accountability for bishops who abuse or cover-up.

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LONG ISLAND (NY)
Newsday

May 9, 2019

By Bart Jones

Advocates for clergy sex abuse victims on Thursday dismissed Pope Francis’ new rules on reporting allegations as an empty gesture that will perpetuate a culture of secrecy and cover-up.

The new church laws require all Catholic priests and nuns around the world to report clergy sex abuse and cover-ups involving superiors, with whistleblower protections and no retroactive limits. They are required to report allegations to church officials and not police, and there are no church sanctions laid out for violators.

“It’s all cut from the same cloth of, ‘We can fix this problem ourselves,’ ” said John Salveson, who says he was abused by a priest at St. Dominic’s parish in Oyster Bay for seven years starting in 1969.

“We are talking about criminal activity. Criminal activity should be reported to criminal justice agencies — to the police, to the district attorneys, to the FBI,” he said. Often, church higher-ups “are the enablers.”

Mitchell Garabedian, a Boston-based attorney who also represents victims in New York, said the new laws “continue the secrecy which has enabled clergy sexual abuse to exist, allows the Catholic Church to continue to ineffectively self-police and basically discourages victims from just calling the police.

“History has taught us that the Vatican, with it’s with self-proclaimed laws and procedures, is incapable of protecting innocent children from being sexually abused,” said Garabedian, who was portrayed in the film “Spotlight” about the clergy sex abuse scandal in Boston.

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[Sexual abuse in the Church: “If the situation does not change in Argentina, it will not change anywhere in the world”]

ARGENTINA
TN

May 2, 2019

By Miriam Lewin

Víctimas de delitos sexuales por parte de sacerdotes visitan Buenos Aires e interpelan a Francisco. Le exigen que venga a su país a tomar medidas concretas.

En el bar de un hotel de la zona de Congreso, los tres viajeros toman café y planifican sus actividades para los próximos días. Vuelos accidentados por paros y falta de conexiones no les impiden hablar con entusiasmo de su primera visita a Buenos Aires, varias veces postergada. Peter Isley, psicoterapista, es fundador de una organización internacional contra el abuso sexual en la Iglesia Católica, Ending Clergy Abuse (Terminar con el abuso del clero), activismo que comparte con Denise Buchanan, una psiconeuróloga jamaiquina residente en Los Angeles. Ambos fueron víctimas de delitos sexuales en su infancia y adolescencia. Anne Barrett Doyle vive en Boston, desde donde maneja la mayor base de datos sobre crímenes sexuales cometidos por religiosos del mundo, Bishop Accountability (Responsabilidad de los Obispos).

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[If Pope Francis does not come to see them, Argentine survivors of clergy abuse will travel to Vatican]

ARGENTINA
TN

May 7, 2019

Decididos a conseguir que el Papa los reciba, un grupo de sobrevivientes de abuso sexual por parte de religiosos se presentarán en la Santa Sede. Se manifestaron en Mendoza y en La Plata.

Después de que el Papa Francisco comunicara a los obispos argentinos que no viajará al país, organizaciones de víctimas de abuso sexual por parte de sacerdotes decidieron enviar una delegación a Roma. El grupo estará encabezado por exalumnos del Instituto Próvolo de Mendoza y de La Plata, y la organización estará a cargo de una nueva asociación, Iglesias sin Abusos.

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[Archbishop of Paraná accused of covering up abuse]

ARGENTINA
TN

May 4, 2019

En una protesta, lo señalaron por haber protegido al sacerdote Justo Ilarraz, condenado por abuso sexual en el Seminario Menor, cuando él dirigía la institución. Una de las víctimas adhirió con una dura carta abierta.

Frente al Hogar Sacerdotal Monseñor Espinosa, el pasado jueves, un grupo de víctimas de varios países enarboló un retrato de monseñor Juan Alberto Puiggari, arzobispo de Paraná, y lo denunció por haber encubierto al sacerdote condenado por abuso sexual en el Seminario Menor, Justo José Ilarraz.

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[Filmmaker Almodóvar talks about clergy abuse in his school: “At least 20 children were harassed. They also tried with me”]

MADRID (SPAIN)
El País

May 8, 2019

“En el dormitorio, por la noche, nos contábamos nuestras experiencias. Teníamos miedo”, ha contado el cineasta en una entrevista

El cineasta Pedro Almodóvar ha recordado cómo en el colegio, cuando él tenía 10 años, “al menos 20 niños” fueron acosados y también lo intentaron con él. “Pero siempre logré escapar. Había un sacerdote que siempre me daba la mano en el patio para besarla, pero nunca lo hacía, siempre huía y cuando estaba solo, no caminaba sino que corría”, ha añadido.

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[Prosecutor presents accusation against priest who could face 41 years in prison]

CHILE
BioBioChile

May 8, 2019

By Felipe Díaz and Nicole Martínez

La Fiscalía Regional de O’Higgins presentó la acusación en contra del excanciller del Arzobispado de Santiago, Óscar Muñoz Toledo, por delitos de abuso sexual, estupro y violación.

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[O’Higgins prosecutor requests 41 years in prison for former chancellor of Santiago Archdiocese]

CHILE
Emol

May 9, 2019

El Ministerio Público señaló que el sacerdote Óscar Muñoz “valiéndose de su ordenación sacerdotal, además de nexo de parentesco con algunas de las víctimas, ganó la confianza de los padres”.

La Fiscalía de O’Higgins presentó la primera acusación contra el sacerdote y ex canciller del Arzobispado de Santiago, Óscar Muñoz, solicitando una pena de 26 años y dos días por cuatro víctimas de abuso sexual reiterado y otros 15 años por la violación de uno de ellas, sumando 41 años de cárcel. La acusación del Ministerio Público describe que el imputado valiéndose de su ordenación sacerdotal, además del nexo de parentesco con algunas de las víctimas -una de ellas es su sobrino- ganó la confianza de los padres de los menores de edad afectados”.

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WASHINGTON (DC)
USA TODAY

May 9, 2019

By Lindsay Schnell

Peter Isley has been disappointed by the Catholic Church so many times, he’s lost count.

Isley, a survivor of sexual abuse and one of the founding members of Ending Clergy Abuse, read Thursday’s news from the Vatican, and felt another wave of frustration. The Catholic Church, Isley said, just doesn’t get it.

On Thursday, Pope Francis issued a new law that requires all Catholic priests and nuns to report clergy sexual abuse and cover-up by their superiors to church authorities. Described by some media outlets as a “groundbreaking” new law, advocates who have pushed for more transparency from the Catholic Church say this is just more of the same.

The problem, according to Isley and other advocates, is that the church doesn’t need to get itself any more involved – it needs outside input. Specifically, it needs local law enforcement to be part of the reporting process.

“Bishops reporting to themselves, that’s been the problem from the beginning,” Isley said. “All they did was add another layer of bureaucracy; this doesn’t require civil authorities. What we need are police and prosecutors.

“Let’s get the bishop to the crime scene first? Geez, that is not the guy you want. They need to watch ‘Law & Order’ to understand how this should work.”

The new law provides whistle-blower protections for anyone making a report. It also states that dioceses around the world must have a system in place to receive allegations confidentially. And it outlines procedures for conducting preliminary investigations when the accused is a bishop, cardinal or religious superior.

But as Zach Hiner, executive director of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP), points out, most clergy have no background in conducting investigations. That should be left to the experts.

“If the church was truly listening to the pulse of the public and of survivors, they would know that they should be mandating priests and nuns report everything to outside, secular authorities,” Hiner said.

“I get the argument that in some places of the world Catholics are discriminated against. However, for most of the world, that’s not the case. In most of the world we have police and prosecutors who care about local communities and want to keep them safe, and that’s who we charge to get to the bottom of things like this,” he said.

The new law is the latest effort from Francis to respond to the global eruption of the sex abuse and cover-up scandal that has devastated the credibility of the Catholic hierarchy for the past few decades. It also provides a new legal framework for U.S. bishops to use as they prepare to adopt accountability measures of their own next month.

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LONDON (ENGLAND)
The Tablet

May 9, 2019

The new law issued by Pope Francis to combat clerical sexual abuse is a significant milestone in the Church’s long battle to tackle a scandal that has posed the greatest crisis to Catholicism’s credibility in 500 years.

Finally, after years of wrangling and resistance, the Church has a universal set of norms for how to handle abuse allegations, giving everyone responsibility in tackling the scourge be they a Cardinal Archbishop or ordinary Catholic.

The laws widen the scope of abuse to include “abuses of authority” whereby seminarians or religious are manipulated into sexual activity by superiors and sets out how bishops will be investigated for both allegations of abuse and cover-ups.

These are welcome developments. The lack of accountability for Church leaders was brutally exposed by the case of Theodore McCarrick, a former cardinal and priest found to have abused both minors and seminarians. Despite concerns being raised about his behaviour he was able to rise up the cleric ranks to become Archbishop of Washington DC in 2000.

But the crucial shift in the new legislation is the obligation for everyone in the Church, ordained or not, to report abuse to superiors. What was in the past left up to the conscience of individual priests and nuns is now set out in law.

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PARIS (FRANCE)
LaCroix International

May 9, 2019

The tone was firm and the will to cooperate complete.

At a 40-minute audition before the Senate commission on sex offences against minors on May 7, Archbishop Éric de Moulins-Beaufort of Reims and soon-to-be president of the Conference of Bishops of France demonstrated a certain voluntarism with regard to the need to shed light on the sex abuse scandals in the Church.

“It cannot be considered purely marginal,” the archbishop, who will assume office of the president of the Conference of Bishops of France from July 1, said before about 10 senators. “It’s a systemic problem that needs to be treated as such.”

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WASHINGTON (DC)
Catholic News Service

May 7, 2019

By Rhina Guidos

During the last days of April, a section of the student hub on the campus of The Catholic University of America in Washington displayed a gallery of tales of pain but also of recovery and healing featuring Catholics from around the country who had experienced sex abuse by clergy. They were men and women, younger and older, of various ethnicities — profiles of Catholics who had survived torment by trusted members of the church but who also were helped to recover by Catholic communities of faith.

On May 1, just behind the walls where the tales of abuse and healing were on display, a small group of Catholics just like the ones in the stories gathered with bishops, clergy, victim advocates and others for a daylong event on the sex abuse crisis in the Catholic Church, but also to acknowledge the pain caused, to offer comfort, express sorrow, to share a meal, to pray and extend the wish to heal a broken trust.

“To see the bishops up on a platform with survivors having a discussion in front other people … my hope is that it was the beginning of a lot more conversation between leadership and survivors,” said Kathleen Chastain, a victim services coordinator from the Office of Child and Youth Protection for the Diocese of Kansas City in a May 2 interview with Catholic News Service.

Though the bishops gathered had heard the testimony of the two survivors before — at their annual meeting in November in Baltimore — the May gathering placed them together on a stage to dialogue, a back and forth of questions and answers, a sharing of experiences, which occasionally included an outpouring of painful memories during an event titled “Pushing back against the darkness,” an effort that came about with coordination by Catholic University, members of the survivor group Spirit Fire, and the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

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BOSTON (MA)
Boston Globe

May 7, 2019

By Laura Crimaldi

The religious retreats behind the Stamford, Vt., home where Nadine Tifft lived as a teenager were a destination for Franciscan priests, who regularly traveled there to pray and fast.

But 19 years ago, Tifft said, one of those priests, the Rev. John Sweeney of the Franciscans of Primitive Observance, told her she was possessed and performed an exorcism on her. At a press conference Tuesday in a downtown Boston hotel, Tifft said that Sweeney molested her during the encounter. She was 17 years old at the time.

“We were teenagers who trusted this priest who did the exorcisms over us as if we were possessed. He then used that forum to go on to molest others,” said Tifft, 37, who spoke in the company of her husband, Paul, and lawyer, Mitchell Garabedian. Garabedian called the abuse “cultlike.”

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HARRISBURG (PA)
Patriot News

May 9, 2019

By Ivey DeJesus

Survivors of clergy sex abuse have just few days to file claims with the Diocese of Harrisburg’s victims compensation fund.

The deadline to file is Monday, May 13.

Diocese spokesman Mike Barley said the number of individuals who have filed for settlements will not be available until the fund administrator, Commonwealth Mediation & Conciliation, Inc., releases the information. That could be some time next week.

Barley said fund administrators have indicated that “they’ve had interest and feel comfortable about where program is.”

The diocese in February rolled out the so-called Survivor Compensation Program, which is poised to pay out millions of dollars to victims of clergy sex abuse. The diocese has not disclosed a specific dollar amount for the fund, or details on the size of individual amounts that will go to victims.

Private settlements to individual victims will be determined by the fund administrator. Settlement offers will be made on or before June 28.

The Diocese of Harrisburg is of six dioceses across the state, as well as the Philadelphia Archdiocese, to have established compensation funds for victims amid escalating clergy sex abuse crisis. The dioceses rolled out the programs in the wake of a scathing grand jury report released in August 2018 detailing the horrific and widespread sexual abuse of thousands of minors over seven decades by hundreds of priests in six Catholic dioceses, including Harrisburg. Nearly identical patterns of abuse were previously found several years ago in the Archdiocese of Philadelphia by a local grand jury investigation.

In March, after holding public forums with parishioners, Harrisburg Bishop Ronald Gainer eased some of the guidelines for participation in the program, including extending eligibility to survivors of abuse who had not previously come forward to the diocese.

Barley explained the importance of the compensation fund being administered by an outside party.

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RENO (NV)
Channel 2 News

May 7, 2019

By Brandon Fuhs

A few protestors, including members of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP), gathered in front of the Diocese of Reno Office in downtown Reno to argue seven names should be added to the list of priests credibly accused of child sex abuse the diocese released last month.

They want the names added to the list, because their names appear on similar lists from other dioceses they worked in during their careers. Here’s the list of priests, and the religious bodies that put them on their list of priests credibly accused of child sex abuse.

Theodore Feely- Diocese of San Bernadino

Robert Buchanon- Diocese of San Bernadino

Gary Luiz- Diocese of Oakland

Stanley Wisniewski- Midwest Jesuit

Robert Corrigal- West Jesuits

John Leary- West Jesuits

Bertrand Horvath- Archdiocese of Los Angeles

“In order for a person who’s been traumatized to heal from their trauma, they need to take some positive action to deal with that,” SNAP member Patrick Wilkes says. “And what the action looks like differs in each particular case. But it always involves hearing the truth and hearing an admission of guilt from the guilty part.”

Chancellor and Moderator of the Curia for the Diocese of Reno Robert Chorey says the list they released last month includes priests with credible accusations of abuse while they were working in the diocese. They did not add the seven names to the list, because they have not received credible accusations of abuse during their time in Reno.

“If any new allegations come up, any new information surfaces, we will examine that and then we can update that list,” Chorey says.

Each diocese is ran by a Bishop, and it’s up to the bishop to determine what qualifies as a credible accusation. Bishop of the Diocese of Reno Randolph Calvo set up a Diocesan Review Board to investigate any red flags raised by priests in the diocese. They determined a credible accusation meant there was corroborating evidence, a criminal prosecution, or an admission of guilt.

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BOSTON (MA)
Associated Press

May 8, 2019

A lawyer representing victims of clergy sex abuse criticized the Archdiocese of Boston on Tuesday for not listing on its website the names of several priests who have faced accusations, including five clerics who are dead.

Attorney Mitchell Garabedian, who has represented hundreds of victims, said by not publicly naming the priests, the diocese has shown it has “lost the ability to understand the need to protect children and help victims try to heal.”

“The Archdiocese of Boston and the Catholic Church have lost their moral compass and need to find it quickly for the sake of children,” Garabedian said in emailed statement.

The archdiocese said in an emailed statement it immediately reported all allegations to law enforcement when it received them and it has been consistent with its policy about which accused priests it publicly lists online.

The archdiocese said five of the priests died before allegations against them were received, meaning they were not added to the list, as is the archdiocese’s policy.

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SYRACUSE (NY)
Post Standard

May 7, 2019

By Julie McMahon

The Catholic Diocese of Syracuse paid settlements to four victims of priests who have not been publicly named to a list of child sex abusers.

The diocese said it previously did not have enough information to act on claims against four priests. The four accusers, however, were among 88 people the diocese invited to participate in an independent compensation program, which found they deserved to be paid settlements.Post

The Syracuse diocese announced last week it had paid $11 million to 79 victims of child sex abuse suffered at the hands of clergymen. Four of the 79 people accused four priests who have not been publicly named to the diocese’s list of abusive priests, a diocesan official told syracuse.com.

The four priests are no longer active, Chancellor Danielle Cummings said in a statement. The diocese will review the cases again, and could publicly name the priests after an investigation, Cummings said.

After the diocese in December released a list of 57 priests, critics and survivors’ advocates have said names were missing. The diocese acknowledged the list could be incomplete.

The Roman Catholic Diocese of Syracuse has released a list of priests who faced credible allegations of abuse.

Cummings said the diocese has been open to adding names since it decided to release a list. “… Names will be added as credibility is determined,” she said.

Cummings said the diocese is conducting a review of the four cases in light of the independent mediators’ determinations. She said the four claimants were allowed to participate because they had contacted the diocese prior to the program’s start date.

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LONDON (ENGLAND)
The Telegraph

May 8, 2019

By Gabriella Swerling

The Church of England is ignoring abuse victims, survivors claim, following a report which said that clergy should report sex abuse confessions to police.

The seal of the confessional is a priest’s obligation under canon law to hear a person’s confession of sin, or imagined sin, in complete confidence.

Under these rules, nothing that a priest is told during will be repeated or disclosed under any circumstances. This is also the rule of the Roman Catholic Church.

In 2015 the House of Bishops and the Archbishop’s Council commissioned a working party to assess this law in relation to safeguarding and protecting victims from sexual abuse.

The result was a report published today [WEDS] which concluded that the Church of England would uphold the confidentiality of confession – despite the urging of the Archbishop of York.

However the working party decided against abolishing the seal of the confessional – or even qualifying it with a loophole that priests had to report disclosures of abuse.

Now, unless Church of England’s bishops decide differently next week when they consider the working group’s report, led by the Bishop of Durham, confessions of criminal acts will not automatically be reported to police.

Abuse survivors reacted with frustration and dismay to the working group’s report – which was published a year later than its schedule of March 2018.

Phil Johnson, chair of the campaign group, Minister and Clergy Sexual Abuse Survivors (MACSAS), said that the Church of England’s failure to admit agree that abuse disclosed during confession should be reported shows that the institution “has missed a golden opportunity to take the moral high-ground”.

“The Church of England is a law unto themselves… they are far more concerned about reputational damage than they are about the welfare of children and all the victims who come forward and disclose abuse. The danger here is that the perpetrators and not the victims are being protected.”

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VISALIA (CA)
Visalia Times-Delta

May 8, 2019

By James Ward

In the wake of recent allegations of sexual molestation by a Bakersfield-area Catholic priest, a victims’ advocacy group is demanding the Roman Catholic Diocese of Fresno immediately release the names of any clergy member accused of abuse over the past 50 years.

At a press conference held Tuesday in front of the Fresno Diocese in central Fresno, Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP) released the names of two dozen San Joaquin Valley priests they say have been credibly accused of sexual misconduct.

At least three of the accused priests — reverends John Lastiri, Miguel Flores and Eric Swearingen, the current pastor of the Catholic Church of Visalia — have connections to Tulare County.

“Accusations should be taken seriously,” said Esther Hatfield Miller, a SNAP volunteer, and survivor of clergy sexual abuse. “And it’s important that those accusations should always be made public.”

The Diocese of Fresno stretches across eight counties, including Tulare, Fresno, Kern, Kings, Inyo, Madera, Merced and Mariposa, and serves 1.2 million parishioners.

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ROME (ITALY)
Australian Broadcasting Company

May 9, 2019

Pope Francis introduced sweeping changes in Catholic Church law on Thursday local time to hold bishops accountable for sexual abuse or covering it up, making reporting obligatory for clerics and allowing anyone to complain directly to the Vatican if needed.

Key points:
The new rules cover the abuse of adults, as well as children, by clergy
The changes allow retroactive reporting and sets time limits on investigations
Those who report abuse can no longer be ordered to stay silent under new rules

The papal decree, which covers abuse of both children and adults, also obliges every Catholic diocese in the world to set up simple and accessible reporting systems and encourages local churches to involve lay experts in investigations.

The decree is the second such papal provision since a summit on abuse by senior Church bishops at the Vatican in February and comes after the Church was rocked in March by news of the conviction on charges of sex abuse of Australian cardinal George Pell, the highest-ranked Vatican official to be convicted.

It’s the latest effort by Pope Francis to respond to the global eruption of the sex abuse and cover-up scandal that has devastated the credibility of the Catholic hierarchy and his own papacy.

And it provides a new legal framework for US bishops to use as they prepare to adopt accountability measures next month to respond to the scandal there.

“We have said for years that priests must conform to certain strict rules, so why shouldn’t bishops and others in the hierarchy do the same?” said Cardinal Marc Ouellet, head of the Vatican office for bishops. “It’s not just a law, but a profound responsibility.”

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HOUSTON (TX)
Houston Chronicle

May 8, 2019

By Nicole Hensley

A prominent Catholic priest, who was suspended amid an investigation into at least two allegations of child sex abuse, has asked to step down, a parish memo on Wednesday said.

John Keller, longtime pastor of Prince of Peace Catholic Community, “requested retirement, for age and medical reasons,” according to an email to parishioners. “His health concerns and the current process of the review board, which is ongoing and without update, have made him absent from our parish.”

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John Keller, longtime pastor of Prince of Peace Catholic Community, “requested retirement, for age and medical reasons,” according to an email to parishioners. “His health concerns and the current process of the review board, which is ongoing and without update, have made him absent from our parish.”

Related Stories

HOUSTON
By Nicole Hensley

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LONDON (ENGLAND)
BBC

May 9, 2019

Prince Charles was photographed with the then Bishop of Gloucester Peter Ball in 1993
The Church of England’s response to child sex abuse allegations was “marked by secrecy”, a report has found.

Former Archbishop of Canterbury Lord George Carey has been criticised for supporting former Bishop Peter Ball.

The Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA) said Ball “was able to sexually abuse vulnerable teenagers and young men for decades”.

Its report said the support given by the Prince of Wales to the shamed clergyman was “misguided”.

It said his actions “could have been interpreted as expressions of support” for Ball and “had the potential to influence the actions of the church”.

The IICSA described the “appalling sexual abuse against children” in the Diocese of Chichester, with 18 members of the clergy convicted of offences during a 50-year period.

Bishop Peter Hancock, the Church of England’s safeguarding lead, said: “We are immensely grateful to survivors for their courage in coming forward. Their testimonies have made shocking and uncomfortable listening.

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ROME (ITALY)
New York Times

May 9, 2019

By Jason Horowitz

Pope Francis on Thursday introduced the Roman Catholic Church’s first worldwide law requiring fficials to report and investigate clerical sex abuse and its cover-up, issues that have haunted his papacy and devastated the church he has sought to remake.

The new norms, delivered in a Motu Proprio, or law decreed by the pope himself, come into force on June 1 and are experimental, in that they will be re-evaluated after a three-year trial period.

The law, titled “Vos estis lux mundi,” or “You are the light of the world,” obligates bishops or other church officials to report any credible accusation of abuse to their superiors.

Vatican officials and supporters of Francis said that in giving all local churches rules on how to report misbehavior, he was in effect writing accountability for bishops into church law. Until now, reporting and investigation practices have differed widely from country to country, or even diocese to diocese.

The law relates to the sexual abuse of minors under the age of 18, of vulnerable adults who are physically or mentally disabled and of people who are taken advantage of because they find themselves in positions in which they cannot exercise their full autonomy. It also extends to the creation, possession or use of child pornography.

If those crimes are covered up by bishops or other church officials, or if those officials “intended to interfere with or avoid civil investigations or canonical investigations,” Francis writes, then they will also be subject to investigation.

The church’s failure to hold bishops and senior clerics accountable for covering up sexual abuse has fueled enormous frustration and backlash inside and outside the church.

Francis acknowledged that damage in the new law.

To ensure that clerical abuses “in all their forms, never happen again, a continuous and profound conversion of hearts is needed, attested by concrete and effective actions that involve everyone in the Church,” Francis wrote. “Therefore, it is good that procedures be universally adopted to prevent and combat these crimes that betray the trust of the faithful,” he added.

Victims of abuse and their advocates are likely to be underwhelmed by the new norms, which do not address the church trials or penalties for abuse and its cover-up, and instead focus on reporting procedures. For the frustrated faithful and others infuriated by church inaction in addressing abuse, the new law was a modest and long-overdue application of common sense.

But on Thursday, the church’s top investigator of sex crimes, Archbishop Charles Scicluna of Malta, said at a Vatican news conference that the new law represented a significant step forward. Supporters of Francis said that the law faced much opposition within the Vatican, where many either remain unconvinced that abuse is a widespread problem or believe that it has already been solved.

Archbishop Scicluna said that the new universal law enforced a degree of accountability by obligating the reporting of abuse, including the misconduct of church leaders, and that it provided paths of reporting to make sure the complaints got through to the pope or to the relevant church authorities.

“No one in leadership is above the law, ”Archbishop Scicluna said, adding, “There is no immunity.”

Archbishop Scicluna said that decades of experience had shown a “misplaced interest in protecting the institution,” while the new law established “disclosure as the main policy of the church.”

The law does not require reporting to law enforcement authorities — as many critics, especially in the United States, have demanded — though it allows national bishops’ conferences to enact such policies. Archbishop Scicluna said that “it would be a good thing” for people to go to the police.

Church officials have argued that a universal requirement to do so was unthinkable, because in some parts of the world, reporting child sexual abuse — particularly same-sex abuse — would result in priests being killed.

Archbishop Scicluna said that the universal law had to factor in the vast array of cultures represented in more than 200 countries.

“It can’t be too strict,” he said. “Because otherwise it will be inoperative.”

Soon after he was elected in 2013, Francis suggested that he would remedy the erosion of trust caused by the abuse scandals, but change has been slow. Instead, Francis has occasionally stumbled, saying at times that he believed bishops over victims, pulling the plug on a new church body intended to hold bishops accountable and failing to take decisive action.

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HARRISONBURG (VA)
Harrisonburg Citizen

May 9, 2010

A local chapter of Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests (SNAP) meets in Harrisonburg, open to anyone who is a survivor of abuse, along with spouses, friends and family members.
Story by Jeremiah Knupp & photos by Holly Marcus, senior contributors

The conversation begins on the condition of anonymity, the topic a deeply personal and painful one for this man – his abuse as a teenager at the hands of a Catholic priest.

He’s come to Harrisonburg to meet with a group of fellow survivors of sexual abuse. The group is part of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests or “SNAP,” a national organization with a mission to “Protect the vulnerable. Heal the wounded. Expose the truth.”

“I couldn’t wait to get here,” the man says of the Harrisonburg SNAP group. “It’s been a lifeline. Literally, a lifeline.”

Founded in 1989 to work with those abused by members of the Catholic Church, SNAP became well known after the Oscar-winning 2015 film Spotlight. The film is about The Boston Globe‘s 2003 Pulitzer Prize-winning investigation into abuse within the city’s Catholic churches, which journalists worked with members of SNAP to report.

Over the last two decades, the organization has opened up to survivors from outside the Catholic faith, including other religious groups and people who suffered abuse in organizations like the Boy Scouts. It now has over 25,000 members worldwide.

“In some ways, from the very beginning, it was always a philosophy of we didn’t check I.D.s at the door. We welcomed all survivors,” said Tim Lennon, president of SNAP’s board of directors. “In the recent period I have talked to people from the gymnast community, Buddhists, victims of Hollywood producers, all in the effort to help them establish their own kind of networks. So it’s pretty broad and we’re pretty welcoming.”

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RENO (NV)
News 4 & Fox 11

May 7, 2019

By Tony Phan

Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests is a non-profit organization that supports the survivors of clergy sexual abuse.

In an effort to push Bishop Calvo to release the names of seven “credibly accused” priests who came through Reno, the group held a rally in front of the Diocese of Reno building Tuesday.

Patrick Wilkes, a member of SNAP says,

If we don’t speak up this can go on unchecked and many times within the church or other organizations in the past people have been taught not to speak up, not to say anything but to make excuses. We’re saying no, if you see something say something.
Diocese of Reno released twelve names last month but SNAP wants them to provide the public with the seven new names.

According to SNAP here are the list of accused clerics who spent time in Reno:

Theodore W Feeley
Robert Buchanan
Gary M Luiz
Stanley T. Wisniewski
Robert F. Corrigal
John P. Leary
Bertrand Horvath

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NEW YORK (NY)
Commonweal

May 8, 2019

By Paul Elie & Paul Baumann

It’s good to have a response from Paul Baumann to my article in the New Yorker (titled “Acts of Penance” in the April 15 print issue, and “What Do the Church’s Victims Deserve?” online).

Paul is one of the hundred or so people I spoke with while reporting the article. Having served as editor of Commonweal across several recent decades, he is capable of engaging with the conviction about history that I brought to it: namely, that for American Catholics of our era, priestly sexual abuse (and the Church’s efforts to address it) is something other than a crisis—it is an everyday reality that has shaped the life of the church for a third of a century, affecting Catholics as a people and individually, touching on matters of truth that are the basis of the church’s existence.

There’s a personal dimension, too. When Paul was the editor of Commonweal, I told him that I had been violated by a Jesuit priest while I was a student at Fordham. He was the first person I told who was in a public Catholic role. “A priest you probably know,” I told him. At the time, Paul lived during the week in one of the group of apartments on West 98th Street known as the West Side Jesuit Community. That is, he lived in the apartment building where I had been violated, under the auspices of a community whose members included Edward Zogby, SJ, the priest who violated me. That’s one reason I told him. As I recall, Paul’s response wasn’t to ask what had happened or who the priest in question was. He simply said, “Well, if you’re ever interested in writing about it, let me know.”

Paul could have brought a great deal of shared history and common travail to his response. Instead, he took the position, well established at Commonweal, of aggrieved media scrutineer—finding disagreements where there are none, passing over careful distinctions and efforts of balance, and casting aspersions on the New Yorker and its supposedly “jeering readers.”

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[Opinion: Broken trust]

CHILE
El Mostrador

May 8, 2019

By Edison Gallardo

Fue necesario recordarle al fiscal Abbott que, al momento del abuso, nuestra edad no superaba los 10 años. Agradezco a James Hamilton, Juan Carlos Cruz, José Murillo, Helmut Kramer, Silvana Bórquez y Jaime Concha, porque, a pesar de lo paradójico, lograron ejercer la presión suficiente para que la ya alicaída Fiscalía echara pie atrás en mantener este convenio. ¿Por qué digo paradójico? Porque es sabido que, para nosotros y por el tiempo transcurrido, la justicia nunca llegará, pero aún así se mantienen estoicos para que los niños, niñas y adolescentes de nuestro país ya no estén desamparados.

Hace muy pocos días nos enteramos de un acuerdo de cooperación que el Fiscal Nacional firmó con la Conferencia Episcopal, que, si bien ya fue dejado sin efecto, igual instaló un manto de dudas concerniente al real interés de la Iglesia católica por el esclarecimiento de la verdad, una que ha tenido que ser arrancada por la fuerza jurídica, la misma que se transó al mejor postor con ellos.

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[Ezzati spends 7 hours in judicial proceedings for alleged cover-up of sexual abuse]

CHILE
BioBioChile

May 8, 2019

By Ariela Muñoz and Nicole Martínez

El cardenal Ricardo Ezzati estuvo durante siete horas en la Brigada de Derechos Humanos de la Policía de Investigaciones, en medio de la indagatoria en su contra por eventual encubrimiento de abusos sexuales. Paralelamente, un denunciante de abuso sexual interpuso un recurso de protección contra el Ministerio Público y el fiscal nacional Jorge Abbott por el anulado convenio de colaboración con la Conferencia Episcopal.

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[History of controversial and failed agreement between prosecution and bishops’ conference]

SANTIAGO (CHILE)
Emol

By Tomás Molina J.

En la tarde de ayer el fiscal nacional, Jorge Abbott, decidió bajar el convenio firmado hace exactamente una semana, que tuvo su génesis en agosto del año pasado.

El viernes 3 de agosto del año pasado, en Punta de Tralca, se llevó a cabo una reservada asamblea plenaria de la Conferencia Episcopal. Al igual que otras, esta reunión de los obispos chilenos se extendió por cinco días, pero tenía un rótulo especial: se trataba de un encuentro “extraordinario”.

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[Barcelona court does not imprison former Marists teacher condemned for abuse]

BARCELONA (SPAIN)
El País

May 7, 2019

By Jesús García

Joaquín Benítez fue condenado a 21 años y nueve meses de cárcel por abusar de cuatro alumnos

La Audiencia de Barcelona ha rechazado el ingreso en prisión de Joaquín Benítez, el exprofesor de los Maristas condenado a 21 años y nueve meses de cárcel por abusar sexualmente de cuatro alumnos. Los magistrados consideran que Benítez debe continuar en libertad provisional hasta que la sentencia sea firme. Señalan que sobre el exprofesor recaen ya fuertes medidas de control -retirada del pasaporte, comparecencias semanales, prohibición de hacer actividades con menores- que ha cumplido sin incidencias.

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[Prosecutor requests that Marists pedophile enter prison for risk of recidivism]

BARCELONA (SPAIN)
El País

May 7, 2019

Joaquín Benítez fue condenado a 21 años y nueve meses de cárcel por abusar de cuatro alumnos

La Fiscalía ha solicitado este lunes a la Audiencia de Barcelona que decrete ya el ingreso en prisión de Joaquín Benítez, el exprofesor de los maristas de Sants condenado a 21 años y nueve meses de cárcel por abusar sexualmente de cuatro alumnos, al considerar que existe un alto riesgo de reincidencia. La sección 21 de la Audiencia había convocado una vista para decidir si enviaba a prisión al pederasta confeso, cuya sentencia aún no es firme, pero, tras reunirse alrededor de media hora, el exdocente ha continuado en libertad provisional.

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FRESNO (CA)
KFSN TV

May 7, 2019

By Sontaya Rose

With a blanket of the faces of survivors as the backdrop, volunteers with the non-profit Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, or SNAP, asked for acknowledgment and transparency from Bishop Joseph Brennan.

“Instead of protecting and shielding accused serial molesters, he should be thinking about protecting kids,” said Joey Piscitelli.

Piscitelli and two other survivors held signs and pictures of themselves when they were younger. They applauded other victims who have come forward also to reveal a dark secret they carried for years.

Esther Hatfield Miller says she has personally taken calls from several new alleged victims of Monsignor Craig Harrison. Harrison is now on leave from the Bakersfield church he oversaw.

“One is from Bakersfield, one is from Merced, and the other one from Firebaugh and the other surrounding areas,” she said.

Miller says the stories are similar in nature and the number of accusers is growing.

“What they are saying is similar abuse, strategies, tactics and processes and he was Father Craig then,” she said.

The survivors are also asking Bishop Brennan to release the names of those clerics who have served in the Fresno diocese and have been accused of abuse.

“The Catholic Bishops say they are being transparent now more than ever,” said. “Well then we’re calling you out on it. Be transparent.”

Bishop Brennan issued a statement Tuesday, saying in part the diocese is still in phase one of their investigation process and continuing to follow their protocol with the eventual phase to include releasing the names of those accused and categorizing them.

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BOSTON (MA)
Mass Live

May 7, 2019

Nadine Tifft’s faith has been tested.

The 37-year-old publicly accused a priest on Tuesday of sexually molesting her as a teenager growing up in New England.

“I’m still Catholic,” she said, but adding, “It makes it hard to go to church.”

Two decades ago, Tifft and several friends attended leadership retreats organized through her church for young members. The retreats were held around New England, designed to connect Catholics throughout New England with leaders in the church.

During such events, Tifft alleges she was sexually abused by a former clergyman in Massachusetts, the Rev. John Sweeney, of the “Franciscans of Primitive Observance,” a religious community under the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Boston.

Sweeney would encourage the teens to confess their sins and, after confessionals, told several they were possessed and would perform exorcisms on them, Tifft said.

During a church retreat in 2000, Tifft said Sweeney sexually molested her. In years since, Tiffts said other friends said they were sexually abused by Sweeney as well.

“We were teenagers who trusted that priest,” she said.

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BERKELEY (NJ)
Patch

May 7, 2019

By Josh Bakan

A clergyman who served at St. Barnabas in Bayville from 1974-75 was named in a lawsuit accusing more than 300 church leaders of sexual misconduct.

John R. Butler was accused of inappropriate conduct with a minor in a Long Island parish in the late ’50s and early ’60s, the Asbury Park Press reported in 2002.

Leaders of the Catholic Church in New Jersey revealed the names of priests “credibly accused” of sexual abuse on Feb. 13. The Church did not include Butler in their announcements.

The law firms of Jeff Anderson & Associates released the report with more than 300 people accused of sexual misconduct in New Jersey. The report contains the names of more than 100 additional clergymen that New Jersey dioceses did not release in February.

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LANSING (MI)
Fox 47 News

May 7, 2019

By Kyle Simon

Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel could announce charges related to her office’s investigation into the Catholic Church soon.

Nessel’s spokeswoman, Kelly Rossman-McKinney, tells the Detroit News several assistant attorneys general are assigned to the investigation and have been working long hours on the case.

Rossman-McKinney says the department will be in a position to announce charges related to the investigation “soon.”

The comments come after Nessel shared a photo on social media showing volunteers looking over the thousands of documents. The photo shows boxes piled up near a table where the volunteers are working.

While speaking about the volunteers on Twitter, Nessel says “they get no extra compensation and remain responsible for their regular caseload during the week, but these lawyers are so dedicated to protecting the public that they sacrifice spending time with their families in order to protect yours.”

Many of the documents being reviewed were seized during raids on Michigan’s seven Catholic dioceses last fall.

The simultaneous raids came just a few months after former Attorney General Bill Schuette opened an investigation into sexual abuse complaints within the Catholic church and the church’s handling of the complaints.

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BOSTON (MA)
Mass Live

May 7, 2019

By Noah R. Bombard

An attorney representing sexual abuse victims in the Boston area has released the names of seven priests from the Boston Archdiocesan who have been accused of sexually abusing minors.

Attorney Mitchell Garabedian, who has famously represented sexual abuse victims in the Boston area during the Catholic priest sexual abuse scandal, including the cases against Paul Shanley, John Geoghan and the Archdiocese of Boston plans to officially announce the names at a press conference at the Hilton Hotel in Boston Tuesday at 11:30 a.m.

Nadine Tifft, a client of Garabedian’s and a sexual abuse victim and survivor, will speak at the event.

The priests Garabedian says he’s adding to his website of priests accused of sexual abuse include the Rev. Gerard D. Barry, the Rev. Walter Casey, the Rev. Richard Donahue, the Rev. Charles McGahey, the Rev. Arnold E. Kelley, the Rev. Edward J. Mc Laughlin and Monsignor Charles J. Ring.

The priests are not named on the Boston Archdiocese website, Garabedian said. All are deceased.

Tifft will speak publicly for the first time about her sexual abuse as a child in Vermont in approximately 2000 by Fr. John Sweeney, of the “Franciscans of Primitive Observance,” a religious community under the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Boston and Cardinal Sean O’Malley.

The Archdiocese of Boston did not immediately return a call for comment.

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FRESNO (CA)
Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests

They want him to denounce a lawyer & a priest

SNAP: “He should also tell flock how to act when accusations arise”

Groups urges him to pass out their flier in all parishes

Survivors also disclose 9 publicly accused but ‘under the radar’ clerics

WHAT
Holding signs and childhood photos at a sidewalk news conference, two clergy sex abuse victims and their supporters will disclose that 9 publicly accused priests spent time in Fresno, but have mostly escaped scrutiny here.

They will also push Fresno’s bishop to
–post his own list of those accused, including nuns, deacons, priests, brothers, bishops, seminarians, and lay and volunteer workers, and
–publicly denounce a local priest and local lawyer who made insensitive remarks concerning a pending abuse case.

WHEN
Tuesday, May 7 at 12:30 PM

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ST. LOUIS (MO)
Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests

May 7, 2019

The below list of accused priests was compiled by SNAP Northern California leader Joey Piscitelli. These are men who worked and spent time in the Diocese of Fresno but are not listed on the diocesan list of accused priests.

Name Source Status

Fr.Willaim Allison BA, OCD sued, acc

Fr. Gaspar Bautista Fresno Bee 10/29/18, OCD accused

Fr. Brian Bjorklund BA, OCD accuse

Fr. John Bradley BA, OCD sued, acc

Fr. Tod Brown BA, OCD accused

Fr. Stuart Campbell BA , J AA, OCD sued, acc

Fr. Hermy Ceniza BA, OCD sued, acc

Fr. James Collins BA, OCD sued, acc

Fr. Basil Congro BA, OCD sued, acc

Fr Donlad Farmer BA, OCD arrested

Fr Don Flickinger BA, OCD sued,acc

Fr. Miguel Flores BA, OCD case reopened

Fr. Benjamin Gabriel BA, OCD accused, sued

Fr. Robert Gamel BA, OCD convicted

Fr. Louis Garcia BA, OCD accused

Fr. Craig Harrison BA, OCD accused

Fr. Anthony Herdegan BA, OCD sued, acc

Fr. John Lastiri Fresno Bee 10/29/18, OCD accused

Fr. Ricardo Magdeleno Fresno Bee 10/29/18, OCD accused

Fr.Vincent O’ Connell BA, OCD sued, acc

Fr. Joseph Pacheco BA, OCD sued, acc

Fr Thomas Purcell BA, OCD convicted

Fr. Eric Swearingen BA, OCD accused, sued

TOTAL COUNT TO DATE: 23

BA = Bishopaccountability

JAA- Jeff Anderson Associates

OCD = Official Catholic Directory

List compiled by Joey Piscitelli 5-19

Caljoey1@aol.com

925-262-3699

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ST. LOUIS (MO)
Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests

May 7, 2019

Dear Archbishop Carlson:

As you know, next month you’ll reach the mandatory retirement age for bishops. Unless you do something remarkable in the coming weeks, your legacy and obituary will likely cause you, your loved ones and your flock considerable shame, because it will prominently feature the stunningly embarrassing video deposition in which, according to NBC News, you

–claimed you “didn’t know in the 1980s whether it was illegal for priests to have sex with children,” and
–“responded 193 times that (you) did not recall abuse-related conversations from the 1980s to mid-1990s.”

But this dismal performance need not define your clerical career. You can change this quickly and easily. You can act heroically and voluntarily disclose the names, whereabouts, photos and work histories of the 115 church staff who – by your attorneys’ own admission – are accused of sexually assaulting kids.

You’ve kept their identities secret for more than five years. But you can reverse course.

With such a move, you would become a hero to thousands of abuse victims and their families, and to millions of hurting, betrayed Catholics who long to see a church official truly ‘come clean,’ protect the vulnerable and heal the wounded by revealing the identities of those who have or could hurt children.

With this single, simple step, you would likely go down in history as the prelate who, in one fell voluntary swoop, did more to safeguard the vulnerable than any.

On the other hand, you could play it safe, avoid ‘rocking the boat,’ keep these names secret, and do nothing while more children are likely abused and more Catholics are disgruntled or alienated and while our group continues to ‘out’ more and more of them.

In September, for instance, we “outed” nine publicly accused predator priests who spent time in the St. Louis area.

In November, we outed eight more.

In December, the Jesuits outed 17 more.

In February, we outed five more.

In March, we outed another eight.

And now, in May, we’re outing another eight.

Maybe you don’t care about your legacy or reputation or obituary. If so, we applaud you. There are, of course, far better reasons to disclose these accused predators’ names.

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ST. LOUIS (MO)
Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests

May 7, 2019

–Fr. Julian Haas, whose status is listed as “removed from ministry / under supervision” on a list of credibly accused Capuchin Franciscans (based inDenver, 303-477-5436 or jason.faris@capuchins.org, joseph.elder@capuchins.org).

Fr. Haas worked in Rome, Kansas, Pennsylvania, two Colorado cities (Denver and Colorado Springs) and two St. Louis locations: St. Crispin Friary and St. Patrick Friary. He reportedly abused in the 1970s and 1980s and faces more than one accuser.

13 Denver-based Catholic friars with credible sexual-abuse allegations identified

https://www.capuchins.org/documents/PressRelease2019.pdf

–Fr. Benignus Scarry, who was born in 1944, reportedly left the Capuchin Franciscan religious order in 2016. He worked in two Kansas cities (Lawrence and Hays), two in Colorado (Denver and Colorado Springs) and in St. Louis at the St. Crispin Friary.

He reportedly abused in 1980s and is on a list of credibly accused abusers released by the Capuchin Franciscans (based in Denver, 303-477-5436 orjason.faris@capuchins.org, joseph.elder@capuchins.org).

https://www.capuchins.org/documents/PressRelease2019.pdf

–Fr. Perry L. Robinson, who was sent to St. Luke’s Institute in Maryland for treatment twice in the 1980s. He was fired from his long-time high school teaching position in Milwaukee in 1988 for taking nude photographs of students, and was quietly transferred to a parish in Omaha, NE. In 2011, he was removed from ministry in Omaha after a man informed the Omaha archbishop of the earlier allegations against Robinson. The man also stated that Robinson had given him an inappropriate backrub in the early 1980s when he was one of Robinson’s high school students in Milwaukee.

Last year, his name was included in the Midwest Jesuits list of credibly accused clerics.

According to the Official Catholic Directory, from 1972-1973, he was in St. Louis at the Lewis Memorial Jesuit Community.

http://www.bishopaccountability.org/assign/Robinson_Perry_L_sj.htm

http://image.jesuits.org/MIDWESTPROV/media/All_Pastoral_Assignments_of_Jesuits_on_Midwest_Jesuits-12-17-18_List_posted_21_Dec_2018.pdf

–Fr. Timothy F. Keppel is a priest of the Congregation of the Resurrection who worked in the San Bernardino diocese. In 2013, his church supervisors announced that Fr. Keppel allegedly molested a child in the late 1970s in San Bernardino. Following an investigation, both the diocese and the Congregation of the Resurrection concluded that there was reasonable cause to suspect that inappropriate sexual behavior with a child did occur. Consequently, Fr. Keppel was removed from public ministry. His was included in the San Bernardino diocese’s list of clergy credibly accused of child sexual abuse. According to San Bernardino church officials, he is permanently banned from ministry in the diocese.

https://www.sbdiocese.org/documents/latestnews/Priest-List.pdf

From 1982-1983, he was at Our Lady of Loretto Church in Spanish Lake.

— Fr. Marvin Archuleta who, according to the Santa Fe New Mexican, “was sent to the Vianney Renewal Center near St. Louis, which offered ‘rehabilitation and reconciliation’ for priests and was a stopping point for clergy accused of abuse.” He’s now wearing a GPS monitoring bracelet as he awaits trial.

http://www.bishop-accountability.org/news2019/01_02/2019_02_16_Press_Judge_of.htm

https://www.santafenewmexican.com/news/local_news/legal-options-limited-for-man-who-says-priest-molested-him/article_3a874088-f674-5f6f-a4e2-b1e52aa88345.html

–Fr. Clarence J. Vavra, who in 2003, was named by the St. Paul archdiocese as having a substantiated claim of sexual abuse of a minor.

http://www.bishop-accountability.org/news2013/11_12/2013_11_11_SurvivorsNetwork_SdPredator.htm

He was sent to the St. Michael’s Center here for treatment in 1996. The year before, he admitted sexually assaulting several kids on the Rosebud Indian Reservation in South Dakota. Yet no Catholic official ever told anyone about him.

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FRSNO (CA)
Your Central Valley

May 7, 2019

By Kathryn York

Fresno’s new bishop Joseph Brennan is already facing challenges from victims of clergy sex abuse.

Members of SNAP or Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests will be protesting this afternoon at the Fresno Diocese. They want the bishop to post his own list of those accused.

Just last week, the Diocese of Sacramento released the names of child molestors within the
church.

The Fresno Diocese has not done that. An independent on-line archive called Bishopaccountability.org lists 12 clerics from the Fresno Diocese publicly accused of sexual abuse.

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BERGEN (NJ)
North Jersey Record

May 6, 2019

By Ed Forbes

Another large group of priests and others who served the Roman Catholic Church were accused of sexual misconduct at a Monday press conference in Elizabeth.

Jeff Anderson & Associates, a New York law firm, released the names of more than 300 diocesan priests, religious order priests, deacons, nuns, and religious brothers and sisters. All, the firm said, are accused of sexual misconduct and associated with the Catholic dioceses in New Jersey.

The clerics were named at an Elizabeth press conference at which Anderson also announced that Edward Hanratty, a native of Ridgefield Park, has filed suit against all of New Jersey’s Roman Catholic bishops and the New Jersey Catholic Conference for “maintaining a public hazard by keeping secret the names of all clergy accused of sexual misconduct in New Jersey.”

Why we didn’t publish the names
We have decided not to publish those named in the Anderson firm’s report. Why?

While the firm shared names and assignment histories, no details about credible accusations are included.

Anderson has asked you to believe that these 300 clerics are bad actors at face value. We believe details about accusations are required for New Jersey’s Catholics to make that judgment.

Anderson said its report drew on information “from publicly available sources, claims made by survivors to the dioceses and religious orders responsible for the offenders, and legal settlements made as a result of claims for sexual abuse.” We question why the firm didn’t do more to attribute its information to those publicly available sources.

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SUDBURY (CANADA)
Sudbury Star

May 7, 2019

By Katie Jacobs

A Windsor-based documentary about a survivor’s personal and legal journey exposing his abuse by a Catholic priest received two awards last weekend.

The film Prey focuses on Rod MacLeod — a survivor from sexual abuse by Rev. William Hodgson Marshall — and his quest for justice as he and his lawyer Rob Talach took on the Catholic church in court.

MacLeod was a student at St. Charles College when Marshall, who was teaching there at the time, abused him.

The documentary is a TVO production made by Windsor-born Matt Gallagher, who also reached out to other survivors. This included Patrick McMahon, a Windsor resident who was the first to file a complaint against Marshall.

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BUENOS AIRES (ARGENTINA)
Associated Press

May 7, 2019

By Almudena Calatrava

International and Argentine activists on Monday called on Pope Francis to ensure that his “zero tolerance” pledge against sexual abuses by clergy is enforced in his homeland and demanded a trial for those accused of raping deaf and mute children at a Catholic school.

Prosecutors say that members of the clergy abused at least 20 children at the Provolo Institute in Mendoza province. The case has caused a worldwide uproar and more than a dozen people face charges.

The Argentine group Church Without Abuses and the international organizations Ending Clergy Abuse and BishopAccountability.org met with alleged victims Monday and criticized the lack of justice in a case that began more than two years ago.

At least 20 children say they were abused at the Provolo Institute by priest Nicola Corradi, priest Horaio Corbacho and three other men, who were arrested in 2016.

Dozens of students at another branch of the institute in Italy say they were similarly abused for decades, some allegedly by Corradi.

Both men are facing a preliminary hearing in Argentina, but the activists complain the process is taking too long.

“We came to Mendoza to show solidarity with the Provolo victims and echo their cry for justice,” said Anne Barrett Doyle of the online resource Bishop Accountability.

“Pope Francis owes them a personal apology for his complicity and silence. The Italian victims warned him for years that Corradi and others were working with children in Argentina. The pope did nothing.”

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NEW YORK (NY)
New York Post

May 6, 2019

“Doing good” can have serious unintended consequences — especially if you don’t look closely before you act.

State lawmakers, for example, didn’t consider how the new Child Victim Act would impact . . . local schools.

The law opened the door to civil lawsuits over past abuse, effectively extending the statute of limitations in these cases. The Legislature was plainly thinking about the victims in various Catholic Church scandals — but didn’t think about the public schools.

Now, the (Albany) Times Union reports, “Insurance companies are warning that the new law will likely lead to higher insurance rates for the state’s nearly 700 public school districts.”

California passed its own “look back” abuse-lawsuit legislation in 2003. As a result, notes Tom Stebbins of the Lawsuit Reform Alliance of New York, the Los Angeles Unified School District pays out tens of millions a year in abuse settlements — $139 million in the banner year of 2014.

This could eat up all the extra funds lawmakers devoted to education this year.

Another example: When Speaker Corey Johnson led the way to giving free phone calls to detainees and prisoners at Rikers Island, he surely didn’t anticipate the possibility of increased jail violence.

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BUENOS AIRES (ARGENTINA)
Buenos Aires Times

May 7, 2019

International and Argentine activists on Monday called on Pope Francis to ensure that his “zero tolerance” pledge against sexual abuses by clergy is enforced in his homeland and demanded a trial for those accused of raping deaf and mute children at a Catholic school.

Prosecutors say that members of the clergy abused at least 20 children at the Provolo Institute in Mendoza province. The case has caused a worldwide uproar and more than a dozen people face charges.

The Argentine group Church Without Abuses and the international organisations Ending Clergy Abuse and BishopAccountability.org met with alleged victims Monday and criticised the lack of justice in a case that began more than two years ago.

At least 20 children say they were abused at the Provolo Institute by priest Nicola Corradi, priest Horacio Corbacho and three other men, who were arrested in 2016.

Dozens of students at another branch of the institute in Italy say they were similarly abused for decades, some allegedly by Corradi.

Too long

Both men are facing a preliminary hearing in Argentina, but the activists complain the process is taking too long.

“We came to Mendoza to show solidarity with the Provolo victims and echo their cry for justice,” said Anne Barrett Doyle of the online resource Bishop Accountability.

“Pope Francis owes them a personal apology for his complicity and silence. The Italian victims warned him for years that Corradi and others were working with children in Argentina. The pope did nothing.”

The Italian Provolo students went public with tales of abuse in 2009 and named names. The Vatican ordered an investigation and sanctioned four priests, but Corradi apparently never was sanctioned.

The Verona diocese apologised to the Italian students in 2012. The students again accused Corradi, who was then living in Argentina, in a 2014 letter to the pontiff and the Verona bishop, but the Vatican still took no action.

In 2016, a Vatican official said Francis wanted to assure the victims that the church was taking measures to protect children and prevent sexual abuse.

Unlike the Verona case, the statute of limitations has not expired for the alleged crimes in Mendoza.

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PARIS (FRANCE)
La Croix International

May 7, 2019

Bishops who attended the funeral of a New Zealand priest accused of child sexual abuse have been criticized for speaking sympathetically of his plight rather than apologizing for his transgressions.

Father Thomas “Tom” Laffey admitted in 2003 that he had molested a teenager at St. Mary of the Angels Church in Wellington.

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NEWARK (NJ)
Star-Ledger

May 7, 2019

By Ted Sherman

A special hotline to report sexual abuse by clergy has generated hundreds of possible leads for criminal investigators, according to New Jersey Attorney General Gurbir S. Grewal, who said the state’s five Catholic dioceses have been cooperating with his office.

At the same time, he said that in some of those cases where the statute of limitations may have run out, his office intends to continue to pursue those who may have facilitated criminal conduct — such as church officials who allegedly did nothing when they learned of sexual abuse.

Grewal made his comments during an editorial board meeting with The Star-Ledger.

New Jersey officials in September set up a special task force to investigate allegations of sexual abuse by members of the clergy within the Catholic dioceses of New Jersey, in the wake of a report by a Pennsylvania grand jury which graphically detailed the abuse by priests who preyed upon children for decades.

“We’re going to be publishing a report similar to the Pennsylvania report,” Grewal said. “The people of this state have a right to know.”

While the attorney general said the calls received so far have generated a number of leads they have been pursuing, he would not disclose whether there are any active criminal cases. So far, only one priest has been charged as a result of a call to the task force.

In January, Rev. Thomas P. Ganley was arrested on sexual assault charges just two days after the victim in the nearly 30-year-old case made a call to the state’s clergy abuse hotline. Ganley, a parochial vicar at St. Philip and St. James Catholic Church in Phillipsburg, later pleaded guilty to the charges.

The state hotline — (855) 363-6548 — has gotten calls regarding other religions, not just Catholics. According to Grewal, the vast majority of the calls have been clergy related.

On Monday, meanwhile, more than 300 New Jersey priests, nuns, monks and other clergy accused of sexual misconduct, including many not included in the Catholic Church’s official list, were named by lawyers representing an alleged victim suing the state’s diocese.

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BAKERSFIELD (CA)
ABC 23 TV

May 7, 2019

By Josh Sanders

Organizers with the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP) will be holding a press conference early Tuesday afternoon, calling on the Catholic Diocese of Fresno’s newly appointed bishop, Joseph Brennan to address sexual misconduct allegations made against Monsignor Craig Harrison .

Monsignor Harrison was placed on administrative leave in April pending an investigation surrounding sexual misconduct allegations made by a man who says he was a minor at the time of the alleged abuse. Since then, another victim has come forward , and we’ve learned that a third allegation was made against the monsignor in 1998.

Organizers are also calling on the new bishop to disclose names and information about, 9 publicly accused abusive clerics in the Fresno area. They say recent allegations against Bakersfield Monsignor Harrison are concerning.

SNAP officials say there are five alleged victims accusing Harrison of sexual abuse, however neither the Dioceses nor law enforcement agencies have confirmed the organization’s number.

The press conference is scheduled for Tuesday, May 7 at 12:30 p.m. on the sidewalk outside the headquarters of the Fresno Diocese.

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BAKERSFIELD (CA)
Bakersfield Californian

May 6, 2019

By Stacey Shepard

A victims advocacy group has been contacted by five people in the past week who claim to be victims of sexual abuse by Monsignor Craig Harrison, according to a volunteer with the organization.

Esther Hatfield Miller, a native of Bakersfield, who is a volunteer leader for The Survivors Network for those Abused by Priests in California, said she’s spoken directly with four people — one person who claimed abuse by Harrison in Bakersfield and three who say they were abused by Harrison in Merced and surrounding areas.

The fifth accuser contacted another SNAP volunteer on Monday, Hatfield Miller said.

Additional details of the allegations will come out in a news conference the group plans to hold Tuesday morning at the Roman Catholic Diocese of Fresno.

Teresa Dominguez, communications director the Fresno diocese, said she hopes the victims who’ve contacted SNAP will also contact law enforcement where the abuse took place, and also contact the diocese.

“The Diocese would also appreciate being informed so that we can provide the appropriate outreach,” she said.

SNAP officials and attorneys who work with victims of church sex abuse said they do encourage victims to file reports with police but said some victims feel uncomfortable doing so.

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RENO (NV)
Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests

His “accused” list is “inaccurate & inadequate,” group says

SNAP: “Seven more names should be added to the church website”

Victims, witnesses & whistle blowers are urged to call law enforcement

WHAT
Holding signs and childhood photos at a sidewalk news conference, two clergy se abuse survivors will disclose names and information about seven publicly accused child molesting clerics who spent time in the Reno area but who are absent from the bishop’s list of credibly accused clerics who have spent time in the Reno diocese.

They will also
–prod Reno’s Catholic bishop to add more names to his “credibly accused” clergy list,
–urge victims to “step forward, get help, protect kids and expose perpetrators,” and
–encourage anyone who saw, suspected or suffered clergy sex crimes or cover ups in Nevada to contact both the Diocese of Reno and appropriate sources of outside help: law enforcement, therapists and support groups like ours.

WHEN
Tuesday, May 7, at 2:00 p.m.

WHERE
On the sidewalk outside the Reno Catholic diocese headquarters (“chancery office”), 290 S. Arlington (corner of Ridge) in Reno NV (775 326 9410)

WHO
One-two abuse victims who belong to a group called SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAPnetwork.org)

WHY
Last month, Reno Bishop Randolph Calvo finally posted names of 12 “credibly accused” abusers on his website. https://www.kolotv.com/content/news/Reno_Catholic_Diocese_names_accused_priests-508185171.html

But SNAP has learned of seven publicly accused clerics who were ‘outed’ elsewhere but who spent time in the Reno as well. They also do not appear on the diocese’s ‘credibly accused’ list.

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BUENOS AIRES (ARGENTINA)
Buenos Aires Times

May 6, 2019

International and Argentine activists on Monday called on Pope Francis to ensure that his “zero tolerance” pledge against sexual abuses by clergy is enforced in his homeland and demanded a trial for those accused of raping deaf and mute children at a Catholic school.

Prosecutors say that members of the clergy abused at least 20 children at the Provolo Institute in Mendoza province. The case has caused a worldwide uproar and more than a dozen people face charges.

The Argentine group Church Without Abuses and the international organisations Ending Clergy Abuse and BishopAccountability.org met with alleged victims Monday and criticised the lack of justice in a case that began more than two years ago.

At least 20 children say they were abused at the Provolo Institute by priest Nicola Corradi, priest Horacio Corbacho and three other men, who were arrested in 2016.

Dozens of students at another branch of the institute in Italy say they were similarly abused for decades, some allegedly by Corradi.

Both men are facing a preliminary hearing in Argentina, but the activists complain the process is taking too long.

“We came to Mendoza to show solidarity with the Provolo victims and echo their cry for justice,” said Anne Barrett Doyle of the online resource Bishop Accountability.

“Pope Francis owes them a personal apology for his complicity and silence. The Italian victims warned him for years that Corradi and others were working with children in Argentina. The pope did nothing.”

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WOODLAND PARK (NJ)
North Jersey Record

May 6, 2019

By Candace Mitchell

On Monday, a law firm released a list of names of more than 300 priests and others connected to the church who have been accused of sexual misconduct who have served in New Jersey.

Here’s what you should know about the list.

What does the list include?
The list contains the names of diocesan priests, religious order priests, deacons, nuns, and religious brothers and sisters accused of sexual misconduct and associated with the Catholic Dioceses in New Jersey.

It also includes the cleric’s work history. Attorneys said this was included to help families discern where the “perils have been and where the perils may still be.”

Is it different than the list of names released in February?
Yes, the list released three months ago was released by New Jersey’s Roman Catholic dioceses and named 188 priests and deacons who have been credibly accused of sexually abuse.

They key difference is the word credible. Many of the names on the list are allegations that have not been proven in court.

What’s not on the list?
Unlike the list the New Jersey’s Roman Catholic dioceses released three months ago, this list did not include any details, like number of victims or whether the religious person was laicized.

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MONTREAL (CANADA)
Canadian Broadcasting Company

May 6, 2019

Prey, a “riveting and unflinching” account of a sexual abuse survivor’s legal fight against the Catholic Church, has won the top award at the Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Film Festival.

Directed by Matt Gallagher, Prey was named winner of the $50,000 Rogers Audience Award for best Canadian documentary on Sunday, the final day of Hot Docs, North America’s largest documentary festival.

Immediately after the announcement, organizers held a free encore screening of the film.

Most cases of clergy sex abuse are settled quietly and out-of-court. Gallagher’s film follows a Canadian man who chooses to pursue a public trial in order to shine a light on these cases of abuse and attempt to hold the Catholic Church accountable.

Rod MacLeod, who as a boy was abused for years by a Catholic priest and teacher, enlists civil lawyer Rob Talach, who has filed approximately 400 suits against the church, for the case.

In addition to the audience award, Prey also won a $5,000 special jury prize during an earlier Hot Docs awards ceremony in Toronto on Friday.

Other winners announced Friday include Tasha Hubbard’s Colten Boushie doc nîpawistamâsowin: We Will Stand Up, which opened this year’s edition of Hot Docs.

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ST. LOUIS (MO)
Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests

May 3, 2019

Some question whether Gonzaga’s president knew about 24 suspended and accused abusive Jesuit priests who were at the school. But the key question is actually “What’s he doing now to punish those who were clearly reckless and reach out to those who may have been hurt?”

We share the view of those who believe GU President Thayne McCulloh knew about the potentially dangerous clerics. The Spokesman Review reports that the clerics sent there “included several notorious Jesuits with long and publicly documented histories of abuse. . .that were reported in the news media and revealed in lawsuits and bankruptcy actions over more than a decade,” and
McCulloh “offered a seemingly contradictory series of assertions about what he knew and didn’t know.”

He himself has said: “At no time during my tenure did the province inform me there were men on safety plans living at Bea House CONTEMPORANEOUS to the time they were living there.

Taking him at his word, it’s clear that McCulloh knew AFTER one or more Jesuits were at his school that they were accused abusers.

But again, the more pressing question is “What is McCulloh doing now to safeguard the vulnerable and heal the wounded?” We see little evidence he’s taking real action.

He should
–immediately commission an independent investigation into this troubling situation,
–publicly expose and harshly condemn, by name, Jesuit officials he suggests deceived he and his staff and his students,
–punish them as best he can, and
–write to all former students and staff who were at Gonzaga when these priests were, begging anyone with information or suspicions about their crimes to call law enforcement, and seek out independent sources of help like police, prosecutors, therapists and support groups like ours.
Last week, McCulloh wrote “We will continue to engage in ways of integrating and more deeply coming to understand how that history should inform our way of moving forward.” That’s gibberish. How to ‘move forward’ is crystal clear – use university resources to identify and expose anyone who acted recklessly and identify and help anyone who may have been hurt.

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LANSING (MI)
Detroit News

May 6, 2019

By Beth LeBlanc

Attorney General Dana Nessel’s office is working around the clock and then some in its review of thousands of pages of information seized from Michigan’s seven Catholic dioceses.

More than 25 assistant attorneys general are assigned to the investigation, in addition to their other assignments, and several regularly work for free on the weekends to process the “massive” amounts of information, said Nessel’s spokeswoman Kelly Rossman-McKinney.

The department will be in a position to announce charges related to the investigation soon, Rossman-McKinney said.

The volunteers were recognized by Nessel on social media Sunday when she posted a photo of attorneys examining paperwork in a room crowded with boxes and filing cabinets.

“They get no extra compensation, and remain responsible for their regular caseload during the week, but these lawyers are so dedicated to protecting the public that they sacrifice spending time with their families in order to protect yours,” Nessel wrote on Twitter.

Many documents under review were seized during simultaneous raids on Michigan’s seven Catholic dioceses in October, a couple of months after former Attorney General Bill Schuette began an investigation into clergy sexual abuse and the church’s handling of such complaints.

The search warrant for the October raids remains under seal in a Lansing district court “to preserve the integrity of the investigation,” Rossman-McKinney said.

The review started shortly after a grand jury investigation in Pennsylvania found hundreds of abuser priests had molested more than 1,000 children since the 1940s. Michigan’s investigation will investigate cases dating back to the 1950s.

The investigation is expected to last roughly two years. In March, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer asked the state Legislature for a $2 million supplemental allocation for the investigation, money that would come from state settlement funds.

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BUENOS AIRES (ARGENTINA)
Associated Press

May 6, 2019

International and Argentine activists are calling on Pope Francis to ensure that his “zero tolerance” pledge against sexual abuses by clergy is enforced in his homeland. And they’re demanding a trial for those accused of raping deaf and mute children at a Catholic school.

Prosecutors say that members of the clergy abused at least 20 children at the Provolo Institute in Mendoza province. The case has caused a worldwide uproar. More than a dozen people face charges.

The Argentine group Church Without Abuses and the international organizations Ending Clergy Abuse and BishopAccountability.org met with alleged victims Monday.

It’s part of a campaign urging Francis to visit his homeland to ensure the Roman Catholic Church punishes the crimes and doesn’t protect perpetrators. Francis hasn’t visited Argentina since becoming pope in 2013.

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ELIZABETH (NJ)
Associated Press

May 6, 2019

Attorneys for a man seeking to force New Jersey’s five Roman Catholic dioceses to release their clergy abuse records have issued their own list of more than 300 priests accused of child sexual abuse.

More than 100 of the names released by attorney Jeff Anderson Monday were not on the lists of credibly accused priests distributed by New Jersey’s dioceses in February.

Anderson says his release includes religious order priests such as Jesuits as well as priests who are the subject of lawsuits, many of whom were not named by the dioceses.

Anderson represents Edward Hanratty, who alleges he was abused decades ago by a priest he says was still working at a church last year. His lawsuit seeks to force the dioceses to release all files on accused priests.

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[Pope accepts resignation of Tarragona archbishop]

ROME (ITALY)
El País (Spain)

May 4, 2019

By Lorena Pacho

Jaume Pujol, que alegó motivos de edad, cesó del cargo el pasado febrero en pleno escándalo de abusos a menores

El Papa ha aceptado la renuncia del arzobispo de Tarragona Jaume Pujol Balcells, que presentó su dimisión el pasado mes de febrero, en pleno escándalo de abusos sexuales a menores por parte de sacerdotes que dependen del arzobispado. Aunque Pujol puso su cargo a disposición de Francisco por motivos de edad, como marca el derecho canónico, al cumplir los 75 años y desvinculó su decisión del descrédito que vive la diócesis, el pontífice argentino ha resuelto la salida del arzobispo en un tiempo excesivamente breve para lo que suele ser habitual en estos casos. El sacerdote Joan Planellas Barnosell sustituirá a Pujol al frente del arzobispado de Tarragona, según informó la Santa Sede este sábado a través de un comunicado.

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[“I will not stop until you resign:” Juan Carlos Cruz launches criticism of prosecutor Jorge Abbott]

CHILE
BioBioChile

May 3, 2019

By María José Villarroel and Nicole Martínez

La reunión que sostuvieron víctimas de abuso sexual con el fiscal nacional Jorge Abbott -por el controversial convenio de colaboración con la Conferencia Episcopal- tuvo momentos tensos con duras críticas al persecutor. Estos cuestionamientos fueron en especial de parte de Juan Carlos Cruz, uno de los denunciantes del exsacerdote Fernando Karadima, quien participó vía online de la cita.

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[Oscar Contardo on accusations against Renato Poblete: “That type of bodily violence reminds me of descriptions of torture during dictatorship’s repression”]

CHILE
The Clinic

April 30, 2019

By Alejandra Matus and Benjamín Miranda

El periodista y escritor nacional aborda con The Clinic la última denuncia que remeció a la Iglesia chilena, luego de que Marcela Aranda revelara que durante cerca de ocho años fue abusada sexualmente por el sacerdote jesuita Renato Poblete. En la siguiente entrevista, el autor de Rebaño (2018) analiza el impacto de las acusaciones y explica por qué la congregación logró, hasta este momento, apartarse de la crisis que afecta a la Iglesia local: “Los jesuitas representaban una especie de enclave libre de toda sospecha, pese a tener varias denuncias históricas que se han hecho públicas con mucha dificultad. La opinión pública los juzgaba distinto, pero no lo son. Es la misma iglesia, la misma estructura, la misma crisis”.

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[Marcela Aranda’s explosive accusations against Renato Poblete: “He started to abuse me sexually with a lot of violence”]

CHILE
Ahora Noticias

April 29, 2019

La denunciante habló en exclusiva con Ahora Noticias sobre la violencia que padeció de parte del sacerdote jesuita.

AhoraNoticias entrevistó de manera exclusiva a Marcela Aranda, la mujer que denunció abusos sexuales por parte del sacerdote jesuita y excapellán del Hogar de Cristo, Renato Poblete. De este modo, abrió el contenido más íntimo de la denuncia eclesiástica que realizó hace sólo unos meses ante la Comisión de Escucha instalada en Chile por el enviado del papa, monseñor Charles Scicluna.

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[Parliamentarians call abuse investigation agreement between Church and prosecutors “unusual”]

CHILE
BioBioChile

May 6, 2019

By Alberto González and Francisca Carvajal

Parlamentarios de la Comisión de Constitución de la Cámara de Diputados calificaron como “insólito” el acuerdo firmado entre la Conferencia Episcopal de Chile y el Ministerio Público, el cual tiene como objetivo el intercambio de información sobre delitos sexuales cometidos por miembros de la Iglesia.

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[Santiago Archdiocese calls accusation against Tito Rivera “complex and implausible”]

SANTIAGO (CHILE)
Emol

By Tamara Cerna

El abogado de la arquidiócesis cuestionó que el denunciante recuerde los detalles del abuso que habría sufrido si, según él mismo aseguró en la acción que pide $350 millones, fue drogado.

El abogado que representa al Arzobispado de Santiago, Ramón Cifuentes, contestó la demanda civil interpuesta por el ataque que un hombre que habría sufrido en 2015 en la Catedral de la capital por parte de Tito Rivera, cuando este, según asegura, lo drogó y violó. En la contestación a la acción que pide $350 millones, el litigante señaló que, pese a supuestamente haber ingerido involuntariamente una sustancia ilícita “que inhibe la voluntad”, aquella “curiosamente no toca en un ápice ni la conciencia ni la memoria del drogado”. Es por ello, y otras cosas expuestas, que asegura que dicha versión resulta “compleja e inverosímil”.

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WOODLAND PARK (NJ)
North Jersey Record

May 6, 2019

By Monsy Alvarado and Jean Rimbach

Attorneys at a Monday press conference released a list of names of more than 300 priests and others connected to the church, including nuns and deacons, who have been accused of sexual misconduct who have served in New Jersey.

At a press conference, held in Elizabeth, advocates and attorneys from law firm Jeff Anderson & Associate also announced that Edward Hanratty, a Ridgefield Park native, has filed a lawsuit against all of the New Jersey Catholic Bishops and the New Jersey Catholic Conference for “maintaining a public hazard by keeping secret the names of all clergy accused of sexual misconduct in New Jersey.”

“We release this report, the Anderson Report, and what it is is an identification all the clerics who have been publicly accused across the state of New Jersey,” said Jeff Anderson, the law firm’s founder. “We have also included the history, the assignment history of each of those clerics that have been publicly accused because we believe it’s something that needs to be done.

They are demanding that New Jersey Bishops release the identities, background information, and histories on all clergy accused of sexual misconduct with minors, which they say has largely been concealed.

The report, released Monday, contains the names of diocesan priests, religious order priests, deacons, nuns, and religious brothers and sisters accused of sexual misconduct and associated with the Catholic Dioceses in New Jersey.

Those listed worked at churches in the Archdiocese of Newark, the Diocese of Trenton, Camden, Paterson and Metuchen. The information is derived from publicly available sources, claims made by survivors to the diocese and religious orders responsible for the offenders, as well as legal settlements made as a result of claims for sexual abuse, according to the report

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[Jesuits want more time to consider abuse agreement between Church and prosecutors]

CHILE
La Tercera

May 3, 2019

Al igual que franciscanos y mercedarios, argumentaron que todavía están analizando el documento, suscrito el martes.

“El documento lo estamos estudiando y, además, desde 2018 ya estamos colaborando con la scalía”. Esa fue la respuesta de la Compañía de Jesús ante el requerimiento de La Tercera, respecto de por qué no suscribieron este martes reciente el convenio entre la Fiscalía Nacional y la Conferencia Episcopal (Cech) para denuncias de abusos, al cual estaban convocados. Situación similar a la de otras dos congregaciones: mercedarios y franciscanos.

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[Keys of controversial agreement between Prosecutor’s Office and bishops’ conference in sexual abuse cases]

SANTIAGO (CHILE)
Emol

May 3, 2019

By Juan Peña

Favorecer el desarrollo de las investigaciones, denunciar en un plazo máximo de 24 horas y confidencialidad para las víctimas, sostienen el acuerdo que, hasta ahora, tres congregaciones no han firmado.

Favorecer el desarrollo de investigaciones pasadas, en curso o próximas por abusos sexuales. Este es el motivo del controvertido convenio de colaboración que el Ministerio Público y la Conferencia Episcopal firmaron esta semana y al que tres congregaciones religiosas aún no adhieren. Los jesuitas, los mercedarios y franciscanos explicaron que necesitan más tiempo para analizar el documento, que promueve el intercambio de información ante denuncias por delitos de esta connotación.

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BOSTON (MA)
Boston Herald

May 3, 2019

By Joe Dwinell

One of the city’s leading crusaders against sexual abuse in the Catholic church is calling on Northeastern University to explain to human-trafficking victims why it hosts the archives of the now-defunct Boston Phoenix — an alternative weekly fueled by prostitution ads.

The university addresses those ads by stating on the Snell Library website they were for “romantic mates,” and in a statement sent Saturday to the Herald saying readers need to “learn from and not repeat our mistakes.”

Attorney Mitchell Garabedian, widely hailed nationally for exposing rampant sexual abuse in the church, told the Herald Northeastern needs to address the matter further.

“Given society’s attitude in regards to sexual trafficking, Northeastern University has a responsibility to more completely explain why it’s hosting those archives,” Garabedian said. “It’s painful to many victims of sex trafficking, sexual abuse and to society in general.”

Some of the old ads in the Phoenix, according to archived photos, included: “Romantic red head” looking to take a man “to heaven and back … live life at 100 mph,” and “blonde girl with big personality.” Others were more to the point.

In a statement, the dean of the Snell Library, professor Dan Cohen, did not address calls for a forum about why the college hosts the controversial archives.

“Libraries and archives retain the past so that we can strive to learn from and not repeat our mistakes,” he said.

“This often means preserving materials that are troubling and offensive. It is only through honestly studying and understanding the past — including our best and worst selves — that societies can ensure human progress.”

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SALT LAKE CITY (UT)
Sal Lake City Tribune

May 6, 2019

The April 27 article titled “Archdiocese of New York names 120 priests accused of sexual abuse” in The Salt Lake Tribune’s print edition was shocking.

Could it be, I thought, that these are all priests currently in ministry in New York? So I called a friend who works in the New York archdiocesan offices for some light on the matter.

He told me that the 120 cases go back to 1900; that the total number of priests working in the archdiocese since 1900 was, conservatively estimated, well over 6,000; that no priests on the accused list is currently in ministry; and that at the present time the archdiocese is dealing with no cases of clergy sex abuse of children and minors.

I am not for a moment playing down the disaster of clergy malfeasance in New York or anywhere else, the blot it leaves on the Catholic Church and the horror it has wielded on victims. But I did find it helpful to be able to put the April 27 story in historical and numerical context.

Monsignor M. Francis Mannion, pastor emeritus of St. Vincent Church, Salt Lake City

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HARRISBURG (PA)
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

May 5, 2019

By Angela Couloumbis and Liz Navratil

When child sexual abuse victims and their advocates reunited on the Capitol steps last month to rally for the right to sue their violators, something didn’t look quite right.

Glaringly absent was state Rep. Mark Rozzi, a Reading Democrat who has for years been the Legislature’s loudest advocate for changing the law to give older victims of childhood sexual abuse two more years to bring civil claims. The idea has gained urgency amid the child sexual abuse scandal rocking the Roman Catholic church.

Mr. Rozzi’s absence hinted at a divide that has emerged between the lawmaker and some in the victim community who once considered him their champion. Those victims, advocates, say, now feel betrayed and abandoned by him.

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KANSAS CITY (MO)
National Catholic Reporter

May 6, 2019

By Heidi Schlumpf

About a mile west of Wrigley Field, in Chicago’s trendy Roscoe Village neighborhood, sits a three-story, yellow-brick building, where those who can’t afford the nearby million-dollar, single-family homes can get a three-bedroom condo for half that. The building’s first-floor commercial occupants are a spiritual giftshop and bookstore run by volunteers and open only on the weekends, and Call to Action, the 40-year-old Catholic church reform organization.

Call to Action purchased the spacious, newly renovated office space — as an investment, some said — just before the recession of 2008. Before that, CTA rented decidedly less swanky digs in the basement of a parish in a predominantly Latino neighborhood.

Now, facing twin challenges of anaging membership and dwindling financial resources and after several changes in leadership, CTA is putting its Roscoe Village office up for sale and has laid off two long-time staff members, “due to declining revenues and increased operating costs,” CTA’s Vision Council announced in a recent email letter.

“These decisions were made in consideration of our anti-racism and anti-oppression principles, with a desire to be the most responsible stewards of our limited resources, in collaboration with those most directly impacted, and after much prayer, conversation and discernment,” the Feb. 20 email said.

Current CTA Executive Director Zachary Johnson, who works from Minnesota where smaller office space has been arranged, told NCR that the Roscoe Village building was too big and “assumed the size of an organization that we’re clearly not.”

Instead, Johnson wants to use Call to Action’s resources to invest in younger leaders for the organization, through an innovative new program called Re/Generation. But those younger leaders may recreate the longtime Vatican II group into something quite different from the organization they have inherited.

Johnson, 30, is hoping his strategy will take Call to Action into the next 40 or 50 years.

“We’re building for a longer-term future,” he said. “I take church reform seriously, and if we’re going to be serious, we’ve got to think in longer, bigger terms.”

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FAIRFAX (NEW ZEALAND)
Stuff Limited

May 6, 2019

By Tommy Livingston

Survivors of sexual abuse at the hands of clergymen are outraged three senior bishops attended a funeral celebrating the life of an abusive priest.

The requiem mass for Father Thomas “Tom” Laffey was held in Ponsonby, Auckland, on Friday and attended by Bishop of Auckland Patrick Dunn, Bishop Emeritus Dennis Browne and former Bishop of Rarotonga Stuart O’Connell, Stuff understands.

In 2003, Laffey admitted he had sexually assaulted Mike Phillips in the mid 1960s, when Phillips was a 13-year-old altar boy at St Mary of the Angels Church in Wellington.

Laffey’s admission came after Phillips went public with his allegations after being diagnosed with terminal cancer aged 50. Laffey had been playfighting with Phillips when he took advantage of the situation and sexually assaulted him, he alleged.

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SAN FRANCISCO (CA)
KQED Radio

May 5, 2019

By Shia Levitt, Vianey Alderete Contreras, KQED Staff

In a long awaited move, California Attorney General Xavier Becerra will review how the state’s Roman Catholic dioceses handled allegations of child sexual abuse.

The Attorney General sent letters to the state’s 12 Catholic dioceses on Thursday. In the letter, Becerra said his office will review whether the archdiocese adequately reported allegations of sexual misconduct as required by state law. Becerra asked the dioceses to preserve all records relating to child sexual abuse, including those in “secret archives.”

Joey Piscitelli, from the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP), welcomes the Attorney General’s action. He says asking the diocese to self-report, which has been the protocol until now, hasn’t been working.

“That’s why it’s necessary for the Attorney General to take these steps, so they can be investigated more,” Piscitelli said.

Piscitelli says he and other survivors had a meeting with Becerra and district attorneys across the state last fall. He said they were looking for information on bishops who may have covered up sexual abuse allegations. Becerra’s office confirmed the meeting but not the details of it.

The State Attorney General’s action comes on the heels of a similar action taken by district attorneys in the Central Valley. At least seven county district attorney offices have banded together to audit the Catholic Diocese of Fresno’s archive.

In March, the Fresno Dioceses said it would review its records for cases of possible sexual abuse. In a bid to be more transparent, the dioceses hired Dr. Kathleen McChesney, CEO of Kinsale Management Consulting, to conduct an independent audit of its records.

The Fresno Diocese said it hired McChesney “to ensure that this task is objectively completed in a timely manner.”

Dr. McChesney is a former FBI Executive Assistant Director. According to her LinkedIn profile, she also worked at the US Conference of Catholic Bishops in the early 2000s, where she served as executive director of the Office of Child and Youth Protection.

District attorneys remain skeptical of how transparent the process will be. Madera County DA Sally Moreno, who took office in January, said she sped up the timeline to review church records, after recent allegations were made against a longtime Bakersfield priest Monsignor Craig Harrison.

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WASHINGTON (DC)
WTOP TV

May 3, 2019

By Neal Augenstein

A D.C. Catholic priest has been indicted on seven counts of sexually abusing two children and a woman who were parishioners. He will plead not guilty, his lawyer told WTOP.

Court records show Urbano Vazquez, who was a priest at Shrine of the Sacred Heart, was indicted on four felony counts — two for second-degree sex abuse with a victim under age 12, and two with a victim under 18. He was also charged with three related misdemeanors.

“Father Urbano intends to contest the charges,” defense attorney Robert Bonsib said.

Vazquez faces a statutory maximum of 30 years, six months in prison.

In March, Vazquez and his attorney rejected a plea offer to reduced charges, in which he could have faced up to 11 years behind bars.

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NEW YORK (NY)
Jezebel

May 6, 2019

By Emily Alford

An arbitrator in New Jersey has ruled that an ex-priest who was removed from the ministry amid allegations he sexually abused and impregnated a 14-year-old parishioner should keep his teaching job at a middle school because school administration has been aware of the abuse for the past 17 years.

Former Rev. Joseph DeShan left the priesthood in 1989 and has been named on the Diocese of Bridgeport’s list of “credibly accused” sexual offenders. Since 1996, he has worked teaching reading to sixth-graders in New Jersey’s Cinnaminson school district. In 2002, the district learned of the abuse allegations after they were reported in the press but chose not to fire DeShan.

In December 2018, parents asked that their children be removed from his classroom after a 12-year-old student said DeShan’s behavior made her uncomfortable, according to The New York Post:

“‘Look at me,” DeShan allegedly told the girl. “Let me see your pretty green eyes. You don’t see them too much anymore.’

DeShan purportedly made the creepy remark in a “weird voice,” according to the seven-page ruling.”

But an arbitrator has ruled that the student’s allegations are hearsay and DeShan can’t be fired for the 1989 allegations because he hasn’t already been fired for the 1989 allegations:

“And despite the changes in “parental and societal views” that district officials say now make DeShan unfit for a classroom, arbitrator Walt De Treux wrote in his ruling that the teacher cannot lose his job for conduct they’ve known about for 17 years.

“‘The fact that some parents now demand his removal from the classroom does not give the BOE a second opportunity to revisit pre-employment conduct of which it has been long aware.’”

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BUENOS AIRES (ARGENTINA)
Al Jazeera

May 6, 2019

By Daniel Schweimler

Pope Francis is being urged by campaigners to return to his homeland to deal with revelations of child sexual abuse committed by Roman Catholic clergy.

Two international campaign organisations are in Argentina to meet the victims.

They are also calling for clergy involved in abuse to be removed from office and to be prosecuted.

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ROME (ITALY)
LaCroix International

May 6, 2019
Superior generals need to be trained to better guide women religious who have been victims of sex abuse by priests, the president of the International Union of Superiors General (IUSG), told media in Rome.

“When a superior general feels at ease to speak about the issue with her sisters, they will be able to speak to her with confidence more easily if they have been victims of abuse,” Sister Carmen Sammut, the IUSG president told a Rome press conference ahead of the organization’s triennial conference from May 6-10.

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NEWARK (NJ)
Star-Ledger

May 5, 2019

By Tom Healey

While in some ways a hopeful step, a four-day meeting in Rome earlier this year called by Pope Francis to respond to the sexual abuse crisis that has impacted the lives of countless victims and undermined the moral authority of the Catholic Church was sadly bereft of concrete reform. There is still ample opportunity for the Church to recover from the decades-old scandal and regain the trust of the public, but it will require fundamental reforms in two critical areas that permitted and then covered up those abuses: bishop accountability and Church governance.

To ensure these reforms become reality, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) should name, as soon as possible, twin oversight panels: a Task Force on Recovery to address accountability and a Task Force on Reform to address governance. These task forces should include the participation of laity and clergy and each should be given the necessary funding and resources to fulfill their responsibilities.

Unquestionably, bishops guilty of abusing minors or of negligence in handling abuse cases must be held accountable and punished for their actions. This point was driven home at the Vatican meeting by Cardinal Blase Cupich, Archbishop of Chicago, and a close advisor to Pope Francis, who declared that new structures were needed to report allegations of abuse, investigate them, and remove from positions in the Church any bishops found guilty.

Similar recommendations, and many others aimed at desperately needed Church reform and recovery from the sexual abuse crisis, were announced by the Leadership Roundtable following its two-day Catholic Partnership Summit in Washington, D.C., which brought together Church leaders from around the country, including Cardinals Cupich, Sean O’Malley from the Archdiocese of Boston, and Joseph Tobin from the Archdiocese of Newark.

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READING (PA)
Reading Eagle

May 3, 2019

By Karen L. Chandler

Caroline Culverhouse may be in the business of healing, but her life’s journey created a need to seek healing for both herself and others.

Co-founder of the #MetooBerks Movement, Culverhouse, Alsace Township, is a psychotherapist, yoga and meditation instructor, transformational group process facilitator and Health & Wellness columnist.

She spoke about her own trauma and healing at a speaking event at the Reading Area Community College Miller Center for the Arts in late March, one of a series of free workshops.

The #MetooBerks Movement was founded to provide Berks County community members who identify as sexually transgressed, objectified or abused with a free opportunity for healing, awareness and empowerment.

Telling the story of sexual assault inflicted on her by a massage therapist during a recent trip to New York with her husband is visibly difficult for Culverhouse.

“I did not and could not say no,” she said. “I felt violated and ashamed. How could someone who helps others deal with trauma let this happen to me?”

Culverhouse explains that after the incident she immediately began to practice trauma-releasing exercises that she designed herself and reported the assault to the authorities before moving into deep meditation to gain understanding of what occurred.

She believes her meditation called her to action to go home to Berks County and start #MetooBerks.

“For me, #Metoo does not begin and end in New York City,” Culverhouse said.

Culverhouse provides more background to the traumatic event in her column on Page 4 this issue.

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CHARLESTON (WV)
Gazette Mail

May 5, 2019

By Michael Iafrate and Jeanni Kirkhope

Almost a year before Michael Bransfield’s resignation as bishop of the Diocese of Wheeling-Charleston (DWC), the Catholic Committee of Appalachia (CCA) wrote a letter to Pope Francis and other Vatican officials to express concerns about our diocese and to share thoughts on the kind of bishop we would like to see follow Bransfield.

Drawing from the Appalachian Catholic pastoral letters and the example of Pope Francis, both of which challenge people of faith to respond to the cry of the poor and the cry of the Earth, our letter requested a bishop who:

-Is committed to ongoing church reform.

–Strives to be a pastor rather than an administrator or politician.

-Listens to and works with laypeople, especially those who are not wealthy or part of industry elites.

– Lives simply rather than princely, and seeks to serve rather than to be served.

– Follows Pope Francis’ commitment to social, economic and ecological justice and encourages priests in the diocese to do the same

– Partners with grassroots organizations to address the root causes of the region’s poverty, unemployment and ecological destruction.

In the year since that letter was sent, Archbishop William Lori was appointed by Pope Francis to oversee the DWC and the church’s investigation of Bransfield for alleged abuse and fiscal improprieties. Lori has publicly promised transparency with the laypeople of the diocese. Yet he never revealed the identities and credentials of his investigative team of laypeople, and the contents of the report were not disclosed. The diocese claimed the investigation discovered no criminal activity, but a former diocesan seminarian recently filed a civil lawsuit against Bransfield, the DWC and 20 unnamed defendants alleging sexual harassment and sexual assault by Bransfield as late as 2014.

Meanwhile, when the DWC published the list of priests they deemed credibly accused of sexual abuse, they claimed to have turned over all relevant documents to West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey. However, last month when Morrisey filed a lawsuit against the DWC, alleging decades of cover-ups of sexual abuse by clergy, he claimed the DWC had objected to two subpoenas for relevant documents.

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BUENOS AIRES (ARGENTINA)
Ending Clergy Abuse

May 5, 2019

Groups will visually highlight number of abusive clergy still hidden in Argentine church

Groups estimate number of clergy offenders in Argentina is 1,302

Likely number of victims, they say, is more than 15,000

New victims will tell their stories

Survivors will flyer parishioners with information about reaching out to hidden victims

Who: 10-15 Argentine victims of sexual abuse by clergy, joined by leaders from Ending Clergy Abuse (ECA) and BishopAccountability.org

Where: Metropolitan Cathedral, San Martín 27, C1004 CABA, Argentina

When: 10:00 am Sunday May 5

What: A new NGO of Argentine abuse victims, joined by two global groups, will hold a vigil Sunday to protest the church’s “systemic and widespread concealment” of child sexual abuse by Argentine priests.

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ALBUQUERQUE (NM)
Albuquerque Journal

May 5, 2019

By Colleen Heild

New Mexico was poised this year to join a wave of states nationwide that are allowing victims of child sex crimes more time to report their perpetrators for possible criminal prosecution.

A last-minute clerical error derailed that effort – at least for this year.

Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham said she was forced to veto the legislation last month, because her legal team found a fatal flaw that would have given some victims even less time to report the crime than they have under current law.

The bill cleared its final legislative hurdle on the final day of the session that ended March 16 and was sent on to the governor.

“Nobody caught it before,” said the bill’s sponsor, Sen. Jeff Steinborn, D-Las Cruces. “If we had, it would have been an easy thing to fix.”

The governor’s veto message said she agreed with the premise of SB55, which was intended to extend the deadlines for prosecuting offenders who commit certain sexual assaults of children. But the version approved by the Legislature, Lujan Grisham wrote, “fails to achieve this goal due to what is likely a technical drafting error.”

Under the new legislation, for example, prosecutions for second-degree criminal sexual penetration of a child could have commenced any time until the victim reached age 30 – six years longer than provided by current law.

But the flawed final measure also inadvertently reduced the statute of limitations for prosecuting criminal sexual contact of a minor to within five or six years after the offense. Under current law, the victim could be up to 23 or 24 years old, depending on the degree of felony, before a prosecution is barred by the passage of time.

Steinborn said that in drafting revised legislation, someone forgot to include the offense of criminal sexual contact of a minor, which had been in prior versions. What was missing was the statute number, “30-9-13.”

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GUAM
Pacific Daily News

May 5, 2019

Haidee V Eugenio

Back when no one dared to publicly accuse any Guam priest, much less the archbishop, of sexually abusing a child, former Agat resident John Toves did so in 2014.

It was about 12 years after the Archdiocese of Boston’s sex abuse scandal exposed widespread wrongdoing in the American Roman Catholic Church.

“My aunt referred to my brother as the David who slew Goliath,” Noreen Toves-Phillips, of California, said about her brother John

Toves’ call for justice for his cousin, who he said was sexually abused as a child by former Archbishop Anthony S. Apuron, was met with threats of a lawsuit. Toves sparked hope for others who found their courage to tell their stories. Accusers came forward and said Apuron sexually abused, molested and raped them when they were children.

“I’m sure the victims had been living with the pain of his crime, but because of the nature of that kind of trauma, it is not likely that any of it would have come to light if my brother had not brought forth his accusation and had not fought so hard to hold Apuron accountable for his crimes and his sin,” Toves-Phillips said.

Toves died on April 17 in Foster City, California. He was 54. Toves was laid to rest on April 27 in California.

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HARRISBURG (PA)
PHhiladelphia Inquirer

May 5, 2019

By Angela Couloumbis and Liz Navratil

When child sexual-abuse victims and their advocates reunited on the Capitol steps last month to rally for the right to sue their violators, something didn’t look quite right.

Glaringly absent was State Rep. Mark Rozzi, a Reading Democrat who has for years been the legislature’s loudest advocate for changing the law to give older victims of childhood sexual abuse two more years to bring civil claims. The idea has gained urgency amid the child sexual-abuse scandal rocking the Roman Catholic Church.

Rozzi’s absence hinted at an unspoken divide that has emerged between the lawmaker and some in the victim community who once considered him their champion. Those victims, advocates say, feel betrayed and abandoned by him.

And as the issue has once again landed in the legislature, the question looming is whether the disagreement will hamper victims in their already-uphill push for changes in Pennsylvania’s law.

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ALTOONA (PA)
Altoona Mirror

May 5, 2019

The Altoona-Johnstown Diocese announced Satur­day afternoon that Bishop Mark L. Bartchak has re­stricted a retired priest from carrying out any public ministry.

The Rev. Stephen J. Gergel served as pastor of St. Francis of Assisi Parish in Johnstown from Novem­ber 1969 until July 1989. He was then a chaplain in the United States Navy until his retirement in 2005. Since his retirement, he has lived in Georgia.

“This action is in response to alleged misconduct with a young adult that is reported to have taken place while he was pastor of St. Francis of Assisi Parish in Johnstown,” a diocesan press release states.

Gergel was ordained a priest in 1962.

A letter from Bartchak will be read at all Masses at St. Francis of Assisi Parish this weekend.

“The Bishop is assuring that faith community of his prayers, and he is asking them to pray for victims of abuse and their families,” the press release stated.

According to diocesan practice, the complaint has been referred to Penn­syl­va­nia ChildLine and the Office of the District Attorney.

Anyone with information regarding possible sexual abuse of minors should contact law enforcement.

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SAN FRANCISCO (CA)
Associated Press

May 4, 2019

By Noelle Bellow

The California attorney general’s office will review how all 12 Roman Catholic dioceses in the state handled allegations of child sexual abuse that have resulted in payouts of hundreds of millions of dollars to victims.

Attorney General Xavier Becerra sent out letters to the dioceses on Thursday, requesting that officials preserve documents relating to abuse allegations involving clergy, staffers and volunteers that were received from 1996 to the present.

The attorney general’s office will look into whether the archdiocese properly reported the allegations under California law.

The request could be the first step toward a full investigation of California dioceses, which serve an estimated 10 million worshippers.

Melanie Sakoda with Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP) says she along with other advocates, feel the Catholic church isn’t transparent enough to do an investigation.

“In general they have underreported. I think they have minimized,” she said. “Until you get all of that information out there, you don’t have a good idea of what happened and you don’t know who knew what, who knew when, and what did they do about it. I think that’s what the attorney general is focusing on.”

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BAKERSFIELD (CA)
Bakersfield Californian

May 5, 2019

By Rylee Smith

When I was 9-years-old, someone had to tell me that my aunt, whom I loved more than I can express, passed away. My parents were at a loss. They turned to Monsignor Craig Harrison, then Father Craig.

He sat my sister and me down and told us the news. It went about as well as giving such difficult news can go. He gave us each a copy of a book he wrote called “Angel Girl.” Twelve years later, I teared up while reading the message he wrote inside my book: “Rylee — May the angels above, especially Aunt Shell, bless you. Love, Fr. Craig.”

When I heard that Monsignor Craig was being put on leave, I was devastated. Allegations of this nature are extremely serious, and should be given the attention they deserve by the authorities. Just because allegations are heard, however, does not mean that they can be immediately believed, absent evidence. The Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests urged Bishop Joseph V. Brennan of Fresno to prevent the prayer vigil that occurred Wednesday for Monsignor Craig. Its argument was that victims of abuse will be deterred from coming forward in other situations if they see that the community is rallying around a priest accused of sexual assault. This argument makes sense. It is also not fair.

Monsignor Craig is not just a priest accused of sexual assault, acting as a scapegoat for the horrible crimes by members of the global church that have come to light in the past year. He is a member of our community. He is a friend. He is a human being. Just like any person, Monsignor Craig has the right to the presumption of innocence. The burden of proof falls on the prosecution in a court of law for a reason because we as a nation shudder at the idea of an innocent person being wrongfully convicted. The fact that the alleged crime is so heinous should make us cling tighter to the presumption of innocence, not abandon it.

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