Pope Francis says Chilean protests over alleged child abuse cover-up are ‘dumb’, ‘Open Secret’ Reveals Hollywood child abuse problem, Japan’s child abuse cases to record high

– Watch: Pope Francis says Chilean protests over alleged child abuse cover-up are ‘dumb’
– Calling Protesters in Chile ‘Dumb,’ Pope Francis Sets Off Uproar

– Controversial ‘Open Secret’ Reveals Hollywood Child Abuse Problem

– Poverty, isolation push Japan’s child abuse cases to record high

Watch: Pope Francis says Chilean protests over alleged child abuse cover-up are ‘dumb’
By Adam Taylor  October 8, 2015

Few global figures have enjoyed a more positive public image recently than Pope Francis, the remarkably popular leader of the Catholic Church. But a newly released video that appears to show the pope calling critics of the church’s actions in Chile “dumb” has prompted fresh protests in the Latin American country – and could also harm the pontiff’s reputation internationally.

The video, aired by a Chilean TV channel last week, was initially filmed at the Vatican in May. According to Catholic news Web site Crux, the video shows Jaime Coiro, a former spokesman for the Chilean Bishops Conference, greeting Francis in St Peter’s Square.

In the video, Francis talks about criticism that the Catholic church in Chile was facing at the time. The appointment of Bishop Juan Barros Madrid to the Osorno, Chile, diocese had drawn protests throughout the country due to accusations that Barros had helped cover up the sexual abuse of minors by his then-superior, the Rev. Fernando Karadima, and may have witnessed some of the abuse himself.

The Vatican found Karadima guilty of sexually abusing minors in 2011 and sentenced him to a “life of prayer and penitence.” While Barros spent more than 30 years working with Karadima, he has denied any cover-up, and the Vatican released a short statement offering a defense of the bishop’s appointment in March. The newly released video, however, shows Francis going much further – not only angrily defending Barros’s appointment, but seemingly insulting the intelligence of protesters.

In the footage, the pope tells a group of tourists that Osorno’s church has “lost its freedom, allowing politicians to fill people’s heads, judging a bishop without any evidence, a man who’s been a bishop for 20 years.” Francis goes on to say: “Think with your heads. Don’t let them lead you by the nose, all these fools who have stirred this thing up.”

The pope adds that “the only accusation against this bishop was dismissed by the court,” drawing out the syllables for emphasis. “Please, don’t lose your calm. Osorno is suffering, yes, but for being dumb,” he says in the video….

Notably, while the pope appears to say that the investigation into an alleged cover-up of Karadima’s abuses was closed, the New York Times notes that the investigation is, in fact, still ongoing. The pope’s reference to politicians in the video appears to be a reference to Chilean members of parliament who had signed a petition opposing Barros’s nomination.

The video of Francis’s comments was published online Friday and has sparked outrage against the Chilean Catholic Church, with renewed protests in St. Matthew’s Cathedral in Osorno over the weekend calling on the Vatican to remove Barros from his post….
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2015/10/08/watch-pope-francis-says-chilean-protests-over-alleged-child-abuse-cover-up-are-dumb/

Calling Protesters in Chile ‘Dumb,’ Pope Francis Sets Off Uproar
By PASCALE BONNEFOY OCT. 7, 2015

….In the video, Pope Francis asserted that the accusations against Bishop Barros were unfounded and that a Chilean court had dismissed such claims. However, a judicial investigation into the presumed negligence and cover-up of church officials regarding Father Karadima’s abuses is still in progress.

Three of Father Karadima’s victims filed a lawsuit against the Roman Catholic Church in 2012, demanding nearly $660,000 in compensation after a criminal investigation into abuses committed from 1980 to 1995 was dismissed in 2011 because the statute of limitations had expired.

One of the victims, Juan Carlos Cruz, contends that Bishop Barros was frequently present in Father Karadima’s bedroom when he and others were abused; threatened seminarians who dared denounce them; and destroyed letters reporting the abuses to the archbishop of Santiago at the time, Juan Francisco Fresno, when Bishop Barros was the archbishop’s personal secretary in the 1980s.

Bishop Barros is one of two dozen witnesses who the plaintiffs have requested be interrogated as part of the lawsuit.

“The pope’s statements are not surprising, but it is sad,” Mr. Cruz said. “The vision of a pope closer to abuse victims has been unmasked.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/08/world/americas/calling-protesters-in-chile-dumb-pope-francis-sets-off-uproar.html

Controversial ‘Open Secret’ Reveals Hollywood Child Abuse Problem  By David A. Patten    Thursday, 08 Oct 2015

When actress Ashley Judd recently revealed that an unnamed studio executive tried to “groom” her for sex by using his powerful position, Gabe Hoffman, a film producer and hedge-fund executive, was hardly surprised.

“The casting couch is almost as old as time,” he told Newsmax. But he adds, “I think the casting couch has just about run its course in our society. We don’t tolerate that stuff anymore. We shouldn’t.”

Hoffman is considered an authority on the subject because his documentary film “An Open Secret” reveals an even darker, unrelated predilection that he says plagues the entertainment industry: Sexual exploitation of child actors.

The film’s director, Amy Berg, was nominated for an Oscar for “Deliver Us From Evil,” her 2006 examination of sex abuse cases in the Roman Catholic Church.

Berg deftly wields all the narrative tools of the storyteller’s craft – rising action, suspense, plot twists, interludes, surprise endings – to create a documentary that holds together surprisingly well considering the abject subject matter. She offers a gut-wrenching, un-hyped account of the emotional carnage wreaked on children by industry predators.

The documentary introduces five erstwhile child actors identified only by their first names and last initials. Each story follows a predictable arc, how they were discovered, groomed, and ultimately used….

Many of the film’s sordid tales involve Marc Collins-Rector, the co-founder of the now-defunct Digital Entertainment Network, an attempt at online video streaming….

According to the film, Collins-Rector would invite high-profile entertainment mavens to join in sybaritic parties at an Encino, California, mansion. There, aspiring child actors would cavort about the pool and powerful adults – who held the power to realize or destroy their dreams of stardom – enticed them into the hot tub. Some of the children had not yet even reached their teens.

In 2004, Collins-Rector pleaded guilty to multiple counts of child sexual abuse. Among other heinous acts, he admitted to luring five minors across state lines for sex. At sentencing, he was credited with the time he’d spent in a Spanish jail prior to his extradition. He later fled the country after a court awarded a $4.5 million judgment to his accusers….

Sexual abuse involving children is hardly new. In 2011, actor Corey Feldman, who starred in the 1980s films “The Goonies” and “Stand By Me,” wrote a memoir, “Coreyography,” in which he stated he and his late co-star Corey Haim were sexually abused as children….
http://www.newsmax.com/Newsfront/hollywood-open-secret-documentary/2015/10/08/id/695357/

Poverty, isolation push Japan’s child abuse cases to record high
Kyodo     Oct 8, 2015

Child welfare authorities dealt with nearly 90,000 child abuse cases in the fiscal year ending March, a government survey showed Thursday, with experts blaming the record-high figure on increased poverty and the isolation of some families.

Logging the largest-ever increase of 20.5 percent from the previous year’s 73,000, the preliminary survey by the health ministry showed the number of cases handled by 207 child consultation centers across the country in fiscal 2014 reached 88,931, up for the 24th consecutive year since the survey started in 1990.

The Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare attributed the rise to the widened scope of circumstances that can be reported as abuse following an August 2013 notice that instructed the centers to deal with siblings of abused children as they may also be suffering from psychological abuse.

The number of cases reported by police to the centers in which children witnessed abuse of a parent or other family member has also increased, it said….
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2015/10/08/national/social-issues/poverty-isolation-push-japans-child-abuse-cases-record-high/

Corey Feldman details Hollywood sexual abuse in his memoir ‘Coreyography’

Corey Feldman details Hollywood sexual abuse in his memoir ‘Coreyography’ By Stephan Lee on Oct 22, 2013

Corey Feldman and the late Corey Haim — known at the height of their popularity as “the Two Coreys” — were iconic ’80s teen stars who dealt with more adult problems behind the scenes. In his upcoming memoir Coreyography (Oct. 29), Feldman, 42, details the sexual abuse he and Haim experienced while working in Hollywood.

According to Feldman, Haim told him about an incident on the set of the 1986 film Lucas:

“Haim started to confide in me, about some intensely personal stuff, very quickly … Within hours of our first meeting, we found ourselves talking about Lucas, the film he made in the summer of 1985, the role I had wanted for myself. At some point during the filming, he explained, an adult male convinced him that its was perfectly normal for older men and younger boys in the business to have sexual relations, that it was what all the ‘guys do.’ So, they walked off to a secluded area between two trailers, during a lunch break for the cast and crew, and Haim, innocent and ambitious as he was, allowed himself to be sodomized.”

Feldman recalls that Haim, 11 years old at the time, said, “I guess we should play around like that, too?”

While Feldman never acted on his friend’s suggestion, he did encounter more sexual abuse later on from the adults around him, including an older male Feldman had hired as his assistant who he calls “Ron Crimson” in the book. Crimson allegedly performed oral sex on Feldman after he encouraged a teenaged Feldman to take a cocktail of pills. Feldman writes that in his teen years he was constantly surrounded by pedophiles….
http://shelf-life.ew.com/2013/10/22/corey-feldman-memoir-sexual-abuse-claims/

Corey Feldman: Pedophilies rampant in Hollywood; he and Corey Haim their victims  By Nicki Gostin October 22, 2013

In his new memoir “Coreyography,” former child star Corey Feldman weaves a harrowing Hollywood tale of sex, drugs and profound loneliness on his road to stardom. Feldman’s book covers parental abuse, twisted friendships and devastating drug abuse….

As his star began to rise in hit movies like “Stand By Me,” “The Lost Boys,” “Gremlins” and “The Goonies” — Feldman, now 42, had no guidance or support from his parents. His mother — a former Playboy model who suffered from depression and drug problems — tortured her son about his weight and, at one point, force-fed him diet pills. He says his father was a musician who routinely encouraged his young son to get high with him. Feldman talked to FOX411 about his chaotic upbringing….

FOX411: You write that Corey Haim was raped by a very powerful Hollywood player on the set of ‘Lucas’ and he tried to initiate something with you.

Feldman: In his mind that was just what guys do, that’s what he tried to sell me on. He wasn’t bisexual. He didn’t understand what was right and wrong. He’d been manipulated and lied to and used and abused. So was I, but I wasn’t yet at that point. He told me, to me it was the craziest story I had ever heard. I had to explain, ‘No man that’s not how it goes.’ But then a few months later the same thing happened to me, though not as graphically.

FOX411: You say that pedophilia is common in Hollywood.

Feldman: I think there’s a lot more of it than we’d like to believe and a lot more of it in all paths of life….
http://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/2013/10/22/corey-feldman-pedophilies-rampant-in-hollywood-and-cory-haim-their-victims/

Corey Feldman’s ‘Coreyography’ Details Sexual Abuse He, Corey Haim Faced, Long-term consequences of childhood sexual abuse by gender of victim

Corey Feldman’s ‘Coreyography’ Details Sexual Abuse He, Corey Haim Faced  The Huffington Post  By Cavan Sieczkowski 10/21/2013

In his new memoir, Coreyography, Corey Feldman details the sexual abuse he and fellow child star Corey Haim endured in Hollywood at the hands of men they worked with and considered friends. Due out Oct. 28, the book also describes years of drug abuse both he and Haim faced.

On the 1986 set of “Lucas,” Haim told Feldman that “an adult male convinced him that it was perfectly normal for older men and younger boys in the business to have sexual relations, that it was what all the guys do. So they walked off to a secluded area between two trailers … and Haim allowed himself to be sodomized,” Feldman wrote, per an excerpt obtained by Page Six.

After relaying the incident to Feldman, Haim asked, “So, I guess we should play around like that, too?” Feldman dismissed him, saying, that’s “not what kids do, man.” But Feldman went on to suffer abuse himself, specifically by a man named “Ron,” whom his father hired as his assistant. Ron allegedly took advantage of him after turning him onto drugs.

Both Haim and Feldman battled substance abuse issues for years. Feldman, now 42, reached a breaking point when he was arrested for heroin in 1990 at 19 years old. After two more drug arrests, he got sober. Haim was in and out of rehab for addiction 15 times before his death in 2010.

“Corey was raped at the age of 11,” Feldman writes, via the New York Daily News, “and like many, many victims, drug use became an easy, if also tragic, way for him to escape the weight of that shame.”….
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/10/21/corey-feldman-sexual-abuse_n_4136524.html

Long-term consequences of childhood sexual abuse by gender of victim. Dube SR, Anda RF, Whitfield CL, Brown DW, Felitti VJ, Dong M, Giles WH. Am J Prev Med. 2005 Jun;28(5):430-8.

Source
National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta, Georgia 30341-3724, USA.

Abstract
BACKGROUND:
Childhood sexual abuse (CSA) is a worldwide problem. Although most studies on the long-term consequences of CSA have focused on women, sexual abuse of both boys and girls is common….

METHODS:
A retrospective cohort study was conducted from 1995 to 1997 among 17,337 adult HMO members in San Diego, California….

RESULTS:
Contact CSA was reported by 16% of males and 25% of females. Men reported female perpetration of CSA nearly 40% of the time, and women reported female perpetration of CSA 6% of the time. CSA significantly increased the risk of the outcomes. The magnitude of the increase was similar for men and women. For example, compared to reporting no sexual abuse, a history of suicide attempt was more than twice as likely among both men and women who experienced CSA (p<0.05). Compared with those who did not report CSA, men and women exposed to CSA were at a 40% increased risk of marrying an alcoholic, and a 40% to 50% increased risk of reporting current problems with their marriage (p<0.05).

CONCLUSIONS:
In this cohort of adult HMO members, experiencing CSA was common among both men and women….These findings strongly indicate that boys and girls are vulnerable to this form of childhood maltreatment…
PMID: 15894146
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15894146