News Story of the Day

By David Blevins, Ireland Correspondent, January 20, 2017, Sky News

Children were abused at the notorious Kincora boys' home in Belfast, but claims British intelligence covered it up are rejected.

An inquiry into historical abuse in Northern Ireland has found systematic failings in the care of children in institutions and recommended compensation.

By Christy Gutowski, January 17, 2017, Chicago Tribune

Standing before parishioners in his historic Joliet church, the Rev. Peter Jankowski said years of internal conflict had brought him to this difficult moment. In an emotional homily, the parish priest publicly blew the whistle on his diocese for alleged past failures that he said put children at potential risk.

Jankowski delivered the homily three times two Sundays ago, including once in Spanish for his multicultural congregation. Before he left the pulpit, he asked members at St. Patrick's Catholic Church to pray for him as he embarks on a public crusade — including a direct appeal to Pope Francis.

By Craig Malisow, January 17, 2017, Houston Press

On the phone, the former Houston priest didn’t recognize the name of the 13-year-old boy he molested in 1978.

So much time has passed since that third encounter with the boy, in the Town & Country Village movie theater in Memorial City, where the priest slid his hand into the boy’s jeans and masturbated him. It’s hard to keep track of these things, and besides, the priest says, it’s old news.

BY NIKKI DUBOSE, NEW YORK DAILY NEWS, Sunday, January 15, 2017

After failing to change the law last year, New York State is set once again to consider doing away with the statute of limitations on prosecuting sex crimes against children — this time with Gov. Cuomo hopefully leading the reform charge against a likely intransigent state Senate.

Under current statutes, a victim must seek justice in criminal or civil court by her 23rd birthday, or she loses the opportunity to do so forever.

By Alene Tchekmedyian, January 10, 2016, Los Angeles Times

A California appeals court has affirmed a judge’s decision to throw out a lawsuit challenging a state law requiring therapists to report patients who admit to viewing child pornography to the police, capping a two-year legal battle over patient privacy rights. 

Two therapists and a substance abuse counselor who treat sexual addiction sued the state in 2015, arguing that changes to the Child Abuse and Neglect Reporting Act violate a patient’s constitutionally protected right to privacy and deter them from getting help.

By Michael Abrahams, January 9, 2017, The Gleaner

The recent case of a 64-year-old Moravian pastor charged with having sex with a minor is cause for great concern. According to police reports, about 9 p.m. on Wednesday, December 28, 2016, a motorised police patrol in the deep rural community of Austin in Myersville, south-east St Elizabeth, came upon a parked car in a secluded area.

It was reported that the pastor was found in a “compromising position” with a 15-year-old girl. They were taken to the Black River Police Station, where the pastor was charged with having sex with a girl under the age of 16 years.

By Jordan Frias, January 7, 2017, Spare Change News

Fifteen years after the Boston Globe’s Spotlight series uncovered the widespread sexual abuse of Catholic priest — and more than a year after it became a highly acclaimed film on the big screen — the issue of priest molesting children still exists throughout Massachusetts and worldwide.

Attorney Mitchell Garabedian and members of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP) held a press conference to shed light on the Catholic church’s lack of transparency and cooperation in dealing with these cases and more recent accusations of abuse.

By Tom Nugent, January 8, 2017, Inside Baltimore

January 2017 – A woman who 24 years ago tried to warn the Catholic Church in Maryland that a priest had shown her the body of a murdered teaching nun recently earned a $50,000 settlement from the Archdiocese of Baltimore (AOB) for clergy sexual-abuse “injuries” she reportedly received while attending a Baltimore girls’ Catholic high school in the late 1960s.

The mediated settlement marked the latest startling development in one of the most tangled and perplexing homicide “cold cases” in Maryland history . . . the 1969 slaying of a 26-year-old teaching nun, Sister Catherine Cesnik, who reportedly had been trying to blow the whistle on widespread sexual abuse by two priests at Archbishop Keough High School in southwest Baltimore.

BY BEN WINSLOW, JANUARY 5, 2017, Fox13Now

SALT LAKE CITY -- Lawyers for a group of people suing The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints over accusations of sex abuse have renewed a deposition subpoena for President Thomas S. Monson.

They want the 89-year-old leader of the LDS Church to sit for a deposition and answer what -- if anything -- he knows about accusations of sexual abuse dating back to the 1960s and '70s in a church-run program on the Navajo reservation.

By Associated Press, January 5, 2017, Washington Times

ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) - New York lawmakers will again face a proposal this year to lift the statute of limitations on sex abuse crimes.

Supporters of the bill gathered at the state Capitol on Wednesday to urge lawmakers to pass the bill, which has faced repeated obstacles in the Legislature.