ABUSE TRACKER

AFRICA
La Croix International

December 17, 2019

By Lucie Sarr

The Belgian Salesian province withheld information on pedophile priest, says president of the country’s Catholic bishops’ conference

Bishop Nestor-Désiré Nongo-Aziagbia heads the Diocese of Bossangoa, in the north-west Central African Republic, and serves as president of the country’s Catholic bishops’ conference.

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MONTREAL (CANADA)
Manitoulin Expositor

Dec. 23, 2019

Jesuits of Canada made a historic announcement last week which will further the healing for Canadian victims of sexual assault at the hands of Jesuits, including here on Manitoulin Island, when the religious order vowed to publish a list of all Jesuits who have been credibly accused of sexual assault since 1950.

“We hear the voice of the victims of childhood sexual abuse in Canada. Lists that provide the public with information about these men are important to healing. It is the right thing for us to do in the promotion of institutional transparency and accountability, an important step to help correct the causes of the crisis,” said Fr. Erik Oland, SJ, provincial of the Jesuits of Canada. “On behalf of the Jesuits, I apologize to the victims for the deep pain caused by Jesuits in the past.”

The Expositor contacted Jesuits of Canada following a Globe and Mail story that announced the development. Shortly thereafter, this newspaper received a statement and fact sheet from the organization in response to the Globe story.

Jesuits of Canada has enlisted King International Advisory Group, an independent auditor, to review all personnel and provincial files of Jesuits dating back to 1950. This will be used to create a list of all Jesuits in the organization’s service area (called a province), which includes all Canadian provinces and territories as well as Haiti.

Jesuits of Canada spokesperson José Sanchez told The Expositor that any priest who has been accused will be fully investigated back to the time they joined the order. The investigation will not be limited to 1950 and later; the province simply has not heard of any complaints before 1950.

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ROME (ITALY)
Catholic News Service

Dec. 23, 2019

By Cindy Wooden

Demonstrating a strong “chain of abuse,” the Legionaries of Christ said its founder, the late Father Marcial Maciel Degollado, sexually abused at least 60 minors and that at least another 51 youngsters were abused by Father Maciel’s victims or victims of his victims.

The Rome-based headquarters of the Legionaries released a report Dec. 21 looking at the “phenomenon of abuse of minors” by members of the order from its founding in 1941 through December 2019.

At the same time, the Legionaries of Christ in the United States released the names of four members who had been “active in ministry” in the United States and against whom there were “substantiated sexual abuse allegations.”

The commission that drafted the international report “identified 175 minors as victims of sexual abuse committed by 33 priests of the congregation” in the 78 years since the order’s founding, according to “available records.” The commission noted, however, that it “does not claim that its study could have discovered all cases” or that all victims have come forward.

“The vast majority of the victims were boys between the ages of 11 and 16,” the report said.

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JAMESTOWN (NY)
Post Journal

Dec. 23, 2019

By John Whittaker

A former priest at the St. John the Evangelist Roman Catholic Church in Sinclairville is the subject of a Child Victims Act lawsuit in state Supreme Court in Erie County.

The unnamed plaintiff alleges that Fr. Gerald Jasinski sexually assaulted, raped and committed battery against the child on May 17, 1969, in the rectory at St. John’s in Sinclairville.

“As a direct result of (Jasinski’s) conduct described herein, the plaintiff has suffered, and continues to suffer, great physical and emotional pain and suffering of mind and body, shock, emotional distress, physical manifestations of emotional distress, flashbacks, embarassment, loss of self-esteem, disgrace, humiliation, loss of faith and trust, and will incur expenses for medical psychological treatment, treatment and counseling.

Jasinski’s accuser, identified only as a West Seneca resident, alleges that Jasinski groomed relationships with children by spending time and attention on them, building trust and then abusing the youths. The accuser states Jasinski invited the plaintiff and two other youths to the St. John’s rectory in Sinclairville to fish and spend the night. Jasinski then allegedly gave the youth alcohol, directed him to a bed in the rectory and sexually abused the boy.

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EAST PROVIDENCE (RI)
WPRI-TV

December 21, 2019

By Sarah Doiron

[VIDEO]

It’s been a challenging year for the Catholic Church in Rhode Island.

Scandal rocked the town of Bristol over the summer when David Barboza, a well-known administrator at St. Mary’s Church, was accused of child molestation.

Files indicate the church was aware of the allegations against Barboza but allegedly did not take action.

On this week’s episode of Newsmakers, Bishop Thomas Tobin spoke about Barboza’s case for the first time and claimed he couldn’t say much because he didn’t remember “too much of the details.”

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VATICAN CITY
Reuters

December 21, 2019

By Philip Pullella

Sexual abuse of minors was rife among superiors of the Legionaires of Christ Catholic religious order, with at least 60 boys abused by its founder Father Marcial Maciel, a report by the group showed.

The report is important because for decades until 2006, including during all of the pontificate of Pope John Paul, the Vatican dismissed accusations by seminarians that Maciel had abused them sexually, some when they were as young as 12.

The order said the report, which was released on Saturday and covers the period since Maciel founded it in his native Mexico in 1941 to this year, was “an additional attempt (by the Legionaires) to confront their history”.

Maciel, who died in 2008, was perhaps the Roman Catholic Church’s most notorious paedophile, even abusing children he had fathered secretly with at least two women while living a double life and being feted by the Vatican and Church conservatives.

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LA PLATA (ARGENTINA)
Buenos Aires Times

December 22, 2019

The recent suicide of Eduardo Lorenzo and the alleged cover-up surrounding possible decades of abuse sparks renewed discussion about the crisis of the Catholic Church in Argentina and around the world.

Eduardo Lorenzo, an Argentine priest accused of a series of sexual abuses against children, committed suicide Monday, just hours after Judge Marcela Garmendia ordered his arrest.

The priest’s death renewed debates about the impact of the Catholic Church’s ongoing sex scandal and the inefficacy of attempted soutions thus far.

Monsignor John Kennedy, who runs the Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith (CDF), the Vatican entity responsible for processing clergy sex abuse complaints, told the Associated Press his office received a record 1,000 denunciations this year, describing the congregation as “overwhelmed” by a “tsunami.”

Argentina has joined the United States as one of the countries sending the highest number of cases to CDF.

According to law enforcement sources, Lorenzo’s body was found at the La Plata offices of Caritas, the Catholic social services organisation where he worked and lived. They found him “on the floor,” with multiple “blood stains and a firearm.”

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ROME (ITALY)
Crux

December 22, 2019

By John L. Allen Jr.

For most of human history, when someone was accused of a crime, whatever passed for a trial to assess guilt was a simple affair: Victim v. Defendant. Unsurprisingly, such “trials” often boiled down to who was more powerful, wealthier or better connected, and had only a passing relationship to justice.

In the late 17th century, Enlightenment philosopher John Locke argued that the progress of civilization required the state to supplant the victim as the accusing party in a criminal trial, in order to ensure neutrality and fairness.

“All private judgment of every particular member being excluded, the community comes to be umpire, by settled standing rules, indifferent, and the same to all parties,” Locke wrote. “There, and there only, is a civil society.”

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GERMANY
The Tablet

December 20, 2019

By Christa Pongratz-Lippitt

A sex abuse case in the German Catholic Church will also no longer be called a ‘despicable act’ but a ‘crime’.

The German bishops have tightened up their sexual abuse guidelines, making them binding on all dioceses for the first time.

The German bishops’ conference has announced the new guidelines will become law from 1 January next year and apply to the sexual abuse of minors and adults with special needs, such as people with disabilities, in the Church.

They will be published in each diocese’s official gazette. This is the first revision since 2013 and they will be reassessed again in five years’ time.

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VATICAN CITY
Catholic News Agency

December 21, 2019

By Michelle La Rosa

In recent weeks, CNA has been covering a Vatican financial scandal involving a multi-million-dollar investment fund, money donated by Catholics to support charity and Vatican ministries, and a pair of banks linked to money-laundering and bribery allegations.

The financial scandal is one of several unfolding at the Vatican, and covered by CNA. Having trouble keeping them straight? You’re not alone. This is the third in a series of CNA explainers, designed to help you keep track of the money trails in and out of the Vatican.

Here’s the Centurion Global scandal in a nutshell:

Centurion Global is an investment fund by which the Vatican Secretariat of State has invested tens of millions of dollars into Hollywood films, energy projects, and European startups. That investment, which has lost money while its managers have recouped millions in fees, involves fund managers connected to a Swiss bank that ran afoul of regulators and was shuttered – the same bank that partially financed a controversial London deal involving the Secretariat of State. The Centurion investment fund does its business with an unlikely pair of banks: both linked to a billion-dollar Venezuelan money laundering and bribery scandal. The Holy See announced earlier this month that the fund is under investigation.

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HARTFORD (CT)
Hartford Courant

December 22, 2019

By Dave Altimari

Facing a declining number of Catholics attending Mass, the Catholic Church closed churches and struggled with new revelations about abusive priests during the past decade.

In 2016, the church announced plans to close or consolidate dozens of parishes, citing fewer registered Catholic households and a shortage of priests. Since 1965, the Hartford Archdiocese reported, there has been a 69% decline in church attendance.

Meanwhile, a grand jury investigation in Pennsylvania in 2018 that led to hundreds of priests being accused of abuse rekindled the sexual abuse scandal that rocked the Catholic Church in Connecticut and around the country more than a decade ago.

Looking back over the past decade, Courant editors and reporters have selected Connecticut’s top news stories. The continuing challenges facing the Catholic Church were among the stories that shaped the decade.

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NEW SOUTH WALES (AUSTRALIA)
The Australian

Dec. 23, 2019

By Nicola Berkovic

Complaints about a sadistic Catholic pedophile were “a factor” in a decision to move him from South Australia to NSW, where he went on to abuse boys at one of Sydney’s leading schools.

A long-awaited report by former Victorian Supreme Court chief justice Marilyn Warren has found that at least three complaints were made about serial offender and former Jesuit brother Victor Higgs before he was moved interstate.

The complaints were made to the then head of school and rector, Father Frank Wallace, regarding Higgs’s conduct at St Ignatius College in Athelstone, in Adelaide’s east, according to a summary of the report.

The substance of at least some of those complaints was conveyed to the then Provincial, Father Francis Peter Kelly, the head of the Jesuits in Australia at the time.

Higgs was then transferred in 1970 to the prestigious St Ignatius College Riverview in Sydney.

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ROME (ITALY)
L’Espresso

Dec. 21, 2019

By Sandro Magister

This time as well, in the speech he gives every year to the Vatican curia before Christmas, Pope Francis has come out swinging at his unfortunate listeners.

Last year he went after the the Judases “who hide behind good intentions to stab their brothers and sow weeds.”

Two years ago he had pilloried the “trusted traitors” who “let themselves be corrupted by ambition or vainglory and, when they are gently removed, falsely declare themselves martyrs of the system, of the ‘uninformed pope,’ of the ‘old guard,’ … instead of reciting the ‘mea culpa’.”

And who is in the pope’s crosshairs this year? Below are the most biting passages from the speech given by the pope to the Roman curia on the morning of Saturday, December 21.

First, however, comes the news of another meeting that took place a few days ago between Francis and the cardinals. A meeting that started badly and ended even worse.

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ROME (ITALY)
Associated Press

Dec.22, 2019

By Nicole Winfield

The Legion of Christ religious order, which was discredited by its pedophile founder and the cult-like practices he imposed, says an internal investigation has identified 33 priests and 71 seminarians who sexually abused minors over the past eight decades.

A third of the priestly abusers were themselves victims of the Legion’s late founder, the Rev. Marcial Maciel, while others were victims of his victims — a multi-generational chain of abuse that confirms Maciel’s toxic influence spread throughout the order.

The Legion counted 175 victims of the priests, but didn’t provide a number for the victims of the seminarians, most of whom were never ordained and left the congregation.

The Legion released the statistics on Saturday, the same day Pope Francis accepted the resignation of the Legion’s biggest defender at the Vatican, Cardinal Angelo Sodano, as dean of the College of Cardinals.

Sodano, who was secretary of state under St. John Paul II, had for years blocked the Vatican from investigating sex abuse allegations against Maciel, even though the Vatican had documented evidence dating from the 1940s that he was a drug addict and pedophile. Under John Paul, however, Maciel was adored at the Vatican for his supposed orthodoxy and ability to produce donations and vocations.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Cathiolic 4 Change

Dec. 20, 2019

By a Philadelphia Survivor

There is a wonderful Christmas song by Amy Grant called “Grownup Christmas List”. It is one of my favorite and speaks to the true meaning of Christmas – compassion, happiness, peace. When listening to it the other day, I thought of my own Christmas List – a “Survivor’s Christmas List” for this year. My prayer is that all survivors receive at least one thing on this list:

– That people will stop making excuses regarding the cover-up of clergy abuse by saying “it was a different time back then” or “we viewed priests on a different level”. There is no excuse. Take ownership that there were crimes committed. Which leads me to #2 –

– It was a CRIME! It wasn’t a violation – an indiscretion – a lapse in judgement – a misunderstanding – an incident. IT WAS A CRIME. Let the media – the church – the commentators – the public – call it what it really was.

– That survivors, when they get the courage and strength to walk into a Roman Catholic Church, will not be subjected to prayers from the pulpit for the abusers of children that they may find forgiveness. Yes, this did happen at a mass that I attended. Abusers were prayed for in the same intention as those who were abused. NEVER put me in the same sentence as a criminal!

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ROME (ITALY)
Crux

Dec. 21, 2019

By Elise Harris

Pope Francis on Saturday announced the resignation of Italian Cardinal Angelo Sodano as the Dean of the College of Cardinals. Sodano has long faced criticism for his role in several clerical sexual abuse scandals. The pope also decreed a fixed term for the dean going forward.

Francis made the change in a Dec. 21 motu proprio, meaning a modification to a law issued on the pope’s own authority, in which he thanked the 92-year-old Sodano for “high service rendered” to the college in his 15 years as dean, and amended the policy that had been that whomever was elected to the position of dean essentially stayed there for life.

Going forward, a dean of the College of Cardinals will be elected to a five-year renewable term, after which he will be referred to as the “dean emeritus.”

A former Secretary of State under St. John Paul II, Sodano has long been a lightning-rod, emerging as one of the most controversial figures under both John Paul II and Benedict XVI, and in many ways, this reputation has followed him even in Francis’s papacy.

In part, that profile is due to abuse scandals with which he’s become associated.

From the Chilean sexual abuse crisis in 2018 back to the scandals of the 1990s and 2000s surrounding Legionaries of Christ founder Father Marcial Maciel and even abuse allegations in Germany, Sodano’s name has emerged in each case, typically attached to accusations that he either defended the abuser or tried to cushion their fall.

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DENVER (CO)
Catholic News Agency

Dec. 21, 2019

When Church historians look back on the last ten years, they’ll have several historic and important moments to study. And Catholics who’ve lived through the last decade may feel that changes, often one right after another, were both dizzying and exciting.

As a new decade begins on January 1, 2020, CNA offers a look back at some of the most important stories for the Church in the 2010s:

2013
Pope Benedict XVI announces his retirement

When Pope Benedict XVI announced that he would retire in February 2013, he was the first pope to relinquish his office since 1415. The pope emeritus said that he would “serve the Holy Church of God in the future through a life dedicated to prayer.”

Pope Francis, first Latin American pope, elected

After the resignation of Pope Benedict XVi, the conclave of cardinals elected Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio of Buenos Aires, who took the name Pope Francis. The pope is the first Latin American to be elected to the papacy, and the first Jesuit.

2014
Pope St. John Paul II and Pope St. John XXIII canonized

John Paul II had been beatified in 2011 by his successor, Pope Benedict XVI. John XXIII had been beatified in 2000, by Pope John Paul II.

The two were canonized together by Pope Francis.

Pope John XXIII convoked the Second Vatican Council, and Pope John Paul II, the first Polish pope, has been the longest-reigning pope since Vatican II, Pope Francis pointed out during the canonization.

At the canonization, Pope Francis praised John Paul II’s “untiring service, his spiritual guidance, and his extraordinary testimony of holiness.”

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NEW YORK (NY)
Daily News

Dec. 21, 2019

By Alvise Armellini

Pope Francis on Saturday called on the Vatican hierarchy to embrace change as he quoted a late progressive cardinal who warned that the Catholic Church was seriously behind the times.

“Cardinal Martini, in his last interview a few days before his death, said words that should make us reflect: ‘The church is 200 years out of date. Why don’t we rouse ourselves? Are we afraid?'” Francis said.

Italian Cardinal Carlo Maria Martini, a former Archbishop of Milan, was a leading liberal voice in the Catholic Church. Once seen as a possible pope, he died of Parkinson’s disease in August 2012.

The pope quoted the late cardinal in his traditional pre-Christmas address to the Roman Curia, the Vatican bureaucracy. He has used such occasions in the past to berate cardinals and other Curia members over their failings.

In his speech, Francis said the church needs to adapt to an era of “epochal change” and accept a historic loss of influence in secularized Western societies.

“We are no longer under a Christian regime because faith especially in Europe, but also in large parts of the West is no longer an obvious prerequisite of common life, and on the contrary, often it is even rejected, mocked, marginalized and ridiculed,” he said.

Secularization is a long-term trend in Western societies, but the Catholic Church has seen its standing further jeopardized by long-running clergy sex abuse and financial scandals.

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Patheos blog

Dec. 21, 2019

By Brian Fraga

Fulton Sheen was supposed to have been beatified today.

The Vatican signed off on the miracle. The date for the Beatification Mass was set. People from across the country had made travel plans. Final preparations, including the installation of a new handicapped-accessible ramp, were underway at the Cathedral of St. Mary of the Immaculate Conception in Peoria, Illinois.

All that is now on hold, possibly for good.

“The shock of this is so visceral,” said Rocco Palmo, the editor of Whispers in the Loggia who has done his own reporting on the Sheen story. As he also relayed on Twitter, Palmo told me that his Vatican sources have informed him that the Sheen cause is effectively dead. The Holy See never responded to his request for official comment.

“It’s just stunning,” Palmo said.

The main reason for the delay – or possible termination, if Palmo’s sources are right – of Bishop Sheen’s beatification seems to be related to concerns that revelations could soon surface that Bishop Sheen might have mishandled cases of clergy sex abuse when he headed the Diocese of Rochester, New York from 1966 to 1969.

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BATON ROUGE (LA)
The Advocate

Dec. 20, 2019

By Terry Robinson

Topping the news in 2019 for the Baton Rouge-area faith community was the naming of 37 clergy members credibly accused of abusing minors.

Bishop Michael Duca, of the Catholic Diocese of Baton Rouge, released the names during a news conference on Jan. 31, acknowledging and apologizing for the crimes of the clerics. The initial list included 14 diocesan priests, 15 from religious orders, a seminarian and seven priests assigned to the Archdiocese of New Orleans who had served in Baton Rouge.

Duca pledged to publicize any future allegations of abuse in the diocese. The list has since grown to more than 40 priests with potential for more.

The abuse reports go back decades in the 58-year-old Diocese of Baton Rouge, which covers 12 civil parishes. Some of the priests remained in ministry years after allegations against them.

Most of the abuse occurred under the leadership of Bishop Joseph Sullivan in the 1970s and early ’80s. Sullivan was also on the list for repulsive behavior.

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

Dec. 20, 2019

Six men have come forward and gone public with their allegations of abuse against priests who spent time in the dioceses of Camden and Trenton in New Jersey. These revelations have only been made possible by the window legislation that was passed this year and we hope this story will encourage lawmakers in other states to introduce and pass window legislation of their own.

According to the Courier Post, at least eight clergy or Catholic brothers have been named in lawsuits since the window went into effect on December 1. Each of these survivors had previously been barred by statutes of limitations from bringing information about their abusers and the enablers into the public. We applaud their courage in coming forward publicly because we know that this information will help better protect children and lead to safer communities in New Jersey.

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BUENOS AIRES (ARGENTINA)
Buenos Aires Times

Dec. 21, 2019

Eduardo Lorenzo, an Argentine priest accused of a series of sexual abuses against children, committed suicide Monday, just hours after Judge Marcela Garmendia ordered his arrest.

The priest’s death renewed debates about the impact of the Catholic Church’s ongoing sex scandal and the inefficacy of attempted soutions thus far.

Monsignor John Kennedy, who runs the Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith (CDF), the Vatican entity responsible for processing clergy sex abuse complaints, told the Associated Press his office received a record 1,000 denunciations this year, describing the congregation as “overwhelmed” by a “tsunami.”

Argentina has joined the United States as one of the countries sending the highest number of cases to CDF.

According to law enforcement sources, Lorenzo’s body was found at the La Plata offices of Caritas, the Catholic social services organisation where he worked and lived. They found him “on the floor,” with multiple “blood stains and a firearm.”

He had reportedly learnt of the arrest warrant just hours before, Efe reported.

The Network of Survivors of Ecclesiastic Abuse in Argentina issued a statement responding to Lorenzo’s suicide. “His death confirms the victims told and always tell the truth,” it said. “We highlight that even in this situation, the only victims are the survivors of Eduardo Lorenzo.”

The judge’s detention order arrived 11 years after Lorenzo was first denounced for alleged sexual abuse. Victims spoke out about a series of attacks that allegedly took place at San Benito church between 1990 and 1995 and at another church between 1999 and 2001. Both churches are in La Plata, Buenos Aires Province.

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

Dec. 20, 2019

Fr. Charles Lehmkuhl, a Jesuit from the Northeast Province who worked in Buffalo, NY, is the latest clergy to be accused in a lawsuit for sexual abuse in New York. We applaud Matthew Ebert for his courage in going public and hope his example inspires others to come forward.

Many bishops split hairs and refuse to list abusers from religious orders on their diocesan lists. According to BishopAccountability.org, the Diocese of Buffalo has been inconsistent in including these men. We hope Apostolic Administrator Edward Scharfenberger will choose to be completely transparent going forward. The victim in this case was a child in the Buffalo diocese and is due validation for the harm that was done to him.

The Child Victim Act continues to add to expose additional names of accused Catholic priests. Although Fr. Lehmkuhl is deceased, some of these alleged perpetrators may still be alive and in ministry. Each name that gets exposed helps to validate victims, protect children and inform the public, creating safer environments in churches and communities.

The CVA is obviously having a positive impact and the fact that Fr. Lehmkuhl was not listed on the Jesuits’ Northeast list demonstrates the need for the provincial of that province to examine his files even further. The sad fact is that when one victim comes forward, there are usually more who are dealing with their abuse silently. The USCCB itself estimates that, on average, each abusive priest has more than two victims.

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NEW YORK (NY)
Associated Press

December 19, 2019

By Wong Maye-E

[In this video, the great photographer Wong Maye-E talks about her work photographing the survivors of sexual assault, and about her most recent project with reporter Juliet Linderman, Sundays After, about the resilience of clergy abuse victims. The main article of that series links to other remarkable articles, with photographs, about each of the survivors. Some of those articles were blogged today in Abuse Tracker; several were blogged on Thursday. The full series:
– Salvador Bolivar
– Patrick Shepard
– Dorothy Small
– John Vai
– The Charbonneau Sisters
– Jacob Olivas
– Mark Belenchia]

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WYLIE (TX)
Associated Press

December 19, 2019

By Wong Maye-E and Juliet Linderman

[This article with photographs is part of the series Sundays After.]

It was the priest who taught Patrick Shepard to love basketball – how to dribble and block and position his body just so, to sink the perfect shot.

That is why, for many years, he wouldn’t touch a ball.

“There were so many bad memories,” he said. “I wanted to get as far away from it as I could.”

He was 10 years old when he moved into Chicago’s St. Charles Lwanga rectory and first encountered the Rev. Victor Stewart, who was the head priest, high school theology teacher, basketball coach and father figure for so many boys who came to live there.

For seven years, Shepard says, Stewart sexually abused him.

And then Shepard left St. Charles Lwanga to join the Navy, and struggle with the aftermath of a broken childhood. Shepard would find a way to survive, however imperfect and incomplete. Basketball would help.

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THE VILLAGES (FL)
Associated Press

December 19, 2019

By Wong Maye-E and Juliet Linderman

[This article with photographs is part of the series Sundays After.]

It’s been nine years since the trial that nearly killed John Vai.

He sat for depositions by church attorneys who called him a greedy liar and accused him of enticing the priest. He saw a secret he’d spent 40 years trying to forget splashed across the pages of his hometown newspaper. In a Delaware courtroom, over six weeks, he laid bare the details of his sexual abuse as a teen by the Rev. Francis G. DeLuca, a religion teacher at St. Elizabeth’s in Wilmington.

He became so angry, so manic, his behavior so erratic, his children stayed far away from him. He stopped sleeping.

The landmark jury award was hard won: $3 million from the parish and $60 million from DeLuca, though the destitute former priest was unable to pay. He was defrocked in 2008 after a conviction for molesting a relative.

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WALHALLA (ND)
Associated Press

December 19, 2019

By Wong Maye-E and Juliet Linderman

[This article with photographs is part of the series Sundays After.]

The nine Charbonneau sisters grew up straddling two worlds, outsiders in both.

In summer, they lived as white children, the light-skinned daughters of a father born of French lineage in Olga, North Dakota. During the school year, they were shipped off to the St. Paul’s Indian Mission School on the Yankton Reservation in South Dakota, where their Chippewa blood earned them free room and board.

“They called us half-breeds,” said Barbara Dahlen, 67. But they had each other and their bond carried them through those boarding school years filled with brutal beatings, even if the best they could do was lie on their bellies at night in the dark, reaching under locked doors to touch fingers.

They stayed connected as they scattered across the heartland and had children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren. But after the death of their mother, new memories began to surface. One by one, the sexual abuse each suffered at the hands of priests and nuns came into focus.

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NEW YORK (NY)
Associated Press

December 19, 2019

By Wong Maye-E and Juliet Linderman

December 19, 2019

They came from different towns and cities, from different ethnic and economic backgrounds. They were A-students and outcasts, people of all ages. From their churches they sought love or guidance, a better education or a place that felt like home.

They were believers_before their trust was tested, fractured or blown apart entirely by sexual abuse at the hands of a priest.

For the faithful, the Catholic Church isn’t only a place of worship but the center of social and cultural life, its doctrines and customs woven into the fabric of families and communities. And its priests and deacons are more than holy men but confidantes, teachers, father figures with unparalleled power. To many, they’re the closest thing to God on earth.

For those abused by priests, the violations are spiritual, the damage inflicted not just on the body and mind, but a system of beliefs.

“Their faith becomes a victim of the abuse,” said Marianne Sipe, a psychiatrist and former nun who works with clergy abuse survivors.

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TOKYO (JAPAN)
Associated Press via National Catholic Reporter

Dec 19, 2019

By Yuri Kageyama, The Associated Press Accountability

During Pope Francis’ recent visit to Japan, Harumi Suzuki stood where his motorcade passed by holding a sign that read: “I am a survivor.”

Katsumi Takenaka stood at another spot, on another day, holding up his banner that read, “Catholic child sexual abuse in Japan, too.”

The two are among a handful of people who have gone public as survivors of Catholic clergy sexual abuse in Japan, where values of conformity and harmony have resulted in a strong code of silence.

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But as in other parts of the world, from Pennsylvania to Chile, Takenaka and Suzuki are starting to feel less alone as other victims have come forward despite the ostracism they and their family members often face for speaking out.

Their public denunciation is all the more remarkable, given Catholics make up less than 0.5% of Japan’s population. To date, the global abuse scandal has concentrated on heavily Catholic countries, such as Ireland, the U.S. and now, many countries in Latin America.

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VATICAN CITY
Associated Press

December 20, 2019

By Nicole Winfield

The Vatican office responsible for processing clergy sex abuse complaints has seen a record 1,000 cases reported from around the world this year, including from countries it had not heard from before — suggesting that the worst may be yet to come in a crisis that has plagued the Roman Catholic Church.

Nearly two decades after the Vatican assumed responsibility for reviewing all cases of abuse, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith is today overwhelmed, struggling with a skeleton staff that hasn’t grown at pace to meet the four-fold increase in the number of cases arriving in 2019 compared to a decade ago.

“I know cloning is against Catholic teaching, but if I could actually clone my officials and have them work three shifts a day or work seven days a week,” they might make the necessary headway, said Monsignor John Kennedy, the head of the congregation’s discipline section, which processes the cases.

“We’re effectively seeing a tsunami of cases at the moment, particularly from countries where we never heard from (before),” Kennedy said, referring to allegations of abuse that occurred for the most part years or decades ago. Argentina, Mexico, Chile, Italy and Poland have joined the U.S. among the countries with the most cases arriving at the congregation, known as the CDF.

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DENVER (CO)
Crux

By Elise Harris

December 20, 2019

Rome – When Pope Francis earlier this week abolished so-called pontifical secrecy for cases of clerical sexual abuse, for many Vatican outsiders it was the first time they had ever heard of the concept, which in some circles came off as archaic and, well, secretive.

However, according to experts, the “pontifical secret” is not a moot practice that’s outlived its usefulness, but rather still serves several concrete needs in the modern church, even with the new changes.

Father Francis Morrisey, a Canadian canon law expert, said the concept of the pontifical secret is akin to the legal concept of attorney-client privilege, or the confidentiality a doctor must maintain with their patient.

“If there’s no confidentiality for anything, we have real problems,” he said, speaking to Crux.

The concept of papal secrecy dates back to the 12th century inquisition, when secrecy was widely imposed on those conducting investigations into allegations or suspicions of heresy.

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

Dec. 20, 2019

The Vatican department tasked with investigating cases of clergy abuse is reportedly “overwhelmed” by the number of allegations they are receiving. We are glad that survivors around the world have been empowered to come forward and make reports of their abuse, and we hope that this trend continues in 2020.

The Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith has been charged with investigating cases of clergy abuse since 2001, when Pope John Paul II gave this power to then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger. The cardinal kept cases of abuse confidential and secret, which not only undermined public knowledge about these cases, but also meant that survivors faced a challenging and hostile environment when coming forward with their reports. The system did not change when Cardinal Ratzinger became Pope Benedict XVI.

Fortunately, secular law enforcement around the world have been flexing their muscle in the past couple of years in cases against high-profile prelates in countries including Australia, France, and the United States. This has led to more survivors coming forward, and has forced transparency upon an institution that has long tried to cover-up cases of sexual violence committed by bishops, clergy, brothers, nuns, seminarians and other church staff.

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MELBOURNE (AUSTRALIA)
The New Daily

Dec. 21, 2019

Disgraced cardinal George Pell has spent almost all of 2019 in jail, serving a six-year sentence after being convicted of five sexual offences against two 13-year-old boys.

But Pell’s case – which has divided opinion internationally and taken years to get as far as it has – is still not over.

The convicted paedophile will have a final chance to overturn his conviction in March 2020, after the High Court of Australia agreed in November that it would hear appeal arguments.

He was initially investigated by Victoria Police’s Sano taskforce for “multiple offences” said to have been committed while he was a priest in Ballarat in the 1970s and while he was Archbishop of Melbourne in the 1990s.

In June 2017, after more than 12 months of investigation, Pell, now 78, was charged with multiple counts of historical child sexual offences.

He denied the allegations, describing them as “without foundation and utterly false”, and vowed to clear his name. He also took leave from his role as the Vatican’s financial chief to fight the charges.

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LOS ANGELES (CA)
Angelus News

Dec 19, 2019

By Pablo Kay

Pope Francis’ decision to abolish the obligation of secrecy for Church proceedings related to the sexual abuse of minors by priests was welcomed as a “a tangible, meaningful act” by the Victims Assistance Ministry Coordinator for the Archdiocese of Los Angeles.

“I am so pleased to see that Pope Francis has removed confidentiality requirements regarding Church proceedings related to clergy sexual abuse,” Heather Banis, Ph.D. told Angelus News Thursday, Dec. 19.

“I see it as a tangible, meaningful act that acknowledges accountability and is respectful of both clergy abuse victim-survivors and civil authorities,” she said.

The pope’s decision lifts the “pontifical secret” for those who report having been sexually abused by a priest and for those who testify in a church trial or process having to do with clerical sexual abuse.

Banis said she sees the decision as a validation of the efforts taken towards transparency in the the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, the country’s largest archdiocese, for many years now.

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AUSTIN (TX)
Fox 7 News

Dec. 20, 2019

By Marcel Clarke

The Vatican is lifting the cloak of secrecy from its proceedings into sex abuse cases.

Pope Francis announced he’s abolishing the use of “pontifical secrecy” in sexual abuse cases, meaning Catholic law no longer allows church leaders to withhold information about abusive priests or their victims.

This makes it easier for law enforcement to bring cases against abusers.

Diocese of Austin priest Father James Misko joins Marcel Clarke to discuss how the papal rule change regarding sex abuse cases will impact local Catholic churches.

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TORONTO (CANADA)
CBC News

Dec. 20, 2019

By Jason Warick

His hands shake as he circles the block.

He wants his nightmares, pain and loneliness to stop. Should he kill one of the priests who began raping him at age six? Should he kill himself?

Tears stream down the 25-year-old’s face. He thinks of his promising career as a pitcher. He doesn’t want to give that up.

He drives home and sits awake all night before finally crying himself to sleep.

That was 30 years ago. Basaraba worked with a friend to write down these and other stories of his life.

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DES PLAINES (IL)
Associated Press

Dec. 20, 2019

The Catholic Archdiocese of Chicago is requesting that a statue of a well-known priest be returned, months after it was removed from church property in a suburb.

The statue shows the late Rev. John Smyth with his arms outstretched to a child above him. It was unveiled in 1996 to honor Smyth’s years of work at Maryville Academy in Des Plaines, a home for troubled children.

The Daily Herald reports that archdiocese officials know who removed the statue.

“Neither Maryville nor the Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe gave permission for the statue to be removed,” archdiocese spokeswoman Anne Maselli said. “The Archdiocese of Chicago did not remove it. … We expect the statue to be returned.”

Smyth died in April at age 84, a few months after he was accused of sexual abuse. His attorney has denied the allegations. The archdiocese still is investigating, Maselli said.

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ROME (ITALY)
Religion News Services

Dec. 20, 2019

By Claire Giangravé

When Pope Francis announced Tuesday (Dec. 17) that he had abolished pontifical secrecy for cases of clerical sexual abuse, some observers compared the move to a regime opening its secret files, bringing to light years of testimony and documents.

The new protocol will transform legal proceedings and the lives of abuse victims, those accused of abusing them and bishops in charge of exercising oversight.

“This is a tremendous step forward in transparency and the right of victims’ participation” in canonical trials and “also the rights of the accused,” Dutch canon lawyer Myriam Wijlens told Religion News Service in a phone interview Wednesday.

“There are only winners in this; there are no losers,” she added.

Wijlens, a professor of canon law and vice president at the University of Erfurt, knows a thing or two about the handling of sexual abuse cases in the Catholic Church. She has been on the frontier of the clerical abuse crisis since 1987. Her investigations on behalf of bishops and the superiors of religious orders have involved numerous interviews with both sides of abuse cases, the results of which were usually sent to the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the powerful office that has defended the church on doctrinal matters for centuries.

In 2008 Wijlens was chosen as the delegate to the World Council of Churches in Geneva by the Vatican department in charge of promoting Christian unity. Pope Francis named her to the Pontifical Council for the Protection of Minors, a sort of papal think tank on sexual abuse, in 2018.

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KANSAS CITY (MO)
National Catholic Reporter

Dec 20, 2019

By Michael Sean Winters

Pope Francis’ decisions to remove the pontifical secret in clergy sex abuse cases, as well as raising the age for what constitutes child pornography, enact long-sought reforms. The decisions also did something else: They further disproved the dire and depressing verdicts rendered by many pundits on last February’s Vatican summit to address the issue.

A few weeks after that summit brought together the presidents of all the world’s episcopal conferences to address the scandal, all manner of voices, left and right, denounced the event as a failure or, worse, a sham.

Here at NCR, Thomas Doyle complained: The Vatican summit produced no decisive, action-oriented results, just more platitudes and promises. I consider this a positive because it should remove any doubt about whether the Vatican and the hierarchy have the ability or the will to take the radical steps essential to fixing the problem.

Doyle went on to say the only really good thing to come from the summit was the gathering of victims from around the world who held protests outside the summit meeting.

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WELLINGTON (NEW ZEALAND)
Stuff NZ Limited

Dec. 20, 2019

By John Weeks

A New Zealand church abuse survivor says the Vatican’s decision to abolish secrecy clauses for Catholic clerical sex crime cases is “far too late”.

Pope Francis this week announced “pontifical secrecy” would no longer apply to child abuse complaints. The decision meant abuse victims and witnesses would be freed from confidentiality obligations.

New Zealand author Mike Ledingham​ said the Papal announcement was “bull”, many years overdue, and a reaction to the perception churches could no longer dodge being held to account for child abuse.

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HOUSTON (TX)
Chronicle

Dec. 20, 2019

By Robert Downen

He was well-aware of the Catholic Church’s abuse scandal and, during his 13-year tenure as pastor of Houston’s Memorial Church of Christ, helped guide the church as it adopted safeguards to protect children from sexual predators.

But the reports in the Houston Chronicle were different. They hit particularly close to home.

The series, Abuse of Faith, found that hundreds of Southern Baptist church leaders and volunteers have been convicted or credibly accused of sex crimes in the last two decades. They left behind more than 700 victims, most of them children.

The structure of the SBC, a collective of 47,000 autonomous and self-governing churches, enabled predators to move undetected and stifled reforms to prevent abuse, the investigation found.

Duncan’s denomination has a similar organizational structure based on local church autonomy. And so, as the SBC’s abuse crisis came into public view, he came to a realization: No person or place is safe from predators.

“It made me sick,” Duncan said. “I just didn’t want to believe that it could be that rampant, that widespread.”

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HOUSTON (TX)
Chronicle

Dec. 20, 2019

By Robert Downen

He was well-aware of the Catholic Church’s abuse scandal and, during his 13-year tenure as pastor of Houston’s Memorial Church of Christ, helped guide the church as it adopted safeguards to protect children from sexual predators.

But the reports in the Houston Chronicle were different. They hit particularly close to home.

The series, Abuse of Faith, found that hundreds of Southern Baptist church leaders and volunteers have been convicted or credibly accused of sex crimes in the last two decades. They left behind more than 700 victims, most of them children.

The structure of the SBC, a collective of 47,000 autonomous and self-governing churches, enabled predators to move undetected and stifled reforms to prevent abuse, the investigation found.

Duncan’s denomination has a similar organizational structure based on local church autonomy. And so, as the SBC’s abuse crisis came into public view, he came to a realization: No person or place is safe from predators.

“It made me sick,” Duncan said. “I just didn’t want to believe that it could be that rampant, that widespread.”

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ROME (ITALY)
Associated Press

Dec. 19, 2019

The U.N. expert on child sexual abuse praised the Vatican’s decision to abolish the rule of “pontifical secret” for abuse cases and urged further reforms to ensure more justice for victims.

The U.N. special rapporteur on the sale and sexual exploitation of children said Thursday that Pope Francis’s decision to make such cases subject to ordinary confidentiality in the Church was a “welcome and long-awaited step.”

Francis passed the law Tuesday, and Vatican officials said the move was designed to facilitate cooperation with civil law enforcement agencies, given it would deprive church leaders of using the pontifical secret as an excuse to withhold documentation.

“The Vatican should now take all necessary measures to ensure that justice and redress for victims around the world is delivered through prompt and thorough investigations that are subject to public scrutiny,” said the U.N. rapporteur, Maud de Boer-Buquicchio.

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ROME (ITALY)
Associated Press

Dec. 19, 2019

The U.N. expert on child sexual abuse praised the Vatican’s decision to abolish the rule of “pontifical secret” for abuse cases and urged further reforms to ensure more justice for victims.

The U.N. special rapporteur on the sale and sexual exploitation of children said Thursday that Pope Francis’s decision to make such cases subject to ordinary confidentiality in the Church was a “welcome and long-awaited step.”

Francis passed the law Tuesday, and Vatican officials said the move was designed to facilitate cooperation with civil law enforcement agencies, given it would deprive church leaders of using the pontifical secret as an excuse to withhold documentation.

“The Vatican should now take all necessary measures to ensure that justice and redress for victims around the world is delivered through prompt and thorough investigations that are subject to public scrutiny,” said the U.N. rapporteur, Maud de Boer-Buquicchio.

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ALBANY (NY)
WNYT TV

Dec. 19, 2019

By Jacquie Slater

A special prayer service was held Wednesday at the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception in Albany, for victims of sexual abuse within the Catholic Church.

The event was organized by the Albany Diocese in hopes of helping victims and the community heal.

The service itself was closed to press in order to protect the privacy of victims who wish to remain anonymous.

Before it started, NewsChannel 13 spoke with Bishop Edward Scharfenberger and a victim who has been sharing his story in hopes of offering support to others who have had similar experiences.

The Albany Diocese is among many facing allegations of sex abuse by clergy. Bishop Scharfenberger said the Service of Prayers for Consolation and Hope is for survivors, their families and friends, and anyone who wants to pray.

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ALBANY (NY)
WNYT TV

Dec. 19, 2019

By Jacquie Slater

A special prayer service was held Wednesday at the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception in Albany, for victims of sexual abuse within the Catholic Church.

The event was organized by the Albany Diocese in hopes of helping victims and the community heal.

The service itself was closed to press in order to protect the privacy of victims who wish to remain anonymous.

Before it started, NewsChannel 13 spoke with Bishop Edward Scharfenberger and a victim who has been sharing his story in hopes of offering support to others who have had similar experiences.

The Albany Diocese is among many facing allegations of sex abuse by clergy. Bishop Scharfenberger said the Service of Prayers for Consolation and Hope is for survivors, their families and friends, and anyone who wants to pray.

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RESTON (VA)
CNS News

Dec. 19, 2019

By Janet Patterson

The following commentary is written by Janet Patterson, whose son Eric Patterson (1970-1999) reportedly was sexually abused multiple times by Rev. Robert K. Larson. Larson spent 5 years in jail for sexually abusing altar boys and died in 2014 at the age of 84; Eric Patterson died at age 29 after shooting himself in the head. Clergy abuse expert Dr. Leon Podles estimates there have been between 100,000 and 200,000 clergy abuse victims since 1950 in the United States alone, and possibly up to 2,000,000 victims worldwide.

I stood there, rooted to the spot, stroking my son’s hair, gently touching his cold face, gazing at my precious child. “Eric,” I thought, “oh, Eric.” Then I turned to walk down the church aisle as the funeral attendants closed the casket.

Numb from shock, I joined the rest of my family, clutching my husband’s hand tightly, feeling his arm caressing my shoulder. Now, three years later, I am sitting at Eric’s computer, the one on which he typed his suicide note, painfully recalling the series of events that culminated in his death.

Slowly, painstakingly, our family grapples with the awful truth—our son was sexually abused at the age of 12 by our parish priest.

How could this be? Sexual abuse happens to someone else’s child, in someone else’s family, not ours. Then reality hits. My mind constantly reconstructs the details of Eric’s life; sifting and sorting through memories, wondering what clues I missed, what behavior I didn’t understand at the time.

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NEW YORK (NY)
Associated Press

Dec. 19, 2019

By Juliet Linderman

Angels stand watch from Dorothy Small’s doorway.

Her house is full of them: gold-gilded angels tacked on the wall of her prayer room, painted ones in a semicircle on the coffee table, pale porcelain ones perched on the kitchen counter.

In the morning she sits with the angels, threads a rosary through her fingers and reads from her leather-bound Bible. In the evening, she slips into the hot tub in her backyard, closes her eyes and listens to prayers in French on her headphones. It’s a baptism of sorts, a private ritual that has helped her navigate her shifting faith and emerge, clear-eyed, from one of the darkest and most challenging periods of her life: the aftermath of a sexual assault she endured at 60, at the hands of a priest.

Small, now 65, survived it all because she had to, she said. But to her own surprise, she’s found strength in the solitude.

Her home is her sanctuary. It used to be the church.

For years, the parishioners of her Woodland, California, congregation were family, and she relied on the collective energy of the flock for spiritual fulfillment. But Small said after she reported her relationship with the priest and he was removed from his post, she was ostracized and stripped of her position as soloist in the choir. Her world collapsed.

“I felt awful because I got Father in trouble,” she said. “I thought it was all my fault.”

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BUFFALO (NY)
WIVB TV

Dec. 18, 2019

By Chris Horvatits

Canisius College is the newest target of a Child Victims Act lawsuit. It’s the first time the school has been named as a defendant in a lawsuit related to clergy sex abuse since the CVA window opened up in August.

School officials say they are cooperating with the accuser’s attorney.

The accuser, Matthew Ebert, claims that he was abused by Rev. Charles Lehmkuhl while the Jesuit priest worked at Canisius. In the lawsuit filed Tuesday, Ebert says “Father Lehmkuhl engaged in unpermitted sexual contact” with him from 1973 until 1983 when the minor was between the ages of 7 and 17.

The lawsuit refers to Lehmkuhl as “a father figure and spiritual leader” for Ebert.

Ebert was never a student at Canisius, school officials tell News 4.

“The sole basis for Canisius College being named in this suit is the fact that Fr. Lemkuhl was employed at the college and that some of the acts are alleged to have occurred on college property during the summer when Mr. Ebert came to Canisius to visit Fr. Lemkuhl,” school officials said in a statement.

Lehmkuhl died in 1995.

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BERKSHIRE (MA)
Berkshire Eagle

Dec. 18, 2019

Pope Francis’ decision to end the Vatican’s secrecy policy on sexual abuse cases is a welcome act that had it come years earlier could have spared victims and the Catholic Church itself so much misery. Unfortunately, the new policy contains loopholes that would allow miscreants and the church officials protecting to them to slip through once more.

The decision overturns a 2001 Vatican decree making sexual abuse allegations against clergy a “pontifical secret,” the church’s most classified form of knowledge, which kept those allegations out of the purview of criminal authorities. In abolishing this policy, such information can be turned over to police, prosecutors and judges.

The policy is good as far as it goes, but it doesn’t go far enough. It does not require that dioceses turn over this information, meaning that church officials who oppose this edict can simply ignore it. The Vatican is unclear in its decision as to whether or not it applies retroactively or only to new allegations. Vatican critics note that the Church still hasn’t adopted a policy of automatically defrocking any priest who has abused a child, which undermines the Vatican’s apparently sincere efforts to enact reform.

The Catholic Church’s policy of circling the wagons around credibly accused priests while blaming the victims and the media has done great harm to victims and to the credibility and financial viability of churches all over the world, including in Berkshire County within the Roman Catholic Diocese of Springfield. The most recent example within the Diocese came earlier this year when it denied that a Chicopee man’s accusation that he had been abused by Bishop Christopher J. Weldon when he served as an altar boy in the 1960s was credible. A Diocesan review board made that conclusion even though some board members who took part in the process told The Eagle that they found the accusations to be extremely credible. In June, the diocese acknowledged that the accusations were credible, leaving the integrity of the in-house review process in tatters.

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NEW YORK (NY)
Associated Press

Dec. 19, 2019

By Juliet Linderman

Salvador Bolivar puffs smoke through a long wooden pipe. Two braids hang just past his shoulders. Bear totems perch on the piano, a bundle of dried sage pinned to the wall. Resting beside him is a small drum; he’s just sung four songs in Taino, a lost language of the Caribbean islands, to calm his nerves.

Bolivar doesn’t like to talk about what happened to him without first calling in the spirits of his ancestors to give him courage. It was an encounter with these spirits, he said, that compelled him to break his silence.

They came to him 11 years ago, in a sweat lodge in the Colombian mountains.

“My heart was blown open,” he said. He cried for days. “It was the beginning of the process of letting it go.”

He returned to New York and, for the first time, told his mother and father that the dean of his Catholic high school had sexually abused him.

The experience in the mountains set him on his spiritual path and altered the course of his life. The spirits told him, “You’re going through what you’re going through to have compassion and empathy or someone else, so you’ll be able to help others,” Bolivar said. He clings to this belief. It gets him through his most difficult days.

Bolivar, 48, was born and raised in New York City, the son of immigrants from Costa Rica and the Dominican Republic. He spent his teen years drunk, angry, reckless, prone to outbursts, quick to jump into the middle of any brawl.

His life changed in his early 20s, when his first baby arrived. Fatherhood steadied him, he said. It still does.

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JACKSON (MS)
Clarion Ledger

Dec. 19, 2019

By Richard Conville

In October of this year, Attorney General William Barr gave a major address on religious liberty at the Notre Dame University Law School. With the impeachment process well underway, the speech has gotten little notice, but deserves more, because it reveals so much about Mr. Barr’s religious commitments and how they inform his politics.

The speech is over seven pages long, so I will limit my comments to a small portion that seems to articulate his central thesis–that the country’s “traditional moral order” has experienced serious erosion. He asserts three causes, (1) the “assault on religion,” thus losing “the right rules to live by;” (2) the state (i.e., the federal government) has become the “alleviator of bad consequences” of bad behavior; and (3) “secularists have been continually seeking to eliminate laws that reflect traditional moral norms.”

I disagree with Barr on several points, and you may too. First, to allege there has been an “assault on religion” is pure hyperbole. To blame eroding moral standards on “secularists,” as Barr does, raises the question, why do more people now, than, say, 50 years ago, consider themselves to be secular and not so religious? Could part of the fault lie at the feet of the Church? How has it failed to capture the imagination of those now more secular people? Rather than an assault on religion, traditional religious institutions have been leaking members for decades: no news here. Moreover, the “traditional moral order,” that Barr so highly prizes, was presumably in place during the time of the rampant, world-wide sex scandal involving Catholic priests’ assaults on thousands of young boys. Those “right rules” did not save those children.

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JACKSON (MS)
Associated Press

Dec. 19, 2019

By Juliet Linderman

Mark Belenchia didn’t stay quiet.

He told his mother and his uncle, in the mid-1970s. He told a parish priest, then the vicar general, in 1985. Still, the clergyman Belenchia said sexually abused him when he was a child in Shelby, Mississippi, remained in collar and cassock.

“It showed me that the system says you’re insignificant. It doesn’t matter what you said, or what happened to you,” Belenchia said.

Belenchia would not be ignored. Over the years, his quest for answers, to try and make sense of his own personal tragedy, transformed into a crusade against clergy abuse that’s become his life’s focus. Activism, he said, gives him purpose and direction. Through this work he makes use of his pain, to help other survivors struggling to cope with theirs.

The abuse began when Belenchia was 12 and lasted three years, he said, maybe four. But the events of his youth cast a shadow over his life for decades after.

He felt shame and guilt for allowing himself to get close the priest, who’d decorated the church rectory like a clubhouse and plied young boys from the neighborhood with liquor.

He felt anguish and panic when, at 43, Belenchia plunged into a depressive episode that resulted in hospitalization, intensive psychiatric treatment and an extended leave from his systems engineer position at IBM that eventually turned into medical retirement.

He felt defeated when a bishop told him his story was a one-off, “an anomaly,” and resigned when he reluctantly accepted a $44,000 settlement from the Diocese of Jackson in exchange for a promise not to tell. (In a statement to The Associated Press, a lawyer for the diocese acknowledged Belenchia’s abuse, and said the diocese has not included a confidentiality clause in any settlement agreement since 2002 unless it was insisted upon by the victim.)

He felt empowered to go public after reading an article about two local brothers suing the church, and validated when five men from across Mississippi came to him afterward with stories of their own abuse at the hands of the same clergyman.

And then, Belenchia got angry.

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CAMDEN (NJ)
Cherry Hill Courier-Post

Dec. 18, 2019

By Jim Walsh

Six men have come forward with allegations of childhood sex abuse by Catholic clergy in South Jersey.

The accusers all say they were targeted in the 1970s and ’80s by clerics who exploited their trust and assaulted their bodies.

They are suing the dioceses of Camden and Trenton under a new state law that allows civil actions for sex-abuse claims previously barred by a statute of limitations.

At least eight priests or Catholic brothers from South Jersey parishes are named in six suits filed in state court since Dec. 1.

Two suits claim wrongdoing by separate priests at a Paulsboro parish, including one who allegedly continued his abuse after moving to a church in Cherry Hill.

In another, a former altar boy alleges he was abused by three priests in Collingswood and Magnolia.

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ROME (ITALY)
Religion News Service

Dec. 17, 2019

By Claire Giangravé

Pope Francis on Tuesday (Dec. 17) ushered in a new era of transparency and accountability for the Catholic Church by releasing what was described as a historic document removing pontifical secrecy for cases of sexual abuse and cover-up, allowing lawful authorities to have access to reports, testimonies and documents.

“This is an epochal decision regarding the legal arrangement of the pontifical secret, and it comes at just the right time,” said Archbishop Charles Scicluna of Malta, the former Vatican prosecutor for cases of sexual abuse, in an interview published Tuesday (Dec. 17) on Vatican News.

In February, Pope Francis called for a Vatican summit on the question of clerical sexual abuse, during which all the major ecclesial representatives, survivor networks and advocates gathered to address the ongoing crisis plaguing the Catholic Church.

On Feb. 20, roughly a dozen sexual abuse survivors from all over the world met with the top leaders at the Vatican, from U.S. Cardinal Blase Cupich to Jesuit priest Hans Zollner, who heads the Center for Child Protection at the Gregorian University in Rome.

The survivors asked the Vatican to enact practical actions to ensure justice for the many who suffered and suffer still because of clerical sexual abuse. Finally, they got their wish, on the day of Francis’ birthday and in the days leading up to Christmas.

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OTTAWA (CANADA)
ESS, iHeartRadio

December 17, 2019

[AUDIO]

By abolishing Vatican secrecy rules as it pertains to sexual abuse cases, the Catholic Church is now allowed to share documents and information with civil authorities. Mitchell Garabedian, the attorney who was at the center of numerous lawsuits against the church, joins Evan Solomon on today’s ESS.

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ROME (ITALY)
Boston Herald

December 17, 2019

By Marie Szanislo

Lawyer says Francis is giving law enforcement what it can already obtain in many jurisdictions

Pope Francis on Tuesday abolished the use of “pontifical secrecy” — the Vatican’s highest level of secrecy in clergy sexual abuse cases — a step that victims and their advocates say is long overdue and only one step toward protecting children and holding child molesters to account.

In abolishing the secret rule, the Pope was giving law enforcement what it could probably already obtain, given the legal power of subpoenas in many jurisdictions, said Boston attorney Mitchell Garabedian, who said he has represented more than 2,000 clergy sex abuse victims over 25 years.

“A truly independent civil authority should be created to oversee what is disclosed by the Catholic Church,” Garabedian said. “It is also now time for Pope Francis to mandate that crimes be reported to the police by bishops, religious superiors and others, and to make documents and testimony public with the appropriate redactions of victims’ names.”

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ROME (ITALY)
Crux

Dec 18, 2019

By John L. Allen Jr.

Tuesday’s news that Pope Francis essentially has abolished the requirement of pontifical secrecy for clerical sexual abuse cases means that robust cooperation with civil authorities is now a cornerstone not only of Church practice, but also Church law.

That’s an important distinction, because in the U.S. and some other parts of the Catholic world, the pontifical secret had already been reinterpreted by bishops and canon lawyers to permit such cooperation, seen as essential not merely in the interests of justice but also to prevent the Church from being exposed to both civil and criminal liability.

As a result, while Maltese Archbishop Charles Scicluna was, in a sense, right in calling Tuesday’s moves “epochal,” they won’t change much operationally in the American Church.

(The calculus is likely to be different in other parts of the world. For instance, Juan Carlos Cruz, a survivor of abuse at the hand of Chile’s most notorious pedophile priest, heralded Tuesday’s moves as a sea change for his country: “All these excuses of Chilean bishops and other parts of the world and the Curia, are over,” he said. “Today is an important day in transparency and justice for victims.”)

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NASHVILLE (TN)
Baptist News Global

Dec. 18, 2019

By Bob Allen

Leaders of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests criticized a Southern Baptist Convention entity’s fund-raising appeal that touts the denomination’s response to the scourge of sexual abuse in the church as “misleading and insensitive” to victims.

Daniel Darling, vice president for communications at the SBC Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, sent out an e-mail Dec. 16 soliciting tax-deductible donations of $50, $100 or $500 to help the agency “stand with” survivors of sexual abuse and “equip them to make their voices heard.”

An accompanying 2 ½-minute video features Susan Codone, a Mercer University professor, responding to questions including, “How does it feel to know that for the first time, the church is taking the issue of sexual abuse seriously?”

“I have quite a story of sexual abuse in the church, and to be able to have a safe place where I was believed and supported by ministry leaders, to share that with the church and hopefully make the church a safer place, to me that meant everything in the world,” Codone says.

SNAP, a network of survivors of institutional sexual abuse and their supporters launched in 1988, responded with a press release contrasting Codone’s praise for SBC leadership with the “disappointing disparity” experienced by hundreds of abuse survivors “who have received zero support from the SBC.”

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PITTSBURGH (PA)
Post-Gazette

Dec. 17, 2019

By Peter Smith

A newly released portion of a 2018 grand jury report indicates that the Roman Catholic Diocese of Pittsburgh received an allegation of sexual abuse against a priest in the mid-1990s and that the priest admitted his sexual attraction to teenagers.

But he remained in ministry more than two decades longer because, until 2018, diocesan officials felt they didn’t have enough evidence to remove him entirely from ministry.

The new information comes in what may be the last piece of redacted information to be unsealed from the landmark 2018 statewide grand jury report into sexual abuse in the Catholic Church.

The priest, the Rev. Richard Lelonis, died in October at age 74. He spent 48 years in the priesthood, but much of the latter half of that career was spent in restricted ministry, away from parish work but still wearing the collar as a priest in good standing, after the 1995 allegation.

Father Lelonis was one of a small number of priests who challenged aspects of the grand jury report into sexual abuse by priests in six Roman Catholic dioceses, including Pittsburgh. Most of that group wanted their names redacted entirely from the grand jury’s report, a move the Pennsylvania Supreme Court ultimately agreed to.

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ST. JOHN’S (CANADA)
The Telegram

Dec. 17, 2019

For the first time in Canada, a Catholic religious order is preparing to publicly release a list of its priests who have been credibly accused of sexual abuse, including where the priests worked and when they worked there.

The head of the Jesuits of Canada, Father Erik Oland, told the Globe and Mail that he made the decision to have a list compiled more than a year ago, after a Pennsylvania grand jury investigation revealed the abuse of more than 1,000 children in that state.

While it may be new in Canada, the process has been established for some time in the United States. The archdiocese of Tucson released a list in 2002, and since then, 145 other dioceses in the United States have followed suit, though some lists have included only priests and clergy who have been convicted of crimes. Six different Jesuit provinces in the United States have also released such lists. The collection of those lists has led to giant open-access files like the ones kept by BishopAccountability.org, which have compiled lists containing thousands of names of offending clergy. (Not all of the lists have been completely voluntary — several were created as the result of settlement agreements for civil abuse cases.)

A private company began reviewing Canadian Jesuit files this October and is using the same standard that has been used in the United States by the religious orders that have already compiled similar lists. The company will establish that allegations against Jesuits are “more likely true than not after investigation.”

There are still major hurdles that have to be addressed in the release of the Canadian information, including privacy and other legal issues, but a clear and open process revealing accused abusers could go a long way towards helping victims, especially those who have had to face obstruction and denial from the church hierarchy in the past.

That is, at least, what the Jesuits are attempting. It remains to be seen if other Canadian dioceses and orders follow the Jesuit lead.

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LONDON (ENGLAND)
Catholic Herald

Dec. 18, 2019

By Christopher Altieri

By now, readers will have heard that Pope Francis has issued a rescript lifting the so-called “pontifical secret” under which the Church has until now conducted investigations and canonical trials related to sexual abuse and cover-up, sexual violence, and other similarly grave crimes against minors and vulnerable adults. The pontifical secret remains in force over other matters, but is no longer the default level of secrecy for sex crimes against minors and related offences.

It was one of three changes to Church law the Pope made on Tuesday. Another specifies the acquisition or possession of pornographic materials that exploit subjects under the age of 18 as a grave criminal offence for clerics of any rank. That change may have been longer in coming than observers and advocates for it would have liked, but it is the fulfilment of a promise. A third introduces the possibility for qualified lay persons to act as attorneys in canonical proceedings before the CDF tribunal, in which grave criminal charges are being tried.

Of the three changes, the removal of pontifical secret from sex crime cases involving minors is bound to generate the most discussion.

In an editorial for the Holy See’s official Vatican News outlet, editorial director Andrea Tornielli hailed the change as “a sign of openness, transparency, and the willingness to collaborate with the civil authorities.” Tornielli said, “It is not too much to define it as ‘historic’.”

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CAPE TOWN (SOUTH AFRICA)
Cape Talk AM 567

Dec. 18, 2019

By Qama Qukula

The lawyer for disgraced Bishops College teacher Fiona Viotti says the learners who were involved in sexual affairs with his client should also be brought to book.

Viotti was found guilty of sexual misconduct following an internal probe conducted by the prestigious private school in Rondebosch.

An investigation found that between 2013 and 2019, the former teacher targeted at least five pupils at the boys’ school.

Bishops College has reportedly handed over its internal findings to the police for further investigations. The former teacher could be facing criminal charges.

Meanwhile, Viotti’s lawyer, William Booth, claims that his client had “consensual” sex with her pupils, and he believes they should also be held accountable.

Booth, a top South African criminal lawyer, argues that that the boys involved in the scandal should be taken to task for their part in the “irresponsible” behaviour.

He further asserts that the school should be taking action against the boys who distributed pornographic images of his client.

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CHENNAI (INDIA)
The Hindu

Dec. 18, 2019

A survivor in a rape case in which a priest under the Thamarassery diocese is arraigned as accused has submitted before the Kerala High Court that despite lodging a sexual assault complaint against the priest with the Thamarassery bishop, no action had been taken.

In a petition seeking to implead her in a bail petition filed by Fr. Manoj Plakoottathil, she said in fact she had filed a complaint on June 23, 2017. However, there had been no action. So, she had lodged a complaint with the Chevayur police.

The case
The police case was that the accused allegedly went to the residence of the 46-year-old woman on June 15, 2017 and raped her when she was alone in the house.

Fr. Plakoottathil was then the vicar of Chevayur Nithyasahaya Matha Church. The priest had been charged with the offences under Sections 376 (rape), 506 (criminal intimidation) and 509 (word, gesture or act intended to insult the modesty of a woman) of the Indian Penal Code. Opposing the anticipatory bail plea of the priest, the survivor pointed out that the priest had threatened her that if she disclosed it to anyone she would be socially ostracised. The petitioner feared that there was a possibility of the investigation being sabotaged due to the influence of the accused.

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ROME (ITALY)
National Catholic Reporter

Dec. 17, 2019

By Joshua J. McElwee

Pope Francis Dec. 17 abolished the Catholic Church’s practice of imposing strict confidentiality rules on the Vatican’s legal proceedings in cases involving clergy sexual abuse or misconduct, in a reform sought for decades by abuse survivors and advocates.

In a brief but sweeping new instruction that goes into effect immediately, the pontiff states plainly that the practice, known as the pontifical secret, is no longer to apply to any accusations, proceedings, or final decisions involving clergy abuse.

While such matters will continue to be treated with a lower level of confidentiality, the pope also specifies that anyone who files a report, alleges abuse, or comes forward as a witness to abuse “shall not be bound by any obligation of silence with regard to matters involving the case.”

The new instruction, which contains five short points, is titled Sulla riservatezza delle cause (“On the Confidentiality of Legal Proceedings”).

In a separate action released at the same time as the instruction, Francis also made changes to a set of norms issued by Pope John Paul II in 2001 that define the “grave delicts” the church reserves to the judgement of the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

In those changes, which go into effect Jan. 1, the pope redefines child pornography as any inappropriate photographic material taken of minors under the age of 18, raising the age threshold from the previous standard of the age of 14.

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NEW YORK (NY)
America Magazine

Dec. 17, 2019

By Gerard O’Connell

In a decision of enormous importance, long called for by survivors of abuse and their advocates, Pope Francis has abolished the pontifical secret for sexual misconduct cases concerning clerics.

The “pontifical secret” is not related to the seal of the confessional, which remains absolute (and inviolable) in Catholic teaching and practice. Rather, the pontifical secret refers to confidentiality in the church’s judicial handling of clerical sex abuse and other grave crimes (as well as secrecy in other areas, such as some matters concerning the appointment of cardinals and bishops). The secrecy ensures that cases are dealt with in strict confidentiality. Vatican experts have said it was designed to protect the dignity of everyone involved, including the victim, the accused, their families and their communities.

Sources in Rome (who requested anonymity) told America that Pope Francis had to overcome strong internal opposition in the Vatican before issuing this important piece of legislation.
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In September 2017, members of the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors had asked Pope Francis to reconsider Vatican norms maintaining the imposition of the “pontifical secret” in the church’s judicial handling of such crimes. He has done so by promulgating a new law that Archbishop Charles Scicluna, adjunct-secretary of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, told America represents “a momentous shift towards transparency” in the Catholic Church’s ongoing response to the abuse scandal.

This was one of two new laws published by the Vatican on Dec. 17 at the instruction of Pope Francis, who celebrates his 83rd birthday on this day. The second law updates the definition of child pornography to cover victims up to age 18. Significantly, too, it allows for qualified laypeople to represent and defend persons in church tribunals in cases of sexual misconduct without having to ask permission. Previously only clerics could do so.

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New York (NY)
National Review

December 17, 2019

By Zachary Evans

Victims of sexual abuse at the hands of Catholic clergy are suing Pope Francis, claiming he and senior Vatican officials knew that a number of priests molested children but kept the revelation a secret, the New York Post reported on Tuesday.

The class-action lawsuit was filed Tuesday in federal court in Manhattan, brought by seven victims of abuse. The sole defendant named in the suit is the Holy See, the governing body of the entire Catholic Church, at whose head is the Pope.

“The Holy See has known for centuries that Catholic priests were using their positions and roles in Catholic parishes and schools to sexually molest children,” the suit alleges.

Pope Francis on Tuesday ended the policy of “pontifical secrecy” to guard information on sexual abuse cases. Archbishop Charles Scicluna, the Vatican’s leading investigator of sex abuse crimes, called the move an “epochal decision” that will facilitate greater communication between civil law enforcement and church investigators.

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CLEVELAND (OH)
WJW TV

Dec. 17, 2019

By Peggy Gallek

A prosecutor is urging a judge not to reduce the bond of a local priest who was arrested earlier this month on child pornography charges.

Father Robert McWilliams, was arrested Dec. 5, at St. Joseph Parish in Strongsville. He is facing several charges, including three counts of illegal use of a minor in nudity-oriented material or performance.

An assistant Cuyahoga County prosecutor says there are allegations in Geauga County that the priest posed as a stranger to extort children into sending him nude videos and pictures. Additional charges could be filed soon.

McWilliams, who remains held in the Cuyahoga County jail, has entered not guilty pleas and his attorney has asked for his $50,000 bond to be reduced.

Cleveland Catholic Diocese priest faces judge on child porn charges, case goes to grand jury

A hearing was held Tuesday afternoon, but Assistant Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Carl Sullivan is objecting to any reduction in bond.

“This incident involves a priest, with access to children on a daily basis who is sending and receiving child pornography,” Sullivan wrote in a motion filed with the court. “Also, based upon these charges, the defendant will no longer be able to reside in Strongsville and most likely will leave the county if released.”

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VATICAN CITY
The Associated Press

December 17, 2019

By Nicole Winfield

Pope Francis abolished the use of the Vatican’s highest level of secrecy in clergy sexual abuse cases Tuesday, responding to mounting criticism that the rule of “pontifical secrecy” has been used to protect pedophiles, silence victims and prevent police from investigating crimes.

Victims and their advocates cheered the move as long overdue, but cautioned that the proof of its effectiveness would come when the Catholic hierarchy is forced to respond to national inquiries, grand jury subpoenas and criminal prosecutors who are increasingly demanding all internal documentation about abusers.

“The carnival of obscurity is over,” declared Juan Carlos Cruz, a prominent Chilean survivor of clergy abuse and advocate for victims.

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ROME
CNN

December 17, 2019

By Delia Gallagher

Pope Francis has abolished Vatican secrecy rules for cases of sexual abuse, effectively allowing the Catholic church to share documents and information with civil authorities, and allow victims to be updated of the status of their cases.

The church already shares files with authorities in some countries, such as the United States, but the practice is not universal. Some Catholic churches around the world have invoked the “pontifical secret” to refuse cooperation in certain cases.

Pontifical secret is considered the highest level of confidentiality in church law which covers a number of administrative cases at the Vatican, such as nominations of cardinals, investigations by the Secretariat of State, and by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.
The violation of pontifical secrecy can result in excommunication from the church.

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CROOKSTON (MN)
ChurchMilitant

December 16, 2019

By Paul Murano

A group of faithful Catholics in Minnesota are demanding that their bishop step down.

Launching a petition to demand the resignation of Bp. Michael Hoeppner of the diocese of Crookston, the document will be submitted to Cdl. Sean O’Malley, president of the Vatican’s Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors.

The group cites Hoeppner’s negligence, inaction and mishandling of sexual abuse and child protection, and believe he has failed in his duty to keeping minors in his diocese safe.

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CHARLOTTE (NC)
WSOCTV

December 10, 2019

By Allison Latos

A Charlotte priest at one of the largest Catholic churches in the country was placed on administrative leave Monday after being accused of sexually abusing a minor.

In a statement, Bishop Peter Jugis said Father Patrick Hoare is facing allegations of sexual abuse from when he worked in Pennsylvania 25 years ago, before he joined the ministry.

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ROME (ITALY)
National Public Radio

December 17, 2019

By Bill Chappell

[AUDIO]

Pope Francis is giving legal authorities access to documents and testimony about sexual abuse cases that were previously kept under the Catholic Church’s highest level of confidentiality. By abolishing the concept known as the “pontifical secret” when it comes to clergy misconduct, Francis will also let victims see more information about their cases — and speak out about their experience.

“The person who files the report, the person who alleges to have been harmed and the witnesses shall not be bound by any obligation of silence with regard to matters involving the case,” according to the new policy, which was instituted Tuesday in the form of a rescript — a church decree approved by Francis and signed by the Cardinal Secretary of State, Pietro Parolin.

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ROME (ITALY)
The New York Times

December 17, 2019

By Elisabetta Povoledo

Church officials can now share information with secular law enforcement authorities. Critics said the confidentiality rule led to the concealment of abuse.

The Vatican on Tuesday said it would abolish the high level of secrecy it has applied to sexual-abuse accusations against clerics, ending a policy that critics said had often shielded priests from criminal punishment by the secular authorities.

Removing that cloak of confidentiality, the Roman Catholic Church is changing its stance to make it acceptable — but not required — to turn information about abuse claims over to the police, prosecutors and judges.

In recent years, church officials in the United States and some other countries have shared with civil authorities information about some sexual abuse allegations. But that cooperation, in theory, defied a decree adopted in 2001 that made the information a “pontifical secret” — the church’s most classified knowledge.

Victims and their advocates said the restrictions hampered civil authorities and helped conceal crimes, and they greeted Francis’ new instructions as a step forward.

“Things are decidedly changing,” said Francesco Zanardi, an Italian survivor of clerical abuse and the president of Rete l’Abuso, an Italian anti-abuse group.

Anne Barrett Doyle, co-director of BishopAccountability.org, a group that tracks abuse in the church, said the pope had taken “an overdue and desperately needed step.”

“For decades, pontifical secrecy has been an obstruction to civil justice, spurring bishops worldwide to thwart prosecutions of abusive priests,” Ms. Barrett Doyle said in a statement. She called changing the policy “a first step toward decreasing the anti-victim bias of canon law.”

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ROME (ITALY)
Catholic News Agency

Dec. 17, 2019

By J.D. Flynn

In a pair of unexpected decrees issued Tuesday morning, Pope Francis removed the obligation of pontifical secrecy from clerical sexual abuse cases, and strengthened the Church’s canonical prohibition against clerical possession of child pornography.

The moves are the latest in a series of efforts by the pope to reform the Church’s approach to clerical sexual abuse and coercion, and sure to be welcomed by Catholics calling for reform on the issue. The legal changes come, however, as observers watch to see how Francis will act on several high-profile abuse cases.

The pope’s decision to end the obligation of pontifical secrecy on cases of abuse, coercion, or possession of child pornography is a move that some reformers and abuse survivors have called for since the emergence of the Theodore McCarrick scandal in June 2018. In fact, the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors recommended the move in 2017, before the McCarrick scandal exploded.

Formally speaking, the pontifical secret binds the secrecy of procedural and substantive acts of a canonical case concerning clerical abuse or coercion, or did, until the pope amended the Church’s law this week. This means that diocesan and Vatican officials will now be free to give summaries of how an internal canonical case was decided, or, if a case warrants it, even to release canonical trial documents themselves.

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NASHVILLE (TN)
Baptist Global News

Dec. 17, 2019

By Christa Brown

With its recent rollout of an online reporting process, the Southern Baptist Convention and its Credentials Committee have once again failed clergy sex abuse survivors and given them yet another reason to distrust the SBC as an institution.

As a survivor of childhood sexual abuse committed by an SBC pastor, I’ve been doing advocacy work related to Baptist clergy sex abuse for over 15 years. During this time, I’ve seen countless examples of institutional and individual betrayals and failures within the SBC, often accompanied by hollow words or duplicitous chicanery. So I’ve become a skeptic.

Over the past year I’ve seen many younger advocates and survivors in Baptist life also become skeptical.

While I whole-heartedly applaud their eyes-wide-open savvy and feel such gratitude for their energy and commitment, I also feel sorrow. When I began this work, I did so in the hope that younger people might be spared the re-traumatizing institutional recalcitrance that I had encountered. But tragically, the cycle seems to be repeating itself.

“The risks of such an unprotected process will almost certainly mean that many survivors will forego reporting.”

Like me, many of these younger survivors started out with some hope that they would be heard and that things would change. But in light of what they have seen at this year’s annual SBC meeting in Birmingham, the uncaring “Caring Well” conference, the ignoring of known survivors, the propping up of known enablers, the image-polishing PR tactics – and all without meaningful denominational action – many are becoming every bit as skeptical as me.

The SBC has effectively trained another generation to be rightfully wary of everything its leaders say about addressing the persistent problem of clergy sexual abuse.

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ROME (ITALY)
Catholic News Service

Dec. 17, 2019

By Cindy Wooden

Pope Francis has abolished the obligation of secrecy for those who report having been sexually abused by a priest and for those who testify in a church trial or process having to do with clerical sexual abuse.

“The person who files the report, the person who alleges to have been harmed and the witnesses shall not be bound by any obligation of silence with regard to matters involving the case,” the pope ordered in a new “Instruction On the Confidentiality of Legal Proceedings,” published Dec. 17.

In an accompanying note, Bishop Juan Ignacio Arrieta, secretary of the Pontifical Council for Legislative Texts, said the change regarding the “pontifical secret” has nothing to do with the seal of the sacrament of confession.

“The absolute obligation to observe the sacramental seal,” he said, “is an obligation imposed on the priest by reason of the position he holds in administering the sacrament of confession and not even the penitent can free him of it.”

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BOSTON (MA)
The Conversation

Dec. 16, 2019

By Brian Clites

The Roman Catholic bishop of Buffalo, New York, Richard Malone, became the seventh U.S. bishop since 2015 to be forced out of power for his role in covering up clergy sexual abuse cases. Malone resigned on Dec. 4, stating that his departure stemmed from a recognition that “the people of Buffalo will be better served by a new bishop who perhaps is better able to bring about the reconciliation, healing and renewal that is so needed.”

By comparison, during the prior 35 years, only three U.S. bishops had resigned because of the scandal, even though there were more than 10,000 cases of clergy sexual abuse reported to the American bishops during that time.

In my research, I have found that this increase in bishop accountability is due not to an improvement in the Vatican’s protocols, but rather to the activism of local Catholic reform groups.

I study how survivors and their advocates have exposed the problem of clergy sexual abuse.

Survivors first went public with their stories of abuse in the 1980s. But other Catholics did not begin forming survivor-advocacy groups until 2002, when a series of reports detailing how Cardinal Bernard Law, then the archbishop of Boston, had protected more than 230 abusive priests.

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DALLAS (TX)
Morning News

Dec. 17, 2019

The road back to trust is deservedly long for the Catholic Diocese of Dallas.

The sexual abuse scandal that saw the church harbor abusive priests and shuffle them from parish to parish is impossible to comprehend, so dark and terrible were its intentions and consequences.

We are glad the church has taken and continues to take steps that, we hope, demonstrate a promise that never again will protecting the institution come before protecting the innocent and the vulnerable.

The diocese’s decision to hire a respected law enforcement officer, Dallas Police Deputy Chief Albert Martinez, to supervise the victim’s assistance coordinator and oversee parish security strikes us as an important step.

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TORONTO (CANADA)
Globe and Mail

Dec. 16, 2019

By Tavia Grant

The Jesuits of Canada, a religious order of the Catholic Church, has committed to publishing the names of priests who have been credibly accused of sexual abuse dating back about 60 years.

No other major Catholic diocese or religious order in Canada has made a public commitment of this kind to follow the example of a wave of disclosures in the United States. Many of the U.S. disclosures have taken place since the 2018 release of a grand jury investigation in Pennsylvania that found priests abused more than 1,000 children.

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ROME (ITALY)
Crux

Dec. 17, 2019

By John L. Allen Jr.

Every Catholic, sooner or later, is tempted to despair about “the bishops,” no matter what their particular lament or desideratum. As novelist John Sandford once had his hero detective, Lucas Davenport, put it, “Holy Rollers scream about Jesus, but Catholics scream at the bishops.”

On no front has that been truer of late than the clerical sexual abuse crisis. Indeed, sometimes it seems the lone thing the Catholic left and right can agree on vis-à-vis the scandals is the dismal performance of the hierarchy.

For everyone tempted to such a complaint, however, there’s also Bishop Thomas Dowd.

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ROME (ITALY)
Associated Press

Dec. 17, 2019

By Nicole Winfield

Pope Francis abolished the “pontifical secret” used in clergy sexual abuse cases Tuesday, responding to mounting criticism that the high degree of confidentiality has been used to protect pedophiles, silence victims and prevent police from investigating crimes.

“The carnival of obscurity is over,” declared Juan Carlos Cruz, a prominent Chilean survivor of clergy abuse and advocate for victims.

In a new law, Francis decreed that information in abuse cases must be protected by church leaders to ensure its “security, integrity and confidentiality.” But he said “pontifical secret,” the highest form of confidentiality in the church, no longer applies to abuse-related accusations, trials and decisions under the Catholic Church’s canon law.

The Vatican’s leading sex crimes investigator, Archbishop Charles Scicluna, said the reform was an “epochal decision” that will facilitate coordination with civil law enforcement and open up lines of communication with victims.

While documentation from the church’s in-house legal proceedings will still not become public, Scicluna said, the reform now removes any excuse to not cooperate with legitimate legal requests from prosecutors, police or other authorities.

Francis also raised from 14 to 18 the cutoff age below which the Vatican considers pornographic images to be child pornography — a response to the Vatican’s increasing awareness of the prolific spread of online child porn that has frequently implicated even high-ranking churchmen.

The new laws were issued Tuesday, Francis’ 83rd birthday, as he struggles to respond to the global explosion of the abuse scandal, his own missteps and demands for greater transparency and accountability from victims, law enforcement and ordinary Catholics alike.

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OKLAHOMA CITY (OK)
Associated Press

Dec. 16, 2019

By Ken Miller

The Archdiocese of Oklahoma City said Monday it has substantiated an allegation of child sexual abuse against another priest.

The archdiocese said in a news release that Father Papa-Rao Pasala admitted to “inappropriate though not-yet criminal advances” with a 17-year-old in 2001 when he was assigned to a church in Edmond for one month before returning to his native India.

The archdiocese said it notified the Diocese of Baker in Oregon, where Pasala was serving as pastor and that the Oregon diocese removed him from the ministry on Dec. 6. Oklahoma City archdiocese spokeswoman Diane Clay said Pasala has returned to India for disciplinary action by the Diocese of Nellore and had no way of contacting him for comment.

The Diocese of Baker said in a news release that Pasala “will no longer be allowed to minister in the United States.”

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HAGANTNA (GUAM)
Pacific Daily News

Dec. 17, 2019

By Haidee Eugenio Gilbert

Creditors of the Archdiocese of Agana asked the federal court for a partial summary judgment that, if granted, could pave the way for the use of Catholic parishes and schools’ assets to pay some 280 clergy sex abuse claims.

These include everything from cars and vans to buildings, parishes, schools and cemetery property.

The creditors said the archdiocese, its parishes and its schools “are one and the same under civil law.”

Because they are one and the same, the assets of these parishes and schools “should be available to pay creditor claims,” the Official Committee of Unsecured Creditors, represented by Minnesota-based attorney Edwin Caldie, said in court filings pertaining to the archdiocese’s bankruptcy case.

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OKLAHOMA CITY (OK)
The Oklahoman

Dec. 16, 2019

By Randy Ellis

A priest from India who served briefly in Oklahoma City in 2001 as been added to the list of priests who have been credibly accused of child sexual abuse, the Catholic Archdiocese of Oklahoma City announced Monday.

Father Papa-Rao Pasala’s name has been added to the list of credibly accused priests, the local archdiocese announced Monday in a news release.

The archdiocese previously identified 11 other credibly accused priests in a report released last October.

Father Pasala, who served in the Archdiocese of Oklahoma City for a month in 2001, was sent back to India in December of that year after he admitted to what was described at the time as

Father Pasala’s bishop in Nellore, India, was informed of the reason he was sent home at the time the action was taken, the Oklahoma City archdiocese said.

The allegation against Father Pasala resurfaced recently as Oklahoma City’s McAfee & Taft law firm has continued to review files of child abuse allegations against priests within the archdiocese dating back to 1960, the news release said. The McAfee & Taft law firm prepared the previous 77-page report that identified 11 priests as having been credibly accused.

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KAMPALA (UGANDA)
Daily MOnitor

Dec. 16, 2019

By Alex Ashaba

The Bishop of Ruwenzori Diocese, Reuben Kisembo, has pardoned three priests who were suspended in 2017 on allegations of sex scandals and abuse of office.

The pardon came during a church service at St Elizabeth Chapel of Kyembabe Girls yesterday in Fort Portal Town.

The priests are Rev Joel Manyindo, Rev Felix Bataligaya, and Rev Paul Mbusa Kinyerere. They all appeared in church to ask for forgiveness before Christians and the bishop.

“The Rwezori Diocese tribunal (under Church of Uganda) that sat on November 28 received the request of three suspended priests and decided to pardon them but they will be working under probation,” Bishop Kisembo said.

Since 2017, the priests have been requesting the diocesan tribunal and the church for a pardon.

Bishop Kisembo said the priests will work for unspecified probation in the newly appointed places but would not be allowed to conduct church baptism and weddings.

The bishop asked Christians to welcome the priests saying since they had been forgiven by the Church, they need to keep watching them as they serve their probation.

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LONDON (ENGLAND)
The Tablet

Dec. 16, 2019

By Tom Heneghan

Two more cases of clerical sexual abuse have added new twists to the series of accusations that gnaw away at the image of the Church in France.

The murder of an elderly priest last month has slowly brought to light a sordid story of the priest’s sexual abuse of the suspected killer and his father. The Bishop of Beauvais in northern France has been dragged into the scandal.

Fr Roger Matassoli, 91, was found dead on 4 November at his home near Beauvais, choked by a crucifix stuffed down his throat. There were also multiple blows to his body. A 19-year-old suspect named Alexandre was soon arrested but has been held in hospital because he appeared delirious.

A month later, the suspect’s father told a newspaper the priest had abused him years ago and still influenced him as an adult. Matassoli later abused Alexandre and had him clean his house while naked.

The father, given the pseudonym Stéphane by the daily Le Parisien, said the abuse had worsened Alexandre’s mental problems.

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FORT WAYNE (IN)
WISE NBC TV

Dec. 16, 2019

By Jazlynn Bebout

The Diocese of Fort-Wayne South Bend has announced that a local priest has been credibly accused of sexually abusing a minor.

Fort Wayne’s NBC received a statement from The Diocese that says they received an allegation on Dec. 10 against Father Joseph Gaughan, claiming he sexually abused a minor.

Father Joseph Gaughan most recently served as the pastor of Most Precious Blood Parish in Fort Wayne, but alleged abuse occurred over 20 years ago while he served at Saint Anthony de Padua Parish in South Bend.

The Diocese says they have determined the allegation to be credible and have informed authorities. Father Gaughan has also been placed on administrative leave.

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

Dec. 16, 2019

Church leaders in the Diocese of Charlotte, North Carolina, announced in May that they would release a list of “credibly accused” clergy by the end of the year. Yet when talking about the impending release, the diocese’s current Vicar General continues to rely on disingenuous troupes, stating that the abuse of children by priests is a “thing of the past.”

Vicar General Patrick Winslow of the Diocese of Charlotte refers to clergy inflicted harm as a “thing of the past” in a recent interview. However, we believe when he is deliberately deflecting attention away from an ongoing problem whose roots have never been addressed by the Church. This is especially true considering his predecessor was found to be credibly accused of sexual misconduct with adults last month, and another Charlotte cleric was put on administrative leave just days ago after allegations of child sexual abuse were made against him.

A man in Fr. Winslow’s position can do much good, or much harm. His pronouncement, we fear, contributes to harm. Calling the clergy abuse scandal a “thing of the past” is a debunked myth that Catholic bishops and leaders have trotted out time and again since the Boston Scandal in 2002. Fr. Winslow should stop repeating these myths and instead look to the facts:

Vicar General Patrick Winslow of the Diocese of Charlotte refers to clergy inflicted harm as a “thing of the past” in a recent interview. However, we believe when he is deliberately deflecting attention away from an ongoing problem whose roots have never been addressed by the Church. This is especially true considering his predecessor was found to be credibly accused of sexual misconduct with adults last month, and another Charlotte cleric was put on administrative leave just days ago after allegations of child sexual abuse were made against him.

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SAN DIEGO (CA)
Union Tribune

Dec. 12, 2019

I object to bigoted comments being made about tens of thousands of young people abused by the Catholic Church. It is a sweeping generality.

The church never abused anyone. Pedophiles lied their way into the church and took advantage of their positions. The clergy’s mistake was to not send parents to the police. If the pedophile confesses to a priest, then the “Seal of Confession” stops the priest from saying anything to anyone. It becomes difficult for them to report them to the police directly or even to their superiors. Therefore, all cases must be reported immediately to them by the parents or the priest to assure the quickest response to the situation.

The Associated Press has reported on similar type of abuse. It found 17,000 cases of abuse by students on students recorded, but not reported, in four years, while the reported cases in the church occurred over 70 years. There is no reporting requirement for these student abuses. Also, the AP feels that many incidents were not recorded and that school staffs ignored many.

What is worse, Wikipedia reports 81% of students were sexually harassed in school, 83% of girls were harassed, 78% of boys were harassed, 38% were harassed by teachers or school employees 36% of school employees or teachers were harassed by students and 42% of school employees or teachers were harassed by each other.

Domenick Amato, Rancho Bernardo

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