ABUSE TRACKER

A former Bangor woman fears a former Catholic priest who she says abused her could do the same to others.

It’s not the first time defrocked priest Anthony Cipolle has been accused of violating the church’s code of ethics. Cipolle was a central figure in a dispute that led to a Hampden woman’s death in 2018.

Melissa Kearns, who spoke publicly about the allegations for the first time with the Portland Press Herald, moved back to her hometown of Bangor from New York in 2018 after struggling with her mental health because of abuse in a relationship.

She sought community in St. John’s Catholic Church, where she first found refuge as a child and later met Cipolle.

Kearns told the Press Herald she felt an immediate connection with Cipolle, but within weeks the relationship became physical and unhealthy.

Kearns told the Portland newspaper Cipolle pressured her into having sex and isolated her…

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Bishop Richard Stika admitted that he told a room full of priests that the man who says he was raped by a seminarian was actually the one who was the predator, not the other way around. The admission was revealed in new court filings in a lawsuit against the Catholic Diocese of Knoxville.

The man who filed the suit says the diocese worked to discredit him and that Stika’s comments to the priests back up that claim. The man also says in the suit that church leaders failed to properly investigate when he reported the abuse.

Stika made the comments at a May 2021 meeting at the Cathedral of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, according to the lawsuit. The account came from someone who attended the meeting.

The following month, Stika again told a meeting of priests in Gatlinburg that the man groomed the seminarian for sexual abuse, the…

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Theodore E. McCarrick, expelled by Pope Francis in 2019, was already facing prosecution in Massachusetts. Now, Wisconsin is charging him with assault.

Theodore E. McCarrick, the former Roman Catholic cardinal expelled by Pope Francis in 2019, was charged on Monday with fourth-degree sexual assault in Wisconsin. It was the second criminal complaint against a man who was once one of the most high-profile clerics in the American Catholic Church.

Mr. McCarrick, now 92, is the first and only cardinal to be criminally charged in the sprawling sex abuse scandal that has consumed the church. Thousands of victims and abusers have been identified in parishes across the nation, with accusations from decades ago still being revealed in ongoing investigations.

Resulting lawsuits have pushed some dioceses to file for bankruptcy. Yet relatively few criminal charges have resulted, largely because the statute of limitations has expired, though some states are changing laws to allow for…

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[See also Edwardo v. The Roman Catholic Bishop of Providence.]

The abusive actions of an out-of-state Catholic priest during a business trip do not create personal jurisdiction over his Rhode Island parish under New York law, a federal appeals court has ruled.

Philip Edwardo alleges he was a victim of the late Father Philip Magaldi’s sexual abuse from approximately 1977 to 1984, including during a 1983 trip to New York City when Magaldi had come to discuss a potential donation from the Dutch socialite Claus von Bühlow. Edwardo, then a minor, sued the Roman Catholic parish St. Anthony’s, where Magaldi worked, and others, at the US District Court for the Southern District of New York in 2021. The case was dismissed last year.

• The New York Child Victims Act allows cases that would otherwise be barred by the statute of limitations for sexual abuse to be filed for suit
• But,…

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Several weeks ago I recommended an an unusually perceptive article by Birgit Kelle in Catholic World Report, sketching out the different possible outcomes of the German Synodal Path. They were, in brief:

• Reconciliation: in which German Church leaders turn away from their current path and embrace the perennial teachings of the Church. This outcome, Kelle writes, is obviously most desirable but unfortunately least likely.
• A “dirty schism” in which the German Church effectively breaks from the universal Church, but without any formal rebuke from the Vatican. The result would be a case of conflicting authorities, with the secular government siding with the German rebels against loyal Catholics. This outcome, the author says, is both worst and most likely.
• Outright schism, in which the German hierarchy renounce ties with Rome, would be disastrous. But at least in that case the situation would be clear.

To that analysis—which I think…

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German Jesuit Father Hans Zollner, one of the church’s leading protagonists in the fight against clerical sexual abuse, has sought to clarify his reasons for stepping down from a Vatican safeguarding commission after nearly 10 years on the job.

Speaking to journalists Monday, Zollner denied that he was targeting anyone individually or that he resigned as part of an internal power struggle, but said he had ongoing concerns regarding how the commission operated that went unanswered, despite several attempts to engage his superiors on the issues.

“It was not easy for me at all to leave the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors and to publicly address the existing problems,” he said, saying, “Many times I asked myself the following questions: Does this gesture correspond to the team spirit and the discretion necessary for any working group? Will I hurt the Holy Father with my decision?”

Zollner said he…

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[Via National Catholic Reporter]

The defrocked Roman Catholic cardinal who became the face of the church’s clergy sex abuse crisis has been charged in Wisconsin with sexually assaulting an 18-year-old man more than 45 years ago, court records show.

A criminal complaint filed Friday alleges that Theodore McCarrick, who was removed from the priesthood in 2019 after a Vatican investigation found he had sexually molested adults and children, fondled a man in 1977 while staying at a cabin on Geneva Lake in southeastern Wisconsin.

The alleged victim, who is not named, told investigators that McCarrick had repeatedly sexually assaulted him since he was 11 and even brought him to parties where other adult men sexually assaulted him, according to the complaint.

McCarrick became the highest-ranking Roman Catholic official in the U.S. to face criminal charges for sexual abuse when he was accused in 2021 of sexually assaulting a teenage boy in Massachusetts…

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In recent years the official position on clerical immunity has changed, but do we show it in action?

“If anyone causes one of these little ones — those who believe in me — to stumble, it would be better for them to have a large millstone hung around their neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea.” (Matthew 18,6)

We are all aware of the child abuse scandal in the Church. Under instructions from Rome, priests who had been involved in child abuse were not referred to secular criminal authorities.

I myself came across such a case. After I had spoken to a group of Catholic women campaigning for the ordination of women, one person, whom I shall call Dawn, approached me. We became good friends. We stayed in touch. On one occasion she told me her experience as a child.

“I’m an orphan”, she said. “My…

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A Bangor woman wants to warn others of the abuse she endured from former Catholic priest Anthony Cipolle, who was a Reverend at St. John’s in Bangor from 2017 until 2020.

Melissa Kearns, who shared her story with the Portland Press Herald, claims Cipolle sexually, emotionally and psychologically abused her in 2018. The Press Herald says it reviewed numerous texts and emails between Cipolle and Kearns that support her claims.

Cipolle was expelled from the Roman Catholic Diocese of Portland in 2020 after a Maine judge accused Cipolle of “inflaming” a situation that led to the murder of Renee Henneberry Clark in 2018, who he was a spiritual adviser for.

According to the Portland Press Herald, Cipolle had gotten into a fight with Clark’s brother-in-law, who shot Clark 10 times hours later.

Kearns met Cipolle after the Clark’s murder, but she says the incident had been painted as a tragedy he had…

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Pope Francis on Sunday criticized what he said were groundless and offensive accusations against his predecessor, John Paul II, after the brother of a missing Italian teen aired an audiotape with the allegations on national television.

Speaking to faithful gathered in St. Peter’s Square for his Sunday Regina Coeli address, the pope noted that the day marked the Catholic feast of Divine Mercy, instituted by Pope Saint John Paul II in 2000.

“Certain of interpreting the sentiments of faithful from all over the world, I direct a grateful thought to the memory of Saint John Paul II, who in recent days has been the object of offensive and unfounded allegations,” he said.

Francis’s remarks marked the first time he has spoken out publicly about the allegations, which arose several days ago when Pietro Orlandi, the brother of missing Italian teen Emanuela Orlandi, gave Vatican prosecutors investigating his sister’s disappearance an…

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Pope Francis on Sunday rejected as offensive and unfounded what he called insinuations by the brother of a Vatican schoolgirl who went missing 40 years ago about one of his predecessors as pontiff, Saint John Paul II.

Emanuela Orlandi, the daughter of a Vatican usher, failed to return home on June 22, 1983 following a music lesson in Rome. She was 15 at the time and lived with her family inside the Vatican. Her disappearance is one of Italy’s most enduring mysteries.

The case entered a new chapter on Tuesday when her brother Pietro met with Vatican chief prosecutor Alessandro Diddi, whom Francis has given free rein to get to the bottom of the case.

After speaking to Diddi for more than eight hours, Pietro Orlandi appeared on a television programme where he played part of an audio recording with the voice of a man Orlandi said was part of an…

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Pope Francis on Sunday defended St. John Paul II against a recent accusation that the Polish pope secretly visited women at night.

Speaking to the public on Divine Mercy Sunday, a day established by Pope John Paul II in 2000, Pope Francis called the insinuation “unfounded and offensive.”

“Certain that I interpret the feelings of the faithful throughout the world, I address a grateful thought to the memory of St. John Paul II, at this time the object of unfounded and offensive conjectures,” he said.

Pope Francis greeted groups that promote the spirituality of Divine Mercy after leading the Regina Caeli, a Marian antiphon prayed during the Easter Season, from a window overlooking St. Peter’s Square on April 16.

Pietro Orlandi, the brother of Emanuela Orlandi, a 15-year-old girl and Vatican citizen who went missing 40 years ago, insinuated this week that John Paul II secretly left the Vatican at…

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Pope Francis on Sunday publicly defended St. John Paul II, condemning as “offensive and baseless” insinuations that recently surfaced about the late pontiff.

In remarks to tourists and pilgrims in St. Peter’s Square, Francis said he was aiming to interpret the feelings of the faithful worldwide by expressing gratitude to the Polish pontiff’s memory.

Days earlier, the Vatican’s media apparatus had described as “slanderous” an audiotape from a purported Roman mobster who insinuated that John Paul would go out looking for underage girls to molest.

The tape was played on an Italian TV program by Pietro Orlandi, brother of Emanuela Orlandi, the teenage daughter of a Vatican employee who lived at the Vatican. The disappearance of the 15-year-old in 1983 is an enduring mystery that has spawned countless theories and so far fruitless investigations in the decades since.

Francis noted that in Sunday’s crowd in the square were pilgrims and other…

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Melissa Kearns says a Maine Catholic priest – newly ordained in 2017 – took advantage of her and abused her when she was vulnerable. She believes he could be a danger to others.

For 11-year-old Melissa Kearns, the rectory beside St. John Catholic Church in Bangor was a refuge from a turbulent family life as one of seven children.

She’d go there after school to read books that visiting Jesuits and nuns selected for her. She filled ice buckets for their cocktails and cleared their dinner table. She reveled in their magazines featuring missionaries’ adventures abroad.

“It was an escape,” Kearns said. “It was a happy place where I felt seen and kind of appreciated.”

As Kearns grew older, the Catholic church lost some of its magic for her. But each time she drifted away, she returned.

After struggling in New York with her mental health and a rocky engagement, Kearns returned to her…

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The Catholic Church strictly forbids priests from divulging what penitents tell them during confession

A bill that would require clergy to report child abuse or neglect in Washington was advanced by the state’s House, prompting concern from some Catholics who are seeking a clergy-penitent exemption to protect the seal of the confessional.

Catholics in the state have expressed concern the House’s version of the bill could force priests to violate the civil law in order to uphold church law regarding the seal of confession.

The bill passed the House on April 11 in a 75-20 vote.

Mario Villanueva, executive director of the Washington State Catholic Conference, the public policy voice of the state’s Catholic bishops, told OSV News he is asking lawmakers to consider “what our confession is.”

“It’s one-on-one; it’s private; it’s part of our worship; it’s liturgy,” he said.

SB 5280, sponsored by state Sen. Noel Frame, D-Seattle,…

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A Milwaukee priest has been urging state legislators to repeal the clergy-penitent privilege in mandatory reporting laws that exempt Catholic priests from notifying authorities of any sexual abuse they hear about in the confessional. Following are NCR readers responding to our reporting. The letters have been edited for length and clarity. 

As a young teenager, I was sexually abused by my parish priest, several times a week for several years. The priest insisted I go to him for confession. That insistence was nothing more than a skilled predator ensuring I saw such actions as my complicity in the sexual contact. In other words, the sin was mine.

For a young teenager, these instances of sexual abuse infused by his attention, affection and emotional demands, trips and material gifts I could otherwise never have, caused mind bending conflict. It demanded a level of emotional response no young child could be equipped…

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Catholic League president Bill Donohue comments on a new law in Maryland:

Maryland is historically famous for being home to religious toleration, a commitment born of delivering justice to Roman Catholics in the 17th century. Today it has become their enemy.

In one of the grossest injustices in the modern era, Maryland Gov. Wes Moore signed into law a bill that created two tiers of justice in cases involving the sexual abuse of minors: one for public entities and one for private entities. This kind of disparate treatment is not likely to pass muster in the courts. We are already in conversation with counsel on this issue.

This is all about money, not justice. How can anyone fairly adjudicate claims made about an alleged offense when the offender is dead and buried? He can, of course, because the claimant is not going after an individual—he is going after an institution.

…

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Now that Lent and Easter are over, Vermont Catholic Bishop Christopher Coyne needs to begin a new mission.

In August 2019, Coyne released an incomplete list of Vermont clergy credibly accused of child abuse. 

Curiously, the Diocese of Burlington has never released a list of nuns who were credibly accused of abuse. As a survivor of St. Joseph’s Orphanage, I know that abusive nuns existed. Nuns participated in physical, sexual and emotional abuse of orphanage children. This is well documented, including in a report by former Vermont Attorney General TJ Donovan.

While in Burlington recently, Christine Kenneally, author of the just released book ”Ghosts of the Orphanage” and the 2018 Buzzfeed article on abuse at St. Joseph’s Orphanage, revealed that she had asked the local diocese why there was no list of credibly accused nuns. The diocese never responded. 

Why? Kenneally asked a legitimate question. Meanwhile, her book has brought new…

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Christian communities are not always safe. “Believers must face the facts”, says Lhen Fabian Beck. Not only the Roman Catholic Church is vulnerable to sexual abuse scandals, but also Protestant churches are also not immune.

The problem is that many church employees do not know how to create safe spaces for children and what to do in case of abuse, says Beck. He is involved in children’s ministry at his church in Hanover, Germany. It was not until he prepared for his ministry that he came across resources from the Federation of Free German Evangelical Churches (FeG) with guidelines against sexual violence against children.

Andreas Schlüter from the FeG for Young Generations says that these guidelines make up part of a broader program, which fits into the trend of more Protestant churches taking measures against sexual assault. “I know that in Germany, all free churches are actively tackling this problem”,…

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Although a man had boasted of his sexual abuse of his daughter on social media, what he told to his Mormon church leaders in a confessional context remains protected.

Bitter Winter has published several articles and series on the secret of confession and how it is and should be protected by the laws. That priests of the Roman Catholic Church and other clergy who receive a confession cannot be requested to disclose it to the police or courts of law is a principle of religious liberty enshrined in the laws of most countries. For the Catholic Church, the secret of the confession is so sacred that a priest who would disclose what he heard in confession, even if a secular law compels him to do it, would be immediately excommunicated. 

Recently, a breach has been opened in some countries, including Ireland and Australia, in cases…

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Ben Byrne*, “not a Dalai Lama sycophant”, feels that “the idea that the Dalai Lama would dedicate his whole life to ascending from attachment to the five senses but not quite be able to relinquish a freakish sexual attachment to children is absurd” and the suggestion that “he’s just a perv, based on one interaction among the countless thousands he has had with children throughout his life, is ridiculous.”

I remember reading news a couple of years ago that my hero and Nobel Prize winner Bob Dylan was a child sex offender. The headlines were the typical click bait for the twitter generation – The Guardian ran with “Bob Dylan accused of sexually abusing a 12-year-old in 1965”. I was mortified. “Really?” I thought, “at the height of his fame with the world at his feet Dylan wanted to groom a 12-year-old? Surely not, why would he want to do…

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Funeral services have been scheduled in remembrance of James C. Timlin, a former Bishop of Scranton.

Bishop Timlin, who was the eighth Bishop of the diocese, passed away “peacefully in his sleep” early Easter Sunday at Marywood Heights in Scranton. He was 95 years old.

“On behalf of the priests, deacons, religious and laity of the Diocese of Scranton, I extend my sympathy, condolences and prayers to Bishop Timlin’s family and friends,” the Most Reverend Joseph C. Bambera, Bishop of Scranton, said. “Bishop Timlin was a prayerful man devoted to serving the faithful of northeastern and north central Pennsylvania as a priest and bishop for more than 70 years. May God grant Bishop Timlin the gift of eternal life and give consolation to all those who loved and respected him.”

The bishop’s obituary says Timlin was the “first man born within the Diocese of Scranton to serve as its shepherd.”

…

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SOME of the best and well written-child protection laws are in the Philippines. However, it is enforcement that is lacking. There are few convictions of child abusers.

Without the rule of law being enforced, there will never be an end to child sexual abuse. Right now, the Philippines is like “a fun house of sexual abuse” with international connections by online abuse.

At a recent meeting with five judges in Cebu, the president of the Preda Foundation Francis Bermido Jr. and it executive director, Emmanuel Drewery, were earnestly requested by the judges to open a therapeutic healing center/home for girl-victims of sexual abuse and exploitation in Cebu.

The Preda Foundation with German partner Aktionsgruppe already manages a successful home for boys in Liloan, Cebu. That project rescues teenagers from horrible subhuman conditions in government detention cells and empowers them to start a new positive life based on spiritual values and…

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La Prelatura del Opus Dei pone al día sobre 8 casos de miembros acusados por abusos en la región del Plata (correspondiente a los países de Bolivia, Paraguay, Uruguay y Argentina) e informa sobre medidas tomadas.

(ZENIT Noticias / Buenos Aires, 14.04.2023).- Reproducimos a continuación el comunicado que la oficina de comunicación de la Prelatura Personal del Opus Dei en Argentina emitió con relación a algunos casos de abusos sexual cometidos por miembros de la misma:

***

Con dolor y respeto por las personas que han sufrido daños cometidos por fieles de la Prelatura, publicamos esta información sobre la situación de las denuncias de abusos en nuestra institución para que «aprendiendo de las amargas lecciones del pasado, podamos mirar hacia el futuro con esperanza» (Vos estis lux mundi). El reconocimiento de los males provocados nos lleva a un profundo pedido de perdón a cada persona agraviada y a una renovación…

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Nouvelle lettre au pape François

«Très Saint-Père, ces deux dernières années, je les ai passées à tenter de me protéger des répercussions et des représailles que j’ai subies parce que j’ai naïvement demandé de l’aide à mon Église.»

Deux ans après avoir remis au pape François une lettre qui relatait des gestes inconvenants commis par le cardinal Marc Ouellet, alors son supérieur, l’agente de pastorale Paméla Groleau achemine au chef de l’Église catholique une seconde missive.

Datée du 10 février, sa nouvelle lettre de deux pages, remise directement au pape le lundi 13 février, l’informe que les personnes qui portent plainte aux autorités ecclésiales, tout particulièrement dans l’archidiocèse de Québec, sont victimes de vexations alors qu’elles devraient être accueillies et écoutées.

Dans ce «cri ultime d’une croyante qui espère être entendue de vous», Paméla Groleau rappelle au pape qu’il y a deux ans elle a «en toute naïveté» cherché…

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Joel Koonce was hired by Southern California’s Redlands High School in 2016 after he was fired from a Texas summer camp. He allegedly told students it was because he had sex with a girl who was underage. But his record at the time was clean. Within a year, police records show a Redlands school janitor called the police, reporting Koonce for suspicions of sexual abuse against students.

The school quietly put him on leave and let his contract expire, but he remained in touch with students. In 2018, Koonce invited two of them to his home where he offered the 16-year-olds alcohol and drugs, according to court filings and interviews with one of his victims.

“We sat down on the bed and he just started kissing us and one thing led to another. We started having sex,” the former student told CBS News, speaking on condition of anonymity. She added that she and…

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Donor money being used to defend pedophiles

A former adherent of the Society of St. Pius X (SSPX) is urging the group to start fundraising for victims of SSPX sex abuse.

The letter comes in response to an appeal by Fr. Michel de Sivry, head of the Benelux district (Belgium, Netherlands and Luxembourg), to raise money for the SSPX Gabon mission — a place revealed to have been a predator’s playground under Fr. Patrick Groche and Damian Carlile.

SSPX founder Abp. Marcel Lefebvre spent many years in Gabon as a young missionary priest, and later entrusted senior priest Fr. Groche to establish a mission there. As Church Militant reported in Spotlight: Black Trads Matter, victims accuse Groche, along with Carlile, of taking sexual advantage of multiple Gabonese altar boys.

Groche eventually admitted to the abuse and has been housed in an SSPX priory in Lourdes,…

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Four members of the Penobscot Nation have sued the Roman Catholic Diocese of Portland and Bishop Robert Deeley claiming they were sexually abused when they were children by three priests assigned to St. Ann Catholic Church on Indian Island.

Since the law that barred accusations of long-standing abuse was overturned, these lawsuits are the first ones brought by Native Americans against the diocese.

It is always hard to report abuse. It is even harder against powerful institutions. So, we are very grateful to every person who is playing a role in this case and bringing critical information to light. We hope their courage will inspire others to speak up, too.

We are elated that legislation in Maine affords victims the opportunity to file claims and we hope that these four brave individuals will receive the compensation they deserve for the pain they have carried alone for so long. We also encourage any other victims…

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The Maryland Attorney General’s Office clarified in a pointed statement Friday that the Archdiocese of Baltimore could legally and independently identify accused abusers in the state’s redacted report on historic child sexual abuse in the Archdiocese.

The office last week released the 456-page investigation that details clergy, teachers, seminarians and deacons within the Archdiocese who allegedly assaulted more than 600 children going back to the 1940s.

The report was released with dozens of court-ordered redactions, including the names of 10 “credibly accused” abusers.

The call-out came as survivors of sexual abuse in the church urge the archdiocese to identify the redacted perpetrators. It was in response to a statement made on the Archdiocese of Baltimore’s website with frequently asked questions about the report.

In response to the question “Does the Archdiocese agree with the Circuit Court’s decision to redact some names in the Attorney General’s report?” the Archdiocese deferred to…

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The Maryland attorney general’s office has released a damning report on child sexual abuse in the Archdiocese of Baltimore — yet another in a long list of bombshell reports from many different states and countries.

The report, the result of a grand jury investigation initiated in 2018, is horrific in sadly predictable ways and shows the urgent need for secular intervention into allegations of systemic church abuse. It begins by listing 156 abusers and follows with 430 pages of abuse narratives based on hundreds of thousands of documents. The attorney general’s office concludes that there is “incontrovertible history” of “pervasive and persistent abuse by priests and other archdiocese personnel,” as well as a “history of repeated dismissal or cover up of that abuse by the Catholic Church hierarchy.”

When abusers were caught, “they would minimize the extent of the abuse,” says the report. The same will certainly be true of church…

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Maryland Attorney General Anthony Brown challenged the veracity of a statement the Archdiocese of Baltimore posted on its website about a report by Brown’s office detailing decades of child sex abuse and torture by Catholic clergy in Maryland and the church’s coverup.

On April 5, the day the report’s was made public, the Archdiocese posted to its website answers for what it described as frequently asked questions about the 450-page report the attorney general’s office released last week, airing publicly for the first time the staggering scope of abuse committed by priests and others affiliated with the church.

In one section, the Archdiocese addressed 10 living people accused in the report of abuse whose names were redacted from the document, saying the names “were not redacted at the request of the Archdiocese” and that the “attorney general requested that their names be redacted, and the court ordered it.”

Brown, a…

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Media Contacts:
press@oag.state.md.us
410-576-7009

Statement from Attorney General Anthony Brown Regarding Public Statements by the Archdiocese of Baltimore

BALTIMORE, MD (April 14, 2023) – “The Archdiocese of Baltimore made a public statement on their website regarding the redaction of the names of 10 individuals who are living and who are accused in the Report of committing child sexual abuse (https://www.archbalt.org/2023-agreport-faq/). To be clear, the redactions were done pursuant to the requirements set forth by a Court order. The Archdiocese can, at any time, publish those 10 names on their website as
individuals who have been credibly accused of child sexual abuse, yet they have not done so, despite having the full and completed report since November, as well as information about those 10 individuals for many years. They are uniquely positioned to legally release those names to the
public at any moment as part of their credibly accused list, should they choose…

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The inevitable clergy sexual-abuse report from the Archdiocese of Baltimore is a major news story, for legions of valid reasons.

Baltimore is this nation’s “premier see,” the oldest diocese in the United States. This city at the heart of a once-thriving Catholic region that now in a demographic death-dive that is extreme, even by the standards of 21st century America.

To move closer to issues discussed in this week’s “Crossroads” podcast (click here to tune that in), we are also talking about the city and Catholic culture in which the Sister Catherine Cesnik vanished in November of 1969. This is the murdered nun who left behind friends, colleagues and former female students who were convinced that she was about to blow the whistle on serial abuser Father Joseph Maskell, one of the villains at the heart of the famous Netflix who-done-it “The Keepers.”

Yes, the former…

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After receiving harsh backlash from the Vatican for what they said were “defamatory” insinuations against the late Pope John Paul II made on national television, the brother of a missing Italian teen has appeared to distance himself from those statements.

The row exploded after Pietro Orlandi – brother of Emanuela Orlandi, the daughter of a Vatican employee who disappeared in 1983 while on her way back from a music lesson – spent eight hours with Vatican prosecutors discussing the case.

Earlier this year the Vatican’s Promoter of Justice, its prosecutor’s office, reopened the case into Emanuela’s disappearance. That decision coincided with a decision by the Italian Parliament to reopen a parliamentary commission of inquest into what has become Italy’s most famous cold case.

The decision also comes in the wake of the airing of a popular new Netflix series, “Vatican Girl,” which explores the Orlandi case and delves into the…

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The Vatican pushed back hard Friday at “slanderous” insinuations against St. John Paul II that were aired following the reopening of an investigation into the 1983 disappearance of the teenage daughter of a Vatican employee.

The kerfuffle erupted after Emanuela Orlandi’s brother, Pietro, spent eight hours meeting Tuesday with Vatican prosecutors, who earlier this year reopened the dormant investigation into Emanuela’s disappearance. The Vatican probe has coincided with the recent decision by Italy’s parliament to open a parliamentary commission of inquest into the case, giving the Orlandi family hope that the truth might finally emerge.

Emanuela Orlandi, 15, vanished June 22, 1983, after leaving her family’s Vatican City apartment to go to a music lesson in Rome. Her father was a lay employee of the Holy See.

Her disappearance has been one of the Vatican’s enduring mysteries, and over the years has been linked to everything from the plot to kill…

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P. C. Singh, who was bishop of Jabalpur and moderator of the Church of North India, has been remanded to judicial custody

A former protestant bishop has been remanded to seven days of custody after being arrested by India’s Directorate of Enforcement (ED), a federal agency that investigates money laundering and violations of foreign exchange laws.

P. C. Singh was the bishop of Jabalpur Diocese and also served as moderator of the Synod of the Church of North India (CNI).

He was arrested from his residence in Jabalpur on April 12 night by officials and presented before a special court in the central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh the next day.

An ED official on April 14 confirmed to UCA News that Singh has been arrested and remanded in its custody, but refused to divulge any further details.

Singh has been facing investigations since last year.

Officials of the state…

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The need to rebuild trust in the wake of abuse scandals, the need to be inclusive and welcoming while faithful to Church teaching, and the need to approach the synodal process as “a missionary movement” were on the minds of American and Canadian Catholics who participated in the North American phase of the Catholic Church’s synodal process.

Participants reflected on a working document provided by the Vatican and offered their contributions based on the discussions of synods at the parish and diocesan levels. Their reflections are compiled in the “North American Final Document for the Continental Stage of the 2021-2024 Synod.” The 39-page document was released on Wednesday.

A synod is a meeting of bishops gathered to discuss a topic of theological or pastoral significance in order to prepare a document of advice or counsel to the pope. Synodality, generally speaking, means a process of discernment, discussion, and listening, with…

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The former pastor of an Illinois church has been sentenced to 10 months in prison, after pleading guilty to financial fraud and reportedly spending much of his ill-gotten gain on gambling. 

Lekevie Johnson, 47, former pastor of Mount Calvary Missionary Baptist Church in Champaign, Illinois, pleaded guilty to multiple financial crimes at a December court hearing. The charges included federal program misapplication, student loan misapplication, and making false statements in a bankruptcy petition.

On Monday, U.S. District Judge Michael Mihm sentenced Johnson to a 10-month prison term and ordered him to pay $59,358.90 in restitution. According to a Department of Justice (DOJ) press release, the minister was found guilty of defrauding multiple federal agencies for nearly a decade. 

According to a local news report, Johnson said in court: “I have blamed no one but myself for my self-inflicted situation.”

Johnson was senior…

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Mark Rivera, a former lay pastor at the center of several sexual abuse allegations in a conservative Anglican denomination, pled guilty to one count of felony criminal sexual assault on April 12. He was sentenced to 6 years in the department of corrections.

Last month, Rivera was sentenced to 15 years in prison in a separate felony child sexual abuse case. Today’s guilty plea is in connection to rape allegations made against him by his former neighbor, Joanna Rudenborg, who told Kane County police in December 2020 that Rivera had raped her in 2018 and in 2020.

“I’m just really relieved that this chapter in my life is over. This case has been in the system for almost two and a half years,” Rudenborg told media via email. “Him pleading guilty to one count is just a function of how plea deals work, and it’s unfortunate, but not…

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Disgraced megachurch pastor James MacDonald has been arrested and charged with felony assault and battery in California, after authorities say he attacked a 59-year-old woman, resulting in “serious injuries.”

According to a criminal complaint filed by the San Diego County District Attorney’s office, MacDonald faces one charge of assault by means likely to produce great bodily injury and one count of battery with serious bodily injury.

“James MacDonald personally inflicted great bodily injury upon Barbara Bass . . .” the complaint reads. It adds that MacDonald “did willfully and unlawfully use force and violence” on Bass.

If convicted of all charges, MacDonald faces seven years in prison, according to Tanya Sierra, assistant director of communications for the San Diego County District Attorney’s office.

MacDonald has pleaded not guilty, Sierra said.

MacDonald’s attorney, Michael Pancer, said in a statement to The Roys Report (TRR), “James MacDonald has never, nor would…

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One of the men was a music director for St. Pius X Church and school in Cedar Mill, while another oversaw child development programs for Club K in Wilsonville.

Detectives with the Washington County Sheriff’s Office arrested six men this week in a sting operation targeting alleged child predators using online platforms. Two of the men worked in close proximity to children.

Investigators used multiple dating apps, social media and other online platforms to pose as underage boys and girls. Detectives said multiple people ended their conversations when they learned the person they were talking to clearly identified as a minor.  According to WCSO, the six men each contacted these fake profiles and offered to meet for sex with someone “they believed to be a child.”

When the men showed up to meet, they were instead confronted by law enforcement and arrested.

“We say we’re underage, and we…

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A Dowling Catholic High School teacher turned herself in to West Des Moines Police Friday morning, following an investigation into an inappropriate relationship with a Dowling student.  

Kristen Gantt, 36, is being held in the Polk County Jail on a felony charge of sexual exploitation by school employee and an aggravated misdemeanor charge of sexual contact by school employee. She taught English at the high school.

An individual contacted WHO 13 on March 20th and provided documentation showing social media conversations between Gantt and the student. We advised them to contact the police and Dowling High School to report their concerns.

The West Des Moines Police Department said they began investigating the following day, after receiving information about the possible relationship between Gantt and a 17-year-old male student. Their investigation revealed an inappropriate relationship had taken place on school property between Gantt and the student during February and March.

A…

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A 33-year-old Wisconsin Rapids man convicted of sexually assaulting a child while he worked as a camp counselor is scheduled to be sentenced later this summer.

Remington Nystrom pleaded no contest Thursday to second-degree sexual assault of a child for an incident that occurred in 2009. Nystrom was convicted of inappropriately touching a sleeping child while he worked as a camp counselor at a Mount Morris camp in Waushara.

This case stems from a report made to the Attorney General’s Clergy and Faith Leader initiative. Attorney General Josh Kaul said the victim had not reported the assault to either church or legal authorities prior to reporting to the AG’s website for clergy and faith leader abuse.

“This conviction was possible because of the bravery of the survivor who reported this crime and the commitment of professionals in the criminal justice system to holding the defendant accountable,” said Attorney General Josh…

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A Hampden Superior Court judge said a longtime attorney for the local Catholic diocese may have led an attempt to spin a public response to rape allegations against late Bishop Christopher J. Weldon.

Judge Karen L. Goodwin rejected Springfield lawyer John “Jack” Egan’s request to remove himself from a lawsuit filed in 2021 by a Chicopee man who said Weldon and a group of other priests gang-raped him and other youngsters while they were altar boys in the 1960s.

The man further alleges the diocese mistreated him and tried — with Egan’s help —to cover up Weldon’s participation in the alleged rapes of altar boys in priests’ living quarters, behind the altar at St. Anne’s Church in Chicopee and at a Catholic campsite in Goshen.

The plaintiff, identified only as “John Doe” in court filings, made claims that Egan, who has represented the diocese for decades and through scores of clergy abuse allegations,…

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Four Native Americans who say they were abused by three Roman Catholic priests on their reservation in Maine are the latest to bring lawsuits since the state fully lifted the statute of limitations for child sex crimes.

The Penobscot Nation members contend the abuse started when they were 7 to 16 years old at St. Ann Parish on Indian Island, just north of Bangor. The oldest abuse dates to 1972, while the most recent happened in 1987, according to the lawsuits.

Michael Bigos, a lawyer representing the members, filed the lawsuits in Penobscot County Superior Court, despite potential legal roadblocks by the Roman Catholic Diocese of Portland. More than two dozen lawsuits brought by Bigos’ law firm are currently on hold while the diocese challenges the 2021 law that repealed the statute of limitations.

“Let us find out what the diocese knew and when they knew it, so they can be…

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ROME – In response to rumors that prominent Jesuit artist Father Marko Ivan Rupnik, accused of abusing several adult women, will be transferred outside of Rome, the Jesuit overseeing the inquiry into his conduct has said the case is still ongoing.

Rumors first appeared in Slovenian news magazine, The Reporter, which quoted the superior of the Jesuits in Slovenia, Father Miran Žvanut, as saying that Rupnik, 68, will soon be transferred out of Rome to a home for aging priests in Milan, and that the Jesuit community Rupnik led, attached to the Centro Aletti that he founded, will be dissolved.

In comments to Crux, Father Johan Verschueren, who in his role as permanent delegate of the Society of Jesus for houses, works and inter-provincial Jesuits in Rome is handling the Rupnik case, said what has been said is not confirmed, but “remains on the record of the Reporter.”

Appearing to hit back at…

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Lawyer says it’s the first time in Quebec a diocese has settled a class-action lawsuit, and he estimates there could be as many as 120 victims.

A $14.7-million settlement has been reached in a class-action lawsuit brought against the Montreal Roman Catholic archdiocese, and a judge will be asked to sign off on the deal in the coming weeks, the plaintiffs’ lawyer said Thursday.

The lawsuit, filed in 2019 and authorized by Quebec Superior Court in 2021, covered victims of sexual abuse committed by priests and lay employees of the archdiocese since 1940.

The lead plaintiff in the class action was a victim of Brian Boucher, a since-defrocked priest who was convicted of sexually abusing two boys under his supervision. He was sentenced to eight years in prison in 2019.

The settlement agreement covers abuse by diocesan priests but not priests who belong to specific religious orders, said Alain Arsenault,…

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Strasbourg Archbishop Luc Ravel is apparently resisting mounting criticism of his management style and a reported papal plan to replace him by insisting on his French region’s special status that Napoleon signed with the Vatican in 1801.

The former military bishop, 65, whose isolated decisions have irritated many priests and parishioners, abruptly demoted his popular vicar general and barred him from the episcopal council last month. Bishop Christian Kratz said he was informed of this in a letter slipped under his door.

“I don’t know what scores the archbishop wants to settle with me,” he told a local newspaper. His demotion recalled the archbishop’s surprise firing of the archdiocesan treasurer last year six weeks before his contract expired.

The reason cited to Bishop Kratz was the cover-up of a clerical sexual abuse case several years before the archbishop was appointed in 2017. The bishop says then Archbishop Jean-Pierre Grallet, now…

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Following the latest wave of legal reforms aimed at bringing legal clarity and due process to the Church’s handling of sexual abuse and misconduct cases, Pope Francis has now approved legislation offering several competing definitions of who is a “vulnerable adult” and who is the equivalent of a minor in the Church’s criminal law. 

The differing definitions in different laws have been a source of confusion for canonists, Church officials, and abuse reform experts as they try to move the Church closer to a consistent application of best practice in handling abuse cases.

But without a common definition of even basic terms, is coherent reform possible?

That law, created in the immediate fallout of the Theodore McCarrick scandal and the sexual abuse crisis in Chile, offered a new legal definition of “vulnerable adults” against whom clerics could commit crimes of abuse.

The need for an expanded legal category of “vulnerable…

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Comunicado de la Oficina de Comunicación.

Con dolor y respeto por las personas que han sufrido daños cometidos por fieles de la Prelatura, publicamos esta información sobre la situación de las denuncias de abusos en nuestra institución para que “aprendiendo de las amargas lecciones del pasado, podamos mirar hacia el futuro con esperanza” (Vos estis lux mundi). El reconocimiento de los males provocados nos lleva a un profundo pedido de perdón a cada persona agraviada y a una renovación del compromiso por la creación de ambientes seguros. Por esto, queremos agradecer a las personas que han realizado las denuncias: con su testimonio han ayudado a esclarecer la verdad y nos han marcado el camino del necesario crecimiento personal e institucional. Confiamos también en que podamos contribuir, a pesar de nuestras evidentes limitaciones, a sanar sus heridas y a que recobren la paz.

***

Desde el año 2013, el Opus Dei…

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In moving from cramped offices to a palazzo, the organization is aiming for more visibility, and to be better able to welcome victims.

ROME — Pope Francis liked the floor plan.

“It’s a good space you have,” the pope, mapping out a square with his hands, said during a private audience last month to the Rev. Andrew Small, who manages the pope’s commission on combating sex abuse. “Have you moved yet?”

Since Francis created his Commission for the Protection of Minors in 2014, the staff has occupied cramped offices in an old Vatican residence near the pope’s apartment. While the location at first suggested a proximity to power, the commission has over the last decade seen its influence eroded by entrenched Vatican interests and defections. Father Small said its staff was forced to borrow office space around the Holy See “like Bedouins” when bishops came to meet with them….

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Last week, the Archdiocese of Baltimore faced Catholics, the community, and the nation at large after being forced to admit what survivors have known for decades: Details about how more than 150 Archdiocese priests sexually abused over 600 children over the past 50 years.

The Maryland Attorney General’s report, released last week, is more than 460 pages long. It is a searing, gut-wrenching, and tragic account of abuse and cover-up. The second half of the report is dedicated to detailed accounts of each particular priest’s career and the children who were harmed.

While we applaud the Attorney General and the report for its in-depth and thorough accounting, we cannot help but to be disappointed and express our fear about many of the redactions. The report opens with a list of clergy accused of child sexual abuse. Unfortunately, ten abusers’ names are redacted. According to the report:

“The names of the…

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Former Maryland Attorney General Brian Frosh said he regrets how long it took the office to finalize its investigation of sexual abuse by clergy in the Baltimore Archdiocese, and apologized to victims for the grueling wait.

 Frosh’s apology came during his first interview since a redacted version of the report, seen by many as a long-overdue validation of victims’ experiences, was released last Wednesday. The report documented the sexual abuse and torture of more than 600 children and young adults over the span of about 80 years, and the ways the church protected abusers. The Attorney General’s Office began investigating sexual abuse in the Baltimore Archdiocese in 2018, during Frosh’s tenure.

“I certainly wish it could have been completed sooner,” Frosh said Tuesday night during a roundtable discussion about the church report with journalists and abuse survivors. “I wish I’d had more people put on it in order to get…

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Among the many startling revelations in the new Maryland attorney general’s investigative report on clergy sex crimes and cover-ups in the Archdiocese of Baltimore, this line jumped out at us: “In an internal email in 2002, described the files for (Fr. Bruce) Ball, (Fr. John) Banko, (Fr. Mark) Haight, (Fr. Michael) LaMountain, and (Fr. Raymond) Melville, the priests from other dioceses who committed abuse in Baltimore, breeds seminarians, as the ‘bad boy’ files.”

Bad boys? Normal people would call those who prey on youngsters far more explicit names. This troubling sentence caused us to wonder just how much abuse happened in Maryland Catholic seminaries and how much abuse was perpetrated by seminarians. We were stunned to learn how widespread these horrors were. We at Horowitz Law have read each of the reports issued by attorneys general across the US and believe that this one details more crimes and cover-ups in…

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Former attorney general Brian Frosh tells Scripps News the Baltimore church was slow to produce documents in an investigation that took four years.

For the first time since the release of a damning report that found 60 years of sexual abuse and torture inside the Archdiocese of Baltimore, we are hearing from the attorney general who launched the investigation.

Former Attorney General Brian Frosh granted his first interview to Scripps News as part of a one-hour special, airing Wednesday at 8 p.m.

Frosh pushed back against the Archdiocese’s claims that it has been transparent and embraces the report. His investigation took four years to complete, something he attributes to a lack of resources, the enormity of the investigation and the slow process in obtaining documents from the Archdiocese.

“I will tell you that those four years cost me greatly. And there were some very dark times during those four years,”…

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Bishop Almeida of Jabalpur, priest were charged even after earlier case against a Catholic principal fell flat, church official says

The High Court in central Indian Madhya Pradesh state has ordered police to refrain from arresting a Catholic bishop and a priest and granted bail to a Catholic school principal, in two separate criminal cases.

The April 12 order of the principal bench of Madhya Pradesh High Court in Jabalpur comes in an appeal of Bishop Gerald Almeida of Jabalpur and Father Jagan Raj seeking to quash cases filed against them.

The order said, “till the next date of hearing no coercive action shall be taken against the petitioners” and posted the case for hearing on April 24.

The police filed cases bishop and the priest on charges of cheating and abuse and neglect of children violating clauses of a child protection law.

The court also directed the prosecution to…

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ROME – In a recent phone call to an Italian friend, Pope Francis confided that he’d been unconscious when he arrived at Rome Gemelli’s Hospital in an ambulance on March 29, adding that had he got there only a few hours later, “I might not be talking to you.”

The pope spent three nights at the Gemelli to treat a bout of bronchitis, before returning to the Vatican for Palm Sunday.

Francis’s resilience during Holy Week suggested that whatever his difficulties had been, he’s bounced back admirably. That recovery may be just in time, because a new development Wednesday in the Vatican’s longest-running and most anguished mystery story poses an especially agonizing challenge for the pontiff.

On Wednesday, Pietro Orlandi and his lawyer, Laura Sgrò, had an eight-hour meeting with the Vatican’s Promoter of Justice, meaning its top prosecutor, an Italian layman and lawyer named Alessandro Diddi. Orlandi is the…

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The Catholic High School of Baltimore’s auditorium will no longer be named after Sister Francis Marie Yocum, after allegations against her were included in the Maryland Attorney General’s 456-page report detailing decades of child sexual abuse within the Archdiocese of Baltimore.

Yocum was a longtime music teacher at the school and led the glee club and a cappella choir, according to the report. She also wrote the school’s song.

The report includes a 2012 allegation from a 75-year-old victim who said Yocum, a nun from the Sisters of Saint Francis of Philadelphia, sexually abused her in 1954 when she was 16 or 17 years old while she was receiving private voice lessons. The abuse took place over the course of a year, the report said. Yocum allegedly treated the victim as a “pet” and was jealous of friends and boyfriends of the victim.

Yocum was not listed on any credibly…

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On September 27, 2022, Religion & Politics published an essay of mine on why evangelicals love redemption stories. Reflecting on fallen Hillsong NYC pastor Carl Lentz, I wrote:

As for Carl and Laura Lentz, I’m not a betting woman, and I can’t speak to their personal lives or transformation off the screen and the stage. But I’ve seen enough to wager that Carl will announce a return to church ministry within six months, and that he and/or Laura will announce a book detailing their experience within a year.

Then, on March 28, 2023 — six months to the day — Religion News Service reported that Lentz would be joining the staff of Transformation, a nondenominational megachurch in Tulsa, Oklahoma, led by pastor Michael Todd.

Maybe I need to spend a weekend in Atlantic City.

Gambling jokes aside (I have been to Las Vegas once, with my parents; we…

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A Southern Baptist pastor who is an advocate for victims of sexual abuse has started a Go Fund Me to get abuse survivors to the Southern Baptist Convention annual meeting in New Orleans this June.

As of midnight April 12, nearly $10,000 had been given toward the project.

How to respond to past sexual abuse cases and prevent future ones remains a hot topic within the nation’s largest non-Catholic denomination. At last summer’s annual meeting, convention messengers received a massive report from an outside investigator of how the SBC Executive Committee mishandled knowledge of sexual abuse cases.

Since then, the SBC’s Abuse Implementation Reform Task Force has been working to create an online database of known sexual abusers in hopes of keeping them from being passed unwittingly from church to church. But even that task has been fraught with peril, because some inside the SBC continue to insist there is no sexual…

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Experts say an investigation of the Baltimore Archdiocese that found 600 cases of child sex abuse reveals a systemic issue and lack of accountability.

Back in 2001, the Boston Globe started an investigation that would reveal one of the largest sexual assault scandals by Catholic priests anywhere in the U.S. The investigation into the Boston Archdiocese was the inspiration for the 2015 Oscar-winning film “Spotlight,” which was also the name of the Globe’s investigative report. 

And now, a new report on the Baltimore Archdiocese by Maryland Attorney General Anthony G. Brown revealed 600 cases of child sex abuse over the past 60 years by 156 current or former Catholic clergy, seminarians, deacons, members of Catholic religious orders, teachers at Catholic schools and other employees.

Michael Rezendes, now a senior investigative reporter for the Associated Press, was one of the reporters who broke the Boston Archdiocese sex abuse story (he was…

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The complaint came after an incident in which Slaton and the staffer allegedly met up at his Austin apartment last weekend. A separate staffer told The Texas Tribune that Slaton drank alcohol with an intern under 21 years old.

An internal complaint filed against state Rep. Bryan Slaton, R-Royse City, alleges that he was engaging in a potentially “inappropriate relationship” with an intern. The complaint came after an incident in which Slaton and the staffer allegedly met up at his Austin apartment last weekend.

The complaint, obtained by The Texas Tribune, was reported to the House General Investigating Committee by a legislative staffer. The account in the complaint was also corroborated by another source who works in the Capitol who had direct knowledge of the incident.

Slaton allegedly called the intern after 10 p.m. March 31 inviting her to his Austin condo, the complaint said.

A source with direct knowledge…

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Rep. Bryan Slaton, R-Royse City, retained a criminal defense attorney in Rockwall in advance of possible investigation.

North Texas lawmaker Bryan Slaton hired a criminal defense attorney to defend him in case he is investigated by a House ethics panel, the attorney said in a statement.

Rockwall attorney Patrick Short said Monday that the Royse City Republican retained him regarding “a possible complaint filed against him with the Texas House Committee on General Investigating.” The Texas Tribune first reported that Slaton has retained a lawyer.

Short’s statement did not detail what the complaint might include, but did make an indirect reference to a post on a conservative website that accused Slaton of infidelity.

“We are aware of outrageous claims circulating online by second-tier media that make false claims against Representative Slaton,” Short said. “As a result, he has been advised to forward all inquiries in…

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The Arizona Supreme Court has ruled that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints can refuse to answer questions or turn over documents under a state law that exempts religious officials from having to report child sex abuse if they learn of the crime during a confessional setting.

The ruling was issued April 7 but not released to the public until Tuesday. A lawsuit filed by child sex abuse victims accuses the church, widely known as the Mormon church, two of its bishops, and other church members of conspiracy and negligence in not reporting church member Paul Adams for abusing his older daughter as early as 2010. This negligence, the lawsuit argues, allowed Adams to continuing abusing the girl for as many as seven years, a time in which he also abused the girl’s infant sister.

Lynne Cadigan, an attorney for the Adams children who filed the lawsuit, criticized the…

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Pietro Parolin is Secretary of State of the Holy See and second in command of the Catholic Church after Pope Francis. As a guest of RTL Télé during his visit to Luxembourg, he addressed various issues, including some of the most sensitive for the Catholic Church.

RTL Télé journalist Mariette Zenners took advantage of the visit of the Vatican’s No. 2 to Luxembourg (at the invitation of Prime Minister Xavier Bettel) to discuss the health of Pope Francis, who was hospitalised at the end of March for a respiratory infection, the role of religion in politics, the current crises within the Church, and Luxembourgish Cardinal Jean-Claude Hollerich’s chances of one day becoming Pope.

Pope Francis is ‘doing well’

Pietro Parolin confirmed that Pope Francis is “doing well,” adding that he saw him only recently and was able to work with him “as usual.”

Despite the fact that…

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Many Scranton Pennsylvania priests are accused of molesting kids and many of them worked under and were protected by the now-deceased Bishop James Timlin. We hope Timlin’s passing will bring some comfort to the hundreds of girls and boys who were sexually violated during his tenure.

One of those priests is Thomas Skotek who had molested and ultimately impregnated a minor girl in the parish between 1980 and 1985. Timlin sent Skotek for a psychological evaluation to Saint Luke Institute in Silver Spring, Maryland in October 1986 after learning of the crime. On October 9, 1986, Timlin wrote to Skotek at Saint Luke. “This is a very difficult time in your life, and I realize how upset you are. I share your grief. With the help of God, who never abandons us and who is always near, when we need him, this too will pass away,…

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One of the world’s most influential religious leaders was forced to apologize following a viral video showing him apparently asking a young boy to “suck his tongue.” This story is another stark reminder of how powerful men can use their positions of power to benefit themselves at the expense of others, a thread that is all too common in cases of clergy sexual abuse.

The 14th Dalai Lama’s apology follows a social media backlash against his behavior when a video of the incident, which happened at a gathering in the mountain city of Dharamshala in February, was shared on social media. In the clip, the child asks the Dalai Lama if he can give him a hug. The 87-year-old Tibetan spiritual leader then invites the boy on stage and points to his cheek and says, “first here,” prompting the boy to give him a hug and a kiss….

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The Catholic High School of Baltimore is one of the first schools in the area to take action regarding the Maryland Attorney General report released last week that implicated nearly 160 individuals with ties to the Archdiocese of Baltimore accused of sexually abusing children.

In a statement posted on Facebook, the school stated that it would be stripping Sister Marie Francis Yocum’s name from its auditorium.

“While the school continues to look into the matter, Catholic High’s auditorium will no longer be named after Sr. Francis Marie Yocum,” according to the social media post.

Yocum was a music teacher at the school in the 1950s and wrote the school’s anthem.

The Maryland Attorney General’s grand jury investigation report on the Archdiocese of Baltimore details Yocum as a nun who sexually abused a minor. The report included accusations against priests, deacons, brothers and nuns.

In 2012, a 75-year-old woman…

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Michael Collins said he’ll continue reforms started in 2019

The Roman Catholic Diocese of Springfield has a new person in charge of its office that responds to clergy sex abuse claims.

Michael Collins, a social worker with more than 25 years of experience working in the state’s foster care system most recently as the head of the Springfield office of the Massachusetts Department of Children and Families (DCF), is the new director of the diocese’s Office of Safe Environment and Victim Assistance.

His appointment was announced by Bishop William Byrne.

“He brings a vast amount of understanding on best practices for addressing child sexual abuse and my hope is he will continue our church’s transformation into a more trauma-informed and responsive institution,” Byrne said.

The work done at DCF is “tough,” acknowledged Collins, who said he “loved the experience” because being of service to others is “very-very rewarding.”

“When this…

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Gov. Wes Moore signed legislation on Tuesday to end Maryland’s statute of limitations for when civil lawsuits for child sexual abuse can be filed against institutions.

The bill signing comes less than a week after the state’s attorney general released a report that documented the scope of abuse spanning 80 years and accused church leaders of decades of coverups.

Under current law, people in Maryland who say they were sexually abused as children can’t sue after they reach the age of 38.

“There is no statute of limitations on the hurt that endures for decades after someone is assaulted,” Moore, a Democrat, said. “There is no statute of limitations on the trauma that harms so many still to this day, and this law reflects that exact truth.”

The Maryland General Assembly passed the bill last week, hours after Attorney General Anthony Brown released a long-awaited report of nearly 500 pages with…

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Maryland Gov. Wes Moore signed dozens of bills into law Tuesday afternoon, hours after the 2023 legislative session ended.

One of those new Maryland laws will open the door to new lawsuits brought by survivors of child sex abuse.

Survivors of child abuse have been pushing lawmakers to pass the “Child Victims Act” for decades.
Finally, Senate Bill 686, House Bill 1 is now a law.

There is no longer a statute of limitations for survivors of child sex abuse in Maryland to sue their abusers.

“It doesn’t feel real. It really doesn’t,” survivor Teresa Lancaster said. “We’ve been denied so many times.”

Lancaster stood behind state leaders Tuesday as the Child Victims Act was signed, which gives survivors the ability to sue institutions like churches and schools.

“We’ve been coming back every year and giving our story and repeating it over and over, and finally, we were heard. It’s a…

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In a nearly 500 page report released last week, Maryland Attorney General Anthony Brown’s office documented more than 600 victims of sexual assault at the hands of priests, seminarians and deacons within the Catholic Archdiocese of Baltimore.

“It’s been one of the most difficult things that I’ve had to address in my 20-plus years of public service,” Brown told WTOP News.

Brown’s office released the report during Holy Week — considered the most sacred time within the Catholic calendar — and said this investigation only scratches the surface of what they describe as an 80-year scheme of abuse and cover up in the Archdiocese of Baltimore.

“The staggering pervasiveness of the abuse itself underscores the culpability of the Church hierarchy,” the report said. “The sheer number of abusers and victims, the depravity of the abusers’ conduct, and the frequency with which known abusers were given the opportunity to…

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After years of emotionally wrenching testimony and the release of a damning investigation into the Archdiocese of Baltimore, a proposal that will make it easier for childhood sexual abuse survivors to sue has finally passed in Maryland.

Gov. Wes Moore, a Democrat, on Tuesday signed the Child Victims Act of 2023, which allows survivors to file retroactive lawsuits even if their claims have already expired under an existing statute of limitations.

The law also eliminates the statute of limitations for all future lawsuits based on childhood sexual abuse claims.

“There is no statute of limitations on the pain that these victims continue to feel,” Moore said. “There is no statute of limitations on the hurt that endures for decades after someone is assaulted. There is no statute of limitations on the trauma that haunts so many still to this day, and this law reflects that exact truth.”

The law is…

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The bells at St. Mark Parish in Catonsville rang many times this past Holy Week as the church celebrated the resurrection of Jesus Christ, but for some those bells carry another, haunting reminder.

“The bell signifies trauma, and every time it rings, you’re [the church is] reminding them of what went on,” said Allison Dietz, a former Catholic and neighbor to the church, which is nestled in a residential neighborhood of Catonsville and known locally as St. Mark’s.

Though many churches in the Archdiocese of Baltimore have been home to clergy accused of child sexual abuse, St. Mark’s had more abusive priests assigned to it over the years than any other — 12 between 1964 and 2000. That’s a remarkable number of accused priests for one church, national and local experts say. Of those, at least four are known to have harmed children during their time at St. Mark’s. The…

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Experts appointed to tackle abuse in the Catholic Church are quitting their roles. Keith Porteous Wood says this demonstrates the dire mess the Church is in – and that justice can only be secured if secular authorities play their part in holding the Church to account.

Professor Hans Zollner, regarded as “one of the greatest experts” on clerical abuse in the Catholic Church and an “ambassador for safeguarding”, has resigned from the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors, despite his term of office still having two years to run.

This Commission was set up to advise the Pope on “the most opportune initiatives for protecting minors and vulnerable adults” and “to promote local responsibility in the particular churches”.

Zollner (pictured) was appointed in 2014 by the Pope as one of the Commission’s founding members. He resigned over concerns about the Commission’s “responsibility, compliance, accountability…

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After years of emotionally wrenching testimony and the release of a damning investigation into the Archdiocese of Baltimore, a proposal that will make it easier for childhood sexual abuse survivors to sue has finally passed in Maryland.

Gov. Wes Moore, a Democrat, on Tuesday signed the Child Victims Act of 2023, which allows survivors to file retroactive lawsuits even if their claims have already expired under an existing statute of limitations.

The law also eliminates the statute of limitations for all future lawsuits based on childhood sexual abuse claims.

“There is no statute of limitations on the pain that these victims continue to feel,” Moore said. “There is no statute of limitations on the hurt that endures for decades after someone is assaulted. There is no statute of limitations on the trauma that haunts so many still to this day, and this law reflects that exact truth.”

The law is…

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[Includes a 14-minute video interview with Michael Rezendes and Mitchell Garabedian.]

Back in 2001, the Boston Globe started an investigation that would reveal one of the largest sexual assault scandals by Catholic priests anywhere in the U.S. The investigation into the Boston Archdiocese was the inspiration for the 2015 Oscar-winning film “Spotlight,” which was also the name of the Globe’s investigative report. 

And now, a new report on the Baltimore Archdiocese by Maryland Attorney General Anthony G. Brown revealed 600 cases of child sex abuse over the past 60 years by 156 current or former Catholic clergy, seminarians, deacons, members of Catholic religious orders, teachers at Catholic schools and other employees.

Michael Rezendes, now a senior investigative reporter for the Associated Press, was one of the reporters who broke the Boston Archdiocese sex abuse story (he was played by Mark Ruffalo in the film). He told Scripps…

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Maryland lawmakers have passed a bill to end the state’s statute limiting when civil lawsuits over child sex abuse can be filed against public and private entities.

Under the Child Victims Act of 2023, actions for damages arising out of alleged incidents of sexual abuse against minors may be filed at any time. Currently, Marylanders who say they were sexually abused as children can’t sue after they reach the age of 38.

The bill would go into effect October 1, 2023 and retroactively revive any action that was barred by the prior statutory period of limitations. It would not allow suits on behalf of alleged child sex abuse victims who are deceased.

The measure now goes to Gov. Wes Moore, who has said he will sign it.

Final agreement came just days after Maryland Attorney General Anthony G. Brown released his agency’s report documenting a long history of…

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The Archdiocese of Agana has committed to publishing on its website the names of priests and other clergies who were identified as child sexual abusers, and to allow survivors of clergy sexual assaults to tell their stories if they so desire.

These are among the archdiocese’s nonmonetary commitments as part of its court-approved bankruptcy exit plan, which also includes multimillion settlement payouts to more than 270 clergy abuse claimants.

Survivors led by Leo Tudela pushed for the inclusion in the bankruptcy exit plan of child protection protocols, which the archdiocese filed in court April 6.

The goal is to help protect minors from clergy abuses, following a deluge of claims by former altar boys, former Catholic school students and others that they were molested, abused or raped when they were minors. The claims, exceeding $1 billion, forced the archdiocese to file for bankruptcy in 2019.

The archdiocese said it will…

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New report includes a troubling revelation that the Anne Arundel County State’s Attorney’s Office granted the pastor of a Catholic Church blanket protection from prosecution in 1985

Deep within the litany of outrages by the Catholic Church documented by the Maryland Office of the Attorney General’s report, there is a revelation as shocking as the predatory priests or the religious bureaucracy eager to hide their sins.

Nearly four decades ago, the Anne Arundel County State’s Attorney’s Office, led then by Warren B. Duckett, granted immunity to a child abuser.

By 1985, angry families at St. Andrew by the Bay near Cape St. Claire demanded that the Archdiocese of Baltimore remove and punish their lead priest, William Simms. Accusations that he had abused multiple children in his care were tumbling out, and parents wanted action. The church in 2002 listed him as credibly accused, the attorney general’s report said.

That July…

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In 1987, a lawyer for the Archdiocese of Baltimore contacted a prosecutor with a question: was the church obligated to report a priest who had recently been accused of attempting to rape a teenage girl a decade earlier?

The answer was no, according to last week’s extensive report into sexual abuse and coverups in the archdiocese. But the priest could be charged with assault, battery or attempted rape, the assistant state’s attorney said.

Neither the lawyer nor the archdiocesan official who spoke to the prosecutor provided the name of the priest, Father Thomas J. Bauernfeind, or officially reported that a woman had named Bauernfeind as her abuser and that Bauernfeind had admitted to abusing the woman when she was a teenager.

Bauernfeind was not prosecuted, and there is no sign the archdiocese investigated further.

The lawyer who reached out to the assistant state’s attorney was from Gallagher Evelius…

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[VIDEO]

For more than 50 years, Teresa Lancaster wanted the Catholic Church to believe her when she said she was sexually abused by Father Joseph Maskell at her high school in Baltimore. She said she was 16 when she went to see Maskell for help, and that within five minutes, he took her clothes off and set her on his lap.

“I was in total shock,” she said. 

Maskell was a priest who served as her school’s counselor and chaplain. Lancaster said she didn’t report the alleged sexual abuse at the time because he had a gun that he would put on his desk, and he told her that no one would believe her.

Lancaster is among hundreds of alleged child abuse victims by Roman Catholic Church leaders in Baltimore. The Maryland Attorney General’s Office reviewed archdiocese records from the 1940s through 2002 and concluded more than 600 children were abused….

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While the Catholic Church sexual abuse scandal erupted decades ago, details in official investigative reports are incredibly powerful for survivors

Since the 1990s, when Jean Wehner started to remember the “sexual torture” she endured as a Catholic high school student, she has sued the Baltimore Archdiocese, written a memoir and appeared in a Netflixdocumentary about her abuse. But the release last week of a Maryland attorney general’s report citing decades worth ofinternal church records about her abuser — it all brought a kind of bitter validation, Wehner says, to that terrified little girl.

“I’m my own worst detective as an adult. I was taught by my faith system to be a good girl, not to lie, not to believe something that isn’t true. I’m always still doubting myself and dissecting everything and challenging myself,” said Wehner, 69, now a wellness practitioner in Elkridge. “This puts the detective to…

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The atmosphere seemed close to normal at two historic churches in the Archdiocese of Baltimore as Catholics celebrated the most sacred holiday on the Christian calendar Sunday.

The pews were filled to overflowing at Cathedral of Mary Our Queen in North Baltimore and 165-year-old St. Louis Catholic Church in Clarksville. Worshippers in both places sported their colorful Easter best, children and families abounded, and lilies and tulips festooned the sanctuaries. The men celebrating the two Masses refrained in their sermons from directly mentioning the disturbing new report by the Maryland Office of the Attorney General, released this week, that details the sexual abuse and torture of more than 600 children by 158 priests and brothers in the archdiocese dating to the 1940s.

But Archbishop William E. Lori, the spiritual leader of America’s first and oldest diocese, and the Rev. Michael DeAscanis, the parish priest at St. Louis, alluded indirectly to…

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Archbishop Luc Ravel, who awaits the findings from an apostolic visitation into his management of the Archdiocese of Strasbourg, removes his senior auxiliary bishop as vicar general

 Never before has tension reached this level in the wealthy Archdiocese of Strasbourg in the Alsace region of d’Alsace (DNA) reported on Tuesday that Archbishop Luc Ravel removed his senior auxiliary bishop, Christian Kratz, as vicar general, allegedly for mishandling a clergy sexual abuse case. The paper said the archbishop took the action on March 23.

Kratz, 70, was appointed auxiliary bishop of Strasbourg at the end of 2000. DNA reported that Ravel, who became archbishop in February 2017, also removed Bishop Kratz from the episcopal council on March 30.

Responsibilities

Bishop Kratz told La Croix that he learned of his being sidelined through a letter that was slipped under his office door. He said Archbishop Ravel, 65, justified the sanction of Kratz’s…

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Maryland scrapped the statute of limitations for sex abuse lawsuits, something C.T. Wilson has long championed

[Includes link to video: Why this U.S. lawmaker has relived his childhood sex abuse over and over again]

WARNING: This article contains discussion of sexual abuse.

C.T. Wilson has been telling the story of his childhood sex abuse for eight years, reliving his trauma again and again.

Wilson is a Democratic member of the Maryland House of Delegates who, for nearly a decade, has been trying to end his state’s statute of limitations on sex abuse lawsuits.

During that long fight, he has repeatedly stood in front of his colleagues to detail the abuse he says he faced at the hands of his adoptive father. He wrote a book about it called 10,000 Hills: One Boy’s Journey. 

On Wednesday, his efforts finally paid off when the Child Victims Act passed in Maryland “to backslaps and applause,” according…

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Earlier this week, the Maryland Office of the Attorney General released its long-awaited 456-page grand jury report on the “long and sordid” history of sexual abuse and cover-ups within the Archdiocese of Baltimore.

During the course of 80 years, the Archdiocese of Baltimore, the report found, concealed pervasive abuse of hundreds of children.

“The incontrovertible history uncovered by this investigation is one of pervasive and persistent abuse by priests and other Archdiocese personnel,” the report states. “It is also a history of repeated dismissal or cover up of that abuse by the Catholic Church hierarchy.”

Here’s a look at what could come next, including whether redactions will remain in the report, survivors will receive the ability to sue and people will face criminal prosecution.

More litigation over redactions

When Baltimore Circuit Judge Robert K. Taylor Jr. directed the release of the report, he wrote in an order that…

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What Hans Zollner’s resignation from the pope’s child protection commission tells us about the Vatican’s fight against sexual abuse

The synodal process that Pope Francis has launched to make the Catholic Church more transparent and credible is entering its crucial phase. But his pontificate presently risks losing momentum in its fight against sexual abuse and its promotion of a new culture of accountability. This is the upshot of the recent resignation of Hans Zollner, his fellow Jesuit, from the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors (PCPM).

 The German priest is a theologian and psychologist. He’s also a leading safeguarding expert and one of the most respected figures in the Church’s response to the clergy sex abuse crisis. That is due largely to the work of the Institute of Anthropology – Interdisciplinary Studies on Human Dignity and Care (former Center for Child Protection), which he directs at the Pontifical Gregorian…

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Accused in grand jury report of covering up abuse

Former Bishop James C. Timlin, the former bishop of the Scranton Diocese who was ensarled in the Catholic Church sex abuse scandal, died Sunday at 95.

Timlin, a Scranton native, was ordained a bishop on Sept. 21, 1976, and on June 7, 1984, became the first priest born within the Diocese of Scranton to serve as its bishop.

Timlin served as the eighth Bishop of the Scranton Dioceses until Sept. 30, 2003, when he reached the mandatory retirement age of 75.

He went on to serve as administrator of Saint Joseph Church in Wilkes-Barre in 2004, before assuming new duties as rector of Villa Saint Joseph, the home for retired priests of the diocese in Dunmore.

Timlin was beloved by parishioners for much of his tenure as bishop, but his legacy upended in August 2018 when a statewide grand jury…

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It grieves me to read another report on the child sexual-abuse scandal by the Catholic Church [“Decades of alleged sexual abuse emerge in Md. report,” Metro, April 6]. I applaud Maryland Attorney General Anthony G. Brown (D) and his predecessor for conducting a four-year investigation that uncovered decades of sexual abuse, mishandling and coverups within the Archdiocese of Baltimore. Also noteworthy are Maryland’s legislative actions to address these evils and provide recourse for victims. The article mentioned that this is another of 19 such reports.

To its credit, the Catholic Church has put into practice programs and policies to address future scandals. But where is the justice for prior crimes? Why does it take civil action to address them? Furthermore, what is the church doing to help victims who had their spirituality crushed and are experiencing psychological problems, including suicide. Remorse and apologies for child sex…

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It felt, in so many ways, like any other Easter Sunday.

Hundreds of people — families, young couples and grandparents — filed into the Cathedral of Mary Our Queen, many in brightly colored spring outfits. Parishioners filled the pews from the front of the nave to the back. Cries and murmurs of young children echoed throughout the Mass in the vaulted North Baltimore cathedral.

In his homily, Archbishop William Lori marveled at the miracle of the Resurrection. The Church exists to be the “body of Christ,” he said, and each day its members must renew their allegiance to God and their resolve to follow him.

And then his homily turned.

“Sadly, in the past, representatives of the Church have betrayed the Lord’s gift of new life, especially in deceiving and in harming the innocent,” he said. “We cannot undo the past. But we can lay our failings at the feet…

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Sister Karina de la Rosa Morales, a nun with the Xavierian Missionary Sisters of Mary and a member of the Rahamim network that is fighting against human trafficking, lamented that Mexico holds “first place in human trafficking, child abuse, organ selling, sex tourism, child abduction, and child pornography.”

ACI Prensa spoke with several of the nuns and a laywoman who belong to the Rahamim prevention network. Sister Ligia María Cámara said that “trafficking is a crime” that uses “lies or force to take advantage of people,” violate their rights, and frequently transport them to unknown places.

The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) stated in a January report that “Mexico ranks first in child sexual abuse; first in exploitation, homicides, and trafficking of minors; and first in creation and distribution of child pornography.”

The El Financiero newspaper reported in a May 2022 interview with Vivaldina Jaubert, director of the…

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The Archdiocese of Baltimore (AOB) has had an intellectual conversion not a moral conversion concerning the thousands of Catholic schoolchildren who have been raped and abused and tortured while under their care. (”Maryland attorney general releases report on Catholic clergy abuse in Baltimore archdiocese,” April 5) An intellectual conversion has happened because the law does not permit them to continue to hide abusers. We can also see this in the sympathetic language they try to use while referring to survivors. We see this in their policy changes.

However, a moral conversion comes much slower and continues to elude them. We see this as they continue to pay lawyers to protect and defend the enablers and the people they have decided to have not been “credibly accused.” We see this in hollow apologies and pitiful monetary settlements they have offered. And be assured they have offered this…

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It felt, in so many ways, like any other Easter Sunday.

Hundreds of people — families, young couples and grandparents — filed into the Cathedral of Mary Our Queen, many in brightly colored spring outfits. Parishioners filled the pews from the front of the nave to the back. Cries and murmurs of young children echoed throughout the Mass in the vaulted North Baltimore cathedral.

In his homily, Archbishop William Lori marveled at the miracle of the Resurrection. The Church exists to be the “body of Christ,” he said, and each day its members must renew their allegiance to God and their resolve to follow him.

And then his homily turned.

“Sadly, in the past, representatives of the Church have betrayed the Lord’s gift of new life, especially in deceiving and in harming the innocent,” he said. “We cannot undo the past. But we can lay our failings at the feet…

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[This article also includes a database that is searchable and sortable by abuser name, assignment, start and stop years at an assignment, and page of the report.]

The names of priests, deacons, church leaders and the abuses they were accused of might have looked familiar to those scouring through the long-awaited report of child sex abuse within the Archdiocese of Baltimore. But the 456 pages also reveal a few people and details the public may not have been aware of.

The report included 32 names that the church has not included on its credibly accused list, a collection of files on priests who committed sexual abuse in Baltimore that were described as the “bad boy” files, and an instance in which the Archdiocese of Washington took in a Baltimore priest despite knowing he was accused of abuse.

Archdiocese of Washington

On the day the investigation report…

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Sutton Valence, near Maidstone, which charges up to £7,740 a term in tuition fees, is treating the allegations with the ‘utmost seriousness’ and has notified the police and Charity Commission

A prestigious boarding school is being sued by a former pupil over historical child sexual abuse claims.

The Reverend David Barnes allegedly raped the boy at Sutton Valence School, Kent, in the 1980s.

The ex-pupil says the chaplain invited him to his home on the school grounds when he was 13.

He told us the churchman – who died in 2012 aged 75 – gave him gin and cigarettes and they watched Top of the Pops on TV.

The Rev Barnes then allegedly groped him and raped him.

Afterwards, the ex-pupil said the chaplain took a photo of him with a Polaroid camera and put it in a shoebox which he alleged contained pictures of other boys.

He thinks teachers “knew exactly…

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In 1958, a Baltimore County judge wrote a letter to the Baltimore archbishop with praise for “your great Catholic Church,” and a mention of the judge’s “extremely cordial” relationship with clergy.

That letter was in response to one sent three days earlier, in which the archbishop asked the judge to spare one of his priests, Gerald Tragesser, from jail and public shame for his molestation of a 13-year-old girl.

In the coming days, the archbishop, “through the existence of some excellent Catholic laymen,” was able to orchestrate a trial in the judge’s chambers, according to a letter he wrote to the founder of a treatment center for priests. The proceedings hidden from public view, the parties decided Tragesser would be sent to a New Mexico facility for psychological treatment. Tragesser died in 2013.

The girl’s parents, enraged, contacted a reporter at an unnamed newspaperwith the story. But the church’s influence…

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A room full of survivors, supporters and listeners, many donning ribbon skirts and orange shirts, filled an MSU auditorium this week in the hopes that by sharing difficult truths, healing can continue.

The boarding school healing and justice panel — titled “ginoojimomin apii dibaajimoyang,” which translates in Anishinaabemowin to “our stories heal” — was just as much of a ceremony on Thursday as it was a panel discussion. It encapsulated some of the Native Justice Coalition’s work to offer safe spaces for Indian boarding school survivors’ stories to be heard and for non-Indigenous people to listen.

“I tell my story because I know there’s many out there who can’t,” said Linda Cobe, who is Ojibwe/Oneida and a Lac Vieux Desert tribal citizen. “… My language was taken from me, my childhood was taken, my culture was taken. But we have the opportunity today to get that all back.”

All…

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