The Catholic Weekly 2 August 2020

14 2, August, 2020 W orld catholicweekly.com.au New lawsuit filed Settlement for student Abbess faces trial for providing asylum The legacy of former Cardinal McCarrick continues in the US THE WASHINGTON Post reached a settlement on 24 July with the family of Nicho- las Sandmann, the Kentucky Catholic high school student who sued the newspaper last year for defamation over its coverage of an incident that occurred after last year’s March for Life that quickly went viral. Sandmann, who graduat- ed this past spring from Cov- ington Catholic High School, sought A$350 million in dam- ages from The Washington Post , saying the newspaper defamed Sandmann in seven articles and on social media. The Post has maintained its reporting was accurate and fair and did not disclose terms of the settlement. “We are pleased that we have been able to reach a mu- tually agreeable resolution of the remaining claims of the lawsuit,” Post spokeswoman Kris Coratti said in a state- ment. The coverage in question centred on the student’s en- A BENEDICTINE abbess who granted refuge to female asy- lum-seekers faces trial for re- fusing to pay a fine, reported the German Catholic news agency KNA. It could become a land- mark case by determining whether granting church asylum amounts to the pun- ishable offense of “aiding and abetting illegal residents,” as state prosecutors often inter- pret it. There is no German A FIRM that has filed previ- ous legal complaints against TheodoreMcCarrick, a former US cardinal, and church enti- ties added another complain- ant against the laicised prel- ate, levelling a new accusation that he allegedly abused its new client as a boy at a beach house in Sea Girt, New Jersey, in the early 1980s. In a 22 July news confer- ence via Zoom, Jeff Anderson of Jeff Anderson & Associ- ates of St Paul, Minnesota, announced a new lawsuit he said had been filed. He said his client, named only as John Doe 14, was groomed by a priest and “procured” for Mc- Carrick when he was bishop of the Diocese of Metuchen, New Jersey. Anderson said the new complaint identifies at least seven children who were “groomed by others for Mc- Carrick,” and in addition to McCarrick it names several Catholic entities as defend- ants including the Diocese of Metuchen, the Archdiocese of Newark, New Jersey, and Essex Catholic Boys High School, which closed in 2003. The suit alleges that at age 11, the boy began to be sexu- ally abused in 1978 by a priest at a New Jersey parish and the abuse continued at the hands of another cleric at the Catho- lic high school he attended, and then with McCarrick in 1982, when the boy was urged to talk to the prelate because his family has having a diffi- cult time affording tuition. The complaint says the client was not the only boy suffering such abuse on the premises. In the news con- ference, Anderson said John Doe 14 was just one of a group called “the crew” who would go on overnight stays to a beach house paid for by di- ocesan funds. There the boys were instructedwhere to sleep “and in the night, with the as- sistance of others, McCarrick would creep into this kid’s bed and engage in criminal sexual assault of him, whispering, ‘It is OK.’” Anderson categorised the venue as “McCarrick’s sor- ¾ ¾ Carol Zimmermann ¾ ¾ Rhina Guidos Nick Sandmann, a student at Covington Catholic High School, stands in front of Native American Nathan Phillips inWashington in 2019. PHOTO: CNS/KAYA TAITANO, SOCIAL MEDIA VIA REUTERS counter with a Native Ameri- can activist on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. Last July, a federal judge dismissed the lawsuit against the Post , ruling the challenged statements were either opin- ion, not defamatory or not specifically about Nicholas Sandmann. But last October, when the judge was presented with a motion to reconsider an amended complaint against the newspaper, he allowed the case to proceed. The Sandmann family set- tled a similar lawsuit against CNN this January for an un- disclosed amount. The fam- ily’s suit against NBC is still pending and they also have filed suits against Gannett, Supreme Court ruling on this issue yet, KNA reported. Mother Mechthild Thur- mer granted refuge to female asylum-seekers in her mon- astery in the Bavarian town of Kirchschletten more than 30 times. The main hearing at the Bamberg district court was cancelled in mid-July because the judge wanted to wait for possible further charges against her, a court spokesman told KNA. “I act- did beach house child sex ring ... I would like to thank Doe 14,” Anderson said of his unnamed client. “Before he came to us, he was suffering in silence, secrecy and shame for what Cardinal McCarrick did to him.” “While we have not yet received the complaint, our prayers are with all survivors of abuse, today and always, and we stand with them in their journey toward heal- ing and hope,” said Anthony Kearns, spokesperson and chancellor for the Diocese of Metuchen in a 22 July state- ment. “With God’s grace, all sur- vivors of abuse, particularly those wounded by members of the church, will continue to heal and move forward,” Kearns said. “Our diocese re- news our commitment to pre- vent these types of abuse from ever happening again.” The diocese also encour- aged anyone harmed by cler- gy in New Jersey to notify law enforcement. The Archdiocese of Newark in a statement on 22 July said it would not discuss or com- ment on matters in litigation. “The Archdiocese of New- ark remains fully committed to transparency and to our long-standing programs to protect the faithful and will continue to work with victims, their legal representatives and law enforcement authorities in an ongoing effort to resolve allegations and bring closure to victims,” it said. - CNS ABC, CBS, The New York Times and Rolling Stone mag- azine. “The fight isn’t over. 2 down. 6 to go,” tweeted Nich- olas Sandman on 24 July, his 18th birthday, referring to the settled lawsuits and those remaining. “Don’t hold your breath @jack,” he add- ed, referring to Jack Dorsey co-founder and CEO of Twit- ter. His tweets about The Wash- ington Post lawsuit stirred mixed reaction echoing the response after the event in question and its coverage. In Twitter replies, many people were supportive of the student and accused the me- dia of jumping to conclusions in their coverage, while others said his response at the time of the incident was wrong and he shouldn’t be bragging about lawsuit profits now. The incident in question, for which Sandmann claimed he received biased coverage, transpired at the Lincoln Me- morial in Washington on 18 January 2019. That day, Sandmann, wear- ing a “Make America Great Again” hat, smiled just inches away from Nathan Phillips, a Native American leader, as Phillips chanted and beat a drum. The day after that encoun- ter, clips froma video of it went viral almost immediately and showed students surrounding Phillips while appearing to be mocking him. The clip caused immediate outrage, particularly on social media. But by the next day, extended footage of how the situation unfolded revealed that another group had taunt- ed the students and some re- sponded back. Phillips said he had walked over to the students and that group as an intervention. - CNS We are pleased that we have been able to reach a mutually agreeable resolution of the remaining claims of the lawsuit.” Kris Coratti, spokeswoman for The Washington Post While we have not yet received the complaint, our prayers are with all survivors of abuse, today and always, and we stand with them in their jour- ney toward healing and hope.” Anthony Kearns III, spokes- person for the Diocese of Metuchen ed out of Christian spirit,” the 62-year-old abbess said. “To give concrete help to a person in need can’t be a crime.” Up to now, authorities in Bavaria have mostly dropped proceedings against people granting church asylum and imposed no penalties. In a few cases, they offered to close cases in exchange for a fine. If the accused agreed, the matter was over, although this did not amount to an ac- quittal. Franz Bethauser, the lawyer for Mother Mechthild, has long been hoping for a fundamental clarification of the issue by the justice system in order to give people legal certainty. KNA said the hearing in Bamberg would not be just about Mother Mechthild. It’s also about whether the 2015 agreement between the churches and the government on church asylum still stands.