ABUSE TRACKER

A former Baylor University campus minister and the convicted sex offender he described as his “spiritual mentor” were indicted Thursday on charges they sexually abused two young boys over a two-year period.

A McLennan County grand jury indicted Christopher Hundl, 38, and Daniel Savala, 67, each on one count of continuous trafficking of persons, first-degree felonies punishable by a minimum of 25 years in prison without parole up to life without parole.

Hundl, who was freed from jail May 24 after posting a $50,00 bond, served since 2019 as campus minister for Chi Alpha chapter, a campus Christian fellowship group at Baylor. He was not a Baylor employee and has since resigned from the organization, a Baylor spokeswoman said.

Baylor officials suspended the group’s charter after Hundl and Savala came under investigation in the sexual abuse cases.

Savala, who remains in the McLennan County Jail under a $250,000 bond, was…

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The bishops of Switzerland continue to wrestle with a crisis, triggered by the publication of a landmark independent report on clerical sexual abuse.

Six bishops – four in ministry and two retired – now face allegations of mishandling or covering up cases of abuse, while a Swiss newspaper alleged an unnamed member of the bishops’ conference had sexually harassed a young person.

In response, Bishop Joseph Bonnemain of Chur has been tasked by the Vatican with investigating the situation in Switzerland, and compiling his own report, to be sent to the Dicastery for Bishops, which will inform any subsequent canonical action against local bishops.

On Tuesday, Bonnemain also announced a change to all diocesan policies, barring any future destruction of records by chanceries.

“The Church regulation to destroy files will be repealed,” the bishop announced, saying that all dioceses and Church organizations will be required to sign a…

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In a Sept. 7 editorial, the NCR editors said that the soap opera drama orchestrated by Fort Worth Bishop Michael Olson against the Discalced Carmelite nuns of the Monastery of the Most Holy Trinity has everything to do with Olson’s heavy-handedness and cruel treatment of women religious. And they hope the Vatican will stop his abusive power play. Following are NCR reader responses to this editorial with letters that have been edited for length and clarity. 

It is without doubt that this mess is a scandal to the faithful. And it has been orchestrated, but by whom? The bishop or the convent? The faithful and the news might be better served if we who do not know all the facts stepped back from offering opinions and prayed for a conclusion to this quagmire.

JOSEPH KOSSUTH
Irving, Texas

***

A very interesting religious dispute. Readers will need a lot more…

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Robert Lavergne, a former teacher at St. Patrick’s High School, to serve 17-month jail sentence

WARNING: This story contains distressing details.

Four years after being convicted of sexual assault and sexual exploitation of his students, an Ottawa Catholic high school teacher is at last jail-bound. 

In March 2018, Robert Lavergne was charged with one count of sexual assault and another of sexual exploitation of a girl under the age of 18. Ottawa police said the offences occurred between 2014 and 2016 at St. Patrick’s High School, where the now-61-year-old was teaching at the time.

In May 2018, Lavergne was charged with three more counts of sexual assault related to two girls aged 18 or older. According to police, those offences happened between 2004 and 2010, also when he was teaching at the school.  

In the Ontario Court of Justice, Lavergne was found guilty on two counts of sexual assault and…

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A Long Beach-based priest on Thursday was charged in Ventura County with possession of child pornography, prosecutors said.

Rodolfo Martinez-Guevara, 38, was arrested Wednesday in Long Beach, according to the Ventura County district attorney’s office. He is accused of possessing “over 600 images of child sexual abuse material, including images and videos of prepubescent minors under the age of 12.”

“As a priest, the defendant is in a position of tremendous power, authority and trust. The alleged crimes deeply violate that trust and involve a disturbing number of sexual images of young boys,” District Attorney Erik Nasarenko said in a statement. “These are not simply images and videos. Rather, if found true, they constitute horrific exploitation of our most vulnerable, and the actions of the defendant must be met by the full force of the law.”

Prosecutors said Martinez-Guevara was living at the Missionaries of the Holy Spirit in Long…

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No human remains were found in last month’s excavation of a Catholic church basement on Pine Creek First Nations lands in Manitoba, Canada, after the community asked a Brandon University archaeological team to conduct excavations in the search for any missing children who might have died decades ago in the community’s former residential school.

In the summer of 2022, ground-penetrating radar discovered 71 anomalies on the lands of Pine Creek First Nation, also known as the Minegoziibe Anishinabe. Most anomalies were located in known burial areas on the grounds of the former Catholic-run Pine Creek Residential School. The community was surprised to find 14 of these anomalies in the basement of Our Lady of Seven Sorrows Catholic Church, prompting fears the church held possible graves and a crime scene. However, excavations from late July to mid-August of this year failed to find any human remains.

In an…

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(For Immediate Release September 15, 2023) 

A Catholic priest working for the Archdiocese of Los Angeles has been arrested for possessing child pornography in Ventura County. We applaud law enforcement for their work in this case and for following through on a tip provided by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.  Child pornography is a crime with many victims, many of whom may never realize that they were exploited until later in life. We know this level of abuse has been on the rise in many faith denominations and includes many predators and a tragically long shelf life.

Fr.  Rodolfo Martinez-Guevara, 38, is a member of the Missionaries of the Holy Spirit, Martinez-Guevara is associated with several churches including Our Lady of Guadalupe in Oxnard. He has been charged with possession or control of child pornography and aggravated possession of child pornography, containing more than 600 images.  His…

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Pope Francis had a private meeting on Friday with the theologian Maria Campatelli, a close collaborator of Father Marko Rupnik, who was dismissed from the Jesuits in June for failing to obey the directions of his superiors.

Campatelli, 61, has been the director of the Aletti Center — an art and theology school founded by Rupnik in Rome — since 2020.

In June, Campatelli published a letter defending Rupnik against “a media campaign based on defamatory and unproven accusations” and claiming the Jesuits had withheld documents “which would demonstrate a truth different from that which was being published.”

The Vatican did not provide any information on the meeting between Pope Francis and Campatelli other than to state it had taken place.

The Jesuits dismissed Rupnik on June 9 after the priest and artist had been accused of spiritual, psychological, and sexual abuse, and abuse of conscience, spanning more…

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A Catholic priest in Long Beach was arrested on suspicion of possessing child pornography after a months-long investigation, according to the Ventura County district attorney’s office.

Rodolfo Martinez-Guevara, 38, of Long Beach was most recently a minister with the Missionaries of the Holy Spirit religious order, according to a spokesman for the Archdiocese of Los Angeles. He had previously served as a transitional deacon and newly ordained priest with Our Lady of Guadalupe Church in Oxnard from July 2021 through September 2022, the spokesman said.

Martinez-Guevara first came under scrutiny after several anonymous reports were made to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. A separate investigation was launched in April by the Ventura County Child Exploitation and Human Trafficking Task Force.

The investigations found Martinez-Guevara had more than 600 images of child sex abuse, prosecutors say, including images and videos of victims under the age of 12.

“As…

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Robert S. Bennett, one of the nation’s legal giants, died Sept. 10 at age 84. Formed by a Jesuit education, Bennett’s exhilarating life exemplified professional excellence and caring for others.

Bennett’s preeminence as a trial attorney offers a long list of jaw-dropping stories of impactful courtroom defense and illustrates the importance of commitment and care of individuals, personal integrity and plain common sense to the practice of law.

His persuasive command of facts and law won the day in and out of the courtroom for decades. In cases involving national and international political and financial intrigue — Abscam, Iran-Contra, the Keating Five, the CIA/Plame leak case and dozens of congressional and presidential legal dramas Bennett’s solid internal grounding made him the champion of many.

Funeral Mass

A funeral Mass for Robert S. Bennett will be concelebrated at Holy Trinity Catholic…

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After advocates for survivors called on Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost last month to join around two-dozen other states’ attorneys general who have launched investigations into abuse at Catholic dioceses, Yost responded that his hands are tied.

His office cited state law that requires local or federal authorities to invite the Ohio Attorney General to launch investigations.

Legal experts told The Dispatch that the Ohio Attorney General’s power to launch investigations is constrained compared to other states like Pennsylvania, whose then-Attorney General Josh Shapiro released a bombshell report on six dioceses in 2018. But they noted that with an invitation from local authorities, the Ohio Attorney General could choose to investigate dioceses criminally.

When asked whether an invitation from a district attorney or police chief would trigger Yost to launch an investigation into the Catholic dioceses, Bethany McCorkle, Yost’s spokesperson, declined to comment.

In arguing that a broad investigation is necessary, the Survivors Network…

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The French Catholic Church is facing new accusations of a sexual abuse scandal within Paris’s Foreign Missions Society, an organization dedicated to spreading Christianity overseas. As a criminal investigation has been opened into accusations against three clergymen from the group, a FRANCE 24 investigation by journalists Karina Chabour and Julie Dungelhoeff sheds light on the allegations against the society.

Another scandal that the Catholic Church could have done without: three criminal inquiries have opened in France into two priests and one bishop accused of sexual abuse.

The three men accused are all from the Paris Foreign Missions Society (MEP), an organization founded in France in the 17th century to convert overseas populations in Asia to Catholicism. Today it claims to have 150 priests based in 14 countries across India, China, Japan and Southeast Asia.

Before the criminal inquiries were announced a FRANCE…

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The first Vatican assembly for the global Synod on Synodality will kick off in October bringing together clerics and laity alike for nearly one month of discussions. Here is what you need to know:

What is the Synod on Synodality?

The Synod on Synodality, initiated by Pope Francis in October 2021, is a multiyear, worldwide undertaking during which Catholics were asked to submit feedback to their local dioceses on the question “What steps does the Spirit invite us to take in order to grow in our ‘journeying together?’”

The Catholic Church’s massive synodal process has already undergone diocesan, national, and continental stages. It will culminate in two global assemblies at the Vatican. The first will take place Oct. 4–28 and the second in October 2024 to advise the pope on the topic “For a Synodal Church: Communion, Participation, Mission.”

What does synodality mean?

Synodality was defined by the Congregation for…

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A Catholic priest within the Archdiocese of Los Angeles is accused of possessing a large cache of child pornography, the Ventura County District Attorney’s Office announced Thursday.

Father Rodolfo Martinez-Guevara, 38, of Long Beach, allegedly possessed more than 600 images of child sexual abuse material, including pictures and videos of minors under 12, officials said.

Martinez-Guevara was a member of the Missionaries of the Holy Spirit and associated with several churches, including Our Lady of Guadalupe in Oxnard, authorities said.

He has since been removed from the ministry by the Archdiocese and his order, a spokesperson for the Archdiocese told KTLA.

Authorities launched their investigation into Martinez-Guevara after several reports were made to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, according to the D.A’s Office.

“Investigators determined Martinez-Guevara was allegedly in direct possession of over 600 images and videos depicting child sexual abuse material – involving mostly boys,” prosecutors…

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Thanks to The Baltimore Sun’s Lee O. Sanderlin for his excellent article regarding the release of more redacted names from the Attorney General’s Report on clergy abuse and cover-up in the Archdiocese of Baltimore (“Judge orders most Catholic Church names made public in Maryland AG report, calls for ‘more transparency, not less,’” Aug. 22). But there is another story here that screams to be told: David slew Goliath, with a sling and a stone.

Last year, Attorney General Brian Frosh petitioned the Circuit Court to release his report, but to leave the names of the accused out (redacted). Two brave victims who are well-known for leading the way, Jean Wehner and Teresa Lancaster, refused to let those names be hidden from the public. Maryland Crime Victims’ Resource Center was there to help.

On behalf of Jean and Teresa, we filed a motion to release the report with…

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Charles Morerod, the Bishop of Lausanne, Geneva and Fribourg, was rushed to hospital on Wednesday. He underwent surgery, his diocese said on Thursday, without wishing to comment further for the time being.This content was published on September 14, 2023 – 14:19September 14, 2023 – 14:192 minutesKeystone-SDA

“We wish him a full and speedy recovery,” the diocese said in a brief statement.

Morerod’s emergency hospitalisation came a day after the publication of a study by the University of Zurich into sexual abuse in the Catholic Church in Switzerland. The bishop had spoken to the media on Wednesday, describing the study as “shocking”.

Morerod was accused in last week’s edition of the Sonntagsblick newspaper of having failed to intervene after reports of abuse. The native of Fribourg pointed out that he could not comment on these accusations because the “facts have been submitted to the competent bodies”, that is, state justice authorities and the Church itself. He added…

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Hecker pled not guilty to all four counts of aggravated rape, kidnapping, crime against nature and theft charges in court Wednesday morning.

Retired Catholic priest Lawrence Hecker pleaded not guilty in court Wednesday, five days after he turned himself in to Orleans Parish jail on aggravated rape, aggravated kidnapping, aggravated crime against nature and theft charges.

He’s accused in a grand jury indictment of anally raping a teenage boy in 1975 or 1976 after the unnamed victim “resisted to the utmost but … was overcome by force.”

The victim’s civil attorney, Richard Trahant, told WWL-TV and our partners at The Guardian newspaper that Hecker, a wrestling coach at the time at the boy’s high school, St. John Vianney Prep, told the teen he wanted to show him a wrestling move, then choked him until he was unconscious.

Trahant said the alleged attack happened inside St. Theresa the Little Flower of…

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“Very shortly thereafter, my client reported this to the school,” the alleged victim’s attorney said. But retired priest Lawrence Hecker faced no consequences.

The alleged rape victim of a retired New Orleans Catholic priest who was indicted Thursday remembers immediately reporting the assault to the high school where it happened – and being heartbroken that nothing was ever done about it.

Now, 48 years later, the victim is as hopeful as ever that the man charged with raping him at a church attached to his school – Lawrence Hecker – will finally face justice, his attorney told the Guardian and WWL-TV in an interview Thursday. 

“I would say he’s very relieved,” the attorney, Richard Trahant, said. “But he knows that this is not the end of it – that this is the beginning of the prosecution. And his involvement will become more and more necessary from…

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The Anglican Schools Commission has denied claims it fired a popular school principal over disagreements about how to compensate child sex abuse survivors.

Key points:

• The commission has attributed a “drift in alignment” and disagreements as reasons for the decision
• Some parents have said they will refuse to send their children to school if the decision to sack Dr Browning is upheld
• Dr Browning has written to families to thank them for working in partnership with staff

Anglican Schools Commission (ASC) chair the Right Reverend Jeremy Greaves says a “broken relationship” led to the sacking of Paul Browning, principal of St Paul’s School at Bald Hills in Brisbane.

Dr Browning had planned to raise money for child sex abuse survivors by monetising a learning tool, Realms of Thinking, before the commission rejected the idea.

He has been a prominent advocate for abuse survivors, having assisted the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to…

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Jailed former Catholic priest Lawrence Hecker has been scheduled for arraignment Wednesday (Sept. 13) following his indictment and arrest last week on allegations that he kidnapped, sexually abused and raped a victim while part of the clergy in New Orleans.

Hecker, who turns 92 on Thursday, is being held without a bond since surrendering to authorities last Friday, one day after an Orleans Parish grand jury indicted him on single counts of aggravated rape, aggravated kidnapping, aggravated crimes against nature and theft.

Hecker, who faces a lifetime state prison sentence if convicted of the charges, is scheduled to enter his plea Wednesday before Orleans Parish Criminal District Court Judge Benedict Willard.

The indictment follows disturbing revelations that Hecker had previously confessed to molesting multiple teenagers dating as far back as 1966, as reported by documents obtained by The Guardian in June. The documents shed light on a deeply troubling history of…

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Mr. Cyrus Sibert has been endorsed by Marquis Who’s Who as a leader in the field of investigative journalism He has been instrumental in pursuing matters related to the political situation in Haiti and the Caribbean, child abuse and pedophilia, fundamental human rights, harassment against women, and more.

Marquis Who’s Who, the world’s premier publisher of biographical profiles, is proud to present Cyrus Sibert with the Albert Nelson Marquis Lifetime Achievement Award. An accomplished listee, Mr. Sibert celebrates many years’ experience in his professional network, and has been noted for achievements, leadership qualities, and the credentials and successes he has accrued in his field. As in all Marquis Who’s Who biographical volumes, individuals profiled are selected on the basis of current reference value. Factors such as position, noteworthy accomplishments, visibility, and prominence in a field are all taken into account during the selection process.

Renowned for his expertise and dedication…

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The man alleges the late Father Joseph Eduouard Donat Boisvert groomed and abused him from 1958 to 1960 at St. Michael’s Chapel in Calgary where he was an altar boy.

A Surrey man has filed a lawsuit against the federal Catholic military authorities and the government and the Roman Catholic Church in Calgary, alleging sexual abuse by a priest of officer rank.

“The plaintiff is now 73 years old,” said the B.C. Supreme Court notice of civil claim filed Sept. 7 by lawyer Sandra Kovacs on behalf of her client, known only as R.C. in the claim.

“He is retired and financially stable,” the claim said. “He brings this action for the purpose of seeking truth, validation, accountability, system change, healing and justice.”

The case is about the alleged historical grooming and sexual abuse by Father Joseph Eduouard Donat Boisvert against R.C., the claim said.

The suit names the Estate of Boisvert,…

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A report of abuse in the Swiss Church from the University of Zurich, commissioned by the bishops’ conference, was published on 12 September.

The Vatican has started preliminary investigations of six Swiss bishops and a number of priests accused of covering up abuse.

In a statement published on 10 September after the Swiss tabloid Sonntagsblick publicised the accusations, the Swiss bishops’ conference confirmed that the Vatican had begun investigations.

Pope Francis has appointed Bishop Joseph Maria Bonnemain of Chur to lead the investigations, due to be completed by the end of the year.

“The main subject of these preliminary investigations by the Church are the accusations that abuse cases have been covered up,” the statement said.  

“The police and the public prosecutor’s office are, in the first instance, responsible for suspected sexual crimes.

“When abuse of minors is suspected, the Swiss bishops’ conference’s guidelines oblige church leaders to notify the…

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Editor’s note: This story has been updated to include comments from the presiding bishop’s Sept. 5 pastoral word to the church. 

[Episcopal News Service] Clergy and lay leaders across The Episcopal Church are joining House of Deputies President Julia Ayala Harris in demanding reform of the church’s disciplinary process for bishops as retired Oklahoma Bishop Ed Konieczny was identified as the focus of Ayala Harris’ sexual harassment complaint.

Ayala Harris, in revealing the general details of her complaint last week, withheld the identity of the bishop who she said had “physically overpowered” her at last year’s 80th General Convention. In an Aug. 30 letter to the House of Deputies, she said she felt compelled to go public after her case had ended in a “pastoral response” rather than discipline for the bishop.

The Rt. Rev. Edward J. Konieczny served as bishop of Oklahoma from 2007 to 2021.

Konieczny was…

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The announcement comes one day after he was placed on leave for allegations that he had physically and emotionally abused his wife and sons.

One day after he was placed on leave for allegations that he had physically and emotionally abused his wife and sons, Episcopal Bishop Prince Singh has resigned as provisional bishop of the dioceses of Eastern and Western Michigan.

“Our Standing Committee Presidents have met with Bishop Singh and reached a mutual decision: it is time for him to step down as our bishop provisional, allowing him to focus on the next phase of the Title IV process, his family, and his personal well-being, and allowing our dioceses to step ahead in forward-thinking mission together, focused on our collective ministry and ongoing discernment,” an announcement sent by the standing committees of the two dioceses said Friday morning (Sept. 8). “The bishop’s resignation is effective as of today.”

…

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For Immediate Release: September 12, 2023

McGill-Toolen Catholic High School in Alabama recently made international news because of reports that the Archdiocese, as well as the staff at the school, ignored complaints about a Catholic priest who absconded to Italy with a recent McGill graduate. Sadly, Fr. Alex Crow was apparently not the only case to be mishandled by school officials and the Church.

On Sunday, Mobile media outlet Lagniappe posted a major exposé on child sex abuse at the Catholic high school entitled, “Victims say leaders ignored past and present abuse at McGill.” The outstanding piece was written by Rob Hobert, with contributions from Dale Liesch and Kyle Hamrick.

We are so grateful to brave survivors Clark Glenn, Sallie McPhearson, and Brian Pierre for their contributions to this comprehensive report. It is because of courageous victims like them that information about abuse in Catholic institutions…

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Two recent Church stories, which on the surface seem to have little to do with one another, actually both point to a credibility deficit plaguing the institution at virtually every level. They illustrate a major problem with Catholic hierarchical culture: A failure to recognize – or refusal to admit – that trust is a two-way street, and must be earned.

The two stories are the ongoing saga of Bishop Michael Olson of Fort Worth and a poorly led group Discalced Carmelite nuns now in open rebellion, and Archbishop Gregory Aymond of New Orleans’ reneging on assurances his archdiocese’s bankruptcy wouldn’t affect schools and other apostolates.

In the Carmelites caper, Olson pretty clearly has a hard case in the erstwhile Mother Superior – who’s been accused of sexual and other impropriety, including possible involvement with controlled substances – and her fiercely loyal community of habited and cloistered sisters, who have lawyered…

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Its cover-up is causing many good people to lose faith and trust in the institutional Church

The shocking truth about clerical sexual abuse of minors and women religious was revealed in research by Missio Aachen released in 2020. The pressures on women religious never to complain are immense. They are told by priests that suffering in silence is a great virtue.

Complaining of abuse invites retaliation and even expulsion from their congregation, the research reveals. These are secret crimes now being exposed around the world to the shame and embarrassment of the members of the institutional Church.

The abuse will end and the victims and survivors shall be free only when the truth is revealed, accountability is fixed and justice is done by convicting and punishing the abusers.

It seems that priests, called representatives of God once ordained, have a special entitlement to abuse minors and women religious, and enjoy…

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A high-ranking Catholic cleric indicated on Wednesday that he was being investigated by the Conference of Swiss Bishops in connection with allegations of sexual abuse and their cover-up. 

Jean Scarcella has withdrawn from his role as father-abbot of Saint-Maurice until the end of the investigation.

“The investigation also concerns an accusation that was made against me,” Scarcella wrote in a press release. He indicated that he took the decision to suspend his office in agreement with the Abbey Council and the President of the Conference of Swiss Bishops (CES) to guarantee the independence of the investigation. 

He assures the Bishop of Chur Joseph Bonnemain, who is in charge of the investigation, his full cooperation.

The CES announced on Sunday that it had ordered the opening of a preliminary investigation on June 23 following accusations of covering up sexual abuse. Accusations were made in a letter “against several emeritus and serving members of…

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Un membre de l’Eglise catholique porte de graves accusations contre six évêques et plusieurs prêtres en Suisse: il s’agit de faits d’abus sexuels et de dissimulation de ces délits. Quatre plaintes ont été déposées auprès du parquet.

Le prêtre Nicolas Betticher (à gauche) déballe tout – et lance des accusations contre l’évêque Charles Morerod (à droite) et d’autres évêques.

Raphael Rauch

C’est une bombe pour l’Eglise catholique suisse: un membre porte des accusations graves contre six évêques. Quatre de ces hommes sont encore en fonction aujourd’hui, tandis que deux sont déjà à la retraite. Ils auraient tous couvert des cas d’abus sexuels, l’un d’entre eux aurait même agressé lui-même un jeune. A cela s’ajoutent des abus présumés commis par des prêtres en Suisse.

Le lanceur d’alerte n’est pas n’importe qui: Nicolas Betticher, pasteur très connecté à Berne, collaborateur de la conseillère fédérale Ruth Metzler et ancien vicaire général du diocèse…

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A comprehensive, yearlong investigation into sexual abuse within the Catholic Church in Switzerland released on Tuesday has documented more than 1,000 instances of abuse dating back to the mid-20th century.

The Swiss Bishops’ Conference commissioned the groundbreaking study by the University of Zurich’s Historical Seminar, reported CNA Deutsch, CNA’s German-language news partner. 

“The findings expose deep-rooted issues that go beyond the actions of individual perpetrators to systemic causes that Church leaders must answer for,” said Bishop Felix Gmür of Basel, president of the Swiss Bishops’ Conference, in an immediate response to the study.

The 136-page report documents 1,002 cases of abuse since the mid-20th century involving 510 accused and 921 victims. The research team cautioned that these figures represent “only the tip of the iceberg,” as numerous archives remain unevaluated.

The study also highlighted a systematic cover-up within the church. “Church criminal law was scarcely enforced…

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An official inquiry into the Roman Catholic Church in Switzerland has identified nearly 1,000 cases of sexual abuse since 1950.

Many involved children and 56% of the victims were male, the report said. The vast majority of the accused were men.

Researchers from the University of Zurich also found evidence of a “widespread cover up”.

“The cases we identified are without a doubt only the tip of the iceberg,” said the study’s leads.

Monika Dommann and Marietta Meier compiled the report following a year-long investigation, which was commissioned by Church authorities.

They were given access to Church archives and also held interviews with several people, including those affected by sexual abuse.

However, they said “numerous” other documents had not yet been made available.

The researchers also found evidence that records had been destroyed at two dioceses and that not all reported cases of sexual abuse were written down and consequently…

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A woman who claimed she was abused by a priest and staff in a care home in Bonnyrigg run by the Sisters of Nazareth in 1973 has successfully established that it would be possible for a fair trial to take place. About this case:

• CITATION: [2023] SC EDIN 27
• JUDGMENT: External link
• COURT: Sheriff Court
• JUDGE: Sheriff G.S. Primrose KC

Pursuer GD sought solatium damages for abuse she said occurred over three weeks in the summer of 1973, when she was aged 11. It was argued by the defender that, even if a fair trial could take place, it would be substantially prejudiced were the action to proceed.

The case was heard by Sheriff Graham Primrose, with Langlands, advocate, appearing for the pursuer and Brown, advocate, for the defender.

Seemingly no reason

Together with her three sisters and two brothers, the pursuer was a resident at the defender’s…

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Director Brian Knappenberger and former Boy Scouts youth protection director Michael Johnson on exposing a decades-long cover-up in Netflix’s documentary Scouts Honor: “They tried to squash the story every time.”

When documentarian Brian Knappenberger asks former detective Michael Johnson why he took a job with the Boy Scouts—Johnson was the organization’s youth protection director for a decade, before parting ways with it in 2020—Johnson levies a wary look his way. “Do you want the truth,” he answers, “or what I was told to say?”

As it turns out, Knappenberger is searching for both. His Netflix documentary Scouts Honor: The Secret Files of the Boy Scouts of America details decades of sexual abuse within the world’s most famous youth club—and the reason why even now victims and their allies largely decline to speak about it. “They tried to squash the story every time,” the director tells Vanity Fair. “This is an organization that holds themselves up as moral leaders, as people…

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The Southern Baptist Convention’s Executive Committee will meet next Monday in Nashville.

Here are four things it could do to address clergy sex abuse. All are within its own power and could be done without bumping up against church autonomy. All should be done without further delay.

Immediately add to the new Ministry Check database all the clergy abuser names on the Executive Committee’s list.

Starting in 2007, the SBC Executive Committee maintained a secret list of pastors and church staff credibly accused of sexual abuse. Over the course of 15 years, even as many survivors struggled desperately to warn congregations about preacher-predators, SBC officials compiled the names of more than 700 abusive pastors and took no action to protect people from them.

The existence of this secret list was one of the more stunning revelations of the Guidepost investigatory report.

In May 2022, in the face of survivors’ demands and massive media pressure, the Executive Committee finally…

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Whether involving Brother Nicholas “Vic” Bendillo decades ago, or Fr. Alex Crow this year, victims of abuse perpetrated by clergy at McGill-Toolen Catholic High School say there is one constant — an administration and archdiocese bent on covering for abusers and and squelching criticism of the school.

Parents of current and former McGill students negatively affected by their interactions with Crow over the past few years have expressed outrage at the lone statement issued by McGill-Toolen’s President Fr. Bry Shields and Principal Michelle Haas on July 28 claiming the “defrocked” priest who took off to Europe with a recent female graduate was not in classes after December 2021 and otherwise minimizing the school’s relationship with him.

“We were all stunned by the recent news regarding Alex Crow. Contrary to what was reported, Mr. Crow was never employed by McGill-Toolen CHS. We welcome our priests to visit Theology classes and hear…

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Editor’s note: This is the first in a two-part series about survivors of color and the clergy abuse crisis. The second part will be published Sept. 13. 

As Kevin Johnson recalled an encounter with an abusive priest, the image of George Floyd on the ground, a knee to his neck, came to mind. Decades earlier Johnson, too, gasped for air during moments of terror.

He was 16 then, a Black teen daydreaming in a church-run community pool, when a white, Josephite-order priest who’d befriended him years prior allegedly molested him underwater. 

“He dragged me under, where there was no oxygen, wrestled and assaulted me,” Johnson told NCR. “I would eventually be allowed to return to the surface and breathe. It was not a knee to the neck but a hand down the front of the trunks.”

The horror of that day remains vivid for Johnson, now 61. Yet stories like…

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Australia’s Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse wound up in December 2017. In five years, it held 8,000 private sessions, held 444 days of public hearing, heard more than 1,200 witness, commission more than 100 research papers, examined more than 1.2 million documents, and generated more than 45,400 pages of transcripts. The final report comprised 17 volumes. It cost A$342 million.

What has become apparent in recent months is that this was not $342 million well spent.

The institution examined most thoroughly by the Royal Commission was the Catholic Church. Other denominations, including the Anglican Church, the Jehovah’s Witnesses, and the Salvation Army, were also investigated, but the media focused on some appallingly abusive priests and cover-ups by Catholic Church leaders.  According to the chairman, Peter McClelland, “of the survivors who came to tell their story 58.6 per cent reported that they were abused in an institution managed by…

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NEW ORLEANS (WVUE) – The Archdiocese of New Orleans’ apparent plan to lean more heavily on area churches, schools and ministries to help shoulder the cost of its bankruptcy proceedings and clergy abuse claims has some concerned.

Attorney Desiree Charbonnet said it’s difficult for people to understand how a place you go to pray could be the same place people have preyed on children.

“What most people have a hard time dealing with is that, this is the church, right?” she said. “This is the same church who, from what I can see, has yet to say, ‘We are wrong and we are guilty. We confess. We did this. We did send pedophiles from parish to parish.’

“But it’s the same church that tells you on a Sunday to confess your sins.”

In a letter published Friday, Archbishop Gregory Aymond said that when the Archdiocese of New…

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A retired 91-year-old New Orleans priest who was removed from ministry in 2018 was indicted Thursday afternoon on felony charges related to allegations that he raped an underage teenage boy in the 1970s.

Lawrence Hecker was indicted on charges of aggravated rape, aggravated kidnapping, an aggravated crime against nature, and theft by an Orleans Parish Special Grand Jury. The sex abuse crimes are alleged to have occurred between Jan. 1, 1975, and Dec. 31, 1976, according to the New Orleans District Attorney’s Office.

“The physical, emotional, and mental harm from sexual abuse lasts a lifetime,” District Attorney Jason Williams said in a statement.

“Many survivors have felt hopeless and irreparably harmed by the acts Lawrence Hecker committed against them,” Williams continued. “The innocence and youth stolen from multiple children, who revered and respected Hecker as a protector, cannot be regained. The traumatic effects of those events from…

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The director general of the Consecrated Women of the Regnum Christi movement, Nancy Nohrden, expressed her closeness to the members of the community in Chile and Argentina in response to a letter published Sept. 5 by a group of former consecrated women.

In the letter posted by the La Tercera portal, about 30 former members of the movement expressed their backing for a civil lawsuit filed in June against the Legionaries of Christ.

The plaintiff is a woman who claims to have been a victim of the abuse of power and conscience as well as sexual abuse from 2008 to 2010 while she was part of the formation center of the consecrated women in Chile.

The former consecrated women who wrote the letter published in La Tercera consider the context presented in the complaint to be “credible” and want to “provide information” in this regard.

The former members claim that…

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GENEVA (AP) — A sweeping, year-long study of sex abuse by Catholic priests and others in Switzerland published Tuesday has turned up more than 1,000 cases since the mid-20th century, as the Swiss church becomes the latest in Europe to reckon with the abuse scandal.

With few exceptions, those accused of wrongdoing were all male. Nearly three-fourths of the documents examined showed the sexual abuse involved minors.

The report, commissioned by the Swiss Conference of Bishops and led by two University of Zurich historians, offers a deep look at sexual abuse and harassment that has confounded the Catholic Church across the globe in recent decades — upending the lives of many victims and their families, and tarnishing the image of the institution.

The authors said in a statement that they identified 1,002 “situations of sexual abuse,” including accusations against 510 people. The abuse, they wrote, affected 921 people.

…

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In der katholischen Kirche in der Schweiz hat es zwischen 1950 und heute mindestens 1002 Fälle sexuellen Missbrauchs gegeben – zu diesem Ergebnis kommt eine Studie der Universität Zürich. Doch die Dunkelziffer ist hoch. Denn viele Betroffene trauten sich nicht, den Übergriff zu melden. Ausserdem wurden viele Akten vernichtet. «Bei den identifizierten Fällen handelt es sich zweifellos nur um die Spitze des Eisbergs», sagen die Historikerinnen Monika Dommann und Marietta Meier.

Der Studie der Uni Zürich geht es um problematische Grenzüberschreitungen, aber auch um «schwerste, systematische Missbräuche, die über Jahre hinweg andauerten». 

Gezielte Vernichtung von Akten

Bei der Pilotstudie handelt es sich um einen ersten Schritt. In den nächsten Jahren sollen weitere Details ans Licht kommen. Es geht auch um die Vertuschung durch die Verantwortlichen. «In vielen Fällen wurde sexueller Missbrauch ausgesessen, Beschuldigte versetzt sowie Betroffene und Mitwissende zum Schweigen verpflichtet. Dadurch nahmen Verantwortliche der Kirche in Kauf, dass es…

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Cover-up allegations have plunged the Swiss bishops’ conference into crisis on the eve of the publication of a landmark abuse report.

The allegations against six bishops — four active and two retired — were disclosed Sept. 10 by the Swiss Sunday newspaper SonntagsBlick.

The bishops’ conference of Switzerland, which has around 3 million Catholics out of a total population of 8.7 million, announced the same day that the Vatican had asked a Swiss bishop to undertake a preliminary canonical investigation into the claims. 

Bishop Joseph Bonnemain of Chur is expected to send a report by the end of 2023 to the Vatican’s Dicastery for the Bishops, which will then decide whether to launch proceedings under Church law.

The bishops’ conference said that public prosecutor’s offices had also been informed of the cases, which include allegations against priests.

The news broke just days before the publication of an independent pilot study on sexual abuse…

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I have a confession to make. Despite drifting away from the Catholic Church a few decades ago, I still read America: The Jesuit Review on a regular basis. There are days when I wonder why — perhaps because I was partially educated by Jesuits? Or because of my deep Catholic cultural roots that just won’t wither?  These days I read with a newer lens as an abuse survivor, after finally recognizing/acknowledging the sexual, spiritual, and emotional abuse inflicted by a lay teacher at my Diocese of Allentown school, Msgr. Bornemann Memorial Central Catholic High School in Reading, PA. 

With the survivor lens in mind, my curiosity was piqued by Kevin Clarke’s article, “The Complicated Legacy of State investigations of the Catholic sex abuse crisis.” I began reading with an open mind; after all, over the last three years, I have come to know numerous survivors whose stories were…

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Former Mobile priest Alex Crow, stripped of his clerical functions the last week of July, coerced the young woman who is now in Italy with him to leave Mobile against her will, a family representative said Wednesday.

“We’re aware that the young lady did not want to go,” Mobile attorney Christine Hernandez said. “He continued for hours on the phone to convince her.”
 
One month ago, a family member of the young woman who graduated from McGill-Toolen Catholic High School in the spring found her and Crow together in Italy. Mobile County Sheriff Paul Burch said on Saturday, July 29 that the young woman told investigators she left “of her own free will.”
 
Hernandez’s investigation into whether Crow groomed the young woman led her to believe otherwise. She called Crow’s repeated attempts to make the young woman change her mind and decide to leave home with him “part of the grooming process.”
 
The…

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Bishop Lucia’s Statement to the People of the Diocese of Syracuse:

It is with a heavy heart that I inform you that the Diocese of Syracuse has been informed by the Cortland County Sheriff’s Department that four misdemeanor charges involving a minor have been filed against Father Nathan Brooks in Cortland County Court on August 31, 2023. Following diocesan policy, Father Brooks who serves as the Administrator of the Church of the Nativity at St. Joseph, Lafayette; Immaculate Conception, Pompey; St. Leo, Tully and St. Patrick Mission, Otisco is suspended from all priestly ministry during the investigation of these charges. In keeping with our Memorandum of Understanding with the local County District Attorneys, the diocese has and will continue to fully cooperate with the Cortland County District Attorney’s office.

This is distressing news, most certainly to me, and to all of you. As a Catholic family, we have been on a journey…

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The difficulties survivors of child sexual abuse face when attempting to pursue justice is a reality of complexities of the church, the Catholic Archbishop of Perth says.

Key points:

• Archbishop Timothy Costelloe fronted the parliamentary inquiry on Monday
• He rejected claims he was being insensitive to the plight of sex abuse survivors
• Archbishop Costelloe pointed to the church’s improved accountability on the issue

Timothy Costelloe made the statements while testifying before the Community Development and Justice Standing Committee’s inquiry into the options available to survivors of institutional child sexual abuse in Western Australia who are seeking justice.

He also rejected claims that he was trying to evade responsibility of being “dishonest” in his communication on the issue.

Described variously as a “war of attrition” and an “attempt to break you down”, survivors have spoken of unnecessarily long delays in legal proceedings and unreasonable demands for information.

Archbishop Costelloe, who has…

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My body quivered as I read and reread the eight-sentence reply that I had just received, via email, from the Executive Secretary of the Pennsylvania Conference of Seventh-day Adventists.

We were encouraged by the note from your former counselor that shows you have been able to focus on working through many issues. …Are you still receiving counseling?

He was encouraged by the note from my former counselor? 

The note from my counselor had said: 

At the time I met Molly* it is my belief that she was experiencing the effects of traumatic sexual, mental, emotional and social abuse. The abuse began when Molly was a teenager and the perpetrator was a married male who was in a position of trusted leadership in the Seventh-day Adventist church Molly attended as a minor.

My story

My father died in a highway accident when I was eight years old. A fatherless child is one of…

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The Roman Catholic Archbishop of Perth has defended the church’s handling of child sexual abuse compensation claims, during an at-times heated appearance before a West Australian parliamentary inquiry.

The Most Reverend Timothy Costelloe on Monday said he rejected any suggestion the church was trying to avoid taking responsibility for historical child sex abuses or did not take such complaints seriously.

Under intense questioning from Labor MP Dave Kelly over the church’s handling of complaints, Archbishop Costelloe said he took full responsibility for the areas for which he was rightly responsible and did his best to ensure that those who had been hurt by other agencies in the church were referred to the ­correct people.

Archbishop Costelloe appeared as a witness to the WA parliamentary inquiry into the options available to survivors of institutional child sexual abuse.

The inquiry is examining how the WA legal system has performed in the five years…

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Earlier this month, reports emerged in a California news outlet about alleged sexual abuse that purportedly took place at a commune run by a Catholic pro-life organization, Catholics United for Life.

The allegations come from three biological sisters who say they were abused at various points by men within the organization, which was founded as a Third Order Dominican Catholic community and eventually settled in rural California in the 1970s.

“I know what a cult is, and it was definitely a cult,” Margo, the oldest sister, told NBC Bay Area. 

The sisters, who are identified only by their first names in media reports, said the commune where they grew up, which at least at one point housed “dozens,” was dedicated to families wishing to home-school their children and travel from city to city to engage in pro-life activism. 

The commune…

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SonntagsBlick enthüllte einen weiteren Missbrauch-Skandal in der Kirche. Am Dienstag erscheint ein Bericht zum sexuellem Missbrauch in der katholischen Kirche der Schweiz. Zum ersten Mal öffnen die kirchlichen Institutionen ihre Geheimarchive. Was bisher geschah.

Jesus meinte es gut: Liebe deinen Nächsten wie dich selbst. Doch einige der Geistlichen nutzten das aus. Sie vergingen sich über Jahrhunderte an Kindern und Jugendlichen. Ein tiefschwarzes Kapitel. Lange vertuschte die katholische Kirche das wahre Ausmass. Jetzt brachte SonntagsBlick einen neuen Fall ans Tageslicht. Das zeigt: Die Dunkelziffer von Opfern ist gross. Licht ins Dunkel soll am Dienstag ein Bericht der Universität Zürich bringen. 

Im Ausland hat die katholische Kirche den sexuellen Missbrauch teils schon seit Jahren aufgearbeitet. In der Schweiz ist mit der Universität Zürich zum ersten Mal ein unabhängiges Forscherteam in Geheimarchive gestiegen und hat mit Priestern und Missbrauchsopfern gesprochen. Der Churer Bischof Joseph Bonnemain (75) sagte 2022 dazu vor den…

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BERLIN (AP) — The Vatican has ordered an investigation into high-ranking Catholic clerics in Switzerland in connection with sexual abuse, the Swiss Bishops’ Conference said on Sunday.

The group said in a statement that there were allegations against several active and retired bishops as well as other clergy for their handling of abuse cases.

Specifically, they are accused of covering up abuse cases. There are also accusations that some committed sexual assaults themselves in the past.

“There are accusations against some of them of having committed sexual assaults themselves in the past,” it said.

According to the bishops’ conference, the Vatican received a letter with the allegations in May and subsequently appointed Swiss Bishop Joseph Bonnemain to head a preliminary investigation in June.

Bonnemain has a history of investigating sexual assaults around the church, the statement said.

Father Nicolas Betticher, a priest at the Bruder Klaus church in the Swiss…

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Beloved Son, Brother, Nephew, Cousin,

Husband, Father, Grandfather and Uncle

Captain, United States Air Force (Ret.)

Leader in Dentistry

Strong Advocate Who Made Delaware’s Children Safer

Thomas “Paddy” Patrick Conaty III, D.D.S., 82, of Wilmington, Delaware, died Monday, September 4, 2023, after a long illness, in the presence of his loving family. In 2020, soon after his retirement from dentistry, Tom faced the devastating diagnosis of Progressive Supranuclear Palsy (PSP) with the same quiet bravery and dignity he carried throughout his noble life.

Tom was born to Detective Thomas P. Conaty Jr. and Louise Buckley Conaty in 1941 at St. Francis Hospital in Wilmington. When Tom was five years old, his father was shot to death while on patrol for the Wilmington Police Department in the early morning hours after Christmas Day 1946. The tragic loss of his father at such a tender age had a profound effect on Tom,…

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10.09.2023

Medienmitteilung vom 10. September 2023

Heute morgen wurden Vorwürfe gegen verschiedene Mitglieder der Schweizer Bischofskonferenz öffentlich gemacht. Wir möchten Sie dazu in Kenntnis setzen, so weit uns dies das laufende Verfahren erlaubt.

In einem Brief von Ende Mai 2023 an den Apostolischen Nuntius der Schweiz, Martin Krebs, werden gegen mehrere emeritierte und amtierende Mitglieder der Schweizer Bischofskonferenz sowie gegen weitere Kleriker Vorwürfe im Umgang mit sexuellen Missbrauchsfällen erhoben. Gegen einzelne von ihnen steht der Vorwurf im Raum, in der Vergangenheit selber sexuelle Übergriffe begangen zu haben.

Auch der Präsident der Bischofskonferenz, Bischof Felix Gmür, erhielt Kenntnis von diesem Schreiben. Er versicherte sich umgehend beim Nuntius, dass der Brief bereits an die für solche Vorwürfe zuständige Behörde in Rom – das Dikasterium für die Bischöfe – weitergeleitet worden ist. Der Nuntius betätigte dies.

Am 23. Juni 2023 hat das Dikasterium zu dieser Angelegenheit eine kirchenrechtliche Voruntersuchung angeordnet und Bischof…

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A priest who fled the country with a recent Catholic high school graduate will be laicized, Archbishop Thomas J. Rodi of Mobile, Alabama, has announced on the archdiocese’s website, as family concerns mount over their inability to reach the young woman who is traveling with him.

Father Alex Crow, who was ordained in June 2021 and had served as a parochial vicar at Corpus Christi Parish in Mobile, abruptly left his assignment July 24.

The 30-year-old priest flew to Italy with an unnamed 18-year-old woman who is a recent graduate of McGill-Toolen Catholic High School in Mobile, which Father Crow also attended. Although he provided pastoral ministry to students, school officials have denied Father Crow was formally employed there.

In a July letter to the Archdiocese of Mobile, Father Crow said he had no intention of returning to the U.S. He and the young woman were located in Italy by…

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Cheektowaga Maryvale Union Free School District paid $8.4 million to settle five Child Victims Act lawsuits alleging sexual abuse of students in the 1970s by a music teacher.

The district agreed to separate confidential settlements with the five plaintiffs over the past year, according to legal documents released to The Buffalo News in response to a Freedom of Information Law request.

The largest settlement, for $3.5 million, went to a 60-year-old Lockport man identified in court papers as AB 504 Doe, who alleged being repeatedly molested by Stanley K. Bratt, a music teacher at Maryvale East Elementary School from 1968 to 1980.

The man said in court papers he was in third grade when Bratt first began providing private trumpet lessons. The teacher took the pupil on outings to see movies and play miniature golf and eventually brought the boy to his home, according to court papers. Bratt gained his…

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The coordinating body of the Catholic dioceses in Switzerland said Sunday a preliminary investigation had been launched into accusations of sexual abuse cover-ups within the Church.

The Bishops’ Conference of Switzerland said an investigation has been opened following accusations of both abuse and efforts to cover up abuse had been made against several former and serving members of the conference, as well as other members of clergy.

The conference statement came after the SonntagsBlick weekly on Sunday reported that a former prominent priest had in a letter accused four current and two former bishops of covering up cases of sexual abuse by clergy in Switzerland.

One of them was himself accused of sexually harassing a boy, the paper reported.

The conference acknowledged in Sunday’s statement that a letter dated in late May contained accusations involving “the handling of sex abuse cases”.

Some of those names “are accused themselves of committing…

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In matters of sexual abuse, Catholic Church is ‘morally and spiritually bankrupt’

It is with disgust, but not surprise, that I read about the Baltimore archdiocese’s plan to consider bankruptcy as a response to their history of child sexual abuse (“Archbishop concedes the Baltimore archdiocese is considering bankruptcy; survivors say they’d oppose the move,” Sept. 5). I would like to particularly respond to two points in Archbishop William Lori’s email to Baltimore archdiocese Catholics.

He states that “victim-survivors … suffered so profoundly from the actions of some ministers of the Church.” This is another blatant refusal to accept the institutional responsibility borne by the Archdiocese of Baltimore and many, many other dioceses. The Baltimore Attorney General’s Office report directly stated that their investigation uncovered “the enormous scope and scale of abuse and concealment perpetrated by the Archdiocese of Baltimore.”

Such findings have been replicated…

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Gregory Aymond’s letter contradicts promises made to schools and churches when archdiocese declared bankruptcy in May 2020

Contradicting promises he made when his archdiocese declared bankruptcy in May 2020, New Orleans’s archbishop, Gregory Aymond, told the area’s Catholic churches, schools and other ministries that they will now have to share some of the costs of resolving hundreds of clergy abuse claims.

Aymond’s notice came in a letter on Friday, at the end of a particularly bad news week for his organization. One day earlier, a grand jury in New Orleans indicted the retired archdiocesan priest Lawrence Hecker on charges of aggravated rape, aggravated kidnapping, aggravated crime against nature and theft.

Hecker’s indictment came less than three months after the Guardian exposed a typed statement that he gave in 1999 in which he admitted to leaders at the New Orleans archdiocese – the second oldest Catholic archdiocese in the US – that he had…

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The Justice Department announced today $58,860,034 in Office on Violence Against Women (OVW) grants to provide legal services and to improve effective coordination of justice systems impacting survivors of sexual assault, domestic violence, dating violence and stalking. OVW awarded the funds under the Legal Assistance for Victims (LAV) Program, Justice for Families (JFF) Program, Expanding Legal Services Initiative (ELSI) and the Domestic Violence Mentor Court Technical Assistance Initiative.

The need for specialized legal services is both urgent and essential for survivors of domestic and dating violence, sexual assault and stalking. These services provide interventions, such as securing restraining or protective orders and address issues such as child custody, immigration, housing and employment, that are essential for survivor safety. Moreover, there is a significant overlap between domestic violence and family law, particularly in cases involving children; survivors often need legal counsel to navigate complex issues like child custody, visitation and child…

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The proceeds were transferred to the Mother Cabrini Health Foundation, where they have remained out of reach in the Child Victims Act lawsuits

Attorneys for hundreds of alleged sexual abuse victims, as well as 1,100 former employees of the now-closed St. Clare’s Hospital in Schenectady, are scheduled to argue their request at an upcoming hearing in U.S. Bankruptcy Court for permission to examine where the proceeds went from the sale of a lucrative insurance business that had been controlled by New York’s bishops.

The 2018 sale of the Fidelis Care insurance company took place months before New York’s Child Victims Act passed — a law change that allowed alleged survivors of childhood sexual assault to sue their abusers or the institutions that may have harbored them. Attorneys for some of those plaintiffs have questioned the timing of the sale and whether it was done to shield billions of dollars…

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It often takes survivors decades before they have the courage to come forward. That’s why the current statute of limitations for sex abuse lawsuits should be lifted.

Criminal sexual assault charges against Theodore McCarrick were dismissed last month after a Massachusetts judge ruled that the 93-year-old defrocked cardinal was incompetent to stand trial. But Mitchell Garabedian, the lawyer who represented the plaintiff in that case, is still pursuing civil lawsuits related to McCarrick filed in New York and New Jersey.

He is able to do so because those states lifted statute of limitation restrictions on such cases for a set window of time. The victim — who in the 1970s was a 16-year-old boy when the alleged assault took place in Wellesley — could not do that in Massachusetts. That’s because under current state law, victims can file suit within 35 years of the alleged abuse, with the time limit…

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Leader of Archdiocese of New Orleans says lawyers underestimated how much settling abuse cases would cost.

More than three years after the Archdiocese of New Orleans filed for bankruptcy court protection amid mounting allegations of child sex abuse by local clergy, the financial cost to the country’s second-oldest archdiocese is coming into focus.

In a letter Friday to the clergy, religious and laity, Archbishop Gregory Aymond said for the first time that individual parishes, schools and charities will be asked to help cover the rising costs of abuse claims, which total nearly 500 to date. That number has grown dramatically over the course of the church’s bankruptcy.  

“When we filed Chapter 11 reorganization in 2020, I was advised by legal counsel that the Chapter 11 proceedings would only impact our administrative offices and not the apostolates – parishes, schools and ministries,” Aymond said in his letter, which was posted to…

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To the Clergy, Religious, and Laity of the Archdiocese of New Orleans:

Dear Sisters and Brothers in Christ,

As many of you are already aware, the Archdiocese of New Orleans filed for reorganization under Chapter 11 of the US Bankruptcy Code on May 1, 2020. This has been a much longer, complicated, and costly process than anyone could have predicted. However, I remain steadfast in my conviction that these Chapter 11 proceedings are the best path forward to justly address all past claims of abuse.  We will use this process to restructure our financials and streamline our organizational structure to be a local church of vitality and responsive to the needs of the faithful now and into the future.

At the time of the filing, there were over 30 claims of abuse filed in court against the Archdiocese of New Orleans, many of which were lawsuits, too costly to defend….

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Individual Catholic churches, schools and ministries in the New Orleans area will have to share some of the costs of resolving clergy abuse claims, Archbishop warns.

Individual Catholic churches, schools and ministries in the New Orleans area will now have to share some of the costs of resolving hundreds of clergy abuse claims, Archbishop Gregory Aymond warned in a letter Friday, contradicting promises he made when the archdiocese declared bankruptcy in May 2020.

Aymond distributed a letter to clergy at the annual convocation of priests, explaining that expenses from the archdiocese’s three-and-a-half-year bankruptcy case have far exceeded his attorney’s predictions. A letter Aymond sent the Vatican in April 2020 indicated out-of-pocket expenses for the bankruptcy would be less than $7.5 million.

It now appears the cost of settling more than 500 claims is likely to exceed $100 million.

As of last month, the bankruptcy attorneys’ fees alone…

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A state grand jury has charged a now-91-year-old disgraced priest with sexually assaulting a teenage boy in 1975, an extraordinary prosecution that could shed new light on what Roman Catholic Church leaders knew about a child sex abuse crisis that persisted for decades and claimed hundreds of victims.

The priest, Lawrence Hecker, has been at the center of state and federal investigations of clergy sex abuse and a deepening scandal over why church leaders failed to report his admissions to law enforcement even as they permitted him to work around children until he quietly left the ministry in 2002. It wasn’t until 2018 that the Archdiocese of New Orleans publicly identified Hecker as a suspected predator when it released its list of “credibly accused” priests.

Hecker faces felony counts of rape, kidnapping, aggravated crime against nature and theft. He is accused of choking the teen unconscious under the guise of…

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Warning: contains minor spoilers for The Nun II.

The Nun II is an arresting piece of storytelling which satisfies and subverts audience expectations in equal measure. On one level, it is an extremely watchable piece of action horror, comfortably divorced from reality. The demon from the previous film has resurfaced and is now stalking a group of thoroughly-likeable characters in a French boarding school.

Sister Irene (Taissa Farmiga), the eponymous nun who previously defeated the demon, has been called in once again by the church authorities. She is assisted by Sister Debra (Storm Reid), a novice who doubts her own faith. This premise makes for a classic battle between good and evil. And there’s a steady stream of scares as the tension builds, before exploding into a jump-out-of-your seat moment.

Those familiar with the real Catholic church will recognise that exorcisms, the sacraments, saints, holy relics and the respective roles of…

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There are at least 147 separate investigations into alleged sexual abuse at hands of clergy

Oviedo, Spain – Spain’s attorney general has asked prosecutors to start investigating Catholic leadership for allegedly covering up cases of sexual abuse of minors, according to an annual report published on Thursday.

The attorney general said that cases may broaden to consider the role of superiors like bishops, cardinals, or other high-ups in the church, which may also constitute criminal behavior.

So far, no bishops or members of church leadership have been criminally charged for their alleged role in enabling sexual abuse. However, Spanish daily El Pais has identified 75 of them who are accused of silencing victims or covering up crimes.

In Spain, by the end of 2022, there were at least 147 open investigations into specific cases of pedophilia at the hands of Catholic clergy. For the first time, the annual report includes…

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2 On Your Side spoke with Erie County District Attorney John Flynn about why that is.

The Diocese of Buffalo‘s Independent Review Board conducted an investigation into a retired priest and found the allegation he abused a minor is true. 

However, The Rev. Joseph Vatter will not be facing any criminal charges. 

Erie County District Attorney John Flynn says the alleged abuse happened back in the early 1980s. However, he says the statute of limitations in this incident was only three years, so no charges can be filed. 

Flynn says Vatter allegedly forcibly touched a girl in her early teens at a Catholic school. He says there was no rape or serious felony misconduct. 

Flynn adds if the statute of limitations wasn’t an issue in this case, it would be a misdemeanor.

To this day, Flynn says forcibly touching someone has a three-year statute of limitations on…

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Lawrence Hecker, 91, charged with first-degree rape two months after Guardian report on 1999 statement in which he admitted ‘overtly sexual acts’

A retired Catholic priest from New Orleans who years ago secretly admitted to church leaders that he sexually molested or harassed numerous children is now facing criminal charges.

State prosecutors in New Orleans obtained an indictment charging Lawrence Hecker, 91, on Thursday with aggravated rape, aggravated kidnapping, aggravated crime against nature and theft.

The crimes allegedly occurred at a church attached to a Catholic high school where Hecker worked in 1975, when the accuser was a 15- or 16-year-old child, according to the alleged victim’s civil attorney, Richard Trahant.

The accuser recalls that Hecker approached him under the guise of showing him a wrestling move, choked him unconscious, and “sodomized” him, Trahant said. Trahant said his client and the victim’s mother reported it to the school at the time,…

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[Includes the text of an interview with Anne Barrett Doyle.]

Last week, a Massachusetts judge dismissed the criminal charges of sexual abuse against Theodore McCarrick, a priest who was once one of the most powerful men in the Catholic Church in America.

A former cardinal and bishop, McCarrick had been charged with sexually assaulting a teenager nearly 50 years ago. The victim alleges the abuse lasted for about two decades. McCarrick, now 93, reportedly suffers from dementia, and Judge Paul McCallum of the Dedham District Court deemed him incompetent to stand trial.

The victim submitted a statement to the court, writing: “I have trouble reconciling the concept that someone who is intelligent and articulate is also not competent to stand trial and answer for his actions. I brought the charges in this matter in the hope of finding justice in this court. Instead, McCarrick walks a free man, and I am…

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[See also the full video interview.]

he Irish prelate credited with being among the first to tackle the clerical abuse crisis head-on said he did not believe there will be women priests in the Catholic Church in his lifetime.

He also warned that synodal consultations could lead to “frustrated expectations” when people realize that the process will not lead to a radical change in church teaching on hot-button issues such as the ordination of women.

Retired Archbishop Diarmuid Martin of Dublin also said that he believes that St. John Paul II was guilty of “bad theology” when the pontiff said during the AIDS crisis that it was not permitted for Catholics to use condoms to halt the spread of the virus.

Regarding sexual abuse, Archbisop Martin, who was on the front line of facing this in Ireland, said the scandals had “badly damaged the church,” especially “the faith of…

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TOPLINE

A grand jury in Louisiana indicted 91-year-old retired Catholic priest Lawrence Hecker Thursday afternoon on charges of rape and kidnapping for allegedly sexually assaulting a teenage boy five decades ago, marking the latest charges against a figure in the Catholic Church.

KEY FACTS

• Hecker was also charged with aggravated crime against nature and theft, according to Orleans Parish District Attorney Jason Williams (Forbes has reached out to the New Orleans Archdiocese).
• Hecker had admitted to the Catholic Archdiocese in New Orleans that he had sexually molested or shared a bed with multiple teenagers as a Catholic priest, according to a June report in the Guardian, though the Archdiocese only named Hecker as a suspected sexual predator in 2018, saying it learned about the allegation in 1996 and that he had been removed from the ministry in 2002.
• According to the Archdiocese, Hecker had committed the abuse…

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A state grand jury in Louisiana has indicted a retired Roman Catholic priest on multiple felony charges related to claims that he sexually assaulted a teenage boy in the 1970s. The long-sought charges come after public allegations that leaders in the Archdiocese of New Orleans knew about accusations against the priest for decades.

The retired priest, Lawrence Hecker, 91, faces charges of aggravated rape, aggravated kidnapping, aggravated crime against nature and theft, the district attorney of New Orleans, Jason Williams, said in a news conference on Thursday.

“We’ve had to fight very vigorously through the courts and behind the scenes for disclosure of any and all information and evidence,” Mr. Williams said, referring to a “cone of silence” that often protects clergy members.

The charges come months after The Guardian reported that Mr. Hecker confessed to his superiors in the archdiocese in 1999 that he had either sexually…

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A Catholic priest ordained just over four years ago for the Diocese of Syracuse, New York, has been charged with several counts of child sexual abuse and removed from ministry.

Fr. Nathan W. Brooks, 36, faces four misdemeanor counts of third-degree sex abuse, forcible touching and endangering the welfare of a child for incidents that took place between 2019-2021.

According to a news release issued by the Cortland County Sheriff’s Office, the complaint was filed Aug. 22, and Brooks was arrested Aug. 31.

The sheriff’s office said in its release the investigation regarding Brooks “revealed that the defendant … had subjected one victim to inappropriate sexual contact on multiple occasions over several years.”

The victim “was known” to Brooks, the release said.

Brooks was arraigned Sept. 5 in Homer Town Court in Homer and then again Sept. 6 in Cortland City Court, since the alleged incidents occurred in both locales…

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The lay Catholic women published an open letter saying they experienced an environment of abuse similar to what the plaintiff described in her complaint

A group of 32 former Consecrated Women of Regnum Christi, lay women who dedicate their lives fully to Christ through their membership in an international Catholic federation that also includes the Legion of Christ, published an open letter on September 5 supporting a Chilean women who alleges being gang-raped by Legion of Christ priests in Santiago (Chile) between 2008 and 2010. “We experienced an environment where abuse of power and conscience was prevalent, and where the described sexual assaults in the lawsuit could have taken place,” stated the signatories of the civil lawsuit filed last June. The alleged victim, now 32 years old, is a former teenaged student of Colegio Cumbres, an exclusive educational institution managed by the Legion of Christ in Chile’s capital city.

The 16-year-old…

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An Episcopal priest in the Diocese of Maryland has resigned his cure after being named in a report by the Maryland attorney general’s office into child sexual abuse in the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Baltimore.

On 31 July 2023 the Rev. Thomas Hudson resigned as priest in charge of St George’s Episcopal Church in Mount Savage, Maryland. On 21 May 2023 Fr Savage wrote to his congregation saying the Rt. Rev. Eugene Sutton, Bishop of Maryland, had directed him to take a leave of absence pending an investigation into an unstated personal matter. 

On 25 May 2023, Bishop Sutton issued a pastoral message to the diocese saying: “On April 24, I was notified by the Rev. Thomas Hudson, rector of St. George’s, Mt. Savage, that he had learned his name was listed in a redacted version of an investigative report from the Maryland Attorney General’s Office detailing abuse allegations in the Archdiocese…

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Pope Francis has tried to put the clergy sexual abuse scandal behind him, but a perceived lack of transparency about who is being disciplined and why continues to dog the church.

After a judge declared him incompetent to stand trial on charges that he sexually assaulted a 16-year-old boy in Wellesley in the 1970s, the Zoom image of Theodore McCarrick showed an old man with a blank face, hunched over a table in a room at the assisted living facility in Missouri that is now his home. Yet when the remote session ended, one could still imagine the defrocked and disgraced cardinal smiling in triumph — just like any other aging gangster who beat the system.

The charges against McCarrick, 93, were dismissed last week after two medical experts found he suffered from dementia. That makes him a living symbol of the…

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Dear Friends in Christ, 

Last spring, the Maryland General Assembly passed a new law that enables victims of child sexual abuse to file civil lawsuits regardless of how long ago the abuse occurred. This legislation has the potential to have devastating financial consequences, not only for every public school system in the State of Maryland but for many other institutions and organizations as well, including for the ministries of the Archdiocese of Baltimore.

In anticipation of the October 1 effective date of the new law, it is my intention to undertake multiple consultations in the coming days with various ordained and lay leaders in the Archdiocese about the manner in which the Archdiocese will respond to the new law. It is about that response that I write to you today.

In considering how the Archdiocese might respond to the new law, it is important to keep in mind two overarching…

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The Archdiocese of Baltimore will consider filing for bankruptcy as it awaits the implementation of a new law that will end the statute of limitations for civil lawsuits for negligence in relation to child sexual abuse. 

Effective Oct. 1, the law will allow a victim of child sex abuse to sue private entities for up to $1.5 million if he or she can show the organization failed to properly respond to sexual abuse that occurred under its watch. Previously, the statute of limitations was seven years after the victim’s 18th birthday. 

Because the new law will apply retroactively, victims whose statute of limitations had already passed will be able to file lawsuits against private entities. An attorney’s general report from April accused the archdiocese of covering up child sex abuse for decades, and the archbishop believes this law could lead to multiple lawsuits that could have “devastating financial…

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Two weeks after the San Francisco Archdiocese of the Roman Catholic Church filed for bankruptcy amid hundreds of outstanding lawsuits from victims of sexual abuse, an organization representing survivors is demanding the Diocese of Oakland withdraw its Chapter 11 protections and pay victims with the proceeds.

“According to our research, the Diocese of Oakland owns a real estate portfolio valued at about $3.3 billion,” the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP) wrote in an official statement shared with National Review on Tuesday. “Of those properties, it appears to us that about $600 million are held in ‘non-core’ real estate. That is, those particular properties do not seem to be central to the Diocese’s mission.”

“Based on our assessment, we believe that the Diocese has the resources needed to care for survivors without resorting to bankruptcy,” the group argued.

In May, the Roman Catholic Diocese of Oakland filed for bankruptcy, making it…

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When Teresa Lancaster learned the Archdiocese of Baltimore could file for bankruptcy in the face of an anticipated deluge of lawsuits over its history of child sexual abuse, the news only strengthened her resolve.

Lancaster, a victim of childhood sexual assault in the 1970s and an attorney based in Annapolis, is a prominent voice for fellow abuse survivors. She helped wage the political battles that got Maryland’s landmark Child Victims Act passed in April.

So, if America’s first and oldest Catholic diocese does file for Chapter 11 ― as a chain of internal emails obtained by The Baltimore Sun suggested it could and that Archbishop William E. Lori conceded in a Tuesday night letter to parishioners that he is considering — she said she and her allies will do whatever they can to halt the effort in its tracks.

“They’re going to be in for a hell of a fight,”…

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This is what government should not do: fail to offer relief, year after year, to adult survivors of childhood sexual abuse.

As Spotlight PA’s Stephen Caruso reported last week, “Survivors of childhood sexual abuse must continue waiting for their day in court after the Pennsylvania General Assembly failed to meet the deadline to get a proposed constitutional amendment on the November ballot.

“This failure continues nearly two decades of idleness, intrigues, and slip-ups that have blocked a measure that would give thousands of survivors a two-year window to seek monetary damages against their abusers and the institutions that shielded the accused.”

The civil statute of limitations had expired for many of these survivors before they even knew such a statute existed.

We have repeatedly implored state lawmakers to pass a two-year litigation window so survivors can face their abusers in civil court and hold accountable those who enabled their abuse.

…

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Homer, N.Y. — A teen girl and her mother have accused a priest in the Syracuse Catholic Diocese of having an inappropriate relationship with the girl since she was 14, according to court documents.

Rev. Nathan Brooks, 36, of LaFayette, has been charged with third-degree sex abuse, forcible touching and endangering the welfare of a child. The incidents happened between 2019 and 2021, authorities said.

On Tuesday, Brooks was arraigned in the Homer Town Court.

Court documents obtained by Syracuse.com | The Post-Standard Tuesday reveal new details in the case.

The girl, who recently turned 18, and her mother came forward to authorities after the girl saw Brooks interacting with others and became concerned that he was treating other girls the way he had treated her, according to a deposition the girl gave to the Cortland County Sheriff’s Office.

Brooks met the…

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[Includes trailer.]

Scout’s Honor: The Secret Files of the Boy Scouts of America

Directed by Brian Knappenberger, Documentary, Crime, Not Rated, 1h 34m

Almost three years ago, ahead of a bankruptcy court deadline, more than 82,000 people came forward with sexual abuse claims against the Boy Scouts of America. The mostly male survivors were of all ages and came from every state. Some of them had kept mum for decades.

“Scouts Honor: The Secret Files of the Boy Scouts of America,” directed by Brian Knappenberger and streaming on Netflix, is essentially a walk-through of the monumental case. A solid chunk of its running time is spent with Michael Johnson, a former director at the Boy Scouts who has since become an outspoken critic of its youth protection practices. As the film tracks the organization’s history of abuse and cover-ups, Johnson recounts hitting brick walls during his efforts to reform…

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A Catholic priest in New York’s Diocese of Syracuse has been arrested on charges of sexual abuse, including that of a minor, for alleged incidents from 2019 to 2022. In response, the local bishop suspended the priest from ministry and called for prayers for everyone involved.

Father Nathan Brooks, 36, faces several misdemeanor charges filed Aug. 31 in Cortland County Court in central New York. These include endangering the welfare of a child, forcible touching, and sexual abuse in the third degree.

Brooks, who resides in the town of Lafayette, has been serving as administrator of three churches: Church of the Nativity at St. Joseph in Lafayette; Immaculate Conception in Pompey; and St. Leo, Tully and St. Patrick Mission in Otisco.

Bishop Douglas J. Lucia on Friday said that Brooks has been suspended from all ministry during the investigation.

“This is distressing news, most certainly to me, and to all…

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As a result of an investigation conducted through the Independent Review Board, Bishop Michael W. Fisher has accepted the board’s recommendation and has determined that a claim made against retired priest Father Joseph Vatter that he had abused a minor female has been substantiated.

Bishop Fisher had placed Father Vatter on administrative leave in February 2023. As a result of the substantiated claim, Father Vatter will continue to be removed from ministry and be listed on Priests with Substantiated Claims of Abuse on the diocesan website. Prior to being placed on leave, Father Vatter had occasionally celebrated Masses at various churches within the Diocese of Buffalo.

If you have any information specific to clerical sexual abuse you would like to share, please contact Jackie Joy, our victim assistance coordinator, who may be reached at 716-895-3010.

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A longtime Buffalo Diocese priest and pastor who retired in 2022 sexually abused a child, the diocese said Tuesday in a news release.

The Rev. Joseph E. Vatter, 71, who retired in 2022 as pastor of St. Paul Parish in Kenmore but continued to occasionally celebrate Mass at various churches, had been on leave since February after an abuse allegation was reported.

The diocesan review board, a group of clergy and lay Catholics appointed by Bishop Michael Fisher, determined that a claim that Vatter “had abused a minor female” had been “substantiated.” Fisher accepted that recommendation, the news release said.

Dioceses across the country have put in place review boards to help bishops handle child sex abuse allegations.

Buffalo Diocese officials did not say when the alleged incident occurred, but it appears to be separate from an allegation involving a man that was reported by The Buffalo News…

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The criminal charges involving the sexual assault and abuse of a minor were dismissed Wednesday after a judge ruled Theodore McCarrick, 93, was not mentally competent to stand trial.

A group known as BishopAccountability.org, which tracks sexual abuse in the Catholic Church, condemned a Massachusetts district judge’s Wednesday decision to dismiss criminal charges against former cardinal Theodore McCarrick.

The criminal charges involving the sexual assault and abuse of a minor were dismissed Wednesday after a judge ruled McCarrick, 93, was not mentally competent to stand trial.

Anne Barrett Doyle, co-director of the bishops accountability group, told CNA that “the dismissal of the case against McCarrick is hugely disappointing” and that “our hearts go out to the courageous victim who brought this case and to all of McCarrick’s victims.”

McCarrick, the disgraced former archbishop of Washington, D.C., was facing three counts of indecent assault and battery on a person over the…

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A priest ordained by the Catholic Diocese of Syracuse has been arrested for sexual abuse allegations.

On August 31, the Cortland County Sheriff’s Office announced the arrest of Reverend Nathan Brooks, 36, of Lafayette. Brooks allegedly subjected one individual to inappropriate sexual contact on multiple occasions from 2019 to 2021 in the Town of Homer and in the City of Cortland.

Brooks was charged with endangering the welfare of a child, forcible touching, and sexual abuse in the third degree. According to a news release from the Diocese, Brooks has been suspended from all priestly ministry at this time. The investigation is ongoing.

Brooks serves as an administrator at the Church of the Nativity at Saint Joseph in LaFayette, Immaculate Conception in Pompey, Saint Leo in Tully and Saint Patrick Mission in Otisco. He was ordained in 2019.

Most Rev. Douglas Lucia, Bishop of the Diocese of Syracuse said in…

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