ABUSE TRACKER

GLASGOW (SCOTLAND)
BBC

April 5, 2020

A new centre designed to support child victims and witnesses of crime is to be opened in Scotland.

Children will be able to be interviewed in the child-friendly facility, away from police stations and courtrooms.

But they can also receive medical care and support to help them recover from trauma in an environment designed to look like a family home.

Locations are being scouted for the base following a £1.5m boost from the People’s Postcode Lottery.

Project partner Children 1st said the centre would “end the nightmares of thousands of children”.

The charity’s chief executive Mary Glasgow said the centre would “transform” Scotland’s systems of justice, health, care and protection.

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ANDOVER (MA)
Andover Townsman

April 2, 2020

By Paul Tennant

The Rev. Peter Gori has been reinstated as pastor of St. Augustine Church, the Archdiocese of Boston announced this week.

Gori is expected to resume his duties by Sunday – which is Palm Sunday – according to Cardinal Sean O’Malley, archbishop of Boston.

Gori, a member of the Order of St. Augustine since 1973, was placed on administrative leave in April 2019 after a man, now in his 40s, claimed that Gori and another priest, the Rev. William Waters, sexually abused him more than 30 years ago.

“I assure you, as I assured the provincial, that the accusation is false,” Gori wrote in a letter to parishioners when the allegation surfaced. The provincial, the regional leader of Augustinian priests in the eastern U.S., had informed Gori of the accusation.

The Augustinian order relied on an independent investigator, Praesidium Inc., as well as the order’s independent review board in concluding the allegation could not be substantiated, according to a press release issued by the Archdiocese of Boston.

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CANBERRA (AUSTRALIA)
Associated Press via Washington Post

April 6, 2020

By Rod McGuirk

Australia’s highest court on Tuesday will judge Cardinal George Pell’s appeal against convictions for molesting two teenage choirboys more than two decades ago. But the legal battle over the world’s most senior Catholic convicted of sexually abusing children may not end there.

The High Court could deliver Pope Francis’ former finance minister a sweeping victory or an absolute defeat. Or the seven judges could settle on one of several options in between that could extend the appeal process for another year or more.

The 78-year-old cleric cleric has spent 13 months in two high-security prisons at high risk of having a coronavirus outbreak, and he would have strong grounds for being released on bail if the court case is extended.

Pell was sentenced by a Victoria state County Court judge in March last year to six years in prison for sexually abusing two 13-year-old choirboys in a back room of St. Patrick’s Cathedral in Melbourne in December 1996 while he was archbishop of Australia’s second-largest city.

Pell was also convicted of indecently assaulting one of the boys by painfully squeezing his genitals after a Mass in early 1997. Pell must serve three years and eight months behind bars before he becomes eligible for parole.

One of the former choirboys died of a heroin overdose in 2014 aged 31. Pell has largely been convicted on the testimony of the survivor, now the father of a young family aged in his 30s, who first went to police in 2015. The identities of both victims are concealed by state law.

A jury had unanimously convicted Pell of all five charges in December 2018, but he was spared prison for three months while he underwent replacement surgery for both knees.

The High Court has examined whether the Victorian Court of Appeal was correct in its 2-1 majority decision in August to uphold the jury verdicts.

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AUSTRALIA
CentralAsiaNews.net

April 5, 2020

Chris Friel

The allegations of sexual abuse against Cardinal Pell were investigated by the Victorian Police, in particular by Taskforce SANO. This note gathers together some pertinent questions. In the wake of the Carl Beech case in the UK Sir Richard Henriques was asked to report on Operation Midland,[i] and I would urge that something of the order of a judge led inquiry is needed to understand Operation Tethering. This somewhat disordered list is written in the hope that one day we may get a comprehensive insight into what was going on.

1. Tethering. We begin with this get Pell operation (Robert Richter), or as Paul Sheridan termed it, the Intel Probe, set up in 2013.[ii] Clearly, that was before R had died (in 2014) and J had complained (in 2015). Apparently, it was the inspiration of Michael Dwyer.[iii] How did it come about? Here we would point out the association with Byline (Lucie Morris Marrs platform) and Exaro News who were so heavily involved in the Carl Beech case.[iv]

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BAVARIA (GERMANY)
Web24.news

April 5, 2020

Is it a “second Ettal”? A former pupil of the Catholic Piusheim in Bavaria reported massive abuse in court – not the first allegation of this kind.

The judiciary is investigating allegations of abuse against a former Catholic children’s and youth home in the municipality of Baiern near Munich. The public prosecutor’s office in Munich II, according to its own statements, initiated preliminary investigations against a former educator of the youth village Piusheim as well as a priest at the time.

The background to the investigation is allegations of massive sexual abuse that became known as part of a trial before the Munich II Regional Court. A 56-year-old man, who is himself accused of serious abuse of young children, had shown in court that he had been abused by several men in Piusheim, among others, in his childhood and adolescence.

The witness also spoke of prostitution and “sex parties” around the home. “Ninety percent of the boys went out and stole the villagers at the weekend, ten percent went to Munich to buy.” Two of his friends had hanged himself, and he himself had tried to commit suicide as a child.

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ENGLAND
The Guardian

April 5, 2020

By Harriet Sherwood

Boys’ lives were blighted after sadistic beatings by John Smyth more than 40 years ago, successor group admits

A Christian organisation whose forerunner ran holiday camps that led to boys being beaten sadistically has reached a settlement with three men and acknowledged that “lives have been blighted”.

The Titus Trust has expressed “profound regret” for the abuse carried out by John Smyth QC and has apologised for “additional distress” caused by the way the trust responded to the allegations.

The abuse scandal at the so-called “Bash camps” in the 1970s and 80s embroiled Justin Welby, who is now the archbishop of Canterbury, and who worked at the Christian holiday centres in the 1970s.

After allegations of abuse and its cover-up emerged three years ago, Welby said he knew Smyth but had been “completely unaware” of any abuse at the time. He apologised on behalf of the Church of England, which later ordered an independent review into the allegations.

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TEXARKANA (TX)
Texarkana Gazette

April 5, 2020

By Lynn LaRowe

The notice alleges local pastor’s wife was aware of his child sexual abuse and attempted to conceal it.

Prosecutors filed a notice Friday of evidence they intend to introduce at the trial of a local pastor charged with 18 felonies involving alleged child sexual abuse.

Logan Wesley III, 56, was arrested in November on a single felony charge involving one alleged victim. In February, a Bowie County grand jury returned three indictments involving three different girls which list a total of 18 felony counts. First Assistant District Attorney Kelley Crisp filed a notice Friday of the state’s intent to introduce other evidence of Wesley’s alleged misconduct.

The notice alleges Wesley’s wife was aware of his child sexual abuse and attempted to conceal it. Wesley’s wife allegedly contacted one of the alleged victims on social media in July 2018 and asked her to keep silent and show “grace and mercy” because “she was worried about what the publicity would do for her son’s budding music career and her child daycare business,” the notice states.

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BBC News

March 31, 2020

By Megha Mohan

With much of the world on coronavirus lockdown, there are warnings that those living with domestic abuse could become hidden victims of the pandemic.

In the UK, calls to the national abuse hotline went up by 65% this weekend, according to the domestic abuse commissioner for England and Wales. Meanwhile, the UN has warned that women in poorer countries and smaller homes are likely to have fewer ways to report abuse.

The BBC has spoken to two women who are currently under lockdown with men who they say have abused them.

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PITTSBURGH (PA)
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

April 5, 2020

By Peter Smith

In mid-March, Pittsburgh Bishop David Zubik joined other Pennsylvania Roman Catholic bishops in lifting the usual obligation that Catholics attend weekend Mass — an action that, combined with a growing public wariness of public gatherings amid the coronavirus threat, led to far lower attendance than usual.

That was just the beginning.

After that weekend of March 14-15, Bishop Zubik canceled Masses and other large church gatherings entirely, while arranging for priests to hear confessions in more spacious but still-confidential settings. Some priests kept their sanctuaries open for individual prayer, and there was still opportunity for small gatherings for baptisms or funerals. Confirmations and first communions were canceled for the last half of March, then for April.

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VATICAN CITY
Catholic News Service via Catholic Virginian

April 4, 2020

By Junno Arocho Esteves

While Pope Francis’ Way of the Cross service on Good Friday has been transferred to the Vatican because of the coronavirus pandemic, the meditations focus, as always, on those who share the pain, suffering and heartbreak that characterized Christ’s passion and death.

In a letter published in an Italian newspaper in early March, Pope Francis said he chose the Catholic community of the Due Palazzi prison in Padua so that the meditations would reflect on the lives of those involved in the prison system to illustrate how “the resurrection of a person is never the work of an individual, but of a community walking together.”

The result is a set of meditations on the traditional 14 stations written not only by prisoners, but also by people directly affected by crime, including prisoners’ families, victims and even a priest falsely accused of a crime.

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NEW ORLEANS (LA)
NOLA.com

April 3, 2020

By Ramon Antonio Vargas

National media outlets are asking a New Orleans court to unseal confidential motions and other documents filed when estranged relatives of late Saints owner Tom Benson challenged his mental competency five years ago.

The sealed filings stem from a blockbuster lawsuit in 2015 that pitted Benson against his daughter and grandchildren. They argued that the billionaire owner of the NFL’s Saints and NBA’s Pelicans was mentally unfit when he transferred ownership of his business empire to his third wife, Gayle.

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AUSTRALIA
Australian Associated Press via the West Australian

April 5, 2020

By Karen Sweeney

Deep inside Melbourne’s imposing St Patrick’s Cathedral, two young boys dressed in their choir robes snuck off to swig sacramental wine in the priest’s sacristy.

It was a room forbidden to all but a few – certainly off limits to the likes of the two 13-year-olds who found their way inside after a Sunday Mass.

By some accounts that area is a hive of activity on Sunday mornings, but for six minutes one day in December 1996 the two boys found themselves in there alone with now-Cardinal George Pell.

“He planted himself in the doorway and said something like ‘what are you doing here’ or ‘you’re in trouble’,” one of the boys said of the then-archbishop.

Dressed in his ornamental robes Pell exposed himself and molested one of the boys. He then pleasured himself and raped the other.

Those events are a “product of fantasy” and “absolute rubbish”, Pell told police when confronted with the allegations in Rome four years ago.

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BOGOTA (COLOMBIA)
Agence France Presse via OutlookIndia.com

April 4, 2020

The Catholic Church in Colombia has suspended 15 priests accused of sexual abuse, the archdiocese of the city of Villavicencio said on Friday.

The suspension was “a precautionary measure … because there is an ongoing investigation,” priest Carlos Villabon told AFP.

On February 14 a man, whose name has been withheld, accused the priests of “actions against sexual morality,” according to the statement by the Villavicencio archdiocese.

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AUSTRALIA
The Catholic Weekly

April 4, 2020

By Peter Westmore

The High Court decision on Tuesday morning will be discussed in a livestreamed event at 7.30pm (details below)

Cardinal George Pell’s appeal to the High Court took place on March 11 and 12. The case was heard by a Full Bench of the High Court, which includes all seven justices currently on the court.

Cardinal Pell was not present – he is confined in Barwon Prison, a high-security facility in Victoria.

He was appealing against a 2:1 majority verdict of the Victorian Court of Appeal of last August. It has taken over six months for this matter to reach the High Court of Australia. He was not directly appealing against the original jury verdict, but against the majority verdict of the Court of Appeal.

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The Union Journal

Aril 4, 2020

By Carlos Christian

In May 2019, when Ana Lucía Salazar publicly denounced the Mexican priest Fernando Martínez for having abused her at a Legionaries of Christ school in Cancun, she still did not know that he had also been a victim of abuse. Two months earlier, when Italian justice sentenced former Mexican priest Vladimir Reséndiz for abusing two children, some of his former colleagues from the Legion learned that, before being a victimizer, he had been the victim of abuse. “It is part of the Legion’s methodology: prepare for abuse, abuse yourself and become an accomplice,” says Erick Escobar, a former legionary who left that movement to start a fight against cases of pedophilia.

In late December, the Legion of Christ, one of the most powerful congregations in the Catholic Church, surprised the world when it released a report admitting 175 cases of child abuse within the order founded by the Mexican priest Marcial Maciel in 1941, most of them committed by their own founder and from the very moment of the foundation. However, what was most revealing was not the verification of the vexations that had been denounced by different victims over the course of eight decades, but rather what the report hinted at: that pedophilia within the Legion was not the result of the perversion of some priests, but part of a foundational dynamic that reached all levels and guaranteed spaces of power for those willing to participate or remain silent.

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[The Catholic Church of Colombia suspends 19 priests for sexual abuse]

COLOMBIA
El País

April 3, 2020

By Catalina Oquendo

El arzobispo de Villavicencio asegura que se tratan de actos “deplorables” y de suma gravedad

[Note: The following is Google’s translation of the original Spanish.]

[The Archbishop of Villavicencio assures that these are “deplorable” and extremely serious acts

In 2019, the journalist Juan Pablo Barrientos published the book Let the children come to me, in which he revealed a series of cases of alleged sexual abuse by priests in various regions of Colombia. The book was not only one of the best sellers and suffered censorship attempts by some members of the Catholic Church, but it became the starting point for a news that shook the very religious Colombian society this Friday. A victim read it and took an impulse to denounce other priests. The official complaint reached the Prosecutor’s Office and upon hearing it, the archbishop of the Archdiocese of Villavicencio decided to suspend 19 religious from his clergy.]

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[Catholic Church suspends 19 priests for alleged acts of sexual abuse]

COLOMBIA
Caracol Radio

April 3, 2020

By Juan Pablo Barrientos

Quince de ellos en Villavicencio. El denunciante es ahora un testigo protegido de la Fiscalía.

[Note: The following is a Google Translation from the original Spanish]

[Fifteen of them in Villavicencio. The complainant is now a protected witness for the Prosecutor’s Office.

On March 16, the president of the Episcopal Conference and Archbishop of Villavicencio, Monsignor Óscar Urbina , in an unprecedented act in the Catholic Church of Colombia, suspended 15 priests who, according to a protected witness from the Prosecutor’s Office, formed along with 4 other priests, a network of sexual abusers that operated in Meta, Guaviare, Italy and the United States.

After learning about this publication from Caracol Radio, the Archdiocese of Villavicencio issued a statement in which they assure that “on February 14, 2020, a Colombian citizen, of legal age, brought to the attention of the competent body, facts against the sexual morality of some priests of this Archdiocese ”. The statement continues: “Aware that these acts are extremely serious, the Archdiocese of Villavicencio deplores and feels deep pain at this situation.”]

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HARRISBURG (PA)
CBS21 News

April 2, 2020

The bankruptcy case involving the Harrisburg Diocese continued Thursday.

Attorneys for the diocese and trustees called in for a hearing Thursday morning, where two motions were granted, basically extending the case.

The diocese was allowed to continue using its current cash management system, and a stay until June was approved.

The diocese filed for bankruptcy earlier this year following multiple lawsuits over the clergy sex abuse scandal.

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UNITED STATES
Pew Research Center

April 3, 2020

By Justin Nortey and Claire Gecewicz

Americans’ opinions of Pope Francis have rebounded slightly after hitting an all-time low almost two years ago in the wake of Catholic Church sex abuse scandals, according to a recent Pew Research Center survey.

Six-in-ten U.S. adults say they have a “very” or “mostly” favorable view of Pope Francis, up from roughly half who said this in September of 2018, when the question was last asked. At that time, a Pennsylvania grand jury had just published a report revealing decades of child sexual abuse by Catholic priests, and former cardinal Theodore McCarrick had recently resigned because of separate sex abuse allegations.

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WASHINGTON (DC)
US & WORLD

April 3, 2020

By Richard Szczepanowski

Calling the abuse of children a “spiritual felony,” Washington Archbishop Wilton Gregory offered prayers April 3 for victims of such abuse and prayed that God would “help us respect the dignity of all the young, vulnerable and those who need protection.”

Archbishop Gregory made the prayer during a Mass he celebrated for National Child Abuse Prevention Month in April. The Mass was offered in conjunction with the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Secretariat for Child and Youth Protection.

While not opened to the public because of shelter-in-place measures to fight the spread of COVID-19, the Mass was streamed live via the Archdiocese of Washington’s Facebook page.

“With so much attention focused on the serious threats to our physical health … we might well acknowledge that the month of April is also dedicated to our commitment to the health, protection and safety of our young people and for the continued healing of the scars of abuse that too many people have suffered in their own childhood,” Archbishop Gregory said.

He said that National Child Abuse Prevention Month “calls our attention to the dangers of sexual, physical, and emotional abusive treatments that youngsters may face.”

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NEW YORK (NY)
Crux

April 3, 2020

By Christopher White

A new study reveals that while American Catholics still overwhelmingly view Pope Francis favorably, he enjoys more support from Catholic Democrats than he does Catholic Republicans.

The new data was released on Friday by the Pew Research Center and found that seven years after his election as pope, six out of ten U.S. adults (or 59 percent) view Francis favorably, with three-quarters of American Catholics (or 77 percent) sharing a positive opinion of the pope.

The latest findings from Pew show Francis faring slightly better than when they last conducted polling on him among Americans in September 2018 when his numbers dipped to an all-time low of 51 percent among U.S. adults and 72 percent among American Catholics.

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HOUSTON (TX)
The Texas Tribune and ProPublica

April 2, 2020

By Kiah Collier, Perla Trevizo and Vianna Davila

COVID-19 has spread rapidly in Texas, and many congregations closed their doors and moved religious services online. But there are some religious groups who say it’s their right to remain open because they believe they provide an essential service to their communities.

This article is co-published with ProPublica, a nonprofit newsroom that investigates abuses of power. Sign up for ProPublica’s Big Story newsletter to receive stories like this one in your inbox as soon as they are published.

At least 25 parishioners filed into a beige-brick church here Wednesday evening and were handed rubber gloves at the door. A handwritten sign directed them to designated areas with seats that had been spaced 6 feet apart. Another sign laid out five things people should do to keep from spreading the new strain of coronavirus, including staying away if they felt sick.

The founding pastor of City on a Hill, Juan Bustamante, was in a particularly good mood. A day earlier, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott joined 30-plus other governors around the country in issuing a statewide stay-at-home order — though he declined to refer to it as such — that also designated religious services as essential. Under the order, Texans must stay home unless they work in certain business sectors or are grocery shopping, running must-do errands or exercising outdoors. Or going to church.

Abbott’s order came the same day the country’s top health experts estimated the virus could kill between 100,000 to 240,000 Americans, and that’s assuming people across the country adhere to social distancing guidelines. Otherwise, the numbers could climb much higher, to more than 2 million dead.

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MALAYSIA
The Star

April 2, 2020

By Imran Hilmy

Twenty-four seminarians pleaded guilty at the Magistrate’s Court here to flouting the movement control order (MCO).

All the suspects made the plea when the charges were read separately before Magistrate Rosnee Mohd Radzuan.

They were accused of committing the offence at a field of College General around 5.30pm on March 31.

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UNITED STATES
AdamHorowitzLaw.com

March 30, 2020

During this pandemic, reports of possible child abuse are down and reports of domestic violence are up. Both trends are troubling. You can help make a difference here.

About 70% of all suspected child abuse reports come from teachers, counselors and doctors. As fewer kids see these professionals, fewer reports get made.

Is more child abuse happening now, as families are cooped up together? No one knows. But fewer reports are being called in to state child protection agencies.

That means that some children who would benefit from the intervention of child safety workers aren’t getting attention these days because of the Covid-19 crisis.

But it’s different with domestic violence, advocates say. Partner and spousal abuse IS happening more often now, they believe.

According to NBC News, “as lawmakers across the country order lockdowns to slow the spread of the virus, the lives of people stuck in physically or emotionally abusive relationships have — and will — become harder, which has already been seen in the pandemic hotspots of China and Italy.”

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VICTORIA (AUSTRALIA)
Catholic News Agency via National Catholic Register

April 2, 2020

Cardinal Pell has told friends he remains faithful to God’s providence and committed to living his time in prison in the spirit of a monastic retreat.

The High Court of Australia will hand down its decision in the case of Cardinal George Pell next week. The justices are considering Cardinal Pell’s petition for special leave to appeal his 2018 conviction for sexual abuse.

The court announced Thursday that a decision would be issued by the seven justices in the case Cardinal Pell v. The Crown on April 7 at 10 am. By the time the decision is handed down, the bench will have considered the cardinal’s case for just over three weeks, after hearing two days of arguments in the case last month.

Cardinal Pell is seeking to appeal the 2-1 split decision of the Court of Appeal in Victoria to sustain his 2018 conviction on five counts of child sexual abuse over two separate instances.

The High Court heard arguments from Cardinal Pell’s legal team and from state prosecutors March 11-12, after which the justices reserved judgment.

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Broadcasting+Cable

April 2, 2020

Film looks at lives of those who live and work inside Vatican City

PBS will premiere the documentary Inside the Vatican Tuesday, April 28 at 9 p.m. The film looks behind the scenes into the lives of those who live and work inside the Vatican City, the headquarters of the Roman Catholic church.

Pope Francis, who has lead the Catholic church since 2013, has challenged attitudes on divorce and homosexuality and is not afraid of confronting opponents, the press release stated. He appointed 14 new cardinals from parts of Iraq, Madagascar and Pakistan.

The film also looks at Pope Francis’s visit to Ireland back in August. Just before he was scheduled to depart, a sex scandal was reported alleging the Catholic Church’s cover up of Catholic priests abusing young children. The report accused more than 300 priests of abusing more than 1,000 children.

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LAWRENCE (MA)
Lawrence Eagle Tribune

April 2, 2020

By Paul Tennant

The Rev. William Waters, OSA, has been exonerated of an allegation of abuse, according to a statement from the leader of Augustinian priests in the eastern United States.

The Rev. Peter Gori, OSA, who is also a member of the Order of St. Augustine, was exonerated and returned to ministry earlier this week. Cardinal Sean O’Malley, archbishop of Boston, announced Gori has returned as pastor of St. Augustine Church in Andover.

Waters and Gori were placed on leave last April after a man now in his 40s accused both priests of sexually abusing him in the 1980s. Both the Archdiocese of Boston and the Order of St. Augustine said the accusation against Gori was thoroughly investigated and determined to be unsubstantiated.

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BRISBANE (AUSTRALIA)
Agence France-Presse

April 2, 2020

Australia’s High Court said Thursday it will rule on Cardinal George Pell’s appeal against child sex abuse convictions on April 7, giving the senior cleric another chance to clear his name and leave jail.
The 78-year-old former Vatican treasurer is trying to overturn a six-year sentence for sexually assaulting two 13-year-old choirboys in the 1990s.

Pell, who once helped elect popes, is the highest-ranking Catholic Church official ever convicted of child sex crimes. He maintains his innocence.

Legal experts have struggled to predict the progression of the high-profile case, as it threw up one surprise after another.

Judges could yet deny Pell’s appeal, order a retrial or quash his conviction altogether.

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AUSTRALIA
RNZ

April 2, 2020

The High Court of Australia has announced it will hand down its decision on Cardinal George Pell’s final bid for freedom in Brisbane next week.

Australia’s highest court will deliver its decision at 10:00am on Tuesday, 7 April.

Pell is serving a maximum of six years’ jail after a jury found him guilty of sexually abusing two choirboys in St Patrick’s Cathedral in 1996 when he was Catholic Archbishop of Melbourne.

He was convicted of one count of sexual penetration of a child under 16 and four counts of committing an indecent act with a child.

The former advisor to the Pope maintains he is innocent.

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ATLANTA (GA)
CNN

April 2, 2020

By Ivana Kottasová and Valentina Di Donato

On Sunday, a woman walked into a pharmacy in the French city of Nancy, one of the few public places still open after the government imposed a nationwide lockdown to prevent the spread of a dangerous virus.

But the woman wasn’t there for medicine; she was there to tell the pharmacist that her partner had abused her. Soon after, the woman’s spouse was arrested by police.
As the coronavirus pandemic forces countries everywhere to take unprecedented steps to restrict the movement of their citizens, victims of domestic violence have suddenly found themselves trapped at home with their abusive partners. Some are unable — or too afraid — to call the police, experts say.

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SAINT LOUIS (MO)
SNAP Network

March 30, 2020

With 14 years of courageous reporting on Baptist clergy sex abuse and church cover-ups, journalist Bob Allen made a difference in the lives of countless survivors and helped to make church kids throughout the country safer. In response to the announcement of his retirement on March 31, SNAP can only say “thank you.”

Bob Allen was there on the scene in 2006 at the very first SNAP media event outside “the Baptist Vatican” – i.e., the Southern Baptist Convention headquarters in Nashville. From that point forward, day in and day out, his news articles continued to document the Baptist clergy sex abuse scandal and the early activist efforts in the movement for child safety and clergy accountability among Baptists.

He methodically reported the stories of numerous Baptist clergy abuse survivors long before the momentum of the #ChurchToo movement, and at a time when many still mistakenly viewed clergy sex abuse as being limited to a Catholic problem.

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AUSTRALIA
The Courier

April 2, 2020

Disgraced Cardinal George Pell will learn next week whether his final bid for freedom has been successful.

The High Court will hand down its judgment in his case on Tuesday.

His lawyers have argued Victoria’s Court of Appeal majority made an error in refusing the previous appeal bid last year, and that there was not enough evidence for a jury to convict him of the sexual abuse of two choirboys at Melbourne’s St Patrick’s Cathedral in 1996.

Pell was convicted by a jury in 2018 on the word of a single choirboy that he was sexually abused as a teenager by Australia’s highest-ranking Catholic.

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AUSTRALIA
AAP

April 1, 2020

By Karen Sweeney

Disgraced Cardinal George Pell will learn next week whether his final bid for freedom has been successful.

The High Court will hand down its judgment in his case in Brisbane on Tuesday morning.

Pell is one year into a six-year jail sentence handed down after a jury found him guilty in 2018 of sexually abusing two 13-year-old choirboys at Melbourne’s St Patrick’s Cathedral in 1996.

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NEW YORK (NY)
NY Daily News

April 2, 2020

By Teri Hatcher and Tom Andriola

The one-year look-back window will end this summer for victims of child sexual abuse to sue their abusers. Should New York extent the deadline?
Extended deadline would mean more justice

As children, we were both abused by family members, people close to us, people we trusted. We both eventually spoke out as part of our own healing process and, more importantly, to protect other people, but it took us decades to disclose our abuse even to those closest to us.

The science of trauma is clear: It takes time for survivors to come forward and by the time we’re ready, many of us have lost the chance to pursue justice in the courts. That’s why the one year look-back window of the Child Victims Act is so important. Unfortunately, the COVID-19 pandemic just hit pause for thousands of survivors who thought they still had time to file a civil lawsuit.

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TOKYO (JAPAN)
Kyodo News

April 2, 2020

The Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Japan has found 16 cases of sexual abuse against minors spanning from the 1950s to the 2010s in its internal probe of churches in the country, sources familiar with the matter said Thursday.

The Tokyo-based organization has been investigating all its 16 dioceses and other convents in Japan since last May, calling for people to come forward with reports of sexual abuse regardless of when it occurred.

The investigation found some elementary school students — both boys and girls — as well as a child under the age of 6 were among those who had been subjected to sexual abuse, which took place in a priest’s room, church buildings and other facilities run by convents including foster homes, according to the sources.

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AUSTRALIA
The Telegraph

April 2, 2020

By Giovanni Torre

George Pell said to have abused two children who had lived in the same orphanage in 1970s

New allegations of child abuse against George Pell have been made public for the first time, as the disgraced Australian Cardinal awaits the High Court decision on his appeal against convictions for rape and sexual assault.

Pell, once the most powerful Catholic in Australia, became the church’s most senior official to be convicted of child sexual abuse in 2018 when he was sentenced to six years imprisonment.

On Thursday it was announced the decision in Pell’s High Court appeal would come next week. Earlier that same day, allegations of sexual abuse were publicly levelled against Pell by two men who had lived in the same orphanage in Ballarat, Victoria, as children.

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CANBERRA (AUSTRALIA)
The Australian

April 2, 2020

By John Ferguson

The High Court will hand down its judgment on George Pell’s appeal next Tuesday in what will be his last chance of freedom before having to serve a minimum term of three years and eight months.

The court announced on Thursday the judgment would be delivered in Brisbane, with several scenarios possible including that he walks free from Victoria’s Barwon Prison soon after 10am.

The High Court tweeted its intention to deliver the judgment in arguably the most contentious criminal matter in Australia since Lindy Chamberlain was convicted in 1982 of killing her daughter, ­Azaria, at Uluru.

Pell, 78, has not spoken publicly since he was charged in 2017 with sexually assaulting two choirboys at Melbourne’s St Patrick’s Cathedral in 1996 and 1997.

The charges have been stridently contested by the cardinal’s Rolls-Royce legal team, which has included two of Australia’s most respected barristers — Bret Walker SC and Robert Richter QC.

There are several options that could flow from the judgment, including potential early release, or even being referred back to the Victorian Court of Appeal.

However, the court has not yet declared whether it has even accepted the appeal, argument for which was heard last month before the full bench.

Pell was convicted in 2019 of five sex abuse charges against the two 13-year-old choirboys, leading to a six-year jail term.

Pell has maintained his innocence, saying he did not abuse the children in St Patrick’s Cathedral, and is said to have been shocked that the matters progressed past the County Court trials in Melbourne.

Victorian Director of Public Prosecutions Kerri Judd QC had a torrid time in the High Court, shifting the time frame for when the offending could have occurred at the cathedral in 1996.

The original narrative was that it occurred in a window of five to six months, but there has been extensive evidence before the court suggesting this was both impossible and improbable.

The prosecution relied heavily in the County Court and Court of Appeal on the surviving choirboy’s evidence, arguing that he was compelling and a witness of truth. The second choirboy died of a drug overdose several years ago and had denied ever being sexually assaulted.

Pell did not give evidence at trial, instead relying on a video-­recorded police interview in Italy before he was charged.

The full bench was asked last month to acquit Pell, 78, of five charges of molestin­g the two 13-year-olds in 1996 and 1997 while archbishop of Melbourne. Experts have predicted a possible acquittal as Mr Walker effectively asked the full bench to free his client.

Pell is being kept in Barwon Prison, having been transferred from Melbourne’s assessment prison, where he was held in solitary confinement before being shifted amid security concerns.

Unless cleared by the High Court, he will serve a minimum of three years and eight months.

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CANBERRA (AUSTRALIA)
Associated Press

April 2, 2020

By Rod McGurk

Australia’s highest court will deliver its ruling next week on whether to overturn the convictions of Cardinal George Pell, the most senior Catholic convicted of child sex abuse.

The 78-year-old Pell is one year into a six-year sentence for molesting two 13-year-old choirboys in Melbourne’s St. Patrick’s Cathedral while he was the city’s archbishop in the late 1990s.

The High Court said Thursday a single judge will deliver the verdicts of all seven at 10 a.m. Tuesday in the east coast city of Brisbane. It had heard his appeal March 11-12 before the court’s hearings were canceled due to the coronavirus risk.

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ONTONAGON (MI)
Mining Gazette

April 1, 2020

By Garrett Neese

The preliminary hearing for a former Ontonagon County priest accused of molesting several children has been postponed indefinitely because of the reduced court calendar to combat COVID-19.

Gary Jacobs, 74, who now lives in New Mexico, faces 10 counts of criminal sexual conduct in Ontonagon County. All stem from alleged incidents between 1981 and 1984 in which he is said to have abused his position as a priest.

His preliminary hearing had been scheduled for Monday.

Jacobs was charged in January with seven criminal sexual conduct charges in three cases in Ontonagon County and one count of criminal sexual conduct in Dickinson County, all stemming from alleged incidents between 1981 and 1984.

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[The Supreme Court dismissed the complaints of the Christ Society. The precedent verdict on the victim of pedophile priest maintained]

POLAND
Gazeta.pl

March 31, 2020

[GOOGLE TRANSLATION FROM POLISH: The Supreme Court did not accept the appeal lodged by the Christ Society. It upheld the verdict under which the victim of the former priest Roman B. received a million zlotys compensation and a life annuity. B., who belonged to the Society of Christ, was previously sentenced to four years in prison.

Katarzyna, a victim of priest Roman B., who had already imprisoned and raped her as a 13-year-old girl, received the highest compensation in the history of Poland in the case of clerical harassment: PLN 1 million and PLN 800 annuity paid every month. This judgment was issued last year by the Poznań District Court and the Poznań Court of Appeal upheld it.]

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BERLIN (GERMANY)
The Irish Times

April 1, 2020

By Derek Scally

Supreme court ruling gives clear signal to survivors and religious for future cases

Poland’s Catholic Church is facing a tidal wave of compensation bills after the country’s highest court ruled it is liable for damages for people abused by its priests and religious.

The supreme court dismissed a challenge by a religious order, the Society of Christ Fathers, to a lower court ruling that it carried ultimate responsibility for compensating a woman abused by one of its priests.

In the lower court the woman, identified only as Kasia, was awarded one million zloty (€220,000) – which the order has already paid before launching a final legal challenge.

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WASHINGTON (DC)
Catholic Standard

April 1, 2020

By Richard Szczepanowski

Washington Archbishop Wilton Gregory will celebrate Mass April 3 at noon to mark April as National Child Abuse Prevention Month.

While not opened to the public, the Mass will be live streamed on the Archdiocese of Washington’s Facebook page. (https://www.facebook.com/adw.org/) The direct link to the video is: https://www.facebook.com/adw.org/posts/3245631122121772.

Offered in conjunction with the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Secretariat for Child and Youth Protection, the Mass was originally scheduled to be offered in the chapel at the conference’s headquarters. But as Catholic agencies have closed their doors in an effort to contain the spread of COVID-19, Archbishop Gregory will offer the Mass from his private chapel.

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ARLINGTON (VA)
Ms. Magazine

April 1, 2020

By Ashley Garling

This month, communities across the country are gathering at local ‘Take Back the Night’ events in observance and support of those impacted by sexual violence. In the last year—as news broke about Baptist church leaders abusing children and the Pope acknowledged nuns were being abused by church leaders—sexual violence facing children proved to be an international crisis. Investigations of both found the majority of the crimes had been long standing and some even continued for decades, but little is said about support for the victims.

This silence is dangerous. Without access to healthcare, support from loved ones and support from the community, it can lead to serious mental health consequences.

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SPINDALE (NC)
WUNC

April 1, 2020

By Katy Barron & Anita Rao

In this March 2, 1995 file photo, Word of Faith Fellowship church leader Jane Whaley talks to members of the media as husband Sam listens during a news conference in Spindale, N.C. Whaley has persuaded a magistrate to issue trespassing charges against Democratic candidate David Wheeler, who brought supporters and a TV crew along to a scheduled meeting at the church. Wheeler says he was invited by Whaley to visit the church, which has been accused of beating congregants to expel demons.

When former schoolteacher Jane Whaley and her husband, Sam, founded Word of Faith Fellowship in Spindale, NC in 1979, no one could have imagined all that the institution would become: a religious movement with global impact; a community that provides housing and job opportunities to its congregation; and a cult dogged with allegations of physical, psychological and spiritual abuse.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC

April 1, 2020

By Sarah Ferguson

For decades, 53-year-old Bernie* kept the secrets of his childhood deeply buried.

As a boy growing up in a Ballarat orphanage in the 1970s, Bernie told the ABC’s Revelation program that he was abused on multiple occasions by George Pell, then a priest in the diocese of Ballarat.

For years Bernie was convinced that if he reported the abuse, he would not be believed.

“I would hear Pell’s become Bishop,” Bernie says.

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RESTON (VA)
CNSNews

April 1, 2020

By Bill Donohue

In 1987, Raymond Donovan, former Secretary of Labor under President Ronald Reagan, was acquitted of charges that he conspired with the mafia for a business transaction. When he walked out of court a free man, he was asked by the media how he felt. He famously quipped, “Which office do I go to to get my reputation back?”

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WASHINGTON (DC)
Catholic Standard

April 1, 2020

(The following is the text of the annual report from the Archdiocese of Washington’s Child Protection Advisory Board for July 1, 2018 through June 30, 2019.)

The Archdiocese of Washington’s Child Protection & Safe Environment Office continues to expand its mission to create and implement effective programs and initiatives to educate and empower community members on the issues of child protection and safe environment. The office’s priority is to provide the most current information to ensure and promote the safety and well-being of all community members while in the presence of the Catholic faith. Some important aspects of the office:

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AUSTRALIA
Eternity News

April 1, 2020

By Chrissie Foster

The second episode of ABC’s Revelation series last night followed reporter Sarah Ferguson into the maximum security prison where Bernard McGrath, a prolific pedophile, is incarcerated. “In a tense exchange, McGrath moves between denial and revelation about the complicity of the Church in his crimes,” the program summary says.

Chrissie Foster, whose daughters Emma and Katie were raped by Melbourne priest Kevin O’Donnell while they were at primary school in the 1980s, has become a advocate for survivors of clergy sexual abuse.

This is her response to episode two of “Revelation.”

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HOT SPRINGS (AR)
BP

March 31, 2020

By Diana Chandler

The Arkansas Baptist State Convention (ABSC), Millcreek Baptist Church and other defendants have denied allegations and filed motions to dismiss a 2019 lawsuit accusing them of liability in alleged multiple sexual assaults of a minor.

The defendants responded to a lawsuit filed in December 2019 accusing former Millcreek pastor Teddy Hill Jr. of sexually assaulting Riley Fields over a period of years. Fields, now 19, alleges the sexual assaults began in 2014 and continued after Hill was appointed as Field’s guardian in 2016, according to court documents filed in the Ninth Circuit Court of Pulaski County, Ark. Fields originally identified himself as John Doe, but revealed his name in an amended complaint in January.

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ALLENTOWN (PA)
Morning Call

March 31, 2020

By Peter Hall

An Allentown Diocese priest raped a victim when he was an altar boy and continued assaulting him for decades after the priest became known to diocese officials as a pedophile, a lawsuit filed in New Jersey alleges.

The suit claims the Rev. Robert G. Cofenas began abusing the victim, who is identified by the pseudonym John Doe, when he was a 7-year-old altar boy at Holy Rosary Roman Catholic Church in Reading. The abuse continued until the victim was in his 30s.

The suit alleges Cofenas identified the victim to other priests as a source of sexual gratification and names two who also allegedly assaulted the victim, including an Allentown Diocese priest who has never been publicly accused.

Cofenas was first identified as an accused priest in the statewide grand jury report on abuse in the church, released in August 2018. The report, produced after a two-year grand jury investigation, identified more than 300 Pennsylvania clergy in six dioceses, including Allentown, as abusers.

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Ending Clergy Abuse (ECAGlobal.org)

March 2, 2020

His Holiness, Pope Francis,
Apostolic Palace,
00120 Vatican City.

Dear Pope Francis,

Our organization led the largest international gathering of clergy sexual abuse victims and activists in Rome in February 2019 and 2020. Our conduct was peaceful and our message clear: Zero Tolerance.

Last month, during the first anniversary of your global summit on abuse we returned to Rome to deliver a report on the developments over the past year from around the world. Our presence was not acknowledged and no one from the Vatican or Church leadership approached us. This was in sharp contrast to last year when we were invited to meet with your planning group before the Summit and Cardinals dropped in to visit with us during the Summit for informal exchanges.

We came this year with the expectation of engagement with you or your representatives and to give you our assessment of the past year. We were met with indifference and silence. We were promised in our meeting with the planning group of the summit last year that there would be follow-up and dialogue with us. To date, there has been none.

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BOSTON (MA)
Archdiocese of Boston

March 30, 2020

Reinstated as Pastor of St. Augustine Parish in Andover

The Archdiocese of Boston announced today that Cardinal Seán P. O’Malley, OFM Cap, has returned Rev. Peter Gori, OSA., to active ministry. In addition, he has reinstated Rev. Gori as Pastor of St. Augustine Parish in Andover, MA.

This follows the completion of a thorough and independent investigation of the facts and circumstances surrounding an allegation of abuse over 25 years ago. The investigation finding is that the allegation is unsubstantiated. Rev. Gori will return to the parish by Palm Sunday.

The Augustinian Order relied upon an independent investigator, Praesidium Inc., and their Independent Review Board in concluding the allegation could not be substantiated. During the investigation, the attorney for the alleged victim withdrew from the case. It was subsequently determined that the alleged dates of abuse did not coincide with Rev. Gori’s assignment history. The alleged victim could not recall details of the abuse and declined to participate any further in the investigation. In addition, the Essex County District Attorney affirmed that it was no longer pursuing an open investigation.

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