ABUSE TRACKER

CHEYENNE (WY)
Catholic News Service

June 13, 2019

Retired Bishop Joseph H. Hart of Cheyenne will face a Vatican trial for allegations that he sexually abused several minors years ago.

Cheyenne Bishop Steven R. Biegler announced June 12 that such a trial of the retired prelate would take place. Bishop Biegler included Bishop Hart’s name in a list of all Catholic clergy with substantiated allegations of sexual abuse of minors or vulnerable persons for whom the diocese had files and who were in active ministry from 1950 to the present in the Diocese of Cheyenne.

Bishop Hart is one of 11 clergy on the list published on the diocesan website and in the June online issue of the Wyoming Catholic Register, Cheyenne’s diocesan newspaper. After the prelate’s name, the listing states: “Pope Francis imposed restrictions and authorized a penal process.”

“Our clergy are expected to be shepherds who guard and protect the flock, especially the least among us,” Bishop Biegler said in a letter to diocesan Catholics about the list. “They are called to imitate the Good Shepherd, who laid down his life for the sheep. Therefore, sexual abuse by clergy is an appalling sin and a reprehensible crime.”

“It contradicts everything we stand for. Each name on this list represents a betrayal of trust, a violation of the innocent and a human tragedy,” he added.

Bishop Hart, who retired as head of the Diocese of Cheyenne in 2001, has always maintained his innocence, “categorically and completely” denying any improper conduct.

The announcement of the Vatican trial follows the conclusion of a new investigation of the allegations against Bishop Hart that Bishop Biegler had ordered. Results of the investigation were sent to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the Congregation for Bishops, the nuncio to the United States and Denver Archbishop Samuel J. Aquila, who is the metropolitan of the province that includes the Cheyenne Diocese.

In July 2018, Bishop Biegler said that, because of the results of the investigation, he would continue the restrictions placed on the public ministry of Bishop Hart first imposed by then-Bishop Paul D. Etienne when he headed the Cheyenne Diocese.

The accusation is that Bishop Hart sexually abused two boys from Wyoming after he became Cheyenne’s bishop in 1978. He was auxiliary bishop of the statewide diocese for two years before that.

In 2002, police and prosecutors in Cheyenne cleared Bishop Hart of any wrongdoing because they found “no evidence to support the allegations.”

But Bishop Biegler ordered the new investigation of the claims since there were “there no trials, no determination of guilt or innocence (and) the matter was not resolved,” the diocese said.

The Wyoming allegations came after several men alleged that Bishop Hart sexually abused them years earlier, when he was a priest in the Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph, Missouri. He was ordained for that diocese May 1, 1956. He was accused of three instances of abuse dating to the late 1960s and early 1970s there.

In 2008, the Missouri diocese, then headed by Bishop Robert W. Finn, announced a $10 million settlement with 47 victims of sexual abuse by 12 clergy and former clergy of the diocese. The diocese did not name the 12 clergymen involved in the settlement, but at the time, attorneys for the victims said the group included Bishop Hart. Another financial settlement was reached by the diocese in 2014.

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NEW ORLEANS (LA)
The Advocate

June 12, 2019

By James Gill

When the Baptists this week trooped off to Birmingham, Alabama, for their annual convention, for instance, sexual exploitation by clergy and staff was much in their thoughts. What used to be regarded as a Catholic curse has gone ecumenical. Thus, in April, repeat child molester Jonathan Bailey, former youth pastor at First Baptist Church in New Orleans, was sentenced to 23 years.

An investigation by the Houston Chronicle and the San Antonio Express-News identified Bailey as one of 400 Southern Baptist church officials — four of them in Louisiana — to have been accused of sex crimes in the last 20 years. “There seems to be a growing sense of vulnerability and a willingness to address this crisis,” the Rev. Russell Moore, the Southern Baptists’ head of public policy, has said.

It’s about time, but then the Catholics were in no hurry to come to grips with the sins of their ministry either. Even now, 34 years after the Rev. Gilbert Gauthe’s guilty plea in Lafayette first revealed how the church was protecting the pederasts in its ranks, the Vatican is not insisting that sexual predators be turned over to the police. The suspicion remains that the church’s first concern is its own.

The Catholic church has identified thousands more sexual transgressors than any other faith, but this, perhaps, is a result of universality rather than openness. Religion evidently offers a cover for many a pervert; Episcopalians have been confessing their sins in this area, too.

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BIRMINGHAM (AL)
Baptist News Global

June 12, 2019

By Bob Allen

While Southern Baptist Convention messengers inside the Birmingham Jefferson Convention Complex took first steps to punish churches that enable sexual abuse, survivors relegated to a sidewalk outside the meeting hall demanded a system to make it harder for clergy predators to move from church to church.

“You may force us to meet on street corners, but mark my words, we will not be silent,” abuse survivor and advocate Ashley Easter addressed SBC leaders in absentia at the second annual For Such a Time as This rally June 11.

The rally began moments after the denomination amended governing documents to clarify that churches indifferent to sexual abuse are not “in friendly cooperation” with the convention and to empower a standing committee to discern whether individual churches meet membership requirements, a responsibility now before the SBC Executive Committee.

Protesters outside the convention hall said they want more: establishment of a database to track and warn about known predators, mandatory training to recognize and address abuse and repudiation of a “low view of women” they say contributes to a culture of abuse.

“We have seen some progress, but there is a lot more work to be done,” said rally organizer Cheryl Summers.

“One year ago we held the first For Such a Time as This rally in Dallas,” Summers said. “One year ago there was no sexual abuse study group, and it exists today. One year ago training about abuse in the church did not exist for Southern Baptist churches, and this week the new Church Cares training protocol will be unveiled. One year ago Paige Patterson, the poster child for mishandling abuse disclosures, was scheduled to give the keynote address at the annual meeting. That never happened because people stood up and spoke up.”

“We will continue to speak for those who imagine they are the only ones living a private nightmare,” she said. “We will continue to speak because well-meaning pastors just don’t know what they don’t know, and they do tremendous damage to survivors.”

Christa Brown, an abuse survivor who has been calling for change in the Southern Baptist Convention’s abuse policy for 13 years, said her story is “dreadfully common.”

“Almost every Baptist survivor I have ever spoken with has said that the trauma from the institutional betrayal far exceeded the trauma from the abuse itself,” Brown said. “This massive institutional enablement of horror must be addressed on an equally massive scale.”

“The path forward is a database, an independently administered database of Southern Baptist clergy, those criminally convicted, those who have admitted to conduct constituting abuse and those who are credibly accused as determined by an independent panel,” Brown said.

“Many others are now urging the same thing,” Brown said. “It is so obviously what is needed, and yet the SBC still balks.”

Christa Brown talks to local media prior to the start of Tuesday’s For Such a Time as This Rally. (Photos by Bob Allen)

“So here’s what I want to know,” she continued. “How many kids will it take? Seven hundred victims documented by the Houston Chronicle and San Antonio Express-News. Three hundred and fifty more who have contacted them since then. Thank God for the Houston Chronicle and San Antonio Express-News.”

“How many kids could have been spared if SBC officials had taken action back in 2006 when a database was first proposed?” she wondered. “It’s been 13 years, and how many more kids will it still take before this convention will do what other faith groups do and at least begin keeping records on credibly accused clergy sex abusers. How many kids?”

David Clohessy, former head of an advocacy group that decades ago pushed for similar reforms in the Roman Catholic Church, described Brown as the “Rosa Parks of the Protestant child safety movement.”

“Just like Rosa Parks and other pioneers and social movement leaders, Christa has endured all kinds of persecution and harassment,” said Clohessy, former national leader of the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests. “It was literally 10 years ago that a top Baptist official, Paige Patterson, said of Christa and others who were pushing for change, said they were just as reprehensible as sex criminals.”

“That tells you something about the mindset that we’re up against,” Clohessy said.

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BALTMORE (MD)
Catholic News Agency

June 13, 2019

By J. D. Flynn

Nearly all U.S. bishops know by now that U.S. Catholics are experiencing crises of faith and confidence at a scale that far exceeds even the Church’s sexual abuse scandal in 2002. They were presented with data this week noting that the rate of Catholics defecting from the practice of the faith has risen dramatically in recent years, and they are reminded in their own dioceses that practicing Catholics, priests among them, are deeply discouraged of the last year, and struggling to trust.

But there is a disconnect between the work that bishops are doing this week in Baltimore to respond to those problems and the way that work is perceived by even faithful and engaged Catholics.

The mission of bishops is the salvation of souls. Their call is to proclaim the Gospel, to teach the faith, to celebrate the sacramental mysteries of grace, and to lead and coordinate the apostolic and evangelical work of priests, deacons, religious, and laity. Their ability to do those things convincingly and compellingly is hampered by the scandals of the last year.

But so is the ability of millions of other Catholics to do the work to which God has called them. Within the Church, the scandals have tainted the credibility of the bishops. Beyond the walls of the Church, the scandals have tainted the credibility of every Catholic who tries to explain, proclaim, or live the Gospel.

It is not the case that Catholic laity are the de facto moral superiors of their bishops. It is not the case that Catholic laity give consistent witness to the Gospel. It is not the case that laity are less likely to be motivated by the concerns of this world, less likely to engage in sexual immorality, less likely to live as they ought not.

But it is the case that bishops are uniquely public Catholic figures, and that the integrity of their actions is – fairly or unfairly- uniquely taken as a measure of the Gospel’s integrity.

None of that is new. What is new is the scope of their visibility in the social media era, and the degree to which the misconduct of some, and the broken ecclesial culture that fosters it, is manifestly clear to those who look toward it.

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SOUTH BEND (IN)
The Tribune

June 13, 2019

By Caleb Bauer

The Congregation of Holy Cross, the Catholic religious order that founded the University of Notre Dame and Holy Cross College, on Wednesday released a list of priests credibly accused of sexual abuse of minors.

One of those priests, John Fitzgerald, worked as the director of campus ministries at Notre Dame beginning in 1980.

The move comes during the same week that the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops meets in Baltimore to consider instituting accountability for bishop misconduct amid calls for more transparency and further investigation.

The list names 14 Holy Cross priests and one seminarian, and was published along with a letter from the Rev. William Lies, the provincial superior of the U.S. province of the Congregation of Holy Cross. According to the congregation, the last incident of alleged abuse occurred in 1991.

“Over the last two decades, but particularly in the last year, we have all become more aware of the problem of sexual abuse of children within the Catholic Church and its mishandling,” Lies wrote. “I am profoundly sorry for the pain and suffering inflicted on anyone who has been abused or impacted in any way by the actions of any of our members.”

Who is on the list?
Of the 15 names on the list, 10 of the alleged abusers are dead and two have been removed from ministry. Three are no longer in the congregation, including Paul LeBrun, the former pastor at Little Flower Catholic Church in South Bend who currently is serving time in prison in Arizona for abusing minors.

Ten of the priests at some point were assigned in Indiana, though only three credible accusations came from survivors in Indiana, according to the Congregation of Holy Cross. Three of the accused priests were assigned to Notre Dame at some point during their careers.

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BIRMINGHAM (AL)
Associated Press

June 13, 2019

By David Crary and Jay Reeves

Sharing a stage with tearful survivors of sex abuse, the president of the Southern Baptist Convention apologized Wednesday for the abuse crisis besetting his denomination and outlined an array of steps to address it.

“We are broken-hearted and angry,” said the Rev. J.D. Greear as the largest U.S. protestant denomination neared the end of its two-day national meeting. “Give us the courage to make the changes that genuine repentance requires.”

In an impassioned speech, preceded by prayers of lamentation, Greear blamed the crisis on years of cover-ups. He praised a new anti-abuse curriculum is being offered to all SBC churches and seminaries, and he said the SBC must do better in screening potential pastors.

“Father, forgive us,” he prayed after calling out a litany of sins.

The Rev. Russell Moore, head of the SBC’s public policy arm, said the abuse crisis is a result of satanic forces at work in the church.

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PITTSBURGH (PA)
WTAE TV

June 12, 2019

By Bob Mayo

Advocates for victims of clergy sexual abuse are taking heart from a Pennsylvania Superior Court decision that says, in view of alleged cover-ups, it’s possible for a jury to decide whether the statute of limitations should apply in lawsuits alleging abuse by predator priests.

While the case in question is against the Roman Catholic Diocese of Altoona-Johnstown, it may have impact across Pennsylvania.

“So, to put that decision in the hands of the jury, I think it gives the victims a chance to tell their story and to be given the justice that they deserve,” Frances Samber, Pittsburgh-area leader of SNAP, told Pittsburgh’s Action News 4.

SNAP is the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests. Samber is active in memory of her late brother, Michael Unglo, a victim of a predator priest. Unglo later took his own life after the Diocese of Pittsburgh ended payments for his medical and counseling treatment.

Pittsburgh-area attorney Alan Perer won this breakthrough ruling in a suit against the Altoona-Johnstown diocese. He says the appeals court decision can affect cases in the Pittsburgh diocese and across Pennsylvania.

“This affects hundreds, if not thousands of victims. It’s the most wonderful victory for justice for all of these victims who were abused when they were children,” Perer told Pittsburgh’s Action News 4.

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MADISON (WI)
State Journal

June 13, 2019

By Steven Verburg

The Catholic Diocese of Madison said Wednesday that private investigators have been hired to review personnel files in a probe of child sexual abuse by members of the clergy.

“The Diocese of Madison reaffirms its commitment to protect children and young people, as well as to be open and transparent with victims, faithful Catholics and the larger community,” the diocese said in a statement.

The Texas-based investigations firm Defenbaugh and Associates, founded by former agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, has been hired to review the diocese’s documents dating back to 1964, the diocese said.

The Madison diocese said in January it was considering an effort to learn how many substantiated sexual abuse allegations have been made against priests and other clergy in Madison after the Green Bay Diocese announced more than 40 of its priests had abused minors.

If the investigation firm finds evidence that more Madison clergy members abused children, it will flag it for further investigation. The diocese said if any allegations are against current priests, deacons or seminarians, they will be immediately removed from the ministry. To date, seven priests from the Diocese of Madison have had “credible” accusations made against them, according to the diocese.

Peter Isely, founding member of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP), said he was not allayed by the announcement of the outside review. “They’re just reviewing these now?” he said.

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More people allege childhood incidents after YouTube video causes outcry, raising prospect of a public reckoning like Ireland’s

The Catholic Church in Poland has seen an uptick in accusations from people claiming to have been sexually abused by clergy as children, after a YouTube video sparked public anger at an institution that is at the political and social heart of this culturally conservative country.

The increase appears to have been prompted by the two-hour-long YouTube documentary about sexual-abuse allegations against Polish clergy, entitled “Tell No One,” which has been viewed more than 22 million times. Victims’ advocates say the film has shifted the mood in a country that, they argue, has been slow to address allegations of clerical sex abuse.

Since then, at least 21 people have stepped forward with new allegations, according to local church officials contacted at 24 of Poland’s 41 dioceses. Officials at the remaining dioceses didn’t return calls or emails, or declined to discuss the subject.

A local victim’s support group, Don’t be Afraid, said it had received over 100 emails detailing such accusations since “Tell No One” went online, though the group hasn’t yet determined how many of them were previously unknown.

On Wednesday, a statue of a priest—accused in the documentary of sex abuse—had been removed from the grounds of a basilica in central Poland.

“What we can certainly say is that we are dealing here with an increased number of people reporting cases of sexual abuse,” said Przemysław Śliwiński, a spokesman for the Archdiocese of Warsaw, which declined to put a number on the new cases. Another church spokesman said each diocese responsible for one of the clergy named in the film has appointed a delegate to review the film and see if there should be a formal investigation.

The public outcry has raised the possibility that Poland could follow the path of Ireland, where revelations of widespread sexual and physical abuse by priests and church employees has shaken society over the past two decades.

It also speaks to the power of nontraditional media, say advocates for abuse victims, who have for years pressed accusations through courts or mainstream news outlets with limited resonance.

In a 1997 newspaper interview, Karol Chum, a 45-year-old software engineer, first accused Cardinal Henryk Gulbinowicz, a much-loved figure who helped lead Poland’s anti-Communist movement, of having abused him as a child. The accusation drew no response from civil or church authorities at the time.

But when Mr. Chum repeated it on Facebook last month, it drew thousands of likes and shares and widespread media coverage. The Archdiocese of Wroclaw, in western Poland, said it launched an investigation within 24 hours of the post.

“Although it is difficult to consider a meme as a way to report a crime, we decided to treat it as a filed complaint,” an archdiocese spokesman said, referring to the Facebook posting.

Church representatives declined to make Cardinal Gulbinowicz, now in his 90s, available for interview or comment, citing his ill health and advanced age. The Polish episcopate declined to comment on the accusation.

The surge in cases will be a test of the resolve of the Vatican and the church’s Polish hierarchy to tackle sex-abuse allegations, which were the subject of a major Vatican summit in February. Under new rules that took effect June 1, Catholic clergy must expedite investigations of bishops accused of child sex abuse or covering up such crimes by their priests. The “Tell No One” documentary includes several victims who allege that the priests who abused them enjoyed protection from local bishops.

Archbishop Charles Scicluna, a senior official at the Vatican body that hears sex abuse cases, will speak with Polish bishops and other church officials about clerical abuse later this week during a visit to the country.

Church leaders in Poland have declined to follow the “zero tolerance” policy that was adopted in the U.S. in the 2000s, under which any priest found to have sexually abused a person under the age of 18 is permanently removed from the ministry. Church leaders in only a handful of countries have emulated the U.S.’s zero-tolerance policies.

As of February, at least nine priests convicted in court of child sex-abuse crimes continued to celebrate Mass publicly as priests in Poland.

The Polish episcopate said in an emailed response to questions that its bishops apologize to everyone affected by such abuse. “The Bishops warned against transferring the guilt of particular clerics to all priests,” the episcopate wrote.

Church leaders have taken some steps to counter abuse—for example, increasing the age of consent from 15 to 18 under church law. Later this month, Polish bishops are set to meet to discuss whether and how to tighten rules on how sex-abuse allegations are handled.

In a poll last month by Kantar, an international opinion-research firm, 60% of Polish respondents said the entire church was responsible for the sex-abuse scandals, not just individuals. In another survey this month, by Institute Pollster, 86% of Polish respondents considered pedophilia a real problem in the church. In that poll, only a third said they trusted the institution, and 57% said the YouTube documentary had negatively affected their opinion.

Previous polls seeking Poland’s general opinion of the church were considerably more positive toward it.

“So far, the dynamic was, we had scandals, news reports, and then slowly but surely this was fading away,” said Elżbieta Korolczuk, a Polish sociologist and prominent commentator on sexual-abuse issues. “Whereas today it seems we have this kind of synergy.…This kind of anger, disillusionment with the church as a structure is seeping in.”

The issue is posing a political riddle for Poland’s conservative, ruling Law and Justice party, which blends cultural conservatism and defense of the church with nationalism and cautious skepticism toward the European Union. Following the outcry, the government has stiffened penalties for child sexual abuse.

“We are strongly against this narrative that sexual crimes committed by men in frocks are somehow different, or worse than those committed by other pedophiles,” said Marcin Horala, a Law and Justice lawmaker. “We want to prosecute all pedophiles.”

Natalia Ojewska in Warsaw and Francis X. Rocca in Rome contributed to this article.

Write to Drew Hinshaw at drew.hinshaw@wsj.com

Corrections & Amplifications
A man has accused Cardinal Henryk Gulbinowicz of abusing him as a child. An earlier version of this article misspelled the cardinal’s first name as Hernyk in the article and a photo caption. (June 12, 2019)

Appeared in the June 13, 2019, print edition as ‘Poland’s Catholic Clergy Pressured on Abuse’.

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HOLLYWOOD (CA)
Hollywood Reporter

June 12, 2019

By Marisa Guthrie

Following a year of scandal and upheaval, King takes the lead (and a new three-year deal) at ‘CBS This Morning’ as she opens up on Charlie Rose, that R. Kelly interview, advice from Oprah and becoming the face of the news division: “I am now a part of that history. Let’s see what we do.”

On March 5, Susan Zirinsky was in her “crummy little office” along a dark corridor in the labyrinth of CBS News headquarters on West 57th Street. It was just a temporary spot, since it was technically only her second day on the job as president of CBS News. In reality, she had been steering the 91-year-old division since early January, when acting CBS Corp. CEO Joe Ianniello announced that she would succeed David Rhodes.

Zirinsky was watching the live feed of Gayle King’s interview with R. Kelly, the R&B singer charged with multiple counts of criminal sexual abuse of young women. As the world now knows, an unhinged Kelly leaped from his seat in an explosion of tears, spittle and profanity. King remained almost motionless, offering a motherly entreaty: “Robert.”

“In this melee of histrionics, she did not lose the story — the accusations, the judicial ramifications, these kids, their parents,” says Zirinsky. “She was able to maintain editorial clarity in a situation that would have unnerved the best. And I just thought … Wow.”

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ALTOONA (PA)
Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests

June 12, 2019

A case against one of Pennsylvania’s catholic dioceses has been revived following a review by the state’s Superior Court. We are grateful to the judge who made the decision to allow this case to move forward.

In this case, Renee Rice’s original claim against Fr. Charles Bodziak was thrown out because of statute of limitations reasons. However, Rice only became aware of the active attempts by church officials to cover up the crimes committed by Fr. Bodziak after the release of a state grand jury report in 2016. If a diocese is actively working to conceal crimes that have been committed, it stands to reason that it would be difficult for a young victim to prove her claims within the short, two-year window allowed by Pennsylvania’s statute of limitations at that time.

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PENNSYLVANIA
Penn Live

June 12, 2019

By Ivey DeJesus

An opinion issued by a Pennsylvania court this week is being hailed as a victory for survivors of clergy sex abuse who are seeking to sue Catholic Church officials and dioceses but are timed barred from the legal system.

The unanimous opinion issued on Tuesday by the Pennsylvania Superior Court finds merit in an amended complaint filed by an adult survivor of clergy sex abuse, which, instead of focusing on the predator priest, charges the Diocese of Altoona-Johnstown with conspiracy, fraud and constructive fraud.

The opinion reverses an earlier decision by a Blair County Court judge dismissing the lawsuit because the statute of limitations had expired.

The amended lawsuit filed by Renee Rice claims the diocese committed conspiracy when it failed to protect her over its interests and that of the Rev. Charles Bodziak. The lawsuit also holds that the diocese had a fiduciary obligation to inform Rice (as a minor) and her parents of the priest’s predatory history and the diocese’s knowledge of it.

Attorney Richard Serbin argued that the questions raised in his client’s lawsuit amounted to jury questions and should not be determined by a court.

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ALTOONA (PA)
Altoona Mirror

June 12, 2019

By Matt Miller

Superior Court overturns Blair judge’s dismissal of Bodziak case

A state Superior Court panel Tuesday reinstated a lawsuit against the Catholic Diocese of Altoona-Johnstown filed by a woman who claims a pedophile priest consistently molested her in the 1970s and ’80s.

That decision, outlined in an opinion by Judge Deborah A. Kunselman, overturns a Blair County judge’s dismissal of Renee A. Rice’s suit on statute of limitations grounds.

Rice claims her former priest at St. Leo’s Church in Altoona, the Rev. Charles F. Bodziak, began molesting her when she was about 9 years old in the mid-’70s. That mol­estation continued at the church, while she cleaned the rectory, in a graveyard and in Bodziak’s car until 1981, she contends. She said the abuse occurred as often as twice a week.

County Judge Jolene Grubb Kopriva dismissed Rice’s suit after agreeing with the diocese that she waited too long to file it. By the calculation of the diocese and Kopriva, the time limit for filing the case expired in October 1987, two years after Rice’s 18th birthday.

However, Kunselman’s panel revived Rice’s suit by citing a state Supreme Court ruling that was handed down 10 months after Kopriva issued the dismissal.

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PITTSBURGH (PA)
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

June 11, 2019

By Liz Navratil and Peter Smith

A child sex abuse survivor’s lawsuit against the Diocese of Altoona-Johnstown — filed after a 2016 grand jury report revealed decades of abuse and coverup there — can proceed to a jury, a state appellate court ruled on Tuesday.

The unanimous ruling by a three-judge Superior Court panel could open the door for similar lawsuits over decades-old abuse to be filed against six other dioceses, including Pittsburgh and Greensburg, which were subjects of a similar grand jury report last year.

Altoona-area woman Renee Rice sued the Diocese of Altoona-Johnstown and others in 2016 alleging fraud, constructive fraud and civil conspiracy, beginning with her sexual abuse as a child in the 1970s and 1980s and continuing as some in the church hid it.

While the diocese argued that the statute of limitations had expired in her case, Ms. Rice’s attorney, Alan Perer, argued that she had no way of knowing about the extent of the cover-up until after a grand jury report was released in 2016. On Tuesday, a panel of Superior Court judges sided with Ms. Rice, sending her case back to Blair County Common Pleas Court for a possible jury trial.

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BALTIMORE (MD)
The Washington Post

June 11, 2019

By Michelle Boorstein and Julie Zauzmer

Facing double-barreled criticism of their handling of clergy sexual abuse and church finances, America’s Catholic bishops began their annual spring meeting Tuesday vowing to codify for the first time rules to hold themselves accountable for misconduct.

The strong possibility that the U.S. Church will vote this week to create a system of bishop oversight is historic, though critics and watchdogs remain worried about a possible weakness: In the measures under consideration, all future probes will remain in-house. Lay people can be involved but it’s not mandatory, and the pope retains full power over whether to keep or how to punish bishops.

“This week we continue a journey that will not end until there is not one instance of abuse in our church,” Cardinal Daniel DiNardo, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, said in opening the meeting Tuesday morning.

The past year has seen church leaders – especially in the Northeast – enmeshed in scandals involving cardinals and bishops accused of engaging in sexual harassment and financial abuse, or looking the other way when their fellow, high-ranking peers did so. Just last week, The Washington Post reported that a Baltimore archbishop investigating sexual and financial misconduct by a West Virginia bishop edited out part of the investigative report that included the archbishop himself.

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LOS ANGELES (CA)
KTLA5

June 10, 2019

By Erika Martin and Wendy Burch

A gynecologist who worked nearly 30 years at UCLA’s student health clinic, until retiring last year amid a misconduct investigation, is accused of sexually abusing patients, the university announced Monday.

James Heaps, 62, is charged with two counts of sexual battery by fraud and one count of sexual exploitation by a physician with two patients, according to Ricardo Santaigo, a public information officer with the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office.

Court records show the case was filed for warrant May 22 with a violation dated June 27, 2017.

Heaps pleaded not guilty at his arraignment Monday and was released without bail, the Associated Press reported.

The doctor surrendered to law enforcement Monday to face charges related his medical practice and encounters with two patients at UCLA Health in 2017 and 2018, UCLA said in a news release.

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LOS ANGELES (CA)
KABC

June 10, 2019

By ABC7.com staff

A former gynecologist at UCLA has been arrested and charged with sexual battery, university officials disclosed Monday.

Dr. James Heaps is facing charges related to two patients he treated at UCLA in 2017 and 2018, the school said.

Heaps worked as an obstetrician-gynecologist at the student health center from 1983 to 2010 and then was hired by UCLA Health in 2014. He also held medical staff privileges at Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center from 1988 to 2018.

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WHEELING (WV)
The Intelligencer

June 10, 2019

Acting in his capacity as Apostolic Administrator of the Diocese of Wheeling-Charleston, Archbishop William E. Lori Monday announced that three priests linked to former bishop Michael Bransfield — Frederick Annie, Kevin Quirk and Anthony Cincinnati — have resigned their administrative posts in the Diocese of Wheeling-Charleston and assigned new duties.

The Rev. Frederick Annie resigned as Vicar General of the Diocese in September and has been assigned as Assistant Priest in Residence at St. Mary, Star City Parish in Morgantown.

The Rev. Anthony Cincinnati resigned as Vicar for Clergy and will continue serving as Pastor of St. Francis De Sales Parish in Morgantown.

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WHEELING (WV)
The Intelligencer

June 7, 2019

Archbishop William Lori on Friday said he made a mistake in asking that his name and those of 10 other powerful Catholic bishops and priests who received financial gifts from former Wheeling-Charleston Diocese bishop Michael Bransfield be omitted from a preliminary report.

In an 8-minute video posted by the Diocese, Lori, who serves as apostolic administrator of the Catholic Diocese of Wheeling-Charleston, addressed the matter after a Washington Post report revealed that Bransfield gave more than $350,000 in personal gifts to other priests — including Lori — and then had his compensation from the Diocese increased to cover the costs of the gifts.

The preliminary report said the personal gifts from Bransfield were part of a larger pattern of “excessive and inappropriate spending” that took place at the Diocese during his 13 years as bishop. Some examples include $2.4 million in travel by Bransfield — much of it personal travel — along with $4.6 million in renovations to his private residence — a home that soon will go up for sale, Lori said earlier this week.

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AUSTRALIA
The Saturday Paper

June 8-14, 2019

By Russell Marks.

The two-day hearing of Cardinal George Pell’s appeal against child sexual assault convictions ended on Thursday. The most senior Catholic to be found guilty of child abuse now waits to see if he will be freed.

Perhaps the most significant trial in Australia this century, The Queen v George Pell returned to court this week in Melbourne as the cardinal appealed his six-year jail sentence over the abuse of two choirboys in the 1990s. The case has absorbed the world and become a proxy for the ongoing tension between the traditions of criminal law – some arcane, some vital – and the mores and technologies of our time.

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BOSTON (MA)
Boston Magazine

June 5, 2019

By Michael Damiano

Sexual misconduct, sloppy—sometimes catastrophic—mistakes, and a medical board that’s been known to look the other way. Local physicians keep getting away with bad medicine, but you may never know who they are until it’s too late.

When retired police sergeant Charles Antonio went under the knife of Michael Medlock, he was confident the neurosurgeon would eliminate the numbness in his fingers and toes, alleviate the pain in his legs, and improve his faltering balance due to compression in his spinal cord. After all, like many of us, Antonio believed Massachusetts had some of the best doctors in the country. He’d scoured the Internet for any information he could discover about his surgeon, though in truth he couldn’t find much: merely that Medlock was chief of neurosurgery at the Partners-affiliated North Shore Medical Center–Salem Hospital and had worked at Mass General, one of the top-ranked hospitals in the world. Now, on a gurney rolling toward the operating room, Antonio felt butterflies in his stomach, but he was comforted by the knowledge that the man who would be carving into his neck was a well-credentialed and experienced pro.

But things didn’t go as planned. Within days of the operation in September 2015, Antonio began suffering what he now describes as “ungodly pain” in his neck and shoulders. Antonio says he returned to Medlock, who prescribed opioid painkillers, ran some tests, and sent him home. Then things got worse. Antonio started hallucinating and verbally abusing his wife, Linda. He flushed the painkillers down the toilet, saying, “I’m not getting hooked on these. I’ve seen people addicted to drugs and liquor.” Still, the pain continued and his balance worsened, and by late October his condition had deteriorated to the point that he had to be hospitalized at the same facility where Medlock had operated on him a month earlier.

While Antonio was in his hospital room, he and Linda said another physician walked in with an update. The doctor knew Antonio was fond of Medlock and announced that Medlock was considering operating on Antonio again. Then the doctor offered a subtle yet chilling warning: “If I were you, Charlie,” Antonio recalls him saying, “I would find a new friend.”

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BALTIMORE (MD)
The Associated Press

June 11, 2019

By Regina Garcia Cano and David Crary

The nation’s Roman Catholic bishops convened a high-stakes meeting Tuesday under pressure to confront the child sexual abuse crisis that has disillusioned many churchgoers, with one scholar warning: “We find ourselves at a turning point, a critical moment in our history.”

How the bishops confront the problem “will determine in many ways the future vibrancy of the church and whether or not trust in your leadership can be restored,” Francesco Cesareo, an academic who chairs a national sex-abuse review board set up by the bishops, said as the four-day gathering began.

Key proposals on the agenda call for compassionate pastoral care for abuse victims, a new abuse reporting system, and a larger role for lay experts in holding bishops accountable. Votes on the proposals are expected on Wednesday and Thursday.

The deliberations will be guided by a new law that Pope Francis issued on May 9. It requires priests and nuns worldwide to report sexual abuse as well as cover-ups by their superiors to church authorities.

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WHEELING (WV)
Inside Higher Ed

June 11, 2019

By Rick Seltzer

Wheeling Jesuit board chair steps down in wake of confidential report revelations. But the timing of the departure — and major changes at the university — leave some wondering what might have been.

The board chairman at Wheeling Jesuit University is stepping down and leaving several other powerful positions at related Roman Catholic institutions in West Virginia, as church leaders announced a series of moves affecting high-ranking diocesan leaders Monday, days after details from a confidential report to the Vatican became public.

Monsignor Kevin Quirk announced his decision to step down as chair of Wheeling Jesuit’s Board of Trustees and president of the Board of Directors at Wheeling Hospital. He also resigned as judicial vicar and rector of the Cathedral of St. Joseph in the Diocese of Wheeling-Charleston.

Also resigning from a top position at the diocese was Monsignor Anthony Cincinnati, who had been vicar for clergy. In addition, church leaders announced that Monsignor Frederick Annie resigned as vicar general of the diocese in September. All three will continue serving as priests in parishes.

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NEWARK (NJ)
Star Ledger

June 11, 2019

By Michael G. Donahue

After nearly 20 years of advocacy, New Jersey recently passed a historic law providing new and extended protections for victims of sexual abuse by lengthening the statute of limitations to pursue a civil claim as a result of various sexual abuse related offenses. Those who have fought for these extended protections should be commended for their perseverance and courage in sharing their emotional and painful experiences for the betterment of our society.

The new protections, signed into law by Gov. Phil Murphy, will take effect Dec. 1, 2019. It features the following reform measures:

A two-year window from enactment for the filing of any civil case alleging adult or minor sexual abuse that occurred in the past;
Those who were sexually abused in the past as minors who miss the two-year filing window will be able to bring their cause of action until the age of 55; and
Those 55 and older who allege delays in connecting past abuse to damages will have an opportunity to seek justice through the courts, within seven years from the date they made that connection.

This new law additionally eliminates notice of deadlines and procedures for potential claims against government entities. By adopting this law, New Jersey has recognized that the mere passage of time should not be the sole basis used to silence a legitimate claim against a sexual abuser or the organization that allowed or concealed abuse.

New Jersey’s new law comes soon after the state’s five Roman Catholic dioceses released the names of 188 priests credibly accused of sexually abusing minors over decades and the Boy Scouts of America released names of leaders accused of similar crimes. In tandem, the state also announced the creation of a compensation fund for the victims.

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ROCHESTER (NY)
WHAM TV

June 11, 2019

A new lawsuit was filed against the Diocese of Rochester and several other local Catholic organizations Monday evening over allegations of sexual abuse.

The lawsuit was filed Monday evening in Monroe County and names several prominent religious organizations as defendants, including the Catholic Youth Organization of Catholic Charities of the Diocese of Rochester, Catholic Charities of the Diocese of Rochester, Most Holy Redeemer Paris and St. Bridget’s Church.

According to the complaint, the allegations center around Father Francis Vogt, who is the brother of Monsignor Joseph Vogt. Francis Vogt has been the subject of previous sexual abuse accusations.

In 1969, the victim – whose name is not being disclosed by 13WHAM News due to the sexual abuse detailed in the lawsuit – was taken by Father Vogt to the Catholic Charities Catholic Youth Organization facility on Chestnut Street to swim. The victim was 5 years old at the time.

For two years, allegations detailed in the lawsuit claim Father Vogt sexually assaulted, abused and had sexual contact at both the Chestnut Street facility and at the victim’s home.

The victim says the Diocese of Rochester and St. Bridget’s “had a duty not to aid pedophiles such as Father Vogt by assigning, maintaining, and/or appointing them to positions with access to minors.” The lawsuit goes on to claim the defendants knew or should have known about the abuse and covered it up.

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WASHINGTON (DC)
Pew Research Center

June 11, 2019

By Abigail Geiger

Reports of sex abuse by priests and other clergy are atop the agenda for two of America’s largest religious groups this week as both U.S. Catholic bishops and Southern Baptists gather for national meetings.

A new Pew Research Center survey examines Americans’ views on the sex abuse scandals in the Catholic Church, as well as in other religious groups. Here are six key findings from the report:

[bignumber]Vast majority of U.S. adults have heard about recent reports of sexual abuse in Catholic ChurchA clear majority of U.S. adults think recent reports of sexual abuse in the Catholic Church reflect problems that are still happening. Around eight-in-ten Americans (79%) say the reports of sexual abuse and misconduct by Catholic priests and bishops reflect ongoing problems, while far fewer (12%) think the reports reflect problems that happened in the past.

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MEMPHIS (TN)
Commercial Appeal

June 11, 2019

By Katherine Burgess

Bishop David Talley of the Catholic Diocese of Memphis is “committed to publishing a list” of clergy who are credibly accused of sexual abuse of minors, according to a news release from the diocese.

The news comes a day after SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, called on the diocese to publish the names, photos and work histories of credibly accused clergy on its website.

According to the release, Talley has met twice with the review board of the diocese, which is tasked with examining and advising the bishop on matters of clergy sexual abuse of minors.

“In each of those meetings, Bishop Talley emphasized how much he values the work of the Review Board, the seriousness with which they take each allegation, and their dedication to ensuring the safety of children,” the release stated.

Two comprehensive reviews of the diocesan files on priests have already taken place, one by the former district attorney general of Shelby County, according to the release.

Talley has directed the lay members of the review board to do an independent review of the files “out of an abundance of caution and because he has arrived in Memphis so recently,” according to the release. Then, they will give Talley a list of names of credibly accused clergy.

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

June 10, 2019

Six months ago, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) met in Baltimore amidst a cascade of revelations about abuse and cover-up. They were poised to fulfill dramatic promises to American Catholics and the public to hold themselves accountable and transparent.

Instead, they did not enact any meaningful reform and failed to deliver on any of those promises. In the months following that failed meeting, Church officials – including Pope Francis – have spoken of the importance of reform. This week the bishops once again have addressing the abuse scandal at the top of their schedule.

The two likely measures the bishops will pass this week include setting up a nationwide “hotline” for information on misconduct by bishops and adopting the “Metropolitan” model to investigate themselves. Both of these measures are deeply flawed and unlikely to result in the change that parishioners and the public have demanding.

Any reform that leaves the ultimate authority for investigating abuse and cover up in the hands of Church officials instead of secular law enforcement is no reform at all. Rather, it is the continuation of how bishops have responded to cases of sex abuse since 2002, just updated and codified as a new policy. Yet new policies and declarations that do not make secular and independent investigations central to their design will never succeed.

Church officials promised in 2002 that “fraternal correction” would be the bulwark that would keep bishops in line. Instead, we have had two more decades of failure to curb sexual abuse. We continue to see – as recently as last week – high ranking Church officials ignoring their own protocols in cases of clergy abuse.

The bishops’ way of internal policing has been a disaster. Internal investigations are a cancer that allows and enables abuse and cover up. More of the same will not remedy the problem.

So, what does work? What kind of change is needed that will lead to a cure?

We believe the answer is secular involvement and investigations. The substantial and historic progress that has been made in the past six months has been due to ongoing revelations, investigations, and prosecutions by criminal and civil authorities. Nearly 20 states and the Department of Justice are now actively investigating clergy abuse. Several investigations – including those in Michigan and New Jersey – have already resulted in arrests. Several others have seized documents and records related to Church-led responses to cases of abuse, helping to pry back the veil of secrecy and force the transparency that bishops have promised since 2002.

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

June 11, 2019

Another priest has been suspended from the Diocese of Fresno due to allegations of sexual abuse. This time, the action was not taken due to recent allegations, but because a new person in charge took the time to review old cases.

We are glad that Church officials from the Diocese of Fresno are looking deeper at cases of abuse within their diocese. We are also glad that they are taking steps to remove priests – like Fr. Eric Swearengin – that may present a danger to their communities.

When a survivor, Juan Rocha, first reported the allegations against Fr. Swearengin to Bishop Steinbock and the Diocese of Fresno, Church officials declared the allegations “not credible.” Yet in 2006 and after reviewing the evidence, a jury determined that Fr. Swearengin had abused Juan Rocha. The priest should have been removed from ministry at that point, considering the “zero tolerance” pledge made by U.S. bishops in 2002.

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HOUSTON (TX)
Channel 39

June 11, 2019

By Courtney Carpenter

As the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops starts, some are calling for cardinal Daniel Dinardo to step down from his leadership role, saying he’s not qualified. Dinardo is president of the organization, which is supposed to be addressing the issue of sexual abuse in the church at its conference this week.

Some are saying that Dinardo is not qualified to lead discussions on how to hold priests accountable for sexual abuse or for covering up sexual abuse because of recent revelations of abuse in his own diocese.

About a dozen members of the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests— or SNAP — gathered outside the Co-Cathedral of the Scared Heart Monday to call for Dinardo to step down.

“In our opinion, he’s not capable of leading, nor does he have the moral authority to lead us out of this issue,” protester Michael Norris said. “We’ve had four cases right here in houston where he has totally mishandled.”

One of the cases he’s talking about is one we told you about last week.

You may remember the exclusive Associated Press story on a local woman who claims she was sexually abused by Monsingor Frank Rossi, who was one of Dinardo’s highest ranking deputies. The woman said she was told he would never counsel women again, only to find out months later that he was moved to another parish to pastor there.

After the calls for Dinardo to step down from his position as USCCB president, the Archdiocese of Galveston-Houston released a statement.

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WASHINGTON (DC)
NPR

June 11, 2019

By Tom Gjelten

Southern Baptists, who in 1995 apologized for their past defense of slavery and in 2017 denounced white supremacy, are resolved once again to show their sensitivity to a pressing social concern. The 2019 convention in Birmingham, Ala., is focusing heavily on the problem of sexual abuse by church leaders.

Among the resolutions likely to be debated are proposals to discipline churches that mishandle abuse allegations. Dozens of Southern Baptist women in recent years have come forward with stories of clergy misconduct and of church officials failing to respond. Earlier this year, The Houston Chronicle and The San Antonio Express-News reported that nearly 400 male Southern Baptist leaders or volunteers had been accused of sexual misconduct over the past 20 years, involving more than 700 victims.

“There’s a question of, ‘Can we trust our church leaders not only [not to abuse] but also to prohibit people who could be abusers from having a place where they could do it with impunity?’ ” says Pastor J.D. Greear, president of the Southern Baptist Convention. As one of his first acts after being elected at last year’s convention, Greear ordered the formation of an advisory council to draft recommendations for dealing with the abuse problem.

“You’re going to see a convention that is united in its agreement on the fact that this cannot be tolerated in our churches and that we have to do whatever it takes, regardless of what it costs us, to make our churches safe places,” Greear told NPR.

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BALTIMORE (MD)
WBFF TV

June 11, 2019

Today, a a non-profit charity called Road to Recovery, Inc. will hold a press conference demanding the firing, removal, or resignation of two members of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, President Cardinal Daniel DiNardo of the Archdiocese of Galveston-Houston, Texas, and Bishop Curtis Guillory, Bishop of the Diocese of Beaumont, Texas.

The president of the charity, Robert M. Hoatson, says these removals must take place before the June 11-14, 2019 meetings of the USCCB begin on the morning of June 11, 2019.

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WASHINGTON (DC)
Washington Post

June 10, 2019

The breadth and depth of corruption in the Catholic Church seem boundless, and colored by the ongoing dysfunction arising from clergy sex abuse and the hierarchy’s inability to grapple with it. Some of the misdeeds and cover-ups have been facilitated by a law that exempts religious institutions and affiliated charitable entities from financial reporting that is required of other nonprofit organizations. Even as the Vatican, seeking to move beyond its protracted season of scandal, calls for a new era of transparency, the church’s finances in the United States remain opaque.

That apparent discrepancy between rhetoric and reality was highlighted by a stunning account in The Washington Post focusing on the opulent lifestyle, and extravagant palm-greasing, undertaken for years by now-disgraced former bishop of West Virginia Michael Bransfield. The story revealed that Archbishop William Lori of Baltimore, who oversaw an investigation into sexual harassment allegations against Bransfield, whitewashed the resulting report to expunge the fact that he – along with 10 other of the most prominent and influential clerics in the United States and the Vatican — were paid thousands of dollars from what amounted to a slush fund controlled by the bishop.

You read that correctly: The archbishop, having received substantial monetary “gifts” from the bishop, had that fact scrubbed from the report that he himself supervised. And he scrubbed more famous names, including those of current and former cardinals in New York, Boston, Washington and the Vatican, who were showered with cash from the same source.

The fact that the slush fund, which dispensed $350,000, was controlled by the free-spending, large-living bishop of West Virginia, one of the poorest states in the nation, is a self-evident irony. That the funds were lavished not just on cardinals but also on some of the young priests whom Bransfield is accused of abusing and molesting speaks to the conspiracy of silence at the heart of the church’s sex abuse scandal.

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BERLIN (GERMANY)
Deutsche Welle

June 11, 2019

An Indian court on Monday sentenced three men to life in jail for therape and killing of an 8-year-old Muslim girl, identified as Asifa, in the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir.

The prosecution had sought the death penalty. Three others, including two policemen, were convicted of the lesser crimes of destroying evidence. They received five-year sentences.

A seventh man was acquitted for lack of evidence, while an eighth person, who was underage, is being tried separately.

“This is a victory for truth,” prosecution lawyer Mubeen Farooqi told reporters outside the court. “The girl and her family have received justice today. We are satisfied with the judgement.”

A lawyer representing the accused told reporters that they planned to appeal the verdict.

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WHEELING (WV)
The Intelligencer

June 11, 2019

By Alex Meyer

Three high-ranking priests tied to former bishop Michael Bransfield have resigned from their managerial roles in the Roman Catholic Diocese of Wheeling-Charleston, Archbishop William Lori announced Monday.

The Revs. Frederick Annie, Kevin Quirk and Anthony Cincinnati resigned from their administrative posts in the diocese and were assigned new duties elsewhere in West Virginia. All three were mentioned in the diocese’s preliminary investigative report of Bransfield’s conduct, the details of which were made public last week by The Washington Post. That report recommended that the three, Bransfield’s closest aides, be removed from the diocese.

“By failing to take any action, the chancery monsignors enabled the predatory and harassing conduct of Bishop Bransfield, and allowed him to recklessly spend Diocesan funds for his own personal use,” the report states.

Bransfield, who served as bishop of the diocese for 13 years before retiring, has been accused of excessive spending of church funds, sexual harassment of adults within the church and using millions of dollars of church funds for personal gifts to other church officials, for personal travel and to renovate his church-owned residence.

Lori said that Annie resigned as vicar general of the diocese in September and has been assigned as assistant priest in residence at St. Mary Parish in Star City, just outside Morgantown.

Quirk resigned Monday as judicial vicar and rector of the Cathedral of St. Joseph in Wheeling. He also resigned from his position on the boards of directors at Wheeling Jesuit University and Wheeling Hospital.

Now, Quirk will serve as a priest in residence at the Mater Dolorosa (Paden City) and St. Vincent De Paul (New Martinsville) parishes and Holy Rosary (Sistersville) and St. Joseph (Proctor) missions, where he will assist Administrator Rev. Brian J. Crenwelge in his pastoral duties.

Per the report, both Quirk and Annie discussed concerns about Bransfield’s conduct with young men but did nothing to stop it.

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LANSING (MI)
Associated Press

June 11, 2019

A $28.8 million spending bill nearing legislative approval would allocate funding to combat lead in Michigan drinking water systems and investigate sexual assaults by clergy.

The Senate is expected to send the supplemental budget measure to Gov. Gretchen Whitmer on Tuesday.

It includes $3 million for public health services needed as a result of Michigan implementing the nation’s toughest lead-in-water rules in the wake of Flint’s water crisis. There also is $635,000 for the state attorney general’s criminal probe of abuse by Catholic priests.

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DETROIT (MI)
Associated Press

June 11, 2019

By Juliet Linderman, Garance Burke and Martha Mendoza

Hundreds of boxes. Millions of records. From Michigan to New Mexico this month, attorneys general are sifting through files on clergy sex abuse, seized through search warrants and subpoenas at dozens of archdioceses.

They’re looking to prosecute, and not just priests. If the boxes lining the hallways of Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel’s offices contain enough evidence, she said, she is considering using state racketeering laws usually reserved for organized crime. Prosecutors in Michigan are even volunteering on weekends to get through all the documents as quickly as possible.

For decades, leaders of the Roman Catholic Church were largely left to police their own. But now, as American bishops gather for a conference to confront the reignited sex-abuse crisis this week, they’re facing the most scrutiny ever from secular law enforcement.

A nationwide Associated Press query of more than 20 state and federal prosecutors last week found they are looking for legal means to hold higher ups in the church accountable for sex abuse. They have raided diocesan offices, subpoenaed files, set up victim tip lines and launched sweeping investigations into decades-old allegations. Thousands of people have called hotlines nationwide, and five priests have recently been arrested.

“Some of the things I’ve seen in the files makes your blood boil, to be honest with you,” Nessel said. “When you’re investigating gangs or the Mafia, we would call some of this conduct a criminal enterprise.”

If a prosecutor applies racketeering laws, also known as RICO, against church leaders, bishops and other church officials could face criminal consequences for enabling predator priests, experts say. Such a move by Michigan or one of the other law enforcement agencies would mark the first known time that actions by a diocese or church leader were branded a criminal enterprise akin to organized crime.

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ROME (ITALY)
Washington Post

June 11, 2019

By Stefano Pitrelli and Chico Harlan

The retired Vatican ambassador to Washington wrote a bombshell letter last summer calling on Pope Francis to resign on the grounds that he had tolerated a known sexual abuser. As that letter was published, Viganò turned off his phone, told friends he was disappearing, and let the church sort through the fallout.

Nine months later, in his first extended interview since that moment, Viganò refused to disclose his location or say much about his self-imposed exile. But his comments indicate that, even in hiding, he is maintaining his role as the fiercest critic of the Francis era, acting either as an honourable rebel or, as his critics see it, as an ideological warrior attacking a pope he doesn’t like.

Viganò corresponded by email with The Washington Post over two months, writing 8,000 words in response to nearly 40 questions. He was blistering in his criticism of Francis, saying “it is immensely sad” that the pope was “blatantly lying to the whole world to cover up his wicked deeds.”

The Vatican has had little official response to Viganò. A communications official declined to comment for this story. But Francis last month responded for the first time to Viganò’s summer letter. The pope said he knew “nothing, obviously, nothing” about the misconduct of former cardinal Theodore McCarrick and could not remember if he had been personally warned about McCarrick by Viganò in 2013. Viganò claimed to have told Francis that McCarrick had “corrupted generations of seminarians and priests.”

“How could anybody, especially a pope, forget this?” Viganò wrote to The Post.

McCarrick was defrocked in February after the case exploded into public view and he was found guilty in a Vatican proceeding for “sins” with minors and adults.

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LONDON (ENGLAND)
Catholic Herald

June 11, 2019

ByAaron Benavides

Cardinal Kevin Farrell and Archbishop William Lori are among senior clergy who received gifts from the bishop

Several cardinals, bishops, and priests, have said they will return money given to them by Bishop Michael J. Bransfield, the former head of the Diocese of Wheeling-Charleston, after an article published by the Washington Post reported lavish spending and gift-giving by the West Virginia bishop.

Cardinal Kevin Farrell, the Vatican Prefect of the Dicastery for Laity, Family, and Life, will return $29,000 given to him by Bransfield for renovations of his Rome apartment, reported the Washington Post.

Archbishop William E. Lori, the Archbishop of Baltimore and Apostolic Administrator of Wheeling-Charleston tasked with investigating Bransfield, said he would return $7,500.

The former Apostolic Nuncio to the United States, Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, said he donated the $6,000 given to him shortly after he received the gifts from Bransfield.

Catholic News Agency reported that Cardinal Donal Wuerl, the former Archbishop of Washington, received $23,600 and is planning on returning the money to the diocese.

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FRESNO (CA)
KGET TV

June 10, 2019

The Roman Catholic Diocese of Fresno has placed a priest who previously served in Bakersfield on paid administrative leave due to information related to a civil case dating back to 2009, according to a statement from the bishop.

Rev. Eric Swearingen, pastor of Good Shepherd Catholic Parish in Visalia, was placed on leave June 5, according to the statement from Bishop Joseph V. Brennan read over the weekend to churches in the parish.

“I understand that this is very difficult information for you to receive; especially at a time when Fr. Eric is very seriously ill,” Brennan wrote. “Please be assured that we will do all we can to support Fr. Eric and maintain his level of medical care without interruption. I am deeply concerned for his well-being.”

The Visalia Times-Delta has reported Swearingen has brain cancer. the paper said Swearingen was accused in 2006 of molesting a teen altar boy “many years earlier” but no criminal charges were filed.

The alleged abuse, according to a report by Los Angeles-based law firm Jeff Anderson & Associates, occurred from 1989 to 1993 at Our Lady of Guadalupe in Bakersfield.

A civil jury found the priest likely abused the boy, the paper reported, but that the diocese had no prior knowledge of the abuse. A mistrial was declared.

The paper reported a second trial was scheduled but both sides agreed to binding arbitration.

The Anderson & Associates report lists several dozen former and current priests in the Diocese of Fresno who have been accused of sexual misconduct.

Among them is Msgr. Craig Harrison, placed on leave as pastor of St. Francis Church in Bakersfield earlier this year when allegations surfaced of misconduct at parishes where he previously worked. An investigation into the alleged misconduct is ongoing.

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ALBUQUERQUE (NM)
KUNM Radio

June 11, 2019

By Hannah Colton

More than 200 people are bringing claims of sexual abuse against the Archdiocese of Santa Fe as the church goes through a bankruptcy. Anyone who still wants to file a claim has until next Monday to do it.

June 17 at 5 p.m. is the cutoff to get in on the settlement that the archdiocese will negotiate with survivors of clergy sex abuse.

Cammie Nichols is a partner at the Rothstein Donatelli LLP, representing a couple dozen survivors. She says this deadline can be really difficult for people who aren’t sure if they’re ready to talk about what happened to them.

“We’re getting calls at like 1:45 in the morning on the paralegal’s cell phone and she tries to get back in touch but they hang up, and she can’t get back in touch with them,” said Nichols. “It’s like, they’re struggling to come forward, and they recognize the deadline, but they’re really having trouble.”

The bankruptcy system is set up to protect peoples’ identities, said Nichols, so claimants will remain anonymous unless they choose to go public. “We just encourage anybody who wants their voice to be heard and to be part of this process that they gather up the courage to do it and to call somebody.”

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SPRINGFIELD (MA)
The Republican

June 11, 2019

By Anne-Gerard Flynn

When the Roman Catholic Diocese of Springfield initiated a review board in 1992 to hear testimony of clergy sex abuse victims, as well as that of alleged abusers, veteran clinical psychologist Patricia Martin was asked to volunteer as one of the initial members.

She did for six years, sometimes weekly, motivated in part as a mother of four children wanting to protect all youngsters from abuse, but knowing the board could only recommend to the bishop which allegations were credible to remove a priest from ministry.

Last year, Martin found herself involved with the review board again — this time in support of an alleged victim who told her by way of seeking advice that he had been abused multiple times and at multiple locations. He claimed he was abused at the hands of the late Bishop Christopher J. Weldon, as well as by at least two other now deceased priests, Joseph Clarence W. Forand and Edward Authier, at St. Anne’s Parish in Chicopee.

He wanted to know if he would be doing the right thing to go before the board to tell his story and asked Martin if she would she go with him if he did.

He did and what he said in terms of allegations against Weldon is now being disputed by the diocese as never having been made to the board. Martin, who had accompanied the man, recently told the Berkshire Eagle, which that broke the story, that the Springfield diocese is “lying” to protect Weldon, who served as its fourth bishop from 1950 through 1977 and built many of its schools and churches.

“This is the story he told,” said Martin of what the alleged victim told the board in June 2018. He confirmed it again through Martin on Monday for The Republican.

“In my 35 years of being a clinical psychologist, this was the worst abuse I heard of a darling little boy,” she said.

“This survivor had repressed memories that began to surface about six years ago and he came to feel he had to go to the church and tell them,” said Martin who said she felt the need to speak out as a practicing Catholic, as well as for the victim whom she said was not ready to be interviewed by the press, but was willing to have details of his abuse disclosed by her.

The alleged victim, after several years of counseling on his own, approached diocesan officials in 2015, Martin said. He told them of his abuse and sought reimbursement for his counseling.

In April 2018, she said he recounted his story to the investigator who meets with alleged victims on behalf of the review board. That same month, the man met with Martin and two of his friends to discuss appearing before the review board.

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MEMPHIS (TN)
Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests

They ‘out’ 2 more local abuser clerics

Both worked in Memphis but are ‘under the radar’

But the diocese won’t post a ‘credibly accused’ list

Most other bishops in the US have already done so

“Include a serial predator who was at a local school,” SNAP says

And group urges Tennessee’s AG to investigate all TN dioceses

WHAT:

Holding signs at a sidewalk news conference, clergy molestation victims will disclose the names and information about two more credibly alleged pedophile priests who were in Memphis, neither of whom have attracted any public or media attention in the area.

They will also blast Memphis Catholic officials for refusing to

–post names of credibly accused clerics and

–disclose a predator priest who was at a Memphis school.

They will call on Memphis’ bishop to reveal these alleged offenders’ names, photos, whereabouts and work histories immediately.

And they’ll call on current and former Catholic employees to ‘speak up’ about suspicions of child sex crimes and cover ups, in light of a new global church policy that says it’s their duty to do so.

WHEN:

Monday, June 10 at 200 p.m.

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

June 10, 2019

Beaumont’s Catholic bishop let a priest into his diocese who had been accused of sexually exploiting a vulnerable adult parishioner for years. Now, he must fully and publicly disclose what steps he took in vetting the cleric prior to assigning him to a parish.

Bishop Curtis Guillory accepted a close aide of Houston’s Cardinal Daniel DiNardo, Msgr. Frank Rossi, into the Beaumont diocese. The bishop then put him to work in an East Texas parish.

Yet a detailed Associated Press story, based in part on years of email exchanges, reveals that Msgr. Rossi reportedly manipulated and abused a devout married woman who he was counseling. In Texas and some other states, that is a crime.

A recent story in a Catholic publication confirms that a formal complaint about Msgr. Rossi’s alleged abuse has been filed with the Vatican.

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

LONDON (ENGLAND)
Catholic Herald

June 10, 2019

A bishop close to Pope Francis has been formally charged with sexually assaulting two seminarians.

Bishop Gustavo Zanchetta has been barred from leaving Argentina and must undergo a psychological evaluation later this week, according to InfoCatólica. He faces between three and ten years in prison if convicted.

Zanchetta, who was one of Pope Francis’s first appointments in his home country, was first accused of “strange behaviour” in 2015 when pornographic pictures, including naked selfies, were found on his phone.

The Vatican initially claimed it only knew of complaints against Zanchetta in 2018, but a former vicar general of the bishop’s diocese said he first reported Zanchetta in 2015.

“It was an alarm that we made to the Holy See via some friendly bishops. The nunciature didn’t intervene directly, but the Holy Father summoned Zanchetta and he justified himself saying that his cellphone had been hacked, and that there were people who were out to damage the image of the Pope.”

Pope Francis allowed Zanchetta to resign as Bishop of Orán in August 2017. The Vatican Press Office gave no reason for Zanchetta’s resignation at the time, but the bishop cited ill health. In December that year, Pope Francis appointed him to as Assessor to the Administration of the Patrimony of the Apostolic See, a position specially created for him.

In a recent interview, Pope Francis confirmed there is also a canonical investigation of Zanchetta. “Before I asked for his resignation, there was an accusation, and I immediately made him come over with the person who accused him and explain it,” the Pope said.

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HOUSTON (TX)
KHOU Channel 11

June 10, 2019

By Chloe Alexander

The Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, better known as SNAP, is expected to hold a press conference Monday afternoon calling for the resignation of Cardinal DiNardo as president of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, USCCB.

This comes after Cardinal DiNardo was accused of covering up a case in which his deputy allegedly manipulated a woman into a sexual relationship, even as the deputy counseled the woman’s husband on their marriage and solicited their donations, according to the Associated Press.

“We believe Cardinal DiNardo no longer possesses the moral authority to lead this organization,” the group said in a brief statement.

The allegations against DiNardo came days before he presides over the 2019 USCCB Spring General Assembly in Baltimore. The assembly, which will adopt new accountability measures, will be held from June 11-14.

The SNAP press conference will start at 3:30 p.m. in front of the Co-Cathedral of the Sacred Heart.

We plan on streaming the press conference live on our website and our Facebook, Twitter and YouTube accounts.

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BAKERSFIELD (CA)
Bakersfield Californian

June 10, 2019

By Robert Price

“Welcome to the bat cave,” Monsignor Craig Harrison’s attorney announced. “Look up here.”

Three large, brown sheets of easel paper were taped to the wall of the small, bare office, furnished only with a simple desk and two facing, upright chairs. Harrison, wearing a crisply ironed short-sleeve shirt, slid into the chair facing his lawyer. He looked to be 10 pounds lighter than the Father Craig his parishioners would remember.

Kyle Humphrey gestured toward the wall, where the easel paper had been arranged into one giant, blue-felt-tip scrawl of numbered names and dates. Blue lines connected some of the names to other names and some of the dates to other dates.

This was more war room than bat cave. This was the bunker, just across the hall from Humphrey’s cluttered office, where, for weeks now, he has been formulating a defense for his most celebrated client, a popular priest suspended from his clerical duties while investigators look into allegations of sexual impropriety.

“Now look,” Humphrey said again, and the lawyerly lecture began.

Humphrey has looked at hundreds of cases, both as a prosecutor and, for most of the past 30 years, a defense lawyer, but none have been anything like this: a trial, of sorts, with no reliably traveled path to exoneration.

Harrison, a gregarious, highly visible monsignor, was suspended April 24 by the Roman Catholic Diocese of Fresno, which announced it was revisiting accusations that Harrison had inappropriately touched a teenager while working at a Catholic church in Firebaugh in the 1990s. A second man contacted the diocese a few days later, also alleging “inappropriate behavior.”

Harrison was still recovering from an exhausting succession of Masses and other Easter weekend events when, that Tuesday night, he received a call from the diocese requesting his presence in Fresno the next morning.

“He just said, ‘I need to talk to you,'” Harrison said of his phone conversation with Bishop Armando Ochoa. “‘Can you come down?’ I said, ‘I have a funeral (to officiate).’ And he says, ‘Can you get out of it?'”

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NEW YORK (NY)
The Atlantic

June 10, 2019

By Jonathan Merritt

In the summer of 1979, conservatives within the Southern Baptist Convention gathered in Houston for their annual meeting with the goal of seizing control of the nation’s largest Protestant denomination. These conservatives claimed that theological liberalism had taken root in the denomination’s seminaries and agencies and was taking the group down the path of heresy. Seminary professors were openly questioning the historical accuracy of some of the Bible’s miraculous stories such as Noah’s flood. Progressive churches were embracing the ordination of women and even debating accepting LGBTQ people into the life of the church. These “problems” could only be corrected by a disruptive overhaul of leadership.

To shift the balance of power, these conservatives implemented a strategy that was as simple as it was genius: recruit and assemble messengers who would attend the denomination’s annual meeting and vote for a handpicked conservative for the SBC presidency. The new president would, in turn, nominate only conservatives to serve on governing boards of seminaries and agencies. And finally, once conservatives controlled a majority share of these boards, they would replace establishment liberal leaders with conservative foot soldiers.

Some 15,000 Southern Baptist messengers gathered in Houston in 1979, and after the ballots were counted, a fiery 47-year-old conservative preacher named Adrian Rogers was elected president. His unparalleled command of rhetoric and uncompromising belief in the inerrancy of scripture made him the perfect person to inaugurate the conservative revolution. Rogers only received 51 percent of the vote over several other candidates, but that was enough. His election was the toppling of the first domino, triggering a purge of left-leaning leaders and churches from the denomination. Just like that, the Southern Baptist Convention was born again.

This week the group gathers in Birmingham, Alabama, exactly 40 years since the Southern Baptist Convention as we know it came into existence. Just like many individuals of similar age, the denomination is experiencing a bit of a midlife crisis, defined by lack of purpose and deep internal conflict. Our rapidly changing world has, in the words of Baylor University historian Barry Hankins, “thrust the group into the middle of an identity crisis.” In the early days of their revolution, conservative SBC leaders united around the common goal of defeating their left-leaning brethren. But the liberals are long gone now, leaving no enemies for these “battling Baptists” to fight—except themselves.

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NASHVILLE (TN)
Baptist News Global

June 10, 2019

By Christa Brown

For about six years between 2006 and 2012 I posted on a website the Southern Baptist clergy sex abuse cases that were publicly reported. During that time, I put together a small database of 167 cases, many with multiple victims.

With every case, I wondered: “Will this be enough? Will this finally be enough that Southern Baptist Convention officials will see the scope and horror of the problem and realize they need to do something?”

It never was. It was never enough.

Other bloggers also began posting Southern Baptist clergy sex abuse stories. And I wondered again, “Would it ever be enough?”

But it never was.

Last February, the Houston Chronicle and San Antonio Express-News published the first part of their “Abuse of Faith” series, documenting 700 victims who reported having been sexually abused by Southern Baptist clergy and church leaders.

Recent proposals “appear oriented more toward saving face for SBC officials than toward genuinely protecting kids”.

Yet again I wondered, “Would these 700 be enough?”

They weren’t.

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WASHINGTON (DC)
USA Today

June 10, 2019

By Tim Busch

Rarely do Americans pay attention to the biannual assemblies of the nation’s Roman Catholic bishops, but the gathering that starts on Tuesday in Baltimore will be different.

Millions of people, Catholic and not, are asking the same question: What new steps will the bishops take to clean up — or clean out — the church after years of sex abuse scandals?

This is a question the bishops take seriously. At its meeting last November, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) was ready to vote on measures that would increase accountability for church leaders. While the Vatican intervened at the 11th hour, it did so because it was preparing to release reforms of its own, which were unveiled in May.

The Vatican’s new policy is a big step in the right direction. Rome has also been working much closer with the U.S. church to penalize bad actors. But America’s bishops should see it as a starting point, not the final word. Building on Pope Francis’ good actions, the USCCB should pass long overdue reforms that give regular Catholics — known as “lay Catholics” — a greater role in keeping bishops and priests accountable.

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BIRMINGHAM (AL)
Baptist Press

June 8, 2019

By Tom Strode

The Southern Baptist Sexual Abuse Advisory Study issued a report Saturday after 10 months of work with the hope that God will use it to “spark a movement of healing and reform.”

The 52-page report — produced by a fluid study group formed last July by new Southern Baptist Convention President J.D. Greear — was released three days before the SBC’s annual meeting in Birmingham, Ala. Sexual abuse has been increasingly revealed to be a significant problem among Southern Baptists the last two years, and it will be a focus before and during the meeting. The Advisory Study will make a presentation at the SBC meeting Wednesday afternoon.

The Advisory Study, which worked in collaboration with the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission (ERLC), conducted interviews with hundreds of sexual abuse survivors, as well as church leaders and national experts in the field, according to the report. The report — which includes testimonies from several survivors — seeks “to begin to educate our churches on the abuse crisis, equip our churches to care well for survivors, and prepare our churches to prevent abuse.”

While acknowledging the report is not intended to be either exhaustive or “fully prescriptive,” the Advisory Study says one of its aims “is to begin to illuminate the evil that has occurred within our midst by sharing the stories of survivors of sexual abuse.” The report expresses gratitude to the “brave men and women” who told their stories of abuse so the SBC could understand the scope of the “sexual abuse crisis” it faces.

“We must not rest until Southern Baptist churches are places where [the dignity of being an image bearer of God] has been restored to survivors of sexual abuse and where leadership at all levels fights against the scourge of sexual abuse in all its forms and never covers over or protects abusers,” the report says. “We are committed to becoming churches that are safe for survivors and safe from abuse.”

Greear said the report “is a good first step at capturing where we have come from and where we must go to serve the vulnerable.”

“At its core, the Gospel is about God’s commitment to protect the vulnerable,” Greear said in written comments for Baptist Press. “The cross shows us that He is a safe refuge for all who run to Him. What greater lie could we tell about the Gospel than for us not to be doing whatever it takes to make our churches a safe place for the vulnerable?”

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Daily Beast

June 8, 2019

By Emily Shugerman

A top priest in the Texas Catholic Church is under investigation for allegedly carrying on a sexual relationship with a woman from whom he received confession, according to the Associated Press. Houston resident Laura Pontikes accused Monsignor Frank Rossi of coercing her into a sexual relationship while continuing to absolve her sins—one of the most serious crimes in Catholic law. She also accused Galveston-Houston Archbishop Daniel DiNardo—who is leading the church’s response to the sexual abuse crisis in the U.S.—of mishandling the case by allowing Rossi to stay in the ministry. Rossi was removed from the Houston parish following Pontikes’ complaint, but allowed him to return to another diocese after completing treatment. The Galveston-Houston archdiocese has criticized news reports of the issue as biased and one-sided, and maintains that the relationship was consensual. The archdiocese added this week that the confession aspect was a “new development” that would be “thoroughly reviewed in accordance with canon law.” Houston police are also investigating.

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NASHVILLE (TN)
Baptist Press

June 9, 2019

By Tom Strode

The Southern Baptist effort to address sexual abuse in churches has taken another step with the launch of the “Caring Well Challenge,” a joint call for congregations to become equipped to prevent predatory behavior and to care for survivors.

The Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission (ERLC) and the Sexual Abuse Advisory Study announced the cost-free initiative Thursday. They issued an invitation to all Southern Baptist churches to participate. All the convention’s entities, more than 35 Southern Baptist state conventions, and many Baptist associations and colleges have endorsed the “Caring Well Challenge,” according to an ERLC release.

The ERLC and the Sexual Abuse Advisory Study — which was named by Southern Baptist Convention President J.D. Greear — also have collaborated with LifeWay Christian Resources to produce “Becoming a Church That Cares Well for the Abused.” The new, free multimedia resource is a comprehensive training curriculum that consists of a handbook with 12 video lessons from experts in a variety of areas.

Regarding the “Caring Well Challenge,” Greear makes an appeal to churches to participate in a video on the initiative’s website, caringwell.com

“The ‘Caring Well Challenge’ provides your church with a pathway to start engaging the problem of abuse,” Greear says. “This is an opportunity for you to say, ‘Yes, yes, our church is ready to do whatever it takes to confront the abuse crisis and to care for the abused.'”

ERLC President Russell Moore acknowledged in a news release announcing the challenge, “There is no quick fix for an issue as complex as church sexual abuse. But this initiative is an outstanding step designed to join our churches together in a common cause.

“Over the last year, I’ve spoken with hundreds of pastors and leaders who are determined to make this issue a priority in their churches, but are looking for tools and training,” Moore said. “That’s exactly what this challenge is designed to provide.

It has been a joy to partner with so many survivors and experts across many fields to design training that will give churches tools to act immediately.”

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HUEYTOWN (AL)
Capstone Report

June 9, 2019

The Southern Baptist Convention’s Annual Meeting takes place this week in Birmingham, Alabama. The meeting sessions begin Tuesday, June 11, and conclude Wednesday, June 12. Sex abuse scandals will no doubt be an important topic as the SBC wrestles the abuse problem in the church and the way Baptists should respond. Reports on this have already been prepared for messengers. Expect this to be where the mainstream press focuses their attention. Key question: Will it be PR or something substantive that arises out of Birmingham?

Activities around the Convention begin Sunday evening with the start of the Pastor’s Conference. During the Monday session of the Pastor’s Conference, McLean Bible Church pastor David Platt will speak. Platt warmly and respectfully prayed for President Donald Trump June 2, but then flubbed the aftermath giving credence to complaints from angry partisans. Jerry Falwell, Jr. told Platt to Act like a man during the furor that followed. Platt’s time in Birmingham will be calm in contrast to the political furor his error created. Of course, church staff are only making the troubles worse, as an Associate Pastor at McLean Bible Church insulted conservative Christians in a Facebook post.

Also, on Monday, there are two big events at the Westin Hotel Ballroom involving Founders’ Ministries—a seminar on Mature Manhood in an Immature Age followed by Founder’s Executive Director Dr. Tom Ascol debating Dr. Dwight McKissic on the topic of complementarianism and if women should preach. Monday evening, the G3 Conference is hosting a symposium on Social Justice and its dangers to evangelicalism.

These are important meetings on Monday at the Westin: Social Justice is a threat to evangelicalism and attention to it is important. The discussion of egalitarianism is now reaching a critical juncture in the Southern Baptist Convention. It should not surprise, that many of the Woke Social Justice Warriors are the same ones promoting women preachers. That’s how Intersectional allies operate. These meetings are part of an effort holding back the tide of Leftism sweeping into the Convention from the cultural sea. Worth watching what happens here.

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PITTSBURGH (PA)
Post Gazette

June 8, 2019

Diocese of Providence Bishop Thomas Tobin said in a recent tweet “that Catholics should not support or attend LGBTQ ‘Pride Month’ events held in June. They promote a culture and encourage activities that are contrary to Catholic faith and morals. They are especially harmful for children” (June 4 online, “R.I. Bishop Tobin’s Stance Against Pride Month Spurs Criticism”).

He added that his “obligation before God is to lead the faithful entrusted to my care and to teach the faith, clearly and compassionately.”

Did Bishop Tobin speak out “clearly” when his own all-male brother bishops and cardinals were preserving their clerical power structure by moving around pedophile priests? His silence and that of others in his feckless fraternity was and is especially harmful to children. In fact, they violently tormented thousands of children. But he still enjoys the trappings of false institutional power in misleading the faithful. Their own sense about sexuality diverges significantly from the tone-deaf rantings of leaders like Bishop Tobin.

Comparing the love I have witnessed in the LGBTQ community with the abuses of power among the bishops, I have no doubt who better exhibits the “Catholic faith and morals.”

Jesus rebuked the hierarchy of his time as shown in Matthew 23: “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You give a tenth of your spices — mint, dill and cumin. But you have neglected the more important matters of the law — justice, mercy and faithfulness.” Before feeling a need to lead the faithful, Bishop Tobin should lead himself and his brother bishops in repenting for the church’s sins of complicity and silence. The spirit of God can lead the faithful just fine, thank you. And they wonder why the pews are emptying.

Scott Fabean
Mt. Lebanon

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GUAM
Pacific Daily News

June 10, 2019

By Haidee V. Eugenio

A priest who was serving as a chaplain for the Department of Youth Affairs allegedly sexually abused one of the boys incarcerated at the Mangilao facility for young juveniles years ago, according to a lawsuit filed in federal court on Monday.

The lawsuit, filed by a plaintiff identified in court documents only as BBB to protect his privacy, says former Guam priest Andrew Mannetta abused the boy when he was 14 years old.

Mannetta invited BBB to accompany him to his room at the friary in Sinajana to change his clothes, the lawsuit says.

That’s where the priest abused the boy by touching his private part and doing a sexual act on him, the lawsuit says.

“Plaintiff resisted Mannetta’s act but was too small to stop the abuse,” the lawsuit says. The boy became resentful towards the DYA chaplain after the incident, the complaint says.

BBB, represented by attorney David Lujan, demands $5 million in minimum damages.

The plaintiff named Mannetta and the Capuchin Franciscans as among defendants, along with up to 47 other unnamed defendants.

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The Intercept

June 9, 2019

By Lee Fang

KAMALA HARRIS, SURROUNDED by thousands of cheering supporters, kicked off her presidential campaign in Oakland earlier this year, declaring that she has always fought “on behalf of survivors of sexual assault, a fight not just against predators but a fight against silence and stigma.”

Fighting on behalf of victims of sexual abuse, particularly children, has been central to Harris’s political identity for the better part of three decades. Harris specialized in prosecuting sex crimes and child exploitation as a young prosecutor just out of law school. She later touted her record on child sexual abuse cases and prosecuting pedophiles in television advertisements, splashy profiles, and on the trail as she campaigned for public office.

But when it came to taking on the Catholic Church, survivors of clergy sexual abuse say that Harris turned a blind eye, refusing to take action against clergy members accused of sexually abusing children when it meant confronting one of the city’s most powerful political institutions.

When Harris became San Francisco district attorney in 2004, she took over an office that had been working closely with survivors of sexual abuse to pursue cases against the Catholic Church. The office and the survivors were in the middle of a legal battle to hold predatory priests accountable, and Harris inherited a collection of personnel files involving allegations of sexual abuse by priests and employees of the San Francisco Archdiocese, which oversees church operations in San Francisco, and Marin and San Mateo counties.

“It went from Terence Hallinan going hundred miles an hour, full speed ahead, after the Catholic Church to Kamala Harris doing absolutely nothing.”

The files had been compiled by investigators working under the direction of Terence Hallinan, the radical district attorney who Harris ousted in a contentious election campaign. Hallinan’s team had prosecuted cases of abuse that had occurred decades earlier and had gathered evidence as part of a probe into widespread clergy sexual misconduct.

Just six months before Harris took office, a U.S. Supreme Court decision overturned a California law that had retroactively eliminated the statute of limitations for criminal prosecution of child molestation cases. That shifted the focus to holding predators among the clergy accountable through civil cases and through a broader effort to bring attention to predators who had been shielded by the church.

Hallinan believed that the clergy abuse files were a matter of public record; Harris refused to release them to the public.

In her seven years as district attorney, Harris’s office did not proactively assist in civil cases against clergy sex abuse and ignored requests by activists and survivors to access the cache of investigative files that could have helped them secure justice, according to several victims of clergy sex abuse living in California who spoke to The Intercept.

“It went from Terence Hallinan going hundred miles an hour, full speed ahead, after the Catholic Church to Kamala Harris doing absolutely nothing and taking it backwards hundred miles an hour,” said Joey Piscitelli, a sexual assault survivor, who a jury found had been molested as a student while attending Salesian College Preparatory, a Catholic high school in Richmond, California.

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NEW YORK (NY)
Associated Press

June 9, 2019

By David Crary

As the Roman Catholic Church’s sex abuse scandal grows ever wider in scope in the U.S., bishops convene for a national meeting in Baltimore on Tuesday under heavy pressure to acknowledge their oversight failures and give a larger role to lay Catholics and secular authorities in confronting the crisis.

The pressure comes not only from longtime critics of the church’s response to clergy sex abuse, but also from insiders who now voice doubts that the bishops are capable of handling the crisis on their own.

“My biggest concern is that it’s going to end up being bishops overseeing bishops,” Francesco Cesareo, chairman of a national sex-abuse review board set up by the bishops, told Catholic News Service. “If that’s the case, it’s going to be very difficult for the laity to feel any sense of confidence that anything has truly changed.”

Events of the past year have created unprecedented challenges for the U.S. bishops. Many dioceses have become targets of state investigations since a Pennsylvania grand jury report in August detailed hundreds of cases of alleged abuse.

In Baltimore, the bishops will be guided by a groundbreaking new law issued by Pope Francis on May 9. It requires priests and nuns worldwide to report clergy sexual abuse and cover-ups by their superiors to church authorities. It also calls for any claim of sexual misconduct or cover-up against a bishop to be reported to the Vatican and a supervisory bishop in the U.S.

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BUFFALO (NY)
Buffalo News

June 8, 2019

By Lou Michel

The woman who leaked documents on clergy sex abuse in the Buffalo Catholic Diocese attended Bishop Richard J. Malone’s first listening session with the laity Saturday.

One of about 200 Catholics in attendance at the two-hour session at St. Gregory the Great Catholic Church in Amherst, Siobhan O’Connor said the gathering left her with a sense of concern that Catholics are divided — including whether the bishop should remain as head of the diocese.

Several prominent local Catholics and public officials have called for Malone to step down for his handling of sex abuse by clergy, but he has said he has no intention of resigning.

“I was just really taken that there is such polarization. If we are divided, we’ll be less effective as members of the church,” O’Connor said after the session.

O’Connor, who had served as the bishop’s executive assistant until she released reams of confidential documents to WKBW-TV last year, said she felt an obligation as a Catholic to attend the session and learn more about where fellow Catholics stood on church issues.

She said a tightly scripted format for the listening session did not allow that to happen.

Since she released the documents and left her job at the chancery, O’Connor said she has not spoken with the bishop.

“This is the closest I’ve been to him. I was a little more than a table away from him. I believe he saw me. I’m trying to be respectful. My presence might not have been welcome,” she said.

She noted a divide among the attendees over whether the bishop should resign or stay.

“There were people calling for the bishop to resign at my table and a handful of others,” she said.

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Patheos blog

June 9, 2019

By Msgr. Eric Barr

Great bluegrass song out called “In Hell I’ll Be In Good Company.” By the time summer ends, we Catholics will be humming it as we grapple with the crisis in the Church once again. Looks like last year’s Cardinal scandal will have a sequel this year after the Washington Post’s expose of Bishop Bransfield of West Virginia. But before we get on the bandwagon of bashing priests, bishops, etc. again, perhaps we Catholics could all agree to share the guilt. Just a thought. It’s controversial. I should know. For fifteen years I was either the Vicar for Clergy or the Vicar General delegated with the responsibility for ministering to the priests, educating the junior clergy and clergy of the diocese, and helping out or disciplining priests who found themselves with serious problems. I mention all that to establish some street cred. Why? Because this column might cause us all to rethink our presuppositions.

Sharing The Blame
The crisis in the Church centering on the misuse of episcopal authority and the sexual abuse by priests is a horrible and terrible scandal. It has led to the worst crisis in the Church since the Reformation. Granted. But it does no good for the laity simply to savage guilty priests or bishops (though they richly deserve it), call for the abolition of the priesthood, or even seek a reform of the priesthood. The Church has a lot of problems but the crisis is not specifically the problem of the ordained. All Catholics have to take some responsibility. In fact, it’s bigger than all the members of the Church. Here’s why.

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.

BIRMINGHAM (AL)
Birmingham News

June 9, 2019

By Greg Garrison

Southern Baptists from across the country have arrived in Birmingham and more are on the way.

The Southern Baptist Convention, the annual meeting of the 14.8-million-member denomination, gathers Tuesday and Wednesday at the BJCC Legacy Arena. It’s the first time the Southern Baptist Convention has met in Birmingham since 1941.

It will be an opportunity for many Southern Baptists in Alabama to attend for the first time.

“So many wanted to go as messengers who have never been,” said the Rev. Joe Godfrey, former president of the Alabama Baptist Convention.

The number of messengers, or voting delegates, allowed from each Southern Baptist church depends on its size.

“It’s based on church membership or giving record,” Godfrey said. “The maximum number is ten from each church.”

The Rev. J.D. Greear, 46, senior pastor of The Summit Church in Durham, N.C., will preside at the meeting after being elected president last year. He has made addressing sexual abuse by clergy a priority issue.

“We need to have a posture of lament,” Greear said this past week on a Facebook live video. “Whether or not it’s happened to me, to somebody I know or somebody in my church, it’s happened to churches that bear the name Southern Baptist, and we need to lament that, lament the pain of victims and grieve with them. Lament that it happened on our watch.”

Greear announced a Sexual Abuse Advisory Study in July. More than half of study group is women.

Initial recommendations of the study group include calling for repentance “for decades of inaction.”

A group of sexual abuse survivors and victims’ advocates plans to protest outside the Legacy Arena on Tuesday about 6 p.m. They requested display space in a meeting hall, and permission to rally on the plaza, but were denied by the convention, said the Rev. Ashley Easter, a spokesperson for the rally who grew up in an independent Baptist church and is now an ordained minister in the Progressive Christian Alliance.

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.

SYRACUSE (NY)
Post Standard

June 9, 2019

Last week, Central New York met the priest with the potential to lead the Roman Catholic Diocese of Syracuse for the next 20 years: Bishop-elect Douglas Lucia, 56, a parish pastor and canon lawyer in the Ogdensburg Diocese. His elevation represents a pivot to a younger generation of leadership by an institution seeking to renew itself, regain the trust of its members and remain relevant in an increasingly secular world.

Lucia will take over from Bishop Robert J. Cunningham, whose decade as the spiritual leader of the Catholic Church in Syracuse was dominated by the clergy sexual abuse crisis and its fallout.

In his first public comments on the crisis, the bishop-elect expressed compassion for victims of clergy sexual abuse. “I just want to be a healing presence,” he said Tuesday at an introductory news conference.

He also signaled a willingness to be transparent about the perpetrators of sexual abuse. In a wide-ranging Q&A with staff writer Julie McMahon, Lucia said he favors releasing the names of priests with allegations against them.

It’s a point of view his predecessor came around to only as his time in office neared an end due to mandatory retirement. In December, Cunningham broke years of silence and released the names of 57 priests with credible accusations of sexual abuse against them. The bishop also created an independent process to compensate victims of clergy sexual abuse. The diocese has paid nearly $11 million to 79 victims, so far.

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

WASHINGTON (DC)
Catholic News Service

June 8, 2019

By Rhina Guidos

After a major newspaper published a story about alleged financial and sexual misconduct by a West Virginia bishop, a prelate overseeing the investigation for the Vatican expressed regret that he redacted his name out of documents detailing financial aspects of the scandal.

In an 8-minute video released June 7, Archbishop William E. Lori of Baltimore, who was tasked with overseeing the investigation in West Virginia, said mistakes were made and one of them was redacting his name, along with the names of other bishops and high-ranking church officials who received personal financial “gifts” from the Diocese of Wheeling-Charleston’s former bishop, Bishop Michael J. Bransfield.

Lori, who was appointed apostolic administrator of the West Virginia diocese after Bransfield resigned last fall amid allegations of sexual and financial misconduct, said in the video that transparency requires admitting mistakes.

“If I had to do it over again, especially at a time when we’re trying to create greater transparency and accountability, the report would have included the names of those bishops who received gifts, including my own, with some notation that there was no evidence to suggest that those who received gifts reciprocated in any way that was inappropriate.”

The preliminary investigation, he said, found that allegations of sexual misconduct by Bransfield toward adults were found to be “credible,” and it also determined that “during his tenure, he engaged in patterns of excessive and inappropriate spending, misused church funds for personal benefit,” that included travel, liquor, dining, financial gifts and luxury goods.

“There is no excuse nor adequate explanation that will satisfy the troubling question of how Bishop Bransfield’s behavior was allowed to continue for as long as it did without the accountability that we must require from those who have been entrusted with so much, both spiritual and material, as pastors,” Lori said.

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

NEW YORK (NY)
Associated Press

June 8, 2019

The Southern Baptist Convention gathers for its annual national meeting Tuesday with one sobering topic — sex abuse by clergy and staff — overshadowing all others.

Inside the meeting hall in Birmingham, Ala., delegates representing the nation’s largest Protestant denomination will probably vote on establishing criteria for expelling churches that mishandle or cover up abuse allegations. They also may vote to establish a new committee, which would review how member churches handle claims of abuse.

Outside the convention center, abuse survivors and other activists plan a protest rally Tuesday evening, demanding that the church move faster to require sex-abuse training for all pastors, staff and volunteers, and to create a database of credibly accused abusers that could be shared among its more than 47,000 churches. They will also be urging the church, which espouses all-male leadership, to be more respectful of women’s roles — a volatile topic that’s sparked online debate over whether women should preach to men.

Sex abuse already was a high-profile issue at the 2018 national meeting in Dallas, following revelations about several sexual misconduct cases. Soon after his election as Southern Baptist Convention president at that meeting, the Rev. J.D. Greear formed an advisory group to draft recommendations on how to confront the problem.

Ivonne Gordon-Vailakis isn’t just a 25-year-long Spanish and Latin American lit professor. She’s also a rockstar mentor.

However, pressure on the church has intensified in recent months, due in part to articles by the Houston Chronicle and San Antonio Express-News asserting that hundreds of Southern Baptist clergy and staff have been accused of sexual misconduct over the last 20 years, including dozens who returned to church duties, while leaving more than 700 victims with little in the way of justice or apologies.

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.

HOUSTON (TX)
Houston Chronicle

June 8, 2019

By Christa Brown

The “Abuse of Faith” series documented at least 700 people who reported having being sexually abused by Southern Baptist clergy and church leaders. Nearly all of them were children at the time they were abused.

Since the Chronicle and San Antonio Express-News first published the series in February, more than 350 others have contacted the investigative reporters with additional stories of abuse and cover-ups among Southern Baptists.

These stories stand as a collective testament to a chilling reality. For decades, Southern Baptist pastors have been sexually abusing kids, and all the while, other Southern Baptist leaders have known and turned a blind eye. This has been the status quo in the Southern Baptist Convention.

But now, the dam is broken, and there is hope in that.

As the pent-up waters of long-silenced voices continue to rise, the Southern Baptist Convention must choose a higher ground.

The old way was always unholy – shaming and blaming victims while denying and minimizing the problem. Now the old way is also institutionally untenable.

With decades of entrenched patterns to confront, the SBC will not meet this challenge with any feeble half measures. Nor will it meet this challenge with resolutions, platitudes, image-polishing press statements, or pious preaching.

Rather, this massive institutional enabling of horror must be addressed on an equally massive institutional scale.

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

ROME (ITALY)
Daily Beast

June 8, 2019

By Barbie Latza Nadeau

A Vatican cardinal is among a handful of Catholic clerics who pledged to return cash gifts bestowed upon them by disgraced W. Virginia Bishop Michael Bransfield, according to the Washington Post. Bransfield, who has been removed from active ministry after credible allegations of sexual misconduct, is alleged to have written personal checks for a total of $350,000 to 137 clerics over a dozen years.

Among them is Cardinal Kevin Farrell, who Bransfield gave $29,000 to renovate his Rome apartment, and who said Friday he would return the money to the W. Virginia diocese.

The Washington Post has learned that Bransfield was reimbursed by the church for the money he gave to the prelates, including two young priests he is credibly accused of molesting.

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.

Wartburg Watch blog

June 7, 2019

Do you know who Christa Brown is? If not, you should. She has been the shining light behind Stop Baptist Predators for years. She was blogging while I was merrily skipping along in the evangelical world, not realizing the extent of sexual abuse in my tribe.

Although the site is no longer adding stories, it is being maintained so researchers can find the wealth of information contained therein. This was the first blog I visited to get a picture of the ongoing abuse in the SBC. She posted the news release of the predator in my former church who was arrested and convicted.

Christa endured serious pushback for her website. She didn’t have a network of likeminded writers when she started blogging Also, since that time, many people have become aware of the abuse problem due to #metoo #churchtoo #sbctoo. So there is more broad support for those exposing abuse. She powered on with little support and a lot of downright abuse.

Next week, Christa is going to be honored for her pioneering work by those attending the *For Such a Time is This Rally* outside of the SBC convention. It is rather fitting that the SBC refused to allow this rally inside of their hallowed halls. It is the same response that Christa received when she started writing. *Not allowed.*

The following is her story of abuse. I am deeply grateful for her dedication in spite of the trauma she endured. She is a hero.

I want to challenge those of you who attend any of the churches mentioned in this story to approach your church leadership and give them a copy of Christa’s story. I plan to email copies of it to the mentioned churches, challenging them to reach out to Christa.

Also, does anyone know the required ethics of licensed realtors? I’m thinking about checking into this. Can you imagine this guy is selling real estate?

Finally, how many of you know about the secret Baptist file of known predators? I didn’t. Click on the link in the story.

Open letter to Tommy Gilmore, the Southern Baptist pastor who sexually abused me as a kid:

Have you ever felt any remorse for what you did to me? That’s the question I always wonder about.

It’s been on my mind a lot lately because I’ll be speaking on June 11 at the For Such a Time as This Rally outside the SBC’s annual meeting in Birmingham, urging that the denomination institute better safeguards against predatory pastors like you. The horror of what I experienced from your abuse and from the keep-it-quiet cover-up responses of church and denominational leaders ultimately launched a long period of advocacy efforts on my part, because no child should ever experience the horror of what you did to me, and no adult should ever have to go through such a nightmare to try to expose a child-molesting minister.

The most difficult part of this kind of advocacy work is that it sometimes resurrects horrific memories. I did an interview with a reporter just the other day and, when she asked if I could talk a little about what happened to me as a kid, my mind was suddenly a jumble of disjointed flashbacks, and there it was again, that urge to vomit and run.

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.

SPRINGFIELD (MA)
The Republican

June 7, 2019

By Anne-Gerard Flynn

The Roman Catholic Diocese of Springfield has renamed its department that oversees clergy sexual abuse allegations — as well as matters related to child protection and victim outreach —and made two new appointments.

Effective June 10, Jeffrey J. Trant will serve as director of the newly designated Office of Safe Environment and Victim Assistance, and Li-Ling Lam-Waller is its compliance officer.

The appointments are designed to improve outreach to victims following feedback from parish sessions Bishop Mitchell T. Rozanski held earlier this year. The sessions followed concerns about how this diocese handles clergy sex abuse allegations in the wake of a number of national and international investigations into clergy abuse.

The announcement also comes in advance of Rozanski’s attendance next week at the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops Spring General Assembly in Baltimore. It will focus on bishop accountability measures to address the abuse crisis.

“The re-naming of the former office of Child & Youth Protections is to better define the mission of the office,” diocesan spokesperson Mark Dupont said.

He added, “It doesn’t immediately change any of the reporting procedures, but with the addition of a compliance coordinator it will allow more time for the director to work directly with victims as well as evaluate what other changes might be necessary for the office to be more effective. This new structure was brought about by an internal evaluation which began back in January and from what we heard at the listening sessions from victims and their advocates.”

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

NEW YORK (NY)
Slate

June 7, 2019

By Ruth Graham

The capital of California was named for a river that was in turn named for the Catholic sacrament of the Eucharist. So it’s notable that last month state senators in Sacramento passed a bill that some say will force Catholic priests to violate a different Catholic sacrament: confession, also known as the sacrament of reconciliation.

Confession, as shown in a zillion pop cultural depictions, is a private conversation between a priest and an individual, meant to encourage Catholics to examine their consciences and request forgiveness from God. The format varies—for example, the two parties may sit face to face, or with an opaque screen between them—but the penitent is encouraged to offer a full inventory of her sins since her last visit. In return, the priest is bound by an ironclad oath of secrecy called the “seal of confession.”

Historically, American law has protected that seal, carving out a “clergy-penitent privilege” for the confessional that is similar to attorney-client privilege. But a bill making its way through the California state Legislature would ever-so-slightly crack the seal open. SB 360, which passed the state Senate in May, would require priests to report suspicions of child abuse obtained through confession in some circumstances. The bill is expected to be voted on by the lower house of the state Legislature in September, according to Catholic News Service. And many Catholics are not happy about it.

Clergy are already among the many professionals deemed mandated reporters for child abuse in California. But state law makes an exception for “penitential communications” obtained in settings where the cleric has a sacramental duty to maintain secrecy. As reporter Jack Jenkins recently pointed out, California’s pathbreaking 1990 law designating clergy as mandated reporters included a confessional carve-out that many other states added when they later adopted similar laws.

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

ROME (ITALY)
Associated Press

Jun 8, 2019

By Nicole Winfield

The Catholic Church in Texas says it is reviewing allegations that a top monsignor continued to hear a married woman’s confessions after luring her into a sexual relationship, a potentially serious crime under church law.

The announcement was issued by the Galveston-Houston Archdiocese led by Cardinal Daniel DiNardo, president of the U.S. bishops’ conference, after the woman broke years of silence to denounce his handling of her case in an Associated Press investigation this week. The archdiocese has defended DiNardo’s handling of the case as swift and just. But it said Friday that the issue of confession was a “new development” presented by Laura Pontikes in the AP report and would be “thoroughly reviewed in accordance with canon law.”

Pontikes has accused Monsignor Frank Rossi, DiNardo’s former deputy, of exploiting her emotional dependency on him to manipulate her into a sexual relationship, even as he heard her confessions, counseled her husband on their strained marriage and solicited hundreds of thousands of dollars from them in donations for the church. The archdiocese removed Rossi from the Houston parish, but allowed him to return to ministry in another diocese after he completed a treatment program.

Pontikes protested to the archdiocese and went to police in August. After AP inquiries last week, Rossi’s new bishop placed him on leave pending the outcome of the investigation.

Rossi’s lawyer has said he is cooperating with the police investigation but declined to comment further. The archdiocese has defended him, saying the relationship was consensual and did not involve intercourse. Pontikes claims it did.

The case is significant because DiNardo heads the U.S. Catholic Church’s response to the clergy sex-abuse scandal, which exploded anew last year worldwide. As president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, DiNardo will lead a meeting next week of U.S. bishops to approve new measures for accountability over abuse.

The “absolution of an accomplice” crime in confession, one of the most serious in canon law, occurs when a priest absolves someone with whom he has engaged in a sexual sin. It must be reported to the Vatican and can carry the penalty of excommunication.

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DENVER (CO)
Crux

June 8, 2019

By Alex Meyer

Opinions are mixed about what should happen to the Roman Catholic Diocese of Wheeling-Charleston after new revelations about Michael J. Bransfield’s conduct while bishop here were made public this week.

Some called for the diocese to reform from within while others asked the West Virginia Attorney General’s Office to take further action, but all agreed: something needs to change.

On Wednesday, Archbishop William E. Lori admitted in a letter that the diocese found “credible” accounts of sexual harassment from Bransfield and that he further engaged in a pattern of “excessive and inappropriate” spending during his tenure.

Judy Jones, midwest regional leader of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, or SNAP, said she wasn’t surprised by the latest developments regarding Bransfield.

“What is so sickening is how this went on for so long and people knew about it. Bransfield kept getting away with it,” Jones said. “We at SNAP applaud the brave victims for coming forward and getting (his) wrongdoings exposed and stopped.”

Jones said the problems with the diocese and the church illuminated by Bransfield’s misconduct need to be “fixed from the outside” by law enforcement.

“The church officials can’t police themselves,” she said. “They can’t fix the problems themselves. It’s not going to change.”

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

ROME (ITALY)
National Catholic Reporter

June 7, 2019

By Massimo Faggioli

Editor’s note: Following is the transcript of a June 7 talk given by Massimo Faggioli at the annual conference of the Catholic Theological Society of America held in Pittsburgh.

Institutional Church and Academic Theology in a Time of Catholic Disruption

1. The church in a time of disruption

Once, Catholicism was a synonym for status quo; now, it could be disruption. The institutional church is not exempt from the crisis that is affecting all institutions today: a social and political crisis, in part a response to growing inequality, which in many countries has brought to power parties and political leaders harboring xenophobic if not racist sentiments; a crisis of globalization in terms of a redefinition of international political alliances and alignments; a cultural and intellectual disruption where the emergence of a social-media-driven public discourse shapes a redefinition of the role of knowledge and scholarship, together with the crisis of authority of cultural institutions and education.

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CHARLESTON (WV)
West Virginia Record

June 7, 2019

By Kyla Asbury

West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey urged the Diocese of Wheeling-Charleston to release its investigative report on former Bishop Michael Bransfield’s alleged misconduct.

Morrisey said it was important to disclose the report immediately.

“While we appreciate the fact that our investigation and lawsuit is causing the Wheeling-Charleston Diocese to disclose new improprieties about Bishop Bransfield, we believe it is imperative that the Diocese immediately disclose its investigative report about the Bishop,” Morrisey said. “It’s time to come clean and release the Bransfield report—and no longer hide pertinent information from our office and the public.”

Morrisey said much of the information being released by the Diocese would never have been released if his office hadn’t issued subpoenas, investigated and, ultimately, filed a lawsuit.

“The Diocese did not issue its list of initially 31, now 40, credibly accused priests until after issuance of our first subpoena in the fall of 2018, and today’s disclosure comes approximately two weeks after the filing of our amended complaint,” Morrisey said. “Now is the time for full disclosure. I repeat my call for the Diocese to stop fighting our efforts to get to the bottom of the sexual abuse scandal, come clean and end the secrecy – including release of the full Bransfield report.”

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

DALLAS (TX)
D Magazine

June 7, 2019

By Tim Rogers

Hopefully you either subscribe to the Washington Post or you haven’t yet this month used up your free visits. Because the paper broke a big story about an out-of-control Catholic bishop in West Virginia. Dude spent a lot of money getting drunk and buying jewelry. Oh, and Michael Bransfield sexually harassed other men. And handed them cash. It was all fueled by revenue from mineral rights generated by land in West Texas. Some highlights from the story:

Another said Bransfield let him drink alcohol before he was legally of age, exposed himself, pulled the young man against him and ran his hands over the seminarian’s genitals. … Throughout his tenure, Bransfield abused alcohol, oxycodone and other prescription drugs, which “likely contributed to his harassing and abusive behavior,” the report says. … During his 13 years as bishop in West Virginia, one of the poorest states in the nation, Bransfield spent $2.4 million in church money on travel, much of it personal, which included flying in chartered jets and staying in luxury hotels, according to the report.

And what does this have to do with Dallas? Kevin Farrell was the previous bishop of the Dallas Diocese (he left in 2016). By all accounts, he is a good man who cleaned up the mess that his predecessor, Charles Grahmann, left behind. However, the Post story notes this about Farrell, who now works at the Vatican:

Cardinal Kevin Farrell, a high-ranking Vatican official who served for years in the District, received two checks totaling $29,000 for expenses related to an apartment in Rome, documents show. … A Vatican spokesman confirmed that Farrell received “voluntary donations” from Bransfield and others for the renovation of his apartment in the Vatican and said that Bransfield “received nothing in exchange.”

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LONDON (ENGLAND)
BBC News

June 7, 2019

A child abuse inquiry witness has told how he was raped by priests during “satanic” drink-fuelled sex parties.

Dave Sharp also described a catalogue of sexual, physical and emotional violence at St Ninian’s in Falkland, Fife, between 1971 and 1975.

Mr Sharp from Glasgow, said the abuse had left him with “lifelong trauma”.

The independent Scottish Child Abuse inquiry is looking in detail at historical abuse of children in residential care.

Mr Sharp urged inquiry chairwoman Lady Smith, to piece together the “jigsaw” of victims’ accounts and called for a “national discussion” on the subject.

The 60-year-old, who has waived his right to anonymity, was put into care after his mother died when he was aged one.

He stayed in several institutions before going to the Catholic-run care home in Fife.

He told how he was groomed by one of the religious brothers, who would tell him he loved him, which “no-one had ever done” before.

The inquiry heard the then-12-year-old was later raped.

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.

FARGO (ND)
KFGO TV

June 7, 2019

By Jim Monk

The Diocese of Fargo has been investigating allegations of clergy sex abuse of minors that date back “several decades.” The information was revealed to KFGO News in response to a question regarding when the diocese plans to release a list of credibly accused priests.

The statement, from Bishop John Folda, says the diocese is “conducting a review of possible allegations of abuse of minors going back several decades.” Folda says a report will be released after the review is complete.

Diocese Spokesman Paul Braun says a timeline for releasing the list has not been determined. “Not at this time. We want to make sure we have everything in order and completed first.”“All the Catholic bishops, including the bishop in the Diocese of Fargo are feeling intense public pressure” according to Jeff Anderson, a St. Paul based attorney who advocates for clergy sex abuse victims across the nation.“I’m glad to hear they’re working on it. I’m despaired that they haven’t done more sooner” Anderson said. “There’s a fierce urgency for Catholic bishops to come cleaner than they have.”

Folda also says the Diocese of Fargo will review its policies to make sure they are in conformity with the new norms issued by Pope Francis as well as the guidelines approved by the U.S. conference OF catholic bishops.

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WASHINGTON (DC)
Catholic News Service

June 7, 2019

By Greg Erlandson

When the bishops gather in Baltimore June 11-14, their meeting will be anything but pro forma.

Instead, they will have some major decisions to make that may determine how quickly they are able to rebuild trust with their fellow Catholics following a series of recent exposes, allegations and scandals regarding bishops themselves.

“This is going to be a working meeting,” said one observer, implying the likelihood of vigorous discussion and debate as the bishops seek to approve a series of proposals dealing with the investigation of abuse or cover up of abuse by bishops.

The attention of the bishops and the dozens of news media who will be following the proceedings will be focused on four action items.

The most important of these, and perhaps the one most likely to be debated, concerns the directives for the implementation of the recent “motu proprio,” or church law, issued by Pope Francis and governing complaints directed against clergy or church leaders regarding the sexual abuse of minors or vulnerable persons.

The “motu proprio,” known by its Latin title “Vos estis lux mundi” (“You are the light of the world”), grew out of the extraordinary gathering of the presidents of the world’s bishops’ conferences Feb. 21-24 in Rome. The “motu proprio” modified existing church law to bolster laws regarding clergy sexual abuse, including protection for whistleblowers and condemnation of any sort of cover-ups of such abuse.

While many of the directives of the “motu proprio” regarding clergy have already been implemented in the United States with its 2002 “Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People,” the action items before the bishops concern allegations of abuse or negligence on the part of bishops. Bishops were not explicitly included in the charter because authority over the bishops and their discipline rests with the pope himself.

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NEW YORK (NY)
Wall Street Journal

June 7, 2019

By Christopher Weaver

When employees at a U.S. Indian Health Service facility here saw a video of their maintenance man disappearing with a 16-year-old patient into a private bathroom, they strongly suspected he was sexually involved with her.

After two staff members questioned the girl, she dragged a chair to the bathroom shower and tried to hang herself from the curtain rod, according to internal documents and people familiar with the September 2016 incident.

Although suspected sexual abuse of minors on Indian reservations is supposed to be reported to law-enforcement officials and social workers, several employees said an IHS manager told them not to say anything.

Months later, the maintenance man, then 47 years old, was told he was fired over the incident—then unfired. He returned to work at the Unity Healing Center, a teens-only residential substance-abuse treatment facility, although by then there was a federal investigation into his conduct. His duties included reviewing safety incident reports, including those about sex abuse.

The IHS, which provides health care for 2.6 million Native Americans has allowed employees accused of sexual misconduct to continue working and has struggled to meet U.S. requirements for reporting such allegations, a Wall Street Journal investigation found. At Cherokee, no one contacted law enforcement about the maintenance man until about seven months after the incident, and senior agency officials didn’t intervene.

In February, the Journal and the PBS series Frontline reported that IHS pediatrician Stanley Patrick Weber had sexually assaulted young male patients, and that the agency ignored warnings and tried to silence whistleblowers over two decades. The day the Journal/Frontline report was published, the IHS announced a written policy to improve its handling of sexual-abuse allegations.

Yet in interviews in early April, more than two months after the new policy was enacted, employees of the North Carolina facility said they hadn’t yet gotten any details about the new policy or received any training. The Cherokee case suggests that some of the problems that enabled Mr. Weber’s misconduct persist.

Beverly Cotton, the IHS leader of the region that includes North Carolina, said in an interview she thought the subsequent federal investigation of the Cherokee incident had failed to substantiate the misconduct allegations, and that Unity’s policies complied with federal law. “If there was a report of sexual misconduct and a supervisor advised another licensed provider not to report that, both of them hold responsibility,” she said. Law-enforcement officials said the federal investigation is continuing.

A White House task force is investigating the Weber case and the agency’s policies for handling sexual abuse. At a meeting in Albuquerque, N.M., in May, task force members discussed weaknesses they had discovered in the agency’s sex-abuse reporting practices, including confusion among staff members, and a lack of standard policies.

“There is a lack of clarity when it comes to the immediate steps that need to be taken to report suspected child abuse,” said Trent Shores, the U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Oklahoma and a task force leader. He said the task force is examining whether IHS employees understood their legal obligation to report child abuse, and whether any supervisors might have discouraged such reports.

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PARIS (FRANCE)
LaCroix International

June 7, 2019

By Robert Mickens

“If you want to be priest, lie!”

That was supposed to be a punch line in “Mass Appeal,” a comedy-drama written by American Catholic playwright Bill C. Davis.

First staged in 1980, it was made into a film four years later.In the screen version Jack Lemmon stars as Father Tim Farley, a popular pastor of an affluent parish in Connecticut. He’s a friendly, feel-good type of priest whose homilies are carefully designed to avoid challenging or upsetting his generous parishioners.

Fr. Farley drives a late-model Mercedes-Benz, loves his wine and Scotch, and spends his day-off at the racetrack. He is “considered to be one of the best priests” in the diocese.

One day he’s asked to mentor Mark Dolson (Željko Ivanek), a highly idealistic young deacon who risks being blocked from priestly ordination because he hasn’t toed the line in the seminary.

Mark’s main offence is that he strongly defended two seminarians that were expelled for a suspected homosexual relationship.

The seminary rector (Charles Durning) thus suspects Mark is also gay.

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

LAFAYETTE (LOUISIANA)
KATC News

June 7, 2019

Convicted St. Landry Parish priest Michael Guidry has asked a judge to reconsider the 10-year sentence he received for molesting the son of his deacon.

Back in April, Guidry was sentenced to 10 years in prison for child molestation, with three years suspended – meaning he will serve as much as seven years in prison.

His attorneys filed a motion for reconsideration of sentence in May. A hearing has been set for July, court records indicate.

Guidry, 76, who most recently served at Saint Peter’s Church in Morrow, pleaded guilty in March to molesting a deacon’s son after giving him alcohol.

Guidry faced 5 to 10 years in prison. As part of his plea deal, Guidry was placed on the sex offender registry.

The former pastor of St. Peter’s Church in Morrow was arrested in June 2018 after a deacon’s son, Oliver Peyton, came forward to allege the priest had given him alcohol and molested him. In December 2018, Guidry was formally charged with molestation of a juvenile by the St. Landry Parish District Attorney.

Before handing down Guidry’s sentence, Judge Alonzo Harris heard witness testimony from the victim’s parents and brother who gave emotional statements calling for the maximum sentence for a man that they described as a “wolf in shepherd’s clothing.”

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.

LONDON (ENGLAND)
Catholic Herald

June 6, 2019

By Christopher Altieri

Cardinal Daniel DiNardo, the president of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops and Archbishop of Galveston-Houston, is facing renewed public scrutiny after the Associated Press published a report on Tuesday, detailing accusations that DiNardo mishandled an allegation of sexual misconduct against a high-ranking priest in his archdiocese.

The Archdiocese of Galveston-Houston released a statement on Tuesday saying it “categorically rejects” the AP story, which the statement describes as “unprofessional, one-sided reporting”. “At each step in this matter,” the statement continues, “Cardinal DiNardo has reacted swiftly and justly — and has always kept the welfare of the Pontikeses in mind.” The Tuesday statement from the archdiocese also says, “A number of the quotes attributed to the Cardinal are an absolute fabrication.”

The story comes just a week before the US bishops’ spring meeting, at which they are slated to debate and vote on accountability measures for bishops. The news also has possible repercussions for Rome and Pope Francis, as it raises questions about how the new universal procedural norms for reporting and investigating allegations of abuse and cover-up will work.

Texas authorities, meanwhile, are investigating the accused priest, Galveston-Houston’s former vicar general, Mgr Frank Rossi, in connection with the complaint detailed in the AP story. Alessandro Gisotti, director of the Holy See Press Office, confirmed for the Catholic Herald that a complaint was received by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, is currently under review.

Laura Pontikes, 55, claims Mgr Rossi “seduced” her during the course of protracted spiritual counselling. She alleges that he induced her to perform sex acts during their counselling sessions, and that they had sexual intercourse on numerous occasions. AP reports that the archdiocese stated that it believed the relationship was consensual, and that it did not involve sexual intercourse.

The archdiocese sent Mgr Rossi for evaluation and treatment, and eventually released him to the diocese of Beaumont, Texas, where Mgr Rossi received an assignment from Bishop Curtis Guillory as pastor of a parish in the town of Woodville, Our Lady of the Pines.

Mgr Rossi was also a family confidant to whom Laura Pontikes’ husband, George, also allegedly turned for counsel in moments of distress — during the time Rossi was allegedly carrying on his inappropriate relationship with Mrs Pontikes. Mgr Rossi also allegedly convinced the couple to give more than $2 million to the Church over a period of nine years.

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

WASHINGTON (DC)
Religion News Service

June 7, 2019

Pope Francis has repeatedly called out the clerical culture’s danger to the Catholic Church and its faithful, for example, calling clericalism “our ugliest perversion.” Now a nationwide Catholic priests’ organization and two international lay reform groups have developed the BridgeDialogues: Laity & Clergy re-Imagining Church Together to show Catholics what they can do to recognize and prevent this perversion which blocks the laity from achieving their full potential in the Church.

Clericalism has been defined in various ways. In a 2011 report criticizing the Church’s “Study of the Causes and Context of the Sexual Abuse Crisis,” VOTF defined clericalism as “an overriding set of beliefs and behaviors in which the clergy view themselves as different, separate, and exempt from the norms, rules and consequences that apply to everyone else in society.” As the Pope has said, “Clerics feel they are superior, they are far from the people,” and clericalism “can be fostered by priests or by lay people” where the laity show clergy excessive deference because they assume the clergy are morally superior.

The BridgeDialogues is a collaborative effort of the Association of U.S. Catholic Priests, FutureChurch, and Voice of the Faithful. They offer:

Prompts for opening up discussions addressing clericalism, including topics such as the subtle ways that language and pastoral relationships can feed clericalism;
Examples of how you experience clericalism barriers and what you can do about them;
Tips for how you can guard against clericalism in your own behaviors, while removing the barriers others may use to hold you on “your side” of the lay/clergy divide.

The BridgeDialogues’ many resources are available online at here.

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.

Get Religion blog

June 7, 2019

By Julia Duin

A story just broke in Los Angeles the other day that has barely raised a ripple in U.S. media. However, Mexican newspapers and TV are transfixed by it.

Most Americans have never heard of this enormous 12,000-seat La Luz del Mundo church complex in Guadalajara. (A translated promo video is here). Built like a multi-tiered wedding cake, its concentric white scalloped walls turn various rainbow colors during festivals. It towers over the city and is Mexico’s largest evangelical Protestant church.

Its pastor, Naasón Joaquín García, was just arrested Monday at LAX and slapped with a bail set at $50 million, the highest ever imposed by a Los Angeles County judge. Imagine if Mexico had thrown Houston megachurch pastor Joel Osteen into jail. That’s the level we’re talking about.

The New York Times and Los Angeles Times are two of the American print outlets really covering this and even they are scraping for details about this church. From the New York Times:

The leader of La Luz del Mundo, a church with its headquarters in Mexico that claims to have more than one million followers worldwide, was charged Tuesday in Los Angeles with more than a dozen sex crimes, including allegations that he forced children to have sex and made them pose naked for photos, the authorities in California said.

The leader, Naasón Joaquín García, 50, was arrested Monday at Los Angeles International Airport, according to the California attorney general’s office. Mr. García is considered by La Luz del Mundo, which has locations in the Los Angeles area, to be an apostle of Jesus Christ.

I would have loved to have been a fly on the wall at the airport that morning. Here’s this man walking onto U.S. soil expecting to visit his four daughter congregations in southern California when –- WHAM -– the police show up.

In a 19-page complaint filed in Los Angeles County Superior Court on Tuesday, prosecutors said there were four victims, three of whom were children. One child and a woman were raped, prosecutors said in the complaint. Mr. García is also accused of human trafficking and forcing children to perform oral sex.

The crimes occurred from 2015 until 2018 in Los Angeles County, the authorities said.

One of the people told a group of girls that if they went against the desires of Mr. García, “they were going against god,” according to the complaint. Children were told to perform “flirty” dances for Mr. García wearing “as little clothing as possible,” according to the complaint.

The complaint said Mr. García gave a group of children “a speech about a king having mistresses and stated that an apostle of god can never be judged for his actions.”

The rest of the piece doesn’t contain a whole lot more than what you can find in a Google search, so we’ll turn to the Los Angeles Times:

Prosecutors said they secured an unprecedented $50-million bail for the leader of La Luz del Mundo church because they feared his followers could raise money to free him from custody and that he would flee the country…

California Atty. Gen. Xavier Becerra on Thursday said that to his knowledge Naason Joaquin Garcia’s bail was the highest ever imposed on someone in Los Angeles County.

“We have a great apprehension that Mr. Garcia will raise the money to get a bond to bail himself out,” Becerra said. “We have provided the court information to back up the credible fear we have.”

The paper then quoted a local defense attorney saying bail rarely goes over $1 million or in very unusual cases, $2 million. The bail was originally set at $25 million and Becerra doubled that. If you doubt this church has money, get a load of some of the photos of this place here.

For reporters wanting to follow up on this place, do a look-see for local branches of Luz del Mundo near you. Here in the Pacific Northwest, I was surprised to find daughter churches in Canby, Ore., and in south Seattle. Here is a video of the pastor’s followers sobbing over his arrest.

Their doctrine is similar to Oneness Pentecostals: They believe in being baptized in Jesus’ name, not in the name of the Trinity. The church has been led by a family dynasty with the imprisoned Garcia being the grandson of the founder.

TheMexicanLabyrinth.com has a good story about the less-than-savory reputation of Samuel Joaquin Flores, the father of the imprisoned pastor, and the church’s cult-like aspects. A Sacramento TV station has another read on the arrest and this video shows followers marching by the pastor (who is standing on a balcony overlooking the crowd) giving him Nazi-like salutes.

The Associated Press did the best story I could find on the question everyone must wonder: Why was this man arrested in Los Angeles and not in Mexico?

The fundamentalist Christian church, whose name translates to The Light of the World, was founded in 1926 by Joaquin García’s grandfather. His father also led the church and was the subject of child sex abuse allegations in 1997, but authorities in Mexico never filed criminal charges.

The accusations were particularly painful for a church that has tried to cultivate an image for its law-abiding, hard-working, conservatively-dressing people in Mexico — a country where it claims about 1.8 million followers. Its male members favor suits and short hair, and female members wear veils that cover their hair and modest dresses. There are about 1 million U.S. members…

Here we go again. Actually, “Pentecostal” would be a better descriptor than “fundamentalist.”

The church also believes there was no salvation on Earth from the death of the Apostle John around A.D. 96 to 1926 when the church was founded. Which definitely consigns a lot of folks to hell. For more videos on their beliefs, click here and here.

The arrest is sure to prove an embarrassment for Mexico, in part because similar allegations have never resulted in charges there and in part because the church has long had political influence.

“It shows the enormous difference between the quality of law enforcement in Mexico and the United States,” said sociologist Bernardo Barranco of the Center for the Study of Religions in Mexico. “In Mexico, unfortunately, there is an innate protection for clergy, not just for the Luz del Mundo.”

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

SAN DIEGO (CA)
NBC 7 News

June 7, 2019
By Stefanie Dazio and John Antczak

California’s Attorney General, Xavier Becerra, said Thursday at a press conference that he believes there are more victims of child sex abuse than those listed in charges against the leader of Mexico-based megachurch La Luz del Mundo and several followers.

California’s top prosecutor said Thursday that he believes there are more victims of child sex abuse than those listed in charges against the leader of Mexico-based megachurch La Luz del Mundo and several followers.

“It would be hard to believe that, based on the information that we’re collecting, that it’s only these four individuals,” Attorney General Xavier Becerra said at a press conference, urging any victims to come forward.

La Luz del Mundo leader Naasón Joaquín García and two co-defendants were arrested in California this week and a fourth remains at large. They face a 26-count felony complaint that alleges crimes including child rape, statutory rape, molestation, human trafficking, child pornography and extortion.

Church officials have denounced the charges as slander and defamation and said Joaquín García remains the spiritual leader of La Luz del Mundo, which claims more than 5 million members worldwide.

García’s legal team is expected to speak Friday at a 10 a.m. news conference in Los Angeles.

“He is the epitome of love and care and respect,” Jack Freeman, a minister in San Bernadino and the church’s United States spokesman, said Thursday outside a temple in East Los Angeles. “Everything that he does and teaches and he stands for goes against these allegations.”

Freeman also decried Becerra’s remarks as “immature and unnecessary for a man of that position.

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.

RADNOR (PA)
CBS 3 TV News

June 5, 2019

An employee at Archbishop Carroll High School has been charged for allegedly sexually assaulting a former student, the Delaware County District Attorney’s Office announced. Thirty-three-year-old Christopher Serpentine was arrested Wednesday.

Police say Serpentine had an inappropriate relationship with a student between April and June 2017 while he was the school’s director of communications. According to authorities, the victim came forward last month.

Serpentine, the school’s theater director, is charged with four counts of institutional sexual assault, officials say.

He is the second Archbishop Carroll High School employee arrested on sexual assault charges in the past three months.

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

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

June 6, 2019

With the latest news that another employee from Philadelphia’s Archbishop Carroll High School has been arrested for sexual abuse, we are concerned about the culture at the school that has allowed at least two sexually violent men to slip through their screening process. We hope that administrators will take a serious look at their background check and safety verification policies to see what has gone so drastically wrong.

Two arrests in the past three months is a sign of a significant problem and we hope that secular professionals in law enforcement will be looking deeper into the situation at this school. Children need – and deserve – a safe and welcoming environment to learn and grow in and it is clear that more needs to be done at Archbishop Carroll High School to create this kind of environment.

We hope that parents of students, both past and present, will check with their children and ensure they or their friends weren’t hurt by someone at this school or elsewhere. And we hope those parents will also demand answers from their school administrators in order to ensure that no other children are put at risk.

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.

American Conservative blog

June 5, 2019

By Rod Dreher

The Washington Post has the goods on Catholic Bishop Michael Bransfield of Wheeling, W. Va., whose resignation last fall when he reached the age of 75 was swiftly accepted by Rome, which then ordered an investigation into Bransfield’s tenure. Excerpts:

In the years before he was ousted for alleged sexual harassment and financial abuses, the leader of the Catholic Church in West Virginia gave cash gifts totaling $350,000 to fellow clergymen, including young priests he is accused of mistreating and more than a dozen cardinals in the United States and at the Vatican, according to church records obtained by The Washington Post.

Bishop Michael J. Bransfield wrote the checks from his personal account over more than a decade, and the West Virginia diocese reimbursed him by boosting his compensation to cover the value of the gifts, the records show. As a tax-exempt nonprofit, the diocese must use its money only for charitable purposes.

The gifts — one as large as $15,000 — were detailed in a draft of a confidential report to the Vatican about the alleged misconduct that led to Bransfield’s resignation in September. The names of 11 powerful clerics who received checks were edited out of the final report at the request of the archbishop overseeing the investigation, William Lori of Baltimore.

Lori’s name was among those cut. He received a total of $10,500, records show.

The Post obtained both versions of the report, along with numerous emails and financial records.

Ha! Archbishop Lori covered for himself and the other powerful clerics in the report sent to Rome. These guys don’t know what honesty is. Lori told the Post that he didn’t see why those men’s names should be in the report, because there is no evidence that they did wrong by accepting the money. That is true, but basic accountability matters more than covering the rears of the episcopal class.

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.

Get Religion blog

June 7, 2019

By Bobby Ross Jr.

“Bishop spent millions on self.”

That’s the crisp, concise way that the front page of today’s Washington Post boils down the newspaper’s bombshell report on the former Catholic bishop of West Virginia.

As The American Conservative’s Rod Dreher put it in a blog post titled “Bishop Bransfield’s Lush Live,” the Post “has the goods” on the bishop, who resigned last fall.

Yes, indeed.

Here’s a big chunk of the top of the story by religion writer Michelle Boorstein and two investigative reporting colleagues, Shawn Boburg and Robert O’Harrow Jr.:

In the years before he was ousted for alleged sexual harassment and financial abuses, the leader of the Catholic Church in West Virginia gave cash gifts totaling $350,000 to fellow clergymen, including young priests he is accused of mistreating and more than a dozen cardinals in the United States and at the Vatican, according to church records obtained by The Washington Post.

Bishop Michael J. Bransfield wrote the checks from his personal account over more than a decade, and the West Virginia diocese reimbursed him by boosting his compensation to cover the value of the gifts, the records show. As a tax-exempt nonprofit, the diocese must use its money only for charitable purposes.

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.

DENVER (CO)
Crux

June 7, 2019

By Charles Collins

As the U.S. bishops prepare to meet next week for their general assembly in Baltimore, they must be hoping it won’t be a repeat of this one.

The bishops were hoping to finalize a tough new policy on child sex abuse and – even more importantly – abuse cover-up, after the Vatican put a halt on the issue during the USCCB’s fall assembly last year. Since then, there has been a Vatican abuse summit and new legislation from the Vatican to battle abuse and cover-up, meaning the possibility of a “good news” ending to the meeting was in the cards.

But now new scandals are likely to overshadow the meeting.

At the beginning of this week, the Associated Press published a story about a woman accusing a top official in the Archdiocese of Galveston-Houston of sexual misconduct. This story was followed by a Washington Post report on a confidential investigation into impropriety under Bishop Michael Bransfield in the Diocese of Wheeling-Charleston. On Thursday, Crux came out with a story about how various Church institutions passed the buck when a seminarian complained about sexual abuse at the national seminary in Washington, DC.

These stories did not involve the abuse of minors, but did involve sexual impropriety with adults. This means the bishops will be trying to find a solution to one systematic crisis, just as another one is exploding in the papers.

Sexual misconduct with adults is a broad area of offense, especially for a celibate clergy. It can include anything from a brief fling with a willing partner to a sexual assault. Current Vatican legislation generally only covers “vulnerable adults” – that is, those without the full use of reason, although Pope Francis’s most recent law – released in May and called Vos estis lux mundi – defines a vulnerable person as “any person in a state of infirmity, physical or mental deficiency, or deprivation of personal liberty which, in fact, even occasionally, limits their ability to understand or to want or otherwise resist the offence.”

The new legislation also covers those who are forced into sexual acts by “violence or threat or through abuse of authority.”

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.

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

June 7, 2019

The head of a large, independent Mexico-based church has just been arrested in California on charges of human trafficking and child rape but remains the spiritual leader of the group. We applaud Attorney General Xavier Becerra for bringing these charges and hope other AGs across the nation will emulate his actions in this case. For the safety of children and vulnerable adults, we also call on church officials to suspend the accused while the legal process plays out.

Naasón Joaquín García of the La Luz del Mundo church will be arraigned on Monday in Los Angeles Superior Court. But the initial evidence against him is substantial so it is crucial that vulnerable adults and innocent kids are protected from him immediately. That can best happen if his church staff and colleagues oust him from his role, even if it is just temporarily. We hope they will act promptly but prudently.

AG Becerra is also holding a news conference to urge other victims to come forward, a smart and compassionate move. The investigation against Joaquín García was initially prompted by a call into AG Becerra’s abuse hotline, so we hope this example will encourage other AGs around the country to set up a hotline of their own and be sure to include all religious groups (not just Catholics) as they reach out to victims of religious and institutional sexual violence.

We are grateful to the church members who are cooperating with law enforcement. That takes real courage. We hope every single person who saw, suspected or suffered crimes in the La Luz del Mundo church will call the AG, get outside help, start to recover and help protect the vulnerable.

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

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

June 7, 2019

The brother of a notorious imprisoned cult leader who heads his own secretive sect is now re-establishing himself and his followers in northern Minnesota. We hope that neighbors and law enforcement stay vigilant and warn children and vulnerable adults about his history and new compound.

Seth Jeffs fled from Texas and resettled in Minnesota following the arrest of his brother, Warren Jeffs, the longtime leader of the Fundamentalist Church of the Latter Day Saints. The cult has been described as “a polygamist sex cult” and attracted the attention of law enforcement due to their practice of marrying underage girls to adult men.

We applaud local residents who are using an environmental law to challenge Jeffs’ construction. Rather than be passive about the potentially dangerous man in their midst, these citizens have chosen to organize in order to protect the vulnerable within their communities. We hope other adults around the country will follow this example and find ways in their own communities to safeguard the vulnerable.

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.

SACRAMENTO (CA)
CBS 13 News

June 6, 2019

By Marissa Perlman

Attorney General Xavier Becerra is calling for potential abuse victims to come forward.

He’s investigating top leaders at La Luz Del Mundo, a religious organization based out of Mexico. Nasson Joaquin Garcia, the self-proclaimed apostle and church leader, is accused of child rape, sex trafficking, and child pornography.

“There is a real fear because he has his church more than 1-million followers that he will raise the money and he will bail himself out,” said Becerra.

Garcia’s is the highest bail ever set in Los Angeles County history, $50 million dollars.

Garcia and three other religious leaders, one still at large, are all accused of luring young people from the megachurch into sex trafficking.

“Any families of the young girls, they are probably very frightened, very confused,” Becerra said.

The megachurch, with a home in South Sacramento, is close-knit. Parishioners view Garcia as Godly, a self-proclaimed apostle.

“People would call this a case of brainwashing as these families are influenced,” Becerra.

He says some of these families depended on the church, even donating their livelihood to the cause. Now Becerra is calling for other victims to come forward to help him prosecute this case.

“No law of God would permit to occur what Nasson Joaquin Garcia is alleged to have committed. He committed crimes and we’re going to prove that you don’t do that to children,” Becerra said.

Garcia, now behind bars in LA, claims he is an innocent man.

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.

SYRACUSE (NY)
Post Standard

June 7, 2019

By Julie McMahon

Syracuse’s next Roman Catholic bishop will take over leadership of an institution during perhaps its most difficult period.

Father Douglas Lucia, 56, will step into the highest post in the Syracuse diocese later this year, amid church closings and heightened international attention on the Catholic church’s handling of the clergy sex abuse scandal. Lucia takes the reins from Bishop Robert Cunningham, who has served for 10 years as Syracuse’s religious leader.

Lucia brings to his role a background in canon law and experience working with new priests and managing his own parishes as a pastor in the Ogdensburg diocese.

Though he was called to serve unexpectedly — bishops are selected by the Pope in a secretive process — Lucia said he believes he can help the church and its followers through this difficult time.

A twin brother and avid Red Sox fan, Lucia shared personal stories and answered questions about his role in the church during a wide-ranging interview with syracuse.com. Lucia took questions over the phone from his current post in Ogdensburg, as he prepares for the transition to his new role in August.

The interview is lightly edited for length and clarity.

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

NEW SOUTH WALES (AUSTRALIA)
The Australian

June 7, 2019

By Tessa Akerman

Cardinal George Pell could be on trial again next year, this time on civil claims that he knew former Christian Brother Ted Bales was sexually abusing children and did nothing to protect potential victims.

A man who was abused by Bales, formerly known as Edward Dowlan, has brought the suit against Pell, the Catholic Education Commission, Ballarat Bishop Paul Bird and Melbourne Archbishop Peter Comensoli.

The man was abused by Bales at Cathedral College in East Melbourne in the early 1980s.

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.

BALTIMORE (MD)
Baltimore Sun

June 7, 2019

By Jonathan M. Pitts

The president of a national group that monitors the conduct of Roman Catholic priests criticized Baltimore Archbishop William E. Lori on Thursday for his role in a report to the Vatican that omitted information about large gifts Lori and other bishops received.

Terry McKiernan of Bishop-Accountability.org said Lori’s decision to delete mention that he and other high-ranking clerics had been given cash gifts over the years by West Virginia bishop Michael J. Bransfield — whom Lori was investigating — was “head-shaking.”

Lori had been charged by the Vatican with investigating Bransfield over allegations that included lavish spending of church funds.

McKiernan said Lori’s editing of a draft report was “especially embarrassing” because it created the appearance of Lori “participating in the very malfeasance he had been brought in to put a stop to.”

“There’s nothing good you can say about it,” McKiernan said.

In September, Pope Francis asked for the resignation of Bransfield, the longtime bishop of the Diocese of Wheeling-Charleston in West Virginia, in the wake of allegations he had engaged in a pattern of sexual and financial misconduct throughout his 13 years in the position.

The pope appointed Lori to oversee the diocese on an interim basis and gave him the authority to direct an investigation into the allegations against Bransfield.

The five-person lay panel Lori assembled to run the inquiry completed a detailed report in February.

The report found that Bransfield had indeed behaved inappropriately toward multiple priests and seminarians, including “a consistent pattern of sexual innuendo and overt suggestive comments and actions toward those … over whom [he] had authority,” and spent millions in diocesan funds on travel, liquor, luxury items and more.

It also reported that Bransfield gave more than $350,000 in gifts to fellow clergymen. Recipients included Cardinal Donald Wuerl, who recently retired as the Archbishop of Washington, Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York, and Lori, who was listed as a recipient of at least $7,500.

But Lori asked that the names of all gift recipients, including himself and other top clerics, be left out.

The Washington Post discovered the discrepancy between the drafts as part of an investigation into the Bransfield case and published a story describing the edits Wednesday.

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.

PARIS (FRANCE)
La Croix International

June 7, 2019

A faction of Catholic priests in Kenya who set up their own church years ago to circumvent the Vatican’s strict celibacy rule see themselves as a solution the clerical sex abuse crisis.

Peter Njogu, a self-proclaimed bishop, said that after falling in love with a nurse in Rome, he was distressed at hearing tales of priests having “secret families.”

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

BAKERSFIELD (CA)
23 ABC News

June 7, 2019

A new report from Los Angeles law firm Jeff Anderson & Associates details the names and some of the allegations of sexual misconduct against 43 clergymen from the Roman Catholic Diocese of Fresno. Among those 43 clergymen, at least 15 were found to have connections to Kern County.

The Anderson Report on Sexual Abuse in the Diocese of Fresno states that the allegations made in the report have either been “settled or have not been fully evaluated in a civil or criminal court.” The report states that, “the allegations should be considered just allegations and should not be considered proved or substantiated in a court of law.”

The report claims to detail a timeline and analysis of sexual abuse within the Diocese of Fresno, “including a discussion of how the highest Church officials enabled the abusers and covered up crimes of sexual misconduct and abuse,” according to the report.

The report states that from the 43 clergymen listed for alleged abuse, these 15 have connections to Kern County:

1.Bp. Tod D. Brown

1964-1967 Our Lady of Perpetual Help, Bakersfield, Calif.(MF)

After Bp. Tod D. Brown was ordained, he spent the next two and half decades rising through the ranks of the Catholic Church. By 1988, he was named Bishop of Boise. After a decade in Boise, Bp. Brown returned to California as Bishop of Orange. Following his new appointment, news broke alleging that Bp. Brown had sexually abused a minor boy in 1965. Subsequently, it was uncovered that, despite his charade of increased sex-abuse transparency, he had a storied history of repudiating victims, covering up sexual abuse, and continually employing perpetrators. Bp. Brown’s status as a priest, current whereabouts, and whether he has access to children are unknown.

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

NEW YORK (NY)
Crux

June 7, 2019

By Christopher White

When the U.S. Catholic bishops gather in Baltimore next week, the theme of their three-day meeting could largely be summed up as “unfinished business.”

For starters, there’s the unfinished business from seven months ago of enacting new guidelines for bishop accountability. Just ahead of last November’s meeting, the Vatican halted plans to vote for new guidelines for bishops, citing canonical concerns and faulting the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops’ (USCCB) leadership for not providing Rome adequate time to review the proposals.

More broadly, however, there’s the unfinished business from seventeen years ago of closing the gap in the Dallas Charter – the landmark 2002 document establishing new norms for child protection, which created a “zero tolerance” policy for a priests guilty of abuse, but omitted bishops from the same oversight.

In many respects, the Vatican has done the heavy lifting for this meeting, with last month’s new universal Church law, Vos estis lux mundi (“You are the light of the world”) issued by Pope Francis, which makes it mandatory for all clerics and members of religious orders to report cases of clerical sexual abuse to Church authorities, including when committed by bishops or cardinals.

Known as a motu proprio, meaning a change to Church law under the pope’s authority, the law went into effect on June 1 and now it is up to bishops’ conferences from around the world to implement it on a local level, with a deadline of June 20, 2020 to have a system in place.

For cases in which a bishop is being accused of abuse or its cover-up, Vos estis relies on the metropolitan archbishop to conduct an investigation and allows for the involvement of lay experts in the process to ensure proper oversight and accountability.

When the U.S. bishops convene next Tuesday to Thursday, the “Directives for the Implementation of the Provisions of Vos estis lux mundi Concerning Bishops and their Equivalents,” will be put to a vote, which builds on the motu proprio’s framework and situates it in the U.S. context.

According to a draft of the proposed directives obtained by Crux, the 4-page document would establish a national third-party reporting system to receive complaints of abuse or cover-up and then report it to the appropriate ecclesial authorities.

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

KANSAS CITY (MO)
National Catholic Reporter

June 6, 2019

by Peter Feuerherd

A thousand dollars a month in liquor. Daily fresh flowers delivered to the diocesan office, costing up to $182,000 over 13 years, and $350,000 in gifts to priests, bishops and cardinals spread around the country and at the Vatican.

While Bishop Michael Bransfield led the Diocese of Wheeling-Charleston, West Virginia, with its reputation as a poor, isolated church, it’s the details of high living that spring out from an investigative report, details of which were published by The Washington Post June 5.

The report, directed by Archbishop William Lori of Baltimore, describes Bransfield ordering $4.6 million of renovations on his house in Wheeling and conducting a regular pattern of sexual harassment of seminarians and priests under his authority.

In a letter June 5 to the people of the diocese, Lori said that the report found that the accusations of sexual harassment were credible but did not involve minors. The investigators discovered that Bransfield tapped diocesan funds to pay for an opulent lifestyle that included paying for drug and alcohol abuse and extensive leisure travel.

“There is no excuse, nor adequate explanation, that will satisfy the troubling question of how his behavior was allowed to continue for as long as it did,” Lori wrote. In the letter, Lori acknowledged being a recipient of $7,500 in gifts from Bransfield, money which he said would be donated to Catholic Charities. He also said that Bransfield’s Wheeling house will be sold with the proceeds used to support sex abuse survivors.

As the U.S. bishops meet in Baltimore June 11-14, they are expected to vote on a “metropolitan” plan to discipline transgressing bishops. A vote on that plan, which calls upon archbishops to discipline wayward bishops with the assistance of lay review boards, is a crucial part of the agenda. Lori’s investigation is seen as a model of how that could work in practice.

Bishops who also received money that came from Diocese of Wheeling-Charleston funds included Cardinal Donald Wuerl ($10,000), Cardinal Timothy Dolan, Cardinal Raymond Burke, former papal nuncio Cardinal Carlo Maria Vigano and Cardinal Kevin Farrell, who received $29,000 to help renovate his Vatican residence. The late Cardinal Bernard Law also received $4,800.

The Diocese of Wheeling-Charleston benefitted from the proceeds of oil extracted from Texas property it was bequeathed in the early 20th century. The diocesan endowment, according to the Post, is valued at $230 million. Bransfield, according to the report, would be reimbursed with increases to his salary to pay for the gifts.

Until the Post story was released, details about Lori’s report were held in confidence. In comments on the Post story, Lori said that it was unfair to release the names of the recipients of Bransfield’s gifts, since they were unaware of his questionable financial activities.

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.

WAUSAU (WI)
Wausau Daily Herald

June 6, 2019

By Natalie Brophy

A former Northwoods Catholic priest convicted of sexually abusing children will be released into Lincoln County later this month.

Upon his release June 19, David J. Malsch, 80, will live at N4883A Lilac Lane in Gleason, a little over 20 miles east of Merrill, according to the Lincoln County Sheriff’s Office.

Malsch was ordained as a Catholic priest in 1967. He was first accused of sexual abuse while he was working at St. Patrick’s in Superior, according to bishopaccountability.org, a website that tracks abuse by Catholic priests. In 1979, Malsch gave two brothers, 12 and 13 years old, alcohol and showed them pornography. He tried to take off the 13-year-old’s pants, the Wausau Daily Herald reported. In the early 1980s, he sexually assaulted the younger brother in the rectory of St. Patrick’s and paid the boy for nude photos, according to the Daily Herald.

After that, according to Bishop Accountability, he was sent to a church-sponsored treatment center in Minnesota. Later that same year, he was reassigned to St. Joseph’s in Rhinelander and two years later, moved to St. Mary’s church in Tomahawk.

At St. Mary’s, Malsch was allowed to work with children who had emotional and learning problems, according to Bishop Accountability. In 1991, he was accused of sexually abusing a 14-year-old boy with learning disabilities. According to a Wausau Daily Herald report from 1999, Malsch took the boy to a hotel in Rib Mountain, gave him alcohol and took nude photos of him. Malsch also showed the boy pornography in the St. Mary’s rectory.

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.