ABUSE TRACKER

A priest with the Diocese of Dallas, Texas, Kenneth J. Roberts came in contact with children from Illinois through his role as a retreat leader for the Diocese of Peoria.

Three people from Illinois have come forward to allege abuse at the hands of Roberts in the 1980s, according to a report on abusive priests compiled by the office of the Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul.

Roberts was a minor celebrity for penning a biography, “Playboy to Priest,” in 1975. He claimed to have left behind a life as a jet-setting playboy when he was ordained in 1966. 

A victim given the pseudonym “William” related a tale of abuse not only at the hands of Roberts, but also by the Diocese of Peoria after it was made aware of the abuse. 

William was in fifth or sixth grade in the 1980s when he attended a retreat called Emmaus Days…

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Even after Samuel D. Pusateri pleaded guilty to criminal sexual assault of a 17-year-old student at Saint Bede Academy in Peru, the Catholic church did not publicly name him as a child sex abuser.

A month after Pusateri was sentenced in 1991, Diocese of Peoria Bishop John Myers wrote to the prison chaplain asking for special favors for Pusateri, according to a report on abusive priests compiled by the Illinois Attorney General. Even when Myers finally revoked Pusateri’s permission to minister in the Diocese of Peoria in 1993, he didn’t rule out the possibility that Pusateri might be allowed to return to his duties in the future.  

Pusateri did not return to the Diocese of Peoria, but instead served as a chaplain to the Franciscan Sisters in Wheaton until 2004, when he departed for Rome where he was in active ministry until about 2018, when the Attorney General of Illinois…

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George Hiland was a priest at Saint Stephens Church in Streator in the mid 1960s when he started showing special attention to a seventh grader. Because the boy’s father died when the boy was 10 years old, the boy’s mother and grandmother were delighted when Father Hiland started spending time with the child.  

Hiland took him to a bonfire, then for a drive where the boy got to steer while sitting in the priest’s lap. Then Hiland began fondling the boy. Later he performed oral sex on him and asked him to reciprocate, according to a report by the Illinois Attorney General. 

“I hated it, but I didn’t know who to talk to,” said the boy, who was given the pseudonym “Peter” in the attorney general’s report. 

Hiland instigated sex “everywhere,” said Peter – the church choir, the school cafeteria, an underground tunnel between the school…

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Norman D. Goodman had risen in the ranks of the Catholic Church to the status of monsignor, a title bestowed by the pope. As such, he was protected by his employer when allegations of abuse arose – there were a total of 19 confirmed cases, according to the Illinois Attorney General’s report on abusive priests.

“Jacob,” a pseudonym given to one of the victims in the report, was in 6th grade and an altar boy at Holy Family Church in Lincoln when Goodman began fondling him. The priest approached the boy from behind, pressing him against a counter or sink. Sometimes Goodman put money down Jacob’s pants pocket as an excuse to touch his genitals. The abuse continued for three years, ending around 1983. 

Jacob told his family of the abuse in the late 1990s. Initially he wanted to keep the news quiet, but changed his mind after speaking to diocesan…

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A yearslong investigation into child sex abuse by members of the Catholic clergy in Illinois has found at least 1,997 children in the state’s six dioceses were sexually abused between 1950 and 2019.

The Peoria Catholic Diocese, which covers 26 counties spanning from Rock Island in northwest Illinois to Vermillion County on the Indiana border, was part of that investigation.

Attorney General Kwame Raoul on May 23, 2023, released a comprehensive report, which included 51 clergy members in the Catholic Diocese of Peoria. Here is a list of their names, their Illinois parish assignments and the diocese’s claim of first report.

• John Anderson: Saint Mary, Aledo; Saint Mary, Canton; Saint Rose, Rushville; Saint Edward, Chillicothe; Saint Philomena, Peoria; Saint Joseph Home, Peoria; King’s House Retreat Center, Henry; 1993.

• Michael “Miguel” Baca: Assignments not reported by archdiocese/diocese/religious order; diocese…

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A boy was abused by two priests when he was a freshman at Trinity High School in Bloomington in 1964. He chose to share his experiences with Illinois Attorney General’s Office investigators even though talking about it prompts him to have nightmares. 

“Every time I have to tell my story, I don’t sleep well for several nights,” said “Nathan,” a pseudonym given to him for the report. “I just feel so much shame and guilt.” 

William Harbert, who taught sex education to the freshman boys, was known for grabbing children by the groin as they walked through the halls of the school. 

“We thought it was grab-assing, but he would do it often. I remember times walking down the hallway, going to the bathroom, and he would grab you by the groin and say, ‘Gotcha!’ said Nathan. Harbert once accompanied Nathan and a few other boys to a dentist’s appointment after…

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Pope Francis has accepted the resignation of Bishop Franco Mulakkal of India’s Jalandhar diocese more than a year after a lower court acquitted him of all charges of raping a nun.

“The letter of resignation I have written after prayerful reflection and consultation with my superiors was accepted by our dear Pope Francis today,” Mulakkal announced in a social media message on June 1.

The Vatican removed Mulakkal from the administrative responsibilities of the diocese based in northern Punjab state just before police arrested him in 2018 on charges of raping a nun.

The nun, a member of the Missionaries of Jesus congregation,  under the patronage of the bishop, accused him of raping her more than 13 times between 2014 and 2016 inside her convent in Kerala’s Kottayam district.

A district court in southern Kerala state, where the complainant nun lived, acquitted Mulakkal. The court on Jan. 14,…

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Critics say the seeking of permanent stays in cases where perpetrators have died amount to ‘another layer of abuse’ for survivors and a failure of moral leadership

The Australian Lawyers Alliance is preparing to meet with the New South Wales attorney general to lobby for reform against the “disgraceful” tactics employed by churches and other institutions to prevent abuse survivors from pursuing justice.

A Guardian investigation – based on interviews with 13 lawyers, analysis of court records, and discussions with survivors and their advocates – found earlier this year that churches and other institutions are now routinely seeking permanent stays in cases where perpetrators have died, arguing they cannot possibly receive a fair trial.

Where successful, the tactic permanently halts a survivor’s claim without any compensation. The mere threat of a stay is also being used to lowball survivors during settlement negotiations.

The tactic effectively relies on the passing of time to…

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[Via Daily Mail]

• Archbishop loses bid to reduce payout to altar boy
• Victoria man to receive almost $2 million in damages
• He was abused by former priest Desmond Gannon

A Catholic archbishop has lost a bid to reduce an almost $2million court-ordered payout to an altar boy subjected to horrific sexual abuse by a pedophile priest.

Archbishop of Melbourne Peter Comensoli launched an appeal of a Supreme Court decision to award $1.9million in damages to one of former priest Desmond Gannon’s victims, after being found vicariously liable for the abuse.

Gannon sexually assaulted the man, who cannot be named for legal reasons, three times between 1968 and 1970 while he was an altar boy and pupil at a Catholic primary school in regional Victoria.

The priest drove the 11-year-old boy out to a remote bush area where he molested and raped him. He was terrified Gannon would get a shovel, kill…

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At the Joliet Diocese Wednesday, fallout from the release of last week’s damning 700-page report on the Catholic Church continued as members of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, spoke out against what they believe is a continued lack of transparency.

“The Joliet bishop continues to protect predators for the same reason that most of his brother bishops continue to protect predators and that is because he can get by with it,” said David Clohessy of SNAP.

The report, issued by Attorney General Kwame Raoul, identified 69 “credibly accused” Joliet area priests or brothers, eight more than what the diocese lists on its website. But could there be even more?

“We in SNAP have found several men who we believe should be on the Bishop’s list and are not on his list,” Clohessy said.

Speaking from his home in Florida, Mark Wethersbee described the abuse he suffered…

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The former monastery on a quiet residential street in Rome once sheltered Jews fearing deportation during World War II. Purchased by the Vatican in 2021 as a dormitory for foreign nuns studying at Rome’s pontifical universities, the building now stands empty, a collateral victim of the latest financial scandal to hit the Holy See.

Pope Francis has asked aides to get to the bottom of how at least $17 million, including money to refurbish the dorm, was transferred from the Vatican’s U.S.-based missionary fundraising coffers into an impact investing vehicle run by a priest, The Associated Press has learned. Two years later, the U.S. fundraiser says the money is gone, and the monastery is shuttered. Its renovation is tied up in bureaucratic red tape, while the nuns studying in Rome are still housed at a convent a 90-minute commute away.

The story of what happened to the money is one that…

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After Pennsylvania authorities issued a bombshell report in 2018 detailing widespread sexual abuse of children and coverup in the Roman Catholic church, California’s attorney general invited victims here to share their stories. The next year, the state subpoenaed half of California’s Roman Catholic dioceses.

What California authorities have learned since remains a mystery.

And for victims of long-ago abuse seeking justice in the courts while the state’s dioceses increasingly seek bankruptcy protection, the silence is a growing aggravation — especially as other states, notably Illinois and Maryland, recently issued their own reports, revealing a devastating past of abuse by hundreds of clergy of thousands of children.

“The public deserves to know what you have already uncovered,” SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, said in a letter Wednesday to California Attorney General Rob Bonta. “We urge you to release a report, or at least a preliminary report, about…

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This commentary is by Maura Labelle of Colchester, who lived at St. Joseph’s Orphanage in Burlington in the 1960s.

n January 2015, Bishop Christopher Coyne was installed with much fanfare as 10th Bishop of the Diocese of Burlington. He was new. He was modern and open. Coyne was heralded for his work as a blogging priest who would become the first “blogging bishop.” 

Victims of clergy abuse hoped he could be their champion.

Let’s fast forward to 2023. Coyne no longer has a blog. He rarely posts messages on Twitter. His Facebook page says that he can’t respond to Facebook messages due to “time constraints.” 

Most disappointing was that clergy abuse victims had not found their champion. Rather, they found a company man of the Catholic church who goes along to get along.

Clearly, something has changed. My guess is that Coyne is feeling the heat from multiple clergy sex abuse…

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The story of six nuns and former nuns paints a heartbreaking picture of a repressive and damaging regime which emphasised self-sacrifice and unquestioning obedience, writes Karen Hanrahan

“Any thoughts of escaping to a more natural life was regarded as being sinful. The idea of being unfaithful to your vocation was a step on the way to hell. It would be a mortal sin.”

These are the words of Mary, my mother. She was just 15 when she entered a convent in Ireland in 1950 and 34 by the time she finally managed to leave. She had been expressing doubts to her superiors since her early 20s but years of “brainwashing” and the very real fear of her and her family facing eternal damnation made breaking her vows seem impossible.

Speaking to my mother, as well as to five other nuns and former nuns for my PhD research, gave me a…

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A lawsuit brought by a former altar boy who said he was raped as a child in the 1960s by a now-deceased Roman Catholic bishop in Massachusetts has been settled, the sides announced Friday.

The plaintiff identified in court papers as John Doe alleged in the suit filed in February 2021 that not only was he abused by former Diocese of Springfield Bishop Christopher Weldon as well as two other clergy, but also that the church engaged in a yearslong coverup to protect the bishop’s reputation and legacy.

The suit also said that even after abuse allegations against Weldon were found to be credible, diocesan officials as late as 2019 denied them.

The diocese’s current bishop in a statement announcing the settlement apologized.

“Mr. Doe’s allegations were determined to be credible, therefore, any public statement made on behalf of the Diocese in May or June of 2019 that is…

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[Transcript of an interview with Robert Herguth of the Chicago Sun-Times; also available as a podcast.]

Speaker B: Hey, everyone, quick heads up for me that we are talking about sex abuse in the Catholic Church in this episode.

Speaker B: Take care of yourself while you listen.

Speaker B: Last week, the Attorney General of Illinois released a 696 page report, and then he stepped in front of reporters to talk about it.

Speaker C: Good morning.

Speaker B: Were you watching that press conference?

Speaker A: Yeah, I was there.

Speaker B: Robert Herguth is a reporter at the Sun Times, and he was at this presser because he had questions for the AG.

Speaker B: This report dealt with a subject robert’s become an expert in the Catholic Church.

Speaker B: The Attorney General found evidence that nearly 2000 people were abused by clergy over the last…

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[Via Washington Post]

Advocates have been stunned by the number of cases that surfaced during this revival window

At least a third of the 12 Roman Catholic dioceses in California have either filed for bankruptcy or are contemplating doing so to deal with an influx of lawsuits filed by survivors of childhood sexual abuse after a state law opened a three-year window in which cases were exempted from age limits.

More than 3,000 lawsuits have been filed against the Catholic Church in California under a 2019 state law that also extended the statute of limitations to allow all alleged victims of sexual abuseto sue up to the age of 40.

Advocates have been stunned by the number of cases that surfaced during the window, which closed at the end of December.

So far, two dioceses have declared bankruptcy.

The Diocese of Santa Rosa, which is facing more than 200 lawsuits,…

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Two women who say they were sexually abused as girls told Knox News they told the senior pastor of First Apostolic Church in Maryville and his wife about the assaults, and neither of the church leaders contacted police about the allegations as required by Tennessee’s mandatory reporting laws.

The women also say the alleged perpetrators, both whom were active in the church, were not publicly disciplined.

The survivors, now adults, said in each of their assaults – which happened years apart – they met in the Rev. Kenneth Carpenter’s office to discuss what happened. After they described the abuse, Carpenter offered to pray for them. Nothing else was done, to the survivors’ knowledge.

At the time of the abuse one of the girls was 11. The other was 12.

The church is under scrutiny after a man who is a former worship leader and middle school teacher at the church’s…

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[Includes video]

Survivors of alleged abuse by priests have accused local Catholic officials of withholding names.

Survivors Network of those Abused of Priests (SNAP) gathered outside of Rockford’s Cathedral of St. Peter on Monday. They said that they have discovered five clerics who are, or were, in the Rockford Diocese.

SNAP said that the five have been deemed “credibly accused” child molesters by Catholic officials elsewhere, but said that they are not on Rockford’s “credibly accused list.”

“If someone is on one list, why wouldn’t it be on every list, not just here but every list all across the country,” said Larry Antonsen, leader of Chicago SNAP. “They should all be on that list, every one of them, even the deceased ones. It’s good to have their names out there, and someone might see that name and something might click.”

The group urged Bishop David Malloy to post the names…

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Their names are missing from the Rockford diocesan ‘credibly accused’ list, even though they are or were in the Rockford area and are on one or more church ‘credibly accused’ lists elsewhere.

• Fr. Philip DeRea, was in the Rockford diocese two or three times for a total of at least nine years (from 1970-1976 at Sacred Heart Monastery and from 2008-2011 at the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart Community, both in Aurora). In 20—, US Catholic magazine reported on an abuse and cover up lawsuit against DeRea and his church supervisors which said that he “currently lives in Aurora and has most recently served as development director” for a church entity.

According to a Pennsylvania newspaper obituary, after ordination “DeRea was first assigned to the Public Relations Department of the headquarters of the USA Province of the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart in Aurora.”

For roughly…

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Clergy sex abuse findings called more detailed and transparent than Maryland’s

A new report by the Illinois Attorney General’s Office on sexual abuse by Catholic clergy in that state is too long for most readers to absorb in a day or two, but that didn’t stop Liz Murphy from zeroing in on what she most wanted to find out.

Murphy, an abuse survivor who lives in Baltimore, flipped through the report’s 696 pages one afternoon last week and checked whether it contained any black marks. When she saw that it didn’t, she said that alone told her it had more healing power than the one published by the Maryland Attorney General’s Office last month after a review by a Baltimore judge.

“This one has no redactions,” said Murphy, a survivor of sexual assault at the hands of the late John Merzbacher, a notorious former Catholic middle school teacher, in the…

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The ethereal sounds of the Maryland State Boychoir have soared through spaces sacred and secular the world over, from the Vatican to the White House.

The late Gov. William Donald Schaefer once designated the organization as “Maryland’s Official Goodwill Ambassadors,” and more than 1,000 boys have passed through its ranks.

But for all the accolades it has gathered over the past several decades, the 130-member group began humbly, when Frank T. Cimino Jr. brought together 14 boys in his mother’s basement in 1987 to hone what he later called the “miracle” of their young voices.

But there was something left out of its origin story: That same year, Cimino, a Baltimore native and Peabody Conservatory graduate, had been fired from his job as minister of music at St. Thomas More Roman Catholic Church in Northeast Baltimore.

The reason: A man reported Cimino had sexually abused him when he was a…

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[Includes a video]

A group of survivors and supporters speak out about sexual abuse within the Catholic Church outside a local place of worship Monday.

Several church abuse victims were among those who stood in front of Cathedral of St. Peter in Rockford Monday holding a poster with names of five priests who have spent time in Rockford accused of sexual abuse. Some priests on the list are dead, others still living.

“We want the bishop to post these five names on his website along the sides of the proven, admitted, critically accused molesters that are there now,” said Missouri’s Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP) volunteer director David Clohessy.

The names of the priests are Father Philip Derea, Father John Powell, Father Norman Maday, Father Charles Becker and Father Robert Erpenbeck.

SNAP leaders say those names are listed under other church’s ‘credibly accused’ lists but claim they…

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In the small workshop behind his home in the Victorian country town of Broadford, Craig Waters was huddled on the floor, rocking back and forth. He’d been back there for hours, crying and alone, trapped anew in childhood nightmares.

Waters was trying to process what the Catholic church had just told him: it was threatening to thwart his attempt to receive justice for the horrors he says he experienced as an eight-year-old boy at St Brendan’s Catholic primary school in western Sydney.

There, a Catholic nun he dubs “the witch” would take him away from his friends at lunchtime, lead him to a small dark room off the main assembly hall and shut the door.

“I remember always dreading the moment that she turned around and looked at me, as that was when she seemed to be at least 10 foot tall, her eyes looked like they were black holes…

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Catholic church’s claim he could not have been an altar boy because he was baptised Anglican proved to be incorrect but delayed case for a year, in a legal move being heavily criticised

The Catholic church has been accused of causing added trauma to a survivor after it tried to thwart his case involving a notorious jailed paedophile priest by claiming he could not have been an altar boy because he was baptised in the Anglican church, a move that delayed the case for a year.

The accusation adds to a litany of complaints about the legal tactics being employed by the church in abuse cases, including its repeated attempts to permanently halt cases where paedophile clergy have died, a practice first revealed in an investigation by Guardian Australia.

In late 2020, a survivor who wishes to remain anonymous, sued the Maitland-Newcastle diocese for alleged abuse at the hands of…

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As a child Megan was full of promise. She did well at high school. She was liked and people used to tell her she should be a comedian.

She was vivacious, quick-witted and was a devoted teen athlete.

This story contains content that readers may find distressing.

But when the 59-year-old was five, a predator entered her life and his actions would eventually stamp out all that made her who she was — her sense of humour, her confidence and her pride.

Former Catholic priest Neville Creen was jailed in the early 2000s for abusing 22 other children.

On Friday he was sentenced to 12 months’ prison, to be suspended after serving three months, for his abuse of Megan.

He pleaded guilty to four charges, including indecent assault and treatment, and maintaining an unlawful relationship with a child.

Megan says when she was growing up Creen ingratiated himself into her family and didn’t leave her life for more than…

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The Diocese of Davenport has received a report of inappropriate sexual behavior in regard to a minor by Fr. John Stack dating from the 1990s. In compliance with the Diocese’s Memorandum of Understanding with local law enforcement, both Scott County and Clinton County (where the alleged behavior took place) were notified. The case was referred back to the Diocese for further investigation and possible canonical process.

In compliance with the Diocese’s Policies Relating to Sexual and Personal Behavior, Fr. Stack has been removed from ministry while the Diocese investigates this allegation further.

Fr. Stack was accused of abuse in the 1980s in 2013 and was removed from ministry, but a church trial reinstated him in 2016.

Fr. Stack has served in various parishes and institutions throughout his career, including Holy Family in Davenport, All Saints in Keokuk, St. Joseph in East Pleasant Plain, St. Frances Xavier Cabrini in Richland, Samaritan…

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Leaders of the Roman Catholic Church in Bolivia acknowledged Wednesday that the church had been deaf to the suffering of victims of sexual abuse, commenting as a pedophilia scandal involving priests is rocking the country.

In a statement, the Andean nation’s Catholic bishops said that “as a church, we are facing a painful moment … because we are certain that we have been directly or indirectly involved in the deep pain caused to innocent victims.”

The statement comes amid the fallout from the case involving a late Spanish Jesuit priest, Alfonso Pedrajas. According to a private diary accessed by the Spanish newspaper El País, Pedrajas allegedly abused dozens of minors in Catholic boarding schools in Bolivia in the 1970s and 1980s. He died of cancer in 2009.

Earlier this week, Jordi Bertemeu, one of the Vatican’s top sex crimes investigators, arrived in Bolivia.

The bishops said that while “we know…

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More than 20 abusive clerics who once served at area Catholic churches and schools were named in a state report released Tuesday.

The six dioceses in Illinois failed to disclose hundreds of abusive clerics before the state opened what would become a yearslong investigation into sex abuse within the church, Attorney General Kwame Raoul said Tuesday.

A 2017 law eliminated Illinois’ prior statute of limitations for child sex abuse, under which a 20-year clock began ticking on a victim’s 18th birthday. But that law was only prospective; a 2009 Illinois Supreme Court decision affirmed that attempts to alter the statute of limitations retroactively violated the due process rights of the accused.

Bishop Thomas Paprocki of the Springfield Diocese said he supports the investigation and feels it is time to bring all the crimes out into the public. 

“The attorney general’s inquiry into the history of clergy sexual abuse of minors in…

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Much of Sean Faloon’s story is too harrowing to print

Victims of a notorious paedophile priest who may have abused 400 children over four decades have come forward to tell their story of suffering, and allegations of cover-up by the Catholic Church and collusion with police. Writer at Large Neil Mackay investigates

THE sexual abuse began when Sean Faloon was just 10 years old. It continued every week for seven unrelenting years.

Sean was raped by Father Malachy Finnegan. The priest may have abused up to 400 children over four decades. How did he get away with his crimes for so long? Sean, his lawyer and other victims believe Finnegan may have been a police informer.

The crimes took place in Northern Ireland at the height of the Troubles. Victims claim Finnegan was passing intelligence on IRA suspects to the RUC. Police knew about Finnegan’s offending as early as 1996,…

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Letter to St. Alexander Parish, Villa Park

Letter to St. Boniface Parish, Monee

Letter to St. Dominic Parish, Bolingbrook

Letter to St. Joseph Parish, Downers Grove

Letter to St. Lawrence Parish, South Wilmington

**

Note from BishopAccountability.org: See our cached versions of the letters below.

Letter to St. Alexander Parish, Villa Park

Letter to St. Boniface Parish, Monee

Letter to St. Dominic Parish, Bolingbrook

Letter to St. Joseph Parish, Downers Grove

Letter to St. Lawrence Parish, South Wilmington

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Około 300 przestępców seksualnych związanych z Kościołem, co najmniej 1100 ofiar – taką skalę pedofilii w środowisku kościelnym w okresie PRL ujawnili dziennikarze “Rzeczpospolitej”. Autorzy dziennikarskiego śledztwa przekonują, że to dopiero wierzchołek góry lodowej

“LEKTURA tych ustaleń już teraz rodzi pytanie, czy nie będzie konieczna poważna korekta obrazu Kościoła w czasach komunistycznych” – mówi w rozmowie z “Rzeczpospolitą” o. Adam Żak, koordynator Konferencji Episkopatu Polski ds. ochrony dzieci i młodzieży. Dziennikarze Tomasz Krzyżak i Piotr Litka przeprowadzili kwerendę archiwalnych dokumentów m.in. w Instytucie Pamięci Narodowej (IPN) i Archiwum Akt Nowych (AAN), na podstawie których oszacowali liczbę ofiar i sprawców przestępstw seksualnych w Kościele w czasach PRL.

Wśród przestępców są nie tylko księża, rekolekcjoniści, badacze Pisma Świętego, budowniczowie sanktuariów, autorzy kościelnych śpiewników, bracia zakonni, klerycy, a także kościelny i organista. W sumie około 300 osób.

121 przypadków badanych przez władze PRL

W czasach PRL władze zajmowały się co najmniej 121…

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Sanctuary of Sin, Part 2 [See video]

[See also: Sanctuary of Sin Part 1: ‘The damage this does is chronic:’ Clergy sex abuse survivor shares story]

WGN Films presents “Sanctuary of Sin,” a series looking at a little-known religious order and the role it played in the Catholic church sex abuse crisis. This is Part 2 of 3.

Father Gerald Fitzgerald started a Catholic religious order after a chance encounter with a beggar. It turned out the beggar was a priest in need of help and had nowhere to turn.

So, Father Fitzgerald founded the Servants of the Paraclete in the late 1940s to help fill that void. He established in a compound in the New Mexico desert where priests struggling with alcohol abuse or a crisis of faith could be treated.

But he soon encountered clergy with more serious issues.

…

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Stika against sending ex-seminarian home

Knoxville Bishop Richard Stika told a priest in the spring of 2021 he would resign before he’d allow a former seminarian accused of raping a church employee to be sent back to Poland, according to a written account by the priest.

The priest reported the bishop’s comments in a May 2021 email to a Louisville priest who was investigating the diocese on behalf of the archbishop in Louisville, who oversees the Knoxville diocese.

The email was included in a batch of documents obtained by Knox News. We are not identifying the priest to protect him from retaliation, or the former seminarian because he has not been charged with a crime.

The email went to the personal inbox of Louisville priest Paul Beach who visited the diocese – along with then-Archbishop Joseph Kurtz, the former bishop of Knoxville – to assist “with our difficult situation,” according…

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Diocese denies Stika on sex abuse panel

Around lunchtime on a Friday in March 2021, the chair of the Knoxville diocese’s sexual abuse review board shared a complaint alleging that a seminarian had sexually assaulted a church employee.

The email from Carleton “Butch” Bryant, then serving as head of the board, was addressed to “fellow board members” and requested an urgent meeting to discuss the complaint. Many responded right away to say when they could meet, according to a copy of the emails obtained by Knox News.

Thirty minutes after Bryant sent his note, another recipient responded: Bishop Richard Stika.

Stika’s involvement goes against what the diocese has maintained since last fall. Spokesperson Jim Wogan said Stika was not a member of the review board and that his name had been mistakenly included on a list of members posted on the diocese’s website.

Including the diocese’s top leader on an…

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Patrick Wattigny, a former school chaplain outside New Orleans, is considering a guilty plea but could be out of prison in three years

A Louisiana man accusing a Roman Catholic priest of molesting him as a child has spoken out against what he says is an overly lenient sentence being offered to the defendant in exchange for a guilty plea.

The accuser, 24, is pressing a criminal case against Patrick Wattigny, who worked as a chaplain at the alleged victim’s high school and was charged with abuse against him in 2013.

Wattigny, 56, is considering pleading guilty to a single count of molestation of a juvenile in exchange for three years in prison, according to what the accuser says has been communicated to him by the suburban New Orleans-area district attorney’s office handling the case.

But the accuser says any prison sentence of less than 10 years…

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Several Catholic dioceses and American newspapers have revealed cases that, until recently, were unknown to the public. EL PAÍS has discovered that, after committing their crimes in the U.S., the accused clergymen headed for Spain… and managed to disappear

In 2018, EL PAÍS launched an investigation into pedophilia in the Spanish Church. We maintain an updated database with all known cases. If you know of a case that has not been reported, you can write to us at: abusos@elpais.es. If your information is regarding a case in Latin America, the address is: abusosamerica@elpais.es.

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Manuel Fernández is a Spanish priest who was ordained in 1959, ending up in New Jersey by 1979. But in 2002, he was accused of child abuse — which occurred in the 1980s — and was removed from his post.

However, Fernández then returned to his diocese in the city of Ourense, in…

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Em duas décadas, mostra livro com levantamento inédito, Justiça condenou 60 sacerdotes por molestarem crianças e adolescentes

Nos últimos 20 anos, a Igreja Católica tem passado por seguidos escândalos de abusos sexuais de crianças e adolescentes cometidos por integrantes do clero. Desde o terremoto causado na Arquidiocese de Boston, nos Estados Unidos, pela série de reportagens do time Spotlight do jornal “The Boston Globe”, denunciando não só abusos de religiosos mas o acobertamento dos crimes pela Igreja, décadas de pedofilia envolvendo padres vieram à tona, um país após o outro. Um lugar, porém, vinha escapando ileso: maior país católico do mundo, o Brasil viveu sob um silêncio que encobriu boa parte das histórias de abusos da fé.

Ao contrário do resto do mundo, as notícias sobre vítimas brasileiras surgiram de forma esparsa. Em contraposição, nos últimos anos, países como Alemanha, Argentina, Austrália, Chile, México, Espanha, Irlanda, Portugal, Itália, França e…

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The director of the Maryland State Boychoir has resigned after he was identified as one of the 156 Catholic Church staff named in a Maryland Attorney General’s Office report on child sex abuse in the Archdiocese of Baltimore.

The Baltimore Sun on Friday named Frank T. Cimino Jr. as one of 10 alleged abusers whose names were redacted in a public version of the report issued April 5.

Cimino, 75, founded the boychoir 36 years ago and served as its president and director emeritus. Now numbering about 130 members, it performs widely in the state, nationally and abroad.

“This painful set of circumstances was completely unexpected, and to our knowledge, there have never been any previous complaints about Mr. Cimino’s conduct,” the choir’s board of directors wrote in an email Saturday to its community. “The entire Board understands how surprising and concerning this must be as the allegations…

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Joseph O’Brien told a reporter at The Baltimore Sun that he is listed as “redacted defendant number 154” in the case.

A Newport News man has reportedly admitted to being named in the Maryland Attorney General’s report of sexual assault in the Catholic Archdiocese of Baltimore. 

The AG released the redacted report back in April but in a story published by The Baltimore Sun on Friday, a man named Joseph O’Brien revealed that he’s named in the report. 

O’Brien told a reporter at the Sun that he is listed as “redacted defendant number 154” in the case.

The report details the accusations against each clergy member. 

According to the report, O’Brien’s sexual assault allegations stem from an incident in the 1970s. 

A woman reported that O’Brien was an associate pastor at her high school prayer group. He offered to take her home after the meetings, where…

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The parents never saw the Catholic brother as a threat to their son.

They encouraged his relationship with their boy, allowing him to take the child to baseball games and on overnight trips. They hoped he would inspire the boy to pledge his life to the church, as the man had done.

One night, while the two were sleeping in the same bed, the family friend fondled the boy’s genitals, his sister later reported to authorities. The allegation appears on Page 443 of the Maryland attorney general’s report on child sexual abuse and cover-ups within the Archdiocese of Baltimore. The survivor himself described the abuse when contacted by the archdiocese in 2003, according to the report.

He felt responsible for what had happened, the report states, and for 10 years “guilt ate him alive.”

The report refers to the accused man only as “No. 153”; his name…

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An Episcopal minister is on leave from his Western Maryland church after being listed as one of 10 people accused of abuse whose names are redacted in a Maryland attorney general’s report on child sexual abuse in the Catholic Archdiocese of Baltimore.

The Rev. Thomas Hudson of St. George in Allegany County acknowledged to The Baltimore Sun that he is listed in the report, but declined to comment on the specific allegation against him.

Hudson is one of 15 living individuals whose names are blacked out in the public version of the report, either because they are accused of abuse and previously hadn’t been publicly identified, or because they are accused of helping to cover up abuse. The attorney general’s office learned about their alleged crimes as part of a four-year investigation of the Baltimore Catholic archdiocese. Much of the report relies on the Catholic Church’s records, obtained from a…

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A member of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP) urged Springfield Catholic Bishop Thomas John Paprocki to provide full assignment records for credibly accused priests living in or who previously served in the diocese that covers central Illinois.

David Clohessy, the former national director of SNAP from St. Louis and a clerical abuse survivor, also urged Paprocki to post the names of at least nine alleged child-molesting clerics who are missing from the Springfield diocese’s predator list.

The nine were mentioned by name in an exhaustive report released by Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul Tuesday.

Between them, they are on at least 25 church-sponsored credibly accused lists all over the country and some are on multiple lists, Clohessy claimed.

Members and supporters of SNAP gathered outside of the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception Wednesday afternoon.

Clohessy, who now directs SNAP volunteers in Missouri, also made his case in a letter…

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[Note from BA: Click here to read Bishop David Malloy’s full statement.]

Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul held a press conference in downtown Chicago May 23 to release the final report on his investigation into clergy sexual abuse conducted over the past four and one half years.

The 696-page “Report on Catholic Clergy Child Sex Abuse in Illinois,” focuses on decades of old and new abuse cases in the state’s six dioceses: Belleville, Joliet, Peoria, Rockford, and Springfield and the Archdiocese of Chicago.

In response to the report the Diocese of Rockford has issued a statement about the report and recognizes the impact of abuse on survivors. “First and foremost, the Diocese of Rockford apologizes for the pain endured by victim survivors of childhood sexual abuse. No child should ever be harmed, and no adult should have to endure the memories of that harm. Our priority today remains the…

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Sex abuse survivor: Diocese, Paprocki ‘prioritized their own interests’

A multi-year investigation into child sex abuse by members of the Catholic clergy in Illinois found almost 2,000 children across the state were sexually abused.

Attorney General Kwame Raoul Tuesday released a comprehensive report detailing decades of child sex abuse by members of the Illinois Catholic dioceses Belleville, Chicago, Joliet, Peoria, Rockford, and Springfield.

The exhaustive 700-page report features detailed narrative accounts of child sex abuse committed by Catholic clerics.

Many of the narratives were written in consultation with survivors, are based upon their experiences, and told from the survivor’s point of view.

“I was raised and confirmed in the Catholic church and sent my children to Catholic schools. I believe the church does important work to support vulnerable populations; however, as with any presumably reputable institution, the Catholic church must be held accountable when it betrays the public’s…

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Seventeen years ago, the two of us wrote to Southern Baptist Convention officials, urging creation of a denominational database of pastors criminally convicted or credibly accused of sexual abuse.

“Moral obligation demands it,” we said.

That moral obligation still stands unmet.

For decades, SBC officials “lied” about their reason for refusing to meet that obligation. While publicly proclaiming they couldn’t keep a database because of “local church autonomy,” privately, they could, and they did.

The Guidepost report exposed that deceit, along with numerous other cruelties and ethical abdications. Yet although the report was released a year ago, the reckoning has been puny and pusillanimous: a proposal for “the bare minimum” and then the doing of not even that.

Despite much talk and multiple committees, the SBC has not yet, on its own, outed and held accountable a single credibly accused clergy sex abuser. It has further alienated many survivors because, absent…

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NPR’s Scott Simon speaks to journalist Dan Ronan, who was sexually abused as a child by a Catholic priest in Chicago. A recently released report details widespread misconduct by Illinois clergy.

SCOTT SIMON, HOST:

A report from the Illinois attorney general’s office released this week says 451 Catholic priests abused at least 1,997 children across the state between 1950 and 2019. Previously, just two Roman Catholic dioceses in Illinois had released lists of substantiated allegations of abuse, saying just 103 priests or religious brothers had abused children during those seven decades.

We want to talk about one case for the next few minutes with a person who lived through that abuse. St. Jerome’s Parish, West Lunt Avenue in Chicago, just after mass one day in 1971, officiated by Father Thomas Gannon – one of the altar boys was an 11-year-old named Dan Ronan. Dan, today, is a journalist in Washington,…

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A monastery of Carmelite nuns says a Texas bishop has threatened them all with dismissal from their order, as he conducts an investigation into an alleged offense by the convent’s superior. 

While the diocese says the nun admitted to sexual misconduct, the Carmelites have filed for a restraining order against the bishop, and claim their superior was interrogated while in a state of opioid-induced delirium after surgery. 

Meanwhile, the nuns’ lawyer says that money, not sex, is at the root of the conflict between Olson and the nuns. 

—
The conflict between Bishop Michael Olson of Fort Worth and the Carmelite Monastery of the Most Holy Trinity began last month, when Olson told a community of cloistered nuns that he was investigating allegations of sexual misconduct against their superior, and that she could be dismissed from the Carmelite order. 

The bishop has since prohibited daily Mass at the monastery, confiscated computers…

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On Tuesday, the Illinois attorney general released a long-awaited report into clerical sexual abuse of minors in the state’s dioceses. 

Like similar reports released by attorneys general in other states in recent years, it details an appalling history of clerical abuse in the state over decades. It also outlines institutional efforts to cover up instances of abuse, minimize the experiences of victim-survivors, and shield dioceses from potential liability. 

The report made headlines for its dismal statistics: 451 “credibly accused” clerics and nearly 2,000 victims across the state’s six dioceses — prompting comparisons with the landmark 2018 report from a Pennsylvania grand jury which helped ignite a still-ongoing era of renewed scandal in the U.S. Church.

At a press conference on Tuesday, Illinois AG Kwame Raoul deflected questions inviting him to compare his findings with those of similar reports issued in other states, noting repeatedly that it would be a disservice…

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The cardinal’s questions on how the Illinois attorney general’s abuse claims were substantiated “are particularly perplexing because many of those 125 names” came from the Archdiocese of Chicago, Raoul said.

Attorney General Kwame Raoul on Friday slammed Cardinal Blase Cupich for the top Catholic cleric in the Chicago region’s response to a blockbuster report this week by Raoul’s office showing the church had hidden the names of hundreds of child-molesting priests and others throughout Illinois.

Cupich released a written statement and posted a video on YouTube in which he called the findings “misleading” and portrayed himself as having been blindsided by them.

In response Friday, Raoul said, “At best, the cardinal’s claims of being blindsided are misleading.

“At worst, they are more of the same, a continuation of the church’s decades-long pattern of turning a blind eye and covering up allegations of child sex abuse to the detriment…

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The Illinois attorney general’s “Report on Catholic Clergy Child Sex Abuse in Illinois,” released Tuesday, found nearly 2,000 substantiated claims of child sex abuse from 541 Catholic clerics over 70 years and alleged numerous examples of intentional cover-ups and inadequate responses from bishops. 

“Decades of Catholic leadership decisions and policies have allowed known child sex abusers to hide, often in plain sight,” Attorney General Kwame Raoul said in a statement. 

The report showed examples of bishops and archbishops transferring accused child abusers to other parishes or other dioceses while failing to make the public aware of allegations against them. 

It also shows examples of accused priests being disciplined and put back into ministry only to be accused of repeating their actions elsewhere. 

What follows are just a few examples of the many such cases revealed in the report.

A bishop who transferred abusers

Bishop Joseph Imesch of the…

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Four priests with substantiated child sexual abuse allegations against them served in Catholic churches in Edwardsville between 1954 and 1980, according to a report issued Tuesday by the Illinois attorney general.

One priest listed among clergy who abused children served in Maryville from 1982-84.

Of those five, sexual abuse of children is reported to have occurred in Edwardsville and Maryville parishes by at least three of them.

State Attorney General Kwame Raoul announced Tuesday that a four-and-a-half-year investigation found 1,997 children were abused by 451 Catholic clergy in Illinois between 1950 and 2019.

In the Diocese of Springfield Illinois, which includes Madison County, 32 clergy members were identified as having sexually abused children, according to the attorney general’s 700-page report.

In Edwardsville and Maryville, revelations in the investigation include the following priests named in the report.

• George Faller, Saint Boniface Catholic Church, 1954-61
• Robert Dodd, SIUE Newman Catholic Community, 1968
• Garrett Neal Dee, Saint Boniface,…

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Two of the men named on a list of Catholic priests who have been credibly accused of child sexual abuse released by the Maryland Attorney General were previously part of the Richmond Diocese.

In April, the Maryland Attorney General released the findings of a four-year investigation into sexual abuse in the archdiocese of Baltimore. The investigation documented abuse of at least 600 children by 156 priests, deacons and other leaders within the Baltimore archdiocese between the 1940s and the early 2000s.

While 600 abuse victims were documented in the report, the actual number is believed to be much higher.

Of the names on the list, two were named with ties to Richmond. These men are:

• Father John Bostwick
• Father Henry (John) O’Toole

Father John Bostwick

Bostwick was accepted as a seminarian for the Diocese of Richmond after high school and was later assigned to Our Lady of…

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Advocates have been left stunned by the number of cases that surfaced during this revival window.

At least a third of the 12 Roman Catholic dioceses in California have either filed for bankruptcy or are contemplating doing so to deal with an influx of lawsuits filed by survivors of childhood sexual abuse after a state law opened a three-year window in which cases were exempted from age limits.

More than 3,000 lawsuits have been filed against the Catholic Church in California under a 2019 state law that allowed alleged victims to sue up to the age of 40.

Advocates have been stunned by the number of cases that surfaced during the window, which closed at the end of December. 

So far, two dioceses have declared bankruptcy.

The Diocese of Santa Rosa, which is facing more than 200 lawsuits, filed for bankruptcy in mid-March. In its bankruptcy petition, it claimed assets…

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A Spanish Jesuit priest who died in 2012 has been accused of sexually abusing a minor in Bolivia three decades ago, the latest in a string of pedophilia cases that have shaken the Catholic Church in this Andean country.

Jorge Vila Despujol, who died in Barcelona in 2012, was formally accused before prosecutors Thursday by a person who alleges they were indecently touched when they were 13, the Jesuit Society in Bolivia said in a statement. The name of the alleged victim is being kept confidential.

The abuse allegedly occurred when the victim was at an educational institution in the central region of Cochabamba, although no further details were given.

Vila Despujol founded the organization Defense of Children International in Bolivia, which promotes the rights of minors. The organization is still active, and it condemned all forms of abuse in a statement in which it also urged other victims file…

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NBC Bay Area sat down with 10 parishioners from Church of the Transfiguration in Castro Valley to gauge their thoughts on the ongoing scandal within the church and how it’s being handled by leadership.

[See video.]

As a wave of new lawsuits reignites the Catholic church’s child sexual abuse scandal in California, NBC Bay Area sat down with a group of everyday Catholics to discuss a wide range of issues, including how the outpouring of accusations has impacted their faith.

“You say you’re Catholic, and then you wonder what that person who’s looking back at you is thinking,” parishioner Toni Wilkerson said about the ongoing scandal.

While they didn’t agree on everything, one common theme emerged from the discussion: The desire for more transparency and dialogue from church leaders. 

“There’ve been so many [abuse] cases, but I’ve…

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Church outlines new polices while victims contend old practices persist

The Diocese of Joliet is sending a message that things have changed since clergy abuse reached a peak in the 1980s, but victims have their doubts.

A report from the Illinois Attorney General’s Office this week on clergy abuse within the Catholic Church over the last 70 years again shed light on the sin that the church cannot seem to wipe away.

“Some may be thinking, ‘I thought this was over,’” Diocese of Joliet Bishop Ronald Hicks said in a statement after the release of the attorney general’s report.

Hicks gave expression to a sentiment of the Catholic faithful but went on to confirm the seriousness of the situation.

“No sin of such great magnitude as sexual abuse of minors should ever be forgotten,” Hicks said in his statement. “Remembering the harm done forces us to…

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The stunning report on Catholic child sex crimes and cover-ups just released by Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul is chock full of numbers.

It says that at least 1,997 girls and boys across the state have been sexually violated by Catholic clergy, often repeatedly.

It identifies 451 proven, admitted or credibly accused predator priests who are or were in ministry in Illinois.

It names 160 religious order clerics who are or were here, “have been substantiated by Catholic sources as abusers, but have not been disclosed as such by the Illinois dioceses.”

But perhaps the most disturbing number appears nowhere in the 696-page document. Zero. That’s the number of clerics who committed or concealed heinous crimes against kids and whom Raoul says in his report he now plans to prosecute.

Let that sink in: At least 451 child predators assaulting nearly 2,000 boys and girls, sometimes dozens or…

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The archbishop of Chicago urged the Illinois attorney general on Thursday to provide information about newly uncovered cases of clergy sexual abuse that were included in a statewide investigative report, saying he would gladly add the names on his list of credibly accused priests if the claims were substantiated.

In his first interview since the report was released Tuesday, Cardinal Blase Cupich expressed surprise that the 125 new cases involved some priests he had never heard of. He voiced dismay that the attorney general’s office hadn’t forwarded the new claims to the archdiocese to look into, as it had done during the five-year investigation.

“We thought we had that kind of relationship with the attorney general and so are disappointed that we’re hearing these for the first time,” Cupich said.

He spoke to The Associated Press during one of his periodic visits to the Vatican, where he sits on…

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Pope Francis on Friday tapped an Argentine bishop with years of ministry in the country’s prisons as his successor as archbishop of Buenos Aires, a day after again saying he might finally visit his home country next year.

Bishop Jorge Ignacio García Cuerva, the 55-year-old bishop of Rio Gallegos, will replace the retiring Cardinal Mario Aurelio Poli, who turned 75 last year, the Vatican said.

The appointment was announced a day after Francis repeated that he was looking into visiting Argentina next year. Francis has kept Argentina at an arms’ length for the 10 years of his papacy, apparently not wanting to get drawn into the country’s political polarization. But recently, he has indicated an openness to finally go back next year, after a new Argentine president is sworn in following an October election.

“My idea is to go next year. We’ll see if it’s possible,” Francis told a forum…

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Illinois’ attorney general has ended a five-year investigation into sexual abuse of children by Catholic clergy in the state, releasing a nearly 700-page report that revealed the problem was far worse than the church acknowledged in 2018 at the start of the state’s review.

Attorney General Kwame Raoul said Tuesday that state investigators found that more than 450 Catholic clergy in Illinois had sexually abused nearly 2,000 children since 1950. But Raoul and other experts say the finding is unlikely to lead to criminal charges.

That follows a familiar pattern — no rush of criminal charges followed the 2018 release of a bombshell grand jury report on clergy abuse in Pennsylvania or last month’s report on abuse in the Archdiocese of Baltimore.

Advocates say they believe the report will help more people feel safe to discuss what happened to them with family, friends, support groups and law enforcement….

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Fr. Daniel Carter was accused back in 2002 of sexually abusing a Redwood City social worker when she was a child. The Archbishop at the time called the allegations “unfounded” and returned Carter to ministry. He continued to work at least into 2021. Now, six new accusers have come forward.

When Danielle Lacampagne came forward 21 years ago to report being sexually molested as a child by San Francisco priest Fr. Daniel Carter, she believed his days as a clergyman were numbered. 

Turns out she was wrong. 

The following year, in 2003, former San Francisco Archbishop William Levada declared Lacampagne’s allegations to be “unfounded.” Carter was returned to ministry and continued to work as a priest over the ensuing two decades.

Now, all these years after Lacampagne’s original accusations, six new alleged victims, both men and women, have…

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Three former students at a Massachusetts Catholic high school have filed a lawsuit against Boston’s Cardinal Sean O’Malley and other Church leaders because of alleged abuse committed by the school’s vice principal.

Attorney Mitchell Garabedian on Monday announced that he had filed a May 5 lawsuit in Suffolk County Superior Court on behalf of three former students at Arlington Catholic High School in the northwest Boston suburb of Arlington.

The plaintiffs, who are not named in court papers, allege that former vice principal Stephen Biagioni abused them from about 2011 to 2016, the Boston Globe reported. The former students were between the ages of 15 and 17 at this time, they told reporters on Monday, according to WBUR News.

Biagioni, who became principal of Arlington Catholic High School, was placed on administrative leave in April 2016 pending the outcome of an investigation into alleged events at Sunday detention. At the…

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An accusation of child sexual abuse against a Florida Catholic priest has been recently deemed to carry a “semblance of truth,” by the Apostolic Administrator of the Archdiocese of Dubuque. The cleric, Fr. Leo P. Riley, worked in 16 Iowa parishes following his ordination in 1982. He was transferred to the Diocese of Venice in 2002.

While the current complaint about Fr. Riley was apparently received on May 5th of this year, another accusation was brought to the Archdiocese of Dubuque in 2014.  That victim filed a lawsuit against the Archdiocese the following year. The Archdiocesan Review Board initially deemed that accusation as “not manifestly false or frivolous.” (Page 5) However, several months later Archbishop Michael O. Jackels announced that his investigation did not find the complaint to be true and Fr. Riley resumed working in a parish in Florida.

…

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7 News Freedom of Information Law request prompts release

Following the Diocese of Buffalo’s settlement in the lawsuit brought on by the New York attorney general, 7 News began requesting material the diocese produced in connection with the AG’s investigation. The I-Team is making all of the documents publicly available for the first time.

Despite a settlement by the Diocese of Buffalo in the lawsuit brought on by New York’s attorney general and promises made by Bishop Michael W. Fisher, there is not a new era of transparency within the Catholic diocese.

“As I’ve said since becoming Bishop in January of 2021, it’s not what we say but what we do,” said Bishop Fisher at a press conference announcing the settlement.

Over the past several months, the bankrupt Buffalo Diocese spent tens of thousands of dollars in a failed attempt to prevent the public from seeing documents and video produced…

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There will be a free screening of the powerful documentary PROCESSION in Overland Park, KS on June 2, 2023 at 7 PM.

 The documentary, PROCESSION, is currently streaming on Netflix. This is the story of a group of men – many of whom are from Kansas – who are all survivors of child sexual abuse by Catholic priests.  

There has never been a screening of the film in the Kansas City area until now.

The free screening of PROCESSION is on June 2, 2023 at 7 PM at the Glenwood Arts Theater in Overland Park, KS.  

The men will all be there, as will the director of the film. There will be a Q&A, to provide an opportunity to speak to the audience about the impact of Kansas House Bill 2127 as well as any future legislative efforts on the behalf of sexual abuse survivors.  

WHAT:     FREE SCREENING of…

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Ronald Lasik allegedly abused kids in Chicago and Australia after leaving Canada

WARNING: This story contains details of child physical and sexual abuse.

One of the most notorious child abusers in Newfoundland and Labrador history has popped up in another investigation into allegations of Catholic child abuse in the United States.

Ronald Lasik, a member of the Christian Brothers of Ireland until his death in 2020, is one of 451 men “credibly accused” of abusing children in Illinois while holding a position of authority affiliated with the church.

Lasik is well-known for his time at the Mount Cashel Orphanage in St. John’s during the 1950s, where it’s alleged he abused at least eight boys in a violent and sexual manner. He was sentenced to 11 years in prison in 1999.

According to the report, Lasik also worked at Saint Laurence High School in Chicago. While it doesn’t get into details of the…

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[See trailer here.]

Five years on from the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, survivors seeking compensation in civil claims are being thwarted by extraordinary legal tactics that they say make their quest for proper compensation harder than ever.

The Royal Commission was meant to make it easier for victims to seek justice, but a fierce battleground is emerging which is flying in the face of law reforms recommended by the historic inquiry and enacted by parliaments.

In this week’s Four Corners, Louise Milligan goes inside the legal fight as lawyers representing victims face institutions pushing to have cases thrown out of court altogether.

In one case, a survivor faces losing his house due to legal costs as he’s denied the right to sue the organisation even though his convicted perpetrator is alive, in jail, and willing to give evidence.

Another institution is threatening to prevent…

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A new report identifies nearly 500 clergy members in Illinois who sexually abused children.

Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul announced Tuesday that the state has corroborated more than 1,900 victims’ child sex abuse claims against Catholic clergy in Illinois. The cases go back to 1950 and feature hundreds of abusers who were not previously reported.

The church has been embroiled in child sex abuse scandals for more than two decades that encompass hundreds of thousands of victims around the globe, from Australia to Chile.

The Illinois findings are the latest from several major US investigations in recent years showing that such abuse and church officials’ cover-ups were widespread, making the case that the clergy is incapable of bringing perpetrators among their own ranks to account. Though much of this abuse was initially dismissed by church leaders, mounting evidence — that now includes the Illinois investigation — has made victims…

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The Illinois attorney general’s gut-wrenching 696-page report on Catholic clergy child sex abuse in Illinois is illustrated, incongruously but perhaps necessarily, with aspirational images of the Prairie State: cornfields at sunrise, the shimmering waters of Lake Michigan, sunsets over lakes and barns, gorgeous stained glass windows.

But the text, which is agonizing reading, reveals a much uglier side of Illinois.

It lists the names and circumstances surrounding 451 Catholic clerics and religious brothers who the report says abused at least 1,997 children across the state’s dioceses. And, in the words of Attorney General Kwame Raoul, it charges that “decades of Catholic leadership decisions and policies have allowed known child sex abusers to hide, often in plain sight.”

So many abusers are listed in the report that it is easy to become overwhelmed by the magnitude of the shameful history revealed. Unspeakable pain was caused to survivors who, the…

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A member of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP) urged Springfield Bishop Thomas John Paprocki to provide full assignment records for credibly accused priests living in or who previously served in the diocese.

Members of SNAP gathered outside of the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception Wednesday afternoon.

David Clohessy, the former national director of SNAP from St. Louis and a clerical abuse survivor, made his case in a letter to Paprocki Wednesday. The letter was provided to The State Journal-Register.

Clohessy said Paprocki is the only one of the Illinois bishops who refuses to reveal the parishes and other sites where child molesting clerics have worked.

Clohessy’s plea echoes one of Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul, whose multiyear investigation into child sexual abuse by members of Illinois’ Catholic clergy was detailed in a report released Tuesday.

That investigation found 451 Catholic priests and religious brothers abused nearly 2,000 children in…

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One survivor of clerical sex abuse recounted being kept inside her fifth grade classroom at her Woodlawn neighborhood Catholic school during recess in the 1980s, where a Carmelite religious order priest would repeatedly force her to sit on his lap and rape her.

He told her God wanted him to do this to her, she recalled to Illinois attorney general’s office investigators in one of a litany of victim accounts highlighted in a scathing report released Tuesday on the scale and scope of Catholic clergy sex abuse statewide.

“I think that what people don’t understand is when you are a child, you don’t separate a priest from God,” she told investigators. “He was God. To me, he was God’s worker.”

The investigation determined that Catholic leaders in Illinois have vastly underreported clergy sex abuse against children, finding that “decades of Catholic leadership decisions and policies have allowed known child sex…

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Editor’s note: This story was originally published in the Belleville News-Democrat.

Six Catholic dioceses in Illinois had disclosed the names of 103 priests and other clergy who were “substantiated” as child sex abusers five years ago, when the state began an investigation into the problem, according to Attorney General Kwame Raoul.

A 700-page report that his office released Tuesday, however, lists 451 clergy who allegedly abused 1,997 children in the state.

“This means that our investigation led to the disclosure of 348 more clerics than prior to our investigation,” Raoul said at a press conference in Chicago that also was live-streamed.

Former Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan, who held the office for 16 years, had launched the investigation. Raoul promised to continue her work when he took over in 2019.

At the press conference, Raoul attempted to show he had no “personal ax to…

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BELLEVILLE — A bombshell 696-page report on sexual abuse by Roman Catholic clergy, released Tuesday by Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul, said archbishops and bishops throughout Illinois “accepted the transfer of known abusers from other dioceses” and that the information “was kept from the Catholic community and the public.”

In the Diocese of Belleville, which covers southern Illinois counties, bishops “turned their backs on children” to protect priests, the report says. Forty-three Catholic clerics and religious brothers who sexually abused children while ministering there are named.

Raymond Kownacki was high on the list. According to the report, Kownacki was ordained in 1960 and served in 12 churches (not including a five-year stint in Guatemala) before he was removed from ministry in 1995. The report notes that nine people reported being abused by him and that the diocese claimed the first complaint was made in…

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Three former Arlington Catholic High School students are suing Cardinal Sean O’Malley of the Archdiocese of Boston and other church leaders for failing to protect them from alleged sexual abuse by a former vice principal, in what appears to be part of a new legal strategy to hold hierarchy more accountable for failing to heed lessons from the sex abuse crisis that rocked the church two decades ago.

The suit, which was filed May 5 in Suffolk Superior Court, alleges the former administrator, Stephen Biagioni, abused the three plaintiffs when they were teenagers from about 2011 to 2016.

Each former student alleged the abuse occurred during detention, when Biagioni engaged “in explicit sexual behavior and lewd and lascivious conduct,” according to the complaint.

The lawsuit is the second in a year to target church leaders, and believed to be the first to name O’Malley, for allegedly failing to put in…

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Nearly 2,000 children across Illinois were sexually abused by 451 Catholic clerics and religious brothers over the past seven decades, Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul announced in an investigation report released Tuesday. The number of accused abusers is significantly larger than the 103 the Catholic dioceses of Illinois had publicly listed in 2018, when the investigation was first launched.

“These perpetrators may never be held accountable in a court of law, but by naming them here, the intention is to provide a public accountability and a measure of healing to survivors who have long suffered in silence,” Raoul said in a statement released with the report.

The report detailed accusations of lengthy coverups and horrific narratives of repeated abuse after investigators reviewed over 100,000 pages of documents and received more than 600 contacts from survivors. Accounts include clergy getting three brothers drunk soon after their father died before…

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DUBUQUE, Iowa (KCRG) – A priest in Florida has been accused of sexual abuse of a minor while he was serving as priest of the Archdiocese of Dubuque in the 1980′s.

Father Leo Riley was ordained a priest of the Archdiocese of Dubuque in 1982. The alleged sexual abuse of a minor, reported earlier this month, is said to have happened between 1985 and 1986 while Riley was serving as associate pastor at the Church of Resurrection in Dubuque.

He requested to move to the Diocese of Venice, Florida in 2002 to be closer to his parents, and became a priest there in 2005.

The Archdiocese of Dubuque said Riley has been placed on administrative leave while the Archdiocese of Dubuque Review Board for the Protection of Minors begins an investigation.

In a press release, Bishop Richard Pates, who currently serves as Apostolic Administrator of the Archdiocese of Dubuque, said…

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[Note from BishopAccountability.org: To see image of Rev. Pates’ letter, click here.]

On 5 May 2023, an allegation of sexual abuse of a minor was made against Father Leo Riley, alleged to have taken place between 1985-1986, when he was assigned as an associate pastor at Resurrection Parish in Dubuque.

A letter about Father Riley was written to parishioners in February of 2015. That previous letter was in reference to a separate allegation of sexual abuse of a minor alleged to have also taken place during this time period at Resurrection Parish.

Retired Archbishop Jackels said of the 2015 investigation outcome, “The best information available does not support a reasonable belief that the allegation is true. Therefore, in the matter of the accusation made against Father Riley, unless additional evidence is presented, there is no need to pursue it any further.”

Father Riley was ordained a priest of the…

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He represented victims of pedophile priests and dared to take on the powerful Boston archdiocese. He’s still doing it.

Early in the 2015 movie Spotlight, the story of the Boston Globe’s Pulitzer Prize winning  exposé of the Boston pedophile priest sex abuse scandal, the name Mitchell Garabedian comes up.

Garabadian is a small-time lawyer who was representing clients who claim they were molested by Boston area priests. He is suing the Church and making shocking and. to some, wild allegations that Cardinal Bernard Law and the top leaders of the Boston Church knew about it and protected the priests by shuffling them from parish to parish, where they continued to prey on children. 

The Globe investigative team wonders about Garabedian. Is he credible or a whacko? Someone dismisses him as a “crank.” Another says he is “kind of a character.” It’s not meant as a compliment. A fellow lawyer who has represented abuse…

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PEORIA (WMBD Radio and 25News) – A 700-page report released Tuesday shows the extent of child sex abuse and the cover-up by the members of the Catholic Diocese across Illinois.

One section dedicated just to the Diocese of Peoria lists the dozens of priests facing accusations.

The report has many stories from survivors naming the priests and the reaction from the Diocese of Peoria, those validated reports begin in the 1940′s.

Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul says, “it was the survivors of child sex abuse that gave purpose and drive to this investigation.”

The first local case listed in the investigation dates back to a 1946 letter from the church acknowledging a priest abused girls younger than 16 years old, how many girls is not clear.

The report says that the priest was allowed to resign from his position and the public statement on it was he left…

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[VIDEO – The Illinois attorney general had the sharpest criticism for the Joliet Diocese’s handling of sex abuse investigations, and two survivors experienced that firsthand.]

The sharpest criticism in the Illinois attorney general’s report on sex abuse in the Catholic church in Illinois is for the diocese of Joliet and its handling of reported abuse cases under the late Bishop Joseph Imesch. The report details 69 cases of abuse there.

David Rudofski and Eddie Burkel had never met before Tuesday, but both men are survivors of sexual abuse by different priests in the Joliet diocese.

“As an adult I’ve learned how it affects you and how it just breaks you down,” said Burkel.

Burkel was a 13-year-old altar boy at St. Dominic Catholic Church in Bolingbrook when he was abused by Father James Nowak.

Rudofsi said he was 8 years old when Father James Burnett abused him at St….

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The Illinois attorney general’s office today issued a final report on clergy sexual abuse of minors in the six Catholic dioceses in the state. This report is the result of our four years’ cooperation with the Attorney General’s office, beginning in 2019.  The pages of the final report tell a story of pain, grief, shame, betrayal, and anger experienced by innocent individuals because of unspeakable acts by clergy in the Diocese of Joliet. Although the majority of abuse occurred decades ago, many victims/survivors remain haunted to this day.

As the sixth bishop of the Diocese of Joliet, I express profound remorse over any failure of the diocese to respond to an allegation of abuse with prompt and compassionate attention. I pledge to ensure the diocese maintains strict adherence to the safeguards mandated by the Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People adopted by the U.S. bishops in 2002. And I…

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An investigation has substantiated child abuse claims against Catholic clergy in Illinois by more than 1,900 victims, state Attorney General Kwame Raoul said in a news conference detailing the findings of the office’s five-year investigation that uncovered hundreds more cases than first reported by the dioceses in 2018.

More than 100,000 pages of diocesan documents and 600 confidential contacts with survivors of child sex abuse helped the state’s office piece together the 696-page report released Tuesday on clergy sexual abuse in all six Catholic dioceses in Illinois, the office said.

“It is my hope that this nearly 700-page report will provide some closure to survivors of child sex abuse by Catholic clerics by shining a light both on those who violated their positions of power and trust, and on the individuals in church leadership who covered up that abuse,” Raoul said in…

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More than 450 adult Catholic clergymen abused nearly 2,000 children in the state of Illinois over a period of almost 90 years, according to a report released Tuesday from Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul.

“This report reveals names and detailed information of 451 Catholic clerics and religious brothers who abused at least 1,997 children across all of the dioceses in Illinois,” Raoul wrote in a message accompanying the report.

The investigation identified 275 allegedly abusive clerics and religious brothers in the Archdiocese of Chicago, 43 in the Diocese of Belleville, 69 in Joliet, 51 in Peoria, 24 in Rockford and 32 in Springfield. Some accused abusers worked in multiple dioceses, equaling a “discrete” total of 451 accused, according to the report.

The report claims to have identified 149 individual perpetrators who were previously undisclosed by the dioceses, and that the dioceses continued to publicly disclose alleged…

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Hundreds of Catholic priests and church officials in the US state of Illinois have been named in a new report detailing sexual abuse by clergy.

The state’s top prosecutor said 451 clergy in Illinois had sexually abused 1,997 children since 1950.

The church had acknowledged only 103 individual abusers before the start of the investigation in 2018.

Nearly every survivor interviewed struggled with mental health issues after being abused, the report said.

Several US states launched investigations into Catholic sexual abuse after a Pennsylvania grand jury report in 2018 found that 300 priests had abused more than 1,000 children over a period of 70 years.

The nearly 700-page report released by Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul on Tuesday includes dozens of harrowing stories of rape and sexual abuse, and details how allegations were ignored and abusers were shifted from church to church.

The archbishop of Chicago said he had not…

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Within the past week, Baptist News Global has run two news analysis pieces about Southern Baptist Convention agencies and leaders who are not telling people in the pew the full story of their financial situations.

There are policies in place within the SBC to prevent this from happening, but those policies aren’t always being followed. And in some cases, the existing policies are not strong enough to have any teeth.

This matters not just for the sake of Christian ethics but because of the hundreds of millions of dollars that flow from church offerings to the SBC and its agencies and institutions. The people in the pew — let’s call them donors — deserve a full accounting of how their offerings are spent.

“The people in the pew deserve a full accounting of how their offerings are spent.”

The most notorious offender in this regard is the North American Mission Board, where…

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• The docuseries, titled Shiny Happy People: Duggar Family Secrets, airs on June 2
• It is set to ‘expose the truth… of reality TV’s favorite mega-family’ and its church
• Executive producers Olivia Crist and Julia Willoughby Nason have spoken out

The executive producers of the new Duggar family documentary have revealed they were stunned by the levels of abuse survivors suffered at the hands of ‘cult-like’ religious teachings.

The show, titled Shiny Happy People: Duggar Family Secrets, is set to ‘expose the truth beneath the wholesome Americana surface of reality TV’s favorite mega-family.’

It will also delve deeper into the Duggars’ controversial church – radical organization The Institute in Basic Life Principles (IBLP), founded by shunned minister Bill Gothard in the 1960s.

Executive producers Olivia Crist and Julia Willoughby Nason have now spoken out about their shock at ‘how far and wide the IBLP ideology went’ and described it as a ‘pandemic of abuse.’

The show, titled…

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Soul Survivor Watford has formally suspended Mike Pilavachi, founder of a large Christian youth festival in the U.K., who’s facing allegations he spiritually and sexually abused young men under him. The suspension comes amid revelations that ministry leaders in the U.K. knew about allegations concerning Pilavachi for nearly two decades but did nothing.

The church, which is part of the Church of England, announced in early April that Pilavachi would “step back from all ministry” while the denomination’s National Safeguarding Team investigated the allegations against him. Pilavachi also resigned from the church board and all related charity boards at the time. But Soul Survivor Watford expressly noted that Pilavachi was “not under criminal investigation and has not been suspended.”

However, on Saturday, Soul Survivor Watford released a new statement, saying it had suspended Pilavachi, its associate pastor, “with immediate effect” while the investigation continues. The statement added,…

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“Decades of Catholic leadership decisions and policies have allowed known child sex abusers to hide, often in plain sight,” Attorney General Kwame Raoul said.

Six Catholic dioceses in Illinois had disclosed the names of 103 priests and other clergy who were “substantiated” as child sex abusers five years ago, when the state began an investigation into the problem, according to Attorney General Kwame Raoul.

A 700-page report that his office released Tuesday, however, lists 451 clergy who allegedly abused 1,997 children in the state.

“This means that our investigation led to the disclosure of 348 more clerics than prior to our investigation,” Raoul said at a press conference in Chicago that also was live-streamed.

Former Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan, who held the office for 16 years, had launched the investigation. Raoul promised to continue her work when he took over in 2019.

At the press conference, Raoul attempted to…

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At the start of a 5-year investigation by the attorney general, Cardinal Blase Cupich told seminarians the Archdiocese of Chicago had “posted all of the names” of predatory clergy. As the investigation neared its end, Cupich kept adding more names.

[Note from BishopAccountability.org: Click here to see the Illinois Attorney General’s Report on Catholic Clergy Child Sex Abuse in Illinois]

In August 2018, shortly after then-Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan announced an investigation into whether the Catholic church in Illinois had fully disclosed the scope of child sex abuse by priests and other clergy members, Cardinal Blase Cupich said the church had nothing to hide.

“Our record’s clean,” the top Catholic cleric in Chicago told a closed-door gathering of about 200 men studying at the Mundelein seminary to be priests, according to sources who were there. “I’m confident that, when the attorney general looks in our files . . . that…

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David Clohessy, former national director of SNAP (Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests)

314-566-9790

davidgclohessy@gmail.com

* * *

It’s tragic that once again, hundreds of church officials concealed thousands of child sex crimes yet none of these ‘enablers’ face any consequences. Illinois lawmakers must pass new laws that help law enforcement pursue those who hid or help child molesters.

Virtually all of the AG’s recommendations are simple common sense steps that any official who genuinely cares about kids would have adopted long ago. 

Here is what the Illinois attorney general will NOT announce today: criminal charges against a Catholic official who hid a predator priest. Not one charge against even one church leader, high or low.

That’s tragic. And that’s because Illinois has old, weak laws that make it tough for law enforcement to pursue employers who ignore or conceal known or suspected child sex crimes.

That must change.

…

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(For Immediate Release May 23, 2023) 

On Friday afternoon, all six of Illinois’ Catholic dioceses sent out a sudden press statement, written in concert, that describes the policies and procedures each institution has in place to protect children from abuse. With today’s news, we now know why those Church leaders felt the need to remind parents and parishioners about these policies – because thanks to the work of the investigators at the Illinois Attorney General’s office, it is now apparent to us that those policies are weak, vague, and rarely followed.

In a stunning report, A.G. Kwame Raoul’s office has described the ways that Catholic leaders in every diocese in the state have acted in concert to protect abusive priests, to keep the public from learning about those crimes, and to push back on survivors and their loved ones who came forward in hopes of preventing…

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Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

I am writing this letter in response to the issuance today of the Illinois Attorney General’s Final “Report on Catholic Clergy Sex Abuse in Illinois”. The Diocese of Belleville has cooperated fully during the Attorney General’s five­-year long preparation of this report by providing information about our clergy, living and deceased, and allegations of misconduct with minors that our Diocese has received. While I will need some time to read and fully absorb the AG’s lengthy report, especially the section on the Diocese of Belleville, please permit me to share several important points.

It is crucial you understand that nothing is more important to us than the welfare of the youth entrusted to our care. The Diocese of Belleville takes all allegations of inappropriate or sexual misconduct seriously and encourages anyone who feels they have been harmed by a priest, deacon, religious or lay employee,…

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Video links:

English: https://youtu.be/bpAPX__sSJY

Spanish: https://youtu.be/w9pJLDIaq5M

Today, Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul published a report (the Report) on his office’s investigation of allegations of child sexual abuse against clergy in the six Illinois Catholic dioceses over a period of nearly 90 years. The Report addresses both how dioceses responded to such allegations in decades past and current policies that help ensure the safety of children and support the healing of survivors. We have not studied the report in detail but have concerns about data that might be misunderstood or are presented in ways that could be misleading. It is therefore important that we state what we know to be true. For example:

The 451 names “disclosed”:

• 451 is all 6 dioceses and includes religious order priests
• 451 includes the priests already on the 6 web sites
• ALL were reported to civil authorities, none were undisclosed,…

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A multi-year investigation into child sex abuse by members of the Catholic clergy in Illinois found at least 1,997 children across the state were sexually abused between 1950 and 2019.

Attorney General Kwame Raoul Tuesday released a comprehensive report detailing decades of child sex abuse by members of the Illinois Catholic dioceses, which includes Belleville, Chicago, Joliet, Peoria, Rockford, and Springfield.

The nearly 700-page report features detailed narrative accounts of child sex abuse committed by Catholic clerics.

Many of the narratives were written in consultation with survivors, are based upon their experiences, and told from the survivor’s point of view.

“I was raised and confirmed in the Catholic church and sent my children to Catholic schools. I believe the church does important work to support vulnerable populations; however, as with any presumably reputable institution, the Catholic church must be held accountable when it betrays the public’s trust,” Raoul…

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CHICAGO, IL  — Illinois’ attorney general Kwame Raoul released a nearly 700-page-long report Tuesday morning detailing child sexual abuse by members of the Catholic clergy in Illinois, stretching back to 1950.

According to the report, investigators found that 452 clergy members allegedly sexually abused nearly 2,000 children in those years — much more than the church named when the state began investigating in 2018. 

Raoul announced the findings at a news conference in Chicago Tuesday morning.  

The report contains detailed narratives of the abuse, which Raoul said were written with the help of survivors and are told from their point of view. And it contains recommendations from the office on how the dioceses should handle future investigations. 

It also details how the total number of publicly disclosed “substantiated child sex abusers” across the Illinois Dioceses is much higher than what was disclosed by the church prior to the Attorney General’s investigation. 

…

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Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul’s report on Catholic priest child sexual abuse details hundreds of cases across the state.

CHICAGO (WLS) — A long-awaited five year investigation has turned up hundreds of new horror stories of child sexual abuse at the hands of Catholic priests in Illinois, the attorney general alleged on Tuesday morning.

Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul’s “Report on Catholic Clergy Child Sex Abuse in Illinois” is 696 pages long was was unveiled at a downtown Chicago briefing with reporters.

The report focuses on decades of old and new abuse cases in the state’s six dioceses: Belleville, Joliet, Peoria, Rockford, and Springfield and Chicago, which is known as an Archdiocese due to its large size.

Nearly 2000 survivors of Catholic church sexual abuse in Illinois were documented by state investigators, according to the attorney general.

Nearly every survivor exhibited “some form of mental health challenge in the years after…

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