ABUSE TRACKER

• Rep. Carol McEntee’s new bill would totally remove time limit on filing suit for child sex abuse by clergy
• Alleged victims rallies in support of the bill
• RI Catholic Church, ACLU and insurance lobby oppose bill
• Case working through courts would determine if RI Diocese was a ‘perpetrator’ of abuse

The war has begun anew over legal responsibility — and more specifically, who should be made to pay — for the sexual abuse of children, with the Rhode Island Catholic Church, the state’s insurance lobby and the ACLU on one side, and alleged victims on the other.

A legal challenge to the state’s current law is still winding its way through state court, but Rep. Carol McEntee has revived her campaign for the total repeal of the current time limit on the filing of lawsuits against pedophiles and the institutions that shielded them.

And once again, McEntee’s sister, Ann Hagan-Webb, a licensed psychologist…

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The more stories he heard from clergy abuse survivors, the more Marcus Mescher realized that their suffering wasn’t just emotional or physical − it was a moral trauma.

Clergy abuse victims often feel alone and empty − if not “dirty,” said Mescher, an associate professor of Christian ethics at the Jesuit-run Xavier University in Cincinnati. Survivors often feel abandoned by their church, community and God.

Mescher, a practicing Catholic, decided to develop quantitative and qualitative measures of their suffering to help others understand the impact of abuse by someone as important to faith as a member of the clergy.

He and his co-researchers at Xavier published a report in December, demonstrating the abuse of children and subsequent concealment by the church resulted in “persistent psychological and emotional distress, moral confusion, spiritual anguish, social alienation and distrust for institutions.”

“When the perpetrator of sexual abuse is a priest, there are even more dimensions…

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(For Immediate Release March 17, 2023) 

The Bishop of the Diocese of Oakland says he is “strongly” considering declaring bankruptcy because of an avalanche of lawsuits. Bishop Michael Barber directs his letter to “Parishioners and Friends” of the Diocese and laments the property he will need to sell and bankruptcy’s impact on his plan to realign parishes because of a priest shortage.

Nowhere in his letter does he lament the harm done to the 330 souls who have sued his Diocese. Nowhere does he acknowledge these people were part of the Oakland Diocese. They were baptized and confirmed, they were altar servers or attended Catholic schools. Their families entrusted their children to the priests who molested them, and those families donated their time and money to the Diocese. They in effect paid the clergy who destroyed their children’s lives.

Bishop Barber is woeful about his problems but…

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A number of lessons can be drawn from a recent Washington Post story.  On March 9, the Post published a nearly 4,000-word story on the work of Catholic Laity and Clergy for Renewal (CLCR), a nonprofit based in Colorado.  CLCR meticulously – and legally – collected publicly available data on clergy usage of Grindr and other hetero and same-sex hookup dating apps.  It then provided the information to bishops for corrective action.  Similar data reported on by The Pillar forced the resignation of former USCCB general secretary, Msgr. Jeffrey Burrill.

In the Latin rite, diocesan priests make a promise of celibacy.  Religious community priests take a vow of chastity.  The intended result is the same:  The priest commits himself to refrain from sexual relations.  It’s a sacrifice that, properly lived, frees him to devote his life to the service of Jesus Christ, the Church, and her people.  It’s…

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MADISON – A new name has been added to the list of credibly accused priests within the La Crosse Diocese as a result of the Attorney General’s inquiry into abuse perpetrated by clergy and other faith leaders across the state.

John J. Cullinan, who served at St. Paul’s Church in Mosinee and St. Mary’s Church in Wausau, was added to the list on Dec. 20, over two years after the diocese first published their list, the attorney general’s office confirmed this week.

“With consent from survivors, DOJ provided information about allegations regarding Father Cullinan to the Diocese of La Crosse, which then followed its process for adding Father Cullinan to its list of those with substantiated allegations of child sexual abuse,” Attorney General Josh Kaul said in a statement to the Journal Sentinel.

“We are grateful that survivors have reported abuse to the Wisconsin Department of Justice through our Clergy and Faith…

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The victim was left with “serious lifelong psychological scars”

A retired Suffolk priest who sexually abused a girl over a three-year period in the 1980s has been jailed. Dennis Finbow, 74, visited the family home of the victim in Peterborough, on numerous occasions in the 1980s and abused her.

At Cambridge Crown Court on Wednesday, March 8, Finbow, of Bealings Road in Martlesham, was jailed for six years and six months having been found guilty on three counts of indecent assault after having pleaded not guilty to six counts. He was found not guilty on the other three counts.

The court heard how Finbow would go into the girl’s bedroom claiming her mother had sent him, and that he wanted to speak to her about becoming a woman. He also asked her to take her clothes off as well as touching her inappropriately.

DC Annette Renwick said: “I am…

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A former Offaly priest who sexually abused a young woman as he drove her to the Rape Crisis Centre for counselling has avoided a jail term as he is the sole carer for his elderly sister.

Joe Dunne (81) indecently assaulted the previously abused young woman on a number of occasions after befriending her in hospital. He later asked her for forgiveness before assaulting her again.

The woman outlined how meeting Dunne when she was a young woman in a highly vulnerable situation had started “34 years of hell.” She said she thought she would be safe as he was a priest.

Dunne of Ballycrystal, Geashill, Co Offaly pleaded guilty at the Central Criminal Court to five counts of indecent assault of the woman in 1989. He has no previous convictions.

Separate investigation

The court heard the case had come to light as a result of a separate investigation in…

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Survivors of child sexual abuse cleared an important hurdle Thursday night in their quest to sue complicit institutions, as the Maryland Senate approved vastly expanding eligibility to file civil lawsuits.

The vote tally was 42 senators in support and five opposed, and the final vote came without any debate.

The measure still needs approval from the House of Delegates — which is expected — before heading to Gov. Wes Moore’s desk.

“I feel really proud that we’ve at least given the survivors an opportunity to make their case and seek some justice,” said Sen. William C. Smith Jr., the bill’s sponsor and chairman of the committee that wrestled with versions of the bill for years.

Smith said in an interview that he felt “somber” about finally getting the bill passed. The Montgomery County Democrat is uncertain that the bill will withstand legal scrutiny down the line, but he hopes it…

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More than 2 dozen men named on Jesuits list; most are dead

WARNING: This article contains detailed discussion of the sexual abuse of minors.

The Jesuits of Canada, a religious order of the Catholic Church, has released a list of 27 priests and brothers it says were “credibly accused” of sexually abusing minors over the past six decades.

“Over the past three or more decades, revelations of grievous abuse by clergy dating back many generations have come to light, and the Church has been slow to respond,” Father Erik Oland, leader of the Jesuits of Canada, said in a letter to the public posted Monday on the Jesuits of Canada website.

“As we have met with survivors, listened to their stories and read the reports of their experiences, we have felt shame and become convinced that the only path forward is one of truth-telling, healing and reconciliation.”

The Jesuits refused a request for an interview. In…

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MONTREAL — The Jesuits of Canada released a list of priests and brothers Monday who they say were “credibly accused” of sexually abusing minors over the past 70 years.

The Jesuits, a religious order of the Roman Catholic Church, released the list of 27 names following an audit that began in 2020 that combed through documents going back to the 1950s.

“We cannot rewrite the past,” Rev. Erik Oland, the head of the Jesuits of Canada, said in a statement. “We do wish to contribute to reconciliation, to right past wrongs and to rebuild trust.”

Of the men named, all but three are dead. Those still living are kept under strict supervision, the order said.

The Jesuits of Canada announced they would commission an audit in December 2019. An independent auditor, King International Group, looked at documents and files.

The review provided the information needed to compile the list. It…

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The Jesuits of Canada, a religious order of the Catholic Church, has published the names of 27 priests and brothers who it says have been credibly accused of sexually abusing minors, one of the few Catholic entities in the country to release such a list.

The release, based on a review of thousands of documents dating back to the early 1950s, includes the names of Jesuits and where they were assigned. Although 24 of the men are dead, the three who are still alive are in their 80s and 90s,reside in a Jesuit infirmary and are no longer actively working in public, says Father Erik Oland, leader of the order in Canada. He said they have no access to children and are monitored by a designated supervisor.

Many survivors and advocacy groups havefor years called for the names of abusers to be published as…

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“We do wish to contribute to reconciliation, to right past wrongs and to rebuild trust.”

MONTREAL — Four members of the Jesuits of Canada who were employed at schools in Regina are among those named in a list of priests and brothers whom the religious order says were “credibly accused” of sexually abusing minors over the past 70 years.

The Jesuits, a religious order of the Roman Catholic Church, released a list on Monday of 27 names following an audit that began in 2020 that combed through documents going back to the 1950s.

“We cannot rewrite the past,” Rev. Erik Oland, the head of the Jesuits of Canada, said in a statement. “We do wish to contribute to reconciliation, to right past wrongs and to rebuild trust.”

Of the men named, all but three are dead. Those still living are kept under strict supervision, the order…

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Priests in Montreal named by Jesuits

Six members of the Jesuits of Canada who were employed at schools in Regina, Sask. were named in a recent list documenting ‘credible’ accusations of sexual abuse over the past 70 years.

“We cannot rewrite the past. We do wish to contribute to reconciliation, to right past wrongs and to rebuild trust,” Erik Oland, head of the Jesuits of Canada said in a statement.

“The undertaking of our audit and the decision to publish the names of those credibly accused express our commitment to transparency and accountability,”

The Jesuits, a religious order affiliated with the Roman Catholic Church, began the audit in December of 2019 as one part of its response to alleged sexual abuse and its aftermath.

The audit was done with the help of independent investigator Brian King of King International Advisory Group beginning in early 2020, the organization explained.

At total…

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Priests were all named in recent investigation into pedophilia in Portugal’s Catholic Church

The Bishop of Porto, Portugal’s second-largest city, has temporarily suspended three priests suspected of pedophilia, the Diocese of Porto announced Thursday.

In a brief statement, the church said the priests were all named in a recently finalized investigation of sexual abuse in Portugal’s Catholic Church.

Last Friday, the Diocese of Porto said the investigators sent them a list of 12 Porto clergy who were all suspected abusers. Of the 12, four had died and one had left the district, according to a statement.

The diocese said it would investigate the seven remaining priests further. If it found “any reliable evidence,” the Catholic organization said it would not hesitate to “preventively suspend” any clergy involved.

Just three of the seven have been suspended.

The statement added that there was no evidence of the crimes in the church’s archives…

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Fiscalía de Sinaloa afirma que han sido presentadas dos denuncias penales; colectivos llaman a “no permanecer pasivos” ante los señalamientos que se hicieron públicos en estos días

Usuarios de redes sociales y colectivos exigieron justicia y convocaron a una marcha para mañana hacia la Catedral de Culiacán, con el lema “Dios es justo, queremos una iglesia justa”, para exigir que sean castigados los sacerdotes involucrados en presuntos actos de abuso sexual denunciados en los últimos días.

Ayer, la cuenta de Instagram desde donde se convocó a la marcha, publicó el siguiente mensaje: “Ante los hechos externados por jóvenes de nuestra iglesia ¡no podemos permanecer pasivos! ¡no podemos ser tibios! ¡no podemos mirar hacia otro lado!”.

Este jueves, la Fiscalía General de Justicia de Sinaloa dijo a La Razón que hasta el momento hay dos denuncias penales presentadas por estos hechos: una por parte de la Diócesis de…

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CULIACÁN, Sinaloa.- Cinco sacerdotes de la Diócesis de Culiacán fueron separados de sus funciones clericales, luego de ser acusados de cometer abusos sexuales.

Mujeres y hombres denunciaron haber sufrido violaciones, tocamientos, acoso y otras agresiones de sacerdotes del grupo Arcoiris, destinado a la orientación de adolescentes con problemas de violencia familiar.

Los jóvenes acusaron que los representantes de la iglesia católica les decían que «Dios siempre busca el mal menor», para hacerles creer que esos abusos eran decisiones divinas.

El primer sacerdote acusado fue identificado como Cristian Emmanuel.

«Cuando lo denunciamos nos habían dicho que debía ser de hechos recientes, porque antes ya había sido denunciado, y lo que hicieron fue darle terapia. Por eso nos dijeron que debían ser denuncias después de las terapias», narró una de las denunciantes que pidió resguardar su identidad.

Después las acusaciones fueron contra los sacerdotes Óscar Daniel, Antonio, José Luis y Petronilo Tolentino….

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Poland’s Catholic episcopate will appoint a group of experts to investigate the sexual abuse of minors by members of the clergy. The decision follows new claims that the future Pope John Paul II was negligent on the issue while serving as archbishop of Kraków.

“The bishops have decided to start work on appointing a team of independent experts to undertake an investigation into the sexual abuse of minors by some clergy in the church in Poland,” announced Archbishop Wojciech Polak, who is the primate of Poland.

“Their task will be to diligently examine the documents both in the state archives and in the church archives in order to show the content in its entirety, taking into account the law and the state of knowledge, as well as the sociocultural context,” he said, adding that all of the bishops were in favour of the decision.

Since Polish broadcaster TVN last week…

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Opponents of statute of limitations (SOL) reform in Pennsylvania continue to peddle disinformation regarding the potential impact to taxpayers. CHILD USA’s analysis of SOL reform data in other states shows that estimates of impact to taxpayers and public schools are at least 10 times too high. Simply put, the journalists, professors, and policymakers who continue to spread inaccurate claims about this issue are directly harming survivors of child sexual abuse.

Survivors of child sexual abuse need financial compensation. The trauma they endure leads to lower earnings and medical bills for therapy and other treatment throughout their lives. And the vast majority of Pennsylvania’s residents support giving survivors a window to seek justice. So, why are some politicians and academics still recycling falsehoods to shut the effort down?

Either this is a case of laziness and data illiteracy, or it’s intentional misdirection. If this whole campaign is…

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Pope John Paul II is still seen by many in Poland as a national hero and moral authority. A recent documentary has caused outrage by alleging that he covered up clerical sex abuse cases while archbishop of Krakow.

The private Polish television channel TVN24 has been reporting for years about child abuse in the Catholic Church in Poland and about attempts to sweep the scandals under the carpet. And the latest program in the series, broadcast just a week ago, has really stirred up a hornets’ nest.

The journalists behind the documentary provided what they say is evidence that Pope John Paul II knew of cases of abuse but did not take sufficient action against the abusers.

Born Karol Wojtyla in 1920, he is often referred to as the “Polish pope.” John Paul II is viewed as a national hero in his native Poland, not just because he became head of the Catholic…

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A judge will review the Maryland Attorney General’s report on alleged sexual abuse by priests within the Catholic Archdiocese of Baltimore.

Circuit Court Judge Robert Taylor will release a redacted version of the 456-page report, titled “Clergy Abuse in Maryland,” once he determines those redactions are legally sufficient.

David Lorenz is the Maryland director of Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP).

“I think it’s going to be sickening,” Lorenz said. “I think we are going to see probably 90% of the report, I would guess. I think we are going to see story after story after story of abuse and cover-up.”

Lorenz is a survivor of sexual abuse, and now advocates for fellow survivors by leading SNAP.

“This report might help these people come forward. Seek help and, you know, start their healing process,” he said.

According to an executive summary of the report, the Attorney General’s investigation…

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Melbourne’s Catholic archbishop has asked a court to reduce a former altar boy’s almost $2 million sexual abuse payout as some injuries were caused outside of a paedophile priest’s horrific assaults.

Archbishop Peter Comensoli has launched an appeal of a Supreme Court judge’s decision to award $1.9 million in damages to one of former priest Desmond Gannon’s victims, after he and the Catholic Archdiocese of Melbourne were found to be vicariously liable for the abuse.

Gannon sexually assaulted the man, who cannot be named for legal reasons, three times between 1968 and 1970 while the victim was an altar boy and pupil at a Catholic primary school in regional Victoria.

The victim said he felt the priest had “murdered” him, and the little boy he used to be was gone forever.

On one occasion, Gannon drove the boy out to a remote area where he molested and raped him. He was…

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For years, as a high-ranking Catholic diocesan official, Fr. Edward Arsenault handled (or mishandled) dozens of reports about predatory priests. In the media (and by survivors), “as the face of the church in (his) state during the sex abuse scandal,” he was criticized for being insensitive and secretive. Then, Arsenault got into more trouble. Not for molesting anyone. But for stealing about $300,000 from a hospital, his diocese, and the estate of a fellow priest. He was convicted and spent several years in prison.

Now, here’s where it gets interesting. When he came out, he moved, changed his name, and stayed ‘under the radar’ until this week, when a newspaper revealed that he now heads two New York City charities doing business with the city (in other words, with the public’s tax dollars). We at Horowitz Law are specialists in clergy sex crimes and cover-ups. As reported, the former priest is now named…

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The Roman Catholic Diocese of Albany today filed for reorganization under Chapter 11 of the United States Bankruptcy Code. Parishes and Catholic schools of the Diocese are separately incorporated under New York State’s Religious Corporations Law and are not part of the filing.

The mission and ministries of the Diocese and parishes will continue during the reorganization proceedings.

According to the United States Courts, “A case filed under Chapter 11 of the United States Bankruptcy Code is frequently referred to as a ‘reorganization’ bankruptcy. Usually, the debtor remains ‘in possession,’ has the powers and duties of a trustee, may continue to operate its business, and may, with court approval, borrow new money. A plan of reorganization is proposed, creditors whose rights are affected may vote on the plan, and the plan may be confirmed by the court if it gets the required votes and satisfies certain legal requirements.”

“We maintain…

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The Roman Catholic Diocese in Albany has reportedly filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy to contend with the financial fallout of hundreds of child sexual abuse lawsuits it faces.

“The decision to file was not arrived at easily and I know it may cause pain and suffering, but we, as a Church, can get through this and grow stronger together,” Bishop Edward Scharfenberger announced Wednesday, according to a Times Union report.

The Albany Diocese is the fifth of eight in the Empire State to declare bankruptcy in the wake of a flood of cases filed between 2019 and 2021 during the Child Victims Act window allowing survivors to sue regardless of whether the claims were outside of the statute of limitations.

The bankruptcy move comes after months of negotiations between the church and plaintiffs – whose cases allege the diocese allowed the abuse to occur and then covered it up.

…

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In a message to participants at the Second Latin American Congress on the prevention of abuse, a meeting taking place in Asuncion, Paraguay, Pope Francis encourages them in their efforts to prevent sexual abuse in the Church and to ensure measures are followed so children and vulnerable adults are always safe.

In a message dated 8 March, Pope Francis offered words of encouragement to participants taking part in the Second Latin American Congress on the prevention of abuse, focusing on effective handling of sexual abuse cases. The meeting is taking place in Asuncion, Paraguay until 16 March, a gathering jointly sponsored by the Bishops’ Conference of Paraguay and the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors. Cardinal Sean O’Malley, President of the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors, read the Pope’s message and offered his own wide-ranging reflection on the topic. Participants at the congress come from across Latin…

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La Diócesis de Culiacán, Sinaloa, suspendió a cinco sacerdotes luego de que en redes sociales jóvenes denunciaron presuntos actos de acoso y abuso sexual.

Cinco sacerdotes fueron separados de la Diócesis de Culiacán, Sinaloa, luego de que en redes sociales jóvenes denunciaron presuntos actos de acoso y abuso sexual.

Las denuncias, señalamientos y evidencias fueron publicadas desde el pasado 8 de marzo, Día Internacional de la Mujer. 

“Es una situación delicada y por eso no nos gustaría que esto fuera tomado como un chisme y con morbo, el fin de este hilo es principalmente motivar a romper el silencio y no encubrir más tiempo a un agresor, también es el prevenir a otras mujeres y que se sepa toda la verdad”, señaló en Twitter una de las denunciantes.

Algunos de los sacerdotes señalados fueron identificados con los nombres de Cristian Emanuel Romero Félix, Antonio Flores, Tolentino y Óscar Daniel, reportó El Sol…

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Prominent researchers of accountability for clergy sexual abuse called on Pope Francis on Wednesday to release the names of bishops investigated by the Vatican since the implementation of 2019 rules that overhauled how the church responds to abuse accusations.

The watchdog group, BishopAccountability.org, criticized the pope at a news conference for failing to give a “full accounting” of the impact of the revised rules, which they called a landmark effort to combat abuse. The organization also released a list, based on news reports from around the world, of 40 bishops who have been investigated under the four-year-old law.

“The pope has repeatedly said he wants transparency, yet he is leaving the faithful in the dark,” Anne Barrett Doyle, the group’s co-director, told reporters Wednesday. “Survivors and Catholics in the pews not only need this information; they have a right to it.”

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Liberal politicians have demanded that St John Paul II’s name be removed from streets and schools across his homeland.

Polish Church leaders have reacted angrily to new claims that St John Paul II covered up sexual abuse by clergy while serving as Archbishop of Krakow before his papal election, and vowed to “defend his good name”.  

“We owe Poland’s freedom and the freedom of our consciences to St John Paul II – he was like our compass in the midst of a historical storm, and he would want the truth from us today, established by in-depth research, not unreliable media reports,” Archbishop Stanislaw Gadecki, president of the bishops’ conference, declared in a statement on Sunday.

“I can testify that no one felt the suffering and dignity of human beings with such sensitivity, and I declare once again that the Church in Poland will continue to help wounded people with…

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A disgraced Queens Catholic Church deacon will spend 16 years behind bars for enticing three boys he met online into having sex with him.

Rogelio Vega, 52, faced his reckoning in Brooklyn Federal Court on Wednesday, breaking down in tears as he described how his actions hurt his victims and his family.

“I wish things can be different and we can go back in time,” he said. “I’d say sorry to [the victims] and to my family also because they’re struggling with what I have done” he told Judge Eric Komitee, taking of his glasses as his emotions overcame him.

“You’ll probably notice that my family is not here today, because I told them not to come, because I don’t want to expose them any more,” Vega added.

Komitee called Vega’s case “especially complex,” but noted, “Deterring the sexual exploitation of children is one of the most important, most essential…

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Santa Rosa CA – The Diocese of Santa Rosa filed for bankruptcy March 13, days after its bishop finally concluded the decision was necessary in order to address potentially 200 new claims brought against the diocese by survivors of child sexual abuse.

Bishop Robert F. Vasa said in a March 10 statement posted to the diocese’s website that after “months of careful and prayerful consideration” — including consultation with the diocese’s priests, the diocese’s finance council, and other professionals retained by the diocese — “it was clear that such an action was necessary.”

Bishop Vasa pointed out the diocese faces at least 160 new claims against it as a result of California legislation opening up a three-year window in the statute of limitations, from Jan. 1, 2020 to Jan. 2, 2023, that allowed survivors of child sexual abuse to file lawsuits within that time frame. He acknowledged those claims could…

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Facing lawsuits on multiple fronts, the Roman Catholic Diocese of Albany has declared bankruptcy.

The diocese says parishes and Catholic schools are separately incorporated under New York State’s Religious Corporations Law and are not part of the filing.

Hundreds of lawsuits have been brought against the diocese since the Child Victims Act went into effect in August 2019. The law created a one-year look-back period, during which time civil cases could be filed by adults who claimed they were victims of sex abuse as children. Gov. Andrew Cuomo later signed a bill that extended the look-back period to Jan. 14, 2021.

Bishop Edward Scharfenberger said in a news release that, “as more Child Victims Act (CVA) cases reached large settlements, our limited self-insurance funds, which have been paying those settlements, have been depleted.”

The bishop says the Chapter 11 filing is the best way to ensure victims will receive some compensation.

…

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Filing comes after months of brinksmanship with attorneys for victims who filed abuse claims under Child Victims Act

The Roman Catholic Diocese of Albany on Wednesday filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy as it grapples with the financial impact of  hundreds of civil claims resulting from decades of child sexual abuse and cover-ups, both admitted and alleged.

Bishop Edward B. Scharfenberger announced the decision, which follows months of negotiations between attorneys for the diocese and plaintiffs.

In a news conference a few hours after the announcement, Scharfenberger said the diocese had come to the decision that it needed to declare bankruptcy because its financial position had become precarious.

“It had come to the point where actually our financials were showing that we were going to have a shortfall in our ability to maintain our pension (fund) and also to pay our employees,” he said. “It was now or never, basically.”

Scharfenberger added…

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According to the news release, Msgr. Peter Popadick is now on administrative leave after a complaint of child sexual abuse.

On Wednesday, the Diocese of Buffalo announced that it received a complaint about a priest in its diocese. 

According to the news release, Msgr. Peter Popadick is now on administrative leave after a complaint of child sexual abuse.

The diocese said Popadick was the pastor of St. Aloysius Gonzaga Parish in Cheektowaga.   The Diocese says this administrative leave is due to the investigation and does not imply the accusations against Popadick are true or false.

This is the second time Popadick has been placed on administrative leave after a complaint of child sexual abuse.

Back in 2019, Popadick, and five others, were accused of sexual abuse.

Popadick was returned to the ministry in 2020, according to the Diocese due to a lack of…

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The embattled Roman Catholic Diocese of Albany became the latest diocese in New York to seek bankruptcy protection Wednesday as it faces hundreds of lawsuits alleging sexual abuse.

Bishop Edward Scharfenberger announced the Chapter 11 filing after months of negotiations between the upstate New York diocese and lawyers representing plaintiffs over a potential settlement.

The Albany diocese, like others in the state, is dealing with a deluge of lawsuits dating to when New York temporarily suspended the statute of limitations to give victims of childhood abuse the ability to pursue even decades-old allegations against clergy members, teachers, Boy Scout leaders and others.

“The decision to file was not arrived at easily and I know it may cause pain and suffering, but we, as a Church, can get through this and grow stronger together,” Scharfenberger said in a release.

The bishop said that as cases brought under the state’s Child Victims…

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Dear Pope Francis,

Congratulations on the tenth anniversary of your papacy. As longtime researchers of the Catholic sexual abuse crisis, we are writing to ask that you mark this milestone by honoring your repeated pledges of transparency on abuse and answering the faithful’s yearning for accountability in the Church.

You have made powerful and sensitive statements about the catastrophic epidemic of clergy sexual abuse. You have proclaimed “an all-out battle,” and you said that “God weeps” for victims. You were the first pope to say that bishops must be held accountable, and in your letter to the Chilean people, you passionately and unforgettably vowed “’never again’ to the culture of abuse and the system of cover up.”

Indeed, it was in Chile, you said recently, where you experienced a “conversion” to the moral imperative that victims must be listened to and believed.

You have enacted new canon laws aimed at…

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The decision by the Jesuits of Canada to publish a list of priests credibly accused of sexually abusing children has been praised by survivors, many of whom have called on more Catholic entities to follow suit.

In interviews with The Globe and Mail, several survivors saidpublishing these names helps shine a light on where the priests worked and when. They also said the listprovidesvalidation to victims that they’re not alone and helps reveal the scope of the problem.

On Monday, the Jesuits of Canada, a religious order of the Catholic Church, published the names of 27priests and brothers who it says have been credibly accused of abusing minors. It is believed to be the most comprehensive effort by a religious order in Canada. Some dioceses have released partial lists; in those cases, the abusers had already been convicted or publicly named.

For Gemma Hickey, an advocate and survivor…

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The leaders of Poland’s Catholic Church on Tuesday defended the late John Paul II’s sainthood and fast-track canonization process in response to a Polish TV report alleging that he covered up clergy sex abuses while archbishop in Poland.

The Polish Church figures also said that a commission of experts in various fields — lawyers, doctors, psychologists and historians — will be formed soon to investigate cases of past abuse of minors by the clergy.

A report last week on TVN24, which is owned by the U.S. company Warner Bros. Discovery, named three priests whom John Paul allegedly moved around during the 1970s after they were accused of abusing minors. The report cited communist secret security documents but also included interviews with abuse survivors.

Speaking after a two-day meeting of the entire Episcopate, the leaders stressed that — although unusually quick — the process that led to announcing Polish-born John Paul a…

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Establishing clear procedures for protecting vulnerable people against abuse “must become a priority in every local church,” Pope Francis said.

In a message to participants at the second Latin American congress on the prevention of abuse, the pope said that while church leaders have done much to combat the evil of abuse, it remains a “clear and present danger” to the faithful that “continues to degrade the Lord’s Gospel in the eyes of all.”

Under the theme “care, inform and communicate,” the conference in Asunción, Paraguay, March 14-16 brought together scholars, pastors and child protection experts to reflect on how to better protect minors in Latin America from abuse.

Francis noted that special attention must be given to ensuring the measures created in his 2019 apostolic letter “Vox Estis Lux Mundi,” which called for clear and accessible paths to justice for abuse victims, be implemented in “parts of the church…

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The Portuguese bishops and an independent commission on clerical abuse are under fire, despite starting with considerable public good will. Why?

After an independent commission set up by the bishops of Portugal issued its final report last month, many Catholics hoped it would mark a new era of transparency and accountability in the Church.

At the time the report was published on Feb. 13, both bishops and the commission had a high degree of public confidence and good will. But, since the commission delivered its list of individual accused clergy to dioceses earlier this month, both the bishops and the commission have suffered a litany of public relations disasters, eroding public confidence and enraging public opinion against the Church.

After starting with such a highly credible and well received report just one month ago, how did it all go so wrong for the Church in Portugal, so fast?

In 2021…

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There are documented cases of clergy sexual abuse as far back as the Middle Ages. Such abuse has gained increased media attention in the last two decades. Some have seen, for example, the Academy Award-winning movie, “Spotlight”. This docudrama is about “The Boston Globe”. In 2002, they ran a series on the Catholic Church’s systemic cover-up of abuse. For that series, “The Globe” won the 2003 Pulitzer Prize for Public Service. John Jay College did a wide-ranging study for the United States Conference Of Catholic Bishops. The study found that, between 1950 and 2002, about 4% of priests were accused of sexual abuse. That’s just the ones accused. I used to think this had nothing to do with me.

Readers have perhaps seen my essays about being Catholic. A few have read my poetry on the subject. At a time when my family was chaotic, my Catholic parish and its…

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One sponsor says current law turns “a sacred space into an unsafe space.” A lawyer who opposes the bill calls it “anti-Catholic bigotry.”

The Roman Catholic Church has always considered the confidentiality of the confessional as sacrosanct.

In plain talk, that means whatever the confessor tells the priest must remain between them.

“The teaching of the church over these centuries has been that this is a moment in which that person is confessing that to God and is being absolved, is being forgiven  through the priest, for those sins,” says Bishop William Koenig of the Catholic Diocese of Wilmington.

Delaware lawmakers even enshrined that privacy mandate in a law that requires everyone else except attorneys and priests to report suspected or alleged child abuse or neglect, no matter how repulsive. The law also exempts priests from having to testify in court about child abuse or neglect.

Several state lawmakers, including…

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On Monday, a major step will be taken towards the release of a report detailing child sex abuse within the catholic church as the deadline comes for the Attorney General’s Office to present the redacted report to the Circuit Court.

The judge will then decide when the public can see the report on the Archdiocese of Baltimore. Monday, a Maryland judge will receive a pivotal report on a four-year grand jury investigation into sexual abuse inside the Archdiocese of Baltimore.

Those with the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, or SNAP, said it’d mean vindication for victims.

“The judge could look it over for hours, minutes, days; we just don’t know,” David Lorenz, the Maryland Director of SNAP, said.

Once the Attorney General’s Office hands over the redacted report, those named in it will be contacted, then the report can go public.

“The names…

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The President of the Portuguese Bishops’ Conference discusses the establishment of a new body to accompany survivors with the National Coordination Team of the Diocesan Commissions for the Protection of Minors.

Following the release, a month ago, of the final report of the Independent Commission (IC) for the Study of Sexual Abuse of Children in the Catholic Church in Portugal, the Portuguese Bishops’ Conference (CEP) plans to set up a new independent body charged with listening to and accompanying victims and collecting further reports.

The decision was the outcome of the recent Bishops’ Extraordinary Assembly convened to examine the report, and was discussed last week by CEP’s President, Bishop José Ornelas Carvalho of Leiria-Fátima, with the National Coordination Team of the Diocesan Commissions for the Protection of Minors.

An independent operative body

In an interview with the Portuguese Bishops’ Agency Ecclesia, Bishop Ornelas explained that the new…

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Francesca Chaouqui has claimed that Cardinal Becciu paid a private intelligence firm to “monitor and intervene” with the press, not to negotiate the release of a captured religious sister.

Francesca Chaouqui, the woman at the center of the 2015 Vatileaks scandal, has claimed that Cardinal Becciu paid hundreds of thousands of euros to a UK private intelligence firm to “monitor and intervene” with the press for him, and not to negotiate the release of a captured religious sister, as he has claimed.

In an interview with the Italian newspaper La Verita, published March 11, Chaouqui said that the Inkerman Group contacted her after being contracted by Cardinal Becciu through Cecelia Marogna, the self-described intelligence and security expert who worked for the cardinal.

She told the paper that while the UK based intelligence firm was “officially” contracted to arrange the release of kidnapped religious, “in reality” the group was tasked with…

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Survivors of alleged sexual abuse by priests in the Catholic Archdiocese of Baltimore say they are bracing for the release of a 456-page long report from the Maryland Attorney General’s Office that details a pattern of abuse in the church over the last 80 years.

The report implicates 158 priests and details the abuse of more than 600 children and young adults during that period.

Baltimore City Circuit Judge Robert K. Taylor Jr., who is overseeing the report on the Baltimore Archdiocese, gave attorneys until Monday to redact names from the report. Once he reviews the redactions the report will be made public.

Jean Hargadon Wehner, who went to a Catholic high school in Baltimore in the 1960s, says she is one of those 600 victims.

Hargadon Wehner alleges that Father Joseph Maskell, who died in 2001 at the age of 62, abused her throughout her teenage years.

“He raped…

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Today marks the 10th anniversary of the election of Pope Francis as the 265th successor of St. Peter. Here is a timeline of key events during his papacy:

2013

March 13 — About two weeks after Pope Benedict XVI steps down from the papacy, Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio is elected pope. He takes the papal name Francis in honor of St. Francis of Assisi and proclaims from the central balcony of St. Peter’s Basilica: “Let us begin this journey, the bishop and people, this journey of the Church of Rome, which presides in charity over all the Churches, a journey of brotherhood in love, of mutual trust. Let us always pray for one another.”

March 14 — The day after he begins his pontificate, Pope Francis returns to his hotel to personally pay his hotel bill and collect his luggage.

July 8 — Pope Francis visits Italy’s island of Lampedusa and…

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Sixteen former Agape Boarding School students who sued for alleged abuse at the southwest Missouri school have settled their cases for undisclosed amounts.

The number represents about two-thirds of the two dozen lawsuits filed against Agape Baptist Church, the organization that operated the now-closed school near Stockton in Cedar County.

Court records show that the plaintiffs voluntarily dismissed their cases “with prejudice,” meaning the suits cannot be filed again. Four cases were dismissed in January and refiled in U.S. District Court for the Western District of Missouri and four are pending in state court.

The newly settled cases, filed since February 2021 by former students from across the country, accused the school of negligence, infliction of emotional distress and battery by staff and fellow students. Some of the abuse, the suits alleged, involved sexual assault, torture, starvation and excruciating restraints of students.

“I’m super grateful to have…

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Spain’s ombudsman said Monday that an independent commission set up a year ago to investigate historic sex abuse by the Catholic church has collected testimonies from 445 victims, as the nation tackles an issue other European countries acted on long ago.

Spain’s parliament voted on March 10, 2022 to open the first official investigation, led by ombudsman Ángel Gabilondo, into the extent of sexual abuse committed by priests and church officials. The government was forced to act after allegations of abuse involving more than 1,200 victims were published in Spanish newspaper El País, provoking public outrage.

Testimonies were still being collected and an update would be issued in parliament before the current government’s term expires this year, Gabilondo’s office said in a statement. Although “satisfied” with the number of victims who felt able to come forward, “what really matters is to listen to the victims … with respect, seriousness, discretion…

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When Jose Bergolio became Pope ten years ago, he vowed to hundreds of thousands of survivors around the world that he would put an end to the church’s global system of clerical sex crimes and cover-up. To do that, he would need to do what his predecessors refused to do: make it a universal church law that if a priest sexually assaults a child, he will be removed from the priesthood. Furthermore, if his bishop covered up for him, the bishop would also be defrocked. It would take one paragraph and one stroke of the pen for Pope Francis to do this. The question survivors around the world are asking today is: after ten years, why does he continue to break the promise he made to us?

Without zero tolerance written into church law, no reforms of church abuse policies or management practices, papal prayers or expressions of remorse, prevention…

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The Diocese of Santa Rosa filed for bankruptcy Monday, citing new lawsuits from more than 200 survivors of child sexual abuse by Catholic priests.

ABC7 News spoke with Santa Rosa’s bishop but also to survivors and their attorneys who believe the church is trying to avoid responsibility for horrific abuse by priests.

RELATED: 14 California clergy members linked to Catholic church sex abuse scandal for 1st time

In this petition for Chapter 11 bankruptcy filed this morning, the Diocese of Santa Rosa estimates its assets between $10 and $50 million, and its liabilities to be the same because of a flood of new lawsuits from survivors of clergy sexual abuse. ABC7’s I-Team reporter Dan Noyes spoke with Santa Rosa Bishop Robert Vasa.

Noyes: “Why is bankruptcy necessary?”

Bishop Vasa: “Well, when the perceived claims against an entity exceed that entity’s ability to generate the capital to pay those claims, I don’t see any…

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Before the world’s cardinals entered into conclave in March 2013 to elect a successor to Pope Benedict XVI, they had a series of meetings together at the Vatican to discuss what the 1.3-billion-member Catholic Church might need most from its next leader. 

The late Havana Cardinal Jaime Ortega Alamino would later say that the most impactful moment in the meeting came when one Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio said a few brief words, calling for a church “which evangelizes and goes out of herself.”

Bergoglio, then 76 years old and preparing to retire as the archbishop of Buenos Aires, Argentina, used a particularly evocative image.  

Ortega recalled the full phrasing as: “In Revelation, Jesus says that he is at the door and knocks. Obviously, the text refers to his knocking from the outside in order to enter, but I think about the times in which Jesus knocks from within so…

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During his decade as head of the Catholic Church, Pope Francis has reformed the government of the Vatican, worked for peace and reconciliation, and has taken action against clerical child abuse.

During his decade as head of the Catholic Church, Pope Francis has reformed the government of the Vatican, worked for peace and reconciliation, and has taken action against clerical child abuse.

Here are some of the 86-year-old’s main achievements ahead of the 10-year anniversary of his election on Monday.

From decentralising power, increasing transparency and providing greater roles for lay people and women, Francis has implemented fundamental reforms of the Roman Curia, the central government of the Holy See.

Despite internal opposition, the reforms were enshrined in a new constitution that came into force in 2022, reorganising the dicasteries (ministries) and putting at the heart of their mission the goal of spreading God’s message.

Francis particularly took aim at…

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Most of the successes have been of the optical sort and fleeting–moments truly magnificent to behold, occasionally terrible and always arresting–while his failures are rather olfactory and persistent.

Pope Francis’s ten years in office have given us some impressive successes and notable failures. Most of the successes have been of the optical sort and fleeting—moments truly magnificent to behold, occasionally terrible and always arresting—while his failures are rather olfactory and persistent.

Whether one thinks of the bracing first appearance from the loggia of St. Peter’s Basilica, or his long, solitary walk up the steps of the sacratum at St. Peter’s Basilica to bless the city and the world, or of the sight of him with the stalwart people amid ruin in Mosul, Iraq, or of Pope Francis in prayer before the icon of the Salus populi Romani, or any of a thousand other images…

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A judge has authorized the Maryland Attorney General’s Office to release a redacted version of an investigative report into the Archdiocese of Baltimore’s alleged coverup of sexual abuse.

A report exposing decades of sexual abuse allegations within the Archdiocese of Baltimore is scheduled to be released Monday.

A redacted version of that report had been sealed to protect grand jury proceedings but a judge ruled last month, that it should be released to the public.

The Archdiocese of Baltimore previously had released a statement apologizing and saying it respects the court’s decision to release the report adding it prays this report brings some healing to the victims and survivors.

The report was sealed because it contains information collected from grand jury proceedings, which are considered confidential in Maryland.

However, since a grand jury resulted in one indictment and no more charges are expected, it cleared the…

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The Diocese of Steubenville announced on March 3 that they added a former priest to their list of clergy who were credibly accused of abuse, but SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused By Priests, says this declaration is “far too little and far too late.”

Jeffrey M. Monforton, Bishop of the Diocese of Steubenville announced in the diocese’s newspaper, The Steubenville Register, that Monsignor Mark J. Froelich, a retired diocesan priest, was added to the Diocese of Steubenville’s List of Priests Accused of Abuse.

The newspaper announcement says that Monforton removed Froelich from active ministry on May 22, 2018 due to “credible allegations of sexual abuse against him.”

In a statement to 7News, Dino Orsatti, Diocese of Steubenville Director of Communications and Editor of The Steubenville Register referred to the March 3 newspaper article on Froelich that stated, “Subsequent investigation has deemed these accusations to be…

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Guzman is accused of sexually abusing a minor as a layman more than 40 years ago – about 25 years before he entered Mundelein Seminary to prepare for the priesthood, Cupich noted.

A Catholic priest in south suburban Evergreen Park has agreed to step aside from ministry while authorities investigate an allegation that he sexually abused a minor as a layman decades ago, according to the Archdiocese of Chicago.

Rev. Paul Guzman serves as associate pastor Most Holy Redeemer Parish in Evergreen Park. Archbishop Blase Cupich informed parishioners of the claim in a letter, saying the Archdiocese was informed of the allegation while Guzman was overseas on military duty.

“In keeping with our child protection policies, I directed Father Guzman to step aside from ministry immediately and to live away from Most Holy Redeemer Parish when he returned…

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A Chicago priest is stepping away from the ministry over allegations of sex abuse dating back 40 years.

In a letter, Cardinal Blase Cupich said he asked Fr. Paul Guzman to step down his role as associate pastor at Most Holy Redeemer Parish immediately.

Guzman is currently on military duty overseas, and will live away from the parish when he returns.

Someone who was a minor at the time claims Guzman abused them about 40 years ago, 25 years before he entered the seminary to prepare for the priesthood.

In addition to an investigation by the archdiocese, the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services and Cook County State’s Attorney’s office are looking into the claims.

• Catholic Archdiocese of Chicago

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March 11, 2023

Dear Most Holy Redeemer Parish and School Family, 

I write to share some difficult news about your associate pastor, Father Paul Guzman. While Father Guzman was overseas on military duty, the Archdiocese received an allegation of sexual abuse of a minor from approximately 40 years ago when he was a layman, and 25 years before he entered Mundelein Seminary to prepare for the priesthood. In keeping with our child protection policies, I directed Father Guzman to step aside from ministry immediately and to live away from Most Holy Redeemer Parish when he returned from his military service. He agreed to cooperate with this direction. 

The allegation was reported to the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS) and the Cook County State’s Attorney. The person making the allegation has been offered the pastoral services of our Victim Assistance Ministry, and the opportunity to participate in the investigation…

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In a letter Saturday, Cardinal Blase Cupich said an accusation has been reported to the archdiocese that the Rev. Paul Guzman abused a minor when he was a layman — 25 years before entering Mundelein Seminary.

An Evergreen Park priest has stepped aside from the ministry after the Archdiocese of Chicago received an accusation of sexual abuse of a minor from about 40 years ago.

In a letter Saturday, Cardinal Blase Cupich said someone reported that the abuse had occurred when the Rev. Paul Guzman, an associate priest at Most Holy Redeemer Parish, was a layman, 25 years before he entered Mundelein Seminary to prepare for the priesthood.

The accusation was reported to the Illinois Department of Children & Family Services and the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office while Guzman was overseas on military duty, Cupich said.

Guzman has agreed to live away from the parish during the investigation, Cupich…

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We know too much for the Roman Catholic Diocese of Portland to stonewall allegations of abuse. If 20 complaints can’t change that, will anything?

People are fond of saying, “That wouldn’t happen today.”

Occasionally this is offered in wistful remembrance of one or other bygone practice. More often it’s said with relief, a reassuring statement, some clear contemplation of how much more we know, now, how far we have come, how thresholds of acceptability have changed.

Six civil complaints filed last week allege that the late Rev. Lawrence Sabatino abused plaintiffs in Lewiston and Portland when they were between 5 and 11 years old in the 1950s and 1960s. This brings to 20 the number of childhood sexual abuse lawsuits recently filed against the Roman Catholic Diocese of Portland.

In the offices of his law firm Wednesday, attorney Michael Bigos set out the infuriating, sickening arc of…

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Following are some of the major events of the life and ministry of Pope Francis, who marks the 10th anniversary of his election as pontiff on March 13.

[Original article links to video]

1936

Dec. 17 – Jorge Mario Bergoglio is born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, the son of Italian immigrants.

1969

Dec. 13 – Ordained a priest.

1973

July 31 – Becomes head of the Jesuits in Argentina.

1992

May 20 – Appointed Bishop of Auca and Auxiliary of Buenos Aires.

1998

Feb. 28 – Appointed Archbishop, Primate of Argentina. He becomes famous for commuting to work on public transport, not living in the archbishop’s palace and cooking his own meals.

2001

Feb. 21 – Appointed a cardinal by Pope John Paul II.

2005

April 19 – Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger elected pope after four ballots, takes the name Benedict. Subsequent leaks show that Bergoglio came second in all…

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The Vatican and the Jesuits continue to deflect and deny, but the evidence is decades old and deeply troubling.

So, an accused sexual predator supposedly prohibited from saying Mass in public concelebrated a liturgy in Rome on Sunday.

The accused predator is the disgraced celebrity artist-priest and spiritual guru Fr. Marko Ivan Rupnik SJ, who came to Rome in the early 1990s to found a cultural center—the Centro Aletti–from which he produced artworks in mosaic and other media that now decorate major Catholic shrines and chapels from the Apostolic Palace to Australia, and dozens of places in between.

Rupnik is now facing an internal Jesuit process that could see him expelled from the order, but that development was a long time coming and is still far from a sure thing.

In short, Rupnik has been a very popular guy until…

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The Polish Bishops’ Conference says that “further archival research” is needed to fairly assess a new allegation, based on communist secret police records, that St. John Paul II covered up child sexual abuse by a priest while serving as the archbishop of Krakow, Poland, prior to becoming pope. 

The allegation was included in a documentary broadcast March 6 on Polish television channel TVN24.

The same TV report also cited two other instances where St. John Paul II, then Archbishop Karol Wojtyla, allegedly relocated Father Eugeniusz Surgent and Father Jozef Loranc to new parishes despite being aware that they had been accused of sexually abusing minors. However, those allegations, first made by a Dutch journalist on Dec. 2 of last year, were quickly refuted later that month by a pair of investigative journalists, the Polish bishops noted in a statement released March 7.

The journalists, Tomasz Krzyżak and Piotr…

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Sitting in her family home in East Los Angeles, Rosa Manriquez kept her eyes on the TV screen as a flood of white smoke came pouring out of the roof of the Sistine Chapel 6,300 miles away — a century-old signal that the cardinals of the Roman Catholic Church had chosen a new leader.

Manriquez, now 70, is the mother of two lesbian daughters who supports female ordination to the priesthood. On that day, 10 years ago, she waited impatiently to see who would emerge from behind the red curtain on a Vatican balcony as the head of the church she both loved and struggled against.

“So I see this man come out, and I think, ‘There’s something different about this guy,’” she said. “And then I was like, ‘He’s Latino! Oh my God!’”

A decade later, Manriquez says she does not agree with everything Jorge Mario Bergoglio, the former…

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SCOTT SIMON, HOST:

The Archdiocese of the Baltimore Catholic Church has been the subject of an investigation for sexual abuse. After a four-year grand jury investigation, a judge will soon release details of what children and young adults endured over the past 80 years. Member station WYPR’s Scott Maucione has our report. And please note there are details of sexual violence at moments over the next 3 1/2 minutes, and it may be unsuitable for some listeners.

SCOTT MAUCIONE, BYLINE: Jean Hargedon Wehner was just a teenager when Father Joseph Maskell allegedly abused her at a Baltimore high school in the 1960s.

JEAN HARGEDON WEHNER: He would put a gun to my temple. He prostituted me. He raped me.

MAUCIONE: Hargedon Wehner was just one of the 600 alleged victims a Maryland attorney general’s report found during an investigation into the Archdiocese of Baltimore over the past 80 years. The…

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The victim was 8 and 9 years in religious ed classes through Holy Family Catholic Church and the Cathedral of St. Ray’s, the lawsuit noted.

The Roman Catholic Diocese of Joliet, the Cathedral of St. Raymond Nonnatus, Holy Family Catholic Church and deported pedophile priest, Father Alejandro Flores face a new Will County civil lawsuit filed on behalf of a young man who died last year.

The boy, identified in the Will County lawsuit as John Doe, was 8 and 9 years old and had attended religious education programs through St. Ray’s and Holy Family. Last year, at age 21, the sexual abuse victim of Father Flores died in California, the lawsuit stated.

John Doe suffered sexual violence, including manipulation, isolation, control, exploitation, abuse and assault abuse at Cathedral of St. Raymond Nonnatus by Father Alejandro Flores, the lawsuit contends. The plaintiff is represented by attorney Colleen Mixan Mikaitis of the Chicago…

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Original Air Date: June 06, 2022

A third-party investigation of the Southern Baptist Convention’s top governing body found that an influential group of leaders systematically ignored, belittled and intimidated survivors of sexual abuse for the past two decades while protecting the legal interests of churches accused of harboring abusers. Despite recent declines in membership, Southern Baptists are still the largest evangelical group in the United States, with more than 13 million members. How they respond to this moment is deeply consequential for America.

We speak with Robert Downen, a reporter at The Houston Chronicle, and Dr. Kristin Kobes Du Mez, professor of history and gender studies at Calvin University and author of “Jesus and John Wayne,” about the recent findings and the SBC’s response. We also hear from two survivors of abuse in the SBC, Hannah-Kate Williams and Christa Brown, about their long fights for justice and accountability. 

Melissa Harris-Perry: This is The Takeaway. I’m Melissa Harris-Perry. Today, we’re…

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As each Maryland senator with the Judicial Proceedings Committee cast their yes vote, David Lorenz cried and embraced his wife, Judy.

That’s because the committee voted 10-1 on Friday to advance a bill that would retroactively, as well as prospectively, repeal statutes of limitation on lawsuits by plaintiffs who claim they suffered child sexual abuse.

Lorenz, who pushed to get this legislation passed for 15 years, suffered abuse as a teenager when he attended a private school in Kentucky.

“I don’t get benefit from this bill one bit because my abuse took place in Kentucky. I have watched people come up here and testify. I know three of them who…passed away,” said Lorenz, the Maryland director of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, also called SNAP. “This will give survivors, vindication, validation, they get to tell their story.”

Senate Bill 686 sponsored by Sen. William C. Smith Jr….

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When the voting started, one senator after another said “yes,” and there were tears and sobs in the gallery.

Two survivors hugged. For years, they had come to Annapolis and bared the childhood horrors they suffered at the hands of Catholic priests, only to see their bill stall in this Senate committee.

The Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee voted overwhelmingly Friday to advance the Child Victims Act of 2023, an incremental step — the bill must clear the full Senate and House still — yet one that has frustrated survivors in three previous years.

“It’s hard to put into words. I just welled up out of nowhere,” said David Lorenz, the Maryland director of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, or SNAP. “This has always been the obstacle.”

The bill would give more survivors of child sexual abuse the legal right to sue the church and other institutions complicit…

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Calling it “unconstitutional” and “unfair,” the Maryland Catholic Conference expressed its continued opposition to legislation approved March 10 by a State Senate committee that would treat private institutions such as the Catholic Church differently from public institutions in civil liabilities faced for child sexual abuse.

The “Child Victims Act,” which passed the Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee on a 10-1 vote, would remove the civil statute of limitations for lawsuits and allow a “lookback window” for survivors to take legal action no matter when the abuse occurred.

Currently, the law in Maryland allows victims until age 38 to file such claims, an extension – from age 25 – that was supported by the church in 2017.

“The draconian provision of an unlimited window for currently time-barred civil cases to be filed, regardless of when they occurred, is nearly unprecedented among similar laws passed in other states,” the March 10 Maryland Catholic…

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The Catholic church has delivered what’s been described as a ‘pretty low blow’ in order to avoid paying compensation to survivors of childhood sexual abuse.

The Marist Brothers is arguing in court that it is unable to defend civil proceedings brought by a survivor of child sexual abuse, who is known by the pseudonym of Mark Peters, because his abuser has died.

Mr Peters asserts he was abused by notorious child sexual offender, the Marist Brothers’ Brother Francis Cable from at least 1967, and that the organisation failed in its duty of care to prevent the abuse by failing to terminate his position let alone reporting the matter to police, despite having received multiple reports of abuse.

Brother Francis Cable – imprisoned for serial child sexual assault

Rather than taking action against the abuse, the Marist Brothers “shuffled around” Brother Cable to new locations when the complaints…

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The lead pastor of a prominent south Florida church has resigned, following a turbulent four-year tenure marked by allegations of lack of financial transparency and hundreds of members expelled or deciding to leave the church. 

On Wednesday, First Baptist Fort Lauderdale (FBFTL) announced that James Welch, who had been hired in February 2019, has departed. “(He) has resigned as lead pastor this week to pursue other interests,” said the statement from the church’s Trustee Board and Deacon Body. They added that a “plan of action to search for a new lead pastor” will be announced Sunday.

Affiliated with the Southern Baptist Convention, the historic church owns a seven-acre downtown campus reportedly worth over $120 million, including a main sanctuary that can seat over 2,500 people. However, in recent years, weekly attendance at FBFTL has dwindled to fewer than 200 people, according to multiple sources. 

Welch, who marked his…

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In her documentary, Manufacturing the Clerical Predator, director-activist Sarah Pearson puts the spotlight on Southeast Wisconsin, especially through the experience of Kevin Wester. Although he was molested repeatedly at age 12 by a Roman Catholic priest, he took the vows himself and served in the ministry for more than 10 years before being released from the priesthood in 2007. His account of the abuse he endured is harrowing, his fear of speaking up (it happened during the ‘70s in a small Catholic town) is revealing, and his eagerness to pursue the vocation a testimony to blinding power of faith.

Of course, the Catholic Church does things that are worth believing in, including feeding the hungry and maintaining hospitals and respected educational institutions. But the evidence of widespread clerical abuse points to a problem that has metastasized throughout the church’s system. Apparently, it’s not just a few rotten apples. Is the entire…

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A former teacher at Holy Cross Catholic School in Santa Cruz, a small community in far north Santa Fe County, faces counts of rape and molestation after a former student alleged he abused her in 2021, when she was 13.

According to an arrest warrant affidavit, the girl came forward in January in a safe house interview with accusations against Calvin Robinson of Española. Her brother was Robinson’s student at the time, she said.

The girl no longer attends Holy Cross, the affidavit said.

Online court records show Robinson was charged in February with second-degree criminal sexual penetration; three counts of second-degree criminal sexual contact of a minor; two counts of third-degree criminal sexual contact of a minor; and enticement of a child. His case, first filed in Santa Fe County Magistrate Court, was moved this week to the state’s First Judicial District Court.

He was arrested Feb. 14 and…

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A court in Indonesia’s Christian-majority East Nusa Tenggara province has sentenced to death a former Protestant seminarian for raping nine minor girls, reports say.

Sepriyanto Ayub Snae of the Evangelical Church in Timor was found guilty of sexual abuse of nine children by the panel of judges at the Kalabahi District Court in Alor Regency, Voice of Indonesia reported on March 9.

The verdict was pronounced on March 8 in the presence of the defendant, said the report, referring to Abdul Hakim, head of the provincial Information and Public Relations department.

The prosecution team has “legally and convincingly proven” that Snae had committed the crime, Hakim said.

Police arrested 36-year-old Snae last September after family members of the victims filed a criminal complaint against him.

He was accused of raping girls aged 15-16 several times between May 2021 and March 2022 on the premises of a church in Waisika village where he served as an assistant minister.

…

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There’s an old saying, “Watch what you ask for. You might just get it.” And so it is in the DioMass Title IV case involving Douglas Anderson, suspended rector of the Church of the Advent in Boston. He is accused of sexual misconduct while serving as rector of St. James, a Texarkana parish, and lying about his conduct.

And now, Rehill is looking for ways to out the victim and publicly identify her, despite the efforts of the Title IV disciplinary Hearing Panel to protect her identity.

Even worse, Rehill inexplicably asked to have his correspondence on this matter published. More on that in a moment, but for now, just keep in mind the word “dirtbag.”

To be clear, it’s a sad state of affairs when we find ourselves on the same side of an issue as corrupt bishop Alan Gates. But Anglican Watch wholeheartedly endorses the recent decision of…

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Schools founded by the controversial charismatic group, People of Praise are once again coming under fire—this time for the schools’ alleged mishandling of a teacher accused of sending “inappropriate communication” to a student.

People of Praise (POP) first captured headlines in 2020 during Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett’s confirmation hearings. Barrett spent many years inside the tight-knit POP community known for its communal living and strict male headship.

In 2020, the schools POP founded, Trinity Schools, made headlines for allowing a teacher to continue teaching from 2006 to 2011, despite a student’s allegation that he had molested her. At the time, Trinity Schools President Jon Balsbaugh said the school would handle the abuse report differently now.

But parents say the recent incident shows little has changed. Now, they’re calling on Trinity’s board to fire Balsbaugh.

“His number one responsibility is to provide robust measures to…

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Prior to the start of his trial on financial malfeasance charges, Cardinal Angelo Becciu tried to get Pope Francis to confirm that he had authorized the financial transactions that led to Becciu’s prosecution.

The pope refused.

“I regret to inform you that I cannot comply with your request,” the pope wrote back.

The correspondence between the two, which took place in July 2021, was read and displayed in a Vatican court March 9 — an unexpected turn of events coming during the 50th hearing of the trial.

Promoter of Justice Alessandro Diddi obtained the three letters directly from the “sovereign authority,” that is, Pope Francis himself.

In one letter, dated July 20, 2021, Becciu asked the pope to confirm that he had given the go-ahead for an investment by the Secretariat of State in a luxury property in London in 2013. Not only that, Becciu also asked the pope…

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A documentary hit the airwaves this week in Poland alleging the former pope, Saint John Paul II, protected pedophile priests when he was Archbishop of Krakow in his native country. It has reignited a long-standing debate over whether John Paul II was made a saint too quickly. 

The report aired this week by Polish broadcaster TVN24 accuses John Paul of allowing three priests to continue working in the church in the 1970s despite knowing they had been accused of abusing minors. Two of the priests eventually served prison terms for their crimes.

Calls for John Paul II to be made a saint began at his funeral, on April 2, 2005, when cries of “Santo Subito” (or “sainthood immediately”) erupted from the half million pilgrims in St. Peter’s Square at the Vatican. Many held up banners calling for his sainthood.

The cries didn’t fall on deaf ears. Just days after his…

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So much for a short pontificate.

Pope Francis celebrates the 10th anniversary of his election Monday, far outpacing the “two or three” years he once envisioned for his papacy and showing no signs of slowing down.

On the contrary, with an agenda full of problems and plans and no longer encumbered by the shadow of Pope Benedict XVI, Francis, 86, has backed off from talking about retiring and recently described the papacy as a job for life.

History’s first Latin American pope already has made his mark and could have even more impact in the years to come. Yet a decade ago, the Argentine Jesuit was so convinced he wouldn’t be elected as pope that he nearly missed the final vote as he chatted with a fellow cardinal outside the Sistine Chapel.

“The master of ceremonies came out and said ‘Are you going in or not?’” Francis recalled in a…

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Polish lawmakers denounced a documentary alleging that when he was a cardinal and archbishop in Poland, Pope St. John Paul II covered up alleged child sexual abuse committed by priests.

“There are those who are trying to stir up not a military conflict, but a culture war here in Poland,” Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said in a video posted to Twitter March 8. “I stand in defense of our beloved pope, like most of my fellow citizens, because I know that as a nation we owe a lot to John Paul.”

On Thursday, Poland’s Parliament passed a resolution in defense of the former pope that “strongly condemns the disgraceful media smear campaign, largely based on the documents of communist Poland’s machinery of violence, against the great pope, St. John Paul II, the greatest Pole in history.”

Polish lawmakers in the Sejm, the national Parliament lower house, voted 271 to 43…

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Like Presidents, Prime Ministers and CEOs of all stripes, Popes rarely can be classified either as a complete success or an utter failure. Instead, a papacy almost always is a mixed bag filled with both big breakthroughs and major frustrations, perhaps even a few fiascos along the way.

In addition, papacies usually also feature a handful of enigmas – unexplained, puzzling situations that don’t appear to have any obvious explanation, and which therefore stir endless curiosity and debate.

Pope Francis is no exception. At the ten-year mark, here are four chronic question marks. Ironically, they represent a rare case of common ground in an oft-divided church, since papal allies and critics alike would love to have an explanation.

Zanchetta

One classic unanswered question for Pope Francis involves his old friend and countryman, Bishop Gustavo Zanchetta, the former bishop of the Diocese of Oran in northern Argentina, who has faced allegations…

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A group of philanthropists poured money into a Denver nonprofit that obtained dating and hookup app data and shared it with bishops around the country, a Post investigation has found’

A group of conservative ColoradoCatholics has spent millions of dollars to buy mobile app tracking data that identified priests who used gay dating and hookup apps and then shared it with bishops around the country.

The secretive effort was the work of a Denver nonprofit called Catholic Laity and Clergy for Renewal, whose trustees are philanthropists Mark Bauman, John Martin and Tim Reichert, according to public records, an audio recording of the nonprofit’s president discussing its mission and other documents. The use of data is emblematic of a new surveillance frontier in which private individuals can potentially track other Americans’ locations and activities using commercially available information. No U.S. data privacy laws prohibit the sale of this data.

The project’s…

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Bishops in Ireland have welcomed the announcement by the Irish government of a “scoping inquiry” to shape the government’s response to revelations of historical sexual abuse in schools run by religious orders.

Minister for Education Norma Foley announced the inquiry on Tuesday, saying it is “vitally important that survivors of historical child sexual abuse have the opportunity to be heard in full, and with appropriate respect and sensitivity.”

“The revelations of abuse in a number of schools are deeply disturbing and heart-breaking. I and indeed the whole of government are very conscious of the enormous trauma which has been endured by all survivors of abuse,” she said.

Last November, then-Irish Prime Minister Micheál Martin announced the government would establish an enquiry after a report on state broadcaster RTÉ highlighted the historic sexual abuse at Blackrock College, an all-boys boarding high school in greater Dublin run by the Spiritan order.

Foley…

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Documentary on Priestly Abuse of Children Focuses on Wisconsin

In her documentary, Manufacturing the Clerical Predator, director-activist Sarah Pearson puts the spotlight on Southeast Wisconsin, especially through the experience of Kevin Wester. Although he was molested repeatedly at age 12 by a Roman Catholic priest, he took the vows himself and served in the ministry for more than 10 years before being released from the priesthood in 2007. His account of the abuse he endured is harrowing, his fear of speaking up (it happened during the ‘70s in a small Catholic town) is revealing, and his eagerness to pursue the vocation a testimony to blinding power of faith.

Of course, the Catholic Church does things that are worth believing in, including feeding the hungry and maintaining hospitals and respected educational institutions. But the evidence of widespread clerical abuse points to a problem that has metastasized throughout the church’s system. Apparently, it’s…

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f you or someone you know needs resources or support related to sexual violence, contact the Maine Coalition Against Sexual Assault’s 24/7 hotline at 800-871-7741.

Six more women have sued the Roman Catholic Diocese of Portland, alleging that a Portland priest abused them between 1958 and 1967 when they were between 5 and 11 years old.

Ann Allen, 64, of Scarborough  filed a suit in December, saying that the Rev. Lawrence Sabatino had assaulted her in the 1960s and that the church failed to prevent it. Allen’s suit names the Roman Catholic Diocese of Portland and its head, Bishop Robert Deeley, as defendants.

Allen claims in her lawsuit that the Rev. Lawrence Sabatino sexually assaulted her when she was 7 and the priest was assigned to St. Peter Parish in Portland. She is seeking unspecified damages.

Six more people filed similar civil lawsuits against the church this week, claiming abuse by…

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A civil complaint details claims from six additional victims of abuse allegedly committed by Father Lawrence Sabatino from 1958 to 1967.

[Via WABI]

More sexual abuse survivors are suing the Maine Catholic Diocese.

A civil complaint details claims from six additional victims of abuse allegedly committed by Father Lawrence Sabatino from 1958 to 1967.

Sabatino died in 1990.

The survivors join Ann Allen, who was the first to file a suit against Sabatino in December.

These lawsuits now total 20 against the Diocese by law firm Berman and Simmons.

They say the Diocese failed to warn parishioners and their families about the sexual abuse allegations against the priest.

Survivors speaking out now to ensure it doesn’t happen again.

“I never thought this affected my life, but it affected everything in my life. I’m 70 years old and I’m finally realizing and putting the pieces together,” said Patricia Butkowski.

“It’s so…

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A key panel of Maryland lawmakers on Friday advanced a measure that would end the state’s statute of limitations for when civil lawsuits can be filed against public and private institutions related to child sexual abuse.

The Maryland Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee voted 10-1 to send the bill to the Maryland Senate. The vote is significant because the measure has passed the state’s House of Delegates in recent years, only to stall in the Senate.

“I’m feeling like a huge weight has been lifted off my shoulder,” said David Lorenz, the Maryland leader of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, after the vote. “It is the biggest hurdle we’ve had.”

Currently, people in Maryland who say they were sexually abused as children can’t sue after they reach the age of 38. This year, state Sen. Will Smith, a Democrat who chairs the committee, sponsored the bill that would…

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Fallout from a TV report alleging that St. John Paul II covered up clergy sex abuse cases escalated Thursday, with Poland’s Catholic Church and lawmakers defending him as one of the greatest Poles ever and the government “inviting” the U.S. ambassador for talks.

A report this week on TVN24, which is owned by the U.S. company Warner Bros. Discovery, named three priests whom John Paul allegedly moved around during the 1970s after they were accused of abusing minors. At the time, he was still Archbishop Karol Wojtyla, the head of the church in Krakow in southern Poland.

John Paul is revered in the predominantly Roman Catholic country for his role in helping bring down communism, and the TVN report ignited a national debate at a time when the Polish Church has been undergoing a reckoning with its record of clergy sexual abuse. A heated debate erupted Thursday in parliament debating his…

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A group representing victims of child abuse in Argentina is calling on Pope Francis, a fellow Argentine, to invite it to the Vatican to hear their grievances.

Clerical sex abuse and cover-up scandals have for decades rocked the nearly 1.38-billion-member Roman Catholic Church, undercutting its moral authority and taking a toll on membership and coffers.

“We sent him a letter, we declared ourselves open to dialogue and meetings, but in 10 years of papacy … he has not made the public gesture of summoning us,” Sebastian Cuattromo told Reuters in Rome on Thursday.

The Vatican press office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Pope Francis marks the 10th anniversary of his election on March 13. As pope, he has pledged “irreversible” action against clerical abuse. He has also acknowledged mistakes on the issue, most notably after a 2018 trip to Chile in which he initially stood by a bishop…

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The Catholic Church has a great challenge today addressing and ending child abuse among its clergy and in society. Abusing women and children is a centuries-old evil. With the coming of Jesus of Nazareth and his progressive teaching on the rights and dignity of women and children, there was little change.

Institutional religions throughout history ignored that teaching and focused on obscure theologizing and fighting bloody wars over their abstruse theologies and interpretation.

The Catholic Church became less of a church of the poor and the oppressed and one dominated and controlled by the elite. Bishops were landowners with vast wealth and flouting princes with political and economic power, all so far from the ideal of the Kingdom where the poor would inherit the earth and the mighty would be put down from their thrones.

Today there are dioceses with vast wealth and bishops and priests live lives of luxury.

…

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Faced with more than 200 new legal claims over childhood sexual abuse, the Roman Catholic Diocese of Santa Rosa plans to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection Monday, automatically freezing all lawsuits so they can be settled through federal bankruptcy court.

The move, forecast in advance by Santa Rosa Bishop Robert Vasa last December, was announced Friday in a new release from the bishop reaffirming his belief he had no other choice given what he has called an “insurmountable number of claims” and too few financial resources to satisfy them individually.

That means the Santa Rosa Diocese will not face trial in any of what are currently 222 lawsuits involving priests and others at church-related institutions, said East Bay attorney Rick Simons. Simons is liaison counsel for all Northern California clergy abuse cases filed during a 3-year window waiving statute of limitations on child sex-abuse cases.

Instead of individual trials, the diocese,…

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My mother used to say that a man will sit in his living room and talk about how to save the world, while his wife is outside with a hammer and nails, fixing the front steps.

Ten years into the Francis papacy and this is how I feel, as a member of the church, and specifically as a woman in the church. We’ve been hearing these living room lectures for a decade now. We’ve heard about openness and going out to the margins and smelling like the sheep and not judging, and we’ve heard about reform.

How are the front steps? Do people take a look at the Catholic Church and think, “How safe and welcoming!”?

When Pope Francis was elected, I was thrilled. The photos and stories that circulated seized my heart and made me feel like something incredible was about to happen. I saw him riding incognito on…

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The victim was 8 and 9 years in religious ed classes through Holy Family Catholic Church and the Cathedral of St. Ray’s, the lawsuit noted.

The Roman Catholic Diocese of Joliet, the Cathedral of St. Raymond Nonnatus, Holy Family Catholic Church and deported pedophile priest, Father Alejandro Flores face a new Will County civil lawsuit filed on behalf of a young man who died last year.

The boy, identified in the Will County lawsuit as John Doe, was 8 and 9 years old and had attended religious education programs through St. Ray’s and Holy Family. Last year, at age 21, the sexual abuse victim of Father Flores died in California, the lawsuit stated.

John Doe suffered sexual violence, including manipulation, isolation, control, exploitation, abuse and assault abuse at Cathedral of St. Raymond Nonnatus by Father Alejandro Flores, the lawsuit contends. The plaintiff is represented by attorney Colleen Mixan Mikaitis of the Chicago…

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Two dioceses in Portugal decided to suspend priests accused of child abuse by an independent commission investigating decades of sexual abuse in the Catholic Church.

The Diocese of Angra, in the Azores, suspended two priests. The Diocese of Evora received charges against two priests as well, but one of them is deceased. The cases involve the sexual abuse of seminarians.

The commission, installed by the Portuguese episcopate in 2021, received hundreds of witness testimonies since January of last year. In February, the group, formed by professionals in different fields, announced that at least 4,815 cases of abuse occurred over 70 years in Catholic institutions.

Most of the accused abusers were priests – 77 percent. The average age of the victims was 11, and 52.7 percent of them were boys. The commission sent 25 cases to prosecutors along with the names of the accused.

While the Portuguese Bishops’ Conference declared there…

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“I came back to life.”

Like other victims of child abuse by priests, 52-year-old Stéphane said getting an official recognition from France’s Catholic Church of what happened is helping him get better, at last.

Stéphane is among 201 victims granted financial or other reparations from the church so far under a process launched last year by an independent French body leading a nationwide effort to address decades of long-hidden, widespread abuse. Hundreds of other people are awaiting review of their cases.

Reparations also may include non-financial support. Requests have included help for victims to write down their stories, organizing meetings with local church representatives, or installing a plaque in memory of victims. The head of the Independent National Authority for Recognition and Reparation, or INIRR, is also supporting a demand to change the name of a plaza named after an archbishop who actively covered up sexual abuse.

Stéphane said he was…

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Poland’s prime minister on Wednesday stepped in to defend the good name of St. John Paul II, a “great fellow-countryman,” following claims that he knew of sex abuse of minors by priests under his authority while archbishop in Poland and sought to conceal it.

The report aired this week on TVN24 struck at a highly respected figure in the predominantly Roman Catholic country. It provoked a mixed response, especially as some of the documentation it quoted came from the files of the communist-era secret security service that had been seeking to compromise the church.

Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki, a Catholic, said in a video statement posted on his social media that proof cited against the late pontiff is “very dubious.” He also claimed the issue was raised by circles that want to wage a “cultural war” against Poles and turn their lives upside down.

Karol Wojtyla served as archbishop of Krakow,…

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Marist Brothers approach in seeking to halt a survivor’s case over a clergy member’s death would be ‘absolutely perverse’, court hears

A Catholic order allegedly sat on its hands for almost two years waiting for a notorious paedophile clergy member to die and is now using his death to claim it could no longer receive a fair trial against one of his victims, an approach described in court as “absolutely perverse”.

The Marist Brothers order is currently seeking to permanently halt a survivor’s case alleging abuse by the late Brother Francis “Romuald” Cable, arguing his death renders it unable to fairly defend itself because it can no longer call him as a witness.

Court documents allege Marist has known of abuse complaints against Cable, one of New South Wales’ worst Catholic school offenders, since 1967, but concealed his crimes from police and other authorities for decades and instead shuffled him between…

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In 2018, the scandal involving then-Cardinal Theodore McCarrick shocked the Catholic world.  

McCarrick had a global presence; he operated at the highest levels of the Church, and he enjoyed the highest esteem—both among Catholics and more broadly. But then it was revealed that he had been grooming and sexually abusing young men for decades.  

It was yet another heart-wrenching wake-up call for a Church in need of reform, coming after earlier scandals of Church leaders who failed to protect the faithful from predators in her midst.  

Despite a slew of meetings, documents, and reforms from bishops on protecting minors and vulnerable adults, Catholics watched as the scandal deepened, and as pews continued to empty, costing souls. It became abundantly clear that the Church’s internal reform needed every hand to the pumps.

In turn, a group of Catholics explored ways in which the laity might better assist bishops to identify healthy…

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Addressing the scandal of abuse has been Pope Francis’ greatest challenge, a titanic struggle marked by resistance, failure, and conversion.

 The rainfall stopped minutes before he appeared at the balcony that night 10 years ago, his first time in papal white, the choice of the name “Francesco” another first, cheering Italians for his honouring of their popular saint. On a screen above the crowd at St Peter’s, Francesco purred “Buona sera” and gave a humble bow. 

The deft pastoral symbolism was soon followed by a descent into the snake pit. “The Roman Curia has always been a viper’s nest,” Church chronicler Vittorio Messori told La Stampa the previous spring. What he described as “the most efficient state organisation in the world” was rife with “rivalry, greed, maliciousness and infidelity”. Messori saw the so-called Vatileaks scandal breaking the support structure for “Number One”, as Church diplomats call the Pope. Benedict XVI’s…

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