ABUSE TRACKER

Attorney General Doug Peterson said the most troubling finding was that, on numerous occasions, those in authority chose to place the reputation of the church above the protection of the children.

A report issued by Nebraska Attorney General Doug Peterson details decades of abuse at the hands of clergy members.

The AG’s office asked the three Nebraska Dioceses to turn over all files relating to claims of improper sexual conduct, sexual exploitation, child pornography or sexual communication with a minor dating back to Jan. 1, 1978.

“The summaries are replete with accounts of priests using alcohol, offering camping or other types of road trips. Video games, food and various other enticements to isolate and exploit their young victims,” Peterson said.

The AG’s investigation began in August 2018. In February 2019, the Nebraska Department of Justice issued 426 subpoenas to Catholic churches and schools across Nebraska.

Peterson said, in reviewing the…

View Cache

[To read the Nebraska Attorney General’s report, click here.]

Survivors of sexual abuse by Catholic clergy got a gut punch Thursday morning when Nebraska Attorney General Doug Peterson announced the results of a three-year investigation: Due to the statute of limitations, only one of 258 cases could be criminally prosecuted.

In that one case, however, “the victim decided they could not participate in the prosecution,” Peterson said with a twinge of emotion.

“Our hope is that somehow this report will allow all victims to know at least that their voices have been heard,” he said, calling the investigation a difficult process and the results “gut-wrenching.”

The state’s investigation began in August 2018. At that time, Peterson asked the Archdiocese to hand over its own records dating back to 1978 on allegations of sexual abuse and misconduct by clergy.

Peterson said Thursday that although the church and its…

View Cache

Federal authorities have filed additional child pornography charges against Father James W. Jackson, who was arrested Oct. 30 after Rhode Island investigators allegedly found hundreds of explicit sexual images on an external hard drive in his rectory office.

Father Jackson, 66, a member of the Priestly Fraternity of Saint Peter (FSSP), was pastor of St. Mary’s Parish in Providence and previously pastored a Traditional Latin Rite parish in Littleton, Colorado. 

Father Jackson made his initial appearance in U.S. District Court in Providence via teleconference Wednesday on a federal criminal complaint charging him with distributing child pornography, and possessing and accessing with intent to view child pornography.

He was released on an unsecured bond Wednesday with electronic monitoring, and was allowed to return to his home state of Kansas to live with a relative while waiting for the charges to be adjudicated.

It was disclosed in federal court that Jackson has…

View Cache

Pope Francis on Thursday called on all those who work with children, starting from the scandal-stained Catholic Church, to join together in an alliance to better prevent sexual and other abuse of minors.

In a message to a conference in Rome about keeping children safe, Francis said the church’s own efforts are driven by “the sorrow and the shame for not having always been good custodians in protecting minors who were entrusted to our educational and social activities.”

Pedophile priests have easy access to children in parishes, schools and Catholic after-school recreational programs.

Their acts of abuse by pedophile priests, coupled with revelations of widespread cover-ups by bishops and other church authorities, have marred the Catholic Church’s reputation and eroded the trust of countless rank-and-file faithful in many countries for decades now.

Francis described as urgent the need for “renewed training of all those who have educational responsibilities and who…

View Cache

The National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation says it is still waiting for records from the federal government related to residential schools, despite a comment from Prime Minister Justin Trudeau that all federal records have been provided.

Trudeau told a gathering of Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc leaders, residential school survivors and their families in Kamloops, B.C., earlier this week that “all the records in possession of the federal government have already been turned over” to the centre in Winnipeg.

He said Ottawa would look for further records, such as those held by the Catholic Church, which operated most of the 140 institutions between 1831 and 1996.

In a written statement, the national centre says it’s still waiting for the federal government to provide the final versions of school narratives and supporting documents used in the assessment process for compensation claims stemming from abuse at the institutions, including the Kamloops Indian Residential…

View Cache

A group of residential school survivors is joining the Ontario New Democratic Party in calling for Greg Rickford to be removed from his role as Indigenous Affairs minister, saying they don’t trust him to work toward reconciliation or handle sensitive issues like the search for the remains of missing Indigenous children. 

The group says their distrust stems from a legal settlement made 16 years ago that Rickford signed on behalf of the law firm where he was working. That firm, Keshen and Major, was representing several residential school survivors. 

The settlement led to complaints from a dozen survivors over how the resulting compensation was handled — including allegations money was taken from survivors by one of the other lawyers at the firm, Doug Keshen.

While it was Keshen, not Rickford, who was accused of wrongdoing, Garnet Angeconeb, an advocate and residential school survivor from Lac Seul First Nation, wrote in a statement released Friday by…

View Cache

As the church bells ring twice a day, at 6 a.m. and 6 p.m., every day at St. Anthony’s in Neopit on the Menominee Reservation, advocate Lorraine Shooter said the post-traumatic stress disorder in some of the elders nearby becomes triggered.

The elders had been students at St. Anthony’s School at a time when U.S. government and church policy was to forcefully assimilate Indigenous youth and separate them from their traditional culture and language.

Shooter, who’s with the organization Menominees Against Dope, helped organize a vigil in Keshena Tuesday night for the survivors of abuse at Catholic schools and to demand accountability.

Dewey Schanandore, 75, said he suffered regular physical abuse when he attended St. Anthony School from 1954 to 1962.

He recalls the first time it happened in third grade when he was sitting at his desk studying when a teacher knocked him on the…

View Cache

The French Catholic Church bears “institutional responsibility” for the thousands of child abuse cases documented in a report released in October, French bishops said on Friday.

The church allowed the abuse to become “systemic,” said Archbishop Eric de Moulins-Beaufort, chair of the country’s Bishops Conference.

“This responsibility implies a duty to provide justice and reparation,” Moulins-Beaufort said.

He made the comments at the conference’s annual meeting following a vote by the bishops.

What was in the report?

On October 5, an independent commission published findings on child sex abuse in France’s Catholic Church between 1950 and 2020.

The 2,500-page document details how an estimated 3,000 child abusers, two-thirds of them priests, worked in the Catholic Church in France over seven decades.

There were an estimated 216,000 victims of such abuse. The report found that the “vast majority” of victims were young boys from a variety of social backgrounds.

It described the abuse as a…

View Cache

The potential $50 million to $100 million cost of a Canadian papal visit isn’t far off the amount the Catholic Church still owes residential school survivors, say advocates.

They say that bill — estimated at slightly more than $60 million — must be paid and all documents about the schools disclosed before one dollar is committed to bringing Pope Francis to Canada for an expected apology. One Vatican expert says that’s highly unlikely, but survivors say they’ll keep pressing.

“That money should go to survivors first. The Vatican is rich. They owe us for what they did,” Cote First Nation survivor Madeleine Whitehawk said.

“They have not been honourable. Saying sorry is not enough.”

Last week, the Vatican announced the 84-year-old pontiff intends to come to Canada to further the “long-standing pastoral process of reconciliation with Indigenous peoples.” No dates or locations have been confirmed.

Saskatchewan Cree lawyer Eleanore Sunchild, who has represented thousands of survivors, said a “photo op” by Francis is not…

View Cache

Daniel McCormack was released Oct. 7 from a Rushville detention facility, the Illinois Department of Human Services confirmed.

Convicted child molester Daniel McCormack was released from custody last month, the Illinois Department of Human Services confirmed Tuesday.

McCormack, who pleaded guilty to sexually abusing five children while he was a priest at St. Agatha’s parish, was released Oct. 7 from the state’s Treatment and Detention Facility. He has since registered as a sex offender with the Illinois State Police and is listed as living in the Near North neighborhood.

McCormack’s release comes despite the fact that, in 2017, a Cook County judge ruled McCormack a “sexually violent person.” This set up the former priest for an indefinite stay at the state facility for sex offenders, where McCormack remained after serving his five-year sentence in 2009.

But in May of this year, an Illinois First District Appellate Court panel  View Cache

A Nebraska Attorney General’s Office investigation of clergy sexual abuse documented 258 victims across the state’s three Roman Catholic dioceses, along with a familiar-sounding pattern of behavior by church officials that often protected the predators.

Attorney General Doug Peterson, at times holding back tears as he spoke of the damage done to young victims, released a report on the investigation at a Thursday press conference. He said many of the cases found during the three-year-long probe were gut-wrenching. Few had been prosecuted.

Peterson said the vast majority of cases happened before the implementation of the Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People in 2002. The “Dallas Charter” required all dioceses to take steps to protect children from sexual abuse.

The report found that more than half of the victims were abused in the 1960s, ‘70s and ‘80s. Peterson said the Dallas Charter appears to have made a difference….

View Cache

A Nebraska attorney general’s office investigation identified 258 victims who made credible allegations of sexual abuse against 57 Catholic church officials in the state going back decades, including many that high-ranking church leaders knew about and didn’t report to the authorities, according to a report released Thursday.

Prosecutors can’t charge against any current or former church officials with a crime because the statutes of limitations have expired in the vast majority of cases, Attorney General Doug Peterson said at a news conference announcing the findings. In one case where charges are still possible, Peterson said the accuser declined to participate in a prosecution.

The report outlines each known case in graphic detail, stretching from the 1930s to the 2010s. More than 90% of the victims were boys, usually young teenagers who served as altar servers.

“The extent of the physical and psychological harm caused by the perpetrators…

View Cache

The Wichita Catholic Diocese has placed the Rev. Michael Schemm, Church of the Resurrection, on administrative leave following allegations of sexual abuse of a minor.

A press release from the Catholic Diocese of Wichita, says that Bishop Carl A. Kemme announced Schemm’s leave came after an initial review by the Diocesan Review Board, which recommended the leave, while a full investigation was conducted.

“While on leave, Father Schemm will maintain his faculties as a priest and the diocese will continue its support. However, Father Schemm will be restricted from offering sacraments and preaching in the Catholic Diocese of Wichita until the investigation has been completed,” the press release said.ADVERTISINGWPD investigating possible shooting near 10th and Waco 

The Diocese said that law enforcement has been notified of the allegations. The release did not give any details about the nature of the alleged abuse, including when or where it is alleged…

View Cache

A month after the submission of the Report by the Independent Commission on Sexual Abuse in the Church (CIASE), French bishops are meeting for their General Assembly in Lourdes this week to examine and discuss its contents. The meeting started on Tuesday and will run until November 8.

The CIASE Report

The report was submitted by the Commission’s president Jean-Marc Sauvé to Archbishop Éric de Moulins-Beaufort, Chairman the Bishops’ Conference of France (CEF), and to Sister Véronique Margron, President of and the Conference of Religious Men and Women of France (CORREF), on October 5, following a two-and-a half-year investigation. The nearly 2,500-page report revealed that an estimated total of 330,000 people living in France have been victims of sexual abuse within Church as children from 1950 to 2020, 216.000 of whom were abused by Catholic priests and religious.

French bishops dedicated the first day of their meeting to reflecting on…

View Cache

Survivors are still encouraged to report abuse at SupportSurvivors.widoj.gov or by calling 1-877-222-2620

Attorney General Josh Kaul is providing an update today on the ongoing statewide inquiry into clergy and faith leader abuse, led by the Wisconsin Department of Justice (DOJ), with support from district attorneys, survivor groups, and crime victim services professionals. The inquiry is ongoing and will take time to complete, so anyone with information still has time to report.

Survivors of clergy or faith leader abuse, their friends and family, or anyone who has information about how a religious organization has responded to reported abuse are encouraged to report that information to DOJ either online at SupportSurvivors.widoj.gov orby calling 1-877-222-2620.

“Thank you to the courageous people who have come forward to provide information about clergy and faith leader abuse,” said AG Kaul. “This review seeks to help bring healing to survivors and to…

View Cache

Wisconsin’s attorney general gave an update Wednesday on his ongoing probe into clerical sexual abuse in the state. While similar investigations are underway in 13 states, Wisconsin’s stands out because of sharp pushback from the state’s biggest diocese, the Archdiocese of Milwaukee, which has charged that the investigation is illegal and unfairly targeting Catholics.

In an announcement Wednesday, Attorney General Josh Kaul said a hotline in the state has received almost 180 allegations of abuse or cover-up in the Catholic dioceses of the state, and in other religious denominations as well. 

Almost 40 of those allegations had not previously been reported to law enforcement or religious leaders, Kaul said, and will be reviewed for possible prosecution. 

The attorney general did not give an update on the rest of his project — a review of Catholic diocesan records that aims to determine whether dioceses have been negligent in investigating and addressing…

View Cache

Twelve bishops in Mexico are being investigated for covering up the abuse of minors and vulnerable adults, although no conclusions have so far been reached, the Vatican ambassador to the South America nation has revealed.

Archbishop Franco Coppola, the Apostolic Nuncio to Mexico, said that some of the investigations, carried out on the basis of new norms established by Pope Francis, have been referred to the Vatican itself. 

With the Nuncio’s revelation that more than one-sixth of Mexico’s Bishops are under suspicion of concealing abuse, the image of the Church in the overwhelmingly Catholic nation is likely to be further tarnished.

In 2019 one bishop revealed that at least 103 Catholic priests in Mexico have been suspended in the past nine years for sexual abuse against minors, out of more than 271 priests have been accused of sexual abuse.

In 2020 the Pope sent the team of investigators he directed to…

View Cache

The Catholic Church in Aotearoa New Zealand welcomes the announcement today by the Royal Commission into Abuse in Care of dates for hearing evidence about abuse at the Marylands School and Hebron Trust in Christchurch.

The Royal Commission today announced that it has scheduled six days in February 2022 for the hearings.

Marylands was a residential school for children with learning difficulties, run between the mid-1950s and 1984 by the Hospitaller Brothers of St John of God, a Catholic religious institute. Hebron was a later organisation for troubled youths run by a St John of God brother.

Catherine Fyfe, chair of Te Rōpū Tautoko – the group coordinating Catholic engagement with the Royal Commission – welcomed the announcement and said the St John of God Brothers and Tautoko have been working supportively and diligently since last year to co-operate with the inquiry on Marylands.

“We have been working with the…

View Cache

[Includes video]

Keshena, Wis. – Dozens gathered under a pavilion in Keshena for a candlelight vigil to bring awareness to the children who were abused by the Catholic Church at Indigenous residential and boarding schools.

“I am a survivor of physical abuse at the hands of the church, during that period they treated us in a manner that is not consistent with who we are as a people,” said Dewey Schanandore who claimed to have attended St. Anthony’s grade school during the 1950s.

This is an issue Action 2 News has previously covered. The Catholic Diocese of Green Bay ran two schools on the Menominee Indian Reservation.

Participants of Tuesday evening’s event walked to St. Michael’s Church where behind it there are several unmarked graves of Menominee children.

“People buried in the gravesites, there doesn’t seem to be any documentation about how these people died,” said Schanandore.

…

View Cache

[See also the De La Salle statement.]

The De La Salle Order has issued an apology for sex abuse of children by members of the order, following a series of allegations and the suspension of its current provincial after he was accused of historic abuse.

The apology, in which the Order says that abuse “goes against everything that compelled our Founder to respond to the needs and challenges of the young people of Rheims in the seventeenth century” became known after a Catholic safeguarding official mentioned it in passing to a survivor of abuse.

Survivors who have reported harrowing details of beatings and sexual assaults by De La Salle brothers have not been sent the apology directly.

Survivor Patrick Mills, who says he was abused when a pupil of St Joseph’s School Ipswich, then run by the order, first learned of the apology when the Rev Des Bill, chair…

View Cache

When the Kansas City-St. Joseph diocese’s victim assistance coordinator came to her with the unusual request in the summer of 2019, Carrie Cooper didn’t miss a beat.

Six men, all survivors of childhood sexual abuse by priests, were making a documentary and wanted to film inside some of the churches in the diocese.

“I said, ‘I’m great with that, but we just need to make sure our bishop is,’” Cooper, director of the diocese’s Office of Child and Youth Protection, recalls telling Kathleen Chastain.

Then, she said, the two sat down and talked to Bishop James Johnston.

“And we all felt like it was the right thing to do,” Cooper told The Star. “He said that if allowing them to go through this process and visit the places that they need to visit helps them in their healing journey, then it’s the very least we can do.”

The documentary, “Procession,” was…

View Cache

After three former St. Joseph High School volleyball players accused their coach of sexual misconduct, it remains unclear this week how law enforcement or child welfare officials responded to the allegations.

In a civil lawsuit filed against Cochran last week, the former players alleged that Justin Cochran “groomed” girls with inappropriate sexual conversation and images, including sending nude pictures of himself, and that he retaliated against girls who complained about his behavior.

The lawsuit accuses the high school and the diocese of numerous violations of the 2002 Catholic charter “Safe Environment Training” to protect young people that was instituted in response to the wider Catholic clergy sex abuse scandal. The former players say Cochran was well known before his promotion for Safe Environment violations and inappropriate behavior.

The former players, who filed the lawsuit anonymously as “Jane Doe” plaintiffs, also accused St. Joseph administrators and the Roman…

View Cache

[Via France 24]

French Catholic bishops kicked off their annual conference on Tuesday, set to pour over a shock report last month that detailed massive child abuse of 216,000 minors spanning 70 years.

The 120 bishops from across France are to devote nearly half their week-long meeting to “the fight against violence and sexual aggression directed at minors”, according to the published agenda.

Some victims were invited to join the meeting, but many declined, denouncing the decision to make the sexual abuse scandal just one of several topics — rather than the sole issue on the agenda.

The gathering, which started with a period of silence to honour the victims, takes place in the southern town of Lourdes — considered by the Catholic church to be a holy site and one of the world’s top pilgrimage destinations.

Ahead of the conference, the bishops said they would examine the question of the church’s…

View Cache

A local priest has been placed on administrative leave and restricted from his ministering duties following accusations that he sexually abused at least one child more than a quarter century ago.

The Catholic Diocese of Wichita announced Monday that Bishop Carl A. Kemme put Rev. Michael Schemm on leave after the Diocesean Review Board made the recommendation following an initial review of the allegations, according to a news release.

Schemm did not immediately respond to an emailed request for comment Tuesday.

“While on leave, Father Schemm will maintain his faculties as a priest and the diocese will continue its support,” the release says. “However, Father Schemm will be restricted from offering sacraments and preaching in the Catholic Diocese of Wichita until the investigation has been completed.”

Schemm had been the pastor at the Church of the Resurrection, 4910 N. Woodlawn in Bel Aire. He will…

View Cache

Three former St. Joseph High School volleyball players are suing the school, two administrators, their former coach and the Diocese of Fort Wayne South Bend for failure to protect the girls from their coach’s sexual misconduct, according to a lawsuit filed by the players.

Identified as Jane Doe 1, Jane Doe 2 and Jane Doe 3, the former players are seeking damages for negligence, negligent and/or intentional infliction of emotional distress, Title IX, and negligence per se. Two of the players are also seeking damages alleging defamation.

The lawsuit alleges former girls varsity volleyball coach Justin Cochran committed sexual misconduct with some of his players and that school officials covered up the allegations.

The school’s former athletic director and its principal are the administrators named in the suit.

Cochran resigned from the high school after allegations of sexual misconduct surfaced in 2018, the suit alleges.

Cochran allegedly sent sexually explicit…

View Cache

The French bishops have expressed concern over the Ciase Report’s recommendation that the seal of confession should be reformed

After the shock comes the time for reflection and action: Two weeks after the Oct. 5 publication of the Ciase Report on “Sexual Violence in the Catholic Church between 1950 and 2020,” the French bishops are working on new resolutions to be discussed and adopted during their November plenary assembly. 

A matter of concern for France’s Church leaders, as they prepare for this assembly, is the pressure now being exerted by French political leaders for changes to be made that would undermine the seal of sacramental confession.

On the basis of a survey, as well as 243 testimonies, 2,819 letters and the Church’s archives, the report stated that some 216,000 children have been sexually abused by members of the clergy over the past 70 years. The total number of abuse cases involving…

View Cache

The Rev. James Jackson, 66, a Catholic priest and pastor of St. Mary’s Church in Providence was arrested Saturday by Rhode Island State Police, on possession of child pornography charges.

Police say their investigation by the agency’s internet crimes against children task force (ICAC) led them to St. Mary’s.

Investigators had learned the internet connection at the church was allegedly involved with sharing child porn.

A search warrant was issued at the parish and rectory. Father Jackson was identified as the owner of that digital media, said State Police.

Mike McDonnell represents SNAP, Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests.

He was also the victim of abuse by two Pennsylvania priests in 1981.

SNAP, he says, has been tracking the national criminal arrests of clergy and staffers.

“Father Jackson actually makes the third Catholic clergy in a month. We’ve been averaging two arrests of Catholic clergy or Catholic staffers per…

View Cache

WICHITA, Kan. (KWCH) – The Catholic Diocese of Wichita on Monday, Nov. 1 announced that Bishop Carl Kemme placed a priest on administrative leave following allegations of sexual abuse of a minor.

The Wichita diocese identified that priest as Rev. Michael Schemm with Church of the Resurrection, in Bel Aire

“The bishop’s decision comes after an initial review by the Diocesan Review Board, which recommended administrative leave pending the completion of a full investigation,” the diocese said.

The Wichita diocese said it notified police and pending the investigation, “Father Schemm will maintain his faculties as a priest and the diocese will continue its support.”

“However, Father Schemm will be restricted from offering sacraments and preaching in the Catholic Diocese of Wichita until the investigation has been completed.” the diocese said.

The diocese addressed the severity of abuse allegations and in part of its statement released Monday, encouraged people to come…

View Cache

A Providence priest has been arrested and is facing several charges, including possession of child pornography.

Officers for the Rhode Island State Police Computer Crimes Unit and Internet Crimes Against Children (ICAC) Task Force arrested Father James Jackson over the weekend, according to a news release.

The 66-year-old priest, now formerly of St. Mary’s Church, is accused of possession of child pornography, transfer of child pornography and child erotica prohibited.

State Police say as part of a child pornography investigation, they identified the internet connection at the rectory at St. Mary’s to be connected in the sharing of child porn.

On Saturday, ICAC Task Force members executed a search warrant at the church and rectory and determined that Father Jackson was the owner of that media.

A spokesperson for the Diocese of Providence released a statement, reading in part, “A priest of the Priestly Fraternity of Saint Peter (FSSP), Rev….

View Cache

State Supreme Court agrees to hear second challenge to law

Placing limits on the money juries can award to lawsuit winners was “urgently needed to restore balance, fairness and predictability” into Ohio’s court system, the authors of 2005 “tort reform” legislation wrote.

The absence of such maximums, they said, would hold the door for open runaway juries demanding corporations pay outrageous sums in legal disputes. Ohio businesses would face a competitive disadvantage to foreign competition, stifling development.

In the 15 years since Ohio lawmakers passed the tort reform legislation, the law yielded an unexpected use: stripping child rape victims of millions of dollars in legal damages.

Jessica Simpkins was 15 when her priest, who Delaware Grace Brethren Church knew had twice engaged in inappropriate sexual behavior with young women, raped her twice.

She filed a lawsuit against the church, and a jury awarded her $3.65 million. However,…

View Cache

Catholics in France are angry and are demanding a change in Church governance that will give more authority to the laity, according to a new survey commissioned by “La Croix”

By Xavier Le Normand

Catholics in France have been shaken by the recently released report on sexual abuse in their Church over the past 70 years. The Independent Commission on Sexual Abuse in the Church (CIASE) – also known as the Sauvé Commission – published its report on October 5.

It revealed that the abuse was “systemic” and estimated that since the 1950s anywhere from 216,000 to 330,000 youngsters have been sexually abused by priests and even some laypeople.

Since the publication of the figures and the painful accounts of abused persons, the number of editorials and appeals throughout France has multiplied.

And as a consequence, the country’s bishops have come under fire from many quarters, a sting that they…

View Cache

CBC News, the Globe and Mail secure release of hundreds of pages of documents

WARNING: This story contains distressing details

A Saskatchewan judge has released files detailing the Roman Catholic Church’s controversial $79-million compensation deal for residential school survivors following a successful court application by CBC News and the Globe and Mail.

This cache of documents, along with other internal papers obtained by CBC News in recent weeks, illustrates how Catholic officials, aided by a team of veteran lawyers, successfully fought years of federal government efforts to make them pay the full amounts promised in the landmark 2005 Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement.

Advocates say they also add vital detail and context to the story of the Catholic Church’s broken promises.

“I think the result is a really important outcome for openness and transparency for our court system. It goes to that old maxim that justice not only must be…

View Cache

Vatican recently said pontiff has agreed to visit Canada to further reconciliation

The effort to bring Pope Francis to Canada for a long-awaited apology over the Catholic Church’s role in running residential schools can be traced back to a 2016 conversation between two seemingly homeless men on a downtown Saskatoon sidewalk.

Those men — one a bishop and the other a First Nations chief — had just spent the night in a park, struggling to stay warm in the unseasonably cool June air.

It was part of a 36-hour event organized by a local shelter for HIV-positive new mothers. Chief Felix Thomas of the Saskatoon Tribal Council was paired with Bishop of Saskatoon Donald Bolen. They were given used clothing and small sleeping bags, but they had to find food, identification, health care, washrooms and other essentials.

“We spent a lot of time together that weekend, became really good friends,” Thomas, now chief of the Kinistin Saulteaux Nation, said in an…

View Cache

[Includes copy of lawsuit.]

Three former St. Joseph High School volleyball players have filed a lawsuit against the school, the Diocese of Fort Wayne-South Bend and school officials, accusing their coach of abusive sexual misconduct and administrators of failing to appropriately respond to their allegations during that misconduct.

The women, who graduated in 2018 and 2019 and are suing anonymously as Jane Doe plaintiffs, provide detailed accusations in their court filing.

The lawsuit claims Justin Cochran, 32, sent one of the players pictures of his genitals over the social media platform SnapChat. SnapChat messages disappear after a short time. Jane Doe 3 claims Cochran included explicit details of his sexual escapades and the size of his penis in the message containing the nude photo.

Jane Doe 3 claims she was afraid and unsure what to do, so she blocked Cochran on SnapChat and told two…

View Cache

The pastor of a Bartlett church is being reinstated after an investigation found insufficient evidence to prove allegations of improper conduct, Cardinal Blase Cupich said in a letter Saturday.

The Rev. Christopher Ciomek was asked to step aside from his duties as pastor at St. Peter Damian Catholic Church in April so authorities could investigate allegations he sexually abused a minor about 30 years ago.

The Archdiocese of Chicago, with the help of an unspecified independent agency, investigated the allegations, the letter said, adding that Ciomek fully cooperated. The archdiocese also conducted a review of Ciomek’s fitness for ministry, Cupich said.

“Based on our investigation, the Archdiocese found insufficient evidence to verify the allegations against Father Ciomek,” Cupich said. “I am hereby informing you that I am reinstating Father Ciomek as your pastor effective immediately.”

Ciomek had been directed to live away from the parish while the archdiocese investigated. The…

View Cache

When President Joe Biden met Friday with Pope Francis at the Vatican, he presented the pontiff with a 100-year-old handspun cloak from a church in the nation’s capital with a long history and a liberal bent.

But it wasn’t the priestly attire that sent the strongest message. It was the box it came in, inscribed with a Bible verse that reads, in part, “… if any of you has a grievance against someone … [f]orgive as the Lord forgave you.”

It could be viewed as a tacit nod to the fight in which Biden, only the second Roman Catholic to be elected president, has found himself embroiled back home over the future of the faith to which he’s ascribed his whole life.

While the U.S. Catholic Church tries to find its footing after years of scandal and increasingly empty pews, a battle between the conservative and progressive wings…

View Cache

Ten years ago, we were forced to think the unthinkable. A man thousands of people idolized and revered was unmasked as one of the most depraved beings on the face of this planet.

On Nov. 5, 2011, Jerry Sandusky was arrested for raping young boys. Turns out Sandusky had been sexually abusing innocent children for years, while important people who knew, or should have known, looked the other way.

As PennLive and The Patriot News documented over this past decade, Sandusky’s power inside the Penn State system assured he would be both trusted and feared, and that he would have easy access to countless kids.

Mothers thought it an honor to have their boys connected to Jerry Sandusky and his Second Mile charity. What Penn State father wasn’t proud to stand with the assistant football coach?

The power of Sandusky’s position inside a powerhouse like…

View Cache

Joseph Gallatin, who was ordained a priest of the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis in 1997 and has been prohibited from public ministry since 2014, has been dispensed from the obligations of the clerical state, Archbishop Bernard Hebda announced in a statement Oct. 25.

Pope Francis recently granted the change in Gallatin’s status, which Gallatin requested, Archbishop Hebda said. “That means that the canonical status of Joseph Gallatin, who has not exercised public ministry since 2014, is that of a lay person,” he said. “He will no longer serve as a priest of the Archdiocese. I am hopeful that Pope Francis’ decision may alleviate some of the pain and prove beneficial for all involved.”

Gallatin was accused in 1998 of inappropriate contact with a minor. Three Archdiocesan Review Boards reviewed the matter, in 1998, 2002 and 2014. According to Archbishop Hebda’s statement, each board “concluded that there was not…

View Cache

A priest at St. Clare Parish in Lyndhurst resigned Oct. 6 after an independent investigation found he skinny-dipped with two adult men he knew from the seminary, according to the Catholic Diocese of Cleveland.

Father James Cosgrove, 35, resigned more than one year after the diocese first received a report detailing accusations against him. The diocese hired a private investigator Aug. 3, 2020, the same date it received the report, diocese spokesman Deacon Jim Armstrong told cleveland.com and The Plain Dealer.

The two men were once students in the seminary, a college for men training to become priests. The two were seminarians at the time the incidents occurred, Armstrong said.

Armstrong said the report did not involve any allegations of child sexual abuse. It also did not involve any accusations of sexual contact with adults, or of adults being solicited into sexual misconduct, he said.

View Cache

Abuse isn’t always physical.

Note: Some responses depict sexual abuse from partners and family members.

Spiritual or religious abuse is a form of abuse where intimate partners, congregants of places of worship, or family members use religion to justify their abusive behavior. Examples of that include preventing someone from worshipping the way they want to, using religious text to rationalize their hurtful actions, or even forcing someone to practice a certain way.

It isn’t a form of abuse that’s often talked about, so I asked the BuzzFeed Community to share their stories, and this is what they said:

1. “[Spiritual abuse is] being told your whole life something is wrong with you, to grow up and realize none of it was true. I always question people’s intentions when talking to me who are still in the church I grew up in because they often times are just trying to…

View Cache

The aim of the multi-million euro, three-year sweeping probe is to analyze the structural and systemic conditions that have facilitated abuse with the Protestant Church in Germany.

A group of independent researchers on Thursday presented details of a new investigation into sexual abuse in the church and its related charities. 

The aim of the study is to analyze “structures and systemic conditions within the EKD, that facilitate sexual violence and make it difficult to properly deal with the past.”

IPP researcher Detlev Zander stressed that their job was to “illuminate…the reasons these things happen,” but that the “work of restructuring” had to be done by the churhces alone.

What will the study involve?

Research firm IPP is leading part of the study, which began in December 2020 and is expected to run to 2023. The group was involved in the investigation into abuse in children’s homes and the Catholic convent Ettal.

IPP wrote on their…

View Cache

Uniontown, Pa. – A Fayette County priest has pleaded no contest to indecent assault in a case involving a then-11-year-old boy, the Pennsylvania attorney general’s office said Monday.

The plea by Andrew Kawecki, 65, will require him to register as a sex offender for 10 years under Megan’s Law, Attorney General Josh Shapiro said.

“I’m very happy with the outcome today. I would like to urge anybody who has been in the same situation as me to come forward,” the victim, now an adult, said during a news conference with the attorney general.

The AG’s office said the abuse started in 2004, when the victim was 11, and continued for three years at St. Cyril and Methodius Church in Fairchance.

Kawecki is scheduled for sentencing in January.

The Catholic Diocese of Greensburg said Kawecki was removed from ministry in 2019 after it received the allegation and notified law enforcement.

View Cache

Earlier this month, a report revealed more than 200,000 children have been victims of abuse at the hands of the French Catholic Church.

But local dioceses are saying the legacy of abuse exists in Saskatchewan, too.

Pam Walsh is a victim of clergy sexual abuse. She says it began in the 1960s, when she was a child, and continued for years. It happened in the home of a relative who was friends with a local priest and visited them frequently.

Walsh was also at the home regularly because of a tumultuous home life. Her relative was trying to give her some stability at their home.

She said she doesn’t like to talk about the abuse she endured.

“I don’t get into the details of it because it’s pretty horrific. It’s very shocking for people and very hard to talk about, but it has left dramatic scars on my life.” Walsh…

View Cache

“The Vatican has used its international reach and diplomatic ties to obstruct justice by protecting child rapists and war criminals from secular authorities …. The U.S. government, in recognizing the diplomatic status of the Vatican, is aiding this criminality.”

“The U.S. recognizes papal ambassadors, called ‘nuncios,’ granting immunity to these officials. The nuncios are taking advantage of that status.”

“The Vatican has explicitly relied on its diplomatic status to thwart lawsuits by American victims of priestly abuse and assault.”

“The Roman Catholic Church has no desire to cooperate with investigations into its finances and crimes.”

The above are just some of the reasons given why the Freedom From Religion Foundation objected to Pres. Joe Biden’s appointment of former Sen. Joseph Donnelly as Ambassador to the Holy See. In an eight-page open letter to Biden and Sect. of State Antony Blinken, the FFRF provides copious examples supporting the above statements to…

View Cache

Content Warning: This article discusses clerical sexual abuse. Please refer to the end of the article for on- and off-campus resources.

The Roman Catholic Church, as well as society at large, has a responsibility to create networks of support and foster empathy for survivors of clerical sexual abuse, panelists said at an Oct. 25 event. 

The virtual event, titled “Lifting Up the Voices of Female Survivors of Clergy Sexual Abuse,” invited four survivors of clerical sexual abuse to share their perspectives on preventing future abuse. The event was co-sponsored by the Berkley Center for Religion, Peace & World Affairs, the Initiative on Catholic Social Thought in Public Life, the Office of Mission and Ministry, the Georgetown Law Office of Mission and Ministry, the Human Flourishing Program at Harvard University, and Awake Milwaukee. 

Survivors of sexual abuse need to know that their body’s traumatic response is a form of protection, according…

View Cache

Pope Francis has indicated a willingness to meet with Indigenous leaders in Canada who hold the Catholic Church responsible for decades of abuse of Indigenous children. The Croteau family in Springfield would appreciate a visit from the pontiff, too.

It is welcome news that Pope Francis will visit Canada as part of a reconciliation process for the Catholic Church’s role in the physical and sexual abuse of Indigenous children in residential schools run by the church.

The pope’s willingness to visit Canada comes months after hundreds of remains of Indigenous children were found on the sites of residential schools in British Columbia and Saskatchewan, and six years after the National Truth and Reconciliation Commission in Canada found that Indigenous children forced to live in residential homes were subjected to sexual and physical abuse that amounted to “cultural genocide.”

But as…

View Cache

The Diocese of Scranton says Pastor Loughney has been removed from ministry while the investigation continues.

Monroe County, Pa. — Pastor Gregory Loughney had been a priest at Most Holy Trinity Parish in Paradise Township near Cresco for at least a decade.

He’s now facing child sex charges after police say he made plans to meet up with who he thought were two teenage boys at this Wawa in Blakeslee on Friday night.

Instead, it was a self-proclaimed predator catcher from an online group called “570 Predator Catchers.” 

Police later arrested the priest.

“He’s also charged with a count of criminal use of a communication facility. Now the complainant has all the records or the communications back and forth, and our criminal investigators also have statements that they’ve taken,” said Chief Chris Wagner, Pocono Mountain Regional Police.

According to court papers, explicit messages were exchanged on a social media app….

View Cache

Pope Francis has agreed to visit Canada to help efforts at reconciliation with Indigenous peoples following shocking revelations of the Catholic Church’s role in the abuse and deaths of thousands of native children, the Vatican said on Wednesday.

In a brief statement, the Holy See’s press office said the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops invited the pope to make an apostolic journey to Canada “also in the context of the long-standing pastoral process of reconciliation with Indigenous peoples.”

In return, Francis “has indicated his willingness to visit the country on a date to be settled in due course,” the statement said.

The pilgrimage could be the occasion for a papal apology that has been demanded by many in Canada.

Francis had already agreed to meet in December with Indigenous survivors of Canada’s notorious residential schools amid calls for a papal apology for the Catholic Church’s role. At that time, the…

View Cache

Pope Francis has agreed to visit Canada as part of the “process of reconciliation” with its indigenous peoples, the Vatican announced Wednesday, possibly setting the stage for a formal papal apology for the Church’s role in horrific abuses perpetrated against indigenous children at its residential schools, part of Canada’s wider reckoning with its painful colonial legacy.

KEY FACTS

According to the statement from the Vatican press office, the Pope “indicated his willingness” to visit Canada at an as-yet undetermined date after an invitation from the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops to take part in an “historic pilgrimage of healing and reconciliation.”

Last month the Canadian bishops apologized “unequivocally” for the “physical, psychological, emotional, spiritual, cultural, and sexual” abuses carried out by members of the Church at 140 residential schools attended by 150,000 indigenous children separated from their families between 1831 and 1998.

…

View Cache

As a national task force investigates how the Southern Baptist Convention’s Executive Committee dealt with allegations of clergy sexual abuse, a motion coming this week at the Missouri Baptist Convention’s annual meeting will propose a similar task force for Southern Baptists in the Show-Me State. Similar efforts could also emerge this fall in other state conventions.

Rev. Mike Leake, lead pastor of Calvary Church in Neosho, Missouri, shared a draft version of the MBC motion on his website on Thursday (Oct. 21). He added that the motion is coming after work with “a few other like-minded pastors throughout the state.” He introduced it in the blog post by noting, “It’s no secret that Southern Baptists have been in the news lately for all the wrong reasons.”

The motion will instruct the MBC president elected at the meeting — likely current President Jon Nelson — to “appoint a task force to examine…

View Cache

Attorneys for the survivors say the number is still too low, and that they were excluded from the settlement discussions between the diocese and its insurers.

The bankrupt Roman Catholic Diocese of Camden has offered $53 million for survivors of clergy sexual abuse — more than half of which is being paid by its insurers.

But attorneys for the survivors say the number isn’t adequate, and say they were excluded from the settlement discussions between the diocese and its insurers.

Earlier this month, the diocese asked a federal judge to approve a bankruptcy reorganization plan that would create a $26 million fund for at least320 survivors.

On Tuesday, the diocese said in a news release that after a 10-hour negotiation with a court-appointed mediator last week, its insurers have agreed to pay $27 million toward the fund, bringing the total offered to up to $53 million,…

View Cache

The state Department of Justice says they’ve received nearly 180 reports of abuse by faith leaders or of mishandling of abuse claims by religious organizations.

Attorney General Josh Kaul released an update Wednesday about the statewide investigation into clergy and faith leader abuse that his office launched in April.

The inquiry has been hindered by some Catholic dioceses not wanting to participate, with some leaders saying past cases of sexual abuse have already been reviewed by legal authorities.

As of July, the investigation had received more than 100 reports. On Wednesday, the DOJ provided some details about the additional 80 reports received since this summer.

In a press release Wednesday, Kaul said around 80 percent of the reports his office received were of abuse. The other 20 percent involved how a religious organization responded to reports of abuse.

The update said the reports of abuse have concerned clergy and leaders from multiple…

View Cache

The trusted religious authority figures who molested two people I hold dear have passed away. My friends and colleagues are Steve Theisen & Barbara Blaine. Their predators are Sr.  Josephine Schmitz and Fr. Chet Warren.

 Church officials kept quiet about these child molesters’ deaths (as they’ve done countless times before), even though publicizing them would surely have brought some measure of comfort to those who were hurt and assaulted by these predators.

Steve Theisen

Steve was the first person I can recall who spoke publicly about being sexually victimized as a boy by a nun. He was extraordinarily honest and moving, and my heart ached for him every time he shared his horrific childhood experiences.

For many years, Steve spearheaded SNAP’s frustrating efforts to squeeze even a modicum of compassion and action out of the nation’s largest organization of sisters, the Leadership Conference of Women Religious.

(The painful details are…

View Cache

Cardinal Gerhard Müller has said the Holy See must intervene in the German synodal process to point out the distinction between the Catholic faith and some of the heretical ideas that are being promulgated in the country.

In particular, the former prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith pointed out that the “blessing of God is for matrimony between a man and a woman”. In Germany many priests have blessed same-sex unions.

Müller was speaking with Raymond Arroyo on EWTN’s The World Over on 21 October. With regard to the abuse crisis in the Church, he said the crisis had its origin in a failure on the part of individual priests to obey the Commandments, and was not a crisis of the priesthood per se.

With regard to the Pope’s description, in his 16 October video message to the World Meeting of Popular Movements, of the protesters over the killing…

View Cache

 A western Pennsylvania Roman Catholic priest pleaded no contest Monday to indecent assault that began when the victim was an 11-year-old altar boy.

Prosecutors said the Rev. Andrew Mark Kawecki, 66, of Greensburg will have to register as a sex offender for 10 years after entering the no contest plea before a Fayette County judge.

A message seeking comment was left for the defense attorney listed in the online docket as representing Kawecki.

Prosecutors said the sexual abuse began in 2004, occurring in a back room of the Saints Cyril and Methodius Church in Fairchance, Pennsylvania, among the 15 parishes within the Diocese of Greensburg where Kawecki has served since 1980.

He was removed from ministry and parishioners were notified after investigators received a tip about Kawecki in May 2019.

The attorney general’s office said after Kawecki was charged another victim made allegations of similar abuse but those claims were…

View Cache

The priest who pleaded no contest yesterday to sexually assaulting an altar boy in Fayette County once served in Indiana County, and his abuse occurred just after he served in this area.

66-year-old Andrew M. Kawecki led the Church of the Resurrection Parish in northern Indiana County from 2002 to 2004.  The parish includes churches in Ernest, Clymer, Glen Campbell, Heilwood, and Rossiter.

Kawecki’s no contest plea to a single count of indecent assault will require him to register as a sex offender for at least ten years,  He will be sentenced early in 2022.

Kawecki was charged in August of last year after the victim came forward and accused him of sexually abusing him in a back room at St. Cyril and Methodius Church in Fairchance between 2004 and 2007.  The boy was between the ages of 11 and 14 when the assaults began.  After the charges were filed,…

View Cache

The priest arrived at a Tobyhanna Wawa to have sex with two teenage boys, police said.

Instead, he was confronted by a self-avowed “predator catcher” — a man who’d posed as a 15-year-old boy in sexually explicit text messages to Gregory Loughney, priest at Most Holy Trinity Catholic parish in Cresco. 

“I made a mistake, and I need to report myself,” Loughney said in a call to police immediately after the confrontation. “I messed up.”

Pocono Mountain Regional Police arrested Loughney, 42, Friday evening on charges related to attempted sexual assault of minors. In interviews with officers, the priest described the intimate text relationship he shared with “Cyrus,” the person he believed was a teenage boy.

They met on a dating app and and began to share sexually explicit messages and photographs over text, Loughney said. He continued to pursue a relationship with Cyrus despite believing the boy was a minor, he told police.

“I went down the rabbit hole,” Loughney said.

Cyrus, whose…

View Cache

“I just had the worst confession ever. I confessed a sexual sin, something I haven’t confessed in a long time, and the priest … asked me if I was a toy,” Zuri Davis wrote on Twitter Oct. 17 about her experience of going to confession in Charlotte, North Carolina.

Davis described how the priest, whose name she still does not know, hounded her to ask if she was raped (an inappropriate and invasive question in this setting), and proceeded to tell her to take ownership of her role in the situation.

Within hours, Catholics from different walks of life shared in Davis’ anger about this situation and encouraged her to report the priest for spiritual abuse and misconduct. Davis’ story of the invasive priest and the sheer logistical difficulty she experienced trying to report a nameless priest behind a screen for misconduct sparked countless other Catholics to share…

View Cache

The Catholic Church has issued an apology after a retired priest was sentenced after being found guilty of abusing two children following a ‘trial of facts’.

Fr John J Murray had been due to stand trial for the abuse of two children, but was deemed medically unfit to take part in the proceedings due to dementia.

On Friday a court ordered further supervision arrangements.

The 80-year-old veteran priest had served as curate in St Matthew’s Parish in the Short Strand area of Belfast, where one of his victims had lived with her family.

The offences were said to have taken place between December 31 1976 and January 1 1983 in the parochial house of St Matthew’s.

Murray had gone to live in the Canary Islands but returned to Belfast in 2019 after the PSNI threatened to introduce extradition proceedings against him.

A few days later a carer guided him into…

View Cache

I promised you some joy this week. But bear with me – it’s all connected with why Catholics need to be different, and why personal sin and repentance is a key part of this.

Let’s use a horrible real-life example of what happens when people lose a sense of personal sin. Clergy sexual abuse was – and is – committed by priests with no sense of personal sin.

Instead, they created what psychologist Dr Omar Minwalla calls the ‘secret sexual basement’. When you read interviews with clergy sexual offenders, they aren’t sorry for what they did. They’re sorry for getting caught.

They abused the vulnerable and lied about it. They never mentioned it in Confession. They never admitted it to priestly colleagues at all unless they were co-offenders. Many spent decades denying accusations. When the accusations were proven, they denied that their actions were wrong. Once convicted, they denied that…

View Cache

Rev. Denis Tassé periodically served in Calgary between 2010 and 2013

A former Calgary priest has been convicted by a French court of sexually assaulting four minors, a statement from the Roman Catholic Diocese of Calgary said. 

Rev. Denis Tassé, who periodically served in Clear Water Academy and at the summer camps of Regnum Christi in Calgary, was convicted by the Criminal Court of Bordeaux, France, in the 2019 sexual assault of four teenage girls in France and Italy, a statement from the Legionaries of Christ, a Roman Catholic congregation of priests, said. 

The group said the assaults happened during pastoral group activities.

The Legionaries of Christ said in three of the cases Tassé placed his hand on the chests of the girls, and in the fourth case he placed his hand on her buttocks.

The group said on Oct. 8 Tassé was sentenced to a 10-month suspended prison sentence,…

View Cache

Work to appraise assets won’t be done until early 2022, archbishop says

The Archdiocese of St. John’s says it is continuing to work with victims and assess the values of its properties to compensate men who were sexually abused at the former Mount Cashel Orphanage.

In a letter read during masses on Saturday and Sunday, Archbishop Peter Hundt said the work is a complex and sensitive process that now includes about 130 claims from victims.

“There may be more victim claims coming forward and so we do not currently know what the final number of value of these claims will be,” Hundt said in the letter.

“This is a major piece of information that we will need to have before we can effectively determine how to bring resolution to all the claims.”

In 2018, the Supreme Court of Newfoundland and Labrador ruled the Archdiocese of St. John’s was not liable…

View Cache

Former Kition Bishop Chrysostomos was acquitted of rape charges on Friday after the Criminal Court found him not guilty of attacking a woman in 2011.

The 83-year-old former bishop was acquitted after the court found the woman’s testimony to be unreliable.

“I feel vindicated. Justice has prevailed,” Chrysostomos told the Cyprus News Agency.

The court ruled the prosecution’s case was based on the plaintiff’s testimony which had been found to contain “many contradictions, lies and erratic allegations in essential, main and key points.”

The former bishop was sent to trial for the rape that allegedly took place in April 2011 in his office in Larnaca when he was Bishop of Kition.

The woman alleged the bishop had offered her alcohol before raping her.

He faces another court procedure concerning an indecent assault of an underaged woman. The plaintiff was 16 at the time.

The cases against the former bishop…

View Cache

Organisation’s founder faced multiple allegations of sexual abuse before his death, but denies all wrongdoing and refuses to join the plan

Annette Stephens abandoned her children. Michelle Ring says she was given antiseptic lollies so she didn’t get a mouth infection after being sexually abused as a child. A father says his teenage daughter alleged abuse, and that she and others deserve to be heard.

Another person who says they have a wealth of knowledge about Kenja Communications says they are too afraid to speak publicly about it.

Kenja is now the only organisation still refusing to join the redress scheme set up in the wake of the royal commission into institutional responses to child sexual abuse. The scheme was set up in 2018 to hold institutions accountable for abuse, and to help survivors get financial compensation and an apology or “direct personal response”.

Kenja has been operating for decades,…

View Cache

A Catholic archdiocese can be sued for a priest’s alleged molestation of a young student even if the priest had no record of sexual abuse, a state appeals court has ruled in a Los Angeles case that could also affect dozens of pending Bay Area lawsuits.

A man identified only as John Doe said he was a 10-year-old catechism student in August 1988 when the Rev. John Higson assaulted him in a restroom of a church in Paramount, southeast of Los Angeles. He said Higson groped his genitals, forced him to perform oral sex, and told him, “Every boy does this in order to do their first Communion.”

Doe did not report the incident at the time and did not sue the Los Angeles Archdiocese until 2017. His lawyer, Anthony DeMarco, said Higson, ordained as a priest in 1980, was eventually removed from the priesthood after other allegations against him…

View Cache

The Catholic Church continues to lose followers in Europe, but numbers are booming in Africa and the Americas, according to figures released by the Vatican Thursday.

At the end of 2019, there were 1.34 billion Catholics worldwide, representing 17.74 percent of the global population, data from the Fides missionary agency show.

This is up 15.4 million on the year previously and an increase from 1.18 billion a decade before.

The number of followers in Europe fell by 292,000 over the course of 2019, to 285.6 million — some 39.6 percent of the population.

But Fides recorded another 8.3 million Catholics in Africa, a continent with rapid population growth, bringing the total up to 251.6 million — some 19.5 percent of the population.

There were another 5.4 million recorded in the Americas — home to Argentina-born Pope Francis — with a total of 647.2 million, or 63.8 percent of the population.

…

View Cache

Carlisle Cathedral is to support survivors of sexual abuse with a new installation.

A LOUDfence will be located in the cathedral grounds from November 1 to November 3, with people being invited to tie ribbons to it in support of survivors and victims of abuse.

The fence forms part of a Safeguarding Season which is currently being run by the cathedral. A working party including cathedral chapter members, diocesan officers and representatives of survivors have developed the series of events and services.

Antonia Sobocki, who organised the UK’s first LOUDfence event at St Peter’s, Kirkbampton, in 2020, and who is a member of the Safeguarding Season working party, originally suggested the LOUDfence installation at the cathedral.

Antonia said: “I recently posted pictures of the Carlisle LOUDfence page and my Twitter and Facebook pages went crazy. I have ribbon requests from all around the world. The founders of LOUDfence contacted me…

View Cache

Unless new behaviours are championed we will still be asking that question in 20 years

Years ago, on the RTÉ current affairs programme Questions and Answers, John Bowman asked me: “Breda O’Brien, why were the whistleblowers not believed?’

It was at the height of the scandals concerning the sexual abuse of children by members of the Catholic Church. The question has stuck in my mind ever since.

I thought about it again when reading Kitty Holland’s account of the alleged sexual abuse of at least 18 intellectually disabled residents by another resident in Ard Gréine, Donegal, a facility managed by the Health Service Executive. According to an as yet unpublished investigation, the alleged abuser, who was given the pseudonym “Brandon”, was engaging in public masturbation and sexual assault, including two alleged rapes.

It is unbelievable that this was allowed to continue from 2003 to 2016, with the full knowledge of staff…

View Cache

A Jamaican preacher and 41 of his congregants were arrested last week after two people were killed during an alleged “human sacrifice.”

Kevin O. Smith, a self-proclaimed “prophet,” and the church members were arrested for slitting the throats of 39-year-old office worker Tanecka Gardner and an unidentified man.  

Friends told the Jamaica Observer Gardner had been buying “essentials” in the weeks before her death, as Smith told his congregants that a flood was about to sweep in.

“Even recently, she has been stocking up on kerosene oil and cooking oil,” a friend told the Observer. “She told me that the pastor said that they must buy brown rice because something is going to happen.”

The day of the murders, Smith ordered parishioners to dress in white, wrap their cellphones in tin foil, leave the devices at home and head to the church, the Mirror reported.

…

View Cache

French report urges reform of Church’s sexual ethics

AS THE Roman Catholic Church’s synodal process gets under way worldwide, questions are being asked in Europe about the current campaign against clerical sex abuse, and the methods and motives associated with it.

In France, the report of an Independent Commission on Sexual Abuse in the Church (CIASE) caused consternation in early October by revealing the extent of sex crimes (News, Leader Comment, 8 October), and sparked new controversy over the sustainability of traditional practices, from clerical celibacy to the seal of the confessional. The 2500-page document, co-ordinated by a former civil servant, Jean-Marc Sauvé, estimated that 330,000 children had been abused in France since 1950 by 3200 priests, RC teachers, and church staff.

Its 45 recommendations included a reform of the Church’s sexual ethics, the ordination of married men, and new rules to enable priests to inform police of sexual…

View Cache

Dear Editor:

On Friday, Oct. 8, President Biden appointed a member of my own party, Senator Joe Donnelly, as Ambassador to the Holy See.

As a 2020 Democratic Congressional primary candidate and a 62-year-old Lutheran pastor who at 17 years old was a novice Catholic monk, college seminarian prior to my appointment to the North American College at the Vatican to continue priestly studies, I have a little insight into this matter which escapes most folks.

I lived at the Vatican during the 1980-81 academic year. At that time, America did not have a Vatican ambassador with all its associated costs for building and staff. From the Embassy, it takes eight minutes by car to get to the North American College where I lived or to where the Pope lives, the Apostolic Palace. The U.S. Embassy to Italy and the U.S. Embassy to the Holy See are a four-minute walk…

View Cache

Pope Francis has convened a synod in Rome with the theme “For a Synodal Church: Communion, Participation and Mission.” In his opening address he called us as church to engage this synod as an opportunity “to become a listening church, to break out of our routine and pause from our pastoral concerns in order to stop and listen.”

This synodal process invites all the faithful and, in particular, our leaders within parishes, dioceses, hospitals, schools, universities and other church-related ministries to do some soul-searching. We must seize this moment to listen intently, especially to those who have been marginalized. We must listen to those among us who experience rejection, exclusion and unwelcome in their families, parishes and other Catholic spaces and contexts.

Listening is only the first step in this synodal process. Those who hold positions of leadership and power within the church, those who…

View Cache

The trial of a Cincinnati-area priest accused of raping a 10-year-old alter boy three decades ago is being delayed for the fourth time, his defense attorney’s office said Friday.

Father Geoff Drew’s trial was scheduled to start Monday morning before Hamilton County Common Pleas Court Judge Leslie Ghiz.

Drew, 59, has pleaded not guilty to nine counts of rape and has been in jail at the Hamilton County Justice Center 26 month now.

He remains at the Hamilton County jail in lieu of $5 million bond and faces life in prison if convicted.

The latest delay comes at the request of Hamilton County prosecutors, according to defense attorney Brad Moermond’s office.

A new item on the court docket shows Monday’s hearing will be a “plea or trial setting” at 9 a.m. The trial was to start at 10 a.m. and it is still showing up on the court docket. It…

View Cache

Three former seminarians say Cleveland diocesan and seminary officials failed to respond appropriately, after a priest allegedly pressured them to take naked swims with him at a lake house and other locations, couching the invitations in both spiritual language and excessive alcohol consumption. 

One seminarian also said the priest took nude photos and videos of him without consent.

While the Cleveland diocese told The Pillar Thursdaythat the matter “does not involve any conduct that could be reasonably considered to be coercive [or] harassing,” one former seminarian called that response stunning.

The former seminarians say they were harassed and manipulated in 2019 by Cleveland priest Fr. James Cosgrove. They also allege that after they reported the misconduct and it was investigated, the priest still had access to seminarians, and a key to the seminary.

While the priest resigned from ministry this month, the former seminarians say that seminary and diocesan officials left other…

View Cache

USA Gymnastics and a survivors’ committee representing women who were sexually assaulted by former U.S. Olympic and national team physician Larry Nassar and Olympic and national team coaches have filed a proposed $400 million settlement agreement with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court Southern District of Indiana.

In what both sides view as a major breakthrough in the nearly three-year bankruptcy case, USA Gymnastics and the survivors’ agreement on the proposed $400,659,129 settlement as part of a reorganization plan follows a week of increasingly acrimonious discussions between USA Gymnastics and the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee over the USOPC’s financial responsibilities in the case.

Recent discussions in the case have revealed an unlikely alliance between USA Gymnastics, the sport’s Indianapolis-based national governing body, and the survivors’ committee on one side, and the USOPC on the other.

Attorneys for the USOPC proposed a $340 million settlement last week and then upped that to…

View Cache

The murder accused claims he was sodomized twice and infected with a sexually transmitted disease

The 2019 murder of a Kenyan priest, Father Michael Maingi Kyengo, has taken a new twist with a suspect saying he killed the cleric over sexual assaults.

Michael Muthini Mutunga, 26, was among four people charged in November 2019. He denied killing the priest, but when the case came up for hearing in mid-October, he pleaded guilty. A fact-finding hearing for the case was held Oct. 21.

Father Kyengo, 43, a priest of the Diocese of Machakos, disappeared from his home in Matungulu, near Nairobi, in October 2019. A week later, he was found dead in a shallow grave in a seasonal riverbed in southeastern Kenya.

Mutunga’s lawyer said his client had acted in anger and grief after he was sodomized twice and infected with a sexually transmitted disease by the priest, according to The…

View Cache

As The Tablet reported earlier this week, the Roman Catholic Diocese of Westminster has now settled a damages claim by my client A711 arising from her mistreatment by members of the diocesan safeguarding team. The diocese and Cardinal Nichols had already been severely criticised for by the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA) over this case, one of several issues which prompted calls for the Cardinal’s resignation. 

A711’s claim appears to be the first legal action against the Catholic Church not for clerical sex abuse itself, but for its subsequent treatment of a survivor. Given the appalling behaviour by the Catholic Church towards survivors of clerical sex abuse over decades, this is in some ways surprising. However, A711’s experience was unusual in that the disparaging comments about her circulating within the diocesan safeguarding team became known to her via a subject access request, at which point her suspicions about their attitude…

View Cache

Archbishop Éric de Moulins-Beaufort, head of the French episcopal conference, has agreed with Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin to calm tensions after meeting to discuss the shocking Sauvé report on clerical sexual abuse of minors. 

Both issued conciliatory statements after a meeting where the archbishop admitted his statement that the secret of confession stood above France’s secular laws was “clumsy”. The report said a priest should inform police if he learned through confession that a minor had been abused.

The report, by an independent commission led by retired civil servant Jean-Marc Sauvé, estimated that 216,000 minors had been abused by priests in France since 1950. Another 114,000 were estimated abused by lay Church workers, it said.

“The scale of violence and sexual assault on minors … requires the Church to re-read its practices in light of this reality. Work is therefore necessary to reconcile the nature of confession and the need…

View Cache

Stone claims that Moore cost him the SBC presidency.

An ongoing feud between a pair of former Southern Baptist leaders is headed to court.

Lawyers for Georgia pastor Mike Stone filed a complaint Monday (Oct. 18) in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Tennessee accusing former Southern Baptist ethicist Russell Moore of defamation, false light invasion of privacy and intentional infliction of emotional distress.

Stone, pastor of Emmanuel Baptist in Blackshear, Georgia, seeks at least $750,000 in damages.

The complaint centers on a pair of letters written by Moore, describing his conflicts with other Baptist leaders while he was serving as president of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission.

In those letters, Moore claims that the Executive Committee exonerated a church that had covered up sexual abuse and that he was pressured to silence an abuse survivor who spoke at an ERLC conference on sexual…

View Cache

Pope Francis has shared a letter written by a clerical sexual abuse survivor with candidates preparing for the Catholic priesthood.

“For years I was mistreated by a priest who I should have called ‘little brother,’ and I was his ‘little sister,’” the letter writer said. “If we want to live the truth, we cannot close our eyes!”

Addressing priests, the abuse survivor wrote: “Please realize that you have received a huge gift. The gift of being an ‘alter Christus,’ of being the incarnation of Christ here in the world. People, and especially children, do not see a person in you, but Christ Jesus, in whom they trust without limits.”

“It is something HUGE and STRONG, but also very FRAGILE and VULNERABLE. PLEASE BE A GOOD PRIEST!” she said.

The letter, with the survivor’s name removed, was published on the website of the Pontifical Commission for the Protection…

View Cache

A federal bankruptcy judge has again blocked 36 people who say they were sexually abused from pressing ahead with Child Victims Act lawsuits against Catholic parishes and schools.

Chief Judge Carl L. Bucki of the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in the Western District said in a written ruling this week that allowing the state litigation to move forward “would become an inherent distraction that promises to complicate negotiations” among the parties involved in the Diocese of Buffalo bankruptcy reorganization.

Bucki agreed with the diocese’s request to extend an injunction prohibiting litigation by 36 plaintiffs against parishes and schools until next August. He also ruled that the plaintiffs were free to continue litigating against individuals who may have abused.

The diocese’s lawyers had argued that if any CVA cases against parishes and schools advanced in the state courts, it would inevitably involve the diocese in costly litigation and drain assets that otherwise…

View Cache

THE Catholic Church in Glasgow has appealed to survivors of abuse within the church to get in touch and tell leaders “where they went wrong”. 

Bosses at the Archdiocese of Glasgow say they want to hear to hear from people with “first-hand experience” of how reports of abuse were dealt with and what “can be done” to improve the process in future. 

It will form part of a major independent review during the month of November which is being led by the Social Care Institute for Excellence (SCEI). 

A spokesman for the Archdiocese said: “This is a genuine attempt to listen and learn.

“The Social Care Institute is a totally independent body which will conduct this month long audit. The Archdiocese will have no role except to help to publicise that the audit is taking place, and that the external team want to hear directly from abuse survivors.

“The Social Care…

View Cache

Change is coming slowly and painfully to an organization roiled by a sex abuse scandal that exposed the hypocrisy at its core.

The Southern Baptist Convention has spent much of the last year in turmoil. The organization — the largest Protestant denomination in the U.S., claiming about 14.1 million members — is trying to reckon with a horrifying history of sexual assaults. People at the organization’s highest levels are accused of personally committing and abetting some of them.

Change is coming slowly and painfully. Until last week, the denomination’s leadership had been at war with its constituent churches, which had demanded a full accounting of the abuse and what the leadership was doing to stamp it out. The convention’s chief executive officer, Ronnie Floyd, had sided with his powerful colleagues, who wanted to limit an investigation into the widespread misconduct that took place as Floyd and other conservatives…

View Cache

One of the three suspects in the murder of Father Michael Maingi Kyengo on October 8 at Makima in Embu county has admitted to killing the priest but attributed it to a forced sexual act.

Michael Muthini Mutunga who is charged alongside Kavivya Mwangangi and Solomon Mutava Wambua had earlier denied killing the priest when he was first charged in November 2019.

The three were charged with killing the Catholic priest on the night of October 8 and 9, 2019 at Makima location within Mbeere Sub-county.

When the matter came up for continued hearing, the accused told the court that he wished to change his plea.

Justice Lucy Njuguna convicted the accused and ordered a victim impact report before sentencing. “The accused is convicted on his own plea of guilty”.

In his mitigation submissions to the court, the 26-year-old through his advocate Guantai Kirimi said he acted out of anger and grief in committing the offense.

Kirimi pleaded…

View Cache

The Ernakulam Rural District Crime Branch arrested a priest who was accused of sexually abusing a minor girl.

The arrested is Sibi Varghese, 32, of Varapuzha. He was a co-vicar at a church in Kochi. He had been hiding in various States.

A team led by district Crime Branch DySP V. Rajeev made the arrest.

View Cache

A former Boy Scout sexual abuse survivor, who had stayed silent about his ordeal for nearly 50 years, says the $1.9 billion victims settlement reached by coalition lawyers is a “massive step forward.”

“Patrick,” who remains active in the Scouts, spoke with The Post under a pseudonym because he said he had not discussed his ordeal with anyone except his lawyer before.

“Nobody I know who is alive other than the people on this phone call know my story,” he said Tuesday, on a call with Coalition of Abused Scouts for Justice lawyer Adam Slater and a rep for the legal organization.

Patrick knew he wanted to join the BSA since his mother took him to see the movie “Follow Me, Boys!” when he was 6 years old.

He joined a Texas troop in the 1970s at age 11 and traveled to campgrounds near…

View Cache

The Lincoln Diocese has reassigned and placed restrictions on a pair of priests after an investigation into misconduct claims.

The reassigned priests are Scott Courtney, who faced allegations that he had sexual contact with a woman, and Thomas Dunavan, who was accused of sexual misconduct that dated back 20 years, The Lincoln Journal-Star reports.

Neither priest has been charged with a crime. But Courtney has been out of active ministry since September 2018, and Dunavan was placed on administrative leave in March 2019.

Bishop James Conley announced this month in a statement that Courtney was assigned to minister to prisons, nursing and retirement homes, and provide administrative assistance to the chancery, effective early next January, Courtney was last with the Sacred Heart parish in Roseland and the Assumption parish in Juniata.

Dunavan was assigned to provide administrative assistance to the chancery and help retired priests, effective…

View Cache

When Bishop Andrew Cozzens took the podium at his introductory press conference in the Diocese of Crookston Oct. 18, he was quick to acknowledge the dioceses checkered past of clerical sex abuse and stated clearly his intentions to help it heal.

“I am aware of some of the need for healing in the Diocese of Crookston and would really like to be a part of that,” Cozzens, currently an auxiliary bishop in the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis said. “I look forward especially to just listening to people’s experience and hearing what it’s been like here in the Diocese of Crookston the past several years.”

Cozzens’s appointment as the eighth bishop of Crookston was announced by the Vatican on Oct. 18, and he will be formally installed on December 6. The Diocese of Crookston serves the 14 northwest counties of Minnesota with more than 32,000 Catholics and 66 parishes.

…

View Cache

Perpetrators cannot live with the truth; victims cannot live without it.  

A recently released 2,500-page report from an independent Commission on Sexual Abuse led by Jean-Marc Sauvé revealed that since 1950, some 216,000 children, mostly boys, have been sexually abused by French Catholic clergy. Taking account of abuses committed by lay members of the Church, such as teachers at Catholic schools, the number rises to 330,000.

What’s behind the staggering number is that child sexual abuse in the French Catholic Church has evolved into a systemic crime. Out of a total of 115,000 priests and other clerics, as many as 3,200 have committed child sexual abuse, and this was probably an underestimation.

In France, God’s messengers are reduced to the devils, and the sacred place degenerated into a perverts club, no less. 

To whitewash itself, the Church has been covering up the crimes. “There was a whole bunch of negligence,…

View Cache

There Are Three Pending Cases In Process, But They Cannot Give Their Names So As Not To Interfere In The Investigation.

The spokesman for the Diocese of Campeche, Gerardo Casillas González; confirmed that they are aware of six cases of sexual abuse by clergy and faithful committed against minors and vulnerable people.

He pointed out that it is a crime and a very serious sin that must be punished both canonically and civilly, although he said he is aware that the damage will never be fully repaired.

In this way, the Diocese of Campeche admits that both clerics and religious or lay pastoral agents have committed sexual abuse against six minors and vulnerable people. The church is following up on these cases and the authorities are doing their investigative work.

Regarding the ecclesiastical process of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in Rome, it has already…

View Cache

Segal Says Archdiocese Can Be Liable for Child Molestation Even if It Did Not Know of Priest’s Pedophilia

The Los Angeles Archdiocese of the Roman Catholic Church was erroneously awarded summary judgment in an action against it based on sexual child molestation by a priest, the Court of Appeal for this district held yesterday, saying that liability can be found notwithstanding lack of knowledge of the propensities on the part of the particular priest who committed the misconduct.

Framing the issue, Justice John L. Segal of Div. Seven asked:

“Does a church have a duty to protect children from sexual abuse by clergy while the children are attending religious school or participating in other church-sponsored programs?”

He said that [b]ecause the answer to that question is ‘yes,’ we reverse the judgment entered after the trial court… answered that question ‘no’….”

The action was brought on Oct. 16, 2017, by John…

View Cache

Denny Doyle is concerned about the risk of brain injuries to children who play tackle football. And he worries that his beloved church will also pay a price

Denny Doyle is a committed Catholic and a lifelong football fan, and he saw little conflict between the two until his grandson was old enough to play the game. That’s when he began reading about the risks that tackle football posed to young boys, whose brains are particularly vulnerable to concussions. To Doyle’s relief, his grandson opted for flag football.

But Doyle, his eyes opened, saw a bigger problem: The Roman Catholic Church that he loved was putting tens of thousands of other boys at risk by sponsoring the Catholic Youth Organization, or C.Y.O., which runs tackle football leagues around the country.

A former lawyer, Doyle feared that the church could be sued if a player sustained a catastrophic brain injury on…

View Cache

A survivor of sexual abuse by a priest who was branded “needy” and “manipulative” by church safeguarding officials has been awarded a financial settlement after seeking redress for the trauma caused by the Church’s handling of her case. 

A priest began abusing the woman, known as A711, when she was 15. Subsequently she was raped. She sought compensation for what she described as being “retraumatised” after she discovered critical remarks about her in emails disclosed to her regarding her case. 

She had first come forward in 2016 and recounted her story to church officials of being abused and later raped by the priest. She received compensation from the Church for the abuse. But she decided to go ahead and make a further claim after the additional distress caused by the way in she was treated by Westminster diocese when she made inquiries regarding her case. 

This latest settlement is believed…

View Cache

A MAN abused by former priest Malachy Finegan is set to take legal action against the Catholic Church for a second time.

Sean Faloon was first targeted by Finegan as a 10-year-old altar boy.

The legal action comes after the existence of unpublished documents linked to his abuser emerged after a High Court legal action earlier this year.

From Hilltown in Co Down, Mr Faloon (41) has previously revealed how his abuse began with hugging and kissing after Mass.

Mr Faloon was later raped and abused over a seven year period from 1990 to 1997.

He said that the priest told him that if he ever told anyone about the abuse it would “ruin me for the rest of my life”.

Details came to light when Mr Faloon, who was aged 17 at the time, told his GP.

His family and police were later informed, however, a formal complaint was…

View Cache