McCarrick Whistleblower: Scandal ‘a Failure of Fraternal Correction’

Father Boniface Ramsey, the first person to formally speak out against Theodore McCarrick's serial sexual predation of seminarians, is slamming the former D.C. cardinal's case as "a failure of fraternal correction." In an Oct. 29 Commonweal article, Fr. Ramsey recounts the multiple warning signs surrounding McCarrick's behavior — and the number of times they were ignored by Church insiders.

https://www.churchmilitant.com/news/article/mccarrick-whistleblower-scandal-a-failure-of-fraternal-correction 

‘We’re not done’: Advocate who made PM cry

Her harrowing family story made Prime Minister Scott Morrison cry live on TV across the nation. But for leading child abuse advocate Chrissie Foster, tears are not enough. It’s not over yet. Mr Morrison was visibly upset as he told how Mrs Foster’s family was torn apart by abuse as he made the most important speech of his career so far. He spoke compassionately during the National Apology in Parliament to thousands of Australians whose childhoods were ruined and destroyed in institutions by perpetrators including priests, teachers and carers.

https://thenewdaily.com.au/news/national/2018/10/22/advocate-chrissie-foster-speech/ 

Call for radical reshaping of Church governance

A leading Catholic layman has called for a radical reshaping of governance of the Catholic Church. The New Zealand Catholic Bishops Conference’s Council for Young People chair, Dave Mullin, noted the current stories on abuse, both here and abroad, have made for painful reading. “Proud to be Catholic? At the moment — not so much,” he said in a reflection piece on the current state of the Church. “Unless we pause and think deeply, in order to change our culture, we will betray the victims of abuse once again.”

https://www.nzcatholic.org.nz/2018/10/23/call-for-radical-reshaping-of-church-governance/ 

‘We failed them’: Australia apologises to child sex abuse victims

SYDNEY. – Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison issued a national apology to thousands of victims of institutional sex abuse Monday, admitting the state utterly failed to stop “evil, dark crimes” committed over decades. “This was done by Australians to Australians, enemies in our midst, enemies in our midst,” Morrison said in an emotional address to parliament, designed as a belated apology to the 15,000 known survivors of child abuse.

https://www.herald.co.zw/we-failed-them-australia-apologises-to-child-sex-abuse-victims/ 

Expand Royal Commission's brief

It will cost more. It will take a lot longer. But New Zealand should follow the Australian example and its Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse. Australia's Prime Minister Scott Morrison led this week an emotional ceremony in which Australia acknowledged the massive pain and suffering caused to many Australians. It gives the victims more chance, at least, to feel they have been listened to and believed.

https://www.odt.co.nz/opinion/editorial/expand-royal-commissions-brief 

Reports Kiwi predator priest abused in UK

A notorious paedophile Catholic priest quietly transferred from New Zealand to the UK was free to keep abusing children for two more decades due to Church failings. This story was first published by RNZ ​RNZ last month revealed the crimes committed by Fr Cornelius O'Brien in parishes in Canterbury in the 1960s and 1970s, that for the most part were kept hidden. It has come to light the priest likely abused at least one other person since he returned to the UK in 1976, after the the Diocese of East Anglia released a statement a complaint was made against him in 2010.

https://www.odt.co.nz/news/national/rnz/reports-kiwi-predator-priest-abused-uk 

Issue of Married Catholic Priests Gains Traction Amid Sex Abuse Scandal

As the Vatican copes with the growing clergy sex abuse scandal and declining number of priests worldwide, it is laying the groundwork to open formal debate on an issue that has long been taboo: opening up the priesthood to married men in parts of the world where clergy are scarce.

https://ktla.com/2018/10/23/issue-of-married-catholic-priests-gains-traction-amid-sex-abuse-scandal/ 

Australian Prime Minister Apologises to Survivors of Institutional Child Sexual Abuse

The apology followed the culmination of a five-year government inquiry that exposed institutional sexual abuse as well as the countless cover-ups of the accusations. New Delhi: Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison offered a national apology on Monday to survivors and their families who had suffered institutional child sexual abuse. The prime minister acknowledged the government’s failure to protect the children from systemic abuse.

https://thewire.in/world/australian-prime-minister-apologises-to-survivors-of-institutional-child-sexual-abuse 

Australian bishop touts women’s ordination: ‘transformation of priesthood’ is underway

An Australian bishop recently told priests that admitting women to the priesthood in the Church's current state of affairs would be like pouring new wine into old wine skins, but that a "transformation of the priesthood" was underway. Vincent Long Van Nguyen, Bishop of the Parramatta Diocese of Sydney, Australia gave an address in September to the New Zealand National Assembly of Diocesan Clergy about the current crises rocking the Church. Blaming the clerical abuse crisis on a faulty conception of the priesthood, Long mentioned women’s ordination as a possibility – but only after even more sweeping changes.

https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/australian-bishop-female-priests-would-be-like-new-wine-in-old-wine 

Boy molested by priest told to ‘seek forgiveness’ – for being abused!

Former Catholic priest David Poulson, 64, this week pleaded guilty to sex crimes involving children and could face a lengthy period in prison when he is sentenced. Poulson, who had been a priest in the Diocese of Erie in Pennsylvania for four decades, pleaded guilty to corruption of minors and endangering the welfare of children – third-degree felonies ― on Wednesday in Jefferson County Court of Common Pleas.

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/thefreethinker/2018/10/boy-molested-by-priest-told-to-seek-forgiveness-for-being-abused/ 

Lawsuit seeks to force Vatican to name thousands of predatory priests

A federal lawsuit filed in San Francisco on Wednesday accuses the Vatican of actively covering up sexual abuse within the Catholic Church and aims to uncover the names and files of some 3,400 perpetrators. Two survivors of clerical sexual abuse, represented by the Minnesota-based law firm Jeff Anderson & Associates, are suing the Vatican — which is a sovereign nation and generally protected from such lawsuits under the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act — for violating international human rights law, among other things.

http://www.sfexaminer.com/lawsuit-seeks-force-vatican-name-thousands-predatory-priests/ 

Black 'lynching' ad, Catholic Church sex abuse, elections

Pennsylvania Governor Tom Wolf is expected to sign legislation on Friday raising the maximum penalty for fraternity hazing to a felony, carrying up to seven years in prison. The U.S. government on Friday charged a Russian national with playing a key financial role in a Kremlin-backed plan to conduct "information warfare" against the United States, including ongoing attempts to influence next month's congressional elections. Elena Alekseevna Khusyaynova, 44, became the first person charged with a crime for attempting to interfere in the 2018 U.S. midterm elections, according to a government official with knowledge of the investigation.

https://www.devdiscourse.com/Article/other/224008-us-domestic-news-roundup-black-lynching-ad-catholic-church-sex-abuse-elections 

National apology to child sexual abuse survivors: John Pirona's father Lou on the tragedy and the apology

LOU Pirona’s son John has a tragic place in Australian history, as the child sexual abuse victim whose suicide in July, 2012 was the catalyst for a campaign that led to a royal commission. “I have to recognise John’s death was an important cog in the making of the royal commission,” said Mr Pirona this week on the eve of a national apology to thousands of Australian abuse survivors.

https://www.theherald.com.au/story/5711542/lou-pirona-on-his-sons-tragic-place-in-history-and-the-national-apology/ 

Vatican Refused to Hand Over Cardinal Implicated in Sex Abuse Cover-Up

The Vatican is invoking sovereign immunity for a cardinal implicated in covering up sex abuse. Cardinal Luis Ladaria Ferrer, prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, was summoned to criminal court Sept. 19 to answer for his role in advising Cdl. Philippe Barbarin on how to discipline a predator priest.

https://www.churchmilitant.com/news/article/vatican-refused-to-hand-over-cardinal-accused-of-sex-abuse-cover-up 

San Jose priest, registered sex offender, faces new molestation charges

A Roman Catholic priest, identified publicly for the first time this week as a convicted sex offender who abused a child 35 years ago while in the San Jose Diocese, is in Santa Clara County jail facing additional child molestation charges. Hernan Toro, one of 15 priests named by the diocese Thursday as credibly accused of sexually abusing children at parishes across the diocese over several decades, was first accused of sexual misconduct while at Our Lady Star of the Sea parish in Alviso in 1983. He was convicted and registered as a sex offender that year but went on to serve at several South Bay parishes, eventually retiring in 1990 when he was permanently banned from the ministry.

https://www.mercurynews.com/2018/10/20/san-jose-priest-registered-sex-offender-faces-new-molestation-charges/