KANSAS CITY (MO)
National Catholic Reporter

November 25, 2020

by Jason Berry

When Pope John Paul II made Theodore McCarrick a cardinal in 2001, the archbishop of Washington, D.C., was a silk-between-the-fingers fundraiser. A year later, when the pope summoned the U.S. cardinals to Rome to confront the abuse crisis, McCarrick took the lead at press conferences — a bold move, given his revelation to The Washington Post and CNN that accusations against him had been investigated and found false.

In the ensuing years, McCarrick traveled the globe as an unofficial church diplomat, and rumors spread that he had slept with seminarians while a bishop in Metuchen and Newark, New Jersey, using a beach house on the Jersey Shore. Rumors no journalist could pin down.

As the genial, glad-handing cardinal gained a high media profile, he seemed to be almost everywhere, even leading graveside prayers on TV at the funeral for Sen. Edward Kennedy.

And yet, as we now know from the 449-page Vatican report on McCarrick, two New Jersey dioceses had quietly paid settlements to victims by 2007. In 2018, after more lawsuits and survivors spoke out, a Vatican tribunal at the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith found him guilty of moral crimes. Pope Francis approved McCarrick's laicization, stripping him of priestly status, and ordered an investigation on how McCarrick had avoided detection for so long.

KANSAS CITY (MO)
National Catholic Reporter

November 25, 2020

By Mark Nacinovich

As U.S. dioceses continue to pay out big settlements for lawsuits, the church is facing another nettlesome problem stemming from the abuse scandal: Priests who say they were falsely accused are suing for defamation.

In August 2018, shortly after a Pennsylvania grand jury report listed more than 300 priests in six dioceses in the state who had been credibly accused of abusing more than 1,000 minors since 1947, Nebraska Attorney General Doug Peterson asked the three dioceses in his state to turn over files on church personnel credibly accused of sexual abuse since 1978.

Archbishop George Lucas of Omaha complied with that request, and in November 2018, the Omaha Archdiocese published a list of the names of 38 priests and deacons who had faced "substantiated claims" of abuse in the archdiocese.

The fallout from that list reverberates today. One of the priests whose name was on it — Fr. Andrew Syring — is suing the Omaha Archdiocese for defamation, counted among those priests who say they have been unfairly swept up in the church's effort to repair its reputation and put the crisis behind it.

Lyle Koenig, Syring's lawyer, said his client's defamation suit is one of 20 to 25 similar cases in the country. By comparison, 7,002 priests were "credibly" or "not implausibly" accused of abuse in the U.S. between 1950 and June 30, 2018, according to BishopAccountability.org, which cited published information from the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

ALLENTOWN (PA)
Morning Call

November 24, 2020

By Peter Hall

The Allentown Diocese has paid nearly $16 million to victims of sexual abuse by members of the clergy, it reported Tuesday, as the program to compensate victims draws to a close.

The payments, totaling $15.85 million, were made to 96 abuse victims through the diocese’s Independent Reconciliation and Compensation Program, according to a final report by an independent committee appointed to oversee the program.

Allentown was among seven Pennsylvania Catholic dioceses to establish compensation funds in the wake of a 2018 Pennsylvania grand jury report that revealed efforts to hide decades of sexual abuse by hundreds of priests.

Administered by Washington, D.C., attorney Kenneth Feinberg, who is also overseeing compensation programs for abuse victims in other dioceses, Allentown’s program accepted applications from April to September 2019, receiving 106, the diocese reported.

Six of those applicants rejected offers totaling $1.18 million, three were deemed ineligible and one offer remains outstanding, the report says. The payments averaged about $165,000 per victim and came with a stipulation that those accepting them would not sue.

LOS ANGELES (CA)
Los Angeles Times

November 25, 2020

By Tracy Wilkinson

Washington DC - Few of his parishioners were surprised when Washington, D.C., Archbishop Wilton Gregory took on President Trump.

Gregory isn’t known to speak out often about issues specifically facing Black Americans. But when he does, it is unambiguous and forceful — in words unusually strong for a man of the cloth.

*
In selecting Gregory, 72, Francis is rewarding a man who over the decades took courageous stands to end sexual abuse by clergy. They were positions that at times seemed to sideline his career, but that put him, his supporters say, on the right side of history and on a firm moral footing.

Like most Black people in the United States, Gregory was not born into the Catholic faith, growing up in a Protestant denomination. It was largely with the great migration of Black Americans from the South to the North in the first half of the 20th century that many turned to Catholicism, drawn partly by its educational opportunities and social work in urban areas.

As a child on the South Side of Chicago, the young Gregory so admired the nuns who taught him in the grade at his Catholic school that he decided he wanted to become a priest. He informed the school’s head father of this ambition, according to a story Gregory often relates. He was told: Well, maybe you should become a Catholic first.

And so he did, taking his first communion while in elementary school.

DETROIT (MI)
Detroit News

November 24, 2020

By Mark Hicks

A priest recently removed from leading an Archdiocese of Detroit parish after church leaders said he was “overwhelmed with the responsibilities” is challenging the decision, claiming it was retaliation for his objections to another leader's alleged sexual harassment and abuse

The Rev. Michael Suhy, who had been pastor at Our Lady of Good Counsel in Plymouth, was targeted because he "refused to be quiet," his lawyer, Ron Thompson, told The Detroit News. "This is a cover-up. This is once again the Catholic Church trying to hide their misconduct."

The Rev. Michael Suhy was pastor at Our Lady of Good Counsel Catholic Church in Plymouth.
Archdiocese officials dispute the claim, saying Suhy could no longer handle his duties.

"The discussions aimed at getting Fr. Suhy to step aside voluntarily for his good and the good of the parish started — with him — this past spring," said Ned McGrath, a spokesman for the archdiocese, in an email Tuesday. "Ultimately and unfortunately, his intransigence triggered a canonical process for his removal."

WASHINGTON (DC)
Catholic News Service via Hawaii Catholic Herald

November 25, 2020

By Carol Glatz

Vatican City - The Vatican Secretariat of State’s report on Theodore E. McCarrick provides a glimpse into how a number of witnesses and victims of the former cardinal’s abuse sought numerous ways to alert church officials and were disturbingly aware their allegations might trigger repercussions.

Over its 460 pages, the report also reveals how much difference 30 years can make when it comes to flagging misconduct and abuse.

The report begins with a New York mother’s account of writing to every U.S. cardinal and the papal representative in the mid-1980s detailing McCarrick’s “dangerous” behavior toward her underage sons. Having left no address or legible name, her red-flag warnings went unheeded.

Decades later, in 2017, when the Archdiocese of New York received an allegation of the sexual abuse of minor by McCarrick in the early 1970s, the report showed how the archdiocese’s now mandatory reporting system and procedures resulted in McCarrick’s eventual dismissal first from the College of Cardinals and, later, from the priesthood.

But for decades in between, the victims and witnesses described in the report recount how they struggled to figure out if and how they should or could make their claims in essentially a no-man’s land for accusations.

TORONTO (ONTARIO, CANADA)
Canadian Press via Global News

November 25, 2020

A review of the Catholic archdiocese of Montreal’s handling of complaints against a pedophile priest is to be released today.

The archdiocese enlisted former Quebec Superior Court justice Pepita Capriolo to examine the church’s response to complaints against former priest Brian Boucher.

Archbishop Christian Lépine is expected to speak about the report, tabled in September, at a news conference Wednesday.

NEW YORK (NY)
America Magazine

November 24, 2020

By Michael J. O’Loughlin

Theodore E. McCarrick, middle row center, is seen with fellow seminarians in a close-up of the official portrait of the class of 1958 of St. Joseph's Seminary in Yonkers, N.Y. (CNS photo/Gregory A. Shemitz)
When the former cardinal Theodore McCarrick was bishop of the diocese of Metuchen, N.J., he routinely asked seminarians to join him at his vacation home, visits that regularly included the bishop sharing a bed with young men. Any reasonable standards would characterize those episodes, in which a powerful authority figure even suggested sharing a bed with students, as instances of sexual harassment. Stories like these led to Mr. McCarrick’s downfall, as was laid out in a recent Vatican investigation into allegations of harassment and abuse.

But a group of theologians, bishops and administrative professionals say that, even decades after Mr. McCarrick’s abuse, seminaries and formation houses are still learning how best to equip their students to recognize and report inappropriate behavior. According to the working group, assembled by the University of Notre Dame theologian John Cavadini, seminary and formation house leaders should strive to implement five benchmarks when it comes to protecting faculty, staff and students. There is a need, the group agreed, for regular training on harassment policies, clarity around reporting and investigating, support for victims, periodic review of policies, and the ability to apply guidelines to specific conditions. Meeting these benchmarks would not only protect seminarians from abuse and harassment but could also shape the culture in parishes.

“It’s not just policy training but part of the seminarian’s human and pastoral formation. These seminarians are going to be priests, and we want them to go away from the seminary formed in the kind of culture that takes this seriously,” Mr. Cavadini, who directs the McGrath Institute for Church Life, told America.

According to research released last year from the McGrath Institute and the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate at Georgetown University, 6 percent of active Catholic seminarians surveyed in 2019 said they had been subject to sexual harassment, abuse or misconduct. Nine in 10 seminarians said they had not been subjected to sexual harassment, abuse or misconduct.

KANSAS CITY (MO)
National Catholic Reporter

November 23, 2020

By Thomas Reese

The discussion of the Vatican report on ex-Cardinal Theodore McCarrick by the U.S. bishops at their annual fall meeting was sad but predictable — sad because the bishops failed to communicate that they understood the report's implications; predictable in that some bishops defended John Paul II against the report's finding that the pontiff shared culpability in the McCarrick case.

The report, released Nov. 10, acknowledged that despite it being known that McCarrick was sleeping with seminarians, he was promoted to the Archdiocese of Washington and made a cardinal by Pope John Paul II.

It would have been better for the bishops to acknowledge the pope’s failure and argue that if he were alive today, he would be apologizing for his mistakes. In their 45-minute public discussion of the report, followed by 90 minutes of talking privately about it, they did neither.

Bishops are reluctant to criticize John Paul’s record of appointing and promoting bishops because most of them were appointed the same way by the same pope. To acknowledge his failures would open the possibility that they, too, were selected through a defective process that stressed loyalty over other factors.

“It can't be a bad system; it selected me,” would be the attitude of most bishops.

Only Bishop Mark Brennan of Wheeling-Charleston suggested that the process should be improved. He proposed giving 30 to 60 days at the end of the process for people to comment on a candidate before his appointment was finalized. That way, he said, “We might avoid appointing someone to the episcopacy who did not deserve it.”

BUFFALO (NY)
WBEN

November 24, 2020

"We are free at last because government officials have stepped in."

Just one day after New York State Attorney General Letitia James announced a lawsuit against the Buffalo Diocese, alleging that diocesan leadership covered up credible claims of improper sexual conduct by priests, sex abuse victims advocate Robert Hoatson stood in front of the diocese proclaiming a victory for survivors.

"We victims, we advocates, we are free at last because government officials have stepped in and have investigated and concluded that what occurred here was absolutely outrageous," said Hoatson. "This report from Attorney General Letitia James outlines what we have known for decades: that the church refuses to take accountability for its actions and to reform its actions because we're still experiencing the same kind of behaviors.

"If you look at the statement that came out of Mr. Tucker last night, that came out of the diocese, they continue to use the same words," Hoatson continued. "'Oh, we have zero tolerance for anybody who sexually abuses a child here in the Diocese of Buffalo,' but we know that is not true."

Read the full diocese statement below:

"We will be reviewing this lawsuit just announced by the New York Attorney General and weighing the Diocese’s response. In the meantime, we wish to reiterate that there is zero tolerance for sexual abuse of a minor or of sexual harassment of an adult in the Diocese of Buffalo by any member of the clergy, employee or volunteer. The Diocese has put in place rigorous policies and protocols governing required behavior as well as a code of conduct which all clergy are expected to abide by. Moreover, the Diocese has committed to full cooperation with all civil authorities in both the reporting and investigation of alleged crimes and complaints.”

Attorney Mitchell Garabedian, who was made famous for representing victims and helping to expose the Boston Diocese in the early 2000's, joined Hoatson's press conference via phone, and he praised James for filing the lawsuit, saying steps like that are part of the healing process for victims.

BUFFALO (NY)
WKBW

November 23, 2020

By Charlie Specht

AG says diocese ‘engaged in cover-up’ of priests

New York State Attorney General Letitia James on Monday sued the Catholic Diocese of Buffalo and former bishops Richard J. Malone and Edward M. Grosz for failing to protect children and for engaging in a decades-long cover-up of sexual abuse by diocesan priests.

New York’s top prosecutor also filed a motion that seeks to force a full public disclosure of predatory priests and their actions against those whom they were entrusted with spiritual care, and is seeking a court-appointed monitor that would ensure that interim Bishop Edward B. Scharfenberger complies with sexual abuse policies and procedures.

The state is also seeking to bar both Malone and Grosz -- who resigned their positions last year after a Vatican investigation -- from serving in secular fiduciary roles in any nonprofits or charitable organizations in New York State.

“When trust is broken with spiritual leaders, it can lead to a crisis of faith,” James said in a news release. “For years, the Diocese of Buffalo and its leadership failed to protect children from sexual abuse. Instead, they chose to protect the very priests who were credibly accused of these atrocious acts. Individuals who are victims of abuse deserve to have their claims timely investigated and determined, and the Buffalo Diocese refused to give them that chance.”

TORONTO (ONTARIO, CANADA)
CBC News

November 24, 2020

By Julia Page

A class-action lawsuit launched against a Catholic religious order in 2018 has grown from the initial 30 Innu claimants on Quebec's Lower North Shore to 190 Indigenous and non-Indigenous people from across Quebec.

Allegations of sexual abuse by priests with the Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate initially surfaced during the federal inquiry into missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls (MMIWG).

Those allegations have now multiplied across several First Nations, where the clergy tried to "silence repeated sexual assaults it was well aware of," according to court documents submitted to Quebec Superior Court, in the request for authorization for the class action.

[Photo caption: Several priests in this photo, taken in the 1980s in the Sept-Îles region, have been named in the class action suit against the Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate. (Submitted by Institut Tshakapesh)]

The inquiry's stop in Mani-Utenam in November 2017, an Innu community near Sept-Îles, on Quebec's North Shore, revealed decades of alleged abuse against Innu children and women living in Unamen Shipu and Pakua Shipu, on the province's Lower North Shore.

Alexis Joveneau, a Belgian priest who arrived in the region in the 1950s, held a tight grip on the Innu communities where he worked, until his death in 1992.

DETROIT (MI)
Detroit Free Press

November 24, 2020

By Niraj Warikoo

The Catholic Archdiocese of Detroit has removed the pastor of a large church in Plymouth, alleging he was not able to handle the responsibilities of the parish. But the pastor is claiming he was unfairly targeted for speaking out on what he says was a harassment case involving an employee of the Archdiocese.

The Rev. Michael Suhy, pastor at Our Lady of Good Counsel parish, was told last week that he was being removed from the church he led.

Auxiliary Bishop Gerard Battersby said in a statement: "One of Archbishop Vigneron’s conclusions was that Father Suhy has become overwhelmed with the responsibilities, burdens, and challenges of administrating a large and complex parish like Our Lady of Good Counsel Parish with its added dimension of having a school. Following the required consultations and fact-finding, the action taken on Nov. 17 was believed necessary for Father Suhy’s well-being, and also for the well-being of the parish, parishioners, and school."

LONDON (ENGLAND)
BBC

November 23, 2020

New York's Attorney General has filed a lawsuit against the Buffalo Catholic Diocese, alleging its leaders protected priests accused of child sex abuse.

Attorney General Letita James said the diocese and two now-retired leaders failed to refer over two dozen accused priests to the Vatican for removal.

In response, the diocese pledged "full cooperation" with authorities.

It is the first suit to come from a state inquiry that began in 2018. Seven other dioceses are under investigation.

Announcing the lawsuit on Twitter, Ms James promised to bring those responsible to justice.

"While we will never be able to undo these horrific acts, we will do everything in our power to hold the Buffalo Diocese and its leadership accountable and ensure this never happens again."

ALBANY (NY)
Attorney General of the State of New York

November 23, 2020

https://ag.ny.gov/press-release/2020/attorney-general-james-takes-action-against-catholic-diocese-buffalo-failing

Church Leadership Failed to Respond to Sexual Abuse Allegations,
Engaged in Cover-Up of Credible Claims of Improper Sexual Conduct by Priests

Buffalo - New York Attorney General Letitia James today filed a lawsuit against the Roman Catholic Diocese of Buffalo and former senior leaders, Bishop Emeritus Richard J. Malone and former Auxiliary Bishop Edward M. Grosz, for failing to follow mandated policies and procedures that would help to prevent the rampant sexual abuse of minors by priests within the Catholic Church. The Office of the Attorney General’s (OAG) two year-long investigation into the sexual abuse of children and vulnerable adults within the New York dioceses of the Catholic Church found that allegations of improper sexual conduct against diocesan priests in Buffalo were inadequately investigated, if at all, and were covered-up for years. Even though the diocese’s leadership found sexual abuse complaints to be credible, they sheltered the accused priests from public disclosure by deeming them as “unassignable,” and permitted them to retire or go on purported medical leave, rather than face referral to the Vatican for possible removal from the priesthood.

“When trust is broken with spiritual leaders, it can lead to a crisis of faith. For years, the Diocese of Buffalo and its leadership failed to protect children from sexual abuse,” said Attorney General James. “Instead, they chose to protect the very priests who were credibly accused of these atrocious acts. Individuals who are victims of abuse deserve to have their claims timely investigated and determined, and the Buffalo Diocese refused to give them that chance. While we will never be able to undo the wrongs of the past, I can guarantee that my office will do everything in its power to ensure trust, transparency, and accountability moving forward.”

*
In addition to today’s suit, Attorney General James filed a motion to allow for the disclosure of the accused priests’ names and alleged conduct outlined in the complaint. [See also the memorandum supporting the motion.]

ALBANY (NY)
Attorney General of the State of New York

November 23, 2020

By Letitia James et al.

The Attorney General brings this lawsuit to obtain remedial and injunctive relief for the persistent violation of New York nonprofit law by the Diocese of Buffalo (the “Diocesan Corporation” or the “Diocese”). For nearly two decades, the Diocesan Corporation ignored standards established by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (“USCCB”) in June 2002 to address and prevent the sexual abuse of minors by U.S. clergy. In direct defiance of the USCCB’s public commitment to reform, the Diocesan Corporation, through the conduct of its senior leadership, evaded key provisions of these standards, ignoring requirements for the investigation and review of alleged clergy sexual abuse.

2. Complaints of sexual abuse against priests continued unabated at the Diocesan Corporation from 2002 forward. Rather than adequately investigate and formally review the allegations to determine if priests were qualified to maintain their clerical status, the Diocesan Corporation privately designated priests that it considered to have abused minors as “unassignable.” Some of these unassignable priests were removed from ministry or allowed to retire in anticipation or shortly after the adoption of the USCCB’s 2002 standards. The Diocese permitted these unassignable priests to remain incardinated without any meaningful supervision or monitoring. These tactics together amounted to a practice of non-compliance with the USCCB’s principles and procedures, and they operated to conceal the actual nature and scope of sexual abuse allegations in the Diocesan Corporation.

BUFFALO (NY)
Buffalo News

November 23, 2020

By Jay Tokasz

https://buffalonews.com/news/local/ag-sues-buffalo-diocese-alleging-misuse-of-funds-in-covering-up-sex-abuse-cases/article_9c323614-2da9-11eb-aad2-7fc022a2ecae.html

New York Attorney General Letitia James on Monday sued the Buffalo Diocese, along with retired Bishop Richard J. Malone and retired Auxiliary Bishop Edward M. Grosz, alleging that diocese leaders protected more than two dozen priests accused of child sexual abuse by not referring their cases to the Vatican for potential removal from the priesthood.

The civil lawsuit filed in State Supreme Court in New York County accused Malone and Grosz of misusing charitable assets by supporting priests the diocese considered to have committed sexual abuse.

The lawsuit was accompanied by the release of a 218-page report on the attorney general’s two-year investigation into Catholic dioceses across the state, with a focus on allegations of a coverup of improper sexual conduct by diocesan priests in the Buffalo Diocese.

The investigation found that Buffalo Diocese leaders determined sex abuse complaints to be credible, but sheltered the accused priests from public disclosure by deeming them “unassignable” and allowed them to retire or go on medical leave, rather than face referral to the Vatican for laicization.

NEW YORK (NY)
New York Times

November 23, 2020

By Liam Stack

The state Attorney General said in a lawsuit that two former top leaders helped shelter more than two dozen priests accused of harming children.

The New York attorney general’s office on Monday accused the Roman Catholic Diocese of Buffalo and three bishops connected to it of violating church policy and state law with their involvement in a yearslong cover-up of sexual abuse by priests.

The lawsuit is the first state legal action against the Catholic Church in New York since a new wave of abuse investigations began in 2018, and it is the culmination of just one of eight inquiries, one for each Catholic diocese in the state. The other seven inquiries are ongoing.

The lawsuit represents what prosecutors believe is a novel legal strategy: The state will attempt to use civil laws, in particular those governing religious charities and their fiduciaries, to sue a Catholic diocese for failing to follow church policies enacted in 2002, after a series of investigative reports by The Boston Globe thrust the sex abuse scandal into public view.

It also may also raise questions about religious liberty: in addition to restitution and changes in the way the diocese handles sexual abuse claims, the lawsuit seeks to ban two bishops from management roles in any charitable organization, which may draw pushback from those who believe this encroaches into church autonomy.

The office of the attorney general, Letitia James, said its investigation found that the diocese and its two former top leaders, Bishop Richard J. Malone and Auxiliary Bishop Edward M. Grosz, used bureaucratic maneuvers to shelter more than two dozen priests accused of harming children.

GREENWOOD (MS)
Associated Press

November 21, 2020

The trial for a former Catholic Church friar accused of sex abuse at a Mississippi school has been postponed.

Paul West, a former member of the Franciscan religious order, was supposed to face trial on Tuesday for allegations that he sexually molested students in the 1990s at Greenwood’s St. Francis of Assisi School.

No new trial date was immediately set, Kelly Roberts, senior deputy clerk of the Leflore County Circuit Court, told The Greenwood Commonwealth.

West’s court-appointed lawyer, Wallie Stuckey, sought the continuance that was granted. Stuckey said he filed the request because he hadn’t received all the information he’s legally due from the state about the witnesses and evidence that will be presented to the jury.

SAN ĠWANN (MALTA)
Malta Today

November 23, 2020

By Josanne Cassar

When it comes to young children who have been exposed to sex, we must also be concerned about what happens next and how this emotional trauma will colour their future

Two headlines this week have perturbed me considerably, not only because of the stories they refer to, but because it points to an alarming inability by some fellow members of the press to comprehend how important it is to report sex abuse stories using the right terminology.

This is not about being ‘politically correct’, which has become a hackneyed phrase, and is often being used with negative connotations, much in the same way we sneer at people for being ‘snowflakes’, i.e. overly sensitive and easily offended.

No, the issue here is that the way certain headlines are phrased, and the choice of language in the reporting, filters down to the public which is all too ready to blame the victims instead of the culprits.

iNewsmalta.com came out with this gem: “Raġel jistenna li jgħaddi ġuri dwar sess ma’ tifla ta’ 11-il sena” (Man expected to stand trial for having sex with 11-year-old girl”.

LovinMalta, not to be outdone, wrote this headline about the same story: “Preteen Rabat Girl Sexually Abused By 31-Year-Old ‘Family Friend’ She Met At A Party”.

An 11-year-old cannot “have sex” with a man because this is not some romance novel we are talking about here. How many times does it need to be emphasised that a minor cannot consent to sex and, without consent, it is statutory rape? When this government lowered the age of consent from 18 to 16, a decision I strongly disagreed with, I knew that it would only give licence to all sorts of predators to feel that they could get away with abusing children even more. At 16 we are not adults, and although physically our bodies tell us we are ready to have sex, emotionally and psychologically most cannot handle it, and it often leads to dysfunctional sexual relationships for life in girls who confuse lust and physical gratification for the need to be loved.

MALAGA (SPAIN)
EuroWeekly News

November 23, 2020

By Matthew Roscoe

50-year-old Fr Donald Bellizzi was convicted on appeal of sexually abusing the then-teenage boy who had been entrusted into his care and the pope was given the recommendation by the Rome-based Conventual Franciscans Order, of which Bellizzi still belongs while in prison, to dismiss him.

Bellizzi, who was jailed for three-years, abused the poor boy from 2010, when he attended meetings to find out if he had the vocation to become a priest, in abuse that lasted until he was 16-years-old, when he was eventually able the stand up to the priest and report the abuse.

The Secretary-General of the Conventual Franciscans, Tomasz Szymczak, told Times of Malta when contacted that the matter was investigated and that the pope had been asked to dismiss the guilty friar.

“The General Curia is now presenting a request to the Holy Father to dismiss Friar Donald from the clerical state and from the religious order, in accordance with the regulations in force,” Szymczak said.

ROCHESTER (NY)
WXXI

November 22, 2020

Leila Fadel, Host: In 2017, in the midst of the #MeToo movement, a rigidly conservative celebrity American Muslim preacher was caught in a sexting scandal. Nouman Ali Khan was accused of using his position to lure and groom women into sexual relationships under the guise of secret marriages, all while he was legally married to someone else. The scandal divided Muslim communities as some came to his defense and others called for him to be held accountable. He largely disappeared from public life.

Now, like a few other men accused of being sexual predators at the height of #MeToo, he appears to be attempting a comeback. Last week, Nouman Ali Khan was invited to speak on an all male-hosted podcast called "The Mad Mamluks," and that was met with outrage from largely young Muslims questioning why anyone would give him a platform.

We called Alia Salem to hear her reaction. She's the founder of FACE, which stands for Facing Abuse in Community Environments, a Dallas-based organization that investigates spiritual, sexual and financial abuse by Muslim leaders.

AUCKLAND (NEW ZEALAND)
Radio New Zealand

November 22, 2020

By Jean Bell

Efforts by church organisations to temporarily keep the names of deceased perpetrators secret ahead of an Abuse in Care inquiry is hugely upsetting for survivors, an advocate for abuse survivors says.

Lawyers acting for the Catholic Church, the Salvation Army and the Anglican Church have asked the Royal Commission to temporarily keep the names of deceased perpetrators of abuse hidden from the public eye through an interim non-publication order.

The faith-based hearings start at the end of the month, following a lengthy hearing into redress for survivors of abuse while in state care between 1950 and 1999.

A central argument for the non-publication order is that there has not been sufficient time for natural justice and preparation before the hearing starts.

Murray Heasley, an advocate for Catholic Church abuse survivors, who was at the procedural hearing today, said it has caused massive disquiet among victims.

"For many of them it is between 20 and 60 years since this happened and this is for many of them, perhaps their last chance to seek some redress and some justice."

He said it is incredible so many people had come forward.

"There is massive cultural reasons not to step up. Most people don't - they remain silent. Now they've heard about these questions of redactions ... and now this talk about dead people not being able to be mentioned is deeply alarming."

The Catholic Church's lawyer Sally McKenzie told chair Judge Coral Shaw the church was not seeking to cover up evidence.

WASHINGTON (DC)
Sojourners

November 18, 2020

By Rose Marie Berger

On the same day last week, two reports on sexual abuse in the Catholic Church made headlines.

The first report, released by the Vatican, is the so-called “McCarrick report.” It documents the rise of former (now-laicized, or removed from priestly office) Cardinal Theodore McCarrick to the highest levels of the Catholic Church, despite persistent warnings that he had sexually entrapped seminarians for decades and then abused his significant power and finances to buy silence. (The now-90-year-old McCarrick, the most senior church official ever laicized for sexual abuse, lives in an undisclosed location in the U.S.)

The second report was released by an independent commission in the U.K. It documents nearly 50 years of sexual abuse of minors by Catholic institutions in England and Wales and how Cardinal Vincent Nichols, current president of Catholic Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales, consistently elevated protection of his own reputation over that of the children in the care of church workers — priests, brothers, and lay leaders.

What the reports have in common is long lists of sexual abuse victims and their broken families. The testimonies of survivors are instructive for the quality of their demand for justice and yet, to paraphrase Tolstoy, each unhappy survivor story “is unhappy in its own way.” Each story is unbearable in its details of the physical and psycho-spiritual torture and the chronic wounds that remain.

But in other respects, the two reports could not be more different.

PHILADELPHIA (PA)
WHYY / PBS

November 18, 2020

Two area Catholic high schools will close at the end of this academic year, the Archdiocese of Philadelphia announced Wednesday.

The decision to shut John W. Hallahan Catholic Girls High School in Philadelphia and Bishop McDevitt High School in Wyncote, Montgomery County, comes as a result of their declining enrollment. The schools are operating at 36% and 40% of enrollment capacity, respectively.

*
The ongoing pandemic has taken a toll on Catholic school systems and dioceses across the country. In October, the Diocese of Camden became one of the latest to file for bankruptcy, citing revenue losses resulting from the pandemic as well as millions of dollars it paid out to clergy abuse victims.

In April, the Diocese of Camden also announced it was closing five South Jersey Catholic schools at the end of the academic year due to financial issues made worse by the pandemic.

The Philadelphia Archdiocese is no stranger to school closures as a cost-cutting measure. In 2012, four high schools and 49 elementary schools were shuttered due to widening budget deficits and dwindling student populations.

LONDON (ENGLAND)
Tablet

November 20, 2020

By Catherine Pepinster

Catholic bishops of England and Wales have admitted that their safeguarding work must change and have outlined how this will happen.

Their admission comes just days after a damning report from the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse which lambasted its safeguarding structures and poor treatment of survivors and singled out Archbishop of Westminster Cardinal Vincent Nichols for criticism.

At a press conference today, when the bishops unveiled their new safeguarding set-up, Cardinal Nichols said he had no intention of quitting.

Survivors had called for his immediate departure following the IICSA report but the cardinal said he would be staying put while the Church reorganises its safeguarding.

DENVER (CO)
Catholic News Agency

November 20, 2020

Cardinal Vincent Nichols said Friday that he was committed to overseeing a major overhaul of safeguarding procedures in England and Wales following an independent report that sharply criticized his handling of abuse cases.

The Catholic Church in England and Wales announced sweeping changes to its child protection system Nov. 20, 10 days after the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA) issued a scathing report on the Church.

In a personal statement shared with journalists at a press conference Friday, the cardinal said that the report had “brought together a picture of abuse inflicted in the Catholic Church over a period of 50 years.”

“It is a terrible picture,” he said. “I remain shocked and ashamed. It is a reality that hangs like a dark cloud over my heart and mind.”

He continued: “I say again: I am so sorry. I say this for many bishops who have gone before me over these 50 years. Many hearing this will feel that we let you down. Yes, we did let you down in many ways, in different times, in different places, for different reasons. I apologize again. I am so sorry for all that has happened over these years.”