Sexual abuse

This guy would certainly be afforded protection if he was a Catholic priest, even promotions and transfers.

The officer in charge of sexual assault prevention programs for the Air Force was arrested early Sunday and charged with sexual battery, the Arlington County, Va., Police Department said on Monday.

The police said the officer, Lt. Col. Jeffrey Krusinski, 41, approached a woman in a parking lot in Crystal City, near the Pentagon, just after midnight and grabbed her breasts and buttocks before she fended him off and called 911. Colonel Krusinski, who the police said did not know the woman, was arrested near the parking lot shortly after.  Read more »

It appears that despite the new Pope the Catholic Church in Australia is back to its old ways of ignoring or helping through silence to cover up their legacy of child sex abuse:

Catholic Church leaders in Australia are showing “ignorance and arrogance” and little “will to know”, the Victorian inquiry into how the churches handled sex abuse heard on Thursday.

Caroline Taylor, professor of social justice at Edith Cowan University, said church leaders, judges and lawyers too readily followed misleading stereotypes about child sex abuse.

She said grooming was still rife, that predators were very clever with new technology and particularly targeted the children of very devout families.  Read more »

After at first denying everything, then pretending his problems never existed, just like his Vatican bosses…Cardinal  Keith O’Brien has finally done something the Pope never had the courage to do before skulking off into ‘retirement’…admitted to being a dodgy ratbag.

Cardinal Keith O’Brien, formerly the most senior Roman Catholic cleric in the UK, signalled that he did make homosexual advances towards young men.

He confessed that his “sexual conduct has fallen below the standards expected” and asked for forgiveness from those he had “offended”, as well as the entire Catholic Church and the people of Scotland.

The former Archbishop of St Andrews and Edinburgh – who only a week ago was on course to take part in the election of the next Pope – said he would now withdraw completely from public life.

His admission came as fresh details emerged of the allegations of “inappropriate” behaviour against him by four men – three priests and one former priest.  Read more »

This is just going to keep on keeping on until the Church actually addresses what appears to be a systemic problem with pedophile priests.

I can’t hardly wait for Andrei to turn up and point out that other churches do it too, and Lucia to suggest that the church is doing something…just not exactly what that something is.

A former Catholic brother spanked the bare backsides of students for his own sexual gratification and not to discipline them as he claims, a judge says.

The former brother, Edward Mamo, admits he took five boarding students to the school’s laundry where he ordered them to remove their pants and bend over a chest before he struck them with a leather strap.

Mamo would often touch himself and make comments to the students while hitting them, the Victorian County Court heard.

But Mamo’s lawyer Peta Murphy said her client maintained that there was an element of discipline in his actions.

Read more »

Surely the time has come to re-visit the farce of home detention. Especially when filthy pedo porn merchants get home detention rather than a cell in general population.

A Christchurch Christian journalist has admitted making intimate videos of a student at home and a 5-year-old girl at a church expo.

John Raymond McNeil, 67, was granted home detention at his Christchurch District Court sentencing, but his internet access will be blocked as part of the sentence.

He was found with 1000 child-pornography images on his computer, which he had viewed on the internet, and three videos he had made.

He had admitted three charges of making intimate visual recordings and 40 charges of possessing objectionable publications – images and stories.  Read more »

I find these files to be brutal and painful reading. The behavior described in these files is terribly sad and evil. There is no excuse, no explaining away what happened to these children. The priests involved had the duty to be their spiritual fathers and they failed.
— Archbishop of Los Angeles

The problem may not be the priests – but the system of sexual repression that the Church fosters. | Cartoon by David Reddick; source & courtesy – aintnogod.com

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It looks like the ultra-Orhodox Jewish community have been acting as bad as Catholics when it comes to covering up child abuse:

An unlicensed therapist and respected member of an ultra-Orthodox Jewish community in Brooklyn was sentenced on Tuesday to 103 years in prison for repeatedly sexually abusing a young woman, beginning the attacks when she was 12.

The therapist, Nechemya Weberman, 54, a member of the Satmar Hasidic community of Williamsburg, did not react as the judge sentenced him. The victim, now 18, who delivered an impassioned statement asking for the maximum sentence to be imposed, dabbed away tears.

“The message should go out to all victims of sexual abuse that your cries will be heard and justice will be done,” Justice John G. Ingram of State Supreme Court said before imposing the sentence, which was close to the longest the law allows. Justice Ingram praised the young victim’s “courage and bravery in coming forward.”  Read more »

The Catholic Church in Australia has reinstated a predator priest after giving him 18 months gardening leave. He preyed on vulnerable adults not kids, so he gets reinstated. If it was kids he had been rooting then they would have quietly moved him on and said nothing.

A leading Australian priest who sexually preyed on a disabled and vulnerable woman on Sydney’s north shore for 14 years has been allowed to return to preaching and running community groups at one of the nation’s busiest churches.

The recent decision by the Catholic Church to allow Father Tom Knowles to return to full duties at St Francis’ in Melbourne’s central business district after about 16 months of “administrative leave” has outraged his victim and victims’ groups.  Read more »

It’s the Germans this time.

A report about child sexual abuse in the Roman Catholic Church in Germany, based on victim accounts and released by the church this week, showed that priests carefully planned their assaults and frequently abused the same children repeatedly for years.

The report, compiled from information collected from victims and other witnesses who called a hot line run by the church from 2010 until the end of last year, includes the ages of the victims, the locations of the assaults and the repercussions they have suffered since. The accounts were provided in 8,500 calls to the hot line; they are not representative of abuse cases over all and cannot be individually verified. The church said the report contained information from 1,824 people, of whom 1,165 described themselves as victims.

Bloody Catholic priests, just can’t leave the kids alone.  Read more »

Julia Gillard has come out strongly today announcing the terms of reference for a Royal Commission to look into the child sex abuse in an institutional context including crimes committed and covered up by the Catholic Church:

Prime Minister Julia Gillard said too many people have turned a blind eye to the shocking crime of child sexual abuse, as she announced the terms of reference for the royal commission in Sydney on Friday.

Ms Gilllard said that it is clear that too many children had been subject to sexual abuse in institutions and were not provided with a safe childhood.

Describing child abuse as a ”hideous, shocking and vile crime”, Ms Gillard said, ”I believe our nation needs to have this royal commission.”

Ms Gillard said to survivors of child sexual abuse, ”we want your voices to be heard. Even if you felt for all of your life that no one’s listened to you.”

The prime minister said the Royal Commission would focus only on child sex abuse in institutional contexts.  Read more »