A Hunter child sex offender priest and the price of power

IN October, 1995 a Hunter Catholic priest took down a short statement from a woman who had been sexually abused by a priest from when she was eight, once while he was hearing her confession.
The child sex offender priest was Denis McAlinden, an Irish cleric sent to Australia at the age of 26.  The woman told of repeated sexual abuse over three or four years. I’ve spoken with her many times. I’ve spoken with two other McAlinden victims who were also sexually assaulted by him while in the confessional.

http://www.theherald.com.au/story/4861234/church-and-power/ 

Children of Catholic priests live with secrets and sorrow

He carried his doubts and disappointment across miles and decades, from childhood to adulthood, and finally at the age of 48 to the kitchen table of a modest house outside of Buffalo. There, he would ask an elderly aunt and uncle to help him answer the question that had troubled him all his life: Why had his father always seemed to dislike him so much?
With his parents already dead, Jim Graham pleaded with his Aunt Kathryn and Uncle Otto to tell him the truth about his family. Finally, Kathryn unfolded a newsletter published by a Catholic religious order and slid it across the table. She jabbed a finger at a picture of a sad, balding figure wearing a priest’s clerical collar.

https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2017/08/16/father-father-children-catholic-priests-live-with-secrets-and-sorrow/mvYO5SOxAxZYJBi8XxiaqN/story.html 

Boston Globe Spotlight Team Uncovers Secret Children Of Catholic Priests

One of the Boston Globe reporters made famous in the movie “Spotlight” has a new bombshell story on the Catholic Church – thousands of people claim they were fathered by priests. Globe Spotlight reporter Michael Rezendes appeared on CBS This Morning Wednesday to discuss the first part of his report, “Children of Catholic Priests Live with Secrets and Sorrow.”

http://boston.cbslocal.com/2017/08/16/catholic-priests-father-children-boston-globe-spotlight-michael-rezendes-cbs-this-morning/ 

Group calls on Bishop Malesic to acknowledge link between clergy sexual abuse and opioid epidemic

A group of Catholic lay people and clergy is calling on Greensburg Bishop Edward C. Malesic and other church hierarchs to acknowledge that the clergy sexual abuse scandal is feeding the opioid epidemic.

“He's got to take some responsibility,” said Tom Venditti, founder of Faithful Catholics Against Pedophilia. Venditti of Bolivar said he founded FCAP earlier this year to help victims of clergy sexual abuse and encourage them to stay in the Catholic Church. 

http://triblive.com/local/westmoreland/12624242-74/group-calls-on-bishop-malesic-to-acknowledge-link-between-clergy-sexual-abuse 

Montana reservations reportedly 'dumping grounds' for predatory priests

For decades, even lifetimes, the Catholic Church refused to turn in priests with known pasts of sexually abusing children, women and men. The story is known in as many corners of the world as the Catholic Church exists, including Montana's two dioceses. Hundreds of victims have come forward with stories of abuse from Catholic clergy. Estimates of others victimized may remain faceless and unaccounted following the settlement of the lawsuit.

In the Pacific Northwest, however, the Catholic Church and the Jesuit Order have been accused of using Indian Reservations as their “dumping grounds” for the worst recidivist priests accused of sexually abusing children throughout the 1900s. Here, church officials reportedly determined predatory priests could remain undetected. Here, the church acted as an anchor for the communities, and the victims lived with the abuse in silence.

http://www.greatfallstribune.com/story/news/2017/08/16/montanas-reservations-were-dumping-grounds-predatory-priests-suit-alleges/504576001/ 

‘The safety of children should outweigh religious freedom’

t’s little wonder an alarming tantrum by the Archbishop of Melbourne, Denis Hart, has gone global this week. The president of the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference said protections for confession should be respected – even if details of child abuse are raised.
The long-time supporter and friend of Cardinal George Pell said he would rather go to jail than break the holy “seal” of confession.

http://thenewdaily.com.au/religion/2017/08/16/catholic-confession-child-abuse/ 

Pope apologises to sex abuse victims

Pope Francis on Wednesday asked for forgiveness from the families of child sex abuse victims who had killed themselves as a result of their trauma. He equally commended one survivor for telling his story.
In comments published in German tabloid Bild, the pope described Daniel Pittet’s memoir “Father, I Forgive You’’ as a testament to “how deeply embedded evil can be in the heart of a servant of the church.’’

http://www.premiumtimesng.com/foreign/world-foreign/240452-pope-apologises-sex-abuse-victims.html 

Australia: Court Hears Harrowing Accounts of Child Abuse in Diocese Linked to Vatican Cardinal George Pell

An Australian court heard harrowing details of historic child abuse perpetrated by former priest Gerald Ridsdale, one of Australia’s most notorious pedophiles.
Ridsdale, 83, pleaded guilty to 23 charges Tuesday, including two counts of rape and one of buggery, for abusing 12 children, aged 6 to 13, between 1962 and 1988 in the Victoria state city of Ballarat and the surrounding area.

http://www.newsweek.com/australia-court-hears-harrowing-accounts-child-abuse-diocese-linked-vatican-651096 

Another hot and cold priest

I’m Wendy. My priest’s name is Craig. Forgive the long story, but I don’t know how to understand my priest. His behaviour is odd, and it’s ripping me up inside.Let me start by saying that this has been a horrible year for me! In the same month, I had a tumour on my neck, my mother went into kidney failure, and my 67 year old boss was constantly harassing me, and threatening to fire me, so she could afford to keep her 35 year old boyfriend in the company. 

He just got out of rehab, and hasn’t been employed a year. He went to rehab after working at my company just one week, when he showed up at work drunk. My boss sent him to rehab for three months, then brought him back to the company, where he took my promised promotion. We were in a deficit, and could not afford him, so now all of a sudden, she was finding all kinds of flaws in my work, while he is paid literally just to sit around, and be her boyfriend. On July 4th, she finally got rid of me. My point of all this, is that this year has been misery, and my priest was like a light at the end of a very dark tunnel.

https://maltesemarriedcatholicpriest.wordpress.com/2017/08/28/another-hot-and-cold-priest/ 

Australian inquiry recommends prosecution of priests for not reporting child abuse confessions

Priests who fail to tell police about suspected child sexual abuse should face criminal charges, even if they learn of abuse during a confidential religious confession, Australia's most powerful investigative authority has recommended.
Australia's Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse - the nation's highest form of inquiry - recommended that all states and territories in Australia introduce legislation which would make it a criminal offence for people to fail to report child sexual abuse in an institutional setting. Clergy who find out about sexual abuse during a religious confession would not be exempt.

http://www.breakingnews.ie/world/australian-inquiry-recommends-prosecution-of-priests-for-not-reporting-child-abuse-confessions-802044.html

Montana reservations reportedly 'dumping grounds' for predatory priests

For decades, even lifetimes, the Catholic Church refused to turn in priests with known pasts of sexually abusing children, women and men. The story is known in as many corners of the world as the Catholic Church exists, including Montana's two dioceses. Hundreds of victims have come forward with stories of abuse from Catholic clergy. Estimates of others victimized may remain faceless and unaccounted following the settlement of the lawsuit.

In the Pacific Northwest, however, the Catholic Church and the Jesuit Order have been accused of using Indian Reservations as their “dumping grounds” for the worst recidivist priests accused of sexually abusing children throughout the 1900s. Here, church officials reportedly determined predatory priests could remain undetected. Here, the church acted as an anchor for the communities, and the victims lived with the abuse in silence.

http://www.greatfallstribune.com/story/news/2017/08/16/montanas-reservations-were-dumping-grounds-predatory-priests-suit-alleges/504576001/ 

Australia: Court Hears Harrowing Accounts of Child Abuse in Diocese Linked to Vatican Cardinal George Pell

An Australian court heard harrowing details of historic child abuse perpetrated by former priest Gerald Ridsdale, one of Australia’s most notorious pedophiles.
Ridsdale, 83, pleaded guilty to 23 charges Tuesday, including two counts of rape and one of buggery, for abusing 12 children, aged 6 to 13, between 1962 and 1988 in the Victoria state city of Ballarat and the surrounding area.

http://www.newsweek.com/australia-court-hears-harrowing-accounts-child-abuse-diocese-linked-vatican-651096 

Priest abused girl on altar, court told

A father laid his naked daughter on a church altar where she was abused by Australia's worst pedophile priest Gerald Francis Ridsdale, a court has heard.

The former Catholic priest has pleaded guilty to sex crimes against another 12 children, one as young as six, during the three decades he abused children throughout western Victoria.

http://www.9news.com.au/national/2017/08/15/03/33/pedophile-priest-faces-more-jail-time

Crucial test for Benedictine monks’ new leader as order faces sex abuse inquiry

He has been an abbot, an author, a TV star and a radio breakfast show regular and has been described as the country’s most influential Benedictine monk since Cardinal Basil Hume. Now Christopher Jamison is to attempt his most important role: saviour of the reputation of his monastic order.
At the start of August the monks of the English Benedictine Congregation – an association of 13 Roman Catholic communities of monks and nuns – elected Jamison as their leader. His installation as abbot president came just days after Professor Alexis Jay confirmed that the public inquiry she is chairing into child sexual abuse in England and Wales would focus its hearings during October and November on scandals at Benedictine schools and monasteries. The choice of Jamison was almost certainly no coincidence.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/aug/12/benedictine-christopher-jamison-abbot-president-order-faces-sex-abuse-inquiry 

Australian inquiry recommends prosecution of priests for not reporting child abuse confessions

Priests who fail to tell police about suspected child sexual abuse should face criminal charges, even if they learn of abuse during a confidential religious confession, Australia's most powerful investigative authority has recommended.
Australia's Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse - the nation's highest form of inquiry - recommended that all states and territories in Australia introduce legislation which would make it a criminal offence for people to fail to report child sexual abuse in an institutional setting. Clergy who find out about sexual abuse during a religious confession would not be exempt.

http://www.breakingnews.ie/world/australian-inquiry-recommends-prosecution-of-priests-for-not-reporting-child-abuse-confessions-802044.html

Papal abuse commission considers restructuring, survivors may lose direct role

Rome — Pope Francis' commission on clergy sexual abuse is considering whether to restructure itself so that it no longer includes the direct participation of abuse survivors. It is evaluating the possibility of creating instead a separate advisory panel of individuals who have been abused by clergy.
A member of the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors revealed the group's consideration of the idea in an NCR interview Aug. 14, saying that one of the commission's work groups has been tasked with weighing the pros and cons of such a change.

https://www.ncronline.org/news/vatican/papal-abuse-commission-considers-restructuring-survivors-may-lose-direct-role

Clerical abuse of children has to be addressed

Arrest of priest shows everyone has to answer for their behavior no matter what station they hold in life.  The arrest of a Filipino Catholic priest accused of trafficking a 13-year-old minor is highly unusual. He has been charged with violating the Anti-Trafficking in Persons Act of the Philippines. 
Most cases of alleged clerical child abuse go unreported or are covered up in the Philippines. In other countries, the scandal of clerical child abuse has left thousands of child victims without redress, help, therapy, or a chance for justice.

http://www.ucanews.com/news/clerical-abuse-of-children-must-be-addressed/79964 

The Catholic church must stop blaming victims: children cannot consent to sex

What has consent got to do with child abuse? A simple question, which should have a simple answer. A child under the age of 16 is in law unable to consent to sexual acts. The age of consent exists for a reason: to protect vulnerable members of society who have not yet developed the emotional or physical maturity to engage in sexual relationships.
Yet years of revelations about child sexual abuse have shown that this is not a settled question even within trusted institutions that should know better. The independent inquiry into child sexual exploitation in Rotherham found police officers believed girls as young as 11 could consent to sex. In Rochdale, council employees said they thought victims of child sex abuse were “making their own choices”. And in my own work as a lawyer representing survivors of child sexual abuse, I’ve seen how the Catholic church, when dealing with allegations of child sexual abuse, often looks to place blame straight at the feet of a victim.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/aug/24/catholic-church-victim-blaming-children-consent-sex-abuse 

Bishop heading anti-racism committee says ex-KKK priest “a tragic story with noble end”

for crying out loud... it is one thing for any person to commit a crime of some sort... But i feel what this priest did in his younger years... and then to hide himself away as a priest in the catholic church... is a crime in it's self... I have not pity for this priest... it seems to me that I have read it all now... they join the priesthood... to hide their crimes of RAPE and abuse of innocent children... and now of being in the KKK... doing all sorts of crime... what a hide away... so safe they must feel... until they are found out... and then out comes all of their lies... deceit... and excuses of covering up their crimes... of today and yesterday... I just don't get it... well I don't understand where they are coming from...

 ====================================

A priest who had served as a grand wizard in the Ku Klux Klan 40 years ago is “a tragic story that has had a noble end,” according to the new head of an ad hoc committee set up by the U.S. bishops’ conference to work against racism.
“It was tragic that this man was involved in the KKK, and that his behavior was of such a degree that he ended up in trouble with the authorities about it. What is hopeful and noble is the fact that he realized he was going down the wrong path,” said Bishop George V. Murry of Youngstown during a press conference announcing the new Ad Hoc Committee Against Racism of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB).

http://www.cathnewsusa.com/2017/08/bishop-heading-anti-racism-committee-says-ex-kkk-priest-tragic-story-noble-end/

Victims, advocates push for Archdiocese of Santa Fe officials to come clean

Everyone finally believed them. At least that is how they felt. In the days and weeks after the Catholic Diocese of Gallup in 2014 published a list naming 30 priests and a teacher who church executives said had been credibly accused of sexually abusing children, Elizabeth Terrill got one phone call after another from survivors whose allegations had been met for years with denial and doubt.

With the bishop’s very public admission, some survivors believed at last that the Catholic Church and the broader community accepted their charges against men who once had been trusted and enjoyed protection from a system few others had challenged.

http://www.santafenewmexican.com/news/local_news/victims-advocates-push-for-archdiocese-of-santa-fe-officials-to/article_a96f0fc2-901e-59a3-8004-da11a0b6b160.html 

All eyes on Vatican Cardinal's sexual assault case in Australia

Australian Cardinal George Pell, one of Pope Francis' most senior aides, has been summoned to appear in court in his home state this week to face "historical sexual assault" charges.  Last month, Victorian state police charged him with multiple sexual offences involving multiple complainants from years ago.
In Australia, there is no statute of limitations on such crimes, which means one can be charged for crimes committed decades ago. Police have refused to elaborate on the allegations and the local court has issued a gag order on details regarding the case.

http://www.chinapost.com.tw/asia/2017/07/25/499597/all-eyes.http

The clergy’s task is unfinished in confronting sex abuse

The story of Marie Collins, an Irish victim of clergy sex abuse and a witness of unimpeachable integrity, is a dual tale of how far the church has come in acknowledging and handling the scandal and of how wholly and demonstrably incapable the Catholic clerical culture is of dealing with its own sin.
Collins was one of two survivors of clergy sex abuse who were appointed in 2014 to the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors, an agency created by Pope Francis. She resigned the commission in March, providing NCR with a long explanatory statement.

http://www.cathnewsusa.com/2017/07/clergys-task-unfinished-confronting-sex-abuse/?newsletter=1 

Brisbane girls school Mt St Michael's College receives historical sexual abuse complaint

An exclusive Brisbane girls school has revealed it received a formal complaint of historical sexual assault, dating back 40 years. Mt St Michael's College, an all-girls Catholic high school in the inner suburb of Ashgrove, has written to former students about the allegations.
The letter, signed by principal Sharon Volp, said the abuse allegedly occurred between a student and a former staff member in the 1970s.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-08-01/brisbane-mount-saint-michaels-college-abuse-allegation/8761488 

German abuse report ‘shocking’ and not the end, Church expert says

Jesuit Father Hans Zollner, a leading anti-abuse expert and a member of the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors, called a report documenting hundreds of cases of physical and sexual abuse at a German boys' choir "shocking," and warned that as the taboo lifts in other parts of the world, similar accounts are likely to keep emerging.

ROME - A recent German report documenting hundreds of cases of physical and sexual abuse at a famed boys choir in Regensburg, led for part of the seventy-year span covered in the report by Pope Benedict XVI’s brother, was “shocking,” according to one of the Church’s leading experts on child abuse - and what’s worse, he warns, the story hardly ends there.

https://cruxnow.com/interviews/2017/07/28/german-abuse-report-shocking-not-end-church-expert-says/ 

Praise for Gillard over abuse inquiry

TWENTY years ago, who would have thought in our wildest dreams that acardinal in the Roman Catholic church would be charged with child molestation? George Pell must now be allowed due process and the presumption of innocence. But spare a thought for the victims of these crimes, who are finally getting some closure from the recent spate of convictions of paedophile priests.
They have lived with the trauma for years, struggling to get some form of compensation and admission of wrongdoing from one of the most powerful and richest institutions in the world with little or no success. 

https://www.qt.com.au/news/praise-for-gillard-over-abuse-inquiry/3207011/

Catholic schoolchildren asked to pay archdiocese debts

'WRONGS AND DEBTS': David Sablan, Concerned Catholics of Guam president, addresses the media during a press conference in this file photo. Sablan said recently that the families of Guam's 4,424 Catholic school students shouldn't have to help pay for the debts left behind by a closed, college preparatory school and the financial problems caused by another school.
The sexual abuse of our children by members of our Catholic clergy is the worst violation of trust, when supposedly holy men take advantage of our young for their own pleasure. This is truly sad and our prayers continually go out for the victims and their families. Suspended Archbishop Apuron's administration of our archdiocese was a "disaster."

https://www.postguam.com/forum/letter_to_the_editor/catholic-schoolchildren-asked-to-pay-archdiocese-debts/article_33cb8b2c-7c0c-11e7-a797-97e455441f2c.html

Former Phoenix Bishop Thomas O'Brien accused of sexual abuse

PHOENIX - A Tucson man alleges Bishop Emeritus Thomas J. O'Brien sexually abused him more than 35 years ago.  O'Brien has already admitted to helping cover up suspected pedophile priests, but this is the first lawsuit to allege O'Brien was personally responsible for abuse. O'Brien stepped down as bishop in 2003.
The lawsuit, filed by a Tucson man going only by "Joseph W.", alleges O'Brien molested him between 1977 and 1982, when the boy was in second to fifth grades. The lawsuit was filed in September of 2016.

http://www.12news.com/news/local/valley/former-phoenix-bishop-thomas-obrien-accused-of-sexual-abuse/461976998

The Boy With the Perpetual Nervousness review – a tale of betrayal by the church

Pope Francis has taken great strides in challenging all sorts of entrenched attitudes and prejudices in the Vatican that have given the Catholic church such a bad name of late. Progress has been disappointingly slow, however, on the commission he appointed in 2014 to tackle the appalling scandal of clerical sexual abuse.
In March of this year Marie Collins, the last remaining member of the panel who was a survivor of abuse, resigned after a Vatican department failed to comply with the commission’s recommendation that it respond to every correspondent who writes in with allegations that they have been a victim. If the curia is resisting such simple steps, how to have faith that they will tackle the bigger underlying issues?

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/aug/07/the-boy-with-the-perpetual-nervousness-review-graham-caveney-betrayal-by-the-church 

Why I won't let shame about sexual assault silence me any more

When I had the idea of asking women to tell me the stories they found most difficult to tell, I knew I was entering uncharted waters. I knew it because I had experienced the same silencing myself.

Alarming rate of university sexual assaults revealed

Human Rights Commission report reveals one in five students are sexually harassed at university. In my early 20s I was sexually molested by a GP while he was inserting an IUD. For decades I was unable to tell anyone what had happened to me. Every time I thought about the incident I felt hot with shame.

Yet rational, grown-up me knew perfectly well that I had done nothing wrong. I had behaved as a patient behaves with a doctor. It was the GP who had behaved appallingly and broken our unspoken contract. Yet, somehow, I had shouldered both the shame and the blame.

https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=4184472111856999279#editor/target=post;postID=4248805477530116786

Australia's Ballarat diocese accused of breaking Church sex abuse guidelines by challenging compensation claim

The Diocese of Ballarat, one of the Catholic bodies most scrutinised by Australia's Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, has been accused of breaking the Church’s guidelines in resisting a compensation claim by a victim of laicised priest Gerald Ridsdale. The guidelines state a claimant cannot be required to prove the elements of an abuse case that the Church authority had already accepted to be true. But lawyer Paula Shelton said the Diocese was challenging parts of her client's claim that were accepted by a court when Ridsdale was convicted of the abuse. Her client was seven years old when sexually abused by Ridsdale, who is now in jail, in 1980.

http://www.thetablet.co.uk/news/7607/0/australia-s-ballarat-diocese-accused-of-breaking-church-sex-abuse-guidelines-by-challenging-compensation-claim-

Paedophile priest Gerald Ridsdale assaulted girl on altar of Ballarat church, court told

A father took his daughter to a notorious paedophile priest to be abused, including one time when she was assaulted on the altar of a Ballarat church, a Victorian court has heard. Gerald Ridsdale is back in court after pleading guilty to more historical sex offences, including rape and indecent assault.
The 83-year-old has been in jail since 1994 for abusing numerous children, but has now admitted to raping and indecently assaulting 12 more victims between 1961 and 1988 in western Victoria. 

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-08-15/gerald-ridsdale-abused-girl-on-church-altar-court-told/8808606