ABUSE TRACKER

During the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops‘ annual spring meeting, held June 10-12 this year in Orlando, OSV News discussed forthcoming revisions of the bishops’ “Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People” with Bishop Barry C. Knestout of Richmond, Virginia, chair of the USCCB’s Committee on the Protection of Children and Young People, and Deacon Bernie Nojadera, executive director of the USCCB’s Secretariat of Child and Youth Protection.

Commonly known as the “Dallas Charter” — instituted by the US Catholic bishops at their 2002 meeting in Dallas, Texas, as the scope of the clerical abuse scandals emerged publicly — it lays out a comprehensive set of procedures for addressing allegations of sexual abuse of minors by Catholic clergy. The charter, whose revisions the U.S. bishops approved in a June 11 vote, also includes guidelines for reconciliation, healing, accountability and prevention of abuse.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

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Some have questioned whether the bishops are ready to vote on a safeguarding document at all.

When the U.S. bishops’ conference gathered in Dallas in the spring of 2002, they were in a crisis.

The Boston Globe had published reports in the months prior on the extent of clerical sexual abuse of minors in the diocese, and the transfer of abusers and cover-up of allegations which came subsequently.

Those stories set off a firestorm. Indeed, many bishops were shocked by what they read, and all of them felt overwhelming pressure to pass something which would give an indication that they took seriously the scope of the scandal they faced.

The result was a set of moral commitments among the bishops, published as the “Charter for the Protection of Young People,” known as the Dallas Charter, and then in the “Essential Norms,” which set canonical policy in response to those commitments.

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As a bankruptcy plan continues to elude the Archdiocese of Baltimore, SNAP urges the federal bankruptcy court to flex its muscle in order to forge a solution that protects survivors.

On Monday, both sides ended an all-day proceeding in federal court with little more than an agreement to continue discussions. As a result, the case remains open for weeks more of complex negotiations that force survivors to continue to wait for resolution. In fact, every day without an agreement means the archdiocese and its insurers keep survivors’ money longer. Those resources should be used for supporting survivors’ healing.

While no amount of money can repair the damage done to hundreds of survivors, SNAP stands in unwavering solidarity with all those harmed in Baltimore and will continue to support their efforts for justice, transparency and accountability. The work these survivors are doing now will protect future generations of children.

“These never-ending…

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Andreozzi + Foote, a nationally recognized law firm representing survivors of sexual abuse, has partnered with Rhode Island attorney Eric B. DiMario, of Kiernan, Plunkett & Redihan, LLP, to represent survivors pursuing claims under Rhode Island’s newly enacted childhood sexual abuse revival-window legislation.

In a landmark victory for survivors, Rhode Island has opened a two-year revival window, that allows victims of childhood sexual abuse to file civil lawsuits that were previously barred by the state’s statute of limitations.

The new law, which takes effect on July 1, 2026, gives eligible survivors until June 30, 2028, to pursue claims against institutions and organizations that knew about, concealed, or failed to prevent sexual abuse. For many Rhode Island survivors of childhood sexual abuse, this may be the first meaningful opportunity in decades to seek accountability through the civil justice system.

The…

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Six months after his arrest on child sex crimes, Fr. Korey Lavergne of St. Edward Catholic Church in Richard is due in court on Friday morning for a pre-trial hearing.

In a social media post that’s since been deleted, St. Edward Catholic Church announced plans for parishioners to gather at the church on Friday morning and pray the rosary for Fr. Lavergne and “all those affected by this difficult situation.”

The church’s post was deleted from social media after about three hours.

“It’s the wrong signal when a church community refuses to pray or mention victims in their prayers,” said Letitia Peyton with TentMakers of Louisiana, a non-profit that supports victims of clergy sex abuse.

Fr. Lavergne was arrested in January on three counts of indecent behavior with a juvenile. He was formally charged in March and entered a written not guilty plea.

As News 15 Investigates exclusively reported, a…

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‘Lookback law’ allowed Pamela Lockridge to seek damages against late stepfather who abused her starting at age four

A north-west Louisiana jury recently awarded a staggering $1.1bn in damages to a woman who sued over childhood sexual molestation at the hands of her late stepfather in the 1960s and 1970s – a verdict that the plaintiff says “sends a message that children are precious” and “deserve protection”.

The outcome in Pamela Elaine Lockridge’s lawsuit caused waves among Louisiana’s legal community, illustrating how much civil juries are willing to award to plaintiffs for cases tried under the state’s so-called “lookback law”.

Passed in 2021 and upheld as constitutional in 2024, that law temporarily eliminated filing deadlines for lawsuits involving child molestation which happened long ago, giving survivors like Lockridge – whose late abuser at one point confirmed that he molested her – an opportunity to pursue damages.

Lockridge’s lead attorney, Ryan Gatti,…

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A complaint was filed by a seven-year-old girl’s mother against Selvaraj, who served as a priest at a church in Vadakkankulam

A special court hearing Protection of Children From Sexual Offences Act (POCSO) cases in Tirunelveli in Tamil Nadu on June 11 sentenced a priest to seven years in prison for sexually harassing a seven-year-old girl.

On Thursday, Judge Suresh Kumar sentenced Selvaraj to seven years of imprisonment and imposed a fine of Rs 10,000. The Judge also ordered the payment of Rs 1 lakh as compensation to the victim.

Selvaraj (59), an original resident of Valliyoor area in Tirunelveli district, Tamil Nadu, served as a priest at a Christian church in Vadakkankulam.

According to the case details, in February 2020, the victim girl visited the church with her parents for prayers, during which the priest subjected her to sexual harassment.

Acting on a complaint filed by the victim’s mother,…

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The U.S. Catholic bishops approved several updates to their landmark document on protection policies for children and minors, seeking to define key terms while balancing care for victim-survivors with accused clergy’s right to a presumption of innocence until proven otherwise.

The revisions, preliminarily introduced June 10 during the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ spring plenary assembly in Orlando, passed by a two-thirds vote June 11 after a period of debate.

The changes will keep the “Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People” focused “exclusively” on clergy abuse of minors, with a new document being developed to address abuse involving vulnerable adults, said Bishop Barry C. Knestout of Richmond, Virginia, chairman of the USCCB’s Committee on the Protection of Children and Young People, in his introductory remarks June 10.

Joining Bishop Knestout on the dais during the presentation that day were Archbishop Ronald A. Hicks of New York, chair…

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After considerable debate, the U.S. Catholic bishops voted June 11 to update their “Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People,” including adding language that emphasizes “the right of an accused to the presumption of innocence.”

During the second day of the bishops’ spring plenary in Orlando, a handful of bishops sought to delay a vote on updating the 2002 document on clergy sexual abuse allegations and prevention.

The revised text includes a new glossary of terms and language on the right of accused clergy, according to Bishop Barry Knestout of Richmond, Virginia, the chairman of the bishops conference’s Committee on the Protection of Children and Young People.

In a prepared statement, Knestout said the addition of “presumed innocence” draws “from the revisions of Book VI of the Code of Canon Law.”

Other changes that Knestout mentioned in his June 10 presentation…

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It was also announced at the USCCB meeting Thursday that the bishops would keep fighting abortion as their ‘preeminent priority’ in their guidelines to voters ahead of the midterm elections.

United States Catholic bishops approved a new version of their signature document on child sexual abuse on Thursday (June 11), adding language on the “presumption of innocence” for accused priests, despite a push for broader discussion and changes.

Shawn McKnight, archbishop of Kansas City, Kansas, had led an effort to include more expansive changes to the bishops’ Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People, commonly known as the Dallas Charter. Advocates for survivors and sexual abuse reform had also called for broader changes to the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ policy commitments, including expanding the document to address the sexual abuse of adults.

After McKnight motioned for the vote to be postponed to the next meeting to allow bishops…

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On the first day of their June 2026 meeting in Orlando, the U.S. bishops offered a message to the Holy Father, heard from the new apostolic nuncio, voiced support for two sainthood causes, and discussed the revision of the Dallas Charter on the sexual abuse of minors.

The Pillar described the new nuncio, Archbishop Gabriele Caccia, as a “study in contrast” to his predecessor, Cardinal Christophe Pierre, both in his more irenic tone and in his content, which emphasized continuity with tradition.

Bishop Barry Knestout of Richmond, the chairman of the Committee on the Protection of Children and Young People, offered a presentation on revisions to the Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People, originally adopted in 2002. Bishop Knestout called for a continued focus in the charter on the sexual abuse of minors, with the abuse of adults addressed in a separate document; others called for the revised charter to address the sexual…

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An 81-year-old pastor who sexually assaulted a Moreno Valley girl was sentenced Friday to 10 years to life in state prison.

David Lee Helbling of Moreno Valley pleaded guilty in April to kidnapping to commit rape and lewd acts on a child under 14 years old under an agreement with the Riverside County District Attorney’s Office. In exchange for his admissions, prosecutors dropped four related charges against Helbling.

During a hearing at the Riverside Hall of Justice Friday, Superior Court Judge Arthur Bocanegra certified the terms of the plea deal and imposed the sentence stipulated by the prosecution and defense.

According to sheriff’s Sgt. Robert Martinez, deputies were informed at the end of January 2024 of an attack on the victim in the 23000 block of Hemlock Avenue, near Pigeon Pass Road.

The ensuing investigation led to the identification of Helbling, a local minister, as the perpetrator.

Martinez said that…

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A Massachusetts Attorney General’s grand jury investigation into child sexual abuse at three Catholic dioceses in the state has never been made public. The findings of a similar investigation, 23 years-ago, were shared, legally, with the public.

On July 14, 2003 Thomas F. Reilly, the Massachusetts attorney general at the time, published a report on his investigation into crimes against children at the Archdiocese of Boston.

When Gov. Maura Healey was attorney general she launched a similar inquiry. But she looked into the dioceses of Worcester, Springfield and Fall River.

Survivors of abuse, who answered investigators’ questions in the fall of 2021, have been calling on Attorney General Andrea Campbell to release a report on the inquiry started by Healey.

But because it was a grand jury investigation, there’s a legal hold up as Campbell explained on GBH radio a year…

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The bishops rejected a proposal to delay the vote until November.

The U.S. bishops voted overwhelmingly on Thursday to approve revisions to the Charter for the Protection of Young People, after a failed proposal to delay the vote, made in order to seek more feedback from diocesan advisors and abuse victims.

The vote on the Charter text was 176-22, with 6 bishops abstaining.

The bishops voted during their general assembly meeting Thursday morning to adopt some amendments to the document, which deals with preventing and responding to cases of abuse by priests. The text of the amendments was not immediately available to the media or public.

Following the passage of the amendments, Archbishop Shawn McKnight of Kansas City proposed delaying the vote on the revised Charter until the bishops’ November meeting. He said the bishops should have the chance to consult with their diocesan review boards, presbyteral councils, and abuse…

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[For immediate release]

Archbishop William Shawn McKnight’s intervention today at the USCCB plenary after the presentation on the revised Charter was welcome. McKnight correctly points out that, if approved, the revised Charter would be problematic both for abuse survivors who have come forward and for survivors who have not yet done so. To alienate the very people on whose behalf the Charter and Norms were originally adopted would be an unforced error, and also a disastrous move, as McKnight made clear, in the run-up to the 25th anniversary of the bishops’ momentous 2002 meeting in Dallas.

McKnight’s proposal to postpone voting and get more input creates an opportunity that the plenary should embrace on Thursday. The Charter was last revised in 2018, a pivotal year in the ongoing clergy abuse crisis, when the McCarrick case and the Pennsylvania grand jury report together put the U.S. Catholic church back into crisis. In…

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The potential revisions include new language that emphasizes ‘the presumption of innocence’ for accused priests. 

The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops plans to vote Thursday (June 11) on revisions to its cornerstone document addressing the sexual abuse of minors, including new language that emphasizes “the presumption of innocence” for accused priests. 

But a prominent archbishop pushed back during a Wednesday presentation of the proposed revisions, urging the conference to take more time to consult survivors and priests.

“ I am worried how the language presently in the draft will impact our known victims as well as our unknown victims,” said Archbishop Shawn McKnight of Kansas City, Kansas. “I’m also concerned about how our priests are going to respond.”

The Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People, commonly known as the Dallas Charter, is a set of policy commitments that the bishops created in 2002 as the church began to…

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The U.S. Catholic bishops are reviewing proposed updates to their landmark document on protection policies for children and minors, seeking to define key terms while balancing care for victim-survivors with accused clergy’s right to a presumption of innocence until proven otherwise.

The potential revisions were preliminarily introduced June 10 during the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ spring plenary assembly in Orlando. 

The suggested changes would keep the “Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People” focused “exclusively” on clergy abuse of minors, with a new document being developed to address abuse involving vulnerable adults, said Bishop Barry C. Knestout of Richmond, Virginia, chairman of the USCCB’s Committee on the Protection of Children and Young People, in his introductory remarks.

Joining Bishop Knestout on the dais were Archbishop Ronald A. Hicks of New York, chair of the USCCB’s Committee on Clergy, Consecrated Life and Vocations; and Bishop Thomas J….

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A recent report accuses a former Kalamazoo-area Catholic priest of inappropriate conduct and sexual abuse in two states.

A new report details allegations against a former Michigan Catholic priest, accused of spraying a former parishioner with holy water before sexually assaulting him and other inappropriate conduct and sexual abuse complaints spanning two states. 

Rev. Thomas King, C.S.C. Fr. King, has allegations dating back to the 1980s while he was working in Indiana, through his time working at a church in Niles, MI, in the Diocese of Kalamazoo. 

The report was made public in late May, after Notre Dame University President Rev. Robert Dowd and Board of Trustee’s chair John Veihmeyer requested the investigation in Sept. 2025 following allegations against King while he was at the university. These concerns dated back to 2018 about the handling of allegations against Fr. King raised by alumni. 

Investigators…

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Most of the allegations received in nine-month period last year referred to incidents said to have occurred between 1960 and 1989

A total of 178 allegations of abuse by clergy was received by the Catholic Church’s National Board for Safeguarding Children (NBSC) in the nine-month period from April to December 2025.

As the NBSC has decided to move to calendar-year reporting, this latest report covers just the last nine months of 2025.

The previous full-year report, from the end of March 2024 to April of last year, said there had been 385 allegations of abuse during that period, meaning the latest report indicated “a small decrease, pro rata”, according to NBSC chief executive Aidan Gordon.

Of the 178 allegations received, 36 were from dioceses, with 141 from religious congregations, and one “other”, covering an 80-year period from the 1940s to the 2020s.

As to the nature of the allegations involved, 154…

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The costs of the clerical abuse scandal in the United States soared 82% in the July 2024—June 2025 reporting year, to $483,534,316, according to the U.S. bishops’ Secretariat of Child and Youth Protection.

The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops recently released the annual report mandated by the bishops’ Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People, adopted in 2002. The report found that the total cost of the scandal to American dioceses—including settlements, other payments to victims, support for offenders, attorneys’ fees, and other costs—increased 61% between 2023-24 and 2024-25, from $242,799,401 to $389,961,007 (p. 31). The costs to religious communities soared 297% between 2023-24 and 2024-25, from $23,565,150 to $93,573,309 (p. 42).

The total costs rose 82% between 2023-24 and 2024-25, from $266,364,551 to $483,534,316 (p. 48). The true costs, however, are likely much higher: only 97% of U.S. dioceses (and eparchies) and 61% of men’s religious institutes responded…

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Jose Saez Jr., 30, was a pastor at Iglesia Cristiana Alumbrando El Camino when he targeted children both online and in person.

A Brentwood pastor who told an undercover officer that he had sexually abused an infant and his “sweet spot” was molesting children between 11 and 15 years old was sentenced Tuesday to 17 ½ years in prison, according to federal prosecutors.

Jose Saez Jr., 30, was a pastor at Iglesia Cristiana Alumbrando El Camino when he targeted children both online and in person.

Saez used an encrypted messaging service to engage in sexually explicit conversations with minors and an undercover law enforcement officer, and told the officer he was able to find young victims at church, prosecutors said.

In addition to coercing a 15- and 16-year-old into sending him photos and videos, Saez raped a minor he had arranged to meet in a public restroom in Mount Sinai…

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Charges filed against a retired Greensburg priest are moving forward.

Eighty-four-year-old Robert Byrnes was arrested last month on charges including aggravated indecent assault. Byrnes is accused of committing sex crimes while working as a practicing priest.

Byrnes yesterday waived his right to a preliminary hearing.

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In short: 

An organisation representing survivor-victims of clergy abuse has torn up agreements reached with the Catholic Diocese of Ballarat.

The organisation said it had been working with the diocese towards two permanent memorials at St Patrick’s Cathedral and St Alipius Old Boys School in Ballarat.

Father Marcello Colasante from the Catholic Diocese of Ballarat says he empathises with victim-survivors after the High Court decision in 2024.

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An organisation representing survivor-victims of clergy abuse has torn up agreements reached with the Catholic Diocese of Ballarat and has accused the church of hypocrisy.

Loud Fence and The Ballarat and District Survivors Memorial Committee said they had been working with the diocese towards two permanent memorials at St Patrick’s Cathedral and St Alipius Old Boys School in Ballarat for victims of clergy abuse.

Victim-survivor Gary Sculley said those negotiations and agreements were now null and void.

“We’ve sat down and negotiated…

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In short:

Pope Leo has met with survivors of abuse by Catholic clergy in Spain.

The pontiff listened to proposals to make safeguarding more effective, and told clerics that survivors should see a commitment to safety from the church.

Survivors who were not invited have dismissed the meeting as a photo opportunity.

Pope Leo has met with six survivors of abuse by Catholic clergy in Spain, the Vatican says, as groups of survivors who were not invited criticised the event as a mere photo opportunity.  

The Vatican provided few details of the meeting, which lasted about an hour. But it said Leo had listened to proposals to make church safeguarding more effective, and promised to make it a safe space for all.

Leo, on a week-long visit to Spain, had earlier made his first direct reference to scandals that have shaken the Spanish church’s credibility, telling bishops that they…

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Rome ordered the ‘Vos Estis’ probe after a parishioner alleged Bishop Michael Duca delayed removing a pastor who made sexual advances on him and spoke of prior sexual misconduct involving minors.

Investigators conducted three full days of interviews last week in a probe of Bishop Michael Duca, ordered by the Vatican over the Diocese of Baton Rouge’s handling of a report of sexual abuse by a parish priest, two witnesses told the Register. 

“They’re all about the timing, why it took so long,” the purported victim, a man in his mid-60s, told the Register, on condition of anonymity. “They wanted to connect a lot of dots.” 

The man told the Register he and his wife spoke with the investigators for about 1 hour 45 minutes on Wednesday, June 3. 

The investigators represent the Archdiocese of New Orleans, which is conducting the investigation, but they are lay professionals from out of…

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The Defendant Sexually Abused Minors Both In Person and Online

Earlier today, in federal court in Central Islip, Jose Saez, Jr., a pastor at Iglesia Cristiana Alumbrando El Camino church located in Brentwood, New York, was sentenced by United States District Judge Joan M. Azrack to 210 months in prison for sexual exploitation of a child.  Saez communicated with minor victims over the internet, coerced them into creating and sending him sexually explicit images and videos of themselves, and coerced a minor to engage in sexual acts with the defendant at a public park on Long Island.  Saez pleaded guilty to the charges in March 2025. 

Joseph Nocella, Jr., United States Attorney for the Eastern District of New York, and James C. Barnacle, Jr., Assistant Director in Charge, Federal Bureau of Investigation, New York Field Office (FBI), announced the sentence. 

“Today’s lengthy sentence holds the defendant accountable for his exploitation…

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Guarding children from abuse entails not only shielding them from danger but also teaching them wisdom and discernment, panelists said at a June 8 breakfast in conjunction with the SBC Annual Meeting in Orlando.

The breakfast, sponsored by the SBC Executive Committee and the Evangelical Council for Abuse Prevention, convened Christian educators and ministry leaders to introduce the “Safe Guards” school curriculum, designed to equip K-5 students with abuse awareness and prevention skills from a biblical worldview perspective.

“Abuse prevention instruction does not need to be sensationalized,” said “Safe Guards” coauthor Lynne Little, founder of Compass Education. “It does not need to be fear-based. It does not need to be sexually graphic. This is not sex education the way secular humanistic paradigms approach this topic. Instead, abuse prevention instruction can be effectively rooted in a biblical worldview.”

The curriculum is divided into two age levels, one for kindergarten through…

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A few years ago, I found myself helping navigate a situation involving someone close to me who was severely mistreated at a Christian school. Over time, and under new leadership, the school eventually did take appropriate steps to address what had happened and move in a better direction. What pushed me to engage more directly was seeing other situations, similarly mishandled, that had begun circulating in the news. It was not an isolated story. It was familiar.

In the past month, I learned that a Christian school I attended as a child in my hometown has lost over 30 teaching staff in a single year. That kind of turnover is not just a staffing issue. It usually signals deeper cultural and leadership instability.

Over the years, I have helped parents navigate situations at Christian schools across the country. In one case, I supported families as they worked to make sense…

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Rice’s win is a triumph for critics who argue that the nation’s largest Protestant denomination has lost its way in recent years.

A Florida pastor who has argued that the nation’s largest Protestant denomination has become too woke and liberal was elected president of the Southern Baptist Convention on Tuesday (June 9).

Willy Rice, senior pastor of Calvary Church in Clearwater, Florida, received 5,217 votes — 57% of the votes cast. His opponent, Josh Powell, lead pastor of Taylors First Baptist Church in South Carolina, received 3,821 votes, or 42%.

Rice’s election is a triumph for critics who claim that the denomination has lost its way in recent years. He has alleged that the SBC’s sexual abuse crisis was more hoax than reality and said that the denomination’s leaders had followed the culture more than the Bible.

RELATED: SBC tries to move on from abuse crisis, will debate women pastors…

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Is it about preventing abuse in the future, or just a monument to scandals of the past?

The bishops of the United States are set to vote this week on updates to the Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People, known as the “Dallas Charter.”

During their spring assembly in Florida this week, the bishops will consider a slate of changes to the document, first issued in 2002 and last updated in 2018, in the last days before the McCarrick scandal broke across the Church in the United States, kicking off a new wave of reckoning with historical allegations of abuse and episcopal negligence.

Since then, the Church has entered a new era of canonical processes, following the 2019 promulgation of Vos estis lux mundi by Pope Francis. Alongside this, a steady stream of investigations and reports from states’ attorneys general have led to state level legislation creating look-back windows,…

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Pope Leo XIV met with victims of clergy sex abuse Monday, June 8, in Madrid, engaging with the Spanish church’s abuse crisis that has loomed large over the first papal visit to Spain in 15 years.

At the residence of the Vatican ambassador where he was staying in the Spanish capital, the pope met for almost an hour with six people who were abused by “members of the clergy and the church in Spain, accompanied by Church personnel involved in supporting the victims,” the Vatican said in a statement.

“Each person present shared their own painful personal experiences and offered the Pope suggestions on how to make the Church’s response to such tragic cases more effective,” it said.

“The Pope listened with affection and attention, assured them of his closeness — and that of the entire Church community — and pledged his commitment to ensuring that the suggestions received serve…

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Pope Leo XIV on Monday denounced the “scourge” of sexual violence by Catholic clergy and called for a “culture of care” in the Church ahead of an expected private meeting with victims in Spain.

“One of the most painful encounters is with those who have been wounded precisely by those who were supposed to care for them, including members of the clergy,” the first U.S.-born pope said, according to the Reuters news service.

“Faced with this scourge, the ecclesial community is called to respond with listening, truth, justice, reparation and an ever more determined commitment to prevention and a culture of care,” the pontiff told a gathering of Spanish bishops.

“Every wounded person must be able to find sincere listening, welcome, protection and real paths to healing,” he said.

Spanish media said the pope would speak later on Monday with victims at the Vatican embassy in Madrid, formally known as…

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Pope Leo XIV met with several survivors of sexual abuse in an hourlong meeting in which he listened to their experiences and their proposals on how the Catholic Church can promote safety and healing for victims, the Vatican said.  

According to a statement released by the Vatican press office June 8, six people who had been abused by members of the clergy, who were “accompanied by Church personnel engaged in working close with victims,” met with the pontiff.

“In the course of the conversation, which lasted nearly an hour, starting from their own painful personal experiences, each of those present offered the pope some proposals to make the Church’s response to such dramatic cases more effective,” the statement read. 

The Vatican said Pope Leo “listened with affection and attention” and renewed his commitment “so that the proposals received may serve as a foundation for further efforts and the Church can…

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Pope Leo closed his whirlwind stay in the capital city of Spain Monday by sending a message to the local Church to overcome division and work as a community to build a society based on justice and love.

“To build something new, beautiful and lasting, we must be willing to tear down walls. In order to set out on the path again, we need spaces that allow us to catch a glimpse of the horizon,” the pope said June 8, in a visit to Madrid’s cathedral.

After speaking to members of Spanish parliament, addressing the country’s bishops, and meeting with a small group of clerical abuse victims, the pontiff on Monday paid a visit to the capital city’s Cathedral of Almudena, consecrated by Pope John Paul II in 1993 after 90 years of construction.

RELATED: Pope pushes pro-life message in speech to Spanish lawmakers

RELATED: Pope meets abuse…

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Survivor advocates say recent canon law reforms do not go far enough and are calling for a universal requirement that clergy found guilty of child sexual abuse be permanently removed from ministry.

On Oct. 20, 2025, Pope Leo XIV met with representatives of End Child Abuse (ECA), a global advocacy group representing the victims of child sexual abuse. ECA put it to Pope Leo that he should make universal a provision of canon law promulgated in 2002 for the United States that the punishment for even a single case of child sexual abuse should be permanent deprivation of ministry.

The Pontifical Council for the Protection of Minors (PCPM), in its 2024 Universal Guidelines Framework, defined “zero tolerance” as the permanent deprivation of ministry and stated that it should be imposed. Those Guidelines are not canon law, and there is no obligation for bishops and canonical tribunals…

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Pope Leo XIV on Monday promised victims of sexual violence by Catholic clergy that the Church would make “additional efforts” to change during a meeting in Madrid.

The leader of the world’s 1.4 billion Catholics spent an hour with six victims of sexual violence by the clergy on day three of a state visit to Spain where the issue has come up regularly.

Each victim recounted “painful personal experience” and put forward proposals “for making the Church’s response to such tragic cases more effective”, the Vatican said in a statement.

Leo assured them of his “commitment to ensure” that their proposals “become a foundation for additional efforts, so that the Church may truly be a safe and spiritually healthy place”.

Earlier on Monday, Leo told a gathering of Spanish bishops that faced with this “scourge”, the Church should respond “with listening, truth, justice, reparation and an ever more determined commitment…

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On the afternoon of his third day in Spain, June 8, Pope Leo XIV met with six victims of clerical sexual abuse at the Vatican embassy in Madrid, the Vatican said in a statement. 

“During the conversation, which lasted nearly an hour, each person present shared their own painful personal experiences and offered the pope suggestions on how to make the Church’s response to such tragic cases more effective,” the statement said.

It said Pope Leo “listened with affection and attention, assured them of his closeness—and that of the entire Church community—and pledged his commitment to ensuring that the suggestions received serve as a foundation for further efforts, so that the Church may truly be a safe and spiritually healthy place where wounds find comfort and healing.”

It was a small but important gesture in this land where, according to the country’s ombudsman, there have been an estimated 200,000 cases…

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State lawmakers have officially sent legislation designed to deliver accountability for victims of childhood sexual abuse to Gov. Dan McKee’s desk.

The legislation, sponsored by Rep. Carol Hagan McEntee and Sen. Mark McKenney, extends the window in which victims of childhood sexual abuse can sue institutions, organizations and individuals for damages.RELATED: Senate advances amended clergy sex abuse legislation

“It’s been a long and difficult journey to get to this vote,” said Hagan McEntee, whose sister is a survivor of clergy sex abuse. “Too many victims have been denied justice for far too long, and powerful organizations that enabled and covered up this horrific abuse have escaped accountability and reckoning for decades.”

“It’s often said that justice delayed is justice denied,” she continued. “This was true for many years in Rhode Island for childhood victims of sexual assault, but today, these brave survivors were finally given the opportunity to secure…

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More than 11,000 Southern Baptist church representatives will gather in Orlando this week, where they will debate women pastors and send out missionaries.

Over the past decade, members of the Southern Baptist Convention have touted the denomination’s diversity, sought to keep sexual abusers away from churches and passed statements advocating for immigration reform and a path to legal status for those in the country without authorization.

Now, for a vocal group of Southern Baptists, diversity is seen as too woke for the Bible. The two candidates running for SBC president say the SBC does not have an abuse crisis, with one claiming the sexual abuse crisis was a “snipe hunt” that led Baptists astray. And the more than 11,000 local church delegates, known as messengers, gathering at the Orange County Convention Center in Orlando, Florida, this week will debate a resolution that claims compassion should not get in the way…

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A former Lexington pastor charged with sexually abusing a young church member is now heading to prison, following action taken by the Kentucky Attorney General’s Office.

Zachary King, who previously served as executive pastor of LexCity Church, appeared in Fayette Circuit Court Thursday for his sentencing hearing.

The 48-year-old King was sentenced to 13 years in prison. He had previously pleaded guilty to Rape 1st Degree (a Class B Felony punishable by 10-20 years in prison), Sodomy 1st Degree (also a Class B Felony), Procuring or Promoting Use of a Minor in Sexual Activities (a Class D Felony with a one to five year prison term), Unlawful Transaction with a Minor First Degree (a Class C Felony with five to ten years in prison), Rape in the 3rd Degree (Class D Felony), Sodomy 3rd Degree (Class D Felony), and Sex Abuse 1st Degree (Class D Felony) in March.

The Attorney…

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A former Baltimore County youth pastor pleaded guilty on Monday to sexually abusing a minor.

Thomas Pinkerton Jr., 52, was arrested at his home in Georgia in August 2025 and was extradited to Maryland. He was charged with 24 charges, including multiple counts of child abuse, assault, sex offense, and sexual abuse of a minor. 

Under a plea deal, Pinkerton faces up to four years in prison. He will spend five additional years on probation and will have to register as a sex offender.

Pinkerton, who was a pastor at Central Christian Church in Rossville, sexually abused teenage boys between 2006 and 2010.

Victims reported sexual abuse by a youth pastor

Pinkerton pleaded guilty to sexually abusing a single victim, according to our media partner, The Baltimore Banner, but prosecutors plan to include the others who reported abuse at the sentencing.

According to court records,…

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A retired priest accused of several sex crimes in Westmoreland County has waived his preliminary hearing after showing up to court Monday.

Robert Byrnes, 84, is charged with aggravated indecent assault, obstruction of administration of law or other governmental functions and official oppression.

The former Pennsylvania State Police chaplain was arrested in May for alleged sex crimes during his time as a practicing priest.

In March, a former kitchen worker at Christ Our Shepherd Center went to state police and alleged that Byrnes sexually assaulted him while he was a resident there in 2009.

Police said during the course of the investigation, another victim was identified who also worked there.

“There are two people who we believe, right now, are victims,” Trooper Steve Limani said.

According to court documents, the two men confronted Byrnes about the alleged abuse during recorded phone calls as part of the investigation. Both…

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Ohio State University agreed Wednesday to pay approximately $100 million to settle legal claims from hundreds of former student athletes who said they were sexually abused decades ago by a doctor at the university.

The school has fought lawsuits in federal court since 2018 brought by former student athletes against the university over its failure to stop abuse by Dr. Richard Strauss.

Strauss worked at the school from 1978 to 1998 and also ran an off-campus clinic. He died in 2005.

During a meeting Wednesday, the school’s Board of Trustees approved a preliminary agreement with all but one of the 280 survivors with claims still involved in pending litigation. Once finalized, the settlement could mark the end of a lengthy legal battle and close a painful chapter in the school’s history.

“The survivors of the Strauss abuse are all Buckeyes, will always be a part of our family…

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MADRID (AP) — Pope Leo XIV met Monday with six survivors of clergy sexual abuse in Madrid and vowed to consider their suggestions for how the Catholic Church can improve its response to the crisis, the Vatican said.

The meeting, which followed in the tradition of popes meeting with abuse survivors during their foreign trips, lasted about an hour and took place at the Vatican embassy in Madrid, the Vatican said in a statement.

Spain’s Catholic hierarchy has only recently begun reckoning with its legacy of abuse and cover-up after long dismissing the severity of the scandal that came to light thanks to reporting by the newpaper El País.

In 2023, the Spanish government’s ombudsman delivered a damning 800-page report estimating there were hundreds of thousands of possible victims in Spain over decades — based on a survey of 8,000 people. The report also examined 487 known cases.

Spain’s bishops…

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At their Florida meeting on June 10–12, the American Catholic bishops will vote on proposed revisions to the Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People, colloquially known as the Dallas Charter. The Charter was adopted in 2002 and last updated in 2018. While the document rightly focuses on the Church’s commitment to safeguarding minors and preventing abuse, the Charter has long been criticized for failing to emphasize the need for due process for accused priests. Catholic priests have an abiding interest in the Charter since it provides the philosophical framework for how any accusation against them will be handled. 

The National Study of Catholic Priests, conducted by the Catholic University of America in 2022, found that 82 percent of clergy live under the fear of being falsely accused. The bishops should look carefully at that number since priests are not asking for…

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During his third day in the Spanish capital of Madrid, Pope Leo XIV holds a private meeting with victims of abuse by members of the clergy in Spain.

Pope Leo XIV had a meeting on Monday with victims of abuse by members of the clergy in Spain, stated Matteo Bruni, Director of the Holy See Press Office, on Telegram.

In the message, Bruni noted that the Holy Father met with six abuse victims who were accompanied by Church personnel engaged in supporting and accompanying victims.

“During the conversation, which lasted nearly an hour,” the Holy See Press Office Director noted, “each of those present, drawing on their own painful personal experiences, offered the Pope a number of proposals aimed at making the Church’s response to such tragic cases more effective.”

“The Pope,” Bruni continued, “listened with affection and attentiveness, assured them of his closeness—as well as that of the…

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By  SUMAN NAISHADHAM and NICOLE WINFIELD

MADRID (AP) — Pope Leo XIV told Spain’s Catholic hierarchy on Monday to provide reparations to survivors of clergy sexual abuse and deal with the crisis transparently, ahead of an expected meeting with survivors during his weeklong visit to the country.

Leo told Spanish bishops the entire church community should have an “ever more determined commitment to prevention and a culture of care.” The Spanish hierarchy had largely dismissed the scale of abuse in their church for decades until a newspaper began documenting a legacy of abuse and cover-up.

“Faced with this scourge, the ecclesial community is called to respond with listening, truth, justice reparation,” Leo said. “Every wounded person must be able to find sincere listening, welcome, protection and real paths to healing.”

Spain launched a reparations system this year

Amid public outrage over the abuse crisis, Spain launched a reparations system earlier this year for clerical…

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“The current draft maintains alignment with the Charter’s original intention.”

The U.S. bishops’ conference is set to vote next week on a revised version of their landmark safeguarding document, the Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People.

But while there have been calls in recent years for a broad overhaul of the document in light of the fallout from clerical sexual abuse scandals beginning in 2018, the revised document presents only a few substantial modifications from the text currently in force.

And according to a memo sent to U.S. bishops, the changes to the charter will not impact a related canonical policy for the U.S., the “Essential Norms for Diocesan/Eparchial Policies Dealing with Allegations of Sexual Abuse of Minors by Priests or Deacons.”

—
In an explanatory memo obtained by The Pillar on the charter’s revisions, USCCB safeguarding committee chairman Bishop Barry Knestout explained to bishops how the 2026 revised draft…

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When Southern Baptists gather for their annual convention next week, they’ll debate for the fourth year in a row whether to oust churches with women pastors.

They just can’t let this go.

We’re seeing the previews of the debate play out on social media, and this time around, they’re even more rabid. Now, they’re not just talking about churches with women who carry the title of “pastor,” but churches with women who “function” in any way that resembles something a pastor might do.

With seminary president Al Mohler in the vanguard, they’ve even been debating whether women can talk on church podcasts. Mohler said it would be a “problem.”

Yeah. I kid you not.

To the rest of the world, I imagine this all looks ludicrous. But this is Baptistland, where the “good-ole-boys” gather in their “no girls allowed” clubhouse and beat their chests over…

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The legislation comes after a scathing report that detailed decades of clergy abuse and potential cover-ups within the Diocese of Providence

Jeremy Bernfeld and Ian Donnis

More survivors of sexual abuse will be permitted to sue Rhode Island-based institutions like the Roman Catholic Church under legislation poised to become law this week.

The legislation will open a “revival window” during which lawsuits would be allowed against institutions alleged to be responsible for enabling or covering up abuse, even if the statute of limitations on the claims has previously expired. The window would open July 1, 2026 and close on June 30, 2028.

The Rhode Island Senate passed its version of the legislation on Wednesday, catching up with the state House. Now, both chambers are slated to consider a final bill on Monday, according to state House spokesman Larry Berman. The legislation is expected to pass the House and…

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VATICAN CITY, June 5 (Reuters) – Pope Leo will meet with survivors ​of sexual abuse by Catholic ‌clergy during his week-long visit to Spain, the Vatican said ​on Friday.

Further information will ​only be provided after the ⁠meeting, a statement said, so ​as to protect the survivors’ ​privacy.

Leo, the first U.S. pope, is leaving on Saturday to visit ​Spain and the Canary ​Islands from June 6 to 12.
The possibility ‌of ⁠the pope meeting abuse survivors had been the subject of media reporting in recent ​days.

A ​2023 report ⁠by Spain’s human rights ombudsman estimated hundreds ​of thousands of victims ​of ⁠clergy abuse there over decades, echoing similar scandals that ⁠have ​shaken the Church ​in places across the globe.

Reporting by Joshua ​McElwee; Editing by Angelo Amante

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St Anthony of Padua asks for prayers for survivors after removing Anthony Odiong’s name from list of intentions

A Louisiana Catholic church that solicited prayers for a former pastor recently sentenced to life imprisonment for criminal clerical sexual assault, then backed off, having offended his victims, is asking its community to pray for survivors of clergy abuse.

The shift took place in an updated 7 June parochial bulletin published by St Anthony of Padua church in the New Orleans suburb of Luling, Louisiana, where priest Anthony Odiong was pastor from 2015 to late 2023.

A state criminal court jury in Waco, Texas, where Odiong previously ministered, convicted him on 29 May of first- and second-degree sexual assault. Those jurors sentenced him to life in prison on 2 June, having determined that he illegally exploited his spiritual authority as a clergyman to pursue a years-long sexual relationship with a congregant identified in court…

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Charges unrelated to time at St. John’s and St. Benedict in Toledo, school administrators say

TOLEDO, Ohio (WTVG) – A former Toledo Catholic School teacher and coach has been arrested in Florida for allegedly possessing child sexual abuse material, authorities said.

Patrick Russell was arrested on a child pornography charge and booked into a Broward County jail. Charging documents allege he admitted to FBI agents that he kept child sexual abuse material.

TOLEDO TIES

Russell previously worked at St. John’s Jesuit and St. Benedict in Toledo.

Both schools addressed the arrest, saying there’s no evidence of crimes being committed during his time with the Toledo respective schools.

A St. John’s spokesperson said he was employed there as a teacher and coach from fall of 2013 to spring of 2016.

The statement to St. Benedict families said Russell was employed at the school in 2015. It added that the school wasn’t…

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MADRID, Spain — Pope Leo XIV on Saturday called for an end to “polarizing narratives” and “sterile simplifications” on a week-long visit to Spain expected to focus on the divisive issue of immigration.

Leo also thanked Spain, whose Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez has clashed with US President Donald Trump over Iran and with Israel over the war in Gaza, for its “faithful adherence to international law and multilateralism”.

Speaking at the royal palace in Madrid, where he was received by King Felipe VI and Queen Letizia, he praised Spain’s “active commitment to peace and solidarity among peoples”.

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The US-born pontiff himself has been harshly criticized by Trump for his anti-war views.

READ: Pope Leo marks first Easter with call for hope amid conflicts

The pope said the message of peace “at present unfortunately strikes some as naive and others as confrontational”, but should instead be…

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Catholic dioceses have paid around $5 billion in abuse settlements and related costs from 2004 to June 2025 according to figures in the report, though the total to date likely exceeds $6 billion when factoring in recent settlements.

More than 1,000 allegations of child sexual abuse were reported in US dioceses during the 2025 fiscal year, according to the US bishops’ annual safeguarding report.

On 27 May, the US Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) Secretariat of Child and Youth Protection and its National Review Board released its 2025 annual report of “Findings and Recommendations on the Implementation of the Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People”.

The report covers the period from 1July 2024 to 30 June 30, with 194 of the nation’s 196 dioceses and eparchies taking part.  

In his preface, the USCCB president Archbishop Paul Coakley of Oklahoma City said that all the dioceses and…

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Pope Leo will meet with survivors ​of sexual abuse by Catholic ‌clergy during his week-long visit to Spain, the Vatican said ​on Friday.

Further information will ​only be provided after the ⁠meeting, a statement said, so ​as to protect the survivors’ ​privacy.

The Reuters Daily Briefing newsletter provides all the news you need to start your day. Sign up here.

Leo, the first U.S. pope, is leaving on Saturday to visit ​Spain and the Canary ​Islands from June 6 to 12.

The possibility ‌of ⁠the pope meeting abuse survivors had been the subject of media reporting in recent ​days.

A ​2023 report ⁠by Spain’s human rights ombudsman estimated hundreds ​of thousands of victims ​of ⁠clergy abuse there over decades, echoing similar scandals that ⁠have ​shaken the Church ​in places across the globe.

Reporting by Joshua ​McElwee; Editing by Angelo Amante

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Dioceses and orders keep the same wall of silence and opacity they have shown for eight years: EL PAÍS asked 211 entities again about the handling of the cases and only three replied

EL PAÍS launched an investigation into child sexual abuse by members of the Spanish Church in 2018 and maintains a database updated with all known cases. If you know of a case that has not come to light, you can write to: abusos@elpais.es. If it is a case in Latin America, the email address is: abusosamerica@elpais.es.

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Spain’s Catholic Church refuses to speak about it and continues to bury a central truth: the decades‑long cover‑up of child sexual abuse cases. Even after finally acknowledging the scandal following years of denial, the major taboo that still needs to be broken in order to uncover the full truth is recognizing, investigating, and clarifying the responsibility of those who protected…

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Leer en español 

In the 1970s, in a devoutly Catholic Spain still ruled by dictator Francisco Franco, Paula Alonso-Pimentel was sent for catechism at age 8 to a religious school in the northern city of Valladolid.

There, she says, a Marist priest sexually abused her for a year in the school’s vestibule, placing her on his knees and lifting her skirt as students passed in and out. More than 50 years later, she is seeking reparations.

Spain’s long-delayed reckoning with sexual abuse within the Catholic Church entered a new phase this year with the launch of a reparations program for cases like Alonso-Pimentel’s that involve accused clergy members who have died and whose alleged crimes are too old to be prosecuted.

The Spanish bishops conference and Spain’s government approved the program months before Pope Leo XIV ’s planned visit starting Saturday to the once overwhelmingly Catholic nation of 50 million people….

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Pope Leo XIV has said sexual abuse within the Catholic Church remained “an open wound” as he began a trip to Spain that will include a meeting with victims.

The 70-year-old’s week-long state visit – the first by a pontiff to Spain since 2010 – kicked off at Madrid airport, where King Felipe VI, Queen Letizia and Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez welcomed him.

He is due to meet some victims of sexual abuse by Catholic clergy, the Vatican said, with the Pope telling reporters on the papal plane upon arrival that the issue was “still an open wound”.

Some 200,000 minors are estimated to have suffered abuse in Spain since 1940, according to a 2023 report from Spain’s national ombudsman.

Mr Sanchez’s government and the Catholic Church in Spain signed an agreement in March to compensate victims after years of reticence and opacity from the Church hierarchy.

A reception of…

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As the Indigenous people of Canada and the United States continue to fight for self-governance and for control of their traditional territories, many of them point to the Catholic Church and the “Doctrine of Discovery” as being a prime cause for loss of their full rights.

The foundations of the “Doctrine of Discovery” usually are traced to papal documents from the 15th century but also include later philosophical and political positions and legal rulings asserting that ownership of or sovereignty over land passed automatically to European colonizers by virtue of their having “discovered” it, irrespective of the presence of Indigenous occupants.

“I have thought of the ‘Doctrine of Discovery’ as gum underneath my shoes — wherever I go, it is there — and I thought one day, I am going to change my shoes and wear our moccasins and, dang it, there is gum there, too,” said Grand Chief Edward…

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A Texas bishop is assuring the faithful their sacraments remain valid after the priest who administered them was sentenced to life imprisonment for sexual assaults of several women in his spiritual care — with the criminal trial allegedly revealing information unreported to the diocese.

Life Sentence Handed Down

Bishop Daniel E. Garcia of Austin released a June 3 pastoral message a day after Father Anthony Odiong received life in prison plus two 20-year prison terms and $30,000 in fines.

The 57-year-old priest had been convicted of one charge of sexual assault in the first degree and two in the second degree in a May 29 verdict delivered at the 19th State District Court in Waco, Texas.

Under Texas law, clergy abuse of adults in their pastoral care is a felony. Other states, such as Georgia, have also criminalized such conduct.

The case — which has been extensively covered since 2023 by investigative journalist…

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Key takeaways

• Assistant principal in Texas arrested for allegedly offering to buy student alcohol and lingerie in exchange for sex, according to Wylie Police Department.
• Zachary Neu, 32, was fired from Wylie East High School after being charged with compelling prostitution for someone under 18 and improper relationship between educator and student.
• Neu, who worked at the school since 2017, is still in custody as of June 5, and authorities are urging anyone with concerns about interactions with him to contact the Wylie Police Department.

An assistant principal in Texas has been arrested after he allegedly offered to buy a student alcohol and lingerie in exchange for sex.

The Wylie Police Department said that Zachary Neu was arrested on Thursday, June 4, after police learned he sent inappropriate messages to a former student who had recently graduated, according to a statement shared on the department’s Facebook page.

…

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Key takeaways

• Powered by Yahoo Scout. Yahoo is using AI to generate key points from this article. This means the info may not always match what’s in the article. Reporting mistakes helps us improve the experience.

• Jesuit High School in New Orleans has agreed to pay a seven-figure sum to settle a lawsuit alleging child molestation by janitors at the institution decades earlier.

One of the most prominent Catholic high schools in New Orleans has agreed to pay a seven-figure sum to settle a lawsuit claiming child molestation by janitors at the institution decades earlier. 

The plaintiff struck the agreement with Jesuit High School ahead of a trial scheduled to start in Civil Court on June 15, roughly six years after he sued under a pseudonym. 

The plaintiff’s attorney, Richard Trahant, said on Friday that he couldn’t discuss the specific amount…

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An independent report shows that two priests who oversaw University of Notre Dame residence halls sexually abused several students during their tenure in the 1980s and 1990s, with both continuing their abuse in parish settings after leaving the school.

The findings also highlight key issues recently named by the nation’s Catholic bishops – such as gaps in communications, records management and oversight – that have continued to hamper safe environment efforts.

The university announced the report in a May 28 press release, stating that an “external investigation” identified “instances of sexual abuse and a predatory pattern of behavior” by Holy Cross Father Thomas King, a member of the order that founded and operates the school.

From 1980 to 1997, King had served as rector of Zahm Hall, an all-male dormitory that is part of the school’s single-sex undergraduate residence hall system. After his time at Notre Dame, King also served…

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SNAP Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests is ecstatic that the Rhode Island Senate has approved legislation that would open the Roman Catholic Diocese of Providence to sex abuse lawsuits after survivors in the state worked tirelessly to get justice on behalf of all those affected by predatory priests.

Rhode Island Senators voted 37-0 Wednesday to approve a bill to create a two-year window allowing previously time-barred claims against church hierarchy, who enabled the abuse to continue and covered it up. The window would open on July 1, 2026 and close on June 30, 2028.

“SNAP is over the moon with this vote to allow more time for survivors to seek justice,” said Angela Walker, SNAP’s Executive Director. “We believe that survivors, their families and the people of Rhode Island deserve complete transparency and a full accounting of what happened, who knew and how survivors’ abuse was allowed to…

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The court also ordered the Congregation of St. Basil to pay $14,000.

An appeals court in Canada has rejected a request by the Congregation of St. Basil to dismiss a lawsuit against the congregation and its prominent member Fr. Thomas Rosica.

The Court of Appeal for Ontario issued a June 4 decision upholding a lower court’s ruling that the case against Rosica may move forward. The court ordered Rosica’s congregation to pay $14,000 in legal costs.

The lawsuit, filed in Ontario in March 2024, alleges that Rosica sexually assaulted a young priest who was helping him with preparation for the 2002 World Youth Day celebrations.

The lawsuit also charges that Rosica’s religious order, the Congregation of St. Basil, failed to properly supervise Rosica, and ignored complaints about his inappropriate interactions with young men.

Rosica, who denies the allegations, had appealed to have the lawsuit dismissed, saying the case should be…

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For over 10 years, a TN mom was silenced by an NDA signed after her child’s sexual abuse case at a Brentwood church. A new ruling changed that — and might give other victims their voices back.

Key Points

• A 2018 state law banned nondisclosure agreements from applying to cases of child sexual abuse. The law was largely forgotten, and no court case referenced it — until recently.
• A significant Williamson County court case that finalized recently ruled that the law also applies to NDAs signed before the law went into effect.
• The ruling gives a voice back to a Brentwood mom who has been silent for over 10 years following the alleged sexual abuse of her child at a local church — and could empower other victims to speak out.

This story contains references to sexual abuse including sexual abuse against children. The Sexual Assault Center…

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Anthony Odiong was sentenced to life in prison for sex crimes against his congregants in Waco.

A Luling church where a Catholic priest served as pastor before being convicted in Texas of criminal clergy sexual assault and sentenced to life in prison has been criticized by his victims and their supporters for soliciting prayers on his behalf in a parochial bulletin published after his guilty verdict — which neglected to mention the survivors. 

One of the two women whom Anthony Odiong was convicted of assaulting in Waco, Texas, identified in court proceedings as Mary Doe, issued a statement on Tuesday encouraging St. Anthony of Padua’s parishioners in Luling to pray for his victims, too. 

The other of those women in Waco, given the pseudonym Jane Doe in court, said in her own statement that her “honest response is sadness, not anger”. 

Attorney Kristi Schubert, who represents yet another woman who publicly spoke out…

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Patrick Conor Russell, a former Catholic school teacher and coach in Wisconsin, has been arrested in Florida on charges of possessing child sexual abuse images, prompting calls for an investigation into his time at Milwaukee-area schools.

Investigators in Florida have arrested a former Milwaukee-area Catholic school teacher and coach.

Federal prosecutors have charged 37-year-old Patrick Conor Russell with possessing child sexual abuse images while teaching at a religious school in Boca Raton.

They allege Russell sent and received explicit images of minors. Court documents said he also sent disturbing messages about his own students.

A federal charging document states Russell messaged someone multiple times about being a teacher, including one message that read, “If you were a student in my high school English class, what would you do to hit on me?”

Another message referenced his time as a coach, stating, “Get to see them so much. But too risky…

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Nesbit, Mississippi, residents are reacting after a former De Soto County priest-in-training pleaded guilty to possessing and distributing child exploitation material.

Johnathan Tu Nguyen-Vuong could face a minimum of five to forty years in prison when he’s sentenced in August. His charges stem from a July 2025 investigation.

Former priest-in-training pleads guilty to child sex crime

At the time of his arrest, Nguyen-Vuong was living at St. Michael’s Community House in Nesbit, where investigators found his computer in the process of uploading and downloading child sexual abuse material.

“It is really sad. It is heartbreaking. It’s upsetting, very upsetting,” said Krista Dornier, Principal of Ambleside School.

Dornier is the principal of Ambleside School, a private Christian school, located in Nesbit, sitting about a hundred yards from where investigators made the discovery.Priest-in-training accused of possessing child porn

“When I was contacted by our local County Supervisor,it was definitely concerning…

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The criminal case has been stayed for a former West Virginia youth pastor facing numerous charges of child sex abuse so that prosecutors can investigate the claims of a new report from a previously unknown alleged victim. 

John Radcliff was initially arrested in September 2024 and charged with more than 100 counts. 

Editor’s note: This article refers to reports of child sex abuse that some readers might find triggering and/or disturbing.

Radcliff was first arrested for incidents of child sex abuse that were alleged to have occurred between 2018 and 2019. After his arrest, more alleged victims came forward, and a sprawling investigation across several counties ensued, resulting in more charges for crimes alleged to have occurred between 1987 and 2003. 

RELATED: Pastor Found Guilty of Sexually Motivated Battery

Court documents did not disclose where Radcliff served as a youth pastor but said that he was “a preacher and led…

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Former LexCity Church pastor Zachary King was sentenced on Thursday to 13 years in prison for rape and sexual abuse of a minor.

King appeared before Fayette County Circuit Court Judge Julie Goodman in an emotional courtroom that included former members of the LexCity Church community.

King’s victim, who was 15 years old when the abuse began, spoke for more than half an hour, detailing more than two and a half years of sexual and psychological abuse and the lasting impact it has had on their physical and mental health.

King entered a guilty plea in March to seven charges: first-degree rape, first-degree sodomy, procuring or promoting the use of a minor by electronic means, unlawful transaction with a minor in the first degree involving an illegal controlled substance, third-degree rape, third-degree sodomy, and first-degree sexual abuse.

His attorneys and the Commonwealth reached a mutual agreement on his sentence. Judge…

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A former Lexington pastor was sentenced for multiple sex crime charges on Thursday in Fayette Circuit Court.

Zachary King, 48, was sentenced to 13 years in prison after pleading guilty to several charges in March, including:

1. First-degree rape
2. First-degree sodomy
3. Procuring or promoting use of a minor in sexual activities
4. First-degree unlawful transaction with a minor
5. Third-degree rape
6. Third-degree sodomy
7. First-degree sex abuse

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Two days after Senate leaders pledged their support, the chamber approved legislation that would open the Roman Catholic Diocese of Providence and other institutions to sex-abuse lawsuits.

Senators voted 37-0 Wednesday to approve an amended bill sponsored by Sen. Mark McKenney, a Warwick Democrat, that would create a two-year “revival window” allowing previously time-barred claims against institutions and supervisors accused of enabling or covering up sexual abuse. 

The window would open on July 1, 2026, and close on June 30, 2028.

McKenney’s proposal was introduced after Rhode Island Attorney General Peter Neronha released a 282-page report in March detailing decades of abuse by clergy and covered up by the Diocese of Providence.

“We made sure last week that every senator had a hard copy of the Attorney General’s report,” McKenney said on the Senate floor. “It’s particularly difficult to read that online at over 280 pages, but if you…

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In the 1970s, in a devoutly Catholic Spain still ruled by dictator Francisco Franco, Paula Alonso-Pimentel was sent for catechism at age 8 to a religious school in the northern city of Valladolid.

There, she says, a Marist priest sexually abused her for a year in the school’s vestibule, placing her on his knees and lifting her skirt as students passed in and out. More than 50 years later, she is seeking reparations.

Spain’s long-delayed reckoning with sexual abuse within the Catholic Church entered a new phase this year with the launch of a reparations program for cases like Alonso-Pimentel’s that involve accused clergy members who have died and whose alleged crimes are too old to be prosecuted.

The Spanish bishops conference and Spain’s government approved the program months before Pope Leo XIV ’s planned visit starting Saturday to the once overwhelmingly Catholic nation of 50 million people. Notably, it gives the…

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A Roman Catholic priest who was convicted recently of criminal clergy sexual assault in Texas has been sentenced to life imprisonment.

Anthony Odiong was convicted of exploiting his spiritual authority as a clergyman for sex with his congregants.

Anthony Odiong, 57, received the punishment from a jury at a state courthouse in Waco on Tuesday after some witnesses described his sexually inappropriate behavior going back more than a decade. Character witnesses on behalf of Odiong, meanwhile, advocated for him to get probation, saying he could follow such an arrangement’s rules – such as living near Waco and not committing additional crimes – despite feloniously breaking his priestly vows of chastity.

Odiong entered the two-day proceeding beginning on Monday knowing he faced between five and 99 years – or life – in prison after being found guilty of a first-degree sexual assault charge. He was also found guilty of two second-degree…

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A disgraced priest who served for years in Texas and Louisiana has been sentenced to life in prison after being found guilty of sex crimes last week.

The 57-year-old convict, Father Anthony Odiong of the Diocese of Uyo, Nigeria, served for years in the Diocese of Austin, Texas, and in the Archdiocese of New Orleans.

The jury that heard the case for the 19th District Court of Texas’s McLennan County in Waco, Texas, also pronounced the sentence, which included two 20-year terms for second-degree sexual assault felonies in addition to the life sentence for first-degree felony sexual assault.

The sentences are to run concurrently, and Odiong will be eligible for parole in 30 years.

Prosecutors had offered Odiong a plea deal that would have seen him serve 20 years, but the priest rejected the deal and went to trial last week.

RELATED: Odiong guilty in Texas and questions remain…

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A Catholic priest from Nigeria has been sentenced in a Texas court to life in prison, as well as to two 20-year prison terms plus $30,000 in fines, for sexually abusing several women under his spiritual care — a felony crime in that state.

Father Anthony Odiong, a priest of the Diocese of Uyo, Nigeria, who had once served in the Diocese of Austin and other dioceses in the U.S., had been charged under Texas state law with several felony counts of sexual assault.

After listening to graphic testimony from several witnesses, the jury found the 57-year-old priest guilty of one charge of sexual assault in the first degree and two in the second degree, in a May 29 verdict delivered at the 19th State District Court in Waco, Texas.

After deliberating for 90 minutes June 1, the jury recommended its sentence to presiding Judge Thomas West.

Father Odiong —…

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A local pastor and school employee was arrested for alleged sex crimes against minors.

Court filings show Christopher Walter, 52, of Deshler, is charged with grooming and “sexual battery: victim is a minor, offender is a peace officer two or more years older than victim.”

Administrators with Patrick Henry Local Schools confirmed Walter was an employee with the district, working as a bus driver. He was suspended without pay.

A statement from the school district said they will not comment further as the matter is a legal and personnel issue.

Walter is also listed online as the Lead Pastor for Immanuel Lutheran Church.

13 Action News reached out to Deshler Police for more information about the case. A statement from the department said no additional information is being released currently.

He was booked into CCNO on June 2, court records show. He was in court on June 3 where a…

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A former youth pastor accused of sexually abusing young girls appeared in Lewis County Circuit Court Wednesday morning.

The case against John Radcliff, II, was continued again until October.

Radcliff was indicted in July 2024 for sexually abusing multiple young girls when they were just 3 and 4 years old until they were around 12 years old — many of whom are his nieces. He is accused of making the girls, who are now adults, perform sexual acts on him and sexually assaulting them in other ways throughout their childhoods from 1987 through 2003.

In November 2024, Radcliff was arrested and charged with over 100 sex charges against children in four North Central West Virginia counties — Lewis, Harrison, Braxton and Nicholas.

Radcliff’s ex-wife, Kathy Radcliff, was charged with accessory in the case after victims reported that she knew about the abuse. She also appeared in court Wednesday and had…

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Christopher Gene Walter was arrested on Tuesday and booked at the Corrections Center of Northwest Ohio.

A Deshler, Ohio pastor was arrested Tuesday evening and charged with sexual battery of a minor, as well as grooming. 

According to records at the Corrections Center of Northwest Ohio (CCNO), Christopher Walter, 52, was booked at the jail at 6:32 p.m. Tuesday. He faces a charge of sexual battery, with the specification that the victim was a minor and the offender is a peace officer two or more years older than the victim. The Ohio Revised Code indicates this specification also applies to an incident when the “offender is a cleric, and the other person is a member of, or attends, the church or congregation served by the cleric.” This charge is a third-degree felony. 

Walter was also charged with misdemeanor grooming. Both charges were filed in Napoleon Municipal Court. 

Walter…

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A Chubb Ltd. unit must cover defense costs for a Southern California diocese in underlying suits alleging childhood sexual abuse.

Westchester Fire Insurance Co. needs to “drop down” and cover the Diocese of Orange’s legal defense costs after its primary insurer became insolvent, the US District Court for the Central District of California ruled Monday. The insurer sued the diocese in July 2024, seeking the court’s judgment on its duty to defend the claims.

Chubb units and other insurers have been involved in similar clashes with Catholic dioceses across the country aiming to avoid legal costs for sexual abuse claims.

Dioceses faced an onslaught of litigation following the passage of “reviver” statutes such the California Child Victims Act, which voided the statute of limitations for childhood sexual abuse claims. The Diocese of Orange has been named in a defendant in more than 200 suits brought under California’s law, according to the ruling.

A predecessor to…

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If legislation sponsored passes committee Wednesday, it will go to the full chamber the same day.

After years of stalling at the committee level, the Rhode Island Senate is poised to take up legislation to revive previously expired civil claims of sexual abuse against institutions such as the Roman Catholic Diocese of Providence.

An amended version of the bill sponsored by Sen. Mark McKenney, a Warwick Democrat, will be voted on by the chamber’s Committee on Judiciary when it meets Wednesday.

If approved by the panel, the bill will go to the full Senate chamber the same day.

“Today we are taking an important step toward providing survivors of child sexual abuse with meaningful access to the courts,” Sen. Matthew LaMountain, a Warwick Democrat who chairs the Senate Committee on Judiciary, told reporters at a press conference late Monday afternoon. “After months of testimony, legal analysis, constitutional review,…

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Antonio Meloto’s lawyer said they’re seeking detention at ‘a suitable facility’ due to his sensitive health condition

Filipino humanitarian Antonio Meloto, known for building homes for thousands of poor Filipinos, has been hospitalized days after his arrest north of Manila for alleged sex trafficking. 

The 76-year-old founder of Gawad Kalinga (GK), a globally-acclaimed nonprofit dedicated to poverty alleviation, has been accused of sexually abusing two males who were former GK beneficiaries. Meloto has denied the accusations, claiming they form part of a “demolition job.” 

The Department of Justice recommended a trafficking case against Meloto — a non-bailable offense — because he “held a position of authority over the complainants” and “abused them sexually to satisfy his lustful desire.”

Meloto was apprehended in Angat, Bulacan province, about 50 kilometers north of Manila, on May 29. The arrest took place in the village where Meloto allegedly abused the former GK beneficiaries. 

His…

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Attorney Mitchell Garabedian, who represents victims of clergy sex abuse, says parishes will be protected against past claims of abuse if they entered bankruptcy. It’s also an attempt to bring the bankruptcy to an end and move on. Garabedian explains more.

https://www.audacy.com/wben/podcasts/51a227a98e0a27dd7af8d4913b873249/episodes/attorney_mitchell_garabedian_e-8425471

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The Rhode Island House of Representatives passed legislation to allow child sex abuse victims to sue the Catholic Church and other institutions that failed to protect them from pedophiles.   As I write this, the Rhode Island Senate is dithering over whether to pass the legislation that would open a two-year revival window for claims that otherwise would have been barred by the statute of limitations. The Senate is also considering whether to ask the Supreme Court for an advisory opinion on the constitutionality of reviving time-barred civil claims in this context. It will be a shame if the Senate punts on this issue. Here’s why.

Attorney General Peter Nehrona’s report on clergy sexual abuse could only have happened because there is a mountain of evidence in the Diocese of Providence’s records which he sought and secured. Both he and the Honorable William Smith, former Chief Justice of the Federal…

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A total of 114 alleged abusers were named by the Independent Commission’s report.

The Archdiocese of Braga announced last week that a canonical process involving Father Albino Meireles, accused of child abuse, had concluded with his dismissal from the clerical state.

The announcement is the latest development in a process that has divided observers over whether the Church has done enough to respond to abuse allegations in the country.

The announcement came three years after members of the Independent Commission created to study sexual abuse within the Catholic Church in Portugal met with diocesan bishops and superiors of religious orders, handing them lists with the names of 114 alleged abusers identified during the period in which they wrote their report.

The outcome was expected, given that Meireles had already been convicted in a civil court for the same crimes. As is standard in such cases, the canonical tribunal awaited the…

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0RVUu9PWJsE

In a groundbreaking statement hidden in the bowels of the diocesan website Dioknox.org, Bishop of Knoxville, Mark Beckman, has release all victims of clergy sexual abuse from confidentiality agreements which have been imposed on them by the Church. Beckman says that the Church should not stand in the way of a victim’s healing.

Years of advocacy based on these very principles have fallen on deaf ears across the state of Tennessee. Tyler Whetstone, investigave reporter for the Knoxville News Sentinel, has produced a scathing report on the Diocese of Knoxville that pushed Beckman to make the statement on the release of Non-Disclosure Agreements, Non-Disparagement Agreements, and all other silencing language that has enslaved victims for decades.

The Diocese of Nashville and the Diocese of Memphis are guilty, as is Knoxville, of violating the Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People. Read the articles by…

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A “cunning” and “manipulative” former imam in east London has been given a life sentence with a minimum prison term of 20 years for a series of sexual attacks on women and girls as young as 12.

Abdul Halim Khan, 54, was described as having abused the trust and authority that came with his position to carry out attacks against seven victims from the local Muslim community between 2005 and 2014.

In February, Khan was found guilty of 21 counts of rape, sexual assault and child sexual offences against victims at what were described as isolated places, including flats and hidden locations.

Sentencing him, Judge Leslie Cuthbert described Khan’s “deliberate distortion of the Muslim faith”.

I was sexually assaulted by an imam. He told me he had supernatural powers

“You had a position of significant power and authority, a position you systematically abused for your own base sexual…

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First public admission of ritualistic child abuse in Israel’s religious-Zionist sector sparks national reckoning.

The Gush Etzion Regional Council in the Israeli-occupied West Bank has publicly admitted that ritualistic sexual abuse of children occurred within its communities, a confession that marks the first time a governing body in Israel’s religious-Zionist settler sector has broken ranks with years of denial.

The extraordinary statement came on 27 May 2026 in direct response to a broadcast by Israeli public broadcaster Kan 11, whose investigative programme ‘Zman Emet’ aired accounts from five women, most of whom did not know each other, who described virtually identical patterns of multi-perpetrator ritualistic sexual abuse in the same geographic areas.

The admission did not materialise in isolation. It is the culmination of more than a year of survivor testimony, Knesset hearings, rabbinical warnings, and police investigations that have shaken Israeli society to its core, forcing a reckoning…

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The Southern Baptist Convention’s Resolution Committee has offered a preemptive strike in the battle over women’s roles in the church.

The committee released its report June 1, just more than a week ahead of the SBC annual meeting to be held in Orlando June 9-10. Within SBC structures, the Resolutions Committee has wide latitude to consider resolutions presented by messengers in advance and to craft its own resolutions.

Messengers, as the voting attendees at the meeting are called, may attempt to edit, amend, delete or approve the resolutions one by one. They also may attempt to propose additional resolutions from the floor, but that typically requires parliamentary expertise to circumvent an automatic referral to the Resolutions Committee.

This year, the committee has proposed 11 resolutions, which are statements considered to express the will of those gathered at the annual meeting. Although technically nonbinding, the resolutions do carry extreme influence in the denomination’s…

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In an effort to bring its bankruptcy proceedings to a successful conclusion, the Diocese of Buffalo announced all its parishes will file “rapid prepackaged bankruptcy” cases.

Parishes in the Diocese of Buffalo, New York, will undergo “rapid” bankruptcy proceedings as part of a larger Chapter 11 process, the diocese has told the faithful.

A statement included in parish bulletins on May 31 said all parishes in the diocese would file “rapid prepackaged bankruptcy” cases in federal court “in an effort to bring the bankruptcy proceedings of the Diocese of Buffalo to a successful conclusion.”

The Buffalo Diocese has been moving through the bankruptcy process for a notable length of time. The diocese filed for bankruptcy in 2020 and has been working to finalize a major settlement since April 2025.

The announcement at parishes on May 31 said the parish bankruptcy filings would occur “immediately before a hearing on confirmation of the plan.”

…

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Victim: The Catholic Church and Baylor University are “historically inhospitable behemoths for sexual assault victims to implore for justice in McLennan County.”

Heeding a prosecutor’s plea to let their collective voices be heard by the Vatican, a McLennan County jury sentenced former Central Texas Catholic priest Anthony Odiong to a maximum life prison term on Tuesday.

Jurors in Waco’s 19th State District Court deliberated 90 minutes Tuesday before recommending that Judge Thomas West sentence the former charismatic spiritual adviser to life in prison and two 20-year prison terms, which Odiong will serve concurrently. They also returned fines totaling $30,000.

Jurors on Friday found Odiong guilty of one first-degree felony sexual assault count and two second-degree felony sexual assault counts.

The 57-year-old Odiong, a native Nigerian who served as a priest in Waco, West, Louisiana, Rome and Florida, must be given credit for serving at least 30 years in prison before he…

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Child sexual exploitation cases have been on the rise in the last several years, according to the most recent FBI data.

According to the FBI, child sexual exploitation includes production and distribution of child pornography, sex trafficking, sextortion, child enticement and grooming.

“I would say there’s been a steady increase year over year in all of those crimes,” FBI Supervisory Special Agent Dustin Grant said in an interview with ABC4 News Tuesday.

“There was a huge trend in sextortion of minors, specifically here in Utah, but across the country as well, but we saw a huge increase in those over the last four or five years, but bundled together, that increase has been steady over the last 12 years that I’ve been doing this here in Utah,” he said.

In fiscal year 2022, the FBI opened 4,881 child exploitation cases and made 2,682 arrests. By FY 2025, annual cases grew by more than 44%…

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The Survivors Committee wants some of its more prominent sexual abuse claims against the Archdiocese of Baltimore moved from federal bankruptcy court to Maryland civil court — a move that, if approved, would increase the church’s liability exposure by millions of dollars.

Testimony began Tuesday on the committee’s request to bring seven lawsuits in state civil court, where each plaintiff could seek roughly $1 million more in damages than in the lower courts.

Waves of claims have stalled in recent years as the church worked through its 2023 bankruptcy, which the archdiocese sought once the state allowed people who have reported being sexually abused as children to seek compensation at any point in their lives.

Almost three years after the archdiocese declared bankruptcy and paused the civil process, the plaintiffs and the church are still hundreds of millions of dollars apart on a settlement.

“To facilitate real progress,”…

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A key hearing Monday could affect payouts to survivors in the Archdiocese of Baltimore’s bankruptcy case.

At a hearing in federal court on Monday, attorneys argued whether certain lawsuits should proceed despite the bankruptcy filing.

“We just wanted to move forward, and the only way to move forward is to lift the stay and get the process started,” said Teresa Lancaster, an abuse survivor and attorney with the Abuse Survivors Coalition.

Attorneys debated what evidence should be allowed, including how similar cases have been handled elsewhere in the country and exact dates of alleged abuse.

“These people have been through horrible trauma,” Lancaster said. “They’re asking for the impossible, as usual.”

This comes as a judge considers motions to lift the bankruptcy pause on certain lawsuits, which would allow some civil litigation and insurance disputes to move forward.

Advocates for survivors believe it could help them receive settlements sooner. They…

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A federal judge denied reality TV star Josh Duggar‘s appeal to vacate his possession of child sexual abuse material conviction — saying that he missed the filing deadline, People reported on Tuesday.

Duggar, who was sentenced to more than 12 years in prison after he was convicted in 2021, had argued that his constitutional rights were violated. Court records obtained by People revealed that U.S. District Judge Timothy L. Brooks had denied Duggar’s appeal on the grounds that he filed his motion too late.

“Duggar claimed that he should be protected by the ‘prison mailbox rule,’ which provides leeway on deadlines as long as motions are ‘deposited in the institution’s internal mailing system on or before the last day for filing,’” according to People.

Brooks found that Duggar’s testimony was “not credible” and that “he failed to meet the burden of proving he should benefit…

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Canon Patrick McEntee’s former lawyers were granted permission to come off record

A priest jailed for sexually abusing four boys is searching for a new legal team to mount a bid to clear his name.

Canon Patrick McEntee’s former lawyers were granted permission to come off record after the Court of Appeal heard their relationship had irretrievably broken down.

McEntee, 72, is attempting to overturn his conviction for historical sexual offences against ex-pupils at St Michael’s College in Enniskillen.

But an appeal hearing listed for later this month has been put on hold to give him more time to identify and instruct new legal representatives.

Lady Chief Justice Dame Siobhan Keegan indicated the case is now likely to be relisted in November.

McEntee, of Esker Road in Dromore, County Tyrone, is serving a seven-year sentence imposed by a judge who branded him a “predatory paedophile”.

In June last year he…

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Federal agents arrested Patrick Conor Russell, 37, at his home in Deerfield Beach, Florida, on federal charges of possessing and receiving child pornography.

Russell has deep ties to several schools in the Milwaukee area, where he worked as a teacher and coach before moving to Florida.

Russell remains behind bars in Broward County, Florida, where he was living and working as a teacher at the time of his arrest last week.

According to the federal complaint, Russell was identified through an encrypted messaging app where the FBI says he talked about being a teacher and a coach and “looking for someone who can bait” students into sending inappropriate images.

Agents say they recovered those online chats from his phone, along with files they allege show minors in sexual situations. The details suggest he may have been trying to target students he knew personally.

In an interview with the FBI, Russell…

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A DeSoto County seminarian has pleaded guilty after being charged with possession of child pornography.

According to a court filing, Jonathan Tu Nguyen-Vuong, 25, entered the guilty plea during a hearing Monday in DeSoto County Circuit Court.

Nguyen-Vuong was arrested last July by the DeSoto County Sheriff’s Office as part of “Operation Exorcism,” an initiative aimed at combating child exploitation. Investigators said they seized electronic devices that contained explicit material involving minors.

At the time of his arrest, Nguyen-Vuong was serving as a religious educator at Queen of Peace Catholic Church in Olive Branch.

He faces a possible sentence of 5 to 40 years in prison. Sentencing is set for Aug. 26.

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