ABUSE TRACKER

At age 68, he has spent nearly six decades trying to forget what happened to him in the classroom of his fifth-grade teacher, Arthur F. Werner, in the Kenmore-Town of Tonawanda Union Free School District.

“It happened to me at least a dozen times that year,” recalled the man, one of 35 former Werner students who filed Child Victims Act lawsuits accusing Werner of molesting them in the school.

“We had this weird rule in the school that you couldn’t put your hands in your pockets. Every time Werner saw me reach toward one of my pockets, he’d call me up to the front of the room, in front of the whole class. He would literally sew my pants pockets shut,” the man told The Buffalo News in an interview. “While he did that, he would put his hand inside my pants, under the guise of protecting me from the…

As debate continues over the revelations of the 1995 Robert Sabga and 2021 Justice Judith Jones reports on abuse at children’s homes, and pending investigations by the police and Catholic Church, one survivor shares his story with Newsday.

A survivor of abuse at the St Dominic’s Children’s Home in Belmont, who left there in 1997, said his ability to relate and interact with people has been irrevocably altered by the abuse he suffered while growing up at the home. He now lives in the Netherlands where, as a gay man, he has been granted asylum status.

“I can’t form friendships. I get real irritated with people fast, I have a low span for stupidity. I don’t keep many friends, and who I keep as friends, if they cross me, I behave really badly. All of this is because of my background, what I’ve been through. I still rock myself to…

A serving Inishowen priest, the former principal of St Columb’s College in Derry, has confirmed he was aware of sex abuse allegations against a former vice-principal, as far back as 1993.

Raymond Gallagher was a teacher at St Columb’s College from 1953 to 1993. He died in 2007 at the age of 75.

In recent months, two former pupils have come forward to allege they were sexually abused by Gallagher while pupils at the school in the 1960s and 1970s.

Fr John Walsh, who is currently a curate in the Buncrana parish, was principal of St Columb’s from 1990 to 1999 and was in charge of the school when Gallagher left in 1993.

In today’s Sunday Independent, journalist Ciaran O’Neill is reporting, that comments made to the paper by Fr Walsh, appear to indicate those in charge of the school were aware of allegations around Gallagher, who…

Legislation is meant to nullify the Catholic Church’s court argument

The Louisiana Legislature approved Tuesday an update to a law it passed just last year that was supposed to make it easier for adult victims of childhood sex abuse to sue institutions such as the Catholic Church and Boy Scouts of America. 

The Louisiana House and Senate voted without objection to pass House Bill 402, by Rep. Jason Hughes, D-New Orleans, which clarifies that victims of childhood abuse – no matter their current age – should have a chance to sue over their alleged mistreatment until 2024. 

The measure is slated to become law by the end of the month. Gov. John Bel Edwards could veto the measure, but has not indicated he intends to do so.

Lawmakers and advocates for sexual abuse victims initially said the legislation received pushback from insurance companies. Those who issued…

This summer churches in Waco and surrounding Central Texas suburbs and towns will offer Vacation Bible Schools, mission trips, church camps and other worthwhile and wholesome activities to our children. Those of us who grew up in such churches know their potential to set the trajectory of our lives. Who can forget Bible drills, campfire sing-a-longs, the pledge to the Christian flag, long bus rides to youth camp and backyard Bible clubs?

Parents sending their children and teens to church activities this summer expect that not only will their sons and daughters be provided religious instruction and spiritual formation but that they’ll be safe. This includes being safe from sexual predators.

Yet, on May 22, 2022, parishioners in the largest Protestant denomination in America were provided a scathing report by Guidepost Solutions that documents the systemic efforts by Southern Baptist executives to cover up sexual abuse of victims…

Dedicated officials are an inspiration to all by implementing the law and giving justice to victims in the Philippines

The wide extent of child sexual abuse is a shocking and embarrassing reality that no nation wants to admit to. This is why it is largely ignored and family reluctance to report child rape by a family member or neighbor allows more abuse and prevents children from getting justice.  

Laws are circumvented by duty bearers. Even police fail to pursue investigations and some are allegedly in cahoots with the suspects and create a technicality to have a case dismissed, defeating the purpose of the courts. Victims of rape and trafficking are left unprotected by social services and sent home without help or therapy in a protective home because there is almost none provided by government services. 

There are thousands of clinics and hospitals in the Philippines, yet almost no therapeutic homes to protect victims of…

Pope Francis on Friday spoke about the challenges facing families, including threats to human dignity such as pornography and surrogacy.

“We also talk about the scourge of pornography, which is now spread everywhere via the web,” the pope said at the Vatican on June 10.

“It should be denounced as a permanent attack on the dignity of men and women. It is not only a matter of protecting children — an urgent task of the authorities and all of us — but also of declaring pornography a threat to public health,” he told members of a family association network.

Quoting a 2017 speech he gave to a congress on child dignity online, the pope added that “it would be a serious illusion to think that a society in which abnormal consumption of sex on the web is rampant among adults is then capable of effectively protecting minors.”

Family networks, schools, and…

Pope Francis told priests and bishops from the Italian island of Sicily on Thursday to be strong moral guides, and to update their art and vestments in conformity with Church reforms.

“In Sicily, people still look to priests as spiritual and moral guides, people who can also help to improve the civil and social life of the island, to support the family, and to be a reference for growing young people. High and demanding is the Sicilian people’s expectation of priests,” the Pope said during a June 9 meeting at the Vatican.

In improvised comments during his speech, Pope Francis also addressed a topic that he said “worries” him: the progress of the reforms of the Second Vatican Council, particularly relating to the liturgy.

“I don’t know, because I don’t go to Mass in Sicily and I don’t know how the Sicilian priests preach, whether they preach as was suggested in…

Church leaders in Italy are currently conducting a national synod process, at the behest of Pope Francis, in tandem with the pope’s universal Synod of Bishops on Synodality.

Among other things, the Italian bishops’ national synod, set to conclude in 2025, is aimed at assessing the challenges the country faces in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic and providing an up-to-date evaluation of the general state of the church in Italy.

Pope Francis had been pushing the Italian Bishops’ Conference (CEI) to launch the national synod ever since a 2015 visit to Florence for a major CEI conference. He told ecclesial leaders that the church must rid itself of “stale and repetitive” structures, and be closer to the poor and disadvantaged.

Among the various challenges the Italian bishops will have to grapple with as their national synod process moves forward is a growing apathy toward the church, and religion generally,…

Authorities in Wisconsin have jailed a father-son pair of former United Pentecostal Church pastors on dozens of charges related to child sexual assault. The arrests came after an investigation that spanned five states, according to a sheriff’s department press release.

Travis Lee Huse, 42, and his father, Scott L. Huse, 64, remain in the Langlade County (Wisconsin) Jail as of Monday, jail records show. The Langlade County Sheriff’s Office accuses the men of sexually assaulting children while the father and son were involved with Apostolic Worship Center and the former Evergreen Christian Academy.

Authorities say the church and school were in Elton, an unincorporated village about 15 miles from the Langlade County seat. The Roys Report didn’t immediately hear back after leaving a message at the church’s number.

Travis Huse faces 31 counts of child sexual assault, child…

Transparency about abuse is also essential. Learning from past mistakes will help keep more children from becoming abuse victims.

Too many institutions that have children under their care do not do enough to ensure they are protected from sexual abuse, as we were reminded by the recent report by Robert Herguth of the Sun-Times’ Watchdogs team.

Last month, the Episcopal Diocese of Chicago settled a case of alleged sexual abuse for $750,000, without admitting wrongdoing. Such settlements, in one institution after another, are a warning the nation has further to go than some people might realize to fully protect children.

According to records that emerged from the lawsuit against the Episcopal Diocese, the office of Bishop Frank Griswold knew as early as 1987 that priest Richard Kearney might have molested children at Saint Bride’s Episcopal Church in Oregon, a half hour from Rockford, but did nothing. Griswold is…

America’s largest Protestant denomination covered up a sexual abuse problem for decades.

A new report summarizing an independent investigation into the history of sexual abuse in the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) details decades of gaslighting and cover-ups.

The SBC is a collection of loosely affiliated member churches, boasting just under 15 million members. It has no firm, established hierarchy; it doesn’t even have a central headquarters. In theory, individual churches can preach or believe whatever they want, but the larger “convention” can remove member churches that don’t toe certain lines. Representatives of these churches meet each year at an annual event — also called a convention. At the 2021 convention, member churches voted to conduct an internal investigation of sexual abuse within the church.

Complaints about sexual abuse and sexual assault on the part of pastors were sent to higher-ups who then kept those accusations quiet. Though the…

A nearly 300-page report detailing years of sexual abuse and its cover-up within the Southern Baptist Convention from ministers was released in May. 

The report, a result of a seven-month investigation by Guidepost Solutions, detailed a credible allegation of sexual assault against former SBC President Johnny Hunt one month after his term ended in 2010 and how high-ranking staff maintained a list with the names of ministers accused of sexual misconduct but did nothing about it. 

SBC published a list of accused abusive ministers on May 26. The listed included Jason Cooper, former pastor of Macedonia Baptist Church in Rayville and Victor Mitchell, former pastor of Old Mount Olive Baptist Church in Oak Ridge. Both were convicted in August 2009 of indecent behavior with a juvenile and oral sexual battery. 

Michael Wood, lead pastor of the First West Church, referred to the report as “heartbreaking” and “infuriating” in a prepared…

In 2019, Houston Chronicle journalist Robert Downen helped break the story about sexual abuse within the SBC. That led the church to commission its own independent study, which suggested a coverup.

TRANSCRIPT

TERRY GROSS, HOST:

This is FRESH AIR. I’m Terry Gross. A sexual abuse scandal has shaken up the Southern Baptist Church. A report issued just over a week ago confirmed that survivors who came forward alleging they were sexually abused by church leaders, ministers, workers and volunteers were ignored or silenced by church leadership and often disparaged. Meanwhile, the church kept a secret list of over 700 offenders. The list was even kept secret from most of the church’s leaders. This new report was commissioned by the Southern Baptist Convention in response to a series of articles investigating widespread sexual abuse in the church.

The series titled “Abuse Of Faith” was published in 2019 after a six-month investigation by a…

Last month an explosive report was released detailing the massive amount of abuse and cover up of abuse that has taken place within the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC)  over the past two decades. This was the largest investigation undertaken in the denomination’s history and the troubling report details what many abuse survivors had been speaking out about for years. Now, armed with the new report, they are continuing to amplify the call for more transparency and accountability within the denomination. 

Among those who is continuing to raise her voice is Ashley Easter, an abuse survivor, author, and advocate who uses her platform to empower other survivors of abuse. RLC editor, Rebekah Barber, recently spoke to Easter about the explosive report and what work is needed to be done to ensure that pastor predators are held accountable and survivors are able to receive a sense of justice, whatever that may look…

The 20th anniversary of the U.S. bishops’ passage of the “Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People” is “not a time of celebration, but a time of continued vigilance and determination,” said the president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

“In these 20 years, we have greatly benefited from listening to and working with survivors of abuse. We are grateful for their courage in sharing their stories and for helping the church strive to create a culture of protection and healing,” Los Angeles Archbishop José H. Gomez said in a June 9 statement.

The witness of survivors “has led directly to meaningful reform in the church and to a greater awareness of sexual abuse in the wider world. For past survivors and future children, it is imperative that we remain vigilant,” the archbishop said.

The charter was originally approved by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops in June 2002…

A Roman Catholic priest in Germany was found dead a day after he was questioned and suspended as part of an investigation into abuse allegations, church officials said Friday.

The Diocese of Limburg said in a statement that the head of its seminary was found dead Thursday. It didn’t provide details on his cause of death but said the priest, whom it didn’t identify, had held roles of responsibility within the diocese for several years.

The diocese said that the priest’s death “hits us hard, causes consternation and bewilderment, and raises many questions.”

“He had been heard in a personal interview on Wednesday, June 8, regarding allegations of inappropriate behavior, as required by the relevant church regulations,” the diocese said. “Bishop Georg Baetzing subsequently released him from all offices in order to be able to examine and clarify the accusations.”

The diocese added that its sympathy was with the the…

Anne Barrett Doyle of the group BishopAccountability.org recently wrote a thoughtful article on how Pope Francis’ major law to hold bishops and religious superiors accountable for abuse they commit or cover-up, Vos Estis Lux Mundi (“You Are the Light of the World”), is not working.

That article caused me to reflect on the long-standing, unsuccessful efforts in the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis to hold its former archbishop, John Nienstedt, accountable for alleged personal sexual misconduct and a failed cover-up involving abuse by another priest under his supervision.

These efforts have both pre-dated and post-dated Vos Estis, which went into effect on June 1, 2019, so it is with much disappointment that nothing has been resolved to hold Nienstedt accountable. It represents a real-life example of why Vos Estis is not working and needs serious reform.

I first wrote about the need for the church to complete a full and fair investigation…

The fifth bishop of Phoenix will take the place of Bishop Thomas Olmsted after he reached the “age limit” for bishops, the Roman Catholic Diocese of Phoenix said.

The 52-year-old Roman Catholic Diocese of Phoenix will be getting a new bishop in San Diego Auxiliary Bishop John Dolan, a press release from Pope Francis said.

Dolan will be taking over for Bishop Thomas Olmsted, 75, after he reached the “age limit” for bishops. Olmsted’s replacement will oversee the Phoenix Diocese’s 94 parishes, 23 missions, 29 elementary schools, seven high schools, three universities, and one seminary.

“I am truly grateful to God for Bishop Thomas Olmsted and Auxiliary Bishop Eduardo Nevares who have warmly welcomed me to the Diocese of Phoenix,” Dolan said. “Please pray for all three of us as we journey together on mission in Christ!”

The Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP) had more…

Survivors of clergy sexual abuse gathered with supporters June 4 to mark an important anniversary and, even more importantly, to reenergize their solidarity.

It was 20 years ago that the Boston Globe exposed the cover-up of predatory priests by the Boston Archdiocese, journalism that earned a Pulitzer Prize and inspired the Oscar-winning film, “Spotlight.”

At one point during the program, an NCR front page from 1985 appeared on the screen at the front of the room. The headline above the Page 1 editorial read: “Priest child abuse cases victimizing families; bishops lack policy response.”

I admit to having something to do with the display of that page, not to diminish the extraordinary work of the Globe and its courageous sources but to underline the longevity of the scandal and to reflect NCR’s 37-year commitment to bringing it to light.

That June 7, 1985, issue included Jason…

Six novices were dismissed last June from the California novitiate of a small religious order, just weeks after they reported that their novice master touched several of them inappropriately without their consent, and engaged in manipulation and other conduct which caused them “serious harm.”

Their dismissal came after an internal investigation cleared the novice master of wrongdoing. But investigators did not interview any of the novices before rejecting their claims, the Canons Regular of the Immaculate Conception confirmed to The Pillar. 

An attorney for the community told The Pillar that the men did not specifically request to be interviewed when they reported their allegations, and that such interviews were not necessary to resolve their misconduct claims. 

The former novices say the process was unjust, and that the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, in which the novitiate was located, should have done more to assist them when they alleged misconduct. After questions from The Pillar, the…

According to one of the Catholic Church’s foremost experts on clerical sexual abuse prevention, by ignoring the voice of the victims “we are excluding the voice of Jesus who speaks to us through them.”

German Jesuit Father Hans Zollner, President of the Institute of Anthropology-Interdisciplinary Studies on Protection and Human Dignity (IADC) of the Pontifical Gregorian University was speaking at a daylong “conversation” held on Thursday in Madrid, Spain, organized by the publishing house PPC.

During his presentation, Zollner, who is also a member of the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors, said that Christians need to “open our eyes, ears and mouth when we see something that could be abuse, we all have the responsibility to form ourselves, to inform ourselves and to push our communities to act.”

“People affected by abuse in the Church want, above all, to be recognized as victims, and that the bishops acknowledge…

A prominent figure in Singapore’s Catholic community was sentenced to jail last month for sex offences against two teenage boys.

During investigations, it emerged that the man’s sexual misconduct was first uncovered in 2009 by leaders of a religious order of which he was a member.

But it took years before it was reported to the police and for him to be charged and sentenced.

The man, now in his 60s, cannot be named due to a court order that prohibits the publication of any information that could lead to identification of the victims.

The gag order covers the offender’s designation, appointment, the school he was linked to, and the name of his Catholic order.

Here is a timeline of events related to the case:

2005 TO 2006: SEX OFFENCES AGAINST VICTIM V2

The man came to know the first victim, identified as V2 in court documents, between 2003 and…

Pope Francis on Friday named San Diego Auxiliary Bishop John P. Dolan to lead the Catholic Diocese of Phoenix, Arizona.

Dolan, 60, succeeds Bishop Thomas J. Olmsted, whose resignation was accepted on June 10, after turning 75, the usual age of retirement for bishops.

Phoenix is the fifth-largest city in the U.S. and the diocese serves 1.2 million Catholics.

Dolan, a strong Spanish-speaker, has been an auxiliary bishop in San Diego, a diocese of almost 1.4 million Catholics, since 2017, serving under Cardinal-designate Robert McElroy.

Dolan grew up in the Clairemont neighborhood of San Diego as one of nine children. He was ordained a priest of the diocese in 1989. He was a parish priest for 27 years before he was appointed as auxiliary bishop.

He has served as vicar general and moderator of the curia. As vicar for clergy, he…

Abusers included people who worked for a diocese or parish but not schools

An independent audit of more than 80 years of files involving nine Quebec Catholic dioceses found at least 87 abusers among church personnel, according to a summary of findings released Wednesday.

Retired Superior Court justice André Denis reviewed archived files of 6,809 people employed between 1940 and 2021 and uncovered 87 employees who were the subjects of confirmed or well-founded sex abuse allegations involving minors or vulnerable adults.

Denis says his mandate was twofold: first, to root out people accused of abuse who were still working for the church, and second, to offer the church a historical portrait of how many employees faced credible allegations. He says fewer than five of the 87 people were still working for the church by the time he finished his review.

“They’re counted on the fingers on one hand, but those who…

[Via The Advertiser]

A former altar boy sexually abused by Victorian priest Desmond Gannon has been awarded nearly $2 million in damages in a civil case against Melbourne’s archbishop.

The sex abuse survivor, who cannot be named for legal reasons, brought the case against Peter Comensoli, claiming the Catholic Archdiocese of Melbourne was vicariously liable for his abuse.

The victim said he felt like he was dead after Gannon first assaulted him – that the priest had murdered him and the little boy he used to be was gone forever.

He later contemplated suicide and abused alcohol as a way to numb his pain.

Gannon assaulted the victim on three occasions between 1968 and 1970 while the child was an altar boy and a pupil at a Catholic primary school in regional Victoria.

The former priest was sentenced for those crimes in 2009.

On one occasion, Gannon drove the boy…

Bishop Gustavo Zanchetta, who was sentenced in March to four and a half years in prison for sexually abusing two seminarians in Argentina, has requested through his lawyer that the sentence be served under house arrest in a local monastery, due to the prelate’s health problems.

Zanchetta’s lawyer, Darío Palmier, is seeking the change so the bishop emeritus of Orán doesn’t have to remain in Prison Unit 3.

Zanchetta was first taken to St. Vincent de Paul Hospital for hypertension. After treating him he was returned to jail; but he later was sent to a private clinic, according to Salta Radio Ciudad Online.

“He’s hospitalized, we’re treating him. Recently he had to make an in- person visit to the doctor for hypertension symptoms, he has a serious case of kidney disease. It‘s a disease related to his venous system, it was diagnosed in Rome,” the lawyer told Salta 12, as…

Eric Dejaeger was released from prison in May to serve the rest of his sentence in the community

The statutory release of a defrocked priest who sexually abused children in Igloolik, Nunavut, received a sharp response from the federal minister of Crown-Indigenous Relations.

On Thursday, Minister Marc Miller told reporters he believes people like Eric Dejaeger “should rot in jail.”

Dejaeger, now 75, was convicted in 2015 of 32 counts of sexually abusing people in Igloolik, many of them children.

He was granted release in mid-May to serve the rest of his sentence in the community under several conditions. Statutory release is offered to most prisoners after they have completed two-thirds of their time, but the Parole Board of Canada can deny release if it believes the offender is likely to commit crimes including sexual abuse of children.

“In a democracy such as ours, it’s actually a good thing that people like me don’t…

A former priest and top aide to Santiago’s archbishop was found guilty on Wednesday of repeated sexual abuse and rape, the result of 2018 scandal that ensnared multiple high-ranking members of the Chilean Catholic Church.

The prosecutor’s office said on Twitter that it had secured the conviction of former priest Oscar Munoz, “for crimes of repeated rape, sexual abuse and repeated sexual abuse of those who were minor victims.”

Munoz’s case was one of the most high-profile in a wave of sex abuse scandals that rocked the Catholic Church after Pope Francis visited Chile in 2018. The scandal led to the departure of the archbishop of Santiago and other priests accused of carrying out or covering up abuses against minors.

Chilean authorities also launched a wide-ranging investigation and raided multiple bishoprics. Munoz was one of the first priests to be imprisoned from the scandal.

Munoz turned himself into ecclesiastical authorities…

The Catholic Archdiocese of Melbourne has been ordered to pay $1.9 million in damages to a former altar boy who was sexually abused by Victorian priest Desmond Gannon.

The victim brought the case against Melbourne Archbishop Peter Comensoli, claiming the city’s Catholic Archdiocese was negligent and vicariously liable for the abuse, which occurred between 1968 and 1970.

Gannon assaulted the victim, who cannot be named for legal reasons, on three occasions when he was a student at a Catholic primary school in regional Victoria.

The Supreme Court of Victoria heard that on one occasion in 1968, Gannon drove the victim along a country road to a clearing before sexually abusing and raping him. The victim said he was terrified at the time that Gannon would kill him.

A further case of abuse occurred when the victim was in church preparing to serve as an altar boy. The court heard that…

More than 20 years since the Boston Globe’s Spotlight investigative team exposed the scope of Catholic clergy sexual abuse and institutional cover-up in the Archdiocese of Boston, attorney Mitchell Garabedian said abuse survivors are still teaching the church “how to be moral.”

“None of this could be done without your strength,” Garabedian said during a June 4 conference in Quincy, sponsored by several nonprofits that advocate for abuse survivors and accountability in the church.

Titled “Pivot to the Future: Marking 20 Years of Confronting Clergy Sex Abuse,” the conference attracted dozens of survivors, their loved ones, advocates and others who gathered in person and via Zoom to listen to keynote talks, presentations and panel discussions that reflected on two decades of scandals and what the future may hold for the crisis and potential reforms.

David Clohessy, the former longtime director of the Survivors Network of those Abused…

The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops established the Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People (and the accompanying Essential Norms for Diocesan/Eparchial Policies Dealing with Allegations of Sexual Abuse of Minors by Priests or Deacons) in June 2002. This is one of a series of articles by the Catholic Review to mark the 20th anniversary of the Charter and its impact on safe environments within the church.

Reports from the archdiocesan Office of Child and Youth Protection and the Independent Review Board indicate that the archdiocese continues its efforts to educate about safe environments for young people and to screen clergy, employees and volunteers to determine suitability for ministry.

This is the fifth year for which such reports have been issued. The reports cover the reporting year from July 1, 2020, to June 30, 2021.

Archbishop William E. Lori initiated the reports in 2019, with summaries from fiscal years…

A former janitor at a Catholic church in Maywood who is suing the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, alleging she was forced to quit in 2019 after an associate pastor groped her in the rectory and tried to coerce her into his bed, describes the incident in detail in new court papers.

The Long Beach woman worked as a custodian at St. Rose of Lima Catholic Church, the grounds of which include a school and a rectory that housed the living areas and offices of Pastor Dario Miranda and Associate Pastor Primitivo Gonzalez, the suit filed in December of 2020 states.

On the morning of July 30, 2019, the plaintiff says she was directed to clean the parish rectory, including Gonzalez’s private living space. She was normally assigned to maintain only the school and church, but the employee who normally maintained the rectory was absent that day, the suit says.

The…

Leaders of the Southern Baptist Convention knew about clergy sex abuse cases — lots of them — and they consciously chose to take no action. For years.

This chilling reality now has been documented by the independent investigatory report of Guidepost Solutions, released two weeks ago.

In nauseating detail, the report revealed longstanding patterns of secrecy and grotesquery in the SBC Executive Committee’s handling of sexual abuse. It also exposed lies, cruelty, “mafia-esque intimidation” tactics, and ethical abdications that went beyond the bounds of human decency.

As many of Baptist News Global readers will know, I’ve been shouting for years about these horrific patterns. But lest any imagine that I take joy in this vindication, let me be clear: I do not.

The vindication goes hand in hand with grief because I am aware of the unfathomable human cost of what it has taken to bring this truth to light. Countless lives have been decimated.

…

Editor’s Note: This week we revisit a post from August 2021 about two women who worked for the Church and bravely decided to expose information about sexual abusers in their dioceses.

As the abuse crisis in the Catholic Church has unfolded, some people employed by the Church have made the choice to publicize previously secret information about sexual abuse and cover-up in their local dioceses.

When Wisconsin Attorney General Josh Kaul announced in April 2021 the start of a statewide investigation of sexual abuse by religious leaders in the Catholic Church and other faith traditions, he not only invited victim-survivors to make anonymous reports through a dedicated website and phone line, but he also took the unusual step of encouraging people with inside information about their church’s response to abuse to make anonymous reports as well.

“Any little bit of information is helpful and helps us understand and…

Argentine Bishop Gustavo Zanchetta, who is serving a sentence of four years and six months in prison for sexually abusing two seminarians, left prison to be hospitalized in a private clinic, reportedly due to high blood pressure.

In mid-April, the former bishop of Oran, in the northern Argentine province Salta, had requested house arrest due to alleged health problems. The court has yet to rule on this request.

However, on Friday, he was hospitalized in a private clinic, at the order of his personal doctor.

Zanchetta’s new lawyer, Dario Palmier, said that the prelate has hypertension and has a “very delicate kidney disease. It is a disease related to his venous system. He got the diagnosis in Rome.”

“The truth is that he could collapse at any moment,” he told local newspaper Salta/12.

The lawyer also said that more than a month ago, Zanchetta’s defense team requested that the bishop emeritus…

A Catholic diocese in Germany said Tuesday that a former priest has been convicted in a church trial of sexually abusing a minor over several years almost three decades ago.

The man, who wasn’t identified, was ordered to pay 10% of his income to a charitable organization that helps victims of abuse, the diocese of Limburg said.

While financial payouts have been included in confidential settlements between the church and victims of abuse, the announcement of a financial penalty against a priest as a result of a canonical investigation is unusual.

The male victim had filed a complaint about the abuse in 2018 following the publication of a study into sexual abuse within the church.

German prosecutors declined to open an investigation because the alleged crimes had passed the 20-year statute of limitations, but church authorities launched a probe.

The crimes were committed between 1986 and 1993 in the Limburg…

A defrocked Oblate priest who was convicted of dozens of horrendous sexual crimes against Inuit children has been granted parole.

Eric Dejaeger, 75, was sentenced to 19 years for crimes committed between 1978 and 1982 in the Nunavut community of Igloolik, where he was a missionary. The offences included indecent assault, unlawful confinement, buggery, unlawful sexual intercourse and bestiality.

He pleaded guilty to eight counts and was convicted of another 24 on children mostly between the ages of eight and 12. The details were so appalling the judge’s sentencing came with a content warning.

“You were in a position of great trust in relation to the victims, which you used to groom and silence them,” said the decision from the Parole Board of Canada.

“You also used physical violence and caused serious physical injuries to some of the victims. The victims suffered devastating and ongoing emotional and psychological harm.”

His…

The former pastor of Woodland Presbyterian Church on Park Avenue in East Memphis faces allegations he molested several boys in the nineties.

“Well, in 2019, some guys came forward making some allegations against a former pastor. And it was really concerning to us. And so we communicated with the church about these allegations, and we worked with those guys, extended counseling to them,” said Pastor Matt Miller, the current pastor of Woodland Presbyterian Church.

A Shelby County judge initially ruled that the statute of limitations applied and struck down the lawsuit. A higher court has now ruled the statute of limitations does not apply since, according to court documents, the church worked to hide the crimes.

“I wasn’t here when those allegations were made before,” said Miller. “I only know what happened three years ago when we started to care for those guys, and we really sought to be transparent in…

Appellate court found the church synod covered up records and did nothing to stop the abuse

A Tennessee appellate court is allowing three men allegedly raped as children by a Presbyterian pastor in Memphis more than two decades ago to sue the church and its governing body for allegedly covering up the crimes with a “whitewash” investigation kept hidden for years.

In an opinion made public Friday, the Tennessee Court of Appeals has overturned a lower court ruling that dismissed the lawsuit the men filed against Woodland Presbyterian Church and its two ruling authorities, the Presbyterian of the Mid-South Inc. and the Synod of Living Waters Presbyterian Church, in 2020.

The men, now in their 30s, were among several boys alleged to have been raped by then-Woodland pastor James B. “Jim” Stanford during “sleepovers” at his church-owned home in the 1990s, according to court records. They sought help from the…

One week before Southern Baptists gather to respond to a damning independent investigation of sexual abuse problems, the lead story on the denomination’s news site is about “controversy” created by Guidepost Solutions tweeting support for Pride month.

Guidepost is the firm hired to conduct the investigation into the SBC Executive Committee mandated by messengers to last year’s SBC annual meeting. It is not a faith-based organization but is a for-profit corporation with specific expertise in large-scale corporate reviews.

Nevertheless, some anti-gay Southern Baptists expressed alarm over a single tweet from the Guidepost corporate account at the beginning of June, which is known nationally as Gay Pride Month.

On June 6 Guidepost tweeted its commitment “to strengthening diversity, equity and inclusion” as an organization that welcomes employees to “bring their authentic selves to work.” It called the company “an ally to our LGBTQ+ community.” The tweet was accompanied by the image of a…

Bruxy Cavey, who was forced to resign from one of Canada’s largest churches earlier this year, has been arrested and charged with sexual assault. A court appearance is scheduled for June 27. Police say more people may have been victimized and encourage them to come forward.

Cavey, 57, had been a pastor at The Meeting House Church in Toronto for 25 years. In late 2021, after learning of sexual misconduct allegations against him, the church placed him on leave and conducted an independent investigation.

The Meeting House, which has hired a victim advocate, is holding a community gathering tonight. The event is for worship and prayer, a “brief Q&A,” and talk of “charting our next steps together.”

Bruxy Cavey Had Apologized for an ‘Extramarital Affair’

In March 2022, Meeting House leaders shared the results of a third-party investigation. It revealed an “extended” sexual relationship between Pastor Bruxy…

Police in Hamilton, Ontario, confirmed the alleged victim was an adult female but did not say whether it was the same woman who came forward with allegations of sexual misconduct against Cavey late last year.

Police in the Canadian city of Hamilton have charged the disgraced former pastor of one of the country’s largest churches with sexual assault.

Bruxy Cavey, who grew The Meeting House into a megachurch with 20 campuses across the province of Ontario, was charged with one count of sexual assault on May 31. Cavey, 57, was asked to resign from the church in March after an independent investigator found he had a years-long sexual relationship with a member of his church who had sought counseling.

Police in Hamilton confirmed the alleged victim was an adult female but did not say whether it was the same woman who came forward with allegations of sexual misconduct against Cavey late last…

One year after the Wisconsin Attorney General’s Office announced a new initiative to investigate clergy abuse, a group of survivors says Attorney General Josh Kaul has failed them. But the AG’s office says they are making progress on prosecuting church leaders.

Hope is what Peter Isely, an abuse survivor and Director of Nate’s Mission, felt one year ago as he stood alongside AG Kaul as he announced the new initiative to investigate clergy abuse crimes.

“I know how difficult its going to be for many of you to come forward again. I want you to know this time its different,” said Isely back in April 2021 as he encouraged survivors to come forward and report abuse to the AG’s office.

Fast forward to Tuesday, that hope has turned into frustration.

“He made promises about this and presented what he was going to do for people…

Survivors of sexual abuse by clergy and faith leaders called on Attorney General Josh Kaul and the Department of Justice to do more in their investigation into abuse cases.

The DOJ launched the Clergy and Faith Leader Abuse Initiative in April 2021, and have since received more than 200 reports of abuse from victims.

Officials most recently charged a pastor with sexual assault of a child in Douglas County.

This Tuesday, a group met outside the State Capitol to express their wavering trust in the investigation.

“There needs to be an investigation that follows the evidence wherever it leads,” said James Egan, the chairman of the Archangel Foundation. “The Attorney General needs to coordinate with the local district attorneys to subpoena documents from the Catholic Church and to obtain the evidence that the Catholic Church still is holding onto.”

Advocates also want more investigations into sexual abuse…

Wisconsin survivors of sexual abuse in the Catholic Church gathered at the State Capitol Tuesday to give their “report card” on Attorney General Josh Kaul’s statewide clergy abuse investigation.

One year ago to the day, Wisconsin Catholic Bishops refused to cooperate with the investigation. On Tuesday, survivors of clergy sexual abuse and advocates — including residential school survivors and members of the Menominee tribe — spoke up to say they are still waiting for investigations to start.

“On my reservation in Kashina, Wisconsin, we do have graves there,” Lorraine Shooter said. “We do have graves and we do have horrific stories and we do have stories of the priests and the nuns killing our children.”

Survivors of clergy sexual abuse say the investigations are moving too slowly.

The Wisconsin Department of Justice has received more than 200 reports of clergy abuse by more than 150 individuals to date.

A former Roman Catholic priest who served at several Rhode Island parishes has been indicted on a charge of sexually assaulting a juvenile about 40 years ago, the state attorney general’s office said Monday.

Kevin Fisette, 66, is scheduled to be arraigned Wednesday on a charge of first-degree sexual assault, authorities said.

The alleged assault on a boy occurred in Burrillville, Rhode Island between Jan. 1, 1981, and Dec. 31, 1982 when Fisette was serving as a deacon at Our Lady of Victory Parish in Hopkinton and as a chaplain at Rhode Island Hospital, officials said.

Fisette, who currently lives in Killingly, Connecticut, was ordained in November 1981.

A message was left with Fisette’s attorney.

He is already on the Diocese of Providence’s list of clergy credibly accused of abuse and was removed from ministry in 2009, which means he cannot act as a priest or present himself as one.

…

Fourth indictment stemming from comprehensive review of clergy child sexual abuse allegations

Attorney General Peter F. Neronha and Colonel Darnell S. Weaver announced that the Statewide Grand Jury has returned an indictment charging a former priest in the Roman Catholic Diocese of Providence with sexually assaulting a juvenile male victim between 1981 and 1982, stemming from an ongoing investigation by the Office of the Attorney General and the Rhode Island State Police into clergy child sexual abuse in Rhode Island.

On May 25, 2022, the Statewide Grand Jury returned an indictment charging Kevin Fisette (age 66) of Dayville, Connecticut with one count of first-degree sexual assault.

The defendant is scheduled to be arraigned on June 8, 2022, in Providence County Superior Court.

As alleged in the indictment, the charge against the defendant stems from an assault that took place in the town of Burrillville between January 1, 1981, and…

[Includes video.]

A review of hundreds of thousands of pages of records in the Roman Catholic Diocese of Providence files has resulted in a criminal case against a priest, marking the fourth time in the past two years a member of the clergy has been charged as a result of the ongoing investigation.

A grand jury indicted 66-year-old Kevin Fisette of Dayville, Connecticut, with one count of first-degree sexual assault. He faces arraignment Wednesday.

The case goes back to Burrillville in 1981 and 1982, when Fisette is accused of sexually assaulting a boy. At the time, Fisette was working as chaplain at Rhode Island Hospital. He was also deacon at Our Lady of Victory in Hopkinton.

“We’re going to continue to bring those cases where we believe we can prove them,” Rhode Island Attorney General Peter Neronha said of the ongoing review, which his office is pursuing in partnership…

The Diocese of Springfield released its findings after allegations of inappropriate behavior with minors by a co-founder of New Spirit Inc.

According to Springfield Diocese spokesperson Mark Dupont, in July of 2021 the Diocese of Springfield first learned about a 2018 complaint against Barry Kingston alleging he engaged in inappropriate behavior with minors at New Spirit Inc.’s summer camp weeks at Camp Holy Cross in 2007.

Dupont told 22News during the intake with the diocesan Office of Safe Environment and Victim Assistance, it was further alleged that this individual had brought their concerns to New Spirit, Inc. leadership in 2018, but no action was undertaken nor was this reported to the proper authorities.

After learning of the complaint, all New Spirit Inc. activities were suspended. The diocese informed the Northwestern District Attorney’s office and the Office of Safe Environment and Victim Services will have a separate investigation into these allegations. 

The Review Board…

[Includes video.]

East Tennesseans gathered to stand with survivors of reported clergy abuse outside of St. Mary’s Church in Gatlinburg and at the Cathedral of the Sacred Heart on Sunday.

A priest at St. Mary’s, Father Antony Punnackal, was accused of and admitted to sexual battery by one of the Spanish-speaking congregators, according to court documents obtained by WVLT News.

One of the victims, Michael Boyd, said he was abused while serving as an altar boy and hoped that sharing his story would help others know what went on behind closed doors and encourage other victims to come forward.

“The things that happened here in Knoxville, unfortunately, are similar to things I think happened across the country and areas that have happened to young people,” Boyd said. “I’ve seen a lot of patterns. It was really organized, and it was really disturbing.”

The second demonstration location, the Cathedral…

Other churchmen named as members of the congregation include the Irish-American Cardinal Kevin Farrell, prefect of the Dicastery for the Laity, the Family, and Life, and the Bronx-born Archbishop Augustine Di Noia, adjunct secretary of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

Pope Francis on Wednesday named Cardinal Blase Cupich as a member of the Vatican’s Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments.

The archbishop of Chicago’s appointment was announced by the Holy See press office on June 1.

In 2021, Cardinal Cupich welcomed the publication of the motu proprio Traditionis custodes, restricting celebrations of the Traditional Latin Mass.

Other churchmen named as members of the congregation include the Irish-American Cardinal Kevin Farrell, prefect of the Dicastery for the Laity, the Family, and Life, and the Bronx-born Archbishop Augustine Di Noia, adjunct secretary of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

Archbishop Di Noia also welcomed the…

Examination of People of Praise comes as supreme court seems poised to reverse Roe v Wade

The founder of the People of Praise, a secretive charismatic Christian group that counts supreme court justice Amy Coney Barrett as a member, was described in a sworn affidavit filed in the 1990s as exerting almost total control over one of the group’s female members, including making all decisions about her finances and dating relationships.

The court documents also described alleged instances of a sexualized atmosphere in the home of the founder, Kevin Ranaghan, and his wife, Dorothy Ranaghan.

The description of the Ranaghans and accusations involving their intimate behavior were contained in a 1993 proceeding in which a woman, Cynthia Carnick, said that she did not want her five minor children to have visitations with their father, John Roger Carnick, who was then a member of the People of Praise, in the Ranaghan household…

A former Mount Isa victim of sexual abuse has started a new awareness campaign called “Loud Fences” in the Catholic Diocese of Townsville.

Kathleen Walsh said she started the first loud ribbon fence started at the Cathedral Catholic Church in Townsville with similar plans for Mount Isa.

“Mount Isa was ravaged by child sex abuse especially by peadophile priest Neville Creen with 22 criminal convictions,” Ms Walsh said.

“Yesterday (Sunday) the first 22 ribbons were tied to the fence for the 22 criminal conviction victims and this weekend coming people plan to grow the Loud fence at the cathedral and every Catholic church in Townsville and Mount Isa.”

Kathleen Walsh, now 57, was the 22nd criminal conviction for Creen.

Neville Joseph Creen, then aged 80 plead guilty to all child sex abuse charges in regards Kathleen, from when she was 11-16 years old at St Joseph’s Primary.

H View Cache

[Includes 13-minute video]

Last year, when archeologists detected what they believed to be 200 unmarked graves at an old school in Canada, it brought new attention to one of the most shameful chapters of that nation’s history. Starting in the 1880’s and for much of the 20th century, more than 150,000 children from hundreds of indigenous communities across Canada were forcibly taken from their parents by the government and sent to what were called Residential Schools. Funded by the state and run by churches, they were designed to assimilate and Christianize indigenous children by ripping them from their parents, their culture, and their community. The children were often referred to as savages and forbidden from speaking their languages or practicing their traditions. As we first reported earlier this year, many were physically and sexually abused, and thousands of children never made it home.

The last of Canada’s 139 residential schools for…

The gag order in the case involving a member of a Catholic order who sexually abused two boys was not intended to protect the offender or the particular Catholic Order.

The Attorney-General’s Chambers said in a statement on Monday (June 6) that it applied for the gag order to protect the identity of the victims.

“It was not in any way sought to protect the interests of the accused person, or of the Catholic Order involved.

“The gag order covered the identity of the accused because, based on the facts and circumstances of the case, the identification of the accused was likely to lead to the identification of the victims,” said the AGC.

The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Singapore on Sunday night (June 5) said that it had requested the AGC partially lift the gag order, so the identity of the offender, the religious order and details of…

Pope Francis added fuel to rumors about the future of his pontificate by announcing he would visit the central Italian city of L’Aquila in August for a feast initiated by Pope Celestine V, one of the few pontiffs who resigned before Pope Benedict XVI stepped down in 2013.

Italian and Catholic media have been rife with unsourced speculation that the 85-year-old Francis might be planning to follow in Benedict’s footsteps, given his increased mobility problems that have forced him to use a wheelchair for the last month.

Those rumors gained steam last week when Francis announced a consistory to create 21 new cardinals scheduled for Aug. 27. Sixteen of those cardinals are under age 80 and eligible to vote in a conclave to elect Francis’ successor.

Once they are added to the ranks of princes of the church, Francis will have stacked the College of Cardinals with 83 of the…

When the Vatican announced Pope Francis would travel to L’Aquila in central Italy Aug. 28 to open a seven-centuries-old celebration of forgiveness, people on social media began speculating that the pope would resign.

The 85-year-old pope will make his morning trip to L’Aquila just one day after a scheduled consistory to create 21 new cardinals and the day before a two-day meeting with the cardinals to discuss the reform of the Roman Curia, one of the main projects of his papacy.

Included in the trip, the Vatican said June 4, is a Mass in the square outside the medieval Basilica of Santa Maria di Collemaggio on the edge of town. The basilica is the burial place of St. Celestine V, a 13th-century pope who abdicated just a few months after his election.

When then-Pope Benedict XVI visited in 2009, he placed the long woolen pallium he had worn during his…

The Catholic Church had requested a partial lifting of the gag order so as to identify the man convicted of committing unlawful sexual acts with two teenage boys.

The man, who The Straits Times understands is not a priest, is in his 60s.

In a statement late on Sunday (June 5), the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Singapore said it had requested the Attorney-General’s Chambers (AGC) partially lift the gag order, so the identity of the offender, the religious order and details of the offender’s subsequent treatment and postings can be made known.

“The AGC informed that they had carefully considered our request but were unable to accede to it,” said the Catholic Church.

The man, who was arrested in January this year, had pleaded guilty to one charge of voluntarily having carnal intercourse against the order of nature and one charge under the Children and Young Persons Act.

He committed the…

Catholic Archdiocese emphasises importance of adhering to protocols to protect young

The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Singapore has asked the Religious Order (which though Catholic, is separately governed), for more information on the case involving the abuse of minors around 2005-2007 by a member of that Order. The offender was recently convicted and sentenced in court.

Concurrently, for greater accountability and transparency in the matter, the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Singapore requested the Attorney General’s Chambers (“AGC”) to partially lift the Gag Order on the case, in relation to the identity of the offender, the name of the order, and details of the offender’s subsequent treatment and postings. The AGC informed that they had carefully considered our request but were unable to accede to it.

In the interests of providing as much information as possible, within the boundaries of the Gag Order, we enclose a statement from the Religious Order.

…

JUDGEMENT DAY

One of the most controversial cardinals in the history of the Catholic church’s clerical sex abuse saga has died. Cardinal Angelo Sodano, who served as secretary of state under Popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI, died after battling COVID-related pneumonia, according to the Holy See Press office. He was 94. Sodano famously angered abuse survivors when he called widespread claims of sex abuse by priests “petty gossip.” In 2005, he asked then U.S. secretary of state Condoleezza Rice to intervene in an investigation of a priest accused of pedophilia in Kentucky (which she declined). He also blocked the investigation into Father Marcial Maciel, the pedophile, womanizing, drug addict founder of the disgraced Legion of Christ order who died in 2008, and whose crimes were exposed by Daily Beast contributor Jason Berry. After John Paul II died, his successor Pope Benedict removed Sodano after he tried to…

Catholic bishops in Italy say their investigation of clergy sex abuse will be independent, but its scope will be limited and based solely on the Church’s archives

“We have nothing to fear from telling the truth.”

That was Cardinal Sean O’Malley’s message to the Catholic bishops of Italy as he encouraged them to shed light on the past regarding clergy sex abuse.

The Boston cardinal, who is also the president of the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors, addressed the bishops on May 23 at the opening session of their plenary assembly.

The message seems to have been heard, but also received with great caution.

In its final statement on the last day of the assembly, the Italian Episcopal Conference (CEI) announced two measures of transparency on the issue of abuse.

The first is the publication of a “national report on prevention activities and on the abuse cases reported…

Just days before his long-awaited trial was set to start, La Luz del Mundo leader Naason Joaquin Garcia pleaded guilty Friday to sexually abusing girls from his congregation, a stunning reversal for a man who followers believe is an “apostle” appointed by God.

Originally facing 36 charges, Garcia at the last minute took a plea deal that called for him to admit to three counts, the state attorney general’s office announced Friday: two counts of forcible oral copulation involving minors and one count of a lewd act upon a child who was 15 years old.

“Today’s conviction sends a clear message that sexual exploitation is never acceptable in California. We will hold you accountable if you break the law,” Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta said in a news release issued late Friday afternoon.

Garcia, he said, abused his authority to “take advantage of children,” while relying on his underlings “to groom…

Until now I haven’t said anything about the report on sexual abuse and its coverup in the Southern Baptist Convention. (If you don’t follow religion news, or if all your attention has been on the mass shootings, here’s a summary from the Associated Press.)

I haven’t said anything because I didn’t have anything to say that would be of interest to readers of this blog that wasn’t just a repetition of what others have already said. And while I’m not opposed to schadenfreude, I’m a little reluctant to go there in this case. Not because I have any love for the SBC (I don’t) but because the Pagan, polytheist, and witchcraft communities’ hands aren’t clean either. This isn’t a Baptist problem or a Catholic problem, it’s a human problem exacerbated by religion.

An old proverb says “a wise person learns…

Bobi Gephart hadn’t planned to go to church that Sunday — not to the worship service where the pastor intended to make a confession about the oppressive secret she had carried for so long.

But she quickly changed her mind, realizing she couldn’t trust the pastor – the man she says began sexually preying on her as a teenager – to share the whole truth.

Gephart hurried to New Life Christian Church & World Outreach in Warsaw, Indiana, arriving mid-service, and made sure her story was told.

Nearly a million viewers have witnessed what happened next in that May 22 confrontation, captured on video and posted on Facebook.

John B. Lowe II, the congregation’s longtime pastor, confessed on stage to “adultery” 20 years earlier. “I sinned,” he said, acknowledging he never previously admitted it publicly “to protect myself.”

Bobi and her husband, Nate Gephart, who had been watching from the…

Two years before long-standing rumors about Cardinal Theodore McCarrick leapt into headlines worldwide, America’s most outspoken activist on clergy sexual abuse, Richard Sipe, met with his local bishop — San Diego Bishop Robert McElroy.

“It was clear to me during our last meeting in your office, although cordial, that you had no interest in any further personal contact,” wrote the now-late Sipe, a former Benedictine priest who then worked for the Seton Psychiatric Institute in Baltimore. While church officials asked him to report to McElroy, “your office made it clear that you have no time in your schedule either now or ‘in the foreseeable future’ to have the meeting that they suggested.”

Sipe’s 2016 letter to the San Diego bishop was later posted online and is frequently cited as an example of the bishop ignoring warnings about the now-defrocked McCarrick, who often boasted about his clout as a Vatican kingmaker….

As the financially struggling Boy Scouts sell off a number of campgrounds, conservationists, government officials and others are scrambling to find ways to preserve them as open space.

A $2.6 billion proposed bankruptcy settlement designed to pay thousands of victims of child sexual abuse has added pressure to an organization beset by years of declining enrollment, and the Scouts and their local councils have been cashing in on their extensive holdings, including properties where some of the abuse took place. Developers have bought up some. Preservation groups hope others can be protected and some legislators have taken notice.

“I am emphasizing to my colleagues that there is a clear urgency here,” said U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, a Connecticut Democrat who thinks there may be federal funds available to buy Scout properties. “We have no time to waste.”

For over a century the Scouts and their local councils have acquired…

Naasón Joaquín García, the leader of Mexican megachurch La Luz del Mundo, who had been facing child rape and other charges, admitted just days before trial that he sexually abused three girls, California state prosecutors said.

García, 53, pleaded guilty Friday in Los Angeles Superior Court to two counts of forcible oral copulation involving minors and one count of a lewd act upon a child who was 15. He had faced jury selection Monday in his trial on charges that included child rape and human trafficking to produce child pornography.

Garcia, leader of a church founded by his grandfather that has 5 million worldwide followers, was considered the “apostle” of Jesus Christ who could lead worshippers to salvation. Prosecutors said he wielded his spiritual influence to have sex with several female followers.

“García used his power to take advantage of children,” Attorney General Rob Bonta said in a statement. “He…

The Archdiocese of Philadelphia has paid $78.465 million of a total of more than $81 million awarded to 438 victims of sexual abuse by archdiocesan clergy under the Independent Reconciliation and Reparations Program (IRRP) that released its final report Thursday, June 2.

(Read the full report here.)

The program was begun by the archdiocese three and a half years ago as a way of offering monetary compensation to victims of past abuse but which would be run independent of archdiocesan influence.

It was governed by the Independent Oversight Committee (IOC), a three-member panel consisting of retired federal judge Lawrence F. Stengel, former Philadelphia prosecutor Kelley B. Hodge and lawyer Charles Scheeler. The three signed the final report.

The IRRP was administered by Kenneth R. Feinberg and Camille S. Biros, a team that has run similar programs in multiple U.S. dioceses. They include the archdioceses of New…

The average payment to victims is also much less than in recent diocesan bankruptcy settlements.

Under a reparations program for victims of sexual abuse launched in 2018, the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Philadelphia has paid $78.5 million on 438 claims — far less than the $126 million estimated two years ago, according to a final report released Thursday.

The average payment for Philadelphia victims — $179,224 — is also much less than the average in recent bankruptcy settlements in states where the statute of limitations — the length of time to bring suits — was lifted.

The much smaller Diocese of Camden in April agreed to pay $87.5 million to about 300 individuals, an average of $291,667. The Archdiocese of Santa Fe last month agreed to pay $121.5 million, or an average of $324,000, to 375 individuals.

The…

North Carolina lawyer Joe Knott said the SBC should focus on fighting sin rather than addressing issues like abuse.

In fiery comments to an online meeting Thursday (June 2), a member of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Executive Committee warned that taking steps to prevent abuse in churches would lead to ruin.

“I am terrified that we are breaching our long-standing position of being a voluntary association of independent churches, when we start telling churches that they should do this or do that to protect children or women,” Joe Knott, a North Carolina attorney and longtime committee member, warned.

When those efforts fail, Knott continued, that will lead to lawsuits.

“I guarantee you women and children are going to be victimized no matter how much — and that is going to make us potentially targets of great class-action lawsuits, which could be the end of the Southern Baptist Convention,” Knott added.

…

The Southern Baptist Convention’s Sexual Abuse Task Force has issued a series of responses to the recent Guidepost Solutions investigation that range from suggestions to two action items to be considered by messengers to the SBC annual meeting this summer.

The task force response falls far short of the hopes of abuse survivors and their advocates, who believed this could be a moment for immediate and significant reform.

“I don’t give much credence to suggestions and requests because they are toothless,” abuse survivor and advocate Christa Brown told Religion News Service. “They are kicking the can down the road.”

The two specific recommendations are to create an Abuse Reform Implementation Task Force that will operate for three years and to create a “Ministry Check” website and process “for maintaining a record of pastors, denominational workers, ministry employees and volunteers who have at any time been credibly accused of sexual abuse.”

The new…

The Framework for Motions for the second assembly of the Fifth Plenary Council of Australia has been released to members, signaling the beginning of the end of the plenary journey with a call to “undertake the necessary work to rebuild confidence in the probity and trustworthiness of the Catholic community in this country.”

The document, released June 1, includes 30 motions that will be considered during the assembly, which is set for July 3-9 in Sydney. The framework emerged from four years of national conversation on the Church in Australia.

The Plenary Council is somewhat like a national synod, but can issue decrees that, once approved by the Vatican, are binding on the Church in that country.

In a statement released by the Australian bishops’ conference, Archbishop Timothy Costelloe of Perth, Plenary Council president, said the framework “will form the backbone of our reflection, discussion and decision when we gather.”

…

A Southern Baptist task force has asked the denomination to set up a “Ministry Check” website to track abusive pastors, church employees and volunteers, and to spend millions on reforms to prevent abuse. Most of the suggested reforms are voluntary and some could involve years of study and preparation, prompting a skeptical response from some abuse survivors and advocates.

Other suggested reforms, released on Wednesday, include hiring a national staff person who would receive reports of abuse and forward them to church leaders for a response; increasing training for churches; doing background checks on the trustees who oversee Southern Baptist entities; and encouraging state conventions to consider hiring staff to respond to abuse allegations.

The requests are part of a series of recommendations from the Southern Baptist Convention’s sexual abuse task force, which oversaw a recent investigation into how leaders in the 13.7 million-member…

An epidemic of violence and broken lives. Leaders fail or refuse to respond. And the most vulnerable bear the cost of inaction.

While this story line describes the wave of mass shootings we’ve witnessed recently, it also summarizes another tragedy, described in an investigative report released, coincidentally, just days before the Uvalde massacre. In this case, the violence was perpetrated by ministers, the victims were members of their flock, and the leaders were senior officials in the nation’s second-largest Christian denomination, the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC).

Released on May 22, the report details the findings of an independent investigation into how the SBC dealt with sexual abuse within its ranks over the past two decades. Though the report focuses on a single religious group, there are lessons here for all of us, Baptist and non-Baptist, religious and non-religious.

It’s a damning report. Investigators found that from 2000 to 2021, those reporting…

The first six months of 2002 marked a watershed in how sexual abuse of children and the Catholic Church were seen in the United States, as well as an inflection point for how the Church responded to allegations of abuse against priests.

With the passage of the Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops in June of that year, the bishops established national norms to hold dioceses accountable for protecting children and ministering to people who had been harmed.

The charter, which has been updated three times since 2002 and will be reviewed for a fourth update next year, starts with an apology to victims. Its 17 articles discuss how parishes should promote the healing of and reconciliation with survivors of clerical sexual abuse, respond effectively to allegations, ensure accountability and try to create a safe environment “to protect the…

An unnamed 28-year-old woman is suing two former Boston Archdiocesan Auxiliary bishops, claiming they neglected to supervise one of All Saints Roman Catholic Church’s now-defrocked priests — the Rev. Kelvin Iguabita-Rodriguez — and allowed him to sexually abuse her for years.

The complaint was formally filed last month by Boston attorney Mitchell Garabedian, who represents the woman who claims she was sexually abused by Iguabita-Rodriguez when she was between 5 and 7 years old.

Garabedian announced the lawsuit Thursday morning, via Zoom, on the sidewalk in the shadow of the Haverhill church. He was joined by Robert Hoatson, a former priest who now advocates for survivors of sexual abuse through the New Jersey non-profit charity, Road to Recovery.

According to the Archdiocese of Boston’s records, Iguabita-Rodriguez was assigned to the All Saints Roman Catholic Church as a parish priest – one who assists the parish’s pastor — from June 1999…

[VIDEO: Paul Neyer, 43, stands before the Senate Judiciary Committee to testify about being raped as a child by a local music director who later became a priest. Ohio lawmakers are considering a bill that would change the statute of limitations for victims of child rape. (The Ohio Channel)]

A local man who was raped as a child by a church organist, who later became a priest, came forward publicly to work to change child rape laws in Ohio.

Paul Neyer was raped by Geoff Drew when Drew was the music minister at St. Jude in Green Township. Drew has since pleaded guilty to nine counts of rape.

On Tuesday, Neyer held up a picture of himself as an 8-year-old boy when he spoke before the Ohio Senate Judiciary Committee. He was one of three rape survivors to testify about Senate Bill 226.

Neyer…

“La Croix” survey shows many episcopal conferences around the world have still not implemented sex-abuse protocols Pope Francis issued three years ago

It’s been three years since Pope Francis issued strong directives to get the entire Church to address the issue of sexual abuse of minors and vulnerable people.

And what has been the result?

La Croix carried out a vast survey of all the bishops’ conferences in the world in order to find out.

We asked them a dozen questions about how they have applied the provision found in the “motu proprio” Vos estis lux mundi, which the pope promulgated on May 9, 2019.

This apostolic letter is particularly suitable for a global analysis since it states “that procedures be universally adopted to prevent and combat these crimes that betray the trust of the faithful”.

It also calls for a concrete and easily measurable step: the creation, within a…

Though KVUE identified five cases within our viewing area, there could be more due to parts of the list being redacted.

 At least five Austin-area pastors and teachers were named among the hundreds of Baptist leaders accused or found guilty of sexual abuse of children, according to a 205-page document released by the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC).

The convention released the list last week, which includes cases between 2000 to 2019.

The list was released in response to an independent investigation by Guidepost Solutions LLC, which concluded SBC leaders failed the public and its community by mishandling sexual abuse cases and mistreated victims and survivors, according to their report.

SBC released a statement regarding why its leaders made the decision to release their internal list:

“This list is being made public for the first time as an initial, but important,…

The popular YouTube priest said he was ‘overjoyed and humbled’ to learn of the appointment.

Pope Francis has appointed a Los Angeles bishop to lead a southern Minnesota diocese.

The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops announced Thursday that Francis has appointed Bishop Robert E. Barron to lead the Diocese of Winona-Rochester. Barron has served as auxiliary bishop of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles for the last seven years and regularly posts YouTube videos.

He will replace 76-year-old Bishop John Quinn, who has decided to resign.

The Diocese of Winona-Rochester covers 12,282 square miles. Nearly 600,000 people reside in the diocese. About 134,000 of them are Catholics. The diocese filed for bankruptcy in 2018 and announced a $21.5 million settlement with 145 survivors of clergy sexual abuse last year.

Barron issued a statement on his Word on Fire website saying he will take over in Minnesota on July 29. He said…

She didn’t immediately call police after an 18-year-old told her he’d been molested by Richard Kearney, according to a just-settled lawsuit that also says Bishop Frank Griswold’s office ignored other suspicions about the predator priest.

In 1990, a youth minister at an Episcopal church in La Grange was concerned about one of the teenagers who frequented the parish — an 18-year-old who’d been living out of a car, “acting strange and doing a lot of drugs.”

She confronted him, and he shared a secret: He’d been sexually abused for years as a boy. His abuser was Richard Kearney, an Episcopal priest who ran his childhood parish in Oregon, Illinois, before moving to a congregation in Waukegan.

“I told her I didn’t know why I was acting the way I was,” the man later said, according to court records. “I was hurting a lot, and I told her about the abuse….

W debacie publicznej na temat wykorzystywania seksualnego małoletniego przez niektórych duchownych bardzo często – i słusznie – powraca wątek praw przysługujących osobom pokrzywdzonym. Na plan pierwszy wysuwa się fakt, że w postępowaniu kościelnym pokrzywdzony nie jest traktowany jako strona – poza zgłoszeniem faktu wykorzystania nie ma później np. wglądu w materiały dochodzenia.

Być może z tego właśnie powodu powstaje przekonanie, że poszkodowany pozbawiony jest jakichkolwiek praw. Nie jest to jednak prawdą, bo pewne prawa jednak poszkodowanym przysługują. Nie są one jednak skatalogowane w jednym miejscu i trzeba ich szukać w co najmniej sześciu dokumentach, w których podnoszone są sprawy wykorzystywania. Prawdopodobnie jest to kolejna przyczyna, dla której powszechnie uważa się, że poszkodowanemu żadne prawo nie przysługuje. Wydaje się, że dla przejrzystości procesów Kościół winien tę sprawę uregulować. Zanim się to jednak stanie, trochę wody w Tybrze i Wiśle upłynie.

Jednym z praw osoby poszkodowanej jest prawo do informacji…

• “Si ponerse las pilas es haber creado las oficinas diocesanas para atender las denuncias por abusos, pues entonces sí se ha hecho, pero en la mayoría de los casos porque había la obligación de notificarlo a la Santa Sede antes de un año”, señala un canonista
• “El ‘motu proprio’ está produciendo un crecimiento exponencial de las denuncias, la gente se ha acercado a presentar su informe, a ser acogida y escuchada”
• “Cada vez hay más gente al frente de estas oficinas antiabuso con muchas ganas de trabajar, pero también se detecta que faltan medios humanos, económicos y de formación”
• Tres años después, hay países en donde ni se han creado las oficinas antiabuso y ni siquiera se han traducido las disposiciones emanadas de la carta apostólica del Papa

Este 1 de junio finaliza el trienio de vigencia ad experimentum de las normas decretadas por el papa Francisco en la carta apostólica en forma de motu…

Please join us on June 4, in person or on Zoom!

A day of discussion, fellowship, and looking ahead.

Guest interviewers: Margery Eagan and Jim Braude of 89.7 GBH’s “Boston Public Radio”

SPEAKERS INCLUDE:

• David Clohessy, former SNAP nat’l director
• Tom Doyle, whistleblower priest
• Mitchell Garabedian, Esq.
• Professor Marci Hamilton, Child USA
• Robert Hoatson, Road to Recovery
• Ann Hagan Webb, SNAP
• Kathy Dwyer, STTOP
• Anne Barrett Doyle, BishopAccountability
• Terry McKiernan, BishopAccountability

SCROLL DOWN TO SEE SCHEDULE AND EASY REGISTRATION INSTRUCTIONS

WHEN
Saturday – June 4, 2022 – 9:00-4:00 In-person and remote (ZOOM)

WHERE
Marriott Boston-Quincy Hotel
1000 Marriott Dr, Quincy MA

• The Marriott Boston-Quincy Hotel is convenient from Logan and public transportation (Red Line).
• Free parking.
• Box lunches served to registered attendees.

TO REGISTER
Just email Ruth at mooreruth01@gmail.com
Zoom attendees will be emailed log-in info Thursday evening and again on Friday night

Registration required for both in-person ($20) and ZOOM (free) attendees.
Registration fee waived if requested.

Schedule for June 4 conference View Cache

Indigenous leaders met with Canadian bishops on Wednesday and were told Pope Francis won’t add more stops, as they requested, to his trip to Canada, where he will apologize in person for the abuse suffered by Indigenous people at the hands of the Catholic church.

Pope Francis, who has been using a wheelchair because of a bad knee, will head to Canada on July 24 and visit Alberta, Quebec and Iqaluit, a small town in the far north. The pope leaves on July 29.

“Three locations were picked. The survivors had no say in that. We weren’t asked,” said Ken Young, a former regional chief of the Assembly of First Nations in Manitoba.

“We asked the bishops if that could change to include other venues, perhaps Kamloops, and that answer was no.”

Richard Smith, the archbishop of Edmonton, said the Vatican made it clear the trip had to be short,…

Archives will be transferred to Royal B.C. Museum and some will be digitized

Records that could offer insight into some residential schools in British Columbia are being handed over to the Royal B.C. Museum. 

Archives from the Sisters of Saint Ann, which include information about day schools, residential schools, hospitals and more, will be transferred to the museum. The religious group will also fully fund an archivist at the museum to manage those archives. 

The museum says they also plan to digitize the records — or at least those that can be digitized. Some of the content date back to as far as 1858 and may be too delicate to handle. 

“Transparent access to comprehensive residential school records is essential to truth and reconciliation efforts,” museum CEO Alicia Dubois said in a media release.

The Sisters of Saint Ann was founded in Quebec in 1850, and moved to the west eight years later….

Residential school survivors say they hope the Pope’s visit to Canada next month will include a direct apology for the Roman Catholic Church’s role in running the institutions.

Members of the National Indian Residential School Circle of Survivors hosted three days of meetings to discuss what they expect from the visit and reconciliation with the church.

On Wednesday, survivors met with three Roman Catholic bishops to share their wishes.

“I expect the Pope to apologize on behalf of the Catholic Church in the right way,” said Ken Young, a former Assembly of First Nations regional chief for Manitoba.

“There has to be some recognition that the (Catholic) Church is responsible for what happened. The Pope can represent that responsibility in a statement that says that.”

Pope Francis is to stop in Alberta, Quebec and Nunavut. The capital cities of Edmonton, Quebec City and Iqaluit are to act…

I am a practicing Southern Baptist, and the dereliction of duty from SBC leadership over time has polluted the church’s ability to advance the gospel.

• USA TODAY Network Tennessee Columnist Cameron Smith is a Memphis-born, Brentwood-raised recovering political attorney raising three boys in Nolensville, Tennessee.
• Liability concerns tragically took the place of preserving the integrity of the SBC and its fellowship of churches.
• Dissolving the SBC as currently structured may be the only remedy.
• Individual churches making smart decisions are critically important, but the structural issues at the SBC remain.

According to a top lawyer for the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC), allegations of sexual abuse by church leaders represented a “satanic scheme to completely distract us from evangelism.”

The diversion from the gospel is real, but the SBC’s wholly inadequate response to sexual abuse within its ranks is the culprit. Dissolving the SBC as currently structured may be the…

America’s Catholic bishops also employed a self-serving standard, deeming nearly all sex-abuse claims credible.

Southern Baptists received a warning in 2007 from Fr. Thomas Doyle, a priest who had spent years drawing attention to claims of clergy sex abuse in the Catholic Church. In a letter to the president of the Southern Baptist Convention, Fr. Doyle warned that the denomination was headed for a similar reckoning—unless it acted quickly. Inaction would lead to the same “incredible harm to your Church that the Catholic Church did not avoid.”

Fr. Doyle’s warning went unheeded, a fact that Southern Baptist leaders must now regret. Last week a 288-page report on sex abuse commissioned by the convention charged its leaders with myriad failures over the past 20 years. Among other things, the report faults the convention’s leadership for dismissing Fr. Doyle’s invitation to “learn from Catholic mistakes.”

This is ironic….

A list of sexual abusers released late last week by the Southern Baptist Convention includes the names of three men with Wisconsin ties.

The three men, all former pastors, were charged with, or convicted of, crimes related to child sexual abuse.

The list, which includes over 700 names of abusers, includes about 400 believed to be affiliated with the Southern Baptist Convention. 

All three Wisconsin men were affiliated with the Baptist tradition, but none of their churches were specifically Southern Baptist in denomination.

Southern Baptist leaders released the previously secret list in response to a bombshell report from independent investigator Guidepost Solutions, which detailed how the Southern Baptist Convention’s Executive Committee mishandled allegations of sex abuse, stonewalled numerous survivors and prioritized protecting the denomination from liability.

The report revealed the existence of the 205-page list of abusers. Top leaders knew of the list…

The chairman of the Board of Trustees and president of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary jointly published today an open letter to the seminary community that includes a list of 13 individuals who were previously students and/or staff of the institution and who appear on a larger list of persons arrested or credibly charged with sexual abuse or sexual assault maintained by the Executive Committee of the Southern Baptist Convention, which was previously unknown until its release last week following an independent investigation.

All the individuals on the list released today were students and/or employees before 2018.

“Immediately after” the SBC Executive Committee list with more than 700 names was released, seminary leadership reviewed the information to “determine whether there were individuals on the list who have any current or past relationship with the institution,” wrote Board Chair Danny Roberts and President Adam W. Greenway in the open letter,…

Organization’s former highest-paid employee was accused of sexual misconduct outside of work

Frustrated by poor communication and a workplace culture they say has been warped by secrecy and hypermasculinity, at least a half-dozen Word on Fire employees in recent months have resigned from the Catholic outlet founded by Los Angeles Auxiliary Bishop Robert Barron.

Those who remain at the Illinois-based multimedia nonprofit are working in an environment that a few recently departed workers described to NCR as beset by low morale, damaged trust and a “boys’ club” culture that made some female employees uncomfortable and others unwilling to raise concerns to leadership.

“To put it bluntly, I do not feel that if I had been one of the victims, I would have been protected in any way,” said a former staff member, who left Word on Fire after working there for about a year.

The former employee, one of several…

Southern Baptist leaders on Thursday released a list of alleged sex offenders connected to the church that had previously been kept secret.

The list was made public following a third-party investigation indicating leaders of the church ignored people who came forward with stories of abuse.

Within the 203-page list of alleged sex offenders were two pastors from the Mississippi Coast convicted of sex crimes, along with one from Slidell and one from New Orleans.

In 2016, Carlos Smith was a pastor for Unity Baptist Church in Wiggins and was convicted of sexual battery of a girl at the church he led.

The girl, a relative of the Saucier man, was 11 when the abuse began in 2011 and continued for three years.

David Mathew Thorne, a youth pastor from Goodyear Baptist Church in Picayune, pleaded guilty to one count of sexual battery and one count of touching a…

A once-secret list of hundreds of pastors and other church personnel accused of sexual abuse has been released to the public by the Southern Baptist convention.

The database was released by the Southern Baptist Convention’s Executive Committee following an investigation by Guidepost Solutions into allegations that the committee mishandled reports of abuse and mistreated survivors. 

The list released by the committee includes a case in Murphysboro, Illinois. According to the database, a man named Russell Bryant attended Elm Street Baptist Church in 2005. The database entry says the church knew Bryant was a registered sex offender, but didn’t believe he was in violation.

Bryant was charged in 2001 with sexually assaulting a girl between the ages of 13 and 16. He later pleaded guilty to that charge. Then, in 2005, the database entry says Bryant was charged with violating a law that prohibits registered sex offenders…

An online event to inform and raise awareness about protecting minors and vulnerable people from sexual abuse was organized by MAGIS Thailand, a Catholic youth group committed to applying Ignatian spirituality in their daily lives.

Angela Rinaldi, a lecturer at the Institute of Anthropology: Interdisciplinary Studies on Human Dignity and Care (IADC), previously the Center for Child Protection (CCP), at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome, was invited to be the keynote speaker at the May 27 event.

The focus was the sexual abuse and abuse of power within the Catholic Church, with several participants from Singapore and the Philippines joining their counterparts from Thailand during the Zoom conference.

Kittiya Wu, a programmer in her thirties from Bangkok, said: “We bear the same cross. Therefore, we must care for and help restore the Church’s credibility among Catholics as well as non-believers.”

Natthanon Nakro, a 25-year-old college student…

Summary: Another word of Jesus’ the SBC’s leaders forgot, as the Catholic bishops did before them: “Whoso shall offend one of these little ones which believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea.”

While the Catholic Church has spent much of the last three decades wrestling with deeply painful revelations of priestly sexual abuse and the bishops’ callous disregard for the people in their care, many American Protestant denominations self-righteously wagged fingers at the Catholic hierarchy for tolerating pedophile priests when they knew they had a problem.

“How can you help your brother remove the speck from his eye when you stagger along with a log in your own eyes?” Jesus asked. Those in the Southern Baptist Convention, the nation’s largest denomination, should have taken these words to heart.

A recent…

In response to an explosive investigation, top Southern Baptists have released a previously secret list of hundreds of pastors and other church-affiliated personnel accused of sexual abuse. 

The 205-page database was made public late Thursday. It includes more than 700 entries from cases that largely span from 2000 to 2019 within the largest Protestant denomination in the country.

REVIEW: Database of sex abuse allegations

Its existence became widely known Sunday when the independent firm, Guidepost Solutions, included it in its bombshell report detailing how the Southern Baptist Convention’s Executive Committee mishandled allegations of sex abuse, stonewalled numerous survivors and prioritized protecting the SBC from liability.

Executive Committee leaders Rolland Slade and Willie McLaurin, in a joint statement, called publishing the list “an initial, but important, step towards addressing the scourge of sexual abuse and implementing reform in the Convention.”

“Each entry…