A recent article in The Atlantic examined the connection between trauma and overworking. While every survivor of childhood sexual abuse is impacted differently, the effects are often long-lasting. Over the years, research has determined that survivors of childhood sexual abuse are at an increased risk for emotional, behavioral, and physical problems as adults. More recently, researchers have shown a potential connection between childhood abuse and overworking in adulthood. Some survivors have expressed using work as a coping mechanism. Being engrossed in work leaves little time to think about …
News & Events
Sad and unspeakable cases of child abuse come to our attention almost every day. It’s hard to avoid news such as former Penn State president Graham Spanier’s role in covering up the Jerry Sandusky scandal, child abuse in USA Gymnastics, and the dozens of clergy abuse victims in Guam. Here in Minnesota, we’ve just learned of charges against an Eagan daycare provider for allegedly assaulting a 13-month-old, and local news has brought stories of child sex abuse by teachers, bus drivers, clergy and Boy Scout leaders, among others over the past several months.The stories seem sadly inevitable and i…
The Archdiocese of New York announced that it will continue to voluntarily compensate some survivors of clerical sexual abuse – EVEN SURVIVORS WHO HAVE NOT COME FORWARD PREVIOUSLY.
In October of 2016, the Archdiocese of New York instituted a confidential compensation program. The program was initially available to only sexual abuse survivors who had previously reported the abuse they suffered to the Archdiocese. Now, the program has been extended to include sexual abuse survivors who have not previously reported to the Archdiocese. In other words, survivors who have been…
Yesterday, it was announced that for the first time ever known, a Catholic clergyman has been convicted of child sexual abuse in Mexico. Father Gerardo Silvestre Hernandez, a priest in the Archdiocese of Antequera Oaxaca, was sentenced to 16 years and 6 months in prison for plying child victims with alcohol, showing them pornographic films and then sexually abusing them. The National Catholic Reporter, reported Hernandez was arrested in 2013 and had been detained since then. According to World Religion News, 81% of Mexican adults are Catholic and Mexico has the second highest number of Catholi…
Recently, the Woodbury Police Department received a disturbing report of child sexual abuse involving a school bus aide from the South Washington County School District. Harvey Kneifl was charged with six (6) counts of Second Degree Sexual Assault involving the inappropriate touching of six (6) pre-school aged students after he was observed on video abusing the children on a school bus. As the Washington County Attorney stated, “What this defendant is alleged to have done is totally abhorrent to society.” Kneif’s actions are in stark contrast with what he was supposed to be doing and that’s pr…
Every morning as we prepare our children for another school day, we want to believe that the institution and teachers that work with our children have their best interests at heart. Unfortunately for several children at Lincoln Center Elementary in South St. Paul, this was not the case. Former teacher and trusted mentor, Aric Babbitt, preyed on the innocence and vulnerability of several students in the South St. Paul school district. Ten survivors have now come forward alleging sexual abuse by Babbitt and his husband Matthew Deyo. When a brave, young 16 year-old boy reported Babbitt and Deyo t…
In 2013 the Minnesota legislature passed the Child Victims Act. Since then, hundreds of sexual abuse survivors have stepped out of the shadows of secrecy, silence and shame, to seek justice for the abuse they suffered as children. Because of the Child Victims Act, at least 200 sexual predators were exposed to the public, making our communities safer for our children. In July 2013, The Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis released a list of 33 priests credibly accused of child sexual abuse. That list has more than doubled and now stands at 69 with more names to come. The Diocese of Duluth…
Today the Attorney General charged 3 priests of the Franciscan, Catholic Religious Order in connection with their role regarding notorious predator Fr. Stephen Baker. Religious Order Priests are associated with a particular Catholic Order (i.e. Franciscans) and can move more freely from Diocese to Diocese and Jurisdiction to Jurisdiction. This jurisdictional mobility allows Religious Order priests to likely be the most unreported group of clerical sexual abusers in existence. Often a particular Diocese claims to not have authority or information regarding a Religious Order..
A letter arrived at my house last week that, right away, caught my attention. Now I don’t know about you, but there’s something about an attorney’s return address on an envelope addressed to me that makes finding out what’s inside a lot more important than the latest missive from Publisher’s Clearinghouse. So I stood there, barely in the door, coat still on and read, “We are sending this letter to anyone who may have attended a parish or school in the Diocese of Winona …”The letter was from Jeff Anderson & Associates…
A letter arrived at my house last week that, right away, caught my attention. Now I don’t know about you, but there’s something about an attorney’s return address on an envelope addressed to me that makes finding out what’s inside a lot more important than the latest missive from Publisher’s Clearinghouse. So I stood there, barely in the door, coat still on and read, “We are sending this letter to anyone who may have attended a parish or school in the Diocese of Winona …”
The letter was from Jeff Anderson & Assoc…
The impact Spotlight has made on the child protection movement became
even more apparent yesterday when the movie won Best Original Screenplay
and Best Picture at the Academy Awards. This is in addition to several
other awards claimed by the movie this year. Based on a true story,
Spotlight portrays the Boston Globe’s uncovering of the clergy abuse
scandal in the early 2000s. It is a powerful film exposing the global
concealment and cover-up of sexual abuse by Catholic officials for
decades at the expense of children.
Spotlight, the movie directed by Thomas McCarthy, chronicles the investigation undertaken by a team of investigative reporters from the Boston Globe. Their investigation uncovered a decades long cover-up of sexually abusive priests by the Archdiocese of Boston. The passion and tenacity of not only the reporters but the others who had already been laboring against the injustice including attorneys, whistleblowing priests and the survivors themselves can be viscerally experienced by the audience. The movie is quite simply one of the most important and compelling films of our ti…
You may know of Ockham’s Razor, a principle developed by William of Ockham in the 14th century. He espoused simplicity of thought, that is, the simpler theory is more likely to be true. I take it as, “Ask the next, obvious, and simple question, and you will get to the truth.” The same goes for the Catholic clergy sex abuse crisis. My experience has shown me that in order to get to the root of the problem of the crisis, the best question is the simplest and the most obvious. Why? Because it opens up the most complex web of secrets. For the sake of argument and example, let’s look…
In recent days the Archbishop of Santiago Chile has refused to turn over documents to a Chilean civil court regarding Father Fernando Kardima’s sexual abuse of children. The Archbishop is attempting to invoke a doctrine of canonical or pontifical secrecy. By hiding behind the pontifical secret the Archbishop is clearing communicating that the reputation of the Hierarchy and individual clerics are more important than child safety.Pontifical secrecy in matters of child sexual abuse is an official policy of the Holy See. The reality is that the Archbishop is following the direct…
One of the most common questions we are asked in child protection is how many minors does a child molester sexually abuse in their lifetime?
In the case of Norbertine Father Reverend Brendan Smyth O. Praem, we have a glimpse into the mind, methods and devastating results from a Priest who was allowed by the Roman Catholic Hierarchy to decimate children in Northern Ireland, the Republic of Ireland, Scotland, Wales and the United States.
“Mr. Aiken said that Smyth was convicted of 117 cases of indecent assault against 41 children in the North and South. There were 74 convictions against …