ABUSE TRACKER

Francis talks about his “conversion” on the issue of abuse in the Church and comments on two well-known figures who were recently accused.

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In a wide ranging interview with the Associated Press, published on January 25, 2023, Pope Francis explained how he had a “conversion moment” on the issue of abuse within the Church during his 2018 trip to Chile. He also commented on two important abuse accusations that have emerged over the last months.

The first concerns an East Timorese Nobel Peace Prize-winning Bishop, Carlos Ximenes Belo, and the second a Slovenian Jesuit artist, Father Marko Rupnik, whose paintings are found in churches all over the world. 

A “wake up” call

Pope Francis explained that on his return…

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[Note: Anyone is welcome to attend today’s news conference at 8am Eastern. Register here for the livestream: https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_Bj731M10TXqUVi2EK2IfkA]

MEDIA ALERT. For Immediate Release, January 25, 2023; http://bit.ly/3vSuVnq ]

Current Clergy Sex Abuse Cases in DRC Exposed.

Clergy sex abuse victims in Kinshasa call on Pope to help.

Survivors and Advocates in DRC call for Zero Tolerance for Clergy Sex Abuse.

For the first time in Africa, international activists will join with Congolese survivors and advocates in a press conference to highlight the failure of the Catholic Church to protect survivors and whistleblowers. 

Pope Francis will visit the Democratic Republic of the Congo the week of January 31 to February 3, 2023. On Monday January 30, survivors of clergy sexual abuse and their advocates from the Congo, U.S. and Europe will be in Kinshasa to hold a press conference in order to:

1. Share information regarding a current…

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The Catholic Church in Glasgow has apologised to victims of a priest convicted of sexual abuse who spent time at a Clydebank parish.

Archbishop William Nolan was speaking after Father Neil McGarrity, 68, was convicted last week of sexually abusing four girls across two parishes in the east end of Glasgow.

McGarrity preyed on his victims at St Bernadette’s Church in Carntyne and St Thomas’ in Riddrie as well as his parish home in the Glasgow.

However, the Post understands McGarrity also served some time at St Mary’s Church in Duntocher for many years, although there is no suggestion he committed any offence whilst serving there.

St Mary’s declined to comment further to the Post.

A spokesman for the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Glasgow said: “The fact that a priest has been found guilty of the abuse of those in his care is a source of deep sorrow for the Archdiocese…

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Exclusive: Pressure builds on government to apologise, as lawyer likens ‘trail of destruction’ to that wreaked by Catholic church

Almost 400 civil claims have been made against the Victorian government for historical child sexual abuse in state schools in the past 12 years, with more than half settled out of court, documents obtained under freedom of information laws show.

Since 2010, 381 claims have been made for abuse that occurred in Victorian state educational settings between 1960 and 2018, including primary and secondary schools, specialist schools, early learning centres and after-school care.

Of those, 212 have been settled out of court with a payment made to the complainant, two went to trial, 136 claims are ongoing and 29 have been discontinued, while the outcome of two is unknown.

The figures were provided to the office of Justice party MP Stuart Grimley under a freedom of information (FOI) request submitted to…

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The misconduct was reported in a church newsletter.

San Antonio Archbishop Gustavo Garcia-Siller wrote to a Northside parish over the weekend to ensure one of the congregation’s leaders “does not fraudulently present himself as a priest” to ask for money after he was investigated and accused of sexual and financial misconduct. The news was shared with parishioners in a bulletin on Sunday, January 22. 

In a letter dated January 10, Garcia-Siller said that an investigation uncovered Reverend Duncan Amek’s financial and sexual misconduct involving “adult women” and said the priest was found to have entered into a civil marriage with an unidentified person. It was not immediately clear if the priest’s misconduct rose to criminal misconduct or if the accusations are only in violation of Archdiocese’s code of conduct for clergy.

Amek was ordained as a priest in May 2019 by Garcia-Siller, according to a…

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“All the survivors that are working on this, we’re all in the same boat. We are mentally trapped in this moment until these legislators act on this.”

Before every interview she does, Lara Fortney-McKeever clasps a delicate key-motif bracelet around her wrist — a symbol of the years she and her sisters spent locked in silence about their childhood sexual abuse.

Even after the arrest of the parish priest who had groomed and molested Fortney-McKeever and four of her younger sisters, a gag order signed as part of a settlement with the Diocese of Harrisburg prevented them from speaking about it. 

They finally broke their silence in 2018, she said, when then-Attorney General Josh Shapiro released a landmark grand jury report identifying more than 300 Catholic priests accused of sexually assaulting children in Pennsylvania. The Fortney sisters’ abuser was among those named in the 884-page document.

“We were stuck in…

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The Diocese of Rockville Centre on Friday proposed a settlement of up to $200 million to be paid to hundreds of survivors of clergy sex abuse as it works toward emerging from bankruptcy.

Attorneys for survivors denounced the proposal as too little and said the diocese was not being transparent about its finances in papers filed in U.S. Bankruptcy Court. A week ago, lawyers for clergy sexual abuse survivors proposed a settlement in which the diocese would pay at least $450 million to victims.

The diocesan proposal calls for paying the survivors as a group a total of $185 million to $200 million, not including funds that could also come from insurance companies and could be hundreds of millions more.

“The Diocese believes the plan is the best means to efficiently and effectively pave the way for compensating survivors and emerging from bankruptcy,” the diocese said in a statement. It added: “Survivors deserve and expect a…

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Why the Pontiff’s response to the AP’s queries not only left much unanswered, but also created new layers and levels of perplexity.

A papal interview made real waves in the news this week, for the first time in a good while and for very good reason.

The really big piece of news from the AP interview was the pope’s claim he knew nothing about either Fr. Marko I. Rupnik, SJ’s alleged predations, or about the way Vatican justice handled the celebrity artist-priest’s case.

More broadly, the responses Pope Francis gave to the AP’s questions regarding l’Affaire Rupnik suggest a confused state in Francis’s thinking when it comes to the crisis of abuse and coverup in the Church, especially insofar as vulnerable adult victims are concerned.

“With the abused vulnerable adult,” Pope Francis told the AP, “it is the same as if he were a minor, practically.” Only, Francis said he has very different…

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The roughly 90 minute-long session was held at Carnegie Mellon University’s Tepper School of Business

State House Speaker Mark Rozzi kicked off a statewide listening tour in Pittsburgh on Wednesday night, with his Workgroup to Move Pennsylvania Forward, which he called an attempt to break a partisan logjam in the House over operating rules.

Rozzi, D-Berks, and the panel heard from sexual abuse survivors, gun violence reduction advocates, and residents who said they were tired of the gridlock in Harrisburg. 

The roughly 90-minute-long session was held at Carnegie Mellon University’s Tepper School of Business. 

Also on the panel were Republican Reps. Paul Schemel, of Franklin County; Valerie Gaydos, of Allegheny County, and Rep. Jason Ortitay, of Washington County.

“The purpose of this tour is to hear from you, the people. A decade of ever-increasing hyper-partisanship has left Harrisburg in a gridlock,” Rozzi said. 

He added that many of his…

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This is the seventh installment in an 18-part serial on the unsolved 1966 murder of Buffalo Diocese Monsignor Francis J. O’Connor. Read the rest of the series.

Buffalo homicide detectives took a special interest in a young reporter for the Catholic Diocese newspaper after his boss was murdered.

A day after Monsignor Francis J. O’Connor’s body was found floating in Scajaquada Creek on March 13, 1966, detectives interviewed Robert Armbruster.

He told them he was physically attracted to the priest, but had fantasized about taking an ax to his head, according to 56-year-old police reports obtained by The Buffalo News.

“He admits that he has had homosexual inclinations toward the monsignor and has had occasions when he pictured himself hitting the monsignor over the head with an ax,” stated a March 14, 1966, police report, which has never been publicly revealed until now. 

No charges were ever…

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Like many others around the world, I watched the funeral of Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI live on the internet. Before the service began, an unexpected announcement came over the loudspeakers requesting that members of the assembled crowd refrain from raising any banners or flags. Nevertheless, toward the end of the liturgy, at least one large banner was displayed, reading “Santo Subito,” an Italian phrase that means “sainthood now.”

Identical signs were raised at the 2005 funeral of Pope John Paul II, who was officially canonized nine years later. The connection between these events has not gone unnoticed, leading some to raise questions about expectations that every future pope will be acclaimed as a saint.

As a specialist in Catholic liturgy and ritual, I know that in the contemporary church, no one, from popes to laypeople, is ever officially proclaimed a saint immediately after death. The way that saints are chosen…

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[Via Eurasia Review]

In recent years, the simple church-going Catholics in India, the world’s biggest democracy, have been scandalized by allegations of clerical sex abuse and financial crimes rocking the Catholic Church in India. Will that be a botheration for the bishops as they gather for their annual plenary meeting this week in southern Indian Bangalore city?

The growing rift and spirited fight among the bishops, priests, and the laity, some of them involving court cases, have undermined Catholics’ faith in the Church’s self-stabilizing system and exposed to the world the serious lack of leadership in the Indian Catholic Church today.

Mainstream national media have run headlines of sex scandals, financial misappropriation, and land scandals involving priests and bishops. Court cases continue about a bishop accused of raping a nun, and a cardinal accused of alienating Church lands. But both continue in office.

Gone are the days when people in…

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The death of the pope emeritus, Benedict XVI, was succeeded by a small literary outpouring, a rush of publications that were interpreted as salvos in the Catholic Church’s civil war. The list includes a memoir by Benedict’s longtime secretary that mentioned the former pontiff’s disappointment at his successor’s restriction of the Latin Mass, a posthumous essay collection by Benedict himself that’s being mined for controversial quotes, and an Associated Press interview with Pope Francis that made news for its call to decriminalize homosexuality around the world.

Amid all these words, two interventions deserve particular attention. One isn’t exactly new, but the revelation of its author elevates its importance: It’s a memorandum, intended for the cardinals who will elect Francis’s successor, that first circulated in 2022 and has now been revealed by the Vatican journalist Sandro Magister to be the work of Cardinal George…

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Pope Francis has clarified his recent comments about homosexuality and sin, saying he was merely referring to official Catholic moral teaching that teaches that any sexual act outside of marriage is a sin.

And in a note Friday, Francis recalled that even that black-and-white teaching is subject to circumstances that might eliminate the sin altogether.

Francis first made the comments in an interview Jan. 24 with The Associated Press, in which he declared that laws criminalizing homosexuality were “unjust” and that “being homosexual is not a crime.”

As he often does, Francis then imagined a conversation with someone who raised the matter of the church’s official teaching, which states that homosexual acts are sinful, or “intrinsically disordered.”

“Fine, but first let’s distinguish between a sin and a crime,” Francis said in the pretend conversation. “It’s also a sin to lack charity with one another.”

His comments calling for the decriminalization…

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Pope Francis has written a letter to clarify his comments on sin and homosexuality from a recent interview with the Associated Press.

“When I said it is a sin, I was simply referring to Catholic moral teaching, which says that every sexual act outside of marriage is a sin,” the pope wrote to Jesuit Father James Martin, in response to a request for clarification.

Francis said he was trying to say in the interview that criminalization of homosexuality “is neither good nor just.”

“As you can see, I was repeating something in general,” he wrote. “I should have said ‘It is a sin, as is any sexual act outside of marriage.’ This is to speak of ‘the matter’ of sin, but we know well that Catholic morality not only takes into consideration the matter, but also evaluates freedom and intention; and this, for every kind of sin.”

Martin published the pope’s…

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Lawyers from three Vatican departments lined up in court to oppose the lawsuit for wrongful dismissal brought by Libero Milone.

Vatican lawyers argued for judges to throw out a lawsuit brought by the former auditor general in a hearing Wednesday. Lawyers for three curial departments questioned the credibility of the evidence submitted by Libero Milone in his wrongful dismissal case, and suggested further possible criminal charges against him and his former deputy.

In the first hearing of the suit, filed by the Vatican’s former chief auditor in November, lawyers for the Secretariat of State argued that the department should not be party to the case at all, while Milone’s former office said they had no record of the more than 500 pages of documentation submitted by the plaintiffs to support their case.

Milone and his former deputy, Ferruccio Panicco, filed suit Nov. 4 last year, claiming that they were forced…

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This January exposed the opposition to Francis.

New Year in Rome, normally a quiet time, is when the Vatican slowly emerges from the post-Christmas shutdown. While keeping one eye on the pope’s address to foreign diplomats, many reporters dare to take time off. In January 2023 that was a bad idea.

The passing of Benedict XVI—ninety-five and long ailing—on December 31 was followed by the unexpected death on January 10 of a giant figure of conservative Catholicism, Cardinal George Pell, eighty-one, who had concelebrated Benedict’s funeral just five days earlier. What made this one of the most turbulent months of the past decade was not just these two deaths but what they exposed: the tactics and mindset of a group of conservatives who, smelling the end of the Francis era, are determined to secure its reversal in the next conclave. Yet by playing their hand too hard and too early—confident…

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An interview with actress Marylee Martin on her memoir.

KEY POINTS

• When unusual events of our childhoods have labels and a diagnosis, it can open doors to different directions in our lives.
• A parent doesn’t have to physically molest a child for it to be an abusive situation.
• Martin’s memoir shows how helpful a therapeutic relationship can be in changing the course of an undesirable emotional state to a thriving one.

Marylee Martin is a member of EQUITY, SAG/AFTRA, ASCAP, The Dramatists’ Guild of America, the WorkShop Theater, and the Gingold Theatrical Group. She has performed in over 30 productions. We discussed her memoir, An Unsuspecting Child: Coming to Grips with Childhood Abuse, which won first place in memoirs from Fireside Books and third place for women’s issues from Outstanding Creator Awards.

Mackenzie Littledale (ML): Marylee, thank you for joining me. An Unsuspecting Child begins before you are born, and your family leaves you with unanswered…

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In 2022, nearly 6,000 cases of abuse of Filipino workers were reported, a majority in the Middle Eastern countries

A top Catholic bishop joined labor activists in the Philippines to demand justice for a female migrant worker allegedly murdered after rape in Kuwait.

The call has been made after the authorities in the Middle Eastern country found the body of Jullebee Ranara, 35, buried in a desert on Jan. 22.

Ranara was raped and murdered before her body was buried in a desert, Kuwaiti police said following an autopsy.

The autopsy report also revealed she was pregnant at the time of her death, Kuwaiti newspaper Al Rai reported.

“We cannot just turn a blind eye to what happened to her,” said Bishop Narciso Abellana, head of Pastoral Care for Migrants and Itinerant People of the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines.  

“All governments, regardless of religious denomination, should understand…

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IT is a happy day when I can write about victories and convictions. Prosecutors are fighting hard for child rights and are winning important convictions. Judges, too, believe testimonies of children with horrifying accounts of multiple rape and sexual assault by biological fathers, grandfathers, brothers, uncles and Catholic priests. These are great victories for those who hunger or thirst for justice and have had their fill.

The children endure, survive and find the courage to overcome the fear of rejection, anger and hatred of their abusers and their families when they point a finger and say to the court and the world, “He raped me.” That’s a powerful courageous allegation to make and why would they if it were not true? The wise experienced judges of family courts know and accept these truths.

The amazing survival stories and court cases with dedicated prosecutors and good judges give victory to raped…

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PLASTIC BAGS

There are two truths about the leadership in the Kansas Legislature: 1) They are totally out of touch with Kansas citizens and 2) They are bullies about it.

Now comes Senate Bill 47, promoted by their overlords at the Kansas Chamber of Commerce: “An act concerning cities and counties, prohibiting the regulations of consumer merchandise and of auxiliary containers that are designed for the consumption, transportation or protection of consumer merchandise.”

This proposed abrogation of home rule is aimed at preventing cities or counties from limiting — in any way whatsoever — the use of single-use plastic bags, among other types of packaging.

Such packaging, which is designed to be discarded, then works its way into our streams and rivers, poisoning our environment, killing wildlife, and eventually becoming microplastics, which enter the food chain.

Blessedly, the bill states it does not prohibit anti-littering laws. Well,…

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The Cathedral Basilica of St. Francis of Assisi — perhaps Santa Fe’s most identifiable landmark and the emotional and spiritual center for New Mexico’s large Roman Catholic population — is no longer on the mortgage block.

Archbishop of Santa Fe John C. Wester said in a telephone interview Friday the cash raised by parishes and other sources provided enough money to convince officials to remove the cathedral basilica from a list of properties to be mortgaged to satisfy the terms of its Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings.

Wester said the archdiocese would make an official announcement about the decision once the bankruptcy proceedings — spurred by a $121.5 million settlement with hundreds of people who made claims of sexual abuse by Catholic priests — were completed, perhaps by mid-February.

“We had everything ready to go, but then at the last minute, because we had this cash, then we didn’t have to…

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Richard E. Jacklin, a Catholic priest, was sentenced to 18 years in prison in Kankakee County court Thursday after being convicted of sexually assaulting a Shapiro Developmental Center resident in 2017.

The sentence came at the conclusion of the 71-year-old Jacklin’s sentencing hearing before Kankakee County Circuit Judge Kathy Bradshaw-Elliott.

According to Illinois sentencing guidelines, Jacklin must serve 85% of the sentence. Upon his release from prison, he will serve three years to life on parole. Jacklin must register as a sexual offender for the remainder of his life.

Jacklin was facing a prison sentence of between six and 30 years.

Jacklin was found guilty of aggravated sexual assault, criminal sexual assault and sexual misconduct during his jury trial in September 2022.

Bradshaw-Elliott went over the facts of the case before rendering her decision near the end of the about 90-minute hearing.

She talked about how, during the trial, a…

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• Summary

• Sexual abuse victims seek larger contribution from individual parishes
• Rockville Centre diocese seeks to resolve 600 sexual abuse claims in bankruptcy
• Competing bankruptcy plans are relatively rare in Chapter 11 cases

A Roman Catholic diocese on Long Island, New York, proposed a bankruptcy plan on Friday, moving to retake control of its Chapter 11 case after a committee representing sexual abuse victims filed a competing restructuring proposal.

The Diocese of Rockville Centre, one of the largest in the United States, said in a statement Friday that the proposed aggregate payment and the payment each abuse victim would receive under its proposed plan are “well in excess of any other Diocesan Chapter 11 plan in history.”

The diocese filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in New York in October 2020, citing the cost of lawsuits filed by childhood victims of clergy sexual abuse. The state’s Child Victims Act, which took effect…

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How missionary work can create the conditions for child abuse to thrive unchecked

It would be easy to glance at “Surviving Hillcrest,” the feature article we recently published about Hillcrest School in Jos, Nigeria, and see what you’ve seen before: people in positions of institutional authority accused of abuse. We accept such familiar stories as routine. But look more closely, and you will see a much broader indictment—one that includes all of us.

The few news stories that have been run about the physical and sexual abuse at Hillcrest suggest that people whose whole lives were dedicated to the Gospel had something go terribly wrong. Scandalously, the boarding school where parents left their children while they pursued God’s work had mishandled that sacred responsibility, allowing abuse to be rampant.

But with a close look at this story, another picture emerges: in this case, the missionary work itself—not a deviation from…

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Church of Scientology leader David Miscavige is allegedly trying to dodge lawyers who are trying to serve him in a trafficking lawsuit, the lawyers say.

TMZ reports that Miscavige “eluded process servers a whopping 27 times” at Scientology offices in Los Angeles, California, and Clearwater, Florida. Staffer at both locations reportedly keep refusing to accept the suit, saying they have no idea where Miscavige is.

The suit is brought by three former members of Scientology’s Sea Org, alleging that they were forced into the church as kids and forced to work into adulthood for low wages.

“Miscavige cannot be permitted to continue his gamesmanship” — and a federal judge says she will soon decide whether Miscavige can be considered officially served,” one of the plaintiff’s lawyers said last month.

“What’s weird about Miscavige’s alleged disappearance is that some people believe his wife, Shelly, has also vanished. She…

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Authorities charged a Texas pastor and school board president this week after a 16-year-old girl told police he sexually assaulted her, records show.

Andrew “Drew” Wilborn, 43, reportedly bonded out of the Dallas County Jail on Thursday. He was arrested Wednesday on a felony charge of indecency with a child by sexual contact, jail records indicate.

Police allege Wilborn rubbed his genitals against the 16-year-old’s rear during a church event last April, according to his arrest affidavit. The girl reportedly told police Wilborn later gave her an unwanted hug, grabbed her waist, and wouldn’t let her go. Wilborn was executive pastor of Antioch Fellowship Missionary Baptist Church in Dallas at the time.

The affidavit states the girl told others about the incident, including the church’s youth pastor and her mother, immediately afterward. The church said in a statement to The Roys Report (TRR) that it quickly…

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Court documents accuse a Benton County pastor of using his position to manipulate a person at a faith-based addiction living facility into sex.

The Rev. Thomas Gilman Hartman, 53, is a founding member of Wings of Peace Ministry NW Arkansas in Gravette. He was arrested on charges of sexual assault third-degree and possession of firearm by certain person.

40/29 News reached out to Hartman through his ministry but has not heard back.

A man told police that he had met Hartman at a place called Freedom Seekers, a group that uses spiritual healing to help people with addiction and substance abuse issues, according to the court documents.

The man said Hartman let him move into his home for free and bought him presents, including a cellphone and a Jeep, to which he kept the title.

The man said Hartman played mind games and manipulated him into sex…

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In “Soul Searching” (Oxford University Press, $22.95), their 2005 book studying the spiritual lives of American teenagers, Christian Smith and Melinda Lundquist Denton had a harsh assessment of Catholic parents.

They said the religious engagement of Catholics teens, which they described as “fairly weak,” reflected the religious apathy of their parents. Their rule of thumb for us Catholic parents: “We’ll get what we are.”

But what happens when the parents have a high level of religious faith, knowledge, and engagement, yet watch their adult children drift away anyway?

I have recently been speaking with several Catholic parents concerned about their adult children’s lack of religious practice. All of these parents have a high level of faith commitment and involvement above and beyond just Sunday Mass attendance. 

Some parents were actively involved in religious renewal movements. Some parents were active in working with the poor and homeless. Some were “professional Catholics,”…

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Author Svetlana Makarovič will accept the Prešeren Prize, Slovenia’s top award for achievements in arts, after she refused it for 23 years in protest of Marko Rupnik, a Jesuit artist and priest, being awarded the prize as well. After sex abuse allegations against Rupnik made headlines last December he was urged to return the prize.

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Cardinal George Pell, who was the most senior Catholic cleric to be convicted of child sex abuse and spent 404 days in solitary confinement in his native Australia before his convictions were overturned, died Jan. 10 in Rome. He was 81. Pell, and those who are picking up his mantle, think they — and only they — have the solution to what ails the church and the world. But that hubris has hurt the church’s credibility, says columnist Michael Sean Winters.

Michael Sean Winters’ analysis of Cardinal George Pell was fair. There was little of Pell’s viewpoint that I agreed with. Depicting Pell as a lion solidified my feelings. Like many of our ecclesial leaders, it appeared he had been specially chosen to wield his brawn in an effort to control. Therein lay the problem.

I admired Pell in the way he faced his…

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“Radical and extreme” were the words used by Bishop Robert Deeley to describe Gov. Mills’ proposed abortion rights protections (“Bishop Deeley calls proposal to allow abortions late in pregnancy ‘beyond troubling’,” Jan. 18). The last person I want to hear from concerning a women’s right to choose is a Catholic priest.

The Catholic Church is rife with rot from the Pope down, as they have empowered and institutionalized pedophiles around the world. They have willfully chosen to protect the church over the child victims and their families. Their actions, or lack thereof, prove that the Church protects those who sexually or physically abuse children. There are countless examples, including Augusta’s own Father Curran.

Recall Archbishop of Boston Cardinal Law admitted to moving pedophile priests around to protect the church while more children were abused and their lives destroyed. Pope John Paul II appointed…

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As the director of the office for protection and care and formerly the ombudsman serving the Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph, I have been working in the ministry of church abuse for well over a decade.  Although I have experience addressing victim crimes as a former prosecutor, I have learned so much from this ministry.

The church’s prevention efforts over the last 20 years, along with society’s better understanding and response to sexual abuse, has significantly decreased its occurrence. It takes every single one of us to create a strong safety net of protection. We are grateful to all of you who have done your part to strengthen our awareness and prevention efforts.

The office for protection and care ministry includes both abuse prevention and also the response to sexual abuse, caring for abuse victims that are harmed by someone in a position of trust in the church. Our team…

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A Kansas senator has renewed his push to add clergy to the list of mandated reporters of child abuse and neglect, but the lack of protection for religious confessions sets the bill up for opposition.

Sen. Tom Holland, D-Baldwin City, introduced SB 87, which requires ordained ministers to report suspected physical, sexual or emotional abuse and neglect of children.

“Our children are taught to trust in certain authority figures in their communities, because adults are supposed to speak up for children when they’ve been harmed,” Holland said. “Far too many of our faith leaders — those who are foundational to the development of our sense of self and spirituality — have violated that trust, and Kansas kids have suffered as a result of their silence.”

Clergy would join the existing list of mandated reporters that includes medical and mental health providers, teachers and school administrators, child care…

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A Jan. 12 decision by the Newfoundland Labrador Supreme Court is expected to solidify and focus the compensation claims process for the victims of abuse at the Mount Cashel Orphanage in St. John’s in the 1940s, ’50s and ’60s. 

Geoff Budden, a lawyer for the claimants, told The Catholic Register that while “it isn’t the process that we advocated, it is a process we are fine with.” 

“The court wrote that from our four representative plaintiffs, we’d get insights that would perhaps lead to resolutions for the other plaintiffs. The claims officer, he or she, could take these decisions as sample guidance to help determine the rewards for the balance of the claims,” said Budden.

Budden added that much of the “process has been worked out” and much of the “process we agree upon.”

On Nov. 28 and 29, 2022, Justice Garrett Handrigan heard the legal representation of the claimants and lawyers…

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Historic Press Conference to be held on Eve of Pope’s visit to the DRC on Clergy Sex Abuse

Clergy sex abuse victims in Kinshasa call on Pope to help

Survivors and Advocates in DRC call for Zero Tolerance for Clergy Sex Abuse

For the first time in Africa, international activists will join with Congolese survivors and advocates in a press conference to highlight the failure of the Catholic Church to protect survivors and whistleblowers. 

Pope Francis will visit the Democratic Republic of the Congo the week of January 31 to February 3, 2023. On Monday January 30, survivors of clergy sexual abuse and their advocates from the Congo, U.S. and Europe will be in Kinshasa to hold a press conference in order to:

1. Share information regarding a current case of clergy sex abuse and cover-up in the DRC, including details on how the victim and her…

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An openly gay advisor to the Vatican says he’s not surprised by Pope Francis’ declaration that “being homosexual isn’t a crime.”

Juan Carlos Cruz, an internationally known Chilean advocate and survivor of clerical sexual abuse, told NPR the pope’s remarks made for an “incredible day.”

In his first interview since the death of former Pope Benedict XVI, Francis told the Associated Press that laws criminalizing homosexuality are “unjust” and that Catholic bishops should apply “tenderness” and help ease discrimination by welcoming LGBTQ people into the church.

On Tuesday, Cruz told Morning Edition’s Leila Fadel that anti-sodomy laws in dozens of countries, including some that impose the death penalty, are “horrifying,” but the pope’s moral leadership will help civil authorities, bishops, and cardinals to “change their heart” and join the pontiff in speaking out.

“The pope highlights that the LGBTQ community is not sinful and criminal,” said Cruz.

Cruz, who is a…

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In an exclusive interview published today by the Associated Press, Pope Francis urges transparency around abuse cases and says that church leaders must speak out more about abuse of vulnerable adults.

https://apnews.com/article/pope-francis-east-timor-vatican-city-religion-728a5af6ec4d36e54794a761fddd3fc4

The Pope says that after he discredited victims in Chile in 2018, “a bomb went off” in his head and he had a “conversion” moment, when he “saw the corruption of many bishops in this.”

On all of these points, Pope Francis is not credible.

It’s especially disingenuous of him to affirm transparency and care for adult victims while he continues to dismiss their allegations behind closed doors.

Indeed, it’s impossible to reconcile the Pope’s comments with his disregard of victims in four current cases of bishops accused of sexually abusing adults:

The Pope’s ongoing response to the case of now-convicted Argentine bishop Gustavo Zanchetta
In 2015 and 2017, Zanchetta met with the Pope to discuss his alleged…

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Pope Francis lamented that the use of guns by civilians to defend themselves is becoming a “habit.”

In an interview on Tuesday with The Associated Press, the pontiff, who has frequently criticized the arms industry, was asked about the large number of guns in civilian hands and frequent massacres in the United States. Francis expressed concern about how recourse to guns has become “habit.”

“I say when you have to defend yourself, all that’s left is to have the elements to defend yourself. Another thing is how that need to defend oneself lengthens, lengthens, and becomes a habit,” Francis said. “Instead of making the effort to help us live, we make the effort to help us kill.”

MORE FROM THE INTERVEW

• – The AP Interview: Pope says homosexuality not a crime
• – Pope discusses his health, his critics and future of papacy
• – Pope warns German church reform process elitist, ideological
• – WATCH:…

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Pope Francis has warned there’s a risk that a reform process in the German Catholic Church over calls for married priests and other possible liberalizing reforms might become harmfully “ideological.”

In an interview with The Associated Press at the Vatican on Tuesday, Francis was asked about the process in Germany, where Catholic bishops and representatives of an influential lay organization are addressing what would be revolutionary reforms for the church if they were to be realized. Under consideration in the process are married priests, female deacons, and church blessings for same-sex couples.

In the interview, the pope said that while dialogue is good, “the German experience does not help.”

He said the process to date has been led by the “elite” because it doesn’t involve “all the people of God.” Francis says the goal must always be unity.

Seeking to assuage Vatican concerns, German church leaders have insisted the process won’t…

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Pope Francis criticized laws that criminalize homosexuality as “unjust,” saying God loves all his children just as they are and called on Catholic bishops who support the laws to welcome LGBTQ people into the church.

“Being homosexual isn’t a crime,” Francis said during an exclusive interview Tuesday with The Associated Press.

Francis acknowledged that Catholic bishops in some parts of the world support laws that criminalize homosexuality or discriminate against LGBTQ people, and he himself referred to the issue in terms of “sin.” But he attributed such attitudes to cultural backgrounds, and said bishops in particular need to undergo a process of change to recognize the dignity of everyone.

“These bishops have to have a process of conversion,” he said, adding that they should apply “tenderness, please, as God has for each one of us.”

Francis’ comments, which were hailed by gay rights advocates as a milestone, are the first…

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Pope Francis says he hasn’t considered issuing norms to regulate future papal resignations and plans to continue for as long as he can as bishop of Rome, despite a wave of criticism from some top-ranking conservative cardinals and bishops about his papal priorities.

In his first interview since the Dec. 31 death of retired Pope Benedict XVI, Francis addressed his critics, his health and the next phase of his pontificate, which marks its 10th anniversary in March without Benedict’s shadow in the background.

Francis’ comments, delivered Tuesday at the Vatican hotel where he lives, came at a particularly difficult time, as the pontiff navigates conservative opposition to his insistence on making the Catholic Church a more welcoming, inclusive place — criticism that he attributed to the equivalent of a 10-year itch of his papacy.

“You prefer that they don’t criticize, for the sake of tranquility,” Francis told The Associated Press. “But…

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The Archdiocese of San Antonio has determined that a former priest at St. Matthew Catholic Church committed sexual and financial misconduct, according to a letter to the parish by Archbishop Gustavo Garcia-Siller.

“It is with a heavy heart and great sadness that I inform you of a report of financial and sexual misconduct with adult women by your former parochial vicar, Rev. Duncan Amek,” Garcia-Siller said in the Jan. 10 letter, which was published by the North Side parish in a newsletter on Sunday.

The letter contained few details but said an investigation determined that Amek had also been in a married relationship.

The Archdiocese said it takes all reports for misconduct seriously and encourages those who have experienced sexual abuse or harassment by people in authority within the church to contact its Office of Victim Assistance at 210-734-7786, or an outside reporting service called Archdiocesan Misconduct Hotline at (844-709-1169.

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Greetings of Christ’s peace and love!

I would like to call your attention to the fact that the Utah legislature is proposing legislation that will impact a spiritual tradition long practiced by our Catholic Church.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church (#1457) explicitly calls every faithful person to receive the Sacrament of Confession at least once a year, or whenever a faithful Catholic needs to seek forgiveness from God through reconciliation (Code of Canon Law Canon 989). If we have committed grave sins, we are not supposed to participate in the Eucharist without first going to Confession.

The Sacrament of Confession, also known as the Sacrament of Penance, is central to the practice of our Catholic faith. For two millennia we Catholics have taken this opportunity – a divine gift given by Jesus – to reveal our conscience to God through the priest, who embodies Christ in this moment of…

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A new report from the Jesuit-run Fordham University on the long-term impacts of clergy sexual abuse criticizes the global Jesuit religious order for placing importance on discretion when handling Catholic priests accused of abuse, instead of on discipline or prevention of further abuse.

The report, released Jan. 26, summarizes the findings of 18 research projects that were part of a yearslong effort to better understand clergy abuse.

The text, which contains several case studies of Jesuit abusers and details a project examining how Jesuit norms have harmed the order’s response to abuse, comes as the church continues to reckon with how the Vatican and Jesuit superiors handled abuse allegations against a high-profile religious artist, Jesuit Fr. Marko Rupnik.

Jesuit norms, says the report on that project, have hampered the order’s responses to the abuse crisis. The project is described as involving interviews with 13…

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United States Attorney Jacqueline C. Romero announced today that William McCandless, age 59, of Elkton, Maryland, a former DeSales University priest, was sentenced to 37 months’ imprisonment followed by 15 years of supervised release. He is also required to register pursuant to the Sexual Offender Registration and Notification Act.

On May 27, 2022, McCandless pleaded guilty to access and attempted access with intent to view child pornography. In 2017, McCandless searched for images of young boys and accessed over 3000 web pages depicting and offering child sex abuse images. He also accessed dozens of stories which graphically detailed and described the sexual torture of young boys.

This case was brought as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative launched in May 2006 by the Department of Justice to combat the growing epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse. Led by U.S. Attorney’s Offices and the Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section…

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A Sonoma County priest named in a sexual abuse lawsuit has been vindicated by his accuser. Plaintiff’s attorneys say that Monsignor James Pulskamp, one-time director of the Hanna Boys Center in the Sonoma Valley, was misidentified by the accuser who now names the disgraced Reverend John Crews as the alleged assailant. During a review, the victim reportedly recognized Crews as his abuser and just confused his named with Pulskamp. Crews took over for Pulskamp as the director at the Hanna Boys Center in 1984. Crews was last known to be in South Carolina and has been accused of abuse in 10 new cases.

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A priest accused of sexual abuse will have one last chance to win an appeal to be allowed back into the clergy.

The Diocese of Charlotte issued a release on Saturday outlining the process surrounding the situation involving Patrick Hoare, a former priest who was removed from St. Matthew Catholic Church in Ballantyne.

Hoare was removed on July 1, 2020 after the diocese says his observed behaviors with minors, “constituted boundary violations.” He had previously been accused of sexual abuse of minors when he was a priest in Pennsylvania. The results of that investigation are still unknown.

Additional reasons given for Hoare’s removal included concerns raised over his conduct with minors at St. Matthews, acting in a “manner that brings grave detriment to ecclesiastical communion,” and claims his ministry had become “harmful and/or ineffective.”

In the release, Bishop Peter Jugis stated that Hoare has been on…

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Pope Francis has shed light on the Catholic Church’s handling of sex abuse allegations against East Timor’s Nobel Peace Prize-winning independence hero, suggesting that he indeed was allowed to retire early rather than face prosecution or punishment.

Francis made the revelation in a wide-ranging interview Tuesday with The Associated Press, in which he also denied he had a role in deciding the case of a famous Jesuit artist whose seemingly preferential treatment cast doubt on the Vatican’s commitment to cracking down on abuse.

Francis acknowledged the Catholic Church still had a long way to go to deal with the problem, saying more transparency was needed and that church leaders must speak out more about abuse of “vulnerable adults.”

Francis recalled he had a steep learning curve on abuse, admitting that his “conversion” moment came during a 2018 trip to Chile, when he discredited victims of the country’s most notorious predator priest. Journalists,…

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Laicized priest Frank Pavone was accused before his laicization of sexual harassment, grooming behavior, and coercive physical contact with young women.

Laicized priest Frank Pavone was accused before his laicization of sexual harassment, grooming behavior, and coercive physical contact with young women, several sources close to the allegations have told The Pillar.

The Pillar has learned that at least two reports of misconduct were sent to the Diocese of Amarillo during or before 2010, with additional complaints also likely filed, sources said. Reports involved allegedly inappropriate behavior toward interns and junior employees of Priests for Life, the non-profit organization Pavone has headed since 1993.  

While some reports were also submitted to the Archdiocese of New York, sources close to the archdiocese told The Pillar they were forwarded to Amarillo, reportedly because Pavone was incardinated there at the time the reports were filed.  

Asked about the allegation Jan. 24, a spokeswoman for Pavone told The…

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The Society of Jesus has asked Father Marko Rupnik to stay close to Rome as more alleged victims of the Jesuit priest and artist go public with their stories.

Father Johan Verschueren, SJ, this week told ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner, that he had asked Rupnik “not to leave Lazio,” the Italian region where Rome is located.

Verschueren is the major superior for the international houses of the Jesuits. It is still unclear whether Verschueren or the superior general of the Jesuits, Father Arturo Sosa, is Rupnik’s direct superior.

Rupnik, originally from Slovenia, has been accused of the sexual, spiritual, and psychological abuse of women from a religious community with which he was formerly connected.

The abuse is alleged to have taken place in the late 1980s and early 1990s. An investigation into the claims was dropped by the Vatican in October 2022 due to the statute of limitations.

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“All the survivors that are working on this, we’re all in the same boat. We are mentally trapped in this moment until these legislators act on this.”

Before every interview she does, Lara Fortney-McKeever clasps a delicate key-motif bracelet around her wrist — a symbol of the years she and her sisters spent locked in silence about their childhood sexual abuse.

Even after the arrest of the parish priest who had groomed and molested Fortney-McKeever and four of her younger sisters, a gag order signed as part of a settlement with the Diocese of Harrisburg prevented them from speaking about it. 

They finally broke their silence in 2018, she said, when then-Attorney General Josh Shapiro released a landmark grand jury report identifying more than 300 Catholic priests accused of sexually assaulting children in Pennsylvania. The Fortney sisters’ abuser was among those named in the 884-page document.

“We were stuck in…

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HARRISBURG — Child sexual abuse survivors are coming to grips with the likelihood they will endure another delay in their chance to pursue justice against their abusers and the institutions that protected them.

The state House of Representatives on Tuesday recessed until Feb. 27, a month past the deadline set by former Gov. Tom Wolf who called the General Assembly into special session to pass a constitutional amendment expanding the time allowed for victims to seek civil suits against abusers and get it before voters in the May primary.

“It’s another sad day for victims,” said Shaun Dougherty, a victim of abuse by a Catholic priest, who shared his story with the grand jury looking into widespread child sexual abuse in the Altoona-Johnstown Diocese.

Survivors of child sexual abuse have been fighting for over a decade for a two-year retroactive window to seek justice against those who harmed them. It…

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A former therapist linked to two churches in western Canada got a six-and-a-half-year cumulative prison sentence Friday on 11 sex crime charges, the Canadian prosecution team confirmed.

Raymond Gaglardi, 78, was sentenced on five counts of indecent assault, four counts of sexual assault, and two counts of sexual exploitation, British Columbia Prosecution Service spokesman Dan McLaughlin told The Roys Report (TRR).

Gaglardi was charged in 2020 after 14 men told authorities he had touched them inappropriately during therapy sessions, a September 2022 court judgment indicates. The alleged assaults were said to have taken place from 1969-2015.

An attorney for Gaglardi declined to comment.

The court judgment states all 14 men told authorities they knew Gaglardi through one of two churches. After Gaglardi was charged, authorities indicated they believed he had more victims who had not yet come forward. He reportedly had thousands of clients over the years.

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Fr. Duncan Amek, a Catholic priest from the Archdiocese of San Antonio has been removed from active ministry following an investigation of sexual misconduct involving women and financial impropriety.

On May 15, 2019, in St. Ann’s Church, where he had been a deacon for the previous year, Archbishop Gustavo Garcia-Siller, MSpS, ordained Duncan Amek, a native of Homa Bay, Kenya, to the priesthood for the Archdiocese of San Antonio. Amek then went to work for St. Matthew Church and School in San Antonio, Texas.

We are worried for the unsuspecting adult women involved who may have fallen for Amek’s predilection and scheme. More importantly, our concern is this. Was Amek’s actions criminal? If so, we hope church officials turn over all the information they have obtained in their investigation to law enforcement. We would also like to know what constitutes sexual misconduct in the…

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A 74-year-old Catholic priest has gone on trial accused of sexually abusing two children in the 1980s.

Dennis Finbow, who had worked in Dogsthorpe in Peterborough, faces six counts of indecently assaulting a boy and girl aged between 10 and 13.

The trial at Huntingdon Crown Court heard the prosecution say that the defendant had touched the girl while she was in bed.

Fr Finbow, of Martlesham, Suffolk, denies the charges.

Five of the counts against him relate to the girl, including allegations that he touched and also massaged her.

In a police interview played to the jury, the female complainant said Fr Finbow was “charismatic” and “everybody loved him”.

Prosecutor Nicholas Bleaney said when he was voluntarily interviewed, the defendant described the allegations “as nonsense and a fabrication”.

The trial continues.

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The legal fight behind the walls of the Vatican over the pastorship of Charlotte’s largest Catholic church has reached its end game.

Rev. Patrick Hoare, who was removed as spiritual head of massive St. Matthew Church based on allegations of misconduct involving young people, has filed his final appeal to reverse the 2020 decision by Bishop Peter Jugis of Charlotte.

While the Diocese of Charlotte previously has acknowledged that its investigation of Hoare had not revealed any incidents of sexual abuse of young people, his odds of reversing his removal appear small.

Hoare (pronounced HAR) already has lost two overseas appeals — the most recent in November, when the Vatican’s highest court, the Apostolic Signatura, ruled that the priest’s challenge to his suspension was “manifestly lacking in foundation” and “must be dismissed,” according to a letter Jugis sent to St Matthew’s families this past weekend.

Hoare has since appealed to…

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A veteran Sonoma County priest who was named among the perpetrators in a crush of new clergy abuse lawsuits last year has been vindicated by the very man who first accused him.

Monsignor James Pulskamp, one-time director of the Hanna Boys Center in the Sonoma Valley, was misidentified by the alleged abuser, the plaintiff’s attorney says.

The accuser has since identified his alleged assailant as disgraced Rev. John Crews, who succeeded Pulskamp in 1984 as director of what was then a residential school for at-risk boys.

Crews resigned in 2013, when he was first accused of child sex abuse by the widow of a man who had been assaulted at a Sebastopol church. He was last known to be in South Carolina.

“I feel really bad about it. He feels really bad about, it” said longtime San Francisco attorney Mary Alexander, who represents the plaintiff.

When the suit was originally…

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A settlement on the eve of jury selection in Deming’s Sixth Judicial District Court last week pre-empted a civil trial against the Catholic Diocese of El Paso alleging past sexual abuse by a priest who is now deceased. The trial had been set to begin today.

The plaintiff, identified as John Doe 117 in the 2019 complaint, alleged he was abused during road trips to Deming by Father Pedro Martinez, a priest at the Mt. Carmel parish in El Paso, where the plaintiff also lived at the time. The complaint alleged that Martinez sexually abused and exploited the plaintiff, a child at the time, at hotels in Deming during road trips over a period of two years beginning approximately in 1970.

The lawsuit sought to hold the diocese culpable for the behavior attributed to Martinez, stating in court documents that the church “taught vulnerable children (including Plaintiff) to put complete…

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Dr John Connolly had ‘carried the twisted, damaging attempted destruction of his life for nearly 60 years’

A survivor of abuse at a school run by the Spiritan congregation in south Dublin was told they would deny all allegations against them, force the case to a higher court and “get him” for costs.

Dr John Connolly (74) says he went to the Spiritan congregation in recent years with allegations of his abuse as a child in 1958 by the late principal Fr Robert Stanley (“Stanno”) at their Willow Park school in Blackrock.

However, Dr Connolly ended up in the Round Hall of the Four Courts in Dublin where he was told “they would not only deny everything but force it to a higher court and get me for costs [range €40,000-€80,000].”

Dr Connolly withdrew his legal action as he could not afford the financial risks involved.

When this was put…

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The global Jesuit order issued a notice in early December that it had placed restrictions on the ministry of Jesuit Fr. Marko Rupnik, an internationally known religious artist, after accusations he had abused several adult women. While remaining deliberately vague about the reasons for the move, the Jesuits seemed keen to stress that “no minors were involved.”

While the Jesuits and the Vatican’s Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith avoided further comments on the case, some Italian blogs reported that Rupnik, a charismatic star in certain circles, had been accused of spiritually and sexually abusing consecrated women of the Loyola Community, a religious community he had co-founded in Slovenia in the early 1980s.

Only at a press conference with journalists later in mid-December did the Jesuit superior general, Fr. Arturo Sosa, confirm rumors that Rupnik had been excommunicated in 2019 as a result…

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William McCandless served honorably in the Navy and brought compassion to his various ministries as a Catholic priest — including as an adviser to Monaco’s royal family —but all the while, evil resided within him, a judge said Monday.

“You could not contain that evil,” U.S. District Judge Edward G. Smith told McCandless, a former counselor at DeSales University, before handing down the maximum sentence under a plea deal for child pornography during a hearing at the federal courthouse in Easton.

Smith sentenced McCandless to 37 months in prison and 15 years of supervised release for using his cellphone to try to access pornography featuring underage boys. Assistant U.S. Attorney Sherri Stephan said computer analysis showed the Salesian priest visited 3,000 pages featuring such pornography, some of which showed children being tortured.

“He had no empathy for a single child in any of those images,” she said. “The reaction McCandless…

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 Slovenian former nun has come forward to accuse a Jesuit priest once prominent at the Vatican of sexual and psychological abuse, at least the fourth public accuser in a case that has shaken the worldwide religious order.

The Italian investigative newspaper Domani, which has been breaking ground on the story for the past few months, on Monday published an interview with the woman, who said she was pressured into sexual acts by Father Marko Ivan Rupnik.

Rupnik, now 68, was spiritual director of a community of nuns in his native Slovenia before moving to Rome 30 years ago, where he later came to prominence as an artist when Pope John Paul II commissioned him to redesign a chapel in the Vatican between 1996-1999.

After that, he was called on to decorate chapels around the world and in 2020 he led a Lenten spiritual retreat for Pope Francis and top Vatican…

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The news that the French priest and psychiatrist Tony Anatrella has been barred from public life, but not reduced to the lay state, after his final conviction for abuse, has arrived for Pope Francis while the echoes of the Rupnik case have not yet quiet down. The decision in the Anatrella case demonstrates once again that, despite the great attention of the media, Pope Francis has not deviated much from his predecessors in his decisions in the fight against abuse.

Pope Francis has established a Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors, and the Pope indeed convened a summit of the presidents of the Episcopal Conferences from all over the world in February 2019 to discuss how to deal with the issue. Also, after the meeting, the Pope took some measures to help better address the clergy abuse scandal.

All of this, however, must be read in a broader context. Probably, the decisions of Pope…

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An “unscheduled” safeguarding audit and review has been launched in the Catholic church following claims of lockdown gatherings in Newcastle.

The Catholic Safeguarding Standards Agency will carry out the review into the Diocese of Hexham and Newcastle.

The BBC understands it involves claims from a whistleblower that men were regularly drinking on the St Mary’s Cathedral complex during lockdown 2021.

The inquiry is also expected to examine the suicide of Canon Michael McCoy.

Fr McCoy, Dean of St Mary’s Cathedral, killed himself in April 2021, days after police began an inquiry into a historical child sex abuse allegation made against him.

The diocese said it remains “fully committed” to safeguarding.

The Catholic Safeguarding Standards Agency (CSSA) was set up to advise on and audit the work of the Catholic Church in England and Wales, and is able to sanction clergy who do not meet standards.

The review, first reported by…

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Several sex abuse victims advocates told Knox News the move is meant to intimidate the man who sued and future victims.

Key points

• After a man sued the diocese, saying he was raped by a seminarian, the church asked a court to force him to use his real name in the suit.
• The man was trying to protect his identity because he says he was a victim of sexual assault.
• His attorney argued he needed protection, in part to avoid harming his recovery from the trauma.
• The judge ruled in favor of the church, pointing out the man is an adult and the ‘open and public nature’ of Tennessee court proceedings.

In an unusual move, the Catholic Diocese of Knoxville won a legal effort to force an alleged rape victim to use his legal name instead of a pseudonym if he wants to continue his lawsuit against the church.

The diocese’s push…

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Bishop Robert Byrne has been reported to the police following an allegation of abuse made against him by a Catholic priest, the Catholic Herald can reveal.

The Oratorian stepped down as Bishop of Hexham and Newcastle in December – almost a decade before he was due to retire – saying that the demands of his office were “too great a burden”.

Last week, however, the Vatican’s Congregation of Bishops launched an investigation for “an in-depth report into the events leading up to Bishop Byrne’s resignation” which will be overseen by Archbishop Malcolm McMahon of Liverpool.

The inquiry comes amid reports of gay sex parties at the cathedral house during lockdown which were said to be attended by a local drag queen. There is no evidence to suggest that Bishop Byrne was present at the parties or knew of them.

Concerns were also raised, however, over attempts by Bishop Byrne to move Timothy…

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Bishop Emeritus Matthew Harvey Clark, the affable, liberal-minded upstate New Yorker who led Rochester’s Roman Catholic diocese for 33 years, died Sunday morning.

Clark, who retired as bishop in September 2012, was 85 years old. 

His death was announced in a letter released by his successor, Bishop Salvatore Matano. It reported that Clark died in his room at the Sisters of St. Joseph of Rochester Motherhouse infirmary in Pittsford, where he had  been living since June 2020. Clark had been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease in 2019, and Matano’s letter noted the death followed a period of declining health.

“United as a diocesan family, we now accompany Bishop Clark with our prayers, especially at Holy Mass, asking the angels and the saints to receive his soul and present him to the Eternal High Priest, Our Savior Jesus Christ,”Matano wtote. “Kindly also pray for Bishop Clark’s family and friends…

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A earlier version of this editorial incorrectly stated that a group was seeking to seal Maryland’s report on clergy sexual abuse. It is seeking to seal the proceedings around the report. The version has been updated.

Secrecy enabled clerical sexual abuse of children in the Roman Catholic Church over decades, and even now the impulse to suppress the appalling details of that abuse remains the main impediment to a full accounting of the church’s worst scandal in centuries. It’s bad enough when the church continues to obstruct the release of information relating to abuse and coverup, even after Pope Francis has taken steps to lift the shroud of confidentiality that blocked disclosure for so long. It compounds the damage when courts abet that effort.

That’s what a Maryland judge has done in hiding from public view the findings of a major investigation by the state attorney…

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Quebec Cardinal Marc Ouellet is denying allegations of sexual misconduct made against him by a woman in 2020.

On Friday, the Roman Catholic archdiocese of Quebec City confirmed that it had received a second complaint against Ouellet, the former archbishop in the provincial capital.

A Vatican investigation was conducted in the wake of the second complaint against Ouellet, but Pope Francis decided “not to retain the accusation against the cardinal” who now serves as head of the Vatican’s bishops’ office

In a written statement sent to media today, Ouellet confirmed his participation in the investigation and says he has “nothing to hide,” adding he acted with “complete transparency” during the entire process.

Ouellet denies having committed any “reprehensible behaviour” towards the woman and says no complaint has been filed against him in civil or criminal court.

Allegations concerning the cardinal first surfaced last summer in a class-action lawsuit against…

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The Seattle Archdiocese is consolidating parishes in a sweeping plan that will affect virtually every Catholic Church community in Western Washington.

In Masses and vigils over the weekend from the Canada to Oregon borders, pastors announced the four-year plan to group two or more parishes together in “families” that will share one priest and one assistant priest. Some churches will likely close or be repurposed for uses such as early learning centers or homeless shelters. But how many buildings will do so — and what the family configurations will look like — is yet to be determined by a process the archdiocese says will involve its parishioners.

“We don’t expect it to be this top-down driven imposition of what these parish families will be,” said Father Gary Lazzeroni, a Vancouver pastor coleading the planning effort. He acknowledged some parishioners saw previous consolidations just that way.

This plan is the latest…

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Canada will pay hundreds of Indigenous communities more than $2 billion in compensation for nearly a century of abuse suffered by children in residential schools, its government has announced.

The Can$2.8 billion (US$2.1 billion) settlement, the result of a class action lawsuit by 325 Indigenous groups, will be placed in a not-for-profit trust independent of the government.

It will be used to “revitalize Indigenous education, culture, and language -– to support survivors in healing and reconnecting with their heritage,” according to a press release.

“It has taken Canada far too long to own up to its history, own up to the genocide it committed and recognize the collective harm caused to our nations by residential schools,” said Garry Feschuk, an Indigenous leader who is one of the plaintiffs in the suit.

“It is time that Canada not only recognize this harm, but help undo it by walking with us. This…

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In what only can be described as a low blow (or, more likely, an immoral partisan backroom deal), the Pennsylvania State Legislature seems prepared to use the constitutional amendment dubbed “Marsy’s Law” — meant to guarantee the rights of crime victims’ rights — to also move two other highly contentious amendments related to voter identification and regulatory review. Even my hometown Blair County Republican Representative Jim Gregory said, “What they’re trying to do, in my opinion, is use victims as pawns in a political game, and I’m not going to play that.”

Pennsylvania’s Marsy’s Law Amendment, named after a California college student who was murdered, provides a two-year window for childhood sexual abuse victims to seek recourse even if a statute of limitations exists. Pennsylvania voters overwhelming supported an earlier version of this constitutional amendment in 2019, only for it to be ruled as too broad by a 6-1…

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New York’s Adult Survivors Act[1] (“ASA” or “the Act”) (S.66A/A.648A) became effective on November 24, 2022. The Act provides a one-year lookback window for people to seek civil remedies for sexual abuse they experienced after they turned 18, regardless of what year the abuse occurred. This law adds critical energy to the ongoing momentum of the #MeToo movement, allowing survivors to file suit against both their abusers and the institutions that enabled them. 

The one-year lookback window lasts until November 23, 2023, so as of today, survivors have just over ten months to take advantage of the law. The following guide provides context and recommendations for understanding and using New York’s Adult Survivors Act.

What does the ASA do?

The ASA creates a one-year lookback window for sexual assault survivors to pursue civil claims in court for abuse that may have occurred years…

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Attempts to block legal recourse for people in pain and anguish amount to retraumatizing secondary abuse.

The removal in 2021 of the statute of limitations on allegations of sexual abuse in Maine has led to a host of child sex abuse lawsuits against the church, which has led the Roman Catholic Diocese of Portland to challenge the constitutionality of this new legal landscape.

Picketing the diocesan chancery building in Portland, Robert Hoatson told WGME: “These guys have a playbook. The playbook is this: Don’t really take allegations seriously; don’t promise any kind of justice for these people; and third, we’ve got to protect the image and the assets of our church.”

Has the Catholic Diocese of Portland been living under a rock for the past 40 years? Because there’s another playbook out there, one that’s been in circulation for some time now.

This playbook…

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I hope survivors sue the collar off the Roman Catholic Diocese of Portland and others.

I was 10 years old and in Catholic school when The Boston Globe’s Spotlight team broke open the history of sexual abuse in the Catholic Church, and the fallout has been ongoing for the past 20 years. For survivors of abuse, of course, the fallout has been going on for most of their lives.

I don’t have any memories of hearing about the scandal at the time (on account of being, you know, 10) so I asked my mom (I won’t tell you her age, but it was old enough to have memories). Mom said: “I remember a lot of parents being very upset and angry, especially parents who had felt lectured to by priests about sexual matters … people being really upset that money they had pledged and donated to their local parish would…

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Pennsylvania’s new Speaker of the House Mark Rozzi praised Musa Harris’ efforts to get child sexual predators off the street when the pair met Thursday at the Capitol.

Rozzi, of Berks County, said he didn’t know anything about Harris, who is known as the Luzerne County Predator Catcher, until he learned that one of the videos Harris posted about was a confrontation from his home county.

With that, he had his chief of staff reach out to Harris to arrange a meeting.

“Every time we can expose a predator, we are saving one more child from being harmed,” Rozzi said by phone Friday.

He said exposing predators is “critical to protecting our children.”

Rozzi, D-116, Muhlenberg Twp., has made advocating for survivors of child sexual abuse his signature issue since being elected in 2012. Rozzi said he was raped as a teen by a Catholic priest.

Of Harris, Rozzi said…

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The resignation of a bishop, and a child abuse allegation against the dean he appointed, prompted the Pope’s advisers to step in

The Roman Catholic church is investigating allegations of a lockdown “sex party” at a cathedral as part of an inquiry into a former bishop’s tenure.

In a highly unusual move, the Vatican has ordered an inquiry into the circumstances surrounding Robert Byrne’s resignation as the Bishop of Hexham and Newcastle in December.

In a letter seen by The Sunday Times, the Archbishop of Liverpool, who is leading the investigation, said he has been asked by the Pope’s advisers to prepare “an in-depth report into the events leading up to Bishop Byrne’s resignation”.

For almost 1,000 years, the Catholic church has required priests to be celibate. There is no suggestion the bishop attended the alleged party, inside a property adjoining St Mary’s Cathedral, Newcastle, during the Covid lockdown, or was…

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I knew it! And if we were all honest with ourselves, we knew it.

There is an uncomfortable reason why many social media users chose not to say ‘Vale, Cardinal Pell’. But about me first…

Up until the start of the first national lockdowns in Australia, deep down in my heart I knew all along that the High Court of Australia would quash his conviction. Disclosure – I’m Anglo-Catholic, but bias with good cause for said bias is indeed, good bias.

Also disclosure, I failed on the cardinal (no pun intended) virtue of fortitude: I kept my mouth shut during the miscarriage of justice against Cardinal Pell for fear of being accused of being a ‘paedo sympathiser’ (to be clear, I hate paedophiles). I regret (conveniently) my cowardice on this matter.

Admittedly, I disliked Cardinal Pell’s theology and social views at one point – I was a lapsed Catholic. But just because…

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Officials say Bishop Matthew H. Clark has died at 85-years-old on Sunday morning.

Matthew Clark was born outside Albany in 1937.

After serving in Albany and Rome, Clark was consecrated as bishop of Rochester at the War Memorial in 1979.

He was 42-years-old, one of the youngest American Catholic bishops ever. He was outside the mold. He was the baby bishop who liked to jog and he created a culture that welcomed women to ministry, like Meghan Robinson.

She recalled a story when she went with Clark to Bethany House, a shelter in Rochester for women and children, and one of the women came up to Clark.

“And she just burst out crying upon seeing him,” said Robinson. “And she said my life has kind of been in shambles but I remember you. You confirmed me and now you get to meet my baby. And Bishop Matthew picked up the…

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As the US adjusts to an increasingly non-religious population, thousands of churches are closing each year – probably accelerated by Covid

Churches are closing at rapid numbers in the US, researchers say, as congregations dwindle across the country and a younger generation of Americans abandon Christianity altogether – even as faith continues to dominate American politics.

As the US adjusts to an increasingly non-religious population, thousands of churches are closing each year in the country – a figure that experts believe may have accelerated since the Covid-19 pandemic.

The situation means some hard decisions for pastors, who have to decide when a dwindling congregation is no longer sustainable. But it has also created a boom market for those wanting to buy churches, with former houses of worship now finding new life.

About 4,500 Protestant churches closed in 2019, the last year data is available, with about 3,000…

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ROME – Reporters who cover the Vatican on a regular basis will tell you they often feel they don’t have just one gig, but several.

Sometimes chasing Vatican news is akin to covering the UN in terms of high geopolitical drama. Other times it’s more like following the Royal Family, vis-à-vis personal rivalries and palace intrigue, and still other times you feel like you’re on the crime beat, following up on seamy accusations, investigations and trials.

Of late, however, Vatican reporting has taken on a whole new dimension as a sort of book-of-the-day club.

Since the death of Pope Benedict XVI on New Year’s Eve, enough new Vatican-themed books have either been released or announced to fill an entire shelf in the Apostolic Library. The output includes:

• Nient’altro che la verità (“Nothing But The Truth”), the tell-all memoir of Archbishop Georg Gänswein, the closest aide to the late Pope Benedict…

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In a video posted to his Twitter account on Tuesday, SBC President Bart Barber said “the cost of doing nothing” to combat sexual abuse far outweighs “the cost of doing something.”

Responding to multiple requests to reveal the monthly costs associated with a hotline to report incidents of sexual abuse that occur within Southern Baptist churches, Barber noted “there’s not a flat monthly cost for the hotline.”

He explained the costs of the hotline vary based on call volume but did not share any specific expenditures.

“And of course, the first few months of the hotline came when we’d never had anything like that before and because we’d never had anything like that before, there’s a backlog of people waiting to call in,” he said.

The hotline was established by the SBC Executive Committee on May 25, 2022, in response to a report released by Guidepost Solutions outlining alleged…

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Father Neil McGarrity, 68, preyed on his victims at two churches in Glasgow as well as his parish home in the city.

McGarrity played “footsie” under the table with one of the girls and was caught in a “prolonged embrace” with another.

The priest of 33 years, from the city’s Maryhill, also touched and rubbed the girls with one victim claiming he hugged her while sat on a couch.

A girl even contacted Childline due to her concerns over his behaviour.

McGarrity was found guilty at Glasgow Sheriff Court of four sexual assaults and one charge of engaging in sexual activity.

The charges span from December 2017 and February 2020 with the girls’ ages ranging between 10 to 16.

The court heard from a girl who said she was repeatedly hugged by McGarrity when she was aged 10 or 11 at a Glasgow East End church.

The witness stated that McGarrity…

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A Glasgow priest has been convicted of sexually abusing four girls.

Father Neil McGarrity, who has been added to the sex offenders register, targeted his victims at two churches as well as his parish home.

The 68-year-old was found guilty at Glasgow Sheriff Court of four sexual assaults and one charge of engaging in sexual activity.

The charges span from December 2017 to February 2020, with the girls aged between 10 and 16.

Sheriff Vincent Lunny said the priest carried out “touching of a sexual nature”.

He told the court: “I was impressed with the care the witnesses gave their evidence and were not exaggerating in any way

“I’m satisfied that the contact and inappropriate touching was the beginning of getting to something more serious.

“I’m satisfied this was a single course of conduct systematically pursued by you.”

The court heard from a girl who said she was repeatedly hugged…

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In the last year, the Catholic Diocese of Knoxville has been hit with two lawsuits alleging improper investigations into sexual assault complaints. These lawsuits cracked open the inner workings of the diocese.

In the course of reporting on the lawsuits, Knox News has published a number of articles detailing different aspects of how the diocese has, and has not, held itself accountable.  

Here is a look at the findings of Knox News’ investigation.

Original John Doe lawsuit story

John Doe is a placeholder name in the lawsuit to protect the identify of a former church employee who alleged a diocesan seminarian raped him. It also details how the church, led by Bishop Richard Stika, interfered with the investigation and worked to discredit him.

Original Jane Doe lawsuit story

Jane Doe is a placeholder name in a lawsuit to protect the identity of the woman, a Honduran asylum…

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‘We believe you, we support you,’ Daniel Andrews said after George Pell’s death, but those abused in the state’s government schools are still waiting for an apology

Following the death of George Pell, Victoria’s premier, Daniel Andrews, issued a message to victims of child sexual abuse that was widely praised: “We see you, we believe you, we support you.”

But this hasn’t been the experience of Glen Fearnett, who has been fighting for recognition from the government for the abuse he says he and other children suffered at the hands of paedophile teachers at state schools in the 1970s.

During Fearnett’s time at Beaumaris primary school, in Melbourne’s south-eastern suburbs, it is believed three teachers on staff were abusing children. The number of former students coming forward is still rising, with police currently investigating allegations.

Despite this, the government and department of education have never publicly apologised to victims. Instead,…

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A fifth alleged sexual abuse victim of a former Catholic priest convicted for crimes against minors has filed a lawsuit against his alleged abuser and the Archdiocese of Denver.

Scott Verti, 38, told the Fort Collins-based newspaper The Coloradoan he sees the lawsuit as “an opportunity for me to right a regret that I had over the last however many years as an adult, wishing I had come forward.”

Verti alleges that from 1999 to 2003 then Father Tim Evans abused him more than 100 times when he was an altar boy and sacristan at St. Elizabeth Ann Seton Church in Fort Collins, Colorado. The lawsuit, filed Jan. 19, alleges physical and sexual abuse at the church and at Evans’ apartment beginning when Verti was age 13 and ending when he was 18.

The alleged abuse resulted in post-traumatic stress disorder, addiction, and other problems, Verti said at a Thursday…

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On behalf of a former altar boy, attorneys on Thursday filed a civil lawsuit against the Archdiocese of Denver and a nearby church. We applaud the brave survivor in this case for coming forward, sharing his story, and assuredly letting other victims know they are not alone and that there is a pathway forward to healing and justice.

The lawsuit filed today accuses a longtime priest, Rev. Timothy Evans – one of Colorado’s most notorious sex abusers – of sexually assaulting Scott Verti more than 100 times inside church buildings and at the priest’s apartment. Scott says he was repeatedly abused between the ages of 14 and 18, from 1999 to 2003, at St. Elizabeth Ann Seton Catholic Parish in Fort Collins by Fr. Evans.  Scott spent a lot of time at the parish during the abuse years, serving as an altar boy and staying late into…

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In response to InvestigateWest reporting on Jehovah’s Witnesses covering up allegations of sexual assault, Washington state lawmakers introduced a bill last week that would make clergy mandatory reporters of child abuse or neglect. 

Senate Bill 5280, and its companion bill in the state House, would make it illegal for clergy not to report sexual abuse allegations to authorities unless the information came in the form of a confession. Currently, Washington is one of a handful of states in the country that do not list clergy as mandatory reporters of child abuse or neglect at all. 

The bill was introduced by Sen. Noel Frame, D-Seattle, who said she was motivated to change the law after reading InvestigateWest’s reporting last year examining alleged sexual assault cover-ups by Jehovah’s Witnesses and Washington’s relatively weak state laws regarding clergy’s reporting requirements.

“I just think the idea that clergy have a duty to report when they hear about…

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For years, Susan Leighnor held a secret.

Decades after her abuse at age 10 by three priests in Hutchinson, the memories of their face’s came back to her. She remembered their smiles, their voices and their malicious behavior.

On Jan. 6, when the synopsis of the report by the Kansas Bureau of Investigation came out, she once again felt like she was silenced. A few years ago, she finally opened up and spoke with KBI agents, sensing it was the right thing to do. She was hopeful a full report would be released.

“I felt like my little 10-year-old and my 12-year-old self finally told somebody in authority and something’s going to happen,” Leighnor said. “And nothing happened.”

Although the report was a start, naming 188 clergy who are suspected of abuse, the alleged abuser’s names were not released; neither was the location at which the events occurred.

“I think…

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Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests backed legislation from a Johnson County lawmaker aimed at holding more people accountable when clergy abuse children.

The road to reporting persistent sexual abuse by her gymnastics coach in 1998 was a long and difficult one for Kim Bergman of Shawnee.

She says at 12 years old she began dealing with the memories of her coach’s hands inside her swimsuit and under her shirt by writing letters to another coach.

“It was almost like a diary-type thing,” she said. “I held onto the letters for a while before sending them.”

Her mother came across the letters, though, and quickly got Kim into therapy, but the therapist wanted to wait until Kim could come to better terms before reporting to the police, she said.

She was 15 when they finally reported what had happened, but she said the district attorney at the time declined…

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Survivors of sexual abuse are calling on Kansas’ new attorney general, Republican Kris Kobach, to release the names of Catholic priests investigated by the Kansas Bureau of Investigation for perpetrating or ignoring abuse. A coalition of sex abuse survivors, lawmakers and advocates made the plea outside the Johnson County Courthouse weeks after Kansas’ previous attorney general, Republican Derek Schmidt, released a 21-page summary of a multi-year investigation on his last full business day in office. The Kansas Bureau of Investigation identified 188 clergy members suspected of abuse and referred 30 cases to prosecutors, all of which could not be prosecuted because of the statute of limitations. The investigation spanned claims from 1950 to 2022 and identified 400 victims but did not name the accused clergy members.

“We believe, quite frankly, that there are dozens of potentially dangerous child molesting clergy who the current attorney general knows about and should share…

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Representatives of an organization dedicated to exposing sexual abuse by religious leaders Friday pressed for the Kansas attorney general to voluntarily release a 350-page report of the four-year KBI inquiry into allegations of misconduct among Catholic clergy in the state.

David Clohessy, of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, or SNAP, said Attorney General Kris Kobach could do what his predecessor, Derek Schmidt, declined to do. On Schmidt’s last full day in office, he released a 21-page summary of the investigation by the KBI. He didn’t comment on a report that identified clergy wrongdoing and referred cases to local prosecutors but didn’t result in filing of charges due to expiration of the statute of limitations.

The summary didn’t identify wrongdoers or victims, however the KBI disclosed that a review of thousands of documents and interviews with 140 victims led agents to 188 clergy in Kansas suspected of rape,…

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Defense attorneys say they will continue to fight remaining misdemeanor charges of violating the state’s mandated reporter law

A San Bernardino Superior Court judge on Friday, Jan. 20, dismissed felony child abuse charges against two assistant principals at Wilmer Amina Carter High School in Rialto accused of failing to report allegations of sexual assault against three students.

Attorneys representing David Shenhan Yang, 39, and Natasha Harris-Dawson, 38, said they are ready to go to trial over the remaining misdemeanor charges against them — two counts each of failure of a mandated reporter to report child abuse or neglect.

It is the first criminal case in the history of San Bernardino County in which school administrators have been criminally charged for violations of California’s mandated reporter law, which requires school employees, health care workers, the clergy and other professionals to report abuse or neglect of minors to law enforcement or child protective…

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Canadian Cardinal Marc Ouellet, the head of the Vatican’s Dicastery for Bishops, has been accused of sexual misconduct by a second woman in the Quebec Archdiocese, a French newsmagazine reported on Jan. 18.

Golias Hebdo, a Catholic weekly based in Lyon, France, published a four-page investigation on the matter, including details of letters between the alleged victim, Quebec Cardinal Gérald Lacroix and Pope Francis.

According to the letters, Lacroix first wrote to Francis in September 2020 to alert the pontiff about the claim against Ouellet. Lacroix then later wrote to the claimant, named by the magazine as “Marie,” in June 2021 to inform her of the outcome of an investigation into the matter ordered by Francis.

“The allegations of sexual misconduct that you brought to my attention a few months ago, directed at His Eminence Cardinal Marc Ouellet, have been directly transmitted by me to Pope Francis, the cardinal’s immediate…

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The Roman Catholic archdiocese of Quebec City confirmed Friday that it had received a second complaint from a woman alleging sexual misconduct by Cardinal Marc Ouellet, the former archbishop in the Quebec capital.

A letter dated June 23, 2021, from Cardinal Gerald Lacroix, the current Quebec City archbishop, informs the woman that allegations she had made several months earlier were “directly transmitted” to Pope Francis, who ordered an internal investigation that ultimately rejected the complaint against Ouellet.

In the letter, Lacroix explains that a preliminary investigation was carried out without the participation of the Quebec archdiocese, in accordance with the procedure established by the Pope in 2019 to evaluate claims of abuse or misconduct. The letter adds that witness statements were collected in Quebec and in Rome.

“Pope Francis communicated to me … his decision not to retain the accusation against the cardinal,” Lacroix writes….

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The Rev. Robert Vaillancourt spent roughly one year on administrative leave while church officials investigated allegations of sexual abuse in the 1980s. The diocese said in July that these allegations have not been substantiated.

A Maine priest who was recently investigated after sexual abuse allegations were lodged against him has been cleared by the diocese and was assigned to a new parish in Auburn on Monday.

The Roman Catholic Diocese of Portland said it determined last year that the allegations against the Rev. Robert Vaillancourt were unfounded. No criminal charges have been filed.

Vaillancourt was serving several churches in the Midcoast area under St. Brendan the Navigator Parish when he was placed on leave in July 2021 while the diocese investigated claims that Vaillancourt abused a child more than 30 years ago.

The diocese has not publicly released where that alleged abuse took place.

A…

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Scott Verti alleges Timothy Evans sexually assaulted him more than 100 times between 1998 and 2003

Scott Verti hopes a lawsuit will begin to remedy a long-held regret.

The 37-year-old Denver man on Thursday sued former Catholic priest Timothy Evans, the Archdiocese of Denver and St. Elizabeth Ann Seton Catholic Parish over allegations that Evans sexually assaulted Verti at the Fort Collins church two decades ago.

Evans was convicted of abusing other boys in 2007, but Verti didn’t come forward as a victim at that time, staying behind the scenes even as Evans was sentenced to 14 years to life in prison. But when Verti saw that Evans had been released from prison in 2020, Verti was ready to take action.

“It didn’t feel right that he was out and about,” Verti said. “I always regretted not coming forward at the time of his first conviction. This was an opportunity to…

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