ABUSE TRACKER

There should probably be a warning to all those who choose to read the recently-released report by the Maryland Attorney General’s Office chronicling 80 years of child sexual abuse within Baltimore’s Catholic archdiocese. From the sometimes explicit descriptions of rape, torture and molestation to the cover-ups and gross negligence demonstrated by the practice of shipping out known abusers to unsuspecting schools and parishes, it is a stomach-turning read. Never mind that many of these abusers are long dead and buried — as are many of their enablers — the damage done lives on.

And yet there is also an extraordinary comfort in knowing the survivors of these crimes, who pushed hard to get this report written over the last five years, can finally have their stories told. The 456-page investigation covering the actions of 158 church officials, many of them priests, surely provides some modicum of relief to…

View Cache

When the Rev. John Mike was an associate pastor at St. Louis Roman Catholic Church four decades ago, he left an impression with his seemingly boundless energy, his outgoing personality and his ability to connect with young people.

But as parishioners gathered Thursday at the Clarksville church for a prayer service, a day after the Maryland Attorney General’s Office released a report on sexual abuse in the Archdiocese of Baltimore, some struggled to fit what they once believed about the Catholic Church with the horrors the document revealed.

Mike is one of four men associated with St. Louis who the document named as abusers. The figure makes the Howard County parish one of a handful of Catholic institutions home to a large number of staff who abused minors over an 80-year span.

“You wouldn’t have known [about the abuse] from normal contact with Mike,” said…

View Cache

While only one person has been indicted, advocates and victims’ groups predict it would bring more survivors forward and spark a wave of new civil lawsuits.

Cases of child sex abuse by clergy in the nation’s oldest Catholic archdioceses weren’t unknown.

But on Wednesday, a long-awaited report by the Maryland Attorney General spotlighted the depth of a crisis that spanned decades, finding a “staggering pervasiveness” of child sex abuse in the Archdiocese of Baltimore that victimized at least 600 children between the 1940s and 2002.

The report, which listed more than 150 Catholic priests and clergy members accused of “horrific and repeated” abuse – as well as attempts to protect accused clergy by the church hierarchy – came as Maryland’s legislature voted to end a statute of limitations for child sex abuse-related civil lawsuits.

While only one person has been indicted as a result of the investigation, advocates…

View Cache

Hours turned into days, turned into years, as the victims of child sexual abuse at the hands of clergy in the Baltimore Catholic Archdiocese slowly came forward, detailing horrific offenses that had been heaped upon them.

Threats with guns, rapes over and again, torture with ropes, chains, handcuffs, paddles and hot wax. Touching, grabbing, groping. God’s name was invoked, victims were blamed, complaints were ignored, childhoods were stolen, all trust was shattered.

In the end, few, if any, in the archdiocesan hierarchy seemed to escape without complicity, turning out predators to act again, moving offenders from parish to parish.

Some of the more egregious offenses came to light in recent years, adjudicated in the public courts when the justice system could no longer turn a blind eye. But with the release of a yearslong investigative report Wednesday, what once seemed extraordinary became horribly ordinary as clergy with names familiar to…

View Cache

What is the Response of the Archdiocese to the Attorney General’s Redacted Report?

The Archdiocese profoundly apologizes for the suffering of victims of child sexual abuse at the hands of any and all church personnel.  Archbishop Lori’s statement on the release of the redacted Report and his pastoral letter on child sexual abuse offer his own apology, along with hopes for healing and a commitment to continue effective actions that will address the scourge of child sexual abuse.  We encourage you to read those documents carefully and fully and to join the Archdiocese in prayer for those harmed by child sexual abuse and in a renewed commitment to child protection.

Does the Church agree with the findings in the Attorney General’s Report?

The Attorney General wrote and issued its report; it is a not a report of the Archdiocese.  However, the Archdiocese does appreciate some aspects of the report. We believe, as…

View Cache

You can read it now. The Attorney General’s Report on Child Sexual Abuse in the Archdiocese of Baltimore. It is an incriminating story, based on a Baltimore grand jury investigation, telling the “incontrovertible history . . . one of pervasive and persistent abuse by priests and other Archdiocese personnel. It is also a history of repeated dismissal or cover up of that abuse by the Catholic Church hierarchy.” (p. 1). Abuse of more than 600 victims by 156 persons in the diocese, with an appendix that gives the names of 43 more abusers from Baltimore who committed abuse outside of Maryland.

Everyone should read it. You should know what the victims and survivors of abuse had the courage to report and how that abuse still affects them.

Reading it might also encourage you to support the attorney general’s two recommendations: “amend statute of limitations for civil actions involving child sex…

View Cache

A new report identifies more than 150 clergy members in Maryland who abused at least 600 victims over six decades.

The Catholic Church is again at the center of a decades-long child sex abuse scandal, this time in Maryland.

The church has been embroiled in child sex abuse scandals for more than two decades that encompass hundreds of thousands of victims and that span the globe, from Australia to Chile. The Maryland investigation is one of several major US investigations in recent years showing that such abuse and church officials’ cover-ups were widespread, making the case that the clergy is incapable of bringing perpetrators among their own ranks to account.

A 463-page report released by the Maryland Attorney General’s office Wednesday alleges that clergy sexually abused more than 600 children between the 1940s and 2002. The report also asserts that, rather than seeking to protect children from further harm…

View Cache

Attorney General Anthony Brown said his office is also investigating two more dioceses, including the Archdiocese of Washington

Maryland Attorney General Anthony G. Brown (D) released a report Wednesday detailing decades of alleged sex abuse by clergy within the Archdiocese of Baltimore.

The investigation found that over 600 young people — from preschoolers to young adults — suffered sexual abuse and “physical torture” by more than 150 clergy members from the mid-1940s to 2002. The attorney general’s office had previewed some of its findings in a November court filing, but the report itself brought them to life in visceral and horrifying detail. “Tests of torture” that involved chaining and whipping teenagers. Two sisters abused as grade-schoolers “hundreds of times” by one priest. A deacon who admitted to molesting more than 100 minors over three decades. Clergy who preyed on children they met recovering at hospitals.

“Today in…

View Cache

Report alleges 156 people, including priests, abused more than 600 children

Scores of priests and other people affiliated with the Archdiocese of Baltimore sexually abused hundreds of children over more than 60 years, and church officials often protected the perpetrators while keeping their crimes a secret, Maryland’s attorney general said in a new report.

Wednesday’s report from Attorney General Anthony Brown alleges that 156 people—including priests and archdiocese personnel—abused more than 600 youths, causing lasting psychological trauma for survivors.

The release of the long-awaited 456-page report comes shortly after state lawmakers passed new legislation to allow civil lawsuits alleging long-ago child sex abuse—steps that in other states have led Catholic organizations to seek bankruptcy protection.

Maryland’s findings mark the latest effort by officials nationwide to document clerical sexual abuse and systematic efforts by church leaders to hide crimes. In Pennsylvania, a 2018 grand-jury report alleged that Catholic Church officials there covered up…

View Cache

Clergy members across the Archdiocese of Baltimore abused hundreds of children and teenagers over the course of six decades, abetted by a church hierarchy that systematically failed to investigate and restrict their access to children, according to a detailed report from the Maryland attorney general released on Wednesday.

It was the latest harrowing installment in the decades-long revelations of sexual abuse within the Roman Catholic Church, this time set in the first Catholic diocese established in the United States.

The 463-page report, which is the result of a four-year investigation by the attorney general’s office, documents what it describes as “pervasive and persistent abuse” by clergy members and others in the archdiocese, as well as dismissals and cover-ups by the church hierarchy.

Widespread abuse within the archdiocese was already well known by victims’ groups and, to some extent, acknowledged by current church leaders before the report was released….

View Cache

The Maryland Attorney General’s Office has publicly released a redacted version of an investigative report detailing sex abuse allegations against more than 150 Catholic priests and examining the Archdiocese of Baltimore’s response.

The redacted findings were made public Wednesday afternoon, marking a significant development in an ongoing legal battle over their release and adding to growing evidence from parishes across the country as numerous similar revelations have rocked the Catholic Church in recent years.

Former Maryland Attorney General Brian Frosh launched the probe in 2019 and announced its completion in November, saying investigators had reviewed over 100,000 pages of documents dating back to the 1940s and interviewed hundreds of victims and witnesses. The report’s contents weren’t immediately released because they include information obtained from church officials via grand jury subpoenas, which are confidential proceedings in Maryland.

Lawyers for the state asked a court for permission to release the nearly 500-page document, which…

View Cache

A report details a “history of widespread abuse” by Baltimore archdiocese priests. More than 600 people were assaulted over many years.

The Maryland Attorney General on Wednesday released a damning 463-page grand jury report detailing allegations of sexual abuse within the Archdiocese of Baltimore and the cover-up of that abuse by the leadership of the Catholic Church.

The redacted report, which a judge ordered released in February, details “a long history of widespread abuse and systemic cover-up by clergy,” according to a statement by Maryland Attorney General Anthony Brown.

The report also identifies nearly 160 former and current priests as well as other members of the church that are accused of sexually abusing more than 600 children over eight decades.

“This report illustrates the depraved, systemic failure of the Archdiocese to protect the most vulnerable – the children it was charged to keep safe,” Brown said in a statement. “Time…

View Cache

Report lists 156 current or former Catholic clergy, seminarians, deacons, teachers at Catholic schools, others

The Maryland Attorney General’s Office report detailing the investigation into the Archdiocese of Baltimore reveals decades of child sexual abuse and leadership’s efforts to cover it up.

| LIST: Report lists abusers by name
| LINK: Attorney General’s Report: Child Abuse in the Archdiocese of Baltimore

“Today, certainly in Maryland, is a day of reckoning and a day of accounting,” Attorney General Anthony Brown said at a news conference ahead of the report’s release. “This is a full accounting. There are details of repeated torturous, terrorizing, depraved abuse.”

Brown said more than 300 people contacted the attorney general’s office since its investigation into allegations of child sexual abuse and cover-up efforts began in 2018.

The attorney general’s office said it received hundreds of thousands of documents dating back to the 1940s that included treatment reports,…

View Cache

A redacted version made public by court order, the Maryland Attorney General’s report on the history of sexual abuse within the Catholic Archdiocese of Baltimore is the product of a four-year investigation. It details the rape and torture of hundreds of children and young adults over eight decades, as well as the church’s efforts to cover up the abuse and silence victims.

[ Catholic Church abuse in Maryland: Coverage from The Baltimore Sun ]

Go to original webpage to access redacted Maryland Attorney General report

View Cache

Baltimore Archbishop William Lori in a letter to parishioners Monday addressed “the evil of child abuse” ahead of the expected release of a Maryland attorney general report detailing decades of abuse in the archdiocese.

“On behalf of the Archdiocese, I offer my heartfelt apology to the victim-survivors and their families,” wrote Lori. “More than anything, in this moment, though, I want to pause to recognize and validate that the vile and horrifying abuse that is the subject of the Attorney General’s investigation represents a grave betrayal, and that it has had devastating consequences for victim-survivors.” 

The 456-page report compiled by Maryland Attorney General Brian Frosh will be released this Wednesday, according to the Baltimore Sun. 

Besides detailing victims’ abuse at the hands of clergy members, the report is said to contain the names of over 150 Baltimore priests responsible for abusing over 600 children between the 1940s and…

View Cache

The Maryland Senate recently passed Senate Bill 686, also known as “The Child Victims Act of 2023,” which, if enacted, would erase the time limit for childhood sexual abuse survivors to file civil lawsuits. Under Maryland’s current law, there is no statute of limitations on criminal charges of child sex abuse but, since 2017, survivors of child sex abuse have been barred from bringing civil lawsuits if they are older than 38. Before that, only victims age 25 and under could file such claims. The 2017 amendment was not retroactive, however, so it did not apply to victims who were previously abused.

If SB686 becomes law, child abuse victims of any age in Maryland would be able to file a civil lawsuit against their abusers and institutions that were supposed to protect them (i.e., churches, schools, camps, clubs, community centers), even if their claims already expired under…

View Cache

Survivors seek vindication and restitution

The Maryland Attorney General’s Office is expected to release a report today exposing decades of sexual abuse allegations within the Archdiocese of Baltimore.

The report names more than 150 priests who have either been charged or accused of sexual abuse over the past 80 years, as well as anyone who may have helped bury these accusations.

There are a lot of different things survivors might want to do with this report, such as find vindication for their pains and suffering or seek restitution and file a lawsuit.

An investigation into accusations of child sex abuse within the Archdiocese of Baltimore is about to be revealed to the public.

Attorney Rob Jenner who represents the Maryland chapter of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP) said “lot’s of people are afraid to come forward because they think they’re the only one who has been…

View Cache

Why clergy MUST be mandated reporters when they learn of a child being sexually abused, yes, even if learned during the sacrament of confession.

As a young teenager, I was repeatedly sexually, physically, and emotionally abused by my parish priest several times a week for several years.  I eventually learned the same was true for my younger brothers. The priest insisted I go to him for confession, to confess my sins. That insistence was nothing more than a skilled predator ensuring I saw such actions as my complicity in the sexual contact the priest was perpetrating. In other words, the sin was mine, not his.

For a young teenager, these instances of sexual abuse were infused with a perpetrator’s faux love and concern. The priest often willingly lavished me with material gifts I could otherwise never have and took me on many trips away from home.  These acts were torturous, causing mind-bending conflict…

View Cache

A mounting debate in Catholicism over whether to remove artwork by sexual abusers from sacred spaces seems destined to be especially difficult to resolve, pitting the weight of tradition against changing cultural sensitivities, not to mention practicalities against new moral imperatives.

The most likely outcome seems that no universal solution will be found, with answers deemed appropriate in one context not working in others.

The question is presented above all by the case of Jesuit Father Marko Rupnik, a celebrated Slovenian artist whose Eastern-themed work adorns churches all over the world, and who now stands accused of spiritual, psychological or sexual abuse of multiple adult women stretching over almost 40 years.

The Diocese of Rome quietly has launched an Apostolic Visit of the Centro Aletti in Rome which served as Rupnik’s base of operations, but it’s unclear if that probe will address the question of what to do about Rupnik’s…

View Cache

Landmark decision expected to help countless other survivors achieve more compensation for abuse suffered from clergy

Victoria’s highest court has ruled that the Catholic church is vicariously liable for sexual abuse by a paedophile priest because he was a “servant of the diocese” whose role gave him the “power and intimacy” to access and abuse children.

The decision by the Victorian court of appeal on Monday upholds the original landmark ruling, which, for the first time in Australia, found the church is vicariously liable for the abuse of its priests.

The decision is expected to help countless other survivors achieve more significant compensation for the abuse they suffered at the hands of paedophile clergy.

The case involves a then five-year-old boy, known only as DP, who was abused by Father Bryan Coffey at his parent’s home in Port Fairy during pastoral visits in 1971.

The critical issue in the case…

View Cache

Israeli-born former school principal convicted of 18 charges, cleared of 9 others, 15 years after she escaped arrest by fleeing to Israel; to be sentenced at a later date

A former principal at an ultra-Orthodox Jewish school in Australia was found guilty on Monday of sexually assaulting two sisters there, 15 years after she escaped arrest by fleeing to Israel.

After a seven-week trial and seven days of deliberations, the jury found Malka Leifer guilty of 18 charges, including rape and indecent assault, for sexually assaulting the two students, Dassi Erlich and Elly Sapper, in a series of incidents between 2003 and 2007. It cleared her of nine other charges, including several relating to a third sister, Nicole Meyer.

Leifer, 56, sat motionless and did not react as the verdicts were read. The judge will sentence her at a later date.

While victims of sexual assault are normally not identified…

View Cache

LAW firms in Australia are again accusing the Roman Catholic Church of an aggressive approach to claims of sexual abuse by survivors of deceased paedophiles (News, 18 November 2022).

The Church is seeking permanent stays several cases after a decision last year by the New South Wales (NSW) Supreme Court that the Church could not receive a fair trial in a case where the alleged abuser had died. The Supreme Court’’s decision is currently under appeal to the Australian High Court.

In the latest case, the order of Marist Brothers is seeking a permanent stay on a claim by a man who alleges that he was assaulted by a paedophile at a Marist Brothers’ school in 1969 and 1970. The alleged perpetrator, who was sentenced to a long prison term for assaulting 17 victims, died before the recent claim was made in 2021. The order is saying that it cannot receive a…

View Cache

[See Judge Robert Taylor’s order.]

Maryland Attorney General Anthony Brown said he will release a redacted version of a long-awaited 456-page grand jury report that details decades of sexual abuse within the Archdiocese of Baltimore on Wednesday after privately meeting with survivors in the morning.

Baltimore Circuit Judge Robert K. Taylor Jr. on Tuesday approved the release of the report “as the Office of the Attorney General shall see fit.” The attorney general’s office will post the document on its website at 1 p.m., according to an email sent to survivors of clergy sexual abuse.

Archbishop William Lori posted a letter and a video on the Archdiocese of Baltimore’s website calling on Catholics to pray for survivors as holy week begins.

“More than anything, in this moment, though, I want to pause to recognize and validate that the vile and horrifying abuse that…

View Cache

Kansas legislators gave final approval Monday to a bill that would make it easier to pursue criminal charges or file lawsuits over childhood sexual abuse years after the abuse occurred.

The House approved the measure, 120-0. It goes to Gov. Laura Kelly because the Senate approved it last week, 40-0.

Abuse survivors and advocates have been pushing for changes in recent years in the wake of reports of abuse by clergy across the U.S.

The bill would eliminate limits on how long prosecutors have to file charges against suspects for any of a dozen violent sexual offenses against children, including indecent liberties, aggravated human trafficking and internet trading in child pornography.

For such crimes, other than rape and aggravated sodomy, prosecutors currently can file criminal charges until the victim turns 28 or up to a year after DNA evidence establishes a suspect, whichever is later.

The deadline for filing a…

View Cache

An judge approved the release of a Maryland Attorney General Office’s report on clergy abuse within the Catholic Archdiocese of Baltimore, and the office will release the report to the public Wednesday, a spokesperson said.

The attorney general’s office found during its four-year investigation that 158 Catholic priests and brothers sexually abused or tortured more than 600 children during an 80-year period beginning in the 1940s.

Aleithea Warmack, of the attorney general’s office, said Tuesday the report would be released on Wednesday.

On Monday night, the Most Rev. William E. Lori, the archbishop of Baltimore, told Catholics in Central and Western Maryland that he expected “the Baltimore City Circuit Court will soon authorize the Maryland Office of Attorney General to release its report into child sexual abuse by some ministers of the Church and the Archdiocese’s own past failures in responding to such allegations.”

Lori warned the archdiocese’s half-million Catholics…

View Cache

The attack on John Paul II carried out in Poland in recent weeks by two liberal media outlets – TVN television and Agora, the publisher of left-leaning national newspaper “Gazeta Wyborcza” – is based primarily on a broad presentation of manipulatively selected historical material, details of which have previously already been honestly reported by journalists researching the history of the Catholic Church during the communist dictatorship. 

As far as the unfolding of the ongoing “scandal” is concerned, two works are crucial here. The first is a book by Ekke Overbeek, a Dutch journalist working in Poland, entitled “Maxima culpa. John Paul II knew”, and the second is a TV report by Marcin Gutowski entitled “Franciszkańska 3”. 

Both authors, according to their declarations, undertook a pioneering analysis of the actions of Bishop Karol Wojtyla in relation to cases of paedophile priests active during his time as Bishop of Krakow. In reality,…

View Cache

The former principal of a girls’ school in Melbourne, Australia, was found guilty Monday on 18 charges of sexually abusing two students more than 15 years ago in a case whose yearslong extradition battle tested relations between Australia and Israel.

The defendant, Malka Leifer, 56 — who faced 27 counts of sexual abuse in all and was acquitted on nine — was on trial for incidents alleged to have taken place between 2003 and 2007, when she was principal of the Adass Israel School, an ultra-Orthodox Jewish institution. She pleaded not guilty to all of the charges.

Three sisters — Nicole Meyer, 37, Dassi Erlich, 35, and Elly Sapper, 34 — were named as the victims in the case. Prosecutors said the abuse began when they were students and continued after they became student teachers there. The incidents were alleged to have occurred at the school, at camps organized by the…

View Cache

 The Sanctuary of Our Lady of Lourdes, one of the most famous sites of Marian apparitions worldwide, is facing an important decision: what to do with Father Marko Rupnik’s mosaics that decorate the façade of the Basilica of the Rosary.

The mosaics, installed in 2008 for the 150th anniversary of the apparitions in Lourdes, depict the Luminous Mysteries of the Rosary. “These mosaics were commissioned from the workshop of a renowned artist: Father Marko Rupnik, a Jesuit of Slovenian origin. Like all works of art, they are appreciated by some, less so by others, but the vast majority of pilgrims and visitors to Lourdes emphasize their beauty,” Bishop Jean-Marc Micas of Tarbes and Lourdes wrote in a statement March 31.

But now, with the accusations of sexual abuse of adults against Father Rupnik, Bishop Micas stressed that “the question of the status of…

View Cache

Most Arctic nations has been affected by assimilating and oppressive boarding school policies. Now indigenous community leaders are looking for healing as they brace for the dark truth of a government-led genocide.

In 2021 more than 1,300 unmarked graves were discovered at the sites of four former residential schools in western Canada. A discovery that shook the nation, unveiling a dark chapter of North American history.

Starting in the 1880’s and for much of the 20th century, more than 150,000 children from hundreds of indigenous communities across Canada were taken from their parents by force and by the government and sent to residential – or boarding – schools.

In Alaska, USA, the boarding school policy of 1879 were instated, removing thousands of Native children from their communities under the motto “kill the Indian, save the man”. In Canada, the slogan was “kill the Indian in the child”.

That says it…

View Cache

A jury in Putnam County has awarded a Brewster man $26.5 million for being sexually abused by his stepfather starting in the mid-1970s when he was 8 years old.

The trial last week in state Supreme Court in Carmel featured allegations by the plaintiff that he was physically, sexually and emotionally abused by John “Jack” Lupton at locations in Staten Island where they lived over an eight-year period.

The abuse ended when he was 16. He beat Lupton up and moved in with a friend’s family. It was years before the plaintiff detailed the abuse for relatives, but the friend testified at the trial, confirming the account of his family taking in the plaintiff.

The jury awarded $11 million for past pain and suffering; $2.5 million for future pain and suffering; and $13 million in punitive damages.

The Journal News/lohud is not naming the plaintiff because he was a victim…

View Cache

Lawyer calls for changes to Limitations Act to allow survivors a shot at compensation

Lawyer Lynn Moore says the government of Newfoundland and Labrador failed to protect her client — once a child in the care of his abusive father — and that he suffered horribly as a result.

The province agrees the man suffered horrendous abuse, and admits he was extensively involved with the child protection system during the abuse.

But its lawyers won’t be settling.

The reason? The man came forward too late, and rules are rules — even though Moore argues this rule is rare, cruel, and possibly unconstitutional.

“We’re not talking spanking, we’re not talking the strap,” said Moore, a veteran lawyer specializing in cases of child abuse. 

“We’re talking a very high level of abuse involving firearms, involving whipping, involving broken bones. So it was a horrific childhood that my client suffered and the government had a responsibility to intervene and they didn’t and they are now saying…

View Cache

[The discussion of Zollner begins at minute 4:30 of this one-hour podcast.]

Fr. Hans Zollner resigns from the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors, and Pope Francis promulgates updates to Vos Estis Lux Mundi. 

View Cache

We’re approaching the zenith of tax season, but while accountants are poring through returns, legislators in Washington State, Vermont, and Delaware are focused on another so-called “loophole”: people’s ability to confess their sins to their priests in confidence.  

Legislators in these states point to an Associated Press report from last fall urging legislatures to “fix the clergy loophole” by making it illegal for clergy to keep penitential communications private. Though many faiths have practices that fall under the clergy-penitent privilege, debates over the privilege center on the Catholic Church, where priests vow never to repeat what they hear in the confessional.

As the AP article notes, since the Boston Globe’s 2002 Spotlight report, dozens of bills have been introduced to try to remove the clergy-penitent privilege in the context of mandatory reporter laws. But none have passed. Last week  View Cache

Indigenous communities have long called on the Vatican rescind the concept, which had been used over the centuries to seize land from people in the Americas, Africa and elsewhere.

The Vatican formally repudiated on Thursday the “Doctrine of Discovery,” a legal concept based on 15th-century papal documents that European colonial powers used to legitimize the seizure and exploitation of Indigenous lands in Africa and the Americas, among other places.

The decision comes after decades of demands from Indigenous people to rescind the doctrine, which was used for centuries to “expropriate Indigenous lands and facilitate their transfer to colonizing or dominating nations,” according to one United Nations forum.

The Roman Catholic Church “repudiates those concepts that fail to recognize the inherent human rights of Indigenous peoples, including what has become known as the legal and political ‘Doctrine of Discovery,’” a joint statement from the Vatican’s development and education offices…

View Cache

On March 25, Pope Francis accepted the resignation of Osnabrueck Bishop Franz-Josef Bode, vice president of the German bishops’ conference. This came as a surprise not just to the Germans. He is the sixth German prelate in only a few years to offer to resign, but the first one to have his resignation accepted by the pope.

Why do so many German bishops want to leave office? The story goes deeper than you might think.

Five years ago, in September 2018, there was a moment that continues to reverberate in the German church. The bishops presented a nationwide study uncovering at least 3,677 cases of sexual abuse of minors over some seven decades. In the following press conference, journalist Christiane Florin asked if any member of the bishops’ conference had considered resigning over the findings.

The answer of then-president Cardinal Reinhard Marx: “No.” This…

View Cache

The Diocese of Rochester took another significant step in its bankruptcy case March 24 by filing — in conjunction with the creditors’ committee representing sexual-abuse claimants — a joint plan of reorganization and disclosure statement in support of the plan.

The reorganization plan follows the framework set in the Restructuring Support Agreement jointly filed Nov. 3, 2022, by the diocese and the Committee of Unsecured Creditors.

But whereas the RSA’s 28 pages sketched the key elements of reorganization, the 193-page plan and disclosure spell out, in great detail, myriad steps and obligations involved in the process. A full 17 pages, for example, are dedicated to the definition and interpretation of terms, ranging from “abuse” to “unimpaired” claims.

Like the RSA, the plan calls for the diocese, its parishes and related Catholic entities — which the plan terms “Participating Parties” — collectively to contribute $55 million to a trust…

View Cache

Advocates and legal groups say a landmark “breakthrough” over the Catholic Church’s culpability for the crimes of paedophile priests will lead to better outcomes for victim-survivors.

Key points:

• Victoria’s highest court has upheld a ruling finding the Catholic Church liable for sexual abuse by a paedophile priest
• The ruling brings Australia in line with international law 
• A lawyer says the tide has turned for abuse survivors in Australia

Yesterday Victoria’s highest court upheld a ruling that the Catholic Church is vicariously liable for child sexual abuse by a priest, making it easier for survivors to receive compensation.

Ballarat abuse survivor Paul Auchettl knows too well that for the longest time, clergy abuse was encased in silence. 

He was abused by the notorious paedophile and Christian Brother Robert Best, who was Mr Auchettl’s Year Six teacher at St Alipius primary school. 

His younger brother Peter was also abused and died by suicide more than a…

View Cache

Since January 2019, Fr. Jim Connell of the Archdiocese of Milwaukee has been urging state legislators around the country to repeal clergy-penitent privilege in mandatory reporting laws that exempt Catholic priests from notifying authorities of any sexual abuse they hear about in the confessional.

Milwaukee Archbishop Jerome Listecki has suspended Connell’s faculties to hear confessions and grant absolution, citing his advocacy “for the removal of the legal protection of the confessional seal, suggesting there are situations where it is permissible to violate it.” Listecki said in a March 22 statement that Connell’s “false assertions” that the seal of confession should not apply in some situations had caused “understandable and widespread unrest” among Catholics.

“Protecting the child is more important than worrying about whether the government is going to tell us how to practice our religion,” Connell, a retired priest and canon lawyer who served as the Milwaukee Archdiocese’s vice chancellor  View Cache

A decision by Victoria’s highest court to uphold a landmark ruling that holds the Catholic church vicariously liable for the abuse of its priests has been hailed as a win for victim-survivors. 

Key points:

• Victoria’s highest court has ruled the Catholic church is vicariously liable for sexual abuse by a priest
• An attempt by the church to appeal the ruling was quashed
• It has been hailed a significant victory for all survivors

An attempt by the church to appeal the ruling was quashed by the Victorian Court of Appeal on Monday. 

The original decision involved the case of a then-five-year-old boy, known as DP, who was abused by Catholic priest Bryan Coffey at his parents’ home in Port Fairy in 1971.

The church had argued Coffey was not a formal employee and therefore it could not be held liable. 

But DP’s lawyers convinced Victoria’s Supreme Court in 2021 that the priest was the servant of the diocese even if…

View Cache

Depending on who you ask, Pope Francis’ 2019 decree “Vos Estis Lux Mundi” (“You are the Light of the World”), coupled with updates to the policy announced March 25, is either a watershed in the Church’s fight against sexual abuse or a major disappointment — or, perhaps, both at the same time.

Originally issued in the wake of a summit of the heads of bishops’ conferences from around the world to discuss the abuse scandals, “Vos Estis” was designed to promote a culture of accountability, not just for the crime of sexual abuse but also for the cover-up. For the first time, it created a mechanism for investigating and sanctioning bishops and other superiors charged with failing to respond appropriately to claims of abuse against personnel under their authority.

The recent revisions announced by the Vatican include making lay leaders of Vatican-recognized groups subject…

View Cache

A landmark study has found nearly two thirds of Australians aged over 16 have reported experiencing childhood maltreatment – abuse, neglect, or exposure to domestic violence.

The five-year study, Australia’s first national prevalence study of all forms of child abuse and neglect was conducted by a team of researchers, including key spokesperson, Professor Daryl Higgins, the director of the Australian Catholic University’s Institute of Child Protection Studies.

Of the 8503 respondents aged 16 or older, 62 per cent indicated experiences of maltreatment in childhood.

Importantly for researchers the study shows that most of those who reported experiencing maltreatment experienced multiple types, and witnessing domestic violence was the most common.

Researchers found the following prevalence rates of individual types of child maltreatment: neglect – 8.9 per cent; sexual abuse – 28.5 per cent; emotional abuse – 30.9 per cent; physical abuse – 32.0 per cent; and exposure to domestic violence – 39.6 per cent. 

“We need to focus…

View Cache

For survivors of sex abuse, the Albany Roman Catholic Diocese’s bankruptcy filing is just one more betrayal.

On March 15, the Roman Catholic Diocese of Albany filed for protection under Chapter 11 bankruptcy. That day I watched in despair as Bishop Edward Scharfenberger justified his decision as “the best way to protect everyone” while acknowledging “it may cause pain and suffering.”

The public has the right to know exactly what that pain and suffering looks like. Not from the loudest attorney or a diocese spokesperson, but from a victim of clergy sexual abuse.

I was one of over 400 plaintiffs under the New York Child Victims Act seeking civil relief from the Albany diocese. As imperfect as it was, the process was providing tangible justice through early releases of documents and depositions. Most notable to me, the 2021 testimony of Bishop Howard Hubbard admitting to sheltering criminal priests: moving them from parish…

View Cache

A TV documentary and book allege Cardinal Karol Wojtyla was aware of clerical sexual abuse cases before he became pope in 1978

Huge crowds waving Polish and papal flags marched through Warsaw, Kraków and other cities on Sunday to defend the memory of St John Paul II, 18 years after his death, amid reports he was aware of clerical sexual abuse cases before he became pope in 1978.

Early on Sunday morning in the central city of Lodz, a statue of the Polish pope was smeared with yellow paint on its face and red paint on its hands.

Sprayed on the plinth: “Maxima Culpa”, the title of a controversial book by journalist Ekke Overbeek.

Similar to a separate television documentary, the book argues that Cardinal Karol Wojtyla, as archbishop of Krákow until he became pope in 1978, was aware of at least four cases of abusing priests and reinstated them…

View Cache

Hans Zollner, the German Jesuit who has been a leader in the Vatican’s fight against clergy sex abuse, resigns from the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors

Father Hans Zollner, one of the most respected experts and pioneers in the Vatican’s developing fight against the clergy sex-abuse crisis, has resigned from the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors (“Tutela Minorum”) citing disagreements over the way the body is being operated.

“I have noticed issues that need to be urgently addressed and that have made it impossible for me to continue further,” he said Wednesday in a surprisingly candid message published on social media.

The 56-year-old German Jesuit theologian and psychologist had been a member of Tutela Minorum since its establishment in 2014.

The announcement of his resignation was actually made earlier on Wednesday by the commission’s chairman, Cardinal Sean O’Malley of Boston. But the cardinal, who is also…

View Cache

Father Conrado Mantac is accused of molesting a 17-year-old choir girl last year

Philippine police have arrested a 62-year-old Catholic priest accused of raping a 17-year-old choir girl a year ago when he was her parish priest.

Father Conrado Mantac was arrested at his residence in Negros Occidental province in the Western Visayas region on March 29, police said.

The arrest came after the girl’s parents complained to police that Mantac molested their daughter last year when he served as parish priest in Sagay City.

A police official said the charge against Mantac is a non-bailable offense, so he must remain behind bars pending trial.

“He did not resist the arrest. Perhaps, he knew it was forthcoming because he was given a chance to dispute the rape allegations at the prosecutor level,” Sergeant Paul Gaspar, a member of the police team that arrested the priest, told UCA News.

Gaspar said the…

View Cache

A Dutch journalist says he is the victim of a character assassination because of his book about the late pope

In a Warsaw elevator, Dutch journalist Ekke Overbeek and his publicist are exchanging worried words. It’s four hours until his first public event to promote his new book, Maxima Culpa: John Paul II Knew, claiming that Cardinal Karol Wojtyla, as archbishop of Kraków, protected four paedophile priests before becoming pope in 1978.

The book has rattled Poland’s Catholic church. Cardinal Stanislaw Dziwisz, the late pope’s closest aide, accused the book of “aiming to trample on the memory of all that Poland owes to the Holy Pontiff and to destroy his legacy”.

Even more vocal are Poland’s politicians, in particular the ruling national conservative Law and Justice (PiS) party. With an eye on autumn parliamentary election, and the prospect of pulpit endorsements, PiS has organised a Warsaw march on Sunday –…

View Cache

Thousands of Poles marched through Warsaw and other cities on Sunday to show their support for the late Pope John Paul II in the face of what they said were false allegations that he concealed child abuse in the Catholic Church.

The ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party, which faces a tough election later this year, and other religious conservatives have said any calls to re-examine his legacy amount to a plot to discredit the nation’s biggest moral authority.

That argument resonates strongly with many older Poles who were inspired by John Paul to stand up to Communism in the 1970s and ’80s, although church attendance has been falling in the decades since the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989.

“I felt the need to show my connection with (the pope’s) teaching,” said Donata Pronczuk, a retired teacher, who came to Warsaw from the northern city of Koszalin for the march,…

View Cache

The Catholic Church in Bangladesh is forming a team to combat the growing number of assaults and other forms of violence against women in their homes, workplaces, and other locations. 

Discussing Abuse Against Women 

According to the UCA News, the convenor of the Women Desk of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Bangladesh and a social activist, Rita Roselin Costa, stated that the Catholic bishops of Bangladesh have verbally agreed to form the team that will be led by the Women Desk of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Bangladesh to tackle abuses against women.

Costa said on Wednesday, Mar. 29, that plans are being discussed to establish a team that will take measures as soon as possible, including legal action if any women are subjected to abuse. Their team is anticipated to begin this year but did not provide a specific launch date. She added that the church staff would take immediate…

View Cache

Officials at the Catholic shrine in Lourdes have formed a study group to determine the future of a controversial attraction at the sanctuary.

The mosaics on the facade of one of the three basilicas were designed by Jesuit artist Rev. Marko Ivan Rupnik in 2008 to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the Marian apparitions that turned Lourdes into a primary pilgrimage site, visited by approximately 3 million people annually.

Mosaics Made By Jesuit Indicted with Abuse to Be Reviewed

In December last year, it was revealed by the Jesuits that Rupnik had been excommunicated by the Vatican in 2020 for committing a severe crime in church law. According to Associated Press News, he had used the confessional to acquit a woman with whom he had engaged in sexual activity. He had also been accused by nine women of sexual, spiritual, and psychological misconduct in the 1980s. As…

View Cache

A 60-year-old pastor from Ouddorp suspected of abusing his children has been temporarily suspended by the Restored Reformed Church. According to the national church board, he has been temporarily barred from all activities related to his ministry, De Stentor reported.

The pastor and his 58-year-old wife are suspected of abusing their children regularly over the past 29 years, according to prosecutors. The couple has eight children, with whom they lived in Arnemuiden, Elspeet, and Nieuwe-Tonge in the meantime. During that time, the children were allegedly exposed to violence in various ways. Among other things, they are said to have been beaten with a vacuum cleaner stick and a frying pan. Furthermore, one of the sons reported that his head was held underwater for long periods of time.

In 2021, six of the eight children, who are now between 20 and 34 years old, decided to report their parents after finding…

View Cache

As Del. C.T. Wilson (D-Charles) has done for several years, he stood on the House of Delegates floor Friday morning to implore his colleagues to support legislation on behalf of child sexual abuse survivors.

In past years, efforts to pass similar bills have found success in the House, but stalled in the Senate.

But this year, Sen. William C. Smith Jr. (D-Montgomery), chair of the Judicial Proceedings Committee, ushered legislation through his chamber that passed March 16.

This year’s House vote on House Bill 1 brought an intense feeling of relief for survivors such as Wilson, who hugged House Judiciary Chair Luke Clippinger (D-Baltimore City), after a resounding 132-2 vote. The chamber erupted in a standing ovation.

Before Wilson cast his vote in support of the bill labeled The Child Victims Act of 2023, he had a message for survivors.

“I just want these people to understand that…

View Cache

Cardinal Seán P. O’Malley of Boston, president of the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors, expressed his surprise, disappointment and disagreement with statements challenging the commission’s effectiveness made by a prominent safeguarding expert who resigned from the advisory body.

However, “the commission has a plenary meeting scheduled in the next few weeks during which we can address these and other matters more fully as a group,” the cardinal said in an updated statement March 30.

Jesuit Father Hans Zollner, a leading expert in the field and member of the commission since it was founded in 2014, stepped down in mid-March but gave the reasons for his departure in a public statement March 29, saying it was due to urgent “structural and practical issues that led me to disassociate myself” from the papal commission.

Father Zollner’s criticisms came just a few hours after his resignation was made public in a…

View Cache

When Sen. Cindy Holscher was 5 years old, she did what most young children would do on their family farm: play with animals, spend time with family and enjoy a few blissful months off from school.

But one day, things turned much darker.

A farmhand entered a barn while Holscher was playing with kittens and their conversation began innocently. Quickly, however, the man suggested playing a game “like Simon says” that involved showing private parts.

“Of course, my parents had warned me of stranger danger,” Holscher said. “This wasn’t a stranger. This was someone I knew.”

The man lured her in, Holscher said, saying he played the game with one of her friends. At the decisive moment, however, a screen door slammed, causing the man to flee and saving Holscher from joining the estimated 1 in 10 children who are sexually abused before their 18th birthday.

“If it has taken…

View Cache

Statement of Cardinal Sean O’Malley, OFM. Cap., President of the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors on the publication of the updated motu proprio Vos estis lux mundi.

The Church’s ongoing work of preventing sexual abuse by ministers of the Church received a further boost today with the publication of the definitive version of Pope Francis’s motu proprio Vos estis lux mundi (You are the light of the world).

In May 2019, Pope Francis established new norms regarding the requirement to ensure adequate processing of reports of sexual abuse by priests or members of religious life. Today’s document makes permanent these important protections for those reporting abuse and holds Church leaders accountable for any failures to carry out their responsibilities in this regard.

For many people, the reality of child sexual abuse in the Church was further compounded by the cover up or negligence by bishops and religious superiors in properly…

View Cache

Officials at the Catholic shrine in Lourdes announced the creation of a study group Friday to decide what to do with one of the French sanctuary’s most famous but now controversial attractions: mosaics by a Jesuit artist who has been sanctioned by the Vatican and his religious order for sexually, spiritually and psychologically abusing women.

The Rev. Marko Ivan Rupnik designed the facade of one of the three basilicas at Lourdes with a series of mosaics in 2008 to mark the 150th anniversary of the Marian apparitions that turned the shrine in southwest France into one of the world’s biggest pilgrimage sites, attracting around 3 million visitors a year.

In December, the Jesuits revealed that Rupnik had been declared excommunicated by the Vatican in 2020 for committing one of the worst crimes in church law — using the confessional to absolve a woman with whom he had engaged in sexual…

View Cache

Legal experts like Mitchell Garabedian, a Boston-based attorney who represents victims of clergy sexual abuse, say nondisclosure agreements, like the one at the center of the case against Donald Trump, are often used to silence victims of workplace misconduct on the taxpayer’s dime

The same type of hush money payments Donald Trump is accused of using to silence adult film star Stormy Daniels are currently being investigated in Massachusetts by State Auditor Dianna DiZoglio.

Daniels signed a nondisclosure agreement with Trump’s attorney in October 2016, agreeing to keep their alleged affair quiet in exchange for $130,000. She later broke that agreement by speaking publicly and alleged that Trump’s lawyer used “intimidation and coercive tactics” to get her to sign it.

Legal experts like Mitchell Garabedian, a Boston-based attorney who represents victims of clergy sexual abuse, say nondisclosure agreements are often used to silence victims of workplace misconduct on the taxpayer’s dime.

…

View Cache

I want the Maryland Attorney General’s report on clergy sexual abuse within the Archdiocese of Baltimore released to the public as was promised (”‘A public reckoning’: Baltimore judge orders release of redacted Catholic church abuse report,” Feb. 24). Rich Wolf, an investigator within the Maryland Attorney General’s Office who was involved in the four-year effort once told me last year that the report was being wrapped up and would be out by Thanksgiving, early December at the latest.

Here we are 4 and a half months later with no sign of when this report will be given over to the public and in what condition.

The institutions holding this release up are not deciding what is best for the survivors. They’re figuring out who’s named in the report that they need to protect from getting their feelings hurt, their names brought into this horrible mess, sued…

View Cache

Credible claims of child sexual abuse have been filed against 28 Catholic priests who have served in Georgia since the 1940s. However, no current or ongoing allegations can be pursued criminally because either the accused perpetrator has passed away or the applicable statute of limitations has been reached.

Child Sex Abuse Allegations in Georgia

There were 13 credible allegations inside the Archdiocese of Atlanta, seven of which involved archdiocesan priests and six concerning priests in religious orders or linked with other dioceses. The investigation cited 15 additional credible complaints in the Diocese of Savannah, of which seven involved diocesan priests, and eight included members of religious orders.

According to the Catholic News Agency, the Prosecution Attorneys’ Council of Georgia, which issued the study on Mar. 20, noted in a news release that the report contains thorough details of charges of sexual abuse and other sexual misbehavior, including grooming and misuse of…

View Cache

We salute the Maryland legislators who approved the passage of the Child Victims Act (CVA) into the Senate. The outdated legislation will undergo much-needed reform as a result of the CVA’s approval. We are very appreciative of Delegate C.T. Wilson for standing up for this truth and prioritizing the needs of the victims. Without the committed survivors and advocates who have worked so hard to create this opportunity for reform, none of this would be possible. We are hoping for a speedy Senate agreement to make this legislation a reality for the victims who have long carried the burden. A Senate companion bill has also been introduced by Sen. William C. Smith Jr.

We know that window legislation is an important step in recognizing the realities of childhood sexual abuse and that delayed disclosure is the norm, not the exception. Amending laws to be more in line with reporting trends…

View Cache

Cardinal Sean O’Malley said Thursday he strongly disagrees with a critique of the Vatican’s safeguarding commission by abuse expert and recently resigned member Father Hans Zollner.

In a new statement March 30, O’Malley, who heads the commission, said: “I am surprised, disappointed, and strongly disagree with [Zollner’s] publicly-issued assertions challenging the commission’s effectiveness.”

The 56-year-old Zollner, a founding member of the Vatican’s Commission for the Protection of Minors, said in a statement March 29 that “structural and practical issues” within the commission had led him “to disassociate” from it.

A statement from commission president O’Malley issued a few hours earlier had characterized the Jesuit priest’s departure as an effort to reduce his already significant administrative responsibilities, including “his recent appointment as consultant for safeguarding to the Diocese of Rome.”

The commission issued an updated statement on March 30 in which O’Malley said he was “supplementing” his earlier sentiments regarding Zollner’s…

View Cache

COMMENTARY: His public clash with Cardinal Seán O’Malley is an indication of how much the Holy Father’s reform agenda has faltered.

That the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors, established in 2014 and one of the flagship reform efforts of Pope Francis, is in deep crisis was manifest this week in how its two most prominent figures clashed.

German Jesuit Father Hans Zollner, an original member of the commission and its most prominent one, resigned on Wednesday. Initially, Cardinal Seán O’Malley of Boston, president of the commission, released a statement saying that Father Zollner had new duties, and thus was resigning, and thanking him for superlative service.

Father Zollner had a different view. He put out his own statement, a blistering denunciation of the commission’s failures in “responsibility, compliance, accountability and transparency,” all of which “have made it impossible for me to continue further.”

Cardinal O’Malley “updated” his statement…

View Cache

The president of the Spanish Bishops’ Conference (CEE), Cardinal Juan José Omella, has handed over to the people’s ombudsman, Ángel Gabilondo, a total of six volumes of data on cases of sexual abuse of minors.

In Spain, the role of the ombudsman is to defend the fundamental rights and public liberties of citizens by watching over the activities of local and national governments as well as the administration of justice.

Speaking to Radio Nacional de España, Omella explained that all the data on cases collected by the Spanish dioceses has been turned in.

In total, the ombudsman has received “six volumes of reflection with all the data that we have up to now.” He stressed the Spanish prelates commitment to “put in place all means to eradicate” the abuse of minors.

The cardinal also said that these situations cause “great harm, not only to the Church but [also] to society.”

…

View Cache

On Friday the bishop who oversees a famed Marian shrine in Lourdes said he is considering removing mosaics installed by a prominent Jesuit artist accused of sexual misconduct due to the potential harm their presence could inflict on victims.

In a March 31 statement, Bishop Jean-Marc Micas of Tarbes and Lourdes said the mosaics were commissioned in 2008, for the 150th anniversary of the Marian apparitions in Lourdes, when the Virgin Mary is believed to have appeared to a young woman named Bernadette Soubirous in 1858.

According to tradition, the Virgin Mary offered a message of penance and asked Bernadette to dig a hole in the ground, forming a spring with waters said to have healing properties. The location of the apparitions is now home to a large shrine, drawing pilgrims and visitors from all over the world, specifically those with disabilities, who are often immersed in large baths whose…

View Cache

Mosaic art created by Father Marko Rupnik could be removed from the Basilica of the Sanctuary of Lourdes, France, out of consideration for victims of abuse who come to the sanctuary in search of consolation, the bishop of Tarbes and Lourdes said.

“Lourdes is a place where many victims turn to the Immaculate Conception for comfort and healing. Their anguish is great before the mosaics of Father Rupnik in this very place: We cannot ignore it,” Bishop Jean-Marc Micas said in a statement released Friday.

Rupnik, a Jesuit priest and artist, founded the Aletti Center, an art school in Rome dedicated to religious art. He has been accused of sexually and psychologically abusing consecrated women from the Loyola Community in Slovenia who were associated with the Aletti Center.

As the National Catholic Register reported earlier this year, Rupnik’s art decorates more than 200 churches and…

View Cache

The number of child sexual abuse cases filed in Turkey has increased by 33 percent in 2022 compared to 2021, according to official data.

Turkey has experienced a spike in cases of child sexual abuse in 2022, the Justice Ministry’s statistics revealed.

According to the 2022 Justice Statistics, the number of child sexual abuse cases filed in Turkey has increased by 33 percent in 2022 compared to 2021.

Children’s rights advocates have been calling for better sex abuse prevention for years. 

Experts say prevention involves increasing gender equality, educating children on their bodies and sexuality in age-appropriate ways, teaching about sexual abuse through awareness campaigns and training public officials. But under the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), talking about sexual issues is still considered taboo.

The annual increase was 41 percent for the fraud cases and 30 percent for the theft cases, the daily Birgün reported on…

View Cache

A ministry for homebound victim-survivors of clergy abuse to receive the Eucharist in the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis is an example of the creativity needed to help abuse survivors find healing, said the executive director of the Secretariat for Child and Youth Protection for the U.S. bishops. 

“It’s the Holy Spirit at work,” said Deacon Bernie Nojadera, who has led the post at the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops for the past 12 years. He said this new program is “leading the way with its ministry,” noting that it has brought “blessing and grace” to the person receiving the Eucharist and the person bringing it. 

Deacon Nojadera also told The Tablet that this ministry, which he described as bringing “the church to survivor victims,” is the only one of its kind that he is aware of. 

He also described it as planting a seed, adding: “Who knows what…

View Cache

A former Tacoma Catholic nun and a priest were added to an official list of clergy and others accused of abuse, the Archdiocese of Seattle announced Friday.

Sister Jerry Lyness and Father Thomas Phelan were added to the official list of “Clergy and Religious Brothers and Sisters for Whom Allegations of Sexual Abuse of a Minor Have Been Admitted, Established or Determined to be Credible.”

Lyness was a teacher at St. Patrick Catholic School from 1976 to 1994 and she served as co-principal there from 1991 to 1994. Phelan served as pastor at St. Ann Parish from 1973 to 1983. Both are dead. St. Ann Parish was recently merged into the new Pope Saint John XXIII Parish.

In December 2022, the Archdiocese settled a case involving allegations of childhood sexual abuse by Phelan which occurred in approximately 1978 at St. Ann.

Also in December 2022, the Archdiocese…

View Cache

The Vatican’s prosecuting attorney has leveled additional charges against four of the defendants who have been on trial since July 2021 for their alleged roles in the Vatican’s failed investment in a property in London.

Alessandro Diddi, the prosecutor, announced the new charges March 30 at the end of the trial’s 54th session.

Raffaele Mincione, Gianluigi Torzi and Enrico Crasso were charged with bribery in addition to the original charges that included embezzlement, fraud and money laundering.

A money-laundering charge also was made against Fabrizio Tirabassi, a former official in the Vatican Secretariat of State, who had been accused of corruption, extortion, embezzlement, fraud and abuse of office.

Diddi said the new charges resulted from testimony given at the trial and from new information that arose as the investigations into the 10 defendants continued.

A key issue in the trial is the role the defendants played in convincing the Vatican…

View Cache

A popular historian of church architecture and promoter of liturgical aesthetics faces allegations of sexual misconduct against adult seminarians from his time on faculty at Mundelein Seminary in Illinois.

In a March 28 article, The Pillar, an online news outlet that covers the Catholic Church, disclosed that Mundelein’s rector, Father John Kartje, had issued a March 27 letter — a copy of which was obtained by The Pillar — advising the Mundelein community that “we have received reports alleging Dr. Denis McNamara, a former (seminary) faculty member, engaged in sexually inappropriate behavior toward adult seminarians during and after the time he was employed here.”

McNamara most recently had been director of Benedictine College’s Center for Beauty and Culture, which opened in 2019, as well as an instructor in the school’s architecture department, where he taught courses on the intersection of theology, art and architecture in Catholicism. However,…

View Cache

Editor’s Note: In support of the sixth strategic action of Vision 2025 adopted by messengers to the 2021 SBC Annual Meeting, Baptist Press will continue to report every instance of sexual abuse related to Southern Baptist churches or leaders of which we are made aware. The original story included a trial date but Baptist Press has learned a trial has not been set.

A Georgia Baptist pastor is awaiting a trial date in a North Carolina Superior Court over abuse charges filed in 2020 that prompted an investigation and his eventual arrest.

According to the SBC Workspace, Jeff McCammon has served as pastor of Mountain View Baptist Church in Stone Mountain, Ga., since May 2019. In December 2020, he was arrested after an investigation by local authorities in Cherokee County, North Carolina.

A grand jury subsequently indicted McCammon with a felony count of indecent liberties with a child. The Cherokee Superior…

View Cache

Editor’s Note: In support of the sixth strategic action of Vision 2025 adopted by messengers to the 2021 SBC Annual Meeting, Baptist Press will continue to report every instance of sexual abuse related to Southern Baptist churches, entities, institutions or leaders of which we are made aware.

Former Chalkville pastor Kenneth Daniel was released from one jail and taken to another Feb. 27, where he was charged with four counts of sexual abuse of a child less than 12 years old.

Daniel was the pastor of First Baptist Church of Chalkville in Jefferson County.

He was arrested in October in Blount County on charges of facilitating solicitation of unlawful sexual conduct with a child.

Daniel remains in the Shelby County jail on $240,000 bond as of March 2. A hearing is set in Shelby County on March 22.

This article originally appeared in The Alabama Baptist. If you are/have been a…

View Cache

Philippine police have arrested a 62-year-old Catholic priest accused of raping a 17-year-old choir girl a year ago when he was her parish priest.

Father Conrado Mantac was arrested at his residence in Negros Occidental province in the Western Visayas region on March 29, police said.

The arrest came after the girl’s parents complained to police that Mantac molested their daughter last year when he served as parish priest in Sagay City.

A police official said the charge against Mantac is a non-bailable offense, so he must remain behind bars pending trial.

“He did not resist the arrest. Perhaps, he knew it was forthcoming because he was given a chance to dispute the rape allegations at the prosecutor level,” Sergeant Paul Gaspar, a member of the police team that arrested the priest, told UCA News.

Gaspar said the prosecutor found “probable cause” that Mantac committed rape against the minor in 2022…

View Cache

A former student union president at a prominent Christian Bible school in Alberta, Canada, has been arrested and charged with sexual assault of multiple minors, after a two-year investigation. 

Derek Taplin, 43, allegedly abused four underage victims while he was student union president at Prairie Bible Institute, now Prairie College, in Three Hills, Alberta, from 2002 to 2004. Some of the alleged assaults reportedly occurred on campus.

On Wednesday, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) arrested Taplin in Winnipeg, Manitoba, after a Canada-wide warrant was issued. They escorted him to Alberta to face charges. He is charged with four counts each of four separate crimes: sexual exploitation of a young person, sexual Interference, sexual assault, and invitation to sexual touching.

The RCMP began an investigation of Taplin in June 2021 following an initial report of sexual assault, according to a release from the Canadian police service. The…

View Cache

Pedophile priest Gerald Ridsdale is set to plead guilty to more horrific sex crimes.

The latest charge involves a young boy at Horsham in the late 1980s.

The 89-year-old faced the Ballarat magistrates court via videolink yesterday.

He’s currently imprisoned in Ararat, serving a 36-year jail sentence for abusing close to 70 victims.

Ridsdale has been serving concurrent sentences since first being charged in 1993. On 15 August 2017, Ridsdale pleaded guilty to 23 charges, including two counts of rape and one of buggery, for abusing 12 children, 11 boys and 1 girl aged 6 to 13, between 1962 and 1988 in Ballarat and the surrounding area.

He’ll return to court in June.

View Cache

There should be zero tolerance when it comes to clergy abuse of congregants. However, we learned years ago of how child sexual abuse by priests has been tolerated within the Roman Catholic Church. Since then, it has become unequivocally clear that clergy sexual abuse is not merely a “Catholic problem,” but one that impacts Christians across the ecclesiastical spectrum. 

As is the case with Catholic leaders, some evangelical and fundamentalist leaders have enabled and covered up clergy sexual abuse. The same could be said of leaders within mainline Protestant denominations. Church leaders often discredit and dismiss survivors. Therefore, they are complicit in their suffering. 

In recent years, details of a scandal involving the Southern Baptist Convention have come to light, largely due to the work of Guidepost Solutions.

Despite last summer’s damning report by Guidepost, some prominent leaders within the SBC would rather focus on excommunicating churches that have women pastors than…

View Cache

Jesuit Father Hans Zollner, an internationally renowned expert in protecting children and vulnerable adults from clerical sex abuse, has resigned from his position on the Vatican’s safeguarding commission.

The move was announced by the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors on Wednesday.

The 56-year-old Father Zollner, a founding member of the commission, said in a statement March 29 that “structural and practical issues” within the commission had led him “to disassociate” from it.

“The protection of children and vulnerable persons must be at the heart of the Catholic Church’s mission,” he said. “That was the hope I and many others have shared since the commission was first established in 2014. However, in my work with the commission, I have noticed issues that need to be urgently addressed and which have made it impossible for me to continue further.”

In early March, Father Zollner was appointed  View Cache

COMMENTARY: His public clash with Cardinal Seán O’Malley is an indication of how much the Holy Father’s reform agenda has faltered.

That the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors, established in 2014 and one of the flagship reform efforts of Pope Francis, is in deep crisis was manifest this week in how its two most prominent figures clashed.

German Jesuit Father Hans Zollner, an original member of the commission and its most prominent one, resigned on Wednesday. Initially, Cardinal Seán O’Malley of Boston, president of the commission, released a statement saying that Father Zollner had new duties, and thus was resigning, and thanking him for superlative service.

Father Zollner had a different view. He put out his own statement, a blistering denunciation of the commission’s failures in “responsibility, compliance, accountability and transparency,” all of which “have made it impossible for me to continue further.”

Cardinal O’Malley “updated” his statement…

View Cache

On any other day, the dominant Vatican headline yesterday would have belonged to German Jesuit Father Hans Zollner, whose unexpected resignation from the pope’s chief advisory body on combating sexual abuse left the broader state of Francis’s reform campaign an open question.

It wasn’t just the fact that Zollner resigned which raised eyebrows, but how.

Just moments after Boston Cardinal Sean O’Malley, president of the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors, had released a statement thanking Zollner for his service and benignly attributing his departure to a new assignment with the Diocese of Rome, Zollner put out his own communique blasting the group for alleged shortcomings in “responsibility, compliance, accountability and transparency.”

Those failures, the 56-year-old Zollner said, “have made it impossible for me to continue further” – indirectly creating the impression that O’Malley and his team were trying to sweep the reality of the situation under the rug.

…

View Cache

For 150 years, the United States government financed more than 400 boarding schools across the United States, educating tens of thousands of Native American children but subjecting them to abuse, neglect, cultural oppression, and sometimes even death.

But while the government has a list of every Navy ship the nation has floated, it has never compiled a list of the boarding schools it ran.

“There was no central place where all this information was held,” said Brenna Cussen, who for the last two years has been part of a committee of the Catholic Native Boarding School Accountability and Healing Project, known as the AHP, which is compiling such a list. Cussen is also the religious communities liaison for the Nuns and Nones Land Justice Project.

Almost two dozen people sit on the AHP’s archives committee, most of whom are archivists for religious congregations or…

View Cache

The Maryland House of Delegate seemed to collectively hold its breath on Friday, as a years-long, painful journey to help survivors of child sexual abuse culminated in a vote.

Green bulbs lit up on the vote board, row after row, showing delegates in support of the Child Victims Act, which is designed to enable more survivors of child sexual abuse to be able sue institutions that enabled their abusers.

“Has everyone recorded their vote?” House Speaker Adrienne A. Jones asked, and not a soul in the chamber stirred.

With 132 votes in favor and just two opposed, the bill passed and applause rang out in the marble chamber. Delegates rose and, in a show of respect, turned to Del. C.T. Wilson, a survivor of child abuse who has been on a painful and frustrating mission to help fellow survivors.

With that vote, Maryland state lawmakers ensured that they will eliminate…

View Cache

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — Cardinal Seán P. O’Malley of Boston, president of the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors, expressed his surprise, disappointment and disagreement with statements challenging the commission’s effectiveness made by a prominent safeguarding expert who resigned from the advisory body.

However, “the commission has a plenary meeting scheduled in the next few weeks during which we can address these and other matters more fully as a group,” the cardinal said in an updated statement March 30.

Jesuit Father Hans Zollner, a leading expert in the field and member of the commission since it was founded in 2014, stepped down in mid-March but gave the reasons for his departure in a public statement March 29, saying it was due to urgent “structural and practical issues that led me to disassociate myself” from the papal commission.

Father Zollner’s criticisms came just a few hours after his resignation was…

View Cache

The upcoming plenary meeting of the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors will address matters that include the entity’s effectiveness. A statement issued by the President of the Commission notes that “the protection of children and vulnerable persons remains at the heart of the Church’s mission.”

After an initial statement issued by Cardinal Sean O’ Malley, President of the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors, announcing the resignation of Father Hans Zollner, he has released another in which he notes the Commission will soon be meeting for its plenary assembly and will discuss issues raised by Fr Zollner’s resignation.

Fr. Hans Zollner, SJ is a renowned child protection expert, and a founding member of the Commission. On Wednesday, 29 March, he asked to be relieved of his duties as a member of the Commission. In a personal statement, he cited “structural and practical issues” within the Commission, which…

View Cache

This month, the dioceses of Albany and Oakland publicly acknowledged that they may soon file for bankruptcy protection. Last month, the diocese of Santa Rosa, California, actually took that step. A total of 31 Catholic entities are in or have sought Chapter 11 proceedings. Other large, popular, and powerful groups have done likewise, notably the Boys Scouts of America and USA Gymnastics.

It is a truism to say that the powerful and wealthy are able to carve out legal strategies to benefit themselves. It is a cruel irony, though, that Chapter 11 in the Bankruptcy Code perversely caters to the institutions that created the conditions for child sex abuse while it sidelines the victims.

Chapter 11 was designed for “honest debtors” to reorganize their businesses so they could leave their debts behind and successfully carry on. It is triage for the poor debtor, who is the “victim” in the bankruptcy…

View Cache

Watch the preview here.

The guests on the Freedom From Religion Foundation’s Sunday “Freethought Matters” TV show have dedicated their lives to helping survivors of clergy child abuse obtain justice.

Peter Isley, an advocate against priest abuse and a survivor of childhood sexual assault by a Wisconsin priest, is a founding member of SNAP: Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests. A graduate of Harvard Divinity School and a psychotherapist in private practice, Isley has established and directed the nation’s only in-patient program for victims of clergy sexual trauma. Sarah Pearson, the deputy director of Nate’s Mission, is likewise a survivor of abuse and a recent grad of Harvard Divinity School. She is the director of a film previewed on the show titled “Manufacturing the Clerical Predator.”

Isley relates how his abuse started at a Catholic boarding school when he was 13, how he confronted the church about…

View Cache

Abuse survivors and advocates who’ve pushed for legislation making it easier in Kansas to prosecute abusers and file lawsuits decades later have achieved a breakthrough in the Legislature, where the proposal is advancing quickly.

The bill would remove limits on how long prosecutors have to file charges against suspects for any of a dozen violent sexual offenses against children, including indecent liberties, aggravated human trafficking and internet trading in child pornography. It also would give abuse survivors more time to file lawsuits seeking monetary damages.

Reports across the U.S. of abuse by Roman Catholic clergy have spurred interest in making it easier to pursue criminal prosecutions or lawsuits over cases of abuse dating back decades. In January, the Kansas Bureau of Investigation reported that it had identified 188 Catholic clergy suspected of crimes stretching back to the 1950s and submitted 30 affidavits to prosecutors. No criminal charges resulted, largely because of…

View Cache

Bacolod City, Philippines — A Catholic priest in Looc, Romblon, who was charged with rape, has been suspended from pastoral duties, Bishop Gerardo Alminaza said.

Conrado Mantac, 62, is under police custody following his arrest in Barangay Estefania in this city on Monday based on a warrant issued by Sagay Regional Trial Court Judge Reginald Fuentebella.

No bail was recommended.

Mantac, who was assigned at the Most Holy Rosary parish in Barangay Paraiso in Sagay City, was accused of molesting a 17-year-old choir member last year.

Alminaza said the alleged rape and arrest of Mantac “pains me and the whole diocese of San Carlos.”

“We have been consistent in our teachings and advocacy against any form of sexual abuse of children, women and vulnerable persons, and such crimes committed by any person and especially priests or religious cannot be tolerated,” Alminaza said.

Alminaza assured authorities of his cooperation in the…

View Cache

There were no pending criminal cases resulting from the report.

Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr on Wednesday called past coverups of sexual abuse in the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Atlanta and the Diocese of Savannah “horrific and indefensible.”

Carr, who is Roman Catholic, addressed the findings of a 267-page report released last week by the Prosecuting Attorneys’ Council of Georgia that investigated decades of suspected abuse in the Roman Catholic church in the state.

In a tweet, Carr wrote that the report “confirmed what many have feared and suspected” about such allegations. While the report, he tweeted, “did not uncover any current, ongoing or unreported sexual abuse by priests, it did reveal historical criminal allegations in Georgia against priests.”

In all the situations contained in the third-party report either the criminal statute of limitations had expired, the accused was deceased, the allegations had been reported to the proper authorities or…

View Cache

Arthur Masse was charged last year in alleged incident at Fort Alexander dating back more than 50 years

WARNING: This story contains distressing details.

A retired priest accused of assaulting a First Nations girl at a Manitoba residential school more than 50 years ago has been acquitted.

Victoria McIntosh, 63, alleged she was assaulted by Arthur Masse, now 93, in a bathroom of the Fort Alexander Residential School in eastern Manitoba’s Sagkeeng First Nation sometime between 1968 and 1970.

Loved ones, some wearing orange Every Child Matters shirts, hugged McIntosh in court in Winnipeg as Manitoba Court of King’s Bench Justice Candace Grammond read her decision on Thursday acquitting Masse.

Grammond said she believes McIntosh was assaulted, but she wasn’t persuaded that Masse in particular was necessarily the one who did it.

“I have concluded when taken as a whole her identification of the accused was not sufficiently reliable to convince me beyond a…

View Cache

Pope Francis recently changed the 2019 church law governing clerical sexual abuse. Lay leaders will now be accountable for cover-up abuses of the church members.

Changes in 2019 Church Law For Clerical Sexual Abuse

CNN reported that for decades, the Catholic Church had been rocked by several sexual abuse scandals in countries worldwide. In 2019, Pope Francis wrote an Apostolic letter entitled Vos estis lux mundi in which he outlined the rules governing clerical sexual abuse for the first time. At the time, the norms were commanded to be followed for four years.

On Saturday, Mar.25, the Vatican released a document saying that Pope Francis has made some minor revisions to that document and made it permanent, effective on Sunday, Apr. 30.

As mentioned, provisions have been added as part of the amendments to ensure that lay leaders of Vatican-approved groups are held accountable for covering up instances of sexual abuse….

View Cache

It is said that no good deed goes unpunished. We see two clear examples of this in the cases of Father Ryszard Biernat and Siobhan O’Connor, two persons who had the courage to do what was necessary to expose former Buffalo Bishop Malone’s continued shielding of abusive priests. As a consequence of their necessary actions, they were branded as pariahs by leaders of the church they love.

Father Ryszard realized the risk he took in secretly recording Bishop Malone, and it’s no surprise that he was suspended by Malone as a result. I have at times wondered whatever became of Father Ryszard, and learned the answer in the Feb. 27th Buffalo News article, that he remains suspended from active ministry more than three years after Malone first sanctioned him.

I was very perturbed to discover that Father Ryszard is still being treated as an outcast by the Diocese…

View Cache

The Vatican on Thursday responded to Indigenous demands and formally repudiated the “Doctrine of Discovery,” the theories backed by 15th-century “papal bulls” that legitimized the colonial-era seizure of Native lands and form the basis of some property laws today.

A Vatican statement said the papal bulls, or decrees, “did not adequately reflect the equal dignity and rights of Indigenous peoples” and have never been considered expressions of the Catholic faith.

The statement, from the Vatican’s development and education offices, marked a historic recognition of the Vatican’s own complicity in colonial-era abuses committed by European powers. It was issued under history’s first Latin American pontiff, who was hospitalized Thursday with a respiratory infection, exactly one year after Francis met at the Vatican with Indigenous leaders from Canada who raised the issue.

On Thursday, these Indigenous leaders welcomed the statement as a first good step, even though it didn’t address the rescinding of…

View Cache

ZOLLNER: FRANCIS’S KEY OVERSIGHT AND COMPLIANCE COMMISSION HAS FAILED.

MARCH 29, 2023. This morning, Fr. Hans Zollner, the chief architect of Pope Francis’s clergy sex abuse policy, announced his resignation from the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors. The Commission, established in 2014, is the centerpiece of Pope Francis’s response to the global clergy sexual abuse catastrophe.

The Commission’s mandate, according to Zollner, was to ensure “responsibility, compliance, accountability, and transparency.” After nine years in the Commission, Zollner has confirmed through his resignation statement that the Commission has failed on all four counts. Zollner’s resignation clearly signifies that the Commission, and therefore Pope Francis’s entire abuse management strategy, is unsalvageable.

Yesterday, Ending Clergy Abuse (ECA) along with the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP) sent an open letter to Zollner sharing some of his concerns and calling on him to urge Pope Francis to implement a true…

View Cache

Some 20 years ago, Ross Wiest’s job took him a couple of times to Stella Maris in Timonium, where he noticed a man who lived there looking at him and smiling.

“I know you,” said the nursing home resident.

Wiest recognized him, as well, but walked away without responding.

What could he say at that point to A. Joseph Maskell, the Baltimore priest accused of sexually abusing multiple Catholic school students and suspected, if not proven, of involvement in the unsolved murder of a nun?

What could Wiest say, when for so long he had kept secret his own childhood abuse and torture by Maskell and other priests?

Wiest is 68 now. Over time and in a more deliberative way than possible in the unexpected encounter shortly before Maskell’s death, he has found his voice.

About a month ago, his lawyer said, he settled an abuse claim against the Baltimore…

View Cache

The Pennsylvania House Judiciary Committee held a hearing Wednesday on bills that would allow for constitutional amendments opening a statute of limitations window for child sex abuse claims – one step in what is likely to result in a partisan impasse between the House and state Senate.

“There’s no more single effective measure to protect today’s society than to allow window legislation,” Mike McDonnell, an abuse survivor who is now the communications director for the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests, told the committee Wednesday.

The possibility of justice will embolden more survivors to come forward, advocates told the committee, and “they need a good law in place to be able to hold their abusers accountable and name them publicly,” McDonnell said.

Wednesday’s hearing was advertised as addressing both House Bill 1 and Senate Bill 1, both of which would, if passed, place a constitutional…

View Cache

Father Hans Zollner, one of the leading members of the Vatican committee against child sexual abuse, said on Wednesday he had resigned from the group, citing concerns over the way it was operating.

Zollner was one of the founding members of the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors, which Pope Francis established in 2014 as part of efforts against the decades-old scandal of paedophilia within the Roman Catholic Church.

His abrupt departure represents a sharp blow to its image and comes after several members resigned early on, complaining the commission had no real power and met with internal resistance.

“Over the last years, I have grown increasingly concerned with how the commission, in my perception, has gone about achieving [the goal of protecting children and vulnerable persons]”, the Jesuit priest said in a statement.

Zollner said his resignation was effective on 14th March. He added that he could not…

View Cache

Jesuit Father Hans Zollner, a leading safeguarding expert, resigned from the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors because of his concerns over how the advisory body had been working over the past years.

There are urgent “structural and practical issues,” he said, “that led me to disassociate myself” from the papal commission.

A member of the papal commission since its establishment in 2014, Father Zollner had submitted his resignation to Pope Francis, who accepted it March 14, the priest said in a written statement released March 29, the date his resignation became public.

Thanking the commission’s president, members, and staff, “both past and present, who share in the hope of building a safer church,” Father Zollner wrote, “The protection of children and vulnerable persons must be at the heart of the Catholic Church’s mission. That was the hope I and many others have shared since the commission was first…

View Cache

The most influential member of a Vatican commission on tackling clerical sex abuse said Wednesday he has quit over “structural and practical issues” which made it “impossible” for him to continue.

Hans Zollner, the public face of Pope Francis’s efforts to tackle the global paedophilia scandal, said he had “grown increasingly concerned” over how the papal advisory body works, “particularly in the areas of responsibility, compliance, accountability and transparency”.

His resignation from the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors is the latest blow to a working group dogged by controversy.

US Cardinal Sean O’Malley, the body’s head, said early Wednesday that Zollner had resigned due to a heavy workload.

But German Jesuit priest and renowned academic Zollner, one of the leading experts in the fight against child abuse in the Catholic Church, said he had “noticed issues…

View Cache

One of Pope Francis’ key advisers on clergy sexual abuse has resigned from the pontiff’s child protection commission and has launched searing criticisms against the organization’s leadership and its alleged lack of transparency.

The president of the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors, Boston’s Cardinal Sean O’Malley, announced on March 29 that one of the commission’s founding members, German Jesuit Fr. Hans Zollner, had asked the pope “to be relieved of his duties as a member.” 

O’Malley’s statement, which praised Zollner as a global “ambassador” for combating clergy sexual abuse, said that Zollner had resigned due to his new appointment earlier this month as a consultant to the Diocese of Rome’s safeguarding office. 

Yet in an unusually blunt 400-word statement issued several hours later, Zollner said that after nine years of service on the commission, it was “impossible” to continue given his mounting concerns “in the areas…

View Cache

A proposed bill, now pending in the Texas Legislature, could bring a measure of justice to many survivors of childhood sexual abuse.

As introduced by state Rep. Ann Johnson, a Democrat from Harris County, House Bill 206 would allow a person who was sexually abused as a child to bring a civil lawsuit “at any time” to recover for injuries arising out of the abuse.

If the bill is passed, the law would apply retroactively, effectively reforming archaic statutes of limitation to give child sex-abuse survivors access to the civil justice system, even if their cases would have been time-barred under prior law.

This would bring Texas law in line with current knowledge about the effects of childhood sexual abuse. Inherent to the trauma is a silencing effect that causes many victims to delay disclosure. Often, victims are well into adulthood before they begin talking about what was done to them. The  View Cache

Morganton native Jeffrey Kendall no longer works as an active Catholic priest, but that doesn’t mean he has given up looking for God.

“I’m always going to be Catholic – I can never change that,” Kendall said. “I’m not anti-church. I’m anti-abuse.”

Kendall left his post as in the Diocese of Charleston due to what he calls “a culture of cruelty.” He said the abuses of power and mistreatment he experienced left him broken and distant from God.

“I went back, and I tried to heal in the Catholic Church,” he said. “But healing was impossible in the Diocese of Charleston. That’s a damning statement.”

In his new memoir, A Walk to the End of the Earth, Kendall, a Freedom High School graduate and the first Catholic priest to hail from Morganton, recalls the abuse he endured and his journey away from the priesthood. The book recounts his anger at God,…

View Cache