ABUSE TRACKER

Victims’ lawyers say Catholic Church is hiding documents, list of abusers

Victims of sexual abuse by the Roman Catholic clergy in Quebec are calling on Pope Francis to apologize for the harm and trauma they endured, when he visits Quebec City later this month.

The Pope will be in the province from July 27 to 29 as part of a week-long trip to Canada to advance reconciliation and healing between the Catholic Church and Indigenous communities who suffered from years of abuse at residential schools.

While it is very important not to overshadow the primary reason for the Pope’s visit, it is also important that the pontiff be made aware of other crimes committed by Quebec clergy, said Marc Bellemare, one of the lawyers representing the victims, during a news conference Thursday.

“Let’s be clear, we are 150 per cent in solidarity with the victims of residential schools,” said Bellemare.

…

[Via National Observer]

Quebec victims of sexual abuse by Roman Catholic clergy are calling on Pope Francis to deliver “swift justice” to them ahead of his visit to Canada at the end of the month.

In an open letter to the pontiff made public Thursday, lawyers for victims said more than 2,500 people who were abused by clergy are waiting to obtain justice before the courts in Quebec.

“Some religious congregations use manoeuvres that we believe are contrary to the interests of victims,” said the letter signed by victims and their lawyers. “These strategies have resulted in delays of more than 10 years in some cases.”

Pope Francis is scheduled to visit Canada July 24-29, travelling to Alberta, Quebec and Nunavut. A major theme of his visit is reconciliation with Indigenous Peoples for the abuse suffered in residential schools — many of which were run by Catholic clergy.

But non-Indigenous victims…

In a deeply Catholic country, accusations that an American priest abused dozens of children at an orphanage stunned many in East Timor.

So when independent journalist Raimundos Oki heard that a group of girls planned to sue authorities, claiming they had been subjected to unnecessary virginity tests as part of the criminal case, he knew he had to hear their story.

Oki published interviews with the girls on his news website, Oekusi Post, ahead of the trial of Richard Daschbach. The then-84-year-old American priest was jailed in December for 12 years for child abuse.

But now Oki is under investigation himself, on accusations that he breached judicial secrecy.

The case is unexpected in East Timor. Also known as Timor-Leste, the country has one of the better records globally for press freedom.

Groups including Reporters Without Borders (RSF) and Human Rights Watch, however, note that the risk of legal proceedings and…

In a meeting with three male religious congregations on Thursday, Pope Francis emphasized the importance of taking a “zero tolerance” approach to abuse.

“One of the problems, we know, that often exists, is the problem of abuse. Please, remember this well: zero tolerance on abuse of minors or disabled people, zero tolerance,” he said in the Vatican’s Apostolic Palace July 14.

“Please do not hide this reality,” Francis urged. “We are religious, we are priests to bring people to Jesus, not to ‘consume’ people with our concupiscence.”

He said: “And the abuser destroys, ‘consumes’ so to speak, the abused with his concupiscence. Zero tolerance. Do not be ashamed to denounce, ‘This one did this, that one did that…’”

“I accompany you, you are a sinner, you are a sick person, but I have to protect others,” the pope said, acting out a conversation with an abuser. “Please I ask you…

[Via Global News]

A Quebec Superior Court judge has rejected a $28-million settlement in a sex abuse lawsuit against a Catholic religious order because of the high legal fees associated with the agreement.

The agreement would have awarded the Montreal law firm Arsenault, Dufresne and Wee, which represented the plaintiffs, more than $8 million in fees.

Justice Thomas M. Davis wrote in a July 4 decision that those fees were “excessive” and not in the interest of the more than 375 sexual abuse victims who were part of the class action.

Davis says the firm did “remarkable work” and that he expects a new agreement with reasonable fees can be reached and resubmitted to the court.

The suit against the Quebec-based Catholic religious order the Clerics of St-Viateur, involved acts committed between 1935 and the present at more than 20 establishments run by the group, including boarding schools.

In July…

Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo — The 14-year-old girl returned on the back of a motorbike to the convent where she lived and studied. Sobbing and in pain, she pulled aside a nun.

The girl said she’d just been raped by the priest who dropped her off.

The nun, Henriette Okitanunga, tried to comfort the girl. She said she then followed the new rule laid out by Pope Francis for handling such a report: She alerted her superior to a possible crime.

“Your Excellency,” the nun recalled texting to Nicolas Djomo, the local bishop.

After clerical abuse scandals that have rocked much of the Catholic world — generally in nations with the resources to pressure and expose the church — attention is turning to regions where the scale of abuse remains both a mystery and a cause for trepidation. The Vatican’s hope is that bishops in the developing world, trained…

[Includes brief video interviews with Dr Murray Heasley, of the Survivors of Abuse in Faith-based Institutions, and Moeapulu Frances Tagaloa, a survivor of abuse by Marist serial offender Francis Fitton (“Brother Bede”).]

The Marist Brothers and Fathers have educated prime ministers, judges, cardinals and All Blacks at their prestigious Catholic high schools. But their record of sexual abuse is horrific. Worse still was their handling of the abuse when it was exposed. In this series, The Secret History, Steve Kilgallon investigates the power, abuse and cover-ups at the heart of two highly-influential and wealthy religious groups.

This is Part 5. More chapters will be published in the coming weeks.

Warning: This story may be upsetting to some.

May 3, 2019. The Royal Commission into Abuse in Care has been announced – and part of its investigation will be the Catholic Church. In a public show that they have changed, and…

The Catholic church in Scotland put protecting its reputation above the safety of abused children as it covered up for paedophiles, its former safeguarding adviser has claimed.

Martin Henry advised the Archdiocese of St Andrews and Edinburgh on child protection for 22 years and was a member of the Scottish Catholic bishops’ working party on child sexual abuse.

His testimony was cited after the Scottish child abuse inquiry found that sexual predators found it easier to target children in religious settings because of a culture of “habitual deference”.

“God was ‘weaponised’ in the sense that there was a habit of taking advantage of the subservience by others to the power of the religious; they could rely on routinely being held in high regard and that could operate as a mechanism to silence children,” an inquiry report on the psychology on child abusers, published today, said.

“That may have enabled the abuser…

The Albany diocese has warned it would likely file for bankruptcy if the cases begin going to trial

A Massachusetts attorney who oversaw the settlement of 552 cases of sexual abuse against the Archdiocese of Boston and a New York City attorney with extensive experience managing sexual misconduct funds have been selected to mediate hundreds of claims filed against the Roman Catholic Diocese of Albany under the Child Victims Act.

Paul A. Finn, who received a “lawyer of the year” award in 2003 for his work resolving the claims filed against the Boston archdiocese, and Simone Lelchuk, who specializes in mediation and allocation of settlement funds, were selected during negotiations this week between the Albany diocese and attorneys for roughly 440 victims who have filed claims.

The mediation timetable is expected to move swiftly as the Albany diocese has warned that it would likely file for bankruptcy if the cases…

The father of a deceased former choirboy filed a lawsuit against Cardinal George Pell and the Catholic Church in an Australian court on Thursday claiming the parent suffered psychological injury over an accusation that the once-senior Vatican official sexually abused the son.

Neither the father nor the son can be named under Australian laws that conceal the identities of victims of sexual abuse.

The father said in 2019 he was considering legal action seeking damages when Pell, Pope Francis’ former finance minister, was sentenced to six years in prison on jury convictions for abusing the son and another choirboy in a Melbourne cathedral in the 1990s. Both boys were 13 years old at the time.

Pell, now 81, had his convictions overturned by the High Court in 2020 after he had spent 13 months in prison. He has since been based in Sydney and holds no Vatican position.

The father’s…

More than a thousand children in Telford, England were sexually exploited since 1989 because of the police and local government’s failure to investigate the offenders, an independent inquiry concluded on Tuesday.

The inquiry was launched after a 2018 Sunday Mirror investigation found sexual exploitation reports dating back to the 1980s. The inquiry has since confirmed these reports and found that the abuse was allowed to continue because the children were blamed, not the perpetrators.

Teachers and youth workers were discouraged from reporting child sexual abuse and police were nervous that investigating some of the Asian men who carried out the abuse would inflame racial tensions, the report found.

“Countless children were sexually assaulted and raped. They were deliberately humiliated and degraded. They were shared and trafficked,” said Tom Crowther, the inquiry chairman.

“Victims and survivors repeatedly told the inquiry how, when they were children, adult men worked to gain their…

Religious Affairs Minister Should Revoke Ban, Investigate Allegations

One would hope that an educational institution that learned of sexual assaults on campus would focus on holding perpetrators accountable and preventing further incidents rather than targeting the messenger. Not so the State Islamic Institute in Ambon (Institut Agama Islam Negeri Ambon, IAIN Ambon) in Indonesia’s Maluku province, which instead of recognizing and valuing a student magazine’s groundbreaking and thorough investigation, ordered its shutdown.

On March 14, when Lintas magazine reported on dozens of incidents of sexual violence on campus taking place between 2015 and 2021, the story unsurprisingly created an uproar. Lintas had spent 5 years investigating the story, interviewing 32 sexual violence survivors (27 female and 5 male students) as well as campus officials, including Zainal Abidin Rahawarin, the IAIN Ambon rector. The magazine identified 14 alleged perpetrators. Some of the victims, who were not named, detailed sexual assaults that took place…

Mounting public pressure finally leads to arrest of Islamic cleric’s son in a child molestation case

Indonesian police have arrested the son of a well-known Islamic cleric, more than two years after he was named in a child molestation case.

Police in Jombang from East Java province stormed the Shiddiqiyyah Islamic Boarding School to arrest 42-year-old Moch Subchi Azal Tsani and 35 of his supporters on July 7.

The school founded by the suspect’s father, Mursyid Thoriqoh Shiddiqiyyah, was surrounded by other supporters, many of whom stood reciting prayers at the gates to block the police.

Police called on them to let them inside but the supporters refused, sparking a scuffle in which one police officer reportedly sustained a minor wound to his arm.

The suspect had refused to be questioned and had eluded the police since he was accused of molesting a female student in November 2019. Local residents and…

Here’s a life lesson we’ll bet your momma didn’t teach you but which you should heed nonetheless: Be wary of large institutions with a lot of money at stake when they propose a plan to settle their legal issues.

That’s the advice we’d give to those who’ll be deciding whether to accept the Albany Catholic Diocese’s proposal to settle more than 400 sexual abuse cases brought against clergy under the state’s Child Victims Act.
If the institution that will likely be on the hook for hundreds of millions of dollars in financial awards to sex abuse victims is proposing a mass settlement, you can bet the deal is about protecting the interests of the institution, not the victims.

The plan would, among other stipulations, force victims to agree to have cases settled by an arbitrator and funded by a trust fund set up by the diocese and its insurance companies.

The…

Attorneys for hundreds of alleged victims agreed Monday to move forward with a negotiated mediation plan

Attorneys for hundreds of victims who were allegedly sexually abused by clergy and others associated with the Roman Catholic Diocese of Albany agreed Monday to move forward with a negotiated mediation plan that will also keep hundreds of Child Victims Act lawsuits moving forward — including some that are scheduled for trial in the coming months.

During a conference Monday with state Supreme Court Justice L. Michael Mackey, attorneys for the more than 400 plaintiffs rejected a request by the diocese’s attorney, Michael L. Costello, to “pause” the litigation in order to set up a mediation program. The attorneys noted that doing so would stop the pre-trial discovery process, delay scheduled trials and make it less likely that the diocese’s insurance carriers would be motivated to aggressively resolve the cases.

Cynthia S. Lafave, an Albany…

The Roman Catholic Diocese of Albany on Thursday fleshed out its proposal for a mediated settlement process for clergy sex abuse survivors.

Aspects of the proposal are unclear, and an attorney for 25 of the roughly 440 people suing the diocese said it raised more questions than it answered. But the diocese emphasized it is just a draft.

The diocese first publicly floated the concept June 29. It said mediated compensation could result in faster, more equitable settlements than if it had to litigate each claim in court or if it filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.

The most recent communication contained multiple references to a potential bankruptcy filing, a step four other New York dioceses already have taken.

The plan was developed by consultants including a retired judge who spent a quarter century on the federal bankruptcy bench. It creates a trust funded by available diocesan assets, proceeds from…

Total available for settlements ranges from $37M to $101M

Amid objections, Guam’s Catholic Church and its bankruptcy creditors made changes to their joint plan to compensate more than 270 survivors of clergy sexual assaults, including a clarification that up to $64.3 million of the proposed payout is “not guaranteed.”

Without such a clarification, clergy abuse survivors may go on thinking that their total payouts could be $37 million to $107 million, according to those who filed objections to the original joint plan.

The contemplated payout has been reduced to about $37 million to $101 million under a newly amended joint plan that the Archdiocese of Agana and its Official Committee of Unsecured Creditors filed in bankruptcy court.

The amended joint plan notes “the risks and other factors that would reduce or eliminate” the ability to collect from certain entities, such as the Boy Scouts of America and archdiocese insurer Continental…

In continuing the coverage on the harmful legacy of Catholic schools on South Dakota Indian reservations, a closer look at more recent (in the new millennium) cases brought against two of the educational institutions, St. Francis and Holy Rosary (Red Cloud Indian School) Mission both currently operating on the Rosebud and Pine Ridge Indian Reservations, makes imperative a thorough reevaluation of the role of parochial schools on Native American land.

A more recent ruling on June 25, 2008, the Supreme Court of South Dakota ruled in the case One Star v. St. Francis Mission (2008 SD 55, 752 N.W.2d 668), where Lloyd One Star and Marian Sorace brought suit against the Catholic Church.  One entity, Sisters of St. Francis established in 1939 and located in Denver, Colorado was involved.

In 1886, the sisters (nuns) helped establish St. Francis Mission on the Rosebud Reservation and in 1888, the same order helped…

The predators engaged in human trafficking “never take a holiday, nor can we,” a U.S congressman who holds a top international anti-trafficking post told world leaders gathered July 2-6 in Birmingham, England.

Those “who exploit and abuse vulnerable women, children and men never cease in their nefarious work,” U.S. Rep. Chris Smith, R-N.J., said during the 29th annual session of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe.

“Our commitment to preventing human trafficking, protecting and helping survivors reclaim their lives, and prosecuting those who commit these horrific crimes must be strong, powerful and courageous,” he said.

The congressman urged the OSCE’s nearly 60 member nations to step up their efforts to implement and strengthen laws combating modern-day slavery.

Smith is the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly’s special representative on human trafficking. He was first appointed to the post in 2004.

In Washington, the Catholic lawmaker co-chairs the…

A Catholic lawyer has called for stricter punishment for those guilty of child sexual abuse after Indonesian police arrested and charged yet another teacher with raping at least four girls at his home in the country’s Central Java province.

Azas Tigor Nainggolan, who deals with cases of sexual violence against children, said law enforcement officers must ensure strict punishment for the perpetrators of such heinous crimes.

“They must be brave enough to sentence the guilty to life in prison,” he told UCA News on July 13.

He further appealed that Catholics in the country must file police reports if they know of any cases of sexual violence against children.

“Never sweep it under the rug. Let us open our eyes and deal with it. By doing so, we show our stance in siding with the victims,” he added.

Magelang District Police chief Mochamad Sajarod Zakun said a 31-year-old Quran teacher,…

Pope Francis’s decision to appoint two women to the Dicastery for Bishops was devoid of consultation – and from a pontiff who is constantly tooting the horn for “collegiality” and “synodality.”

When word surfaces that Pope Francis has given another interview, I think it’s not much of an exaggeration to say there is a world-wide ecclesial holding of breath. His latest, to Reuters on July 2, was no exception, being released in dribs and drabs. The most recent shoe to drop was his declaration that he intended to appoint two women to the Dicastery for Bishops – the body charged with the selection of bishops, among its other duties. The dicastery consists of a permanent staff and a group of bishops and cardinals from around the world who meet regularly to vote on potential candidates for the episcopate.

The normal process for episcopal nominations calls for names to be submitted to…

Archbishop Peter Hundt breaks deadlock by selecting St. Peter’s as church of the future in Mount Pearl

Catholics in Mount Pearl are being asked to unite and show compassion for those losing their church after a decision has been made to abandon Mary Queen of the World on Topsail Road, and make a second attempt to purchase St. Peter’s on Ashford Drive.

“This is not a happy day for anyone,” Father Wayne Dohey told parishioners at St. Peter’s during mass on Saturday, which was streamed on YouTube.

“When you close a church there’s a lot of our friends that are hurting; there’s a lot of sadness,” he added.

Dohey is the parish priest for both churches, and revealed the decision by Peter Hundt, archbishop for the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of St. John’s, during services at both parishes over the weekend.

Hundt was asked to get involved after a steering committee with equal…

[Via Crux]

Catholic journalists face a twofold lack of trust as reporters who cover the church, a Catholic theologian reminded them July 6 at the annual Catholic Media Conference in Portland.

He urged them to find a way forward that brings Catholics together and also reaches out to the public at large with nuanced, not simply reactive, reporting and by providing necessary context, or the bigger picture, to their readers and viewers.

Put another way: “Journalists and communicators have a role to play here, to let the eucharistic mystery of the church manifest itself for the life of the world,” said Timothy O’Malley, director of education at the McGrath Institute for Church Life at the University of Notre Dame.

“The church is experiencing a crisis related to communications,” he said during his keynote address, adding that it can’t be solved by a new technique such as a better way to…

Glenys Yarran says she was 12 years old when she was taught how to clean maggots from a sheep’s head so it could be placed in a big black pot and made into soup for lunch.

Key points:

• Ballardong woman Glenys Yarran gave evidence in New Norcia as part of a stolen wages class action against the state government
• Ms Yarran described working 50-hour weeks as a teenager at the mission for no pay
• Her sister, Gloria Bennell, said she used to steal apples from the chickens for additional nourishment

The Whadjuk Ballardong elder is now a great-grandmother of six, but this week she cast her mind back to when she spent five years living under the supervision of nuns at a Catholic Mission in the West Australian town of New Norcia.

Ms Yarran gave evidence on Friday as part of a class action against the state government over an old policy…

A former Northwoods priest convicted of sexually assaulting boys could be released on parole this summer, after serving about 4 years of a 30-year sentence. 

Thomas Ericksen will go before the Wisconsin Parole Commission in August, according to Department of Corrections, but a date has not yet been set. 

Ericksen, 75, was sentenced to 30 years in prison in 2019 on two charges of sexually assaulting boys while stationed at St. Peter’s Catholic Church in Winter in the 1980s. He is also registered as a sex offender for life.

He was given 20 years on one charge and 10 years on the other. He was credited with 314 days of time served in jail since his arrest, both in Minnesota before he was extradited and in Wisconsin. He is currently being held in the Jackson Correctional Institution in Black River Falls. 

The sentence was…

Formal charges against a Warren County School District teacher alleged to have had inappropriate sexual contact with a student are shocking.

There have been occasional instances of similar issues over the past several years. Those instances don’t appear to be widespread, and we hope district administrators continue dealing with any other suspected issues of sexual abuse by school staff swiftly and firmly.

But in the wake of sex abuse scandals involving the Catholic Church and the Boy Scouts of America, one has to wonder just how widespread sex abuse in America’s schools really is. In 2018, roughly one in three educational administrators said that an employee had reported a case of sexual assault or harassment to them, according to an EdWeek Research Center survey. And, a 2020 data release of the last federal Civil Rights Data Collection showed a 55% increase in total incidents of sexual violence from 2015-16 to…

The school’s decision follows the filing of a lawsuit that claimed Father Kevin Fitzpatrick molested and sexually abused a student in the 1970s

Servite High School is removing the name of Father Kevin Fitzpatrick from the school’s aquatic center after allegations were made that Fitzpatrick molested a Servite student in the 1970s, according to a letter obtained by the Orange County Register.

The decision follows the recent filing of a lawsuit in Orange County Superior Court against Servite, the Diocese of Orange, the Archdiocese of Los Angeles and the Order of Servants of Mary by the survivor that alleges Fitzpatrick molested and sexually assaulted him more than a dozen times a year.

The man decided to file suit after coming upon the Father Kevin Fitzpatrick Aquatic Center, a $5.7 million state of the art facility completed in 2017, during a visit to the Servite campus in the summer of 2021.

The…

The Roman Catholic Diocese of Albany quietly reached a $750,000 settlement agreement last month with a 47-year-old upstate man who accused a former priest of sexually abusing him as a child.

Stephen Mittler’s case – involving allegations that serial sex abuser and former Albany priest Mark Haight, 73, abused him for over a decade – had been the first Child Victims’ Act lawsuit against the Albany Diocese scheduled for trial later this month, the Albany Times Union reported.

But the Saratoga man cut his losses and settled ahead of trial after Diocese lawyer Michael Costello told Mittler the church would likely be filing for bankruptcy, the outlet reported, citing Mittler’s lawyer Matthew Kelly.

“Whether that was hyperbole or truth, my client opted to settle to avoid waiting for the bankruptcy to resolve itself, which could take years,” Kelly told the outlet.

Haight, who was ordained in 1976, was…

“It hit me harder than I’d expected”

Tim Stier figured it was only a matter of time. Since 2005 he’s refused parish assignments as an Oakland Diocese priest over its handling of clerical sex abuse claims and spent more than a decade outside its cathedral on Sundays calling for church accountability and justice for the victims.

He had no plans to end his self-imposed exile and resume work as a parish priest. But when the Vatican finally came for his collar a few months ago, removing him from the Roman Catholic priesthood, Stier said it still felt like a blow.

“It hit me harder than I’d expected,” said Stier, 73, whose removal was disclosed this week. “I felt sad and angry. If I’d been raping kids, I wouldn’t be thrown out of the club.”

The Diocese of Oakland said in a statement Friday only that “we wish Mr. Stier all…

Catholic Charities Fort Worth in Texas said its women’s summit would have aimed to “uplift and amplify the voices and power of women.” Sheryl Adkins-Green, the chief marketing officer of Mary Kay, was slated to be the keynote speaker.

But a clash with the local Catholic bishop, who raised questions about the event’s compatibility with Catholic social teaching, doomed the Women’s Empow[her]ment Summit, which Catholic Charities Fort Worth had scheduled for April 28 in Hurst, Texas.

The agency ended up canceling the event. Beyond that, Fort Worth Bishop Michael Olson demanded that the chief executive officer of Catholic Charities Fort Worth, Christopher Plumlee, resign. After resisting the bishop’s demand for weeks, Plumlee stepped down in late May.

“I think we were doing some incredible things,” said Plumlee, who told NCR that he still believes his former employer is “an incredible agency with incredible people…

Saint Josemaria Escriva, founder of the Catholic organization Opus Dei, which emphasizes the dignity of everyday work, once famously told the employees of a Spanish university he founded that the dean was no more important than the people who cleaned the classrooms.

However noble-sounding that rhetoric may be, according to 43 women in Argentina, when it came to them, it didn’t ring true.

In a complaint to the Vatican, the women, who say they were recruited into Opus Dei under false promises of higher education, now claim they were instead forced to labor under “manifestly illegal conditions” including working without pay for more than 12 hours a day, without breaks except for food or prayer, without registration in the national pension system, and other violations of basic workers’ rights.

In an attempt to know what happened, and following a series of allegations in the media of labor exploitation by some…

A former pastor from Georgia who was conducting missionary work in Uganda when he sexually assaulted a girl under his care was sentenced by a federal judge to serve above the guideline sentencing range for his crime.

Eric Tuininga, 45, of Milledgeville, was sentenced to serve 120 months in prison to be followed by a lifetime of supervised release and $20,000 in restitution to the victim by Chief U.S. District Judge Marc T. Treadwell after he previously pleaded guilty to one count of engaging in illicit sexual conduct in foreign places. In addition, Tuininga will have to register as a sex offender for life upon his release from federal prison. There is no parole in the federal system.

“I want to recognize the true bravery displayed by the Ugandan girl for speaking out when she was assaulted by a trusted person of power from another country, courageously seeking justice across…

A jury on Thursday convicted youth pastor Colton Albury of sexually assaulting a girl whose parents welcomed him into their family at age 16.

Albury, a well-regarded pastor, bowed his head after the jury’s forewoman delivered the guilty verdicts.

His wife, Mariah, the mother of their two children, who sat through the entire trial, shook her head as he was led away in handcuffs.

Senior Justice Bernard Turner remanded the 33-year-old into custody until August 17 for the penalty phase of his trial.

Albury’s lawyer, Miranda Adderley, requested a probation report to assist the court with determining the appropriate sentence.

The majority of the jury accepted that Albury betrayed the family’s trust when he became an adult by indecently assaulting and sexually assaulting a girl, who was just a toddler when he moved into their home.

He was convicted of two counts of unlawful sexual intercourse by a count of…

B.C. Supreme dismisses application based on jurisdiction, diplomatic immunity

The Pope’s ambassador in Canada will not be forced to hand over any records of alleged sexual abuse at the seminary school in Mission.

Instead, he will be asked to hand over records.

An application to B.C. Supreme Court was filed in March, for the Apostolic Nuncio to produce various classes of documents related to sexual abuse at the Seminary of Christ the King.

It was dismissed by Court Master John Bilawich on jurisdiction grounds.

The plaintiff seeking the documents, Mark O’Neill, alleges he was abused as a teenager in the 1970s by three priests.

Westminster Abbey and the attached seminary in Mission, B.C. and the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Vancouver are named as institutional defendants, liable for “systematic negligence” for failing to protect students.

O’Neill’s application sought all written correspondence between the institutional defendants and the nuncio regarding allegations…

A former Union County priest who admitted to NJ Advance Media that he sexually assaulted a 15-year-old boy died by suicide in his native Ecuador after he allegedly shot three people there, killing one, according to local media reports.

Manuel Gallo Espinoza, 59, shot and killed Byron Carreño, his partner in an English language school in Loja, Ecuador, on July 2, the reports said, citing “investigators.” He also shot two other partners and his pet before turning the gun on himself after a dispute about the management of the school, the reports said.

Efforts to reach prosecutors in Ecuador were unsuccessful, and the Union County Prosecutor’s Office was not immediately able to confirm the reports of Gallo Espinoza’s death. However, several people who know Gallo Espinoza verified his identity by widely-circulated photographs.

Gallo Espinoza was indicted by a Union County grand jury in 2016 for the alleged sexual…

Summary

• Abuse crisis exploded in Boston in 2002
• Pope introduced major legislation against abuse in 2019
• Outside abuse expert says Church cannot police itself
• Critic says real ‘zero tolerance’ does not exist
• Pope gave more clout to commission for protection of minors

Pope Francis has acknowledged that there is resistance by some national Catholic Churches on implementing measures to protect children from sexual abuse by clergy but said that there is no turning back on an “irreversible” path.

Sexual abuse in the Church and measures to combat it were among one of the many Church and international topics the 85-year-old pontiff discussed in an exclusive interview with Reuters in his Vatican residence on July 2. 

In 2019 Francis issued a papal directive ordering “public, stable and easily accessible systems for submission” of reports of sexual abuse in dioceses around the world. 

Some countries, such as the United States, established procedures, sometimes known as…

A group of former members of Dwell Community Church (formerly known as Xenos Christian Fellowship), a megachurch located in Columbus, Ohio, has purchased ad space on a billboard hoping to warn current attendees regarding abuse happening within the church.

The billboard is located along High Street in Clintonville, less than three miles from the church, and displays large bold neon green and white lettering that reads, “Stuck in Dwell Community Church? There is hope.” The message is followed by the website address leavingwell.com and a QR code, which directs to a page titled, “There Is Life After Dwell Community Church.”

“We who have left Dwell Community Church have shared similar fears,” the site reads. “We have feared that to leave Dwell would put us outside the will of God, that we would lose community and friends, that we would lose a life of meaning and purpose….

A recently-enacted California state law that requires additional levels of abuse prevention training and implementation complements Southern Baptists’ resolve to care for children, one state convention leader said. And, it provides a window into the future for other states.

Assembly Bill 506, passed last fall and now part of the California Business & Professions Code, mandates additional levels of training, background checks and policies from churches. The California Southern Baptist Convention (CSBC) is hosting a webinar to discuss the changes July 7 at 10:30 a.m. PDT. Registration can be accessed here.

Due to the bill, churches are for the first time included in the category “Youth Services Organizations” that appears under the Business & Professions Code.

“New California laws relating to protecting youth have made your job challenging as you work to comply with the new requirements of AB 506,” wrote CSBC Executive Director Pete Ramirez in an announcement…

Esther Matsubuchi is 85 years old. She and her brothers grew up in Marpole, not far from the small bungalow that has become a retreat for writers.

“It is also the former home of (Kogawa’s) father, a priest pedophile who molested hundreds of children,” said Matsubuchi.

Matsubuchi is not the type to speak out about private matters, but said, “This struck a nerve.”

Four of her brothers were abused by Kogawa’s father, Gordon Goichi Nakayama.

Now she wonders why her family, and other survivors of Nakayama’s abuse, were not consulted about the heritage application, which goes before city council on July 12.

Peter Wallace, a representative for the Japanese Canadian Working Group, an organization that supports healing for survivors of Nakayama’s sexual abuse, said, “A lot of members of the community see the house as a reminder of that abuse.”

The report to council mentions the house’s…

Analysis

Pope Francis has promised to appoint two women to the Dicastery for Bishops, the Vatican department responsible for episcopal appointments. While media attention has focused on an expanded role for women in the selection of new bishops, the most significant aspect of the  reform might be something else entirely.

In comments published Wednesday, the pope told Reuters that “two women will be appointed for the first time” to the bishop-making congregation dicastery. 

Most members of Vatican dicasteries are cardinals or bishops serving as diocesan bishops around the world. While those members tend to travel to the Vatican regularly to attend the dicastery’s meetings, they are not usually present for weekly working sessions attended by members living in Rome.

Depending on who Francis decides to name  — and where they live — it will become clearer whether the pope intends to appoint them as part of the broad consulting membership, or in…

Churches often blame adult abuse survivors for leading a ‘holy man’ astray.

At their annual meeting last month in Anaheim, California, Southern Baptists passed a series of reforms to address sexual abuse in the nation’s largest Protestant denomination.

Local church delegates, known as messengers, also passed a resolution, calling on states to make pastoral sexual misconduct a crime. Such misconduct is “a clear abuse of authority and trust,” the resolution states, similar to the trust placed in doctors, teachers, therapists and other helping professionals.

Since many states prohibit sexual relationships between those helping professionals and their patients or clients — they should also treat sexual relationships between pastors and members of their flocks as crimes, not simply a moral failing, according to the resolution.

Many still have a hard time seeing sexual misconduct by pastors as abusive. Particularly when the one abused is an adult, Baptists and other faith groups…

The Diocese of Trier released a summary of a report detailing allegations of abuse made in the United States against the founder of the Schonstatt movement, Father Joseph Kentenich.

According to the summary of the report, which was released by the diocese July 7, the victim, known by the alias, “John Doe,” accused Kentenich of repeatedly sexually abusing him between 1958 to 1962.

The summary stated that “circumstantial evidence reviewed as part of the report both supports and contradicts certain aspects of the allegations” and that “because of the passage of time and deaths of key witnesses, ‘conclusiveness’ could not be ascertained.”

According to the German Catholic news agency KNA, the Diocese of Trier chose to not publish the 47-page report “for data protection and privacy reasons.”

The report also looked into the Archdiocese of Milwaukee’s investigation from 1994 to 1995 into Doe’s accusations. The archdiocese concluded that the allegations made…

The Archdiocese of Vancouver’s latest update on sexual abuse by priests says priests will start undergoing performance reviews this year. 

Priests in the Archdiocese of Vancouver will undergo regular performance reviews starting this year, the archdiocese announced in its latest update on sexual abuse by priests.

The archdiocese released its latest report on sexual abuse June 30. It’s the latest in a series of updates since 2019 when it first released a 12-page report that contained 31 recommendations. An Implementation Working Group has been working to develop solutions for the recommendations.

Recommendation 15 in the 2019 report said “all clerics – whether incardinated in the Archdiocese or in ministry in the Archdiocese – should undergo an annual, formal performance review process, similar to the process that permanent deacons currently undertake.” The review should be done “by a group of people, including lay men and women.”

Archbishop J. Michael Miller had committed…

• Current committee to help pope select bishops is all-male
• New rules allow even lay Catholics to head most Vatican offices
• Pope has already appointed some women to high-level positions

Pope Francis said he wants to give women more top-level positions in the Holy See and disclosed that for the first time he would name women to a previously all-male Vatican committee that helps him select the world’s bishops.

The role of women in the Vatican hierarchy was one of the many Church and international topics the 85-year-old pontiff discussed in an exclusive interview with Reuters in his Vatican residence on July 2. 

A new constitution for the Holy See’s central administration that came into effect last month allows any baptised Catholic, including lay men and women, to head most Vatican departments. read more

“I am open to giving (women) an opportunity,” he said in the part of the 90-minute interview that…

The Catholic Church in Venezuela has reopened its investigation into a priest who was convicted of sexually abusing a child but was later returned to the ministry, officials said Wednesday.

The announcement came just over two weeks after The Washington Post reported on the case of the Rev. Luis Alberto Mosquera, the priest in Venezuela’s Lara state. Mosquera, 63, was convicted in 2006 of abusing a 6-year-old boy and sentenced to more than seven years in prison, but in 2008, he was released and allowed by the church to resume his work as a priest. A photo posted on his Facebook page in 2016 and reposted in 2017 showed him surrounded by children.

Mosquera’s case was one of 10 involving allegations of child sexual abuse scrutinized by The Post for the report published in June. In half of the cases, dating from 2001 to 2022, The Post found…

A lawsuit against the Franciscan Friars of the Renewal alleges that a woman was serially sexually assaulted by a priest of the order.

While the priest – Fr. Louis Leonelli – says he had a consenting relationship with the woman, her attorney insists that no sexual relationship between a spiritual director and his directee can be consensual, and alleges that Leonelli committed several “violent sexual assaults.”

For his part, the order’s superior general has apologized, after the order told The Pillar last year that accusations against Leonelli pertained to consensual sexual activity.

The case is the latest in recent months to raise questions about the Church’s handling of assault allegations in the context of relationships between priests and adults under their pastoral care — an issue which some experts say has not been sufficiently addressed by canon law and Vatican policies.

“These are violent sexual assaults, and if they had been reported…

Further to my recent article about how the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Court Bill will expand the law which makes it illegal for those in a position of trust to engage in sexual activity to now also include sport coaches, it is important to note that the new law will also cover religious leaders.

Abuse happens in every area of society and can take many forms to include sexual, physical, emotional and also spiritual.

There are numerous reasons why victims and survivors of child abuse are unable to disclose their abuse for decades, if at all.

One of the most common barriers is the fear of being believed and this is worsened when the abuser has a position of trust in a religious setting.

There has been and continues to be coverage in the media of sexual abuse by priests within the Roman Catholic Church and the Church…

Taking steps to address racism and abuse, the Catholic Church in Australia has officially endorsed the Uluru Statement from the Heart, which calls for a First Nations voice to Parliament to be enshrined in the nation’s constitution.

In a separate action, the Plenary Council apologized formally to victims, survivors and families of child abuse and committed to a further investigation into the systemic factors that facilitated it within the church.

Members of the Plenary Council’s Second Assembly, which endorsed the Uluru Statement, also committed to acknowledging “in a prominent and appropriate manner the traditional custodians of the land” in each diocese and eparchy.

The bishops’ Commission for Liturgy and the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Catholic Council will consider Indigenous “symbols and rituals” for Catholic liturgies.

The assembly also apologized to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples for “the part played by the church in the harms they have…

[The Secret History: Uncovering Marist sex abuse

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.

The Marist Brothers and Fathers have educated prime ministers, judges, cardinals and All Blacks at their prestigious Catholic high schools. But their record of sexual abuse is horrific. Worse still was their handling of the abuse when it was exposed. In this series, The Secret History, Steve Kilgallon investigates the power, abuse and cover-ups at the heart of two highly-influential and wealthy religious groups.

This is Part 3. The remaining chapters will be published in the coming weeks.]

Warning: This story may be upsetting to some.

When Rupene Amato sat with his schoolfriends at lunchtime one day in the early 1980s, they began discussing what happened when they were called for individual ‘sex education’ lessons with…

Officials insist the association was shut down due to dysfunction, not abuse.

Mission Thérésienne, a French canonical association of the faithful active in about 20 countries, has been shut down by the bishop of Bayeux-Lisieux for “substantial dysfunctions” in its management.

The association, named after Saint Thérèse of Lisieux, encourages children and their families to pray for vocations and for about 6,500 priests and religious they have adopted. It promptly closed its website and its five magazines for young Catholics, promising to refund the subscriptions.

The shutdown was the latest community closure or diocesan inspection in France, where Church management has come under increasing scrutiny after the country’s two top archbishops, in Paris and Lyon, quit over the past two years. 

New communities in France, often charismatic or traditional groups that have grown in recent decades as vocations to the diocesan clergy fall, have received special attention. Pope Francis announced in…

The Catholic Church presence in St. John’s, Nfld., is set to shrink significantly come autumn after at least four parish communities had their churches sold from underneath them to compensate Mount Cashel abuse victims, with possibly more to close.

The congregations of St. Patrick’s, St. Francis of Assisi, St. Pius X and Mary, Queen of Peace were informed recently that their churches have been sold at auction to help the Archdiocese of St. John’s compensate the victims of abuse at the Mount Cashel Orphanage in the 1940s, ’50s and ’60s.

Eighteen of 34 St. John’s parishes were put on the auction block June 2 as the archdiocese was forced into bankruptcy by a Supreme Court ruling that held the archdiocese “vicariously liable” for claims of abuse at the now-closed Mount Cashel Orphanage, operated by the Christian Brothers of Ireland. The brothers went bankrupt and were unable to compensate the more…

La agresión contra las menores fue hace siete años, una en septiembre de 2015, cuando la víctima de 7 años se encontraba sentada en una de las bancas de la iglesia cuando el ahora imputado aprovechó para agredirla sexualmente.

MORELIA, Mich. (apro).- Casi siete años después de los hechos, fue detenido el pastor religioso Faustino “N”, acusado de haber violado a dos niñas, de 7 y 8 años, en el municipio de Paracho, informó la Fiscalía General del Estado (FGE).

De acuerdo con informes que forman parte de la investigación, en septiembre de 2015 la víctima de 7 años se encontraba sentada en una de las bancas de la iglesia cuando el ahora imputado aprovechó para agredirla sexualmente.

Posteriormente, en ese mismo mes y año, Faustino “N” se encontraba en su domicilio cuando vio pasar a la víctima de 8 años de edad, a quien llamó y después la introdujo…

The Catholic Church in Venezuela has reopened its investigation into a priest who was convicted of sexually abusing a child but was later returned to the ministry, officials said Wednesday.

The announcement came just over two weeks after The Washington Post reported on the case of the Rev. Luis Alberto Mosquera, the priest in Venezuela’s Lara state. Mosquera, 63, was convicted in 2006 of abusing a 6-year-old boy and sentenced to more than seven years in prison, but in 2008, he was released and allowed by the church to resume his work as a priest. A photo posted on his Facebook page in 2016 and reposted in 2017 showed him surrounded by children.

Mosquera’s case was one of 10 involving allegations of child sexual abuse scrutinized by The Post for the report published in June. In half of the cases, dating from 2001 to 2022, The Post found…

Settlement, involving former priest who was an alleged serial child sex abuser, was reached as diocese warned victim it would file for bankruptcy

The Roman Catholic Diocese of Albany recently paid $750,000 to a 47-year-old Saratoga County man who was allegedly sexually abused as a child by a former priest, marking the organization’s first settlement in the hundreds of pending lawsuits that were filed under New York’s Child Victims Act.

The unannounced settlement was reached in early June during negotiations in which the diocese’s attorney, Michael L. Costello, had warned the alleged victim, Stephen J. Mittler, that if his case remained on track for its July 25 trial date the diocese would file for bankruptcy before a jury was picked, according to Matthew J. Kelly, Mittler’s attorney.

“Whether that was hyperbole or truth, my client opted to settle to avoid waiting for the bankruptcy to resolve itself, which could take…

An independent commission that is to conduct Spain’s first official probe into suspected sexual abuse of minors within the Catholic Church met for the first time Tuesday.

Unlike in many other nations where the government or the Church itself has opened an investigation into such abuses, Spain has only recently made moves to follow suit with lawmakers in March backing the creation of an independent commission.

The independent panel is made up of 20 people, mostly experts, but does not include representatives of the Church.

Spain’s ombudsman, Angel Gabilondo, who is in charge of the probe, on Tuesday “presided over the first constitutive meeting” of the commission, his office said in a statement.

The aim is to “prepare a report on sexual violence within the Catholic Church and the role of the public authorities”, it said, indicating that the panel included 17 experts “with experience in victimology, in the care…

The Vatican said Friday it had finalized the sale of a London property that is the focus of a criminal trial in the Vatican courts, offloading the former Harrods warehouse for 186 million pounds (215 million euros, US$223 million).

The Vatican secretariat of state had poured some 350 million euros into the building and related fees and commissions paid to brokers — losses that are at the heart of the accusations of fraud, embezzlement and extortion against 10 people on trial.

The Vatican said it sold the warehouse on 60 Sloane Ave. in Chelsea to Bain Capital, the Boston-based private investment firm co-founded by Republican U.S. Senator Mitt Romney, after a bidding process that involved 16 preliminary offers and relied on the expertise of property advisers Savills.

The scandal over the London property has convulsed the Vatican for three years and prompted Pope Francis to strip the secretariat of state of…

A list released by the Southern Baptist Convention of more than 700 pastors and church personnel who have allegedly abused people includes 12 Ohio pastors and two others with connections to the state.

Here is information about each individual and the allegations involving them, as provided by public records, news reports and the list itself.

‘Scourge of sexual abuse’: Southern Baptists respond to list of accused Ohio pastors

Lonny ‘Joe’ Aleshire Jr. 

Church: Licking Baptist Church in Hebron

Accusation: Sexually assaulting two teenaged girls — sisters — who attended the church where he was an associate pastor.

Outcome: Aleshire pleaded guilty to one count of rape, six counts of unlawful sexual conduct with a minor and three misdemeanor counts of sexual imposition in 2005. He served nearly seven years in prison and five years of probation.

More: A year after he pleaded guilty, Aleshire took it back, filing a motion to withdraw the plea, blaming his attorney and saying there…

[Tim Stier served for decades as a priest in the diocese of Oakland CA. He sent this letter on May 31, 2022.]

Dear No-Longer-Fellow Priests,

This will likely be my farewell letter to most of you, which may be glad tidings to those of you who do not enjoy hearing from me.

Last week, I learned from David Staal, a canon lawyer for the Diocese of Oakland, that the Vatican had officially laicized me as of March 19th.  The grounds for my ouster from the priesthood was my persistent refusal of an assignment in 2005 after I told Allen Vigneron, then Oakland’s bishop, that I could not in good conscience accept another assignment until he was willing to open a public dialog throughout the diocese on three issues roiling the Church:  the sexual abuse of minors by clergy and its cover-up by bishops and their cronies, the refusal of the…

Could co-production be the key to tackling clerical abuse?

“The Church as a whole must embark on a world-wide process of truth and reparation [beginning] with the acknowledgement of responsibility.”

This assertion by the Independent Commission on Sexual Abuse in the Catholic Church (CIASE) in France is the starting point for this article.

We all want a Church that is safe for everyone: free from physical, spiritual, emotional, institutional and reputational abuse. We want healing in all its complexity for the victims, both the abused and the abusers.

And we want fit-for-purpose procedures to prevent abuse, and to deal with it, whenever and wherever it occurs.

Yet sadly, there seems to be a huge distance between what we say we want and what we are prepared to make happen. And there is genuine disagreement about whether the truth is liberating.

I am one of the small core team of Root…

More people have come forward with stories of abuse by a now-deceased Catholic priest.

Stuff previously reported about six complaints of sexual abuse against Father George William Harrison, who coached schoolboy rugby and served in many parishes in Christchurch and on the West Coast from 1935 until he retired in 1981.

Since then several people contacted Stuff with stories of their own, with one describing Harrison as a “mega-abuser”.ADVERTISING

A man who was an altar boy in Christchurch in the early 1950s said he was groped by Harrison, who was known as Doc.

“Doc was a hard case character who liked to get you in a corner and feint boxing. During this ’bout’ it was not uncommon for him to go for your genitals,” he said.

He knew of other altar boys who told him the same thing had happened to them.

Another man now in his 80s, who grew up in Greymouth,…

This article was originally published by The Daily Hampshire Gazette.

With the Supreme Court’s reversal of Roe v. Wade, American women and girls have lost their full citizenship rights. Women, transgender men and nonbinary people who can get pregnant no longer have bodily autonomy during pregnancy, or sexual freedom. The government now controls their bodies and behaviors. Politicians can force people to carry pregnancies against their will—a form of involuntary servitude that should be prohibited by the 13th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, but which the current Supreme Court now allows.

The six right-wing Catholics on the Supreme Court reversed long-standing U.S. law as part of a campaign to establish in its place the Catholic belief that abortion at any stage of pregnancy is a sin. The original instigator of the anti-abortion movement was the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, and they remain one of its biggest funders.

Shortly after the…

A B.C. court acquitted Fr. Placidus Sander in 1993, but he admitted to a single sexual encounter with “an older seminarian” and to kissing one student twice.

Vancouver’s Roman Catholic Archdiocese has added another name to its reportedly sexually abusive priests list.

On June 30, the diocese released an update on its activities to combat priest sexual abuse in which it released Father Placidus Sander’s name.

Sander, who was born in Oregon in 1927 and ordained in 1952, occupied several positions at Mission’s Christ the King Seminary between 1954 and 1988. He died in 2021.

He was acquitted in a sexual assault case in 1993 but remains the subject of current accusations in civil suits brought against him and others.

The diocese’s abuse report notes that the papal nuncio — or the pope’s ambassador to Canada, received an anonymous letter in May of 1987 signed by “Former Seminarians.” The anonymous note…

In appointing him to a parish, Bishop William Callahan of La Crosse, Wisconsin, disclosed little about the priest’s alleged use of the Grindr ‘hook-up’ app, what treatment he might have received or what safeguards have been put into place.

A decision to restore Msgr. Jeffrey Burrill to active ministry in his home diocese in Wisconsin, less than a year after a scandal involving his alleged use of the “hook-up” app Grindr, has raised questions about the prudence of the move and the way in which it was implemented. 

Bishop William Callahan of La Crosse told members of St. Teresa of Kolkata parish June 11-12 that Msgr. Burrill would be their new parochial administrator. He further expressed confidence in his ability to accompany them in their journey toward Christ.

However, although he said in a brief statement published on the parish website that Msgr. Burrill had most recently served the U.S. Conference…

Benedict’s exit changed expectations that the papacy would always be a lifetime assignment, fueling speculation the current pope has tried to push away.

Over the last few weeks, close watchers of the Roman Catholic Church have carefully studied shadows on the Vatican walls for proof that Pope Francis is about to retire.

They pointed at an unexpected move to create new cardinals in August as a sign that Francis, 85, was stacking the college that will pick his successor before an early exit. They read deep into his planned visit to an Italian town with a connection to a medieval pope who called it quits. They saw the pope’s use of a wheelchair and his cancellation of a trip to Africa as evidence of his papacy’s premature ending, despite Vatican explanations about a healing right knee.

But in an interview published on Monday, Francis dispelled the rumors, calling the supposed…

Polscy biskupi, którzy przed laty tuszowali przypadki pedofilii w Kościele, mogą zostać postawieni przed sądem – orzekł w piątek Sąd Najwyższy. Chodzi o interpretację art. 240 Kodeksu karnego, który od lipca 2017 r. nakazuje wszystkim obywatelom informować śledczych o podobnych przestępstwach. Stanowisko SN jest przełomowe, bo do tej pory prokuratorzy z reguły unikali wszczynania śledztw w stosunku do hierarchów.

• Do polskich prokuratur trafiło już co najmniej kilkadziesiąt zawiadomień dot. możliwego popełnienia przestępstwa przez hierarchów kościelnych. Śledczy do tej pory z reguły odmawiali wszczęcia postępowania
• Niepodejmowanie tych spraw zalecała im Prokuratura Krajowa, uważając, że nie można rozliczać biskupów, którzy wiedzę o pedofilii nabyli przed karnym obowiązkiem denuncjacji, czyli przed 13 lipca 2017 r.
• Wątpliwości w tej sprawie rozwiewa piątkowa uchwała Sądu Najwyższego, której interpretacja idzie wbrew wykładni prokuratury
• Przez lata nasze społeczeństwo żyło w przeświadczeniu, że osoba duchowna nie może podlegać odpowiedzialności karnej. Otóż okazuje się, że może – uważa przewodniczący Komisji ds….

Poland’s Supreme Court has ruled that a person can be held criminally liable for failing to report cases of child sexual abuse even if they occurred before July 2017, when a law making it obligatory to inform the authorities of such crimes came into force.

The state commission on sexual crimes against minors has hailed the “landmark ruling” as a boost for victims of abuse seeking justice. One liberal media outlet, meanwhile, describes it as “bad news for bishops”, some of whom have been accused of covering up cases of abuse within Poland’s Catholic church.

On Friday, the Supreme Court issued a response to questions submitted by lower courts in the cities of Kalisz and Wrocław, who asked if people could be held legally responsible for failing to report cases of child sex abuse that took place before the 2017 change in the law, reports the Polish Press Agency (PAP).

The…

Analysis

In Liechtenstein, a country smaller than Washington, D.C., the Catholic Church is going through a moment of serious upheaval – with real questions about whether or not its entire structure might be folded back into the Swiss diocese to which it once belonged. 

The local archdiocese has been embroiled in controversy over the global synodal process, Church-state relations, and clerical abuse allegations.

Those topics are relevant to the entire Church — That’s why it’s worth digging into what’s happening in Liechtenstein.

A singular nation

Many people have heard of Liechtenstein, but perhaps only a small percentage could place it on a world map.  The German-speaking country, officially known as the Principality of Liechtenstein and founded in 1719, covers just 62 square miles and has a population of around 38,000 people, 73% of whom are Catholic. 

The wealthy tax haven has the distinction of being “doubly landlocked,” meaning that its neighboring…

Solicitors for alleged victims criticise organisation for fighting cases ‘tooth and nail’

Scouting Ireland has been accused of trying to rely on a “legal technicality” to avoid paying compensation to survivors of historical child sexual abuse in its legacy scouting bodies.

Recent legal filings responding to claims taken by alleged victims of child sex abuse argue that the High Court has “no jurisdiction to hear and determine” the cases due to a relatively little know clause in charities law.

A law firm representing nearly 30 alleged victims has criticised the organisation for trying to use a “legal technicality” to avoid its liability to those who were sexually abused by scout leaders in the past.

In recent filings, Sheehan & Co LPP Solicitors, which represents Scouting Ireland, state that under a 1961 law anyone seeking to sue a charity must first notify the Charities Regulator. The filings argue that as…

The pope’s ambassador to Canada won’t have to hand over records pertaining to B.C. priest sexual abuse allegations unless he agrees to a request from the defendants in the case, B.C. Supreme Court ruled July 4.

A man who alleges he was sexually abused by Mission Roman Catholic priests and a seminary employee may not get relevant records in possession of the pope’s envoy to Canada — but there’s a chance he could get them from the defendants.

Mark O’Neill is seeking damages for sexual abuse he alleges he suffered as a teen during his time at a Mission Roman Catholic seminary from 1974 to 1978. He was 13- to 17-years-old at the time.

The defendants listed in the suit are the Seminary of Christ the King; Westminster Abbey Ltd.; the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Vancouver, a Corporation Sole; Emerick Lazar; Harold Vincent Sander, a.k.a. Dom Placidus…

As a teenager, the victim was subjected to attacks at a Scottish priest college.

Scotland’s Catholic Bishops’ Conference has been ordered to pay more than £450,000 to a former priest who was sexually abused while at a school for boys wanting to enter the clergy.

While a teenager in the 1970s, the ex-priest suffered “vile” child abuse at the hands of the “spiritual director” of a Scottish seminary.

Between the ages of 14 and 16 years old, he was assaulted in his dormitory bed two or three times a month.

At the age of 18, he left the college and attended a seminary in Rome and was later ordained as a Roman Catholic priest in Scotland.

In 1996, his abuser was convicted and sentenced for separate unrelated offences.

For many years, the victim carried out his role as a priest in an “effective and wellrespected” manner.

However, the trauma of…

Archbishop John C. Wester is speaking about the decision to mortgage an iconic Santa Fe cathedral to meet a settlement agreement tied to church sex abuse victims.

The action was a last resort because “we pretty much sold everything we can, including my residency,” Wester told the Santa Fe New Mexican on Thursday.

The archbishop sent letters to parishes last month informing them they would collectively need to borrow $12 million to pay for the settlements. That’s when he broke the news about the cathedral. The archdiocese has to remit $65 million by Sept. 30 and a final $10 million by March 31 of next year, Wester wrote.

Still, the decision to use the Cathedral Basilica of St. Francis of Assisi, the heart of the diocese, shocked many New Mexico Catholics. Wester believes the love for the cathedral actually was a factor in the property being accepted…

• Summary

• Unsubstantiated rumours fuelled reports of imminent resignation
• Pope laughs off rumours of cancer: “Doctors didn’t tell me”
• Trips to Moscow, Kyiv appear more likely; possibly in September
• On U.S. court decision, pope says abortion is ‘hiring a hit man’

Pope Francis has dismissed reports that he plans to resign in the near future, saying he is on track to visit Canada this month and hopes to be able to go to Moscow and Kyiv as soon as possible after that.

In an exclusive interview in his Vatican residence, Francis also denied rumours that he had cancer, joking that his doctors “didn’t tell me anything about it”, and for the first time gave details of the knee condition that has prevented him carrying out some duties.

In a 90-minute conversation on Saturday afternoon, conducted in Italian, with no aides present, the 85-year-old pontiff also repeated his condemnation of abortion following the…

ROME – In 1992, two boys attending minor seminary in Parana, in northeastern Argentina, reported that Father Justo Ilarraz, spiritual director for the seminarians, had sexually abused them.

The then-prefect of the seminary, Juan Alberto Piuggari, today archbishop of Parana, led them to the office of the then-head of the diocese, Archbishop Estanislao Esteban Karlic.

(Karlic, now 96, led the Argentine bishops’ conference between 1996 and 2002, and was created a cardinal in 2007.)

Estimates indicate that between 1984 and 1992, Ilarraz abused at least 50 children. In 1992, he confessed to having “amorous and abusive relationships with minor seminarians.”

To this day, he remains a priest, despite a 25-year prison sentence that came after his case led to the revision of the statutes of limitations for sexual abuse in Argentina.

“No one wanted to walk with us,” said Hernan Rausch, one of Ilaraz’s survivors who spoke out in a…

Around this time last year, the Washington Post printed a front-page story detailing allegations of sexual and physical abuse within the South Bend-based People of Praise and its affiliated Trinity Schools. Shortly after this, four of us mentioned in the article wrote a Viewpoint in The Tribune suggesting reforms for the group.

One year later, these reforms have not been met. Most significantly, the People of Praise have not publicly named all who have been credibly accused of abuse or concealing abuse. The public has no information about whether wrongdoers have been removed from the organization.

And earlier this month, another newspaper reported on allegations against People of Praise co-founder Kevin Ranaghan and his wife, Dorothy. The allegations came in the form of sworn affidavits, filed in the 1990s, by three women who had lived within the Ranaghan household. The allegations described what many would consider to be…

The North Alabama Conference of the United Methodist Church has agreed to pay $448,216 to help pay sexual abuse claims against the Boy Scouts of America as part of the scouting organization’s federal Chapter 11 bankruptcy settlement.

The United Methodist Church nationally agreed to pay $30 million over a three-year period as one of the largest church sponsors of Boy Scout troops.

“This is good news that we have reached a settlement,” said Lynn Hare, chancellor for the North Alabama Conference, in a report on June 23 at the conference’s annual meeting.

The North Alabama Conference, which represents 638 congregations and 118,963 church members in North Alabama, was assigned an amount as part of the plan to spread out the payments among all United Methodist conferences.

“The conference has pledged to pay that money within a year,” Hare said.

As part of its bankruptcy…

Raimundos Oki calls tests’ on child abuse victims a violation of human rights

Police in Timor-Leste have charged a journalist for allegedly violating judicial secrecy by publishing reports that question the virginity tests of some underage girls, who were sexually abused by a convicted former priest.

The Criminal Investigation Scientific Police launched an investigation against Raimundos Oki, editor-in-chief of news portal Oekusipost.com, on June 30, local media reports say. He was questioned for about an hour.

Oki came under fire for his reports which, among other things, questioned the virginity tests by the public prosecutor on inmates of the Topu Honis Shelter in Kutet, Oecusse.

Richard Daschbach, 84, a US citizen, was jailed for 12 years last December for sexually abusing young orphaned and underprivileged girls in his care at the shelter he founded in 1993.

Oki’s articles argued that the virginity tests were “forced” on…

As former pastor Bruxy Cavey appears in an Ontario court, the reckoning continues at The Meeting House.

Reeling from the arrest of their former teaching pastor, Bruxy Cavey, for sexual assault, and a growing number of sexual misconduct allegations against other previous pastors, leaders at The Meeting House are looking for ways to move forward.

“We are deeply sorry for the abuse and harm that has occurred, be it sexual, emotional, or spiritual in our church family,” Jennifer Hryniw, cochair of the board of overseers, recently told the congregation, which operates in 20 locations across Ontario. “We are deeply sorry for how many of these stories have been handled in the past. We continue to be humbled to now be the stewards of these stories.”

The Meeting House was supposed to be a humble kind of church. The Canadian Anabaptist congregation was built around movie theater venues…

A papal apology on Indigenous land in Canada is not irrelevant south of the border.

When Pope Francis visits Canada July 24-29, Oneida First Nation activist Daisee Francour and her colleagues at the U.S.-based international Indigenous nongovernmental organization Cultural Survival will be paying close attention.

“An apology for one nation, in a way it’s a win for all of our nations,” said Francour. “When I say nation, I mean that as an Indigenous community — not necessarily the nation state or colonial state.

“There’s a huge opportunity, because the Catholic Church is just such an influential institution globally. There’s a huge opportunity to leverage, influence and push nation states like the U.S. government to join this collective process for justice, toward truth and toward healing.”

Francour and her colleagues, Indigenous media across the United States and American religious orders and dioceses have been watching closely what has happened in Canada…

Criminal cases that are too old under state law could be revitalized under federal law.

The FBI has an open investigation of decades-old claims of child sexual abuse by Catholic priests, according to attorneys who confirmed several of their clients have been interviewed by federal agents in recent months.

Bill Arata, whose clients include the alleged victim of Patrick Wattigny, a Slidell priest and high school chaplain who was arrested on state child molestation charges last year, said his clients have been questioned by FBI agents.

Other attorneys representing dozens of other victims also said federal investigators have been interviewing their clients and focusing on potential violations of the Mann Act, which gives federal jurisdiction to prosecute sex crimes if a perpetrator took a victim across state lines for illicit sex, even if the alleged crime took place decades ago.

That means that allegations of crimes such…

Freshly planted pink lilies adorn the sculpture of a young Jesus on the west side of Santa Fe’s Santuario de Nuestra Señora, one of the oldest churches in the country.

The inscription at the statue’s base — ”Dejen que los niños vengan a mi,” (“Let the children come to me”) — urges the Roman Catholic faithful to encourage their children to seek the company of Christ.

The words pack an irony that cannot be ignored as the Archdiocese of Santa Fe and its parishes begin to dig their way out of debt stemming from a bankruptcy spurred by a $121.5 million settlement with 375 people who say they were sexually abused — most as children — by Roman Catholic priests.

In a letter issued last month, the archdiocese asked its churches to contribute a combined $12 million to help bridge the gap between what insurers will pay and the $75 million the…

For the first time in the history of Germany, less than half the German population registered as members of one of the two large churches: Catholic and Protestant.

New figures on church membership resignations have come as a shock to many, reported the German Catholic news agency KNA.

“The figures for 2021 show the profound crisis in which we find ourselves as the Catholic Church in Germany. There is no way to sugarcoat it,” said Bishop Georg Bätzing, president of the German bishops’ conference.

The Catholic Church counted 21.6 million members last year, according to its statistics published June 27. That corresponds to about 26 percent of the population. The Protestant, or Evangelical Church in Germany, has 19.7 million members, which corresponds to 23.5 percent. Christians in Germany remain by far the largest religious community, but the membership exodus has skyrocketed.

In Germany, church membership is registered…

The Marist Brothers and Fathers have educated prime ministers, judges, cardinals and All Blacks at their prestigious Catholic high schools. But their record of sexual abuse is horrific. Worse still was their handling of the abuse when it was exposed. In this series, The Secret History, Steve Kilgallon investigates the power, abuse and cover-ups at the heart of two highly-influential and wealthy religious groups.

This is Part 2. The remaining chapters will be published in the coming weeks.

Warning: This story may be upsetting to some.

Waiheke Island, 2002. Robbie West* isn’t in a good way. He’s taking a lot of methamphetamine and drinking heavily, but making a valiant effort to tidy his life up.

After nearly three decades, he’s realised that the recurring nightmares that keep pushing him back to drink and drugs are actually painful memories he’s been working hard to bury. Having tried police and lawyers to…

• Two of the alleged victims accused Jeremiah Lowe, 39, of molesting them when they were youngsters
• Lowe’s ex-wife, Abbey Plummer, claims he forced her to have sex with him, choked and beat her
• It comes after Lowe’s father John Lowe II, 65, was forced to step down from New Life Christian Church in Warsaw, Indiana, in May after admitting he had previously had an affair with a 16-year-old girl 
• The girl – Bobi Gephart, who is now 43 – stormed onto the stage during a service, grabbed a microphone and claimed he groomed her as a teenager, took her virginity, and sexually abused her

[PHOTO: Jeremiah Lowe, 39, has been accused of molesting two women when they were youngsters. His ex-wife has also raised claims of abuse during their turbulent marriage]

Three women have claimed they were abused by the son of an Indiana pastor who was ousted after being accused of grooming…

The Southern Baptist Convention recently released a major report, from an independent investigation by Guidestone Solutions, exposing years of sexual abuse cover-up and mishandling by its leaders.

When Southern Baptists passed resolutions responding to sexual abuse at their annual meeting June 14, I held my breath and reluctantly celebrated. I know how much these actions mean to survivors — I talk to survivors every day. I, too, am a survivor of sexual abuse at a Southern Baptist seminary in North Carolina.

Since I came forward with my story four years ago, I have continually spoken with fellow survivors and leaders of SBC institutions about necessary changes. I often felt my suggestions were not acted upon quickly enough. Even now, there is tremendous work left to be done. Yet, I am encouraged by the reforms the SBC approved.

My joy does not come without words of caution for SBC pastors and…

Marshall Blalock, pastor of First Baptist Church, Charleston, S.C., said one of the spiritual lessons he learned through serving on the Sexual Abuse Task Force was how to “think and act with more compassion.”

Blalock was one of the eight members selected by immediate-past president Ed Litton to serve on the Task Force, and was also named vice chairman.

The Task Force began their work this fall by signing a contract with independent firm Guidepost Solutions, who conducted an investigation into allegations of mishandling of sexual abuse claims by the SBC Executive Committee.

Guidepost released their full report in May, and the Task Force later released recommendations for reform based upon the findings of the report. Those recommendations were subsequently overwhelming approved by messengers at the 2022 SBC Annual Meeting in Anaheim, Calif.

Blalock said the whole experience greatly impacted his understanding regarding ministering in…

Analysis

The Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith updated this month its handbook on handling allegations of clerical sexual abuse of minors. While it harmonizes the standing guidance with revised canon law, it also highlights the distance still remaining between the Vatican’s preferred legal praxis and the methods used by U.S. dioceses.

The DDF’s update to its 2020 vademecum, or handbook, on Sacramentorum sanctitatis tutela — the special law on sexual abuse cases — is dated June 5, though the text only came into wide canonical circulation this week.

The revisions largely amount to a tidying-up exercise, reconciling 2020 policies with the new Book VI of the Code of Canon Law promulgated by Pope Francis this time last year. 

But, while the revised vademecum doesn’t offer much in the way of new guidance on how to handle accusations of clerical sexual abuse of minors, there remains a sizable gap…

Pope Pius XII was a slender, ascetic pope who dined alone most nights in the Apostolic Palace, attended by nuns, a pet canary at hand; he then spent hours writing statements and speeches during the long darkness of World War II. 

Pius’ words had repercussions he probably never imagined, a language so scripted as not to offend Adolf Hitler and Italy’s fascist dictator Benito Mussolini in the grisly buildup to World War II. The pope made no great outcry as Polish Jews were slaughtered in 1939 and Polish priests went to prison. In 1941, when Hitler invaded Russia, the pope singled out “the great courage shown in defending the bases of Christian civilization and confident hope in their triumph.”

And yet Pius knew the rotten underbelly. When a Roman military chaplain briefed him on Germans dynamiting synagogues in Ukraine and horrific Nazi massacres of Jews and Catholics,…

The Bishop of Albany is proposing an alternative plan to settle hundreds of claims of sexual abuse against the New York diocese, a proposal the bishops hopes would avoid litigation over abuse claims and a diocesan filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.

The diocese is proposing a court-approved mediation process and a fund for survivors created by the diocese, its affiliated institutions and its insurers, to compensate victims.

But Bishop Scharfenberger told The Pillar that the reason he is making the proposal, which he described as “another path forward for survivors,” isn’t to save the diocese money. Instead, he said, he hopes the mediation process could ensure all victims receive some compensation from available diocesan resources. 

“The thing, I think, that’s not been understood is that there is a limited amount of money,” the bishop told The Pillar. “I don’t want any hidden corners whereby we say we’ve got this pot over there saving…

The federal probe could pave the way for further revelations and further lawsuits against the New Orleans archdiocese.

Federal authorities are investigating alleged sex abuse of minors by New Orleans-area Catholic clergy, sometimes going back decades, on the grounds that the accused men could have violated a federal anti-sex trafficking law by crossing state lines. The investigation could provide another means for abuse victims to make their case against their abusers, and possibly file sex abuse lawsuits against Catholic dioceses and other organizations.

The FBI is probing whether accused priests can be prosecuted under various charges including the Mann Act, which bars taking anyone across state lines for illicit sex. Though some criminal claims may date back to the 1970s, the Mann Act has no statute of limitations. The Louisiana State Police is aiding the inquiry.

Federal prosecutors have used the Mann Act to help convict Ghislaine Maxwell, a leading…

The Secret History: Uncovering Marist sex abuse

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. Worse still was their handling of the abuse when it was exposed. In this series The Secret History, Steve Kilgallon investigates the power, abuse and cover-ups at the heart of two highly influential and wealthy religious groups.

This is Part 1. The remaining parts will be published over the coming weeks.

Warning: This story may be upsetting to some.

When John Wilson* was 12 years old, he was repeatedly raped and sexually abused by his school principal, Kevin Waters.

Over two years at Christchurch’s Xavier Intermediate, John was groomed, then threatened, beaten, and even burned with a cigarette lighter. He was an altar server, and Waters would trick John by summoning him to the city’s Catholic cathedral…

Ahead of America’s July 4th celebrations, Claire Cronin talks about her faith, her frustration at the lack of political action on US gun violence, and how she expects President Biden to visit Ireland soon

Claire Cronin likes to tell story of John F Kennedy, brother of Jean Kennedy Smith, the last female US ambassador to serve before her in Dublin.

During his 1963 visit, the then US president stood at a window in Deerfield, the ambassador’s Phoenix Park residence in Dublin, and looked across the park.

“The story goes that one of his aides said to him: ‘When you’re not president, what Democrat are you going to support to follow you?’ And he said: ‘I’m going to support whatever Democrat makes me ambassador to Ireland,’” she says.

Cronin (62), almost five months in her job as President Joe Biden’s envoy to Ireland, is equally taken by the view towards the…

When representatives of The Episcopal Church gather in Baltimore for the denomination’s General Convention taking place from July 8-11, they’ll be asked to consider a proposed overhaul to the church’s sexual violence prevention policy.

Currently, Episcopal canon law requires those preparing for ordination to demonstrate competencies in the “prevention of sexual misconduct.” The proposed changes would strike that requirement. Instead, ordinands would need to demonstrate the loftier-sounding, but more nebulous, ability to “form communities that understand and welcome diverse experiences of gender and sexuality, manifest safe and appropriate boundaries, and implement strategies to prevent sexual misconduct.”

The intent is to underscore “the importance of providing places for inclusion and support for those who have experienced rejection, shaming, and violence”—in particular, members of the LGBTQ+ community—which sounds like a welcome and refreshing change. 

But there’s a problem.

Gender and sexual minorities don’t just experience rejection, shaming, and violence outside Episcopal churches—they experience…