Issue 142 – September 2018

S.M.A.R.T.
(Stop Mind control And Ritual abuse Today)
P. O Box 1295, Easthampton, MA 01027-1295 USA E-mail: SMARTNEWS@aol.com
Home page: https://ritualabuse.us/

Issue 142 – September 2018

The purpose of this newsletter is to help stop secretive organizations and groups from abusing others and to help those who allege they have been abused by such organizations and groups. This newsletter is not a substitute for other ways of recovering from ritual abuse. Readers should use caution while reading this newsletter. If necessary, make sure other support systems are available during and after reading this newsletter.

Important:
The resources mentioned in this newsletter are for educational value only. Reading the books cited may or may not help your recovery process, so use caution when reading any book or contacting any resource mentioned in this newsletter. Some may have a religious or other agenda that may be separate from your own recovery process. Others may have valuable information on secretive organizations, but have triggers or be somewhat sympathetic to those organizations. Unless explicitly stated otherwise, the views expressed in this newsletter constitute expressions of opinion, and readers are cautioned to form their own opinions and draw their own conclusions by consulting a variety of sources, including this newsletter. Resources listed, quoted and individual articles, etc. and their writers do not necessarily support all or any of the views mentioned in this newsletter. Also, the views, facts and opinions mentioned in this newsletter are solely the opinions of the authors and are not necessarily the opinions of this newsletter or its editor.
Copyright 2018 – All rights reserved. No reproduction of any material without written permission from the editor and individual authors.

This issue includes information on: Ritual Abuse, Child Abuse Wiki, http://childabusewiki.org/index.php?title=Ritual_Abuse, Ritual Abuse and Mind Control Conference, https://ritualabuse.us, Randy Noblitt, Severe Abuse, Child Abuse Crimes, Neil Brick, Organised Abuse in the UK Conference 2018, Laurie Matthew, Eighteen And Under, Izzy’s Promise, Sarah Nelson, Joseph Lumbasi, Izzy’s Promise, Myth of the Satanic Panic, backlash, sexual harassment, rape, Cult and Ritual Abuse, Satanic ritual killing, sacrifice, Teodora Quispe Ccayllahua, escabroso ritual satánico, Diablo, Larry Nassar, Michigan State, Nxivm Sex-Trafficking Case, Clare Bronfman, pyramid scheme, cult, Keith Raniere, sexual slavery, sex trafficking, Backpage.com, Mike Lacey, John Brunst, pedophiles, darknet, pedophile ring, forced prostitution, religious ritual, Siraj Ibn Wahhaj, demonic spirits, 1000 victims of priest abuse, Roman Catholic priests, systematic cover-up by senior church officials, Vatican, Cardinal Donald Wuerl, Edward Ganster, predator priests, I Am a Killer Interviews, Miguel Martinez, Miguel Venegas, Satan, Maryland private school, Key School in Annapolis Maryland, St. Paul’s School, Nuns charged in Smyllum Park child abuse investigation, satanic rituals, Daughters of Charity of St Vincent de Paul, Sisters of Nazareth, St. Joseph’s orphanage, Pope Francis, CIA Mind Control, CIA Secret Cold War, CIA Secret Experiments, Ewen Cameron, Clergy abuse survivors, statute of limitations

Ritual Abuse – Child Abuse Wiki Ritual abuse exists all over the world. There have been reports, journal articles, web pages and criminal convictions of crimes against children and adults. http://childabusewiki.org/index.php?title=Ritual_Abuse

The 2018 Annual Ritual Abuse, Secretive Organizations and Mind Control Conference https://ritualabuse.us/smart-conference/2018-conference/ 
The Credibility of Ritual Abuse Allegations Presenter: Randy Noblitt, PhD Synopsis: To what extent do mental health and other helping professionals believe the stories of ritual abuse survivors? This presentation systematically reviews the empirical research on the credibility of ritual abuse allegations. After presenting the findings there will be a discussion that welcomes the opinions of the attendees regarding their own conclusions including considerations of the community standard, professional ethics, related forensic questions, and advocacy for extreme abuse survivors.

Randy Noblitt, PhD, is a clinical psychologist (licensed in Texas) and professor of clinical psychology at the California School of Professional Psychology at the California School of Professional Psychology at Alliant International University, Los Angeles. In the course of his practice, Randy has treated more than 300 individuals who met the criteria for dissociative identity disorder. He is the principle author of Cult and Ritual Abuse: Its History, Anthropology and Recent Discovery in Contemporary America (Praeger, 1995. 2000), and its third edition, Cult and Ritual Abuse: Narratives, Evidence and Healing Approaches (Praeger, 2014). He is also co-editor and contributing author of the book, Ritual Abuse in the 21st Century: Psychological, Forensic, Social and Political Considerations (Robert Reed, 2008). https://ritualabuse.us/smart-conference/2018-conference/the-credibility-of-ritual-abuse-allegations/

Changes in Awareness of Severe Abuse and Child Abuse Crimes Over Twenty Five Years Presenter: Neil Brick
The awareness of severe abuse and child abuse crimes has changed over the last 25 years. In the early 1990s, severe abuse survivors were often believed and supported. Then a backlash started and severe abuse survivors and their supporters were harassed and attacked. The child abuse survivor movement changed and adapted. Ten years ago, research began again to help expose severe abuse crimes. More recently, first in the UK and Australia and now in the United States, a variety of child abuse, severe abuse, sexual harassment and rape cases are bringing public awareness again to the mainstream media of severe abuse crimes. This presentation will discuss the changes of the last 25 years, with an emphasis on the more recent exposures of organized child abuse crimes and social systems that have been part of the cover up of these crimes.
Neil Brick is a survivor of ritual abuse and mind control. His work continues to educate the public about child abuse, trauma and ritual abuse crimes. His child abuse and ritual abuse newsletter S.M.A.R.T. https://ritualabuse.us has been published for over 22 years. http://neilbrick.com
https://ritualabuse.us/smart-conference/2018-conference/changes-in-awareness-of-severe-abuse-and-child-abuse-crimes-over-twenty-five-years/

Child and Ritual Abuse Conference Helps Educate Survivors and Their Helpers; Speakers included Dr. Randy Noblitt and Neil Brick
Child and Ritual Abuse Conference Speakers Included:
• Dr. Randall Noblitt • Neil Brick
• Jillian Jackson • Manjot Singh Khalsa
• Mike Skinner – Musician
https://www.webwire.com/ViewPressRel.asp?aId=227656

Organised Abuse in the UK Conference 2018
Wednesday 7th November 2018
Venue: Tayside Deaf Hub, The Old Mill, 23 Brown St, Dundee DD1 5EF
Time: 9:00am – 5:00pm
Book Your Place at https://www.ticketsource.co.uk/izzys-promise
Speakers
Laurie Matthew, OBE, – Founder and Executive Manager for Eighteen And Under, Izzy’s Promise and a host of other organisations all aimed at supporting survivors of abuse and prevention of abuse.
Sarah Nelson – Universities of Edinburgh and Dundee, has written and presented widely for decades on sexual abuse issues. Her research includes the voices of young survivors, critiques of current child protection systems, backlash theories, community prevention, and physical and mental health issues for survivors. She is author of Tackling Child Sexual Abuse: Radical Approaches (2016)
Joseph Lumbasi (PhD Student) – Manager of Izzy’s Promise.
Matt Carey (with Sarah Paton Briggs) survivor and author

Conference Topics
Empowering Survivors
The importance of listening to what survivors tell us: recent research and stories from survivors.
The Myth of the Satanic Panic
Evidence of ritual abuse was dismissed as a “satanic panic”, and this propagandistic theory remains widespread and influential today. Sarah Nelson analyses numerous flaws in the theory, as part of lies and deception in the backlash.
How Online Support Spaces are viewed and experienced by Ritual Abuse Survivors
Describing an ongoing PhD research project.
A Small Boy Smiling
A remarkable journey of healing from the trauma of child sexual abuse to spiritual awakening. In his new book, Matt Carey tells a remarkable story of survival and overcoming the trauma, guilt and shame of childhood sexual abuse, teenage alcoholism, sexual anorexia, and post-traumatic stress disorder. His lifelong search for peace, love and healing culminates in personal spiritual awakening and a desire to help other survivors of sexual abuse to discover their own healing.

‘Satanic ritual’ killing: Siblings ‘sacrifice elderly mum to devil’ and ‘bathe in her blood’ after gruesome murder
WARNING: GRAPHIC CONTENT: One of Teodora Quispe Ccayllahua’s children allegedly claimed the “master of darkness” ordered her to kill the 75-year-old By Matt Roper 18 JUL 2018
Three siblings murdered their elderly mother after gouging out her eyes and cutting out her intestines in a horrific satanic ritual, police claim.
The mutilated body of Teodora Quispe Ccayllahua, 75, was found by police after one of her children allegedly claimed the “master of darkness” ordered the killing. The trip is accused of dumping the pensioner’s remains in a pond and bathing in her blood.

The victim’s youngest child allegedly told detectives that she was “chosen” to carry out the sacrifice during a strange dream and convinced her two siblings to murder their mother….
Her three children, Aurelia Quispe, 38, Percy Quispe, 41 and Marcelina Suane, 46, were later caught by National Police officers and have allegedly confessed to the murder. According to police, the siblings conspired together to kill their mother on Saturday night in a grotesque healing ritual in which a loved one needed to be sacrificed to the devil….
Aurelia, described by police as the ringleader, allegedly said at the moment she was arrested: “The master of darkness ordered me, the king of demons is already with us, we are more and every day we will become bigger.”…
Locals claimed that satanic sects operating in remote areas of the Santa Cruz province are known to practise such gruesome rituals, promising cures, success and financial gain…. https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/satanic-ritual-killing-siblings-sacrifice-12939025

Perú: hijos matan a su madre en escabroso ritual satánico Julio 18, 2018 Perú.- El cadáver sin vísceras ni ojos de una mujer, que presuntamente pereció un rituales satánicos, fue hallado en el distrito de Vinchos, en el departamento peruano de Ayacucho, en el centrosur del país.
Se trata de Teodora Quispe Ccayllahua, de 74 años, quien presuntamente fue asesinada por sus hijos, Aurelia Condori Quispe, en compañía de Percy Condori y Marcelina Quispe Sauñe, recoge Jornada.

La terrible muerte ocurrió en Andabamba-Paccha, en el distrito de Vinchos. Una de sus hijas le extirpó las vísceras, que fueron halladas en un canal de riego de la zona. Posteriormente confesó a la Policía que cometió el crimen porque la víctima “iba a dar a luz un hijo del Diablo”, recoge América Noticias.
Aurelia Condori supuestamente dirigió el ritual satánico y ofreció a su progenitora como “ofrenda” con la creencia de que posteriormente resucitaría. Según Ojo, la mujer habría indicado que se encontraba poseída al participar en el horrendo hecho….
http://www.cdn.com.do/2018/07/18/peru-hijos-matan-madre-escabroso-ritual-satanico/

‘I Am a Killer’ Interviews Miguel Martinez and Miguel Venegas About Their Roles in Satanic Murders August 07, 2018
The killings were barbaric, and yet the killers were so young that for years the courts argued about whether they’d been boys or men.
In 1991, Miguel Angel Martinez,17, Manuel “Milo” Flores,17, and Miguel Angel Venegas, Jr.,16, each played a role in a triple axe-and-knife murder that rocked the small city of Laredo, Texas….
But things changed when Venegas was added to the group dynamic, Martinez asserts. According to Martinez, Venegas “insisted on doing some damage,” which is why the group took an axe, a baseball bat and several knives to the scene—all weapons procured from the Flores residence.

After arriving at the scene, Venegas initially went to scope out the house and saw that it wasn’t empty. At that point he was the one who called for an escalation to violence, according to Martinez.
“He was on a mission, and it was not to go steal anything…to him, he was on a mission for Satan. Satan wanted their souls.”….
But Venegas remembers the buildup to the slayings differently. According to him, it had been Flores’s idea to bring weapons, not his own. He further claims that even before they’d gone to the house, the topic of killing had come up, with his cohort daring him to kill.
“I come from a machista culture,” says Venegas. “A dare is a dare.”
Venegas admitted to the idea that he felt under control of Satan, noting that he’d felt under the influence of the Devil as a child. At age 8 he would fill jars with black widow spiders, dump them on his chest, then revel in the lack of bites he’d suffer, seeing it as proof of his dominion over the underworld.

On the night of the murders, Venegas said he got further proof of his Satan connection when his first victim woke up before the attack, looked at him, then went back to sleep.
“I’m thinking to myself, ‘The devil’s got my back.’” And there was no way he and Martinez could back out of the murders, either. Venegas told Martinez, “Satan wants their souls.”….
https://www.aetv.com/real-crime/i-am-a-killer-miguel-martinez-miguel-venegas-texas-murders-satanic

CIA Mind Control | CIA Secret Experiments National Geographic
During the Cold War, the CIA launched a highly classified program aimed at mastering the art of mind control. CIA Secret Experiments – Information on Ewen Cameron https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NUW-frxo2X4

Larry Nassar Set To Appeal Sexual Abuse Case Sentence
By Scooby Axson July 25, 2018
Attorneys for convicted sex abuser Larry Nassar filed two motions challenging the sentence he received earlier this year for sexual assault, according to multiple media reports.
A notice of hearings is scheduled for August 22, according to the report. Nassar, a former Michigan State and USA gymnastics doctor, was sentenced up to 175 years on Michigan state charges of sexual assault, to go along with a sentence of 40 to 125 years in prison on three counts of sexual assault. He also recieved a 60–year sentence on federal child-pornography charges.

Nassar’s state appellate defense attorneys filed the motions in Ingham County Court in Michigan and want Nassar’s sentence thrown out so he can be re-sentenced.
His attorneys also want Judge Rosemarie Aquilina to be removed from the case, calling her an “admittedly not an unbiased and impartial judge.”….
More than 300 women have said they were sexually assaulted by Nassar, including 156 women and girls who give victim-impact statements during the sentencing phase of his trial in Ingham County.

Michigan State has agreed to pay out $500 million in settlements Nassar abuse victims and multiple victims have sued Nassar, alleging that USA Gymnastics failed to act on the abuse claims and failed to notify the U.S. Olympic Committee, Michigan State University, and law enforcement….
https://www.si.com/olympics/2018/07/25/larry-nassar-sex-abuse-convictions-appeal

Seagram’s Liquor Heiress Charged in Nxivm Sex-Trafficking Case
By Sean Piccoli July 24, 2018
Clare Bronfman, an heiress to the Seagram’s liquor fortune, pleaded not guilty on Tuesday in federal court in Brooklyn after her arrest on conspiracy and racketeering charges in connection with her role at Nxivm, a self-help group that prosecutors call a pyramid scheme and former members say is a cult.
Ms. Bronfman was one of four people arrested in New York State on Tuesday after the unsealing of an updated seven-count indictment against Keith Raniere, leader of the now defunct-group, and five others in his “inner circle,” federal prosecutors said in the indictment.

Mr. Raniere, 57, was arrested earlier this year in Mexico and brought to New York to face federal sex-trafficking charges. Prosecutors said he and one of his followers, Allison Mack, 35, an actress known for her work in “Smallville,” coerced female members to have unwanted sex with him and branded them with a symbol containing his initials. Mr. Raniere is being held without bail in Brooklyn to await trial….
Past defenders — including Ms. Bronfman, in an internet post last year — called the group a dynamic self-improvement and fellowship organization. But prosecutors maintain it was a moneymaking criminal enterprise that relied on theft, intimidation and coercion to stay afloat, even as it forced some recruits into sexual slavery.
The updated indictment charges the six defendants with money laundering, extortion, obstruction of justice, forced labor, sex trafficking, identity theft and harboring of undocumented immigrants…..
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/24/nyregion/nxivm-arrest-seagram-heiress.html

Backpage.com founder and CEO face new charges Associated Press July 27, 2018 PHOENIX — A new indictment in Arizona against operators of Backpage.com alleges the classified ad site gave free ads to prostitutes and cultivated arrangements with others who worked in the sex trade to get them to post ads with the company.
The indictment filed Wednesday repeats allegations in an initial round of charges and adds six new money laundering charges against founder Mike Lacey and 50 charges of facilitating prostitution against chief financial officer John Brunst.

A total of seven people were charged in an indictment in late March alleging the site ignored warnings to stop running prostitution ads, sometimes involving children, after the site brought in $500 million of prostitution-related revenue since its inception in 2004.
The new indictment said Backpage.com employees would identify prostitutes through Google searches then call and offer them a free ad. It says the company used the strategy in Nashville and other cities and planned to expand such efforts in Los Angeles and New York.

The document also said the classified site had a business arrangement in which it would place ads on another site that lets customers post reviews of their experiences with prostitutes.
Backpage.com is a Dutch-owned limited liability corporation. Its principal place of business is in Dallas and federal officials say it keeps its bank accounts and servers in Arizona.
Prosecutors say Backpage.com was warned by an internet safety firm in April 2011 about the phrase “New In Town.” a code term used by pimps who shuttle children to locations where they don’t know anyone and can’t get help. “Nevertheless, Backpage continued for the next seven years to permit ads using the phrase ‘New In Town’ to be published on its website,” the indictment said.
All seven defendants have previously pleaded not guilty to the charges….
https://edmontonsun.com/news/crime/backpage-com-founder-and-ceo-face-new-charges/wcm/07104bbc-903b-4148-8701-8f6d1375315f

German mother jailed for prostituting young son online
A German woman and her partner have been jailed after pimping out a boy to pedophiles they found online. Investigators say it’s one of the most horrific child abuse cases they’ve ever seen.
A court in southwestern Germany on Tuesday sentenced a 48-year-old woman to 12 and a half years in prison for offering her son, now 10, up for sex on the darknet in exchange for payment. The woman’s 39-year-old partner was given a 12-year sentence followed by preventive detention.
They were the main suspects in a pedophile ring that operated out of Staufen, near the city of Freiburg. The couple — named as Berrin T. and Christian L. — both confessed not only to pimping the victim out to a number of men, but also to carrying out abuse themselves.

Details of the case
Investigators charged Berrin T. and her boyfriend with nearly 60 acts, including forced prostitution, verbal intimidation and abuse, extreme humiliation, physical bondage and rape.
They say the couple allowed a number of foreign and local men they found on the darknet to rape and abuse the boy over a two-year period until September 2017 in exchange for thousands of euros.
Video recordings of many of the crimes were traded online, some of them showing the boy masked and tied up. Police uncovered the pedophile ring in September 2017 after an anonymous tipoff. Officers arrested eight suspects including Berrin T. and her partner, who has a previous child abuse conviction. Three German men, one Swiss national and a Spanish citizen have so far been sentenced to prison terms ranging from eight to 10 years….
https://www.dw.com/en/german-mother-jailed-for-prostituting-young-son-online/a-44978403

Boy found at New Mexico compound died in religious ritual, officials say
Monday, August 13th 2018 AMALIA, N.M. — New details emerged Monday about the fate of one of the children found at a New Mexico desert compound raided by police 10 days ago. It came at a court hearing for five adults arrested on charges of abusing 11 other children at the compound.
At the bond hearing for Siraj Ibn Wahhaj and four others, prosecutors presented a disturbing update about his son, 3-year-old Abdul Ghani, whose body was found buried on an apocalyptic-looking compound authorities raided last week. Other children found there told investigators the boy died during a religious ritual.
“Some of the children have stated these rituals were intended to cast out demonic spirits from Abdul Ghani’s body. All five defendants knew about these rituals,'” said Taos County Prosecutor John Lovelace….
http://www.ktva.com/story/38876582/boy-found-at-new-mexico-compound-died-in-religious-ritual-officials-say

Grand jury report identifies over 1,000 victims of priest abuse
Tuesday, August 14th 2018
HARRISBURG, Pa. — More than 1,000 children — and possibly many more — were molested by hundreds of Roman Catholic priests in six Pennsylvania dioceses, while senior church officials took steps to cover it up, according to a landmark grand jury report released Tuesday.
The grand jury said it believes the “real number” of abused children might be “in the thousands” since some records were lost and victims were afraid to come forward. The report said more than 300 clergy committed the abuse over a period of decades.
Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro said the two-year probe found a systematic cover-up by senior church officials in Pennsylvania and at the Vatican.

“The cover-up was sophisticated. And all the while, shockingly, church leadership kept records of the abuse and the cover-up. These documents, from the dioceses’ own ‘Secret Archives,’ formed the backbone of this investigation,” he said at a news conference in Harrisburg.
Significantly, the report faulted Cardinal Donald Wuerl, the former longtime bishop of Pittsburgh who now leads the Washington archdiocese, for what it said was his part in the concealment of clergy sexual abuse. Wuerl defended himself, releasing a statement Tuesday that said he had “acted with diligence, with concern for the victims and to prevent future acts of abuse.”….

The report cites 99 priests in Pittsburgh’s diocese alone, and of those 99 a group of four groomed and violently sexually assaulted young boys, Shapiro said….
Because of an ongoing legal battle, more than a dozen names and identifying information have been redacted. But the report shows a consistent pattern of bishops having prior knowledge of the actions of predatory priests, reassigning them and not alerting law enforcement….
http://www.ktva.com/story/38885579/grand-jury-report-identifies-over-1000-victims-of-priest-abuse

Ex-priest accused of sexual abuse got Disney job with help from Catholic Church, grand jury finds Aug 15, 2018
HARRISBURG, Pa. — A sweeping grand jury report into child sexual abuse in Roman Catholic dioceses in Pennsylvania said church officials gave a former priest a positive reference to work at Disney World. That decision happened even though officials fielded at least one allegation about him sexually abusing a boy.
The ex-priest, Edward Ganster, left the priesthood in 1990, moved to the Orlando area and went on to work at Disney World before he died in 2014.
The report said Ganster worked at the theme park for 18 years. Ganster drove the train at the Magic Kingdom, according to an obituary in the Orlando Sentinel, which said Ganster worked there for 15 years.
Disney World did not respond to a request for information.
Ganster, who became a priest in 1971, was working at St. Joseph’s Church in Easton in the late 1970s when a woman complained to a monsignor that Ganster had gotten in bed with her 13-year-old son on an overnight trip and “hurt” him, the report said. The boy also told his mother that “something happened” in the confession booth, it said.

The monsignor told her Ganster would be given counseling and Ganster was promptly reassigned, the report said….
Ganster wrote the Diocese to say he would apply for a job at Disney World and wanted to use the Diocese as a reference, the report said.
Allentown’s bishop, Thomas Welsh, wrote to Orlando’s bishop that Ganster’s problems were “partially sexual” and that he couldn’t reassign him. A monsignor separately assured Ganster that he would get a positive reference.
“I am quite sure that the Diocese will be able to give you a positive reference in regard to the work you did during your years of service here as a priest,” the monsignor wrote, according to the report….
This revelation comes after a Pennsylvania grand jury Tuesday alleged decades of abuse of children by more than 300 men described as “predator priests.” It relays the accounts of more than 1,000 children, but said there are likely thousands of other victims.
The report says church leaders protected the priests in a cover-up that went all the way to the Vatican.
“Priests were raping little boys and girls and the men of God who were responsible for them not only did nothing, they hid it all for decades,” said Attorney General Josh Shapiro….
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/edward-ganster-ex-priest-disney-world-job-catholic-church-pennyslvania-grand-jury-report/

Maryland private school investigating alleged sexual abuse Aug 19th 2018 ANNAPOLIS, Md. (AP) — A private school in Maryland has launched an investigation into allegations that a culture of sexual abuse existed in the 1970s with administrators’ knowledge, a newspaper reported.
The Washington Post reports two Baltimore lawyers are leading the investigation into allegations at the Key School in Annapolis, Maryland. Matthew Nespole, the current head of the school that teaches prekindergarten through 12th grade, told the newspaper that a February review of allegations indicated former Key officials failed to protect students.
“It appears that members of the Key community neglected to respond appropriately to contemporaneous reports made by former students of faculty misconduct that includes the sexual victimization of students,” Nespole said in a statement this month….
Joe Janney, president of the school’s board of trustees, said in a statement that the allegations are “credible” and “extremely upsetting.”
Former students told the newspaper it was widely known that some Key teachers had sex with underage students. Some teachers were fired after complaints from students or parents, according to interviews with accusers. But many stayed in the classrooms, continuing the alleged abuse, according to the report. The accusers, who are now in their 50s and 60s, said the school has yet to confront the scope of the behavior, and its effects are still being felt more than 40 years later….
https://www.aol.com/article/news/2018/08/19/maryland-private-school-investigating-alleged-sexual-abuse/23505158/

New report lists 21 additional victims of sexual abuse at St. Paul’s School 10 former faculty members named in report WMUR Aug 21, 2018 Jean Mackin CONCORD, N.H. — A new report from St. Paul’s School in Concord reveals more allegations of sexual misconduct against its staff. The independent investigation commissioned by the school found what it calls substantiated reports of sexual misconduct….
In May of 2017, St. Paul’s School released its first report after requesting a law firm conduct an independent investigation, at the time stating that 13 former staff members had sexually abused children between 1948 and 1988….
The private school also vowed to change its culture after the 2015 case of Owen Labrie. The St. Paul’s graduate was convicted of misdemeanor sexual assault on a younger female student during a sexual conquest ritual known as the “senior salute.” Labrie’s appeal is scheduled to go before the state Supreme Court next month…. https://www.wmur.com/article/new-report-lists-21-additional-victims-of-sexual-abuse-at-st-pauls-school/22794264

Nuns charged in Smyllum Park child abuse investigation
Police examining claims of abuse over decades at Catholic home charge 12 people Severin Carrell Scotland editor Thu 23 Aug 2018
Police in Scotland have arrested and charged nuns and a number of other former staff in an investigation into alleged child abuse at a Catholic children’s home. The nuns are among 12 people who have been charged by detectives investigating detailed allegations of systematic physical and sexual abuse of children over many decades at Smyllum Park in Lanark.
Police Scotland said another four former staff at the Catholic institution would be reported to the Crown Office, Scotland’s prosecution service, later on Thursday.
The force would not release any further details about the identities of those charged or the offences they face, pending final decisions by prosecutors.

“Twelve people, 11 women and one man, ages ranging from 62 to 85 years, have been arrested and charged in connection with the non-recent abuse of children,” it said….
The allegations of abuse at Smyllum Park, including unsubstantiated claims of “satanic” rituals at the home, have been at the centre of a long-running official public inquiry into child sexual abuse at children’s homes in Scotland.

The Scottish child abuse inquiry (SCAI) has been told by former residents that lay staff and nuns at the home, run by the Daughters of Charity of St Vincent de Paul until it closed in 1981, repeatedly beat and punched them, verbally abused and humiliated them for wetting beds and left them without food and that some male and female staff sexually abused the children in their care.
It is alleged that at least one child, a boy aged six, died as a result of a severe beating that prevented him from recovering from an infection some days later.

Gregor Rolfe, a lawyer for the Daughters of Charity, told the SCAI last year that one male former member of staff may have sexually abused children whom he took on holidays. Those allegations were reported to nuns but not passed to the police….
The families of former residents were horrified to discover that the remains of up to 400 children were buried in a large plot of unmarked graves in a cemetery nearby.
More than 11,000 children were placed at Smyllum Park from its opening in 1864 to its eventual closure 117 years later. Some were orphaned, but others were from families unable to look after them. Death certificates revealed that many of the children died from tuberculosis, pneumonia and pleurisy.

Smith is expected to release a special preliminary report on Smyllum Park in coming weeks. Her full report is not expected until some time after October 2019.
The Scottish Daily Mail reported on Thursday that police had also begun a separate investigation into the Sisters of Nazareth, another Catholic order that ran children’s homes that are under scrutiny by Smith’s inquiry.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/aug/23/nuns-charged-in-investigation-into-child-abuse-at-smyllum-park

Describes violence  The ghosts of St. Joseph’s orphanage: BuzzFeed News reveals extent of child abuse Christine Kenneally, BuzzFeed Aug. 27, 2018
In the 1990s, Burlington Free Press journalists including Sam Hemingway reported extensively on allegations of child abuse by former residents of St. Joseph’s Orphanage in Burlington. Two decades later, Christine Kenneally, a reporter for the online news site BuzzFeed News, has spent four years revisiting the scandal of child abuse at Catholic orphanages around the United States.
Much of Kenneally’s report focuses on abuse at the Burlington orphanage, which was located on North Avenue. With BuzzFeed News’ permission, the Free Press publishes this excerpt.

It was a late summer afternoon, Sally Dale recalled, when the boy was thrown through the fourth-floor window.
“He kind of hit, and— ” she placed both hands palm-down before her. Her right hand slapped down on the left, rebounded up a little, then landed again.
For just a moment, the room was still. “Bounced?” one of the many lawyers present asked. “Well, I guess you’d call it — it was a bounce,” she replied. “And then he laid still.”

Sally, who was speaking under oath, tried to explain it. She started again. “The first thing I saw was looking up, hearing the crash of the window, and then him going down, but my eyes were still glued— .” She pointed up at where the broken window would have been and then she pointed at her own face and drew circles around it. “That habit thing, whatever it is, that they wear, stuck out like a sore thumb.”….

A nun was standing at the window, Sally said. She straightened her arms out in front of her. “But her hands were like that.”
There were only two people in the yard, she said: Sally herself and a nun who was escorting her. In a tone that was still completely bewildered, she recalled asking, Sister?
Sister took hold of Sally’s ear, turned her around, and walked her back to the other side of the yard. The nun told her she had a vivid imagination.
We are going to have to do something about you, child.
Sally figured the boy fell from the window in 1944 or so, because she was moving to the “big girls” dormitory that day. Girls usually moved when they were 6, though residents of St. Joseph’s Orphanage in Burlington, Vermont, did not always have a clear sense of their age — birthdays, like siblings and even names, being one of the many human attributes that were stripped from them when they passed through its doors. She recounted his fall in a deposition on November 6, 1996, as part of a remarkable group of lawsuits that 28 former residents brought against the nuns, the diocese, and the social agency that oversaw the orphanage.

I watched the deposition — all 19 hours of grainy, scratchy videotape — more than two decades later. By that time sexual abuse scandals had ripped through the Catholic Church, shattering the silence that had for so long protected its secrets. It was easier for accusers in general to come forward, and easier for people to believe their stories, even if the stories sounded too awful to be true. Even if they had happened decades ago, when the accusers were only children. Even if the people they were accusing were pillars of the community.
But for all these revelations — including this month’s Pennsylvania grand jury report on how the church hid the crimes of hundreds of priests — a darker history, the one to which Sally’s story belongs, remains all but unknown. It is the history of unrelenting physical and psychological abuse of captive children. Across thousands of miles, across decades, the abuse took eerily similar forms: People who grew up in orphanages said they were made to kneel or stand for hours, sometimes with their arms straight out, sometimes holding their boots or some other item. They were forced to eat their own vomit. They were dangled upside down out windows, over wells, or in laundry chutes. Children were locked in cabinets, in closets, in attics, sometimes for days, sometimes so long they were forgotten. They were told their relatives didn’t want them, or they were permanently separated from their siblings. They were sexually abused. They were mutilated…..

In the United States, however, no such reckoning has taken place. Even today the stories of the orphanages are rarely told and barely heard, let alone recognized in any formal way by the government, the public, or the courts. The few times that orphanage abuse cases have been litigated in the US, the courts have remained generally indifferent. Private settlements could be as little as a few thousand dollars. Government bodies have rarely pursued the allegations….
https://www.burlingtonfreepress.com/story/news/2018/08/27/buzzfeed-report-catholic-orphanages-reveals-decades-child-abuse/1108320002/

Why the Explosive Report on Catholic Church Abuse Is Unlikely to Yield Criminal Charges By Dan Levin Aug. 15, 2018
The searing grand jury report issued Tuesday in Pennsylvania that accuses bishops and other Roman Catholic Church leaders in that state of covering up child sexual abuse by more than 300 priests has prompted growing calls for justice, while leaving Americans wondering about the broader impact of the revelations on the church and other institutions.
But a web of legal barriers stands in the way of prosecuting most of the cases, and efforts to ease those barriers have repeatedly run into political opposition and fierce lobbying by the church and other groups. Pennsylvania lags behind many other states in coming to grips with the problem, despite a series of grand jury investigations stretching back 15 years….

The nearly 900-page grand jury report is unlikely to lead to any new criminal charges or civil lawsuits over the abuse that it catalogs, because the statute of limitations has expired on those cases. Current state law allows victims of abuse as children 12 years to sue after they come of age at 18, meaning they must do so by age 30. Criminal complaints must be filed by the time the victim is 50. Those rules leave the vast majority of abuse survivors, who came forward later in life — the grand jury said they include people as old as 83 — with no legal recourse. Only two of the cases in the report have so far led to criminal charges….
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/15/us/pennsylvania-sex-abuse-statute-of-limitations.html

Tear down the protections for pedophile priests
By Editorial Board August 20
IN AN extraordinary communique to the world’s 1.2 billion Catholics, Pope Francis on Monday acknowledged the “atrocities” committed by pedophile priests and the church hierarchy that systematically covered up their crimes, recognized the inadequacy of efforts “to beg pardon” and admitted that the victims’ “wounds never go away.” In so doing, the pontiff provided a powerful rationale for dropping the church’s long-standing opposition to allowing decades-old cases of rape and molestation by priests to be subject to prosecution and lawsuits.

At last, after years of half-measures and tone-deaf remarks, the pope seems to have woken up to the scale of abuse and corruption sanctioned by the church. The question now is whether he is willing or able to turn the tide of institutional resistance in the Vatican and dioceses worldwide that too often has blocked victims from seeking justice and recompense….
Many states have extended or dropped limits on the number of years within which prosecutors are able to charge child sexual abuse felonies. In other states, including Maryland, New York and Pennsylvania, efforts to extend criminal statutes of limitations have failed. And the church has spent millions of dollars fighting changes in statutes of limitations to give victims, who often cannot speak for decades about the abuse they suffered as children, more time to bring civil lawsuits.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/tear-down-the-protections-for-pedophile-priests/2018/08/20/f2d6376a-a4ab-11e8-97ce-cc9042272f07_story.html

Clergy abuse survivors push for federal investigation into Catholic Church By Daniel Burke, CNN Religion Editor Thu August 30, 2018
(CNN)Survivors of clergy sex abuse stood in front of the Vatican embassy in Washington on Thursday and urged two higher powers — the Pope and the US Department of Justice — to take concrete steps to prevent more abuses and hold abusers accountable.
“They have plenty of evidence,” said Peter Isely, spokesman for the group Ending Clergy Abuse. “Let’s launch this investigation. Let’s do it now.”
The Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests (SNAP) and Center for Constitutional Rights have also sent a letter to Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein demanding an “investigation and prosecution of high-level officials in the Catholic Church” for sexual crimes and cover-ups.

“It is long past time for the US Department of Justice to initiate a full-scale, nationwide investigation into the systemic rape and sexual violence, and cover-ups in the Catholic Church, and, where appropriate, bring criminal and/or civil proceedings against the hierarchy that enabled the violations,” the groups said in the letter….
SNAP’s letter demanding a federal investigation is dated August 15, one day after a damning report by a grand jury in Pennsylvania said there is credible evidence that 301 “predator priests” abused more than 1,000 children in six dioceses since 1947.
Because the statute of limitations had run out on most of the crimes, only two priests have been charged as a result of the two-year-long investigation.

But the Pennsylvania report has prompted officials in several other states, including Illinois and Missouri, to open inquiries into allegations of sexual misconduct by Catholic clergy.
SNAP said they have been asking for a federal investigation into the Catholic Church since 2003, during the church’s last widespread scandal of clergy sex abuse….
In an explosive letter published Sunday, former Vatican ambassador Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò said that top church officials, including Pope Francis, knew that McCarrick had been accused of abusing seminarians but covered it up. Viganò also accused Francis of lifting restrictions placed on him by the previous pope, Benedict XVI.
Vigano wrote that documents backing up his accusations were in Vatican files in the Washington embassy, where he worked from 2011-2016, when he was removed by Pope Francis. The Pope has said he will not comment on the accusations. https://www.cnn.com/2018/08/30/us/church-abuse-investigation/index.html

September 5, 2018 · Filed Under Newsletter 2018 - Issues 138 - 143