ABUSE TRACKER

As New Jersey’s governor weighs the nomination of a new state attorney general, an ongoing investigation in the attorney general’s office has delayed the release of information about the activities of disgraced former cardinal Theodore McCarrick.

But with appointment of a new attorney general, it is possible the investigation could come to a close, allowing New Jersey bishops to release diocesan records on McCarrick.

“Under the leadership of Acting Attorney General Andrew J. Bruck, the New Jersey Clergy Abuse Task Force remains active and committed to seeking justice for victims of sexual abuse by members of the clergy in New Jersey,” a spokesman in the state’s attorney general’s office told The Pillar Friday.

A New Jersey clergy abuse task force was formed in 2018, in the wake of the sexual abuse scandal of former cardinal McCarrick, who was that year accused of sexually abusing minors, and of sexually harassing and coercing seminarians…

View Cache

Thomas Reardon, a former Roman Catholic priest in the Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph who over the years was named in more than two dozen child sexual abuse lawsuits, was found dead Sunday in a south Kansas City senior living facility.

Kansas City police told The Star that officers were dispatched with EMS personnel to Brookdale Wornall Place at 501 W. 107th St. on a dead body call just after noon Sunday. Upon arrival, they contacted employees who told them the deceased person was Reardon, a resident. No foul play was suspected, police said.

Reardon, 80, was ordained in 1967 and resigned from the priesthood in 1989. Decades later, he was laicized, or removed from the priesthood. In 2019, he was among 24 priests whose names Bishop James V. Johnston Jr. released as those who had been credibly accused of sexual abuse of minors. Johnston called the abuse…

View Cache

A week into the year-long independent anti-abuse commission convened by the Catholic Church in Portugal, 102 allegations had been made.

In a statement released to the Lusa Portuguese news agency, child psychiatrist Pedro Strecht, the coordinator of the independent abuse commission, said that the 102 testimonies received thus far, contain “moments of deep pain and suffering.”

The testimonies were received either online or via phone call.

The Independent Commission for the Study of Sexual Abuse in the Portuguese Catholic Church is collecting complaints from victims of cases that have occurred since 1950, which may be referred to the police. 

According to the coordinator, there are statements from people aged between 30 and 80, “all abused as children.” The commission has already set up face-to-face meetings with those who provided testimony.

Although it has received testimony from all over the country, as well as people who have emigrated, the commission says that “there…

View Cache

The first civil case has been filed under a Colorado law that took effect on the Jan. 1, 2022 allowing survivors can sue alleged perpetrators for cases going back to 1960. It was 1977, before and during a river rafting trip in which a then-teenage girl says she was sexually assaulted by a teacher from a private school.

“I immediately buried it. It was too overwhelming for me to handle at my age, and I didn’t tell anyone except a Catholic priest who I confessed it to,” Kate McPhee, now living in Vermont, told CBS4.

She was 15 years old back then. Now decades later she has filed a lawsuit against that teacher in Boulder District Court. CBS4 has not been able to reach him and are not naming him now.

She claims she suffered “pattern of sexual misconduct involving alcohol, drugs and massages.”

Recalling the incident, McPhee says, has been…

View Cache

Concerned Lay Catholics organization working with Recovery Speaking Initiative to amplify voices of clergy abuse victims

Church must address wounded souls

Re: Victim awarded $1 million in lawsuit against ex-priest Donald Grecco and diocese, Jan. 5

Concerned Lay Catholics is pleased to hear of the recent settlement of $1 million awarded to a survivor by the Diocese of St. Catharines. Settlements are very important. They provide survivors with resources to deal with the lifelong impact of the trauma that results from sexual abuse.

Settlements, however, are only one component of a comprehensive pastoral response needed by the church. The abuse of an individual is not an isolated event but always happens within the context of a community.

In addition to financial settlements, as a church we need to address the wounded souls and broken relationships individuals suffer along with their families, parishes and spiritual communities.

Recently Pope Francis announced an…

View Cache

[Via the Catholic Telegraph of the Archdiocese of Cincinnati]

Pope emeritus Benedict XVI served as pope from 2005 to 2013. He was born Joseph Ratzinger on April 16, 1927, at Marktl in the German state of Bavaria. He turns 95 soon.

There is lots to know about this man who became a priest, archbishop, a cardinal, and even a former pope.

He is fond of cats, pianos, and Mozart.

When he was a cardinal living in Rome, he would prepare plates of food for stray cats. If friendly cats near his Vatican offices were hurt, he would bandage their wounds.

As of 2005, the year he became pope, Benedict had a black-and-white short-haired cat named Chico living at his home in Bavaria.

When he moved to live in the Vatican apartments, he still had to follow the rules: no cats or dogs allowed.

His other…

View Cache

A diocese in Poland wanted to question the victim about his sexuality after he sued for damages

A Catholic diocese in Poland has been condemned after asking a court to determine whether an alter boy derived “pleasure” from a priest sexually abusing him.

Catholics in the country have criticized the diocese of Bielsko-Zywiec for trying to call an expert to determine whether the victim was gay and “showed satisfaction” in the abuse, which they deemed a “relationship.”

Janusz Szymik, 48, was abused by a priest — identified in court documents as Fr. Jan W. — for five years in the 1980s, starting when Szymik was a 12-year-old altar boy.

A Catholic Church investigation in 2015 found Jan W. guilty of abusing Szymik, banning him from his priestly duties for five years and requiring him to isolate from others.

Szymik later filed a civil suit against the diocese, seeking 3 million…

View Cache

[Includes video interview with King about her immigration stories.]

Danae King serves as the faith and values and immigration reporter at The Dispatch.

Why I became a journalist

From a young age, I’ve loved a good story. I read everything I could get my hands on. Eventually my love of reading turned into a love of writing and, coupled with my natural curiosity, a desire to be the person telling the stories, not just reading them.

As I started to find every opportunity to write, I began to realize my love for journalism went beyond telling stories and became more about making sure the truth is told. For me, journalism is about ensuring that someone is watching those in power, raising consciousness about injustices against those without power and getting the chance to educate people about things they may never otherwise hear or know about. 

Danae’s work: ‘There’s no…

View Cache

The Indian Church must bring in a new approach to victim support and transparency in procedures to combat the clergy abuse of minors and vulnerable adults.

On December 29, a special judge of a court set up under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act convicted Roman Catholic priest Lawrence Johnson for sexually assaulting a minor boy.

The case highlights how church authorities failed to follow both the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act and rules set by the state and church Canon Law for victim protection.

Human rights activists and women’s rights organisations within the Catholic community have criticised the manner in which the rights of victims are routinely negated and abusers are shielded or supported on the pretext of “maintaining neutrality” or that the matter is sub judice.

That was also evident when a sessions court in Kerala’s Kottayam on January 14 acquitted Bishop…

View Cache

[Includes English-language background video.]

Bishop Franco Mulakkal was found not guilty on charges of rape. But now the Kerala Catholic Church has been left seriously divided, with some asking whether the church has too much power.

A Catholic bishop in India who had been accused of raping a nun multiple times over a period of two years was acquitted by a court in Kottayam, Kerala, last week.

Bishop Franco Mulakkal, who worked in the diocese of Jalandhar, was accused of carrying out the rapes from 2014 to 2016. The case sparked outrage and large protests in the southern state of Kerala. The ruling has left many members of the clergy questioning the power of the church in the state and how the church can move forward while deep divisions remain.

What did the judge say?

The victim said she went to the police only after complaining repeatedly to church authorities. Mulakkal was…

View Cache

Protection agency says many crimes still covered up, govt claims efforts to have cases reported are working

Sexual violence committed against children in Indonesia almost tripled in 2021, but true figures remain elusive because of a tendency not to report such crimes and cover them up, according to an agency dedicated to protecting victims.

The Witness and Victim Protection Agency (LPKS) said it recorded 288 complaints last year, a sharp increase on the 107 recorded in 2020.  

“At least 65.7 percent of these 288 incidents took place in schools,” Edwin Partogi Pasaribu, an agency spokesman, said on Jan. 16. 

He said the true figure was likely very much higher as many people do not come forward to report such acts while attempts are often made by institutions to cover them up.

However, the jump in reported cases showed that efforts to get people to come forward were beginning to…

View Cache

THERE has been a mixed response to a new law giving Irish adoptees and their relatives automatic access to their birth records.

The Birth Information and Tracing Bill, announced by Government on Wednesday, and currently making its way through the dáil, will establish a free tracing service for adoptees and their relatives.

In theory, the service will provide unrestrained access to birth certificates, medical records, and other information pertaining to an adoptee’s formative years.

But it’s not as simple as that.

For a start, not all files are accessible.

Tuam Babies Family Group founder Anna Corrigan’s two brothers, William and John, were supposed to have died in Tuam mother and babies home as infants in the early 1950’s.

Anna’s mother Bridget Dolan, a resident of Tuam for some years, kept this a secret throughout her life, and so Anna only found out about her brothers when she was in her…

View Cache

In its 2021 report titled, “The University Commission on Gonzaga’s Response to the Catholic Sexual Abuse Crisis,” the Jesuit-affiliated university described its newfound respect for survivors of sexual assault committed by priests. It proclaims that “reconciliation” with victims of clergy sex abuse “is only made possible with the establishment of justice, which requires actively seeking to dismantle systems of domination, abuse, and harm and building up new systems in their place.” It further opines that, “those who have been sexually abused and the broader communities harmed by such abuse are among those whose dignity has been violated,” and that “walking with those whose dignity has been violated requires action.”

Action. As a recent visitor to Gonzaga University and Saint Aloysius Catholic Church on its campus, I wonder if that might include publicly praying for predator priests who decimated Alaska Native children, perhaps not expecting a visit from an Alaskan.

I recently…

View Cache

Given their failure to protect children, their stance on the Maine ERA bill or any other subject should not have the weight that it does.

Here we go again. The Roman Catholic Diocese of Portland has come out with their objections to the Equal Rights Amendment (L.D. 344) passing in the Maine Legislature. Many, if not all, of their arguments are absurd.

These objections come from a church that – in 2022! – relegates women to mere lower-level functionaries within its own structure. Are they still living in 1522?

What gives me pause, though, is the power this institution has in our public discourse.

Other than the Boy Scouts of America, I know of no other institution that, under its watch, has failed so completely to protect children from sexual abuse and then denied and covered it up.

Why the Catholic Church carries…

View Cache

Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI has provided extensive answers—in all totaling 82 pages—to lawyers’ questions concerning sexual abuse cases in the Munich archdiocese, the mass-circulation newspaper Bild reported Friday. The lawyers’ queries were part of their investigation for a tensely awaited experts’ report set to be unveiled next Thursday.

“He welcomes the reappraisal in Munich as well as the publication of the report,” the newspaper cited Benedict’s private secretary, Archbishop Georg Gaenswein, as saying. Archbishop Gaenswein added that the former pope had taken the fate of the abuse victims “very much to heart.”

According to the newspaper, the experts’ report, which is also being keenly-awaited internationally, will be comprehensive. The research conducted by the Munich law office Westpfahl Spilker Wastl (WSW) at the behest of the archdiocese will take up 350 pages alone about one of the most prominent cases, that of a repeat-offender priest identified only as “Peter H.” In…

View Cache

At a press conference in Rome following their meeting with Pope Francis, the Spanish bishops said that a national newspaper that collected 251 allegations of sexual abuse involving the Catholic Church did a “service.”

“Sometimes we have not communicated well,” said Cardinal Juan Jose Omella, Archbishop of Barcelona and president of the Spanish bishops, on Friday. “El Pais has done a service, we received it and people [at diocesan level] have taken advantage of it, and we are grateful.”

“We open the way to approach the victims with dignity and with respect always to them, who have suffered. We have to look at the victims, look to the future and be proactive, to solve [the crisis] and get closer [to survivors],” Omella said.

He also said that he hopes to bring to light the abuses perpetrated by members of the Spanish clergy and by religious and lay people in Church-related settings,…

View Cache

Lawyers for Prince Andrew and Virginia Giuffre have filed their initial requests for witnesses in her lawsuit accusing the British royal of sexually abusing her at age 17.

Recently released documents show that the prince’s legal team is seeking witness accounts from her husband, Robert Giuffre, and her psychologist, Judith Lightfoot, as part of the civil case filed in the U.S.

Giuffre’s lawyers, meanwhile, are seeking witness accounts from the prince’s former assistant and a woman who claims to have seen him at a London nightclub with her during the time in question.

The lawsuit cleared a hurdle after a judge earlier this week refused Andrew’s request to have it dismissed.

Giuffre sued Andrew, 61, in August, saying she was coerced into sexual encounters with him in 2001 by Epstein and his longtime companion, Ghislaine Maxwell. Giuffre said she was sexually abused by Andrew at Maxwell’s London home, at Epstein’s…

View Cache

An executive with Boy Scouts of America was arrested in Florida on Friday after multiple allegations of child sexual abuse came to light.

John Bruce Larsen, 52, was taken into police custody in Volusia County and charged with two counts of sexual battery on a child less than 12 years of age, two counts of sexual battery on a child older than 12 but younger than 18, and four counts of lewd molestation for children under 12. He previously served as a district executive for the Boy Scouts’ Central Florida chapter.

Larsen is accused of sexually abusing at least three underage boys over an undetermined period of time. The allegations were relayed to local detectives in interviews carried out with the boys, according to an arrest report obtained by local news outlet WESH. Due to the heavily redacted content of the report, it is unknown if any of the victims…

View Cache

A Morgan County man and former practicing minister was sentenced to 10 years for the crime of child molestation.

William Bruce McDaniel, 74, was sentenced Monday in Morgan County Superior Court II. Under the terms of his plea agreement, he will be required to serve five years in prison plus five years of probation. If he violates the terms of his probation, the judge can order him to serve out the rest of his probation in prison.

He is also required to register as a sex offender in the state of Indiana and was ordered to have no contact with the victim for the next 10 years.

The Morgan County Sheriff’s Office filed charges against McDaniel in September 2020 alleging he molested a young girl at his South Vickery home between 2013 and 2017. Authorities learned of McDaniel’s actions after a family member came forward to report…

View Cache

The University of Notre Dame in Indiana and Georgetown University in Washington are among a group of some 16 private educational institutions named in a lawsuit alleging a conspiracy to fix student financial aid distribution formulas among them.

The effect of the financial aid policies, according to a lawsuit filed Jan. 9 in federal court in Chicago, has been to unlawfully manipulate the way those universities calculate financial need, and in some cases favor potential students who are children of wealthy donors.

Defendants are private national universities that have long been in the top 25 of the U.S. News & World Report rankings for such schools, notes the lawsuit.

“These elite institutions occupy a place of privilege and importance in American society. And yet these same defendants, by their own admission, have participated in a price-fixing cartel that is designed to reduce or eliminate financial aid as a locus of…

View Cache

A former pastor from the Central Valley was sentenced Friday in a Tulare County child molestation case, the county district attorney announced Tuesday.

On Friday, Gustavo Zamora, 69 of Lindsay, was sentenced to 25 years-to-life in prison for child molestation, according to a release from the Tulare County District Attorney’s office. Zamora, a former pastor once associated with a Lindsay church, was arrested in May 2020 after victims said he molested them when they were children, according to the Tulare County Sheriff’s Office.

In Oct. 2021, Zamora pleaded no contest to charges of “lewd acts upon a child under the age of fourteen.” Additionally, Zamora admitted that the crimes occurred against more than one victim, a special allegation.

According to court documents, the crimes took place between Jan. 12, 1984 and July 12, 2000 against five female victims between the ages of four and 14.

“Between 1984 and 2000, Zamora…

View Cache

The victims of a former Tulare County pastor learned their abuser will most likely die in prison. 

Gustavo Zamora, 69, of Lindsay, was sentenced to 25 years-to-life in prison for child molestation. On Oct. 1, Zamora pleaded no contest to six counts of lewd acts upon a child under the age of 14 and admitted that the crimes occurred against more than one victim — increasing his sentence.

The crimes also involved “substantial sexual conduct,” prosecutors said. Each count is a felony and are considered strike under the state’s Three Strikes law.

“While it may be difficult for some to process such news, especially regarding someone in a position of trust, the bravery of these victims to come forward cannot be understated,” District Attorney Tim Ward said. “Their courage should be an example to anyone who has suffered such abuse.”

The crimes took place between 1984 and 2000, against five girls between 4 and…

View Cache

Leading Egyptian businessman and media tycoon Mohamed Al-Amin was arrested last weekend by authorities, facing charges of human trafficking and sexually assaulting minor females for years.

The arrest was announced by the Ministry of Social Solidarity in a statement posted on Facebook, in which they pledged to hold any individual accountable for such violations, regardless of any considerations.

Sources have reported that the National Council For Childhood and Motherhood had received a complaint from a Beni Suef-based orphanage owned by the businessman last December, highlighting that he was frequently harassing and possibly raping young girls in the establishment throughout the years. 

The National Council For Childhood and Motherhood then briefed the Public Prosecutor’s Office of the complaint, after which investigations were being conducted secretly by authorities before the recent decision to arrest him from his household in the 5th Settlement district in Cairo.

Investigations and medical examinations have so far revealed that several female…

View Cache

Mohamed al-Amin’s alleged victims, all teenage girls, said he abused them in an orphanage he owned and in his holiday home

An Egyptian media tycoon with close ties to the government has been detained pending an investigation into allegations of sexual assault. The Egyptian public prosecution service says it is investigating reports that businessman Mohamed al-Amin sexually abused girls living in an orphanage that he owned and took them on trips to his holiday villa.

Amin, best known for establishing the pro-government CBC network in 2011, was arrested on Friday to be held for four days. The court decided to extend Amin’s pre-trial detention for a further 15 days in a hearing on Sunday where he told the court: “I never did anything wrong. I treated those girls like my own children.”

Allegations of sexual abuse at the Safe Hands Home for Girls were first made public in December by…

View Cache

Adopted people in the Republic of Ireland are set to get an automatic right under a new law to see their birth certificates for the first time.

Currently, adoptees must apply to the authorities to find out their identity at birth, but their parents can object and block the release of information.

But now “landmark legislation” has been published which would allow the “full and unredacted release” of birth information to adoptees aged over 16.

It also includes a new tracing service.

The provisions of the Birth Information and Tracing Bill were published by Minister for Children Roderic O’Gorman on Wednesday.

“For decades in this country, adopted people have been failed in being denied clear access to their identity information,” the minister said.

“With this bill, we are restoring to adopted people the information that so many of us take for granted as part of our own, personal stories.”

Mr…

View Cache

Ireland will allow adopted people automatic access to their birth records for the first time under new laws the government hopes will end a “historic wrong”, including for thousands sent for adoption in secret by Catholic institutions.

International laws say all children should be able to establish their identity but tens of thousands of adopted people in Ireland have no automatic right to their birth records or access to tracing services.

The legislation was published a year to the day since an inquiry found that thousands of infants died in Irish homes for unmarried mothers and their offspring mostly run by the Catholic Church from the 1920s to the 1990s. read more

Many infants were also taken from mothers and sent overseas to be adopted, that report, the latest in a series that have laid bare some of the Church’s worst abuses, found.

Children’s Minister Roderic O’Gorman said the new…

View Cache

A Catholic diocese in Poland apologized on Thursday for having asked a court to determine whether a man who was sexually abused as a child by a priest is gay, and whether the sexual contact may have consequently been pleasurable for him.

Following wide criticism, the Bielsko-Zywiec diocese said that its letter to the court should not have included questions about the victim’s sexuality or have suggested that he drew pleasure from contact with the priest. The diocese dispatched the letter in response to a lawsuit by the victim, Janusz Szymik.

“We apologize to Janusz and to all who have been scandalized” by the questions, the diocese said in a statement, vowing to change the letter’s wording.

Poland’s Catholic bishops had already strongly criticized the southern Polish diocese.

Szymik, who is now 48, was an altar boy when the abuse began in the 1980s. He sued the diocese in a…

View Cache

A Catholic diocese in Poland has apologized for asking the court whether a man who was sexually abused by a priest as a young boy was gay and whether he might have enjoyed the sexual encounters.

Janusz Szymik, 48, was an altar boy when the abuse began in the 1980s. Last year he sued the diocese of Bielsko-Zywiec, in southern Poland, in a civil court claiming that a priest in a local church had abused several boys, including him.

The priest, who has been identified only as Rev. Jan W., has admitted to the abuse.

Earlier this week, the Polish news portal Onet published some documents which had been submitted to the court by a lawyer for the church.

According to the documents, church officials wanted an expert “to check the plaintiff’s sexual orientation” and to determine whether he “showed satisfaction with maintaining an intimate relationship” with the man who abused…

View Cache

Already facing up to 24 years in prison for allegedly stealing thousands in Douglas County, Father Michael Gutgsell now faces another 20 years for a second suspected theft case, this one in Sarpy County.

More potential jail time for a once high-ranking Omaha priest charged in two separate theft cases and also linked to several other priests named in a recent state investigation of widespread sexual abuse by Catholic clergy. 

Already facing up to 24 years in prison for allegedly stealing thousands in Douglas County, Father Michael Gutgsell now faces another 20 years for a second suspected theft case, this one in Sarpy County.

The 73-year-old former Chancellor in the Omaha Archdiocese is accused of stealing $96,000 from Saint Joseph Church in Springfield, Gutgsell’s last church assignment.

Before that he was charged with raiding the bank account of another priest to the tune of at least $155,000.

As News Channel…

View Cache

Gutgsell is already facing felony charges of theft and theft by deception in Douglas County

The Rev. Michael Gutgsell, who served as Chancellor of the Archdiocese of Omaha for nine years, was charged Thursday with felony theft by deception in Sarpy County court.

Gutgsell is already facing felony charges of theft and theft by deception in Douglas County, accused of taking the savings of a retired priest and giving all of it and more to a man said to be homeless.

In Sarpy County, Gutgsell is accused of stealing more than $5,000 from St. Joseph Catholic Church in Springfield between October 2019 and July 2021.

In previous court appearances, Gutgsell’s attorney has said he gave $700,000 to the man over a period of eight years, including most of his own personal savings. Gutgsell has denied there was any attempt at extortion by the man instead saying he was…

View Cache

In the wake of a newspaper report revealing hundreds of allegations of sexual abuse in Spain, the country’s bishops assured Pope Francis that every diocese has established a commission that will investigate allegations of abuse.

Speaking with journalists Jan. 14, Spanish Cardinal Juan José Omella of Barcelona, president of the Spanish bishops’ conference, said there are no plans to establish a single independent commission, as in Germany, France or neighboring Portugal, to conduct a nationwide investigation of the handling of cases past and present.

Instead, individual dioceses will have their own independent commissions so that survivors can easily report to their local diocese.

“What is important is that we work for the good of the victims and that (sexual abuse) never happens again,” the cardinal said.

After spending more than two hours with Pope Francis at the end of their “ad limina” visit to the Vatican, Cardinal Omella, Cardinal Antonio…

View Cache

Clergy abuse victims asked the European Court of Human Rights on Thursday to make a definitive ruling on whether the Holy See can continue to avoid being held liable for sexual abuse committed by Catholic priests by claiming state immunity.

Lawyers for the victims asked the court’s Grand Chamber to hear the case, after a lower Chamber judgment in October agreed that the Vatican couldn’t be sued in a local Belgian court because it enjoys sovereign immunity. The lower judgment concurred with Belgian courts that had dismissed the case, also determining that the misconduct of priests can’t be attributed to the Holy See.

The 24 victims had argued the Holy See was indeed liable for their abuse because of the “structurally deficient” way the Catholic hierarchy had handled cases of priests who raped and molested children for decades, covering up the crimes rather than reporting them.

In the…

View Cache

Bishop Mulakkal, 57, has consistently denied the accusations, and claims he was falsely accused after he questioned alleged financial irregularities at the accuser’s convent.

A bishop charged with the repeated rape of a nun over the course of two years was acquitted by a court in India’s Kerala state on Friday.

Bishop Franco Mulakkal of Jullundur was cleared of the charges against him Jan. 14 in Kottayam.

The judge in the case found that “the prosecution failed to prove all the charges against the accused.”

Lawyers for the nun say they will appeal to the high court.

Bishop Mulakkal, 57, has consistently denied the accusations, and claims he was falsely accused after he questioned alleged financial irregularities at the accuser’s convent.

The bishop was arrested in September 2018 amid protests calling for a police investigation of the allegation. He was subsequently released on bail. The bishop was charged in April…

View Cache

After a trial of more than 100 days, the additional sessions court pronounced a single line verdict saying it had found him not guilty of the charges.

Bishop Franco Mulakkal, a former priest accused of raping a nun multiple times over two years in a case that sparked massive outrage and protests in Kerala, was acquitted by a court today.

Franco Mulakkal, 57, was the first Catholic bishop in India to go on trial for rape on the complaint of a nun. After a trial of more than 100 days, the additional sessions court pronounced a single line verdict saying it had found him not guilty of the charges.

He was seen exiting the court in Kottayam with a smile after the verdict.

In 2018, the nun from the Missionaries of Jesus congregation under the Jalandhar diocese had accused Bishop Franco of repeatedly raping her between 2014 and 2016 while…

View Cache

An Indian court has cleared a bishop accused of raping a nun between 2014 and 2016 in a case that had shocked one of the country’s oldest Christian communities.

Franco Mulakkal, 54, was arrested from the southern state of Kerala in 2018. He had denied the allegations.

The case sparked widespread protests after the nun alleged that the Catholic Church had ignored her complaints.

The Vatican had temporarily relieved the bishop of his duties.

On Friday, a trial court in Kottayam city of Kerala found him not guilty of the charges.

“The prosecution failed to prove all the charges against the accused,” said Kottayam Additional Sessions Judge (ASJ) G Gopakumar.

The nun’s lawyers said they would challenge the verdict in the high court.

But the bishop’s legal team said it had “shattered the entire evidence” against him.

“It is a hotly challenged case. It is bound to be taken…

View Cache

An Indian court has acquitted a Catholic bishop who was charged with raping a nun in a case that sparked widespread outrage and protests. Bishop Franco Mulakkal, 54, was acquitted by a court in the southern Indian state of Kerala on Friday, which said the prosecution had failed to prove any of the charges against him.

The nun, whose identity is protected under Indian law, had alleged that Mulakkal, who was the bishop of a diocese in Jalandhar in the northern state of Punjab at the time, raped her 13 times between 2014 and 2016 when he would visit the convent where she lived in southern state of Kerala. 

The convent, Missionaries of Jesus, is part of the Jalandhar diocese. The nun faced “harassment” and “threats” from the bishop for two years in a bid to keep her silent about the alleged rape, but she “finally gathered courage in 2016”…

View Cache

Following the acquittal in the nun rape case, a visibly relieved and emotional Bishop Franco Mulakkal burst into tears and said, “Praise the lord.”

A court in Kerala on Friday found Roman Catholic Bishop Franco Mulakkal ‘not guilty’ of the charges of raping a nun in a convent in the southern state.

A visibly relieved and emotional Bishop Mulakkal, who arrived in the court to hear the verdict, burst into tears, hugged his followers and lawyers, sharing his joy over the verdict. “Praise the lord,” he said.

The priest thanked the people who had stood by him during trying times, and quoted a proverb to describe his ordeal and subsequent vindication.

“I prayed for the judgement of God to come be the judgement of the court. I am a missionary who needs to show the world that there is god and god’s power. I got a chance to…

View Cache

Elsewhere in Germany, the investigation of a leading archdiocese’s expense accounts has been halted.

A leading Church expert on the prevention of sexual abuse has criticised the Pope’s response to the abuse crisis.

“From our point of view, that is from the point of view of western-European and Anglosaxon countries, far greater consistency is called for in demanding what laws already permit,” the director of the Institute of Anthropology. Interdisciplinary Studies on Human Dignity and Care (IADC) at the Gregorian in Rome, Fr Hans Zollner SJ, told the German weekly Welt am Sonntag on 2 January. 

According to Zollner, the Pope specifically could be far more decisive, guaranteeing greater legal security and give the victims the right to a place in procedural law in the Vatican, he pointed out.

While Francis belonged to a different generation and other church issues were more important for him, Francis was learning, Zollner said. “He himself…

View Cache

Spain’s Catholic Church is to set up local commissions to hear complaints from victims of abuse after holding talks with Pope Francis on Friday about allegations over eight decades detailed in a Spanish newspaper.

El Pais in December published the results of a three-year investigation it said uncovered potential abuse by 251 priests and some lay people from religious institutions against at least 1,237 victims between 1943 and 2018.

It said its correspondent gave a 385-page dossier to the pope on Dec. 2 while the papal entourage and journalists were flying from Rome to Cyprus.

Cardinal Juan Jose Omella, the president of Spain’s Bishops’ Conference, discussed sex abuse issues with him at the Vatican and said each diocese would set up a commission to receive accusations and then investigate.

They “will gather complaints, support those people who feel they have been harmed and prevent these things from happening again”, Omella…

View Cache

A Trial court in Kerala Friday acquitted Franco Mulakkal, the former Jalandhar Bishop of the Catholic Church, of all charges in the alleged rape of a nun in a high-profile case that had led to an unprecedented public protest in the state more than three years ago by other nuns in support of the complainant.

Mulakkal was present in the courtroom when Kottayam Additional Sessions Judge G Gopakumar pronounced the verdict. He later broke down in the corridor outside, hugged his lawyers, and told reporters before leaving the premises: “Daivathinu sthuthi’ (Praise the Lord).”

However, one of the nuns who had spearheaded the protest against Mulakkal, Sister Anupama, expressed disbelief at the verdict.

Speaking to reporters with tears in her eyes, she said: “We cannot believe this verdict. We will continue this fight until the day our fellow sister gets justice, even if it means we have to die. All the…

View Cache

An Indian court on Friday acquitted a Roman Catholic bishop of charges of raping a nun in her rural convent, a case that became a major issue amid allegations of sexual harassment in the church.

Sessions Judge G. Gopakumar in a brief order said the bishop was not guilty of charges that he repeatedly raped the nun between 2014 and 2016.

Bishop Franco Mulakkal was present in the court in Kottayam, a southern Indian city. Supporters cheered and chanted “Praise the Lord” as he left the court.

The detailed judgment is likely to become available later Friday.

The prosecution, representing the nun, will appeal the verdict, said lawyer Sandhya Raju.

Police charged Mulakkal with rape, illegal confinement and intimidation of the nun. She said she went to police only after complaining repeatedly to church authorities. Eventually, a group of fellow nuns launched unprecedented public protests to demand Mulakkal’s arrest in…

View Cache

The bishop, Franco Mulakkal, had been accused of repeatedly assaulting the nun in the southern state of Kerala over a two-year period.

A Catholic bishop who was accused of repeatedly raping a nun in southern India over a two-year period was acquitted on Friday, bringing an end for now to what appeared to be the country’s first case of its kind.

The bishop, Franco Mulakkal, who had been on trial since 2020, had consistently said he was innocent. “Praise the Lord,” he said after the verdict in the city of Kottayam in Kerala State.

The judge overseeing the trial, G. Gopakumar, said prosecutors had failed to prove their case, according to news reports. Investigating officers in Kerala said the ruling would be appealed to a higher court.

The case, believed to be the first in India in which a bishop was charged with raping a nun, highlighted…

View Cache

The presumption of innocence must also apply to Pope Benedict XVI over possible negligence, says Pree

As Germans await publication of a report on how leaders of the Archdiocese of Munich and Freising handled cases of historic abuse, a canon lawyer casts doubt on accusations against retired Pope Benedict XVI over possible negligence.

Helmuth Pree, a retired university professor, wrote in the weekly newspaper Die Zeit that the presumption of innocence must also apply to a pope. The German Catholic news agency KNA reported he was responding to media coverage about information said to be in the abuse report, due out Jan. 20.

Archbishop Joseph Ratzinger — now retired Pope Benedict — headed the Munich Archdiocese from 1977 to 1981.

KNA reported Pree expressed surprise at the media coverage of the case in early January. He criticized the assessments canon law professors Norbert Lüdecke and Bernhard Anuth had given in a joint interview….

View Cache

A Catholic church in Poland has asked a court to determine whether a Polish man who was sexually abused as a child by a priest is gay and whether the sexual contact may have been pleasurable for him.

The man, Janusz Szymik, who is now 48, was an altar boy when the abuse began in the 1980s. Szymik sued the diocese of Bielsko-Zywiec, in southern Poland, in a civil court last year.

The priest, who has been identified only as Rev. Jan W., admitted to the abuse. Szymik is now seeking 3 million zlotys ($760,000) in compensation from the diocese.

The Onet news portal earlier this week disclosed the contents of documents it obtained that were submitted to the courty by a lawyer for the church. The documents show the church wanting an expert “to check the plaintiff’s sexual orientation” and to determine whether he “showed satisfaction with maintaining an…

View Cache

CORDOBA, Argentina – For several years, a large number of the allegations of clerical sexual abuse that reach the Vatican have come from Latin America, where arguably, only Chile has fully grasped the scope of the crisis.

In Bolivia, for instance, the bishops conference only recently produced a set of abuse guidelines.

According to a 2015 report from the ombudsman office – the latest one available online – 23 percent of children in Bolivia suffer some form of sexual abuse before reaching the age of 18, and on average, 12 children are abused every day.

Susana Inch is a lawyer who works as a consultant for the bishops conference, specializing in sexual abuse.

“On the one hand, I am fortunate to work with bishops and priests who have made a commitment to this issue, which is not always easy,” she said, while acknowledging that simply “acting in the face of abuse”…

View Cache

Gary Berthiaume, a former priest, withdrew his guilty pleas after being sentenced to spend up to 15 years in prison on charges he sexually abused at least three boys.

Oakland County Circuit Judge Daniel O’Brien rejected his earlier sentencing agreement after learning the details of Berthiaume’s crimes. O’Brien found the one year and one day sentence offered by the Michigan Attorney General’s Office to be inappropriately short after hearing victim impact statements.

O’Brien sentenced Berthiaume, 80, to spend the next 20 months to 15 years in prison on Jan. 11.

On Nov. 21, 2021, Berthiaume entered pleas of “guilty” and “no contest” to two counts of second-degree criminal sexual conduct and to one count of gross indecency, respectively.

In Michigan, a defendant may enter a “Killebrew plea,” which is essentially a conditional guilty plea in exchange for a lighter sentence. This plea can be withdrawn if the judge sentences the…

View Cache

A Kerala court is set to deliver verdict in the nun rape case involving Bishop Franco Mulakkal. Here is a timeline on how Franco Mulakkal became the first Catholic bishop in India to be arrested for sexually assaulting a nun.

A Kerala court is set to deliver verdict in the nun rape case involving Bishop Franco Mulakkal. The bishop allegedly raped a nun at her convent several times between 2014 and 2016. Following a complaint, several nuns from the convent protested against the bishop levelling allegations of sexual assault.

Here is a timeline on how Franco Mulakkal became the first Catholic bishop in India to be arrested for sexually assaulting a nun.

June 29, 2018: Kuravilangad police register a case on the basis of a complaint filed by a nun against Bishop Franco Mulakkal of Jalandhar Diocese. According to the complaint the nun was raped several times by the bishop at…

View Cache

Franco Mulakkal was the first Indian Catholic bishop to be arrested in a case of sexual abuse against a nun in Kerala.

Ahead of Kerala special court’s verdict in the nun rape case, Sister Lucy, who was dismissed from her congregation for criticising Bishop Franco Mulakkal, said the judgment would be “victory over devil”. Mulakkal is an accused in the Kerala nun rape case. The special court is likely to deliver its verdict on Friday.

“Tomorrow’s sexual harassment case verdict would be a victory over devil,” Sister Lucy said.

Sister Lucy criticised the police and government saying that they did not “try enough” to ensure justice to all the nuns allegedly assaulted by Franco Mulakkal. She said she was targeted for speaking up against the bishop in the wake of sexual assault allegations.

“After I took a stand there was continuous torture. They have expelled me from…

View Cache

After decades of dealing with the boyhood trauma of being molested by a priest, Jim Bartko sued the Roman Catholic church two years ago.

But the lawsuit was dismissed when he died four days after speaking publicly about it.

A new law has now revived his case, allowing his estate to file for damages he could have sought for his suffering if he were still alive.

Lawyers for Bartko’s children filed the lawsuit last week in Alameda County Superior Court against the Oakland Diocese for allegedly failing to prevent abuse by the former Rev. Stephen Kiesle that occurred between 1972 and 1975 at St. Joseph’s Parish in Pinole, 18 miles (29 kilometers) northeast of San Francisco.

“They used to call him ‘the pied piper’ because everywhere he went, the kids followed him around,” attorney Rick Simons said Tuesday of Kiesle. “He once said, ‘There wasn’t a single one I didn’t…

View Cache

The Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Portugal (CEP) establishes a new independent Commission to shed light on sexual abuse in the Church, launching an investigation that will give voice to the victims covering a period of over 70 years.

A new independent commission has been established by the Portuguese Bishops’ Conference (CEP) to investigate into sexual abuse in the Portuguese Church by giving voice to the victims.

Giving voice to silence

The creation of the Commission, operating under the slogan “Giving voice to silence” (“Dar Voz ao Silêncio”), was announced during the last bishops’ Plenary Assembly in November, and comes on the heel of the release of the CIASE Report on sexual abuse in the Church in France.

It will be funded by the CEP, although it will open to contributions from other partners in civil society. The team is composed of experts from different backgrounds and coordinated by…

View Cache

Jim Bartko’s children last week filed a lawsuit against the Diocese of Oakland on behalf of their late father, thanks to a new California law.

An administrator in the University of Oregon’s athletic department, Bartko sued Rev. Stephen Kiesle, 74, for alleged sexual assault that occurred between 1972 and 1975 at St. Joseph’s Parish in Pinole, a city northeast of San Francisco.

Four days after announcing his lawsuit at a news conference, Bartko collapsed and died while working out in Oregon in March of 2020. His cause of death was a hemorrhage due to cirrhosis, a result of excessive drinking due to more than four decades of keeping the alleged abuse secret.

The lawsuit was dismissed after Bartko’s death, but the new law has revived his case and his estate is allowed to file for damages he would have sought if he were alive. The lawyer for his adult son…

View Cache

Springfield Bishop William D. Byrne has announced the creation of a nine-person committee to oversee the implementation of the recommendations of the Independent Task Force on the Response to Sexual Abuse within the Diocese of Springfield.  The Task Force’s strategic plan was shared with the public last September (http://diospringfield.org/12026-2/).

The committee members are Peter Caffrey, Henry East-Trou, Kristina Drzal Houghton, Jackie Humphreys, Ronald Johnson, Andrew Rome, James Ross, Jose Tosado, and Irene Woods. Caffrey is a survivor of clergy sexual abuse.

Jeffrey Trant, director of the diocesan Office of Safe Environment and Victim Assistance, will serve as senior staff to the committee.

“The Implementation and Oversight Committee is an important next step in turning the strategic plan that was developed with input from survivors, clergy and the broader community from words into concrete and meaningful actions,” said Trant. “The committee will set priorities, measure outcome, and serve as a…

View Cache

The Roman Catholic Diocese of Springfield has named a nine-member committee tasked with overseeing reforms to how the church addresses sexual abuse.

On Wednesday, Springfield Bishop William Byrne announced that the new Implementation and Oversight Committee will lead the implementation of recommendations put forward by an independent task force that assessed the diocese’s response to sexual abuse.

Last September, the task force recommended changes to the process of responding to allegations of sexual abuse. Among its findings were that law enforcement should first investigate such accusations, not solely the diocese. The task force also nominated the slate of candidates who will now become members of the oversight committee.

In a statement, Byrne said that he was grateful to the diverse group who have accepted the invitation to serve on the committee. He said that work will ensure “that the diocese will improve its response to allegations of abuse within our…

View Cache

International law walks a tightrope between the rights of sovereign States and the rights of those who comprise them. Tip too far to either side and the system breaks – sovereignty either becomes unbridled power, or becomes meaningless. This delicate balancing is most evident when sovereign power and human rights directly collide, as was the case in J.C. and Others v. Belgium. The European Court of Human Rights (‘ECtHR’ or ‘the Court’) was asked to determine whether a grant of state(like) immunity for the Holy See could constitute a violation of Article 6(1) of the European Convention on Human Rights, which enshrines the right to a fair trial, as state immunity had effectively limited the right of access to a court for victims of sexual abuse by members of the Catholic Church in Belgium. Although the outcome – the ECtHR finding no violation – is predictable and follows…

View Cache

In September 2020, the Supreme Court of the Philippines acquitted a man of child sexual abuse charges after he impregnated a 12-year-old girl.

The incident took place in 2012, when the man was 27. He was sentenced to more than 14 years in jail by a lower court in 2016, but appealed. The defendant argued that the sexual relationship was consensual, since the girl bore him not just one but two children before he was sentenced.

The country’s top justices ruled in his favor, saying that the court was “not prepared to punish two individuals and deprive their children from having a normal family life simply because” the girl was a minor at the time. The court also ruled that the benefits of living in a nuclear family outweighed “any perceived dangers” from the relationship.

The persistence of such attitudes at the highest levels of the Philippine establishment is the result…

View Cache

The landmark passage of a law banning child marriage in the Philippines enacted on Thursday hopes to turn the cultural tides on whether marriage, relationships, and sex with those under the age of 18 is a cultural practice or statutory rape. While the law is viewed as a huge win, the fight still continues to raise the age of consent in the country from 12 to 16, and push the government for stricter enforcement while revising the cultural ethos in a country rife with gender inequality and long-standing practice of adult men dating or marrying young girls.

The age of consent for a child in the Philippines has been 12 for the past 90 years, one of the youngest in the world and the youngest in all of Asia. This has led to 1 and 6 girls in the Philippines marrying before the age of 18 and one child in…

View Cache

As we’ve noted on this blog many times, the problem of sexual abuse in the Catholic Church is not limited to the abuse of children. Adults can be victimized as well, a reality that the Catholic community has been slow to recognize. 

The case of former cardinal Theodore McCarrick illustrates this problem: The Vatican’s own investigation showed that Church officials knew about McCarrick’s abuse of young adult seminarians but largely ignored it for decades; they failed to take definitive action against McCarrick until they received a formal report in 2017 that he had abused a minor. 

But recent developments suggest that the abuse of adults is receiving more attention within the Church. 

CHANGES TO CANON LAW

In June 2021, Pope Francis released revisions to Book VI of the Code of Canon Law, which spells out the Church’s penal sanctions. The revisions specifically address cases…

View Cache

The date Jan. 6 means different things to people. For me, as a Catholic, it is the Feast of the Epiphany. It marks the date on the liturgical calendar when the Magi, according to the Bible, brought gifts to the baby Jesus.

This year, the date became a polarizing remembrance of the 2021 U.S. Capitol insurrection, riots or whatever else one calls it, depending on their political affiliation. For me, this Jan. 6 marked a special anniversary — the 20th anniversary of the groundbreaking Boston Globe “Spotlight” team’s investigation into predator priests. The series of articles won the Pulitzer Prize in 2003 in the Public Service category.

I must admit that the anniversary went by without much fanfare. It’s surprising, given that the ramifications from those original series of news articles reverberate within the church, both in the U.S. and globally, and that it was even made into…

View Cache

Social media platforms could be forced to do more to tackle child sexual abuse online, under new European Union plans expected to be announced in the coming months.

The rules would replace current interim legislation that allows the voluntary reporting of child sexual abuse material (CSAM) with a legal obligation to recognise, report and remove it.

“I will propose legislation in the coming months that will require companies to detect, report, and remove child sexual abuse,” EU home affairs commissioner Ylva Johansson told Germany’s Welt am Sonntag newspaper on Sunday.

“A voluntary report will then no longer be sufficient,” she said.

Meta, the parent company of Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp, would be particularly affected by any change in regulations, Johansson told the paper. The company currently accounts for around 95 per cent of child sexual abuse notifications.

The EU’s current rules on reporting CSAM leave it up to social media platforms…

View Cache

The European Union plans to legislate in the coming months to require technology companies to do more to tackle child sexual abuse, beefing up current voluntary arrangements, a top official said in a newspaper interview.

EU Home Affairs Commissioner Ylva Johansson told Germany’s Welt am Sonntag that internet service providers and social media firms had reported 22 million offences related to child sexual abuse in 2020, up from 17 million in 2019.

But she said that was only a fraction of the real number.

“I will propose legislation in the coming months that will require companies to detect, report, and remove child sexual abuse,” Johansson was quoted as saying.

“A voluntary report will then no longer be sufficient.”

Under current EU rules, social media networks and mail and messenger services such as Facebook (FB.O) and Google (GOOGL.O) have a choice whether or not to follow up…

View Cache

A 2004 story in The New York Times bore the headline, all in caps: ABUSE SCANDAL HAS BEEN ENDED, TOP BISHOP SAYS.

That top bishop was a young Wilton Gregory who, two years earlier and as head of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, had herded the rest of the U.S. hierarchy through the first phase of accountability for the scandal.

The headline was based on a Gregory declaration, made following the release of two studies of the scandal. “The terrible history recorded here today is history,” he said.

That, of course, turned out to be more wish than reality. The finality implied in the statement has yet eluded the bishops, a point made clear by the recent searing assessment by Barbara Thorp, who took on the job of directing the Boston Archdiocese’s response to victims back in 2002, when the ecclesial world there…

View Cache

A national framework for a five-year, $30 million (US$23.5 million) fundraising campaign to help with healing and reconciliation of residential school survivors and their communities is coming in the new year, Bishop William McGrattan, vice president of the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops, told The Catholic Register weekly.

Church officials hoped that plans for the campaign, first announced Sept. 27, would be complete by November, but getting the framework in place for a national diocese-by-diocese effort has turned out to be more complicated than first thought.

Bishop McGrattan said he hoped that in January or February, “announcements of details would be able to be shared with the public and with Catholics.”

“We realize that it has taken longer than expected, but it’s important that we do this right and that we make sure that it is both transparent and that it demonstrates accountability,” Bishop McGrattan said.

“We’ve drawn upon the expertise of people in terms of…

View Cache

An essay by Kathleen McChesney on the impact of the U.S. bishops’ Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People drew a sharp rebuke by the executive director of the Survivor’s Network of Those Abused by Priests.

Zach Hiner, the group’s director, said the steps outlined in the charter “needed to be taken,” but he likened McChesney’s essay to “patting oneself for winning the marathon when you’re only a mile in.”

Hiner, in a Jan. 10 phone interview with Catholic News Service, said “delayed disclosure” of abuse is “a fact.” He noted that “most people in the United States do not come forward until their 50s,” so anyone abused in the past 20 years “would not likely be coming forward until 2030, 2040.”

The essay by McChesney, the first person to head the U.S. bishops’ Office for Child and Youth Protection, was published Jan. 5 by America Media, one day before the 20th anniversary of the first in a…

View Cache

Lawsuit filed under state’s new Child Sexual Abuse Accountability Act, which took effect Jan. 1

A Colorado woman on New Year’s Day sued a former schoolteacher and alleged he raped her when she was a teenager in the 1970s in what appears to be the first lawsuit filed under a new state law that opens up past sexual assaults of minors to civil liability.

Kate McPhee, 60, contends in the lawsuit that she was repeatedly raped by a then-teacher at Colorado Academy during the summer of 1977. McPhee was 15 and 16 at the time of the alleged assaults, according to the lawsuit.

She alleged in the lawsuit that the teacher, who was around the age of 30 at the time, raped her on the campus of Colorado Academy in Denver, then continued a series of assaults during three weeks of a river trip to the Grand Canyon that summer.

…

View Cache

After hearing emotional victim impact statements and then explicitly admitting in court that he sexually abused young boys several decades ago, a former Catholic priest withdrew his pleas of guilty and no contest Tuesday because an Oakland County judge rejected a light sentencing agreement offered by the Michigan’s Attorney General’s Office.

At his sentencing hearing in Oakland County Circuit Court, 80-year-old Gary Berthiaume exercised his right to pull back pleas of guilty to two counts of second-degree criminal sexual conduct and no contest to one count of gross indecency stemming from allegations made when he was a priest at Our Lady of Sorrows Catholic Church in Farmington in the 1970s. A “Killebrew Agreement” with the prosecutor’s office called for one year and one day in prison In exchange for his pleas made last November. But O’Brien rejected the agreement and sentenced Berthiaume to 20 months to 15 years, ruling that…

View Cache

The family of a deceased man who said he was repeatedly sexually abused as a child by a Bay Area Roman Catholic priest is suing the Diocese of Oakland under the provisions of a new state law that allows such cases to move forward. 

The family and estate of Jim Bartko, former athletic director at Fresno State University, filed the suit last week in Alameda County Superior Court.

The suit alleges Bartko suffered repeated sexual abuse from 1972 to 1975 at the hands of Stephen Kiesle, then a priest with the Diocese of Oakland and assigned to St. Joseph’s Parish in Pinole.  

It also claims the diocese knew of Kiesle’s “history of sexual conduct with and sexual assaults upon minors” prior to his alleged abuse of Bartko and negligently allowed Kiesle to continue working with children despite that knowledge. 

Kiesle was convicted in 2004 of sexually abusing a child, got…

View Cache

A Catholic curia in Poland has asked for a court to determine the sexuality of the victim of a priest and whether he took “pleasure in the intimate relationship”. The victim says he was 12 years old when the abuse began.

Last year, Janusz Szymik – pictured above as a child – launched a civil case against Bielsko-Żywiec diocese. He is seeking three million zloty (€660,000) compensation from the curia, which he argues is responsible for abuse he suffered at the hands of a priest – who can be named only as Jan W. under Polish privacy law – in the 1980s

A church court had previously found Jan W. guilty of sexual offences against Szymik when the latter was a child. In 2017, he was given a five-year ban on conducting priestly ministry and hearing confession, and was ordered to live in isolation.

News website Onet has now published…

View Cache

Church’s argument that it was not responsible for the abuse was rejected and described as ‘affront to common sense’

The Catholic church’s failed attempt to argue it was not responsible for a priest’s abuse of a five-year-old, because it took place during after-hours “social” visits, has been slammed as “ruthless” by the survivor and an “affront to common sense” by a judge.

Last month the Victorian supreme court handed down a judgment finding the current diocese of Ballarat was vicariously liable for the abuse of the boy, who cannot be named, by Father Bryan Coffey in Port Fairy in the early 1970s.

The survivor’s lawyers, Ken Cush & Associates, say the ruling is a landmark win that will help countless others.

Coffey abused the boy during pastoral care visits to his home on two occasions in 1971.

The critical issue in the case was whether Coffey, an assistant parish priest, could…

View Cache

The events of Jan. 6, 2021, at the U.S. Capitol caused shock and dismay for most Americans, many of whom feared that our political system was much weaker than we had thought. On the same date nearly two decades earlier, we witnessed a similar crisis of confidence in the Catholic Church as a protector of all children.

On Jan. 6, 2002, on the Feast of the Epiphany, The Boston Globe published the first in a series of reports from its Spotlight investigative team, headlined “Church allowed abuse by priest for years.” While the findings were not a surprise to abuse survivors, the revelations that a previously unknown number of priests in the Boston area had sexually abused minors for decades devastated Catholics in Boston and, ultimately, the faithful around the world. The Globe had learned that instead of removing many of these offenders from the priesthood, church leaders had transferred…

View Cache

The additional district and sessions court in Kottayam on Monday completed the trial in the rape case filed by a nun against former bishop of Jalandhar diocese Franco Mulakkal. The court is likely to pronounce the judgment at its next hearing on January 14.

As per the prosecution, Franco raped the nun on several occasions at the St Francis Convent at Nadukunnu in Kuravilangad, and forced her to perform unnatural sex. The 2,000-page chargesheet in three volumes was submitted on April 4. The trial began in November 2019, but got delayed owing to various reasons ncluding the lockdown. 

At the same time, the trial was done in-camera and the media was prevented from reporting the details of the trial as per the request of Franco’s counsel. Of the 83 witnesses listed by the prosecution, 39 were examined during the trial. They included Major Archbishop Cardinal George Alencherry, Bhagalpur Bishop Kurian Valiyakandathil,…

View Cache

The trial in the rape case involving Bishop Franco Mulakkal has concluded and the special court in Kottayam in the southern Indian state of Kerala is set to deliver its verdict on Jan. 14.

Bishop Mulakkal was accused by a nun of sexually abusing her between 2014 and 2016 in a complaint registered with Kerala police in June 2018. Police filed a 2,000-page charge sheet against him in April 2019.

Additional District and Sessions Judge G. Gopakumar on Jan. 10 completed the trial procedure including recording the statements of the victim, accused, witnesses from both sides and the final legal arguments.

The prelate stands accused of raping a former superior general of Missionaries of Jesus, a diocesan congregation under the patronage of the accused as the then bishop of Jalandhar Diocese in the northern state of Punjab.

The nun in her complaint had accused the bishop of raping…

View Cache

Pope Francis reassigned the second ranking official at the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith on Monday, the first in an expected series of moves that would overhaul the leadership of the Church’s doctrinal office. 

The Holy See announced Jan. 10 that Archbishop Giacomo Morandi had been appointed by the pope to lead the Italian Diocese of Reggio Emilia-Guastalla, replacing Bishop Massimo Camisasca, who turned 75 in November. 

While the appointment of a relatively unknown Vatican official to a small Italian diocese is unlikely to generate headlines, sources close to Morandi’s old department told The Pillar that it was the first in a series of personnel moves which have been expected since the end of last year.

“Ever since he went to see the pope in December, it has been understood [in the office] that he is leaving,” one senior Vatican source close to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the…

View Cache

In yet another shakeup of a department in the Roman Curia, the Vatican announced Monday that a high-ranking official in the Holy See’s doctrinal congregation is on his way out and will now lead an Italian diocese.

In a Jan. 10 Vatican statement, it was announced that Archbishop Giacomo Morandi, until now secretary of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF), is leaving his Vatican post and will take over as the new leader of the Italian Diocese of Reggio Emilia-Guastalla.

Morandi, 56, who was named secretary of the CDF in 2017, will replace outgoing Reggio Emilia Bishop Massimo Camisasca, who is 75, the mandated retirement age for bishops.

His exit marks the latest shakeup in the Roman Curia in recent months.

Throughout the spring and summer last year, Pope Francis held apostolic visitations of several curial departments, including the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of…

View Cache

Pope Francis took the first step Monday to reorganize the Vatican’s powerful doctrine office, removing the No. 2 official widely believed responsible for a controversial document barring blessings for same-sex couples because God “cannot bless sin.”

Francis named Archbishop Giacomo Morandi, currently the secretary of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, bishop of the Italian diocese of Reggio Emilia-Guastalla. The move amounts to a demotion since Morandi currently has the title of archbishop, yet is heading to a small diocese, not an archdiocese.

The Vatican said Morandi would nevertheless retain the title of archbishop “ad personam.”

The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, or CDF, is one of the most important Vatican offices, interpreting doctrine for the universal Catholic Church, sanctioning dissenters and handling cases of clergy sexual abuse of minors. Morandi joined the CDF as an under-secretary in 2015 and was promoted to secretary, or the…

View Cache

We need to understand that some bishops and senior clergy are enabling child abuse when they allow abusers to continue

After months of trial and deliberation by a jury in New York, wealthy British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell has been convicted of crimes related to human trafficking, grooming and enabling the sexual abuse of minors by her wealthy American boyfriend Jeffrey Epstein.

Maxwell, 60, was the recruiter and pimp for Epstein and is facing up to 65 years behind bars. This conviction focuses attention on persons who are enablers. They are the cover-up agents of crimes committed against children. They fail to help, protect and report the sexual abuse of children.

Parents and relatives, even some teachers and social workers, are guilty of crimes of omission and failure in their mandated duty to act to protect sexually or physically abused children.

A school principal in Zambales, Philippines, received a report of child…

View Cache

In mid-January, the law firm Westpfahl Spilker Wastl is scheduled to publish a report into the handling of clerical sexual abuse in the Archdiocese of Munich and Freising.

The potentially explosive aspect is that three of the highest-ranking officials are still alive: Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger — now retired Pope Benedict XVI — and Cardinals Friedrich Wetter and Reinhard Marx, reported the German Catholic news agency KNA.

The investigation followed two years of research and covers the period from 1945 to 2019, centering on who knew what about sexual abuse and when, and what action they took, if any, KNA reported.

Much of the public interest is focused on the retired pope’s 1977-1981 tenure as archbishop of Munich. The case concerns the assignments of a priest accused of a particularly large number of offenses.

In early summer 2021, Cardinal Marx — the current archbishop of Munich — tried to resign from office to take responsibility…

View Cache

A Fort Wayne priest, who was previously at St. Pius X Catholic Church in Granger, has been removed from public ministry after allegations of inappropriate conduct with an adult woman.  

The priest, Fr. Eric Burgener, committed a “serious boundary violation,” while assigned to St. Vincent De Paul Parish in Fort Wayne, according to a release from the Catholic Diocese of Fort Wayne-South Bend. Burgener has been removed from St. Vincent De Paul and is no longer a hospital chaplain, the diocese announced. 

The diocese was made aware of the allegations against Burgener on Dec. 5, though it is unclear when he was removed from the parish.  

Burgener was ordained in June 2017 and was assigned to St. Pius shortly after, according to a social media post by the church. The post listed Burgener’s role at St. Pius as parochial vicar, or a priest who assists a pastor. It is unclear when Burgener moved to St. Vincent De…

View Cache

Pope emeritus denies claims he was aware of abusing priest in Munich and failure to act

Pope emeritus Benedict XVI has denied claims he was aware of an abusing priest operating on his watch in Munich and that he failed to act against him – twice.

The 94-year-old former pontiff will be named later this month in a long-awaited report into clerical sexual abuse in the Bavarian archdiocese of Munich and Freising. A key case in the investigation involves an abusing priest who was moved to the southern archdiocese in 1980 when Joseph Ratzinger, later Pope Benedict, served there as archbishop.

More than two dozen men are on record as saying they were sexually abused as teenagers by the priest, identified only as Peter H, often after he gave them alcohol and showed them pornography.

Some victims live in the priest’s home diocese of Essen and others in Bavaria, where…

View Cache

A former Catholic priest who pleaded guilty to sexually abusing three boys in Boonville in the 1980s died in prison late last year.

Gerald Howard, also known as Carmen Sita, entered his plea in June 2014, and received a sentence of 12 years in prison. He had also pleaded guilty to charges of sexual contact with a minor in New Jersey in 1983, and was at that time sentenced to five years probation and entry in a treatment program, which he completed.

Howard served in the parish in Boonville (within the Diocese of Jefferson City) in 1983 and 1984. Howard was scheduled for release from the Missouri Department of Corrections in May.

The Diocese of Jefferson City list of credibly accused priests may be found at diojeffcity.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/Clergy- removed-list-7.2.2020.pdf.

View Cache

A retired paediatric surgeon and Anglican priest appointed to investigate child abuse within the church has fronted court accused of historic sex offences.

Mervyn Meredith Lander faces two counts of the unlawful and indecent treatment of a boy under the age of 17.

Both offences are alleged to have occurred in Brisbane in 1988, court documents reveal.

Lander, 77, appeared briefly in the Brisbane Arrest Court on Monday.

He was not required to enter a plea and the case was remanded for mention in March.

Lander was recognised in the Queen’s Birthday Honours List in 2021.

He and his wife were appointed Members of the Order of Australia (AM) for services to their respective fields of medicine and to the Anglican Church.

Lander is also listed as a long-serving priest at St Paul’s Anglican Church, East Brisbane.

In 1995, Lander was appointed to the Brisbane Diocese committee to establish protocols…

View Cache

Two dead Prince George Roman Catholic priests are among defendants named in a sexual abuse case filed by a man who asserts the pair began abusing him when he was in kindergarten at a church school.

A Delta professor and actor alleges in a new lawsuit that Roman Catholic priests in Prince George sexually abused him as a child.

Dr. Nicholas Harrison made the allegations in a notice of civil claim filed in the B.C. Supreme Court Vancouver registry on Jan. 4. He claims abuse by Father Francis “Frank” Joseph Rayner and Brother Dennis “Leopold” O’Mahoney occurred from 1973 to 1977, while he was in kindergarten through Grade 4.

“I was only six years old when the sexual abuse began,” Harrison said in a statement to Glacier Media, provided by his lawyer.

At the time, Harrison was an altar boy at Sacred Heart Cathedral and a student at the adjoining elementary school.

…

View Cache

Man who attended St. Andrew’s Preparatory Seminary High School names former priests in complaint

At least one lawsuit alleging child sexual abuse by Catholic clergy has been filed in Colorado following the passage of a new law last year.

On Monday, Colorado resident Brian Barzee sued the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Denver, alleging exploitation and sexual abuse by a former priest during his time at St. Andrew’s Preparatory Seminary High School in Denver. Barzee’s suit was filed under Senate Bill 21-88, which passed last year and took effect on Jan. 1.

Under the new law, survivors of child sexual abuse for whom the civil statute of limitations has already expired have three years to file state lawsuits against their abusers and the public or private institutions that turned a blind eye to that abuse.

Colorado law previously required survivors to file a lawsuit over child…

View Cache

In an effort to bring deeper scrutiny to Mater Dei High School, an advocacy group for survivors of Catholic Church abuse has filed three complaints with government and church officials over allegations of hazing involving the school’s powerhouse football team.

The complaints, filed this week by a New Jersey leader of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, or SNAP, are an attempt to ensure that organizations other than the Roman Catholic Diocese of Orange investigate a report of hazing at the private high school in Orange County.

A lawsuit filed in November against the school and the diocese alleges that a Mater Dei football player sustained a traumatic brain injury in a violent hazing ritual in the varsity locker room and that the school tried to cover up his injuries.

The complaints were filed with the U.S. Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and…

View Cache

January 1, 2022 marked the conclusion of a long road for lawmakers in the effort to provide justice for victims of sexual child abuse.

“Some of my clients were involved back in 2006 in trying to do something similar and there was very, very strong pushback by lobbyists in particular for the Catholic Church,” said Zach Warzel, Keating Wagner Polidori Free Partner.

The law had been pushed several times in the past several years, meeting similar ends. This year, lawmakers said the environment was just right for the law to pass.

This new law allows victims to come forward and file claims for the abuse more than 50 years after the event has occurred.

“Children should not be forced to figure out their legal rights and come forward, you know, within a very short amount of time after reaching the age of 18. Now, they can come forward when they’re…

View Cache

The death of her son Shane is a grave blow for all the O’Connor family but especially for a grieving mother fighting her own battle with sanity for so long.

On October 3, 1992, Sinéad O’Connor was the main musical act on  Saturday Night Live. She appeared on stage in an all-white dress, a vision of beauty and simplicity, a striking bald-headed young woman with a gorgeous singing voice.

But the innocence portrayed publicly was not what she was feeling that night.

What she did went down in television history.

These days, when clerical abuse stories are as common as dust, O’Connor’s action would have caused a Twitter stir perhaps, but not much more.

But not back in 1992. She clutched in her hand a photograph of Pope John Paul II, a revered figure whose fight against communism and whose dynamic personality had made him a figure of Olympian stature…

View Cache

Earlier this week, the troubled German Archdiocese of Cologne announced that the Vatican has agreed to conduct an external audit into its contracts once the archbishop of the diocese returns from a papal-mandated sabbatical.

The audit will investigate canonical legality in the awarding of contracts over the past ten years, a diocesan statement said.

In December, the Archdiocese of Cologne announced its intention to carry out an external audit to clarify “whether there have recently been omissions in canon law when awarding contracts,” saying the decision to move forward with the inquiry was agreed on by the archdiocesan property council and cathedral chapter, and the current administrator for the Cologne archdiocese, Auxiliary Bishop Rolf Steinhäuser.

Steinhäuser informed the Vatican of their request for an audit in Cologne, and earlier this week the Vatican’s Congregation for Bishops sent a letter to the archdiocese saying they had agreed to the audit, but…

View Cache

PART 1, LISTEN AND LEARN – THURSDAY, JANUARY 13, 7:00PM – 8:30PM CST
PART 2, DISCUSS AND DISCERN – THURSDAY, JANUARY 20, 7:00PM – 8:30PM CST

Panelists:
– Jason Berry, pioneering Catholic journalist who first brought national attention to this issue beginning in 1985
– Walter Robinson, investigative reporter who led the Boston Globe’s Spotlight Team in their 2002 investigation into abuse and cover-up in the Catholic Church
– Anne Barrett Doyle, researcher, advocate, and co-director of Bishop Accountability, who was propelled to action by the Spotlight reports

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

Part 2 (Discuss and Discern) will be focused on building connections and community while diving deeper into the questions raised by the conversation the previous week. We will utilize Zoom…

View Cache

I learned an important lesson this past summer about the ways in which institutional structures perpetuate a profound power imbalance between sexual harassers and those who are sexually harassed. In August, I received a letter from the AAR Executive Director saying that the board had voted to offer me the Ray L. Hart Service Award in 2021. Reading the letter caused me to laugh aloud because Ray Hart had sexually harassed me in the mid-1970s when I was young woman serving on my first AAR committee.

I remember the circumstances of that harassment very clearly. After the Program Committee meeting had ended for the day, several of us adjourned to orange armchairs in the lobby to have a drink before dinner. I was the only woman on the committee and was quite a bit younger than the next oldest member. I don’t recall whether I was a graduate student or…

View Cache

Diocese was “vicariously liable” for a priest’s abuse of a five-year-old boy in 1971, the Supreme Court of Victoria ruled.

An Australian court has found the Catholic Church liable for a priest’s abuse of a five-year-old in the early 1970s in a landmark ruling that could impact future abuse cases. 

Last month, the Supreme Court of Victoria in southeast Australia found that the current diocese of Ballarat was vicariously liable for the abuse of the boy, who cannot be named, by Fr. Bryan Coffey in the coastal town of Port Fairy during the early 1970s. 

Coffey, an assistant parish priest at the time, abused the boy during two pastoral care visits to his home in 1971. 

The Ballarat diocese argued that Coffey was not a formal employee at the time and could not be considered liable for Coffey’s actions, adding that Coffey’s home visits were “social outings” not connected to…

View Cache

The longtime advocate says abuse suffered by residential school survivors is a significant factor in domestic violence

Rebecca Kudloo is a powerhouse. Early last year, she had the RCMP agree to policy reform that would reduce violence against Inuit women and children — and she held the federal Liberal government to financing long-promised women’s shelters in Inuit Nunangat. She managed both by being steadily persistent. 

Kudloo has been president of Pauktuutit Inuit Women of Canada since 2014. She was an adviser on the creation of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. She worked for the Nunavut Department of Education and is a co-founder of Mianiqsijit, a counselling service responding to the residential school legacy of sexual abuse and family violence. 

She spoke with Julie McGonegal from her home in Baker Lake, Nunavut.

Julie McGonegal: Tell me about your childhood growing up on the land.

Rebecca Kudloo: I was born…

View Cache

After months of trial and deliberation by a jury in New York, a wealthy British socialite, Ghislaine Maxwell, has been convicted of crimes related to human trafficking, grooming and facilitating and enabling the sexual abuse of minors by her wealthy boyfriend, Jeffrey Epstein. She was the recruiter, pimp, human trafficker and enabler of child sexual abuse. Maxwell, 60 years old, is now facing a possible jail time of 65 years behind bars.

This conviction focuses attention on the persons who are the enablers. They are the cover-up agents of crimes committed by another against children. They fail to help, protect and report the sexual abuse of children.

Parents and relatives, even some teachers and social workers, are guilty of crimes of omission and failure in their mandated duty to act to protect sexually or physically abused children.

A school principal in Zambales, Philippines, received a report of child sexual abuse…

View Cache

WARNING: This story contains details some readers may find distressing.

Chief and council of the Williams Lake First Nation (WLFN) have set a date of Jan. 25 to publically release the preliminary geophysical results from the first phase of the St. Joseph’s Mission Residential School investigation.

WLFN postponed the previously scheduled release of the results Dec. 7 in order to give adequate time for neighboring First Nation communities to put in place the necessary health and wellness supports, WLFN noted in a news release issued Jan. 6.

“This has been an extremely challenging time for WLFN and other First Nations who were affected by the facility at St. Joseph’s,” stated WLFN Chief Willie Sellars. “We have out of necessity in the course of our investigation opened old wounds and asked people to recount some terrible and harrowing stories. But the information provided has helped shape our investigation and I’m thankful…

View Cache

Archbishop Charles Scicluna has issued a formal warning against controversial priest Fr David Muscat, instructing him to stop making “inflammatory and hurtful comments” or else he could be stopped from exercising his ministry in public. 

In a statement on Thursday night, the Archibishop’s Curia said Mgr Scicluna had instructed Fr Muscat to delete a Facebook post, in which the priest claimed that being gay was worse than being possessed, and to stop insulting or using hurtful language against any group or individual.

It said the Archbishop also reminded Fr Muscat that in accordance with Catholic teaching, members of the clergy are required to display respect, compassion and sensitivity to people from all walks of life.

The formal warning is referred to in Canon Law as a penal precept.

The warning came hours after he was interrogated by police and hours after the Archbishop had promised to take action against a priest over homophobic…

View Cache

Outspoken priest Fr David Muscat was interrogated by the police over hate speech claims following a homophobic Facebook post he uploaded.

The post focused on alleged murder suspect, Abner Aquilina, with the priest speaking about the possibility that the aggressor was gay or bisexual or possessed by the devil. Muscat said that being gay was worse than being possessed.

Sources said Fr Muscat was called to the police headquarters on Thursday afternoon where he was interrogated over his posts and successive comments. 

A spokesman for the police told Times of Malta that “the police investigates all allegations of a criminal nature that come to its attention”. 

It is not known whether the police will press charges.

Earlier, two ministers and activists had earlier urged police to take action against the Mosta priest for hate speech.

“A line has been crossed, and I ask the authorities to take the necessary decisions, because…

View Cache

Fr David Muscat will be charged in court with hate speech and misuse of technology over his disparaging comments on gay people.

Police have filed charges of hate crime over two comments that the priest posted to Facebook this week.

In one of the comments, Fr Muscat spoke about the possibility that murder suspect Abner Aquilina was gay, bisexual or possessed by the devil and said “gayness” was worse than being possessed.

The other comment was posted underneath a photo showing the murder suspect wearing a colourful shirt. Fr Muscat commented that he looked like he was just coming back from ‘gay pride’.

Police may have deemed this comment illegal for implying that people who attend gay pride are criminals.

Fr Muscat is scheduled to appear before Magistrate Ian Farrugia on January 28.

He could be released on conditional discharge or given a suspended sentence, but these charges could also…

View Cache

Archbishop Charles Scicluna of Malta issued a formal warning against a controversial local priest who posted a homophobic remark on Facebook.

In a statement released Jan. 6, the Archdiocese of Malta confirmed that Archbishop Scicluna issued the warning, known as a penal precept, against Father David Muscat, ordering him “to cease making inflammatory and hurtful comments in public forums or face prohibition from exercising his ministry in public.”

“The archbishop instructed Father David Muscat to delete a Facebook post, in which the priest claimed that being gay was worse than being possessed, and not to use insulting or hurtful language against any group or individual,” the archdiocese said.

Furthermore, the statement said Archbishop Sciculuna reminded the priest that “in accordance with Catholic teaching, members of the clergy are required to show respect, compassion and sensitivity to people from all walks of life.”

According to the Times of Malta, the homophobic social media post was reported to authorities by the Malta Gay Rights Movement,…

View Cache