A 52-year-old man who ruled “like a rock star” over a camp of “Maidens” in east-central Minnesota has been charged with sexually abusing at least two among several teenage girls while they lived for years apart from their families, authorities said Tuesday.Victor A. Barnard, who has yet to be apprehended but is believed to be in Washington state, was charged in Pine County last week with 59 counts of first-degree criminal sexual conduct after a Sheriff’s Office investigation that spanned years. His last known address was in Finlayson, Minn.Barnard abused the girls starting in 2000 while in a C…
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The Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis suffers from “serious shortcomings” in its handling of child sex-abuse complaints that have allowed priests to continue abusing victims, sometimes for years, a task force reported Monday.The solution, according to the church-ordered study, is to foster a culture that “places victims first” and creates more accountability by involving ordinary church members in the oversight and discipline of wayward clergy.“The Archdiocese concentrated too much power in one or two individuals to make decisions regarding allegations of clergy sexual abuse of minors,” …
K. Bernard Schade, the founder of the Singing Boys of Pennsylvania choir facing rape charges, had more than 1,100 pictures of child pornography stashed in two suitcases at his home and asked a neighbor to hide them knowing police would come looking for them, according to court records.Schade, 74, was awaiting a hearing on charges he allegedly raped a boy in 1996 and called his neighbor from Monroe County Correctional Facility, asking her to remove the two locked suitcases from his Middle Smithfield Township home and keep them in a safe place, according to court records.Schade told the neighbor…
NEW YORK (AP) — A second U.N. committee plans to question Vatican officials on failures to stop clergy sex abuse.The hearing scheduled for May 5-6 in Geneva will look at whether the Vatican’s record on child protection violates the U.N. Convention Against Torture. The Holy See ratified the treaty in 2002.Vatican spokesmen said Monday they could not immediately comment.Last January, Vatican officials testified for eight hours before an obscure human rights committee on the scale of clergy sex abuse globally.The Vatican was compelled to appear as a signatory to the U.N. Convention for the Rights…
NEW YORK (AP) — A second U.N. committee plans to question Vatican officials on failures to stop clergy sex abuse.The hearing scheduled for May 5-6 in Geneva will look at whether the Vatican’s record on child protection violates the U.N. Convention Against Torture. The Holy See ratified the treaty in 2002.Vatican spokesmen said Monday they could not immediately comment.Last January, Vatican officials testified for eight hours before an obscure human rights committee on the scale of clergy sex abuse globally.The Vatican was compelled to appear as a signatory to the U.N. Convention for the Rights…
Today, Vice News released the documentary Love Serve Surrender, a powerful film about the struggle of five boys in Hawaii to expose Jay Ram, the foster father who sexually abused them and more than two dozen more.If ever there were a case where moral value and public imperative are tantamount, this case is it.Throughout their adult lives, Jay’s adopted and foster sons climbed a mountain of adversity. They struggled with the shame and trauma of their abuse and their life with Jay on his Big Island farm. Then, when they were strong enough to try and protect other children, they were turned back …
(CNN) — Pope Francis made his strongest condemnation yet of sexual abuse by Catholic clergy on Friday, asking for forgiveness and pledging to impose penalties on “men of the church” who harm children.”I feel compelled to personally take on all the evil which some priests — quite a few in number, obviously not compared to the number of all the priests — to personally ask for forgiveness for the damage they have done for having sexually abused children,” the Pope said in remarks quoted by Vatican Radio.”The church is aware of this damage, it is personal, moral damage carried out by men of the…
Some have referred to it as “pass the trash”. Some have referred to it more diplomatically as the “geographic solution”. No matter what you call it, the practice is the same. When a cleric abuses a child, the cleric is simply relocated away from the problem to another location. In some cases the cleric is relocated to a neighboring parish and in some cases the cleric re-appears far away in another state or country.Recent information emerging from the Diocese of Scranton, Pennsylvania highlights the immense geographic barriers utilized by the Church worldwide to obscure …
(Honolulu, HI) – Less than three weeks before a legal deadline, a Honolulu man has come forward and filed a lawsuit charging that he was sexually abused by Catholic priests and a former Catholic bishop.The lawsuit, filed Friday, says that the victim, John Roe 27, was sexually abused at St. Stephen’s Seminary and Damien Memorial School. The boy was a 14-year-old student at St. Stephen’s in 1968 when Fr. William Queenan began …
News ReleaseApril 7, 2014
Sex
abuse lawsuit filed against diocese, former bishopNew Hawaii predator priest exposed
Deadline
to come forward, use courts is April 24
(Honolulu, HI) – Less than three weeks before a legal
deadline, a Honolulu man has come forward and filed a lawsuit charging that he
was sexually abused by Catholic priests and a former Catholic bishop.
The lawsuit, filed Friday, says that the victim, John Roe 27, was sexually
abused at St. Stephen’s Seminary and Damien Memorial School. The boy was a
14-year-old student at St. Stephen’s in 1968 when …
News ReleaseApril 7, 2014
Sex
abuse lawsuit filed against diocese, former bishopNew Hawaii predator priest exposed
Deadline
to come forward, use courts is April 24
(Honolulu, HI) – Less than three weeks before a legal
deadline, a Honolulu man has come forward and filed a lawsuit charging that he
was sexually abused by Catholic priests and a former Catholic bishop.
The lawsuit, filed Friday, says that the victim, John Roe 27, was sexually
abused at St. Stephen’s Seminary and Damien Memorial School. The boy was a
14-year-old student at St. Stephen’s in 1968 when …
The Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis said Thursday that it has contacted nearly 50 law enforcement agencies in the past two weeks to provide files on priests accused of child sexual abuse. However, none of 12 metro law enforcement agencies contacted by MPR News confirmed that the archdiocese had offered files to review.
Recent reports that a Twin Cities youth pastor was charged with trying to solicit nude photos from girls ages 13 to 15 via social media sites serve as a reminder that churches and other organizations that work with youth have a long way to go regarding protecting minors from adult predators.Matthew T. Boos, 24, of St. Louis Park, Minn., a youth pastor at River Valley Church in Savage, Minn., was charged Monday with two felonies related to soliciting sexual conduct with a minor via electronic communications. He allegedly posed as a 15-year-old girl on Facebook and other sites and solicited girls..
Newly released church documents involving clergy working in the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis describe one priest allegedly sexually abusing a brain-injured woman and another abusing a teenage boy who killed himself and his wife years later in a murder-suicide. The new details were revealed in a statement by the archdiocese late Monday as part of a lawsuit that is also compelling Archbishop John Nienstedt to testify under oath Wednesday about decades’ worth of alleged abuse. The archdiocese was ordered by a judge to disclose tens of thousands of pages of documents…
News ReleaseApril 1, 2014Judge Allows Unprecedented Legal Claims to Move Forward in Lawsuit Involving Father Curtis Wehmeyer Claims include nuisance and spoliation of evidence(St. Paul, MN) – Today, Ramsey County Judge John Van de North issued an Order allowing Doe 31, who was sexually abused by Father Curtis Wehmeyer, to move forward with legal claims for nuisance and spoliation and offered Doe 31 a chance to amend the complaint filed on January 30, 2014 to include additional details in support of false advertising and deceptive trade practices claims to demonstrate the Archdiocese…