George Pell: Pope Francis removes Australian cardinal from inner circle
Restructure of Council of Cardinals comes as Pell faces prosecution in Australia for historical sexual offences
via Melissa Davey
Pope Francis (left) with Cardinal George Pell, who he has removed from the Council of Cardinals as part of a restructure. Photograph: AP
Pope Francis has removed Australia’s most senior Catholic, Cardinal George Pell, from his inner circle in a restructure of his Council of Cardinals.
Pell’s position as the financial controller of the Vatican makes him the third most powerful person in the Vatican. He is facing prosecution in Australia for historical sexual offences and has taken leave from the position. Pell has strenuously denied the allegations.
The removal of Pell, 77, from the council does not necessarily affect his treasury position, which he technically still holds, and a Vatican spokesman would not comment further.
Two other council members – the newly retired archbishop Cardinal Laurent Monsengwo Pasinya of Kinshasa, 79, and Chile’s Francisco Errázuriz Ossa, 85, who has been accused of concealing abuse while archbishop of Santiago – were also removed from the group of nine on the council, which is known as C-9.
A Vatican spokesman said Francis had written to the prelates “thanking them for the work they have done over these past five years”.
A key role of C-9, formed in 2013, has been to reform the bureaucracy of the Vatican and determine its policies and missions going forward.
But Francis has been under increasing pressure to restructure C-9 in the wake of growing concerns about child sexual abuse and other scandals in the church, with many angered that men accused of serious offences were determining the future direction of the church. The fact many of C-9’s members are elderly has also been a concern.
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Brian Houston, the founder of the Hillsong Church, is under investigation by New South Wales police over his handling of the sex crimes committed by his father Frank Houston.
Frank Houston was a Pentecostal pioneer, a leading Assemblies of God pastor who preyed on young boys in Australia and New Zealand in the 1960s and 1970s.
The first allegations of Frank Houston’s pedophilia emerged in the late 1990s, when Brian Houston was the Australian National President of the Assemblies of God, part of the largest Pentecostal denomination in the world.
In 2014, Brian Houston gave evidence before the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sex Abuse, which later found he had failed to take the matter to the police and had a conflict of interest in dealing with the complaints against his father.
It has emerged that in the wake of the Royal Commission’s findings, NSW Police began looking into his handling of his father’s crimes, an investigation that was suspended because of lack of evidence.
A NSW police spokesman said the investigation has been reopened and is now “current and active”.
Last night on 60 Minutes, one of Frank Houston’s victims, Brett Sengstock, spoke for the first time of his abuse by Frank Houston as a seven-year-old boy and his ongoing quest for justice.
A key witness at the Royal Commission, where he was known only as ‘AHA’, Brett Sengstock gave up his anonymity to tell his story.
For more information on Brett Sengstock, click here.
To read a response to Royal Commission report – from Hillsong Church Board and Elders, please click here.
To watch ‘Crossing the Line’ in full, and for more on 60 Minutes, head to the official website.
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HE WAS a paedophile, a psychopath and a thief who despised women, had a fetish for children and a sneering hatred for the locals of the tiny community.
The creepy Father Peter Searson, who wore his yellow fingernails long and manicured, liked dressing up in an army uniform and carried a pistol he sometimes pointed at parishioners.
He stole $40,000 from the parish finances, killed or tortured animals in front of children and showed them a dead body in a coffin.
He got children to touch his penis, made them kneel between his legs, loitered around the children’s toilets and audio-taped primary schoolers in the confessional box when their admissions became “hot”.
Searson was the fifth child-molesting priest sent by the Catholic Church to the working class community of Doveton, 31km southeast of Melbourne.
With his four predecessors — Father Thomas O’Keeffe, Father Wilfred Baker, Father Victor Rubeo and another priest — Searson gave Doveton’s Catholic Holy Family congregation a 35 year period of sexual abuse.
But as letters from desperate locals show, it was Searson that tore Doveton apart.
Within just two years of his appoinment as parish priest, Doveton’s parishioners and parents were so desperate to rid their community of Searson’s vile presence, they mounted a petition to remove him.
Father Peter Searson (above) who wore his yellow fingernails long and manicured, carried a pistol and left a trail of broken lives in his wake.Source:Supplied
The Holy Family Church at Doveton where Searson abused children and tore the community apart with his divisive nature. Picture: GoogleSource:Supplied
This parent said she had taught her daughter to treat Father Searson as “Danger stranger” and asked what priest made children kneel between his legs and ask them about undressing. Picture: Royal Commission.Source:Supplied
One parent wrote to the church complaining that Searson had criticised mothers who worked and demoralised anyone who did not put $5 or $10 in the church plate weekly. Picture: Royal Commission.Source:Supplied
Dozens of handwritten notes and letters of complaint written to church authorities reveal shocking details of his abuse and Doveton locals’ anguish at his continuing presence.
The letters, tendered in evidence at the Royal Commission into Institutional Child Sex Abuse, lay bare a harrowing period in Doveton’s history.
But the letters and the petition were all in vain. Searson remained at Holy Family for 13 years until he was finally ousted for assaulting two boys.
By then, Searson’s sexual abuse and divisive nature had left a trail of broken lives.
Doveton was little more than two decades old when Searson arrived to lead the Holy Family church as its parish priest.
Established in the 1950s, the post World War II suburb was a disadvantaged, low socio-economic public housing estate settled by migrants.
It was on January 21, 1984, that Searson turned up at the church next door to Doveton’s Holy Family Primary School.
He already had a disgraceful record with children and a reputation for hating women.
Complaints about the then 61-year-old stretched back to when he had worked at the St Paul’s School for the Blind at Kew in Melbourne a decade before.
Peter Searson was the fifth paedophile sent to Doveton, following on from Victor Rubeo (right) pictured with one of his victims, Paul Hersbach.Source:Supplied
Paul Hersbach (above) in 2014 after giving evidence at the Royal Commission about how Father Rubeo molested both himself and his father. Picture: Alex Coppel.Source:News Corp Australia
Originally from Adelaide, and a latecomer to the priesthood, Searson received his first formal complaint of sexual abuse in 1974, 12 years after his ordination in Rome.
By 1978, he had been moved to Our Lady of Mount Carmel in the northwestern Melbourne suburb of Sunbury.
Apart from claims of sexual abuse, Searson caused “deep and bitter resentment … and hurt” among parishioners, according to a letter tendered at the royal commission.
Written by his assistant priest at Sunbury, Phil O’Donnell, to the Catholic Archbishop of Melbourne in 1982, it describes how Searson’s “utter humiliation of women has to be seen to be believed. He revels in reducing people to tears”.
Father O’Donnell said Searson had driven parishioners away with his open nastiness, had savaged normally “tough” parish nuns, making them cry, and launched bitter recriminations at members of the congregation he did not feel had put enough in the church plate.
A 1983 letter from the principal of St Anne’s Catholic School in Sunbury to the local bishop highlights a shortfall in a church loan.
Letter from parishioners to the Archbishop complaining that Searson had delivered a sermon on pornographySource:Supplied
“Made from the school’s Provident Fund in 1978 for a library and resources area, the loan was for $90,000 and the cost shown is only $57,927. I wonder what the balance was used for,” the principal wrote.
The headmaster at the next school Searson was to be transferred to, Graeme Sleeman, would later tell the church hierarchy he had proof that Searson had stolen $40,000 from school funds.
But Mr Sleeman’s pleas fell on deaf ears in the church hierarchy.
Searson’s transfer from Sunbury to Doveton set off a flurry of complaints.
One handwritten letter, from a group of parishioners, expressed their “disgust at the way” Searson had conducted a Mass for children taking their first communion. with a sermon “based on pornography/censorship”.
The litany of grievances about Searson include his abuse of the school’s tuckshop ladies, padlocking the school gates to keep children out, and punishing children if their parents lodged complaints.
Searson allowed his dog, Rex, described by one assistant priest as Searson’s “only friend”, to urinate and defecate around the tuckshop,
Searson had also “pointed a handgun at a couple” of parishioners and was “turning people, especially teenagers and children … away from the church”.
Two years after his arrival in Doveton, parishioners and parents petitioned for his removal, but they were to suffer his abuse for 11 more years. Picture: RC.Source:Supplied
Searson had also berated parishioners for not leaving at least $5 to $10 in the church plate because they were “not below the poverty line”.
And “people employed at the school have been threatened by Father with their jobs if they disagree with him”.
Letters between church and school officials note that when Searson was asked about complaints he demanded to know the names of the parents who had reported on him.
TAPING CONFESSIONS
In November 1985, Catholic nun Sister Joan Powell wrote to a church superior to complain that Father Searson was audio taping children’s confessions.
She wrote that Searson had told the Grade Five teacher that, referring to the children’s confessions “when it starts to hot up I’ll start the tape”.
Concerns were raised about Father Searson’s behaviour. Picture: Royal Commission.Source:Supplied
In the letter to Father Doyle, Sister Powell wrote: “There is one girl in the Grade 5 class whose parents have already asked that their daughter not go to Fr. Season for confession because she was so upset after Father made her kneel between his knees.
“Two other girls in the class do everything possible to avoid F. Searson as he always cuddles them.”
The letters regarding Searson show the distress parents felt at his insulting snobbery — like the family he told them their house “wasn’t good enough” for a home mass because it didn’t have carpet — to their despair when the church did nothing about his sexual abuse.
Parent’s letter to the Vicar General of the Catholic Church complaining about Searson’s sexual abuse of young girls during reconciliation.Source:Supplied
Written to the Archbishop, bishops, the Vicar General of the Church, they complain about Searson holding hands with children during confession, and asking young girls is “they looked at themselves when undressing”.
Many letters declare that both teachers and parents had advised children not to go alone to Father Searson’s office.
In July, 1987, schoolteacher Faye Chandley wrote a file note about a pupil who had “asked to leave classroom and speak with me” and had “sat in chair shaking and crying too ashamed to tell about what had happened to her”.
The girl, named Julie Stewart would later give evidence to the Royal Commission about what Searson had done to her as third-grader.
In Faye Chandley’s note, Julie tells her about Searson coercing her with dolls and wanting to “put his penis at the top of her thighs … talked of ejaculation — white stuff came out — wanted her to hold his penis”.
The abuse “went on for a couple of years” and caused problems for Julie at home.
Ms Stewart told the Royal Commission that Searson would force her to sit on his lap during confession and indecently assault her.
“He would say to me: ‘Do you love father?’ And I said ‘yes’. He would ask me to kiss him on the lips. I did,” she told the inquiry.
During her last confession she said Searson lifted her onto his lap and pushed her against his erect penis.
Note by teacher Faye Chandley about Julie Stewart confessing that Searson had sexually molested her during confession.Source:Supplied
Julie Stewart was molested as a nine-year-old by Father Searson told her ‘the Lord forgives you’. Picture: ABC TV.Source:ABC
List of grievances by teachers and parents against Father Peter Searson when he worked at Holy Family Catholic Church in Doveton. Picture: Royal Commission.Source:Supplied
“He whispered in my ear: ‘You are a good girl. The Lord forgives you’.”
The nine-year-old snapped and ran screaming out of the confessional and was taken to the principal, Graeme Sleeman’s office.
Mr Sleeman, who also gave evidence at the inquiry, told how he resigned his post in 1986 at the school because of the abuse.
Parents launched a petition to get him back and to try and oust Searson, but nothing happened.
Searson would also belittle parents born abroad whose English was not up to his standard.
He also regularly made statements in his homilies saying that children whose mothers didn’t work should feel loved, while those who had working mothers must “feel unwanted”.
Despite the torrent of letters to Catholic leaders in Victoria, Searson endured at Doveton until March 14, 1997.
He was removed for an accusation of physical rather than sexual assault against boys.
Ms Stewart attempted suicide as a teenager, and received a $25,000 payment from the church which she said just “retraumatised” her.
The church paid a total of $291,000 to three of Searson’s victims via the Melbourne Response program.
Peter Searson died in 2009 before facing any child sex charges. One bishop and 15 priests paid their respects at his funeral in Melbourne.
Inside extremist Christian sect the Exclusive Brethren – who are accused of covering up child sex abuse and ‘making secret donations to the Liberal Party
Exclusive Brethren is a Protestant sect with 15,000 Australian members
Reports have surfaced they covered up child sex abuse in regional NSW
Said to pressure their young female out of exposing the abuse
Group also made $67,000 donations to the Liberal Party in December 2010
By Nelson Groom
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Harrowing revelations of child abuse have come to light about the Australian branch of an extremist Christian sect known as the Exclusive Brethren.
A Sydney Morning Herald report has told of the sordid inner workings of the group, who are believed to cover up cases of child sex abuse as well as make secret donations to the Liberal Party.
An unnamed young victim from regional NSW claimed she revealed to her mother she was being molested by a high-ranking church member before being pressured out of exposing the abuse.
A Christian sect known as the Exclusive Brethren is said to be covering up cases of child sex abuse in Australia
The victim’s mother took the girl to the house of Lindsay Jensen – who was allegedly abusing her – in mid-2002.
After a thorough interrogation from Mr Jensen she signed a note saying she had lied about the abuse.
‘I have always thought of the relationship between Lindsay and I as a father/daughter relationship…And I was glad for it because I needed some sort of father,’ she wrote in the note.
‘The things that I said that happened, I don’t believe they happened at all.’
The girl’s sister later claimed she too was abused by Mr Jensen, before being subjected to the same silencing tactics.
A recent study from UK psychologist Jill Mytton found 27 per cent of 264 former members reported being sexually abused as children.
An unnamed young victim from regional NSW was said to be pressured her out of exposing the abuse she suffered from highly-ranking members of the sect
Also recently coming to light are secret donations the group has made to the Liberal Party, reports Sydney Morning Herald.
Dozens of members of the group donated more than $67,000 to the Liberal Party in December 2010.
The donations were exposed in documents at the NSW Independent Commission Against Corruption during an investigation into the Liberal Party’s funding.
Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull insisted on Saturday he had ‘no complaints’ about the Exclusive Brethren, after the group’s donations were made public.
Mr Turnbull told reporters in Melbourne on Saturday religious groups were entitled to donate, while insisting the coalition was being ‘massively outspent’ by Labor.
The Exclusive Brethren was thrust into the spotlight in 2006 after they dedicated $370,461 to contribute to the 2004 election on behalf of John Howard, whom they were closely aligned with.
The sect, who have since renamed themselves the Plymouth Brethren Christian Church, is a Protestant sect of 40,000 worldwide members and 15,000 in Australia
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Jewish Sex Abuse Victim From New Square Speaks Out
Jewish religious community defends a paedophile.
Says that ‘he is the best’ and ‘a nice guy’.
Still working with the kids.
Yossi, who prefers to use only his first name, says he wants to speak out about his ordeal in the hope that other victims of abuse will come forward. (8/29/13)
NEW SQUARE – A shroud of secrecy surrounds the ultra-Orthodox Jewish community of New Square. Many of the residents shun the outside world and keep to themselves.
However, a sex abuse victim from the community has spoken exclusively to News 12.
Yossi, who prefers to use only his first name, says he wants to speak out about his ordeal in the hope that other victims of abuse will come forward.
Yossi claims that Herschel Taubenfeld, a teacher in his community, inappropriately touched him three times a week for four months.
The teen asked for help from the head rabbis of New Square who had just set up their own sex crimes unit called the VAAD. The agency told him to see a therapist.
Two months later, Yossi reported the abuse to the Ramapo police. He says that his friends stopped talking to him and treated him like he didn’t exist.
Yossi says his attacker admitted to the crimes, but religious leaders in the community sent Taubenfeld to Israel to obtain his rabbinical ordination. He also says he was offered $100,000 to keep quiet about the situation, which he refused.
In December 2011, one month after Yossi reported the abuse, Taubenfeld turned himself in. He was charged with 30 misdemeanor counts of forcible touching, endangering the welfare of a child and third-degree sex abuse. However, the rabbi avoided jail time in exchange for six years probation.
According to students, Taubenfeld is still teaching at one of New Square’s largest religious schools.
Disturbing, Horrific Video Of Camp Dora Golding Child Sex Abuse
Disturbing video allegedly showing Chisdai Ben Porat, a counselor at camp Dora Golding in Pennsylvania, has been posted online.
While there is no nudity in this very brief video clip, it is still extremely disturbing and should not be watched by or shown to anyone who may be hurt by watching it. Survivors of child sex abuse should use extreme caution.
Last updated at 7:40 pm CST
The video runs 44 seconds, is profoundly revolting and disturbing, and is, I’m told, only a small excerpt from what is a much longer and even more disturbing video that cannot be posted.
This is the child sex abuse Camp Dora Golding’s head, Alex Gold, is allegedly covering up – the very same child sex abuse Pennsylvania State Police and local prosecutors have so far done little to stop or punish – even though they allegedly have a copy of this video:
Disturbing video allegedly showing Chisdai Ben Porat, a counselor at camp Dora Golding in Pennsylvania, has been posted online.
While there is no nudity in this very brief video clip, it is still extremely disturbing and should not be watched by or shown to anyone who may be hurt by watching it. Survivors of child sex abuse should use extreme caution.
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