ABUSE TRACKER

After 200 unmarked graves were discovered last year in Canada at an Indian boarding school, the grim discovery prompted the U.S. government to launch a national investigation. CBN News traveled to Montana to explore this tragedy that’s become an issue on both sides of the border. 

“Kids are most important to have a good upbringing and to be safe,” said Wes Bremner.

But that wasn’t the case at times for Bremner, who is a member of the Blackfeet Nation. He attended the Cut Bank Boarding School in northwestern Montana. As a second grader in the ’60s, distance and harsh winters made it a necessity. His first day proved to be harsh.

“One of the matrons – he was a big, large man, a White man – he said, ‘Hey, little f’ers, behave!’ He said, ‘Knock it off!’ He said, ‘Do you want a horn?’” Bremner told CBN…

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Trevor Lavalais, principal and director of Legacy Christian Academy, a private school in Alamogordo, was arrested on Feb. 11 on six counts relating to sexual assault involving a child.

Lavalais, 33 of Alamogordo, was charged with one count of criminal sexual penetration of a minor, three counts of criminal sexual contact of a minor and two counts of contributing to the delinquency of a minor, per court records.

On Feb. 9, a 12-year-old student at Legacy Christian Academy reported to a counselor that the principal made the child watch pornography, records show.

The counselor allegedly told the child that she would have to report the incident. The child did not want the incident reported, court records state.

Court records state that the child had been experiencing incidents with Lavalais beginning in August 2021.

On Feb. 9, the child allegedly told the counselor that in exchange for her not telling anyone that the child would…

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Kerala’s church community has split into a for-and-against divide.

Ask someone in Kerala’s Kuravilangad where the St. Francis Mission Home is, and they might not know. But mention the infamous former bishop Franco Mulakkal, and they nod for sure. In the four years since he was accused of rape by a nun, Kerala’s church community has split into a for-and-against divide — rife with politics, intrigue, and wild, whispered conspiracies.

And then came the shock judgment last month by a sessions court in Kottayam. The former bishop was pronounced not guilty.

The convent is like a formidable fortress at the end of a dirt road, tucked away in the middle of thick, quiet forest. All visitors are looked at with suspicion. The convent doors open briefly only to let in a man delivering tapioca, then slams shut. Outside, two policemen keep vigil. Information about guests must be relayed…

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A Vatican symposium on the priesthood, including discussions on sexual abuse, was embarrassed on Friday by the discovery that a French priest disciplined for alleged sexual abuse was among the attendees, witnesses said.

The priest was Father Tony Anatrella, 81, who was barred from public ministry in France in 2018 after a Church investigation found that he abused adult seminarians he was treating in so-called conversion therapy aimed at suppressing their homosexuality.

The Vatican declined to comment, but a Church source confirmed Anatrella’s presence after it was first reported by the French Catholic newspaper La Croix.

Anatrella was seen at the symposium by the La Croix reporter as well as a reporter for the French Catholic news agency I Media, one of whom spoke to him.

Anatrella, 81, could not be immediately reached and it was not immediately clear if he was still at the symposium on Friday afternoon after…

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In last week’s letter, Benedict XVI acknowledged the Church’s past errors in dealing with abuse.

Reactions in Germany to Pope Emeritus Benedict’s 8 February letter of apology for the handling of abuse cases in Munich during his 1977-82 time as archbishop have been mixed.

Benedict was accused in a report on the archdiocese released on 20 January of failing to take action in four cases of alleged sexual abuse. In an 82-page initial statement on the report, Benedict had denied in three places that he had taken part in an important meeting in January 1980. On 24 January, he admitted that, despite the earlier statements to the contrary, he had indeed taken part in the January 1980 meeting and apologised for the “editing” error.

In last week’s letter of 8 February Benedict acknowledged past failings of the Catholic Church in confronting clergy sexual abuse under his watch. “Each individual case of sexual abuse…

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The Vatican’s big fraud and extortion trial resumes Friday after exposing some unseemly realities of how the Holy See operates, with a new spy story taking center stage that is more befitting of a 007 thriller than the inner workings of a papacy.

According to written testimony obtained Thursday, one of Pope Francis’ top advisers brought in members of the Italian secret service to sweep his office for bugs and commissioned intelligence reports from them, completely bypassing the Vatican’s own police force in the process.

The reported actions of Archbishop Edgar Peña Parra, the No. 2 in the Vatican secretariat of state, raise some fundamental questions about the security and sovereignty of the Vatican City State, since he purportedly invited foreign intelligence operatives into the Holy See’s inner sanctum, and then outsourced internal Vatican police spy work to them.

Peña Parra hasn’t been charged with any crime, though his subordinates…

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On the sidelines of Friday’s hearing, Cardinal Becciu gave a statement to the media about his financial giving to Spes Cooperative, the non-profit managed by his brother, denying that he intended to favor family members.

The Vatican’s internal financial watchdog has joined an ongoing Vatican trial as a civil party.

The addition of the Financial Information and Supervision Authority, or ASIF (formerly the AIF), to the civil action of the trial took place at a hearing on Feb. 18. The court session, which lasted more than four hours with breaks, was adjourned until Feb. 28.

The reason for ASIF’s inclusion as a plaintiff in the case will be heard at the end of the month, during the continuation of Friday’s hearing.

The financial information authority joins the civil parties of the Secretariat of State, the Institute for Religious Works (IOR), and the Administration of the Patrimony of the Apostolic See…

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Father Jean Claude Philippe, convicted of raping a parishioner in the rectory of his church in Homestead, did not apologize when it came time for his sentencing. Instead, he complained about his time in jail and said he was preaching the word of God to inmates behind bars. “The devil is powerful but won’t change me,” he said. “I won’t change my ways. I will continue in my path.” That path, a judge ruled on Thursday, will nevertheless continue in state prison for nearly eight years.

Circuit Judge Carmen Cabarga on Thursday sentenced Philippe, 67, to 94-and-a-half months in prison. It was the lowest permissible prison term under Florida’s sentencing guidelines for Philippe, who did not have any previous arrests or convictions. Cabarga did not explain her reasoning for the sentence, but rejected prosecutors’ call for a sentence of 15 years, the max allowed by law.

“The bottom line is…

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The recent accolades for Bishop Remi De Roo on his death at the age of 97 show a failure to truly examine his career and how he cared for the most vulnerable.

It was Bishop De Roo who gave faculties to Fr. Phil Jacobs, despite knowing that the priest had abused two young boys in Columbus, Ohio. Fr. Jacobs went on to abuse more boys in Victoria, British Columbia and was convicted for those crimes in September 2013.

In addition, in a Vancouver Sun article dated March 27, 1998, Bishop De Roo minimized the complaints of survivors at St. Michael’s Residential School against Bishop Hubert O’Connor, saying “I personally cannot see that what he had done was, strictly speaking, a criminal offence.” He went on to say that Bishop O’Connor was “overwhelmed by the bitterness and the slander.”…

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Pope Francis on Feb. 17 kicked off a much anticipated three-day Vatican conference on the future of the Catholic priesthood by upholding clerical celibacy as a “gift” that should be lived out through “healthy relationships.” 

“Celibacy is a gift that the Latin Church preserves, yet it is a gift that, to be lived as a means of sanctification, calls for healthy relationships, relationships of true esteem and true goodness that are deeply rooted in Christ,” Francis told some 400 Catholic bishops, priests and theologians attending the Feb. 17-19 conference in Rome. 

The pope’s remarks come at a time when some leading European bishops have signaled their willingness to relax the church’s celibacy requirements for priests. 

“I would also add that when priestly fraternity thrives and bonds of true friendship exist, it likewise becomes possible to experience with greater serenity the life of celibacy,” said the pope. “Without friends…

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Warning: This story contains references to sexual and physical abuse and may be upsetting for some readers.

Too much shame and guilt to speak out at the time.

The words of Hanz Freller, 47, to the inquiry into Abuse in Care and its investigation into the religious brothers of the Order of St John of God.

The Royal Commission is investigating historical abuse at the Marylands residential school in Christchurch, and the Hebron Trust, a home for at-risk youth, both run by the Order.

Freller was a resident at the Hebron Trust’s Pampuri home in Christchurch in the early 1990s from the age of 15.

It was overseen by the now notorious Brother Bernard McGrath.

Freller said McGrath befriended him, gave him privileges the other boys did not have and generally kept a close eye on him.

McGrath took a keen interest in him, often standing in the doorway of…

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Repeated claims that the St John of God order was “deeply shameful” of the abuse that occurred over decades at Marylands School in Christchurch have been labelled as hollow words by the survivors of the abuse.

In his closing statement before the royal commission of inquiry on Thursday, Dr Christopher Longhurst from the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP) slammed claims by leaders of the Catholic Church that it welcomed the inquiry.

He pointed out that church leaders initially opposed that faith-based institutions be included in the inquiry.

“Simply stating that the church is shameful in 2022 after it was forced to become the subject of a royal commission, is entirely insufficient,” Longhurst said.

“Where was their shame decades ago when child victims and their parents first reported the abuse? Where was their shame when disgraced brothers were shipped overseas instead of facing justice? Where was their shame when some of their…

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Five officials at a Christian school in Texas have been arrested and charged with failing to report the alleged sexual assault of a ninth-grader that unfolded in the locker room during baseball practice, officials say. 

The faculty members, two coaches and three administrators at Midland Christian School, were arrested Wednesday and charged with failure to report with intent to conceal neglect or abuse.

The five were: Jared Lee, school superintendent; Dana Ellis, secondary school principal; Matthew Counts, secondary assistant principal; Gregory McClendon, athletic director and head football coach; and Barry Russell, baseball coach, according to an arrest affidavit obtained by NBC News.

Midland Police were notified on Jan. 28 about the possible sexual assault, according to the affidavit, and a forensic interview was scheduled with the victim on Feb. 11. 

The ninth grader was allegedly assaulted during baseball practice at Max H. Christensen Stadium on Jan. 20, the affidavit said.

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A U.S. bishops’ conference draft policy update on seminary formation does not incorporate a call to build a national screening database of applicants to seminaries and religious orders.

Advocates say a database could help flag problem seminary applicants before they are accepted, by tracking rejected applications from seminaries or religious orders, along with those applications deferred or withdrawn.

The database was proposed to the U.S. bishops’ conference by an Ohio seminary nearly six years ago, but there has been no apparent move toward adopting it. It has not been included in the USCCB’s draft for a sixth edition of the Program of Priestly Formation, the policy document which guides seminary admission and training in the U.S.

The recommendation came after the 2016 arrest of a seminarian studying at the Pontifical College Josephinum, for the Diocese of Steubenville, Ohio. 

Joel Wright, then 23, was arrested on Jan. 29, 2016, in San…

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Italy has so far resisted calls for an independent investigation into how the Roman Catholic church has handled these cases.

Catholic groups and abuse survivors on Tuesday called on the Roman Catholic Church in Italy, which has yet to reckon with the scourge of sexual abuse by priests, to create an independent commission to investigate how the crisis has been handled.

In a number of countries — including Australia, France, Ireland and the United States — the church has allowed some scrutiny of its actions. But so far, the church in Italy has resisted calls for an independent inquiry, even after Pope Francis in 2019 held a landmark meeting on clerical sexual abuse and called “for an all-out battle against the abuse of minors.”

“Italy is an anomaly,” said Francesco Zanardi, a clerical abuse survivor and president of Rete l’Abuso, the country’s most outspoken victims’ rights group, which has independently tracked more…

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Pope Francis dismissed progressive views favoring ‘the ideology of the moment’ and the conservative ‘rigidity’ that clings to the past, encouraging a third way.

With broad strokes and a balancing act, Pope Francis weighed in on the polarizing tensions in the Catholic Church concerning the future of the priesthood. While upholding priestly celibacy as “a gift,” the pope distanced himself from the “perversion” of rigidity while speaking at a Vatican conference on Thursday (Feb. 17).

As Catholic bishops and laypeople in Germany call for a reevaluation of official doctrine on priestly celibacy, female ordination and sexuality, conservatives look at the emerging discussions on the future of the priesthood with a mixture of practical and theological concern.

The sexual abuse crisis has crippled the church’s credibility worldwide and the number of men entering the priesthood continues to dwindle, contributing to what Cardinal Marc Ouellet, the head of the Vatican’s department overseeing bishops,…

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Canadian Cardinal Marc Ouellet, who is presiding over a high-profile Vatican symposium on the theology of the priesthood, has spoken out on a range of hot-button issues related topic, including clericalism, the abuse crisis, and the call for women’s ordination.

As head of the Vatican’s Congregation for Bishops, Canadian Cardinal Marc Ouellet has one of the most significant roles in the Catholic Church’s governing bureaucracy, as his office is charged with vetting candidates to lead dioceses across the globe.

Ouellet, 77, was first appointed to the congregation by Benedict XVI in 2010 and has stayed in his post far beyond the usual 5-year term for heads of Vatican departments.

Much of his tenure in the department has been marked by the clerical abuse scandals – including those involving bishops and even fellow cardinals, such as ex-priest and ex-cardinal Theodore McCarrick – making his job of finding the right shepherds for…

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A prominent French priest barred from exercising public ministry due to abuse allegations is attending a major Vatican conference on the priesthood, organized, in part, to help the church turn a corner on abuse.

Msgr. Tony Anatrella, a psychotherapist who was once an Vatican adviser on matters regarding human sexuality, was banned from ministering as a priest by the former Archbishop of Paris, Michel Aupetit, in 2018. 

News of his attendance at the Feb. 17-19 Vatican conference was first reported by the French Catholic daily, La Croix, which also reported that the Vatican said the cleric, who retains his priestly faculties, was not invited and registered on his own accord.  

Anatrella’s presence at the conference was later confirmed to NCR by attendees at the event. NCR did not immediately receive a response from conference organizers to a query about Antatrella’s attendance.

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Prince Andrew and Virginia Giuffre have reached an out-of-court settlement in the civil sexual abuse claim filed in the US.

According to a letter submitted to the US District Court, written jointly by Giuffre’s lawyer David Boies and the Duke of York’s legal representatives, the two parties have “reached a settlement in principle”.

The out-of-court deal will mean Prince Andrew will not face a public trial over allegations that he sexually abused Giuffre when she was a teenager. The Duke of York has always strenuously denied the allegations. 

Instead, he will make a “substantial donation to Ms Giuffre’s charity in support of victims’ rights”, according to the letter. The prince intends to demonstrate his regret for his association with Jeffrey Epstein by supporting the “fight against the evils of sex trafficking, and by supporting its victims”.

What could he have faced?

The Duke of York was facing a civil trial in…

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On Friday of last week, Irish blogger Pat Buckley reported that four men have come forward with allegations including boundary violations, spiritual abuse, and sexual harassment against Dom Mark Kirby of Silverstream Priory, the author and alleged visionary behind the popular devotional book In Sinu Jesu. These new allegations follow a lengthy August 2021 interview with Fr. Benedict Andersen in the Pillar.

Fr. Andersen is a Silverstream monk who is currently in canonical limbo, unable to minister as a priest after his complaints of inappropriate behavior and spiritual abuse by Fr. Kirby resulted in an apostolic visitation of the priory. Formerly the sub-prior of the community, Andersen was the first person to publicly bring forward allegations against Kirby, although stories about Kirby’s past and his allegedly abusive treatment of his subordinates had been circulating for years.

If these new allegations are true, it appears that Fr. Andersen…

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The Vatican this week is hosting a three-day symposium on the Catholic priesthood amid renewed public attention on clergy sex abuse scandals and fresh research into the abuses of priestly power that harm both children and adults.

Pope Francis opens the symposium Thursday, and no fewer than a half-dozen Vatican cardinals are scheduled to either address the conference or preside over its sessions.

The high-level lineup suggests the topic has particular relevance as the Catholic hierarchy grapples with dwindling numbers of priests in Europe and the Americas and calls for a reform of everything from celibacy requirements to the role of women in the church.

But the sex abuse scandals are still making news, most recently with allegations that Pope Benedict XVI botched cases when he was an archbishop. While such revelations have been emerging for decades, new attention is focused on clergy who abuse their power to engage in…

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Recently Sister Mary Margaret Kreuper, a Catholic nun who stole $835,000 from a Catholic elementary school in Torrance, California, was sent to prison for a year and ordered to pay the money back to the school, where she was the principal for over 28 years. The school funds were used to support the nun’s gambling addiction, including trips to Las Vegas and Lake Tahoe. 

“I have sinned, I’ve broken the law and I have no excuses,” Kreuper admitted during her sentencing. 

Her sentence is ironic and her contrition admirable compared with the behavior of Catholic priests and their history of abuses within the church.

Compare the apology of Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, who recently responded a report from the Archdiocese of Munich and Freising, where he was archbishop before being called to Rome, detailing decades of sexual abuse by priests there. In a letter to the faithful of Munich, Benedict…

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A lawsuit filed in circuit court here accuses a De Soto priest of abusing someone at a boy’s home two decades ago.

Christian Hornbeck’s lawsuit says Father Alexander Anderson fondled him in the late 1990s or early 2000s at St. Joseph’s Home for Boys in south St. Louis.

The suit says the St. Louis Archdiocese and other Catholic institutions allowed Anderson access to “numerous vulnerable individuals” and “knowingly covered up and concealed the sexual abuse of their minor parishioners by” Anderson.

Anderson, who is now at St. Rose of Lima parish in De Soto, referred a reporter’s questions to the Archdiocese.

In a statement, the Archdiocese said previous allegations involving Anderson were either retracted or shown to be false. One such claimant has maintained his allegations from prison where he is incarcerated for financial fraud.

“This most recent claim is demonstrably false, as Fr. Anderson was not assigned…

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An influential cardinal opened a Vatican symposium on the priesthood Thursday apologising for “unworthy ministers” and the cover-up of child sexual abuse by Catholic clergy, before an audience that included Pope Francis.

Canadian Cardinal Marc Ouellet acknowledged that “we are all torn and humbled by these crucial questions that every day question us as members of the Church”, with Francis at his side in the Vatican’s vast Paul VI Hall.

“Should we not rather refrain from talking about the priesthood when the sins and crimes of unworthy ministers are on the front pages of the international press for betraying their commitment or for shamefully covering up?”

A string of recent investigations exposing paedophile priests have been front page news in recent months, exposing the scale of the problem and the decades-long Church cover-up.

Ouellet is a prefect of the Congregation for Bishops, one of the most important functions within the…

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An Indonesian court on Tuesday sentenced an Islamic boarding school principal to life in prison for raping at least 13 students over five years and impregnating some of them.

The principal of the girls school in West Java’s Bandung city, Herry Wirawan, pleaded guilty and apologized to his victims and their families during the trial.

He was accused of raping at least 13 students between the ages of 11 and 14 from 2016 to 2021 at the school, in hotel rooms or at rented apartments, according to the indictment. At least nine babies reportedly were born as the result of the rapes.

The case drew a public outcry over the number of rapes and the length of time they occurred.

Officials said many of the victims did not report their rapes for fear of having to relive the traumatic experience, and their parents had trusted that the boarding school was…

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An Indonesian court on Tuesday sentenced an Islamic school teacher to life in prison for raping 13 students in a case that has spotlighted the need to protect children from sexual violence in the country’s religious boarding schools.

Judge Yohannes Purnomo Suryo Adi said that teacher Herry Wirawan had sexually groomed the 13 girls, who were between 12 and 16 years old, and impregnated eight of his victims, some of whom suffered injuries from the rapes.

“Wirawan was proven guilty…of the crimes of purposely committing violence, forcing intercourse on more than one victim repeatedly,” the judge told the court in the city of Bandung in West Java.

Herry’s lawyer, Ira Mambo, said he would speak to his client about whether to appeal the verdict.

Prosecutors had sought the death penalty or chemical castration for the teacher, citing the severity of the crimes, which occurred between 2016 and 2021.

Indonesian officials,…

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India’s Supreme Court on Monday allowed the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) – India’s equivalent of the FBI – to procced in the investigation of two Catholic nuns who have been accused of inducing a student’s suicide through “forced conversion.”

One of the nuns was arrested last month, after a seventeen-year-old girl died on January 19, 10 days after having attempted suicide by poisoning.

The girl was a student at Sacred Hearts Higher Secondary School in the Thanjavur district of the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu.

The girl’s family say the nuns pressured her to convert to Christianity, and claim she made a statement to this effect in a video recorded in the hospital before she died.

Sister Sahaya Mary has been released on bail but has been ordered by the court to “not make any undue influence on the witnesses … not indulge in any other offence in…

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A former employee at a Catholic church in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, who pleaded guilty to four counts of statutory rape was sentenced to 20 years in prison on Monday.

Michael D. Lewis was indicted in June 2020 on 10 counts of statutory rape and four counts of sexual battery by an authority figure. A jury trial had been scheduled for Monday, but Lewis reached a plea agreement with prosecutors last week, The Tennessean reported.

The abuse began in 2014 when Lewis was director of religious education at the St. Rose of Lima Catholic Church, Rutherford County prosecutor Sharon Reddick said at the sentencing hearing. His victim was 13 at the time and had chosen Lewis to serve as her mentor for the religious ceremony of confirmation. The girl later served as a student coordinator for religious education and altar serving, a position that required her to work closely with Lewis, Reddick said.

After…

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The Archdiocese of Agana’s legal team on Friday morning made the case to hire a special counsel, a week before the start of a trial on a lawsuit seeking to include the assets of Catholic parishes and schools to help pay clergy sex abuse claimants.

U.S. District Court Chief Judge Frances Tydingco-Gatewood heard oral arguments from the archdiocese, the U.S. Trustee, and the creditors committee representing mostly abuse claimants in the archdiocese’s bankruptcy case.

The judge is expected to soon issue a written order.

At the center of the hearing is the archdiocese’s last-minute motion to employ the Camacho Calvo Law Group as special counsel.

The Camacho Calvo Law Group used to represent only the 33 Catholic parishes and schools on Guam but the court ruled in July 2021 that the archdiocese, parishes and schools “are one and the same.”

But the Camacho law firm continued to represent the schools…

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Britain’s Prince Andrew has settled a civil lawsuit brought by Virginia Giuffre accusing the prince of sexually abusing her when she was 17, a court filing showed on Tuesday.

Here is a look at the lawsuit against Queen Elizabeth’s second son, the settlement and what the dispute means for Andrew.

WHAT WERE GIUFFRE’S CLAIMS AGAINST ANDREW?

Giuffre, also known as Virginia Roberts, sued the Duke of York in New York in 2021. Giuffre said Andrew forced her to have intercourse at the London home of Ghislaine Maxwell, a British socialite and Epstein’s longtime associate, and at properties owned by Epstein. Andrew denied the claims.

Epstein, a teacher-turned-globetrotting financier, died by suicide in a Manhattan jail cell in 2019 at the age of 66 while awaiting trial on sexual abuse charges. Maxwell, 60, was convicted on Dec. 29, 2021, of sex trafficking and other crimes.

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Supporters of Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI rose to his defense in the past week after a report on decades of sexual abuse in his former archdiocese in Munich accused the retired pontiff of covering up and ignoring abuse by Catholic priests there.

But some believe the defense of Benedict is less about his legacy and more about the deepening polarization in the Catholic Church and its approach to homosexuality and priestly celibacy, issues that are both now center stage in Germany.

“I don’t think the report is going to change the mind of people either way” when it comes to Benedict, said Bill Donohue, longtime president of the Catholic League, a conservative watchdog and promoter of the church.

Benedict “is hated by the Catholic left because he is the one who really enforced the Scriptures of the Catholic Church as the head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith,”…

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A federal judge has been told that Archdiocese of Santa Fe records that would indicate how much insurance money is available to help pay a settlement of clergy sex abuse claims can be made public if they are redacted to withhold victims’ identities.

The archdiocese previously asked Judge David T. Thuma to seal the records, saying that releasing them could breach the terms of its insurance agreements and make them unenforceable.

However, lawyers for four insurers said during a U.S. Bankruptcy Court hearing Monday that they didn’t object to release of the records if information identifying victims is redacted, the Albuquerque Journal reported.

Archdiocese attorney Thomas Walker also said Monday that the records could be released with redactions, the Santa Fe New Mexican reported.

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The man, identified only as AB, said he was abused by three monks at the school he attended in Fife about 40 years ago.

A man who claims to have been sexually abused my monks has been awarded almost £1.4 million in damages – said to be a record sum for a victim.

The man, identified as AB, who has not been named for legal reasons, said he was repeatedly sexually assaulted by Brothers Ryan, Farrell and Kelly while attending St Ninian’s School in Falkland, Fife, about 40 years ago.

The claimant, now 54, said his brother, who is 14 months older than him, also claimed to have been sexually abused by the same men at a similar time without him knowing.

The Christian Brothers, a religious sect that ran the school, tried to have the legal case thrown out but, in a written judgement released on February 4, a sheriff…

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A man who was raped, abused and beaten by monks at a notorious Fife school has secured a record £1.4 million in damages.

It is the highest known sum ever awarded to an abuse survivor.

The victim, known as AB, suffered at the hands of Brothers Paul Kelly, John Farrell and Gerry Ryan throughout the 14 months he stayed at St Ninian’s School, Falkland, in the early 1980s.

The monks would play Ashes to Ashes by David Bowie during their assaults, a civil court has heard.

Victim AB, now 54, said to this day the song still spark horrific flashbacks.

The abuse began as “punishment” for swapping tuck shop snacks with other children.

The school, which closed in the 1980s, was operated by the Christian Brothers, a religious sect that tried to have AB’s legal case thrown out.

Now AB – who cannot be named for legal reasons – hopes…

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Victims claim the church has a Mafia-style grip on the Italian authorities preventing habitual child-abuse offenders from being brought to justice.

Giuseppe remembers the day his mother betrayed him. He was 12 years old and his parish priest in the southern Italian town of Salerno forced him to touch his erect penis. Giuseppe remembers the starchy black cloth of the priest’s cassock and how at first he thought maybe the priest was hiding a toy for him. Giuseppe told his mother about the priest’s penis and told her it made him feel uncomfortable. He told The Daily Beast that his mother called him a liar and punished him for “making up stories.”

It was the beginning of a sexually abusive relationship that lasted more than four years and included forced fellatio and rape. Finally, Giuseppe ran away from home and the abuse. He ended up in a spiral of substance…

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Catholic groups on Tuesday accused Italy’s Church of an “institutional failure” to confront clergy sexual abuse, and demanded an independent national inquiry mirroring ones conducted in France and Germany.

A collective of nine groups – seven headed by women – issued the demand during the launch of a campaign called “Beyond the Great Silence” and a hashtag, #ItalyChurchToo, inspired by the international #MeToo movement against sexual harassment.

In an online news conference, Paola Lazzarini, head of Women in the Church, called for the opening of the archives of “all dioceses, convents and monasteries”, damages for victims and the uncovering of the truth, “however painful”.

Globally, revelations of sexual abuse by clergy have so far cost the Church hundreds of millions of dollars in compensation.

The Italian campaign aims to increase public pressure on the Church and the government for a national inquiry going back decades, and rejects assertions from some…

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Several victims’ groups and associations in Italy have joined forces to organize a campaign calling for an independent investigation into clerical sexual abuse in the country.

The nine groups, including the Italian association Rete L’Abuso, announced the launch of the “Oltre il Grande Silenzio” (“Beyond the Great Silence”) campaign, urging the Italian government to investigate past and present abuse cases within the Catholic Church.

During a news conference Feb. 15, campaign representatives highlighted the need for transparency, citing similar inquiries done in the United States, France, Germany and Portugal as well as proposals for government-led investigations like in Spain.

Some bishops support an internal investigation while others, like Archbishop Erio Castellucci of Modena, vice president of the Italian bishops’ conference, advocated for an independent investigation that would look at abuse not only within the Catholic Church, but also in schools, sports and other institutions to better gauge sexual abuse in…

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Advocates for victims of sex abuse by Italian clergy have launched a campaign to demand an national inquiry

Advocates for victims of sex abuse by Italian clergy launched a campaign Tuesday to demand a cover-up inquiry, lamenting that deference showed the Catholic Church hierarchy in Italy has conditioned everything from criminal prosecutions to media coverage of the problem.

A consortium of groups said they hoped recent national inquiries in Germany and France, and planned ones in Spain and Portugal, would pressure the Italian Catholic Church to open its archives to independent investigators to ascertain the scope of the problem, assign responsibility to the perpetrators and bring restitution to the victims.

But they acknowledged the context is far more complicated in Italy than in other European countries given the outsized political, economic and social weight the church carries in the pope’s backyard.

The church’s…

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Parents say Rev. Eric Silva, of St Luke’s in Barrington, asked Cranston Catholic school students about sexual matters during confession.

The Roman Catholic Diocese of Providence put a Barrington priest on leave after parents accused him of asking their children inappropriate questions about sex and sexuality during confession.

Rev. Eric Silva, of St Luke’s Parish in Barrington, was filling in at Immaculate Conception Regional Catholic School in Cranston last week. He was tasked with hearing confessions from students.

But parents told NBC 10 News Silva asked boys whether they were gay and also asked girls if they were sexually active, as well as other questions. During the leave, Silva will not be allowed to serve at the school or at St. Luke’s Parish, diocese officials said.

“The Church places great responsibility on the priest as confessor to exercise prudence, discretion, and attentiveness to the age of penitents,”Michael…

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The pastor of a Cranston parish said he has barred a Barrington priest from working there again after the Roman Catholic Diocese of Providence reproached the priest for errors in judgment while hearing confessions from schoolchildren at the parish last week. 

At the end of Mass on Sunday morning at Immaculate Conception Parish in Cranston, The Rev. Edward J. Wilson Jr. told congregants that Father Eric Silva, associate pastor of St. Luke’s Parish in Barrington, would not be allowed back again after parents complained that he asked inappropriate questions of children during confession. 

“At this point going forward, there is nothing more that I can do,” Wilson said. “It is in the hands of the Diocese. But as a pastor, I can do one thing. I am not going to allow that priest to come back to this parish or to our school.” 

‘Errors in pastoral…

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A man who was abused by monks at a school in Fife run by Christian Brothers has secured £1.4m in damages.

It is believed to be the highest sum ever to be awarded to a survivor.

The victim was sexually assaulted and beaten by three Christian Brothers while staying at St Ninian’s School in Falkland in 1980 and 81.

The man, who was named in courts as AB to protect his identity, said he hoped his award would inspire others in their quest for justice.

A year ago, the Scottish Child Abuse Inquiry, being conducted by Lady Smith, said St Ninian’s residential school had been “a place of abuse and deprivation”.

• School ‘was a place of abuse and deprivation’

Lady Smith said children suffered physical, emotional, and sexual abuse and described the evidence as “shocking and distressing”.

The inquiry chairwoman also concluded that members of the Catholic religious order…

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#ItalyChurchToo launch “Beyond The Great Silence”

Italian survivors of clerical sex abuse on Tuesday unveiled their campaign for Italy to see the kind of probes that have unveiled massive abuse and cover-ups around the world.

The umbrella group of survivors, called #ItalyChurchToo, launched the campaign “Beyond The Great Silence”, saying that Italian priestly abuse is hugely under-reported and authorities have repeatedly ignored victims’ pleas and covered up cases or shuttled perpetrators around.

“We are asking that the Italian Bishops Conference (CEI) as soon as possible task an independent commission with an investigation into abuse in the Church, we are asking that it be an investigation with professional figures, with quality and quantity of methods, opening the archives of all the dioceses and all the monasteries, an investigation focusing exclusively on the abuse and addressing the critical nexus of the lack of third parties in the listening centres set up at…

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‘We will get there when we get there’; a look at the psychological, spiritual and social impact of childhood sexual abuse.

“Mom, are we there, yet?” This question keeps popping into my mind as I listen to some of the discussions about clergy sex abuse in the Catholic Church. I understand why people want to be done with the whole topic. Clergy sexual abuse is embarrassing. The harms to children are revolting. The spiritual cost is overwhelming. I understand the desire to not think about it anymore. 

In my last column, I concluded that the Church has made some improvements, but we are not out of the woods. In this column, I will look at what you might call the “soft” side of the sex abuse crisis: the psychological, spiritual, and social impact of childhood sexual abuse. A candid look at these issues gives a different answer to the question,…

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Victims of pedophile priests in Italy will unveil Tuesday a campaign dubbed “Beyond the Great Silence”, pushing for an independent investigation into clerical abuse carried out on the Vatican’s doorstop.

As inquiries across the United States, Europe and Australia have exposed the scale of the sex abuse problem within the Church — and also a decades-long cover-up — many groups say Italy can no longer avoid scrutiny.

“The government must act, must take advantage of the momentum created by impartial investigations elsewhere,” Francesco Zanardi, founder of Rete l’Abuso (Abuse Network), told AFP.

“If Italy doesn’t do it now, I fear it never will,” said Zanardi, who was abused by a priest as a young teen.

Nine groups are now forming a consortium aimed at putting pressure on the country to launch a probe, like the ones seen recently in France and Germany.

Cristina Balestrini, who set up a support group…

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In a public spat between members of the Catholic hierarchy, Czech Cardinal Dominik Duka has accused German Cardinal Reinhard Marx of “defaming and tarnishing” the reputation of retired Pope Benedict XVI.

The 78-year-old’s comments are a part of the continued fallout surrounding Benedict’s response to a German report that faulted his handling of clergy abuse cases as archbishop of Munich and Freising in the 1970s and ’80s.

Duka, the archbishop of Prague, published a statement on Feb. 8 defending Benedict’s actions as archbishop, saying that “even a layman” with a theology degree should be able to understand that, at the time, Benedict had “no jurisdiction and no way to deal with the case” of a notorious priest who had been transferred to the Munich Archdiocese from Essen, Germany.

German investigators faulted Benedict for mishandling the case, since he was present at a 1980 meeting…

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Pope Francis on Feb. 14 overhauled the current structure of the Vatican’s doctrinal office, creating an independent section to handle disciplinary matters related to the sexual abuse of minors. 

Under its new structure, the office will operate with autonomous doctrinal and discipline sections that will be coordinated by separate secretaries, both of whom will report to the prefect of the congregation. 

The new legislation, Fidem servare (“To preserve the faith”), represents the most significant organizational changes to the office in over 30 years. 

In announcing the new structure, which comes in advance of a much-anticipated new apostolic constitution that will reorganize the Vatican’s central bureaucracy, the Vatican did not announce any personnel changes at the congregation. 

The office’s current prefect, Cardinal Luis Ladaria, is 77 years-old and has passed the Vatican’s traditional retirement age of 75. Last month, Francis reassigned the doctrinal office’s secretary, its number two official,…

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Pope Francis on Monday reorganized the internal structure of the Vatican’s doctrine office into two sections — the latest step in his ongoing reform of the Roman Curia.

In a letter issued motu proprio (of his own accord) on Feb. 14, Pope Francis centralized the tasks of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith into a doctrinal section and a disciplinary section.

The department previously had a third section, which dealt with marriage cases. With the motu proprio, titled Fidem servare, the responsibilities of the marriage office will be moved under the doctrinal section.

The restructuring goes into effect immediately.

In his apostolic letter, Pope Francis stated that the changes to the CDF’s organization have been made “in view of the experience gained during this time by the Congregation in various areas of work, and the need to give it an approach more suited to the fulfillment of the functions…

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A Vermont woman yesterday sued a convicted child-molester priest of molesting her when she was 11 and he was serving at St. Brendan Church in Dorchester.

The suit, filed in Suffolk Superior Court by attorney Mitchell Garabedian, who represented dozens of victims when the Boston pedophile-priest scandal first broke, also names Father W. James Nyhan’s superior at the time in the Archdiocese of Boston for not just failing to stop Nyhan but for allegedly allowing the conduct in the first place.

In her suit, Kelly Story, who now lives in Vermont, charges Nyhan molested her after his return in 1980 from South Carolina – where he would later be convicted of molesting three boys – and was assigned to St. Brendan Parish on Gallivan Boulevard in Dorchester:

In approximately 1980, when Plaintiff was about 11 years of age, Defendant Father Nyhan brought Plaintiff to a beach house at Salisbury…

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In the Catholic Church, religious leaders cover up abuse

Former Pope Benedict XVI denied allegations of misconduct on Tuesday regarding the mishandling of sexual abuse cases involving minors. He asked for forgiveness instead. The pope did admit that abuse and wrongdoings took place. 

“I have had great responsibilities in the Catholic Church,” Benedict said. “All the greater is my pain for the abuses and the errors that occurred in those different places during the time of my mandate.”

The allegations originated from an investigation into sexual abuse cases among the German clergy, which reported that the former Pope mishandled four cases of abuse during his five years as archbishop. All four instances involved convicted abusers continuing to work in the church following their trials. 

The Pope’s statement resulted in harsh criticism from groups representing church abuse survivors, including Eckiger Tisch and the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests. Mitchell Garabedian, a…

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Apostolic Letter in the Form of “Motu Proprio” of the Great Pontiff Francis

By Which the Internal Structure of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith Is Modified

[Google translation followed by Italian original]

“Guarding the faith” (cf. 2 Tim 4: 7) is the main task, as well as the ultimate criterion to be followed in the life of the Church. The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith takes on this important commitment, assuming both doctrinal and disciplinary competences, as assigned to it by my Venerable Predecessors.

The current configuration of the Congregation was arranged by St. Paul VI, who with the Motu Proprio Integrae Servandae changed the title of the Dicastery to “Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith”, and by St. John Paul II, who in the Apostolic Constitution Pastor Bonus he specified his competences.

Now, given the experience gained in this time by the Congregation…

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Parishioners worshipping at St. Charles Borromeo Catholic Church in Harlem are greeted by a framed portrait of Martin Luther King Jr. — a Baptist minister named after a rebellious 16th century German priest excommunicated from the Catholic Church.

The Rev. Bryan Massingale, who sometimes preaches at St. Charles, pursues his ministry in ways that echo both Martin Luthers.

Like King, Massingale decries the scourge of racial inequality in the United States. As a professor at Fordham University, he teaches African American religious approaches to ethics.

Like the German Martin Luther, Massingale is often at odds with official Catholic teaching — he supports the ordination of women and making celibacy optional for Catholic clergy. And, as a gay man, he vocally disagrees with the church’s doctrine on same-sex relations, instead advocating for full inclusion of LGBTQ Catholics within the church.

The Vatican holds that gays and lesbians should be treated with…

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Critics say retired pope’s request for forgiveness is incomplete

In Germany’s emotional debate over Joseph Ratzinger, the self-styled Emeritus Pope Benedict XVI, there is only one point on which the warring sides agree.

What began as an investigation into post-war clerical sexual abuse and its cover-up in the Archdiocese of Munich and Freising, which Benedict headed for four years until 1982, has turned into a no-holds-barred battle royal for his reputation, and that of the institution with which he has been inextricably linked for more than six decades.

The 94-year-old’s friends and allies see a “vile” plot under way to destroy the legacy of a gentle intellectual and genial theologian. His critics and opponents point to a different Benedict who, they say, has been tripped up by institutional blindness and the same uncompromising approach he took with others.

In recent weeks, both sides have had their say about his Munich…

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[Editor’s Note: This is the ninth in a series of articles by Inés San Martín exploring the state of the Catholic Church in Pope Francis’ home continent of Latin America. The eighth can be found here.]

ROSARIO, Argentina – Pope Francis’s homeland is becoming “sick with hatred,” and his figure and message have been coopted, says Father Rafael Velasco, the man who today leads the Jesuits of Argentina, much like the pontiff did back in the 1970s.

“Our crisis is not only political, social and economic; it is also spiritual,” Velasco said. “The soul of the nation is getting sick, if one could speak of such a thing. To get out of this crisis, we must also take into account the soul-spiritual factor: the hatred that we are inoculating ourselves with.”

Speaking with Crux soon after 24 young Argentines died after consuming poisoned cocaine, the Jesuit provincial said that to stop hating…

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Rome – Ahead of a high-profile conference on the priesthood, prominent Jesuit canonist Father Gianfranco Ghirlanda has cautioned against the risks of social media and excessive attachment to outward devotions, stressing the importance of service.

Speaking to Crux, Ghirlanda said a priest’s spiritual life is essential to their ministry, and the greatest danger he sees to a healthy spiritual life is what Pope Francis has called “spiritual worldliness.”

Spiritual worldliness, he said, means “hiding behind external forms of devotion, liturgical correctness, orthodoxy to the bitter end, of ‘always correct manners,’ of always being in order, but to protect one’s own search for security and personal benefit.”

It is an obsession with outward details, such as fancy cufflinks on the sleeves of a shirt, and is a spiritual attitude that “can lead to careerism, losing sight of the fact that the ministry is a service for others and not for oneself,” he…

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A civil lawsuit accuses the St. Louis Archdiocese of “covering up” the sexual abuse of minor parishioners by their employee Father Alexander Anderson.

The plaintiff, Christian Hornbeck who now lives in Georgia, claims he was molested during counseling sessions with Anderson at St. Joseph’s Home for Boys on South Grand in the late 1990s and early 2000s.

David Clohessy with the survivor’s group SNAP says despite five accusers coming forward against Anderson, they’re “keeping him on the job.” Anderson now works at St. Rose of Lima Catholic Church in DeSoto, Missouri.

A statement from the Archdiocese says that is “demonstrably false, as Fr. Anderson was not assigned to St. Joseph Home during the time.”

Clohessy says the Archdiocese needs to suspend him and begin an investigation.

“Not only is Father Anderson on the job today, in a parish, around kids, despite five accusers. He’s never been suspended for even a week,” Clohessy says.

The Archdiocese’s…

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The retired pope expresses “profound shame” and his “deep sorrow” over clergy sex abuse, but says he never lied to investigators commissioned by his former diocese in Bavaria

Benedict XVI has issued a new request for forgiveness from victims of clergy sex abuse, in very strong and personal terms.

In a letter dated February 6, and made public by the Vatican two days later, the former pope responds to report made public on January 20 on the management of cases of sexual abuse in Archdiocese of Munich and Freising, which he led from 1977-1982.

“Once again I can only express to all the victims of sexual abuse my profound shame, my deep sorrow and my heartfelt request for forgiveness,” writes Benedict XVI, after recalling that during his apostolic travels met several times with “victims of sexual abuse by priests”.

“I have seen at first hand the effects of a most…

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The Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday recommended that the Senate pass the Eliminating Limits to Justice for Child Sex Abuse Victims Act to empower victims of child sex abuse by removing the statute of limitations for federal civil child sex abuse claims, giving survivors unlimited time to file the claims.

There is no statute of limitations under current federal law barring the prosecution of criminal offenses involving child sex abuse 10 years after the offense or when the victim is alive, whichever is later.

There is a statute of limitations for civil offenses involving child sex abuse, and this is an obstacle for survivors. In 2018, Congress extended the statute of limitations for filing civil child sex abuse claims in federal court, allowing the claims to be filed until the survivor is 28 years old or until 10 years after the abuse is discovered.

Democratic…

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The Buffalo Diocese appears to be closing in on a negotiated settlement of the state attorney general’s 2020 lawsuit over the diocese’s decadeslong cover-up of child sexual abuse allegations against clergy.

Lawyers for the diocese and the Attorney General’s Office have been going back and forth for months on a draft settlement agreement, according to documents filed in U.S. Bankruptcy Court.

Bishop Michael W. Fisher declined to discuss those negotiations, beyond saying that the diocese was committed to “strict enforcement” of policies put in place to ensure the protection of children and vulnerable adults.

“I’m not trying to be evasive or secretive about things, it’s just at this time, it’s not appropriate for me to discuss the attorney general’s case in the media or how we’re responding to it. When that time comes, believe me, we will do so,” Fisher said in a recent interview with The Buffalo News about his…

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Every year, on January 24, the Feast of St Francis de Sales, the patron Saint of all Communicators (particularly of journalists and writers) the Holy Father releases to the world a special message for the World Day of Social Communications of the Catholic Church. These annual messages are specifically meant for ‘catholic’ communicators, but if read in its entirety, they are for all Catholics and also for all women and men of goodwill who are concerned about what is happening in the world today and seriously want to do something about it.

Pope Francis, in the typical style which characterises his writings and also his verbal communications, has given the Church another profound message, full of challenges and very contextual. The theme of his message for this year’s 56th Communication Day (29 May 2022) is ‘Listening with the Ear of the Heart’. It is rooted in the Gospel of St. Luke…

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While denying accusations of sexual abuse coverup, Benedict XVI issued a ‘heartfelt request for forgiveness’ to victims.

Emeritus Pope Benedict XVI took a penitential approach in his response on Tuesday (Feb. 8) to a report on clergy sexual abuse in the Archdiocese of Munich, which he led from 1977 to 1982.

While denying accusations that he covered up cases of abuse, he leaned heavily on the language of confession, saying he could rely on the consolation of God’s forgiveness, only “if I sincerely allow myself to be examined by him, and am really prepared to change.”

The lengthy report commissioned by the Archdiocese of Munich and Freising, published on Jan. 10, found that bishops who oversaw the diocese, including then-Cardinal Josef Ratzinger, failed to punish abusive clergy and lay people. The report showed that 497 people were victims of abuse in the large German diocese between 1945 and 2019.

In…

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The treatment of boys with learning disabilities by a Catholic religious order over a nearly 30-year period comes under the spotlight of the Abuse in Care inquiry starting today.

Between 1955 and 1984, 537 boys attended Marylands School in Christchurch.

The residential school was run by the St John of God Order.

The inquiry will also focus on St Joseph’s Orphanage and the HebronTrust, which both had close connections to the order.

It is not exactly known how many boys were abused while in the care of St John of God, but two staff members, Brother Rodger Moloney and Brother Bernard McGrath were both convicted for sexually abusing boys at Marylands School.

The Royal Commission will look at the nature and extent of other allegations of abuse and the roles and possible failures of the Catholic Church and the State.

An advocate for survivors of Marylands, Ken Clearwater believes it…

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Edward Kelley, 79, has dementia, and is unable to understand or assist in the proceedings against him, an expert who examined him testified in Superior Court on Friday

A former Rhode Island Catholic priest accused of sexual assault in the 1980s was found incompetent to stand trial, ending the criminal prosecution against him.

Edward Kelley, 79, has dementia, and is unable to understand or assist in the proceedings against him, an expert who examined him testified in Superior Court on Friday.

Dr. Barry Wall, the director of forensic services at the state-run Eleanor Slater Hospital, told Magistrate John F. McBurney III that Kelley’s dementia is so severe that he only knows his own name. His condition is permanent, Wall testified.

Kelley was indicted by a Rhode Island grand jury in May 2021 on three counts of first-degree sexual assault. He was extradited from South Carolina, where he was living at…

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A Vermont woman on Friday sued a convicted child-molester priest of molesting her when she was 11 and he was serving at St. Brendan’s Church in Dorchester.

The suit, filed in Suffolk Superior Court by attorney Mitchell Garabedian, who represented dozens of victims when the Boston pedophile-priest scandal first broke, also names Father W. James Nyhan’s superior at the time in the Archdiocese of Boston for not just failing to stop Nyhan but for allegedly allowing the conduct in the first place.

In her suit, Kelly Story, who now lives in Vermont, charges Nyhan molested her after his return in 1980 from South Carolina – where he would later be convicted of molesting three boys – and was assigned to St. Brendan Parish on Gallivan Boulevard in Dorchester:

“In approximately 1980, when Plaintiff was about 11 years of age, Defendant Father Nyhan brought Plaintiff to a beach house at Salisbury…

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The text message sent from a small island in the Philippines thousands of kilometers away was grim: “Hi Sir … case is over, the priest is dead!”

The texter was referring to the Rev. Kenneth Bernard Pius Hendricks, an American Roman Catholic priest, who died of COVID-19 on Jan. 26 in Naval, Biliran province, while on trial for sexually abusing two brothers under his care for years.

The death of Hendricks, 80, was confirmed by the Diocese of Naval, where he had worked as a missionary and later as a priest for 37 years—the only foreigner in a group of 31 priests there and a native of Cincinnati, Ohio, in the United States.

The texter, a 25-year-old tricycle driver in Barangay Talustusan in Naval, is the main plaintiff in the criminal case against Hendricks. The other complainant is his 15-year-old brother.

The tricycle driver had accused Hendricks…

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The Universidad de Navarra (University of Navarra) in Spain published in a presentation Friday its findings in one of the nation’s first investigations into sexual abuse of minors within the Catholic Church .

The report released by the northern Spanish region found 58 cases of sexual abuse by Catholic institutions since 1948. Allegations of sexual abuse of minors have been widespread, but the University of Navarra found that perpetrators include priests, members of the church, and teachers spanning across 17 church and school institutions. The investigation comes after a news report by El Pais in December identifying the concern of abuse within the Church sparking a further investigation.

Being handed to local prosecutors, the report could lead to Catholic Church institutions being sued for damages. In a news conference, Navarra’s Minister for Migration Policies and Justice, Eduardo Santos stated that the problem lies not with the…

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The Catholic Church’s sex-abuse scandal is back in the news again. Back when he was Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger of Munich, retired Pope Benedict XVI allegedly discounted allegations of sexual abuse by four priests and merely shuffled them from parish to parish.

This is just the latest in a series of scandals that have cost the church millions of dollars in legal settlements and have highlighted a pervasive problem the church has finally had to acknowledge. It is important to note, however, that most of the reported abuses have involved older priests, many of whom have since died. As a Catholic apostate of a certain age, I think I know why this is so.  

Back at the Catholic grade school I attended — Holy Spirit School in the New Castle area — our eighth-grade nun, Sister Mary Norberta, had us engage in a kind of meditation widely practiced by…

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A bill intended to create parity in public and private sector liability for child sexual abuse claims was heard by the Judiciary Committee Feb. 9.

Current Nebraska law provides sovereign immunity to the state and its political subdivisions against child sexual abuse claims made against its officers, agents or employees. LB1200, introduced by Hastings Sen. Steve Halloran, would allow those entities to be held liable for such claims to the same extent a private individual or entity would be under like circumstances. In addition, child sexual abuse would not be subject to the limitations or requirements of the State Tort Claims Act.

Under LB1200, a victim of child sexual abuse could bring a civil action against a perpetrator without a statute of limitations for cases occurring after the bill’s effective date or for previous acts that were not time barred. 

Halloran said child sexual abuse…

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The Senate Judiciary Committee advanced two bills, one a proposal that would get rid of the statute of limitations for civil cases of child sex abuse in federal court.

In an effort to empower victims of child sex abuse, the Senate Judiciary Committee recommended Thursday that the Senate pass a bill to give survivors unlimited time to file civil claims in federal court.

The Eliminating Limits to Justice for Child Sex Abuse Victims Act would apply to more than a dozen federal child abuse offenses and has garnered bipartisan support within and outside of the committee.

While there’s no federal criminal statute of limitations for prosecuting child sex abuse if the child is still alive or for 10 years after the abuse, there are limits as to when a survivor can file a civil claim in federal court.

In 2018, Congress extended the statute of limitations, allowing federal civil claims…

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“Pontifical secret” is one of those mysterious-sounding pieces of Church jargon that you won’t find anywhere else — the sort of phrase which cloaks the ordinary administrative business of the Church in an air of intrigue, and gives writers like Dan Brown the fodder to drum up fantastical tales about albino monks and hidden codices.

It’s one of many. The Church calls its privileged personnel files “secret archives,” and has a class of canonical crimes with the mysterious sounding title “reserved delicts.”

In strictly legal terms, the pontifical secret is a defined level of professional confidentiality in the Church’s administrative life, which binds curial officials who work on the composition of papal documents, some canonical processes, the appointment process of bishops, and numerous other projects undertaken in the Vatican.

But among ecclesiastical bureaucrats, there exists also such a corpus of urban legends and myths about what the pontifical secret actually…

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Chilean abuse survivor Juan Carlos Cruz has said that a bishop’s ignorance of abuse or allegations against clergy in their diocese should no longer be enough to get them off the hook for negligence, which he says is one of the Church’s next battles in the fight for child protection.

When an abuse scandal explodes in the media and the local bishop apologizes, saying he didn’t know that the abuse was taking place, “it’s very hard for me to understand these empty, ‘pardon me’s,’ or ‘forgive me’s,” Cruz said, speaking to Crux.

His remarks come after retired Pope Benedict XVI earlier this week apologized for failures in handling abuse cases during his time as archbishop of Munich from 1977-1982, but he denied wrongdoing in four cases after being accused of coverup in a lengthy legal report on clerical abuse in the Archdiocese of Munich spanning several decades.

In his response, Benedict…

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A man who sexually abused girls who attended the same Mansfield church as him was found guilty of two charges of indecency with a child and sexual contact and sentenced to 4-and-a-half years in prison for each count on Friday.

The sentences are to run consecutively, meaning he will spend a total of nine years in prison.

Benjamin Cole pursued and sexually abused two then-13-year-olds while attending Heritage Baptist Church in Mansfield. Now adults, Marybeth Arnold and Amanda Hodson spoke with the Star-Telegram in 2019 about Cole’s abuse and the lasting impact he caused.

A jury found Cole guilty after about two days of deliberations in Tarrant County’s 432nd District Court. He was sentenced Friday evening.

Between 2002 and 2003, Cole began to pursue both Hodson and Arnold separately when he was 18 and 19 years old. In 2002, Cole groped Hodson in the back of a…

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The northern Spanish region of Navarre published a report on Friday identifying 52 cases of alleged sexual abuse of minors in Catholic institutions over seven decades, in one of Spain’s first official investigations into Church abuses.

Allegations of widespread child abuse by Catholic clergy and of possible coverups by the Church are only surfacing now in Spain, years after similar scandals rocked the Church in other countries such as the United States, Ireland and France.

The report by the Navarre regional government and the Public University of Navarre found that more than 31 priests and members of the church, 21 of them school teachers, had allegedly abused minors in more than 17 schools and church institutions in the region since 1948.

Navarre’s Justice regional chief, Eduardo Santos, said on Friday that these cases represented “the tip of the iceberg”.

“This is not a problem of the Catholic Church but a…

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Archbishop Georg Gänswein has claimed that a movement is not only out to destroy Benedict XVI’s life and work but also views the recent accusations of mishandling abuse as an opportunity to erase him from the official memory of the Church. 

In Feb. 9 comments to the Italian daily Corriere della Sera, the pope emeritus’ personal secretary said he believed a movement exists “that really wants to destroy the person and the work [of Benedict XVI]. 

“It has never loved him as an individual, his theology, his pontificate,” he said.  

Archbishop Gänswein added that members of this movement see recent attacks against him as “an ideal opportunity for a reckoning, like a quest for a damnatio memoriae [condemnation of memory so a person is excluded from official accounts].”

The German archbishop was speaking shortly after Benedict released a letter to the faithful on Tuesday in which the 94-year-old pope emeritus expressed his “profound shame” and…

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In the past month, a report by a German law firm cited former pope Benedict XVI for mishandling sexual abuse cases while he was Archbishop of Munich. He initially denied any knowledge of the cases. Then he changed his statement and said he had known, and that it was a typing error. This week he wrote a personal letter lamenting abuse, saying he was ‘drawn into this grievous fault’. He stopped short of an apology.

On 20 January, a report was released on sexual abuse in the Catholic Archdiocese of Munich and Freising. The two-year investigation, by German law firm Westpfahl Spilker Wastl, was commissioned and paid for by the archdiocese headed by Cardinal Reinhard Marx. 

The 1,900-page report investigates abuse cases and the Church’s response between 1945 and 2019. 

The lawyers who presented the report dubbed it a “litany of horror” and spoke of the “total failure” of a system…

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A day after Australia’s Prime Minister Scott Morrison apologised in parliament for the treatment of women who had suffered sexual abuse there, a prominent campaigner said she wanted to see action more than words.

Former political staffer Brittany Higgins, who says she was raped in a parliament office by a fellow staffer, said she was concerned workplace sexual abuse was in danger of becoming a “political perception problem neutralised and turned into a net positive”.

“Actions are what matter,” Higgins said in a speech at the National Press Club in Canberra. “Task forces are great. Codes of conduct are important. But only if it’s paired with institutional change.”

The apology by Morrison, who must hold an election by mid-May, came after he struggled last year to placate public anger amid several allegations of sexual abuse, discrimination against women and misconduct in parliament.

A review sparked by Higgins going public with…

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A former Roman Catholic priest who served in several Rhode Island parishes has dementia and is incompetent to stand trial on sexual assault charges, a magistrate ruled Friday.

Edward Kelley, 79, is unable to understand or assist in the proceedings against him, an expert who examined him testified in Superior Court, The Boston Globe reported.

Dr. Barry Wall, the director of forensic services at the state-run Eleanor Slater Hospital, told Magistrate John F. McBurney III that Kelley’s dementia is permanent and so severe that he only knows his own name.

The finding of incompetence came at the request of Kelley’s attorney, Kara Hoopis Manosh. The state attorney general’s office did not object.

A statewide grand jury indicted Kelley last May on three counts of first-degree sexual assault dating to 1983. Kelley, who was living in Columbia, South Carolina, was arrested on May 14 and returned to…

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At a trial under way in Sicily, a 28-year-old Italian is seeking justice against a man he accuses of forcing him to perform sex acts before going on to become a priest.

The victim says the alleged abuse committed more than a decade ago when he was a minor and the accused was a seminarian leading youth groups, included forced masturbation and oral sex in sacristies and schoolrooms. The accused denies the charges.

The victim went to the police only after the Church failed to act on his accusations, which he spelled out to two priests and at a meeting with a bishop involving his parents.

Victims’ groups say there are thousands of similar cases hidden in Church archives, and they are increasing pressure for an independent investigation in Italy to mirror recent moves in France and Germany.

Nine Italian groups have formed a consortium and on Tuesday will…

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A commission investigating child sexual abuse in the Portuguese Catholic Church said on Thursday more than 200 alleged victims had already been in touch to share their stories since its launch a month ago.

The abuse allegations have come from people born between 1933 and 2006, from various backgrounds, from every region of the country and also from Portuguese nationals living abroad.

Many of the 214 people who have shared their testimonies mentioned other children who might have been abused by the same person, the commission said in a statement.Report ad

“The allegations reveal suffering… which, in some cases, has been hidden for decades,” the commission said. “For many, this is the first time they are breaking their silence.”

It started its work in early January after a major report by a commission in France revealed last year around 3,000 priests and religious officials sexually…

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In seeking to build a culture of accountability and transparency, we must take the approach that our practices and structures are semper reformanda, because we ourselves are always in need of reform.

Recently the National Catholic Reporter published an article by Bishop Oscar Cantu of San Jose. Bishop Cantu discussed how his initial misgivings about synodality were assuaged by a Latin American ecclesial assembly he had attended a few months ago. While it was beneficial to see a bishop sharing his own thoughts and feelings on an important issue in the Church today, it was somewhat awkward to see this from Bishop Cantu.

In 2020 the Catholic News Agency confirmed Bishop Cantu was the subject of an investigation regarding “actions or omissions intended to interfere with or avoid civil investigations or canonical investigations, whether administrative or penal, against a cleric or a…

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The judge presiding over the Boy Scouts of America bankruptcy has delayed the start of a trial to determine whether the BSA’s reorganization plan should be confirmed after an agreement with the official committee representing more than 80,000 men who say they were molested as children by Scout leaders and others resulted in several new plan provisions.

During a three-hour hearing Friday, Judge Laura Selber Silverstein pushed back the start of the confirmation hearing from Feb. 22 to March 9. The Boy Scouts had asked for only a one week delay, while plan opponents said they would need several weeks to analyze and respond to changes in the plan.

The move follows Thursday’s announcement of a tentative agreement between the BSA and the official abuse claimants committee, known as the tort claimants committee or TCC. The committee was appointed by the U.S. bankruptcy trustee to represent and act in the…

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Unofficial estimates say country may have highest number of victims of paedophile priests in world

Pressure is mounting on the Catholic church in Italy to face a reckoning on child sexual abuse amid unofficial estimates that the country could have the highest number of victims of paedophile priests in the world.

Damning investigations into the scale of sexual abuse and cover-up allegations have dealt a severe blow to the church’s reputation in the US, Ireland, Chile, France and, more recently, Germany. But in Italy the issue has been mostly buried.

A group of religious and lay associations have now come together to push for an independent inquiry and to urge the Italian state to enact tougher laws to bring paedophile priests to justice and come up with a plan to protect children from sexual abuse by clergy. The group is using the hashtag #ItalyChurchToo and will outline its objectives during an…

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The survey identified 171 victims of people connected with the Catholic Church, including 118 victims of abuse by clergy.

The authors of a landmark abuse report responded this week to critics who argued that they overestimated the number of victims in the French Catholic Church.

The Independent Commission on Sexual Abuse in the Church (CIASE) issued a 53-page response on Feb. 7 to a 15-page critique signed by eight members of the prestigious Académie catholique de France that was reportedly sent to the Vatican.

The commission’s final report, published on Oct. 5, 2021, said that an estimated 216,000 children were abused by priests, deacons, monks, or nuns from 1950 to 2020.

It added that when abuse by other Church workers was also taken into account, “the estimated number of child victims rises to 330,000 for the whole of the period.”

In a critique published last November, the eight academy members questioned “the…

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KEY POINTS

• The Boy Scouts of America won pivotal support from a committee representing sexual abuse victims for a $2.7 billion settlement of their claims against the youth organization as it seeks to emerge from bankruptcy, according to a court filing.
• Ahead of a Feb. 22 hearing before a U.S. bankruptcy judge, the official committee representing victims in Boy Scouts’ Chapter 11 case has agreed to drop its long-standing objections to the settlement, the filing showed. 
• More than 82,000 abuse claims have been filed against the Boy Scouts, which has called the deal the largest sexual abuse settlement in history.

The Boy Scouts of America won pivotal support from a committee representing sexual abuse victims for a $2.7 billion settlement of their claims against the youth organization as it seeks to emerge from bankruptcy, according to a court filing.

Ahead of a Feb. 22 hearing before a U.S. bankruptcy judge, the official…

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Lawyers of the official committee, representing 82,200 individual claimants, will now recommend they accept the youth group’s offer

The Boy Scouts of America won backing for a landmark sex-abuse compensation plan from the official committee representing 82,200 individual claimants, further solidifying support for ending the largest bankruptcy case ever filed over childhood abuse.

The proposed deal with the survivors’ committee, among the harshest critics of the Boy Scouts since it filed for chapter 11 two years ago, comes as the youth organization nears a trial scheduled for later this month on a bankruptcy-exit plan that includes roughly $2.7 billion for abuse victims.

Under the official committee’s deal, the Boy Scouts agreed to allow additional oversight by survivors of a compensation trust funded by the youth group’s own assets, its local councils, its major insurers and troop sponsors like the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

A statue…

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Two years after filing for Chapter 11 protection amid a flood of child sex abuse lawsuits, the Boy Scouts of America has reached a tentative settlement with an official bankruptcy committee representing more than 80,000 men who say they were molested as children by Scout leaders and others.

The settlement announced Thursday comes just two weeks before the start of a hearing at which a Delaware judge will hear arguments on whether she should confirm the BSA’s proposed reorganization plan.

All told, the compensation fund would total more than $2.6 billion, which would be the largest aggregate sexual abuse settlement in U.S. history.

The official abuse claimants committee, known as the tort claimants committee or TCC, was appointed by the U.S. bankruptcy trustee to act in and represent the best interests of all sexual abuse survivors. It has long maintained that the BSA’s plan to compensate abuse victims was “grossly…

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Pope Francis was among those showing their support for retired Pope Benedict XVI, sending his predecessor “a beautiful letter,” according to the former pope’s secretary.

In the letter, Pope Francis “speaks as a shepherd, as a brother” and “expressed once again his complete trust, his full support and also his prayers,” said the secretary, Archbishop Georg Gänswein.

The archbishop spoke to the Italian news program TG1 Feb. 9 about the retired pope’s letter in response to a report on sexual abuse cases in the German Archdiocese of Munich and Freising, which the former pope headed as Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger from 1977 to 1982.

Pope Benedict, who has denied allegations of mishandling four cases of clerical sexual abuse put forth by the report, emphasized in a letter Feb. 8 his feelings of great shame and sorrow for the abuse of minors and made a request for forgiveness to all victims of…

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>> All right. For some more insight on the former pope’s remarks, let’s bring in Anne Barrett Doyle, co-director of Bishopaccountability. org. Thank you so much for joining us as well. So what do you make of the retired pope’s comments?

>> I thought it was a a deep disappointment and a real missed opportunity. This could have been a legacy defining moment for Pope Benedict. This was a moment that called for candor and grace. There is abundant evidence that he willfully covered up for sexual abusers when he was archbishop of Munich,. He could have been completely honest and and said, yes, I did. He could have become the first pope pope to admit to deliberate cover-up, and by so doing, he would have set an example of radical truth-telling for other church leaders, including Pope Francis himself. Instead, he was self-serving. He talked about his own victimization, his being called a liar. He expressed a lot of thanks to all his supporters and legal team, and he talked about how he faces the imminent end of its life with…

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Last week’s news about an allegation against the Rev. Francis Santilli, the pastor of St. Philip Church in Smithfield, raises serious questions about the bishop’s handling of accused priests (‘Suspended Smithfield priest had faced previous allegations of sexual abuse,’ News, Feb. 4).

Bishop Tobin learned of two alleged victims of Father Santilli 10 years ago.

The bishop had a choice to make. Should he err on the side of protecting children and remove the priest? Or should he protect the priest’s reputation? Should he not breathe a word to the public, keep the priest in his post, and gamble that he wasn’t a child molester?

Bishop Tobin chose to protect the priest.

In 2014, he learned of a third Santilli accuser. Again, he had a choice, and once again, he chose to keep the priest in ministry. He said nothing to the public. The parishioners at St. Philip’s, and all…

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