ABUSE TRACKER

Having been a Catholic for at least 50 years, I am very well aware of the “false teachings” that don’t align with the Bible that the Roman Catholic Church has perpetuated for so many years.

I have no issues with Catholics per se, but I have a big problem with their leadership who have been leading their flock down the wrong path, through the wide gate that leads to destruction. (Matthew 7:13-14)

We are all accountable to God, (Romans 14:12), leaders and teachers even more so. (James 3:1)

The RCC has brainwashed its all-too-trusting flock with spoon-fed theology and reverence toward the priests and their higher-ups, particularly the pope, for thousand of years.

Instead of effectively dealing with the “monster” priests they have bred and groomed, they are way more concerned with saving face, a great travesty since they affect the all-important well-being of the victimized child. Their “deny, deny,…

View Cache

Pope Francis expressed his “indignation and shame” in offering an apology to a delegation of Canadian Indigenous leaders “for the deplorable conduct of members of the Catholic Church” in relation to residential schools. Residential schools were a Canadian government policy to assimilate Indigenous children in schools largely operated by the Christian churches. Catholic religious orders operated the majority of the schools. 

“I ask for God’s forgiveness and I want to say to you with all my heart: I am very sorry,” Pope Francis said in an April 1 audience at the Vatican. 

“We accept this apology,” said Chief Gerald Antoine, head of the Assembly of First Nations (AFN) delegation. 

Pope Francis delivered his apology in an address both forthright and lyrical, leaving many of the Indigenous leaders deeply moved.  

At the same time, he announced his intention of visiting Canada, likely in July, to meet Indigenous Canadians…

View Cache

The former bishop of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Albany has acknowledged covering up allegations of sexual abuse against children by priests in part to avoid scandal and protect the reputation of the diocese.

Howard Hubbard made the admission during a deposition taken last year as part of a response to dozens of claims filed under New York’s Child Victims Act. A judge ordered the deposition released on March 25.

Hundreds of people have sued the Albany diocese over sexual abuse they say they endured as children, sometimes decades ago.

During the four-day deposition, Hubbard named several priests who had been accused of sexual abuse who were referred to treatment and later returned to ministry, without notification to the public. One, David Bentley, admitted to Hubbard that he had engaged in the behavior alleged.

Hubbard testified he didn’t report the allegations to law enforcement because he didn’t feel he was…

View Cache

As a theologian who studies church apologies for historical wrongs, I understand why the Pope was moved to speak this week, but I hope this was not his definitive apology.

Pope Francis made a public statement today to the delegations of Indigenous people who met with him this week to discuss personal experiences in residential schools or their harmful legacies.

His statement included the words “I am very sorry,” and is being reported as an apology for residential schools.

As a white settler theologian, it is not for me to say what the apology means to those to whom it was addressed. But as a scholar who studies church apologies for historical wrongs, and their place in processes of reconciliation, I note there are significant shortcomings to the Pope’s statement.

Abuse and criminal actions

There are several kinds of wrongs associated with residential schools. There were abusive and often criminal actions by…

View Cache

A defrocked Philadelphia priest, who had been accused of sexual abuse, was sentenced to two years of house arrest and five years of probation for lying to investigators. Robert Brennan pleaded guilty late last year for lying to the FBI during an investigation into sexual abuse by clergy.

You might be surprised by what he exclusively told Eyewitness News just moments before his sentencing on Thursday.

Eyewitness News: Are you sorry?

Brennan: Absolutely not.

That’s what Robert Brennan told Eyewitness News as the defrocked Catholic priest rushed into the federal courthouse Thursday to hear his fate for lying to FBI agents.

Eyewitness News: Why all the lies?

Brennan admitted in court last year he lied to the FBI during an investigation into sexual abuse by clergy back in 2019, falsely saying he didn’t know one of his 20 alleged victims.

A federal judge sentenced the 84-year-old Thursday to five years probation,…

View Cache

[VIDEO]

The Nativity School in Worcester is being called on to remove flags in support of the Black Lives Matter movement and the LGBTQ community and are threatened with losing the right to call itself a Catholic school. Attorney Mitchell Garabedian joined Jim Braude to discuss.

View Cache

“It is necessary to highlight the crimes of the past committed within the Roman Catholic Church. We must learn the lessons and do everything possible so that no injustice can happen again,” said Joseph Maria Bonnemain, bishop of Coire and head of the Swiss bishops’ conference.

The Swiss Catholic Church said Monday it had commissioned an independent study to shed light on sexual abuse in the Church since the mid-20th century and “learn lessons” from the past.advertisement

At a press conference Monday, the Conference of Swiss Bishops, the Central Roman Catholic Conference of Switzerland and the Conference of Unions of Orders and Other Communities of Consecrated Life in Switzerland said they mandated the University of Zurich the mandate to study past attacks.

“It is necessary to highlight the crimes of the past committed within the Roman Catholic Church. We must learn the lessons and do everything possible so that no…

View Cache

Governor demands lawmakers give issue a high priority this spring

Gov. Tom Wolf announced Monday that he will schedule a special legislative session this summer if they fail this spring to pass a bill that gives victims of child sexual abuse the opportunity to sue their abusers in court.

As lawmakers prepare to deliberate over the state budget package due in June, Wolf is demanding that it include a bill that opens a two-year retroactive window for these victims to file lawsuits outside of the statute of limitations.

Wolf made the demand in the Capitol Rotunda with victims of child sex abuse accompanying him. Among them was Muhlenberg Township Democratic Rep. Mark Rozzi, a victim himself who has been pushing for the legislation for years.

“It’s been a full year since this bill passed in the House of Representatives, and the Senate needs to act now,” Rozzi said. “Many senators…

View Cache

A night dedicated to healing at Saint Leo Catholic Church. It’s the fifth annual service the archdiocese has held for survivors of abuse and their family members.

A night dedicated to healing at Saint Leo Catholic Church.

It’s the fifth annual service the archdiocese has held for survivors of abuse and their family members.

KETV Newswatch 7 was there as the archbishop led the service.

Inside st. Leo the Great Catholic Church, men, women and children sat in pews Monday night.

Surrounded by the color purple, which symbolizes strength and domestic violence awareness.

Although the victim outreach and prevention office serves as outreach for victims of clergy abuse, organizers say this healing service is much more than that.

“We realize there’s a lot of people in our community that are hurting with wounds of abuse, both from childhood through adulthood so this is for everybody,” said Mary Beth Hanus,…

View Cache

Pope Francis’s long-awaited apology to Canada’s indigenous community for more than a century of abusive residential schools, many of them run by the Catholic Church, should be followed by millions of dollars in compensation and the release of residential school records, survivors and indigenous leaders said.

Canada’s state-sanctioned schools forcibly separated about 150,000 children indigenous children from their families, subjecting many of them to physical and sexual abuse in what the Truth and Reconciliation Commission called “cultural genocide.”

“For the deplorable behavior of those members of the Catholic Church, I ask forgiveness from God and I would like to tell you from the bottom of my heart that I am very pained,” Francis said on Friday. The Pope said he hoped to visit Canada in July. read more

But for survivors, the historic apology alone isn’t enough.

Saa Hiil Thut’s former school in Kamloops, British Columbia was among several former…

View Cache

Baltimore pastor removed from ministry in 2021 amid investigation

There is no evidence to substantiate allegations against a priest who was removed from ministry over a child sex abuse investigation, the Archdiocese of Baltimore announced Sunday.

The archdiocese said Father Martin Demek is suitable to return to ministry.

The claims against him involved someone who said they were abused starting in 1989 in Manchester. The archdiocese says it worked with an investigative team and interviewed nearly 50 people to come up with its decision.

The Carroll County Sheriff’s Office also investigated the claims and did not file charges.

View Cache

Father Martin Demek is Returned to Active Ministry in the Archdiocese of Baltimore

In early 2021, the Archdiocese of Baltimore received an allegation of child sexual abuse against Father Martin Demek that was immediately reported to law enforcement. Law enforcement did not file criminal charges against Father Demek and, in April of 2021, gave permission to the Archdiocese to investigate the allegation. Father Demek was then suspended from ministry pending the outcome of the investigation. The Archdiocese released a public statement concerning the allegation and the reason for Father Demek’s suspension and invited individuals with information to contact law enforcement and the Archdiocese.

During the investigation, additional information was received by the Archdiocese and shared with law enforcement. In accordance with the Archdiocese’s policies for the protection of children and youth, the Archdiocesan Office of Child and Youth Protection, assisted by an investigative team including a former FBI…

View Cache

A Baltimore priest has returned to his ministry after an investigation into allegations that he sexually abused a child did not find any evidence to substantiate the charges, the Archdiocese of Baltimore said Sunday.

Last year, the Archdiocese announced Father Martin Demek, the then-pastor of Corpus Christi Catholic Church in Baltimore’s Bolton Hill neighborhood, had been removed of his faculties to function as a priest and suspended him from ministry, pending the results of an investigation.

The archdiocese learned of the allegations in early 2021 and contacted the police. According to the original charges, the alleged abuse began in about 1989 when the victim was about 11 years old. The incidents were said to have happened at St. Bartholomew Catholic Church in Manchester. The Rev. Demek said he was innocent of the charges and he has been not criminally charged.

The archdiocese said its investigative team included a former FBI…

View Cache

In testimony conducted over four days in April 2021, Bishop Howard Hubbard, the former leader of the Diocese of Albany, N.Y., described in unusually frank terms how he moved diocesan priests who had been accused of molesting children in and out of treatment centers and back into ministry. He admitted that the transfers were consistently made without informing local police, families of abuse victims or Catholics in Albany’s parishes, where the men were reassigned.

Bishop Hubbard testified that parishioners were told that their pastors had been removed for “treatment” with no further explanation.

“My perspective is we did not reveal the reason for his treatment,” Bishop Hubbard told Jeff Anderson, the lead attorney for one of the survivors suing the diocese, in reference to one priest.

“And the reason for his treatment was he had been accused of sexually abusing a minor, correct?” Mr. Anderson asked.

“That is correct,” answered the…

View Cache

It is no secret that clergy sex abuse and coverups are on the rise. In response to the hundreds of lawsuits filed regarding Catholic Church corruption and sexual abuse, Bishops are touting their screening process of new hires, claiming “We do much more now to screen our seminarians to stop predators from becoming priests.”  But we are skeptical, as predators are still getting into the priesthood.

If you’ve followed the clergy sex abuse and cover-up crisis, you’ve seen some variation of this many times over the past 20 years. . .But here’s what you have NOT seen over those years:

• “School districts adopt Catholic abuse screening”
• “On abuse, Protestant officials are learning from Catholic ones”
• “Summer camps, learning from the church, weed out molesters”
• “Daycare centers emulate Catholic dioceses on abuse”

The obvious point here is, that if Catholic bishops are doing such a great job of preventing abuse and “screening out” molesters, officials in other institutions…

View Cache

[VIDEO]

Daniel McCormack served five years in prison for molesting young boys. Now, he’s a free man but his legal troubles are far from over. 

WGN Investigates has learned the former priest spent hours being deposed Wednesday by attorneys in several pending civil cases. The plaintiffs allege they were sexually abused by McCormack.

“His demeanor was pretty flat and matter-of-fact,” says Attorney Gene Hollander. “To me, he didn’t show any remorse at all.”

Hollander and other attorneys asked McCormack more than 500 questions. But he repeatedly invoked his Fifth Amendment rights and refused to address any of the allegations.

Several of the lawsuits specifically target the Catholic Bishop of Chicago claiming the “Diocese acquiesced to McCormack’s continued involvement in school and parish activities after they knew or should have known of McCormack’s abuse.”

In 2007, McCormack pled guilty to abusing five boys during his time at St. Agatha Roman Catholic Church…

View Cache

Former church members and a church official in Texas want a formal investigation of Bishop Dwight Reed’s actions.

When the Iowa Attorney General’s Office issued a report last year about sex abuse by Catholic clergy, it also publicized a hotline for people from any denomination to call with similar concerns about that taboo topic in their own places of worship.

Since March 21, seven calls have involved the 53-year-old Christ Apostolic Temple in Des Moines.

The calls follow online chatter about the November 2021 marriage of the church’s thrice-divorced, 63-year-old bishop and pastor to a 19-year-old he had been offering special guidance to as dean of the church school.

It’s not illegal to marry someone so much younger if they’ve reached the age of legal consent, which in Iowa is 16. But Bishop Dwight Reed’s critics, some of them former church members, have taken to social media to challenge his actions,…

View Cache

SAN JOSE — A Costa Rican court sentenced a former priest to 20 years in prison Wednesday for sexual abuse of a minor, more than two years after the then-cleric was captured in Mexico for the crime, committed almost two decades ago.

A judge ruled Mauricio Viquez, who held high-level positions in the diocese of the capital San Jose, was guilty of abusing a boy who ran errands for him in exchange for meals for his family.

“My wife and my two children have supported me. Today I felt completely free. The ghost that I’d carried since I was 12 disappeared,” said the now 30-year-old victim, whose identity was kept anonymous throughout the trial.

Viquez, who was removed from the priesthood in 2019 when the accusations became known, was also accused of other abuses from before 2003. He was only charged in one case, due to the statute of limitations…

View Cache

The former pastor of Ellendale’s Philadelphia Pentecostal Holiness Church is facing multiple charges after state prosecutors say he inappropriately touched multiple women over a span of seven years.

Bishop Major Foster was once a trusted member of the Ellendale community. Beyond his role within the church, Foster co-founded the Ellendale Community Civic Improvement Association and fought for clean water for the town.

This position allowed Foster to sexually abuse three women for years, the Delaware Department of Justice said. It is also likely the reason investigators say they believe there are more victims that have not yet come forward.

According to the Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network, someone is sexually assaulted in the U.S. every 68 seconds. However, only 25 out of 1,000 perpetrators are sent to prison.

When it comes to perpetrators of sexual abuse, Delaware Attorney General Kathy Jennings said “there is…

View Cache

Never again.

A light of hope for healing, restoration and real reform shined a little last week on the announcement that nine Dallas-area men had settled a lawsuit alleging that they were sexually abused as students at Jesuit College Preparatory School Dallas.

The school’s president, Mike Earsing, provided a public statement that he believed the truth of the allegations that date to the 1970s and 1980s. And Mike Pedevilla, the first victim to come forward publicly and bravely, made this moving and hopeful statement: “Now, I can finally begin to heal.”

But even as the hope for healing and genuine expressions of remorse and reform are embraced by Jesuit and the Dallas Catholic Diocese, we are reminded — and should be reminded — of the depths of darkness, lies and institutional corruption that put boys in the path of men who were known to the Jesuit order to…

View Cache

There is so much to legitimately worry about in this world, real issues of life and death, race and gender, hope and fear. And then one throwback with a miter cap and staff does this:

The Catholic bishop of Worcester has demanded that a middle school remove the Pride and Black Lives Matter flags it has flown for more than a year or lose the right to call itself a Catholic school.

Until now, Nativity School of Worcester has been minding its own business, doing what it does best: God’s work. The tuition-free school — part of a Jesuit network — serves 61 boys in grades 5 through 8, almost all of them students of color and from low-income families. With longer school days and individualized attention, those kids will often leap six or seven grade levels in four years, going on to become successful high school and…

View Cache

The island’s Catholic community gathered at San Vitores Beach in Tumon to pray the the Holy Rosary commemorating the martyrs of the church and kicking off April activities for National Child Abuse Prevention Month and Sexual Assault Awareness Month.

The Archdiocese of Hagåtña’s Safe Environment Office is leading Child Abuse Prevention Month activities for the Church, working with parishes and schools, according to the press release. This year’s theme is “Thriving Children & Families: Prevention with Purpose.”

Youth for Christ initiated the Coastal Rosary series locally and St. Anthony parish joined as part of the archdiocese’s World Youth Day Activities.

350 years of St. San Vitores

The Archdiocese also held Mass, led by Archbishop Michael Byrnes, in observance of the 350th year anniversary of the Jesuit martyr, Blessed Diego Luis de San Vitores and St. Pedro Calungsod at the shrine erected in their honor.

Known as the “Apostle of…

View Cache

My Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

Each of us no doubt is reacting in different ways about revelations in the Times Union piece. I know I am not the only one who must deal with the reactions or the worry for a new wave of suffering for survivors and their families. All of us bear a burden of trying to help others even as we cope personally with our own pain and sorrow.

While the truth is often hard to bear, it might help us to remember that families where there has been abuse and betrayal cannot heal if the truth remains hidden. Families, like individuals, are “as sick as their secrets.” We know from Luke 12:2 that “there is nothing covered up that will not be revealed and hidden that will not be known.” There is great hope in this terrible news and darkness because we find salvation in light, the Light…

View Cache

A child neglected or emotionally abused is a victim of abuse, in this context, clerical abuse.

In May 2021, I met with government representatives from the Irish department of children. We discussed a United Nations children’s rights committee document that calls upon the Irish State to respond to the needs of children of priests. Section 33 and 34 of the 2016 UN document states in part that the committee is concerned about the “lack of measures to ensure that children fathered by Catholic priests are able to access information on the identity of their fathers” and is encouraging the state  “ensure measures to assist children fathered by Catholic priests in upholding their right to know and be cared for by their fathers, as appropriate, and ensure that they receive the necessary psychological treatment.”

In 2022, the Irish State responded to the above request. The state’s response reads: “The Irish state…

View Cache

As Indigenous representatives hold scheduled meetings in Rome with Pope Francis, part of a series of discussions with the Catholic Church on reconciliation, many hope efforts will be made to finally bring artifacts held at the Vatican back to Canada.

First Nations, Metis and Inuit delegates have met or will meet the Pope this week to share stories from survivors of Canada’s residential school system, most of which were run by the Catholic Church.

Metis and Inuit delegates met the Pope on Monday, with First Nations representatives scheduled to meet the pontiff on Thursday. The Pope is expected to hold a general audience with all of the delegates Friday.

Along with hopes for a papal apology on Canadian soil, top of mind for delegates is access the Vatican’s collection of Indigenous cultural items.

“What they now need to recognize is that they hold things…

View Cache

First Nations, Inuit and Metis residential school survivors, knowledge keepers, elders, and youth have wrapped up meetings with Pope Francis at the Vatican with a historic apology.

The delegation was there to renew calls for the Pope to apologize for the Roman Catholic Church’s role in residential schools.

On Friday, the Pope said: “I am very sorry.” He also said he will come to Canada, but a date has not been set.

CALLS FOR AN APOLOGY

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission released its 94 calls to action in 2015. Among them was a request for an apology from the Pope and for the apology to take place in Canada within one year of the release of the report.

A number of individual Catholic organizations, parishes and bishops have apologized to Indigenous children and their families for the spiritual, cultural, emotional, physical and sexual abuse the church inflicted on youngsters forced…

View Cache

Sorry is ‘an important milestone’ but more work must be done, according to the retired senator and former judge

The former chair of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission is urging the Catholic Church to tackle residential school denialism following Pope Francis’s apology on Friday morning.

Church leaders who refuse to accept survivors’ truths are, right now, “the biggest source of resistance to reconciliation,” says Murray Sinclair.

“Denialism was allowed to flourish because of the silence that was coming from the Pope,” said the retired senator in an interview. “With this statement, those denying within the church — or denying in public because of the church being able to support denialism — will no longer have that ladder upon which they can stand.”

On the final day of an Indigenous delegation’s Vatican visit, the pontiff uttered a long-awaited and much-anticipated sorry “for the role that a number of Catholics” had…

View Cache

At the site of the former Mohawk Institute residential school in Brantford, the director of the Indigenous cultural centre that now occupies the building says the Pope’s apology to residential school survivors is a step in the right direction, but more action is needed.

“I don’t know if it necessarily brings closure,” said Janis Monture, Woodland Cultural Centre executive director. “Because there are still a lot of people who haven’t been held accountable for the actions that took place at these institutions.”

The Woodland Cultural centre is housed in what was once the Mohawk Institute. Considered Canada’s longest running residential school it opened in 1828 and closed in 1971.

During that time, Indigenous children were forcibly taken from their homes and forced to attend the facility where teachers and administrators attempted to strip them of their language and culture.

Across the country, around 150,000 Indigenous children were separated from their…

View Cache

This journey, Pope Francis noted, can help Indigenous peoples rediscover and revitalize their cultures, and the Catholic Church to grow in love and respect for their traditions.

Pope Francis on Friday expressed his “sorrow and shame” for the role Catholics have played in the abuse of Indigenous peoples in Canada, especially in residential schools.

During a meeting with representatives of the Métis, Inuit, and First Nations groups at the Vatican on April 1, the pope condemned colonization, saying he was sorry for the historic evil committed against Canadian Indigenous peoples.

He also said he would like to visit them in their “native lands,” indicating that he hopes to travel to Canada for the July 26 feast of St. Anne.

Pope Francis, who had private meetings with the Métis, Inuit, and First Nations delegations during the week, said “listening to your voices, I was able to enter into and be deeply grieved…

View Cache

Leaders of Canada’s main Indigenous organizations welcomed Pope Francis’s apology for the Catholic Church’s role in running residential schools, but, as one said, it was just “a fresh track” on a longer hunt for healing and reconciliation.

Chief Gerald Antoine, leading the delegation of the Assembly of First Nations at the Indigenous communities’ meetings with Pope Francis March 28-April 1, used the analogy of hunting to explain to reporters that much remains to be done.

For Antoine, a key concern is a formal recognition by the Canadian government that the residential schools were part of a systemic attempt at “cultural genocide,” or, as he explained it, an attempt “to kill the Indian in the child” and force them to assimilate.

Natan Obed, president of the Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami, told reporters, “Today we have a piece of the puzzle,” which is the papal apology.

“I was touched by the way in…

View Cache

[Includes a three-minute video of Inuit leader Natan Obed’s assessment of the delegation’s meetings with Vatican officials and the apology by Pope Francis.]

Pope Francis could play an “instrumental role” in the push for justice for Inuit victims and survivors of sexual abuse at the hands of an Oblate priest now living in France, says the head of Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami.

Natan Obed, president of the Inuit advocacy organization, spoke with The West Block‘s Mercedes Stephenson following a visit with the Pope at the Vatican last week.

During the visit, Pope Francis apologized for the Catholic Church’s prominent role in Canada’s residential school system, which he said left him feeling “indignation and shame.”

Obed said while he felt “great respect” for the Pope’s apology, there remains a significant amount of work to do and not all Indigenous people will be in the position to accept the apology.

“For me, I just…

View Cache

Dear brothers and sisters,
Good morning and welcome!

I thank Bishop Poisson for his kind words and each of you for your presence here and for the prayers that you have offered. I am grateful that you have come to Rome despite the difficulties caused by the pandemic. Over the past few days, I have listened attentively to your testimonies. I have brought them to my thoughts and prayers, and reflected on the stories you told and the situations you described. I thank you for having opened your hearts to me, and for expressing, by means of this visit, your desire for us to journey together.

I would like to take up a few of the many things that have struck me. Let me start from a saying that is part of your traditional wisdom. It is not only a turn of phrase but also a way of viewing life: “In…

View Cache

A once high-ranking Omaha priest, is in better legal shape than he was, but still stands accused of stealing hundreds of thousands of dollars and faces years in prison.

A once high-ranking Omaha priest, is in better legal shape than he was, but still stands accused of stealing hundreds of thousands of dollars and faces years in prison.

73-year-old Father Michael Gutgsell —accused of stealing nearly $100,000 from St. Joseph Church in Springfield—has had the Sarpy County charges dismissed.

At the same time, Gutgsell is still awaiting trial in Douglas County where he’s accused of raiding the bank account of priest who was in poor health. Gutgsell, who had power of attorney over Fr. Ted Richling, is accused of stealing $155,000 from Richling, who died a few years ago and was named in a recent state investigation detailing widespread sexual abuse by Catholic clergy.

Sarpy County Attorney Lee Polikov tells News…

View Cache

Cardinal Rainer Maria Woelki raised eyebrows during a meeting where he reportedly said Pope Francis was “out of touch with reality.” The Cologne archdiocese said the remarks were not intended to be disrespectful.

A high-level church meeting with Cardinal Rainer Maria Woelki ended on a sour note for some participants on Saturday, after the controversial archbishop caused a stir with his remarks on the pope, news agency dpa reported.

Woelki has faced mounting criticism in recent months over his handling of reports of sexual abuse in Cologne — Germany’s largest Catholic archdiocese. The cardinal offered to resign as archbishop in March, but Francis has yet to make a decision.

What did he say about the pope?

Woelki appealed for a new start and a second chance as archbishop during a closed meeting with Cologne’s pastoral council on Friday and Saturday.

But his comments on Pope Francis sparked alarm among some of the 60 participants.

…

View Cache

Dogma Historical Resources for Making Changes to Confession in Terms of Clerical and Sacramental Theology

[Please share the original URL of this open source article with others who are interested. This article and related ones appear in Sexual and Spiritual Violence against Adult Men and Women in the Catholic Church, a special issue of the journal Religions.]

Abstract

The dynamic and asymmetry of a pastoral situation is intensified by the Catholic theological rules to the extent that the confession may only be heard by an ordained man. It is particularly the priest’s sole right to pronounce absolution that compounds spiritual dependency in terms of the personal relationship with God that the sin fundamentally impairs. I shall take dogmatic decisions and attrition—to indicate potential for change that could make the confessional, which is still an important place for some women, a possibly less dangerous place. These changes would be: Precisely, because…

View Cache

Restorative justice, clerical sexual abuse, and the Catholic Church were the topics of the 22nd annual Lawler lecture on Thursday, March 24. 

Stephen Pope, a professor of theological ethics at Boston College, stated that his name was ironic as he lectured over the prospects and pitfalls of using restorative justice to address the ongoing issue of clerical sexual abuse in the Catholic Church. 

Pope explained that clerical abuse comes from a number of interconnected problems, such as rape culture, abuse of power, and the idea of, “take what you want when you want it.” He elaborated how using status to gain access and trust allows the exploitation of many. 

Restorative justice, a topic that Pope lectured intensely on, is a justice method that focuses on facilitating internal healing for the defendants, victims, and any of the ripples that these horrible acts have caused. 

He suggests that this can be used…

View Cache

[Google translation is followed by original German text.]

Canon lawyers: Clergy congregation limits bishops’ powers / Pallottine decision “quite one-sided”.

Decisions by the Vatican Congregation for the Clergy in the “Ellen Adler” case weaken the abuse regulations of the Catholic German Bishops’ Conference (DBK) and make preventive measures more difficult. This emerges from two decrees that are now available to the BZ (see also the report of March 7). The handling of the cause causes criticism among canonists.

In the decrees, the clergy congregation rescinded preventive measures taken by the Dresden bishop Heinrich Timmerevers against two Pallottine fathers, although they expressly do not oblige Timmerevers to restore the good reputation of the main accused.

The Tübingen church law professor Bernhard Anuth bowed to the decision for the BZ about the clergyman: “In the present case, the congregation has documented that it is also willing to protect the supposedly good reputation of clergymen,…

View Cache

This column is part of our ongoing Opinion commentary on faith, called Living Our Faith. Find the full series here.

Twenty years had passed since the last time I’d read Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter. A novel doesn’t change, no matter how much time goes by. But a reader changes. And the world does, too.

Last summer, when I returned to this classic — the bane of many a high school student — as part of a project of editing and annotating a series introducing classics to Christian readers, I was taken aback by something I had never seen in the book before.

Like most readers, I’d always understood The Scarlet Letter to be a story about adultery. After all, the assumed meaning of the titular “A,” pinned as a badge of dishonor to Hester Prynne’s breast, is to mark her for that particular sin. But what I realized upon this recent reading is…

View Cache

[From Canadian Press]

Natan Obed discussed the church’s responsibility in ensuring Johannes Rivoire is put on trial in Canada

The leader of the national organization representing Inuit says he had a meeting with the head of a Catholic order in Rome to discuss the case of a priest accused of crimes against children in Nunavut.

“I would hope that the Catholic Church’s faith dictates that they would work with us in a case where there are severe allegations of sexual abuse, especially sexual abuse of minors,” said Natan Obed, president of Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami.

Obed said he had a one-hour meeting Thursday with Louis Lougen, superior general of the Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate, to discuss the church’s responsibility in ensuring Johannes Rivoire is put on trial in Canada.

The meeting came after Obed asked Pope Francis during a meeting at the Vatican on Monday to personally intervene in Rivoire’s case.

…

View Cache

More than three years ago, the state attorney general’s office announced it was launching an investigation into the handling of child sexual abuse by New York’s Catholic dioceses. Since then, no cases have been pursued by the district attorneys who were encouraged at that time to pursue any related criminal allegations that were uncovered and fell within applicable statutes of limitations.

The lack of any apparent grand jury investigations — which could also produce reports detailing the dioceses’ handling of child sex abuse even if criminal charges were not possible — has occurred despite increasing evidence that church leaders routinely covered up the allegations to protect those priests and their institutions. That practice also led to the additional abuse of children when accused priests were later allowed to return to ministry without bishops or others notifying congregations of their histories, according to court records.

“I am not aware of any (criminal…

View Cache

[This report includes video interviews with two survivors, Colleen Garbarini and Gordon Smith, and a Twitter clip with more interview content. See also the deposition of Bishop Howard Hubbard.]

The release last week of nearly 700 pages of testimony by former Bishop Howard Hubbard on priest abuse in the Albany Catholic Diocese helped to validate claims made by survivors of priest abuse, accusers said.

Last week’s ruling to unseal Hubbard’s deposition was the first time accusers had the chance to read his multi-day testimony. While some attorneys had access to the file, survivors like Gordon Smith did not.

“Finally, we have confirmation from them that they have been doing this all along,” said Smith, who filed one of about 300 Child Victims Act lawsuits against the Albany Diocese in 2019.

Smith said he read parts of the deposition and press articles detailing the almost 700-page document.

In the deposition,…

View Cache

[Note: “Silent Screams! A Gallery of Artwork Born of Clergy Abuse” is available on YouTube.]

Sometimes the interviews on TV don’t do it. People have become immune to the horror, in Vinnie Nauheimer’s view. 

Twenty years ago this week, his family’s story was part of a larger one that was in the headlines – on the front page of the Daily News on two consecutive days, for instance, with pages of coverage inside.  The first day, the News’ lead story was titled “Twisted Journey of a Problem Priest”; the next, “Problem Priest Had Church on His Side.”

A few days earlier, the New York Times headline involving the controversy at Holy Name parish in Croton-on-Hudson, N.Y., ran “A Secret Settlement, but Little Solace for Family.”

Victims and their families are now finding alternative ways to bear witness to the tragic legacy of the sexual abuse of children, lest anyone…

View Cache

Residents see it as the first step towards healing for the community.

The last several months have been important ones on the path of healing and reconciliation between the Catholic church and First Nations, Inuit and Métis peoples. In the wake of Pope Francis’s historic apology for the horrors of the residential school system, there is also healing and reconciliation to be had closer to home.

In Kahnawake, the remains of an allegedly abusive priest will be exhumed from the cemetery at St. Francis Xavier Mission Catholic Church and repatriated to Saint-Jérôme. This is the starting point for what survivors hope will be a process of healing.

“The original decision was made last summer. People wanted him removed,” said Melissa Montour-Lazare, a spokesperson for the community in Kahnawake. “There was already controversy in 1999 where the women [he abused] had stated that they didn’t want him there.”

Reverend Léon Lajoie was…

View Cache

[Please share the original URL of this open source article with others who are interested. This article and related ones appear in Sexual and Spiritual Violence against Adult Men and Women in the Catholic Church, a special issue of the journal Religions.]

Abstract

Disproving assumptions to the contrary, this article clearly shows how and why adults can become victims of abuse in church contexts. It does this by focusing on the pastoral care context and the interdependent potential risk factors lying within. As previous studies suggest, this context is especially susceptible to perpetrating abuse. Approximately three-quarters of all cases of abuse occur or begin in the context of pastoral care or spiritual counseling. Often, theories of pastoral care do not address this danger and tend to idealize the practice of pastoral care. In contrast, it is necessary to recognize a specific power to victimize due to the theological and structural…

View Cache

Pope Francis apologized on Friday for the Roman Catholic Church’s involvement in a system of Canadian boarding schools that abused Indigenous children for 100 years, an announcement that comes after the discovery last year of signs of unmarked graves with the remains of dozens of children.

I feel shame — sorrow and shame — for the role” that Catholics played “in the abuses you suffered and in the lack of respect shown for your identity, your culture and even your spiritual values,” Francis said.

Francis also promised he would travel to Canada, where he would be better able to “express to you my closeness” as part of a process of healing and reconciliation.

Francis spoke during an audience at the Apostolic Palace with 62 delegates from Canada’s three largest Indigenous groups, who had traveled to the Vatican in the hope that he would apologize to survivors in Canada. This was…

View Cache

Former Priest Daniel McCormack faced a deposition this week, forced to answer questions about several civil cases against him.

McCormack is free after serving time for sexually abusing five children while he was a priest at St. Agatha’s Parish. Gene Hollander, an attorney who represents several victims, said the deposition was an important moment in the history of the case.

“This is the first time since the scandal broke 17 years ago that he’s being forced to answering questions about abusing children,” Hollander said.

Hollander was one of several attorneys questioning Daniel McCormack about abusing children. Hollander said McCormack’s deposition lasted seven hours Wednesday.

“He had a very flat demeanor,” Hollander said. “I didn’t see any emotion from him. I just didn’t see any remorse. Some of these victims went through unspeakable horrors.”

Hollander said he has represented several of McCormack’s victims. So far, he has settled nine cases. He…

View Cache

THE Bishop of Sheffield, Dr Pete Wilcox, has expressed “deep shame” that a former priest in his diocese was responsible for the repeated beating, over almost a decade, of a woman in his parish.

Dr Wilcox said in a statement: “There are no excuses whatsoever for what took place and it is a cause of great regret to us that the matter has only now come to court. Clerical abuse is a grievous breach of trust, which almost always, as in this case, causes life-long harm.”

The assaults by Hilary Alflatt between 1983 and 1992 were only part of a pattern of abuse that he allegedly inflicted on his victim at his Sheffield vicarage, a jury at Hull Crown Court heard last week. Mr Alflatt was also accused of treating his victim like a slave, forcing her to take a vow of obedience, making her prostrate herself before him, kiss…

View Cache

United States Attorney Jennifer Arbittier Williams announced that Robert Brennan, 83, of Perryville, MD, was sentenced by United States District Court Judge Anita B. Brody to five years of probation, the first two years of which will be served on home confinement with location monitoring, for lying to investigators about not knowing a former parishioner and victim of sexual abuse.

In November 2021, the defendant pleaded guilty to making materially false statements in a matter within the jurisdiction of the executive branch of the United States government. The charges stem from an interview conducted in April 2019, during which Brennan was questioned by the FBI and made a number of false statements.

Brennan had served in the Archdiocese of Philadelphia from 1993 to 2004 as a priest at Resurrection of Our Lord parish in the Rhawnhurst section of Northeast Philadelphia. In September 2013, the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office filed criminal…

View Cache

[From Alberta Native News]

Mounties have pressed a new charge against an Oblate priest living in France who faces multiple allegations sexual abuse from when he lived in Nunavut.

The RCMP issued a Canada-wide warrant for Johannes Rivoire, who resides in Lyon and is in his 90s, on March 28, The Canadian Press reports.

Nunavut RCMP said officers received complaints last year for repeated instances of sexual abuse that are alleged to have occurred 47 years ago, leading to him being charged with sexual assault a month ago.

The warrant was issued a day after Inuit leaders met with Pope Francis at the Vatican on Monday, where they asked for His Holiness’s intervention in the case.

Natan Obed, president of Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami, told CP he asked the Pope to urge Rivoire to return to Canada to face the charges and to ask France to intervene in the event Rivoire…

View Cache

The trial court’s January 14 verdict is ‘patently wrong, manifestly erroneous and totally perverse’, the state said.

The Kerala government on Wednesday filed an appeal before the High Court challenging the verdict of a trial court acquitting former bishop Franco Mulakkal in a case related to raping a nun, PTI reported. The nun also moved the High Court on Monday, according to The News Minute.

In June 2018, the nun had filed a complaint claiming that she was sexually abused by Mulakkal between 2014 and 2016 when he was the bishop of the Jalandhar diocese of Roman Catholic Church.

Mulakkal had accused the nun of seeking revenge for ordering an inquiry into a complaint against her. He was removed from his post after the allegations.

Judge G Gopakumar of the Kottayam Additional District and Sessions Court acquitted him on January 14.

In its appeal on Wednesday, filed by Additional Public Prosecutor…

View Cache

After years of resisting such calls, Pope Francis on Friday apologized for the “deplorable conduct” of some Catholics in Canada’s residential school system for Indigenous children, saying he was “deeply grieved” by the stories of “suffering, hardship, discrimination and various forms of abuse” from survivors.

Speaking to an audience that included an Indigenous delegation that traveled from Canada to the Vatican this week to press for an apology, Francis said he felt “shame” for the role Catholics have had “in the abuses you suffered and in the lack of respect shown for your identity, your culture and even your spiritual values.”

“All these things are contrary to the Gospel of Jesus Christ,” the pope said at the Apostolic Palace. “For the deplorable conduct of these members of the Catholic Church, I ask for God’s forgiveness and I want to say to you with all my heart: I am very sorry….

View Cache

The March 23 expiration of a provision in the Roman Catholic Diocese of Rochester’s ongoing bankruptcy reactivates an untold number of state court sexual-abuse claims against individual Catholic churches across the diocese’s 12-county span. 

The revived state court cases were put on hold two years ago under a stipulation approved as part of the Chapter 11 case the diocese filed in 2019. The diocese filed the bankruptcy petition partly to avoid defending itself against scores of individual sexual-abuse claims. 

Running parallel to the ongoing bankruptcy, the revived state court cases promise to add complications that could include substantial new legal costs for the diocese, which so far has spent nearly $6 million to pay attorneys, accountants and consultants working on the long-stalled bankruptcy.

Inked six months into bankruptcy case in March 2020, the expired agreement called a temporary halt to scores of state court lawsuits filed against individual churches and other organizations…

View Cache

A lawsuit alleging priests at Jesuit College Preparatory School Dallas sexually abused students there in the late 1970s and early 1980s has settled.

A lawsuit alleging priests at Jesuit College Preparatory School Dallas sexually abused students there in the late 1970s and early 1980s has been settled.

In a letter sent Wednesday to the local Jesuit community, school president Mike Earsing said he believed the accounts told by nine Dallas-area men who brought a lawsuit against the school, the Catholic Diocese of Dallas and the Society of Jesuits’ USA Central and Southern Province, the Catholic religious order that includes Dallas.

“While none of us wanted to believe that any of the priests at our school could inflict such heinous injury, the fact is, a few did,” Earsing wrote.

The men and their lawyers issued a joint statement with the school, the diocese and the order announcing some…

View Cache

March 29, 2022 

Dear friends of Jesuit Dallas,

Recently, an agreement was reached with nine of the men who filed lawsuits describing sexual abuse they experienced over 35 years ago when they were students at our school. In reaching this agreement, we have been guided by a desire to find a solution that best reflects the values central to our school’s mission. Focusing on our shared values led us to seek a path toward reconciliation and away from an adjudicatory process.

This has not been an easy journey for these men, or for us. You will recall that in December 2018 the Jesuits’ Central and Southern Province released a list of Jesuits and former Jesuits against whom there were credible allegations of sexual abuse of minors. In January 2019 the Dallas Diocese released its own list of priests who were credibly accused of having inflicted abuse on minors. These lists…

View Cache

B.C. Supreme Court has been asked for an order to make the pope’s representative to Canada hand over records related to alleged sexual abuse at a seminary school.

A man who alleges he was sexually abused by Mission Roman Catholic priests and a seminary employee wants the pope’s envoy to Canada to hand over documents related to the case.

Mark O’Neill is seeking damages for sexual abuse he alleges he suffered as a teen during his time at a Mission Roman Catholic seminary from 1974 to 1978. He was age 13 to 17 at the time.

The defendants listed in the suit are: Seminary of Christ the King; Westminster Abbey Ltd.; the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Vancouver, a Corporation Sole; Emerick Lazar; Harold Vincent Sander a.k.a. Dom Placidus Sander; Shawn Rohrbach and John Doe.

In a March 25 application to B.C. Supreme Court, O’Neill and lawyer Sandra Kovacs seek an order that Rev. Ian Jurkovic,…

View Cache

A Costa Rican court on Wednesday sentenced a former priest to 20 years in prison for a 2003 sexual abuse case.

The country’s judicial branch said in a statement that ex-priest Mauricio Víquez had used his position as a priest to sexually abuse at least one teenager in 2003, and possibly two.

“The prosecution proved that Viquez abused his position of power and authority, his status as a priest and the confidence the victim had in him to carry out sexual attacks against the victim,” according to the statement.

The sentence can be appealed.

Víquez was extradited back from Mexico in 2021 after he fled in 2018 from Costa Rica, where the statute of limitations had been running out on abuse charges facing him.

In 2003 in Costa Rica, such charges generally couldn’t be pursued 10 years after a complainant’s 18th birthday.

The case led Costa Rica to lengthen the…

View Cache

A 19-year-old man has sued the Catholic Diocese of Cleveland over allegations that it failed to protect him from a former priest who was sentenced to prison for exploiting children.

The man filed the lawsuit in Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court earlier this month, alleging that Robert McWilliams raped and sexually molested him. The accuser was about 15 years old at the time of the incidents.

McWilliams was serving a life sentence for sexually exploiting boys when he died by suicide in February. He was 41.

The lawsuit, filed by Lebanon attorney Konrad Kircher, says the diocese had obtained information about McWilliams during his years as a seminarian.

The suit says it “revealed that McWilliams was an immature, emotionally unstable individual, who, in the context of the history of clergy sexual abuse of children, presented a threat of harm to children.”

The suit alleges that McWilliams, while a priest at…

View Cache

Man files lawsuit against Catholic Diocese of Cleveand

A Northeast Ohio teenager has filed a civil lawsuit against the Catholic Diocese of Cleveland that alleges the diocese failed to protect him against his abuser: former priest Robert McWilliams.

A federal judge sentenced McWilliams to a life sentence last November for numerous child pornography, child exploitation and child sex trafficking charges.

McWilliams took his own life in prison in February.

Konrad Kircher is the plaintiff’s attorney. He said his client filed the lawsuit to hold the Catholic Diocese of Cleveland accountable for McWilliams’ actions.

“McWilliams was convicted, and the federal judge hammered him pretty good with a sentence that made my client feel somewhat validated, but then McWilliams committed suicide in prison, which was a cowardly act that deprived my client of that justice.McWilliams refused to even serve his sentence and now a civil lawsuit is my client’s opportunity to hold…

View Cache

David Frodsham was a top civilian commander at a U.S. air base in Afghanistan when Army commanders ordered him home after investigating multiple complaints of sexual harassment.

“I would not recommend placing him back into a position of authority but rather pursuing disciplinary actions at his home station,” wrote one commanding officer when recommending that the Army order Frodsham to leave his post at Bagram Airfield and return to Fort Huachuca, a major Army installation in Arizona, according to a U.S. Army investigative file obtained by The Associated Press.

But when Frodsham returned to his home station in the fall of 2015, he rejoined the Network Enterprise Technology Command, the Army’s information technology service provider, where he had served as director of personnel for a global command of 15,000 soldiers and civilians, according to his Army resume.

By spring of the following year, he was arrested in Arizona for leading…

View Cache

While Indigenous leaders from across Canada are in the Vatican this week to meet with Pope Francis and discuss the ongoing impacts of the residential school system and seek a papal apology, residential school survivors are also gathering in Winnipeg, and one said she has a message for the Pope and for the Catholic Church: that it failed when it tried for years to eradicate Indigenous culture in Canada.

“Although we could not be at the Vatican to meet with the Pope, I want to show the Catholic Church and Pope Francis that we are still here.” Geraldine Shingoose said to a rousing applause from the crowd as the We Are Still Here: The Survivors Legacy Conference kicked off on Tuesday in Winnipeg.

The conference brought hundreds of survivors of Canada’s Residential School system together at the Victoria Inn Hotel and Conference Centre for what will be three days of…

View Cache

Indigenous leaders and federal politicians say a new criminal charge against Johannes Rivoire, a Roman Catholic priest, is a step forward in the pursuit of justice for his alleged victims, who accuse him of sexually abusing them when they were young children in Nunavut.

Nunavut RCMP said on Monday that they had charged Father Rivoire based on a complaint about a sexual assault that took place 47 years ago. The force has issued a Canada-wide warrant for his arrest. The 93-year-old priest currently lives in a nursing home in Lyon, France.

Over the past year, Father Rivoire’s case has been raised in Ottawa by advocates and federal New Democrats, who have called on Justice Minister David Lametti to have the federal government work to bring him back to Canada.

Piita Irniq, a past commissioner of Nunavut and former territorial politician, said on Tuesday that the…

View Cache

Royal Canadian Mounted Police say an arrest warrant was issued last month for Johannes Rivoire, who currently lives in France

Police in Canada have laid a new charge against a “devil priest” hiding in France amid allegations he sexually abused multiple Inuit children.

The case against Johannes Rivoire, who victims say has evaded justice for decades, received renewed focus this week when Canada’s Inuit leader requested the pope personally intervene during a visit to the Vatican by a delegation of Indigenous groups.

Meeting privately with Pope Francis on Monday, Natan Obed, head of Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami, asked that Rivoire return to Canada to “stand trial for the harms he has done”.

Obed called on the pope to use his “influence with the relevant authorities” to have Rivoire extradited, or for the priest to be tried in France.

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police said a Canada-wide arrest warrant was issued last month for…

View Cache

Mounties have laid a new charge against a Roman Catholic priest who has previously avoided trial for multiple allegations of sexual abuse linked to his time in Nunavut.

RCMP said a Canada-wide arrest warrant has been issued for Johannes Rivoire, who is in his 90s and lives in Lyon, France.

Nunavut RCMP said officers received a complaint last year regarding sexual assaults that occurred about 47 years ago.

Mounties said Rivoire was charged last month with sexual assault on a female.

The latest development in the investigation of the Oblate priest comes after the leader of the national organization representing Inuit people asked Pope Francis to intervene in the case during a meeting at the Vatican on Monday.

Natan Obed, president of Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami, said he asked the Pope to “speak with Father Rivoire directly and ask him to go to Canada to face the charges.” Obed also asked…

View Cache

For the first time, Francis received Indigenous survivors of abusive boarding schools in Canada who were seeking the pontiff’s apology over the church’s role in running the schools.

Pope Francis on Monday held his first Vatican meeting with Indigenous groups from Canada who were seeking his apology over the Roman Catholic Church’s involvement in a system of boarding schools that abused Indigenous children for over 100 years.

The meeting, with two of Canada’s three largest Indigenous groups, suggests that the pope, who had declined to apologize over the matter, is now prepared to discuss the church’s role as a way of making amends for the harm it caused.

The church has appeared more open to apologizing since several Indigenous communities announced last year that they had discovered signs of human remains, most likely those of children, in unmarked graves on the grounds of former schools.

Monday’s meeting took place…

View Cache

There are growing hopes that, like many in Europe, Latin American nations will soon launch independent inquiries into historical cases of clerical sexual abuse.

Over the past few years, several countries in Europe have launched new inquiries into the sexual abuse of children by Catholic priests.

Most recently, following the release of new data by the El Pais newspaper, Spain’s parliament approved the creation of an investigative commission led by the country’s ombudsperson, marking an unprecedented move in a Catholic-majority country that had remained largely silent on the issue for years. In France, a national inquiry found last year that an estimated 330,000 children have been sexually abused in Catholic institutions since 1950. Germany held multiple inquiries on the subject in recent years, while Poland, Portugal and the United Kingdom have investigations continuing. In Italy, too, abuse survivors are asking their government to launch a national…

View Cache

Natan Obed is in Rome as part of a delegation trying to get Pope Francis to Canada

The Indian Residential Schools Resolution Health Support Program has a hotline to help residential school survivors and their relatives suffering with the trauma  of past abuse. The number is 1-866-925-4419.

The president of Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami asked Pope Francis Monday to intervene personally in the unresolved case of Johannes Rivoire, a retired Roman Catholic priest living in France linked to sex abuse allegations in Nunavut.

Natan Obed, who speaks for all Inuit in Canada, said he made the request as part of an “hour-long encounter” with the pontiff and eight-member Inuit delegation to the Vatican in Rome.

“We asked that the pope speak with Fr. Rivoire directly and ask him to go to Canada to face the charges that he’s up on in Canada,” said Obed.

“And, if Fr. Rivoire is not agreeable…

View Cache

Indigenous leaders from Canada and survivors of the country’s notorious residential schools met with Pope Francis on Monday and told him of the abuses they suffered at the hands of Catholic priests and school workers. They came hoping to secure a papal apology and a commitment by the church to repair the harm done.

“While the time for acknowledgement, apology and atonement is long overdue, it is never too late to do the right thing,” Cassidy Caron, president of the Metis National Council, told reporters in St. Peter’s Square after the audience.

This week’s meetings, postponed from December because of the pandemic, are part of the Canadian church and government’s efforts to respond to Indigenous demands for justice, reconciliation and reparations — long-standing demands that gained traction last year after the discovery of hundreds of unmarked graves outside some of the schools.

More than 150,000 native children in Canada were…

View Cache

A key moment in the newly released deposition of Bishop Emeritus Howard Hubbard comes when an attorney asks the retired Catholic leader why he hadn’t called law enforcement after being apprised by a county social services commissioner that David Bentley, a priest under the bishop’s control, had allegedly committed child sexual abuse — and that the cleric had subsequently admitted it to the bishop.

“Bishop,” Jeffrey R. Anderson asks, “why didn’t you, after (Rev. Bentley) admitted to you having committed the felony of child sexual abuse, at his lips to your ears, why didn’t you call up the police and say, ‘I have a priest that just admitted a crime to me’?”

Bishop Emeritus Hubbard’s answer: “Because I was not a mandated reporter. I don’t think the law then or even now requires me to do it.”

You could not ask for a purer distillation of…

View Cache

Robert Brennan, a former Catholic priest who lied to the feds in a child sex abuse case, will be sentenced in federal court later this week.

A former Philadelphia Catholic priest who pleaded guilty late last year to lying to federal agents in connection with a child sexual abuse case will learn his fate later this week when he is sentenced by a federal judge.

Robert Brennan, who was charged in a corruption case by the federal government relating to his alleged sexual abuse of a minor child decades ago, is scheduled to be sentenced on Thursday by U.S. District Judge Anita Brody, according to court records.

According to media reports, Brennan, who had since been defrocked, admitted that he lied to FBI agents when they interviewed him at his Maryland home in 2019, saying that he did not know Sean McIlmail or his family, when, in fact, he had…

View Cache

A Buffalo Diocese priest who died in 2021 is accused of molesting a 15-year-old boy less than five years ago.

A claim of “unpermitted sexual contact” by the Rev. Robert M. Yetter in a lawsuit filed last week is the most recent alleged incident of abuse by a diocese priest among several hundred cases that have become public through court filings since 2018.

The vast bulk of accusations against Buffalo area priests involve abuses alleged to have happened at least 30 years ago, and diocese leaders say data shows safeguards tightly curbed abuses since they were put in place in 2002. The News found just one other public allegation of child sex abuse against a priest after 2005.

Victims advocates, however, maintain that the diocese has a spotty record on transparency and victims often don’t report abuse until years later, so it’s difficult to know yet whether…

View Cache

A former troop leader has been arraigned on multiple charges stemming from Michigan’s review of child sexual abuse lawsuits against the Boy Scouts of America.

Mark Chapman, 51, appeared Monday in Roseville District Court on two counts of first-degree criminal sexual conduct and eight counts of second-degree criminal sexual conduct.

Chapman is accused of sexually assaulting two boys at the time he was a scoutmaster in the Detroit suburb, where he also worked in and attended The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Starting in 2000, one victim was abused at the church — where the troop sometimes met — and other places from the time he was 13 or 14 until he was 17, according to Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel.

The second victim was assaulted for years beginning when he was about 11.

The Michigan charges were announced March 9, before Chapman’s parole from a New York…

View Cache

The Jesuits of Canada say they will continue to probe allegations of sexual abuse linked to a priest who once worked in the Kanien’kehá:ka (Mohawk) community of Kahnawake outside Montreal.

The decision follows Kahnawake’s vote on the weekend in favour of exhuming the remains of Rev. Léon Lajoie, who was assigned to the St. Francis Xavier Mission Church in the community from 1961 to 1996.

Members of the community came forward last summer with sexual abuse allegations against Lajoie, who died in 1999, demanding that his remains be moved from the territory in order to start a healing process.

The Jesuits said in a statement Sunday they respect the decision, adding that their next step will be consultations with the community over the transfer of Lajoie’s remains to a Jesuit cemetery in St-Jérôme, Que.

They also said that while an independent investigation they ordered into the alleged…

View Cache

A Catholic priest has gone on trial accused of sexually abusing boys at a swimming pool.

Father Patrick Smythe is also accused of committing sex offences against boys in his care while on a retreat at a hostel in North Yorkshire.

Leeds Crown Court heard the offences are alleged to have taken place around 40 years ago.

Smythe, 79, of Manor Square, Otley, pleads not guilty to six counts of indecent assault and one of attempted indecent assault.

Father Smythe denies the allegations.

Michael Morley, prosecuting, told the jury that the charges relate to six boys who were in his care at the time of the alleged offences.

The prosecutor said: “We say this defendant has a sexual interest in male children.

“Not only does he have a sexual interest in children but, we say, he has acted upon that interest and he has abused that position he had in…

View Cache

As a young girl, Amanda Brandt suffered repeated sexual abuse at the hands of her best friend’s father.

Roy Pompa drugged and raped girls – ages 6 to 13 – in his home where he also videotaped the crimes. 

The trauma set Brandt on a path of self-destruction as an adult, including heroin addiction, attempted suicide and homelessness, she argues. In 2018, she filed a civil lawsuit against Pompa. The jury said she deserved $134 million for her pain and suffering.

But an Ohio law passed in 2005 limits how much plaintiffs – including survivors of child rape – can be awarded for pain and suffering.

Brandt’s damages for the abuse that happened after the tort reform law took effect were knocked down from $20 million to $250,000. The $14 million in noneconomic damages pre-2005 and the $100 million in punitive damages were unchanged.

Brandt is challenging the law before the Ohio Supreme Court,…

View Cache

The Albany Catholic Diocese concealed reports of child sex abuse for decades and failed to report the abuse to police, Albany Bishop Emeritus Howard Hubbard testified last year, according to transcripts of a deposition released Friday.

The more than 600-page transcript details instances in which the former bishop covered up allegations of priests sexually abusing minors during his 37-year tenure, which ended in 2014.

Hubbard provided four days of sworn testimony in April 2021. The deposition was released Friday as a result of a recent decision by the Albany County Supreme Court.

“Bishop Hubbard’s testimony reveals decades of decadence, denial and deception at the peril of so many innocent, trusting children, in his own words,” said Jeff Anderson, an attorney for the survivor who sought the release of the deposition.

Three hundred cases were filed against the Albany Diocese alleging sexual abuse under the Child Victims Act. Ten of those accuse the…

View Cache

For the first two decades of my life, there was very little I did that wasn’t touched somehow by evangelical churches. I can still sing a random smattering of Bible verses, thanks to catchy little melodies we played on cassette tapes in the car. If I squeeze my eyes shut hard enough, I can reach down into the primordial dregs of my memory and find some of the pledge to the Christian Flag, bringing up with it the Play-Doh smell of my preschool classroom at a church-adjacent academy in Scottsdale, Ariz. I still remember thefirst time I ever felt so overwhelmed by the Holy Spirit that I wept during a church service — I was 11,and it was during a rendition of “Shout to the Lord,” a beloved praise anthem from none other than Hillsong, the Australia-based global charismatic church network known best at the time for its stirring, internationally…

View Cache

The former bishop of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Albany has acknowledged covering up allegations of sexual abuse against children by priests in part to avoid scandal and protect the reputation of the diocese.

Howard J. Hubbard made the admission during a deposition taken last year as part of a response to dozens of claims filed under New York’s Child Victims Act. A judge ordered the deposition released on Friday.

Hundreds of people have sued the Albany diocese over sexual abuse they say they endured as children, sometimes decades ago.

During the four-day deposition, Hubbard named several priests who had been accused of sexual abuse who were referred to treatment and later returned to ministry, without notification to the public. One, David Bentley, admitted to Hubbard that he had engaged in the behavior alleged.

Hubbard testified he didn’t report the allegations to law enforcement because he didn’t feel he was…

View Cache

223 people voted in favour of Rev. Léon Lajoie’s exhumation

The Mohawk community of Kahnawake voted this weekend to move out the remains of a priest facing sexual abuse allegations.

Several Kahnawake residents came forward last summer with allegations that Rev. Léon Lajoie had abused them, and demanded that his remains be removed from the community south of Montreal.

“I feel relieved, I was in shock they had to tell me three times that they voted in favour of his removal,” said Melissa Montour-Lazare, the spokesperson for the group demanding the exhumation. “I’m happy for the survivors and wish them well on their healing journey. They can rest their minds now.”

The Mohawk Council of Kahnawake shared the results on Saturday, saying 420 people voted. While two votes were invalid, 223 people voted in favour of Lajoie’s exhumation, while 195 people wanted to keep his remains in the community.

Lajoie, a…

View Cache

Analysis: the global church, founded almost 40 years ago in north-west Sydney, has little choice but to launch an independent inquiry

Judgment Day has come for Hillsong – but not in the way its pastors promised.

To recap a damning week for the church, its founder and global senior pastor, Brian Houston, has resigned after an internal investigation found he had breached the church’s code of conduct twice over the past decade by behaving inappropriately towards two women.

The church has further been rocked by the revelation that the former Hillsong Dallas pastor Reed Bogard resigned last year after he was accused of rape. A former Hillsong college student also went public with claims that the church had covered up her sexual assault.

On Thursday Hillsong Atlanta’s lead pastor, Sam Collier, resigned, citing the ongoing scandals and accusations about various members of Hillsong. “A lot of our members were becoming really fatigued with a…

View Cache

For five long years, survivors of abuse at the hands of Dunedin clergy have waited to see if a reminder of the city’s dark past would be removed. The news that they had succeeded was greeted with relief, but the handling of the investigation into Bishop John Kavanagh has come under fire. PIJF reporter Daisy Hudson reports.

Murray Heasley was horrified. He was staring at a photo of a convicted paedophile, on display at his old high school.

That man, Magnus Murray, was proven to have committed acts described as “despicable sexual crimes against innocent and vulnerable children”.

It left Dr Heasley and a group of fellow old boys of Dunedin’s Kavanagh College incensed.

Their ire was increased by the knowledge that the school’s namesake, the then Catholic Bishop of Dunedin John Kavanagh, had been aware of abuse at the time and had not reported it to police.

That moment…

View Cache

A priest in the Catholic Diocese of Cleveland who has served assignments in Stow, Wadsworth and Medina has been placed on administrative leave due to unspecified allegations of violating the diocese’s standards of conduct for ministry.

The Rev. Michael D. Ausperk was placed on leave this week while an investigation is conducted, according to an announcement that St. Francis Xavier Church in Medina released to its parishioners Saturday.

“These allegations do not allege any sexual abuse of a minor,” the statement said, adding that “the details are confidential, and the diocese has not disclosed them to us.”

“While on administrative leave, Father Ausperk is unable to function in any capacity as a priest anywhere,” the statement said.

In a video posted Saturday afternoon, the Rev. Anthony F. Sejba of St. Francis spoke about the investigation.

“I’ve got some very difficult news to share with you,” Sejba told parishioners.

The pastor said…

View Cache

I want to say a couple of things to people who have been spiritually abused in Charismatic settings: particularly to people like me, who are recovering Charismatics that still want to practice religion and find their own ways of talking and listening to God, but might not be sure how to go about doing it. If you were Charismatic for a long time or since childhood, you might not realize the ways healthy boundaries have been violated or what’s normal and what’s not. These are probably are common knowledge to everybody else, but they aren’t always common knowledge to recovering Charismatics. So if none of what I’m about to say seems relevant to you, I’m glad, but people in a certain niche need to hear it.

The first thing you have to know is that, in non-emergency situations, touch is supposed to be consensual. This is sometimes the opposite of…

View Cache

The Northern Ireland government issued a formal apology on Friday to people who were abused in orphanages and children’s homes, telling them that “the state let you down.”

Ministers from all five political parties in the Northern Ireland Assembly read out apologies to survivors gathered at the Stormont government buildings near Belfast. Representatives of six institutions where abuse took place also publicly said sorry to those who were harmed.

“We neglected you, rejected you, we made you feel unwanted,” said Education Minister Michelle McIlveen, from the Democratic Unionist Party. “It was not your fault. The state let you down.”

The formal apology came more than five years after it was recommended by the Historical Institutional Abuse Inquiry. The years-long inquiry found shocking levels of physical, sexual and mental abuse at institutions run by the state, churches and charities between 1922, when Northern Ireland was founded as a state, and 1995.

…

View Cache

My Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

Greetings on this Fourth Sunday of Lent, Laetare (rejoice) Sunday. We are at the half-way point of Lent, a time to have a joyful anticipation of the celebration of the Resurrection of our Lord on Easter Sunday. I also rejoice in my return to ministry as the Bishop of the Catholic Diocese of Dodge City.

This has been a terrible ordeal and it has taken a long time to determine that the accusation against me was not true, but I always trusted that I would be exonerated because I knew that I did not do what I had been accused of. I trusted I would be cleared of the accusation, and I appreciate the intensive efforts of the KBI and Church authorities to investigate the accusation so thoroughly. I believe these findings speak for themselves and I simply want to get back…

View Cache

When an Assembly of First Nations delegation traveled to the Vatican in 2009 to meet with then-Pope Benedict XVI, the pontiff told them in a private meeting of his “personal anguish” over abuse suffered by Indigenous children in church-run boarding schools they were forced to attend in Canada.

What at the time was called an expression of deep, heartfelt regret is no longer seen as sufficient after last year’s discovery in British Columbia of about 200 unmarked and previously undocumented graves of children at what was Canada’s largest Indigenous residential school — one of numerous, similar grim sites across the country.

Now Indigenous leaders are expecting nothing less than a public apology from Pope Francis, with government officials up to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau lending support to their cause. Set to meet with First Nations, Métis and Inuit survivors at the Vatican next week ahead of a visit to Canada…

View Cache

The leader of the national organization representing Inuit people says it will not be a celebratory occasion when he meets with Pope Francis at the Vatican next week as part of an Indigenous delegation.

 Natan Obed has a specific item on his agenda: justice for alleged victims of a Roman Catholic priest accused of crimes against children.

Obed, president of Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami, wants the church to hold to account an Oblate priest, Johannes Rivoire, who continues to live free despite multiple allegations of sexual abuse linked to his time in Nunavut.

“He is still alive and has not faced legal prosecution,” Obed said in a recent interview.

Rivoire was in Canada from the early 1960s to 1993, when he returned to France.

A warrant was issued for his arrest in 1998. He faced at least three charges of sexual abuse in the Nunavut communities of Arviat, Rankin Inlet and…

View Cache

The long-running bankruptcy reorganization filed by the Archdiocese of Santa Fe to deal with clergy abuse claims has reached a pivotal stage, with all parties’ sides entering what could be a final mediation session this week.

Albuquerque attorney Thomas Walker, who represents the Archdiocese, told U.S. Bankruptcy Judge David Thuma on Friday that the mediation session beginning Monday involving the archdiocese, Catholic parishes, insurance carriers and attorneys for 374 clergy sex abuse survivors is “more important than any before.”

“The debtor (Archdiocese) remains optimistic that a settlement can be reached. We want to see if we can wrap this up,” said Walker during a hearing in the case.

If all parties can’t reach a settlement, he added,”We might not have another opportunity.”

For months, negotiations in the case have hinged on how much the Archdiocese’s insurance carriers should contribute to the pool of money needed to compensate victims who were…

View Cache

The bishop of Dodge City, Kansas has been cleared of an allegation of sexual abuse, the Archdiocese of Kansas City announced Wednesday.

Bishop John Brungardt will return to ministry after a nearly 14-month voluntary leave of absence which began in February 2021, when the Kansas Bureau of Investigation said it was looking into an allegation of abuse against the bishop.

“The allegation was fully investigated by the Kansas Bureau of Investigation (KBI), following which civil authorities declined prosecution,” the Archdiocese of Kansas City said in a March 23 statement.

“Following the KBI investigation, Church authorities conducted their own separate investigation of the allegation. The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith at the Vatican has now determined that the allegation against Bishop Brungardt is not supported by the evidence and the case against him has been dismissed,” the archdiocese added.

Brungardt broke precedent last year by stepping away from ministry…

View Cache

Two men who worked in direct care at a western Pennsylvania residential facility inflicted what a grand jury alleges was “violent, demeaning and humiliating” abuse on people with severe physical and mental disabilities, federal prosecutors said Friday in announcing hate crimes criminal charges.

Zachary Lee Dinell, 28, and Tyler James Smith, 31, are accused of abusing people who are not able to speak to report their injuries and lack the capacity to defend themselves.

Their 12-count indictment issued Wednesday describes that from mid-2016 to about September 2017 residents of McGuire Memorial in New Brighton were punched in the face and head, choked, kicked in the face, jumped on, had caustic substances and other liquids rubbed into their eyes and had liquids sprayed and thrown into their mouths.

Thomas King, McGuire Memorial’s general counsel, said the abuse came to light when police investigating Dinell for another matter found texts and videos…

View Cache

‘It’s nerve-wracking, but I’m also looking forward to it, to the discussions we’re going to have’

WARNING: This story contains distressing details.

A Dene woman from the Fort Nelson First Nation in northern B.C. is feeling the weight of responsibility as she prepares to travel to the Vatican to represent intergenerational survivors in an audience with the Pope.

Taylor Behn-Tsakoza, 26, is the youth delegate for the Assembly of First Nations (AFN) taking part in the historic meetings set for next week. She is part of a larger group of First Nations peoples, including Inuit and Métis representatives, asking Pope Francis for an apology for the harm done by Roman Catholic-run residential schools. 

“It’s nerve-wracking,” Behn-Tsakoza said. “But I’m also looking forward to it, to the discussions we’re going to have.”

Representing young Indigenous people and her community is a responsibility she doesn’t take lightly. 

As the youth delegate, Behn-Tsakoza will be asking…

View Cache

WARNING: This story contains distressing details

The close relationship between the Roman Catholic Church and the Mi’kmaq in what is now Atlantic Canada — an alliance that dates back more than 400 years — is being sorely tested after recent discoveries of unmarked graves at former residential school sites.

Some have turned away from the church, but others have maintained their faith.

“It’s just sad that what happened in residential schools should never have happened,” said Jeff Ward, general manager of the Membertou Heritage Park in Membertou First Nation, near Sydney, N.S.

“Those that hid behind religion, they have to answer to the Creator. They have to stand before God.

“My mom is a survivor. I’m a son of a survivor, so she told me the stories, and she’s still with us today and she shares those stories with our family and it’s very hard.”

Starting Monday, Inuit, Métis and First Nations representatives…

View Cache

Former national chief who revealed abuse he suffered is part of delegation to Vatican

[AUDIO – The Sunday Magazine]

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

When Phil Fontaine spoke decades ago about the sexual and physical abuse he suffered at Manitoba residential schools, he risked shame and shocked Canadians.

Fontaine, an Ojibway and former chief of the Sagkeeng First Nation, was one of the first Indigenous leaders to speak to the public about the physical and psychological abuse at Canada’s residential schools, during a ground-breaking 1990 interview with CBC’s Barbara Frum.

Now, 32 years later, the former national chief of the Assembly of First Nations is part of a 30-member delegation that will be at the Vatican starting on Monday to talk about the Roman Catholic Church’s role in the horrors that played out in Canadian residential schools.

Fontaine said the “time has come” for a full apology from the pontiff.

“It’s…

View Cache