ABUSE TRACKER

A federal lawsuit brought by alleged abuse victims accuses the Executive Committee of the Southern Baptist Convention (SBCEC) of “maliciously and systematically” covering up sexual abuse and seeks $10 million in damages.

The suit, filed in a U.S. District Court in Tennessee, also calls out several prominent pastors for being a part of alleged cover-ups. These include Steve Gaines, pastor of the megachurch Bellevue Baptist Church in Cordova, Tennessee, and former president of the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC).

Named as defendants in the 20-page suit are the SBCEC and four SBC churches where plaintiffs claim they were sexually abused as minors.

The churches named in the suit are:

• Fountain Valley Baptist Church in Fountain, Colorado, where Pastor Charles Griffen allegedly molested plaintiff Candence Finch when she was 13 to 18 years old.
• Airline Baptist Church in Bossier City, Louisiana, where Assistant Pastor and Youth Director James Hoover and…

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Among the cases cited in the lawsuit is a 2006 incident at Bellevue Baptist Church where Pastor Steve Gaines did not immediately fire an accused abuser.

A federal lawsuit filed in Nashville, Tennessee, accuses the Executive Committee of the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) of covering up and concealing sex abuse, and it mentions Memphis’ Bellevue Baptist Church and its senior pastor Dr. Steve Gaines.

Bellevue and Gaines are not specifically named as defendants in the lawsuit, which claims the Southern Baptist Convention leaders denied the rights of sexual abuse survivors by covering up abuse by church members and employees.

The lawsuit accuses the SBC leaders of being aware of abusers who seek employment as pastors and staff, allowing them to obtain positions of authority within the church leadership and holding influence over adults and children in the congregations. It claims convention leadership “has done little or nothing…

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A federal civil lawsuit has been filed against the “Executive Committee of the Southern Baptist Convention,” and it mentions the senior pastor of the well-known Bellevue Baptist Church in Cordova.

The lawsuit makes disturbing allegations centered around the cover-up of sexual abuse within the church.Southern Baptist leaders release secret accused abuser list

It comes after six people claimed they at one point had ties to Baptist churches across the country and stated in the complaint, “Defendants have maliciously and systematically engaged in covering up and concealing instances of sexual abuse by the church members and employees as a strategy of denying rights of sexual abuse survivors.”

None of those making the complaints in this lawsuit are from the Mid-South, but they are suing the Executive Committee of the Southern Baptist Convention, which is headquartered in Nashville.

Cited in the 20-page federal lawsuit is an investigation done by newspapers out of…

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An Avondale priest charged with sexual assault had his case called for the first time in provincial court this morning.

Forty-nine-year-old Thomas Offong was charged two months ago following an investigation by RCMP in Holyrood.

They have only said the alleged incident occurred on November 23 in Avondale, and involved a woman.

There is a publication ban on her identity.

Offong is a Roman Catholic priest who has served in Avondale, Colliers, Conception Harbour and Burin, but also the Grand Falls-Windsor area.

He was not required to be in the courtroom this morning—instead represented by his lawyer on the phone, who told Judge Harold Porter that the disclosure evidence has been received, but they’ll need some time to review it.

Notably, the Crown said it will proceed by summary conviction, the less serious route, instead of by indictment.

The Bishop of Grand Falls, Rev. Robert Daniels, said in a statement…

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A second former altar boy is suing the Catholic Diocese of Charleston and the bishop of the Charleston diocese, alleging that they allowed a Myrtle Beach priest to sexually abuse him in the 1990s.

The lawsuit was filed on Jan. 8 by a John Doe who wanted to remain anonymous to protect his identity. Doe alleges that the Rev. Robert Kelly abused him in the early 1990s when Kelly was a priest at St. Andrews Catholic Church in Myrtle Beach.

“We have received a copy of the lawsuit and are currently reviewing it,” said Maria Aselage, the director of media relations with the Catholic Diocese of Charleston, in a statement sent by email. “We will respond to the pleading in due time.”

St. Andrews church did not respond to requests to comment on Sunday and Monday.

This is the second lawsuit against the Diocese alleging Kelly’s abuse…

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A Louisville Catholic school teacher is facing a federal investigation after being charged with distributing images of child pornography.

Federal investigators said Jordan Fautz, 39, photoshopped images of faces taken from St. Stephen Martyr Catholic School’s yearbook. Fautz was a seventh and eighth grade religion teacher when he sent out child sexual abuse materials to a law enforcement officer who was working undercover online.

On Saturday, St. Stephen Martyr Parish held a parent meeting with representatives from the Archdiocese and the FBI. Fautz was a part-time religion teacher and member of the maintenance staff at the parish for nine years. One year, he was a chaperone on an 8th grade school trip to Washington D.C.

“It’s just a sad thing, especially when it was someone who’s always been kind of involved with the school in some way and kind of grew up in a way it’s just a sad thing to see,” said…

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Jordan Fautz, the 39-year-old Louisville Catholic school teacher charged with distributing images of child pornography that had edited faces of students on them, will remain in custody after his attorney argued in federal court Tuesday he should be released.

The United States Department of Justice said Friday that Fautz, a seventh and eighth grade religion teacher at St. Stephen Martyr Catholic School, sent child sexual abuse materials to a law enforcement officer who was working undercover online.

Court documents say Fautz, 39, used yearbook photos of students and at least one adult from the school. The distributed images had photoshopped faces of students and the adult onto other nude images. 

Fautz was brought into the federal courtroom Tuesday in shackles and a black and white jail-issued jumpsuit. With his parents, wife and some of his alleged victims watching, attorney Frank Mascagni argued that Fautz is neither a flight risk nor…

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Breaking silence. Confronting clergy abuse. 

Its late in the evening and I’m still processing everything I heard earlier today in court – so forgive me if my thoughts are a little scattered.

Today was the opening day of a scheduled 19-day trial: John Doe versus the Catholic Archdiocese of Vancouver. 

Before I go any further, I wish to truly honour the incredible courage of the plaintiff who uses the pseudonym, John Doe.  I was in awe of Doe’s presence and composure today in court. 

Doe was raped and molested by a Catholic priest, Fr. John Kilty of Holy Trinity Parish on Vancouver’s North Shore, when he was six years old. As a very young and vulnerable child whose own father had tragically died just months earlier, Doe at that time completely trusted and adored Fr. John Kilty. 

Soon after being molested and raped by Kilty, Doe was then also raped by a…

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A 55-year-old man recalls grabbing a knife after the alleged abuse, thinking “I’m going to cut his throat.” He says he was six years old at the time.

A B.C. man who says a North Vancouver priest and a coach sexually abused him has testified he became close to the clergyman before the abuse began.

“I loved him,” the 55-year-old man testified in B.C. Supreme Court in New Westminster on Feb. 5.

The man, whose name is covered by a publication ban, told Justice Catherine Murray his father had been killed in a dock accident on the day of his sixth birthday party.

Under questioning from his lawyer, Sandra Kovacs, the man said he was still grieving when he began attending the school at North Vancouver’s Holy Trinity Parish.

Known as John Doe in court documents, the man said he first went to Father John Kilty’s residence to get a pop.

…

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[See also a PDF of the Dewane letter.]

Dear Parishioners of Sacred Heart Parish:

The Diocese of Venice has received notification from a law firm of an allegation of sexual misconduct by Reverend Jerome Kaywell, with someone who was a minor at the time. The incident allegedly occurred in the Winter of 2013/2014. Father Kaywell denies that the allegation is true and maintains he is innocent.

In accordance with the Diocesan Policy for the Protection of Children and Vulnerable Adults, upon learning of the allegation, I have placed Father Kaywell on administrative leave pending a preliminary investigation.

Anyone who believes that he or she has been the victim of sexual misconduct by someone serving in ministry for the Diocese of Venice, or any organization, should contact law enforcement officials. The Diocese of Venice provides a Victim Assistance Coordinator, who can be reached at 941-416-6114. As your Bishop, I wish…

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Cardinal Gerald Lacroix, who temporarily stepped down as archbishop of Quebec following abuse accusations, is in Rome for two-day meeting of the pope’s Council of Cardinals

Cardinal Gerald Cyprien Lacroix, who temporarily stepped aside from his duties as archbishop of Quebec last month after being accused of sexual assault, is in Rome this week for a two-day meeting with Pope Francis and his Council of Cardinals (C9).

The 66-year-old French Canadian cardinal, who has categorically denied the abuse accusations, is clearly visible in the photos Vatican meeting published on the first day of February 5-6 meeting. He seen sitting alongside other C9 members, including Cardinals Fridolin Ambongo of Kinshasa, Jean-Claude Hollerich of Luxembourg, Juan Jose Omella of Barcelona, Sean O’Malley of Boston and others.

The name of the Primate of the Canadian Church, as revealed by several Canadian media outlets, appeared last month in a major class action lawsuit that was filed…

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A second former altar boy is suing the Catholic Diocese of Charleston and the bishop of the Charleston diocese, alleging that they allowed a Myrtle Beach priest to sexually abuse him in the 1990s.

The lawsuit was filed on Jan. 8 by a John Doe who wanted to remain anonymous to protect his identity. Doe alleges that the Rev. Robert Kelly abused him in the early 1990s when Kelly was a priest at St. Andrews Catholic Church in Myrtle Beach.

“We have received a copy of the lawsuit and are currently reviewing it,” said Maria Aselage, the director of media relations with the Catholic Diocese of Charleston, in a statement sent by email. “We will respond to the pleading in due time.”

St. Andrews church did not respond to requests to comment on Sunday and Monday.

This is the second lawsuit against the Diocese alleging Kelly’s abuse of young boys,…

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The Archdiocese of Los Angeles last month dedicated a new “Garden of Healing” at LA’s St. Bernadette Catholic Church.

The garden is dedicated to victim-survivors of sexual abuse. It aims to be a safe space to offer some measure of peace and healing, as well as acknowledge the failures of the Church to prevent and adequately respond to abuse perpetrated by its priests, staff and volunteers.

St. Bernadette’s garden is the fourth of five planned gardens to open across the archdiocese; auxiliary Bishop Matthew Elshoff presided over an opening ceremony Jan. 17.

The idea for the healing garden came from Joe Montanez, a lifelong California resident. 

Montanez is a retired teacher of landscape design and horticulture, a husband and a father.

He is also a victim-survivor, who was sexually abused by a priest as an 11-year-old altar boy in Santa Barbara.

Montanez carried his pain alone for many years, even…

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U.S. BANKRUPTCY COURT FOR THE NORTHERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA

SAN FRANCISCO DIVISION

In re: The Roman Catholic Archbishop of San Francisco, Case No. 23-30564

Notice of Deadline for Filing Claims: February 20, 2024

YOU MAY HAVE A SEXUAL ABUSE CLAIM OR OTHER CLAIM AGAINST THE ARCHDIOCESE OF SAN FRANCISCO

On August 21, 2023, The Roman Catholic Archbishop of San Francisco, a California corporation sole, aka Archdiocese of San Francisco (the “Debtor”), filed for protection under chapter 11 of title 11 of the United States Code (the “Bankruptcy Code”).

If you were sexually abused by any person connected with the Debtor, you must file a claim so as to be received by February 20, 2024, or otherwise you will be forever barred, estopped, and enjoined from asserting such claim against the Debtor.

Claims based on acts or omissions of the Debtor that occurred before August 21, 2023, must be filed on…

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‘John Doe’ wants punitive damages against church at civil trial claiming abuse by priest and teacher

Nearly 50 years after his first day at North Vancouver’s Holy Trinity elementary school, “John Doe” still recalls with pride the buckle shoes he wore as part of a uniform that included a red sweater, white shirt and blue pants.

He was six years old. And it was to be a year of memories Doe has spent a lifetime trying to shake — his father’s death, the sudden switch to a Catholic school, and his rape there by a physical education teacher and the priest who governed Holy Trinity’s operations.

Five decades later, the 55-year-old — whose real name is protected by a publication ban — took the stand in a B.C. Supreme courtroom in New Westminster in a bid to hold the Catholic Church accountable for the actions of Ray Clavin and Father John Kilty.

“It felt very…

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An interdisciplinary conversation about ethics, means, and the meanings of sex abuse memorials.

Featuring:

Dr. Stephanie Arel, Fordham University
Dr. Alana Harris, King’s College, London
Dr. Layla Karst, Loyola Marymount University

Taking Responsibility – Spring ’24 Webinar I

Monday, March 18, 2024 at 12:00 – 1:30 pm (Eastern time)

Registration

It was nearly 40 years ago that the first reports of clergy sexual abuse began circulating in the U.S. popular press. It has been a period of great pain, loss, and sorrow. Understandably, many in the Catholic church want to put these years behind them. They point to new policies and ongoing reform efforts to suggest the time has come for Catholics to look ahead, focus on preventing future abuse, and build the church of the future. 

Without denying the value of these efforts, others insist that the story is not over. New revelations keep coming, legal battles…

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An interdisciplinary conversation about transparency, control, and the volatility of sex abuse archives.

Featuring:
Dr. Jennifer Haselberger, JCL, Ph.D., Founder, Canonical Consultations
Dr. Kathleen Holscher, Associate Professor, University of New Mexico
Terence McKiernan, President, BishopAccountability.org
Levi Monagle, J.D., Partner, Hall, Monagle, Huffman, Wallace, LLC

Taking Responsibility – Spring ’24 Webinar II

Wednesday, April 10, 2024 at 4:30 – 6:00 pm (Eastern Time)

Registration

Springing from a recent legal settlement that promised an Abuse Documents Archive in the Archdiocese of Santa Fe, this webinar asks questions about the meanings, limits, and promise of “transparency” in the effort to understand and ameliorate the Catholic clergy abuse crisis. 

What is to be learned, gained, and achieved in opening up the archives of Catholic sex abuse? What kind of healing follows from transparency, if any? Beyond respecting the wishes of survivors who prefer privacy, are there any other limitations to consider? What does transparency…

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Welcome to my website and my first ever blog… 

For this, I have chosen to address the topic of breaking silence and confronting clergy abuse. 

As a Spiritual Health Practitioner, I’m passionate about the importance of tending to our spiritual health and well-being. Whether we adhere to a particular religion, are atheist or are agnostic, maintaining good spiritual health is essential. 

Whatever spiritual practices you enjoy – be it a walk out in nature and feeling part of something bigger than us, spending time in meditation or participating in communal worship with a local faith community, these are just some of the ways we get in touch with the divine or cosmic beat of life. These are the practices that are essential to our balance, well-being, and health. 

When it comes to understanding sexual abuse of any kind, it goes without saying that for the person who has been violated, it…

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Advocates for survivors of sexual abuse by clergy are calling on the Archdiocese of Kansas City in Kansas to address the case of an ex-priest who was investigated for possession of child pornography while he temporarily lived in Leawood.

The former priest, James Jackson, became the target of an investigation led by Overland Park police in 2022. At the time, Jackson, who spent part of his childhood in Prairie Village and attended the University of Kansas, was on supervised release for a separate federal case in Rhode Island.

Members of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, this week complained of what they called the “silence” around the allegations against Jackson along with other concerns, including the reinstatement of a priest in Lenexa who had been accused of child molestation and the hiring at Bishop Miege Catholic High School of a man who previously faced a child sex…

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Yesterday, Harrisburg, PA’s local ABC affiliate reported that Pennsylvania police had charged a local stake president of being aware of, but not reporting, child sexual assault allegations. Allegedly, the stake president knew of the abuse as early as October 2020, and appears to have learned about it from both the victim and the perpetrator (who was, himself, a local church leader). Under Pennsylvania law, clergy are “mandated reporters,” required to report suspected child abuse where they have reasonable cause to suspect that it’s happening. Failure to report is a third-degree felony in Pennsylvania, and people convicted of third-degree felonies face up to seven years’ imprisonment.

Allegations that church leaders mishandled accusations of child abuse are, unfortunately, nothing new. And my cobloggers and I have written a fair amount about abuse and the church’s reaction to it.[fn1] But until we repent and get it right, I’m afraid we’re going to have to…

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Pennsylvania State Police have charged Rhett Hintze, a lobbyist and “stake president” of seven area Church of Jesus Christ and Latter-Day Saints churches, with being aware of but not reporting child sex assault allegations against a Lebanon County church leader.

The charges were filed on Wednesday and Hintze is scheduled to be arraigned Friday.

Police expect Hintze, 50, to turn himself in. He’s charged with “failure to report or refer” allegations, a third-degree felony. In Pennsylvania, third-degree felonies generally can carry prison terms of up to seven years.

According to police documents, Hintze’s church leadership role made him a “mandated reporter” under Pennsylvania’s Child Protective Services Law, which dates to 1975 but expanded in 2014 following the Jerry Sandusky scandal to include more categories of people as mandated reporters and to increase the penalties for not reporting allegations.

Shawn Cory Gooden, who police say held…

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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 once again is proposing legislation that will impact a spiritual tradition long practiced by our Catholic Church.

The Sacrament of Confession has been central to the practice of our Catholic faith for 2,000 years. This divine gift from Jesus helps us prepare to receive the Eucharist and to participate fully in our faith. During the Sacrament of Reconciliation, as it also is known, we confess and seek absolution of our sins from a priest, who sits in the confessional as our living conduit to our God.

What is said in the confessional is between the penitent and God, and is private. All priests are required by Church law (Code of Canon Law Canon 983 §1) to maintain complete secrecy about what is heard during Confession. Knowing that Confession is a…

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A former parish priest, the Diocese (Catholic) of Antigonish and Bishop Wayne Kirk- patrick are all named in a civil suit that alleges incidents of sexual assault and a failure to investig- ate.

A Sydney woman claims that between Jan. 12-14, 2022, then Father Patrick J. O’neill sexually assaulted her on two occasions in his vehicle after enticing her with alcohol in exchange for sexual favours.

At the time, O’neill was parish priest at Our Lady of Fatima Church in Sydney River. He has since left the priesthood.

According to the statement of claim, the woman was dealing with alcohol addiction at the time and was attending Alcoholics Anonymous meetings when an individual recommended that she might find additional support and comfort by becoming involved in religion.

She was referred to Our Lady of Fatima Church and introduced to O’neill.

The allegations contained in the statement of claim have not…

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“Clericalism is a whip. It is a scourge. It is a form of worldliness that defiles and damages the face of the Lord’s bride,” the church, Pope Francis said to the bishops at the global assembly of Synod in Rome on Oct. 25, 2023.

In the U.S. Catholic Church, clericalism still dominates. Vatican II’s laity-elected parish councils have been euthanized, no longer called to action by pastors. The ranks of altar boys and girls and Catholic schools have decreased. Front-page abuse stories are publicly ignored by church authorities and communication with reporters stonewalled, as in staff writer Deena Yellin’s “Justice Delayed” (Jan. 28).

Protecting the truth and facts in public life is not preached as central to social and civic life. Instead of bridging opposing sides and differences, bishops and pastors put lids on them, keeping issues and parishioners separate and divided from dialoguing by choking off parish councils and…

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The US National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) says that in 2023, it received 4,700 reports of content depicting child sexual exploitation generated by artificial intelligence (AI).

The problem is expected to worsen with the advance of AI technology, NCMEC told Reuters.

Child safety experts and researchers have expressed concerns about the risks posed by generative AI technology, which could increase online child exploitation.

In 2022, NCMEC received reports of some 88.3 million files.

John Shehan, senior vice president at NCMEC, said, “We are receiving reports from the generative AI companies themselves, online platforms and members of the public. It is absolutely happening.”

In a report released in June, researchers at the Stanford Internet Observatory said that abusers could use generative AI to create new images of real children, therefore repeatedly harming them.

Fallon McNulty, director of NCMEC’s CyberTipline, which receives reports of online child exploitation, said content…

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When an aid organization hired agents to investigate her father’s violence, the resulting probe became her new nightmare.

Tania Culver Humphrey has spent most of her life grappling with her father’s secrets.

In public, her father, Ellsworth Culver, cultivated a reputation as a globetrotting Christian do-gooder. He taught schoolchildren in Cuba, ran missionary programs in the Philippines, and, in the early 1980s, co-founded the humanitarian nonprofit Mercy Corps with friends from the international aid world. At Mercy Corps, including the nine years he spent as its president, he built programs across three continents, conducted informal diplomacy in conflict zones, and received a medal from North Korea for organizing food and medical aid.

In private, he was sexually abusing ­Humphrey, his youngest daughter—at times raping her, choking her, and taking explicit photos of her, according to a lawsuit she eventually filed. The abuse, she says, began as far back as she can remember and…

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A Catholic priest from the Order of Discalced Carmelites was convicted of child sexual abuse on February 16, 2022, yet the 2015 accusations against him and the conviction are only now coming to the public’s attention. SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, wonders why two Northern California dioceses, as well as the priest’s religious order, did not give this important information to the faithful earlier?

On Feb. 16, 2022, Fr. Mark Kristy pleaded no contest to one felony count of committing lewd or lascivious acts on a girl younger than 14. The abuse was apparently reported to both the Diocese of Sacramento and the Carmelites in 2015. The Cathedral of St. Eugene in Santa Rosa issued a vague warning about the priest September of 2022, according to the Sacramento Bee.

In 2002, the United States Conference of…

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Mike Bickle, founder of the International House of Prayer-Kansas City (IHOPKC), had “sexual contact” with a second, previously unreported Jane Doe victim, according to a report from IHOPKC’s highly-debated third-party investigation released last night. Bickle also “more likely than not” abused his power, the report stated.

The seven-page report by Rosalee McNamara of the Lathrop Group also confirmed that Bickle engaged in “inappropriate behavior” with a “primary ‘Jane Doe’” whose story was reported exclusively by The Roys Report (TRR) in November.

“Based on all the credible evidence, including his own acknowledgements of contact with the two Jane Does over twenty years ago, it is more likely than not that MB engaged in inappropriate behavior including sexual contact and clergy misconduct, in an abuse of power for a person in a position of trust and leadership,” McNamara’s report stated.

McNamara’s report was based on documents and interviews with some…

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The Michigan attorney general is conducting investigations of abuse allegations in each of the seven Catholic dioceses in the state.

A U.S. bishop in the state of Michigan this week announced that two priests would be forbidden from saying public Masses following the publication earlier this month of an abuse report from the state attorney general. 

Attorney General Dana Nessel’s office announced on Jan. 8 the release of the second government report on alleged Church abuse in the state. The report focused on “allegations of abuse that took place in the Diocese of Gaylord,” the office said at the time. 

The abuse allegations, many of them decades old, highlighted claims against nearly 30 priests in that diocese, the majority of whom were “known or presumed” to be dead. Of the 12 living priests, “three are in active ministry” with the diocese, the report said. 

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A Pennsylvania state representative who went public with his own experience as a sexual abuse survivor to champion causes in support of others like him is leaving politics.

Rep. Mark Rozzi, D-Berks, on Wednesday formally endorsed his one-time primary election opponent for the Office of Auditor General, Rep. Malcolm Kenyatta, D-Philadelphia.

“This is going to be my last term, and after I’m done here, I’m moving forward and I’m turning the page to the next part of my life,” Rozzi said at press conference outside Reading High School before giving his full endorsement to his Democratic colleague.

Rozzi ended his own campaign for the statewide office. He previously said he wouldn’t seek reelection to the House and instead lent his support to his ex-wife, Jacklyn Rusnock, who’s courting the Democratic nomination for the 126th District.

The state Democratic Party previously voted to support Kenyatta in the spring primary. Lehigh County…

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Three additional lawsuits were filed last week against Ted Suhl and others associated with the Lord’s Ranch, alleging staff at the now-defunct northeast Arkansas behavioral health facility sexually and physically abused dozens of children and teenagers entrusted to their care over the course of several decades.

Founded by the Suhl family in the 1970s, the Lord’s Ranch sits on a 1,100-acre property near the Missouri state line north of Pocahontas. Thousands of troubled youths passed through the remote facility over the decades, many of them sent from states including Illinois, Indiana, Texas and Alaska, as well as Arkansas. It received hundreds of millions of dollars in Medicaid funding throughout the 1990s, 2000s and 2010s. The Lord’s Ranch shut down in 2016 after Ted Suhl, the facility’s director for many years, was convicted of bribing a state Medicaid official and sentenced to seven years in federal prison.

Suhl was released by President Donald Trump…

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A Ruckersville pastor has been arrested for allegedly sexually abusing a minor child.

Rodney Locklear, 47, the senior pastor at Victory Church in Ruckersville, is now behind bars.

“We had a kid reach out to a family friend. Word got to us and we started our investigation a couple of days ago,” investigator Matthew Harlow said.

That investigation led to the Greene County Sheriff’s Office and the U.S. Marshals Fugitive Task Force arresting Locklear on Thursday night.

He’s charged with abduction with intent to defile and aggravated sexually battery of someone age 13 to 14.

“Victory Church is a church where they have the traditional Sunday services. They also have Bible study on Wednesdays. They’ve also been known to have different public events or cookouts, just different things involving the youth in the community in Greene County and try to bring them together,” head of investigations Capt. Kevin Freid said, “So we’re asking…

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A Louisville Catholic school teacher is charged with distributing images of child pornography that federal investigators said included photoshopped images of faces taken from the school’s yearbook.

According to a news release from the United States Department of Justice, when he was a seventh and eighth grade religion teacher at St. Stephen Martyr Catholic School, 39-year-old Jordan Fautz sent out child sexual abuse materials to a law enforcement officer who was working undercover online.

Court documents say Fautz used yearbook photos of students and at least one adult from the school. The distributed images had photoshopped faces of students and the adult onto other nude images. 

The incidents took place between March 2022 and January 2024.

“Please keep our parish and school in your prayers as we deal with this very distressing situation,” St. Stephen Martyr Pastor Rev. Peter Bucalo said in a statement on the school’s…

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A teacher at a Louisville Catholic school faces federal charges on allegations he spread altered child porn images online that included photos of local students.

Jordan A. Fautz, 39, was charged Friday with distributing obscene visual representations of child sexual abuse and distributing child pornography, according to a release from the U.S. Attorney’s Western District of Kentucky office.

Fautz was a teacher at St. Stephen Martyr School at the time of the incidents – the charging document said he currently taught seventh and eighth grade students. A statement from the Archdiocese of Louisville said he was a “part-time religion teacher and member of the maintenance staff at the parish for 9 years.”

Fautz will not be returning to the school, the statement said, and the parish and archdiocese are “fully cooperating with the investigation.” A parent meeting will take place Saturday, with archdiocese representatives and FBI personnel on hand.

A…

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Authorities said some of these materials had been manipulated by morphing or photoshopping original child sexual abuse materials with non-explicit images of minors.

WARNING: This story contains content that could be graphic or disturbing to some readers.

A Louisville middle school teacher could spend decades in prison after being accused of using his students’ photos to create and distribute child pornography. 

While working as a 7th and 8th grade religion teacher at St. Stephen Martyr Catholic School, 39-year-old Jordan Fautz distributed child sexual abuse materials to an undercover officer, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Kentucky. Authorities said this happened in March 2022, November 2022, December 2023, and January 2024.

The Archdiocese of Louisville issued a statement on Friday afternoon saying Fautz was arrested and was a part-time religion teacher and member of the maintenance staff at the parish for nine years. 

Officials…

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A federal criminal complaint and arrest warrant were issued today charging 39 year old Michael E Stanbury, a Louisville school teacher with distributing obscene visual representations of child sexual abuse and distributing child pornography.

According to court records, in December 2023 and January 2024, Jordan A. Fautz, 39, while employed as a 7th and 8th grade religion teacher at St. Stephen Martyr Catholic School in Louisville, Kentucky, distributed child sexual abuse materials to a law enforcement officer working online undercover. Certain of these materials had been manipulated by morphing or photoshopping original child sexual abuse materials with other, non-explicit images of minors.  For example, in one such instance, the nude image of a minor victim depicted her face transposed by means of photoshop or morphing technology onto a different nude female’s body, effectively generating child sexual abuse material.

Fautz will be scheduled to make his initial appearance before a U.S….

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John Vermeer starts 14-month jail sentence after Supreme Court dismisses appeal

A former Chilliwack pastor is now in jail for child pornography charges following a lengthy, and ultimately unsuccessful, appeal process.

John Vermeer was convicted in 2021 for two charges each of accessing and possessing child pornography, after suspicious activity on his church’s network server (Main Street Church) was discovered. It was reported to police and an investigation found offences dating from 2010 to 2015.

He was found guilty of all four charges and handed a 14-month jail sentence in October 2021. Dozens of images of child porn were found on Vermeer’s personal laptop and his church office desktop computer.

“Mr. Vermeer possessed some of the most offensive, harmful and depraved forms of abuse on children,” Judge Andrea Ormiston said in reading her decision.

He appealed the convicted to the BC Court of Appeals, and released on bail. That appeal…

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When an aid organization hired agents to investigate her father’s violence, the resulting probe became her new nightmare.

Tania Culver Humphrey has spent most of her life grappling with her father’s secrets.

In public, her father, Ellsworth Culver, cultivated a reputation as a globetrotting Christian do-gooder. He taught schoolchildren in Cuba, ran missionary programs in the Philippines, and, in the early 1980s, co-founded the humanitarian nonprofit Mercy Corps with friends from the international aid world. At Mercy Corps, including the nine years he spent as its president, he built programs across three continents, conducted informal diplomacy in conflict zones, and received a medal from North Korea for organizing food and medical aid.

In private, he was sexually abusing ­Humphrey, his youngest daughter—at times raping her, choking her, and taking explicit photos of her, according to a lawsuit she eventually filed. The abuse, she says, began as far back as she can remember and…

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A Utah bishop explained the importance of the 2,000 year-old sacrament of Confession and its boundaries as his state’s legislators consider a bill that potentially could infringe on the seal of Confession. 

The “seal of Confession” means that a priest is not permitted to reveal anything the penitent discloses in the sacrament of Confession. If the priest does reveal or disclose any actions or sins confessed, he will be excommunicated. 

Currently in Utah, “religious leaders are not allowed to report a church member’s confession to law enforcement without the consent of the person confessing… House Bill 432 “would change that,” ABC 4 reported: The bill would allow clergy to “report ongoing abuse or neglect even if the perpetrator made a confession to the clergy member…”

However, it should be noted that if clergy in Utah hear of abuse outside of a confession,…

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Bishop Oscar Solis of the Diocese of Salt Lake City is urging lawmakers to protect the seal of confession when considering legislation that would change sex abuse reporting laws when the reporter is a member of clergy.

A proposed bill before the Utah Legislature would extend to members of the clergy the same legal protections when reporting sex abuse that are given to mandatory reporters. Essentially, the legislation would shield clergy from potential civil or criminal liability when reporting a potential abuser if he “reasonably believes that a child is the subject of ongoing abuse or neglect.”

Unlike similar proposals in 2020 and 2023, the bill would not make the priest a mandatory reporter and would not require the priest to report on information learned when hearing a confession. However, the protection from legal liability would extend to the priest if he were to do so.

Solis said…

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Santa Rosa Diocese goes public about Napa County Carmelite priest first accused of abusing a Rocklin girl in 2015 and later convicted of felony molestation.

In the eight-plus years since Napa County Carmelite Priest Mark Kristy was first accused of improper conduct with a girl at her Sacramento-area home, he has been arrested, convicted of a felony, jailed for six months and sentenced to five years of probation that he’s now serving in St. Helena.

His name, face, address and the legal description of his more-than-20-year-old crime — lewd or lascivious acts with a child under 14 — are duly posted on California’s Megan’s Law website, where sex registrants convicted of qualifying crimes are cataloged.

But until recent weeks, church officials made no effort to notify the public or parishioners about his presence in the community, despite the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ “commitment to transparency and openness” in the…

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The Catholic Diocese of Sacramento has added a name to a list of clergy members accused of sexual abuse that now includes a priest who served in another Northern California diocese but was convicted of molesting a girl while visiting Placer County.

Mark Kristy, once a priest of the religious order Discalced Carmelite Fathers, has been removed from the ministry and lives in Napa County. Kristy was convicted of child sexual molestation and sentenced in 2022 to one year in jail, according to the diocese.

Officials of the diocese were informed of the allegations against Kristy in 2015. Kristy was accused of sexually touching the girl who was younger than 14 and sexually exposing her sometime from 2001 through 2004, according to the diocese.

Diocese officials said they reported the allegation to law enforcement and cooperated with authorities in Placer County, which eventually led to Kristy’s prosecution….

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The Vatican has received a report on an investigation into allegations that members of the Swiss Bishops’ Conference tried to cover up abuse in the Catholic Church. 

The Bishop of Chur, Joseph Bonnemain, has submitted the report covering accusations of harassment and covering up alleged abuse. 

+ Why Switzerland is losing its religion

The documentation collected as part of the preliminary canonical investigation, mandated in June 2023 by the Vatican, totals 1,800 pages, the bishopric of Chur said in a press release on Friday. A 24-page final report contains a series of conclusions and recommendations for Vatican officials. 

The bishopric of Chur has not provided information on the concrete results of the preliminary canonical investigation. Questioned by the Keystone-ATS agency, Nicole Büchel, communications manager, explained that she did not receive authorisation from Rome to reveal the content of the report. 

With the submission of the report, Bonnemain’s mission is…

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The church has admitted the abuse took place but denies it acted negligently or acted in a ‘high-handed manner’ over the claims

Warning: This story contains accounts of sexual abuse that may be disturbing for some readers

A Surrey man who says he was groomed and sexually assaulted by a priest and teacher at North Vancouver’s Holy Trinity Elementary School in the 1970s is suing the Catholic Church for negligence for failing to identify and stop the abuse.

The Roman Catholic Archbishop of Vancouver is named as a defendant in the lawsuit along with the estates of former priest John Kilty and a former teacher and coach.

In a response to the suit filed last summer on behalf of “John Doe,” the archdiocese admitted abuses took place but denied it was negligent or acted in “any high-handed, malicious, arbitrary or highly reprehensible manner” that could make it liable for damages. It…

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The Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP) called on the Archdiocese of Kansas City in Kansas, to hold an open meeting for both parishioners and the public on the recent installation of Father John Pilcher

On Thursday, SNAP – the Survivors Network for those Abused by Priests – called on the Archdiocese of Kansas City in Kansas to hold an open meeting for both parishioners and the public. The installation of Father John Pilcher at Holy Trinity is the latest reason.

The Archdiocese placed Father Pilcher – accused of sexual assault of a minor in Topeka in 2021 but never charged – at the Holy Trinity Parish in Lenexa last month.Advertisement

It is one of the larger parishes and one of the largest parochial schools in the Archdiocese.

That move caused SNAP to speak out.

“We can see absolutely no harm, and we can see nothing…

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Dear Archbishop Naumann:

We urge you, in the weeks ahead, to hold at least one joint open and public meeting with us and anyone who cares about the safety of innocent kids and vulnerable adults in your archdiocese.

The goal: to give worried parents and parishioners an opportunity to question and hear from you directly on a matter of grave importance. It would give you a chance to more thoroughly explain why you believe your actions around alleged child molesters are not reckless and callous. And it would give you an opportunity to shed much-needed light on the controversil and opaque process you follow when reports of sexual violence are made against your staff.

Such a meeting would be historic. In the 35 years of SNAP’s existence, we know of no US bishop who has show such openness and courage. It would, we believe, deepen the respect that many of…

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Group for those abused by priests calls for reassignment of Lenexa priest

KANSAS CITY, Kan. — A support group for those abused by priests is calling for the reassignment of a priest appointed last month to Holy Trinity Catholic Church in Lenexa.

Archbishop Joseph Naumann appointed Father John Pilcher to Holy Trinity Catholic Church in January.

Holy Trinity Catholic Church also has a school and daycare.

Concerns from parishioners and parents stem from a 2021 allegation against the priest involving sexual abuse of a minor.

The KBI and archdiocese found the allegation unsubstantiated. He was also never charged.

On Thursday, Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests or SNAP sent a letter to the archdiocese calling on Naumann to hold at least one joint open and public meeting.

Former SNAP National Director David Clohessy questioned a recent decision by the archbishop when he appointed Pilcher to Holy Trinity Catholic Church in…

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[VIDEO]

KANSAS CITY, Kan. — Advocates for survivors of sexual abuse at the hands of priests are publicly asking the Kansas City archdiocese to remove two men from their jobs in Johnson County.

One is now a priest at a Lenexa parish with a parochial school, and the other is the president at a Roeland Park Catholic high school.

Both have faced accusations of child molestation in the past. One of them faced a lawsuit, but neither of them ever faced criminal charges.

The Archdiocese of Kansas City in Kansas said it did investigations into both men, as did law enforcement, and could not substantiate the accusations.

The advocates group Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests said that doesn’t justify putting them back in jobs near children.

“This notion of innocent until proven guilty, that the standard we use to lock up people and deprive them of their…

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ROME – A key Vatican department charged with prosecuting sexual abuse against minors since 2001 said this week that while it’s also responsible for cases of abuse against adults with mental deficiencies, offenses against adults considered “vulnerable” for different reasons falls outside its jurisdiction and must be handled by other departments.

In a Jan. 30 “Clarification on Vulnerable Adults,” the Vatican’s Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith (DDF) noted that a series of 2010 amendments to Pope John Paul II’s 2001 motu proprio Sacramentorum Sanctitatis Tutela on series crimes reserved to the DDF gave the department competence over the abuse of persons with mental deficiencies.

A “dicastery,” in the argot of the Vatican, refers to a department or office. Likewise, in Vatican-speak “competence” means responsibility or jurisdiction.

According to Tuesday’s statement, with the 2010 revisions the DDF “acquired the competence to deal with crimes against the sixth commandment of the decalogue…

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ROME – A Vatican court Jan. 24 overturned the acquittal of a priest accused of sexually abusing a younger student at the Vatican’s St. Pius X Pre-Seminary, delivering a guilty verdict in a landmark case that marked the first ever to go to trial for alleged sexual abuse within Vatican walls.

Upon appeal from the prosecution, the October 2021 acquittal of Father Gabriele Martinelli, who was accused of abusing another student from 2007 to 2012 when he studied at the St. Pius X Pre-Seminary, was overturned by the Vatican’s appeals court.

Martinelli, initially acquitted due to a lack of evidence, this week was found guilty of “corrupting a minor” for sexual abuse committed between 2008-2009 and sentenced to two years and six months in prison.

The St. Pius X seminary, previously located inside a palazzo within the Vatican gardens, houses boys aged 12-18 who serve as altar boys at papal…

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Is the EC or SBC at Fault in the SBC Sexual Abuse Scandal

In a recent interview the President of the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC), Dr. Bart Barber, discussed the sexual abuse scandal in the SBC among other topics. In the interview Barber says,

“What the investigation found after looking hard to see if they could find a time when the convention or the executive committee knew about abuse and failed to report it, or facilitated an abuser being able to continue to abuse, they didn’t find any instances where the convention or the executive committee did that…”

Technically True

 Video Of Barber’s Remarks about the Sexual Abuse Scandal

Barber is technically correct. The Executive Committee (EC) and the SBC itself did not fail to report sexual abuse or facilitate abuse by moving ministers from place to place. While the EC and SBC as a whole…

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Two members of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP) gathered Thursday outside The Cathedral of St. Peter the Apostle in Kansas City, Kansas, demanding the men to be removed from their roles and for the leader of the Archdiocese of Kansas City in Kansas to publicly address concerns about them.

The protest followed a letter Thursday to Archbishop Joseph Naumann, asking for the church leader to hold a public meeting with the group, worried parents and parishioners. In its letter to the archbishop, SNAP said a meeting of this nature could inspire similar meetings elsewhere which could lead to greater awareness of child sex crimes and hopefully even prevent them from happening.

“It would, we believe, deepen the respect that many of your flock have in you, and help create such respect where it is lacking,” the letter says.

The letter from SNAP and calls to action…

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The Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith issued on Tuesday a “clarification” on the limits of its competence to prosecute canonical cases of clerical abuse against “vulnerable adults.” 

“The Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith – since 21 May 2010 – has acquired competence to treat the crimes against the sixth commandment of the Decalogue committed by clerics with people who habitually have imperfect use of – reason [emphasis original],” the dicastery’s Jan. 30 clarification reiterated.

“Following the promulgation of the motu proprio Vos estis lux mundi… the concept of vulnerable adult has been introduced into the canonical order, which includes ‘every person in a state of infirmity, of physical deficiency or Psychic, or deprivation of personal liberty, but also Occasionally, it limits its ability to understand or to want or otherwise resist the offense,’” the document continued.

“In this respect, it should be remembered that the definition of adult vulnerable integrates more extensive cases…

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The number of “debaptism” requests have reportedly spiked again after the television series Gotvergeten.

Belgian bishops at the consecration of Archbishop Luc Terlinden of Brussels (second from right) in September – the same month that a documentary on Church abuse provoked public anger.
Belga News Agency / Alamy

The Belgian Church, facing rising protests after a television film on sexual abuse and cover-ups in its ranks, has appealed against a government data protection agency ruling that the Diocese of Ghent must let a person be “debaptised”.   

When Catholics ask to have their names struck from baptismal records, officials usually add a note to their files saying they have renounced their baptism without taking the name off its official registry.

The Church considers baptism a permanent act that cannot be done away with, but the agency ruled in December that the plaintiff’s personal data record overrides the Church’s interest in preserving…

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The Catholic Diocese of Sacramento has added a name to a list of clergy members accused of sexual abuse that now includes a priest who served in another Northern California diocese but was convicted of molesting a girl while visiting Placer County.

Mark Kristy, once a priest of the religious order Discalced Carmelite Fathers, has been removed from the ministry and lives in Napa County. Kristy was convicted of child sexual molestation and sentenced in 2022 to one year in jail, according to the diocese.

Officials of the diocese were informed of the allegations against Kristy in 2015. Kristy was accused of sexually touching the girl who was younger than 14 and sexually exposing her sometime from 2001 through 2004, according to the diocese. Diocese officials said they reported the allegation to law enforcement and cooperated with authorities in Placer County, which eventually led to Kristy’s prosecution.

On Feb. 16,…

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Cases involving vulnerable adults who have an imperfect use of reason should be referred to offices of Roman Curia

In cases of a cleric sexually abusing a “vulnerable adult,” the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith investigates and judges only cases involving “persons who habitually have an imperfect use of reason,” the dicastery said in a note published Jan. 30.

Other cases involving vulnerable adults, including those in situations where their ability “to understand or will or otherwise resist the offense” is temporarily limited, should be referred to other offices of the Roman Curia, the clarification said.

While church documents issued in the past 15 years have included “vulnerable adults” as a special category in need of protection from clerical sexual abuse, questions have been raised about whether those persons should always be treated in church procedures in a way equivalent to children under the age of 18. For…

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Note: This story was updated to reflect Hintze’s position within Bravo Group.

A Cumberland County man and “stake president” of the Harrisburg area Church of Jesus Christ and Latter-day Saints was charged Wednesday by Pa. State Police after they say he failed to report child sex abuse accusations against a former bishop, Boy Scout leader and lawyer from central Pennsylvania.

Rhett Hintze, 50, of New Cumberland, was charged with one count of failure to report or refer child abuse in connection to the July 2023 charges against Shawn Gooden, a former bishop for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints who is accused of sexually assaulting a 12-year-old boy in French Creek State Park in 2000.

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A nun linked to allegations of abuse at the Lourdes Home orphanage in Gozo decades ago died on Tuesday.

Mother Superior Carmelita Borg’s death was announced by the Santwarju Madonna ta’ Pompej Facebook page.

The Mother Superior for the Dominican nuns was responsible for the Lourdes Home orphanage in Għajnsielem where alleged abused took place.

Borg was responsible for the Lourdes Home orphanage during the 1970s and 1980s, with victims accusing her of turning a blind eye to the abuse they suffered.

Earlier this month, two women who had lived at the home decades ago, described harrowing experiences of sexual abuse by clergy and savage beatings from nuns in court.

The two women testified in a Constitutional case against the State presided over by Judge Mark Simiana, in which they claim the State had done nothing to safeguard their rights or care at the orphanage.

The women Rosanne Saliba…

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Some seven months after Daniel Savala, an itinerant minister and convicted sex offender  with ties to the Chi Alpha Campus Ministries sponsored by the Assemblies of God, was arrested for sexually abusing two boys, a Texas father has filed a lawsuit accusing the nation’s largest Pentecostal denomination of negligence that allowed his 13-year-old son to be abused by multiple men.

Also named as defendants in the lawsuit filed in the Harris County Court last Thursday by Stephen Holt on behalf of his teenage son, identified only as L.H., are Chi Alpha Campus Ministries, College Station; North Texas Assemblies of God, and Mountain Valley Fellowship.

Holt is also seeking “monetary relief over $1,000,000” for the “harm” experienced by his son due to “the malice, gross negligence, …. or both of each of the defendants” under Texas law.

Savala, according to CBS affiliate KWTX, was…

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A survivor of child sex abuse himself, he has worked to extend the statute of limitations for others. He’ll finish out the year in office.

Mark Rozzi got into politics to give survivors of child sex abuse such as himself a voice in Harrisburg.

But after 11 years serving in the Pennsylvania House, including a brief stint last year as House speaker, the Democrat from Reading is leaving politics less hopeful than he was when he started.

Rozzi, 52, quietly ended his auditor general campaign in December and told The Inquirer he has spent the last few months isolating himself during a particularly difficult bout of depression, a yearslong struggle caused by being sexually abused by a Catholic priest when he was a boy. He’ll serve the remainder of his term before leaving office at the end of the year.

“A lot of times, my…

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Washington state lawmakers are making another attempt to pass a bill that would require clergy members to act as mandatory reporters of child abuse or neglect. Senate Bill 6298 aims to include clergy in the list of mandatory reporters in Washington, addressing a significant gap in the state’s current laws. Last year, the bill faced opposition from Catholic lobbyists, but this time, the bill’s main sponsor, state Sen. Noel Frame, D-Seattle, hopes to find a compromise that will address concerns raised by Catholic representatives regarding the reporting of information obtained during confession.

Washington state currently stands among the five states where clergy members are not legally obligated to report incidents of child abuse or neglect. Recognizing the importance of closing this gap, lawmakers have reintroduced Senate Bill 6298 to rectify the situation. By mandating that clergy members report any suspected cases of child abuse or neglect, the bill aims to…

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They’ve been talking about married priests on X/Twitter lately.

A Vatican official brought up ending the usual requirement for priestly celibacy in the Roman Catholic Church as a possible way to help priests not feel the need to live “double live.”  He didn’t draw any links between celibacy and sexual abuse, but since he also investigates clerical abuse he mentioned how it’s changed his point of view. And people got to talking. The question was asked, as I’ve often heard it asked: could letting priests have a wife help prevent the horrific sexual abuse scandals that just seem to keep happening? And as I always do when it’s asked, I cringed.

I am all in favor of examining the expectation that priests should be celibate. There are many reasons it might be good to have a married priesthood more like they do in the Eastern tradition. But it’s…

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Co-directors Julian Brave NoiseCat and Emily Kassie deliver a quietly devastating account of unpunished crimes committed by representatives of the Catholic Church.

[Note from BA: The residential school featured in this film was St. Joseph’s Mission. This review mistakenly refers to it four times as “St. John’s.”]

It’s altogether likely that many non-Indigenous people knew nothing about the abuse and disappearances of Native American children that occurred over decades in residential Indian schools throughout North America until those outages inspired a wrenchingly potent subplot last year for the Taylor Sheridan-produced TV series “1923.” But the truth behind that fact-based fiction is even more shocking, and infuriating, as detailed in “Sugarcane,” the remarkable film that received a well-deserved jury prize for documentary direction at this year’s Sundance Film Festival.

Indigenous filmmaker Julian Brave NoiseCat and co-director Emily Kassie show restraint and empathy while cataloguing the horrors that were endemic at the…

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It really is hard to tell what’s going on in Pope Francis’s Vatican, especially these days, but that’s because there’s plenty—too much—to see.

Heading into the weekend, Italy’s Domani published a piece detailing new allegations against the disgraced former Jesuit, Marko Rupnik–inexplicably and intolerably styled Fr. Marko Rupnik—extern of Koper diocese in his native Slovenia, currently resident in Rome and reported to be regularly seen at the Centro Aletti he founded in the early 1990s.

The allegations amount to physical assault and grievous bodily harm.

Basically, the victim alleges that Rupnik broke her right index finger during a “spiritual counselling” session. Maybe he did break the finger, maybe he didn’t. Both Rupnik and Ivanka Hosta (then-superior of the woman’s religious community) allegedly prohibited the victim from seeking medical treatment.

A fracture should show on x-rays, even at many years’ remove from the incident….

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(ANALYSIS) The hellish relationship began with a kiss — a strange exchange between a teenager preparing to become a Loyola sister and the Slovenian Jesuit who was already her confessor.

“The first time he kissed me on the mouth, telling me that this was how he kissed the altar where he celebrated the Eucharist, because with me he could experience sex as an expression of God’s love,” said “Anna” in an interview with the Italian news agency Domani.

The young priest was Father Marko Ivan Rupnik, who was already an artist on the rise. His artistic skills brought him to the Vatican in the late 1990s, and his sacred art has been celebrated around the world. However, he has been accused of sexual and spiritual abuse of Slovenian nuns, such as “Anna,” in the 1980s and ‘90s.

It was hard, said “Anna,” to grasp the meaning of lingering hugs after…

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Cardinal Gérald Lacroix of Québec has announced he will temporarily step aside from his duties, after he was named in court documents Jan. 25 in connection with a class-action sex abuse lawsuit filed against the Archdiocese of Québec in 2022.

A Jan. 26 statement from the archdiocese, issued in French, said that the cardinal would be “temporarily withdrawing from his activities until the situation is clarified.”

According to court documents, two incidents allegedly involving him reportedly occurred in 1987 and 1988 in Quebec City, when he was a religious brother. He is accused of inappropriately touching a 17-year-old girl on two occasions. The woman has not been identified.

The archdiocesan statement said Lacroix “categorically denies the allegations against him” and considers them “unfounded.”

“In the coming days,” the statement said, “he will send a personal communication” to the archdiocese “which will be relayed to the media.”

That personal message was…

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Cardinal Humberto Medeiros served the Church as priest and bishop in Texas and Massachusetts. An immigrant from the Azores he utilized his superior intelligence, administrative ability, and language skills to move up rapidly in Church ranks. His work with the National Conference of Catholic Bishops, both nationally and internationally, especially with migrant workers, was notable. Medeiros faced a perfect storm of social, political and religious issues in Boston. The author argues that despite the challenges he faced in Boston, Medeiros was true to the Church and his personal moral code, seeking always to serve others rather than be served by them in imitation of Christ.

Richard Gribble has produced a meticulous portrait of Humberto Medeiros, one of the most notable, yet most frequently overlooked U.S. Catholic leaders of the post-1945 era. Gribble carefully weighs the sources and helpfully explores the various contexts in which Medeiros’ life and ministry unfolded. We…

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Alleged abuse survivors at People of Praise worry Michael Coney may block group’s handling of sexual abuse from becoming public

Survivors of alleged childhood abuse inside the People of Praise, a secretive Christian sect that counts Amy Coney Barrett as a member, are voicing concerns that the supreme court justice’s father, who was recently promoted to a new role, may seek to block information about the group’s historic handling of sexual abuse becoming public.

Barrett, a conservative justice who was appointed by the former US president Donald Trump, has never publicly disclosed her participation in the covenant Christian community, which some former members have compared to a cult.

Her father, Michael Coney, a Louisiana-based lawyer who worked for Shell and has been a longtime member of the PoP, was this month appointed to serve as the group’s new legal counsel. Coney has also been asked to take the helm of a…

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Eight survivors of institutional childhood sexual abuse have launched a class action against one of Australia’s most prominent sexual abuse law firms, which they allege failed to obtain proper compensation from the institutions responsible for their abuse.

In a group proceeding commenced in Victoria’s Supreme Court on Wednesday, former clients of specialist abuse law firm Waller Legal alleged that it failed to properly claim for their “loss of earnings” compensation when pursuing their legal claims, leaving some of them more than $1 million short of the compensation they were entitled to.

“It is alleged that Waller Legal settled claims for substantially less than what the claims were worth, on the basis that a category of compensation (economic loss) was not properly sought,” said a summary of the proceeding.

“The claim in this proceeding alleges that Waller Legal were negligent and were in breach of contract.”

Court documents state that the…

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Utah clergy could be allowed to report instances of child abuse or neglect even if the perpetrator told them during confession if the clergy member believes the abuse is ongoing, under a newly proposed bill.

Rep. Anthony Loubet, R-Kearns, spoke with KSL.com about his legislation — which has not yet been made public — saying it also provides legal protection to members of the clergy who decide to inform law enforcement of ongoing abuse.

“What my bill is trying to do is to at least give them those protections that others currently receive,” Loubet said of the civil and criminal liability protections. “So if they report, they don’t have to worry about getting sued for failing to report or being aware of neglect or abuse or anything like that.”

Loubet said he’s working to find a middle ground on the issue of penitent privilege, by giving faith leaders the option…

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A Canadian cardinal who is a close advisor to Pope Francis on Tuesday personally denied accusations he sexually assaulted a teenage girl in the 1980s, telling his congregation by video he has never behaved inappropriately towards anyone.

Cardinal Gerald Lacroix, the 66-year-old archbishop of Quebec, is facing claims of sexual assault dating back to 1987 and 1988, when the victim was 17, as part of a class action suit against more than 100 priests in the archdiocese.

Lacroix has been Quebec’s archbishop since 2011 and a cardinal since 2014. Since last year, he has served on the pontiff’s Council of Cardinal Advisors, which meets regularly at the Vatican.

“Never, to my knowledge, have I acted inappropriately towards anyone, whether minors or adults,” he said in a video filmed in his office.

“My soul and my conscience are at peace in the face of these accusations which I refute,” he said,…

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In light of a Protestant abuse study unveiled in Germany, a Catholic lay group has called into doubt the “persistent narrative of the Synodal Way attributing systemic causes of abuse to specifically Catholic factors.”

Published on Jan. 25, the ForuM study identified 1,259 accused individuals and 2,174 survivors of abuse since 1946 within the Evangelical Church in Germany (EKD), according to a report by CNA Deutsch, CNA’s German-language news partner. This study’s findings starkly contrast with the claims of an “alleged Catholic-specific dimension of sexual abuse,” stated “Neuer Anfang,” a German lay group critical of the Synodal Way.

The German Synodal Way, which voted for women’s ordination and transgender ideology, among other issues, linked its resolutions to the MHG Study, an investigation of clerical sexual abuse in the Catholic Church in Germany.

However, Neuer Anfang has stated…

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The Diocese of Orange and the Archdiocese of Los Angeles have agreed to pay a combined settlement believed to be the largest ever in a sex abuse case filed on behalf of an individual against a religious institution. 

The case involving two of the most notorious sex predators in California reached a $10-million settlement on Friday, January 26, according to a local report from East Bay Times.

The case focuses primarily on the sexual crimes of Fr. Eleuterio Ramos and Fr. Siegfried Widera. 

In 2020, a piece of California legislation provided a three-year window during which the state would lift the statute of limitations for lawsuits regarding decades-old sex abuse cases. This week’s settlement resolves one of the first suits to go to trial since 2020. 

The Archdiocese of Los Angeles, where Ramos first began committing sexual assault on minors almost immediately following his ordination, will pay out $500,000,…

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A pastor of a Racine church faces more than 75 years in prison after an investigation into alleged sexual assault of two different females.

Bernabe Leon Alvarez, 37, of Racine, is charged with two felony counts of sexual exploitation by a therapist, one felony count of repeated sexual assault of a child and one felony count of child enticement.

The four felonies carry a maximum possible prison term of 77 years, six months and a total fine of $225,000.

Leon Alvarez remains free from custody on a $10,000 cash bond.

The criminal complaint: Pastor accused of sexual assault by two females

First female interviewed

An investigator with the Racine Police Department and a forensic interviewer spoke to the first female last February. The now 18-year-old stated the defendant, the pastor of her former church, not identified in the complaint, began to assault her in August of 2020, when she was…

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Bishop William T. McGrattan, Bishop of the Diocese of Calgary and President of the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops, has issued the following statement regarding the recent allegations of sexual assault concerning His Eminence Gérald Cyprien Cardinal Lacroix, Archbishop of Quebec.

Bishop McGrattan’s full statement follows:

“On 25 January 2024, it was reported in the news that Cardinal Gérald Cyprien Lacroix’s name has recently been added to a list of clergy and pastoral workers who have been accused of sexual abuse in a class action lawsuit against the Archdiocese of Quebec. He has issued a statement and he has communicated his decision to withdraw temporarily from activities in his Diocese.

Within the Catholic Church, Pope Francis has established a clear procedure that must be followed when an allegation is made against a Bishop, as outlined in Vos Estis Lux Mundi. The Bishops of Canada have set up a third-party reporting system…

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Holy Trinity Catholic Parish announced earlier this month that Father John Pilcher had been appointed as its senior associate pastor. Pilcher was accused of sexual assault of a minor while working in Topeka, but the Kansas Bureau of Investigation could not substantiate the claims and no charges were filed.

A Catholic church in Lenexa is facing pushback from some of its parishioners after appointing a priest who previously faced a sexual assault allegation.

Earlier this month, Holy Trinity Catholic Parish announced it had appointed Father John Pilcher as its senior associate pastor.

During Pilcher’s introduction at the church’s Jan. 13 mass, Pilcher brought up the allegation that was leveled against him during his previous stop at a Topeka parish.

“If you Google my name, you will find that back in 2021 when I was pastor at Mater Dei, an allegation was brought up against me,” he…

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The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Vancouver denies institutional problems protecting sexually abusive priests

Warning: This story contains disturbing details of sexual abuse.

The Archdiocese of Vancouver has admitted in court documents sexual abuse of a man by a priest and a Christian Brother and its vicarious liability for that but denied negligence for acting in any way that could attract legal punitive damages.

An unnamed man alleging sexual abuse by two Roman Catholic priests is suing the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Vancouver (RCAV), a Corporation Sole, the Catholic Independent Schools of Vancouver (CISVA) and the estates of two men.

In documents filed in B.C. Supreme Court on Oct. 23, 2020, John Doe alleges that North Vancouver Holy Trinity Parish pastor Father John Kilty, now dead, committed multiple acts of sexual assault and battery on him when he was six.

In a further amended response to civil claim filed on Dec. 13, the…

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Why am I posting this decades-old newspaper story here and now?

First, because so much about the early history of our movement to protect kids, expose predators, deter enablers and help survivors is nowhere to be found. (Much was pre-Internet and we in SNAP had our hands full just trying to deal with our trauma and the trauma of the hundreds of others who sought our help, even back in the 1980s, 1990s and early 2000s, before the scandal erupted into national awareness).

Second, because the pastor’s quote here so clearly reveals how Catholic officials felt (and feel) about their institution and this crisis: “My objection was that they were passing out literature. That was detrimental to our faith, our church and to the priesthood itself.”

And third, because though I’ve said it hundreds of times directly to many of my survivor pals and colleagues, I’ve never used this space…

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Sexual assault and reproductive coercion share similar dynamics: both are forms of violence that intimately violate a person’s body. The Catholic Church’s clergy sex abuse scandals and its attempts to coerce people’s reproductive decision-making by banning abortion and attacking contraception reveal a dangerous sexual sociopathology that fundamentally undermines the Church’s claims to moral authority on issues of sexuality.

By now, the stories are familiar and well documented. The 2006 documentary, “Deliver Us From Evil,” chillingly shows how Catholic bishops repeatedly relocated a priest named Oliver O’Grady from parish to parish in an attempt to cover up his rape of dozens of children. The 2005 Academy Award-winning film, “Spotlight,” dramatizes the true story of the Boston Globe investigative reporting team that exposed widespread sexual abuse of children by Catholic priests in the 1970s and the cover up by the Archdiocese of Boston. In 2018, a Pennsylvania grand jury published a 1,356-page…

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Texas lawsuit claims that the minor was a victim of a serial predator as well as student leaders in the campus ministry Chi Alpha.

A church in a Texas college town, a chapter of the campus ministry Chi Alpha, and its sponsoring denomination, the Assemblies of God, are being sued by a father who alleges that the leaders he entrusted to disciple his teenage son instead got him naked in ministry settings and used their positions of authority to sexually abuse him.

The lawsuit, filed Thursday, follows a tumultuous several months for Chi Alpha. Since last spring, a serial predator has gone to jail for child sex abuse, chapter leaders across a half-dozen Texas universities have been dismissed, and the organization’s national director resigned.

The majority of the departing leaders had ties to Daniel Savala, a registered sex offender who groomed and…

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The father of a teenage boy in central Texas is suing the nation’s largest charismatic-evangelical denomination for negligence, saying one of its ministries gave his son’s alleged abusers “positions which engendered trust.”

The new lawsuit is the latest development in a widening sex scandal involving convicted sex offender Daniel Savala. The scandal has implicated the Assemblies of God (AG) and its sponsored college outreach, Chi Alpha Campus Ministries.

Since last spring, multiple reports have alleged that leaders of Chi Alpha, which operates on over 300 college campuses, allowed Savala access to students at several Texas chapters. 

The suit filed Thursday claims that Chi Alpha and its affiliates in central Texas allowed men, whom Savala had mentored, to have “authority and power over minor children.” This led to the abuse of multiple victims, the suit stated.

Plus, leaders allowed Savala to attend on-campus meetings, prey on young men, and subject college students “to his…

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State lawmakers hope a compromise in the proposed legislation will get Catholic lobbyists on board, a year after a similar bill died over the church’s backlash

After failing a year ago, Washington state lawmakers are trying again this session to pass a bill that would make clergy mandatory reporters of child abuse or neglect.

Senate Bill 6298 would add clergy to the list of mandatory reporters in Washington. And the bill’s main sponsor, state Sen. Noel Frame, D-Seattle, hopes a compromise regarding whether clergy should still report information obtained during a confession will be enough to win over Catholic lobbyists, who proved to be the main obstacle to passing the law last year.

“I cannot handle the idea that a member of a faith community, a leader in a faith community, would stand on the sidelines when they believe a child is at imminent risk of abuse or harm,” Frame said…

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A Belgian Church official has told a parliamentary committee that the Vatican’s failure to laicize a bishop who admitted to abuse threatens to overshadow Pope Francis’ scheduled visit to the country.

Speaking at a Jan. 26 hearing of the Flemish Parliament’s committee investigating clerical abuse, Bruno Spriet addressed the case of Bishop Roger Vangheluwe, who resigned as Bishop of Bruges in 2010 after admitting to sexually abusing a nephew.

Spriet, the general secretary of the Belgian bishops’ conference, said: “As we have communicated, his ecclesiastical file is in Rome. After all, according to canon law, only the Holy See can remove someone from the priesthood or episcopate.” 

“In recent years, the Belgian bishops have written several times to the Holy See (in 2017 and 2019) to speak out more clearly about ecclesiastical sanctions against Roger Vangheluwe.” 

“In their joint letter to Pope Francis in October 2023, they reiterated their demand for Roger…

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Let me share with you one of the worst and most important recent news stories that you’ve probably never heard about. Late last month, the Southern Baptist Convention settled a sex abuse lawsuit brought against a man named Paul Pressler for an undisclosed sum. The lawsuit was filed in 2017 and alleged that Pressler had raped a man named Duane Rollins for decades, with the rapes beginning when Rollins was only 14 years old.

The story would be terrible enough if Pressler were simply an ordinary predator. But while relatively unknown outside evangelical circles, he is one of the most important American religious figures of the 20th century. He and his friend Paige Patterson, a former president of the Southern Baptist Convention, are two of the key architects of the so-called conservative resurgence within the S.B.C.

The conservative resurgence was a movement conceived in the 1960s…

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NEW YORK – Two of three priests named in a recent report on clergy sex abuse in the Diocese of Gaylord in Michigan, and who had been in active ministry, have now been restricted from presiding at any public celebration of Mass following a diocesan review of the allegations against them.

The decision by Bishop Jeffrey Walsh to impose the restrictions on Father James Gardiner and Father Raymond Cotter was made after Walsh met with Gaylord’s Diocesan Review Board Jan. 22, in what he described as a “long and intense meeting” to thoroughly review files and to discern outcomes.

The third priest in active ministry named in the report, Father Donald Geyman, will continue his current assignment as pastor of St. Francis of Assisi Parish in Traverse City, Michigan, pending the outcome of an assessment and determination of a safety plan.

Walsh said the outcomes are his “best effort to…

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One of the Catholic Church’s leading doctrinal officials has reiterated his unusual call for the global institution to consider ending its millennia-long requirement that priests remain celibate, saying that allowing priestly marriage could be a means of preventing clerics from living dangerous double lives.

In an exclusive interview with National Catholic Reporter on Jan. 24, Archbishop Charles Scicluna said: “One of my worries is that people are put in a situation where they are comfortable with a double life.”

“This is not to diminish the beauty of celibacy or the heroic commitment of people who have accepted celibacy as a gift and live it,” said the archbishop, speaking in an interview at the Vatican’s Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith for NCR’s “The Vatican Briefing” podcast. “But I think it is good that we discuss it.”

Earlier this month, Scicluna — who serves as both…

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Legally requiring a religious leader, like a Latter-day Saint bishop or Catholic priest, to report child abuse has failed to pass the Utah Legislature in two recent attempts. This time around, Republican Rep. Anthony Loubet hopes his bill addressing the problem makes it all the way to Gov. Spencer Cox’s desk.

Loubet’s approach doesn’t mandate ecclesiastical leaders to report abuse. Instead, it would give them the option to, even if a person “has made a confession to the clergy member” about perpetrating such abuse. They can also make a report if they have a “reason to believe that a child is, or has been, the subject of abuse or neglect,” even if it hasn’t been disclosed to them.

If a bishop, for example, reports abuse to local authorities, they would be granted legal protections if an investigation is launched. The bill’s language states it has to…

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Le cardinal Gérald Cyprien Lacroix vient d’annoncer à ses principaux collaborateurs et collaboratrices qu’il se retire provisoirement de ses activités jusqu’à ce que la situation soit clarifiée. Il nie catégoriquement les allégations qui le visent depuis hier, qu’il juge sans fondement. Dans les prochains jours, il adressera une communication personnelle aux diocésains de Québec qui sera relayée aux médias.  

L’équipe diocésaine comprend cette décision qu’elle accueille avec tristesse : tout sera mis en œuvre par ses collaborateurs et collaboratrices afin de prendre le relais des tâches liées à la mission diocésaine.

Les autorités diocésaines continueront d’avancer dans le processus de l’action collective, dans le respect de la vérité et avec le souci d’offrir une réparation aux survivants et survivantes d’abus sexuels. 

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Court documents say Gérald Cyprien Lacroix touched 17-year-old without consent

As part of an ongoing class-action lawsuit against the archdiocese of Quebec, a high-ranking member of the Roman Catholic Church in the province is now facing allegations of sexual assault.

The class action lawsuit targeting the archdiocese was authorized in June 2022.

Cardinal Gérald Cyprien Lacroix has now also been named in court documents that were presented Thursday morning.

The class action now also names the Séminaire de Québec, a revered institution responsible for creating Université Laval, the first francophone university in North America. 

The alleged incidents involving Lacroix took place between 1987 and 1988 in Quebec City when the plaintiff was 17. Lacroix is accused of touching her without her consent. 

The woman is not named in the court documents.

From 1982 to 1987, Lacroix served as the secretary-general of the Pie-X secular institute in Quebec City. From 1985 to 1987, he was…

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ROME – After being named in a class-action sex abuse lawsuit against the Archdiocese of Quebec, Cardinal Gérald Lacroix has denied the allegations against him but has announced his decision to step aside until the matter is clarified.

On Jan. 25, Lacroix was named in a class action lawsuit filed against the Archdiocese of Quebec in 2022, with court documents alleging that he inappropriately touched a 17-year-old girl on two occasions, in 1987 and 1988.

In a Jan. 26 statement, the Archdiocese of Quebec said that Lacroix “categorically denies the allegations against him” and considers the allegations “unfounded.”

However, they said the cardinal had decided to temporarily withdraw from leadership of the archdiocese and that they accepted the decision “with sadness.” In coming days, the statement said, Lacroix would “send a personal communication” to the archdiocese “which will be relayed to the media.”

With the charges, Lacroix was added to…

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Allegations of sexual abuse and grooming by Chi Alpha, a national campus ministry of the Assemblies of God, expanded significantly Jan. 25 with details alleged in a lawsuit brought by an unnamed minor in Texas.

Previously, allegations of sexual abuse have been lodged against two former Chi Alpha leaders — Daniel Savala and Chris Hundl — but the new lawsuit for negligence in care for a minor names additional alleged perpetrators. If the claims made in this lawsuit are proved true, the extent of sexual abuse within Chi Alpha will be far more widespread than earlier indicated.

Stephen Holt of Brazos County, Texas, is the father of a minor child named only as L.H. in the suit. Together, they seek more than $1 million in damages from the General Council of the Assemblies of God, North Texas District Council Assemblies of God, Mountain Valley Fellowship, and Chi Alpha Campus Ministries, College Station.

…

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Cardinal Gerald Lacroix, head of the Archdiocese of Quebec, has temporarily stepped aside from his duties as archbishop after being accused in a lawsuit of sexual abuse of a 17-year-old, allegations that the archbishop is strongly denying.

In a short French-language statement released on Friday, the archdiocese said that though Lacroix “categorically denies the allegations against him,” he is “temporarily withdrawing from his activities until the situation is clarified.”

According to the statement, Lacroix maintains that the allegations are “unfounded.”

The statement said, however, that archdiocesan authorities “will continue to move forward in the process of collective action, with respect for the truth and with a concern to offer reparation to survivors of sexual abuse.”

Lacroix, 66, is a member of the Council of Cardinals advising Pope Francis. He has been a cardinal since 2014 and archbishop of Quebec since 2011.

The legal action…

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In light of a Protestant abuse study unveiled in Germany, a Catholic lay group has called into doubt the “persistent narrative of the Synodal Way attributing systemic causes of abuse to specifically Catholic factors.”

Published on Jan. 25, the ForuM study identified 1,259 accused individuals and 2,174 survivors of abuse since 1946 within the Evangelical Church in Germany (EKD), according to a report by CNA Deutsch, CNA’s German-language news partner. This study’s findings starkly contrast with the claims of an “alleged Catholic-specific dimension of sexual abuse,” stated “Neuer Anfang,” a German lay group critical of the Synodal Way.

The German Synodal Way, which voted for women’s ordination and transgender ideology, among other issues, linked its resolutions to the MHG Study, an investigation of clerical sexual abuse in the Catholic Church in Germany.

However, Neuer Anfang has stated…

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A former South Side pastor appeared in court Friday, where he was expected to accept a plea deal for alleged child sex abuse, but the hearing was pushed back.

Jerry Jones is accused of abuse that allegedly took place during his time as a pastor at Apostolic Assembly Church in Morgan Park.

In court Friday, the judge ordered a “pre-trial investigation,” which typically takes 30 days to complete. During that time, Jones will be on a 12 hour daily curfew.

Lawyers for Jones’ complainants said it’s possible Jones could avoid time behind bars.

Jones is charged with 10 counts of aggravated sexual abuse from 2020 and was charged in 2023 with criminal sex abuse.

His next hearing is scheduled for Feb. 28.

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A 92-year-old former priest, Lawrence Hecker, who was arrested and accused of rape and kidnapping, is currently hospitalized in the ICU.

Hecker’s attorney told a judge in court Friday that Hecker tested positive for COVID-19 two weeks ago and was admitted for blood pressure issues and a UTI.

The prosecution in the case said Hecker’s ailments are treatable and that the hospital is working to discharge him.

It is unclear at this time when Hecker will be released from the hospital.

A status update in the case is expected on Feb. 23.

His trial is set for March 25, which was not changed in court Friday. The judge did not announce any delays due to Hecker’s health.

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Gerald Lacroix, who is close to the pope, has been archbishop of Quebec since 2011 and a cardinal since 2014

Cardinal Gerald Lacroix has been accused in Canada of sexually assaulting a female teenager, as part of a class action lawsuit against the Archdiocese of Quebec, court documents showed Thursday.

The 66-year-old Lacroix is facing claims of abuse dating back to 1987 and 1988, when the victim was 17, attorney Alain Arsenault, who is handling the suit, told AFP.

Arsenault said victims are feeling freer to speak out, and that those accused “were protected for a long time.” He expects more victims to come forward and join the suit.

Lacroix, who is close to Pope Francis, has been the archbishop of Quebec since 2011 and a cardinal since 2014. He has served since last year on the pontiff’s Council of Cardinal Advisors, which meets regularly at the Vatican.

The legal…

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Former Catholic priest Vincent DeLorenzo died Friday morning while serving a one-year sentence at the Genesee County Jail.

FLINT, Mich. (WJRT) – A former Flint-area priest serving a one-year jail sentence for a child sex crime died in custody Friday morning.

Vincent DeLorenzo pleaded guilty last April to one count of attempted first-degree criminal sexual conduct involving a young male attending a funeral service at Holy Redeemer Parish in Burton in the 1980s.

He was about halfway through his one-year sentence at the Genesee County Jail when his attorney, Mike Manley, says DeLorenzo became ill last weekend. Authorities transferred DeLorenzo to an area hospital, where he died Friday.

Manley thanked the Genesee County Sheriff’s Office for acting compassionately to make sure DeLorenzo received appropriate end of life medical care.

DeLorenzo admitted to sexually assaulting a 5-year-old boy after a funeral service for the boy’s deceased family member.

During his 20-year…

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Fr Alfonso López Benito, 80, was found dead at his apartment in Valencia

The body of an elderly priest accused of paying male migrants for sex was discovered naked in bed in his Spanish apartment.

Alfonso López Benito, 80, a former canon of Valencia Cathedral, was found deceased on Tuesday by a friend and janitor who had gone to pay him a visit.

A postmortem found he had died by suffocation and had likely been dead for several days.

A 40-year-old South American man has been arrested on suspicion of murder. Described as a Peruvian immigrant, he was said to have tried to use the priest’s bank card in a local bar.

Police have theorised that Fr Benito’s death could have been the result of a violent argument between lovers.

Fr Benito had allegedly been asked by the Archbishop’s office in Valencia to stop bringing lovers to his home, which was…

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