ABUSE TRACKER

Rev. Tomas Vazquez Tellez, 49, who served St. Joseph Catholic Church in Kennewick and St. Patrick Catholic Church in Pasco was taken to the Benton County Jail Wednesday.

BENTON COUNTY – A priest who served two churches in the Tri-Cities was arrested Wednesday after a woman said he raped her at his home.

Rev. Tomas Vazquez Tellez, 49, is accused of third-degree rape with an aggravating factor of being a person of trust.

The Kennewick Police Department said a woman reported to another priest within the Yakima Diocese that Vasquez had raped her after a dinner at his home. The woman then reported it to the police, a decision, according to diocesan officials, made with their full support.

Vasquez resigned as pastor of St. Joseph Catholic Church in April of 2020 and began serving St. Patrick Catholic Church in Pasco prior to leaving for a three-month…

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BENTON COUNTY, Wash. — A local priest, who has served at St. Joseph Catholic Church and at St. Patrick Catholic church in Pasco is now in the Benton County Jail facing rape charges.

According to Monsignor Robert Siler with the Yakima Diocese, 49-year old Rev. Tomás Vázquez Téllez was arrested on September 7th by Kennewick Police Department Officers.

Vázquez was booked into the Benton County Jail on suspicion of 3rd Degree Rape with an aggravating factor of being a person of trust.

Siler said the woman reported that her and Vázquez had developed a friendship over the course of the past few years. The woman claims they had lunches and dinners together, but that the priest had never made romantic overtures before. The woman said she viewed Vázquez as a friend whom she could confide.

According to Siler, the woman reported the alleged rape occurred following a dinner at a home…

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A Tri-Cities priest has been arrested on suspicion of rape.

Rev. Tomás Vázquez Téllez, 49, was arrested Wednesday on suspicion of third-degree rape with an aggravating factor of being a person of trust. Vázquez Téllez has been serving at St. Patrick Catholic Church in Pasco since September 2021.

Before that he was the pastor of St. Joseph Catholic Church in Kennewick before stepping down in April 2020 to begin a sabbatical to study biblical languages, according to a new release from the Diocese of Yakima. He was an associate pastor in Sunnyside for three years and spent one year at Holy Family in Yakima before serving at St. Andrew’s Catholic Church in Ellensburg from 2009-16, according to the diocese.

Vázquez Téllez was booked into the Benton County jail after being arrested at his home. According to the diocese, the suspected sexual assault happened on Aug. 19-20.

According to the diocese,…

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A Yakima Diocese priest has been arrested in Benton County on suspicion of third-degree rape with an aggravating factor of being a person of trust.

Reverend Tomás Vázquez Téllez, 49, was arrested on Wednesday, Sept. 7th.

He is now in the Benton County Jail awaiting his charges.

The arrest follows a Kennewick Police Department investigation of a reported rape that occurred August 19th and 20th at the suspect’s home in the city.

The woman reported the rape to another priest in the diocese within hours of it happening, then decided to report it to police.

Vázquez resigned as pastor of St. Joseph Catholic Church in Kennewick in April 2020.

He then began serving at Pasco’s St. Patrick Catholic Church and was preparing to go to Jerusalem before the incident.

“We are shocked and saddened by these developments,” Yakima Diocese Bishop Joseph J. Tyson said. “I am grateful that the woman…

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A message to the global leader of the Catholic Church: District Court of Guam Chief Judge Francis Tydingco-Gatewood issuing an order this week in connection the clergy sex abuse cases. In it, she writes – would Pope Francis be inclined to meet all Guam’s plaintiffs who alleged abuse at the hands of the church clergy?

The chief judge wants to know if the Pope would be open to discussing a potential global settlement with Guam’s victims. Her order comes after the Holy See argued a motion to dismiss a case against a victim, only identified in court documents as “D.M.”, who alleges former archbishop Anthony Apuron raped him several times in the mid-1990s.

The Holy See contends the court lacks jurisdiction to take on the case. The chief judge said last month she was inclined to toss the case.

The Holy See says it would have to consult with the…

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John Delaney, 50, of Philadelphia, a clergy abuse survivor and vocal victim advocate, died Friday, Aug. 26, of a drug overdose.

Mr. Delaney fought hard as a victim advocate after coming out publicly in 2005 about his own sexual abuse as a child. Mr. Delaney said he was raped and sexually abused as an altar boy at St. Cecilia’s Roman Catholic Church by the Rev. James Bryzski, who was later called “one of the archdiocese’s most brutal abusers” in a Philadelphia grand jury report. Bryzski, the report said, may have abused more than 100 boys during his time as a priest.

Bryzski, who was defrocked in 2005 and died in 2017, was never prosecuted.

“We can count at least 100 victims who stepped forward because of the courage and strength they saw that came from the voice of John Delaney,” said Mike McDonnell, a friend, fellow survivor, and communications…

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On September 30th, National Day of Truth and Reconciliation, we will honour Indian residential school survivors with an Eagle Feather.

When and where Date and time

Fri, 30 September 2022, 8:30 AM – 9:30 AM EDT

Location

Parliament Hill Wellington Street Ottawa, ON K1A 0A9 Canada

About this event

If you like, you will have seating in front for our national opening ceremony: Remember Me: A National Day of Remembrance. Click here for the official website: Remember Me Website.

We hope that you will accept an Eagle Feather as a gesture of gratitude.

We honour you because you have shown strength and given us all the courage and humility to heal.

We are an Indigenous women led, not for profit organization. We are the facilitators of this national event on Parliament Hill, Ottawa. Dawn Iehstoseranon:nha (she keeps the feathers) is a Mohawk Feather Keeper and will be presenting individual…

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She was in elementary school when her grandfather first molested her — physical and emotional abuse that was to last about a decade until, at age 16, Joyce Sitt was ready to seek justice.  

Or she thought she was until she spoke with her family’s rabbi.  

“He informed me that I could say whatever I wanted to but that if I did tell, I would lose all of my friends,” Sitt recalled this summer in a Monmouth County courtroom.  

“He let me know that my grandfather donates money and if I did this, all of the people that he helped would lose everything.” 

That talk with the rabbi was back in 2009. Last summer, after a failed marriage and a suicide attempt and years of pain stemming from a childhood of torment, Sitt came forward again.  

This time, undeterred and with the help of investigators, she recorded her grandfather confessing to the…

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The pastor’s wife told a woman to “never show her face again at the church and to disappear completely,” according to police.

The former pastor of Eagan Hills Church has been charged in the sexual assault of two women, according to documents filed in Dakota County court.

Bruce Douglas Konold, 61, of Eagan faces 12 counts of criminal sexual conduct and one count of harassment.

The specific charges include:

• Harassment (Pattern of Stalking Conduct)
• Criminal Sexual Conduct in the 3rd Degree (Clergy) (Ongoing Meeting for Advice)
• Criminal Sexual Conduct in the 3rd Degree (Prohibited Occupational Relationship)

Under Minnesota law, it is a felony for religious clergy to have sexual relations with a person who is not their spouse while providing that person with spiritual guidance.

If convicted, Konold faces up to 15 years in prison and a $30,000 fine.

Konold was pastor of the church for 30 years,…

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The former pastor of a church in Eagan has been charged with 12 counts of criminal sexual conduct and one count of harassment in connection to events dating back to 2020, according to a criminal complaint filed in Dakota County court.

Bruce Douglas Konold, 61-years-old, of Eagan, who was reported to have worked at the church for around 30 years, is set to appear in court on Oct. 26.

The complaint details accounts from two women, a 20-year-old listed as “Victim 1” and a 30-year-old listed as “Victim 2.”

GRAPHIC CONTENT WARNING: the details contained from the criminal complaint below could be considered to be graphic or disturbing in nature.

Victim 2 reported to police that Konold had offered her a personal assistant position at the church in 2020, according to the complaint. Konold was said to have reached up her shirt while at her home in June 2020, and…

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The suspect allegedly committed the crimes against six minor students of a Sunday School between March 2021 and this year

A Protestant seminarian in Indonesia’s Catholic-majority province of East Nusa Tenggara has been arrested following complaints of raping six girls aged between 15-16.

Police arrested the 36-year-old seminarian in the provincial capital of Kupang during the weekend and named him a suspect in the rape case, a police official said. His name was not disclosed.

Yames Jems Mbau, an official with the Criminal Investigation Unit told UCA News on Sept. 5 that the seminarian was arrested following complaints from the victims’ families.

He said the suspect repeated the crime several times between May 2021 and March this year in the complex of the Evangelical Church in Timor (GMIT) located in Waisika village.The suspect was serving as an assistant minister at the church. 

Mbau also said the suspect videotaped the crime and…

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On July 22, the Diocese of Rochester filed objections asking the court to disallow and expunge 74 claims (including several duplicates) asserted in its chapter 11 bankruptcy case.

In an affidavit filed with the bankruptcy court, Father Daniel J. Condon, diocesan chancellor, noted that “A number of claims allege that the survivor was abused by a member of a religious order, a lay employee, volunteer, resident or student of a school or facility owned and operated by a religious order or other non-Diocesan entity.”

The reason behind filing these objections, Father Condon explained, is to prevent claims that should be directed against non-diocesan entities from diluting payments to survivors who were abused by perpetrators for whom the diocese or its affiliates may have had legal responsibility.

A diocesan statement addressing the claim objections emphasized that “the Diocese is not questioning the veracity of these claims,…

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Chairing a parish steering committee related to the Diocese of Rochester’s bankruptcy case has been a learning experience for Father Thomas Mull, pastor of Our Lady of Peace Parish in Geneva.

“When we began three years ago, I and others knew very little about bankruptcy. It’s been a learning process as we go,” said Father Mull. “I’ve learned a lot, though I can’t say I wanted to know it.”

The committee comprises four additional pastors; a regional finance director; and two lay parish trustees (see below).

Representing parishes

The priests on the committee represent all the pastors, ensuring that parishes have a voice in bankruptcy proceedings, Father Mull said. Yet he noted that church personnel are not versed in bankruptcy law, so they rely heavily upon attorneys to explain legal proceedings “at an elementary-school level.”

Suzanne Krebs, regional finance director for Chemung, Schuyler, Steuben and Tioga counties, said she brings…

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Feb. 14, 2019: Then-Gov. Anrew Cuomo signs into law the Child Victims Act, which will open a one-year “window” (later extended for a second year), providing survivors of child sexual abuse the opportunity to file civil suits previously blocked by New York’s statute of limitations.

March 14, 2019: As the Aug. 14 opening of the CVA window nears, the diocese announces it will stop accepting new claimants into a voluntary process established in March 2018 for the independent reconciliation and compensation of sexual-abuse victims.

Sept. 12, 2019: With 45 lawsuits filed against it in less than a month since the CVA window opened, the diocese files for bankruptcy. The case is assigned to U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Paul R. Warren.

Nov. 14, 2019: The diocese files a lawsuit seeking to establish that its insurers must cover potential liabilities related to historical claims of child sexual abuse.

Dec. 23,…

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The Arizona Court of Appeals has agreed to hear arguments on whether federal bankruptcy law precludes a victim from suing the employers of the two Catholic priests who allegedly sexually abused her as a child several decades ago.

The woman, referred to in court records as Jane HM Doe, is now about 50. She filed a nine-claim lawsuit in February 2020 against the Roman Catholic Church of the Diocese of Phoenix, St. Mark Roman Catholic Parish Phoenix, and the Society of the Divine Savior USA Province concerning sexual abuse she alleges she suffered as a student at St. Mark in the late 1970s and early 1980s.

Read more by Terri Jo Neff >>

Court records show Judge Joan Sinclair of the Maricopa County Superior Court dismissed the case in March 2021, ruling Doe had no standing to sue for the abuse because she filed for bankruptcy…

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Reverend Jaroslaw “Jerry” Gamrot, 58, who serves at Holy Face Catholic Church and Little Flower School in Great Mills, has been charged for an incident that reportedly happened in July on a highway.

Gamrot, a Poland native who currently has a residence in Frederick County, Maryland, was served the charges on August 21.

Charging documents for the incident indicate that on July 25, Gamrot was traveling west on Route 70 in Frederick with no pants on and was allegedly masturbating.

A male victim claimed to police that he was exposed to him on a public road near the 56-mile-marker. The victim claimed to state police that he was targeted by Gamrot, as he continued to pull up next to his vehicle multiple times to expose himself.

This allegedly occurred three times.

However, on Gamrot’s final maneuver, the victim took a picture of the vehicle’s license plate and the inappropriate action…

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Seventeen of the 29 Buffalo Diocese priests put on administrative leave since 2018 due to a sex abuse allegation involving a minor were later allowed to resume their priestly activities.

The diocese publicized the priests’ returns to ministry by stating that a review board had examined the claims and found them to be “not substantiated.”

Diocese officials maintain that the review process is rigorous, independent and designed to protect children from potential abuse.

Accusers and their attorneys aren’t convinced, and they worry that some priests are being publicly exonerated and put back into contact with children without a thorough and impartial investigation into abuse claims.

They point out that in some cases a priest was returned to ministry, even though his accuser wasn’t interviewed as part of an investigation.

The most recent reinstatement of a priest was in July, when Bishop Michael W. Fisher restored the faculties of the  View Cache

For decades, Johannes Rivoire has lived as a free man in France, despite multiple charges that he sexually assaulted Inuit children while working as a priest in Nunavut beginning in the 1960s.

Pressure is mounting on several fronts to have him extradited, but legal experts are divided on whether the former priest could ever be forced back to Canadian soil.

The federal Department of Justice confirmed in late July that Canada has asked France to extradite the nonagenarian. The extradition request has found a vocal supporter in Aurélien Taché, a left-wing MP in France associated with the opposition group La Nouvelle Union populaire écologique et sociale.

Over the past year, pressure has been increasing to bring Mr. Rivoire back to Canada – including from Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami president Natan Obed, Inuk elder and former politician Piita Irniq, and the federal NDP. There’s been international…

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Members of the Southern Baptist Convention are meeting in Fort Worth this weekend to discuss reforms in the wake of a national sex abuse crisis.

In recent months, the convention — which is the largest Protestant denomination in the country — has faced scrutiny for its handling of the widespread scandal.

Several branches within the denomination are under investigation from the Justice Department following a third-party investigation that found church leaders suppressed reports of sexual abuse for two decades.

In response, the convention created the Abuse Reform Implementation Task Force to address the crisis.

Mike Keahbone, vice chair of the task force and pastor of First Baptist Church in Lawton, Oklahoma, told Fort Worth Report that meeting would help provide a road map for reforms.

“I hope (the task force) will bring out real and true reform with practical and real changes to show we care about the issue — not just…

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Eduardo Córdova es uno de los prófugos potosinos más buscados por autoridades nacionales e internacionales

En 2014 un escándalo sacudió a la Iglesia Católica de San Luis Potosí y de México, al conocerse el caso de Eduardo Córdova, un conocido sacerdote acusado de abusar sexualmente a menores de edad.

Más de cien víctimas dieron testimonio ante el Tribunal Eclesiástico de la Arquidiócesis de San Luis Potosí sobre los sucesos cometidos durante años. Por estos hechos, la otrora Procuraduría General del Estado emitió una orden de aprehensión contra Eduardo Córdova Bautista.

Sin embargo, el sacerdote potosino cercano a cúpulas empresariales y políticas se dio a la fuga, y desde el 25 de junio de 2014 se convirtió en prófugo de la justicia.

Las autoridades señalan que el cura es buscado en 180 países debido a la ficha roja, que emitió en 2016, la Policía Internacional (Interpol).

Además, el actual fiscal general José Luis Ruíz…

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The forty-eight-year-old priest was arrested for impregnating a twelve-year-old girl who is a member of the Light House Gospel Church, Oluwo.

The information has also revealed that the mother of a twelve-year-old victim joined church due to spiritual problems, which led to the death of her two daughters.

The victim’s mother wanted to save her daughter from family problems and brought her to the church.

The Father of three children and the church’s priest asked the mother of the twelve-year-old victim to send her to church alone for special prayers.

The priest took the twelve-year-old girl into the room within the church and forcefully had carnal knowledge of her, which resulted in pregnancy.

CSP Olasunkanmi Popoola informed the detectives about the scenes soon after police arrested the church priest.

The victim’s mother told police that since her daughter was not regularly menstruating every month, it was difficult to know that her daughter was…

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Father McCann is accused of voyeurism on March 28 this year

A voyeurism complainant took a video of the priest accused of spying on her in a changing room, a court heard today.

During a brief mention of the case against 35-year-old Father Aidan Patrick McCann at Craigavon Magistrates Court, a prosecuting lawyer lamented that “there’s still no decision papers.”

When District Judge Greg McCourt asked for an explanation, the lawyer revealed the “difficulty relates to obtaining video footage from the injured party that was outstanding”.

“That has been received by the police this week so it’s making its way to the prosecution and hopefully a decision will follow in short order,” said the lawyer, applying for the case to be adjourned for a month.

Father McCann, with an address at the parochial house on Maddens Row in Keady, is accused of voyeurism on March 28 this year in that…

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As a number of protesters gathered outside of Rembert Weakland’s funeral, who was archbishop of Milwaukee from 1977 to 2002 after a sexual abuse scandal, a survivor of clergy abuse is speaking up and his concern with the statewide Clergy and Faith Leaders Abuse initiative.

“We have to hold people to justice no matter who they are,” said Peter Isely, director of Nate’s Mission and survivor of clergy abuse.

At just 13 years old, Isely said his abuse began less than a week after attending a minor seminary. The abuse done by one of his faith leaders.

“It began gradually, as it often does, you know shoulders rubbing…you know then it’d sort of stop. Next time is going to go farther down until he finally went into my pants,” said Isely.

He’s made it a life mission to protect others. He’s part of the Survivors Network of those Abused By…

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U.S. District Court of Guam Chief Judge Frances Tydingco-Gatewood on Tuesday ordered the counsel for the Holy See, or the Vatican, to file a written report on whether Pope Francis could meet with all survivors of Guam clergy sexual abuse to help settle hundreds of abuse claims.

The judge gave the Holy See’s counsel up to Sept. 13 to file responses to two specific questions she posted during an Aug. 26 hearing on the Vatican’s motion to dismiss a particular Guam clergy sexual abuse case.

The plaintiff in the case is identified in court documents only as “D.M.” to protect his privacy. In his lawsuit, he seeks to hold the Vatican also responsible for the actions of former Archbishop Anthony Apuron, who allegedly raped and molested him when he was a minor student at Father Dueñas Memorial School in 1994-1995.

But the Vatican, which has hired California-based attorney Jeffrey Lena…

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Barletta, 82, was accused of molesting as many as 25 minors but was never charged. The 2018 Pennsylvania grand jury report revealed depth of his conduct, said he admitted to abuse.

• The 2018 Pennsylvania grand jury report on clergy abuse named 41 priests in the Catholic Diocese of Erie
• Among them was the Rev. Michael G. Barletta, who taught at Cathedral Prep from 1975-1994
• Barletta died at 82 in late August. He was never charged

Over his long career as a priest, including 19 years teaching at Erie’s Cathedral Preparatory School, the Rev. Michael G. Barletta was accused of sexually abusing as many as 25 minors.

The conduct made Barletta one of the 41 “predator priests” from the Catholic Diocese of Erie named in the groundbreaking August 2018 statewide grand jury report on clergy sexual abuse in the Roman Catholic Church in Pennsylvania.

Barletta has died at 82, leaving behind a…

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Pope Francis says he has taken it on himself to rid the Catholic Church of sexual abuse, telling CNN’s partner channel CNN Portugal that he was “responsible that it doesn’t happen anymore.”

In an exclusive, wide-ranging interview in Rome last month, the Pontiff said the church had “zero tolerance” for abuse and said that “a priest cannot remain a priest if he is an abuser.”

The church’s response to sex abuse scandals has become one of the defining themes of Francis’ time as Pope, and he told CNN Portugal that every case of abuse within the church “hurts” him.

Multiple reports detailing decades of sexual abuse, systemic failures and cover-ups across multiple countries have been released since Francis became the leader of the world’s 1.2 billion Catholics in 2013. While he was criticized for some of his actions — such as when he  View Cache

Pope Francis says he has taken personal responsibility to rid the Church of sexual abuse. He told CNN Portugal that he was “responsible that it doesn’t happen anymore.” In an interview in Rome, the Pontiff said the Church had “zero tolerance” for abuse, while “a priest cannot remain a priest if he is an abuser.” Francis told CNN Portugal every case of abuse “hurts” him.  This, despite criticism that Francis has been insufficiently firm in some cases.

The Pope has been criticised, for instance, for defending a bishop in Chile accused of covering up a sex scandal in 2018, something he later described as a “grave error”. That said, the Pope abolished Vatican secrecy rules for cases of abuse, and put in place new rules which made it mandatory for all dioceses to set up systems for reporting abuse and cover-ups. This effectively allows the Church to share documents and information with…

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As part of its ongoing commitment to provide regular communications regarding its Safe Environment efforts, the Diocese of Springfield is today issuing a quarterly report on an update made to the online listing of “Finding of Credibility of Allegations of Sexual Abuse of a Minor.”

On Aug. 1, 2022, the name of the late Father Daniel L. Gill was added to the list based on a credible finding by the diocesan Review Board. Father Gill was ordained in 1958 and passed away in 1995. The abuse reported in this allegation dates back to 1967 to 1971 and involved a minor.

Father Gill’s full assignment listing can be found at http://diospringfield.org/oseva-credible-allegation-abuse-minor/.

An allegation being found credible does not indicate a finding of guilt and, because he was deceased when the allegation was brought forward, Father Gill was unable to respond to this allegation. Nonetheless, the Review Board carefully reviewed the allegation,…

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Behind a closed chapel office door inside a federal women’s prison in California, a chaplain forced inmates seeking his spiritual guidance to have sex with him, exploiting their faith and their powerlessness behind bars for his own gratification, prosecutors said.

James Theodore Highhouse was sentenced Wednesday to seven years in prison — more than double the recommended punishment in federal sentencing guidelines. U.S. District Judge Haywood S. Gilliam Jr. said the guidelines, which call for a sentence of less than three years, “seriously underestimate the seriousness” of Highhouse’s conduct.

“It’s hard to come up with the right words to describe how egregious an abuse of these victims this was,” Gilliam said.

Highhouse is among five workers charged in the last 14 months with sexually abusing inmates at the Federal Correctional Institution in Dublin, California, and the first to reach the sentencing phase of his case.

Highhouse, wearing a T-shirt and…

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Leaders in the Archdiocese of Denver neglected to protect a young girl from sexual abuse in the 1980s, despite being warned of the priest’s predatory nature, a lawsuit filed last week in Denver District Court alleges.

Father Marshall Gourley sexually abused a girl when she was between the ages of 7 and 11 years old while she attended church programming, and it resulted in a lifetime of trauma and struggle, the lawsuit alleges.

“When Fr. Gourley was abusing Plaintiff, Defendants knew, or should have known, that Fr. Marshall Gourley was unfit for the priesthood, specifically unfit to engage minors with the authority, control, respect, and reverence of a priest and representative of Defendants because, in part, they had received notice Fr. Gourley had committed acts of sexual abuse on children,” the lawsuit reads.

A December 2020 report led by the Colorado attorney general’s office documented systemic child sexual…

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As the Church’s three-year synod approaches its final year, Catholics in Ireland await the outcome with a variety of hopes and aspirations, writes Conor Capplis

The story of Jesus meeting a sceptical Samaritan woman at the well told in the Gospel of John is, for many Christians, a story of encountering Jesus and choosing his well as the source of eternal life. 

As the Irish Church faces a crossroads ahead, with many big decisions to be made, Bishop William Crean of the Catholic Diocese of Cloyne wonders what wells sustain the Irish people today.

The increasingly secularised nation has found new watering holes after decades of Church scandals.

“Where are people finding their sources of, say, imagination, vision, inspiration, motivation, direction, purpose and meaning?” he asks, speaking to the Irish Examiner at his palace in Cobh, Co Cork. 

“I find myself asking: for young people, what’s the source of their spirituality?” 

“Maybe…

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Greek politicians and the country’s powerful Orthodox Church joined in condemning a retired bishop who claimed Friday that women aren’t raped “without wanting it.”

In an interview with private Skai TV, Metropolitan Chrysostomos of Dodoni supported the Church’s official position against abortion, but added that there should be no abortion even in the case of rape.

He then proceeded to question the notion of rape itself, saying: “A woman does not sit and get raped without wanting it.” He added that there can be no conception as a result of rape.

Chrysostomos called abortion a “crime.”

Politicians of all stripes condemned his remarks on rape.

“The Metropolitan of Dodoni’s statement about rape is inconceivable and is to be condemned,” Education and Religious Affairs Minister Niki Kerameus tweeted. “It brutally insults society and does not agree with the position of the Church, which supports women victims of abuse and rape.”

“We…

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Recently, a German report showed that the number of abuse victims over the past few decades in the diocese of Trier is higher than expected. However, Stephan Ackermann, the Roman Catholic bishop responsible for the diocese, refuses to resign.

A report showed that 513 people had become victims of sexual abuse between 1946 and 2021. Many of them could be identified by name. Of the victims, 162 were female, and 311 were male. Furthermore, 195 suspects were identified. These numbers are much higher than a study from 2018 showed. That research spoke about 442 victims, and 148 suspects Katholisch.de reported.

Bishop Stephan Ackermann is now accused of knowing about the high number of abuse victims but having covered it up. The report reads: “At least in a large number of cases, the diocese did not take any measures to protect those potentially affected from sexual abuse.”

In reaction…

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For more than 30 years, the Catholic Church of Montreal covered up the abuse committed from parish to parish by a serial abuser priest. Thanks to their hard work, two women are now busy cleaning up to prevent such situations from happening again.

Priest Brian Boucher is languishing in prison today after being sentenced to eight years in prison in 2019 for sexually assaulting two barely teenage boys during the 1990s and 2000s. 

But he was able to rage for so many years in at least three parishes in the West of Montreal, it is because the leaders of the clergy minimized his deviations, sometimes swept the warning signs under the carpet, or even the transferred from parish to parish which allowed him to make other innocent victims. 

These disturbing findings are highlighted in a documentary by our Bureau of Investigation, broadcast since Thursday on Quebecor’s Vrai content platform and…

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An independent inquiry into sexual assault by Catholic clergy in Portugal has so far gathered testimony from 400 people

The Catholic Church must show “zero tolerance” to sexual assault by members of the clergy, Pope Francis said in excerpts of an interview with a Portuguese television channel broadcast Sunday.

“It’s very clear. It’s zero tolerance,” he told TVI/CNN Portugal in an interview, extracts of which were published on the channel’s website.

“A priest cannot continue being a priest if he is an aggressor. He cannot because he is either sick, or a criminal,” he said.

“It’s monstrous because it destroys lives,” he added, during the two-part interview to be aired on Sunday and Monday.

An independent inquiry into sexual abuse within the Catholic Church in Portugal has so far gathered testimony from around 400 people, said the man leading the inquiry, child psychiatrist Pedro Stretch.

As a result, 17 cases…

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The Marist Brothers and Fathers have educated prime ministers, judges, cardinals and All Blacks at their Catholic high schools. But their record of sexual abuse is horrific.

A teacher credited with helping nurture the musical talents of Neil Finn, Mike Chunn and Th’ Dudes has been accused of being a serial paedophile, who would abuse teenage boys during tramping trips in the Tararua Ranges.

Ray Gannaway, a Catholic Marist Brother who was known as ‘Brother Ivan’ during his teaching career in Auckland and Wellington was celebrated as a great musician and educator when he died in 2018.

He was an early influence on Split Enz and Th’Dudes during his time at Auckland’s Sacred Heart College in the late 1960s and 70s.

He then moved to Wellington, where between 1972 and 1975 he led tramping trips for his third and fourth form students at another Marist Brothers-owned school, St Bernard’s College.

…

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The Catholic Church must show “zero tolerance” to sexual assault by members of the clergy, Pope Francis has said.

He made the comments during an interview with a Portuguese television channel broadcast today.

“It’s very clear. It’s zero tolerance,” he told TVI/CNN Portugal in an interview, extracts of which were published on the channel’s website.

“A priest cannot continue being a priest if he is an aggressor. He cannot because he is either sick, or a criminal,” he said.

“It’s monstrous because it destroys lives,” he added, during the two-part interview to be aired today and tomorrow.

An independent inquiry into sexual abuse within the Catholic Church in Portugal has so far gathered testimony from around 400 people, said the man leading the inquiry, child psychiatrist Pedro Stretch.

As a result, 17 cases have been referred to the judiciary. The findings of the inquiry are expected at the end of…

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More than 300 victims of church-related abuse have used the Safe Spaces scheme during its two-year trial period.

The Catholic Church in England and Wales has announced that it will continue the Safe Spaces service, provided jointly with the Church of England, to support victims of church-based abuse. This follows a successful two-year trial of the scheme.

The service, run through its pilot period by the charity Victim Support, offers a confidential helpline and personal support to those who have suffered abuse through their relationship with the Church. It is staffed by a team of trained support advocates, who have undergone specialist training in supporting survivors of sexual violence, and specific training on church abuse cases.

More than 300 victims have used the service since it began in September 2020.

An independent assessment found the pilot a success, and the Churches will now begin a tendering process to find a long-term…

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Father Wayne Dohey urges Catholics to unite around St. Peter’s church

A church shakeup is set to take place in Mount Pearl as Roman Catholics prepare to vacate Mary Queen of the World on Topsail Road, and the Baptists get set to move in.

Meanwhile, a parish priest is calling for members of the faithful to unite at St. Peter’s church on Ashford Drive, which is set to expand its catchment area as neighbouring churches close amid a dramatic restructuring of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of St. John’s.

It’s the latest chapter in the ongoing and historic sell-off of properties — from churches and rectories to parish halls and vacant land — by the archdiocese, which is under creditor protection as it tries to raise millions to compensate abuse victims who attended the former Mount Cashel orphanage.

During Saturday mass at St. Peter’s, Father Wayne Dohey revealed that the congregation’s…

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Warning: The story below contains details about abuse in residential schools that may be upsetting. Canada’s National Indian Residential School Crisis Line is available 24 hours a day on 1-866-925-4419.

Glaciers and high mountain ranges, fjords, freshwater lakes and lowlands dominate the two million square-kilometre (770,000 square-mile) territory of Nunavut, Canada. This expanse is composed of ocean inlets and islands, including the Queen Elizabeth archipelago, a group of islands made up of frozen, snow-covered rock. It is home to extensive Arctic wildlife and ecosystems.

In summer, the landscape bursts with lush greenery and purple saxifrage flowers that grow in large clusters along the tundra floor. In Nunavut’s capital of Iqaluit, faded wooden rowboats dot the shores of the ocean inlet with barges anchored in the distance. White canvas hunting tent villages are pitched outside the city borders.

Iqaluit is the hub of Nunavut, providing access to government and medical services…

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The Archdiocese of Milwaukee held a funeral Mass on August 30 for former archbishop of Milwaukee Rembert Weakland, who died on August 22 at age 95.

The service stands as a difficult day for many sexual abuse survivors and their loved ones, and the celebration of Weakland’s life may bring up strong, painful feelings.

“Sexual abuse, especially abuse by a religious leader, is a deep and long-lasting trauma, and we urge all people to be mindful of this reality when they speak about Weakland’s legacy … As Catholics, we believe in praying for all who have died. While this includes Rembert Weakland on the day of his funeral, we also remember in our prayers all victims of clergy sexual abuse, especially those who have died deaths of despair in the aftermath of their abuse. We pray for survivors who continue to work for truth, justice, and healing, and we call…

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From Ogdensburg to the Vatican. An advocate for survivors of clergy sexual abuse says the Diocese of Ogdensburg and its bishop are in a historic position – a position that could influence the future of the Catholic Church in New York state.

According to John Bellocchio, a nationally known advocate for abuse survivors, the Vatican could put Bishop Terry LaValley of the Diocese of Ogdensburg in charge of investigating one of the most prominent cardinals in the world.

Earlier this month, Cardinal Timothy Dolan, archbishop of New York, helped the Diocese of Ogdensburg celebrate its 150th anniversary. Less than three weeks later, Dolan is accused of covering up clerical sexual abuse and trying to shield money from lawsuits filed by victims of clergy sexual abuse.

“The things that Timothy Dolan did are reprehensible. He’s never been held to account. He’s been promoted and now the world knows and…

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Victims explained the scheme was aimed to take a total of eight weeks since applying but have been waiting longer, due to delays caused by ‘staff shortages’

The SNP Government has been accused of ‘betraying’ victims of child abuse amid claims the compensation scheme has descended into “chaos”.

Survivors of historical abuse claimed they have been treated like “second-class citizens” after long hold-ups in securing payouts.

The Scottish Government has claimed that staff shortages has resulted in delays to processing the claims for victims meaning they have had to wait longer for their promised cash under the redress scheme launched in December last year.

At the time, the Deputy First Minister John Swinney boasted of “confronting the scale and horror of the abuse Scotland’s most vulnerable children [had] suffered”.

Scottish Tory justice spokesman Jamie Greene told the Scottish Daily Mail: “No amount of money can ever replace the appalling suffering these survivors endured.

…

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I learned a great deal while I spent several days researching and writing an in-depth look at religious and legal views of the confessions people make to bishops and other clergy. Not all of it made it into my story.

Let me share an amazing story that I had to leave on the cutting-room floor, so to speak. But first, here are the first two paragraphs of my article. I hope you’ll read it and benefit from what I found:

Priests, pastors and bishops from various faiths say both sides of an apparent collision of ideals are sacred to them: protecting children from all forms of abuse, and keeping confessions confidential so penitents feel safe and motivated to acknowledge and stop their sinful — and sometimes criminal — behavior.

The tension between doctrines about confessions and the impulse to protect children through mandatory reporting laws raises important legal, societal…

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When the news of the McCarrick scandal hit the headlines in November 2020, the blow to my family and our faith was devastating. Normally, I am an unabashed enthusiast full of love for the Catholic Church, sharing my faith even with secular friends, but these revelations reduced me to silence. I found myself wrestling with unavoidable questions: Why am I still doing this? How can I stay in a Church associated with so much corruption and evil?

As a kid growing up in a family of former Catholics, I could give you hundreds of reasons to not be Catholic. The Inquisition, Crusades, and other historical atrocities were high on the list of criticisms that I discussed with disdain in my peer group of adolescent atheists.

As far as we were concerned, you had to be either stupid or evil to claim allegiance to such an institution, and besides, claiming such…

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Records were created under disciplinary procedures mandated by Pope Francis to govern investigations of child sexual abuse allegations against bishops

The Archdiocese of New York is waging a legal battle to block the disclosure of more than 1,400 pages of internal records related to its investigations of Howard J. Hubbard, who served as bishop of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Albany from 1977 to 2014.

The records are being sought in connection with a Child Victims Act case filed against Hubbard, the Albany diocese and deceased former priest Francis P. Melfe, who like Hubbard is a target of multiple child sexual abuse claims.

The archdiocese’s records on the former bishop were created under disciplinary procedures known as “Vos Estis” that were mandated by Pope Francis in 2019 to govern the investigations of child sexual abuse allegations against bishops or other church superiors. The pope’s mandate also included examinations of any alleged…

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As the daughter of a clergy abuse victim-survivor and a lay person who works for the Church, Jerri von den Bosch speaks often with fellow Catholics about her family’s experience with the abuse crisis.

In June of 2021, I wrote 10 Things Never to Say to Survivors of Clergy Sexual Abuse that covered some of the hurtful things people sometimes say to clergy abuse survivors. Included were some more supportive things they might say instead. Many people read it and several clergy abuse survivors, including my mom, responded with additional things that they have heard from Catholics and would add to the list. I believe that most people who say these things are well intentioned; they are just not aware of how to walk with someone who has experienced trauma. So I present 6 Things Never to Say About Clergy Abuse Survivors, along with some things that you, as…

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Andrew Peacher has blasted deputy first minister John Swinney as he called on the Scottish Government to ‘end victim’s suffering’ and start paying out compensation

The SNP Government is letting down victims of historic child abuse with delays to the £115million redress scheme, a survivor’s husband has said.

Andrew Peacher wrote to the Scottish Daily Express to detail how “unfair” it was for his wife Joanne, who was a victim of child abuse, saying the delays to her case have left her “hanging on like a thread”.

Joanne Peacher, 53, took part in the Historic Child Abuse Inquiry describing how she was raped by a priest and sexually abused by a female care worker when she was a young child in one of the orphanages run by the Sisters of Nazareth, the Roman Catholic order.

In her witness statement, Mrs Peacher, who has mild learning disabilities, told the…

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The Archdiocese of New York has gone to court to keep under wraps hundreds of pages of records involving an Albany bishop accused of sexually abusing children.

The records pertaining to Howard Hubbard, who served as bishop of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Albany between 1977 and 2014, are being sought in connection with a lawsuit brought against him and another former priest. Both have been accused of numerous child sex abuse claims, according to an Albany Times Union report

Hubbard has vigorously denied the allegations, and the former priest — Francis Melfe — is now dead.

The records were created under disciplinary procedures known as “Vos Estis” that were mandated by Pope Francis in 2019 to govern the investigations of child sexual abuse allegations against bishops or other church superiors, the newspaper reported Saturday.

The Archdiocese is seeking to block their release in New York State…

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Pope Francis fulfills a pledge, but it’s only a start

It was not the typical papal visit. Yes, there were the political dignitaries, the popemobile, and the larger-than-usual press corps. But the reason for the visit was different, the tone was different, and Pope Francis was different: he was in a wheelchair for a good part of his July visit to Canada.

He was there to honor a pledge he made in March of this year to the various representatives of the Métis, First Nations, and Inuit communities of Canada who had travelled to Rome to meet Francis personally and to ask on Vatican soil that he come to their soil on Turtle Island. They did so because they wanted him to apologize for the role of the Church in administering the Residential Schools that had been established by the federal government in the nineteenth century with the express purpose of ensuring…

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Late last week, in an interview with Bishop Robert Barron on his “Bishop Barron Presents” talk show, the actor Shia LaBeouf shared that working on a new biopic about Padre Pio has changed his life. He now goes to Mass, receives Communion and particularly loves the Latin Mass. “Latin Mass affects me deeply, deeply,” he explained. “It feels like they’re not selling me a car. And when I go to some Masses with the guitars and stuff…it’s like they’re trying to sell me on an idea.”

“It almost feels like I’m being let in on something very special,” Mr. LaBeouf said of the Latin Masses he has attended in Oakland, Calif. The decision of the Second Vatican Council to make the Mass more participatory was a “bureaucratic activation,” he feels. “There was a yearning to activate the public, in an artificial way.”

As you might imagine, this created quite a stir….

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A Catholic priest in the Archdiocese of Washington has been placed on administrative leave and suspended from public ministry pending an investigation after he was charged with the misdemeanor offense of indecent exposure Aug. 25. 

The allegations in charging documents say that Father Jaroslaw “Jerry” Gamrot, pastor of Holy Face Parish and administrator of Little Flower School in Great Mills, Maryland was masturbating in a vehicle on Route 70 and exposed himself to a man driving in another vehicle, baynet.com reported.

The outlet reported that the incident occurred on Jul. 25 and that Gamrot, 58, allegedly pulled his vehicle next to the man’s vehicle three times and exposed himself, while wearing no pants.

Baynet.com reported that on Gamrot’s last attempt in his alleged exposure, the man snapped a photo of Gamrot and his license plate. The individual reported the incident two days later, according to Elena Russo,…

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A judge in Nicaragua sentenced a Roman Catholic priest to 49 years in prison Friday for the rape of a 14-year-old girl.

Judge Edén Aguilar Castro sentenced Rev. José Leonardo Urbina to 24 years in prison on two counts of abuse and 25 years for one count of rape.

However, Aguilar Castro ruled that Urbina would serve only 30 years. Nicaraguan law limits maximum sentences in most cases to 30 years.

Urbina served as a priest at the Perpetuo Socorro parish in the town of Boaco, 55 miles (90 kilometers) northeast of the capital, Managua. He was arrested in July on a complaint from the victim’s mother.

The Diocese of Grenada expressed “deep pain and suffering” in a statement about the sentence, and called on the faithful to “continue praying for our jailed priests.”

In June, a parish priest in the southern town of Nandaime was sentenced to two years…

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A former Calvary Chapel pastor and speaker is serving jail time in Virginia on multiple charges related to child sexual abuse, records obtained by The Roys Report show.

A plea agreement shows that Douglas Phillip DeAndrea, former pastor of New Ground Church in Danville, was sentenced in May to 40 years in prison.

DeAndrea, 44, was arrested October 18, 2021, on seven felony charges of object sexual penetration and aggravated sexual battery, according to Mark Hollandsworth with the Montgomery County Jail. A grand jury indictment reveals the charges related to sexual abuse of a minor.

The plea agreement shows DeAndrea pleaded guilty to two of the charges and will be incarcerated for eight years. The other 32 years of the prison sentence were suspended. He was also ordered to serve 15 years’ probation, according to the plea agreement.

The other five charges were dismissed as part of the plea agreement.

Virginia Department…

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Behind a closed chapel office door inside a federal women’s prison in California, a chaplain forced inmates seeking his spiritual guidance to have sex with him, exploiting their faith and their powerlessness behind bars for his own gratification, prosecutors said.

James Theodore Highhouse was sentenced Wednesday to seven years in prison — more than double the recommended punishment in federal sentencing guidelines. U.S. District Judge Haywood S. Gilliam Jr. said the guidelines, which call for a sentence of less than three years, “seriously underestimate the seriousness” of Highhouse’s conduct.

“It’s hard to come up with the right words to describe how egregious an abuse of these victims this was,” Gilliam said.

Highhouse is among five workers charged in the last 14 months with sexually abusing inmates at the Federal Correctional Institution in Dublin, California, and the first to reach the sentencing phase of his case.

Highhouse, wearing a T-shirt and…

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A Cabinet minister and a senior No 10 aide in Boris Johnson’s government are facing allegations of sexual misconduct.

Sky News has reported the allegations of two women detailing how they were allegedly assaulted and groped by figures within the Government.

The accusations come as Mr Johnson prepares to end his tenure as Prime Minister, which was brought to a halt after the Chris Pincher scandal.

One woman told Sky News she was “sexually assaulted by someone who is now a Cabinet minister”.

She added: “I was in my early 20s and didn’t really know how to deal with it.

“I was super drunk, he is feeding me more wine and I am already quite obviously tanked, but after a while I was like ‘You know what? Would you mind if I just went to bed?’ So I went to bed, but obviously he didn’t leave me alone.”

A second…

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A local pastor is accused of sexually assaulting and inappropriately touching two women and a girl, according to police.

Bobby Cornealius Smith, 45, has been charged with three counts of sexual assault and one count of child abuse.

Smith was arrested Friday after a victim came forward in February and told police she had been sexually assaulted in 2012 when she was a minor. Smith sexually assaulted the victim about 30 times between August 2012 and March 2013, according to a North Las Vegas Police Department arrest report.

When Smith tried to provide the victim with a sex toy, he said that God had told him that if she did not participate, her life would be ruined, according to the report.

Smith texted the victim telling her when he would be going into her room at night, according to the report. The victim told police she knew of at least…

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David Kaufman will spend the next 17 months in prison.

A former Sylvania Township rabbi who was accused of rape was sentenced Wednesday in Lucas County Common Pleas court.

David Kaufman will spend the next 17 months in prison.

Earlier this year, a grand jury indicted him on gross sexual imposition and unlawful restraint charges.

He was arrested back in March and charged with rape in Sylvania municipal court. Kaufman pleaded no contest to the grand jury’s indictment on original charges of gross sexual imposition and unlawful restraint.

Kaufman was a rabbi at Temple Shomer Emunim in Sylvania Township. Following his arrest, he was immediately terminated from his position.

Temple leadership said they were told by police the alleged conduct did not happen on their premises and did not include any members of their congregation.

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Officials charge that Keenan Hord had an extreme number of text messages from a group of boys and in a church youth ministry.

A former Arkansas youth minister was accused by authorities of having inappropriate sexual contact with up to 30 boys.

Prosecutors have charged Keenan Hord, 32, with several serious crimes involving the sexual abuse and exploitation of minors that were involved in the youth ministries he was connected to,, the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette reports.

Two Bentonville, Ark.,detectives testified at a bond hearing on Friday (Aug. 27) that officials searched Hord’s home on Aug. 24 to seize electronic devices found there.

Police Sgt. Josh Woodhams testified that he examined a phone belonging to one of the boys that revealed a romantic and sexual relationship between Hord and the boy. As many as 5,000 conversations were on the phone between them, Woodhams said. He also noted that half a million text messages were on the…

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Leaders of the Archdiocese of Denver in the 1980s failed to protect an elementary school girl from a predatory priest even after they were warned the priest was sexually abusing children, a lawsuit filed against the Catholic archdiocese alleges.

For years, Father Marshall Gourley groped a girl when she was between the ages of 7 and 11 while she attended programs at the Our Lady of Guadalupe Church, the lawsuit filed last week in Denver District Court alleges.

“Defendants knew, or should have known, that Fr. Marshall Gourley was unfit for the priesthood, specifically unfit to engage minors with the authority, control, respect and reverence of a priest and representative of Defendants because, in part, they had received notice Fr. Gourley had committed acts of sexual abuse on children,” the lawsuit states.

The lawsuit comes nearly two years after the completion of a years-long investigation spearheaded by the Colorado Attorney General’s Office…

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“Grooming” is a word that a certain set of people have become fond of, lately.

If you’re on social media in any capacity, you’ve surely seen it. People will refer to a gay person minding their own business as a “groomer,” trying to paint them as a person preparing to sexually abuse a child. They’ll call school teachers “groomers” for giving kids access to library books, or for calling a child “they” if the child prefers it to “he or she.” Anyone who suggests rudimentary sex education in schools or that kids should have some autonomy in dressing or presenting themselves the way that they want is also called a groomer. It’s as if any mention of gender or sexuality or letting kids think for themselves is grooming a child for sexual abuse.

I, myself, am a mother. My Adrienne is on the cusp of adolescence. Abuse is something I…

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Land is the investment of choice for moguls. Bill Gates has invested heavily in farmland. People have said for years that McDonald’s Corp is actually a real estate company that sells food. You might not have realized that the Catholic Church owns lots of real estate. Which of these billion-dollar entities owns more of what might be considered the most precious commodity on earth — land? Benzinga did the research, and the results might surprise you.

The Case for Bill Gates: Microsoft Corp co-founder is largely considered the biggest private owner of farmland in the U.S. with nearly 270,000 acres. This number stems from last year’s edition of The Land Report. It’s reasonable to assume that the purchases haven’t slowed down.

While Gates has said that the purchases are a result of his investment groups, he also recognizes the potential and the importance of farmland. He said in an ask-me-anything (AMA) session on…

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Quinze nouveaux plaignants se sont ajoutés à l’action collective contre le diocèse de Québec depuis la publication de la liste des présumés agresseurs sexuels. Les noms d’un évêque auxiliaire et de deux chanoines y apparaissent. Parmi les personnes visées se trouvent des récidivistes qui auraient fait jusqu’à sept victimes.

Quelques dignitaires, plusieurs multirécidivistes, de très jeunes victimes et des cas d’abus portés à la connaissance des autorités ecclésiastiques sans qu’elles n’agissent : les allégations récentes contenues dans l’action collective contre le diocèse de Québec révèlent un sombre tableau du sort qui aurait été réservé aux victimes, ainsi que des secrets parfois bien gardés.

Enquête s’est penché sur le parcours de plus de 80 religieux, dont plusieurs inconnus, qui apparaissent dans un document déposé dans le cadre du recours en justice visant l’ensemble des agressions sexuelles qui auraient été commises par des personnes sous l’autorité du diocèse depuis 1940. Plusieurs d’entre eux sont décédés.

Cent…

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The Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, also known as SNAP, will hold its first monthly meeting for survivors and their loved ones on Tuesday in Cumberland

Cumberland – A national self-help organization for victims of clergy sexual abuse is starting its first support group in Rhode Island.

The Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, also known as SNAP, will hold its first monthly meeting for survivors and their loved ones on Tuesday. The new Rhode Island chapter is being co-led by two survivors of clergy abuse, who say they hope to help others by sharing their experiences.

“Most survivors feel very alone, and most of us in the beginning didn’t believe there were a lot of others out there,” said Dr. Ann Hagan Webb, a psychologist who treats other survivors. “There is still something so validating to hearing stories that are similar to…

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Recently, in the pages of The Salt Lake Tribune, Stuart C. Reid made a passionate defense of confession to one’s spiritual advisor as a God-given right. He argued that if a pastor or bishop had a duty to report confessed crimes to civil authorities, religious liberty would be violated to the detriment of all concerned.

I believe this is entirely wrong. Consider the case, such as reported recently by the Associated Press, of an LDS man who confesses to his bishop that he is sexually abusing his own daughter. The bishop, told that he cannot inform the civil authorities, attempts to counsel the man and persuade him to repent.

Is he likely to succeed? The evidence is that pedophilia is exceedingly difficult to cure or stop. It may respond, if at all, only to a long series of intensive counseling sessions in the hands of…

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If religious leaders are forced to report what they hear in private, abusers won’t admit their crimes.

Having presided over and pastored six congregations — two as a bishop for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and four as an active duty Army chaplain — it is clear to me that the sinner/perpetrator, child abuse victims and society generally are better off when the confessional is protected by the government as the free exercise of religion’s God-given right.

In Utah there is much talk about religious freedom, particularly when it is considered operational to win this or that battle in the culture conflicts, but when the sanctity of the confessional is under attack, legislators and others go silent, or worse, many rush to get in line to rob religion of its long-standing freedoms.

Short-sighted knee jerk reactions by legislators, running roughshod over religion and its God-given rights is…

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State legislative leaders say they’ll take a procedural vote on the proposal early next year. 2023 primary voters would then get to weigh in.

State legislative leaders are pledging to vote early next year on a constitutional amendment giving adults who say they survived sexual abuse as children two years to sue their alleged abusers and any institution that sheltered them.

A 2018 Grand Jury report showed the statute of limitations may have closed for hundreds of Pennsylvanians who were sexually abused by Roman Catholic priests as children decades ago. That report recommended lawmakers give all abuse survivors more time to sue.

Pennsylvania now lets anyone who says they were abused as a child come to court with a civil lawsuit before age 55, but some say they missed their opportunity when the time window was smaller.

Research shows social and psychological pressures can keep survivors from coming forward for far…

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I’ve believed that ministry is my vocation since I was just out of high school, and I have worked as a lay minister in the Catholic Church for over eight years. About a year and a half ago, however, Jesus put a master’s degree in clinical mental health counseling in my path and opened the doors for me to begin this program.

Alongside that, the Lord put on my heart the desire to integrate ministry with mental health counseling. In particular, I want to work with people who have been harmed by the Church, and to assist in the formation of ministers and clergy to help them—frankly—be less harmful to the people they serve. These desires have been reaffirmed over the past year, both from what I’ve learned in my graduate program, but also with the experiences of spiritual abuse that the Lord has allowed me to witness during that…

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A year ago, Sheri Biasin of Cheshire was still waiting for the Catholic priest who molested her to be listed as “credibly accused” by the Springfield Diocese.

The diocese, in a spirit of disclosure and healing, had just changed its policy to include priests who died before those accusations surfaced. But that new and more complete list, released in June 2021, did not mention the Rev. Daniel Gill.

Now it does.

The diocese said Wednesday it added Gill to its online roster Aug. 1, “based on a credible finding by the diocesan Review Board.”

Biasin said Wednesday she recently received a letter from the Most Rev. William Byrne regarding her molestation by Gill, which the new listing says occurred between the years 1967 and 1971. At the time, Gill was assigned to both the Saint Jerome Parish in Holyoke (1962-69) and the Saint Charles Borromeo Parish in Pittsfield…

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Gov. Tom Wolf and legislative leaders have agreed to prioritize a constitutional amendment early next legislative session that, if approved by voters, would open a two-year window for survivors of childhood sexual abuse to file civil lawsuits.

“I want to first reiterate my deep regret and sincerest apologies to victims for the process error that prevented this issue from being decided upon by the voters this legislative session,” Wolf said in a press statement.

“I have fought for an immediate legislative solution to this issue and have been working with legislators to determine the clearest path forward.”

Wolf earlier this year had threatened to turn up the heat on state lawmakers this summer to pass move legislation forward.

Wolf said he and legislative leaders on both sides of the aisle have committed to prioritizing the second passage of the constitutional amendment early next…

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Cardinal Marc Ouellet’s legal battle  over allegations he made unwanted sexual advances toward a young intern over a decade ago might place him between the Church’s Code of Canon Law and Canadian law.

Between the Church’s long and complex tradition of law and Canada’s common law system, there’s not much agreement on what constitutes sexual assault or how allegations are investigated and brought to trial, one of Canada’s most senior canonists told The Catholic Register. Msgr. Roch Pagé, professor emeritus of Canon Law at Saint Paul University in Ottawa.

Pagé said the story of what will happen to allegations against Ouellet is not over yet. Pope Francis has decided against proceeding to a full canonical trial, but “the secular law has not yet begun,” Pagé noted.

The specific allegations are not a criminal matter. They were made in a class action civil suit against the Archdiocese of Quebec.

Ouellet, who heads the…

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De La Salle Brothers will sell their Malvern school, which has net assets of $27 million, to fund compensation claims from victims of historical sexual abuse and to financially support ageing brothers.

The buyer, Melbourne Archdiocese Catholic Schools, will take over the running of the college for more than 1000 boys in years 5 to 12.

Lawyers say they have more than 50 ongoing claims against the De La Salle Brothers nationally.

A sale price was not disclosed, but the school, one of four owned by the brothers, has more than $27 million in net assets, according to its financial accounts for the 2021 calendar year.

The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse said Catholic Church data showed that 328 people made a claim of child sexual abuse to the De La Salle Brothers between 1980 and 2015. The brothers accounted for 7 per cent of all claims made to…

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[Via Catholic Review, Archdiocese of Baltimore]

Nearly every parent’s biggest worry is how to provide for the health, safety and welfare of their children. It’s a concern that takes many forms: getting them to school safely and back again, serving them the best food and housing them safely. More and more, knowing — really, not knowing — what their child may be doing online is a key worry.

Others are beginning to listen.

Congress is one important group paying attention — and could be taking action before the current term ends in December. There are proposals to create a new privacy division at the Federal Trade Commission, expand federal protections for children’s data, fund government research into kids’ mental health and urge companies to act in the “best interest of the child.”

And what Congress can’t or won’t do, the FTC itself can try to launch on its own —…

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A St. Louis judge ruled Thursday that a 2014 arrest in a statutory sodomy case that was later dropped should be expunged from the record of a Roman Catholic priest.

Circuit Judge Jason Sengheiser found that the Rev. Xiu Hui “Joseph” Jiang, 39, met his legal burden to have the April 2014 arrest record expunged.

Jiang was arrested after a boy said the priest molested him in the restroom at St. Louis the King elementary school, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported.

After all charges were dropped in 2015, Jiang sued the boy’s mother and the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priest. The lawsuit was settled in 2017 and the mother and SNAP apologized to Jiang.

Jiang’s lawyer, Neil Bruntrager, said Jiang’s settlement with SNAP was confidential but the city of St. Louis had paid the priest a $17,500 settlement.

Jiang said that he had never met…

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[Via Catholic World Report]

A priest ministering in St. Louis — previously accused of abuse before prosecutors dropped all charges — will have his 2014 arrest record expunged after a judge’s ruling last week.

Father Xiu Hui “Joseph” Jiang, 39, had been accused of two separate instances of sexual abuse, but prosecutors dropped all charges in both cases. Jiang also prevailed in two civil lawsuits related to the accusations.

Circuit Judge Jason Sengheiser ruled Aug. 25 that Jiang had met the legal burden to have his 2014 arrest expunged. Jiang said during his hearing that he is currently studying in Rome and that his arrest record has caused problems for him at customs checkpoints when traveling abroad.

Jiang, a native of Shandong, China, was ordained a priest in St. Louis in 2010. He was first publicly accused of abuse in 2012 when a 16-year-old girl brought a civil lawsuit alleging…

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On May 18, 2018, Bishop Luis Antonio Scozzina, OFM, was consecrated the eighth bishop of the remote northern Argentine Diocese of Nueva Orán (also known simply as Orán), in Salta Province (map).

Pope Francis accepted the resignation of his predecessor, Bishop Gustavo Zanchetta, on August 1, 2017; Archbishop Andrés Stanovnik, OFM Cap, of Corrientes, had served as apostolic administrator during the intervening months. On December 19, 2017, Pope Francis appointed Bishop Zanchetta the assessor of the Administration of the Patrimony of the Apostolic See (APSA).

On November 16, 2018, Bishop Scozzina announced a sweeping series of personnel changes, including the appointment of a new vicar general (who replaced two previous vicars general) and a new secretary-chancellor. Scozzina did not appoint either Zanchetta loyalists or Zanchetta critics to these leading positions; he chose outsiders.

Father Antonello Tuvone, 39, a newly arrived Sardinian missionary priest, was the new vicar general; he had served…

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On July 29, 2017, El Tribuno, the leading newspaper in northern Argentina’s Salta Province (map), published a letter written by Bishop Gustavo Zanchetta to the faithful of the Diocese of Orán. The bishop said that he had just returned from Rome, where he had presented to Pope Francis his letter of resignation.

“For a long time, a health problem has not allowed me to carry out fully the pastoral ministry entrusted to me, especially considering the vast extension of our diocesan territory, and the enormous challenges we face as Church in the north of the country,” Zanchetta wrote. “That is why I have placed this decision in the hands of the Holy Father, which I believe is the best, especially thinking of you, rather than of myself, and because the recuperation I must face cannot be made here.”

On August 1, 2017, the Holy See Press Office announced that Pope Francis had…

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[On March 4, 2022, Bishop Gustavo Zanchetta, former bishop of Nueva Orán, Argentina, and assessor of the Administration of the Patrimony of the Apostolic See, was convicted of sexually abusing two seminarians. As the sixth-month anniversary of the verdict approaches, Catholic World News begins an in-depth look at the case.]

San Ramón de la Nueva Orán is a remote city in Salta Province in northern Argentina, close to the Bolivian border (map). Located over a thousand miles from Buenos Aires, the nation’s capital, San Ramón de la Nueva Orán is 175 miles from the provincial capital, also named Salta.

From the early 1600s, colonial Spanish forces attempted to conquer the remote area, but met with determined resistance from the indigenous inhabitants. On August 31, 1794—the feast day of St. Raymond Nonnatus—a local Spanish governor definitively conquered the area. The governor, who was born in Orán, Algeria, christened the city…

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La revelación se da en la respuesta dada al periodista Juan Pablo Barrientos tras fallo de Corte Constitucional. 14 de los religiosos fueron denunciados por la curia el mismo día que hizo públicas las respuestas.

[Note: Click here to see the list of accused clergy released by the Archdiocese of Medellín]

El pasado jueves, la Arquidiócesis de Medellín –en cabeza del arzobispo Ricardo Tobón Restrepo– hizo público el informe solicitado al periodista Juan Pablo Barrientos sobre casos de abuso de menores dentro de la jurisdicción de esta curia, luego de que un fallo de la Corte Constitucional del 2 de junio así lo ordenara.

Según informó el ente religioso, lo anterior era una “muestra de transparencia, compromiso con la verdad y de que no existen ningún encubrimiento”.

En el documento de cinco páginas la Arquidiócesis aclaró que decidió responder el primer bloque de tres preguntas que inicialmente…

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The funeral Mass for former Archbishop Rembert G. Weakland drew hundreds of supporters Tuesday, including those who said they were praying for forgiveness and mercy for the man who led the Milwaukee archdiocese for 25 years.

The Mass also drew advocates for survivors of clergy abuse. They said Weakland did not deserve a public funeral at the Cathedral of St. John the Evangelist because he helped cover up sexual abuse in the church.

Weakland, a Benedictine monk, died Aug. 22, about 20 years after he stepped down as archbishop following a public fall from grace.

The Vatican granted his retirement promptly after he admitted he had used $450,000 in church funds to buy the silence of a former graduate student who years later accused him publicly of date rape.

Weakland maintained the relationship was consensual. The archbishop was in his early 50s and the accuser was in his…

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Los documentos se enviarán cuando la Corte Constitucional aclare las dudas de la Iglesia Católica.

El arzobispo de Medellín, monseñor Ricardo Tobón Restrepo, confirmó en las últimas horas que la Iglesia Católica compartirá con un periodista los documentos donde están recopilados los procesos sobre presuntos casos de abuso sexual que habrían protagonizado 915 sacerdotes de la capital de Antioquia en los últimos años.

La decisión se tomó luego de que la Corte Constitucional obligara a esa corporación religiosa a ceder ante los cuestionamientos del comunicador Juan Pablo Barrientos en medio de una investigación que adelanta sobre los delitos sexuales que se cometieron al interior de la iglesia, en la lista figuran varios presbíteros, diáconos y seminaristas.

Si bien el reportero acudió directamente a la Arquidiócesis para que le suministraran la información antes de caminar en los estrados judiciales, encontró un no como respuesta que fue sostenido en…

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Survivors, advocates and a former priest were among those protesting the funeral of former Milwaukee Archbishop Rembert Weakland and encouraging members of the clergy to not attend the service.

Weakland was the archbishop for the Archdiocese of Milwaukee from 1977 until his retirement in 2002. He died last week at the age of 95, and will be having a funeral service held for him in Milwaukee on Tuesday.

“Archbishop Rembert Weakland deserves no honor or praise,” said Father James Connell, a retired priest and former vice chancellor for the archdiocese. “Doing so would put salt in the wounds of victim survivors of clergy sexual abuse.”

It has been discovered Weakland knowingly reassigned priests who had allegedly sexually abused minors during his time as archbishop. Weakland also admitted to misusing $450,000 in church funds to cover up an affair he had with another man.

“Do not come to the funeral,” Father…

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The Archdiocese of Milwaukee held a funeral Mass Tuesday, Aug. 30, for former Archbishop Rembert Weakland, who died last week at the age of 95.

But a half dozen protesters gathered outside to call attention to Weakland’s complicated legacy and his admitted role in the church’s sexual abuse scandal.

Archbishop Weakland was remembered by parishioners and clergy as an imperfect man of faith.

The church’s sex abuse scandal was mentioned a few times throughout the funeral Mass. But survivors of abuse say it’s still painful, and a funeral for someone this controversial should have been held in private.

As steeple bells chimed, mourners prayed at the funeral Mass. But outside the Cathedral of St. John the Evangelist there was a different kind of pain and grief.

Clergy sex abuse survivor John Pilmaier said, “This is really a day of shame for the archbishop and the archdiocese.”

Weakland admitted to covering…

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Rembert Weakland resigned in 2002 amid the church abuse scandal

The funeral Mass for former Milwaukee Archbishop Rembert Weakland drew crowds in support and protest Tuesday at Milwaukee’s St. John the Evangelist Cathedral.

Weakland resigned in 2002 amid the church abuse scandal and died last week at the age of 95.

The funeral started at 4:30 p.m. The archdiocese did not allow the media inside but did stream the mass on YouTube.

Rev. Steve Avella, of Marquette University, gave the eulogy and did not ignore the scandal or the fallout.

“We are grateful for the time he spent with us, and many of us loved him. Some did not. We cannot dismiss their just anger even as we try to make sense of it all,” Avella said. “People were hurt. Lives shattered and disillusioned. With the perks and power of leadership comes the burden of accountability for serious mistakes. For…

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Advocates for victims of clergy abuse on Monday protested the public funeral for former Archbishop Rembert Weakland.

Weakland’s funeral Mass is planned for 4:30 p.m. Tuesday at the Cathedral of St. John the Evangelist, the seat of the Milwaukee Archdiocese. He died Aug. 22 in Greenfield.

Weakland will be buried in Latrobe, Pennsylvania, at St. Vincent Archabbey, where he attended high school, college and seminary and eventually became archabbot.

Weakland admitted in 2008 in a state court deposition that he shredded copies of sex abuse documents, failed to notify law enforcement officials and moved sexually abusive priests from parish to parish without warning members of their histories.

A private funeral Mass in Pennsylvania would have been better, the Rev. James Connell, a retired Catholic priest who was also vice chancellor of the Milwaukee Archdiocese, said at a news conference Monday outside the cathedral.

“Archbishop Rembert Weakland deserves no honor or praise…

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Victims of clergy sexual abuse in the Milwaukee Catholic Archdiocese are questioning the decision to hold a funeral mass for former Archbishop Rembert Weakland at St. John’s Cathedral.

Weakland died last week in Greenfield at 95 after a long illness.

He was at the center of a clergy sexual abuse scandal in May 2002, when the church revealed there were six active priests in the archdiocese with histories of sexually abusing children.

“I’m doing my best to eradicate it. That’s what I’m doing,” Weakland said at a public meeting in Brookfield.

Days later, he made national news.

ABC and WISN 12 News broke the story of Weakland paying nearly $500,000 to a man to stay quiet about their sexual relationship while the man was a student at Marquette University in the late ’70s.

“He was sitting next to me and then started to try to kiss me and continued to…

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The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints said it ‘didn’t have anything to offer’ when asked to comment on the proposed legislation.

A Utah lawmaker wants government-mandated background checks for church leaders and volunteers who work with young people — an effort, he said, that could prevent predators from grooming children for sexual abuse.

Sen. Keith Grover, R-Provo, doesn’t seem confident that his proposed legislation will become law, but he said in an interview last week that he hopes it will start an important conversation about sexual abuse and how to protect children.

He spent his career as an educator and now works as a real estate agent, and he has been required to pass background checks for both professions.

Why, he asks, don’t clergy face the same requirement? Or the church volunteers who take young people on camping trips, play night games with them or offer them support?

…

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At least 130 Jesuit priests have been accused of committing sexual abuse against children between 1927 and 2012 in Spain.

The El Pais newspaper, as part of its ongoing probe into paedophilia within the Roman Catholic Church in Spain, reported there were at least 160 victims who suffered at the hands of the Jesuits.

El Pais has published details of several cases of abuses using victim statements and witness interviews.

The paper said that the Jesuit who faced the largest number of complaints was Barcelona-born priest Emilio Benedetti.

Benedetti worked in several Jesuit schools and died in 2019.

He’s accused of committing sexual abuse against at least 13 victims between 1969 and 1973but no action was taken against him.

El Pais said the number of Jesuits accused of sexual abuse accounts for 15.4% of the total number of Roman Catholic figures accused of paedophilia and harassment through its contacts with…

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A former Northwest Arkansas youth pastor is now behind bars.

Police arrested Keenan Hord on Thursday. He used to be a youth pastor at First Baptist Church in Bentonville. Now he’s facing charges of second-degree sexual assault, possessing matter depicting sexually explicit conduct involving a child and sexual indecency with a minor.

“I think what the people need to realize is that there are wolves in sheep’s clothing in every area of life,” said Benton County Prosecutor, Nathan Smith.

Smith said as soon as the church found out about the allegations, it took all the correct steps in reporting what it had learned to authorities. This situation hits home for Smith.

“I was pleased in this case certainly as prosecuting attorney, but also as a member of the church, that it was reported to law enforcement and we can deal with it,” he said. “That was the right thing to…

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Weakland transferred or concealed dozens of known sex offenders resulting in thousands of child victims

In a deposition, Weakland indicated that there had been offenders at some point “covering the whole Diocese”

WHEN: Monday, August 29th, 2022, 1:00pm

WHERE: Cathedral of St. John the Evangelist, 831 N Van Buren St, Milwaukee, WI

WHO: Survivors of clergy sexual abuse and advocates

WHAT: A press conference with survivors and advocates unrolling a 60-foot line of photos of clergy offenders under Archbishop Rembert Weakland

WHY: For 25 years, Archbishop Rembert Weakland facilitated the cover-up of child sex crimes by Catholic clergy, resulting in thousands of child victims. On Tuesday, Archbishop Listecki will celebrate a public funeral honoring and praising Weakland’s life.

In 2019, the Archdiocese removed Weakland’s name and statue from the downtown Cathedral acknowledging his guilt in protecting abusive clergy. This is why victims expected…

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Alleges they permitted abuse

 A former student at Arlington Catholic High School has sued two former priests in the Archdiocese of Boston and a third unidentified priest, alleging their lack of supervision allowed the school’s then vice principal to molest him when the student was serving detention.

The suit was filed in Suffolk Superior Court on Thursday, Aug. 25, on behalf of Kevin Doherty by attorney Mitchell Garabedian, who has spent much of the last 20 years in litigation over molesting priests both in the Archdiocese of Boston and elsewhere.

News about the lawsuit was first reported by Universal Hub, and it includes a link to the complaint.

The suit describes what the vice principal allegedly did, but it does not name him as a defendant. Named are Richard Joseph Malone, who served as secretary of education and vicar general for the Boston archdiocese at the time,…

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Tad Walch, the LDS church beat writer for the Deseret News in Salt Lake City, recently posted an informative article on various Christian church views on sexual abuse reporting. The article indicated that churches largely consider priest-penitent confessions confidential and even sacred, but can still facilitate voluntary reporting.  

Some studies have shown mandatory reporting laws may not increase reporting by clergy and may be stressful for survivors, who in some cases would prefer having control over whether any reporting is done. Moreover, confession works for the truly penitent.  

But what about the many who are not truly penitent and are just looking for a temporary penance fix? Favoring the private approach to dealing with sexual abuse amounts to favoring the moral and legal superiority of the church over the government. Essentially, the argument is that the church cares more about perpetrators and victims than government does, and better knows…

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Only $4 million of the promised $25 million has been raised by the Catholic corporation for residential school survivors.

A 2015 decision by Canada may have released the Catholic entities from their $25 million settlement for residential school survivors, but that doesn’t mean the Catholic corporation still can’t do something substantial, says Dr. Cynthia Wesley-Esquimaux, chair of the Governing Circle for the National Truth and Reconciliation Centre.

“Maybe it’s not going to be $25 million. Maybe it’s going to be the churches are going to say ‘in lieu of the money, maybe we can do something … about the Doctrine of Discovery’, because that was very much part of the discussion when the Pope was here,” said Wesley-Esquimaux.

On Aug. 20, The Canadian Press reported that Canada, under the Stephen Harper government, agreed to “forever discharge” the Catholic entities from the money owing to residential school survivors. Canada…

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It’s been exactly a month since Pope Francis visited Canada to apologize for the church’s role in residential schools.

There’s been much goodwill.

Good words. Big promises for changes by bishops and priests. The Pope even wore a headdress.

Some might even call it a moment of reconciliation between the Catholic Church and Indigenous peoples.

Well, that was fun while it lasted.

Last Saturday, the Canadian Press reported on a secret 2015 deal between Stephen Harper’s Conservative government and Catholic leaders to “forever discharge” the church from its legal obligations to raise $25 million for residential school survivors.

Negotiated during Harper’s final days in office, the document states: “Canada does hereby remise, release and forever discharge the Catholic entities, its directors, officers, shareholders, agents, lawyers, and employees of and from all manners of actions, causes of action, suits, debts, dues, accounts, bonds whatsoever against the releasees.”

Obtained via an Access…

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[Via CBC]

Info is in final release document of 2015 agreement, signed before Trudeau government sworn in

Canada agreed to “forever discharge” Catholic entities from their promise to raise $25 million for residential school survivors and also picked up their legal bill, a final release document shows.

The Canadian Press obtained a signed copy of the 2015 agreement through federal access-to-information laws, marking what appears to be the first time the document has been widely publicized.

“That’s a very, very important set of records,” said Ry Moran, an associate librarian at the University of Victoria and founding director of the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation.

“Like all questions around accountability, the question is, ‘Who made the decision? How was that decision made? Who ultimately signed off on this?’ “

Indigenous leaders and legal experts have long questioned why Ottawa opted to give up an appeal of a court decision that…

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[Via The Free Press]

Many of the documents, including a timeline of events, are redacted, either partially or fully

Canada’s decision to abandon its appeal of a 2015 court ruling that freed Catholic groups from the need to raise $25 million for residential school survivors has caused anger and confusion.

Last fall, a package of more than 200 pages of briefing notes and court records was prepared for Crown-Indigenous Relations Minister Marc Miller, who promised he would look into what transpired. The Canadian Press obtained the records under federal access-to-information laws.

Many of the documents, including a timeline of events, are redacted, either partially or fully. According to details available, here is a timeline of what happened:

May 2006: The historic Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement is approved by parties. The agreement involved the Canadian government, lawyers representing residential school survivors, churches that operated them and national Indigenous organizations.

September 2007: Implementation…

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One ought always to be wary of “world-in-a-nutshell” images, which only with vanishing rarity show what they purport (or are purported) to show. That’s why I didn’t make much of the images from Saturday’s consistory, showing the disgraced (and reinstated?) Cardinal Giovanni Angelo dressed in his glad rags, with a prominent seat among his brethren gathered in St. Peter’s for Saturday’s doings.

Cardinal Becciu was once the Sostituto of the Secretariat of State of the Holy See – a fancy way for saying that he was the pope’s chief-of-staff – basically the third man in the Vatican and responsible for the daily run of the place, until he became a cardinal and the prefect of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints.

In September 2020, Pope Francis removed Cardinal Becciu from his offices in the curia and stripped him of all the rights and privileges of his station. Francis had seen evidence…

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Storm clouds are gathering around the Catholic Church in Ireland following the publication of a report on a process that sought the views of members and others on the direction the church should take to remain relevant in today’s world.

Many who took part feel let down by the final report that was submitted to the Vatican that frankly amplifies the views of those seeking radical change within Catholicism in form, function, and purpose. Truth is, if liberal commentators were given the opportunity to write a treatise on changes needed in the Irish Catholic Church, they could not have done a better job whereas the voices for significant but incremental change feel that they have been marginalized. 

Billed by the hierarchy as a listening exercise leading to discernment, it has been an extensive consultative process that began in March 2021. It involved focus groups, public meetings, online surveys, questionnaires, steering…

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