ABUSE TRACKER

LOWELL (MA)
The Sun

November 9, 2020

If there’s indeed a hell, it’s a fitting final destination for Paul Shanley.

Shanley, a former Roman Catholic priest who played a pivotal role in the sexual-abuse scandal that rocked the Archdiocese of Boston two decades ago, has died, authorities said Friday. He was 89.

Police in Ware, a town in west-central Massachusetts where Shanley had lived since his release from prison in 2017, confirmed his death, but not the circumstances.

WFXT-TV, Boston’s Fox News affiliate, said he died of heart failure on Oct. 28.

Shanley was known in the 1960s and ’70s as a hip, street-wise priest who reached out to troubled youths. But in 2005 he was convicted of repeatedly raping and fondling a boy at a suburban parish in the 1980s, and he was sentenced to 12 to 15 years in prison.

During the trial, Shanley’s accuser, then a 27-year-old firefighter, said Shanley would pull him from Sunday catechism classes and rape and fondle him at St. Jean’s parish in Newton, beginning when he was 6 years old. The man said he recovered memories of the abuse as the clergy sex-abuse scandal unfolded in the Archdiocese of Boston during the early 2000s.

Incredibly, not only was Shanley’s predatory conduct tolerated, but rewarded, as in 1984 when Cardinal Bernard Law promoted him to pastor of St. John the Evangelist Church in Newton.

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

DENVER (CO)
Catholic News Agency

November 9, 2020

Members of the Australian media are on trial this week for charges of violating a gag order issued during the trial of Cardinal George Pell, whose 2018 conviction for sexual abuse of minors was overturned last spring.

In total, 18 media personnel as well as 12 media organizations could face punitive measures including prison sentences or fines if found guilty by the Supreme Court of the state of Victoria, according to the AP.

The County Court of Victoria imposed a sweeping injunction against media coverage of Pell’s trial in June 2018, suppressing news of the legal proceedings at the request of the prosecution. The first trial proceeded to a deadlock in the early autumn of 2018, and a five week retrial convicted Pell in December 2018.

Pell was sentenced to six years in prison, and served 13 months before his conviction was overturned and he was released in April 2020.

The controversial media gag order had applied to all states and territories of Australia as well as any media format accessible within Australia.

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

DENVER (CO)
Catholic News Agency

November 10, 2020

Allegations that Cardinal Stanisław Dziwisz failed to investigate claims of clerical abuse aired in a television program Monday should be clarified by the Vatican, the president of the Polish bishops’ conference said.

Archbishop Stanisław Gądecki made the comment in a Nov. 10 statement, issued in response to the program “Don Stanislao: The other face of Cardinal Dziwisz,” shown on TVN24, a Polish commercial news channel, on the eve of the publication of the McCarrick Report.

The 82-minute program, presented by journalist Marcin Gutowski, accused the former personal secretary of St. John Paul II of failing to investigate clerical abuse allegations.

Gądecki said: “In reference to yesterday’s TVN24 report entitled ‘Don Stanislao: The other face of Cardinal Dziwisz,’ in which Cardinal Stanislaw Dziwisz is accused of neglecting to investigate cases of sexual abuse by clergy, I hope that any doubts presented in this report will be clarified by the relevant commission of the Holy See.”

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

NEW LONDON (CT)
The Day

November 9, 2020

By Joe Wojtas

Norwich – The retired state Superior Court judge leading the Diocese of Norwich’s investigation into the extent of sexual abuse of children by priests assigned to the diocese said Monday that his team’s goal is to “speak with as many persons as possible who have information relevant to our investigation.”

Michael E. Riley, made the written comments in response to questions posed by The Day.

On Sunday, the diocese revealed to the region’s Catholics that it has spent the past 13 months investigating abuse dating back to 1953 as part of its “Clerical Sexual Abuse Accountability Investigation.”

The Day had asked Riley if he is interviewing the many men and women who say they were sexually assaulted by diocesan priests, attorneys who have represented some of them in civil cases or if he is interviewing retired Bishop of Norwich Daniel Reilly, who documents show transferred priests who had complaints made against them for sexually assaulting children and teens to other parishes.

Riley said investigators would speak with people whether they are survivors of abuse, alleged perpetrators of abuse or diocesan administrators.

He said they also plan to reach out to attorneys who have represented victims requesting they encourage their clients to speak with them and will also reach out to survivor groups for their input.

“We encourage any survivor or witness to contact us through the toll-free hotline we have established, and we appreciate the media’s support in publicizing the hotline and reporting website so that our investigation can be as thorough as possible. The diocese has committed that we will have unrestricted access to all of its current and former staff, priests and administrators including bishops. We will make those judgments based on the details of the investigation as it unfolds,” he wrote.

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

LONDON (ENGLAND)
Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse

November 10, 2020

By Alexis Jay, Sir Malcolm Evans, Ivor Frank, and Drusilla Sharpling

[Note: More than 800 documents gathered in the course of this investigation may be viewed here.]

This investigation report examines the extent of institutional failings by the Roman Catholic Church in England and Wales to protect children from sexual abuse and examines the Church’s current safeguarding regime. It draws on evidence from the Inquiry’s three case studies on Ampleforth and Downside Abbeys and their respective schools, Ealing Abbey and St Benedict’s School, and the Archdiocese of Birmingham.

Between 1970 and 2015, the Roman Catholic Church received more than 900 complaints involving over 3,000 instances of child sexual abuse against more than 900 individuals connected to the Church, including priests, monks and volunteers. In the same period, there were 177 prosecutions resulting in 133 convictions. Civil claims against dioceses and religious institutes have resulted in millions of pounds being paid in compensation. It would be wrong, however, to regard child sexual abuse within the Roman Catholic Church as solely a historical problem. Since 2016, there have been more than 100 reported allegations each year. Across the entire period of nearly 50 years covered by this Inquiry, the true scale of sexual abuse of children is likely to have been much higher.

As we have said previously, faith organisations are marked out from most other institutions by their explicit moral purpose. The Roman Catholic Church is no different. In the context of the sexual abuse of children, that moral purpose was betrayed over decades by those in the Church who perpetrated this abuse and those who turned a blind eye to it. The Church’s neglect of the physical, emotional and spiritual well-being of children and young people in favour of protecting its reputation was in conflict with its mission of love and care for the innocent and vulnerable.

Victims and survivors described the profound and lifelong effect of this abuse. One witness said “the psychological effects have continued ever since, resulting in years of unbearable guilt, depression, nightmares, anxiety and PTSD symptoms”. Another victim said the abuse which he experienced at junior and senior residential schools affected every aspect of his life, and led to him self-harming. It “nearly wrecked” his marriage and “destroyed my trust, not just in the church but in any authority”.

In another instance, a young boy estimated that he was abused several hundred times by a senior priest between the ages of 11 and 15 years. After each incident he was required to make confession, and the priest concerned made it plain that his sister’s place at a local convent school depended on his compliance.

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

LONDON (ENGLAND)
The Guardian

November 10, 2020

By Owen Bowcott and Harriet Sherwood

Damning report says church put its reputation above the welfare of abuse victims

The Catholic church “betrayed” its moral purpose by prioritising its reputation over the welfare of children who had been sexually abused by priests, a damning inquiry report has concluded.

In its final review of the church, the independent inquiry into child sexual abuse (IICSA) was scathing in its criticism of the leadership of Cardinal Vincent Nichols and says the Vatican’s failure to cooperate with the investigation “passes understanding”.

The 162-page report states: “The church’s neglect of the physical, emotional and spiritual well‐being of children and young people in favour of protecting its reputation was in conflict with its mission of love and care for the innocent and vulnerable.”

Between 1970 and 2015, the church received more than 900 complaints involving over 3,000 instances of child sexual abuse against more than 900 individuals, including priests, monks and volunteers. Over that period, there were 177 prosecutions resulting in 133 convictions. Civil claims against dioceses and religious institutes have resulted in millions of pounds being paid in compensation.

The sexual abuse of children involved instances of “masturbation, oral sex, vaginal rape and anal rape”. On occasions, the inquiry says, it was accompanied by “sadistic beatings driven by sexual gratification” as well as “deeply manipulative behaviour by those in positions of trust”.

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

NEW YORK (NY)
New York Times

November 10, 2020

By Jason Horowitz

In elevating Theodore E. McCarrick to the position of cardinal, the former pope disregarded warnings and believed the prelate’s denials about sexual misconduct, an inquiry found.

Vatican City – A highly anticipated Vatican report found on Tuesday that Pope John Paul II had rejected explicit warnings about sexual misconduct by Theodore E. McCarrick, now a disgraced former cardinal, choosing to believe the American prelate’s denials and misleading accounts by bishops as he elevated him to the highest ranks of the church hierarchy.

As Washington’s archbishop, Mr. McCarrick was one of the most powerful leaders of the Roman Catholic Church in the United States, a media darling and prodigious fund-raiser with deep connections in the Vatican. But he became the highest-ranking American official to be removed for sexual abuse when the pope kicked him out of the priesthood in 2019.

Given Mr. McCarrick’s long career — as a priest in New York, archbishop of Newark and a Washington cardinal with a national and international profile — the 449-page report had the potential to engulf three separate papacies in scandal. Since the abuse carried out by Mr. McCarrick became public in 2017, conservative critics have accused Francis of covering up the American’s misconduct.

But the investigation, commissioned by Francis, who had promised to “follow the path of truth wherever it may lead,” largely absolved the current pope. Instead, it put fault chiefly with Francis’ conservative predecessors, emeritus Pope Benedict XVI, and in particular Pope John Paul II — elevated to sainthood since his death — who believed Mr. McCarrick’s denials of the allegations of sexual misconduct and promoted him.

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

NEW YORK (NY)
New York Times

November 10, 2020

By Elizabeth Dias and Ruth Graham

A new report about a disgraced former cardinal had the potential to implicate three separate papacies in scandal.

On Tuesday the Vatican released a massive report investigating how Theodore E. McCarrick, a disgraced former cardinal and archbishop of Washington, rose to the heights of the Catholic Church, despite leaders receiving reports that he had sexually abused minors and adult seminarians over the course of decades.

Here are five takeaways from the report:

• Pope John Paul II knew of allegations of Mr. McCarrick’s sexual misconduct.

Pope John Paul II personally made the decision to elevate Mr. McCarrick even after a U.S. cardinal warned that he had been accused of sexual misconduct.

In 1999, when Mr. McCarrick was being considered to take over the Archdiocese of New York, Cardinal John O’Connor of New York wrote a six-page letter to the Vatican’s ambassador to the United States. He raised concerns that Mr. McCarrick had asked young adult men to sleep in his bed with him and that some priests had experienced psychological trauma from Mr. McCarrick’s inappropriate behavior.

“I regret that I would have to recommend very strongly against such promotion, particularly if to a Cardinatial See,” Cardinal O’Connor said. “Nevertheless, I subject my comments to higher authority and most particularly our Holy Father.”

Vatican leaders shared the assessment with Pope John Paul II. But the pope dismissed the allegations after Mr. McCarrick wrote him a letter directly denying them, and he elevated Mr. McCarrick anyway to the Archdiocese of Washington, one of the most prominent positions in the country. “McCarrick’s direct relationship with John Paul II also likely had an impact on the Pope’s decision making,” the report said.

[The other takeaways discussed in this article are:]

• The Vatican blames three American bishops for providing misleading information.

• Pope Benedict XVI ousted Mr. McCarrick as archbishop of Washington but declined to investigate him.

• Pope Francis did nothing until 2017 because he believed the allegations had already been reviewed by Pope John Paul II.

• It is extremely unusual for the Vatican to investigate its highest leaders like this.

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

NEW YORK (NY)
New York Times

November 10, 2020

By Elizabeth Bruenig

A Vatican report reveals that the defrocked cardinal’s manipulation of power went all the way to the top.

Since accusations of sexual misconduct with boys and young men culminated in the former archbishop Theodore McCarrick’s dramatic resignation as a cardinal in 2018 and expulsion from the priesthood the following year, the Catholic hierarchy has been haunted by the question of who knew what, and when.

A Vatican-commissioned report released Tuesday gives us a clearer answer: everyone — to the highest echelons of the church — and far sooner than had previously been verified.

According to the report, a year before Pope John Paul II installed Mr. McCarrick as archbishop of Washington, D.C., Cardinal John O’Connor of New York warned the pontiff of serious concerns about Mr. McCarrick’s rumored sexual abuses, citing seminarians who had entered psychiatric treatment in the wake of their encounters with him.

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

VATICAN CITY
Reuters

November 10, 2020

By Philip Pullella

A Vatican report into disgraced ex-U.S. Cardinal Theodore McCarrick points to failings by popes, Vatican officials and senior U.S. clerics who let him rise through the Catholic ranks despite repeated allegations of sexual misconduct.

With testimony from 90 witnesses and dozens of documents, letters and transcripts from Vatican and U.S. Church archives, the 460-page document offers a remarkable reckoning by an institution known for its secrecy, portraying a man long able to convince superiors of his innocence.

The report said that “credible evidence” that the former archbishop of Washington, D.C. had abused minors when he was a priest in the 1970s did not surface until 2017.

But it said the U.S. Church hierarchy was aware of consistent rumors that after McCarrick became a bishop in the early 1980s he preyed on adult male seminarians.

“During extended interviews, often emotional, the persons described a range of behavior, including sexual abuse or assault, unwanted sexual activity, intimate physical contact and the sharing of beds without physical touching,” the report’s introduction says.

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

VATICAN CITY
Holy See

November 10, 2020

I. INTRODUCTION

A. Scope and Nature of the Report Related to Former Cardinal Theodore Edgar McCarrick

On 6 October 2018, the Holy Father ordered a thorough study of the
documentation present in the Archives of the Dicasteries and Offices of the
Holy See regarding McCarrick, in order to ascertain all the relevant facts, to
place them in their historical context and to evaluate them objectively.

The examination of documents was undertaken in compliance with the
instructions of the Holy Father and under the auspices of the Secretariat of
State. No limit was placed on the examination of documents, the questioning
of individuals or the expenditure of resources necessary to carry out the
investigation. The Secretariat of State, having now concluded its
examination, sets forth the results in this Report on the Holy See’s
Institutional Knowledge and Decision-Making Related to Former Cardinal
Theodore Edgar McCarrick (1930 to 2017) (“Report”). The Report is
released to the public pursuant to the Holy Father’s instruction in this
exceptional case for the good of the Universal Church.

This Report is based upon review of all relevant documents located after a
diligent search. Within the Roman Curia, information was primarily obtained
from the Secretariat of State, the Congregation for Bishops, the
Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the Congregation for Clergy and
the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments.
All relevant documents of the Apostolic Nunciature to the United States were
also examined. While an explanation of the various roles and functions of
the named dicasteries and officials is beyond the scope of the Report, an
understanding of such matters, including the distinctions between the
competencies of the dicasteries, is critical to comprehend the decisionmaking
process described below.

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

PITTSBURGH (PA)
Post-Gazette

November 10, 2020

By Peter Smith

This week was already shaping up as a milestone in the career of Cardinal Donald Wuerl, the former bishop of his native Pittsburgh, who is reaching the mandatory retirement age of 80 from powerful roles he has held at the Vatican.

Adding to that, he is also expected to figure in a Vatican report Tuesday about his predecessor as archbishop of Washington, the disgraced former Cardinal Theodore McCarrick. The report is expected to focus on who knew what and when about allegations of sexual misconduct against the now-defrocked Mr. McCarrick, even as he rose to the highest ranks of the U.S. church hierarchy.

Cardinal Wuerl, who served as the Roman Catholic bishop of his native Pittsburgh from 1988 to 2006, turns 80 on Thursday. Under Catholic Church law, that means he will no longer be eligible to vote in conclaves of cardinals who select a new pope when there is a vacancy.

In addition to shedding that role, Cardinal Wuerl will also reach mandatory retirement age on the influential Congregation for Bishops, which advises the pope on appointments of new bishops, and hence has a large role in shaping the church hierarchy around the world. He has served in that role since 2013. The mandatory retirement also applies to his service on the pontifical councils for culture and Christian unity.

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

DENVER (CO)
Catholic News Agency

November 9, 2020

By JD Flynn

On Tuesday, Nov. 10, the Vatican’s Secretariat of State will release a report on its two-year investigation into the career of ex-cardinal Theodore McCarrick, who has been found canonically guilty of serial sexual abuse and misconduct, and was laicized in 2019.

Ahead of the report, CNA looks at some of your questions, and reviews what you need to know:

Who is Theodore McCarrick?

Theodore Edgar McCarrick was born July 7, 1930 in New York City. His father died when McCarrick was three years old.

McCarrick entered New York’s St. Joseph’s Seminary in the early 1950s, after a family friend paid for him to study for a year in Switzerland.

He was ordained a priest of the Archdiocese of New York in 1958.

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

WALTHAM (MA)
BishopAccountability.org

November 10, 2020

Stripped of his clerical status on January 11, 2019, becoming the first cardinal to be laicized for sex crimes. As of November 8, 2020, McCarrick had been publicly accused of sexually abusing at least ten minors in New York and New Jersey and of sexually abusing and/or harassing at least eight seminarians and priests of the Metuchen diocese and Newark archdiocese.

Substantive allegations against McCarrick were public on the internet for more than a decade before the mainstream press reported them. In 2005, conservative Catholic blogger Matt Abbott wrote about McCarrick’s alleged abuses of seminarians and priests. In 2008, scholar Richard Sipe published an open letter to Pope Benedict, saying he knew of “at least four priests who have had sexual encounters with Cardinal McCarrick.” In 2010, in an essay entitled the Cardinal McCarrick Syndrome, Sipe published excerpts from files of a church settlement with a former priest who was sexually abused by McCarrick.

The mainstream press did not report McCarrick’s sexual offenses until June 20, 2018, when Cardinal Dolan announced that the New York archdiocesan review board had found a child sexual abuse allegation against McCarrick to be “credible and substantiated” and that McCarrick had been ordered to cease public ministry. It was the first public allegation that McCarrick had assaulted a child. In a statement on the Washington DC archdiocesan website, McCarrick denied the abuse: “I have absolutely no recollection of this reported abuse, and believe in my innocence.” The victim was a 16-year-old student at NYC’s Cathedral Prep Seminary in late 1971, when then-Monsignor McCarrick allegedly sexually assaulted him in the sacristy of St. Patrick’s Cathedral. A year later, in late 1972, the boy was attacked by McCarrick a second time in one of the cathedral’s bathrooms. In separate statements released simultaneously with Dolan’s, Bishop James Checchio of Metuchen NJ and Archbishop Joseph Tobin of Newark NJ admitted that the Metuchen and Newark dioceses had “received three allegations of [McCarrick’s] sexual misconduct with adults decades ago; two of these allegations resulted in settlements.”

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

KANSAS CITY (MO)
National Catholic Reporter

November 9, 2020

by Joshua J. McElwee

Who are the prelates who may have made decisions about the former cardinal’s rise?

Rome – The Vatican’s report on the rise of ex-Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, set to be released Nov. 10, will likely contain the names of a vast array of figures — some who were directly involved in the success of his now-disgraced career and others who were ancillary but influential.

To help in preparing for the report’s release, NCR has assembled short biographical sketches of some of the more major figures.

McCarrick, aged 90, was long one of the most influential prelates in the U.S. Catholic Church — before a series of shocking announcements in June 2018 revealed that he had been ordered by the Vatican to step down from active ministry after an allegation of sexual abuse was found “credible and substantiated.”

Pope Francis confirmed McCarrick’s removal from the priesthood, after a guilty finding by the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, in February 2019.

For this roster, we have focused primarily on the periods surrounding McCarrick’s episcopal appointments, namely: as auxiliary bishop of New York in May 1977, as bishop of Metuchen, New Jersey, in November 1981, as archbishop of Newark in May 1986 and as archbishop of Washington, D.C., in November 2000.

The data included was taken from publicly available sources. The glossary begins with a description of the two key Vatican offices involved, continues with the offices’ leaders and concludes with a focus on U.S. cardinals who had unusual influence during the periods in question.

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

KANSAS CITY (MO)
National Catholic Reporter

November 9, 2020

By Joshua J. McElwee

Rome – Theodore McCarrick had a nearly six-decade-long career as a priest, bishop and cardinal before revelations about his sexual abuse of young men led to his removal from the priesthood in 2019.

To help prepare for the expected Nov. 10 release of the Vatican’s report on how the disgraced ex-cardinal was able to rise through the ranks of the American hierarchy, NCR has prepared the following timeline of some of the major events in McCarrick’s career.

May 31, 1958:

Theodore McCarrick is ordained a priest by New York Cardinal Francis Spellman.​

1965-69:

McCarrick serves as the president of the Catholic University of Puerto Rico. He is made a monsignor by Pope Paul VI in 1965.

1969-71:

Spellman recalls McCarrick back to New York, where the young monsignor serves first as an associate secretary of education for the archdiocese, and then as the cardinal’s personal secretary.

About 1971 through about 1980:

During this period, James Grein alleges that McCarrick repeatedly abused him while Grein was in his teenage years. In a July 19, 2018 New York Times report, Grein said he and McCarrick would go on trips and spend nights in hotel rooms together, where McCarrick would touch Grein sexually.

May 1977:

Pope Paul VI appoints McCarrick as the titular bishop of Rusibisir and an auxiliary bishop of New York.

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

SYDNEY (AUSTRALIA)
ABC

November 9, 2020

By Erin Parke

A second priest has broken ranks with the Catholic Church, going public with concerns about what he has described as the “abysmal and extremely unjust” Vatican response to sexual misconduct allegations at an outback diocese.

It comes as an ABC investigation has uncovered a series of scandals involving priests in the trouble-plagued Diocese of Broome, including one who impregnated a schoolteacher, and a clergyman who returned to India before police could interview him over indecent assault allegations made by a teenage girl.

The incidents allegedly occurred under the management of 70-year-old Bishop Christopher Saunders, who is subject to an ongoing, two-year police investigation into sexual misconduct, allegations he has strenuously denied.

The Vatican is also running a separate internal investigation into his management of the diocese, which covers the vast Kimberley region of northern WA.

The review was triggered in March, when local priest John Purnell went public with concerns about the Church’s inaction over the sexual misconduct allegations made against Bishop Saunders in October 2018.

Now, another former Kimberley priest has spoken out, saying he is shocked and appalled at the Church’s failure to remove Bishop Saunders while the investigation is ongoing.

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

SPRINGFIELD (MA)
The Republican via MassLive

November 7, 2020

By Anne-Gerard Flynn

Ware – Convicted pedophile priest Paul Shanley, a key figure in the Archdiocese of Boston clergy sex abuse scandal, has died. He was 89.

Shanley, who was removed from ministry by the Vatican in 2004 and convicted of child rape a year later in a landmark case in Middlesex Superior Court that rested on the repressed memories of a 27-year-old man, had been a Ware resident since his release from prison as a level 3 sex offender in 2017, and police in that Hampshire County town confirmed in media reports Nov. 6 his death Oct. 28 of heart failure.

The Boston Archdiocese, which has paid millions of dollars to victims of clergy sexual abuse, including those with allegations against Shanley, released a statement acknowledging his death and what it called the “harm caused to so many.”

“The harm caused to so many by Paul Shanley is immeasurable,” the statement said.

“His victims showed great courage in exposing his crimes and fighting for justice both within the criminal justice system and the Church. We are indebted to Shanley’s victims and all victims of clergy abuse for what they have done to stop the abuse, assure that the Church supports healing for those abused, and puts the protection of children at the top of our priorities.”

The Vatican removed Shanley from ministry only after he was arrested and numerous complaints of child sexual abuse were filed against him, even though the release, under court order, of archdiocesan records and documents showed church officials at the highest levels knew for decades of such allegations and continued to allow him to minister.

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

LONDON (ENGLAND)
Daily Mail

November 7, 2020

By Gabriel Byrne

Actor Gabriel Byrne reveals a terrible secret and how he tried to confront his tormentor

Surrounded by a moat, the Christian Brothers’ School House for Older Boys was a fine old Irish castle from the 13th Century.

The ghost of Oliver Cromwell was said to walk its stairways and corridors, and Queen Elizabeth I once slept in the stone chamber where we had our classes.

In 1961, when I was ten years old, a curate visited and announced to the class: ‘Boys, I want to talk to you about vocations to the priesthood. A vocation is a word from Latin meaning ‘to call’.’

God might be calling you, he said. ‘And if he is, you must answer.’ I thought of God trying to get through to me on the phone.

The curate continued: ‘If you listen to the voice deep inside yourself, in quiet moments, you will hear him. To be chosen is the greatest gift any family could have.’

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

LONDON (ENGLAND)
The Guardian

November 8, 2020

By Catherine Shoard

The actor’s autobiography confronts the abuse he experienced at the hands of the church. But he has just as much contempt for Hollywood – and US presidents from Obama to Trump

Forget the pollsters. If you wanted to know the outcome of last week’s US election, you just had to ask Gabriel Byrne. I did, a month ago. I wish I had gone to the bookies.

Byrne was in London on the way back to his farm in Maine, where he lives with his wife and three-year-old daughter. It’ll be thin, he said, Biden’s margin is miles slimmer than anyone predicts. He called it in 2016, too.

“If you were in touch with the rage that was on the ground, you were not looking at Hillary Clinton and saying, she’s going to get elected. That rage is still on the ground. The 40 million who support Trump haven’t wavered one iota.”

When he emails on Thursday night, he blames the Democrats for the tight result. “This is the second time they’ve come up against a gameshow host and they’ve learned nothing. Again they seriously underestimated the level of anger among mostly blue-collar workers.”

*
Byrne was sexually abused by priests from the age of eight; then, three years later, dispatched to a seminary in England where, lost and homesick, he found comfort in the attentions of an encouraging teacher.

“What I remember most about him was his voice. It was very beguiling and calming,” he says. In his book, Byrne records the evening he was first invited to the man’s room. “I’d never seen it written down before – how you reel in an 11-year-old. Saying, ‘Oh you must be missing a little girl or maybe a little boy?’ Saying, ‘Are you this way? Are you that way?’ Having laid the ground in the most sophisticated way by saying, ‘You’re great at that. You’re terrific.’”

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

LONDON (ENGLAND)
Irish Post

November 8, 2020

By Jack Beresford

https://www.irishpost.com/news/for-so-long-i-blamed-myself-gabriel-byrne-speaks-out-about-his-experience-of-being-abused-by-priest-197246

Gabriel Byrne has spoken of how he felt “ashamed and guilty” for many years after he was abused by a priest at the age of just 11.

The Usual Suspects star has opened up about the abuse in his new memoir, Walking With Ghosts, in which he recounts how he first moved from his family home in Dublin to St Richard’s College in Worcestershire to train for the priesthood.

In an abridged extract published by the Mail on Sunday, Byrne recalled how he was initially taken under the wing of a kind priest at the college.

Their relationship turned sinister, however, when that same priest molested him.

Recalling the night the clergyman first revealed his true intentions, Byrne wrote: “The priest’s breath was sour and hot as he moved toward me. Then there was blackness.

“Even years later it feels like the night has been concreted over. I’ve been picking at it with a pin ever since, afraid to use a jack-hammer, afraid of what’s buried in there.”

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

CAPE TOWN (SOUTH AFRICA)
All Africa

November 8, 2020

In every culture, there is a belief in a supernational being (Almighty), and the relationship between humans and God requires worship and sacrifice. And, in any recorded human history, humans practiced some form of cultural religion — spirituality, so, culture cannot occur without education, while education is impossible without some form of societal culture.

From the time in antiquity, religion comprised of regular ceremonies centered on a belief in a higher supernatural power (God — the unknown) that created and maintained the order of things in the universe. Over a period, religions focus on the spiritual aspect of God, creation, human, life after death, eternity, and how to escape suffering or to be adjudicated afterlife. That is the reason why every culture made Gods in its image, similarity, and representation in their cultural space.

There is nothing more important in any culture or life than the worship of something. The only question is whether the worship is the right One, done in the right way. However, every religion believes that they are the right One, worship the right way, and their God is best in their cultural space.

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

TORONTO (ONTARIO, CANADA)
CBC News

November 9, 2020

By Paige Parsons

After decades of silence, a group of men came forward alleging Anglican priest Gordon Dominey sexually assaulted them in the 1980s, when they were teen inmates at an Edmonton youth jail. Dominey died before the case could go to trial, leaving the men with an uncertain path to justice.

One man was watching TV at a Calgary homeless shelter in February 2016 when the priest’s face flashed on the screen.

Another was lying in bed in British Columbia when he saw it on the news. Another man, in Manitoba, saw the face he couldn’t forget flash up on Facebook.

Others were reading the newspaper — in a living room in downtown Edmonton, at work in Saskatchewan.

One by one, the men recognized the Anglican priest from their past.

Rev. Gordon Dominey was set to go to trial on 33 charges related to alleged historical sexual offences against 13 teen inmates at the Edmonton Youth Development Centre.

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

DENVER (CO)
Crux

November 7, 2020

By Junno Arocho Esteves

[See also Vatican Priest Likens Criticism Over Abuse to Anti-Semitism, by Daniel J. Wakin and Rachel Donadio, New York Times, April 2, 2010.]

Rome – For Cardinal-designate Raniero Cantalamessa, preacher of the papal household, his elevation to the cardinalate has little to do with his own merits and everything to do with God’s word.

*
“In my case, the roles of preacher and listener are reversed. It is actually the pope who silently preaches to me and to the whole church, finding time every Friday morning in Advent and Lent to go and listen to the meditation of a simple priest of the church.”

However, his role as preacher is not confined to the walls of the Eternal City. In 2019, he was sent by Pope Francis to lead the U.S. bishops in a spiritual retreat as they deliberated better ways to address the sexual abuse crisis.

Recalling that “particularly delicate moment,” Cantalamessa said that among the fruits he witnessed were the participation of about 250 U.S. bishops as well as their attentiveness to “the meditation and liturgical prayer and silent adoration of the Eucharist” during the retreat.

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

DENVER (CO)
Catholic News Agency via National Catholic Register

November 7, 2020

By Jonah McKeown

The report is expect to answer questions about how McCarrick rose through the ecclesiastical ranks despite apparently widespread rumors of sexual misconduct over the years.

Vatican City – The Vatican is set to release next week a comprehensive report of the misdeeds of disgraced former cardinal Theodore McCarrick, who last year was laicized for serial sexual abuse of both minors and adults.

One clerical abuse survivor and advocate told CNA that while it will be hard to read the McCarrick Report next week, she plans to read it all.

“All Catholics will be grieving. I’m in a place of grief myself right now, just anticipating. I know it’s going to be very, very hard,” Teresa Pitt Green, a survivor of childhood sexual abuse by priests, told CNA.

“No matter what is in the report, I will go through a depth of grief that is as deep as anything I went through in recovery. Because that’s what being triggered is, and this report will put me and a lot of survivors through hell…I guarantee that survivors are already in profound grief. We’re going to have to walk through it all again, and so are all Catholics, not just survivors.”

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

WASHINGTON (DC)
Catholic News Service

November 6, 2020

By: Rhina Guidos

Vatican officials announced Nov. 6 that the Holy See will release Nov. 10 a long-awaited report on the investigation about the ascent to power of now-disgraced former U.S. Cardinal Theodore E. McCarrick.

The report’s release comes days before the U.S. bishops gather virtually Nov. 16 and 17 for their annual meeting.

“On Tuesday, 10th November 2020, at 2 p.m. (Rome time), the Holy See will publish the report on the Holy See’s institutional knowledge and decision-making process related to former Cardinal Theodore Edgar McCarrick (from 1930 to 2017), prepared by the Secretariat of State by mandate of the Pope,” Vatican officials said.

It added: “The same day, an hour before publication, a section of the document will be provided in advance to accredited journalists.”

Various news organizations had reported its imminent release in early November.

In an electronic update to the Archdiocese of New York, Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan referenced what, some suspected, was a signal about the imminent release of the report.

“We are also still waiting for the release of the so-called ‘McCarrick Report’ by the Holy See, detailing the damning story of former-cardinal Theodore McCarrick,” Cardinal Dolan wrote in a Nov. 5 email addressed to Catholics in the archdiocese. “That could be another black-eye for the church.”

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

ROME (ITALY)
Associated Press

November 6, 2020

By Nicole Winfield

The Vatican on Tuesday will release its long-awaited report into what it knew about ex-Cardinal Theodore McCarrick’s sexual misconduct during his rise through the church hierarchy, setting up a remarkable moment in the Vatican’s long reckoning with clergy sexual abuse and cover-up.

The Vatican said Friday the report would span McCarrick’s entire life, from his birth in 1930 to the 2017 allegations that triggered his downfall. The Vatican said the report would cover “the Holy See’s institutional knowledge and decision-making process” as the American prelate rose through the church’s ranks.

Pope Francis defrocked McCarrick in February 2019 after a Vatican investigation determined he sexually abused minors as well as adults. The 90-year-old is believed to be living in a treatment center for priests as a layman.

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

DENVER (CO)
Crux

November 7, 2020

By Paulina Guzik

Krakow, Poland – In an unprecedented move for the Polish Church, the Vatican banned a retired cardinal from public ministry, public appearances, and the use of the bishop’s insignia.

Cardinal Henryk Gulbinowicz of Wrocław also cannot be buried in the archdiocesan cathedral after his death.

The disciplinary measures are a historic and symbolic moment for the Church in Poland.

*

The abuse crisis in Poland exploded after the release of a documentary on YouTube in May 2019 called Tell No One, by the filmmakers known as the Sekielski Brothers. The film documented a history of abuse and cover-up in the country and was viewed by more than 2.5 million people in less than 24 hours.

Soon after its release, an alleged victim using the pseudonym Karol Chum posted on Facebook that he was abused by Gulbinowicz, but never reported it to the Church authorities. However, after the archdiocesan offices were made aware of the post, they contacted the alleged victim, and he eventually filed an official canonical complaint against the cardinal.

He was allegedly abused by Gulbinowicz when he was a 15-year-old student at the Franciscan Minor Seminary.

His case was turned down by the state prosecutor in 2019, due to the statute of limitations. The Church proceeded with its own investigation, which ended with the disciplinary measures announced on Friday.

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

CRANSTON (RI)
WJAR 10 NBC

November 6, 2020

By Katie Davis

A criminal case unsealed this week marks a new phase in the Rhode Island Attorney General’s investigation: charges based in part on evidence that was already in church files and in some cases had been reported to law enforcement, but had not led to criminal prosecution in the past.

“I don’t want to really talk about how this case got made,” Attorney General Peter Neronha told NBC 10 News. “Let me just say this: that as we go back and look at all the records, it’s an opportunity to look again at information that the Diocese may have provided to law enforcement.”

A least 100,000 pages of records involving allegations of child sexual abuse, going back some 50 years, have now been turned over to the attorney general’s office by the Diocese of Providence under a voluntary agreement that began last year. Some of those documents had not been seen by law enforcement until now.

“They are more voluminous than I can give you a number on,” Neronha said of the files.

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

CRANSTON (RI)
WJAR 10 NBC

November 5, 2020

The Rhode Island Attorney General’s Office has been examining records handed over by the Roman Catholic Diocese of Providence for close to 18 months, and the first criminal charges in connection with that review came on Thursday.

A grand jury indicted John Petrocelli, a former Woonsocket priest, on charges of abusing three boys under the age of 14 between 1981 and 1990. He was charged with three counts of first-degree child molestation and nine counts of second-degree child molestation.

Petrocelli entered a not guilty plea and bail was set at $50,000 with surety. He was ordered to have no contact with the three alleged victims or any children under 16.

Petrocelli had served as an assistant pastor at Holy Family Church in Woonsocket, but was on the diocese’s List of Credibly Accused Clergy and is no longer working as a priest. The diocese said Petrocelli was removed from the ministry in 2002 because of “credible allegations of abuse.”

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

BOSTON (MA)
Boston Globe

November 6, 2020

By Shelley Murphy

Paul R. Shanley, a defrocked priest and convicted child rapist who became one of the most notorious figures in the Catholic Church clergy sexual abuse scandal, died of heart failure on Oct. 28 at a Ware hospice facility, according to state officials.

The 89-year-old had been living in Ware since his release from prison three years ago after serving 12 years for repeatedly raping a boy in the 1980s.

“Children are now safer because of the passing of Paul Shanley,” said Attorney Mitchell Garabedian, who represented dozens of Shanley’s victims in civil claims against the church and described him as “one of the poster boys of clergy sexual abuse throughout the United States and the world.”

Garabedian said Shanley’s victims feel cheated because he died a free man and church supervisors who failed to stop him from preying on victims were never prosecuted.

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

WARE (MA)
Associated Press via U.S. News and World Report

November 6, 2020

Authorities say a former Roman Catholic street priest who played a pivotal role in the sexual abuse scandal that rocked the Archdiocese of Boston has died.

A former Roman Catholic street priest who played a pivotal role in the sexual abuse scandal that rocked the Archdiocese of Boston has died, authorities said Friday. Paul Shanley was 89.

Police in Ware, a town in west-central Massachusetts where Shanley was living since his release from prison in 2017, confirmed his death but did not say how he died. WFXT-TV, Boston’s Fox News affiliate, said he died of heart failure on Oct. 28.

Shanley was a popular priest who counseled gay and troubled youths in the 1960s and 1970s. In 2005, he was convicted of raping a boy at a Newton church in the 1980s and sentenced to 12 years in prison.

Shanley’s release in July 2017 triggered a firestorm of protests from some of his victims, who alleged he sexually abused them as children.

Shanley was a notorious figure in the clergy sex abuse scandal that exploded in Boston in 2002, after The Boston Globe revealed that dozens of priests had molested and raped children for decades while church supervisors covered it up and shuffled abusive priests from parish to parish.

The Vatican defrocked Shanley in 2004 after dozens of men came forward and reported being sexually abused by him.

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

BOSTON (MA)
Archdiocese of Boston

November 6, 2020

The harm caused to so many by Paul Shanley is immeasurable. His victims showed great courage in exposing his crimes and fighting for justice both within the criminal justice system and the Church. We are indebted to Shanley’s victims and all victims of clergy abuse for what they have done to stop the abuse, assure that the Church supports healing for those abused, and puts the protection of children at the top of our priorities.

The Office of Pastoral Support and Outreach is available to those who were abused by clergy and their families. We encourage anyone who was abused by clergy to call, regardless of when the abuse occurred. We also encourage you to report the abuse to law enforcement. If the victim is under the age of 18, please also report the abuse to the Department of Children and Families. Help is available. Call 617-746-5985.

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

BOSTON (MA)
WFXT-TV

November 6, 2020

By Maria Papadopoulos

Ware – Paul Shanley, a former Catholic priest who served time in prison for child rape and a key figure in the Boston clergy sex abuse scandal, has died, Ware Police have confirmed.

Shanley, a Ware resident, died on Oct. 28 of heart failure, police said. He was 89 years old.

In 2005, Shanley was convicted of raping a child repeatedly in the 1980s. He formerly served as a priest at St. Jean’s Parish in Newton.

In 2017, he was released from prison after completing his 12-year sentence.

Shanley lived out his remaining days as a sex offender.

Attorney Mitchell Garabedian, who represented several victims in the church sex abuse scandal, said in a statement that he was not aware of Shanley’s passing until Friday, when contacted by media.

“Respectfully, children are now safer because of the passing of Fr. Paul Shanley. Unfortunately, the amount of human pain caused by Fr. Shanley and the Archdiocese of Boston is continuing and immeasurable,” Garabedian said.

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

NEW ORLEANS (LA)
WWL 4 CBS and Times-Picayune and Advocate

November 5, 2020

By David Hammer and Ramon Antonio Vargas

[With video]

The consequences for not properly reporting abuse cases in the church can be harsh.

https://www.wwltv.com/article/news/investigations/david-hammer/priest-abuse-victims-question-if-archdiocese-properly-investigated-referred-cases-to-vatican/289-93b5fa1d-675d-446a-a6d4-22d7aa6ebda5

Mark Vath thought the sexual abuse complaint he filed against his father’s cousin, a Roman Catholic priest named Paul Calamari, was resolved when the Archdiocese of New Orleans put Calamari on a 2018 list of clerics strongly suspected of molesting children.

Church officials also agreed to pay Vath a $100,000 settlement for his ordeal. That was less than a month before the release of the roster of fallen priests and deacons. Church officials also later told him they believed his allegations.

But it turns out a formal investigation of Vath’s case by the church didn’t even start for another two years. Archbishop Gregory Aymond informed Vath in a letter in September that the church had only begun scrutinizing Calamari a month earlier, a process that might refer the matter to top Catholic bureaucrats in Rome to consider removing Calamari from the priesthood.

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

YORK (PA)
York Daily Record

November 5, 2020

By Dylan Segelbaum

https://www.ydr.com/story/news/crime/2020/11/05/former-roman-catholic-priest-pleads-guilty-to-sexually-abusing-two-boys-dauphin-county-pennsylvania/6171595002/

As part of a plea agreement, John Allen, 76, of West Manchester Township, is set to be sentenced to five years’ probation on Jan. 21, 2021.

A former priest who is one of more than 300 clergy named in a landmark investigating grand jury report about widespread sexual abuse and institutional coverup in the Roman Catholic Church in Pennsylvania pleaded guilty on Thursday in Dauphin County to assaulting two altar boys between 1997 and 2002.

John Allen, 76, of West Manchester Township, appeared via video conference before Common Pleas Judge Deborah E. Curcillo, and admitted to sexually touching the boys over their clothes while at St. Margaret Mary Alacoque Church in Penbrook. He’s set to be sentenced to five years’ probation on Jan. 21, 2021, as part of a plea agreement on charges of indecent assault and corruption of minors.

In response to questions from Chief Deputy District Attorney Jennifer Gettle, Allen answered with, “Yes, indeed” and “I understand that, yes.” He sat next to his attorney, Brian Perry, who is reserving discussing the case until sentencing.

Gettle said the survivors were between 10 and 12 at the time. The sexual abuse, she said, was not disclosed to law enforcement until more than a decade later.

The sentencing guidelines for the crimes, at that time, called for probation. The men are now 31 and 35, respectively.

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

DENVER (CO)
Catholic News Agency

November 5, 2020

A Church historian has published some details regarding the allegations of abuse made against Fr. Josef Kentenich, founder of the Schoenstatt ecclesial movement. The movement has rejected claims that its founder engaged in sexual abuse, while in July a German bishop announced that a commission would review the priest’s beatification process.

Historian Alexandra von Teuffenbach has published the first of two volumes in a history of the Schoenstatt movement and allegations that Kentenich, who is being considered for beatification, manipulated and coerced community members into sexually inappropriate conduct.

The first volume focuses on the life of Sister Giorgia Wagner, a member of the community who died in 1987. Wagner was assigned to ministry in Chile during her time in the community.

“When Fr. Kentenich visited Chile after the Second World War, in 1947, he abused her and deposed her as provincial superior,” von Teuffenbach wrote in a letter to Vatican analyst Sandro Magister, which Magister published Nov. 2.

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

WASHINGTON (DC)
Religion News Service

November 5, 2020

By Claire Giangravé

This ongoing clergy sex abuse trial at the Vatican will be a litmus test for the efficacy of Pope Francis’ reforms.

Vatican City – Recent comments by Catholic clergy and a sex abuse trial inside the Vatican highlight Pope Francis’ uphill battle in enforcing accountability and child protection within the Catholic Church.

“Which is worse, abortion or an act of pedophilia?” asked the Rev. Andrea Leonesi, the vicar of the Diocese of Macerata, Italy, during a homily on Oct. 27 that was recorded and later went viral.

In his homily, Leonesi implied abortion is worse than pedophilia and condemned the protests women have led in Poland, where the highest court recently applied further restrictions on abortion.

“In Poland these feminists are loose and doing anything to protest,” the priest said. “Wives must be submissive toward their husbands; do you understand ladies? The husband is in fact the master of the woman,” he added.

The homily, which was uploaded to YouTube on Monday (Nov. 2), garnered a lot of criticism by political activists for gender equality in Italy. Bishop Nazzareno Marconi of Macerata defended his second-in-command by saying while “the drama of pedophilia is a battle that must engage us all,” the homily wished to “guarantee the right to not have an abortion for every woman.”

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

WOONSOCKET (RI)
Associated Press

November 5, 2020

A former Rhode Island priest was indicted Thursday on multiple counts of child molestation, state Attorney General Peter Neronha’s office said.

The grand jury indictment against John Petrocelli was unsealed Thursday and he was arraigned in Providence County Superior Court, according to Neronha’s office.

He faces three counts of first-degree child molestation and nine counts of second-degree child molestation.

Prosecutors say Petrocelli molested three boys under the age of 14 multiple times during his tenure as assistant pastor at Holy Family Parish in Woonsocket from 1981 to 1990.

Petrocelli, 75, has been the subject of other litigation involving priest misconduct, including a 2008 settlement between the Diocese of Providence and men who said they were abused as boys by Rhode Island priests, including Petrocelli, the Providence Journal reports.

The public defender’s office, which is representing Petrocelli, didn’t respond to an email seeking comment Thursday.

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

PROVIDENCE (RI)
WPRI 12

November 5, 2020

By Eli Sherman

A former priest named to the Roman Catholic Diocese of Providence’s list of “credibly accused” clergymen last year was arrested on multiple charges of child molestation, according to R.I. Attorney General Peter Neronha.

John Petrocelli, 75, was indicted by a statewide grand jury on three counts of first-degree child molestation and nine counts of second degree molestation, according to state prosecutors. The indictment was unsealed after he was arraigned in Providence Superior Court where he pleaded not guilty.

The grand jury alleged Petrocelli committed multiple acts of child molestation against three male victims under the age of 14 between November 1981 and October 1990.

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

KANSAS CITY (MO)
National Catholic Reporter

November 5, 2020

by Joshua J. McElwee

Rome – The Vatican’s report on how disgraced ex-cardinal Theodore McCarrick was able to rise through the American Catholic hierarchy despite reports of inappropriate relationships with young men is expected to be released within the next weeks, National Catholic Reporter has learned.

The Vatican wants to release the document prior to the annual meeting of the U.S. Catholic bishops’ conference, which is to be held virtually Nov. 16-17, said an informed Vatican source. The person asked not to be named as they did not have authorization to speak on the matter.

Reuters first reported the news earlier in the day Nov. 5.

McCarrick, aged 90, was long one of the most influential prelates in the U.S. Catholic Church. He led the Catholic communities in Metuchen, New Jersey, and Newark, New Jersey, before serving as Archbishop of Washington, D.C., from 2001 to 2006.

But in a series of shocking announcements in June 2018, the archdioceses of New York, Newark, and Washington and the diocese of Metuchen revealed that McCarrick had been ordered by the Vatican to step down from active ministry after an allegation of sexual abuse was found “credible and substantiated.”

Francis confirmed McCarrick’s removal from the priesthood, after a guilty finding by the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, in February 2019.

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

DENVER (CO)
Catholic News Agency

November 5, 2020

The Archbishop of New York said Thursday that a long-awaited Vatican report on the career of former cardinal Theodore McCarrick could be a “black eye” for the Church. The report is expected to be released next week.

The U.S. Church is “still waiting for the release of the so-called ‘McCarrick Report’ by the Holy See, detailing the damning story of former-cardinal Theodore McCarrick. That could be another black-eye for the Church,” Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York wrote in a Nov. 5 post on his website.

“But, better that the story come out, in all its awful detail, to both bring some measure of peace to the victim-survivors, as well as serve as a lesson on how to prevent a similar recurrence in the future,” Dolan added.

The report, which was initially expected to be released in December 2019, will come after a Vatican review of documents and witness accounts spanning McCarrick’s 40-year episcopal career, after he was accused of serial sexual crimes related to minors and seminarians in 2018.

Sources at the Vatican’s Congregation for Bishops and Secretariat of State, which coordinated the review and report, independently told CNA that the report is slated for release early next week; both identified Nov. 10 as the expected publication date.

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

NEW YORK (NY)
Patch / Hale Global

November 5, 2020

By Rachel Nunes

John Petrocelli was indicted on three counts of first-degree child molestation and nine counts of second-degree child molestation.

Woonsocket RI – A former Woonsocket priest is facing allegations of child molestation. John Petrocelli was indicted by the statewide grand jury Monday on three counts of first-degree child molestation and nine counts of second-degree child molestation.

The indictment alleges that the acts happened from November 1981 to October 1990, when Petrocelli served as an assistant pastor at Holy Family Parish in Woonsocket. The victims are believed to be three boys, all under the age of 14 at the time.

“There is nothing more critical to the mission of my Office than to deliver justice on behalf of victims and of the people of Rhode Island, regardless of the time that has passed after the alleged offense,” Attorney General Peter Neronha said. “Our ongoing review of alleged misconduct by clergy in Rhode Island is intended to achieve that result wherever possible.”

The indictment, which was secret, was unsealed Thursday and Petrocelli was arraigned in Providence County Superior Court.

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

ST. PAUL (MN)
Catholic Spirit – Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis

November 5, 2020

By Maria Wiering

This is the cover of “Consecration to St. Joseph: The Wonders of Our Spiritual Father” by Marian Father Donald Calloway. Archbishop Bernard Hebda and Bishop Andrew Cozzens are encouraging Catholics to use the book as a guide for a personal consecration ahead of the Dec. 8 consecration of the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis to St. Joseph. The book can be found online and at local Catholic bookstores. CNS

Bishops encourage preparation with 33-day guide for personal consecration
After completing a personal consecration to St. Joseph in March, Anne Marie Hansen felt so richly blessed by the experience that she bought 500 copies of the 33-day guide to give to family, friends, coworkers, neighbors and anyone she sensed needed to read it.

*
Hansen, who is chairwoman of the archdiocese’s committee on the Year of St. Joseph, said that she hopes it will bring about a greater sense of fatherhood in the priesthood, and repair a relationship between priests and laity she sees weakened by the clergy sexual abuse crisis.

She said she is a survivor of years of clergy abuse as a child. Her love of St. Joseph began in her childhood and gave her hope despite the abuse, she said. She’s deepened her relationship with the saint as an adult, and her consecration in March was actually a formal reconsecration, she said. She participated in a group Father Calloway led online.

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

DENVER (CO)
Catholic News Agency

November 5, 2020

The Catholic Diocese of Fresno has taken out a restraining order against a priest and launched an investigation of him after he was accused of drug use, physical abuse, threatening behavior and gang links.

Bishop Joseph Brennan of Fresno said Mass last Sunday at St. Joseph’s Church in Selma, Calif. and announced that Father Guadalupe Rios, the parish administrator, has been put on administrative leave while the diocese conducts an investigation.

Cheryl Sarkisian, the diocese’s chancellor, confirmed that the priest has been placed on paid administrative leave while the investigation is pending.

“This is a matter of an internal investigation and the confidentiality and privacy of all concerned parties will be respected and upheld,” Sarkisian told The Fresno Bee Nov. 3.

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

VATICAN CITY
Reuters

November 5, 2020

By Philip Pullella

A long-awaited Vatican report into disgraced ex-U.S. Cardinal Theodore McCarrick is expected to be released this month to coincide with an annual meeting of American bishops, Vatican sources said on Thursday.

McCarrick was expelled from the Roman Catholic priesthood last year after a Vatican investigation found him guilty of sexual crimes against minors and adults and abuse of power.

Pope Francis ordered a thorough study of all documents in Holy See offices concerning McCarrick in 2018. The four U.S. dioceses where he served – New York, Metuchen, Newark, and Washington, D.C. – carried out separate investigations to feed into the Vatican report.

U.S. Catholic bishops are due to hold their annual meeting Nov. 15-19. It will be held virtually this year because of the coronavirus.

The sources said the report would be released by the Vatican before the bishops’ meeting starts.

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

NEW YORK (NY)
First Things

November 5, 2020

By Thomas G. Guarino

I was astonished to read recently that the archbishop of New Orleans, Gregory Aymond, is seeking to laicize all clergy who have been removed from ministry because of credible accusations of sex abuse. If the report is accurate, this move represents another grave blow to the Catholic priesthood, which is now tottering because of the draconian actions of American bishops wishing to atone for their past misprision of abuse.

Surely Archbishop Aymond recognizes the serious theological problems inherent in his proposal to laicize all credibly accused priests. Occasionally, a priest admits to having abused a minor. This kind of clear, unambiguous guilt represents a unique case in which laicization may, indeed, be justified. In most instances, however, “credibly accused” priests deny that they committed any wrongdoing. And usually these priests are accused of having abused someone years ago, so it is impossible to prove—or even to establish reasonably—that the alleged abuse actually occurred. This is precisely why civil prosecutors normally dismiss these cases; reliable and vital evidence becomes clouded and confused over time. Bishops formerly removed accused priests from ministry out of an abundance of caution. But now, a Catholic archbishop has seemingly proposed laicizing priests whose guilt has not been decisively established.

The archbishop may be motivated by economic interests. Priests who have been removed from ministry remain, canonically, the responsibility of their dioceses. Minimal but continuing sustenance must be provided for them. Priests who have been laicized, however, are regarded by the Church as laymen (though they remain priests due to the character indelebilis conferred by the sacrament of Holy Orders). After laicization, dioceses are no longer responsible for these men financially or otherwise.

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

NARROWSBURG (NY)
River Reporter

November 4, 2020

By Owen Walsh

Church compensates nearly 250 abuse claims

Scranton – More than two years since the Pennsylvania Attorney General’s sweeping grand jury report on “widespread sexual abuse” throughout the commonwealth’s Catholic churches, the Diocese of Scranton is continuing to add names to its list of “credibly accused.”

Pennsylvania’s 2018 grand jury report identified 301 priests in the state who had committed abuse, including 59 in the Diocese of Scranton, which serves 350,000 Catholics in NEPA. The grand jury concluded that the “several [Scranton] diocesan administrators, including the bishops, often dissuaded victims from reporting to police or conducted their own deficient, biased investigation without reporting crimes against children to the proper authorities.”

Now, the diocese has announced that six more priests, one member of a local religious order and one lay employee have been added to the list of credibly accused. Of the six priests, the only one still living is the retired, 80-year-old Monsignor Joseph Kelly, who denies the accusations.

“I say to my family, my friends, my former parishioners, that these claims are absolutely not true,” Kelly said in a statement.

According to a release, the diocese assesses the credibility of allegations of abuse through assessments by outside counsel and investigation by a former FBI agent. All allegations are submitted to the appropriate district attorney’s office.

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

NEW YORK (NY)
Catholic New York – Archdiocese of New York

November 5, 2020

First, we want to offer our heartiest congratulations to Cardinal-elect Wilton D. Gregory, the Archbishop of Washington who will become the first African-American cardinal at a Nov 28 consistory at the Vatican.

That alone is worth rejoicing.

The 3 million African-American Catholics in the United States have been faithful members of the Church for generations, and the elevation of Cardinal-elect Gregory by Pope Francis is an important recognition of their place in the Catholic family.

The honor also recognizes the spiritual gifts and leadership skills that the cardinal-elect has demonstrated in his 47 years as a priest, a bishop and an archbishop.

Most notably, as president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops in the early 2000s when the clergy sexual abuse scandals escalated, he steered his fellow bishops through the most serious crisis ever faced by the modern American Church.

*
We’d also like to congratulate Cardinal-elect Silvano Tomasi, a member of the Scalabrinian order who served in New York for many years and will also receive the red hat at the Nov. 28 consistory. Although he turned 80 last month and therefore will not be eligible to vote for pope in the next conclave, his elevation is nevertheless an appreciation of his long and faithful service to the Church.

He was a founder of the Center for Migration Studies based on Staten Island and also served a term as the U.S. Provincial of the Scalabrinians, based in Manhattan.

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

WASHINGTON (DC)
Catholic News Service via Union of Catholic Asian News

November 5, 2020

By Lucien Chauvin

The vote came after a year of protests, many violent, against the country’s economic and political system

Cardinal-designate Celestino Aós Braco will take on his new role at one of the most critical times for Chile and its church in the past three decades.

The 75-year-old archbishop of Santiago received word about his elevation to the College of Cardinals Oct. 25, the same day Chileans voted overwhelmingly in a referendum to rewrite the country’s constitution. The vote came after a year of protests, many violent, against the country’s economic and political system.

The new cardinal, a Spaniard who was first sent to Chile in 1983, is aware that he will be at the helm of the church in Chile as the country works through the constitutional process and as the church continues to untangle a sex abuse scandal that has kept it on edge for a decade. He had served as bishop of Copiapó from 2014 to 2019, when he was named administrator, then archbishop, of Santiago, amid the clerical abuse scandal.

In the first interview since his appointment, Cardinal-designate Aós told Catholic News Service: “I hope that the people who write constitution will include fundamental values that correct flaws that led to the violence. We have to stay on the path of understanding and dialogue.”

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

WARSAW (POLAND)
Associated Press via Minneapolis Star Tribune

November 5, 2020

The Vatican has ordered an investigation into allegations that a now-retired archbishop in Poland was negligent in investigating reports of sex abuse of minors by priests in his Gdansk archdiocese.

The Vatican Embassy in predominantly Roman Catholic Poland said the archbishop of Warsaw had been assigned to conduct the probe and that the preliminary investigation into Archbishop Slawoj Leszek Glodz has been completed.

The embassy provided no details about the outcome in a statement issued this week.

Pope Francis accepted Glodz’s resignation on his 75th birthday in August, a sign he was taking the allegations against the archbishop seriously. Glodz, who had also served as the chief chaplain of Poland’s armed force, denies any negligence.

Abuse survivors included Glodz in a report identifying two dozen current and retired Polish bishops accused of protecting predator priests. The report was delivered to Francis on the eve of his 2019 global abuse prevention summit at the Vatican.

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

NEW ORLEANS (LA)
Times-Picayune and Advocate

November 4, 2020

By David Hammer and Ramon Antonio Vargas

Judge ends stay that was blocking purported victims from taking sworn testimony of alleged abusers

A bankruptcy judge has ended a stay that was blocking purported victims of child abuse at the hands of Roman Catholic clergy from taking the sworn testimony of their alleged abusers while the Archdiocese of New Orleans is protected from its creditors.

The church has used its bankruptcy proceedings to fight to keep two elderly priests, whom the archdiocese acknowledges are likely child molesters, from having to testify in lawsuits that accuse them of sexually abusing minors decades ago.

But U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Meredith Grabill rejected the archdiocese’s argument that the church’s interests were “intertwined” with those of the accused priests, Paul Calamari, 76, and Lawrence Hecker, 89, and that allowing either to be deposed would divert attention and resources from the archdiocese’s Chapter 11 case.

Grabill’s ruling could set up explosive and damaging testimony under oath from two of about eight surviving diocesan priests whom Archbishop Gregory Aymond has named as suspected child molesters. Court filings suggest that the plaintiffs’ legal team would seek to use the questioning in part to determine how church officials — including Aymond and his predecessors — managed Calamari and Hecker after learning of the allegations against them.

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

DENVER (CO)
Catholic News Agency

November 2, 2020

A California priest who was excommunicated after denying the legitimacy of Pope Francis has been laicized, according to a Nov. 2 letter from his bishop. The priest has also been accused of sexual coercion and manipulation, prompting Bishop Jaime Soto of Sacramento to call priests to a day of fasting and reparation for the sins of clerical sexual abuse.

“On September 10, 2020 the Holy Father, Pope Francis, granted the personal request of Fr. Jeremy Leatherby for a return to the lay state and a dispensation from the promise of celibacy…. Mr. Jeremy Leatherby was informed of the Holy Father’s decision on Tuesday, October 27, 2020. Mr. Leatherby no longer has any responsibilities or rights proper to the clerical state. The Catholic Faithful are admonished not to participate in Mass or any further sacraments attempted by him,” Bishop Soto wrote in a Nov. 2 letter.

In August, Leatherby explained that he continued to celebrate Mass in public settings, despite a prohibition from his bishop against doing so. He also admitted that he did not accept the papacy of Pope Francis.

“I continue to regard Benedict as retaining the Office of Peter, as mysterious as that might be. Therefore, I do not regard Bergoglio as the Supreme Pontiff of the Roman Catholic Church,” Leatherby wrote.

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

FRESNO (CA)
Fresno Bee

November 3, 2020

By Yesenia Amaro

A restraining order filed by the Roman Catholic Diocese of Fresno accuses a Selma priest of physical abuse, street-gang ties, and marijuana use.

The Rev. Guadalupe Rios has been placed on administrative leave from St. Joseph’s Church in Selma pending investigation, Cheryl Sarkisian, chancellor for the Diocese of Fresno, said in a statement to The Bee on Tuesday.

“This is a matter of an internal investigation and the confidentiality and privacy of all concerned parties will be respected and upheld,” Sarkisian said. “I can confirm that Fr Rios has been placed on paid administrative leave while the investigation is in process.”

The Bee wasn’t immediately able to contact Rios on Tuesday.

Church officials filed the restraining order last week in Fresno County Superior Court.

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

BOSTON (MA)
The Pilot – Archdiocese of Boston

November 4, 2020

By George Weigel

Father Michael McGivney’s beatification is a blessing for the organization he founded and inspired; it is also a compliment paid by the universal Church to the parish priests of the United States.

The Pandemic of 2020 has been hard on every Catholic. Eucharistic fasting for this length of time may remind us what 20th-century heroes of the faith in underground churches endured, and what 21st-century confessors in China and elsewhere endure today; and that is no bad thing. Still, it is very, very hard to be the Catholic Church without being a vibrantly eucharistic Church. That’s true for everyone. The people of the Church should realize that it’s especially true for priests.

Priests, who live out their priesthood as the Catholic Church, understand that unique vocation — as an icon of the eternal priesthood of Jesus Christ, the Church’s spouse — and miss their eucharistic congregations terribly. They have dedicated their lives to nourishing the flock, and to be unable to do so as they did eight months ago is a constant sorrow. Pastors are also bearing heavier financial burdens these days as donations shrink. Then, there are the serious challenges involved in keeping parochial schools afloat under today’s public health circumstances. No man entering the seminary after the Long Lent of the 2002 and the sexual abuse crisis could imagine he was embracing an easy life; but no one expected this.

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

SYDNEY (AUSTRALIA)
ABC News

November 3, 2020

By Rebecca Turner

Two former teachers at prestigious Catholic boys school Trinity College in Perth have been found guilty of failing to report suspected child sexual abuse.

Ian Francis Hailes and Anthony Paul Webb were both fined $1,200 in the Perth Magistrates Court this morning and given spent convictions.

They are believed to be the first people convicted under WA’s mandatory reporting laws.

Their case relates to a school rugby trip to Japan, during which they learned that one of the students in their care, named as AB, was allegedly sexually assaulted by some of his team mates.

They were the only people to be charged as a result of the alleged incident at a hotel on the outskirts of Tokyo in April 2017.

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

DUBLIN (IRELAND)
Irish Times

November 2, 2020

By Derek Scally

Report falls victim to legal claims and a power battle among two church camps

Berlin – Germany’s most influential Catholic diocese stands accused of protecting senior bishops after refusing to publish a report outlining their cover-up of clerical sexual abuse.

Last February Cardinal Rainer Maria Woelki, archbishop of Cologne and one of Germany’s most senior Catholic figures, promised to publish within a month a report by a Munich law firm granted access to diocesan archives.

The report, he promised, would name figures who “as a result of their decisions and their behaviour could have contributed to abuse: structurally, institutionally or even in a concrete way”.

“Perhaps even I will be criticised,” he said, framing the forthcoming report as proof of church transparency in exploring abuse and cover-up in its ranks.

Two days before a press conference to launch the report in March, however, Cardinal Woelki cancelled the presentation. Seven months on, with the report still under wraps, the Cologne archdiocese has turned on the lawyers responsible, accusing them of failing to complete their task professionally.

In reality the report has fallen victim to legal claims as well as a power battle among two church camps in Cologne: one favours full disclosure, the other prioritises the rights and reputations of church figures.

Looming large in the 350-page report, which examines 15 sample cases, is Archbishop Stefan Hesse of Hamburg. Between 2006 and 2017 he was personnel officer and later general vicar of the archdiocese of Cologne under Cardinal Joachim Meisner.

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

WASHINGTON (DC)
Catholic News Service via Crux

November 2, 2020

Book offers details about alleged manipulation by Schonstatt founder

Vallendar, Germany – Can a “great founding figure” be beatified when some of his own followers level such accusations at him?

After causing a stir with her article about Father Joseph Kentenich in the German Catholic newspaper Die Tagespost in July, Rome-based church historian Alexandra von Teuffenbach has now presented evidence to back her accusations in her book titled Father Is Allowed to Do It! It contains detailed descriptions by several Schonstatt Sisters of Mary about Kentenich’s style of leadership, reports the German Catholic news agency, KNA.

“How can one offer this man, this priest, as a model to the Christians in the world, after what he has done and said?” von Teuffenbach writes in the foreword.

Kentenich, who died in 1968, remains popular to this day. Von Teuffenbach has accused him of systematic manipulation, abuse of power and sexual harassment. The researcher has based her claims on sources that include newly accessible Vatican documents from the pontificate of Pope Pius XII.

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

FRESNO (CA)
KFSN 30 ABC

November 2, 2020

By Corin Hoggard

A Catholic priest with a past got removed from his church in Selma this weekend over a story of sex, drugs, and weapons.

“You don’t expect a priest to be packed, to have those type of weapons,” said legal analyst Ralph Torres.

The Roman Catholic Diocese of Fresno got a restraining order to protect church employees — all the way up to Bishop Joseph Brennan — from one of their own priests.

Father Guadalupe Rios still has his name on the church marquee at St. Joseph’s Church in Selma, but the man himself is not allowed within 100 yards of the property.

Several parishioners told us they knew Rios was either in a gang or affiliated with one, as the diocese mentioned in their application for a restraining order against him.

Parishioners have also seen social media photos of Rios with an AK-47 or an AR-556 or a .357 Magnum.

So they were afraid to be interviewed.

“The fact that he is having photographs published like that, to me, would be a little disturbing and certainly something you would think the bishop would’ve nipped in the bud,” said Melanie Sakoda, a survivor support specialist for the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests.

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

KANSAS CITY (MO)
National Catholic Reporter

November 3, 2020

By Szymon Piegza

Krakow, Poland – Polish Cardinal Stanislaw Dziwisz, the influential former long-time personal secretary of Pope John Paul II, is denying a priest’s accusation that he covered up a case of clerical abuse in 2012.

In an extraordinary Oct. 20 interview for the largest private TV station in Poland, TVN24, the cardinal also denied that John Paul had any knowledge of the crimes committed by Marcial Maciel Degollado, a serial child abuser and founder of the once-powerful Legionaries of Christ.

Dziwisz, who served as the Archbishop of Krakow from 2005 to 2016, has been accused personally of not replying to a letter he was given about the case of Janusz Szymik, a long-time victim of the abusive priest Fr. Jan Wodniak.

Fr. Tadeusz Isakowicz-Zaleski, a Krakow priest, claims to have given Dziwisz the letter in 2012.

“I don’t remember conversations about that,” Dziwisz told TVN24, saying the matter did not pertain to him, as Wosniak did not belong to the Krakow Archdiocese but the nearby Diocese of Bielsko-Zywiec.

“I cannot have on my conscience that I didn’t help when someone sought my support,” said the cardinal. “It’s impossible. If I knew about all the details, I would react, although I had no right to do it because it was a different diocese.”

Isakowicz-Zaleski’s allegation against Dziwisz has attracted wide attention in Polish media, as the priest is the founder of the Brother Albert Foundation, one of the country’s largest non-profit groups helping those who are physically or mentally disabled.

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

PINELLAS PARK (FL)
Legal Examiner – Saunders and Walker Attorney Blog

November 2, 2020

By Joseph H. Saunders

Chief Judge Margaret Cangilos-Ruiz of the U.S. Bankruptcy Court Northern District of New York stated that survivors of child sexual abuse within the Diocese of Syracuse will have until April 15, 2021 to file claims against the Diocese.

The Diocese of Syracuse filed for bankruptcy protection in June 2020 after dozens of abuse survivors filed abuse lawsuits against the Diocese. The bankruptcy filings show the diocese has assets of more than $10 million but less than $50 million. Lawyers for the diocese from Syracuse firm Bond, Schoeneck & King estimated the diocese has between 100 and 200 creditors and up to $100 million in liabilities.

The filings also revealed the diocese received a $1.3 million federal Paycheck Protection Program loan to help cover expenses during the coronavirus pandemic.

The Diocese of Syracuse, along with the Dioceses of Buffalo, Rochester, and Rockville Centre sought bankruptcy protection after the Child Victims’ Act was extended for another year due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The bankruptcy filings provide the beleaguered dioceses an opportunity to re-structure but more importantly it shields them from potentially thousands of abuse lawsuits that would have most certainly revealed the nature and extent of the cover-up and corruption that underlies the priest abuse crisis.

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

SPRUCE GROVE (ALBERTA, CANADA)
Stony Plain Reporter

November 2, 2020

By Norman De Bono

Chippewas of the Thames First Nation – Simmering anger and hurt here over sexual misconduct by a former priest may have fuelled fires that destroyed two Southwestern Ontario churches, including one where he procured his young victims.

That’s the perspective of Rev. Canon Gaye Whippey of St. Andrew’s Anglican Church, at 81 Chippewa Rd. in Muncey, that was gutted by a fire about 6 a.m. Sunday. Another fire hours earlier destroyed South Caradoc United Church on Muncey Road.

“I think it may be anger from things that happened, that may have something to do with it,” Whippey said.

“It has been very difficult to work with the fact that someone had experienced something negative from a church person.”

But the Diocese of Huron, which oversees St. Andrew’s, cautioned against speculation about the cause of the fires.

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

EUGENE (OR)
Register-Guard

October 28, 2020

By Jordyn Brown

A former student is suing Marist Catholic High School in Eugene and the Marist Brothers of the Schools in New York for $3.25 million, alleging an administrator in the 1970s sexually abused him for years.

The lawsuit, filed Tuesday in Multnomah Circuit Court in Portland, states that Brother Robert Ryan worked at the private Catholic high school in Eugene as vice principal in the 1970s and used his role to groom and isolate students, sexually abusing them at school and on school trips.

Ryan is memorialized on the Marist High School website, which states that he died in April 2017.

The Marist suit seeks $250,000 in economic damages and $3 million in noneconomic damages, claiming sexual battery of a child, intentional infliction of emotional distress, negligent infliction of emotional distress, negligence and fraud. It sues both the local private school and the larger nonprofit Marist Brothers of the Schools, which oversaw and staffed the high school at the time until 1994, when the Archdiocese of Portland took over.

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

LONDON (ENGLAND)
The Tablet

November 1, 2020

By Jonathan Luxmoore

A retired cardinal who served as personal secretary to Pope John Paul II has denied any knowledge of sexual abuse by priests in his Krakow archdiocese, as another Polish bishop was placed under church investigation after similar claims.

“They seek to thrust responsibility on to me when I had no such responsibility and no knowledge of this matter,” said Cardinal Stanislaw Dziwisz. “Every priest has a conscience, and a bishop has a particular sense of responsibility. If I had known all these things, I would have reacted.”

The 81-year-old cardinal, who was the late pontiff’s secretary for 39 years, was responding to TV interview questions about a prominent sexual abuse case in the Krakow archdiocese, which he headed for 11 years until his retirement in 2016. He said he had no recollection of the case, insisting it fell under the jurisdiction of another retired prelate, Bishop Tadeusz Rakoczy, and added that he had always followed the “zero tolerance” policy, coupled with care for victims, instituted by John Paul II.

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

LOS ANGELES (CA)
Los Angeles Times

November 1, 2020

By Harriet Ryan

The suit by Bishop Kevin Vann seeks a retraction and money from the former administrator of a church-affiliated charity.

The Roman Catholic bishop of Orange County is suing a former charity administrator for libel, an escalation in the prelate’s dispute with influential church philanthropists who have complained to the Vatican about his firing of a nonprofit board.

Bishop Kevin Vann and the Diocese of Orange’s chief financial officer are seeking a retraction, financial compensation and punitive damages from the ex-administrator for an email in which they contend she gave a “false narrative” that suggested that charity funds might be used to cover clergy sex abuse claims.

The Superior Court suit filed earlier this month is the latest development in the bishop’s ongoing conflict with a group of high-dollar donors and other church insiders. Vann terminated the group from the independent Orange Catholic Foundation board in June after they rebuffed his request for millions of dollars in emergency pandemic funding. The board members reported the bishop to the Holy See for allegedly acting beyond his authority and violating state and church law, accusations the bishop denies.

The suit does not name any of the well-connected real estate developers, attorneys, corporate executives or others tossed from the board or the misconduct accusations they made to church officials in Rome and Washington, D.C. It focuses instead on an email written by an administrator ousted after the board firings.

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

LONDON (ONTARIO, CANADA)
London Free Press

November 2, 2020

By Norman De Bono

Chippewas of the Thames First Nation – Simmering anger and hurt here over sexual misconduct by a former priest may have fueled Sunday fires that destroyed two churches, including one where he procured his young victims.

That’s the perspective of Rev. Canon Gaye Whippey at St. Andrew’s Anglican Church, which was gutted by a fire at about 6 a.m. Sunday. Another fire several hours earlier destroyed the South Caradoc United Church on Muncey Road.

“I think it may be anger from things that happened, that may have something to do with it,” Whippey told The London Free Press on Sunday.

“It has been very difficult to work with the fact that someone had experienced something negative from a church person.”

Disgraced former Anglican priest David Norton was the rector at St. Andrews in the late 1970s and early 1980s. In 2018 he was convicted of three counts of indecent assault and one count of sexual assault of boys at the church. At the time of that conviction Norton was serving a four-year prison term for assaulting a boy at a London church a decade after he left the First Nations community.

“I think people know there’s anger against the church that goes back to him,” Whippey said. “I have spoken to people who hurt.”

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

CHICAGO (IL)
Chicago Sun-Times

November 1, 2020

By Laura Washington

Clements led Black Catholics out of the shadows of a Church that had underappreciated and unrecognized them.

Pope Francis will soon install Wilton Gregory, the archbishop of Washington, D.C., to the College of Cardinals. Roman Catholics — and, especially, Blacks like me — should celebrate this long-overdue arrival of the nation’s first African American cardinal.

Gregory was born, raised and ordained in Chicago. He served as associate pastor at Our Lady of Perpetual Help in Glenview and taught at St. Mary of the Lake Seminary in Mundelein. He became an auxiliary bishop in 1983 and was later ordained the bishop of downstate Belleville.

*

As we celebrate, we must also remember. Remember there could be no Cardinal Wilton Gregory without the Rev. George Clements.

Clements, the iconic, pioneering cleric, was once the most famous Black priest in America. Last November, he died after a heart attack and stroke. He was 87.

*
Last year, Clements was accused of sexually abusing a minor in 1974 while he was pastor of Holy Angels.

In August, after an 11-month investigation, the Archdiocese of Chicago’s Independent Review Board determined that, “in light of the information presented, there is not reasonable cause to believe that Fr. Clements sexually abused” the accuser when he was a minor.

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

ARLINGTON (VA)
Politico

November 1, 2020

By Maggie Severns, Brandon Ambrosino, and Michael Stratford

The deposed university president secured backing by ousting critics and hiring the family members and businesses of loyalists.

When Jerry Falwell Jr. and his wife Becki strolled around the Lynchburg, Va., campus of Liberty University, the evangelical school which Falwell led as president, they would play a secret game called “Would you rather.”

The middle-aged couple would point to students, men and women, and imagine what it would be like to have sex with them, according to a former student who said Becki told him about the game.

The former student, a member of a band with the Falwells’ son Trey, has said that Becki initiated oral sex with him while he stayed overnight at the Falwell home, following other attempts to seduce him. She confided to him the details of the game she and her husband would play, and told him multiple times how she and Jerry would take note of students’ appearances.

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

WEST BLOOMFIELD (MI)
MI Headlines

October 28, 2020

By Joseph Comperchio

Jackson MI – New sexual assault charges have been filed against a former Catholic school music teacher after her prosecutors last month accused the 67-year-old man of sexually assaulting two other minors while he was employed at St. John Catholic School in Jackson in the 1970s.

Joseph – or Josef – Comperchio, of Fort Myers, Florida, is charged with five new counts of second-degree criminal sexual conduct involving two individuals. Four of the counts occurred when the victims were under the age of 13, and the fifth was while the victim was physically helpless – second-degree criminal sexual conduct–injury to incapacitated victim. All charges are 15-year felonies. The incidents reportedly occurred between 1975-77 when Comperchio was employed as a drama/music teacher at the Jackson Catholic school.

He is expected to be arraigned on the new charges today in Jackson County 12th District Court.

“My office stands committed to seeking justice for all of those who have been assaulted or taken advantage of and we will continue to review the circumstances in each case with careful scrutiny and file charges when the evidence demands it,” Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel said. “I continue to be encouraged by the victims who come forward to share their experiences, which are undoubtedly difficult stories to tell and serve as a reminder to the rest of us that the pain which can be inflicted when predators prey on the vulnerable remains long after the reported incident.”

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

MOUNT VERNON (IL)
WMIX

October 27 2020

A priest at two rural Clinton County parishes has been suspended from ministry after he was accused of “inappropriate conduct” with a minor.

According to a letter to Clinton County parishioners from Bishop Michael McGovern of the Belleville Diocese, Rev. Anthony Onyango, who was pastor at both St. Bernard Parish in Albers and St. Damian parish in Damiansville, was removed from ministry last week.

The allegations came to the attention of the diocese last week and involve a minor at one of the two parishes, though the diocese will not disclose which parish or the minor’s age or gender, Msgr. John Myler, spokesman for the Diocese, said Sunday.

“We don’t want to compromise the identity of the person who made the allegation,” Myler said.

Myler noted that the allegations involve “inappropriate conduct that was not sexual,” but would not give specifics of what the priest is accused of doing.

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

WASHINGTON (DC)
Washington Post

October 31, 2020

By Magdalena Moskalewicz

I saw a young woman screaming in a priest’s face today and something in me changed. The priest must have just gotten outside of his church to tell people to disperse, and she was standing there among a group of other young protesters, mainly women. They were holding simple signs and yelling loudly at him, a large man in his 50s, his posture hidden by a long black cassock. I have never screamed at a priest myself, but I found the image impressive, oddly compelling.

*
The church’s handling of its sexual abuse scandals has alienated many. Over the past few years, the appalling breadth of pedophilia among priests has become vividly apparent. Millions of Poles watched the recent documentaries by Tomasz and Marek Sekielski, which showed how the church and the state covered up cases of repeated abuse.

Law and Justice, meanwhile, has tried to use religious feeling to its own ends. It has relied heavily on anti-Muslim fearmongering and has recently started mobilizing the same sort of social hatred against the LGBTQ community — with comprehensive help from the Polish church, which eagerly preaches against “the rainbow plague.”

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

DENVER (CO)
Crux

November 1, 2020

By John L. Allen Jr.

Rome – You know it’s a strange time when the pope gives an interview to a major news outlet, and arguably it’s not even the most interesting ecclesiastical Q&A of the month.

Pope Francis spoke Friday to the Italian agency Adnkronos. Yet earlier this month, legendary Cardinal Camillo Ruini, the once all-powerful Vicar of Rome and president of the Italian bishops’ conference under St. John Paul II, spoke to the Italian paper Corriere della Sera and offered possibly even tastier food for thought.

Now a lion in winter as he nears his 90th birthday in February, Ruini is seen as one of the leaders of the College of Cardinals’ conservative wing. In Catholic circles, the main headline from the interview thus was a comment from Ruini about whether there’s an “international conservative front” against Pope Francis.

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

IRVINGTON (NY)
Hudson Independent

October 28, 2020

By Rick Pez­zullo

Ten for­mer res­i­dents of The Chil­dren’s Vil­lage res­i­den­tial treat­ment cen­ter in Dobbs Ferry have taken le­gal ac­tion, ac­cus­ing staff, ad­min­is­tra­tors and older res­i­dents at the home for trou­bled boys of sex­ual and phys­i­cal abuse over a 25-year pe­riod.

The vic­tims, who were all emo­tion­ally dis­turbed young boys when they were placed at the Chil­dren’s Vil­lage by courts or child wel­fare agen­cies, al­lege in law­suits they were phys­i­cally bru­tal­ized, raped, and hu­mil­i­ated by older res­i­dents, while sim­i­lar sex­ual abuse was per­pe­trated by staff, in­clud­ing teacher aides, coun­sel­lors, and a for­mer ex­ec­u­tive di­rec­tor.

When the boys com­plained to so­cial work­ers or other staff about the phys­i­cal and sex­ual abuse, they al­lege were ei­ther ig­nored or threat­ened with vi­o­lence.

“These chil­dren were typ­i­cally brought to The Chil­dren’s Vil­lage to re­move them from abu­sive or ne­glect­ful con­di­tions in their fam­i­lies’ homes with the goal of heal­ing their trau­mas. In­stead, their vic­tim­iza­tion con­tin­ued and es­ca­lated to hor­ri­fy­ing pro­por­tions,” said at­tor­ney Robert Green­stein of Green­stein & Mil­bauer, LLP. “These vic­tims have en­dured—and con­tinue to ex­pe­ri­ence—fear, shame and pain. It has taken them years to step for­ward and tell their sto­ries.”

The law­suits ac­cuse The Chil­dren’s Vil­lage of neg­li­gence in its hir­ing, train­ing, and su­per­vi­sion, among other fail­ures, from about 1970 to 1995.

The cases, which are be­ing heard by Jus­tice Steven M. Jaeger at the Nas­sau County Supreme Court in Mi­ne­ola, were filed un­der the pro­vi­sion of the Child Vic­tims Act.

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

DENVER (CO)
Crux

October 26, 2020

By Inés San Martín

Rosario, Argentina – After almost a year of civil unrest, interrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic, Chileans overwhelmingly approved a bid to scrap the constitution written under the mandate of General Augusto Pinochet, a dictator who ruled the country until 1990.

The Chilean conference of Catholic bishops called the Sunday’s referendum, where almost 80 percent of those who cast a vote did so in favor of re-writing the constitution, a “great example of civility and participation,” expressing that in the new path now undertaken by the country the citizens will have a fundamental role.

They also called on Catholics to get involved in the process, so that Christian values are reflected in the new Constitution.

The bishops urged Chileans to continue on in the path of dialogue, towards the “decision that the voters will have to make to determine in April 2021” who will take part in the drafting of the country’s new Magna Carta.

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