ABUSE TRACKER

The leader of a sect of the polygamous Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints based in Colorado City, Arizona, made an appearance in federal court Thursday following his arrest on tampering and destruction of evidence charges.

The arrest of Samuel Rappylee Bateman, 46, of Colorado City, came weeks before, authorities said, when Bateman was stopped on a highway in Flagstaff, Arizona, where several young girls were found in an enclosed trailer. After Bateman was released on bail, he was arrested again during an FBI raid Tuesday in Colorado City that turned up additional evidence, prosecutors said, and an Arizona child welfare agency removed children from the homes.

Bateman pleaded not guilty in U.S. Magistrate Court in Flagstaff on Thursday.

Bateman has been indicted on three federal charges, including tampering and destruction of records in an official proceeding, along with one count each destroying records in…

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A leader of a small polygamous group on the Arizona-Utah line pleaded not guilty Thursday to federal charges of tampering with evidence, weeks after being stopped on a highway with young girls in an enclosed trailer.

Samuel Bateman, 46, was indicted earlier this month on three counts of destroying or attempting to destroy records, and tampering with criminal proceedings. He pleaded not guilty in U.S. Magistrate Court in Flagstaff, a mountain city where he was arrested in late August by a state police agency after someone spotted small fingers in a gap of the trailer’s rear door.

Authorities found three girls, between the ages of 11 and 14, in the trailer he was hauling through Flagstaff, according to court documents. The trailer had a makeshift toilet, a couch, camping chairs and no ventilation, the documents state. The documents didn’t say if the girls are related to Bateman, and it wasn’t…

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The court date for a retired 92-year-old priest who was charged following an investigation into sexual abuse allegations at a Manitoba residential school has been set.

Retired Father Arthur Masse, of Winnipeg, will appear in court on March 7 and 8, 2023, in Winnipeg in the Manitoba Court of King’s Bench.

Masse was arrested at his home in June and charged with one count of indecent assault.

In August, he pleaded not guilty.

The charge comes from an 11-year RCMP investigation into sexual abuse allegations at the Fort Alexander Residential School between 1968 and 1970. The investigation was spurred by a tip police received in February 2010 of an alleged incident involving a 10-year-old girl who was a student at the school.

Masse was released from custody with conditions and none of the allegations against him have been proven in court.

Mounties have said previously they don’t anticipate further charges…

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Delegation of Inuit implore French government to extradite Johannes Rivoire

After travelling more than 4,000 kilometres over three days, a group of Nunavut Inuit arrived in France to demand the return of a Roman Catholic priest who travelled that same distance when he left Canada 29 years ago.

Rev. Johannes Rivoire, 91, spent more than 30 years as a parish priest in Nunavut, mostly in Arviat and Naujaat, between 1960 and 1992. He was accused of sexually abusing boys and girls during that time, some as young as six years old.

In 1998, the RCMP laid three charges against Rivoire for one count of indecent assault against three boys and one count of sexual assault against a girl in Naujaat, between 1968 and 1970.

But Rivoire left Canada for France in 1993 and those charges were stayed in 2017 after prosecutors concluded there was no longer a reasonable prospect of conviction.

The…

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In May 1989, Harold McIntee, then aged 59, pleaded guilty to 17 counts of sexual assault against males.

A B.C. man who claims he was one of 17 young men who were sexually abused by a Catholic priest over a period of 25 years is suing the perpetrator’s estate and Catholic Church officials for damages.

The victim, who is only identified by initials in the lawsuit, says that while on assignment in and around Terrace in 1981 or 1982, Father Harold Daniel McIntee sexually abused him and two other young men.

He says that while staying overnight at the Secret Heart rectory with McIntee, he was experiencing abdominal pain and McIntee asked him to remove his pants to see if he had a swollen testicle.

The plaintiff, who was then aged 17 or 18, says that in the remote mining community of Kitsault, where the priest…

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Extradition would be unconstitutional, French officials tell Inuit delegation

As the Inuit delegation from Nunavut navigated meetings with French officials in Paris on Tuesday, they came up against what one human rights advocate called the “cold reality of the law.”

The French government can’t extradite ex-priest and alleged abuser Johannes Rivoire to Canada to face criminal charges, because it would violate its constitution to do so, Belgian advocate Lieve Halsberghe told reporters Tuesday.

The delegation from Nunavut Tunngavik Inc. is in Paris all this week in an effort to drum up public and political support in France for Rivoire’s extradition.

Halsberghe, who is helping the delegates from Nunavut Tunngavik, described a difficult morning of meetings that dashed many of the delegates’ hopes to see the man they’ve accused of abusing them face justice.

“I found it [an] extremely hard meeting, to be faced with this reality — this cold reality of…

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A priest accused of sexually abusing Inuit children when he missioned in their Canadian Arctic community has told alleged victims and relatives who traveled to France to confront him that he won’t go back to Canada to be questioned.

The 10-member Inuit delegation met this week with the Rev. Joannes Rivoire, hoping to persuade the 92-year-old to return with them to Canada, where they want him to face justice. Canadian police are also seeking his arrest on a sexual assault charge.

But the Oblate priest refused and denied wrongdoing, delegation members said Thursday at a news conference in Lyon, the southeastern French city where Rivoire lives in a care home.

The daughter of one of the priest’s late alleged victims described the meeting as like coming face-to-face with “the monster.”

Tanya Tungilik said she blames the priest for her father’s death. She said her father also suffered from alcoholism and recurrent…

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Reports of child abuse by priests are increasing and the victims are crying out for a response

Congratulations to the Federation of Asian Bishops Conferences (FABC) on the golden jubilee of its foundation. In years past, I was an invited speaker and adviser to FABC meetings in Bangkok on the protection of children, especially those children who are vulnerable to clerical sexual abuse.

There remains a growing problem of clerical child abuse that is not being challenged sufficiently and it seems that as leaders of the community and the People of God, God is challenging the bishops and the people of God to take this terrible crime more seriously.

Reports of child abuse by priests in parishes and seminaries are increasing and the victims are crying out for a response and action to the violation of their rights by Church leaders, not only in words of condemnation but, action for…

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Claim against estate of Father Georges Chevrier is one of two recently filed against dead priests

The British Columbia woman claims she was told the late Father Georges Chevrier had no history of the kind of sexual abuse complaints she was bringing forward.

Then she listened to an acclaimed podcast titled Stolen: Surviving St. Michael’s.

Now she’s suing.

The woman — known as LV — filed a B.C. Supreme Court claim this week against Chevrier’s estate and the corporation of the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Vancouver, which she accuses of failing to tell her the dead priest had a “known history of allegations of sexual abuse” when she first asked for compensation.

LV claims she only learned about Chevrier’s past through Stolen, a podcast hosted by investigative journalist Connie Walker, which unearthed numerous allegations of sexual and physical abuse against staff at St. Michael’s residential school in Saskatchewan, where Chevrier served as principal from 1950 to 1953.

…

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Documents sent from the Roman Catholic Diocese of Ogdensburg to the Vatican have reached the pope.

That’s according to John Bellocchio, a nationally known advocate for survivors of clergy sexual abuse.

Bellochio is accusing Cardinal Timothy Dolan, archbishop of New York, of covering up clerical sexual abuse and trying to shield money from lawsuits filed by victims of clergy sexual abuse.

Last month, Bellochio asked Ogdensburg Bishop Terry LaValley to forward the allegations to Vatican officials and civil authorities in New York. According to Bellochio, LaValley told him the documents have formally reached Pope Francis.

Now that the pope has received the documents, he could decide to put LaValley in charge of investigating the cardinal.

“Now that it has been transmitted to the Holy See, the investigation almost certainly has to begin. It has never not happened when the documents are accepted by the Holy See. Timothy Dolan…

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The leadership of a Catholic order in France has begun dismissal proceedings against a priest accused of sexually abusing Inuit children in Nunavut.

A 10-member delegation led by Nunavut Tunnagivik Inc., a group representing Nunavut Inuit, has been in Paris and Lyon this week to seek the extradition of Johannes Rivoire.

They met with French and Oblate officials and with Rivoire himself to try and persuade him to fly back to Canada on an extra seat they booked on their return flight.

At a news conference Thursday in Lyon, members of the delegation said Rivoire denied any wrongdoing and refused to leave France.

Tanya Tungilik, whose late father alleged that he was sexually abused by Rivoire in Naujaat, Nvt., when he was 13 years old, described confronting Rivoire as coming face-to-face with “the monster.”

“He has no remorse,” she said. “I left. I didn’t want to hear his lies.”

Tungilik…

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A federal bankruptcy judge ordered the Archdiocese of New Orleans to stop stipend payments to priests accused of sexual abuse, but not listed on the archdiocesan “credibly accused clergy” roster.

While it is not clear whether the New Orleans archdiocese will push back on the court’s decision, the order raises significant questions related to the First Amendment, about due process for accused clergymen, and the residual fallout of the Church’s sexual abuse crises of recent decades.

Judge Meredith Grabill ordered Aug. 31 that the archdiocese must stop making stipend and other maintenance payment to five priests who are not in ministry, but who not included on the archdiocesan list of clerics credibly accused of sexual abuse.

The order came in federal bankruptcy court, where the Archdiocese of New Orleans has filed for Chapter 11 protection.

Like many U.S. dioceses, New Orleans maintains a list of clergy “credibly accused”  of sexual…

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• Pastor resigns just days after The Tennessean told the story of Valerie Swope and her experiences as a clergy sexual abuse survivor.
• After an initial report in 2002, Swope began sharing her story more publicly in 2019 at a time of growing awareness of clergy sexual abuse within the Southern Baptist Convention.
• In announcing resignation, Tullahoma pastor cited questions from congregants in recent days about his leadership.

A prominent Tullahoma pastor resigned from his church on Wednesday, just days after The Tennessean told the story of Valerie Swope and her experiences as a clergy sexual abuse survivor.

The pastor, Christian Watts, cited questions from congregants in recent days about his leadership in a post on Facebook announcing his decision to step down from Life Change Church.

“I am deeply sorry for any pain and sorrow this has brought upon you,” Watts said in a post on the church’s Facebook page.

Watts has…

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A victim of child sexual abuse at a priest training school has said missionaries “begged for forgiveness” at a meeting.

Mark Murray was one of several abuse survivors who met the Comboni Missonaries in London on Tuesday.

The 66-year-old from St Asaph, Denbighshire endured repeated abuse by a priest while at St Peter Claver College in West Yorkshire.

The Comboni Survivors Group said it was “deeply moved” by the meeting.

The group was invited to meet Cardinal Vincent Nichols, Archbishop of Westminster, and other seniors clerics, including members of the Comboni Missionaries at the Archbishop’s House in Westminster.

“It was much more positive than I had imagined it was going to be,” said Mr Murray

“They acknowledged the abuse, which is something that we always wanted.”

Mr Murray had joined the former junior seminary when he was 13, between 1969 and 1974.

Pope Francis had urged the order to engage…

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Lead plaintiff Steve Snyder-Hill said it’s a huge ruling for the survivors, who believe it could influence other sexual misconduct cases at universities.

A federal appeals court ruling Wednesday revives unsettled lawsuits against Ohio State University over decades-old sexual abuse by the late team doctor Richard Strauss.

A district judge in Columbus had dismissed most of the unsettled cases, acknowledging that hundreds of young men were abused but agreeing with the university’s argument that the legal time limit for the claims had long passed. The plaintiffs argued that the clock didn’t start until the allegations came to light in 2018, and that their cases should be allowed to continue.

Two of the three judges on the Sixth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals panel that heard the case concluded in the ruling Wednesday that the men “plausibly allege a decades-long cover up” and “adequately allege that they did not know and…

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The Vatican declined to ask Pope Francis to resolve Guam’s clergy sex abuse cases.

Last month, District Court of Guam Chief Judge Frances Tydingco-Gatewood ordered attorneys representing the Holy See, or the State of the Vatican City, to ask the pope if he can resolve the Guam clergy sex abuse cases as opposed to settling it in court.

The case in question comes from a lawsuit filed by plaintiff “D.M.” who accused the Vatican of being responsible for former Archbishop Anthony Apuron sexually assaulting him in the 1990s.

Parties met in August on a motion filed by the Vatican to dismiss the case due to improper service from the plaintiff’s attorneys.

Throughout the arguments, Tydingco-Gatewood challenged the pope to be part of not only resolving D.M.’s case but also the hundreds of victims seeking compensation from the Archdiocese of Agana. She also asked if the plaintiff’s attorneys could be given…

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As Inuit delegates from Nunavut Tunngavik Inc. prepared to meet with the Oblates of Mary Immaculate in France Wednesday, they had a shock: the man they’ve accused of sexually abusing Canadian children would be there, too.

The delegates have been in France all week to call for the extradition of ex-priest Johannes Rivoire, who has been charged in Canada with sexual assault dating back to his time in Nunavut in the 1960s and 1970s.

The meeting with Rivoire was one the delegation had sought, but hadn’t received any word about until they were nearly at their destination in Lyon, France.

Kilikvak Kabloona, the CEO of Nunavut Tunngavik, said delegates were emotional when they heard who would be at the meeting.

“I ask you to respect that this is a very difficult time for the survivors, and they might not be willing to speak with you at this time,” Kabloona told media…

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KEY POINTS

• Police officer and former Surf Coast mayor, Brian McKiterick has launched legal action against the Vincentian order almost 50 years after he was allegedly abused by a priest while boarding at a former Catholic College in Bendigo.
• McKiterick alleges that he was fondled and forced to perform a sex act by Father Murray Wilson in 1975, when he was a boarder at the former St Vincent’s College in Bendigo, according to the Supreme Court writ.
• McKiterick has called for a more compassionate and conciliatory approach from the church and its lawyers towards victims of historical abuse by the clergy.
• The Vincentian  order had requested that McKiterick provide proof that he attended the college, which has exacerbated his trauma, according to his lawyer Cameron Doig from Arnold Thomas and Becker

A police officer and former Surf Coast mayor has launched legal action against the Vincentian order almost 50 years after he…

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Alleged victim of pastor was “advised to stop talking” about what happened to her …

A pair of lawsuits recently filed in Richland County, South Carolina have accused former youth pastor Mike D’Attoma of Northside Baptist Church in Lexington S.C. of grooming and sexually abusing female parishioners under his care. The suit also alleged the Southern Baptist Convention, the largest non-Catholic Christian denomination in the country, systemically failed to address rampant sexual abuse.

D’Attoma became a pastor at Northside in 2009. The plaintiffs, who asked the court to refer to them as Jane Doe One and Jane Doe Two throughout the proceedings, were fourteen and fifteen years old at the time D’Attoma entered the Northside youth ministry.

The suit paints the picture of a popular and enthusiastic pastor, a “favorite amongst all of the students in the youth group, especially most of the young girls.”

Jane Doe One claims to…

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I saw the headlines. Following the papal visit to Canada in July, most Catholic news outlets were running stories with headlines like “Pope’s Apology Was a Start. Now the Real Work Begins.” I sighed with heaviness, because we all know who will be shouldering this task: It will once again fall to survivors and their descendants to continue the work they have been doing for a long time. “Real work” has become the trump card that signals that white work here is done.

As a mixed Native and white Catholic woman in the U.S., I watched Pope Francis’ visit to Canada closely. I watched his apology to the First Nations, Inuit and Métis. I watched the various strong reactions many Native people expressed at seeing the pope wear a warbonnet and I watched the Twitter hot takes coming from all sides. I watched it all. My…

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The House on Tuesday passed a bill eliminating the statute of limitations for victims of child sex abuse who seek to file civil claims, sending the measure to President Biden’s desk for final approval.

The chamber cleared the bill, titled the Eliminating Limits to Justice for Child Sex Abuse Victims Act, by voice vote, a strategy reserved for non-controversial, popular measures. The Senate passed the legislation by unanimous consent in March.

The measure calls for removing the statute of limitations for minors filing civil claims relating to a number of sex abuse crimes, including force labor, sex trafficking, sexual abuse and sexual exploitation of children.ADVERTISING

Under current law, minors who experience sexual abuse are able to file federal civil claims until they turn 28 years old, or until 10 years after the violation or injury is discovered. The bill Congress passed seeks to eliminate those time restraints.

There is no…

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France has rejected a request from a visiting delegation of Canadian Inuits to extradite a priest accused of sexual assault on young members of the Indigenous minority in the 1960s.

The justice ministry said that in a meeting, the delegation was told that “in line with the constitutional tradition, France does not extradite its nationals”.

The Inuit had travelled to Paris to press France to fulfil a request filed by Canada in August for the extradition of Joannes Rivoire, 92, who lives in the French city of Lyon.

Rivoire, who has both French and Canadian nationality, is accused of sexually abusing young Inuit in the 1960s while he was on a mission in the far north of the country. He denies the accusations.

The justice ministry added that while turning down the extradition request, it also asked Canadian authorities for all details over the case to see if proceedings could be…

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The Vatican has said that recent court inquiries directed to Pope Francis as a head of state are “improper” under the doctrines of absolute immunity and personal inviolability in response to District Court of Guam Chief Judge Frances Tydingco-Gatewood’s order for the Holy See’s counsel to report on whether Pope Francis could meet with all survivors of Guam clergy sexual assaults to help settle abuse claims.

The Vatican said judicial inquiries directed to the pope as a head of state are “improper,” after a federal judge ordered the Holy See’s counsel to report on whether Pope Francis could meet with all survivors of Guam clergy sexual assaults to help settle abuse claims.

Attorneys for the Vatican, led by California-based Jeffrey Lena, also said the Holy See “has given no indication that it is currently inclined to settle the case at bar,” or participate in similar lawsuits.

All this is…

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A New Zealand group representing survivors of child sexual abuse in the Catholic Church has called on Pope Francis to intervene in the redress process, claiming that church authorities were mishandling it and retraumatising victims.

In a letter sent to the Vatican and seen by Reuters, the New Zealand chapter of Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP), a global organisation for child abuse victims, accused church officials in New Zealand of breaching procedures for managing abuse complaint cases.

“Most sadly, we are being harmed by the very Church office set up to provide healing,” Christopher Longhurst, the National Leader for SNAP Aotearoa New Zealand, said in his letter to the Pope.

Longhurst said in the letter that while publicly the leaders of the local Catholic church extend an “open hand to the hope of healing”, behind closed doors they traumatise survivors a second time by violating their own…

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The alleged abuse happened when the man was around 17 years old. According to court documents, the then-teen was allegedly told no one would believe him if he reported the abuse.

A Surrey man has filed a civil action against multiple Roman Catholic dioceses, orders of clergy and the estates of several dead priests alleging sexual abuse when he was a boy.

In a notice of civil claim filed in B.C. Supreme Court on Sept. 8, W.B. alleges he was abused by Father Harold McIntee.

In 1989, McIntee pleaded guilty to 17 counts of sexual assault against males, many of them residential school boys as young as 10.

The defendants named in the claim are: the estates of McIntee, Bishop Emeritus John Fergus O’Grady, Bishop Emeritus Hubert O’Connor, Father James Anthony Jordan; the Order of the Oblates of Mary Immaculate in the Province of British Columbia; OMI Lacombe Canada…

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New study projects that the religious identity in the US will drop below 50 percent by 2070.

Pew Research Center isn’t ruling out a future religious revival in America.

But given the country’s steady trends away from faith affiliation, experts don’t know what it would look like to see a return.

Analyzing surveys about religious identity and religious “switching” going back to 1972 and trying to project the American religious landscape out to the year 2070, they can’t say what demographic signs might indicate a coming swell of conversions.

“We’ve never seen it, and we don’t have the data to model a religious reversal,” Pew senior researcher Stephanie Kramer told CT. “There are some who say that revival never happens in an advanced economy. After secularization, you can’t put toothpaste back in the tube. But we don’t know that. We just don’t have the data.”

The data they do have,…

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En una de las penas más duras de las últimas décadas contra un sacerdote en España, el tribunal afirma que el acusado se aprovechó de su posición y del escenario de los delitos, un internado sometido a disciplina

La Sala de lo Penal del Tribunal Supremo ha confirmado este martes una de las penas más duras contra un cura en España en las últimas décadas, la condena a 30 años de prisión impuesta hace dos años a un exsacerdote de Ciudad Real por abusos sexuales a siete menores del seminario diocesano de Ciudad Real, donde era formador de los alumnos, entre 2014 y 2016. La sentencia ratifica la condena del Tribunal Superior de Justicia de Castilla La Mancha, que había elevado la pena precedente de 22 años y 8 meses hasta 30 años. Confirma igualmente una multa de 52.920 euros y una indemnización de 2.000 euros a cada…

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Spain’s Supreme Court on Tuesday upheld a 30-year prison sentence a lower court had imposed on a former priest for sexually abusing seven boys he taught at a seminary boarding school.

The court found that the abuse took place between 2013 and 2016 at the school in the south-central city of Ciudad Real. The victims were aged around 13 at the time.

During swimming lessons, the defendant played games with some of the boys, pulling them into the water by grabbing their genitals, the court said, and forced some of his victims to stand naked in front of him as a “test of trust.”

In 2016 a church court defrocked the priest after receiving complaints about his behavior, and referred him to civil courts. In 2020 he was convicted of sexual abuse and sentenced to 30 years in prison.

The former priest appealed to the Supreme Court, which on Tuesday…

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Three churches have made headlines recently for their alleged roles in covering up claims of sexual abuse. In May, leaders of the country’s largest protestant denomination, the Southern Baptist Convention, published a review alleging that reports of sexual abuse were suppressed by top church officials for two decades. In mid-August, Southern Baptist leaders announced that the church is under federal investigation for sexual abuse. Less than two weeks earlier, the Associated Press published an analysis of sealed records from a child sexual-abuse lawsuit against the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (also known as the Mormon church) in West Virginia, revealing how the church’s helpline allows church leaders to divert abuse accusations away from law enforcement and toward church attorneys. The Catholic Church has long faced allegations of sexual abuse by its leaders, which continue to surface; last week, Pope Francis addressed these claims, saying he takes personal responsibility for…

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Two men who were sexually abused by priests as children but filed their claims past the Aug. 15, 2019 deadline will get their full share of the Archdiocese of Agana’s compensation plan.

This comes two weeks before a hearing on the archdiocese’s bankruptcy exit plan, a key part of which is paying out hundreds of abuse claimants.

In the offer, the archdiocese and its creditors’ committee propose to pay abuse survivors $37 million to $101 million, plus a free burial plot and Catholic education for their children.

U.S. District Court Chief Judge Frances Tydingco-Gatewood, at a hearing Tuesday, allowed the two late-file claims to be considered as timely filed, and would therefore not incur a penalty. The penalty could have reduced their payout share to 33.3% and subject to a $50,000 cap.

Attorney Anthony Perez, counsel for the men, argued that his clients “acted quickly” and filed a lawsuit and…

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A group of Canadian Inuit have come to France to push for the extradition of a retired French priest accused of sexually abusing several Inuit children when he worked as a missionary in the north of Canada more than 40 years ago.

The five-person delegation from Nunavut Tunngavik Inc (NTI) head to the Ministry of Justice on Tuesday to argue the extradition of Johannes Rivoire – a former Roman Catholic priest who lives at an Oblates nursing home in the southern city of Lyon.

Rivoire holds French and Canadian citizenship and Canada requested his extradition last month.

The priest, now aged 93, served with the Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate in the remote Arctic communities of Igloolik, Naujaat and Arviat between 1960 and 1992.

He was accused of sexually abusing boys and girls during that time.

Rivoire left Canada for France in 1993 and denies the allegations.

Canadian…

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The Kentucky Baptist Convention is urging churches and associations to take advantage of training that will be offered in early October to address the issue of sexual abuse.

Todd Gray, KBC’s executive director-treasurer, stressed the need for churches to be prepared to prevent sexual abuse situations, as well as churches being prepared to properly handle any accusation of sexual abuse.

“We must act to protect our children from the devastating consequences of sexual abuse,” Gray said. In addition, he said churches will be trained on how to respond if a sexual abuse allegation is made. “This training is important for churches — at last year’s Annual Meeting the messengers voted for KBC to establish a sexual abuse task force to address this important topic in our state. This training will be a tremendous service to Kentucky Baptists.”

“Sexual abusers will seek access to children where protective barriers are low —…

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The Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) is facing two potentially precedent-setting lawsuits, alleging the denomination is responsible for sexual abuse perpetrated years ago by a South Carolina youth pastor.

The lawsuits were brought by two anonymous women who say they were abused as teens by Michael D’Attoma, former youth pastor at Northside Baptist Church in Lexington, South Carolina. The suits are seeking damages from Northside Baptist Church, the South Carolina Baptist Convention, and the SBC.

D’Attoma denies the allegations.

The lawsuits are the first suits against the SBC since the release of a report published in May by Guidepost Solutions showing widespread sex abuse cover-up within the SBC, confirmed Gene Besen, an attorney for the SBC’s Executive Committee.

The suits may also be the first to base their claims on the Guidepost Solutions’ report, according to South Carolina attorney Randy Hood. Hood is representing the two…

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Are ‘Vos estis’ records protected by the First Amendment? The New York archdiocese says they are.

The Archdiocese of New York argued in an Albany courtroom on Friday that records compiled during a Vatican-ordered investigation into a retired bishop are protected by the First Amendment, and can not be turned over in response to a subpoena in a sexual abuse lawsuit.

The case raises questions about the confidentiality of the Vos estis lux mundi process, promulgated by Pope Francis in 2019 as a mechanism for investigating allegations of abuse or misconduct against bishops.

‘An exclusively canonical process’

New York’s Cardinal Timothy Dolan was directed in early 2021 to investigate claims against retired Albany Bishop Howard Hubbard, who has been accused of multiple instances of sexual abuse against minors, and who admitted last year that he transferred several priests to new parish ministries without contacting police, after they were accused of sexual…

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Church in the country was only ‘starting to become aware’ of this problem, unlike countries in Europe and America

A forum of priests, nuns, laypeople, and activists in Indonesia has urged the Catholic Church hierarchy to tackle sexual abuse head-on and to end the practice of cover-up for the sake of protecting the church’s image.

The online discussion was held in collaboration between Let’s Talk About Sex and Sexualities, and Yayasan Sesawi dan Kawal Gereja (Mustard and Church Watchdog Foundation), a lay Catholic group, on Sept. 9.

The organizers said the event sought to encourage Church leaders to be serious and proactive in investigating sexual violence within the church, in line with Pope Francis’ commitment to zero tolerance for sex abuse.

Jesuit Father Franz Magnis-Suseno, former professor at the Jakarta-based Driyarkara School of Philosophy told the forum the Indonesian Church was only at the stage…

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Harvey* says when he told the head of Tasmania’s Anglican Church in the 1980s that he had been sexually abused by a priest, he felt greatly relieved. Then he watched that same priest go from promotion to promotion.

Key points:

• Harvey is suing the Anglican Church in Tasmania over a deal it made with him in the 90s to take no further action about child abuse he suffered
• He says his dream to become a geologist was ruined due to his trauma affecting his grades and thereby affecting his future earnings
• The court heard he felt his complaints had been taken seriously by the church until he saw his abuser promoted

Now, he has taken the Anglican Diocese of Tasmania to trial in the Supreme Court in Hobart, arguing the $34,000 settlement he was given in the 90s was “unjust” and the alleged abuse changed his future and ruined his potential earnings.

The first…

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As a lifelong active Catholic in Albany, I was dismayed to read the article “Church shields files of Bishop,” Sept. 4, of the continuing efforts of the Albany Diocese to block the release of personnel records for clergy suspected in the sexual abuse crisis.

The Roman Catholic Diocese of Albany is currently contending that the records of Albany Bishop Emeritus Howard J. Hubbard should be shielded from disclosure. This is after losing a court case that ordered the release of priest personnel records for those charged in the lawsuits filed after the passage of the Child Victims Act.

While the revelations from the sexual abuse scandals are painful, I believe the church must be fully transparent to get beyond this crisis. This would be similar to the truth and reconciliation process that occurred in South Africa after the fall of apartheid.

Through this openness, the church…

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• Former Marist brother Francis William Cable abused boys in the 60s and 70s 
• Known as Br Romuald, he preyed on vulnerable students in NSW Hunter region 
• Cable died in hospital aged 90 after he was transferred from Long Bay Jail 
• Another trial was set for 2023 over further allegations levelled by more students  

A despicable paedophile who abused more than 20 schoolboys has died while serving a prison sentence at age 90 and awaiting trial over further charges. 

Former Marist brother Francis William Cable was serving two terms for child sex offences in Long Bay Jail after he was sentenced in 2015 to a maximum 16 years.

Cable died on Monday after he was transferred to Prince of Wales Hospital in Newcastle with suspected heart disease, reports The Daily Telegraph.

 A trial over further allegations was set for 2023. 

Known as Br Romuald, he abused multiple boys between 1960 and…

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A bankruptcy judge in Delaware has approved a $2.46 billion Chapter 11 reorganization plan for the Boy Scouts of America, a decision that will directly impact more than 80,000 sexual abuse survivors

The Thursday ruling by Judge Laurie Selber Silverstein comes more than two years after BSA filed for bankruptcy protection amid a large number of sexual abuse lawsuits that had been filed by Scouts who had been sexually abused as children by the organization’s leaders and volunteers.

The Coalition of Abused Scouts for Justice celebrated the “historic day for tens of thousands of survivors of childhood sexual assault.” The coalition, which was formed in 2020, includes more than two dozen law firms representing more than 70,000 survivor-claimants in the BSA bankruptcy case.

“The confirmation of this plan makes closure possible and some measure of justice tangible for people whose voices have been silenced for far too long,” the group…

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Ubaldo Roque Huerta didn’t show up Thursday for his first court appearance on a fifth-degree criminal sexual conduct charge. 

A warrant has been issued for the arrest of a former Catholic priest accused of sexually assault, after he missed his first court appearance Thursday.

Winona County District Judge Mary Leahy issued the warrant to hold Ubaldo Roque Huerta, 50, without bail after he failed to show up for the hearing. Roque Huerta is charged with fifth-degree criminal sexual conduct for allegedly performing sexual acts on another person without their consent.

Roque Huerta was going through laicization — the process of leaving the priesthood — with the Diocese of Winona-Rochester when he allegedly assaulted a person in December 2020.

He was ordained as a priest in 2008 and served Latino communities in parishes in Rochester, Eyota, Winona, St. Charles and Elba. Diocesan officials said last month he…

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A FORMER priest who was a serial sex abuser for almost 20 years was yesterday accused of breaching his Sexual Offences Prevention Order.

Almost four years to the day since he last appeared in court, Daniel John Curran (72) was charged at Downpatrick Magistrates Court with breaching his lifelong SOPO on August 12 this year.

It is alleged that Curran, from Bryansford Avenue in Newcastle, breached the SOPO in that he “remained / loitered at Tullymore National Activity Centre which by its nature is likely to attract or be frequented by children under 16 years without permission of your designated risk manager”.

A police officer told the court he believed he could connect Curran to the charge and District Judge Amanda Brady adjourned the case to September 22.

Curran last appeared in court in 2018 when he was handed a 200-hour community service order for sexually abusing a boy more…

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Ryan Imgrund alleged to have sent shirtless photos, communicated inappropriately with female students.

Ryan Imgrund, a former York Catholic teacher, is accused of inappropriate behaviour with five female students — including sending shirtless photos of himself to one of them — when he worked at a Newmarket high school, the Ontario College of Teachers alleges.

Imgrund, who resigned from the college last June, worked as a department head teaching and coaching.

A detailed notice of hearing posted on the college’s website alleges that Imgrund “abused a student or students psychologically or emotionally … sexually … and/or engaged in sexual abuse of a student or students.”

The notice of hearing alleges that while out of town for a provincial competition, “the member interacted in an inappropriate manner with members of the girls’ team,” including personal group messages sent late in the evening and in the early morning hours.

The notice of…

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Regarding the Times Union’s series of articles on Albany Bishop Emeritus Howard J. Hubbard, I have been quiet too long. I want to speak up for Hubbard the man. I’m not writing about his leadership or the Roman Catholic Church’s handling of sex abuse but of Hubbard, the good and decent man I have known for more than 60 years. The allegation of his deviant behavior is completely out of character for that man. I was Hubbard’s assistant in the chapel of Camp Tekakwitha while we were both in the seminary and then in Rome for two years before he was ordained as a priest and before I returned after my ordination. In the 18 years I served as a priest, before and after I resigned in order to marry Faye Tischler, I worked with Hubbard on issues of social and criminal justice. Throughout, he was a spiritual and dedicated…

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Another parish is feeling the pain of the Archdiocese of Santa Fe’s $121.5 million settlement in a bankruptcy case that stems from hundreds of allegations of sexual abuse by Catholic clergy.

Some congregants at San Isidro Catholic Parish in the village of Agua Fría had been told the parish would be receiving half the proceeds of a land sale to build a new church.

But now there are doubts the parish will retain the building funds amid the archdiocese’s efforts to settle its Chapter 11 bankruptcy. Congregants fear the parish may lose about 23 acres of church property in a deal between the archdiocese and the Santa Fe Civic Housing Authority without seeing a dime.

Representatives of the archdiocese did not return repeated messages seeking comment.

Minutes of a meeting last month between archdiocese officials and parish leaders state the Rev. John D. Cannon, now rector of the Cathedral…

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Survivors of Guam clergy sexual assaults have a few days left to vote for or against the Archdiocese of Agana’s bankruptcy exit plan, which includes settlement of the abuse claims estimated at $37 million to $101 million.

Their ballots must be received by the U.S. District Court of Guam clerk by Sept. 19 to be counted as a vote to accept or reject the disclosure statement, which is the plan to get the archdiocese out of bankruptcy.

U.S. District Court Chief Judge Frances Tydingco-Gatewood approved the adequacy of the third amended disclosure statement filed on July 19, giving each claimant a chance to be heard by their vote.

Each abuse claimant’s decision about how to vote is their own, but they can seek guidance from their attorneys.

A vote to accept the plan by a majority of the more than 270 abuse survivors who filed claims in the archdiocese’s bankruptcy…

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Authorities confirmed they have received calls about potential additional victims after 2News broke the story that a former Utah mayor and Latter-day Saint bishop had been arrested on suspicion of child sex abuse.

“Since the report was released that Johnson was taken into custody, we have received other reports of additional victims,” said Stephanie Dinsmore, spokesperson for the Davis County Sheriff’s Office.

Carl Johnson, 77, was arrested Wednesday at his Orem home and booked into the Davis County Jail on seven counts of aggravated sexual abuse of a child. The allegations come from an ongoing investigation that covers several decades and involves victims who were as young as 2 years old at the time of the alleged abuse.

Johnson was the mayor of West Bountiful in the 90s, and he served in various leadership roles in his local congregation of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, including the…

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Nueva condena (y nueva indemnización privada) por abusos contra un sacerdote del Opus Dei

Nueva denuncia de “abuso de conciencia y poder con connotación sexual” (el término se las trae) contra un sacerdote del Opus Dei, en esta ocasión en Chile, que se ha saldado con la suspensión del cura, Carlos Rodríguez Picado, y con un acuerdo privado “entre las partes”

La nota concluye lamentando “el profundo dolor de la víctima” y “no haber sabido darle todo el reconocimiento, acompañamiento y apoyo que buscaba en el Opus Dei”

Nueva denuncia de “abuso de conciencia y poder con connotación sexual” (el término se las trae) contra un sacerdote del Opus Dei, en esta ocasión en Chile, que se ha saldado con la suspensión del cura, Carlos Rodríguez Picado, y con un acuerdo privado “entre las partes”, según informa la prelatura del Opus Dei en un comunicado.

La “demanda de indemnización de perjuicios”, apunta la Obra,…

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A lawsuit has been filed against the Kingston polygamist family by ten former members who allege the group and its leaders engage in sexual and physical abuse, commit fraud, and profit from unpaid child labor.

The plaintiffs, most of them women, filed the 109-page lawsuit in Third District Court Wednesday against group leader Paul Elden Kingston and dozens of other named individuals and organizations. The suit lays out multiple disturbing allegations against the Kingston group which is commonly known as “the Order.”

“It is a common and intentional practice in the Order to require girls and women to submit sexually to their husbands even if the sexual submission is against their will because having children results in workers for the benefit of the Order,” the lawsuit states. “It is also a common and intentional practice in the Order for girls to be impregnated and have children when they are young…

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Women who were members of a Utah polygamous group said in a lawsuit that they were forced into underage marriages in which their husbands raped them and that they had to perform child labor in the group’s businesses.

The northern Utah-based Kingston Group, also known as the Order, arranged such marriages so that girls would become pregnant and beholden to their husbands and the group, alleges the lawsuit filed Wednesday in state court in Salt Lake City.

“Order girls are taught from birth that their primary purposes in life are to be obedient, a submissive wife, and to bear as many children as possible,” the lawsuit states.

The lawsuit filed by 10 people against Kingston Group members, including leader Paul Eldon Kingston, seeks a jury trial and unspecified damages.

The group sought to maintain “Pure Kingston Blood” by arranging marriages between cousins and other close relatives and shunning relationships that…

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Summary

In October 2019, Mercy Corps and its Board requested that investigative firm Vestry Laight conduct an independent, external review into what steps were taken when reports of abuse by Mercy Corps’ late co-founder Ellsworth Culver were brought to the organization’s attention in 2018.

Also in late 2019, Mercy Corps engaged law firm Nichols Liu to conduct a separate review evaluating the organization’s sexual exploitation and abuse policies and their applicability to these circumstances. Both reviews were published by Mercy Corps on January 29, 2020.

In response to the Vestry Laight and Nichols Liu reports, Mercy Corps’ Board of Directors and Executive team announced commitments to action to restructure and strengthen legal, ethics and safeguarding functions, update policies and strengthen Board governance.

The commitments to action can be found here and you can find more details on the commitments and progress below. We have fulfilled the majority (18 out of 23) commitments and…

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Daughter of nonprofit’s former leader says investigation into abuse, trafficking served to cover up past behavior

Note: This story contains details of abuse that some readers may find disturbing.

A new $1 lawsuit against international nonprofit organization Mercy Corps alleges the organization retraumatized the daughter of its former leader while conducting an independent investigation into her claims of horrific abuse.

The lawsuit, filed in Multnomah Circuit Court by Portland attorneys Kim Sordyl and Michael Fuller on behalf of plaintiff and victim Tania Humphrey, seeks a jury trial for claims of intentional infliction of emotional distress. Mercy Corps hired an outside firm in 2020 to investigate Humphrey’s reports of being raped, trafficked and abused by her father, Mercy Corps co-founder Ellsworth Culver, and other Mercy Corps-affiliated members from around 1973 to 1989, while Humphrey was a student at St. Mary’s Academy in Portland. Culver died in 2005, before…

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An 80-year-old youth ministry volunteer admitted molesting two juvenile relatives when confronted by a Sierra Vista police detective earlier this month, according to court records obtained by Arizona Daily Independent.

Jay Herbert Anderson remains in the Cochise County jail in lieu of $300,000 bail after being arrested Sept. 2 by Det. Jessica Ferrel of the Sierra Vista Police Department. He is scheduled to be back in court Sept. 13 for a preliminary hearing on nine felony charges.

Anderson came under investigation July 11 when a male relative came forward with concerns that two female juveniles had been molested by Anderson several years ago. The girls, who live in separate cities, reportedly divulged the sexual abuse for the first time during a religious event in early July.

Ferrel noted in a probable cause statement that one of the girls reported being molested during summer trips to Arizona between aged five to…

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A Missouri boarding school already under scrutiny amid physical and sexual abuse allegations may soon be shut down, following a judge’s ruling.

Cedar County Circuit Judge David Munton signed an order Wednesday night to close Agape Boarding School in Stockton after the Missouri attorney general’s office and the state Department of Social Services filed petitions citing evidence that someone on the state registry for child abuse and neglect was actively working there.

But early Thursday, Munton stated in a court document that before closing the school he wanted the sheriff to confirm that the employee is still working at Agape. Officials have not said whether that’s the case, and a hearing originally scheduled for Thursday to decide Agape’s fate was postponed until Monday.

“Agape’s employment of a staff member who is listed on the state’s Child Abuse/Neglect Central Registry presents an immediate health and safety concern for the children residing at…

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Awake Milwaukee invites you to participate in Courageous Conversations, our online speaker/discussion series created to build community, deepen understanding, encourage conversation, and inspire action in response to the complex issue of sexual abuse in the Catholic Church. You are invited to join us for:

WHAT I WANT CATHOLICS TO UNDERSTAND: A CONVERSATION WITH ABUSE SURVIVORS

PART 1, LISTEN AND LEARN: THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 22, 7:00PM – 8:30PM CDT
PART 2, DISCUSS AND DISCERN: THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 29, 7:00PM – 8:30PM CDT

Our wonderful panel of victim-survivors—Gigi Fontanilla, Deacon Larry Normann, Kathy Ann Coll, Shaun Dougherty, and Esther Harber—will share their stories and perspectives with the Awake community. 

Part 1 (Listen and Learn) will include a short introduction from Awake, engaging conversation with our panelists, and question and answer time at the end of the evening. (This event will be recorded for later viewing.)

Part 2 (Discuss and Discern) will be focused on building connections…

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Nondisclosure agreements have been a consistent pattern in recent abuse scandals facing major churches.

Known as NDAs, the documents were the focus of a new piece in Religion News Service by Katelyn Beaty.

“In recent months, allegations of unhealthy leadership patterns have been lodged against Andy Wood, the new senior pastor at Saddleback and former senior pastor at Echo Church, a multi-site congregation in San Jose, California,” Beaty reported. “In response, Saddleback hired an executive search firm to investigate the claims and found ‘no systemic or pattern of abuse under Andy’s leadership.’ But critics say if former Echo employees were allowed to talk freely, patterns would emerge.

The report noted a change.org petition that currently has over 1,200 signatures.

“Those whose names appear below implore the current leadership of Echo Church in San Jose, CA to release all former employees from any non-disclosure agreements, any non-disparagement agreements, and any documents…

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There are two types of child sex abuse survivors, the troubled child sex abuse survivor and a thriving survivor. Many assume that victims who were sexually abused as children are destined to become deeply troubled failures as adults. But that is an incorrect statement. For starters, three women were sexually abused in their youth by Dr. Larry Nassar. Simone Biles, Aly Raisman, and McKayla Maroney all suffered deeply as girls when Nassar, a sports doctor, assaulted them. As adults, however, they went on to become Olympic gold medalists.

These three are far from the only childhood abuse survivors to thrive in adulthood. Actors Ashley Judd, Terri Hatcher, Mackenzie Phillips, and Gabriel Byrne are among many other celebrities who have disclosed sexual abuse. We do not mean to imply that becoming a celebrity is a sign of success. And, of course, most who succeed in adulthood do not…

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Pengerang MP Datuk Seri Azalina Othman Said said today she supports the Joint Action Group for Gender Equality’s (JAG) castigation of Religious Affairs Minister Datuk Idris Ahmad for his victim-blaming and silencing of a child survivor of sexual abuse.

Without naming the religious minister, Azalina questioned the precedent Idris would be setting by silencing and downplaying the child victim’s allegations, especially with several Acts already in place that were designed to help and protect victims of sexual abuse.

“JAG raised similar concerns regarding the act of silencing victims of sexual crimes. What now of our newly-passed Anti-Sexual Harassment Act or the Child Act or the Sexual Offences Against Children Act?

“What kind of messaging and precedent are we setting? Using religion especially to create fear, shame, and obligation to protect the reputation of a sexual predator is against every rule of protective laws for children in this country,” she said…

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Protecting the reputation of sexual predators by using religion to instil fear, shame and obligation against victims, is against every rule of law protecting children in this country, said Datuk Seri Azalina Othman Said. 

The Pengerang MP said this in calling for better protection of minors who become victims of sexual crimes while urging all quarters not to sweep the issue under the carpet. 

This follows a recent remark by Religious Affairs Minister Datuk Idris Ahmad reminding a 15-year-old child actress not to expose her father’s “aib” (indiscretions) after she alleged multiple sexual abuse instances. 

Azalina said she agreed with a statement by the Joint Action Group for Gender Equality yesterday raising concerns regarding the act of silencing victims. 

“What now of our newly passed Anti-Sexual Harassment Act or the Child Act or the Sexual Offences Against Children Act? What kind of messaging and precedent are we setting?” she questioned…

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This follows a nearly year-long News 5 Investigation

[Includes video interviews of survivors]

More people are stepping forward saying they, too, suffered severe abuse at the hands of some local nuns. Now, victims are starting to see offers of restitution. This comes after a News 5 Investigation continues to expose what happened at a former home for children called Parmadale.

Barb Kuznecov said that when she was young, her parents suffered from mental and financial problems. So, at just 7 years old, she was sent to Parmadale.

“I wasn’t a person. I didn’t mean anything to anybody,” said Kuznecov with tears in her eyes.

Abuse from Sister Myra and Another Nun

She told us the abuse Sister Myra Wasikowski handed out was unbearable, including an incident on a staircase.

“She dragged me down by my hair down those steps and then made me kneel in the living room with my arms…

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Just more than a year after ex-cardinal and ex-priest Theodore McCarrick was arraigned in a Massachusetts criminal court on assault and battery charges, proceedings continue on without an imminent conclusion.

Another status update in the case came and went in Dedham District Court on Sept. 8, without any progress and another continuance to Nov. 1.

McCarrick was criminally charged in July 2021, with three counts of indecent assault and battery on a person over 14 stemming from the alleged sexual assault of a 16-year-old boy during a wedding reception at Wellesley College on June 8, 1974.

The alleged victim in the case has not been publicly identified. The person is represented by attorney Mitchell Garabedian, who is well known for representing those who have made abuse allegations against Catholic clergy.

McCarrick, who turned 92 in July, appeared in person for his arraignment on Sept. 3, 2021. It was his first…

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Should the look-back window be reopened and maybe even left open?

This provision of New York State’s 2019 Child Victims Act allowed adults who had been abused decades ago to sue their abusers or the institutions that enabled the abuse. The statute of limitations for such suits was raised to the age of 55; abuse survivors had a two year window (which included an extension in 2020) to file lawsuits. More than 10,000 such claims were filed in New York.

Now that deadline has passed, but hundreds and possibly thousands of other victims have either come forward after the deadline or have not been able to find representation in cases where the alleged abusers would not have the resources to cover settlements and costs.

The Child Victims Act offered victims of alleged abuse a three-year period in which to seek justice, but, too often, three years was not long enough…

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A former Utah city mayor and bishop with The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has been arrested on accusations he sexually abused at least three children decades ago.

Carl Matthew Johnson, 77, was arrested Wednesday and booked into the Davis County jail in northern Utah on suspicion of seven counts of sex abuse of a child, according to a probable cause statement.

Investigators say Johnson acknowledged abusing three victims in 1985, 1993 and 1996 and estimated there was a total of six victims as young as 2-years-old, according to the document. He told investigators he had struggled “controlling his sexual urges” most of his life.

Some of the alleged abuse occurred in the same years as he was mayor of West Bountiful, a city just outside of Salt Lake City that he led from 1990-1997.

The investigation is still ongoing, but so far Johnson is only booked on…

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A bankruptcy judge approved Thursday the Boy Scouts of America’s (BSA) $2.46 billion reorganization plan.

Why it matters: It would enable the BSA to exit Chapter 11 and continue operating while compensating over 80,000 men who allege scout leaders sexually abused them, per Reuters.

• It’s the largest sex abuse lawsuit in U.S. history and comes after years of legal battles.

Details: Under the plan, the BSA, its local councils, settling insurance companies and troop-sponsoring groups like religious organizations would contribute to a fund for survivors in exchange for protection from future abuse lawsuits.

• Claimants could receive anywhere from $3,500 to $2.7 million for the most severe cases.
• Some of the money would also go toward a trust set up to fund litigation against those that have not settled, per AP.

What’s next: The ruling, issued by Judge Laurie Selber Silverstein in Delaware, now awaits approval from a federal…

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A federal judge gave final approval to the Boy Scouts of America’s plan to exit bankruptcy Thursday, marking an end to the largest sexual abuse case against a single organization in American history. 

Judge Laurie Selber Silverstein confirmed the plan a little more than a month after signaling she would do so in a 300-plus page opinion that found a trust at the heart of Scouts’ proposal would be adequate to compensate victims of abuse.

Silverstein had rejected one portion of the plan in her July opinion: A $250 million settlement with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, which she said would protect the church from claims of abuse that weren’t directly tied to Scouting. Scouts subsequently scrapped the settlement, leaving victims with claims against the church free to pursue them outside the bankruptcy.

Central to the bankruptcy plan is a $2.46 billion trust fund for survivors — down from $2.7 billion without the contribution from the Mormon church. In return,…

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The roots of the Supreme Court’s reversal of Roe go back 50 years,  when zealots preaching a gospel of misogyny and homophobia—led by an accused sexual predator—took over America’s largest Protestant denomination.

In June, at the Southern Baptist Convention’s annual meeting in Anaheim, Calif., Albert Mohler Jr., the president of the denomination’s flagship seminary and one of its leading theologians, was asked whether he believed that women who have abortions should be prosecuted for murder. Mohler acknowledged that there could be gray areas, such as miscarriages, but came down on the side of criminalizing women. “There are many cases in which, demonstrably, there is not just an abortionist who should face criminal consequences, but a woman seeking an abortion,” he said to applause. “That is something we believe the law should pursue.” Law enforcement could pursue such cases, he added, if the final version of the Supreme Court’s opinion in Dobbs v….

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Not every church that uses NDAs has faced scandal. But of those that have in recent years, NDAs were inevitably in the mix.

In 2019, pastor Rick Warren told a reporter why Saddleback Church — one of the most dynamic megachurches worldwide — didn’t use nondisclosure agreements: “We believe that our competition is not other churches, but rather the world, the flesh, and the devil.”

Warren’s comment hints at the original purpose of NDAs: to prevent employees of businesses from taking trade secrets to competitors — an Apple employee from taking the latest phone update to their new Microsoft gig.

Warren, by contrast, was apparently happy for Saddleback staffers to take their wisdom elsewhere, since all churches are playing for Team Jesus.

Saddleback’s new lead pastor may be less inclined to take such an open-handed approach.

In recent months, allegations of unhealthy leadership patterns have been lodged against Andy Wood, the…

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This article appears in the Synod on Synodality feature series. View the full series.

Inmates, college students, climate activists, LGBTQ people, clergy sex abuse survivors, health care professionals, church reform advocates and older Catholics are among those who have participated in their own listening sessions for the grassroots consultation that has been held ahead of the 2023 Synod of Bishops in Rome.

In all, 110 non-diocesan Catholic groups—universities, advocacy nonprofits, religious congregations, ministries and private associations of individuals, among others — submitted their own synodal “synthesis” reports this year to the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, said Julia McStravog, a consultant helping to coordinate the bishops’ synodal work. Those groups’ reports were to be synthesized along with those of 178 Latin Rite dioceses in the United States into a 10-page document that the bishops’ conference was scheduled to submit to the Vatican’s General Secretariat of the Synod of Bishops in…

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“The threats went from ‘don’t tell or you’ll get in trouble’ to full-blown ‘you and everyone you know is going to go to hell,’ which is like, the most terror-inducing threat — putting that fear, in me as a believer at the time, feeling like I was responsible for all these other people’s eternal lives.”

An Edmonton man has filed a $2-million lawsuit against the Catholic Archdiocese of Regina, claiming a priest sexually abused him when he was a young altar server.

Vincent LaHaye alleges in a June 23 statement of claim that he suffered 30 years of “psychological pain, suffering and anguish” after being abused at the hands of the late Alfred W. Bouchard, a priest who served at Swift Current’s Sacred Heart Catholic Church in the early 1990s.

LaHaye, 41, claims the assaults began when he was 10 and continued for two years until Bouchard…

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Police say the man held a “position of trust” over the three alleged victims.

Carl Johnson, a former mayor and LDS bishop, was arrested and booked into the Davis County jail on suspicion of seven counts of aggravated abuse of a child on Wednesday, Sept. 7, 2022.

A one-time Utah mayor and former bishop for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was arrested Wednesday after police say he sexually abused at least three children.

Carl Johnson, 77, was arrested in Orem and booked into the Davis County jail on suspicion of seven counts of aggravated abuse of a child.

Police allege in a probable cause statement that Johnson was in a “position of trust” over the three alleged victims, who disclosed they were sexually abused as children between 1985 and 1996.

One alleged victim told police she was between 5 and 8 years old in 1996, when Johnson…

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Judge will allow the youth organization to exit Chapter 11 and settle decades of claims by more than 80,000 men

The Boy Scouts of America secured approval of a $2.46bn reorganization plan from a bankruptcy judge on Thursday that will allow the youth organization to exit Chapter 11 and settle decades of claims by more than 80,000 men who say they were abused as children by troop leaders.

US bankruptcy judge Laurie Selber Silverstein in Wilmington, Delaware, signed off on the restructuring proposal after the Boy Scouts made changes to address her previous ruling that had rejected portions of the settlement.

The biggest change in the amended plan was the removal of a $250m settlement payment from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which Silverstein refused to approve.

Silverstein said that part of that settlement proposal went too far in attempting to protect the Mormon church from abuse…

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A Utah lawmaker and prominent attorney for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints advised a church bishop not to report a confession of child sex abuse to authorities, a decision that allowed the abuse to continue for years, according to records filed in a lawsuit.

The records — two pages from a log of calls fielded by a law firm representing the church and the deposition of a church official — show that Utah Republican State Rep. Merrill F. Nelson took the initial call from a bishop reporting that church member Paul Adams had sexually abused his daughters. Nelson also had multiple conversations over a two-year span with two bishops who knew of the abuse, the records show.

Nelson is a conservative lawmaker who was elected to the Utah House of Representatives in 2013 and announced his retirement earlier this year. He was also a lawyer…

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A U.S. bankruptcy judge rejected the Catholic church’s argument that it should be allowed to keep paying monthly stipends to staff accused of sexual abuse.

 A federal bankruptcy judge has ordered the Archdiocese of New Orleans to stop paying retirement benefits to five priests who have been accused of sexually abusing minors or vulnerable adults but are not included on a list of more than 70 clergy the local church considers “credibly accused.”

U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Meredith Grabill issued the order Aug. 31, rejecting the local Catholic church’s argument that it should be allowed to keep paying monthly stipends to priests, deacons and lay staff who face claims of sexual abuse in sealed documents that were turned over to the court by the Archdiocese earlier this year.

From the very beginning of its bankruptcy case in May 2020, the Archdiocese tried to argue that it needed…

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Robert Kapal spent nearly 40 years trying not to remember a Buffalo Diocese priest he says abused him as a child.

But when a reporter showed up at his door four years ago with diocese documents naming the priest, the 46-year-old firefighter burst into tears.

“I haven’t heard that name in a long time,” Kapal said, before recalling details of sexual abuse he said he endured at St. Christopher Catholic Church in the Town of Tonawanda in 1980. 

That was four years ago, and it might have been financially beneficial for Kapal to come forward. New York’s Child Victims Act was about to become law, opening a “look-back window” for survivors of sexual abuse to sue abusers and the institutions responsible for their abuse. But emotionally, Kapal wasn’t ready.

“I wanted to forget about this and just move on with my life, and I couldn’t,” Kapal said.

Legally, Kapal has…

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A lawsuit against the Archdiocese of Denver alleges years of abuse by a Catholic priest.

These claims of abuse allege it happened at church, at Sunday school and even out in the open. That’s according to an attorney representing the Denver-area woman who filed the suit.

The Archdiocese said the priest in question, Marshall Gourley, is not even part of their order, just another point of contention between both sides in this case.

“The Archdiocese was aware, at the time, that the abuse was occurring,” Paul Linnenburger, who represents the woman who filed the lawsuit, said.

“It was not unusual for there to be instances of abuse connected thereto, in hallways, in private rooms, sometimes out in the open,” Linnenburger said.

The claims of sexual abuse happened, according to Linnenburger, during the mid-1980s at a Catholic church in the city.

“There was roughly a four-year period from about the time…

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Father Johannes Rivoire, who is now 91 years old and lives in Lyon, has long been accused of sexually abusing Inuit children

Tanya Tungilik says she wants to meet face to face with the former French Oblate priest her late father alleged sexually abused him as a child.

She is to join a delegation of Inuit planning to travel from Nunavut to Paris and Lyon, France, next week to seek the extradition of Father Johannes Rivoire to Canada. The trip, led by Nunavut Tunnagavik Inc., a group representing Nunavut Inuit, is to also include Tungilik’s brother, Jesse Tungilik, and Steve Mapsalak, who has also accused Rivoire of abuse.

Tungilik says her father, Marius Tungilik, who died in 2012, alleged he was sexually abused by Rivoire when he was 13 years old while working at the Co-op store in Naujaat, Nvt. Those accusations have never been heard in court.

“I want…

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Rev. Tomas Vazquez Tellez, 49, who served St. Joseph Catholic Church in Kennewick and St. Patrick Catholic Church in Pasco was taken to the Benton County Jail Wednesday.

BENTON COUNTY – A priest who served two churches in the Tri-Cities was arrested Wednesday after a woman said he raped her at his home.

Rev. Tomas Vazquez Tellez, 49, is accused of third-degree rape with an aggravating factor of being a person of trust.

The Kennewick Police Department said a woman reported to another priest within the Yakima Diocese that Vasquez had raped her after a dinner at his home. The woman then reported it to the police, a decision, according to diocesan officials, made with their full support.

Vasquez resigned as pastor of St. Joseph Catholic Church in April of 2020 and began serving St. Patrick Catholic Church in Pasco prior to leaving for a three-month…

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BENTON COUNTY, Wash. — A local priest, who has served at St. Joseph Catholic Church and at St. Patrick Catholic church in Pasco is now in the Benton County Jail facing rape charges.

According to Monsignor Robert Siler with the Yakima Diocese, 49-year old Rev. Tomás Vázquez Téllez was arrested on September 7th by Kennewick Police Department Officers.

Vázquez was booked into the Benton County Jail on suspicion of 3rd Degree Rape with an aggravating factor of being a person of trust.

Siler said the woman reported that her and Vázquez had developed a friendship over the course of the past few years. The woman claims they had lunches and dinners together, but that the priest had never made romantic overtures before. The woman said she viewed Vázquez as a friend whom she could confide.

According to Siler, the woman reported the alleged rape occurred following a dinner at a home…

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A Tri-Cities priest has been arrested on suspicion of rape.

Rev. Tomás Vázquez Téllez, 49, was arrested Wednesday on suspicion of third-degree rape with an aggravating factor of being a person of trust. Vázquez Téllez has been serving at St. Patrick Catholic Church in Pasco since September 2021.

Before that he was the pastor of St. Joseph Catholic Church in Kennewick before stepping down in April 2020 to begin a sabbatical to study biblical languages, according to a new release from the Diocese of Yakima. He was an associate pastor in Sunnyside for three years and spent one year at Holy Family in Yakima before serving at St. Andrew’s Catholic Church in Ellensburg from 2009-16, according to the diocese.

Vázquez Téllez was booked into the Benton County jail after being arrested at his home. According to the diocese, the suspected sexual assault happened on Aug. 19-20.

According to the diocese,…

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A Yakima Diocese priest has been arrested in Benton County on suspicion of third-degree rape with an aggravating factor of being a person of trust.

Reverend Tomás Vázquez Téllez, 49, was arrested on Wednesday, Sept. 7th.

He is now in the Benton County Jail awaiting his charges.

The arrest follows a Kennewick Police Department investigation of a reported rape that occurred August 19th and 20th at the suspect’s home in the city.

The woman reported the rape to another priest in the diocese within hours of it happening, then decided to report it to police.

Vázquez resigned as pastor of St. Joseph Catholic Church in Kennewick in April 2020.

He then began serving at Pasco’s St. Patrick Catholic Church and was preparing to go to Jerusalem before the incident.

“We are shocked and saddened by these developments,” Yakima Diocese Bishop Joseph J. Tyson said. “I am grateful that the woman…

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A message to the global leader of the Catholic Church: District Court of Guam Chief Judge Francis Tydingco-Gatewood issuing an order this week in connection the clergy sex abuse cases. In it, she writes – would Pope Francis be inclined to meet all Guam’s plaintiffs who alleged abuse at the hands of the church clergy?

The chief judge wants to know if the Pope would be open to discussing a potential global settlement with Guam’s victims. Her order comes after the Holy See argued a motion to dismiss a case against a victim, only identified in court documents as “D.M.”, who alleges former archbishop Anthony Apuron raped him several times in the mid-1990s.

The Holy See contends the court lacks jurisdiction to take on the case. The chief judge said last month she was inclined to toss the case.

The Holy See says it would have to consult with the…

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John Delaney, 50, of Philadelphia, a clergy abuse survivor and vocal victim advocate, died Friday, Aug. 26, of a drug overdose.

Mr. Delaney fought hard as a victim advocate after coming out publicly in 2005 about his own sexual abuse as a child. Mr. Delaney said he was raped and sexually abused as an altar boy at St. Cecilia’s Roman Catholic Church by the Rev. James Bryzski, who was later called “one of the archdiocese’s most brutal abusers” in a Philadelphia grand jury report. Bryzski, the report said, may have abused more than 100 boys during his time as a priest.

Bryzski, who was defrocked in 2005 and died in 2017, was never prosecuted.

“We can count at least 100 victims who stepped forward because of the courage and strength they saw that came from the voice of John Delaney,” said Mike McDonnell, a friend, fellow survivor, and communications…

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On September 30th, National Day of Truth and Reconciliation, we will honour Indian residential school survivors with an Eagle Feather.

When and where Date and time

Fri, 30 September 2022, 8:30 AM – 9:30 AM EDT

Location

Parliament Hill Wellington Street Ottawa, ON K1A 0A9 Canada

About this event

If you like, you will have seating in front for our national opening ceremony: Remember Me: A National Day of Remembrance. Click here for the official website: Remember Me Website.

We hope that you will accept an Eagle Feather as a gesture of gratitude.

We honour you because you have shown strength and given us all the courage and humility to heal.

We are an Indigenous women led, not for profit organization. We are the facilitators of this national event on Parliament Hill, Ottawa. Dawn Iehstoseranon:nha (she keeps the feathers) is a Mohawk Feather Keeper and will be presenting individual…

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She was in elementary school when her grandfather first molested her — physical and emotional abuse that was to last about a decade until, at age 16, Joyce Sitt was ready to seek justice.  

Or she thought she was until she spoke with her family’s rabbi.  

“He informed me that I could say whatever I wanted to but that if I did tell, I would lose all of my friends,” Sitt recalled this summer in a Monmouth County courtroom.  

“He let me know that my grandfather donates money and if I did this, all of the people that he helped would lose everything.” 

That talk with the rabbi was back in 2009. Last summer, after a failed marriage and a suicide attempt and years of pain stemming from a childhood of torment, Sitt came forward again.  

This time, undeterred and with the help of investigators, she recorded her grandfather confessing to the…

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The pastor’s wife told a woman to “never show her face again at the church and to disappear completely,” according to police.

The former pastor of Eagan Hills Church has been charged in the sexual assault of two women, according to documents filed in Dakota County court.

Bruce Douglas Konold, 61, of Eagan faces 12 counts of criminal sexual conduct and one count of harassment.

The specific charges include:

• Harassment (Pattern of Stalking Conduct)
• Criminal Sexual Conduct in the 3rd Degree (Clergy) (Ongoing Meeting for Advice)
• Criminal Sexual Conduct in the 3rd Degree (Prohibited Occupational Relationship)

Under Minnesota law, it is a felony for religious clergy to have sexual relations with a person who is not their spouse while providing that person with spiritual guidance.

If convicted, Konold faces up to 15 years in prison and a $30,000 fine.

Konold was pastor of the church for 30 years,…

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The former pastor of a church in Eagan has been charged with 12 counts of criminal sexual conduct and one count of harassment in connection to events dating back to 2020, according to a criminal complaint filed in Dakota County court.

Bruce Douglas Konold, 61-years-old, of Eagan, who was reported to have worked at the church for around 30 years, is set to appear in court on Oct. 26.

The complaint details accounts from two women, a 20-year-old listed as “Victim 1” and a 30-year-old listed as “Victim 2.”

GRAPHIC CONTENT WARNING: the details contained from the criminal complaint below could be considered to be graphic or disturbing in nature.

Victim 2 reported to police that Konold had offered her a personal assistant position at the church in 2020, according to the complaint. Konold was said to have reached up her shirt while at her home in June 2020, and…

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The suspect allegedly committed the crimes against six minor students of a Sunday School between March 2021 and this year

A Protestant seminarian in Indonesia’s Catholic-majority province of East Nusa Tenggara has been arrested following complaints of raping six girls aged between 15-16.

Police arrested the 36-year-old seminarian in the provincial capital of Kupang during the weekend and named him a suspect in the rape case, a police official said. His name was not disclosed.

Yames Jems Mbau, an official with the Criminal Investigation Unit told UCA News on Sept. 5 that the seminarian was arrested following complaints from the victims’ families.

He said the suspect repeated the crime several times between May 2021 and March this year in the complex of the Evangelical Church in Timor (GMIT) located in Waisika village.The suspect was serving as an assistant minister at the church. 

Mbau also said the suspect videotaped the crime and…

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On July 22, the Diocese of Rochester filed objections asking the court to disallow and expunge 74 claims (including several duplicates) asserted in its chapter 11 bankruptcy case.

In an affidavit filed with the bankruptcy court, Father Daniel J. Condon, diocesan chancellor, noted that “A number of claims allege that the survivor was abused by a member of a religious order, a lay employee, volunteer, resident or student of a school or facility owned and operated by a religious order or other non-Diocesan entity.”

The reason behind filing these objections, Father Condon explained, is to prevent claims that should be directed against non-diocesan entities from diluting payments to survivors who were abused by perpetrators for whom the diocese or its affiliates may have had legal responsibility.

A diocesan statement addressing the claim objections emphasized that “the Diocese is not questioning the veracity of these claims,…

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Chairing a parish steering committee related to the Diocese of Rochester’s bankruptcy case has been a learning experience for Father Thomas Mull, pastor of Our Lady of Peace Parish in Geneva.

“When we began three years ago, I and others knew very little about bankruptcy. It’s been a learning process as we go,” said Father Mull. “I’ve learned a lot, though I can’t say I wanted to know it.”

The committee comprises four additional pastors; a regional finance director; and two lay parish trustees (see below).

Representing parishes

The priests on the committee represent all the pastors, ensuring that parishes have a voice in bankruptcy proceedings, Father Mull said. Yet he noted that church personnel are not versed in bankruptcy law, so they rely heavily upon attorneys to explain legal proceedings “at an elementary-school level.”

Suzanne Krebs, regional finance director for Chemung, Schuyler, Steuben and Tioga counties, said she brings…

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Feb. 14, 2019: Then-Gov. Anrew Cuomo signs into law the Child Victims Act, which will open a one-year “window” (later extended for a second year), providing survivors of child sexual abuse the opportunity to file civil suits previously blocked by New York’s statute of limitations.

March 14, 2019: As the Aug. 14 opening of the CVA window nears, the diocese announces it will stop accepting new claimants into a voluntary process established in March 2018 for the independent reconciliation and compensation of sexual-abuse victims.

Sept. 12, 2019: With 45 lawsuits filed against it in less than a month since the CVA window opened, the diocese files for bankruptcy. The case is assigned to U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Paul R. Warren.

Nov. 14, 2019: The diocese files a lawsuit seeking to establish that its insurers must cover potential liabilities related to historical claims of child sexual abuse.

Dec. 23,…

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The Arizona Court of Appeals has agreed to hear arguments on whether federal bankruptcy law precludes a victim from suing the employers of the two Catholic priests who allegedly sexually abused her as a child several decades ago.

The woman, referred to in court records as Jane HM Doe, is now about 50. She filed a nine-claim lawsuit in February 2020 against the Roman Catholic Church of the Diocese of Phoenix, St. Mark Roman Catholic Parish Phoenix, and the Society of the Divine Savior USA Province concerning sexual abuse she alleges she suffered as a student at St. Mark in the late 1970s and early 1980s.

Read more by Terri Jo Neff >>

Court records show Judge Joan Sinclair of the Maricopa County Superior Court dismissed the case in March 2021, ruling Doe had no standing to sue for the abuse because she filed for bankruptcy…

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Reverend Jaroslaw “Jerry” Gamrot, 58, who serves at Holy Face Catholic Church and Little Flower School in Great Mills, has been charged for an incident that reportedly happened in July on a highway.

Gamrot, a Poland native who currently has a residence in Frederick County, Maryland, was served the charges on August 21.

Charging documents for the incident indicate that on July 25, Gamrot was traveling west on Route 70 in Frederick with no pants on and was allegedly masturbating.

A male victim claimed to police that he was exposed to him on a public road near the 56-mile-marker. The victim claimed to state police that he was targeted by Gamrot, as he continued to pull up next to his vehicle multiple times to expose himself.

This allegedly occurred three times.

However, on Gamrot’s final maneuver, the victim took a picture of the vehicle’s license plate and the inappropriate action…

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Seventeen of the 29 Buffalo Diocese priests put on administrative leave since 2018 due to a sex abuse allegation involving a minor were later allowed to resume their priestly activities.

The diocese publicized the priests’ returns to ministry by stating that a review board had examined the claims and found them to be “not substantiated.”

Diocese officials maintain that the review process is rigorous, independent and designed to protect children from potential abuse.

Accusers and their attorneys aren’t convinced, and they worry that some priests are being publicly exonerated and put back into contact with children without a thorough and impartial investigation into abuse claims.

They point out that in some cases a priest was returned to ministry, even though his accuser wasn’t interviewed as part of an investigation.

The most recent reinstatement of a priest was in July, when Bishop Michael W. Fisher restored the faculties of the  View Cache

For decades, Johannes Rivoire has lived as a free man in France, despite multiple charges that he sexually assaulted Inuit children while working as a priest in Nunavut beginning in the 1960s.

Pressure is mounting on several fronts to have him extradited, but legal experts are divided on whether the former priest could ever be forced back to Canadian soil.

The federal Department of Justice confirmed in late July that Canada has asked France to extradite the nonagenarian. The extradition request has found a vocal supporter in Aurélien Taché, a left-wing MP in France associated with the opposition group La Nouvelle Union populaire écologique et sociale.

Over the past year, pressure has been increasing to bring Mr. Rivoire back to Canada – including from Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami president Natan Obed, Inuk elder and former politician Piita Irniq, and the federal NDP. There’s been international…

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Members of the Southern Baptist Convention are meeting in Fort Worth this weekend to discuss reforms in the wake of a national sex abuse crisis.

In recent months, the convention — which is the largest Protestant denomination in the country — has faced scrutiny for its handling of the widespread scandal.

Several branches within the denomination are under investigation from the Justice Department following a third-party investigation that found church leaders suppressed reports of sexual abuse for two decades.

In response, the convention created the Abuse Reform Implementation Task Force to address the crisis.

Mike Keahbone, vice chair of the task force and pastor of First Baptist Church in Lawton, Oklahoma, told Fort Worth Report that meeting would help provide a road map for reforms.

“I hope (the task force) will bring out real and true reform with practical and real changes to show we care about the issue — not just…

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