ABUSE TRACKER

Through the years, I have worked a lot on how media portrayals reflect changing attitudes towards religion, and in turn do a great deal to shape those attitudes. In fact, I have a piece in the current Christian Century on “Priests on Screen,” looking at some recent European representations of clergy. Given that background, I was very struck by one American production this past year, from a surprising source.

The TV series in question was Mo, starring comedian Mohammed Amer, who also created and produced the show, drawing heavily on his own experiences. Mo (available on Netflix) has been widely praised for its portrayal of immigrant life in Alief, a very multi-cultural working class suburb of Houston. Texas references and in-jokes abound. The show is very good on issues like the use of language, such as the blend of…

View Cache

Re: Catholic church settles lawsuit around historical sex abuse of 10-year-old B.C. girl (Online, Dec 15)

1. The confessional at St. Peter’s Catholic Church in Nanaimo is now, and in 1976, divided by a wall so that the pastor and penitent are in separate rooms.

2. Father Hartmann wrote three books about his life. There were no letters of criticism or claims of abuse, only affection and respect for his career as a priest.

3. Father Hartmann spoke of his experiences fleeing the Nazis and the Russians. He tried to escape several times and finally succeeded.

4. The article said a complaint was dismissed in 2000. The Dec. 15 news article states that the allegations were not proven in court. When a man is dead and can no longer defend himself, why has the Victoria diocese decided to condemn him?

5. In the absence of evidence to support…

View Cache

Given their abrupt suspension of accused priests, the bishops have eroded the theological density of the sacrament of Holy Orders. By so doing, they have undermined the very deposit of faith they seek to protect and transmit.

A few weeks ago, the Catholic Project at The Catholic University of America released the results of a massive survey of Catholic priests in the United States. Priests interviewed numbered 3,500 from 191 American dioceses.

Predictably—at least for those who have been paying attention—the results constitute a biting indictment of the American episcopacy. The most prominent finding of the survey is that a majority of priests do not trust their own bishops—and, shockingly, only 24% of priests trust the US episcopacy in general. In other words, the bond between priests and their putative “fathers” and “brothers” is badly corroded. Even worse, bishops are largely unaware of the decay, with over 90% claiming they are…

View Cache

A paedophile priest who abused young vulnerable boys for almost 20 years was handed a suspended sentence on Thursday after he breached a court order.

Imposing a three month jail sentence on disgraced priest Daniel Gerard Curran but suspending it for three years, District Judge Steven Keown said the pre-sentence probation report illustrated a “depressing lack of insight and minimisation of his behaviour.”

He warned the 72-year-old if he breached his Sexual Offences Prevention Order again in that time “you will be facing custody.”

Curran, from Bryansford Avenue in Newcastle, had earlier entered a guilty plea to breaching his lifelong SOPO on 12 August this year in that without reasonable excuse or permission from his designated risk manager, he “remained or loitered at Tullymore National Activity Centre which by its nature is likely to attract or be frequented by children.”

A prosecuting lawyer told Downpatrick Magistrates Court how Curran had…

View Cache

When a Dutch journalist claimed to have found documents indicating that Pope John Paul II covered up clergy sexual abuse while serving as the archbishop of Krakow, Poland, in the 1960s and ’70s, it sparked a predictable media frenzy in Europe’s most Catholic country.

With some urging a consideration of the evidence, and others dismissing the claims out of hand, the incident appears to highlight a continuing gulf between the Polish church and its Western neighbors.

“We face serious problems here whenever issues like this arise, since it’s impossible to have any serious debate about the pope,” Malgorzata Glabisz-Pniewska, a senior Catholic presenter with Polish Radio, told NCR.

“Some people, partly for political reasons, attack him, hoping to discredit his claims to sanctity, while others insist any criticism is inherently satanic,” she said. “It’s a situation St. John Paul himself would not have appreciated.”

Claims about diabolical motives were made…

View Cache

Child sex abuse survivors have overwhelmingly approved a $121.5 million plan in a crucial step toward resolving the long-running Archdiocese of Santa Fe bankruptcy reorganization, which was aimed at stemming the church’s financial losses while atoning for wrongs of the past.

Aside from providing monetary payments to nearly 400 abuse claimants, the terms of the settlement require the establishment of an “unprecedented” public archive of documents showing how “decades of widespread abuse occurred” in New Mexico and to prevent such abuse by clergy in the future.

A formal confirmation order is expected to be signed by U.S. Bankruptcy Judge David T. Thuma of Albuquerque on Thursday. Payouts in the case could begin in the coming months.

The reorganization plan is the product of years of legal wrangling that involved three mediators and effectively halted more than three dozens civil lawsuits in state court that alleged abuse of children by clergy…

View Cache

Benedict XVI has lived longer than anybody else who’s ever been pope.

Most Catholics can’t remember a world without him. Even his final chapter — as a retiree — has extended so long that many in Rome have grown accustomed to having a Catholic Church with two men in white, Benedict, 95, living quietly in a Vatican convent.

“We’ve had him like a grandfather living behind the church,” said Mountain Butorac, an American who lives in Rome and guides Catholic pilgrimages. “And now we’re about to lose him.”

The Vatican’s announcement Wednesday that Benedict’s health had worsened put the church on alert, and Catholics are bracing for the first papal death since 2005. Because Benedict is not a sitting pope, his death won’t lead to a conclave and won’t cause the same immediate upheavals. But it has become a moment for Catholics to reflect on a figure who has had…

View Cache

• A former nurse at St. Mary’s Medical Center was accused by coworkers of abusing unconscious patients.
• Christopher Lambros was arrested on charges of sexual assault.
• In a class action suit, lawyers allege the hospital allowed Lambros access to patients for 10 years.

A Colorado hospital is facing a class-action lawsuit after police alleged a former nurse recorded himself sexually abusing unconscious patients. 

The Grand Junction Police Department confirmed in a statement emailed to Insider that Christopher Lambros, a 61-year-old former nurse, was arrested on October 25 on three felony counts of sexual assault and was remanded to the Mesa County Detention Facility. 

According to the arrest warrant, his bail was set at $250,000. The police department confirmed Tuesday he remains in custody.

Lambros was caught by another hospital staff member in July in a patient’s room at St. Mary’s Medical Center, according to the arrest warrant, having apparently exposed…

View Cache

Two women who say a nurse sexually assaulted them while they were unconscious in intensive care filed a lawsuit Tuesday against the Colorado hospital where they were being treated, alleging the hospital’s management didn’t do enough to prevent the abuse.

The lawsuit — which is proposed as a class action suit — alleges St. Mary’s Hospital in Grand Junction and SCL Health and Intermountain Healthcare, the companies that ran the hospital, knew or should have known about the actions of the nurse, Christopher Lambros, who has been arrested and charged with sexual assault. Police say Lambros would record himself sexually abusing female patients while they were unconscious or incapacitated.

According to his arrest affidavit, on a day in June when Lambros made five videos of himself abusing a patient, he whispered to the camera saying “don’t ever get rid of these videos” and “you need to keep them forever ……

View Cache

A few observations regarding Archbishop William Lori’s recent commentary (”Baltimore archbishop: ‘The Church of today is not the Church described by the attorney general.’ Here’s what’s changed.” Dec. 20). First, providing thousands of pages of documents to the Maryland attorney general because of a subpoena does not make you transparent; it makes you not wanting to go to jail. Providing those documents to the public years ago when you first took office would have made you transparent.

Second, he makes show of the fact that he will not oppose the statute of limitations reform bill currently before the Maryland General Assembly, after having opposed it for years using high-priced lobbyists. Yet he neglects to mention the fourth paragraph of his own news release where he indicates that a huge part of the bill is believed to be unconstitutional. He is clearly laying the groundwork for how the…

View Cache

The lawsuits are stacking up in courthouses across the state, sometimes dozens per day, identifiable by their unusual names: Jane Doe vs. Doe Archdiocese. M.L., an individual, vs. Doe 1, a California organization. John Doe #1 vs. Roe 2, a California entity.

In the waning days of a three-year window that gave adults more time to file lawsuits over childhood sexual abuse, California is seeing a flood of new litigation.

Spurred by a 2020 change in state law, thousands of lawsuits alleging abuse as far back as the 1940s have been filed against dozens of organizations, including religious groups, private and public schools, sports groups and nonprofit organizations. In some cases, the alleged perpetrators have been dead for decades.

The number of lawsuits is expected to rise sharply before the Dec. 31 filing deadline. After that, people older than 40 will once again be barred from suing over abuse suffered in…

View Cache

Pope Francis has said that his predecessor Pope Benedict, the 95-year-old former pontiff who resigned from the post nine years ago, is “very sick” after a deterioration in his health on Wednesday.

“I want to ask you all for a special prayer for Pope Emeritus Benedict who sustains the Church in his silence. He is very sick,” Francis said during his general audience at the Vatican on Wednesday.

“We ask the Lord to console and sustain him in this witness of love for the Church to the very end.”

A Vatican spokesman later confirmed that “in the last few hours there has been a deterioration due to the advancement of (Benedict’s) age.”

“The situation at the moment remains under control and continually monitored by his doctors,” the spokesman, Matteo Bruni, said, adding that Francis visited his predecessor at the Mater Ecclesiae monastery in Vatican City after his general audience.

In…

View Cache

Is the Catholic Church about to face a new paedophilia scandal linked to Africa? From Makoua to Namur, we investigated the charges of the alleged rape of a teenager in Congo-Brazzaville by a Belgian priest. 

• We have investigated the rape of a Congolese teenager in the late 1990s in Makoua, Congo-Brazzaville. 
• This sexual abuse – similar to the cases we denounced in Gabon – were allegedly committed by a Belgian priest, now working in the diocese of Namur, Belgium, and whose canonical trial could begin soon.  
• The facts also bring to light the practices of the Belgian Church, which has a very official price list – ranging from €2,500 to €25,000 – for making financial agreements with victims.  

Joseph has trembling hands and tears in his eyes. Two decades after the events, he has not told his story to anyone close to him. His family knows nothing. Nor do his neighbours….

View Cache

[Translated from L’Essenziale]

Two decades after the U.S. Catholic Church finally began to confront priest abuse of minors, and many other countries followed suit, Italian bishops who live with the Vatican in their midst are reluctant to break the church’s vow of silence and answer to victims.

It was in 2002 that the scandal of sexual abuse of minors by Catholic priests erupted in the United States, prompting the country’s conference of bishops to draft the first Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People in the Church.

The charter allowed guilty clergy members to be removed, and dioceses — the group of churches that a bishop supervises — were asked to cooperate with civil authorities in cases of violence against minors in the name of transparency.

But 20 years later, the scandal, which has since spread to many other countries, is far from over.

In the meantime, things…

View Cache

[From Domani (Rome, Italy); translated by The Pillar]

“The first time he kissed me on the mouth telling me that this was how he kissed the altar where he celebrated the Eucharist, because with me he could experience sex as an expression of God’s love.” This is the beginning of the detailed account of the sexual, psychological, and spiritual abuse that Anna (not her real name), 58, a former Italian religious sister of the Loyola Community, suffered for nine years at the hands of Jesuit Father Marko Ivan Rupnik.
As Domani has reported in recent days, Rupnik, a world-renowned theologian and artist, is now at the center of a scandal based on accusations that he abused several religious sisters. Anna, who came close to suicide because of the suffering caused by the Jesuit’s delusion of omnipotence and sexual obsession, denounced her abuser several times over the years but the Church has…

View Cache

Pell’s Prison Journal provides an inspiring example of how to endure attacks while loving our persecutors. Perhaps his serene approach can show our post-Christian civilization the beauty of Christian love and forgiveness.

rom 2019 to 2020, Cardinal George Pell, the retired Catholic archbishop of Melbourne (1996-2001) and Sydney (2001-2014), spent almost 14 months in solitary confinement after being falsely accused for sexual assault. He was finally released after his unanimous acquittal by Australia’s High Court. The journal Pell kept in prison has now been published in three volumes under the title Prison Journal. They reveal an inspiring lack of rancor and give us insight into an astute, conservative social observer. Considering both the viciousness of the campaign against him and a conviction based on flimsy and contradictory evidence alongside his decidedly politically incorrect views on political issues such as Brexit and global warming, on full display in the three-volume journal, raises the question of…

View Cache

[Via Catholic Spirit, Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis]

Twenty years ago, in 2002, the revelations of clergy sexual abuse and its cover-up in the Archdiocese of Boston were the metaphorical bombshell that fell on the Catholic Church in the United States.

The U.S. bishops, when they met that June in Dallas, approved the “Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People,” a comprehensive set of procedures for addressing allegations of sexual abuse of minors by Catholic clergy.

Its one-strike-and-you’re-out policy did just that — permanently removing from public ministry those priests against whom abuse allegations were substantiated.

Twenty years later, at their assembly in Baltimore Nov. 14-17, the bishops acknowledged the charter’s anniversary and said that they have made steps in addressing clergy sexual abuse and would continue to listen, care for and walk with survivors.

Over the past 20 years, the fallout from the Boston revelations has…

View Cache

A Catholic High School teacher in Trinidad is facing harassment and child abuse charges after students told police she would strike them with various objects. 

Andrea Jimenez, a 63-year-old teacher at Holy Trinity Academy in Trinidad, is due in court for her first appearance on Jan. 5th after she was issued a summons last month.  

On Oct. 31, Trinidad Police began their investigation into possible harassment involving a teacher at Holy Trinity Academy School, a Catholic private school that teaches students from Kindergarten through the 12th grade. Multiple students and parents pointed to Jimenez as the primary concern. 

According to one of the student’s statements to investigators, Jimenez got extremely close to her face and body after getting upset over finding laptop charging cables on the ground.

Jimenez began smacking them in the face and on her body with the charging chord according to the student’s statements to investigators. 

…

View Cache

The year 2022 in the Catholic world was dominated by significant shifts in the intellectual and ecclesial landscape, accompanied by shockingly few shifts among key personnel in the Vatican Curia and at the headquarters of the U.S. bishops’ conference. Pope Francis continues to invite the church to try new approaches with the goal of retrieving our tradition more fruitfully, even while here in the United States he encounters a great deal of opposition.

Synodality was the biggest story of 2022 — or it might be. The process has begun and no one is sure how it will end, but already we are seeing signs of its effect.

As NCR board member Jim Purcell, who was heavily involved in the synodal process in his parish and diocese, noted, “I have witnessed again and again the animating power of the Holy Spirit that is at the…

View Cache

The son of Coventry factory workers, he overcame a traumatic childhood to find fame in the Thatcher years as the frontman of the Specials.

Terry Hall, the frontman of the Specials, the British ska band that blended pub-fight energy with socially conscious lyrics that explored the political and racial tensions of Britain in the late 1970s and early ’80s, died on Dec. 18. He was 63.

The cause was pancreatic cancer, his former bandmate Horace Panter announced on Facebook. The announcement did not say where he died.

After enduring a traumatic childhood, Mr. Hall went on to enjoy a chart-topping music career.

He forged his most lasting legacy as a face of the revival of ska — the pop genre that emerged in Jamaica in the 1960s, blending Caribbean styles like calypso with rhythm and blues — that shook the British music scene during the early, convulsive Margaret…

View Cache

One might assume that, at first blush, spending $2.4 million (plus remodeling costs) is not a huge outlay for a luxury view home in Seattle — at least for the privileged few who can afford it. Yet, the recent purchase of such a home by the Seattle Archdiocese for Archbishop Paul Etienne has caused serious concern among many clergy and lay Catholics.

When he first arrived in Seattle in 2019, the archbishop declared, “I am a Pastor, not a Prince’’ in renouncing residence at a mansion on First Hill in Seattle that had been purchased by contributions from the laity more than a century earlier.  He further claimed that the proceeds from the sale of the mansion would be used by the church for its social services. In recognition of that apparent austerity, the archdiocese renovated for $160,000 the rectory at St. Peter’s Church in the working class neighborhood of Beacon Hill.

…

View Cache

A former Grimsby priest has been jailed for the “systematic abuse” of six boys over a 21-year period.

Terence Atkinson, 70, was convicted of nine counts of indecent assault after a trial at Lincoln Crown Court.

During his trial jurors heard Atkinson volunteered at youth and church groups, including the Shalom Youth Centre, and was later ordained as a minister.

Passing a sentence of 10 years, Judge Simon Hirst told Atkinson he had abused his position of trust.

Prosecutor David Webster told the court Atkinson sexually assaulted his victims between 1978 and 1999.

The court heard he would invite boys back to his home and use strategies such as lifting them up to read his electric meter and measuring them for football kits to touch them inappropriately.

“He betrayed the trust of these young boys and abused them,” the barrister said.

‘Lasting damage’

The court also heard statements from…

View Cache

Father Gigante, a towering figure in the Bronx, left a $7 million fortune entirely to the son he had while he was a priest.

The Rev. Louis R. Gigante was always larger-than-life. A Roman Catholic priest, the son of Italian immigrants and brother of New York mobsters, Father Gigante swaggered through the crime-ridden and crumbling South Bronx with a baseball bat and a development company that built thousands of apartments for the poor.

But it turns out even the legend could not live up to the true scope of Father Gigante’s full life. After he died in October, his will revealed two more startling facts: He was a multimillionaire. And he left nearly all his fortune to a single beneficiary — his 32-year-old son.

The revelation discloses publicly a brash defiance of one of the tenets of the Catholic Church, that priests must remain celibate. The discovery was made in…

View Cache

The Remnant has obtained a copy of a letter sent six months ago by an alleged victim of Jesuit artist Father Marko Ivan Rupnik to top Church leaders, asking why no action had been taken as the Slovenian priest continued to be held up as a reliable teacher in the Church.

The letter dated June 5, 2022 and sent by a former religious sister pseudonymously called Anna — who earlier this week gave an explosive interview to Italian media detailing the extent of the depravity she allegedly suffered — was addressed to the Jesuit’s superior general, Father Arturo Sosa, and copied to 17 Church leaders and Vatican officials.

They included Jesuit Cardinal Luis Ladaria, prefect of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith; Cardinal Angelo De Donatis, the Vicar of Rome; and Jesuit Bishop Daniele Libanori, an auxiliary bishop of Rome whom the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) assigned…

View Cache

The act would require the FBI to use “multidisciplinary teams” in the investigation of child sexual abuse.

Congressmen Mo Brooks and Barry Moore were among the 28 Republican lawmakers on Thursday to vote against a measure seeking to amend how the Federal Bureau of Investigations handles sex abuse cases involving children.

Both Brook’s and Moore’s offices did not respond to requests for comment on their decision to vote against the measure.

The largely bipartisan effort passed the U.S. House of Representatives 385-28 after approval in the U.S. Senate last Tuesday. The legislation, titled the Respect for Child Survivors Act, was crafted largely as a response to the USA Gymnastics sex abuse scandal involving former USA Gymnastics team doctor Larry and the ensuing investigation by the FBI.

In September 2021, four American gymnasts, including seven-time Olympic medalist Simone Biles and silver medalist McKayla Maroney, shared harrowing details of how the FBI mismanaged the…

View Cache

The Vatican has found French Guiana’s retired Bishop Emmanuel Lafont guilty of sexual abuse and ordered him to observe a life of prayer and penance at a French monastery. The bishop has been accused of sexual misconduct with immigrants whom he had housed in his episcopal residence.

The retired bishop is also facing a civil investigation by the Cayenne public prosecutor’s office, for human trafficking, breach of trust, and aiding illegal residents.

La Croix reported the Vatican verdict Dec. 19, saying it was actually handed down in October.

The Dicastery of Bishops’ decision means that Lafont “is forbidden to carry out any pastoral activity, to wear the insignia of a bishop, to come into contact with his acquaintances in Guiana as well as with young migrants,” the French bishops’ conference (CEF) confirmed to AFP.

“He is under house arrest, in a monastery on mainland France,” the CEF told French journalists.

…

View Cache

The bipartisan Respect for Child Survivors Act, a law that would aid victims of child sex abuse and their families, just passed the House in a 385-28 vote.

All 28 votes against the bill came from Republicans.

The bill would require the FBI to form multi-disciplinary teams to aid sex abuse victims and their families in order to prevent re-traumatization from investigation and any cases from being dropped. These teams would include “investigative personnel, mental health professionals, medical personnel, family advocacy workers, child advocacy workers, and prosecutors,” Newsweek reported.

U.S. Senators John Cornyn (R-TX), Chris Coons (D-DE), Lindsey Graham (R-SC), and Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) introduced the legislation.

“I applaud Senator Cornyn’s leadership on this issue to correct an egregious wrong committed by certain FBI agents regarding their treatment of victims of sexual abuse,” said Sen. Graham. “Requiring the FBI to use appropriate, tried and true methods to interview child victims will help ensure…

View Cache

Fr. Rupnik remains an official advisor to several Vatican departments, even after he was excommunicated and accused of sexually abusing consecrated women.

Fr. Marko Rupnik, SJ, remains an official advisor to several Vatican departments, even after he was excommunicated for a major canonical crime, and is accused of spiritually and sexually abusing consecrated women.

Rupnik was declared in 2020 excommunicated, for the canonical crime of abusing the sacrament of penance to abet his sexual misconduct.

He was in 2021 formally accused at the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith of serially abusing Slovenian religious women in the 1980s and 1990s. Rupnik is nevertheless still listed as a consultor – an officially appointed expert advisor – for several Vatican dicasteries, including those with oversight of clergy and liturgy.

The priest’s roles on those departments amplifies questions about whether he was actually placed under ministerial restrictions by his religious order as…

View Cache

Cardinal Angelo De Donatis said Friday that the Diocese of Rome learned only recently about the accusations of abuse against Father Marko Rupnik, a Jesuit priest and artist who has served in the diocese for decades.

In a statement released late on Dec. 23, De Donatis said “the Diocese of Rome, which was unaware until recently of the issues raised, cannot enter into the merits of the determinations made by others, but assures, also in the name of its Bishop, every support necessary for the desirable positive solution of the case…”

De Donatis is vicar of the Diocese of Rome, of which Pope Francis is bishop.

The 68-year-old Rupnik, originally from Slovenia, is a renowned sacred artist whose works decorate Catholic churches, chapels, and shrines around the world, including the Redemptoris Mater Chapel in the Vatican and the major seminary of Rome.

Reports were published earlier this month containing allegations…

View Cache

Pope Francis on Dec. 22 warned top Vatican officials against the temptation of believing the Catholic Church is no longer in need of conversion and said that creating a pure church only for the pure would be a return to heresy.  

“The worst thing that could happen to us is to think that we are no longer in need of conversion, either as individuals or as a community,” said Francis. “Where the Gospel is concerned, we are always like children needing to learn. The illusion that we have learned everything makes us fall into spiritual pride.”

In his annual pre-Christmas address to the Roman Curia — the Vatican’s central bureaucracy — the pope recalled the Second Vatican Council, saying that the conversion of the church sparked by the council 60 years ago must continue in order to preach the “Gospel more fully and to make it relevant, living…

View Cache

Editor’s note: This story involves the issue of child sexual abuse and could be triggering. This is the first in a two-part series. Read the second part here.

The glow of the campfire lit the priest’s face as he turned to a 12-year-old boy named Michael and smiled, opening his hand to offer candy as a prize for the trivia contest the young camper had just won.

But a greater reward lay ahead, or so the boy initially thought — so awed was he by the fact that the priest was showing interest in him.

Father Gary Timmons was a parish priest and founder of the Catholic children’s camp in Mendocino County — a man “regarded as next to God,” the boy, now a man, said last week.

So when he invited the Sonoma boy to his tent for a massage as part of his winnings, the adolescent thought it…

View Cache

Australian televangelist John McMartin, a former megachurch pastor and denominational leader, has been found guilty of indecent assault, a letter from his former church states.

McMartin had been the New South Wales state president of Australian Christian Churches (ACC), formerly called the Assemblies of God in Australia. In that role, he testified to a government commission investigating institutional responses to child sexual abuse in 2014. He also testified during Hillsong founder Brian Houston’s trial this month.

Authorities charged McMartin in November 2020 over a “sexual incident” in 2013 with a 19-year-old member of his church, a letter from the leadership at Inspire Church stated.

The woman reportedly told police McMartin groped her at his home while his wife was out of the country. McMartin testified in his own defense, saying he gave the teen a massage, but denied touching her sexually. The trial judge found…

View Cache

This year, at least 10 Texas pastors, former pastors and youth ministers were arrested, charged or convicted for various allegations of sexual abuse of children.

In November, 56-year-old David Lloyd Walther, a pastor for the Faith Baptist Church in Round Rock, was arrested for the distribution, receipt, transportation and possession of child pornography, as reported by the Austin American-Statesman. Walther, who told the FBI that he had a pornography addiction, faces up to 20 years in prison if found guilty.

In the same month, a 31-year-old former student minister at the Champion Forest Baptist Church in Harris County was sentenced to five years in prison after pleading guilty to online sexual abuse of a child. Timothy Jason Jeltema pleaded guilty on November 17 to four charges of online sexual abuse of a minor—including one charge of indecency with a child—one charge of sexual performance by a child and two counts of online…

View Cache

A former Wausau Roman Catholic priest convicted of molesting and exposing himself to teenage boys under his care is facing new charges after police allegedly discovered graphic images of children on his computer.

The Rev. Timothy E. Svea was 39 when he was convicted of second-degree sexual assault of a child younger than 16 and several counts of exposing himself to a child. He also pleaded guilty to false imprisonment. Svea, who was suspended of his duties in 2001 by the Institute of Christ the King after allegations surfaced, is now 59 and living in Mosinee.

According to an Associated Press report from 2002, the abuse began in 1998 while Svea headed a mission group in Monroe County and continued when the group moved in 1999 to St. Mary ‘s in Wausau. One of the boys told investigators that Svea invited him to his office and showed him photos of…

View Cache

A former youth minister who is facing more charges related to a series of child sexual assaults threatened to kill the latest victim if he reported the incidents, according to his arrest warrant.

Jean Bernard, 44, of Shelton, is facing numerous charges related to sexually abusing multiple victims while working as a youth minister at Mont Des Oliviers Seventh-day Adventist Church in Norwalk, according to court documents. Court records indicate the incidents occurred as recently as November 2021 and date back to January 2010. 

On Dec. 14, Norwalk police filed new charges of third-degree sexual assault and risk of injury to a child against Bernard. His bond was set at $250,000 and he is scheduled to appear in state Superior Court in Stamford for the case on Feb. 21, according to judicial records.

The most recent charges stem from incidents involving an 11-year-old boy identified in Bernard’s arrest warrant application as…

View Cache

*Warning: This story contains distressing details.

International Justice Mission is helping rescue kids in what the FBI calls an epidemic in the Philippines. 

Marie Gravoso is a lawyer in Winnipeg, originally from the Philippines. She interned during her time as a law student with International Justice Mission (IJM). 

“I was a legal intern for the Cebu legal team,” says Gravoso in an interview. “It was done virtually because it was in the middle of the pandemic and it was for about a majority of my third year in law school. I was in my third year studying for the last term and also doing a legal internship. It was a very unique experience.”

IJM is an organization trying to end human trafficking and the unique way they do that is through the justice system.  

“We try to partner with different organizations who would be able to assist with Online Sexual…

View Cache

On Nov. 9, Cardinal Lazzaro You Heung Sik, prefect for the Vatican’s Dicastery for the Clergy, laicized Father Frank Pavone from the priesthood for “blasphemous communications on social media” and “persistent disobedience of lawful instructions of his diocesan bishop.” But what does it mean to be “laicized,” “defrocked,” or “dismissed from the clerical state”?

Ordination, the Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches, “confers a gift of the Holy Spirit that permits the exercise of a ‘sacred power’ which can come only from Christ himself through his Church.”

The Church says ordination marks a person with an irremovable imprint, a character, which “configures them to Christ.” Ordination, in Catholic theology, makes a permanent change that the Church has no power to reverse.

“You are a priest forever,” the Letter to the Hebrews says.

This change is referred to as an ontological change, or a change in being itself.

In…

View Cache

A woman has been given £75,000 by the Sisters of Nazareth, a Catholic Order responsible for running Nazareth House Children’s Home, Lenton, Nottingham, in a settlement for a legal claim for alleged abuse she suffered as a child at the Home in the 1970s and 1980s.

The woman, whose identity the court anonymised as HXH, complained of serious sexual and physical abuse at Nazareth House, including repeated sexual assault by a member of care staff.

As a child, she told another carer about the sexual abuse, which stopped soon after. HXH left Nazareth House when she was a teenager and spent much of her adulthood trying to bury her memories of the abuse.

In 2006, HXH reported the abuse to Nottingham Police and the alleged perpetrator was charged with multiple sexual offences against her. Unfortunately, HXH’s health declined, and she withdrew from the prosecution before trial in 2007. HXH had understood…

View Cache

The bipartisan Respect for Child Survivors Act, a law that would aid victims of child sex abuse and their families, just passed the House in a 385-28 vote.

All 28 votes against the bill came from Republicans.

The bill would require the FBI to form multi-disciplinary teams to aid sex abuse victims and their families in order to prevent re-traumatization from investigation and any cases from being dropped. These teams would include “investigative personnel, mental health professionals, medical personnel, family advocacy workers, child advocacy workers, and prosecutors,” Newsweek reported.

U.S. Senators John Cornyn (R-TX), Chris Coons (D-DE), Lindsey Graham (R-SC), and Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) introduced the legislation.

“I applaud Senator Cornyn’s leadership on this issue to correct an egregious wrong committed by certain FBI agents regarding their treatment of victims of sexual abuse,”said Sen. Graham.“Requiring the FBI to use appropriate, tried and true methods to interview child victims will help ensure…

View Cache

The video of a man raping his 9-year-old daughter was discovered in New Zealand in 2016 and triggered a global search for the little girl.

Investigators contacted Interpol and the pursuit eventually included the FBI, the U.S. State Department and the Department of Homeland Security. Months later, investigators raided the Bisbee, Arizona, home of Paul Adams, arrested him and rescued the girl in the video along with her five siblings.

While Adams can no longer physically hurt his daughter — he died by suicide in custody — the videos live on, downloaded and uploaded by child pornographers across the U.S. and around the globe, growing ever more popular even as as police, prosecutors and internet companies chase behind in a futile effort to remove the images.

The number of times the Adams video has been seen soared from fewer than 100 in 2017 to 4,500 in 2021, according…

View Cache

Fr. Rupnik remains an official advisor to several Vatican departments, even after he was excommunicated and accused of sexually abusing consecrated women.

Fr. Marko Rupnik, SJ, remains an official advisor to several Vatican departments, even after he was excommunicated for a major canonical crime, and is accused of spiritually and sexually abusing consecrated women.

Rupnik was declared in 2020 excommunicated, for the canonical crime of abusing the sacrament of penance to abet his sexual misconduct.

He was in 2021 formally accused at the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith of serially abusing Slovenian religious women in the 1980s and 1990s. Rupnik is nevertheless still listed as a consultor – an officially appointed expert advisor – for several Vatican dicasteries, including those with oversight of clergy and liturgy.

The priest’s roles on those departments amplifies questions about whether he was actually placed under ministerial restrictions by his religious order as…

View Cache

ROME (AP) — The pope’s vicar for Rome called Friday for the full truth to come out about a famous Jesuit priest accused of sexual and spiritual abuses against adult women, and said he was evaluating what to do with the priest’s Rome-based community and diocesan positions.

Cardinal Angelo De Donatis became the latest church official to weigh in about the scandal involving the Rev. Marko Ivan Rupnik, a sought-after artist, preacher and retreat leader whose mosaics grace churches and basilicas around the world. In Rome, where the Slovene priest has lived since the mid-1990s, Rupnik decorated the diocesan seminary chapel as well as the Redemptoris Mater chapel inside the Vatican.

Technically speaking De Donatis, who is Pope Francis’ day-to-day manager for the Rome diocese, has little direct oversight over Rupnik because he is a Jesuit and reports to his immediate Jesuit superior. But in an indication of his influence…

View Cache

The legal fight over whether to make public a comprehensive report on sexual abuse committed by Catholic priests in Maryland will continue to play out behind closed doors, a Baltimore judge ruled.

Presented with two motions from abuse victims challenging his preliminary decision to keep the proceedings secret, Circuit Judge Anthony F. Vittoria doubled down in a ruling Thursday, finding that the continued court battle was likely to reveal privileged grand jury materials.

Vittoria cited opinions from the U.S. Supreme Court and Maryland’s highest court calling grand jury confidentiality as an “integral part of our criminal justice system.” He described the legal principle as “well-settled law.”

The legal fight over the report’s release is “related to a grand jury proceeding and that pleadings about or a hearing on this initial issue, at a minimum, would reveal confidential grand jury material,” Vittoria wrote. “Accordingly, this matter must remain sealed at this…

View Cache

This week The Catholic Register publishes a rare guest editorial written by Lea Karen Kivi, author of Abuse in the Church: Healing the Body of Christ, who articulates concerns that we agree must be engaged regarding the effect of the adversarial legal system on clerical abuse cases. 

Are lawyers and insurance companies an impediment to the healing of the Church when it comes to clergy sexual abuse cases? 

This week, we learned that Cardinal Marc Ouellet has brought a civil lawsuit alleging defamation on the part of a woman, a party to a class-action lawsuit against the Archdiocese of Quebec, who alleges that he sexually assaulted her. 

Both parties certainly have the legal right to proceed in this manner, but is an adversarial courtroom setting, in which lawyers on both sides seek to discredit the opposing party, the best place for such matters to be dealt with? 

As survivors of clergy sexual abuse have said, some (arch)bishops…

View Cache

Pope Francis warned Vatican bureaucrats on Thursday to beware the devil that lurks among them, saying it is an “elegant demon” that works in people who have a rigid, holier-than-thou way of living the Catholic faith.

Francis used his annual Christmas greeting to the Roman Curia to again put the cardinals, bishops and priests who work in the Holy See on notice that they are by no means beyond reproach and are, in fact, particularly vulnerable to evil.

Francis told them that by living in the heart of the Catholic Church, “we could easily fall into the temptation of thinking we are safe, better than others, no longer in need of conversion.”

“Yet we are in greater danger than all others, because we are beset by the ‘elegant demon,’ who does not make a loud entrance, but comes with flowers in his hand,” Francis told the churchmen in the Hall…

View Cache

ROME — Over the past few days, three perceived “problem priests” have dominated Catholic headlines in Rome and around the world. To recap, here are the offenses that have been at issue.

• Prolonged sexual coercion and spiritual abuse with a community of nuns, as well as using the confessional to absolve a woman with whom the priest had engaged in sexual activity.
• Partisan political activity on behalf of pro-life causes and “blasphemous” use of social media.
• Owning and operating a series of for-profit businesses, including a restaurant and a bar, in violation of a provision of Church law that bars clergy from “conducting business or trade.”

Now, here are the punishments that have been doled out in the three cases.

• A brief excommunication that was quickly lifted, a Vatican investigation that was shelved due to a statute of limitations, and restrictions on hearing confessions and giving spiritual direction.
• Suspension a divinis, meaning…

View Cache

A Baltimore Judge ordered proceedings sealed concerning the release of a report about Catholic clergy sexual abuse report within the archdiocese.

Circuit Judge Anthony Vittoria has now denied two appeals from sexual abuse survivors who fought to have the proceedings open to the public, said document.

This denial of the appeals comes after many abuse victims and critics of the church fought for weeks in Baltimore for the investigation into the history of sexual abuse within the Catholic Church of Baltimore’s information to be made public.

“It is time for Catholics everywhere to stand up and demand accountability from their leaders,” said Jean Hardagon Wehner at a November news conference.

The investigation found more than 600 victims and also states over 150 priests were credibly accused of abuse, including 43 that have not been identified by the archdiocese.

In November, the Archdiocese of Baltimore said that it would not oppose…

View Cache

Citing state and federal rules that protect grand jury materials, a Baltimore judge ordered proceedings to remain secret in the legal effort to release an investigation into the history of sexual abuse within the Catholic Church of Baltimore.

Circuit Judge Anthony Vittoria on Thursday denied two appeals from survivors of priest sexual abuse who sought to have the proceedings opened up.

At issue wasn’t the 456-page investigation itself; a decision is still pending on whether the report will be disclosed. Rather, the judge ruled the litigation around the release of the report will remain confidential. Those proceedings have played out behind closed doors so far.

“Pursuant to the well-settled law set forth above, the Court finds that the State’s Motion to Disclose is related to a grand jury proceeding and that pleadings about or a hearing on this initial issue, at a minimum, would reveal confidential grand jury material. Accordingly,…

View Cache

A member of the Loyola Community, a women’s religious institute formerly connected to Father Marko Rupnik, has said, in her experience, the Jesuit priest and artist “is an egocentric and violent person.”

The sister, who wished to remain anonymous, told CNA she did not know anything about sexual abuse or allegations of abuse, but that her experience of Rupnik was “of spiritual manipulation and humiliation.”

Referring to an interview given by a former member of the Loyola Community describing in detail sexual, psychological, and spiritual abuse allegedly at the hands of Rupnik, the sister said she “honestly could not imagine that he went that far.”

“I can only say that Father Rupnik, this is my experience, is an egocentric and violent person,” she said via email. “Rupnik is a person who always wanted to be in the center of attention, to subjugate everyone to his own agenda, to receive honors…

View Cache

The indictment of Bishop Franz-Josef Bode of Osnabrück is the first ever filed by a victims’ board against a bishop in Germany.

The German Victims’ Advisory Board has filed a canonical complaint against Bishop Franz-Josef Bode of Osnabrück for hushing up clerical sexual abuse.

Bode is the vice president of the bishops’ conference and of the synodal way. 

The Victims’ Advisory Board for the north German dioceses of Osnabrück, Hildesheim and Hamburg announced its decision on Monday 12 December.

It is the first time that a victims’ board has ever filed an indictment against a bishop in Germany.

Bode was quick to reply: “I fully respect the step the board has taken and support the thus-initiated investigation by the Vatican authorities”, he said.

He would send the entire interim abuse report by the University of Osnabrück which his diocese had commissioned and excerpts from which had been quoted by…

View Cache

BANGOR, Maine (AP) — Two more people have filed lawsuits alleging sexual abuse by a Roman Catholic clergy member and a nun — both deceased — raising the number to over a dozen since Maine loosened the statute of limitations last year.

One of the plaintiffs contended he was sexually abused by a priest and was spanked by a nun who interrupted one of the encounters in Bangor, while another said that a nun regularly spanked boys’ bare bottoms in class, and that she sexually abused him in private, according to the lawsuits.

The minister died in 1997 at age 96, while the nun died in 1973 at age 86.

The lawsuits, announced Wednesday, bring to about 14 the number of lawsuits alleging the Diocese of Portland knew about abuse and failed to stop it or warn parishioners. A spokesperson said the diocese doesn’t comment on pending litigation.

Maine removed…

View Cache

Slovenia’s Catholic bishops on Thursday condemned as “despicable” the emotional, sexual, and spiritual violence committed against women by a famous Slovenian priest at the heart of an abuse and cover-up scandal roiling the Vatican and the Jesuit order of Pope Francis.

The Slovene bishops’ conference broke three weeks of silence with a statement in which the churchmen also voiced solidarity with the victims of the Rev. Marko Ivan Rupnik and urged anyone harmed by him or any other priest who abused his authority to come forward.

“It is never the victims’ fault! We are on their side,” the bishops said. “Any misuse of spiritual power and authority to carry out violence against subordinates is an unacceptable and despicable act.”

The scandal involving Rupnik, a Jesuit from Slovenia whose mosaics decorate churches and chapels around the globe, erupted earlier this month when Italian blogs and websites reported claims by several women that…

View Cache

Every time we learn something new about the case, the mishandling of it at every level appears more appalling.

What if I told you that a man with power of his own and access to more of it serially abused unsuspecting women who had turned to him for various reasons, both professional and personal, for help and guidance?

What if I told you that he followed a playbook to warp their minds, exploit their vulnerabilities – including their desires to be loved and appreciated – in order to get them to do the sorts of things for which Lulu White would charge her clients extra and women like Cora Pearl would not countenance for all the petites Tuileries in the world?

What if I told you that lots of people knew what he got up to, most of them very powerful…

View Cache

An abuse survivors organization is questioning Fairfield University officials for their decision to appoint as head of a new Bridgeport campus a Catholic priest who resigned his previous post for engaging in behavior “inconsistent with established Jesuit protocols and boundaries.”

SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, is urging the university to explain why it has appointed Rev. Kevin O’Brien as vice-provost and executive director of the Fairfield Bellarmine campus planned to open at the old St. Ambrose property on Boston Avenue.

“We urge the university to explain why they appointed Fr. O’Brien to the leadership team in light of the accusations made in California,” the organization stated in a press release. “We wonder about the wisdom of the decision to place Fr. O’Brien at a school for ‘underserved students’ when he was unable to maintain appropriate boundaries at Santa Clara.”

O’Brien resigned in May 2021 from his…

View Cache

(For Immediate Release December 20, 2022) 

Fairfield University recently announced the leadership team for Fairfield Bellarmine. The announcement revealed that Fr. Kevin O’Brien will be working as the vice-provost and executive director of the school, which is scheduled to open in the fall of 2023 in Bridgeport, Connecticut. SNAP has deep concerns over Fairfield tapping Fr. O’Brien for this position.

In May 2021, the Jesuit priest resigned from his position at Santa Clara University after being removed by the USA West Province on March 18, 2021. An investigation found that Fr. O’Brien “engaged in behaviors, consisting primarily of conversations, during a series of informal dinners with Jesuit graduate students that were inconsistent with established Jesuit protocols and boundaries.”

We wonder about the wisdom of the decision to place Fr. O’Brien at a school for “underserved students” when he was unable to maintain appropriate…

View Cache

The Archdiocese of Baltimore cooperated with the Maryland attorney general’s investigation on clergy sexual abuse by producing thousands of pages of documents, willingly answering questions and building on our 30-year record of transparency and longstanding work to ensure the wrongs of the past are not and cannot be repeated.

Given, however, the egregious deeds and grave harm referenced by the attorney general some weeks ago that dates back to the 1940s — our efforts in recent decades to create protections will not be readily accepted without skepticism. For this reason, I offer some context to detail ways the Church of today is not the Church described by the attorney general.

For all of the ways the Church has changed, the protections made in the last generation will not undo the scars caused by sexual abuse. To all who have been harmed by a representative of the Church, I…

View Cache

Even now at 70, Tom Sawicki harbors a revenge fantasy.

He would travel from his home in Hawaii, back to his native Baltimore, to picket in front of Archbishop Curley High School with a sign:

“I was sexually assaulted at this school.”

Instead, Sawicki waits for the Maryland Attorney General’s Office to speak out on his behalf, and on that of the more than 600 people, many of them now grown-up children, who the office says were sexually abused by Baltimore archdiocese clergy over the past 80 years.

The office has completed a 456-page report on its investigation of the Roman Catholic archdiocese, but it remains secret, held up in a court battle over its public release.

After decades in which he repressed the abuse, only belatedly realizing how it contributed to his life veering off from what it might have been, Sawicki feels hopeful about the secrecy lifting.

“It’s…

View Cache

The two new complaints now make a total of 13 complaints by attorneys with the law firm Berman and Simmons against the diocese.

BANGOR, Maine — Two more alleged victims have stepped forward, filing a complaint this week against the Roman Catholic Diocese of Portland for claims of sexual abuse occurring in Bangor in the 1950s and 1960s. 

The plaintiffs asked to remain anonymous, leaving attorneys Michael Bigos and Timothy Kenlan of the law firm Berman and Simmons to represent them. 

“We intend to hold the church fully accountable for the abuse, fully accountable for the cover-up, and fully accountable for the response our client received as a child,” Bigos said.

The first plaintiff claims at age nine they were sexually assaulted by former priest Reverend Monsignor Edward F. Ward of Saint Mary’s in Bangor, who has since died.

The plaintiff was described as loyal to the church…

View Cache

Twenty years after city prosecutors convened a grand jury to investigate the handling of priest-abuse complaints within the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Philadelphia, the tortuous legal case came to an end with a cleric’s misdemeanor no contest plea in a near-empty City Hall courtroom.

Monsignor William Lynn, 71, had served nearly three years in state prison as appeals courts reviewed the fiery three-month trial that led to his felony child endangerment conviction in 2012. The verdict was twice overturned, leaving prosecutors pursuing the thinning case in recent years with a single alleged victim whose appearance in court was i n doubt.

In the end, they said Lynn could end the two-decade ordeal by pleading no contest to a charge of failing to turn over records to the 2002 grand jury. A judge took the plea during a short break from her civil caseload last month, and imposed no further punishment.

…

View Cache

Pope Francis on Thursday denounced psychological violence and abuse of power in the Church, as the case of a prominent priest accused of exploiting his authority to sexually abuse nuns has rocked the Vatican.

The 86-year-old pope made his comments in his annual Christmas address to cardinals, bishops and other members of the Curia, the central administration of the Vatican.

Francis has often used the occasion to decry perceived flaws in the top bureaucracy, such as gossip, cliques and infighting.

After mentioning wars, the pope said: “Besides the violence of arms, there is also verbal violence, psychological violence, the violence of the abuse of power, the hidden violence of gossip.”

He added that no one should “profit from his or her position and role in order to demean others”.

Although he did not specifically refer to this, the Jesuit order, of which the pope is a member, has been rattled in…

View Cache

Police believe there may be more victims

A retired priest has been charged in an alleged historical sexual assault that investigators say occurred in the Toronto area four decades ago.

Peel police say in a news release they received information in October that a Catholic priest who practised in the Peel region between 1980 and 1983 allegedly sexually assaulted a boy while he was attending church.

On Thursday, an 84-year-old man of Toronto was arrested and charged with gross indecency and indecent assault on a male.

The force says the priest has been retired from the parish since June 2013, but it believes there may be more potential victims.

The Archdiocese of Toronto says in a statement that the allegations date to when the man was pastor of St. Martin of Tours Parish in Mississauga, Ont., and it also lists parishes where he served in the region going back to 1974.

…

View Cache

A group representing clergy abuse survivors says legislation that the Maryland Catholic Conference supports won’t help past victims.

The Maryland Catholic Conference said that it supports legislation that would eliminate the statute of limitations on future civil lawsuits involving child sexual abuse.

The potential legislation would not allow civil claims in previous cases because, “The Maryland Attorney General has concluded, in multiple advice letters, that legislation that seeks to retroactively revive claims currently time-barred in Maryland would be unconstitutional,” according to a statement by the Maryland Catholic Conference.

According to the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, the statement from the Maryland Catholic Conference leaves the impression that the legislation will help past survivors.

“It does nothing for the hundreds of brave victims who have come forward during the Maryland Attorney General’s investigation into historical clergy abuse within the Archdiocese of Baltimore,” according to SNAP.

These statements come as…

View Cache

“Rupnik case: Jesuits invite anyone who has suffered abuse to contact them”
“Structure to handle complaints” says Delegate of Fr. Sosa.

Statement from Fr. Johan Verschueren SJ, Delegate of Fr. General Sosa SJ
and Major Superior for the International Houses

[Note from BA: The Jesuits include a timeline at the end of this statement.]

The last week has seen a focus on two investigations carried on concerning the ministry of Fr Marko Rupnik. One concerned a matter relating to the sacrament of reconciliation; another related to abuse against several women of the Loyola Community by Fr Rupnik. The information shared has provoked many questions and I share below a timeline of the events in the hope of providing some clarity.

My main concern in all of this is for those who have suffered and I invite anyone who wishes to make a new complaint or who wants to discuss complaints already…

View Cache

COMMENTARY: The response of the Society of Jesus to this distressing issue seems inadequate and dishonest; the conduct of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith curious; and the role of the Pope perplexing.

The sexual misconduct case of Jesuit Father Marko Rupnik is complex and distressing, and invites further questions on a number of aspects. The celebrated Jesuit artist, given many of the most important mosaic commissions over the last 30 years — including the Redemptoris Mater chapel in the Apostolic Palace — has been accused of serial abuse of adults under his pastoral direction.

The response of the Jesuit order seems inadequate and dishonest; the conduct of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) curious; and the role of the Holy Father himself perplexing.

Another Founder Has Fallen

The allegations against Father Rupnik arise from the “Loyola Community” he founded in the 1980s in his native…

View Cache

A Lame Deer pastor was arraigned Tuesday in federal court on sexual abuse charges alleged to have occurred on the Northern Cheyenne Indian Reservation, U.S. Attorney Jesse Laslovich said.

Dean Alan Smith, 66, pleaded not guilty to one count of aggravated sexual abuse, one count of abusive sexual contact and three counts of abusive sexual contact by force and of a child. If convicted of the most serious crime, Smith faces a maximum of life in prison, a $250,000 fine and not less than five years of supervised release.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Timothy J. Cavan presided. Judge Cavan continued Smith’s release with conditions, including not being allowed to be around children.

Prosecutors alleged in an indictment filed Dec. 19 that Smith sexually abused four females, three of whom were under the age of 12, between 2017 and 2019 near Lame Deer. In all four cases, prosecutors alleged that Smith forced…

View Cache

On Dec. 2, the global Jesuit order confirmed reports made in several conservative Italian Catholic blogs that Slovenian Jesuit Fr. Marko Rupnik, a famous Rome-based artist, had been quietly disciplined for allegedly abusing adult women, and had been barred from hearing confessions or offering spiritual direction.

On Dec. 14, Fr. Arturo Sosa, the Jesuit superior general, revealed more information. Rupnik, known in places across the world for his iconography and for mosaics in several renowned churches and cathedrals, had earlier been convicted by the Vatican’s doctrinal office of having used the confessional to absolve a woman of having engaged in sexual activity with him.

That is one of the most serious crimes in canon law, and incurs an automatic excommunication. Sosa said Rupnik repented, and indicated that the excommunication had thus been lifted.

Recapping the details of the case, some may feel the usual “here…

View Cache

Bishop Emeritus Emmanuel Lafont of Cayenne, French Guyana, has been found guilty of sexual abuse in a canonical court and banned from public ministry, while the country’s civil authorities are investigating charges against him.

“He is under house arrest, in a monastery on mainland France,” the Bishops’ Conference of France told Agence France Presse. He must conduct a life of prayer and repentance. The bishops’ conference confirmed that the bishop faces a civil investigation.

Numerous sources have confirmed to the French newspaper La Croix that the Vatican’s Dicastery for Bishops delivered a guilty sentence against the bishop emeritus in October.

As a consequence of the judgment against him, he may not wear his bishop’s insignia, the miter, or use a crozier. He must avoid contact with acquaintances in French Guyana and also avoid contact with young migrants.

The canonical investigation against the bishop was opened in April 2021 “because of…

View Cache

Fairfield University recently announced the leadership team for Fairfield Bellarmine. The announcement revealed that Fr. Kevin O’Brien will be working as the vice-provost and executive director of the school, which is scheduled to open in the fall of 2023 in Bridgeport, Connecticut. SNAP has deep concerns over Fairfield tapping Fr. O’Brien for this position.

In May 2021, the Jesuit priest resigned from his position at Santa Clara University after being removed by the USA West Province on March 18, 2021. An investigation found that Fr. O’Brien “engaged in behaviors, consisting primarily of conversations, during a series of informal dinners with Jesuit graduate students that were inconsistent with established Jesuit protocols and boundaries.”

We wonder about the wisdom of the decision to place Fr. O’Brien at a school for “underserved students” when he was unable to maintain appropriate boundaries at Santa Clara. The complaints…

View Cache

A woman who earlier this year accused a Diocese of Worcester parish soup kitchen director of coercing her and other vulnerable women into sex has sued the now-former director for his alleged actions, as well as diocesan leadership for alleged failure to act on the complaint in a timely manner.

“This complaint reflects the unlawful actions of the defendants relating to their tortious activity and their duty of care extended to Bell and other similarly situated individuals,” reads the complaint, filed on December 13 in Worcester Superior Court in Massachusetts.

“The defendants engaged in an ongoing course of conduct, acting in concert, to abuse and mistreat [plaintiff Nicole] Bell, and others, then conspired to shield themselves from liability,” it continues. “Based on the foregoing and the allegations that follow, Bell seeks compensatory and punitive damages.”

Bell detailed her allegations against the former St. John’s Catholic Church food for the poor…

View Cache

Archbishop William E. Lori apologized again to anyone who has been harmed by a representative of the church and said he “will offer this apology as long as it needs to be heard,” in a column published on the Baltimore Sun’s website Dec. 19 and in its print edition the following day.

He emphasized that the church’s response to sexual abuse “is law-abiding, effective and transparent.”

Maryland Attorney General Brian E. Frosh has asked a Baltimore City Circuit judge for permission to release a 456-page report on sexual abuse in the Archdiocese of Baltimore, dating back to the early 1940s.

The archbishop said the archdiocese began to transform its handling of sexual abuse by clergy and employees in the 1990s. “The archdiocese then created the foundation for the most important elements of today’s child protection policies,” he said. “We also have changed how we respond to those courageous enough to…

View Cache

Wounds remain. This was a chief conclusion of an independent working group on the clerical sex abuse crisis in the U.S. Catholic Church that proposed the following measures last month:

—Develop a national center with experts and practitioners to equip the broader church with practices of restorative justice that would accompany those who have been directly and peripherally harmed by abuse, particularly forums in which victim-survivors tell their stories and receive love, recognition and empathy.

—Establish a national healing garden as a permanent site of healing, prayer and accompaniment for victim-survivors of sexual abuse by members of the clergy and for the broader church.

—Institute an annual day of prayer and penance for healing and reconciliation for victim-survivors of clergy abuse and for broader healing in the church.

—Create trauma-informed training for clergy, seminarians, lay ministers, lay leaders and parish communities to communicate the realities and effects of trauma in order…

View Cache

Opposition lawmakers in Italy are seeking a parliamentary commission of inquiry into three cold cases that have consumed the Italian public’s imagination for decades, including the 1983 disappearance of a 15-year-old that was highlighted in the Netflix documentary, “Vatican Girl.”

The aim of the inquest, said Sen. Carlo Calenda, would be to pressure the Vatican to finally turn over everything it knows about Emanuela Orlandi’s disappearance to Italian law enforcement authorities, saying its longstanding official claim of ignorance was “hardly credible.”

“We are a great secular nation that treats the Vatican with respect, but this case certainly cannot be considered closed in this way,” Calenda said Tuesday at a news conference announcing the proposed commission.

Orlandi vanished June 22, 1983 after leaving her family’s Vatican City apartment to go to a music lesson in Rome. Her father was a lay employee of the Holy See.

The Italian media and a…

View Cache

Hillsong founder maintains it was victim’s explicit wish for incident not to be made public or for there to be an investigation, court hears

The Hillsong founder, Brian Houston, believes he did the “right thing” not going to police after his father told him he had molested an underage boy three decades earlier.

Houston maintains it was the victim’s explicit wish not for the incident to be made public or for there to be an investigation by authorities.

Frank Houston admitted abusing a young boy at a home in Sydney’s Coogee in 1970, which he confessed to his son in 1999.

Brian Houston is charged with concealing the crime until his father’s death in 2004, to which he pleaded not guilty.

The 68-year-old told a court hearing on Wednesday he did not believe justice for his father’s criminal act could only be achieved through a police investigation.

Following his father’s…

View Cache

A woman who reached a settlement with the Roman Catholic Diocese of Victoria this month says she was repeatedly sexually assaulted by Father Gerhard Hartmann at St. Peter’s Roman Catholic Church, beginning in 1976, when she was 10

Warning: This story contains descriptions of child sexual abuse.

A Vancouver Island woman who says she was sexually assaulted as a child by a Catholic priest with a Nazi past is sharing her story because she believes there are other victims.

This month, the woman reached a settlement with the Roman Catholic Diocese of ­Victoria.

Her lawsuit alleges she was repeatedly sexually assaulted and molested by Father Gerhard Hartmann in the confessional at St. Peter’s Roman Catholic Church in Nanaimo, beginning in 1976, when she was 10, and continuing until 1979, when Hartmann was suddenly moved from the parish.

According to her notice of claim, Hartmann touched, kissed and fondled the girl…

View Cache

A former Christian brother who was convicted in October on 38 counts of indecently assaulting young boys has been sentenced to five years in prison.

The man, who cannot be named to protect the identity of his victims, was found unanimously guilty after a jury at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court deliberated for four hours and twenty-six minutes.

The former priest was described by one of the victims in his victim impact statement as “the epitome of evil”.

The court heard that the man was convicted of indecently assaulting five boys in the late seventies, when the boys were then aged nine and ten.

The accused pleaded not guilty to all charges. He has seven previous convictions, all for indecent assault.

Garda Sergeant James Neary told Patrick McGrath SC, prosecuting, that the accused was a Christian Brother who was teaching all five boys at the time of the assaults.

Gda Stg…

View Cache

The Vatican has stripped retired Bishop Emmanuel Lafont of his priestly faculties and ordered him to carry out a life of prayer and penance at a monastery in France

The Vatican has convicted French Guiana’s retired bishop, Emmanuel Lafont, of sexual abuse, banning him from all public ministry and ordering him to stay in a monastery in mainland France to conduct a life of prayer and penance.

Numerous sources have confirmed to La Croix that the Dicastery for Bishops found the 77- year-old prelate guilty this past October, following a canonical investigation that was opened in April 2021. He is forbidden to carry out any pastoral activities, to wear his bishop’s insignia (the mitre, the crozier, etc.), to come into contact with his acquaintances in French Guiana as well as with young migrants.

 “An emotional thought for the presumed victims”

Informed of the canonical decree concerning Bishop Lafont, the Association…

View Cache

A Jesuit priest who is reportedly close to Pope Francis has been accused of inviting two nuns to partake in a “Holy Trinity” threesome — and is now facing allegations of sexual and spiritual abuse dating back decades.

A former nun claims that Marko Ivan Rupnik used his “psycho-spiritual” control over her some three decades ago in order to make her watch pornographic films and have group sex sessions that he said would have religious significance.

Rupnik, 68, was a spiritual director of a convent in Slovenia and has created mosaics for churches including a papal chapel at the Vatican.

The former nun told the Italian newspaper Domani that “Father Marko started slowly and sweetly getting inside my psychological and spiritual world, exploiting my uncertainties and fragility and using my relationship with God to push me into sexual experiences with him,” according to the Daily Mail.

She said that during her…

View Cache

Scores of survivors of clergy abuse — people who had spent decades trying to escape the grief and trauma of childhood sex assault — have come forward over the past three years after deciding now is finally the time to seek justice. 

At least 130 — likely many more, attorneys say — have filed or will file lawsuits against the Santa Rosa Roman Catholic Diocese during a special three-year window that allows adults of any age to file personal injury cases for childhood sex abuse in California. That window closes on New Year’s Eve.

But none of those cases is likely to go to trial.

The diocese announced to the court Nov. 30 that it would seek Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection early next year, a move that will suspend state court proceedings and leave the whole matter in federal bankruptcy court.

In effect, experts and plaintiffs attorneys say, that means…

View Cache

The Maryland Catholic Conference will support legislation that could potentially eliminate the statute of limitation in civil lawsuits involving cases of child sexual abuse, the MCC announced Monday.   

The Catholic Church in Maryland will support legislation that may be introduced during the 2023 Maryland General Assembly session that prospectively eliminates the statute of limitation in civil lawsuits involving cases of child sexual abuse.,” the MCC said. 

In their statement, they cite an existing federal law, S.3103, that would have a similar impact to the legislation they expect to be proposed next year.  The federal law allows individuals an unlimited amount of time to file a civil lawsuit in cases of child sexual abuse.    

View Cache

A Vatican-appointed investigator who helped bring to light decades-old allegations of sexual and spiritual abuse against a famous Jesuit priest is calling for the hierarchs who hid his crimes to “humbly ask the world to forgive the scandal.”

In correspondence obtained Monday, Bishop Daniele Libanori also said the claims of the women about the Rev. Marko Ivan Rupnik were true and that they had “seen their lives ruined by the evil suffered and by the complicit silence” of the church.

Libanori penned the letter Sunday to fellow priests after a remarkable week in which the Jesuit religious order of Pope Francis admitted that Rupnik, an artist whose mosaics grace churches and chapels around the world, had been excommunicated for having committed one of the most serious crimes in the church: using the confessional to absolve a woman with whom he had engaged in sexual activity.

The Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine…

View Cache

An alleged victim of Fr. Marko Ivan Rupnik has detailed the sexual, psychological, and spiritual abuse she said she suffered as a religious sister

An alleged victim of Slovenian Jesuit artist Fr. Marko Ivan Rupnik detailed on Sunday the sexual, psychological, and spiritual abuse she said she suffered as a religious sister, in a new interview with Italian media.

Allegations against the Jesuit priest have become a point of scandal in the Church, after Rupnik was accused of serially abusing Slovenian consecrated women in the 1980s and 1990s.

The allegations were sent to the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith in 2021, but have not resulted in canonical prosecution — with Society of Jesus officials saying they were informed that Rupnik would not be canonically prosecuted for the alleged abuse, owing to the canonical statute of limitations.

That claim has sparked controversy in the Church, with journalists and…

View Cache

Critics say the proposal falls short, ‘means nothing’

Our nonprofit news organization is made possible by subscribers and donors who value storytelling that impacts and uplifts communities. Thank you for supporting our journalism.

The lobbying arm of the Catholic church in Maryland is making a partial concession to legislative reforms that would help victims of priest sexual abuse sue the church decades later.

The Maryland Catholic Conference, which represents the Archdiocese of Baltimore, the Archdiocese of Washington and the Diocese of Wilmington, Del., announced Monday it will support legislation to erase the statute of limitations for future victims to sue the church. Maryland law requires men and women who are abused as children to file lawsuits by age 38 or within three years of an abuser’s criminal conviction.

The church, however, isn’t budging in its longstanding opposition to a “lookback window.” That would permit lawsuits from victims now older than 38 who…

View Cache

A pastor convicted of sexually assaulting seven young girls over two decades can’t keep his conviction hidden, a New Zealand judge ruled recently.

Siosateki Tonga Faletau, a pastor and business owner in Auckland, New Zealand, pleaded guilty to assaulting girls as young as 10 years old from 2001 to 2020, the New Zealand Herald reported. In September, the court sentenced Faletau to two years and three months in jail, but he is appealing, according to news reports.

The court barred news outlets from naming Faletau until an interim name suppression order expired last week, the Herald reported. In certain cases, New Zealand law allows courts to suppress the identity of a defendant, referred to as name suppression.Faletau had reportedly sought permanent name suppression, but a judge denied his motion.

Faletau was also a Justice of the Peace and a foster parent,  View Cache

The Vatican investigator who uncovered allegations of sexual and spiritual abuse by Jesuit artist Father Marko Ivan Rupnik says the claims are true, according to a letter he sent to Italian priests obtained by the Associated Press.

Bishop Daniele Libanari also said the women Rupnik is alleged to have abused have “seen their lives ruined by the evil suffered and by the complicit silence” of the Church, the AP reported Monday.

He urged the members of the hierarchy who hid his crimes to “humbly ask the world to forgive the scandal.”

Libanori’s letter comes on the heels of revelations in the past week that Rupnik, a Slovenian priest well-known for his mosaics that adorn chapels and churches around the world, had been excommunicated for using the confessional to absolve a woman with whom he had engaged in sexual activity.

The Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of…

View Cache

A group of attorneys is gearing up the search for people who were sexually abused as children by Catholic priests in Maryland in preparation for a series of potential lawsuits.

Lawyers Robert Jenner, Barbara Hart, Beth Graham and Suzanne Sangree, who work at different firms, have started taking consultations with Catholic abuse victims to be ready if the Maryland General Assembly passes a law in 2023 lifting the statute of limitations on lawsuits in childhood sexual abuse cases.

“From simply listening to your story without judgment [to] assistance navigating the complexities of compensation programs and statutes of limitations, we are ready to help Baltimore clergy abuse survivors find justice and healing,” reads a landing page for abuse victims on Jenner’s website.

Maryland law gives victims until their 38th birthday to sue their abusers and an abuser’s employer, but a bill filed in the House of Delegates would repeal…

View Cache

The news, coming through a press release on a Friday evening in mid-November, was unexpected. Bishop Howard Hubbard, the retired leader of the Diocese of Albany, New York, and now under investigation for both allegedly abusing children and covering up abuse done by others, was requesting the Vatican remove his status as a priest, or laicize him.

Among those caught by surprise were Hubbard’s alleged victims, as well as the civil attorneys representing them. They, along with canon lawyers well-versed in the Catholic Church’s disciplinary procedures for clerics accused of sexual misconduct, are struggling to make sense of Hubbard’s request.

Some suspect that Hubbard may be trying to short-circuit a canonical investigation by preemptively assuming the most severe punishment that the church can impose on a cleric. Others think Vatican machinations are at play, and wonder if Hubbard is following the advice of church officials in Rome to…

View Cache

The man who becomes Maryland’s new attorney general next month is weighing in on the possible release of a report detailing sexual abuse allegations in the Archdiocese of Baltimore.

Attorney General-elect Anthony Brown said he has been monitoring efforts to release the report which names more than 100 priests accused of abuse and more than 600 victims dating back 80 years.

Since it is based on grand jury testimony, current Attorney General Brian Frosh has asked a court to release the report.

Attorneys representing people who wish to remain anonymous have sought to block the report’s release.

Brown said that case will continue under his watch.

Brown takes the oath of office in January.

View Cache

Archbishop Jason Gordon apologises to former residents of the St Dominic’s Children’s Home who were not protected and cared for as they should have been, especially amid reports of decades-long abuses.

He made the statement during his feature address at the home’s 150th anniversary celebrations closing ceremony at St Dominic’s in Belmont on Saturday.

Gordon said as people reflected on the 150 years of unbroken service, they had to consider the thousands of children who were given experiences and opportunities they would not have had if not for the care of the home.

“But the second thing we must also consider, because every anniversary is a milestone where we must reflect, not only on the good that we have done, but we must also consider the children who were not protected in the ways that they ought to have been, and might have been traumatised by their experience. And to…

View Cache

Pope Francis’ Jesuit order on Sunday asked any more victims to come forward with complaints against a famous Jesuit artist who was essentially let off the hook by the Vatican twice despite devastating testimony by women who said he sexually and spiritually abused them.

The Jesuits asked for new evidence against the Rev. Marko Ivan Rupnik, and offered a timeline about his case in an effort to tamp down the scandal.

The Slovenian priest is relatively unknown among rank-and-file Catholics but is well known in the hierarchy because he is one of the church’s most sought-after artists. His mosaics decorate chapels, churches and basilicas around the globe.

The scandal exploded this past week after the Jesuits admitted he had been excommunicated for having committed one of the gravest crimes in the Catholic Church — using the confessional to absolve a woman with whom he had engaged in sexual activity.

He was…

View Cache

Trial hears Frank Houston also told his son Brian, founder of Hillsong, that he was abused by his own grandfather as a child

Hillsong founder Brian Houston has told a court he believes his father was a “serial paedophile” and the extent of his crimes may not be known.

Houston said it was quite likely his father sexually abused multiple children and the number of victims would never be revealed.

Frank Houston confessed to his son about one case of abuse in 1999, which occurred in New Zealand several decades earlier.

After the abuse came to light, Frank Houston was banned from preaching, but the public and authorities were not alerted.

Brian Houston, 68, is accused of covering up his father’s abuse until Frank Houston’s death in November 2004, after learning of the crime when his father confessed to him in 1999.

Houston has pleaded not guilty.

“I have no…

View Cache

A closer look at the sequence of events to-date about the investigation and excommunication of the world-renowned Slovenian priest.

At the start of December, Italian websites published information regarding psychological and sexual abuse allegedly committed in the 1990s by Jesuit Father Marko Ivan Rupnik, a Slovenian priest who is internationally renowned for his mosaics and other artwork.

The Society of Jesus subsequently confirmed that an investigation had been initiated last year into allegations that Father Rupnik had abused several women who were members of a Slovenian religious community he co-founded in the 1980s. But, according to the Jesuit order, the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith (now DDF, formerly known as the Congregation for Doctrine of the faith, CDF) subsequently ruled that the case would be closed because the allegations fell outside the canonical statute of limitations.

This response by the Jesuits’ leadership appeared to leave many questions unanswered, generating…

View Cache

“Any case like this is very painful, [but]…. we have not hidden anything,” says Arturo Sosa, S.J., the superior general of the Society of Jesus, in a short interview with 7MARGENS and Rádio Renascença, two religious media outlets in Portugal, published on Dec. 7. This represents the first public comments of the superior general regarding the allegations against the Slovenian artist Marko Rupnik, S.J.

Father Rupnik, whose mosaics decorate chapels in the Vatican, all over Europe, in the United States and Australia, has been barred from hearing confessions or offering spiritual direction after what the Jesuits described as complaints about his ministry. The Society of Jesus released a statement on Dec. 2 responding to the allegations of abuse against Father Rupnik and describing the restrictions on his ministry.

Italian news outlets reported the complaints were accusations of spiritually and sexually abusing adult members of a religious order of women in Slovenia. Father…

View Cache

The former Hanna Boys Center director says the child abuse lawsuit “came as a shot out of nowhere.”

Out of at least 130 child sexual abuse cases currently pending against the Santa Rosa Roman Catholic Diocese, one in particular stands out.

It is a claim involving Monsignor James Pulskamp, 81, and it’s unique because he’s currently serving as pastor at Star of the Valley Catholic Church in Oakmont.

Pulskamp, who served as director of the Hanna Boys Center in Sonoma Valley from 1972 to 1984, is the only accused priest in the diocese so far still serving in a clerical position.

He said he’s completely perplexed by the origin of the case filed against him — he said he doesn’t know the name of the plaintiff — and hasn’t been legally served.

An attorney for the diocese, however, said she had been served because they are a defendant, as well.

…

View Cache

For the third time, the sentencing hearing for a former Catholic priest convicted in October of raping a child in 2004 has been changed.

Joseph “Father Jack” Baker,  60, is now scheduled for sentencing by Judge Bridget Hathaway on Feb. 17, 2023 in Wayne County’s 3rd Circuit Court in Detroit. He’s held in the Wayne County Jail, denied bond.

According to a court spokesperson, sentencing was postponed on request of Baker’s defense attorney.

At the conclusion of jury trial in October, Baker was found guilty of first-degree criminal conduct – sexual penetration with a person less than 13 years old.

The assault happened while Baker was pastor of St. Mary Catholic School in Wayne. His victim was a second-grade student there who came forward a few years ago, saying Baker raped him in the church sacristy.

Baker was pastor of St. Mary in Wayne from 1997 to 2008, and from…

View Cache

The leaders of the French Bishops’ Conference and three lay experts on abuse issues hold three days of meetings with officials of the Roman Curia

Top officials at the Vatican have admitted that there have been, at times, “dysfunctions” in the way the Holy See has handled the clergy sex abuse cases that local dioceses are obliged to report to Rome.

The admissions were made this week to the top leaders of the French Bishops’ Conference (CEF), who were in Rome for three days of meetings surrounding recent revelations of abuse by a number of their retired confreres and how their cases were managed.

The December 12-14 meetings came a month after the CEF’s most recent plenary assembly, which was consumed with the abuse cases of Cardinal Jean-Pierre Ricard (78) and Bishop Michel Santier (75), and how, in general, the Roman Curia deals with sexual violence in the…

View Cache