ABUSE TRACKER

Pope Francis on Dec. 22 warned top Vatican officials against the temptation of believing the Catholic Church is no longer in need of conversion and said that creating a pure church only for the pure would be a return to heresy.  

“The worst thing that could happen to us is to think that we are no longer in need of conversion, either as individuals or as a community,” said Francis. “Where the Gospel is concerned, we are always like children needing to learn. The illusion that we have learned everything makes us fall into spiritual pride.”

In his annual pre-Christmas address to the Roman Curia — the Vatican’s central bureaucracy — the pope recalled the Second Vatican Council, saying that the conversion of the church sparked by the council 60 years ago must continue in order to preach the “Gospel more fully and to make it relevant, living…

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Editor’s note: This story involves the issue of child sexual abuse and could be triggering. This is the first in a two-part series. Read the second part here.

The glow of the campfire lit the priest’s face as he turned to a 12-year-old boy named Michael and smiled, opening his hand to offer candy as a prize for the trivia contest the young camper had just won.

But a greater reward lay ahead, or so the boy initially thought — so awed was he by the fact that the priest was showing interest in him.

Father Gary Timmons was a parish priest and founder of the Catholic children’s camp in Mendocino County — a man “regarded as next to God,” the boy, now a man, said last week.

So when he invited the Sonoma boy to his tent for a massage as part of his winnings, the adolescent thought it…

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Australian televangelist John McMartin, a former megachurch pastor and denominational leader, has been found guilty of indecent assault, a letter from his former church states.

McMartin had been the New South Wales state president of Australian Christian Churches (ACC), formerly called the Assemblies of God in Australia. In that role, he testified to a government commission investigating institutional responses to child sexual abuse in 2014. He also testified during Hillsong founder Brian Houston’s trial this month.

Authorities charged McMartin in November 2020 over a “sexual incident” in 2013 with a 19-year-old member of his church, a letter from the leadership at Inspire Church stated.

The woman reportedly told police McMartin groped her at his home while his wife was out of the country. McMartin testified in his own defense, saying he gave the teen a massage, but denied touching her sexually. The trial judge found…

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This year, at least 10 Texas pastors, former pastors and youth ministers were arrested, charged or convicted for various allegations of sexual abuse of children.

In November, 56-year-old David Lloyd Walther, a pastor for the Faith Baptist Church in Round Rock, was arrested for the distribution, receipt, transportation and possession of child pornography, as reported by the Austin American-Statesman. Walther, who told the FBI that he had a pornography addiction, faces up to 20 years in prison if found guilty.

In the same month, a 31-year-old former student minister at the Champion Forest Baptist Church in Harris County was sentenced to five years in prison after pleading guilty to online sexual abuse of a child. Timothy Jason Jeltema pleaded guilty on November 17 to four charges of online sexual abuse of a minor—including one charge of indecency with a child—one charge of sexual performance by a child and two counts of online…

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A former Wausau Roman Catholic priest convicted of molesting and exposing himself to teenage boys under his care is facing new charges after police allegedly discovered graphic images of children on his computer.

The Rev. Timothy E. Svea was 39 when he was convicted of second-degree sexual assault of a child younger than 16 and several counts of exposing himself to a child. He also pleaded guilty to false imprisonment. Svea, who was suspended of his duties in 2001 by the Institute of Christ the King after allegations surfaced, is now 59 and living in Mosinee.

According to an Associated Press report from 2002, the abuse began in 1998 while Svea headed a mission group in Monroe County and continued when the group moved in 1999 to St. Mary ‘s in Wausau. One of the boys told investigators that Svea invited him to his office and showed him photos of…

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A former youth minister who is facing more charges related to a series of child sexual assaults threatened to kill the latest victim if he reported the incidents, according to his arrest warrant.

Jean Bernard, 44, of Shelton, is facing numerous charges related to sexually abusing multiple victims while working as a youth minister at Mont Des Oliviers Seventh-day Adventist Church in Norwalk, according to court documents. Court records indicate the incidents occurred as recently as November 2021 and date back to January 2010. 

On Dec. 14, Norwalk police filed new charges of third-degree sexual assault and risk of injury to a child against Bernard. His bond was set at $250,000 and he is scheduled to appear in state Superior Court in Stamford for the case on Feb. 21, according to judicial records.

The most recent charges stem from incidents involving an 11-year-old boy identified in Bernard’s arrest warrant application as…

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*Warning: This story contains distressing details.

International Justice Mission is helping rescue kids in what the FBI calls an epidemic in the Philippines. 

Marie Gravoso is a lawyer in Winnipeg, originally from the Philippines. She interned during her time as a law student with International Justice Mission (IJM). 

“I was a legal intern for the Cebu legal team,” says Gravoso in an interview. “It was done virtually because it was in the middle of the pandemic and it was for about a majority of my third year in law school. I was in my third year studying for the last term and also doing a legal internship. It was a very unique experience.”

IJM is an organization trying to end human trafficking and the unique way they do that is through the justice system.  

“We try to partner with different organizations who would be able to assist with Online Sexual…

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On Nov. 9, Cardinal Lazzaro You Heung Sik, prefect for the Vatican’s Dicastery for the Clergy, laicized Father Frank Pavone from the priesthood for “blasphemous communications on social media” and “persistent disobedience of lawful instructions of his diocesan bishop.” But what does it mean to be “laicized,” “defrocked,” or “dismissed from the clerical state”?

Ordination, the Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches, “confers a gift of the Holy Spirit that permits the exercise of a ‘sacred power’ which can come only from Christ himself through his Church.”

The Church says ordination marks a person with an irremovable imprint, a character, which “configures them to Christ.” Ordination, in Catholic theology, makes a permanent change that the Church has no power to reverse.

“You are a priest forever,” the Letter to the Hebrews says.

This change is referred to as an ontological change, or a change in being itself.

In…

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A woman has been given £75,000 by the Sisters of Nazareth, a Catholic Order responsible for running Nazareth House Children’s Home, Lenton, Nottingham, in a settlement for a legal claim for alleged abuse she suffered as a child at the Home in the 1970s and 1980s.

The woman, whose identity the court anonymised as HXH, complained of serious sexual and physical abuse at Nazareth House, including repeated sexual assault by a member of care staff.

As a child, she told another carer about the sexual abuse, which stopped soon after. HXH left Nazareth House when she was a teenager and spent much of her adulthood trying to bury her memories of the abuse.

In 2006, HXH reported the abuse to Nottingham Police and the alleged perpetrator was charged with multiple sexual offences against her. Unfortunately, HXH’s health declined, and she withdrew from the prosecution before trial in 2007. HXH had understood…

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The bipartisan Respect for Child Survivors Act, a law that would aid victims of child sex abuse and their families, just passed the House in a 385-28 vote.

All 28 votes against the bill came from Republicans.

The bill would require the FBI to form multi-disciplinary teams to aid sex abuse victims and their families in order to prevent re-traumatization from investigation and any cases from being dropped. These teams would include “investigative personnel, mental health professionals, medical personnel, family advocacy workers, child advocacy workers, and prosecutors,” Newsweek reported.

U.S. Senators John Cornyn (R-TX), Chris Coons (D-DE), Lindsey Graham (R-SC), and Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) introduced the legislation.

“I applaud Senator Cornyn’s leadership on this issue to correct an egregious wrong committed by certain FBI agents regarding their treatment of victims of sexual abuse,”said Sen. Graham.“Requiring the FBI to use appropriate, tried and true methods to interview child victims will help ensure…

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The video of a man raping his 9-year-old daughter was discovered in New Zealand in 2016 and triggered a global search for the little girl.

Investigators contacted Interpol and the pursuit eventually included the FBI, the U.S. State Department and the Department of Homeland Security. Months later, investigators raided the Bisbee, Arizona, home of Paul Adams, arrested him and rescued the girl in the video along with her five siblings.

While Adams can no longer physically hurt his daughter — he died by suicide in custody — the videos live on, downloaded and uploaded by child pornographers across the U.S. and around the globe, growing ever more popular even as as police, prosecutors and internet companies chase behind in a futile effort to remove the images.

The number of times the Adams video has been seen soared from fewer than 100 in 2017 to 4,500 in 2021, according…

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Fr. Rupnik remains an official advisor to several Vatican departments, even after he was excommunicated and accused of sexually abusing consecrated women.

Fr. Marko Rupnik, SJ, remains an official advisor to several Vatican departments, even after he was excommunicated for a major canonical crime, and is accused of spiritually and sexually abusing consecrated women.

Rupnik was declared in 2020 excommunicated, for the canonical crime of abusing the sacrament of penance to abet his sexual misconduct.

He was in 2021 formally accused at the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith of serially abusing Slovenian religious women in the 1980s and 1990s. Rupnik is nevertheless still listed as a consultor – an officially appointed expert advisor – for several Vatican dicasteries, including those with oversight of clergy and liturgy.

The priest’s roles on those departments amplifies questions about whether he was actually placed under ministerial restrictions by his religious order as…

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ROME (AP) — The pope’s vicar for Rome called Friday for the full truth to come out about a famous Jesuit priest accused of sexual and spiritual abuses against adult women, and said he was evaluating what to do with the priest’s Rome-based community and diocesan positions.

Cardinal Angelo De Donatis became the latest church official to weigh in about the scandal involving the Rev. Marko Ivan Rupnik, a sought-after artist, preacher and retreat leader whose mosaics grace churches and basilicas around the world. In Rome, where the Slovene priest has lived since the mid-1990s, Rupnik decorated the diocesan seminary chapel as well as the Redemptoris Mater chapel inside the Vatican.

Technically speaking De Donatis, who is Pope Francis’ day-to-day manager for the Rome diocese, has little direct oversight over Rupnik because he is a Jesuit and reports to his immediate Jesuit superior. But in an indication of his influence…

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The legal fight over whether to make public a comprehensive report on sexual abuse committed by Catholic priests in Maryland will continue to play out behind closed doors, a Baltimore judge ruled.

Presented with two motions from abuse victims challenging his preliminary decision to keep the proceedings secret, Circuit Judge Anthony F. Vittoria doubled down in a ruling Thursday, finding that the continued court battle was likely to reveal privileged grand jury materials.

Vittoria cited opinions from the U.S. Supreme Court and Maryland’s highest court calling grand jury confidentiality as an “integral part of our criminal justice system.” He described the legal principle as “well-settled law.”

The legal fight over the report’s release is “related to a grand jury proceeding and that pleadings about or a hearing on this initial issue, at a minimum, would reveal confidential grand jury material,” Vittoria wrote. “Accordingly, this matter must remain sealed at this…

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This week The Catholic Register publishes a rare guest editorial written by Lea Karen Kivi, author of Abuse in the Church: Healing the Body of Christ, who articulates concerns that we agree must be engaged regarding the effect of the adversarial legal system on clerical abuse cases. 

Are lawyers and insurance companies an impediment to the healing of the Church when it comes to clergy sexual abuse cases? 

This week, we learned that Cardinal Marc Ouellet has brought a civil lawsuit alleging defamation on the part of a woman, a party to a class-action lawsuit against the Archdiocese of Quebec, who alleges that he sexually assaulted her. 

Both parties certainly have the legal right to proceed in this manner, but is an adversarial courtroom setting, in which lawyers on both sides seek to discredit the opposing party, the best place for such matters to be dealt with? 

As survivors of clergy sexual abuse have said, some (arch)bishops…

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Pope Francis warned Vatican bureaucrats on Thursday to beware the devil that lurks among them, saying it is an “elegant demon” that works in people who have a rigid, holier-than-thou way of living the Catholic faith.

Francis used his annual Christmas greeting to the Roman Curia to again put the cardinals, bishops and priests who work in the Holy See on notice that they are by no means beyond reproach and are, in fact, particularly vulnerable to evil.

Francis told them that by living in the heart of the Catholic Church, “we could easily fall into the temptation of thinking we are safe, better than others, no longer in need of conversion.”

“Yet we are in greater danger than all others, because we are beset by the ‘elegant demon,’ who does not make a loud entrance, but comes with flowers in his hand,” Francis told the churchmen in the Hall…

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ROME — Over the past few days, three perceived “problem priests” have dominated Catholic headlines in Rome and around the world. To recap, here are the offenses that have been at issue.

• Prolonged sexual coercion and spiritual abuse with a community of nuns, as well as using the confessional to absolve a woman with whom the priest had engaged in sexual activity.
• Partisan political activity on behalf of pro-life causes and “blasphemous” use of social media.
• Owning and operating a series of for-profit businesses, including a restaurant and a bar, in violation of a provision of Church law that bars clergy from “conducting business or trade.”

Now, here are the punishments that have been doled out in the three cases.

• A brief excommunication that was quickly lifted, a Vatican investigation that was shelved due to a statute of limitations, and restrictions on hearing confessions and giving spiritual direction.
• Suspension a divinis, meaning…

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A Baltimore Judge ordered proceedings sealed concerning the release of a report about Catholic clergy sexual abuse report within the archdiocese.

Circuit Judge Anthony Vittoria has now denied two appeals from sexual abuse survivors who fought to have the proceedings open to the public, said document.

This denial of the appeals comes after many abuse victims and critics of the church fought for weeks in Baltimore for the investigation into the history of sexual abuse within the Catholic Church of Baltimore’s information to be made public.

“It is time for Catholics everywhere to stand up and demand accountability from their leaders,” said Jean Hardagon Wehner at a November news conference.

The investigation found more than 600 victims and also states over 150 priests were credibly accused of abuse, including 43 that have not been identified by the archdiocese.

In November, the Archdiocese of Baltimore said that it would not oppose…

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Citing state and federal rules that protect grand jury materials, a Baltimore judge ordered proceedings to remain secret in the legal effort to release an investigation into the history of sexual abuse within the Catholic Church of Baltimore.

Circuit Judge Anthony Vittoria on Thursday denied two appeals from survivors of priest sexual abuse who sought to have the proceedings opened up.

At issue wasn’t the 456-page investigation itself; a decision is still pending on whether the report will be disclosed. Rather, the judge ruled the litigation around the release of the report will remain confidential. Those proceedings have played out behind closed doors so far.

“Pursuant to the well-settled law set forth above, the Court finds that the State’s Motion to Disclose is related to a grand jury proceeding and that pleadings about or a hearing on this initial issue, at a minimum, would reveal confidential grand jury material. Accordingly,…

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A member of the Loyola Community, a women’s religious institute formerly connected to Father Marko Rupnik, has said, in her experience, the Jesuit priest and artist “is an egocentric and violent person.”

The sister, who wished to remain anonymous, told CNA she did not know anything about sexual abuse or allegations of abuse, but that her experience of Rupnik was “of spiritual manipulation and humiliation.”

Referring to an interview given by a former member of the Loyola Community describing in detail sexual, psychological, and spiritual abuse allegedly at the hands of Rupnik, the sister said she “honestly could not imagine that he went that far.”

“I can only say that Father Rupnik, this is my experience, is an egocentric and violent person,” she said via email. “Rupnik is a person who always wanted to be in the center of attention, to subjugate everyone to his own agenda, to receive honors…

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The indictment of Bishop Franz-Josef Bode of Osnabrück is the first ever filed by a victims’ board against a bishop in Germany.

The German Victims’ Advisory Board has filed a canonical complaint against Bishop Franz-Josef Bode of Osnabrück for hushing up clerical sexual abuse.

Bode is the vice president of the bishops’ conference and of the synodal way. 

The Victims’ Advisory Board for the north German dioceses of Osnabrück, Hildesheim and Hamburg announced its decision on Monday 12 December.

It is the first time that a victims’ board has ever filed an indictment against a bishop in Germany.

Bode was quick to reply: “I fully respect the step the board has taken and support the thus-initiated investigation by the Vatican authorities”, he said.

He would send the entire interim abuse report by the University of Osnabrück which his diocese had commissioned and excerpts from which had been quoted by…

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BANGOR, Maine (AP) — Two more people have filed lawsuits alleging sexual abuse by a Roman Catholic clergy member and a nun — both deceased — raising the number to over a dozen since Maine loosened the statute of limitations last year.

One of the plaintiffs contended he was sexually abused by a priest and was spanked by a nun who interrupted one of the encounters in Bangor, while another said that a nun regularly spanked boys’ bare bottoms in class, and that she sexually abused him in private, according to the lawsuits.

The minister died in 1997 at age 96, while the nun died in 1973 at age 86.

The lawsuits, announced Wednesday, bring to about 14 the number of lawsuits alleging the Diocese of Portland knew about abuse and failed to stop it or warn parishioners. A spokesperson said the diocese doesn’t comment on pending litigation.

Maine removed…

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Slovenia’s Catholic bishops on Thursday condemned as “despicable” the emotional, sexual, and spiritual violence committed against women by a famous Slovenian priest at the heart of an abuse and cover-up scandal roiling the Vatican and the Jesuit order of Pope Francis.

The Slovene bishops’ conference broke three weeks of silence with a statement in which the churchmen also voiced solidarity with the victims of the Rev. Marko Ivan Rupnik and urged anyone harmed by him or any other priest who abused his authority to come forward.

“It is never the victims’ fault! We are on their side,” the bishops said. “Any misuse of spiritual power and authority to carry out violence against subordinates is an unacceptable and despicable act.”

The scandal involving Rupnik, a Jesuit from Slovenia whose mosaics decorate churches and chapels around the globe, erupted earlier this month when Italian blogs and websites reported claims by several women that…

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Every time we learn something new about the case, the mishandling of it at every level appears more appalling.

What if I told you that a man with power of his own and access to more of it serially abused unsuspecting women who had turned to him for various reasons, both professional and personal, for help and guidance?

What if I told you that he followed a playbook to warp their minds, exploit their vulnerabilities – including their desires to be loved and appreciated – in order to get them to do the sorts of things for which Lulu White would charge her clients extra and women like Cora Pearl would not countenance for all the petites Tuileries in the world?

What if I told you that lots of people knew what he got up to, most of them very powerful…

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An abuse survivors organization is questioning Fairfield University officials for their decision to appoint as head of a new Bridgeport campus a Catholic priest who resigned his previous post for engaging in behavior “inconsistent with established Jesuit protocols and boundaries.”

SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, is urging the university to explain why it has appointed Rev. Kevin O’Brien as vice-provost and executive director of the Fairfield Bellarmine campus planned to open at the old St. Ambrose property on Boston Avenue.

“We urge the university to explain why they appointed Fr. O’Brien to the leadership team in light of the accusations made in California,” the organization stated in a press release. “We wonder about the wisdom of the decision to place Fr. O’Brien at a school for ‘underserved students’ when he was unable to maintain appropriate boundaries at Santa Clara.”

O’Brien resigned in May 2021 from his…

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(For Immediate Release December 20, 2022) 

Fairfield University recently announced the leadership team for Fairfield Bellarmine. The announcement revealed that Fr. Kevin O’Brien will be working as the vice-provost and executive director of the school, which is scheduled to open in the fall of 2023 in Bridgeport, Connecticut. SNAP has deep concerns over Fairfield tapping Fr. O’Brien for this position.

In May 2021, the Jesuit priest resigned from his position at Santa Clara University after being removed by the USA West Province on March 18, 2021. An investigation found that Fr. O’Brien “engaged in behaviors, consisting primarily of conversations, during a series of informal dinners with Jesuit graduate students that were inconsistent with established Jesuit protocols and boundaries.”

We wonder about the wisdom of the decision to place Fr. O’Brien at a school for “underserved students” when he was unable to maintain appropriate…

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The Archdiocese of Baltimore cooperated with the Maryland attorney general’s investigation on clergy sexual abuse by producing thousands of pages of documents, willingly answering questions and building on our 30-year record of transparency and longstanding work to ensure the wrongs of the past are not and cannot be repeated.

Given, however, the egregious deeds and grave harm referenced by the attorney general some weeks ago that dates back to the 1940s — our efforts in recent decades to create protections will not be readily accepted without skepticism. For this reason, I offer some context to detail ways the Church of today is not the Church described by the attorney general.

For all of the ways the Church has changed, the protections made in the last generation will not undo the scars caused by sexual abuse. To all who have been harmed by a representative of the Church, I…

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Even now at 70, Tom Sawicki harbors a revenge fantasy.

He would travel from his home in Hawaii, back to his native Baltimore, to picket in front of Archbishop Curley High School with a sign:

“I was sexually assaulted at this school.”

Instead, Sawicki waits for the Maryland Attorney General’s Office to speak out on his behalf, and on that of the more than 600 people, many of them now grown-up children, who the office says were sexually abused by Baltimore archdiocese clergy over the past 80 years.

The office has completed a 456-page report on its investigation of the Roman Catholic archdiocese, but it remains secret, held up in a court battle over its public release.

After decades in which he repressed the abuse, only belatedly realizing how it contributed to his life veering off from what it might have been, Sawicki feels hopeful about the secrecy lifting.

“It’s…

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The two new complaints now make a total of 13 complaints by attorneys with the law firm Berman and Simmons against the diocese.

BANGOR, Maine — Two more alleged victims have stepped forward, filing a complaint this week against the Roman Catholic Diocese of Portland for claims of sexual abuse occurring in Bangor in the 1950s and 1960s. 

The plaintiffs asked to remain anonymous, leaving attorneys Michael Bigos and Timothy Kenlan of the law firm Berman and Simmons to represent them. 

“We intend to hold the church fully accountable for the abuse, fully accountable for the cover-up, and fully accountable for the response our client received as a child,” Bigos said.

The first plaintiff claims at age nine they were sexually assaulted by former priest Reverend Monsignor Edward F. Ward of Saint Mary’s in Bangor, who has since died.

The plaintiff was described as loyal to the church…

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Twenty years after city prosecutors convened a grand jury to investigate the handling of priest-abuse complaints within the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Philadelphia, the tortuous legal case came to an end with a cleric’s misdemeanor no contest plea in a near-empty City Hall courtroom.

Monsignor William Lynn, 71, had served nearly three years in state prison as appeals courts reviewed the fiery three-month trial that led to his felony child endangerment conviction in 2012. The verdict was twice overturned, leaving prosecutors pursuing the thinning case in recent years with a single alleged victim whose appearance in court was i n doubt.

In the end, they said Lynn could end the two-decade ordeal by pleading no contest to a charge of failing to turn over records to the 2002 grand jury. A judge took the plea during a short break from her civil caseload last month, and imposed no further punishment.

…

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Pope Francis on Thursday denounced psychological violence and abuse of power in the Church, as the case of a prominent priest accused of exploiting his authority to sexually abuse nuns has rocked the Vatican.

The 86-year-old pope made his comments in his annual Christmas address to cardinals, bishops and other members of the Curia, the central administration of the Vatican.

Francis has often used the occasion to decry perceived flaws in the top bureaucracy, such as gossip, cliques and infighting.

After mentioning wars, the pope said: “Besides the violence of arms, there is also verbal violence, psychological violence, the violence of the abuse of power, the hidden violence of gossip.”

He added that no one should “profit from his or her position and role in order to demean others”.

Although he did not specifically refer to this, the Jesuit order, of which the pope is a member, has been rattled in…

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Police believe there may be more victims

A retired priest has been charged in an alleged historical sexual assault that investigators say occurred in the Toronto area four decades ago.

Peel police say in a news release they received information in October that a Catholic priest who practised in the Peel region between 1980 and 1983 allegedly sexually assaulted a boy while he was attending church.

On Thursday, an 84-year-old man of Toronto was arrested and charged with gross indecency and indecent assault on a male.

The force says the priest has been retired from the parish since June 2013, but it believes there may be more potential victims.

The Archdiocese of Toronto says in a statement that the allegations date to when the man was pastor of St. Martin of Tours Parish in Mississauga, Ont., and it also lists parishes where he served in the region going back to 1974.

…

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A group representing clergy abuse survivors says legislation that the Maryland Catholic Conference supports won’t help past victims.

The Maryland Catholic Conference said that it supports legislation that would eliminate the statute of limitations on future civil lawsuits involving child sexual abuse.

The potential legislation would not allow civil claims in previous cases because, “The Maryland Attorney General has concluded, in multiple advice letters, that legislation that seeks to retroactively revive claims currently time-barred in Maryland would be unconstitutional,” according to a statement by the Maryland Catholic Conference.

According to the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, the statement from the Maryland Catholic Conference leaves the impression that the legislation will help past survivors.

“It does nothing for the hundreds of brave victims who have come forward during the Maryland Attorney General’s investigation into historical clergy abuse within the Archdiocese of Baltimore,” according to SNAP.

These statements come as…

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“Rupnik case: Jesuits invite anyone who has suffered abuse to contact them”
“Structure to handle complaints” says Delegate of Fr. Sosa.

Statement from Fr. Johan Verschueren SJ, Delegate of Fr. General Sosa SJ
and Major Superior for the International Houses

[Note from BA: The Jesuits include a timeline at the end of this statement.]

The last week has seen a focus on two investigations carried on concerning the ministry of Fr Marko Rupnik. One concerned a matter relating to the sacrament of reconciliation; another related to abuse against several women of the Loyola Community by Fr Rupnik. The information shared has provoked many questions and I share below a timeline of the events in the hope of providing some clarity.

My main concern in all of this is for those who have suffered and I invite anyone who wishes to make a new complaint or who wants to discuss complaints already…

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COMMENTARY: The response of the Society of Jesus to this distressing issue seems inadequate and dishonest; the conduct of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith curious; and the role of the Pope perplexing.

The sexual misconduct case of Jesuit Father Marko Rupnik is complex and distressing, and invites further questions on a number of aspects. The celebrated Jesuit artist, given many of the most important mosaic commissions over the last 30 years — including the Redemptoris Mater chapel in the Apostolic Palace — has been accused of serial abuse of adults under his pastoral direction.

The response of the Jesuit order seems inadequate and dishonest; the conduct of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) curious; and the role of the Holy Father himself perplexing.

Another Founder Has Fallen

The allegations against Father Rupnik arise from the “Loyola Community” he founded in the 1980s in his native…

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A Lame Deer pastor was arraigned Tuesday in federal court on sexual abuse charges alleged to have occurred on the Northern Cheyenne Indian Reservation, U.S. Attorney Jesse Laslovich said.

Dean Alan Smith, 66, pleaded not guilty to one count of aggravated sexual abuse, one count of abusive sexual contact and three counts of abusive sexual contact by force and of a child. If convicted of the most serious crime, Smith faces a maximum of life in prison, a $250,000 fine and not less than five years of supervised release.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Timothy J. Cavan presided. Judge Cavan continued Smith’s release with conditions, including not being allowed to be around children.

Prosecutors alleged in an indictment filed Dec. 19 that Smith sexually abused four females, three of whom were under the age of 12, between 2017 and 2019 near Lame Deer. In all four cases, prosecutors alleged that Smith forced…

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On Dec. 2, the global Jesuit order confirmed reports made in several conservative Italian Catholic blogs that Slovenian Jesuit Fr. Marko Rupnik, a famous Rome-based artist, had been quietly disciplined for allegedly abusing adult women, and had been barred from hearing confessions or offering spiritual direction.

On Dec. 14, Fr. Arturo Sosa, the Jesuit superior general, revealed more information. Rupnik, known in places across the world for his iconography and for mosaics in several renowned churches and cathedrals, had earlier been convicted by the Vatican’s doctrinal office of having used the confessional to absolve a woman of having engaged in sexual activity with him.

That is one of the most serious crimes in canon law, and incurs an automatic excommunication. Sosa said Rupnik repented, and indicated that the excommunication had thus been lifted.

Recapping the details of the case, some may feel the usual “here…

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Bishop Emeritus Emmanuel Lafont of Cayenne, French Guyana, has been found guilty of sexual abuse in a canonical court and banned from public ministry, while the country’s civil authorities are investigating charges against him.

“He is under house arrest, in a monastery on mainland France,” the Bishops’ Conference of France told Agence France Presse. He must conduct a life of prayer and repentance. The bishops’ conference confirmed that the bishop faces a civil investigation.

Numerous sources have confirmed to the French newspaper La Croix that the Vatican’s Dicastery for Bishops delivered a guilty sentence against the bishop emeritus in October.

As a consequence of the judgment against him, he may not wear his bishop’s insignia, the miter, or use a crozier. He must avoid contact with acquaintances in French Guyana and also avoid contact with young migrants.

The canonical investigation against the bishop was opened in April 2021 “because of…

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Fairfield University recently announced the leadership team for Fairfield Bellarmine. The announcement revealed that Fr. Kevin O’Brien will be working as the vice-provost and executive director of the school, which is scheduled to open in the fall of 2023 in Bridgeport, Connecticut. SNAP has deep concerns over Fairfield tapping Fr. O’Brien for this position.

In May 2021, the Jesuit priest resigned from his position at Santa Clara University after being removed by the USA West Province on March 18, 2021. An investigation found that Fr. O’Brien “engaged in behaviors, consisting primarily of conversations, during a series of informal dinners with Jesuit graduate students that were inconsistent with established Jesuit protocols and boundaries.”

We wonder about the wisdom of the decision to place Fr. O’Brien at a school for “underserved students” when he was unable to maintain appropriate boundaries at Santa Clara. The complaints…

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A woman who earlier this year accused a Diocese of Worcester parish soup kitchen director of coercing her and other vulnerable women into sex has sued the now-former director for his alleged actions, as well as diocesan leadership for alleged failure to act on the complaint in a timely manner.

“This complaint reflects the unlawful actions of the defendants relating to their tortious activity and their duty of care extended to Bell and other similarly situated individuals,” reads the complaint, filed on December 13 in Worcester Superior Court in Massachusetts.

“The defendants engaged in an ongoing course of conduct, acting in concert, to abuse and mistreat [plaintiff Nicole] Bell, and others, then conspired to shield themselves from liability,” it continues. “Based on the foregoing and the allegations that follow, Bell seeks compensatory and punitive damages.”

Bell detailed her allegations against the former St. John’s Catholic Church food for the poor…

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Archbishop William E. Lori apologized again to anyone who has been harmed by a representative of the church and said he “will offer this apology as long as it needs to be heard,” in a column published on the Baltimore Sun’s website Dec. 19 and in its print edition the following day.

He emphasized that the church’s response to sexual abuse “is law-abiding, effective and transparent.”

Maryland Attorney General Brian E. Frosh has asked a Baltimore City Circuit judge for permission to release a 456-page report on sexual abuse in the Archdiocese of Baltimore, dating back to the early 1940s.

The archbishop said the archdiocese began to transform its handling of sexual abuse by clergy and employees in the 1990s. “The archdiocese then created the foundation for the most important elements of today’s child protection policies,” he said. “We also have changed how we respond to those courageous enough to…

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Wounds remain. This was a chief conclusion of an independent working group on the clerical sex abuse crisis in the U.S. Catholic Church that proposed the following measures last month:

—Develop a national center with experts and practitioners to equip the broader church with practices of restorative justice that would accompany those who have been directly and peripherally harmed by abuse, particularly forums in which victim-survivors tell their stories and receive love, recognition and empathy.

—Establish a national healing garden as a permanent site of healing, prayer and accompaniment for victim-survivors of sexual abuse by members of the clergy and for the broader church.

—Institute an annual day of prayer and penance for healing and reconciliation for victim-survivors of clergy abuse and for broader healing in the church.

—Create trauma-informed training for clergy, seminarians, lay ministers, lay leaders and parish communities to communicate the realities and effects of trauma in order…

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Opposition lawmakers in Italy are seeking a parliamentary commission of inquiry into three cold cases that have consumed the Italian public’s imagination for decades, including the 1983 disappearance of a 15-year-old that was highlighted in the Netflix documentary, “Vatican Girl.”

The aim of the inquest, said Sen. Carlo Calenda, would be to pressure the Vatican to finally turn over everything it knows about Emanuela Orlandi’s disappearance to Italian law enforcement authorities, saying its longstanding official claim of ignorance was “hardly credible.”

“We are a great secular nation that treats the Vatican with respect, but this case certainly cannot be considered closed in this way,” Calenda said Tuesday at a news conference announcing the proposed commission.

Orlandi vanished June 22, 1983 after leaving her family’s Vatican City apartment to go to a music lesson in Rome. Her father was a lay employee of the Holy See.

The Italian media and a…

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Hillsong founder maintains it was victim’s explicit wish for incident not to be made public or for there to be an investigation, court hears

The Hillsong founder, Brian Houston, believes he did the “right thing” not going to police after his father told him he had molested an underage boy three decades earlier.

Houston maintains it was the victim’s explicit wish not for the incident to be made public or for there to be an investigation by authorities.

Frank Houston admitted abusing a young boy at a home in Sydney’s Coogee in 1970, which he confessed to his son in 1999.

Brian Houston is charged with concealing the crime until his father’s death in 2004, to which he pleaded not guilty.

The 68-year-old told a court hearing on Wednesday he did not believe justice for his father’s criminal act could only be achieved through a police investigation.

Following his father’s…

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A woman who reached a settlement with the Roman Catholic Diocese of Victoria this month says she was repeatedly sexually assaulted by Father Gerhard Hartmann at St. Peter’s Roman Catholic Church, beginning in 1976, when she was 10

Warning: This story contains descriptions of child sexual abuse.

A Vancouver Island woman who says she was sexually assaulted as a child by a Catholic priest with a Nazi past is sharing her story because she believes there are other victims.

This month, the woman reached a settlement with the Roman Catholic Diocese of ­Victoria.

Her lawsuit alleges she was repeatedly sexually assaulted and molested by Father Gerhard Hartmann in the confessional at St. Peter’s Roman Catholic Church in Nanaimo, beginning in 1976, when she was 10, and continuing until 1979, when Hartmann was suddenly moved from the parish.

According to her notice of claim, Hartmann touched, kissed and fondled the girl…

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A former Christian brother who was convicted in October on 38 counts of indecently assaulting young boys has been sentenced to five years in prison.

The man, who cannot be named to protect the identity of his victims, was found unanimously guilty after a jury at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court deliberated for four hours and twenty-six minutes.

The former priest was described by one of the victims in his victim impact statement as “the epitome of evil”.

The court heard that the man was convicted of indecently assaulting five boys in the late seventies, when the boys were then aged nine and ten.

The accused pleaded not guilty to all charges. He has seven previous convictions, all for indecent assault.

Garda Sergeant James Neary told Patrick McGrath SC, prosecuting, that the accused was a Christian Brother who was teaching all five boys at the time of the assaults.

Gda Stg…

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The Vatican has stripped retired Bishop Emmanuel Lafont of his priestly faculties and ordered him to carry out a life of prayer and penance at a monastery in France

The Vatican has convicted French Guiana’s retired bishop, Emmanuel Lafont, of sexual abuse, banning him from all public ministry and ordering him to stay in a monastery in mainland France to conduct a life of prayer and penance.

Numerous sources have confirmed to La Croix that the Dicastery for Bishops found the 77- year-old prelate guilty this past October, following a canonical investigation that was opened in April 2021. He is forbidden to carry out any pastoral activities, to wear his bishop’s insignia (the mitre, the crozier, etc.), to come into contact with his acquaintances in French Guiana as well as with young migrants.

 “An emotional thought for the presumed victims”

Informed of the canonical decree concerning Bishop Lafont, the Association…

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A Jesuit priest who is reportedly close to Pope Francis has been accused of inviting two nuns to partake in a “Holy Trinity” threesome — and is now facing allegations of sexual and spiritual abuse dating back decades.

A former nun claims that Marko Ivan Rupnik used his “psycho-spiritual” control over her some three decades ago in order to make her watch pornographic films and have group sex sessions that he said would have religious significance.

Rupnik, 68, was a spiritual director of a convent in Slovenia and has created mosaics for churches including a papal chapel at the Vatican.

The former nun told the Italian newspaper Domani that “Father Marko started slowly and sweetly getting inside my psychological and spiritual world, exploiting my uncertainties and fragility and using my relationship with God to push me into sexual experiences with him,” according to the Daily Mail.

She said that during her…

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Scores of survivors of clergy abuse — people who had spent decades trying to escape the grief and trauma of childhood sex assault — have come forward over the past three years after deciding now is finally the time to seek justice. 

At least 130 — likely many more, attorneys say — have filed or will file lawsuits against the Santa Rosa Roman Catholic Diocese during a special three-year window that allows adults of any age to file personal injury cases for childhood sex abuse in California. That window closes on New Year’s Eve.

But none of those cases is likely to go to trial.

The diocese announced to the court Nov. 30 that it would seek Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection early next year, a move that will suspend state court proceedings and leave the whole matter in federal bankruptcy court.

In effect, experts and plaintiffs attorneys say, that means…

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The Maryland Catholic Conference will support legislation that could potentially eliminate the statute of limitation in civil lawsuits involving cases of child sexual abuse, the MCC announced Monday.   

The Catholic Church in Maryland will support legislation that may be introduced during the 2023 Maryland General Assembly session that prospectively eliminates the statute of limitation in civil lawsuits involving cases of child sexual abuse.,” the MCC said. 

In their statement, they cite an existing federal law, S.3103, that would have a similar impact to the legislation they expect to be proposed next year.  The federal law allows individuals an unlimited amount of time to file a civil lawsuit in cases of child sexual abuse.    

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A Vatican-appointed investigator who helped bring to light decades-old allegations of sexual and spiritual abuse against a famous Jesuit priest is calling for the hierarchs who hid his crimes to “humbly ask the world to forgive the scandal.”

In correspondence obtained Monday, Bishop Daniele Libanori also said the claims of the women about the Rev. Marko Ivan Rupnik were true and that they had “seen their lives ruined by the evil suffered and by the complicit silence” of the church.

Libanori penned the letter Sunday to fellow priests after a remarkable week in which the Jesuit religious order of Pope Francis admitted that Rupnik, an artist whose mosaics grace churches and chapels around the world, had been excommunicated for having committed one of the most serious crimes in the church: using the confessional to absolve a woman with whom he had engaged in sexual activity.

The Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine…

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An alleged victim of Fr. Marko Ivan Rupnik has detailed the sexual, psychological, and spiritual abuse she said she suffered as a religious sister

An alleged victim of Slovenian Jesuit artist Fr. Marko Ivan Rupnik detailed on Sunday the sexual, psychological, and spiritual abuse she said she suffered as a religious sister, in a new interview with Italian media.

Allegations against the Jesuit priest have become a point of scandal in the Church, after Rupnik was accused of serially abusing Slovenian consecrated women in the 1980s and 1990s.

The allegations were sent to the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith in 2021, but have not resulted in canonical prosecution — with Society of Jesus officials saying they were informed that Rupnik would not be canonically prosecuted for the alleged abuse, owing to the canonical statute of limitations.

That claim has sparked controversy in the Church, with journalists and…

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Critics say the proposal falls short, ‘means nothing’

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The lobbying arm of the Catholic church in Maryland is making a partial concession to legislative reforms that would help victims of priest sexual abuse sue the church decades later.

The Maryland Catholic Conference, which represents the Archdiocese of Baltimore, the Archdiocese of Washington and the Diocese of Wilmington, Del., announced Monday it will support legislation to erase the statute of limitations for future victims to sue the church. Maryland law requires men and women who are abused as children to file lawsuits by age 38 or within three years of an abuser’s criminal conviction.

The church, however, isn’t budging in its longstanding opposition to a “lookback window.” That would permit lawsuits from victims now older than 38 who…

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A pastor convicted of sexually assaulting seven young girls over two decades can’t keep his conviction hidden, a New Zealand judge ruled recently.

Siosateki Tonga Faletau, a pastor and business owner in Auckland, New Zealand, pleaded guilty to assaulting girls as young as 10 years old from 2001 to 2020, the New Zealand Herald reported. In September, the court sentenced Faletau to two years and three months in jail, but he is appealing, according to news reports.

The court barred news outlets from naming Faletau until an interim name suppression order expired last week, the Herald reported. In certain cases, New Zealand law allows courts to suppress the identity of a defendant, referred to as name suppression.Faletau had reportedly sought permanent name suppression, but a judge denied his motion.

Faletau was also a Justice of the Peace and a foster parent,  View Cache

The Vatican investigator who uncovered allegations of sexual and spiritual abuse by Jesuit artist Father Marko Ivan Rupnik says the claims are true, according to a letter he sent to Italian priests obtained by the Associated Press.

Bishop Daniele Libanari also said the women Rupnik is alleged to have abused have “seen their lives ruined by the evil suffered and by the complicit silence” of the Church, the AP reported Monday.

He urged the members of the hierarchy who hid his crimes to “humbly ask the world to forgive the scandal.”

Libanori’s letter comes on the heels of revelations in the past week that Rupnik, a Slovenian priest well-known for his mosaics that adorn chapels and churches around the world, had been excommunicated for using the confessional to absolve a woman with whom he had engaged in sexual activity.

The Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of…

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A group of attorneys is gearing up the search for people who were sexually abused as children by Catholic priests in Maryland in preparation for a series of potential lawsuits.

Lawyers Robert Jenner, Barbara Hart, Beth Graham and Suzanne Sangree, who work at different firms, have started taking consultations with Catholic abuse victims to be ready if the Maryland General Assembly passes a law in 2023 lifting the statute of limitations on lawsuits in childhood sexual abuse cases.

“From simply listening to your story without judgment [to] assistance navigating the complexities of compensation programs and statutes of limitations, we are ready to help Baltimore clergy abuse survivors find justice and healing,” reads a landing page for abuse victims on Jenner’s website.

Maryland law gives victims until their 38th birthday to sue their abusers and an abuser’s employer, but a bill filed in the House of Delegates would repeal…

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The news, coming through a press release on a Friday evening in mid-November, was unexpected. Bishop Howard Hubbard, the retired leader of the Diocese of Albany, New York, and now under investigation for both allegedly abusing children and covering up abuse done by others, was requesting the Vatican remove his status as a priest, or laicize him.

Among those caught by surprise were Hubbard’s alleged victims, as well as the civil attorneys representing them. They, along with canon lawyers well-versed in the Catholic Church’s disciplinary procedures for clerics accused of sexual misconduct, are struggling to make sense of Hubbard’s request.

Some suspect that Hubbard may be trying to short-circuit a canonical investigation by preemptively assuming the most severe punishment that the church can impose on a cleric. Others think Vatican machinations are at play, and wonder if Hubbard is following the advice of church officials in Rome to…

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The man who becomes Maryland’s new attorney general next month is weighing in on the possible release of a report detailing sexual abuse allegations in the Archdiocese of Baltimore.

Attorney General-elect Anthony Brown said he has been monitoring efforts to release the report which names more than 100 priests accused of abuse and more than 600 victims dating back 80 years.

Since it is based on grand jury testimony, current Attorney General Brian Frosh has asked a court to release the report.

Attorneys representing people who wish to remain anonymous have sought to block the report’s release.

Brown said that case will continue under his watch.

Brown takes the oath of office in January.

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Archbishop Jason Gordon apologises to former residents of the St Dominic’s Children’s Home who were not protected and cared for as they should have been, especially amid reports of decades-long abuses.

He made the statement during his feature address at the home’s 150th anniversary celebrations closing ceremony at St Dominic’s in Belmont on Saturday.

Gordon said as people reflected on the 150 years of unbroken service, they had to consider the thousands of children who were given experiences and opportunities they would not have had if not for the care of the home.

“But the second thing we must also consider, because every anniversary is a milestone where we must reflect, not only on the good that we have done, but we must also consider the children who were not protected in the ways that they ought to have been, and might have been traumatised by their experience. And to…

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Pope Francis’ Jesuit order on Sunday asked any more victims to come forward with complaints against a famous Jesuit artist who was essentially let off the hook by the Vatican twice despite devastating testimony by women who said he sexually and spiritually abused them.

The Jesuits asked for new evidence against the Rev. Marko Ivan Rupnik, and offered a timeline about his case in an effort to tamp down the scandal.

The Slovenian priest is relatively unknown among rank-and-file Catholics but is well known in the hierarchy because he is one of the church’s most sought-after artists. His mosaics decorate chapels, churches and basilicas around the globe.

The scandal exploded this past week after the Jesuits admitted he had been excommunicated for having committed one of the gravest crimes in the Catholic Church — using the confessional to absolve a woman with whom he had engaged in sexual activity.

He was…

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Trial hears Frank Houston also told his son Brian, founder of Hillsong, that he was abused by his own grandfather as a child

Hillsong founder Brian Houston has told a court he believes his father was a “serial paedophile” and the extent of his crimes may not be known.

Houston said it was quite likely his father sexually abused multiple children and the number of victims would never be revealed.

Frank Houston confessed to his son about one case of abuse in 1999, which occurred in New Zealand several decades earlier.

After the abuse came to light, Frank Houston was banned from preaching, but the public and authorities were not alerted.

Brian Houston, 68, is accused of covering up his father’s abuse until Frank Houston’s death in November 2004, after learning of the crime when his father confessed to him in 1999.

Houston has pleaded not guilty.

“I have no…

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A closer look at the sequence of events to-date about the investigation and excommunication of the world-renowned Slovenian priest.

At the start of December, Italian websites published information regarding psychological and sexual abuse allegedly committed in the 1990s by Jesuit Father Marko Ivan Rupnik, a Slovenian priest who is internationally renowned for his mosaics and other artwork.

The Society of Jesus subsequently confirmed that an investigation had been initiated last year into allegations that Father Rupnik had abused several women who were members of a Slovenian religious community he co-founded in the 1980s. But, according to the Jesuit order, the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith (now DDF, formerly known as the Congregation for Doctrine of the faith, CDF) subsequently ruled that the case would be closed because the allegations fell outside the canonical statute of limitations.

This response by the Jesuits’ leadership appeared to leave many questions unanswered, generating…

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“Any case like this is very painful, [but]…. we have not hidden anything,” says Arturo Sosa, S.J., the superior general of the Society of Jesus, in a short interview with 7MARGENS and Rádio Renascença, two religious media outlets in Portugal, published on Dec. 7. This represents the first public comments of the superior general regarding the allegations against the Slovenian artist Marko Rupnik, S.J.

Father Rupnik, whose mosaics decorate chapels in the Vatican, all over Europe, in the United States and Australia, has been barred from hearing confessions or offering spiritual direction after what the Jesuits described as complaints about his ministry. The Society of Jesus released a statement on Dec. 2 responding to the allegations of abuse against Father Rupnik and describing the restrictions on his ministry.

Italian news outlets reported the complaints were accusations of spiritually and sexually abusing adult members of a religious order of women in Slovenia. Father…

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The former Hanna Boys Center director says the child abuse lawsuit “came as a shot out of nowhere.”

Out of at least 130 child sexual abuse cases currently pending against the Santa Rosa Roman Catholic Diocese, one in particular stands out.

It is a claim involving Monsignor James Pulskamp, 81, and it’s unique because he’s currently serving as pastor at Star of the Valley Catholic Church in Oakmont.

Pulskamp, who served as director of the Hanna Boys Center in Sonoma Valley from 1972 to 1984, is the only accused priest in the diocese so far still serving in a clerical position.

He said he’s completely perplexed by the origin of the case filed against him — he said he doesn’t know the name of the plaintiff — and hasn’t been legally served.

An attorney for the diocese, however, said she had been served because they are a defendant, as well.

…

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For the third time, the sentencing hearing for a former Catholic priest convicted in October of raping a child in 2004 has been changed.

Joseph “Father Jack” Baker,  60, is now scheduled for sentencing by Judge Bridget Hathaway on Feb. 17, 2023 in Wayne County’s 3rd Circuit Court in Detroit. He’s held in the Wayne County Jail, denied bond.

According to a court spokesperson, sentencing was postponed on request of Baker’s defense attorney.

At the conclusion of jury trial in October, Baker was found guilty of first-degree criminal conduct – sexual penetration with a person less than 13 years old.

The assault happened while Baker was pastor of St. Mary Catholic School in Wayne. His victim was a second-grade student there who came forward a few years ago, saying Baker raped him in the church sacristy.

Baker was pastor of St. Mary in Wayne from 1997 to 2008, and from…

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The leaders of the French Bishops’ Conference and three lay experts on abuse issues hold three days of meetings with officials of the Roman Curia

Top officials at the Vatican have admitted that there have been, at times, “dysfunctions” in the way the Holy See has handled the clergy sex abuse cases that local dioceses are obliged to report to Rome.

The admissions were made this week to the top leaders of the French Bishops’ Conference (CEF), who were in Rome for three days of meetings surrounding recent revelations of abuse by a number of their retired confreres and how their cases were managed.

The December 12-14 meetings came a month after the CEF’s most recent plenary assembly, which was consumed with the abuse cases of Cardinal Jean-Pierre Ricard (78) and Bishop Michel Santier (75), and how, in general, the Roman Curia deals with sexual violence in the…

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The University of Trier today published its report on sexual abuse in the Diocese of Trier at the time of former Bishop Stein. It was also about his role.

The study reveals that 81 priests have been accused of abusing more than 300 children and young people during this period. For this purpose, historians have evaluated almost 500 personnel files from the Diocese of Trier. They have also spoken to many of those affected. Something that Bishop Stein has not done in any of the cases known to him during his term of office.

Secrecy is the top priority for the church

Although canon law also provides for removal from office as a punishment for the sexual abuse of children by priests, Bishop Stein, like his predecessors, only applied this right in individual cases, as diocese records show. Bishop Stein was aware of 17 cases of abuse…

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Parishioners are no longer welcome for Mass at St. Mary’s Catholic Church, but it remains a kind of still-life. Only a single bulb glows over the heavy, unlocked doors. Inside, prayer votives are cold and burned low. Gray light casts rows of pews in eerie shadow.

St. Mary’s merged in July with St. Therese, 2 miles away, one of a dozen parishes the Archdiocese of Seattle closed or consolidated to save money and minimize costly repairs to outdated structures.

Yet the archdiocese emerged from the pandemic with its highest financial gains in the last five years, despite COVID-19, declining Mass attendance, a small dip in parishioner giving and the ongoing strain of clergy abuse payouts.

Now the archdiocese’s finances have come under renewed scrutiny with the purchase of a home for Seattle’s Catholic leadership, prompting fresh criticism of the church’s transparency and money management. 

The archdiocese last month quietly acquired the…

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Church leader supports criminal prosecutions — and church should be open to official inquiries

The leader of the Catholic Church in Ireland has said he is “deeply ashamed” of the horrific sexual abuse inflicted on children by members of the Spiritan Order . More than 300 people have claimed to have been abused by 78 Spiritan priests at Blackrock College and other schools and colleges in Ireland dating back to the 1980s.

In an interview with the Sunday Independent, Archbishop Eamon Martin said clerical abuse in Ireland “is like an open wound that has never been able to heal”.

“There is no doubt, I am ashamed,” he said. “I am horrified because of the impact of that childhood trauma and how it has hugely impacted how people view the church and their own personal faith.”

He said attempts by the church in the past “to avoid scandal by…

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A priest has been stood down after he was accused of sexually abusing a student while he was principal at a Catholic all-boys school in Melbourne’s eastern suburbs in the mid-1990s.

Father Hugh Brown is alleged to have abused the student at Whitefriars Catholic College For Boys in Donvale when he headed the school between 1989 and 1996.

Father Hugh Brown was the principal of Whitefriars College from 1989 to 1996.

Brown denied the allegation, telling The Age he was not aware of the details or the identity of the former student.

“In my personal and professional life I have never abused any person and that especially applies to any minors in my care as a principal,” he said.

“I feel extremely bewildered by the situation and am profoundly saddened for all victims of child abuse.”

Current school principal Mark Murphy said Brown, who belongs to the Carmelite religious order, had been…

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The latest report on clerical sexual abuse in the Archdiocese of Vancouver has been released and names a late priest with an accusation of sexual abuse in 2008.

The Archdiocese of Vancouver has issued its semi-annual update on clerical sexual abuse, releasing the name of a priest who was the subject of sexual abuse allegation received in 2008.

The latest report of the Implementation Working Group, the archdiocesan committee responsible for implementing the approved recommendations received from the 2019 Case Review Committee, was released Tuesday and said an accusation of sexual abuse had been received in April 2008 against Father Georges Chevrier, OMI, pastor of Our Lady of Fatima in Coquitlam from 1971 to 1977.

The individual who reported the abuse has been receiving counselling and other forms of support, said the report, and legal proceedings only started several months ago.

The archdiocese also recently learned that accusations against Father…

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The unfortunate absence of transparency from Church leadership on this situation leaves the laity in an awkward situation, if not a scandalous one.

In a recent interview with America Media, Pope Francis — in response to a question about transparency and clergy sexual abuse — remarked: “If there is less transparency, it is a mistake.”

This is a lesson the Church has learned all too painfully, especially since the outbreak of the clergy sexual abuse crisis in 2002 and resurgence in 2018. And the need for transparency emerges in a variety of other areas as well.

One of particular significance is the cause for beatification of Venerable Fulton J. Sheen — a beatification that was scheduled to be held three years ago on December 21, 2019, and which hasn’t happened still.

And, cloaked in confusion and intrigue, there has been…

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The superior general of the Jesuits confirmed that Father Marko Rupnik, a Slovenian Jesuit and artist in restricted ministry because of abuse allegations, earlier had been excommunicated for what canon law describes as “the absolution of an accomplice in a sin against the Sixth Commandment,” a reference to sex.

Father Rupnik incurred excommunication automatically when he heard the confession and granted absolution, but the excommunication was confirmed by the then-Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, said Father Arturo Sosa, superior general of the order.

At his annual pre-Christmas meeting with reporters Dec. 14, Father Sosa said the excommunication was lifted when Father Rupnik admitted his wrongdoing, repented and wrote a formal request for forgiveness.

Several Italian blogs reported that the case involved a consecrated Italian woman and that the doctrinal office’s investigation of that allegation was conducted from 2019 to 2020.

The Jesuits had confirmed in early December that…

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About one in four Christians in Germany are considering leaving church due to the sex abuse scandals, a survey revealed on Thursday.

Mostly the members of the Catholic Church have lost faith in the clergy and church after the scandals in recent years, according to the Religion Monitor study of the Bertelsmann Foundation.

Among the Germans who said that they were considering leaving the church, 66% of them were members of the Catholic Church, and 33% were the members of the Protestant Church.

Some 81% of them said they are thinking of leaving the church mainly because they lost trust in these religious institutions. Other respondents criticized them over reluctance to reform and modernize their policies.

About 71% of them also criticized churches for having “too much power and influence” in Germany, and 68% said the current privileges of churches are “unfair in a multi-religious society.”

The survey also revealed that there is an…

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They walk away from the litigation as FBI reviews spending at St. Peter Claver Church

A man who had said he was raped as a 10-year-old boy on an overnight trip by a Roman Catholic priest from New Orleans has reached an agreement to drop his lawsuit, court documents show. The Rev. John Asare-Dankwah, former pastor of St. Peter Claver Church in Treme, has, in turn, agreed to drop a countersuit against the accuser, who is now in his 20s and is identified in court documents only as A.A. Doe.

In a conference Thursday with U.S. District Judge Susie Morgan, attorneys for both sides said they will file a joint motion by Dec. 22 to dismiss the allegations against each other, according to court records. That doesn’t mean the two sides reached a monetary settlement, only that they decided to walk away from the high-profile suits.

The Asare-Dankwah case is significant…

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A former Southern Baptist Convention seminary professor accused of sexual abuse by a student has filed a defamation lawsuit against the SBC and several other entities, claiming he was an “easy target” and a “bona fide scapegoat” in the sex abuse scandal surrounding the denomination.

David Sills, a former professor of missions and cultural anthropology at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky, and his wife, Mary, filed a complaint on Nov. 21 in the Circuit Court of Mobile, Alabama.

The lawsuit centers on allegations that Sills sexually abused Jennifer Lyell starting in 2004 when Lyell was a student and Sills was a professor.

Lyell, who served as vice president of LifeWay Christian Resources, posted a confession in 2018 claiming how Sills, who has been married for over 30 years, sexually abused her and groomed her. At the time, Lyell  View Cache

The retired judge who has co-chaired the Montreal Archdiocese’s committee to implement abuse procedures has resigned, saying serious problems remain in the application of “regulations, policies and procedures approved by the archbishop.”

“I began my mandate as co-chair with real enthusiasm and the hope that I would be able to make important changes that would make the Catholic Church in Montreal an example of transparency and accountability to victims of abuse,” Pepita G. Capriolo wrote in her resignation letter, dated Dec. 7 and published as an appendix to the Fifth Ombudsman’s Report for the Archdiocese of Montreal. The ombudsman’s report was submitted to Montreal Archbishop Christian Lépine the same day.

She said “the numerous difficulties highlighted in the ombudsman’s last reports” led to her resignation.

Two years ago, Capriolo signed an incriminatory report on the handling of Father Brian Boucher’s case by Montreal archdiocesan authorities and even Vatican officials. Her…

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Canadian Cardinal Marc Ouellet is suing a woman for defamation, after she accused him of sexual assault in a class action lawsuit. If he wins, the money will go to Indigenous victims.

“I am taking legal action for defamation before the courts of Quebec in order to prove the falsity of the allegations made against me and to restore my reputation and honor,” said Canadian Cardinal Marc Ouellet in a statement published on December 13, 2022.

The current Prefect of the Dicastery for Bishops, who was Archbishop of Quebec from 2002 to 2010, was named in a class action lawsuit on August 16, after being accused of inappropriate touching by a former employee of the diocese. He denounced the “slanderous and defamatory accusations” and is now suing the woman, known only as F., for 100,000 Canadian dollars (about 70,000 euros, 74,000 US dollars) in compensatory damages.

“On August 16, 2022, unfounded…

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A Steubenville Catholic Central High School graduate who says he was molested by a priest 54 years ago wants the Diocese of Steubenville to admit “it wasn’t my fault.”

The man, who asked not to be identified, alleges the Rev. Kenneth Bonadies grabbed his “private area” after class and asked some inappropriate questions in the confessional 54 years ago.

He said he’s looking for “validation from the diocese that it wasn’t my fault, I had nothing to do with that, that the diocese wasn’t doing its job.”

“It really has bothered me,” he said recently. “It changed my life forever, a Catholic priest doing this to me. It made it hard to get along with other people, it made me not trust people — especially priests. Every time I would go to church I would think, ‘I wonder if he’s ever abused anyone?’”

On Thursday, the diocese confirmed that attorneys…

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As bishop of Bridgeport, Connecticut, the Most Rev. William E. Lori fought for nearly eight years — all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court — to prevent the wide release of information about the history of child sexual abuse in that branch of the Catholic Church.

The soft-spoken prelate argued in the case two decades ago that what was already publicly known about sexual misconduct by clergy in the diocese was all the information the public needed to grasp the scope of the crisis and understand who was responsible.

Now archbishop of Baltimore, the 71-year-old Lori is facing a tidal wave of criticism — and even calls for his resignation — as the Maryland Attorney General’s Office seeks to release the results of its four-year investigation into the abuse of children by Catholic clergy in Baltimore and nine counties in the state.

Democratic Attorney General…

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There has been criticism of Dutch journalist Ekke Overbeek’s investigation into the actions of the later Pope John Paul II concerning the abuse of children by Roman Catholic clergy in his homeland of Poland. Overbeek rebounds. “The Polish secret service did not have pure motives but often reported accurately.”

Earlier this month, Overbeek, a journalist from the Netherlands living in Poland, said he had found “concrete cases of priests abusing children in the Archdiocese of Krakow, where the future pope was archbishop. The future pope knew about it and transferred them anyway, which led to new victims.” Overbeek spent years digging through thousands of documents in the archives of the SB, the Polish security service, during the era of communism, which existed until 1990.

However, there is criticism of how Overbeek did his research and presented it, the Dutch Christian daily Nederlands Dagblad writes. “We did research at…

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The French Church has opened a National Canonical Criminal Court, a novelty in the Catholic world, to have clerical and lay experts deal with major canonical crimes such as sexual abuse of adults, abuse of authority and financial crimes. 

It takes over from the diocesan or interdiocesan tribunals that used to handle such cases. Lesser cases, such as marriage nullifications, make up the majority of cases at the diocesan level and will continue to be adjudicated there.  

Clerical sexual abuse of minors remains the responsibility of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith (DDF), as does accusations against a bishop who, since appointed by the Pope, also comes under the Vatican. Rome can refer cases back to the French court but will handle all appeals.

This first national canonical court was created in response to a proposal by the so-called Sauvé report of 2021 into clerical sexual abuse.

It…

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Fr. Marko Rupnik is at the center of a complicated, and still unfolding, set of allegations in Rome. ‘The Pillar’ explains what’s happening.

The global leader of the Jesuit order on Wednesday told journalists that Fr. Marko Ivan Rupnik, SJ, was excommunicated in 2019 — two years before he faced allegations of spiritually abusing religious sisters in the priest’s native Slovenia.

Speaking to journalists Dec. 14, Fr. Arturo Sosa, superior general of the Society of Jesus, said that Rupnik had indeed been excommunicated, but that the penalty was remitted after Rupnik – a well-known Jesuit artist – repented of a serious canonical crime, namely the absolution of an accomplice in a sin against the sixth commandment.

Sosa’s admission brings some clarity to the complicated set of allegations against Rupnik, and confusing statements issued in response to them.

But the allegations against Rupnik are still fairly complicated, and the timeline…

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A priest has told of his shock at being accused of sexually abusing four girls after claims that he hugged inappropriately and touched their waist.

Father Neil McGarrity, 58, is accused of carrying out the crimes in Glasgow at St Thomas the Apostle Roman Catholic church in Riddrie, St Bernadette’s church in Carntyne, and his parish house between December 2018 and February 2020.

McGarrity, of the Germiston area, denied two charges of sexual assault against a girl at his trial at Glasgow sheriff court yesterday. He also pleaded not guilty to a further two charges of sexual assault and engaging in sexual activity with other girls.

McGarrity told the trial in his evidence that he was made aware of the allegations after a phone call from his archbishop in May 2020.

Billy Lavelle, for the defence, asked the priest of 33 years for his reaction to the claims. McGarrity said he…

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 Cardinal Marc Ouellet has filed a defamation lawsuit in Quebec courts contending that a woman wrongly accused him of sexual assault in a class-action sex abuse lawsuit against the Archdiocese of Quebec.

“I have never been guilty of these reprehensible behaviors, much less of those alleged against other members of the clergy cited in the class action,” the cardinal said in a Dec. 13 statement accompanying the lawsuit. “This inappropriate association, intentionally constructed and widely spread for improper purposes, must be denounced.”

“Having preliminarily made sure to protect the plaintiff’s anonymity by obtaining an order to that effect, today I am taking legal action for defamation before the courts of Québec in order to prove the falsity of the allegations made against me and to restore my reputation and honor,” Ouellet said.

The 78-year-old cardinal served as archbishop of Quebec from 2002 to 2010. He is currently prefect of the…

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Revelations that the Vatican let a famous priest off the hook twice for abusing his authority over adult women has exposed two main weaknesses in the Holy See’s abuse policies: sexual and spiritual misconduct against adult women is rarely if ever punished, and secrecy still reigns supreme, especially when powerful priests are involved.

The Jesuit order, to which Pope Francis belongs, was forced to admit Wednesday that its initial statements about the Rev. Marko Ivan Rupnik, an internationally recognized religious artist, were less than complete. The order had said Rupnik was accused in 2021 of unspecified problems “in the way he exercised his ministry” but that the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith determined the allegations were too old to prosecute.

But under questioning by journalists, the Jesuit superior general, the Rev. Arturo Sosa, acknowledged the Congregation had prosecuted Rupnik for a separate, prior case from 2019 that…

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Incidents allegedly happened at St. Peter’s Roman Catholic Church at Nanaimo in 1976

WARNING: This article contains information about allegations of sexual abuse.

A settlement has been reached in a lawsuit involving accusations that a former Catholic priest on Vancouver Island sexually abused a 10-year-old girl during confession decades ago.

The woman, now 57 and whose identity is protected, filed a notice of civil claim in 2020 against the Roman Catholic Diocese of Victoria, in B.C. Supreme Court. She alleges that Father Gerhard Hartmann, who has since died, used his position as an authority figure to take advantage of her when she was a parishioner at St. Peter’s Roman Catholic Church at Nanaimo in 1976.

Details of the settlement were not available, but the plaintiff and her lawyer Robert Talach told the News Bulletin the matter was settled to everyone’s satisfaction.

Beginning in 1976, Hartmann is alleged to have,…

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Popular theology routinely enables powerful men to rehabilitate their public image after their misconduct goes public. This pattern applies especially to men known for their dedication to Jesus. The standard line holds that the man has repented of his sin and found forgiveness. Therefore, just as Jesus no longer holds his sin against him, neither should society. Far too often, the social harms attached to his transaction are ignored, and no transparent process for rehabilitation and reformation occurs. In late November two such cases hit the news, each reflecting how powerful White men protect one another in the wake of moral failure.

Earlier this year allegations of sexual assault surfaced in a report on sexual abuse in the Southern Baptist Convention. The report’s most prominent charge pointed to former SBC president Johnny Hunt, who resigned his Georgia megachurch pastorate. Then, in late November, Hunt was declared restored to ministry by…

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This week on “Inside the Vatican,” host Colleen Dulle and veteran Vatican correspondent Gerard O’Connell give an update on the new facts that have emerged in the case of the Jesuit artist Marko Rupnik, who was suspended from parts of his ministry in response to allegations of abuse against him.

The facts are difficult to confirm, so this week on the podcast Colleen and Gerry also explain the process they use to determine whether information is credible.

The day after this episode was recorded, Father Arturo Sosa, superior general of the Society of Jesus, confirmed to journalists in response to a question from the Associated Press that in 2019, two years prior to the most recent allegations of abuse, Father Rupnik had been “convicted and sanctioned” by the Vatican for granting absolution in the confessional to a woman with whom he had “engaged in sexual activity.” A priest absolving someone…

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Catholic League president Bill Donohue comments on how New York officials are handling accusations of sexual harassment:

When Kathy Hochul succeeded Andrew Cuomo as governor of New York (she was his lieutenant governor), she was asked about the culture of sexual abuse that had arisen under her boss. “Anyone who crosses the line will be addressed by me.” Not true.

Hochul is giving a pass to an accused sexual abuser in her administration,  Ibrahim Khan, the former chief of staff to Attorney General Letitia James: he is accused of sexually harassing a former AG employee, Sofia Quintanar. Hochul said last week that she does not support an investigation of this matter. But when it came to probes of accused priests, she supported all of them.

Attorney General Letitia James was also tough on Cuomo. “Allegations of sexual harassment should always be taken seriously. There must be a truly independent investigation…

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Blackrock College and the Spiritan priests sexual abuse accusations bring Ireland’s Catholic Church to be further exposed, now among the upper classes.

The latest chapter in Ireland’s seemingly perpetual crisis of child abuse in religious institutions is now being written. We have cycled through abuse in orphanages, industrial schools and Magdalene Laundries, only to now contend with abuse at literally the highest order of all.

The name Blackrock College reeks of privilege and upper-class mores. The South Dublin institution was as close to the equivalent of the playing fields of Eton as you could get. Among its alumni are Eamon de Valera, founder of the 26-county Irish state who ruled over Ireland for decades, and Archbishop John Charles McQuade, who almost single-handedly imposed his puritanical control over the Irish church for decades.

Surely, there could be no whiff of pedophile activity in such an established school.

Think again, sadly.  Thanks to…

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One of the Catholic Church’s top sexual abuse experts has called for a review of how his own Jesuit order and the Vatican handled allegations against an internationally known priest and artist.

The case of Father Marko Ivan Rupnik has rattled the Jesuit order, of which Pope Francis is a member, and prompted criticism of the Vatican doctrinal department for not pursuing it further.

“I can understand how victims feel betrayed,” Father Hans Zollner, a member of the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors and the head of Rome’s Gregorian University Centre for the study of abuse, told Reuters.

Following Italian media reports that Rupnik had sexually and psychologically abused nuns when he was their spiritual director in his native Slovenia three decades ago, Jesuit headquarters issued a statement on Dec. 2 saying he had been disciplined.

It said it had commissioned an unnamed, non-Jesuit to investigate Rupnik, 68,…

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Father Gerhard Hartmann served with the Hitler Youth before his career in the church on Vancouver Island

WARNING: This story contains an account of sexual assault.

A Vancouver Island woman who says she was sexually abused as a child by a former Nazi turned Catholic priest has settled her lawsuit against the church.

Father Gerhard Hartmann repeatedly sexually assaulted and fondled the victim over a period of three years at St. Peter’s Roman Catholic Church in Nanaimo, B.C., beginning in 1976, when she was just 10 years old, according to the notice of claim.

“It happened during confession, which for a Catholic is a sacred time,” the plaintiff said. Because she is a victim of alleged sexual abuse, CBC has agreed to refer to her by her initials, S.P.

“I was in a very vulnerable position and I was just a young child. It’s such an abuse of power on so many…

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The Jesuit Superior General, Father Arturo Sosa, has confirmed that Jesuit artist Father Marko Rupnik incurred an automatic excommunication in 2019 for absolving a woman he had sex with, a fact his religious order was aware of but did not disclose until now.

According to a report by the Associated Press, Sosa disclosed this new information Wednesday in a briefing with journalists in Rome.

Abusing the sacrament of confession in this manner is one of the most serious crimes in the Catholic Church.

The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith “said it happened, there was absolution of an accomplice,” Sosa said. “So he was excommunicated. How do you lift an excommunication? The person has to recognize it and has to repent, which he did.”

Sosa also contradicted the Jesuits’ earlier statement and said the restrictions on Rupnik’s ministry, which remain in effect, dated from this earlier conviction,…

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The head of Pope Francis’ Jesuit religious order admitted Wednesday that a famous Jesuit priest had been convicted of one of the most serious crimes in the Catholic Church some two years before the Vatican decided to shelve another case against him for allegedly abusing other adult women under his spiritual care.

The Rev. Arturo Sosa, the Jesuit superior general, made the admission during a briefing with journalists that was dominated by the scandal over the Rev. Marko Ivan Rupnik and the reluctance of both the Vatican and the Jesuits to tell the whole story behind the unusually lenient treatment he received even after he had been temporarily excommunicated.

Rupnik is unknown to most Catholics but is a giant within the Jesuit order and the Catholic hierarchy because he is one of the church’s most sought-after artists. His mosaics depicting biblical scenes decorate the basilica in Lourdes, France, the…

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High-ranking official leaked confidential information about abuse complaints, according to new report

The lawyer appointed to help make the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Montreal more transparent in the way it handles allegations of abuse against clergy says her job is being undermined by those inside the church.

In a report made public Monday and obtained in advance by CBC News, Marie Christine Kirouack, the church ombudsman, said she discovered a high-ranking clergy member was leaking information about abuse complaints, and in some cases, actively discouraging complainants from contacting her.

“I was totally flabbergasted,” Kirouack said in an interview. The lawyer was appointed to her role by the archdiocese  in the spring of 2021 to deal with complaints of abuse and other inappropriate conduct.

Although the complaint process is supposed to be confidential, Kirouack said the priest, who is not named in her report, was sharing emails with a person outside the…

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December 13, 2022

SNAP, Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests

PO Box 16376

Chicago, IL, 60616

Most Reverend Michael C. Barber, SJ

Diocese of Oakland

2121 Harrison Street, Suite 100

Oakland, CA 94612

Dear Bishop Barber,

We are writing to you because, so far, SNAP has identified 227 publicly accused perpetrators associated with the Diocese of Oakland, a stark contrast from your current list which only includes 65 names. Our list has been created through careful study of documents in the public domain, including culling the lists released by other Catholic dioceses and religious orders. We are sending you this complete list and ask that you take our research and use it to update your own list.

While we have strived very hard for accuracy, as you review our list if you find we have mistakenly included a name, please let us know why you believe we have erred. We will then modify our list…

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Leaders representing the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP) unveiled a list of East Bay church officials, mostly priests, they say have been accused of sexual abuse. Standing at 227 names, SNAP says its list is more than three times longer than the list released by Oakland Bishop Michael Barber in 2019.

Advocates from the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests gathered Tuesday at the doorstep of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Oakland to unveil a list of East Bay priests they say have been accused of sexual abuse, mostly against children. 

“We’ve painstakingly gone through all the records we could find,” said Dan McNevin, a survivor of clergy abuse and one of the architects behind SNAP’s list, detailing his process of combing through court filings, news reports and other publicly available sources for bits of new information.

Currently standing at 227 names, the list just published by…

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At a sidewalk press conference outside the Cathedral of Christ the Light in Oakland, SNAP will share its list of those publicly accused of sexual abuse in the Diocese of Oakland

Following the press conference, SNAP will hand deliver a letter and a copy of its list to Bishop Michael Barber, asking him to expand his list

The list published by the Diocese of Oakland contains 65 names

SNAP’s list is currently at 227, with more names anticipated to be added before the 3-year civil window opened by California Assembly Bill 218 closes at the end of the month

WHEN

Tuesday, December 13, 2022, at noon

WHERE

On the public sidewalk outside of the Cathedral of Christ the Light, 2121 Harrison St. in Oakland, CA

WHO

5-6 survivors of sexual abuse in the Diocese of Oakland, supporters and advocates

WHY

The Diocese of Oakland released its own list of abusers in 2019. That list…

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The Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, or SNAP, has called for the Diocese of Oakland to publicly released the full list of alleged abusive priests in the Catholic church. 

One survivor of abuse is encouraging victims to come forward before the window to file a civil suit closes at the end of the year. 

Joey Piscitelli claims he was first molested when he was playing pool at a Catholic school in Richmond when he was 14 years old. He said the abuse by a priest went on for more than a year and a half.  

“I think the most promiment side effect I deal with is chronic insomnia and triggering, flashbacks, nightmares, and dissociation. I still seek help for that,” Piscitelli said. 

Piscitelli may now be 66 years old, but his memories of sexual abuse remain painful and vivid. As the Northern California leader of SNAP, he…

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