Inuit must speak out against sexual violence, woman tells MMIWG inquiry in Nunavut

Laura MacKenzie urges Inuit to speak up about what she calls "rampant" child sexual abuse and violence in remote Northern communities. In her testimony to the inquiry into missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls on Tuesday morning in Rankin Inlet, Nunavut, she suggested her cousin might still be alive today had this silence been broken. 20 family members and survivors expected to testify at MMIWG inquiry in Nunavut.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/north/mmiwg-rankin-inlet-laura-mackenzie-1.4543999 

Pope Francis’s Defense of Child Rapists

Apostolic succession is the Catholic belief that, with consecration down the generations, priests today are in some way connected to the apostles. In a spiritual passing of the baton, priests become imbued with a historical holiness. Today, however, a poisonous practice is tracing its way back to the top of the Catholic Church in reverse. Modern cases of protecting and sheltering pederasts within the Church, initially believed to be on the peripheries of the institution, is continually being found closer to the top of the Church. Today it has reached the top in the figure of Pope Francis.

http://www.inquirelive.co.uk/opinion/pope-franciss-defense-of-child-rapists/ 

The cardinal who rebuked the Pope

Why did the Archbishop of Boston publicly confront the Pope over the case of a Chilean bishop? Pope Francis is famously stubborn in the face of disagreement, especially when it comes from his own bishops. For more than a year he has refused to answer the four “dubia bishops” (two of whom have since died) who requested that he confirm the orthodoxy of certain passages of Amoris Laetitia that some theologians said were out of synch with Church teaching.

http://www.catholicherald.co.uk/issues/february-23rd-2018/the-omalley-surprise/ 

German ex-priest jailed on 108 counts of child sex abuse

BERLIN: A German former Catholic priest was Thursday sentenced to eight and a half years in prison for more than 100 cases of child sexual abuse and other offences. The 53-year-old will undergo years of therapy in a closed psychiatric institution before starting his prison term, a court in the southeastern city of Deggendorf ruled.

https://www.geo.tv/latest/183260-german-ex-priest-jailed-on-108-counts-of-child-sex-abuse 

Media Watch Dog: Tony Abbott conspiracy theories, Anti-Trump hyperbole

What a stunning Friday Political Panel on Radio National Breakfast this morning. Hamish Macdonald was in the presenter’s chair in the absence of Fran (“I’m an activist”) Kelly who is in Melbourne for Insiders on Sunday. His guests were Alice Workman and Malcolm Farr. The discussion was going along satisfactorily when the panel took exception to former prime minister Tony Abbott’s article in today’s Australian. In particular, Mr Abbott’s suggestion that he was responsible for the Coalition winning government in August 2013. Let’s go to the transcript:

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/opinion/columnists/gerard-henderson/media-watch-dog-tony-abbott-conspiracy-theories-antitrump-hyperbole/news-story/84de3892ef94402224d7a014bd1e6b2e 

The uncertain future of Catholic Ireland

The College Chapel at St. Patrick’s College of Maynooth has 454 carved oak stalls for seminarians and priests. They run in serried ranks down the length of its nave, making it the largest choir chapel in the world. The church itself is a masterpiece of Gothic Revival, and the ceiling of the church offers a kind of visual catechism, taking worshippers through salvation history by means of painted images.

https://www.americamagazine.org/arts-culture/2018/02/23/uncertain-future-catholic-ireland 

Do-Gooders’ Have Record of Sexual Abuse Against Black Women, Children — Where’s the Outrage?

The Oxfam sex scandal has once again placed on the front burner the issue of abuse against vulnerable Black bodies by the international aid community, charities, United Nations peacekeepers and missionaries. Following the devastating 2010 earthquake in Haiti — which left 220,000 people dead, 300,000 injured and 1.5 million homeless — Roland van Hauwermeiren, Oxfam’s Haiti country director, used prostitutes at charity-paid premises, amid the misery of one of the world’s poorest nations. Oxfam male officials also allegedly used women and girls in Chad in 2006, in what many men working in developing nations view as a “perk of the job.” The dire poverty and misery following natural disasters attracts sex traffickers who hope to abuse vulnerable women and girls, as The Independent reported, in a practice rife with racism, colonialism and misogyny.

http://atlantablackstar.com/2018/02/23/international-gooders-record-sexual-abuse-black-women-children-wheres-outrage/ 

Controversial child sex abuse legal tactic to be struck out

The money the catholic church has now was blood money from their slaves... the little boys and girls of the catholic church ...  Ann

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The controversial legal tactic that prevents survivors of child sexual abuse from suing the Catholic church would be invalidated by sweeping legislative changes planned by the Andrews government. The Age has obtained a confidential draft of a bill that addresses several outstanding recommendations from the state’s 2013 Betrayal of Trust inquiry. The bill is expected to be introduced into parliament this year. If passed, the law will expose billions of dollars in assets of the Catholic church and other religious organisations to potential legal action for the first time in more than a decade.

https://www.theage.com.au/national/victoria/controversial-child-sex-abuse-legal-tactic-to-be-struck-out-20180223-p4z1i4.html 

Animals don’t do to their offspring, what we as humans do to our children’

No crime exposes a darker side of humanity more than cyber-sex trafficking. The child in the drawing hides her face in her hands. “Help me!” she cries. As I study the picture, in the offices of the Catholic anti-trafficking organization Talitha Kum, Sister Gabriella Bottani tells me about the children who drew it for her at a shelter in the Philippines. They were sexually abused while online buyers from the United States and other western countries paid to watch. One girl was 2 years old.

https://www.indystar.com/story/opinion/columnists/tim-swarens/2018/02/22/exploited-cyber-sex-trafficking-darker-side-humanity/950251001/ 

Counseling for clergy sex abuse accusers continues

Professional counseling services continue for victims of clergy sex abuse, nearly a year since the Archdiocese of Agana created Hope and Healing Guam in April 2017 amid efforts to try to settle clergy abuse lawsuits. Hope and Healing's mission to provide counseling, treatment and spiritual healing doesn't overlap or duplicate the work of the attorneys representing the archdiocese in the clergy sex abuse cases, said Andrew Camacho,the organization's president.."

http://www.guampdn.com/story/news/2018/02/24/counseling-clergy-sex-abuse-accusers-continues/309636002/ 

Kottayam priest rapes Bangla woman, Church sacks him.

After the Kottiyoor case in which a Catholic priest was arrested for raping and impregnating a minor...and impregnating a minor girl, yet another similar incident from Kerala's Kottaym district has shock the Church.
Fr Thomas Thanninilk kumthadathil from Maniyathuruth near Kallara has been booked by the Kaduthuruthi police for allegedly raping a Bangladeshi woman with British citizenship following a complaint from her. Police told PTI that they were verifying the complaint....

http://english.manoramaonline.com/news/kerala/2018/02/15/bangladesh-woman-says-kottayam-priest-raped-he-church-sacks-him.html

Did an Australian Archbishop Call Pedophilia a 'Spiritual Encounter With God'?

The Archbishop of Melbourne, Australia, called child sexual abuse a "spiritual encounter with God, through the priest." n 2017, after a five-year investigation into child sexual abuse within the Catholic Church in Australia, a specially-appointed Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Abuse published their findings.
The report included a section on criminal justice reform, including a recommendation that clergy members become legally-mandated reporters of abuse, even if they obtain the information during the rite of confession.

https://www.snopes.com/archbishop-pedophilia-spiritual-encounter/ 

State Senate committee kills bill prompted by Aurora educators not reporting student sex assault

When you don’t report, that’s a crime,” Fields told the Aurora Sentinel. “That’s why this bill was important to me.” A bill in the Colorado Legislature — prompted by students assaulted by teachers in school — that would have extended the statute of limitations for failure to report child abuse to law enforcement was defeated in committee Tuesday. It sought to extend the timeline limits from 18 months to five years.

http://www.aurorasentinel.com/news/state-senate-committee-kills-bill-prompted-by-aurora-educators-not-reporting-student-sex-assault/ 

Abuse in care versus not in care: we need to tackle potential bias in a national redress scheme

The proposed Commonwealth redress scheme for victims of child sexual abuse is a first step toward creating a national redress scheme.
Should a national scheme result, it will be unlike any other in the world. There are (or have been) 36 major government schemes for institutional abuse of children in 13 countries (and one independent polity). But the proposed national scheme in Australia is more complex, bigger, and includes more sites of abuse than any other.

https://theconversation.com/abuse-in-care-versus-not-in-care-we-need-to-tackle-potential-bias-in-a-national-redress-scheme-90821 

Report revealing Catholic Church's national wealth sparks calls to review tax-free status

A six-month investigation by Fairfax has revealed that the Catholic Church in Victoria alone was worth over $9 billion and suggested that the church's national wealth could amount to $30 billion.
Journalists from The Age discovered there were 1,800 properties owned by the Church which consisted of houses of worship, schools, hospitals, mobile phone towers, and tennis courts among others, ABC Online detailed

http://www.christiandaily.com/article/report-revealing-catholic-churchs-national-wealth-sparks-calls-to-review-tax-free-status/62068.htm