ABUSE TRACKER

‘We will get there when we get there’; a look at the psychological, spiritual and social impact of childhood sexual abuse.

“Mom, are we there, yet?” This question keeps popping into my mind as I listen to some of the discussions about clergy sex abuse in the Catholic Church. I understand why people want to be done with the whole topic. Clergy sexual abuse is embarrassing. The harms to children are revolting. The spiritual cost is overwhelming. I understand the desire to not think about it anymore. 

In my last column, I concluded that the Church has made some improvements, but we are not out of the woods. In this column, I will look at what you might call the “soft” side of the sex abuse crisis: the psychological, spiritual, and social impact of childhood sexual abuse. A candid look at these issues gives a different answer to the question,…

View Cache

Victims of pedophile priests in Italy will unveil Tuesday a campaign dubbed “Beyond the Great Silence”, pushing for an independent investigation into clerical abuse carried out on the Vatican’s doorstop.

As inquiries across the United States, Europe and Australia have exposed the scale of the sex abuse problem within the Church — and also a decades-long cover-up — many groups say Italy can no longer avoid scrutiny.

“The government must act, must take advantage of the momentum created by impartial investigations elsewhere,” Francesco Zanardi, founder of Rete l’Abuso (Abuse Network), told AFP.

“If Italy doesn’t do it now, I fear it never will,” said Zanardi, who was abused by a priest as a young teen.

Nine groups are now forming a consortium aimed at putting pressure on the country to launch a probe, like the ones seen recently in France and Germany.

Cristina Balestrini, who set up a support group…

View Cache

In a public spat between members of the Catholic hierarchy, Czech Cardinal Dominik Duka has accused German Cardinal Reinhard Marx of “defaming and tarnishing” the reputation of retired Pope Benedict XVI.

The 78-year-old’s comments are a part of the continued fallout surrounding Benedict’s response to a German report that faulted his handling of clergy abuse cases as archbishop of Munich and Freising in the 1970s and ’80s.

Duka, the archbishop of Prague, published a statement on Feb. 8 defending Benedict’s actions as archbishop, saying that “even a layman” with a theology degree should be able to understand that, at the time, Benedict had “no jurisdiction and no way to deal with the case” of a notorious priest who had been transferred to the Munich Archdiocese from Essen, Germany.

German investigators faulted Benedict for mishandling the case, since he was present at a 1980 meeting…

View Cache

Pope Francis on Feb. 14 overhauled the current structure of the Vatican’s doctrinal office, creating an independent section to handle disciplinary matters related to the sexual abuse of minors. 

Under its new structure, the office will operate with autonomous doctrinal and discipline sections that will be coordinated by separate secretaries, both of whom will report to the prefect of the congregation. 

The new legislation, Fidem servare (“To preserve the faith”), represents the most significant organizational changes to the office in over 30 years. 

In announcing the new structure, which comes in advance of a much-anticipated new apostolic constitution that will reorganize the Vatican’s central bureaucracy, the Vatican did not announce any personnel changes at the congregation. 

The office’s current prefect, Cardinal Luis Ladaria, is 77 years-old and has passed the Vatican’s traditional retirement age of 75. Last month, Francis reassigned the doctrinal office’s secretary, its number two official,…

View Cache

Pope Francis on Monday reorganized the internal structure of the Vatican’s doctrine office into two sections — the latest step in his ongoing reform of the Roman Curia.

In a letter issued motu proprio (of his own accord) on Feb. 14, Pope Francis centralized the tasks of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith into a doctrinal section and a disciplinary section.

The department previously had a third section, which dealt with marriage cases. With the motu proprio, titled Fidem servare, the responsibilities of the marriage office will be moved under the doctrinal section.

The restructuring goes into effect immediately.

In his apostolic letter, Pope Francis stated that the changes to the CDF’s organization have been made “in view of the experience gained during this time by the Congregation in various areas of work, and the need to give it an approach more suited to the fulfillment of the functions…

View Cache

A Vermont woman yesterday sued a convicted child-molester priest of molesting her when she was 11 and he was serving at St. Brendan Church in Dorchester.

The suit, filed in Suffolk Superior Court by attorney Mitchell Garabedian, who represented dozens of victims when the Boston pedophile-priest scandal first broke, also names Father W. James Nyhan’s superior at the time in the Archdiocese of Boston for not just failing to stop Nyhan but for allegedly allowing the conduct in the first place.

In her suit, Kelly Story, who now lives in Vermont, charges Nyhan molested her after his return in 1980 from South Carolina – where he would later be convicted of molesting three boys – and was assigned to St. Brendan Parish on Gallivan Boulevard in Dorchester:

In approximately 1980, when Plaintiff was about 11 years of age, Defendant Father Nyhan brought Plaintiff to a beach house at Salisbury…

View Cache

In the Catholic Church, religious leaders cover up abuse

Former Pope Benedict XVI denied allegations of misconduct on Tuesday regarding the mishandling of sexual abuse cases involving minors. He asked for forgiveness instead. The pope did admit that abuse and wrongdoings took place. 

“I have had great responsibilities in the Catholic Church,” Benedict said. “All the greater is my pain for the abuses and the errors that occurred in those different places during the time of my mandate.”

The allegations originated from an investigation into sexual abuse cases among the German clergy, which reported that the former Pope mishandled four cases of abuse during his five years as archbishop. All four instances involved convicted abusers continuing to work in the church following their trials. 

The Pope’s statement resulted in harsh criticism from groups representing church abuse survivors, including Eckiger Tisch and the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests. Mitchell Garabedian, a…

View Cache

Apostolic Letter in the Form of “Motu Proprio” of the Great Pontiff Francis

By Which the Internal Structure of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith Is Modified

[Google translation followed by Italian original]

“Guarding the faith” (cf. 2 Tim 4: 7) is the main task, as well as the ultimate criterion to be followed in the life of the Church. The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith takes on this important commitment, assuming both doctrinal and disciplinary competences, as assigned to it by my Venerable Predecessors.

The current configuration of the Congregation was arranged by St. Paul VI, who with the Motu Proprio Integrae Servandae changed the title of the Dicastery to “Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith”, and by St. John Paul II, who in the Apostolic Constitution Pastor Bonus he specified his competences.

Now, given the experience gained in this time by the Congregation…

View Cache

Parishioners worshipping at St. Charles Borromeo Catholic Church in Harlem are greeted by a framed portrait of Martin Luther King Jr. — a Baptist minister named after a rebellious 16th century German priest excommunicated from the Catholic Church.

The Rev. Bryan Massingale, who sometimes preaches at St. Charles, pursues his ministry in ways that echo both Martin Luthers.

Like King, Massingale decries the scourge of racial inequality in the United States. As a professor at Fordham University, he teaches African American religious approaches to ethics.

Like the German Martin Luther, Massingale is often at odds with official Catholic teaching — he supports the ordination of women and making celibacy optional for Catholic clergy. And, as a gay man, he vocally disagrees with the church’s doctrine on same-sex relations, instead advocating for full inclusion of LGBTQ Catholics within the church.

The Vatican holds that gays and lesbians should be treated with…

View Cache

Critics say retired pope’s request for forgiveness is incomplete

In Germany’s emotional debate over Joseph Ratzinger, the self-styled Emeritus Pope Benedict XVI, there is only one point on which the warring sides agree.

What began as an investigation into post-war clerical sexual abuse and its cover-up in the Archdiocese of Munich and Freising, which Benedict headed for four years until 1982, has turned into a no-holds-barred battle royal for his reputation, and that of the institution with which he has been inextricably linked for more than six decades.

The 94-year-old’s friends and allies see a “vile” plot under way to destroy the legacy of a gentle intellectual and genial theologian. His critics and opponents point to a different Benedict who, they say, has been tripped up by institutional blindness and the same uncompromising approach he took with others.

In recent weeks, both sides have had their say about his Munich…

View Cache

[Editor’s Note: This is the ninth in a series of articles by Inés San Martín exploring the state of the Catholic Church in Pope Francis’ home continent of Latin America. The eighth can be found here.]

ROSARIO, Argentina – Pope Francis’s homeland is becoming “sick with hatred,” and his figure and message have been coopted, says Father Rafael Velasco, the man who today leads the Jesuits of Argentina, much like the pontiff did back in the 1970s.

“Our crisis is not only political, social and economic; it is also spiritual,” Velasco said. “The soul of the nation is getting sick, if one could speak of such a thing. To get out of this crisis, we must also take into account the soul-spiritual factor: the hatred that we are inoculating ourselves with.”

Speaking with Crux soon after 24 young Argentines died after consuming poisoned cocaine, the Jesuit provincial said that to stop hating…

View Cache

Rome – Ahead of a high-profile conference on the priesthood, prominent Jesuit canonist Father Gianfranco Ghirlanda has cautioned against the risks of social media and excessive attachment to outward devotions, stressing the importance of service.

Speaking to Crux, Ghirlanda said a priest’s spiritual life is essential to their ministry, and the greatest danger he sees to a healthy spiritual life is what Pope Francis has called “spiritual worldliness.”

Spiritual worldliness, he said, means “hiding behind external forms of devotion, liturgical correctness, orthodoxy to the bitter end, of ‘always correct manners,’ of always being in order, but to protect one’s own search for security and personal benefit.”

It is an obsession with outward details, such as fancy cufflinks on the sleeves of a shirt, and is a spiritual attitude that “can lead to careerism, losing sight of the fact that the ministry is a service for others and not for oneself,” he…

View Cache

A civil lawsuit accuses the St. Louis Archdiocese of “covering up” the sexual abuse of minor parishioners by their employee Father Alexander Anderson.

The plaintiff, Christian Hornbeck who now lives in Georgia, claims he was molested during counseling sessions with Anderson at St. Joseph’s Home for Boys on South Grand in the late 1990s and early 2000s.

David Clohessy with the survivor’s group SNAP says despite five accusers coming forward against Anderson, they’re “keeping him on the job.” Anderson now works at St. Rose of Lima Catholic Church in DeSoto, Missouri.

A statement from the Archdiocese says that is “demonstrably false, as Fr. Anderson was not assigned to St. Joseph Home during the time.”

Clohessy says the Archdiocese needs to suspend him and begin an investigation.

“Not only is Father Anderson on the job today, in a parish, around kids, despite five accusers. He’s never been suspended for even a week,” Clohessy says.

The Archdiocese’s…

View Cache

The retired pope expresses “profound shame” and his “deep sorrow” over clergy sex abuse, but says he never lied to investigators commissioned by his former diocese in Bavaria

Benedict XVI has issued a new request for forgiveness from victims of clergy sex abuse, in very strong and personal terms.

In a letter dated February 6, and made public by the Vatican two days later, the former pope responds to report made public on January 20 on the management of cases of sexual abuse in Archdiocese of Munich and Freising, which he led from 1977-1982.

“Once again I can only express to all the victims of sexual abuse my profound shame, my deep sorrow and my heartfelt request for forgiveness,” writes Benedict XVI, after recalling that during his apostolic travels met several times with “victims of sexual abuse by priests”.

“I have seen at first hand the effects of a most…

View Cache

The Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday recommended that the Senate pass the Eliminating Limits to Justice for Child Sex Abuse Victims Act to empower victims of child sex abuse by removing the statute of limitations for federal civil child sex abuse claims, giving survivors unlimited time to file the claims.

There is no statute of limitations under current federal law barring the prosecution of criminal offenses involving child sex abuse 10 years after the offense or when the victim is alive, whichever is later.

There is a statute of limitations for civil offenses involving child sex abuse, and this is an obstacle for survivors. In 2018, Congress extended the statute of limitations for filing civil child sex abuse claims in federal court, allowing the claims to be filed until the survivor is 28 years old or until 10 years after the abuse is discovered.

Democratic…

View Cache

The Buffalo Diocese appears to be closing in on a negotiated settlement of the state attorney general’s 2020 lawsuit over the diocese’s decadeslong cover-up of child sexual abuse allegations against clergy.

Lawyers for the diocese and the Attorney General’s Office have been going back and forth for months on a draft settlement agreement, according to documents filed in U.S. Bankruptcy Court.

Bishop Michael W. Fisher declined to discuss those negotiations, beyond saying that the diocese was committed to “strict enforcement” of policies put in place to ensure the protection of children and vulnerable adults.

“I’m not trying to be evasive or secretive about things, it’s just at this time, it’s not appropriate for me to discuss the attorney general’s case in the media or how we’re responding to it. When that time comes, believe me, we will do so,” Fisher said in a recent interview with The Buffalo News about his…

View Cache

Every year, on January 24, the Feast of St Francis de Sales, the patron Saint of all Communicators (particularly of journalists and writers) the Holy Father releases to the world a special message for the World Day of Social Communications of the Catholic Church. These annual messages are specifically meant for ‘catholic’ communicators, but if read in its entirety, they are for all Catholics and also for all women and men of goodwill who are concerned about what is happening in the world today and seriously want to do something about it.

Pope Francis, in the typical style which characterises his writings and also his verbal communications, has given the Church another profound message, full of challenges and very contextual. The theme of his message for this year’s 56th Communication Day (29 May 2022) is ‘Listening with the Ear of the Heart’. It is rooted in the Gospel of St. Luke…

View Cache

While denying accusations of sexual abuse coverup, Benedict XVI issued a ‘heartfelt request for forgiveness’ to victims.

Emeritus Pope Benedict XVI took a penitential approach in his response on Tuesday (Feb. 8) to a report on clergy sexual abuse in the Archdiocese of Munich, which he led from 1977 to 1982.

While denying accusations that he covered up cases of abuse, he leaned heavily on the language of confession, saying he could rely on the consolation of God’s forgiveness, only “if I sincerely allow myself to be examined by him, and am really prepared to change.”

The lengthy report commissioned by the Archdiocese of Munich and Freising, published on Jan. 10, found that bishops who oversaw the diocese, including then-Cardinal Josef Ratzinger, failed to punish abusive clergy and lay people. The report showed that 497 people were victims of abuse in the large German diocese between 1945 and 2019.

In…

View Cache

The treatment of boys with learning disabilities by a Catholic religious order over a nearly 30-year period comes under the spotlight of the Abuse in Care inquiry starting today.

Between 1955 and 1984, 537 boys attended Marylands School in Christchurch.

The residential school was run by the St John of God Order.

The inquiry will also focus on St Joseph’s Orphanage and the HebronTrust, which both had close connections to the order.

It is not exactly known how many boys were abused while in the care of St John of God, but two staff members, Brother Rodger Moloney and Brother Bernard McGrath were both convicted for sexually abusing boys at Marylands School.

The Royal Commission will look at the nature and extent of other allegations of abuse and the roles and possible failures of the Catholic Church and the State.

An advocate for survivors of Marylands, Ken Clearwater believes it…

View Cache

Edward Kelley, 79, has dementia, and is unable to understand or assist in the proceedings against him, an expert who examined him testified in Superior Court on Friday

A former Rhode Island Catholic priest accused of sexual assault in the 1980s was found incompetent to stand trial, ending the criminal prosecution against him.

Edward Kelley, 79, has dementia, and is unable to understand or assist in the proceedings against him, an expert who examined him testified in Superior Court on Friday.

Dr. Barry Wall, the director of forensic services at the state-run Eleanor Slater Hospital, told Magistrate John F. McBurney III that Kelley’s dementia is so severe that he only knows his own name. His condition is permanent, Wall testified.

Kelley was indicted by a Rhode Island grand jury in May 2021 on three counts of first-degree sexual assault. He was extradited from South Carolina, where he was living at…

View Cache

A Vermont woman on Friday sued a convicted child-molester priest of molesting her when she was 11 and he was serving at St. Brendan’s Church in Dorchester.

The suit, filed in Suffolk Superior Court by attorney Mitchell Garabedian, who represented dozens of victims when the Boston pedophile-priest scandal first broke, also names Father W. James Nyhan’s superior at the time in the Archdiocese of Boston for not just failing to stop Nyhan but for allegedly allowing the conduct in the first place.

In her suit, Kelly Story, who now lives in Vermont, charges Nyhan molested her after his return in 1980 from South Carolina – where he would later be convicted of molesting three boys – and was assigned to St. Brendan Parish on Gallivan Boulevard in Dorchester:

“In approximately 1980, when Plaintiff was about 11 years of age, Defendant Father Nyhan brought Plaintiff to a beach house at Salisbury…

View Cache

The text message sent from a small island in the Philippines thousands of kilometers away was grim: “Hi Sir … case is over, the priest is dead!”

The texter was referring to the Rev. Kenneth Bernard Pius Hendricks, an American Roman Catholic priest, who died of COVID-19 on Jan. 26 in Naval, Biliran province, while on trial for sexually abusing two brothers under his care for years.

The death of Hendricks, 80, was confirmed by the Diocese of Naval, where he had worked as a missionary and later as a priest for 37 years—the only foreigner in a group of 31 priests there and a native of Cincinnati, Ohio, in the United States.

The texter, a 25-year-old tricycle driver in Barangay Talustusan in Naval, is the main plaintiff in the criminal case against Hendricks. The other complainant is his 15-year-old brother.

The tricycle driver had accused Hendricks…

View Cache

The Universidad de Navarra (University of Navarra) in Spain published in a presentation Friday its findings in one of the nation’s first investigations into sexual abuse of minors within the Catholic Church .

The report released by the northern Spanish region found 58 cases of sexual abuse by Catholic institutions since 1948. Allegations of sexual abuse of minors have been widespread, but the University of Navarra found that perpetrators include priests, members of the church, and teachers spanning across 17 church and school institutions. The investigation comes after a news report by El Pais in December identifying the concern of abuse within the Church sparking a further investigation.

Being handed to local prosecutors, the report could lead to Catholic Church institutions being sued for damages. In a news conference, Navarra’s Minister for Migration Policies and Justice, Eduardo Santos stated that the problem lies not with the…

View Cache

The Catholic Church’s sex-abuse scandal is back in the news again. Back when he was Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger of Munich, retired Pope Benedict XVI allegedly discounted allegations of sexual abuse by four priests and merely shuffled them from parish to parish.

This is just the latest in a series of scandals that have cost the church millions of dollars in legal settlements and have highlighted a pervasive problem the church has finally had to acknowledge. It is important to note, however, that most of the reported abuses have involved older priests, many of whom have since died. As a Catholic apostate of a certain age, I think I know why this is so.  

Back at the Catholic grade school I attended — Holy Spirit School in the New Castle area — our eighth-grade nun, Sister Mary Norberta, had us engage in a kind of meditation widely practiced by…

View Cache

A bill intended to create parity in public and private sector liability for child sexual abuse claims was heard by the Judiciary Committee Feb. 9.

Current Nebraska law provides sovereign immunity to the state and its political subdivisions against child sexual abuse claims made against its officers, agents or employees. LB1200, introduced by Hastings Sen. Steve Halloran, would allow those entities to be held liable for such claims to the same extent a private individual or entity would be under like circumstances. In addition, child sexual abuse would not be subject to the limitations or requirements of the State Tort Claims Act.

Under LB1200, a victim of child sexual abuse could bring a civil action against a perpetrator without a statute of limitations for cases occurring after the bill’s effective date or for previous acts that were not time barred. 

Halloran said child sexual abuse…

View Cache

The Senate Judiciary Committee advanced two bills, one a proposal that would get rid of the statute of limitations for civil cases of child sex abuse in federal court.

In an effort to empower victims of child sex abuse, the Senate Judiciary Committee recommended Thursday that the Senate pass a bill to give survivors unlimited time to file civil claims in federal court.

The Eliminating Limits to Justice for Child Sex Abuse Victims Act would apply to more than a dozen federal child abuse offenses and has garnered bipartisan support within and outside of the committee.

While there’s no federal criminal statute of limitations for prosecuting child sex abuse if the child is still alive or for 10 years after the abuse, there are limits as to when a survivor can file a civil claim in federal court.

In 2018, Congress extended the statute of limitations, allowing federal civil claims…

View Cache

“Pontifical secret” is one of those mysterious-sounding pieces of Church jargon that you won’t find anywhere else — the sort of phrase which cloaks the ordinary administrative business of the Church in an air of intrigue, and gives writers like Dan Brown the fodder to drum up fantastical tales about albino monks and hidden codices.

It’s one of many. The Church calls its privileged personnel files “secret archives,” and has a class of canonical crimes with the mysterious sounding title “reserved delicts.”

In strictly legal terms, the pontifical secret is a defined level of professional confidentiality in the Church’s administrative life, which binds curial officials who work on the composition of papal documents, some canonical processes, the appointment process of bishops, and numerous other projects undertaken in the Vatican.

But among ecclesiastical bureaucrats, there exists also such a corpus of urban legends and myths about what the pontifical secret actually…

View Cache

Chilean abuse survivor Juan Carlos Cruz has said that a bishop’s ignorance of abuse or allegations against clergy in their diocese should no longer be enough to get them off the hook for negligence, which he says is one of the Church’s next battles in the fight for child protection.

When an abuse scandal explodes in the media and the local bishop apologizes, saying he didn’t know that the abuse was taking place, “it’s very hard for me to understand these empty, ‘pardon me’s,’ or ‘forgive me’s,” Cruz said, speaking to Crux.

His remarks come after retired Pope Benedict XVI earlier this week apologized for failures in handling abuse cases during his time as archbishop of Munich from 1977-1982, but he denied wrongdoing in four cases after being accused of coverup in a lengthy legal report on clerical abuse in the Archdiocese of Munich spanning several decades.

In his response, Benedict…

View Cache

A man who sexually abused girls who attended the same Mansfield church as him was found guilty of two charges of indecency with a child and sexual contact and sentenced to 4-and-a-half years in prison for each count on Friday.

The sentences are to run consecutively, meaning he will spend a total of nine years in prison.

Benjamin Cole pursued and sexually abused two then-13-year-olds while attending Heritage Baptist Church in Mansfield. Now adults, Marybeth Arnold and Amanda Hodson spoke with the Star-Telegram in 2019 about Cole’s abuse and the lasting impact he caused.

A jury found Cole guilty after about two days of deliberations in Tarrant County’s 432nd District Court. He was sentenced Friday evening.

Between 2002 and 2003, Cole began to pursue both Hodson and Arnold separately when he was 18 and 19 years old. In 2002, Cole groped Hodson in the back of a…

View Cache

The northern Spanish region of Navarre published a report on Friday identifying 52 cases of alleged sexual abuse of minors in Catholic institutions over seven decades, in one of Spain’s first official investigations into Church abuses.

Allegations of widespread child abuse by Catholic clergy and of possible coverups by the Church are only surfacing now in Spain, years after similar scandals rocked the Church in other countries such as the United States, Ireland and France.

The report by the Navarre regional government and the Public University of Navarre found that more than 31 priests and members of the church, 21 of them school teachers, had allegedly abused minors in more than 17 schools and church institutions in the region since 1948.

Navarre’s Justice regional chief, Eduardo Santos, said on Friday that these cases represented “the tip of the iceberg”.

“This is not a problem of the Catholic Church but a…

View Cache

Archbishop Georg Gänswein has claimed that a movement is not only out to destroy Benedict XVI’s life and work but also views the recent accusations of mishandling abuse as an opportunity to erase him from the official memory of the Church. 

In Feb. 9 comments to the Italian daily Corriere della Sera, the pope emeritus’ personal secretary said he believed a movement exists “that really wants to destroy the person and the work [of Benedict XVI]. 

“It has never loved him as an individual, his theology, his pontificate,” he said.  

Archbishop Gänswein added that members of this movement see recent attacks against him as “an ideal opportunity for a reckoning, like a quest for a damnatio memoriae [condemnation of memory so a person is excluded from official accounts].”

The German archbishop was speaking shortly after Benedict released a letter to the faithful on Tuesday in which the 94-year-old pope emeritus expressed his “profound shame” and…

View Cache

In the past month, a report by a German law firm cited former pope Benedict XVI for mishandling sexual abuse cases while he was Archbishop of Munich. He initially denied any knowledge of the cases. Then he changed his statement and said he had known, and that it was a typing error. This week he wrote a personal letter lamenting abuse, saying he was ‘drawn into this grievous fault’. He stopped short of an apology.

On 20 January, a report was released on sexual abuse in the Catholic Archdiocese of Munich and Freising. The two-year investigation, by German law firm Westpfahl Spilker Wastl, was commissioned and paid for by the archdiocese headed by Cardinal Reinhard Marx. 

The 1,900-page report investigates abuse cases and the Church’s response between 1945 and 2019. 

The lawyers who presented the report dubbed it a “litany of horror” and spoke of the “total failure” of a system…

View Cache

A day after Australia’s Prime Minister Scott Morrison apologised in parliament for the treatment of women who had suffered sexual abuse there, a prominent campaigner said she wanted to see action more than words.

Former political staffer Brittany Higgins, who says she was raped in a parliament office by a fellow staffer, said she was concerned workplace sexual abuse was in danger of becoming a “political perception problem neutralised and turned into a net positive”.

“Actions are what matter,” Higgins said in a speech at the National Press Club in Canberra. “Task forces are great. Codes of conduct are important. But only if it’s paired with institutional change.”

The apology by Morrison, who must hold an election by mid-May, came after he struggled last year to placate public anger amid several allegations of sexual abuse, discrimination against women and misconduct in parliament.

A review sparked by Higgins going public with…

View Cache

A former Roman Catholic priest who served in several Rhode Island parishes has dementia and is incompetent to stand trial on sexual assault charges, a magistrate ruled Friday.

Edward Kelley, 79, is unable to understand or assist in the proceedings against him, an expert who examined him testified in Superior Court, The Boston Globe reported.

Dr. Barry Wall, the director of forensic services at the state-run Eleanor Slater Hospital, told Magistrate John F. McBurney III that Kelley’s dementia is permanent and so severe that he only knows his own name.

The finding of incompetence came at the request of Kelley’s attorney, Kara Hoopis Manosh. The state attorney general’s office did not object.

A statewide grand jury indicted Kelley last May on three counts of first-degree sexual assault dating to 1983. Kelley, who was living in Columbia, South Carolina, was arrested on May 14 and returned to…

View Cache

At a trial under way in Sicily, a 28-year-old Italian is seeking justice against a man he accuses of forcing him to perform sex acts before going on to become a priest.

The victim says the alleged abuse committed more than a decade ago when he was a minor and the accused was a seminarian leading youth groups, included forced masturbation and oral sex in sacristies and schoolrooms. The accused denies the charges.

The victim went to the police only after the Church failed to act on his accusations, which he spelled out to two priests and at a meeting with a bishop involving his parents.

Victims’ groups say there are thousands of similar cases hidden in Church archives, and they are increasing pressure for an independent investigation in Italy to mirror recent moves in France and Germany.

Nine Italian groups have formed a consortium and on Tuesday will…

View Cache

A commission investigating child sexual abuse in the Portuguese Catholic Church said on Thursday more than 200 alleged victims had already been in touch to share their stories since its launch a month ago.

The abuse allegations have come from people born between 1933 and 2006, from various backgrounds, from every region of the country and also from Portuguese nationals living abroad.

Many of the 214 people who have shared their testimonies mentioned other children who might have been abused by the same person, the commission said in a statement.Report ad

“The allegations reveal suffering… which, in some cases, has been hidden for decades,” the commission said. “For many, this is the first time they are breaking their silence.”

It started its work in early January after a major report by a commission in France revealed last year around 3,000 priests and religious officials sexually…

View Cache

In seeking to build a culture of accountability and transparency, we must take the approach that our practices and structures are semper reformanda, because we ourselves are always in need of reform.

Recently the National Catholic Reporter published an article by Bishop Oscar Cantu of San Jose. Bishop Cantu discussed how his initial misgivings about synodality were assuaged by a Latin American ecclesial assembly he had attended a few months ago. While it was beneficial to see a bishop sharing his own thoughts and feelings on an important issue in the Church today, it was somewhat awkward to see this from Bishop Cantu.

In 2020 the Catholic News Agency confirmed Bishop Cantu was the subject of an investigation regarding “actions or omissions intended to interfere with or avoid civil investigations or canonical investigations, whether administrative or penal, against a cleric or a…

View Cache

The judge presiding over the Boy Scouts of America bankruptcy has delayed the start of a trial to determine whether the BSA’s reorganization plan should be confirmed after an agreement with the official committee representing more than 80,000 men who say they were molested as children by Scout leaders and others resulted in several new plan provisions.

During a three-hour hearing Friday, Judge Laura Selber Silverstein pushed back the start of the confirmation hearing from Feb. 22 to March 9. The Boy Scouts had asked for only a one week delay, while plan opponents said they would need several weeks to analyze and respond to changes in the plan.

The move follows Thursday’s announcement of a tentative agreement between the BSA and the official abuse claimants committee, known as the tort claimants committee or TCC. The committee was appointed by the U.S. bankruptcy trustee to represent and act in the…

View Cache

Unofficial estimates say country may have highest number of victims of paedophile priests in world

Pressure is mounting on the Catholic church in Italy to face a reckoning on child sexual abuse amid unofficial estimates that the country could have the highest number of victims of paedophile priests in the world.

Damning investigations into the scale of sexual abuse and cover-up allegations have dealt a severe blow to the church’s reputation in the US, Ireland, Chile, France and, more recently, Germany. But in Italy the issue has been mostly buried.

A group of religious and lay associations have now come together to push for an independent inquiry and to urge the Italian state to enact tougher laws to bring paedophile priests to justice and come up with a plan to protect children from sexual abuse by clergy. The group is using the hashtag #ItalyChurchToo and will outline its objectives during an…

View Cache

The survey identified 171 victims of people connected with the Catholic Church, including 118 victims of abuse by clergy.

The authors of a landmark abuse report responded this week to critics who argued that they overestimated the number of victims in the French Catholic Church.

The Independent Commission on Sexual Abuse in the Church (CIASE) issued a 53-page response on Feb. 7 to a 15-page critique signed by eight members of the prestigious Académie catholique de France that was reportedly sent to the Vatican.

The commission’s final report, published on Oct. 5, 2021, said that an estimated 216,000 children were abused by priests, deacons, monks, or nuns from 1950 to 2020.

It added that when abuse by other Church workers was also taken into account, “the estimated number of child victims rises to 330,000 for the whole of the period.”

In a critique published last November, the eight academy members questioned “the…

View Cache

KEY POINTS

• The Boy Scouts of America won pivotal support from a committee representing sexual abuse victims for a $2.7 billion settlement of their claims against the youth organization as it seeks to emerge from bankruptcy, according to a court filing.
• Ahead of a Feb. 22 hearing before a U.S. bankruptcy judge, the official committee representing victims in Boy Scouts’ Chapter 11 case has agreed to drop its long-standing objections to the settlement, the filing showed. 
• More than 82,000 abuse claims have been filed against the Boy Scouts, which has called the deal the largest sexual abuse settlement in history.

The Boy Scouts of America won pivotal support from a committee representing sexual abuse victims for a $2.7 billion settlement of their claims against the youth organization as it seeks to emerge from bankruptcy, according to a court filing.

Ahead of a Feb. 22 hearing before a U.S. bankruptcy judge, the…

View Cache

Lawyers of the official committee, representing 82,200 individual claimants, will now recommend they accept the youth group’s offer

The Boy Scouts of America won backing for a landmark sex-abuse compensation plan from the official committee representing 82,200 individual claimants, further solidifying support for ending the largest bankruptcy case ever filed over childhood abuse.

The proposed deal with the survivors’ committee, among the harshest critics of the Boy Scouts since it filed for chapter 11 two years ago, comes as the youth organization nears a trial scheduled for later this month on a bankruptcy-exit plan that includes roughly $2.7 billion for abuse victims.

Under the official committee’s deal, the Boy Scouts agreed to allow additional oversight by survivors of a compensation trust funded by the youth group’s own assets, its local councils, its major insurers and troop sponsors like the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

A statue…

View Cache

Two years after filing for Chapter 11 protection amid a flood of child sex abuse lawsuits, the Boy Scouts of America has reached a tentative settlement with an official bankruptcy committee representing more than 80,000 men who say they were molested as children by Scout leaders and others.

The settlement announced Thursday comes just two weeks before the start of a hearing at which a Delaware judge will hear arguments on whether she should confirm the BSA’s proposed reorganization plan.

All told, the compensation fund would total more than $2.6 billion, which would be the largest aggregate sexual abuse settlement in U.S. history.

The official abuse claimants committee, known as the tort claimants committee or TCC, was appointed by the U.S. bankruptcy trustee to act in and represent the best interests of all sexual abuse survivors. It has long maintained that the BSA’s plan to compensate abuse victims was “grossly…

View Cache

Pope Francis was among those showing their support for retired Pope Benedict XVI, sending his predecessor “a beautiful letter,” according to the former pope’s secretary.

In the letter, Pope Francis “speaks as a shepherd, as a brother” and “expressed once again his complete trust, his full support and also his prayers,” said the secretary, Archbishop Georg Gänswein.

The archbishop spoke to the Italian news program TG1 Feb. 9 about the retired pope’s letter in response to a report on sexual abuse cases in the German Archdiocese of Munich and Freising, which the former pope headed as Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger from 1977 to 1982.

Pope Benedict, who has denied allegations of mishandling four cases of clerical sexual abuse put forth by the report, emphasized in a letter Feb. 8 his feelings of great shame and sorrow for the abuse of minors and made a request for forgiveness to all victims of…

View Cache

>> All right. For some more insight on the former pope’s remarks, let’s bring in Anne Barrett Doyle, co-director of Bishopaccountability. org. Thank you so much for joining us as well. So what do you make of the retired pope’s comments?

>> I thought it was a a deep disappointment and a real missed opportunity. This could have been a legacy defining moment for Pope Benedict. This was a moment that called for candor and grace. There is abundant evidence that he willfully covered up for sexual abusers when he was archbishop of Munich,. He could have been completely honest and and said, yes, I did. He could have become the first pope pope to admit to deliberate cover-up, and by so doing, he would have set an example of radical truth-telling for other church leaders, including Pope Francis himself. Instead, he was self-serving. He talked about his own victimization, his being called a liar. He expressed a lot of thanks to all his supporters and legal team, and he talked about how he faces the imminent end of its life with…

View Cache

Last week’s news about an allegation against the Rev. Francis Santilli, the pastor of St. Philip Church in Smithfield, raises serious questions about the bishop’s handling of accused priests (‘Suspended Smithfield priest had faced previous allegations of sexual abuse,’ News, Feb. 4).

Bishop Tobin learned of two alleged victims of Father Santilli 10 years ago.

The bishop had a choice to make. Should he err on the side of protecting children and remove the priest? Or should he protect the priest’s reputation? Should he not breathe a word to the public, keep the priest in his post, and gamble that he wasn’t a child molester?

Bishop Tobin chose to protect the priest.

In 2014, he learned of a third Santilli accuser. Again, he had a choice, and once again, he chose to keep the priest in ministry. He said nothing to the public. The parishioners at St. Philip’s, and all…

View Cache

The decade of inaction that went by after the first of Smithfield priest Francis C. Santilli’s alleged victims came forward has fueled a renewed drive to hold institutions — including the Catholic Church — legally liable for the sexual abuse of children.

On Tuesday, Rep. Carol McEntee introduced the latest version of a bill to eliminate the time limit on lawsuits by victims of childhood sex abuse.

And not for the first time, McEntee is seeking to remove a barrier to the filing of lawsuits against people and institutions who enabled and protected child sexual abusers by looking the other way or concealing their crimes. 

The battle is personal for McEntee, D-South Kingstown.

She grew up in a devout Catholic home and learned years later that her older sister, Ann, had been sexually molested, repeatedly, by their now-deceased parish priest in West Warwick over seven years that began in 1957, when Ann was 5 years old.

Her…

View Cache

A New Zealand inquiry on Wednesday heard harrowing accounts from people who were abused as children while they were under the care of the Catholic Church, one of whom said he was shown a corpse in a hospital morgue by a priest to keep him quiet.

The livestreamed hearings are part of a wider Royal Commission of Inquiry that is looking into abuse in state care and faith-based institutions that is under way in the Pacific island nation.

An interim report on the inquiry released in Dec 2020 revealed that up to a quarter of a million children and young and vulnerable adults were physically and sexually abused in New Zealand’s faith-based and state care institutions from the 1960s to the early 2000s.

Wednesday marked the first of a seven-day hearing into abuse in the care of the Catholic Church, which has been rocked by decades of  View Cache

HISTORICAL sex abuse charges against a priest extradited from the US back to the north to face the accusations have been discontinued.

Sean McCaughley (60) was due to go on trial at Newry Crown Court but prosecuting QC Frank O’Donoghue said that in line with his “continuing duty” to keep cases under review, the evidence has been reviewed and coupled with a document provided by the defence legal team, “a decision has been made that the test [for prosecution] can no longer be met.”

“In that position the Crown say that he cannot receive a fair trial,” said the senior lawyer who applied for the charges “to he left on the books, not to be proceeded with without the leave of this court or the court of appeal.”

McCaughley, who has an address at Delavan Avenue, Newark, New Jersey, had previously entered not guilty pleas to charges including gross indecency…

View Cache

Wanting to better help victims of child sexual abuse and assault, state Senator Morgan McGarvey and Representative Lisa Willner filed legislation Tuesday that would end the statute of limitation for civil actions in these cases.

“Many victims of child sex abuse will not speak up due to the fears of being reprimanded or stigmatized,” said Sen. McGarvey of Louisville.  “Being sexually exploited is never an easy topic to discuss, especially at a young age. By removing the statute of limitations on this particular offense, we can offer these victims the necessary time to build up the courage to speak openly and bring their perpetrators to justice.”

“The General Assembly has taken this issue seriously in recent years and given survivors of child sexual abuse more time to bring a case forward, but we need to go further,” said state Rep. Lisa Willner of Louisville.  “Child sexual abuse is a heinous crime…

View Cache

73-year-old Father Michael Gutgsell —who is facing up to 20 years in prison accused of stealing $125,000 from St. Joseph Church in Springfield—was scheduled to have a preliminary hearing in Sarpy County Court Tuesday.

A once high-ranking Omaha priest, accused of stealing hundreds of thousands of dollars, was back in court Tuesday—his attorney speaking openly about a possible resolution of one of two criminal cases.

73-year-old Father Michael Gutgsell —who is facing up to 20 years in prison accused of stealing $125,000 from St. Joseph Church in Springfield—was scheduled to have a preliminary hearing in Sarpy County Court Tuesday.

Instead the case was delayed until March 1st, after Gutgsell’s attorney indicated discussions with prosecutors are in the works.

Leaving court the attorney would not comment any further.

At the same time Gutgsell, former Chancellor of the Omaha archdiocese, is awaiting trial in Douglas County in a second theft case, where…

View Cache

The march toward greater safety for kids and greater healing for victims continues. Two more states – Nebraska and New Mexico – are considering civil window legislation that would mean more of those who commit and conceal child sex crimes would be exposed and more of those who are suffering because of child sex crimes would be comforted.

https://apnews.com/article/nebraska-statutes-legislature-religion-lawsuits-ce5c21dfe5a1407edc10482d3f61ae79

https://www.santafenewmexican.com/news/local_news/bill-would-remove-statute-of-limitations-for-child-sex-abuse-lawsuits/article_3ae2bd2a-7df3-11ec-b391-435146336a7c.html

And there’s more good news. Some who oppose this progress – often for selfish, financial reasons – are grasping more and more often at straws to fight this trend. And some of these straws are transparently silly.

Take Korby Gilbertson, a lobbyist for the American Property Casualty Insurance Association, who talked about this reform measure to Nebraska news media. She made two points that deserve further examination. First, Gilbertson said the window “could lead to lawsuits against organizations under new leadership that wasn’t involved with previous offenses.”  So what?…

View Cache

A major Catholic publishing company has been discovered to be selling books written by acknowledged child sex abusers on their website. Now, leaders of SNAP are calling for sales of those books to end and for proceeds from their sale to be donated to the survivors of the abusive authors.

TAN Books currently lists at least two books written by child sex abusers on their website; “My Daily Bread,” written by Fr. Anthony Paone and “My Meditation on the Gospel” by Fr. James E. Sullivan. Both of these men are acknowledged abusers of children and both men were publicly listed as abusers three years ago: Fr. Paone was included on the Jesuit Province list of abusers and Fr. Sullivan was included on the Diocese of Brooklyn list.

SNAP learned of the sale after a concerned customer shared that she had…

View Cache

A “clerical aristocracy” in the Church needs to be challenged, said Fr Tom Doyle.

The younger generation of seminarians can be “terrifying” in the extent of their conservatism, a leading canon lawyer has claimed.

Fr Tom Doyle, who has campaigned on behalf of victims of clerical sexual abuse for decades, expressed concern about conservative men coming out of seminaries who are “so doctrinaire” and “completely lacking in real pastoral work”. 

Speaking at a webinar, “Stolen Lives: Abuse and Corruption in the Catholic Church”, hosted by the lay reform groups Root and Branch Reform and Scottish Laity Network, the American priest said: “These ultra conservative young men want to walk around with all the vestments of the 1950s and say the Latin Mass. It is a kind of a romanticism.” He said they “firmly believe in this idea that once they are ordained that they are sacred beings, that they are…

View Cache

Joshua Pincoske, 47, was arrested and jailed without bail on multiple counts of sexual assault and related charges

A New Hampshire man who coached men’s basketball at Colby-Sawyer College has been accused of sexually assaulting a girl under age 16 “over a period of time” in 2019 and making multiple child sex abuse photos and videos involving her and other minors, police in Concord said Wednesday.

A police affidavit alleges Joshua Pincoske, 47, “has engaged in a pattern of criminal sexual acts from at least 2015 through 2020 with at least four separate juvenile victims.”

Pincoske, of Concord, was arrested and jailed without bail Tuesday on four counts of aggravated felonious sexual assault; 50 counts of manufacturing child sex abuse images; and one count of possession of a child sexual abuse image, all felonies. He also was charged with one misdemeanor count of sexual assault.

Pincoske was expected to be…

View Cache

The Sisters in Solidarity, a national forum of Catholic women in India, on February 6 demanded “absolute transparency and accountability” in the way the Church handles sex abuse cases.

The group, comprising religious and lay women, stresses revising canon law and the “theology of priesthood” to cleanse the Church of “elements that breed clericalism, which is an enabler of clerical sexual abuse.”

Such steps would prevent the recurrence of sexual harassment, abuse and abuse in the Church, asserts the solidarity in a letter sent to the Church hierarchy in the Vatican and India.

The letter is written in the backdrop of the acquittal of Bishop Franco Mulakkal of Jalandhar in the historic nun rape and the continued victimization of the accuser and her supporters.

The letter, signed by 15 women and endorsed by 1,263 men and women from around the world, expresses their deep concern and shock at the judgement…

View Cache

A federal judge will hold a hearing on whether the Archdiocese of Santa Fe must disclose records on insurance coverage expected to pay much of a settlement in a case involving over 400 hundreds of victims of clergy sexual abuse.

U.S. Bankruptcy Judge David T. Thuma scheduled a hearing Monday on the archdiocese’s request last month to seal the documents because agreements between the archdiocese and insurers indicated they’d be confidential, the Santa Fe New Mexican reported.

Diocese attorney Thomas Walker said breaching those agreements’ confidentiality provisions could cause them to be voided and lead to expensive and extended litigation of coverage disputes.

Merit Benefit, a lawyer for several victims, objected to confidentiality and sealing of records and told the New Mexican in an interview that secrecy is what led to the tragedy of widespread priest abuse of children in the first place.

View Cache

Here is the Vatican’s English translation of the letter retired Pope Benedict XVI published Feb. 8 in response to the independent report on the handling of sexual abuse allegations in the German Archdiocese of Munich and Freising from 1945 to 2019. The former Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger led the archdiocese from 1977 to 1982.

Dear sisters and brothers,

Following the presentation of the report on abuse in the Archdiocese of Munich-Freising on 20 January last, I feel the need to address a personal word to all of you. Even though I served as archbishop of Munich and Freising for a little less than five years, I continue to feel very much a part of the Archdiocese of Munich and to consider it home.

I would like first to offer a word of heartfelt thanks. In these days marked by examination of conscience and reflection, I was able to experience greater friendship…

View Cache

The head of the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors said retired Pope Benedict’s “witness and profound honesty should galvanize all of us to defend survivors of abuse and to protect all those entrusted to our care.”

“In today’s message. Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI has provided us with an intimate description of the drama of his own conscience fashioned by a life of service to God and to his people,” said Cardinal Seán P. O’Malley, commission president. “The evil suffered by victims of child sexual abuse by priests and religious and his handling of such abuse justly and necessarily weighs heavily on (his) conscience.”

Cardinal O’Malley’s statement came after the retired pope published a written response to a major report on how abuse cases were handled in the German Archdiocese of Munich and Freising, which the former Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger headed from 1977 to 1982.

The retired pope’s statement…

View Cache

A report on decades of clergy sexual abuse in Germany that shone an unflattering spotlight on retired Pope Benedict XVI has added to already strong pressure there for the church to reconsider Catholic rules on issues including homosexuality and women’s roles, creating a mounting sense of impatience.

The latest flare-up of the sexual abuse scandal in the German church, one of the world’s richest, comes as a trailblazing reform process launched in 2019 in response to the abuse crisis begins to call for concrete changes.

The “Synodal Path,” which brings together Catholic bishops and lay representatives, approved at an assembly last week calls to allow blessings for same-sex couples, married priests and the ordination of women as deacons. It also called for church labor law to be revised so that gay employees don’t face the risk of being fired.

Many of those reform plans still need formal approval at future…

View Cache

A lay committee looking into historic child sex abuse in the Portuguese Catholic Church said Thursday that during its first month of work it received allegations from 214 people.

The allegations are from people born between 1933 and 2006 and tell of psychological torment kept secret for decades, the Independent Committee for the Study of Child Abuse in the Church said.

“This suffering is associated with feelings of shame, fear, guilt and self-exclusion, reinforcing the idea of lives where the sensation of ‘standing on the sidelines’ was always present,” the committee said in a statement.

Portuguese church officials said two years ago that authorities had investigated only about a dozen allegations of sexual abuse involving Portuguese priests since 2001. More than half of those cases were dropped because church investigators decided there wasn’t enough evidence to pursue them.

The six-person committee, which includes psychiatrists, a former Supreme Court judge and…

View Cache

German survivors of clergy sexual abuse are sharply criticizing retired Pope Benedict XVI’s response to a report that faulted his handling of four abuse cases in the 1970s and ’80s, calling his lack of a direct apology an abdication of personal responsibility.

“The one thing everybody expects from him is to say, ‘I made a mistake. I’m sorry. I should have acted differently back then. And I’m sorry,’ ” said survivor Doris Reisinger.

Reisinger, a German theologian who left religious life after alleging abuse by a priest in her community, said that Benedict’s two-page Feb. 8 letter responding to accusations that he mishandled four cases of abuse during his time as Archbishop of Munich and Freising, was an “embarrassment.”

“It’s such a very public demonstration of how this institution has not really even begun to understand what they did to us,” she told NCR.

The letter,…

View Cache

After a five-month delay, Argentine Bishop Gustavo Zanchetta, a veteran prelate who has boasted of his friendship with the pope, will be tried in a criminal court Feb. 21.

The sentence, Crux has been able to confirm, might be decided as soon as Feb. 25.

A hearing in the case against the former bishop of Oran, in Argentina’s northern Salta region, was originally scheduled to take place Oct. 12-15 of last year, according to the local public ministry.

“As it was already suspended while waiting for the documents, the judge decided that the hearing should be held,” said the Public Prosecutor’s Office, according to Salta’s daily El Tribuno. 

The documents in question were from the Vatican.

According to a series of norms published by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in 2020, “whenever civil judicial authorities issue a legitimate executive order requiring the surrender of documents regarding cases, or order the judicial…

View Cache

By now, there’s a fairly standard playbook for a Catholic bishop accused of mishandling accusations of sexual abuse against clergy for whom he was responsible. More or less, it goes like this.

1. Never engage the substance of the charges against you. However right you may feel yourself to be, inevitably that’s going to look like the old pattern of defensiveness and denial. Restrict yourself to saying something like, “These charges will be investigated by the competent authorities, both civil and ecclesiastical, and I stand ready to accept whatever they decide.”
2. Always lead with sorrow and compassion for survivors of sexual abuse, and then endorse their quest for justice. Again, no matter how wronged you may feel, never make it look like you’re trying to be the victim here.
3. Volunteer your resignation. No matter how innocent you may feel, the pastoral reality is that sometimes the charge itself makes continuing in your…

View Cache

A New Zealand royal commission into abuse in care has heard horrific evidence about a member of a Catholic order who was transferred from his homeland to a boys’ home near Newcastle.

Warning: This story contains graphic descriptions of abuse that readers may find distressing.

Key points:

• St John of God was established in New Zealand in 1955 after starting in Australia eight years earlier
• Survivors say Brother Bernard McGrath used fear to force them to remain silent during his time in Christchurch
• A representative for the church said McGrath’s crimes and the way they were handled internally were “deeply shameful”

The commission comes four years after Australian victims of the St John of God order called on New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Arden to set up a special inquiry to investigate brothers there.

An Australian royal commission into child abuse heard 40 per cent of St John of God brothers…

View Cache

The Catholic Church’s priority should be to listen to its young people of all ages, and the synodal process has so far failed to do so.  

In a Christmas mass, I sat in a church full of people of all ages, young families, children of all ages and people of all ages. It felt incredible, and it is beyond words to explain the feelings. 

It reminded me of the Catholic churches in India, Nepal, Hong Kong, where I used to live, and Bangladesh, where I was born. I’ve noticed in those countries that Catholic churches are usually filled throughout the holidays, such as Christmas and Easter, and they are seldom as empty as I’ve seen in the United Kingdom.

I was curious as to why those who attended the Christmas service did not return in the same numbers on regular Sundays services. I honestly don’t know each person’s answers and…

View Cache

***

‘Our most grievous fault’

Pope emeritus Benedict XVI released a letter this morning, which addressed criticism he’s faced in Germany, and, more broadly, his thoughts on the clerical sexual abuse crisis.

Benedict is accused of lying about a meeting he attended in January 1980, 42 years ago, at which a priest guilty of abuse was accepted for ministry in the Munich archdiocese, which the former pope then led as archbishop. The priest committed abuse again some years later, after Benedict was no longer leading the archdiocese.

The former pope told investigators last year that he wasn’t at the meeting, but then it was revealed that he was. Benedict has since said he was at the meeting, and that his initial response had been an error — but in subsequent clarifications, Benedict’s legal advisors have said that there was no decision to accept the priest for ministry during the meeting,…

View Cache

Emeritus Pope Benedict XVI has written a “mea culpa” in a penitential letter, released by the Vatican today, that he calls “a confession” in response to the charges made against him in the report on abuse in the Archdiocese of Munich published on Jan. 20. In it, he takes personal responsibility and asks forgiveness for “the abuses and the errors” that occurred on his watch when he held different positions of great responsibility in the church, not just in Munich but also in Rome.

“Once again, I can only express to all the victims of sexual abuse my profound shame, my deep sorrow and my heartfelt request for forgiveness. I have had great responsibilities in the Catholic Church,” he wrote in a key paragraph of the two-page letter. “All the greater is my pain for the abuses and the errors that occurred in those different places during the time of my…

View Cache

But Benedict, responding to a report that accused him of mishandling at least four cases of sexual abuse by priests when he was an archbishop in Germany, denied any wrongdoing.

Responding to a report that he had mishandled four cases involving the sexual abuse of minors while he was an archbishop in Germany decades ago, retired Pope Benedict XVI acknowledged on Tuesday that “abuses and errors” had taken place under his watch, and asked for forgiveness, although he denied any misconduct.

“I have had great responsibilities in the Catholic Church,” Benedict said in a written response to the findings in the report commissioned by the Roman Catholic Church in Munich. “All the greater is my pain for the abuses and the errors that occurred in those different places during the time of my mandate,” he said in the response made public by the Vatican. “Each individual case of…

View Cache

Benedict fights to defend his record after report criticized failings during his time as an archbishop

Retired Pope Benedict XVI replied to charges that he mishandled cases of clerical sexual abuse during his tenure as an archbishop in Germany, but his response seemed unlikely to remove the taint that the allegations have left on his record.

In his response, released by the Vatican on Tuesday, the retired pope asked forgiveness for any “grievous fault” he may have incurred, and expressed “profound shame” for failures that occurred during his long career of leadership in the church. But he didn’t admit wrongdoing.

An accompanying document from his lawyers rebutted specific charges of coverup, perjury and insensitivity to abuse victims made against the 94-year-old Benedict last month in a church-sponsored probe on historical sexual abuse in the Archdiocese of Munich-Freising. The probe faulted the then-archbishop in several cases for failing to…

View Cache

Retired Pope Benedict XVI asked forgiveness Tuesday for any “grievous faults” in his handling of clergy sex abuse cases, but denied any personal or specific wrongdoing after an independent report criticized his actions in four cases while he was archbishop of Munich, Germany.

Benedict’s lack of a personal apology or admission of guilt immediately riled sex abuse survivors, who said his response reflected the Catholic hierarchy’s “permanent” refusal to accept responsibility for the rape and sodomy of children by priests.

Benedict, 94, was responding to a Jan. 20 report from a German law firm that had been commissioned by the German Catholic Church to look into how cases of sexual abuse were handled in the Munich archdiocese between 1945 and 2019. Benedict, the former Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, headed the archdiocese from 1977 to 1982.

The report faulted Benedict’s handling of four cases during his time as archbishop, accusing him of misconduct…

View Cache

Retired-pope’s legal team contests German report’s findings

Retired Pope Benedict XVI on Feb. 8 acknowledged past failings of the Catholic Church in confronting clergy sexual abuse under his watch but stopped short of a direct, personal apology after an independent report faulted his handling of four cases of abuse when he was an archbishop in Germany in the 1970s and 80s.

A legal team advising the retired pope has also published an analysis challenging the German report’s findings, arguing that investigators mischaracterized some of Benedict’s actions or knowledge during his time as archbishop.  

“I have had great responsibilities in the Catholic Church. All the greater is my pain for the abuses and the errors that occurred in those different places during the time of my mandate,” Benedict wrote in a personal letter published Feb. 8. “Each individual case of sexual abuse is appalling and irreparable. The victims of sexual…

View Cache

At the age of 94, retired Pope Benedict XVI said he knows he will soon stand before God’s judgment and he prayed that he would be forgiven for his shortcomings, including in handling allegations of clerical sexual abuse.

“Even though, as I look back on my long life, I can have great reason for fear and trembling, I am nonetheless of good cheer, for I trust firmly that the Lord is not only the just judge, but also the friend and brother who himself has already suffered for my shortcomings, and is thus also my advocate,” he said.

In response Feb. 8 to a recent report on sexual abuse cases in the German Archdiocese of Munich and Freising, Pope Benedict also confirmed that an error in the testimony written on his behalf had been an oversight and “was not intentionally willed and I hope may be excused.”

“To me it…

View Cache

COMMENTARY: The issue is not over, but there are many reasons for hope.

Clergy sex abuse in the Catholic Church is not “over.” I mean this in two ways. 

First, some clergy sexual abuse is undoubtedly still taking place. But more importantly, we haven’t really dealt with the situations we already have experienced. Investigating the allegations, sending the guilty to prison, Church officials making amends to the victims, including financial payments — all this is important. But we as the larger Church community need to face the larger fact: A problem like childhood sexual abuse has many layers. Each incident affects numerous people, including family members and the parish or school community. We aren’t “done,” we haven’t “solved” clergy sex abuse, until we deal with all these social, emotional, and spiritual issues, along with the legal and financial issues. 

Before I unpack all that, though, let’s recap some of the…

View Cache

To us, Benedict’s letter is admitting to one thing to cover up a thousand. It is the same pattern of abuse, institutional knowledge, and concealment. His apology is faint, especially to a victim population that could care less what Pope Emeritus has to say. Benedict is repeating words of apology that have fallen on deaf ears for decades. To no surprise, Benedict and his advisors wish to recreate a narrative in their favor. The truth is this, it is about protecting the church’s deteriorating image and financial flow to the hierarchy. True apologies are followed by true amends, a concept the church does not seem to be able to grasp.

Despite evidence from secular authorities that Pope Benedict shuffled pedophiles, the former pope cannot do the simple thing and offer full accounting and apology. The opportunity for cleansing the report out of Munich offered has been…

View Cache

Glenn Johnson says Wayne Hankey sexually assaulted him on university campus in late ’70s

Glenn Johnson will continue his fight for justice despite the death this weekend of the man he accuses of sexually assaulting him more than 40 years ago.

Wayne John Hankey, a former Anglican priest and longtime professor at the University of King’s College and Dalhousie University, died this weekend after a heart attack. He was 77.

Hankey was one month away from the first of three criminal trials, which involved charges of sexual assault, indecent assault and gross indecency for alleged incidents dating back to the 1970s and 80s.

Johnson has retained Wagners Law Firm to represent him in a civil lawsuit against the University of King’s College, the Anglican Church and possibly others.

He said he is still grappling with the “shocking” news of Hankey’s death.

“I’m really not sure how to feel. I certainly didn’t wish…

View Cache

Hankey was scheduled for 3 trials in 2022, the first in March

A former Halifax professor accused of multiple historical sexual offences has died, a month before his first trial was set to begin.

Wayne John Hankey, 77, was charged with sexual assault, gross indecency and indecent assault involving three male complainants for incidents between 1977 and 1988.

Hankey, a longtime professor at the University of King’s College and a former Anglican minister, had pleaded not guilty to all the charges.

In a statement on Sunday, King’s president Bill Lahey said the university had been made aware of Hankey’s death and extended condolences to his family.

“With this news has come some inquiry regarding the independent review process that was established by the university in February 2021. This review, which has always been separate from any criminal justice matters, will proceed,” Lahey said.

“King’s remains committed to learning from the…

View Cache

After a recent report into the handling of clerical abuse cases in the Archdiocese of Munich faulted him in four separate cases, retired pope Benedict XVI has denied allegations of wrongdoing, saying he was unaware of the abusive behavior at the time he was making decisions.

On Jan. 20 the Archdiocese of Munich, led by then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger from 1977 to 1982, issued a highly anticipated report into its handling of clerical abuse cases, finding that 497 people had been abused in the Munich archdiocese from 1945 to 2019.

The report, conducted by the Westpfahl Spilker Wastl law firm, was commissioned by the archdiocese in February 2020 and identifies some 235 perpetrators of abuse, including 173 priests, 9 deacons, 5 pastoral workers, and 48 individuals in Catholic schools.

Benedict XVI, who briefly led the archdiocese before being named prefect of the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith,…

View Cache

Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI on Tuesday expressed his “profound shame” to the victims of clerical abuse, and said he was pained by “errors” that occurred in various places across his career in the church. But he stopped short of acknowledging any specific personal responsibility after a church-commissioned German report accused him of mishandling four cases during his time running the archdiocese of Munich between 1977 and 1982.

“However great my fault may be today, the Lord forgives me, if I sincerely allow myself to be examined by him, and am really prepared to change,” the 94-year-old retired pope wrote.

At the same time Tuesday, a legal and academic team that had assisted Benedict offered a full-throated defense, saying that Benedict — known then as Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger — was never involved in any “cover-up of acts of abuse.” The canon lawyers and academics said the German investigation was…

View Cache

A victims advocate group is demanding that a major Roman Catholic publishing house stop selling two books that were written by priests who were “credibly accused” of sexually abusing children.

The Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, better known as SNAP, said TAN Books is “profiting off of those who have abused children.”

“Is it worth the nearly 12 dollars per item to associate your brand with men who are known to have committed crimes against children?” SNAP asked in a letter dated last Wednesday to the North Carolina-based publisher. “Do you believe that you are better arbiters of the facts of the case than the Church officials and lay review boards who heard the details of the abuse?”

TAN Books, according to its website, was founded in 1967 and acquired by Saint Benedict Press in 2008.

The victims advocate group says the…

View Cache

I have, since the 1980s, heard my share of complaints from Catholic readers about news coverage of sexual abuse by clergy.

There are readers who get angry about this coverage, period. They want the topic to go away and see anti-Catholic bias in any coverage of the subject, even when the coverage is accurate and fair-minded.

However, other Catholic readers get mad when they see valid coverage that leaves the impression that sexual abuse is only an issue in the Church of Rome. Many of these readers (on the Catholic left or right) want to see accurate, informed coverage on this hellish topic, which would include some mention of the many, many cases that take place in secular settings (think public schools) and in other religious groups.

That’s the broader context for complaints that I heard about a recent New York Times story that ran with this dramatic double-decker…

View Cache

In the News podcast: Munich report finds former pope failed to act to prevent abuse

In January, an in-depth report into the Catholic archdiocese of Munich and Freising – a bulwark of German Catholicism – was published, revealing nearly 500 cases of clerical sexual abuse since 1945.

The report accused the now 94-year-old Emeritus Pope Benedict XVI of failing to stop the clerical child sex abuse. German investigators said it is “overwhelmingly likely” the former pope was aware of at least four abusing and paedophile priests during his time as archbishop of Munich from 1977 to 1982.

As membership of the Catholic Church in western Europe continues to fall, what will be the consequences of this latest scandal within an increasingly fractured church?

The Vatican already sees western Europe as a “dying market”, The Irish Times Berlin correspondent Derek Scally told In the News. “The idea is, which church should we be catering for? The…

View Cache

The temple priest who was arrested in an alleged gang-rape and murder case of a minor Dalit girl has claimed before a court that the victim’s father was present when she was cremated, but he had concealed it when his statement was recorded by police.

According to the chargesheet, she was suffocated to death during the sexual assault by Radhey Shyam and forcefully cremated by him and others. But the priest’s counsel claimed before additional sessions judge Ashutosh Kumar that that there was no evidence of murder, barring extra-judicial confessions.

“As per the postmortem report, the cause of death was electric shock.”

He also claimed that the eyewitnesses were planted. The chargesheet doesn’t have any word on from where they had seen the incident, he pointed out. “The witnesses have a history of criminal cases and are politicians,” he alleged.

He also claimed that the FIR was tampered with…

View Cache

‘Experience tells us that these commissions are more of a platform for clashes between political parties than a search for the truth,’ Bishop Luis Javier Argüello Garcia said.

Spain’s lower house, the Congress of Deputies, agreed Feb. 1 to debate the creation of a commission to investigate sexual abuse committed by members of the Catholic Church.

The request to create the commission was filed by Podemos, a left-wing party that is part of the governing coalition, as well as the Republican Left of Catalonia and EH Bildu, Catalan and Basque nationist parties that give confidence and supply to the government.

The People’s Party and Vox, which are in the opposition, voted against the commission and made a motion that all cases of the abuse of minors be investigated and not just those that have taken place in areas related to religious institutions. 

However, this motion was vetoed by Podemos and…

View Cache

Bishop Oster also raised the question of whether recent attacks on Benedict XVI indicated that the pope emeritus still presents a threat to a specific vision of the Church being advanced in Germany.

Benedict XVI never sought to cover up cases of sex abuse by clergy. That is the conviction of the German Bishop Stefan Oster.

In a reflection published on his website on Jan. 30, the bishop of Passau, southeastern Germany, defended the pope emeritus from accusations that he had deliberately concealed his attendance at a meeting in 1980, where it was agreed that a priest accused of abuse could be transferred to the Archdiocese of Munich and Freising, then led by the future German pope.

Bishop Oster also raised the question of whether recent attacks on Benedict XVI indicated that the pope emeritus still presents a threat to a specific vision of the Church being advanced in Germany.

The…

View Cache

Over the past week, two leading European cardinals, both of whom enjoy broad favor with Pope Francis, have made public statements calling for a change in the Catholic Church’s current position on the issues of homosexuality and priestly celibacy.

In an interview published in Germany’s Catholic News Agency (KNA) earlier this week, Jesuit Cardinal Jean Claude Hollerich, Archbishop of Luxembourg, voiced his belief that the Church’s position viewing homosexual relationships is wrong.

“I believe that the sociological-scientific foundation of this teaching is no longer correct,” he said, saying the time has come to revise this position, and suggesting that Pope Francis’s own rhetoric on homosexuality could open the door for this change to take place.

Since the beginning of his pontificate, Pope Francis, who has also voiced concern over homosexuality in the priesthood, has taken a softer approach to the issue and has urged the Church to be more welcoming…

View Cache

The head of the German Bishops’ Conference expressed doubts Saturday that the planned return of Cardinal Rainer Maria Woelki as archbishop of Cologne following a “spiritual timeout” will help the diocese overcome a crisis sparked by the church’s handling of sex abuse allegations.

Georg Baetzing, who chairs the Bishops’ Conference, expressed concerns “whether a real fresh start can happen there.”

“That’s needed to overcome the crisis that occurred there,” he added.

Pope Francis last year granted Woelki leave until early March after criticism over his decision not to publish an independent report into allegations of sexual abuse in the church.

Baetzing spoke at the end of a meeting of the synodal gathering of German Catholics, which also discussed reforms that could lead to women performing sacraments in the future.

View Cache

As far back as I can remember, I have been interested in spirituality. In my teenage years I spent a lot of time in various Buddhist and Christian monastic communities across Australia, practising and learning what I could.

But there was something about Jesus that struck me the most. Jesus was a compelling witness to an experience of the sacred that is deeply loving, wise and challenging; and Christians were kind, generous and well-grounded people, all the things I needed at the time.

In my early 20s I was sexually assaulted in a Christian community. My assailant had set themselves up as my spiritual mentor but was in fact grooming me. After numerous assaults, I fell into despair. My ability to trust and to form close, loving relationships was seriously compromised, as was my ability to connect to God from my heart and feelings.

These dark times included suicidal thoughts…

View Cache

Maybe those turning away from Quinn’s God are the victims of abuse, their families, friends, work colleagues, counsellors, nurses and doctors. Also the victims’ children, born years after the abuse. Is there anyone left in this country who hasn’t been touched by clerical sex abuse?

Maybe all those are the ones turning away. We’ll find out in the next census.

Caroline O’Toole, Waterford

View Cache

David Quinn lets Pope Benedict off very lightly with his criticism (“Scandals rock my faith in church, not Catholicism”, Comment, last week). He says, for example, that the former pope might not have handled German abuse allegations properly, but the accusation is that, as Cardinal Ratzinger, he did all in his power to cover up the scandal.

Quinn then compares Ratzinger with other public figures who have lied. Surely he should be held to a much higher standard than this.

Ratzinger’s diocese deliberately moved paedophile priests around, resulting in innumerable other children being sexually abused.

The harm that he caused is incalculable. Then, with this on his conscience, he allowed his name to be put forward and was elected pope, the moral compass of the Roman Catholic church. The hypocrisy of this leaves me speechless.

Richard Williams, Valentia Island

View Cache

Synodal conference also calls for pope to undertake a ‘reassessment of homosexuality’

Germany’s Catholic Church cleared another reform hurdle at the weekend when an overwhelming majority of clerical and lay representatives at a synodal conference backed greater gender equality and more lay involvement in the choice of bishops.

At their third “Synodal Path” meeting in Frankfurt, 215 church and lay delegates also backed a preliminary text calling on Pope Francis to undertake a “doctrinal specification and reassessment of homosexuality”.

Cardinal Reinhard Marx said the gathering had made clear that reform of church teachings was overdue to reflect the times.

“The catechism is not the Koran, it is always being changed,” said Dr Marx, archbishop of Munich.

Ahead of the meeting Dr Irme Stetter-Karp, president of the Committee of German Catholics (ZdK), the largest lay Catholic organisation, warned bishops that “it was time to finally get serious and agree changes”. At…

View Cache

Msgr. Philip Dowling ran down the stairs, shoes in hand. A horrified mother had just discovered him half-naked in her young daughter’s bedroom.. That was his first but not last escape from punishment. Years later, the victim and her sister, participated in the first Grand Jury Report into child sex abuse in the Philadelphia Archdiocese. In a disturbing 2005 interview with the Philadelphia Inquirer, Dowling admits to abusing one sister, denies other allegations, and seems worried the Church will “find out.” Two sisters from another family also reported that Dowling abused them.

Due to the statute of limitations, he escaped the law. And now, even in death, he escapes the shadow his admitted abuse and clerical restrictions should have cast on his legacy.

MISLEADING & TONE-DEAF ANNOUNCEMENT

Dowling passed away last week. As is customary, the Vicar of Clergy, shared his funeral arrangements in an email sent to the priests and…

View Cache

Hankey was scheduled for 3 trials in 2022, the first in March

A former Halifax professor accused of multiple historical sexual offences has died, a month before his first trial was set to begin.

Wayne John Hankey, 77, was charged with sexual assault, gross indecency and indecent assault involving three male complainants for incidents between 1977 and 1988.

Hankey, a longtime professor at the University of King’s College and a former Anglican minister, had pleaded not guilty to all the charges.

In a statement on Sunday, King’s president Bill Lahey said the university had been made aware of Hankey’s death and extended condolences to his family.

“With this news has come some inquiry regarding the independent review process that was established by the university in February 2021. This review, which has always been separate from any criminal justice matters, will proceed,” Lahey said.

“King’s remains committed to learning from the…

View Cache

[BishopAccountability.org has cached the original PDF of this statement.]

The scale of reported alleged abuse within the Catholic Church in Aotearoa New Zealand has become known for the first time from extensive research undertaken by the Church at the request of the Royal Commission on Abuse in Care.

A total of 1680 reports of abuse were made by 1122 individuals against Catholic clergy, brothers, nuns, sisters and lay people from 1950 to the present, with 592 alleged abusers named. Almost half the reported abuse involved sexual harm. The 1960s and 1970s were the decades with the most abuse reported, with 75 per cent dated before 1990.

The results of this research have been requested by and provided to the Royal Commission. The definition of abuse used is the one used by the commission and includes reports of sexual, physical, emotional, psychological and neglect.

The research was undertaken by Te…

View Cache

[BishopAccountability.org has cached the original PDF of this report.]

As part of the process of its Information Gathering Project (IGP) and data requests from the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care (Commission), Te Rōpū Tautoko (Tautoko) has consolidated the information provided by Catholic entities into this fact sheet.

The work has involved many people over two years from many organisations.

The Commission has been provided this information and it is expected that they will be creating their own datasets and conclusions from it.

The IGP included three phases:

1. Seeking, in 2019, high level information from Catholic entities on institutions they were involved in, and documents held in relation to the period 1950-1999
2. Collating detailed information from Catholic entities on institutions considered in-scope for the Royal Commission. This work was undertaken in late 2019 and 2020.
3. In 2020 and 2021 requests were made to Catholic entities to provide…

View Cache