ABUSE TRACKER

A 77-year-old former Catholic priest is headed to prison for molesting a 15-year-old girl during a blessing before her upcoming cancer treatment.

Luis Barajas was sentenced on Tuesday to 15 months in prison after he pleaded guilty earlier this month to a fourth-degree felony, gross sexual imposition, tied to the October assault at the girl’s Westlake home.

“You admitted to sexually assaulting a child, which in and of itself is an absolutely horrendous crime,” Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court Judge Andrew Santoli said before announcing the sentence.

What made the crime worse, Santoli said, was that the girl’s family looked to him for spiritual guidance and support in the face of a long and difficult journey through chemotherapy and radiation treatment.

“You took advantage of that, and that warrants a serious consequence,” Santoli said.

A sheriff’s deputy escorted Barajas as he shuffled…

View Cache

Catholic League president Bill Donohue has asked Maryland Attorney General Anthony G. Brown to end the investigation of clergy sexual abuse in the Catholic Church. It has yielded not a single indictment and the alleged offenders are either dead or missing.

To read his letter, click here.

View Cache

A Catholic advocacy group called on Maryland Attorney General Anthony Brown to halt investigations into child sex abuse in the Archdiocese of Washington and the Diocese of Wilmington, Delaware, in a letter Tuesday.

Bill Donahue, president of the national Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, wrote that it was “exasperating” that the attorney general’s office persisted in investigating child sex abuse in the Catholic Church. He called a nearly 500-page report the attorney general published in April on the Archdiocese of Baltimore “a total waste of money,” and he argued that it was unfair for the state to scrutinize decades-old church abuse rather than probing abuse in public schools.

Since Oct. 1, when the Child Victims Act lifted the statute of limitations on sex abuse lawsuits in Maryland, victims have filed a slew of lawsuits alleging abuse at state institutions, including juvenile detention facilities. Meanwhile, Brown is defending the law from a…

View Cache

The announcement that Pope Francis had accepted the resignation of Archbishop Andrzej Dziega of Szczecin-Kamien with no explanation in a Feb. 24 statement from the apostolic nunciature caused a bittersweet reaction in Poland, once viewed as the testing ground for the 2019 Vatican document on bishops’ accountability.

Dziega was known for ignoring the victims of sexual abuse for years in his archdiocese, but in a letter explaining his resignation to priests of the archdiocese he said the reason was health oriented, a “radical weakening of my condition.”

At age 71, he is four years younger than the age at which canon law requires bishops to submit their resignation to the pope.

He also apologized to the priests for his “weaknesses,” not mentioning the victims of sexual abuse who were outraged when the letter went viral across social media in Poland over the Feb. 24-25 weekend.

Under public pressure, including from…

View Cache

On a spring day in the mid-aughts, the Rev. Stephen Fichter was grabbing a slice of pizza from a shop in Ho-Ho-Kus, New Jersey, when a boy from Fichter’s church pointed to him and said, “I didn’t know he could eat pizza!”

Almost two decades later, Fichter, pastor of St. Elizabeth of Hungary Church in Wyckoff, New Jersey, wants people to know that not only do priests enjoy gastronomic delights, they’re also fully human.

“There’s a sense of priests being a separate entity,” said Fichter, who told Religion News Service that viewing priests purely as spiritual figureheads can, as the Catholic abuse crisis indicates, have dire consequences. And while reductive narratives in film and media depict priests as perfect heroes or evil villains, he said, truth is more complicated.

“I wanted to write a film that would strike a balance,” said Fichter, who began developing the idea for the movie…

View Cache

Editor’s Note: Following is a statement from the Archdiocese of Boston, released to the National Catholic Reporter’s podcast The Vatican Briefing. It was given in response to an interview on the podcast with Anne Barrett Doyle, co-director of BishopAccountability.org.

Cardinal Seán has consistently demonstrated a commitment to be open, receptive, and supportive of survivors in the Archdiocese of Boston. From the earliest days of the crisis, the Cardinal has acknowledged the failings of the Church, often crediting survivors with having the courage to come forward to hold the Church accountable. He has credited the media with forcing the Church to be transparent and to effect change.

The Cardinal has implemented significant reforms and procedures to safeguard children, hold offenders accountable, support survivors and provide for healing. He has personally acknowledged the critically important work of survivors, clergy, religious, laity, law enforcement and many others…

View Cache

If it is not a failure, it’s very close. The strict zero tolerance towards sexual abuse does not seem to work everywhere: there is not only the opaque and shocking management of the case of Father Marko Rupnik (the Jesuit expelled by the Jesuits for sexual abuse on several nuns but still a priest and never punished by the Vatican). Five years after the famous summit of all the episcopates of the world wanted by the Pope to give a definitive turn to an omertà attitude, aimed at covering up and little attentive to the victims, two other emblematic cases seem to make understand how far away a new mentality based on responsibility, justice and transparency contained in the principles of many documents is.

The words of Valentina Alazraki, the famous Mexican journalist invited to the summit in 2019 in the Vatican to speak in front of 114 episcopal conferences,…

View Cache

Pope Francis has accepted the resignation of a Polish archbishop accused of covering up the sexual abuse of minors, a Vatican statement said on Saturday.

Andrzej Dziega, the 71-year-old archbishop of Szczecin, in northwest Poland, will “take his retirement”, said the statement from the apostolic nuncio or diplomatic envoy representing the Holy See.

Polish media have long reported allegations of negligence and cover ups for pedophiles in the Catholic Church.

The Gazeta Wyborcza website said the results of two internal ecclesiastic court trials had already been sent to Rome, marking a new stage in the pedophile cases that have rocked Poland.

Francis has made combatting sexual assault in the Church one of the main missions of his papacy, and insisted on a “zero tolerance” policy following multiple wide-reaching scandals.

Clergy and staff are required to report abuse, but anything revealed in confession is still considered private. Victims’ rights activists demand…

View Cache

[Includes an audio interview of Anne Barrett Doyle by Christopher White, followed by White’s conversation with Joshua J. McElwee.]

This February marked the fifth anniversary of one of Pope Francis’ seminal efforts to confront clergy sexual abuse: the first-of-its-kind 2019 Vatican summit about abuse prevention with the heads of the world’s Catholic bishops’ conferences.

Looking back now, one of the leading U.S. advocates for clergy abuse survivors told National Catholic Reporter that although the summit resulted in “massive public awareness building” about clergy abuse, its wider impact has been “minimal.”

Anne Barrett Doyle, who has tracked clergy abuse over decades as a co-director of the BishopAccountability.org website, in particular singled out for criticism Francis’ signature clergy abuse reform Vos Estis Lux Mundi, first issued after the summit.

“Its impact has been insignificant, as far as we can tell,” said…

View Cache

[Includes link to the podcast.]

I first connected with Sara Larson last summer. She reached out to me after listening to the interview we had with Dr. Marcus Mescher about moral injury and clerical sexual abuse. Since then we’ve had several conversations, and every time I walk away feeling understood and with a little more hope.

Sara is the Executive Director of Awake. Among other things, Awake provides support groups and retreats for survivors. They also host excellent online events where survivors can share their stories and experts can educate about the reality of abuse in the Church.

I’ve talked here on the podcast before about a concept a friend of mine, Monica Pope, articulated: that is the need for a “third space” for people harmed by the Church. Often, the responses that people who have been harmed by the Church hear from others…

View Cache

[See also a PDF of the original letter.]

Drodzy Bracia kapłani – duszpasterze naszej Archidiecezji,

Na wszystko przychodzi właściwy czas.

Minęło piętnaście lat od momentu, gdy decyzją Benedykta XVI wprowadzony zostałem w dzieje Świętego Kościoła Szczecińsko- Kamieńskiego. Przez ten czas, podejmując powierzone mi zadania oraz odpowiedzialność biskupią czyli apostolską, odkrywałem razem z Wami dotychczasowe dzieje, tajemnice, a także ciągle odsłaniające się nowe możliwości duchowe obecnego czasu w sercach Ludu Bożego oraz w różnych obszarach bytowania Ziemi nad Odrą i Bałtykiem. Czas ten stał się niezwykłym doświadczeniem pielgrzymowania po Bożych Drogach na obecnym etapie historii. Jeśli było w tym wszystkim coś dobrego i pozostają jakieś dobre owoce, to przede wszystkim Wasza kapłańska zasługa. To owoce Waszych modlitw, gorliwości pastoralnej i wspólnotowego zaangażowania. To także pogłębione owoce modlitwy i świętego życia serc wiernych Panu Jezusowi. Wiernych Słowu Pana. Podążających pod opieką Matki Kościoła – Zwycięskiej Królowej Polski, pod opieką Świętego Ottona…

View Cache

Many women present at the synod on synodality this past October “expressed deep gratitude for the work of priests and bishops,” but also noted that clericalism continues to “scar the face of the Church and damage its communion.” The assembly stated in the synthesis report that a “profound spiritual conversion is needed” to meet the “desire to promote a Church in which men and women dialogue together… without subordination, exclusion, and competition.”

This month, we asked our panelists: What is the spiritual conversion needed in order for healing to take place? What would you hope to see?

Kathleen Feeley, a School Sister of Notre Dame, served as president of the College of Notre Dame of Maryland (now Notre Dame of Maryland University) 1971-92. She has taught college, high school and elementary students. After her college presidency, she taught literature in India, Australia, China,…

View Cache

Accuser fears Laurence Hecker may not live long enough to stand judgment in criminal court as lawyer argues priest is a ‘vegetable’

A 92-year-old Roman Catholic priest from New Orleans who is charged with raping a teenager after strangling him unconscious is now “in and out of consciousness” himself, according to the clergyman’s defense attorney, who is seeking to postpone a trial date in the case.

The assistant district attorney who is leading the prosecution of Lawrence Hecker said on Friday he was ready to “roll [the defendant] in on a gurney” to keep a 25 March trial date in the case. But a lawyer for Hecker’s accuser said they were growing increasingly worried that the suspected serial predator’s trial would be delayed – and that he may not live long enough to ever stand judgment in a criminal court.

“If for some reason he is unable to stand trial before he…

View Cache

The worldwide clergy child sex abuse crisis and scandal ignited forty years ago in The Catholic Diocese of Lafayette.

On Jan. 23, I watched arguments before the Louisiana Supreme Court on the question of the constitutionality of a law that created an opportunity for child victims to prosecute civil claims against priests and bishops that would have prescribed under the law that existed prior to the adoption of this new law relating to prescription. The two cases before the court were from the Catholic Diocese of Lafayette. What began there must end here.

When arguments were held before the Louisiana State Supreme Court, Chief Justice John Weimer seemed prepared to elevate a pedophile priest and his bishop’s “vested right” not to be sued over ordinary citizens’ rights of life, liberty and property. All of those fundamental rights require a due process analysis, like expropriation. Justice Weimer appeared to endorse the…

View Cache

Cardinal Jean Pierre Kutwa of Ivory Coast suspended Do Oulaï Franklin Delaneaux, founder of a lay apostolate, in 2020 after the man partially admitted committing various types of abuse

Cardinal Jean Pierre Kutwa of Abidjan in Ivory Coast, one of the senior Catholic Church leaders in Africa, has reinstated the charismatic founder of a lay apostolate in his Archdiocese of Abidjan more than three years after suspending the man over abuse allegations.

“I hereby lift, here and now, the suspension of all activities taken against this son of the Church, Mr. Do Oulaï Franklin Delaneaux, called Abraham Marie Pio, founder of the Catholic apostolate Royal Priesthood,” declared the 78-year-old cardinal in in a decree dated February 9, but not made public until February 22.

In the decree, the cardinal also designates two priests from the Abidjan archdiocese, one a canon lawyer, to assist Pio and offer him “guidance in order…

View Cache

Pope Francis has accepted the resignation of Polish Archbishop Andrzej Dzięga, who has faced allegations that he ignored abuse cases in Poland.

Neither the Apostolic Nunciature of Poland, which announced the resignation on Feb. 24, nor the Holy See Press Office provided a reason for Dzięga’s resignation. The 71-year-old prelate, who has led the Archdiocese of Szczecin-Kamien since 2009, will not turn 75, the age at which canon law requires a bishop to submit his resignation to the pope, until 2027.

Dzięga published a two-page resignation letter on Feb. 24 in which he apologized to his “brother priests,” saying, “if my weaknesses, including incomplete understanding of specific circumstances, and sometimes even my ordinary human fatigue became the cause of your anxiety, I am sorry.” 

The archbishop said he was resigning due to “a radical weakening of my condition,” adding that in the fall “it became obvious…

View Cache

Engelbertus Lowa Sada is the third Catholic from within the church’s ranks accused of child abuse

Police in Indonesia’s Catholic-majority Flores Island are on the lookout for a Catholic seminarian who is absconding following allegations of molesting a minor at a seminary.

A police official said a raid team is searching for Engelbertus Lowa Sada, 27, who went into hiding since the parents of a victim filed a criminal case against him.

The Capuchin seminarian is accused of molesting a 13-year-old student of St. Yohanes Berchmans Mataloko Minor Seminary twice in 2022, said Sukandar, a police spokesperson in Ngada Regency of Flores.

Sukandar, who like many Indonesians goes by one name, told UCA News on Feb. 25 that the parents filed the case on April 22, 2023, when the minor told them about the abuse.

During the time of alleged abuse, Sada was undergoing pastoral orientation, a year-long program in Indonesia before ordination…

View Cache

Video of a North Carolina pastor implying that women in shorts deserve to be raped is sparking outrage—not just on social media, but in the pastor’s local community, where a protest was held.

Yesterday, The Roys Report (TRR) Founder Julie Roys posted a clip on X, formerly Twitter, of a sermon last August by Pastor Bobby Leonard of Bible Baptist Tabernacle in Monroe, North Carolina.

Commenting on seeing women wearing shorts at an outlet mall, Leonard said, “If you dress like that and you get raped, and I’m on the jury, he’s going to go free. You don’t like that, do you? I’m right, though. Because a man’s a man.”

As of publication time, the post has been viewed 2.7 million times, only 26 hours after being posted. 

In the post, which also has 100,000 total engagements and over 18,000 likes, Roys writes: “Yes, a man is a man—not…

View Cache

A longtime central Texas pastor is blasting Assemblies of God (AG) leaders for “gross negligence” in responding to concerns about sex offender Daniel Savala having access to students in the denomination’s Chi Alpha Campus Ministries. The pastor has since resigned his role as a presbyter in the AG North Texas District, after months of what he called “belligerent and defensive” responses from AG leaders. 

The pastor, Anthony Scoma, spoke out in a podcast interview released on Feb. 16. Scoma, who served nine years as a presbyter, co-founded Southwest Family Fellowship in Austin, Texas, 20 years ago. But he recently took a pastorate at Full Life Christian Center in San Francisco, hoping for a “fresh start.”

Last February, Scoma made an initial report to AG leaders about Savala, who was arrested last June on child sex abuse charges.

An alum of the AG’s college…

View Cache

“People speak of hope as if it is this delicate, ephemeral thing. … It’s not. Hope has dirt on her face, blood on her knuckles, the grit of the cobblestones in her hair, and just spat out a tooth as she rises for another go.”

—a person on X called Matthew (@CrowsFault)

Hope is a tricky thing. It can masquerade as a facile, feel-good sentiment, or it can pack the punch of a hard-fought attitude.

Although we often grasp at the sentiment, that version of hope frequently disappoints. But the hope that draws from attitude? That kind of hope is the real deal.

As someone who has spent a couple decades working to expose clergy sex abuse and cover-ups in a powerful, mega-monied, recalcitrant institution — the Southern Baptist Convention — there are plenty of days when hope seems elusive.

People often ask me how I can possibly hold to hope, and…

View Cache

Five years ago this week, Pope Francis convened an unprecedented summit of bishops from around the world to impress on them that clergy sexual abuse was a global problem and that they needed to do something about it.

Over four days, these bishops heard harrowing tales of trauma from victims, learned how to investigate and sanction pedophile priests, and were warned that they too would face punishment if they continued to cover for abusers.

Yet five years later, despite new church laws to hold bishops accountable and promises to do better, the Catholic Church’s in-house legal system and pastoral response to victims has proven incapable of dealing with the problem.

In fact, victims, outside investigators and even in-house canon lawyers increasingly say the church’s response, crafted and amended over two decades of unrelenting scandal around the world, is downright damaging to the very people already harmed—the victims.

The victims are often retraumatized when they…

View Cache

The court pointed out that there was inconsistency in the statement’s the petitioner gave and lack of evidence

A court in Thane district has acquitted a priest who was accused of raping a woman and practising black magic on her. The court pointed out that there was inconsistency in the statement’s the petitioner gave and there was lack of evidence, while acquitting the priest. 

As per news wire PTI’s report, additional sessions judge Amit M Shete acquitted the priest, Kuldeep Kundansinh Kuvar (31) of charges under relevant provisions of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), the Information Technology Act, and the Maharashtra Prevention and Eradication of Human Sacrifice and other Inhuman, Evil, and Aghori Practices and Black Magic Act.

The order dated February 2 was made available on Saturday.

Additional Public Prosecutor S.B. More alleged that the accused had repeatedly raped the…

View Cache

Homelessness, human trafficking in surrounding neighborhood among reasons cited

The embattled Roman Catholic Diocese of Oakland is losing two of its elementary schools as it goes through bankruptcy proceedings stemming from widespread sex-abuse lawsuits against the church.

St. Anthony School, which opened in the late 19th century and provides private K-8 education to a largely Spanish-speaking community in Oakland, said that it will close its doors at the end of this academic year. Another private K-8 Catholic school in the region, Our Lady of Guadalupe in Fremont, founded in the 1960s, also will close.

Both schools cited declining enrollment and operating deficits that had forced them to tap reserve funds to keep the doors open. In St. Anthony’s case, the financial woes persisted despite an investment of $388,000 from Lumen Christi Academies, an umbrella organization that has governed the school since 2018.

Officials at the Lumen…

View Cache

Republicans align against proposal over concerns of long-term consequences

Unexpected partisan opposition to a state constitutional amendment that’s aimed at clearing the way for survivors of childhood sexual assault to sue over older claims has clouded the measure’s chances in the Colorado Senate.

Backers, who are working to shore up support, see it as a black-and-white proposal that would give survivors of abuse that occurred a decade or more ago a chance to demand justice against the perpetrators — and the institutions that enabled it. After a state court overruled past legislation, lawmakers launched the bid to place an amendment on the ballot as a key step of opening that opportunity.

But Republicans — many of whom voted for the 2021 bill that was a precursor to this effort — warn now of unintended consequences to public and private institutions for crimes that occurred potentially decades in the past.

They include…

View Cache

Discover the resignation of Archbishop Andrzej Dziega of Szczecin-Kamien in the midst of allegations of sexual abuse within the Catholic Church, reflecting the Vatican’s commitment to addressing abuse and rebuilding trust.

In a move that has sent ripples through the Catholic community in Poland, Pope Francis has accepted the resignation of Archbishop Andrzej Dziega of Szczecin-Kamien. The announcement comes in the wake of allegations that the Archbishop had failed to address accusations of sexual abuse within the church, a charge that has cast a long shadow over the institution’s commitment to protecting its flock. This decision underscores the Vatican’s ongoing battle against sexual abuse and its efforts to restore faith in the church’s leadership.

The Szczecin-Kamien archdiocese recently disclosed the retirement of Archbishop Metropolitan Dziega without mentioning the accusations against him. Having served since 2009, Dziega did not comment on the allegations. This silence follows the unveiling of a documentary…

View Cache

A retired Roman Catholic bishop appeared in court in remote Western Australia on Thursday on charges of sexual offences against children, including two counts of rape.

The charges against Christopher Saunders were presented on Thursday morning in Broome Magistrates Court, said a court spokesperson, who declined to say whether Saunders had entered a plea.

Western Australia police said Child Abuse Squad detectives charged a 74-year-old Broome man, whom it did not name, with 19 offences, including two of sexual penetration without consent, 14 of unlawful and indecent assault and three of a person in authority indecently dealing with a child.

Footage from TV network Seven showed Saunders being led away by police after his arrest on Wednesday. Police said the man was refused bail.

Saunders, emeritus bishop of Broome, a diocese bigger than Texas in northwest Australia, was not reachable for comment. He has previously denied wrongdoing. It was not…

View Cache

WARSAW (Reuters) – Pope Francis’s representatives in Poland said on Saturday that he had accepted the resignation of an archbishop who was accused in a documentary of turning a blind eye to child abuse.

The TVN24 news channel’s documentary in 2021 alleged that priest Andrzej Dymer, who died that year, had abused children and that the archbishop of the diocese of Szczecin-Kamien, Andrzej Dziega, had known since 1995 but taken no action.

“Holy Father Francis accepted the resignation of Archbishop Andrzej Dziega from serving as Archbishop Metropolitan of Szczecin-Kamien,” Poland’s apostolic nunciature, the equivalent of the Vatican’s embassy, said on its website.

A statement on the website of the Szczecin-Kamien archdiocese also said Dziega was retiring.

Neither of the statements referred to the accusations against Dziega, who had served as Archbishop Metropolitan of Szczecin-Kamien since 2009.

The archdiocese did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Dziega could not…

View Cache

Five years ago, the Pontiff railed against “abominable crimes that must be erased from the face of the earth…” His record since has been abysmal and even scandalous.

The largest single gathering of the Catholic Church’s hierarchical leadership to combat clerical sexual abuse and coverup closed five years ago–five years to the day, if you are reading this on Saturday, February 24, 2024–with Pope Francis calling for “an all-out battle” against “abominable crimes that must be erased from the face of the earth.”

What have we seen in the way of leadership from Pope Francis in the intervening quinquennium?

Five years of failure

Pope Francis has refused to defrock a confessed child molester or even remove him from the College of Cardinals.

Pope Francis has protected a favorite Argentinian prelate he himself raised to the episcopate and threatened those who sought justice from the…

View Cache

Committee rejected compromise with Catholic lobbyists that survivors argued “protects abusers”

Each of the last two years, Washington state lawmakers on both sides have broadly agreed that clergy should be mandatory reporters of child abuse and neglect.

Washington is one of just five states where that’s not required by law. Democrats and Republicans have repeatedly said, often during deeply personal and emotional debates at the state Capitol, that they want to change that.

Yet for the second year in a row, a Washington bill to make clergy mandatory reporters of child abuse has failed. Senate Bill 6298, which passed the Senate, died in a House committee this week. The sticking point this session was once again over whether the law should contain an exception to the requirement that would have allowed priests to hide child abuse from authorities if the priest learned of it during a sacramental confession.

Democratic Rep….

View Cache

Joe Cheray is well aware that clergy members aren’t required to report child abuse.

She remembers going to her priest as a child, asking for his help when she was being sexually abused. Cheray said he did nothing.

“Had I known back then clergy were not mandated reporters of abuse, I would’ve just went to law enforcement and the Department for Children and Families. I wouldn’t have even said anything to my church at all,” Cheray said.

Cheray, who advocates with other survivors of child sex abuse every week in the entrance of the Statehouse, is asking that ministers and clergy be required to report cases like hers.

“Had I known back then clergy were not mandated reporters of abuse, I would’ve just went to law enforcement and the Department for Children and Families. I wouldn’t have even said anything to my church at all,” Cheray said.

Earlier this month, Rep….

View Cache

Jewish Week article in 2018 by 3 families of sexually abusing their children at Camp Shoresh, a day camp near Baltimore. Shortly following the accusation, Krawatsky filed a federal defamation suit against the families which was dismissed for jurisdictional reasons. Krawatsky then filed another defamation case in state court in September of 2018. In response the families filed a countersuit for the sexual abuse allegedly committed by Krawatsky against their children.

The case has dragged on for 6 years, bogged down in endless procedural fighting. A number of parties were dismissed from the case on both sides. The Jewish Week, and journalist, Hannah Dreyfus, who initially covered the allegations for the Jewish Week (now owned by 70 Faces Media), had initially been defendants in the defamation case, but were removed from the case in summary judgment. Camp Shoresh was also removed from the case…

View Cache

A former youth volunteer at the megachurch Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, California, has been charged with molesting a fourth teenage boy, Orange County District Attorney Todd Spitzer said Wednesday in a statement.

Former Saddleback youth volunteer Ruven Meulenberg, 39, was initially arrested in 2017 for molesting twin brothers between the ages of 13 and 14 years old, Spitzer said. Though convicted of those charges, his conviction was overturned due to juror misconduct.

Now, while Meulenberg is awaiting trial, two more victims have come forward with allegations of abuse.

Meulenberg previously mentored junior-high-aged children at Saddleback’s headquarters. Saddleback Church, founded in 1980 by author Rick Warren, is one of the largest churches in the U.S. with a weekly attendance of 28,000, according to AP News. The church has 15 locations in California and five internationally, according to the church’s website.

Outside…

View Cache

A former Seaford children’s pastor has been arrested on 10 felony charges after admitting to possessing and viewing child sexual abuse material, the Delaware Department of Justice said Friday.

James Dryden, 74, was charged last week following an investigation by the state’s Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force, which includes Delaware State Police and the state Justice Department. The investigation began in July 2022 after the task force received cyber tips that Dryden’s IP address had accessed the material, court documents say.

After receiving the tips, law enforcement contacted Dryden at his home and seized his devices. A forensic examination of the items showed he had additional material, the Justice Department said.

According to the Justice Department, Dryden had been a children’s pastor at Stein Highway Church of God in Seaford for more than 20 years. In a Friday morning statement, Pastor Dan Southern defined Dryden as a “volunteer children’s…

View Cache

A pastor in South Carolina has been charged with prostitution, according to an arrest warrant and police.

William Martell Kannarney is charged with first-degree prostitution. He was arrested this week, according to Seneca Police.

The warrant said in October Kannarney either engaged in prostitution or aided or abetted prostitution knowingly at a location off Seneca Drive and Bypass 123 in Seneca.

Kannarney was listed as Senior Pastor at Blue Ridge View Baptist Church, in Pickens, in a February 2024 church bulletin. The church declined to comment to WYFF News 4.

The men listed below were also arrested as part of the investigation and are all charged with first-offense prostitution:

• Donald Edward Young
• Richard Walter Hudak
• Logan Michael Wojnarwksy
• Matthew Aaron Clement
• Brandon Bennett
• Taylor John Clark
• Christopher Michael Hancox
• Andrew Jared Satterfield

View Cache

Bishop Daniel Flores, from the Brownsville Diocese, addressed the criminal charges brought against priest Fernando Gonzalez Ortega.

“We feel together with them the shock and the pain of the news of this week,” Bishop Flores said.

RELATED STORY: Brownsville priest arraigned on trafficking and child sex abuse charges

Ortega is facing five charges including, sexual abuse of a child and human trafficking, an issue that’s affected dioceses across the country.

“The general sense is that cases of abuse within the Roman Catholic Church have been decreasing. But we don’t have much data to back that up. That’s taking most dioceses on good faith for their internal reporting,” Case Western Reserve University professor Brian Clites said.

Clites is an expert in religious and catholic studies. He has interviewed 87 victims of abuse over the last 15 years and identified trends in cases and how the church addresses them.

…

View Cache

The recent developments in the Catholic Church, particularly in relation to handling accusations of child molestation against clergy, have raised serious questions and concerns. The cases of clerics being accused, temporarily removed but later reinstated, sometimes in positions involving contact with children, presents a troubling pattern that warrants a deeper examination.

A Troubling Pattern Emerges

In Kansas, an accused predator priest has been moved to a parish with a school, a decision that has sparked outrage and concern among the faithful and the wider community. Similarly, Phil Baniewicz, also once sued for similar allegations, was appointed the head of a school within the same archdiocese. The appointment of an alleged child molester to such a position has understandably caused turmoil within the parish, a situation that was not alleviated by the Archbishop’s recent intervention, which did not go well.

What? You thought…

View Cache

Following accusations of drug trafficking, including the sale of Viagra, a Spanish priest from Don Benito in the western Extremadura region has been temporarily suspended by the Roman Catholic Church. 

The diocese of Plasencia, responsible for the priest’s community, revealed that he was detained on Monday (Feb 19) under suspicion of “trafficking narcotic substances,” prompting his provisional release by the investigating judge.

Expressing pain and dismay at the suffering and scandal caused by the events, the diocese has decided to temporarily remove the priest from public ministry and his role as parish priest while awaiting clarification on the situation.

The clergyman, whose identity remains undisclosed, is receiving psychological and spiritual accompaniment following his arrest.

Spanish media reports indicate that the priest, accompanied by a second arrested man alleged to be his lover, was engaged in the trafficking of Viagra, aphrodisiacs, and narcotics.

The two individuals, under police surveillance for several…

View Cache

A teacher’s assistant at St. Joseph Catholic School in Muskogee was arrested after a sexual abuse investigation, according to the Muskogee County Sheriff’s Dept.

On Feb. 20, the Muskogee County Sheriff’s Dept. received a report of child sexual abuse involving 3 children.

Police say after investigation, Johnathan Wiedel was arrested on charges of rape in the first degree, rape by instrumentation, lewd acts with indecent proposals to a child under sixteen, and sexual abuse of children.

According to a press release from the Roman Catholic Diocese of Tulsa, St. Joseph Catholic School immediately excused Wiedel from all his parish and school duties until further notice.

“We have wonderful parish and school communities,” said Fr. Richard Cristler, pastor of St. Joseph Catholic Church and School in the press release. “I would ask that everyone join me in praying that this matter is resolved in a quick and just manner.”

The press…

View Cache

A Warren County priest has been arrested after he allegedly stole from a Walmart and drove drunkenly to flee police.

According to Pohatcong Township Police, officers were dispatched to the Route 22 Walmart around 10:17 p.m. Monday for a shoplifting in progress.

After a store employee directed police to the thief’s vehicle, police attempted to stop the suspect — who was later identified as 39-year-old Dawid Weinerowski, of the 800 block of Fifth Avenue in Alpha Borough.

St. Mary Roman Catholic Church — where Weinerowski as a priest — is located at 830 Fifth Ave. in Alpha. 

According to police, Weinerowski drove away when police attempted to conduct a traffic stop and erratically led officers on a chase through the Parkside section of Pohatcong Township.

Police said Weinerowski’s vehicle came to a stop in the front yard of a home on Liberty Boulevard, after which he was arrested and removed from the vehicle. Goods…

View Cache

The Delaware Department of Justice announced Friday a former Seaford children’s pastor was arrested and charged with 10 felony counts of Dealing in Child Pornography.

James R. Dryden, 74, was arrested last week following an investigation by the state’s Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force.

Prosecutors said the investigation started after multiple CyberTips generated by Microsoft showed that Dryden’s IP address had accessed and downloaded child sexual abuse material.

After receiving tips, detectives from the Delaware State Police and investigators from the Department of Justice contacted Dryden at his home and discovered additional child sexual abuse material on his personal devices, officials said.

The Justice Department said Dryden has been a children’s pastor with Stein Highway Church of God for more than 20 years.

“The evidence in this investigation is deeply disturbing,” Attorney General Kathy Jennings said in a statement. “Nothing is more important than protecting our kids, and I’m grateful for…

View Cache

A 92-year-old Catholic priest charged with raping a teenager after choking him unconscious is now “in and out of consciousness” himself, according to Lawrence Hecker’s defense attorney.

But Orleans Parish First Assistant District Attorney Ned McGowan vowed to “roll him in on a gurney” if necessary to try Hecker, as scheduled, on March 25.

“If the state wants to try a vegetable, they can do that,” defense attorney Bobby Hjortsberg said in a pre-trial hearing Friday, before clarifying in an interview outside court that Hecker’s medical records do not say he is a “vegetable.”

“Mr. Hecker was conscious and, in some respect, resting comfortably,” McGowan told Judge Ben Willard. “The defense has not raised mental competency issues and if they wish to do so, we will need to convene a panel very quickly.”

Hjortsberg said he and the rest of Hecker’s defense team have not been able to meet with…

View Cache

Cierra Osborn was driving home from the store in southeast Missouri late last month when two boys jumped out from behind a tree, waving her down.

“They were screaming, hands up in the air, trying to get me to stop,” Osborn said.

When she did, the older boy had one request: “Ma’am, we just need you to call 911.”

Osborn, 20, knew little about ABM Ministries, also called Lighthouse Christian Academy. In fact, she hadn’t heard about the boarding school near her home until a couple weeks before, when she learned that another kid had run away in frigid temperatures.

Now, she stood before two more runaways, ages 12 and 14, who had walked miles without coats in temperatures hovering between the high 30s and low 40s. Osborn said they told her that staff would often berate them and hit them for things like not getting their…

View Cache

A teacher’s assistant at St. Joseph Catholic School in Muskogee was arrested after a sexual abuse investigation, according to the Muskogee County Sheriff’s Dept.

On Feb. 20, the Muskogee County Sheriff’s Dept. received a report of child sexual abuse involving 3 children.

Police say after investigation, Johnathan Wiedel was arrested on charges of rape in the first degree, rape by instrumentation, lewd acts with indecent proposals to a child under sixteen, and sexual abuse of children.

According to a press release from the Roman Catholic Diocese of Tulsa, St. Joseph Catholic School immediately excused Wiedel from all his parish and school duties until further notice.

“We have wonderful parish and school communities,” said Fr. Richard Cristler, pastor of St. Joseph Catholic Church and School in the press release. “I would ask that everyone join me in praying that this matter is resolved in a quick and just manner.”

The press…

View Cache

Three would seem to be a magic number for John Patrick Shanley. When his play “Doubt” first opened Off-Broadway in 2004, he was premiering another play at the Public Theater, “Sailor’s Song,” while a revival of his breakthrough two-person drama “Danny and the Deep Blue Sea,” originally written in 1983, was also playing.

This season finds the prolific playwright in the midst of another trifecta: A hit revival of “Danny” starring Christopher Abbott and Aubrey Plaza recently closed after several months at the Lortel Theatre, while a revival of “Doubt” is about to open on Broadway, starring Liev Schreiber and Amy Ryan, and “Brooklyn Laundry,” a new play about two mismatched souls played by Cecily Strong and David Zayas, is opening Off-Broadway.

In fact, as Shanley pointed out in a recent Zoom interview, “Brooklyn Laundry” and “Doubt” are opening 24 hours apart, on Feb. 28 and 29, respectively. “I have…

View Cache

Developments in the Catholic Church, particularly in relation to handling accusations of child molestation against clergy, have raised serious questions and concerns. The cases of clerics being accused, temporarily removed but later reinstated, sometimes in positions involving contact with children, presents a troubling pattern that warrants a deeper examination.

A Troubling Pattern Emerges

In Kansas, an accused predator priest has been moved to a parish with a school, a decision that has sparked outrage and concern among the faithful and the wider community. Similarly, Phil Baniewicz, also once sued for similar allegations, was appointed the head of a school within the same archdiocese. The appointment of an alleged child molester to such a position has understandably caused turmoil within the parish, a situation that was not alleviated by the Archbishop’s recent intervention, which did not go well.

What? You thought bishops promised…

View Cache

On Wednesday (21st February), two former nuns revealed how a Slovenbia-based Catholic priest named Marko Rupnik sexually abused them three decades ago in the garb of ‘spiritual growth.’

The victims, identified as Gloria Branciani and Mirjam Kovac, were members of the Ignatius of Loyola community. The duo held a press conference in Rome on Wednesday and informed the media that Rupnik forced them to watch pornography and have a threesome in the early 1990s.

“He took me to pornographic theatres to help me ‘grow spiritually’…He said that I would not grow spiritually if I did not meet his sexual needs. We had another nun have sex with us because he said it was like the Trinity”, narrated Gloria Branciani.

“(Rupnik) was always protected by everyone, and everything that you could accuse him of was either minimized or denied…” she added.

“We hope that our testimony –…

View Cache

Australian Bishop Christopher Saunders has been charged with rape and sex offences, including some with children.

The 74-year-old was arrested in Broome on Wednesday, and he has said he will plead not guilty.

The bishop is charged with two counts of rape, 14 counts of unlawful and indecent assault, and three counts of indecently dealing with a child as a person in authority. The allegations take place between 2008 and 2014. Saunders became bishop in 1996.

He’s been released on bail and will appear in court in June. He has been ordered to reside at his home in Broome.

“Allegations against the former Bishop of Broome, Christopher Saunders are very serious and deeply distressing, especially for those making those allegations,” said Perth Archbishop Timothy Costelloe, the head of the bishops’ conference.

“It is right and proper, and indeed necessary, that all such allegations be thoroughly investigated. The Church will continue…

View Cache

Recent sexual abuse civil suits against leaders in the Canadian Catholic Church, including Cardinal Marc Ouellet and Quebec City Cardinal Gérald Lacroix, can leave the faithful struggling to find signs of hope. They won’t get any help by relying on typical media stories, says Gatineau Archbishop Paul-André Durocher.

In fact, Durocher expresses personal frustration at the lack of coverage of the work of hundreds of people throughout Canada and the world who are working on making safe environments.

At the start of his three-year mandate as chair of the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops’ (CCCB) committee for protection of minors and vulnerable adults, Durocher shared his own views of work being done to address abuse in the Church. He feels humbled to work with remarkable people who sit on this committee. “They really take their work to heart,” he emphasized, noting they include survivors of clergy sexual abuse.

The committee…

View Cache

Exclusive interview with Hans Zollner SJ, one of the most credible figures involved in the Catholic Church’s effort to stop clergy sex abuse and heal its victims

“The law is not perfect in any institution,” says Jesuit priest and psychologist Hans Zollner when asked about the Vatican’s protocols to deal with clergy sex abuse.

“More broadly, the norms adopted by Rome indicate the right direction, but we currently have no mechanism to monitor their implementation,” points out the 57-year-old German, who is one of the Catholic Church’s most credible figures in fighting abuse and helping victims.

Zollner, a former member of th Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors and currently director of the Institute of Anthropology at the Gregorian University in Rome, believes the historic summit Pope Francis called in February 2019 to deal with abuse was a major step in the right direction.

But, as he explains in…

View Cache

Committee rejected a compromise with Catholic lobbyists that survivors argued “protects abusers”

Each of the last two years, Washington state lawmakers on both sides have broadly agreed that clergy should be mandatory reporters of child abuse and neglect. 

Washington is one of just five states where that’s not required by law. Democrats and Republicans have repeatedly said, often during deeply personal and emotional debates at the state Capitol, that they want to change that. 

Yet for the second year in a row, a Washington bill to make clergy mandatory reporters of child abuse has failed. Senate Bill 6298, which passed the Senate, died in a House committee this week. The sticking point this session was once again over whether the law should contain an exception to the requirement that would have allowed priests to hide child abuse from authorities if the priest learned of it during a sacramental confession. 

Democratic…

View Cache

Joe Cheray is well aware that clergy members aren’t required to report child abuse.

She remembers going to her priest as a child, asking for his help when she was being sexually abused. Cheray said he did nothing.

“Had I known back then clergy were not mandated reporters of abuse, I would’ve just went to law enforcement and the Department for Children and Families. I wouldn’t have even said anything to my church at all,” Cheray said.

Cheray, who advocates with other survivors of child sex abuse every week in the entrance of the Statehouse, is asking that ministers and clergy be required to report cases like hers.

“Had I known back then clergy were not mandated reporters of abuse, I would’ve just went to law enforcement and the Department for Children and Families. I wouldn’t have even said anything to my church at all,” Cheray said.

Earlier this month, Rep….

View Cache

The Archdiocese of Vancouver has reached a settlement with a man who was sexually assaulted by a priest and a teacher at Holy Trinity Parish in North Vancouver in the 1970s.

The settlement was reached during the civil trial at B.C. Supreme Court in New Westminster, where the plaintiff, “John Doe,” described abuse by Fr. John Kilty and teacher Raymond Clavin.

Before the trial began, the Archdiocese acknowledged the abuse occurred but denied being negligent as an organization. 

At John Doe’s request, the terms of the settlement are not being disclosed.

In a statement, the Archdiocese said, “No words of regret can fully repair the profound horror of the past and the pain endured by victims/survivors of abuse.” It said Archbishop J. Michael Miller extended “heartfelt sorrow to the plaintiff and all victims of abuse on behalf of the Catholic community.”

Beginning in late 2018, the Archdiocese of Vancouver conducted a…

View Cache

A report, released Feb. 21, says the church cannot be trusted to investigate sexual abuse without outside involvement

A new report has revealed what it describes as conflicts of interest in the handling of allegations of sexual abuse in Britain’s established state church, the Church of England.

The report, released Feb. 21, found that despite numerous reviews, the church cannot be trusted to investigate allegations of sexual abuse without outside involvement.

The former chair of a government-ordered Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse said policies around the protection of children and vulnerable adults within the denomination are “flawed” and “cannot be sufficiently improved whilst it remains within church oversight.”

Alexis Jay concludes in the report: “(The church) needs to fundamentally change in order to restore the confidence of victims, survivors and others, including clergy.”

“This can only be achieved by being delivered by a fully independent body,” she writes. Jay…

View Cache

It shouldn’t be hard to distinguish spiritual direction from psychological torture, spiritual friendship from coercive sexual abuse and violent manipulation, spiritual formation from moral plagiarism.

Several years ago, when I was living in Rome, a confessor told me: “You are too rigid.” I don’t recall precisely what year it was, but it was toward the beginning of the Francis era and “rigidity” was still a new buzzword.

Maybe the fellow thought I really was being too hard on myself, or something. I don’t have the slightest recollection of what the matter may have been, but I know I wasn’t beating myself up about anything. It was a run-of-the-mill, number-and-kind confession that shouldn’t have taken five minutes.

I thought of that when I read Gloria Branciani’s story of how Fr. Marko Rupnik would abuse her on long car rides and in other circumstances, and how he would chide her for rigidity…

View Cache

[Includes video.]

Po njunih besedah je bilo v skupnosti v preteklih letih od skupno 40 članic zlorabljenih približno 20 redovnic

Pred nabito polno dvorano Federacije italijanskega tiska v Rimu sta pred novinarje prvič neanonimno stopili dve nekdanji članici redovne Skupnosti Loyola iz Mengša in razkrili podrobnosti o domnevnih zlorabah nekdanjega jezuita in umetnika Marka Rupnika.

Kot je poročal novinar RTV Slovenija Janko Petrovec, sta spregovorili o duhovnih, psiholoških, fizičnih in spolnih zlorabah, ki naj bi jih nad najmanj dvajsetimi redovnicami tam zagrešil nekdanji jezuit, zdaj pa uradno duhovnik koprske škofije Marko Rupnik.

Skupaj z drugimi borkami proti spolnim zlorabam v Katoliški cerkvi zahtevata temeljito, neodvisno preiskavo primera.

“Rupnika sem spoznala pri 21 letih, ko sem bila študentka medicine.” Tako danes pripoveduje 60-letna Gloria Branciani, ki je prva intimna približevanja Marka Rupnika doživela sredi osemdesetih let v domačem Rimu. A zaradi osebnih šibkosti in celo klica ljubljanskega nadškofa je sprejela povabilo v takrat novo loyolsko…

View Cache

An American founder of a Haitian orphanage who is accused of forcing four boys who lived in the institution to engage in sexual acts more than a decade ago will remain behind bars for now even though a magistrate judge in Colorado ruled Thursday that he should be sent to live in a halfway house.

Federal prosecutors said they would appeal the decision to a federal judge in Florida, where Michael Geilenfeld was indicted last month and accused of traveling from Miami to Haiti between 2010 and 2016 “for the purpose of engaging in any illicit sexual conduct with another person under 18.” The charge he faces carries a penalty of up to 30 years in prison.

Magistrate Judge Scott Varholak said his order to release Geilenfeld, 71, would not take effect until a judge in Florida rules on the matter.

Geilenfeld, who has faced View Cache

The Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith has broadened its investigation into Fr. Marko Rupnik after receiving new evidence against the religious artist, the Holy See confirmed on Wednesday. 

The announcement coincided with an independent press conference given by two of Rupnik’s alleged victims, who said they were sexually and spiritually abused for decades by the priest, and that Church authorities had ignored their complaints.

“After expanding the search to [Church institutions] not previously contacted and having just received the latest elements in response, it will now be necessary [for the DDF] to study the acquired documentation in order to identify which procedures can and should be implemented,” said the Holy See press release Feb. 21.

While the DDF is considering new evidence, also in Rome on Wednesday two former religious sisters from the community co-founded by Rupnik detailed the abuse they say they suffered at Rupnik’s hands for…

View Cache

Erneut hat eine frühere Ordensfrau schwere Vorwürfe gegen den Priester und international bekannten Mosaikkünstler Marko Rupnik (69) erhoben.

Erneut hat eine frühere Ordensfrau schwere Vorwürfe gegen den Priester und international bekannten Mosaikkünstler Marko Rupnik (69) erhoben. Der Mit-Gründer der Loyola-Gemeinschaft in Slowenien habe sie als Erwachsene über viele Jahre sexuell missbraucht, sagte Gloria Branciani (59) am Mittwoch vor Journalisten in Rom. Die Italienerin gehörte der Schwesterngemeinschaft bis 1994 an. Im Oktober ordnete Papst Franziskus an, die Kommunität aufzulösen.

Sie habe den Slowenen Rupnik bereits als Studentin in Rom kennengelernt, berichtete Branciani. Schon damals sei es zu körperlichen Übergriffen gekommen. Nachdem sie sich der Loyola-Kommunität in Slowenien angeschlossen habe, seien die Übergriffe aggressiver geworden. Rupnik habe die Berührungen religiös begründet: Sie trügen zu ihrem spirituellen Wachstum bei.

Schließlich habe er eine weitere Ordensfrau beim Sex dabei haben wollen und dies mit der heiligen Dreifaltigkeit begründet, sagte Branciani. Sie habe sich gefügt,…

View Cache

Almeno una ventina di giovani religiose appartenenti alla Comunità di Loyola sono state abusate sessualmente, spiritualmente, psicologicamente. Il numero si pensa però sia maggiore

«Il muro di gomma deve cadere». Padre Marko Rupnik è stato per anni il loro padre spirituale, si è guadagnato la fiducia delle numerose (almeno venti) vittime manipolando le loro coscienze, facendo leva sul suo indubbio magnetismo e sulla sua autorità religiosa fino ad assoggettarle e farne delle schiave, costringendole ad avere rapporti a tre perchè, secondo lui, quell’atto avesse un significato trinitario. Una specie di mistica del pornografico. Senza contare l’obbligo di accompagnarlo in cinema porno romani come sistema per l’assuefazione al genere.

E’ una storia terribile. Almeno una ventina di giovani religiose appartenenti alla Comunità di Loyola sono state abusate sessualmente, spiritualmente, psicologicamente. Il numero si pensa però sia maggiore. Stamattina a Roma, nella sede della Stampa Italiana, due ex religiose entrambe cadute nella…

View Cache

• Victims bravely waived anonymity to speak publicly for the first time in Rome
• They say a prominent cleric said they would not ‘grow spiritually’ without sex

Two former nuns said today that a world-renowned artist priest made them take part in threesomes and watch porn so they would ‘grow spiritually’.

Slovenian mosaic artist Marko Rupnik, 69, is accused of sexually and psychologically abusing at least 20 women for nearly 30 years at a religious community in Slovenia.

‘He took me to pornographic theatres to help me “grow spiritually”,’ Gloria Branciani, 59, who was a member of the community until 1994, told journalists at a press conference in Rome, the first time she and Mirjam Kovac spoke publicly of their experiences.

‘He said that I would not grow spiritually if I did not meet his sexual needs,’ she added, describing how the prominent cleric sexualised religious concepts.

‘We had…

View Cache

[Includes video.]

This is the first time that two former consecrated women who allege they were abused by mosaic artist, Fr. Marko Rupnik, have spoken out publicly. One of the women claims she is a victim of psychological, spiritual, and sexual abuse.

GLORIA BRANCINI
Alleged abuse victim
(I felt) a sense of disorientation, a state of confusion, a feeling of violation of my integrity and my relationship with the Divine —this is the most devastating point for me. And the deep humiliation of my whole being—body, soul and spirit. Along with feeling the pain of evil. A weight on my heart…

Fr. Rupnik was expelled from the Jesuit order for failing to testify on charges of abuse and for breaking his vow of obedience.

Now the alleged victims, along with their lawyer, are demanding that the Vatican provide the clarity and transparency that will allow them to go forward with case.

LAURA…

View Cache

Slovenian ex-Jesuit ‘abused us in various ways’ say pair

Two alleged victims of world-famous Slovenian mosaic artist and ex-Jesuit priest Marko Rupnik have come out in public for the first time, saying that “the rubber wall” surrounding his alleged sex abuse has “crumbled.” They are named Mirjiam and Gloria, and are Slovenian women former members of the Ignatius of Loyola Community of which the 69-year-old Rupnik was a prominent member before being expelled three years ago.

“We knew each other in the community,” Mirjam explained in a press conference with Gloria at her side, “we were all young girls, full of ideals, but these very ideals together with our training in obedience were exploited for abuses of various kinds: of conscience, of power, spiritual, psychic, physical and often even sexual.

“We were faced with a rubber wall,” they said, “let the wall crumble.

View Cache

I gesuiti lo avevano cacciato nel 2023 parlando di “psicologici e sessuali per oltre 30 anni”. Oggi due donne, considerate tra le vittime di Marko Rupnik, hanno deciso di parlare in pubblico. Mirjiam Kovac e Gloria Branciani , la prima slovena la secondo italiana ex componenti della Comunità Ignazio di Loyola, hanno raccontato la loro storia e gli abusi che sostengono di aver subito dal sacerdote su cui processo lo stesso Papa Francesco era intervenuto per ottenere una deroga sulla prescrizione e far procedere il giudizio. “Ci siamo conosciute in comunità – ha spiegato in una conferenza stampa Mirjam con al fianco Gloria – eravamo tutte ragazze giovani, piene di ideali ma proprio questi ideali insieme alle nostra formazione all’obbedienza sono stati sfruttati per abusi di vario genere: di coscienza, di potere, spirituali, psichici, fisici e spesso anche sessuali. Ci siamo trovate davanti a un muro di gomma – hanno detto-, che il muro…

View Cache

Two alleged abuse victims of mosaic artist Father Marko Rupnik spoke publicly for the first time Wednesday, detailing the tactics the former Jesuit allegedly used to manipulate them.

Italian Gloria Branciani and Slovenian-born Marjiam Kovač, former sisters of the now-dissolved Loyola Community in Slovenia, shared their stories at a crowded press conference in the Rome offices of the trade union for Italian journalists.

They were joined by their high-profile lawyer, Laura Sgrò, who has represented clients in the VatiLeaks scandal as well as the family of Emanuela Orlandi, an Italian girl who disappeared under mysterious circumstances decades ago.

Branciani, 59, reflected on how her introduction into the community was propelled by a desire to grow her spiritual life but wound up being subjected to spiritual, psychological, and physical abuse, which amounted to “the total loss of my identity.” 

Detailing the dynamics of Rupnik’s alleged manipulation, Branciani recounted how this multifaceted…

View Cache

Former nun wants Catholic Church to let ‘truth to be known’ about Marko Rupnik who, she claims, invoked the Holy Trinity to initiate a threesome

A former nun has called on Pope Francis to launch a public investigation into an influential priest she claims pushed her close to suicide by forcing her to watch pornographic films and take part in a threesome.

Gloria Branciani, 59, is one of 20 nuns who have accused the priest and artist Marko Rupnik of sexually abusing them and getting away with it thanks to powerful friends he made at the Vatican during a career in which he created mosaics for important cathedrals and the Vatican itself.

Speaking publicly about her ordeal for the first time in Rome on Tuesday, the Italian nun she said that she wanted to send a message to the Pope.

View Cache

Two former women religious who say they were sexually and psychologically abused by Jesuit mosaic artist Mark Rupnik speak publicly for first time at a press conference in Rome

Speaking to a hundred journalists from around the world at a press conference in Rome, Gloria Branciani’s voice broke more than once. The 59-year-old Italian, who used to be a sister in a religious community in Slovenia founded by former Jesuit Marko Rupnik, described at length the ordeal she endured for years at the hands of the famous priest-icon artist and spiritual director.

Her testimony on February 21 came five years to the day after Pope Francis opened a historic summit at the Vatican to deal with sexual abuse in the Catholic Church. Branciani recounted the harrowing story of the control — which she described as “slavery” — that she suffered at the hands of Rupnik, a Slovenian Jesuit whose mosaics…

View Cache

Former Catholic bishop of Broome, Christopher Saunders, has indicated to a court he will plead not guilty to a string of historical child sexual abuse allegations.

The 74-year-old appeared in Broome Magistrates Court on Thursday.

He is charged with 19 offences, including two counts of sexual penetration without consent between 2010 and 2012.

He is also accused of three counts of a person in authority indecently dealing with a child between 2008 and 2010.

The former cleric has also been charged with 14 counts of unlawful and indecent assault between 2010 and 2014.

The offences are alleged to have occurred in towns and communities in the Kimberley region.

Western Australian police arrested Saunders at his Broome home on Wednesday.

Child abuse squad detectives had travelled to the popular holiday town and searched the former bishop’s home on two occasions in recent months.

The Catholic Church previously investigated allegations of sexual…

View Cache

Pope Francis convened an unprecedented Vatican summit on sexual abuse in 2019 aimed at making the Catholic Church “a safe haven”. We look at what has happened since then.

Five years have passed since Pope Francis called the historic Vatican summit on preventing clergy sexual abuse. The event — which took place on February 21, 2019 –gathered presidents of bishops’ conferences, heads of religious orders and top officials of the Roman Curia.

The message was clear: there would be zero tolerance for sexual crimes perpetrated by the Catholic clergy. The Church would be a safe haven where victims could be heard, and anyone concealing such abuses would be punished.

Since then, the Holy See has issued several directives on preventing abuse. The pope published a “moto proprio” in May 2019 called Vos estis lux mundi (“You are the light of the world”), which mandates all clergy and religious to report…

View Cache

An Australian bishop is facing accusations of rape and indecent assault, becoming one of the most senior Catholics in the country to be charged with sex crimes.

Emeritus Bishop Christopher Alan Saunders was arrested in Western Australia on Wednesday evening after a high-powered internal Vatican investigation spurred child abuse detectives into action.

Police said he has been charged with 14 counts of unlawful and indecent assault and two counts of sexual penetration without consent — a legal term for rape.

The 74-year-old, who is due to front court on Thursday, has also been charged with three counts of “indecently dealing with a child” between 16 and 18 years old.

Archbishop of Perth Timothy Costelloe, the president of the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference, said the allegations were “deeply distressing”.

“It is right and proper, and indeed necessary, that all such allegations be thoroughly investigated,” he said in a statement.

Court documents show Saunders’…

View Cache

Five years ago, Pope Francis convened in Rome a “Meeting on the Protection of Minors in the Church.” The first – and to date, only – summit of its kind brought together almost 200 participants, mostly bishops, including the presidents of 114 episcopal conferences, with the intention of “decisively” confronting the crisis of clerical sexual abuse in the Church.

At the time, the global Church was reeling from a series of major scandals involving clerical sexual abuse and the mishandling of abuse allegations against clerics, including bishops. Foremost among these was the case of Theodore McCarrick. But even before the McCarrick news broke in the summer of 2018, a string of high-profile cases had already put Rome’s handling – or mishandling – of abuse in the spotlight.

Five months before the McCarrick news broke in the United States, Pope Francis’ apostolic visit to Chile and Peru was overshadowed by an…

View Cache

Both French authorities and the Vatican seem reluctant to act on accusations of sexual abuse by French priests in Japan, Thailand, Cambodia, and more.

Earlier this month, French President Emmanuel Macron accepted the resignation of Catholic Bishop Gilles Reithinger. A few days later, the Holy See confirmed the stepping down of the 51-year-old cleric. No explanation was given for this unusual departure, but the prelate is embroiled in numerous allegations of sexual abuse perpetrated by French missionaries across all of Asia. 

In a documentary released by France 24 in September 2023, “A Deafening Silence,” Father Philippe, a French priest in Japan who is himself accused of sexual abuse, confessed that he had sexual relations with his ecclesial supervisor, Reithinger. This occurred years ago when Philippe was studying in Paris. Later the young missionary was sent to Japan while Reithinger became the superior of the French missionary society, the Missions…

View Cache

A retired Roman Catholic bishop appeared in court in remote Western Australia on Thursday on charges of sexual offences against children, including two counts of rape.

The charges against Christopher Saunders were presented on Thursday morning in Broome Magistrates Court, said a court spokesperson, who declined to say whether Saunders had entered a plea.

Western Australia police said Child Abuse Squad detectives charged a 74-year-old Broome man, whom it did not name, with 19 offences, including two of sexual penetration without consent, 14 of unlawful and indecent assault and three of a person in authority indecently dealing with a child.

Footage from TV network Seven showed Saunders being led away by police after his arrest on Wednesday. Police said the man was refused bail.

Saunders, emeritus bishop of Broome, a diocese bigger than Texas in northwest Australia, was not reachable for comment. He has previously denied wrongdoing. It was not…

View Cache

“Truth and justice shouldn’t be an extraordinary ask in the Catholic Church in 2024 …” Anne Barrett Doyle of the watchdog and advocacy group, BishopAccountability.org, told CWR, “I believe that at heart Pope Francis is opposed to reform…”

In some of the strongest remarks to date, a senior figure at a leading watchdog and advocacy group has cast strong doubt on Pope Francis’s commitment to reform of the Church’s justice system.

The remarks to the Catholic World Report came on a day the Vatican made its own statements suggesting that the ordinary organs of ecclesiastical justice are still trying to decide what to do with disgraced former Jesuit celebrity mosaic artist Fr. Marko Rupnik, accused of serial sexual, psychological, and spiritual abuse of more than a dozen victims.

Wednesday was also a day on which two of Rupnik’s many alleged victims again called for justice, even as the Vatican appeared…

View Cache

Two victims of notorious priest abuser and famed Catholic artist, former Jesuit Father Marko Ivan Rupnik, have revealed their names publicly for the first time and have demanded complete transparency as a Vatican investigation moves forward.

They have also called for a full inquiry into what they say has been a systemic mishandling of the case similar to the so-called “McCarrick report” – a Vatican report that detailed the church hierarchy’s handling of allegations against ex-cardinal and ex-priest Theodore McCarrick – including what the pope’s own role might have been.

Speaking during a Feb. 21 press conference at the Rome headquarters of the National Federation of the Italian Press (FNSI), two former members of the “Skupnosti Loyola” or Loyola Community, co-founded by Rupnik and Slovenian nun Ivanka Hosta in Slovenia in the late 1980s, shared their stories publicly for the first time, having previously spoken with pseudonyms.

The women –…

View Cache

The Holy See Press Office offers an update on the ongoing investigation by the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith into allegations against Fr. Marko Rupnik, the former Jesuit whom several religious sisters have accused of psychological and sexual abuse.

The Vatican Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith (DDF) has contacted several institutions over the past months to obtain documentation related to Fr. Marko Rupnik, a Slovenian-born former Jesuit and artist.

The Holy See Press Office confirmed on Wednesday that the DDF’s investigation has been expanded into other ecclesial realities with which there had previously been no contact.

The Press Office said the investigation is continuing into allegations against Fr. Rupnik, who has been accused of inflicting psychological and sexual abuse on several adult consecrated women. He was dismissed from the Society of Jesus in June 2023.

On October 27, Pope Francis entrusted the Dicastery for the Doctrine…

View Cache

Rom – Eine frühere Ordensfrau erhebt schwere Vorwürfe gegen den international bekannten Geistlichen und Mosaikkünstler Marko Rupnik. Nun machte sie vor der Presse verstörende Details öffentlich.

Es ist die Geschichte einer schleichenden Manipulation. Als die Italienerin Gloria Branciani am Mittwoch vor Journalisten berichtet, was der slowenische Priester und ehemalige Jesuit Marko Rupnik ihr angetan haben soll, wirkt die 59-Jährige gefasst. Dunkler Kurzhaarschnitt, fliederfarbener Pullover, die Haltung aufrecht. Nur am Ende der Pressekonferenz bricht die Stimme der früheren Ordensfrau. Ihr ganzes Leben sei tiefgreifend erschüttert worden – Körper, Seele und Geist.

Den international bekannten Mosaikkünstler habe sie bereits als Studentin in Rom kennengelernt, erzählt Branciani. Rupnik sei schon damals eine spirituelle Führungsperson gewesen und sie habe ihren Glauben vertiefen wollen. Er habe ihr Komplimente gemacht und sie bald körperlich berührt. Dies habe er stets religiös begründet: Die Berührungen trügen zu ihrem spirituellen und persönlichen Wachstum bei. Sie habe ihm geglaubt und gehofft, die…

View Cache

Due ex componenti della Comunità Ignazio di Loyola: “Noi molestate psichicamente, fisicamente e sessualmente”. La Santa Sede: prosegue l’indagine della Dottrina della Fede, allo studio la documentazione

CITTÀ DEL VATICANO. La Santa Sede assicura che sta proseguendo l’indagine della Dottrina della Fede sul caso del celebre prete mosaicista accusato di molestie psicologiche e sessuali da alcune religiose maggiorenni. Nel frattempo, vengono allo scoperto per la prima volta due presunte vittime del gesuita Marko Rupnik, teologo e artista di fama mondiale, dimesso nel giugno 2023 dalla Compagnia di Gesù. Si tratta di Gloria Branciani e Mirjam Kovac, ex componenti della Comunità Ignazio di Loyola. «Ci siamo conosciute in comunità – spiega in una conferenza stampa Mirjam con al fianco Gloria – eravamo tutte ragazze giovani, piene di ideali ma proprio questi ideali insieme alle nostra formazione all’obbedienza sono stati sfruttati per abusi di vario genere: di coscienza, di potere, spirituali, psichici,…

View Cache

Father Marko Rupnik, a renowned religious artist, had sex abuse at community he founded covered up by Vatican authorities, campaigners claim

A high-profile Catholic priest forced nuns to watch porn to “grow spiritually” and compared group sex to the Holy Trinity, it has been claimed.

One of Father Marko Rupnik’s alleged victims spoke publicly for the first time at a press conference in Rome on Wednesday, saying she was sexually abused for years at the community the priest, renowned worldwide for his religious art, founded in his native Slovenia.

“He took me to pornographic theatres to help me ‘grow spiritually’,” claimed Gloria Branciani, who was a member of the community until 1994.

“He said that I would not grow spiritually if I did not meet his sexual needs. We had another nun have sex with us because he said it was like the Trinity,” said Ms Branciani, referring to the…

View Cache

Five years after Pope Francis’ summit on fighting clerical sexual abuse, a Rome lawyer had advice for religious women sexually abused by priests: Go to the police.

Laura Sgrò, a civil and canon lawyer known for arguing high-profile cases at the Vatican, made the remarks Feb. 21 as she accompanied two of her clients to a news conference where they appealed publicly to Pope Francis to investigate the handling of allegations of abuse by Father Marko Rupnik and to make the report public.

Many accusations against clerics — especially well-known clerics — continue to bounce off a “rubber wall” that shields the church as an institution, protects abusers and keeps victims and survivors in the dark, said Mirjam Kovac, who has tried for three decades to get officials to take seriously allegations against Father Rupnik.

Kovac, a former sister and former secretary of the Loyola Community, a religious order founded…

View Cache

Mirjiam Kovac and Gloria Branciani want independent inquiry into Marko Rupnik, who was expelled from Jesuit order in 2023

Two former nuns have called on Pope Francis to initiate an independent investigation into a once-prominent Jesuit artist-priest who they allege sexually abused them, including by forcing them to have threesomes and making them watch pornography so they would “grow spiritually”.

Speaking publicly for the first time, Mirjiam Kovac and Gloria Branciani said the wall of silence surrounding Marko Rupnik, who has been accused by several women of sexual, psychological and spiritual abuses dating back three decades, had finally “crumbled”.

The women are former members of the Ignatius of Loyola community, an order co-founded by Rupnik, whose mosaics adorn the walls of some Vatican chapels and other churches.

“We were all young girls, full of ideals,” Kovac said during a press conference in Rome. “But these very ideals, together with our training…

View Cache

One of the first women who accused a once-exalted Jesuit artist of spiritual, psychological and sexual abuse went public Wednesday to demand transparency from the Vatican and a full accounting of the hierarchs who covered for him for 30 years.

Gloria Branciani, 59, appeared at a news conference with one of the most prominent Vatican-accredited lawyers in Rome, Laura Sgro, to tell her story in public for the first time. She detailed the alleged abuses of the Rev. Marko Rupnik, including his fondness for three-way sex “in the image of the Trinity” which, if confirmed, could constitute a grave perversion of Catholic doctrine known as false mysticism.

Rupnik has not commented publicly about the allegations, but his Rome art studio has said the allegations were unproven and media reports about the case a defamatory “lynching.”

Rupnik’s mosaics decorate churches and basilicas around the world, including at the Catholic…

View Cache

The causes of the physical and sexual assault by clergy in the Roman Catholic Church

Introduction

This article discusses the sexual abuse of children by clergy. Detailed depictions of graphic physical violence are not a part of this article.

The classifications,  Catholic Church or Roman Catholic Church (RCC), is used in this article to refer to all people who identify as Roman Catholic, i.e., clerics and congregants.

The classifications, Administrative Elites of the Roman Catholic Church, signified by the acronym AERCC, refers to the Pope, all other Bishops, and Non-Clerical administrators of the RCC who are seated in the upper echelons of power within the Vatican or other diocesan administrations.

Information that could be obtained through the use of a competent encyclopedia is not cited. All other information is cited and sourced.

I apologize to those who are extensively familiar with the topic being discussed and find themselves on familiar ground. Some statements bear repeating…

View Cache

Former nuns who said they were subjected to sexual, psychological or spiritual abuse by a famous priest urged Pope Francis on Wednesday to allow an independent investigation, saying the Catholic Church had put up “a rubber wall” blocking the truth.

Father Marko Ivan Rupnik, a religious artist whose mosaics adorn about 200 churches and chapels around world, including in the Vatican, was expelled from the Jesuit order last year and is believed to be somewhere in his native Slovenia.

About 20 people, mostly former nuns, have accused him of various types of abuse, either when he was a spiritual director of a community of nuns in Slovenia about 30 years ago or after he moved to Rome to pursue his career as an artist.

He has not commented on the allegations, which the Jesuit Order said last year are “very highly” credible. Both the order, to which Pope Francis belongs, and…

View Cache

Two former nuns said Wednesday that a world-renowned artist priest made them take part in threesomes and watch porn so they would “grow spiritually”.

Slovenian mosaic artist Marko Rupnik, 69, is accused of sexually and psychologically abusing at least 20 women for nearly 30 years at a religious community in Slovenia.

“He took me to pornographic theatres to help me ‘grow spiritually’,” Gloria Branciani, who was a member of the community until 1994, told journalists at a press conference in Rome.

“He said that I would not grow spiritually if I did not meet his sexual needs,” she said, describing how he sexualised religious concepts.

“We had another nun have sex with us because he said it was like the Trinity,” Branciani said, referring to the central Christian doctrine of three persons within one God.

Rupnik was briefly excommunicated in 2020 for absolving someone of having sexual relations with him,…

View Cache

The new nonprofit is designed to get past the SBC Executive Committee’s ongoing financial and legal challenges.

Leaders of the Southern Baptist Convention’s abuse reform task force announced plans Monday (Feb. 19) to launch an independent nonprofit to host a database of pastors accused of abuse and to implement other reforms.

They still need the money to run it.

The new nonprofit will oversee a proposed Ministry Check website listing abusive pastors, which has stalled since a website for the abuse reforms was launched last year. Currently, no names of pastors are included on the website, sbcabuseprevention.com.

Josh Wester, a North Carolina pastor who chairs the SBC’s Abuse Reform Implementation Task Force, said the nonprofit, which he called an abuse response commission, will be independent of the SBC’s current structure. 

He said the job of abuse reform was too big for a task force of volunteers to accomplish on their own. That…

View Cache

Five years ago this week, Pope Francis convened an unprecedented summit of bishops from around the world to impress on them that clergy sexual abuse was a global problem and that they needed to do something about it.

Over four days, these bishops heard harrowing tales of trauma from victims, learned how to investigate and sanction pedophile priests, and were warned that they too would face punishment if they continued to cover for abusers.

Yet five years later, despite new church laws to hold bishops accountable and promises to do better, the Catholic Church’s in-house legal system and pastoral response to victims has proven incapable of dealing with the problem.

In fact, victims, outside investigators and even in-house canon lawyers increasingly say the church’s response, crafted and amended over two decades of unrelenting scandal around the world, is downright damaging to the very people already harmed — the…

View Cache

The Vatican accepted Feb. 14 the resignation of the pontifical delegate for the Foyers de Charité, a troubled international association of the faithful co-founded by the French mystic Marthe Robin. 

The Foyers de Charité said in a Feb. 16 press release that Cardinal Kevin Farrell, the prefect of the Dicastery for the Laity, Family, and Life, had accepted the resignation of Bishop Michel Dubost, the 81-year-old bishop emeritus of Évry-Corbeil-Essonnes, almost two years after Dubost was appointed pontifical delegate.

The Foyers de Charité, which was co-founded in 1936 by the bed-bound mystic Marthe Robin and her spiritual director Fr. Georges Finet, was placed under the control of a pontifical delegate in February 2022. 

The Vatican often names pontifical delegates to oversee changes to groups that have governance problems or are struggling after revelations that their founders lived double lives.

Pope Benedict XVI, for example, asked the then Archbishop Velasio De Paolis to…

View Cache

The Southern Baptist Convention’s top administrative body voted Tuesday to oust four congregations — one for having a woman as senior minister, two for what it said were failures related to the denomination’s sexual-abuse policy and one for lack of financial participation.

The SBC’s Executive Committee announced the decision after a closed-door session at the end of its two-day meeting in Nashville. These are the latest in a series of expulsions in recent years, most notably when it ousted one of its largest, California’s Saddleback Church, and a Louisville, Kentucky congregation for having women in ministry leadership roles.

On Tuesday, the committee ousted Immanuel Baptist Church of Paducah, Kentucky, whose senior minister is a woman. The SBC’s official statement of faith says the office of pastor is open only to men.

There was no immediate response from Immanuel Baptist to an emailed query it received from The Associated…

View Cache

The Southern Baptist Convention will create a new, independent nonprofit to address allegations and investigations of sexual abuse in SBC churches, according to the second task force assigned to figure out solutions.

Josh Wester, chairman of the SBC’s Abuse Reform Implementation Task Force, reported this news to members of the SBC Executive Committee meeting in Nashville Feb. 19. Although Wester did not give the cost of creating such a commission, BNG has learned the estimated startup could cost as much as $5 million.

Additional operating revenue reportedly would be generated by fees paid by churches to participate in the clergy screening service. The commission would be independent of the SBC’s oversight.

“Given the current legal and financial challenges facing the SBC and the Executive Committee, the formation of a new independent organization is the only viable path that will allow progress toward abuse reform to continue unencumbered and without delay,” Wester said.

…

View Cache

A bill currently working its way through the Alabama Legislature would make it a felony for any clergyperson, church volunteer or staff member to have a sexual relationship with church attendees under age 19 and protected persons under age 22.

This new provision contained in Alabama House Bill 125 would apply to “a minister, priest, rabbi, bishop or other recognized member of the clergy in a position of trust or authority over a person.”

The bill would prohibit acts of “sexual intercourse or sodomy.” The bill also would make a felony out of acts of enticement, harassment, nudity and sexting.

The bill states that “consent is not a defense to a charge under this section.”

Abuse reform advocates have long pushed for legislatures to adopt similar laws. Many have argued that because of the inherent power differentials and dynamics of spiritual control at play in clergy-parishioner relationships, clergypersons should not be legally allowed…

View Cache

Fernando Gonzalez Ortega’s arrest shows church has not uprooted all molesters despite reform calls, abuse victims and advocates say

A Roman Catholic priest near the US’s border with Mexico is facing criminal charges on allegations that he sexually molested a child, according to authorities.

Fernando Gonzalez Ortega’s arrest for sexually abusing a minor and of trafficking of persons demonstrates that US Catholic bishops have not yet rooted out all molesters under their command despite reform prompted by the worldwide church’s decades-old clergy molestation scandal, abuse victims and their advocates have argued.

Gonzalez, 52, had been serving as pastor of Saint Luke’s church in Brownsville, Texas, when he was named in an “allegation of sexual misconduct with a minor” that diocesan officials received, local bishop Daniel Flores said in a 13 February statement.

The complainant, who is now an adult but was underage at the time of the alleged molestation, came forward…

View Cache

During the house search the officers identified Viagra and other stimulant material ready for sale

The Spanish Civil Guard arrested a priest and his companion in the city of Don Benito (Badajoz) as part of an anti-drug operation. According to what was reported by the newspaper “El Pais”, it is Don Alfonso Raul M., priest of the parish of San Sebastián.

During the house search, the agents identified Viagra and other stimulant material ready for sale, which the priest would have distributed among his customers. The investigations began months ago, when the Guardia civil became aware of the alleged sale of substances by the parish priest and another man.

The parish priest was well known in the municipality of over 37 thousand inhabitants and enjoyed great popularity among the locals for his closeness to the citizens and for his way of exercising the priesthood. The arrests were carried out on Monday…

View Cache

An archdiocese-maintained list of Catholic clergy members who have been deemed “credibly accused” of sexual abuse in Northern New Mexico parishes should also include others named by their accusers in a bankruptcy case, an attorney argues.

The claim, from Albuquerque attorney Levi Monagle, who represented about 140 people who made accusations against clergy in the Archdiocese of Santa Fe’s federal Chapter 11 bankruptcy case, is the latest salvo in a years-long battle over accountability in New Mexico’s part of the Catholic sex abuse scandal.

The list, initially published in 2017 by the archdiocese under Archbishop John C. Wester, includes the names of living and dead priests and other members of the Catholic clergy deemed by the archbishop and an independent review board to be credibly accused of sexual abuse. The list was last revised in March 2023.

But Monagle argues in a motion filed Tuesday in federal bankruptcy court that…

View Cache

The pastor of a California church for Central American immigrants has been arrested and is being held on $10 million dollars bond as a result of sexual abuse accusations against him from four victims who reported their claims to authorities. 

Fifty-three-year-old Pastor Victor Hernandez-Pineda has pleaded not guilty to 16 charges involving the sexual abuse of four victims in Contra Costa County Court on Jan. 17, according to KGO-TV‘s Dan Noyes.

Prosecutors have charged him with 16 criminal counts, including several counts of forcible rape of a child under 14, forcible rape of a person over 14, lewd act upon child and child molestation. 

Hernandez-Pineda is pastor of Iglesia Pentecostes Momiento De Gloria Church in Richmond in the East Bay area. 

Pablo Cifuentes, a senior official at the church, discovered that Hernandez-Pineda had sexually abused his daughter, Karen. Cifuentes told KGO in December that his 21-year-old…

View Cache

A priest in the Diocese of Brownsville, Texas, has been arrested after being accused of sexual misconduct with a minor victim. 

Brownsville Bishop Daniel Flores said in a statement last week that diocesan officials had “received an allegation of sexual misconduct with a minor by Father Fernando Gonzalez.”

Flores had received the report in early February from the diocesan victim’s assistance coordinator. The following day he “removed [Gonzalez] from active ministry” and “prohibited him from exercising any priestly ministry anywhere.” 

“The individual who came forward, who is now an adult, spoke to the Diocesan Victim’s Assistance Coordinator and was advised to report the allegation to the police,” the bishop said. “The investigation is in the hands of law enforcement and is ongoing. The diocese will fully cooperate with the investigation.”

Law enforcement reportedly arrested the priest last week. The Cameron County Sheriff’s Department lists Gonzalez as…

View Cache

Last year, Maryland Gov. Wes Moore signed into law the Child Victims Act of 2023, which eliminates the statute of limitations for child sexual abuse cases. This is incredibly important to the survivors of these type of crimes due to the fact the perpetrators often are not caught for these heinous acts before they cyclically abuse others.

When the child is older, they may be able to help with the cases they were involved in – thus, giving them a voice. Allowing victims to express how these crimes affected them and seeing the justice system work allows for higher rates of healing.

In 2020, there were 1,365,166 children in Maryland. Of those children, 7,242 were victims of child abuse or neglect. 28.4% of the child abuse or neglect that occurred in Maryland in 2020 was sexual abuse, meaning 2,059 Maryland children experienced sexual abuse. This is an increase of 3.4% from 2019….

View Cache

Sometimes, a quote doesn’t just catch your eye; it seizes your entire consciousness. It’s not often that words on a page stop you in your tracks, leaving you grappling for your bearings in the maze of your own thoughts. And then, occasionally, a quote screams so loud in its silence, “THAT’S IT! THAT REALLY NAILS IT.” For us at Horowitz Law, these sentences did exactly that:

 “Certainly, our prayers are with the alleged victim, as it is a terrible tragedy when someone is sexually abused. Nevertheless, it is equally tragic when someone is falsely identified and accused of an unspeakable act.”

Equally tragic? This sentiment expressed by the now-retired Bishop Matthew Clark, former head of the Rochester, New York Diocese, raises compelling questions about empathy, understanding, and the true weight of words versus actions.

False Equivalency: Reputation vs. Lifelong Damage

In an alarming equivalence, Bishop Clark juxtaposes:
– The…

View Cache

Thank you, Tim Hale, for pointing out that Catholic entities that seek bankruptcy protection do so largely to keep clergy abuses and cover ups covered up.

Three dozen church institutions have taken this move when officials face the prospect of answering tough questions, under oath, in open court, about how much they knew about and how little they did about predatory priests.

Until federal bankruptcy laws are reformed, in the short term, only the continued courage of victims, witnesses and whistleblowers can protect kids, expose corruption and deter future cover ups. I hope everyone who has knowledge or suspicions about this horror speaks up.

David Clohessy is the former national director of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests in St. Louis, MO.

View Cache

A new report focused on dozens of New York agencies serving children, youth and families in the foster care system revealed a shocking number last month: These nonprofits now face more than 800 lawsuits alleging childhood sexual abuse, including allegations that date back as far as the 1950s.

The legal challenges follow passage of the 2019 Child Victims Act, a law written to “finally allow justice for past and future survivors of child sexual abuse, help the public identify hidden child predators through civil litigation discovery, and shift the significant and lasting costs of child sexual abuse to the responsible parties.” The state law, mirroring similar legislation across the country, lifted state statutes of limitation for survivors of abuse to file legal claims against their alleged perpetrators. Claimants had until Aug. 21, 2021 to file lawsuits.

Fifteen percent of the almost 11,000 cases filed in…

View Cache

[Includes audio of the entire conversation, as well as a transcript.]

The Archdiocese of New Orleans has been in bankruptcy court for nearly four years, seeking protection from dozens of lawsuits after revelations that more than 300 of the Catholic church’s workers were reported for sexual abuse.

The Guardian’s Ramon Vargas has been reporting on these cases for years and tracking the tactics the archdiocese is using to avoid responsibility.

In a conversation with the Gulf States Newsroom’s Drew Hawkins, Vargas and Aaron Hebert, a survivor in one of the abuse cases, discuss how important it is to shed light on these abuses — and how much more work there is to be done.

Content Warning: This story contains details of the sexual abuse of children. The following conversation has been edited and condensed for clarity. 

Ramon, you’ve been covering sexual abuse of children by members…

View Cache