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In his first podcast series, David Marr
investigates the story of
Australia’s world-first royal commission into how institutions
concealed child
abuse.
A
groundbreaking Australian study describes child sexual abuse
in the Catholic Church as a global tragedy.
Report examined findings of 26 royal commissions and
inquiries from
Australia, Ireland, the UK, Canada and Netherlands
In
this podcast series, host David Glanz speaks with the
report's authors Emeritus Professor Des Cahill and Dr Peter Wilkinson
also
present as a discussant is Kieran Tapsell, acting District Court Judge.
A note was
left with the cuddly toy, saying it was to honour children who
suffered sex abuse “within the congregations of Jehovah’s Witnesses”.
Jehovah’s
Witnesses were castigated at the Royal Commission for refusing to
accept
accusations of sex abuse, unless there were two witnesses.
Two weeks ago Chrissie Foster said to her husband
Anthony: "You know,
you are perfect." "No,
no," said the modest man with silver hair and kind eyes. "Yes, you
are," she said. "You're perfect." … Their love was stronger than
anything; it helped them survive the terrible crimes against their
family. It
is why Anthony's sudden death was so unthinkable. …
The family of long-time advocate for child sex abuse
victims, Anthony
Foster, has accepted an offer from the Victorian Government for a state
funeral. … "History will record that a man named Anthony Foster quietly
and profoundly changed Australian history," Premier Daniel Andrews said
in
a statement. …
Anthony Foster was integrity personified. His death on
Saturday, aged 64,
after he collapsed on Wednesday, has shattered everyone who knew him. …
Anthony
Foster deserves a state funeral.
More than that, his death requires us to honour his memory by demanding
governments act on the royal commission’s recommendations.
Anthony Foster, who dedicated his life to seeking
justice for victims of child sex abuse at the hands of the Catholic
Church after two of his daughters were repeatedly raped by a priest,
has died in a Melbourne hospital, aged 64.
In a two decade-long quest to hold the Catholic Church
accountable for crimes against children, Mr Foster and his wife
Chrissie told the harrowing story of their family's treatment at the
hands of the church to the media and the Royal Commission into
Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse. ...
Tributes
are pouring in for Anthony Foster who became a
tireless
and high-profile advocate for child sexual abuse victims after
his
daughters were raped by a priest. Mr
Foster died after suffering a stroke on Friday evening. He rose to
national prominence after he publicly
accused Cardinal
George Pell of stalling the
family's compensation claim against the Catholic Church when
he was
archbishop of Melbourne. …
“… They
are
interested in honesty and justice, two commodities in short supply in
the
institutional Church. The sexual violation of minors or adults and the
lying
and cover-up by bishops has nothing to do with orthodoxy, dissent or
belief in
official dogmas. It has everything to do with betrayal by the trusted
clergy. …”
February 01, 2017 12:41 PM
Statement by Mary Ellen Kruger of St. Louis, MO,
SNAP Volunteer Leader and Chairman of the SNAP Board of
Directors
(314) 962-0964 cell, MEK1234567@gmail.com
Just after 10am on Sunday, inside Victoria's oldest and
busiest Catholic church, the congregation will hear something
extraordinarily rare. ...
For more information and for the link to the survey,
please see www.aifs.gov.au/survey-victims-survivors-and-parents-carers.
We’re grateful that President Obama is drawing more
attention to an
award-winning film about journalism and the Catholic clergy sex abuse
and cover
up crisis. But it should be noted that neither he nor any other US
official has
taken a single step to deal with that continuing crisis. … We hope this
changes
soon. Specifically, we hope federal officials will launch a thorough
investigation into this continuing crisis like the Australian
government has.
Child sex abuse survivors say it's unbelievable a man of
Cardinal George
Pell's intelligence was unaware of a pedophile priest's offending when
two
Victorian communities and local clergy knew about it. …
… Cardinal Pell, who was an adviser to the Ballarat
bishop Ronald Mulkearns
between 1977 and 1984, did not agree the church collectively failed to
protect
children in the diocese during the 1970s and 1980s. …
… "You're a man of God, pledging to care for people, and
you hear
stories that the local priest is molesting children, and it's not of
much
bloody interest to you? "I'm not surprised that they're angry. …
Cardinal George Pell has faced an ominous warning from
the head of the child
abuse royal commission, being told he would be culpable if it was found
he knew
about the acts of a pedophile priest in Ballarat in the 1970s. …
… Pell, now the pope's top financial adviser, told the
Royal Commission into
Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse that while Mulkearns and
another
priest at the regular committee meetings, Monsignor Leo Fiscalini, both
knew
about serious sexual assault allegations against notorious pedophile
Gerald
Ridsdale, neither mentioned them. …
… Pell's testimony to the Australian inquiry into sexual
abuse cases that
occurred decades ago has taken on wider implications about the
accountability
of church leaders given his high rank within the church. The cardinal
told
reporters as he arrived at Rome's Hotel Quirinale to give evidence that
he had
the full backing of Pope Francis. …
… Anthony and Chrissie Foster were among the first of an
estimated 20 people
— including survivors, their families and counsellors — to travel from
Australia to watch Cardinal Pell's testimony from a hotel. …
… “I have great admiration for the survivors and their
loved ones who have
campaigned for years to have their voices heard. They have fought
against a
hugely wealthy institution that has a vested interest in quieting and
discrediting
them.” …
… Anthony and Chrissie Foster were among the first of an
estimated 20 people
— including survivors, their families and counsellors — to travel from
Australia to watch Cardinal Pell's testimony from a hotel. …
… Victoria Police have searched church records kept by a
parish in Melbourne’s
west as part of an investigation into sex-abuse claims against
cardinal George
Pell dating back 55 years. …
... In accordance with a request from Cardinal Pell, the
hearing will commence
at 8:00am AEDT (Australian Eastern Daylight Time) on Monday 29 February
2016,
which is 10:00pm CET (Central European Time) on Sunday 28 February
2016. The
hearing is expected to run for four hours per day, including a
half-hour
adjournment, for three to four days. ...
… Clergy abuse survivor David Ridsdale said the group of
survivors and
representatives from Ballarat planned to fly out of Australia on Friday
evening. He said Cardinal Pell was the highest ranking Catholic in
Australia
and had intricate knowledge of the movements of paedophile priests who
were
shifted from parish to parish. …
… He told the inquiry a suitable hotel room in central
Rome had been located
and tests would be carried out to ensure the hearing could be video
linked back
to Sydney. He added if that room was not suitable, another location
would be
found. …
… A crowd funding campaign has raised more than $200,000
to send a group of
clergy abuse survivors and support personnel to Rome to hear Cardinal
Pell's
testimony over three days from next Monday. …
Clerical abuse survivors from Ballarat will be able to
listen to Cardinal
George Pell's evidence before a Royal Commission from a hotel room in
Rome next
week.
… “The
commission considers that to
be a reasonable request. With the assistance of the Australian embassy
in Rome
we have located a room in a hotel in Central Rome which I am advised
has the
technical facilities to ensure an effective signal to Australia.” …
… The only certainty is that, regardless of the
conclusion of the Royal
Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sex Abuse, or the
outcome of
police investigations, Pell will never face a punishment commensurate
with his
failures. …
… Convicted pedophile Stephen Farrell has told the child
abuse royal
commission he was given a cuddle by Brother Paul Nangle after the 1970s
St
Patrick's Christian Brothers' superior received an abuse complaint
involving
Farrell and a year five student. …
… Marie Collins, an Irish abuse survivor who is one of
the 17 members of the
Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors, writes
Wednesday in a statement for NCR that the leave of absence
request arose
after a "difference in understanding of the mission and the powers"
of the group. The decision taken by the group, she states, was to ask
fellow
member Peter Saunders to "take leave of absence to decide how he could
contribute to the Commission." …
Editor's Note: Marie Collins is an Irish
sexual abuse survivor and a
member of Pope Francis' Pontifical Commission for the Protection of
Minors. She
wrote the following statement for NCR following the commission's
decision
Saturday that fellow member Peter Saunders take a leave of absence from
their
work.
As a survivor of child clerical sexual abuse I spent
many years silent, then
many years speaking out to expose the way the Catholic Church had
protected
itself and abandoned children to the abusers in its midst. The anger I
felt at
the continuing reluctance by many Church leaders to report the
perpetrators, to
cooperate with civil authorities, to treat survivors with justice was
overwhelming. …
… Bishop Max Leroy Davis, 70, is charged with six counts
of being grossly
indecent with five boys under the age of 15 between December 1968 and
October
1972 at St Benedict's College in New Norcia, northeast of Perth. …
… Their ongoing message — however meaningful — will
simply bounce off people
who have lost faith and trust. We’re not listening and believing the
message
any more, no matter what you say. …
… Commission Chair, Justice Peter McClellan, said he
accepted medical
evidence there would be a risk to the 74-year-old's health if he is
forced to fly
to Australia to give evidence. …
Cardinal George Pell has been excused from giving
evidence in person to the
Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.
Australia’s most senior Catholic, Cardinal George Pell,
will give evidence
about child sex abuse that occurred within his parishes via videolink
following
a ruling by the chair of the royal commission into institutional
responses into
child sexual abuse, Justice Peter McClellan. …
… "The apparent attempt by the Pontifical Commission for
the Protection
of Minors to eject an outspoken survivor raises serious doubts about
its
integrity and independence," Anne Barrett Doyle, co-founder of
BishopAccountability.org said. ... “Someone in the commission said,
‘You know
Rome wasn’t built in a day, don’t expect the church to change
overnight’,” he
said. “My response was, ‘It only takes a few seconds to rape a child
and that
child’s life is changed forever.’ We know abuse in the church is
rampant. We
need more action now.” …
UK child sex abuse lobbyist Peter Saunders, who was
given a “leave of
absence” from his role in the Holy See’s Pontifical Commission for the
Protection of Minors, has said that the “Vatican system” seems
“essentially
corrupt and unwilling to do the right thing”. …
… Juan Carlos Cruz delivered the letters with Peter
Saunders, a prominent
and outspoken British member of a papal advisory commission on sexual
abuse by
the clergy. Saunders on Saturday refused to step down despite a
no-confidence
vote, and said only the pope could dismiss him. The letters were left
for
Cardinal Sean O'Malley of Boston, the president of the commission, at a
Rome
guest house where the commission was meeting. O'Malley was asked to
give them
to the pope, Saunders and Cruz said. …
… Recent photos believed to be of Bishop Mulkearns, show
him walking around
the gardens of a nursing home, using a walking frame and without any
medical
assistance. …
… The Archdiocese of Brisbane has confirmed that Fr
Onuoha, the parish
priest of Gatton-Laidley, was stood aside while in Nigeria on holidays.
He will
remain in Nigeria while the investigation into these allegations is
conducted
by an independent panel appointed by his Bishop. …
Clergy abuse victims have been left reeling again with
uncertainty
surrounding whether Cardinal George Pell will appear at a child sex
abuse
inquiry in the city this month. … David Ridsdale, victim and nephew of
disgraced priest Gerald Ridsdale, said there was a “mental health
emergency” in
Ballarat and victims had been thrown into limbo again, only adding to
their
turmoil. "If a fire ripped through Ballarat and burnt down 20 per cent
of
houses it would be deemed an emergency and a fund would be set up to
help
everybody involved,” he said. ...
… But the suspended commission member, Peter Saunders,
said at a news
conference in Rome on Saturday evening that he would stand his ground.
“I have
not left, and am not leaving my position on the commission,” Mr.
Saunders said.
“I was appointed by His Holiness Pope Francis, and I will talk only
with him
about my position.” …
The commission set up by Pope Francis to advise him on
the Protection of
Children has “decided” that Mr. Peter Saunders (UK), one of the two
survivors
of sexual abuse on this body, should “take a leave of absence from his
membership to consider how he might best support the commission’s
work.” ...
… But Peter Saunders, an outspoken critic of the papal
commission,
responded: "I have not left and I'm not leaving." Founder of the
London-based National Association for People Abused in Childhood,
Saunders told
reporters, "I was appointed by His Holiness Pope Francis and I will
only
talk to him about my position." …
[Peter
Saunders statement - via BishopAccountability.org] …
Responding to a
Vatican statement about his leave of absence, Mr Saunders was quoted by
Reuters
as saying in Rome: "I was never told in advance of any such statement.
"I
find it outrageous that I was not told, much less that the statement
occurred
before I had had any time to reflect on what I might do next. "I have
not
left and I'm not leaving my position on the commission. I was appointed
by His
Holiness Pope Francis and I will only talk to him about my position." …
… "I have not left and I am not leaving my position on
the
commission," said British children's advocate Peter Saunders. "I was
appointed by His Holiness Pope Francis and I will only talk to him
about my
position." …
… at a meeting on Saturday, "it was decided that Mr.
Peter Saunders
would take a leave of absence from his membership to consider how he
might best
support the commission's work," the Vatican said. As a result, only one
abuse survivor, Marie Collins, is still on the panel. …
Pope Francis’ sex abuse advisory committee voted
Saturday to sideline one of
its members, a high-profile abuse survivor who had clashed with the
commission
over its mission. Peter Saunders, a British advocate for victims, had
been
highly critical of the Vatican’s slow progress in taking measures to
protect
children and punish bishops who covered up for pedophile priests. … The
head of
the commission, Boston Cardinal Sean O’Malley, said after Saturday’s
vote that
Saunders had been asked to consider forming an external group of
survivors to
help advise the commission.
... A statement said that at a commission
meeting "it was decided"
that Peter Saunders would take a leave of absence. Saunders, head of
Britain's
National Association for People Abused in Childhood, would now
"consider
how he might best support the commission's work".
... .
Statement by David Clohessy of St. Louis, Director of
SNAP, the Survivors
Network of those Abused by Priests (314 566 9790, davidgclohessy@gmail.com)
[USA
Today]
… Peter Saunders, a British advocate for victims, had
been highly critical
of the Vatican's slow pace of progress in taking measures to protect
children
and punish bishops who covered up for pedophile priests. He had also
wanted the
commission to intervene immediately in individual cases, rather than
just craft
long-term policies to fight abuse. … He said the Vatican's inaction in
the face
of continuing cases of children being raped and molested "made me lose
faith in the process and lose faith in Pope Francis."
… Mr Saunders made headlines last year when he said that
Australian Cardinal
George Pell should be dismissed over claims he failed to take action to
protect
children years ago. …
… Last year, Saunders made waves when he said that
Australian Cardinal
George Pell should be dismissed over allegations he failed to take
action to
protect children years ago.. Pell is now the Vatican's economic
minister. …
… Peter Saunders, who is one the members of the Holy
See's Clerical Abuse
Commission, was speaking before it hosted a three-day event to review
the
Catholic Church's safeguarding policies and the punishments in place
for those
who break the rules, or covered up for those who do. Mr Saunders told
The
Times: "It will be outrageous if he doesn't attend and I will say
so." …
… Peter Saunders, a British member of the Pontifical
Commission for the
Protection of Minors led by Boston Cardinal Sean P. O’Malley, told Crux
that
some members watched the film Thursday night at the Domus Santa Marta,
the
hotel on Vatican grounds where the pope lives. Francis was not present.
…
Spotlight, a Best Picture contender at the Oscars, is a
gripping exploration
of how reporters at the Boston Globe revealed rampant sexual abuse
among
priests in Boston and the lengths to which the clergy went to keep
those crimes
under-wraps. …
… Peter Saunders, who was abused by a priest as a child,
had been handpicked
by the Pope to serve on a Vatican sex abuse commission in 2014. But he
told the
Times this week that he had asked the Pope to appear at a three-day
meeting of
the commission, which starts today, to defend his record. … The Pope
set up the
commission with promises to clean up the Church after a decade-long sex
abuse
scandal that uncovered abuse by priests of minors in several countries.
Last
year he created a new tribunal that punished bishops for covering up. …
… A new commission at the Vatican to combat sex abuse
within the Catholic
Church kicked off Thursday with a private screening of the
Oscar-nominated film
Spotlight, a searing look into the journalists who uncovered the abuses
that
persisted for decades within the Boston Catholic Church. …
The members of Pope Francis’s commission to protect
children have seen the
Oscar-nominated film Spotlight together amid criticism that the pontiff
needs
to follow through on his promise of “zero tolerance” for clerical sex
abuse and
cover-ups. …
… The extraordinary screening was held on the eve of a
three-day meeting by
the commission, and was shown in the same church residence in central
Rome
where Francis — then Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio — stayed before his
election as pope in 2013. …
In 1993, Broken Rites Australia began researching — and
exposing — the
Catholic Church's sex-abuse cover-ups throughout Australia. Ten years
later, in
2002 and 2003, the Boston Globe newspaper revealed similar cover-ups in
the
United States, Now, people can see the Boston story told in a major
film,
Spotlight, which is being released in Australian cinemas on 28 January
2016. …
Where: Kino Cinema, Melbourne,When:
6:30pm, January 19th, 2016,
Buy Now: Click
here to buy tickets
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