350 victims report UK child sex abuse

Around 350 people have come forward to tell British police they were victims of child sexual abuse by football coaches, deepening a scandal that has rocked the sport.
The scale of the abuse began to emerge last week after a string of ex-footballers, including England internationals, told of the crimes inflicted upon them, including years of being repeatedly raped.

https://nz.news.yahoo.com/a/33386014/350-victims-report-uk-football-child-sex-abuse-police/#page1 

Church apology for a 14-year sexual relationship an Australian first

Just after 10am on Sunday, inside Victoria's oldest and busiest Catholic church, the congregation will hear something extraordinarily rare.
A senior church official will tell those seated in the pews at St Francis on Lonsdale Street that  their one-time priest, Tom Knowles, has become the first in Australia to be defrocked for having a "long-term inappropriate sexual relationship" with a woman.

http://www.theage.com.au/national/investigations/church-apology-for-a-14year-sexual-relationship-an-australian-first-20161130-gt0phr.html 

The sex abuse case against Father Anthony J. Cipolla

As I indicated earlier in this series, the Pittsburgh Diocese's mishandling and cover-up of the Father Anthony Cipolla Case in the late 1970s was the rule not the exception in the second-half of the 20th century. For almost every Catholic diocese in the world, the first concern of the Corporate Sole of each diocese regarding the management of clerical sex abuse, especially those involving pederasty – adult homosexual acts performed upon minor boys – was the avoidance of scandal at all costs, most especially the cost of justice. This misguided mindset, which was evident not only in the diocesan priesthood but in religious orders as well, was reinforced by the Vatican itself through generations of "progressive" popes in the Post-Conciliar era following the Second Vatican Council.

http://www.renewamerica.com/columns/engel/161203 

Some Catholics are ‘unnerved’ by current events in the Church, says Cardinal Pell

The cardinal said that conscience must refer to revealed truth and the moral law Cardinal George Pell has said that “a number of regularly worshipping Catholics” are “unnerved by the turn of events” in the Church.

In a talk at St Patrick’s Church, London, Cardinal Pell said one cause for concern was false theories of conscience and the moral law.

http://www.catholicherald.co.uk/news/2016/11/29/some-catholics-are-unnerved-by-current-events-in-the-church-says-cardinal-pell/ 

Football abuse scandal shows media must learn lessons from its silences

In the course of his heartbreaking account of the abuse he suffered at the hands of a paedophile football coach the former Tottenham and Liverpool player Paul Stewart mentioned that he had watched Spotlight, the film about the Boston Globe’s investigation of institutionalised sexual abuse with the city’s Catholic church.
As Stewart put it, the revelations in that case started relatively small, but the airing of them caused survivor accounts to snowball. That way, he judged, “the enormity of it became clear”.

https://www.theguardian.com/football/2016/nov/30/media-failed-victims-failing-spotlight-abuse-football 

Royal Commission – the rabbis call on named to stand down

The Executive of the Rabbinical Council of Australia and New Zealand (RCANZ), The Rabbinical Council of New South Wales (RCNSW) and the Rabbinical Council of Victoria (RCV) have expressed their  deep distress by the contents of the report by the Royal Commission into child sexual abuse at Yeshiva Bondi and Yeshivah Melbourne.
In a joint statement the rabbis said: “Child sexual abuse has caused unimaginable suffering to the victims in our community, and RCANZ, RCNSW and RCV and their members are totally committed to removing this scourge from our community and from our institutions. We offer our deepest sympathies to the victims and commit ourselves to learning from the failures of the past.

http://www.jwire.com.au/royal-commission-rabbis-speak/ 

The Latest: Jury recommends 7 years for priest in sex case

The Latest on a Louisville priest being tried on sexual abuse charges (all times local): 7 p.m. A jury has recommended a seven-year sentence for a Louisville priest convicted of sexual abuse.
The Meade County jury earlier Tuesday found the Rev. Joseph Hemmerle guilty of one count of indecent or immoral practices with a child under 15 at his Catholic summer camp in the 1970s. He was found not guilty of a second count and faced up to 10 years in prison.

http://www.newschannel10.com/story/33819684/the-latest-priest-convicted-in-70s-summer-camp-case 

JCCV Statement on Royal Commission Report

The Jewish Community Council of  Victoria (JCCV) welcomes the report published yesterday by the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse focusing on the responses of Yeshivah Melbourne and Yeshiva Bondi.  The findings in the report are no great surprise but nevertheless are highly disturbing and distressing.

All community organisations, community leaders and community members must be committed to the protection, health and safety of our children as the number one priority of the community.  Victims must be respected, listened to and supported.  Our institutions must be safe for our children, without exception.

http://www.jccv.org.au/news/1292/59/JCCV-Statement-on-Royal-Commission-Report.html 

KY--Victims applaud conviction of KY predator priest

A Louisville priest who was accused of molesting two children and spent 30 years running a camp for kids has been found guilty in his first trial.  He still awaits a second trial by a second alleged victim after the judge ruled to split the cases, even though both men say they were abused at the same camp. A support group for victims is praising those who helped prosecute the priest and begging others who “may have seen, suspected or suffered his crimes or church cover ups” to come forward.

http://www.snapnetwork.org/ky_victims_applaud_conviction_of_ky_predator_priest 

Penalty reform urged for NSW sex offenders

NSW's chief prosecutor has signalled a desire for reforms that would see those convicted of historical child sex crimes punished in line with tougher modern standards.
NSW Director of Public Prosecutions Lloyd Babb SC told the child abuse royal commission legislative change in sentencing historical child sex offences was desirable.

http://www.9news.com.au/national/2016/11/30/15/17/call-for-aboriginal-sexual-abuse-service

Australia's top rabbis urge Yeshivah leaders who failed abuse survivors to step down

Australia’s most senior orthodox rabbis have called on Jewish leaders who failed child abuse survivors to stand down from their public positions.
The rabbinical councils of Australia and New Zealand, New South Wales, and Victoria issued a joint statement on Wednesday in response to the royal commission’s damning findings against Yeshivah communities in Melbourne and Sydney.

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2016/nov/30/australias-top-rabbis-urge-yeshivah-leaders-who-failed-abuse-survivors-to-step-down 

Woman accuses Albuquerque Bishop of sexual abuse

A Bishop who leads the Albuquerque chapter of one of the largest nationwide churches is accused of being a predator.
A woman claims he seduced her when she was a teen, then sexually abused her, and recently came onto her 6-year-old daughter. Bishop James L’Keith Jones of the Church of God in Christ, or COGIC, has been preaching in Albuquerque for years. But there may be a sinister side to the Bishop that Kimberly Pollard wants the public to know about.

http://krqe.com/2016/11/29/woman-accuses-albuquerque-bishop-of-sexual-abuse/ 

Archbishop Byrnes tells Guam "I belong to you"

History has been made. Hundreds of the island's faithful gathered for a morning prayer service to welcome and celebrate newly-appointed Archbishop Michael Byrnes. While he's scheduled to make his permanent move to Guam in January, the new leader of the island's Catholic faithful is visiting for the next few weeks to get acquainted with his new island home.
The arrival of Guam's new archbishop appears to already be closing the gap that has divided the local Catholic church for years. On Wednesday morning, just minutes before a Prayer for the Beginning of the Episcopal Ministry of Coadjutor Archbishop Michael Jude Byrnes service, dozens of members of the Neocatechumenal Way gathered in song to welcome him.

http://www.kuam.com/story/33822254/2016/11/Wednesday/archbishop-byrnes-tells-guam-i-belong-to-you 

New accusation of sexual abuse filed against church

One more case was filed alleging child molestation by local clergy, as the latest person to come forward is Norman J.D. Aguon. The 56-year -old man now lives in Oregon but previously lived in Malojloj during his childhood years. He alleges that between 1969 through 1973 starting when he was 13 years old he was an altar boy at San Isidro Church in Malojloj, where Father Louis Brouillard was the priest.
Like other he alleged that at the Carmelite monastery the priest would walk around naked and molested him on multiple occasions.  

http://www.kuam.com/story/33822449/two-new-accusations-of-sexual-abuse-filed-against-church

Victims advocate: Altoona-Johnstown diocese 'retrenching' in wake of abuse report

An alleged victim of child sexual abuse, who came forward shortly after a grand jury report was released that accused the Roman Catholic Diocese of Altoona–Johnstown of orchestrating a decades-long coverup of pedophilia within its ranks, now finds himself at odds with the diocese over a proposed settlement.
The now 34-year-old man claims he was abused by Brother Stephen Baker from approximately 1996 to 1998 ,when both were at what was then called Bishop McCort High School in Johnstown.

http://www.tribdem.com/news/victims-advocate-altoona-johnstown-diocese-retrenching-in-wake-of-abuse/article_6f5d5982-b681-11e6-ba55-7bcc90f1dec4.html