ABUSE TRACKER

A Catholic priest who left clergy life for positions in the administrations of two former Louisiana governors was arrested on charges of raping and kidnapping a young and vulnerable parishioner in New Orleans two decades ago.

Mark Francis Ford, 64, was cuffed in Indiana on Thursday for charges stemming from allegations at a Roman Catholic church in New Orleans where he used to serve.

An unidentified man, now 31, alleged that Ford began abusing him in 2004, when he was just 10 years old, after meeting the Vincentian priest through a program he ran for children with disabilities.

The exact circumstances of the abuse were not clear, but the man — who is under his mother’s permanent tutorship — said it continued until around 2022 or 2023, long after the clergyman had left the priesthood for greener pastures in government.

The alleged victim suffers from a degenerative spinal cord condition…

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A Worcester Diocese priest placed on leave in 2022 after allegations of sexual abuse, and later charged with indecent assault and battery, was placed on probation this week, court records show, after admitting to a lesser charge of assault and battery.

As part of his plea, the Rev. Alan J. Martineau saw two counts of indecent assault and battery on a person age 14 or older dropped in East Brookfield District Court, records show, while a third such charge was amended to assault and battery, a charge with no sexual assault component.

Martineau agreed sufficient facts existed for a finding of guilty, a legal disposition known as an Alford plea, Sept. 22, records obtained by the Telegram & Gazette show.

A judge placed him on probation for one year, ordering him to stay away from the alleged victim.

Details in the case have been sealed. The docket number for the…

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Earlier this week on Monday evening we interviewed Quincy Mayor Thomas Koch in which he made spontaneous comments about the Catholic Church child sexual abuse scandal of several years ago in which he said, “That was mostly homosexual issues, not pedophilia.” Koch went on to say that “the level in which it happens with teachers and coaches is higher than it was percentage wise than the church.” The comments received lots of backlash from the public, Quincy school board and abuse survivors with some even calling for the mayor’s resignation. Tonight, Dan will address the comments made as we are joined by a sexual abuse survivor who was abused as a child by a Catholic priest, Father Porter, who was convicted. We invite other abuse survivors to share their story and let their voices be heard on NightSide

Click here to listen to more of NightSide With…

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It appears an alleged cult leader will stay behind bars until his trial on accusations of running a huge scam to rake in veterans’ benefits.

The federal bond hearing for Rony Denis continued Friday after being cut short last week when he became ill.

Federal court records indicated Denis will remain in custody for now.

Denis was arrested a couple of weeks ago during an FBI raid of his lavish Columbia County mansion.

He’s accused of conspiracy to commit bank fraud, conspiracy to commit wire fraud, and aiding and assisting in filing a false tax return.

Plus authorities say he stole his identity from someone else, too. They’re not sure what his real name is.

The church Denis founded is known as the House of Prayer Christian Church, but critics claim it’s a cult meant to lure service members and veterans.

Authorities say the aim was to…

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Emir Caner is out as president of Truett McConnell University.

His 17-year tenure at the Cleveland, Ga., school came to an abrupt end on Thursday night after a meeting of the university’s 54-member board of trustees. The results of the vote were shared with faculty and staff in a called meeting Friday morning, followed by a brief four-sentence announcement on the university’s Facebook page.

The 7 a.m. gathering was attended by about 100 individuals and lasted about 30 minutes.

Caner has been under siege since early June when he became the focus of an alleged coverup of sexual abuse between a former vice president and a former student who later joined the staff. While Caner said there was no coverup in the years-long relationship and grooming and sexual assaults against Hayle Swinson by Brad Reynolds, both staff and students corroborated the encounter as an open secret.

In the process of making allegations…

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Emir Caner’s tenure as Truett McConnell University (TMU) president ended today. when trustees announced his firing from the Southern Baptist school in Cleveland, Georgia.

The dismissal comes five months after The Roys Report (TRR) first reported that for years, Caner ignored allegations of grooming and sexual abuse by Bradley Reynolds, the school’s academic vice president. The woman alleging the abuse was TMU graduate and former soccer coach Hayle Swinson.

Caner was suspended by trustees June 6, one week after TRR’s reporting roiled the campus and its northeast Georgia community.

The school’s trustees met yesterday to hear the results of an independent probe into Reynolds’ alleged misconduct and Caner’s alleged coverup. The Now Habersham news website reported that journalists were barred from that meeting.

A search for a new TMU president will now begin, trustees said today. For now, John Yarbrough, TMU’s public policy director, will continue as interim president. Yarbrough was also a…

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The investigation began in August and led to his capture in another Texas city.

A 49-year-old Conroe man was arrested and charged with promotion of child pornography following a months-long investigation by Montgomery County law enforcement, Precinct 3 officials announced Friday.

Jon Paul Sheptock was taken into custody by Texas Department of Public Safety troopers after detectives searched his home. He is currently being held in the Coryell County Jail awaiting extradition to Montgomery County.

The investigation began in August 2025 when detectives from Montgomery County Precinct 3 Constable Ryan Gable’s Human Trafficking and Child Exploitation Unit received information indicating Sheptock was in possession of and involved in producing child sexual assault material, including videos and images of a child under 18 engaged in sexual conduct.

Montgomery County Pct. 3 detectives conducted a comprehensive investigation and established substantial probable cause to charge Sheptock with promotion of child pornography, a third-degree…

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The New York Supreme Court has tossed out a lawsuit against the Diocese of Buffalo challenging a diocesan plan requiring payments to help settle the diocese’s abuse settlement.

Parishioners suing the diocese had won a reprieve in July when the state Supreme Court instituted a temporary halt on the payments.

The parishioners had argued that the diocese should await the Vatican’s ruling on a diocesan merger plan before requiring the parishes to pay the highest-level payment rate into the settlement.

But Judge John Delmonte, who had issued the injunction in July, said in his Sept. 26 ruling that the issue turned on whether the Supreme Court “has any measure of jurisdiction” to adjudicate the dispute.

“It has been repeatedly and consistently stated that the courts of this state ‘adhere to the long-recognized and sensible prohibition against court involvement in the governance and administration of a hierarchal church,’” he…

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It may be unrealistic to expect a fully developed strategy against clergy sex abuse from Coadjutor Archbishop James Checchio just days after his appointment. The Archdiocese of New Orleans introduced him as its next leader less than 48 hours ago.

“So, I need to get to know people, to get to know the parishes, to get to know the institutions, to get to know those who all who make this archdiocese the great place that it is,” Checchio said at a news conference Wednesday at Notre Dame Seminary.

Incoming New Orleans archbishop aims to grow archdiocese

Checchio, a New Jersey native, may be unfamiliar with New Orleans, but he is no stranger to the long shadow of clergy sex abuse.

“It’s a dark part of our history. I grew up with it. My whole generation grew up with it. I was ordained a priest in 1992. One of our…

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A Baptist college in northeast Georgia won’t reinstate its president after an investigation into whether he ignored claims that a former administrator was abusing students.

Trustees at Truett McConnell University in Cleveland announced Friday that Emir Caner won’t return. Caner had been on leave since June, when trustees hired an investigator to examine claims that a former administrator and professor sexually assaulted a woman who was a student and later a university employee. She claims she was repeatedly assaulted when she went to the man’s home for Bible study.

John Yarbrough, the director of alumni and public policy who was named acting president in June, will now become the interim president. Trustees said they were naming a committee to seek a permanent leader.

The action came after an investigator presented his findings to trustees Thursday. The university didn’t disclose those findings. In a news conference Friday, Yarbrough said details of…

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In his first major curial appointments since becoming pope, Leo XIV tapped Italian Archbishop Filippo Iannone to lead the influential Vatican department for appointing bishops and to preside over the Pontifical Commission for Latin America, the Vatican announced Friday (Sept. 26).

Pope Leo held both positions before being elected the new pontiff in May — effectively handing Iannone the keys to the curial offices that made Leo a force to be reckoned with at the last conclave. Iannone will take over his new roles Oct. 15.

Iannone, 67, has served since 2018 as head of the Vatican department for legislative texts, which studies and interprets the canon law of the Catholic Church. Leo likely had a firsthand appreciation for his leadership, as he was also a member of the department. Both are experienced canon lawyers. Iannone received his doctorate in canon law at the Pontifical Lateran University in Rome.

In…

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Robert Poandl once served in Claxton, Pembroke

After a weeklong trial, a former Catholic priest in Ohio who once worked in Glennville, Claxton, and Pembroke was found guilty Friday on charges he took a 10-year-old boy across state lines for sexual purposes.

A group that follows cases of sexual abuse by clergy, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests — also known as SNAP — hopes other victims will surface and share their experiences with law enforcement.

Robert Poandl, 72, will be sentenced at a later date, according to reports. He has worked in the past in seven Georgia towns as part of Glenmary Home Missioners, which is based in Fairfield, Ohio.

He was found guilty by jury Friday of taking the Cincinnati boy to West Virginia in 1991 for the purpose of sexually assaulting him. He was indicted Nov. 14 in U.S. District Court for the Southern District…

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The bond for Robert Mendez Esquivel, who is accused of rape and sexual battery of a minor child, remains at $300,000.

The bail for a Nampa Catholic priest who is accused of rape of a minor remains unchanged as the judge overseeing his case denied a motion to lower his bond.

RELATED: Canyon County Court charges Nampa Catholic priest with rape of a minor

Canyon County Judge Shane Darrington on Thursday denied Robert Mendez Esquivel’s request to lower his bond, keeping it at $300,000. If Esquivel posts bail, he will have to surrender his passport and must remain in the Treasure Valley.

St. Paul’s Catholic Church’s website previously showed Esquivel served as an associate pastor and is known as “Father Toto.” He joined St. Paul’s Parish in 2022.

Esquivel was arrested and booked into the Canyon County Jail on Aug. 27. During his first virtual arraignment in Canyon County Court,…

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September 2025 Official Committee Update

The Official Committee of Survivors in the Diocese of Santa Rosa bankruptcy, with the assistance of its legal counsel Stinson LLP, has been diligently involved in all aspects of the bankruptcy and is sharing the update below.  Please understand that we are also involved in mediation with all parties and must maintain strict confidentiality.  This prohibits us from sharing some information until agreements are made public.  However, we will continue to update this website whenever possible.

• Litigation Efforts:  Over the summer the Committee secured two big victories.  First, the court granted the Committee permission to sue two Catholic entities in Washington, D.C. (the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops and Catholic Relief Services) to recover up to $760,000 from those entities for the benefit of Survivors; that lawsuit is ongoing.  Second, the court granted permission for three Survivors’ lawsuits to proceed against the Diocese…

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A judge has ruled against groups from five Catholic parishes that filed a lawsuit against the Diocese of Buffalo to block payments that would go toward the diocese’s $150 million settlement with more than 800 survivors of sexual abuse.

The settlement was announced in April. The diocese said it would be paid through unrestricted funds of the diocese and individual parishes, as well as contributions from members of Catholic affiliates.

In June, parishes learned how much they’re being asked to pay towards the settlement. The contribution percentages range from 10 to 80 percent of each parish’s unrestricted cash and investments, with the highest percentage applied to parishes scheduled to be closed or merged.

All five parishes involved in the lawsuit — Blessed Sacrament in Tonawanda, Our Lady of Peace in Clarence, Saint Aloysius Gonzaga in Cheektowaga, St. John XXIII in West Seneca, and Saint Bernadette in Orchard Park — are slated…

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A Hot Springs pastor was arrested Wednesday evening on a felony sexual assault charge involving a 17-year-old female member of his church, whom he allegedly “inappropriately touched” on more than one occasion, according to a news release.

Macario Garcia, 54, who lists a Squire Court address, was taken into custody shortly after 6 p.m. Wednesday and charged with second-degree sexual assault, a felony punishable by up to 20 years in prison.

He was released on a $50,000 bond shortly before 11:30 p.m. Wednesday with a court date to be set. According to court records, Garcia lists no prior criminal history other than traffic offenses.

Garcia was arrested “after a lengthy investigation” led by the Garland County Sheriff’s Criminal Investigations Division with assistance from the 18th Judicial Prosecuting Attorney’s office, Sheriff Mike McCormick said in the release.

“The charges stem from an incident involving a 17-year-old female where Mr. Garcia, her…

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An Idaho pastor faces a slew of charges for alleged possession and distribution of child sex abuse material, which a local judge called “horrific.”

Matthew Masiewicz, the senior pastor at Sovereign Grace Fellowship in Nampa, Idaho, was arraigned Wednesday at the Canyon County Magistrate Court, according to court records.

Masiewicz, 53, faces 13 charges: Six counts of knowingly distributing child sexually exploitative material, six counts of willfully possessing or accessing child sexually exploitative material, and one count of visual representations of the sexual abuse of a minor. The final charge means that some of the abuse materials were AI-generated.

The Roys Report (TRR) reached out to Sovereign Grace Fellowship for comment but did not hear back prior to publication.

But Sam Vanderwall, an elder at the church, told the Idaho Statesman that Masiewicz was fired as soon as they learned of the charges. Elders then informed…

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UPDATE: On September 24, 2025, the Louisiana State Police and the FBI began an undercover operation focused on the sexual trafficking of minors in and around Monroe, La. Law enforcement officers worked in an undercover capacity and posted an undercover advertisement on a commonly known website used for the sale of commercial sexual intercourse.

The ad contained photos of two Undercover Law Enforcement Officers (UC’s) with the caption: “Sexy hot girls in town for a few days incalls only. Me and my mini are in townnn hit us upp. NO POLICE.” The ad contained four photos of the UC’s with emojis placed over their faces and a phone number they could be reached at.

At 4:09 PM, the suspect, Boris Braggs, messaged the number regarding the ad asking if they were available. The UC explained she was unavailable, but her ‘mini’ was available. She went in detail that her ‘mini’ was…

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Today, the Vatican announced that Pope Leo XIV has appointed Archbishop Filippo Iannone, prefect of the Dicastery for Legislative Texts to head the Dicastery for Bishops.

Peter Isely, SNAP’s Global Advocacy Chair said:

“Iannone’s promotion sends a chilling message to abuse victims around the world, not only to expect advancement toward zero tolerance to be blocked, but a rollback on the hard-fought progress of clergy abuse survivors and advocates over the years. It was Iannone who shaped the church law on sexual abuse to guarantee that zero tolerance for abusers, and accountability for the bishops who covered it up, would never be included. Leo is putting the oversight and management of bishops in the hands of a man who has fought to enshrine the concealment of abusers in Vatican policy.”

This announcement comes just one week after Leo used his first public interview to redirect the conversation on abuse…

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Bishop Gustavo Óscar Zanchetta was released on parole by an Argentinian court on Friday after serving only part of his four and a half year sentence for aggravated sexual abuse of two seminarians.

In total, Zanchetta only spent about three years and a half under house arrest in a monastery in Orán, including an eight-month hospital stay in Rome between Nov. 2024 and June this year.

Zanchetta was convicted in March 2022 and sentenced to four and a half years in prison for “simple, continued sexual abuse aggravated by the role as a minister of worship.” However, following an appeal supported by local Church authorities, he was allowed to serve his sentence, first in a retired priests’ house, and then in a monastery.

Local Oran courts consistently denied Zanchetta’s requests for house arrest, authorization to travel to Italy for treatment, and for release on parole request. But in all…

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Lawsuit filed in March alleges Rene Touchette, who died in 2012, assaulted plaintiff in 1970s

The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of St. Boniface is denying allegations that a man was sexually assaulted by a former priest at the church in Somerset, Man., in the 1970s.

A lawsuit filed in Manitoba Court of King’s Bench in March claims the plaintiff, who is now in his 60s, was sexually assaulted by a priest named René Touchette, who died in 2012.

Touchette was convicted in 1993 of sexually assaulting the plaintiff and other victims from Somerset, according to the March lawsuit. At the time of the assaults, the plaintiff was about 13 to 21 years old, his lawsuit says.

Touchette served as a priest at the church in the village of Somerset, about 120 kilometres southwest of Winnipeg, from 1972 to 1990, the March lawsuit says.

The plaintiff alleges in his claim…

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A new documentary on the abuses allegedly committed by Father Marko Rupnik and survivors’ pursuit of justice received high praise at the Toronto International Film Festival, or TIFF, including for Gloria Branciani, an alleged victim who received a four-minute standing ovation.

The film “Nuns vs. The Vatican,” which premiered Sept. 6 at the film festival, had two sold-out screenings, followed by a Q&A session attended by the majority of those who watched the film, according to Emmy-winning director Lorena Luciano and her husband, Filippo Piscopo, the film’s producer and cinematographer.

“It was very emotional when (Branciani) sat down for the Q&A and she said, ‘This applause is very meaningful to me because it’s breaking the silence,’” Piscopo told OSV News Sept. 20.

“People were very emotional,” Luciano added. “We were standing with Gloria, and there were some people who went to her, hugged her. You could tell that they were…

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Survivors of clergy sexual abuse and advocates gathered outside City Hall in Quincy, Massachusetts Friday to denounce controversial comments recently made by Mayor Tom Koch.

Protesters displayed photos and stories of children who had been sexually abused by priests. Among them was Francis Michael Sullivan, who said he was abused 50 years ago.

“This stuff’s been going on for years, it happened to me 50 years ago. Very nervous, sick to my stomach. It just brings back a ton of memories I don’t want to relive,” said Sullivan.

The demonstration came after Koch was interviewed by radio host Dan Rea on his show, Nightside with Dan Rea, on WBZ News Radio Monday evening. Koch was on the show to discuss the legal battle over two statues of Catholic saints that are set to be erected on a public safety building in the city and carry an…

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Mayor Thomas P. Koch of Quincy came under fire this week for comments he made linking the clergy sex abuse scandal to homosexuality.

Koch, who is Catholic, made the comments Monday during an interview with Dan Rea on WBZ News Radio.

When Rea at one point criticized the Catholic church over its response to the abuse crisis, chronicled extensively in a 2002 Boston Globe Spotlight team investigation, Koch said, “That was mostly homosexual issues, not pedophilia.” After Rea mentioned adolescent victims, Koch said pedophilia is defined as attraction to “a younger age” than a teenager.

Koch’s comments were swiftly condemned by Mitchell Garabedian, an attorney who has long represented victims of clergy sex abuse.

“For the Mayor of Quincy to blame mostly homosexual issues for the Catholic Church scandal is baseless, ill-advised, and…

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Quincy Mayor Thomas Koch, who already faces political challenges over his salary and religious statues, apologized after stirring up another new controversy this week with comments about the clergy sexual abuse scandal.

Koch, 62, who first became mayor in 2008, has since apologized.

He appeared on a WBZ News Radio program on Monday, where most of the conversation focused on the controversial plan to install bronze statues depicting Catholic saints Michael and Florian on the facade of the city’s new public safety building.

The plan precipitated a First Amendment legal battle in Norfolk Superior Court. The legal challenge case is being brought by a group of Quincy residents of various faiths who are seeking preliminary and permanent injunctions.

Legal fight erupts over saint statues at Quincy, Massachusetts, public safety building

The conversation pivoted to the clergy abuse scandal when host Dan Rea…

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“For La Luz Del Mundo to claim these survivors is lying is not only false and insensitive – it is cruel and shows the absolute void of morality or compassion.” – Jeff Anderson

In recent news, former La Luz Del Mundo (LLDM) megachurch leader, Naasón Joaquín García, along with five others, have been charged with racketeering conspiracy and sex trafficking for allegedly victimizing LLDM members for decades. García is already serving a 16-year sentence for sexually assaulting minors.

In response to these charges LLDM sent out a press release, blatantly dismissing the claims that the survivors were sexually assaulted. In the release they claimed that:

“The revealed charges are not based on the truth, but on the voices of a handful of disgruntled former congregants: individuals with pending accounts, personal revenge to pursue and, in many cases, an economic benefit to be obtained through civil lawsuits.”

La Luz del Mundo’s…

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Family and friends noticed alarming changes in T.M.’s personality at his Delbarton graduation party in 1977.

When he enrolled in the Catholic boys school in Morris Township back in 7th grade, he was happy, calm and confident in his ability to accomplish any task, according to a psychologist.

But at the family celebration in L’Affaire, a Morristown restaurant, he was abrupt, nasty and “positively rude” to Father Richard, observed T.M.’s mother. An ice skating pal of T.M. drove all the way from Colorado for the party. He too was surprised to see his unflappable friend “agitated and snippy” to the monk.

It took persistence to pry the reason for such animus from T.M: Father Richard, he confessed to his friend, had sexually abused him on campus during the 1975 Christmas break.

Sworn statements from T.M.’s late mother and his former skating friend were read to a jury Tuesday in Superior…

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An ex-assistant numerary, Anne Marie Allen held the lowest rank of Opus Dei’s hierarchical structure, where she spent almost seven years with the conservative Catholic group in Ireland starting when she was 15.

“I think it is the voice of the weakest that will bring Opus Dei down,” Allen says  matter-of-factly. 

In Serve: My Lost Years at the Heart of Opus Dei, the 62-year-old documents the domestic servitude which she and other Irish women say they were lured into with the promise of vocational training. Her criticism of Opus Dei, including that the promised training never materialized, echoes that of other ex-numerary assistants around the world, including in Argentina, where a criminal investigation involves 43 former members who say they were trafficked and exploited. 

Opus Dei is a conservative and notoriously secretive Catholic group founded in 1928 in Spain by Fr….

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A high-ranking priest in the Archdiocese of Toledo in Spain arrested early Monday on charges of drug possession had previously been denounced in the Vatican for the defamation of a victim of sexual abuse, but no action was taken.

Father Carlos Loriente, a canon serving in the cathedral of Toledo, has been precautionarily removed from his priestly duties after he was arrested in Torremolinos in the early hours of Monday, Sept. 22, in possession of a significant quantity of pink cocaine, a synthetic drug known as tusi.

He had been vacationing on the Costa del Sol, in an area notorious for gay sex trafficking, when he was caught on the street with a dozen packets of the pink cocaine. A subsequent search of Loriente’s residence uncovered more drugs and several sex toys.

Loriente has been charged with a crime against public health, but was released until he is summoned to court…

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Prosopon Healing not only names names, but offers victims help in coming to terms with their trauma.

Two Orthodox Christian women have created a new website about sexual misconduct and abuse in their denomination that not only names names, but offers victims help in coming to terms with their trauma.

More than two years after Katherine Archer and Hermina Nedelescu decided more needed to be done to advocate for clergy abuse survivors, the two recently debuted Prosopon Healing as a way to call attention to the problem. “Katherine and I were determined not to be silenced,” said Nedelescu. “The Orthodox Church has a clergy sex abuse problem it must reckon with.”

But the two founders — one a therapist-in-training, the other a neuroscientist — also present evidence-based research and supportive resources rooted in behavioral neuroscience to explain the actions of the predator and the victim. Its database collates third-party information across…

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Pope Leo XIV accepted the resignation of Bishop Ciro Quispe López of Juli, Peru, following a Vatican investigation initiated in mid-2024 into several accusations against him of sexual misconduct with women and financial mismanagement.

“The Holy Father has accepted the resignation from the pastoral care of the Territorial Prelature of Juli [Peru], presented by Bishop Ciro Quispe López,” the Vatican Press Office reported Sept. 24 without providing further details.

Quispe and the Prelature of Juli did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

In statements to the American media outlet Crux in 2024, the bishop said malevolent forces were behind the accusations against him. In response to a query from a local newspaper, he said “all these things, brother, are under investigation” and “we are currently in that process,” without specifying whether he was referring to civil or Church jurisdiction.

In July…

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The first research study into the sexual abuse of women religious in German-speaking countries has shown a common pattern of spiritual abuse with global cases and highlighted that the majority of abuse is perpetrated by men, although some sisters were abused also by women superiors.

The study titled “Sexual Abuse of Catholic Women Religious Victims, Perpetrators and (Non)consensual Relationships” is the culmination of three years’ work by Barbara Haslbeck, professor of pastoral theology and homiletics at the University of Regensburg, Germany.

Speaking to OSV News about the new study, published on Sept. 15, Haslbeck explained that 15 women who experienced sexual abuse as religious in German-speaking countries were interviewed for the study.

‘This is a major study’

“Given the sensitive nature of the subject matter, this is a major study,” Haslbeck told OSV News. 

The aim of this pioneering research project is to gain an understanding of…

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The University of Notre Dame said this week that it had commissioned an external investigation into allegations that the head of a campus residence hall engaged in sexual misconduct years ago. 

The allegations concern Father Thomas King, CSC, who was rector of the school’s Zahm Hall dorm from 1980 to 1997. 

The school in a Sept. 24 press release did not reveal when and how it learned of the allegations against King, the details of which it did not provide. 

But it said it was commissioning a “special committee to oversee an external investigation” into the abuse claims. 

The inquiry will be led by lawyer Helen Cantwell at the law firm Debevoise & Plimpton. Cantwell is “highly experienced in this important and sensitive work,” the school said. 

“We are saddened that there are members of our community who may have suffered abuse while here and may not have…

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Court records show Matthew Stephen Masiewicz, head pastor at Sovereign Grace Fellowship, was arrested on multiple counts of sexual exploitation of a child.

The head pastor at Sovereign Grace Fellowship, a reformed Evangelical Christian church in Nampa, faces a slew of charges after he was arrested for sexual exploitation of a child, court records show. 

Matthew Stephen Masiewicz, 53, was arraigned in a Canyon County courthouse on Wednesday after he was taken into custody on an arrest warrant, following allegations that he had multiple photos of child pornography, some being AI-generated. The probable cause affidavit states he had those pictures on his phone and computer at the church. 

Investigators began looking into the alleged crimes in August 2025, but the crimes reportedly occurred as early as March 2025, according to court documents.

The probable cause affidavit states the Idaho Crimes Against Children (ICAC) was notified on Aug. 20,…

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A Roman Catholic priest who ministered to a Calgary parish last year has been convicted of sexual assault and sexual exploitation in Ontario.Article content

Rev. John Gannon was found guilty Monday in the Ontario Court of Justice for offences committed in Cornwall, Ont., in 2007 and 2008 at the Legionaries of Christ novitiate and apostolic school.Article contentArticle content

He’d been pastor at Ascension Parish in Calgary since the summer of 2022 until he was placed on administrative leave and prohibited from exercising his priestly duties after being charged in early 2024.

Before that, he’d been posted to the downtown Sacred Heart Parish for six years.

Gannon has been a member of the Catholic missionary congregation known as the Legionaries of Christ, which issued a statement following his conviction, noting that the priest maintains his innocence and plans to appeal the convictions.Article content

“The Legionaries of Christ respect the decision of the…

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Attorney Mitchell Garabedian has seen the “ugly” side of the Catholic church sexual abuse crisis in “thousands of pages” of legal documents. Quincy Mayor Thomas Koch, clearly, has not.

Koch said on Dan Rea’s “Nightside” radio show on WBZ Monday night that the scandal was “mostly homosexual issues, not pedophilia.”

That is misinformation that cannot go unchallenged. But the Democratic mayor doubled down on his insane lack of empathy.

“Pedophilia is a younger age than a teenager,” Koch said, failing to note that the law recognizes 18 years old as adulthood. In case he forgets, his sworn duty is to uphold that law — and he’s also the chairman of the Quincy School Committee and an MBTA board member. He is so off base it’s beyond irresponsible.

On the radio show, Koch quickly pivoted to bashing the “secular media” for not reporting on others outside the church who commit sexual crimes against…

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Advocates against priest sex abuse are calling on Quincy Mayor Thomas Koch to apologize for comments he recently made on a radio talk show that seemed to minimize the scope and severity of the Catholic Church scandal.

Koch sent GBH News a statement after this article’s publication Thursday, saying that he had apologized directly to the local schools and LGBTQ+ community at a schools committee meeting Wednesday night. He said his comments were “ill-thought remarks” and he was caught off guard by the issue.

During a discussion of Quincy’s controversial plan to install the statues of two Catholic saints at the front of its public safety building, Dan Rea, the host of WBZ’s “Nightside with Dan Rea,” shared his perplexity at what he called the antipathy of some people toward religion.

He added that he remains shocked by the clergy sex-abuse scandal, which Rea described as the “priest pedophile crisis.”

At that…

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Mayor Koch’s statement that the clergy sexual abuse crisis “was mostly homosexual issues,” was wrong on its face.  Pedophiles, and not homosexuals or heterosexuals, abuse children. 

Sexual abuse of minors is an act of pedophilia, not gender identification.

What

A demonstration opposing Mayor Thomas Koch’s opinion that the Catholic Church’s childhood sexual abuse scandal is due to homosexuals.  He ignores the research that does not link homosexuality with pedophilia.  Pedophilia is a mental illness.

When

Friday, September 26, 2025 at 11:30 am

Where

On the public sidewalk outside the Office of Mayor Thomas Koch at 1305 Hancock Street, Quincy, MA, 02169

Who

Robert M. Hoatson, Ph.D., Co-founder and President of Road to Recovery, Inc., a non-profit charity based in New Jersey that assists victims of sexual abuse and their families; and John Doe, a victim of clergy sexual abuse in the Archdiocese of Boston.

Why

Mayor Thomas Koch, appearing on the radio…

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Thursday – September 25 – 7:00 PM EDT
Paulist Center – 5 Park Street Boston, MA 02108

Please RSVP here: chriswhite.eventbrite.com.

Come join us for a special night with Christopher White as he shares insights about his new book, Pope Leo XIV!

Welcome to An evening with Christopher White discussing his new book, Pope Leo XIV, at the Paulist Center. Christopher, who spent four years covering Pope Francis as Vatican correspondent for the National Catholic Reporter, will provide a behind the scenes look at the conclave that elected the first American pope. Christopher got to know the future pope a bit before his election, and will share his impressions.

Paulist Center member Bill Mitchell, a former NCR publisher and the founder of Abuse Tracker, will interview Christopher, followed by audience Q and A. You can learn more about the book and order your copy here. All are welcome for a reception and book sales and signing following.

Date and…

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Warning: This article contains content that may be disturbing to readers. Discretion is advised.

Nearly a dozen lawsuits alleging sexual assault have been filed against Catholic archdioceses and a Manitoba bible camp in recent months, CTV News has learned.

The 11 lawsuits were filed in Manitoba’s Court of King’s Bench by Preszler Injury Lawyers between March and August, each with a separate plaintiff and alleged victim.

The plaintiffs allege they were sexually assaulted by priests and a staff member — all of whom are listed as non-parties in the lawsuits — at churches and a Catholic school between 1958 and 1986. All alleged perpetrators were responsible for mentoring the plaintiffs, the suits say.

One lawsuit against the Manitoba Camping Association, Christian Camping International Canada and Red Rock Bible Camp alleges that a leader at the camp sexually assaulted the plaintiff in 1978.

“Throughout the period of time that the aforementioned…

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A police report from the Prairie Village Police Department is revealing new details about the investigation into a Johnson County priest.

Father Richard Storey, the pastor of Curé of Ars Catholic Church in Leawood, resigned last week amid an ongoing criminal investigation, the Archdiocese of Kansas City, Kansas announced.Johnson County priest resigns amid criminal investigation

According to the police report, Father Storey is accused of committing a crime against an adult victim from March 12, 2022, through Nov. 10, 2022.

The victim reported the crime to the police department on Sept. 4, 2025, according to the report.

FOX4 is working to learn more about the allegations made against the Johnson County priest. We’ve also reached out to the Johnson County District Attorney’s Office to see if charges are pending in this case; a spokesperson said, “we have no comments at this time.”

“The Prairie Village Police Department…

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Terrance Booker initially faced three felony counts, but on Tuesday night, LCSO said he is now charged with 11 total felony counts as a result of their continued investigation

A former youth ministry director in Tallahassee is facing eight new counts for child sex crimes.

Terrance Booker was arrested and accused of sexual assault last month after a young member of his church accused Booker of molesting him this year, according to the Leon County Sheriff’s Office.

Booker was also an assistant director of W.T. Moore Elementary School’s extended day program, according to the school website. However, Leon County Schools put him on leave when he was arrested.

Leon County deputies also found probable cause for claims they initially investigated in 2020.

Booker initially faced three felony counts, but on Tuesday night, LCSO said he is now charged with 11 felony counts as a result of their…

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A Jesuit priest and former teacher at Boston College High School, accused of raping a student at the school, was acquitted Monday following a bench trial in Suffolk Superior Court.

Kevin White was indicted last year on a single count of Rape of a Child. Prosecutors said White assaulted a then-15-year-old student in his classroom sometime between 2008 and 2009.

Judge James Budreau heard evidence in the case over the course of two days and returned the not guilty verdict Monday morning. White waived his right to have the case heard by a jury.

Douglas Brooks, an attorney representing White, said the “evidence in the case demonstrated over and over that Fr. White was innocent.”

“He looks forward to getting his life back after having his reputation tarnished for the last four years as a result of the complainant’s fabricated allegation,” Brooks said in…

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The case against a Craig pastor who allegedly attempted to strangle a juvenile was set to go to trial during a hearing Monday after the defense rejected a plea agreement.

Parrish Terry, 58, of Craig, was arrested June 15 and is charged with second-degree assault strangulation, a Class 4 felony.

During an interview with Craig police, the juvenile told officers that Terry had allegedly “attempted to grab him by the side.” The juvenile noted that he “slapped (Terry’s) hand away” and said he doesn’t like to be touched there, states the affidavit.

When the juvenile said this, Terry allegedly started to chase the juvenile, according to the affidavit.

“At first, he thought it was play fighting, but then got scared” and locked himself in a room, says the document. The juvenile told police that Terry began trying to open the door and started pounding on it.

When the juvenile opened the…

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A Niangua, Mo., pastor already accused of forced labor at a sober living program now faces child abuse charges.

According to court documents, Isaac Tilden, founder of the Compassion House in Niangua, is charged with abuse or neglect of a child.

In the probable cause statement, the victim stated that Tilden would lock her outside his house and would hit, yell, and cuss at her. Court records state that the victim is Tilden’s child.

The victim also said in an interview with deputies that two men attending the program touched her inappropriately in June 2023. The victim stated that Tilden allowed sex offenders in his sober living facility to be around children at the church.

Charges filed against Tilden in July accuse him of forcing people going through the program to do unpaid labor or face revocation of probation or parole.

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Israel Morales Guzman part of leadership at Ministerios Hogar De Fe in Grand Mound area

Israel Morales Guzman, 46, a co-pastor at Ministerios Hogar De Fe located in the Grand Mound area, is awaiting trial for charges of second-degree child molestation.

Morales was arrested July 30 by Thurston County Sheriff’s Office deputies and made a preliminary appearance in Thurston County Superior Court the following day, after which he posted bail in the amount of $50,000.

During his arraignment on Aug. 12, Christopher Taylor, Morales’s defense attorney, entered a not guilty plea on Morales’s behalf. A trial confirmation is now set for Oct. 23, with a jury trial to begin Nov. 3.

Morales faces two counts of child molestation, each punishable by up to 10 years in prison and $20,000 in fines, according to state law. Conviction would require Morales to register as a sex offender. He faces additional class C…

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The Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP) is appalled by Quincy Mayor Thomas Koch’s recent comments on WBZ News Radio1030 dismissing the clergy abuse crisis as “mostly homosexual issues” rather than recognizing the catastrophe for what it is: the widespread and systemic rape and sexual assault of children and vulnerable people facilitated and concealed by Catholic bishops around the world.

The conflation of homosexuality and pedophilia has been repeatedly refuted by medical and scientific experts. Mayor Koch’s comments serve to scapegoat gay men, imply that middle-school and high-school boys are not actually victims of abuse, and completely dismiss every girl or woman who has been assaulted in the Catholic Church.

Perhaps no diocese in the United States has drawn as much global attention for the rampant sexual abuse of children, and its cover-up by church leaders, as Boston. Even so, an AP investigation found that  View Cache

The John Templeton Foundation is awarding its 2025 Prize tonight at Lincoln Center in New York City to Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew (Dimitrios Archontonis) for framing environmental harm as a ‘moral failing.’ Yet critics note the striking dissonance: while Bartholomew denounces ecological damage, he has remained silent on the moral catastrophe of clergy-perpetrated sexual abuse under his authority.

However, the Orthodox Survivors and Advocates, explained that the Patriarch’s silence on clergy-perpetrated sexual abuse in the Eastern churches makes this win painful for victims — especially those who have approached him directly about their experiences. Members of the group lamented that Patriarch Bartholomew has not similarly used his position to speak out on sexual abuse by Orthodox clergy.

Although seldom recognized as a major faith in the United States, Eastern Orthodoxy is the second-largest branch of Christianity, smaller only than the Catholic Church. It is one of the three main branches of Christianity, alongside Catholicism…

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The Assemblies of God seeks to shield its top leader from being deposed in a court case related to sexual abuse in a popular AOG campus ministry.

The General Council of the Assemblies of God says Doug Clay, general superintendent, has no relevant knowledge of sexual abuse that happened in Chi Alpha’s chapter at Sam Houston State University in Huntsville, Texas. BNG previously reported on allegations of abuse by Daniel Savala and others not only at Sam Houston but also at Baylor University.

The escalating scandal led to the 2023 resignation of Scott Martin, former national leader of Chi Alpha. The denomination also seeks to quash the deposition of Martin and others.

The AOG is being sued by two plaintiffs who claim they were abused by Savala, who was present at several chapters of Chi Alpha in Texas. Denominational leaders contend Clay, in his role as general superintendent, was far removed from the…

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Liberty University, a power center for evangelical Christianity and one of the country’s largest educational institutions, claims it adheres to the highest ethical standards. But while students were forced to follow the school’s honor code called “The Liberty Way,” leaders at the top flagrantly violated it, says 1996 graduate and former admissions counselor Rachel Beck.

Beck, who’s going by her maiden name, says she was sexually harassed in the late 1990s by two top administrators. They are John Borek, then-president of the prominent Christian school in Lynchburg, Virginia, and Jay Spencer, a former vice president.

But when the harassment came to light in 1998, Borek suffered no consequences, Beck says. Spencer resigned under pressure, but received a hefty severance, she claims, and was “repositioned” by Liberty founder Jerry Falwell, Sr., to an executive position at the American Association of Christian Counselors.

Eight years later, Liberty rehired…

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The Chicago Archdiocese said Wednesday that it has reinstated a local priest after an investigation determined an allegation of sexual abuse of a minor at a church in Melrose Park about 40 years ago was found to be unsubstantiated.

Father Curtis Lambert had stepped away from ministry during an investigation into the accusation, Cardinal Blase Cupich, Archbishop of Chicago, announced in letters to families of multiple parishes in July.

Lambert had been accused of sexual abuse against a minor while he was assigned to Sacred Heart Parish in Melrose Park approximately 40 years ago, the Archdiocese said in July. The priest denied the allegation.

The Archdiocese said “civil authorities and our Independent Review Board (IRB) completed the process of investigating the allegation… After receiving the results of the thorough investigation, the IRB determined that there is not a reasonable cause to believe Father Lambert sexually abused the person making the…

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Mexican megachurch leader Naasón Joaquín García pleaded not guilty on Tuesday to sex trafficking charges during his first appearance in a New York federal court, where he is charged along with his 79-year-old mother with sexually abusing generations of young followers.

Two weeks ago, an unsealed indictment in Manhattan accused García, 56, of Los Angeles, of using his position as head of La Luz del Mundo (The Light of the World) church to sexually abuse children and women. The indictment said his father and grandfather, both deceased, did the same before him.

At a hearing before Judge Loretta A. Preska, García listened to a Spanish translator through headphones and sometimes spoke English.

After García pleaded not guilty, Assistant U.S. Attorney Elizabeth Espinosa said there was an enormous amount of electronic evidence in the case, including evidence from a 2019 California state prosecution that led to a prison sentence of more than…

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Correction: Jim Petosa is a former president of Quincy’s United First Parish Church. His role was misstated in an earlier version of this story.

Mayor Thomas Koch made inflammatory comments about homosexuality and the Catholic Church child sexual abuse scandal while appearing on a radio show this week.

The 25-minute interview on the WBZ News Radio program Nightside with Dan Rea aired Monday, Sept. 22.

It focused on the controversy around two statues of saints that Koch commissioned for the new public safety headquarters, which are the subject of a lawsuit claiming the artwork violates the constitutional separation of church and state.

The conversation turned to the church and child sexual abuse when Rea expressed his anger at church leadership for not defrocking pedophile priests, to which Koch responded:

“That was mostly homosexual issues, not pedophilia.”

Koch downplayed the extent of…

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Attorneys for the Delbarton School began presenting witnesses on Sept. 24 in defense of the landmark civil lawsuit targeting the all-boys’ prep school, the order of Benedictine Catholic brothers that runs it and a former priest accused of sexually assaulting a 15-year-old sophomore in 1976.

Two witnesses — including current Headmaster Rev. Michael Tidd — were quizzed at length about the history of child sexual abuse policies, both at Delbarton and at U.S. schools in general. Tidd and David Wolowitz, a legal expert on the subject, testified that procedures and training to avoid such incidents essentially did not exist at the time the student said he was molested by his teacher and mentor, the Rev. Richard Lott.

“What should be done now was not done then,” Wolowitz told the jury at the Morris County Courthouse.

The lawsuit brought by the student, identified only as “T.M.” to protect his privacy,…

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“Information given by the complainant … was inconsistent with other evidence obtained.”

An Australian auxiliary bishop returned to public ministry Wednesday, after an investigation concluded that an abuse allegation against him was “not sustained.”

Bishop Richard Umbers of the Sydney archdiocese had withdrawn from public ministry in early July, as an independent third-party investigation began into a civil claim of past abuse. Umbers denied the allegation “emphatically.”

An email obtained by The Pillar informed archdiocesan employees Sept. 24 that “an independent investigation has now concluded and returned a finding that the allegation made was ‘not sustained.’”

“The report from the independent investigator highlighted information given by the complainant that was inconsistent with other evidence obtained and therefore, the investigator could not be satisfied that the alleged conduct occurred,” explained the email, sent by archdiocesan vicar general Fr. Samuel Lynch.

“Accordingly, Bishop Umbers will now return to public ministry, and to the office,”…

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Pope Leo XIV on Wednesday named Bishop James Checchio coadjutor archbishop of New Orleans, positioning him to head an archdiocese facing bankruptcy and a costly clergy abuse settlement.

The 59-year-old Checchio — bishop of Metuchen, New Jersey, since 2016 — will assist Archbishop Gregory Aymond in the leadership of over half a million Catholics in southeastern Louisiana. Prior to becoming a bishop, Checchio was rector of the Pontifical North American College in Rome from 2006 to 2016. He has a doctorate in canon law.

As coadjutor, Checchio will automatically succeed Aymond, who turned 75, the age when bishops are required to submit their resignation to the pope, last year. Aymond, a New Orleans native, has led the archdiocese since 2009.

Checchio joins the leadership of New Orleans as the archdiocese moves to resolve years-long bankruptcy negotiations with a settlement for over 600 clergy sexual abuse claimants. Earlier this month, the…

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The Most Rev. Fr. James F. Checchio, bishop of the Diocese of Metuchen in New Jersey, has been named the next archbishop of the Archdiocese of New Orleans by Pope Leo XIV, taking over from a retiring Archbishop Gregory Aymond.

A scholar of church law and the former leader of the American seminary in Rome, Checchio, 59, will serve alongside Aymond as coadjutor archbishop before taking the reins of the nation’s second-oldest Roman Catholic diocese in coming months, the Vatican announced on Wednesday.

His appointment comes 10 months after Aymond, 75, reached the mandatory retirement age for bishops. Aymond is also close to wrapping up the local church’s long-running bankruptcy case, and he affirmed in a letter Wednesday that he plans to conclude that process before passing responsibility for the region’s half-million Catholics to his successor.

A New Jersey native, Checchio was ordained in Camden in 1992…

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The Vatican announced on Wednesday that Bishop James F. Checchio, who has led the Diocese of Metuchen in New Jersey since 2016, will succeed New Orleans Archbishop Gregory Aymond. 

Checchio, 59, is a native of New Jersey and a newcomer to New Orleans. He has been named Coadjutor Archbishop, meaning he will serve alongside Aymond until he retires in the coming months.

What is his background?

Checchio was born in 1966 in Camden, New Jersey, and grew up in a nearby suburb, Collingswood, in a family with four kids. He attended Pope Paul VI High School and graduated from the University of Scranton. He was ordained in 1992 in the Diocese of Camden and went on to earn a MBA from LaSalle University and a Doctorate of Canon Law and Bachelor of Sacred Theology from the University of St. Thomas Aquinas in Rome.

What is his professional…

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Pope Leo XIV has appointed Bishop James F. Checchio of Metuchen, N.J., as coadjutor archbishop of New Orleans. The appointment has been announced Sept. 24.

According to the church’s canon law, a coadjutor bishop is appointed to assist the diocesan bishop until his retirement. 

This means that Archbishop Gregory M. Aymond of New Orleans will continue to lead the archdiocese “until such time that the Holy Father accepts his resignation,” the Diocese of Metuchen said in a statement. “When that happens, he will then be automatically succeeded by Archbishop-designate Checchio.”

‘Historic local church’

Bishop Checchio said of his appointment that “The Archdiocese of New Orleans is an historic local Church with committed clergy and religious, two large seminary communities and a wonderful, faith-filled laity.”

He said: “I am certainly grateful to our Lord and to His vicar, Pope Leo XIV, for sending me to be a part of such a…

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Pope Leo XIV has named a successor to the embattled archbishop of New Orleans two weeks after the archdiocese agreed to a $230 million settlement for survivors of clergy sexual abuse

Pope Leo XIV on Wednesday named a successor to embattled New Orleans Archbishop Gregory M. Aymond, two weeks after the archdiocese agreed to a $230 million proposed settlement for survivors of clergy sexual abuse.

History’s first U.S. pope named Bishop James Checchio of Metuchen, New Jersey, as the coadjutor bishop of New Orleans. The position puts Checchio in line to automatically succeed Aymond when he retires.

Checchio, 59, handled the fallout in Metuchen of the explosive 2018 sexual misconduct revelations of one of his predecessors there, then-Cardinal Theodore McCarrick. Prior to arriving in Metuchen in 2016, Checchio had served as the rector of the U.S. seminary in Rome for a decade.

The New Orleans archdiocese agreed Sept. 8 to a…

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Key Points

• T.M. again recounted the circumstances of Dec. 31, 1975, when he says Lott took him to an off-campus party, then “got the ball rolling” by giving him beers.
• Lott, a now-89-year-old cleric, previously testified, he was at a Jersey Shore church on New Year’s Eve in 1975.

Nearly half a century after he says he was sexually assaulted at age 15 by a monk at the Delbarton School, a former student at the all-boys prep school testified on Sept. 22 that the trauma from that night “follows me around like a dark cloud.”

Identified only as T.M., the 1977 Delbarton graduate began his testimony last week, alleging that the Rev. Richard Lott, a Benedictine monk and chemistry teacher, took him to an off-campus New Year’s Eve Party in 1975, where he plied him with alcohol and then brought him back to the cleric’s secluded quarters on campus,…

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Thursday, September 25, 2025
4:00 PM – 5:00 PM (MT)
Zimmerman Library Frank Waters Room 105

The University of New Mexico recently became the first university in the nation to hold an “abuse archive”: a collection of materials that document Catholic clerical sexual abuse. Come learn about this archive from a panel of experts, as they discuss its origins, its scope, and its significance for both researchers and the public. The Archdiocese of Santa Fe Institutional Abuse Collection is part of UNM’s Center for Southwest Research and Special Collections.

Panelists:

Kathleen Holscher holds the endowed chair in Roman Catholic Studies at UNM and is a historian who researches and writes about clerical sexual abuse.

Terry McKiernan is the founder and president of BishopAccountability.org, the world’s first and largest public library of information on the Catholic clergy abuse crisis.

Levi Monagle is a partner at the law firm Hall Monagle & Wallace and…

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Pain must never give rise to violence, and every Catholic needs to learn to safeguard with tenderness those who are vulnerable, Pope Leo XIV said during a prayer vigil dedicated to people experiencing pain and affliction due to illness, bereavement, violence or abuse.

Recognizing that some members of the church “have unfortunately hurt you,” the pope said, the church “kneels with you today before our Mother (Mary). May we all learn from her to protect the most vulnerable with tenderness!”

“May we learn to listen to your wounds and walk together,” he said in his homily Sept. 15, the feast of Our Lady of Sorrows. “May we receive from Our Lady of Sorrows the strength to recognize that life is not defined only by the evil we suffer, but by the love of God, who never abandons us and guides the whole church.”

The pope led the prayer vigil in…

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Man sued Diocese of Dromore over historic physical and sexual assaults by Malachy Finnegan between 1979 and 1985

A man who says he was groomed and abused by a priest at St Colman’s College in Newry is to receive £170,000 (€194,800) in damages.

The payout forms part of a settlement agreed on Monday in his High Court action over historic physical and sexual assaults inflicted by the late Fr Malachy Finnegan.

The victim will also be given a written apology from the head of the Catholic Church in Ireland, his lawyer disclosed.

The 57-year-old man, who cannot be identified, sued the Diocese of Dromore and the board of governors at St Colman’s College in Newry over failures to protect him from the priest.

“Malachy Finnegan took a vulnerable boy at a vulnerable time in my life, groomed me and then abused me for his own pleasure,” he said after the case…

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Pope Leo XIV’s just-released comments embracing his predecessor Pope Francis’ hallmark approach to LGBTQ+ Catholics could have a lasting impact on the church because the papal tone on such matters appears to predict priests’ attitudes, specifically how U.S. priests approach LGBTQ+ issues, according to a new study.

Those are the findings of Jesuit Fr. Lucas Sharma, whose recently released study found that priests who express approval of Pope Francis’ papacy are more likely to adopt a pastoral approach to LGBTQ+ Catholics — even when they are politically conservative, heterosexual or recently ordained.

The study coincides with Leo’s comments on LGBTQ+ Catholics in a recent interview for a new book, in which he said he plans to carry forward Pope Francis’ hallmark approach to: an open door to all, rooted in dignity and respect, while maintaining church teaching on sexuality and marriage.

Leo said that what “I’m trying to…

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Clerical sexual abuse continues to be “a real crisis,” one that the Catholic Church still must learn to deal with, particularly in improving the way it helps survivors while also ensuring the rights of the accused are respected, Pope Leo XIV said.

“It would be naive for myself or for anyone” to think that dismissing the offender and giving the victim a financial settlement completely solves a case, “as if those wounds are just going to go away because of that,” the pope said in an interview for a book by Elise Allen, a journalist.

For Allen’s biography, “Leo XIV: Citizen of the World, Missionary of the XXI Century,” Pope Leo spoke about a range of issues, including the abuse crisis, US President Donald Trump, the war in Gaza, Vatican policy toward China, the church’s openness to LGBT Catholics, the role of women in the church, and the celebration of the pre-Vatican…

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The Catholic Church in the Canton of Zurich is now offering its employees a consultation hour for mental and sexual health. The project, which is anonymous and free of charge for employees, is unique in Switzerland.

There are repeated calls for the prevention of sexual assault, Synodal Councillor Andreas Kopp told the media on Monday. The Zurich prevention project, which has been running since September and is aimed at church staff, focuses on potential perpetrators, Kopp continued.

The project is initially planned to run for three years. After that, a report will be submitted to the Synodal Council, which will serve as a basis for deciding whether to continue, adapt or terminate the project, Kopp continued.

The Catholic Church in the Canton of Zurich finances the low-threshold service. The project partner and contractor is the Psychiatric University Hospital Zurich (Puk). The consultation takes place in the large outpatient clinic in…

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Sep 21, 2025|EditorShare

Pope Leo XIV arrives at an audience with the Lasallian Brothers on May 15, 2025. (Credit: Vatican Media.

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ROME – In the classic 1996 film “Jerry Maguire,” early on our hero, a highly successful agent representing athletes, has a crisis of conscience. In his epiphany, he realizes that his business has become too dominated by money and volume, losing the personal concern for clients that’s supposed to be the heart of the affair.

He stays up all night to produce a document – he pointedly calls it a “mission statement” – which he titles, “The Things We Think and Do…

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The trial, the first involving a former student alleging clergy abuse decades ago, could result in financial and reputational damage for prestigious school.

It has long been regarded as one of the top private preparatory schools in New Jersey. 

Business leaders, lawyers, politicians and playwrights have studied on its sprawling wooded campus in Morristown. 

Ranked near the top in almost every sport, it is considered one of the best athletics schools in the state. Before Anthony Volpe was drafted by the Yankees, he took the school’s baseball team to a state championship with teammate Jack Leiter, now a pitcher for the Twins. 

But decades ago, Delbarton — the elite Catholic all-boys school operated by the Benedictine monks of St. Mary’s Abbey who oversee the institution — held a dark secret, according to dozens of former students. In decades-old complaints of sexual assault that have only…

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“Unreconciled” — Jay Sefton performs his extraordinary play at the Cotuit Center for the Arts, Cotuit MA

September 25 – October 12, 2025

Cotuit Center for the Arts 
4404 Falmouth Road
Cotuit, MA 0263

• Theater

Buy tickets

Unreconciled is based on the true story of an adolescent actor cast as Jesus in a school play directed by a parish priest. Set in a working class suburb of Philadelphia, this solo-show chronicles a survivor’s journey as he confronts his past, navigates a victims’ reparations program set up by the Catholic Church, and discovers the courage to use his voice. This 80-minute piece is a poignant and at times humorous exploration of family, place, and the meaning of reconciliation.

A brief talkback with the audience will follow each performance of Unreconciled.

Panel Guests joining post-show discussions are as follows:

• Friday, September 26—Krystin St. Onge, LICSW
• Sunday, September 28—Dr. Gretchen Schmelzer
• Rick…

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Effective protection of minors and adults in the care of the global church is a mandate for all Christians. However, what an effective safeguarding strategy means in different contexts can be rather different. Instead of pursuing universally valid safeguarding strategies, church organizations need to pursue diverse, context-specific approaches in plural form. Only with this approach can we expect and rely upon effective safeguarding to keep children and vulnerable adults safe. 

Why the need for diverse, context-specific approaches? On the one hand, those who want to protect human life cannot indiscriminately place cultures on an equal footing when human life is endangered in one culture for structural and systemic reasons and not in another. Female genital mutilation, the forced marriage of children, the sexual abuse of vulnerable groups and the neglect of entire population groups caused in part by a caste system are not only outrageous but intolerable. 

On the other…

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SEATTLE — Two families are suing the Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter-Day Saints (LDS), claiming that the church knowingly allowed a high priest with convictions for child sexual abuse to have continued access to children in Seattle.

These two families say that their 4-year-old and 5-year-old were sexually abused by that high priest in the 80s.

“Despite Defendants’ knowledge, the Defendants failed to take reasonable steps to protect Plaintiffs from the danger of being sexually abused by [high priest]. As a result, High Priest [name] was able to use his positions with Defendants to sexually abuse Plaintiffs,” the suit read.

KIRO 7 is not naming the high priest because some of his victims were family members. Naming him could identify them.

The suit alleges that the LDS Church knew of the danger and risk the high priest posed to children as early as 1984, but still allowed him…

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NEW YORK — For the Boy Scouts of America — recently renamed Scouting America — the past 12 years have been arduous. Opening its programs to gay people, and later to girls, sparked dismay in some quarters. Its 2020 bankruptcy declaration led to prolonged wrangling over compensation for thousands of men claiming they were sexually abused as scouts.

Yet the 115-year-old organization — though serving far fewer youths than at its peak decades ago — seems to be stabilizing, with a slight uptick in membership last year. A key factor is the abiding loyalty of major religious denominations that still view scouting’s mission as uniquely in tune with their own.

“I tell parents this is the best time to be involved with Scouting America, and the best time to be involved through a Catholic unit,” said Bill Guglielmi, who chairs the National Catholic Committee on Scouting. “There is a hunger…

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The level of trust in the Catholic Church in Poland hit a record low with only one third of traditionally Catholic Poles trusting the church.

The level of distrust has almost doubled over the same period, skyrocketing from 24.2% to 47.1%. Commentators blame the fall on the bishops — too engaged in “politics, money” and not taking care of the abuse crisis.

The Polish Institute for Market and Social Research Foundation, or IBRiS, released the poll — conducted for the Polish Press Agency Sept. 18, noting that the total percentage of people who declare trust (“strongly” or “rather strongly”) in the Catholic Church plummeted by over 22% — and has fallen from 58% in September 2016 to 35.1% in the same month in 2025.

The “most alarming change” occurred within one year. Between October 2024 and September 2025, the trust index fell by 4%, while the percentage of those who…

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The Catholic Diocese of Kalamazoo posted a statement regarding the recently aired ABC57 special report, Unholy Acts, which discussed sexual abuse accusations against local Catholic priests.

The statement reads in part:

“Childhood sexual abuse is a grave evil and we are committed to doing all that we can to work toward eradicating all forms of child abuse and to provide support and healing to survivors.

The sexual abuse of minors by priests is tragic, appalling, and inexcusable. What was shared in recent public media is something no child should endure. The suffering inflicted on these individuals lasts a lifetime, and that suffering affects us all as the Body of Christ.”

You can read the full statement below:

THE DIOCESE OF KALAMAZOO

DIOCESAN STATEMENT

Childhood sexual abuse is a grave evil and we are committed to doing all that we can to work toward
eradicating all forms of child abuse…

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Father Ed Burns is on leave of absence from Tri-County parish, while a criminal investigation is ongoing

The Hamilton County Sheriff’s Office is investigating a local priest after the Archdiocese of Cincinnati said a computer in his possession may have accessed “concerning websites.”

We were the first to report Fr. Ed Burns Jr. recently left his parish without explanation. He is the pastor of the St. Carlo Acutis Parish, which includes St. Gabriel Church and school in Glendale, St. Michael Church and School in Sharonville, and St. John Church in West Chester.

On Tuesday, a sheriff’s spokesperson confirmed an active investigation into Burns. On Wednesday, a spokesperson said they received a computer related to the investigation on September 4. They declined to release any further information.

A spokesperson for Hamilton County Prosecutor Connie Pillich stated that the Archdiocese of Cincinnati contacted her office on Aug. 28 regarding Burns. She forwarded…

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Two decades have passed since the initial spotlight cases of clerical abuse broke in Boston, Massachusetts and revealed the extent of sexual abuse within the global, Catholic Church.

Multiple changes have been made since then to the Church’s legal structure regarding the reporting procedure for abuse, ramifications for cover-ups, and the cooperation between the Church and State regarding allegations. However, many people around the world still wonder if the Church’s leadership has done enough.

Pope Francis, throughout his papacy, fought to reform the Church’s systems in order to combat the horrific deeds of the past. In Chile, he personally commissioned an investigation and visited the bishop’s conference, who would eventually all resign.

POPE FRANCIS

The shame I feel at the irreparable harm caused to children

Over the past five years, there have been several conferences, new institutions and task-forces created to prevent abuse and encourage safeguarding within the Church.

FR….

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A child is sexually assaulted every 9 minutes in the United States, according to the Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network. Over the past two decades, there have been more than 60,000 documented cases of child sexual abuse. Three out of 10 victims have been younger than 12 years of age.

But perhaps the most chilling statistic of all is that 98% of sexual assault perpetrators walk free. Most abusers are never held fully accountable for their actions by the criminal justice system, while victims and their communities are left to contend with a lifetime of psychological trauma.

Despite overwhelming evidence of such a blatant and pervasive injustice, many seem to have been lured into a false sense of security concerning issues of systemic sexual abuse and national progress in combatting this issue. Legal constraints, waning public awareness and a cultural ethos of jaded dismissal have made it increasingly difficult for survivors to…

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Two Romanian men have filed lawsuits accusing a former pastor at Harvest Christian Fellowship in Riverside, California, of sexually abusing and trafficking children at a shelter he operated in Bucharest for nearly a decade. The lawsuits also name Harvest and its prominent pastor Greg Laurie for alleged negligence in failing to prevent the abuse.

The complaints filed Tuesday in U.S. District Court in California by Marian Barbu, 33, and Mihai-Constantin Petcu, 40, allege that Paul Havsgaard, a former Harvest missionary and pastor, subjected them and dozens of other children to severe abuse at the shelter.

First reported by The Associated Press, the lawsuits claim Havsgaard lured vulnerable street children with promises of fast food, shelter, and education, only to subject them to “a torture chamber.”  

Havsgaard, Christianity Today first disclosed, was listed on an archived Harvest staff web page in…

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The Brief

• A former Houston youth pastor has been arrested on two child pornography charges.
• Nathan Wayne Walker, 50, was released after posting a $50,000 bond.
• His son allegedly found similar content on his computer years ago and reported it to police.

A former youth pastor for a Houston church has been arrested after officials say he was found with sexual images of young children.

The former pastor was found to have a possible history with illegal child content, according to court documents obtained by FOX 26.

Former Houston youth pastor arrested

Nathan Wayne Walker, 50, was a youth pastor at Crossbridge Christian Church, the Harris County sheriff said when announcing Walker’s arrest.

Walker was arrested on Wednesday on two charges of possession of child pornography. 

The court documents for Walker say he was discovered to possess the illicit material on June 27, 2025. Further investigation allegedly…

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The legal battle continues in a sexual abuse lawsuit involving Chi Alpha Campus Ministries of the Assemblies of God. Motions asking the court stop certain discovery requests and enforce others are being traded by both parties.

Discovery is the process that allows parties to obtain evidence from each other in a civil lawsuit.

The General Council of the Assemblies of God is being sued by two plaintiffs who claim they were abused by Daniel Savala while he was involved in Chi Alpha’s Chapter at Sam Houston State University in Huntsville, Texas. The General Council has asked the court to quash, or not allow, the deposition of Doug Clay.

Clay serves as the General Superintendent of the General Council of the denomination. As such, the defendant claims that he is not involved in the day-to-day operations of the Chi Alpha college Ministry, specifically the one in Huntsville where the…

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A documentary on Father Marko Rupnik’s alleged abuse of consecrated women, the personal fallout for two of his alleged victims, and what happened when the claims became public decades later premiered at the Toronto Film Festival earlier this month.

“Nuns vs. The Vatican” includes the detailed stories of Gloria Branciani, Mirjam Kovac, and Klara (identified only by her first name), three former members of the Loyola Community in Slovenia in the 1980s and early 1990s, when Rupnik, a co-founder of the community, is accused of having committed sexual, psychological, and spiritual abuse against dozens of women religious.

Through the stories of Branciani and Klara, the film, which premiered Sept. 6, argues that Rupnik’s alleged abuse was inextricably linked to his religious art. It also claims he was protected in the Catholic Church, in which he shot to stardom in the 1990s, and interviews experts who say the Vatican’s response has been…

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A priest at a Catholic church in Johnson County, Kansas, is stepping down amid a criminal investigation.

The Archdiocese of Kansas City in Kansas says Father Richard Storey resigned Wednesday as pastor of Curé of Ars Parish in Leawood.

The Prairie Village Police Department recently informed the archdiocese of a criminal investigation into Storey. The investigation involves Storey and another adult.

As of this week, there have been no charges filed against Storey, according to court records.

The archdiocese said it is cooperating with investigators and that they have opened a preliminary canonical investigation.

Storey has also been suspended from the public exercise of ministry and may not celebrate Mass or perform pastoral duties during the investigation.

Father John Riley, the archdiocese’s vicar general, has been named the interim administrator of the parish.

“We are devastated by this situation,” part of the statement reads. “While we cooperate…

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The Rev. Richard Storey didn’t take a direct route on his path to the priesthood.

He made a long stop at a Louisburg funeral home along the way, working his way up from performing odd jobs to taking over as director before deciding to enter the priesthood.

Ordained in 2004 at 33, Storey has served since 2015 as pastor at Cure of Ars Catholic Church, 9401 Mission Road in Leawood. He was assigned to Holy Spirit Catholic Church in Overland Park from 2009 to 2015, and in his early years as a priest was at three churches in Osage County.

On Wednesday, parishioners were stunned when the Archdiocese of Kansas City in Kansas announced that Storey had resigned amid a criminal investigation by Prairie Village police.

Storey informed the archdiocese that day of his decision to resign, the archdiocese said in a statement posted on its website,…

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The alleged victim took the witness stand Thursday in Morristown and, in stark detail, described being sexually abused nearly 50 years ago by a monk in a barn at the Delbarton School.

“My brain was seared from what happened,” the man, identified only as T.M., testified calmly, almost clinically. Until his lawyer pressed him about his trauma from that New Year’s morning in 1976.

Recounting a shattered faith, a broken marriage, and dark memories triggered when he unzips his fly in a public restroom, T.M. grew emotional about two hours into his testimony, in a landmark hearing that has drawn intense interest from the media and religious community.

It is the first of hundreds of sexual abuse cases against the Catholic Church in New Jersey to reach trial, and the first of 39 such lawsuits filed against Delbarton.

“I never wanted to admit what I’ve had to admit here. So…

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CINCINNATI (WXIX) – A priest is on administrative leave amid a criminal investigation, according to the Archdiocese of Cincinnati and the Hamilton County Sheriff’s Office.

A church employee “uncovered the possibility that concerning websites were accessed, including pornography sites,” on a laptop that Father Edward “Ed” Burns Jr. had used, according to a letter Tuesday from the archdiocese to parishioners.

The archdiocese shared the letter with FOX19 NOW when we reached out to them for comment.

Burns has been the pastor since 2018 of St. Carlo Acutis Parish, which includes two churches with schools in Hamilton County and a church in Butler County:

• St. Gabriel Church and school in Glendale
• St. Michael the Archangel Church and school in Sharonville
• St. John the Evangelist Church in West Chester Township

Burns recently abruptly left, raising questions among parishioners.

His last message to them in the weekly bulletin was on Sunday, Aug. 31, according to…

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Father Ed Burns on administrative leave amid computer investigation

Father Ed Burns, a priest at St. Michael Catholic Church in Sharonville since 2018, has been placed on administrative leave after a church computer investigation raised concerns among parishioners.

Angie Stofko, a parishioner, expressed her frustration, saying, “We’re at a dead end. We don’t know how to get answers.”

A spokesperson for the Archdiocese of Cincinnati explained that two weeks ago, while a computer at St. Michael’s was being repurposed, a worker discovered that pornographic websites may have been accessed. The following weekend, parishioners were informed that Burns had been placed on administrative leave, but Stofko noted that little information was provided.

“All the moms that, we talk to and text to each other, we all started talking. And then the rumors started,” she said.

Last Tuesday, after hearing these rumors, WLWT’s attempts to reach the archdiocese for comment were met…

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• Update from Bishop Michael C. Barber, SJ Sept. 12, 2025

  The Holy Name of Mary
   
  Dear Catholic Faithful of the Diocese of Oakland,

  May the peace of Jesus Christ continue to be with you all!

  As many of you have seen, in our bankruptcy we recently offered the 345 survivors of sexual abuse a compensation package of $165 million.  Of the $165 million, $160 million would be used to compensate known claims, which results in a per-capita average recovery in excess of $463,000 for each survivor — an offer which constitutes a new record high in church-side settlement contributions for all diocesan bankruptcies with over 200 survivor claims.  This amount does not include monetary contributions from our insurers, but we have also offered to give our insurance rights to the survivors so they can choose to pursue their own insurance recoveries.  If accepted, this proposal would stretch our limited resources to the absolute…

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Suspect was a religion teacher in Trento

ANSA English Desk

Prosecutors in Trento have requested the indictment of a 40-year-old priest and religion teacher at a Catholic school in the northern province for the alleged aggravated sexual assault of an 11-year-old pupil, local newspapers Corriere del Trentino, l’Adige, and the T reported on Thursday.

    The alleged abuse date backs to the autumn of 2023 and the priest was transferred from the school after having taught there for about a decade, according to the reports.

    The alleged victim was reportedly questioned in the presence of a judge and the account convinced investigators to seek the indictment of the man, who denies all charges

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The priest at the center of a half-century old sexual abuse accusation against the Delbarton School took the stand in Morristown on Wednesday and insisted he was not even on campus on the day of the alleged assault.

Instead, Richard Lott testified, he was at a Jersey Shore church on New Year’s Eve in 1975, when he is accused of molesting a 15-year-old student at the elite Morris County prep school.

“I was assigned to St. Mary’s Parish on weekends to celebrate Mass and hear confessions,” said Lott, a now-89-year-old cleric who was an instructor and head of maintenance at Delbarton in the 1970s.

The lawsuit, brought by a former student identified only as “T.M.,” is the first to go to court among 39 abuse cases pending against the Morris Township school. It’s also believed to be the first clergy abuse suit against the Catholic Church to reach a…

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The Rev. Richard Storey didn’t take a direct route on his path to the priesthood.

He made a long stop at a Louisburg funeral home along the way, working his way up from performing odd jobs to taking over as director before deciding to enter the priesthood.

Ordained in 2004 at 33, Storey has served since 2015 as pastor at Cure of Ars Catholic Church, 9401 Mission Road in Leawood. He was assigned to Holy Spirit Catholic Church in Overland Park from 2009 to 2015, and in his early years as a priest was at three churches in Osage County.

On Wednesday, parishioners were stunned when the Archdiocese of Kansas City in Kansas announced that Storey had resigned amid a criminal investigation by Prairie Village police.

 Storey informed the archdiocese that day of his decision to resign, the archdiocese said in a statement posted on its website, adding that it…

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The allegation involves Father Richard Storey, who formerly led Curé of Ars, a Catholic Church on Mission Road. Archbishop Shawn McKnight has initiated his own canonical investigation.

The Prairie Village Police Department is conducting a criminal investigation into a priest at a Leawood church, according to a statement released Wednesday.

The allegation involves Father Richard Storey, who formerly led Curé of Ars, a Catholic Church at 9401 Mission Road, and an adult victim.

The Archdiocese of Kansas City in Kansas announced in a statement Wednesday that Storey has resigned, calling it a “serious allegations” against Storey.

The archdiocese said they are cooperating with the police investigation and that Archbishop Shawn McKnight has initiated his own canonical investigation.

“[Storey] is not allowed to function publicly as a priest during this time, which includes celebrating Mass and performing pastoral duties,” the archdiocese stated.

The vicar general for…

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LOS ANGELES (AP) — A former Riverside megachurch pastor has been accused of sexually abusing and trafficking children for years at a shelter he ran in Bucharest, according to lawsuits filed by two Romanian men in U.S. District Court in California.

The complaints, filed Tuesday by 33-year-old Marian Barbu and 40-year-old Mihai-Constantin Petcu, said former Harvest Christian Fellowship pastor and missionary Paul Havsgaard severely abused them and dozens of other children at the shelter over eight years. The lawsuits also name the church’s founder and senior pastor, Greg Laurie, a well-known evangelist and author, as well as other senior church leaders, saying they failed to prevent abuse.

The lawsuits accuse Havsgaard of luring struggling street kids with fast food and the promise of shelter and education. The men are “hurt, angry and still suffering from PTSD and social difficulties,” said Jef McAllister, a London-based lawyer with the law firm representing…

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“Senso di misericordia e vera giustizia, verso le vittime e verso gli accusati”. Ma è da chiarire se la paternità di questa affermazione, che si legge nella sintesi di un’udienza del Papa con i vescovi, sia da attribuire alla Segreteria di Stato

“Il Papa ha esortato tutti ad affrontare con prontezza le questioni che riguardano comportamenti inappropriati da parte del clero: ‘Non possono essere messi in un cassetto, vanno affrontati, con senso di misericordia e vera giustizia, verso le vittime e verso gli accusati’”. Così si legge in un passaggio della ricostruzione, decisamente molto sintetica, dell’udienza che Leone XIV ha avuto con i vescovi ordinati nell’ultimo anno, fornita, ventiquattrore dopo l’evento, ai giornalisti accreditati dalla Sala Stampa della Santa Sede. Derubricare, per usare un eufemismo, come “comportamenti inappropriati da parte del clero” dei veri e propri reati, penali e canonici, come gli abusi sessuali dei sacerdoti sui minori, è assolutamente grave. Inoltre, è da chiarire se la paternità di questa affermazione sia da attribuire alla Segreteria di Stato. Un passaggio, tra l’altro, inserito…

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La acusación, presentada ante la Fiscalía de Ciudad de México, señala al entonces superior general de los Escolapios, Pedro Aguado Cuesta, de “encubrimiento institucional de pederastia” por la actuación frente a un sacerdote ya fallecido. La Orden de los Escolapios sostiene que el religioso acusado fue expulsado del estado clerical en 2020 y defiende la actuación del actual obispo de Huesca y Jaca por seguir el protocolo y acompañamiento a la víctima desde el primer minuto.

Una presunta víctima de abusos sexuales ha presentado una denuncia ante la Fiscalía de Ciudad de México en la que solicita la inhabilitación del obispo de Huesca y Jaca, Pedro Aguado Cuesta, a quien atribuye un “encubrimiento institucional de pederastia” en el caso del sacerdote escolapio José Miguel Flores, fallecido en 2022.

El escrito, al que ha tenido acceso este medio a partir de la información adelantada por El Diario de Huesca, pide además que se verifique la defunción del clérigo mexicano, un punto…

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A petition by priests spoke of ‘moral gangrene’ in the archdiocese when the vicar general returned to post after a abuse allegation was deemed beyond the statute of limitations.

Fr Hubert Schmitt, vicar general of the Archdiocese of Strasbourg, stepped down after a public controversy over a sexual abuse claim, a month after another such incident in the Archdiocese of Toulouse.

Schmitt, 71, was suspended from the same post in 2023 after allegations of misconduct with an altar boy in 1993 emerged. The Mulhouse prosecutor ruled last year that the allegations were beyond the statute of limitations and ended the inquiry.

His official reappearance as vicar general in August prompted an outcry on social media. An anonymous petition by priests spoke of “moral gangrene” and urged the Vatican to make an apostolic visitation.

“Faced with the outcry, and in order to preserve the peace of mind of the diocesan government,…

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