ABUSE TRACKER

• Case over targeting private groups for ‘public affairs’ probe

• Court skeptical church can stop investigation before it starts

A stalled New Jersey state effort to investigate Catholic Church child abuse appears primed for a restart by justices inclined to let a special grand jury proceed.

Monday’s two-hour oral argument saw the majority of the court lean into how speculative courts can get when deciding whether to cut short special presentments—proceedings in which the New Jersey Attorney General calls in jurors to tackle issues of broad public policy.

Several New Jersey attorneys general have pushed to follow in the footsteps of Pennsylvania, which released a report in 2018 unearthing instances of abuse against 1,000 children. But the effort …

View Cache

Pope Francis famously bucked convention by living not in the traditional papal apartment in the Apostolic Palace but rather the Casa Santa Marta. But suppose the maverick pontiff had taken things a step further and decided to relocate not merely from one Vatican spot to another, but outside Rome altogether?

A good case could be made that given the pontiff’s social and political priorities, he might well have chosen Marseille in France – where he would have found a highly congenial host in the 66-year-old Cardinal Jean-Marc Aveline, often described as the late pontiff’s favorite bishop.

Marseille is, and always has been, a port city, making it a natural crossroads of peoples, cultures and faiths. Today roughly 25 percent of the population is Muslim, mostly immigrants from North Africa. It’s also a place of contrasts between great wealth and heartbreaking poverty in the immigrant neighborhoods on the northern outskirts of…

View Cache

The Camden diocese has fought the case for seven years in secrecy

The New Jersey Supreme Court heard arguments Monday in a long-fought case about whether a state grand jury can call out a private entity like the Catholic Church and recommend reforms for its public harms, like clergy sex abuse — or if such presentments are permissible only when they involve public entities and ongoing harms, as church attorneys contend.

The Catholic Diocese of Camden has been battling the state to prevent a presentment since 2019, when former Attorney General Gurbir Grewal vowed to investigate clergy sex abuse. He acted after a Pennsylvania grand jury returned a presentment against hundreds of priests who victimized more than 1,000 children over seven decades

Lower-court judges sided with the diocese and sealed the New Jersey case, so while the legal fight has continued for six years in secrecy, abuse victims…

View Cache

Cardinal Luis Tagle of the Philippines is known as the “Asian Francis.” But he has been criticized for not being vocal enough about his country’s brutal drug war and clerical sex abuse.

He never aspired to be a priest. After he rose to be a bishop, he implied that he suffered from impostor syndrome. And when Cardinal Luis Antonio Gokim Tagle of the Philippines is asked if he could become the first Asian pope — a frequent question in recent years — he says it is impossible.

“Thinking of myself in that position, no, no, I laugh at it,” Cardinal Tagle told the BBC in 2015. “I cannot even manage my life. How can I manage a worldwide community?”

By then he had already been talked about as a potential replacement for Pope Benedict XVI. Now 67, Cardinal Tagle (pronounced TAG-leh) is once again on many unofficial short…

View Cache

In a meeting to prepare for the election of a successor to Pope Francis, in a conclave starting May 7, cardinals outlined “evangelisation, the relationship with other faiths (and) the issue of abuse” as the Church’s most pressing challenges.

It was a statement welcomed by Anne Barrett Doyle, a long-time campaigner who co-founded BishopAccountability.org, which collates information on abuse.

“The Church worldwide, through its parishes, schools, hospitals and orphanages, cares for tens of millions of children,” she told AFP.

“The next pope’s most sacred obligation must be to protect them from abuse. Their safety is at stake, as is the moral authority of the church.”

Francis, who died on April 21, did more than any other pontiff to tackle the scourge of abuse, which appeared to overwhelm his predecessor, German Benedict XVI.

But critics say the Argentine’s actions during 12 years as pope fell well short of the “zero-tolerance” he…

View Cache

Key Points

• The New Jersey Supreme Court heard arguments Monday in a long-running case over whether the state can form a special grand jury to investigate the Catholic Church’s handling of sex abuse allegations.

• The Diocese of Camden has sued to block the effort, arguing that it would violate judicial rules and be unfair to many accused clergy members.

• Justices grilled lawyers for both sides but seemed sympathetic to the state’s arguments.

A seven-year battle over whether New Jersey can investigate allegations of decades of sexual abuse by Catholic clergy in the state — and the extent of any church cover-up — landed in the state’s highest court on Monday.

The state Supreme Court heard the first of what are expected to be two days of arguments over a challenge brought by the Catholic Diocese of Camden, which has so far stalled a proposed grand jury investigation into all five of the…

View Cache

The Italian cardinal at the heart of the Vatican’s “trial of the century” announced Tuesday he was withdrawing from participating in the upcoming conclave to elect a new pope for “the good of the church,” ending days of drama that had overshadowed the proceedings.

Cardinal Angelo Becciu’ s status has dominated discussions in the days after Pope Francis’ death amid questions about whether he would participate in the conclave to elect Francis’ successor or not.

After his 2020 downfall, Becciu had said he would not participate in any future conclave. But in recent days he had asserted he had a right to enter the Sistine Chapel with other cardinals on May 7.

On Tuesday, the 76-year-old Italian issued a statement through his lawyers that said: “Having at heart the good of the church, which I have served and will continue to serve with fidelity and love, as well as to…

View Cache

For the second time in four days, a disgraced cardinal reportedly has participated in high-level events following the death of Pope Francis.

According to the online news outlet Crux, Cardinal Luis Cipriani, the Peruvian church official who was punished by Pope Francis for allegedly abusing a minor, was seen today leaving the hall where the world’s cardinals have begun to meet privately. He was wearing cardinal’s garb, an apparent violation of the restrictions put on him by the Pope.

At their meeting today, the cardinals agreed that fighting clergy sex abuse should be a priority for the next pope, according to Vatican spokesman Matteo Bruni. 

The Crux report of Cipriani’s inclusion with his fellow cardinals comes just a few days after Cardinal Roger Mahony was honored with privileged roles in the casket-closing and burial ceremonies for Pope Francis. Abuse files forced out of the Los Angeles archdiocese in 2013…

View Cache

[See also the apostolic constitution Universi Dominici Gregis, setting the procedure for the general congregations and the conclave.]

As cardinals meet in Rome ahead of a conclave to elect the next pope, a Peruvian cardinal accused of sexual abuse and whose ministry was restricted by Pope Francis has joined private meetings with his fellow red-hatters.

Vatican spokesman Matteo Bruni said April 28 that during a morning session of pre-conclave general congregations that day, cardinals discussed “issues of relevance for the future of the Church.”

These topics, he said, included “the relationship with the modern world and some challenges that are highlighted, such as evangelization, relations with other faiths, and the issue of abuse. They spoke about the qualities the new pontiff will have to possess in order to respond to these challenges.”

The discussion on abuse and who will be up to the task of credibly tackling it by…

View Cache

American survivors of clergy sex abuse are issuing a clear warning as cardinals prepare to gather in Rome to elect the next pope: Don’t repeat the past.

The advocacy group Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests is demanding that the upcoming conclave choose a pontiff who has not covered up abuse and who will commit, on his first day, to a binding zero-tolerance law.

“The conclave can’t be another smoke-filled room where survivors get ignored,” SNAP spokeswoman Sarah Pearson told the Daily Mail. “If they pick another pope who plays defense for abusers, the damage will be permanent.”

When he received the role of pontiff, Pope Francis inherited a church mired in scandal. In response, he repeatedly made clear his intent to instigate change.

Abuse victim groups say he didn’t do nearly enough.

Anne Barrett Doyle, co-director of BishopAccountability, another U.S. organization holding bishops to task for lack of sufficient action, told…

View Cache

Pope Francis passed away on April 21st, 2025. With him, the last hope for Church abuse survivors is also gone.

Survivors of clergy sex abuse report not feeling optimistic about the direction of the Catholic Church. They are afraid that the next Pope won’t be in their corner in their fight against injustice. They are not sure if the new Pope will implement any of the reforms to put a stop to abuse in churches all across the world. Many of the survivors express a profound sense of betrayal and distrust.

Those who have suffered at the hands of the Church’s abuse will never get the justice they want. The bureaucracy of the system is very strong. Also, the internal practice of the Church to let things be as they are will not bring the changes abuse victims and survivors want.

Survivors are also sure that the new administration will…

View Cache

The prelate and deputy secretary of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the highest authority in the pursuit of pedophiles within the Church, believes that the next pope will not be able to ignore victims’ cry for justice

The Archbishop of Malta, Charles Scicluna, 65, is perhaps the most respected figure within the Vatican in the fight against child abuse. He led the landmark investigation into Marcial Maciel, the founder of the Legionaries of Christ, as well as inquiries into the bishops in Chile and the recent probe into Sodalicio de Vida Cristiana, a powerful ultraconservative organization in Peru.

In 2019, he returned to the Vatican’s inner circle to address the ongoing crisis plaguing the Catholic Church: clerical pedophilia. The pope entrusted him with a key role as Adjunct Secretary of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, and as a member of the organizing committee for…

View Cache

When Pope Francis gave the green light for the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith to issue its controversial 2024 declaration Fiducia Supplicans, authorizing the blessing of persons in same-sex unions, presumably the point was to fill a pastoral void and to reach out to a constituency often alienated from the Catholic Church.

Under the heading of unintended consequences, however, one other clear consequence of the declaration was to launch a new papal candidate upon the world: 65-year-old Cardinal Fridolin Ambongo Besungu of Kinshasa in the Democratic Republic of Congo, who also serves as the elected leader of the African bishops as president of the Symposium of Episcopal Conferences of Africa and Madagascar (SECAM).

A headline at the time in the Italian newspaper Il Messaggero, atop a piece by veteran Vatican correspondent Franca Giansoldati, said it all: “The profile of Cardinal Ambongo advances among the future papabili: He led the African blockade…

View Cache

When Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa heard the news Easter Monday that Pope Francis had died, he immediately cancelled his appointments and packed his bags for Rome. As he was leaving the headquarters of the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem, where he has led the Catholic flock in the Holy Land for the last decade, a small group of aides, employees and friends gathered outside as he was getting in the car to head to the airport.

A visibly touched Pizzaballa watched as they sang to him in Arabic: “May the Lord guide your steps with his wisdom, fill your heart with his spirit, and be with you if it’s his prayer that you should lead his Church.”

Aside from being a sweet gesture, the impromptu serenade also had the feel of a farewell, since the people making up that cluster knew there’s a decent chance they won’t be seeing the 60-year-old Pizzaballa…

View Cache

One of the priests implicated in the scandal of violence and sexual assaults at the Notre-Dame de Bétharram Catholic school in the Pyrénées spent several years in Côte d’Ivoire, running a school from 1973 to 1979.

Ever since the “Bétharram school scandal” came to light in October 2023, testimonies from former students of the Notre-Dame de Bétharram Catholic boarding school, located in the French Pyrénées, near the city of Pau, who have alleged being victims of acts of physical and sexual violence, have piled up. In 15 months, 200 such reports have been filed. However, one blind spot in this exceptional scandal remains: Given that the Bétharram religious congregation has been established in 14 other countries since the 19th century, could there also be victims abroad?

Some of the priests accused of abuses in France had previously served in Vietnam, Thailand, the Central African Republic, Morocco, or Côte…

View Cache

A Catholic diocese wants to stop New Jersey from trying to empanel a grand jury to investigate allegations of clergy sexual abuse, with arguments before the state’s high court set for Monday.

After a Pennsylvania grand jury report found over 1,000 children had been abused since the 1940s, New Jersey formed a task force in 2018 and intended to empanel its own grand jury to investigate allegations of abuse there. But the Diocese of Camden pushed back in court in 2021, arguing that state law doesn’t permit having a grand jury investigate possible abuse by private church officials.

That legal battle has happened away from public view for years, as courts had sealed the proceedings in New Jersey and the attorney general’s office didn’t share updates. But last month, the state Supreme Court unsealed a handful of documents between the diocese and the attorney general after the Bergen…

View Cache

Following Pope Francis’s death at age 88, Catholics worldwide are beginning to call for his canonization, though Church experts caution that the path to sainthood, even for a beloved pontiff, could take years, The New York Post reported.

Experts said Tuesday that Pope Francis’s devoted followers are expected to rally soon so that the late pontiff can be fast-tracked to sainthood. But despite the admiration he inspired, it will likely take at least five years — and possibly much longer — before the Argentine-born leader could be declared a saint, if at all.

When Pope John Paul II died in 2005, chants of “Santo Subito!” or “Saint Right Away!” filled the air at his funeral. It took nine years — and Francis’s election — before John Paul II and his predecessor, Pope John XXIII, were canonized.

Francis, who passed away early Monday, enjoyed widespread popularity for his…

View Cache

The death of Pope Francis fills me with a deep sadness as we mourn the loss of a kind, courageous, and gentle pastor.

I also have a sense of gratitude to God for the great leadership he has given to the Church over the course of his papacy.

The first Latin-American to be pope, he insisted right from the start that a key focus of his pontificate would be on ‘the peripheries’.

His preaching, teaching and travels brought him to many of the poorest and most marginalised communities on the earth to remind them of their human dignity as children of God.

He urged politicians and other leaders there, and everywhere, to work for peace, justice and responsible economic development. The plight of the peoples of Gaza, Ukraine and in so many other theatres of conflict was constantly on his lips and in his prayers.

He urged an end to…

View Cache

Two popes . . . Francis and John Paul II . . . their deaths separated by almost exactly twenty years. Both world-renowned figures and similar in personal approach . . . but the two were different, as well. I had the honor of covering both.  

The news of the death of Pope Francis came just as I was returning to London from a long Easter weekend in the States. While Francis had been seriously ill, he also seemed to be on the mend, so his quick and quiet death at his modest apartment in the Santa Marta guesthouse caught many by surprise. A planned “catnap” by me at home turned into a quick dash to our UK studio. 

In a series of “live shots,” I talked about a man who seemed so familiar to all. They called him the “People’s Pope.” And no wonder. The first from the Americas. For 12…

View Cache

Francis’ words at Easter were ones of reconciliation, compassion, inclusivity and understanding. Let us hope that they will be heeded

The spectacular funeral of Pope Francis, with 400,000 mourners in and around St Peter’s Square, provided a fitting tribute to a man who made a difference. He will not be an easy act to follow.

Among the crowds gathered to pay their respects were 50 heads of states, part of 170 foreign delegations. They should all reflect on the late pope’s legacy and, especially, his persistent calls for peace, compassion and care for the world’s most vulnerable.

The death of an 88-year-old, recently discharged from hospital, would not normally come as a shock.

But Francis, who led the Catholic Church for 12 years, had raised hopes he was recovering by appearing on the balcony of St Peter’s Basilica on Easter Sunday. The pontiff even greeted cheering crowds from his Popemobile.

…

View Cache

By Cindy Wooden | Catholic News Service
Saturday, April 26, 2025

Pope Francis was “a pope among the people, with an open heart toward everyone,” said Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re, dean of the College of Cardinals, as he presided over the funeral of the pope, who died April 21 at the age of 88.

And the people — an estimated 200,000 of them — were present as 14 pallbearers carried Pope Francis’ casket into St. Peter’s Square and set it on a carpet in front of the altar for the funeral Mass April 26.

His burial was scheduled for later the same day in Rome’s Basilica of St. Mary Major after being driven in a motorcade through the center of the city where he served as bishop from the day of his election to the papacy March 13, 2013.

Security around the Vatican was tight, not only because of the number…

View Cache

From working as a bouncer at a Buenos Aires nightclub to presiding over the Vatican, the path Pope Francis forged as the leader of the Roman Catholic Church was as unlikely as it was unprecedented.

Francis, who died Monday, April 22, at age 88, was keen to flex his muscles as supreme pontiff. He angered some Catholic Church traditionalists by reaching out to gay and marginalized people, demanding justice for the poor and the dispossessed and railing against unbridled capitalism and climate change.

As the first pope from the Americas, Francis was in many ways the ultimate Vatican outsider who charted a new and more liberal course as the leader of the world’s 1.4 billion Catholics.

“He embarked on a real reorganization of the church and a real reorientation of the church after four decades of conservative theologians’ leading…

View Cache

Each day between now and the conclave to elect a successor to Pope Francis, on a date yet to be set, John Allen is offering a profile of a different papabile, the Italian term for a man who could be pope. There’s no scientific way to identity these contenders; it’s mostly a matter of weighing reputations, positions held and influence wielded over the years. There’s also certainly no guarantee one of these candidates will emerge wearing white; as an old bit of Roman wisdom has it, “He who enters a conclave as a pope exits as a cardinal.” These are, however, the leading names drawing buzz in Rome right now, at least ensuring they will get a look. Knowing who these men are also suggests issues and qualities other cardinals see as desirable heading into the election.

When Pope Francis gave the green light for the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the…

View Cache

The next pontiff must continue the ‘revolution’ started by Pope Francis, a group of Irish priests seeking reform of the Catholic Church said this weekend.

And this should include open debate about the ‘Aposibility of women being ordained and discussions around celibacy, according to the Association of Catholic Priests, formed by Irish clerics eager to see reforms first proposed by the Vatican Council more than 60 years ago.

Speaking about reforms that began under Francis, a founding member of the association, Fr Brendan Hoban, told Extra.ie: ‘Up to Pope Francis coming, bishops couldn’t discuss whether priests should be celibate, whether or not you should have a married clergy or whether women could be ordained.

‘These “red button” issues were never discussed and priests got into bother if they wrote about it.

‘Francis has changed all that completely. He has said: “I want you to say what you…

View Cache

Few could have predicted that a comment Pope Francis made during a 2018 visit to Chile would blow up into the biggest crisis of his papacy, and one that eventually set the Catholic Church on a new path of accountability for clergy sexual abuse.

Francis was asked by a TV reporter about a Chilean bishop who had been accused by victims of having covered up the crimes of Chile’s most notorious pedophile. Francis had been defending the bishop for years and shot back that there was “not one shred of proof against him. It’s all slander. Is that clear?”

His irate response struck a nerve in Chile, which was just beginning to come to terms with a horrific legacy of clergy abuse, and it prompted Francis’ top child protection adviser to sternly rebuke the pope for his harmful words.

But then something remarkable happened: Rather than dig in, Francis commissioned…

View Cache

Pope Francis’s successor will face a litany of challenges, from the place of women and the LGBTQ community in the Catholic Church, to diplomatic challenges in a conflict-riven world.

UNITY

Uniting a divided church will be one of the main tasks facing the new pope.

During his 12-year-long papacy, Francis often came under fire for his more liberal policies, such as welcoming migrants and restricting the use of the Latin Mass.

Traditionalists in the United States and Africa in particular were angered by his efforts to give lay people and women a greater role in the Church, and his decision to open the door to blessing same-sex unions.

His successor will have to make peace between the Church’s conservative and liberal fringes.

“A pope always brings people together,” Luxembourger Cardinal Jean-Claude Hollerich told reporters.

“That unity in the church will be very important. But you don’t unify the church by…

View Cache

The Swiss Catholic Church should avolid dividing members with sweeping reforms, according to the president of the Swiss Bishops’ Conference, Charles Morerod.

Following the death of Pope Francis, questions have arisen about the future direction of the Catholic Church.

Excessive reforms would divide the members of the Catholic Church in Switzerland even more, said Morerod in an interview with the SonntagsZeitung.

“Nevertheless, we are always making reforms in small steps.” With regard to reforms, the Church in Switzerland cannot be viewed in isolation, Morerod added.

In Switzerland, there is a “great divide between traditionalists and progressives”, said the Bishop of Lausanne, Geneva and Fribourg. Opinions are often diametrically opposed, especially when it comes to emotional issues such as homosexuality.

Morerod cited a mass in Geneva as an example: it was not appreciated by everyone that a homosexual person had been invited to attend. He did not want to express his personal…

View Cache

For years, traditionalists raged at Pope Francis’s liberal approach. The question now is whether his successor will walk the same path, or take the Catholic Church in a new direction.

Cardinals will meet within days for a conclave to elect a new pontiff, sparking fevered speculation about how the next pope will guide the world’s 1.4 billion Catholics.

But experts say that despite his reforms, Francis did not change fundamental doctrine — suggesting the next leader could bring a fresh style and different priorities, but is unlikely to upend 2,000-years of belief.

“Whether on the issues of abortion, the end of life, marriage for priests, the ordination of women, or homosexuality, which were points of traditional conservative doctrine, Francis has changed nothing,” said Francois Mabille, director of the Geopolitical Observatory of Religion.

The Argentine certainly took some radical steps. He made institutional changes, lifted the veil…

View Cache

ROME – Fundamentally, every conclave shapes up as a referendum on the papacy that just ended: Do we want to keep going in the same direction, or do we want to change?

After the death of John Paul II in 2005, the vote was overwhelming for continuity, which is how you got to Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, John Paul’s right-hand man, as Pope Benedict XVI in just four ballots; in 2013 the decision was massively for change, explaining the election of Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio of Buenos Aires as Pope Francis in just five.

If we assume the same choice will shape the 2025 edition, then it’s worth asking who the continuity candidate might be this time – and it’s hard to think of a more obvious answer than 69-year-old Cardinal Matteo Zuppi of Bologna, arguably as close to a potential “Pope Francis II” as one will find among the plausible…

View Cache

Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa left the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem’s Christian Quarter on Wednesday to head to the Vatican for his first-ever conclave to select the next pope. He departed as the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, but some have speculated that he could have a new title — pope — in the coming weeks.

“This is a moment during which we need to be united in prayer, first for me, because this is a time in which I carry a great and important responsibility. And we must pray for the church, for we are a part of a big body which is [the] universal church, the Catholic Church. I am sure that your prayers, all together, will bring the right choices for the good of the universal church,” Pizzaballa said in a recorded statement before his departure.

Pizzaballa is widely viewed as one of the favorites to succeed…

View Cache

Each day between now and the conclave to elect a successor to Pope Francis, on a date yet to be set, John Allen is offering a profile of a different papabile, the Italian term for a man who could be pope. There’s no scientific way to identity these contenders; it’s mostly a matter of weighing reputations, positions held and influence wielded over the years. There’s also certainly no guarantee one of these candidates will emerge wearing white; as an old bit of Roman wisdom has it, “He who enters a conclave as a pope exits as a cardinal.” These are, however, the leading names drawing buzz in Rome right now, at least ensuring they will get a look. Knowing who these men are also suggests issues and qualities other cardinals see as desirable heading into the election.

ROME – It’s a matter of historical record that years before the conclave of 2005…

View Cache

Peter Erdő is often spoken of as a potential candidate to succeed Francis. Therefore, it’s crucial to know where he stands: is he faithful to the teaching of the Catholic Church, or has he followed Francis and the self-proclaimed Conciliar/Synodal church?

Peter Erdő was in born in Hungary in 1954. He is currently Archbishop of Esztergom-Budapest. He is one of the longer serving members in the putative College of Cardinals, having been appointed by John Paul II in 2003.

There are many who put Erdő forward as a conservative orthodox candidate and point to positive attributes: his focus on evangelization, his Marian devotion, his defense of the hierarchical nature of the Church, his support for clerical celibacy, and his orthodox statements on some moral questions, such as abortion and the use of contraception.

On the other hand, Erdő has played a leading role in the synodal process and directly cooperated in…

View Cache

Washington Governor may reinstate clergy as mandatory child abuse reporters — no exemptions

SB 5375 revives a long-abandoned policy and stirs emotional debate over confessional secrecy v. justice for survivors.

On Tuesday, Senate Bill 5375 — which mandates clergy to report child abuse and neglect — landed on Gov. Bob Ferguson’s desk. Since it arrived less than five days before the legislative session closed, he has 20 days, instead of the usual five, to sign it. 

Child survivors of sexual abuse in Washington, whose religious leaders failed to report their abuse to authorities, are eagerly waiting Ferguson’s signature. Once that happens, clergy will be put back on Washington’s list of mandatory reporters. From 1969 to 1974/75 “clergyman” was included in the list of mandatory reporters in state law along with nurses, pharmacists, school employees and others. In 1975, according to a public policy report, it…

View Cache

The daughter of French Prime Minister François Bayrou has recently revealed being a victim of abuse at a Catholic boarding school. Her testimony has fuelled fresh accusations against Bayrou of dishonesty over his knowledge of allegations of abuse at Notre-Dame de Bétharram Catholic school from the 1950s until the 2000s.

The daughter of French Prime Minister François Bayrou on Wednesday accused clergy at the Catholic Notre-Dame de Bétharram school in the Pyrenees of systemic abuse, alleging a priest beat her at summer camp when she was 14—while her father was serving as a local official.

Bayrou has been under fire for failing to report the multiple allegations of abuse when he was education minister in the 1990s, but he has repeatedly insisted he knew nothing about the incidents.

The eldest daughter of France’s Prime Minister François Bayrou, Hélène Perlant, recently revealed that she had been beaten by a priest while she was a…

View Cache

Court records reveal Leo Alfonso Parker may be related to the victim and he’s had contact with her since she was a young child.

Bond has been revoked for the Palatka pastor who investigators arrested last week and charged with sexual battery on a child.

Leo Alfonso Parker was the lead pastor at Emerge Church of Palatka. After going before a judge on Wednesday, the judge requested Parker remain in custody in the Putnam County Jail.

Court records obtained by First Coast News shows the victim may be related to Parker and he’s had contact with her since she was a young child.

Mom of two, Carmella Johnson, was stunned when she heard about the pastor’s arrest. 

“It’s gut wrenching,” said Johnson. 

Parker is charged with sexual battery of a minor 12 to 18 years old by a person in family or custodial authority, a crime punishable by life…

View Cache

Senior Catholic Church leaders are already discussing what the late Pope Francis’s successor will need to tackle first and foremost after his election, whenever it comes.

On the agenda for the cardinals choosing a successor to Francis will be the scandal of sexual abuse and the crisis of coverup that has been plaguing the Church for decades.

That is one reason why the news that Cardinal Roger Mahony, the retired archbishop of Los Angeles, would be taking part in the sealing of the Pope Francis’s coffin on Friday, was received with surprise and shock.

The 89-year-old Mahony played a central role in the abuse scandal and was accused in 2013 of shielding priests from prosecution by having them moved to other dioceses when facing abuse allegations.

Mahony apologized “for my own failure to protect fully the children and youth entrusted into my care,” calling the abuse “a terrible sin and…

View Cache

The 89-year-old is due to attend the closing of the pope’s coffin and burial.

Cardinal Roger Mahony, the retired archbishop of Los Angeles, will be a controversial participant in Friday’s ceremony to close Pope Francis’ coffin, and Saturday’s papal burial.

The 89-year-old cardinal, who in 2013 was briefly relieved of administrative and public duties in the LA archdiocese by his successor in office over his handling of abuse cases, will be among eight cardinals required to attend the April 25 rite in St. Peter’s Basilica to close the pope’s coffin, and the April 26 interment at Rome’s Basilica of St. Mary Major after the pope’s funeral Mass.

Mahony will attend the ceremonies at St. Peter’s and St. Mary Major in his capacity as a cardinal-priest, the second of the three ranks of cardinals. He is among the oldest cardinal-priests, whose ranks are more numerous than those of the cardinal-deacons, who are below them…

View Cache

Throughout his papacy, Pope Francis, who died April 21 at the age of 88, faced the sexual abuse crisis in the Catholic Church, attempting to balance defending the church from criticism while showing compassion toward survivors, with often mixed results.

Nevertheless, while the fruits of the reforms made throughout his 12-year papacy are yet to be determined, what can’t be denied is his pastoral approach that tried to place victims at the heart of the church’s response to clergy sexual abuse, which he regarded as demonic in nature.

“The abuse of minors is truly a horrible crime. … A priest who does this betrays the body of the Lord,” the pope told journalists aboard his return flight from the Holy Land in May 2014. “It is like saying a black mass.”

In 2013, less than a month into his pontificate, Pope Francis met with the prefect of the then-Congregation for…

View Cache

One of the world’s top experts on clerical sexual abuse, Jesuit Father Hans Zollner, said Pope Francis will be remembered as a pontiff who made listening to victims of abuse one of the trademarks of his pontificate — a habit that made him a model for other bishops and leaders in the church. 

“He was really listening” when he sat down with survivors of abuse. “Any leader in the church, any believer in Jesus Christ, should listen to those who have been wounded, especially those who have been wounded within the church and by church people,” Father Zollner told OSV News April 23. 

The Jesuit expert and Director of Institute of Anthropology at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome said that from his experience “in accompanying a good number of victims and survivors, and from reading their messages and receiving calls from some of those survivors who met with Pope…

View Cache

Senior Catholic Church leaders are already discussing what the late Pope Francis’s successor will need to tackle first and foremost after his election, whenever it comes.

On the agenda for the cardinals choosing a successor to Francis will be the scandal of sexual abuse and the crisis of coverup that has been plaguing the Church for decades.

That is one reason why the news that Cardinal Roger Mahony, the retired archbishop of Los Angeles, would be taking part in the sealing of the Pope Francis’s coffin on Friday, was received with surprise and shock.

The 89-year-old Mahony played a central role in the abuse scandal and was accused in 2013 of shielding priests from prosecution by having them moved to other dioceses when facing abuse allegations.

Mahony apologized “for my own failure to protect fully the children and youth entrusted into my care,” calling the abuse “a terrible sin and…

View Cache

An American cardinal who was accused of covering up cases of sexual abuse by priests and was later stripped of some duties, is set to play an official role in the ceremonies surrounding Pope Francis’ funeral.

Cardinal Roger M. Mahony, the former archbishop of Los Angeles, will participate in the closing of the pope’s casket at St. Peter’s Basilica on Friday evening and in his burial at the Papal Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore on Saturday, according to Vatican announcements.

The cardinals taking part were chosen based on seniority, a spokesman for the Vatican, Matteo Bruni, said at a news briefing on Thursday.

Cardinal Mahony, 89, was the archbishop of Los Angeles from 1985 until his retirement from the Roman Catholic Church in 2011. In 2013, internal church personnel files released as part of a civil case revealed that Cardinal Mahony had played a role…

View Cache

Just 10 days after Pope Francis was appointed head of the Catholic Church, he received an ominous gift from his predecessor — a large white box.

The then-76-year-old Pope Francis flew to the Papal Palace of Castel Gandolfo to meet with Pope Benedict XVI, who was just a month into his retirement.

There was an auspicious air to the meeting.

It was the first time two popes had met each other in more than 600 years.

The last recorded meeting had been in 1294, when the retired would-be hermit Pope Celestine V met his successor, Pope Boniface VIII — Celestine was executed less than a year later.

Pope Benedict XVI lived another nine years before dying of lung disease in 2022.

“Everything is in here,” he told the newly appointed Pope Francis, as the two sat across from one another in the palace library.

The box between them on the…

View Cache

East Timor Prime Minister Xanana Gusmao told AFP on Friday that Pope Francis left a legacy of reconciliation but also confronted the issue of child abuse during a rare visit to Asia’s youngest nation last year.

The Argentine, who died on Monday, visited the impoverished Catholic-majority country in September, the first pontiff to go to East Timor since it won independence from Indonesia in 2002 after decades of conflict.

Francis told leaders to do more on “every kind of abuse” and remember “the many children… whose dignity has been violated”, confronting them about the issue after clergy members were implicated in several recent child abuse scandals.

“I agree very much, I agree. His appeal was well-accepted,” said Gusmao, a liberation hero who was East Timor’s first president after independence.

“Sometimes a country continues to be fragile because of abuse, abuse of power, and abuse in every aspect of life. This…

View Cache

A US cardinal accused of mismanaging clerical sexual abuse has been listed as playing an official role in the ceremonies to close Pope Francis’ coffin and for his burial.

Cardinal Roger Mahony, the retired Archbishop of Los Angeles, is among a group of nine cardinals and a small number of priests and bishops set to take part in the rites which will include the pope’s burial at the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore.

Mahony, 89, retired as archbishop in 2011. He was relieved of all his official duties in the archdiocese in 2013 – although these duties were not specified.

However, the American cardinal is listed as participating in the forthcoming ceremonies as a “cardinal priest,” a position within the College of Cardinals. The college includes “cardinal deacons,” “cardinal priests” and “cardinal bishops.”

Mahony holds a senior position among the cardinal priests as he is one of the longest-serving — those who…

View Cache

A disgraced US cardinal accused of covering up a clerical child sex abuse scandal was chosen to help seal Pope Francis’ casket and entomb his remains for his burial.

Cardinal Roger Mahony, 89, the retired Archbishop of Los Angeles, is one of nine cardinals and dozens of other clergymen who will play a ceremonial role in closing the late pope’s coffin Friday ahead of the pontiff’s funeral Saturday morning in St. Peter’s Square, the Vatican announced Wednesday.

Mahony, who was stripped of his administrative and public duties in January 2013, will also help oversee the pope’s interment at Rome’s Basilica of Saint Mary Major following the funeral.

“Shame on him for participating in the public rite for Pope Francis, and shame on the College of Cardinals for allowing him to do so,” said Anne Barrett Doyle, a member of the Bishop Accountability group, which has tracked Catholic clergy abuse…

View Cache

The issue of sexual abuse has long plagued the Catholic Church with one Cardinal’s presence at Pope Fancis’ funeral symbolic of the problem

As preparations for Pope Francis’ funeral move toward an end, the Vatican’s decision to include Cardinal Roger Mahony, who has faced accusations of mishandling sexual abuse cases, in tomorrow’s rites has attaracted criticism.

Mahony, the former Archbishop of Los Angeles, is among the most senior cardinal priests in the Church by length of service. However, at 89, he no longer holds voting rights in a papal conclave. Yet despite having been publicly sidelined by Church leadership more than a decade ago, he will take a prominent ceremonial role in the funeral proceedings. According to a Vatican spokesperson, Mahony was invited because he was the most senior cardinal priest available, as others in the line of precedence were either ill or unable to attend.

Accusations against Mahony

As…

View Cache

‘This is not about giving Pope Francis a medal or giving him a grade, but about learning about potential criticism and mistakes,’ said the head of the Society of Jesus

[See also a video of the press conference; please note that Sosa’s statement in English begins at 32:29.]

The head of the Jesuit order said Thursday that “Pope Francis always acknowledged his limitations, his mistakes, and his slowness” in responding to abuse cases, like those of Bishop Gustavo Zanchetta and Fr. Marko Rupnik.

At an April 24 press conference in Rome on Pope Francis’ life and legacy, Fr. Arturo Sosa, S.J., said that “it’s not about saving [face for] what he did or what he didn’t [do], but that if there were mistakes, and if these mistakes had consequences, we must overcome them.”

“This is not about giving Pope Francis a medal or giving him a grade, but about learning…

View Cache

Summary

• Victim’s advocates criticize role of US cardinal in pope’s funeral
• Roger Mahony accused of mishandling abuse cases, which he denies
• Cardinal part of special group to seal Pope Francis’ casket

Advocates for Catholic clergy sexual abuse victims are criticising the appointment of a retired U.S. cardinal who has been accused of mishandling abuse cases to a ceremonial role in helping seal Pope Francis‘ casket and entomb his remains.

Roger Mahony, archbishop of Los Angeles from 1985 to 2011, denies any wrongdoing. He will be one of nine cardinals and dozens of other officials overseeing two special rites on Friday and Saturday, the Vatican said on Wednesday.

The rites include the pope’s interment at Rome’s Basilica of Saint Mary Major on Saturday, following his funeral in St. Peter’s Square.

“Shame on him for participating in the public rites for Pope Francis, and shame on the College of Cardinals for allowing him to do…

View Cache

Hélène Perlant, the eldest daughter of France’s Prime Minister François Bayrou, became the latest person to speak out about suffering abuse at the Notre-Dame de Bétharram school in southwestern France. Perlant attended summer camp at the school when she was 14 and said a priest beat her and “dragged [her] across the floor” by the hair.

A daughter of France‘s Prime Minister François Bayrou Wednesday became the latest person to accuse the clergy running a school in the Pyrenees of systemic abuse including while her father was a local official, saying a priest beat her during summer camp when she was 14.

Bayrou’s eldest daughter Hélène Perlant, who is now 53 and uses her mother’s name, said however that her father did not know about the incident.

Multiple accusations of sexual and physical abuse at the Notre-Dame de Bétharram boarding school have cast a shadow on Bayrou’s premiership – the latest in decades…

View Cache

Each day between now and the conclave to elect a successor to Pope Francis, on a date yet to be set, John Allen is offering a profile of a different papabile, the Italian term for a man who could be pope. There’s no scientific way to identity these contenders; it’s mostly a matter of weighing reputations, positions held and influence wielded over the years. There’s also certainly no guarantee one of these candidates will emerge wearing white; as an old bit of Roman wisdom has it, “He who enters a conclave as a pope exits as a cardinal.” These are, however, the leading names drawing buzz in Rome right now, at least ensuring they will get a look. Knowing who these men are also suggests issues and qualities other cardinals see as desirable heading into the election.

ROME – As the world is gripped by anxiety and uncertainty, driven by the rise…

View Cache

The Diocese of Buffalo, New York, will pay out a massive $150 million sum as part of a settlement with victims of clergy sexual abuse there. 

The diocese said in a press release that the diocese itself, along with parishes and affiliates, would provide the payment “to survivors of sexual abuse for acts perpetrated against them by clergy, religious, lay employees, and volunteers.” 

The settlement amount was still set to be voted on by abuse victims and approved by U.S. bankruptcy court, but the proposal has been accepted by the committee of abuse survivors in the suit, the diocese said. 

The settlement “represents an essential milestone on this protracted and arduous journey, and importantly, enables us to finally provide a measure of financial restitution to victim-survivors, which has been our primary objective all along,” Bishop Michael Fisher said on Tuesday. 

“While indeed a steep sum, no amount of…

View Cache

French Prime Minister François Bayrou says his eldest daughter’s revelation that she was among children who were abused at a Roman Catholic school “stabs him to the heart as a father”.

Hélène Perlant, who is now 53, alleges that a priest at Notre-Dame de Bétharram beat her at a summer camp when she was 14.

In recent weeks, details of physical and sex abuse perpetrated over decades at Bétharram in the Pyrenees have drawn increasing attention to Bayrou, who was local MP and education minister at the time.

Bayrou, 73, has denied suggestions that he knew about the abuse pupils allegedly suffered from the 1950s to 2010. He is due to appear next month before a parliamentary inquiry.

The boarding school is located in his stronghold in the south-west and he sent three of his children there.

Hélène Perlant was one of them, and in the latest twist to the…

View Cache

Pope Francis’ reign in the papal throne spanned more than a decade, and witnessed the spread of widespread confusion on numerous matters of the Catholic faith.

Pope Francis has died today, aged 88.

The Holy See Press Office announced the news, writing:

A short while ago, His Eminence Cardinal Farrell announced with sorrow the death of Pope Francis with these words:

“Dear brothers and sisters, it is with deep sorrow that I must announce the death of our Holy Father Francis.

At 7:35 this morning, the Bishop of Rome, Francis, returned to the Father’s house. His entire life was dedicated to the service of the Lord and His Church.

He taught us to live the values of the Gospel with fidelity, courage, and universal love, especially toward the poorest and most marginalized.

With immense gratitude for his example as a true disciple of the Lord Jesus, we commend the soul of Pope Francis to…

View Cache

Throughout his papacy, Pope Francis, who died April 21 at the age of 88, faced the sexual abuse crisis in the Catholic Church, attempting to balance defending the church from criticism while showing compassion toward survivors, with often mixed results.

Nevertheless, while the fruits of the reforms made throughout his 12-year papacy are yet to be determined, what can’t be denied is his pastoral approach that tried to place victims at the heart of the church’s response to clergy sexual abuse, which he regarded as demonic in nature.

“The abuse of minors is truly a horrible crime. … A priest who does this betrays the body of the Lord,” the pope told journalists aboard his return flight from the Holy Land in May 2014. “It is like saying a black mass.”

In 2013, less than a month into his pontificate, Pope Francis met with the prefect of the then-Congregation for the Doctrine…

View Cache

Although he was a pontiff well-attuned to the concerns of ordinary Catholics, Pope Francis had a surprising blind spot when it came to the abuse crisis. He did not talk very much about the issue in his first months in the Vatican, and when he did, in 2014, appeared on the defensive, saying “no one else has done more” to root out abuse than the church.

His election took place at a time when the problem of sexual abuse of minors by clergy was well known, and after more scandals had emerged during the papacy of Benedict XVI. While important steps had been taken to address the abuse scandals during his predecessor’s tenure, there was still much more the church needed to do.

Survivors of church sexual abuse say the next pope needs to do more to tackle clergy guilty of abuse and hold bishops accountable when they…

View Cache

Pope Francis had once vowed to eradicate the “evil” of sexual abuse from the Roman Catholic Church. He called bishops to Rome for listening sessions. He drew up new guidelines for handling cases.

Anti-abuse advocates commend Francis for grasping the systemic nature of the problem and for meeting empathetically with victims. But they say he struggled to alter the church’s penchant for secrecy and its habit of acting forcefully only when under outside pressure.

What that means, in the aftermath of Francis’s death, is that the next pope will inherit a crisis that is still roiling the Catholic Church.

Even now, the Holy See is receiving a steady 800 cases per year from places like Poland, Italy, Latin America and Asia, according to Archbishop Charles Scicluna, a member of the Vatican department that oversees the handling of abuse claims.

The church, with its meticulous recordkeeping,…

View Cache

The Roman Catholic Diocese of Buffalo agreed to a provisional settlement of $150 million with more than 800 victims of sexual abuse, a lawyer for dozens of the accusers said on Tuesday, bringing one of New York’s most embattled and scandal-plagued dioceses closer to resolving years of legal wrangling.

Bishop Michael W. Fisher of Buffalo said in a statement on Tuesday that the total amount “remains subject to a creditor vote and court approval,” but he hailed the proposal as “an essential milestone on this protracted and arduous journey” that “enables us to finally provide a measure of financial restitution to victim-survivors.”

“While indeed a steep sum, no amount of money can undo the tremendous harm and suffering the victim-survivors have endured, or eliminate the lingering mental, emotional and spiritual pain they have been forced to carry throughout their lives,” he added.

The scale of the misconduct by both clergy…

View Cache

“Although Pope Francis had good intentions when denouncing clergy sexual abuse he was met with great resistance within the Catholic Church when attempting to effectuate any meaningful change,” attorney Mitchell Garabedian says

A lawyer known for representing clergy sexual abuse victims is speaking out after the death of Pope Francis.

In a statement shared with PEOPLE on Tuesday, April 22, Mitchell Garabedian, who was portrayed by Stanley Tucci in the 2015 Oscar-winning film Spotlight, mourned the loss of the pope and underlined the need for more action to address the “sexual abuse crisis” within the Catholic Church.

“I have been representing clergy sexual abuse victims or survivors worldwide for decades,” Garabedian wrote. “The passing of Pope Francis is understandably sad, unsettling and difficult for many.”

“Although Pope Francis had good intentions when denouncing clergy sexual abuse he was met with great resistance within the Catholic Church when…

View Cache

Few could have predicted that a comment Pope Francis made during a 2018 visit to Chile would blow up into the biggest crisis of his papacy, and one that eventually set the Catholic Church on a new path of accountability for clergy sexual abuse.

Francis was asked by a TV reporter about a Chilean bishop who had been accused by victims of having covered up the crimes of Chile’s most notorious pedophile. Francis had been defending the bishop for years and shot back that there was “not one shred of proof against him. It’s all slander. Is that clear?”

His irate response struck a nerve in Chile, which was just beginning to come to terms with a horrific legacy of clergy abuse, and it prompted Francis’ top child protection adviser to sternly rebuke the pope for his harmful words.

But then something remarkable happened: Rather than dig in, Francis commissioned an…

View Cache

An Arkansas pastor has been sentenced to 110 years in prison for charges related to the possession and distribution of child sexual abuse materials.

The Pike County Sheriff’s Department announced on Monday that an Arkansas pastor has been sentenced to 110 years in prison. 

The man — James Vincent Henry who worked as a pastor in Delight, Arkansas — pleaded guilty to 11 child sexual abuse material charges. As result, Henry received 10 years per count for a total of 110 years in prison.

Back in October of 2024, Henry was initially arrested for his involvement in the possession and distribution of child sexual abuse materials.

According to reports, on September 25, a search warrant was executed by Arkansas State Police after they received two cyber tips from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children that were made on both Snapchat and Kik.

After reviewing the digital evidence, a…

View Cache

After an earthquake devastated Haiti on Jan. 12, 2010, the Obama administration allowed families to fast-track adoptions of children from orphanages in the stricken country – and many Americans flew there as quickly as possible.

What one group of parents didn’t know was that some of their children had been sexually abused, allegedly by a missionary, Keith Lashbrook. Lashbrook volunteered at Michael Brown’s FIRE School of Ministry until Brown fired him in 2008. At the same time, Lashbook was overseeing an orphanage in Port de Paix, north Haiti.

Lashbrook, who has never been charged with any wrongdoing, allegedly tried to force one FIRE student, Christy Scott, to accept massages and “daddy-daughter dates.” If she refused, he told her she’d soon kill herself.

Since Lashbrook’s role included mentoring young women at FIRE, Scott said she reported this odd behavior to FIRE leaders the year it happened—2008. She told The Roys Report (TRR) the…

View Cache

When Pope Francis took on the challenge of leading the Catholic Church into a new era in 2013, he said that cleaning up a global sexual abuse crisis was high on the agenda.

From parishes in Boston and schools in Australia, to orphanages in Ireland and nunneries in Argentina, the Catholic Church has faced a cascade of sexual abuse allegations.

In many cases, the victims were children. 

The worldwide scandal led to a flurry of criminal cases, civil trials and national inquiries, bringing the institution to its knees, amid claims that offenders were moved from parish to parish to ensure their crimes were “swept under the carpet.”

Under serious pressure from survivors, prosecutors and the faithful, Pope Francis told his staff to take “decisive action” and ensure perpetrators were punished.

In a statement from April 2013, the Holy See press office said Pope Francis told the Vatican watchdog that dealt with sexual…

View Cache

 The Catholic Diocese of Buffalo has reached a $150 million settlement with more than 800 survivors of sexual abuse.

The settlement involves parishes and schools connected to decades of abuse by clergy, lay employees, religious and volunteers within the eight counties of Western New York. Although the settlement amount still needs creditor vote and court approval, it has been accepted by the Committee, meaning each survivor would receive about $187,000.

“This settlement in principle between the Committee and the Diocese represents an essential milestone on this protracted and arduous journey, and importantly, enables us to finally provide a measure of financial restitution to victim-survivors, which has been our primary objective all along,” explained Bishop Michael W. Fisher. “While indeed a steep sum, no amount of money can undo the tremendous harm and suffering the victim survivors have endured, or eliminate the lingering mental, emotional, and spiritual pain they have been…

View Cache

Gardaí have attended a mobile home in Co Donegal owned by child sex offence suspect Fr Edward Gallagher and removed a number of items.

The priest has been suspended from his post in the Derry Diocese after he was charged with attempted sexual communication with a child.

Fr Gallagher appeared before a special sitting of Derry Magistrates Court charged that on dates between April 2nd, 2025, and April 17th, 2025, that he attempted sexual communication with a child.

The 58-year-old is the curate for the Camus, Clonleigh and Leckpatrick parishes, which include St Patrick’s Church in Murlog, Lifford, in Co Donegal where he is the regular celebrant.

His arrest and charge follows an incident involving ‘paedophile hunters’ outside a Derry hotel on Thursday last, which saw a number of allegations put to him.

In that video, various allegations are put to the priest about his alleged sexual activity, and he…

View Cache

[Note: In the excellent video of this report, survivor Damian O’Farrell’s five-minute segment describes the meeting that Pope Francis had with him and seven other survivors during the Pope’s visit to Ireland. O’Farrell does say that Francis has been the “best Pope” for survivors, but he also says that more “radical” change is needed. He speaks of the impact of Francis on him and the remarkably detailed and accurate memory Francis had of what each of the survivors had said. O’Farrell was particularly struck by the Pope’s demeanor when the survivors talked about the Magdalen laundries and the industrial schools, as if Francis were understanding that aspect of the Irish crisis for the first time. O’Farrell also speaks of the resistance still shown by Irish religious orders, which need, he says, to be more Christian in dealing with abuse. ]

When Pope Francis visited Ireland in 2018, he…

View Cache

“It has been one of the greatest challenges facing the Church of our time,” wrote Pope Francis, who died on April 21 at the age of 88, in a text made public on June 15, 2023. At the time, he had just written a letter to Bolivian president Luis Arce, expressing his “pain and feelings of shame and dismay,” following revelations in the local press of dozens of sexual assaults committed by a priest in the country. Despite the unprecedented nature of the move – a pope writing to a head of state about a sex scandal – the matter caused only a limited stir. In France, for instance, there was hardly any media coverage. At the time, there was an all-too-familiar, sad sense of déjà-vu.

From the United States to Australia, via Germany, France, Ireland, Portugal, Belgium, Chile, Argentina, Mexico and Colombia, Francis saw scandals erupt almost everywhere in the Catholic world…

View Cache

While the airwaves have been flooded since Pope Francis’ death on Monday with praise for a transformative and humble leader, the pope’s legacy is a more complicated and troubled one for many focused on the issue of clergy sex abuse.

“My heart goes out to all of those who are deeply affected by [the passing of Pope Francis],” said Myra Russell, a Boston resident.

But for Russell, a survivor of clergy sexual abuse between the ages of 4 and 15 when she lived in Albany, it was hard to hear Pope Francis talking about “world peace” while knowing the inner lives of abuse survivors are anything but peaceful.

“As a survivor, first of all, I can tell you survivors are having a lot of feelings today, lots going on inside them,” said Peter Isely, one of the founders of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests.

“This is the…

View Cache

Summary

• Late pope met clerical abuse victims on 2018 trip to Ireland
• Francis created Vatican’s first anti-abuse commission
• Survivors say measures fell short of expectations
• Critics call for more decisive actions from next pope

Dublin – When Pope Francis sat with his head in his hands and listened to accounts of clerical sexual abuse for an hour longer than scheduled during a trip to Dublin in 2018, many of those present were deeply moved.

But not all were convinced that Francis, who died on Monday, was doing enough with his papacy to heal the damage done by decades of stark failures by the Church.

“I don’t think anyone can do enough,” said Rev. Paddy McCafferty, who was sexually abused as a young adult in the 1980s by a fellow member of the clergy and was one of eight victims to recount their stories that day.

“I think he did his best,” he said.

Francis…

View Cache

The Chilean sexual abuse scandal remains one of the darkest chapters of Pope Francis’ papacy—not simply because of the appalling crimes committed by Christian priests, but because of the way the Vatican treated those crimes: outright dismissal, disbelief, and denial. It is a sobering reminder that the Pope was, after all, a human being for whom institutional loyalty eclipsed moral clarity.

On April 21, Pope Francis, the 266th Pope of the Roman Catholic Church, breathed his last after battling a prolonged illness. He was 88 at the time of his death. Born as Jorge Mario Bergoglio, Pope Francis was the head of the Roman Catholic Church and the sovereign of the Vatican City State.

Cardinal Farrell announced the news of the Pope’s death, saying, “Dearest brothers and sisters, with deep sorrow I must announce the death of our Holy Father Francis.” He died at his residence in…

View Cache

Around 12 months before he died Pope Francis said much progress had been made on holding people to account for committing sexual abuse within the Catholic Church. But victims say the next Pope needs to take the progress much, much further.

As billions around the world reflect on the legacy of Pope Francis, some are feeling re-traumatised by the Catholic Church and angry at the ways the institution hurt them.

Advocates have argued the next pope must do better than Pope Francis to combat the scourge of sexual abuse within the Catholic Church and urged the church’s head to enforce a zero tolerance policy and mandatory reporting to local authorities.

Judy Courtin is a senior lawyer and scholar who has spent decades representing and advocating for victims of sexual abuse within Australian institutions, including the Catholic Church.

She told SBS News that for some victim/survivors of Catholic institutional child sex…

View Cache

Over the course of his pontificate, Pope Francis held up two recurring images: the good shepherd who looks for the lost sheep and lays down his life to save them; and the good Samaritan, who did not ignore the wounded traveler, but helped him without asking for anything in return.

“God thinks like the Samaritan” and “God thinks like the shepherd,” the pope said in his first general audience talk March 27, 2013, calling on everyone to enter “more deeply into the logic of God” in their daily lives.

Pope Francis used the same “logic” of God’s love and protection in his attempts to address the abuse crisis in the Catholic Church.

One hallmark of the pope’s approach was the way he listened to survivors and understood “how deep the wounds go,” Jesuit Father Hans Zollner, a leading safeguarding expert, told Catholic News Service in 2023.

The pope listened to…

View Cache

The death of Pope Francis, 88, after a long illness Monday prompted an outpouring of condolences from church and civic leaders across the region, as well as admiration among the Catholic laity for the Argentinian pontiff’s humility, simplicity, and advocacy for the most vulnerable.

From a Natick church service, where Boston Archbishop Richard Henning mourned the pope’s passing, to Boston City Hall and the state’s congressional delegation, Francis was recalled as a cleric who had championed the causes of the impoverished and persecuted, while prodding the secretive bureaucracy of the Roman Catholic Church to discuss reforms more openly.

At the foot of the altar in St. Patrick’s in Natick stood a gold-framed photo of the pontiff, surrounded by arrangements of lilies, hydrangeas, and daffodils laid out for the Easter season. The pope, a Jesuit who was elected to the papacy in 2013, died a day after appearing in a wheelchair…

View Cache

Church and world leaders mourn the death of the pontiff

The Catholic Church is in mourning.

Catholics around the world expressed their sadness and non-Catholics sent their condolences upon hearing the news of Pope Francis’ death at age 88 on Easter Monday.

Catholic bishops, priests and religious, intellectuals, activists, organizational leaders, as well as politicians, religious leaders, global organizations and more issued statements and wrote social media posts reflecting on the legacy of the first Jesuit pope who as an Argentine was also the first pontiff from the Americas.

“Pope Francis will long be remembered for his outreach to those on the margins of the Church and of society,” said Archbishop Timothy Broglio, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

In a prepared statement, Broglio said that Francis, who was elected pope in March 2013 after Pope Benedict XVI’s surprise resignation, “renewed for us the mission…

View Cache

Pope Francis died on Easter Monday at the age of 88. Here are the key things to know about the death of the Argentine pontiff, history’s first from Latin America, who presided over the Catholic Church for more than 12 years.

The timing and cause of Pope Francis’ death

Francis died Monday morning at the Domus Santa Marta hotel where he lived at the Vatican. His death came almost a month after he returned to the Vatican after being hospitalized for double pneumonia. The Vatican said that Francis suffered a stroke that led to a coma and caused his heart to fail.

On Tuesday the Vatican released its first images showing him in a wooden casket, in red vestments and his bishop’s miter, with the Vatican secretary of state praying over him in the chapel of the Domus Santa Marta. It also announced that the funeral will be held on…

View Cache

When Pope Francis took over in 2013, the Catholic Church was embroiled in a global scandal over child sex abuse by priests, and the institution’s attempts to cover it up.

The pontiff sanctioned top clergy and made reporting abuse mandatory, but victims said more can and must be done.

Criticised commission

In December 2014, Pope Francis established an international panel of experts to recommend how to protect minors, but the commission was mired in controversy from the start.

Two members representing abuse survivors resigned in 2017, including Marie Collins, who was raped by a priest in Ireland when she was 13 years old and who decried as “shameful” the lack of cooperation from Vatican officials.

In March 2023, the commission’s last remaining founding member, prominent German Jesuit priest Hans Zollner, resigned expressing concerns over “responsibility, compliance, accountability and transparency”.

Turning point in Chile

Pope Francis’s trip in January 2018 to…

View Cache

 It’s frustrating for me to hear Bergoglio described as “the less awful pope”–because awful is still awful. I think I get fixated on ideas of purity, which can be juvenile, but putting that aside, here are some things that Bergoglio could have done and did not. (I’m quoting from a survivor of sexual abuse at the hands of the Church.)

• He could levy the harshest penalty, excommunication, against a dozen or more of the most egregious abuse enabling church officials. (He’s done this to no enablers, or predators for that matter.)
• He could insist that every diocese and religious order turn over every record they have about suspected and known abusers to law enforcement.
• Francis could order every prelate on the planet to post on his diocesan website the names of every proven, admitted and credibly accused child molesting cleric. (Imagine how much safer children would be if police, prosecutors, parents and…

View Cache

Francis, who died yesterday, did more than past popes. But he didn’t do nearly enough, some victims’ advocates say.

TODAY’S STARTING POINT

Pope Francis, who died yesterday at 88, never visited Boston. But he was a presence in the city throughout his 12-year papacy in part because of how he approached the problem of sexual abuse by Catholic clergy — a crisis that rocked the Boston Archdiocese.

In some ways, Francis was an innovator. He apologized to victims and enacted policies meant to catch abusive priests. Yet his limited reforms disappointed many, and he sometimes doubted victims’ stories or sided with the accused.

Francis’s death has left people who hold both perspectives mourning. Some who think he made progress on clerical abuse note that the next pope may not continue it. And those who think he did too little lament his papacy as a missed opportunity to do victims…

View Cache

In 2018, Pennsylvania became the epicenter of the Catholic clergy sex abuse crisis with the release of a statewide grand jury report detailing decades-old concealment of the systemic abuse of hundreds of minors at the hands of more than 300 priests.

Scores of survivors of abuse across Pennsylvania looked to Pope Francis, widely considered a church reformist, to bring about transformative and substantive change in the church that could lead to healing and closure for the many broken adults who had suffered at the hands of priests.

For many survivors of clergy sex abuse that day never came.

Pope Francis, 88, died Monday morning, the Vatican announced, after battling multiple health issues that led to his hospitalization for five weeks earlier this year.

On Sunday, the pontiff, despite doctors’ orders, made an Easter Sunday appearance on St. Peter’s…

View Cache

The Diocese of Buffalo agreed to pay $150 million to settle over 800 claims of sexual abuse, sources confirmed to WIVB News 4 on Monday. The settlement follows years of efforts to reach an agreement of compensation for victims, and the Diocese’s bankruptcy filing in 2020.

The claims were a large factor in the Diocese’s decision to close and merge churches across Western New York over the past year, along with declining number of priests and parishioners.

According to an update filed to the court by co-mediators on Monday, the agreement consists of “specific and economic terms and various non-economic terms.” The update also said a certain amount of money will be “payable on the effective date” of a confirmed plan and the rest of the funds will be paid afterward on a “tiered interest schedule.” The monetary amount was not specified in the update.

One year after state lawmakers passed…

View Cache

On other matters – like church governance, finances and morale – he took prompt and impressive action. On the church’s continuing child sex abuse and cover up crisis, he did not.

Like his two most recent predecessors, while making vague but comforting promises, Francis

• acknowledged the scandal but only in the most vague and often self-serving terms, focusing only on the priests who committed crimes, not bishops who enabled their crimes
• met with a carefully-chosen handful of victims and apologized, again, in vague, often self-serving terms
• used the familiar but largely spurious public relations maneuver of fixating on largely ineffective procedures, protocols, policies and panels, and
• refused, time and time again, to take simple, proven, common sense steps to protect the vulnerable, oust the predators, punish the enablers and expose the cover ups.

Once caught or exposed, a few more bad bishops quietly resigned under this Frances than under his predecessors. But as popes…

View Cache

At 9:45 AM, Cardinal Kevin Farrell, Camerlengo of the Apostolic Chamber, announced the death of Pope Francis, Survivors around the world are mourning what they perceive as the “tragedy” of his papacy—a preventable catastrophe for the children and vulnerable people who were abused during his tenure.

Last month, survivors delivered a final appeal to Pope Francis, warning him against issuing what they describe as a “misleading” papal exhortation on children that fails to mandate binding protections against their abuse under canon law. The letter, drafted by global survivors to be personally delivered by Juan Carlos Cruz — a survivor, papal advisor, and member of the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors — urged Pope Francis to use his remaining time to implement a true zero-tolerance law that includes independent oversight of bishops.

The next pope must do what Francis refused: enact a universal zero tolerance law for abuse…

View Cache

Pope Francis changed a deeply traditional institution more than most observers could have imagined possible in only a dozen years.

As soon as the new pope was announced to the world on March 13, 2013, even before he came out to greet the crowd in St. Peter’s Square, the world knew that it had a very different sort of pontiff. The conclave had elected the first pope from the Americas, the first from the Global South, the first Jesuit, and the first to the take the name Francis.

Then the Pope stepped out onto the loggia in front of the Basilica and the changes began. He declined to don the red mozzetta cape traditional for such an appearance. Later, when the cardinals who had just elected him boarded buses taking them to a celebratory meal, the Pope shunned his private car and got on the bus with them. It was soon announced…

View Cache

Pope Francis, a transformative figure who revitalized the hopes of millions of Catholics after decades of scandal, stagnation and increasing social irrelevancy for the global church, died on April 21 after a prolonged battle with double pneumonia, for which he was hospitalized for five weeks before returning to the Vatican on March 23. 

The Vatican said that his time of death was 7:35 a.m, Central European time, on Easter Monday. 

Elected as pope on March 13, 2013, Francis took the helm of the global church after a period of unexpected and seismic change. Pope Benedict XVI, who had reigned for eight years, had not died but become the first pontiff in at least six centuries to resign the papacy.

The new pontiff, born in Argentina in 1936 as Jorge Mario Bergoglio, became the first in history from the Western Hemisphere. 

He was also the first Jesuit pope…

View Cache

A major support and advocacy group for survivors of church sexual abuse, the Survivors Network for those Abused by Priests, or SNAP, marked the death of Pope Francis on Monday, calling his papacy a “preventable catastrophe for the children and vulnerable people who were abused during his tenure.”

The group said it drafted a letter to deliver to Pope Francis last month that urged him “to use his remaining time to implement a true zero-tolerance law that includes independent oversight of bishops.”

“We feel it is important to reach out to you now, even as you continue your physical recovery, which we hope will soon bring you back to us,” the letter said. “We anticipate that some may criticize us for raising this issue while you are still healing. However, when is it ever the right time to discuss the alarming reality of rape and…

View Cache

Death of Trailblazing Pope Leaves the Catholic Church at a Crossroads

Pope Francis, history’s first pontiff from the Global South, has died at age 88 following a months-long respiratory illness, setting the stage for a high-stakes secretive election to determine his successor.

“The Bishop of Rome, Francis, has returned to the house of the Father,” Cardinal Kevin Farrell announced early Monday (April 21) from the chapel of the Vatican guesthouse where Francis resided. “His entire life has been dedicated to the service of the Lord and His Church.”

“He taught us to live the values of the Gospel with fidelity, courage and universal love, especially in favor of the poorest and most marginalized. With immense gratitude for his example as a true disciple of the Lord Jesus, we commend the soul of Pope Francis to the infinite merciful love of the One and Triune God,” Farrell said.

Francis died at…

View Cache

Pope Francis, the first Jesuit and first Latin American to lead the Catholic Church, died Monday. He was 88.

During his 11-year pontificate, he recorded several other firsts. He was the first pope to address a joint session of the U.S. Congress, the first to call for civil union laws and approve ecclesiastical blessings for same-sex couples, and the first to visit Iraq, the Arabian Peninsula, Mongolia, and Myanmar.

But while the Western media portrayed him as a revolutionary, bringing the Catholic Church hurtling into the 21st century, in practice Pope Francis often took a more evolutionary approach to change.

While critics persistently accused him of seeking to alter Catholic teaching, he seemed to aim above all at changing the Church’s culture, urging Catholics to embody what he believed were the three hallmarks of God’s presence: closeness, compassion, and tenderness. He sought also to counter what he saw as the…

View Cache

Pope Francis, the first Latin American leader of the Roman Catholic Church, died on Monday. He was 88, and had recently suffered a serious bout of double pneumonia.

Following are reactions to his death:

U.S. PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP

“He was a good man, worked hard. He loved the world, and it’s an honor to do that,” Trump said at an Easter event at the White House, referring to his order that flags across the country be flown at half-staff to honor Pope Francis’ memory.

ITALIAN PRIME MINISTER GIORGIA MELONI

Meloni mourned the departure of “a great man, a great shepherd”. “I had the privilege of enjoying his friendship, his advice, his teachings, which never ceased, not even during times of trial and suffering,” she said in a statement.

ARGENTINA’S PRESIDENT JAVIER MILEI

“It is with profound sorrow that I learned this sad morning that Pope Francis, Jorge Bergoglio, passed away…

View Cache

A memory of transcendent humanity in Rome

The one time I was to meet Pope Francis, I had to wait. Others, more knowledgeable than me, will write memorials today. I want to share a single detail from one day in Rome, in January 2018.

The site was a Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, St. Sophia; the occasion was the conferring of the honors of the Blessed Martyr Omelian Kovch.

The namesake of this distinction was a Greek Catholic priest who rescued Jews during the German occupation, and who himself died inside the Majdanek concentration camp. While in Majdanek, Kovch wrote that he did not wish for anyone to intervene on his behalf, since he wished to minister to the needs of the dying: “They die in different ways, and I help them cross this bridge into eternity. Is this not a blessing? Is this not the most splendid crown that God could…

View Cache

Three days after white smoke billowed from the chimney of the Sistine Chapel in March 2013, the former archbishop of Buenos Aires greeted the international press inside a cavernous Vatican audience hall. As he rose from a richly upholstered armchair, a pair of well-worn black shoes peeked out from underneath his new papal robes.

The decision by Pope Francis, born Jorge Mario Bergoglio, to reject the lavish red slippers of his office was widely interpreted as a small act of rebellion in the tradition-bound Vatican.

The Argentine Jesuit had assumed the mantle of a church dazed by the abdication of Pope Benedict XVI and wounded by revelations of rampant sexual abuse in the priesthood and financial scandal. Now, after the surprise selection of the first non-European pontiff since 741, Francis was demonstrating modestly but unmistakably that he would be a different kind of pope.

Francis, 88, died April…

View Cache

Pope Francis, history’s first Latin American pontiff who charmed the world with his humble style and concern for the poor but alienated conservatives with critiques of capitalism and climate change, died Monday. He was 88.

Bells tolled in churches from his native Argentina to the Philippines and across Rome as news spread around the world after the announcement, which was read by Cardinal Kevin Farrell from the chapel of the Domus Santa Marta, where Francis lived.

“At 7:35 this morning, the Bishop of Rome, Francis, returned to the home of the Father. His entire life was dedicated to the service of the Lord and of his Church,” said Farrell, the Vatican camerlengo, who takes charge after a pontiff’s death.

Francis, who suffered from chronic lung disease and had part of one lung removed as a young man, was admitted to Gemelli hospital on Feb. 14, 2025, for a respiratory crisis that developed…

View Cache

Pope Francis was a beacon of hope to many of the world’s most desperate and marginalized people. But what we most needed from this pope was justice for the Church’s own wounded, the children and adults sexually abused by Catholic clergy. In this realm, where Francis had supreme power, he refused to make the necessary changes. This choice is having devastating consequences for the Church’s most powerless members. It will forever tarnish the legacy of this remarkable man.

We needed Pope Francis to permanently remove abusers from ministry and decisively punish enablers. We needed him to rid canon law of its bias in favor of accused priests. We needed him to follow through on his promises of transparency, by releasing abuse data and the names of offending clergy and complicit bishops. Pope Francis chose to do none of these things. He instead maintained the secrecy of his predecessors and addressed…

View Cache

The Diocese of Derry has launched an internal investigation after one of its priests was charged with alleged sex offences.

58 year old Father Edward Gallagher, of Orchard Park, Lifford, County Donegal, appeared before Derry Magistrates’ Court yesterday, accused of attempted sexual communication with a child between April 2nd and 17th 2025.

No bail application was made, and he was remanded in custody to appear in court again on May 1st.

Bishop of Derry, Dónal McKeown has since confirmed Fr. Gallagher has been suspended, adding the diocese “takes such matters very seriously”.

View Cache

Brand New RTÉ documentary this Wednesday reveals how jailed abusers were at the heart of their leadership and asset management

RTÉ Investigates examines the Christian Brothers handling of their wealth and assets, as they continue to fail victims of abuse in a brand new documentary to air this Wednesday night on RTÉ One and RTE Player.
 

After last year’s Scoping Inquiry predicted a vast scale of historical child sexual abuse in Irish schools, and recommended redress for victims, the Christian Brothers stood out, with the largest number of schools and the highest number of allegations. Once powerful, the traditional educator of Catholic Irish boys, the Christian Brothers order is still one of the richest. Its aging trustees hold on to an extensive property portfolio and a significant stake in the present, and future, of Irish education.

As a new wave of victims prepare to seek justice for abuse suffered in schools, RTÉ…

View Cache

REVIEW: ‘Jesus Wept: Seven Popes and the Battle for the Soul of the Catholic Church’ by Philip Shenon

When a book’s dust jacket describes its author as an “award-winning investigative reporter” and the author begins by describing his work as “an investigative history of the modern Roman Catholic Church,” readers might expect that, by the end of the book, something strikingly new would have been revealed. But in this case (to borrow from Richard M. Nixon) “That would be wrong.” For Philip Shenon gives the game away two sentences later when he defines “the battle for the soul of the church” in these terms: “It pits Catholics desperate for a more tolerant church—one, that in the words of Pope John [XXIII], dispenses the medicine of mercy instead of severity—against those who see that vision as heresy.”

Right.

How Shenon came to that conclusion—the Platonic form of the New York Times’s view of…

View Cache

The authors of a book published Thursday said the Vatican knew about sexual abuse allegations against French charity icon Abbe Pierre as early as the 1950s.

The Catholic cleric — who founded the Emmaus charity which is now present in over 40 countries — was widely praised for his work for the poverty-stricken and homeless when he died in 2007 aged 94.

But in recent months more than 30 people have alleged he committed sexual abuse against them, some when they were children, between 1950 and 2000, shattering his saintly image.

Prosecutors in February said no criminal investigation could be opened because the statute of limitations had expired in all cases.

Journalists Laetitia Cherel and Marie-France Etchegoin in their book “Abbe Pierre, the Making of a Saint” allege the Vatican knew about some of the accusations for decades.

“As early as autumn 1955, not only did top French clergy know…

View Cache

Jane Doe claims her memory of the abuse when she was 9 years old was repressed until recently.

In March, we introduced you to Elizabeth Carlock Phillips, a Dallas woman working to make Texas and the rest of the country a safer place for kids. Her work is driven by the memory of her late brother, Trey. For years, Trey suffered abuse at the hands of a man named Pete Newman who worked at a Missouri summer camp called Kanakuk. As a result of the trauma Trey experienced and the restrictive NDA he was pressured to sign by Kanakuk attorneys, he ended his life in 2019 at the age of 29. Since his death, Elizabeth has become an advocate for victims of child sexual abuse. She is leading the charge to change state laws in Texas and Missouri to eliminate statutes of limitations on child sexual abuse cases and make…

View Cache