ABUSE TRACKER

Criticisms of the handling of the January 5th funeral at the Vatican are missing the real question about the current pontificate.

Pope Francis and the Vatican were going to be under a microscope during the days between Benedict XVI’s passing and his interment.  There was never any question of avoiding it. The period, however, turned pretty quickly into a sort of Rorschach test for Catholics all around the world.

The test was not so much apt to determine where on the spectrum of political, social, and liturgical opinion people sit, as it was apt to reveal how they view the papacy – the office – and the Church generally.

People were always going to complain. The folks in the Vatican knew it, especially Pope Francis, the first person to succeed a living former pope in more than six centuries. Popes die in office. At least, they are supposed to die…

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Pope Francis on Monday privately met Archbishop Georg Ganswein, former Pope Benedict’s closest aide, who has rattled the Vatican with a book describing what he says were the strains while two men wearing white lived within its ancient walls.

The Vatican’s daily bulletin listed Ganswein in the pope’s schedule of audiences but as is customary gave no details.

Hours after Benedict was buried on Thursday, an Italian publishing house sent some news outlets including Reuters advance copies of Ganswein’s 330-page “Nothing But The Truth – My Life Beside Benedict XVI”.

Ganswein, 66, was Benedict’s personal secretary from 2003, when Benedict was still Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, and remained as his side for nearly 20 years until his death on Dec. 31. He was also Francis’ gatekeeper until the two had a falling out.

The main question now facing Francis is what position to give Ganswein. Many are waiting to see if…

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Since the first day of his papacy nearly a decade ago, Pope Francis has had to navigate an unprecedented complication in the Roman Catholic Church: coexisting with his retired predecessor in the same Vatican gardens. Supporters of Francis studiously played down the two-pontiff anomaly, but it generated confusion, especially when conservative acolytes of Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI sought to wrap their fervent opposition in their leader’s white robes.

Now, with the burial of Benedict on Thursday, Francis, never bashful about exercising his power, is for the first time unbound.

“Now, I’m sure he’ll take it over,” said Oswald Gracias, the archbishop of Mumbai, as he walked around St. Peter’s Square before Benedict’s funeral Mass.

Some liberal supporters of Francis, who has often balked in the face of advancing major overhauls, are raising expectations for a late-breaking season of change.

Many bishops and cardinals in the Vatican are convinced “he’s thinking ahead,”…

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Sometimes ministers and church volunteers make mistakes. Usually, these can be corrected, and the adults who made them can learn how to be better and continue their ministry. As many evangelicals proudly assert, forgiveness and reconciliation are important in the walk with Christ.

But when children are in danger, where do we draw the line with mistakes?

At Kanakuk Kamps, a popular evangelical Christian summer camp outside Branson, Mo., the line has been blurry for decades. For years, Kanakuk leadership allegedly has been aware of abuse at the hands of camp counselors and staff. Reports from victims and their parents appear to have been ignored, and many allegedly were silenced by Non-Disclosure Agreements. Pedophiles have been protected for a “lifetime of ministry” among innocent children who became subject to repeated and preventable abuse.

Part of a long list of survivors, Logan Yandell recently rejoined the fight against sexual abuse at Kanakuk Kamps…

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The Spiritans transferred the abusing priest abroad, after complaints were made about him in Dublin school

Pete Fischer was standing in a queue at the supermarket when the call came that turned everything he knew, or thought he knew, about his older brother Jeff on its head.

It was August 2018. The Pope’s visit to Ireland was making international headlines. An Irish man was interviewed on Canadian television about the sexual abuse he’d suffered as a child in Dublin at the hands of a priest called Fr Arthur Carragher, who was later shunted off to Canada.

Jeff Fischer was watching at home in London, Ontario, when a photograph of Carragher flashed on screen and brought suppressed memories flooding back. The first person he told was his brother.

“Jeff always called me, just ‘hey what’s going on?’ We were very close,” remembers Pete. “I said: ‘Hey, what’s going on.’ He said: ‘Do you…

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The 21-page report details what KBI calls an immense investigation. It has a scope of more than 50 years, looking into all four archdioceses of Kansas

A new report from the Kansas Bureau of Investigation shows the extent of child abuse by clergy in the Catholic Church in Kansas.

The 21-page report details what KBI calls an immense investigation. It has a scope of more than 50 years, looking into all four archdioceses of Kansas.

During the four-year investigation, KBI’s Catholic Clergy Sexual Abuse Task Force identified more than 400 victims, opened 125 criminal cases and investigated nearly 200 clergy members.

The Archdiocese of Kansas City, Kansas, recommended this investigation to the Attorney General’s Office in November 2018. On Saturday, they released a statement in response to the report — saying you cannot read it without your heart breaking.

It says in part, “[Archbishop Joseph Naumann] joins bishops across the state of…

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A former visiting priest with the Roman Catholic Diocese of Charleston has been charged with sexual abuse of a minor, according to federal court documents.

Father Jamie Gonzalez-Farias is due for an arraignment Monday afternoon at federal court in Columbia. Magistrate Judge Paige Gossett is presiding.

Gonzalez-Farias was transferred to the district of South Carolina in 2015. The alleged crimes happened in the fall of 2020, court documents say.

He was arrested in Miami, Florida last November and transferred to South Carolina for court.

Court documents say Gonzalez-Farias was charged with aggravated sexual abuse of children, coercion of a minor and transportation of a minor with intent to engage in criminal sexual activity.

The priest was not on the list of “credibly accused” released by the diocese in 2019, but has since been added.

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Liz and Linda. Linda and Liz.

Liz was from “Up the Hill,” Federal Hill. Confident and sporty, with thick blond hair and ice-blue eyes, she dominated the basketball court. Her father was a police officer; the family sacrificed to send their nine children to Catholic school.

Linda was from “Down the Point,” Locust Point. She inherited her olive skin and dark brown curls from her mother, who left when Linda was 3 months old. Linda’s father, too, was a police officer. He brought baby Linda to his mother to raise. Linda was softer, shy, a rule follower.

The girls met in John Merzbacher’s class at the Catholic Community School of Baltimore in 1972. You can call me “Merz,” he said. Merz was different. He smoked a pipe in the classroom. He said bad words. He had a stoplight, a real stoplight that flashed green and yellow and red during class….

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Archbishop Charles Scicluna, the man universally recognized as having served as the Vatican’s top prosecutor in cases of clerical misconduct, upholds and commends the handling of clerical sex abuse by the late Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI.

Archbishop Charles Scicluna says Pope Francis continues to build on the progress made under Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI’s papacy in the Church’s response to clerical abuse cases through many documents.

The Maltese Archbishop, Adjunct Secretary of the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith, served for 10 years as Promoter of Justice within that Congregation and played an instrumental role in the handling of clerical sex abuse cases.

He notes that then-Cardinal Ratzinger “was instrumental in the lengthy process that updated the law and procedures on the gravest canonical delicts (crimes; delicta graviora) reserved to the jurisdiction of the Congregation (now Dicastery) for the Doctrine of the Faith (1996 – 2001).” 

As Prefect of the…

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NPR’s Rob Schmitz speaks with Rev. Tom Reese, a senior analyst with the Religion News Service, about the legacy of the late Pope Benedict XIV.

LISTEN • 4:36

ROB SCHMITZ, HOST:

And Catholic Jesuit priest Thomas Reese is with us this morning to add to this. He’s a senior analyst with Religion News Service and the author of “Inside The Vatican: The Politics And Organization Of The Catholic Church.” Good morning.

THOMAS REESE: Good morning.

SCHMITZ: Father Reese, we just heard from NPR’s Sylvia Poggioli in Rome, who described Pope Benedict’s legacy. How would you describe his legacy?

REESE: Well, I agree with much of what Sylvia said. He certainly will go down in history as the first pope to resign in 600 years, and it makes it easier for future popes to resign. In addition, you know, he was the first person in the Vatican to take the sex abuse crisis…

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For immediate release

DAVID RIGBY, A SEXUAL ABUSE VICTIM OF FATHER ROBERT TURNBULL, O.S.A., AT AUSTIN PREP IN READING, MA, WILL SPEAK IN PERSON IN FRONT OF ST. AUGUSTINE CHURCH IN ANDOVER, MA, ABOUT THE ABUSE HE EXPERIENCED

ST. AUGUSTINE IS THE ONE AND ONLY PARISH ADMINISTERED BY THE AUGUSTINIAN FRIARS IN THE ARCHDIOCESE OF BOSTON AND AUSTIN PREP IS THE ONLY SECONDARY SCHOOL ADMINISTERED BY THE AUGUSTINIAN FRIARS IN THE ARCHDIOCESE OF BOSTON

An Augustinian priest from Austin Prep, Reading, MA, Father Robert Turnbull, who has been credibly accused of sexual abuse of minor children previously, once again has been found credibly accused of sexual abuse of two minor children and students from Austin Prep School in Reading, MA, and each of the victims received low six-figure financial settlements because of the sexual abuse.

The victims are represented by Attorney Mitchell Garabedian of Boston, MA, who will join the…

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Attorney general releases summary of four-year inquiry on last full day on job

TOPEKA — The Kansas Bureau of Investigation’s four-year inquiry into alleged child sexual abuse in four Catholic dioceses and a breakaway Catholic sect in the state resulted in referral of 30 cases to county prosecutors targeting 14 members of the clergy, state officials said Friday.

An executive summary of the KBI report said no prosecutor had charged any priests named in KBI affidavits with sexual crimes. It’s unlikely the cases would result in charges against alleged abusers because Kansas eliminated the statute of limitations on certain sex crimes in 2013, but didn’t make the statute retroactive.

Historical crimes of rape, indecent liberties with a child or criminal sodomy, like most of the clergy allegations investigated by the KBI, were tied to the statute of limitations at the time of the crime. In most instances, the statute of…

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The Archdiocese of Kansas City released a statement Saturday after the Kansas Bureau of Investigation released a report results from a four-year investigation into abuse in Kansas’ Catholic Churches.

The investigation started when departing Kansas Attorney General Derek Schmidt requested it in 2018 after Kansas City Archdiocese Archbishop Joseph Naumann asked to have each diocese investigated.

It found all four dioceses in Kansas not only had clergy members who abused children between 1950 and the 2000s but also helped cover up those crimes.

“You cannot read this report without your heart breaking,” said Archbishop Joseph Naumann, leader of the Archdiocese of Kansas City in Kansas.

“The Archdiocese has openly collaborated with the KBI from the moment we initiated an extensive and thorough review of our internal files by an independent, outside law firm,” Vicar General Father John Riley said in a written statement. “We shared the full results of our…

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A South Carolina priest who served in the Roman Catholic Diocese of Charleston has been charged with federal sex crimes stemming from allegations that he abused an 11-year-old child.

Jaime Adolfo Gonzalez-Farias, known in church as “Father Gonzalez,” was arrested by the U.S. Marshals Service in Miami on Nov. 29, according to court records. A recently unsealed indictment shows Gonzalez-Farias, 68, was charged with aggravated sexual abuse of children, coercion of a minor and transportation of a minor with intent to engage in criminal sexual activity.

Between Nov. 8 and Nov. 12, 2020, Gonzalez-Farias is accused of taking an 11-year-old child to Florida and engaging in the “intentional touching, not through the clothing, of (the victim’s) genitalia,” according to the indictment.

In a statement provided to The State, the Roman Catholic Diocese of Charleston said they first became aware of an allegation of sexual misconduct with a…

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Federal prosecutors charged a Catholic priest who served for several years in the Charleston Diocese with sexually abusing an 11-year-old child.

Jaime Adolfo Gonzalez-Farias, 68, was arrested Nov. 28, 2022, in Florida, court records show. The Chilean national had worked in South Carolina as a visiting priest of the Diocese of San Bernardo, Chile, between 2015 and 2020, according to church records.

Prosecutors charged him in an October 2022 indictment with three counts of sexual crimes: coercion or enticement of a minor; transportation of a minor with intent to engage in criminal sexual activity; and aggravated sexual abuse of children.

Prosecutors allege his crimes began in fall 2020, when Gonzalez-Farias persuaded the 11-year-old to engage in sexual activity with him, according to the recently unsealed indictment.

The defendant traveled with the child from South Carolina to another state, where Gonzalez-Farias is accused of “intentional touching, not through the clothing, of (the victim’s) genitalia,”…

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ROME – In the 1999 film “The Talented Mr. Ripley,” based on Patricia Highsmith’s 1955 novel, Dickie Greenleaf is a charismatic and rich young socialite who’s in the habit of drawing people into his orbit and making them feel special, until he loses interest and casts them aside.

When this begins to happen to Tom Ripley, the title character, Greenleaf’s girlfriend Marge Sherwood expresses sympathy.

“It’s like the sun shines on you and it’s glorious,” she says of Dickie’s favor, “and then he forgets you and it’s very, very cold.”

As Italian Cardinal Angelo De Donatis would be the latest to tell you, there’s a somewhat similar phenomenon with Pope Francis. After almost a decade in power, there’s an increasingly long list of figures who were once part of the pontiff’s inner circle, but who, for one reason or another, have lost that standing.

One day after Francis laid his…

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More than a dozen people once barred by statutes of limitations are suing the Roman Catholic Diocese of Portland.

When the Rev. Lawrence Sabatino allegedly sexually abused a 6-year-old Ann Marie Burke at St. Peter Parish nearly 60 years ago, the Roman Catholic Diocese of Portland already was aware of at least one other girl Sabatino had reportedly abused at a different church in Lewiston several years earlier.

The church moved Sabatino from Lewiston to Portland in 1958, after 6-year-old Patricia Butkowski‘s parents presented church officials with evidence the priest had sexually abused their daughter, a report from the Maine Attorney General’s office revealed 46 years later.

Records show Sabatino was ordered not to contact Patricia or her family and to stop “playing games” with little girls. But when the priest arrived at St. Peter, he was allowed to oversee a group of young girls, including Ann,…

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Thirteen lawsuits have been filed against the Roman Catholic Diocese of Portland so far this year, all alleging the church failed to stop priests and other employees from sexually abusing children. The complaints lay out a timeline of abuse, much of which the church has acknowledged, that spans decades.

 1957: Mary Geraldine Walsh, a nun working at St. John Parochial School in Bangor, is accused of sexually abusing a student.

1958: Lawrence Sabatino is accused of abuse at St. Patrick Parish in Lewiston. The diocese later moves him to St. Peter Parish in Portland.

1961: John Curran is accused of abuse at St. Joseph Parish in Old Town.

1962: Curran arrives at St. Augustine Parish in Augusta, where he is accused of abusing at least three boys in the early 1960s.

1964: Sabatino is accused of abuse at St. Peter Parish.

1966: Edward F. Ward is accused of abuse at St. Mary…

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[PHOTO: Kansas Attorney General Derek Schmidt released the summary of an investigation into clergy sexual abuse on his last full day in office. (Tim Carpenter/Kansas Reflector)]

Now we know the true legacy of outgoing Attorney General Derek Schmidt: allowing likely sexual abusers of children to walk free.

According to a summary from the Kansas Bureau of Investigation, more than 400 children in our state were sexually abused by Catholic clergy since 1950. While the KBI looked into nearly 200 clergy and opened 125 criminal cases, not a single person faced legal consequences. You can credit the statute of limitations and a tradition of stonewalling church bureaucracy.

Schmidt appears to have sat on the KBI report. Despite beginning in 2018, its results didn’t appear until after he lost a race for governor against Democrat Laura Kelly. His office buried the news on a Friday…

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The Archdiocese of Kansas City in Kansas learned from media reports last evening that the Kansas Attorney General has released a report by the Kansas Bureau of Investigation of its investigation of historical allegations of sexual abuse made against Catholic clergy in the state.  

Although there has not been sufficient time to carefully study the report, it reflects a detailed four-year investigation of all four dioceses (or church jurisdictions) in Kansas covering more than 50 years. 

The trauma experienced by the victims is clear from the KBI report, said Archbishop Joseph Naumann, leader of the Archdiocese of Kansas City in Kansas.

“You cannot read this report without your heart breaking,” he said.

The archbishop expressed his gratitude to the Kansas attorney general for the professionalism and thoroughness he and the Kansas Bureau of Investigation brought to the study. It was Archbishop Naumann who initially requested the investigation of archdiocesan files…

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A Catholic priest who served in the Charleston Diocese has been charged with federal sex crimes.

Jaime Adolfo Gonzalez-Farias, known as “Father Gonzalez,” was arrested by the U.S. Marshall Service in Miami, Florida on Nov. 29, according to records filed in South Carolina federal court. He is being remanded to South Carolina where he will face allegations that he sexually abused an 11-year-old.

In a recently unsealed indictment, Gonzalez-Farias is charged with aggravated sexual abuse of children, coercion of a minor and transportation of a minor with intent to engage in criminal sexual activity.

Beginning Oct. 17, 2020, Gonzalez-Farias sought to “persuade, induce, entice and coerce” the 11-year-old victim, named in the indictment as Minor Victim 1, to engage in sex with him, the indictment states.

Between Nov. 8 and Nov. 12, 2020, Gonzalez-Farias is accused of transporting the child to Florida and engaging in the…

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Charges not filed due to statute of limitations, priest deaths

A four-year long investigation conducted by the Kansas Bureau of Investigation identified dozens of Kansas Catholic clergy suspected of committing sex crimes against children.

The Kansas Attorney General’s Office released a lengthy report of the KBI’s findings on Friday evening.

Investigators conducted their review for the whole Catholic church in Kansas, which is divided across Dodge City, Kansas City, Salina and Wichita.

According to the report, the KBI pinned 188 members who may have committed crimes including aggravated criminal sodomy, rape, aggravated indecent liberties with a child and aggravated sexual battery.

As a result of its investigation, the KBI presented charging information against 30 clergy.

Because of statute of limitations has run out on many cases, and the deaths of the clergy member in others, no prosecutors have yet to file any charges.

As part of the investigation,  View Cache

The Kansas Bureau of Investigation found that the church minimized child rape with euphemisms, protected priests accused of rape and supported clergy financially after they had been implicated in sexual assault.

A Kansas Bureau of Investigation report released late Friday documents a chronic pattern of sexual abuse by Catholic priests in the state, and the church’s history of protecting its clergy.

The report released by the state attorney general’s office said dioceses across the state frequently failed to follow church policies regarding allegations of sexual abuse by Catholic clergy.

“By any objective review,” the report states, “practices existed that were designed to conceal the truth about what took place.”

The task force that conducted the overview said efforts to prosecute cases were hampered by actions of the church, by expiring statutes of limitations and the deaths of both alleged abusers and their victims.

In late 2018, Kansas…

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The Kansas Bureau of Investigation said Friday that it has distributed 30 charging affidavits to prosecutors as part of its investigation into sexual abuse by Catholic priests but, so far, no charges have been filed.

Kansas Attorney General Derek Schmidt released the KBI’s report concluding an investigation of the state’s four Roman Catholic dioceses in Wichita, Salina, Dodge City and Kansas City, Kansas.

The bureau said it would continue to investigate clergy associated with the Society of Saint Pius X, a breakaway Catholic group with a large branch in St. Marys.

A summary of the report said a six-member task force had interviewed 137 victims of abuse, initiated 125 criminal cases and distributed 30 affidavits to prosecutors for charging consideration.

Investigators identified 188 clergy members suspected of committing various criminal acts from records that stretched to the 1950s.

Michael McDonnell, a spokesperson for the international Survivors Network of those Abused…

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A four-year investigation into sexual abuse in Kansas’ Catholic dioceses and a breakaway Catholic sect has identified 188 clergy members suspected of committing criminal acts, according to a report released Friday by outgoing Attorney General Derek Schmidt.

But because of statute of limitations issues, no charges have yet resulted from the investigation conducted by the state’s top law enforcement agency.

“In summary, the task force received and reviewed 41,265 pages of records, received and reviewed 224 tips, interviewed 137 victims of abuse, initiated 125 criminal cases and distributed 30 charging affidavits to the appropriate prosecutors for charging consideration,” wrote Kansas Bureau of Investigation director Kirk Thompson in a letter to Schmidt.

“Our investigations identified 188 clergy members suspected of committing various criminal acts, to include: aggravated criminal sodomy, rape, aggravated indecent liberties with a child and aggravated sexual battery.

” The report said the investigation turned up many…

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Slovenia’s Jesuits say they believe sexual abuse allegations against a prominent member of their order are true and have asked for forgiveness.

It is the latest development in the case of Father Marko Ivan Rupnik that has rattled the religious order and the Vatican.

It was only after Italian media reports in November alleging that Rupnik, 68, had sexually and psychologically abused nuns when he was their spiritual director in his native Slovenia three decades ago that Jesuit headquarters acknowledged the case.

They said he is under partial sanctions, including a ban on hearing confessions and leading spiritual retreats, but that the Vatican’s doctrinal department ruled that the case had gone beyond the statute of limitations.

Jesuit headquarters also said the same Vatican department had excommunicated Rupnik several years ago but lifted the excommunication after the priest had repented.

The order’s public statements in Rome have been contradictory, leaving many…

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Callers to the Southern Baptist Convention’s sexual abuse hotline are often routed to a person who also serves the SBC’s abuse reform implementation task force.

Did you know this? I’m betting most of you didn’t. It’s information about the hotline that has not been widely disseminated. And that’s troubling.

For clergy sex abuse survivors, whom church and denominational leaders have often lied to, deceived and betrayed — again and again and again — maximum transparency about the entirety of the reporting process is essential for cultivating trust.

From the get-go, long before they ever pick up the phone or draft the first email, survivors should have this information about the hotline. It is information that should be public.

As confirmed in multiple text messages from Rachael Denhollander, when survivors contact the SBC’s sexual abuse hotline, currently operated by Guidepost Solutions, Denhollander is the “advocate” to whom Guidepost refers survivors so that Denhollander can…

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Attorneys for the diocese and the 13 plaintiffs suing the church will argue the case before Superior Court Justice Thomas McKeon later this month.

The Roman Catholic Diocese of Portland is challenging the constitutionality of a state law that removed the statute of limitations for anyone who wants to file a lawsuit alleging that they experienced childhood sexual abuse in Maine.

When the law eliminating the time limit for childhood abuse claims passed in the summer of 2021 it opened the door for people to sue the diocese for decades-old incidents.

The diocese says the Legislature overstepped its bounds, and that the newfound ability to sue for incidents before 1987, which had been the statute of limitations in most cases, violates both the Maine and U.S. constitutions. The attorney leading a group of new plaintiffs suing the diocese rebutted that argument Wednesday at a news conference in Lewiston.

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Supporters of a plan to raise a civil statute of limitations to let Ohio survivors of Boy Scout abuse get larger settlements are expressing disappointment that it failed to pass in the recent lame-duck legislative session.

Ohio’s civil statute of limitations for victims of sexual abuse currently ends at age 30.

The Scout’s Honor Law would ensure that survivors in Ohio will get 100% of their settlement rather than 30 to 45%.

In a bankruptcy settlement, the Boy Scouts of America set aside nearly $3 billion for more than 82,000 sexual abuse survivors. About 1,911 of the survivors are in Ohio.

Chris Graham is not involved in that case, but he is a sexual abuse survivor and advocate for the Scout’s Honor Law.

Graham said Ohio ranks poorly when it comes to statutes of limitations for sex crimes.

“It means that the Boy Scouts here in Ohio are eligible to…

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Across the US, there are 7,386 state legislators. Roughly 200 of them were picked for leadership positions in their respective chambers. A man in Pennsylvania just won the election to such a post. Why is this big news to abuse victims and advocates? Because he is State Rep. Mark Rozzi and now the Speaker of the State House of Representatives. The New York Times just ran a nearly-full page article about him. 

Here are some interesting facts about Rozzi:

• • He is a survivor of child sexual abuse by a Catholic priest
  • He disclosed this publicly
  • His revelation prompted at least two other victims to come forward
  • He sued his perpetrator and the diocese that ordained and supervised him
  • He disclosed criminal investigations into the Allentown and Harrisburg dioceses
  • He testified before a grand jury investigating predator priests and church cover-ups in Pittsburgh
  • He publicly called on…

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Pennsylvania Governor Tom Wolf has called for a special session of the General Assembly to propose a constitutional amendment that would retroactively extend the timeline for victims of childhood sexual abuse to file civil actions.

The governor has called for the special session to start on Monday January 9, 2023.

In the proclamation he called for lawmakers to begin the process of passing House Bill 14 for the second time.

The bill would open what’s become known as a two year “window of justice.” It would allow victims of childhood sexual abuse to file lawsuits against their alleged abusers. One example, is it would give victims of sex abuse at the hands of priests the ability to sue the church, event if the statute of limitations had expired.

“For far too many Pennsylvanians, justice and healing for the pain they’ve experienced is out of reach,” said Gov. Wolf in a…

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Pennsylvania’s new state House speaker declared Friday that no other legislation will be taken up by his chamber until it approves a constitutional amendment granting child sexual abuse victims the power to file what would otherwise be outdated claims.

House Speaker Mark Rozzi, who has spoken of being abused as a boy by a Roman Catholic priest, issued his ultimatum ahead of Monday’s scheduled start of a special session on the issue, ordered by outgoing Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf.

Rozzi, a Reading area Democrat, was the surprise pick for speaker on Tuesday. He has promised to act as an independent and not caucus with the Democrats.

Rozzi previously led efforts to provide a two-year “window” during which abuse victims may sue, including his work for the 2021 passage in both General Assembly chambers of a constitutional amendment to create that lawsuit period. To become law, the measure must be passed…

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While debate continues about whether he should have done even more as pope to address this scourge, knowledgeable observers agree he initiated a decisive change in how the Church deals with the issue.

Even though nearly a decade has passed since Pope Benedict XVI resigned, his death has unleashed yet another scrutiny of his handling of the Church’s sexual-abuse crisis. 

The latest assessments echo those of 2013 when some reports said his legacy had been marred by the abuse scandal and even that he had been complicit in it. At the same time, other observers credited him with aggressively dealing with a problem that had clearly predated his election to the papacy.

Msgr. Robert Oliver, a canon-law expert with 20 years of experience in working with victims and dealing with abuse cases, sees this latest rehashing as a sign.

“More time is clearly needed for us to gain true perspective and…

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On Thursday, as the Vatican was holding funeral ceremonies for Pope Emeritus Pope Benedict XVI, top sexual abuse attorney Mitchell Garabedian issued comments about the ongoing cover-up of sexual abuse that took place. 

Born in Germany, Benedict served as the head of the Catholic Church from 2005 to 2013. 

Benedict, who was the first pontiff in almost 600 years to resign his position rather than hold office for life, passed away on Saturday, according to a statement from the Vatican. 

Garabedian said in a statement:

I have represented childhood clergy sexual abuse victims worldwide for decades. 

For the most part, Pope Benedict continued the cover-up of clergy sexual abuse by saying the right things but not taking substantive action. Respectfully, Pope Benedict did very little to alleviate the suffering and loneliness of childhood sexual abuse victims. The here and there limited action by Pope Benedict compounded the pain of clergy sexual…

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As he was preparing to depart for Rome to attend the funeral of Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, Cardinal Seán P. O’Malley spoke to The Pilot Jan. 2 about his experiences with the late pope and his impact on the Church. The interview has been edited for clarity.

Q. You had many personal interactions, first with Cardinal Ratzinger and then with Pope Benedict XVI. How would you describe him — his character and demeanor?

He was certainly a very gentle and kind person. He was extremely brilliant intellectually but very respectful of other people. He didn’t use his brilliance as a way of overwhelming or putting people down. He was always searching for the truth and always searching to be faithful to the traditions of the Church. But he was always kind and respectful, even to those who did not share his convictions.

Q. Some coverage of his passing describes him as a fundamentalist…

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Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI’s longtime personal secretary has written a tell-all book that his publisher on Monday promised would tell the truth about the “blatant calumnies,” “dark maneuvers,” mysteries and scandals that sullied the reputation of a pontiff best known for his historic resignation.

Archbishop Georg Gaenswein’s “Nothing but the Truth: My Life Beside Pope Benedict XVI” is being published this month by the Piemme imprint of Italian publishing giant Mondadori, according to a press release.

Benedict died Saturday at age 95 and his body was put on display Monday in St. Peter’s Basilica ahead of a Thursday funeral to be celebrated by his successor, Pope Francis.

Gaenswein, a 66-year-old German priest, stood by Benedict’s side for nearly three decades, first as an official working for then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger in the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, then starting in 2003 as Ratzinger’s personal secretary.

Gaenswein followed his boss to…

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The Roman Catholic Diocese of Portland is challenging a Maine law that eliminated the statue of limitations for child sexual abuse, allowing a wave of new lawsuits.

A motion in the first of the new civil lawsuits suggests the 2021 law is unconstitutional through retroactive changes that violate due process and vested rights.

But Michael Bigos, attorney for plaintiffs, disagreed with claims that the law is unconstitutional, and said the courts should defer to the Legislature on the matter.

The arguments focusing on vested rights, retroactive laws and the emotionally charged subject of child sexual abuse sets up a challenge that ultimately will have to be decided by Maine’s Supreme Judicial Court, said Jim Burke, professor emeritus at University of Maine School of Law.

The motion will be argued before a Superior Court justice at the end of the month. “It’s going to be a powerful argument on both sides,” Burke…

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[VIDEO]

Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI was celebrated Thursday at a funeral mass in St. Peter’s Square with his successor, Pope Francis, presiding. Though retired nearly a decade, Benedict was a leading light for conservatives in the church. Others look at his mixed record on child sexual abuse in the church as a failure. Nick Schifrin reports.

Read the Full Transcript

Geoff Bennett: Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI was celebrated today at a funeral mass in St. Peter’s Square, with his successor, Pope Francis, presiding.Though retired for nearly a decade, Benedict was a leading light for conservatives in the Catholic Church. Others look at his mixed record on child sexual abuse in the church as a failure.Nick Schifrin looks at his legacy and an historic funeral.

Nick Schifrin:In St. Peter’s Square, a solemn service that hasn’t taken place for more than 200 years, a living pope, Francis, leading the funeral of a…

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Local meetings of the North America Man/Boy Love Association were held in Langley and Aldergrove, a B.C. Supreme Court notice of civil claim says.

Warning: This story talks about sexual assault and may be distressing to some readers.

A Surrey man claims he was groomed for sexual abuse from an early age and then sexually assaulted hundreds of times by a man who was a Scout leader and United Church volunteer.

A notice of civil claim filed in B.C. Supreme Court by S.C. alleges Jens Binderup Jensen also took advantage of his work in hotels to access rooms where the alleged assaults took place.

The suit, filed Aug. 22, names as defendants Binderup, Scouts Canada, the United Church of Canada and Board of Trustees of the School District No. 39 Vancouver. The claim calls the aforementioned the youth group defendants.

Also named as defendants: Nurmann Holdings Ltd, La Concha…

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As an academic, Benedict XVI could not lead the clean-up but admitted that ‘mistakes have been made’ and apologized

Pope Benedict XVI has gone to his eternal rest after a life of service, teaching and ruling the Catholic Church. He was pope from April 19, 2005, until his resignation on Feb. 28, 2013. Many remember him as a much revered and greatly respected priest, bishop and pope. He has been lauded by many on the conservative side of the Catholic Church.

Before becoming pope he was known as Joseph Ratzinger. Of German nationality, he became a priest in 1951 and later made a bishop in 1977 and pope in 2005. As priest, bishop and cardinal he was a renowned academic and theologian and author of 66 books, three encyclical letters on love (2005), hope (2007), and “charity in truth” (2009).

He was a conservative traditional pope and reinstated the pre-Vatican…

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In the Pennsylvania Capitol, no other issue defines the legislative career of newly minted state House Speaker Mark Rozzi more than helping survivors of decades-old sexual abuse.

In every legislative session since he was first elected in 2012, Rozzi has sponsored bills that would suspend the state’s statute of limitations for two years to allow people sexually abused as children to sue their perpetrators.

And as each legislative session came and went with no action, the onetime small businessman from Berks County became an unabashed advocate. He organized rallies with survivors in the Capitol rotunda. He called out legislators — sometimes, in unflattering terms — who opposed his bills.

And he butted heads with powerful interests seeking to block his efforts, which only intensified following the scathing 2018 grand jury report detailing decades of child sexual abuse and cover-up in the Roman Catholic Church.

At one point, Rozzi, who was abused…

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Joseph Ratzinger was accused of mishandling cases when he was bishop of Munich, but as pope he was credited with forcing the Catholic Church to face a scourge long ignored. 

Jason Horowitz reported and wrote this article from Rome, where he is bureau chief. Erika Solomon, based in Berlin, spoke with abuse victims and mourners in Munich and Garching an der Alz, Germany.

Before he led the Roman Catholic Church as Benedict XVI, and before he loomed over the church as a powerhouse cardinal and the Vatican’s chief doctrinal watchdog, Joseph Ratzinger, archbishop of Munich, attended a 1980 meeting about a priest in northwestern Germany accused of abusing children.

What exactly transpired during the meeting is unclear — but afterward, the priest was transferred, and over the next dozen years moved around Bavaria to different parishes before he ended up in the tiny village of Garching an der Alz,…

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: 4 January, 2023

AG Kaul requires evidence from the Vatican regarding all Wisconsin cases to complete his clergy abuse investigation

Ambassador Donnelly must demand evidence on behalf of Kaul’s investigation

On Thursday, a US delegation including US Ambassador to the Holy See, Joe Donnelly, and former Milwaukee Archbishop, now Cardinal Timothy Dolan, will represent President Biden at the funeral of Pope Benedict XVI.

As head of the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) and then Pope, Benedict XVI was involved in some of the most notorious cases of sexual abuse in the United States, including that of Milwaukee-based Father Lawrence Murphy, who raped and sexually assaulted over 200 deaf children.

When the Milwaukee Archdiocese filed bankruptcy for roughly 8,000 incidents of child sexual abuse, Pope Benedict XVI approved a widely-considered fraudulent transfer of $60 million dollars at the request of then Milwaukee…

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For decades, Christa Brown documented cases of sexual abuse within the world’s largest Baptist denomination—including her own.

Christa Brown describes her girlhood self as a “goody-two-shoes nerd.” She sang in the church choir and played piano. She adored God with the “wholehearted, unlimited love” of a child. 

She felt cool riding with other church kids in her Baptist youth pastor’s ‘66 Mustang. The pastor, Tommy Gilmore, was then in his late twenties. According to Brown, when he played flag football with her, he kept ending up on top of her, pinning her face-down to the ground. He lingered there. When the youth group played Twister, he played too, pressing his body against hers. When she wore high heels for the first time at 15, Gilmore told her how he loved what heels did for a woman’s legs. 

Brown trusted him. She confided family secrets to Gilmore, and as he began…

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Before we canonize the late pope, let’s remember all the harm his preaching caused — and hope for something better

They say you should never speak ill of the dead, but we may need to make an exception for Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI. I don’t presume to judge the state of his soul when he met his maker. But in the mostly positive coverage of this complicated man and his troubled papacy, I fear we will forget all the damage he did to so many Catholics over the course of his long career. 

This is not about vengeance. It’s an attempt to stop a Benedict cult before it begins. During his more than four decades at the Vatican, Benedict had a profound impact on the American Catholic church, long dominated by conservative prelates appointed by him and his predecessor, Pope John Paul II. These American bishops placed their allegiance in Benedict…

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It may seem counterintuitive, but the defining legacy of Pope Benedict XVI is that he gave the Church Pope Francis.

Following the death of Pope Benedict XVI, the tributes and testimonies to his life have flowed, offering different accounts of an extraordinary life of study and service to the Church.

Joseph Ratzinger, ordained a priest in 1951 and a bishop in 1977, was a prolific theologian and author. A major force in the post conciliar decades, his academic and theological writings seem likely to form part of the canon of essential study for future generations of professors, priests and bishops.

As a bishop, priest, and cardinal, Ratzinger was also, contrary to many media caricatures, well known as a kindly and personal figure, often sending thoughtful, handwritten letters in response to mail he received from Catholics around the world.

The legacy of Joseph Ratzinger the theologian and the man seems obvious.

…

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Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, the first pope in 600 years to resign, has died. Here are highlights from his life.

April 16, 1927: Born Joseph Alois Ratzinger in Marktl am Inn, Germany, youngest of three children to Joseph and Maria Ratzinger.

1943-1945: Assistant in Germany’s anti-aircraft defense and infantry soldier; imprisoned in 1945 in American POW camp in Neu-Ulm.

June 29, 1951: Ordained along with brother Georg Ratzinger in Freising.

1969-1977: Professor at University of Regensburg.

March 25, 1977: Named archbishop of Munich and Freising.

June 27, 1977: Made a cardinal by Pope Paul VI.

Nov. 25, 1981: Named prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith by Pope John Paul II; takes up post in March 1982.

April 2, 2005: Pope John Paul II dies.

April 8, 2005: As dean of the College of Cardinals, Ratzinger presides over John Paul’s funeral.

April 19, 2005: Elected 265th pope…

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The pope emeritus took the first strong steps to stop clery sex abuse, but ultimately prioiritized the institution of the church.

A man of contradictions. A pope of colliding centuries. It’s as if Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, who is being laid to rest Thursday in Vatican City, has two legacies instead of one. 

The theologian Joseph Ratzinger was a significant architect of the theology that informed the doctrines of the Second Vatican Council, a reform effort in the 1960s that brought fresh air to the church by encouraging outreach to other religions, the use of local languages instead of Latin at Mass, support for religious freedom and much more.

Despite this promise and the potential for transparency, Benedict continued the church’s centuries-old preference for handling abuse cases privately.

Ratzinger was deemed one of the influential progressives at the council, but as a cardinal starting in 1977 and then as pope…

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State delegations’ silence on Pope Benedict XVI’s clergy abuse cover-up record devastating to victims and families around the world

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: 4 January, 2023

The following is a letter from the Ending Clergy Abuse (ECA) Board Members to their respective state delegations regarding their potential attendance of Pope Benedict XVI’s funeral and their public statements praising his life and legacy.

To our respective state delegations:

This week, the Vatican will lead a global memorial and celebration, honoring the life and legacy of Pope Benedict XVI. You will travel to Vatican City for his funeral, and in doing so, you will be acknowledging the historical, political, and social power of the Catholic Church. Meanwhile millions of clergy abuse victims around the world will be forced to witness what will likely be a rewriting of history concerning the legacy and actions of a man who is directly and partly responsible…

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(For Immediate Release December 31, 2022) 

In our view, the death of Pope Benedict XVI is a reminder that, much like John Paul II, Benedict was more concerned about the church’s deteriorating image and financial flow to the hierarchy versus grasping the concept of true apologies followed by true amends to victims of abuse. The rot of clergy sexual abuse of children and adults, even their own professed religious, runs throughout the Catholic church, to every country, and we now have incontrovertible evidence, all the way to the top.

Any celebration that marks the life of abuse enablers like Benedict must end. It is past time for the Vatican to refocus on change: tell the truth about known abusive clergy, protect children and adults, and allow justice to those who have been hurt. Honoring Pope Benedict XVI now is not only wrong. It is shameful.

It is almost a year after…

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Under intense national scrutiny after the groundbreaking reporting on clergy sexual abuse and cover-up in the Boston Archdiocese in 2002, the U.S. Catholic bishops created a new lay-run review board to advise their national conference on how to better protect children and vulnerable persons from abuse. 

One of the group’s first tasks was to thoroughly investigate the nature of the scandal, in view of an eventual first-of-its-kind report that would detail the enormous scope of abuse in the U.S. church across some five decades. And a key ally in the task? None other than Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, the future Pope Benedict XVI. 

Anne Burke, a former chief justice of the Illinois Supreme Court who served as interim chair of the bishops’ National Review Board from 2002-04, recalled the tale in a phone interview with me on Jan. 3, two days ahead of Benedict’s funeral on Jan. 5.

In…

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MANILA, Philippines — It is unfair to imply that former Pope Benedict XVI hushed up church sexual abuse cases, the chairman emeritus of the Parish Pastoral Council for Responsible Voting (PPRCV) said Wednesday.

During his pontificate, Benedict was confronted with allegations of sexual abuse by clergy members; he publicly apologized for the scandal.

While serving as Archbishop of Munich in 2022, an independent inquiry claimed he ignored reports of abuse.

Henrietta De Villa, who also knew Benedict personally, said that while she was not privy to the internal workings of the church, she knew the late pope did not tolerate abuse.

“Unfair naman na sabihin na pinagtakpan niya, hindi eh. Kaya nga lang siguro, ika niya, yung nature niya, at may edad na siya. Matanda na rin siya nung inelect siyang pope, na baka wala na siyang lakas na talagang fully implement lahat ng reforms na isinulat na niya,” said…

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French police are investigating an allegation that the former archbishop of Paris sexually assaulted a woman who is under legal protection as a vulnerable person, prosecutors said Wednesday.

Michel Aupetit, who unexpectedly resigned in 2021 after admitting to an “ambiguous” relationship with a woman in 2012, denies any wrongdoing, his lawyer said.

The police investigation of Aupetit was opened on the basis of information from the Paris archdiocese, the Paris prosecutors’ office said, confirming French media reports.

It was launched in late November 2022, on a preliminary potential charge of sexual assault on a vulnerable person, the prosecutors’ office said. The alleged assault took place several years ago, it added, providing no other details.

Aupetit’s lawyer, Jean Reinhart, said the probe was triggered by a letter sent to the Paris archdiocese. The letter was then forwarded to prosecutors, an automatic procedure for handling potential abuse cases that Aupetit himself put in…

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Joseph Ratzinger was accused of mishandling cases when he was bishop of Munich, but as pope he was credited with forcing the Catholic Church to face a scourge long ignored.

Before he led the Roman Catholic Church as Benedict XVI, and before he loomed over the church as a powerhouse cardinal and the Vatican’s chief doctrinal watchdog, Joseph Ratzinger, archbishop of Munich, attended a 1980 meeting about a priest in northwestern Germany accused of abusing children.

What exactly transpired during the meeting is unclear — but afterward, the priest was transferred, and over the next dozen years moved around Bavaria to different parishes before he ended up in the tiny village of Garching an der Alz, where he sexually abused Andreas Perr, then 12.

“It feels so heavy,” Mr. Perr said on Tuesday, puffing cigarettes outside the house where he was molested, just a few steps from the white steeple…

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For the past two days, tens of thousands of devotees, tourists, the simply curious and even lapsed Catholics have streamed to the Vatican to say a final farewell to the late Pope Benedict XVI, whose historic resignation forever changed the papacy and the church as a whole.

According to the Vatican, so far around 135,000 people have visited Benedict XVI, who has been laying in state in St. Peter’s Basilica since Monday morning. He will remain there until Thursday, when his funeral will be celebrated by Pope Francis.

Impressions among those who’ve filed through the Vatican to see the late pontiff can best be described as a mixed bag, with some praising his keen intellect and writings, some simply eager to participate in a historic moment, and others fairly critical.

Father Joseph Apfelbeck, who, like Benedict XVI, hails from the Diocese of Regensburg in Bavaria, told Crux that he knew the late…

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Agents so far authorized 74 cases in more than 30 Kansas counties

Susan Leighnor expressed frustration on Wednesday state law enforcement agencies had yet to release findings of an investigation launched nearly four years ago by the attorney general into alleged sexual misconduct by members of the Catholic clergy in Kansas.

Leighnor, who said she was abused as a child by two Catholic priests, said she had spoken to Kansas Bureau of Investigation agents regarding her memories of what transpired at the rectory and school at Church of the Holy Cross in Hutchinson. She also has testified before the Kansas and Colorado legislatures on her experiences.

In an interview, she said a Catholic priest warned her as a child disclosing the abuse would condemn her to hell because the situation was like a person talking to a priest at confession. Confession in the Catholic church is a sacrament in which…

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Twenty years after she revealed her abuse to a friend at summer camp, Meagan Bishop is speaking out once again. This time, it’s to oppose her abuser’s plans to found a Christian halfway house in a small South Carolina town.

“David Truluck was my stepfather, and he was also my abuser,” Bishop told The Roys Report (TRR) this week.

Truluck runs Shield Ministries, which recently announced plans to open a new facility to house up to 55 men, including up to 10 sex offenders. Truluck’s wife, Melodie Truluck, co-founded the organization and is its operations manager.

As TRR previously reported, David Truluck is also a registered sex offender, who in 2003 was convicted of committing or attempting a lewd act on a child under age 16. Bishop told TRR she was the victim involved in that case.

Bishop first revealed her link to David Truluck on Wednesday at a community meeting…

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The growing demand from abroad has made child porn a $7.3 million industry in the world’s largest Muslim nation

The Indonesian government has decided to step up efforts to combat child pornography, which is proving a growing menace in the world’s largest Muslim nation with more takers from abroad.

Under the new measures, stricter punishments will be awarded to the perpetrators, Nahar, deputy for special protection of children at the Ministry of Women’s Empowerment and Child Protection in Indonesia, said on Jan. 4.

Nahar, who like many Indonesians goes by one name, said the ministry will rope in police and the ministry of communication to keep a tab on criminal acts like distributing pornographic content involving children by tracking and blocking websites that sell child porn videos.

We are planning three strategies that include prevention, better handling and institutional strengthening, he said.

The prevention strategy includes disseminating data, conducting awareness…

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There was disappointment when the religious teacher was sentenced to life in prison by a district court in February 2022

The Indonesian Supreme Court upheld the death sentence for a religious teacher convicted of raping more than a dozen students at an Islamic boarding school in Bandung, the capital of West Java province.

A three-member panel of judges presided by Sri Murwahyuni rejected the appeal of Herry Wirawan who was sentenced to death in April last year by the High Court in Bandung, according to the court’s ruling posted on its website on Jan. 4.

He was awarded life imprisonment by the Bandung District Court in February 2022 for raping 13 students aged 13-16 including eight of whom became pregnant, between 2016 and 2021.

The verdict was changed to the death sentence following an appeal from the prosecution team representing the alleged victims. The accused later appealed against the sentence.

…

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Judge Robert K. Taylor Jr. will oversee case to release grand jury investigation into abuse 

The debate over the release of a massive investigation into sexual abuse in the Archdiocese of Baltimore will be decided by a new judge, a judiciary spokesman said Tuesday.

Baltimore Circuit Judge Robert K. Taylor Jr. will oversee proceedings regarding the release of an investigation from the Maryland Office of the Attorney General detailing the “sexual abuse” and “physical torture” of more than 600 children and teens at the hands of 158 Catholic priests.

The 456-page report is the product of a four-year investigation by the attorney general’s office with the assistance of a Baltimore grand jury. Under state law, grand jury materials are confidential without a court order.

Taylor, 56, has served on the bench since 2018. Previously, he served as an assistant attorney general and was senior counsel for forensic litigation,…

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Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, known most recently as the pontiff who renounced the papacy, but who was situated squarely at the centers of power during five decades of epochal change and unprecedented scandal in the global Catholic Church, died on Dec. 31 in the apartment he kept inside a Vatican monastery.

A man whose very name conjured images of a return to the theological repression of the 16th century for many, he first appeared on the church’s international stage as Joseph Ratzinger, a young German priest-theologian advocating for progressive reforms at the 1962-65 Second Vatican Council.

He was a bishop and cardinal who exalted the position of Catholic clergy, considering them privileged and apart from lay faithful. But he would eventually, following decades of delay, act against sexually abusive priests, after spending hours each week reading through the briefs of the global scandal when he was head of the Vatican’s…

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German theologian made history with his papal resignation

Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI was a scholar and longtime senior official in the Catholic Church who sought to reinvigorate Christian faith and strengthen church orthodoxy before becoming the first pontiff to resign in nearly 600 years.

A formidable theologian and arbiter of church doctrine for years under papal predecessor St. John Paul II, Benedict anchored his nearly eight-year pontificate in promoting a transcendent faith in Jesus Christ grounded in definitive truths and compatible with human reason.

“We are moving toward a dictatorship of relativism which does not recognize anything as for certain and which has as its highest goal one’s own ego and one’s own desires,” he cautioned in a 2005 homily shortly before he was elected. The passage would come to be used to define much of Benedict’s reign.

A formidable theologian and arbiter of church doctrine,…

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This week, Pope Francis and the Vatican will orchestrate a global celebration, honoring the life and legacy of the late Pope Benedict. Heads of state, religious leaders, and prominent Catholics will travel to Vatican City acknowledging the historical, political, and social power of the Catholic Church. Meanwhile millions of clergy abuse victims around the world will be forced to witness the rewriting of history concerning the legacy and actions of a man who may have been directly responsible for allowing their abuse.

Throughout most of his professional life, Pope Benedict was one the chief architects of the systematic cover-up of the rape and sexual abuse of children in the Catholic Church. As Archbishop of Munich, he concealed and transferred known abusive clergy and lied about it. As head of the Congregation of the Doctrine of Faith under John Paul II, he acted as the Pope’s chief global fixer, shielding…

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Pontiff excoriated Ireland’s Catholic bishops for their handling of clerical child sexual abuse allegations but refused to blame Vatican

It was April 19th, 2005, and the Cardinal Archbishop of Dublin Desmond Connell was both euphoric and exhausted. The conclave, which concluded some time earlier, had elected Benedict XVI as Pope and, at the Irish College in Rome, Cardinal Connell told media it was “the most memorable experience of my life”.

He and the man formerly known as Cardinal Ratzinger had served on many Vatican congregations together, including the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. Both shared a similar theological and philosophical outlook and both had a passion for Mozart.

Cardinal Connell was barely able to hide his delight but, scrupulously, he did not betray his oath to keep proceedings at that conclave secret even if, in his exhaustion, he was unable to hide his euphoria.

“I’ve worked with him…

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A disturbing pattern of denial and concealment emerges across sexual abuse scandals that rock secular and religious organizations. Bringing the abuse to light is a critical first step.

Locked inside the Jehovah’s Witnesses world headquarters are secret files detailing sexual abuse by members of the religious denomination. Some of those files are slowly coming to light thanks to a grand jury investigation by state Attorney General Josh Shapiro’s office that was spurred by The Inquirer.

With Shapiro scheduled to be sworn in as Pennsylvania’s 48th governor on Jan. 17, hopefully the investigation will continue at full steam. Shapiro has been fearless in taking on influential religious institutions, starting with a 2018 grand jury report of the Roman Catholic Church that detailed decades of sexual abuse by more than 300 priests in Pennsylvania.

Catholic Church doesn’t hold a monopoly on these horrific crimes.

Similar sexual abuse scandals have recently rocked other…

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“He essentially continued the cover-up,” says victims advocate David Clohessy of SNAP.

The priest sex-abuse scandal was the albatross around the neck of Pope Emeritus Benedict’s brief eight-year reign as leader of the Roman Catholic Church, according to Vatican analysts.  

Long-suppressed allegations that priests had been preying on children — and that the bishops covered up the crimes — were already roiling the church when Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger was elected pope in April 2005 and took Benedict as his papal name.

Like his predecessor, Pope John Paul II, Benedict also apologized to the victims and then took some steps to punish the predators. 

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

But critics say that the…

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All across the world, political and religious leaders, as well as activists and former colleagues and friends, are remembering the life and legacy of the late Pope Benedict XVI, hailed as one of the greatest minds and most influential figures of the 20th and early 21st centuries.

Though many continue to take issue with some of Benedict’s policies on issues of morality and doctrine, and critics still question his record on fighting clerical sexual abuse, by and large the world has remembered the late pontiff as someone deeply in love with God, whose writings will continue to be developed for years to come.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz hailed the world’s first German pope as a “special church leader for many, not just this country,” saying the world “has lost a formative figure of the Catholic Church, an argumentative personality, and a clever theologian.”

Speaking to Crux, Cardinal Oswald Gracias, the Archbishop…

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The zenith of his influence was there even before he was elected pope and it lasted after his renunciation of the papacy.

For a member of the Catholic clergy, the election to the papacy represents the zenith of his influence — his pontificate, the period of most influential and consequential activity. This was not the case for Pope Benedict XVI, who died Saturday at age 95. It wasn’t because he was the first pope in modern Catholicism to renounce the papal office. It’s because the zenith of his influence was there even before he was elected pope and it lasted after his renunciation of the papacy. His pontificate was, paradoxically, not the peak but almost an interlude.

Joseph Ratzinger became a brand in the 1970s when his interpretation of Vatican II — which updated the Church’s traditions, including ending the requirement that Mass be said in Latin and opening up…

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For Immediate Release, 12/31/2022

Pope Benedict XVI will be remembered for his failure to achieve what should have been his job one: to rectify the incalculable harm done to the hundreds of thousands of children sexually abused by Catholic priests. When he resigned as Pope, he left hundreds of culpable bishops in power and a culture of secrecy intact.

The tragedy is that in refusing to enact needed reforms, he ended up hurting the faith he cherished. Had he punished cover-up and abuse as sternly as he did doctrinal violations, the Church’s abuse crisis might have ended under his watch.

Benedict’s public statements on the crisis sparked hope. When he traveled to the US in April 2008, he promised that the Church would do “whatever possible to help, to assist, to heal” victims. In February 2010, meeting with Irish bishops, he called child sexual abuse “heinous.” A month later,…

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A federal bankruptcy judge on Thursday approved a $121 million reorganization plan for one of the oldest Roman Catholic dioceses in the U.S. as it tries to stem financial losses from clergy abuse claims that date back decades.

The Archdiocese of Santa Fe in New Mexico said U.S. Bankruptcy Judge David T. Thuma confirmed the agreement during a hearing in which he commended the parties for working through what had been an arduous process.

In a statement, Archbishop John C. Wester thanked the panel of abuse survivors who represented fellow survivors in their claims against the archdiocese. He described it as challenging work as the group continued to deal with the aftermath of their own abuse.

“While I hope and pray that the bankruptcy outcome will bring a measure of justice and relief to the victims of clergy sexual abuse, I realize that nothing can ever compensate them for the criminal…

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His efforts to rid the church of what he called “filth” went further than those of John Paul II, but he was reluctant to hold bishops accountable.

The clerical sex abuse scandal broke under Pope John Paul II in the years that Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger — who would later become Pope Benedict XVI — headed the Vatican’s doctrinal office, which handled the cases of priests accused of abusing children.

Presented with case files, Cardinal Ratzinger sometimes set disciplinary measures in motion, even having accused priests defrocked. But other times, the record shows, he took the side of the accused priests and failed to listen to the victims or their warnings that an abuser could violate more young people.

When Cardinal Ratzinger became pope, the scandal exploded publicly throughout the global church. It continues to reverberate, causing some to lose faith and presenting challenges for the church’s current leadership.

During his time as…

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The Archdiocese of New York recently was ordered to turn over more than 120 pages of confidential files related to an internal investigation of sexual abuse claims against Howard J. Hubbard, who was bishop of the Albany diocese from 1977 to 2014.

The ruling by state Supreme Court Justice L. Michael Mackey capped a roughly two-year period in which the Roman Catholic Diocese of Albany, Hubbard and the New York archdiocese have lost a series of court decisions in which they sought to limit the materials that would be turned over to attorneys for hundreds of alleged victims of child sexual abuse. 

The records included the psychological treatment records of suspected pedophile priests, a lengthy deposition of Hubbard that took place over four days in April 2021 and, now, the archdiocese’s internal records on Hubbard’s “Vos estis lux mundi” investigation — initiated under a 2019 directive from Pope Francis that established…

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A victim of clerical sex abuse during the time the late pope Benedict was archbishop of Munich launched the lawsuit in June.

A 38-year-old German man who says he was abused by a known predatory priest has been allowed to continue his civil lawsuit against the late Pope Benedict XVI’s eventual heirs. In November, Benedict said he would defend himself in the case in front of a German court. Benedict died Dec. 31 at the age of 95 and had secured a law firm which will continue to represent his estate.

Andrea Titz, spokesperson for the Traunstein Court in Bavaria, confirmed that the suit, which accuses the former pope, of willfully ignoring complaints about Father Peter Hullermann, who allegedly abused the victim when he was just 11 years old.

The victim, who uses the pseudonym Julian Schwarz, said that the priest showed him pornography and forced him to have sexual intercourse and…

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Almost ten years after making history for resigning from the papacy, Joseph Ratzinger—Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI—has died at the age of ninety-five, in the Vatican’s Mater Ecclesiae monastery, where he had been living since May 2013.

Born in Bavaria, Germany, on April 16, 1927, Ratzinger had a remarkable impact on the life and intellectual tradition of the Catholic Church, not only as pope, but also as one of the most influential theologians at Vatican II. After publishing major works commenting positively on the documents of Vatican II during the council and in the late 1960s, his insights affected the reception of the council from the 1970s onward, as his anti-progressive views—often expressed with a contrarian spirit—became inseparable from his persona, even after his election to the papacy in 2005.

As a powerful doctrinal policy-maker in the era following Vatican II, Ratzinger was in many ways the alter-ego of Pope John…

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A quiet hush covered the vast expanse of St. Peter’s Square even though it was filled with thousands of people slowly winding their way around the colonnade into St. Peter’s Basilica to pay their last respects to the late Pope Benedict XVI.

Outdoor souvenir sellers were well-stocked with rosaries Jan. 2, but they seemed to have been caught off guard with a plethora of touristy tchotchkes and few to no images or mementos of the late pope.

A damp chill hung in the air at 9 in the morning when the doors of the basilica opened to the public on the first of three days to view the pope’s body.

Special accommodations, however, were made for officials of the Roman Curia, Vatican staff and dignitaries who were allowed access from the back of the basilica and offered a place to sit or kneel on either side of the pope’s…

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“Today a loving God called Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI home to his eternal reward for a lifetime of dedicated service to the Church. That service included 71 years as a priest, 28 years as a Cardinal, and nearly eight years leading the Catholic Church as the Bishop of Rome and Successor to St. Peter. His life and his pontificate were based in a deep and abiding faith and an extraordinary record of theological scholarship. In the years leading to the Second Vatican Council and at the Council itself, Father Joseph Ratzinger made substantial contributions to the renewal of Catholic theology, and he played a significant role in the drafting of key conciliar documents. Pope John Paul II called Cardinal Ratzinger to Rome to serve as the Cardinal Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. In that role, he proved to be an invaluable contributor throughout the pontificate of his predecessor. Pope Benedict XVI’s…

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Lawmakers around the United States have tried to grant justice to victims of decades-old incidents of child sexual abuse by giving them extra time to file lawsuits. Now some of the defendants in these cases, including church and youth organizations, are finding a safe haven: America’s bankruptcy courts.

In New York, nearly 11,000 cases flooded state courts, many seeking to hold Catholic dioceses responsible for sexual abuse by clergy, after a 2019 law suspended statutes of limitations that would have otherwise barred many of the lawsuits. In response, four New York dioceses that collectively faced more than 500 sexual-abuse claims filed for bankruptcy. That halted the cases — and blocked those from anyone who might sue later — and forced the plaintiffs to negotiate a one-time settlement for all abuse claims in bankruptcy court.Advertisement · Scroll to continue

The pattern has taken hold across the United States, a Reuters review…

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Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, whose death at 95 was announced Saturday, was a powerful intellectual force who shaped the Catholic Church’s theology for more than a quarter century before shocking the world by resigning in 2013.

While not quite unprecedented, Benedict’s resignation was highly unusual. Popes typically hold office until death, and the last pope to step down was Gregory XII, who quit in 1415 to end a civil war within the church.  

Bookended by globally popular and charismatic popes – St. John Paul II and Pope Francis – Benedict cut a different figure. Friends and biographers described him as quiet and scholarly, more at home among theological tomes than adoring crowds.

In typical fashion, Benedict announced his unexpected resignation in Latin. He was 85 at the time and cited his advanced age as ill-suited for the demands…

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As the world marks the death of Pope emeritus Benedict XVI, his record on the clerical abuse scandals that have rocked Catholicism for the past three decades inevitably forms part of any evaluation of his legacy.

For many abuse survivors and their advocates, it’s axiomatic that Benedict was the public face of denial and cover-up. The Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, for instance, declared in a Dec. 31 statement that “any celebration that marks the life of abuse enablers like Benedict must end.”

“Honoring Pope Benedict XVI now is not only wrong. It is shameful,” the group said. “Pope Benedict XVI is taking decades of the church’s darkest secrets to his grave with him.”

Arguably the one person on the planet best positioned to assess the late pontiff’s performance, however, has a very different take.

According to Archbishop Charles Scicluna of Malta, it was Benedict XVI who first began to…

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Pontiff was very emotional during 2010 meeting – Lawrence Grech

A victim of clerical abuse said his surprise meeting with Pope Benedict XVI during his visit to Malta in 2010 together with his apology had restored victims’ faith in the church.

“At the time, many of us had lost our faith completely but that changed during our personal meetings with Pope Benedict,” Grech told Times of Malta on Sunday.

“Those few moments that we spent with him in private restored our faith. It was a very powerful and emotional meeting.”

Pope Benedict, who spent almost eight years leading the Catholic Church before he resigned in 2013, died on Saturday at the age of 95.

As crowds visited St Peter’s Basilica to express their sorrow at the news of his death, for many Maltese the highlight of his papacy was his 27-hour visit to the island on April 17 and 18, 2010.

But, for Grech, the…

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[Via NDTV]

The German Joseph Ratzinger, who died on Saturday aged 95, was the first pope to meet with victims of abuse and defrocked almost 400 priests in the last two years of his pontificate.

Benedict XVI was the first pope to confront the scourge of clerical sex abuse in the Catholic church, but only after a career in which he himself was accused of covering it up.

The German Joseph Ratzinger, who died on Saturday aged 95, was the first pope to meet with victims of abuse and defrocked almost 400 priests in the last two years of his pontificate.

His actions were a marked change from his predecessor John Paul II, who took decades to respond to what became an avalanche of allegations about paedophile priests around the world, from Australia to Chile, France and the United States.

But his successor Pope Francis has gone much further, raising…

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[Via MSN]

Gianna Recio “came into this world fighting,” as her mother says in recounting the first moments in the life of her oldest child — born with the umbilical cord wrapped around her neck.

Growing up on San Antonio’s South Side, Gianna wore boy’s clothes. But she always insisted she was a girl, decades before she heard the word “transgender.”

At St. Leo the Great Catholic School, she was teased for her femininity. When a priest told her she was special and loved by God, the words stuck with her. He said he wanted to counsel her to bolster her self-esteem. Their private sessions turned into sexual abuse. It lasted two years.

The priest made Gianna believe that she and her family would burn in hell if she told anyone what was happening, she said. She would hide beneath the church pews, praying that he wouldn’t find her.

For…

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Four years after an Oakland priest seemingly vanished after being accused of sexually abusing two minors, NBC Bay Area’s Investigative Unit has new answers on what happened to Fr. Alexander Castillo, in addition to a never-before published letter where the priest professes his innocence and blames another clergy member for his suspension

Oakland priest Father Alexander Castillo seemingly vanished in the months after he was accused of sexually abusing a minor. Yet four years later, the Diocese of Oakland still won’t answer many basic questions about the incident, details about what happened, where Castillo is today, and whether the priest might be a danger to children elsewhere.

While the Diocese remains silent, a letter written by Castillo in the wake of his suspension, and exclusively obtained by NBC Bay Area recently, sheds new light on the priest’s frame of mind just before he left the country. Castillo maintains his innocence…

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For more than a decade, Ernie Cox went online to search the faces of priests who had been accused of child sexual abuse, looking for one man.

He’d only seen the priest one day in the late 1960s when, the former altar boy alleges, the priest sexually abused him before and after mass at a Contra Costa County church. The boy was 12. The priest was visiting Immaculate Heart of Mary from another parish, and Cox, now 67, didn’t remember his name.

A few weeks ago, a friend who knew of Cox’s experience forwarded him a recent story in The Chronicle about allegations against a priest at the same parish in the small city of Brentwood. When Cox later found the late Father John G. Garcia’s face in an old black-and-white photo on the website of a local newspaper, he said, he was stricken by recognition. No other priest’s picture had…

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The first pope to resign was Celestine V, born Pietro Da Morrone, who was living the life of a pious hermit when he was elevated to the papacy in 1294, in his 80s, to break a two-year deadlock in the College of Cardinals. Feeling overmastered by the job, he soon resigned in the expectation that he could return to his monastic existence. Instead, he was imprisoned by his successor, Boniface VIII, who feared that some rival faction might make Celestine an antipope.

The former pontiff died after about a year in captivity; his successor, one of the most ambitious of medieval popes, eventually fell into a disastrous struggle with the king of France that ended with Boniface temporarily imprisoned in the weeks before his death.

The strange afterlife of Pope Benedict XVI’s pontificate, which ended with his death on Saturday at 95, was not quite so wild or dramatic. But…

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Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI is rightly credited with having been one of the 20th century’s most prolific Catholic theologians, a teacher-pope who preached the faith via volumes of books, sermons and speeches. But he rarely got credit for another important aspect of his legacy: having done more than anyone before him to turn the Vatican around on clergy sexual abuse.

As cardinal and pope, Benedict pushed through revolutionary changes to church law to make it easier to defrock predator priests, and he sacked hundreds of them. He was the first pontiff to meet with abuse survivors. And he reversed his revered predecessor on the most egregious case of the 20th century Catholic Church, finally taking action against a serial pedophile who was adored by St. John Paul II’s inner circle.

But much more needed to be done, and following his death Saturday, abuse survivors and their advocates made clear they…

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The 265th pope of the Catholic Church was a hard-line conservative who tried to root out corruption and abuse—but retreated from the battle when it mattered most.

With 1.3 billion followers, the Roman Catholic Church is the world’s largest organization. Islam has 1.97 billion adherents but no comparable infrastructure. Google has greater reach—in cyberspace.

The Church of Rome has a vast network of parishes, schools, colleges, hospitals, and missions. The governing of this global operation in the 107-acre Vatican City has become a narrative of lengthening scandals in recent decades. Pope Benedict XVI, a pivotal figure in this story, wanted national churches in lockstep obedience to Rome on moral teaching.

In 2013, after eight years in the Apostolic Palace, the German-born Joseph Ratzinger became the first Supreme Pontiff in 600 years to retire. The most powerful and controversial theologian of his era became emeritus pope for nine years, until his death at…

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I first met Joseph Ratzinger in June 1994 when he was the cardinal prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. No, I was not being interrogated by the Grand Inquisitor. This was long before I got in trouble with the Vatican as editor-in-chief of America magazine. I was in Rome to interview him and other church officials for my book, Inside the Vatican: The Politics and Organization of the Catholic Church. 

I almost missed the interview. Cardinal Ratzinger was sick the day of our appointment. When I arrived, I was asked whether I wanted to meet with the congregation’s secretary. I agreed, figuring it was better than nothing. When I was ushered into his presence, I hadn’t gotten a word out before the secretary, Archbishop Alberto Bovone, assaulted me with questions: “Who are you?” “What are you doing here?” “I will…

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Speaking with the Register, the German cardinal theologian reflects on the profound legacy of the late Pope Emeritus.

Cardinal Gerhard Müller has paid tribute to the late Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, describing him as a “great thinker” and a “true Doctor of the Church for today.”

The prefect emeritus of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith also described the late Joseph Ratzinger, who died at Dec. 31 at 9:34 am in Rome, as a man of great sensitivity, humor, and humility who possessed “deep wisdom as a partaker in God’s love.”

In this interview with the Register, the German cardinal theologian — who founded the Benedict XVI Institute to make available Joseph Ratzinger’s collected works — discusses Benedict XVI’s legacy to the Church, responds to some of his critics, and reflects on how his passing might affect the highly criticized German Synodal Path.

Your Eminence, what is the greatest…

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Following the announcement of the passing of Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI on Saturday at the age of 95, we look back at his long life and its main highlights with the following official biography.

Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, Pope Benedict XVI, was born at Marktl am Inn, Diocese of Passau (Germany) on 16 April 1927 (Holy Saturday) and was baptised on the same day.

His father, a Police Commissioner, belonged to an old family of farmers from Lower Bavaria of modest economic resources. His mother was the daughter of artisans from Rimsting on the shore of Lake Chiem. Before marrying, she worked as a cook in a number of hotels.

Joseph spent his childhood and adolescence in Traunstein, a small village near the Austrian border, thirty kilometres from Salzburg. In this environment, which he himself has defined as “Mozartian”, he received his Christian, cultural and human formation.

His youthful years were…

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Pope Francis led tributes to his predecessor on Saturday, after Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI died in a monastery in the Vatican at the age of 95.

“We are moved as we recall him as such a noble person, so kind and we feel such gratitude in our hearts, gratitude to god for giving him to the church, and to the world,” Francis said in Saint Peter’s Basilica while leading traditional vespers ceremony ahead of New Year’s Day.

“Gratitude to him for all the good he accomplished and above all for his witness of faith and prayer, especially in these last years of his life. Only God knows the value of his sacrifices for the good of the church,” Francis added.

Benedict, who was the first pontiff in almost 600 years to resign his position, rather than hold office for life, passed away on Saturday, according to…

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Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, the shy German theologian who tried to reawaken Christianity in a secularized Europe but will forever be remembered as the first pontiff in 600 years to resign from the job, died Saturday. He was 95.

Pope Francis will celebrate his funeral Mass in St. Peter’s Square on Thursday, an unprecedented event in which a current pope will celebrate the funeral of a former one.

Benedict stunned the world on Feb. 11, 2013, when he announced, in his typical, soft-spoken Latin, that he no longer had the strength to run the 1.2 billion-strong Catholic Church that he had steered for eight years through scandal and indifference.

His dramatic decision paved the way for the conclave that elected Francis as his successor. The two popes then lived side-by-side in the Vatican gardens, an unprecedented arrangement that set the stage for future “popes emeritus” to do the same.

A…

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‘My strengths, due to an advanced age, are no longer suited’ to the role, German-born Benedict XVI said in 2013, when he became the first pontiff in 600 years to step down

The moment that transformed Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI’s legacy — and perhaps his church — passed so quietly that it was initially missed.

The pontiff was closing what one reporter described as an “extremely banal,” routine ceremony with Vatican cardinals on Feb. 11, 2013, when he uttered, in Latin, that he had made “a decision of great importance for the life of the church.”

The white-haired, German-born theologian, then 85, said he had “repeatedly examined my conscience before God” and concluded that the modern world, “subject to so many rapid changes and shaken by questions of deep relevance for the life of faith,” required a pope in better physical and intellectual condition. “My strengths, due to an advanced…

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Testo in lingua italiana

“Con dolore informo che il Papa Emerito, Benedetto XVI, è deceduto oggi alle ore 9:34, nel Monastero Mater Ecclesiae in Vaticano.

Non appena possibile seguiranno ulteriori informazioni.”

***

Traduzione in lingua francese

«J’ai la douleur de vous annoncer que le pape émérite, Benoît XVI, est décédé aujourd’hui à 9h34 heures, au Monastère Mater Ecclesiae, au Vatican.

D’autres informations vous seront communiquées dès que possible».

***

Traduzione in lingua inglese

“With sorrow I inform you that the Pope Emeritus, Benedict XVI, passed away today at 9:34 in the Mater Ecclesiae Monastery in the Vatican.

Further information will be provided as soon as possible.”

***

Traduzione in lingua tedesca

“Schmerzerfüllt muss ich mitteilen, dass Benedikt XVI., Papst Emeritus, heute um 9:34 Uhr im Kloster Mater Ecclesiae im Vatikan verstorben ist.

Weitere Informationen folgen baldmöglichst.”

***

Traduzione in lingua spagnola

„Con pesar doy a conocer que el Papa emérito…

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With Pope Emeritus’ death, the Catholic Church loses one of the greatest minds in its 2,000-year history.

Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI has died at the age of 95.

The Vatican made the announcement of his death at 10.30 am Rome time on Dec. 31 in a short statement translated into several languages.

“With sorrow I inform you that the Pope Emeritus, Benedict XVI, passed away today at 9:34 in the Mater Ecclesiae Monastery in the Vatican,” Vatican press office director Matteo Bruni said. “Further information will be provided as soon as possible.” 

The Vatican added that from Jan. 2, the body of the Pope Emeritus will rest in St. Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican “for the faithful to bid farewell.” 

Bruni later told reporters in a short press briefing that Benedict XVI’s funeral will be celebrated by Pope Francis at 9.30am on Thursday, Jan. 5, in St Peter’s Square. He also disclosed…

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He defined a conservative course for the Roman Catholic Church, but his papacy was noted for his struggle with the clergy sexual abuse scandal and for his unexpected resignation.

Benedict XVI, the pope emeritus, a quiet scholar of diamond-hard intellect who spent much of his life enforcing church doctrine and defending tradition before shocking the Roman Catholic world by becoming the first pope in six centuries to resign, died on Saturday. He was 95.

Benedict’s death was announced by the Vatican. No cause was given. This past week, the Vatican said that Benedict’s health had taken a turn for the worse “due to advancing age.”

On Wednesday, Pope Francis asked those present at his weekly audience at the Vatican to pray for Benedict, who he said was “very ill.” He later visited him at the monastery on the Vatican City grounds where Benedict had lived since announcing his resignation in February…

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The first pope to step down in six centuries dies in retirement.

Pope Benedict XVI, the eminent German theologian and conservative enforcer of Roman Catholic Church doctrine who broke with almost 600 years of tradition by resigning and then living for nearly a decade behind Vatican walls as a retired pope still clad in white robes, died on Saturday at age 95, the Vatican said.

Just as Benedict’s resignation in 2013 shook the Roman Catholic church to its core, his death again put the institution in little-charted territory.

A pope’s death customarily sets in motion a conclave to choose a new leader of the church, but Benedict’s successor, Pope Francis, was named when Benedict stepped down. It was Francis who on Wednesday announced the news of Benedict’s final decline to the world.

Now, after a life dedicated to maintaining order and tradition in the church, Benedict in death has put it…

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Residents of Walterboro, a small town west of Charleston, South Carolina, are banding together to stop a new Christian halfway house that would house up to 10 registered sex offenders.

About 970 people have joined Stop Pedofiles on Barracada Road, a new Facebook group designed to resist the facility that Shield Ministries from Charleston would operate.

“How does anyone think this even close to being okay?” asked one person in the group. There is additional worry because the director of the Shield’s program was convicted in 2003 of committing or attempting a lewd act on a child under age 16.

But there is support for Shield’s treatment approach in the South Carolina legal community. “Shield is a faith based and science-based treatment program that requires accountability and leads to real public safety,” said D. Ashley Pennington, recently retired Ninth Circuit Public Defender, in a statement that Shield released.

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