No action on paedophile priest, and vandals target Pell

Shocking details of a priest who abused children in the confessional and threatened parishioners at gunpoint emerged at the Child Abuse Royal Commission last month. Doveton parish priest Father Peter Searson molested children in the confessional, and sexually abused a nine-year-old altar boy every Saturday for six months.
Searson paid the boy a pittance to do chores around his home, and told the boy the sexual abuse was the devil punishing him for his sins. Searson was known to carry a gun and a large knife, which he once held to a child’s chest.

http://royalcommission.com.au/no-action-on-paedophile-priest-and-vandals-target-pell/

Former priest barred from contact with anyone under 16, turns up at other NH churches

The South Parish Unitarian Church, locked during a cold winter rainstorm, looked like so many other churches in so many other towns. Its steeple and clock, standing tall at the edge of Charlestown’s main strip, rose through the mist, a sign out front attached to weathered brick reading “built in 1844.”

Recently, a man named Mark Fleming, a former Catholic priest accused of molesting three young boys in the 1980s, worked at this historic site, perhaps breaking an agreement that forbade him from having contact with children younger than 16.

http://www.concordmonitor.com/photos/20537659-95/former-priest-barred-from-contact-with-anyone-under-16-turns-up-at-other-nh# 

The Culture of Cover-Up

Why do so many in the Church establishment not want gay clergy being talked about?  Someone is not being truthful about the whole question of homosexuality and the Catholic clergy.
Our Vortex report last week citing statistics saying somewhere between 15 and 58 percent of priests in America are homosexual seems to have touched a nerve. Some clerics responded privately as well as publicly saying "No way." Others responded privately as well as publicly saying "Right on." So which is it? 

http://www.churchmilitant.com/video/episode/the-culture-of-cover-up

Bishop’s abuse victim wants to know if deal was done with police

THE VICTIM of a bishop jailed for sexual abuse has demanded to know whether “a deal was done” to spare the clergyman a criminal conviction.
The former Bishop of Lewes Peter Ball was jailed for nearly three years last October for the sexual abuse of 16 young men. Graham Sawyer, who was indecently assaulted by Ball while a teenager, told The Argus: “It’s difficult to know who is telling the truth in this case.

http://www.theargus.co.uk/news/14211175.Bishop___s_abuse_victim_wants_to_know_if_deal_was_done_with_police/ 

Catholic Guilt? The Lying, Scheming Altar Boy Behind a Lurid Rape Case

On October 9, 2015, a former Philadelphia altar boy reported to the office of Dr. Stephen Mechanick to undergo a court-ordered forensic psychiatric evaluation. It took nearly three hours because the two men had a lot of ground to cover.
Daniel Gallagher is a slender 27-year-old with a wispy beard who is better known as “Billy Doe.” Under that pseudonym, he made national headlines in 2011 when he claimed to have been serially raped as a fifth- and sixth-grader at St. Jerome’s parish by two priests and a Catholic schoolteacher.

http://www.newsweek.com/2016/01/29/billy-doe-altar-boy-sends-four-men-prison-philadelphia-rape-case-417565.html 

Forty Alleged Victims and Counting in New England Prep School Sex Abuse Scandal

A tony New England prep school that has educated the likes of Howard Dean, George H.W. Bush’s father Prescott Bush, and Tucker Carlson is now embroiled in a sex abuse scandal that has been covered up, victims say, since the 1970s.
 At least 40 former students of St. George’s School in Rhode Island have come forward to say they were abused at the school. The latest known case of abuse allegedly occurred in 2004.

http://gawker.com/forty-alleged-victims-and-counting-in-new-england-prep-1754234663 

Archbishop Nienstedt exits early from Battle Creek, Mich., parish

Less than a month after arriving to assist at the Battle Creek, Mich., parish of a friend, Archbishop John Nienstedt has decided to leave.
Nienstedt, the former head of the St. Paul-Minneapolis archdiocese who resigned the position in June amid accusations of mishandled allegations of clergy sexual abuse, offered to assist at St. Philip Roman Catholic Church to help his friend Fr. John Fleckenstein, who has recently experienced health issues. Nienstedt arrived at the parish Jan. 6 and was expected to serve at the parish for six months. His duties included celebrating Masses and visiting the sick and homebound. The Kalamazoo diocese said last week that the archbishop passed its standards for ministry and viewed him “as a priest in good standing," noting he was not appointed or assigned but there on a temporary basis.

http://ncronline.org/news/accountability/archbishop-nienstedt-exits-early-battle-creek-mich-parish

'Historic shift' in Ireland's attitude to church sex abuse scandal

Hollywood film director Tom McCarthy said he believes Ireland is leading the way in addressing the Catholic Church child sex abuse scandal.
But he warned the Church must do everything "humanly possible" to root out the abuse and ensure it never happens again. The director made the comments at the UK premiere of his new film Spotlight, which tells the story of a 2001 newspaper investigation exposing the child sex abuse scandal in Boston, America.

http://www.careappointments.co.uk/care-news/northern-ireland/item/38910-historic-shift-in-ireland-s-attitude-to-church-sex-abuse-scandal 

German church pay abuse victims

The Catholic Church in Germany has spent the past five years a total of 6.4 million euros was paid to victims of sexual abuse. More than a thousand people received financial compensation. According to a survey the newspaper Neue Osnabrücker Zeitung held in all 27 dioceses in Germany.

The church also contributed to the costs incurred by some victims for psychological help. The Catholic Church in 2011 made possible the victims could apply for financial compensation. Most of the applications came from the diocese of Muenster, where 122 of the 129 requests were honored.

http://www.hotrecentnews.com/en/news/german-church-pay-abuse-victims/4994 

Victoria police seek victims of sexual assault at St Patrick's cathedral

Sano taskforce wants to hear from victims at the cathedral between 1996 and 2001, which was when Cardinal George Pell was archbishop of Melbourne.  Victoria police are investigating allegations of sexual assault at Melbourne’s St Patrick’s cathedral during Cardinal George Pell’s tenure as archbishop of Melbourne. The victims were reportedly 14-year-old boys.
In a statement on Wednesday, Sgt Sharon Darcy said detectives from the Sano taskforce wanted to speak to anyone who was a victim of sexual assault at the cathedral, or who knew of sexual assaults at the cathedral, between 1996 and 2001.

http://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2015/dec/23/victoria-police-seek-victims-of-sexual-assault-at-st-patricks-cathedral#_=_ 

St. John's Abbey Releases Information on 18 Monks

St. John's Abbey says it has released the files of 18 monks believed to have sexually abused children. The 18 files include nine monks who have died and two who have separated from St. John's Abbey and live as laymen.
The other seven files include monks who live on the St. John's campus under a safety plan the abbey has developed. The abbey said in a statement it knows of no incident of sexual abuse of a minor by a monk at St. John's in more than two decades.

http://kstp.com/news/stories/s4021520.shtml 

Here's fresh insight into Pell's response to the child sex abuse crisis. It's not encouraging

Rather than heed the law – or follow system rules and regulations – the church continued to believe that individual priests could make individual decisions to stop abusing children.  Viewed through modern eyes, it seems extraordinary that it took the Catholic church nearly two millennia to comprehensively condemn slavery.
After centuries of grappling with the issue, including attempts to distinguish between just and unjust enslavement of human beings, the Catholic church gave a full denunciation of slavery in the 1965 Vatican II document Gaudium et Spes (Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World).

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/jan/20/fresh-insight-into-pells-response-to-the-child-sex-abuse-crisis-its-not-encouraging#_=_ 

Fr Kevin Dillon breaks silence for abuse victims on St Mary’s Basilica fence

PARISH priest Fr Kevin Dillon wants St Mary’s Basilica’s Yarra St fence to shout on behalf of victims of institutional sexual abuse.
The acclaimed advocate joined abuse survivor Chris Pianto tying ribbons to the fence yesterday, signalling it had become part of the Loud Fence movement which originated in Ballarat and has gone global.

http://www.geelongadvertiser.com.au/news/geelong/fr-kevin-dillon-breaks-silence-for-abuse-victims-on-st-marys-basilica-fence/news-story/cb92c79ad61ca16008d82c0f24410184#load-story-comments