ABUSE TRACKER

The Diocese of Knoxville says that documents emerging during a cover-up lawsuit could prejudice a jury against Bishop Rick Stika.

The Diocese of Knoxville asked a judge last week to shield documents from the public record, as the diocese fights back against a lawsuit which claims that Bishop Rick Stika covered up an allegation of sexual assault against a seminarian, while defaming the seminarian’s alleged victim.

In a motion filed Jan. 31, the diocese asked the court to seal from public access any subpoenaed documents that pertain to the diocesan review board, to priest meetings of the diocese, and to a Vatican-ordered Vos estis lux mundi investigation in the Tennessee diocese.

Those documents would include diocesan documents, and those which might be subpoenaed from other sources, including the Knoxville clerics who made the Vos estis complaints

The diocese argued that a protective order is needed for a fair outcome to the lawsuit, because of…

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CIUDAD DEL VATICANO (AP) — The Associated Press tuvo una larga entrevista con el papa Francisco el martes 24 de enero. A continuación la transcripción:

Francisco: Disponga usted, disponga usted. Usted es la que sabe el tiempo del programa, ¿no?

AP: Santo Padre, le entregamos más tarde unos regalos. Pero antes de comenzar, quería entregarle esta imagen de uno de nuestros fotógrafos en Ucrania, puesto que resume muy bien lo que hacemos nosotros, Associated Press. Esa foto que le entrega la colega fue tomada en la ciudad de Mariúpol en las primeras semanas de la guerra. Nuestros compañeros permanecieron allí cuando el resto de la prensa se marchó. Y las imágenes del bombardeo de ese hospital de maternidad que dieron la vuelta al mundo mostraban la brutalidad de lo que ocurrió. Y cómo muchos civiles inocentes estaban siendo asesinados.

Tras el ataque, nuestro equipo tomó muchos riesgos para localizar a…

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A Jonesville man who fled to the Philippines to avoid prosecution on dozens of child sex abuse charges last summer is back in custody in Michigan after being extradited back to the United States. 

Tye Braxton Stiger, 36, made his initial appearance in the United States District Court for the Western District of Michigan in Grand Rapids on Tuesday, Feb. 14, after a federal grand jury indicted him on charges of two counts of sexual exploitation of a child, two counts of attempted sexual exploitation of a minor and one count of possession of child pornography. 

“These sexual exploitation and child pornography allegations are extremely disturbing and serious,” said U.S. Attorney Mark Totten. “My office is committed to protecting our youngest and most vulnerable citizens – our children.”

The Hillsdale County Prosecutor’s Office referred the matters to the U.S. Attorney’s Office last summer after issuing a 34-count warrant for his…

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An Indiana Baptist pastor, Benkert played a key role in setting up an investigation into how SBC leaders have responded to the issue of abuse. He also reported a church that had platformed former SBC President Johnny Hunt, who has been credibly accused of sexual assault.

Todd Benkert, a Southern Baptist pastor who helped force reforms in the nation’s largest Protestant denomination’s sexual abuse policies, has stepped down from a task force he was appointed to last year to implement those reforms.

Benkert’s role on the committee became controversial this week due to a public dispute involving a Florida megachurch that restored SBC President Johnny Hunt to active ministry after he had been credibly accused of sexual assault.

Hunt was one of a number of SBC leaders named in a 2022 report from the investigative firm Guidepost Solutions hired by the denomination in 2021 to resolve long-running conflicts over sexual abuse. The report…

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When popes talk about sex, it tends to make headlines.

This was certainly true when Pope Francis told the Associated Press last month, “Being homosexual isn’t a crime.” He said the Catholic Church opposes criminalizing homosexuality and that, “We are all children of God, and God loves us as we are.” The pope then noted that homosexual activity is “not a crime. Yes, but it’s a sin.”

The pope immediately responded to questions from Outreach.faith, a website serving LGBTQ Catholics. Francis explained: “I was simply referring to Catholic moral teaching, which says that every sexual act outside of marriage is a sin. … This is to speak of ‘the matter’ of sin, but we know well that Catholic morality not only takes into consideration the matter, but also evaluates freedom and intention; and this, for every kind of sin.”

The timing was striking since the AP interview ran on Jan….

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Pennsylvania’s top House Republican on Wednesday warned of chaos when legislators reconvene next week, six weeks after representatives elected a Democrat as House speaker and left Harrisburg without conducting any other business.

Republican Minority Leader Bryan Cutler of Lancaster County said the chamber’s 102-101 Democratic majority may not be able to solve the gridlock that has so far prevented lawmakers from so much as adopting operating rules for the 2023-24 session. Cutler himself served as House speaker before deciding in November not to seek the leadership post again.

Cutler spoke to reporters in the Rotunda Wednesday, down the corridor from a lengthy, closed-door meeting about the rules being held among Democratic House members. By sweeping three special elections last week, Democrats cemented a tiny majority, their first in 12 years. Republicans had kept a tight grip on the chamber for more than a decade, with rules that largely prevented Democrats from…

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House Minority Leader Angela Romero confirmed to FOX 13 News on Friday she’s been told her bill and others mandating clergy report abuse disclosures to law enforcement will not be advancing in the legislature. There were four bills introduced in the legislature on the topic following reports of sexual abuse within The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints not being handed to law enforcement.

The Catholic Diocese of Salt Lake City has been vigorously opposed to it, arguing it breaks the seal of confession. Rep. Romero, D-Salt Lake City, said she had been told the LDS Church was neutral on her bill. But she planned to bring the bill back again and again.

“There’s strong concerns from the Catholic church in particular, and I’ll still continue to move forward with these bills because I really fell like it’s important we hold people accountable if they’re harming children,” she told…

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Across Australia child sexual abuse survivors have to contend with church memorials to their abusers and those who protected them

For the past 10 years, on the grounds of one of Canberra’s most prominent Catholic schools, a small plaque has paid tribute to the service of a man named Brother Jerome Hickman. Under the school sigil of Marist College Canberra, the plaque commemorates the work of the late Hickman, honouring him along what is known as “the Brothers Way”, a walk of appreciation for past clergy and staff.

The plaque, quietly removed in recent weeks, gave no hint of his darker past.

Hickman was the subject of multiple complaints of child sexual abuse and violence spanning his career in the Marist order.

The church has long held knowledge of complaints about him and has offered payouts and apologies to survivors in out-of-court settlements, according to Kelso Lawyers, a firm specialising…

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Father Joseph ‘Jack’ Baker was church pastor in Wayne and Oakland counties

Sentencing has again been delayed for a Catholic priest convicted last October of raping a child in 2004.

The sentencing hearing for Joseph “Father Jack” Baker, 61, has been moved from Feb. 17 to March 1 in Wayne County’s 3rd Circuit Court in Detroit. Sentencing will be handed down by Judge Bridget Hathaway.

Baker is held in the Wayne County Jail, denied bond. His sentencing hearing has been rescheduled multiple times since his trial concluded Oct. 13, 2022 with a guilty verdict for first-degree criminal conduct – sexual penetration with a person less than 13 years old.

The assault happened while Baker was pastor of St. Mary Catholic School in Wayne. His victim was a second-grade student there who came forward a few years ago, saying Baker raped him in the church sacristy.

Baker was pastor of St….

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A CATHOLIC Church Commission has concluded after only six months of investigating child sexual abuse by priests in Portugal that only 4,815 victims were identified, but said it was the tip of a great iceberg of abuse that is yet to be revealed. The report of the commission was published on Feb. 13, 2023. Critics and supporters of clerical child abuse victims said there were many thousands more victims, not given the opportunity to come forward. The victims were mostly boys 10 to 14 years old.

Several bishops and priests in Portugal who have been accused of child abuse are still in their church duties and positions, and allegedly flout the Vatican law supported by Pope Francis, whereby the civil authorities should investigate and prosecute such allegations. A shocking report in France in January 2022 found approximately 3,000 Catholic priests and religious authorities had sexually abused over 200,000 children since…

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Insisting the case against Rock Church International Pastor John Blanchard remains strong enough to convict him of prostitution charges, Chesterfield County Police Chief, Col. Jeffrey S. Katz of Virginia, publicly disagreed with the decision of Commonwealth Attorney Stacey Davenport to drop the charges against the pastor, arguing that the case should have gone to trial.

Blanchard was among 17 men accused of solicitation of prostitution after an online sting operation by police on Oct. 29, 2021. The married father of two was charged with solicitation of prostitution of a minor and use of a vehicle to promote prostitution which are both felonies. He was arrested at a hotel where he was supposed to meet a detective posing as a 17-year-old girl.

After almost a year of legal maneuvering, the charges against Blanchard were withdrawn or nolle prossed ahead of a criminal trial in…

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A special prosecutor has been appointed in the case against John Blanchard, pastor of Rock Church International in Virginia Beach, who previously saw charges against him dismissed by prosecutors a year after his 2021 arrest during an undercover child sex crimes sting.

This move comes after the Chesterfield County Commonwealth’s Attorney’s Office in Virginia decided to unseal documents in the case after emails emerged shedding new light on the reason for dropping the charges in 2022 and revealed previously unknown evidence, according to media reports.

William Blaine Jr. is the special prosecutor to review the case, NBC’s Richmond affiliate WWBT reported. 

Republican state Delegate Tim Anderson, who represents the Virginia Beach area where Rock Church Internation is located, obtained emails through a Freedom of Information Act request with Chesterfield Police that revealed why Blanchard’s case was treated differently from others arrested for soliciting prostitution from a minor, according…

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An Indiana pastor who reported two congregations to the Southern Baptist Convention’s Credentials Committee for platforming accused sexual abuser Johnny Hunt has resigned from the SBC’s Abuse Reform Implementation Task Force.

Todd Benkert’s sudden resignation from the task force came just two days after one of the reported congregations, Hiland Park Baptist Church in Panama City Beach, Fla., declared it would not be accountable to the Credentials Committee and cast doubt on the report of an independent investigation that found credible evidence Hunt abused a pastor’s wife shortly after ending his term as SBC president.

Despite Hunt’s fall from grace in the SBC and his resignation as executive vice president of the SBC’s North American Mission Board, there remains a group of Hunt allies and friends in the SBC who have denied the documented allegations against him or downplayed their significance.

Benkert is not among those. Instead, he has been a fierce…

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In August 2022, AP News released a story detailing how a bishop in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints knew about child sexual abuse and didn’t report it to authorities. The child abuse continued for seven years. That story spawned reactions of “dismay, disgust and anger.” It also prompted discussion of the role of clergy and if they should be mandatory reporters of child abuse.

This legislative session, three bills have been introduced on the topic of clergy mandatory reporting. While all these bills have good intentions, only one — H.B. 115 — does enough to combat child abuse.

Child Sex Abuse and the LDS Church

In Utah, mandatory reporting laws make everyone responsible for reporting child abuse, with just a few exceptions. Those exceptions exists for clergy who learn about child abuse or neglect from a perpetrator while acting in a ministerial role. The goal of this exception in Utah, and…

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J.J. Wright, director of the University of Notre Dame Folk Choir, has already undertaken several ambitious large-scale music projects.

Most of them, such as 2019’s “Vespers for the Immaculate Conception,” recorded with the Fifth House Ensemble and St. Patrick’s Cathedral Choir, combined sacred choral music and improvised jazz. His new work for the Notre Dame Folk Choir is “The Passion,” a 90-minute description of the events leading to the death of Jesus Christ.

There is no jazz this time around, but the spirit of improvisation permeates the work. For some passages, the musicians play a loose set of chord changes, deciding on the details themselves. The singers get to do the same.

“Even some of the choir parts have aleatoric sections,” Wright says, referring to what’s also known as “chance music,” where the composer gives the performer the freedom to…

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For decades, leaders of the nation’s largest Protestant denomination mistreated survivors of sexual abuse, labeling them as troublemakers and enemies of their church while claiming there was little the leaders could do to address abuse in local congregations, often in the name of protecting their vast missionary operations.

Then, in the summer of 2021, Southern Baptists had had enough.

Angered over a groundbreaking newspaper investigation of abuse in the Southern Baptist Convention and over concerns that SBC leaders continued to mistreat survivors despite promising to do better, Southern Baptists overruled their leaders, called for an in-depth investigation into their actions and, after receiving the report of that investigation in 2022, passed a series of reforms aimed to help prevent abuse and to care for survivors.

Among those reforms: building a “Ministry Check” database to track abusive pastors, providing…

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Survivors and family members of victims of sexual abuse at Kanakuk camps testified at a hearing before the Missouri House Judiciary Committee regarding a bill proposed by local state Rep. Brian Seitz to change laws to help survivors of childhood sexual assault.

The bill, H.B. 367, creates a cause of action for vulnerable victims to allow filing civil actions at any time before the victim is 55-years-old, and for situations which had been dismissed because of statute of limitation issues before the passage of the bill to be revived.

“This legislation is most serious,” Rep. Seitz said in his testimony. “Through no fault of their own, children and/or the medically disabled who have been abused in the past are being abused again by not being able to hold their perpetrators to account in civil actions.”

Seitz referred to the victims of Kanakuk who would be testifying.

“I bring this bill…

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An independent commission’s report on the sexual abuse of children in the Catholic Church in Portugal “points to the urgent need to combat whatever fosters silence from those who have been impacted by abuse,” said Cardinal Seán P. O’Malley of Boston.

Silence “impedes effective prevention and the administration of justice,” said the cardinal, who is president of the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors.

In a statement released at the Vatican Feb. 17, Cardinal O’Malley thanked the commission members and the Portuguese bishops who launched the study, but mostly the victims and survivors who came forward, many telling their stories for the first time.

“Our concern should first and foremost be with the victims, whose right to justice and to adequate care needs to be a common priority,” the cardinal said.

The commission’s report, released Feb. 13, examined the period of 1950 to 2022; all dioceses and religious orders…

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The Buffalo Diocese has added a retired priest to its list of clergy with “substantiated claims” of sexual abuse of a minor.

Monsignor Ronald Sciera was put on administrative leave following a 2021 Child Victims Act lawsuit claiming he molested a 13-year-old boy nearly 50 years ago. Sciera in a 2021 interview with The News denied sexually abusing anyone and said the claim was false.

In a statement Friday, the diocese said Bishop Michael W. Fisher determined that accusations against Sciera, 88, had been substantiated.

The bishop made his decision after an investigation and recommendations by a review board that consists mostly of lay Catholic professionals, including a retired judge, a licensed clinical social worker and a retired banking executive. 

Fisher previously suspended Sciera, who lives in Florida, from performing any public ministry as a priest, a restriction that the monsignor’s lawyer tried to have reversed with an…

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Religion and government must coexist within a society of laws and norms. And when they intersect, society should determine which entity is serving the greater good.

The state Legislature is in the midst of a debate over House Bill 1098, which would make clergy members mandatory reporters of child abuse and sexual assault. The bill places the humanity of children over any religious practice that would allow a clergy member to withhold knowledge of child abuse — current or in the past. 

Lobbyists for the Catholic Church support the Senate version of the bill that would exempt clergy from reporting any knowledge of abuse gained during the sacrament of confession. That loophole would prevent the enforcement of the bill and place innocent lives in peril. Sponsored by Rep. Amy Walen, the House version would not include the loophole and would require reporting of alleged abuse, including of that learned through…

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The lawsuit alleges the men were sexually assaulted by a priest while under the care of the diocese and the Sisters of Charity of the Incarnate Word at the Dunne Memorial Home for Boys in the 1960s.

Two Tarrant County men are suing the Catholic Diocese of Dallas and the Houston-based Sisters of Charity of theIncarnate Word over sexual abuse they say they suffered as children in the 1960s at an Oak Cliff orphanage.

The lawsuit, filed Monday in Dallas County, alleges the institutions failed to protect children in their care and covered up the abuse. It seeks more than $1 million in damages.

The Dallas diocese recently learned of the lawsuit and is reviewing it, spokeswoman Katy Kiser said.

“The Diocese takes all claims of abuse very seriously, and we continue to offer our prayers to all victims of abuse,” she said in a written statement.

The Sisters of…

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Several bishops and priests accused of child abuse are still doing duties in Church positions

A Catholic Church Commission has concluded after only six months of investigating child sexual abuse by priests in Portugal that only 4,815 victims were identified but said that it was the tip of a great iceberg of abuse that has yet to be revealed.

The commission report was published on Feb. 13. Critics and supporters of clerical child abuse victims said that there were many thousands more victims not given the opportunity to come forward. The victims were mostly boys 10 to 14 years old.

Several bishops and priests accused of child abuse are still doing duties in Church positions and allegedly flout the Vatican law supported by Pope Francis whereby civil authorities should investigate and prosecute such allegations.

A shocking report in France in January 2022 found approximately 3,000 Catholic priests and religious authorities…

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A catholic school teacher in Escanaba has been fired after an investigation into boundary violations with a student.

The Diocese of Marquette said Wednesday that the person whose employment was terminated is not a priest. He was an employee of the school. The school has not identified the teacher.

The Diocese says no criminal charges have been filed by authorities, however, the teacher’s employment at Holy Name Catholic School in Escanaba was terminated after violations of diocesan safe environment policies were discovered. He was originally suspended due to allegations of boundary violations.

Michigan Child Protective Services and Escanaba Public Safety were notified and are investigating. The school is fully cooperating with the investigation.

Along with background checks and ongoing monthly training, employees and volunteers are required to follow safe environment policies and procedures designed to make schools and church properties safe for children and young people.

On Sunday night, Jan….

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The 19 elderly women allege as troubled teens they were subjected to compulsory labor by Sisters of the Good Shepherd

Nineteen elderly women in the Netherlands on Friday accused an order of Catholic nuns of years of forced labour while locked up in convents, saying they were “abused on industrial scale”.

The case before the Haarlem District Court relates to some 15,000 teenage Dutch girls who were the wards of the Sisters of the Good Shepherd at convents across the country from 1951 to 1979.

The women, now aged between 62 and 91, said as troubled teens they were taken in by the order and put to work, often hours on end, six days a week sewing material sold for profit, grafting in laundries or ironing.

“The Good Shepherd is responsible for the violation of one of the most fundamental human rights known to us: the prohibition of forced labour or…

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The call came into Cambridge Police headquarters on Independence Day weekend in 2019. A three-time Olympian, the caller said, had filed a complaint with the US Olympic and Paralympic Committee, alleging sexual abuse by her coach, including assaults in Cambridge, when she was a girl.

The officer on duty, Sergeant Darlene Beckford Pearson, took the call from a committee official and asked for the Olympian’s name.

Lynn Jennings, she was told.

Pearson trembled. She and Jennings, one of the greatest middle-distance runners in American history, had been fast friends in the 1970s as teen stars of Greater Boston’s renowned Liberty Athletic Club. In all the years since, Pearson had guarded her own haunting secret: She too had been sexually molested as a youth by her coach.

Her hand quivering, Pearson then logged the name of Jennings’s alleged abuser: John M. Babington. A former US Olympic and  View Cache

The thorny question of what to do with the works of celebrated Church artists, writers and founders who have since been found guilty of sexually abusing vulnerable people

A book came out in 2020 (Prêtres et artistes du diocèse de Lyon: XXe-XXIe siècles) painted a a glowing portrait of the French Catholic priest and artist Louis Ribes (1920-1994), who was nicknamed “the Picasso of churches”. But less than two years later three dioceses – Lyon, Saint-Étienne and Grenoble – Lyon issued a joint press release denouncing the late priest for his sexual assault of some fifty children in the 1970s and 80s after two the victims went public.

Ribes’ trademark signature, “RIB”, now taints all his works – stained glass windows, paintings, stations of the cross… The priest from Lyon had worked in dozens of churches.

And now, at the request of a group of victims, the archdiocese of Lyon…

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The handling of the Marko Rupnik case shows the difficulty Rome has in analyzing the phenomenon of having a “hold” over someone when it concerns an adult

Numerous messages were posted on Facebook at the end of December 2022, a few days after several Italian websites and newspapers revealed what quickly became the Rupnik affair, named after the Slovenian Jesuit mosaicist accused by several nuns of touching and rape, against a background of a psycho-spiritual hold.

After having sexually assaulted them, the priest then heard their confessions. These are the events for which the Jesuits must close an internal investigation this Friday, February 17.

On social medias, the debate surrounding these accusations rages among Italian journalists.

One explains: “In fact, if there had been no consent, there would have been no confession and absolution of the access consenting, since they were adults. The person speaking is not just anyone:…

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Content warning: sexual abuse 

The Justice for Survivors Act, or AB 452, seeks to permanently abolish the statute of limitations in California to open the doors to justice for childhood survivors of sexual abuse.

AB 452 was introduced by state Senator Nancy Skinner, D-Berkeley, and state Assemblymember Dawn Addis, D-Morro Bay. The bill is a byproduct of AB 218, which suspended the statute of limitations on childhood sexual abuse cases for three years while it was in effect, according to Founding President of Dordulian Law Group Samuel Dordulian. When AB 218 expired Dec. 31, the statute of limitations reverted to the age of 40.

Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, or SNAP, support coordinator Melanie Sakoda said the issue with the temporary opportunity presented by AB 218 is that people are not always ready to come forward or they simply miss the deadline.

“It takes an extremely long time…

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St. Louis University chess coach and grandmaster Alejandro Ramirez is under investigation by U.S. Chess officials for sexual assault and harassment of at least one person: a U.S. women’s chess champion who went public with the allegations on Wednesday.

Jennifer Shahade, a two-time women’s champion and a program director for U.S. Chess, said in a Twitter post she was sexually assaulted by Ramirez on two occasions a decade ago, and in recent years has heard from multiple women with similar accusations.

“When it was just me I didn’t feel like I had an obligation to report it,” Shahade said in an interview Thursday night. “When it turned out that it affects younger people … I felt ethically compelled to bring my experiences to light to help bring credibility to their stories.”

The allegations threaten to be the second national chess scandal centered in St. Louis in less than six months,…

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An Aroostook County man has filed the latest civil complaint against the Roman Catholic Diocese of Portland. The lawsuit comes on the heels of a judge’s order this week upholding a law that allows Mainers to sue for past childhood sexual abuse, regardless of when it occurred.

The man, who is now in his 40s and filed the lawsuit under the name “John SB Doe,” says he was sexually abused by the Rev. Angelo LeVasseur on a summer trip with the priest to Quebec in the early 1990s.

His attorneys, Jessica Arbour and Michael Bigos, believe this is the first time LeVasseur has been publicly accused of sexually abusing a child.

LeVasseur died in 2009 at the age of 56.

More than a dozen other people in Maine have filed complaints against the diocese, thanks to a 2021 law that made it…

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If you or someone you know needs resources or support related to sexual violence, contact the Maine Coalition Against Sexual Assault’s 24/7 hotline at 800-871-7741.

A 45-year-old Aroostook County man is the latest Mainer to sue the Roman Catholic Diocese of Portland and its bishop for alleged sexual abuse by a priest decades ago.

The plaintiff, identified in the complaint as John SB Doe, claims that the Rev. Angelo LeVasseur, who died of cancer in 2009 at age 56, sexually abused him once in July 1991 or 1992 on a trip to Quebec City, where the priest had been invited to celebrate the Feast Day of Saint Anne at the Basilica of Sainte Anne de Beaupre. Doe was 14 or 15 at the time the abuse allegedly occurred.

At the time, LeVasseur was assigned to St. Luce Catholic Church in Frenchville and ran the diocese’s Christian Life Center there.

This is believed to be the…

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There’s another lawsuit against Maine’s Catholic Diocese accusing a priest of sexual abuse decades ago.

The complaint says Rev. Angelo Levasseur, who was a priest in Frenchville, took a boy in his early teens to a religious event in Quebec in the early 1990s.

Attorneys say Levasseur and the boy shared a hotel room, where he gave the teen alcohol and encouraged him to take off his clothes.

The alleged victim says Levasseur forced him into sexual contact, which left the boy shocked and confused.

CBS13 reached out to the diocese for comment, but we have not heard back.

Attorneys say Levasseur was assigned all over Maine during his time with the diocese, from southern, central and northern parts of the state.

He died in 2009.

This is the 14th lawsuit filed against the diocese recently after Maine overturned the statute of limitations on claims of sexual abuse, a law…

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The reorganization plan for the Harrisburg Catholic Diocese has been approved following a settlement hearing on Wednesday in federal bankruptcy court.

The settlement is the culmination of years of litigation, following the 2018 Pennsylvania Grand Jury Report into child sex abuse in the Catholic Church across Pennsylvania. That report found hundreds of children had been abused at the hands of priests for decades, while being covered up by the church.

The plan set aside $18.25 million for 59 survivors who filed lawsuits against the diocese.

An attorney for the claimants tells CBS 21 that money will be placed into a trust, and a third party attorney will figure out how that money is allocated to the survivors. The attorney said it would be based on the survivors’ stories.

The Harrisburg Diocese filed for bankruptcy in February of 2020. In the original filing, church leaders only claimed between $1 and $10…

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(For Immediate Release February 15, 2023) 

The Roman Catholic Diocese of Harrisburg received court approval of a bankruptcy plan that establishes an $18.25 million trust to pay clergy abuse victims and puts in place stipulated child protection protocols. Nearly three years after they first filed for bankruptcy, church officials from the Diocese of Harrisburg, PA have released details on their plan to compensate survivors. Unsurprisingly, this plan is clearly more about protecting assets and secrets than it is providing restorative justice to adults who were traumatized as children by church employees.

The simple fact is that monetary reparations for a lifetime of bearing the pain of abuse is pittance in the grand scheme of things, especially given the vast wealth of the church. There is no way to make up for the lifelong suffering brought on by sexual assault, and the sham that is Harrisburg church…

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NEW YORK – With 26 commitments across three separate pastoral letters, the Canadian bishops have, albeit only in broad strokes, outlined how they plan to honor a pledge to embark “into a new era of reconciliation” with the nation’s indigenous peoples.

The pastoral letters, released by the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops on Feb. 8, were sent to the First Nations, the Inuit of Canada, and Métis Indigenous Peoples. The commitments made vary slightly from letter to letter, but largely focus on deepening dialogue, working with community leaders to address social challenges, education, engaging indigenous youth and supporting advocacy efforts.

Also expressed in the letters was a pledge to fulfill a 2021 financial commitment to donate $30 million over a five year period to “support healing and reconciliation initiatives for residential school survivors, their families, and their communities.”

To date, about $9.35 million has been raised through the Indigenous Reconciliation…

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We devote considerable time and energy to exposing child-molesting clerics in this space. However, there’s a kind of criminal who arguably does even more harm than a sexual predator. A murderer. This week, a Buffalo newspaper reported that Fr. John D. Lewandowski was sent to a church mansion (where several abusive priests lived), where homicide detectives questioned and fingerprinted him as a suspect in the murder of a fellow priest. Fr. Lewandowski now faces at least four civil child sex abuse lawsuits. That got us thinking about other murders that are associated with predator priests. There are a surprising number of such cases.

1. In 2022, Fr. Ryan Erickson was listed on a Michigan Diocese’s ‘credibly accused’ list. A special hearing in 2005 found there was ‘probable cause’ to rule he likely murdered Dan O’Connell and James Ellison. (Fr. Erickson admitted the killings to a…

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70 bishops were asked to collaborate, but only 29 have responded

OVIEDO, Spain – Spain’s attorney general said on Thursday that the country’s bishops are withholding information related to an ongoing investigation into sexual abuse in the Catholic Church.

Alvaro Garcia Ortiz said that “in light of the very little information received,” the Spanish justice system will send letters to the Catholic dioceses “in the coming days, ”imploring them to send data on abuses that the prosecutors are still missing.

In November, 70 dioceses, or religious districts under the control of a bishop, were asked to inform state prosecutors about any sexual abuses that they were aware of.

Garcaa Ortiz said only 29 have replied and that most of the replies contained minimal information.

Spain’s requests in November came after the Spanish Episcopal Conference refused to send the relevant information on sexual abuse cases, arguing…

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Jean Vanier, the renowned and beloved author, speaker and founder of L’Arche, an international network of residential communities supporting adults with intellectual disabilities, also was a sexual predator of women, according to a report released Jan. 30.

The report was commissioned by L’Arche International in 2020 after several women came forward with accusations of abuse by Vanier and Thomas Philippe, a Catholic priest who was Vanier’s spiritual mentor and the source of the twisted “mystico-sexual” beliefs and practices both men purveyed. His influence on Vanier and his disciples was, in fact, the impetus for the entire L’Arche project.

Titled “Control and Abuse Investigation on Thomas Philippe, Jean Vanier and L’Arche (1950-2019),” the report makes clear that the significant work of L’Arche was not impacted by the abuse that is detailed. The abuse was contained among a small group of people at L’Arche’s founding community in Trosly-Breuil, France, and did not involve…

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A federal bankruptcy court approved a reorganization plan for the Diocese of Harrisburg, Pa., Feb. 15. The settlement follows litigation from abuse survivors in the wake of the 2018 Pennsylvania grand jury report into child sex abuse in the Catholic Church in Pennsylvania.

Bishop Ronald W. Gainer of Harrisburg said in a Feb. 15 statement that he made “the difficult decision” to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protections three years ago “as a means of stabilizing the diocese’s financial situation, while at the same time allowing us to make restitution to survivors of clergy sexual abuse and continue our ministries.”

The bishop’s statement noted the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania confirmed Feb. 15 the “Joint Plan of Reorganization for the Roman Catholic Diocese of Harrisburg,” concluding the three-year process begun Feb. 19, 2020.

Bishop Gainer said the journey was “a difficult, emotional process for many, most…

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STORY HIGHLIGHTS

Child sexual abuse at the hands of the Catholic clergy is plaguing several countries for decades now. The tragic tales sometimes take an entire lifetime to come to the surface. The ugly face of it, the laws behind and the system loopholes, which reek itself in injustice. Know everything about the paedophilia scandal. 

An investigation by an independent commission recently has unearthed the dirty face of child abuse at the hands of Catholic clergy in Portugal. The horrifying testimonies of the survivors become the ground of the commission’s inquiry. The commission with the help of a large network of victims was able to make a deeper cut into finding out the ongoing paedophilia in the staunchly Catholic country. 

The Portuguese inquiry which was commissioned by the church revealed that there are about 5,000 children who have become victims of child abuse since 1950. The report comes after the testimony…

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Commission’s report points to more than 100 abusers still working as priests

As the nation digests the full horror paraded yesterday of 72 years of sexual deviance within the Portuguese Catholic Church, the one positive emerging has been the belief that the institution now will be ‘better’.

The Church has not only apologised profusely to all victims, it has pledged to taking concrete and concerted steps to ensure abuse on the scale laid out by the independent commission of inquiry cannot be able to happen again.

As one leader writer put it, the Church has to be praised for supporting this ‘moral apocalypse’. In spite of the shame and disgust that revelations have heaped on the institution, it was the Church that requested this independent inquiry, and it was the Church that throughout supported its various requests.

But there are still huge questions: not least how to deal with the 100-plus priests in communities whose names appear…

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A CO ARMAGH priest accused of voyeurism by spying on a woman in a changing room was found not guilty of the charge on Wednesday.

Having heard evidence from the complainant, District Judge Bernie Kelly said she had “not been satisfied to the criminal standard” so she was dismissing the single count against Fr Aidan McCann, who was ordained as a priest in 2015.

Fr McCann, (35) with an address at the parochial house on Maddens Row in Keady, had always denied the single charge of voyeurism, alleging that on 28 March last year “for the purpose of sexual gratification, he observed a female doing a private act knowing that the other person did not consent to being observed for your sexual gratification.”

She gave evidence that she had been in a changing cubicle in Rushmere Shopping Centre when she saw her curtain twitch a number of times, leading her…

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A Church of England priest, Vicar David Renshaw, has been found guilty of eight counts of extreme pornography at Lewes Crown Court.

The 63-year-old priest who had more than 22,000 files of indecent images and videos on his hard drive, including animal pornography, has told how he wanted to “sacrifice babies to Satan” and fantasised about drugging boys with crystal meth.

His activities were traced by police, who found rotten dead animals, used needles, and drug pipes when they raided his parish home.

A spokesman for the Diocese of Chichester said Renshaw was suspended immediately after police searched his address and he has not been in active ministry since.

The Bishop of Chichester, Dr. Martin Warner, said the diocese cooperated closely with Sussex Police throughout this investigation.

Investigating officer, Detective Sergeant David Rose, said, “Throughout this investigation, Renshaw has sought to blame anyone but himself.

“He has failed to accept…

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The Catholic Church in Portugal is the latest in Europe to investigate historic cases of sex abuse. Here’s what others on the Old Continent have done.

After more than a year of interviews and investigations, Portugal’s independent commission on Church-related sexual violence against minors this week published the conclusions of its investigations. The report, which was released on Monday, looks at cases of abuse dating back to 1950.

Several other countries in Europe have already conducted similar investigations. But there are some who are still reluctant to do so. Here’s a quick look at the situation.

Portugal

In Portugal, the independent commission for the prevention of sexual abuse of minors and vulnerable adults was set up by the Catholic bishops’ conference in November 2021.

Composed of qualified lay people and “some non-Catholics”, the commission collected more than 500 validated testimonies, although the revelations involve a total number of victims estimated…

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Today, the Roman Catholic Diocese of Harrisburg (RCDH) announced that its Chapter 11 Plan of Reorganization has been approved by the United States Bankruptcy Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania. With this approval, the RCDH has emerged from bankruptcy, nearly three years from when this process started. The Most Reverend Ronald W. Gainer, Bishop of Harrisburg, offered the following statement on the completion of this process:

“Three years ago, I announced that the Roman Catholic Diocese of Harrisburg was filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protections. That difficult decision was made as a means of stabilizing the Diocese’s financial situation, while at the same time allowing us to make restitution to survivors of clergy sexual abuse and continue our ministries.

“This morning, myself and our legal counsel attended a hearing at the United States Bankruptcy Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania, presided over by the Honorable Henry W. Van…

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Two former Saint Louis University faculty members—one who taught at the university as recently as July 2021—were added to the list of Jesuits and former Jesuits who have been credibly accused of sexual abuse of minors or vulnerable adults. The Jesuits of the U.S. Central and Southern Province added the late Daniel Campbell and David Meconi to the list on Wednesday, Feb. 8.

Campbell was a faculty member at SLU in the 1950s, during the time of the alleged abuse. David Meconi, whose estimated time of abuse was between 2015-2016, was a former Jesuit priest, theology professor and founding director of the Catholic Studies Center. He worked at SLU up until July 2021 when the university said he was placed on leave for matters unrelated to the allegation. According to the province list, there are a total of six Jesuit priests with assignments at SLU who have credible allegations of…

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The independent commission said that over 100 priests suspected of abuse are still active in the Church.

An independent commission has published a report on child sexual abuse in the Portuguese Church, detailing cases from the 1950s up to last year.

Speaking as the report was issued on Monday, the president of the commission, Pedro Stecht, said that it had validated 512 of 564 accounts of abuse presented to it between January and October last year, which indicated a “much more extensive” number of victims.

From this data, the commission had calculated a figure of 4,815 victims at the “very minimum”, he said.

“It is not possible to quantify the total number of victims.”

The president of the Portuguese bishops’ conference, Bishop Josè Ornelas of Leira-Fátima, promised that the Church would act on the findings.

“We have heard things we cannot ignore. It is a dramatic situation we are living,” he…

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A federal bankruptcy court on Wednesday approved a plan calling for the Roman Catholic Diocese of Harrisburg to establish an $18 million trust to pay settlements with victims of clergy sex abuse.

The so-called reorganization plan approved by the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania also establishes stipulated child protection protocols.

The court decision comes nearly three years after the diocese filed for bankruptcy amid mounting claims from victims of clergy sex abuse.

Officials from SNAP – which stands for Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests – decried the plans to compensate survivors focused more on protecting the church’s assets and information than providing restorative justice to adults who were traumatized as children by clergy or church employees.

“The simple fact is that monetary reparations for a lifetime of bearing the pain of abuse is pittance in the grand…

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A federal judge gave final approval Wednesday to a bankruptcy settlement that will require the Roman Catholic Diocese of Harrisburg and its insurers to provide $18.25 million in restitution to survivors of child sexual abuse in the church. 

Negotiations over the settlement spanned almost three years, with the diocese and a committee representing sexual abuse survivors reaching an agreement in November. 

Patrick Duggan, an abuse survivor who served on this committee, called Wednesday’s legal resolution “bittersweet” — noting that it secured money for damages and numerous commitments from the diocese but also leaves some survivors without the chance to confront church representatives in court.

“You don’t get the opportunity to ask two questions: Why did they pick me?” Duggan said. “And why did you cover it up?”

‘Addressing the horrors of clergy abuse’

Bishop Ronald Gainer, head of the Harrisburg diocese, said the church “recognizes and is fully committed to…

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Denver, Colo., — A Maine judge has upheld a state law that retroactively eliminates the statute of limitations on child sexual abuse lawsuits, though he acknowledged that attorneys for the Catholic Diocese of Portland raised “serious” constitutional concerns in their legal challenge.

Justice Thomas McKeon of Cumberland County Superior Court upheld a 2021 law that allowed retroactive legal claims regarding sexual abuse allegations. He rejected the argument that the new law was unconstitutional because its retroactive changes violated both due process rights and vested rights, though he said it was a “close” case, the Associated Press reported.

Attorneys for the Diocese of Portland had filed a motion to challenge the law. The motion came in the first of the civil lawsuits now allowed under the 2021 law.

McKeon has halted lawsuit proceedings so that attorneys for the diocese may appeal to Maine’s Supreme Judicial Court. They have 21 days to…

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The final report of the Independent Commission for the Study of Sexual Abuse of Children in the Catholic Church in Portugal, releases validated testimonies relating to abuse cases that occurred between 1950 and 2022 and points to over 4,800 victims.

Reacting to the final report of the Independent Commission charged with investigating sexual abuse cases of minors in the Catholic Church in Portugal, the President of the Portuguese Episcopal Conference (CEP) said his first thought is for the victims, and the second for the commission towards whom the Church is grateful for its competent, passionate and humane work.

The Commission’s 8-point report points to a minimum number of 4815 victims in 70 years. The body was set up by the Portuguese Conference to examine abuse in recent decades.

Apology

Bishop Josè Ornelas said the results will not be ignored and launched a message of reassurance to the victims pledging to…

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At least 4,815 children were sexually abused by members of the Portuguese Catholic Church – mostly priests – over the past 70 years, the commission investigating the issue said in a report on Monday, adding the findings are the “tip of the iceberg”.

“(We want) to pay a sincere tribute to those who were abuse victims during their childhood and dared to give a voice to silence,” said child psychiatrist Pedro Strecht, who headed the commission. “They are much more than a statistic.”

Most perpetrators (77%) were priests and 57% of the victims were men, Strecht said, adding that they were abused in Catholic schools, churches, priests’ homes, confessionals, among other locations.

The majority of the sexual abuses took place when the children were aged 10-14, with the youngest victim being just two-years-old.

Jose Ornelas, head of the Bishops’ Conference, attended the final report’s presentation and told a news conference…

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A Portuguese report published Monday estimated there have been close to 5,000 victims of clerical abuse of minors since 1950.

A report published Monday by the Independent Commission for the Study of Sexual Abuse of Children in the Catholic Church in Portugal estimated there have been close to 5,000 victims of nearly 500 abusers in the local Church since 1950.

The commission began it’s work in January 2022, and surveyed the whole of the country’s Catholic institutions, dioceses and religious orders, producing a nearly 500-page report, the first of its kind in the majority Catholic country.

In response, Bishop José Ornelas of Leiria-Fátima, the president of the Portuguese bishops’ conference, said that the commission’s report had detailed an “open wound which hurts and shames us” and promised measures by the bishops to enforce zero-tolerance on abuse in the local Church.

The report concluded with several recommendations, including extending the civil…

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A final report of the Independent Commission for the Study of Sexual Abuse of Children in the Catholic Church in Portugal revealed more than 4,800 children had been victims of clergy sexual abuse in the country from 1950 to 2022.

Responding to the report, the president of the Portuguese bishops’ conference, Bishop José Ornelas Carvalho of Leiria-Fatima, apologized to the victims and thanked the Church-sponsored commission for highlighting the abuse by Catholic clergy. He also pledged that surviving perpetrators would be removed from office.

“Zero tolerance toward abuse has to be a reality throughout the Church — we will not tolerate abuses or abusers,” Bishop Ornelas said. “This is an open wound that hurts and shames us, and we ask forgiveness from all the victims — those who courageously gave testimony, silent for so many years, and those still living with pain in the depths of their hearts.”

The report was…

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Cardinal Robert McElroy announced last week that the San Diego Diocese may have to resort to a declaration of bankruptcy in 2023 to manage the cost of hundreds of new abuse claims. The Santa Rosa Diocese in California might also declare bankruptcy, according to local media reports.

At issue, McElroy said, is a mounting number of abuse claims filed under a three-year window opened by California’s governor, which began in 2020 and expired on Dec. 31, 2022. Some of the new abuse claims brought to the diocese date back 75 years, the cardinal wrote.

More than two dozen U.S. dioceses, including two in U.S. overseas territories, have entered into bankruptcy proceedings, the vast majority in the past decade. Of those dioceses, 11 are in the midst of the proceedings as of February 2023, while 15 have completed the process.

Many dioceses have  View Cache

Yet another report has been released that shows yet another country saw thousands of their children harmed and abused by priests, nuns, and other Roman Catholic staffers. Our hearts break for the families and survivors devastated by this abuse and hope that this report leads to secular reform that will better protect children.

According to a report published by a Portuguese panel funded by the country’s Catholic bishops, approximately 5000 children were abused by Catholic clergy. According to the report, many of the molestation cases involved boys, and some of the victims were as young as two years old. One victim claimed he had been living in a “black hole” throughout his testimony. Our hearts break for him and for all the children who have endured years of abuse at the hands of adults who are supposed to be God’s trusted representatives. We commend this survivor…

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A state judge on Tuesday upheld a Maine law that eliminated the statute of limitations for child sexual abuse, allowing survivors to pursue lawsuits for sex crimes that happened decades ago.

An attorney for more than a dozen plaintiffs who have brought civil lawsuits since the law went into effect praised the decision.

“Survivors have suffered a lifetime of pain that has affected their relationships at home, at work, and in the world. Now survivors are empowered to face those who allowed such heinous abuse and hold them accountable,” attorney Michael Bigos said in a statement.

The judge ruled in a motion in the first of the new civil lawsuits, but the decision is expected to be appealed.

A lawyer for the Roman Catholic Diocese of Portland contended that the 2021 law was unconstitutional because it made retroactive changes that violated both vested rights and due process rights.

But Justice…

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Portugal on Monday will become the latest country to issue an independent report into clerical sexual abuse, an issue that has dogged the Catholic Church for years and undermined its moral authority.

From Australia to Ireland via the United States, thousands of priests, bishops and cardinals have been caught up in abuse scandals, as well as lay members of the Church such as Catholic school teachers or youth group leaders.

United States

The moment of reckoning in the US came in 2002 when the Boston Globe newspaper published a major investigation into abuses committed by scores of Boston priests, which were covered up by their bishops. Cardinal Bernard Law was forced to resign over the revelations.

Between 1950 and 2018, the US Catholic Church received credible complaints of child sex abuse involving 7,002 members of the clergy, according to the website bishop-accountability.org.

In a first for the Church, Pope Francis…

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Police footage of the interrogation of Florida pastor Paul Dyal and his sons, Shawn and Darrin, has been released in advance of Dyal’s trial for two counts of sexual battery on a child. Dyal was charged alongside two members of his church, Jerome Teschendorf and Vernon Williamson, last year.

Longtime pastor of The Jacksonville Assembly of the Body of Christ, Dyal has been accused of sexual and physical abuse dating back at least 30 years. His charges, along with the charges against Teschendorf and Williamson, are capital offenses. 

Dyal’s alleged abuse was perpetrated against a victim under the age of 12 at the time of the assault. The survivor told police that Dyal molested her five to six times per year for five to six years—a total of 20 to 30 individual instances of sexual assault.

Police interrupted a service at the church in March 2022 to bring Dyal and…

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Fred McCoy Gammon, Jr. free on $35,000 bail

A Wyandotte pastor accused of abusing a child sent several sexually suggestive and inappropriate text messages to a juvenile victim, including one message about “wanting to smell her underwear,” court documents show.  

Fred McCoy Gammon, Jr, 42, of Miami, is charged in Ottawa County District Court with child sexual abuse. He is free on $35,000 bail, court records show.

Gammon is still listed on the website as the reverend of Wayside Assembly of God church in Wyandotte. Gammon’s Facebook page, lists July 18, 2021, as the date he became pastor of the church. The charges of child sex abuse stem from alleged incidents in 2020 and 2021, according to an arrest affidavit.

He has denied the allegations, the affidavit states.

Jeremy Bennett and Ken Gallon, Gammon’s attorneys said in an email “Mr. Gammon maintains his innocence, but will not make any…

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A Maine judge upheld the constitutionality of a law that allows Mainers with previously-expired claims of child sexual abuse to sue their alleged perpetrators for damages.

A judge has found that a Maine law removing the statute of limitations for civil claims of childhood sexual abuse claims is constitutional.

The 2021 law has prompted more than a dozen people to sue the Roman Catholic Diocese of Portland, with claims stretching as far back as the 1950s. The diocese argued the law is unconstitutional because it creates new liability and exposes the church to “tens of millions of dollars” in potential claims.

Cumberland County Superior Justice Thomas McKeon’s ruling Tuesday means the cases could proceed to trial. But the pre-trial discovery process is still paused in case the diocese decides to appeal the judge’s decision to the Maine Supreme Judicial Court.

Lawmakers agreed to remove all remaining…

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Three words.

Most legislators had never heard them. Most lawyers hadn’t, either.

Unless someone specializes in construction law, they’ve probably never encountered an obscure type of law known as a “statute of repose.”

Kathleen Hoke worked almost three decades as an assistant attorney general and law professor in Maryland before she bumped into the term. Now one might call her an expert.

“Being an expert in this space just means you understand it,” she said.

Hoke understands better than most the consequence of a bill passed by state lawmakers — unwittingly, some legislators say — to create a statute of repose for lawsuits over child sexual abuse. Five years later, the implications are still coming into focus.

Authorities recently told the courts they finished a nearly four-year investigation into the Archdiocese of Baltimore and uncovered a history of child sexual abuse by priests. The revelation set off…

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Independent commission reaches conclusion after hearing evidence from over 500 survivors last year

Catholic clergy in Portugal have abused nearly 5,000 children since 1950, an independent commission said on Monday after hearing hundreds of survivors’ accounts.

Thousands of reports of paedophilia within the church have surfaced around the world, and Pope Francis is under pressure to tackle the scandal.

The Portuguese inquiry, commissioned by the church in the staunchly Catholic country, published its findings after hearing from more than 500 survivors last year.

“This testimony allows us to establish a much larger network of victims, at least 4,815,” the commission head, Pedro Strecht, told a press conference in Lisbon that was attended by several senior church officials.

Strecht, a child psychiatrist, said it would be difficult now for Portugal to ignore the existence of child sexual abuse or the trauma it had caused.

Responding to the report, the head of…

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More than 100 priests suspected of child sexual abuse remain active in church roles in Portugal, according to the head of a commission investigating the issue.

The commission, which started its work in January 2022, said in its final report published on Monday that at least 4,815 children were sexually abused by members of the Portuguese Catholic Church – mostly priests – over 70 years.

It added that the findings were the “tip of the iceberg”, describing the 4,815 cases as the “absolute minimum” number of victims.

“There is an approximate (number of accused priests) and it will clearly be more than 100,” child psychiatrist Pedro Strecht, who headed the commission, told SIC television.

The commission said it was preparing a list of accused priests still working to send to the Church and to the public prosecutors’ office.

Strecht said those on the list should be removed from their roles…

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Elementos de la Procuraduría General de Justicia (PGJ) de Hidalgo detuvieron en Guanajuato al sacerdote Enrique “N”, sobre quien pesan cargos por abuso sexual a una persona menor de edad.

Hace dos semanas el sacerdote fue denunciado ante las autoridades de Hidalgo por abuso sexual en agravio de una adolescente del municipio de Tlanchinol, donde se ubica la parroquia de San Agustín, donde presuntamente ocurrió la agresión.

De acuerdo con los avances de la investigación, el sacerdote pidió el apoyo de su acólita para ayudarlo con labores de la parroquia, pero terminó por abusar de ella en más de una ocasión.

Tras la denuncia, la Procuraduría, a cargo de Santiago Nieto Castillo, obtuvo una orden de aprehensión en contra del clérigo; sin embargo, ya había abandonado la parroquia donde oficiaba misa y huyó del estado de Hidalgo.

Así transcurrieron dos semanas hasta que las autoridades lograron ubicarlo en el municipio…

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In a Sunday morning homily on sin, a Catholic Diocese of Knoxville priest condemned Knox News for its ongoing reporting on two separate sexual assault complaints against the church and the diocese’s efforts to obstruct the investigations and intimidate the alleged victims.

The message was delivered Feb. 12 during the 11 a.m. Mass at the Cathedral of the Sacred Heart of Jesus by the Rev. David Boettner, one of the diocese’s highest-ranking clergy members and pastor of the cathedral.

He used the opening words of his homily on “sin and the choices we make” to criticize Knox News’ investigative coverage.

“So first, sin. You know, one of the things about the way the media reports about the Catholic Church is interesting because they don’t really have specialists on religion that report on the church,” Boettner said. “They usually assign a sportswriter to cover the church. So, whenever they try…

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A former Omaha priest is being investigated

Investigators from Great Britain were in Omaha last week as part of a criminal investigation.

The chancellor of the Omaha Archdiocese confirms that a former priest is under investigation. Sources tell us it surrounds his actions when he was visiting England many years ago. However, the Omaha Archdiocese says it is not under investigation.

The nature of the allegations has not been revealed.

Omaha Police confirmed that British law enforcement officers are conducting an investigation, but OPD is not involved in the case.

The British investigators left Omaha Friday.

This is a developing story. Stay with 6 News for updates.

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The Costa Rican Bishops’ Conference and the Archdiocese of San José revealed that an agreement was reached to compensate the victims of sexual abuse by ex-priest Mauricio Víquez Lizano.

“To conclude these proceedings, an agreement has been reached taking into account the procedural possibilities given by the law and which is satisfactory to all parties,” the Church indicated in a press release issued on February 1.

Four victims filed civil lawsuits and spoke of the acts perpetrated by the now ex-priest.

“According to what is established in this instrument, the content of this agreement is subject to a confidentiality clause, so no statements will be made in this regard,” the Costa Rican Bishops’ Conference said.

In August 2022, a court ruled against San José Archbishop José Rafael Quirós and the Temporal Assets of the Archdiocese of San José for covering up Viquez’s sexual abuse.

At the…

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Frank Pavone was recently dismissed from the priesthood in Dec. 2022 and allegedly committed misconduct from at least four women. According to Christian Forums, Frank Pavone has been asked to step down from his position as national director of the pro-life organization Priests for Life by two former executives of the organization. It is to provide room for an impartial investigation into his behavior. 

Call for Resignation of Frank Pavone

On Friday, Feb. 10, the two formal officials of the Priests for Life, Andrew Smith and Father Stephen Imbarrato, released an official statement. They were reportedly dismayed by Pavone’s arrogant response to his dismissal from the priesthood as well as the charges that he sexually assaulted women who worked for Priests for Life. Andrew Smith was a former staff and board member of Priests for Life, while Father Stephen Imbarrato served as a member of the organization’s pastoral team. 

As…

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Dear Parishioners of St. Francis de Sales Parish,

Last September, I informed you of new allegations the Archdiocese of Chicago received, accusing Fr. David F. Ryan of sexually abusing a minor. In keeping with our procedures, he once again was asked to step aside from his pastoral duties until a thorough investigation and process could be completed. He has fully cooperated with civil authorities and the Archdiocese of Chicago during these months. 

After numerous attempts, those making the accusations have refused to cooperate with both civil and church investigations. This was reported to our Independent Review Board (IRB). Based on this information, the IRB finds that there is not sufficient reason to suspect Father Ryan is guilty of sexually abusing a minor and recommends he be returned to ministry and that the files be closed on these two claims due to the lack of cooperation of those making the accusations….

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A Lake County priest is being reinstated after he was removed last fall because of accusations he sexually abused a minor.

Father David Ryan serves at St. Francis de Sales in Lake Zurich.

Cardinal Blase Cupich released a letter Saturday saying there is not sufficient reason to believe the accusations and the independent review board recommended the case be closed.

The latest allegations came a year after the priest was reinstated after similar allegations were also found to be untrue.

Cardinal Cupich said Father David Ryan was assigned to Maryville Academy in Des Plaines during the time of the alleged incident, which is said to have occurred approximately 25 yea

At the time, an independent review board determined that there was “insufficient reason to suspect” Fr. Ryan had sexually abused minors 25 years earlier.

The cardinal said Father Ryan is being reinstated effective immediately.

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What a difference 30 years makes.

The watchdog organization Voice of the Faithful recently ranked the Catholic Diocese of Belleville the seventh most “financially transparent” diocese in the United States.

The lay organization’s 2022 report states that, while financial transparency wouldn’t have prevented clergy sexual abuse in the past, it would have kept the Catholic Church from secretly paying cash settlements to families of child victims in exchange for their silence.

“The horror of clergy sexual abuse … would have been reported, not covered up, and abusers would have been called to account for their crimes,” the report stated. “Victims of serial abusers would have been protected.”

Recognition for transparency in the Belleville Diocese is significant, particularly considering its reputation in the early 1990s, when victims, advocates, journalists and others complained that it had kept clergy sexual abuse hidden from the public for decades.

The Belleville News-Democrat published its…

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St. Louis University has learned that two of its former priests have been “credibly accused” of sexual abuse. The regional Jesuits’ Province added the men’s names to a list tracking highly probable abuse incidents.

One priest, the late Daniel Campbell, was a faculty member in the late 1950s. The other, David V. Meconi, was working at SLU as recently as 2021. According to the Province, the timeframe of the abuse allegations against him was from 2015-2016. Meconi directed the university’s Catholic Studies center.

In a letter to the SLU community, president Fred Pestello said the university is coordinating support for those who were affected. He also urged people to report any instances of abuse.

“Our hearts are with those who have suffered from abuse, and we are committed to supporting efforts to prevent abuse from happening to anyone else,” he wrote. “When people have been victims of harm, we must…

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(For Immediate Release February 13, 2023) 

Yet another report has been released that shows yet another country saw thousands of their children harmed and abused by priests, nuns, and other Roman Catholic staffers. Our hearts break for the families and survivors devastated by this abuse and hope that this report leads to secular reform that will better protect children.

According to a report published by a Portuguese panel funded by the country’s Catholic bishops, approximately 5000 children were abused by Catholic clergy. According to the report, many of the molestation cases involved boys, and some of the victims were as young as two years old. One victim claimed he had been living in a “black hole” throughout his testimony. Our hearts break for him and for all the children who have endured years of abuse at the hands of adults who are supposed to be God’s…

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“Pope Says Homosexuality Not a Crime,” the AP headlined on Jan. 25, reporting on their interview a day earlier with the pontiff. “Pope Says Homosexuality is Not a Crime” headlined The New York Times and The Washington Post the same morning. “Pope Francis says laws that criminalize homosexuality are ‘unjust’” was the lede to the PBS Nightly News segment that evening.

It’s difficult to imagine the U.S. media would give prominence to such an obvious and vapid pronouncement by any public figure other than this pope.

“The pope says a lot of truly wonderful things in his interview with the AP. However … he has said many times that homosexual acts are sinful and that marriage is between a man and a woman – a view he repeated this past week, as well. He has also not changed the language of the Catechism of the Catholic Church [this “sexual attraction toward persons of the same…

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(ANALYSIS) MinistryWatch mostly focuses our coverage on Protestant evangelical news stories.  However, occasionally we veer out of our lane when we see a story that we think might be of interest to our core audience. Such a story came our way this week from Knoxville, Tennessee. In an unusual move, a judge said an alleged rape victim is going to have to use his legal name in his lawsuit against the Catholic Diocese there.

The Catholic Diocese of Knoxville argued that an alleged rape victim must use his legal name instead of a pseudonym protecting his identity before continuing a lawsuit he filed against the church. A judge there bought the argument.

We’ve recounted a more complete version of this story elsewhere, so I won’t tell the whole story here. I mention it now just to say that this decision could be a blow to those who want to hold powerful…

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More than 4,800 individuals may have been victims of child sex abuse in the Portuguese Catholic Church and 512 alleged victims have already come forward to speak out, an expert panel looking into historic abuse in the church said Monday.

Senior Portuguese church officials had previously claimed that only a handful of cases had occurred.

Senior clergymen sat in the front row of the auditorium where panel members read out some of the harrowing accounts of alleged abuse included in their final report. There were vivid and shocking descriptions.

The head of the Portuguese Bishops Conference, Bishop José Ornelas, said church authorities would study the panel’s 500-page report before giving an official response.

“We have seen and heard things we cannot ignore,” he told reporters. “It’s a dramatic set of circumstances. It won’t be easy to get over it.”

The Independent Committee for the Study of Child Abuse in the…

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Members of the Portuguese Catholic Church sexually abused at least 4,815 children over the past 70 years, a commission investigating the issue said in its final report on Monday.

The Portuguese inquiry, commissioned by the church in the staunchly Catholic country, published the results of its investigation after hearing from more than 500 victims.

“This testimony allows us to establish a much larger network of victims, at least 4,815,” said Pedro Strecht, a psychiatrist who headed the Independent Committee for the Study of Child Abuse in the Portuguese Catholic Church.

He said most perpetrators were priests, and the abuse occurred in Catholic schools, priests’ homes, confessionals and other locations.

The report found most victims were boys, barely older than 11. The youngest victim was reportedly a 2-year-old child.

It called for decisive action by the judiciary and asked for psychological care for the victims and the suspension of the statute of…

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At least 4,815 children were sexually abused by members of the Portuguese Catholic Church – mostly priests – over the past 70 years, a report by the commission investigating the issue said on Monday, adding the findings are the tip of the iceberg.

“(We want) to pay a sincere tribute to those who were abuse victims during their childhood and dared to give a voice to silence,” said child psychiatrist Pedro Strecht, who headed the commission. “They are much more than a statistic.”

Strecht said the 4,815 cases were the “absolute minimum” number of victims of sexual abuse by clergy members in Portugal since 1950.

Most perpetrators (77%) were priests and most of the victims were men, Strecht said, adding that they were abused in Catholic schools, churches, priests’ homes, confessionals, among other locations.

The majority of the sexual abuses took place when the children were aged 10-14, with the…

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An independent commission looking into the sexual abuse of minors in the Catholic Church said on Tuesday it had documented cases pointing to at least 4,815 victims.

Set up by the Portuguese Episcopal Conference to examine abuse in recent decades, the commission added this was the tip of the iceberg.

Presenting the report, the commission’s president, child psychiatrist Pedro Strecht, described its objective as “giving voice to the silence” of victims.

He paid tribute to the hundreds who contacted its staff to provide testimony.

“They have a voice; they have a name,” he said.

In all, the commission documented 564 experiences of people who said they had been victims of abuse by priests or other Church officials. The exercise looked at cases dating back to 1950.

In many cases, testimony pointed to other minors having been abused – hence the estimate of thousands of further victims.

Throughout his presentation, Mr…

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Representatives push for women to be admitted to priesthood after island-wide consultations

An assembly of the Catholic Church in Europe has been told that members in Ireland want women to be admitted to the diaconate and priesthood. In island-wide consultations “many women communicated their pain at being denied their agency in the life of the church and spoke of feelings of exclusion and discrimination. Women play a critical role in the life of the church but so many men and women have spoken of the church ‘excluding’ the fullness of the gifts of women,” representatives of the Irish church said.

In Ireland there was “a deep longing for a more inclusive and welcoming church. People wish for this enlarged tent to be experienced in liturgy, language, structures, practices and decision-making. The co-responsibility of all the baptised must therefore be recognised and practised, to overcome clericalism and to ensure full and…

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The pastor of a Catholic parish in Lake Zurich has again been reinstated to the ministry after an Archdiocese of Chicago panel found no sufficient evidence he had sexually abused a minor, Cardinal Blase Cupich announced in a letter to parishioners Saturday night.

The Rev. David J. Ryan, who stepped aside when the allegations surfaced in September, can return immediately to his duties at St. Francis de Sales Parish, Cupich wrote.

“After numerous attempts, those making the accusations have refused to cooperate with both civil and church investigations,” Cupich wrote. “This was reported to our Independent Review Board. Based on this information, the IRB finds that there is not sufficient reason to suspect Father Ryan is guilty of sexually abusing a minor and recommends he be returned to ministry and that the files be closed on these two claims due to the lack of cooperation of those making the accusations.”

…

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3rd incident involving sexual abuse allegations at St. John Catholic High School since 2019

Parents of students at a Catholic high school in Perth, Ont., are only now being told about a historic sexual abuse case, nearly half a year after the province’s regulatory body for teachers deemed it credible. 

The Ontario College of Teachers ruled last summer that Edward (Ted) Michael Oliver was guilty of professional misconduct after it investigated allegations that he sexually abused a 17-year-old female student while he was teaching at St. John Catholic High School.

The regulator revoked Oliver’s teaching certificate after verifying complaints through its internal disciplinary process.

A letter sent to parents and guardians from the Catholic District School Board of Eastern Ontario (CDSBEO) states that “we recently learned of a decision by the Ontario College of Teachers regarding this former teacher.”

The letter is dated Feb. 1, 2023, but the college’s discipline committee reached its decision on July 20, 2022, and posted…

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As state lawmakers look to advance legislation that would require clergy to report child abuse or neglect, the Catholic Church’s lobbying arm in Washington has come out in support of the bills — but only if they provide a loophole for confessions. 

Two bills in the state Legislature — House Bill 1098 and Senate Bill 5280 — would add clergy to the list of mandatory reporters of abuse or neglect. Currently, Washington is one of a handful of states not to list clergy as such. 

But debate has begun to swirl over whether Washington should keep a clergy-penitent privilege, which allows clergy to withhold information revealed during confession or another privileged conversation. Child advocates argue it provides a gaping loophole allowing churches to hide sexual abuse by loosely defining certain communications as protected. 

Mario Villanueva, the executive director of the Washington State Catholic Conference, the public…

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Report will be made public tomorrow

The commission that in January 2022 began investigating sexual abuse in Portugal’s Catholic church has delivered its final report to the Church today.

The document which refers to “hundreds of testimonies” will be released to the media tomorrow during a presentation in Lisbon.

Pedro Strecht, the child psychiatrist who has led the commission throughout, is understood to have delivered the report to the Portuguese Catholic Bishops’ Conference (CEP), whose president, the bishop of Leiria-Fatima, José Ornelas, has scheduled a statement on its contents for 4pm tomorrow.

Says Lusa, an extraordinary plenary assembly of the Episcopal Conference has already been convened for March 3 to analyse the report.

Without giving final figures, the commission announced in its last public statement in October that it had already registered 424 validated testimonies, including cases of abuse that occurred since 1950. Victims ages were put at “between 15 and 88”.

“The members of the commission made it…

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An attorney representing a woman who alleges she was sexually abused as a child by a Catholic priest in East Hartford said they reached a settlement with the church. 

The woman’s lawyer, Mitchell Garabedian, said the claim was outside of the statute of limitations and was settled “in the low six figures.” The settlement was finalized in January, he said.

Garabedian said his client, who is now an adult, was repeatedly sexually abused by Toribio Villacastin, a priest assigned to St. Isaac Jogues Parish in East Hartford from 1969 to 1970. The abuse occurred when the woman was 8 to 9 years old, Garabedian said, and occurred in the sacristy of St. Isaac Jogues Church, as well as other locations. 

David Elliot, a spokesperson for the Archdiocese of Hartford, said the archdiocese does not comment on specific settlements. He noted that Villacastin was not a priest of the Archdiocese of…

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A settlement has been reached between the Archdiocese of Hartford, a priest named Fr. Toribio Villacastin, and a woman who reported she was sexually abused as a child.

The attorney for that woman said the Archdiocese of Hartford did not properly investigate and research the priest before allowing him to serve as a visiting clergyman.

He said that priest served in St. Isaac Jogues Parish in East Hartford in 1969 and 1970, and a church in Naugatuck in 1972 and 1973.

The attorney said the settlement was in the low six figures.

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Blaise Cardinal Cupich reinstated a suburban priest Saturday, after those making sexual abuse allegations against him stopped cooperating with the investigation.

Cupich wrote to parishioners of St. Francis de Sales Parish in Lake Zurich that after numerous attempts, the people making the allegations against Father David F. Ryan had refused to cooperate with civil and church authorities.

Thus, the Independent Review Board concluded there is not sufficient reason to believe Ryan is guilty of sexually abusing a minor, and thus, he is being reinstated.

The most recent allegations date from September of last year. Ryan was asked to step aside as pastor of the church during the investigation of the allegations, which were not the first.

In 2020, Ryan was also accused of sexual abuse of a minor 25 years prior – when Ryan was assigned to Maryville Academy in Des Plaines.

Maryville Academy has been…

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[Includes video with more excerpts from the interviews with survivor Anthony Dimaggio and his attorney Irwin Zalkin]

A man who says he was groomed and later sexually abused by a priest in the 1970s says he’s outraged the Catholic Diocese of San Diego is considering filing for bankruptcy.

“I feel it’s like a slap in the face to me as a victim, it’s kind of without any warning,” said Anthony Dimaggio, 59.

Dimaggio, now a resident of Tulare, Calif., said he was sexually abused by a priest from 1975-1977 in Normal Heights and at a cabin, the church leader would take altar boys to.

The diocese is facing nearly 400 lawsuits from people alleging they were sexually abused as minors by priests and other clergies.

On Friday, it announced it was considering filing for bankruptcy as it prepares to deal with the estimated more than $550 million cost of the…

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[See also Cardinal McElroy’s letter.]

The original announcement came Thursday night in a meeting with pastors and parish officials during which Cardinal McElroy answered questions and distributed a letter that will be provided to parishioners at masses over the weekend

The Roman Catholic Diocese of San Diego announced Friday that it may have to file for bankruptcy after roughly 400 claims were filed by alleged victims who said they were sexual abused by priests and other church members.

The earliest claim dates to 1945, with most of the events allegedly taking place 50-75 years ago, Kevin Eckery, communications director for the diocese, said at a news conference on Friday. 

Bankruptcy may be necessary in order “to provide a pathway for ensuring that the assets of the diocese will be used equitably to compensate all victims of sexual abuse,” Cardinal Robert McElroy wrote in a letter expected to be shared…

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Every group imaginable participates in a Capitol Day. Civil rights advocates, educators, unionists, nurses, hairdressers, cities and counties, you name it, every agenda gets its day.

Their purpose is to bring attention to bills under consideration by the Texas Legislature.

Sometimes they get news coverage, but mostly they get a chance to meet with specific legislators to press their agendas.

These ordinary events aren’t as easy for survivors of child sexual abuse, even those who are now adults.

It’s difficult to come forward and reporting such crimes is still rare, especially for those victimized by members of the clergy.

It can take years, even decades, for them to talk about it.

That any victims of child sexual abuse are gathering in front of the Capitol next week is a minor miracle.

But a group of Texans, including a San Antonio contingent of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests,…

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Theresa Flores plans to attend her 11th Super Bowl this year, but not necessarily because she is a football fan. 

Instead, the 57-year-old author, speaker and social worker will be in Glendale, Arizona, with volunteers from the SOAP (Save Our Adolescents from Prostitution) Project, which Flores founded to prevent human trafficking.

“A lot of kids are being trafficked during sporting events,” said Flores, who along with her team holds outreaches during large entertainment gatherings nationwide, training participants to recognize the signs of trafficking while distributing materials — including millions of bars of soap — labeled with the U.S. National Human Trafficking Hotline number: 888-373-7888.

Experts differ over the Super Bowl’s impact on human trafficking, but overall data shows that the problem has risen sharply across the globe. 

Some 50 million individuals worldwide were ensnared in modern slavery during 2021, according to the United Nations International Labor Organization Sept. 2022 report….

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Pope Francis met at the Vatican Thursday morning with Cardinal Angelo Becciu, who is on trial for charges related to Vatican finances.

The meeting appeared on the top of Pope Francis’ list of official audiences for Feb. 9, published by the Vatican every day at noon Rome time.

The editors of the news aggregation website Il Sismografo called the official nature of the meeting “puzzling” given that the pope and the cardinal have been in contact other times since Becciu’s fall from grace in 2020.

Becciu served as “sostituto,” or second-ranking official at the Secretariat of State, from 2011 to 2018, when Pope Francis named him a cardinal and made him head of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints.

Since July 2021, Becciu has been on trial in the Vatican on several finance-related charges. The trial centers on the Secretariat of State’s purchase of a London building,…

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The ministry of Jesuit Father Marko Rupnik, accused of the sexual, spiritual, and psychological abuse of women from a religious community with which he was formerly connected, was and continues to be under restrictions, according to the Jesuit order.

Those restrictions included a ban on hearing confessions and engaging in spiritual direction with women. Rupnik was also prohibited, the order said last December, from engaging in public activities without the permission of his local superior. The order did not say at the time who Rupnik’s local superior was.

Father Johan Verschueren, the major superior for the international houses of the Jesuits, told ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner, this week that he has been Rupnik’s superior since January 2020.

Verschueren also revealed which Jesuit priests were Rupnik’s superiors since 2004.

In religious orders such as the Jesuits, a priest is supervised by, and takes direction from, his local superior.

Father…

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A former board member of Priests for Life has called for laicized priest Frank Pavone to step down as the organization’s head, and for an independent investigation to be carried out into the allegations of sexual misconduct against Pavone.

“[F]or the good of the Church and the pro-life movement, it is necessary that an immediate, impartial and independent investigation take place into the recent allegations against Frank Pavone,” said Andrew Smith, who served as a Priests for Life employee from 2000-2004 and as a board member from 2014-2021.

In a Feb. 10 statement sent to The Pillar, Smith said he believes an investigation is needed to “ensure that a thorough examination of the conduct of Frank Pavone, his treatment of the women in his employment and the concerns surrounding financial payouts can be addressed and resolved in a fair manner.”

“It would also be appropriate for Frank Pavone to step down from…

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Two women have accused Frank Pavone — national director of the pro-life organization Priests for Life, who was dismissed from the priesthood in November — of sexual harassment, according to recent media reports.

The Pillar last month published allegations by an unnamed woman who claimed Pavone stroked her hair, put his arms around her while she sat at her computer, and engaged in other “grooming” behavior while she worked at Priests for Life.

In a second story published Wednesday, The Pillar quoted, by name, another former Priest for Life employee who makes similar claims against Pavone. Both women said they complained to the Diocese of Amarillo, Texas, where Pavone was incardinated before his laicization, but neither ever heard if any action was taken.

Pavone has denied both sets of allegations, saying in a statement to CNA Wednesday that the accusations are filled with “numerous inaccuracies, misrepresentations,…

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Push comes as Peter Hollingworth is expected to appear on final day of tribunal examining his handling of child abuse complaints as Anglican archbishop of Brisbane

Parliament will consider a new push to give the government powers to strip lucrative taxpayer-funded entitlements from former governors general found to have engaged in serious misconduct as the secret hearing against Peter Hollingworth draws to a close.

Hollingworth is expected to face the last day of a professional standards tribunal hearing in Melbourne on Thursday, which has investigated his handling of child abuse complaints against the Anglican church during his 11 years as the archbishop of Brisbane, a role he held immediately prior to his stint as governor general. The professional standards tribunal has so far not made any finding of misconduct against Hollingworth.

The tribunal has the power to defrock Hollingworth, but the evidence put before it has been cloaked in secrecy,…

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