ABUSE TRACKER

In response to an explosive investigation, top Southern Baptists have released a previously secret list of hundreds of pastors and other church-affiliated personnel accused of sexual abuse.

The 205-page database was made public late Thursday. It includes more than 700 entries from cases that largely span from 2000 to 2019.

Its existence became widely known Sunday when the independent firm, Guidepost Solutions, included it in its bombshell report detailing how the Southern Baptist Convention’s Executive Committee mishandled allegations of sex abuse, stonewalled numerous survivors and prioritized protecting the SBC from liability.

Executive Committee leaders Rolland Slade and Willie McLaurin, in a joint statement, called publishing the list “an initial, but important, step towards addressing the scourge of sexual abuse and implementing reform in the Convention.”

“Each entry in this list reminds us of the devastation and destruction brought about by sexual abuse,” they said. “Our prayer is that the survivors…

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Note: This report contains graphic descriptions of sexual assault.

In an open letter to his former church, Southern Baptist Convention leader Johnny Hunt admitted to inappropriate behavior with a woman in 2010 but denied he sexually assaulted her as alleged by the woman and her husband.

The incident was highlighted in the May 22 report issued by Guidepost Solutions after its independent investigation into alleged mishandling of sexual abuse cases in the SBC. One week before the report was released, Hunt abruptly resigned as senior vice president at NAMB.

About an hour and a half after release of the Guidepost report on Sunday, Hunt issued a statement via Twitter denying the allegations of abuse: “I vigorously deny the circumstances and characterizations set forth in the Guidepost report. I have never abused anybody.”

Five days later, Hunt issued an open letter admitting to inappropriate behavior with the pastor’s wife but denying that it was a…

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For those unaware, a new and remarkable Southern Baptist Abuse Report was released this week at the Southern Baptist Convention, showcasing the denomination’s handling of sexual abuse over the past two decades. Conducted by a third-party investigator, the new Southern Baptist Abuse Report features almost 300 pages of allegations, cover-ups of reported sexual abuse cases, and an internal list of 703 people suspected of abuse.

Here are four takeaways from the shocking Southern Baptist Convention showcasing child sex abuse and cover-up scandals that burst into the public consciousness this week.

1) Institutions can do more than they claim or admit.

For at least 15 years, Baptist officials repeatedly told victims, advocates and reformers: “We can’t compile a list of child molesting clergymen” and “We can’t take action to stop abuse as a national body because all our churches are independent.” Events of the last few days prove these…

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Bombshell.

That’s how multiple media outlets described the 395-page report released Sunday (May 22) by Guidepost Solutions after a months-long investigation into how the Southern Baptist Convention’s Executive Committee responded to clergy sexual abuse allegations over the last two decades. The Houston Chronicle, whose investigative journalism in 2019 deserves credit for helping lead to this new report, explained how Guidepost documented the systemic efforts by leaders of the nation’s largest Protestant denomination to cover up sexual abuse and misconduct.

“The investigation sheds new and unprecedented light on the backroom politicking and deceit that has stymied attempts at reforms and allowed for widespread mistreatment of child sexual abuse victims,” Chronicle reporters Robert Downen and John Tedesco wrote Sunday. “And it exhaustively corroborates what many survivors have said for decades: that Southern Baptist leaders downplayed their own abuse crisis and instead prioritized shielding the SBC — and its hundreds of millions of dollars in annual donations — from…

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The report on sexual abuse by ministers of the Southern Baptist Convention, or SBC, and the failure of the denomination’s leaders to respond with Christlike concern for the victims, makes comparison with the travails of the Catholic Church all too easy to draw.

“Our investigation revealed that, for many years, a few senior [Executive Committee] leaders, along with outside counsel, largely controlled the EC’s response to these reports of abuse… and were singularly focused on avoiding liability for the SBC,” the report stated.

“In service of this goal, survivors and others who reported abuse were ignored, disbelieved, or met with the constant refrain that the SBC could take no action due to its polity regarding church autonomy — even if it meant that convicted molesters continued in ministry with no notice or warning to their current church or congregation,” it said.

Sound familiar? For years, reporters here…

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Cardinal Angelo Sodano, a controversial Vatican power broker for more than a quarter of a century who was accused of covering up one of the Catholic Church’s most notorious sex abusers, has died at the age of 94.

Sodano, who had been ill for some time and died on Friday night, was secretary of state under two popes — John Paul II and Benedict XVI — holding the number two post in the Vatican hierarchy for 16 years between 1990 and 2006.

It was widely believed that Sodano, together with John Paul’s secretary, then-Archbishop Stanislaw Dziwisz, ran the Church in the final years of the late pope’s life as his health deteriorated from Parkinson’s and other illnesses. John Paul died in 2005.

In a series of exposes in the National Catholic Reporter in 2010, author Jason Berry, a leading expert on the Church’s sex abuse crisis, wrote how Sodano blocked…

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A recent News 4 Investigation into a Jefferson County center where Catholic priests and clergy accused of sexually abusing children are living under the radar has led to a new police investigation.

The center is located in Dittmer, Missouri. It’s called the Vianney Renewal Center and is run by the Servants of the Paraclete, a Catholic religious order founded in 1947. The Servants of the Paraclete’s website claims to “provide care for priests and brothers in need.” Nothing mentions sexual abuse.

Read: Priests accused of sexual abuse living at Jefferson County treatment center

While reporting on the center, News 4 Investigates found one former clergy member, Robert Brouillette, who is listed on the national sex offender registry, as living at the Paracletes center. His name does not show up on the Missouri sex offender registry as required by law.

News 4 Investigates brought this to the…

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Native American tribal representatives are partnering with Catholic dioceses and religious congregations in uncovering vast amounts of information about the church’s role in operating residential schools that for more than a century worked to assimilate Indigenous children into white society.

Known as the Catholic Native Boarding School Accountability and Healing Project, or AHP, the effort is helping church institutions learn about their past and aiding Native American communities fill holes in their ancestral history.

The “pain of the realization of the immensity of the harms caused,” motivated Sister Susan Torgersen of Minneapolis to join the effort as a member of its coordinating team and its Religious Accompaniment Subcommittee working with religious congregations of women and men.

She said the AHP seeks to work toward accountability by Catholic institutions’ and to promote healing among both Indigenous tribes and Catholic entities.

“As church, we owe our Native brothers and sisters what it…

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German Catholic Bishop Georg Bätzing has defended his decision to promote a priest accused of sexual harassment.

The bishop of Limburg, western Germany, said on May 26 that if he was taking the decision today, he would send the case for review to a diocesan advisory board, reported CNA Deutsch, CNA’s German-language news partner.

The board did not exist at the time that Bätzing appointed the unnamed priest to the post of district dean, although the bishop knew of the allegations and was in contact with both reported victims, the “Christ und Welt” supplement of the German newspaper Die Zeit said on May 25.

The victims were identified as a trainee Protestant pastor and a Catholic employee of the Limburg diocese.

Bätzing, who has served as chairman of the German Catholic bishops’ conference since 2020, said that today he would “present the whole matter and ask…

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Anti-abuse activists on Friday demonstrated near the Vatican embassy to Italy to demand action into sexual abuse in the Italian Catholic Church, amid ongoing discussion on how such an investigation should be organised.

A small group of protesters approached the Apostolic Nunciature building, near the centre of Rome, carrying boards with pictures of men and women with blood-stained underwear. One of the protesters had a nun’s veil on her head.

They said they took inspiration from a protest staged in the Estonian capital Tallinn in April which sought to draw attention to alleged violence committed by invading Russian forces against women in Ukraine. In that protest demonstrators applied fake blood to their underwear and down their legs.

“I have unfortunately experienced paedophilia and every victim knows they cannot recover from what they have been through, but the greatest wish is that other children do not suffer what we have experienced,”…

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All eyes are on Italy’s bishops this week to see if they will finally launch a full-scale investigation into pedocriminality within the Catholic Church in their country.

Members of the Italian Episcopal Conference (CEI) gathered at a large hotel on the outskirts of Rome on Monday for a week-long plenary assembly as victims of clergy sex abuse and their supporters issued demands for an inquiry.

“We ask for the full collaboration of the Italian Church in an independent investigation, conducted by credible and objective professionals, that sheds light on the abuses committed by the clergy in Italy,” said an open letter issued by “Italy Church Too”, a group of associations created in February to give weight to these demands.

“We ask that the archives of dioceses, convents, monasteries, parishes, pastoral centers, and Catholic educational and scholastic institutions be opened and made available (and) that channels of effective collaboration be put…

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Barely had Cardinal Matteo Zuppi of Bologna, the new head of the Italian bishops’ conference and key Pope Francis ally, wrapped up a Friday press conference announcing a new study of clerical sexual abuse cases when survivors of abuse proclaimed they were “very unhappy” and declared the bishops’ initiative “useless.”

“It’s rather sad. It’s not good, we are very unhappy,” said Francesco Zanardi, an abuse survivor himself and head of Rete L’Abuso (“The Abuse Network”), Italy’s lone survivors group.

For months, both abuse survivors and advocacy groups in Italy have pressured the Italian bishops and state officials to conduct an independent national inquiry into clerical abuse going back decades, offering a comprehensive report similar to those being published in other European countries.

The previous leadership of the Italian Bishops Conference (CEI), led by Cardinal Gualtiero Bassetti, had said it was considering the proposal but would let the new officials elected during the…

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The new president of the Italian Conference of Bishops on Friday said he would launch an independent inquiry on sex abuse by Catholic clergy in Italy, but the announcement disappointed victims advocates because it will only go back 20 years.

The Italian church is coming under mountain pressure to confront its legacy of clerical sexual abuse. Cardinal Matteo Zuppi, who was appointed this week by Pope Francis, said the investigation will limit its scope to two decades in order to be “more accurate and accountable.”

Zuppi promised a report would be delivered by Nov. 18 by a panel of independent experts selected among university professors.

“We are starting from them (the victims),” Zuppi told a news conference. “It is clear that their suffering drives us, and it should stimulate us to give responses that are trustworthy and serious.”

Victims’ advocates say the initiative does not go far enough. They…

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In his first press conference since being selected as president of the Italy’s bishops’ conference, Cardinal Matteo Zuppi announced on Friday plans for a report on clerical sex abuse in the country.

“Our thoughts always go to the victims and that is the first concern,” Zuppi said on May 27.

“We need to strengthen diocesan services for minors and vulnerable people,” he said, according to ACI Stampa, CNA’s Italian-language news partner.

The cardinal announced that the report will only cover abuse in the Catholic Church in Italy from the year 2000 to 2021. He said it is due to be released on Nov. 18, 2022.

“There is a willingness peacefully and painfully to clarify, here we evaluate with accuracy … We want fair and true clarity,” Zuppi said.

The possibility of reparations for victims is an open question at this time, according to the cardinal, who said…

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[Google translation followed by original Italian text.]

The almost two-hour dialogue between Pope Francis and the Bishops opened the 76th General Assembly of the Italian Episcopal Conference in the Vatican.

The various sessions, which took place at the Hilton Rome Airport in Fiumicino (Rome) from 23 to 27 May 2022, had as their central theme: “Listening to the narratives of the people of God. The first discernment: which priorities are emerging for the Synodal Way? “.

It was attended by 223 members, 14 Bishops emeritus, the Apostolic Nuncio in Italy HE Mons. Emil Paul Tscherrig, the President of the Council of European Episcopal Conferences (CCEE) HE Mons. Gintaras Grušas, the Coordination Group of the Synodal Way and the representatives of the Synodal Way delegates from the Regional Episcopal Conferences.
In the course of the works, a trio of diocesan bishops were elected, from which the Holy Father appointed the new President…

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The Italian Bishops’ Conference on Friday presented its plan to investigate clerical abuse, but critics say it is insufficient and disappointing.

Italian bishops said on Friday that they would carry out a long-demanded investigation into clerical sexual abuse of minors and vulnerable persons, but victims and their advocates immediately said the plan fell short of what was needed.

Seeking to address the concerns about the revelations of abuse that have devastated the church worldwide, the bishops announced that they would commission a report examining cases from 2020-21, to be published in November, as well as a second report that would analyze how clerical abuse had been handled in Italy in the past two decades.

“We don’t want to evade,” Matteo Zuppi, the newly elected president of the Italian Bishops’ Conference, told reporters. “We’ll take the beating we have to take.”

Even though Rome is home to the…

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[Note from BishoAccountability.org: See the Southern Baptist Convention list and the report.]

A joint statement from Willie McLaurin and Rolland Slade:

The recently released Guidepost report revealed a list of alleged abusers compiled by a former employee of the SBC Executive Committee. This list is being made public for the first time as an initial, but important, step towards addressing the scourge of sexual abuse and implementing reform in the Convention. Each entry in this list reminds us of the devastation and destruction brought about by sexual abuse. Our prayer is that the survivors of these heinous acts find hope and healing, and that churches will utilize this list proactively to protect and care for the most vulnerable among us.

Our God invites us to do justice, love mercy and walk humbly with God. (Micah 6:8). As a network of Great Commission churches, we are commissioned to live out the Great Commandment…

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On March 8, 2022, my office received a credible allegation of inappropriate conduct by Fr. Percy Singco, MSP, Parochial Administrator of St. Patrick Parish in Weaverville. This allegation involved inappropriate conduct with an adult woman.

We take every allegation of this nature very seriously and act promptly to ensure the safety of parishioners and others with whom an accused priest may have been in contact. Accordingly, I removed Fr. Singco from ministry as of March 10, 2022, pending the outcome of an investigation into this matter.

The investigation has concluded. Fr. Singco was found to have violated diocesan policy regarding clergy conduct. He no longer has an assignment, nor does he have faculties in the Diocese of Sacramento. I have asked him to return to his order, the Missionary Society of the Philippines (MSP), effective today.

The laws of the Catholic Church and our Diocese are clear on this topic….

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They dedicated their lives to a gospel that says that every human being is made in the image of God. They dedicated their lives to a creed that commands one to look out for the marginalized, the vulnerable. The last shall be first. The meek shall inherit the earth.

And yet when allegations of sexual abuse came, the leaders of the Southern Baptist Convention betrayed it all. Those men — and they seem to have all been men — must have listened to hundreds of hours of pious sermons, read hundreds of high-minded theological books, recited thousands of hours of prayer, and yet all those true teachings and good beliefs had no effect on their actual behavior.

Instead, according to an independently produced report released by the convention this week, those leaders covered up widespread abuse in their denomination and often intimidated and belittled victims. More than 400 people believed…

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Key leaders of a controversial megachurch have resigned following a series of accusations of abuse and harassment within the organisation.

Brent and John and Gillian Cameron announced their resignations in a statement on the Arise Church website on Friday.

Lead pastors John and Gillian Cameron​ said they had listened to the stories of those who had “experienced pain” in their church, and they were repentant.

“We wish to apologise to all those who have been hurt, either by our actions or the actions of others, both past and present.”

“We are resigning to allow for real change to take place. We believe that our resignation ensures the best future for both the staff and the congregation of Arise.”

Arise Church recently launched two reviews into allegations its interns had been “overworked, overwhelmed, and taken advantage of”.

At the time, the church said on its website that an independent reviewer has been appointed to…

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“Yes, we dropped our guard—particularly in the 1970s. It was a terrible, terrible decade. And the Church deserves criticism for what happened then. But also, if we’re going to be fair about it, we have to give credit where credit is due…”

Bill Donohue, the president of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, earned a Ph.D. in Sociology from New York University. His writing, speaking engagements, and appearances on countless television and radio programs see him addressing many issues from a Catholic perspective, as well as through the lens of sociology. His recent books include Why Catholicism Matters: How Catholic Virtues Can Reshape Society in the 21st Century (Image, 2018) and Common Sense Catholicism: How to Resolve Our Cultural Crisis (Ignatius Press, 2019).

His latest book is The Truth about Clergy Sexual Abuse: Clarifying the Facts and the Causes (Ignatius Press, 2021). In it, he brings to bear his background as…

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British prosecutors said Thursday they had authorized police to charge actor Kevin Spacey with four counts of sexual assault against three men, an announcement that came as the actor was in court in New York testifying in a different case.

The Crown Prosecution Service said it had “authorized criminal charges” on the four sex assault counts and one of “causing a person to engage in penetrative sexual activity without consent.”

The alleged incidents took place in London between March 2005 and August 2008, and one in western England in April 2013. The alleged victims are now in their 30s and 40s.

Rosemary Ainslie, head of the service’s Special Crime Division, said the charges followed a review of evidence gathered by London’s Metropolitan Police.

Prosecutors initially said Spacey had been charged. However, they later clarified that charges had been authorized, but the formal charging by police had not yet taken place.

…

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A three-judge panel on Thursday upheld the sentence for a Juarez Catholic priest convicted of sexually abusing an altar girl when she was 8 years old.

The Rev. Aristeo Baca was convicted of two counts of aggravated sexual assault and one count of aggravated sexual abuse in February 2021.

In early March, the same three-judge panel sentenced Baca to 34 years in prison. He had appealed, but the judges upheld the sentence on Thursday.

The abuse took place inside the Santa Maria de la Montana parish in South Juarez between December 2015 and January 2018, the state Attorney General’s Office said.

The investigation began when the girl’s parents called the police after their daughter refused to go back to the church in early 2019. Police psychologists and medical personnel determined the girl had suffered sexual assault, the AG’s Office said in a statement.

Baca denied the charges, although prosecutors alleged…

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In 2002, for the first time, the Catholic Church’s secret sex abuse files were made public. Thousands of victims came forward, and a global movement began. Saturday, June 4 – A day of presentations, discussion, fellowship, and looking ahead.

SCROLL DOWN TO SEE SCHEDULE AND EASY REGISTRATION INSTRUCTIONS

Guest interviewers: Margery Eagan and Jim Braude of 89.7 ‘GBH’s “Boston Public Radio”

• David Clohessy, former SNAP nat’l director
• Tom Doyle, whistleblower priest
• Mitchell Garabedian, Esq.
• Professor Marci Hamilton, Child USA
• Robert Hoatson, Road to Recovery
• Ann Hagan Webb, SNAP
• Kathy Dwyer, STTOP
• Anne Barrett Doyle, BishopAccountability
• Terry McKiernan, BishopAccountability

WHEN
Saturday – June 4, 2022 – 9:00-4:00 In-person and remote (ZOOM)

WHERE
Marriott Boston-Quincy Hotel
1000 Marriott Dr, Quincy MA

• The Marriott Boston-Quincy Hotel is convenient from Logan and public transportation (Red Line).
• Free parking.
• Box lunches served to registered attendees.

Registration required for both in-person ($20) and ZOOM (free) attendees.
To register, email Ruth at mooreruth01@gmail.com.
Registration fee waived if requested.

Schedule…

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When news broke that Southern Baptist leaders had covered up sex abuse for decades I felt a numb sense of familiarity. I came of age as a Catholic against the backdrop of our own ongoing sex abuse crisis. It would be years before I would truly understand how sexual violence and the criminal conspiracies that perpetuated it had defined contemporary U.S. Catholicism.

One thing was clear quite quickly, however. The sex abuse scandal cast doubt on the moral authority of the Roman Catholic Church itself. A similar crisis of moral authority is underway for arguably the most significant white evangelical institution in the country. I say this both as a U.S. religious historian and as a Catholic who grew up in Alabama surrounded by Southern Baptists. As Russell Moore, a prominent former Southern Baptist, put it, “this is the Southern Baptist apocalypse.”

The Southern Baptist Convention, or…

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Drew Dixon spent 22 years not talking about what happened to her.

But in 2017, she joined a chorus of women giving voice for the first time to some of the worst experiences of their lives. For Ms. Dixon, that meant going public to The New York Times with a long-suppressed claim that the media mogul Russell Simmons had raped her.

The response was swift and seismic: widespread media attention, conversations on Twitter, a documentary. There was solidarity, backlash and, ultimately, a sense of peace.

But there would be no criminal case or any lawsuit against Mr. Simmons: The statute of limitations for either had long since passed during the two decades Ms. Dixon kept her silence.

But Ms. Dixon will soon have an opportunity to revisit pursuing her case.

The State Assembly on Monday overwhelmingly passed the Adult Survivors Act, which enables adult victims, those 18 or older…

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Former Ward at St. Dominic’s Children’s Home Recalls Ordeal of Being Raped at 9 Years Old

A man who was sexually abused over 25 years ago, when he was about nine years old, wants the “sexual monster” to be brought to justice.

The man who shared his heart-­wrenching experience with the Express yesterday said he is willing to tell all to the police, in the hope that the abuser, who sexually abused 30 to 40 children at the home, is finally held accountable for the crimes he committed which left him and many others shattered and traumatised for life.

The victim provided a detailed account of the horror he endured at the hands of the man, including being fondled by a priest who was aware that he was abused , and a Sister at the home who burnt all the kitchen towels after learning the perpetrator used these to clean…

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Lawyers for people who say they were victimized by child sexual abuse from clergy in the Rochester Catholic Diocese are unhappy with an attempt by the diocese to settle those claims in U.S. Bankruptcy Court.

Attorney Jeff Anderson, who is one of the lawyers representing 175 of those who are claimants in the lawsuits, said that the diocese is trying to force a $147 million dollar settlement on 475 survivors and victims of clergy sexual abuse.

Anderson does not feel that is a particularly generous offer. He contends that that the Diocese has billions of dollars in insurance coverage. He called it, “an effort to cheat survivors that will retraumatize them.”

Another attorney representing those involved in the lawsuits, Mitchell Garabedian, said the amount of money being offered is tied to the respect that should be shown for the survivors of childhood sexual abuse.

“Survivors need validation and they need…

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Safety was not a concern when her son became an altar server at St. Peter’s Roman Catholic Church in Poughkeepsie.

In her mind, the church was a place where the 15-year-old would be guided spiritually and emotionally.

When the Rev. James Garisto took a special interest in her son, she hoped he would be a positive influence.

That was 2006. In the years since, the mother watched as her son fell down what she called a “horrific path” that included a 10-year battle with drug addiction that nearly led to the end of his life on more than one occasion.

The root of that trauma, the family says, is sexual abuse suffered through the relationship with Garisto, of which they say the church was aware.

Garisto served as priest at St. Peter’s from 1998 to 2014.

He was taken into custody on May 4 by Philadelphia police based on allegations…

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If you pay only minimal attention to news outlets, you know the story of the week is the Southern Baptist Convention’s stunning cover up of clergy sexual abuse. The glaring headlines of Christianity Today, The Washington Post and The New York Times are hard to miss, especially if you have been on social media. Baptist News Global has provided extensive coverage of the unfolding story.

While I have much to say about the horrifying revelations that have come to light, a story that needs to be told is that the 300-page report released by Guidestone Solutions can be directly traced to courageous, tenacious women; women who reported their own abuse; women who advocated for those who had been abused; women who stood strong in defiance of powerful Southern Baptist leaders; women who fought, some for years, against a corrupt system; women who were called names, slandered, ridiculed and threatened but who did not back down…

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The Diocese of Rochester, New York, and its insurers have submitted a proposal to bankruptcy court to settle 471 sexual abuse claims against them for $147 million. The settlement includes $107,750,000 from insurers and $40,500,000 from the Catholic diocese and its entities.

The offer came after years of negotiations between insurers and the diocese.

The settling insurers include London Market Insurers ($16.6 million), certain Underwriters at Lloyd’s ($1.1 million), Interstate Fire & Casualty Co. and National Surety Corp. ($26 million), and Continental Insurance Co. (CNA) and its affiliates ($63.5 million). The liability insurance policies affected were purchased starting in 1943.

The offer would allow for an average recovery of more than $300,000 per survivor claim, according to the filing.

Lawyers for the victims of sexual abuse criticized the proposal as a deal made with insurers that shortchanges the victims. Jeff Anderson & Associates, a law firm that represents survivors of…

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The Roman Catholic Diocese of Rochester has put forward a $147.75 million offer to settle claims filed by 475 sexual-abuse survivors in the diocese’s Chapter 11 bankruptcy.

Whether the nine-figure offer will bring a quick end to the long-stalled bankruptcy at this point seems far from certain. The offer was outlined in a filing posted with the Rochester Bankruptcy Court late Friday afternoon.

In court papers, the diocese portrays the offer as a deal that would best serve the abuse victims “by achieving certainty with respect to a very substantial insurance contribution rather than risking the cost, extensive delay, and uncertain outcome of litigation in pursuit of the theoretical possibility of a larger recovery at some point in the distant future.”

The Rochester diocese filed bankruptcy in September 2019, roughly a month after the New York Child Victims Act went into effect. 

Signed into law in February of that year, the…

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An independent investigation commissioned by the Southern Baptist Convention, the largest Protestant denomination in America, showed that sexual abuse allegations were ignored or covered up by church elders for nearly 20 years.

That scathing report named Steve Gaines, the senior pastor at Bellevue Baptist Church, as one of the SBC leaders who “protected or even supported abusers.”

SBC leadership called for this investigation at last year’s annual convention. Guidepost Solutions took seven months to complete its investigation, looking at incidents between January 1, 2000 and June 14, 2021.

The nearly 300-page report concluded, “to survivors, the 2016 election of Steve Gaines as SBC President conveyed the message that a clergy sex abuse cover-up was considered ‘no big deal.’”

It was a stunning remark about Gaines, spiritual leader of one of the largest churches in the Mid-South: Bellevue Baptist in Cordova, 30,000 members…

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The Southern Baptist Convention’s Executive Committee — and thousands of its rank-and-file members — now have opportunities to address a scathing investigative report that says top SBC leaders stonewalled and denigrated survivors of clergy sex abuse over two decades while seeking to protect their own reputations.

The report, issued Sunday, says these survivors, and other concerned Southern Baptists, repeatedly shared allegations with the Executive Committee, “only to be met, time and time again, with resistance, stonewalling, and even outright hostility from some within the EC.”

The seven-month investigation was conducted by Guidepost Solutions, an independent firm contracted by the Executive Committee after delegates to last year’s national meeting pressed for a probe by outsiders.

Since then, several top Executive Committee leaders have resigned, and the body — under interim leadership — will meet Tuesday to discuss the report. Three weeks later, the SBC will convene its 2022 national meeting in…

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Top Southern Baptists plan to release secret list of pastors, church-affiliated personnel accused of sexual abuse

Top administrative leaders for the Southern Baptist Convention, the largest Protestant denomination in America, said Tuesday that they will release a secret list of hundreds of pastors and other church-affiliated personnel accused of sexual abuse.

An attorney for the SBC’s Executive Committee announced the decision during a virtual meeting called in response to a scathing investigative report detailing how the committee mishandled allegations of sex abuse and stonewalled numerous survivors. The committee anticipates releasing the list Thursday.

During the meeting, top leaders and several committee members vowed to work toward changing the culture of the denomination and to listen more attentively to survivors’ voices and stories.

The report is expected to contain new details about former Jacksonville Pastor Darrell Gilyard. He was a pastor at Shiloh Metropolitan Baptist Church…

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In the summer of 2010, a pastor and his wife at First Baptist Church in Woodstock, Georgia, said they received an invite to vacation in Florida with Johnny Hunt, a senior pastor of their church whom they considered a mentor.

The 55-year-old church leader had been elected national president of the Southern Baptist Convention two years earlier, making him one of the most powerful members of the largest denomination of Protestants in the U.S.

Hunt allegedly helped to book them a place in Panama City Beach that, unbeknownst to them, was directly beside his unit in the same condo complex, the unnamed young couple said in a 288-page blockbuster investigative report released Sunday by the Southern Baptist Convention. When the pastor’s wife arrived alone after a day out, she said she was greeted by Hunt, and they interacted from their respective balconies.

But when she invited…

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Top administrative leaders for the Southern Baptist Convention, the largest Protestant denomination in America, said Tuesday that they will release a secret list of hundreds of pastors and other church-affiliated personnel accused of sexual abuse.

An attorney for the SBC’s Executive Committee announced the decision during a virtual meeting called in response to a scathing investigative report detailing how the committee mishandled allegations of sex abuse and stonewalled numerous survivors. The committee anticipates releasing the list Thursday.

During the meeting, top leaders and several committee members vowed to work toward changing the culture of the denomination and to listen more attentively to survivors’ voices and stories.

The 288-page report by Guidepost Solutions, which was released Sunday after a seven-month investigation, contained several explosive revelations. Among those were details of how D. August Boto, the Executive Committee’s former vice president and general counsel, and former SBC spokesman Roger Oldham kept their…

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A first-of-its-kind U.S. government investigation is helping to reveal the deadly and commonplace brutality of the former Native American “boarding school” system, a 150-year program of separating children from their families that was part of a federal policy to eradicate Native communities’ identity and forcibly take indigenous lands.

The Interior Department’s study follows decades of calls by advocates for the government to acknowledge and address the harms caused by the boarding schools, and represents the first official attempt to confront a system of racist dehumanization that resulted in cultural genocide and the deaths of possibly tens of thousands of children.

The department’s report and initiative holds particular significance as an official acknowledgement by the U.S. government of its role in creating and perpetuating a system aimed at eliminating entire cultures and peoples.

Still, the agency’s power to address past and ongoing harms is limited, and advocates and indigenous…

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A trip to the Goodhue County Historical Society’s basement in Red Wing is a trip back to a complex and complicated time in United States history. And right now, the traveling display the organization spent years trying to secure is once again a topic of national conversation.

READ MORE: Interior Dept. Investigation Identifies 21 Federal Indian Boarding School Sites In Minnesota

Titled “Away From Home: American Indian Boarding School Stories,” the display on loan from Arizona’s Heard Museum details the decades Native American children spent in federally run boarding schools across the country through artifacts and first-person testimony.

“This is definitely a conversation that needs to be had,” said Collections Curator Afton Esson. “It’s one of those topics that’s powerful and emotional and having it right now is the perfect time to share this topic with the community.”

The perfect time, perhaps, because…

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Pope Francis on Tuesday named a bishop in his own image, Cardinal Matteo Zuppi, as the new head of the Italian bishops conference, as the Italian Catholic Church comes under mounting pressure to confront its legacy of clerical sexual abuse with an independent inquiry.

Francis’ widely expected choice was announced during the second day of the spring meeting of the conference. Zuppi, 66, is currently the archbishop of Bologna and has long been affiliated with the Sant’Egidio Community, a Catholic charity particularly close to Francis.

The Italian Catholic Church is one of the few in western Europe that has not opened its archives to independent researchers to establish the scope of abuse and cover-up in recent decades. Whether by government mandate, parliamentary investigation or church initiation, such reports in Ireland, Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany and France, for example, have shown systematic problems that allowed thousands of children to be abused…

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A collective of abuse survivors and advocacy groups have published an open letter to the Italian bishops, who are meeting to elect new leadership, calling for the adoption of several measures aimed at acknowledging the problem and prevention.

“Abuses perpetrated within the Church affects people in their bodies, in their lives, in their conscience: they are violations of human rights. If the Church does not respect human rights, it cannot preach the Gospel,” the letter said.

This, it said, is why “obedience to the Gospel can push us to ‘disobedience’ whenever in the name of ‘prudence’ we risk becoming accomplices to crimes.”

The nearly 50 signatories of the letter asked the bishops to obtain “truth and justice for the victims of abuse – minors, adults, vulnerable people, religious – perpetrated by people in various capacities involved in the Church, as well as preventive measures so that the Church regains credibility…

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Three years ago, as the Catholic Church faced an unprecedented reckoning with clergy sexual abuse, Pope Francis introduced a church law that promised to hold bishops and religious superiors accountable for abuse that they commit or cover up.

Entitled Vos Estis Lux Mundi (“You Are the Light of the World”), the law was touted by papal spokesmen as a turning point in the fight to end child sexual abuse in the Catholic Church.

It’s “revolutionary,” said Chicago Cardinal Blase Cupich.

“The silence, omertà and cover-ups can now become a thing of the past,” said Maltese Archbishop Charles Scicluna, the pope’s trusted abuse investigator.

Vos Estis, a motu proprio that was signed on May 9, 2019, was originally enacted for a three-year trial period that ends this June 1. As we wait to see if Francis will now make the law permanent, it is a good time to assess…

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[See also the Robles v. Holy See decision.]

The Vatican is using a New York court’s recent decision to bolster its push for the dismissal of a Guam case that seeks to hold the Holy See responsible for former Guam Archbishop Anthony Apuron’s alleged sexual assault of a child.

California-based attorney Jeffrey Lena said the New York court “supports dismissal with prejudice of all claims against the Holy See.”

Lena, whom the Vatican relies upon for defense in lawsuits on U.S. soil, on Friday filed in the U.S. District Court of Guam a supplemental brief in support of their July 2021 motion to dismiss for lack of jurisdiction, insufficient service of process and failure to state a claim. 

The Vatican claims immunity under U.S. law, the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act of 1976, which allows foreign states to avoid being sued in court.

The District Court of Southern New York,…

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[See also our PDF of this letter.]

To: Honorable Brian Schatz, Chairman, Senate Committee on Indian Affairs and Honorable Lisa Murkowski, Vice Chairman, Senate Committee on Indian Affairs

Dear Chairman Schatz and Vice Chairman Murkowski:

We respectfully request that the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs hold a hearing on S. 2907, the Truth and Healing Commission on Indian Boarding School Policies in the United States Act. This bill would establish a formal commission to investigate, document, and acknowledge past injustices of the federal government’s Indian Boarding School Policies, including attempts to terminate Native cultures, religions, and languages; assimilation practices; and human rights violations. The commission would also develop recommendations for Congress to aid in healing of the historical and intergenerational trauma passed down in Native families and communities and provide a forum for victims to speak about personal experiences tied to these human rights violations.

We are grateful that…

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Oregon Senators Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley have joined other lawmakers in calling for the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs to hold hearings on a bill that would establish a truth and reconciliation commission on Indian boarding school policies.

In a letter signed by 17 other Senators, lawmakers asked Chairman of the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii) and Vice-Chairman Murkowski (R -Alaska) to schedule a hearing to consider Senate Bill 2907 at its earliest convenience.

The bill, S. 2907, is known as the Truth and Healing Commission on Indian Boarding School Policies in the United States Act and was introduced by Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Massachusetts) last September on the same day Murkowski introduced a formal resolution to designate the day, Sept. 30, as a National Day of Remembrance for Indian Boarding Schools.

The bill would establish a formal commission to investigate, document, and acknowledge past injustices of…

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[Includes video of the confrontation at New Life Christian Church and World Outreach in Warsaw IN.]

Prosecutors in Indiana are now investigating after a woman took the stage to confront the pastor. “The lies and the manipulation have to stop,” she told him.

A church pastor in Indiana publicly confessed to his congregation this week that he’d committed “adultery” two decades ago—but he was quickly called out by a woman who took the stage to say she had only been 16 when he preyed on her.

The public confrontation that played out Sunday at the New Life Christian Church and World Outreach in Warsaw has now sparked an investigation by local prosecutors in Kosciusko County, according to local reports.

Video of the incident shot by an attendee quickly went viral on Facebook, where commentators applauded the woman for coming forward.

The footage shows the pastor, John Lowe II, announce his…

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The Catholic diocese of Kalisz has been ordered by a court to pay 300,000 zloty (€65,000) to a man who was abused as a child by one of its priests.

The case is one of a number relating to sexual abuse in Poland’s Catholic church that have come to light in recent years. It has drawn particular attention because the victim, Bartłomiej Pankowiak, and his brother Jakub, who was also abused, confronted the priest in a documentary film broadcast in 2020 (pictured above).

“Jakub and Bartłomiej Pankowiak will forever remain synonymous with the fight for their own and other people’s dignity, as well as for being the initiators of systemic changes within the church…[regarding] sexual abuse against children,” said judge Arleta Konieczna, quoted by the Polish Press Agency (PAP).

In her ruling today at Kalisz district court on a civil action brought by Bartłomiej, she ordered the diocese to pay…

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More than two years ago, a group of sexual abuse survivors in New York agreed to suspend their litigation under the Child Victims Act. The Diocese of Rochester, in turn, indicated that they could resolve their claims in a settlement through a bankruptcy settlement.

On Monday, a federal bankruptcy judge granted survivors to resume their previously paused actions against hundreds of independent Catholic corporations that did not seek bankruptcy protection. His scathing ruling slammed what the judge perceived as the Diocese’s hardball tactics.

“Portraying itself as a victim, trying to do right by the Abuse Survivors, the Diocese predicts that if state court litigation is permitted to move forward against any of the Catholic Corporations, ‘the Diocese may be forced to pursue a non-consensual plan of reorganization,’” U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Paul R. Warren wrote in a 16-page decision and order. “That is a pretty heavy-handed threat to be leveled at the people who…

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As his mother neared death, Brendan Higgins called a priest he respected to administer last rites. The Rev. Philip Postell did the job with care and compassion, Higgins recalled.

Higgins’ recollections of that priest, preparing his mother to meet her God in 2019, were shattered last year when he discovered Postell shuffled priests across parishes amid child sex abuse allegations. Moving priests accused of sexual abuse was a common practice in the Catholic Church.

Postell’s involvement in keeping sex abuse claims quiet occurred before he led Jesuit College Preparatory School in Dallas beginning in 1992. Nevertheless, the school removed the priest’s name from its athletic stadium after a lawsuit brought by Higgins and eight other men shed light on Postell.

Some victims say this is a step toward healing.

The 15-member school board voted April 19 to remove Postell’s name…

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In September 2021, a 3-year-old was killed during an exorcism in a small Pentecostal church in San Jose, California. The child’s throat was allegedly squeezed and her head held down during the ceremony, which likely asphyxiated her. In May 2022, three members of the victim’s family were charged with felony child abuse.

Several famous deaths have occurred during exorcism rituals in the past. In 1976, Anneliese Michel of Germany died of dehydration and malnutrition after nearly 10 months of Catholic exorcisms. In 2005, Maricica Irina Cornici, a Romanian Orthodox nun, died in an ambulance following an exorcism in which she was chained to a cross.

While exorcism is practiced in the majority of the world’s cultures, in the Western imagination it is most associated with Catholicism. That association has been either an asset or a liability to the church at various periods throughout history.

For most of the 20th century, exorcism was…

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In California, the lawsuits are mounting — middle-aged men, saying they were sexually assaulted as children by a Boy Scout leader or a priest. A woman, now in her late 30s, detailing how she was allegedly assaulted in a center for foster children. A man who said he was abused while volunteering with the Salvation Army.

At least 750 of those lawsuits filed since January 2020 are against Catholic dioceses, and more than 800 people are in the process of filing to beat a Dec. 31 deadline, according to lawyers involved in the cases.

The year-end date marks the close of the state’s three-year “lookback window,” which allows plaintiffs to file civil suits for childhood sexual abuse no matter how long ago the alleged events took place.

Now, facing hundreds of lawsuits, a group of Catholic bishops is taking those challenges to the nation’s highest court. Saying they faced “potentially…

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The Diocese of St. Cloud is hosting two listening sessions after another priest has been added to the list of clergy likely to have abused minors.

Rev. Arthur Hoppe was added to the list earlier in May. He served in nine parishes in the Diocese of St. Cloud over the course of almost 50 years, from 1950 to 1999. He retired in 1999 and died in 2019, according to a press release from the diocese.

The listening sessions are being held at St. Louis Parish in Paynesville and St. Mary Parish in Alexandria. Both sessions start at 6:30 p.m. Tuesday.

These sessions are for parishioners of the diocese where Hoppe served. These parishes include:

• Assumption in Morris (1947-1950)
• St. Mary’s Cathedral in St. Cloud (1950-1955)
• St. Patrick in Minden Township (1955-1958)
• St. Nicholas in Belle River (1958-1961)
• St. John Nepomuk in Lastrup (1961-1965)
• St. Louis in Paynesville (1965-1971)
• St. Mary in Alexandria (1971-1983)
• St. Wendelin in Luxemburg…

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Last month, scholars from all over the world met to discuss projects related to the clergy sexual abuse as part of Fordham University’s “Taking Responsibility” initiative. Some attendees disclosed their abuse by Jesuit priests, adding a palpable solemnity to the larger, systemic issues that make up the Catholic sexual abuse crisis. These stories also laid the backdrop for how important it was to research and answer exactly how Jesuit institutions can “take responsibility.”

I attended the conference as a consultant for a project focused on youth empowerment. As a professional sexologist, I study the intersection of Catholic sexual theology and the growing field of human sexuality studies. I am also a Catholic scholar formed by Jesuits.

The conference is part of a larger, grant-funded initiative in which “Jesuit Educational Institutions Confront the Causes and Legacy of Clergy Sexual Abuse,” as the project’s tagline says. The event was thoughtful, raw and…

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[Includes a substantially different audio version of this report; see the transcript below.]

The Interior Department found that the U.S. operated or actively supported more than 400 American Indian boarding schools between 1819 and 1969 – a history that affects the agency’s own leader.

Secretary Deb Haaland, the first Native American to serve as a Cabinet secretary, tells NPR’s All Things Considered that she had grandparents who were taken from their homes and placed in these schools.

“[Those are] formidable years in a child’s life,” she says. “It’s devastating. It’s important that our country realizes and understands this history because I think it’s important for every single American to know what happened.”

The department’s findings came after an investigation into these schools and the role the federal government played in sustaining them.

Much like in Canada, Native children who attended these schools were forcibly taken from their families to be “assimilated,” as it…

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[With video]

For the first time, the U.S. government released a report this month detailing the abuse and mistreatment of Native children who were forcibly sent to boarding schools in the 1800s. NewsHour’s St Louis community reporter Gabrielle Hays, who has been reporting on one school in Missouri that fits into this painful history, joins Geoff Bennett to discuss what she uncovered.

Geoff Bennett: For the first time, the U.S. government released a report this month detailing the abuse and mistreatment of native children who were forcibly sent to boarding schools in the 1800s. Our St. Louis Community reporter, Gabrielle Hays has been reporting on one school in Missouri, that fits into this painful history. And Gabrielle joins us now. So tell us more about this boarding school, the St. Regis Seminary opened in 1824. What did your reporting uncover?

Gabrielle Hays: Yeah, so we learned at this school,…

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I joined the staff of the now-closed Offaly Express in 1988 but did not begin to cover law courts in earnest until 1995, following the retirement of the late Eddie Rogers.

That period coincided approximately with the first cases relating to child sexual abuse. From 1994 onwards, local and national media found themselves having to cover such cases as they began to come to light to a greater degree.

That year saw the revelations of the Brendan Smyth saga, which was to lead to the downfall of the Fianna Fáil/Labour coalition in a dispute over warrants for the Norbertine’s extradition to Northern Ireland.

It was the first high profile case involving a member of the clergy, with many more to follow, causing enormous damage to the moral standing of the Catholic Church, as outlined here.

It is, of course, true, that paedophiles are a minority of clergy, and that most…

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In June 2020, protesters at the University of Oregon in Eugene toppled a statue called The Pioneer, which depicted a White man with a gun slung over his shoulder and a whip in his hand, and a second sculpture titled The Pioneer Mother.

Both monuments had drawn criticism from Indigenous student groups and historians for commemorating settler violence in the West.

Even as Southern states face a reckoning over Confederate monuments, communities in the Western United States are beginning to reconsider monuments that, in many locations, celebrate what dominant American culture has portrayed as the conquering of the region by Europeans.

Among them are hundreds of pioneer monuments, many of which celebrate White dominance over Indigenous people as the nation expanded west. Some were toppled or damaged during the racial justice protests following the murder of George Floyd.

In Portland, protesters pulled down or damaged five statues in the summer and…

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For 20 years, leaders of the Southern Baptist Convention — including a former president now accused of sexual assault — routinely silenced and disparaged sexual abuse survivors, ignored calls for policies to stop predators, and dismissed reforms that they privately said could protect children but might cost the SBC money if abuse victims later sued.

Those are just a few findings of a bombshell, third-party investigation into decades of alleged misconduct by Southern Baptist leaders that was released Sunday, nearly a year after 15,000 SBC church delegates demanded their executive committee turn over confidential documents and communications as part of an independent review of abuse reports that were purportedly mishandled or concealed since 2000.

The historic, nearly 400-page report details how a small, insular and influential group of leaders “singularly focused on avoiding liability for the SBC to the exclusion of other considerations” to prevent abuse. The report was published by Guidepost…

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Among the findings was a previously unknown case of a pastor who was credibly accused of assaulting a woman a month after leaving the presidency of the Southern Baptist Convention

Leaders in the Southern Baptist Convention on Sunday released a major third-party investigation that found that sex abuse survivors were often ignored, minimized and “even vilified” by top clergy in the nation’s largest Protestant denomination.

The findings of nearly 300 pages include shocking new details about specific abuse cases and shine a light on how denominational leaders for decades actively resisted calls for abuse prevention and reform. Evidence in the report suggests leaders also lied to Southern Baptists over whether they could maintain a database of offenders to prevent more abuse when top leaders were secretly keeping a private list for years.

The report — the first investigation of its kind in a massive Protestant denomination like the…

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National executives of the nation’s largest Protestant denomination ignored victims, resisted reforms and were mainly concerned with avoiding ‘potential liability,’ the third-party investigation says.

National leaders of the Southern Baptist Convention suppressed reports of sexual abuse and resisted proposals for reform over the course of two decades, according to a third-party investigation published by the convention Sunday. The report also said that a former president of the denomination was accused of sexually assaulting a woman in 2010, an accusation the report described as “credible.”

Sexual abuse allegations, and the church’s handling of them, have roiled the convention for years. After mounting pressure from survivors of sexual abuse in Southern Baptist settings, delegates at the denomination’s annual meeting last summer voted overwhelmingly to commission the report, and demanded that its 86-member executive committee hand over confidential documents in cooperation. The report covers abuse reports from women and children against male pastors, church…

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For decades, complaints of sex abuse by pastors and staff in the largest U.S. Protestant denomination, the Southern Baptist Convention, were either ignored or covered up by top clergy, according to an internal report released on Sunday.

The nearly 300-page report details how complaints were kept as “closely guarded secrets” within the church to avoid liability, “to exclusion of all other considerations,” it said.Report ad

“In service to this goal, survivors and others who reported abuse were ignored, disbelieved,” the report said, with church leaders covering up accusations and allowing accused clergy members to remain pastors or in other positions of authority.

Lawsuits against the church were denigrated as “opportunistic” and not having merit, it said.

The year-long investigation was initiated by the Southern Baptist Convention in June 2021, when a stream of complaints were raised at its annual meeting. The complaints focused on sexual abuse by pastors and volunteers…

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A blockbuster report found that SBC lawyers worked for years to protect the institution and demonized abuse survivors and accused a prominent pastor of abusing a colleague’s wife.

For decades, a handful of leaders in the nation’s largest Protestant denomination treated sexual abuse survivors as enemies of the church, denied responsibility for the actions of local churches and downplayed the number of sexual abuse cases in those churches, all in the name of protecting the institution, according to a report released Sunday (May 22).

The report, conducted by a third-party investigations firm, Guidepost Solutions, and made public by the Southern Baptist Convention’s sex abuse task force, reveals a callous disregard for abuse survivors and a relentless commitment to protecting the denomination from liability. 

Guidepost Solutions found that SBC leaders were well aware of abuse cases in the church and even compiled a list of offenders but took no steps to find…

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HEAD of the Special Victims Department of the TT Police Service, Snr Supt Claire Guy-Alleyne has revealed that victims identified in the 1997 Robert Sabga report into the quality of care at children’s homes throughout TT have begun coming forward.

The Sabga report is a 25-year-old document which uncovered cases of sexual, psychological and emotional abuse of children at some nine children’s homes throughout the country.

The report was produced after the outcome of an investigation by a special task force in 1997.

In a Newsday interview on Thursday, Guy-Alleyne appealed to victims to come forward to help build a case against their abusers.

She said the victims’ account of their experiences in the children’s homes were critical in addressing the child abuse highlighted in the Sabga report.

On that occasion, Guy-Alleyne said most of the offences contained in the report are indictable and as such, there is no statutory…

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Survivors of sexual abuse within the Catholic Church will have the opportunity to share their experiences and receive support at several listening sessions in central Minnesota this week.

The Diocese of St. Cloud will be holding two listening sessions on Tuesday regarding Father Arthur Hoppe. Following an allegation of sexual misconduct involving Hoppe, Bishop Donald Kettler added his name to the list of more than 40 clergy members who have been identified by the diocese as likely to have abused minors.

Hoppe served in the diocese from 1947 until 1999 in multiple places including Morris, St. Cloud, Alexandria, Paynesville, and Luxemburg. He passed away in 2019 at the age of 98.

The sessions start at 6:30 p.m. at St. Louis Parish in Paynesville and St. Mary Parish in Alexandria.

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Assuming everything comes together — COVID, his bad leg and so on — Pope Francis soon will visit Canada, specifically, parts of the country with a sizable population of Indigenous Canadians.

His visit will have a special purpose. He will be in these areas to offer regret and probably to apologize to the First Canadians for what occurred in the “native schools.” These schools, the last of which closed several generations ago, were established by the Canadian government to mold children of First Canadians into the culture, habits and even religion of Canadians of European descent.

More recently, Canadian officials of European background have recognized, in general, Indigenous Canadians. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau pointedly named many Indigenous Canadians to his cabinet and high public positions. In 2021, Queen Elizabeth II, acting as queen of Canada and head of the Canadian nation, appointed as her personal representative in the country an…

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Judge criticizes Angel Garcia for not taking responsibility or apologizing to the girls he admitted he abused.

A former deacon with the Roman Catholic Diocese of Albany showed no remorse and offered no apology to his victims until after a judge on Friday criticized his silence at his sentencing.

It took stern words from the judge to prompt an apology from Angel Garcia who attacked his victims during a period that if not for a bureaucratic mix-up he would have been in prison serving time for a previous sex-crimes conviction.

Acting state Supreme Court Judge Roger McDonough faulted Garcia for refusing to apologize or discuss his crimes during an interview conducted as part of a pre-sentencing investigation. McDonough noted that Garcia instead expressed a degree of self-pity.

“Your complete lack of remorse, the complete absence of any apology, to your victims, quite frankly, is consistent with…

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In 2006, a Crystal Lake man confessed to the leaders of his church that he was sexually abusing a 6-year-old girl.

It was not that confession, however, that McHenry County Judge Mark Gerhardt considered when convicting the two church elders of violating the state’s mandated reporter law.

Instead, he relied on information provided to Michael M. Penkava, 72, and Colin Scott, 88, elders at the Kingdom Hall of Jehovah’s Witnesses in Crystal Lake, by another congregant, sidestepping the question of whether the man’s confession was protected by the First Amendment and the doctrine of clergy-penitent privilege, which protects confessions from further disclosure.

The confession of a serious and ongoing crime puts a pastor in a “tight spot,” said the Rev. Mark Buetow of Zion Lutheran Church and School in McHenry.

Confessions between a church member and pastor are sacred, he said, but in the case of child abuse, the child…

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The Fresno County Sheriff’s office is investigating allegations of sexual assaults against children involving members of the Riverdale Assembly of God Church in west Fresno County.

Sheriff’s spokesman Tony Botti said that while he couldn’t release specific information about the investigation, this isn’t the first time the church and it’s school, the Riverdale Christian Academy, have been investigated.

Detectives in the office’s Sex Crimes Unit received a report in 2015 of misconduct taking place at the church.

“The allegations were investigated, however, due to issues with statute of limitations, the investigation could not move forward,” Botti said. “Earlier in 2022, our detectives received new information about sexual misconduct tied to the church, so they are currently pursuing these allegations to see if they reach the threshold to make any arrests.”

The church, founded in 1965 by Charles and Wilma Spencer, has recently become the target of several civil lawsuits by…

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A long-sought bill that would allow adult survivors of sexual abuse to hold their alleged abusers accountable is on track for approval.

Assemblywoman Linda Rosenthal (D-Manhattan) announced Thursday that there are enough votes in her chamber to pass the Adult Survivors Act before the end of the legislative session early next month.

“Today is a watershed moment for survivors of sexual assault in New York and across the country,” Rosenthal said. “Today, New York State recognizes that ensuring justice for survivors of sexual assault is more important than maintaining arbitrary statutes of limitations that have for years shielded predators from justice.”

The legislation, modeled after the 2019 Child Victims Act, would temporarily lift the statute of limitations for civil lawsuits against abusers of people over 18 and provide a one-year period to take legal action.

“Survivors did this. Never, ever, question the strength and power…

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A newly filed lawsuit by one of the alleged child molestation victims of recently suspended Smithfield priest Francis C. Santilli accuses the leaders of the Rhode Island Catholic Church of “victim blaming” while disregarding multiple accounts of sexual misconduct by “Father Frank.”

The lawsuit was filed Thursday against current and former Bishops Thomas Tobin and Louis Gelineau of the Catholic Diocese of Providence, and the Church of Our Lady of Lourdes on Atwells Avenue in Providence.

What began as the tickling of a 10-year-old sitting on the priest’s lap allegedly turned into sexually explicit actions by the priest — and a previously unnamed church organist.

In his painfully graphic lawsuit, Scott Ross, who turned 53 on Saturday, says he lived for decades with “anguish, guilt, shame, denial [and] confusion.”

Asked what prompted him to tell his story at this point in his life,  Ross — who now lives in Oregon and works for the U.S. Department of Energy as…

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This July, as Canada’s indigenous Catholics get ready to celebrate the memorial of St. Ann, the grandmother of Jesus, the Holy Father plans to visit Canada at three locations near to Canada’s indigenous people: the Inuit, the Metis, and the First Nations. 

The Vatican announced May 13 that Pope Francis will start his July 24-30 pilgrimage by visiting Iqaluit, the capital of the northern Nunavut territory for the Inuit. The Holy Father will travel to Quebec City, which is near the St. Anne de Beaupré shrine, for the First Nations in eastern Canada; and finally Edmonton, Alberta, for the Métis and First Nations of western Canada, which is near the pilgrimage grounds of Lac St. Anne, also known as “God’s lake.” 

The papal pilgrimage will coincide with the July 25-28 Lac St. Anne pilgrimage, which draws tens of thousands of indigenous Catholics each year to pray or experience healing from…

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Cardinal Angelo Becciu refused to answer any questions not related to his charges during a continuation of his cross-examination in the Vatican finance trial on Thursday.

The 73-year-old Italian cardinal said on May 19 that he would not respond to questions about the Italian bishops’ conference because it is unconnected to his charges of embezzlement, abuse of office, and witness tampering.

Except for witness tampering, the accusations against Becciu date back to before he was elevated to the College of Cardinals, when he was the Sostituto, or second-ranking official, in the Secretariat of State.

During Thursday’s hearing, Becciu complained of being humiliated by certain lines of questioning the day prior, accusing the prosecuting attorney of asking questions that “injured my priestly dignity.”

Judges ruled on May 19 that accusations connected to the Italian bishops’ conference were not part of the trial, but the prosecuting attorney was nevertheless…

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Human trafficking and modern-day slavery have long been at the top of Pope Francis’s agenda, as shown at a meeting on Thursday with the Santa Marta Group, a coalition of police forces and the Catholic Church created to fight the problem.

Thanking the group for their work, the pope said that the commercialization of human beings is a “criminal activity that violates the dignity and rights of men, women and children,” leaving long-lasting effects upon the victims and society.

As Francis noted, in the years since its establishment, the Santa Marta Group has devoted itself to fostering an ever greater understanding of the scope and nature of human trafficking and to strengthening cooperation on the international, national, and local levels to put an end to this illegal industry.

The pontiff condemned the fact that modern forms of slavery continue to spread, “even within the most developed areas of our world,”…

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A Vatican cardinal testified Wednesday that Pope Francis himself ordered the ouster of the Holy See’s auditor-general, turning the tables on a scandal that had sparked questions about the Vatican’s commitment to financial transparency and accountability.

Cardinal Angelo Becciu opened a second day of questioning in the Vatican’s big financial fraud trial by saying Francis had recently authorized him to reveal the details of Libero Milone’s 2017 departure as the Vatican’s first auditor-general. He did so to clarify his previous testimony, during which he declined to respond to questions about Milone “out of love for the Holy Father.”

The Vatican announced June 20, 2017 that Milone had resigned two years into his mandate, without providing details. His ouster, as well as the removal of PriceWaterHouseCoopers as Vatican auditors, had long been cited by Cardinal George Pell, the Vatican’s former financial czar, and others as evidence of possible shady dealings by…

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Percy Casper, 73, spent 10 years as a child at the former Kamloops Indian Residential School in British Columbia.

He has spent the past year grieving.

A member of the Bonaparte Indian Band near Cache Creek, B.C., Casper said he was deeply distraught when he heard the news last May, when Kukpi7 Rosanne Casimir, Tk’emlups te Secwepemc Nation Chief, announced that a war graves expert using ground-penetrating radar had located 215 suspected unmarked graves at the site of the former school.

So, Casper grieved, for lost classmates, and for himself. His emotions twisted into a painful knot when Indigenous leaders later visited the Vatican to meet the Pope who represents the church that he says abused him.

But his spirits have been lifted by strangers, he said.

“Families have walked up to me and literally put their hands out and said they were ashamed of who they were on account…

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Last week, the U.S. Department of the Interior released a more than 100-page report on the federal Indigenous boarding schools designed to assimilate Native Americans in the late 19th and the early 20th centuries. Between 1819 and 1969, the U.S. ran or supported 408 boarding schools, the department found. Students endured “rampant physical, sexual, and emotional abuse,” and the report recorded more than 500 deaths of Native children—a number set to increase as the department’s investigation of this issue continues.

“This report, as I see it, is only a first step to acknowledge the experiences of Federal Indian boarding school children,” Bryan Newland, Assistant Secretary of Indian Affairs, the study’s author, wrote in a memo.

The effort to catalog these institutions came nearly a year after the discovery of hundreds of unmarked graves at the site of similar boarding schools in Canada raised awareness of this dark…

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Survivors of Native American boarding schools testified last week in Washington that physical and sexual abuse was rampant in those institutions.

Survivor Ramona Charette Klein, a retired educator and an enrolled member of the Turtle Band of Chippewa in Belcourt, North Dakota, spoke to us about her traumatic experience in one of those schools.

Note: Please see original article for audio recording.

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After a year of grieving since the detection of 215 suspected unmarked graves at the former Kamloops Indian Residential School, a new phase begins in the journey of the Tk’emlups te Secwepemc First Nation — bringing the missing children home.

The old apple orchard where evidence of the graves was found by ground-penetrating radar last May could soon be the site of an archeological dig and work to exhume remains, said Kukpi7 or Chief Rosanne Casimir. 

“This is something that has not happened in the history here in Canada,” she said at news conference on Wednesday. “There’s no set of guidelines, no checklist.”

To dig or not to dig has been one of the most fraught questions surrounding the issue of unmarked graves at residential schools. No consensus has emerged among survivors, with some seeing exhumation as a process that could help lay victims properly to rest, while others want…

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The U.S. Interior Department has set out to document abusive boarding schools that once targeted Indigenous tribes, their cultures and their children.

A first-of-its-kind report from the agency’s Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative puts the extent of that abuse in black and white.

Researchers found evidence of more than 400 schools across the United States and at least 50 burial sites where children were left in unmarked or poorly maintained graves. The investigation has uncovered more than 500 deaths.

And they’re still counting.

At least 15 of the schools were operated in Washington state. Another nine were in Oregon.

Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative Investigative Report

Darrell Hillaire is a member of the Lummi Nation, a leader and teacher who uses the tradition of storytelling and song to educate the world about his people and others.

Years ago, Hillaire’s…

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‘Little has changed. If anything, conditions are worse’

“Because we know what we capable of as a society is why we belly hurting so yuh know. We know we selves.” Blogger Rhoda Bharath’s May 10 Facebook status was referring to the disappearance of two-year-old Kymani Francis, who had gone missing in south Trinidad the day before. The entire nation remained on tenterhooks hoping for his safe return (he was later discovered drowned) — but following a recent task force report documenting widespread abuse in state-run and funded residential children’s homes, her words cut deeper than ever.

The findings in the Judith Jones Task Force report, which detailed everything from drug transactions to rape of minors, spurred calls for the Children’s Authority, the state body charged with promoting and ensuring the rights of children as laid out in the United Nations’ Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the UN Declaration and Convention on the Rights of the…

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Bishop Matano Chooses Insurance Companies Over Survivors, Revictimizing Survivors Again

Today in the United States Bankruptcy Court for the Western District of New York, for the second time, the Diocese of Rochester filed a motion to force a $147 million settlement on 475 survivors and victims of clergy sexual abuse. “The plan is a shallow attempt by the bishop to escape accountability and an effort to cheat survivors that will retraumatize them,” said Jeff Anderson, one of the attorneys representing 175 survivors with attorney Steve Boyd.

The Diocese admitted that it has nearly $2 billion in insurance coverage. The actual insurance coverage is likely over $4 billion. “The Bishop is choosing to protect the insurance companies over the victims. It’s appalling,” said Steve Boyd. The diocese and insurance companies tried the same tactic earlier in the case. Judge Warren rejected their first attempt on July 9th, 2021.

Just two months…

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Joshua Henley, who was arrested last June and previously entered a not-guilty plea, now faces at least 15 years in prison.

Joshua Henley, former youth minister for the Holladay Church of Christ in Tennessee, pleaded guilty this week to an eight-count federal indictment.

By pleading guilty, Henley admitted that he produced child sexual abuse material involving three minors, transported a minor interstate with the intent to engage in sexual activity with the minor, sent obscene videos and images to a minor, and possessed and transported child sexual abuse material, according to a news release from the court.

The plea was entered in the Eastern Division of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Tennessee on Monday.

Henley was arrested in Tennessee on June 18, 2021, on state and federal charges. He had previously entered a not-guilty plea. At his Aug. 23 sentencing, Henley will receive a prison sentence of at…

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The pastor of a North Philadelphia church is facing serious charges. He’s accused of sexually abusing three people, including a former parishioner, when they were minors.

Reverend Mark Hatcher is the longtime pastor of Holy Ghost Headquarters Revival Center in North Philadelphia, and he is now facing charges of rape and sexual abuse.

The charges stem from allegations that date back to 2000, according to the affidavit of probable cause.

Three victims, who were all minors at the time, have now come forward decades later detailing accusations of sexual assault.

One of the victims told police that Hatcher molested her when she was 15 years old. Another alleges he was assaulted at least five times when he was just 6 years old.

The criminal complaint goes on to detail a third victim who says in 2006, at 13 years old, she went to dinner with Hatcher who was her pastor…

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The longtime pastor of Holy Ghost Headquarters Revival Center in North Philadelphia sexually abused three people, including a former parishioner, when they were minors, according to prosecutors in Montgomery County.

The Rev. Mark Hatcher, 59, of Blue Bell, was charged Wednesday with rape, statutory sexual assault, corruption of a minor, and related offenses. Hatcher remained in custody as prosecutors successfully lobbied a magisterial district judge in Blue Bell to deny him bail, calling him a “danger to the community,” according to court records.

Hatcher’s attorney, R. Emmett Madden, said the pastor maintains his innocence and looks forward to defending against the charges in court.

”These are unsubstantiated allegations from 15 years ago with no corroborating evidence of any kind,” Madden said. “I’ve received significant outreach from family, friends, and members of the community, which all indicates the opposite of what was alleged.”

Hatcher’s attorney, R. Emmett Madden, said the pastor…

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A former Albany church leader already serving five years for sex crimes against a child in 2003 has had his sentence extended.

Angel Garcia, 69, was sentenced on Friday to two additional seven-year terms, which will be served concurrently. The new sentence is for abusing two more kids between 2016 and 2018.

Garcia will also have a very lengthy period of post-release supervision and must register as a sex offender.

He was once a deacon at Church of the Americas in Albany.

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It is the duty of the church leaders to see that the law challenging ISPs is implemented

Online sexual abuse and exploitation of children (OSAEC) is a shocking reality that all parents, guardians, church leaders and business corporations have to challenge and confront but they don’t. It is spreading everywhere and trapping children and youth in systems of sexual abuse and extortion and it is frequently met with a cold stony silence by those whose duty it is to protect children.

The telecommunication corporations and their Internet Service Providers (ISPs) are to be held responsible by a new bill amending RA 9775 to protect children by installing software blocking the transmission of child sexual abuse materials. In the past, they refused to do so citing contradictions in the law. These objections and excuses have now been addressed by the bill and, if passed into law, they would have no excuse…

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Surely no Canadian is so naïve as to believe that Pope Francis’ six-day July visit will miraculously heal nearly 400 years of fraught, often deeply unjust relations, with Indigenous people.

Yet it would take blind cynicism to fail to see the opportunity the pontiff’s 144 hours on Truth North soil affords for a genuine renewal of relations. It is a moment to be grasped for long-sought reconciliation between the Church and First Nations and, indeed, between Canada as a nation and the descendants of its first founding inhabitants.

For those who see the glass as auspiciously half-full, it’s worth a huzzah that Francis’ July 24 to 29 papal visit overlaps almost perfectly the 20th anniversary of Pope John Paul II’s visit to Canada for World Youth Day in Toronto July 23 to 28, 2002. True, horrendous storms battered the Church in the years following JP II’s monumental celebration in Canada’s…

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One of Germany’s biggest trade associations, representing 10 million insured people, has given victims of sexual abuse a powerful ally with deep pockets and highly paid lawyers.

Germany’s Catholic and Protestant churches have been criticized for their handling of clergy sexual abuse for years now by victims, believers and the media. Now they face new pressure from an unexpected corner: the insurance industry.

VBG, a national association of accident insurance providers, recently complained to the two predominant church bodies in the country that they had not been notified of the thousands of sexual abuse cases that have been found in the church groups’ ranks.

According to German law, sexual abuse cases can fall under the rules governing the churches’ insurance policies. Policyholders must inform the company of known cases and help insurers determine how much compensation they should pay.

Church insurance policies, the VBG lawyers have determined, cover both paid…

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The Vatican’s financial trial took a series of surreal turns Thursday when a former suspect-turned-star witness was thrown out of the tribunal and a defendant asserted in court documents that she escorted two emissaries of Russian President Vladimir Putin into the Holy See to negotiate the return of holy relics to the Russian Orthodox Church.

The developments turned an otherwise mundane cross-examination of a onetime Vatican power broker about the Vatican’s investment strategies into an unexpected drama. It underscored the peculiarity of the trial and the remarkable situation the Holy See found itself in after entrusting delicate diplomatic, financial and intelligence work to outsiders who who got in the door by impressing a cardinal.

The trial originated in the Holy See’s 350 million euro investment in a London real estate deal, but it has expanded to include other alleged crimes. Vatican prosecutors have accused 10 people of fraud, embezzlement and…

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