ABUSE TRACKER

• The Rhode Island House voted to allow victims of childhood sexual abuse by priests, others to sue institutions that concealed or enabled the abuse.
• The bill would open a two-year window for victims to file lawsuits, even if the statute of limitations has expired.
• Opponents, including the Catholic Church, argue that it is difficult for institutions to defend against decades-old lawsuits due to lost evidence and unreliable memories.
• The bill now moves to the Senate, where its fate is uncertain.

Victims of childhood sexual abuse by priests and others in their Rhode Island world have scored a victory.

The R.I. House of Representatives voted 67 to 5 along party lines on Monday, June 16 to allow these victims to file civil suits, seeking damages, from people and institutions that neglected to stop the abuse they suffered as children, concealed it or transferred known offenders from one location to another.

Republican…

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The most persistent denier of a sexual abuse crisis in the Southern Baptist Convention now says SBC Executive Committee President Jeff Iorg agrees with him that the stories of two key abuse survivors are false.

In a June 18 email to Iorg copied to various journalists, Allen Jordan continues to deny the reality of a sexual abuse crisis in the SBC as he has steadfastly done for a decade.

“What is most troubling, Dr. Iorg, is that you acknowledged to me in January 2025 that you knew that both (Christa) Brown and (Tiffany) Thigpen’s stories were not credible and requested my help in exposing both the AOF and the GP report before the convention,” Jordan wrote. “At that time, you felt that the SBC world needed to know the factual truth that there never was a CSA crisis in the SBC, but, for some reason, after you hired Jeff Dalrymple in late…

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In a statement, the Diocese said the court actions were “known and anticipated by the parties and stem from insurance issues that were addressed in the Bankruptcy of the Diocese.”

The Diocese of Winona has been named in three personal injury lawsuits filed this year, all alleging sexual misconduct from more than 50 years ago.

The most recent complaints were filed Friday, June 6, in Winona County District Court. However, according to the date the complaints were originally drafted, the lawsuits have been in the works for over nine years.

The cases are the results of the Minnesota Child Victims Act of 2013, which lifted the statute of limitations on past claims of child sexual abuse for a three-year period that ended in August 2016. More than 100 claims of child sexual abuse by clergy arose after the act was passed.

The three complaints filed in 2025 were signed in…

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Pope Leo XIV sends a message on the occasion of a Peruvian theatre performance honouring investigative journalist Paola Ugaz, and calls for a culture of zero tolerance toward abuse in the Church and the defence of press freedom. He praises journalists who expose abuse, stating that silencing them threatens democracy and undermines the Gospel’s call for justice and truth.

In a message against all forms of abuse, Pope Leo XIV has called for a cultural transformation within the Catholic Church.

“[It is necessary to] radicate throughout the Church a culture of prevention that does not tolerate any form of abuse: abuse of power or authority, of conscience or spirituality, of sexual abuse”, he writes.

His words were read at the performance of the theatrical production Proyecto Ugaz, currently running in Lima, Peru. The play honours investigative journalist Paola Ugaz, known for her reporting on the now-suppressed Sodalitium, and who has faced sustained…

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Holy Apostles Parish stands to lose 80% of its unrestricted cash as part of the Buffalo Diocese’s settlement with victims of sexual abuse pending an appeal of the settlement.

The settlements, which are basically a tax on Catholic churches in the diocese, faces a higher total owed because it was chosen for extinctive merger under the Road to Renewal. Other churches that are remaining open are set to pay 65% of their unrestricted assets into the settlement fund. The 80% settlement would affect the Ss. Peter and Paul, St. John and St. James Catholic churches in the city.

“They have also confirmed that this will occur regardless of the suspension of our decree of merger,” Samantha Scalise, procurator of the group leading the appeal to overturn the closure of Ss. Peter and Paul Parish. “They claim that if our decree is overturned, they will refund the parish the difference between…

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Central Catholic High School, recently embroiled in allegations of hazing and sexual abuse involving its soccer team, announced a new partnership with ChildSafe, a San Antonio-based nonprofit dedicated to supporting child victims of abuse.

Related: Central Catholic HS launches independent investigation into alleged sexual misconduct

The school stated its commitment to “promote positive behavior, reduce bullying and create a deeper understanding of what Brotherhood truly means for the young men of Central Catholic.”

Related: Family demands accountability after teen’s hazing ordeal at Central Catholic High School

The collaboration with ChildSafe will encompass various initiatives, including staff development, emotional skills building, and family collaboration, the school said.

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Pope Leo XIV has said the Catholic Church must establish a culture that refuses to tolerate abuse in “any form,” as he thanked a Peruvian journalist for reporting on allegations of abuse inside a powerful Catholic group.

Leo’s remarks, the first he has made publicly on the church’s abuse scandals since his election to the papacy on May 8, were contained in a message sent for the performance of a play which dramatizes the work of an investigative journalist, Paola Ugaz, who has faced a long campaign of legal actions and death threats due to her reporting.

“It is urgent to ingrain throughout the Church a culture of prevention that does not tolerate any form of abuse — neither of power or authority, nor of conscience or spirituality, nor sexual,” Leo wrote in a message read on 20 June. “This culture will only be authentic if it is born of active…

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The Abbey of Saint-Maurice in Switzerland has failed to deal with the sexual abuse it has witnessed over the last few decades.

Tasked with shedding light on this past, an independent working group has found major dysfunctions.

+ Why Switzerland is losing its religion

The group, led by Neuchâtel Attorney General Pierre Aubert, published its report on Friday. Based on archives and eyewitness accounts, it listed “a significant number” of acts of sexual violence of all kinds committed between 1950 and 2022.

The Abbey has long adopted a “defensive posture” to preserve its reputation. Its leaders sometimes tried to “cover up” the facts, for example by moving the incriminated canons, and sometimes tried to “trivialise” or “minimise” these abuses.

The working group also highlights the “laxity” in terms of supervision and “insufficient guidance and support” for members of the community. This climate may have encouraged “unacceptable behaviour” and the…

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Brady Boyd, embattled senior pastor of New Life Church in Colorado Springs, Colorado, has resigned, elders announced at a service Friday night, according to KOAA-TV .

In a statement, the elders said they did not believe Boyd’s earlier claim that he didn’t know about Morris’s child abuse until recently and asked him to resign, which Boyd did Wednesday night. Associate Pastor Daniel Grothe has been named interim pastor.

“Recently, Brady has insisted that he was unaware until 2024 that Miss Clemishire was 12 years old at that time that Morris had abused her in the 80s,” the elders stated. “We believe this to be inaccurate. Brady also made statements in his public address to the congregation on June 8 that the Board of Elders know to be inaccurate.”

The elders added that “trust is the currency of leadership. When Brady recently told our congregation inaccurately that he was…

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According to the latest annual report from the U.S. bishops on the protection of children and youth

 The U.S. Catholic bishops‘ latest annual report on child and youth protection shows abuse allegations continue to decline – but authors warned of the dangers of complacency among dioceses and the laity in upholding key aspects of bishops’ safe environment protocols.

In particular, said the report, lack of functioning diocesan review boards to review protocols and allegations, along with an increase in parents opting their children out of safe environment training, could erode progress in addressing and preventing abuse.

On June 6, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Secretariat of Child and Youth Protection released the “2024 Annual Report – Findings and Recommendations on the Implementation of the Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People.”

The 2024 report is the 22nd…

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Parishioners across the Diocese of Buffalo are making their voices heard, days after church leaders unveiled how much they expect individual parishes to contribute to the Chapter 11 settlement fund.  

It’s a plan that includes parishes and other related civil corporations and affiliates, like Catholic Charities, to make an expected contribution of $80 million of the $150 million outlined in the terms of the settlement to survivors of abuse.

It’s a settlement being met with opposition, especially from churches slated to merge or close.  

Ann Dolce directs the music ministry at Saints Peter and Paul in Jamestown, Chautauqua County. Her husband Tony co-directs and has been a parishioner for 45 years.  

“I was confirmed here,” Tony Dolce said. “We were married here. It’s been an integral part of our family and our religious faith.”  

The church, one of several in the Diocese of Buffalo to close…

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A former counselor at an Ohio Catholic high school was sentenced to prison June 10 for sexual battery of a student, with prosecutors alleging in a sentencing document she had groomed others.

Emily Nutley will serve three years for having sexual relations with a then 17-year-old attending St. Xavier High School in Cincinnati.

In a June 10 statement, the school’s president, Tim Reilly, thanked both the Springfield Township Police Department and the Hamilton County Prosecutor’s Office for its “thorough work and cooperation” in the matter.

‘Dignity of Every Student’

“We appreciate the unwavering commitment of our faculty, staff, and administration for the safety, well-being, and dignity of every student entrusted to our care,” said Reilly.

While noting that “we believe this case to be an isolated incident,” Reilly also strongly urged victims to contact the school and law enforcement “if any St. Xavier employee has failed you or someone you…

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Several Orthodox churches filed a federal lawsuit against the state of Washington on Monday over a recently passed law mandating clergy to report child abuse and neglect, even if discovered within the confessional.

The conservative legal group Alliance for Defending Freedom, which filed on the churches’ behalf, argued in a press release that the state is singling out priests by punishing them for respecting the confidence of the confessional while preserving privacy for disclosures in nonreligious situations.

“Washington is targeting priests by compelling them to break the sacred confidentiality of confession while protecting other confidential communications, like those between attorneys and their clients,” said John Bursch, ADF senior counsel and vice president of appellate advocacy. “That’s rank religious discrimination.”

The Orthodox Church of America said in the press release that “Every state, including Washington, honors the clergy-penitent privilege.”

In fact, Washington joins seven other states – New Hampshire, West Virginia,…

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Recalling the warnings of popes and saints, Cardinal Burke said neglect of liturgical law and tradition has paved the way for widespread confusion about faith and morals.

London – Cardinal Raymond Burke has appealed to Pope Leo XIV to lift the restrictions on the pre-1970 liturgy, stressing that respect for liturgical tradition is critical for the Catholic Church’s mission and that doctrinal and moral corruption shows itself in “divisions and factions” that lead to liturgical abuse. 

Speaking via video link to a London conference celebrating 60 years of the Latin Mass Society of England and Wales, Cardinal Burke recalled that the most serious difficulty St. Paul faced in the early Church in Corinth was the “abuse that had entered into the celebration of the Most Holy Eucharist” and that it was “directly related to doctrinal and moral divisions among members of the community.”  

Church history, he said, shows that “doctrinal and…

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New Jersey Supreme Court decided unanimously on Friday that the state’s attorney general can move forward with a grand jury investigation into allegations of sexual abuse by Catholic clergy statewide, originally announced in September 2018.

Seven years ago, then-attorney general Gurbir Grewal said he was forming a task force after a report by a grand jury in Pennsylvania found more than 1,000 victims over 70 years. The PA report also implicated around 300 priests and found evidence of a coverup by church leaders.

The reason behind the court’s delayed decision was suggested by a NorthJersey.com article on Feb. 5, which said that the Diocese of Camden had challenged New Jersey’s authority to empanel a special grand jury to lead the sex-abuse inquiry at a secret hearing in May 2023. That inquiry was supposed to end with a comprehensive report documenting individual abusers as well as any broader coverup by the church.

According to…

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A priest in California has been arrested and charged with acts of child sex abuse that reportedly occurred through the 1990s.

Police arrested Father Theodore Gabrielli last week on charges of aggravated sexual assault of a minor, the San Luis Obispo County Sheriff’s Office said in a post on X on Tuesday.

Authorities identified three alleged male victims of the priest, the sheriff’s office said; all three were members of the same family.

At the time of the alleged abuse, “the family was living in Mexico” where they allegedly befriended Gabrielli.

“The priest became close with the family, and he was allowed to take the three boys with him to many places in California including his parents’ residence in Los Osos,” the sheriff’s office said. “It was there, the victims stated, the priest would sexually assault them.”

The alleged assaults “continued over the course of about eight…

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Theodore Gabrielli, 61, was posted at schools and ministries in San Jose, Los Gatos and Los Angeles

A prominent Catholic priest with ties to the South Bay is behind bars in San Luis Obispo County facing charges of sexually abusing three boys starting in the early 1990s, and police think there are more victims.

Theodore Gabrielli, 61, was arrested June 12 in Los Osos, near Morro Bay, and charged with three counts of aggravated sexual assault of a minor and one count of forced sodomy. Initially, his bond was set at $1 million. A judge since deemed Gabrielli a public safety risk and removed bail as an option for the priest, said Eric Dobroth, assistant district attorney for San Luis Obispo County.

Gabrielli was based in San Diego, according to police, but the Jesuit priest has roots in San Jose and Los Gatos, where he apparently worked at a church…

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Two bishops have distanced themselves from changes to a planned independent commission.

Two Polish bishops broke ranks Tuesday after the bishops’ conference announced changes to plans to establish a national independent abuse commission.

Bishop Artur Ważny of Sosnowiec and Kraków auxiliary Bishop Damian Muskus distanced themselves June 17 from the decision to overhaul the team leading the project, made at the bishops’ plenary meeting in Katowice last week.

Archbishop Wojciech Polak, the Polish bishops’ point man on abuse, will no longer oversee the initiative, which was first announced in March 2023 but has made little progress due to disagreements among the bishops over the commission’s nature, scope, and financing.

Abuse survivor advocates sharply criticized the announcement, which has prompted protests in which lay people reportedly leave stones inscribed with biblical quotations in front of curia buildings.

Ważny, who created Poland’s first diocesan independent abuse commission in 2024, told the Catholic weekly magazine Gość Niedzielny…

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Thomas Millar attacked the teenager at his home, on church grounds and in his car. He was eventually confronted by the victim’s wife

A ​f​ormer senior Catholic priest​ has admitted molesting a child after the victim’s wife confronted him about the abuse 40 years later.

Thomas Millar​, who was honoured with the title ​monsignor​ by the pope​​, targeted the boy who was in his mid-teens after a game of badminton at a sports centre in Baillieston, Glasgow​, in the early 1980s.

The abuse went undiscovered until 2021 when the victim summoned the courage to tell his wife, who texted Millar with allegations of the sexual crimes.

​The High Court in Glasgow heard that when he was asked about the incident by his bishop, Millar, 71, replied: “It is true”.

He pleaded guilty to the repeated indecent assault of the victim between 1981 and 1984​ and was remanded in custody by the…

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On 8-28-2024, the Sheriff’s Office received a report of child abuse which started occurring more than 30 years ago. Detectives in the Sheriff’s Office Special Victims Unit began an immediate investigation.

During the course of the investigation, three male victims were identified. All the juveniles were members of the same family. At that time, the family was living in Mexico where their family befriended a Catholic priest. The priest became close with the family, and he was allowed to take the three boys with him to many places in California including his parent’s residence in Los Osos. It was there, the victims stated, the priest would sexually assault them. The assaults continued over the course of about eight years. The victims decided to come forward last year and report the abuse.

The suspect has been identified as 61-year-old Theodore Gabrielli of San Diego. He is a Catholic priest who has…

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Forty years ago this month, readers of the National Catholic Reporter first learned through a series of three articles about a dark secret in the Catholic Church that would ultimately expand into an international sexual-abuse crisis.

Ultimately, the bombshell stories in NCR would mushroom into a controversy that would shake the very foundations of the worldwide Catholic Church and raise questions about the management of the institution, impact the election of popes, spark a crisis of confidence among billions of Catholics and foreshadow a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigation in The Boston Globe.

Yet it would be decades before the scandal reached those proportions. 

The coverage began in June 1985 on NCR’s front page with an overview of abuse cases in several U.S. dioceses. That edition also included at its center a shocking example, the results of a monthslong investigation by freelance journalist Jason Berry into Gilbert “Gil” Gauthe. 

A popular horseback-riding,…

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The leader of New Life Church in Colorado Springs knew that a pastor at his previous church in Texas sexually abused a child, according to court documents.

The documents also allege that leadership at New Life hired Boyd as senior pastor despite knowing he was among those who were informed of the abuse.

New Life is one of the largest churches in Colorado Springs.

Boyd denies knowing anything about the abuse and is not accused of any crimes in the court documents. However, a motion filed in a Texas lawsuit specifies that Boyd knew a fellow pastor at his last church had sexually abused a “young woman” several decades ago.

During Sunday service on June 8, Boyd told some 15,000 New Life Church congregants and 1,700 viewers online about who he calls his former mentor, Robert Morris.

“I was deceived. I was lied to,” Boyd told his congregation.

He says…

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Archbishop Joseph Pamplany of Tellicherry has ordered the removal of Father Paul Thattuparambil from his office and issued an order prohibiting from priestly ministry.

Last week the priest was arrested for allegedly repeatedly sexually assaulting a 16-year-old boy.

The accusation says Thattuparambil took the boy to his home and sexually abused him between May 15 and August 13, 2024.

“Taking into consideration the seriousness and scandalous nature of the allegation of child abuse that is taking rounds among the public against Rev. Paul Thattuparambil, who is at present Vicar of St. Pauls’ Church Athirumavu belonging to the Archdiocese of Tellicherry and his subsequent police enquiry and after having made due consultations, including legal, in this regard, I, Archbishop of Tellicherry in my capacity of Archbishop of the said Archdiocese, hereby remove Rev. Fr. Paul Thattuparambil from his office of the Vicar of the above mentioned parish with immediate effect,” the…

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The priest can come back after a police probe and legal process proves his innocence

A Catholic archdiocese in southern Indian Kerala state has suspended a priest from pastoral ministries after he was accused of sexually abusing a 16-year-old boy for at least four months a year ago.

The Archdiocese of Tellicherry, in an official statement released to the media on June 15, announced that Archbishop Joseph Pamplany suspended Father Paul Thattuparambil, a retreat preacher, following allegations.

Thattuparambil was the priest of St Paul’s Church in Athirumavu village when he was suspended.

Considering the seriousness and scandalous nature of the allegation of child abuse that is circulating among the public against Thattuparambil, he has been removed from the parish with immediate effect, said the statement dated June 8.

The priest was accused of abusing the grade-eleven student multiple times from May 15 to August  13, 2024, and…

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A former pastor of the Victory Baptist Church in Warsaw has pleaded guilty to eight child sex crimes.

During a plea hearing the afternoon of Monday, June 16, Albert Wharton entered an Alford plea for eight charges related to indecent liberties with a child and aggravated sexual assault.

On Dec. 8, 2023, Wharton was arrested in South Carolina by the Richmond County Sheriff’s Office, the FBI and South Carolina’s Pickens County Sheriff’s Department. He was charged with 22 felony counts of taking indecent liberties with a child under the age of 13 while in a custodial position and eight felony counts of aggravated sexual assault.

The church leader was ultimately charged with a total of 30 felony charges in 2023 for crimes committed between 1981 and 1997.

After Wharton pleaded guilty Monday afternoon, Richmond County Commonwealth’s Attorney Elizabeth Trible announced the remaining charges were nolle prosequi — meaning…

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Teacher Ray Clavin and Father John Kilty have come up in multiple lawsuits alleging sexual abuse of boys.

One of B.C.’s most prestigious private schools has been named as a defendant in a B.C. Supreme Court lawsuit alleging teacher sexual abuse of a Grade 7 student more than 40 years ago.

The claim by a plaintiff Glacier Media has chosen to identify as A.B. names as defendants: Raymond Thomas Clavin, St. George’s School, Vancouver College Limited (VCL), now-dead Father John Kilty and the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Vancouver, A Corporation sole (RCAV).

The claim is the second such case naming the defendants. A previous claim was filed in April.

It’s one St. George’s headmaster David Young addressed in a notice to the school community June 16.

“We have been saddened to learn of one additional allegation of abuse from around 40 years ago. This is deeply upsetting,…

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A proposal from Archbishop McKnight would see bishops commit more concretely to justice for abuse victims and to due process for clerics.

Committees of the U.S. bishops’ conference are reviewing a proposal that would see the bishops make a set of new moral commitments in response to clerical sexual abuse and misconduct in the Church.

In response to a request from Archbishop Shawn McKnight, the USCCB committees for canonical affairs and child protection are reviewing a proposal that would see the bishops draft “a new statement … recognizing the historic character of the Charter [for the Protection of Children and Young People] but also incorporating recent universal legislation and the wisdom of 25 years of experience,” according to a February request obtained by The Pillar.

A draft document provided by Archbishop McKnight of Kansas City, Kansas, would see the bishops commit more concretely to responding both pastorally and legally to alleged…

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In a Father’s Day letter to congregants, a Presbyterian church in Wichita, Kansas, admitted it ignored multiple reports of child sexual abuse by its youth pastor in the 1990s and early 2000s.

Eastminster Presbyterian Church paid a settlement to only one of the victims after a lawyer contacted the church threatening to sue, the letter said. The letter named former student ministries director, Bodie Weiss, as the man who groomed and sexually abused 23 students.

Weiss was hired by Eastminster in April 1989 and worked there until January 2006, when he left to take a position at another church. He died in June 2020 at the age of 58, apparently of Covid.

The church’s secrecy about the matter and the outrage expressed by some of the victims have been widely reported in Wichita. Eastminster is the home church of former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo…

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Dozens of children are now in protective custody after deputies rescued them from a church camp in Iowa, according to officials.

On Monday, the Louisa County Sheriff’s Office said 88 children are now in protective custody after deputies conducted a child safety operation on Thursday and Friday.

EN ESPAÑOL: Rescatan a 88 niños del campamento de verano de una iglesia tras reportes de abuso infantil

The sheriff’s office said the operation took place after reports of child abuse and endangerment at the camp.

The alleged abuse happened at the Shekinah Glory Camp in Columbus Junction, Iowa. The camp is run by the Kingdom Ministry of Rehab and Recreation.

The 88 children were shuttled away from the camp and taken to the Wapello Methodist Church to meet with child protection workers, according to deputies.

Deputies said the children have been placed in temporary foster care until they can safely…

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Theodore Edward Gabrielli of San Diego -a Catholic priest who worked at churches, schools, and ministries in San Jose, Los Gatos, and Los Angeles- was arrested on June 12 in connection with the aggravated sexual assault of three minors that occurred over 30 years ago.

On Aug. 28, 2024, the San Luis Obispo County Sheriff’s Office received a report of child abuse from over 30 years ago and detectives with the Sheriff’s Office Special Victims Unit began an investigation stated a press release from the San Luis Obispo County Sheriff’s Office Tuesday.

Detectives identified that three male sexual survivors from the same family who were living in Mexico when their family befriended a Catholic priest shared the San Luis Obispo County Sheriff’s Office.

The priest became close with the family and took the three boys to places across California including his parent’s home in Los Osos explained the San Luis…

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Paul Francis Kellen of Medford, MA passed away peacefully surrounded by his family on Thursday, June 12th, 2025. Paul’s dedicated curiosity, adventurous imagination, and thoughtful friendship were a gift and inspiration to all who knew him. He was born in Boston on August 4th, 1936, to Catherine Frances Wallace and George Daniel Kellen, grew up in Savin Hill, Dorchester with his older brothers, George and Robert, and graduated from Cathedral High.

A gifted physicist, Paul took a Bachelor’s degree at Boston College, won a Fulbright Scholarship to RWTH Aachen University in Germany, and completed a Master’s degree at MIT. During that time he met Jean Nyberg, his beloved wife of over 60 years, at a mutual friend’s party in Beacon Hill, where she wondered, ”Who was that tall skinny guy, doing the twist..?!”

Paul worked at Avco Everett Research Laboratory and Charles Stark Draper Laboratory where his work was used…

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Spokane WA – New court filings show several Orthodox churches and a priest are suing the state of Washington and Governor Bob Ferguson over a newly implemented law that requires clergy to report suspected child abuse.

The plaintiffs include Orthodox Church in America, Antiochian Orthodox Christian Archdiocese of North America, Romanian Orthodox Metropolia of the Americas, Western American Diocese of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia, and Timothy Wilkinson.

They join Catholic bishops who have already sued the state.

In the suit, the churches argue the law violates their religious freedom.

In Orthodox Christianity, confessions made to a priest are confidential, and those priests are not permitted to repeat what they’re told in confession.

The new Washington law makes it a crime for clergy not to report child abuse, including during confession.

The churches agree that abuse should be reported, but only outside of confession.

The argument is that…

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[See also the text of the Supreme Court decision.]

New Jersey can have a grand jury examine allegations of clergy sexually abusing children, the state’s Supreme Court ruled Monday, after a Catholic diocese that had tried for years to block such proceedings recently reversed course.

The Diocese of Camden previously had argued that a court rule prevents the state attorney general from impaneling a grand jury to issue findings in the state’s investigation into decades of allegations against church officials. But the diocese notified the court in early May that it would no longer oppose that. Camden Bishop Joseph Williams, who took over the diocese in March, said he’d met with stakeholders in the diocese and there was unanimous consent to end the church’s opposition to the grand jury.

The seven-member Supreme Court concluded such a grand jury inquiry is allowed.

“Courts cannot presume the outcome of an investigation in…

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[See also the text of the Supreme Court decision.]

Key Points

• New Jersey can go forward with a special grand jury investigation of alleged sexual abuse by Catholic clergy and any potential cover-up.
• The unanimous decision rejected a challenge originally brought by the Diocese of Camden and capped a years-long legal fight.

New Jersey can proceed with a special grand jury investigating alleged sexual abuse by Catholic clergy and whether the state’s dioceses took any steps to cover it up, the state Supreme Court announced Monday.

The court’s unanimous June 16 decision marks the end of a years-long court battle between the Catholic Diocese of Camden and the New Jersey Attorney General’s Office, which first proposed the statewide probe seven years ago.

In his ruling, Supreme Court Chief Justice Stuart Rabner said a lower court that sided with the diocese should have followed protocols and allowed the grand jury to proceed,…

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More than 20 years after claims of child sexual abuse rocked the Catholic Church, states are still figuring out who can be held accountable, and how

Gilmanton Iron Works NH – A half-mile gravel road cuts through the woods that isolate Camp Fatima from the outside world, leading to an idyllic lakefront retreat where Catholic leaders have hosted sleep-away camps for boys each summer for generations.

While some campers have carried fond memories of friendships forged and outdoors explored while staying at the property on Upper Suncook Lake, others have carried emotional scars after clergymen who were supposed to serve as role models instead allegedly subjected them to sexual abuse.

A man who filed a lawsuit in 2023 against the Roman Catholic Bishop of Manchester alleges he was about 8 years old when he was raped by the camp’s director in the mid-1970s. The diocese contends that the plaintiff waited…

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[See also the text of the Supreme Court decision.]

A grand jury can be seated to investigate alleged clergy sex abuse and potential cover-ups in Roman Catholic dioceses across New Jersey, the state Supreme Court has ruled.

Members of that jury also can produce a presentment of its findings, the high court said in a unanimous ruling Monday.

The New Jersey Office of Attorney General proposed creating the special grand jury in 2018, but it’s been blocked by a legal challenge from the Diocese of Camden.

A trial court judge ruled in favor of the diocese, finding state law did not authorize an “anticipated” presentment concerning clergy sex abuse.

The initial ruling said the attorney general’s office “has made no secret as to its intentions” to produce a presentation similar to an 887-page report on Catholic clergy sex abuse previously published by members of a Pennsylvania grand jury.

An…

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The trial for a former Maryland teacher who was accused of sexually abusing students is now in the hands of the jury. Matthew Schlegel, a former third-grade teacher at Severna Park Elementary School in Anne Arundel County, is accused of sexually abusing multiple students between August 2022 and March 2024. 

His trial began on May 19 and is entering its fifth week as the jury prepares to decide the verdict on 33 counts of sexual abuse of a minor and assault. 

Legal expert notes number of charges 

James Tuomey is a criminal defense lawyer in Anne Arundel County. He is not affiliated with the trial. 

He observed the court proceeding last week and said the gallery was full, calling it very serious and somber. 

Tuomey said this type of case is unusual because of the number of charges and evidence presented over the last four weeks. 

“I…

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A Fijian abuse survivor is urging the new head of the Catholic church to adopt a zero tolerance policy for child sex abuse.

Felix Fremlin was seven years old when he was molested by a New Zealand Marist Brother at his primary school in Suva.

Although he had received a written apology and FJD$15,000 (approx US$6,680) in financial compensation from the Marist Brothers Order of New Zealand and the Pacific, Fremlin said it’s not enough.

Speaking to Pacific Waves, Fremlin said culture and faith prevents many people in the Pacific from speaking out.

“It’s a Pacific island thing, everybody looks upon the church as messengers of God, and so for people to talk about it… it’s a taboo thing,” he said.

Seeking mental health support is also a struggle for Fremlin.

“So here, we don’t have any specialists where survivors can go to for counselling. The church here has offered counselling…

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Perrette recounted how he was 16 and attending Pope John Paul II high school in Slidell when Wattigny began texting him privately in about the fall of 2019.

A young man who received inappropriate text messages from his Catholic high school chaplain that ultimately helped send the priest to prison for child molestation says he was “nauseous” watching the clergyman appear at a parole hearing Thursday and try to downplay the nature of the communications as “friendly.”

“There was honestly a moment I thought I was going to vomit,” Rex Perrette said after the hearing, during his first public comments ever about his role in the case that landed Patrick Wattigny behind bars.

Perrette recounted how he was 16 and attending Pope John Paul II High School in Slidell when Wattigny began texting him privately in the fall of 2019. Wattigny, who was denied an early release from prison Thursday,…

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Pope Leo XIV’s June 5 meeting with the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors marks a beginning to his response to the abuse crisis in the Catholic Church. As calls for accountability grow louder, the Vatican’s next steps could define this pontificate’s approach to safeguarding against all forms of abuse in the church.

One potential step was proposed last November by Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernández, the prefect of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith. The cardinal’s announcement concerned the potential addition of a delict in the Code of Canon Law to address “spiritual abuse.” This initiative, prompted by the troubling reality of spiritual manipulation for sexual exploitation, rightly acknowledges a grave form of harm. However, while Cardinal Fernández’s proposal is a necessary step, the initiative as currently presented risks obscuring the full reality of spiritual abuse in the Catholic Church.

In a January interview, Cardinal Fernández clarified that the…

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“It’s basically a war on parishes”

Parishes across Western New York continue to learn how much they’re being asked to pay towards the diocese’s $150 million settlement with more than 800 survivors of sexual abuse.

On Monday, the diocese announced parishes would be responsible for paying $80 million of the proposed settlement.

The first vicariate meeting was held on Monday at Immaculate Conception Church in Ransomville for the Niagara-Orleans Vicariate. The second was held on Tuesday at St. Leo the Great Church in Amherst for the Northern Erie Vicariate.

The latest meeting was held at the diocesan offices at the Catholic Center in Downtown Buffalo on Wednesday for the Buffalo Vicariate.

Clergy, parish trustees, financial chairs, business managers and parish council members from 30 city churches filed into the Catholic Center for the meeting.

“It’s basically a war on parishes,” said Craig Speers, a parishioner at St. Michael’s Church.

He is now bracing…

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“This diocese just keeps coming back and putting us into the buzz saw”

Amherst NY – More parishes in the Diocese of Buffalo are learning exactly how much they will have to contribute to help pay for the diocese’s $150 million settlement with more than 800 survivors of sexual abuse.

On Monday, the diocese announced parishes would be responsible for paying $80 million of the proposed settlement.

The first vicariate meeting was held on Monday at Immaculate Conception Church in Ransomville for the Niagara-Orleans Vicariate.

The second vicariate meeting was held on Tuesday at St. Leo the Great Church in Amherst for the Northern Erie Vicariate.

“This diocese just keeps coming back and putting us into the buzz saw and crisis, making us all victims,” Mary Pruski from Save Our Buffalo Churches said.

Pruski spoke to me outside the church as the closed-door meeting was held.

The diocese has only announced publicly…

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We pause our regular “Inside the Vatican” episode this week to pick up where our America subscriber-only Conclave Debrief live Zoom event left off on Monday, June 9. Hosts Colleen Dulle and Gerard O’Connell briefly cover the latest Vatican headlines before inviting their producer, Ricardo da Silva, S.J.—who also participated in the live event—to join the conversation. Together, they tackle the key questions posed by America subscribers, focusing on four areas of concern:

• Inside the Conclave
  What made this conclave different from the 2013 election of Pope Francis? What stood out this time? What was it like covering a conclave live from the Vatican for the first time? And how did secular media in the U.S. respond to the papal transition?
   
• Pope Leo and AI
  What early signals has Pope Leo given about artificial intelligence, deep fakes and the ethical challenges of new technologies? How might these shape the church’s approach to rapidly evolving technology environments?
   
• Ongoing…

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An Ohio pastor, who is accused of sexually abusing two children in his care, is serving at another church where his new congregation believes in his innocence.

Dominic J. Foor, 39, was indicted June 5 in Pickaway County, Ohio, Common Pleas Court with 11 counts of sexual battery, six counts of unlawful sexual conduct with a minor, and six counts of importuning. (Ohio defines importuning as soliciting a child between the age of 13 to 16 for sex.)

Court records show the alleged abuse was from November 2022 to November 2024 and May 2024 through November 2024. The alleged victims are now 16 and 18 years old.

Foor is free on $250,000 bond, ordered to have no contact with the alleged victims, and must stay in the state.

Until December, he was the pastor of the Columbus-based Pathway Apostolic Church, which is part of the United Pentecostal Church…

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NEW ORLEANS (WVUE) – A pedophile priest’s Thursday parole hearing revealed his removal from ministry came only after he texted a child a second time, underwent a psychiatric evaluation and admitted to sexual abuse.

Pat Wattigny, the priest convicted of molesting a child in 2023, revealed that Archbishop Gregory Aymond asked him in February 2020 to promise not to inappropriately text a minor while serving as chaplain at Pope John Paul High School in Slidell.

“The archbishop called me in February of 2020 and asked me if I had done this, and I said ‘yes, I had.’ He said ‘do you give me your word you would not do it again.’ I said ‘yes I would.’ I held to that for a little while and then I gave in during the pandemic, and I texted this person again,” Wattigny said during his Thursday hearing.

Wattigny said it was only after…

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Jury deliberations began Friday in the trial of Matthew Schlegel, a former Anne Arundel County school teacher accused of sexually abusing third grade students.

Schlegel faces 21 counts related to allegations of sexually abusing five of his former students behind his desk during class at Severna Park Elementary School. He had 22 of the 55 charges dropped against him in May.

The defense concluded its case by asserting that the accusations were a terrible mistake, arguing that the victims’ testimonies were inconsistent. The prosecution maintained that the girls’ stories were remarkably similar.

“Hopefully the jury can see that this is a terrible mistake that has happened, but our client hasn’t done anything,” defense attorney Patrick Seidel said.

The trial is expected to continue on Monday.

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Pastor resigned in June after allegations surfaced, then sued church for his compensation package

A former Texas megachurch pastor is being sued by a woman who claims he sexually assaulted and abused her when she was 12 years old.

The suit, filed this week in Dallas County District court, accuses Gateway Church founder Robert Morris and others of libel, malice, defamation, slander, failure to report, civil conspiracy, intentional infliction of emotional distress and unjust enrichment.

They are seeking more than $1 million in damages.

Cindy Clemishire and her father, Jerry Lee Clemishire, filed the suit less than a year after sharing the allegations with a religious watchdog blog, The Wartburg Watch.

Cindy, 53, claimed she met Morris in 1981 while he was preaching at her church in Oklahoma and their families became close.

She said Morris touched her inappropriately while staying at her house in 1982,…

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Cindy Clemishire, who says Gateway Church founder Robert Morris sexually abused her from the age of 12, has filed a defamation lawsuit against Morris and the Texas megachurch, seeking more than $1 million in damages.

Filed jointly with her father, the lawsuit accuses Morris and Gateway leaders of falsely portraying the abuse as a “relationship with a young lady” rather than a crime against a child.

It also alleges church officials knowingly made misleading statements after the case became public in 2024.

Morris was indicted in March on five counts of lewd or indecent acts with a child, stemming from abuse that reportedly began in December 1982 and continued for over four years while Morris served as a traveling evangelist.

A 2023 internal investigation at Gateway Church revealed multiple elders had prior knowledge of Morris’s conduct but failed to act.

“We now know that there were elders and employees at…

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A historic apology from Spanish Catholic leaders to women abused in Franco-era rehabilitation centres has been met with public outcry and rejection from survivors.

The protesters say the gesture lacked sincerity and failed to fully acknowledge the extent of the abuse.

The ceremony, organised by CONFER, a Catholic group representing over 400 religious congregations, aimed to apologise for the Church’s role in institutions that detained over 40,000 women and girls between the 1940s and 1985, as reported by The Guardian.

Survivors described the centres as places of forced labour, religious indoctrination and brutal punishments, often targeting girls as young as eight.

Survivor Dolores Gómez, who was institutionalised at 13 after reporting her father’s abuse, said: “This is just a facelift. They’re not asking forgiveness for all that happened, only what they’re willing to recognise.”

As CONFER’s leaders read their apology and expressed “deep sorrow”, many in the audience erupted in protest, chanting “Truth,…

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A survivor of sexual abuse at a Catholic school in Victoria has won a claim against his ex-lawyers, after suing the law firm for negligence.

The survivor was abused at Monivae College in Hamilton in the late 1970s by two Catholic brothers and was originally represented in his lawsuit against the Catholic order by Waller Legal in 2015.

He first settled his claim against the Order of the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart (MSC) for $140,000 in February 2017.

He later went on to sue Waller Legal, claiming the firm was negligent and provided inadequate advice when representing him in that claim.

Last week, in a judgement against Waller Legal, Supreme Court Justice Jack Forrest awarded the survivor $263,000.

Rightside Legal partner Michael Magazanik, who represented the survivor in his action against his ex-lawyers, described it as a “landmark” decision.

“It sets out the obligations of a lawyer when representing…

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A $1 million lawsuit just filed in Dallas County District Court alleges Gateway Church, a one-time evangelical megachurch, covered up the rape and sexual abuse of a 12-year-old girl by its founder, Robert Morris.

The 63-year-old Morris is under criminal indictment in Oklahoma on five counts of lewd or indecent acts with a child, and is set to stand trial there later this year.  The Roys Report (TRR) this week reported that pastors Brady Boyd and Jimmy Evans knew that Morris’s victim Cindy Clemishire was 12 years old at the time the abuse began.

Neither Boyd nor Evans were named in the lawsuit. Clemishire’s attorney Alex Yaffe, told TRR, “We have sued those most directly responsible based on the evidence currently available. However, our investigation remains active, and we are continuing to assess all possible avenues for accountability—including the potential involvement of Jimmy Evans and Brady Boyd.”*

The action—brought by Cindy Clemishire and her father,…

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Cindy Clemishire, the woman at the center of the child sex abuse case involving Gateway Church founder Robert Morris, and her father have filed a lawsuit against the church founder, his wife and several current and former church leaders.

The suit alleges the defendants knew about Robert Morris’ deceit, hid it and made millions of dollars from his “moral failures and rape of Plaintiff, Cindy Clemishire.”

The lawsuit names Gateway Church, Robert Morris, Robert Morris’ wife Deborah Morris, Thomas H. Miller, Jr., John D. Willbanks III, Kevin Grove, Jeremy Carrasco, Kenneth W. Fambro II, Gayland Lawshe, Dane Minor, Lawrence Swicegood, Steve Dulin and the Robert Morris Evangelistic Association Inc.

“For almost 40 years, Robert Morris and the leadership at Gateway have tried to blame me and put this in a flippant light of a relationship instead of what it was-a brutal crime against a 12-year-old child,” said Cindy Clemishire. “My…

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Authorities arrested a Roman Catholic priest at the capital’s international airport on charges of raping of a minor over a period of years, officials said Thursday.

The Mexico state prosecutor’s office said that Rev. Antonio Cabrera, a member of the Legion of Christ religious order, was arrested Wednesday night on a court order for rape.

Authorities cited incidents in 2004, 2007 and 2011, but the investigation only began in December 2024, after the alleged attacks were reported. The abuse allegedly occurred in Naucalpan, a Mexico City suburb. The prosecutor’s office did not say why Cabrera was at the airport.

The Legion of Christ religious order has been involved in sexual abuse scandals before, including those of its late founder, the Rev. Marcial Maciel, who was later determined to be a serial pedophile.

The Vatican in 2010 took over the Mexico-based Legion and imposed a process of reform after an investigation showed that…

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COMMENTARY: Three aspects to consider: the process, the personage and the penalty.

In June 2024, the head of the Vatican communications department, Paolo Ruffini, vigorously defended his office’s continued use of the artwork of Father Marko Rupnik on the Vatican website. He argued that it was premature to judge Father Rupnik’s guilt regarding the many charges of sexual abuse of consecrated women he faces, and that “removing, deleting, destroying art … is not a Christian response.”

On Monday, Father Rupnik’s artwork was gone from the Vatican website, without explanation from Ruffini or anyone else. The removal came just days after Pope Leo XIV met with the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors, so the simplest explanation is that the commission asked the Holy Father to cease using the art and Pope Leo agreed. Cardinal Seán O’Malley, president of the commission, had already made that request publicly last June in response to Ruffini’s…

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The primate of Poland who is an outspoken advocate of abuse victims was dismissed by the country’s bishops from his role as a leader of the team of experts preparing the ground for a much-needed independent commission that would investigate cases of abuse of minors by clergy from the past in the country. 

The decision of the Polish bishops disappointed the victims for whom the move is a sign that the commission — in a new form and with a new leader — will lack teeth. 

Archbishop Wojciech Polak of Gniezno is known for his longtime advocacy for victims of abuse and since 2019 has been a delegate of the bishops’ conference for child protection.

A Surprise Move

In a surprise move during the June 10-12 plenary meeting of the Polish bishops in Katowice — during the last debate for which some of the bishops did not…

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More details have been released after a Greenville County, South Carolina, pastor and his wife were accused of decades of abuse towards children.

On Tuesday, several more charges were filed against Myron and Kathleen Chorbajian.

Myron Chorbajian was a pastor at 1st Southern Methodist Church on Fork Shoals Road, according to the church’s Facebook page.

According to detention center records, Myron is now facing two attempted murder charges and dozens more. Records show he is now facing 63 total charges since his arrest on May 15.

Detention center records show Kathleen is now facing additional charges of abandonment of a minor child. Records show she is now facing 26 total charges.

According to the new arrest warrants released on Thursday, Kathleen is accused of forcing a child to eat deviled eggs until the child vomited and then forced the child to eat their own vomit.

Of these…

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A judge set a $250,000 bond for Dominic Foor when he appeared in court on Tuesday.

A 23-count indictment was filed against a central Ohio pastor who is accused of sexually abusing a teenager.

The indictment filed in the Pickaway County Court of Common Pleas states that 39-year-old Dominic Foor faces the following charges:

• 11 counts of sexual battery
• Six counts of unlawful sexual conduct with a minor
• Six counts of importuning

According to the indictment, the first incident reportedly happened at a home on Lockbourne Eastern Road in Ashville on Nov. 3, 2022, when the victim was 15 years old. The indictment also states that the incidents lasted through Nov. 26, 2024.

Captain Johnathan Strawser with the Pickaway County Sheriff’s Office said the original complaint was brought forward on Nov. 28, 2024, and it has been under investigation since.

Strawser added at the time of the incidents, Foor was a…

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The Louisiana Board of Pardons and Parole denied former Slidell priest Patrick Brian Wattigny’s request for an early release.

Wattigny is currently serving a five year sentence for two counts of molestation of a juvenile. He was sentenced in 2023, and also faces another five years of probation, sex offender registration and notification, and a “no contact” order concerning the victims.

The board heard Wattigny and two supporters speak in favor of the shortened sentence. he said his main reason for seeking parole was to be a caregiver for his parents.

“I know I can be of vital help to them if I’m released early,” he said.

Wattigny said he had an “inappropriate relationship” with a student in 2013 and inappropriately texted a student in 2020. He said Archbishop Gregory Aymond was alerted to the latter.

“The archbishop called me in February 2020 and asked me if I had done this,…

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The Bishop of Clogher has issued a formal apology to victims of sexual abuse perpetuated by Canon Patrick McEntee, the former President of St. Michael’s College, Enniskillen.

The Board of Governors of the school have also apologised to victims “for the hurt they have suffered”.

On Wednesday, June 11, a jury at Dungannon Crown Court found the 70-year-old priest guilty of sexually abusing five boys over an 11-year period during his time as a teacher.

In a statement following the verdict, Bishop Larry Duffy described the abuse as being against “everything that the Gospel proclaims”.

Read More: Priest taught morality in the classroom and violated it behind closed doors

He said: “No words of mine can make up for the suffering caused to these men and their families over the years.

“I want to sincerely apologise to each of them and assure them…

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Patrick Wattigny tells parole board he gave Archbishop Aymond his word he will “not do it again.” He did it again.

NEW ORLEANS — A Catholic priest who admittedly molested two children publicly recounted Thursday for the first time how New Orleans’ archbishop tried to give him a chance to continue his career even after catching the cleric sending inappropriate texts to a minor. 

Patrick Wattigny made the revelation while appearing before Louisiana’s parole board and unsuccessfully requesting an early release from prison.

As Wattigny put it, his downfall began when the mother of a student at a high school where he worked had found unsettling texts between the priest and her son. The woman reported Wattigny – then the chaplain of Pope John Paul II in Slidell – to New Orleans’s archbishop, Gregory Aymond, who summoned him to a meeting in February 2020. As Wattigny put it, at that meeting,…

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A Catholic priest has been charged with the rape a 16-year-old boy in Kerala. He is currently evading capture and the church has intervened to protect him. A campaign has been launched to help him. A First Information Report (FIR) has already been filed and the police are conducting an investigation into the matter.

The case pertained to Kasaragod in Kerala. An official complaint has been launched against Father Paul Thattuparambil, the priest of Saint Paul’s Church in Athirumavu, on a complaint made by the minor boy. The Chittarikkal police have invoked POCSO (Protection of Children from Sexual Offences) Act against the perpetrator.

According to the complaint, he reportedly sexually assaulted a student from class 11 by taking him to his home and other locations during the period from 15th May to 13th August of 2024. This issue came to public…

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A poster declaring that “justice delayed is justice denied” is posted on many a courtroom wall as a reminder that delaying justice is crippling the Philippine judicial system. We need judicial reform, not posters. Many family courts are so swamped with child abuse cases that there is an urgent need for a special children’s court. Hopefully, Sen. Risa Hontiveros and her team are working on fulfilling that, as promised.

Fake postponements are an immoral tactic favored by defense lawyers, hoping that the traumatized victim will become tired, lose hope for justice or surrender to pressure from the alleged abuser and his supporters, and settle out of court. As a result, the abuser walks free, and judges who let them go are violating their oaths of office and corrupting themselves.

Several Catholic priests accused of child abuse in the Archdiocese of Cebu had their court cases reduced after plea bargains. They…

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Antonio María Cabrera faces sexual abuse of minors accusations. The Catholic priest, and member of the Legion of Christ will be arraigned in the coming hours. A report was filed back in January; a judge issued an arrest warrant in May. The police arrested the Legion of Christ priest when he was trying to leave Mexico. Cabrera was a member of Marcial Maciel’s inner circle and held key roles at the Legion of Christ’s flagship college in Mexico City.

On Wednesday June 11, around 6 pm, the Mexico City International Airport became the epicenter of the global clergy sexual abuse crisis as officers of the Attorney General’s Office arrested Catholic priest Antonio María Cabrera, a member of the Legion of Christ.

As far as it is possible to know, there has been no official statement from either the Attorney General’s Office (FGR, after its Spanish-language acronym), which originally made…

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Michael Tait, who became a Grammy-winning star in the Christian music world as a member of DC Talk in the ’90s, and continued that hit streak in recent years with a long stint as lead singer for the group Newsboys, has issued a “confession” on social media in which he admits that allegations of unwanted groping of young men and drug use contained in a recent investigative report were largely true.

“Recent reports of my reckless and destructive behavior, including drug and alcohol abuse and sexual activity are sadly, largely true,” Tait wrote in a post on his Instagram account. “For some two decades I used and abused cocaine, consumed far too much alcohol, and, at times, touched men in an unwanted sensual way. I am ashamed of my life choices and actions, and make no excuses for them. I will simply call it what God calls it…

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Amid all the other headlines at this week’s Southern Baptist Convention annual meeting, you might have missed an important internal debate that happened about financial transparency.

To those outside the nation’s largest Protestant denomination, this may not matter. But for anyone who puts money in an offering plate in a Southern Baptist church anywhere, it should matter.

This debate is about how much the person in the pew should be able to know about how their offerings are spent. It’s not a new debate, but it got the clearest hearing ever on Wednesday morning at the SBC annual meeting.

“For anyone who puts money in an offering plate in a Southern Baptist church anywhere, it should matter.”

To set the stage for explaining this, consider your local government or even your state government. Even in the most conservative locales, a certain level of financial transparency is required. It is usually possible, for…

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For many years in the United States, Catholic dioceses have periodically announced major settlements involving victims of Catholic clergy abuse, with the payouts coming as part of bankruptcy proceedings related to abuse claims.

Since 2004, when the Archdiocese of Portland declared bankruptcy, dioceses and archdioceses have used Chapter 11 law to navigate the complex and often financially crushing process of resolving decades of sex abuse claims.

In recent years, many U.S. bishops have announced major nine-figure settlements for abuse victims. Most recently, the Archdiocese of New Orleans last month agreed to pay a massive $180 million to victims of clergy abuse there, bringing an end to years of bankruptcy proceedings in federal court.

Where does the money come from?

Marie Reilly, a professor of law at Penn State University and an expert in bankruptcy litigation,  including Catholic diocesan bankruptcy proceedings, told CNA that the…

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A month into Pope Leo XIV’s pontificate, images of artwork created by the disgraced priest Marko Rupnik began disappearing from the Vatican News website—a departure from the Vatican’s earlier stated policy of keeping the artwork visible on the website until a decision had been made in Rupnik’s trial.

Rupnik, a Slovenian priest and former Jesuit who was accused of sexually and spiritually abusing some 20 women, has thus far not been tried by the Vatican. The investigation into his alleged crimes was reopened in 2023 when Pope Francis lifted the statute of limitations on the allegations. In late March, Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernández, the head of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, revealed that the Vatican was having difficulty finding judges for the trial.

In a statement responding to the unannounced removal of the artwork, Anne Barrett Doyle, co-director of the information resource BishopAccountability.org, said, “Let’s hope this is just the…

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A Slidell priest convicted of molestation has been denied parole.

Patrick Wattigny was in front of a parole board Thursday where he asked for forgiveness he was denied his request.Advertisement

One of his victims, Tim Gioe, was at the hearing where he said Wattigny’s actions were a “deliberate abuse of power.”

Gioe said Wattigny used his spiritual authority to groom and manipulate him.

Wattigny’s parole denial comes just days after Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry signed a bill into law that would make grooming a crime in the state.

Earlier reports:

Gioe is outraged over the potential early release of convicted priest Pattrick Wattigny from prison. This comes after Wattigny has served just two years of a five-year sentence.

“If Wattigny is let out of prison, will he do this to another person?” Gioe was asked. “Yes, there’s nothing that can convince me otherwise,” Gioe said. View Cache

A Zambian nun is calling out the pervasive sexual abuse of nuns by priests in Africa and drawing attention to the fate of nuns who are expelled from their orders when they become pregnant from it.

Sister Linah Siabana, a mental health specialist, denounced the “systemic abuse” of nuns “particularly at the hands of male clerics” in her May 24 address to the Symposium and Annual General Meeting of the Conference of Major Superiors of Africa and Madagascar.

Siabana’s alert follows multiple revelations of the clerical sex abuse of nuns from high-profile religious sisters. At the COMSAM assembly in South Africa, Siabana, a member of the Missionary Sisters of Our Lady of Africa who serves displaced South Sudanese communities in Uganda’s Arua diocese, narrated harrowing accounts of nuns who have been abused by priests or fellow sisters.

Abused Sisters Getting Pregnant

“At times, we just get to know about that…

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“Disturbing facts have come to light regarding the Olomouc Aletti Center.”

The new head of the Jesuits in the Czech Republic has announced an investigation into a community connected to the country’s Aletti Center, a religious and cultural center linked to the Roman center directed by disgraced artist Fr. Marko Rupnik.

Fr. Pavel Bačo SJ, provincial of the Czech Province of the Society of Jesus, who took office in late May, has dismissed the director of the Olomouc Aletti Center and launched an investigation into the publishing house affiliated with it, according to a June 10 statement from the province.

The statement pointed to “doctrinally dubious texts” based on an alleged mystic, as well as reports of spiritual manipulation and discord stemming from the community. It offered an apology to those who had been harmed by the “false mysticism” surrounding the community.

The Olomouc Aletti Center aims to promote dialogue…

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Actor Ashley Judd mourned Southern Baptist abuse victim Jennifer Lyell this week, praising her bravery in standing up against attempts to downplay the sexual abuse of women in the church.

“Sister Jennifer did a good, true, and honorable thing,” Judd wrote on her social media accounts. “A hard, costly thing.”

Lyell died June 7. She was 47.

While she was working as an executive for Lifeway, the Southern Baptist publishing arm, Lyell accused a Southern Baptist seminary professor of sexual abuse, leading to an investigation into SBC handling of abuse.

Judd said she grew up Southern Baptist also and recounted some of her experiences.

“I attended the Southern Baptist church growing up in Ashland, Kentucky, summer living with Nana and Papaw Judd,” Judd wrote.

“During Sunday School, Uncle Mark drove the little bus and took us to watch the Cincinnati Reds….

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The case against Prevost first emerged during a confrontation with the powerful ultra-Catholic group Sodalitium, with complicity from elements in Rome: ‘He has suffered greatly during the last year because nobody in the Vatican came out to defend him’

Rome / New York / Madrid – The election of Pope Leo XIV on May 8 brought with it renewed accusations against him of having covered up past cases of sexual abuse. These accusations were not new, having circulated for the past year and a half. Vatican sources told this newspaper that they were unfounded, and that actions taken by then-cardinal Robert Prevost were appropriate. They connected the allegations to an ultra-right media campaign. A month after Prevost became the 267th pontiff of the Catholic Church, EL PAÍS has run an analysis that has come to the conclusion that there is no proof that he ever covered up accusations. To the contrary,…

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SÃO PAULO, Brazil – A victim of sexual abuse by a priest over 50 years ago in April created Brazil’s first Network of Survivors of Ecclesiastical Abuse.

The South American country had at least 148 cases of children and teenagers abused by members of the clergy since 2000, according to a recent study, but the numbers could be much higher.

Valdea Caratchuk, a resident in Curitiba in Brazil’s Paraná state, rediscovered what happened to her only 11 years ago, during therapy, after decades hiding it under layers of fear and shame.

“I went back to the memories of my childhood and could perfectly see what the priest did to me 57 years ago at the parish,” she told Crux.

Her mother, a widow, made a living as a seamstress for the parish. Caratchuk, who was the youngest of four siblings, would take the pieces to the church, as her mother had…

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There has been a “significant increase” in the number of new allegations notified to the National Board for Safeguarding Children in the Catholic Church in Ireland (NBSCCCI). The organization published its annual report today, which covers the period between April 2024 and March 2025. According to the report, there were 385 child protection notifications against male and female members of the clergy last year. This is an increase of over 50 percent on the 252 allegations notified the previous year.  It is the highest number of any reporting period since the NBSCCCI began publishing the annual figures in 2009. 

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Court documents show a Florida judge dismissed a lawsuit against the Archdiocese of Dubuque regarding a priest accused of sexually abusing boys.

Father Leo Riley previously served as a pastor at a Dubuque Catholic Church in the 1980s. He was serving as the priest of a church in Florida until last year.

In October 2024, three men filed civil lawsuits against Riley, accusing him of sexual abuse. The lawsuits allege Riley sexually abused the men when they served as altar boys at the Dubuque church.

The Archdiocese was dismissed from the lawsuits because of lack of jurisdiction.

Riley has also asked to be dismissed from the case.

So far, there’s no ruling on Riley’s motion.

The claims in the lawsuits against Riley include assault, battery, and childhood sexual abuse.

A similar case against Riley was dropped in Iowa due to the statute of limitations expiring.

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Recently unsealed documents in a lawsuit against a former priest who taught at Catholic High School in Baton Rouge say he faced allegations of sexual abuse elsewhere as far back as the 1970s, a newspaper reported Monday.

The Advocate said the documents revealed no sexual misconduct allegations at the high school, but that Daniel Lemoine had acknowledged some of the complaints himself. It wasn’t clear whether the recently disclosed incidents were already among credible accusations of abuse detailed by the diocese in 2019.

Last year, a Denham Springs man filed a lawsuit against Lemoine, alleging he had sexually abused him as an altar boy at Immaculate Conception Church from 1984 to 1986. The lawsuit was filed under Louisiana’s “Lookback Window” law which gave purported victims a three-year period in which they could file claims.

The newspaper said the lawsuit includes documents detailing accusations dating to the 1970s. According to the…

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Calls made for better guidelines and legislative review after retired pastor arrested in connection with sexual assault of minor in 1990s

An imbalance of power in churches, a culture of secrecy and the misuse of theology are among the significant barriers victims face in reporting sexual abuse cases, advocates have said, after a retired Hong Kong pastor was arrested in connection with an assault on a minor in the 1990s.

An NGO and a Christian group on Sunday called on religious groups to establish sexual harassment policies, noting that sexually abused children took 13 years on average to seek help.

They also urged authorities to review legislation on sex offences to help encourage more survivors to come forward.https://imasdk.googleapis.com/js/core/bridge3.701.0_en.html#fid=goog_25993164https://imasdk.googleapis.com/js/core/bridge3.701.0_en.html#fid=goog_25993165https://imasdk.googleapis.com/js/core/bridge3.701.0_en.html#fid=goog_25993166

Doris Chong Tsz-wai, executive director of RainLily, said child victims of sexual abuse often took time to report their cases as it was difficult for them to immediately comprehend what had happened, especially…

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Former Downey pastor Jaime Arriaga Pedroza, who allegedly committed multiple felony counts of sexual abuse against a minor, is set to have his preliminary hearing on Monday, Aug. 25.

His attorney and the deputy district attorney agreed to the date during a hearing at the Clara Shortridge Foltz Criminal Justice Center on June 6 so the defense counsel can further prepare.

Pedroza, 41, had served as associate pastor at Our Lady of Perpetual Help Church in Downey since January 2024. He was arrested on April 3, after accusations of sexual abuse to a minor. He now faces six felony charges of sexual abuse from the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office, according to court documents.

These felony charges include five counts of committing lewd acts upon a child aged 14 or 15, and one count of assault with intent-victim under 18-year-old with the intent to commit rape.

Despite the allegations,…

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A priest has been found guilty of eight counts of historical indecent assault against four boys.

Canon Patrick McEntee, 71, from Esker Road in Dromore, County Tyrone faced a total of nine counts of indecent assault dating back to the late 1970s and involving boys aged between 11 and 17.

McEntee, who was a teacher at St Michael’s College in Enniskillen, had denied all the charges.

The priest took the boys into his private quarters where some of the boys were made to sit on his knee or touched inappropriately.

Canon McEntee was convicted on four counts of indecent assault on one boy between 1988 and 1989.

He was also convicted on a single count of indecently assaulting a second male between 1980 and 1981.

He was convicted on a further three charges of indecent assault involving two boys between 1978 and 1987. He was acquitted on one charge of…

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Images of artwork created by a disgraced celebrity cleric accused of rape have disappeared from official Vatican Media websites without explanation, almost a year after the head of the Vatican’s communications outfit strongly defended his department’s continued use of the images.

The offending images were digital reproductions of works created by Fr Marko Rupnik – a former Jesuit accused of spiritually, psychologically, and sexually abusing dozens of victims over a period of 30 years – mostly while based in Rome.

Most of Rupnik’s alleged victims were women religious, several of whom belonged at one time to a congregation of sisters he had helped to establish in his native Slovenia.

Pope Francis protected Rupnik from prosecution, according to Vatican sources, and even had pictures made by the priest on the walls of his apartment at the Casa Santa Marta.

Rupnik pictures formed part of the artwork on the Vatican Media website…

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While much was done during Pope Francis’ pontificate to tackle the global abuse crisis — a crisis moving at differing speeds in the church, depending on the country — one significant element is still pending and left for Pope Leo XIV to implement. That element is transparency.

Of the three pillars of the February 2019 summit organized by Pope Francis — accountability, responsibility and transparency — Cardinal Seán O’Malley, longtime president of the Pontifical Commission of the Protection of Minors, recently noted the third as a priority in the church today.

Cardinal O’Malley: ‘Victims and their families first’

In an interview with Vatican News June 5, Cardinal O’Malley, who met Pope Leo with his commission hours earlier, said the church’s priorities with regard to the prevention of child abuse “are the same as ever” and that “we’re trying to put the victims and their families first.”

However at the same time…

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A series of meetings this week is detailing how much individual parishes will owe as part of the Diocese of Buffalo’s settlement with sexual abuse victims.

Diocesean officials are meeting with clergy, trustees, business managers, and chairpersons of financial and parish councils.

Parish leaders are being provided an overview of the proposed $150 million settlement, which has been agreed to in principle, the diocese said.

Each parish will receive a detailed statement of its expected contribution to the settlement fund, officials said. It’s based on the parishes’ self-reported and unrestricted assets held as of Aug. 31, 2024.

“As we have maintained throughout this protracted process, the participation of the entire Catholic family is necessary to bring to a close this painful chapter of our Diocese and achieve a level of restitution that is owed to the many who have had to carry the tremendous burden of physical, emotional and spiritual…

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Since last year, there has been a 32% decline in U.S. child abuse allegations against Catholic clergy, according to the 2024 annual report of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ (USCCB) Secretariat of Child and Youth Protection.  

Overall, “902 allegations were reported by 855 victims-survivors of child sexual abuse by clergy,” the report said, compared with 1,308 allegations by 1,254 survivors last year. 

Covering July 1, 2023, to June 30, 2024, the annual report is based on a survey of 195 U.S. Catholic dioceses and eparchies, drawn from data collected by the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate at Georgetown University as well as an audit by StoneBridge Business Partners. 

The annual reporting stems from the U.S. bishops’ 2002 creation of the Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People, which established a framework and protocols related to allegations of sexual abuse of…

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A former longtime teacher at one of San Francisco’s most prestigious private schools filed a lawsuit last week alleging that the school fired him for reporting another teacher’s alleged sexual misconduct.

The plaintiff, Ted Curry, worked at St. Ignatius College Preparatory School in the drama department since 2000 before he was terminated on Feb. 11, the lawsuit states. He is seeking more than $10.5 million in damages, including for emotional and economical distress. 

Curry told SFGATE it’s been difficult to grapple with the firing. 

“My mornings are still melancholy,” Curry said. “I still struggle in the mornings to get up because I don’t have a job, and there’s no jobs rolling in, and there’s no sense of purpose, like, ‘Who am I?’”

Curry said he believes the school retaliated against him because his report of another teacher’s alleged sexual misconduct revealed that the school “covered up” the case. In 2006, Curry…

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When you hear people talk about sexual abuse claims and the Southern Baptist Convention, it’s not the same as talking about the Roman Catholic Church and sexual abuse.

Yes, there are clergy culprits in both religious bodies. And yes, there are religious leaders in both bodies who have covered up and ignored abuse claims and passed along offenders from congregation to congregation. But who’s responsible and who’s liable in these two largest religious bodies in the United States is very different.

Catholicism operates within a hierarchy. The pope appoints archbishops who oversee bishops who oversee priests. There is a clear line of authority from top to bottom, and clergy serving local parishes are placed there by superiors.

Not so among Baptists, who practice one of the most radical forms of autonomy of any Christian body in the United States. As my seminary professors used to drill into us, “The headquarters of…

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‘Prevost died when Pope Leo was born.’

It was barely four months after Cardinal Pablo David of the Philippines became a cardinal that the pontiff, Pope Francis, died after a stroke on Easter Monday.

The newly minted cardinal found himself soon on a plane bound for Rome, where he joined his brother cardinals in burying the late pope, the springtime general congregations, and the conclave that would elect Pope Leo XIV.

During the interregnum, Cardinal David often spoke on social media, asking almost 70,000 followers for feedback on the kind of pope they thought the Church and world needed, and showing his interest in using AI tools for discernment.

David is a well-known figure in the Philippines, where he has received death threats for his outspoken opposition to the Philippines’ deadly “war on drugs” under its ex-president, Rodrigo Duterte.

The bishop rose more to prominence in 2019 when Francis embraced…

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School leaders at Catholic High in Baton Rouge noticed a disturbing pattern with a diocesan priest on the teaching staff in early 1993. It was a red flag that prompted a meeting between school officials and a high-ranking clergyman from the Baton Rouge diocese, according to documents recently unsealed in court.

Even after being warned twice that “he was socializing too much with students” at the all-boys school, the Rev. Daniel Lemoine continued to spend time alone with them, said a report sent to the bishop of the Baton Rouge diocese following the meeting.

One student’s parents complained to Catholic High leaders in December 1992 that Lemoine took their son to Our Lady of the Mercy Church, where the priest lived at the time, and made the boy wait in the rectory alone while he showered and changed his clothes. When school administrators confronted Lemoine about his tendency to fraternize with…

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If nothing changes, most nuns thinking of disclosing will take heed of the punitive consequences of disclosure already in the public domain and will decide that silence is by far the safer option.

If Pope Leo wishes to take up this issue of the clerical sexual abuse of female religious, as his early meeting with the head of the Dicastery for Consecrated Life would suggest he does, he will need to insist on a system of safe disclosure for religious sisters

“For victims, reporting rape is effectively a lottery, and the odds are rarely in your favour,” said Dame Vera Baird as Victims’ Commissioner for England and Wales. Only 5 per cent of the 67,125 rapes that were given an outcome by the police in the year ending December 2021 resulted in a charge.

For nuns or religious sisters reporting clerical sexual abuse the numbers of convictions…

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BATON ROUGE — Recently unsealed documents in a lawsuit against a former priest who taught at Catholic High School in Baton Rouge say he faced allegations of sexual abuse elsewhere as far back as the 1970s, a newspaper reported Monday.

The Advocate said the documents revealed no sexual misconduct allegations at the high school, but that Daniel Lemoine had acknowledged some of the complaints himself. It wasn’t clear whether the recently disclosed incidents were already among credible accusations of abuse detailed by the diocese in 2019.

Last year, a Denham Springs man filed a lawsuit against Lemoine, alleging he had sexually abused him as an altar boy at Immaculate Conception Church from 1984 to 1986. The lawsuit was filed under Louisiana’s “Lookback Window” law which gave purported victims a three-year period in which they could file claims.

The newspaper said the lawsuit includes documents detailing accusations dating to the 1970s….

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Parishes in the Diocese of Buffalo, N.Y., are set to pay a total of $80 million into the diocese’s $150 million bankruptcy settlement, with the funds due to be paid into a trust by July 15.

“As we have maintained throughout this protracted process, the participation of the entire Catholic family is necessary to bring to a close this painful chapter of our diocese and achieve a level of restitution that is owed to the many who have had to carry the tremendous burden of physical, emotional and spiritual harm of sexual abuse throughout their lives,” said Bishop Michael W. Fisher, a Baltimore native, in a June 9 statement.

Of that $150 million, the diocese will also directly pay $30 million, with its affiliated Catholic organizations contributing $10 million, and real estate sales covering the remainder, diocesan communications director Joe Martone told OSV News.

Martone said the diocese hopes that…

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The Buffalo Catholic Diocese says parishes will end up paying the majority of the money.

BUFFALO, N.Y. — Reaction continues to the lawsuit settlement plans announced by the Buffalo Catholic Diocese on Monday. The Diocese will be looking to its parishes to pay more than half of the $150-million to settle the sex abuse lawsuits.

According to the Buffalo Diocese, the parishes will be responsible for $80-million, with each paying anywhere from 10 to 80 percent of the unrestricted cash they had on hand as of last August. That’s money that wasn’t earmarked for something specific already at the parish.

Parishes that are set to close would be paying higher percentages.

On Tuesday, 2 On Your Side spoke with Philip Gray, he’s a canon lawyer and the President of the Saint Joseph Foundation, a group of lay people who help parishioners navigate church policies and canon law.

…

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Parishes across WNY are hearing directly from the Diocese of Buffalo on how much they will have to contribute to the proposed $150 million bankruptcy settlement.

[See video]

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There has been a significant increase in the number of new allegations notified to the National Board for Safeguarding Children in the Catholic Church in Ireland (NBSCCCI).

Last year there were 385 allegations of abuse, up from 252 the previous year.

Its latest annual report, which covers the period between April 2024 and March 2025, shows a rise of over 50% in new allegations.

It is the highest number of any reporting period since the NBSCCCI began publishing the annual figures in 2009.

The increase was predominantly from September of 2024 and coincided with the release of the Report of the Scoping Inquiry into Historical Sexual Abuse in Day and Boarding Schools run by Religious Orders.

Along with the subsequent media coverage, this appears to have enabled individuals to come forward.

As has been the pattern in recent years the vast majority of allegations relate to the period from 1960…

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(RNS) — The SBC’s Executive Committee has spent millions defending itself against former leaders accused of abuse.

DALLAS (RNS) — In early April, Jennifer Lyell, a former Christian publishing executive, sat for a deposition in a defamation lawsuit filed by her once mentor and professor David Sills.

There she detailed alleged sexual and spiritual abuse by Sills in graphic detail — and insisted he had coerced her into sexual acts without her consent, and then asked her to join him at family meals afterward.

“But he always knew that I never, ever wanted any instance,” she said in an excerpt from her April 10 deposition. “And I always, always tried to stop it.”

Lyell died Saturday (June 7) after suffering a series of strokes. She was 47. A few weeks before she died, her lawyer filed excerpts of her deposition in a federal court as part of a legal battle…

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The alleged victim’s mother notified police of the 2024 incident earlier last week. The Catholic Diocese of Cleveland says the employee has been placed on leave.

CLEVELAND — An employee at Cleveland’s St. Aloysius Catholic School has been placed on leave following an allegation of sexual misconduct with a minor in the Youngstown area.

According to a police report obtained by 3News, the mother of the alleged victim first reported the incident to Cleveland officers, who then relayed the information to Niles police in the suspect’s hometown. The woman told authorities last week that an employee abused her son in March of 2024, when her son was just 15.

The suspect, 33, faces a charge of sexual battery by a school person of authority. The Roman Catholic Diocese of Cleveland, which oversees operations at St. Aloysius, confirmed the school “immediately” put the employee on leave “pending the results…

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When Pope Leo XIV summoned the leader of Opus Dei to see him last month, in one of his first official audiences, Vatican watchers immediately began to wonder what the meeting meant.

Some said it was a clear olive branch, a peace offering from a new pope who wanted to heal relations with a group they felt had been unduly attacked by Pope Francis.

Others said the urgency of the meeting betrayed the new pope’s frustration over delays to the group’s new statutes — first requested by Francis three years ago — and a signal that reforming Opus Dei was a clear priority.

Opus Dei quickly hailed the “closeness and affection” of the discussion.

Other readouts from the meeting seemed potentially more ominous.

“The Holy Father asked about the current study of the Statutes of the Prelature and listened with great interest to the explanations…

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Three other decisions remain on the pope’s desk which will weigh heavier on his mind.

The Dicastery for Communications removed from Vatican websites artwork by the disgraced former Jesuit Fr. Marko Rupnik over the weekend.

The decision, which has not been officially acknowledged or explained by the dicastery, came as social media users highlighted again how works by the accused serial sexual abuser were displayed on the Vatican’s official website to illustrate upcoming feasts, like Monday’s memorial of Mary, Mother of the Church.

The cycle of outrage over the continued use of Rupnik’s work by official Vatican media had become a regular event, following the disclosure of the extent of allegations against the artist in 2022 — including that he sexually abused women religious as part of his creative process.

The Vatican’s continued use of the images was repeatedly cited by survivors of abuse and their advocates as a harmful…

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In short 

The ACT Greens have announced a bill that would introduce legislation aimed at holding institutions accountable for the actions of their employees. 

It follows a High Court ruling last year that found the church could not be held accountable for the actions of a priest accused of sexual assault.

What’s next? 

The party will introduce the bill later in the month.

The ACT Greens have unveiled a bill aimed at making institutions such as the Catholic Church, Scouts and sporting groups vicariously liable for the actions of those associated with them who have sexually abused children.

This includes priests, Scouts leaders, and sports coaches who may have a relationship with the organisation akin to employment, even though it is not strictly an employment relationship.

Not an employee

The move was prompted by a High Court ruling last year that found a priest, accused of child sex offences, was…

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Canon Patrick McEntee (70) denies sexual offences against five pupils at St Michael’s College, Enniskillen where he taught

The jury has retired to consider its verdict in the trial of a priest accused of historic sex assault charges against teenage schoolboys.

Canon Patrick McEntee (70) from Esker Road, Dromore denies sexual offences against five males who were pupils at St Michael’s College, Enniskillen where he taught.

There are four counts of indecently assaulting one complainant between 1988/89 and a single count of indecently assaulting another between 1980/81.

In addition, there are a further four counts of indecent assault against three males- two against one and single counts against the other two, allegedly between 1978 and 1987.

Dungannon Crown Court heard there were similarities in terms of Canon McEntee taking them to his private quarters.

Classical music was playing and he would have the boys sit on his knee “for…

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