ABUSE TRACKER

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

…

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

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

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

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

“We were stuck in…

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

An attorney for Gaglardi declined to comment.

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

…

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The trial continues.

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

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

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

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

Hoare has since appealed to…

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

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

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

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

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

When the suit was originally…

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

When this was put…

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The review, first reported by…

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

Key points

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

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

The diocese’s push…

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

This plan is the latest…

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What does the ASA do?

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

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

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

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

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

This playbook…

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Of Harris, Rozzi said…

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Matthew Clark was born outside Albany in 1937.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The witness stated that McGarrity…

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Original John Doe lawsuit story

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

Original Jane Doe lawsuit story

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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For years, Susan Leighnor held a secret.

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

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

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

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

“I think…

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A…

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

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

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

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

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

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Abp Wiktor Skworc w ubiegłym tygodniu obchodził 25. rocznicę święceń biskupich. Ten jeden z najbardziej rozpoznawalnych obecnie polskich hierarchów od 2011 r. jest metropolitą katowickim, a wcześniej przez 13 lat był biskupem tarnowskim. To właśnie tam doprowadził do zaniedbań, które już na zawsze zaważyły na jego karierze.

• W 2020 r. abp Skworc publicznie wyraził żal i ubolewanie z powodu krzywdy ofiar podległego mu duchownego ks. Stanisława P.
• W następstwie watykańskiego śledztwa w listopadzie 2021 r. ogłosił prośbę o wyznaczenie następcy. Został nim abp Adrian Galbas, lecz dotychczasowy metropolita katowicki do tej pory nie opuścił fotela metropolity katowickiego
• Polska prokuratura sprawdza, czy hierarcha nie popełnił przestępstwa, nie informując organów ścigania o przypadkach wykorzystywania seksualnego
• Na początku grudnia kuria zrezygnowała po fali oburzenia z hucznych obchodów jubileuszu abp. Wiktora Skworca. W planach był koncert orkiestry symfonicznej
• Więcej ważnych informacji znajdziesz na stronie głównej Onetu

Wiktor Skworc jest rodowitym Ślązakiem. Urodził się 19 maja 1948 r. w…

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WASHINGTON (OSV News) — As Theodore McCarrick faces criminal charges for allegedly sexually abusing a 16-year-old boy, the disgraced former cardinal’s legal defense team is now claiming he is in steep mental and physical decline and therefore not able to stand trial.

McCarrick’s lawyers filed a motion in Massachusetts’ Dedham District Court Jan. 13, citing a December examination conducted by David Schretlen, a professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. According to the motion, Schretlen found the 92-year-old McCarrick has neurological defects and impaired memory and cognition.

“Based on preliminary discussions with Dr. (David) Schretlen, counsel have developed serious concerns that Mr. McCarrick may no longer be legally competent to stand trial, because he would be unable to assist meaningfully in the preparation of his own defense or to consult effectively with counsel during trial with a reasonable degree of rational understanding,” the motion stated.

…

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

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

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

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

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There is a new effort for the Diocese of Rockville Centre to pay alleged victims of clergy sex abuse.

Approximately 600 people filed claims through the Child Victims Act and are still waiting to be paid.

Everything was put on hold when the Diocese of Rockville Centre filed for bankruptcy in October 2020.

A new committee made up of sex abuse survivors sent the diocese two different options to reorganize its bankruptcy and continue the process.

One option would include the individual parishes, the other would not.

Lawyers for the victims say whichever option the diocese chooses it would allow all parties to put the sex abuse scandal behind them.

“Now is really a time to sit down, either with a mediator or with a judge to try to ultimately hammer out a plan that is acceptable to both the diocese and the survivors so there can be a timely…

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With the Long Island Catholic Church bankruptcy case at “loggerheads,” lawyers for clergy sexual abuse survivors Thursday proposed a settlement in which the diocese would pay at least $450 million to victims.

Hundreds of millions more would be paid out to survivors by church insurance companies, the attorneys said. They also cited filing documents listing the amount spent on legal fees by both sides at $56 million since the Diocese of Rockville Centre declared bankruptcy in October 2020.

In addition, attorneys filed court papers Thursday alleging that the diocese attempted to keep millions of dollars out of reach of survivors before they could sue under the 2019 Child Victims Act.

Some 620 childhood survivors of clergy sex abuse are waiting for the settlement by one of the largest Roman Catholic dioceses in the nation. Some of the abuse dates back decades.

‘I want action’

At Thursday’s hearing in Manhattan at…

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A former altar boy filed a lawsuit against a Colorado priest, the Archdiocese of Denver and a Fort Collins church alleging he was sexually assaulted by the priest as a minor.

The civil lawsuit filed by former altar boy Scott Verti, 38, alleges Rev. Timothy Evans raped and committed more than 100 instances of sexual assault against Verti inside church offices and inside Evans’ apartment.

According to the attorneys representing Verti, Evans is known as one of Colorado’s most notorious sex abusers. Evans is also the only Colorado priest to serve prison time for rape while serving as a Catholic priest.

Verti was 14 years old when he was an altar boy at St. Elizabeth Ann Seton Church in Fort Collins and was physically and sexually assaulted more than 100 times in the span of three years, the suit said.

“I want other abuse survivors to know they are not…

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2021 Colorado law created ‘lookback window’ for victims to seek damages

A Colorado man who said he was raped and sexually assaulted more than 100 times by a Roman Catholic priest in Colorado between 1998 and 2003 sued the priest, the Archdiocese of Denver and a local parish.

Scott Verti, 38, says the church knew Timothy Evans, then a priest at St. Elizabeth Ann Seaton Church in Fort Collins, was a threat. 

Evans was convicted in 2007 on sexual abuse charges and sentenced to 18 years in prison but was paroled in 2020. The Vatican removed him from the priesthood in 2013.

The lawsuit, filed Thursday in Denver County District Court, did not list requested damages, but it did ask for a jury trial.

Mr. Verti was able to file the lawsuit, his attorneys said, because of a 2021 Colorado law creating a “lookback window” during which victims can sue over past abuse…

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A man who says he was repeatedly sexually abused as a teen by his Catholic priest more than two decades ago filed a lawsuit against the now-defrocked priest and the Archdiocese of Denver on Thursday, taking advantage of a recently passed law that allows victims to sue even if the statute of limitations has expired.

The lawsuit targets Timothy Evans, a priest convicted in 2007 of sexually abusing other teens in two Colorado counties around the same time frame. The Vatican laicized Evans, essentially removing him from the priesthood, while he was in prison. He was paroled in 2020 with plans to live with family and find work in Grand Junction, Colorado.

The lawsuit was filed in state court by Scott Verti, alleging about 100 instances of abuse while he was an altar boy at St. Elizabeth Ann Seton Church in Fort Collins from 1998 to 2003. Verti, 38, was…

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A man who says he was sexually abused more than 100 times by a former Fort Collins priest as a teen has filed a lawsuit against him, the church he was employed at when the alleged abuse occurred and the Archdiocese of Denver.

The former priest, Timothy Evans, was one of four priests from different parishes in Fort Collins and Loveland named in a special report from the Colorado Attorney General’s Office released in 2019 detailing credible claims of abuse by Catholic priests and the Archdiocese of Denver’s handling of the acts. Evans’ was the only Larimer County case that led to criminal charges.

Evans was sentenced to 14 years to life in prison in 2007 for sexually assaulting a teen boy who worked at St. Elizabeth Ann Seton Church, where Evans was a pastor. He was also convicted of the same charge for a separate incident in Jefferson County.

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This commentary is by Maura Labelle of Colchester, who was a resident of St. Joseph’s Orphanage in the 1960s.

Ihave read with interest VTDigger’s recent coverage of the potential destruction of the former Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception in downtown Burlington.

In my view, the building is ugly, but I completely understand why Preservation Burlington is concerned with the secrecy of the Diocese of Burlington regarding its buyer for the property. We all know that the diocese is good at keeping secrets, as for decades it covered up child abuse by pedophile priests. 

Just as the public had the right to know the names of credibly accused pedophile priests, residents of Burlington should also be told who is buying the property and what its new purpose will be.

The diocese has been steadfast in its view that the property should not be used for any purpose that would violate the morals…

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[VIDEO]

A non-profit group is protesting the Catholic diocese in Portland, claiming it’s “retraumatizing” sexual abuse victims.

A member representing the group protested outside the diocese offices Wednesday, calling on Bishop Robert Deely to stop contesting new lawsuits filed by people claiming sexual abuse at the hands of clergy.

The lawsuits follow a change to Maine law that lifted the statute of limitations for sexual abuse claims.

The diocese is accused of covering up claims of sexual abuse for decades.

Now, a New Jersey non-profit says it’s time to hold abusers, and enablers, accountable.

“They committed crimes they covered up,” Roads to Recovery President Dr. Robert Hoatson said. “Their priest committed crimes. They abused children. And these guys have a playbook. The playbook is this: don’t really take allegations seriously. Don’t promise any kind of justice for these people. And third, we need to protect the image and assets of…

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An apostolic visitation by two bishops is a signal church authorities are concerned, a Jesuit priest told Knox News

• Two bishops conducted a fact-finding visit to the Knoxville diocese late last year.
• A former church employee and a church member have filed sexual abuse lawsuits against the diocese.
• Two priests told Knox News they spoke to church officials. The priests are not the targets of the lawsuits.
• Parishioners and an activist have written letters of complaint about diocesan leadership to church authorities.

High-ranking Catholic clergy conducted a fact-finding visit to the Diocese of Knoxville late last year, three sources confirmed to Knox News, as two lawsuits targeting the local church over its handling of sex abuse allegations are ongoing.

The visit – known as an apostolic visitation – was headed by Bishops Barry Knestout of Richmond and Michael Burbidge of Arlington, according to one of two priests with direct knowledge of the…

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WA lawmakers propose bill requiring clergy to report child abuse, citing InvestigateWest reporting

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

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

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

“I just…

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Paris Archdiocese tightens the 2018 restrictions it placed on Tony Anatrella’s ministry following investigation of allegations that he sexually abused male patients

The Vatican has banned one of its longtime priest-advisors on sexual and moral issues, Tony Anatrella, from practicing psychotherapy, following longstanding allegations that the Paris cleric abused male adult patients.

The decision, which was taken last month by the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith (DDF) and announced Tuesday by the Archdiocese of Paris, left Anatrella’s accusers deeply disappointed. They had hoped the priest – who will be 81 next month – would be removed from the clerical state.

The Paris archdiocese said the DDF “ordered the interested party to immediately renounce any professional activity as a therapist”. But the DDF did not place any restrictions on Anatrella’s priestly ministry. The archdiocese had already done that in 2018.

It was announced on Tuesday that Archbishop Laurent Ulrich…

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The approach of Catholic Schools Week gives us an opportunity to revisit the efforts the Archdiocese of Chicago has been taking to keep our children safe.

First, we must acknowledge forthrightly the serious mishandling in the past of child abuse in our parishes and schools by clergy and others. The pain caused by these failures is the reason this archdiocese has, for more than 30 years, been at the forefront of creating and continually improving policies and programs to address the scourge of child sexual abuse and support survivors.

Each year, we cooperate with an independent audit to help us measure compliance with those policies, and each year we have been found compliant. We also regularly call on outside experts to review our methods and recommend improvements.

Here is a summary of what we do, year in and year out, to keep children safe in our schools and parishes…

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Archbishop Timothy Broglio, who heads the Archdiocese for the Military Services, and in November was elected president of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, spoke at a press conference during the bishops’ conference in Baltimore. He was asked if he stood by a comment he made in 2018 saying, “there is no question that the crisis of sexual abuse by priests in the USA is directly related to homosexuality.” He did not back down from his stance.

What Broglio said is undeniably true. No matter, those who persist in promoting the myth that homosexuality has nothing to do with the sexual abuse of minors are going bonkers.

Kevin Clarke wrote a piece for America magazine saying that a 2011 study by John Jay College of Criminal Justice found that “homosexuality was not a cause of abuse by priests, which researchers argued were crimes of opportunity by pedophiles.”

As Bill Donohue pointed…

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The leader of a network for survivors abused by priests says the Catholic Church’s new promises to change are not genuine.

Earlier this week a 10-point statement was issued by NZ Catholic Bishops Conference president Cardinal John Dew, and Congregational Leaders Conference of Aotearoa president, Fr Thomas Rouse.

It supported independent entities to process complaints of abuse and give redress to survivors, and it requested that Catholic organisations audit any names they have adopted in titles for buildings, prizes and portraits, to ensure they were not named after abusers, or people who had turned a blind eye to abuse.

“It is our expectation and requirement that every person working in the church, paid or voluntary, will adhere to the policies and procedures that have been established to foster a culture of safeguarding and support of survivors,” the statement said.

“As a church, we remain committed to break the cycle of abuse.”

…

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The Vatican has ordered a prominent French priest who advised the Holy See for years on matters of sex and homosexuality to cease his psychotherapy practice following allegations he sexually abused men in his therapeutic care.

But the Vatican didn’t defrock or otherwise sanction the Rev. Tony Anatrella despite several well-documented complaints against him, in further evidence of the Holy See’s reluctance to punish priests who abuse adults with the harshest measures, especially when the crimes occurred a long time ago.

French and Catholic media over the years have reported claims by several men and seminarians who were sent to Anatrella because they exhibited homosexual tendencies, only to then be allegedly subjected to sexualized therapy with him. Anatrella had been considered one of the Catholic Church’s foremost experts on homosexuality, and had served as a consulting member of the Vatican’s family and health offices.

Church teaching considers homosexual acts to…

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Campaigners have been tying coloured ribbons to fence of St Mary’s Cathedral ahead of Cardinal George Pell’s mass on Thursday 2 February

Ribbons tied on the fence of St Mary’s Cathedral in support of victims of clergy abuse are being removed ahead of a planned requiem mass in Sydney for Cardinal George Pell.

Coloured ribbons have been placed outside St Mary’s in recent days by campaigners who want to give voice to abuse victims and survivors ahead of Pell’s mass and burial on 2 February.

They have been tied along entire sections of the cathedral’s fence, pictures and video on social media showed.

But the ribbons are being periodically removed. Guardian Australia saw just one when it visited St Mary’s on Wednesday.

The removal prompted critics to say the church’s response was “petty”.

When Jenny arrived at St Mary’s Cathedral on Wednesday morning she spotted a solitary red ribbon. Undeterred,…

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Shapiro wants to govern all of Pa. He has his work cut out for him

Moments after he became Pennsylvania’s 48th chief executive on Tuesday afternoon, Gov. Josh Shapiro delivered a message to state residents who voted for the competition last November.

“To those who didn’t cast their vote for me, I heard you too. And I will do my best every day to be a governor for all Pennsylvanians,” Shapiro, a Democrat, said, with his wife, Lori, and their four children, looking on from the stage erected outside the state Capitol’s East Wing.

It would be easy to dismiss Shapiro’s extension of an olive branch, tucked neatly into a speech filled with appeals to Pennsylvanians’ better angels, as so much political boilerplate.

What else do you do with this?

“From God’s Country to Gettysburg, I heard you when you said you want good schools for our kids, safe communities, and an economy that…

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A Middletown man charged last week with child porn had just started teaching middle schoolers at a private Catholic school roughly five months ago.

Todd Philip Napolitano is now on administrative leave.

The Archdiocese of Philadelphia said in a press statement the seventh- and eighth-grade teacher at St. Charles Borromeo School had passed all of his background checks and child abuse clearances before he began working at the school in September.

“There was no prior indication that Mr. Napolitano was potentially involved in activity of this nature and no allegations of inappropriate behavior had been lodged against him during his brief time at Saint Charles Borromeo Parish School,” the statement reads in part.

The Bucks County District Attorney’s Office said Napolitano was sharing and downloading child pornography in November.

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Victims who have waited more than 20 years could receive some money by this fall

A recent court decision has helped focus the claims process for victims of sexual abuse at the former Mount Cashel Orphanage in St. John’s, bringing the process much closer for men who have waited more than 20 years to receive financial compensation.

On Jan. 12, Newfoundland and Labrador Supreme Court Justice Garrett Handrigan filed his decision from a November hearing where lawyers for the Roman Catholic Episcopal Corp. of St. John’s and lawyers for the abuse victims had argued their positions on how the claims process should proceed.

The sides were far apart. The episcopal corporation’s proposed process would have involved individual impact assessments of claimants, while the claimants proposed a process that would not require expert evidence for proof of damages.

Handrigan’s decision has set the procedure that will be followed.

Geoff Budden, representative counsel for the abuse victims,…

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The state Senate recently passed the new law, despite the report, and proponents are awaiting passage in the state House and approval by the governor.

Efforts to pass a new law that would open a two year window in the Pennsylvania statute of limitations for adult survivors to file child sexual abuse lawsuits is meeting resistance from a conservative think tank, which has suggested the measure would expose Pennsylvania schools to billions of dollars in liability and litigation costs for its role enabling decades of prior assaults.

Pennsylvania’s General Assembly is considering a state constitutional amendment, which would allow childhood sex abuse claims to be pursued by individuals who are now adults, even if their lawsuit previously would have been barred by the statute of limitations. The state senate passed the measure last week, Senate Bill 1, but it must still be passed by the state House and…

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The head of the Vermont Senate Judiciary Committee says he’s going to introduce a bill in the upcoming legislative session to close an exemption to the state’s child abuse and neglect reporting laws for members of the clergy.

Democratic Sen. Richard Sears of Bennington says he was unaware that the Vermont law requiring members of a number of professions, including doctors, teachers, social workers and the clergy, to report abuse if they become aware of it contains an exemption for members of the clergy if they become aware of abuse during a setting that is considered privileged, such as during confession.

Sears said that under the law it shouldn’t be up to people who are mandated reporters to decide what to do if they learn of potential abuse, they should report it.

“My gut reaction is nobody should get a free pass,” Sears said.

Sears, a longtime chair of the…

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St. Joseph’s Orphanage in Burlington closed in 1974 and former residents since then have been sharing stories of abuse. Now, an exhibit on display at the Fletcher Free Library in Burlington chronicles those stories and a new healing garden at the former site is in the works.

Keislich Park is where part of St. Joseph’s Orphanage used to be. Now, the city is working on a healing garden in honor of the 13,000 children who came through the orphanage. And right now, the “Voices of St. Joseph’s Orphanage Exhibit” is on display in Burlington.

“It means that we are now visible. You cannot hide us any longer,” said former St. Joseph’s resident Brenda Hannon, who lived at the orphanage on Burlington’s North Avenue from 1959 to 1968.

Hannon is involved in restorative justice to bring stories of abuse of former residents to light. The Voices of St. Joseph’s Exhibit is…

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An unnamed Oregon woman, “Jane Doe,” who lived in a Catholic orphanage in Massachusetts in the 1950s, has filed a federal civil suit against the Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate alleging sexual abuse by priests during Oblate-run retreats in Bar Harbor and Bucksport when she was a young child.

The Missionary Oblates describe themselves as a congregation of Roman Catholic priests and brothers who serve the poor and needy in the U.S. and in 70 countries around the world. The Oblates did not respond to an email inquiry for comment before press time.

The Maine Legislature in June of 2021 lifted a statute of limitations on childhood sexual abuse cases, which is allowing the case of “Jane Doe” and a dozen others to move through the Maine civil court system.

The lifting of the statute of limitations allows survivors of childhood sexual abuse to file suit against their accused no…

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Janet Patterson remembers attending a Catholic mass at her parish near Wichita and hearing the congregation’s newly assigned priest lecture the parishioners.“I remember him saying, ‘You must never criticize the priest,’” she said. “I was sitting there in the church with my son, Eric, and my other kids and my husband. And I remember thinking, ‘Who’s criticizing the priest?’”Only later did Patterson learn about the long list of accusations of sexual abuse levied against the previous priest, Father Robert Larson, who had just been reassigned from this church in Conway Springs to another congregation in Newton.Ultimately convicted of molesting four boys, Larson allegedly molested many more. Five of them died by suicide as young men, including Patterson’s son, Eric.Eric died at age 29 in 1999, a few years before Larson’s conviction.Reassigning priests and keeping their parishioners in the dark about the reasons was just one way the Catholic Church hid…

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Activists are calling on France to extradite a retired priest to Canada to face allegations he sexually abused Inuit children in Nunavut decades ago.

Nearly a dozen members of BeBrave France, the French section of a global advocacy movement aimed at ending sexual violence against children, demonstrated Monday outside the Johannes Rivoire retirement home in Lyon, France.

They held up signs and banners, painted messages on the sidewalk, and spoke through a microphone to call for justice.

“It’s important to do something,” said Amandine Sanvisens, one of the protesters.

Rivoire, in his 90s, was an Oblate priest in Nunavut from the 1960s until 1993, when he returned to France. He has been wanted on a Canada-wide warrant since he was charged in February 2022 on charges of indecently assaulting a girl in Arviat and Whale Cove, Nvt., between 1974 and 1979, after a complaint was filed in 2021.

Canada’s prosecutors…

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Cardinal George Pell died in Rome Tuesday, suffering a heart attack after undergoing hip replacement surgery.

The cardinal underwent a hip replacement surgery on Tuesday, several sources told The Pillar, and reportedly died of complications from the surgery at approximately 8:50 p.m. in Rome.

The hip operation was initially deemed a success, with sources close to the cardinal saying that he had been able to make conversation with nurses in his recovery room, before he suddenly went into cardiac arrest shortly before he died.

Pell was appointed in 2014 the first prefect of the Vatican’s Secretariat for the Economy, charged with implementing a program of financial reform in the Vatican. He was before that the Archbishop of Sydney, and had been before that Archbishop of Melbourne.

Pell was in 2018 convicted in Australia of committing sexual abuse during his time in Melbourne, but the conviction was in 2020 overturned by the…

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Leaders of the international “new ecclesial movement” where one alleged abuser is now second-in-command and a French diocese where another transferred respond to exposé

Leaders of the Community of the Beatitudes, a “new ecclesial movement” founded in France in 1973 and now present in 27 countries around the world, have sought to defend themselves after a recent investigative report by La Croix revealed that two members of the community were accused years ago of sexually abusing Catholic boardings school students.

“First of all, we are thinking of the person called Florent by La Croix’s journalist and of all those who are suffering because of this situation. We want to express our compassion for them,”” the community said in a statement issued on Sunday.

It came three days after the paper’s weekend edition Hebdo reported that Florent (a pseudonym) was one of several students who were molested between 1998-2004 at a…

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Former cardinal Theodore McCarrick is in “significant” mental decline and may not be fit to stand trial for allegedly sexually abusing a 16-year-old boy, his attorneys say in a new court filing.

The legal team for the 92-year-old ex-prelate said it plans to file a motion to dismiss the case, citing a neurological exam conducted by Dr. David Schretlen, a professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. The exam took place on Dec. 5, 2022, at a facility in Missouri where McCarrick is living.

The results show McCarrick to be suffering from “significant neuropsychological deficits” that “appear to have started relatively recently, to be worsening rapidly, and to impair both Mr. McCarrick’s cognition and his memory,” according to the court document filed Jan. 13 in Dedham District Court in Massachusetts. A final report is expected within 30 days.

“Based on preliminary…

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An award-winning designer and illustrator is bringing together diverse artists and abuse survivors to foster recovery from trauma through experiencing art.

“Healing comes from the arts,” said artist and survivor advocate Erin Hung, interviewed on a video call from Hong Kong. “The church can tend to elevate the mind and the intellect above things like creative expression. Maybe these things all have to come together.”

The online art project titled “The A to Z of Trauma Recovery,” curated by Hung, seeks to reverse this trend—with prominent survivors and advocates contributing. They include survivor-storyteller Lori Anne Thompson, author-artist K.J. Ramsey, former Ravi Zacharias PR spokesperson Ruth Malhotra, and licensed therapist Krispin Mayfield, among others

One contributor, trauma-informed writer and artist Jenai Auman, explains how the arts can be therapeutic. “The ability to delight and dream is often shut down whenever you’re not doing mentally well…

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Former Southern Baptist Convention president Johnny Hunt was hailed Sunday as “one of the greatest pulpiteers in our generation” despite accusations he sexually assaulted another pastor’s wife.

Embarking on a return to ministry, Hunt delivered the sermon Sunday at Hiland Park Baptist Church, a Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) megachurch in Panama City, Florida. He is also getting top billing for an upcoming Gospel conference series.

Hiland Park’s senior pastor, the Rev. Steven Kyle, was one of four who declared in November that Hunt was fit to return to ministry. On Sunday, Kyle introduced Hunt as “my good friend” just before Hunt began preaching.

“Johnny has preached here several times since I have been your pastor,” Kyle added. “He is one of the greatest pulpiteers in our generation.”

Kyle did not mention the allegations that caused Hunt’s former church—First Baptist Church Woodstock in the Atlanta area—to  View Cache

A year after a report detailing widespread abuse in the region’s Catholic churches, Munich Cardinal Reinhard Marx apologized again on Tuesday to those affected.

“For the suffering associated with this, I will always be responsible and therefore I apologize again,” the archbishop of Munich and Freising said on Tuesday. His archdiocese covers the capital of the southern German state of Bavaria and surrounding area.

“I cannot undo what has happened, but I can act differently now and in the future. And that’s what I’m doing.”

He called the church’s “greatest shortcoming” the fact that it initially gave little consideration to the victims. Not only did the church have to admit this, but he did too.

“I have to admit that as archbishop in a self-critical way.”

Even a year after the report, he said, the cases were still shocking.

“The horror has remained,” Marx said at a press conference. “Abuse…

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Podiumsgespräch in der Katholischen Akademie zu Aufarbeitung und Reformbemühungen

München, 18. Januar 2023. Kardinal Reinhard Marx hat allen Missbrauchsbetroffenen gedankt, „dass sie geredet haben und weiter reden“. Der Mut und die Bereitschaft der Betroffenen, Erlebtes zu thematisieren, sei unabdingbar für die Fortschritte, die im Bereich der Aufarbeitung und Prävention von Missbrauch im kirchlichen Bereich bislang erzielt worden seien und weiter erzielt werden müssen, sagte der Erzbischof von München und Freising bei einem Podiumsgespräch unter dem Titel „Von Aufarbeitung und Reformbemühungen: Was haben die Kirchen und ihre Verantwortlichen für die Zukunft gelernt?“. Zwar sei es weiter ein langwieriger Prozess, die Kirche zu erneuern: „Aber ohne Kampf, ohne Einsatz, ohne dass wir uns jetzt engagieren“, ohne intensive Auseinandersetzung mit dem Thema Missbrauch und den Gremien, die die Anliegen der Betroffenen durchsetzen, „werden wir das nicht erreichen“, so Marx am Dienstagabend, 17. Januar, in der Katholischen Akademie in München.

Nach dem Bekanntwerden vielfachen Missbrauchs ab…

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Das Erzbistum München und Freising will künftig enger mit Betroffenen sexuellen Missbrauchs zusammenarbeiten. Ihre Bedürfnisse und Belange seien entscheidend für Aufarbeitung und Prävention, stellte Kardinal Marx fest und entschuldigte sich erneut.

Der Münchner Kardinal Reinhard Marx hat sich ein Jahr nach Veröffentlichung eines Gutachtens über Missbrauchsfälle in seinem Bistum erneut bei den Betroffenen entschuldigt. “Für das damit verbundene Leid werde ich immer in der Verantwortung stehen und bitte darum nochmals um Entschuldigung”, sagte der Erzbischof von München und Freising. “Ich kann Geschehenes nicht rückgängig machen, aber jetzt und zukünftig anders handeln. Und das tue ich.”

Auch ein Jahr nach dem Gutachten sei das Entsetzen über die Fälle groß. “Der Schrecken ist geblieben”, sagte Marx. “Missbrauch ist und bleibt eine Katastrophe.”

Marx kündigt besser Zusammenarbeit mit Betroffenen an

Marx kündigte an, künftig enger mit Betroffenen sexuellen Missbrauchs zusammenarbeiten zu wollen. Diese hatte sich in der Vergangenheit häufig über zu wenig Zuspruch bei der Aufarbeitung…

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The proportion of Catholics in Poland attending mass has fallen from 37% to 28% in two years, according to the new figures published by the church’s statistical institute.

The church notes that the latest data – which come from 2021 – are likely to have been affected by the pandemic. But it also admits that “socio-cultural factors” have played a part in the decline.

While the vast majority of Poles are officially identified as Catholic, recent years have seen the status of the church dented by its support for an unpopular near-total ban on abortion and by revelations of child sex abuse by members of the clergy and negligence by bishops in dealing with the issue.

Since 1980, the Catholic church in Poland has conducted an annual study of how many people attend mass and take communion. On one Sunday each year, every parish in the country records figures and submits them to the…

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No complaints of sexual abuse were registered in the months the priest filled the spot

• Catholic dioceses rely on victim assistance coordinators to take complaints of sex abuse from within the church.
• When the Knoxville diocese’s coordinator died, the diocese filled the spot with a top church official.
• Church watchdogs say the arrangement is troubling.
• The diocese has hired the McNabb Center to fill the victim assistance coordinator position.

The Roman Catholic Church created review boards in the early 2000s, following revelations of widespread sexual abuse by clergy, and victim assistance coordinators have filled at important role in helping victims raise the alarm about predatory priests.

In East Tennessee, the Diocese of Knoxville turned to a licensed therapist, Marla Lenihan, to become its first victim assistance coordinator. Lenihan, who had decades of experience in private practice in Oak Ridge, died in March.

Lenihans’ replacement? Bishop Richard Stika’s right-hand man,…

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The many incidents of child sexual abuse by predator priests have shamed thousands of good bishops and benevolent clerics who have been justly angered by the rampant salacious acts of their fellow pedophile priests and in some cases by high-profile bishops and high-ranking cardinals. 

They feel helpless when their bishop protects the abuser priest and calls him “his son.” 

They long for justice for the victims and wish to exonerate their own vocation and the blemished priesthood from the tyranny of abuser priests. 

The Church has succinctly stated that every act of sexual abuse against a child is not only a heinous crime in civil law but a violation of Church law. 

Pope Francis says child abuse by a cleric is “a profound wound that cries out for healing.”

There are many occasions when bishops have been scolded by Pope Francis for covering up priest-abuse complaints instead of reaching out…

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It is the day of balancing in the Archdiocese of Munich and Freising: What has happened since the sensational Munich abuse report was published a year ago? The archdiocese takes a position on this today.

Many who were abused by Catholic clergymen as children or young people find that too little has happened. One of them is Rolf Fahnenbruck, who experienced severe sexualized violence as a child in the diocese of Essen and now lives in the diocese of Passau. He is the spokesman for the local Advisory Board.

So far, he has been compensated for his suffering with 25,000 euros. But it’s not about the money, he says in an interview BR24. Because even with the performance notice, a person affected by abuse is alone again with his problem. “You can’t treat people like that,” says Fahnenbruck. “Many people are immensely disappointed in the Catholic Church.”

Affected people feel alone

All…

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A lawsuit says that the Most Rev. Richard Stika interfered in the investigation, and Knox News has independently confirmed that assertion

Two people who played key roles in a review by the Catholic Diocese of Knoxville into whether a seminarian raped a diocesan employee in 2019 told Knox News that Bishop Richard Stika interfered with the effort, independently confirming allegations that are detailed in a lawsuit by the man who says he was sexually assaulted.

Before a lawsuit was filed in February 2022 by John Doe, a placeholder name to protect the identity of the man who reported the rape, the church’s review board hired retired Tennessee Valley Authority investigator George Prosser to investigate the claims.

Prosser was a true outsider. He’s not Catholic and has no ties to the diocese, which is the spiritual home of about 70,000 Catholics in East Tennessee.

Prosser told Knox News he was hired…

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French government denied Canada’s extradition request for Johannes Rivoire last fall

A group of demonstrators gathered outside the retirement home of retired priest Johannes Rivoire in Lyon, France, on Monday, demanding the French government extradite Rivoire to face charges of sexual assault in Canada.

“For us as French citizen[s], it’s a real shame that our government refuses to make part of justice for Inuit people,” said Amandine Sanvisens, who was among the demonstrators.

“We wanted to show and to put the light on this place where he lives.”

The allegations against Rivoire stem from his time working as an Oblate priest in Nunavut in the 1960s and 1970s. He was charged last February with one count of indecent assault on a female, who was child at the time of the alleged offence. It happened between January 1974 and December 1979.

Allegations against him date much further back, though — previous charges against him had been outstanding for…

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The cardinal was smart and determined. His failure to uncover some of the worst cases of child sexual abuse by priests blights his reputation

He was a company man. He did what he did to preserve the power and the assets of the church. If that meant thrashing victims of abuse through the courts and boxing them into tiny settlements, that was fine by him. Duty done.

That’s what made him the right man to clean up the financial mess of the Vatican. High among the achievements for which he deserves praise at this time was the work he and his accountants did to begin tracking the missing billions in the Holy City. Alas, Pope Francis didn’t have the guts to back him. The courtiers brought him down.

Soon after, he was in Melbourne facing a long purgatory in the criminal courts which ended in a…

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For immediate release January 13, 2023

The surprise death of George Pell came as good news to many survivors of clerical abuse in Australia. SNAP or its network members do not celebrate the death of anyone, even of a man despised and mistrusted by thousands of survivors and supporters in Australia and beyond.

Donald McLeish of SNAP Australia, says “George Pell had become a target and focus for survivors, and seen as the embodiment of the church’s attitude to those sexually abused by clerics, religious brothers and sisters, and lay employees of the Catholic Church in Australia.” The ‘modus operandi’ used worldwide, was to immediately dispel the situation, minimise the damage, and move the perpetrator on to other places where abuse continued almost unabated until recent times.

George Pell was recognised by the Australian Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sex Abuse, as a witness whose testimony at the…

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Graeme Sleeman resigned in disgust after complaining about Father Peter Searson in the 1980s and suspects he was then blacklisted

Former Catholic school principal Graeme Sleeman says he still remembers the day George Pell hung up on him.

It was the 1990s and Sleeman was in Grafton, New South Wales, more than 1,500km away from the small Victorian Catholic school he had resigned from in disgust years earlier.

He had given up everything – a lauded, successful career as an educator – to blow the whistle on a notorious paedophile priest, Father Peter Searson, who was abusing children at his school, Doveton Holy Family primary school, in the mid-1980s.

The principal had fought tirelessly to protect his children from the predations of Searson, a paedophile he describes as a “serial offender”, who was known to the diocese for offending in his last parish in Sunbury.

“They knew that he sexually abused…

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It was in late spring, 1985, when I received a call from NCR’s then-editor Tom Fox. I think he said he hoped I was sitting down.

Fox and I often exchanged calls when we thought that one of our publications had something of interest for the other. At the time, I was news editor of what was then called Religious News Service, headquartered on a floor in the former Jesuit residence at 56th Street and Sixth Avenue in New York.

I was sitting at my desk when he told me that NCR’s next edition would contain an extensive and rather explosive report detailing the abuse of children by Catholic priests and the failure of hierarchy to do anything about it.

That conversation was a jarring introduction to corruption and evil that continue to reverberate to this day. That first national story to be published about the scandal was…

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