ABUSE TRACKER

A three-year investigation into clerical sexual abuse uncovered 251 cases dating back 80 years

The Archdiocese of Madrid provided support, including counseling and psychological treatment, to 72 survivors of sexual abuse in 2021, according to an archdiocesan report.

“Proyecto Repara,” the archdiocesan office for the prevention of abuse, released its annual report Jan. 24, detailing the number of cases of abuse reported throughout the year, as well as the services offered to survivors and their families.

At the end of the year, the office said, it also received information “on several possible cases of abuse provided by the newspaper El País in a report sent to Rome.”

In mid-December, El País said it conducted a three-year investigation into sexual abuse in the Catholic Church in Spain and uncovered 251 cases of abuse dating back 80 years.

Daniel Verdú, Vatican correspondent for El País, said he gave the pope a copy…

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A report from a team of experts who spent three years examining how Larry Nassar was able to prey on hundreds of young female gymnasts over nearly 30 years calls for Congress to create a new federal agency to lead the U.S. Olympic program.

The agency would replace or oversee the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee, a nonprofit which collects billions of dollars from sponsors and television rights but operates with little outside scrutiny.

Instead of focusing on medals and money, the report says the new leadership must be driven by one clear mandate: The welfare of athletes comes above everything else. 

The Game Over Commission to Protect Youth Athletes is releasing its case study just days before the opening of the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing, where Team USA will have more than 200 athletes competing on the world stage.

While Olympic officials would like to put the stain of the Nassar scandal behind them, the report…

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No other German bishop has dominated Catholic life in Germany as much in recent years as Cardinal Reinhard Marx, who announced he will stay on as archbishop of Munich and Freising despite a report faulting his leadership in handling abuse cases in the archdiocese.

The 68-year-old former president of the German bishops’ conference has been the face of Catholicism in Germany, an outspoken presence on sociopolitical issues, for the past two decades. But in recent years he has been dogged by rumors about his role in covering up or not acting fast enough in alleged sexual abuse cases in the dioceses he headed.

When he was named bishop of Trier in 2002, parishioners saw him as young and open-minded, easily approachable. His sermons in city’s fourth-century cathedral drew large crowds.

He was an outspoken critic of the culture of greed in modern capitalism and repeatedly pleaded with managers to subscribe…

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An in-depth report released last week alleges that former Pope Benedict XVI allowed four abusive priests in Munich to remain in ministry. The pope, then known as Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, led the German archdiocese from 1977 to 1982.

The 1,900-page audit was commissioned by the Archdiocese of Munich and Freising but conducted by independent investigators. It covers the period from 1945 to 2019 and lists 235 alleged clergy who were perpetrators of sexual abuse and at least 497 minors who were victims.

Given Benedict’s status – he was pope from 2005 to 2013, until his historic resignation due to ill health – the news has put additional scrutiny on top leaders’ roles in allowing abusers to go unpunished. It also raises the classic questions of what Benedict knew, and when.

As a journalist, I covered Ratzinger in Rome in the 1980s and wrote a biography of him in 2006. Today, as director…

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A Roman Catholic priest who was accused of sexual exploitation of a child will not be charged because the statute of limitations has ended, Sedgwick County District Attorney Marc Bennett says.

The Catholic Diocese of Wichita placed Reverend Michael Schemm on administrative leave last November after it received an allegation against him.

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, Bennett said.

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 that he was making “no commentary or conclusions” on the allegations.

The Diocese says that it is working on its own investigation.

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In some ways, last week’s news was not particularly new: another independent report about sex abuse in the Catholic Church. We’ve had them from Pennsylvania, from France, and now from Germany’s Archdiocese of Munich-Freising, the latest with details of nearly 500 victims over 74 years.

But this one is different, because among the bishops implicated in moving around offenders and covering up their abuse was a man who went on to become pope: then-archbishop, later Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger.

The 1,900-page report, released Jan. 20 by a Munich law office after a two-year investigation, accuses Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI of mishandling at least four cases of sexual abuse by priests when he was archbishop in Munich.

Ratzinger not only failed to discipline abusive priests, but also allowed them to continue in pastoral work, sometimes even after punishment by the secular judicial system. In at least one case, the perpetrator…

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A Staten Island priest has been charged with molesting a Philadelphia boy from 1995 until 2002, beginning when the child was 10 years old.

The Rev. James Garisto, 73, who spent nearly 40 years as a priest, teacher, and school administrator in the Archdiocese of New York, was arrested Thursday and charged with endangering the welfare of children, corruption of minors, and indecent assault.

Garisto, who owned a home in Fishtown at the time of the assaults, is accused of attacking the child hundreds of times. He was released from police custody Thursday after posting 10% of his $75,000 bail.

The priest, who now lives in Harrisburg, is being represented by the Defender Association of Philadelphia, court records show. Efforts to reach him and his lawyer were unsuccessful Friday.

Garisto has been on leave from the New York Archdiocese since August 2019, when church officials received a report of sexual…

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A German court has ordered a Catholic priest to be held in provisional detention during his trial on accusations he sexually abused children, deciding there was a risk he could commit further assaults.

The decision by the Cologne district court, taken on Thursday, came on the same day that a Catholic cardinal promised to learn from a report that detailed hundreds of cases of sexual abuse in the past 75 years in his archdiocese.

Court hearings in the latest case, under way since November last year, revealed additional potential victims, one of whom reported being abused as recently as 2019, the Cologne court said.

It named the priest only as Hans Ue., withholding his full surname as is usual during German court cases.

“Due to the large number of possible assaults, some of which could also have occurred in the recent past, the court found that there was a risk…

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Munich Cardinal Reinhard Marx said he wants to remain in office, at least for the time being, despite findings critical of how he handled some abuse cases in the Archdiocese of Munich and Freising.

The cardinal had offered his resignation last June, but Pope Francis rejected his offer.

“I am not clinging to my office,” he said in a news conference Jan. 27, adding: “The offer to resign last year was meant very seriously. Pope Francis decided otherwise and asked me to continue my ministry responsibly.”

Still, he said, “if I get the impression that I am more of an obstacle than a help” in promoting healing and moving forward, “I will seek dialogue with the relevant advisory bodies and allow myself to be critically questioned. In a synodal church, I will no longer make this decision alone.”

A report commissioned by Cardinal Marx and carried out by the Westpfahl…

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Cardinal Reinhard Marx offered a personal apology to abuse survivors on Thursday, in the wake of a report criticizing the handling of cases in his archdiocese of Munich and Freising.

Speaking at a live-streamed press conference in Munich, southern Germany, on Jan. 27, the 68-year-old cardinal said that the treatment of victims was “inexcusable,” reported CNA Deutsch, CNA’s German-language news partner.

“I am attributed responsibility in this report and I am prepared to take responsibility. Last year I wrote to Pope Francis, and I have also stated elsewhere before, that for me the greatest guilt is to have overlooked those affected. That is inexcusable,” he said.

“There was no real interest in their fate, in their suffering. In my opinion, this is also due to systemic reasons, and at the same time I bear moral responsibility for this as acting archbishop.”

He went on: “Therefore, first of all, I apologize…

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The archbishop of Munich said Thursday that the Catholic church needs deep reform to overcome the “disaster” of sexual abuse and made clear that he intends to stay in his job, after a report faulted him and predecessors including retired Pope Benedict XVI for their handling of abuse allegations and cases in Germany.

Cardinal Reinhard Marx last year offered to resign over the church’s abuse scandal, an extraordinary gesture at the time which was rejected swiftly by Pope Francis.

Marx, a prominent reformist ally of the pontiff, was faulted over his handling of two cases in the report commissioned by his archdiocese from a Munich law firm. He told a news conference a week after the report’s release that he will look over those cases “to learn from them.”

Marx said he hadn’t renewed his resignation offer. “In the current situation, that struck me as just disappearing,” he said. He renewed apologies…

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In a recent commentary for NCR, Barbara Thorp, the former director of child protection for the Boston Archdiocese, says that despite decades of work by clergy sex abuse survivors and their families, along with journalists and other organizations, the full story is yet to be told. Former NCR editor Tom Roberts agrees, writing that behind the nearly 40-year public history of the clergy sexual abuse scandal is the unaccountable hierarchical culture.

Thank you so much for Barbara Thorp’s honest and compelling commentary on the anniversary of Spotlight’s investigation. Her reference to the desperation of Jesus’ followers in reaching Jesus (so much so that the roof was removed!) in the synoptic gospels could not be more timely and appropriate. When will we learn?

DARIA FITZGERALD
Milford, Connecticut

***

I disagree with Barbara Thorp’s main thesis. For the last decade, an aggressive ideological war has been waged against the moral/ethical/legal principle of the presumption of…

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The Diocese of Columbus has placed diocesan priest Father Dean A. Mathewson, 77, on administrative leave, effective January 24, 2022.

This action and announcement are made in accordance with the Catholic Church’s Charter and Norms for the Protection of Children and Young People and the Diocese’s published Policies for Prevention of Sexual Abuse of Minors and Response to Allegations Thereof.

An accusation of sexual abuse of a minor, allegedly occurring during Father Mathewson’s tenure at St. Francis de Sales Parish, Newark, Ohio, in the early 1990s was reported to the Diocese on January 19, 2022. This allegation had already been received by criminal authorities in Newark. On January 24, 2022, Diocesan officials notified Father Mathewson of the allegation and informed him of the details of the allegation. He was formally placed on leave, and he was advised about the steps the Church would follow as a result of the allegation. As was explained…

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A Newark priest has been put on leave after he was accused of sexual abuse of a minor, which was alleged to have happened in the 1990s.

The Rev. Dean A. Mathewson, 77, was placed on leave by the Roman Catholic Diocese of Columbus on Monday.

Mathewson is accused of sexually abusing a minor while he was serving at St. Francis de Sales in Newark in the early 1990s.

The diocese said it got the report of this abuse on Jan. 19, according to The Catholic Times, a publication of the diocese, and that the report had already been given to Newark police.

The Newark police said they are investigating the case and that the survivor was between 12 to 14 years of age at the time of the alleged abuse….

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Analysis

Benedict XVI, the pope emeritus, has issued a statement apologizing for an error in his submissions to an independent inquiry into clerical sexual abuse in his former archdiocese of Munich and Freising. 

The admission from the pope emeritus that he was at a meeting where the arrival of an accused child abuser in the archdiocese was discussed has generated headlines worldwide. But does it change what we know about Archbishop Ratzinger’s time in office, or is it further illustration of a generational leadership debacle in the Church’s handling of abuse?

Last week, the lawfirm Westpfahl Spilker Wastl published a nearly 2,000-page report following its independent investigation into the sexual abuse of minors and vulnerable persons in the Munich archdiocese, dating back to 1945. 

The report highlighted four cases in which the then-Archbishop Ratzinger could be “accused of misconduct” in his handling of clergy, including one which appears to fit…

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Everyone with open eyes can now see that the hierarchy of the Catholic Church never underestimated the problem of priests as sexual predators. They weren’t taken by surprise. Church leaders have known for decades exactly how vast the issue was, how all-consuming, from the humble parish all the way to the top in Rome.

A church-authorized investigation in Germany has produced a multivolume report on sexual abuse in the archdiocese of Munich. In it, we see the archbishop himself at meetings more than 40 years ago, weighing the future of a criminally abusive priest — without a thought, it appears, of turning the man in to the police.

It is a sadly familiar story: secret conclaves of men in collars, flouting the laws of one nation after another to shuffle the abusers and launder their crimes. Only in this case, the archbishop of Munich was Joseph Ratzinger, who…

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Following the publication of the investigation, the years of the Pope Emeritus’ Bavarian episcopate are in the spotlight. It’s only fair to remember Benedict XVI’s fight against clerical paedophilia during his pontificate and his willingness to meet and listen to the victims, asking them for forgiveness.

The words that were used during the press conference to present the report on abuse in the Archdiocese of Munich, as well as the seventy-two pages of the document dedicated to the brief Bavarian episcopate of Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, have filled the newspapers in the past week and have triggered some very strong comments. The Pope emeritus, with the help of his collaborators, did not evade the questions of the law firm commissioned by the Archdiocese of Munich to draw up a report that examines a very long span of time, from the episcopate of Cardinal Michael von Faulhaber to that of the current…

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‘The reconstructions contained in the Munich report, which — it must be remembered — is not a judicial inquiry nor a final sentence, will help to combat paedophilia in the Church if they are not reduced to the search for easy scapegoats and summary judgments,’ Tornielli wrote.

An official at the Vatican’s Dicastery for Communication responded on Wednesday to a report on the handling of abuse cases in the Archdiocese of Munich and Freising that faulted Pope emeritus Benedict XVI.

In an editorial published by Vatican News on Jan. 26, Andrea Tornielli, the dicastery’s editorial director, wrote: “The words that were used during the press conference to present the report on abuse in the Archdiocese of Munich, as well as the 72 pages of the document dedicated to the brief Bavarian episcopate of Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, have filled the newspapers in the past week and have triggered some very strong…

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A Vatican editorial defended retired Pope Benedict XVI’s record in fighting clerical sexual abuse after the release of a report that accused him of mishandling four cases during his time as archbishop of Munich.

Andrea Tornielli, editorial director for the Dicastery for Communication, said a report on the handling of cases in the Archdiocese of Munich and Freising was an important contribution to “the search for justice in truth and to a collective examination of conscience on the errors of the past.”

However, he warned, “the reconstructions contained in the Munich report, which — it must be remembered — is not a judicial inquiry nor a final sentence, will help to combat pedophilia in the church if they are not reduced to the search for easy scapegoats and summary judgments.”

The 1,900-page report was released Jan. 20 and looked at the handling of cases in the archdiocese between 1945 and 2019. Then-Cardinal Joseph…

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For immediate release, January 26, 2022

WICHITA, KAN. – On Monday Nov. 1, 2021, the Catholic Diocese of Wichita announced that Bishop Carl Kemme was placing a priest on administrative leave following a report made to the diocese by a reporting party on behalf of an alleged victim. The diocese identified the priest as Rev. Michael Schemm.

Prior to placing Rev. Schemm on leave, the diocese forwarded the allegations to the Office of the District Attorney. The Office of the District Attorney in turn forwarded the matter for investigation to the Exploited and Missing Child Unit (EMCU).

The allegations were reported to have occurred when Rev. Schemm was serving at St. Elizabeth Ann Seton in Wichita between 1993 and 1996. At that time, the reported victim would have been between 12 and 15 years of age. The reported victim would now be 40 years of age. The diocese confirmed that…

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District Attorney Marc Bennett does not plan to charge a priest of the Catholic Diocese of Wichita who was under investigation for alleged sexual abuse of a minor. In a news release, the DA’s office said the statute of limitations does not allow it. Bennett would not comment on whether the case had merit worthy of charges, however he said the allegations did not involve any physical contact with a child.

Back in November, the diocese placed the Rev. Michael Schemm, Church of the Resurrection, on administrative leave following the allegations of sexual abuse of a minor. According to the diocese, Bishop Carl Kemme announced Schemm’s leave came after an initial review by the Diocesan Review Board, which recommended the leave, while a full investigation was conducted.

Bennett said someone made the report to the diocese on behalf of an alleged victim. Before placing Schemm…

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A Roman Catholic priest who was accused of sexual exploitation of a child will not be charged because the statute of limitations has ended, Sedgwick County District Attorney Marc Bennett said Wednesday.

The Catholic Diocese of Wichita placed Rev. Michael Schemm on administrative leave last November after it received an allegation against him.

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, Bennett said.

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.

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The French Church has been rocked by repeated scandals over clerical sexual abuse in recent years.

French churches faced a new challenge when it turned out that a priest known as the “Picasso of the Churches” for his prolific church art had sexually abused minors before his death in 1994.

The dioceses of Lyon, Grenoble and Saint Etienne issued a joint statement saying they had received many credible accusations against Fr Louis Ribes and would follow them up. They said his artworks would be “taken down and put away” and urged potential victims to come forward.

Lyon Archbishop Olivier de Germay, whose predecessor Cardinal Philippe Barbarin resigned over a major scandal there, said the Church aimed to uncover all such cases. “Even if it is painful, the Church must follow this line,” he said.

Fr Ribes, who used bright colours and a vaguely cubist style, created dozens of paintings and stained glass…

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Catholic dioceses in France have raised 20 million euros ($22.6 million) to compensate thousands of victims of historical child sexual abuse by clergy, the fund in charge of raising the money said Tuesday.

Church officials have been under intense pressure to recognise and compensate victims after a landmark French inquiry confirmed widespread abuse of minors by priests, deacons and lay members of the Church dating from the 1950s.

“It’s a first step. The Church has followed through on its commitment,” the president of the Selam fund, Gilles Vermot-Desroches, told AFP after its board met on Monday.

An initial five million euros will be set aside for compensation claims being studied by an independent panel set up in the wake of the damning abuse report, released in October.

It found that 216,000 minors had been abused by clergy over the past seven decades, a number that climbed to 330,000 when claims…

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It should be of no surprise that former Pope Benedict XVI is accused of wrongdoing in his handling of sexual abuse cases when he was a Cardinal in Germany.

For decades the Catholic Church ignored or covered up reports of child sexual abuse by priests.

Often the offending priests were moved to another diocese where they could resume their abuse, this time of other children.

What the Catholic Church didn’t do, and should have done, was to turn over the offending priests to the police.

It is only under the current Pope Francis that Church laws have been changed to criminalize sexual abuse.

It would be interesting to know how many offending priests have since been reported to the police.

The Church’s historical record would suggest that the numbers reported would be very few.

What a disgrace.

Archie Gillis, Toronto

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Catholic dioceses in France have raised 20 million euros ($22.6 million) to compensate thousands of victims of historical child sexual abuse by clergy, the fund in charge of raising the money said Tuesday.

Church officials have been under intense pressure to recognise and compensate victims after a landmark French inquiry confirmed widespread abuse of minors by priests, deacons and lay members of the Church dating from the 1950s.

“It’s a first step. The Church has followed through on its commitment,” the president of the Selam fund, Gilles Vermot-Desroches, told AFP after its board met on Monday.

An initial five million euros will be set aside for compensation claims being studied by an independent panel set up in the wake of the damning abuse report, released in October.

It found that 216,000 minors had been abused by clergy over the past seven decades, a number that climbed to 330,000 when claims against lay…

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“Several people have contacted the diocese of Lyon, the diocese of Grenoble-Vienne as well as the diocese of Saint-Etienne to reveal that they or their relatives had been sexually assaulted by Father Louis Ribes, who died in 1994. _We have gained certainty_, last October, the veracity of the facts“.

This is how it begins a joint statement from the three dioceses. A press release published as discreetly as possible on the evening of Thursday, January 13.

For his part, the Bishop of Saint-Étienne explains that he “learned recently that people have been assaulted in the diocese, Fr Ribes being from Grammond, where he returned regularly“. Sylvain Bataille expresses his “deep compassion and [sa] desolation to discover again that a priest could have committed these heinous acts“. Louis Ribes ended his career in Vienne, in Isère and more precisely in the district of Estressin.

The children posed naked for the Picasso of…

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The late head of a large and prestigious institute in Lyon that educates students aged 2-22 has been accused of improperly touching minors in holiday camps he oversaw

The Archdiocese of Lyon, one of the oldest and most venerable centers of French Catholicism, is once again in turmoil due to the Church’s ongoing sex abuse crisis.

For the second consecutive week there have been fresh revelations of abuse committed years ago about a prominent local priest – this time by the late Father Georges Babolat, former director of the famed “Institution des Chartreux”.

Two Lyonnaise media outlets – the daily newspaper La Tribune de Lyon and the online site Mediacités – revealed on January 21 that three women have accused Babolat of molesting them in the 1990s when they were little girls at a holiday camp he ran in the mountains.

The priest, who died in 2006 at the age…

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State charges accusing Providence priest Father James Jackson of possession of child pornography, transfer of child pornography, and child erotica prohibited have been dropped, according to the state court website.

But the ex-pastor, a member of the Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter (FSSP), still must face federal charges of distributing child pornography and possessing and accessing with intent to view child pornography, his lawyer John Calcagni III told CNA. He declined further comment.

The state’s move to drop charges was an expected procedural development that allows the federal case against Jackson to move forward.

Jackson, formerly pastor of St. Mary’s Church in Providence, was arrested on Oct. 30 by the Rhode Island State Police after an investigation by a Rhode Island computer crimes task force.

The state police had executed a search warrant that day at the parish and arrested Jackson after determining that he was the owner of large amounts…

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The Vatican on Wednesday strongly defended Pope Benedict XVI’s record in fighting clergy sexual abuse and cautioned against looking for “easy scapegoats and summary judgments,” after an independent report faulted his handling of four cases of abuse when he was archbishop of Munich, Germany.

The Holy See’s editorial director, Andrea Tornielli, provided the Vatican’s first substantial response to the report in an editorial that appeared in the Vatican newspaper L’Osservatore Romano and its media portal, Vatican News. In it, Tornielli recalled that Benedict was the first pope to meet with victims of abuse, that he had issued strong norms to punish priests who raped children and had directed the church to pursue a path of humility in seeking forgiveness for the crimes of its clerics.

“All this can neither be forgotten nor erased,” Tornielli wrote.

A German law firm released the lengthy report last week that had been commissioned by…

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Ever since the 2002 revelations of deep-seated problems of child sexual abuse by members of the Catholic clergy, the most common question among the faithful remains without an answer: “How could this have happened?”

Since then, scores of reports related to ongoing patterns of sexual abuse and cover-up by the episcopacy have shown that not only has this crisis not been resolved, it isn’t likely to end any time soon.  And while many rightfully point the finger at wicked bishops, homosexual networks in the clergy, and the fetid rot in seminaries, the fact of the matter is that all of these are mere symptoms of the issue.

One major source of the problem is a legal loophole contained within the Code of Canon Law itself which directly protects pedophile priests.  Simply put, canon law prevents criminal perverts in the clergy from being properly prosecuted and punished.  Not only does canon…

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Two Mexican cardinals were found guilty of “proselytism” during last June’s election, with a court claiming they “pressured and/or induced” their religious community to vote for a particular candidate or party.

The Superior Chamber of the Electoral Tribunal of the Judiciary of the Federation (TEPJF) of Mexico confirmed the sentence against Cardinal Carlos Aguiar Retes of Mexico City and Cardinal Juan Sandoval Iñiguez, the archbishop emeritus of Guadalajara. Two other priests were also found guilty.

They were found guilty of transgressing the “principle of Church-State separation” recognized in Mexico’s constitution.

They were charged after encouraging Catholics to vote in defense of life, family and the common good during the 2021 federal elections.

The president of the Superior Chamber said that “specifically” ministers of worship in Mexico “are prohibited from proselytizing for or against any political party, any candidacy or any political association, in order to safeguard the principles of the…

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A South Florida priest is asking for forgiveness from his parishioners after learning that he fathered a child, a spokeswoman for the Archdiocese of Miami said Tuesday.

Monsignor Chanel Jeanty, the pastor at St. James Catholic Church in North Miami, learned in late December that the child was the result of a previous relationship he had with a woman, Archdiocese of Miami spokeswoman Mary Ross Agosta said in a statement. She said the relationship ended more than a year ago.

Jeanty has contacted the mother and “plans to contribute to the support of his child,” Agosta said.

“Monsignor Jeanty has already sought God’s forgiveness, and he is asking for the forgiveness of his parishioners, who will be disappointed when they learn of his lapse,” Agosta added. “Monsignor Jeanty must face his parishioners and seek to regain their trust, as he continues to serve, and at the same time attends to…

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Michael Roberts comes from a religious Catholic family that never missed Sunday mass. And like hundreds of other boys who have come forward, he was abused by the priest at his church.

But Roberts’ story of abuse by Catholic priests is a little different from others. He was a little older than most victims we’ve heard about; he was 17 when he was first raped. But, Roberts explains, he was a young and naïve 17 with no sexual experience.

The purpose of Roberts’ book, Behind Sacred Walls, is to help other victims of abuse by religious figures, not to expose or punish those who hurt him. In fact, Roberts changes the names of his tormentors and never reveals the parish that protected his rapists.

Father Gregory, as Roberts calls him, began inviting himself to dinner with the family every week. Then he invited Michael on day trips. His parents were…

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Over the centuries, the Catholic Church often has led the pack in two distinct specialties: Breaking your heart, and then stitching it back together again with a fresh infusion of hope. This past week brought classic examples of both.

Out of Munich, we got a report from a law firm commissioned by the archdiocese documenting almost 500 cases of clerical sexual abuse stretching over 74 years, including four abusers who served on the watch of the future Pope Benedict XVI when he served as Archbishop of Munich from 1977 to 1982.

Whatever one makes of the report at the level of detail – and there’s already vigorous debate over its assertions about the then-Cardinal Ratzinger – on the whole, it’s another depressing reminder of the way the abuse scandals have laid waste to both the church’s moral credibility and also its internal morale.

Yet beyond Munich, there’s also Mustafa. He’s…

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Multiple former students at Mount St. Mary Catholic High School in Oklahoma City have accused top administrators, including former principal Talita DeNegri, of dismissing their reports of sexual abuse by other students.

The story was detailed in an exclusive report by The Oklahoman. 

In the wake of the allegations DeNegri resigned and the school is bolstering its policies and procedures related to mandatory reporting of abuse. 

However, alumni are demanding more answers from the school’s Board of Trustees.

An investigation into the school performed by The Oklahoman reveals multiple incidents of alleged abuse of students, by students, and at least one allegation of abuse by a coach.

Here’s what we know about the allegations, how the school handled them, and the fallout so far:

What incidents of sexual abuse do students say happened at St. Mary High School?

Incidents of alleged abuse on school property include a male student masturbating in…

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Catholic women religious in India have expressed support for a nun days after Bishop Franco Mulakkal of Jalandhar was acquitted by a court of rape charges made by her. They also questioned the sustained silence of the official church on the case, reported ucanews.com.

“As women religious, we express our solidarity with the victim-survivor and her companions, who have walked with the victim with a lot of courage, dignity and determination in their fight for justice,” the Conference of Religious India said in a letter to Cardinal Oswald Gracias, president of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of India.

Ucanews.com reported the letter, dated Jan. 20, has no endorsement from any priest, but Apostolic Carmel Sister Maria Nirmalini, the newly appointed national president of the conference of religious, said she had been inundated with phone calls from both religious men and women as well as laypeople from around India after Mulakkal’s acquittal Jan. 14.

…

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Women religious have expressed support for the complainant nun after a court acquitted Bishop Franco Mulakkal

Catholic women religious in India have come out in open support of a nun days after Bishop Franco Mulakkal of Jalandhar was acquitted by a court of rape charges made by her.

“As women religious, we express our solidarity with the victim-survivor and her companions who have walked with the victim with a lot of courage, dignity and determination in their fight for justice,” said the Conference of Religious India (CRI) in a letter to Cardinal Oswald Gracias, president of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of India.

They also appealed to the cardinal to “reach out” and provide all possible help to the nun and five nuns supporting her while questioning the sustained silence of the official Church on the matter.

The letter dated Jan. 20 has no endorsement from…

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It’s important to hear voices from women because there are so many that have not been heard yet,” says journalist Pauline Guzik

The final panel at a Jan. 20 webinar on clergy sex abuse brought together noted women leaders in the Catholic Church to share their perspectives on what might have been different in the church’s response to the abuse crisis if women had “been given a seat at the table earlier in this process.”

The webinar, “Listening to the Voices of Survivors of Clergy Sexual Abuse,” brought together investigators of past abuse, relatives of victims and those who counsel survivors. It was sponsored in part by Georgetown University.

The last panel “Lifting Up Female Voices in the Church” included the perspective of Paulina Guzik, a journalist for Polish public broadcaster TVP. She has been in the United States doing research for a book on the abuse crisis.

“The journalist…

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While progress has been made on the clergy sexual abuse crisis in the United States and elsewhere, much more remains to be done, said panelists at a Jan. 20 webinar on the issue sponsored in part by Georgetown University.

Those sentiments were shared during the webinar, “Listening to the Voices of Survivors of Clergy Sexual Abuse,” by investigators of past abuse, relatives of victims and those who counsel survivors.

“It was a shock, it was a deep shock to discover the damages that were incurred due to these sexual abuses,” said Jean-Marc Sauvé, president of the French Institute of Administrative Sciences, who led an independent investigation into the history of clerical sexual abuse in the Catholic Church in France.

“We cannot understand and know the reality as it is” and its consequences, Sauvé said, “if we have not been able ourselves to touch the experience of the victims (including) the…

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Senator Lauren Arthur Files Legislation to Help Catch Predators and Achieve Justice for Survivors of Childhood Sexual Abuse

 Senator Arthur says organizations that cover up abuse must be held accountable

State Sen. Lauren Arthur, D-Kansas City, filed two pieces of legislation to help survivors of childhood sexual abuse seek justice through civil action, while strengthening the attorney general’s ability to investigate cases of sex trafficking and abuse.

“In Missouri, no one should be above the law,” Sen. Arthur said. “When an organization knowingly ignores or hides child sex abuse, they must be held accountable. Together, these bills will help survivors seek justice while also strengthening the criminal prosecution of abusers. I look forward to working with my colleagues to address the scourge of child sexual abuse in Missouri, and to help heal wounds that have been ignored for too long.”

Senate Bill 1084 allows for civil lawsuits against organizations for negligence regarding…

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Former Pope Benedict XVI argued the Catholic church can be trusted to self-police itself when accusations of abuse emerge. But a new report alleges Benedict failed to act over child abuse cases when he was archbishop of Munich. Human rights lawyer Richard Scorer says this “hypocrisy” is further evidence that the church must be forced to report abuse to secular authorities

As the media reported last week, an investigation in Germany into historic abuse allegations has concluded that the former Pope Benedict XVI failed to act against four priests accused of sexual abuse when he was Archbishop of Munich.

The law firm commissioned to undertake the investigation said that two of these cases concerned abuse committed during his tenure as Archbishop and “in both cases, the perpetrators remained active in pastoral care”.

This news comes as no surprise to me. Questions about the former Pope’s actions in…

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A Catholic advocacy for victims of sexual abuse in the Slovenian Catholic Church has urged appointing a properly-funded independent commission to investigate and crack down on the abuse as soon as possible.

The group called Dovolj.je (It’s Enough) is headed by Janez Cerar, the first Slovenian priest to speak out about being a victim of sexual abuse in the Church once himself.

Speaking to reporters on Tuesday, he was critical of the lengthy procedures to investigate sexual abuse within the Church and of what he said was a lack of empathy for the victims.

He believes the Slovenian Catholic Church is more attentive to paedophilia among the clergy and more active in cracking down on the problem as it used to be but still not to a sufficient extent.

He would not talk about numbers of abuse cases, asserting that the focus should be on the depth of experience suffered…

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Preliminary results follow survey of former St. Joseph’s Mission school site

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

A survey of a small segment of the land surrounding a former B.C. residential school has identified 93 sites of “potential human burials,” according to representatives of a nearby First Nation. 

The chief and council of Williams Lake First Nation (WLFN) revealed on Tuesday preliminary findings of their investigation into St. Joseph’s Mission Residential School and nearby Onward Ranch, based on a probe of 14 out of 470 hectares that have been identified as areas of interest.

Whitney Spearing, who led the investigation team, said the 93 sites were identified using ground-penetrating radar, along with aerial and terrestrial LiDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) sensors. She said some may be connected to a known historical cemetery, but 50 appear to have no association with it.

Spearing added that while the…

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First Nation Leadership Council is calling for support for the Williams Lake First Nation

Williams lake First Nation has announced its findings of unmarked graves at the site of a former residential school.

In a January 25 press conference, the Williams Lake First Nation announced a recent geophysical survey, which included ground-penetrating radar, revealed the existence of an estimated 93 graves.

St. Joseph’s Mission Residential School operated near Williams Lake between 1886 and 1981.

“This journey has led our investigation team into the darkest recesses of human behaviour,” Williams Lake First Nation Chief Willie Sellars said.

“Our team has recorded not only stories regarding the murder and disappearance of children and infants, they have listened to countless stories of systematic torture, starvation, rape and sexual assault of children at St. Joseph’s Mission.”

The findings from the school are considered preliminary, and more information is expected as the…

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Williams Lake First Nation unveils findings of preliminary search at former ‘residential school’ known for abuse.

Warning: The story below contains details of residential schools that may be upsetting. Canada’s Indian Residential School Survivors and Family Crisis Line is available 24 hours a day at 1-866-925-4419.

An Indigenous community in Canada’s western province of British Columbia has found dozens of potential unmarked graves on the grounds of a former residential school, the latest such discovery over the past year.

Williams Lake First Nation announced on Monday that preliminary results of the first phase of a geophysical search at St Joseph Mission Residential School uncovered 93 “reflections” – believed to be unmarked gravesites.

“Ninety-three is our number,” Chief Willie Sellars told reporters.

Hundreds of unmarked graves have been discovered at former residential school sites across Canada since May, when Tk’emlups te Secwepemc First Nation announced it had uncovered 215 unmarked graves at the…

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NOW I REMEMBER

The retired pontiff says it was an “editing error” when he mistakenly told investigators he had no recollection about a meeting involving a predatory priest.

The retired Pope Benedict XVI has come forward with an unusual confession. Rather than sticking with a highly contested denial that he knew nothing about the scores of predatory priests who were moved around German parishes when he was in charge of the Munich diocese, he now says he did know about at least one of them.

In a statement issued over the weekend first to German media outlets and then to the Catholic News Agency, Benedict’s personal secretary Georg Gänswein sought to correct the record for the ailing ex-pontiff.

Gänswein admitted that Benedict did tell independent investigators hired by the German Catholic Church that he had no recollection of his proven attendance at a hearing about Father Peter…

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“It marks for the first time in Australia a decision that exercises attribution of liability to a bishop for the acts of his predatory priest or assistant priest,” lawyer Sangeeta Sharmin said.

In a ruling believed to be the first of its kind in Australia, a judge has found a Catholic diocese vicariously liable for clerical abuse.

A judgment issued on Dec. 22 by Justice John Forrest in the Supreme Court of Victoria in Melbourne held that the Diocese of Ballarat was vicariously liable for the conduct of Father Bryan Coffey.

The Legal Information Institute defines vicarious liability as the liability that a supervisory party bears for the actionable conduct of a subordinate or associate, based on the relationship between the two parties. 

Father Coffey, who was convicted of child abuse in 1999 and given a three-year suspended sentence, died in 2013.

Justice Forrest awarded a man identified only as “DP”…

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Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI has denied, through his secretary, Archbishop Georg Gänswein, having knowledge of cases of abuse committed in Chile by priests who are members of the Legionaries of Christ when he was prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, a position Joseph Ratzinger held between 1982 and 2013. Gänswein made the statements to the German newspaper Die Zeit, the same one that had published the accusations, made by filmmaker Christoph Röhl, and which also published excerpts from a report on sexual abuse in the Archdiocese of Munich-Freising, before its official release.

Writing for the Catholic news agency Zenit, columnist and philosopher Jorge Enrique Mújica criticized some inconsistencies and sensationalism surrounding the report (read the full version here, in German), prepared by the law firm Westphal Spilker Wastl. The investigation covers a period from 1945 to 2019, during which the Archdiocese of Munich-Freising had six different…

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The court submitted the advice to Kottayam district police chief  Shilpa Devaiah in the presence of Addl SP S Suresh Kumar, pointing out the legal points to file appeal.

As part of the move to file an appeal against the acquittal of Bishop Franco Mulakkal, former head of the Latin Catholic Diocese of Jalandhar, in nun’s rape complaint, the prosecution has formally handed over the legal opinion to the police.

Special prosecutor Jithesh J Babu submitted the advice to Kottayam district police chief  Shilpa Devaiah in the presence of Addl SP S Suresh Kumar, pointing out the legal points to file appeal against the judgement of Additional District and Sessions Court in Kottayam.

Legal advice was provided as requested by the police. Legal advice will be forwarded to the government through the state police headquarters. The appeal will be filed in the High Court, through the office of the state advocate general, after…

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A letter to the editor from Margaret McGuckin and other members of SAVIA (Survivors and Victims of Insitutional Abuse):

We, are the main SAVIA (Survivors and Victims of Insitutional Abuse) lobby group who represent a large cross-section of both Catholic and Protestant HIA (Historical Institutional Abuse) victims and survivors in Northern Ireland, the UK and abroad.

We are horrified at the contents of Ivan Foster’s letter to the editor in the News Letter on January 24 (‘Protestants should not say sorry for abuse in Catholic establishments,’ see link below).

We have been campaigning, Protestants and Catholics together, for justice for nigh-on 15 years and just recently have been given our long-awaited apology date and timeline.

We have felt vindicated, totally, and have decided to end our long and arduous campaign. This weekend we finally rested, happy and content that our fight for justice was over.

This was until we read the…

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An independent investigation of sex-abuse cases in the Munich archdiocese produced criticism of Pope-emeritus Pope Benedict XVI for his handling of several cases. But a closer look at the report shows that the evidence of negligence by the former Pontiff was slim.

Headlines about the report, issued last week by a prominent German law firm, almost invariably highlighted the failures of then-Cardinal Ratzinger. But few if any of the reporters who wrote those stories had time to digest the full contents of the report, which ran to over 1,000 pages— or even the 72 pages that covered the leadership of Cardinal Ratzinger, from 1977 to 1982.

The former Pontiff is, of course, a more prominent target for criticism. And the current Archbishop of Munich, Cardinal Reinhard Marx, is more popular with the media, and perhaps therefore drew less criticism for his reported instances of neglect. Cardinal Friedrich Wetter, whose tenure…

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Ex-pontiff blames editorial ‘oversight’ for previous statement he was absent from 1980 meeting over suspected paedophile priest

The former pope Benedict XVI has admitted providing false information to a German inquiry into clerical sexual abuse.

Benedict, who resigned as the global leader of the Roman Catholic church in 2013, said on Monday that he had attended a meeting with local church officials in 1980 to discuss a suspected paedophile priest. He blamed a previous written statement to German investigators – in which he said he was absent from the meeting – on an editorial error.

His admission comes four days after a report on the investigation claimed that Benedict had failed to take action against four priests accused of child sexual abuse when he was archbishop of Munich, a position the then cardinal, Josef Ratzinger, held between 1977 and 1982, and that his denial of being at…

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Retired Pope Benedict XVI has admitted to giving false testimony in a German sex abuse case.

A report from law firm Westpfahl Spilker Wastl on sexual abuse in Germany’s Munich diocese criticizes the way the former pope, whose original name is Joseph Ratzinger, handled four cases of sexual abuse by priests in the 1970s and 1980s when he was archbishop there. The report was commissioned by the archdiocese to investigate sexual abuse between 1945-2019.

The law firm said the 94-year-old Benedict strongly denied any wrongdoing upon the release of the report.

But the former pontiff’s personal secretary, Archbishop Georg Ganswein, stated on Monday that Benedict was, in fact, at a 1980 meeting about a sexual abuse case in Germany that he previously denied attending.

The law firm’s report noted that minutes from the 1980 meeting, about the transfer of an abusive priest to…

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COMMENTARY: The crisis in the Catholic Church burst into the public consciousness two decades ago.

This is the first in a series of Register articles and columns marking 20 years since the 2002 revelations of sexual abuse of minors by Catholic clergy.

As we mark the 20th anniversary of the beginning of the toxic avalanche of revelations about decades of clergy sexual abuse of minors in Boston and beyond, two headlines are clear. 

The first is the unfathomable scope of what had happened and remained hidden prior to that apocalypse: tens of thousands of victims, thousands of clerical molesters, hundreds of bishops and senior chancery officials who had covered up the abuse and transferred the abusers, and the entrenched culture of corruption that enabled all of it. 

Before 2002, Catholics in the U.S. were familiar with the notorious cases of Father Gilbert Gauthe, who admitted to molesting 37 boys in…

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After the publication last week of a report on past sexual abuse in the German archdiocese of Munich, Pope emeritus Benedict XVI admitted that a previous statement on his participation in a meeting that discussed an abusive priest was “objectively incorrect.”

Though he has yet to go through the full 1,900 page report, Benedict, 95, released a statement through his personal secretary, Archbishop Georg Gänswein. In it, he acknowledges that while he was archbishop of the Bavarian capital he took part in a meeting in which the arrival of a priest accused of abusing a minor to Munich from another diocese was discussed.

The statement said Benedict is “carefully” reading the report by German law firm Westpfahl Spilker Wastl, made available to him on Thursday, the same day it was published. In time, he will release a full statement. Until then, Gänswein wrote, what he has read thus far “fill…

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A Pillar explainer

Pope emeritus Benedict XVI is in the headlines Thursday, as a new report alleges that he mishandled abuse cases while serving as the leader of a German archdiocese in the 1970s and 80s.

To help make sense of what’s been alleged, The Pillar answers your questions:

What happened?

A German law firm published on Thursday a long-awaited report into sexual abuse of minors and vulnerable adults in the Archdiocese of Munich and Freising. The report, commissioned by the Munich archdiocese, covers the period between 1945 and 2019.

Law firm Westpfahl Spilker Wastl conducted the independent review of all alleged cases of sexual abuse by clerics or other employees of the archdiocese, spanning the leadership of the six postwar archbishops. 

These include Pope emeritus Benedict XVI, who led the archdiocese for five years from 1977-1982, and the current archbishop, Cardinal Reinhard Marx, a member of Pope Francis’ council of cardinal…

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Pope emeritus Benedict XVI has apologized for mistakenly saying that he did not attend a disputed meeting in 1980 while serving as archbishop of Munich and Freising.

In a statement published in the German Catholic weekly Die Tagepost on Jan. 24, the 94-year-old retired pope said that the mistake was the result of an editing error, reported CNA Deutsch, CNA’s German-language news partner.

Benedict XVI initially told investigators that he was not present at a meeting of archdiocesan officials on Jan. 15, 1980.

But in the statement, Archbishop Georg Gänswein, Benedict XVI’s private secretary, said that the pope emeritus “would now like to make it clear that, contrary to what was stated during the hearing, he took part in the ordinariate meeting on Jan. 15, 1980.”l

“The statement to the contrary was therefore objectively incorrect,” he said.

“He would like to emphasize that this…

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Retired Pope Benedict XVI has acknowledged that he did attend a 1980 meeting at which the transfer of a pedophile priest to his then-diocese was discussed, saying an editorial error was responsible for his previous assertion that he wasn’t there.

Authors of a report on sexual abuse between 1945 and 2019 in the Munich archdiocese, which Benedict — then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger — led from 1977 to 1982, on Thursday faulted his handling of four cases during his time as archbishop and said his claim that he wasn’t at the meeting lacked credibility.

Benedict, who provided lengthy written testimony, denies any wrongdoing on his part.

One case involved the transfer to Munich of a priest to undergo therapy, which was approved under Ratzinger in 1980.

The priest was allowed to resume pastoral work, a decision that the church has said was made by a lower-ranking official without consulting the archbishop….

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Ho hum. Another lawyer says another bishop mishandled abuse. What’s the big deal?   Well, this isn’t just another lawyer. It’s a lawyer hired by Catholic officials.   And it’s not just another bishop. It’s the former pope.

Plus, this isn’t some off-handed remark. It comes from a formal 1900-page report that has taken nearly two years to complete. 

https://apnews.com/article/pope-francis-pope-benedict-xvi-reinhard-marx-germany-europe-c75f721f469f969d05348703c093e53d

That’s right. In a report released just days ago in Germany, an attorney who was picked and paid by the Munich archdiocese, said Pope Benedict is “not credible” when he claims he did nothing wrong in abuse cases there.  In fact, one of the author’s of the stunning reports, in atypically blunt language for an attorney, says “During [Ratzinger’s] time in office, there were abuse cases happening. In those cases, those priests continued their work without sanctions. The church did not do anything.”

https://www.thedailybeast.com/pope-benedict-willfully-let-children-be-raped-says-lawyer?source=email&via=desktop

According to the New York Times, “the report…

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A statement by the former pope contradicted a previous statement to a law firm investigating allegations of child sex abuse by priests when he was an archbishop.

Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI said Monday he had been at a 1980 meeting at which the case of a priest accused of pedophilia had been discussed, contradicting a previous statement made to a law firm investigating how allegations of clerical sexual abuse had been handled in the archdiocese of Munich and Freiburg between 1945 and 2019.

Benedict — then known as Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger — was Archbishop of Munich and Freiburg and in charge of its clerics between 1977 and 1982.

Last week, the law firm conducting the investigation, Westpfahl Spilker Wastl, issued a report that found, among other things, that Benedict had mishandled four cases in which priests were accused of sexual abuse.

At a news conference presenting the findings of…

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• Ex-pope Benedict admitted providing incorrect information to German inquiry
• It was about his presence at a 1980 meeting discussing a paedophile priest
• A report found he knowingly failed to stop four priests accused of child abuse

Former pope Benedict XVI on Monday admitted providing incorrect information to a German inquiry about his presence at a 1980 meeting discussing a paedophile priest, blaming an editing ‘oversight’.

‘He is very sorry for this mistake and asks to be excused,’ Benedict’s personal secretary Georg Ganswein said in a statement cited by the KNA news agency and republished by Vatican News.

But the statement insisted no decision was made at the meeting about reassigning the priest to pastoral duties.

An independent report last week found that Benedict XVI, who stood down in 2013, knowingly failed to stop four priests accused of child sex abuse in the 1980s.

The report by law firm Westpfahl Spilker Wastl…

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Former pope Benedict XVI on Monday admitted providing incorrect information to a German inquiry about his presence at a 1980 meeting discussing a paedophile priest, blaming an editing “oversight”.

“He is very sorry for this mistake and asks to be excused,” Benedict’s personal secretary Georg Ganswein said in a statement cited by the KNA news agency and republished by Vatican News.

But the statement insisted no decision was made at the meeting about reassigning the priest to pastoral duties.

An independent report last week found that Benedict XVI, who stood down in 2013, knowingly failed to stop four priests accused of child sex abuse in the 1980s.

The report by law firm Westpfahl Spilker Wastl (WSW) was commissioned by the archdiocese of Munich and Freising to examine how abuse cases were dealt with between 1945 and 2019.

Ex-pope…

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Records contain school narrative for Kamloops Indian Residential School

The leadership of Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc hopes to identify and locate missing children believed to be buried in unmarked graves near the former Kamloops Indian Residential School (IRS) with the help of previously undisclosed documents set for release by the federal government.

The federal government plans to transfer more than 875,000 records through a recently signed agreement with the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation (NCTR), the archival repository for all of the material collected by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

Those files include the school “narrative” for Kamloops IRS, which summarizes the institution’s history, including its administration, attendance record, key events and reports of abuse.

“We have to find answers,” Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc Kukpi7 (Chief) Rosanne Casimir told CBC News.

“Access to the records means not having to re-traumatize … residential school survivors to pinpoint information about who…

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The evidence that the institutional culture of church cover-up, so vividly recorded in Ireland’s own inquiries into clerical abuse, goes right to the top is shocking but perhaps not surprising

In a lengthy article published after his retirement in 2013 , Pope Benedict XVI, formerly Joseph Ratzinger, responded to a critic: “As far as you mentioning the moral abuse of minors by priests, I can only, as you know, acknowledge it with profound consternation. But I never tried to cover up these things.”

Claims that he did cover up abuse, notably as Archbishop of Munich and Freising between 1977 and 1982, have dogged Benedict for years, and been repeatedly denied. But the publication last Thursday of a 1,000-page report of a Church-commissioned inquiry finds Benedict and two senior German clerics protected abusing priests. It is the first formal accusation that he failed to discipline four abusive priests and allowed them to continue…

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Following the publication of an experts’ report on how sexual abuse was handled in the Archdiocese of Munich and Freising, the German Catholic news agency KNA spoke to Jesuit Father Hans Zollner, a member of the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors since its creation and president of the Institute of Anthropology: Interdisciplinary Studies on Human Dignity and Care at Rome’s Pontifical Gregorian University.

KNA: Father Zollner, you were questioned by the Munich law office Westpfahl Spilker Wastl beforehand in preparing its experts’ report. What exactly was your contribution?

Zollner: What I knew was that part in which the experts wrote about the potential theological, canonical and systemic consequences. I did not see a single file, not a single statement of a contemporary witness. It was only about the theoretical conclusions of the experts that I offered my assessment.

What’s your evaluation of the final result?

My comments were taken…

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[This is a Google translation of the Munich report’s Table of Contents. See also the full German text of the report, in which items in the Table of Contents are linked to the sections. For an indented version of the English Table of Contents, see the PDF.]

Sexual abuse of minors and adult wards by clerics and full-time employees in the Archdiocese of Munich and Freising from 1945 to 2019

– Responsibilities, systemic causes, consequences and recommendations –

Attorney Dr. Marion Westpfahl, Munich

Attorney Dr. Ulrich Wastl, Munich

Attorney Dr. Martin Pusch, LL.M., Munich

Lawyer Nata Gladstein, Munich

Attorney Philipp Schenke, Munich

January 20, 2022

Table of Contents

A. PRINCIPLES …………………………………………….. …………………………………. 1

I. Mission and objective of the expert report ………………………….. 1

II. Summary of the main results …………………… 10

III. Terminological clarification ……………………… 21

1. Sexual abuse / sexualized violence ……………………… 21

2. Victims / Victims /…

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[This is a Google translation of Section I of the Munich report. See also the full German text of the report.]

A. Principles

I. Mission and objective of the report

“The prevention of sexualized violence can only be considered successful […] if it is suitable for counteracting the structural enabling conditions of sexualized violence in the area of ​​the church.” (Gräb-Schmitt, in: Wirth et al., Sexualized violence in church contexts (2022), p. 307, 309)

A very important factor in these structural enabling conditions is the (non-)reaction of church leaders to (suspected) cases of abuse that have become known to them in the sense of a general and special preventive opportunity to influence alleged or actual abusers. If the person who does not allow himself to be deterred from committing the crime by the consequences he has caused does not have to fear that he will be held accountable for his…

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[This is a Google translation of Section II of the Munich report. See also the full German text of the report.]

The main results of the investigation summarized below are based on a large number of expert findings and their evaluation. As a result, it is often necessary to use the detailed descriptions of the individual test items to get a comprehensive picture of the specific derivation of the respective result. This applies in particular with regard to the statements on personal responsibilities in connection with the treatment of (suspected) cases of abuse, which represent a focus of the expert examination and evaluation as commissioned (cf. in detail D.). In particular, the statements made by the persons who are still alive and who, in the opinion of the experts, should be named as responsible persons must be taken into account and included in the assessment (cf. Annexes 2 to 5).

…

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Dear Saint Edward Parish and School Family,

It is with great difficulty that I write to share news about Father James McIlhone, a retired priest who is a resident in your parish. In keeping with our child protection policies, I have directed Father McIlhone to step aside from ministry and live away from the parish following receipt by the Archdiocese of an allegation of sexual abuse of a minor approximately 40 years ago while he was an associate pastor at another parish. He has agreed to cooperate with this direction. Allegations are claims that have not been proven and for this reason there needs to be a full investigation.

Moreover, as is required by our child protection policies, the allegation was reported to the Lake County State’s Attorney. The person making the allegation has been offered the services of our Victim Assistance Ministry and the archdiocese has begun its investigation…

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In an abuse report, serious allegations against Pope Benedict XVI. raised. In several cases, the former Archbishop of Munich took little or no action against the accused clerics.

In the abuse scandal in the Catholic Church, the report of a Munich law firm incriminates Pope Benedict XVI. heavy. As Archbishop of Munich and Freising (1977 to 1982), Joseph Ratzinger was accused of misconduct in dealing with sexual abuse in four cases, said Martin Pusch from the Westpfahl Spilker Wastl (WSW) law firm, which prepared the report on behalf of the diocese.

Benedict XVI Pusch rejected the allegations in all cases. He had commented extensively on the allegations and claimed lack of knowledge. According to the lawyers, however, this is difficult to reconcile with their knowledge of the files.

The case of the priest Peter H., referred to only as X. by the experts, took up a special place. This clergyman from North Rhine-Westphalia is said to have abused…

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[Google translation followed by German original. See also the full text of the WSW Munich report.]

The investigation into sexualised assaults names at least 497 victims between 1945 and 2019. It also includes Cardinal Ratzinger’s tenure as archbishop in Munich – and accuses him of making false statements in a particularly serious case.

The Munich law firm Westpfahl Spilker Wastl (WSW) accuses the emeritus Pope Benedict XVI. in an expert opinion on dealing with sexualized abuse of minors in the Catholic Church misconduct. According to the report, the pope emeritus played down or denied cases of abuse during his time as archbishop in Munich. In the report, misconduct by Joseph Ratzinger is established in four cases of abuse. At the same time, the experts come to the conclusion that Ratzinger may have given incorrect information on his responsibility in a particularly serious case. “We don’t think Pope Benedict’s statements are very credible,” said expert Ulrich…

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[Via UCA]

“It’s important to hear voices from women because there are so many that have not been heard yet,” says journalist Pauline Guzik

The final panel at a Jan. 20 webinar on clergy sex abuse brought together noted women leaders in the Catholic Church to share their perspectives on what might have been different in the church’s response to the abuse crisis if women had “been given a seat at the table earlier in this process.”

The webinar, “Listening to the Voices of Survivors of Clergy Sexual Abuse,” brought together investigators of past abuse, relatives of victims and those who counsel survivors. It was sponsored in part by Georgetown University.

The last panel “Lifting Up Female Voices in the Church” included the perspective of Paulina Guzik, a journalist for Polish public broadcaster TVP. She has been in the United States doing research for a book on the abuse crisis.

…

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An Indonesian court has sentenced a “Catholic brother” to 14 years in jail for sexually assaulting boys at an orphanage near capital Jakarta.

Lukas “Lucky” Ngalngola, also known as Brother Angelo, was convicted by Depok District Court on Jan. 20 for threatening violence and committing lewd acts on at least three children.

He was also ordered to pay a fine of 100 million rupiah (US$6,990).

Ngalngola claimed to be a member of the Blessed Sacrament Missionaries of Charity (BSMC), an obscure order based in the Philippines.

The order founded the Kencana Bejana Rohani Foundation which ran the orphanage in the city of Depok, West Java province, where the abuses were committed.

The abuse first came to light when three boys living at the orphanage filed a police report against Ngalngola in September 2019.

They claimed they were sexually abused by Ngalngola on a regular basis over a prolonged period.

Police arrested Ngalngola…

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[Google translation, followed by Spanish text.]

Benedict XVI was a “trending topic”. Fed by the headlines of a multitude of newspapers, Benedict XVI was once again linked – without nuances – to the reprehensible issue of abuse

Anyone familiar with Twitter was able to notice a fact that could have happened as an anecdote on the European night of Thursday, January 20, the American afternoon of the same day, if not for the events associated with the name of the viral character. Benedict XVI was a “trending topic” and many were talking about him.

Indeed, the hundreds of verified press profiles in different languages ​​were joined by the usual “amateur athletes” of the idle trade of opinionism. Fed by the headlines of a multitude of newspapers, Benedict XVI was once again linked – without nuances – to the reprehensible issue of abuse.

Facts: a report in the diocese where Benedict XVI was archbishop

…

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Over the centuries, the Catholic Church often has led the pack in two distinct specialties: Breaking your heart, and then stitching it back together again with a fresh infusion of hope. This past week brought classic examples of both.

Out of Munich, we got a report from a law firm commissioned by the archdiocese documenting almost 500 cases of clerical sexual abuse stretching over 74 years, including four abusers who served on the watch of the future Pope Benedict XVI when he served as Archbishop of Munich from 1977 to 1982.

Whatever one makes of the report at the level of detail – and there’s already vigorous debate over its assertions about the then-Cardinal Ratzinger – on the whole, it’s another depressing reminder of the way the abuse scandals have laid waste to both the church’s moral credibility and also its internal morale.

Yet beyond Munich, there’s also Mustafa. He’s…

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Pope Benedict XVI knew about priests who abused children but failed to act when he was archbishop of Munich from 1977 to 1982, an inquest found Thursday, rejecting Benedict’s long-standing denials in a damning judgment.”

He was informed about the facts,” lawyer Martin Pusch said, as the Westpfahl Spilker Wastl law firm announced the findings of an investigation into historic sexual abuse at the Munich Archdiocese over several decades. The report was commissioned by the church itself.

“We believe that he can be accused of misconduct in four cases,” Pusch said. “Two of these cases concern abuses committed during his tenure and sanctioned by the state. In both cases, the perpetrators remained active in pastoral care.”

Benedict continues to deny the allegations, the firm said Thursday. He has repeatedly rejected claims that he knowingly covered up abuse, including in 2013 when he wrote: “I can only, as…

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A slew of cases involving young girls and boys at Indonesian religiously-linked schools has horrified parents.

It is every parent’s worst nightmare.

As six distraught families looked on, the man accused of sexually assaulting their daughters was handed a 10-year prison sentence by the District Court in the city of Medan, Indonesia.

“Our children,” gasped one mother as she slumped in her chair, prompting fears she had fainted.

Benyamin Sitepu, a 37-year-old Christian priest who was also the principal of the Galilea Hosana School in Medan, had received five years less than the maximum 15-year sentence the prosecution had requested.

The presiding judge said he gave Sitepu a shorter sentence because the priest had apologised for his crimes and had previously signed a settlement agreement with two of the victims’ families.

Both the prosecution and Sitepu are appealing the sentence.

Reacting to the verdict, Andreas Harsono, a researcher at Human Rights…

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Father James McIlhone has been asked to step away from the ministry, Cardinal Blase Cupich said in a letter

A retired Chicago priest has been asked to step away from ministry following an allegation that he sexually abused a minor 4O years ago, according to Cardinal Blase Cupich.

In a letter, Cupich said the alleged abuse happened while Father James McIlhone was the associate pastor of Santa Maria del Popolo Parish in Mundelein in the 1980s.

“Allegations are claims that have not been proven and for this reason, there needs to be a full investigation,” said a letter to the parish.

Cardinal Cupich said the priest has been asked to move away from the Saint Edward parish where he has been living during retirement. Letters were sent to both the St. Edward and Santa Maria del Popolo parishes Saturday.

The person who made the allegation has been offered victim support…

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In the first testimony ever given by a German Catholic bishop in a court case on abuse, Hamburg Archbishop Stefan Hesse admitted having made mistakes in the case of an offending priest on trial in the Cologne regional court.

The German Catholic news agency KNA reported that Archbishop Hesse, 55, the former head of personnel in the Archdiocese of Cologne, was called as a witness in the case against the priest, who has only been named as U. He said the mistakes included that the allegations against the priest that became known in 2010 should have been reported to the Vatican.

The archbishop testified that, at that time, he had relied on the assessment of the legal and church law experts in the Archdiocese of Cologne. They had said the priest’s nieces who had been abused did not want to participate in a church trial. The chief church judge of…

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In September of 2018, New Jersey Attorney General Gurbir Grewal announced the formation of a criminal task force to investigate allegations of sexual abuse by members of the clergy within the Catholic Dioceses of New Jersey. This was in the wake of the scathing Pennsylvania grand jury report, as well as renewed allegations of sexual abuse by then-Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, including the first publicly reported assault on a child. However, there have been few updates on the progress of that investigation.

New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy was sworn in yesterday for his second term. He will be selecting a nominee to take the place of AG Grewal, who resigned in July. We urge Governor Murphy to make this appointment soon so that the new AG can report on the status of the Catholic…

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Following two investigations by the Diocese of Portland’s Office of Professional Responsibility, Bishop Robert Deeley accepted the recommendation of the Diocesan Review Board that the recent complaints made against Fr. Eugene Descombes and the former Fr. Renald Hallee are substantiated.

The complaint against Descombes concerned the sexual abuse of a minor in the mid-1950’s which came to the attention of the diocese in 2021. The incident took place during a trip to Canada. Descombes, who died in 1980, was a Canadian priest who served during the summer months in Maine over the course of several years. The Archdiocese of Québec was notified of this complaint and the results of the investigation.

The complaint against Hallee concerned the sexual abuse of a high school teen in the early 1970’s which was reported to the diocese in 2020. Hallee has not been in ministry or served as a priest since the late…

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A motion to drop racketeering charges was denied in a lawsuit filed by a man alleging he was sexually assaulted by a Catholic priest in Alamogordo in the 1970s. 

The suit was filed by a clergy sexual abuse survivor listed as John Doe who alleged Father David Holley sexually assaulted him while Holley lived in Alamogordo, and sued Servants of the Paraclete’s, the Roman Catholic Dioceses of Las Cruces, El Paso and Worcester, Massachusetts and Alamogordo parishes Immaculate Conception Parish and St. Jude Parish.

On Jan. 18, New Mexico Second Judicial District Court Judge Daniel Ramczyk denied defendant Servants of the Paraclete’s motion to have a count of racketeering dismissed from the case.

The racketeering charge originated from accusations the Church collected monetary offerings and tithes from parishioners that were used to pay for clergy housing including the house where Holley lived in…

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A former youth minister at The River church was charged with six sex crimes Friday.  

William Stefan Wahl, 28, of Port Huron man, was arraigned Friday on two counts of second-degree criminal sexual conduct victim younger than 13, two counts of fourth-degree criminal sexual conduct victim between 13 and 16, distributing obscene matter to children, aggravated indecent exposure and using computers to commit a crime.

His bond was set at $25,000 cash/surety.

Wahl is accused of sexually abusing four juvenile victims that he fostered a relationship with through The River, St. Clair County Sheriff Mat King said. King identified Wahl as a former youth minister at the church. 

King said Friday morning the man was arrested around midnight at a residence in the 1500 block of Palmer Court.

Stephen Rabaut, Wahl’s attorney, said Wahl intended to turn himself in for his arraignment. The police investigation was initiated in November 2021. 

St. Clair County Assistant Prosecuting Attorney Cailin Wilson said…

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A former youth pastor at The River Church in Kimball Township has been arrested and charged with four counts of criminal sexual conduct and three other felony charges.

Port Huron resident William Stefan Wahl, 27, is facing two second degree counts of criminal sexual conduct, two fourth degree counts of criminal sexual conduct, one count of aggravated indecent exposure, one count of distributing explicit material of children and one count of using a computer to commit a crime.

The St. Clair County Sheriff’s Office announced the arrest and charges on Friday, Jan. 21.

Police say an the investigation began in late 2021 after hearing allegations of sexual assault of a child by the youth pastor.

The investigation revealed that there were four victims alleging sexual abuse going back to 2014.

A Port Huron Times Herald report states Wahl was terminated last year as an…

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Investigators determined that the eight people in the basement, all with mental or physical disabilities, or both, were “essentially imprisoned against their will.”

A Georgia pastor and his wife were arrested on charges of false imprisonment after officials found up to eight people locked in their basement, police said.

Curtis Keith Bankston and Sophia Simm-Bankston were running the unlicensed “group home” out of their rented Griffin house “under the guise of a church known as One Step of Faith 2nd Chance,” the Griffin Police Department said in a statement.

Griffin Fire last week responded to a call about someone having a seizure at the home and noticed a deadbolt on the basement door, according to police. Crews had to climb through a window to reach the patient.

Investigators determined the people in the basement, all with mental or physical disabilities, or both, were “essentially imprisoned against their will, which created…

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After a pastor was arrested when disabled individuals were found in the basement of an unlicensed group home, now his wife is facing a charge and is in custody.

Last week, when Griffin Fire Department went to assist a call concerning a seizure, they noticed the patient could only be reached through the window of a basement, as the basement door was locked.

Further investigations found that up to 8 people were locked in the basement in what was an “unlicensed” personal care facility/group home.

The victims’ ages were between 25 and 65.

They discovered multiple issues as well as potential abuse, and neglect of the handicapped people

The “caretakers” were identified as, 55-year-old Curtis Keith Bankston, who is a pastor, and his spouse, 56-year-old Sophia Simm-Bankston. They operated it under the guise of a church program known as One Step of Faith 2nd Chance.

Curtis was arrested and charged…

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A man in his 60s, who is a prominent figure in the Catholic community here, was charged on Thursday (Jan 20) with sexual offences against at least two teenage boys more than a decade ago.

The Singaporean cannot be named due to a gag order issued by the courts, which bans the publication of his identity, designation and occupation, the alleged victims’ identities and the school where the alleged offences took place.

Gag orders are usually imposed when there is a need to protect the identity of the victims or witnesses. These typically involve crimes where sexual violence or children are involved and the gag orders last indefinitely.

The accused faces two charges of carnal intercourse against the order of nature, which falls under Section 377 of the 1985 revised edition of the Penal Code that was repealed in 2007.

He was also charged with two counts of sexual exploitation of a…

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The man in his 60s faces charges of committing unlawful sexual acts against minor boys between 2005 and 2007

A court in Singapore has charged a former Catholic officer of a church-run school with committing unlawful sexual acts with at least two teenage boys more than a decade ago.

District Judge Terence Tay at the State Courts of Singapore accepted the charges on Jan. 18 but issued a ban against media revealing the identity of the accused, victims and the school involved, local media reports said.

Court documents showed that the accused in his 60s had unnatural sex with a boy aged 14-16 some time between 2005 and 2006. He also committed the same act some time between April 2007 and December 2007 with a younger boy aged 14-15.

The accused faces two charges of carnal intercourse against the order of nature under Singapore’s Penal Code. He was also charged…

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A former Mangilao parish altar boy has accused two priests of sexually abusing him when he was a minor in the early 1980s, and one of the priests is named for the first time in Guam’s clergy sex abuse cases.

In his complaint, the plaintiff said his parents refused to believe that a priest could sexually and physically abuse him when he told them what Rev. J. Michael Morrissey allegedly did to him.

When Morrissey left in 1983, Rev. Andrew Manetta started sexually abusing the plaintiff, the complaint alleges.

The plaintiff, identified in Superior Court documents only with the initials E.E. to protect his privacy, is represented by attorney Anthony C. Perez.

E.E. was an altar boy at Santa Teresita Catholic Church in Mangilao at the time of the alleged abuses. He was about 13 to 17 years old then. 

The defendants in the complaint are the Province of St….

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The suit alleges that Mater Dei coach Patrick Callahan repeatedly sexually assaulted a minor aged student, often in the presence of other Monarch coaches

Mater Dei High School football coaches and players referred to it as “Hell Week,” a string of twice-a-day workouts as the Monarchs prepared for football season shortly before the start of the 1987 school year.

Because of the workout schedule, and in an effort to build team chemistry, players and other students who worked with the team, managers, trainers, stat crew members, slept overnight at the Mater Dei gymnasium.

It was on one of the Hell Week nights that Patrick Callahan, a Mater Dei assistant football coach, allegedly led a 17-year-old stat girl, who was a student at the school, to the Monarchs’ nearby football field and raped her, according to a civil suit filed against Mater Dei and the Diocese of Orange in Orange County Superior…

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A Southern California woman alleged Thursday that a Mater Dei High School track and football coach repeatedly sexually assaulted her in the 1980s, while she was a student at the prestigious Catholic school.

In a lawsuit filedin Orange County Superior Court against Mater Dei and the Roman Catholic Diocese of Orange, the woman said coach Patrick Callahan assaulted her “countless times” while she was a student assistant for the football team.

Some of the worst abuse came during the summer of 1987, before her senior year, the lawsuit said.

During “Hell Week,” a period of intense workouts leading up to the start of the football season, the team and its student assistants spent the night in the gymnasium to accommodate a grueling schedule of two-a-day practices, the complaint said.

While the students were supposed to be asleep, Callahan took the teenager to the football field, where they were alone, and…

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Abuse of children is rising in Africa, but a culture of silence is keeping the continent from addressing the problem, according to one expert.

Beatrice Mumbi is the Safeguarding Coordinator for the Jesuit Conference of Africa and Madagascar (JCAM), and she says that although “safeguarding as a general concept is embraced, … comprehensive understanding of what it entails is generally limited and there is little consistency in what it is considered to be.”

She complained that some view safeguarding as a “rights agenda” or a “Western agenda.”

“However, from experience, the underlying problem is a cultural question, where certain practices are accepted, and a broader culture of silence, where communities, parents and caregivers do not openly discuss sexuality, and where acknowledging and talking about abuse is considered shameful and stigmatizing,” she told Crux.

A recent study by the African Partnership to End Violence against Children (APEVAC) says more than half of…

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Activists, artists, film-makers and nuns across India write to 50-year-old after court clears Franco Mulakkal

Hundreds of letters of support have poured in for a nun in Kerala after a court acquitted a bishop accused of raping and abusing her over two years, in the first case of its kind to hit the Indian Catholic church.

The handwritten letters from activists, artists, journalists, film-makers and fellow nuns across India have expressed outrage at last week’s court verdict that cleared Bishop Franco Mulakkal of all charges of sexual abuse after the judge said the victim, a 50-year-old nun, was not a “sterling witness”.

Mulakkal, who headed the Roman Catholic diocese of Jalandhar, was accused of raping the nun on 13 occasions at the Missionaries of Jesus convent in Kottayam, Kerala, between 2014 and 2016.

The nun took her case to police in June 2018, and in 2019 Mulakkal was formally charged…

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Letters of support have been pouring in for an Indian nun after a bishop she had accused of repeatedly raping her was cleared by a trial court last week.

For the past two days, my social media timeline has been full of handwritten messages of support for the 50-year-old nun who had accused Bishop Franco Mulakkal of raping her 13 times between 2014 and 2016.

Most of the posts are from women, including activists, feminists, journalists and celebrities in the southern state of Kerala and many contain hashtags such as #withthenuns and #avalkoppam – a Malayalam-language word which means “with her”.

The letters pledge support to “the nun in her fight for justice” – sometimes they just carry words of encouragement or snatches of poetry, or contain drawings and artwork.

“In these dark times, you are that ray of hope to millions,” one wrote quoting Emily Dickinson. Another quoted from Still I…

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The acquittal of Bishop Franco Mulakkal of Jalandhar in the rape case filed against him by the former superior general of the diocesan congregation Missionaries of Jesus in June 2018 has shocked — not just her supporters — but many feminists and other right-thinking people in the country.

Sisters in Solidarity, the group of women activists, nuns and lawyers who are accompanying the sisters, supporting them in different ways right through, are numbed with disbelief. On examining the judgment, it is clear that the bishop’s highly paid defense counsel skillfully used technicalities to manipulate the facts and evidence to make the judge finally state in his order, “When it is not feasible to separate the truth from falsehood, when the grain and chaff are inextricably mixed up, the only available course is to discard the evidence in toto.” He concluded, “This court was unable to place reliance on the solitary…

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