Perhaps 500 More Pedophile Priests In Illinois
Uncovered In Report
Cat Schuknecht, WBUR
Accusations of child sex abuse against at least 500 Roman Catholic priests and clergy members in Illinois have never been made public, a preliminary investigation by the state's attorney general has found.
That brings the total number of members in the Illinois dioceses who have been accused of sexually abusing minors to about 690, according to the report released Wednesday. The church previously had made public the names of only 185 accused priests, 45 of whom were added after Attorney General Lisa Madigan's office started investigating in August.
Madigan started her investigation into the Catholic Church after a sweeping grand jury investigation in Pennsylvania uncovered more than 300 "predator priests" statewide who committed "criminal and/or morally reprehensible conduct."
"Priests were raping little boys and girls, and the men of God who were responsible for them not only did nothing; they hid it all."
The report out of Pennsylvania was scathing:
"Priests were raping little boys and girls, and the men of God who were responsible for them not only did nothing; they hid it all."
And more than just hiding it, they often enabled the perverts to move to new locations where they could find more victims.
Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro called it a "systematic cover-up" and a "failure of law enforcement," NPR previously reported. Additionally, the grand jury investigation named the accused priests, something the Illinois attorney general's report did not.
Madigan wanted to see if the same thing was happening in her state.
I could have told her, it is happening everywhere in the world.
Her office said in a statement that it reviewed thousands of pages of documents voluntarily turned over by each of Illinois' six dioceses and set up a hotline where people could report allegations of sexual abuse by priests.
As Susie An reported for NPR's Morning Edition, Madigan said "one of the things we've seen is that the church really took any opportunity it thought it could not to investigate."
Madigan's office found dozens of examples where the Illinois dioceses "failed to adequately investigate an allegation of clergy sexual abuse it received from a survivor," according to the report.
The investigation revealed that, of the allegations the Illinois dioceses have received, they only "deemed twenty-six percent as 'credible' allegations, meaning seventy-four percent of the allegations were either not investigated, or were investigated but not substantiated."
The reasons the dioceses didn't investigate accusations varied, according to the report. Sometimes the accuser wished to remain anonymous, or the accused priest had left the country, but the most common reason was that the accused had either died or resigned.
The dioceses often discounted allegations that came from just one accuser and "sought to discredit a survivor's allegations based upon the survivor's personal life," according to the investigation.
So, if a survivor has had a very difficult life, they would use that to discredit them whereas it was most likely an indication of the effect of abuse on the survivor.
The archbishop of Chicago, Cardinal Blase J. Cupich, responded to Madigan's initial findings in a statement:
"I want to express again the profound regret of the whole church for our failures to address the scourge of clerical sexual abuse. It is the courage of victim-survivors that has shed purifying light on this dark chapter in church history. ... There can be no doubt about the constant need to strengthen our culture of healing, protection, and accountability. While the vast majority of abuses took place decades ago, many victim-survivors continue to live with this unimaginable pain."
Cupich said it was "difficult to discern" which of the report's findings apply to the Archdiocese of Chicago but defended its efforts to mitigate sexual abuse, claiming to have been at the "forefront of dealing with the issue of clergy sexual abuse for nearly three decades."
He also said in the statement that all reports of sexual abuse are investigated, whether the accused priest is alive or dead, and that, starting in 2002, they have reported all allegations of child sexual abuse to civil authorities, including "historical allegations."
The Diocese of Joliet also responded to the attorney general's report, saying in a statement that the investigation doesn't distinguish between dioceses and that they have received "no formal or informal indication from the Attorney General that we failed to adequately investigate any allegation of abuse and/or report it to authorities."
The attorney general said in a statement that the investigation isn't finished and that her office has asked the state's dioceses for additional information.
But some sexual abuse survivors don't think the preliminary investigation goes far enough, according to An, who was reporting for NPR.
"I don't know what to believe out of the Catholic Church. I really don't, because everything's been so secretive and hidden," Larry Antonsen, a leader with the Chicago branch of Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, told NPR.
Decades ago, Antonsen reported a priest who had sexually abused him as a child, but he says he's still waiting for the church to publicly list the man's name. He said he hopes Illinois will launch its own grand jury investigation.
Pope Francis calls on abusive priests
to hand themselves in
to hand themselves in
Pope Francis is calling on sexually abusive priests to turn themselves in and “prepare for divine justice” in the first direct appeal to predators from the pontiff.
The Pope concentrated on the international sexual abuse crisis overwhelming the Roman Catholic Church during his Christmas address to the Curia, the Vatican’s central administration, on Friday.
“To those who abuse minors I would say this: convert and hand yourself over to human justice, and prepare for divine justice,” Francis said in his Christmas address to the Curia.
As recently as Wednesday a US auxiliary bishop resigned over his “misconduct” with a minor. The pontiff denounced clerics “who abuse the vulnerable, taking advantage of their position and their power of persuasion.”
“They perform abominable acts yet continue to exercise their ministry as if nothing had happened. They have no fear of God or his judgment, but only of being found out and unmasked.”
And how many years have I been saying this? Glad to see the Pope is finally bringing God into the issue.
Pope Francis made the comments two months before a summit on the sexual abuse crisis in the Vatican, which will be attended by the heads of more than 110 national Catholic bishops’ conferences and dozens of experts and leaders of religious orders.
Postwar orphans were sex abuse victims of German clergy, possible paedophile ring
BY CATHOLIC NEWS SERVICE
An investigation by the Diocese of Hildesheim, Germany, is shedding new light on child sex abuse in Catholic children's homes in the country in the 1950s. A central figure in the inquiry is an esteemed and controversial figure, Bishop Heinrich Maria Janssen, a former priest in Nazi-occupied Poland awarded Germany's highest federal decoration in 1966 for postwar charity work.
Volker Bauerfeld, a spokesman for the diocese, told Catholic News Service the allegations against Janssen have "deeply shaken many people" in the diocese, due to Janssen's status as "one of the most renowned Hildesheim bishops of modern times."
Although Bishop Janssen and his alleged accomplices are long dead, Bishop Heiner Wilmer, the current bishop, is investigating the matter fully to "bring more light into the darkness." Bishop Wilmer is launching a vigorous inquiry to investigate sexual abuse allegedly committed by Bishop Janssen and Catholic orphanage chaplains, with the aim of revealing the truth behind a possible local pedophile ring.
History of Hildeshiem
Hildesheim, an ornate medieval city founded by a son of Charlemagne, was bombed to ashes during Allied air raids in World War II. The charred ghost town was flooded in 1945 with ethnic German refugees from Eastern Europe, known in Germany as "The Expelled." These displaced people were deportees from Slavic territories, forced to leave their homes as the Eastern front collapsed during the final phase of the war. Many of them were Catholic.
As more than 100,000 German Catholic refugees poured into Hildesheim, a new demand rose -- child and youth care. In the years following World War II, the numbers of German children in orphanages and youth centers surged. Many had lost their homes. Their parents were missing, killed, working or unable to care for them.
Bishop Janssen, ordained in 1934 and assigned as a pastor in a remote area of Nazi-occupied Poland, took charge of the diocese swelling with displaced and impoverished Germans. During his 25-year term, Bishop Janssen was credited with consecrating 270 churches. He died in 1988. His pastoral engagement with displaced Germans, according to Bauerfeld, has made his alleged role in child sex abuse shocking and controversial to present-day diocesan churchgoers.
Testimony released by the diocese has revealed that children in the orphanages were targeted by sexual predators. Two male victims, now elderly, disclosed they were sexually abused by priests running the Catholic Johannishof orphanage, founded in 1952, and the Bernwardshof home for young boys in Hildesheim. Both victims were previously altar servers. Testimony by a former victim in his 70s in November alleged that, in 1957, a children's home administrator took him to Bishop Janssen, who forced him to strip naked.
"The victim described that he was sexually humiliated by Bishop Heinrich Maria Janssen. It is obvious that such an act could have been closely connected to diocesan structures at that time, particularly the Catholic children and youth homes in Hildesheim," Bishop Wilmer said in a Nov. 13 statement. "I will therefore immediately hire external experts to intensively research this area. Above all, the role Heinrich Maria Janssen played in this context must be uncovered."
Bishop Wilmer said he is compelled to find out and reveal the truth for the sake of possible victims and for those in the community whose previous esteem for Janssen have caused them to feel shaken.
"It rips my heart, what the victim has shared with us," said Bishop Wilmer, who personally heard the elderly victim's story at a meeting in November. "It makes me furious and deeply grieved that this was done to him by employees of our church."
"The fact that he brought himself to speak with us about this monstrous pain that has weighed down his soul merits my highest respect."
Bishop Janssen was decorated with Germany's Order of Merit cross for charitable actions after World War II. A spokesman for the Diocese of Hildesheim told Catholic News Service he could not comment on the possibility of this honor being posthumously revoked.
The shocking details of his crimes revealed, Idaho priest gets 25 years: ‘I was one really sick puppy’
Caution: Disturbing details in this story
BY KATY MOELLER AND RUTH BROWN
Hearing the details of the Rev. William Thomas Faucher’s shocking depravity caused some to weep and others to beat a hasty retreat from a four-hour sentencing on the fifth floor of the Ada County Courthouse on Thursday morning.
The 73-year-old retired Boise priest, who was frail and feeble as he stood up from his wheelchair in court — he has lost 47 pounds in jail — told a judge that he’s taken responsibility for participating in the dissemination of child pornography.
And then he kept talking — delivering a rambling, roughly 17-minute statement — with what he said was important context for why he ended up on the dark side. He fantasized in online chats about raping babies and altar boys with a friend in Brazil, and the two men also discussed meeting up to kidnap a boy, rape him and then kill him, according to testimony in court.
“I was totally unprepared for retirement,” said Faucher, who noted that he was at odds with church leadership and felt targeted by one of the bishops. He said he got depressed, fell into drinking and lost control of his life.
“I was one really sick puppy. I screwed up big-time ... I feel so much remorse and anger directed at myself,” said Faucher, who in September pleaded guilty (3rd story on link) to five felonies, including two child porn distribution charges and one count of possession of LSD.
He argued that if he received probation rather than prison, he could become a voice for the victims of child sexual abuse. He said he was moved by the seven victim impact statements that were submitted to the court in writing as part of his presentence investigation report — they were victims that authorities identified in some of the thousands of photos and videos found on his computer.
Fourth District Judge Jason D. Scott was unmoved. Before handing down a 25-year prison sentence, with no possibility of parole, Scott said depression, social isolation and/or being at odds with one’s church might explain falling into drinking or drug use, but would not cause a person to seek out and then share child pornography with others.
The prison sentence was ultimately longer than what the prosecution recommended; it had suggested 30 years, with the possibility of parole after 20.
Thomas Faucher appears before Fourth District Judge Jason Scott to be sentenced after being found guilty of multiple felonies, including possessing and trafficking child pornography among other charges Thursday, Dec. 20, 2018, at the Ada County Courthouse in Boise, Idaho.
Darin Oswald doswald@idahostatesman.com
Scott said Faucher misled his supporters — some of whom wrote letters on his behalf — about how the child pornography got on his computer, spreading conspiracy theories rather than admitting that he solicited it. He said Faucher doesn’t appear to have fully internalized what he did or why he did it, and hasn’t admitted that he obtained the child porn for sexual gratification.
Faucher’s attorney, Mark Manweiler, said one of those who wrote to the court on Faucher’s behalf was Boise Mayor David Bieter. Manweiler read part of the letter, in which the mayor recounted how Faucher had helped him get through the loss of both of his parents in a car accident in 1999. A Boise native, Faucher was close to the Bieter family throughout his 45-year career in the priesthood.
Diocese of Boise officials told the Statesman on Wednesday that they will seek to have Faucher defrocked. They reiterated that in a press release after the sentencing:
“The volumes of shocking information that the law enforcement investigation uncovered reveal the heinous nature of child pornography and the tragic impact upon its victims,” the release says. “While we cannot begin to fathom what brought Faucher to the point that he was able to enter into this evil and dark world, we are thankful for the efforts of the law enforcement community in doing what it can to protect our children from these crimes.”
Investigation took a toll
Special Prosecutor Kassandra Slaven called Garden City Police Detective John Brumbaugh to the stand on Thursday. Brumbaugh, who’s been on the Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force for five years, said the investigation began with a tip he received through the Internet Crimes Against Children Unit about pornographic images of children being exchanged from an email account that belonged to Faucher. A Google search of the email address, wtfauch@aol.com, was also linked to the St. Mary’s website. The IP address matched Faucher’s address.
St. Mary’s was Faucher’s church as a child, and it was the last church where he served as a priest, until his retirement in 2015.
In the months that followed, Brumbaugh said, his investigation looked at chats and emails that showed Faucher was “actively seeking interests with gay men, satanic interests,” and the rape and killing of minors. He also described the contents of the images police found on Faucher’s cellphone, computer and Dropbox account after raiding his house in February: more than 2,500 files that were sexually exploitative or pornographic with young-looking subjects. The files were described by police as violent, disturbing and torturous, with some featuring children crying.
In online chats with a person called Bruno, Faucher expressed a desire to have sex with boys, Brumbaugh said. Faucher said he had “satanic desires,” an attraction to 6-year-old white boys and an interest in killing someone, according to the detective. In one conversation, Faucher said he liked a video of a boy being beaten to death, the detective said.
Brumbaugh said he’s never investigated a case that involved such a large volume of images. He said their extreme nature took a toll on him and others involved in the investigation.
As Faucher solicited more videos of young boys, he wrote that he felt “wonderful indifference,” Brumbaugh told the courtroom.
Other disturbing images found during the investigation included depictions of black slavery; Faucher discussed those using racist language, the detective said. There were also images of Faucher urinating on a cross and a canon law book. Faucher said in a conversation that he urinated in the wine for Mass at least once. He also talked to Bruno about betraying canon law, and then blaming it on his age and illness, Brumbaugh said.
“It felt good to lie,” Faucher wrote in one of the conversations, the detective said.
Brumbaugh said Faucher told him that no one else had access to his email account. Investigators found no evidence that anyone had remotely accessed the retired priest’s computer, or that there was any sort of virus.
‘It shakes the community’
Ahead of the sentencing, Slaven asked for a 30-year sentence, with 20 years fixed. She also requested a no-contact order be put in place with all minor children.
An evaluation concluded that Faucher is on the upper end of the risk to reoffend and is less amenable to treatment, Slaven said, adding that he was diagnosed as a pedophile. She argued his status as a Catholic priest to be an aggravating factor.
“It shakes the community. It shakes the members of the Catholic Church,” Slaven said. “... He portrays himself as a victim and is not at all accountable for his actions.”
Manweiler had asked for probation and sex offender treatment instead of prison time. He said the evidence does not support that Faucher looked at all of the images on the computer. And he said that although Faucher looked at, possessed and shared child pornography, “he’s never sexually abused any child.”
Earlier, the Statesman reported that two men came forward to church officials and prosecutors to accuse him of sexually abusing them when they were children several decades ago; no charges have been filed in those cases. The defense said Thursday that any accusations made now should be taken “with a grain of salt.”
“Tom isn’t a good person. He’s a wonderful person” who’s helped hundreds if not thousands of people, Manweiler said.
In total, Faucher was charged with 24 crimes: 21 counts of felony sexual exploitation of a child, one count of felony possession of a controlled substance (LSD) and two counts of misdemeanor possession of a controlled substance (marijuana and ecstasy). He pleaded guilty to two counts of distribution of sexually exploitative material, two counts of possession of sexually exploitative materials and one count of drug possession.
Where did the priest get the drugs? That question was answered in testimony at the sentencing: The LSD and ecstasy found in his home came from Bruno, the Brazilian friend he chatted with about child porn. The marijuana was purchased by Faucher in another state — it is legal in both Oregon and Washington — and brought back into Idaho.
PA priest sentenced to up to 5 years in prison
in child sex abuse case
By Peter SmithPittsburgh Post-Gazette
A Roman Catholic priest was sentenced to 11½ months to five years in prison Friday morning after pleading guilty in Westmoreland County Common Pleas Court to sexually assaulting a 10-year-old boy in the early 1990s.
“You perpetrated a horrific act on a 10-year-old boy,” Judge Bilik-DeFazio told the priest at the sentencing.
Sweeney is the first priest convicted as a result of a statewide grand jury investigation into sexual abuse by priests in six Catholic dioceses in Pennsylvania. A priest in the Diocese of Erie has charges pending.
None of the other priests named in the grand jury report can be prosecuted, due to the statute of limitations, Attorney General Josh Shapiro has said. Some were convicted decades ago, and others are deceased. Mr. Shapiro called the victim a “hero” for speaking up so that others won’t be at risk.
Sweeney, 76, had admitted to sexually assaulting a 10-year-old boy during the 1991-92 school year. He was a pastor at St. Margaret Mary Parish in Lower Burrell at the time.
He pleaded guilty in August to indecent assault on a minor under 14 years old. The charge is a first-degree misdemeanor, which was pleaded down from a previous felony charge. After sentencing, Sweeney was handcuffed behind his back and escorted out of the courtroom by officers for immediate incarceration.
Lower Burrell police started the investigation of Sweeney after receiving an anonymous report and then one from a U.S. marshal who identified himself as a relative of the victim. The police referred the case to a statewide grand jury.
According to the criminal complaint, the school principal sent the boy to see Sweeney due to misbehavior on a school bus. The priest forced the victim to give him oral sex, warning the boy that he would be in trouble if he didn’t comply, according to the criminal complaint.
Judge Bilik-DeFazio issued her sentence after hearing the victim’s brother give statements on his own and his brother’s behalf, describing the devastation of the assault.
The judge was unmoved by Sweeney’s own apology and plea for leniency, and by similar appeals by two longtime friends, including a retired judge who said Sweeney had otherwise been a “perfect priest.”
“It certainly sounds to me, Mr. Sweeney, that you have had a very positive impact on many lives,” the judge said. But that didn’t mitigate his devastating impact on another life, she said. “You, sir, abused your authority” and “your position of trust,” she said. “A 10-year-old boy was punished for misbehaving in school in such a horrific way.”
“You have walked this earth the last 27 years in full liberty,” Judge Bilik-DeFazio said in bringing that freedom to an end for a while. The fact that he got away with it for so long left the judge unmoved by Sweeney’s claims to be suffering from ailments of old age, including cataracts and digestive problems.
The victim, who identified himself as Josh at a news conference earlier this year, is in the U.S. Coast Guard and is on duty in the South Pacific, and was unable to attend Friday’s sentencing hearing in Greensburg. But his mother and brother were present and said the sentence brought some justice after an assault that devastated the family.
“I’m just trying to get closure for my entire family,” his mother said. “He was our priest at St. Margaret Mary’s for years. He baptized all of my children.” She said her husband died shortly after learning Sweeney had abused their son. “I lost everything,” she said. “Our faith. We don’t even go” to church now. “Cradle Catholics. No more.”
In a victim impact statement read by his brother, the victim, Josh, called for prison time for Sweeney. “The tired old man that you see before you today will try to tell you that he is remorseful for his actions over 27 years ago, “ the statement said.
He asked the judge to treat “this man as if the crime happened yesterday, committed (by) a 40-something, healthy, Catholic priest of my elementary school. He had… freedom for 27 years. Don’t let him have it any more. One, to pay for the crime he committed against me and two, to keep him from hurting other children.”
He also directed his statement at the Catholic Church, calling it a “cult” and saying its donors and “followers are complicit accomplices in its vast amount of crimes.” The victim said he continues to live with the impact of the abuse. “The simplest way I can describe it, is this eternal emptiness,” he said.
“I am not mad that he took my faith. I was never religious,” he said. “I am most angry at the fact that he took my trust away from anyone that I ever encountered from the day after the assault happened.”
Priest accused of child sex abuse AWOL
from religious order
BY TAL AXELRODThe former president of an Illinois Catholic high school who is under investigation for allegations of sexually abusing a male student in the 1990s is missing from the Augustinian order to which he belongs, according to The Chicago Tribune.
Sister Mary Ann Hamer, assistant treasurer for the Province of Our Mother of Good Counsel, which operates Providence Catholic High School, told the Tribune Friday that Rev. Richard McGrath, 72, was “absent without leave” after having moved out of the St. John Stone Friary. Hamer added that he had left in the last couple of months on his own accord.
But Rev. Anthony B. Pizzo, prior provincial of the Midwest Augustinians, sent a statement to the Tribune Friday that McGrath was “illegitimately” absent, which means he is no longer affiliated with the Augustinian order. While he remains a priest, he lacks the canonical authority to fulfill a priest’s duties.
McGrath abruptly retired from Providence Catholic High School last year after working there for 32 years. He was being investigated for “potentially inappropriate material” on his cell phone.
Police were contacted after a female student said she saw an image of a naked boy on McGrath’s cell phone. They closed their investigation without charging him after McGrath refused to turn over his cell phone, according to police records reviewed by the Tribune.
What? Seriously? He said no so they let him go? What great police work!
Police submitted its evidence to the Will County state’s attorney’s office for review in March, but no charges have yet been filed. A spokeswoman for the Will County state’s attorney’s office told the Tribune the case is still under review.
The Province of Our Mother of Good Counsel removed McGrath from all public ministry duties after the accusations in December and moved him to the Hyde Park friary, where it felt it could more closely supervise him.
A spokeswoman for the Archdiocese of Chicago, which has final say over who lives at the friary because it is located within the archdiocese, said the order did not notify officials that McGrath was living there until four months after he’d moved in.
“The Augustinian order only mentioned that Fr. McGrath had allegations of ‘inappropriate material’ on his mobile phone and he had completed safe-environment training…” she said in an email. “If they had fully informed us of his status he would not have been permitted to live in the Archdiocese of Chicago.”
The spokeswoman added that when the archdiocese became aware of the sexual abuse allegations against McGrath, it told the Augustinian order he would need to be moved. McGrath later moved to another residence unaffiliated with the order without permission.
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