Clergy Abuse Survivors – Page 127

April 9, 2016April 9, 2016

As Pennsylvania confronts clergy sex abuse, victims and lawmakers act

By Laurie Goodstein

Maureen Powers, who said she was sexually abused by a priest as a child, decided to finally report her case.

Nearly 15 years after Boston suffered through a clergy abuse scandal dramatized in the movie “Spotlight,’’ Pennsylvania is going through its own painful reckoning.

From the state Capitol in Harrisburg to kitchens in railroad towns, people say they have been stunned to read evidence that priests they knew as pastors, teachers, and confessors were secretly abusing children — findings a grand jury report called “staggering and sobering.”

Victims are coming forward for the first time to family and friends, and alumni of parochial schools are pulling out their yearbooks, marveling at how smiling faces hid such pain.

By the age of 12, Maureen Powers, the daughter of a professor at the local Roman Catholic university, played the organ in the magnificent hilltop Catholic basilica here and volunteered in the parish office.

But she said she was hiding a secret: Her priest sexually abused her for two years, telling her it was for the purpose of “research.”

By her high school years, she felt so tied up in knots of betrayal and shame that she confided in a succession of priests. She said the first tried to take advantage of her sexually, the second suggested she comfort herself with a daily candy bar, and the third told her to see a counselor. None of them reported the abuse to the authorities or mentioned that she could take that step.

So when a Pennsylvania grand jury revealed in a report in March that the Diocese of Altoona-Johnstown, which includes Loretto, engaged in an extensive coverup of abuse by as many as 50 church officials, Powers, now 67, decided to finally report her case.

She called the office of the Pennsylvania attorney general and recounted her story, including the name of her abuser, a prominent monsignor who was not listed in the grand jury report.

“I just felt like now, someone will believe me,” said Powers, who retired after 30 years in leadership positions at the YWCA in Lancaster.

She was not alone. Powers was among more than 250 abuse survivors and tipsters who called a hotline set up by the Pennsylvania attorney general, Kathleen G. Kane. Twenty agents were needed to answer the phones, and a voice mailbox was set up to handle the overflow.

Multiplying the outrage, the grand jury report supplied evidence that the police, district attorneys, and judges in the Altoona and Johnstown area colluded with bishops in the coverup, quashing the pleas of parents who tried to inform on priests who sexually abused children. Some of those officials are named in the report, and some still hold public office.

“It really hit home for me when I realized that these victims are my friends, my classmates,” said state Representative Frank Burns, a Democrat, whose district includes part of Johnstown and who attended Bishop McCort High School, where the grand jury found that the abuse was rampant.

“Our region is devastated by drugs, suicide, alcoholism, and then you wonder — is this abuse tied into all of this?”

In the state capital, calls for full disclosure and accountability suddenly have new momentum. State Representative Mike Vereb, a Republican and a former police officer from Philadelphia, wrote a letter recently to the US attorney for the Western District of Pennsylvania calling for an investigation under the federal Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, known as RICO.

“This failure was colossal. It was nothing less than organized crime,” Vereb said in an interview in his office, where he keeps his old nightstick on his desk. “There was no chance, if you were a victim, that you were going to get justice.”

A flurry of negotiations has begun over bills that had been stalled for years to extend the statute of limitations for both civil and criminal cases of child sexual abuse. Abuse victims and their advocates have long argued that just as there is no statute of limitations on murder, there should be none on the sexual abuse of children.

The legislator leading the charge to extend the statute of limitations is state Representative Mark Rozzi, a Democrat from Berks County. Still boyish at 44, he is haunted by memories of being raped by a priest in middle school — a priest he later learned went on to sexually abuse some of his friends.

He said he decided to run for office in 2013 after the second of those friends committed suicide. On Good Friday a year ago, a third friend also took his own life.

Complete Article HERE!

April 9, 2016April 9, 2016

Victim raped by upstate priest wants N.Y. to fix sex abuse statute

BY MICHAEL O’KEEFFE

Kevin Braney went through hell in the basement of a church rectory.

Braney says he was a devout 15-year-old altar boy when Msgr. Charles Eckermann first raped him in a rectory storage room at St. Ann’s Church in Manlius, a suburb of Syracuse. Braney says Eckermann assaulted him at least a dozen times in 1988 and 1989 on a mattress the priest had stashed in the storage room.

Msgr. Charles Eckermann was defrocked and sentenced to a life of prayer and penance by the Vatican after a probe showed the sex abuse claims against him were credible.

“I was taught to trust and believe priests because they were the closest thing to God on Earth, and he told me if I defied him, I was defying God,” Braney said. “He said he had a divine right to abuse me.

“He told me he would put my genitals in a vise if I resisted,” added Braney, now an executive at a mental health agency in Boulder, Colo., and an advocate for sexual abuse victims. “He said he would kill me if I said anything.”

Eckermann, now 84, was defrocked and sentenced to a life of prayer and penance by the Vatican in October 2014 after an investigator hired by the Diocese of Syracuse deemed Braney’s allegations credible. But Braney, 43, is unable to pursue criminal charges or civil litigation against Eckermann or the church because New York’s statute of limitations bars child sex abuse victims from proceeding with cases after their 23rd birthday.

That’s why Braney supports the Child Victims Act, a bill sponsored by Queens Assemblywoman Margaret Markey that would eliminate the statute of limitations in sex abuse cases and open a one-year window for victims of past sexual abuse to file civil suits.

“The best thing for the Catholic Church would be for the law to change and let justice run its course,” Braney said. “It would bring closure for the victims and their families and it would let the church move forward and heal the damage caused by the sex-abuse scandal.”

St. Ann's Church — The alleged abuse took place in St. Ann’s Church in Manlius, N.Y., in 1988 and 1989.

The Child Victims Act faces stiff opposition from the Catholic Church, including the Diocese of Syracuse, but diocesan spokeswoman Danielle Cummings called Braney “courageous” for speaking out about the abuse.

Kevin Braney says he’s still tormented by the abuse he suffered as a teen.

Church officials weren’t always so sympathetic, Braney said. When he finally found the guts to tell another priest about Eckermann’s abuse, the priest hit him in the face.

Church officials were reportedly put on notice about sexual misconduct by Eckermann, who served on the Syracuse board of education and was a high school teacher and principal, four years before he began abusing Braney.

Braney says he was also raped by another priest, the Rev. James Quinn, in 1989 during a rehearsal for his confirmation.

“He took me to a room in the rectory and raped me,” Braney said. “I was frozen. I was disconnected from my body. I just wanted it to end. I remember I focused on a clock. It was 4:23 in the afternoon.”

Eckermann could not be reached for comment. Quinn died in 2013.

Braney says he dealt with the internal demons unleashed by the sexual abuse by throwing himself into sports and his studies. He became a star lacrosse player at Brown University and moved to the Denver area, where he earned a doctorate in education at the University of Colorado. He later became the principal of Boulder High School.

Braney was working with teens who had been abused — when the memories he repressed for decades came flooding back about four years ago.

Braney’s pain became public in March 2013, when police were called to his home during an argument with his former wife. He told the Boulder cops who arrested him on suspicion of domestic violence that he was dealing with the stress that came from his abuse. The police told Braney — who later pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor for damaging property — to contact Syracuse-area prosecutors or police.

The Onondaga DA’s office investigated Braney’s claims, but prosecutors told Braney they could not file charges because the statute of limitations had expired.

Current Syracuse bishop Robert Cunningham has apologized to Braney for the abuse and the diocese has paid for therapy. But Braney wants more: He wants transparency. He wants the diocese to publicly identify clergy who also face credible allegations of abuse.

Cummings said the diocese is reluctant to do so because other victims who have come forward have asked to keep details of their abuse — including identities of the abusers — private.

Braney said that practice puts the responsibility for transparency on victims and survivors.

“It perpetuates the shame and secrecy,” Braney said. “Most of all it protects pedophiles.”

Complete Article HERE!

April 8, 2016April 8, 2016

Catholic Archdiocese Vs. Insurer in Priest Sex Abuse Cases

By DAVE COLLINS

The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Hartford has taken its dispute with an insurance company to trial, seeking reimbursement of more than $1 million in payments made to settle sexual misconduct cases involving priests and minors.

Testimony began Friday in a bench trial before U.S. District Judge Janet Bond Arterton in New Haven.

The case is one of many around the country in which insurance companies have balked at paying claims related to lawsuits against church officials seeking to hold them responsible for sexual assaults of minors by clergy — accusations that in many instances date back decades and involve priests who have since died.

A key issue in the Connecticut case and others is whether insurance companies can deny claims under assault and battery exemptions in liability policies. Many policies don’t cover intentional acts, but church officials have argued that they did not know about the alleged assaults.

The archdiocese sued Interstate Fire & Casualty Co. in 2012, claiming the Chicago-based insurer breached its policy by refusing to reimburse the archdiocese for payments made in four settlements from 2010 to 2012 after previously reimbursing payments made in other abuse settlements.

“The foregoing activities of Interstate constitute unfair trade practices, because they offend public policy and they are immoral, unscrupulous and unethical,” the lawsuit states.

Lawyers for the insurer argue in court documents that the settlements weren’t covered by the policies. A spokeswoman and a lawyer for Interstate Fire & Casualty declined to comment.

The company has faced lawsuits in other states after refusing to reimburse church officials for priest abuse settlements.

And In a 2014 ruling, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco said in a 2014 ruling that Interstate Fire’s liability policy for the Diocese of Phoenix did not cover settlements of priest sexual abuse cases because of the policy’s assault and battery exception.

The four cases at the center of the Hartford archdiocese lawsuit involved claims of sexual misconduct against minors in the 1970s and 1980s. Two cases involved sexual abuse claims against the Rev. Ivan Ferguson, who died in 2002 after serving as a church grammar school principal in Derby and other positions with the archdiocese.

A spokeswoman and a lawyer for the archdiocese declined to comment.

The archdiocese has settled many claims of sexual abuse by priests. It agreed in 2005 to pay $22 million to 43 people who said they were sexually abused by priests, including Ferguson.

Elsewhere in the country, the Diocese of Honolulu sued First Insurance Co. of Hawaii in January for refusing to cover priest abuse settlements. And in 2014, the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis sued some 20 insurance companies to try to force them to cover its liabilities for clergy sex abuse claims. The lawsuit was put on hold after the archdiocese filed for bankruptcy last year in the wake of priest abuse claims.

Interstate Fire & Casualty has since been acquired by Munich, Germany-based Allianz Group.

April 8, 2016April 8, 2016

EXCLUSIVE: The final insult – ‘child molester’ Catholic priest who committed suicide to evade justice said it was a ‘gift’ to his victims – after a life ‘serving others’

Father Virgilio Elizondo, 80, shot himself in the head after he was accused of molesting a young boy
Notre Dame professor was leading Catholic intellectual but faced ruin before he shot himself in the head at San Antonio, Texas, home
Now his suicide note is revealed and shows how he admitted being ‘a sinner’ but said: ‘I have lived a life dedicated to serving others’
Lawyer for the victim tells Daily Mail Online: ‘Giving up your life is not a gift to any abused child, it’s just a manipulation’

By EMMA FOSTER

A Catholic priest who shot himself in the head after he was accused of molesting a young boy left a chilling suicide note in which he claims he took his own life as ‘a final gift’ to anyone he ‘might have hurt’. In the note – which appears to be a veiled admission of guilt – Father Virgilio Elizondo, 80, said he had lived a life ‘totally dedicated to serving others’.

The Notre Dame professor left it near where his body was found, at his San Antonio, Texas, home. Apparently unconcerned by the feelings of his alleged victim, he thanked God for his entire life – ‘especially’ his 52 years of priesthood – during which time his accuser claims Fr. Elizondo sexually assaulted him when he went to him to report abuse by another priest.

The letter – obtained by Daily Mail Online – goes on to describe how Fr. Elizondo felt ‘fatigued and empty’ and was suffering various ailments affecting his kidneys, eyes and knees. Elizondo committed suicide – does the priest ‘beg forgiveness and mercy from those he has hurt or offended.’ Last night the lawyer representing Fr. Elizondo’s alleged victim called priest self-serving and manipulative.

Attorney Thomas J. Henry told Daily Mail Online: ‘His comments about hurting others that he has offended and wanting forgiveness really appears to be not a suicide note but an apology note for his conduct. ‘I think that he takes accountability in a vague way and in a very odd way calls his suicide a farewell gift – a gift to anyone he may have hurt. ‘But those statements are self-serving in the sense that a farewell gift in the face of hurting other people by killing yourself is not what we would think would be appropriate unless the severity of hurting others was so much you felt you had to do this. ‘I think that he has taken a way out that is not responsible in the least with regards to addressing these allegations.

farewell

‘In his position he should have willingly provided sworn testimony about his conduct over the course of time he was a priest. ‘I don’t think saying he took the easy way out is how I would characterize this as much as a manipulation to avoid answering serious questions.’ Fr. Elizondo was found dead from a single self-inflicted gunshot wound inside his home on Monday, according to San Antonio police.

The once respected religious leader and theologian had been embroiled in controversy since last May, when an orphan named only as John Doe filed a lawsuit in which he accused the aging cleric of molesting him when he went to him in 1983 to report sexual abuse by another priest named Father Jesus Armando Dominguez. Fr. Dominguez, who is currently a ‘fugitive from justice’ believed to be in Mexico, according to Henry, molested and performed sex acts on the boy for around two years from 1980 at a local orphanage.

When Fr. Dominguez left the orphanage, the boy tried to report the abuse to Fr. Elizondo but instead of listening ‘he began to fondle the Plaintiff’s genitals, taking advantage of the same sexual liberties Plaintiff complained of with Father Dominguez,’ according to the lawsuit.

Although Fr. Elizondo denied the allegations when he was alive – his suicide note appears to suggest his guilt.

Complete Article HERE!

April 4, 2016April 4, 2016

Christian School Principal Jailed for Child Rape

By Katie Zavadski

Douglas J. Allison

The principal of a tiny Seventh-day Adventist school in Washington state has been arrested for allegedly molesting and abusing two young girls.

The principal of a tiny Christian school in a small Washington town has been charged with sexually assaulting two female students. Prosecutors say Douglas J. Allison, 55, even claimed that one of the young girls asked for it.

Allison was the principal and one of just two teachers at the Mountain View Christian School, a Seventh-day Adventist school that has just a dozen students. He is charged with raping and sexually assaulting a 10-year-old girl and her classmate, who came forward during the investigation.

Seventh-day Adventists are a Christian denomination who believe Christ’s return to Earth is imminent. Unlike most Christians, they observe the sabbath on Saturday.

The denomination was founded in 1863 and has more than 18 million members worldwide, including former Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson.

And the church has built more than 8,000 schools, like the one run by Douglas, around the world. His wife, Judy, who is not under investigation, was the school’s sole other educator.

The Mountain View Christian School’s website has since been suspended, but a cached version shows it billed itself as one “committed to providing quality education in a Christ-filled environment.”

“The Mountain View Christian School family exists to show children Jesus, nurture their love for Him and others, teach them to think, and empower them to serve,” the website read. “We believe that true education develops the spiritual, mental, and physical powers of each student.”

Court documents say that what occurred at Allison’s school was far from holy.

According to an affidavit filed in court, the mother of the 10-year-old was alerted to the alleged abuse by a cousin who attended the same school. The cousin told the alleged victim’s mom that she had “witnessed the teacher tap [Child 1’s] butt, and that it made her uncomfortable.” When the mother asked her daughter about it, she said Principal Allison, known to kids as Mr. A, “had been touching her privates every day at school.”

The document says the girl told Allison to stop it, but he continued to touch her. The girl’s two brothers, in the same classroom, told their mother they hadn’t seen this happen, but the girl said the abuse had been happening every day since the start of fourth grade.

According to the school’s now-defunct website, Doug Allison taught grades 5 to 8, while his wife taught grades 1 to 4. Court documents, however, say that Doug Allison taught grades 4 and up, while his wife taught the three lower classes.

When a detective interviewed the cousin who initially reported the inappropriate touching, she said she’d seen the second alleged victim, aged 11, sit under Allison’s desk and play with his cellphone while the teacher sat at his desk. “She has seen [Child 2] sit under Mr. A’s desk all day long with his cell phone,” interview notes in the complaint read. “About two weeks ago [the cousin] saw [Child 2] sitting on Mr. A’s lap at school.”

“During the ensuing investigation, detectives discovered a second victim, an 11-year-old female student at the school,” the Clallam County Sheriff’s Office said in a press release. “The second victim disclosed to Detectives she had been sexually assaulted in similar fashion by Allison.”

The 11-year-old alleged similar over-the-pants inappropriate touching of her genitals. On one occasion, she said, the teacher showed her the Urban Dictionary definition of the word “ulus” on his phone.

The Dictionary.com definition of the word refers to a traditional knife used by Eskimo women. On the Urban Dictionary website, however, the word is defined as the scientifically impossible “large penis that has been inserted into an anus, so deep and for such a long a period of time, that the penis is partially digested.”

According to the complaint, the 11-year-old’s mother called Allison and allowed police to listen in on her conversation with the principal. When she confronted Allison with the girl’s allegations, the principal allegedly admitted to touching her and said he was under investigation. He said he touched the girl “only a few times,” the complaint alleges. It adds that Allison said he “touched her where she asked” him to.

“She asked you to touch her vagina?” the mother asked.

“Yes, she did,” the teacher allegedly replied.

In a later conversation with police, which was videotaped after his arrest, Allison allegedly confessed to touching the girls over their clothing and digitally penetrating one of them while the class was studying. He also allegedly confessed to making the 11-year-old touch his genitals and let him place his penis in her mouth.

Allison is charged with 12 counts of child molestation and child rape, according to court documents.

In bold, the complaint adds: “It should be noted that Douglas is 55 years old. [Child 1] is 10 years old and [Child 2] is 11 years old.

The school was still advertised on the Sequim Seventh-day Adventist Church’s website Sunday. An associate pastor who teaches a once-weekly Bible study at the school told KOMO News that the church is “very, very sad.”

“Our congregation is grieving. We love our kids, we love our families. We’re praying for complete healing, for complete justice,” Collette Pekar said. “All humans have the potential to do horribly awfully things and just the realization that these things can happen is overwhelmingly sad.”

Calls made to the school number listed on the site were not returned.

“Mr. Allison is a schoolteacher of minor children, and the allegations are that he molested and potentially raped children in front of his class while other children were watching,” prosecutor Michele Devlin told the judge at Allison’s bond hearing. “He is a danger to any other child out there.”

The judge set Allison’s bond at $100,000. It’s not immediately clear whether Allison had an attorney.

A spokeswoman for the Seventh-day Adventist church said Allison was put on leave as soon as the allegations surfaced. “We are taking care of our students by putting in respected and trusted teachers to take over the teaching responsibilities, and providing counseling and care for families that have been affected,” Becky Meharry said.

But when detectives spoke to school officials about the investigation, the chairman of the board, John Gatchet, allegedly said he’d already had a conversation with Allison about not touching students after a parent complained about Allison putting his arms around kids and hugging them earlier in the school year.

A woman who answered the phone at a number listed for Gatchet said he was not available and hung up. Subsequent calls were unanswered. Archie Harris, the school’s superintendent, did not return a request for comment.

But not everyone in the community was quick to distance themselves from Allison.

“As a Christian, God loves the sinner but hates the sin,” Greg Reseck—a teacher at another Seventh-day Adventist school in Port Townsend—told King5. “But even if he’s convicted, I will still consider him my friend.”

Complete Article HERE!