ABUSE TRACKER

The Church must do more for anyone affected by sexual abuse, “even when the Church can appear tarnished because of these scandals,” and no matter what the local conditions are, according to Father Andrew Small. 

The English priest is the interim secretary of the Pontifical Commission for the Safeguarding of Minors, which provides recommendations and support to dioceses around the world.

In a speech delivered last week to AMECEA, the Association of Members of the Episcopal Conferences in Eastern Africa, he spoke about what this means for local communities and churches in Africa. 

Dealing with potential cases and safeguarding against sexual violence in the future is a moral obligation and global challenge for the Catholic Church. It spans cultures and continents, jurisdictions and authorities, and in meeting this challenge, the Church should always strive to set standards and lead by example, according to Small. 

The AMECEA plenary…

View Cache

For many survivors of Canada’s former residential school system, the apology Pope Francis is expected to deliver for the Church’s role in the abuse they endured during his visit to the country next week marks a milestone in their journey of healing.

Speaking to Crux, Steve Sutherland, a spokesman for the Métis National Council, said an apology from Pope Francis on Canadian soil will be “a significant moment.”

“It would mark the beginning of what we hope would be a renewed commitment from the Catholic Church to walking the path of truth, reconciliation, justice, and healing with the Métis Nation and all Indigenous peoples across Canada,” he said.

Similarly, Grand Chief George Arcand Jr. of the Confederacy of Treaty Six First Nations, and Chief of the Alexander First Nation, told journalists during a July 21 press conference that “this apology is a way forward for our people in healing.”

“My mind…

View Cache

Pope Francis visited a Roman basilica on Friday to ask for the Virgin Mary’s intercession and protection ahead of his week-long trip to Canada.

The pope prayed in front of the Marian icon of Salus Populi Romani in Santa Maria Maggiore on the morning of July 22.

A photo released by the Vatican showed the pope seated in a wheelchair below the icon of Mary, Protection of the Roman People, which has been revered in the Eternal City for centuries. 

The Holy See press office said that the pope went to the basilica to entrust the Virgin Mary with his upcoming trip to Canada.

The pope is scheduled to travel to the Canadian cities of Edmonton, Quebec City, and Iqaluit from July 24-29. There he will meet members of Canadian indigenous groups, residential school abuse survivors, and Catholics.

Pope Francis is expected to issue an apology in Canada on behalf…

View Cache

COMMENTARY: The last papal trip to Canada was by Pope St. John Paul II in 1984.

On Sunday, Pope Francis will begin a papal trip utterly unique in the nearly 50 years of overseas papal travel. 

It will be a pilgrimage not to the entire Church in Canada, but tightly focused on Indigenous peoples. It will have a “penitential” character, as the Holy Father characterized it at the Angelus address last Sunday. And while most papal trips have multiple themes — history, family, youth, evangelization, justice, etc. — this one is exclusively intended to foster “reconciliation” as that term has come to be understood in Canadian politics.  

A little history is in order. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, Canadians began to hear Indigenous voices speak about “Indian residential schools,” a part of Canadian history that had remained largely hidden.  

(Over recent decades the term “Indian” —…

View Cache

The latest warning by the Holy See about the risk of a new schism from Germany arising from the “Synodal Way” has been rejected and met with “astonishment” by its organizers, who in turn accused Rome of not acting like a synodal Church.

However, at least one German bishop and a reform group welcomed the new intervention from the Vatican, reported CNA Deutsch, CNA’s German-language news partner.

Following the statement by the Holy See on Thursday, the presidents of the German Bishops’ Conference and the Central Committee of German Catholics (ZdK) said they were stunned by the intervention.

“In our understanding, a synodal Church is something else!” Bishop Georg Bätzing of Limburg and Irme Stetter-Karp declared in response to the Vatican’s intervention. “This also applies to the way today’s communication has been handled, which has been a source of astonishment for us.”

…

View Cache

By criticizing the procedure — but not the substance — of the Church in Germany’s push for radical departures from Catholic teaching, this week’s Vatican statement left deeper concerns unaddressed.

A clear and decisive rebuke of the German Church’s “Synodal Way” is perhaps needed now more than ever, as the process continues to hurtle toward the point of schism.  

The Synodal Way has been exposed as little more than a bald-faced attempt to subvert Church teaching in order to keep with the times — in fact, its leadership has explicitly said as much, describing it as “a conscious statement against the current Catholic catechism” that “still reproaches homosexual activity as sin.” And with the head of the German bishops’ conference publicly expressing his disappointment in Pope Francis over the Holy Father’s reticence to endorse the Synodal Way’s proposals, what’s happening in Germany…

View Cache

The victim said the abuse started in 1995 when he was 16 and occurred at St. Michael & All Angels Church, Camp Ilium, and a cabin near Nederland.

A new lawsuit claims a former priest of the Episcopal Diocese of Colorado sexually abused a teenaged boy.

According to the complaint, the victim identified as John HA Doe, was sexually abused by the Rev. Jerry McKenzie starting in 1995 when the victim was 16. The plaintiff is now in his 40s and does private social services work in the Denver area.

“What we do know is that during the period when this abuse started and continued, that there was an ongoing practice to ignore these types of allegations, to cover them up, to threaten and silence victims, to withhold information from the people who had the ability to protect these children and to basically protect themselves in closed ranks,”…

View Cache

A Canadian court has approved the sale of 43 Catholic Church properties as part of a financial settlement with victims of sex abuse, with more sales expected to come later.

The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of St. John’s, based in the Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador, will sell the properties, including 13 church properties, after the Supreme Court of Newfoundland and Labrador approved the measure.

The archdiocese directed The Christian Post to a report by Ernst & Young, a law firm that served as a court-appointed monitor for selling the properties.

In its second report, the monitor noted that there were “42 sub-parcel sales” of the properties to various entities, including the Basilica Heritage Foundation Inc., Rocky Hill Holdings Inc. and Emerald Atlantic Group Inc.

Nineteen of the properties were listed as “vacant land,” with one going to the Nature Conservatory of Canada, while another went to…

View Cache

Another U.S. diocese has issued new restrictive policies regarding LGBTQ issues in Catholic schools, and the new directives compare being openly transgender with sexual abuse.

The Diocese of Green Bay, Wisconsin, led by Bishop David Ricken, included the gender policy in its “Education Policy Manual” for the upcoming school year. The manual includes detailed instructions for how to restrict the full participation in Catholic education of trans students, staff, volunteers, and ally parents. The document also includes a section on the theology upon which they these policies are based.

Preceding most of the manual’s content is a section titled “Catholic Principles of Human Sexuality,” which promotes the idea of complementarity of the sexes, denies the legitimacy of trans identities, and supports heterosexuality as the norm. Emphasizing chastity, this section at one point compares being LGBTQ to sexual abuse:

“Behaviors that are contrary to Catholic morality and the expectations of…

View Cache

The 14-year-old girl returned on the back of a motorbike to the convent where she lived and studied. Sobbing and in pain, she pulled aside a nun.

The girl said she’d just been raped by the priest who dropped her off.

The nun, Henriette Okitanunga, tried to comfort the girl. She said she then followed the new rule laid out by Pope Francis for handling such a report: She alerted her superior to a possible crime.

“Your Excellency,” the nun recalled texting to Nicolas Djomo, the local bishop.

After clerical abuse scandals that have rocked much of the Catholic world — generally in nations with the resources to pressure and expose the church — attention is turning to regions where the scale of abuse remains both a mystery and a cause for trepidation. The Vatican’s hope is that bishops in the developing world, trained in new guidelines, can avoid the…

View Cache

After a warning from the Vatican Thursday to German bishops against stoking division through their ongoing “Synodal Path” consultation process, pioneers of the initiative have hit back, saying they were “astonished” by the rebuke and hope to discuss contentious matters in a more formal setting.

In a statement Thursday, the Vatican said Germany’s Synodal Path is a threat to Church unity at a universal level and stressed that the undertaking lacks the authority to compel bishops to make changes on doctrine or morality.

RELATED: Vatican says Germany’s ‘synodal path’ has no power to change doctrine

“In order to protect the freedom of the People of God and the exercise of episcopal ministry, it seems necessary to specify that the ‘Synodal Way’ in Germany has no power to oblige the bishops and the faithful to adopt new ways of governing and new approaches to doctrine and morals,” the Vatican said…

View Cache

The Vatican issued an official statement published in Italian and German on Thursday.

The Vatican has issued another warning of a new schism from Germany coming out of the “Synodal Way.”

“The ‘Synodal Way’ in Germany does not have the power to compel bishops and the faithful to adopt new forms of governance and new orientations of doctrine and morals,” the Vatican said in an official statement published in Italian and German on Thursday.

The Holy See said it seemed “necessary to clarify” this, in order to “safeguard the freedom of the People of God and the exercise of the episcopal ministry.” 

The Vatican warned: “It would not be permissible to introduce new official structures or doctrines in dioceses before an agreement had been reached at the level of the universal Church, which would constitute a violation of ecclesial communion and a threat to the unity of the Church.”

The “Synodal…

View Cache

Phil Fontaine says Pope Francis must offer expanded apology during visit to Canada next week

Phil Fontaine says Pope Francis must expand on his apology for residential schools when he visits Canada next week.

But the former national chief of the Assembly of First Nations also wants people to know that an apology is not “the end of the story, it’s just the beginning.”

“We still have so much work to do to heal the past and to bring about true reconciliation. We ourselves have to forgive. Otherwise, the story never ends,” said Fontaine, who was AFN national chief from 1997 to 2000 and from 2003 to 2009.

“And I believe that many, many people want to see this story end on a more positive note,” he told The Current’s guest host Duncan McCue.

The Pope will visit Canada next week, in what he recently described as a “pilgrimage of penance” through…

View Cache

Pope Francis is set to fly to Canada on Sunday for his 37th Apostolic Visit abroad. He’ll be travelling to the Canadian cities of Edmonton, Quebec, and Iqaluit, where the Holy Father will bring his closeness to indigenous peoples who suffered from attempts to erase their culture, especially in the residential schools system.

Pope Francis’ imminent Apostolic Visit to Canada will be first of all a penitential pilgrimage geared at healing and reconciliation with the nation’s indigenous peoples, suggests the Director of the Holy See Press Office, Matteo Bruni, noting this follows the Pontiff’s five encounters with the aboriginal peoples in Rome in April.

During a briefing at the Press Office on Wednesday, the Director presented the Pope’s 37th Apostolic Visit abroad. The North American nation will be the 56th country he’s visited. Pope Francis is following in the footsteps of his predecessor, St. John Paul II who visited Canada three…

View Cache

Sr. Eileen McKenzie had always been proud of her congregation’s nearly nine decades of ministering to Indigenous people through their school in northern Wisconsin.

But in the summer of 2020, McKenzie, the president of the Franciscan Sisters of Perpetual Adoration, got an email from the La Crosse County Historical Society saying its magazine was going to publish a story about the school’s legacy. St. Mary’s Catholic Indian Boarding School operated on a reservation in Odanah, Wisconsin, from 1883 to 1969. The historical society wanted to let McKenzie know about the article because the topic was so sensitive.

“I went, ‘What? This is sensitive?’ ” McKenzie recalled. “I went online and Googled it, and the first article was … about St. Mary’s. I was like, ‘Oh my God.’ “

The 2019 story, “Death by Civilization,” details the trauma the…

View Cache

First Nations leaders call for financial support, release of records, return of artifacts

Marie-Anne Day Walker-Pelletier, a former chief of the Okanese First Nation in Saskatchewan, will be attentive to Pope Francis’ words during his trip to Canada and to the church’s actions in the wake of the historic visit. She’ll also be watchful for one simple act.

This spring, Walker-Pelletier was part of the delegation of Indigenous Canadians who traveled to the Vatican and met the pope. While there, she gave Francis two pairs of small moccasins. “He knows he needs to bring them back when he apologizes here,” the 68-year-old Walker-Pelletier told NCR.

“It’s not about the moccasins. It’s about the graves of the children who were never found, the kids who were abused, raped and died at residential schools, the babies who were incinerated.” The shoes “are a symbol of the children who never came…

View Cache

When pope touches down in Edmonton, the first hands he shakes will be those of Indigenous people

In 2010, the headline “Why Being Pope Means Never Having to Say You’re Sorry,” splashed across the cover of Time magazine, exploring the general reluctance of popes to own up to the Catholic Church’s past wrongs.

But on July 24, Pope Francis will travel some 5,000 miles from Rome to Canada to do just that.

As Francis prepares to embark on his 37th international trip as pope, a very different kind of visit is being planned for this high-stakes journey, where he is expected to apologize to the country’s Indigenous peoples for abuses at Catholic-run residential schools.

When he touches down in Edmonton, Alberta, Francis will find a dramatically altered scene than that of past airport arrivals. Gone will be the jubilant sights and sounds of marching bands and…

View Cache

Pope Francis said on Sunday his trip to Canada next week will be a “pilgrimage of penance” that he hopes can help heal the wrongs done to indigenous people by Roman Catholic priests and nuns who ran abusive residential schools.

The July 24-30 trip will include at least five encounters with native people as Francis makes good on a promise to apologise on their home territory for the Church’s role in the state-sanctioned schools, which sought to erase indigenous cultures.

“Unfortunately in Canada many Christians, including some members of religious orders, contributed to the policies of cultural assimilation that in the past gravely damaged native populations in various ways,” Francis said at his weekly address to people in St. Peter’s Square.

About 150,000 children were taken from their homes. Many were subjected to abuse, rape and malnutrition in what Canada’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission in 2015 called “cultural genocide”.

The…

View Cache

When Pope Francis arrives in Canada Sunday to continue reconciliation with Indigenous Peoples, he must deliver more than an apology for the Catholic Church’s role in the residential school system, say Brock University experts.

The Pope will meet with Indigenous communities in Alberta, Quebec and Nunavut from July 24 to 29 and is expected to issue an apology while on Canadian soil — one of 94 Calls to Action laid out by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

“Action must follow words,” says Brock University Assistant Professor of Education Stanley ‘Bobby’ Henry, a member of the Six Nations of the Grand River Territory community.

“It’s a repeating pattern for organizations, agencies and governments to follow an apology with concrete action that results in meaningful change, but this has not always been the case,” he says. “Former Prime Minister Stephen Harper apologized on behalf of Canada and Canadians but later argued that Canada…

View Cache

Federation of Sovereign Indigenous Nations says visit has been poorly co-ordinated

Warning: This story contains distressing details

The Federation of Sovereign Indigenous Nations (FSIN) says it is “deeply concerned” over a lack of consultation on Pope Francis’s upcoming visit to Canada.

The Pope will be in Canada from July 24 to July 29 and will stop in Edmonton, Quebec City and Iqaluit. The trip is focused on healing and reconciliation with First Nations, Inuit and Métis people for harm caused by the Roman Catholic Church’s operation of government-funded residential schools. 

FSIN, which represents Saskatchewan’s 74 First Nations, said in a statement issued Monday that the visit has been poorly co-ordinated by Canada and the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops (CCCB). 

“We had zero consultation on his pilgrimage to ground zero on our own lands. Many survivors don’t have the agency, money or even technology to attend the Pope’s visit,” said FSIN Chief…

View Cache

Project would take two years, consult Elders and archives to identify sites

Warning: This story discusses children missing at residential schools. 

Dene Nation is proposing to search 15 residential school sites in the North for unmarked burial sites, a plan which brought up complicated and difficult emotions about what this undertaking will mean for survivors and the family of missing children.

Elder and former Tulita chief Paul Andrew told the Dene Nation assembly, gathered just outside of Yellowknife this week, that he hopes the project brings closure to his family.

Andrew was at residential school for seven years, and his grandmother passed away without knowing what happened to her two daughters.

“I have often wondered what happened to them. Is it possible I have cousins somewhere in the world? Or is that it?”

“It’s very possible that it will settle my soul if we are able to answer some of those questions,”…

View Cache

Edna Elias would like to see Arctic communities participate in project

Nunavut educator and politician Edna Elias wants Arctic groups to apply to a government fund dedicated to monuments honouring residential school survivors, and children who never returned home. 

Elias, from Kugluktuk, N.W.T., works with the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation and is involved in administering a new grant, funded through the federal government, that allows communities to apply for money to design and create memorials honouring community histories of residential schools. 

The grant is called the Na-mi-quai-ni-mak Community Support Fund. Na-mi-quai-ni-mak is Anishinaabemowin and means “I remember them.”

With this funding — up to $10,000 — communities can design and create any sort of commemorative marker honouring survivors, families and those who did not make it home. 

Elias listed monuments and peace gardens as ideas for applications. 

She said that any Indigenous government, band council or survivor group in Canada can…

View Cache

For whom did Pope Francis really organize his July 24-29 trip to Canada?

In general, these papal visits primarily concern Catholics and may not hold much interest for the general population. With stops in Sainte-Anne-de-Beaupré, Que., Edmonton, Maskwacis, Alta., and Iqaluit, this tour appears to be aimed primarily at Indigenous peoples: its purpose is to apologize on behalf of the Catholic Church for its involvement in Indian Residential Schools.

Indeed, of the 139 residential schools recognized by the legal definition of the Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement (IRSSA), approximately 60 per cent were run by Catholics. It makes sense, then, for Indigenous communities to be the primary audience for this visit.

Should the rest of Canada overlook the visit? On the contrary, I believe the whole country should be concerned by what’s at stake. I have every reason to to feel concerned: I am an anthropologist and have been doing…

View Cache

Three Cree sons and daughters of survivors share their perspectives

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

Deep-seated hurt and pockets of hope. 

These are among the complicated emotions rippling through an Indigenous community in central Alberta where Pope Francis is expected to deliver an apology for the Catholic Church’s role in Canada’s residential schools.

“For the amount of trauma … some of us maybe put deep down in ourselves and didn’t want to deal with it and now it’s all coming back out,” said Luci Johnson, a member of the Samson Cree Nation who helps people navigate the court system around Maskwacis, Alta.

“And those are the things that no ‘sorry’ — [a] five-letter word — is ever going to make us heal.”

Pope Francis will be in Canada from July 24 to 29. 

On Monday, the first full day of his trip, the Pope will…

View Cache

‘A way for us to reconcile a path that was filled with hurts,’ says one woman heading south

The residential school system has been a large part of Mabel Brown’s family story.

At six years old, her mother was sent to St. Peter’s Indian Residential School in Hay River, N.W.T.

Brown herself also attended residential schools along with her eight siblings. She bounced around from Stringer Hall in Inuvik to Bompas Hall in Fort Simpson, and then to Akaitcho Hall in Yellowknife where she eventually graduated.

And that has left a lasting impact on her family to this day, according to the Inuvik resident.

“When I got triggered, it went on to my daughter and then trickled down to my grandson who is 25 right now,” said Brown who is Gwich’in.

“So the evidence is there. You can see the way we are, our behaviours and how we walk through…

View Cache

Sacred Heart Church of the First Peoples was rededicated this weekend following a fire nearly 2 years ago

A historic Catholic church in Edmonton is ready for a visit from Pope Francis following a devastating fire two years ago.

With just a week before the Pope is scheduled to arrive, Sacred Heart Church of the First Peoples reopened its doors for the first time in two years. 

The church celebrated the rededication on Sunday and held its first mass since August 2020 to the delight of parishioners and clergy alike.

• Fire at historic Edmonton church ignited by smouldering sage in coffee can

Father Cristino Bouvette, national liturgical co-ordinator for the papal visit, said he was amazed at how quickly the work was done. 

“The first day I saw it, compared to what it looks like now that it’s been dedicated, is nothing short of a miracle,” said Bouvette,…

View Cache

The Vatican Museums are home to some of the most magnificent artworks in the world, from Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel to ancient Egyptian antiquities and a pavilion full of papal chariots. But one of the museum’s least-visited collections is becoming its most contested before Pope Francis’ trip to Canada.

The Vatican’s Anima Mundi Ethnological Museum, located near the food court and right before the main exit, houses tens of thousands of artifacts and art made by Indigenous peoples from around the world, much of it sent to Rome by Catholic missionaries for a 1925 exhibition in the Vatican gardens.

The Vatican says the feathered headdresses, carved walrus tusks, masks and embroidered animal skins were gifts to Pope Pius XI, who wanted to celebrate the Church’s global reach, its missionaries and the lives of the Indigenous peoples they evangelized.

But Indigenous groups from Canada, who were shown a few items in the…

View Cache

A First Nations woman says she is disappointed a 92-year-old priest accused of assaulting her when she was a student at a former residential school did not attend his first court appearance.

“What a coward,” said Victoria McIntosh, 63, outside a legion hall where court was held in Powerview-Pine Falls, north of Winnipeg, on Wednesday. 

“I don’t care how old you are. You could have made it here if you wanted to.”

Arthur Masse faces one count of indecent assault from when the woman was 10 and attended the Fort Alexander Residential School in Manitoba.

His lawyer appeared in court on his behalf, which is not uncommon for a first appearance, and the Crown said the priest’s age was a factor. A next court date was set for Aug. 17. 

McIntosh said she had hoped Masse would be there so she could face him for the first time in more…

View Cache

Days before Pope Francis visits Canada, the vice provincial of the Jesuit Province of Canada speaks candidly about reconciliation.

ho are the missing Aboriginal children? What is the reality of residential school cemeteries? What is the Church doing to promote justice and reconciliation?

Days before Pope Francis’s “penitential journey” to the country (July 24-30, 2022), the vice provincial of the Jesuit province of Canada, Father Gilles Mongeau, S.J., sheds light on the history of relations between settlers and their descendants and indigenous peoples.

How are the Jesuits involved in the process of reconciliation with the indigenous peoples?

We began the path of reconciliation in the early 1990s, when we committed ourselves to making financial restitution and making our resources available. For example, we had many dictionaries, which we made available to help indigenous communities recover their traditional languages. The destruction of indigenous languages was one of the features of the residential schools….

View Cache

A priest who assaulted children was seen by his Archdiocese as “struggling” rather than abusive, a report found.

Joseph Quigley, a former Catholic priest in the Archdiocese of Birmingham, was jailed last year.

A report by Barnado’s found the church was aware of concerns but did not listen to victims, challenge his behaviour or deal with complaints.

The authors made 18 recommendations which the Archdiocese accepted in full. It apologised for its failures.

The report said concerns had been raised about Quigley, from Staffordshire, as early as 1990.

There was evidence the church was aware of an “immoral relationship” while he was working in Warwickshire but it was not considered a safeguarding issue because the boy was 16.

“The view of [Quigley’s] behaviour, being that of a Catholic priest who had a ‘relationship’ with another adult male, rather than an abuser of an adolescent boy, persisted without any challenge,” the…

View Cache

He spent 17 years as a priest in exile, railing against what he said were the misdeeds and cover-ups of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Oakland, until the Vatican finally cut him loose in March.

Months later, Tim Stier delivered his final salvo: a scorching “farewell letter” that condemned several bishops, criticized the Catholic clergy for retrograde attitudes toward gender equity and LGBTQ civil rights, and cited specific allegations of sexual abuse that Stier says the church ignored or tried to conceal.

His missive became a new flare-up for an institution grappling with public controversies over abortion and civil rights, and with the fallout from a painful history of abuse that has jolted parishes throughout the country.

“Dear No-Longer-Fellow Priests,” it began, “this will likely be my farewell letter to most of you, which may be glad tidings to those of you who did not enjoy hearing from me.”

In…

View Cache

A Manitoba woman travelled three hours hoping to hear and see the retired priest charged with sexually abusing her at a residential school in the late 1960s appear in a small town courtroom.

“I’m going to be here every step of the way,” said Victoria McIntosh, 63 of Somerset, Man. outside the Legion Hall in Powerview-Pine Falls, Man. Wednesday which serves as the courthouse in the community. “I didn’t deserve that at 10 years old. No child does.”

McIntosh clutched a jacket her grandmother gave her on her first day of school and showed up to the court with her husband and grandson at her side.

Other supporters, including community members from the nearby Sagkeeng First Nation, gathered outside the building for a short ceremony and drumming before the court hearing began.

About 30 people filled the hall, with most in attendance to observe the court case against Arthur Masse,…

View Cache

When Pope Francis travels to Canada, indigenous leaders and residential school survivors say, they are hoping for more than an apology: They want action.

Francis, who will be the first pope in nearly 20 years to visit Canada, said on Sunday he was making a “pilgrimage of penance” to help heal the wrongs done to indigenous people by Roman Catholic priests and nuns who ran abusive residential schools linked to deaths of thousands of children.

More than 150,000 children were taken from their homes and many were subjected to abuse, rape and malnutrition in what Canada’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission in 2015 called “cultural genocide.”

The discovery of the remains of 215 children at a former residential school in British Columbia last year brought the issue to the fore again amid calls for a formal apology from the Pope. Since then, the suspected remains of hundreds more children have been…

View Cache

Aiming both to streamline and to reform its investment practices, the Vatican announced Tuesday that it’s banning investing in firms whose activities are contrary to the teachings of the Catholic Church, including pornography and prostitution, gambling, the arms industry, abortion services and contraception.

All organizations that are part of the Holy See or the Vatican City State are now required to opt for low-risk investments guided by ethical, social and environmental criteria.

This could easily be a description of Pope Francis right now, especially in light of the fact that a prominent American archbishop recently went on record as claiming, “I think the pope doesn’t understand the U.S., just as he doesn’t understand the Church in the U.S.”

However, it’s actually a description of the liberal American Catholic take on Pope John Paul II during the 1980s and 1990s, when the Polish pontiff appointed a series of conservatives to major…

View Cache

A culture of silence hinders fight against sexual abuse of children, especially in religion-based schools

The arrest of several alleged sexual predators over the past few weeks has revealed the bitter reality of sexual violence against Indonesian children, particularly at religion-based schools. 

The latest arrest last week was of a Quran teacher in East Java for allegedly raping four underage girls in his care. One of them is pregnant and will soon deliver. 

A few days earlier, police arrested Mohammad Subchi Azal Tsani for allegedly raping girls at a school founded and run by his father, a respected Muslim cleric in East Java. It took days for the police to nab him, as his supporters had declared war against the police.

Almost at the same time, authorities in East Java detained Julianto Eka Putra for allegedly harassing and raping at least 15 girls at a school he founded to help…

View Cache

News: ‘Vos estis lux mundi’

The Vatican has issued a formal reprimand to the former bishop of the Diocese of Yakima, Washington, according to media reports confirmed to The Pillar by diocesan officials. 

Bishop Carlos Sevilla, SJ, was formally reprimanded by the Vatican over his handling of allegations of clerical sexual abuse in the eastern Washington diocese. Sevilla led the Yakima diocese from 1996 until his retirement in 2011, when he was succeeded by Bishop Joseph Tyson. 

The rebuke was first reported Sunday by the Yakima Herald-Republic. According to the newspaper, an investigation was conducted last year into Sevilla’s handling of cases of clerical abuse and misconduct, and into allegations that diocesan employees were subject to retaliation for raising concerns about the handling of allegations. 

The investigation into Sevilla was carried out by Archbishop Paul Etienne, who became Archbishop of Seattle, the provincial metropolitan see, in September 2019.

The Herald-Republic reported that…

View Cache

Actor Gabriel Byrne has said he has “not completely healed “ from growing up in Dublin despite leaving Ireland as a young man.

The Hollywood star, 72, added that he is still coming to terms with sexual abuse, a repressive Ireland and a tough working-class background.

The father-of-three said: “They [the Church] dealt in fear and humiliation. Some of that goes deep inside you and takes a long time to get rid of – the fear of the world, the uncertainty of life and your place with it.”

Read more: Gabriel Byrne’s hands to be immortalised outside Gaiety Theatre among the greats

Born in 1950 in Walkinstown, Co Dublin, the performer is best known for his role in The Usual Suspects. In 2010, he revealed had been sexually abused by a Catholic priest as a child, and then by another cleric in the seminary he attended in…

View Cache

A Florida pastor has been arrested for exposing himself and masturbating outside a Starbucks, authorities said.

Enginio Dali Muniz-Colon, 39, was taken into custody Monday and charged with exposure of sexual organs.

The Osceola County Sheriff’s Office said Muniz-Colon is a pastor in Kissimmee and teaches online ministry classes.

Authorities had been investigating ever since they received a report of a man masturbating on a patio outside the Starbucks on May 9.

Deputies said they eventually identified Muniz-Colon as the suspect and determined he’d previously been charged over a similar incident at the same Starbucks.

Authorities didn’t provide any further details about the pastor’s prior arrest.

Muniz-Colon was booked into the Osceola County Jail on a $1,000 bond.

View Cache

With Pope Francis’s visit to Canada just days away, the country’s bishops have announced that a special fund to support healing and reconciliation efforts with Indigenous communities has begun accepting proposals.

The Indigenous Reconciliation Fund was established in 2022 to support and advance healing and reconciliation initiatives with Indigenous communities following a pledge to do so by the Canadian bishops last year.

In September 2021, the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops (CCCB) announced a $30 million financial pledge over the next five years to support projects aimed at healing and reconciliation given the Catholic Church’s historic role in the abuse of Indigenous children at residential schools.

A government-launched and funded initiative, the residential school system in Canada for over a century attempted to assimilate Indigenous communities to Canadian society by forcibly removing children from their families and sending them to schools where they were often punished for speaking their native…

View Cache

Seven days before he’s set to depart for what he called a “penitential” pilgrimage to Canada, Pope Francis set the tone for the journey during his Sunday Angelus. He said he will apologize, again, to Indigenous groups for abuses inflicted by the Catholic Church.

Assuming Francis does go, it will mark his first outing since troubles with his right knee forced him to cancel a series of commitments, including a trip to South Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo earlier this month.

The pope began his remarks by acknowledging that he would depart Rome July 24, “God willing.”

“Dear brothers and sisters of Canada, as you know I will come among you, above all, in the name of Jesus to meet and embrace the Indigenous populations,” Francis said.

“Unfortunately, in Canada, many Christians, including some members of religious institutions, contributed to policies of cultural assimilation that, in the past,…

View Cache

Cardinal George Pell and the Archdiocese of Melbourne are sued by the father of a choirboy he was accused of molesting

Australian Cardinal George Pell and the Archdiocese of Melbourne are being sued by the father of a choirboy that the former Vatican official was accused of molesting, resulting in his imprisonment in 2018.

The conviction of the former Vatican official was reversed on appeal to Australia’s High Court, which found the trial jury had failed to give proper weight to witness testimony.

Cardinal Pell, the former prefect of the Vatican’s Secretariat of the Economy, was found guilty in 2018 by an Australian jury in late 2018 of molesting two choirboys in 1996 while archbishop of Melbourne. Cardinal Pell had maintained his innocence.

The cardinal’s appeal of the verdict argued that there was not enough evidence to convict him. He was released after 405 days in prison.

One of the…

View Cache

“Houston, we have a problem.” Tom Hanks’ memorable line in the movie “Apollo 13,” about the ill-fated space mission that almost ended in disaster, seems like an appropriate starting point to consider the ecclesiastical situation in the great state of Texas.

Last week, my colleague Brian Fraga reported on Fort Worth Bishop Michael Olson’s decision to sack the head of Catholic Charities in his diocese. [Full disclosure: I was in seminary with Olson many years ago.] Fraga reported:

Olson turned down NCR’s request for an interview through a diocesan spokesman, who provided a copy of a letter that the bishop sent to Plumlee. Dated April 4, Olson’s letter accused Plumlee of “obstinate defiance” and refusing to recognize the bishop’s responsibility to “teach the faith and to maintain the Catholic integrity” of the agency’s mission.

Elsewhere in the letter, Olson writes: “I also inquired if you understood that what…

View Cache

Following a diocesan investigation into allegations that for years he coerced vulnerable women into sex, the head of a parish soup kitchen in the Diocese of Worcester in Massachusetts has resigned amid complaints from at least one accuser that the diocese itself needs to take greater responsibility.

The investigation into allegations against William “Billy” Riley, former head of the St. John’s Catholic Church food program, began in mid-March. The final report was published on July 14, one day after Riley resigned from his post.

In a statement accompanying the publication of the report, the diocese doesn’t comment on Riley other than to say he resigned, and because the 72-page report is heavily redacted it’s unclear what the findings were. There are three separate complaints against Riley in the report that are almost completely redacted.

“You are allowing a perpetrator to resign and redacting all findings … taking no ownership or…

View Cache

The Vatican has centralized and overhauled its investment strategy after a botched deal lost tens of millions of euros, imposing a policy that prohibits investments in products such as pornography and weapons and prioritizes prudent investing in industries that promote the common good.

The new policy announced Tuesday by the Secretariat for the Economy bans speculative investments, short selling and investing in highly leveraged or complex financial products or in countries vulnerable to money laundering and terrorist financing.

Vatican offices have one year to come up with a divestment strategy if any of their investments fall under prohibited categories.

The policy follows a decade of efforts, first by Pope Benedict XVI and then Pope Francis, to try to clean up the Vatican’s murky finances and its reputation as an off-shore tax haven with little or no expertise, oversight or accountability guiding investment decisions.

The Vatican’s less-than-professional financial practices attracted a…

View Cache

[Via Catholic World Report]

Father James Jackson, A Rhode Island priest who was arrested on federal and state child pornography charges in October last year, has been arrested in Kansas for allegedly violating the conditions of his release.

A court document from U.S District Court for Kansas in Kansas City shows that Jackson was arrested on Friday, July 15. Danielle Thomas, a spokeswoman for the U.S. attorney’s office in Kansas said that he was arrested in Kansas for allegedly violating the terms of his release. He is being transported to the U.S. District Court of Rhode Island to face charges there, she said.

Thomas added that he is not being charged in Kansas. She declined further comment.

Jackson, a member of the Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter, was the former pastor of St. Mary’s Church in Providence. He was arrested on Oct. 30 by the Rhode Island State Police after…

View Cache

Participants in Germany’s controversial “synodal way” will gather in Frankfurt in early September for the initiative’s next plenary session.

The meeting follows one in February that saw votes in favor of draft texts endorsing women priests, married priests, same-sex blessings, and the revision of the Catechism of the Catholic Church on sexuality.

The “synodal way” is a consultative process — its decisions do not make policy change in Germany, but, given the participation of bishops in the process, they are seen as setting a path forward for the Church in Germany.

At the fourth synodal assembly – as the event in September is known – some texts will be presented for a first reading, and then further revision, and others for a second reading and adoption as resolutions of the synodal way. 

But what do the welter of texts being considered by synodal way members actually say? Take a look.

The…

View Cache

Former monsignor Craig Harrison settled a lawsuit against the Roman Catholic Bishop of Fresno and its former spokeswoman after accusing them of defamation. The case was dismissed Monday, according to the docket for the California 5th District Court of Appeal.

A Fresno County judge had first dismissed the lawsuit against the diocese and former spokeswoman Teresa Dominguez in May 2021 after Harrison claimed Dominguez’s comments during a May 2019 interview with KQED in which she talked about Harrison’s alleged victim of abuse were defamatory. Harrison then appealed the ruling, and the docket shows a notice of a settlement filed last month.

Harrison’s attorney filed a dismissal, and that request was granted Monday. The docket notes the case is “complete.”

Attorneys for both Harrison and the defendants did not return a request for comment Monday.

Harrison has denied any wrongdoing.

The diocese had argued Dominguez’s speech was protected by the First…

View Cache

“The reality of warfare, hostility towards refugees and environmental recklessness are among the destructive forces at work in our world.”

Concerns about how power is exercised in the Catholic Church as well as “the devastating impact of clerical sexual abuse on survivors and within the wider Church” have been acknowledged by the Catholic bishops of England and Wales.

In a reflection on the national synthesis document which collates the submissions of parishes and dioceses, the bishops say: “The voices of those who feel marginalised or unwelcome because of their marital situation, sexual orientation or gender identity have been raised and heard sincerely. Equally, others who feel excluded from the life of the Church, or identify as being on the peripheries, have not been forgotten in our synodal process of encounter.”

The document, titled “Seeking Our Hearts’ Desire”, will with the synthesis go to the European continental synodal gathering planned next March and…

View Cache

All remaining churches, halls and rectories on southern Avalon, Burin Peninsula to be sold

The Supreme Court of Newfoundland and Labrador has approved the sale of 43 properties belonging to the Roman Catholic Episcopal Corporation of St. John’s, including 13 churches, as dozens more church property sales loom across eastern Newfoundland.

The move will reshape the landscape for Catholics in the St. John’s area and beyond as the church — which has been held liable for sexual and physical abuse at the Mount Cashel orphanage — raises money to settle victim claims from the 1940s, ’50s and ’60s. 

Information about the sales came Monday as Ernst & Young, the court-appointed monitor, presented a report to the court about the sale-by-tender process which saw bids for the properties submitted in early June.

An order from the court in bankruptcy and insolvency proceedings posted on Ernst & Young’s website sheds light on…

View Cache

The Marist Brothers and Fathers have educated prime ministers, judges, cardinals and All Blacks at their prestigious Catholic high schools. But their record of sexual abuse is horrific. Worse still was their handling of the abuse when it was exposed. In this series, The Secret History, Steve Kilgallon investigates the power, abuse and cover-ups at the heart of two highly-influential and wealthy religious groups.

This is Part 7. The remaining chapters will be published in the coming weeks.

Warning: This story may be upsetting to some.

When Bertrand Hodgkins first arrived in Fiji in March 1934 aboard the SS Monterey, he was a 21-year-old so callow he turned up without a passport and had to rely on a fellow Marist Brother to negotiate his safe landing.

While he spent 1945 to 1960 back in New Zealand, he re-established himself on his return to Fiji. He loved diving, fishing, surfing, and eschewed…

View Cache

[Via Lethbridge News]

When 48 Catholic church entities signed on to fundraise $25 million for survivors under the Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement, it was spelled out they would do so through their “best efforts.”

Ken Young puts it another way. 

“It was a weasel clause,” the former Manitoba regional chief of the Assembly of First Nations said in a recent interview. 

“And they used it.”

In total, that fundraising campaign raised less than $4 million. It made up one piece of the compensation package Catholic entities agreed to pay under the settlement struck in 2006 with Ottawa, former students and Indigenous leaders.

Nine years later, a Saskatchewan judge ruled that the church bodies — who had sought to relieve themselves of their remaining obligations — could indeed walk away. 

“They said, ‘We used our best efforts and we failed,’” recalled Young, who is himself a survivor of residential schools.

…

View Cache

Last week the Vatican backed the decision made in fall 2021 by Bishop Felix Genn of Münster to dissolve a lay association in his diocese, whose foundations are tied to the Marian apparitions in Medjugorje, and which was charged with alleged spiritual abuse.

Recognized in 2004 by the Diocese of Münster as a private association of believers under diocesan law, the “Totus Tuus New Evangelization” group has roots going back to the 1980s and was founded by a German couple named Leon and Birgit Dolenec after the two said they experienced conversions in Medjugorje.

After visiting Medjugorje in the late 1980s, the Dolenecs formed prayer groups in Germany, and since 1994, they have organized several pilgrimages to Medjugorje each year with the aim of engaging young people in evangelization, and specifically, carrying forward the messages of Our Lady of Medjugorje.

The Marian apparitions in Medjugorje, which have not been approved…

View Cache

The Diocese of Youngstown today announces the findings of an independent investigation concerning a November 2021 allegation against Father Marian Babjak.

In November 2021, the Diocese of Youngstown received an allegation against Father Marian Babjak of inappropriate physical contact with a minor who is now an adult. Father Babjak has served as pastor of Christ Our Savior Parish in Struthers since August 2020 and previously served as Associate Pastor at St. Paul in North Canton and St. Charles Borromeo in Boardman, as well as pastoral assignments before 2016 in Slovakia. He was ordained in 1995.

In accordance with the Diocese’s Safe Environment Policy for the Protection of Children and Vulnerable Adults and the policies of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, Father Babjak was immediately placed on Administrative Leave by the Most Rev. David J. Bonnar, Bishop of Youngstown to allow for a thorough and independent investigation, without presuming…

View Cache

A Youngstown Catholic Diocese oversight board determined though a Struthers priest had “inappropriate physical contact” with a minor, it “did not rise to the level of sexual abuse.”

The diocese announced Sunday in a news release that board’s decision, following an independent third-party investigation into Father Marian Babjak, most recently of Christ Our Savior Parish in Struthers, who was accused in November 2021 of sexually abusing a child.

That victim is now an adult, according to the diocese.

Babjak was placed on leave, according to the news release “to allow for a thorough and independent investigation, without presuming guilt or innocence,” the release states.

The diocese’s investigators interviewed all the subjects in the case, notified local authorities and also worked with Babjak’s accuser to review that person’s legal options, according to the release.

The Diocesan Review Board — comprised of medical and legal professionals trained for child sex abuse cases,…

View Cache

Nearly 20 years of investigations, allegations and acrimony between lay employees, priests and Catholic Church officials — from Yakima all the way to the Vatican — began with a simple problem: A pastor’s computer wouldn’t connect to the printer.

The events started by a request for computer help in September 2003 would ultimately have a huge impact on the life of Yakima’s Frank Murray — and many others in the Yakima Diocese. And the computer checkup almost didn’t happen.

“The day I found the pictures on (Father Darell Mitchell’s) computer, I was set to go to Seattle — but my car broke down,” Murray said during a June 10 interview with the Yakima Herald-Republic. “Instead, that morning I went in to talk to Father Darell and he asked me to go to his home and check his computer, because he hadn’t been able to print anything.

“The cable from the…

View Cache

Let priests wed

The Pope is not in the habit of taking advice from newspapers. After all, the Roman Catholic Church takes instruction from the creator of the universe. Nonetheless, Pope Francis has opened up a process whereby all 1.4bn Catholics can have a say about the future of the faith. If they want to reduce the scourge of sexual abuse by priests, they should demand an end to the rule requiring priestly celibacy.

Were this just a theological question, The Economist would take no view. But it is not. In parish after parish, school after school, diocese after diocese, Catholic priests have abused children. America, Australia, France, Germany and Ireland, among others, have undertaken reckonings. The number of victims in France alone was estimated at 216,000 in the 70 years to 2020. Now countries such as Poland, Portugal and Spain are investigating, too. Catholic sex abuse involves not only bad apples, but…

View Cache

Talk of schism is in the air

It is just one of thousands of similar stories. Juan Cuatrecasas’s son attended a school in Bilbao run by Opus Dei, a Catholic institution. Around age 12, he became afraid of going, locking himself in bathrooms and suffering panic attacks. He told his parents that his religion teacher had brought him to his office, had him take off his shirt, sat him on his lap and showed him pictures of scantily clad women before touching him through his clothes. Later, he was violated with a pen.

Mr Cuatrecasas went first to the school, not the police. The priest claimed he had made the boy undress because it was hot and showed him pictures to explain women’s sexual development. The school denied the worst. The boy was interrogated and his account made to look fabricated. A Spanish court eventually convicted the teacher, sentencing him…

View Cache

An investigation of a former Yakima Catholic Diocese bishop’s handling of clergy sex abuse cases and the treatment of two employees who reported them has produced a rare reprimand from the Vatican.

Under a 2019 Pope Francis directive meant to protect reporters of abuse, retired Yakima Bishop Carlos Sevilla was reprimanded for causing “scandal or a grave disturbance of order,” according to several sources. The decision was announced privately in May to one of the now-former employees.

“I’ve followed and been involved in this issue for over 30 years. I believe this is a virtually unprecedented case,” David Clohessy, a longtime advocate for Catholic Church reform and the former director of Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, wrote in an email to the Yakima Herald-Republic.

“All too rarely, Vatican officials have taken action against corrupt bishops. But almost never have they done so on behalf of…

View Cache

The papal trip to Canada next week will be a “penitential pilgrimage” to bring healing and reconciliation, Pope Francis said Sunday.

The pope is scheduled to travel to the Canadian cities of Edmonton, Quebec City, and Iqaluit from July 24-29. There he will meet members of Canadian indigenous groups, residential school abuse survivors, and Catholics.

“Next Sunday, God willing, I will leave for Canada; therefore, I wish now to address all the people of that country,” Francis said after the Angelus on July 17.

“As you know,” he said, “I will come among you especially in the name of Jesus to meet and embrace the indigenous peoples.”

He thanked all those who are preparing the trip and asked for prayers.

“I am about to make a penitential pilgrimage,” he said, “which I hope, with God’s grace, will contribute to the journey of healing and reconciliation already undertaken.”

The pope recalled his  View Cache

This year’s audit, once again, shows that new cases of sexual misconduct by priests involving minors are rare today

The U.S. bishops’ annual report on compliance with the “Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People” shows that 2,930 victim survivors came forward with 3,103 allegations during the audit year of July 1, 2020 to June 30, 2021.

The number of allegations is 1,149 less than that reported in 2020, according to the audit report released July 12 by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Secretariat of Child and Youth Protection.

“This decrease is due in large part to the resolution of allegations received as a result of lawsuits, compensation programs, and bankruptcies,” said a news release accompanying the report. “Of the allegations received, 2,284 (74%) were first brought to the attention of the diocesan/eparchial representative by an attorney.”

The majority of allegations received were “historical in nature,” meaning…

View Cache

When Pope Francis travels to Canada to apologize to Indigenous communities for the way the Catholic Church joined efforts to uproot them from their traditional culture and spirituality, their traditions will be on full display.

The First Nation, Métis and Inuit people will welcome Pope Francis to their lands July 24-29 wearing their traditional dress, speaking their languages, performing their songs and dances and sharing elements of their traditional styles of prayer.

Father Cristino Bouvette, a priest of the Archdiocese of Calgary, Alberta, has been working with the pope’s master of liturgical ceremonies, Msgr. Diego Giovanni Ravelli, to plan the Masses and prayer services for the trip. Bouvette is Italian on his mother’s side and Cree and Métis on his father’s side.

“For Indigenous Catholics to see the Holy Father welcomed to some place like Sacred Heart Church by having smudged the space first, or facing the four directions to…

View Cache

The publication of the Sauvé Report on sexual violence in the Catholic Church of France between 1950 and 2020, in October 2021, caused a shockwave whose effects are still being felt on a national scale. 

The staggering figure of 330,000 cases of abuse of minors, announced alongside the publication of the 2,500-page document, left the entire local Catholic flock in a state of shock and allowed little room for critical and dispassionate analysis at the time.

At the end of November, however, eight members of the prestigious French Catholic Academy sent Pope Francis a 15-page study in which they questioned the scientific rigor of the investigation led by the Independent Commission on Sexual Abuse in the Church (CIASE), the organization in charge of writing the report. This initiative by the academics to challenge what appeared to be a broad consensus around the report’s findings in the Catholic world prompted a wave of indignant…

View Cache

Just 10% of U.S. dioceses received scores above 60% in Voice of the Faithful’s recently published 2022 report of lay involvement in Catholic Church governance. This is the first online review of diocesan finance councils’ composition and compliance with Canon Law as represented on diocesan websites.

“With diocesan finance councils that adhere to the letter and spirit of Canon Law, Catholics can be more confident that diocesan finance councils exercise proper stewardship and oversight of the secular goods of the Church,” said Joseph Finn, C.P.A., former VOTF treasurer and trustee and longtime advocate for lay role in Church governance.

However, “In our opinion,” the report’s authors concluded, “evidence of compliance with Canon Law by the diocesan finance councils is disappointingly low. The fact that only 18 dioceses achieved a passing grade obviously means there is room for improvement.” To underscore the hope for improvement, the report notes that, during VOTF’s…

View Cache

The Scottish Child Abuse Inquiry report found some abusers ‘handed the moral responsibility back to God’.

God was “weaponised” by priests to help silence their victims and justify their abuse, an inquiry report has found.

A report into the psychology of people who abuse children was released by the Scottish Child Abuse Inquiry on Wednesday, with its roundtable experts finding abusers from religious settings “had the capacity for self-delusion, engaging in thinking that was illogical” and that some “handed the moral responsibility for the abuse back to God”.

The 33-page report said it may have been easier for those from religious settings to abuse because of them being able to take advantage of the habitual deference offered to them.

Abusers could rely on being in high regard, using that as a way to silence children, and may have even allowed the abuser to think he had the permission to abuse…

View Cache

Religious orders must never tolerate the abuse of children or vulnerable persons, and they must end the practice of moving alleged abusers to other countries, Pope Francis said.

Departing from his prepared remarks during a July 14 meeting with members of three religious congregations — the Order of the Mother of God, the Basilians of St. Josaphat and the Congregation of the Mission — the pope called on them to “not hide this reality.”

“Please remember this well: Zero tolerance on abuse against children or disabled persons; zero tolerance,” he said. “We are religious men, we are priests who bring people to Jesus, not ‘eat’ people with our concupiscence. And the abuser destroys, he ‘eats’ — so to speak — the abused with his concupiscence.”

The pope also called on priests and brothers to “not be ashamed to denounce” one of their confreres if an abuse is known because they…

View Cache

Proposal would stop ongoing pre-trial discovery; diocese would not be compelled to continue producing information about its knowledge and handling of alleged crimes

A mediation plan proposed by the Roman Catholic Diocese of Albany to settle hundreds of sexual abuse claims would shut down the litigation that is continuing to reveal details of decades of child exploitation, and leave the victims without a voice or any significant control over the process, according to attorneys who represent dozens of plaintiffs in the cases.

The diocese released the details of its proposed “Path Forward Plan” on Thursday evening. The proposal included an open apology “to the victims/survivors and their families for the inexcusable harm that was done to them by those in positions of trust.”

The diocese, which has indicated it would file for bankruptcy if the cases go to trial, said the proposal was the result of a roughly year-long effort to…

View Cache

Victims’ lawyers say Catholic Church is hiding documents, list of abusers

Victims of sexual abuse by the Roman Catholic clergy in Quebec are calling on Pope Francis to apologize for the harm and trauma they endured, when he visits Quebec City later this month.

The Pope will be in the province from July 27 to 29 as part of a week-long trip to Canada to advance reconciliation and healing between the Catholic Church and Indigenous communities who suffered from years of abuse at residential schools.

While it is very important not to overshadow the primary reason for the Pope’s visit, it is also important that the pontiff be made aware of other crimes committed by Quebec clergy, said Marc Bellemare, one of the lawyers representing the victims, during a news conference Thursday.

“Let’s be clear, we are 150 per cent in solidarity with the victims of residential schools,” said Bellemare.

…

View Cache

[Via National Observer]

Quebec victims of sexual abuse by Roman Catholic clergy are calling on Pope Francis to deliver “swift justice” to them ahead of his visit to Canada at the end of the month.

In an open letter to the pontiff made public Thursday, lawyers for victims said more than 2,500 people who were abused by clergy are waiting to obtain justice before the courts in Quebec.

“Some religious congregations use manoeuvres that we believe are contrary to the interests of victims,” said the letter signed by victims and their lawyers. “These strategies have resulted in delays of more than 10 years in some cases.”

Pope Francis is scheduled to visit Canada July 24-29, travelling to Alberta, Quebec and Nunavut. A major theme of his visit is reconciliation with Indigenous Peoples for the abuse suffered in residential schools — many of which were run by Catholic clergy.

But non-Indigenous victims…

View Cache

In a deeply Catholic country, accusations that an American priest abused dozens of children at an orphanage stunned many in East Timor.

So when independent journalist Raimundos Oki heard that a group of girls planned to sue authorities, claiming they had been subjected to unnecessary virginity tests as part of the criminal case, he knew he had to hear their story.

Oki published interviews with the girls on his news website, Oekusi Post, ahead of the trial of Richard Daschbach. The then-84-year-old American priest was jailed in December for 12 years for child abuse.

But now Oki is under investigation himself, on accusations that he breached judicial secrecy.

The case is unexpected in East Timor. Also known as Timor-Leste, the country has one of the better records globally for press freedom.

Groups including Reporters Without Borders (RSF) and Human Rights Watch, however, note that the risk of legal proceedings and…

View Cache

In a meeting with three male religious congregations on Thursday, Pope Francis emphasized the importance of taking a “zero tolerance” approach to abuse.

“One of the problems, we know, that often exists, is the problem of abuse. Please, remember this well: zero tolerance on abuse of minors or disabled people, zero tolerance,” he said in the Vatican’s Apostolic Palace July 14.

“Please do not hide this reality,” Francis urged. “We are religious, we are priests to bring people to Jesus, not to ‘consume’ people with our concupiscence.”

He said: “And the abuser destroys, ‘consumes’ so to speak, the abused with his concupiscence. Zero tolerance. Do not be ashamed to denounce, ‘This one did this, that one did that…’”

“I accompany you, you are a sinner, you are a sick person, but I have to protect others,” the pope said, acting out a conversation with an abuser. “Please I ask you…

View Cache

[Via Global News]

A Quebec Superior Court judge has rejected a $28-million settlement in a sex abuse lawsuit against a Catholic religious order because of the high legal fees associated with the agreement.

The agreement would have awarded the Montreal law firm Arsenault, Dufresne and Wee, which represented the plaintiffs, more than $8 million in fees.

Justice Thomas M. Davis wrote in a July 4 decision that those fees were “excessive” and not in the interest of the more than 375 sexual abuse victims who were part of the class action.

Davis says the firm did “remarkable work” and that he expects a new agreement with reasonable fees can be reached and resubmitted to the court.

The suit against the Quebec-based Catholic religious order the Clerics of St-Viateur, involved acts committed between 1935 and the present at more than 20 establishments run by the group, including boarding schools.

In July…

View Cache

Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo — The 14-year-old girl returned on the back of a motorbike to the convent where she lived and studied. Sobbing and in pain, she pulled aside a nun.

The girl said she’d just been raped by the priest who dropped her off.

The nun, Henriette Okitanunga, tried to comfort the girl. She said she then followed the new rule laid out by Pope Francis for handling such a report: She alerted her superior to a possible crime.

“Your Excellency,” the nun recalled texting to Nicolas Djomo, the local bishop.

After clerical abuse scandals that have rocked much of the Catholic world — generally in nations with the resources to pressure and expose the church — attention is turning to regions where the scale of abuse remains both a mystery and a cause for trepidation. The Vatican’s hope is that bishops in the developing world, trained…

View Cache

[Includes brief video interviews with Dr Murray Heasley, of the Survivors of Abuse in Faith-based Institutions, and Moeapulu Frances Tagaloa, a survivor of abuse by Marist serial offender Francis Fitton (“Brother Bede”).]

The Marist Brothers and Fathers have educated prime ministers, judges, cardinals and All Blacks at their prestigious Catholic high schools. But their record of sexual abuse is horrific. Worse still was their handling of the abuse when it was exposed. In this series, The Secret History, Steve Kilgallon investigates the power, abuse and cover-ups at the heart of two highly-influential and wealthy religious groups.

This is Part 5. More chapters will be published in the coming weeks.

Warning: This story may be upsetting to some.

May 3, 2019. The Royal Commission into Abuse in Care has been announced – and part of its investigation will be the Catholic Church. In a public show that they have changed, and…

View Cache

The Catholic church in Scotland put protecting its reputation above the safety of abused children as it covered up for paedophiles, its former safeguarding adviser has claimed.

Martin Henry advised the Archdiocese of St Andrews and Edinburgh on child protection for 22 years and was a member of the Scottish Catholic bishops’ working party on child sexual abuse.

His testimony was cited after the Scottish child abuse inquiry found that sexual predators found it easier to target children in religious settings because of a culture of “habitual deference”.

“God was ‘weaponised’ in the sense that there was a habit of taking advantage of the subservience by others to the power of the religious; they could rely on routinely being held in high regard and that could operate as a mechanism to silence children,” an inquiry report on the psychology on child abusers, published today, said.

“That may have enabled the abuser…

View Cache

The Albany diocese has warned it would likely file for bankruptcy if the cases begin going to trial

A Massachusetts attorney who oversaw the settlement of 552 cases of sexual abuse against the Archdiocese of Boston and a New York City attorney with extensive experience managing sexual misconduct funds have been selected to mediate hundreds of claims filed against the Roman Catholic Diocese of Albany under the Child Victims Act.

Paul A. Finn, who received a “lawyer of the year” award in 2003 for his work resolving the claims filed against the Boston archdiocese, and Simone Lelchuk, who specializes in mediation and allocation of settlement funds, were selected during negotiations this week between the Albany diocese and attorneys for roughly 440 victims who have filed claims.

The mediation timetable is expected to move swiftly as the Albany diocese has warned that it would likely file for bankruptcy if the cases…

View Cache

The father of a deceased former choirboy filed a lawsuit against Cardinal George Pell and the Catholic Church in an Australian court on Thursday claiming the parent suffered psychological injury over an accusation that the once-senior Vatican official sexually abused the son.

Neither the father nor the son can be named under Australian laws that conceal the identities of victims of sexual abuse.

The father said in 2019 he was considering legal action seeking damages when Pell, Pope Francis’ former finance minister, was sentenced to six years in prison on jury convictions for abusing the son and another choirboy in a Melbourne cathedral in the 1990s. Both boys were 13 years old at the time.

Pell, now 81, had his convictions overturned by the High Court in 2020 after he had spent 13 months in prison. He has since been based in Sydney and holds no Vatican position.

The father’s…

View Cache

More than a thousand children in Telford, England were sexually exploited since 1989 because of the police and local government’s failure to investigate the offenders, an independent inquiry concluded on Tuesday.

The inquiry was launched after a 2018 Sunday Mirror investigation found sexual exploitation reports dating back to the 1980s. The inquiry has since confirmed these reports and found that the abuse was allowed to continue because the children were blamed, not the perpetrators.

Teachers and youth workers were discouraged from reporting child sexual abuse and police were nervous that investigating some of the Asian men who carried out the abuse would inflame racial tensions, the report found.

“Countless children were sexually assaulted and raped. They were deliberately humiliated and degraded. They were shared and trafficked,” said Tom Crowther, the inquiry chairman.

“Victims and survivors repeatedly told the inquiry how, when they were children, adult men worked to gain their…

View Cache

Religious Affairs Minister Should Revoke Ban, Investigate Allegations

One would hope that an educational institution that learned of sexual assaults on campus would focus on holding perpetrators accountable and preventing further incidents rather than targeting the messenger. Not so the State Islamic Institute in Ambon (Institut Agama Islam Negeri Ambon, IAIN Ambon) in Indonesia’s Maluku province, which instead of recognizing and valuing a student magazine’s groundbreaking and thorough investigation, ordered its shutdown.

On March 14, when Lintas magazine reported on dozens of incidents of sexual violence on campus taking place between 2015 and 2021, the story unsurprisingly created an uproar. Lintas had spent 5 years investigating the story, interviewing 32 sexual violence survivors (27 female and 5 male students) as well as campus officials, including Zainal Abidin Rahawarin, the IAIN Ambon rector. The magazine identified 14 alleged perpetrators. Some of the victims, who were not named, detailed sexual assaults that took place…

View Cache

Mounting public pressure finally leads to arrest of Islamic cleric’s son in a child molestation case

Indonesian police have arrested the son of a well-known Islamic cleric, more than two years after he was named in a child molestation case.

Police in Jombang from East Java province stormed the Shiddiqiyyah Islamic Boarding School to arrest 42-year-old Moch Subchi Azal Tsani and 35 of his supporters on July 7.

The school founded by the suspect’s father, Mursyid Thoriqoh Shiddiqiyyah, was surrounded by other supporters, many of whom stood reciting prayers at the gates to block the police.

Police called on them to let them inside but the supporters refused, sparking a scuffle in which one police officer reportedly sustained a minor wound to his arm.

The suspect had refused to be questioned and had eluded the police since he was accused of molesting a female student in November 2019. Local residents and…

View Cache

Here’s a life lesson we’ll bet your momma didn’t teach you but which you should heed nonetheless: Be wary of large institutions with a lot of money at stake when they propose a plan to settle their legal issues.

That’s the advice we’d give to those who’ll be deciding whether to accept the Albany Catholic Diocese’s proposal to settle more than 400 sexual abuse cases brought against clergy under the state’s Child Victims Act.
If the institution that will likely be on the hook for hundreds of millions of dollars in financial awards to sex abuse victims is proposing a mass settlement, you can bet the deal is about protecting the interests of the institution, not the victims.

The plan would, among other stipulations, force victims to agree to have cases settled by an arbitrator and funded by a trust fund set up by the diocese and its insurance companies.

The…

View Cache

Attorneys for hundreds of alleged victims agreed Monday to move forward with a negotiated mediation plan

Attorneys for hundreds of victims who were allegedly sexually abused by clergy and others associated with the Roman Catholic Diocese of Albany agreed Monday to move forward with a negotiated mediation plan that will also keep hundreds of Child Victims Act lawsuits moving forward — including some that are scheduled for trial in the coming months.

During a conference Monday with state Supreme Court Justice L. Michael Mackey, attorneys for the more than 400 plaintiffs rejected a request by the diocese’s attorney, Michael L. Costello, to “pause” the litigation in order to set up a mediation program. The attorneys noted that doing so would stop the pre-trial discovery process, delay scheduled trials and make it less likely that the diocese’s insurance carriers would be motivated to aggressively resolve the cases.

Cynthia S. Lafave, an Albany…

View Cache

The Roman Catholic Diocese of Albany on Thursday fleshed out its proposal for a mediated settlement process for clergy sex abuse survivors.

Aspects of the proposal are unclear, and an attorney for 25 of the roughly 440 people suing the diocese said it raised more questions than it answered. But the diocese emphasized it is just a draft.

The diocese first publicly floated the concept June 29. It said mediated compensation could result in faster, more equitable settlements than if it had to litigate each claim in court or if it filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.

The most recent communication contained multiple references to a potential bankruptcy filing, a step four other New York dioceses already have taken.

The plan was developed by consultants including a retired judge who spent a quarter century on the federal bankruptcy bench. It creates a trust funded by available diocesan assets, proceeds from…

View Cache

Total available for settlements ranges from $37M to $101M

Amid objections, Guam’s Catholic Church and its bankruptcy creditors made changes to their joint plan to compensate more than 270 survivors of clergy sexual assaults, including a clarification that up to $64.3 million of the proposed payout is “not guaranteed.”

Without such a clarification, clergy abuse survivors may go on thinking that their total payouts could be $37 million to $107 million, according to those who filed objections to the original joint plan.

The contemplated payout has been reduced to about $37 million to $101 million under a newly amended joint plan that the Archdiocese of Agana and its Official Committee of Unsecured Creditors filed in bankruptcy court.

The amended joint plan notes “the risks and other factors that would reduce or eliminate” the ability to collect from certain entities, such as the Boy Scouts of America and archdiocese insurer Continental…

View Cache

In continuing the coverage on the harmful legacy of Catholic schools on South Dakota Indian reservations, a closer look at more recent (in the new millennium) cases brought against two of the educational institutions, St. Francis and Holy Rosary (Red Cloud Indian School) Mission both currently operating on the Rosebud and Pine Ridge Indian Reservations, makes imperative a thorough reevaluation of the role of parochial schools on Native American land.

A more recent ruling on June 25, 2008, the Supreme Court of South Dakota ruled in the case One Star v. St. Francis Mission (2008 SD 55, 752 N.W.2d 668), where Lloyd One Star and Marian Sorace brought suit against the Catholic Church.  One entity, Sisters of St. Francis established in 1939 and located in Denver, Colorado was involved.

In 1886, the sisters (nuns) helped establish St. Francis Mission on the Rosebud Reservation and in 1888, the same order helped…

View Cache

The predators engaged in human trafficking “never take a holiday, nor can we,” a U.S congressman who holds a top international anti-trafficking post told world leaders gathered July 2-6 in Birmingham, England.

Those “who exploit and abuse vulnerable women, children and men never cease in their nefarious work,” U.S. Rep. Chris Smith, R-N.J., said during the 29th annual session of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe.

“Our commitment to preventing human trafficking, protecting and helping survivors reclaim their lives, and prosecuting those who commit these horrific crimes must be strong, powerful and courageous,” he said.

The congressman urged the OSCE’s nearly 60 member nations to step up their efforts to implement and strengthen laws combating modern-day slavery.

Smith is the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly’s special representative on human trafficking. He was first appointed to the post in 2004.

In Washington, the Catholic lawmaker co-chairs the…

View Cache

A Catholic lawyer has called for stricter punishment for those guilty of child sexual abuse after Indonesian police arrested and charged yet another teacher with raping at least four girls at his home in the country’s Central Java province.

Azas Tigor Nainggolan, who deals with cases of sexual violence against children, said law enforcement officers must ensure strict punishment for the perpetrators of such heinous crimes.

“They must be brave enough to sentence the guilty to life in prison,” he told UCA News on July 13.

He further appealed that Catholics in the country must file police reports if they know of any cases of sexual violence against children.

“Never sweep it under the rug. Let us open our eyes and deal with it. By doing so, we show our stance in siding with the victims,” he added.

Magelang District Police chief Mochamad Sajarod Zakun said a 31-year-old Quran teacher,…

View Cache

Pope Francis’s decision to appoint two women to the Dicastery for Bishops was devoid of consultation – and from a pontiff who is constantly tooting the horn for “collegiality” and “synodality.”

When word surfaces that Pope Francis has given another interview, I think it’s not much of an exaggeration to say there is a world-wide ecclesial holding of breath. His latest, to Reuters on July 2, was no exception, being released in dribs and drabs. The most recent shoe to drop was his declaration that he intended to appoint two women to the Dicastery for Bishops – the body charged with the selection of bishops, among its other duties. The dicastery consists of a permanent staff and a group of bishops and cardinals from around the world who meet regularly to vote on potential candidates for the episcopate.

The normal process for episcopal nominations calls for names to be submitted to…

View Cache

Archbishop Peter Hundt breaks deadlock by selecting St. Peter’s as church of the future in Mount Pearl

Catholics in Mount Pearl are being asked to unite and show compassion for those losing their church after a decision has been made to abandon Mary Queen of the World on Topsail Road, and make a second attempt to purchase St. Peter’s on Ashford Drive.

“This is not a happy day for anyone,” Father Wayne Dohey told parishioners at St. Peter’s during mass on Saturday, which was streamed on YouTube.

“When you close a church there’s a lot of our friends that are hurting; there’s a lot of sadness,” he added.

Dohey is the parish priest for both churches, and revealed the decision by Peter Hundt, archbishop for the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of St. John’s, during services at both parishes over the weekend.

Hundt was asked to get involved after a steering committee with equal…

View Cache

[Via Crux]

Catholic journalists face a twofold lack of trust as reporters who cover the church, a Catholic theologian reminded them July 6 at the annual Catholic Media Conference in Portland.

He urged them to find a way forward that brings Catholics together and also reaches out to the public at large with nuanced, not simply reactive, reporting and by providing necessary context, or the bigger picture, to their readers and viewers.

Put another way: “Journalists and communicators have a role to play here, to let the eucharistic mystery of the church manifest itself for the life of the world,” said Timothy O’Malley, director of education at the McGrath Institute for Church Life at the University of Notre Dame.

“The church is experiencing a crisis related to communications,” he said during his keynote address, adding that it can’t be solved by a new technique such as a better way to…

View Cache

Glenys Yarran says she was 12 years old when she was taught how to clean maggots from a sheep’s head so it could be placed in a big black pot and made into soup for lunch.

Key points:

• Ballardong woman Glenys Yarran gave evidence in New Norcia as part of a stolen wages class action against the state government
• Ms Yarran described working 50-hour weeks as a teenager at the mission for no pay
• Her sister, Gloria Bennell, said she used to steal apples from the chickens for additional nourishment

The Whadjuk Ballardong elder is now a great-grandmother of six, but this week she cast her mind back to when she spent five years living under the supervision of nuns at a Catholic Mission in the West Australian town of New Norcia.

Ms Yarran gave evidence on Friday as part of a class action against the state government over an old policy…

View Cache

A former Northwoods priest convicted of sexually assaulting boys could be released on parole this summer, after serving about 4 years of a 30-year sentence. 

Thomas Ericksen will go before the Wisconsin Parole Commission in August, according to Department of Corrections, but a date has not yet been set. 

Ericksen, 75, was sentenced to 30 years in prison in 2019 on two charges of sexually assaulting boys while stationed at St. Peter’s Catholic Church in Winter in the 1980s. He is also registered as a sex offender for life.

He was given 20 years on one charge and 10 years on the other. He was credited with 314 days of time served in jail since his arrest, both in Minnesota before he was extradited and in Wisconsin. He is currently being held in the Jackson Correctional Institution in Black River Falls. 

The sentence was…

View Cache

Formal charges against a Warren County School District teacher alleged to have had inappropriate sexual contact with a student are shocking.

There have been occasional instances of similar issues over the past several years. Those instances don’t appear to be widespread, and we hope district administrators continue dealing with any other suspected issues of sexual abuse by school staff swiftly and firmly.

But in the wake of sex abuse scandals involving the Catholic Church and the Boy Scouts of America, one has to wonder just how widespread sex abuse in America’s schools really is. In 2018, roughly one in three educational administrators said that an employee had reported a case of sexual assault or harassment to them, according to an EdWeek Research Center survey. And, a 2020 data release of the last federal Civil Rights Data Collection showed a 55% increase in total incidents of sexual violence from 2015-16 to…

View Cache

The school’s decision follows the filing of a lawsuit that claimed Father Kevin Fitzpatrick molested and sexually abused a student in the 1970s

Servite High School is removing the name of Father Kevin Fitzpatrick from the school’s aquatic center after allegations were made that Fitzpatrick molested a Servite student in the 1970s, according to a letter obtained by the Orange County Register.

The decision follows the recent filing of a lawsuit in Orange County Superior Court against Servite, the Diocese of Orange, the Archdiocese of Los Angeles and the Order of Servants of Mary by the survivor that alleges Fitzpatrick molested and sexually assaulted him more than a dozen times a year.

The man decided to file suit after coming upon the Father Kevin Fitzpatrick Aquatic Center, a $5.7 million state of the art facility completed in 2017, during a visit to the Servite campus in the summer of 2021.

The…

View Cache

The Roman Catholic Diocese of Albany quietly reached a $750,000 settlement agreement last month with a 47-year-old upstate man who accused a former priest of sexually abusing him as a child.

Stephen Mittler’s case – involving allegations that serial sex abuser and former Albany priest Mark Haight, 73, abused him for over a decade – had been the first Child Victims’ Act lawsuit against the Albany Diocese scheduled for trial later this month, the Albany Times Union reported.

But the Saratoga man cut his losses and settled ahead of trial after Diocese lawyer Michael Costello told Mittler the church would likely be filing for bankruptcy, the outlet reported, citing Mittler’s lawyer Matthew Kelly.

“Whether that was hyperbole or truth, my client opted to settle to avoid waiting for the bankruptcy to resolve itself, which could take years,” Kelly told the outlet.

Haight, who was ordained in 1976, was…

View Cache

“It hit me harder than I’d expected”

Tim Stier figured it was only a matter of time. Since 2005 he’s refused parish assignments as an Oakland Diocese priest over its handling of clerical sex abuse claims and spent more than a decade outside its cathedral on Sundays calling for church accountability and justice for the victims.

He had no plans to end his self-imposed exile and resume work as a parish priest. But when the Vatican finally came for his collar a few months ago, removing him from the Roman Catholic priesthood, Stier said it still felt like a blow.

“It hit me harder than I’d expected,” said Stier, 73, whose removal was disclosed this week. “I felt sad and angry. If I’d been raping kids, I wouldn’t be thrown out of the club.”

The Diocese of Oakland said in a statement Friday only that “we wish Mr. Stier all…

View Cache

Catholic Charities Fort Worth in Texas said its women’s summit would have aimed to “uplift and amplify the voices and power of women.” Sheryl Adkins-Green, the chief marketing officer of Mary Kay, was slated to be the keynote speaker.

But a clash with the local Catholic bishop, who raised questions about the event’s compatibility with Catholic social teaching, doomed the Women’s Empow[her]ment Summit, which Catholic Charities Fort Worth had scheduled for April 28 in Hurst, Texas.

The agency ended up canceling the event. Beyond that, Fort Worth Bishop Michael Olson demanded that the chief executive officer of Catholic Charities Fort Worth, Christopher Plumlee, resign. After resisting the bishop’s demand for weeks, Plumlee stepped down in late May.

“I think we were doing some incredible things,” said Plumlee, who told NCR that he still believes his former employer is “an incredible agency with incredible people…

View Cache

Saint Josemaria Escriva, founder of the Catholic organization Opus Dei, which emphasizes the dignity of everyday work, once famously told the employees of a Spanish university he founded that the dean was no more important than the people who cleaned the classrooms.

However noble-sounding that rhetoric may be, according to 43 women in Argentina, when it came to them, it didn’t ring true.

In a complaint to the Vatican, the women, who say they were recruited into Opus Dei under false promises of higher education, now claim they were instead forced to labor under “manifestly illegal conditions” including working without pay for more than 12 hours a day, without breaks except for food or prayer, without registration in the national pension system, and other violations of basic workers’ rights.

In an attempt to know what happened, and following a series of allegations in the media of labor exploitation by some…

View Cache