ABUSE TRACKER

Pope Benedict and Munich’s sex-abuse crisis

What did he know and when did he know it?” That was the famous question asked by Senator Howard Baker fifty years ago at the Watergate hearings. Today that question is being asked about Pope Benedict, who has been accused of mishandling sexual-abuse cases when he was archbishop of Munich between 1977 and 1982. 

Benedict’s involvement in these cases is the subject of a new independent report on child abuse by the Munich law firm Westpfahl Spilker Wastl (WSW). The firm was commissioned by the German Catholic Church in 2020 to conduct an inquiry into allegations of abuse in the Munich Archdiocese between 1945 and 2019. The WSW investigators identified at least 497 victims (mostly teenage boys) and 261 offenders, 205 of whom were priests. Forty-two cases have been forwarded to the public prosecutor.

The 1,900-page report reveals several cases in which abusive priests were…

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Jefferson County OH – Former Franciscan friar David Morrier was sentenced Friday to five years probation and lifetime registration as a sex offender. And the victim’s statement indicated the abuse was reported, but no one intervened.

After hearing the emotional statement from the victim in the case, NEWS9 asked Prosecutor Jane Hanlin if there was more work to be done by investigators.

“One of the most disturbing parts of her statement is how many people should have intervened and should have helped this young woman when she was a student on their campus,” Hanlin said. “And, so, there may be more work to do on this case because it’s certainly clear to us and it was clear through her statement that there were a number of points that this should have stopped.”

In her statement, the victim said while the abuses continued over a period of three years, the university,…

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The Vatican has commissioned an investigation into a recently retired auxiliary bishop, who served as the vicar general in the Diocese of Brooklyn until his retirement Monday. At least one diocesan official has resigned in protest over the handling of the complaint, according to sources in the diocese.

Bishop Raymond Chappetto, 76, whose resignation was announced by the Vatican on March 7, is accused of failing to pass on to the Brooklyn diocesan review board and diocesan officials a memo about a priest who had been accused of misconduct. The Vatican has directed the bishop of a New York diocese to investigate, sources in Brooklyn and the Vatican told The Pillar.

The investigation has raised questions among some in Brooklyn about the decision of Brooklyn’s Bishop Robert Brennan to leave Chappetto in place as vicar general for more than four months after he became aware of complaints to the Vatican about…

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In the COVID-19 era, some pastors have found creative ways to stretch a dollar. One method is to keep churches just warm enough for the congregants, without running the heat all day during the winter.

“Financially, you don’t want to cut corners on the necessities, but you find ways to pinch a penny,” said Carmelite Fr. Nicholas Blackwell, parochial vicar at the National Shrine of Our Lady of Mount Carmel in Middletown, New York.

Blackwell told NCR that his parish, which operates a main church and two mission sites in the Hudson Valley’s rural and mountain regions, is “still kind of surviving, collection to collection” two years after the novel coronavirus pandemic swept through the world.

But highlighting the uneven economic impacts that COVID-19 has had across society, Catholic parishes elsewhere are faring relatively well. Fr. Satish Joseph, pastor of three parishes in Dayton, Ohio, said his churches never had…

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In case you have not heard, David Morrier, whom I will not call “Father” ever again, has pleaded guilty to sexual battery. Shockingly, he only received probation, but at least he will have to register as a sex offender.

It happened today, a few days ahead of the upcoming trial, which had been put off with continuance after continuance for about a year, just downtown in the Jefferson County courthouse. My long-term readers will remember how closely I’ve been following this case, because Morrier was a priest at Franciscan University and someone I had considered a friend and went to for help in the worst of circumstances. He fooled me completely as he no doubt fooled many others.

I want to draw your attention to the victim’s statement, which has been posted in its entirety on Scribd. Just take time to read that. It’s horrific, but please respect her by…

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Otsego County MI – The Michigan Attorney Generals Office will not file criminal charges against a northern Michigan priest accused of sending inappropriate texts to students.

Late last year, the Diocese of Gaylord referred a complaint to the AG’s Office involving a priest sending messages through text and social media to high school students.

The Attorney General’s Office said the priest involved was Bryan Medlin.

After receiving the report, Medlin became the focus of an investigation coordinated between Michigan State Police and the Michigan Department of Attorney General.

Investigators determined Fr. Medlin had been sending several teens and young men, between 16 and 18, messages that contained sexual content and racially insensitive statements through social media and text messages, according to the report.

The messages were sent to high school students at both St. Mary’s in Lake Leelanau and St. Francis High School in Traverse City, said investigators.

“While the…

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On Dec. 9, 1968, I pulled a stool next to my father in his room at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City, the same hospital where so many coronavirus patients succumbed during the Covid-19 pandemic. A nuclear veteran, age 40, with acute leukemia, he lay in a full protective bubble. I had to touch him through a rubber glove that extended from a plastic sleeve. He turned his head and fought a smile. His hollowed eyes reached mine. As a Catholic and an altar boy, I felt like the women at the foot of the cross. Two hours later my father died. I had just turned 12, and I didn’t realize that my darkest days were ahead.

His death left our family shattered. My mother fell prey to her alcoholism, and I fell prey to her escalating physical and mental abuse. Father figures in the community sought me out….

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Former Columbia City priest and chaplain for Bishop Dwenger High School David Huneck was sentenced in Whitley County Court on Thursday after pleading guilty to groping a woman at his home.

A judge accepted the plea deal with prosecutors that called for a 180-day sentence to be served as home detention. Huneck will then be placed on probation for two years and he will be required to complete 80 hours of community service.

Huneck originally faced six charges. As part of the plea, those 6 charges were dropped, the two most serious of the six being child seduction and sexual battery, both Level 6 felonies. He agreed to two new charges of battery with bodily injury.

Huneck’s plea agreement originally called for him to serve 10-90 days concurrently on both charges.

He was accused of groping a woman and exposing himself to a minor at his home on two separate…

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A former priest for the Diocese of Fort Wayne-South Bend who was arrested on sex crime charges will spend no time behind bars.

According to Fort Wayne’s NBC, a special judge accepted a plea agreement for David Huneck on Thursday. The agreement calls for Huneck to spend 180 days on home detention and a year and a half on probation.

Huneck was also ordered to complete 80 hours of community service and will have to complete a substance abuse assessment.

Court documents released in the case accuse Huneck of inviting two young women, ages 17 and 19 at the time, to his home and giving them alcohol before assaulting them on two different occasions.

The Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests released a statement on Thursday applauding the victims for coming forward, but it feels that charges of this magnitude deserved a much…

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Columbia City IN – A former northeastern Indiana priest will serve a 180-day sentence on home detention and spend two years on probation after he pleaded guilty Thursday to sexually abusing two teenagers.

David Huneck also will be required to complete 80 hours of community service after pleading guilty in Whitley Superior Court to two counts of battery resulting in moderate injury.

Child seduction and sexual battery charges were dismissed as part of a plea agreement.

Huneck had served as a pastor in Columbia City and as a chaplain at Bishop Dwenger High School in Fort Wayne before stepping down.

Court documents said Huneck invited two victims, then 17 and 19, to his Columbia City home and gave them alcohol before assaulting them.

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For immediate release: March 9, 2022

A Catholic priest who spent time in the Diocese of Fargo and was accused of abuse while working there is still on the job in his home diocese in Nigeria. Now, we are calling on Church officials in Fargo, Minnesota, Boston, and the Military Services to use every resource at their disposal to prevent this dangerous cleric from working around children.

Fr. Luke U. Odor not only worked in the Fargo Diocese, he was also assigned to multiple locations in Minnesota in the 1990s, including the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis and the Diocese of Crookston. He later worked under the auspices of the Archdiocese of Boston and the Archdiocese for Military Services before his faculties were suspended in 2012 while “personal conduct matters” were investigated.

Despite that suspension and Fr. Odor being named as an abuser by Fargo, St. Paul, Minneapolis, and Crookston, the priest appears to still be working as a clergyman….

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Today, Rev. Michael Schemm was reinstated to public ministry in the Catholic Diocese of Wichita.

In October of last year, the diocese received an allegation that Father Schemm, pastor at Church of the Resurrection, sexually abused a minor in the 1990s. Rev. Schemm denied the allegation and was placed on administrative leave of absence pending investigation.

In accordance with our protocols, the diocese notified the district attorney. Ultimately, the district attorney elected not to further pursue the matter based on his conclusion that “the prosecution of any alleged crime in this situation would be time-barred.” The diocese also performed its own investigation of the allegation, which was recently completed and presented to the Charter Review Board (CRB).

The CRB reviewed this entire matter, including investigative materials and other information relating to Rev. Schemm’s 28 years of service to this diocese. The majority of CRB members, which is composed mostly of…

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A Wichita priest who was accused of sexual exploitation of a child will return to public ministry after the district attorney said he could not file charges.

Father Michael Schemm, Church of the Resurrection, was placed on administrative leave in November 2021 after the allegations surfaced. The allegations reportedly occurred between 1993 and 1996, when Schemm was assigned to St. Elizabeth Ann Seton in Wichita.

The child, who would have been between 12 and 15 at the time, would be 40 this year, Sedgwick County District Attorney Marc Bennett said in late January.

Under state law, the statute of limitations expired in 2009, when the alleged victim turned 28. Bennett said his decision was a legal conclusion and and was making “no commentary or conclusions” on the allegations.

The Catholic Diocese of Wichita said in a release Tuesday that it notified the DA of Father Schemm’s reinstatement to public ministry.

“Ultimately,…

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A Wichita priest who was the subject of child abuse allegations will return to the ministry, according to the Catholic Diocese of Wichita.

In October of 2021, the diocese placed Rev. Michael Schemm on administrative leave following allegations that he had sexually abused a minor in the 1990s while he was serving at St. Elizabeth Ann Seton in Wichita. He denied the allegations.

The diocese then turned the case over to the Sedgwick County District Attorney’s Office.

In January, the district attorney’s office announced that too much time had passed to prosecute the case under state law.

On Tuesday, Bishop Carl Kemme said that the diocese performed its own investigation and presented it to the Charter Review Board (CRB) to further review.

“The CRB reviewed this entire matter, including investigative materials and other information relating to Rev. Schemm’s 28 years of service to this diocese. The majority of CRB…

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Lawyers for the Springfield diocese failed to persuade a Supreme Judicial Court justice to delay action on a lawsuit brought by a former altar boy sexually abused decades ago by a bishop.

In a ruling late last week, Associate Justice David A. Lowy denied a motion by lawyers for the diocese and other defendants to halt proceedings in the case, saying the plaintiff “has a right to expeditious resolution of his case.”

Lowy’s decision, which came Friday, follows earlier moves by a Hampden Superior Court judge as well as a single justice of the Appeals Court to allow the case to be tried, even as the diocese’s lawyers prepare to argue, among other things, that the court system lacks jurisdiction due to the First Amendment’s doctrine of church autonomy.

The plaintiff is a Chicopee man around the age of 70 who is identified only as John Doe. He  View Cache

More legal troubles for the Catholic Church in Louisiana.  Several lawsuits alleging abuse are expected to be filed in communities across the state.

BR Proud reports the Diocese of Baton Rouge is accused of covering up abuse cases involving priests.

Attorney Jessica Arbour represents at least one victim who alleges abuse by a priest in the Baton Rouge area back in the 1970’s. The lawsuit claims church leaders knew about problem priests in the the New Orleans area who were routinely moved or “dumped” in Baton Rouge.

Arbour says it is a daily struggle for these victims. She says they deal with this trauma every day and it often takes years for many of the victims to come forward.

Does the Statute of Limitations Not Come into Play in These Cases?

These new claims are coming to light after state lawmakers passed bills to open…

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A man who says that a former Baton Rouge and New Orleans priest, the now-deceased Rev. John Anthony Weber, sexually abused him in the 1970s has filed a lawsuit against the Roman Catholic Diocese of Baton Rouge under new laws that opened Louisiana’s window for victims of child sexual abuse to pursue civil claims.

The lawsuit is the first clergy sexual abuse claim that the Diocese of Baton Rouge has faced since releasing a list in 2019 of 46 clergy members who were credibly accused of sexual abuse and worked in the Diocese of Baton Rouge throughout its six-decade history. Weber was on the credibly accused clergy lists for both the Diocese of Baton Rouge and Archdiocese of New Orleans.

The Weber suit is also the first that the Diocese has faced under new laws that state lawmakers passed last year,  View Cache

A Georgia Supreme Court ruling could mean more alleged sexual abuse victims can have their day in court against the Catholic Church.

A former altar boy claims the Archdiocese of Atlanta turned a blind eye to the abuse for years.

A priest allegedly took altar boys to a lake house on Lake Allatoona in Acworth and sexually abused them in the ‘70s.

The Georgia Supreme Court decision is big because a lower court previously ruled the allegations went beyond the statute of limitations.

“All they’ve ever wanted is to have a shot. A shot at justice. And this decision, that’s exactly what it does,” said attorney Darren Penn, who represents more than a dozen people allegedly abused by the same priest.

The newly released 31-page document from the Georgia Supreme Court shows allegations of a “systematic cover up effort.”

The alleged victim — only known as Philip Doe — said…

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Michigan AG announces first criminal charges in Boy Scouts of America investigation

Michigan’s BSA investigation tip line can be reached at 844-324-3374 between 8 a.m. and 5 p.m. Monday through Friday.

Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel on Wednesday announced the first criminal charges in connection with the state’s investigation into the Boy Scouts of American and claims of child sex abuse made against the organization.

Michigan officials are charging New York man Mark Chapman, 51, with 10 counts of criminal sex conduct (CSC) allegedly carried out against two children while he was serving as a leader for the Boy Scouts in Macomb County. Chapman is facing eight counts of second-degree CSC, and two counts of first-degree CSC for allegedly repeatedly abusing two victims starting when they were 13 and 11 years old.

Nessel said Wednesday that Chapman — who was a BSA troop master…

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Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel on Wednesday said a New York man is the first person charged in connection with her investigation into allegations of sexual abuse of Michigan residents involved in the Boy Scouts of America.

Mark Chapman, 51, is charged in Macomb County District Court with two counts of first-degree criminal sexual conduct and eight counts of second-degree criminal sexual conduct involving two alleged victims, Nessel said at a news conference at the Cadillac Place in Midtown.

Nessel’s office said at a news conference that at the time of the alleged incidents more than 20 years ago, Chapman was involved in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints in Roseville and the Boy Scouts.

Chapman, who is married, was an employee and scout leader at the church, although he was not a religious leader, Nessel said. He held janitorial-type jobs at the church, Nessel’s office said.

Calls to the Roseville Church of the Latter-Day…

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Michigan authorities on Wednesday announced the first criminal charges stemming from the state’s review of child sexual abuse lawsuits against the Boy Scouts of America, charging a former troop leader before his release from a New York prison on separate crimes.

Mark Chapman, 51, is accused of sexually assaulting two boys at the time he was a scoutmaster in the Detroit suburb of Roseville, 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, Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel said. The second victim was assaulted for years beginning when he was about 11.

One of the men called a tip line.

“It’s not just important for us to hold the person accountable for…

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Nicholas Harrison’s book, Safe Space, explores how Star Wars taught him coping mechanisms and helped him re-establish his boundaries after years of childhood abuse

Nicholas Harrison hopes his new book, Safe Space: A True Story of Faith, Betrayal, and the Power of the Force, gives other abuse survivors hope, just as the Star Wars film series did for him as a young boy.

Safe Space, which was published in January, is a personal account of the years of sexual and physical abuse that Harrison faced at the hands of Catholic priests as a boy and documents how Star Wars led him on a journey from victim to survivor to his final form as a Jedi.

“It’s part memoir and it’s also part research, using myself as a case study for how popular culture, cosplay, cult cinema and science fiction can actually help someone through traumatic experiences – while not getting lost in it,…

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Catholic bishops in Japan have dedicated the second Friday of Lent as a Day of Prayer and Penance for Victims and Survivors of Sexual Abuse.

Archbishop Isao Kikuchi of Tokyo, president of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Japan, has requested Catholics to join in prayers for the victims and survivors of sex abuse on March 18, ucanews.com reported.

Archbishop Kikuchi said that in recent years cases of sexual abuse by clergy have been reported in churches around the world, and investigations reveal that many similar cases existed way back in the past.

“In addition, it has become clear that among these acts by the clergy include sexual abuse committed against minors who should be protected. The church in Japan is no exception,” said the prelate, secretary-general of the Federation of Asian Bishops’ Conferences.

“Moreover, there have been several reports of cases in which bishops and superiors of religious congregations have…

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A two-year investigation led by the authorities in New Zealand has resulted in the arrests of hundreds of people around the globe on charges of possessing and sharing child sexual abuse material, officials said on Wednesday. Dozens of children were moved out of harm’s way as a result, the authorities said.

The investigation, the largest of its kind led out of New Zealand, found a secret global networks that shared child sexual abuse images on a wide scale. In some cases, the pandemic provided cover for the illegal activity, as lockdowns kept children isolated at home and predators took to the web in search of victims, a British official said.

The investigation, called Operation H, involved 12 countries and began in 2019, after an unnamed online service provider reported that its platform was being used to share horrific images of child sexual abuse. About 90,000 accounts were linked to the…

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The pastor of one of Canada’s largest churches was forced to resign after an independent investigation found evidence of his sexual misconduct.

Bruxy Cavey, who grew The Meeting House into a megachurch with some 5,000 people attending 19 campuses in the larger Toronto metropolitan area, was accused of sexual misconduct by a woman who reported it to the church’s Overseers Board, or board of directors, in December.

“Having carefully reviewed the investigator’s report, our Board unanimously decided to ask Bruxy to resign from his role at The Meeting House effective immediately,” Maggie John, chair of the Overseers Board, wrote in an email to church members Monday (March 7). “Bruxy then submitted his resignation on March 3rd which the Overseers accepted.”

Also on Monday, a teaching pastor at the church, Danielle Strickland, tweeted that she was resigning “in solidarity with the victim of abuse.”

The church plans to hold a town hall…

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Notorious paedophile priest Gerald Ridsdale has been charged with a string of additional offences as part of a police investigation into historical allegations of sexual assault.

The 87-year-old is accused of committing 24 offences against two male victims in Mortlake in 1981 and 1982.

Victoria Police did not provide a breakdown of the charges but revealed they included indecent assault and penetration of a person between the ages of 10 and 16.

Ridsdale has been in prison since 1994 for more than 100 counts of sexual abuse against children spanning three decades.

He was due to become eligible for parole in April 2022, but his release date was pushed back to April 2025 in May 2020, after he was sentenced in Melbourne’s County Court for the abuse of four boys in the 1970s.

Ridsdale was ordained as a priest at St Patrick’s Cathedral in Ballarat in 1961 and went on…

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Victorian police have charged Catholic priest Gerald Ridsdale with more child sexual abuse offences as part of an investigation into a number of alleged historical assaults.

On Tuesday, detectives from the Sexual Crimes Squad charged the 87-year-old with 24 charges related to sexual offences, including sexual penetration of a person aged between 10-16 and indecent assault.

Police said the charges related to alleged incidents involving two male victims in Mortlake in Victoria’s Western District in 1981 and 1982.

Ridsdale is expected to appear in the Warrnambool Magistrates’ Court on March 28.

He has been in prison since 1994 for the abuse of more than 60 children in Victoria.

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A lawsuit has been filed against the Diocese of Baton Rouge under a new law suspending the statute of limitations in sexual abuse cases in Louisiana.

The lawsuit names Fr. John Weber, who was a priest with the Archdiocese of New Orleans and Diocese of Baton Rouge. Weber died in 2000.

RELATED: 8 clergymen who worked in Baton Rouge area included on list of sex abusers from Archdiocese of New Orleans

According to the petition for damages, which was filed in East Baton Rouge Parish District Court, a man claims he was sexually abused by Weber at St. Charles Borromeo Catholic Church in Baton Rouge beginning when he was about 13 years old. The church was also named in the lawsuit.

The lawsuit alleges that Weber sexually abused the teen on multiple occasions around 1975 and 1976.

The attorneys for the alleged victim said they believe this is the first…

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The Supreme Court of Georgia has ruled that the victim of alleged sexual abuse by a priest at Marietta’s Saint Joseph’s Catholic Church can sue not only the church, but the archdiocese and archbishop of Atlanta.

The decision overrules a lower court’s ruling that the allegations — by an altar boy who said he was abused by Father J. Douglas Edwards in the 1970s — had exceeded the statute of limitations.

The suit was filed in 2018, a short time after Archbishop of Atlanta Wilton Gregory first acknowledged sexual abuse of children by members of the church. The alleged victim, identified as “Philip Doe,” said the church had systematically covered up abuse by its own priests.

Doe charged Edwards, who died in 1997, took groups of boys to a house on Lake Allatoona, where he charged he was molested about eight to 10 times from at least 1976 through 1978….

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Eleven people contacted the archdiocese in 2021 to report that they experienced sexual violence within the structures of the church.

Specifically, the reports were made by three women and eight men.
 
One of these individuals was over 18 years of age at the time the incident occurred. This means that ten people were minors when they were sexually assaulted. The incidents reportedly took place between 1940 and 2009.
 
Ten different members of the clergy or people who are or were in the service of the church have been accused as the culprits behind the sexual assaults. The vicar general has forwarded all cases to the public prosecutor’s office.
 
Meanwhile, four victims have received damages from the church.
 
The Luxembourg Catholic Church has set up a service for victims who have experienced abuse within church structures. They can reach out either by…

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People who took part in a “pile-on” against Cardinal George Pell are refusing to reconsider the case almost two years after the Australian Church leader’s acquittal, a speaker said on Tuesday.

Gerard Henderson, the author of “Cardinal Pell, The Media Pile-on and Collective Guilt,” told an audience in Sydney, Australia, on March 8 that this amounted to “intellectual cowardice” and, in some cases, “censorship.”

He argued that the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, Australia’s national broadcaster, and many of the country’s newspapers had overlooked critical accounts of the Pell trial and its coverage by the media.

“In short, members of the Pell pile-on will not engage in any reconsideration of the Pell case. In my view, that’s intellectual cowardice. In certain circumstances, it’s censorship,” he said.

Henderson was one of three speakers at the event “Lessons From the Pell Case – Two Years After the High Court Decision,” organized by the Sydney Institute, a…

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The head of the German Bishops’ Conference on Monday pressed for a quick decision from Pope Francis on the future of a prominent archbishop who faces strong criticism for his handling of the church’s sexual abuse scandal.

Cardinal Rainer Maria Woelki, the archbishop of Cologne, said that he had offered his resignation to the pontiff after returning from a months-long “spiritual timeout” last week.

The conservative Woelki has become a deeply divisive figure in the German church after triggering a public furor over his handling of reports on how church officials in his archdiocese dealt with abuse cases. In September, the Vatican said that Francis had decided to give him the timeout after he made what it termed “major errors” of communication.

Woelki last week asked for the faithful to “give me — no, us — another chance.”

The head of the German Bishops’ Conference, Limburg Bishop Georg Baetzing, said…

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In a Mar. 7 letter to diocesan faithful, Bishop Andrew H. Cozzens offered clarity regarding the statuses of Msgr. Roger Grundhaus and Bishop Michael J. Hoeppner. According to the letter, Msgr. Grundhaus does not have faculties for public ministry in the Diocese of Crookston. The declaration is in effect for one year and will be reviewed at that time to determine if it should continue.

The letter explains that in August, Bishop Richard E. Pates, while serving as Apostolic Administrator for the Diocese of Crookston, announced that Archbishop Bernard A. Hebda of the Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis, had determined that the status of Msgr. Grundhaus would remain as it had been since May of 2017 — that he was not permitted to engage in public ministry.

Archbishop Hebda had been delegated to determine the case by the Holy See. At the time, the Diocese of Crookston’s Ministerial Review…

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The Diocese of Crookston could not confirm that Grundhaus had engaged in behavior considered sexual abuse under canon or civil law, but did maintain that he had acted inappropriately with a young man.

The Diocese of Crookston confirmed on Monday, March 7, that former clergy member Monsignor Roger Grundhaus, who was previously accused of sexually abusing a minor , was found by a diocesan review board to have “engaged in inappropriate activity that showed poor judgment and some level of impropriety with a young man.”

In a letter on Monday, Bishop Andrew Cozzens updated clergy and laypeople of the diocese on the statuses of Grundhaus and former Bishop Michael Hoeppner, who resigned in April 2021 at the request Pope Francis following investigations into reports that he had covered up child sex abuse by clergy members in the diocese.

Grundhaus has been barred from engaging…

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The first U.S. bishop to resign after a Vos estis lux mundi investigation will not conduct priestly ministry in his former diocese, the Diocese of Crookston, Minnesota, announced to priests Monday. The diocese will also make cuts to Bishop Michael Hoeppner’s retirement compensation, and has prohibited a priest accused of sexual abuse from ministry. 

The moves are part of an effort by Bishop Andrew Cozzens, who was installed as Bishop of Crookston in December, to restore trust in the Church among both Crookston priests and local Catholics after their diocese endured lengthy public scandal during Hoeppner’s tenure as diocesan bishop.

“When [Hoeppner] left the diocese last April, he stated that he hoped to return at the invitation of the new bishop. I have spoken with him, and he has agreed not to return to do any ministry in the diocese,” Cozzens wrote in a March 7 letter to Crookston priests, which was…

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I write this letter after much prayer and reflection and with the utmost respect for the complex issue of leadership in the church.

I am not naïve regarding the challenges that bishops and church leaders face in the light of many crises and difficult issues that confront our church today. But I write — as a priest with 50 years of service to the church and a great love for the church — regarding an issue that deeply affects all of us, but especially brother priests.

The issue of sexual abuse on the part of clergy has had profoundly devastating effects on all members of the church — bishops, priests, religious and laity alike. The Dallas Charter, soon to be in effect for 20 years, has created an attitude of distrust resulting in injustices toward priests. The intention of the Charter was to address in a meaningful and credible way the issue of sexual abuse among the…

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The Argentinian Church and the Vatican are reeling after a court in Argentina jailed a Catholic bishop for four and a half years last week for sexual abuse of two former seminarians. It is a major blow to Pope Francis, who knew him well, had appointed him bishop and defended him following initial allegations.

Bishop Gustavo Zanchetta, 58, pleaded not guilty to charges but was convicted on 4 March and detained immediately. The court in the north-western town of Orán, where he was bishop from 2013 to 2017, heard two victims report that Zanchetta had made “amorous proposals” and had requested “massages”.  

According to Argentinian newspaper El Tribuno, problems surfaced in 2015 when a church official discovered sexually explicit images that were sent and received on Zanchetta’s mobile phone. The pictures included obscene photographs of the bishop and of young people and authorities were alerted. Pope Francis summoned Zanchetta to Rome and reportedly…

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Sect spotlighted by Marshall fire abuses children, exploits followers and teaches racism, former members say

On a fall day in 1999, 19-year-old John I. Post packed up his birth certificate, Social Security card, state identification, favorite blanket and pictures of his family and prepared to leave the religious cult into which he’d been born and raised.

He’d been taught his whole life that anyone who left the Twelve Tribes would die. He had no money. Agonized over the decision to leave. But he couldn’t stay. He planned to walk into town and call a friend for help.

When he finally stood up to leave the Vermont compound, some 15 cult members blocked his path outside, forming a wall. They prayed and warned there would be consequences if he walked out of God’s protection. He’d probably die. Post shook as he moved by them.

“My heart was just pounding and pounding….

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Former Diocese of Crookston Bishop Michael Hoeppner, who had wanted to continue working in the diocese following his resignation last year, will not be allowed to return.

Bishop Andrew Cozzens made the announcement in a letter to the Diocese Monday.

“When he was departing the Diocese of Crookston last April, Bishop Hoeppner publicly stated that he hoped to return to the diocese at the invitation of the new bishop. I have spoken with him, and he has agreed to not return to do any ministry in the Diocese of Crookston,” Cozzens wrote.

Last year, Pope Francis asked for Hoeppner’s resignation after a Vatican investigation found that Hoeppner interfered with clergy abuse investigations.

According to the Catholic News Agency, Hoeppner is reported to have pressured an alleged victim to drop his allegation of abuse against a priest, failed to follow mandatory reporting laws, and neglected to follow protocols designed to monitor…

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Into Account is honored to have as colleagues, and to advocate for, a number of Plain and Amish people. And we’re especially honored to publish a Plain survivor’s story.

Plain survivors face many barriers, including people from outside their context claiming expertise and making recommendations on how to interact with survivors and their families.

Intro to Fannie Masts’s Story, Dr. Stephanie Krehbiel

In 2021, Child Welfare Journal published an article entitled “Understanding and Partnering with Amish Communities to Keep Children Safe.” The author, Dr. Jeanette Harder, writes, “Due to cultural expectations, the Amish are not often in the practice of critiquing or analyzing their own thoughts or behaviors, or thinking abstractly.”

I read that sentence, and thought of the many formerly Amish and Plain Mennonite survivors I’ve worked with, some of them as fellow advocates and collaborators, for the past four years. Their ability to think critically, to self-reflect, to…

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Oliver* will never forget the day his life changed forever.

It was the day a Catholic priest — a man he saw as God — abused his trust and allegedly set him on a path towards “shame, substance abuse and profound mental illness”, the Supreme Court of Melbourne heard.

“I was dead. He murdered me,” Oliver told the court.

“He murdered that boy, that little boy, that I used to be.”

In 1968, Oliver was sexually assaultedby Desmond Gannon — now known to be a notorious paedophile priest.

Gannon was convicted and sent to jail for Oliver’s abuse in 2009. 

Now Oliver is suing the Archdiocese of Melbourne,  arguing it breached its duty of careand knew — or ought to have known — that Gannon might sexually abuse him.

It is the first time in its 150-year-plus history than an abuse survivor has taken the Archdiocese to trial.

‘I’ve never been the same’

Oliver and his “very religious” family…

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Former residents of the Esther Foundation have alleged they were sexually abused and harassed by an employee at the facility.

This is part 13 in a series. For the rest of the series, go here.

Note: this article contains descriptions of child sexual abuse.

Serious allegations have emerged of the sexual abuse and sexual harassment of teenage girls at the Pentecostal-linked Esther Foundation. The new allegations have emerged in the wake of a weeks-long investigation by Crikey and raise questions about how much, if any, information was passed to police and child protection authorities at the time.

The Morrison government made a $4 million grant to the foundation before the 2019 election, with the prime minister making a personal visit to the Perth-based rehab facility. As a Crikey investigation has revealed, Esther has a history of using extreme religious practices as “treatment” for girls with addiction and mental health problems.

One former resident has given Crikey a…

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Document trying to paint jailed ex-priest Richard Daschbach in favorable light ‘was not meant to be made public’

A Timor-Leste court has acquitted a priest and several of his staff over writing a report in favor of a defrocked priest jailed for sexually abusing young girls.

Father Herminio Fatima Goncalves, former chairman of the Justice and Peace Commission of Dili Archdiocese, and three of his staff were on trial after being accused of authoring the controversial report that made wild and false allegations against police prosecutors, journalists and NGOs involved in the prosecution of Richard Daschbach.

However, Dili District Court acquitted all four on March 4, ruling the report “was only for internal purposes and was not published.”

Judge Evangelinho Belo said they had not violated Article 291 of the country’s Criminal Code on judicial confidentiality, which carries a penalty of up to four years in prison. Prosecutors had…

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The Philippines has raised the age of sexual consent to 16 after amending a near century-old law, a move child rights activists said Monday would help protect youngsters from rape and abuse.

The Catholic-majority nation had one of the lowest ages of consent in the world, allowing adults to have sex with children as young as 12 if they agreed.

Under the revised law signed by President Rodrigo Duterte on Friday and made public Monday, sex with a person under 16 will be illegal and carry a maximum penalty of 40 years in jail.  

Exceptions will be made for teenage couples so long as their age difference does not exceed three years and the sex is consensual.

“Having this law is a very good protective instrument for our children from sexual violence, whether or not it starts online or whether or not it also starts in…

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There is an extraordinary exhibit at the Vermont History Museum, one that I encourage you to visit. It will be there until July 30. It tells the disturbing story of St. Joseph’s Orphanage in Burlington, Vermont, and the children who were abused there.   

When the documented torture and abuse of children was taking place at St. Joseph’s Orphanage from the 1940s until it closed in 1974, most Vermonters were unaware of what was happening within those walls. Many who may have had concerns or suspicions likely felt uncomfortable questioning the Catholic Diocese, an authority that is not easily questioned. 

It was not that long ago when adults did not fully embrace and understand the responsibility that we all share. That responsibility is to protect children. 

The prevailing culture told us that no one charged with and dedicated to the care of orphaned children would ever harm them, and…

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When former Bishop Howard Hubbard penned an Op-ed in the Times Union just as the Child Victims’ Act was about to expire, his former diocese was facing more than 300 lawsuits from survivors of childhood sexual abuse.

His words offered regret for mistakes made in the past and hope for reconciliation and healing, in spite of the fact that Hubbard himself was the target of some of the abuse allegations.

Currently, the Diocese of Albany is fighting the release of internal documents that would surely shed light on how sexual predators were allowed to continue preying on innocent children.  The Times Union reported that “The diocese has quietly waged an aggressive effort in court to conceal records that may reveal more about its handling of sexual abuse cases. . . The diocese, and Hubbard’s defense attorneys, also have sought to prevent victims’ attorneys from obtaining the records of other clergy…

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Attorney General Josh Shapiro today announced that a Fayette County priest was sentenced to 2 1/2 to 5 years in state prison for repeatedly assaulting an 11-year-old altar boy starting in 2004 and continuing until the boy was 14.

“The bravery of this survivor helped us hold Andrew Kawecki accountable, and he will now go to prison for his unthinkable crimes,” said AG Shapiro. “My office will continue to seek justice and accountability for those who use their position of power and trust to prey on their communities.”

Andrew Kawecki was charged by the Office of Attorney General in August 2020 after a victim reported to investigators that Kawecki forced sexual encounters with the victim starting when he was 11 years old. The assaults continued for three years in the back room of St. Cyril and Methodius Church in Fairchance where Father Kawecki prepared for services before mass.

Kawecki was…

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Attorney General Josh Shapiro announced that a Fayette County priest was sentenced to 2 1/2 to 5 years in state prison for repeatedly assaulting an 11-year-old altar boy starting in 2004 and continuing until the boy was 14.

“The bravery of this survivor helped us hold Andrew Kawecki accountable, and he will now go to prison for his unthinkable crimes,” said AG Shapiro. “My office will continue to seek justice and accountability for those who use their position of power and trust to prey on their communities.”

Andrew Kawecki was charged by the Office of Attorney General in August 2020 after a victim reported to investigators that Kawecki forced sexual encounters with the victim starting when he was 11 years old. The assaults continued for three years in the back room of St. Cyril and Methodius Church in Fairchance where Father Kawecki prepared for services before mass.

Kawecki was identified following…

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SPRINGFIELD, Mass. (WWLP) – The Diocese of Springfield has added one name to the list of “Finding of Credibility of Allegations of Sexual Abuse of a Minor.”

According to a news release sent to 22News by the Diocese, late Father Gerard A. Lafleur is included on the list after a credible finding by the diocesan Review Board. The nature of the reported conduct was sexual abuse of a minor in 1974. Lafleur served for 58 years in the Diocese of Springfield, from 1953-2011. His assignments included:

• St. George Parish, Chicopee (1953-1959)
• Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary Parish, Chicopee (1959-1964)
• Cathedral High School (1964-1965)
• St. George Parish, Chicopee [In residence] (1964-1965)
• St. Theresa of Lisieux Parish, South Hadley (1965-1972)
• St. Joseph Parish, Springfield (1972-1987);
• Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary Parish, Chicopee (1987-2011)
• Mary’s Meadow’s at Providence Place, Holyoke (2011)

Lafleur died in 2011.

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The schools vice principal and a counselor have resigned

[VIDEO]

Months after sexual assault allegations surfaced, two additional Mount St. Mary administrators have resigned.

The school’s vice principal and a counselor have resigned. The announcement was sent to parents and students.

Last year, Mount St. Mary conducted an independent investigation into sexual assault claims from current and former students.

“At first I was really scared because, honestly, it’s just really traumatizing to have to deal with it again, it’s been a long time and I don’t like to even think about what happened,” one woman said.

Shortly after the investigation results came back in December, the longtime principal resigned. School officials said they could have done better when the allegations were first brought to their attention.

Now, in a letter, school officials say they are done reviewing that investigation, and the vice principal and counselor resigned.

“Now that the…

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ST. JOHN’S, N.L. — Former Anglican priest Robin Barrett’s latest trial for child pornography offences is expected to be cancelled Friday morning, March 4, as he changes his pleas to guilty.

A sentencing hearing is scheduled to take place instead for Barrett, 61, who is charged with accessing, possessing and distributing child pornography.

It will be Barrett’s second time being sentenced for child pornography crimes. He pleaded guilty in 2010 to similar offences after police found thousands of images and videos of the material on his computer. He was sentenced to 2 ½ years in prison and ordered to register as a sex offender for life.

Barrett was arrested again in 2015 after members of a joint Royal Newfoundland Constabulary/RCMP team of investigators received information from Ontario police about Barrett’s alleged participation in downloading and sharing child pornography online. Investigators knocked on his door and got no answer before using…

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A 50-year-old priest has been arrested for allegedly uploading child pornography on social media in Tamil Nadu’s Tiruppur district. The accused has been arrested under sections of Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act (POSCO) 2012 and the Information Technology (IT) Act 2000. The complaint came from a US-based NGO.

The police said that the complaint was made by the National Centre for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) which is a US-based NGO. NCMEC found the content and informed the Indian authorities.

After the complaint from NCMEC, the Tiruppur Police tracked down the suspect using the IP address and phone number of the accused. The suspect was identified as V. Vaithiyanathan, a temple priest in the district. He was arrested and booked by the Tamil Nadu police.

He has been booked under section 13 which deals with “Use of child for pornographic purposes” along with section 14(2) which pertains to “punishment for…

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All victims of child sexual abuse deserve the chance to seek justice. Who could disagree? Two high-profile Nebraska public officials, that’s who.

On Feb. 9, Nebraska Attorney General Doug Peterson sent a representative to a Judiciary Committee hearing to publicly testify against LB 1200. That legislation would allow victims of child sexual abuse to sue public institutions — like public schools and juvenile detention facilities — for their careless supervision of employees who sexually abuse children.

This is the same attorney general who, a mere five months ago, publicly advocated expanding the right to sue non-governmental organizations for the exact same conduct. This did not go unnoticed by several senators on the Judiciary Committee, who rightly called out the attorney general’s brazen double-standard.

In November, Attorney General Peterson widely publicized his investigative report on sexual abuse in the Catholic Church in Nebraska. At the press conference releasing the report, the…

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An Indianapolis Catholic priest suspended amid allegations of sexual abuse involving a minor on Tuesday agreed to plead guilty to one charge filed against him.

According to the Hamilton Superior Court plea agreement, Fr. David Marcotte, 32, pleaded guilty to one count of dissemination of matter harmful to minors, a level 6 felony.

The State motioned to dismiss two charges he faced — child solicitation and vicarious sexual gratification, according to the agreement.

The Archdiocese of Indianapolis suspended Marcotte from ministry in February 2019 after its victim assistance coordinator learned of the abuse allegations. The Archdiocese alerted authorities and notified the chair of the Archdiocesan Review Board about the allegation.

According to court documents, Marcotte allegedly sent inappropriate pictures to the juvenile victim and engaged in sexual conduct via various social media platforms, including apparent attempts to recruit others to participate.

The alleged abuse took place in 2016.

Marcotte was ordained…

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The civil tort case referencing alleged abuse by the late Fr. David Holley against a John Doe while Holley was in Alamogordo in the 1970s will now be heard in February 2023.

The case was originally set to begin in July 2022.

According to court filings, more time was needed for discovery between the parties. Discovery, in the legal senses, means to exchange legal information and facts of the case between opposing attorneys so that all sides can know the facts of a case.

Mediation was ordered to be completed by mid-February but has not been completed, according to plaintiff’s attorney Paul Linnenburger.

“A mediation has not yet occurred. Due to the pandemic easing and courts reopening to a large degree, mediators’ calendars are extremely tight,” Linnenburger said.

In March 2020, Doe filed suit against defendants Servants of the Paraclete, the Dioceses of Las Cruces, View Cache

The head of Germany’s largest archdiocese has offered to resign in reaction to months of criticism of his handling of sexual abuse cases.

Cardinal Rainer Maria Woelki of Cologne, who resumed his duties on Wednesday after a five-month sabbatical triggered by a Vatican investigation into his leadership, said Pope Francis was considering his offer and would make a decision “in due course”.

The German Catholic church has been shaken by recent revelations that church leaders covered up abuse by priests and neglected victims over decades. Tens of thousands of Catholics have quit the church in protest.

It is unclear whether the Pope will accept Woelki’s offer. Last year he rejected a resignation request from Cardinal Reinhard Marx of Munich who had admitted sharing responsibility for the “catastrophe of sexual abuse by clerics”.

Woelki’s move follows what critics said was a half-hearted apology last month from the former Pope Benedict, accused in…

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Rainer Maria Woelki, the controversial archbishop of Cologne, has come under fire for his handling of abuse cases in the Catholic Church.

Cardinal Rainer Maria Woelki, the archbishop of Cologne, has offered his resignation to Pope Francis after facing criticism for how he dealt with allegations of child abuse in the Church.

The Cologne archdiocese said Wednesday that the pope would make a decision on the matter “in due course.”

Cardinal Woelki is expected to remain in his post in the meantime.

“I placed my service and office as Archbishop of Cologne at the Holy Father’s disposal, so that he is free to decide what best serves the Church of Cologne,” he wrote in a letter to his congregation.

What is the cardinal accused of? 

Cardinal Woelki faced public backlash in 2020 for deciding not to publish the results of an expert report he himself had commissioned…

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A prominent Roman Catholic archbishop who faced strong criticism for his handling of the church’s sexual abuse scandal in Germany said Wednesday that he has offered his resignation to Pope Francis following a “spiritual timeout” granted by the pontiff.

Cardinal Rainer Maria Woelki, the archbishop of Cologne, marked his return to work with a lengthy letter to the faithful in which said he was “not returning unchanged, as if nothing had happened in this time.”

Woelki has become a deeply divisive figure in the German church. In September, the Vatican said that Francis had decided to leave him in office but also give the cardinal the several-month timeout after he made what it termed “major errors” of communication.

In his letter to the faithful, Woelki said he has “reflected and meditated” repeatedly about his actions and the situation in the archdiocese.

He said that he has “made my service and…

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Retired Argentine Bishop Gustavo Zanchetta, formerly a close colleague of Pope Francis, was sentenced March 4 in a sexual abuse case.

Zanchetta, retired bishop of Orán, was given a 4 1/2-year sentence for abusing students at St. John XXIII Seminary. The judges ordered that his DNA be included in a national sex offender database.

Zanchetta remained silent during the sentencing, but had denied the allegations when the trial began Feb. 21. He was detained in the courtroom.

The day prior to the sentencing, Marcio Tornina, one of former seminarians in the case, used social media to demand justice.

“All I ask for is justice,” he posted on Facebook. “I feel sorry for the priests who were complicit in their silence. They know why they did it, but they should know that there were young people who put their trust in them.”

The case dates back to 2016, when seminarians accused…

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The man in his 60s is accused of sexual offenses against two male teenagers between 2005 and 2007

A senior member of a Catholic lay order accused of sexually abusing two teenagers will plead guilty in court.

His lawyer Edmond Pereira told the State Courts of Singapore that his client will admit the offenses on April 5 when the court is scheduled to have its next hearing, Channel News Asia reported on March 3.

The man in his 60s, a former officer of a Catholic school in Singapore, is accused of sexual offenses against two males aged 14-16 some time between 2005 and 2007.

The accused faces two charges of carnal intercourse against the order of nature under Singapore’s Penal Code. He was also charged with two counts of sexual exploitation of a child or young person under the Children and Young Persons Act.

The court formally charged him on…

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A Catholic bishop accused of sexually abusing young men studying to be priests was found guilty by a court in northern Argentina on Friday, capping over a week of often graphic testimony in the latest criminal abuse case to hit the global Church.

The high-profile trial played out in the home country of Pope Francis, the former archbishop of Buenos Aires and the first Latin American pontiff of the Church.

Gustavo Zanchetta, the former bishop of Oran in Argentina’s northern province of Salta, was convicted of sexually abusing two former seminarians, which prosecutors said in a statement was aggravated due to his status as a cleric.

The court handed down a prison sentence of 4 1/2 years to begin immediately.

Zanchetta had denied all charges in the criminal trial, as well as a separate Vatican canon law investigation, insisting he had “a good and healthy relationship” with all seminarians, according…

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Bishop Zanchetta led the Diocese of Orán, located in northern Argentina, from 2013 until 2017.

Bishop Gustavo Zanchetta was sentenced to four and a half years in prison on Friday, March 4, after an Argentine court found him guilty of sexually abusing seminarians.  

Bishop Zanchetta, 58, pleaded not guilty to the charge of “aggravated continued simple sexual abuse committed by a recognized minister of religion” on Feb. 21. He was accused of abusing two seminarians, who were identified by the acronyms “G.G.F.L.” and “C.M.”  

The two victims said that Bishop Zanchetta had made “amorous proposals” and had requested “massages” from the two. 

Bishop Zanchetta led the Diocese of Orán, located in northern Argentina, from 2013 until 2017. His episcopal appointment was one of the first done by Pope Francis in his native Argentina. 

He stepped down in 2017, claiming “health reasons,” and was subsequently appointed as an assessor…

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The Argentine Bishops’ Conference expressed closeness to the victims of Bishop Gustavo Oscar Zanchetta. Argentine media have reported that the bishop was first accused of sexually inappropriate behavior as early as 2015.

On Friday the Argentine Bishops’ Conference expressed closeness to the victims of Bishop Gustavo Oscar Zanchetta, sentenced to prison for sexually abusing seminarians, and renewed their commitment to eradicate these abusive behaviors.

“Having learned of the court ruling in which Gustavo Zanchetta, bishop emeritus of the Diocese of San Ramón de la Nueva Orán, has been convicted, we want to express our closeness to the victims and express a strong and sincere request for forgiveness on behalf of the entire Church,” the bishops said in a March 4 statement.

The Argentine bishops noted that “these painful events renew us in the committed and urgent task of eradicating this type of abusive behavior.”

They also expressed their commitment to…

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Gustavo Zanchetta convicted by court in a major blow to Pope Francis, who had initially defended the bishop

A court in Argentina has sentenced a Roman Catholic bishop to four and a half years in prison for sexual abuse of two former seminarians in a major blow to Pope Francis, who had initially defended the bishop.

Gustavo Zanchetta, 57, was convicted on Friday of “simple, continued and aggravated sexual abuse”, with his offense aggravated by his role as a religious minster.

A court in the north-western town of Orán, where Zanchetta, 57, was bishop from 2013 to 2017, ordered his immediate detention.

The conviction in the pope’s homeland hits at Francis’s personal credibility since he had initially rejected accusations against Zanchetta, and created a job for him at the Vatican that got him out of Argentina.

Francis has defended his handling of the case, insisting that Zanchetta “defended himself…

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Analysis

The criminal conviction of Bishop Gustavo Oscar Zanchetta for the sexual abuse of seminarians has sent shock waves through the Argentine Catholic Church, and the Vatican. 

The conviction also raises questions about the credibility of Pope Francis, a close friend of Zanchetta, on handling abuse allegations. It could well cast a shadow over the pope’s signature reform effort, Vos estis lux mundi, promulgated in the wake of the Theodore McCarrick scandal.

Bishop Zanchetta was sentenced to four years and six months in prison on Friday after he was found guilty of sexually assaulting two former adult seminarians. If he serves his full prison term, the bishop will have spent longer in jail than he did as Bishop of Oran.

While the court focused on his brief tenure leading the diocese, scrutiny is now likely to fall on the years Zanchetta spent in Rome, under the patronage of Pope Francis, who…

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Argentinian Bishop Gustavo Zanchetta was found guilty by an Argentinian court and sentenced to four years and six months of effective imprisonment for aggravated continuous sexual abuse of two former seminarians.

His immediate detention was ordered by the court in Oran, Salta, on Friday morning local time.

“We cannot determine the extent of the damage suffered by the victims, but we do have the obligation to give them an answer from justice and give an answer to society,” said prosecutor Pablo Rivero on Thursday, before requesting the conviction and immediate detention.

Zanchetta, the former bishop of the diocese of Oran, in northern Argentina, would boast of his friendship with Pope Francis, who believed the bishop’s claim he was being set up when the allegations were first made against him.

Zanchetta was made a bishop and appointed to Oran by Francis in 2013. He resigned at the age of 53 in…

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The former Bishop of Oran, Argentina, was sentenced Friday to four and a half years in prison for the sexual abuse of two former seminarians. Bishop Gustavo Oscar Zanchetta was convicted of simple sexual abuse aggravated by his position as a minister of religion, in a decision handed down by judges in his former diocese.

The bishop returned to Argentina in the summer of 2021 to face the charges, after he spent years living and working in the Vatican. After Zanchetta resigned from diocesan leadership in scandal, Pope Francis created a special post for the bishop in APSA, the Holy See’s sovereign asset manager and reserve bank. 

After he was sentenced Friday, Zanchetta was remanded directly to the custody of corrections officials; he will be immediately held in a regional facility and transferred within days to the Argentine prison where he will serve his sentence.

Zanchetta’s trial took place over…

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Allegations over Bishop Gustavo Zanchetta’s conduct raised questions over pope’s handling of abuse cases

Bishop Gustavo Zanchetta, a longtime associate of Pope Francis, was convicted by an Argentine court Friday of sexually assaulting young men in a case that has raised questions about the pope’s handling of sexual abuse at the highest level of the Catholic hierarchy.

A court in Orán, located in Argentina’s northern province of Salta, where Bishop Zanchetta served from 2013 to 2017, sentenced him to four years and six months in prison for the assault on two former seminarians there.

The bishop’s lawyer, Javier Belda, said he would appeal.

Several men said they communicated their accusations to the Vatican before the pope assigned Bishop Zanchetta to a high post there in 2017. Bishop Zanchetta remained in his Vatican post for more than two years after the accusations became public. In 2019, he was tried…

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An advocacy group on Thursday said they filed a complaint against St. Louis Archbishop Mitchell Rozanski over his handling of a priest accused in lawsuits of sexual abuse.

David Clohessy of Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, or SNAP, said the group filed a “lengthy, detailed” complaint with the Vatican office, commonly known as “Vos Estis,” that investigates abuse or cover-ups by bishops.

Clohessy said Rozanski should have suspended a De Soto priest, the Rev. Alexander Anderson, who was facing one lawsuit when he was sued again last month.

Clohessy said that Anderson has been accused five times. The archdiocese, in a statement in response to the most recent lawsuit, said other allegations were either retracted or shown to be false. 

Clohessy said church officials can encourage or discourage victims from coming forward, and were discouraging them by failing to act against Anderson.

Last month’s lawsuit, filed by Christian Hornbeck, said Anderson…

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A former Fayette County priest was sentenced up to five years in prison Thursday for the sexual abuse of a minor nearly two decades ago.

Fayette County Judge Linda Cordaro sentenced Andrew Kawecki, 66, of Greensburg, to serve 2 1/2 to 5 years in a state prison on the single charge of indecent assault to a person less than 13 years of age.

In October, Kawecki pleaded no contest to that charge as a result of a plea agreement between the defense and the state attorney general’s office.

Kawecki served in several churches in the region between 1981 and 2016, including St. John the Baptist in Perryopolis, St. Sebastian in Belle Vernon, St. James in Maxwell, St. Julian in Isabella, Our Lady of Perpetual Help in Leckrone, St. Hubert in Point Marion, St. John the Baptist in Scottdale and St. Joseph in Everson.

Kawecki abused Skyler Moncheck beginning in 2004…

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A top administrator and a counselor at Mount St. Mary Catholic High School have resigned after an independent investigation into allegations of sexual assault among students, The Oklahoman has learned. 

Vice Principal Whitney Faires and school counselor Mallory Tecmire have each resigned. 

In a letter to parents and students obtained by The Oklahoman, interim Principal Diane Floyd said she accepted the resignations March 1. 

“We expect all school administrators, faculty and staff at The Mount to follow the Safe Environment protocol and school policy to appropriately report suspected abuse or harassment of minors,” Floyd wrote in her letter. “Now that the review is concluded, we are moving forward with our focus on the Voices of Human Dignity Task Force to ensure our words, actions and policies reflect our mission and Catholic social teachings.”

The resignations followed a months-long independent investigation by Mount St. Mary, after…

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Shortly after Archbishop Donald Bolen was installed to serve as Archbishop of Regina, I and other victims reached out and requested to meet with him. We learned he was unaware of the area’s deep legacy of clergy sexual abuse. At the initial and subsequent meetings, he learned of the deep legacy of abuse and the painful, retraumatizing and broken process that myself and other victims were subjected to when they came to the church to report abuse. Those initial conversations resulted in an understanding and willingness on his part to walk with and work with victims. Over the next five years, through difficult but collaborative conversations with all parties, we have made significant changes both to prevent future abuse and to accompany victims. We continue to take steps to help the institution to listen to, learn from and walk with victims and survivors of clergy sexual abuse.

At the time,…

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A Spanish law firm has been tasked by the country’s bishops with an independent investigation into sexual abuse by clergy.

The investigation will be conducted by a team of 18 people, including former high-ranking judges, but also specialists in psychology and representatives from the world of culture. 

Heading the commission will be Javier Cremades, a lawyer who is also a member of Opus Dei. Cremades has vowed to liaise closely with the government during the investigation and rejects accusations of bias. “I am a Catholic and a member of Opus Dei, yet I am fully convinced that the Church should get to the bottom, investigate, ask for forgiveness and rectify whatever necessary,” he said, during a press conference with the head of the Spanish Bishops Conference Cardinal Juan José Omella, Archbishop of Barcelona. 

Javier Cremades says the commission will be modelled on the German investigation, and will also incorporate best…

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While in Italy the Concordat with the Catholic Church creates a special situation, in other countries attacks against the legal protection of the confessional secret are gaining momentum.

Religious Confession and Evidential Privilege in the 21st Century (Cleveland, Queensland: Shepherd Street Press, 2021), edited by Mark Hill and A. Keith Thompson, is an important book I started reviewing in the previous article of this series. I examined how the idea that either the laws protecting the secret of confession and other similar religious practices should be abrogated altogether, or exceptions should be made for cases of child sexual abuse, originated in Australia, where the recommendation of a Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Abuse in this direction have been implemented in several states and territories. Other chapters of the Hill-Thompson book are about countries of Europe.

Marco Ferrante discusses the very special situation of Italy, where not only the secrecy of…

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Over at Crisis, Janet Smith relates the sad, scandalous story of how the Archdiocese of Detroit has treated Father Eduard Perrone. A beloved priest, whose 25 years of ministry at Assumption Grotto had made the parish a magnet for tradition-minded Catholics, he was suspended from ministry in 2019 because of a sex-abuse charge.

All the available evidence indicates that Father Perrone was innocent of the charge. Or to put it differently, there is no credible evidence against him. Father Perrone, who of course denied the accusations, voluntarily took and passed a lie-detector test—twice. Local prosecutors quickly dropped a criminal investigation, recognizing that the testimony from a single accuser was incoherent, and contradicted by other witnesses.

Determined to clear his name, Father Perrone filed a defamation suit against a police detective who had pressed the case against him, charging that she had falsified reports. He won that case, and…

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A western Pennsylvania Roman Catholic priest who sexually assaulted an altar boy for several years has been sentenced to 2 1/2 to five years in state prison.

The Rev. Andrew Mark Kawecki, of Greensburg will also have to register as a sex offender for 10 years once he’s freed from custody under the sentence imposed Thursday. He had pleaded no contest last October to indecent assault.

Prosecutors said the sexual abuse began in 2004, when the victim was an 11-year-old altar boy, and occurred in a back room of the Saints Cyril and Methodius Church in Fairchance, where Kawecki prepared for services. The repeated assaults continued for three years, until the victim was 14.

Kawecki was removed from the ministry and parishioners were notified after investigators received a tip about Kawecki in May 2019. The state attorney general’s office has said that after he was charged in 2020 another victim…

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La fiscalía de Argentina solicitó cuatro años y seis meses de prisión efectiva para el obispo Gustavo Zanchetta, uno de los administradores del patrimonio del Vaticano, en el juicio oral que enfrenta por presunto abuso sexual de dos seminaristas cuando estuvo al frente de un obispado en la provincia norteña de Salta.

En su alegato ante el tribunal, la fiscal María Soledad Filtrín Cuezzo sostuvo el jueves que durante el juicio “se pudo establecer la veracidad, verosimilitud y credibilidad de las víctimas, que presentaron en sus denuncias y durante el juicio lógica interna, contextualización de los hechos, precisión de detalles y vivencias desde lo anatómico”, según un comunicado del Ministerio Público fiscal de Salta.

El caso tomó trascendencia pública a principios de 2019 con un informe del diario El Tribuno de Salta sobre el supuesto comportamiento inadecuado del obispo durante los cuatro años que estuvo al frente del Obispado de…

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The Roman Catholic Diocese of Springfield has announced two updates to their online list of clergy with credible accusations of sexual abuse.

On Wednesday, Father Gerard Lafleur was added to the list. He was ordained in 1953 and had assignments in Chicopee, Springfield, South Hadley, and Holyoke prior to his death in 2011. The abuse accusation involves a minor and dates back to 1974.

In addition, the listing for Father Charles Sullivan was updated to indicate that there has been more than one allegation against him. The move comes after the Diocesan Review Board looked into an allegation of sexual abuse involving a minor that dates back to 1994.

Sullivan was ordained in 1965 and had assignments in Longmeadow, Springfield, Holyoke, Westfield, Monson, Pittsfield, Lenox, Amherst, Indian Orchard, and Thorndike before he was removed from the ministry in 2002. He died in 2014.

The diocese explained that…

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A review board run by the Diocese of Springfield has upheld a new allegation of sexual abuse by a Catholic priest who served parishioners of a Pittsfield church in the mid-1980s.

The diocese said Wednesday it updated its roster of credibly accused priests to now reflect multiple allegations that Charles J. Sullivan sexually abused minors.

Sullivan, who served the diocese from 1965 to 1992, died in 2014. He was assigned to St. Mary the Morning Star Parish in Pittsfield from 1984 to 1986.

The newly confirmed allegation of sexual abuse of a minor dates to 1994, the diocese said; the previously confirmed allegation concerns abuse in 1993. Sullivan was removed from public ministry in 2002, the diocese said, and “assigned to a life of prayer and penance” in 2005.

This week, the diocese also updated its list of credibly accused priests to include, for the…

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An Auburn man has filed a negligence lawsuit accusing two now deceased priests of sexually abusing him while he was a studentat a Catholic school in Holbrook during the 1980s.

The suit, filed Tuesday in Worcester Superior Court, alleges the abuse occurred at St. Joseph School when Gerry Nee, now 46, was 6 to 12 years old.

The alleged abuse took place in confessionals and a vacant rectory, where one sexual assault left Nee in need of medical attention, according to the nine-page lawsuit.

Nee wants to set an example for his children and hopefully inspire other victims to come forward, Nee’s lawyer, John T. Martin, said Wednesday.

“It took a tremendous amount of courage for Gerry to disclose what happened and he had to overcome a lot of fears and concerns and anxieties about his privacy,” Martin said. “In many ways, it’s therapeutic for people to confront their abusers…

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Missoula Catholic Schools President Luis Hayes has been placed on immediate paid administrative leave following an investigation, the Diocese of Helena announced.

Former Loyola Sacred Heart High School Principal Kathy Schneider and former Athletic Director Jacob Alford will also remain on paid administrative leave for the remainder of the year.

None of the three administrators on leave will be offered contracts to return in the fall, according to Bishop Austin Vetter.

“This leave is for the remainder of the school year and is due to the fact that there was a failure on the part of these administrators to ensure that a necessary background check and training in safe environment policy were in place when hiring an employee,” the Diocese of Helena wrote in a statement.

Vetter’s decision to place Hayes on leave and continue Schneider’s and Alford’s leaves was received “with the full support of the Missoula Catholic Schools…

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In this age of small-group ministries, most pastors would know how to handle a crisis that affected significant numbers of believers in their pews.

“If you had 1 in 4 members of your congregation actively battling cancer, or 1 in 4 members … experiencing being widowed or losing a spouse, chances are that you would have some level of intentional ministry to those individuals,” said Rachael Denhollander at a recent Trinity Forum event focusing on how churches respond to sexual abuse. “Maybe you would have a support group or a Bible study for them. You would have meal trains to help provide for their physical needs.”

But many sexual abuse victims hesitate to speak out, she said, because churches act as if they don’t exist. Thus, they have little reason to believe the sins and crimes committed against them will be handled in a way that offers safety and healing.

…

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Starting with the pope.

At around the fifth hour of November’s “Enough Is Enough” prayer rally, hosted by the Catholic right media outlet Church Militant, event emcee and fallen alt-right star Milo Yiannopoulos bounded onstage to reveal a dramatic wardrobe change. Gone were the rock-star white suit and purple shoes he’d been wearing since morning, replaced by a black shirt, black suit, and heavy crucifix, which gleamed from the jumbotrons all the way to the back of Baltimore’s Pier Six Pavilion, where the concert venue jutted into the city harbor. The bleached-blond tips of his floppy hair—fashy-short on the sides and Donald Trump combover-long on top—had been shorn in a final makeover after his year of ostentatious renunciation.

At the podium, Yiannopoulos assumed an air of exaggerated modesty. “The path to salvation is a series of baby steps,” he told a crowd of some 1,500 predominantly white, mostly middle-aged rallygoers. “I’m glad I…

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February 18 – March 26, 2022

Lisa Kessler

Heart in the Wound

February 18 – March 26, 2022

Howard Yezerski Gallery is pleased to announce Heart in the Wound, a solo exhibition of photographs by Lisa Kessler. This year marks the twentieth anniversary of The Boston Globe’s Spotlight team releasing their groundbreaking story of clergy abuse. Heart in the wound features deeply personal images made before and after the story broke in 2002. Thanks to Kessler’s dedication of connecting herself with survivors and her ability to capture such delicate subject matter, we are able to view and hear these stories. The exhibition will also include an 8-minute audio documentary, as well as an interactive website which provides resources for those affected by these events.

***

I had been treated professionally and kindly as a freelancer for the Archdiocese of Boston through the 1990’s, and I didn’t know how to…

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The CEO of Kanakuk has released an open letter as part of an updated response from the camp to continued allegations related to the abuse of a former camp director.

An in-depth investigation released in March 2021 by former ACLJ and Alliance Defending Freedom senior counsel and National Review author David French and his wife for the online journal The Dispatch revealed a number of victims of Kanakuk were under non-disclosure agreements which were signed as part of legal settlements. 

“Recent articles have accused Kanakuk of using Non-Disclosure Agreements (NDAs) to hide details of abuse and silence victims,” Kanakuk Ministries President Doug Goodwin wrote in the letter. “This is simply not the case. The awful details of what transpired is part of the public record. The criminal component was equally public and local television stations and newspapers covered this for many months. Kanakuk’s focus is on supporting victims’ privacy and…

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As Mary Pat Fox described last month, Voice of the Faithful grew at an astonishing rate in the first few months. Looking back, though, the amazing thing is the speed and clarity with which the mission and goals of the organization were discerned. Centered in prayer, speaking boldly and listening attentively to one another, we were journeying together in faith 20 years before Pope Francis’ Synod. That convinces me that VOTF was and still is a movement of the Spirit.

Founder Jim Muller’s motto was “Keep the Faith – Change the Church.” When our critics asked us what that meant, we said we respected the role of the hierarchy, but all the people of God must be involved in discerning where the Spirit is leading the Church. Cardinal George of Chicago responded that “Keep the Faith, Change the Church” was problematic because any change in the Church will, “unless most carefully thought out,”…

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A HIGHLY critical report from the chair of the new Independent Safeguarding Board (ISB), Maggie Atkinson (News, 30 September 2021), sets how far the board believes that the Church of England must travel to prevent further safeguarding failures and to promote a safer culture.

In some cases, defending institutions had mattered more than the person making the disclosure, the report, which was presented to the General Synod on Wednesday morning, says. An attitude of “also-to-do” had resulted in seeing safeguarding as a secondary task; and there had been a “child-unfriendly” approach for people seeking help or redress, it says.

“We are keenly aware that the Church’s past failures, and the associated pain, shame, ongoing confusion, sometimes anger, and potentially lifelong trauma of victims and survivors, are too often still present long after the suffering concerned is brought to light,” the report says, “whether or not the Church considers it has in fact…

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The Vatican tribunal has rejected defense motions in a landmark trial concerning alleged financial crimes, ordering the process to continue, starting with the questioning of Cardinal Angelo Becciu.

At a March 1 hearing, court president Giuseppe Pignatone read aloud a 40-page ordinance responding to objections from defense lawyers lodged since the process kicked off last summer.

The three-judge panel hearing the case rejected requests to throw out evidence and charges — which some lawyers indicated they would appeal — and set the next hearing for March 17.

March 17 will mark the first day of testimony, when Becciu will be called to the stand to respond to questions about Vatican and Italian bishops’ conference funds he is accused of illicitly giving to the charitable arm of his home Diocese of Ozieri, located on the Italian island of Sardinia.

Becciu resigned as prefect of the Vatican’s Congregation for the Causes of Saints…

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The power that a seminary faculty has over students would never be accepted in a state run institution.

St Andrew’s College Drygrange was the main seminary for the east of Scotland. When I entered in 1978 it had just celebrated its 25th anniversary. It was a curious  place, a gay community in everything but name, but a self-loathing gay community.

Not everyone was gay. And the ones that were gay pretended that they weren’t. Except when they didn’t. Towards the end of my time there a student in the year below me told me that he and his pal had been working their way through the student list the night before – a common pastime back in the day – deciding who was and wasn’t gay. When they came to my name they concluded: “Brian isn’t gay, but he wishes he was.” 

I suppose Drygrange was not atypical for its …

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Cardinal Rainer Maria Woelki has submitted his resignation for a second time to Pope Francis as leader of Germany’s Catholic archdiocese of Cologne.

The archdiocese announced the cardinal’s move on March 2, Ash Wednesday, the day that he returned to lead the archdiocese after a period of “prayer and reflection,” reported CNA Deutsch, CNA’s German-language news partner.

The Cologne archdiocese, which is Germany’s largest and reportedly also its richest diocese, said that the pope had instructed the 65-year-old cardinal to resume his ministry on Wednesday, pending a decision on his resignation.

Woelki began his sabbatical at the end of September 2021 “at his own request,” after he was confirmed in office by Pope Francis, who had ordered an apostolic visitation amid fierce criticism of the archdiocese’s handling of abuse cases.

In a Lenten pastoral letter published on…

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St. Kevin’s to retain church and hall as part of out-of-court settlement

A settlement has been reached involving millions of dollars raised in a Chase the Ace fundraiser for a St. John’s-area parish nearly five years ago.

The cash got tangled up in ongoing insolvency proceedings involving the Roman Catholic church in eastern Newfoundland and efforts to compensate victims of historic abuse at the Mount Cashel orphanage.

An out-of-court settlement was reached Sunday night. The matter had been due to go before a Newfoundland and Labrador Supreme Court judge Monday morning.

“It’s a result we’re pleased with, and the parish council, it’s a result I understand that they are satisfied with,” said Geoff Budden, a St. John’s lawyer who represents 70 people who suffered abuse at Mount Cashel.

“So it’s a compromise, but it is one that will see a significant sum of money put forward to be used to compensate…

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Germany’s ‘synodal way’ charts its own course to reform.

Germany’s Synodale Weg (“synodal way”), led by the German conference of bishops and the national committee of lay German Catholics (ZdK), assembled for the third time in February; it was likely a watershed moment in the German Church’s synodal process. Some 230 delegates, lay and clergy, debated and voted on over a dozen documents produced by working groups in four areas: power in the Church; the model of priesthood; women and ministries; and sexual morality in Church teaching. Each of the documents won the approval of well over two-thirds of all delegates (ranging from 74 percent to 92 percent), and just over two-thirds of the bishops. In addition to voting, some bishops even made bold interventions in favor of doctrinal change. (If they had talked like that when they were still priests, they would never have become bishops in the first place.) A separate…

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The Vermont History Museum is hosting a multi-media exhibit about the experiences of people who once lived at St. Joseph’s Orphanage in Burlington

The newest exhibit at the Vermont History Museum documents a painful legacy, but it’s one survivors of childhood abuse and trauma say needs to be heard as part of their healing process.

“This cannot be allowed to happen again,” said Katelin Hoffman, referring to the abuse she experienced at the now-defunct St. Joseph’s Orphanage in Burlington when she was in her early teens.

Hoffman and others have reported they were routinely harmed at the facility that closed in 1974. Some said, as a particularly shocking example, they were even forced by staff to eat their own vomit when they were sick.

“At night, they’d come in after the kids were asleep and pull them out of bed and beat them,” Hoffman recalled of orphanage staffers in an…

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A very important book critically addresses proposals that statutes protecting the confidentiality of religious confession should be abolished.

Religious Confession and Evidential Privilege in the 21st Century (Cleveland, Queensland: Shepherd Street Press, an imprint of Connor Court Publishing and The School of Law, The University of Notre Dame Australia, 2021), edited by Mark Hill, a distinguished British barrister, and A. Keith Thompson, professor and associate dean at the University of Notre Dame Australia School of Law, with a foreword by former Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, may well be one of the most important books on religion of 2022 (the year when it has been in fact released, although it bears a copyright date 2021). I will review it in a series of subsequent articles, divided by geographical focus. In this first article, I will concentrate on Australia.

The subject matter of the book is the claim, originated by horrific cases of…

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