ABUSE TRACKER

After thousands of reported cases of sexual abuse, the Vatican has finally updated its canon laws for handling cases within the Church — standards which haven’t been touched since the 1980s.  The new canon laws, or a set of laws set by the Roman Catholic Church to be followed by members of the religion, sought to streamline and clarify how to deal with child sexual abuse. The biggest of these changes included requiring all priests and nuns to become mandated reporters, making grooming for sex or child pornography illegal, and enforcing punishment within the Church like defrocking.

Throughout all this time, the Catholic Church has spent over $400 billion in settlements to victims and their families. Over half of the nearly 40,000 priests in the U.S. have had at least one formal allegation of abuse against them. This wasn’t just one bad egg — this is an ongoing crisis. A crisis…

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Pontiff fails to issue direct apology for church’s role in residential schools where children were abused

Pope Francis has said he was pained by the discovery of the remains of 215 children at a former Catholic school for indigenous students in Canada and called for respect of the rights and cultures of native peoples, but stopped short of the direct apology some Canadians had demanded.

Speaking to pilgrims and tourists in St Peter’s Square in the Vatican during his weekly blessing, Francis urged Canadian political and Catholic religious leaders to “cooperate with determination” to shed light on the finding and to seek reconciliation and healing.

Francis said he felt close to “the Canadian people, who have been traumatised by the shocking news”.

Two days ago, the Canadian prime minister, Justin Trudeau, said the Catholic church must take responsibility for its role in running many of the schools.

The residential schools…

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Smith College knew two decades ago that a faculty member had been accused of sexually abusing a minor, but chose not to act on those allegations, allowing him to teach at the college until recently.

On Wednesday morning, the Roman Catholic Diocese of Springfield released an expanded list of former employees who had been “credibly accused” of sexually abusing minors. The list included the name of Robert Ellis Hosmer Jr., a Smith lecturer from 1989 until 2016 who previously worked at Holyoke Catholic High School from 1968 to 1979.

Wednesday evening, Smith College President Kathleen McCartney and Provost and Dean of the Faculty Michael Thurston wrote in a letter to faculty, students, staff, and alumni that a review of Hosmer’s employment records revealed a 2001 letter from a person who said Hosmer abused him at a high school prior to Hosmer working at the college. McCartney and Thurston wrote that no allegations from anyone…

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Smith College said last week that it knew a faculty member was accused of sexually abusing a minor two decades ago and that it should have done something at the time. Instead, the instructor of English, Robert Ellis Hosmer, was allowed to teach at Smith until his retirement in 2016, and he’s taught on and off since then as well. The Daily Hampshire Gazette reported that Hosmer’s name was released by the Roman Catholic diocese this month on an expanded list of former employees credibly accused of sexual abuse, and that Hosmer worked at Holyoke Catholic High School near Smith from 1968 to 1979.

In response to the news, Smith president Kathleen McCartney and provost Michael Thurston wrote in an all-campus memo that they’d learned Hosmer’s personnel file included a 2001 letter from someone who said Hosmer had abused him in the 1970s, when he…

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Three Catholic priests provided an Orchard Park elementary school student with access to four girls and encouraged the children to participate in sexual acts that the victim fears were secretly filmed in the 1990s, according to a Child Victims Act lawsuit against the Buffalo Diocese.

Bishop Michael W. Fisher put the priests on administrative leave pending an investigation by the diocese’s Independent Review Board. In a statement issued Saturday by the diocese, the priests were identified as:

• Rev. Adolph Kowalczyk, pastor of Our Lady of the Sacred Heart Church in Orchard Park.

• Rev. Gregory Dobson, who is retired but continues to assist in various parishes of the diocese.

• Rev. Mieczyslaw “Matt” Nycz, pastor of SS. Peter and Paul in Williamsville.

An attorney for the now 35-year-old Erie County man said Saturday that his client is worried that recordings of the incidents may still exist and could have…

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The Rev. James Altman calls himself “a lowly priest” serving a blue-collar city in western Wisconsin. But when his bishop demanded his resignation – after a series of divisive remarks about politics and the pandemic – Altman refused to oblige and has since raised more than $640,000 from his conservative supporters to defend himself.

While not unprecedented, a Catholic priest’s refusal to abide by a bishop’s call to resign is certainly rare. Altman’s case, which has garnered national attention and made him a celebrity of sorts among conservative Catholics, has further fueled the divide between them and those urging a more progressive, inclusive church.

Altman, pastor of St. James the Less Roman Catholic Church in La Crosse, first came into prominence before the 2020 election with a fiery video on YouTube.

“You cannot be Catholic and be a Democrat,” said Altman, admonishing people to “repent of…

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After spending seven years being abused at a residential school in Saskatchewan, Fred Gordon says he is not surprised that the remains of 215 children were found buried near a former residential school in Kamloops, B.C.

The residential school survivor told CTV News Channel on Monday that he attended Lebret Indian Industrial Residential School from 1944 to 1951. Gordon says he was kidnapped when he was nine years old and taken to the school.

“One day [my parents] were out picking berries, and I was playing with two other kids in the front yard of the house… when an RCMP, a priest and two nuns came and just grabbed me out of the yard and threw me in a wagon,” Gordon said in an interview from Duck Lake, Sask.

“That’s kidnapping. We had no say in those days,” he added.

He explained that his aunt, Evelyn, was killed by the…

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Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Friday he is “deeply disappointed” the Roman Catholic Church has not offered a formal apology and made amends for its role in Canada’s former system of church-run Indigenous boarding schools after the remains of 215 children were located at what was once the country’s largest such institution.

Trudeau called on the church to “step up” and take responsibility after years of silence.

“As a Catholic, I am deeply disappointed by the position that the Catholic Church has taken now and over the past many years,” Trudeau said.

“When I went to the Vatican a number of years ago I directly asked His Holiness, Pope Francis, to move forward on apologizing, on asking for forgiveness, on restitution, on making these records available, and we’re still seeing resistance from the church, possibly from the church in Canada.”

But Trudeau said the church is “silent” and “not…

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[Via Kamloops This Week]

The United Nations’ human-rights special rapporteurs are calling on Canada and the Catholic Church to conduct prompt and thorough investigations into the finding of an unmarked burial site believed to contain the remains of 215 Indigenous children at a British Columbia residential school.

The UN special rapporteurs said Friday the investigations should examine the circumstances and responsibilities surrounding these deaths, including forensic examinations of any remains to allow for the identification and registration of missing children.

“We urge the authorities to conduct full-fledged investigations,” said the UN experts in a statement.

“Large scale human rights violations have been committed against children belonging to Indigenous communities, it is inconceivable that Canada and the Holy See would leave such heinous crimes unaccounted for and without full redress.”

The Holy See is the central governing body of the Catholic Church.

The UN experts also called on Ottawa to undertake…

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The recent discovery of 215 childrens’ remains at a former residential school in Kamloops, British Columbia is strengthening the resolve of survivors to share their stories about the system and educate young people.

Rounded up on her northern Ontario first nation when she was just eight years old, Susan Hunter remembers well the day she left home.

“We left in a plane. It landed on its belly in Fort Albany and then, when the hatch was opened, there were canoes to take us the rest of the way to the residential school and the students were from all over Ontario,” Susan Hunter told CTV News Toronto Tuesday.

Hunter was there for seven years, she left at age 14.

“Just when you think getting on with your life, something else crops up to mess it up again,” Hunter said. “You get re-traumatized, but you have to tell your truth.”

That truth,…

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It was a spring day in 1883 when John A. Macdonald, Canada’s first prime minister now comfortably into his second stint in office, explained why it was so important that Indigenous children be separated from their parents, forcibly if need be.

“When the school is on the reserve, the child lives with its parents, who are savages. … He is simply a savage who can read and write,” he said, as quoted in the record of debates in the House of Commons.

“Indian children should be withdrawn as much as possible from the parental influence, and the only way to do that would be to put them in central training industrial schools, where they will acquire the habits and modes of thought of white men.”

So went the cruel racism that would set in motion decades of physical and sexual abuse at what are now known as residential schools.

A…

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[The Current on CBC Radio One, with audio]

Matt Galloway: Deep generational wounds have been opened yet again in this country, survivors, those who love them and many more Canadians are grieving. This week after the Tk’emlups te Secwepemc first Nation announced, a preliminary report shows the remains of 215 children unmarked on the site of the former Kamloops Indian residential school. Dennis Saddleman attended that same school for 11 years beginning in 1957. And the news wasn’t easy for him to process. But he has been reaching out, connecting with friends and continuing the work he started as a child to heal and stay, in his words, in balance. Part of that is through his poetry. You might have heard his voice on this show earlier this week, reading his powerful poem, Monster, about his experience at residential school. Dennis’s mother was Nlka’pamux and his father was Syilx and…

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[Via Yahoo News. With video and transcript.]

JUSTIN TRUDEAU: “As a Catholic, I am deeply disappointed by the position the Catholic Church has taken now and over the past many years…”

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Friday blasted the Catholic Church, saying it must take responsibility for its role running so-called residential schools for indigenous children, after the discovery of the remains of 215 children at one former school.

JUSTIN TRUDEAU : “We expect the Church to step up and take responsibility for its role in this.”

The discovery last week of the remains of the children – some as young as three years old – at the Kamloops Indian Residential School in British Columbia which closed in 1978, has reopened old wounds and is fueling outrage about the lack of information and accountability.

Between 1831 and 1996, Canada’s residential school system forcibly separated about 150,000 children from their homes.

…

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A Roman Catholic pastor in Tennessee confessed in an open letter that as a 19-year-old seminarian he was the target of sexual advances by an older priest later accused of abusing other teens, and admits he failed to forcefully sound the alarm about this “troublesome person.”

Father Brent Shelton insisted he was “not a sexual abuse victim, as such, but I am a witness to priestly predation, which I was complicit in covering up.”

Shelton did not say in the letter why he chose this year to divulge that Father Jose Saldana, now deceased, allegedly “forced himself on top” of him at a Red Roof Inn in Texas more than three decades ago.

“I’ve thought about that hotel incident every single day since it happened over 30 years ago, but I cringe whenever any priest or bishop speaks of the need for ‘healing’ in these situations,” Shelton, who…

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In a letter to Pope Francis, Cardinal Reinhard Marx said he saw his resignation as an opportunity to take responsibility for the abuses of past decades.

[Includes video excerpts from the speech by Cardinal Marx.]

Cardinal Reinhard Marx, a leading figure in Germany’s Roman Catholic Church and a member of the Pope Francis’s advisory council, said on Friday that he had offered his resignation in a personal gesture to take responsibility for sexual abuses by priests over the past decades.

Speaking to reporters outside of the offices of the Archdiocese of Munich and Freising, the cardinal, who has not been accused of abuse, said he had been considering the decision for months. After spending the weeks leading up to Easter in prayer and reflection, he wrote a letter to the pope, asking to be relieved of his duties.

“It is important to me to share the responsibility for the…

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The Archdiocese of Minneapolis and St. Paul said Rev. Kevin McDonough should be barred from positions where he’s tasked at protecting kids.

The Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis has finished its review into Rev. Kevin McDonough, finding he “failed, albeit not intentionally, to adequately keep children safe.”

McDonough, who has not been accused of abuse, was the vicar general for the archdiocese from 1991-2008, and from 2008-2013 he was the delegate for safe environment. He was responsible for overseeing investigations related to reports of priest sexual abuse and misconduct, and providing support services to abuse survivors. 

The Archdiocesan Ministerial Review Board (MRB) conducted a “comprehensive investigation and examination” of McDonough’s role in the Catholic Church’s sexual abuse crisis, Tim O’Malley, director of ministerial standards and safe environment, said in a June 3 news release.

The MRB found McDonough “had not always demonstrated…

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The Archdiocese of Milwaukee will not turn over its sealed records to a state investigation into clergy sex abuse.

On Thursday, The Associated Press reported that the archdiocese refused to turn over its sealed records to the state Department of Justice as part of its investigation into clerical sex abuse. The archdiocese claimed the records were sealed as part of a 2012 bankruptcy case.

In April, Wisconsin Attorney General Josh Kaul had announced the launch of an investigation into sexual abuse in the state’s Catholic dioceses and at least three religious orders. He asked representatives of the dioceses to an April 26 online meeting.

Four of the state’s five dioceses, as well as the Jesuits and the Norbertines, have already disclosed the names of priests credibly accused of sex abuse. The Diocese of Superior is gathering its own list, with the intent to publish it by the end of the…

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[See also the German text of the declaration, and the letter to Pope Francis.]

I have asked the Holy Father on May 21, 2021 to accept my resignation as Archbishop of Munich and Freising and handed over the decision about my further service to him. He has now informed me that this letter may be published and that I should keep performing my service as bishop until his decision is made.

In the past months, I have repeatedly thought about my resignation, introspected and tried to make the right decision in prayer and in the spiritual dialogue by „discerning the spirits“. The events and debates of the past weeks, however, only play a subordinate role in this context.

Over the past years, I have repeatedly been asked questions which I have always on my mind and which constantly challenge me. An American journalist asked me during a conversation…

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One of Germany’s most senior Catholic clerics has offered his resignation to Pope Francis. He said in his letter that he wanted to take a share of responsibility “for the catastrophe of sexual abuse” by church members.

German Cardinal Reinhard Marx has offered Pope Francis his resignation from his position as archbishop of Munich and Freising, saying the Catholic Church had reached a “dead point.” He said he hoped his resignation would help show that a new start was possible.

“In essence, for me it is about sharing responsibility for the catastrophe of sexual abuse by church officials in the past few decades,” Marx wrote to the pope, explaining his reasons for the decision.

Marx said investigations and reports of the past 10 years showed him there had not only been “a lot of personal failure and administrative errors,” but “also institutional and systemic failure” within the Catholic Church.

Recent discussions have shown “that some in the…

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[Via ABC News]

A leading German cardinal and confidant of Pope Francis has offered to resign over the church’s mishandling of clergy sexual abuse scandals and declared that the church had arrived at “a dead end.”

A leading German cardinal and confidant of Pope Francis, Cardinal Reinhard Marx, offered to resign Friday over the Catholic Church’s “catastrophic” mishandling of clergy sexual abuse cases, declaring in an extraordinary gesture that the scandals had brought the church to “a dead end.”

The archdiocese of Munich and Freising, where Marx has served as archbishop since 2007, published his resignation letter to the pope online, in multiple languages, and the cardinal said Francis had given him permission to make it public.

“It is important to me to share the responsibility for the catastrophe of the sexual abuse by Church officials over the past decades,” the 67-year-old Marx wrote in…

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German Cardinal Reinhard Marx, one of Pope Francis’ closest advisors, has asked the pontiff to allow him to resign as the leader of the Archdiocese of Munich and Freising as a sign of responsibility for the “systemic failure” of Catholic Church leaders over decades in responding to clergy sexual abuse.

In a shocking letter to Francis, which Marx released to journalists June 4, the cardinal says he wants to “share the responsibility” for the way priests and bishops mishandled abuse cases. He also admits he feels “personally guilty” for trying to protect the reputation of the church when dealing with victims.

“To assume responsibility, it is … not enough in my opinion to react only and exclusively if the files provide proof of the mistakes and failures of individuals,” writes Marx in the letter, dated May 21. “We as bishops have to make clear that we also…

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A Catholic priest in Sydney’s inner west and a police officer have been charged after an investigation into the alleged possession and distribution of child abuse material.

Father Joseph Kolodziej, the parish priest at All Hallows Catholic Parish Five Dock, was asked to step down from his public role at the parish and its neighbouring primary school this week after child abuse material was allegedly found on his phone.

The principal of All Hallows Catholic Primary School in Five Dock, Helen Elliott, wrote to parents saying Mr Kolodziej would not be involved with the school nor live at the parish next door while the police matter is investigated.

“I understand this news may come as a surprise, given Fr Kolodziej’s active involvement in our community, and you or your child may be experiencing feelings of disappointment and concern,” she wrote.

“Please be assured that the safety and wellbeing of our students…

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For decades, The Catholic Church’s darkest secrets have been kept in the shadows. But they will soon be exposed for everyone to see.

The documents contain details of sexual abuse.

“We will have these volumes available for the general public,” said New Mexico Attorney General Hector Balderas.

In 2018, Balderas forced the three catholic dioceses in New Mexico to turn over all of their documents about clergy sexual abuse to his office. The goal was to see if any living priest could be criminally prosecuted.

“I can assure you that had we not begun a criminal investigation, and that we forced a search warrant under the diocese, they would to this day, probably never released,” Balderas said. “A law enforcement office had to get involved and had to bring search warrants of which we had probable cause to get these documents in order to intervene on behalf of citizens.”

Knowing…

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An Australian court on Friday ordered a dozen media firms to pay a total of A$1.1 million ($842,000) in fines for breaching a suppression order on reporting the conviction, since overturned, of former Vatican treasurer George Pell for child sexual assault.

The 12 media outlets, mostly owned by Nine Entertainment Co (NEC.AX) and Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp (NWSA.O), pleaded guilty in February to breaching the gag order on reporting on the trial and conviction of the cardinal, after the state agreed to drop all charges against journalists and editors.

Reporters, editors and radio and television presenters had faced the threat of jail.

Supreme Court of Victoria Justice John Dixon convicted the media firms saying they had “frustrated the suppression order as they diminished its purpose or efficacy by reporting information contrary to the terms of the order”.

Pell’s conviction for abusing two choirboys was overturned…

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[Via iHeart Radio; nine-minute audio file.]

The Catholic Church is refusing to apologize for its role in residential schools and will not release the documents. Evan Solomon discusses this with Boston attorney Mitchell Garabedian, who has represented thousands of survivors in sexual abuse lawsuits against the Catholic Church. Garabedian is famously portrayed in the movie ‘Spotlight.’   Listen to The Evan Solomon Show podcast on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to your podcasts. 

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A former NSW Labor Party official and priest who abused boys on “abhorrent” child sex tourism trips in south-east Asia, during which he also produced abuse images, has been jailed for 17 years.

Peter Andrew Hansen pleaded guilty in February to 31 charges, including eight counts of engaging in sexual intercourse with children under 16 outside Australia, and 20 counts of producing child abuse material.

In addition to the Commonwealth offences relating to the production of child abuse material in Asia, the 31 charges include two counts of the NSW offence of possessing child abuse material. Hansen received a separate sentence for those counts of four years and three months, to be served concurrently with his 17-year sentence for the Commonwealth offences and backdated to his 2018 arrest at Sydney airport.

From 2014 until his arrest, Hansen used Facebook and an encrypted instant message program called Brosix to connect with…

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A plaque of a deceased Roman Catholic priest accused in a sex abuse scandal has been replaced with that of the Virgin Mary at the Long Island church he led worship in, according to a parishioner.

A plaque marking Msgr. Mario Costa’s contributions to St. Paul the Apostle in Old Brookville was covered up with white cardboard-like material that was held in place by blue contractor’s tape last month. Costa was accused in a clergy abuse scandal and was identified on a list of over 100 credibly accused clergy members, who attorneys for the Diocese of Rockville recently included in legal papers as part of a bankruptcy court filing, Newsday has reported.

The covered up plaque has since been replaced with a picture of the Virgin Mary, the mother of Jesus Christ and a central figure of forgiveness in the Roman Catholic religion.

In a statement,…

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The Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis said the Rev. Kevin McDonough is “fit for ministry” but will bar him from leadership positions involving the protection of children.

The Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis announced Thursday that it has completed an “exhaustive review” into the Rev. Kevin McDonough, concluding the former point person on clergy sex abuse for the archdiocese “failed, albeit not intentionally, to adequately keep children safe.”

As a result of the investigation, the archdiocese has deemed McDonough “fit for ministry” but will bar him from holding leadership positions involving protection of children. He will be allowed to continue his work as pastor of Incarnation Catholic Church in south Minneapolis.

McDonough was the vicar general of the archdiocese for nearly 20 years, responsible for investigating reports of misconduct and providing services to victims. He has not been accused of abuse, but rather of mishandling…

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Pope Francis on Tuesday promulgated the apostolic constitution Pascite gregem Dei, replacing Book VI of the Code of Canon Law, which codifies the penal law of the Latin Catholic Church. 

The revised text contains a number of important changes to the way in which penalties are applied in the Church, and the crimes which must be punished. It also includes the systematic incorporation of numerous laws promulgated in the Church in recent years, but not directly added to the Code of Canon Law.

Canonists and academics will likely spend months poring over the new canons, and unpacking the likely implications — both intended and unintended. 

But as they dive into the text, some changes will likely be regarded as laudable legal reforms, while others will eventually face criticism. And some aspects of the new law are already raising complex interpretative questions for canonists.

What will be praised? What will be…

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Boy Scouts of America, which filed for bankruptcy protection a year ago to guard against a flood of sexual-abuse lawsuits, now faces a new public relations problem in Michigan: a criminal investigation.

The state police and attorney general announced Tuesday the two law enforcement groups have launched a joint investigation targeting accusations of sex abuse in the Boy Scouts and are asking for tips that may lead to prosecutions.

In response, BSA said it “wholeheartedly shares in the Michigan attorney general’s commitment to provide support for survivors,” and agreed to share information and cooperate with the investigation.

The youth organization also said it requires all employees and volunteers to “promptly report any allegation or suspicion of abuse to law enforcement so that allegations can be investigated by experts,” and asserted that incidents described in the claims filed in its bankruptcy case “have already been reported to local Michigan law enforcement.” 

Tuesday’s announcement came after a holiday weekend in which scouts across the…

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Pope Francis has changed the Roman Catholic Church’s laws to explicitly criminalise sexual abuse.

It is the biggest overhaul of the criminal code for nearly 40 years.

The new rules make sexual abuse, grooming minors for sex, possessing child pornography and covering up abuse a criminal offence under Vatican law.

The Pope said one aim was to “reduce the number of cases in which the… penalty was left to the discretion of authorities”.

The changes to the Code of Canon Law took 11 years to develop and included input from canonist and criminal law experts.

The Catholic Church has been rocked in recent years by thousands of reports of historic sexual abuse by priests, and cover-ups by senior clergy, around the world.

Victims and critics had complained for decades that the previous laws were outdated, designed to protect perpetrators and were open to interpretation.

The new code replaces the last…

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Pope Francis on Tuesday issued a major revision of Catholic Church laws regulating clerical sex abuse, fraud and the attempt to ordain women. It is known as an apostolic constitution with the title, Pascite Gregem Dei, or “Tend the Flock.”

In the works since 2009, the revision is the first in four decades since the version Pope John Paul II approved in 1983. And it appears to be in response to numerous clerical sex abuse and financial scandals that have rocked the church and shaken the trust of the faithful across the world over the last quarter century.

After handling scandals secretively with murky decision-making, and treating sexual relationships between priests and consenting adults as sinful but not a crime, the revisions reflect a new understanding in the church that abuse of power is an underlying cause of sexual abuse.

Church law now explicitly criminalizes the sexual abuse of adults…

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 In a long-awaited reform of the Catholic Church’s penal code, Pope Francis on Tuesday (June 1) issued stronger penalties for crimes including sexual abuse, financial malfeasance and female ordination, applying the principle that “mercy requires correction.”

More than 70% of the canons on the code of canon law were changed by the reform, with only 17 articles remaining untouched. The punishments are “applied with canonical equity and having in mind the restoration of justice, the reform of the offender, and the repair of scandal,” the document reads.

If a cleric is found guilty of sexually abusing a minor, canon law will require that he be stripped of his office and, if necessary, defrocked. According to current church legislation, put in place by St. John Paul II in 1983, bishops were allowed more discretion in applying canon law, resulting in a patchwork accountability system.

The new rule also applies to clerics who…

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A priest from LaSalette Missionaries serving as pastor for St. Mary’s Church in Amsterdam and St. Stephen’s Church in Hagaman has been placed on administrative leave for alleged sexual abuse of a minor.

Rev. Jeffrey L’Arche was put on leave by Bishop Edward Scharfenberger immediately after the diocese learned L’Arche was on the Diocese of Springfield’s clergy offenders list, the Albany Diocese said Wednesday. The list was released on June 2.

There was evidence that L’Arche was involved in the sexual abuse of a minor between 1976-1981, alleged the Diocese of Springfield’s Misconduct Commission.

An investigation by Praesidium Inc., at the behest of the LaSalette congregation, said the allegation was “highly questionable” and deemed not credible. Subsequently, L’Arche was added to the Diocese of Springfield’s offender list albeit with an asterisk and explanation of the investigation findings.

L’Arche denies the sexual abuse allegation.

The reverend, who was born in Guilderland…

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[For other episodes, listen here. See also a transcript of this episode.]

The world’s most admired woman lived a life dedicated to helping the poor – but was it always in their best interest? 

After Mother Teresa became famous, controversial claims about her work began to emerge. Dangerous medical practices? Secret baptisms? In this episode, we meet Mother Teresa’s biggest critics and hear from sisters who were there.

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[This is a transcript of the podcast.]

ERIKA LANTZ: The day after Mother Teresa died, her body lay on a bed of ice in the Mother House in Kolkata. Hundreds of people stood outside in the rain. Some were crying. Inside, sisters knelt or stood around her body. They prayed the rosary aloud and approached one at a time to kiss her feet.

The chapel was too small for all the visitors who wanted to pay their respects, so her body was carried through the streets in an open coffin to a church, where she lay in state for a week. Her funeral was in a sports arena in Kolkata. Some 15,000 people attended, including dignitaries from around the world: the presidents of Albania, of Ghana, of Italy. The Queen of Spain. The Queen of Belgium. The Queen of Jordan. First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton.

The Prime Minister of…

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Hundreds of clergy sexual abuse survivors, who had filed claims against the Archdiocese of New Orleans after it declared bankruptcy, were surprised to receive letters from the church’s lawyers last month. 

The letters included personal information, like the full names and addresses of the survivors, and three “requests”, which the letter stressed required no action on the parts of survivors. 

The requests included the “Request by Original Committee and Consent” which came from the Official Committee of Unsecured Creditors, the “Request by Commercial Committee and Consent,” which came from the Official Committee of Unsecured Commercial Creditors, and “Request by Debtor and Consent,” which came from The Roman Catholic Church of the Archdiocese of New Orleans. 

The letters sparked fear for survivors, who were not expecting to be contacted directly by the Archdiocese. “Some of my clients were uncomfortable with the fact that this letter was sent directly to them.” Kristi…

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[This page also includes a video message from Bishop William Byrne.]

To download and print the complete report, please click here.

[The following letter appears as an embedded PDF on the page.]

May 24, 2021

Dear Friends in Christ,

Since my arrival in the Diocese of Springfield, I have been committed to transparency and communication particularly with regard to the scandal of the sexual abuse of minors by clergy, religious and lay church staff. It is an open wound that has remained for far too long.

Today I am writing to address these painful sins and crimes that have broken countless hearts, shattered lives and have cast a dark shadow over our Church.

In recent months I have met with many survivors and family members. I have heard from these courageous individuals that the way the diocese responded to their reports of abuse was…

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It took David O’Regan 40 years, he says, to build the courage to admit that, as a boy in 1962, he was abused sexually by a priest.

Michael Carpino says he was abused by the same priest in 1973, and the Diocese of Springfield paid him a $75,000 settlement in 2008. But, it wasn’t until Wednesday that Carpino and O’Regan could find the name of their abuser on the diocese’s list of credibly accused abusers.

The late Richard Ahern, who served at Our Lady of Mount Carmel in Pittsfield from 1970 to 1976, was among the 41 names that the diocese added Wednesday to its list, which now stands at 61.

Ahern’s inclusion on the expanded list Wednesday brought “some closure,” but it didn’t erase the hurt of the decades during which the diocese refused to publicly acknowledge…

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Pledging a new era of transparency and healing, the Roman Catholic Diocese of Springfield on Wednesday released an updated list of clergy and nonreligious personnel accused of sexual abuse dating back 80 years.

The new accounting represents a significant policy shift for the diocese. The list grew from 21 to 61 after officials opted to add previously excluded categories of the accused, including dead priests, laity and clergy from religious orders who were not ordained in the Springfield diocese but served in various assignments locally. (Scroll down to see the full list below.)

In addition to adding new names, the updated list breaks down each entry with the accused’s former role in the diocese, assignments within the diocese, time working in the organization, the nature of the “reported conduct,” the timeframe of the allegations and whether the priest or layperson had more than one credible…

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The Roman Catholic Diocese of Springfield has released an expanded list of church officials and employees who have been credibly accused of sexual abuse.

The diocese — comprising 79 parishes and seven missions across Berkshire, Franklin, Hampden and Hampshire counties — released its updated list of credible allegations on Wednesday. At a press conference, Bishop William Byrne noted that the list now contains 61 names, an increase from the 21 previously included on the list. Byrne said the list is part of his commitment to transparency and healing.

“‘I’m well aware that the past efforts in the Diocese of Springfield have not achieved that outcome,” Byrne said. “Make no mistake about it, we still have far to come.”

The expanded list now includes categories of church employees not previously included among those credibly accused of sexually abusing a minor: priests who were deceased when an allegation was made, those who…

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The Irish religious sister and doctor Maura O’Donohue campaigned against abuse of power by priests around the world. She helped survivors with discipline and sensitivity.

One of the many peculiar things about Catholicism is that even the outstanding women of this church remain almost unknown. One of them is the Irish nun Maura O’Donohue of the Medical Missionaries of Mary. Unusually for a woman of her generation, she had an academic degree, was appointed to management positions in her mid-twenties, spoke several languages, and managed a budget of millions. But what is possibly her greatest distinction of all, where she seems at first glance to have failed: in the fight against sexual abuse. This failure cannot be blamed on her, because survivors could not have found a more competent, committed, and better networked advocate than she.

The life and actions of O’Donohue, who died in 2015, were characterized by loyalty…

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[Via San Francisco Chronicle]

The Vatican on Tuesday released a long-awaited update to the criminal section of its Code of Canon Law, the internal legal system that regulates the life of the 1.3 billion-member Catholic Church and operates independently from laws in the secular world.

In this, the oldest continuously operating legal system in the Western world, the stiffest penalties include being defrocked, excommunicated, fired or fined — or being forbidden from living in a particular place. The aim of the punishments is to “repair the scandal, restore justice and reform the offender.”

The last time the code was rewritten was in 1983, and before that in 1917. The changes published Tuesday concern only one of the code’s seven sections, or books: the penal law section, or Book VI.

In many ways the changes published Tuesday integrate piecemeal reforms that have been made over the years to address clergy sexual…

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The new rules explicitly criminalize the sexual exploitation of adults by priests who abuse their authority, and the changes also apply to laypeople with power in the church.

[Note: This article was included in Abuse Tracker yesterday, but we are including it again because it has been revised significantly.]

Pope Francis has broadened the Roman Catholic Church’s definition of sexual abuse by revising its penal code to explicitly acknowledge that adults, and not only children, can be victimized by priests and powerful laypeople who abuse their offices.

The Vatican announced on Tuesday that Francis had made changes to the Vatican’s Code of Canon Law, the legal framework for the world’s 1.3 billion Catholics, after years of consultations.

The revisions — the first since 1983 — are part of the church’s continued process of seeking to address gaps in its response to the sexual abuse scandal that has devastated the Catholic…

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Pope Francis has ordered a sweeping revision of the Church’s Canon Law, toughening up regulations on abuse which now include lay people who commit offences while in office. 

The changes were made after a 14-year process of study of the Church’s laws, and is the most significant updating of Canon Law since the 1983 code was published. The revisions concern book VI of the code, which covers penal law, and are significant as Canon Law is the tool which regulates Church discipline.  

The revisions make clear that abuse can be committed by a cleric against an adult, and not just a minor, and states that “any one of the faithful who enjoys a dignity or performs an office or function in the Church” can be punished for abuse. Any priest, it says, who abuses his authority to force someone to engage in sexual…

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On Tuesday the Vatican published a long-awaited revision of Book VI of the Code of Canon Law, unveiling a brand-new penal system including a handful of new crimes and making punishment for offenses an obligation, rather than a suggestion.

According to officials who worked on the project, the core idea is to overcome the idea that punishment for crime is somehow unmerciful or unpastoral, transforming the administration of justice into a routine feature of the life of the church.

One of the most highly anticipated changes to the code was its language and handling of the crime of sexual abuse, which was previously included under the umbrella of sins committed “against the sixth commandment.”

Under the new version of the code, which was promulgated Tuesday in an apostolic constitution titled Pascite Gregem Dei, or “Tend the Flock,” there is now an entire chapter dedicated to the issue under the title of,…

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Msgr. Markus Graulich, under-secretary of the Pontifical Council for Legislative Texts, discusses how the revisions aim to bring greater justice in the context of other offenses and grave delicts as well as those involving clerical sexual abuse.

After thirteen years of consultation, reviews, and deliberations the Vatican today published Pascite gregem Dei (Tend the Flock of God), Pope Francis’ new apostolic constitution containing revisions to the section of the Code of Canon Law dealing with crimes and penalties, including those related to clerical sexual abuse. 

Signed on the Solemnity of Pentecost, the Holy Father said he hoped the 21 pages of revised norms would “prove to be an instrument for the good of souls” and that pastors would apply them “with justice and mercy, in the knowledge that it belongs to their ministry, as a duty of justice — an eminent cardinal virtue — to impose penalties when the good of the faithful demands…

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The new rules explicitly criminalize sexual exploitation of adults by priests who abuse their authority and also apply to lay people with power in the church.

Pope Francis has broadened the Roman Catholic Church’s definition of sexual abuse by revising its penal code to explicitly acknowledge that adults, and not only children, can be victimized by priests and powerful laypeople who abuse their offices and standing among the faithful.

The Vatican announced on Tuesday that Francis had made changes to the Vatican’s Code of Canon Law, the legal framework for the world’s 1.3 billion Catholics, after years of consultations. The revisions are part of the church’s continued process of seeking to address gaps in its response to the sexual abuse scandal that has devastated the Roman Catholic faith over the last quarter century.

While they incorporate recent rules already in force, the changes also go beyond, to reflect a new…

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The Vatican said Tuesday that Pope Francis has signed off on a rewrite of the universal Catholic Church’s internal penal system, updating a version in place since the 1980s and laying out clearer penalties for the sexual abuse of minors.

The changes, although years in the making, are in part a response to the church’s raft of abuse and financial scandals — which have often been magnified by secretive, highly subjective decision-making about how and whether to apply punishments.

Pope Francis, in a letter accompanying the revisions, said the laws were intended to be clearer and simpler, while reducing the number of instances in which penalties are left to the “discretion of authorities.”

“It is necessary that these norms be closely related to social changes and the new needs of the People of God,” the pope wrote.

The changes give church authorities — whether in the Vatican or a far-flung parish —…

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Pope Francis on Tuesday issued the most extensive revision to Catholic Church law in four decades, insisting that bishops take action against clerics who abuse minors and vulnerable adults, commit fraud or attempt to ordain women.

The revision, which has been in the works since 2009, involves all of section six of the Church’s Code of Canon Law, a seven-book code of about 1,750 articles. It replaced the code approved by Pope John Paul II in 1983 and will take effect on Dec. 8.

The revised section, involving about 90 articles concerning crime and punishment, incorporates many existing changes made to Church law by Francis and his predecessor Benedict XVI.

It introduces new categories and clearer, more specific language in an attempt to give bishops less wiggle room.

In a separate accompanying document, the pope reminded bishops that they were responsible for following the letter of the law.

One aim…

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A Press Conference in the Holy See Press Office highlights the changes made to Book VI of the Code of Canon Law.

Changes made to Book VI of the Code of Canon Law were discussed on Tuesday morning at a press conference in the Holy See Press Office.

Speakers included Bishop Juan Ignacio Arrieta, Secretary of the Pontifical Council for Legislative texts, and Archbishop Filippo Iannone, President of the same council.

Goal of the changes

Archbishop Iannone noted that, in recent years, “the relationship of interpenetration between justice and mercy has at times been misinterpreted” and this has “fed a climate of laxity” in the application of criminal law. However, recent scandals and irregular situations have led to the need to reinvigorate canonical penal law. 

The reform, presented on Tuesday and considered necessary and long overdue, “aims to make universal penal norms ever more suitable for the protection of the common…

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With the Apostolic Constitution “Pascite Gregem Dei,” Pope Francis reforms Book VI of the Code of Canon Law, continuing a revision begun by Benedict XVI and applying penal sanctions to more criminal offenses. The new text is a more agile tool for correction, which is to be applied promptly to “avoid more serious evils and to soothe the wounds caused by human weakness.”

“Tend the flock of God, guarding it not by constraint but willingly, as it pleases God” (cf. 1 Pet 5:2). The Apostolic Constitution “Pascite Gregem Dei”, with which Pope Francis reforms Book VI of the Code of Canon Law on penal sanctions in the Church, begins with these words of the Apostle Peter. The new text, presented on Tuesday in the Holy See Press Office, enters into force on 8 December.

“In order to respond adequately to the needs of the Church throughout the world,” explains Pope…

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The Secretary of the Pontifical Council for Legislative Texts presents the Apostolic Constitution “Pascite gregem Dei”. He explains that the revision of Book VI gives Bishops adequate means to prevent and punish crimes that are perpetrated in the Church.

Bishop Juan Ignacio Arrieta Ochoa de Chinchetru is the Secretary of the Pontifical Council of Legislative Texts. In an interview with Vatican Radio’s Christopher Wells, he explains why Book VI on Criminal Law has been revised and updated, and how it now provides Bishops with adequate instruments to prevent and punish crimes perpetrated in the Church:

Shortly after the promulgation of the Code of Canon Law in 1983, the limits of Book VI on Criminal Law became apparent. Following an idea of decentralization the drafting of Penal notes has been largely indeterminate. It was thought at that time, that it was up to the bishops and superiors to decide, according to the gravity…

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Pope Francis has changed church law to explicitly criminalize the sexual abuse of adults by priests who abuse their authority and to say that laypeople who hold church office can be sanctioned for similar sex crimes.

The new provisions, released Tuesday after 14 years of study, were contained in the revised criminal law section of the Vatican’s Code of Canon Law, the in-house legal system that covers the 1.3 billion-strong Catholic Church.

The most significant changes are contained in two articles, 1395 and 1398, which aim to address major shortcomings in the church’s handling of sexual abuse. The law recognizes that adults, too, can be victimized by priests who abuse their authority, and said that laypeople in church offices can be punished for abusing minors as well as adults.

The Vatican also criminalized the “grooming” of minors or vulnerable adults by priests to compel them to engage in pornography. It’s…

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[Note from BishopAccountability.org: The Apostolic Constitution is currently available in German, Spanish, and Italian, in addition to Latin. We have posted a Google translation into English of the German text. Pope Francis is announcing the release of a revised text of Book VI of the Code of Canon Law. The revised text is available here. Canons 1395 and 1398 are of particular interest.]

Dated May 23, 2021; released June 1, 2021

With which Book VI of the Code of Canon Law is renewed

“Feed the flock of God entrusted to you, not compulsorily but voluntarily, as God wills” (cf. 1 Pet 5: 2). These inspired words of the Apostle Peter echo in the rite of episcopal ordination: “As the Father sent our Lord Jesus Christ to redeem people, so he sent the apostles. He has charged them, in the power of the Holy Spirit, to preach the gospel…

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[With videos]

Following the discovery of a mass grave at a former residential school in Kamloops, BC., the Federation of Sovereign Indigenous Nations (FSIN) is calling on all levels of government to take action.

“We understand the enormous loss and mourn with the families affected by the 215 children found in Kamloops. We know that thousands of First Nations children did not make it home and were buried without any markers or outcry from the public. Canada and Saskatchewan have an immense amount of work in the area of reconciliation and addressing this horrific history” said FSIN Chief Bobby Cameron.

“We will not allow Government to continue to ignore these lost children. We must reconcile and reclaim the mass grave sites of our children from across Saskatchewan, within our Treaty Territories, in order to mourn and move forward.”

The FSIN…

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Vancouver Mayor Kennedy Stewart is responding to the disturbing discovery of the children’s bodies in Kamloops.

In a statement released Sunday, he says mourning is not enough.

“We must continue to seek the full truth of what happened at these so-called schools, as well as other systems of oppression created by our government to destroy Indigenous peoples,” he says.

Stewart says he’s calling on the Government of Canada to provide necessary funding and support to Tk’emlúps te Secwepemc to help identify lives lost.

He’s also calling on all residential sites in Canada to be expertly examined under the guidance of local First Nations.

The flag at Vancouver City Hall has been lowered to half mast.

Meanwhile, in Surrey, a memorial was underway Sunday afternoon to honour and mourn the children’s lives lost.

Organizers said participants planned to gather at Holland Park to pay their respects, light candles, and take part…

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A memorial has begun at Algoma University, formerly Shingwauk Residential School, to honour the lives of the 215 children found in an unmarked, mass-grave in Kamloops, British Columbia.

Local residents have been stopping by the steps of Shingwauk to honour the lives that were stolen and discarded by the residential school system, by dropping off a pair of children’s shoes.

Saturday night, I stopped by to offer tobacco as my contribution to the growing memorial.  At that point, there were about 45 pairs of children’s shoes, of all sizes, placed silently on the steps. As I was leaving, another car pulled in just after me, adding to the display. By this afternoon, the visual representation of solidarity had grown to over 215 pairs and various other offerings.

Jasmine Syrette, from Rankin, and her friend Celeste Maurer, from Beaverhouse First Nation, have been tracking and documenting the expansion of the memorial…

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Pope Francis wants to examine the pastoral situation and handling of sexual abuse cases in the Archdiocese of Cologne

[Via Union of Catholic Asian News]

Pope Francis has ordered an apostolic visitation “to obtain a comprehensive picture of the complex pastoral situation” in the Archdiocese of Cologne and to investigate how accusations of clerical sexual abuse were handled, the Vatican nuncio to Germany announced.

The pope asked Swedish Cardinal Anders Arborelius of Stockholm and Dutch Bishop Johannes van den Hende of Rotterdam to carry out the visitation, which include onsite visits in the first half of June, the note said.

In a short statement posted on the archdiocesan website, Cardinal Rainer Maria Woelki, head of the archdiocese, said he had spoken to Pope Francis in February about tensions in the archdiocese over both the handling of allegations of clerical sexual abuse in the diocese and the cardinal’s decision not to…

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Indigenous leaders are calling for an examination of every former residential school site after the discovery of 215 children’s remains at one location in British Columbia. Confirming the identities of those who lie in unmarked graves and returning their remains to family are integral parts of truth and reconciliation, they say.

The grim discovery last week at the site of the former Kamloops Indian Residential School has elicited a profound reaction across the country. Memorials sprung up in cities across Canada, with displays of children’s shoes and teddy bears to mark the young lives lost.

The National Chief of the Assembly of First Nations, Perry Bellegarde, said residential school survivors and their families “deserve to know the truth and the opportunity to heal” from the loss of children who died.”

A thorough investigation into all former residential school sites could lead to more truths of the genocide against our people,” Mr….

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Mary Ellen Turpel-Lafond (Aki-Kwe) is the director of the Residential School History and Dialogue Centre and a professor of law at the Peter A. Allard School of Law, at the University of British Columbia.

Many Canadians have expressed their horror, shock and sadness at the announcement that the unmarked buried remains of 215 children were discovered in preliminary radar findings last weekend at the site of the former Kamloops Indian Residential School in British Columbia. And we should be sad; it is horrific. But it is not shocking. In fact, it is the opposite – a too-common unearthing of the legacy, and enduring reality, of colonialism in Canada. To the degree it is shocking, it is evidence of how much learning there is still to do.

Kukpi7 Rosanne Casimir, the chief of Tk’emlups te Secwepemc First Nation, said it best: She called the discovery of the mass grave an “unthinkable loss.”…

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The Catholic church in western Massachusetts has announced that it will release an expanded list of those credibly accused of sexually abusing a minor while serving the church.

In a letter to parishioners, Bishop William Byrne said the Roman Catholic Diocese of Springfield — comprising 79 parishes and seven missions across Berkshire, Franklin, Hampden and Hampshire counties — is expanding its criteria for disclosure of accusations. The diocese will release its updated list in early June, and Byrne said it will include a “considerable addition” by including those who were dead when an allegation surfaced, were members of a religious order or were lay employees of the diocese.

“As a Church, both locally and universally, too many times in the past we have failed to protect the innocence and dignity of minors from those who committed these heinous crimes,” Byrne wrote. “We can never erase the harm done, however, acknowledging…

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On the front page of the April 25, 2008, edition of Kamloops This Week was a story by then-reporter (and now Vancouver Sun city editor) Cassidy Olivier, with the headline, “Burial ground — or bogus?”

The story detailed claims by Kevin Annett, spokesman for the Friends and Relatives of the Disappeared, that the land surrounding the former Kamloops Indian Residential School contained the remains of children who once walked the building’s halls.

Annett told KTW that not only did he have documentation to prove his allegations, but he also had eyewitnesses who would testify to witnessing several burials in the land adjacent to the residential school and the surrounding orchard.

But Annett’s claims that Tk’emlups was home to a mass grave were met with stiff opposition and severe doubt by local and regional Catholic Church officials, who in 2008 told KTW his allegations rested solely on anecdotal evidence and rumour.

…

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Calls mount for protection of former sites in case more remains discovered

Indigenous leaders and experts in British Columbia are calling for the protection of sites of former residential schools, warning that the bodies of 215 children found in Kamloops, B.C., likely represent just a small portion of the thousands more who died while the schools were in operation. 

Linc Kesler, director of the University of British Columbia’s First Nations House of Learning, said it’s only a matter of time before the same type of technology used by the Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc First Nation reveals more physical evidence of the horrors of residential schools across Canada. 

“It’s absolutely not an isolated incident,” Kesler said. 

On Thursday, the Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc First Nation said preliminary findings from a ground-penetrating radar survey uncovered the remains. 

Mary Ellen Turpel-Lafond, director of the Indian Residential School History and Dialogue Centre at the University of British Columbia,…

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An estimated 2,000 Squamish, Musqueam and Tsleil Waututh children were forced into the North Vancouver residential school between 1899 and 1959

Vancouver mayor Kennedy Stewart has called for the “expert examination” of all residential school sites in Canada, including the old St. Paul’s Indian Residential school in North Vancouver.

Responding to news that the graves of 215 Indigenous children had been discovered using ground-penetrating radar at the old Kamloops Indian Residential School last week, Stewart said he was “calling for all residential school sites in Canada to be expertly examined under the guidance of local First Nations and Knowledge Keepers so that we can begin to identify the thousands of children we know are unaccounted for.”

There were 28 residential schools in B.C., with just one in the Metro Vancouver area (St. Paul’s Indian Residential school). These schools were established by a federal government that legalized the removal of Aboriginal…

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‘Endeavours to empower survivors to reclaim and rebuild their lives’, says Bishop

Over the past 25 years the Catholic Church in Ireland has provided a counselling service for almost 7,000 survivors of institutional, clerical, and religious abuse, and members of their families.

It is free and involves a network of counsellors in Ireland and abroad which provides essential therapy to those who have suffered such abuse, said Auxiliary Bishop of Armagh, Michael Router. He is a director of Towards Healing which, with its forerunner Faoiseamh, provides the counselling service.

“We are all too aware that many people here in Ireland and abroad, have suffered sexual and physical abuse at the hands of clergy and religious. For too long they suffered in isolation, without being heard, acknowledged, or helped,” he said.

Speaking Mass in Knock on Sunday, during the Armagh diocesan pilgrimage, he recalled how we live “in a world where human weakness…

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The remains of 215 children, some as young as 3 years old, were found buried on the site of what was once Canada’s largest Indigenous residential school.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau asked Sunday that flags at all federal buildings be flown at half-staff to honor more than 200 children whose remains have been found buried at what was once Canada’s largest Indigenous residential school — one of the institutions that held children taken from families across the nation.

The Peace Tower flag on Parliament Hill in the nation’s capital of Ottawa was among those lowered to half-staff.

“To honor the 215 children whose lives were taken at the former Kamloops residential school and all Indigenous children who never made it home, the survivors, and their families, I have asked that the Peace Tower and all federal buildings be flown at half-mast,” Trudeau tweeted.

Mayors of communities across Ontario, including…

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‘When these stories are validated by an actual grave site, it’s hard to ignore’

When Abegweit First Nation Chief Junior Gould thinks about the bodies of the 215 children found buried at a former residential school in Kamloops, B.C., he thinks too about his own father, who attended a residential school in Nova Scotia. 

“What if he was buried in one of those unmarked graves? That means Chief Gould would not exist. That would mean my daughter, who is a nurse, would not exist,” said Gould.

Gould said it’s important for the community to honour those lost children, so he’s asking people on P.E.I. to donate children’s shoes.

The plan is to pile 215 pairs of them outside the First Nation’s administration offices as a memorial. The site will also feature mock graves, and residential school survivors are expected take part in a ceremony there Monday afternoon, if enough shoes have been collected…

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“It’s a harsh reality and it’s our truths. It’s our history and it’s something we’ve always had to fight to prove.” — Tk’emlups te Secwepemc Chief Rosanne Casimir

Hundreds of pegs, each marking the possible site of a child’s remains, were staked out on the grounds of a former residential school in Kamloops when Tk’emlups te Secwepemc Chief Rosanne Casimir arrived at the site last weekend.

The First Nation used ground-penetrating radar over the long weekend in an effort to determine the fate of children who went missing from the school.

“It was shared with me that it was children from our community — it was devastating and quite mind-boggling,” Casimir said on Friday.

The survey work has uncovered the remains of 215 children on the grounds of the former Kamloops Indian Residential School.

The band has begun reaching out to other First Nations across Western Canada that might have…

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The discovery of a mass grave containing the remains of 215 Indigenous children at a former residential school in British Columbia prompted outpourings of grief and questions as efforts to identify the students began.

Vigils and prayer ceremonies honoring the Kamloops Indian Residential School students took place across British Columbia after the discovery was announced last week, and an impromptu memorial sprung up in Vancouver as mourners laid out a pair of empty children’s shoes for each of the dead. Meanwhile, Canada’s House of Commons fast-tracked a bill that would create a new national holiday commemorating children who died while in residential schools.

The discovery has also prompted renewed scrutiny of the Roman Catholic Church, which operated the Kamloops school from 1890 to 1969.

Canadian authorities removed nearly 150,000 Indigenous children from their families between 1883 and 1996 and sent them to residential schools, where Indigenous…

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Sometimes, an investigation can turn up answers. Sometimes, they turn up questions.

It would have been nice if the Office of the State Inspector General discovered either in the dive into why a constitutional amendment never made it to the Pennsylvania primary ballot.

On May 18, the voters were supposed to decide whether to change up the constitution and allow survivors of child sex abuse legal recourse denied them by time. Because of missteps in the Department of State — which was supposed to advertise the amendment months earlier — that didn’t happen.

With some things, that might be annoying but not actually hurtful. Deadlines are missed every day, right? But missing this deadline meant people who already had been abused and denied justice for years were inadvertently victimized again by the government.

The inspector general didn’t find that someone deliberately botched the process — despite then-Secretary of State Kathy…

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Retired Superior Court Judge Daniel A. Ford has submitted his resignation as chairperson of the Independent Task Force on the Response to Sexual Abuse within the Diocese of Springfield to Springfield Bishop William D. Byrne, effective immediately. He did so to avoid any appearance of a conflict of interest or bias based on a paid legal consultant job that he has undertaken.

As the task force approached the latter stages of its work, having completed its data and information collection process, Judge Ford informed his colleagues that he had been retained to provide advice in a civil matter, having nothing to do with the Diocese of Springfield, but involving Egan, Flanagan, and Cohen, PC, the Springfield law firm which also represents the diocese.

“While my work with the law firm did not constitute a conflict of interest as prescribed by legal standards, in discussing this matter with the task force…

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In an internal report made public this week, the Jesuits of Chile acknowledge that based on accusations and investigations that emerged over a fifteen-year period, at least 64 people have been sexually abused by 11 Jesuit priests in the country.

Among those victims were 34 minors, both boys and girls.

The report compiles investigations carried out by the Jesuits in Chile between 2005 and 2020, meaning, five years before explosive revelations against former priest Fernando Karadima, found guilty of abusing seminarians, including minors, in 2011.

Since the first allegations were made by three of his survivors against Karadima in 2010, the Catholic Church in Chile has been embroiled in a series of allegations of both sexual abuse of minors and cover up of the crimes by bishops and other members of the hierarchy. Back in 2018, seeing the magnitude of the allegations, Pope Francis summoned the Chilean bishops to Rome…

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Jacobs scheduled to be sentenced July 2 in Dickinson court

One after another came the stories from the victims, now in their 50s and 60s.

The handsome, charming priest who seemed like he had a direct connection to God.

The way he abused their trust, sexually abusing them in the church or even in their own house.

And the way they’ve had to live with the memories in about 40 years since: the relationships with parents that were forever damaged, the marriages and careers that were derailed, the fears they still can’t shake.

Multiple victims called it a lifetime sentence. The man who imposed it on them, former priest Gary Jacobs, this week received eight to 15 years in Ontonagon County Circuit Court.

Jacobs, 75, was arrested in January 2020 after an investigation by the state Attorney General’s Clergy Abuse Investigation Team. He also has been accused in Dickinson County,…

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A Kitui Court has for the second time postponed the judgment in a case in which a Catholic Priest is charged with attempting to kill a Form Two student and a child he is alleged to have fathered.

Kitui Chief Magistrate Stephen Mbungi yesterday apologised to a packed courtroom saying his judgment on the criminal trial of Father Japheth Mwove Kimanzi was not ready.

Mr Mbungi said his work had been disrupted at the weekend by a power blackout in Kitui but pledged to deliver the verdict on June 16th.

Father Kimanzi, who has since been ex-communicated from Catholic priesthood, is facing charges of assaulting and causing grievous harm to the woman and her child. The accused has denied the assault charges and told the court the woman was out to tarnish his name. He denied he had attacked her.

Yesterday, the magistrate apologised to the parties including the victims…

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The judgment of an excommunicated Kitui Catholic priest who attempted to murder his lover and child to conceal his promiscuity, will be delivered on June 16, 2021 before Kitui Chief Magistrate Stephen Mbungi.

Father Japheth Mwove Kimanzi, formerly of Kabati Parish under the Kitui Catholic Diocese, was accused of causing grievous harm to Ms Veronicah Musali Mutua at Muthale village in Mutonguni location, Kitui West on November 16, 2015 at about 10 pm.

The priest was also in the second count, charged with causing grievous harm to Lillian Mwikali, daughter to Ms Mutua.

The Priest who pleaded not guilty to both charges and released on Sh100, 000 bond with a similar surety with an option of Sh15, 000 cash bail was informed of the impending judgment on Monday at the Kitui Law Courts.

It is reported that trouble began when the priest denied fathering the woman’s child, who was born…

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Almost 7,000 survivors of institutional, clerical, and religious abuse and members of their families have availed of a counselling service funded by the Irish Catholic Bishops’ Conference and the Association of Leaders of Missionaries and Religious of Ireland.

That’s according to the Auxiliary Bishop of the Archdiocese of Armagh Bishop Michael Router who is Director of the counselling and support service ‘Towards Healing’.

In a Homily at Knock today, Bishop Router said that in the past twenty-five years, almost 7,000 people have availed of the service.

“For too long they suffered in isolation, without being heard, acknowledged, or helped,” he said.

He added that the service “provides support that endeavours to empower survivors to reclaim and rebuild their lives”.

He said the Church had sometimes lost touch with what it is about and had ignored the inspiration of the Holy Spirit.

“When that happens, we can neglect to display the…

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Das Erzbistum Köln teilt mit: Papst Franziskus hat eine Apostolische Visitation der Erzdiözese Köln angeordnet. Dazu hat der Heilige Vater Seine Eminenz Anders Kardinal Arborelius OCD, Bischof von Stockholm, sowie Seine Exzellenz Monsignore Johannes van den Hende, Bischof von Rotterdam und Vorsitzender der Niederländischen Bischofskonferenz, zu Apostolischen Visitatoren ernannt.

Die Gesandten des Heiligen Stuhls werden sich im Laufe der ersten Junihälfte vor Ort ein umfassendes Bild von der komplexen pastoralen Situation im Erzbistum verschaffen und gleichzeitig eventuelle Fehler Seiner Eminenz Kardinals Woelkis, sowie des Erzbischofs von Hamburg, S.E. Mons. Stefan Heße als auch der Herren Weihbischöfe, S.E. Mons. Dominikus Schwaderlapp und Mos. Ansgar Puff im Umgang mit Fällen sexuellen Missbrauchs untersuchen.

Rainer Maria Kardinal Woelki erläutert dies: “Bereits im Februar habe ich den Heiligen Vater in Rom umfassend über die Situation in unserem Erzbistum informiert. Ich begrüße, dass der Papst sich mit der Apostolischen Visitation ein eigenes Bild über die…

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After months of public fallout over the reported mishandling of clerical abuse cases in the German Archdiocese of Cologne, a crisis which some German Catholics have cited as a reason to leave the Church, the Vatican has launched an apostolic visitation.

In a May 28 statement, the German bishops’ conference announced that “Pope Francis has ordered an apostolic visitation of the Archdiocese of Cologne.”

Those tapped to oversee the investigation are Cardinal Anders Arborelius of Stockholm, Sweden, and Bishop Johannes van den Hende of Rotterdam, president of the Dutch bishops’ conference.

According to the statement, the two prelates will begin their inquiry in the first half of June, and, among other things, will seek to obtain “a comprehensive picture of the complex pastoral situation” in the archdiocese.

As part of the probe, they will seek to identify potential mistakes made by Cologne’s archbishop, Cardinal Ranier Maria Woelki. The actions of…

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A new lawsuit makes shocking allegations of sex abuse against a priest who served in the 1960s at St. Sylvester’s R.C. Church in Concord.

The Rev. Leo Mojecki is identified as the perpetrator in the lawsuit filed in April on behalf of an anonymous man by attorneys for the Herman Law Firm, based in Manhattan.

The Archdiocese of New York and the church at 856 Targee St. are named as defendants.

The lawsuit alleges that Father Mojecki “sexually assaulted and abused plaintiff on multiple occasions” from about 1964 to 1966 when the victim was about nine to 11 years old and attending the fourth to sixth grades at St. Sylvester School.

The abuse allegedly occurred in various locations on church property, including the rectory and a room where altar boys changed their clothes. Father Mojecki “wore his priest garb during instances of sexual assaults and…

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A mass grave containing the remains of 215 children has been found in Canada at a former residential school set up to assimilate indigenous people.

The children were students at the Kamloops Indian Residential School in British Columbia that closed in 1978.

The discovery was announced on Thursday by the chief of the Tk’emlups te Secwepemc First Nation.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said it was a “painful reminder” of a “shameful chapter of our country’s history”.

The First Nation is working with museum specialists and the coroner’s office to establish the causes and timings of the deaths, which are not currently known.

Rosanne Casimir, the chief of the community in British Columbia’s city of Kamloops, said the preliminary finding represented an unthinkable loss that was never documented by the school’s administrators.

Canada’s residential schools were compulsory boarding schools run by the government and religious authorities during the 19th and 20th…

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The remains of 215 children, including some as young as three, have been found in a mass grave on the grounds of a former residential school that was once part of a nationwide effort in Canada to separate Indigenous children from their families in an attempt to assimilate them.

The Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc First Nation announced the discovery in a news release on Thursday, saying the remains were found after working with a “ground penetrating radar specialist” to confirm the mass grave at the Kamloops Indian Residential School.

Chief Rosanne Casimir called it an “unthinkable loss,” and said that while the deaths had been long spoken about, the residential school never documented them.

“We had a knowing in our community that we were able to verify. To our knowledge, these missing children are undocumented deaths,” Casimir said. “We sought out a way to confirm that knowing out of deepest respect…

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Group says federal government, Catholic Church need to move beyond words after remains of 215 children found

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

The Indian Residential School Survivors Society (IRSSS) is calling on the federal government and the Roman Catholic Church to take action following the discovery of the remains of 215 children buried on the Kamloops Indian Residential School grounds. 

On Thursday, the Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc First Nation said preliminary findings from a ground-penetrating radar survey uncovered the remains. Since then, federal government officials and leaders have taken to social media and sent out news releases offering support.

The school was run by the Catholic Church from 1890 to 1969 when the federal government took over administration to operate it as a residence for a day school until it closed in 1978.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau tweeted Friday that this discovery is “a painful reminder of that dark and…

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Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc say ground-penetrating radar was used to locate remains

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

Preliminary findings from a survey of the grounds at the former Kamloops Indian Residential School have uncovered the remains of 215 children buried at the site, the Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc First Nation said Thursday.

The First Nation said the remains were confirmed last weekend near the city of Kamloops, in B.C.’s southern Interior. 

In a statement, Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc said they hired a specialist in ground-penetrating radar to carry out the work, and that their language and culture department oversaw the project to ensure it was done in a culturally appropriate and respectful way. The release did not specify the company or individual involved, or how the work was completed. 

“To our knowledge, these missing children are undocumented deaths,” Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc Kukpi7 (Chief) Rosanne Casimir said in the statement.

“Some were as young as three years old. We sought out…

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Monsignor William G. Stanton spent more than two decades as pastor of St. Ambrose Catholic Church in South Buffalo.

He died in 2004, but the church’s stained-glass windows and bronze memorial plaque stand as symbols of Fr. Stanton’s legacy of being open to change in the Catholic Church.

But now a new sort of change is coming as a parish comes to grips with allegations that Stanton was a child abuser. Two memorials to him in the rear of the church — a bronze plaque and framed vestments — will soon be taken down.

“That was very fulfilling to me,” said Kevin Brun, an abuse survivor and member of the Buffalo Survivors Group, which advocates for victims of child sexual abuse. “I think it’s a very important first step if we’re going to implement real, tangible change within the Diocese of Buffalo.”

Brun first approached leaders at the former St….

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Abuse survivors say Chiara Porro should be working to avoid a repeat of the child abuse scandal exposed by the royal commission

The new ambassador to the Holy See told a Catholic publication that her aim was to change the Vatican’s “narrative” about Australia away from the child abuse royal commission and cardinal George Pell – comments that have infuriated abuse survivors.

In an interview with Catholic Health Australia in September, the newly appointed ambassador Chiara Porro spoke of a recent audience with the Pope, during which she raised the work local Catholic groups were doing on health and education.

She then said: “You know whenever people [in the Vatican] think of Australia they think immediately about cardinal Pell and the royal commission.

“So my aim here is to change that narrative.”

The comments, which have since forced a clarification from the foreign affairs minister, angered abuse survivors, who say Australia’s…

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• Officials make grim discovery near Kamloops, British Columbia
• First Nation chief says causes and timings of deaths not known

A mass grave containing the remains of 215 Indigenous children has been discovered on the grounds of a former residential school in the interior of southern British Columbia.

The grim discovery at the former school near the town of Kamloops was announced late on Thursday by the Tk’emlups te Secwépemc people after the site was examined by a team using ground-penetrating radar.

“We had a knowing in our community that we were able to verify. To our knowledge, these missing children are undocumented deaths,” said Rosanne Casimir, chief of the Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc, in a statement.

Some of the remains belong to children as young as three years old, but the causes and timing of their deaths are not yet known. “At this time we have more questions than answers,” said…

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The remains of 215 children, some as young as 3 years old, have been found buried on the site of what was once Canada’s largest Indigenous residential school — one of the institutions that held children taken from families across the nation.

Chief Rosanne Casimir of the Tk’emlups te Secwépemc First Nation said in a news release that the remains were confirmed last weekend with the help of ground-penetrating radar.

More bodies may be found because there are more areas to search on the school grounds, Casimir said Friday.

In an earlier release, she called the discovery an “unthinkable loss that was spoken about but never documented at the Kamloops Indian Residential School.”

From the 19th century until the 1970s, more than 150,000 First Nations children were required to attend state-funded Christian schools as part of a program to assimilate them into Canadian society. They were forced to convert to…

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A former employee of St. Vincent Catholic Charities children’s home is accused of sexually assaulting a teen girl at the facility. 

Lansing Township Police said on Friday Brett Donald Fellows, 30, is accused of committing “more than one sexual assault” between January and February this year with the teen.

In a news release, township police said they received a referral from Child Protective Services on Feb. 28, 2021 regarding sexual assault involving an adult male employee of St. Vincent Home, at 2828 W. Willow St., and “a 16-year-old female protected party placed at the facility.”

On Thursday, township police presented their investigation to the Ingham County Prosecutor’s Office, which issued an arrest warrant for Fellows’ on three counts of third-degree criminal sexual conduct in foster care. 55th District Court Magistrate Stefani Godsey authorized Fellows’ arrest warrant Thursday. 

Lansing Township Police Chief John Joseph confirmed Fellows was fired from the group home after police received the Child Protective Services referral. St….

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Evidence abuser brought child to other perpetrator’s home to molest, says Elliott

An organised “clique” of child abusers operated at high levels in the Catholic Boy Scouts of Ireland (CBSI), sharing knowledge with each other and in some cases providing children for others in the group to molest, an expert has said.

In one instance a known child abuser took a victim to the home of another perpetrator to be abused, according to Ian Elliott, the expert who reformed Scouting Ireland’s current child protection policy.

In an interview with The Irish Times, Mr Elliott said that during his review of historical abuse in former scouting bodies, evidence emerged of a “clique” of abusers within CBSI.

“I’m quite sure that there would have been an understanding between them and there would have been communication between them,” Mr Elliott said.

“One particular man who I spoke to, he spoke about being abused by…

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Over the last year, at least a dozen priests have returned to their parishes or new positions within the Church. In some cases, the Vatican has even overturned recommendations from local dioceses.

When news broke this week that Chicago priest Michael Pfleger would be reinstated following multiple accusations of sexual abuse, one of his accusers was crushed. It had taken decades for him to even speak out about what he said he suffered at the hands of Pfleger, who is among the most well-known priests in the Catholic Church. 

“It’s a cover-up because of his popularity,” the accuser, who asked to remain anonymous to protect his privacy, told VICE News. “They don’t see that side of him. They don’t know that side when I had bloody underwear. All they see is what’s going on with him now, what he has done since he has been at St. Sabina, the activist…

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Nazir Afzal, the man who will lead the Catholic Church’s work on child safety, has an impressive track record in combating sexual abuse, and an understanding of the role of religion in people’s lives – he is a practising Muslim

It’s an all too common story. A young teenager cultivated by a friendly adult finds kindness being replaced by unwanted sexual advances and then threats if she tells anyone about it. And when the adults do find out, nobody accepts her story and the authorities do nothing.

Sounds familiar? It’s happened to plenty of victims – male and female – of child sexual abuse in the Catholic Church. It’s happened in plenty of communities across Britain. But in one neighbourhood something changed. Nazir Afzal, a lawyer from Birmingham, arrived in the north-west of England to become the chief prosecutor of the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS).

He discovered a series of grooming cases…

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