New Norcia Benedictine Community Among Worst Child Sex Abuse Perpetrators

I wonder if some of these Catholic 'orders' shouldn't simply disappear?

In the Benedictine Community of New Norcia, 21.5 per cent of priests were accused of sex abuse. (Supplied: The New Norcia Benedictine Community)

Western Australia's Benedictine Community of New Norcia rated among the worst for historical child sex offenders according to figures released by the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.

The commission found the number of alleged priests who were perpetrators in the Catholic church in WA was higher than the national average.

The report found 7 per cent of priests from all Catholic Church authorities who ministered from 1950 to 2010 across Australia were accused of child sexual abuse, but for the Benedictine Community of New Norcia, the amount was more than triple that at 21.5 per cent.

In the 1950's, 17.6 per cent of the Benedictine Community of New Norcia was subject to an allegation, compared to a 2.7 per cent of priests of all Catholic Church authorities with priest members in a ministry that was subject to a claim.

Almost 60 per cent of the abuse survivors who contacted the commission reported being abused in faith-based institutions and two thirds of that group reported abuse in Catholic institutions.

In Western Australia the dioceses with highest proportion of alleged perpetrators included the Benedictine Community of New Norcia, the Catholic Archdiocese of Perth with 8.3 per cent and the Diocese of Bunbury at 7.8 per cent.

The commission identified 1,880 alleged perpetrators and 500 unknown perpetrators Australia-wide.

Christian Brothers WA "harrowing"

In her opening address, Gail Furness SC said the accounts given to the commission in 2014 by survivors of four institutions in Western Australia run by the Christian Brothers was "particularly harrowing".

"The Christian Brothers had kept visitation reports and Provincial Council Minutes from 1919 which revealed concerns about Brothers sexually misconducting themselves with children," she said.

"From 1959, such concerns were no longer reported in the minutes."

The lawyers for the Christian Brothers told the commission that there may have been a decision made in the late 1950's to stop recording the matters.

Gee, ya think? After 40 years of not being able to stop it, they just appear to have accepted it as normal and not worthy of mention. Astonishing!

22% Christian Bros - pedophiles

The commission found 22 per cent of Australian Christian Brothers non-ordained religious and priests were alleged perpetrators.

The commission examined abuse allegations at Christian Brothers colleges in Bindoon, Tardun, Clontarf and Castledare between 1947 and 1968.

It found the Christian Brothers were aware of abuse allegations at their WA schools for decades, but failed to prevent it.

Harrowing stories of child abuse and child sex abuse committed by 'Christian Brothers' have been reported from many different countries.

Catholic priests sex abuse of children as reported in the movie Spotlight, was not the first scandal as such in America. Newfoundland's Mount Cashel predated the Boston Globe report by 13 years. Mount Cashel boy's home was operated by the poorly named 'Christian Brothers'. Hundreds of boys were abused over decades there and a police investigation in 1975 failed to stop it. It was in 1989 before it hit the fan. 

Christian Brothers have been accused of all sorts of atrocities on children in the UK. They originated from Ireland.

100,000 American Girls and Women are Coerced into Prostitution Each Year

The first part of the PBS documentary A Path Appears explores a pervasive problem

 Trafficking survivor Audrey Morrissey

It’s the dead of winter in Chicago. A man enters a hotel and rings the woman waiting for him in room 238. He found her number on Backpage.com, a Craigslist-style site that hosts listings for “adult entertainment” services.

The woman on the other end answers and invites him up. When he gets to her room, they negotiate a price – her services are advertised at $60 for half an hour. As soon as the man agrees, a loud beep alerts the undercover officers waiting next door. They rush in to bust the man for solicitation. Such clients are referred to as “johns”.

This scene is captured in A Path Appears, a new three-part documentary series based on a book by Pulitzer-prize winning journalists Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn. The first part, airing on Monday, explores the devastating world of sex trafficking and how American women are coerced into prostitution.

The guys who buy sex, they really are the guys-next-door

As for the “johns”, most of them do feel terrible, says Michael Anton, a deputy chief with Cook County sheriff’s office. “They feel terrible because they got caught. They have no idea what goes on behind these girls they’re going after. They don’t know the abuse these girls have encountered and the life they had.”

The crackdown, called National Day of Johns Arrests, was conceived by Thomas Dart, the Cook County sheriff, as part of an effort to disrupt demand for prostitution by highlighting the role solicitors play in perpetuating the industry. In the past three years, the sting operations have spread to 28 law enforcement agencies in 14 states.

“If there were no johns, there would be no prostitutes,” Dart says in the film. On this particular day, deputies received 75 appointments after placing four ads on Backpage.com, though only 14 actually showed up. “It’s like shooting fish in a barrel,” Kristof remarks in the film.

During the 12-day nationwide crackdown staged in the run up to the 2014 Super Bowl, law enforcement officers arrested 359 would-be sex buyers and 14 pimps and traffickers, according to Demand Abolition, which tracks the arrests. Experts say the Super Bowl and other big sporting events attract higher incidents of sex trafficking due to the increased volume of men looking to buy sex in one area.

During the sweep, a Chicago area man was arrested wearing his blue hospital scrubs. When asked his highest level of education, the man said: “MD”. In Texas, deputies with the Harris County sheriff’s office arrested a constable from their department who came to buy sex wearing his uniform trousers, according to a press release.

“The girls really do come from disadvantaged backgrounds. They’re not the girl-next-door. But the guys who buy sex, they really are the guys-next-door,” Kristof told the Guardian in an interview.

The documentary is in many ways an antidote to the issues raised by their book Half the Sky, in which the authors argue that the oppression of women is “a malignancy that is slowly gaining recognition as one of the paramount human rights problems of this century”. A Path Appears focuses on effective, and most importantly, scalable, solutions to some of the behemoth issues facing women and girls.

‘American women are being bought and sold like slaves’
To view sex trafficking as a fate that befalls foreign women who are smuggled into the US, kept in chains and forced to work as modern-day sex slaves is to ignore a whole different side to the story.

“The biggest surprise was that there was so much of it here in the US and that the problems run much deeper than we expected,” WuDunn told the Guardian. “Most of us don’t expect to see the people who are trafficked to be Americans who are trafficked from their own towns, within their own hometowns.”

In the past decade, the US Justice Department and the FBI have woken up to the issue, stepping up efforts to disrupt the trade domestically. “It’s sad but true: here in this country, people are being bought, sold, and smuggled like modern-day slaves,” the FBI says on its website.

Astonishingly, it’s often the women who spend time behind bars while the pimps and johns are rarely caught. One survivor said she had been arrested more than 100 times, while her pimp never ran into trouble. But there is a growing movement among state and local law enforcement agencies to treat prostitutes as victims rather than criminals, especially as more Americans realize the problem is very much a domestic one.

“A lot of the conversation about women’s rights in the US is about equal pay and about board representation and Title 9,” Kristof said. “These are certainly real issues and there’s real inequity in these areas but it sure does seem to me that the two biggest areas of gender inequity in this country are sex trafficking and domestic violence. They exist because by and large, society diverts its eyes,” Kristof said. “And while I certainly want to continue those conversations about board representation and unequal pay, etc, I think we should be much more engaged with what happens to the tens of thousands of girls who are trafficked each year.”

Actually, Nicholas, the biggest area of gender inequity by far is child sex abuse which encompasses child trafficking. Check out these stats.

‘It’s easy to traffic a young woman. It’s so lucrative’
Becca Stevens, founder of Thistle Farms

Compiling reliable data is nearly impossible given the shadowy nature of the industry, but experts estimate approximately 100,000 American girls are victimized by human trafficking each year. The average age girls enter the sex trade is 12 to 14.

“No five- or six-year-old girl dreams of growing up to be a prostitute,” said Becca Stevens, the founder of Thistle Farms, a Tennessee-based social enterprise that employs women who have survived prostitution, trafficking and addiction.

The three most common forms of sex trafficking involve pimp-controlled prostitution, commercial-front brothels, and escort services. Stevens says systemic failures, augmented by a personal history of sex abuse and poverty, send women spiralling into the hands of a trafficker. Speaking of her work with survivors over the past 18 years, she said: “I have never met a woman who’s never been raped.”

Recently, Stevens has started hosting a “johns” school to educate men who have been caught seeking prostitutes about the industry. In her view, breaking the cycle of demand so that selling girls is no longer a profitable business is paramount. “It’s easy to traffic a young woman. It’s so lucrative,” she said. “You can sell drugs once, but you can sell a girl 1,000 times.”

‘If you don’t give me a (oral sex), I’m going to arrest you’
Audrey Morrissey is the associate director of My Life My Choice, a survivor-led organization in Boston. She told the Guardian: “One message we have to get across to the men [who seek prostitutes]: ‘We don’t like you. You think we like you. We don’t like you.’”

Morrissey, 52, was lured into prostitution by the father of her first daughter at age 17. She says he took advantage of her love for him. “I was a teen parent. I thought I was in love. Honest to God truth, I look back on it now, and know I was in love. He was the father of my child. And one day, he just said to me: ‘If you love me you would do this and make us money.’”

Morriseey with Kristof

Her first encounter “in the lights” was on a dark and gloomy night around 1980. She was in the car with her boyfriend and his cousin, driving around the “combat zone”, a nickname given to the adult entertainment district of downtown Boston.

She said that in the 1980s, the prostitutes were glamourous. They wore mink coats and glittery dresses. “I didn’t see pain and misery from the car. I saw glitter and clothes and fashion. I was already attracted to what I thought looked good … I guess back then I couldn’t process that they had to have sex with men they don’t know.”

At some point, her boyfriend dropped her on the corner and told her to stand there until someone drove by to pick her up. Her first client pulled up. It was a police officer. Morrissey says that his first words were: “If you don’t give me (oral sex) I’m going to arrest you.” She climbed into the car sobbing like a baby. She said he could tell she was an amateur and eventually told her to leave before anything happened. He left her with words that would later echo in her mind of months to come: “Do you know you could be blowing some guy and he could slice your throat?’”

Morrissey was traumatized by the experience. But over time, her boyfriend was able to convince her to return to the streets.

After her boyfriend was arrested on unrelated charges and locked up, Morrissey said she considered leaving the trade. But by then, she’d formed a camaraderie with the other women, something which made her feel like she belonged. Because of her light skin, she had always felt like an outcast growing up: “In my neighborhood I felt I was too white to be black and when I went to school I was too dark to be white. There was the only place it was OK to be light-skinned. For many years, I developed this false sense of self-esteem.”

She continued to work for a decade, serving several pimps and developing drug addictions; her second daughter was born addicted to heroin and cocaine. At 30, Morrissey said she’d hit rock bottom and knew she needed help. She accessed a detox program and got clean; she has remained sober to this day.

Morrissey now helps mentor young women who share a similar fate. “They help me to stay on track because I don’t want to let them down. I don’t want to be the person that gave them hope, and then went back to standing on a corner,” she said.

‘Johns are upper middle class white males, married with a family’
Shelia McClain, who works at Thistle Farm

Forced prostitution is, under US law, a form of sex trafficking, defined as the coercion a person to perform sex acts in exchange for something of value. The DOJ’s guidelines are clear on the subject: “The coercion can be subtle or overt, physical or psychological but it must be used to coerce a victim into performing labor, services, or commercial sex acts.”

Under US law, anyone younger than 18 is a victim of sex trafficking – regardless of whether or not the trafficker used force, fraud, or coercion – because minors cannot legally give consent. The punishment for someone who traffics children ranges from 40 years to life in prison.

Morrissey wants to see more attention focused on the johns, rather than the prostitutes. Why would her daughters have to carry the stigma of having a mother who was a prostitute, while her clients’ daughters are shielded from knowing what their fathers did on their lunch breaks?

She said there’s a fallacy to think that johns are “creepy guys in trenchcoats”. “There’s just not enough creepy guys in trench coats to make this a multi-billion dollar business,” she said. “It’s men with money. It’s upper middle class white males from the suburbs married with a family.”

There’s no magic bullet, Morrissey said. In her view, the only way to make progress combating sex trafficking in America is to continue educating the public and to keep the heat on pimps and johns who prey on these young women: “This is a rollercoaster ride, and we’re in it for the long-haul.”

A Path Appears airs on Monday 26 January on Independent Lens on PBS at 10pm ET

Pervert Round-up from Around the World

A writer, a teacher, a DJ, a doctor, a youth worker

Youth Worker Arrested in Oregon

A youth worker who volunteered at two Vancouver, OR, churches was arrested Sunday on suspicion of child sex abuse, and police are asking to speak with anyone who might have information about him.

The Washington County Sheriff's Office was alerted on Saturday to the alleged sex abuse. A family member of Christopher Joseph Gonzales, 44, of Vancouver said Gonzales had abused children at her home on several occasions since 2008, according to the sheriff's office. The alleged victims include three girls as young as 5 years old, the sheriff's office said.

Detectives with the agency's Child Abuse division learned that Gonzales had volunteered since 2010 at the Crossroads Community Church in Vancouver and since early this year at the Freedom Community Church, which holds Sunday services at Salmon Creek Elementary School, according to its website.

On Sunday, Gonzales was booked into the Washington County Jail on suspicion of nine counts of first-degree sexual abuse. His bail was set at $750,000.

Anyone who might have more information about Gonzales is asked to call the Washington County Sheriff's Office at 503-846-2500.


Doctor Now Believes Ashram Children were Sexually Abused

Sydney, Australia
Director of Satyananda Yoga Academy Pty Ltd Atmamuktananda Saraswati told the Royal Commission into Child Sex Abuse that Akhandananda continued to run the ashram even after being charged over sexual abuse allegations in 1987.

Dr Henry Sztulman, a qualified general practitioner and ashram resident from 1979 to 1990, told the commission he was initially distrustful of the children's allegations.

He continued to visit the ashram's leader, Swami Akhandananda Saraswati, after he was jailed in 1989 over sexual offences committed against ashram children. The conviction was overturned in 1991.

He told the commission he now believes former child residents were sexually abused by their spiritual leader but denied a claim that he treated one child with morphine for minor ailments.

Dr Sztulman told the commission he did not witness any of the vicious beatings described in evidence and could not recall the children being deprived of food.

"They were fun loving kids who played around," he said.


Sentencing of ex-BBC Radio 1 DJ Chris Denning adjourned

The sentencing of an ex-Radio 1 DJ for a series of sex attacks on 24 young boys has been adjourned after the prosecutor failed to attend court because of ill health.

Denning, 73, of Basildon in Essex, pleaded guilty to 10 charges of indecent assault on a male, a charge of gross indecency and another of indecency with a child, when he appeared at London's Southwark Crown Court last month.

The majority of offences related to victims aged between 10 and 14.

The families of some of his victims had attended London's Southwark Crown Court but Judge Alistair McCreath said he "feared a risk of injustice if I do proceed today" with an inexperienced prosecutor.

Ex-Corrections Officer to be transferred from Chicago to Oklahoma

Tahlequah, Oklahoma
A local author and former state corrections officer is set to be transferred from Chicago to Tahlequah this week to face charges of child sexual abuse.

Dale W. Jackson, 31, is expected to be held at the Cherokee County Detention Center on a $50,000 bond. He is formally charged with sexual abuse of a child under 12 years of age.

Jackson was taken into custody by federal authorities last week when he arrived in Chicago after a business trip to Japan.


Former Fessenden School students allege sex abuse

Boston, Massachusetts

Several former students at the Fessenden School, a prestigious private school in Newton, are alleging they were sexually abused by four teachers during the late 1960s and 1970s, in a significant expansion of claims that came to light in 2011.

“It’s inconceivable the administration of this school could not have known” about the abuse, said Garabedian, who has represented hundreds of victims in the clergy sex abuse scandal. “It’s time for them to come forward and be accountable.”

Fessenden officials notified graduates in a 2011 letter that the school had received two claims of abuse, one involving former assistant headmaster Arthur Clarridge, and a second involving a friend of Clarridge’s. Clarridge resigned in 1977 after he was charged in connection with a child sex ring. 

One source says he cut a deal with the prosecutor to testify against the others in exchange for dropping rape and abuse charges. There's a good chance he didn't spend any time in jail.

In 2010, the school reached a settlement with one student in “the low six figures,” Garabedian said.

After receiving the allegations, school officials combed internal records and found that two other graduates had also filed complaints, one of which involved Clarridge, about alleged abuse that occurred in the 1960s and 1970s.

“The school leadership has come to the realization that this intolerable behavior in past decades may have been broader in scope than we once had reason to believe,” Fessenden officials wrote in 2011.

‘Today, we continue to extend our sincere apologies to those whose lives were affected by the actions of a few.’

Garabedian said the lawsuit he is preparing centers on alleged abuse that occurred between 1968 and 1976 and involved male students ages 10 to 14. Another boy who was not a student was allegedly abused by Clarridge at the school, Garabedian said.

Clarridge could not be reached for comment Monday. In 2011, he denied the allegations, telling the Globe he had no inappropriate contact with students.

Fessenden, which describes itself as the oldest all-boys, junior boarding school in the country, has about 500 students in pre-K to ninth-grade. Annual tuition ranges from $27,000 in first grade to $38,000 in ninth. Some of its alumni include: John Kerry, Howard Hughes, Ted Kennedy, and Christopher Lloyd.

A number of private schools have faced abuse allegations in recent years, often dating back decades. The Landmark School in Beverly last year disclosed that several graduates had lodged sexual molestation complaints, and the Brooks School in North Andover disclosed that a former headmaster had an improper relationship with a student.

Specialists say the spotlight on sexual abuse in the aftermath of the scandal at Penn State University has helped more victims come forward.

John Sweeney, who grew up in Newton, said he was 11 when Clarridge assaulted him in 1969, his first year at Fessenden. Sweeney, 56, said Monday that while he cannot file suit because the statute of limitations on the alleged crimes had expired, he hopes the lawsuits force the school to take account of what happened.

He said Clarridge, who was his dorm master, took interest in him early on, inviting him to ride in his car and watch hockey games in his room.

Sweeney said that Clarridge came to his dorm room one night when his roommate was not there. Sweeney was sick, and Clarridge gave him a nasal inhaler and told him to “breathe in deep.”

Sweeney said he believes he was drugged, and when he woke up Clarridge was assaulting him. Sweeney screamed and Clarridge fell off the bed before rushing away.

Sweeney, who lives on Cape Cod, said he told his mother the next day, but she didn’t believe him. He said he then told the headmaster, who told him he had a “vivid imagination.”

Sweeney said the assault has stayed with him all his life. He has battled drugs, was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder, and has been haunted by nightmares. Now, he wants Fessenden to take responsibility for what happened back then.

“I want Fessenden to admit what they did,” he said. “It’s affected me my whole life. Not just me, all of us victims.”

Bombshell Documentary to Reveal Names of Hollywood's Child Actor Sex Abusers

An explosive documentary debuting at a New York film festival on Friday is set to name a list of men who have allegedly sexually abused minors in Hollywood.

'An Open Secret' filmmaker Amy Berg

An Open Secret, a documentary by Oscar-nominated filmmaker Amy Berg, will screen at the DOC NYC festival on November 14, the Hollywood Reporter revealed.

It features interviews with men who say they were sexually abused or exploited by Hollywood agents or movie bigwigs when they were children.

Among the men named are managers Marty Weiss, Michael Harrah and Bob Villard - Leonardo DiCaprio's former agent - and internet company owners Marc Collins-Rector and Chad Shackley.

Collins-Rector and Shackley hit headlines earlier this year after former child model Micheal Egan III sensationally accused X-Men director Bryan Singer of abusing him at pool parties held by the duo.

MailOnline revealed in April that Egan was working with Berg on the then-unnamed documentary.

Egan ultimately dropped his suits against Singer and three others, TV exec Garth Ancier, former Disney exec David Neuman and producer Gary Goddard, after it emerged that some of his statements had been inconsistent.

An attorney for Bryan Singer also hit out at Berg, questioning why Egan's allegations were included, calling the decision to use someone with 'no credibility at all' 'disappointing and pathetic'.

Despite this, Berg, who worked on the documentary for two years, said that she believes Egan is a credible, valid part of her film.

Michael Egan III

'The question is, if you are an adult at one of these parties where so much is going on out in the open, what is your responsibility?' she told Hollywood Reporter, adding that his story was not unique.

Egan's account is 'only one aspect of the story. It's a much greater issue. When you meet the victims and see how prevalent this problem is, it's difficult to ignore.'

Lawsuit: Egan, pictured left as a boy, accused X-Men director Bryan Singer, right, of abuse but later dropped the lawsuits after it emerged he had given inconsistent stories. Singer has always denied the abuse

Her film looks at, in part, internet company Digital Entertainment Network, which was led by Collins-Rector and Chad Shackley, who held the alcohol-fueled parties attended by teen boys.

Rector-Collins was jailed in 2004 after pleading guilty to transporting minors across state lines to have sex with them. He was last believed to be in the Dominican Republic and renounced his American citizenship in 2011.

The film also looks at Marty Weiss, who pleaded no contest in 2012 to two counts of committing lewd acts on a child after he was charged with molesting a young performer he represented.

Marc Collins-Rector

Named: The film also looks at accusations that Marc Collins-Rector, an internet company owner, pictured, hosted pool parties for men and young boys

Named: The film also looks at accusations that Marc Collins-Rector, an internet company owner, pictured, hosted pool parties for men and young boys

His alleged victim told police in 2011 that he had sex with Weiss 30 to 40 times and the abuse ended when he turned 15 years old.

Weiss is seen in Berg's film attending family meetings with one of his victims and is heard on tape admitting to molesting the child, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

The film also names Bob Villard, who represented Leonardo DiCaprio when he was a boy, who pleaded no contest to a felony charge in 2005 after he allegedly sold lewd pictures of boys on eBay.

Michael Harrah, a talent manager, is also accused in the film of having young boys stay with him in his home and of attempting to take at least one of them to bed.

In response, Harrah told The Hollywood Reporter: 'It's hard to respond to anything that is so nebulous.' 

In a clip of the movie previously shared with Elle, one former child actor talks about the abuse he suffered at the hands of one of the men.

Berg explains that the clip 'depicts a former actor whose childhood dreams were destroyed by one man and covered up by the film industry... At 11 years old, he was forced to abandon his dreams and suffer the trauma of being abused.'

The alleged victim describes how the man would take him back to his house and tell him to take off his clothes so he could look at him. The man would also abuse the boy in his home movie theater.

'My memories are of me just sitting in there and being scared,' the now-adult victim recounted. 'We would sit in there and we would watch something, and then he would talk to me while he was doing it and say, "This is nothing to worry about, don't be scared, it's completely normal". 

'I remember being scared, and I remember him saying, "come on think about a girl you really like".'

Marty Weiss, talent agent, pleaded no contest in 2012 to two counts of  lewd acts

Berg, 44, is best known for her 2006 Oscar-nominated documentary Deliver Us From Evil, which looks at abuse cases in the Roman Catholic Church. It focuses on Oliver O'Grady, who abused many children in California in the late 1970s and early 1990s.

After its success, she was approached by Matthew Valentinas, a Boston entertainment attorney, and hedge fund manager Alan Hoffman, about making the film about sexual abuse in Hollywood.

They pursued the project after listening to interviews where actor Corey Feldman spoke of abuse.

'We chose Amy because we didn't want it to be exploitative or tabloid,' Valentinas said. 'We wanted it to be empowering for the victims.'

And despite the criticisms from some of the men named in the documentary and their attorneys, Berg said she quickly learned that the alleged victims' stories needed to be heard and shared.

'They were all struggling with the same thing: trying to move on 10 years after the fact,' she said.

'I think this was healing for many of them. They also felt that there was a threat to other children, and that was another reason they wanted to speak.' 

Religious Children are Different from Secular Children - Silly Science

This experiment comparing religious children to secular could only have been done by an anti-religious atheist, in an attempt to gather 'scientific' evidence that religion is harmful to children and parents should be charged with child abuse. However, the reporter sought more open-minded opinions and puts the 'scientific' findings into a much better perspective.

If you expose your child to Moses, Muhammad or Matthew the Apostle, are they at a disadvantage?

According to new research from Boston University, young children with a religious background are less able to distinguish between fantasy and reality compared with their secular counterparts.

In two studies, 66 kindergarten-age children were presented with three types of stories - realistic, religious and fantastical. The researchers then queried the children on whether they thought the main character in the story was real or fictional.

While nearly all children found the figures in the realistic narratives to be real, secular and religious children were split on religious stories. Children with a religious upbringing tended to view the protagonists in religious stories as real, whereas children from non-religious households saw them as fictional.

Although this might be unsurprising (it would be very surprising if it were otherwise), secular and religious children also differed in their interpretation of fantasy narratives where there was a supernatural or magical storyline.

"Secular children were more likely than religious children to judge the protagonist in such fantastical stories to be fictional," wrote the researchers.

"The results suggest that exposure to religious ideas has a powerful impact on children's differentiation between reality and fiction, not just for religious stories but also for fantastical stories."

Some commentators believe these findings show that religious children use their specific background to explain the magical elements of fantasy stories.

Three Joseph stories:

Religious: "This is Joseph. Joseph was sent to a mean king in a land far away. However, God sent Joseph many dreams warning about terrible storms, and Joseph used those dreams to tell the king how to protect his kingdom from the storms. The king was so amazed by Joseph and they became friends."

Fantastical: "This is Joseph. Joseph was sent to a mean king in a land far away where there were terrible storms. Joseph used his magical powers to see into the future, and told the king how to protect his kingdom from the storms. The king was so amazed by Joseph and they became friends."

Realistic: "This is Joseph. Joseph was sent to a mean king in a land far away where there were terrible storms. The king realised that Joseph was very good at looking at clouds and predicting when there would be rain. The king was so amazed by Joseph and they became friends."

We are talking about 5 or 6 year olds here. The use of the term 'magical powers' in the 'Fantastical' version would not likely make much difference to a kindergarten child. The point is Joseph saw the coming famines (not storms).

To suggest that Joseph was very good at looking at clouds and predicting rain is completely irrelevant at best and erroneous at worst. Many of the children would know that Joseph actually predicted 7 years of plenty followed by 7 years of famine. A 14 year forecast by looking at clouds, now that is truly fantastical and very silly science.

"By relating seemingly impossible religious events achieved through divine intervention (eg, Jesus transforming water into wine) to fictional narratives, religious children would more heavily rely on religion to justify their false categorisations," writes Shadee Ashtari for the Huffington Post. Duh!

This blurring of reality and fantasy, even for children, is not always a good thing, says notable atheist blogger Hemant Mehta. These are kindergarten children, you dolt! Not having a blurred vision between fantasy and reality, I believe, would be very abnormal and undesirable.

"Religion blurs the lines between fact and fiction. You only hope kids exposed to it figure it out soon enough," he writes for Patheos.

In a provocative fashion, Mehta says that the study could be viewed as "evidence for those who believe religious indoctrination is a form of mental child abuse." 

But not all commentators saw this study as critical of a religious rearing.

"This study proves a benefit of religion, not a detriment, because research shows how imaginative and fictional thinking, fantasy play, aid in the cognitive development of children," writes Eliyahu Federman in USA Today. "Raising children with fantastical religious tales is not bad after all." In fact, raising them without religion might make a better case for child abuse.

Although Federman believes that religion can sometimes lead to harmful thinking particularly within the world of science, it can hardly be viewed as a hindrance for developmental growth.

"Those claiming that belief in religious stories harms children should be interpreting research and science correctly," he says.

"Not only is there benefit in allowing children to think imaginatively without forcing them into the mindset of perceived reality, but according to at least one study, raising children with religion also increases self-esteem, lowers anxiety, risk of suicide, alcohol and drug abuse, and dangerous sexual behaviour." I think there are probably a lot more than a single study to verify this.

But other commentators found that the implications of the research should not be taken so seriously.

"Are we really going to say that kids who are taught to believe the Bible is true are somehow developmentally delayed because they're more likely, at age 5 or 6, to believe fantastical things?" writes Jenny Erikson for the Stir.

"Flip side to this equation could be that secular kids are taught to lose their sense of wonder and imagination at an earlier age than their Bible-believing friends."

Prosblogion's Helen De Cruz says that while there may be some truth to the results, what the study really shows is that the religious children know their Bible stories.

"The Bible characters are presented to them as historical, so of course they would be more likely to judge them as historical than children who didn't hear about these characters," she writes.

She says the subject deserves further study before drawing conclusions. For instance, would children exposed to scientific study at a young age be more inclined to believe pseudoscientific claims? Would Christian children be more likely to believe miracle narratives from other religions?

Only at that point could such inquiries be more than just fuel for a media-hyped religion debate, she contends.

While this volley in the anti-religion lobby clearly fell short, it won't be the last and it signals a new frontier in which the battle will be fought. Christianity is doing pretty well in this battle, so far, but there will come a day when emotion overrules truth and reality as it already has in the gay rights lobby.

Teachers from Exclusive College Failed to Call Police or Parents After Child Sex Assault

A new report released from the Ontario (Canada) College of Teachers says two teachers leading a school trip to Boston did not call police and waited seven hours to contact parents of a 16-year-old sexual assault victim, two reasons they were found guilty of professional misconduct earlier this year.

The 238-page decision from an Ontario College of Teachers' disciplinary panel was released late last week, almost five months after two teachers from Ashbury College, Ian Middleton and Alyssa Novick, were found guilty of professional misconduct.

The decision also found the victim's parents were the first to make contact with Boston Police, from Ottawa, about 20 hours after the incident took place on Nov. 16, 2007.

The sexual assault involved three students pinning the victim to his bed, while another sexually assaulted him and a fifth allegedly videotaped the attack.

Two students pleaded guilty to assault and battery in a Massachusetts court connected to the incident. One was convicted as an adult and the other as a juvenile.

Novick, who was the trip leader, and Middleton were found to have "failed to immediately notify the parents" of the student. 

Ashbury College, which first opened in 1891, is a private school
in Ottawa's Rockcliffe neighbourhood, east of downtown.

There was no evidence on three other accusations. The College did not find the teachers refused to report the sexual assault to police, falsely told parents the student didn't want to report the incident to police or discouraged the student from reporting the incident to police.

The College said the teachers "deferred their responsibility" to Tam Matthews, the school's headmaster at the time who was in Ottawa. He is not a certified teacher so he was not bound by the same standards.

"Members demonstrated poor judgment by failing to question the instructions of a School administrator who was not on the trip," the decision read.

The decision also found Novick was "increasingly concerned about her own personal liability" and her testimony was not credible.

"[A] lack of training in itself was reason enough for the Members to have called the police, even before investigating the incident," the decision ultimately found.

Both teachers continue to work at Ashbury College but they could still lose their teaching licence. A decision on their punishment will be made at a later date.

Ashbury College is located in exclusive Rockcliffe area of Ottawa, Canada,
as is the Prime Minister's home (shown above) and the Governor General's home

Ashbury College's current headmaster, Norman Southward, has said the school is "both surprised and disappointed with the findings."

The school has defended its teachers throughout the legal process, saying they handled the incident in a professional manner, co-operating fully with police.

The victim's family had launched a lawsuit against the school, Matthews and the four teachers leading the school trip. That case was settled last month.

Ashbury College is a private school that is co-ed for Grades 4 to 12. The school was founded in 1891 and sits in Ottawa's Rockcliffe neighbourhood, east of downtown.

If this incident had occurred in the last year or two, I would say throw the book at the teachers and Mr Matthews. However, it happened 7 years ago when almost all organizations were protecting their image first and their students further down the line. 

I don't know how it can be that the teachers have more responsibility than their principal, but I believe that Mr Matthews was mostly at fault.

Pope Francis Names First Members of Child Sex Abuse Commission

In the category of 'moving at glacial speed'...

Pope Francis has named the initial members of a commission to advise him on sex abuse policy, including lay and religious experts, and an Irish woman assaulted as a child by a priest.

The eight members, who are to start setting out the commission's tasks and priorities, were announced on Saturday after Francis was criticised by victims' groups for a perceived lack of attention to the abuse scandal. It has seriously damaged the Catholic church's reputation around the world and cost dioceses billions of dollars in legal fees and settlements. Not exactly a godly use of tithes and offerings.

The Vatican announced in December that Francis had decided to set up the commission to advise the church on the best policies to protect children, train church personnel and keep abusers out of the clergy. But no details had been released until Saturday and it remains unknown if the commission will deal with the critical issue of disciplining bishops who cover up for abusers.

Marie Collins

In a statement, the Vatican said the commission would look into both "civil and canonical duties and responsibilities" for church personnel. Canon law does provide for sanctions if a bishop is negligent in carrying out his duties, but such punishments have rarely, if ever, been imposed in the case of bishops who failed to report paedophile priests to police.

The eight initial commission members include Marie Collins, who was assaulted as a 13-year-old by a hospital chaplain in Ireland and has become a prominent campaigner in the fight for accountability in the church.

Cardinal O'Malley

Also named was Cardinal Sean O'Malley, one of Francis's key advisers and the archbishop of Boston, where the US scandal erupted in 2002.

Lady Sheila Hollins

Two other members are professors at Rome's Jesuit Pontifical Gregorian University, which in 2012 hosted a seminar for bishops to educate them on best practices to protect children. Several participants from that conference are now founding members of Francis's commission, including Collins and Lady Hollins, a British psychiatrist.

$10 Million Lottery Winner a Registered Level 3 Sex Offender

A convicted Massachusetts sex offender whose $10 million lottery winnings may have been used to facilitate further abuse pleaded not guilty to new child sex abuse charges this morning, court officials said.

Daniel Snay, 62, of Uxbridge, Massachusetts, was arraigned this morning in Uxbridge District Court.

Snay

He was arrested Friday on charges he sexually abused a boy over the course of several years and showed him pornography. Police say Snay may have used winnings from his 2008 $10 million lottery jackpot to groom and win favor with victims.

“Mr. Snay was the recipient of a 10 million dollar lottery award and that windfall aided the commission of the crimes,” Uxbridge police said in a news release.

The abuse allegedly occurred when the boy was between the ages of 8 and 14. Snay is charged with indecent assault and battery on a child under the age of 14, reckless endangerment of a child, enticement of a child and dissemination of pornography to a minor.

Uxbridge police will be working with officials in Rhode Island and Connecticut, as well, where abuse of the same boy is also alleged to have occurred, according to the release.

Snay is registered as a level-three sex offender, meaning he has been determined to be high risk to reoffend. He was convicted in 1974 and 1976 for indecent assault and battery on a child under the age of 14 and was sentenced to five to seven years in prison.

After his release, he won $10 million on a scratch-off lottery ticket while working as a truck driver in 2008.

“He used [the money] as a means for grooming the victims or enticing them because he had this large sum of money at his disposal,” Uxbridge Police Department Public Information Officer Melanie Blodgett-O’Toole told ABC News.

Snay is being held on $5 million bail, it is unclear, even with Snay’s lottery winnings, whether he has enough cash on hand to make the payment.

“That’s possibly why the bail is set so high, when you have these funds at your disposal, it makes things a lot easier,” Blodgett-O’Toole said. “I don’t know if he could post bail with the money he has.”

The arrest has been upsetting to the Uxbridge community, police said. “The residents are pretty uncomfortable with that idea that we have such a high-risk offender living here,” Blodgett-O’Toole said. “Also the fact that he is a lottery winner gets people pretty riled up.”

Uxbridge is a town of about 13,500, 35 miles southwest of Boston.

He will be transferred to the Worcester County House of Corrections while he awaits his next court date, scheduled for April 16. Snay’s attorney, Samuel B. Goldberg, did not immediately respond to ABC News’ request for comment.

Man Accused of Molesting Children From 8 Days to 3.5 Years - Suicides

BOSTON –  A man charged with sexually abusing 13 children through his wife's unlicensed child care business died at a hospital Friday night after an apparent suicide attempt in jail several hours earlier, his lawyer said.

Defense attorney William Barabino said John Burbine, a convicted sex offender, apparently tried to hang himself in his cell in an approximately 20-minute period between his guards' regular checks on him.

"We don't know why," Barabino said. "John was a smart man and apparently took an opportune time to do what he did."

John Burbine - convicted child sex offender

He said Burbine was receiving half-hourly checks by guards, one of whom noticed him hanging in his cell about 10 minutes before the usual 8 a.m. check.

Burbine, 50, had no pulse, but he was revived through CPR, and efforts to maintain his pulse and breathing and to stabilize him continued for hours at the hospital, the attorney said. Burbine died at 6:26 p.m. without regaining consciousness, he said.

The Middlesex (County) sheriff's office said Burbine was found by guards making morning rounds and was "in need of emergency medical attention." The office's statement said jail medical personnel gave him emergency treatment and notified the Cambridge Fire Department and EMS, which took him to the hospital.

The death will be investigated by jail officials and state police assigned to the Middlesex district attorney's office.

Prosecutors alleged that between August 2010 and August 2012 Burbine molested children ranging from 8 days to 3 1/2 years old through his wife's business in Wakefield, a Boston suburb. Prosecutors said most were assaulted in their homes when Burbine was substituting for his wife as their caregiver.

8 days to 3.5 years; that is one sick person. How do you get like that?

Burbine, who was accused of recording the assaults, had pleaded not guilty in December 2012 and was being held on $1 million bail. He offered last year to undergo castration in exchange for a lenient sentence, but prosecutors rejected that.

Prosecutors don't believe his wife knew about the assaults but said she knew he was a convicted sex offender.

Burbine was convicted of indecent assault and battery on a child in 1989 and designated a Level I sex offender, the category considered least likely to reoffend.

Two questions arise out of this: Why did his wife allow him to be alone with any child? and why was he classified a Level I sex offender? Both his wife and those who classified him Level I, failed John Burbine and all of his victims.

Is Pope Francis Out of Touch with Reality?

Pope Francis has strongly defended the Roman Catholic Church's record on tackling sexual abuse by priests.

In a rare interview with an Italian newspaper, the Pope said "no-one else has done more" to root out paedophilia.

He said the Church had acted with transparency and responsibility, yet it was the only institution to have been attacked. It is, after all, a church. Its priests are supposed to be holy men of God not pedophiles. Yet, when they are exposed as such, they have, in the past, been simply moved to another parish to molest new, unsuspecting children, rather than being tossed out of the church as the ungodly perverts they are. The Catholic Church is operating without fear of God or man, and that invariably leads to disaster.

Last month, the UN strongly criticised the Vatican for failing to stamp out child abuse and for allowing cover-ups.

Catholic Church abuse scandals

Germany - A priest, named only as Andreas L, admitted in 2012 to 280 counts of sexual abuse involving three boys over a decade
United States - Revelations about abuses in the 1990s by two Boston priests, Paul Shanley and John Geoghan, caused public outrage
Belgium - The bishop of Bruges, Roger Vangheluwe, resigned in April 2010 after admitting that he had sexually abused a boy for years
Italy - The Catholic Church in Italy admitted in 2010 that about 100 cases of paedophile priests had been reported over 10 years
Ireland - A report in 2009 found that sexual and psychological abuse was "endemic" in Catholic-run industrial schools and orphanages for most of the 20th century
Canada - Mt Cashel was the first case of institutional sex abuse to make global headlines with 300 boys claiming sexual abuse at the hands of the Christian Brothers of Ireland, a Catholic order. However, Canada's Residential School system was the first real exposure of the Catholic church's problem with pedophilia.

The Pope, who will celebrate his first anniversary of his election later this month, also praised his predecessor, Emeritus Pope Benedict XVI, for changing the Church's attitude towards predatory priests, saying he had been "very courageous".

He also questioned the focus of the debate, saying: "The statistics on the phenomenon of violence against children are shocking, but they also clearly show that the great majority of abuses are carried out in family or neighbourhood environments." Yeah, so?

A UN report into the abuse scandals published last month called on the Pope to "immediately remove" all clergy who were known or suspected child abusers.

It also accused the Vatican of systematically placing the "preservation of the reputation of the Church and the alleged offender over the protection of child victims" - something it has strenuously denied.
This is where the disconnect comes. Does Francis really believe that? For all accounts he is an honest, courageous and God-fearing man who, I'm certain, would not lie deliberately. So, are his staff keeping him in the dark? Does he really not know what has been going on these past couple decades since Mount Cashel?

The UN Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC) said the Holy See should open its files on members of the clergy who had "concealed their crimes" so that they could be held accountable by the authorities.

Pope Francis has set up a commission to investigate sex crimes committed by priests and to care for victims, but so far he has made very few public comments about the scandals that have rocked the Church in recent years.

A new weekly magazine devoted entirely to
the life of Pope Francis launched in Italy

The leader of an Italian group representing victims of clerical sex abuse claimed there had been little action from the Vatican and said there had been no "big changes" under Pope Francis.

Francesco Zanardi of Rete L'Abuso, told the BBC: "The cases of child abuse by priests continue to happen, all around Italy, and of the cases that we've denounced we have seen no results."

"The Pope may make this statement, but then the Vatican doesn't reply to the UN or impose the obligation that bishops should denounce accused priests in the courts and not deal with the cases internally."

The founder of the US-based website, BishopAccountability.org, Terence McKiernan, was more direct in his criticism, complaining that the Pope had not merely failed to apologise to the children who had been abused but had not even expressed sorrow.

"It is astonishing, at this late date, that Pope Francis would recycle such tired and defensive rhetoric," he said.

Pope Francis also used the interview with Corriere della Sera to admit that he was uncomfortable with the depiction of him as a "superman" who leaves the Vatican at night to feed the homeless.

He told the newspaper: "The Pope is a man who laughs, cries, sleeps calmly and has friends like everyone else. A normal person."

His comments came as a new weekly magazine devoted entirely to his life, called Il Mio Papa - or My Pope - hit the news-stands in Italy.

Legislation Gets Tough on Child Sex Abusers

Names and addresses for some sex offenders could soon become public as the Canadian government announced a new bill Friday aimed at combating sexual predators.

A public, high-risk child sex offender registry is just one of the nine proposals highlighted in the proposed "tougher penalties for sexual predators act."

Justice Minister Peter MacKay made the announcement at the Sheldon Kennedy Child Advocacy Centre in Calgary Friday. He said a child's right to safety trumps an offender's right to privacy.

Peter MacKay, Justice Minister of Canada

"This isn't to encourage vigilantism," MacKay said. "It's to encourage protecting children from past proven behaviours."

Canada does currently have a sex offender registry but the names and personal information of those on the list are not public.

Under the new proposal, personal information about high-risk child sex offenders for whom a public notification was issued will be available to the public.

Among the other proposals in the bill — which was formally introduced in the House of Commons Feb. 26 — are plans to share more information about offenders with the United States.

It's not clear what the criteria would be for that information-sharing to take place but MacKay says the decision would likely be made on a case-by-case basis and in consultation with police.

As well, the legislation proposes making it legal for spouses of those facing child pornography charges to be compelled to testify against their partner.

The changes represent a step in the right direction for hockey icon and sexual abuse survivor Sheldon Kennedy.

Sheldon Kennedy

Sheldon Kennedy, a former NHLer and sexual abuse victim, says new legislation announced Friday was a longtime coming.

"These kids are vulnerable," he said. "It's our job as adults and as systems and as people that have influence over children to make a difference."

Kennedy was abused by his coach during his junior hockey career and received accolades for speaking out about it and working to end the negative stigma surrounding abuse victims. (See post immediately below for background on Kennedy and others).

A child advocacy centre in Calgary was named after him last year. It is a not-for-profit organization located on the University of Calgary campus that helps victims of child abuse.

He went on to co-found an organization called the Respect Group, which has created a range of programs to combat bullying and abuse in sports organizations, schools and workplaces.

Kennedy, who briefly played for the Calgary Flames in the 1990s, makes public and media appearances across Canada and regularly expresses his support for the Harper government's criminal justice agenda.

Kennedy 'came out' at the end of 2 years with the Flames. His contract expired shortly thereafter and was not renewed. Kennedy played 310 regular season games in the NHL including a season with the Boston Bruins. Most of his games were with the Detroit Red Wings.

The one-time NHL player brought to light the sex crimes of his former junior hockey coach Graham James in 1997.

James has been convicted for sex assaults against four junior hockey players. He was recently convicted on a second set of charges and sentenced to five years behind bars. James will get out of prison under statutory release in the summer of 2015.

As Sheldon Kennedy said, this is a good start. I would hope and pray that other countries would take a look at this legislation to see if their own stands up to it. Please pray for expedient passage of this bill.


The legislation, tabled in the House of Commons Feb. 26, proposes the following:

Requiring those receiving separate sentences at the same time for contact child sexual offences against multiple children to serve their sentences consecutively — one after another.

Requiring those sentenced at the same time for child pornography offences and contact child sexual offences to serve their sentences consecutively.

Increasing maximum and minimum prison sentences for certain child sexual offences.

Increasing penalties for violations of release conditions and supervision orders.

Ensuring that a crime committed while on house arrest, parole, statutory release or unescorted temporary absence is an aggravating factor at sentencing.

Ensuring that spousal testimony is available in child pornography cases.

Requiring sex offenders to provide more information regarding travel abroad.

Enabling information sharing on certain registered sex offenders between officials responsible for the National Sex Offender Registry and at the Canada Border Services Agency.

Establishing a publicly-accessible database of high-risk child sex offenders who have been the subject of a public notification in a provincial/territorial jurisdiction.

Source: Department of Justice

Pope Francis Forms Commission to Study Child Sex Abuse Issues

In a post I wrote a few days ago, I asked the question, "what has it (the Catholic Church) done to address the systemic failures of priests and bishops, etc, to  protect children rather than abuse them? Is there a commission within the church studying this issue?"

Well, apparently, it has, as of Dec 5th, but it will probably not look into the issue of Bishops enabling pedophile priests to continue abusing children. Cardinal O'Malley states that the issue will be studied but not necessarily by this commission.

Despite the wagon circling policy that continues in the Vatican, I have some hope that much good will come from this and subsequent inquiries. Let's be in prayer for that very thing whether you are Catholic or not, there are a lot of children at risk.

(VATICAN CITY) — Pope Francis is assembling a panel of experts to advise him on sex abuse in the clergy — a task that will involve looking at how to protect children from pedophiles, how to better screen men for the priesthood and how to help victims who have already been harmed.

But it remains unclear if the experts will take up one of the core issues behind the Catholic Church’s sex abuse scandal: how to make bishops who shelter abusive priests accountable.

Cardinal Sean O’Malley, the archbishop of Boston, announced the creation of the commission Thursday at the conclusion of a meeting between Francis and his eight cardinal advisers who are helping him govern the church and reform the Vatican bureaucracy.

Cardinal Sean O'Malley

Boston was the epicenter of the 2002 clerical sexual abuse scandal in the U.S.

O’Malley told reporters that the commission, made up of international lay and religious experts on sex abuse, would study current programs to protect children, better screen priests, train church personnel and suggest new initiatives for both the Holy See to implement inside the Vatican City State and for bishops to implement around the world.

He said, to date, the Vatican’s involvement in the sex abuse crisis has been largely judicial in nature, with the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in 2001 taking over church trials for priests accused of raping and molesting children.

Now, he said, Francis wants input for a pastoral response, as well.

He said he didn’t know if the matter of bishop accountability would be undertaken by the new commission.

Advocates for victims of clerical abuse have long denounced the Vatican’s refusal to sanction bishops who shielded abusive priests and moved them from parish to parish rather than report them to police.

That practice, coupled with the church’s culture of secrecy and fear of scandal, enabled pedophiles to continue molesting children for decades while the Vatican turned a blind eye.

“Quite frankly that’s something that the church needs to address,” O’Malley said, when asked if the commission would take up the issue. “I’m not sure whether it will be this commission or the CDF (Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith) or the Congregation for Bishops.”

The commission was announced just days after the Vatican submitted its responses to a U.N. committee monitoring its implementation of the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child. The Vatican dodged many of the committee’s questions about sex abuse by arguing that it’s up to bishops and dioceses to implement programs to protect children, not the Holy See.

Asked about the seeming contradiction, O’Malley said competence for such issues still lies with local church leaders.


“The Holy See will try and help to identify best practices,” he said. “Certainly we hope that the Holy See will be able to model what those best practices are as a way of helping other dioceses and bishops conferences to have a response that is truly adequate and pastoral.”