ABUSE TRACKER

The Roman Catholic Diocese in Burlington has been served with another lawsuit alleging that a priest sexually abused a young boy in the 1970s. 

The lawsuit filed in Chittenden County Superior Court on Tuesday alleges that the church negligently employed and assigned throughout the country a priest with a history of sexual abuse who preyed upon a minor while he was stationed in New Jersey. 

The church in 2019 published Leo Courcy’s name along with those of 40 others it said had been credibly accused of abusing children. 

The case is being brought by Christopher Silletti, who is represented by Jessica Arbour, an attorney with Horowitz Law. The firm has represented victims in a number of church sexual abuse cases. Silletti, 49, is seeking damages of an unspecified amount. 

The suit argues that the diocese made “a purposeful effort to conceal the horrific misdeeds of Diocesan priests” and “misrepresented to Plaintiff,…

View Cache

Chapter 11 odyssey has left some victims who stepped forward at the Boy Scouts’ request feeling angry and mistrustful of the process

When the Boy Scouts of America filed for bankruptcy last year and asked alleged victims of childhood sexual abuse to step forward, roughly 84,000 did, with many hoping the legal proceeding would help usher a financial settlement—and some closure to their ordeals.

But 15 months later, those who came forward are still waiting as the Boy Scouts’ odyssey through chapter 11 approaches the finish line without a clear resolution of their claims.

Boy Scout lawyer Jessica Lauria said in a court hearing last week that the only way to preserve the organization’s mission is to reorganize it rather than liquidating assets to pay sex abuse claims. Breaking up the Boy Scouts would harm 700,000 active Scouts, she said.

But to turn the page on…

View Cache

Cork-based musician Leah Sohotra was emotionally impacted by the publication of the Commission of Investigation’s report in January 2021, after her mother experienced a similar, unbearable fate in New York following sexual assault.

Folk musician Leah Sohotra’s own story is tightly bound to that of the survivors of Ireland’s horrific Mother & Baby Homes. The Commission of Investigation’s report on the homes for unmarried mothers was published on January 12th, 2021. The five-year report found that around 9,000 children died in 18 different homes, where girls as young as 12 were admitted over seven decades. It also found evidence of physical abuse, issues relating to burials of babies, and the facilitation of “illegal registrations of birth” as a result of forced adoption.

Met with heartbreak and frustration by survivors’ groups who insist that the report barely scratched the surface, they are now calling for criminal…

View Cache

EVERY time a story breaks about the abuse inflicted on youngsters in religious environments, the response from church officials is always the same: a grovelling apology usually followed by blather that such incidents are things of the past that cannot possibly happen again.

On Wednesday we reported on “hip” pastor Jonathan Stockstill saying how sorry he was about gross acts of cruelty inflicted on youngsters in camps run by his church in Louisiana, and a day later we had the much less “hip” but far more prominent Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, above, in full-on hand-wringing mode over Christian camps run by serial abuser and sadist John Smyth QC.

I am sorry this was done in the name of Jesus Christ by a perverted version of spirituality and evangelicalism … I continue to hear new details of the abuse and my sorrow, shock and…

View Cache

Abuse survivors to hold rally today in Harrisburg

Adult survivors of child sex abuse are pledging to return to the state Capitol today and maintain pressure on Senate Republican leaders, who so far have declined to hold a final vote on legislation that would permit lawsuits against their abusers and organizations like the Catholic Church that covered up for child predators.

Senate leaders don’t have a vote on the legislation, House 951, scheduled next week, said Erica Wright, a spokeswoman for Senate Majority Leader Kim Ward, R-Westmoreland County.

Declining to act now would be “cruel and inhumane” after the Senate Judiciary Committee passed the legislation in April in a vote in which key Republicans — Senate President Pro Tem Jake Corman, R-Centre County and Senate Judiciary committee Chairwoman Lisa Baker, R-Luzerne County threw their support behind the bill, said Shaun Dougherty, a priest abuse survivor from Johnstown.

“They pulled this out of…

View Cache

The Catholic Bishops in Northern California had challenged a new law providing for triple damages against any Diocese or organization that covered up childhood sex abuse. In 2019, the California legislature passed a law to provide for a 3-year window for survivors of childhood sex abuse to come forward and sue the priest and the church no matter how long ago the abuse occurred. Part of that law, CCP 340.1, provided for triple damages for cover up. The bishops’ lawyers argued that the triple damages provision in CCP 340.1 was unconstitutional because it imposed a new punishment that was not in place when the cover up conduct actually occurred.

The statute of limitations in California barred most of these cases because the old statute of limitations required that a lawsuit be filed within two years from the abuse. Few children would have been aware of their right to file a…

View Cache

The trial of defrocked priest Richard Daschbach, charged with sexual abuse of 14 girls, is dividing the small, deeply Catholic country

Lita grew up in a poor family in a hamlet surrounded by the spectacular mountains of Oecusse in Timor-Leste. When she was 11 years old she went to live in Topu Honis shelter home, in the mountainous, forest-encircled village of Kutet.

The shelter was run by Richard Daschbach, a now-defrocked 84-year-old US priest who founded the facility in 1992.

Daschbach, born in Pittsburgh and a former member of the Society of the Divine Word, was a powerful man. He was regarded as an expert in local language and many residents were convinced he had magical powers. Over the years the shelter, which had the support of international donors, took care of more than 600 orphans, poor children, vulnerable adults and abused women.

Lita says that in the evenings, as…

View Cache

Nazir Afzal, a prestigious Muslim barrister with a history of prosecuting gangs engaged in sexual abuse and grooming, is the head of the latest effort by the Catholic Church in England and Wales to ensure better prevention of sexual abuse of children and to address ongoing allegations in all Catholic institutions and groups.

“The Catholic Church has recognized the failures of the past and the need to put things right,” said Afzal, the new chair of the Catholic Safeguarding Standards Agency. “This is what attracted me to the role.”

“To make a difference, you have to act differently. It usually takes great courage to do so,” Afzal, said May 17. “When I helped deliver justice to thousands of victims of abuse, I realized that they were the most courageous of all.”

Afzal’s previous roles include chief crown prosecutor for northwest England and chief executive of the Police and Crime Commissioners.

…

View Cache

A former southern Tasmanian high school teacher is facing allegations he sexually abused two male students in the late 1980s to early 1990s.

Key points:

• The man is accused of serious and repeated sexual abuse against two boys dating back to the late 1980s
• A law firm is pursuing civil action on behalf of the two men and is calling for others to come forward
• It’s understood the man also taught at other state schools

The man, who cannot be named for legal reasons, was a teacher at Kingston High School during the period of the alleged offending. 

Australian law firm Maurice Blackburn is representing the two men and has called for anyone who attended Kingston High School between 1980 and 2005 who knows anything to come forward.

Senior associate John Rule said the allegations against the teacher were “serious”.

“[It was allegedly] repeated abuse and involved quite sophisticated grooming…

View Cache

St. Vincent Catholic Charities is suspending operations at its children’s home while it deals with issues involving staffing.

The agency decided to halt operations while it revamps staff recruiting and retention efforts to better meet “the needs of the ever-changing population of children in crisis,” St. Vincent spokesperson Andrea Bitely said in an email.

“The challenges faced over the last year have made it clear to St. Vincent’s leadership that a temporary pause in programming is necessary to properly provide the highest quality of care, the best and safest environment and the right forms of management for both the children and their staff,” Bitely wrote.

The home accepts children ages 5 to 17 who suffer from abuse and neglect, providing counseling, education and other services. More than 90% of the children placed there are wards of the court, according to the agency’s website.

State records show the facility on West Willow Street has a capacity…

View Cache

An outspoken US nun who was recently embroiled in a censorship row with Melbourne’s Archbishop has warned Australia’s Catholic Church it faces an inevitable decline unless it stops suppressing rank-and-file members pushing for reform.

The nation’s bishops are under pressure to overhaul the church after years of sex scandals and internal unrest, and one of America’s most prominent Benedictine nuns, Sister Joan Chittister, has now renewed calls for women to be ordained and for laypeople to be given more power over their parishes, declaring that the church needs to “grow up” if it wants to thrive.

Such reforms were meant to be thrashed out at the most significant conference Australian Catholic bishops have held in 80 years, the Plenary Council, which is scheduled to take place in October.

However, working documents prepared for the event have prompted concerns that some of the more contentious issues on the agenda could be cast…

View Cache

The death of a well-known religion reporter; a new job announcement from a beat veteran and a spotlight on two feisty independent religion news organizations is what concerns me this week.

Tmatt had previously offered an update on the health of Rachel Zoll, a former Associated Press religion specialist who came down with glioblastoma, a brain cancer that has no cure, in early 2018. That was only a few months after another religion-beat pro, Jeffrey Weiss of the Dallas Morning News, died of the exact same malady.

Last week, Zoll died at the age of 55 at her home in Massachusetts. She reported on religion for AP for 17 years.

There have been lots of tributes, so I’ll spotlight this Associated Press obit atop the list.

Zoll covered religion in all its aspects, from the spiritual to the political, and her stories reached a global…

View Cache

Few abuse survivors anticipate the country’s largest Protestant faith group will effectively address its sexual abuse problem without the pressure of outside forces.

As the Southern Baptist Convention prepares for its annual gathering next month in Nashville, Tennessee, expectations that clergy sex abuse survivors will see meaningful progress are low. Few of us anticipate the country’s largest Protestant faith group will effectively address its sexual abuse problem.

Over two years have passed since the “Abuse of Faith” investigatory series brought wide media attention to the long-standing, pervasive SBC problem of clergy sex abuse and church cover-ups. The series documented more than 700 people who reported having been sexually abused by Southern Baptist clergy and church leaders. Nearly all were children at the time they were abused.

The investigation also found that the very structure of the SBC “enabled predators to move undetected and stifled reforms to prevent abuse.” And the investigation  View Cache

The former chief crown prosecutor in the Rochdale grooming gang cases has been appointed as the chairman of the Catholic Church’s new safeguarding body in England and Wales.

Nazir Afzal’s appointment was welcomed by two survivors of abuse, who said “a seismic shift in culture” was needed.

The body will be able to sanction clergy who do not meet standards.

It comes after the Church was heavily criticised for its response to child abuse by an independent inquiry.

Mr Afzal, a practicing Muslim, previously served as the chief crown prosecutor for north-west England and director in London, as well as the chief executive of the Police and Crime Commissioners.

He was responsible for bringing sex traffickers in the Rochdale grooming gang scandal to justice, as well as Stuart Hall, the former television presenter who in 2014 was convicted of multiple sex offences against children.

The Church hopes the new Catholic…

View Cache

During the Trump years, there was a small boom in documentaries about cults. At least two TV series and a podcast were made about Nxivm, an organization that was half multilevel marketing scheme, half sex abuse cabal. “Wild Wild Country,” a six-part series about Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh’s compound in Oregon, was released on Netflix. Heaven’s Gate was the subject of a four-part series on HBO Max and a 10-part podcast. Indeed, there have been so many recent podcasts about cults that sites like Oprah Daily have published listicles about the best ones.

In many ways the compelling new podcast “The Turning: The Sisters Who Left,” which debuted on Tuesday, unfolds like one of these shows. It opens with a woman, Mary Johnson, hoping to escape the religious order in which she lives. “We always went out two by two. We were never allowed just…

View Cache

The Diocese of Erie has paid out $16.6 million to a total of 134 survivors of sexual abuse committed by clergy or laypersons of the diocese.

The announcement came Tuesday as the diocese said administrators hired to oversee its independent survivors’ reparation program have completed their work and closed out the fund.

The diocese launched its compensation fund in 2019, giving survivors of sexual abuse committed by men and women affiliated with the diocese a six-month window to file a claim. Claims were accepted from Feb. 15 to Aug. 15, 2019, regardless of when the abuse took place.

The Most Rev. Lawrence Persico, bishop of Erie, announced the figures along with a letter to pastors on Monday. The letter will be shared with parishioners beginning this weekend.

The fund was financed through $22.5 million in lines of credit obtained by the diocese and secured by its investments.

No money donated…

View Cache

A Newark archbishop sexually abused a 5-year-old girl in the 1970s, after gaining her hungry family’s trust by bringing them food, a new lawsuit claims.

The March litigation is believed to be the first abuse accusation against Peter Gerety, who died in 2016 at the age of 104, making him the world’s oldest Catholic bishop.

The plaintiff, who is now in her 40s, said Gerety flattered her as “such a smart and pretty young girl,” before sexually abusing her in the church rectory on at least three or four occasions, the lawsuit alleges.

The plaintiff said she told her sister of the attacks when she was a teenager, and still takes drugs to treat anxiety and depression stemming from the sex crimes, the affidavit said.

“I have suffered from extreme difficulty navigating intimate relationships, and I continue to experience bouts of anger, as well as difficulties when involved in relationships…

View Cache

After announcing Catholic Diocese of Erie fund paid victims $16.6 million, Bishop Persico says diocese awaiting decision in Pa. Supreme Court case. Bankruptcy possible, depending on ruling.

With its latest report on the clergy abuse crisis, the Catholic Diocese of Erie said it has spent more than $31 million compensating victims and survivors and investigating cases.

Whether the financial reckoning continues, and whether the 13-county diocese will have to consider bankruptcy as a result, depends largely on how the Pennsylvania Supreme Court rules on a clergy abuse case that originated in the Catholic Diocese of Altoona-Johnstown.

“We are going to have to wait and see,” Erie Catholic Bishop Lawrence Persico said.

In releasing the latest figures on the abuse cases on Tuesday, Persico told the Erie Times-News that the Catholic Diocese of Erie would be in a precarious financial situation if the state Supreme Court were to rule against the Catholic Diocese of Altoona-Johnstown in…

View Cache

[Via Catholic Philly]

Mexican church officials previously “covered up” cases of clerical sexual abuse, a situation the Vatican ambassador to Mexico said has changed as Catholic leaders increasingly follow a zero-tolerance policy promoted by Pope Francis.

Archbishop Franco Coppola, apostolic nuncio, told the Spanish news agency EFE that 271 cases of alleged sexual abuse committed by clergy have been investigated over the past decade. Of those cases, 103 priests have been removed from their positions, 45 priests have been suspended and 123 cases are still open.

“I seriously think there were people who covered up (cases) with bad intentions,” Archbishop Coppola told EFE May 19. “I want to think there were also people who covered up (cases) without realizing the seriousness of it.”

An official with the apostolic nuncio’s office in Mexico City told Catholic News Service the comments published by EFE were correct.

The nuncio’s comments offered a candid…

View Cache

An associate priest at Christ the King Church has been removed following allegations of the sexual abuse of minors.

This is according to a press release from the Diocese of Shreveport.

Shreveport’s Bishop Francis Malone said in the release that the allegations against Rev. Seby Shan Chemmampallil “do not, at this time, involve physical contact with minors, [but] they nonetheless constitute serious violation of the law.”

According to Bossier Sheriff’s Office records, Chemmampallil, 36, was booked into Bossier Maximum Security Facility Friday at 4:20 p.m. The records show he is charged with (4 counts) Pornography Involving Juveniles and (2 counts) Sexual Abuse of an Animal. Bond is set at $100,000.

Bishop Malone also encourages those who are suspicious of clergy members sexually abusing minors to contact the Diocesan Victim Assistance Minister at 318-584-2411 or the Louisiana Bureau of Investigation at 225-326-6100.

Bishop Malone also encourages those who are suspicious of…

View Cache

It took her 30 years to confront her past.

“Father Tony was always nice, or so I thought,” she said. “He was very kind, gentle. He always spent a lot of time with the kids, so I trusted him until everything happened.”

What happened, she said, is what’s happened to dozens, if not hundreds of children over the past several decades: sexual abuse committed by a priest in the Catholic Diocese of Cleveland.

Rev. Anthony Schuerger was a priest at St. Raphael Church in 1990. She was 8 years old and a public school student who took religious classes at the Bay Village parish.

“He would come and take me to his office to speak with me in private and talk in private and talk to me about how I need to do better for God,” she recalled.

The woman claims Schuerger at times would touch her inappropriately during those…

View Cache

A priest accused of raping a woman told a jury he went to her house to see if she would “make love” with him and said “we never claim to be perfect”.

Retired Roman Catholic priest John Clohosey, 72, who presided over churches across north-east England, is accused of attacking the woman in her Gateshead home in 1986.

Newcastle Crown Court has heard he forced himself upon her in her bedroom.

Father Clohosey, of St Mary’s Priory in Filey, North Yorkshire, denies rape.

Giving evidence, he said the purpose of his visit to the woman’s home had been “friendship I suppose, and to see if she would like to make love”.

‘Human failings’

Asked how that reconciled with his vow of celibacy, he replied: “Human failings… we never claim to be perfect.”

Father Clohosey said during the visit he asked her to “make love” and she had said “no” more…

View Cache

Adult survivors of child sex abuse are pledging to return to the state Capitol on Monday to keep up the pressure on Senate Republican leaders, who so far have declined to hold a final vote on legislation that would allow them to sue their abusers and organizations such as the Catholic Church that covered up for child predators.

Senate leaders don’t have a vote on the legislation, House Bill 951, scheduled next week, said Erica Wright, a spokeswoman for Senate Majority Leader Kim Ward, R-Westmoreland.

Declining to act now would be “cruel and inhumane” after the Senate Judiciary Committee passed the legislation in April in a vote in which key Republicans – Senate President Pro Tempore Jake Corman, R-Centre, and Senate Judiciary Committee Chairwoman Lisa Baker, R-Luzerne – threw their support behind the bill, said Shaun Dougherty, a priest abuse survivor from Johnstown.

“They pulled this out of Judiciary. They…

View Cache

Retired John Anthony Clohosey, 72, denies the charge but said he kissed and cuddled with the complainant on her bed

An Irish priest accused of raping a woman in 1986 told a jury he went to her house to see if she would “make love”, adding: “We never claim to be perfect.”

Retired John Anthony Clohosey, 72, denies the charge but said he kissed and cuddled with the complainant on her bed.

Jurors at Newcastle Crown Court heard his accuser, who cannot be identified, asked the Diocese of Hexham and Newcastle for help to pay a legal bill and grew angry when she was turned down as the Catholic Church had paid out money to victims of sexual abuse.

The court was told, in an email, she said she had been abused by a serving priest years before.

Jurors also heard the woman claimed to police she was raped in…

View Cache

[Via National Catholic Reporter]

Fifteen seminaries have committed to meeting five sexual misconduct policy benchmarks developed by a group of laypeople, seminary leaders and bishops.

Developed by a seminary study group assembled by the McGrath Institute for Church Life at the University of Notre Dame, the voluntary benchmarks are meant to bolster the sexual misconduct policies seminaries already have in place, said John Cavadini, institute director.

“We worked really hard to come up with benchmarks so that if you adopted all of them into your policy, you would have a policy that is credible to potential victims,” Cavadini told Catholic News Service.

Specifically, the benchmarks are:

• Systematic training for seminarians, staff and faculty on policies on sexual harassment and reporting procedures.
• Reporting and investigation to include internal procedures and the ability to report issues to an agency outside of the seminary structure and that is independent of the seminary.
• Victim support as the…

View Cache

Murdered Buffalo priest A. Joseph Bissonette, accused in a lawsuit of sexually assaulting a boy at St. Bartholomew Catholic Church in 1977, wasn’t assigned to that parish until three years later.

Bissonette was listed in official Buffalo Diocese directories from 1973 to 1979 as associate pastor of St. Brigid Church, located about 6 miles from St. Bartholomew. He was named pastor of St. Bart’s in 1980 and served in that post until 1987, when he was fatally beaten and stabbed by two teenaged robbers now serving 50-years-to-life prison terms.

The pastor of St. Bart’s in 1977 was the Rev. Joseph Friel, according to the diocese directories. That raises the question of whether the plaintiff misidentified Bissonette as the alleged abuser instead of Friel, who has been accused of child sex abuse in 11 Child Victims Act lawsuits.

The Buffalo Diocese also includes Friel on its list of 78 diocese priests…

View Cache

Earlier this month, the Archdiocese of Montreal unveiled a new set of protocols implemented as the result of an independent investigation into a local abuse case which identified several holes in the previous system.

According to the Archbishop of Montreal, Christian Lepine, one driving idea behind the reform is that “we need prevention, and good prevention.”

Abuse, Lepine told Crux, “Goes so much against Jesus, it goes so much against our Christian faith…People don’t want abuses, but they happen; people want to prevent them, but they happen; people want to listen to the victims, but they don’t hear them.”

While abuse might seem impossible to stop, Lepine said he believes that “where there’s a will, there’s a way. We need to want it to stop, [and] it needs to stop.”

Among other things, the new protocols include a revamped complaint process and the appointment of an independent ombudsman, a position that…

View Cache

An Illinois appeals court has reversed a trial judge’s ruling that a convicted child molester and defrocked priest can be held longer than his sentence, according to a Tuesday court filing.

A three-judge panel of the Illinois First District Appellate Court ruled Cook County prosecutors failed to prove Daniel McCormack’s mental disorder would likely cause him to re-offend, the Chicago Sun-Times reported. McCormack completed his five-year sentence in 2009 for molesting five boys in Chicago’s St. Agatha’s Roman Catholic parish. He has been in state custody since.

Judge Dennis Porter in 2017 declared McCormack a sexually violent person who should remain indefinitely in a state facility for sex offenders. During the hearing, psychiatrist Dr. Angelique Stanislaus, testifying for the state, and Dr. Raymond Wood, a defense expert, both concluded that McCormack had pedophilic disorder. They differed in that Wood said McCormack and a “below average” risk of re-offending, while Stanislaus testified…

View Cache

A former New Jersey priest stands accused of molesting a 5-year-old girl in 1976, according to a $50 million lawsuit. 

The victim, now 49, reportedly filed the lawsuit in March against the Newark Archdiocese and Archbishop Peter Leo Gerety’s estate. 

Gerety passed away in 2016 at the age of 104. 

The New Jersey Independent Victim Compensation Program offered an initial settlement of $5,000, which the victim rejected, The Record and NorthJersey.com reported. 

The lawsuit alleges that Gerety molested the victim when she was a little girl, telling her that his actions were “what God required and wanted” him to do, and that she needed to keep them secret or it would “hurt” her mother. 

Gerety allegedly took the girl back to his room in the rectory three or four times, where he touched her sexually…

View Cache

The Roman Catholic Diocese of Burlington is facing a new lawsuit with claims of child sex abuse and a cover-up.

The plaintiff in the case claims that when he was a child, Father Leo Courcy sexually abused him multiple times starting in 1978.

According to the lawsuit, the diocese knew Courcy was treated for psychosexual disorder in the late 1960s, but he continued to serve under the bishop of Burlington even when working outside of Vermont.

“We have not yet been officially served with that lawsuit, so we don’t have a copy of that complaint. So at this point we have nothing to comment on,” said Monsignor John McDermott of the Burlington Diocese.

The diocese has Father Courcy on its list of priests credibly accused of child sexual abuse.

Courcy was ordained in Vermont in 1962.

View Cache

James Cali is losing heart. 

The chairman of the creditors committee in the Roman Catholic Diocese of Rochester’s Chapter 11 bankruptcy believes negotiations between the diocese and insurance companies it hopes will cover the heavy liabilities it expects to incur could be stalled, perhaps fatally. 

If the talks fail, he fears, the case will collapse, and he and other abuse survivors could see their hopes of an end to pain they have carried with them for decades evaporate.

A CPA who has worked as a forensic accountant for plaintiffs’ attorneys in two class actions that ended with plaintiffs winning sizable settlements, Cali is not unfamiliar with court proceedings. 

Rather than try to wait out what he fears is an irretrievably stalled negotiation, Cali says he believes that he and other abuse survivors might be better served by taking their complaints back to where they were originally filed, in state court. 

…

View Cache

[Includes appellate court decision.]

An Illinois First District Appellate Court panel decided the prosecution failed to prove McCormack’s mental disorder would likely cause him to reoffend.

A state appeals court overturned a trial judge’s finding that convicted child molester and defrocked priest Daniel McCormack can be held longer than his sentence.

A three-judge panel in the Illinois First District Appellate Court unanimously decided the prosecution failed to prove McCormack’s mental disorder would likely cause him to reoffend, according to court records filed Tuesday.

McCormack, one of Chicago’s most notorious and recent offenders in the Catholic church’s sex abuse scandal, completed his five-year sentence in 2009 for molesting five boys in St. Agatha’s parish, where he worked as a priest, teacher and basketball coach. He has remained in custody at a downstate detention facility for sex offenders since.

In 2017, Judge Dennis Porter declared McCormack a sexually…

View Cache

A priest said “God bless” to a woman after raping her, a court has heard.

Retired Roman Catholic priest John Anthony Clohosey, 72, is charged with raping the woman at her Gateshead home 35 years ago.

The woman made the accusation after her pleas for financial help from his diocese were turned down, Newcastle Crown Court heard.

Father Clohosey, of St Mary’s Priory in Filey, North Yorkshire, denies the charge.

In a recorded police interview the woman said he wrote to her in 1986, after he moved parishes, asking to visit her.

Describing him arriving at her home, she said: “Immediately I was uneasy about the situation.”

She told the court that “out of the blue” he had said: “I wonder if you could help me out – will you have sex with me?”

The woman said she repeatedly told the priest “no” but he “pushed me on the shoulder…

View Cache

A New Jersey man is suing the Roman Catholic Diocese of Burlington over sexual abuse dating to 1978 involving a since-disgraced priest who was under the diocese’s authority.

The civil complaint, filed in Vermont Superior Court on Tuesday, accuses the diocese of allowing the Rev. Leo Courcy Jr. to continue his ministry for decades with “unfettered” access to children, despite knowing he was a pedophile.

Courcy worked in Vermont for a little more than three years following his ordainment in 1962 but held church positions around the country until his priestly faculties were revoked by Bishop Kenneth Angell in 1993, according to biographical details published in 2019 as part of the diocese’s public accounting of abusive priests. He spent time in the late 1960s at an infamous treatment site for priests run out of Jemez Springs, N.M., by a Catholic religious community known as Servants…

View Cache

A woman has accused a County Durham Roman Catholic priest of rape after her pleas for financial help from his diocese were turned down.

Retired John Anthony Clohosey, 72, was suspended from his duties at Lady Immaculate and St Cuthbert’s RC Church, in Crook, in 2019.

At the time, diocesan safeguarding coordinator, Angie Richardson, said: “The safeguarding department of the Diocese of Hexham and Newcastle is currently cooperating with Northumbria Police to assist with their investigation.

“It is standard practice for the Bishop to support parishioners in these circumstances.”

Clohosey denies the offence – said to have happened in 1986 at a different church – but told police he did ask her for sex and that they had kissed and cuddled.

Newcastle Crown Court heard the complainant, who cannot be identified for legal reasons, approached her local priest – who is not the defendant – asking that the Diocese of Hexham and…

View Cache

[Includes timeline]

• Exonerated cardinal spoke of the ‘humiliating’ prison strip searches he endured 
• Convicted in 2018 of five counts of sexually abusing two 13-year-old choirboys 
• He spent 405 days behind bars before his six-year jail sentence was overturned
• Pell said at times he thought he would have to wait until afterlife for vindication

Cardinal George Pell has revealed ‘humiliating’ prison strip searches were the worst part about being in jail before his child sex abuse convictions were quashed.

Australia’s highest-ranking Catholic official was wrongly convicted in December 2018 of five counts of sexually abusing two 13-year-old choirboys at Melbourne‘s St Patrick’s Cathedral in 1996.

He spent 405 days behind bars before his six-year jail sentence was overturned in a final appeal to the High Court in April 2020.

Pell, 79, said there were times during his ‘undignified’ stint behind bars when he thought he would have to wait until the Christian afterlife…

View Cache

A former archbishop of Newark has been named in a whopping $50-million lawsuit for reportedly sexually abusing an innocent 5-year-old girl on church grounds and on numerous occasions in 1976.

Court papers alleged that archbishop Peter Gerety, who died in 2016 at the age of 104, gained the trust of the young victim’s financially struggling family by delivering meals to their home. The former priest reportedly eventually volunteered to look after the little girl while her mother, a seamstress, was away at work.

While fostering the child at the church rectory, Gerety reportedly took to inviting the young girl to his bedroom where he would touch her inappropriately and pleasure himself in front of her on several occasions, the lawsuit claimed.

Gerety served as Newark’s archbishop from 1974 through his retirement in 1986. The disgraced priest had served in New Haven, Connecticut, and Portland, Maine before starting his service in Newark, said View Cache

The emotional and long-term costs to victims are most often incalculable in cases of clergy sex abuse, but the abuse scandal has produced a dollar figure for victims in the Catholic Diocese of Erie: $31.35 million.

The 13-county diocese has spent that much investigating abuse case and making payments to victims, according to data released on Tuesday.

Erie Catholic Bishop Lawrence Persico provided the numbers as the diocese announced that it had made a total of $16.6 million in payments to abuse victims through the diocese’s compensation fund, launched in February 2019 in response to the devastating August 2018 Pennsylvania attorney general grand jury report on clergy sexual abuse of minors in the Roman Catholic Church statewide.

Persico said the fund made its final payments in March. The final payments closed out the program and further clarified how much the diocese has spent on clergy sex abuse cases. The rest…

View Cache

The Erie Catholic Diocese has completed its Independent Survivors Reparation Program.

The pay-out of millions of dollars to victims comes in the wake of the national priest sexual abuse scandal.

Some of those abuses took place here in the Erie Catholic Diocese.

We had a chance to speak with both a survivor along with the Bishop of Erie.

This program went on for six months, but a survivor we spoke to said that the Erie Diocese would need to do more than just a temporary program.

“It’s a little too late. They had an opportunity in 1989 to begin making things right, but it wasn’t until the thing happened in Boston in 2002 that Trot even admitted that he abuse happened,” said Kevin McParland, Survivor.

Kevin McParland is a sexual abuse survivor. He said that he was abused by a former Erie Catholic clergy.

This abuse took place in the…

View Cache

A retired West Michigan priest who has since been removed from the priesthood over sexual abuse allegations started grooming his victim when she was as young as 12, police records obtained by the Grand Haven Tribune show.

William Langlois, 75, was defrocked earlier this month. At the time, the Catholic Diocese of Grand Rapids said it had learned of the allegations in 2018. Langlois had retired in 2016 after serving as pastor of St. Patrick-St. Anthony Catholic Parish in Grand Haven for the previous 20 years and in other West Michigan parishes for some 30 years before that.

The Grand Haven Tribune reported Tuesday that a March 2018 police report it obtained through the Freedom of Information Act alleges Langlois groomed a “vulnerable child” over a period of a few years. That allegedly began in 1994 or 1995 when she was 12 or 13. 

According to the Tribune, the woman…

View Cache

The mainstream narrative is that a pop star ripped up a photo of the pope on “Saturday Night Live” and derailed her life. What if the opposite were true?

Sinead O’Connor is alone, which is how she prefers to be. She has been riding out the pandemic in a tiny village on an Irish mountaintop, watching murder shows, buying fairy-garden trinkets online and mainlining American news on CNN. On a recent overcast afternoon, she had a navy hijab arranged over her shaved head and a cigarette permanently installed between her fingertips, and when she leaned over an iPad inside her all-glass conservatory, she looked as if she had been hermetically sealed into her own little world.

“I’m lucky,” she said, “because I enjoy my own company.”

Her cottage was appointed in bright, saturated colors that leapt out from the monotonous backdrop of the Irish sky with the surreal quality of…

View Cache

The revised section of the Code of Canon Law dealing with crimes and penalties, including those related to clerical sexual abuse, should be ready for publication before the end of summer, said the secretary of the Pontifical Council for Legislative Texts.

Bishop Juan Ignacio Arrieta, who spearheaded the project, confirmed the imminent publication in late May after the Catholic Bishops of England and Wales released correspondence about changing the current code “to clearly distinguish” between a priest violating his promise of chastity and sexually abusing a minor.

Pope Francis already said in February 2020 that the work on a revised Book VI of the Code of Canon Law, “Sanctions in the Church”. was complete.

The revision, the Pope had said, was needed “to make it more organic and responsive to new situations and problems” that the Church has become more aware of since the code was published in 1983. Work…

View Cache

The historical and contemporary witness of Native American Catholics are the subject of a Knights of Columbus-produced documentary set for broadcast in upcoming weeks.

“It is impossible to fully understand what it means to be a Catholic in North America without a sincere appreciation for the Catholic tradition among so many native tribes,” the Knights of Columbus website said. “Few people realize that Indigenous communities throughout the continent were sincerely practicing their faith centuries before the founding of the United States.”

The Catholic fraternal organization characterized the documentary as offering “a missing piece to the greater story of Catholicism in America.” It combines the history of Native American Catholics and their continuing contributions, with commentary from present-day Native Americans and other Catholic leaders.

Among those who speak in the documentary is Deacon Andrew Orosco, who on his father’s side is descended from the San Pasqual Band of Mission Indians of…

View Cache

[Via The Pilot of the Archdiocese of Boston]

Abuse against a minor is a kind of “psychological murder” that can destroy the victim’s childhood, Pope Francis told an Italian association active in the fight against child abuse and online child pornography.

“Therefore, protecting children against sexual exploitation is a duty of every nation, (which is) called to identify both traffickers and abusers,” he said during an audience May 15 at the Vatican with members of the association, Meter.

The association was founded in 1989 by Father Fortunato Di Noto, an Italian priest who has been leading the fight in Italy to protect children from online predators around the world. It works with law enforcement, government agencies and schools in fighting the crime of child sex abuse and other forms of online abuse, in prevention and offering safety and help for victims.

The pope praised its work, especially in trying to…

View Cache

The Archdiocese of Chicago has reinstated a pastor who was accused of attempted sexual assault, after failing to substantiate the accusation. 

Fr. Larry Sullivan, the pastor of Christ the King parish in Chicago’s Beverly neighborhood, stepped aside from ministry in April after a woman accused him of attacking her and attempting to sexually assault her in 1984, just before he entered seminary. The woman’s accusation was posted on the app TikTok. 

Sullivan said that after the video surfaced, he forwarded it to the archdiocese which began an investigation. The archdiocese said it also reported the accusation to the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services and the Cook County State’s Attorney.

On May 14, Cardinal Blase Cupich issued a letter to the Christ the King parish and school communities, saying that the archdiocese would be reinstating Sullivan as they could not substantiate the accusation made against him. 

“A thorough review…

View Cache

[With comments section]

The ongoing sexual abuse crisis in the Church has left many good Catholics shaken, and like many I have tried to understand how this has happened. Obviously, homosexuality in the clergy plays a role, and the all-male nature of the priesthood provides opportunities for such abuse. But here I want to explore the larger historical forces that allowed abuse to flourish in the Church, which at least for me makes it somewhat more explicable in human terms, the supernatural nature of evil notwithstanding. 

Perhaps the most insightful explanation I have encountered comes from the Canadian philosopher John Lamont, whose article “Tyranny and Sexual Abuse in the Church: a Jesuit Tragedy,” identifies a warped idea of obedience which has influenced priestly formation since the 16th century. According to Lamont, a voluntarist conception of obedience, which made the will of a superior the necessary criteria for obedience,…

View Cache

An archbishop of Newark groomed a 5-year-old girl by delivering food to her struggling family and regularly babysitting her, then sexually abusing her on multiple occasions in the 1970s, a lawsuit alleges.

The suit filed in March is believed to be the first to level sexual abuse charges against the late Peter Gerety, who died in 2016 at 104 as the world’s oldest Catholic bishop. Gerety served as archbishop of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Newark from 1974 until his retirement in 1986, according to the archdiocese’s website.

Prior to serving in Newark, Gerety had served in New Haven, Connecticut, and Portland, Maine.

In an affidavit accompanying the lawsuit, the plaintiff, a woman now in her late 40s, alleged Gerety gained her trust by helping her family and praising her as “such a smart and pretty young girl.” Eventually, the lawsuit claims, Gerety took her to a bedroom in the…

View Cache

Buffalo priest who was murdered inside a church rectory in 1987 is being accused of sexually assaulting a boy a decade earlier.

A Child Victims Act lawsuit alleges the Rev. A. Joseph Bissonette molested a 7-year-old boy in his office at St. Bartholomew Church six or seven times in 1977, under the guise that the priest was counseling and helping the plaintiff with his reading.

[The original article links to: Priests’ Killers Get 50 Years to Life: Judge Regrets State Forbids Death Penalty, by Matt Gryta, Buffalo News, November 2, 1988.]

The Herman Law firm in New York City filed the case May 6 on behalf of a plaintiff identified by the initials M.D.

The defendants are St. Bartholomew Catholic Church and St. Bartholomew Catholic School, both of which no longer exist. St. Bartholomew’s parish merged in 1993 into Blessed Trinity Church as part of a Buffalo Diocese consolidation…

View Cache

• He will be appointed as chairman of Catholic Safeguarding Standards Agency
• Mr Afzal won plaudits a decade ago for overturning Crown Prosecution Service
• He pursued British Pakistani criminals involved in rape and trafficking of 47 girls

The Muslim former prosecutor who led the crackdown on Rochdale’s grooming gangs is to head the Catholic Church’s drive to stamp out child abuse scandals, The Mail on Sunday can reveal.

The appointment of Nazir Afzal as the first chairman of the new Catholic Safeguarding Standards Agency will be announced on Tuesday.

Mr Afzal won plaudits a decade ago for overturning a Crown Prosecution Service decision and pursuing a gang of British Pakistani criminals involved in the rape and trafficking of 47 girls, resulting in 19 convictions.

Birmingham-born Mr Afzal later criticised the white professionals in the CPS for ‘over-sensitivity’, asserting that ‘political correctness and fear of appearing racist may have contributed to justice being…

View Cache

In the United States, 1 in 5 girls and 1 in 13 boys experience sexual abuse every year. On college campuses, 13% of students experience rape or sexual assault. And for those brave enough to come forward, our legal system actively works against them — often precluding them from pursuing justice altogether through outdated state laws with statutes of limitations.

For example, survivors of abuse at Ohio State University have been prevented from seeking justice under state causes of action or Title IX by narrow statutes of limitations, even though survivors of abuse in other states don’t encounter the same barriers.

Justice must be available to abuse survivors whenever they are ready to come forward, regardless of geographic boundaries.

With new leadership in Congress and the White House, it is past time for federal lawmakers to prioritize an effort to expand the statute of limitations for these crimes nationwide, with one federal standard that guarantees survivors the right to…

View Cache

No one from the government notified Barbara Winter about the pardon. Not the White House, not the Justice Department’s Office of the Pardon Attorney, not the prosecutor who handled her case.

She found out from her mother, who read in the newspaper that one of the country’s most famous folk singers, who had admitted to and been convicted of molesting her when she was barely 14, had been pardoned by President Jimmy Carter on his final full day in office in 1981.

It felt, Winter says now, “like you got sucker-punched in the gut. It’s telling him, ‘It’s okay what you did, just don’t get caught next time,’ if that makes sense.”

Presidential pardons often kick up controversy, from Gerald Ford’s pardon of his disgraced predecessor Richard M. Nixon, to Bill Clinton’s clemency for fugitive financier Marc Rich, who had been on…

View Cache

Hugh Stevenson’s sexual abuse of young footballers was publicly exposed in 2016 – 12 years after his death.

Former youth footballer Peter Haynes, now 54, waived his anonymity to tell a BBC investigation how Stevenson raped him over a three or four-year period from 1979.

Former young players at Eastercraigs Boys’ Club, where Stevenson was an official, also told of his attempts to groom them.

Haynes’ along with another victim’s account of Stevenson’s abuse was included in the SFA-commissioned Independent Review of Sexual Abuse in Scottish Football, written by former Catholic Church adviser Martin Henry and published in full in February.

Haynes told the review that the first assault by Stevenson – who the report names only as “A” – took place in the referee’s car.

The report said: “Mr Haynes told the review that he believed a number of boys may have been similarly abused by A over the…

View Cache

The Roman Catholic Diocese of Fresno won a key legal battle in a Fresno County court which threw out a defamation suit filed by now-former Bakersfield Monsignor Craig Harrison.

The suit, which alleged that the Diocese’s top spokeswoman, Teresa Dominguez, defamed him by stating in an NPR interview that she visited the home of an alleged sexual assault victim and told the individual that she believed his claims of misconduct by Harrison against him.

In court filings, Harrison and his attorneys argued that the statements by Dominguez equated to the Diocese believing the allegations against him.

In a ruling siding with the Diocese, Fresno County Judge Kristi Culver Kapetan said that the court had to review Dominguez’s comments to the public radio station using a “totality of the circumstances” test, examining the language used to determine if it asserted her opinion – which would not be considered defamatory.

Kapetan found…

View Cache

A former Upper Peninsula priest who left Michigan years ago has pleaded guilty to a remaining sexual abuse case against him.

Gary Jacobs, 75, is accused of sexually abusing teenagers in the 1980s while serving as a priest under the Catholic Diocese of Marquette.

He pleaded guilty Friday to one count of second-degree criminal sexual conduct in Dickinson County, according to Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel. His sentencing will be July 2.

In April, he pleaded guilty to four other counts of criminal sexual conduct in Ontonagon County. His sentencing in that case will be May 25.

According to the plea deal, which covers both counties, Jacobs will serve between eight and 15 years on each of the five counts, which will run concurrently. Nessel’s office calls it the “harshest prison sentence” handed down in its clergy abuse investigation which has resulted in other guilty pleas.

Jacobs must undergo sex offender counseling…

View Cache

A former Upper Peninsula priest who left Michigan years ago has pleaded guilty to a remaining sexual abuse case against him.

Gary Jacobs, 75, is accused of sexually abuse teenagers in the 1980s while serving as a priest under the Catholic Diocese of Marquette.

He pleaded guilty Friday to one count of second-degree criminal sexual conduct in Dickinson County, according to Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel. His sentencing will be July 2.

In April, he pleaded guilty to four other counts of criminal sexual conduct in Ontonagon County. His sentencing in that case will be May 25.

According to the plea deal, which covers both counties, Jacobs will serve between eight and 15 years on each of the five counts, which will run concurrently. Nessel’s office calls it the “harshest prison sentence” handed down in its clergy abuse investigation which has resulted in other guilty pleas.

Jacobs must undergo sex…

View Cache

A local man who says he was falsely accused of sexually abusing a teenager in his care has dropped a defamation suit he filed against his accuser.

That man, Daniel Charcholla, will continue to pursue his suit against his accuser’s former lawyers and WHAM-TV (Channel 13) in Rochester, which aired two stories based on the accusations.

In a legal action commenced in 2019, a man identified by his initials, J.O., alleged that Charcholla had physically and sexually abused him in the early 1980s when he was in his teens.

At the time J.O., an orphan, said he was living in a group home run by DePaul Mental Health Services. Charcholla worked for DePaul, which was then affiliated with the Diocese of Rochester.

“This defamation suit is not a direct response to the allegations in the CVA claim,” said Charcholla’s attorney, Aaron Gavenda. “It is to say that the claims made by…

View Cache

A judge has ordered the Archdiocese of New York and three Catholic schools to turn over a host of documents and information regarding a former educator and coach who allegedly molested students over the course of decades.

Edwin Gaynor, of Ossining, is accused of fondling minors during gym classes in the 1960s when he worked at Immaculate Heart of Mary School in Scarsdale, as well as other students in Westchester, according to a lawsuit filed in Westchester County civil court two years ago.

It is alleged that the Archdiocese of New York knew of the abuse and rather than handle the situation, they instead continued to move Gaynor to different schools, none of which have been named in the lawsuit accusing him of fondling the student.

This week, a New York State Supreme Court judge overseeing lawsuits against Gaynor ordered the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New York and local schools…

View Cache

The pastor at Christ the King parish in Beverly has been reinstated after officials found an allegation that he sexually assaulted someone 37 years ago could not be substantiated, Cardinal Blase Cupich said Friday in a letter to the community.

The Rev. Larry Sullivan was asked to step aside from the parish at 9325 S. Hamilton Ave. in April after an accusation that he and another person attacked a woman in an alley in 1984 before he was to leave for the seminary, when he was 18 years old, according to the Archdiocese of Chicago.

“A thorough review of this matter by the Archdiocesan Office of Child Abuse Investigations and Review and an outside investigator, including multiple unsuccessful attempts to obtain information from the accuser, concludes that the accusation against him, which was alleged to have occurred prior to his entering the seminary, cannot be substantiated,” Cupich wrote.

RELATED

…

View Cache

The Green Bay Press-Gazette has done extensive research into Nate Lindstrom’s experience with abuse in the Catholic church. Lindstrom took his own life this spring. 

Lindstrom received monthly checks from the Norbertines of St. Norbert Abbey in De Peren until May 2019.

“According to interviews and documents, the Norbertines quietly sent Lindstrom monthly checks totaling more than $400,000 over 10 years after his parents complained to the Catholic order’s leaders about the harm their son suffered from being sexually abused by at least one priest in the late 1980s,” the Press-Gazette wrote. 

The Press-Gazette has interviewed Lindstrom, his family, friends and others involved, as well as researched documents, for the past 20 months to compile this in-depth coverage of what has happened at St. Norbert Abbey and how it has impacted those who faced abuse.

View Cache

The pastor at Christ the King parish in Beverly has been reinstated after officials found an allegation that he sexually assaulted someone 37 years ago could not be substantiated, Cardinal Blase Cupich said Friday in a letter to the community.

The Rev. Larry Sullivan was asked to step aside from the parish at 9325 S. Hamilton Ave. in April after an accusation that he and another person attacked a woman in an alley in 1984 before he was to leave for the seminary, when he was 18 years old, according to the Archdiocese of Chicago.

“A thorough review of this matter by the Archdiocesan Office of Child Abuse Investigations and Review and an outside investigator, including multiple unsuccessful attempts to obtain information from the accuser, concludes that the accusation against him, which was alleged to have occurred prior to his entering the seminary, cannot be substantiated,” Cupich wrote.

Father Sullivan “fully…

View Cache

Dear Members of the Christ the King Parish and School communities,

On April 21, 2021, I informed you of an allegation of sexual assault against your Pastor, Father Lawrence Sullivan dating from 1984 when he was eighteen years old.  In keeping with our procedures, Father Sullivan was asked to step aside from his pastoral duties until a thorough investigation could be completed.  This has been a difficult time for your parish and school communities and all involved. Thank you for your patience with this process.

A thorough review of this matter by the Archdiocesan Office of Child Abuse Investigations and Review and an outside investigator, including multiple unsuccessful attempts to obtain information from the accuser, concludes that the accusation against him, which was alleged to have occurred prior to his entering the seminary, cannot be substantiated.  Therefore, I am reinstating Father Sullivan as your Pastor effective immediately.

Father Sullivan has…

View Cache

The pastor of Christ the King Roman Catholic Church in Chicago’s Beverly neighborhood has been reinstated after a review determined an allegation he sexually assaulted someone more than 35 years ago “cannot be substantiated,” the Archdiocese of Chicago announced Friday.

Rev. Lawrence Sullivan was asked to step aside last month pending the outcome of the investigation into the incident, which was said to have occurred when Sullivan was 18 years old.

In a letter posted to the parish’s website, the pastor addressed the allegations, which he says stem from an encounter he had with an employee at a fast food restaurant in 1984.

“I made unwelcome verbal comments to a female employee that upset her to the extent that her parents and the police were contacted,” he said in the letter.

Sullivan said no physical interaction took place, and he was “ashamed and deeply sorry” about his actions that…

View Cache

New Yorkers who were sexually molested as children, then harmed again by restrictive laws that gave them precious little time to seek justice, are running out of time to file suit against their tormentors and the institutions that enabled the abuse. As champions of the landmark Child Victims Act, which lengthened statutes of limitations and created a one-year lookback window for filing civil suits that’s since been extended to cope with COVID’s closure of courts, we urge those victimized to seek justice before the deadline arrives three months from today.

The sexual abuse of a young person is unlike any other crime. When monster molesters take advantage of children, typically ones placed in their care, it sends the victim into years of shame, self-blame, post-traumatic stress and even suicidal thinking. It’s psychologically exhausting just to come to terms with the reality…

View Cache

DICKINSON COUNTY, Mich. (FOX 2) – A former priest from Michigan‘s Upper Peninsula pleaded guilty in a remaining sex abuse case against him Friday.

Gary Jacobs, 75, pleaded guilty to second-degree criminal sexual conduct in Dickinson County. Last month he pleaded guilty to four counts of criminal sexual conduct in Ontonagon County.

The plea deal spans both counties.

Jacobs will concurrently serve 8-15 years on each of the five counts. 

He must register as a sex offender for the rest of his life, Jacobs will have lifetime electronic monitoring when released, his victims can speak at his sentencing if they want to, and he must undergo sex offender counseling.

“I am proud of the work done by our clergy abuse team to reach this plea agreement,” Attorney General Dana Nessel said. “None of this would be possible without the courageous victims who have been willing to share their stories in order to achieve…

View Cache

A former Upper Peninsula priest facing one of the harshest prison sentences so far in a clergy abuse investigation by the state Attorney General pleaded guilty Friday in a remaining case against him.

Gary Jacobs, 75, pleaded guilty Friday to one count of second-degree criminal sexual conduct in Dickinson County, the office of Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel said.

Last month, Jacobs pleaded guilty to four counts of criminal sexual conduct in Ontonagon County.

He’s accused of sexually abusing teens in the U.P. in the 1980s while serving as a priest under the Catholic Diocese of Marquette. 

“I am proud of the work done by our clergy abuse team to reach this plea agreement,” Nessel said in a Friday statement. “None of this would be possible without the courageous victims who have been willing to share their stories in order to achieve justice.”

The plea agreement spans both counties and…

View Cache

Pope Francis on Saturday met a delegation from the Meter Association, which fights abuse of children, especially online.

Pope Francis on Saturday urged families, educational and public institutions to tackle with renewed determination the scourge of child abuse, paedophilia and child pornography, describing them as “psychological murder”.  “Continue your work without hesitation, paying particular attention to the educational aspect, in order to form a firm conscience in people and eradicate the culture of abuse and exploitation,” the Pope told some 50 members of the Meter Association.  The group founded in Sicily, Italy, in 1989 by Father Fortunato Di Noto, has been championing the rights of children especially against child pornography and paedophilia.  

The Good Samaritan

Thanking all those who support the Association in defending abused and mistreated children, the Pope, who has been an ardent campaigner against child abuse, especially against clerical child abuse in the Church, said Meter…

View Cache

GREENSBORO — A nonprofit that advocates for child abuse victims is speaking out on behalf of concerned families after a Greensboro woman was sentenced to prison on child pornography charges connected to the day care where she worked.

In late 2020, Alyson Brooke Saunders, 25, pleaded guilty to one count each of producing and distributing child pornography. Saunders, who worked at Fellowship Presbyterian Church’s Fellowship Day School at 2005 New Garden Road, was initially arrested in April 2019.

According to court documents, Saunders used five minors at the day care facility to create sexually explicit images and videos around January and February of 2019. Saunders sexually abused some of the children and sent the images and videos to a co-conspirator, knowing that he planned to post them online, according to the Department of Justice.

Saunders was sentenced last month to 50 years in prison, followed by 20 years of supervised…

View Cache

KANSAS CITY, Mo. – “It’s kind of like a Christian Disneyland,” said Mia Shapiro, recalling what first impressed her about World Revival Church. “They are super Christians.”

Shapiro was one of more than a dozen former members who spoke to FOX4 Problem Solvers to sound an alarm about a church that they now believe is a cult.

“I want to speak out to not just help people that are there to get out, but to help people find healing and find out that you can have a better life,” Carrie Phelps said. “You don’t have to suffer like that anymore.”

For others, like Taylor Brown, just sounding a warning is not enough.

“I want them to be closed down,” she said. “I want them to be investigated. I want them to stop hurting people.”

World Revival Church, which has a congregation estimated at 400, operates out of a sprawling gated…

View Cache

The Archdiocese of Santa Fe intends to hire a land use planning consultant to help it shed dozens of properties as part of its bankruptcy case.

Consultants with James W. Siebert & Associates, a Santa Fe land planning firm, would be among numerous experts the archdiocese has hired — attorneys, real estate brokers and accountants — drawing accusations from critics of wasteful spending that ultimately will affect payouts to hundreds of victims of sexual abuse by members of the clergy.

An attorney with the Roman Catholic institution said, however, the experts are needed and that bankruptcy court is the most efficient place for settlements between victims and dioceses.

Court records show the archdiocese has asked U.S. Bankruptcy Judge David T. Thuma for approval to hire the Siebert firm. The records say Siebert can help the archdiocese comply with subdivision statutes and regulations.

A court document said the Siebert company would…

View Cache

A priest-turned-activist was in Steubenville Thursday to lobby for Bishop Jeffrey Monforton to release “any and all” records in his possession about Kenneth Bonadies, a disgraced former priest who once taught at Catholic Central High School.

The Archdiocese of Hartford recently agreed to a settlement in the low six figures with a Connecticut man who’d accused Bonadies of sexually abusing him more than 100 times over a four-year period in the 1980s when he was teaching at a school in Manchester, Conn.

“We know he had a checkered career,” said Robert M. Hoatson, co-founder and president of the nonprofit Road to Recovery charity.

“He worked here (in Steubenville) until 1976, then all of a sudden he was ‘on leave.’ In the Catholic code, that means he was sent to a rehabilitation center.”

Hoatson said Bonadies, a Hartford native, was ordained in Steubenville in 1965 and served in the Diocese of Steubenville from 1967-1976….

View Cache

A priest ordained in the mid-1960s in Steubenville — once a teacher at Catholic Central High School — is the subject of a sexual abuse case settlement in the Archdiocese of Hartford, Conn.

A victim came forward alleging he was abused more than 100 times by Rev. Kenneth Bonadies.

And now a victim abuse advocacy group is asking Bishop Jeffrey Monforton of the Steubenville Diocese to release the any files associated with Bonadies from his years with the Diocese of Steubenville.

Both the victim’s attorney and the recovery group believe there to be local victims as well.

Robert Hoatson, president and co-founder of Road to Recovery and a survivor of clergy sexual abuse, was among those outside the Diocese of Steubenville demanding Monforton release “secret files” and all other files related to priesthood and assignments of Bonadies.

The victim’s attorney, Mitchell Garabedian, is also the attorney who led the sexual…

View Cache

As the trial for alleged abuse inside a Vatican youth seminary continues, witnesses have given different views on the characters of the victim and the accused, and of the institution’s culture.

In a hearing May 12, the Vatican City State’s criminal court heard testimony from five witnesses, four of whom were students at the pre-seminary at the time the alleged abuse took place.

Located inside Vatican City State, the Pius X pre-seminary is a residence for about a dozen boys aged 12 to 18 who serve at papal Masses and other liturgies in St. Peter’s Basilica and are considering the priesthood.

The alleged victim, a 28-year-old identified only as L.G., has testified that beginning when he was 13 years old, while he was a student at the pre-seminary, he was sexually assaulted over a period of six years by a fellow student, the defendant Fr. Gabriele Martinelli.

Martinelli has defended his…

View Cache

The Jesuit priest who presided over an inaugural Mass for President Joe Biden has resigned his position as president of Santa Clara University in Northern California, college officials said, after an investigation found he engaged in inappropriate, alcohol-fueled conversations with graduate students.

The Rev. Kevin O’Brien, at the direction of Jesuit officials, has begun a therapeutic outpatient program to address personal issues, including alcohol and stress counseling. He had been president of Santa Clara University since July 2019 and was placed on leave in March.

The university announced O’Brien’s departure in a statement to the campus community on Wednesday that included messages from acting President Lisa Kloppenberg and board of trustees Chair John M. Sobrato. O’Brien had notified the board of his resignation Sunday and the trustees accepted it the next day.ADVERTISEMENT

The private Jesuit institution in the Silicon Valley, founded in 1851 as the first…

View Cache

Msgr. Mario Costa was one of dozens of priests recently named in a court document as the subject of abuse allegations, court documents say.

OLD BROOKVILLE, NY — A plaque to mark the contributions of a deceased Roman Catholic priest, who has been accused in a clergy abuse scandal, has been covered up outside of St. Paul the Apostle Church in Old Brookville, according to a report in Newsday.

The name of Msgr. Mario Costa was identified on a list of over 100 credibly accused clergy members who attorneys for the Diocese of Rockville recently included in legal papers as part of their bankruptcy court filing, the outlet reported. A parishioner told Newsday that the plaque was covered with white cardboard-like material that was held in place by blue contractor’s tape on Tuesday.

Diocese spokesman Sean Dolan told Newsday the diocese is “gathering information and assessing the…

View Cache

It’s been nearly four years since the Gazette-Mail published an op-ed I had penned, titled “Accused priests’ silence elicits doubt of innocence.” As a cradle Catholic, it was a difficult piece to write.

I read it again a few days ago, because I had read a report of yet another accusation of inappropriate behavior by a Catholic priest. I recognize that my word choice is intentional and more than a bit unclear. I am not a reporter. I am (or hope to be one day) an essayist. There’s a vast difference between the two.

An equal number of years ago, a priest commented that, at my core, I am Catholic. I can’t imagine any words (and I love the mix of those 26 letters of the alphabet with a deep passion) ever having the impact that those words had, nor can I imagine any words delivered in the future that…

View Cache

Brenda Hannon calls it a source of healing.

Gov. Phil Scott signed into law Wednesday a bill, S.99, that eliminates a three-year limit on filing civil lawsuits over childhood physical abuse. Two years ago, the Legislature eliminated the time limit on filing civil lawsuits over sexual abuse. 

“It feels like a pressure off of us, that we have done some good for future children and society,” said Hannon, 68, a member of the Voices of St. Joseph’s. “It makes us feel like we are being healed from all the trauma that we endured.”

Members of Voices of St. Joseph’s, a group for former residents of the orphanage, testified in recent weeks before the House and Senate Judiciary committees about the abuses they suffered at the now-shuttered St. Joseph’s Orphanage in Burlington, operated by the Roman Catholic Diocese of Vermont.

Some spoke through tears as they recounted abuse from priests, nuns and…

View Cache

Vermont Gov. Phil Scott has signed into law a measure that lifts the statute of limitations in civil cases of childhood physical abuse.

Scott signed the bill on Wednesday.

The new law builds on legislation passed two years ago that ended the statute of limitations for civil cases of past childhood sexual abuse. The proposal was pushed by a group of people who say they suffered physical abuse while living at the St. Joseph’s Orphanage in Burlington, which closed in 1974.

In an email, Ellen Kane, a spokeswoman for the Roman Catholic Diocese of Burlington, said they had “no comment at this time as we are not sure how this is all going to play out. However, we continue to pray for all victims of sexual and physical abuse.”

The legislation defines physical abuse as any act that when it was committed would have been considered aggravated assault.

The legislation…

View Cache

At the end of a Vatican-led investigation into alleged negligence in handling cases of child sexual abuse, Bishop Jan Tyrawa of Poland submitted his resignation to the Pope. Today, Pope Francis accepted the resignation of the 72-year-old prelate.

We applaud the Catholic Church for looking into the accusations against Bishop Tyrawa, which ultimately led to his resignation. However, we remain concerned about the lack of transparency on the findings of this investigation. In our view, the results of the inquiry are even more crucial than the fact that a probe was launched. Accountability, responsibility, and openness merge to expose the truth. Only by knowing what went wrong in the past can we protect today’s children.

Poland, like other countries around the world, has been plagued by the scandal of child sex abuse within the Church. We commend the brave survivors who came forward to authorities to shed…

View Cache

May is Mental Health Awareness Month.

The trauma of child sexual abuse can be devastating. Victims/survivors can have life-long problems including low self-esteem, relationship difficulties, trust issues, alcohol and/or drug abuse or addiction, suicidal thoughts or attempts. When the sexual abuse is by a member of the clergy, the impact to the victims/survivors can extend to their faith in God and trust in the church.

Since the clergy sexual abuse scandal of the 1990s, the church is committed to healing victims/survivors. The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops in 2002 produced the Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People, a remarkable document approved by and enforced by all 196 dioceses in the country. The Diocese of Camden is committed to pay for counseling for any victim/survivor of sexual abuse by a priest or deacon.

Trauma comes in all forms. I’m not in any way equating my trauma to…

View Cache

Questions still swirl over the Rev. Kevin O’Brien did to resign

From the Rev. Kevin O’Brien’s leave two months ago to his stunning resignation this week as Santa Clara University president, school officials informed the campus community in formal letters that were somber and serious — and utterly lacking in explanation.

With little information except that O’Brien’s fall from grace involved “primarily conversations” with Jesuit grad students, confusion and conspiracy theories are coursing through the Catholic campus, leaving people to either sympathize with or vilify the 54-year-old Jesuit priest who was widely admired on campus.

“A lot of people think this guy’s career has been destroyed, and we don’t know why,” SCU Faculty Senate President Leslie Gray said Thursday. “Does it mean something political, something sexual? Nobody knows anything about what’s happened, and that’s frustrating.”

Late Thursday afternoon, responding to an inquiry from the Bay Area News Group, the Jesuit…

View Cache

Seventy-two-year-old Bishop Jan Tyrawa is found guilty of negligence and cover-up.

Pope Francis has accepted the resignation of Polish Bishop Jan Tyrawa of Bydgoszcz, at the end of a Vatican investigation into allegations that he covered up clerical sexual abuse.

A Vatican-led probe concluded that the 72-year-old bishop failed to properly handle clerical abuse against minors, said a May 12 statement from the apostolic nunciature in Poland.

“Following formal reports, the Holy See — acting in accordance with the “motu proprio” Vos estis lux mundi — conducted proceedings concerning the reported negligence of the bishop,” the statement said.

The “motu proprio”, which the pope issued in 2019, established new procedures and norms to hold bishops and religious superiors accountable for abusive clergy continuing in pastoral ministry.

“After completing this procedure, taking into account also other difficulties in managing the diocese” the bishop resigned, said the statement of the nunciature.

Bishop…

View Cache

The abuse at St. Pius X Pre-Seminary was said to have occurred between 2007 and 2012

Four former students at the minor seminary located in the Vatican testified on May 12 at the ongoing trial of Father Gabriele Martinelli, who is accused of sexually abusing a younger student at the St. Pius X Pre-Seminary.

One of the former students asked the journalists present to refer to him only by his initials, M.B., because he soon will be ordained to the priesthood; Giuseppe Pignatone, president of the Vatican City State tribunal, supported the request.

The four former students each had been questioned by Vatican investigators in 2018, and portions of their statements to the investigators were read at the trial. The May 12 session was the ninth of the trial, which began in October.Subscribe to your daily free newsletter from UCA News

The abuse was said to have occurred between 2007…

View Cache

Pope Francis on Wednesday accepted the resignation of Polish Bishop Jan Tyrawa, who was investigated for negligence in handling cases of sexual abuse by priests in his diocese.

According to a statement by the apostolic nunciature in Poland May 12, the 72-year-old bishop submitted his letter of resignation to the pope at the end of a Vatican-led investigation into accusations that he had failed to properly handle cases of sexual abuse against minors by priests in his diocese.

“Following formal reports, the Holy See — acting in accordance with the motu proprio Vos estis lux mundi — conducted proceedings concerning the reported negligence of the Bishop of Bydgoszcz Jan Tyrawa,” the statement said.

“After completing this procedure, taking into account also other difficulties in managing the diocese, the bishop of Bydgoszcz resigned from his ministry, accepted today by the Holy Father,” it concluded.

Tyrawa, bishop of the Diocese of Bydgoszcz, in northern Poland,…

View Cache

Pope Francis has accepted the resignation of Bishop Jan Tyrawa of Bydgoszcz, the latest bishop accused of covering up sexual abuse by clergy.

The bishops’ conference said the Vatican had “conducted proceedings on reported negligence” in line with the pontiff’s May 2019 motu proprio, “Vos estis lux mundi,” and had also taken account of “other difficulties” facing Bishop Tyrawa.

Poland’s Catholic Wiez bimonthly said May 12 Bishop Tyrawa had reappointed Father Pawel Kania to Bydgoszcz’s Divine Providence Parish after the priest had been detained by police and suspended from another diocese for propositioning boys and storing child pornography on his computer.

It added that Father Kania had cared for altar boys and taught religious classes to children at his new parish in from 2006 to 2009, before being jailed in 2015 for seven years.

In February 2020, a court ordered the Bydgoszcz Diocese to pay $40,000 in damages to one…

View Cache

BOSTON – Massachusetts churches, including Catholic and Christian religious organizations, received upwards of $82 million in forgivable loans through the federal Paycheck Protection Program, according to Small Business Administration data released last month.

The Roman Catholic Dioceses of Worcester, Fall River and Springfield, along with the Archdiocese of Boston, collected over $20 million in PPP loans, distributed among different churches and administrative departments under their jurisdiction. Boston’s Archdiocese, led by Cardinal Sean Patrick O’Malley received the most within this group, with more than $8 million in PPP aid.

Ray Delisle, director of communications for the Diocese of Worcester, said the PPP loans were necessary to keep people employed in the diocese while continuing to provide services to the community during these hard times.

“The purpose of the program was to keep people’s jobs and if we couldn’t keep them employed, they’d be on unemployment, further pressuring the system for support,” Delisle…

View Cache

A long-serving Catholic clergyman who worked in Northern California has been accused in a new lawsuit of raping a child. We insist that every diocese where the cleric was assigned notify parishioners and the public of the allegations and beg anyone with information to come forward and make a report to law enforcement.

Fr. John McCracken was accused in a recently filed complaint of violently raping a young altar boy on multiple occasions between 1972-1974 when the priest was working at Queen of All Saints in Concord, which is part of the Diocese of Oakland. Over the course of his very long career Fr. McCracken had assignments not only in Oakland, but also in the Archdiocese of San Francisco, the Diocese of Sacramento, and the Diocese of Santa Rosa.

The cleric also supported a summer ministry for children from west Oakland at Sunshine Camp in Mendocino County. We…

View Cache

SALEM — Before there were the groundbreaking stories and accolades, before Columbia and Tufts universities, there was Rachel Zoll’s hometown of Salem, where lifelong friends this week recalled a warm, kind, and fiercely intelligent young woman.

“A good life lost too soon,” said childhood friend and Salem High School classmate Ilene Simons on Wednesday, in reaction to Zoll’s death last week.

Zoll, the youngest child of former Salem Mayor and state District Court Chief Justice Samuel Zoll, was 55 when she succumbed to brain cancer last Friday.

The Associated Press, where Zoll had spent 17 years as a national correspondent covering religion, reported on her numerous professional achievements — accomplishments those who knew her growing up in Salem say were not surprising.

Simons (then Talkowsky) grew up with Zoll in North Salem before the Zolls moved to Chestnut Street. They would be at each other’s homes, or playing at McGlew…

View Cache

Senators gave preliminary approval on Wednesday to a bill that would clear the path for childhood victims of sexual abuse to sue their perpetrators or the youth-oriented organizations that supervised them, and reversed an earlier limitation on the payouts that public entities like school districts might have to provide survivors.

Senate Bill 88 would address the problem created when children who are sexually abused come forward and seek legal action years or decades after their abuse, only to find the statute of limitations has expired to pursue their claim. The proposal would create a new claim for survivors currently barred from filing lawsuits, such that they may sue their perpetrator or an institution without a deadline.

“This is one step toward survivors taking their life back, taking their personal power back,” said Sen. Rhonda Fields, D-Aurora, one of the sponsors. “This bill is about survivorhood and reclaiming…

View Cache

Pope Francis has accepted the resignation of a Polish bishop following a Vatican investigation into alleged negligence in addressing cases of sexual abuse of minors by priests under the bishop’s authority.

The forced departure of Bishop Jan Tyrawa was the latest in a string of sanctions the pope has meted out since mid-2020 to Polish Catholic Church leaders over cases of cover-up of sexual abuse by other priests.

The Vatican Embassy in Poland said that on Wednesday Francis accepted Tyrawa’s resignation from the diocese of Bydgoszcz, in central Poland, and placed Bishop Wieslaw Smigiel from the neighboring Torun diocese temporarily in charge.

The Vatican communique said the investigation was launched in response to signs of negligence in addressing sex abuse of minors. It didn’t say what the findings were concerning these allegations.

It said Tyrawa handed in his resignation after the probe was concluded and also due to some other…

View Cache