ABUSE TRACKER

Christopher Lawton faces sentence of several years in prison

A pastor from Greenfield who provided Christian counseling has pleaded guilty to dozens of counts of sexual assaulting a teenage girl.

Christopher Lawton was indicted by a grand jury on charges of sexually assaulting a child under the age of 18. He is now facing several years in prison.

Lawton entered guilty pleas Wednesday afternoon to more than a dozen counts of aggravated felonious sexual assault. According to court documents, between February 2015 and June 2016, Lawton sexually assaulted a teenage girl he was counseling.

The victim was older than 13 and younger than 18 at the time, prosecutors said. Officials said Lawton was providing pastoral counseling to the victim and used his power of authority to coerce her into sexual acts on at least 16 different occasions.

“They occurred in the home. They occurred in cars,” Assistant Hillsborough County Attorney…

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The amount, with the average amounting to about $300,000 per person, is one of the largest by a U.S. diocese.

The Diocese of Camden, New Jersey, will pay $87.5 million to approximately 300 alleged sexual-abuse victims, under a settlement reached Tuesday.

The payout, one of the largest by a U.S. diocese, would surpass the Archdiocese of Boston’s historic 2003 settlement of almost $85 million, The Associated Press reported. The Archdiocese of Los Angeles has the largest settlement to date, $660 million.

A U.S. Bankruptcy Court judge in Camden still must approve the settlement. 

Payments of the funds will roll out over a four-year period into a trust. The agreement also requires the diocese to keep “maintaining or enhancing” child-protection protocols.

The New York Times reported that payments will differ for each of the plaintiffs, with the average amounting to about $300,000 per person.

The settlement still allows the alleged victims to…

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The Anglican Church of Canada says an archbishop has resigned over allegations of sexual misconduct.

Mark MacDonald was the first national Anglican archbishop responsible for representing Indigenous church members when he was appointed in 2007.

In a letter posted on the church’s website, Rev. Linda Nicholls, who is primate of the Anglican Church of Canada, says prayers should be directed to the complainant.

The church says the resignation was tied to an independent investigation.

It did not provide further details on the allegations.

MacDonald was appointed to the position as part of the church’s effort to heal a long-standing rift with Indigenous people.

“The ripple effects will be felt throughout the Church both in Canada and internationally, but most especially within the Sacred Circle and Anglican Council of Indigenous Peoples,” Nicholls wrote.

MacDonald is originally from Duluth, Minn., and also served as bishop of the U.S. Episcopal Diocese of Alaska.

Bishop Sidney…

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Bishop Michael Olson of the Catholic Diocese of Fort Worth requested the resignation of the head of Catholic Charities Fort Worth earlier this month.

Olson, who’s served as bishop since 2014, called for the resignation of the chief executive officer, Christopher Plumlee, in a letter dated April 4. In the letter, Olson says he has a “sincere and deep lack of confidence” in Plumlee, stemming from an April 1 meeting about a women’s summit.

Plumlee told the Star-Telegram on Wednesday that stepping down would indicate that he’s done something wrong, which he hasn’t.

“I have no intention of resigning,” Plumlee said. “If I resigned, it would have intimated that I’ve done something that I should have resigned over. And I haven’t.”

This isn’t the first time the bishop has made headlines on personnel changes under his supervision. Here’s what we know about Bishop Michael Olson:

WHO IS BISHOP…

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‘SENSELESS’

Stephen Kiesle, a disgraced former Roman Catholic priest in Oakland, now faces charges for allegedly killing a retiree while drunk driving.

Laurelyn Gunn and her husband, Curtis, loved trivia.

“Between the two of us, we had a lot of otherwise useless knowledge,” Gunn, 63, told The Daily Beast.

On Saturday night, the couple, who lived at Rossmoor, a 55-plus retirement community in Northern California, spent a few hours participating in a monthly trivia event held at the nearby clubhouse.

“A friend of ours put together a pretty strong team, and one of the guys on our team was this guy named Steve. I never knew his last name,” Gunn said. “And we were walking home from the trivia game when Steve, who was sitting across the table from us, killed Curt.”

“Steve” turned out to be Stephen Kiesle, a disgraced former Roman Catholic priest in Oakland who in 2004…

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A multimillion-dollar settlement between the Roman Catholic Diocese of Camden, New Jersey, and victims of child sexual abuse by members of the clergy has been announced by the diocese and a survivors committee.

About 300 victims who experienced child sexual abuse will share an $87.5 million trust established by the diocese and related Catholic entities, Jeff Anderson, who represents some of the survivors, told CNN.

The settlement will be funded over four years, and victims each will get their disbursements from an allocator, he said.

While both the Camden diocese and the survivors’ attorneys announced they have agreed to the terms, the official settlement is still a few weeks out, Anderson said. The parties are seeking court approval by early June, after bankruptcy lawyers draft official language and submit it the survivors for their assent.

The settlement follows numerous allegations made against other Catholic…

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A defrocked Catholic priest who served time in prison for molestation has been charged by the Contra Costa District Attorney on three counts of gross vehicular manslaughter while intoxicated, driving under the influence of alcohol, and special allegations for prior felonies, according to a release from the Costa Contra County District Attorney’s Office.

Walnut Creek Police say that 75-year-old Stephen M. Kiesle, who has resided in Rossmoor since 2010, was driving in Rossmoor on the night of April 16 when he struck 64-year-old Curtis Gunn and his wife Laurelyn on a sidewalk. The couple was walking near their home on Tice Creek Drive near Fairlawn Court around 9:15 p.m. when Mrs. Gunn said a vehicle veered on to the sidewalk, striking her husband and sideswiping her.

When officers arrived, they found Mr. Gunn with life-threatening injuries and Mrs. Gunn with minor injuries. The vehicle was on its side and…

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Exclusive interview with Sister Josée Ngalula, internationally recognized theologian who has spent the past 20 years offering pastoral assistance to sex abuse victims in Africa

St. Andrew’s Sister Josée Ngalula says there are at least “eight main reasons” why it is difficult for people in Africa to denounce sexual abuse, mostly due to cultural norms on the vast continent.

The 62-year-old Congolese religious sister last year became the first African woman ever to be named a member of the International Theological Commission (ITC), a body under the aegis of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

Sister Josée teaches dogmatic theology at several theological institutes in Africa. And she has also spent the past 20 years providing pastoral assistance to sex abuse victims and the institutions that support them.

She has just compiled a report based on her work in this area. She spoke about it in this exclusive…

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[See video of a public lecture by Professor Kevin Lewis O’Neill.]

Between 1952 and 1968, a Roman Catholic religious order known as the Servants of the Paraclete sought, bought, and finally sold several small islands in the Caribbean for priests unable to stop “sin[ning] repeatedly with little children.” This talk details the Servants of the Paraclete’s mid-twentieth-century efforts at offshoring sexually abusive priests. It is an historical account that encourages scholars and activists alike to rethink the geography of clerical sexual abuse: though there is a generally agreed upon history that bishops throughout the United States transferred priests between parishes to evade suspicion and at times prosecution, this provides a previously untold account of how the U.S. Church leveraged developments in moral theology, pastoral psychology, and free market capitalism to secure transnational lines of flight for some of its most incorrigible abusers. 

Kevin Lewis O’Neill is the Director of the View Cache

Deal Allows Survivors to Pursue Insurance Coverage and Provides a Pathway to Enhanced Child Protection in the Diocese

Today, a partial settlement is being announced with the Diocese of Camden and survivors of sexual abuse who courageously filed lawsuits under the New Jersey Victims’ Rights Bill. In addition to the $87.5 million provided by the diocese, survivors and their attorneys still have the opportunity to take legal action against insurance companies that represent the diocese. Thus far, the insurance companies have played hardball and refused to meaningfully honor their insurance obligations. Furthermore, the settlement will include several child protection measures that are still being finalized. This will require the diocese to publicly disclose the history of abuse in the diocese.

“This day, this settlement with the Bishop of Camden is a powerful advance in accountability. The credit goes to the survivors for standing up for themselves and the truth. It…

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The settlement with the Camden diocese is among the largest such agreements involving the Catholic Church in the United States.

The Diocese of Camden, N.J., said on Tuesday that it had agreed to pay $87.5 million to settle claims made by hundreds of people who accused clergy members of sexually abusing them, one of the largest such settlements involving the Catholic Church in the United States.

In what may be a first for such litigation, the ultimate payout to the plaintiffs could be substantially higher, lawyers representing them said, because the settlement allows for further litigation against insurance companies for the diocese and related entities like parishes and schools.

“This is a triumph of courage, with all credit to the survivors for staying unified and strong,” Jeff Anderson, a lawyer for about a quarter of the roughly 300 plaintiffs, said.

In a statement announcing the settlement, Bishop Dennis J….

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Josh and Leona Kimes, the co-pastors of Hillsong Boston, announced on Monday (April 18) that the two have “made the difficult decision to resign.” The announcement of their departure comes a week after the results of an investigation into Hillsong New York City, where the couple worked previously, were leaked to a Christian online news outlet.

The Kimes’ departure is the most recent in a slew of upheavals at the global megachurch and multimedia empire, including the resignation two weeks ago of its global senior pastor Brian Houston after allegations of sexual misconduct. Co-founded by Houston in Australia nearly 40 years ago, the church had grown to some 30 locations before scandals closed three of its U.S. churches.

The couple, who helped launch Hillsong NYC under now-disgraced former pastor Carl Lentz before planting the Boston campus, were “ready for a fresh start,” Kimes said in an Instagram post featuring photos of…

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In August 1979, Wendy Guay told her best friend that her father, Paul Guay—then a pastor at John MacArthur’s Grace Community Church—was regularly molesting her.

Her friend, Lisa (Tucker) Ward, told The Roys Report (TRR) that when she’d sleep over at Wendy’s house, Wendy would insist that they both go to bed fully clothed. Sometimes, Paul Guay would come in Wendy’s room in the middle of the night and would “hover over us,” Ward said.

But one night, the girls woke up and Guay was rubbing their backs. “Wendy woke up, freaked out, and grabbed me,” Ward said.

Soon afterward, Wendy divulged her secret to Ward. They then told Ward’s dad, John Tucker, a former missionary and then-member of Grace Community Church (GCC), about the abuse.

This began a process that led Paul Guay to confess his abuse directly to John MacArthur weeks later, according to Tucker, an alleged eyewitness to the…

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Paul Dyal will be back in court on Wednesday to discuss his personal belongings.

A former Jacksonville pastor accused of sex crimes will remain in jail.

Action News Jax first told you in March when police linked Paul Dyal to physical and sexual abuse that happened over decades.

A judge ruled Monday that Dyal will be back in court Wednesday.

It’s for a potential bond setting and hearing, to talk about his personal belongings.

Investigators say Dyal along with two other men, Vernon Williamson and Jerome Teschendorf, abused children at the Jacksonville Assembly of the Body of Christ Church.

JSO said it has identified and spoken with numerous victims and witnesses and said it believes there are additional suspects, victims and witnesses.

Anyone with any information is asked to contact JSO at 904-630-0500 or to remain anonymous, contact Crime Stoppers at 1-866-845-TIPS.

If you or someone you know…

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The first day of a jury trial in a high-profile sexual abuse case in Lauderdale County is set to begin Monday morning.

The former pastor of Lighthouse Baptist Church in Florence, John Thomas Martin, admitted in a June 2019 pulpit confession that he had inappropriate relationships with young men, according to the Assistant District Attorney in Lauderdale County, Coty Hand.

According to the church’s website at the time, Martin had been the pastor since 2010. He immediately resigned from his role following the confession.

Less than a week after his confession, he was arrested and taken to the Lauderdale County Detention Center and placed on a $60,000 bond. In all, Hand said Martin admitted to four counts of sexual abuse of a child – those charges involve a victim younger than 16.

Following Martin’s confession, members of the church immediately contacted One Place of the…

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Every year, one of the world’s leading dance competition companies sells the dream of Hollywood fame to hundreds of thousands of ambitious young dancers hoping to launch careers on television, in movies and on stage.

But behind the bright lights and pulsing music, some dancers say they were sexually assaulted, harassed and manipulated by the company’s powerful founder and famous teachers and choreographers, according to a joint investigation by The Associated Press and the Toronto Star.

The problems date back to the founding of Los Angeles-based Break The Floor Productions; as the company has grown into an industry powerhouse, its leaders perpetuated a culture of sex and silence, according to interviews with dozens of former and current staff and students.

Break the Floor’s reach extends across the entertainment industry to some of the biggest names in music, television and social media. Alumni and faculty have danced on stage with Lady…

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Protest letter signed by hundreds of Reform Jews urges immediate action for greater accountability and transparency, following a report about alleged sexual misconduct in the movement in past decades

Nearly 500 past and present staff members of the Union for Reform Judaism are demanding “a concrete plan and public timeline for institutional review and reform” following a damning investigation released last month uncovering numerous instances of sexual misconduct, sexual assault and tolerance of a “sexualized culture” in the movement’s summer camps, Israel trips and youth movement activities over the past 50 years.

A protest letter carrying the signatures of both employees and volunteers at institutions run by the Union for Reform Judaism, including senior rabbis in the movement over the years, was delivered late last week to the URJ’s leaders. 

The letter urged immediate action for greater accountability and a clearer path to address the flaws in…

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Details from the leaked report paint a picture of a church leadership rife with abuse, sexual misconduct and secrecy.

The results of an investigation by an independent law firm into the culture of Hillsong NYC, the Manhattan site of the global megachurch, have been leaked to The Christian Post, and its reported contents paint a picture of a church leadership rife with abuse, sexual misconduct and secrecy.

Among the details reported by the Washington, D.C.-based news outlet include several extramarital affairs by the New York church’s former pastor Carl Lentz and spiritual abuse of volunteers and staff, as well as “multiple incidents of consensual or non-consensual sexual interaction between church leaders and congregants, staff, volunteers, or non-churchgoers,” according to the article published Monday (April 11).

The publication’s summary of the report also furthers details of the relationship between Lentz and his former nanny, Leona Kimes, who alleged in May 2021 that…

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A defrocked Bay Area Catholic priest convicted of child molestation and accused by multiple families of sexual abuse and assault during his decades-long tenure has now been arrested for allegedly killing a man while driving drunk in a gated community.

Stephen Kiesle, the 75-year-old who was at the center of an Associated Press exposé on Pope Benedict, was arrested Sunday morning on suspicion of gross vehicular manslaughter and driving under the influence, Walnut Creek police told Rossmoor.com.

The crash took place at around 9:15 p.m. in the “active adults 55+” gated community of Rossmoor, Rossmoor.com reported, when Curtis and Laurelyn Gunn were walking home from an event at the nearby Gateway Complex. While approaching an intersection, a car going above the 25 mph speed limit hit the Gunns while driving on the curb, striking Curtis head-on and scraping Laurelynn. Curtis Gunn was pronounced dead at the scene, the news site said.

Kiesle…

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A New Jersey Catholic diocese has agreed to pay $87.5 million to settle claims involving clergy sex abuse with some 300 alleged victims in one of the largest cash settlements involving the Catholic church in the United States.

The agreement between the Diocese of Camden, which encompasses six counties in southern New Jersey on the outskirts of Philadelphia, and plaintiffs was filed with U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Camden on Tuesday.

The settlement must still go before a U.S. bankruptcy judge. If approved, the settlement would exceed the nearly $85 million settlement in 2003 in the clergy abuse scandal in Boston, although it’s less than other settlements in California and Oregon.

“I want to express my sincere apology to all those who have been affected by sexual abuse in our Diocese,” Bishop Dennis Sullivan said in a statement. “My prayers go out to all survivors of abuse and I pledge my…

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An independent ombudswoman hired by the Catholic Church of Montreal said Tuesday she’s encountering delays and resistance to her efforts to address complaints, warning that the process to tackle abuse and misconduct risks becoming a “smokescreen.”

The third quarterly report published Tuesday by Marie Christine Kirouack said that in recent months she’s faced a number of problems, including non-compliance with deadlines, delays and a failure by church officials to follow up with people who are subject to complaints.

Kirouack, who was hired in May 2021, noted that addressing abuse and other complaints requires a “major culture change” that will only happen if it comes “clearly and unequivocally directly from above.”

“It is only in this way that people reluctant to change will follow in the footsteps of this reform,” she wrote. “Thus and only thus, will they be able to grasp that their future and the future of their church…

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Over 200 completed reports of over 150 abusers, 51 reporting for the first time

As Wisconsin approaches the one-year anniversary of the launch of Wisconsin’s Clergy and Faith Leader Abuse Initiative, AG Kaul is releasing additional information and highlighting the successes.

“In the year since we launched the Clergy and Faith Leader Abuse Initiative, over 200 people have reported information, and a District Attorney has criminally charged a defendant in a previously unreported case,” said AG Kaul. “We continue to encourage anyone with information about clergy and faith leader abuse to report that information.”

Wisconsin DOJ Takes Every Report Seriously

Shortly after launching the initiative, DOJ organized training for victim advocates in Wisconsin so that they would be prepared to support survivors of sexual abuse by clergy and faith leaders. The training offered live presentations by national experts on working with survivors of clergy sexual abuse. Victim advocates at DOJ…

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Wisconsin’s attorney general said his investigation into clergy sex abuse across the state has resulted in 1,000 calls to his tipline, 204 reports, and one criminal case. But there are some questions the AG is not answering.

Kaul launched his investigation into the Catholic Church in Wisconsin one year ago. On Tuesday, he provided an update on his progress.

“As of April 18, the Wisconsin Department of Justice Clergy and Faith Leader Initiative has received a total of 204 completed reports to the toll-free tip line and the online reporting tool accusing more than 150 individuals of abuse. Over 1,000 calls have been made to or from the tip line, including repeat calls from survivors who remember additional information or are looking for follow up information,” Kaul said in a statement.

Kaul said his office also received what he calls a “significant number of reports from…

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Attorney General Josh Kaul’s investigation into clergy abuse has generated about 200 reports and one criminal case in the year since it was launched, state Department of Justice officials said Tuesday.

Kaul began the investigation in April 2021, saying he wanted to develop a full picture of clergy sexual abuse over decades. He has encouraged victims to contact the Justice Department and tell their stories.

As of Monday, the agency had received 204 reports accusing more than 150 people of abuse. The investigation has resulted in one criminal case so far against a church camp counselor accused of touching a 10-year-old’s genitals in Waushara County in 2009. That case is still pending.

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A year after Attorney General Josh Kaul announced a formal investigation into abuse by members of the clergy in Wisconsin, more than 200 reports have been made to the Department of Justice. 

Those include more than 150 individuals accused of abuse, and 51 people were reporting an instance of abuse to law enforcement for the first time, according to a Tuesday morning press release.  

Kaul said in an interview that the number of survivors who reported to the department for the first time signals their trust. 

“One of our goals when we launched this was to provide a safe and trusted place for survivors to support,” he said. “Having 51 people come forward and report information who had never previously reported to law enforcement or religious authorities, to me, indicates that we have succeeded in providing a place where survivors trust the process and know they will be treated with dignity…

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Two priests who are accused of sexual abuse are suing the Buffalo Diocese.

Fathers Arthur Smith and Pat Ipolito claim the Diocese cut their pensions.

Both men receive about $2,000 a month. The lawsuit says the priests did not take part in a monitoring program, which lead to them losing all or part of their pensions.

The Diocese responded to the lawsuit tonight, saying in part, “Failure to comply entails the potential forfeiture of Diocesan financial support and/or pension benefits, as outlined by Bishop Fisher in October 2021.”

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Those who have become familiar with the fate of persons sexually abused by priests know that victims experience the indifference (or worse) of Church authorities to their abuse as a tremendous betrayal—something that does more harm than the abuse itself. They experience the Church more as Judas than the Bride of Christ. Indifference, dismissal, cover-up, and protection of the predator are common. Many books, such as Leon Podles’ Sacrilege, document that such has been the response to victims of priestly sexual abuse for nearly a century and perhaps longer.

Sadly, these deplorable responses are still with us, and even the involvement of lay people in the process has not led to the changes that are absolutely necessary for a Church that claims to be Christ’s Church.

For over a year, I have been working closely with a woman (I will call her Kate) who back in the early seventies, when she was 9 and…

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The Carmel priest who was “suspended from public ministry” in March, is suing a man who came forward with allegations about the priest’s behavior. 

James De Oreo, who was an associate pastor at Our Lady of Mount Carmel Catholic Church, was suspended March 11 after allegations of “inappropriate conduct with a minor.”

The priest filed a lawsuit April 4 against the man who wrote two letters in 2021 to the Diocese of Lafayette-in-Indiana about De Oreo’s behavior toward him when he was a teen attending St. Alphonsus Liguori Catholic Church in Zionsville. IndyStar is not naming the man because he was a minor at the time of the alleged abuse.

The man said he was considering becoming a priest, and De Oreo used his position of power to emotionally abuse, sexually harass and groom him for sexual abuse. This led to an eating disorder and PTSD as well…

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Last year, we pointed out that a Catholic religious order, the Christian Brothers, posted the worst list of child molesting clerics we have ever seen. They listed predators only because they had to. They provided ZERO information about the accused: not where they are or were, not when they were ordained, not whether they pled guilty or admitted guilt or if they were sued dozens of times. . .NOTHING. They also restricted their list to just those clerics who faced two or more abuse reports. We are happy to report that a little more light has been shone upon this secretive outfit. But the new information has surfaced not because of, but in spite of, the order’s top officials.

It comes via the same source which has done so much to protect kids and expose criminals: the secular, mainstream media. Specifically, in a series of articles over…

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Thank you, Gov. Tom Wolf, for pressing the Pennsylvania Legislature to immediately enact civil child sexual abuse statute of limitations reform so that thousands of middle-aged and older survivors can bring predators and their institutional enablers to justice.

For far too long, perpetrators and the religious institutions, schools, summer camps, athletic organizations, and medical and child care providers that enabled their abuse found refuge in an inadequate statute of limitations that rewarded them for running out the clock on victims who often need decades to come to terms with their abuse and the forces that have silenced them.

Credible statute of limitations reform must include providing a “window” to all sexual abuse survivors, no matter their age, to file civil claims against their abusers and the organizations that enable the abuse. Victims, no matter their age, must have access to justice and the right to demand accountability for…

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In May of last year, Leona Kimes accused former lead pastor of Hillsong NYC, Carl Lentz, of sexually abusing her while she was working as a nanny for Lentz’s children.

Josh and Leona Kimes, the co-pastors of Hillsong Boston, announced on Monday (April 18) that the two have “made the difficult decision to resign.” The announcement of their departure comes a week after the results of an investigation into Hillsong New York City, where the couple worked previously, were leaked to a Christian online news outlet.

The Kimes’ departure is the most recent in a slew of upheavals at the global megachurch and multimedia empire, including the resignation two weeks ago of its global senior pastor Brian Houston after allegations of sexual misconduct. Co-founded by Houston in Australia nearly 40 years ago, the church had grown to some 30 locations before scandals closed three of its U.S. churches.

The couple,…

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In a bid to keep parishes and officials, including Bishop Salvatore Matano, from answering scores of sexual-abuse allegations against church officials in state court, the Roman Catholic Diocese of Rochester has asked for a Bankruptcy Court trial.

Known as adversarial proceedings or APs for short, such trials look to have a bankruptcy judge resolve differences between parties in a case. Parties not satisfied with a bankruptcy judge’s ruling can appeal the ruling to a federal district court.

As the Rochester Beacon previously reported, the expiration of a Bankruptcy Court stipulation putting the state court sexual-abuse claims against the church on hold came after one of the two parties who struck an agreement some two years ago to halt the state court cases declined to renew the pact. 

Previously, parties to that pact—the bankruptcy’s official creditors committee and the diocese—had renewed the March 2020 agreement 11 times. Late last month, one…

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Two retired Buffalo priests accused of sexually abusing minors are suing the Buffalo Diocese to restore their pensions, which were reduced or eliminated after the priests refused to submit to a monitoring program pushed by the State Attorney General’s Office.

The Rev. Arthur J. Smith and the Rev. Pascal D. Ipolito maintain that they are not child molesters and haven’t had a fair hearing to defend themselves against the accusations. They also said they earned the pensions that were promised to them when they became priests decades ago and when they retired a few years ago.

“Our position is that the (pension) contract clearly lays out that they have a vested right. It cannot be amended, modified, whatever it may be,” said attorney Mark J. Byrne, who filed a lawsuit Sunday in Erie County State Supreme Court.

The lawsuit might be the first of its kind in the country of…

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In an open letter, 74 bishops from North America, Africa, Italy and Australia have expressed their “growing concern” about the German Synodal Path process and content, warning about its “potential for schism.”

Joining recent letters of concern by the Nordic and Polish bishops, the “fraternal open letter to our brother bishops in Germany” said “the Synodal Path’s actions undermine the credibility of church authority, including that of Pope Francis.”

“By its destructive example, it may lead some bishops, and will lead many otherwise faithful laypeople, to distrust the very idea of ‘synodality,’ thus further impeding the church’s necessary conversation about fulfilling the mission of converting and sanctifying the world,” the letter concluded.

Signatories included Nigerian Cardinal Francis Arinze, South African Cardinal Wilfred Napier, Australian Cardinal George Pell, and U.S. Cardinal Raymond L. Burke.

All told, 49 bishops from the U.S., four from Canada, 19 Africans, one Italian and one Australian…

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In my wife’s home city of Wroclaw, there’s a luxury hotel named after John Paul II. It has always seemed strange that the Catholic church sanctioned this. Giant chandeliers and glitzy bathrooms weren’t really what St John Paul stood for, and since the hotel opened in 2002 it had seemed as much a monument to the church’s decline as a tribute to a saint. But everything changed with the war in Ukraine. Some 2.5 million Ukrainians have fled to Poland since Russia’s invasion and the hotel is currently home to more than 100 refugees. It’s as if the building has finally discovered its real purpose.

What’s true of the John Paul II hotel is true more widely of the Polish Catholic church. The response of Polish Catholics to the war was immediate, all-out and magnificently unbureaucratic. A vast chain of care was formed that ran from nuns offering cups of…

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Warning: This story deals with disturbing subject matter that may upset and trigger some readers. Discretion is advised.

Pope Francis could be making stops in Alberta and Quebec during his visit to Canada, Global News has learned.

“But, trip details have not been finalized yet,” a source with knowledge of the visit confirmed to Global News on Friday.

Plans for a papal visit were initially announced two weeks ago, when Indigenous delegates from Canada were in Rome.

During their visit to the Vatican, the Pope also delivered an apology for the harm caused by some clergy members who operated the church and state sponsored residential school system.

The apology came over 25 years after the last residential school closed in Canada. It has been met with mixed opinion over whether it was sufficient.

‘As a child when I was in residential school…I never thought I’d see the day that I would see the Pope…

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The independent commission created in January to investigate sexual abuse in the Portuguese Catholic church has already received 290 valid testimonies from victims and 16 cases have already been referred to the prosecutor.

In an assessment of the first three months of work, made on Tuesday at a press conference at the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation in Lisbon, the former minister of justice Alvaro Laborinho Lúcio, who is part of the commission, said that among the 290 validated testimonies, 16 have not yet been invalidated and, therefore, have been referred to the prosecutor.

Created in January to investigate sexual abuse in the Portuguese catholic church, the independent commission had already received 214 statements from victims, aged between 15 and 88, in its first month of activity.

Complaints and statements can be sent to the commission by completing an online survey at darvozaosilencio.org, by mobile phone +351917110000 (daily between 10am and 8pm),…

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Six months after the publication of the Sauvé report, which revealed the scale of sexual abuse over decades in the French Catholic Church, what effect has the crisis had on aspiring priests? Despite the atmosphere of mistrust currently enveloping the Church, some forty students at the diocese in Orléans are training to join the priesthood while attempting to learn from the errors of those before them. Our France 2 colleagues report, with FRANCE 24’s Emerald Maxwell.

Programme prepared by Emerald Maxwell.

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More victims are coming forward after the arrest of a Texas youth pastor on multiple charges related to child molestation, police say.

Police in Mesquite, just east of Dallas, announced Monday they had arrested Conner “Jesse” Penny on accusations he had sexual contact multiple times from 2015-2018 with a girl under 17 years old.

Penny, 32, was youth pastor at Inspiration Church, a Southern Baptist church in Mesquite, at the time of his arrest last Thursday, police stated in a press release. He had also worked for the local schools and in the city of Mesquite’s after-school program, according to police.

He’s being held on felony charges of continuous sexual abuse of a child under age 14, indecency with a child, and aggravated sexual assault of a child, according to Dallas County Jail records. Total bond has been set at $2.5…

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Bishop Georg Bätzing of Limburg, president of the German bishops’ conference, responded Thursday to a letter warning the country’s synodal path could lead to schism by defending the process as a response to abuses in the Church.

“The Synodal Path is our attempt in Germany to confront the systemic causes of the abuse and its cover-up that has caused untold suffering to so many people in and through the Church,” Bishop Bätzing wrote April 14 to Archbishop Samuel Aquila of Denver. The German bishop’s letter was published April 16 at the German bishops’ conference website.

More than 80 bishops from around the world, including Archbishop Alexander Sample of Portland, signed an April 11 open letter sent by Archbishop Aquila that warned sweeping changes to church teaching advocated by the synodal path may lead to schism.

The Synodal Path is a process that brings together German lay people and Catholic bishops…

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A welcome and heartfelt apology for Catholics’ role in the country’s abusive residential school system.

Pope Francis has asked for forgiveness for the Roman Catholic involvement with Canada’s residential school system. His heartfelt contrition may bring some reconciliation for the indigenous people affected by this disturbing part of my country’s history and the many Canadians frustrated, saddened and embarrassed by it.

The gesture was long awaited by indigenous leaders and came after an intense week of discussions between Pope Francis and First Nations, Inuit and Métis delegations. Before an audience that included 200 bishops as well as indigenous delegates and their supporters in the Clementine Hall of the Vatican’s Apostolic Palace, on April 1 the pontiff expressed “sorrow and shame for the role that a number of Catholics, particularly those with educational responsibilities, have had in all these things that wounded you, and the abuses you suffered and the lack…

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“When I live a Eucharist-centered life,” says the Bishop of Crookston, Minnesota, “I can offer my struggles and difficulties in union with Jesus to the Father, and my daily life can be part of the redemption of the world.”

Bishop Andrew H. Cozzens, 53, is the Bishop of Crookston, Minnesota. He grew up in Denver, Colorado, the youngest of three children in a devout Catholic family. His father was an aerospace engineer and his mother a school teacher.

He is a graduate of Benedictine College in Atchison, Kansas. He was active in the pro-life organization Operation Rescue, and was arrested seven times and jailed for two weeks for physically blocking access to abortion clinics. He was also a missionary with NET ministries and is currently chairman of its board of directors. During his time as a missionary, the future…

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[From the Greenwood Commonwealth]

A former Franciscan friar convicted of sexually abusing a Greenwood grade-school student in the 1990s will have no chance at parole, according to the Mississippi Attorney General’s Office.

Paul West, 62, was found guilty by a Leflore County jury Wednesday of one count of sexual battery and one count of gratification of lust for preying on  La Jarvis Love when Love was a student at St. Francis of Assisi Elementary School. West was a teacher and later principal at the school.

“Sexual abuse of a child is a heinous crime that deserves serious punishment,” said Attorney General Lynn Fitch in a statement. “Children looked up to this man as a teacher and a priest. They trusted him and he failed them in every way. My Office will always work tirelessly to protect and defend the vulnerable from predators like this.”

West was a Franciscan brother, not a…

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[From the Greenwood Commonwealth]

This is not an uplifting Easter story. It’s more of the Good Friday variety, when mankind’s worst instincts are on display, prompting feelings of anger, betrayal and profound sadness.

Following former Franciscan friar Paul West’s conviction this past week by a Leflore County jury, I received a call from Arthur Baselice Jr., a retired Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, police detective who now lives in New Jersey.

He had been following the case of West, who was convicted and given what amounts to a life sentence for sexually abusing La Jarvis Love in the 1990s, when Love was a student at St. Francis of Assisi Elementary School and West was a teacher and later principal.

Around the same time that West was preying on Love and allegedly two of Love’s cousins, another friar from the same Wisconsin-based Franciscan province was allegedly abusing Baselice’s son and namesake, Arthur Baselice III.

…

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This could be the very last Easter Sunday service in some Roman Catholic churches in Newfoundland, but a local priest is putting this Easter in perspective.

Father Paul Lundrigan of Holy Trinity in Torbay says some parishes, including his, are grappling with the legal obligations to the victims of abuse at Mount Cashel orphanage, while trying to find a way forward in the practice of their faith.

He says it is a time of great reflection, but as COVID and other world events have taught them, there are strengths within the Church family, and the faith can survive without buildings as history has already proven.

The early Christians were ostracized and practiced their faith in homes and other places.

Lundrigan says the faith survived like that for a long time, which sends the message that it’s the gathering that matters, not where it happens.

Lundrigan also draws inspiration from the strength…

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The revelation that a priest’s debts were repaid from a fund to compensate sex abuse victims has prompted outrage in Cologne’s Catholic community.

Catholics in the archdiocese of Cologne on Saturday expressed shock that the church had paid more than €1 million to clear the private debts of a priest.

The news provoked particular outrage as it emerged that the money came from a compensation fund for the victims of sexual abuse, who have so far received only a small fraction of the amount used for the priest’s debt.

What are the revelations?

As far as has become known so far, the diocese initially paid almost €500,000 ($540,000) for the priest to clear his gambling debts.

Since the money was apparently not taxed correctly, a total of €650,000 in income tax, including interest, had to be paid in arrears. The money was said to have been paid from a social fund…

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With the strike of a gavel, Indonesia’s controversial sexual violence bill has been passed into law by parliament.

As legislators took to their feet on Tuesday to applaud the passage of the long-awaited bill, House Speaker Puan Maharani appeared visibly moved.

The legislation was “a gift for all Indonesian women,” she said.

The bill, known as RUU TPKS, has been a long time coming.

First proposed in 2012, it faced stiff opposition from conservative groups who argued over everything from its name to the contents of the law itself, requiring repeated revisions in an effort to ease its passage.

Elizabeth Ghozali, a lecturer in criminal law at Santo Thomas Catholic University in the city of Medan, told Al Jazeera that the bill was a landmark piece of legislation that finally puts the rights of victims first.

“Previously, Indonesian law was only focused on punishment in sexual violence cases. That was seen as…

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Arizona victims of long-ago child sex abuse can proceed with lawsuits against groups like the Boy Scouts of America after the state Supreme Court rejected claims that a state law extending victims’ right to sue was unconstitutional.

Arizona is among many states that have reacted to child sex abuse in recent years by allowing victims of even decades-old abuse to sue groups that didn’t protect them from predators. That has led to lawsuits against the Roman Catholic Church, Scouts and others.

The high court last week rejected appeals by Big Brothers Big Sisters of America and its affiliates in central and southern Arizona of lower court rulings that found a 2019 law extending the statute of limitations was constitutional.

The rulings appear to be the first to directly address whether the Arizona law is legal, according to Phoenix attorney Robert Pastor, who represents victims in the two cases the high…

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A former Catholic friar was sentenced to decades in prison after he sexually assaulted multiple students during the 1990s, officials say.

Following a two-day trial, Paul West, 62, from Wisconsin, was convicted of one count of sexual battery and one count of gratification of lust, according to a news release from Mississippi’s Attorney General’s Office.

West was a teacher and principal at the St. Francis of Assisi School in Greenwood, a city about 100 miles north of Jackson, from July 1993 until October 1998, according to a statement from the Catholic Diocese of Jackson.

Investigators said that West molested multiple children during his years at the school. Decades after the assaults, former students came forward and shared testimonies of “the repeated sexual abuse they suffered at the hands of West,” according to the release.

“Children looked up to this man as a teacher and a priest. They…

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Richard Eldridge stood outside of the Diocese of Fall River’s Chancery office Wednesday demanding a “substantial settlement” for abuse he allegedly suffered at the hands of Father Edward J. Byington.

Byington was one of two priests suspended by the diocese in January 2020 due to separate allegations of sexual abuse of a minor going back several decades, The Standard-Times reported.

In a statement posted to its website in December 2021, the diocese announced the allegations against Byington “have been determined to be credible” and he would not return to ministry.

At the time of his suspension, Byington was already retired and not assigned to a parish.

Eldridge, 67, told MassLive that when he was 15 or 16 years old, even though he was protestant, he attended the Roman Catholic ECHO (Encountering Christ in Others) retreat because his friends were going. He…

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A Franciscan brother, Paul West, 62, who was the subject of a major AP News investigation for his abuse of three young boys in Mississippi has been convicted of the 1990s abuse of La Jarvis Love. On Wednesday, April 13, 2022, a jury found him guilty of sexually abusing a student at St. Francis of Assisi School in the 1990s.

The Leflore County jury spent less than an hour deciding West’s fate. The verdict was loud and clear, guilty of one count of sexual battery and one count of gratification of lust, the Greenwood Commonwealth reported. West was accused of sexually abusing La Jarvis Love, now 39. Circuit Judge Ashley Hines sentenced West to 30 years on the first count and 15 years on the second count, to be served consecutively. Love began crying when the verdict was read.

Our hearts go out to La Jarvis Love and his family…

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Paul West was a teacher and principal at St. Francis School in Greenwood, Mississippi from July 1993 until October 1998. The Diocese of Jackson cooperated fully in the State of Mississippi’s recent criminal conviction of Paul West, including providing background testimony at his trial on the diocese’s list of clergy who have been credibly accused of sexual abuse of minors. The list was first provided to the Attorney General in 2002 and then updated and released publicly in March of 2019.

The Diocese reported the initial allegation against Paul West to the Department of Human Services and the Greenwood Police Department in 1998 and reported the subsequent allegations to the Leflore County District Attorney in 2018. West was removed from ministry after the original 1998 complaint.

The Diocese of Jackson is committed to protecting children. Sexual misconduct by Church personnel violates human dignity and the mission of the Church. The…

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[From WLBT]

A former teacher and principal at St. Francis School in Greenwood will face 45 years in prison, Mississippi Attorney General Lynn Fitch announced Thursday.

Paul West, 62, was convicted of sexual battery and gratification of lust following a trial in Leflore County.

The Catholic Diocese says West served as teacher and principal at the school from July 1993 until October 1998, when he first faced an allegation of sexual misconduct. The Diocese says West was reported to Greenwood Police Department after the allegation and subsequently removed from the ministry.

The Diocese released a statement on West’s conviction, which says in part:

The Diocese of Jackson is committed to protecting children. Sexual misconduct by Church personnel violates human dignity and the mission of the Church. The Diocese has dedicated substantial time and resources to ensure that children being served by the Church are not at risk of sexual abuse…

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Early on in my healing work, a friend suggested that I think back to who I was before I was sexually abused.

They wondered if I might find power in remembering characteristics or aspects of myself before the abuse that are still a part of me today. When I first attempted to recall who I was before the abuse, I could not remember specific traits or memories. I was so young when the abuse started, no older than 5, and it felt like trying to recall the memories of someone who wasn’t yet a person.

The abuse occurred during my formative years, when a child’s brain develops into who they will become later in life, from our social lives to our emotions to how we show up relationally. What memories did I form first? Did that memory of learning to tie my shoes at day care come first? Or was it…

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The “ultimate antidote to scandal,” he says, is not found in “structural reforms” or in a “merely cultural Catholicism,” but in “holiness of life.”

Each year, as we draw near to Holy Thursday, the Church asks us to pray for priests, future priests, and the renewal of the priesthood Jesus instituted during the Last Supper.

The celebration of the Chrism Mass, traditionally held the morning of Holy Thursday but often anticipated earlier in Holy Week, features the moving rite in which priests renew before their bishop their dedication to unite themselves closely to Christ and strive to imitate him, to be faithful ministers of his mysteries, to celebrate the Eucharist with sincere devotion, to sacrifice worldly pleasures and ambition joyfully for the good of Christ’s flock, and to teach the Christian faith and share Christ’s peace and love.

The bishop, in turn, asks the faithful to pray for their priests and for…

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As Archbishop Christian Lépine moved through the last days of Lent toward Easter 2022, he acknowledged the worst Cross to bear in his 10 years leading Montreal Roman Catholics has been the scandal of clerical sexual abuse.

“I’m always thinking about it,” Lépine told The Catholic Register in a late March interview. “It goes so much against Jesus Christ Himself. It’s not just about the numbers. It’s about the fact that one case is too many, that priests who were there to witness to Jesus Christ, witness to the love of the Eternal Father (committed) crimes or betrayed trust. Talking specifically about the sexual abuse of minors….”

His voice trails. Even in the context of a phone conversation, it’s palpable that Christ’s help is being called for at the other end of the line. Lépine, whose 10th anniversary as Archbishop of Montreal was on March 20 and who marks 10 years since…

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I have a hot news flash for my brothers and sisters here in the Bible Belt: The individuals you should be concerned about do not include the recently confirmed Supreme Court Justice; rather, they are the people sitting next to you.

I speak as a former editor for two Christianity Today publications and for Moody Monthly, a Christian family magazine. As a young editor fresh out of college, I urged Moody Monthly to do a cover feature on child sexual abuse in the church.

At that time, mid-1980s, no one was talking about this publicly. But I had a hunch predatory sexual abuse was happening far more than we realized, in “good church families,” and that the perpetrators were fathers, uncles, brothers, and others who often held trusted positions of authority in the church—deacons, elders, religious teachers, and pastors.

My hunch proved right. I was editor of the Letters department,…

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A Catholic middle school in Massachusetts is resisting one local bishop’s attempts to have the school take down Pride and Black Lives Matter flags or the school will risk losing its Catholic affiliation.

Bishop Robert McManus of Worcester gave the directive to The Nativity School of Worcester, a Jesuit-run middle schools serving low-income students who are predominantly students of color. In a statement demanding the removal of the flags, McManus insisted that the church teaches “all lives are equal.” He continued:

“[The] flag with the emblem Black Lives Matter has at times been coopted by some factions which also instill broad-brush distrust of police and those entrusted with enforcing our laws. We do not teach that in our schools. And, while we teach that everyone is created in the image and likeness of God, gay pride flags are often used to stand in contrast to consistent Catholic teaching that sacramental marriage…

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A 74-year-old man has become the latest former Dilworth staffer to plead guilty to sexual abuse while employed at the Auckland boarding school.

The teacher, who continues to have interim name suppression, was arrested in 2020 as part of Operation Beverly, a long-running investigation into historical sexual abuse at the boys’ only school.

He was initially charged with four counts involving three men who told police they were indecently assaulted by the defendant between 1980 and 1981. All of the victims were under the age of 16 at the time. More accusers, however, have since come forward.

Appearing via audio-visual feed today in the High Court at Auckland, he pleaded guilty through lawyer Justin Harder to 11 charges – nine counts of indecency between man and boy and two counts of indecent assault on a boy under 12.

The charges carry a maximum possible punishment of either seven or 10…

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[The Field Hospital podcast is sponsored by the Viatorians. In this episode of the podcast, Juan Carlos Cruz discusses the church’s response to the clergy abuse crisis; the episode is an hour and twelve minutes long.]

Editors’ note: This episode speaks on sexual abuse, trauma, and healing, and contains content that may be disturbing to some listeners.

In 2015, Juan Carlos Cruz was one of several abuse survivors to protest Pope Francis’ appointment of Juan Barros as bishop of the diocese of Osorno in Chile. Barros, they said, had witnessed their abuse at the hands of popular priest Fernando Karadima, and helped cover it up. Initially, Pope Francis defended Barros, even going so far as to accuse Juan Carlos and his fellow survivors of calumny. But Juan Carlos continued to speak up and work for justice. Finally, Pope Francis had a change of heart and apologized to the survivors he had…

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The diocese of Oxford has commissioned an independent lessons-learned review of allegations of spiritual abuse connected with St Margaret’s, Tyler’s Green, in High Wycombe, between 1981 and 2000. Its then incumbent, the Revd Michael Hall, was said to “rule congregants with a rod of iron and a flaming temper”.

Hall died in June 2021. The diocesan safeguarding team has been investigating him since January 2020, when a former member of the congregation took their own life. That prompted Hall’s successor, the Revd Mike Bisset, to raise serious concerns about Hall’s behaviour towards other members of the congregation, too.

The allegations relate to spiritual abuse, nakedness, and sexual activity with some adult members of the congregation. The abuse is said to have taken place at St Margaret’s, in the parish rooms, and also in people’s homes, where, according to survivor accounts, it was witnessed by children and young people.

Witness statements and a comprehensive…

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Recently I have seen on social media a certain kind of claim being made. The claim usually goes something like this: Person “X” claims they grew up Christian and now, as an adult, are no longer Christian. Their upbringing, it is usually said, occurred in a “fundamentalist” Christian environment or some type of conservative Protestant, usually Evangelical, church or home.

The claimant then reveals they are now either an atheist or, at most, agnostic about religion. Now, at this point, Person “X’s” story is pretty uninteresting. After all, many people leave their Christian faith as adults, whether it be a conservative Evangelical, Roman Catholic or even liberal Protestant faith. Some, like myself, come back to faith, albeit in a different tradition, while others do not. But this is not the extent of Person “X’s” claim. There is more to it than just this (which, in itself, would not warrant writing…

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There I sat in my clerical collar and black suit, an Anglican priest confident in my political and social awareness and in that of my church. In quiet yet confident tones the Indigenous leader who was speaking that day told a personal story. He loved his grandpa very much, he told us, but never understood why this learned, kind man would never hug him. One day, when grandpa was very elderly and our speaker was an adult, he asked him why. “I could never have told you this before”, said grandpa, “but when I was a child in a residential school, a hug meant only one thing. It meant that I was going to be raped.” Pause. “That’s why I could never hug you, that’s why.” I’m sure I wasn’t alone in feeling tears come to my eyes.

But tears have never been enough, and the obscenity of the residential…

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New committee wants to purchase Holy Rosary parish, but plan has its critics

An influential committee has been formed in Portugal Cove-St. Philip’s with the goal of purchasing Holy Rosary Catholic Church, but not everyone agrees, and a dark chapter in Newfoundland and Labrador’s history hangs over the whole process.

A coalition of community groups have thrown their support behind a new arts, wellness and heritage committee in order to prepare a bid on the landmark parish property overlooking Portugal Cove and repurpose the site into a community centre.

The committee has launched a fundraising campaign, wants the town council to designate the church a heritage property, and will host a meeting Thursday evening in a bid to rally public support.

The committee has also asked the town council to write a cheque for up to $12,000 to pay for an appraisal and structural assessment of the church property, with council expected to…

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ETAN expresses shock at conviction, removes donation appeal Patrick Smythe set up on group’s website

An international group advocating human rights in Timor-Leste, of which a UK pedophile priest was a supporter, has taken down an appeal for financial support he had set up for the group following his conviction for child sex abuse last week.

“We are shocked and embarrassed that a member of the international Timor-Leste solidarity movement has committed such crimes,” John Miller, coordinator of East Timor and Indonesia Action Network (ETAN), said in an April 12 statement.

“ETAN strongly condemns all forms of sexual abuse and expresses our continuing solidarity with the victims of sexual abuse around the world.”

Father Patrick Smythe, 79, was convicted and jailed for seven and a half years on April 7 by a court in Leeds in the United Kingdom for sex offenses against boys in his care.

He…

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[Note: This public lecture is being streamed live at 7:00 pm Central on April 14, 2022. The Zoom registration link is provided below.]

Please join us for this public lecture by Professor Kevin Lewis O’Neill.

Between 1952 and 1968, a Roman Catholic religious order known as the Servants of the Paraclete sought, bought, and finally sold several small islands in the Caribbean for priests unable to stop “sin[ning] repeatedly with little children.” This talk details the Servants of the Paraclete’s mid-twentieth-century efforts at offshoring sexually abusive priests. It is an historical account that encourages scholars and activists alike to rethink the geography of clerical sexual abuse: though there is a generally agreed upon history that bishops throughout the United States transferred priests between parishes to evade suspicion and at times prosecution, this provides a previously untold account of how the U.S. Church leveraged developments in moral theology, pastoral psychology, and free market…

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In an age of rapid global communication, events in one nation inevitably impact ecclesial life elsewhere. Thus the “Synodal Path” process, as currently pursued by Catholics in Germany, has implications for the Church worldwide. This includes the local Churches which we pastor and the many faithful Catholics for whom we are responsible.

In that light, events in Germany compel us to express our growing concern about the nature of the entire German “Synodal Path” process and the content of its various documents. Our comments here are deliberately brief. They warrant, and we strongly encourage, more elaboration (as, for example, Archbishop Samuel Aquila’s An Open Letter to the Catholic Bishops of the World) from individual bishops. Nonetheless, the urgency of our joint remarks is rooted in Romans 12, and especially Paul’s caution: Do not be conformed to this world. And their seriousness flows from the confusion that the Synodal Path has…

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Over 70 bishops from four continents warn that heterodox German reform efforts risk fracturing Church unity, adversely impacting the Church globally.

Seventy-four Catholic bishops from four continents have signed a “fraternal open letter” to their episcopal counterparts in Germany, expressing concern over the German Church’s controversial “Synodal Path.”

While noting the need for reform in the life of the Church, the letter states that “Christian history is littered with well-intended efforts that lost their grounding in the Word of God, in a faithful encounter with Jesus Christ, in a true listening to the Holy Spirit, and in the submission of our wills to the will of the Father.” The letter states that Germany’s controversial “Synodal Path” — a reform effort, backed by the majority of German bishops, that calls for fundamental changes to the Church’s teaching on sexuality, blessings for same-sex sexual unions, and the priestly ordination of women — “risks…

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For the first time in history the number of people in the United States who identify as belonging to a church, mosque or synagogue is less than those who don’t associate with any established religion. Just 47% of American adults identify with a particular creed, down a prodigious 20% in just two decades.

This decline can be directly attributed to the growth of “nones.” This burgeoning group covers people who declare no religious affiliation. The decline is particularly notable in younger age groups. Only 36% of millennials express any church allegiance while 58% of baby boomers remain loyal to some religious denomination. Overall, 21% fall under the ”nones” umbrella, a larger number than any denomination, except for Protestants.

Among Christians, the decline is particularly noticeable among Catholics where the drop-off is twice the Protestant exit numbers. Non-college graduates showed a more pronounced reduction than college graduates, and among members of…

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The Mesquite Police Department arrested a youth pastor on April 5 after receiving a delayed sexual assault of child report.

Mesquite resident Conner “Jesse” Penny, 32, was arrested after police obtained a warrant for continuous sexual abuse of a child.

For children and adults needing more information and resources regarding child sexual abuse, the Child Information Gateway lists the toll-free crisis hotline number to call as 866-367-5444.

According to a police department news release, an investigation found that Penny had sexual contact with a girl under 17 years of age on multiple occasions between 2015 and 2018. Since his arrest, additional victims have come forward alleging Penny abused them between 2013 and 2021, police said.

Penny was employed as the youth pastor at Inspiration Church, formerly known as Mimosa Lane Baptist Church, in Mesquite. Police said Penny’s previous employers include the Mesquite Independent School District and the…

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The bill was first proposed in 2012 but encountered opposition from more conservative groups in the mostly Muslim country.

Six years after deliberations first began, Indonesia’s parliament has passed a landmark bill to tackle sexual violence, aimed at providing a legal framework for victims to seek justice.

A majority of lawmakers backed the bill at the plenary session in parliament, overcoming opposition from some conservative groups in the world’s biggest Muslim-majority country.

“We hope that the implementation of this law will resolve sexual violence cases,” speaker of the house Puan Maharani said.

The bill has been broadly welcomed by activists, though some have objected to its limited scope, with only some sex crimes included and the omission of a specific clause on rape which the government has said will be included in other legislation.

“This is surely a step forward,” said Asfinawati, a law expert at Jentera School of Law,…

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Protecting local Boy Scouts of America councils and troop sponsoring organizations from future liability for child sex abuse claims is critical to the national group’s reorganization plan, BSA attorneys told a Delaware bankruptcy judge Tuesday.

Attorneys opposing the plan countered that liability releases for non-debtor third parties are neither fair nor necessary, and that they infringe on the rights of abuse survivors to seek compensation for their abuse.

The Boy Scouts, based in Irving, Texas, petitioned for bankruptcy protection in February 2020, seeking to halt hundreds of individual lawsuits and create a settlement trust for abuse victims. Although the organization faced about 275 lawsuits at the time, more than 82,000 sexual abuse claims have been filed in the bankruptcy case.

The reorganization plan calls for the Boys Scouts and its 250 local councils, along with settling insurance companies and troop sponsoring organizations, to contribute some $2.6 billion in cash and…

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Since 2002, numerous bills have been introduced in the New York State Legislature to add clergy to the list of mandated reporters for child sexual abuse.

The bills — which have respected the sanctity of the confessional — long have been supported by the New York State Catholic Conference (NYSCC), which represents the state’s bishops in matters of public policy, and by Bishop Edward B. Scharfenberger of the Diocese of Albany, who has been a national leader in responding to the clergy abuse crisis.

But 20 years since the first bills were introduced — which were spurred on by the sexual abuse scandal in the Archdiocese of Boston that was exposed by the Boston Globe — clergy still are not included in the expansive state list of mandated reporters that includes doctors, social workers, police officers, social service workers and most school officials. A mandated reporter is required…

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Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson wrestled with difficult decisions her whole career. She made sentencing decisions; she wrote briefs; she defended those who committed crimes — because that’s how our justice system works. Regardless of her political leanings and whether one has misgivings about her lifetime appointment to the Supreme Court, no one can argue that she hasn’t worn a heavy mantle of decision-making and judgment. Her black garment is a metaphor for the difficult decisions she has made that impact the lives of others.

Sen. Josh Hawley’s decisions also impact the lives of others. His garment, however, should be a lime green leisure suit on a hanger. He attracts a lot of attention; he’s loud; he makes a lot of statements. But he doesn’t do anything. He fist-pumped the insurrectionist mob that attempted a Keystone Kops coup. He derided the decisions that Judge Jackson made on sentencing of criminals….

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A commission investigating child sexual abuse in the Portuguese Catholic Church said on Tuesday the nearly 300 testimonies of alleged victims it has collected so far were “just the tip of the iceberg”.

“There have been multiple cases of sexual abuse of children and teenagers in the past,” said the head of the commission, child psychiatrist Pedro Strecht, explaining that more than half of the 290 testimonies indicate “many more victims”.

The abuse allegations have come from people born between 1933 and 2009, from various backgrounds, from every region of the country and also from Portuguese nationals living in other European nations, the United States, Mexico and Canada.

Most of the alleged victims are men, and were sexually abused as early as when they were 2-years-old.

The commission started its work in January after a report by a commission in France revealed last year around 3,000 priests and…

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St. Brendan, one of Dorchester’s great Catholic churches, seems destined to close next month. Parishioners feel like they are paying for the sins of others.

Noreen Kelley always sits in the same pew for Sunday Mass at St. Brendan, halfway up the church, on the right side.

It’s where her mother, Rosemary O’Brien, always sat. It’s where her grandmother, Nonie Sullivan, always sat.

Noreen Kelley’s grandmother was a longtime parishioner at the church that opened in 1933, at the height of the Depression. Her mother was in the first graduating class at St. Brendan School. Her three daughters became the fourth generation of their family to worship at St. Brendan Church.

They will probably be the last. St. Brendan, one of the great Catholic churches of Dorchester, has been designated by its pastor for so-called relegation, which sounds more like the fate of an underperforming soccer team than a neighborhood…

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Families impacted by Canada’s residential school victims need more than just words from the Catholic Church, says Traditional Anishinaabe Grandmother Kim Wheatley.

Pope Francis has issued an apology for abuses by Catholic Church members in the facilities and said he hoped the journey of Reconciliation would continue when he visits Canada this summer.

“That chain [of traditional practices] that passed on knowledge and ways of life and union with the land was broken by a colonization that lacked respect for you, tore many of you from your vital milieu and tried to conform you to another mentality,” said the Pope. “In this way, great harm was done to your identity and your culture. Many families were separated and great numbers of children fell victim to these attempts to impose a uniformity based on the notion that progress occurs through ideological colonization, following programs devised in offices rather than the desire…

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How she drew on a life of private hardship to become one of the greatest actors of her generation.

For a month, Viola Davis had been stuck. In the spring of 2020, in the late nights of lockdown, she set out to write her memoir. She had her routine: Get out of bed in the middle of the night, make herself a cup of tea, start writing in her movie room, fall asleep in one of its leather recliners, wake up, write some more, nod off again. But for weeks, she couldn’t figure out exactly where to begin. Should she start with her life as a celebrity, or the beauty contest she lost when she was a child, or the fact that people always wanted to hug her when they ran into her in public? Nothing worked.

Then one night, a conversation she had years ago with Will Smith on the…

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The Rev. Joseph M. Elko, administrator of St. Martin de Porres Roman Catholic Church, has been placed on administrative leave because of a claim of sexual abuse that allegedly occurred in the 1990s.

In an email Monday, David Elliott, spokesman for the Archdiocese of Hartford, said the news was announced at Masses this weekend. The church is located at 136 Dixwell Ave.

“As a result of the receipt of that claim, pursuant to the Archdiocese’s protocol, Fr. Elko has been placed on administrative leave pending the results of the investigation of the claim,” Elliott said in the statement.

The Rev. Sebastian Kos, administrator of St. Stanislaus Church, has been appointed temporary administrator of St. Martin de Porres, and weekend Masses will continue as scheduled, Elliott said.

Elko answered the phone at the parish Monday morning but said any comment would have to come from his attorney, and that he did…

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A lay committee looking into historic child sex abuse in the Portuguese Catholic Church said Tuesday it received witness statements from 290 alleged victims in its first three months of work, with cases involving children as young as two years old.

More than half the reported cases suggest many more victims were involved, said Pedro Strecht, a psychiatrist who heads the Independent Committee for the Study of Child Abuse in the Church.

The six-person committee, which includes psychiatrists, a former Supreme Court judge and a social worker, began its work in January at the behest of the Portuguese Bishops’ Conference. It promises anonymity to anyone who comes forward.

Strecht said the committee had come across signs that church officials, including current bishops he did not name, had sought to cover up abuse.

“It was often a case of moving the abuser from place to place, as if at that time…

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A Catholic priest convicted in the UK last week of sexually abusing boys in his care also came into contact with children in Timor-Leste and took them to his hotel room during visits to the country that spanned a decade, it has emerged.

Father Patrick Smythe, 79, who was sentenced to seven and a half years in prison by Leeds Crown Court on April 7, told police during an interview that he had visited Timor-Leste over a period of 10 years “sponsoring people of the country.”

He is also said to have been in contact with children of a similar age to the victims he has been convicted of abusing.

“In the course of that interview, he said he had taken the children back to his hotel room to ‘show them how the other half lives’,” Prosecutor Michael Morley was quoted as saying by the Yorkshire Evening Post.

“This has caused the police and prosecution some…

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The new Bishop-elect for the Catholic Diocese of Columbus will be installed on May 31.

At only 49-years-old, Father Earl Fernandes, currently a parish priest in Cincinnati, has, in many ways, been preparing for his new role for a lifetime.

“It is very exciting to be coming to Columbus, but at the same time, it’s terrifying,” Fernandes said.

Terrifying, and historic. He is the first person of color to be bishop in central Ohio, the first Indian American bishop in the United States. His parents and two older brothers immigrated from India and settled in Toledo.

“They came in 1970 and then, in three more years, had three more boys – (19)71, (19)72 and (19)73, so we are a family of five boys,” Fernandes said. “All boys, so my mother already did her purgatory.”

The mother, who taught them all to pray.

“Pray that you be a…

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Mamet’s remarks are “a repulsive demonization of the very people who have been the lifeline to our kids,” teachers’ union president Randi Weingarten said.

Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright David Mamet dove headfirst into the classroom culture wars by claiming that teachers “are inclined” toward pedophilia and that students are being “groomed” for sexual abuse — while offering no evidence to back up his charges.

Echoing attack lines that Republican politicians have been using of late to push legislation that would ban discussions of sexual orientation or gender identity in classrooms, Mamet insisted “we have to take back control.”

“What we have is kids not only being indoctrinated but groomed, in a very real sense, by people who are, whether they know it or not, sexual predators,” Mamet said Sunday during a FOX News interview. “Are they abusing the kids physically? No, I don’t think so. But they are abusing them mentally…

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The Abuse in Care Royal Commission of Inquiry is formally extending the scope of its Anglican investigation to include the Methodist, Presbyterian and Salvation Army faiths. 

Now known as the Protestant and Other Faiths Investigation, it will also be seeking evidence from survivors of abuse in three closed community faiths: Gloriavale, Exclusive Brethren (more recently known as Plymouth Brethren Christian Church), and Jehovah’s Witnesses.  

Since the Royal Commission started, we have been gathering evidence of abuse in the care of these faiths as part of our inquiry.  

The scope is being formally extended to recognise increased numbers of survivors from these faiths and their institutions – including schools and care homes – who have disclosed abuse to the Royal Commission.

We continue to ask survivors to come forward. Further evidence gathered will add to our existing evidence base and understanding of abuse in these faiths, and findings about…

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Secretive, closed faiths – including Gloriavale, Exclusive Brethren, and Jehovah’s Witnesses – will be formally investigated by the Royal Commission into Abuse in Care. 

The Commission’s Anglican investigation has also been expanded to include the Methodist, Presbyterian, and Salvation Army faiths. 

A spokesperson for the Commission said expanding the investigation was to recognise the large numbers of people from each organisation willing to pass on information. 

“The scope is being formally extended to recognise increased numbers of survivors from these faiths and their institutions – including schools and care homes – who have disclosed abuse to the Royal Commission.”

Newshub understands up to 60 people who left Gloriavale have engaged with the Commission’s lawyers, completing face-to-face interviews or providing written evidence. 

The Gloriavale Leavers’ Trust manager Liz Gregory said she’s very pleased with the development and the way the Commission had responded to its concerns over the past two years. 

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[Includes four-minute audio interview with Presbyterian Church moderator Hamish Galloway.]

The inquiry into abuse in care has extended the scope of what it called its Anglican investigation to include other Protestant churches.

The Royal Commission says it will now include the Methodist and Presbyterian churches, the Salvation Army and three closed community faiths, Gloriavale, Plymouth Brethren and Jehovah’s Witness.

The investigation will now be known as the Protestant and other faiths investigation.

The commission has held already held hearings that focused on the Catholic Church, and also some cases of abuse in the Anglican Church and Salvation Army.

Presbyterian Church moderator Hamish Galloway spoke to Susie Ferguson.

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Payments from the Vatican Secretariat of State to the Australian office of a tech security company could have been used to register a top level domain name, according to an Italian media report. 

But that possibility raises questions about why Cardinal Angelo Becciu previously described payments to the company as “confidential,” and why a key witness in the current Vatican financial trial reportedly told prosecutors that the payments were for the legal defense of Cardinal George Pell.

The payments, described as “classified” by Cardinal Angelo Becciu, have been at the center of years of speculation, since they coincided with the prosecution and trial of Cardinal George Pell.

A report published by the Italian edition of the website Daily Compass claims that payments from the Secretariat of State, totaling more that 2 million Australian dollars, were for the registration of the top level domain “.catholic” by the Pontifical Council for Social Communication. 

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The trial of a Catholic priest accused of sexually assaulting a Shapiro Developmental Center resident in 2017 is set to begin Monday in Kankakee County Circuit Court.

Formerly a priest at Sacred Heart Catholic Church in Goodrich and longtime assistant at St. Rose of Lima Catholic Church in Kankakee, Richard E. Jacklin, 70, is facing three felony charges that could carry a prison term of 12 to 50 years.

He is charged with aggravated sexual assault, six to 30 years; criminal sexual assault, four to 15 years; and sexual misconduct, two to five years.

Court records indicate the 39-year-old victim has an IQ of 47, has been a resident at Shapiro since 2010, and suffers from partial paralysis.

Jacklin is represented by attorneys Edward Jaquays and Frank Astrella.

On Thursday, Jaquays and Kankakee County Assistant State’s Attorney Carol Costello informed Circuit Judge Kathy Bradshaw-Elliott they were ready to go to…

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Despite widespread publicity, some alleged victims of abuse were unaware of Child Victims Act

After years of advocacy and support from lawmakers, the Child Victims Act was passed in Feb. 2019. 

Touted as a momentous piece of legislation that granted what turned into a two-year window for survivors of child sex abuse to file time-barred civil claims, it also increased the statute of limitations for the crime. 

Survivors were able to file suits until the age of 55 and press criminal charges until they were 28. Before the law’s two-year deadline closed in August, more than 10,000 complaints were filed, including claims against the Catholic Church and Boy Scouts of America. 

Still, some individuals were shut out of their day in court, either due to a lack of knowledge about the look-back window, an inability to obtain legal representation, or because their circumstances didn’t allow for them to file a…

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Chris Swartz is a tall, barrel-chested police officer. He’s not exactly the kind of guy who, at first appearance, would be envisioned spending countless hours comforting children in their times of most desperate need.

But as a member of the Johnstown Police Department, he has been providing compassion and justice for young victims of sexual and physical abuse for years.

“With me, I took this position as a juvenile detective because I care about kids,” Swartz said during an interview on April 1, just hours after a 14-month-old Johnstown girl died at Conemaugh Memorial Medical Center, the victim of a homicide. “God forbid something happened, I want to be that child’s last voice. I want to fight for that kid because, honestly, children are our future. That’s one thing that I tell these kids – I’ll do whatever I can to make their lives easier.

“Obviously, me, I’m a bigger…

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Practical steps for churches to become safer spaces for all.

After speaking at a recent conference about the prevalence of childhood sexual abuse and attempting to destigmatize its presence within the Church, a pastor approached me with concerns for his niece. A child, she had been sexually abused by someone she should have been able to trust, another family member. The abuser, as is common with predators, warned her to keep the abuse a secret. Her boundaries and self-worth were stolen. Feeling as if she had no one to turn to and nothing left to lose, she began to act out and was labeled as “promiscuous.”

Her story is, sadly, not unique. We receive calls regularly that a teenager in the youth group was groomed and abused by a leader, or of a man or woman whose memory is triggered once their child enters youth ministry, and they recall incidents…

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Despite these disclosures, the Truth & Transparency Foundation, an outgrowth of MormonLeaks, didn’t really prompt the Utah-based faith to be more open about its finances.

Ryan McKnight, a former Latter-day Saint in Las Vegas, once had a lofty vision that, by exposing the inner workings of his onetime faith, he would prod it to be more transparent — a dream that now is fading due to a pandemic and a lawsuit.

A little more than five years ago, McKnight imagined a kind of Mormon “WikiLeaks,” an online website where anonymous tipsters — including those who work for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints — could post internal papers by and about the Utah-based faith’s programs, policies and policymakers.

And given that his first effort — the publication in 2016 of 15 videos showing church apostles privately discussing issues including LGBTQ rights, politics and piracy — hit Latter-day Saint circles like…

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• Guest Bios
• Show Transcript

Should a woman endure abuse by an unbelieving spouse like a missionary endures persecution? 

Stunningly, this is the advice offered by Dr. John Street, chair of the graduate program of biblical counseling at John MacArthur’s school — The Master’s University and Seminary (TMUS) — and an elder at Grace Community Church (GCC). 

Street also suggests that wife’s failure to “fulfill” her husband can cause the husband to sexually abuse his children! And he says victims should report their abuse to church leaders first, and to police as a last resort.

This advice from the top counseling teacher at The Master’s is appalling. Yet it’s consistent with what our recent exposés have revealed about MacArthur and his institutions. 

In this podcast, Julie plays numerous clips by Street, showing his stunning views on abuse and abuse victims. 

And joining Julie to discuss Street’s views is Dr. Philip Monroe,…

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• John Bucklin’s jury trial begins for the sexual abuse of three young boys.
• Documents show he met the boys through his Claremore church.
• Claremore police arrested Bucklin in 2018.

A jury trial started this week for a Collinsville man arrested in 2018 for the sexual abuse of three children he was mentoring through his Claremore church.

The Tulsa County Sheriff’s Office (TCSO) says they began investigating John Bucklin only to learn of similar crimes in Rogers County as well. Claremore police arrested Bucklin in 2018.

Court documents detail how Bucklin met a 12, 10 and 8-year-old boy through Cedar Point Church in Claremore in 2016. They say how he would take them hiking, to the mall and museums and swimming at the Claremore Rec Center. He would also have the boys spend the night at his home the night before church breakfasts.

The victims told investigators John said things like “this is…

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Rev. Hans Zollner delivered this year’s annual Keeley Vatican Lecture Tuesday night at the Eck Visitor Center. The annual lecture seeks to deepen “Notre Dame’s connection to the Holy See by bringing distinguished representatives from the Vatican to Notre Dame to explore questions involving Notre Dame’s Catholic mission.”

The topic of his lecture was the sexual abuse of minors in the Catholic Church. Zollner is a German Jesuit Priest, a theologian and a licensed psychotherapist who focuses on the prevention and healing of childhood sexual abuse. He’s also a professor at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome.

Zollner argued that the problem of sexual abuse is prevalent in the Church, plaguing countries all around the globe. 

“It is so very uncomfortable, but true, because we don’t realize how much of the trauma of victims of abuse is present in our minds,” Zollner said.  

Many people within and outside of the Church are…

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