ABUSE TRACKER

Victims push for new abuse probe

They ask DC AG to open investigation

SNAP: ‘Dozens of abusers are/were here but remain hidden’

And they prod DC’s archbishop to reveal more predators

WHAT

Holding signs and childhood photos, clergy sex abuse victims and their supporters will hold a sidewalk news conference revealing the names of the “DC’s Most Dangerous Dozen Child Molesting Clerics” – 12 proven, admitted &/or credibly accused predator priests who

• are still alive and presumably a threat to children now,
• are or were working and or living in the District of Columbia BUT
• are NOT on the official DC Catholic archdiocesan ‘credibly accused’ list.They will also release copies of two letters they’re sending:
• one to DC Attorney General Brian Schwalb, urging him to launch a ‘thorough, full-scale investigation, like 25 other AGs across the US have done, into Catholic clergy sex crimes and cover ups in the Washington DC archdiocese,’…

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As he lay in a Calgary hospital bed in late July, retired Bishop Fred Henry summoned the energy to publicly break the silence around what he considers the prevailing “lie” about missing Indian residential school children.

“Why is the Catholic Church not asking the federal government for proof that even one residential child is actually missing in the sense that his (or) her parents didn’t know what happened to their child at the time of the child’s death?” he demanded in an e-mail.

The query itself was posed to both The Catholic Register and a former Register columnist who has challenged political accounts of Indian residential school history. Bishop Emeritus Henry apparently went to Catholic media because he has not yet received  a response to an initial group e-mail he sent to his brother bishops six weeks ago.

On June 26, using the subject line “Lockjaw,” Henry asked the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops…

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K.S. Ph.D., author of “Escape the Gods,” writes about contradictions and hypocrisy in organized religion. On tour in Philadelphia, the silencing of victims of religious abuse is discussed.

In August 2023, the Archdiocese of Philadelphia reached an agreement to provide a settlement of $3.5 million in response to allegations that Reverend Monsignor John A. Close, who is now deceased, sexually assaulted a 14-year-old boy in 2006. It is alleged that Close took the boy’s confession and proceeded to engage in non-consensual activity. Close then stated that this sexual assault was deemed necessary to absolve the boy of his sins. Additionally, it is alleged that Close threatened the victim with potential eternal consequences should he disclose this incident to anyone. According to attorneys David Inscho and Lorraine Donnelly, the individual in question, who is now 30 years old, was reportedly attending religious classes at St. Katherine’s of Sienna in Wayne during…

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A youth pastor at a Fowler church is headed to jail for just under two months after pleading guilty to lesser charges connected to the sexual assault of a child.

An investigation into 46-year-old Gabe Geringer began in 2018 when a victim came forward. According to the Pueblo County Sheriff’s Office, Geringer was originally charged with felony sexual assault on a child and a pattern of sexual assault on a child in connection to a sexual assault of a 14-year-old girl that began in 2010.

Investigators said Geringer was the girls’ youth pastor at Fowler Christian Church.

In April, Geringer ended up taking a plea deal after his jury trial ended in a mistrial, pleading guilty to unlawful sexual contact without consent, a misdemeanor.

He received a maximum of 60 days in the Pueblo County Jail. He was also sentenced to five years of probation and must register as a…

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A teacher at St. Francis Xavier High School in Ottawa’s south end is facing sexual assault charges following allegations involving one of her high school students, according to police.

Ottawa police say an investigation was launched in July into alleged incidents involving a teacher and a student between March and May 2023.

On Thursday, police charged Shannon Marie Quinn, 40, of Ottawa with five counts of sexual assault and sexual exploitation. Police say she is also known as Shannon Greffe.

Quinn is a teacher with the Ottawa Catholic School Board.

Police say investigators with the Sexual Assault and Child Abuse Unit are concerned there may be other student victims. Anyone with information is asked to contact the Ottawa Police Service’s Sexual Assault and Child Abuse Unit at 613-236-1222, ext. 5944.

The Ottawa Catholic School Board confirms Shannon Marie Quinn is a teacher at St. Francis Xavier High School in Gloucester,…

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State attorney general wants to view records from bankruptcy case that resulted in a settlement with hundreds of sexual abuse survivors

Wisconsin’s Department of Justice is asking to see sealed records from the Milwaukee branch of the Catholic Church as part of the attorney general’s investigation into sexual abuse by faith leaders.

Those records were shielded from public view after the Milwaukee Archdiocese filed for bankruptcy in 2011.

In 2015, that bankruptcy case resulted in a $21 million settlement between the archdiocese and hundreds of sexual abuse survivors.

In a motion field this week, DOJ attorneys asked to confidentially review sealed claims and documents related to those claims that were filed as part of the case in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Wisconsin. 

Access to those documents could help the DOJ file charges against additional perpetrators, Attorney General Josh Kaul said.

In situations where criminal prosecution is no…

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Age verification laws written to protect minors from adult content have driven pornography hotbed Pornhub and other websites out of service in at least four states.

Rather than comply with laws that carry penalties for violators, Pornhub and other websites owned by its parent company MindGeek have discontinued service in Arkansas, Mississippi, Utah and Virginia, according to several news reports. Under the new laws, users must be at least 18.

Southern Baptist ethicist Jason Thacker said the developments are evidence that Pornhub is not concerned with the welfare of minors.

“Pornhub and other leading adult sites that choose not to comply with these state measures are revealing that they are not as interested in ways of protecting children as they are their own bottom line,” said Thacker, a research fellow and director of the Research Institute at the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, and assistant professor of philosophy and ethics…

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Nivedhan and Eklan Singh shared allegations of physical abuse, alcoholism and emotional abuse against their father, Prince Singh, an Episcopal bishop in Michigan.

As a Dalit woman on the lowest rung of India’s traditional caste system, Roja Suganthy-Singh grew up viewing the church as a haven where grace was extended to all, regardless of caste differences.

Today, the institution no longer represents safety for Suganthy-Singh. “I don’t know when I will be able to sit in a church and feel normal again,” she told Religion News Service. “That was robbed of me.” 

In June, Suganthy-Singh’s two adult sons, Nivedhan and Eklan Singh, made allegations on social media that their father, the Rev. Prince Singh, the Episcopal Church’s provisional bishop of the dioceses of Eastern and Western Michigan, was guilty of physical abuse, alcoholism and emotional abuse.

Suganthy-Singh and her sons are calling for Prince Singh, who they say is unfit to serve…

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WARNING: This story contains information about child sexual abuse.

A class action lawsuit by victims of a former Anglican priest who was also a Scouts Canada leader has been settled for $13.25 million.

Ralph Rowe abused hundreds of mainly Indigenous victims between 1975 and 1987 when he was a priest working in the Anglican Diocese of Keewatin. At the time, the diocese included northwestern Ontario and parts of Manitoba.

Rowe was a former Royal Canadian Air Force pilot who served with the Ontario Provincial Police on Manitoulin Island. He was ordained into the Anglican Church in 1975.

RELATED STORIES

• Hot Docs 2015: An interview with ‘Survivors Rowe’ director Daniel Roher
• Church leaders apologize to Indigenous youth, elders for residential schools
• For clergy abuse survivors, Sinead O’Connor’s protest that offended so many was brave and prophetic
• Supreme Court won’t hear appeal over $2.5M awarded to Sudbury victim of Catholic…

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LISTEN TO ARTICLE

Eighty-three areas of interest have been found using ground-penetrating radar during a search for possible unmarked graves at a former residential school in northern Saskatchewan.

English River First Nation Chief Jenny Wolverine says in a news release that many of the sites located at the Beauval Indian Residential School were labelled as “child-sized” or “subadult.”

Twelve were a size consistent with the burial of infants, and Ms. Wolverine says that is in line with several survivor stories about babies being born and dying at the school.

The First Nation began searching the site two years ago and now that possible unmarked graves have been found, a special council of community members, elders and survivors are providing guidance on the next steps.

Additional sites identified by survivors are to be searched with ground-penetrating radar over the next year.

The residential school near La la…

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Parties involved in the lawsuits against the Archdiocese of Agana over clergy sex abuse appeared for the first time in court since the diocese’s bankruptcy plan was approved.

On Wednesday morning, Chief Judge Frances Tydingco-Gatewood held a status conference in the District Court of Guam for the more than 200 survivors of clergy sex abuse to discuss when matters can be set for trial.

Many of the lawsuits were filed against the Archdiocese of Agana, which was approved for bankruptcy and has a plan to compensate victims. Some survivors named other entities in their suits, including the Boy Scouts of America.

According to Post files, the Chapter 11 bankruptcy plan was approved and victims are expected to be paid between $34 million and $45 million in total, which will be drawn from a number of sources, including cash contributions from Catholic schools and parishes, property sales and money received from insurance…

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Two years after opening an investigation into sexual abuse committed by faith leaders in Wisconsin, Attorney General Josh Kaul is seeking access to court documents sealed nearly a decade ago in a bankruptcy filing by the Archdiocese of Milwaukee.

Kaul says the Archdiocese of Milwaukee has not voluntarily provided records sought as part of an ongoing investigation into abuse committed by faith leaders, including Catholic clergy.

In a motion filed Wednesday with the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Wisconsin, Kaul requested a confidential review of “sealed claims by survivors, objections to those claims, briefing on such objections, and rulings on the objections.”

Under the request, information from the documents would be used to further an investigation into the scope of faith leader abuse in Wisconsin by the Department of Justice, but no documents would be released publicly.

“Given the decades of secrecy and…

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New court filings name the Diocese of Winona-Rochester as a defendant, as well as schools and parishes in Rochester, Winona and Mankato.

They stem from a $28 million settlement reached between the Diocese, the victims and insurance companies in 2021.

For more than 30 years attorney Jeff Anderson has worked for victims of clergy sex abuse.

In 2014 he deposed Father Thomas Adamson, a former priest in Rochester and the Diocese of Winona. Adamson admitted in that deposition to abusing several children on several occasions. He is one of 19 priests within the Diocese who’ve been accused of sexual abuse dating back to the 1970s.

“There is one insurance company, one very large insurance company that refused to participate and or pay,” said Anderson. So now he’s working with victims who haven’t been compensated.

According to the lawsuits, the alleged victims were between 10-16 years old at the time of…

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A former visiting priest with the Catholic church who had ties to the Columbia area has pleaded guilty to a child sex abuse charge in federal court.

Jaime Adolfo Gonzalez-Farias, 68, known as “Father Gonzalez,” pleaded guilty Thursday in U.S. District Court in Columbia to one count of Transportation of a Minor With Intent to Engage in Criminal Sexual Activity. Gonzalez-Farias was accused of sexually abusing an 11-year-old while serving as a priest at a Columbia church in November 2020. Gonzalez-Farias is also a former visiting priest with the Roman Catholic Diocese of Charleston.

In May 2020, Gonzalez-Farias met the victim and his family through his service as a priest, according to evidence presented in court.

He then began giving gifts and increasing amounts of attention to the victim, according to evidence in court.

In November 2020, the victim’s family reported to Catholic authorities their concern that the priest’s relationship…

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A former Catholic priest who served in the Charleston Diocese pleaded guilty to the sexual exploitation of a child he met during his time as a visiting priest in South Carolina.

On Aug. 10, Jaime Adolfo Gonzalez-Farias, known as Father Gonzalez, admitted in federal court in Columbia that he traveled with an 11-year-old child out of state with the intent to engage in sexual activity.

He is awaiting sentencing and faces 10 years to life in prison.

The 68-year-old Chilean national moved to South Carolina in 2015 and served in various roles with the Roman Catholic Diocese of Charleston during his five-year stint. Through the diocese, he served in Greer, Newberry, Laurens and Joanna.

In early 2020, Gonzalez-Farias met an 11-year-old child through this work as a visiting priest in South Carolina, Assistant U.S. Attorney Elliott Daniels said following the plea hearing.

Daniels said the priest groomed the…

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Authorities are looking for a Georgia man they allege posed as a missionary and squandered at least half of the $33 million in funding he promised to use to produce and distribute Bibles and Christian literature in China.

According to a federal indictment, authorities accuse Jason Shenk, 45, originally from Dublin, Georgia, of misusing millions of dollars in donations for personal use. A grand jury recently indicted him on 37 counts. The charges include money laundering, wire fraud, and failing to report a foreign bank account.

The indictment says Shenk invested about $1 million of the donations in precious metals and diamonds, contributed $7 million to his family farm, purchased $4 million in 16 life insurance policies under different names, $850,000 in shares of a private U.S. nuclear company, $820,000 in credit card purchases, $320,000 in Chilean real estate, and $1 million in an online sports betting…

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The Anointed Liquidator, a virtual store on eBay, has a 100% approval rating and has registered more than 35,000 items sold over the past decade, according to its page on the online retailer’s website.

But for all its great customer service, the Anointed Liquidator appears to have broken the biblical commandment against stealing.

An organized crime ring in Florida has allegedly stolen more than $1.4 million in merchandise from Home Depot and resold the haul through Robert Dell, former pastor of the Rock Church in St. Petersburg, according to Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody. Dell allegedly fenced the items through the Anointed Liquidator eBay store, which has been active since 2011.

“This pastor clearly skipped over the commandment—thou shall not steal,” Moody said in a statement. “Our FORCE taskforce shut down his criminal operation stealing millions of dollars worth of merchandise from Home Depot…

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A South Carolina Catholic priest who plied an 11-year-old boy with gifts and took him on a trip to Florida before sexually assaulting him has pleaded guilty in federal court.

Father Jaime Adolfo Gonzalez-Farias, 68, pleaded guilty in Columbia, South Carolina, Thursday morning to one count of transporting a minor across state lines for the purposes of engaging in criminal sexual conduct. Federal sentencing guidelines means that he now faces between 10 years and life in prison. There is no parole in the federal system.

Gonzalez-Farias was charged with sexually abusing the 11-year-old younger brother of a seminarian in his parish in Laurens County. At the time, Gonzalez-Farias was a visiting priest from Chile employed by the Catholic Diocese of Charleston who held positions in Newberry and Laurens counties.

The victim came from an “immigrant family of limited means,” prosecutors told the court.

“When a victim is…

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Victims’ advocates detailed church’s neglect in following oversight recommendations when transferring accused clergy

• Read the full story: how the New Orleans archbishop hid ‘credibly accused’ abusers

After the US’s second-oldest Roman Catholic archdiocese filed for bankruptcy protection in 2020, attorneys for people claiming sexual abuse at the hands of the organization’s clergymen reviewed thousands of records outlining how the church managed the careers of priests and deacons faced with substantial allegations.

Glaringly missing from those documents is any plan by which the archdiocese of New Orleans could reliably protect children from contact with clerics who had been suspended from public ministry following molestation allegations – but who for years stayed in close proximity to and were financially supported by the church.

The archdiocese’s failure to implement a meaningful oversight plan for suspected, still-living predator priests and deacons – as was repeatedly recommended to the organization –…

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The Archdiocese of Philadelphia agreed to a $3.5 million settlement with a man who accused a now-deceased priest of raping him about 17 years ago and alleged that the archdiocese failed to take action when previously informed of separately alleged abuse.

The lawsuit alleged that Monsignor John Close, who was ordained in 1969, sexually assaulted a 14-year-old boy in 2006 when he took classes at St. Katherine of Siena Parish in Wayne, which is within the archdiocese. The lawyers claimed that Close sexually abused the teenager after hearing his confession and warned him not to report the abuse.

Although the man, who is now 30 years old, first opened up about the alleged abuse in 2018, his lawyers argued that the archdiocese failed to take proper action in response to previous allegations, which could have prevented his assault. In the 1990s, a different man accused the priest of sexual abuse…

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Assault allegedly took place in 2006 by Pastor John Close

The Archdiocese of Philadelphia has agreed to pay $3.5 million to settle a case alleging one of its priests, the late Reverend Monsignor John A. Close, sexually assaulted a 14-year-old boy in 2006.

Close allegedly took the boy’s confession, then raped him and told him the sexual assault was necessary to absolve him of his sins. Close also allegedly threatened the victim with eternal damnation if he told anyone.

The alleged victim, now 30, was attending religious classes at St. Katherine’s of Sienna in Wayne at the time, attorneys David Inscho and Lorraine Donnelly said in a release. He did not report the assault until 2018, but continues to suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder, the release states.

The case settled just before going to trial in Philadelphia Common Pleas Court, according to the release.

Kenneth Gavin, chief communications officer for…

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A Catholic priest in Rodeo remains the active head of a church and parochial school while he faces accusations of molesting a child parishioner decades ago, KQED has learned.

A lawsuit filed in Alameda County in September alleges ongoing abuse in the mid-1980s, including that the priest secluded the unnamed plaintiff in an office and groped his genitals underneath his clothing when he was a parishioner at St. Raymond Catholic Church in Dublin. The plaintiff was around 6 and 7 years old at the time.

The priest is not named in the lawsuit. But documents filed in federal bankruptcy court and records from a special proceeding in state court reveal who the priest is: Father Larry Young.Sponsored

Young was parochial vicar at St. Raymond’s from September 1984 to June 1987, according to the Oakland diocese.

He is the current pastor of St. Patrick Catholic Church in Rodeo.

Reached by phone…

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The Archdiocese of Philadelphia will pay $3.5 million to settle a lawsuit alleging that one of its priests sexually assaulted a 14-year-old boy in Delaware County nearly two decades ago.

Filed in 2020, the lawsuit alleges that Pastor John Close raped the boy at St. Katherine’s of Siena in Wayne in 2006. The plaintiff, whose name was withheld in court filings, was attending a Confraternity of Christian Doctrine program there, and Close was the head of the parish.

During a class, the boy became upset, fearing eternal damnation. He was sent to Close’s office, the pastor took his confession, and then raped him, according to the lawsuit. Afterward, the lawsuit says, Close told the boy that he was absolved of his sins, but he would be eternally damned if he told anyone about the assault.

Close, who was ordained in 1969, worked at several parishes and Catholic schools in the…

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The Archdiocese of Philadelphia will pay $3.5 million to settle a civil case alleging a now-deceased priest sexually assaulted a teenage boy nearly two decades ago, and church officials knew of similar reports about the priest dating back to the 1970s, attorneys for the victim announced Wednesday.

The plaintiff was a 14-year-old student in religious classes at St. Katherine of Siena Parish in Wayne when the sexual assault occurred in 2006, his attorneys said. They said Monsignor John Close assaulted the boy after hearing his confession. The plaintiff, now 30, reported the episode in 2018. Many survivors of child sexual abuse do not report the abuse until years later.

Close died in 2018. Attorneys for the plaintiff say the archdiocese knew Close was a danger to children in the 1970s, after a priest reported teenage boys were sleeping overnight in Close’s room. Close was reassigned. Other alleged victims…

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The number of accused – 310, spanning several decades – has been kept from public as archdiocese undergoes bankruptcy proceedings

More than 300 people employed by Roman Catholic institutions in the south-eastern US city of New Orleans have been accused of sexually abusing children or other vulnerable people whom they met through their work over the last several decades, secret documents obtained by the Guardian reveal.

Though New Orleans’s 230-year-old archdiocese has spent a significant portion of its recent history managing the fallout from its association with the worldwide Catholic church’s clerical molestation scandal, the organization has generally sought to keep hidden the exact number of priests, deacons, nuns, religious brothers and lay staffers – such as parochial school teachers – under its supervision who have been named in abuse claims.

A memorandum that attorneys for victims of clerical sexual abuse prepared and handed to law enforcement in the latter part…

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One of Florida’s most prolific Catholic clergy abusers has been released from prison and is living in a residential neighborhood. A national support group for clergy sex abuse victims is asking two bishops to warn local parents, parishioners, and the public about him.

 Fr. Neil Augustine (Gus) Doherty is now living in Orlando, according to the Florida sex offender registry. SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, is sending a letter to Miami Archbishop Thomas Wenski and Orlando Bishop John Noonan, urging them to use their “vast resources” to alert the local community that a potentially dangerous serial predator now walks free in their streets.

More than two dozen men have come forward to date, accusing Fr. Doherty of molesting them as children, sometimes after drugging them. In 2013, the priest pleaded no contest to lewd assault/sexual battery of a victim…

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After a five-day trip to Portugal, which recently came to terms with its own clerical sex abuse crisis, Pope Francis said the Catholic Church must abandon its practice of covering up abuse and instead be “very open” about how it is confronting the crime.

During a news conference on the pope’s return flight to Rome from Lisbon, Portugal, Aug. 6, the pope said bishops who have not adopted a “zero tolerance” policy toward abuse need to “take charge of that irresponsibility.”

Pope Francis had met privately with abuse survivors for more than an hour Aug. 2 during his stay in Lisbon for World Youth Day; he told reporters they “dialogued about this plague” of abuse.

“The church used to follow the conduct that is followed in families and neighborhoods: it covers up,” he said, adding that addressing abuse must take in those places, too.

Speaking directly with abuse survivors, as…

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A group of Black Brazilians who attended the Aug. 1-6 World Youth Day in Lisbon, Portugal, in order to hand in a letter to the pope about racism in Brazil and in the Church, now say they suffered racist attacks on more than one occasion during the event itself last week.

One such alleged act of aggression was recorded by a member of the Brazilian delegation. The video, made Aug. 4, shows a number of young Catholics, all of them white, appearing to make monkey sounds as they passed by Marcolino Vinícius Vieira, a Black Brazilian who was carrying the country’s flag.

“I got lost after the Via Sacra and could not find my group. I suddenly saw myself among those people. They were laughing at me and imitating the sound of monkeys,” Vieira told Crux.

He said that some of youth in the group shouted the names of Vini Jr….

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Vatican investigators looking into sexual abuse allegations at a Roman Catholic society in Peru have completed the first stage of their audit and will issue a report in the coming months, Vatican spokesman Matteo Bruni told CNN Friday.

“The first stage, gathering information, was concluded last Saturday. Now they will be working on the documentation they have, in order to present a report in the coming months,” Bruni said.

Asked last Wednesday about the investigation, Pope Francis said: “We are working on this. We are trying to bring the situation to light.”

Pope Francis’s special envoys, Archbishop Charles Scicluna and Monsignor Jordi Bertomeu, arrived in Peru’s capital Lima at the end of July to investigate sexual abuse allegations at Sodalicio de Vida Cristiana, or Sodalitium Christianae Vitae (SCV). The visit was announced by Peru’s Episcopal Conference on July 22.

SCV said its members, who were summoned…

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Close to 100 people have been arrested in Australia and the United States in connection with a global online child abuse network uncovered in the aftermath of a high-profile murder of two FBI agents, authorities announced this week. 

The myriad charges for alleged child abuse stem from the killings of two FBI special agents, Daniel Alfin and Laura Schwartzenberger, who were fatally shot in 2021 while serving a warrant in Sunrise, Florida, to search the apartment of a suspect allegedly tied to a case involving violent crimes against children. 

The deaths of Alfin and Schwartzenberger, who both specialized in investigating crimes against children, spurred a wider international probe into an illicit online platform whose members are accused of sharing child abuse material on the dark web, according to the Australian Federal Police. 

Nineteen Australians, whose ages range from 32 to 81 years old, were…

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A former youth pastor accused of child sexual abuse is facing a slew of felony charges.

31-year-old Dakota Kennemer was a youth pastor at Grace Baptist Church in Twin Falls.

He is being investigated for an inappropriate relationship with a minor between the years of 2019 and 2022.

According to court documents, the pastor and three deacons met with Kennemer to address the allegations in December 2022 and he admitted to sexually touching the victim.

He subsequently was fired.

In early January, a Twin Falls Police officer met with the pastor to learn about these alleged acts.

Police obtained a search warrant on March 29, 2023 and seized some of Kennemer’s possessions and found explicit photos of the victim.

The officer wrote in her report because of the nature of the crimes, she was concerned there would be more juvenile victims. She recovered more than 13,000 text messages he had…

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The installation of the new bishop of Hexham and Newcastle in the northeast of England was very different from the usual ceremonies to inaugurate bishops. It included a moment, without obvious precedent, that points to how a synodal, listening church can respond to the clerical sexual abuse scandal.

Thirty minutes into the liturgy, Bishop Stephen Wright, the new leader of the diocese, came down the sanctuary steps to greet three abuse survivors who presented him with prayer ribbons representing victims of abuse. These ribbons were then tied to the bishop’s episcopal chair. 

One of the survivors, Maggie Mathews, who had experienced abuse in the diocese as an 18-year-old, then addressed the packed cathedral in the city of Newcastle. Among those listening to her speak was the hierarchy of England and Wales, the Vatican ambassador and Cardinal Vincent Nichols, who, as the archbishop of Westminster, is…

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Catholic Church pushes back, denies allegations were ‘mishandled’

On at least six occasions, New Orleans Archbishop Gregory Aymond decided against adding Roman Catholic priests to the church’s list of clergymen accused of abuse, despite a church advisory board’s conclusions that the the victims’ statements were credible, The Guardian reported Tuesday.

The Guardian’s article cites a memo that was prepared by attorneys representing abuse survivors. The memo is based on documents the lawyers received through the Archdiocese of New Orleans’ bankruptcy case, in which abuse victims are among the many creditors.

After initially balking, Aymond in 2020 eventually added one of the priests flagged in the article to the list of credibly accused clergy, The Guardian reported. But it’s unclear why the archbishop did not do so in the other cases, in keeping with public pledges of transparency made by the church…

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Forced by the federal government to attend the schools, Native American children were sexually assaulted, beaten and emotionally abused

They were stripped of their clothes and scrubbed with lye soap. Matrons cut their long hair. Speaking their tribal language could lead to a beating.

Taken from their homes on reservations, Native American children — some as young as 5 — were forced to attend Indian boarding schools as part of an effort by the federal government to wipe out their languages and culture and assimilate them into White society.

For nearly 100 years, from the late 1870s until 1969, the U.S. government, often in partnership with churches, religious orders and missionary groups, operated and supported more than 400 Indian boarding schools in 37 states, according to the first investigation into the schools by the U.S. Interior Department. Government officials and experts estimate that tens of thousands of Native…

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For immediate release: August 8, 2023

In an explosive report from The Guardian, it was revealed that in six cases the Catholic Archbishop of New Orleans, Gregory Aymond, ignored the findings of his own review board. In each of those six cases, the review board found the clergymen to be “credibly accused,” but Archbishop Aymond not only disregarded this finding, he also concealed this information from parishioners and the public, despite pledges of “transparency.”

We wish we could say that we are surprised at this revelation, but we are not. All too often Catholic hierarchs wax eloquently on how clergy crimes and cover-ups are a thing of the past, only to have outside investigations reveal something entirely different. We applaud The Guardian for exposing this ugly truth in New Orleans. As long as bishops continue to conceal the crimes of clerics, no one should feel complacent…

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Exclusive: memo reveals Gregory Aymond disregarded recommendations from board advisers to publicly label certain accused clerics as credibly suspected molesters

hen he took over leadership of New Orleans’s Roman Catholic archdiocese in 2009, one of the administrative tools that archbishop Gregory Aymond inherited was a board of advisers which was set up to help determine the credibility of sexual abuse allegations made against clerics under his command.

But, multiple times, Aymond has demonstrated his comfort with disregarding recommendations from those advisers to publicly label certain accused clerics as credibly suspected molesters.

The archbishop on six different occasions disregarded findings of credibility that would have led to accused priests being outed as abusers to a region with about 500,000 Catholics, essentially going against the advice of his board.

Puzzling to some, Aymond’s handling of the half-dozen cases in question as the head of the US’s second-oldest Catholic archdiocese are outlined in…

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Gregory Aymond promised ‘to be transparent’ – but a Guardian investigation found that he hid allegations, and an expert questions whether it was against Vatican policy

A board which helps the Roman Catholic archbishop of New Orleans, Gregory Aymond, evaluate abuse allegations against priests and deacons in six cases found clergymen to be credibly accused only for Aymond to ignore the findings and conceal them from the public, a Guardian investigation has found.

Aymond’s management of the cases in question as the leader of the US’s second-oldest archdiocese is outlined in a memorandum which attorneys for victims of clerical sexual abuse prepared and handed to law enforcement in the latter part of last year.

It exposes the latest damaging revelations in a decades-long scandal at the 230-year-old archdiocese, which has been shown to have gone to extreme lengths to cover up for a confessed child abuser….

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The Church’s ongoing failure to acknowledge fully the harm caused by sexual abuse continues to overshadow everything

Since Sinéad O’Connor’s tragic death, attention has been focused again on the moment when she ripped up a picture of Pope John Paul II on Saturday Night Live in 1992. According to her autobiography, Rememberings, the background was reading a brief article in an Irish newspaper hinting that children had been abused by priests. Their stories had not been believed by the police or the bishops to whom their parents reported the abuse.

Notice the language – hints and brief references. Although the media later did sterling work in revealing criminal abuse of children, initially it was timid and cautious.

The year 1992 was still two years before Fr Brendan Smyth was jailed in Northern Ireland for a horrendous trail of abuse. It was  View Cache

Melbourne archdiocese challenges legal ruling that would allow father of a choirboy to sue for damages

The Catholic church is seeking to challenge a legal ruling in Victoria that would allow the father of a choirboy to sue for damages over allegations of child sexual abuse by Cardinal George Pell.

The father, who cannot be named for legal reasons, filed a claim against the Catholic archdiocese of Melbourne and Pell. He claims to have suffered nervous shock after learning of allegations that Pell sexually abused his now deceased son in the mid-1990s.

Pell, who died in January, had five convictions for abusing the man’s son and another boy overturned by the high court in 2020. He always maintained his innocence.

The Catholic church tried to be excused from proceedings by relying on the Ellis defence, arguing the father could not sue because he was not the…

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Church of England look into allegation Bishop Graham Cray did not act on safeguarding concerns over Mike Pilavachi’s behaviour

A bishop and former chair of Soul Survivor is being investigated by Church of England officials amid allegations that he failed to act on reports of abuse, The Telegraph understands.

The Soul Survivor Watford Church was founded by Rev Canon Mike Pilavachi, a charismatic 65-year-old evangelical Christian with global influence. His Soul Survivor annual summer festivals attracted tens-of-thousands of teenagers until they ended in 2019.

In May, this newspaper published details for the first time revealing that he had emotionally abused his alleged victims, encouraging them to receive full-body oil massages on his bed and engage in vigorous wrestling matches.

The Church of England’s National Safeguarding Team (NST) and the Diocese of St Albans are currently carrying out a joint investigation into allegations surrounding Soul Survivor and Pilavachi – who has since been…

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Howard Hubbard and woman married in July at civil ceremony which may trigger a second chance at laicization

In an open letter on Tuesday, Aug 1 the retired Bishop of the Roman Catholic Dioceses of Albany announced his request to be laicized, or relieved of his obligations as priest and bishop, was denied by the Vatican in March,and he married a woman in July despite still being a Bishop. 

As Spotlight News reported in November, Bishop Howard J. Hubbard requested to return to the “lay state,” in a letter to Rome so he could marry, but the answer was unknown until his release.  

“In March, I received notice from the Vatican that my request had been denied. I was encouraged to wait patiently and prayerfully and to continue to abstain from public ministry until seven civil lawsuits against me alleging sexual misconduct had been adjudicated,” Hubbard wrote.

Spotlight News reviewed…

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Mandatory reporting laws “must apply to all religious settings” including the ‘seal of confession’, says NSS

There must be no religious exemptions to laws requiring child sexual abuse to be reported, the National Secular Society has warned.

The NSS has told the Home Office it must resist religious lobbying for sacramental confession to be exempted from new mandatory reporting laws.

The NSS’s warning came in response to a Home Office consultation on implementing a recommendation from the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA). IICSA recommended that people who work with children be legally obliged to report incidents of sexual abuse.

The NSS said mandatory reporting laws “must apply to all religious settings”, including the ‘seal of confession’.

During sacramental confession, which is held by the Catholic Church and other Christian denominations, an individual reports their ‘sins’ privately to a priest and asks for forgiveness.

In countries including Ireland…

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ABOARD THE PAPAL FLIGHT FROM PORTUGAL (CNS) — After a five-day trip to Portugal, which recently came to terms with its own clerical sex abuse crisis, Pope Francis said the Catholic Church must abandon its practice of covering up abuse and instead be “very open” about how it is confronting the crime.

During a news conference on the pope’s return flight to Rome from Lisbon, Portugal, Aug. 6, the pope said bishops who have not adopted a “zero tolerance” policy toward abuse need to “take charge of that irresponsibility.”

Pope Francis had met privately with abuse survivors for more than an hour Aug. 2 during his stay in Lisbon for World Youth Day; he told reporters they “dialogued about this plague” of abuse.

“The church used to follow the conduct that is followed in families and neighborhoods: it covers up,” he said, adding that addressing abuse must take in those…

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Convocar: Healing demands justice, restitution

Millions in cash contributions from the Archdiocese of Agana and its insurers have reached about 280 survivors of childhood sexual assaults by Guam priests and others associated with the Catholic Church, bringing a measure of “justice” and “healing” to those who have suffered from the abuses, some dating as far back as the 1950s.

Each abuse survivor reportedly received anywhere from about $40,000 to $100,000.

This is only the first of multiple rounds of payouts under a bankruptcy court-approved settlement plan that the archdiocese and its creditors worked on for years.

Lawyers representing the survivor-claimants got a certain percentage of each survivor’s settlement payment.

The amount of settlement payment depends, among other things, on the severity, length and frequency of the claimed sexual assault, according to survivors and those representing them.

Among the survivor-claimants were raped by priests once or multiple times, sometimes for a…

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So enmeshed is the Catholic Church in a culture of denial that no public discussion can even be contemplated on this issue

There are at least three ways in which Catholics look at wrongdoing, and each of these corresponds to the dominant attitude in society.

In this article, I will explore briefly these three different ways, and ask readers which way corresponds to their present mindset.

I will use the pedophile crisis as a common example.

To commit a sin

In traditional, medieval societies where religion is the determining factor, to do wrong is to break God’s law, to offend God, or more simply, to commit a sin.

Catholic moral theology of yesteryear went into contortions trying to define when sin was ‘mortal’, ‘venial,’ or just an occasional failing.

A mortal sin shattered the state of grace in one’s soul, kept one from validly receiving the sacraments, and could only…

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Rivarde says Reed told the victims that the sexual activity with him would provide the teens the “covering of Jesus” and “help them become a man.”

TERRYTOWN, La. — A Terrytown pastor and two-time convicted registered sex offender is in jail after allegedly raping two more teenage boys.

As The Times-Picayune reports, The Jefferson Parish Sheriff’s Office arrested and booked Terry Reed, 63, with new charges after he was accused of coercing a 15-year-old and a 16-year-old to sleep with him in the nude and engage in sexual acts.

A 19-year-old man contacted the sheriff’s office in June to report he was abused by Reed on several occasions over two years after meeting Reed through his church.

Reed is a pastor who ran Vessels of Christ Ministry out of his Terrytown home, JPSO spokesperson Capt. Jason Rivarde told Nola.com.

He was first arrested on June 29…

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ON BOARD THE PAPAL PLANE – Pope Francis insisted Sunday that restricting access to sacraments such as priestly ordination, as the Catholic Church does for women, and marriage, in the case of the LGBTQ+ community, is not a sign of close-mindedness.

In an airborne news conference, the pope also touched on his reasons for opting not to mention Ukraine out loud while in the famed Marian shrine of Fatima on Saturday, addressed clerical abuse scandals in Portugal, mental health struggles among youth and his own physical condition, insisting that despite a grueling foreign trip this week “my health is good.”

Francis made the comments to reporters during his return flight from an August 2-6 trip to Portugal, where he presided over World Youth Day, a massive gathering of Catholic youth from around the world instituted under St. Pope John Paul II.

Asked why the church was not a place of…

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A SURVIVOR who suffered sexual abuse at the hands of the Illinois Catholic Church has spoken out about coming forward as a victim almost 50 years after he was molested by a priest.

Dan Ronan, now an Emmy award-winning journalist, was just an 11-year-old alter boy in the fall of 1971 when Father Thomas Gannon abused him after an evening mass at Saint Jerome Roman Catholic Church in the Rogers Park neighborhood of Chicago, Illinois.

The church was down an altar boy that night, so Ronan had a hard time trying to do the job of two people.

As Ronan was in the church’s sacristy, a preparation room, getting ready to go home Gannon, who was in his mid-late 30s, came in.

“I could see immediately that he was in an angry mood,” Ronan exclusively told The U.S. Sun.

“He was probably six-foot-one and 240. He was a big boy. Big man…

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THE BISHOPS must never condone, tolerate or cover up child abuse among their clergy. In the Philippines, it is likely none have ever done it. Many try to pay off the victim’s families to drop charges. That priest will feel above the law, protected by the church and bishop, and will abuse more children.

Prosecutors must be independent, strong and determined to never give in to pressure and steadfastly uphold the law equally. The judges must deliver justice without fear or favor nor be intimidated by anyone in power, moral or civil, and deliver justice for the abused children.

While some cases of child abuse against priests in the Philippines have seemingly been frozen by some unworthy prosecutors and judge, not so in cases filed against non-clerical abusers. Many dedicated prosecutors and judges are actively doing that.

The brave and determined prosecutor in Zambales elevated the complaint of statutory rape…

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[VIDEO]

Pope Francis’ special envoys are investigating sex abuse allegations by the Catholic group “Sodalicio de Vida Cristiana” in Peru. A former member who reported the alleged abuse talks about his experiences.

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Following hernia surgery, pope says he is living a ‘normal life’

After driving home a message to young people for several days in a row that the church is open to everyone, Pope Francis on Aug. 6 reiterated that such a message includes LGBTQ people and all marginalized groups. 

“The Lord is clear,” the pope said in reflecting on who is welcome in the church: “The sick, the elderly, the young, old, ugly, beautiful, good and bad.” 

The pope’s remarks came during a 25-minute, in-flight press conference returning to Rome after a five-day trip to Portugal for World Youth Day, a major Catholic youth festival where more than 1.5 million pilgrims joined the pope during the final Sunday Mass. 

Throughout the visit, the pope continued to repeat the message that everyone is welcome in the Catholic Church — at one point getting young people to repeat after him…

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In his customary press conference aboard the return flight to Rome from Lisbon, Pope Francis spoke to reporters about a range of issues.

The Director of the Holy See Press Office, Matteo Bruni, invited the reporters to put their questions to the Pope, but first gave the microphone to Pope Francis. The Pope offered the journalists a short message of thanks for their coverage of the just-concluded World Youth Day experience, and gave his “Happy Birthday” greetings to Rita Cruz, one of the journalists present on the flight.

Here follows a working English transcription and translation of the press conference

Q: Aura Maria Vistas Miguel – Rádio Renascença:
Your Holiness, first of all thank you for your visit to Portugal. Everyone already considers it a success. Everyone is very happy, thank you for coming. I met a high-ranking police officer who told me that he had never seen such an obedient and…

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Jesmond Gauci’s lawyer says his presence in the studio was a ‘one-off’

A former priest who was convicted of violent indecent assault against a minor has been filmed hosting a children’s radio programme on a parish radio station.

Jesmond Gauci, from Xagħra, featured in a radio broadcast for the parish radio station, where he produced a religious programme aimed at children with the participation of other children and adolescents present with him in the studio. He currently serves as Radju Bambina’s programmes’ manager.

The broadcast in which he appears to host a programme accompanied by two adolescents, two young children and an adult woman, was streamed on the Xagħra parish’s Facebook page on April 6.

Gauci was suspended from the priesthood in 2014 when he was accused of committing sexual offences against three underage girls. The behaviour was brought to light after the grandmother of one of the girls had…

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Once again, an incident of large-scale sexual abuse of minors by religious figures has come to light.

This time the abusers were Catholic Church clergy members in Portugal. This latest example of abuse of minors by people in religious positions of power was preceded by similar scandals involving American Catholic priests and Southern Baptist pastors.

One has to wonder why there hasn’t been an outpouring of condemnation, boycotts and laws directed at these apparent “grooming” institutions.

Why aren’t the Proud Boys showing up armed in front of churches shouting at parents taking their children into such dangerous environments? Why aren’t legislatures across the land passing laws to outlaw performances by priests or pastors? If protecting children from the dangers of men in drag reading stories to young children is so potentially dangerous to impressionable children, where is the concern for children who seem far more likely to be abused by…

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A retired Catholic bishop with seven civil sexual abuse complaints pending against him in New York has married a woman in a civil ceremony in the state, after the Vatican told him to wait until the lawsuits are resolved.

The move puts the Vatican in a difficult position, and shines a light on both structural weaknesses of the Vatican’s recently adopted system for handling abuse and coverup claims against senior clerics and Pope Francis’s  approach to wayward clerics.

84-year-old Bishop Howard Hubbard, who led New York’s capital diocese of Albany from 1977 until 2014, denies the abuse allegations. He has admitted, however, to keeping accusations of abuse by priests carefully under wraps when he had the leadership of the Albany diocese.

In a 2022 deposition related to claims that arose under New York’s Child Victims Act – a “look-back window” law that temporarily lifted the statute of limitations on civil…

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San Francisco Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone on Friday revealed that it was “very likely” that the archdiocese would be filing for bankruptcy in the near future due to the hundreds of clerical abuse lawsuits that have been filed against it.

The prelate revealed the news in an announcement on the archdiocesan website Aug. 4 in which he noted that, following a 2019 California law that lifted the statute of limitations on certain sexual abuse claims, the archdiocese was ultimately served with “more than 500 civil lawsuits” related to clerical sexual abuse.

The “vast majority of the alleged abuse occurred in the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s and involved priests who are deceased or no longer in ministry,” Cordileone noted, while others involved “unnamed individuals or named individuals who are unknown to the archdiocese.” The archdiocese has been “investigating the best options for managing and resolving these cases,” Cordileone said.

“After much contemplation and…

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Facing over 500 child sex abuse lawsuits, the Archdiocese of San Francisco is on the brink of bankruptcy, a move aimed at addressing its mounting legal challenges.

In an announcement Friday, San Francisco Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone revealed that the Archdiocese is seriously considering filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, as the Chronicle reported.

Chapter 11 bankruptcy is the “reorganization” one, so it would reportedly allow the corporate legal entity, the “Roman Catholic Archbishop of San Francisco,” to freeze litigation, reorganize finances, and settle the lawsuits collectively, rather than individually.

The archdiocese said the decision wouldn’t affect its parishes and schools in the city.

Other nearby Catholic dioceses have already filed for bankruptcy protection — the Diocese of Oakland, facing 330 child sex abuse cases, filed for bankruptcy in May, and the Diocese of Santa Rosa, facing a backlog of legal cases, filed in March, according to the Examiner.

The new lawsuits…

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When a senior Vatican official arrived in Peru last month to look into the affairs of the Sodalitium Christianae Vitae, journalists in Latin America and Rome began speculating that the controversial institute might soon be dissolved, closing years of allegations against the group’s founder and other ranking leaders, and more than five years of Vatican-appointed oversight of the institute. 

Indeed, the late July arrival of Archbishop Charles Scicluna in Lima has triggered speculation about the future of the Sodalitium, as the archbishop — head of the canonical disciplinary section of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith — is likely the Church’s most credible expert on clerical sexual abuse and misconduct, and an often-influential figure in the Roman Curia, and with Pope Francis.  

But as the visitation now draws to a close, it seems unlikely that the probe will spur major changes to the institute. While it is possible…

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Deeley is leading Maine’s 200,000-plus Catholics in an all-out war to block victims and survivors of childhood sexual abuse from seeking reparations no matter when the abuse occurred.

In early June, the Vermont Supreme Court upheld a state law that says defendants’ rights are not violated by retroactively eliminating the civil statute of limitations for child sexual abuse claims.

Repealing time limits on when sex abuse lawsuits need to be filed allows survivors to seek delayed justice.

Here in Maine, Bishop Robert Deeley is leading Maine’s 200,000-plus Catholics in an all-out war to block victims and survivors of childhood sexual abuse from seeking reparations in a civil courtroom for the harms and injuries inflicted upon them by the abuse and the failure of church officials to protect them – no matter when the abuse occurred.

It is not unexpected that Bishop Deeley would oppose the…

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LISBON, Aug 3 (Reuters) – A Portuguese town said on Thursday it would reinstall a billboard highlighting sexual abuse by clergy after facing heavy criticism for removing it on the day Pope Francis arrived in the country to attend a massive youth event.

Francis landed in Lisbon on Wednesday for the week-long World Youth Day, an event devised by the late Pope John Paul II for Catholics in their teens or early 20s and held every two or three years in a different city.Advertisement · Scroll to continueReport this ad

The event comes less than six months after a report by a Portuguese commission said at least 4,815 minors were sexually abused by clergy – mostly priests – over seven decades. The commission in charge said that was just the “tip of the iceberg”.

In the early hours of Wednesday, before Francis’ arrival, campaign group This Is Our Memorial put up…

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Tim Gioe, who was groomed as a child, is pressing for parental consent to be obtained before priests are left alone with children in New Orleans

Tim Gioe will never forget how his Roman Catholic priest, Patrick Wattigny, used their time alone when he was a boy. It was during these moments together – during the sacrament of confession – that Wattigny began grooming him for sexual abuse, of which the clergyman was recently convicted.

So now the 36-year-old Gioe and his wife, Sarah, who are raising three sons together, are advocating for schools and other parochial institutions to be formally required to obtain fully informed parental consent before priests are left alone with children to hear about – and forgive – their sins as part of what is also known as reconciliation.

The Gioes would also like for it to be required to offer parents the…

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(BCN) — The Catholic archbishop of San Francisco says the Archdiocese may seek bankruptcy protection because of claims for child sexual abuse filed against it.

Rev. Salvatore J. Cordileone, in a letter to parishioners posted Friday on the archdiocese’s website, said that a Chapter 11 bankruptcy reorganization “is very likely.”

“Chapter 11 would allow the archdiocese to reorganize its financial affairs to continue its vital ministries to the faithful and to the communities that rely on our services and charity,” Cordileone said.

The archdiocese sold excess property and drew on insurance to pay about $68 million to about 100 plaintiffs to settle claims filed under a 2002 state law, the archbishop said. In 2019, the state lifted a statute of limitations allowing about 500 additional sexual abuse claims to be filed, he said.

The bankruptcy move is coming now because “the judge assigned to us has set an imminent trial…

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“They have hundreds of millions of dollars in property. They’re not bankrupt. If they’re bankrupt, it’s morally,” said one man.

After hundreds of lawsuits were filed by alleged sexual abuse victims, the Archdiocese of San Francisco saying it likely will go bankrupt.

In a statement released Friday, the archdiocese said in part:

“For several months now, with the assistance of our financial and legal advisors, we have been investigating the best options for managing and resolving these cases. After much contemplation and prayer, I wish to inform you that a Chapter 11 bankruptcy reorganization is very likely.”

“They have hundreds of millions of dollars in property. They’re not bankrupt. If they’re bankrupt, it’s morally,” said Joey Piscitelli.

News of the bankruptcy has frustrated people like Piscitelli.

Piscitelli says he was sexually abused as a child.

He now works with a group called SNAP, or the Survivors Network of those Abused…

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On August 4, 2023, Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone of the Catholic Archdiocese of San Francisco issued a letter to parishioners in response to questions from The San Francisco Chronicle. The Archbishop wrote to the faithful, “After much contemplation and prayer, I wish to inform you that a Chapter 11 bankruptcy reorganization is very likely.”

Everything about the bankruptcies of Catholic dioceses strikes us as wrong. It is all about protecting secrets first, and second, to reduce just compensation to the victims they have created. From one coast to the other, the same ruse is being used. First, minimize and cover-up child sex crimes, while keeping abusers in ministry. Then, fight against changes to the civil statute of limitations which would expose those crimes. Finally, when secular laws provide a window to justice, go to federal bankruptcy courts and pretend that they are out of…

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A Kings Mountain woman who served as a youth leader at a church has been charged with felony child sexual offenses, according to Kings Mountain Police.

Amanda Buchanan Justice, of Phifer Road, was arrested Thursday and charged with two felony counts of statutory sex offense with a child over the age of 15.

“On July 28th, 2023, Kings Mountain Police Department Criminal Investigation Division (CID) received a report of a sexual assault on a minor,” a press release said. “CID Special Victims Detectives investigated the incident further and interviewed the alleged victim. After consulting with the Cleveland County District Attorney’s Office, felony warrants were secured and served on Amanda Buchanan Justice, 35, of Kings Mountain.”

According to the release, Justice turned herself in to Kings Mountain Police on Thursday without incident and was transported to the Cleveland County Magistrate’s Office where she received a $20,000 bond.

By Thursday afternoon she…

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The Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department announced Friday it arrested and charged a convicted sex offender and associate pastor of a church with new crimes. 

Robert “Bobby” Price faces 14 counts of criminal misconduct against children, including statutory sex offense on a child. The charges stem from alleged abuse of three boys between the ages of 9 and 15 from 2001 and 2011 when he was a youth pastor at a Concord church.

WCNC Charlotte reported in 2013 when Price was arrested for a separate child abuse case at the same church. He served 16 months in jail for the crime. 

“There’s always concerns, there’s a high rate of recidivism with those that are registered sex offenders,” CMPD Captain James Wright said Friday. Recidivism is when a convicted criminal relapses into criminal behavior.

For the latest breaking news, weather and traffic alerts, download…

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• Matthew Chicas was fired from his role as a Maths teacher at Xavier High School after he was arrested in April after allegedly photographing a boy in a bathroom
• On Wednesday, Chicas pleaded not guilty to charges including possessing a sexual performance by a child and unlawful surveillance 
• The boy claims he had been using the bathroom at another school when he saw a phone peer over the top of the bathroom stall he was in  

A teacher at a prestigious New York City school has been fired after allegedly trying to film an 11-year-old boy in a bathroom stall. 

Matthew Chicas has been indicted on charges including unlawful surveillance, possessing a sexual performance by a child and endangering the welfare of a child. 

Chicas had been a Maths teacher at the $21,000-a-year private school Xavier High School in Manhattan, when he allegedly filmed the youngster back in April. 

At the time,…

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While he was being expelled from the Jesuit order on July 24, artist-priest Slovenian Father Marko Ivan Rupnik was in the middle of what many observers consider his greatest work, a set of mosaic panels covering the four main facades of the Basilica of Our Lady Aparecida in Brazil.

The fate of that project, like many of the accused sexual abuser’s others works of art, now hangs in the balance.

Inaugurated last year, the first of the massive mosaics has an area of 43,000 square feet. The work on another facade was advancing, while the remaining sides were still waiting for the intervention to begin.

But it all had to be suspended. In February, the Jesuits forbade Rupnik to continue his artistic work. With his dismissal, the Aparecida shrine has been “waiting for the Church’s guidance to decide” how it will conclude the intervention, according to a press statement sent…

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Italy’s justice minister has approved extraditing an Italian priest sought by Argentina on charges of murder and torture during that country’s last military dictatorship, but the priest has an appeal in Italian courts seeking to block extradition, a lawyer and rights groups said Thursday.

Attorney Arturo Salerni, who represents Argentina, told The Associated Press that Justice Minister Carlo Nordio on Wednesday signed off on the request to extradite the Rev. Franco Reverberi, an 85-year-old priest who served as military chaplain during Argentina’s 1976-1983 military dictatorship.

However, according to an Italian human rights group monitoring the case, Reverberi is appealing his extradition to Italy’s top criminal court and a ruling isn’t expected for weeks.

The Argentine Embassy in Rome issued a statement Thursday evening confirming the approval of the extradition as well as Reverberi’s appeal that has put the process on hold.

Due to a clerical error, the…

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A new Catholic school president has been hired in the Kansas City Kansas Archdiocese despite his having been sued as an abuser in Arizona.

Is it possible he’s innocent? Yes. Is it likely he’s innocent? Doubtful. Has his selection and appointment been handled appropriately? Clearly not.

Phil Baniewicz is the new head of Bishop Miege High School in Roeland Park KS. Archbishop Joseph Naumann and his staff have not been honest with parents and the public about the serious allegations against Baniewicz. And tragically, this type of continuing secrecy is what hurts victims, demoralizes Catholics and enables sex crimes against kids to keep happening.

Here’s the crux of this troubling situation: A priest and his colleague (Baniewicz) reportedly molested and threatened a boy. Another priest reportedly gave the boy liquor, watched the abuse and threatened him. A lawsuit against all 3 settled for six figures. The two priests were convicted and defrocked. But the Catholic lay…

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Pope Francis has arrived in Lisbon, Portugal, where he will address one of the country’s most devastating issues: sexual abuse within the Catholic Church. The gravity of the situation was palpable as senior bishops listened to heart-wrenching stories shared by victims during a panel discussion last February.

In a shocking revelation, specialists recently disclosed on live television that a staggering 4,815 boys and girls, primarily aged between 10 and 14, have been victims of sexual assault by ordained, professed, and employed religious of the Portuguese Catholic Church since 1950. This announcement contradicted previous claims by high-ranking members of the church, who downplayed the extent of the abuse.

The response from the Portuguese Catholic Church has been criticized as inadequate and lacking urgency. Their slow and hesitant reaction prompted survivors to form Portugal’s first advocacy group, demanding financial compensation on behalf of the victims. This further tarnished the church’s reputation, which…

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The Archdiocese of San Francisco announced Friday that it will “very likely” file for bankruptcy as it faces more than 500 child sex abuse lawsuits.

In an open letter, Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone said he was “deeply saddened” by the abuse of children and added “the vast majority of the alleged abuse occurred” decades ago.

But recent reporting by NBC Bay Area’s Investigative Unit has uncovered new accusations against multiple San Francisco priests still in ministry.

The Catholic Church across California is being hammered by a wave of new lawsuits made possible by a recent state law. The Oakland and Santa Rosa dioceses have already filed for bankruptcy protection.

Victim advocates with the victims’ support group SNAP blasted Friday’s announcement, saying the wave of diocese declaring bankruptcy is about protecting secrets and reducing payments to abuse victims.

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The Archdiocese of San Francisco could soon declare bankruptcy, after more than 500 lawsuits have been filed against it in the last three years. 

In an Aug. 4 letter obtained by The Pillar before its publication, Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone told Catholics that “a Chapter 11 bankruptcy reorganization is very likely” for the archdiocese.

The filing would “allow the Archdiocese to achieve two very important goals. First, Chapter 11 is a process that brings all parties together in one place to resolve difficult claims fairly and equitably under the supervision of the bankruptcy court, allowing the Archdiocese to deal with the hundreds of cases collectively rather than one at a time,” the archbishop wrote.

“That could result in a faster resolution for hundreds of survivors, providing them with fair compensation and finally, hopefully, some peace and closure. Secondly, Chapter 11 would allow the Archdiocese to reorganize its financial affairs to continue its vital…

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On the occasion of World Youth Day in Lisbon from August 1st to 6th, 2023, 333 child figures were be placed in front of the imposing Cologne Cathedral. The small figures are draped in white-purple barrier tape, symbolizing the colors of innocence and the curia.

With outstretched hands, they point towards Cologne Cathedral, drawing attention to the church’s disastrous handling of victims and perpetrators of sexual abuse. Through the installation “Shattered Souls in a Sea of Silence,” artist Dennis Josef Meseg aims to “give more visibility and a voice to the victims.”

However, the installation doesn’t solely focus on the victims, but also casts a critical light on the perpetrators and accomplices. His intention is that they can no longer continue their wrongdoing under the church’s protection.

The decision to choose Cologne as the location and the timing during this year’s World Youth Day in Lisbon as the occasion for the installation is deliberate. It aims to…

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The billboard in Algés attesting to child sex abuse in the Portuguese Catholic Church and hastily covered up ahead of the Pope’s cavalcade passing has been allowed to return today – the municipality of Oeiras admitting the subject is too important to hide. It is not in exactly the same place, but there is only 200 metres difference. According to SIC television news today, the municipality “backed down following public indignation”. The official reason for covering the billboard up is that it had not been licensed by the municipality.

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Survivors of childhood sexual abuse must continue waiting for their day in court after the Pennsylvania General Assembly failed to meet the deadline to get a proposed constitutional amendment on the November ballot.

This failure continues nearly two decades of idleness, intrigues, and slip-ups that have blocked a measure that would give thousands of survivors a two-year window to seek monetary damages against their abusers and the institutions that shielded the accused. The window is necessary because the statute of limitations for those individuals to file suit expired.

The effort has taken different forms and has received various levels of attention in that time. But despite bipartisan support among current state lawmakers for the measure, disputes between the Democratic and Republican caucuses over whether to bundle the proposal with other amendments — including one that would expand voter ID requirements — sank its chances this year.

“I want to see…

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A fellow ran down to the courthouse this week and got hitched, which, in itself, isn’t any sort of a headline. This groom, however, happens to be Howard Hubbard, the former Catholic bishop of Albany – the capital diocese in the U.S.State of New York – who is still a cleric and a bishop even in retirement, and that makes his nuptials more than a little news story.

That Hubbard got married even though the Vatican had told him “No,” after he asked to be released from the clerical state and be permitted to contract marriage … well, that makes this an even bigger news story.

The reason the Vatican denied Hubbard’s request is that Hubbard has admitted under oath to keeping abuse allegations against priests away from police and under wraps, and is currently facing no fewer than seven separate civil lawsuits alleging he personally abused people sexually both…

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A Des Moines man is accused of sexually abusing a child inside a church.

Huy Nguyen was arrested Thursday on second-degree sex abuse charges.

A criminal complaint says Nguyen inappropriately touched an 8-year-old girl at Christ the King Catholic Church in July. Documents show the abuse happened while the two were seated on a piano bench.

In a statement to KCCI, a spokesperson for the Catholic Diocese of Des Moines said Nguyen “is neither an employee nor a volunteer at the parish.” The church’s pastor was notified and contacted law enforcement, according to the statement.

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Bruxy Cavey is a mess. That’s how Canada’s disgraced former megachurch pastor refers to himself on two new websites he said he started to be his therapy. Donations, however, are welcome.

“Hello friends, welcome to my therapy,” he wrote for the site named The Ghost of 1820. “My name is Bruxy . . . and I’m a mess. But I am also discovering that suffering, especially from self-inflicted wounds, can be a good teacher, and I am learning so much.”

Cavey was arguably Canada’s most well-known evangelical pastor. With his casual style and inclusive nature, Cavey grew Canada’s The Meeting House to 5,000 people across 19 locations.

However, last March, the church asked him to resign amid allegations of sexual misconduct. Two months later, police in the Canadian city of Hamilton charged him with one count of sexual assault. Then last August, The Meeting House’s independent investigation substantiated…

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30-year-old Kyle Robinson, who was an associate pastor at First Baptist Church of Indialantic was arrested July 28th on 2 felony counts of child molestation charges. He’s currently out on $30,000 bond.

According to his LinkedIn account, Kyle is a graduate of the Christian-based Liberty University with a Bachelor’s of Christian Ministry. He also lists himself as the Director of Operations for Sani Effect Environmental.

According to the arrest affidavit, the molestation had been going on for years with over 100 acts of abuse. The unidentified male in the report, described graphic details of the alleged abuse, and even began keeping a digital log of the events that often happened while visiting other cities on trips with Kyle.

The boy described that while traveling, Kyle would book hotel rooms with only one bed, forcing them to sleep together, where the abuse allegedly would take place. He states that Kyle would force…

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A convicted sex offender who is also a pastor at a local church has been arrested again for more counts of sexual crimes against children, Charlotte-Mecklenburg police say.

Robert “Bobby” Price was arrested Friday morning and faces new charges for incidents between 2001-2011. Police said the victims met Price through the former King’s Way Baptist Church in Concord, where Price was a youth pastor.

He is now charged with 13 counts of indecent liberties with a child and one count of statutory sexual offense with children between the ages of 9 and 15 years old at the time of the incidents.

Police alleged Price committed the incidents in his car while driving the victims to and from the church, as well as at his home.

King’s Way Baptist Church in Concord is now closed, according to police.

PREVIOUS COVERAGE ON PRICE:

• Court documents indicate former…

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A former teacher at a K-12 school affiliated with Liberty University has been charged with sexual misconduct with a minor—which was finally disclosed to students’ families last week, three months after the fact. But multiple parents say the school is minimizing the potential harm, and some details from administrators are in conflict.

Braxton Wyatt Carter, 29, faces charges in Campbell County, Virginia, of two counts of consensual sex with a child age 15 years or older. The charges stem from an alleged incident in 2019, case information shows. Records indicate Carter was jailed April 7 and bonded out the same day.

Carter taught at Liberty Christian Academy (LCA) in Lynchburg from 2017-2019. The school is partnered with Liberty University (LU), one of the nation’s largest Christian colleges, and reportedly has about 2,000 students. 

On July 28, LCA Head of School Dr. Mark Hine wrote in an email to…

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One of three huge billboards erected by activists to raise awareness of sexual abuse by clergy has been removed following the arrival in Portugal of Pope Francis, campaign group This Is Our Memorial said on Wednesday.

Francis arrived in Lisbon to attend the World Youth Day event, an event devised by the late Pope John Paul II for Catholics in their teens or early 20s and held every two or three years in a different city.

The event comes less than six months after a report by a Portuguese commission said at least 4,815 minors were sexually abused by clergy – mostly priests – over seven decades. The commission in charge said that was just the “tip of the iceberg”.

One of the three billboards was put up on the Almirante Reis avenue, one of Lisbon’s longest and busiest streets, and reads: “4,800+ children abused by the Catholic Church in Portugal”….

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Catholic dioceses across the United States are considering or already taking steps toward declaring bankruptcy (Chapter 11), partly in response to a flood of sexual abuse lawsuits filed after states adopted laws that eliminate or pause statutes of limitations. According to one researcher, 32 Catholic dioceses and religious orders have sought or emerged from bankruptcy since 2001, when the extent of the clergy sexual abuse crisis became more widely known. It’s like there’s some secret public relations playbook passed to every US Catholic official. And under the tab titled “Seeking bankruptcy protection,” the first bit of advice (i.e., ‘spin’) is something like: “Always claim – and relentlessly repeat – that you’re doing this to be FAIR to the victims.”

Look at what Ogdensburg, New York Bishop said when he filed paperwork just two weeks ago to seek Chapter 11 protection: “The diocesan bankruptcy establishes a process for…

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When an institution or employer is hit with a report of suspected child sexual assault, generally speaking, you can tell a lot about that institution by what its leadership does in its first response. Whether it’s a verbal or written report, direct or indirect, or criminal or civil case, here’s the rule of thumb you can use to at least initially decide whether the institution or employer cares about finding the truth or protecting itself. It’s very simple: Do they ask others for help? Or do they ask others for nothing?

If they ask you to do something, that’s a good sign. If they don’t, that’s a bad sign. When confronted with known or suspected child sex crimes, institutions and employers have a straightforward choice. They can beg their employees and the public to act. Or they can try to lull them into complacency. All too often, they chose the latter course.

The…

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Attorneys for survivors of Catholic clergy sexual abuse on Long Island say they are outraged the church in Syracuse has reached a settlement for $100 million while negotiations locally have dragged on for nearly three years. 

The Diocese of Rockville Centre says it’s “grateful” for the upstate settlement, but at home, any deal between the Catholic Church and survivors will have to be fair toward victims while also allowing the diocese to remain financially viable.

Either way, reaching a similar agreement anytime soon appears a long shot, according to attorneys on the case.

“Syracuse made a decision that they weren’t going to spend their money fighting survivors and the Diocese of Rockville Centre has apparently made the opposite decision,” said Jordan Merson, a Manhattan-based attorney who represents some of the survivors on Long Island.

Church officials denied that, and said they are still working toward a solution.

“We are grateful that the Diocese of Syracuse has…

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A year after the Massachusetts attorney general’s office told advocates that a report on clergy sex abuse was nearly complete, the investigation has still not been published as activists push for the “disappearing report” to come to light.

The advocates have been in the dark since last August, when then-AG Maura Healey’s office reportedly promised that the investigation into the Worcester, Springfield and Fall River dioceses had wrapped up — and that the report was about to cross the goal line.

But Healey’s office never released the report before she became governor, and new AG Andrea Campbell’s office has not published the report.

“It’s become this kind of disappearing report,” Terry McKiernan, president of Bishop Accountability, recently told the Herald.

“These reports are incredibly important and validating for survivors,” he later added. “And when you sit down with survivors to talk about these terrible things, I think you have a…

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Key points:

• Child abuse survivors are re-telling their stories to a WA parliamentary inquiry
• It is examining the experience of survivors as they seek justice
• Victims and advocates say they are being “re-traumatised” by the process

“Gutted. Betrayed. Used. Re-traumatised.”

That is how 70-year-old Gordon Batty felt when his civil court case against the Uniting Church over his alleged sexual abuse in the 1960s was permanently stopped.

Following the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, he had been encouraged to pursue justice over his claims of abuse in several state institutions and Perth’s Methodist Homes for Children.

“I didn’t ask for any of this. We were invited,” he remembered of the decision to take legal action.

“I’d go as far as to say, we were virtually begged to let our demons out of the closet.”

But the proceedings came to a sudden halt when the church successfully applied for…

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Pope Francis met with 13 survivors of clerical sex abuse on his first day in Portugal and urged the Church to listen to “the anguished cry of the victims.”

The emotional private meeting at Lisbon’s apostolic nunciature, or Vatican embassy, on Wednesday night was a moment of “intense listening” by the pope and lasted more than an hour, according to the Vatican. Representatives from Catholic institutions working for the protection of minors in Portugal accompanied the victims.

In a speech to Portuguese clergy immediately before the pope’s encounter with the abuse survivors, Francis acknowledged the “anger with which some people view the Church” due to “the scandals that have marred her face.”

Pope Francis called for “a humble, ongoing purification, starting with the anguished cry of the victims, who must always be accepted and listened to.”

The clerical abuse watchdog BishopAccountability.org issued a statement following the…

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A fellow ran down to the courthouse this week and got hitched, which, in itself, isn’t any sort of a headline. This groom, however, happens to be Howard Hubbard, the former Catholic bishop of Albany – the capital diocese in the U.S.State of New York – who is still a cleric and a bishop even in retirement, and that makes his nuptials more than a little news story.

That Hubbard got married even though the Vatican had told him “No,” after he asked to be released from the clerical state and be permitted to contract marriage … well, that makes this an even bigger news story.

The reason the Vatican denied Hubbard’s request is that Hubbard has admitted under oath to keeping abuse allegations against priests away from police and under wraps, and is currently facing no fewer than seven separate civil lawsuits alleging he personally abused people sexually both…

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Vatican turned down his request to be laicized; Bishop Scharfenberger calls the news ‘unexpected‘

After his request to be laicized was turned down by the Vatican earlier this year, Bishop Emeritus Howard J. Hubbard of the Diocese of Albany announced in a statement Aug. 1 that he was married in a civil ceremony.

“Last fall, after prayerful consideration and consultation, I applied to the Vatican to be returned to the lay state and to be relieved of my clerical obligations. In March, I received notice from the Vatican that my request had been denied,” Bishop Hubbard said in the statement titled, ‘A Letter to My Dear Colleagues and Friends.’ “I was encouraged to wait patiently and prayerfully and to continue to abstain from public ministry until seven civil lawsuits against me alleging sexual misconduct had been adjudicated.

“Shortly thereafter, the Diocese of Albany declared bankruptcy, as have six of the…

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Summary

• Pope in Portugal for global Catholic youth festival
• Francis meets victims of Portugal clerical abuse
• At least 4,815 minors were sexually abused by clergy

Pope Francis on Wednesday said the Catholic Church needs a “humble and ongoing purification” to deal with the “anguished cries” of victims of clerical sexual abuse, who he met privately on the first day of his visit to Portugal.

Francis was speaking in Lisbon at the start of a five-day visit to the country in which he hopes to energize young Catholics during World Youth Day, the world’s largest Catholic festival.Advertisement · Scroll to continueReport this ad

Six months ago, a report by a Portuguese commission said at least 4,815 minors were sexually abused by clergy – mostly priests – over seven decades.

The crisis “calls us to a humble and ongoing purification, starting with the anguished cry of the victims, who must always be accepted and…

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Pope Francis holds a private audience with a group of 13 victims of clerical sexual abuse in Portugal, according to the Holy See Press Office.

Pope Francis met privately with victims of clerical sexual abuse in Portugal, Matteo Bruni, Director of the Holy See Press Office, confirmed in a brief statement to accredited journalists.

The encounter, on Wednesday, the first day of the Pope’s Apostolic Visit to Portugal to celebrate World Youth Day 2023, took place at the Apostolic Nunciature in a private context.

A statement by the Holy See Press Office Director said: “This evening, after concluding his institutional and ecclesial encounters, Pope Francis received in the Nunciature a group of 13 victims of abuse by members of the clergy who were accompanied by several Church organizations committed to the protection of minors.”

Mr. Bruni specified the meeting took place “in an atmosphere of intense listening and lasted over an…

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The Mississippi Court of Appeals has affirmed the 2022 conviction of a former Franciscan friar in the 1990s sexual abuse of a student at a Catholic school.

In a split decision Tuesday, a majority of the court found “no reversible error” in the conviction of Paul West, 63, who is Central Mississippi Correctional Facility.

Leflore County jurors in April 2022 found West guilty of one count of sexual battery and one count of gratification of lust. A judge sentenced him to 30 years on the first count and 15 years on the second count, to be served at the same time.

As first reported by The Associated Press in 2019, La Jarvis Love and his cousin, Joshua Love, had accused West of numerous instances of sexual abuse while they were students at St. Francis of Assisi School in Greenwood. The AP usually does not identify victims of sexual…

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Emeritus Bishop Howard Hubbard of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Albany, N.Y., said he had married a woman after the Vatican declined his request to leave the clergy.

A retired Roman Catholic bishop in upstate New York who is a defendant in several sexual misconduct lawsuits said on Tuesday that he had recently married a woman after the Vatican denied his request to leave the clergy.

The retired bishop, Howard J. Hubbard, led the Albany, N.Y., diocese from 1977 until his retirement in 2014 and holds the title of emeritus bishop. He said in a statement issued by a public relations firm and addressed to his “dear colleagues and friends” that he and the woman had married in a civil ceremony last month.

“I have fallen in love with a wonderful woman who has helped and cared for me and who believes in me,” Bishop Hubbard, 84, said in…

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KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Officials at Bishop Miege High School in Roeland Park are defending the hiring of the school’s new president following concerns by the school community over the president’s involvement in a sexual abuse civil lawsuit in 2005.

The hiring and subsequent questions by parents about the process prompted KSHB 41 I-Team’s Sarah Plake to learn more about his past and why parents at the school felt uncomfortable.

In a June 30 letter to the Bishop Miege community, the Catholic high school announced it had hired Phil Baniewicz as its new president.

The letter provided background on Baniewicz’s past. He was most recently President at Maur Hill-Mount Academy in Atchison, Kansas.

“Phil Baniewicz has been an exceptional leader for Maur Hill-Mount Academy. Mr. Baniewicz is a man with a deep love for Jesus and his church,” Archbishop Joseph F. Naumann said in the letter. “I…

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The church counselors couldn’t even help their own priests. Why would Coyne think those counselors could help the priests’ victims?

Commentaries are opinion pieces contributed by readers and newsmakers. VTDigger strives to publish a variety of views from a broad range of Vermonters. Commentaries give voice to community members and do not represent VTDigger’s views. To submit a commentary, follow the instructions here.

This commentary is by Maura Labelle of Colchester, a former resident of St. Joseph’s Orphanage in Burlington.

Without question, Bishop Christopher Coyne of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Burlington earned his promotion to coadjutor archbishop of the Diocese of Hartford, and promotion to simply archbishop in 2024.

The position was earned on the backs of clergy abuse victims in Vermont, who were largely ignored during his tenure here.

In an interview on the WCAX program “You Can Quote Me,” which aired on July 2, Coyne again showed…

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The pope will preside over a gathering of young people from around the world, mindful that the changes he has initiated in the Roman Catholic Church will depend on them.

Pope Francis, deep into his 80s, slowed by illness and aware that his window for bringing lasting change to the Roman Catholic Church is closing, arrived in Portugal on Wednesday for a weeklong meeting of the world’s young Catholics, in whose hands will rest the ultimate success or failure of his vision for a more pastoral and inclusive faith.

“I am happy to have come to Lisbon, this city of encounter, which embraces many peoples and cultures, and which, in these days, is even more global,” Francis told the country’s leaders in a speech on Wednesday morning in the Presidential Palace, adding that it had become “in a certain sense” a world capital, but also “the capital of the…

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Lisbon, Portugal — Pope Francis is in Portugal this week for what’s been called the “Catholic Woodstock” — the church’s “World Youth Day” festival. Hundreds of thousands of young people are taking part, and while the festival is a celebration, the pontiff started his visit by confronting the dark legacy of clergy sexual abuse in Portugal.

Francis wasted no time in addressing the biggest stain on today’s Catholic Church, meeting with sex abuse survivors behind closed doors on the first day of the summit. 

Arriving in Lisbon for the international celebration of faith, the pope quickly addressed the elephant in the room: A report issued earlier this year saying that nearly 5,000 minors had been sexually abused by Portuguese clergy since the 1950s.

Addressing a group of bishops, Francis blasted them for the “scandals that have marred” the church, and called for “ongoing purification,” demanding…

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LISBON, Portugal (CNS) — A Catholic Church that has grown weary in countries shaken by the clerical sexual abuse crisis and cultural trends toward secularism must look anew to Jesus to revive their “restless” enthusiasm for sharing the Gospel, Pope Francis said.

“Now is the God-given time of grace to sail boldly into the sea of evangelization and of mission,” the pope told Portuguese bishops, priests, religious and pastoral workers after praying vespers at the Jerónimos Monastery in Lisbon Aug. 2, the first day of his trip to Portugal.

Using a wheelchair, the pope entered the 16th-century monastery to great applause, and the cheers that erupted when he stood to greet those present resembled those echoing from the pop concert taking place across the street for World Youth Day.

Pope Francis was greeted by Bishop José Ornelas Carvalho of Leiria-Fátima, president of the country’s bishops’ conference, before leading the prayer….

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