ABUSE TRACKER

Church outlines new polices while victims contend old practices persist

The Diocese of Joliet is sending a message that things have changed since clergy abuse reached a peak in the 1980s, but victims have their doubts.

A report from the Illinois Attorney General’s Office this week on clergy abuse within the Catholic Church over the last 70 years again shed light on the sin that the church cannot seem to wipe away.

“Some may be thinking, ‘I thought this was over,’” Diocese of Joliet Bishop Ronald Hicks said in a statement after the release of the attorney general’s report.

Hicks gave expression to a sentiment of the Catholic faithful but went on to confirm the seriousness of the situation.

“No sin of such great magnitude as sexual abuse of minors should ever be forgotten,” Hicks said in his statement. “Remembering the harm done forces us to…

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The stunning report on Catholic child sex crimes and cover-ups just released by Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul is chock full of numbers.

It says that at least 1,997 girls and boys across the state have been sexually violated by Catholic clergy, often repeatedly.

It identifies 451 proven, admitted or credibly accused predator priests who are or were in ministry in Illinois.

It names 160 religious order clerics who are or were here, “have been substantiated by Catholic sources as abusers, but have not been disclosed as such by the Illinois dioceses.”

But perhaps the most disturbing number appears nowhere in the 696-page document. Zero. That’s the number of clerics who committed or concealed heinous crimes against kids and whom Raoul says in his report he now plans to prosecute.

Let that sink in: At least 451 child predators assaulting nearly 2,000 boys and girls, sometimes dozens or…

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The archbishop of Chicago urged the Illinois attorney general on Thursday to provide information about newly uncovered cases of clergy sexual abuse that were included in a statewide investigative report, saying he would gladly add the names on his list of credibly accused priests if the claims were substantiated.

In his first interview since the report was released Tuesday, Cardinal Blase Cupich expressed surprise that the 125 new cases involved some priests he had never heard of. He voiced dismay that the attorney general’s office hadn’t forwarded the new claims to the archdiocese to look into, as it had done during the five-year investigation.

“We thought we had that kind of relationship with the attorney general and so are disappointed that we’re hearing these for the first time,” Cupich said.

He spoke to The Associated Press during one of his periodic visits to the Vatican, where he sits on…

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Pope Francis on Friday tapped an Argentine bishop with years of ministry in the country’s prisons as his successor as archbishop of Buenos Aires, a day after again saying he might finally visit his home country next year.

Bishop Jorge Ignacio García Cuerva, the 55-year-old bishop of Rio Gallegos, will replace the retiring Cardinal Mario Aurelio Poli, who turned 75 last year, the Vatican said.

The appointment was announced a day after Francis repeated that he was looking into visiting Argentina next year. Francis has kept Argentina at an arms’ length for the 10 years of his papacy, apparently not wanting to get drawn into the country’s political polarization. But recently, he has indicated an openness to finally go back next year, after a new Argentine president is sworn in following an October election.

“My idea is to go next year. We’ll see if it’s possible,” Francis told a forum…

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Illinois’ attorney general has ended a five-year investigation into sexual abuse of children by Catholic clergy in the state, releasing a nearly 700-page report that revealed the problem was far worse than the church acknowledged in 2018 at the start of the state’s review.

Attorney General Kwame Raoul said Tuesday that state investigators found that more than 450 Catholic clergy in Illinois had sexually abused nearly 2,000 children since 1950. But Raoul and other experts say the finding is unlikely to lead to criminal charges.

That follows a familiar pattern — no rush of criminal charges followed the 2018 release of a bombshell grand jury report on clergy abuse in Pennsylvania or last month’s report on abuse in the Archdiocese of Baltimore.

Advocates say they believe the report will help more people feel safe to discuss what happened to them with family, friends, support groups and law enforcement….

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Fr. Daniel Carter was accused back in 2002 of sexually abusing a Redwood City social worker when she was a child. The Archbishop at the time called the allegations “unfounded” and returned Carter to ministry. He continued to work at least into 2021. Now, six new accusers have come forward.

When Danielle Lacampagne came forward 21 years ago to report being sexually molested as a child by San Francisco priest Fr. Daniel Carter, she believed his days as a clergyman were numbered. 

Turns out she was wrong. 

The following year, in 2003, former San Francisco Archbishop William Levada declared Lacampagne’s allegations to be “unfounded.” Carter was returned to ministry and continued to work as a priest over the ensuing two decades.

Now, all these years after Lacampagne’s original accusations, six new alleged victims, both men and women, have…

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Three former students at a Massachusetts Catholic high school have filed a lawsuit against Boston’s Cardinal Sean O’Malley and other Church leaders because of alleged abuse committed by the school’s vice principal.

Attorney Mitchell Garabedian on Monday announced that he had filed a May 5 lawsuit in Suffolk County Superior Court on behalf of three former students at Arlington Catholic High School in the northwest Boston suburb of Arlington.

The plaintiffs, who are not named in court papers, allege that former vice principal Stephen Biagioni abused them from about 2011 to 2016, the Boston Globe reported. The former students were between the ages of 15 and 17 at this time, they told reporters on Monday, according to WBUR News.

Biagioni, who became principal of Arlington Catholic High School, was placed on administrative leave in April 2016 pending the outcome of an investigation into alleged events at Sunday detention. At the…

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An accusation of child sexual abuse against a Florida Catholic priest has been recently deemed to carry a “semblance of truth,” by the Apostolic Administrator of the Archdiocese of Dubuque. The cleric, Fr. Leo P. Riley, worked in 16 Iowa parishes following his ordination in 1982. He was transferred to the Diocese of Venice in 2002.

While the current complaint about Fr. Riley was apparently received on May 5th of this year, another accusation was brought to the Archdiocese of Dubuque in 2014.  That victim filed a lawsuit against the Archdiocese the following year. The Archdiocesan Review Board initially deemed that accusation as “not manifestly false or frivolous.” (Page 5) However, several months later Archbishop Michael O. Jackels announced that his investigation did not find the complaint to be true and Fr. Riley resumed working in a parish in Florida.

…

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7 News Freedom of Information Law request prompts release

Following the Diocese of Buffalo’s settlement in the lawsuit brought on by the New York attorney general, 7 News began requesting material the diocese produced in connection with the AG’s investigation. The I-Team is making all of the documents publicly available for the first time.

Despite a settlement by the Diocese of Buffalo in the lawsuit brought on by New York’s attorney general and promises made by Bishop Michael W. Fisher, there is not a new era of transparency within the Catholic diocese.

“As I’ve said since becoming Bishop in January of 2021, it’s not what we say but what we do,” said Bishop Fisher at a press conference announcing the settlement.

Over the past several months, the bankrupt Buffalo Diocese spent tens of thousands of dollars in a failed attempt to prevent the public from seeing documents and video produced…

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There will be a free screening of the powerful documentary PROCESSION in Overland Park, KS on June 2, 2023 at 7 PM.

 The documentary, PROCESSION, is currently streaming on Netflix. This is the story of a group of men – many of whom are from Kansas – who are all survivors of child sexual abuse by Catholic priests.  

There has never been a screening of the film in the Kansas City area until now.

The free screening of PROCESSION is on June 2, 2023 at 7 PM at the Glenwood Arts Theater in Overland Park, KS.  

The men will all be there, as will the director of the film. There will be a Q&A, to provide an opportunity to speak to the audience about the impact of Kansas House Bill 2127 as well as any future legislative efforts on the behalf of sexual abuse survivors.  

WHAT:     FREE SCREENING of…

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Ronald Lasik allegedly abused kids in Chicago and Australia after leaving Canada

WARNING: This story contains details of child physical and sexual abuse.

One of the most notorious child abusers in Newfoundland and Labrador history has popped up in another investigation into allegations of Catholic child abuse in the United States.

Ronald Lasik, a member of the Christian Brothers of Ireland until his death in 2020, is one of 451 men “credibly accused” of abusing children in Illinois while holding a position of authority affiliated with the church.

Lasik is well-known for his time at the Mount Cashel Orphanage in St. John’s during the 1950s, where it’s alleged he abused at least eight boys in a violent and sexual manner. He was sentenced to 11 years in prison in 1999.

According to the report, Lasik also worked at Saint Laurence High School in Chicago. While it doesn’t get into details of the…

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[See trailer here.]

Five years on from the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, survivors seeking compensation in civil claims are being thwarted by extraordinary legal tactics that they say make their quest for proper compensation harder than ever.

The Royal Commission was meant to make it easier for victims to seek justice, but a fierce battleground is emerging which is flying in the face of law reforms recommended by the historic inquiry and enacted by parliaments.

In this week’s Four Corners, Louise Milligan goes inside the legal fight as lawyers representing victims face institutions pushing to have cases thrown out of court altogether.

In one case, a survivor faces losing his house due to legal costs as he’s denied the right to sue the organisation even though his convicted perpetrator is alive, in jail, and willing to give evidence.

Another institution is threatening to prevent…

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A new report identifies nearly 500 clergy members in Illinois who sexually abused children.

Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul announced Tuesday that the state has corroborated more than 1,900 victims’ child sex abuse claims against Catholic clergy in Illinois. The cases go back to 1950 and feature hundreds of abusers who were not previously reported.

The church has been embroiled in child sex abuse scandals for more than two decades that encompass hundreds of thousands of victims around the globe, from Australia to Chile.

The Illinois findings are the latest from several major US investigations in recent years showing that such abuse and church officials’ cover-ups were widespread, making the case that the clergy is incapable of bringing perpetrators among their own ranks to account. Though much of this abuse was initially dismissed by church leaders, mounting evidence — that now includes the Illinois investigation — has made victims…

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The Illinois attorney general’s gut-wrenching 696-page report on Catholic clergy child sex abuse in Illinois is illustrated, incongruously but perhaps necessarily, with aspirational images of the Prairie State: cornfields at sunrise, the shimmering waters of Lake Michigan, sunsets over lakes and barns, gorgeous stained glass windows.

But the text, which is agonizing reading, reveals a much uglier side of Illinois.

It lists the names and circumstances surrounding 451 Catholic clerics and religious brothers who the report says abused at least 1,997 children across the state’s dioceses. And, in the words of Attorney General Kwame Raoul, it charges that “decades of Catholic leadership decisions and policies have allowed known child sex abusers to hide, often in plain sight.”

So many abusers are listed in the report that it is easy to become overwhelmed by the magnitude of the shameful history revealed. Unspeakable pain was caused to survivors who, the…

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A member of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP) urged Springfield Bishop Thomas John Paprocki to provide full assignment records for credibly accused priests living in or who previously served in the diocese.

Members of SNAP gathered outside of the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception Wednesday afternoon.

David Clohessy, the former national director of SNAP from St. Louis and a clerical abuse survivor, made his case in a letter to Paprocki Wednesday. The letter was provided to The State Journal-Register.

Clohessy said Paprocki is the only one of the Illinois bishops who refuses to reveal the parishes and other sites where child molesting clerics have worked.

Clohessy’s plea echoes one of Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul, whose multiyear investigation into child sexual abuse by members of Illinois’ Catholic clergy was detailed in a report released Tuesday.

That investigation found 451 Catholic priests and religious brothers abused nearly 2,000 children in…

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One survivor of clerical sex abuse recounted being kept inside her fifth grade classroom at her Woodlawn neighborhood Catholic school during recess in the 1980s, where a Carmelite religious order priest would repeatedly force her to sit on his lap and rape her.

He told her God wanted him to do this to her, she recalled to Illinois attorney general’s office investigators in one of a litany of victim accounts highlighted in a scathing report released Tuesday on the scale and scope of Catholic clergy sex abuse statewide.

“I think that what people don’t understand is when you are a child, you don’t separate a priest from God,” she told investigators. “He was God. To me, he was God’s worker.”

The investigation determined that Catholic leaders in Illinois have vastly underreported clergy sex abuse against children, finding that “decades of Catholic leadership decisions and policies have allowed known child sex…

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Editor’s note: This story was originally published in the Belleville News-Democrat.

Six Catholic dioceses in Illinois had disclosed the names of 103 priests and other clergy who were “substantiated” as child sex abusers five years ago, when the state began an investigation into the problem, according to Attorney General Kwame Raoul.

A 700-page report that his office released Tuesday, however, lists 451 clergy who allegedly abused 1,997 children in the state.

“This means that our investigation led to the disclosure of 348 more clerics than prior to our investigation,” Raoul said at a press conference in Chicago that also was live-streamed.

Former Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan, who held the office for 16 years, had launched the investigation. Raoul promised to continue her work when he took over in 2019.

At the press conference, Raoul attempted to show he had no “personal ax to…

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BELLEVILLE — A bombshell 696-page report on sexual abuse by Roman Catholic clergy, released Tuesday by Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul, said archbishops and bishops throughout Illinois “accepted the transfer of known abusers from other dioceses” and that the information “was kept from the Catholic community and the public.”

In the Diocese of Belleville, which covers southern Illinois counties, bishops “turned their backs on children” to protect priests, the report says. Forty-three Catholic clerics and religious brothers who sexually abused children while ministering there are named.

Raymond Kownacki was high on the list. According to the report, Kownacki was ordained in 1960 and served in 12 churches (not including a five-year stint in Guatemala) before he was removed from ministry in 1995. The report notes that nine people reported being abused by him and that the diocese claimed the first complaint was made in…

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Three former Arlington Catholic High School students are suing Cardinal Sean O’Malley of the Archdiocese of Boston and other church leaders for failing to protect them from alleged sexual abuse by a former vice principal, in what appears to be part of a new legal strategy to hold hierarchy more accountable for failing to heed lessons from the sex abuse crisis that rocked the church two decades ago.

The suit, which was filed May 5 in Suffolk Superior Court, alleges the former administrator, Stephen Biagioni, abused the three plaintiffs when they were teenagers from about 2011 to 2016.

Each former student alleged the abuse occurred during detention, when Biagioni engaged “in explicit sexual behavior and lewd and lascivious conduct,” according to the complaint.

The lawsuit is the second in a year to target church leaders, and believed to be the first to name O’Malley, for allegedly failing to put in…

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Nearly 2,000 children across Illinois were sexually abused by 451 Catholic clerics and religious brothers over the past seven decades, Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul announced in an investigation report released Tuesday. The number of accused abusers is significantly larger than the 103 the Catholic dioceses of Illinois had publicly listed in 2018, when the investigation was first launched.

“These perpetrators may never be held accountable in a court of law, but by naming them here, the intention is to provide a public accountability and a measure of healing to survivors who have long suffered in silence,” Raoul said in a statement released with the report.

The report detailed accusations of lengthy coverups and horrific narratives of repeated abuse after investigators reviewed over 100,000 pages of documents and received more than 600 contacts from survivors. Accounts include clergy getting three brothers drunk soon after their father died before…

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DUBUQUE, Iowa (KCRG) – A priest in Florida has been accused of sexual abuse of a minor while he was serving as priest of the Archdiocese of Dubuque in the 1980′s.

Father Leo Riley was ordained a priest of the Archdiocese of Dubuque in 1982. The alleged sexual abuse of a minor, reported earlier this month, is said to have happened between 1985 and 1986 while Riley was serving as associate pastor at the Church of Resurrection in Dubuque.

He requested to move to the Diocese of Venice, Florida in 2002 to be closer to his parents, and became a priest there in 2005.

The Archdiocese of Dubuque said Riley has been placed on administrative leave while the Archdiocese of Dubuque Review Board for the Protection of Minors begins an investigation.

In a press release, Bishop Richard Pates, who currently serves as Apostolic Administrator of the Archdiocese of Dubuque, said…

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[Note from BishopAccountability.org: To see image of Rev. Pates’ letter, click here.]

On 5 May 2023, an allegation of sexual abuse of a minor was made against Father Leo Riley, alleged to have taken place between 1985-1986, when he was assigned as an associate pastor at Resurrection Parish in Dubuque.

A letter about Father Riley was written to parishioners in February of 2015. That previous letter was in reference to a separate allegation of sexual abuse of a minor alleged to have also taken place during this time period at Resurrection Parish.

Retired Archbishop Jackels said of the 2015 investigation outcome, “The best information available does not support a reasonable belief that the allegation is true. Therefore, in the matter of the accusation made against Father Riley, unless additional evidence is presented, there is no need to pursue it any further.”

Father Riley was ordained a priest of the…

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He represented victims of pedophile priests and dared to take on the powerful Boston archdiocese. He’s still doing it.

Early in the 2015 movie Spotlight, the story of the Boston Globe’s Pulitzer Prize winning  exposé of the Boston pedophile priest sex abuse scandal, the name Mitchell Garabedian comes up.

Garabadian is a small-time lawyer who was representing clients who claim they were molested by Boston area priests. He is suing the Church and making shocking and. to some, wild allegations that Cardinal Bernard Law and the top leaders of the Boston Church knew about it and protected the priests by shuffling them from parish to parish, where they continued to prey on children. 

The Globe investigative team wonders about Garabedian. Is he credible or a whacko? Someone dismisses him as a “crank.” Another says he is “kind of a character.” It’s not meant as a compliment. A fellow lawyer who has represented abuse…

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PEORIA (WMBD Radio and 25News) – A 700-page report released Tuesday shows the extent of child sex abuse and the cover-up by the members of the Catholic Diocese across Illinois.

One section dedicated just to the Diocese of Peoria lists the dozens of priests facing accusations.

The report has many stories from survivors naming the priests and the reaction from the Diocese of Peoria, those validated reports begin in the 1940′s.

Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul says, “it was the survivors of child sex abuse that gave purpose and drive to this investigation.”

The first local case listed in the investigation dates back to a 1946 letter from the church acknowledging a priest abused girls younger than 16 years old, how many girls is not clear.

The report says that the priest was allowed to resign from his position and the public statement on it was he left…

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[VIDEO – The Illinois attorney general had the sharpest criticism for the Joliet Diocese’s handling of sex abuse investigations, and two survivors experienced that firsthand.]

The sharpest criticism in the Illinois attorney general’s report on sex abuse in the Catholic church in Illinois is for the diocese of Joliet and its handling of reported abuse cases under the late Bishop Joseph Imesch. The report details 69 cases of abuse there.

David Rudofski and Eddie Burkel had never met before Tuesday, but both men are survivors of sexual abuse by different priests in the Joliet diocese.

“As an adult I’ve learned how it affects you and how it just breaks you down,” said Burkel.

Burkel was a 13-year-old altar boy at St. Dominic Catholic Church in Bolingbrook when he was abused by Father James Nowak.

Rudofsi said he was 8 years old when Father James Burnett abused him at St….

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The Illinois attorney general’s office today issued a final report on clergy sexual abuse of minors in the six Catholic dioceses in the state. This report is the result of our four years’ cooperation with the Attorney General’s office, beginning in 2019.  The pages of the final report tell a story of pain, grief, shame, betrayal, and anger experienced by innocent individuals because of unspeakable acts by clergy in the Diocese of Joliet. Although the majority of abuse occurred decades ago, many victims/survivors remain haunted to this day.

As the sixth bishop of the Diocese of Joliet, I express profound remorse over any failure of the diocese to respond to an allegation of abuse with prompt and compassionate attention. I pledge to ensure the diocese maintains strict adherence to the safeguards mandated by the Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People adopted by the U.S. bishops in 2002. And I…

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An investigation has substantiated child abuse claims against Catholic clergy in Illinois by more than 1,900 victims, state Attorney General Kwame Raoul said in a news conference detailing the findings of the office’s five-year investigation that uncovered hundreds more cases than first reported by the dioceses in 2018.

More than 100,000 pages of diocesan documents and 600 confidential contacts with survivors of child sex abuse helped the state’s office piece together the 696-page report released Tuesday on clergy sexual abuse in all six Catholic dioceses in Illinois, the office said.

“It is my hope that this nearly 700-page report will provide some closure to survivors of child sex abuse by Catholic clerics by shining a light both on those who violated their positions of power and trust, and on the individuals in church leadership who covered up that abuse,” Raoul said in…

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More than 450 adult Catholic clergymen abused nearly 2,000 children in the state of Illinois over a period of almost 90 years, according to a report released Tuesday from Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul.

“This report reveals names and detailed information of 451 Catholic clerics and religious brothers who abused at least 1,997 children across all of the dioceses in Illinois,” Raoul wrote in a message accompanying the report.

The investigation identified 275 allegedly abusive clerics and religious brothers in the Archdiocese of Chicago, 43 in the Diocese of Belleville, 69 in Joliet, 51 in Peoria, 24 in Rockford and 32 in Springfield. Some accused abusers worked in multiple dioceses, equaling a “discrete” total of 451 accused, according to the report.

The report claims to have identified 149 individual perpetrators who were previously undisclosed by the dioceses, and that the dioceses continued to publicly disclose alleged…

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Hundreds of Catholic priests and church officials in the US state of Illinois have been named in a new report detailing sexual abuse by clergy.

The state’s top prosecutor said 451 clergy in Illinois had sexually abused 1,997 children since 1950.

The church had acknowledged only 103 individual abusers before the start of the investigation in 2018.

Nearly every survivor interviewed struggled with mental health issues after being abused, the report said.

Several US states launched investigations into Catholic sexual abuse after a Pennsylvania grand jury report in 2018 found that 300 priests had abused more than 1,000 children over a period of 70 years.

The nearly 700-page report released by Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul on Tuesday includes dozens of harrowing stories of rape and sexual abuse, and details how allegations were ignored and abusers were shifted from church to church.

The archbishop of Chicago said he had not…

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Within the past week, Baptist News Global has run two news analysis pieces about Southern Baptist Convention agencies and leaders who are not telling people in the pew the full story of their financial situations.

There are policies in place within the SBC to prevent this from happening, but those policies aren’t always being followed. And in some cases, the existing policies are not strong enough to have any teeth.

This matters not just for the sake of Christian ethics but because of the hundreds of millions of dollars that flow from church offerings to the SBC and its agencies and institutions. The people in the pew — let’s call them donors — deserve a full accounting of how their offerings are spent.

“The people in the pew deserve a full accounting of how their offerings are spent.”

The most notorious offender in this regard is the North American Mission Board, where…

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• The docuseries, titled Shiny Happy People: Duggar Family Secrets, airs on June 2
• It is set to ‘expose the truth… of reality TV’s favorite mega-family’ and its church
• Executive producers Olivia Crist and Julia Willoughby Nason have spoken out

The executive producers of the new Duggar family documentary have revealed they were stunned by the levels of abuse survivors suffered at the hands of ‘cult-like’ religious teachings.

The show, titled Shiny Happy People: Duggar Family Secrets, is set to ‘expose the truth beneath the wholesome Americana surface of reality TV’s favorite mega-family.’

It will also delve deeper into the Duggars’ controversial church – radical organization The Institute in Basic Life Principles (IBLP), founded by shunned minister Bill Gothard in the 1960s.

Executive producers Olivia Crist and Julia Willoughby Nason have now spoken out about their shock at ‘how far and wide the IBLP ideology went’ and described it as a ‘pandemic of abuse.’

The show, titled…

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Soul Survivor Watford has formally suspended Mike Pilavachi, founder of a large Christian youth festival in the U.K., who’s facing allegations he spiritually and sexually abused young men under him. The suspension comes amid revelations that ministry leaders in the U.K. knew about allegations concerning Pilavachi for nearly two decades but did nothing.

The church, which is part of the Church of England, announced in early April that Pilavachi would “step back from all ministry” while the denomination’s National Safeguarding Team investigated the allegations against him. Pilavachi also resigned from the church board and all related charity boards at the time. But Soul Survivor Watford expressly noted that Pilavachi was “not under criminal investigation and has not been suspended.”

However, on Saturday, Soul Survivor Watford released a new statement, saying it had suspended Pilavachi, its associate pastor, “with immediate effect” while the investigation continues. The statement added,…

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“Decades of Catholic leadership decisions and policies have allowed known child sex abusers to hide, often in plain sight,” Attorney General Kwame Raoul said.

Six Catholic dioceses in Illinois had disclosed the names of 103 priests and other clergy who were “substantiated” as child sex abusers five years ago, when the state began an investigation into the problem, according to Attorney General Kwame Raoul.

A 700-page report that his office released Tuesday, however, lists 451 clergy who allegedly abused 1,997 children in the state.

“This means that our investigation led to the disclosure of 348 more clerics than prior to our investigation,” Raoul said at a press conference in Chicago that also was live-streamed.

Former Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan, who held the office for 16 years, had launched the investigation. Raoul promised to continue her work when he took over in 2019.

At the press conference, Raoul attempted to…

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At the start of a 5-year investigation by the attorney general, Cardinal Blase Cupich told seminarians the Archdiocese of Chicago had “posted all of the names” of predatory clergy. As the investigation neared its end, Cupich kept adding more names.

[Note from BishopAccountability.org: Click here to see the Illinois Attorney General’s Report on Catholic Clergy Child Sex Abuse in Illinois]

In August 2018, shortly after then-Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan announced an investigation into whether the Catholic church in Illinois had fully disclosed the scope of child sex abuse by priests and other clergy members, Cardinal Blase Cupich said the church had nothing to hide.

“Our record’s clean,” the top Catholic cleric in Chicago told a closed-door gathering of about 200 men studying at the Mundelein seminary to be priests, according to sources who were there. “I’m confident that, when the attorney general looks in our files . . . that…

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David Clohessy, former national director of SNAP (Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests)

314-566-9790

davidgclohessy@gmail.com

* * *

It’s tragic that once again, hundreds of church officials concealed thousands of child sex crimes yet none of these ‘enablers’ face any consequences. Illinois lawmakers must pass new laws that help law enforcement pursue those who hid or help child molesters.

Virtually all of the AG’s recommendations are simple common sense steps that any official who genuinely cares about kids would have adopted long ago. 

Here is what the Illinois attorney general will NOT announce today: criminal charges against a Catholic official who hid a predator priest. Not one charge against even one church leader, high or low.

That’s tragic. And that’s because Illinois has old, weak laws that make it tough for law enforcement to pursue employers who ignore or conceal known or suspected child sex crimes.

That must change.

…

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(For Immediate Release May 23, 2023) 

On Friday afternoon, all six of Illinois’ Catholic dioceses sent out a sudden press statement, written in concert, that describes the policies and procedures each institution has in place to protect children from abuse. With today’s news, we now know why those Church leaders felt the need to remind parents and parishioners about these policies – because thanks to the work of the investigators at the Illinois Attorney General’s office, it is now apparent to us that those policies are weak, vague, and rarely followed.

In a stunning report, A.G. Kwame Raoul’s office has described the ways that Catholic leaders in every diocese in the state have acted in concert to protect abusive priests, to keep the public from learning about those crimes, and to push back on survivors and their loved ones who came forward in hopes of preventing…

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Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

I am writing this letter in response to the issuance today of the Illinois Attorney General’s Final “Report on Catholic Clergy Sex Abuse in Illinois”. The Diocese of Belleville has cooperated fully during the Attorney General’s five­-year long preparation of this report by providing information about our clergy, living and deceased, and allegations of misconduct with minors that our Diocese has received. While I will need some time to read and fully absorb the AG’s lengthy report, especially the section on the Diocese of Belleville, please permit me to share several important points.

It is crucial you understand that nothing is more important to us than the welfare of the youth entrusted to our care. The Diocese of Belleville takes all allegations of inappropriate or sexual misconduct seriously and encourages anyone who feels they have been harmed by a priest, deacon, religious or lay employee,…

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Video links:

English: https://youtu.be/bpAPX__sSJY

Spanish: https://youtu.be/w9pJLDIaq5M

Today, Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul published a report (the Report) on his office’s investigation of allegations of child sexual abuse against clergy in the six Illinois Catholic dioceses over a period of nearly 90 years. The Report addresses both how dioceses responded to such allegations in decades past and current policies that help ensure the safety of children and support the healing of survivors. We have not studied the report in detail but have concerns about data that might be misunderstood or are presented in ways that could be misleading. It is therefore important that we state what we know to be true. For example:

The 451 names “disclosed”:

• 451 is all 6 dioceses and includes religious order priests
• 451 includes the priests already on the 6 web sites
• ALL were reported to civil authorities, none were undisclosed,…

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A multi-year investigation into child sex abuse by members of the Catholic clergy in Illinois found at least 1,997 children across the state were sexually abused between 1950 and 2019.

Attorney General Kwame Raoul Tuesday released a comprehensive report detailing decades of child sex abuse by members of the Illinois Catholic dioceses, which includes Belleville, Chicago, Joliet, Peoria, Rockford, and Springfield.

The nearly 700-page report features detailed narrative accounts of child sex abuse committed by Catholic clerics.

Many of the narratives were written in consultation with survivors, are based upon their experiences, and told from the survivor’s point of view.

“I was raised and confirmed in the Catholic church and sent my children to Catholic schools. I believe the church does important work to support vulnerable populations; however, as with any presumably reputable institution, the Catholic church must be held accountable when it betrays the public’s trust,” Raoul…

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CHICAGO, IL  — Illinois’ attorney general Kwame Raoul released a nearly 700-page-long report Tuesday morning detailing child sexual abuse by members of the Catholic clergy in Illinois, stretching back to 1950.

According to the report, investigators found that 452 clergy members allegedly sexually abused nearly 2,000 children in those years — much more than the church named when the state began investigating in 2018. 

Raoul announced the findings at a news conference in Chicago Tuesday morning.  

The report contains detailed narratives of the abuse, which Raoul said were written with the help of survivors and are told from their point of view. And it contains recommendations from the office on how the dioceses should handle future investigations. 

It also details how the total number of publicly disclosed “substantiated child sex abusers” across the Illinois Dioceses is much higher than what was disclosed by the church prior to the Attorney General’s investigation. 

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Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul’s report on Catholic priest child sexual abuse details hundreds of cases across the state.

CHICAGO (WLS) — A long-awaited five year investigation has turned up hundreds of new horror stories of child sexual abuse at the hands of Catholic priests in Illinois, the attorney general alleged on Tuesday morning.

Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul’s “Report on Catholic Clergy Child Sex Abuse in Illinois” is 696 pages long was was unveiled at a downtown Chicago briefing with reporters.

The report focuses on decades of old and new abuse cases in the state’s six dioceses: Belleville, Joliet, Peoria, Rockford, and Springfield and Chicago, which is known as an Archdiocese due to its large size.

Nearly 2000 survivors of Catholic church sexual abuse in Illinois were documented by state investigators, according to the attorney general.

Nearly every survivor exhibited “some form of mental health challenge in the years after…

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Illinois’ attorney general released the results of a sweeping investigation into allegations of sexual abuse by Catholic clergy on Tuesday, saying investigators found that 451 clergy sexually abused nearly 2,000 children since 1950 — far more than the 103 individuals the church had named when the state review began in 2018.

At a news conference announcing his office’s findings, Attorney General Kwame Raoul credited accusers for making the review possible. He said state investigators found that 1,997 children across the state were abused by clergy between 1950 and 2019.

“It is my hope that this report will shine light both on those who violated their positions of power and trust to abuse innocent children, and on the men in church leadership who covered up that abuse,” Raoul said. “These perpetrators may never be held accountable in a court of law, but by naming them here, the intention is to provide…

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[Click here to see the Illinois Attorney General’s Report on Catholic Clergy Child Sex Abuse in Illinois]

A new report by the attorney general of Illinois covering decades names more than 450 credibly accused sexual abusers, including priests and lay religious brothers.

More than 450 credibly accused child sex abusers have ministered in the Catholic Church in Illinois over almost seven decades, the office of the state’s attorney general, Kwame Raoul, said Tuesday in an investigative report. That is more than four times the number that the church had publicly disclosed before 2018, when the state began its investigation.

The 696-page report found that clergy members and lay religious brothers had abused at least 1,997 children since 1950 in the state’s six dioceses, including the prominent Archdiocese of Chicago.

The report adds 149 names to lists of child sex abusers whom the dioceses themselves had publicly identified before…

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Illinois’ attorney general on Tuesday will discuss his office’s more than four-year investigation into the alleged sexual abuse of children by Catholic clergy in the state going back decades — a probe launched by his predecessor after she found the church’s own investigation to be seriously lacking.

Kwame Raoul continued Lisa Madigan’s investigation after he took over from her as the state’s top law enforcement official in 2019. Madigan issued a blistering preliminary report on the state’s investigation in 2018 just before she left office, saying Catholic dioceses in Illinois had not released the names of at least 500 clergy who had been accused of sexually abusing children.

The preliminary report found that the church’s six dioceses had done a woefully inadequate job of investigating allegations, and in some cases didn’t investigate them at all or notify the state’s child welfare agency. The abuse claims dated back decades and were made…

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Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul is expected to update his investigation into sex abuse allegations in the Catholic Church Tuesday.

His office says he’ll provide a “significant update” on the investigation.

This investigation started years ago, by the state’s former Attorney General Lisa Madigan.

In 2018, Madigan announced her investigation found child sex accusations against at least 500 priests and clergymen in Illinois. That report has never been made public, but Raoul promised to continue Madigan’s work.

Last week Cardinal Blase Cupich spoke exclusively to Eyewitness News after the Illinois Catholic Archdiocese published a summary of their process for handling allegations of sexual abuse.

“I make a commitment as well, personally, that anyone who has come to us with an accusation of abuse, and especially if it is substantiated, I will meet with them personally,” Cardinal Cupich said. “And I know the bishops in Illinois also make that same commitment…

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Archdiocese of Boston Cardinal Sean O’Malley has been sued by three alleged sexual abuse victims who claim that Arlington Catholic High School’s former vice principal assaulted the teens last decade.

Attorney Mitchell Garabedian, who has represented clergy sexual abuse victims for decades, on Monday said he filed a civil lawsuit on behalf of the three alleged childhood sexual abuse victims against O’Malley, Bishop Robert Deeley, and Bishop Peter Uglietto.

The three victims allege that they were sexually abused by Steven Biagioni while he was vice principal and an administrator at Arlington Catholic.

The alleged sexual abuse took place at the high school from about 2011 to 2016, when the victims were between 15 and 17 years old.

“Significantly, given that years of the alleged sexual abuse are recent, it is apparent that the Archdiocese of Boston and the Catholic Church are still allowing the sexual abuse of innocent children,” Garabedian…

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Three people who claim they were sexually assaulted by a former vice principal at Arlington Catholic High School have filed a civil lawsuit against Cardinal Seán Patrick O’Malley, leader of the Archdiocese of Boston.

The lawsuit alleges that Stephen Biagioni abused the plaintiffs, known as John Doe I, II and III, between 2011 and 2016. The former students were between the ages of 15 and 17 at the time, attorney Mitchell Garabedian told reporters Monday.

The civil suit names O’Malley and two of his top lieutenants — Bishop Robert Deeley, currently head of the Diocese of Portland, Maine, as well as Bishop Peter Uglietto, an auxiliary bishop of the Archdiocese of Boston. The three allegedly “knew, or were negligent in not knowing” that Biagioni, who is not a priest or church leader, posed a danger to children at the high school, the suit claims.

“Once…

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In the midst of allegations of sexual abuse against Jesuit priests in Bolivia, a Carmelite priest was arrested recently by the authorities, and accusations against another Carmelite and a Franciscan have come to light.

In a statement to the Bolivian newspaper Página Siete, a former seminarian of the Carmelite order reported in 2014 that he was sexually abused by Father Milton Murillo when the priest was the administrator of the formation house in La Paz. According to the complainant, Murillo allegedly pressured seminarians to let him give them a medical examination in which inappropriate touching occurred. Whoever refused, the complainant said, was exposed to reprisals or being expelled from the community.

The former seminarian said a group of seminarians tried to inform the then Carmelite superior, Father Garvin Grech, about what was happening without getting any results.

Página Siete noted that Grech was also reported for alleged abuse by a…

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It’s still about four months before victims of sexual abuse at the hands of the Baltimore Catholic Archdiocese will be able file civil suits against the church. However, the wheels are already in motion for what could be a monumental payout to survivors. Meanwhile, the Archdiocese is likely to drag out the suits by challenging the constitutionality of the cases and possibly bringing them to trial.

A recent Maryland Attorney General’s Office report implicated 156 priests and church employees in abusing at least 600 children over the last 80 years, but experts in the field and legal analysts think it could actually be thousands of people who suffered at the hands of the Archdiocese.

“The Archdiocese of Baltimore, is the first archdiocese in the new world,” said Suzanne Sangree, senior counsel with Grant and Eisenhofer, a firm representing victims in Maryland. “It certainly was the first cathedral here….

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Victims of clerical sex abuse have bitterly criticized plans by France’s Catholic bishops for all clergy to include a scannable QR code on their identity cards certifying whether they face restrictions for crimes or misdemeanors.

“If this move is aimed at regaining public trust, I don’t think it’ll prove effective,” said François Devaux, co-founder of the Parole Libérée (Liberated Word) association, formed in 2015.

“Meanwhile, if the church is professing greater transparency, this merely shows its leaders have understood nothing. An independent report in 2021 (published in France) made 45 recommendations for countering abuse — I think the church should implement these before it adds a 46th.”

The lay Catholic, who was one of dozens abused as children by a currently jailed Lyon-based priest Fr. Bernard Preynat, was reacting to plans by the bishops’ conference in France for priests’ traditional accreditation documents, or “celebrets,” to be replaced by digital cards…

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Pope Francis has sent one of his top sex crimes investigators to Bolivia at a time when the Andean nation is being shaken by an escalating pedophilia scandal involving priests.

Monsignor Jordi Bertomeu, a leading member of the church’s Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, arrived in Bolivia on the same day as a former Jesuit seminarian landed in the country vowing to reveal more information about alleged cases of abuse.

The Bolivian Episcopal Conference said Bertomeu’s visit is not directly related to the recent sex abuse allegations but had been planned earlier to analyze “the progress made in the field of the culture of prevention” promoted by the Vatican.

Bertomeu arrived in Bolivia from Paraguay, where he had been investigating similar accusations against church officials and in 2018 he led the investigation into abuses committed by priests against minors in Chile.

The meetings in Bolivia “will be conducted in…

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Ponad tysiąc dzieci zostało seksualnie wykorzystanych przez duchownych i świeckich pracujących w Kościele katolickim w Polsce w latach 1944-1989. Oto lista 121 zidentyfikowanych przez naszych dziennikarzy przypadków i ich sprawców.

W czasach Polski Ludowej (1944–1989) władze państwowe zajmowały się co najmniej 121 przypadkami wykorzystywania seksualnego, w których doszło lub mogło dojść do wykorzystania seksualnego małoletnich przez osoby związane z Kościołem – wynika z pionierskiej kwerendy archiwalnej, którą przeprowadzili dziennikarze „Rzeczpospolitej”.

Za 121 przypadkami kryje się w sumie 117 księży i dwie osoby świeckie (organista i kościelny). Aż 72 sprawy zakończyły się wyrokami skazującymi, w 24 doszło do wątpliwych umorzeń. Tylko 11 skończyło się bezdyskusyjnym umorzeniem lub uniewinnieniem podejrzanego. W 14 sprawach nie udało nam się odnaleźć informacji o zakończeniu postępowania.

Od kilku lat dane statystyczne zbiera Episkopat Polski. Wynika z nich, że aż 177 przypadków wykorzystania seksualnego małoletnich miało miejsce przed rokiem 1990. Z danych tych nie da…

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(OSV News) — The number of victims of sexual abuse in the Catholic Church in Poland between 1944 and 1990 may be close to 1,100, with the number of abusers close to 300.

Those are, however, not the official findings of the church in Poland. On March 15, the bishops announced they will create a commission of experts to investigate past cases of abuse of minors by clergy in the country.

The numbers come from two journalists with Poland’s Rzeczpospolita journal, Tomasz Krzyzak and Piotr Litka, that published an investigation May 18 on the scale of sexual abuse in the church in Poland between 1944 and 1989.

“We did a very simple thing that is easily accessible to any public institution in the country — we looked at the state archives of communist-ruled Poland that are stored today in the Institute of National Remembrance and the so-called ‘New’ National Archives,”…

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In modern terms, Johnny Hunt is an “influencer.”

Over the last 40 years, he has become someone with the ability to influence thousands of other pastors and even an entire denomination.

Perhaps that’s why his naming in the 2022 Guidepost Solutions report on sexual abuse in the Southern Baptist Convention sent shockwaves across the SBC. “Pastor Johnny,” as he likes to be called, is not just any pastor.

He is one of the most influential and affluent pastors in the SBC. Dozens if not hundreds of pastors owe their jobs to his recommendation. And he has built a vast empire of side businesses that support him and his family and friends through a web of connection with other pastors, churches and denominational agencies — all while marketing his brand.

But it wasn’t always this way. This is a rags-to-riches story, and a story of how to get rich by double- and triple-dipping…

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(For Immediate Release May 22, 2023) 

On May 19th, the Catholic Diocese of Sacramento once again quietly announced on its website the removal of a cleric for “inappropriate conduct.” Bishop Jaime Soto said that  Fr. Sijo Chirayath was found to have “violated diocesan policy regarding clergy conduct” with an adult man.  The priest no longer has an assignment nor does he have faculties in the Diocese, and he was asked to return to his order, the Carmelites of Mary Immaculate (CMI) in India, on Friday.

We applaud the Diocese for removing Fr. Chirayath and for posting this information on its website. We hope that the parents of students at St. Patrick-St. Vincent High School in Vallejo, where the priest worked as a chaplain, was immediately alerted when the accusations were first received on April 26th, and have now been apprised of the outcome of the investigation.

However, we notice that the priest’s name…

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Archdiocese of Baltimore officials, particularly Archbishop William Lori, have responded in recent weeks to a report by the Maryland Attorney General’s Office on child sexual abuse in the Catholic Church with interviews, an FAQ and messages to parishioners across Central and Western Maryland.

After a similar report was published in 2018 by the Pennsylvania attorney general into church abuse in that state, Maryland’s attorney general started an investigation here. It ran four years, culminating in November in a 463-page document that detailed how clergy, nuns and teachers tormented more than 600 children and young adults in the archdiocese, dating back to the 1940s. The report was released publicly April 5.

The Baltimore Sun fact-checked the archdiocese’s talking points about the findings of the report and church officials’ responses to survivors of abuse, the media and elected officials.

Cooperation with investigators

…

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The Vatican’s main charitable organization, Caritas Internationalis, is hoping to open a new chapter this week after Pope Francis fired top managers over bullying complaints. But the recently ousted head is fighting back, claiming the Vatican engaged in a “brutal power grab” fueled by a “colonialist” attitude.

The drama is playing out as the Caritas General Assembly meets May 11-16 to elect new leaders following more than a decade of turmoil and a damaging sex abuse scandal in central Africa. The gathering is a key step in Francis’ efforts to renew the Vatican-based confederation of 162 national chapters that is one of the most visible aid groups in the world.

In an extraordinary display of papal power, Francis last November fired the Caritas secretary general, Aloysius John; the Caritas president, Filipino Cardinal Antonio Tagle; and Tagle’s vice presidents, the treasurer and ecclesiastic assistant. The Holy See said an outside investigation had…

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Arlington TX – A Catholic bishop took actions of “pure evil” according to a lawsuit filed against him by a small order of nuns in Arlington.

The suit says Bishop Michael Olson of the Fort Worth Diocese seized computers and a phone from the Discalced Carmelite Nuns, interrogated the sisters and claimed the monastery was shut down. 

He has stopped priests from performing daily mass at the Monastery of the Most Holy Trinity and barred as many as 50 to 60 parishioners from regular attendance. The dispute, which started April 24, has caused emotional trauma and psychological distress, according to an affidavit from Reverend Mother Teresa Agnes.

This week, the Diocese of Fort Worth posted a statement on its website, saying the Reverend Mother had “violated her vow of chastity with a priest from outside the Diocese of Fort Worth.” 

A spokesman for the Diocese had no further comment when…

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El ex sacerdote era conocido por su gran carisma y por sus vínculos sociales

Fuentes eclesiásticas consultadas por RD confirman que, “desde hace años” habían llegado “rumores, incluso alguna comunicación escrita al anterior arzobispo (Javier Martínez)” sobre posibles abusos sexuales y de poder cometidos por Villena desde su puesto como delegado de Pastoral Universitaria

Incluso, afirman otras fuentes, antes de su ordenación, el entonces arzobispo de Granada, Antonio Cañizares, “fue advertido” por algunos formadores del seminario sobre el “carácter difícil” del religioso

Fuentes de la diócesis señalan al acusado como ‘el cura de la alta sociedad’ granadina, con fuertes contactos entre notarios, políticos, jueces y registradores de la propiedad, a los que casaba, presidía la Primera Comunión de los hijos o llevaba de ejercicios con cierta regularidad. De hecho, alguno de los que entraron (y salieron) del seminario eran hijos de algunos de los personajes con más renombre en la…

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In the developing sexual abuse of minors scandal involving Jesuits in Bolivia, a May 13 article in the Spanish newspaper El País implicated two other priests, Francesc Peris and Carlos Villamil, and also published the testimonies of eight alleged victims.

The Jesuits asked the victims to make a formal complaint with the Society of Jesus and offered their assistance in filing a complaint with the public prosecutor.

El País broke the initial story on the scandal April 29 in a report titled “Diary of a pedophile priest,” stating that Jesuit priest Alfonso Pedrajas Moreno, who died in 2009, sexually abused as many as 85 minors in Bolivia, based on admissions found in his own diary.

Peris, known as “Checho,” and Villamil, nicknamed “Vicu,” allegedly committed the abuse in the 1980s when both priests worked at the John XXIII school in Cochabamba, where Pedrajas also worked.

Villamil was a colleague of…

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Bolivian authorities are investigating whether any Catholic Church officials in the country should be held accountable following the publication of a diary of a late Jesuit priest that contained multiple confessions of child abuse.

The case has triggered complaints from former students about other abuse in religious-run schools in Bolivia, including those of Jesuits, but also Dominicans, Franciscans, and other orders.

The revelations, first published by Spanish newspaper El Pais in April, documented abuse by Alfonso Pedrajas, known as Father Pica, a Spanish priest who lived for years in Bolivia where he ran schools for marginalized communities.

After his death in 2009, his nephew found a 300-page diary on his computer where Pedrajas confessed to the sexual abuse of dozens of minors around the 1970s, according to El Pais.

In the diary, Pedrajas wrote that he had spoken to superiors about what he had done but they did…

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The Catholic school in Morristown named after a bishop who oversaw the church in Vermont for 20 years is changing its name, partly because of the “unthinkable” alleged sexual abuse of children by priests under his leadership.

Bishop John A. Marshall School will change its name to All Saints Catholic Academy starting July 1. The change comes as the school prepares to mark its 25th anniversary.

“While we did not discuss this with the students, we would be remiss not to acknowledge that part of our motivation to rename the school relates to the unthinkable abuse of children by priests who were under the leadership of the school’s namesake, Bishop John Marshall,” head of school Carrie Wilson wrote in a May 8 letter to parents. “While our school is not responsible for what transpired — nor can we change what happened years before the school was even built — we…

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Anti-Catholicism existed in this land prior to the establishment of the Republic and is a relatively weak force in today’s world. A recent letter writer criticizes the extensive coverage by The Baltimore Sun on the very serious issue of abuse and cover-up but provides no example of poor or incorrect reporting (”Has The Baltimore Sun turned anti-Catholic?” May 16).

The writer claims that Catholic authorities and “others” have advised him that “today’s instances of abuse are almost zero.” Almost? The implication is that the “authorities” have been successful in reducing the number of abusers and cases of abuse but that abuse has not been eliminated. Is this satisfactory? I am stunned that the writer shows absolutely no concern for the victims and their families.

Apparently, the writer just wants this story to go away. Had the Archdiocese of Baltimore handled this crisis in a truly pastoral and honest manner,…

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As a student at a Catholic college in the 1ate 1980’s I wrote a paper for an English Comp class on the downfall of the televangelists. Many will remember that era as a time when one sexual scandal after another seemed to rock the televangelist world. Sexual assaults, “consensual” sex with congregants, hiring prostitutes, the preachers did it all. It wasn’t so shocking that these dramatic men preaching the Gospel, while having their hand out for donations, turned out to be frauds. What shocked me was the loyalty of their congregation. They looked at the media as “attacking Jesus, attacking people of faith.” In reality they were just exposing con men who used religion as their draw.

I’m sure the paper that I wrote was tinged with sarcasm at the naiveness of the congregants. Even when the cold hard facts were presented, they just couldn’t see it. I was so…

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A Sunset man is suing the Boy Scouts of America and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, alleging sexual abuse by staff members.

“I told myself, just hold these cards to your chest one day,” said Van Medeiros. “One day, maybe you’ll be able to put them on the table.”

Since he was 7 years old, Medeiros said he has held on to secrets from the past he said ruined his childhood in 2009.

“From ages 7-to-13, I was routinely sexually abused by several members of the church,” he claims. “I never was able to tell my story because I was threatened essentially, that would ruin not just my life, but my mother’s life.”

The lawsuit states that “counselors, teachers, trustees, directors, officers, employees, agents, servants and/or volunteers,” of the local Crossroads of the West Council of Boy Scouts of America, “sexually assaulted, sexually abused, and/or had sexual…

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A reverend mother who oversees cloistered nuns at an Arlington monastery is in a legal battle with Bishop Michael Olson and the Fort Worth Catholic Diocese after he launched an investigation into allegations she violated her chastity vows with a priest.

Reverend Mother Superior Teresa Agnes Gerlach has sued Olson and the diocese, seeking more than $1 million in damages. She accuses the bishop of abuse of power and overstepping his authority.

Gerlach, along with Sister Francis Therese, filed the lawsuit May 3 in Tarrant County district court. The dispute is playing out in court and with canonical lawyers who handle ecclesiastical matters.

Matthew Bobo, an attorney representing the nuns, said the accusations are “absolutely false and have no basis.”

“Per canon law, he doesn’t have the authority to start an investigation or take any action. This is an independent religious organization which answers directly to the…

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Nuns from an Arlington, Texas, Carmelite monastery are suing the Diocese of Fort Worth and the bishop for $1 million for alleged violations of privacy and harming the physical and emotional well-being of the sisters.

The lawsuit stems from interactions related to a diocesan investigation of the Reverend Mother Superior Teresa Agnes Gerlach. The diocese has said it was investigating “grave misconduct” based on a report that she “committed sins against the Sixth Commandment and violated her vow of chastity with a priest.”

Although the diocese alleges that Gerlach admitted to violations of the Sixth Commandment, her attorney Matthew Bobo said in a statement provided to CNA that she was “under heavy medication from a procedure” and does not recall what she admitted.

“They are making it sound like she had some sexual liaison affair with another priest and that did not happen,” Bobo said.

The lawsuit claims that Bishop…

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One of Poland’s most senior bishops has apologised for neglect in how the country’s Catholic church dealt with child sex abuse by priests in the past, after a new report indicated over 1,000 victims during the communist period

Wojciech Polak – who is archbishop of Gniezno and primate of Poland – claimed that the church had “often been naive in dealing with these crimes”. However, he also noted that the communist authorities exploited the issue to blackmail priests into collaborating.

Yesterday, Rzeczpospolita, a leading newspaper, published what it claimed to be the first research of its type looking at reports of abuse linked to the church in communist-era archives.

Its findings pointed to over 1,000 children being abused by members of the clergy or lay employees of the church in the period 1944-1989. The newspaper notes that this number is just the “tip of the iceberg” because only a small proportion…

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“Decades too late.” That’s how one person describes the recent efforts from the six Illinois Catholic Dioceses to streamline their process for handling allegations of sexual abuse by a member of the clergy.

These new procedures are meant to give people a better understanding of how the diocese will handle allegations of sexual abuse, but survivors and advocates say church leaders need to do more.

Marc Pearlman is an attorney who represents survivors of sexual abuse in Illinois. He’s covered hundreds of cases; he says nearly 90% of those involve one of the six Illinois dioceses.

“The catholic church is arguably more responsible for more child sex abuse than any institution in the world,” says Pearlman. “Rockford has a notable history of child sex abuse and equally bad, if not worse, is the cover-up of that sex abuse.”

The Illinois Attorney General’s Office was first made aware of priests allegedly…

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All six of the dioceses of the Catholic Church in Illinois have released a public statement detailing what the church does when allegations are made involving sexual abuse against minors.

The seven-page news release from dioceses in Peoria, Springfield, Rockford, Chicago, Joliet and Belleville breaks down the procedures to protect children.

“By issuing this joint public statement, the Illinois dioceses hope to enhance the public’s understanding of how they handle allegations of sexual abuse involving minors,” the dioceses said.

The entire statement can be found on the Catholic Diocese of Peoria’s website.

The church developed these policies after decades of allegations in criminal and civil court that priests were molesting minors.

The state’s dioceses say they’ve been working with the Illinois Attorney General’s Office to “improve the transparency and effectiveness” of the policies.

“Prompted by the Attorney General’s investigation, the dioceses have critically reviewed current policies and…

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A female student has sued the Christian school she attended in western Michigan over its leaders’ alleged failure to prevent her sexual abuse by an art teacher and an older student.

The lawsuit was filed March 31 in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Michigan and seeks $25,000 in damages. It alleges that The Potter’s House, a preschool through 12th grade private school in Grand Rapids, Mich., and its leaders failed to comply with Title IX policies and “inflicted emotional distress” on the alleged victim, “Jane Doe.”

In January 2016, when Doe was in fifth grade, James “Jamie” Treadwell, 64, was an “artist in residence” at the school and rented a basement studio at a school-owned building adjacent to the school. The itinerant artist was then affiliated with a celibate religious brotherhood called The Servants of the Word, which subsequently broke…

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For the Hillsong lovers, Hillsong haters and those who love to hate Hillsong, the latest documentary treatment of the global megachurch’s descent into scandal is here and available to stream beginning Friday (May 19).

“The Secrets of Hillsong,” a four-part series that will air on FX and Hulu, purports to be the first time Carl Lentz, the fallen celebrity pastor, one-time “hype priest” and former spiritual mentor of Justin Bieber, has spoken publicly about allegations that he had sexual affairs, including allegations of sexual abuse toward his family’s nanny, Leona Kimes, though pieces of his personal defense have been leaking out in news stories and Instagram posts since Lentz was fired in November of 2020.

In the new docuseries, produced in partnership with Vanity Fair and based on their early reporting of scandals at Hillsong’s Manhattan branch, Lentz reportedly acknowledges a power dynamic at play in his relationship with Kimes…

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Editor’s Note: In support of the sixth strategic action of Vision 2025 adopted by messengers to the 2021 SBC Annual Meeting, Baptist Press will continue to report every instance of sexual abuse related to Southern Baptist churches, entities, institutions or leaders of which we are made aware.

A former Texas youth minister remained in jail May 18 after telling the Magnolia Police Department he sexually touched teenage boys while working in youth ministry at First Baptist Church of Magnolia.

Michael Anthony Romero, 51, was arrested May 12 on one count of sexual indecency with a child, a second-degree felony, Montgomery County Court records show.

The arrest occurred, according to court records accessed by KHOU.com, five months after Romero voluntarily approached the police department and told officers he touched teenage boys during youth group retreats, a Christian church camp and sleepovers at his lake house between 2002 and 2012. He named five…

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A Bolivian priest has been detained on suspicion of abusing seminary students a decade ago in a case that emerged after news broke earlier this month of a pedophilia scandal involving a late Jesuit priest in the Andean country.

Milton Murillo, a Catholic parish priest at the Church of San Roque in the southern region of Tarija, was sent to pre-trial detention for three months during a hearing late Thursday, regional prosecutor Sandra Gutiérrez Salazar said.

“With this, we want to express that the Public Prosecutor’s Office is taking stern action to ensure these crimes are punished,” she told reporters Friday.

The Murillo case came to a head in part because of the scandal that erupted earlier this month over Spanish Jesuit Alfonso Pedrajas. Pedrajas died of cancer in 2009 and left behind a personal diary in which he confessed to having abused around 85 minors in Bolivia during the…

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Two journalists with Poland’s Rzeczpospolita journal published an investigation on the scale of abuse between 1944 and 1989

The number of victims of sexual abuse in the Catholic Church in Poland between 1944 and 1990 may be close to 1,100, with the number of abusers close to 300.

Those are, however, not the official findings of the church in Poland. On March 15, the bishops announced they will create a commission of experts to investigate past cases of abuse of minors by clergy in the country.

The numbers come from two journalists with Poland’s Rzeczpospolita journal, Tomasz Krzyzak and Piotr Litka, that published an investigation May 18 on the scale of sexual abuse in the church in Poland between 1944 and 1989.

“We did a very simple thing that is easily accessible to any public institution in the country — we looked at the state archives of communist-ruled Poland that…

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The Sun recently ran an article about child sexual abuse in the Baltimore archdiocese that quoted Charles LoPresto (”Report on sexual abuse by priests details horrors of life in hardest-hit Catholic parishes, schools,” April 7). While teaching at Calvert Hall College High School in the 1970s, he learned that a student had been abused by a priest at the school. He could have lied, covered up or looked the other way as so many of his contemporaries and superiors did. Instead, he went to the administration and threatened to quit if the priest wasn’t removed. The priest was gone the next day.

That was an oasis of heroism in the midst of a moral desert, made all the more remarkable by the fact that we were in a recession (aren’t we always?) and I happen to know he couldn’t afford to lose his job.

So I’d like…

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[Via Canberra Times]

A former Catholic student’s allegations he was sexually abused four decades ago may have been made against the wrong person.

Brother Daniel Slattery taught at Kendall Grange School and faced 13 counts of historical sexual abuse against three young boys aged between nine and 13 years who were students in 1980.

Kendall Grange on the shores of Lake Macquarie was run by the Order of the Hospitaller Brothers of St John of God, a religious order of the Catholic Church.

Boys with intellectual and behavioural difficulties were enrolled at the school and were frequently exposed to sexual or violent acts by the Brothers there.

In July 2018, Slattery was accused of committing a number of sexual acts on the three boys at various locations around the school including in his bedroom and their dormitory.

Diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease and deemed unfit to stand trial, he was found…

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All Illinois Catholic dioceses issued a summary of their common processes for handling allegations of sexual abuse of minors against any Catholic cleric who has ministered within their respective boundaries.

The Catholic Church in the United States set in motion similar processes in response to a growing understanding that, over its history, church clerics and other personnel had sexually abused children in their care and that the response to these crimes had been insufficient.

While most processes have been in place for a while, Illinois dioceses have either described or applied them in different ways.

Each Illinois diocese has continually improved its policies to conform to national standards and as a result of its experiences.

In 2019, Pope Francis issued the decree entitled, Vos Estis Lux Mundi, mandating a world-wide system for the reporting, investigating, and resolving allegations against bishops, both of participating in an act of abuse, and of failing…

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Cardinal Blase Cupich spoke with ABC7 Chicago exclusively Thursday about how all six Illinois Catholic dioceses are now streamlining their process for handling allegations of sexual abuse by a member of the Catholic clergy.

The hope is to give people a better understanding of how the Illinois Catholic dioceses handle allegations of sexual abuse of minors, but survivors have said church leaders need to do more.

“We wanted to make sure that we followed the same kind of format and the ways that we communicate information,” Cupich said.

On Thursday, the six dioceses in the state released a joint statement detailing the process of reporting and investigating each case, including the publication of names of clerics “credibly accused” of sexual abuse.

“The way that we communicated information to people, especially through our websites, had some variations, and so we tried to tighten that up as a means of making sure…

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All Catholic dioceses in Illinois today issued a statement and summary of their common processes for handling allegations of sexual abuse of minors against any Catholic cleric who is ministering or has ministered within their respective boundaries.

The six Catholic dioceses of Illinois include the Archdiocese of Chicago, and the Dioceses of Belleville, Joliet, Peoria, Rockford, and Springfield.

The complete statement and summary can be found here. 

Archdiocese of Chicago Key Points are as Follows:

For more than 30 years, the Archdiocese of Chicago has been at the forefront of developing and continually improving policies and programs to address the scourge of child sexual abuse and to support survivors.

• Assistance Ministry: Since 1991, we have maintained one of the first and largest survivor assistance programs in the nation, providing pastoral assistance to anyone making an allegation, regardless of when the abuse is alleged to have occurred and whether or not the allegation is eventually substantiated.
  • The Office of Assistance…

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The legislation would have extended the civil statute of limitations for survivors of childhood sexual abuse

A legislative push to extend the statute of limitations for survivors of childhood sexual abuse to file civil action failed this year — despite mounting evidence in Missouri and nationally that abuse can take years to come to light. 

The bill, sponsored by Rep. Brian Seitz, R-Branson, would have extended the amount of time survivors have to file civil action against a perpetrator from age 31 to age 41.

But it stalled in the legislative process. 

The bill was heard in committee in February and passed out of committee unanimously in April. It didn’t get a vote in the House until session was nearly over. It won unanimous approval from the House earlier this month but never got a committee hearing in the Senate.

Seitz attributes the bill’s limited traction this session…

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A former New Bedford priest who served at churches in Attleboro, North Attleboro and Easton has settled a sexual abuse lawsuit with a former altar boy at his parish in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

Richard Degagne, who was a priest at St. Anthony of Padua Church in New Bedford when the alleged abuse occurred, settled the lawsuit with a payment “in the low to mid six figures,” the plaintiff’s lawyer, Mitchell Garabedian of Boston, told the New Bedford Standard Times.

The plaintiff, Jason Medeiros of Acushnet, was an altar boy at St. Anthony of Padua Church in New Bedford, and participated in a Catholic youth group.

In the lawsuit filed in Bristol County Superior Court, Medeiros alleged he was sexually abused by Degagne at various times between 1988 and 1991 when he was 13 to 15 years old.

The alleged abuse occurred in Degagne’s bedroom in the rectory…

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Pope Francis on Wednesday met briefly with a group of abuse victims who undertook a bicycle pilgrimage from Germany to Rome this month to ask the pope to do everything in his power to heal and prevent abuses in the Catholic Church.

The group, from the Archdiocese of Munich and Freising, also delivered a letter to the Holy Father following his weekly general audience and presented him a gift: a sculpture of a heart by artist Michael Pendry.

“The work does not show a usual, romantic heart,” the group explained in its letter to the pope. “The heart has many open parts, allows introspection, it is angular and wounded. We as people who have been abused can easily find ourselves in this depiction. It is also so in our inner selves, in the center of our being, in the center of our heart!”

In all, 15 abuse victims arrived in…

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John Merzbacher, a former Baltimore Catholic school teacher, was convicted of rape in 1995. He was serving four life sentences.

John Merzbacher, a former Catholic school teacher and convicted child rapist who was named in a grand jury report detailing allegations of sexual abuse within the Baltimore Archdiocese, died in prison last week, according to reports citing the state’s corrections department.

Merzbacher, 81, was serving four life sentences at the Eastern Correctional Institution in Westover after being convicted of rape in 1995, the Baltimore Sun reported. He died of natural causes, according to the Associated Press.

Merzbacher was among nearly 160 priests and other church members named in a 463-page report released in April by Maryland Attorney General Anthony Brown, which identified Merzbacher as “the most obvious example of systemic abuse” among non-clergy members.

The report, which a judge ordered released to the public in…

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Catholic priests in France will be forced to wear scannable QR codes to signal whether they are sex offenders as part of a national crackdown on abuse, according to church officials.

Under the new system, people can scan the wallet-size cards with their smartphones to receive one of three color codes revealing the clergy member’s “status,” according to the Bishops’ Conference of France.

Red shows that the priest has been stripped of his clerical position potentially due to child sex abuse, though the nature of the sanction is not specified.

Green is a sign that the priest is in good standing, while orange indicates he’s not yet fully qualified to lead Mass.

The system  — announced May 10 in an effort by the church to appear more “transparent” — also applies to bishops and deacons, France 24 reported.

The Catholic Church hailed the program as an efficient way to…

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Following the publication of a report by the Spanish newspaper El País that documented the serial sexual abuse of 89 victims committed in Bolivia by a Jesuit priest, new accusations have been made against other priests.

The scandal came to light when the nephew of the deceased Spanish Jesuit priest, Alfonso Pedrajas Moreno, found a diary among his personal effects that reveals the acts of abuse. The diary also showed that the Jesuit authorities were aware of the abuse and covered it up.

Both the Society of Jesus and the Bolivian government are pursuing the new cases.

In the last week, a complaint of abuse and rape was filed with the Bolivian public prosecutor’s office against Jesuit Father Luis María Roma Padrosa while Archbishop Alejandro Mestre, also a Jesuit, was accused of sexual abuse in a second complaint.

Both complaints were filed by former Jesuit provincial Osvaldo Chirveches.

“There are…

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The French Bishops’ Conference has just introduced its “in-house” scannable ID card which will replace the “celebret”, a paper document proving the holder’s credentials.  The card provides color-coded background information on priests’, bishops’ and deacons’ suitability to perform their duties or hear confession.  While green and orange indicates the holder is fully or partially qualified, the main goal is to wave a red flag at those who are no longer allowed to officiate.  

The Conference has finessed the context for this move by not spelling out the possible reasons for a red flag. However one can assume that the goal of this attempt at greater transparency is to weed out impostors and better keep track of those found guilty of sexual abuse – folks who often manage to evade detection and continue their criminal activities unabated. 

Culturally speaking this initiative reflects an acceptance in France of an Identification…

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Over the past six months, I have had the pleasure of working with this student. She has spent years giving her passion, creativity, and time to Hesston College. And recently, she has been a part of the student organizing that has led to administration promising change. But like many survivors before her, she has had to end her time at Hesston unceremoniously. Before packing and leaving, she wrote this to President Manickam. Even from her place of being abused, ignored, and silenced by administration, she has hopes that they can transform into the leadership they aspire to be, or even think they already are. As Mariame Kaba says, “Hope is a discipline,” and this, dear readers, is a survivor with deep discipline.

— Erin Bergen, Director of Student Advocacy

Click here to read law firm Cozen O’ Connor’s 2023 report on Hesston College’s numerous Title IX…

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Victims who were sexually abused within the Catholic Church have cycled hundreds of kilometers from the Bavarian capital to Rome together. They had a meeting with Pope Francis at the Vatican to hand over their message.

A group of victims of sexual abuse in the Catholic Church had an audience with Pope Francis on Wednesday, after reaching the goal of their bicycle challenge.

The initiative — the stated aim of which is to be seen and heard — was organized by victims groups in the Munich and Freising archdiocese under the motto “We’re leaving! Church, are you with us?”

What did the journey entail?

The group of nine abuse victims, along with their riding companions, traveled 715 kilometers (about 450 miles) in ten stages over as many successive days. 

To symbolize their emotional state, they also took along stones bearing words to reflect their thoughts and feelings.

Among them were anger, shame, worthlessness,…

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A new resource for tracking Native residential schools affiliated with the Catholic Church marks a major advance toward healing the wounds of systemic abuse, said one project organizer.

“While there are more steps for the Catholic Church to take to move toward truth, healing and reconciliation, this list is a powerful step forward,” said Maka Black Elk, executive director for Truth and Healing at Red Cloud Indian School on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota.

On May 9, Black Elk and a group of archivists, historians, tribal members and other supporters unveiled a list of some 87 Catholic-run Native boarding schools that had operated in 22 U.S. states prior to 1978. The schools were among more than 400 overseen by the U.S. federal government in the 19th and 20th centuries, with many sites operated by Christian churches and organizations.

The list, accessible online at http://ctah.archivistsacwr.org,…

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The Vatican has been accused of obstructing investigation efforts into the disappearance of Emanuela Orlandi in 1983

Rome prosecutors have opened a fresh investigation into the disappearance of a teenager 40 years ago, and are calling for full collaboration from the Vatican, Italian media reported Monday.

Emanuela Orlandi, the 15-year-old daughter of a Vatican employee, was last seen leaving a music class in Rome on June 22, 1983.

Decades of speculation followed over what happened to her, with suggestions that mobsters, the secret services or a Vatican conspiracy were to blame, theories which sparked a hit Netflix series.

The Orlandi family’s lawyer Laura Sgro told AFP Monday she had learned of the fresh probe through Italian media reports, and “it would certainly be welcome news”.

The family has campaigned tirelessly for the truth, and it was their demands which led in part to the Vatican launching an inquiry into its…

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Despite prior admissions that he engaged in “manipulated intimacy” with a church member and employee, disgraced former Hillsong NYC pastor Carl Lentz strongly denies his misconduct was abuse in a new docuseries releasing this week.

In the docuseries, The Secrets of Hillsong, Lentz describes his years-long sexual misconduct with Leona Kimes, his nanny and a member of Hillsong NYC, as “an inappropriate relationship,” according to a preview in People. But Lentz argues “any notion of abuse is categorically false.”

Lentz also disclosed in the docuseries he was “sexually abused as a child by a family friend,” which has not been previously disclosed, People reported.

The four-part docuseries releases Friday on FX and is the only Hillsong exposé to feature interviews with Lentz and his wife, Laura, since their firing from Hillsong in 2020 after Carl’s admission of infidelity.

Hillsong later determined that Carl Lentz had inappropriate relationships with three women, including Kimes. In…

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A jury Wednesday awarded $95 million to a local man who alleged he was sexually abused in 1979 by a former Rochester-area priest who also has been accused by others of sexual assaults.

The local man alleged that the former priest, Rev. Foster P. Rogers, sexually abused him in Rogers’ car in July 1979.

The victim was then 15. Rogers now has limited income, according to letters he wrote the court, and the local man awarded the $95 million is unlikely to see even a tiny sliver of the award.

The award is one of the largest in New York since the Child Victims Act, which opened a window for lawsuits from past child victims of sexual abuse. Earlier this month an Erie County woman was awarded $100 million under the Child Victims Act, or CVA. That was thought to be the largest CVA award in New York.

In 1979 Rogers…

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There are relatively few positions in the country that have the job security of a Catholic bishop. In his diocese, as the church’s Code of Canon Law puts it, the bishop has “all ordinary, proper, and immediate power.” No one there can contravene his orders or force his removal from office. Neither can the national conference of bishops, nor can any regional ecclesial entities. 

Even Elon Musk, the new lord of Twitter and aspiring president of Mars, ultimately reports to various boards of directors. Catholic bishops report to the pope directly, and only he can choose to remove them.

Given that organizational reality, one can understand the dilemma of a Catholic in the Diocese of Knoxville, Tennessee. As NCR staff reporter Brian Fraga highlights in a thorough and wide-ranging investigation, many parishioners there are feeling demoralized and unsure what power they have to effect…

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The Church of England’s increasingly dire record on safeguarding should have consequences for its established status, says Megan Manson.

It didn’t take long for the glitz and glamour of the coronation to fade, and for the Church of England to find itself back in the quagmire of abuse scandals.

Within days of their Westminster Abbey extravaganza, the UK’s established Church found itself having to answer to damning findings of an independent review into the case of Trevor Devamanikkam, a CofE priest who raped Matthew Ineson in the 1980s. Ineson was just 16 years old.

Days later, victims of alleged abuse at the hands of CofE preacher Mike Pilavachi called for an independent investigation into his actions, as they don’t trust the Church’s own internal inquiry.

Pilavachi’s victims and survivors have every right to be sceptical of the Church’s ability, in their words, to “mark its own…

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Archbishop William Lori of Baltimore has spoken out against headlines related to a recent Maryland Attorney General report on clergy sex abuse, saying many of the news stories don’t “provide a full or completely accurate picture” of the “30-year history of the Archdiocese’s accountability and enforcement efforts.”

The 454-page report, published April 5, details more than 600 instances of child sex abuse by 156 abusers from the archdiocese. According to the report, the majority of the abuse took place between the 1940s and 2002 – the year the U.S. Bishops implemented the Dallas Charter, establishing a set of procedures dioceses must follow to address allegations of sexual abuse.

Secular and Catholic media outlets alike, including Crux, reported the details of the report when it was published by the Maryland Attorney General’s Office. However, in recent weeks, several Baltimore media outlets revealed the supposed identities of several priests and church officials whose…

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A SEX abuse survivor has spoken out against Baltimore’s Catholic church, saying that a fellow victim reached out to a nun for help who then turned up dead.

Teresa Lancaster, 69, is now an advocate for victims like her, after being forced into the Archdiocese of Baltimore‘s “sex ring” while attending Archbishop Keough High School in Maryland during the late 1960s to early 1970s.

“I went to the counselor at Archbishop Keogh to get some advice about some problems at home,” Lancaster exclusively told The U.S. Sun.

Her counselor, Father Joseph Maskell, was a Catholic priest who allegedly sexually abused multiple girls at the high school during this time – but denied any accusations until his death in 2001 and was never criminally charged.

“When I went in there, he closed the door and took all my clothes off, and sat me in his lap within five or 10 minutes,” Lancaster said.

Another girl…

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A SURVIVOR of a Baltimore Catholic Church priest’s sexual abuse has spoken out about the horrific way he would silence his victims.

Father Joseph Maskell was a counselor and Catholic priest at Archbishop Keough High School in Maryland who abused girls like Teresa Lancaster, who attended in the late 1960s to early 1970s

Lancaster, now 69, is an advocate for sex abuse survivors after building up the courage to break her silence about the abuse she faced at the hands of Maskell.

“I went to the counselor at Archbishop Keogh to get some advice about some problems at home,” Lancaster exclusively told The U.S. Sun.

“When I went in there, he closed the door and took all my clothes off, and sat me in his lap within five or 10 minutes,” Lancaster said.

Lancaster called Maskell a “serial rapist” who abused multiple children, not just girls, but boys too, calling the cycle…

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Parish priest Michael Zacharias, 56, was convicted on five counts of sex trafficking by a federal jury in the Northern District of Ohio last Friday.

Zacharias has been on administrative leave from the Diocese of Toledo since he was arrested on August 18, 2020. His crimes, committed between 1999 to 2020, involved three victims, two of whom were still minors when Zacharias began abusing them.

The former pastor now faces a minimum sentence of 15 years and a maximum of life in prison.

His sentencing hearing has not yet been scheduled.

According to court documents, Zacharias used psychological coercion, threats, and money to force his underage and adult victims to perform sexual acts with him. The two underage victims told investigators that they were addicted to drugs and needed the money.

Zacharias was ordained a priest in 2002 and was the pastor of St. Michael the Archangel…

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