ABUSE TRACKER

After years of emotionally wrenching testimony and the release of a damning investigation into the Archdiocese of Baltimore, a proposal that will make it easier for childhood sexual abuse survivors to sue has finally passed in Maryland.

Gov. Wes Moore, a Democrat, on Tuesday signed the Child Victims Act of 2023, which allows survivors to file retroactive lawsuits even if their claims have already expired under an existing statute of limitations.

The law also eliminates the statute of limitations for all future lawsuits based on childhood sexual abuse claims.

“There is no statute of limitations on the pain that these victims continue to feel,” Moore said. “There is no statute of limitations on the hurt that endures for decades after someone is assaulted. There is no statute of limitations on the trauma that haunts so many still to this day, and this law reflects that exact truth.”

The law is…

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The bells at St. Mark Parish in Catonsville rang many times this past Holy Week as the church celebrated the resurrection of Jesus Christ, but for some those bells carry another, haunting reminder.

“The bell signifies trauma, and every time it rings, you’re [the church is] reminding them of what went on,” said Allison Dietz, a former Catholic and neighbor to the church, which is nestled in a residential neighborhood of Catonsville and known locally as St. Mark’s.

Though many churches in the Archdiocese of Baltimore have been home to clergy accused of child sexual abuse, St. Mark’s had more abusive priests assigned to it over the years than any other — 12 between 1964 and 2000. That’s a remarkable number of accused priests for one church, national and local experts say. Of those, at least four are known to have harmed children during their time at St. Mark’s. The…

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Experts appointed to tackle abuse in the Catholic Church are quitting their roles. Keith Porteous Wood says this demonstrates the dire mess the Church is in – and that justice can only be secured if secular authorities play their part in holding the Church to account.

Professor Hans Zollner, regarded as “one of the greatest experts” on clerical abuse in the Catholic Church and an “ambassador for safeguarding”, has resigned from the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors, despite his term of office still having two years to run.

This Commission was set up to advise the Pope on “the most opportune initiatives for protecting minors and vulnerable adults” and “to promote local responsibility in the particular churches”.

Zollner (pictured) was appointed in 2014 by the Pope as one of the Commission’s founding members. He resigned over concerns about the Commission’s “responsibility, compliance, accountability…

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After years of emotionally wrenching testimony and the release of a damning investigation into the Archdiocese of Baltimore, a proposal that will make it easier for childhood sexual abuse survivors to sue has finally passed in Maryland.

Gov. Wes Moore, a Democrat, on Tuesday signed the Child Victims Act of 2023, which allows survivors to file retroactive lawsuits even if their claims have already expired under an existing statute of limitations.

The law also eliminates the statute of limitations for all future lawsuits based on childhood sexual abuse claims.

“There is no statute of limitations on the pain that these victims continue to feel,” Moore said. “There is no statute of limitations on the hurt that endures for decades after someone is assaulted. There is no statute of limitations on the trauma that haunts so many still to this day, and this law reflects that exact truth.”

The law is…

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[Includes a 14-minute video interview with Michael Rezendes and Mitchell Garabedian.]

Back in 2001, the Boston Globe started an investigation that would reveal one of the largest sexual assault scandals by Catholic priests anywhere in the U.S. The investigation into the Boston Archdiocese was the inspiration for the 2015 Oscar-winning film “Spotlight,” which was also the name of the Globe’s investigative report. 

And now, a new report on the Baltimore Archdiocese by Maryland Attorney General Anthony G. Brown revealed 600 cases of child sex abuse over the past 60 years by 156 current or former Catholic clergy, seminarians, deacons, members of Catholic religious orders, teachers at Catholic schools and other employees.

Michael Rezendes, now a senior investigative reporter for the Associated Press, was one of the reporters who broke the Boston Archdiocese sex abuse story (he was played by Mark Ruffalo in the film). He told Scripps…

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Maryland lawmakers have passed a bill to end the state’s statute limiting when civil lawsuits over child sex abuse can be filed against public and private entities.

Under the Child Victims Act of 2023, actions for damages arising out of alleged incidents of sexual abuse against minors may be filed at any time. Currently, Marylanders who say they were sexually abused as children can’t sue after they reach the age of 38.

The bill would go into effect October 1, 2023 and retroactively revive any action that was barred by the prior statutory period of limitations. It would not allow suits on behalf of alleged child sex abuse victims who are deceased.

The measure now goes to Gov. Wes Moore, who has said he will sign it.

Final agreement came just days after Maryland Attorney General Anthony G. Brown released his agency’s report documenting a long history of…

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The Archdiocese of Agana has committed to publishing on its website the names of priests and other clergies who were identified as child sexual abusers, and to allow survivors of clergy sexual assaults to tell their stories if they so desire.

These are among the archdiocese’s nonmonetary commitments as part of its court-approved bankruptcy exit plan, which also includes multimillion settlement payouts to more than 270 clergy abuse claimants.

Survivors led by Leo Tudela pushed for the inclusion in the bankruptcy exit plan of child protection protocols, which the archdiocese filed in court April 6.

The goal is to help protect minors from clergy abuses, following a deluge of claims by former altar boys, former Catholic school students and others that they were molested, abused or raped when they were minors. The claims, exceeding $1 billion, forced the archdiocese to file for bankruptcy in 2019.

The archdiocese said it will…

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New report includes a troubling revelation that the Anne Arundel County State’s Attorney’s Office granted the pastor of a Catholic Church blanket protection from prosecution in 1985

Deep within the litany of outrages by the Catholic Church documented by the Maryland Office of the Attorney General’s report, there is a revelation as shocking as the predatory priests or the religious bureaucracy eager to hide their sins.

Nearly four decades ago, the Anne Arundel County State’s Attorney’s Office, led then by Warren B. Duckett, granted immunity to a child abuser.

By 1985, angry families at St. Andrew by the Bay near Cape St. Claire demanded that the Archdiocese of Baltimore remove and punish their lead priest, William Simms. Accusations that he had abused multiple children in his care were tumbling out, and parents wanted action. The church in 2002 listed him as credibly accused, the attorney general’s report said.

That July…

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In 1987, a lawyer for the Archdiocese of Baltimore contacted a prosecutor with a question: was the church obligated to report a priest who had recently been accused of attempting to rape a teenage girl a decade earlier?

The answer was no, according to last week’s extensive report into sexual abuse and coverups in the archdiocese. But the priest could be charged with assault, battery or attempted rape, the assistant state’s attorney said.

Neither the lawyer nor the archdiocesan official who spoke to the prosecutor provided the name of the priest, Father Thomas J. Bauernfeind, or officially reported that a woman had named Bauernfeind as her abuser and that Bauernfeind had admitted to abusing the woman when she was a teenager.

Bauernfeind was not prosecuted, and there is no sign the archdiocese investigated further.

The lawyer who reached out to the assistant state’s attorney was from Gallagher Evelius…

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[VIDEO]

For more than 50 years, Teresa Lancaster wanted the Catholic Church to believe her when she said she was sexually abused by Father Joseph Maskell at her high school in Baltimore. She said she was 16 when she went to see Maskell for help, and that within five minutes, he took her clothes off and set her on his lap.

“I was in total shock,” she said. 

Maskell was a priest who served as her school’s counselor and chaplain. Lancaster said she didn’t report the alleged sexual abuse at the time because he had a gun that he would put on his desk, and he told her that no one would believe her.

Lancaster is among hundreds of alleged child abuse victims by Roman Catholic Church leaders in Baltimore. The Maryland Attorney General’s Office reviewed archdiocese records from the 1940s through 2002 and concluded more than 600 children were abused….

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While the Catholic Church sexual abuse scandal erupted decades ago, details in official investigative reports are incredibly powerful for survivors

Since the 1990s, when Jean Wehner started to remember the “sexual torture” she endured as a Catholic high school student, she has sued the Baltimore Archdiocese, written a memoir and appeared in a Netflixdocumentary about her abuse. But the release last week of a Maryland attorney general’s report citing decades worth ofinternal church records about her abuser — it all brought a kind of bitter validation, Wehner says, to that terrified little girl.

“I’m my own worst detective as an adult. I was taught by my faith system to be a good girl, not to lie, not to believe something that isn’t true. I’m always still doubting myself and dissecting everything and challenging myself,” said Wehner, 69, now a wellness practitioner in Elkridge. “This puts the detective to…

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The atmosphere seemed close to normal at two historic churches in the Archdiocese of Baltimore as Catholics celebrated the most sacred holiday on the Christian calendar Sunday.

The pews were filled to overflowing at Cathedral of Mary Our Queen in North Baltimore and 165-year-old St. Louis Catholic Church in Clarksville. Worshippers in both places sported their colorful Easter best, children and families abounded, and lilies and tulips festooned the sanctuaries. The men celebrating the two Masses refrained in their sermons from directly mentioning the disturbing new report by the Maryland Office of the Attorney General, released this week, that details the sexual abuse and torture of more than 600 children by 158 priests and brothers in the archdiocese dating to the 1940s.

But Archbishop William E. Lori, the spiritual leader of America’s first and oldest diocese, and the Rev. Michael DeAscanis, the parish priest at St. Louis, alluded indirectly to…

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Archbishop Luc Ravel, who awaits the findings from an apostolic visitation into his management of the Archdiocese of Strasbourg, removes his senior auxiliary bishop as vicar general

 Never before has tension reached this level in the wealthy Archdiocese of Strasbourg in the Alsace region of d’Alsace (DNA) reported on Tuesday that Archbishop Luc Ravel removed his senior auxiliary bishop, Christian Kratz, as vicar general, allegedly for mishandling a clergy sexual abuse case. The paper said the archbishop took the action on March 23.

Kratz, 70, was appointed auxiliary bishop of Strasbourg at the end of 2000. DNA reported that Ravel, who became archbishop in February 2017, also removed Bishop Kratz from the episcopal council on March 30.

Responsibilities

Bishop Kratz told La Croix that he learned of his being sidelined through a letter that was slipped under his office door. He said Archbishop Ravel, 65, justified the sanction of Kratz’s…

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Maryland scrapped the statute of limitations for sex abuse lawsuits, something C.T. Wilson has long championed

[Includes link to video: Why this U.S. lawmaker has relived his childhood sex abuse over and over again]

WARNING: This article contains discussion of sexual abuse.

C.T. Wilson has been telling the story of his childhood sex abuse for eight years, reliving his trauma again and again.

Wilson is a Democratic member of the Maryland House of Delegates who, for nearly a decade, has been trying to end his state’s statute of limitations on sex abuse lawsuits.

During that long fight, he has repeatedly stood in front of his colleagues to detail the abuse he says he faced at the hands of his adoptive father. He wrote a book about it called 10,000 Hills: One Boy’s Journey. 

On Wednesday, his efforts finally paid off when the Child Victims Act passed in Maryland “to backslaps and applause,” according…

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Earlier this week, the Maryland Office of the Attorney General released its long-awaited 456-page grand jury report on the “long and sordid” history of sexual abuse and cover-ups within the Archdiocese of Baltimore.

During the course of 80 years, the Archdiocese of Baltimore, the report found, concealed pervasive abuse of hundreds of children.

“The incontrovertible history uncovered by this investigation is one of pervasive and persistent abuse by priests and other Archdiocese personnel,” the report states. “It is also a history of repeated dismissal or cover up of that abuse by the Catholic Church hierarchy.”

Here’s a look at what could come next, including whether redactions will remain in the report, survivors will receive the ability to sue and people will face criminal prosecution.

More litigation over redactions

When Baltimore Circuit Judge Robert K. Taylor Jr. directed the release of the report, he wrote in an order that…

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What Hans Zollner’s resignation from the pope’s child protection commission tells us about the Vatican’s fight against sexual abuse

The synodal process that Pope Francis has launched to make the Catholic Church more transparent and credible is entering its crucial phase. But his pontificate presently risks losing momentum in its fight against sexual abuse and its promotion of a new culture of accountability. This is the upshot of the recent resignation of Hans Zollner, his fellow Jesuit, from the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors (PCPM).

 The German priest is a theologian and psychologist. He’s also a leading safeguarding expert and one of the most respected figures in the Church’s response to the clergy sex abuse crisis. That is due largely to the work of the Institute of Anthropology – Interdisciplinary Studies on Human Dignity and Care (former Center for Child Protection), which he directs at the Pontifical Gregorian…

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Accused in grand jury report of covering up abuse

Former Bishop James C. Timlin, the former bishop of the Scranton Diocese who was ensarled in the Catholic Church sex abuse scandal, died Sunday at 95.

Timlin, a Scranton native, was ordained a bishop on Sept. 21, 1976, and on June 7, 1984, became the first priest born within the Diocese of Scranton to serve as its bishop.

Timlin served as the eighth Bishop of the Scranton Dioceses until Sept. 30, 2003, when he reached the mandatory retirement age of 75.

He went on to serve as administrator of Saint Joseph Church in Wilkes-Barre in 2004, before assuming new duties as rector of Villa Saint Joseph, the home for retired priests of the diocese in Dunmore.

Timlin was beloved by parishioners for much of his tenure as bishop, but his legacy upended in August 2018 when a statewide grand jury…

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It grieves me to read another report on the child sexual-abuse scandal by the Catholic Church [“Decades of alleged sexual abuse emerge in Md. report,” Metro, April 6]. I applaud Maryland Attorney General Anthony G. Brown (D) and his predecessor for conducting a four-year investigation that uncovered decades of sexual abuse, mishandling and coverups within the Archdiocese of Baltimore. Also noteworthy are Maryland’s legislative actions to address these evils and provide recourse for victims. The article mentioned that this is another of 19 such reports.

To its credit, the Catholic Church has put into practice programs and policies to address future scandals. But where is the justice for prior crimes? Why does it take civil action to address them? Furthermore, what is the church doing to help victims who had their spirituality crushed and are experiencing psychological problems, including suicide. Remorse and apologies for child sex…

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It felt, in so many ways, like any other Easter Sunday.

Hundreds of people — families, young couples and grandparents — filed into the Cathedral of Mary Our Queen, many in brightly colored spring outfits. Parishioners filled the pews from the front of the nave to the back. Cries and murmurs of young children echoed throughout the Mass in the vaulted North Baltimore cathedral.

In his homily, Archbishop William Lori marveled at the miracle of the Resurrection. The Church exists to be the “body of Christ,” he said, and each day its members must renew their allegiance to God and their resolve to follow him.

And then his homily turned.

“Sadly, in the past, representatives of the Church have betrayed the Lord’s gift of new life, especially in deceiving and in harming the innocent,” he said. “We cannot undo the past. But we can lay our failings at the feet…

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Sister Karina de la Rosa Morales, a nun with the Xavierian Missionary Sisters of Mary and a member of the Rahamim network that is fighting against human trafficking, lamented that Mexico holds “first place in human trafficking, child abuse, organ selling, sex tourism, child abduction, and child pornography.”

ACI Prensa spoke with several of the nuns and a laywoman who belong to the Rahamim prevention network. Sister Ligia María Cámara said that “trafficking is a crime” that uses “lies or force to take advantage of people,” violate their rights, and frequently transport them to unknown places.

The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) stated in a January report that “Mexico ranks first in child sexual abuse; first in exploitation, homicides, and trafficking of minors; and first in creation and distribution of child pornography.”

The El Financiero newspaper reported in a May 2022 interview with Vivaldina Jaubert, director of the…

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The Archdiocese of Baltimore (AOB) has had an intellectual conversion not a moral conversion concerning the thousands of Catholic schoolchildren who have been raped and abused and tortured while under their care. (”Maryland attorney general releases report on Catholic clergy abuse in Baltimore archdiocese,” April 5) An intellectual conversion has happened because the law does not permit them to continue to hide abusers. We can also see this in the sympathetic language they try to use while referring to survivors. We see this in their policy changes.

However, a moral conversion comes much slower and continues to elude them. We see this as they continue to pay lawyers to protect and defend the enablers and the people they have decided to have not been “credibly accused.” We see this in hollow apologies and pitiful monetary settlements they have offered. And be assured they have offered this…

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It felt, in so many ways, like any other Easter Sunday.

Hundreds of people — families, young couples and grandparents — filed into the Cathedral of Mary Our Queen, many in brightly colored spring outfits. Parishioners filled the pews from the front of the nave to the back. Cries and murmurs of young children echoed throughout the Mass in the vaulted North Baltimore cathedral.

In his homily, Archbishop William Lori marveled at the miracle of the Resurrection. The Church exists to be the “body of Christ,” he said, and each day its members must renew their allegiance to God and their resolve to follow him.

And then his homily turned.

“Sadly, in the past, representatives of the Church have betrayed the Lord’s gift of new life, especially in deceiving and in harming the innocent,” he said. “We cannot undo the past. But we can lay our failings at the feet…

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[This article also includes a database that is searchable and sortable by abuser name, assignment, start and stop years at an assignment, and page of the report.]

The names of priests, deacons, church leaders and the abuses they were accused of might have looked familiar to those scouring through the long-awaited report of child sex abuse within the Archdiocese of Baltimore. But the 456 pages also reveal a few people and details the public may not have been aware of.

The report included 32 names that the church has not included on its credibly accused list, a collection of files on priests who committed sexual abuse in Baltimore that were described as the “bad boy” files, and an instance in which the Archdiocese of Washington took in a Baltimore priest despite knowing he was accused of abuse.

Archdiocese of Washington

On the day the investigation report…

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Sutton Valence, near Maidstone, which charges up to £7,740 a term in tuition fees, is treating the allegations with the ‘utmost seriousness’ and has notified the police and Charity Commission

A prestigious boarding school is being sued by a former pupil over historical child sexual abuse claims.

The Reverend David Barnes allegedly raped the boy at Sutton Valence School, Kent, in the 1980s.

The ex-pupil says the chaplain invited him to his home on the school grounds when he was 13.

He told us the churchman – who died in 2012 aged 75 – gave him gin and cigarettes and they watched Top of the Pops on TV.

The Rev Barnes then allegedly groped him and raped him.

Afterwards, the ex-pupil said the chaplain took a photo of him with a Polaroid camera and put it in a shoebox which he alleged contained pictures of other boys.

He thinks teachers “knew exactly…

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In 1958, a Baltimore County judge wrote a letter to the Baltimore archbishop with praise for “your great Catholic Church,” and a mention of the judge’s “extremely cordial” relationship with clergy.

That letter was in response to one sent three days earlier, in which the archbishop asked the judge to spare one of his priests, Gerald Tragesser, from jail and public shame for his molestation of a 13-year-old girl.

In the coming days, the archbishop, “through the existence of some excellent Catholic laymen,” was able to orchestrate a trial in the judge’s chambers, according to a letter he wrote to the founder of a treatment center for priests. The proceedings hidden from public view, the parties decided Tragesser would be sent to a New Mexico facility for psychological treatment. Tragesser died in 2013.

The girl’s parents, enraged, contacted a reporter at an unnamed newspaperwith the story. But the church’s influence…

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A room full of survivors, supporters and listeners, many donning ribbon skirts and orange shirts, filled an MSU auditorium this week in the hopes that by sharing difficult truths, healing can continue.

The boarding school healing and justice panel — titled “ginoojimomin apii dibaajimoyang,” which translates in Anishinaabemowin to “our stories heal” — was just as much of a ceremony on Thursday as it was a panel discussion. It encapsulated some of the Native Justice Coalition’s work to offer safe spaces for Indian boarding school survivors’ stories to be heard and for non-Indigenous people to listen.

“I tell my story because I know there’s many out there who can’t,” said Linda Cobe, who is Ojibwe/Oneida and a Lac Vieux Desert tribal citizen. “… My language was taken from me, my childhood was taken, my culture was taken. But we have the opportunity today to get that all back.”

All…

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On the day after Easter, the pastor of a Roman Catholic parish in Maryland that was home to a dozen priests accused of sexual abuse will be saying the rosary for their victims.

The Rev. Santhosh George made the announcement on the homepage of the St. Mark Church in Catonsville on Thursday, the day after that the state’s top prosecutor accused the Archdiocese of Baltimore of covering up the sexual abuse of more than 600 children for over a half-century.

“I write with a heavy heart to share the news of the release of a report issued by the Attorney General of Maryland, which outlines horrific abuse by some priests of the Archdiocese of Baltimore in years past,” George wrote. “In particular, is the sickening notification of several sexual abusers of children living and working here at St. Mark between the years of 1964 and 2004.”

Of the 156 priests in…

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Police in the city of Lodz have launched an inquiry into an attack on a statue of Pope John Paul II, who has been recently accused of covering up cases of child abuse.

The statue, which stands outside the cathedral in the city centre, was vandalised on Sunday. Attackers painted the pope’s hands red and his face yellow, while the words “Maxima culpa” were written in red paint at the foot of the monument.

Maxima culpa is a term of Latin origin meaning “through my most grievous fault” and may have been daubed on the statue in reference to a book of the same title by Dutch journalist Ekke Overbeek, which claimed that the Polish-born pope may have turned a blind eye to the abuse allegations.

“No information regarding the incident is being published for the good of the investigation,” a spokesperson for the Lodz police, and a spokesman for…

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NPR’s Adrian Florido talks with David Lorenz, director of the Maryland chapter of the Survivors Network of those abused by Priests, after the report on decades-long sex abuse in the Baltimore Diocese.

ADRIAN FLORIDO, HOST:

Earlier this week, the Maryland attorney general released a new report documenting the pervasive history of sex abuse in the Archdiocese of Baltimore. And a warning that my conversation for the next four minutes or so will include some discussion of those findings. Investigators found more than 600 children were abused by more than 150 Catholic priests in the Baltimore Archdiocese over the last 80 years. We’re joined now by David Lorenz. He is the director of the Maryland chapter of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests.

Welcome.

DAVID LORENZ: Well, thank you for having me.

FLORIDO: This is a really, really hard report to read. I had to step away from…

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Survivors of child sexual abuse gathered Friday outside the Archdiocese of Baltimore to demand more transparency after the Maryland Attorney General’s Office released its report Wednesday.

| LIST: Report lists abusers by name
| LINK: Attorney General’s Report: Child Abuse in the Archdiocese of Baltimore

Survivors, who held signs and childhood photos, applauded the release of the report and passage of new legislation that would eliminate the statute of limitations on civil lawsuits.

Teresa Lancaster said she was abused by a priest in the 1970s while she was a student at Archbishop Seton Keough High School.

“I really want to applaud the attorney general’s office for releasing the report, for doing something. It is one organization that finally stood with survivors. I applaud that,” she said.

The attorney general’s scathing report reveals the scope of more than eight decades of abuse and coverup within the Archdiocese of Baltimore. More than 150…

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Under a gray sky that threatened rain on Friday morning, survivors of sexual abuse at the hands of the Catholic Church gathered in downtown Baltimore, outside the archdiocese’s Cathedral Street building. There, they promised a fight ahead — one that has already brought together people whose experiences of cruelty and violation extend far beyond the city’s borders.

“We’re here now and we’re not going anywhere,” said Frank Schindler, a Maryland resident who says he was abused by a priest in New York at the age of five.

Two days after the Attorney General’s release of a report that details nearly a century of sexual abuse perpetrated by clergy and church officials acting within Baltimore’s archdiocese, members of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, or SNAP, issued a set of demands for more transparency.

David Lorenz, who heads the Maryland branch of SNAP, called for the Archdiocese of Baltimore to…

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Members of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, known as SNAP, called for transparency from the Archdiocese of Baltimore after the release of the Maryland Attorney General’s scathing report into abuses within the church.

The Maryland Attorney General on Tuesday released the 456-page investigation that details 158 clergy, teachers, seminarians and deacons within the Archdiocese of Baltimore who allegedly assaulted more than 600 children going back to the 1940s.

The report also exposed many cases where members of the church and law enforcement colluded to protect priests and others within the Catholic church.  

The report was released with court-ordered redactions, which include the anonymization of 60 individuals referenced in the report by eliminating specific references, as well as the names and identifying information of 37 more individuals. 

Survivors of abuse at the hands of the church called those individuals perpetrators, and…

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More than 150 Catholic priests and others associated with the archdiocese sexually abused over 600 children and often escaped accountability, the investigation found.

While the Catholic Archdiocese of Baltimore has long touted its transparency in publishing the names of clergy credibly accused of sexual abuse, a report released this week by the Maryland attorney general’s office raises questions about the integrity of the church’s list.

Following the report’s long-awaited release Wednesday, victims and advocates called on the Baltimore archbishop to address discrepancies — their latest demand for transparency in a decadeslong fight to expose the church’s coverup tactics.

They also celebrated a major step toward potential legal recourse: state legislation passed Wednesday that would eliminate the existing statute of limitations on civil litigation against institutions like the archdiocese in cases of child sexual abuse. Similar proposals failed in recent years, but the attorney general’s investigation brought renewed attention to the…

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Maryland’s attorney general released Wednesday a detailed report on the history of clerical sexual abuse and cover-up in the Archdiocese of Baltimore. 

The report, some four years in the making, details how, when, and where clerical sexual abuse of minors occurred, and how Church authorities responded. Like similar reports issued in other states, the reading is sobering. 

The Baltimore report was released four-and-a-half years after a similar text was published by a Pennsylvania grand jury. While that report formed part of the whirlwind of ecclesial scandals unfolding in 2018, the Baltimore report is likely to make fewer waves across the country.

But the Baltimore report, the archdiocesan response, and the context in which it was released all give a clear snapshot of the state of the Church’s reform efforts on clerical sexual abuse — and the reason why progress on Church reform over child abuse is an often unheard…

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In a message to members of the Archdiocese of Baltimore April 5 after the release of the Maryland Attorney General’s report on sexual abuse in the archdiocese over the last 80 years, Archbishop William E. Lori noted that the policies and processes have changed since the number of incidents of abuse peaked in the 1960s and 1970s.

“The archdiocese is not the same organization it was when, as the report documents, cases of abuse peaked during the 1960s and 1970s. Instances fell every year and every decade since then, alongside the development of canon and criminal law and Archdiocesan accountability standards and policies designed to protect children,” the archbishop said.

Asked by the Catholic Review at a press conference the day of the release whether the archdiocese was still covering up abuse, Maryland Attorney General Anthony Brown sidestepped the question.

But a day later, Brown,…

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A Las Vegas pastor and his wife have been indicted on multiple charges of sexual assault, child abuse and other crimes they allegedly committed with multiple underage victims under their leadership 10 years ago.

Pastor Bobby Cornealius Smith and his wife, Lashawn Nicole Smith, of New Beginnings Ministries Church of God in Christ in Las Vegas, Nevada, were both formally charged after one of their alleged victims reported them to police in August 2022, according to 8 News Now.

Bobby Smith was charged with one felony count of attempted sexual assault, nine counts of sexual assault, and one count of child abuse, neglect or endangerment, while Lashawn Smith was charged with one count of sexual assault and one count of child abuse, neglect or endangerment.

No one responded to calls made by The Christian Post to New Beginnings Ministries Church of God in Christ on…

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A student ministry pastor at a California church affiliated with the Acts 29 Network has been arrested on three charges of child sexual assault. 

Michael Sasser, 40, was arrested on March 23, after turning himself in at the Modesto Police Department in central California. He is being held on three charges, including forcible sexual penetration, continual sexual abuse of a child, and lewd and lascivious acts with a child. 

Sasser previously served as pastor-deacon of student ministry at Redeemer Church in Modesto, an evangelical church affiliated with the Acts 29 Network of churches. According to the criminal complaint, Sasser molested a family member in three incidents that occurred last year. The alleged victim was age 14 or younger, according to the charges which were first reported to police on March 8. 

Redeemer Church lead pastor Patrick Nagle told The Roys Report (TRR) that Sasser, co-director of the church’s student ministry,…

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The pastor of a Pentecostal church in Louisiana, who’s already been charged with having sex with a minor, has been re-arrested now that another victim has come forward.

Louisiana State Police say they first arrested Pastor Milton Martin III, 56, on March 8, after a four-month investigation determined that Martin had sexual relations with a juvenile, aged 14-17, multiple times from 2010—2013. At that time, Martin turned himself into police and was charged with felony sexual battery and carnal knowledge of a juvenile.

Since that arrest, police say they were made aware of a second victim. Their continued investigation found that Martin had sexual relations with a 14-year-old in 1991, police said in a statement. After police obtained another arrest warrant, Martin turned himself in again and was booked into the St. Bernard Parish Correctional Center for indecent behavior with juveniles.

The police statement did…

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More than 20 years after revelations of Catholic clergy sex abuse shocked the world, an indelible feature of the scandal — its scope over time and geography and the scale of its horrors — has not lost its capacity to astonish. Each major disclosure adds to the disturbing portrait of the violence that has been perpetrated against children and the church’s systematic coverups.

That was driven home once again by the release of a major report by the Maryland attorney general’s office documenting the abuse of hundreds of children and young adults over nearly six decades in just one of the church’s dominions, the archdiocese of Baltimore, where nearly a half million Catholics live today. Adding judicial insult to clerical injury, the full report was withheld from the public for months on orders from a Maryland judge. A different judge finally authorized its release, with redactions.

…

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More than 150 Catholic priests and others associated with the Archdiocese of Baltimore sexually abused over 600 children, according to the Maryland Attorney General’s Office. A long-awaited report revealed the horrific scope of abuse and cover-ups spanning some eight decades. Geoff Bennett discussed the findings with Maryland Attorney General Anthony Brown.

Geoff Bennett: More than 150 Catholic priests and others associated with the Archdiocese of Baltimore sexually abused over 600 children, often escaping accountability. That’s according to a long-awaited report from the Maryland attorney general’s office, revealing the horrific scope of abuse spanning some eight decades. The report accuses church leaders of decades of cover-ups and paints a damning portrait of the archdiocese, which is the oldest Roman Catholic diocese in the country. Anthony Brown is the attorney general of Maryland, and joins us now. Thank you for being with us. Your investigation found that over 600 young people from…

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New York – A report from the Maryland Attorney General detailing the history of child sex abuse in the Archdiocese of Baltimore applauds archdiocesan efforts to implement protective measures and respond to allegations over the last two decades, but also notes that its credibly accused list should be expanded, and the structure of its Independent Review Board assessed.

The 454-page report, published April 5, details more than 600 instances of child sex abuse by 156 abusers from the Archdiocese of Baltimore. 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.

Still, Archbishop William Lori of Baltimore said the improvements since 2002 don’t negate what happened in the past, and offered an apology to the victim-survivors.

“Today’s report from the…

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After a year of ever-closer cooperation between Poland and the United States to ensure the flow of Western weapons into Ukraine, the Polish Foreign Ministry last month summoned the U.S. ambassador in Warsaw to discuss an urgent matter: a television documentary about a dead pope, John Paul II.

The documentary, which delved into the Polish-born pontiff’s negligent response to the sexual abuse of children by priests in Poland in the 1960s and 70s, had just been aired by an American-owned Polish-language TV channel, TVN24.

It had no bearing on the war raging next door in Ukraine but it may figure prominently in a matter of great importance to Poland’s right-wing governing party: how to stay in power.

Facing a general election later this year amid soaring inflation and widespread economic pain, the party, Law and Justice, has seized on the documentary and the outrage it caused among many Polish Catholics….

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[Via WRC]

“The report is likely to evoke many emotions: anger, disgust, disillusionment and sadness among them,” Baltimore Archbishop William Lori said in a statement Monday.

More than 150 Catholic priests and others associated with the Archdiocese of Baltimore sexually abused over 600 children and often escaped accountability, according to a long-awaited state report released Wednesday that revealed the scope of abuse spanning 80 years and accused church leaders of decades of coverups.

The report paints a damning picture of the archdiocese, which is the oldest Roman Catholic diocese in the country and spans much of Maryland. Some parishes, schools and congregations had more than one abuser at the same time — including St. Mark Parish in Catonsville, which had 11 abusers living and working there between 1964 and 2004. One deacon admitted to molesting over 100 children. Another priest was allowed to feign hepatitis treatment and make other excuses…

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More than 600 children were sexually abused by over 150 Catholic priests and others associated with the Archdiocese of Baltimore over the last 80 years, a newly released state report has found.

Maryland’s top prosecutor accused church officials of a decades-long cover-up, and a “staggering pervasiveness” of sexual abuse in a long-awaited, 463-page document.

Investigators began their work in 2018 and their report has been met with shock and anger by victims and campaigners.

Baltimore Archbishop William Lori apologised to the victims and vowed that this “reprehensible time in the history of this Archdiocese” would not be ignored or forgotten.

Here are the key takeaways from the report.

The abuse involved hundreds of victims

Hundreds of thousands of documents dating back to the 1940s were examined.

More than 600 children were abused by the 156 people included in this report, wrote Maryland Attorney General Anthony Brown. “But the [actual]…

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One name stands out among the rest in the Maryland Attorney General’s report on child sexual abuse in the Archdiocese of Baltimore.

The name is seen nearly 200 times throughout the over 450-page report — Father Anthony Joseph Maskell. He is not only accused of abuse, but for helping other priests do the same.

No. 87 under the long “List of Abusers” is Maskell. He was one of the primary subjects of the Netflix docuseries “The Keepers,” about a Baltimore Archbishop Seton Keough High School teacher found dead in 1970.

Ordained in 1965, Maskell spent 30 years working for the Catholic Church in Maryland, including as a counselor for students at Catholic schools.

According to the report, at least 39 people have reported that they, or people they know, were sexually abused by him. The archdiocese has been aware of Maskell’s conduct toward…

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The Diocese of Youngstown is responding to a scathing report from Maryland’s Attorney General that implicates a former Youngstown bishop in an alleged cover-up of the sexual abuse of more than 600 children.

The 463-page report, released Wednesday, highlights a multi-year grand jury investigation. The investigation found over 600 children were abused by 156 priests and others associated with the Archdiocese of Baltimore, the oldest Roman Catholic diocese in the country, but determined the actual number is “likely far higher.”

Many of the accused are now dead and no longer able to be prosecuted. The report focuses mainly on alleged abuse from the 1940s through 2002. The investigators said they hope exposing the issues will bring accountability in the absence of criminal justice.   

The report names 146 abusers — including priests, deacons, sisters and other personnel — and redacted the names of an additional 10.

…

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There should probably be a warning to all those who choose to read the recently-released report by the Maryland Attorney General’s Office chronicling 80 years of child sexual abuse within Baltimore’s Catholic archdiocese. From the sometimes explicit descriptions of rape, torture and molestation to the cover-ups and gross negligence demonstrated by the practice of shipping out known abusers to unsuspecting schools and parishes, it is a stomach-turning read. Never mind that many of these abusers are long dead and buried — as are many of their enablers — the damage done lives on.

And yet there is also an extraordinary comfort in knowing the survivors of these crimes, who pushed hard to get this report written over the last five years, can finally have their stories told. The 456-page investigation covering the actions of 158 church officials, many of them priests, surely provides some modicum of relief to…

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When the Rev. John Mike was an associate pastor at St. Louis Roman Catholic Church four decades ago, he left an impression with his seemingly boundless energy, his outgoing personality and his ability to connect with young people.

But as parishioners gathered Thursday at the Clarksville church for a prayer service, a day after the Maryland Attorney General’s Office released a report on sexual abuse in the Archdiocese of Baltimore, some struggled to fit what they once believed about the Catholic Church with the horrors the document revealed.

Mike is one of four men associated with St. Louis who the document named as abusers. The figure makes the Howard County parish one of a handful of Catholic institutions home to a large number of staff who abused minors over an 80-year span.

“You wouldn’t have known [about the abuse] from normal contact with Mike,” said…

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While only one person has been indicted, advocates and victims’ groups predict it would bring more survivors forward and spark a wave of new civil lawsuits.

Cases of child sex abuse by clergy in the nation’s oldest Catholic archdioceses weren’t unknown.

But on Wednesday, a long-awaited report by the Maryland Attorney General spotlighted the depth of a crisis that spanned decades, finding a “staggering pervasiveness” of child sex abuse in the Archdiocese of Baltimore that victimized at least 600 children between the 1940s and 2002.

The report, which listed more than 150 Catholic priests and clergy members accused of “horrific and repeated” abuse – as well as attempts to protect accused clergy by the church hierarchy – came as Maryland’s legislature voted to end a statute of limitations for child sex abuse-related civil lawsuits.

While only one person has been indicted as a result of the investigation, advocates…

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Hours turned into days, turned into years, as the victims of child sexual abuse at the hands of clergy in the Baltimore Catholic Archdiocese slowly came forward, detailing horrific offenses that had been heaped upon them.

Threats with guns, rapes over and again, torture with ropes, chains, handcuffs, paddles and hot wax. Touching, grabbing, groping. God’s name was invoked, victims were blamed, complaints were ignored, childhoods were stolen, all trust was shattered.

In the end, few, if any, in the archdiocesan hierarchy seemed to escape without complicity, turning out predators to act again, moving offenders from parish to parish.

Some of the more egregious offenses came to light in recent years, adjudicated in the public courts when the justice system could no longer turn a blind eye. But with the release of a yearslong investigative report Wednesday, what once seemed extraordinary became horribly ordinary as clergy with names familiar to…

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What is the Response of the Archdiocese to the Attorney General’s Redacted Report?

The Archdiocese profoundly apologizes for the suffering of victims of child sexual abuse at the hands of any and all church personnel.  Archbishop Lori’s statement on the release of the redacted Report and his pastoral letter on child sexual abuse offer his own apology, along with hopes for healing and a commitment to continue effective actions that will address the scourge of child sexual abuse.  We encourage you to read those documents carefully and fully and to join the Archdiocese in prayer for those harmed by child sexual abuse and in a renewed commitment to child protection.

Does the Church agree with the findings in the Attorney General’s Report?

The Attorney General wrote and issued its report; it is a not a report of the Archdiocese.  However, the Archdiocese does appreciate some aspects of the report. We believe, as…

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You can read it now. The Attorney General’s Report on Child Sexual Abuse in the Archdiocese of Baltimore. It is an incriminating story, based on a Baltimore grand jury investigation, telling the “incontrovertible history . . . one of pervasive and persistent abuse by priests and other Archdiocese personnel. It is also a history of repeated dismissal or cover up of that abuse by the Catholic Church hierarchy.” (p. 1). Abuse of more than 600 victims by 156 persons in the diocese, with an appendix that gives the names of 43 more abusers from Baltimore who committed abuse outside of Maryland.

Everyone should read it. You should know what the victims and survivors of abuse had the courage to report and how that abuse still affects them.

Reading it might also encourage you to support the attorney general’s two recommendations: “amend statute of limitations for civil actions involving child sex…

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A new report identifies more than 150 clergy members in Maryland who abused at least 600 victims over six decades.

The Catholic Church is again at the center of a decades-long child sex abuse scandal, this time in Maryland.

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

A 463-page report released by the Maryland Attorney General’s office Wednesday alleges that clergy sexually abused more than 600 children between the 1940s and 2002. The report also asserts that, rather than seeking to protect children from further harm…

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Attorney General Anthony Brown said his office is also investigating two more dioceses, including the Archdiocese of Washington

Maryland Attorney General Anthony G. Brown (D) released a report Wednesday detailing decades of alleged sex abuse by clergy within the Archdiocese of Baltimore.

The investigation found that over 600 young people — from preschoolers to young adults — suffered sexual abuse and “physical torture” by more than 150 clergy members from the mid-1940s to 2002. The attorney general’s office had previewed some of its findings in a November court filing, but the report itself brought them to life in visceral and horrifying detail. “Tests of torture” that involved chaining and whipping teenagers. Two sisters abused as grade-schoolers “hundreds of times” by one priest. A deacon who admitted to molesting more than 100 minors over three decades. Clergy who preyed on children they met recovering at hospitals.

“Today in…

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Report alleges 156 people, including priests, abused more than 600 children

Scores of priests and other people affiliated with the Archdiocese of Baltimore sexually abused hundreds of children over more than 60 years, and church officials often protected the perpetrators while keeping their crimes a secret, Maryland’s attorney general said in a new report.

Wednesday’s report from Attorney General Anthony Brown alleges that 156 people—including priests and archdiocese personnel—abused more than 600 youths, causing lasting psychological trauma for survivors.

The release of the long-awaited 456-page report comes shortly after state lawmakers passed new legislation to allow civil lawsuits alleging long-ago child sex abuse—steps that in other states have led Catholic organizations to seek bankruptcy protection.

Maryland’s findings mark the latest effort by officials nationwide to document clerical sexual abuse and systematic efforts by church leaders to hide crimes. In Pennsylvania, a 2018 grand-jury report alleged that Catholic Church officials there covered up…

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Clergy members across the Archdiocese of Baltimore abused hundreds of children and teenagers over the course of six decades, abetted by a church hierarchy that systematically failed to investigate and restrict their access to children, according to a detailed report from the Maryland attorney general released on Wednesday.

It was the latest harrowing installment in the decades-long revelations of sexual abuse within the Roman Catholic Church, this time set in the first Catholic diocese established in the United States.

The 463-page report, which is the result of a four-year investigation by the attorney general’s office, documents what it describes as “pervasive and persistent abuse” by clergy members and others in the archdiocese, as well as dismissals and cover-ups by the church hierarchy.

Widespread abuse within the archdiocese was already well known by victims’ groups and, to some extent, acknowledged by current church leaders before the report was released….

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The Maryland Attorney General’s Office has publicly released a redacted version of an investigative report detailing sex abuse allegations against more than 150 Catholic priests and examining the Archdiocese of Baltimore’s response.

The redacted findings were made public Wednesday afternoon, marking a significant development in an ongoing legal battle over their release and adding to growing evidence from parishes across the country as numerous similar revelations have rocked the Catholic Church in recent years.

Former Maryland Attorney General Brian Frosh launched the probe in 2019 and announced its completion in November, saying investigators had reviewed over 100,000 pages of documents dating back to the 1940s and interviewed hundreds of victims and witnesses. The report’s contents weren’t immediately released because they include information obtained from church officials via grand jury subpoenas, which are confidential proceedings in Maryland.

Lawyers for the state asked a court for permission to release the nearly 500-page document, which…

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A report details a “history of widespread abuse” by Baltimore archdiocese priests. More than 600 people were assaulted over many years.

The Maryland Attorney General on Wednesday released a damning 463-page grand jury report detailing allegations of sexual abuse within the Archdiocese of Baltimore and the cover-up of that abuse by the leadership of the Catholic Church.

The redacted report, which a judge ordered released in February, details “a long history of widespread abuse and systemic cover-up by clergy,” according to a statement by Maryland Attorney General Anthony Brown.

The report also identifies nearly 160 former and current priests as well as other members of the church that are accused of sexually abusing more than 600 children over eight decades.

“This report illustrates the depraved, systemic failure of the Archdiocese to protect the most vulnerable – the children it was charged to keep safe,” Brown said in a statement. “Time…

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Report lists 156 current or former Catholic clergy, seminarians, deacons, teachers at Catholic schools, others

The Maryland Attorney General’s Office report detailing the investigation into the Archdiocese of Baltimore reveals decades of child sexual abuse and leadership’s efforts to cover it up.

| LIST: Report lists abusers by name
| LINK: Attorney General’s Report: Child Abuse in the Archdiocese of Baltimore

“Today, certainly in Maryland, is a day of reckoning and a day of accounting,” Attorney General Anthony Brown said at a news conference ahead of the report’s release. “This is a full accounting. There are details of repeated torturous, terrorizing, depraved abuse.”

Brown said more than 300 people contacted the attorney general’s office since its investigation into allegations of child sexual abuse and cover-up efforts began in 2018.

The attorney general’s office said it received hundreds of thousands of documents dating back to the 1940s that included treatment reports,…

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A redacted version made public by court order, the Maryland Attorney General’s report on the history of sexual abuse within the Catholic Archdiocese of Baltimore is the product of a four-year investigation. It details the rape and torture of hundreds of children and young adults over eight decades, as well as the church’s efforts to cover up the abuse and silence victims.

[ Catholic Church abuse in Maryland: Coverage from The Baltimore Sun ]

Go to original webpage to access redacted Maryland Attorney General report

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Baltimore Archbishop William Lori in a letter to parishioners Monday addressed “the evil of child abuse” ahead of the expected release of a Maryland attorney general report detailing decades of abuse in the archdiocese.

“On behalf of the Archdiocese, I offer my heartfelt apology to the victim-survivors and their families,” wrote Lori. “More than anything, in this moment, though, I want to pause to recognize and validate that the vile and horrifying abuse that is the subject of the Attorney General’s investigation represents a grave betrayal, and that it has had devastating consequences for victim-survivors.” 

The 456-page report compiled by Maryland Attorney General Brian Frosh will be released this Wednesday, according to the Baltimore Sun. 

Besides detailing victims’ abuse at the hands of clergy members, the report is said to contain the names of over 150 Baltimore priests responsible for abusing over 600 children between the 1940s and…

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The Maryland Senate recently passed Senate Bill 686, also known as “The Child Victims Act of 2023,” which, if enacted, would erase the time limit for childhood sexual abuse survivors to file civil lawsuits. Under Maryland’s current law, there is no statute of limitations on criminal charges of child sex abuse but, since 2017, survivors of child sex abuse have been barred from bringing civil lawsuits if they are older than 38. Before that, only victims age 25 and under could file such claims. The 2017 amendment was not retroactive, however, so it did not apply to victims who were previously abused.

If SB686 becomes law, child abuse victims of any age in Maryland would be able to file a civil lawsuit against their abusers and institutions that were supposed to protect them (i.e., churches, schools, camps, clubs, community centers), even if their claims already expired under…

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Survivors seek vindication and restitution

The Maryland Attorney General’s Office is expected to release a report today exposing decades of sexual abuse allegations within the Archdiocese of Baltimore.

The report names more than 150 priests who have either been charged or accused of sexual abuse over the past 80 years, as well as anyone who may have helped bury these accusations.

There are a lot of different things survivors might want to do with this report, such as find vindication for their pains and suffering or seek restitution and file a lawsuit.

An investigation into accusations of child sex abuse within the Archdiocese of Baltimore is about to be revealed to the public.

Attorney Rob Jenner who represents the Maryland chapter of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP) said “lot’s of people are afraid to come forward because they think they’re the only one who has been…

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Why clergy MUST be mandated reporters when they learn of a child being sexually abused, yes, even if learned during the sacrament of confession.

As a young teenager, I was repeatedly sexually, physically, and emotionally abused by my parish priest several times a week for several years.  I eventually learned the same was true for my younger brothers. The priest insisted I go to him for confession, to confess my sins. That insistence was nothing more than a skilled predator ensuring I saw such actions as my complicity in the sexual contact the priest was perpetrating. In other words, the sin was mine, not his.

For a young teenager, these instances of sexual abuse were infused with a perpetrator’s faux love and concern. The priest often willingly lavished me with material gifts I could otherwise never have and took me on many trips away from home.  These acts were torturous, causing mind-bending conflict…

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A mounting debate in Catholicism over whether to remove artwork by sexual abusers from sacred spaces seems destined to be especially difficult to resolve, pitting the weight of tradition against changing cultural sensitivities, not to mention practicalities against new moral imperatives.

The most likely outcome seems that no universal solution will be found, with answers deemed appropriate in one context not working in others.

The question is presented above all by the case of Jesuit Father Marko Rupnik, a celebrated Slovenian artist whose Eastern-themed work adorns churches all over the world, and who now stands accused of spiritual, psychological or sexual abuse of multiple adult women stretching over almost 40 years.

The Diocese of Rome quietly has launched an Apostolic Visit of the Centro Aletti in Rome which served as Rupnik’s base of operations, but it’s unclear if that probe will address the question of what to do about Rupnik’s…

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Landmark decision expected to help countless other survivors achieve more compensation for abuse suffered from clergy

Victoria’s highest court has ruled that the Catholic church is vicariously liable for sexual abuse by a paedophile priest because he was a “servant of the diocese” whose role gave him the “power and intimacy” to access and abuse children.

The decision by the Victorian court of appeal on Monday upholds the original landmark ruling, which, for the first time in Australia, found the church is vicariously liable for the abuse of its priests.

The decision is expected to help countless other survivors achieve more significant compensation for the abuse they suffered at the hands of paedophile clergy.

The case involves a then five-year-old boy, known only as DP, who was abused by Father Bryan Coffey at his parent’s home in Port Fairy during pastoral visits in 1971.

The critical issue in the case…

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Israeli-born former school principal convicted of 18 charges, cleared of 9 others, 15 years after she escaped arrest by fleeing to Israel; to be sentenced at a later date

A former principal at an ultra-Orthodox Jewish school in Australia was found guilty on Monday of sexually assaulting two sisters there, 15 years after she escaped arrest by fleeing to Israel.

After a seven-week trial and seven days of deliberations, the jury found Malka Leifer guilty of 18 charges, including rape and indecent assault, for sexually assaulting the two students, Dassi Erlich and Elly Sapper, in a series of incidents between 2003 and 2007. It cleared her of nine other charges, including several relating to a third sister, Nicole Meyer.

Leifer, 56, sat motionless and did not react as the verdicts were read. The judge will sentence her at a later date.

While victims of sexual assault are normally not identified…

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LAW firms in Australia are again accusing the Roman Catholic Church of an aggressive approach to claims of sexual abuse by survivors of deceased paedophiles (News, 18 November 2022).

The Church is seeking permanent stays several cases after a decision last year by the New South Wales (NSW) Supreme Court that the Church could not receive a fair trial in a case where the alleged abuser had died. The Supreme Court’’s decision is currently under appeal to the Australian High Court.

In the latest case, the order of Marist Brothers is seeking a permanent stay on a claim by a man who alleges that he was assaulted by a paedophile at a Marist Brothers’ school in 1969 and 1970. The alleged perpetrator, who was sentenced to a long prison term for assaulting 17 victims, died before the recent claim was made in 2021. The order is saying that it cannot receive a…

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[See Judge Robert Taylor’s order.]

Maryland Attorney General Anthony Brown said he will release a redacted version of a long-awaited 456-page grand jury report that details decades of sexual abuse within the Archdiocese of Baltimore on Wednesday after privately meeting with survivors in the morning.

Baltimore Circuit Judge Robert K. Taylor Jr. on Tuesday approved the release of the report “as the Office of the Attorney General shall see fit.” The attorney general’s office will post the document on its website at 1 p.m., according to an email sent to survivors of clergy sexual abuse.

Archbishop William Lori posted a letter and a video on the Archdiocese of Baltimore’s website calling on Catholics to pray for survivors as holy week begins.

“More than anything, in this moment, though, I want to pause to recognize and validate that the vile and horrifying abuse that…

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Kansas legislators gave final approval Monday to a bill that would make it easier to pursue criminal charges or file lawsuits over childhood sexual abuse years after the abuse occurred.

The House approved the measure, 120-0. It goes to Gov. Laura Kelly because the Senate approved it last week, 40-0.

Abuse survivors and advocates have been pushing for changes in recent years in the wake of reports of abuse by clergy across the U.S.

The bill would eliminate limits on how long prosecutors have to file charges against suspects for any of a dozen violent sexual offenses against children, including indecent liberties, aggravated human trafficking and internet trading in child pornography.

For such crimes, other than rape and aggravated sodomy, prosecutors currently can file criminal charges until the victim turns 28 or up to a year after DNA evidence establishes a suspect, whichever is later.

The deadline for filing a…

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An judge approved the release of a Maryland Attorney General Office’s report on clergy abuse within the Catholic Archdiocese of Baltimore, and the office will release the report to the public Wednesday, a spokesperson said.

The attorney general’s office found during its four-year investigation that 158 Catholic priests and brothers sexually abused or tortured more than 600 children during an 80-year period beginning in the 1940s.

Aleithea Warmack, of the attorney general’s office, said Tuesday the report would be released on Wednesday.

On Monday night, the Most Rev. William E. Lori, the archbishop of Baltimore, told Catholics in Central and Western Maryland that he expected “the Baltimore City Circuit Court will soon authorize the Maryland Office of Attorney General to release its report into child sexual abuse by some ministers of the Church and the Archdiocese’s own past failures in responding to such allegations.”

Lori warned the archdiocese’s half-million Catholics…

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The attack on John Paul II carried out in Poland in recent weeks by two liberal media outlets – TVN television and Agora, the publisher of left-leaning national newspaper “Gazeta Wyborcza” – is based primarily on a broad presentation of manipulatively selected historical material, details of which have previously already been honestly reported by journalists researching the history of the Catholic Church during the communist dictatorship. 

As far as the unfolding of the ongoing “scandal” is concerned, two works are crucial here. The first is a book by Ekke Overbeek, a Dutch journalist working in Poland, entitled “Maxima culpa. John Paul II knew”, and the second is a TV report by Marcin Gutowski entitled “Franciszkańska 3”. 

Both authors, according to their declarations, undertook a pioneering analysis of the actions of Bishop Karol Wojtyla in relation to cases of paedophile priests active during his time as Bishop of Krakow. In reality,…

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The former principal of a girls’ school in Melbourne, Australia, was found guilty Monday on 18 charges of sexually abusing two students more than 15 years ago in a case whose yearslong extradition battle tested relations between Australia and Israel.

The defendant, Malka Leifer, 56 — who faced 27 counts of sexual abuse in all and was acquitted on nine — was on trial for incidents alleged to have taken place between 2003 and 2007, when she was principal of the Adass Israel School, an ultra-Orthodox Jewish institution. She pleaded not guilty to all of the charges.

Three sisters — Nicole Meyer, 37, Dassi Erlich, 35, and Elly Sapper, 34 — were named as the victims in the case. Prosecutors said the abuse began when they were students and continued after they became student teachers there. The incidents were alleged to have occurred at the school, at camps organized by the…

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 The Sanctuary of Our Lady of Lourdes, one of the most famous sites of Marian apparitions worldwide, is facing an important decision: what to do with Father Marko Rupnik’s mosaics that decorate the façade of the Basilica of the Rosary.

The mosaics, installed in 2008 for the 150th anniversary of the apparitions in Lourdes, depict the Luminous Mysteries of the Rosary. “These mosaics were commissioned from the workshop of a renowned artist: Father Marko Rupnik, a Jesuit of Slovenian origin. Like all works of art, they are appreciated by some, less so by others, but the vast majority of pilgrims and visitors to Lourdes emphasize their beauty,” Bishop Jean-Marc Micas of Tarbes and Lourdes wrote in a statement March 31.

But now, with the accusations of sexual abuse of adults against Father Rupnik, Bishop Micas stressed that “the question of the status of…

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Most Arctic nations has been affected by assimilating and oppressive boarding school policies. Now indigenous community leaders are looking for healing as they brace for the dark truth of a government-led genocide.

In 2021 more than 1,300 unmarked graves were discovered at the sites of four former residential schools in western Canada. A discovery that shook the nation, unveiling a dark chapter of North American history.

Starting in the 1880’s and for much of the 20th century, more than 150,000 children from hundreds of indigenous communities across Canada were taken from their parents by force and by the government and sent to residential – or boarding – schools.

In Alaska, USA, the boarding school policy of 1879 were instated, removing thousands of Native children from their communities under the motto “kill the Indian, save the man”. In Canada, the slogan was “kill the Indian in the child”.

That says it…

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A jury in Putnam County has awarded a Brewster man $26.5 million for being sexually abused by his stepfather starting in the mid-1970s when he was 8 years old.

The trial last week in state Supreme Court in Carmel featured allegations by the plaintiff that he was physically, sexually and emotionally abused by John “Jack” Lupton at locations in Staten Island where they lived over an eight-year period.

The abuse ended when he was 16. He beat Lupton up and moved in with a friend’s family. It was years before the plaintiff detailed the abuse for relatives, but the friend testified at the trial, confirming the account of his family taking in the plaintiff.

The jury awarded $11 million for past pain and suffering; $2.5 million for future pain and suffering; and $13 million in punitive damages.

The Journal News/lohud is not naming the plaintiff because he was a victim…

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Lawyer calls for changes to Limitations Act to allow survivors a shot at compensation

Lawyer Lynn Moore says the government of Newfoundland and Labrador failed to protect her client — once a child in the care of his abusive father — and that he suffered horribly as a result.

The province agrees the man suffered horrendous abuse, and admits he was extensively involved with the child protection system during the abuse.

But its lawyers won’t be settling.

The reason? The man came forward too late, and rules are rules — even though Moore argues this rule is rare, cruel, and possibly unconstitutional.

“We’re not talking spanking, we’re not talking the strap,” said Moore, a veteran lawyer specializing in cases of child abuse. 

“We’re talking a very high level of abuse involving firearms, involving whipping, involving broken bones. So it was a horrific childhood that my client suffered and the government had a responsibility to intervene and they didn’t and they are now saying…

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[The discussion of Zollner begins at minute 4:30 of this one-hour podcast.]

Fr. Hans Zollner resigns from the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors, and Pope Francis promulgates updates to Vos Estis Lux Mundi. 

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We’re approaching the zenith of tax season, but while accountants are poring through returns, legislators in Washington State, Vermont, and Delaware are focused on another so-called “loophole”: people’s ability to confess their sins to their priests in confidence.  

Legislators in these states point to an Associated Press report from last fall urging legislatures to “fix the clergy loophole” by making it illegal for clergy to keep penitential communications private. Though many faiths have practices that fall under the clergy-penitent privilege, debates over the privilege center on the Catholic Church, where priests vow never to repeat what they hear in the confessional.

As the AP article notes, since the Boston Globe’s 2002 Spotlight report, dozens of bills have been introduced to try to remove the clergy-penitent privilege in the context of mandatory reporter laws. But none have passed. Last week  View Cache

Indigenous communities have long called on the Vatican rescind the concept, which had been used over the centuries to seize land from people in the Americas, Africa and elsewhere.

The Vatican formally repudiated on Thursday the “Doctrine of Discovery,” a legal concept based on 15th-century papal documents that European colonial powers used to legitimize the seizure and exploitation of Indigenous lands in Africa and the Americas, among other places.

The decision comes after decades of demands from Indigenous people to rescind the doctrine, which was used for centuries to “expropriate Indigenous lands and facilitate their transfer to colonizing or dominating nations,” according to one United Nations forum.

The Roman Catholic Church “repudiates those concepts that fail to recognize the inherent human rights of Indigenous peoples, including what has become known as the legal and political ‘Doctrine of Discovery,’” a joint statement from the Vatican’s development and education offices…

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On March 25, Pope Francis accepted the resignation of Osnabrueck Bishop Franz-Josef Bode, vice president of the German bishops’ conference. This came as a surprise not just to the Germans. He is the sixth German prelate in only a few years to offer to resign, but the first one to have his resignation accepted by the pope.

Why do so many German bishops want to leave office? The story goes deeper than you might think.

Five years ago, in September 2018, there was a moment that continues to reverberate in the German church. The bishops presented a nationwide study uncovering at least 3,677 cases of sexual abuse of minors over some seven decades. In the following press conference, journalist Christiane Florin asked if any member of the bishops’ conference had considered resigning over the findings.

The answer of then-president Cardinal Reinhard Marx: “No.” This…

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The Diocese of Rochester took another significant step in its bankruptcy case March 24 by filing — in conjunction with the creditors’ committee representing sexual-abuse claimants — a joint plan of reorganization and disclosure statement in support of the plan.

The reorganization plan follows the framework set in the Restructuring Support Agreement jointly filed Nov. 3, 2022, by the diocese and the Committee of Unsecured Creditors.

But whereas the RSA’s 28 pages sketched the key elements of reorganization, the 193-page plan and disclosure spell out, in great detail, myriad steps and obligations involved in the process. A full 17 pages, for example, are dedicated to the definition and interpretation of terms, ranging from “abuse” to “unimpaired” claims.

Like the RSA, the plan calls for the diocese, its parishes and related Catholic entities — which the plan terms “Participating Parties” — collectively to contribute $55 million to a trust…

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Advocates and legal groups say a landmark “breakthrough” over the Catholic Church’s culpability for the crimes of paedophile priests will lead to better outcomes for victim-survivors.

Key points:

• Victoria’s highest court has upheld a ruling finding the Catholic Church liable for sexual abuse by a paedophile priest
• The ruling brings Australia in line with international law 
• A lawyer says the tide has turned for abuse survivors in Australia

Yesterday Victoria’s highest court upheld a ruling that the Catholic Church is vicariously liable for child sexual abuse by a priest, making it easier for survivors to receive compensation.

Ballarat abuse survivor Paul Auchettl knows too well that for the longest time, clergy abuse was encased in silence. 

He was abused by the notorious paedophile and Christian Brother Robert Best, who was Mr Auchettl’s Year Six teacher at St Alipius primary school. 

His younger brother Peter was also abused and died by suicide more than…

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Since January 2019, Fr. Jim Connell of the Archdiocese of Milwaukee has been urging state legislators around the country to repeal clergy-penitent privilege in mandatory reporting laws that exempt Catholic priests from notifying authorities of any sexual abuse they hear about in the confessional.

Milwaukee Archbishop Jerome Listecki has suspended Connell’s faculties to hear confessions and grant absolution, citing his advocacy “for the removal of the legal protection of the confessional seal, suggesting there are situations where it is permissible to violate it.” Listecki said in a March 22 statement that Connell’s “false assertions” that the seal of confession should not apply in some situations had caused “understandable and widespread unrest” among Catholics.

“Protecting the child is more important than worrying about whether the government is going to tell us how to practice our religion,” Connell, a retired priest and canon lawyer who served as the Milwaukee Archdiocese’s vice chancellor  View Cache

A decision by Victoria’s highest court to uphold a landmark ruling that holds the Catholic church vicariously liable for the abuse of its priests has been hailed as a win for victim-survivors. 

Key points:

• Victoria’s highest court has ruled the Catholic church is vicariously liable for sexual abuse by a priest
• An attempt by the church to appeal the ruling was quashed
• It has been hailed a significant victory for all survivors

An attempt by the church to appeal the ruling was quashed by the Victorian Court of Appeal on Monday. 

The original decision involved the case of a then-five-year-old boy, known as DP, who was abused by Catholic priest Bryan Coffey at his parents’ home in Port Fairy in 1971.

The church had argued Coffey was not a formal employee and therefore it could not be held liable. 

But DP’s lawyers convinced Victoria’s Supreme Court in 2021 that the priest was the servant of the diocese even…

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Depending on who you ask, Pope Francis’ 2019 decree “Vos Estis Lux Mundi” (“You are the Light of the World”), coupled with updates to the policy announced March 25, is either a watershed in the Church’s fight against sexual abuse or a major disappointment — or, perhaps, both at the same time.

Originally issued in the wake of a summit of the heads of bishops’ conferences from around the world to discuss the abuse scandals, “Vos Estis” was designed to promote a culture of accountability, not just for the crime of sexual abuse but also for the cover-up. For the first time, it created a mechanism for investigating and sanctioning bishops and other superiors charged with failing to respond appropriately to claims of abuse against personnel under their authority.

The recent revisions announced by the Vatican include making lay leaders of Vatican-recognized groups subject…

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A landmark study has found nearly two thirds of Australians aged over 16 have reported experiencing childhood maltreatment – abuse, neglect, or exposure to domestic violence.

The five-year study, Australia’s first national prevalence study of all forms of child abuse and neglect was conducted by a team of researchers, including key spokesperson, Professor Daryl Higgins, the director of the Australian Catholic University’s Institute of Child Protection Studies.

Of the 8503 respondents aged 16 or older, 62 per cent indicated experiences of maltreatment in childhood.

Importantly for researchers the study shows that most of those who reported experiencing maltreatment experienced multiple types, and witnessing domestic violence was the most common.

Researchers found the following prevalence rates of individual types of child maltreatment: neglect – 8.9 per cent; sexual abuse – 28.5 per cent; emotional abuse – 30.9 per cent; physical abuse – 32.0 per cent; and exposure to domestic violence – 39.6 per cent. 

“We need to focus…

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For survivors of sex abuse, the Albany Roman Catholic Diocese’s bankruptcy filing is just one more betrayal.

On March 15, the Roman Catholic Diocese of Albany filed for protection under Chapter 11 bankruptcy. That day I watched in despair as Bishop Edward Scharfenberger justified his decision as “the best way to protect everyone” while acknowledging “it may cause pain and suffering.”

The public has the right to know exactly what that pain and suffering looks like. Not from the loudest attorney or a diocese spokesperson, but from a victim of clergy sexual abuse.

I was one of over 400 plaintiffs under the New York Child Victims Act seeking civil relief from the Albany diocese. As imperfect as it was, the process was providing tangible justice through early releases of documents and depositions. Most notable to me, the 2021 testimony of Bishop Howard Hubbard admitting to sheltering criminal priests: moving them from parish…

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A TV documentary and book allege Cardinal Karol Wojtyla was aware of clerical sexual abuse cases before he became pope in 1978

Huge crowds waving Polish and papal flags marched through Warsaw, Kraków and other cities on Sunday to defend the memory of St John Paul II, 18 years after his death, amid reports he was aware of clerical sexual abuse cases before he became pope in 1978.

Early on Sunday morning in the central city of Lodz, a statue of the Polish pope was smeared with yellow paint on its face and red paint on its hands.

Sprayed on the plinth: “Maxima Culpa”, the title of a controversial book by journalist Ekke Overbeek.

Similar to a separate television documentary, the book argues that Cardinal Karol Wojtyla, as archbishop of Krákow until he became pope in 1978, was aware of at least four cases of abusing priests and reinstated them…

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Hans Zollner, the German Jesuit who has been a leader in the Vatican’s fight against clergy sex abuse, resigns from the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors

Father Hans Zollner, one of the most respected experts and pioneers in the Vatican’s developing fight against the clergy sex-abuse crisis, has resigned from the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors (“Tutela Minorum”) citing disagreements over the way the body is being operated.

“I have noticed issues that need to be urgently addressed and that have made it impossible for me to continue further,” he said Wednesday in a surprisingly candid message published on social media.

The 56-year-old German Jesuit theologian and psychologist had been a member of Tutela Minorum since its establishment in 2014.

The announcement of his resignation was actually made earlier on Wednesday by the commission’s chairman, Cardinal Sean O’Malley of Boston. But the cardinal, who is also…

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Father Conrado Mantac is accused of molesting a 17-year-old choir girl last year

Philippine police have arrested a 62-year-old Catholic priest accused of raping a 17-year-old choir girl a year ago when he was her parish priest.

Father Conrado Mantac was arrested at his residence in Negros Occidental province in the Western Visayas region on March 29, police said.

The arrest came after the girl’s parents complained to police that Mantac molested their daughter last year when he served as parish priest in Sagay City.

A police official said the charge against Mantac is a non-bailable offense, so he must remain behind bars pending trial.

“He did not resist the arrest. Perhaps, he knew it was forthcoming because he was given a chance to dispute the rape allegations at the prosecutor level,” Sergeant Paul Gaspar, a member of the police team that arrested the priest, told UCA News.

Gaspar said the…

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A Dutch journalist says he is the victim of a character assassination because of his book about the late pope

In a Warsaw elevator, Dutch journalist Ekke Overbeek and his publicist are exchanging worried words. It’s four hours until his first public event to promote his new book, Maxima Culpa: John Paul II Knew, claiming that Cardinal Karol Wojtyla, as archbishop of Kraków, protected four paedophile priests before becoming pope in 1978.

The book has rattled Poland’s Catholic church. Cardinal Stanislaw Dziwisz, the late pope’s closest aide, accused the book of “aiming to trample on the memory of all that Poland owes to the Holy Pontiff and to destroy his legacy”.

Even more vocal are Poland’s politicians, in particular the ruling national conservative Law and Justice (PiS) party. With an eye on autumn parliamentary election, and the prospect of pulpit endorsements, PiS has organised a Warsaw march on Sunday –…

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Thousands of Poles marched through Warsaw and other cities on Sunday to show their support for the late Pope John Paul II in the face of what they said were false allegations that he concealed child abuse in the Catholic Church.

The ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party, which faces a tough election later this year, and other religious conservatives have said any calls to re-examine his legacy amount to a plot to discredit the nation’s biggest moral authority.

That argument resonates strongly with many older Poles who were inspired by John Paul to stand up to Communism in the 1970s and ’80s, although church attendance has been falling in the decades since the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989.

“I felt the need to show my connection with (the pope’s) teaching,” said Donata Pronczuk, a retired teacher, who came to Warsaw from the northern city of Koszalin for the march,…

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The Catholic Church in Bangladesh is forming a team to combat the growing number of assaults and other forms of violence against women in their homes, workplaces, and other locations. 

Discussing Abuse Against Women 

According to the UCA News, the convenor of the Women Desk of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Bangladesh and a social activist, Rita Roselin Costa, stated that the Catholic bishops of Bangladesh have verbally agreed to form the team that will be led by the Women Desk of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Bangladesh to tackle abuses against women.

Costa said on Wednesday, Mar. 29, that plans are being discussed to establish a team that will take measures as soon as possible, including legal action if any women are subjected to abuse. Their team is anticipated to begin this year but did not provide a specific launch date. She added that the church staff would take immediate…

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Officials at the Catholic shrine in Lourdes have formed a study group to determine the future of a controversial attraction at the sanctuary.

The mosaics on the facade of one of the three basilicas were designed by Jesuit artist Rev. Marko Ivan Rupnik in 2008 to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the Marian apparitions that turned Lourdes into a primary pilgrimage site, visited by approximately 3 million people annually.

Mosaics Made By Jesuit Indicted with Abuse to Be Reviewed

In December last year, it was revealed by the Jesuits that Rupnik had been excommunicated by the Vatican in 2020 for committing a severe crime in church law. According to Associated Press News, he had used the confessional to acquit a woman with whom he had engaged in sexual activity. He had also been accused by nine women of sexual, spiritual, and psychological misconduct in the 1980s. As…

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A 60-year-old pastor from Ouddorp suspected of abusing his children has been temporarily suspended by the Restored Reformed Church. According to the national church board, he has been temporarily barred from all activities related to his ministry, De Stentor reported.

The pastor and his 58-year-old wife are suspected of abusing their children regularly over the past 29 years, according to prosecutors. The couple has eight children, with whom they lived in Arnemuiden, Elspeet, and Nieuwe-Tonge in the meantime. During that time, the children were allegedly exposed to violence in various ways. Among other things, they are said to have been beaten with a vacuum cleaner stick and a frying pan. Furthermore, one of the sons reported that his head was held underwater for long periods of time.

In 2021, six of the eight children, who are now between 20 and 34 years old, decided to report their parents after finding…

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As Del. C.T. Wilson (D-Charles) has done for several years, he stood on the House of Delegates floor Friday morning to implore his colleagues to support legislation on behalf of child sexual abuse survivors.

In past years, efforts to pass similar bills have found success in the House, but stalled in the Senate.

But this year, Sen. William C. Smith Jr. (D-Montgomery), chair of the Judicial Proceedings Committee, ushered legislation through his chamber that passed March 16.

This year’s House vote on House Bill 1 brought an intense feeling of relief for survivors such as Wilson, who hugged House Judiciary Chair Luke Clippinger (D-Baltimore City), after a resounding 132-2 vote. The chamber erupted in a standing ovation.

Before Wilson cast his vote in support of the bill labeled The Child Victims Act of 2023, he had a message for survivors.

“I just want these people to understand that…

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Cardinal Seán P. O’Malley of Boston, president of the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors, expressed his surprise, disappointment and disagreement with statements challenging the commission’s effectiveness made by a prominent safeguarding expert who resigned from the advisory body.

However, “the commission has a plenary meeting scheduled in the next few weeks during which we can address these and other matters more fully as a group,” the cardinal said in an updated statement March 30.

Jesuit Father Hans Zollner, a leading expert in the field and member of the commission since it was founded in 2014, stepped down in mid-March but gave the reasons for his departure in a public statement March 29, saying it was due to urgent “structural and practical issues that led me to disassociate myself” from the papal commission.

Father Zollner’s criticisms came just a few hours after his resignation was made public in a…

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When Sen. Cindy Holscher was 5 years old, she did what most young children would do on their family farm: play with animals, spend time with family and enjoy a few blissful months off from school.

But one day, things turned much darker.

A farmhand entered a barn while Holscher was playing with kittens and their conversation began innocently. Quickly, however, the man suggested playing a game “like Simon says” that involved showing private parts.

“Of course, my parents had warned me of stranger danger,” Holscher said. “This wasn’t a stranger. This was someone I knew.”

The man lured her in, Holscher said, saying he played the game with one of her friends. At the decisive moment, however, a screen door slammed, causing the man to flee and saving Holscher from joining the estimated 1 in 10 children who are sexually abused before their 18th birthday.

“If it has taken…

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Statement of Cardinal Sean O’Malley, OFM. Cap., President of the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors on the publication of the updated motu proprio Vos estis lux mundi.

The Church’s ongoing work of preventing sexual abuse by ministers of the Church received a further boost today with the publication of the definitive version of Pope Francis’s motu proprio Vos estis lux mundi (You are the light of the world).

In May 2019, Pope Francis established new norms regarding the requirement to ensure adequate processing of reports of sexual abuse by priests or members of religious life. Today’s document makes permanent these important protections for those reporting abuse and holds Church leaders accountable for any failures to carry out their responsibilities in this regard.

For many people, the reality of child sexual abuse in the Church was further compounded by the cover up or negligence by bishops and religious superiors in properly…

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