Los Angeles bishop kept altar boy list from police probing clergy abuse, Inmates at Parramatta Girls Home subjected to 'state-sanctioned rape'

Los Angeles bishop kept altar boy list from police probing clergy abuse
February 19, 2014  Associated Press

LOS ANGELES –  When Los Angeles police were investigating allegations of child abuse by a Roman Catholic priest in 1988, they asked for a list of altar boys at the last parish where the priest worked.

Archbishop Roger Mahony told a subordinate not to give the list, saying he didn't want the boys to be scarred by the investigation and that he felt the altar boys were too old to be potential victims, according to a deposition made public Wednesday.

The detectives investigating allegations against Nicolas Aguilar Rivera, a visiting Mexican priest, ultimately got the names of the boys from parish families. They determined the priest molested at least 26 boys during his 10 months in Los Angeles, according to the priest's confidential archdiocese file and police records made public by attorneys for the victims.

Twenty-five of the alleged victims were altar boys and the 26th was training with the priest to be one, said Anthony DeMarco, a plaintiff attorney. It's not clear what impact Mahony's action had on the investigation, though at the time police complained that the archdiocese wasn't fully cooperating.

Mahony's deposition was obtained by The Associated Press and is part of the evidence included in a settlement of abuse claims against Aguilar Rivera and four other priests. The archdiocese, the nation's largest, agreed to pay $13 million to 17 victims.

Since 2006, the archdiocese has paid more than $700 million to settle clergy abuse lawsuits by hundreds of victims. Internal church files kept on priests accused of abuse were released last year under court order. They showed that Mahony, who was elevated to cardinal and retired in 2011, maneuvered behind the scenes with his top aide Monsignor Thomas Curry to shield molester priests, provide damage control for the church and keep parishioners in the dark....
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2014/02/19/los-angeles-bishop-kept-altar-boy-list-from-police-probing-clergy-abuse/  
 
Inmates at Parramatta Girls Home subjected to 'state-sanctioned rape'
February 26, 2014 Catherine Armitage

Girls as young as 18 months who came into contact with the NSW child welfare authorities from the 1930s onwards were routinely tested for venereal disease and evidence of sexual activity.

If they were found, on the basis of a spurious vaginal examination, to have been sexually active, from the age of 10 upwards they could be sent to the Parramatta Girls Home where they were exposed to ''state-sanctioned rape'' perpetrated by doctors, supervising staff and other inmates.

The notorious detention centre for girls, which shut down after public outcry in 1974, is the focus of hearings for the Royal Commission on Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse starting on Wednesday.
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Harrowing testimony is expected as 10 women, who were among the thousands detained in the home or at the associated Institution for Girls at Hay during the period of 1950-1974, take the stand to tell their stories.

In the 2005 book Orphans of the Living by Joanna Penglase, a NSW departmental field officer told Dr Penglase how girls picked up on vague grounds of being ''exposed to moral danger'' were subjected to vaginal examinations....
http://www.smh.com.au/national/inmates-at-parramatta-girls-home-subjected-to-statesanctioned-rape-20140225-33fou.html