ABUSE TRACKER

A report issued Wednesday found lacking oversight and systemic failures – not willful disregard – within the Pennsylvania Department of State resulted in a botched constitutional amendment.

The Office of the State Inspector General’s probe of the incident found no evidence of “deliberate or intentional malfeasance” at play when department staffers forgot to advertise a proposed constitutional amendment that would open a two-year litigation window for survivors of child sex abuse after the Legislature passed its authorizing legislation, House Bill 963, in November 2019.

“On behalf of the Department of State, I apologize to the victims of abuse for the additional pain and distress we have caused them,” said Acting Secretary Veronica Degraffenreid during a news conference on Wednesday. “We are committed to ensuring such a failing will never happen again.”

Constitutional amendments must pass in the General Assembly in two consecutive legislative sessions before appearing before voters…

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HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — An internal investigation into an apparent bureaucratic blunder by Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf’s administration that scuttled a statewide voter referendum sought by victims of childhood sexual abuse found no evidence of a deliberate attempt to derail it.

The Office of Inspector General’s report, released Wednesday, said agents interviewed 22 current and former state employees and reviewed the email accounts of nine state officials for any evidence of outside influence or intentional acts.

Rather, it said, Wolf’s Department of State — which oversees elections and professional licensing and has about 500 employees — had no executive office, bureau or executive staff member responsible for overseeing internal processes for constitutional amendments.

The referendum was to be on whether to give victims of childhood sexual abuse a fresh opportunity to sue their abusers and complicit institutions, a proposal propelled by damning investigative reports in 2016 and 2018 on Pennsylvania’s…

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Survivors of clergy child sexual abuse turned up the heat this week on state Senate Majority Leader Kim Ward, depositing a pouch of silver coins on the Hempfield Republican’s desk and labeling her a “Judas.”

Ward’s failure to schedule a Senate vote on a bill that would provide a day in court for child sexual abuse survivors whose cases fall outside the Pennsylvania statute of limitations is a bitter betrayal, survivors said. They likened it to the 30-piece bounty that disciple Judas Iscariot accepted before double-crossing Jesus Christ with a kiss at the Last Supper, according to the Gospel of Matthew in the Bible.

Ward, a devout Catholic, insisted she shares the survivors’ concerns and denied she is stalling. She said she is concerned the bill might not pass constitutional muster.

Tensions about the future of the so-called window of opportunity legislation, which passed the full House and then the…

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A former Upper Peninsula priest sat in court this week and heard from his victims before receiving a sentence of 8-15 years in prison for sexual abuse he committed in the 1980s.

Gary Jacobs, 75, pleaded guilty in Ontonagon County last month to three counts of first-degree criminal sexual conduct and one count of second-degree criminal sexual conduct in a plea bargain that dropped several other sex abuse charges.

He was sentenced Tuesday, May 25, by Judge Michael Pope in Ontonagon County Circuit Court to 8-15 years on each count, including the second-degree charge, which will be served concurrently, The Daily Mining Gazette reports. Jacobs’ sentence hearing served as a platform for his victims – now in their 50s and 60s – to speak.

One victim described “a life sentence of scars and painful memories,” the report said. Several victims described a situation in which Jacobs befriended their parents, which…

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No longer under a gag order amid their lawsuit against the Diocese of Lafayette, a St. Landry Parish family is now able to address new concerns that were revealed in their case against convicted priest Michael Guidry.

In a deposition conducted earlier this year, Guidry testified that shortly after he molested Oliver Peyton in 2015, he confided in a support group of fellow priests outside the seal of confession.

“They are all supposed to be safe environment certified,” said Oliver’s mother Letitia Peyton. “They are mandated reporters for this type of behavior. They had knowledge of what happened and decided to keep each other’s ‘mistakes,’ as they called them, secret– that’s very alarming.”

KATC reached out to the Diocese of Lafayette for comment on the claim made by Guidry in his deposition, but we never heard back. Guidry was removed from ministry in 2018, three years after the abuse, when…

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Abuse survivors and their supporters on Monday expressed intensifying anger and frustration as state Senate leaders continue to refuse to schedule a vote on long-awaited reforms that would open a window for lawsuits against child predators and those who covered up their crimes.

Cindy Leech was on the stage when Attorney General Josh Shapiro announced the results of a grand jury report detailing the coverup of abuse by priests in Pennsylvania, a moment that caused such widespread outrage that abuse survivors and their supporters thought the time had finally come for the General Assembly to act to open a window for lawsuits.

Monday, Leech and her husband Bernie returned to the state Capitol to press the state Senate to finish the job.

The Leeches were there on behalf of their son Corey, who’d testified before an investigative grand jury about the abuse he’d suffered from Brother Stephen Baker, a Franciscan…

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Last month on this blog we discussed how extensive clergy sex crimes and cover ups seem to be in the Camden diocese.

https://adamhorowitzlaw.com/is-the-camden-diocese-

But it seems, on closer examination, it is even worse than we initially suspected.

We at Horowitz Law have taken a closer look at the Camden diocese ‘credibly accused list.’ Not surprisingly, we found some accused priests who were in the Camden area but are not on that list. They are listed below:

(Church officials may claim that some of these are not ‘credible’ allegations. Regardless, these men have been accused of abuse and been ‘outed’ elsewhere and in some cases they appear on other lists of “credibly accused” clergy).

Fr. John H. Duggan, a Jesuit who worked at Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital in Camden. His name is included on the Scranton PA diocesan ‘credibly accused’ list.

He also worked in the dioceses of Albany,…

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Keith Porteous Wood, spokesperson of IAFT and President of the National Secular Society (UK) cites numerous examples of clerics seemingly not being subjected to French law for failing to report suspected clerical abuse of minors, as has been required since 2000. He argues that fundamental changes are needed for victims to be protected.

In 2019, the former most senior Catholic cardinal in France (Philippe Barbarin) was sentenced to six months in prison, albeit suspended, for failing to report abuse of scouts over decades in a Catholic troop led by Bernard Preynat, now regarded as probably France’s most prolific paedophile. Preynat was only recently defrocked as a priest.

Given the guilty verdict, there was clearly a case to answer, yet Preynat’s victims had been unable to persuade the public prosecutor to prosecute Cardinal Barbarin and had to resort to an expensive private prosecution. The public prosecutor’s opposition continued when, given the guilty verdict, there was…

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Keith Porteous Wood, spokesperson of IAFT and President of the National Secular Society (UK) considers the contradictions of the French courts’ final ruling on Cardinal Barbarin’s failure to report suspected clerical abuse of minors and its troubling consequences

France’s highest court, the Court of Cassation, ruled on 14 April that the legal obligation to report sexual crimes against a minor ceases as soon as the victim becomes a capable adult. It was the former most senior Catholic in France, Cardinal Barbarin, whose obligation was at issue. It was his failure to report such assaults over several decades by Catholic scoutmaster (and until recently, priest), Bernard Preynat. He may be France’s most prolific paedophile, with an estimated 3,000 to 4,000 victims. The Cardinal knew of Preynat’s sexual assaults.

The consequence of this judgment is that Cardinal Barbarin is relieved of any legal responsibility to pay…

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BOSSIER CITY, La. (KTAL/KMSS) – Bishop Francis Malone of the Catholic Diocese of Shreveport on Friday issued a letter to the Catholic clergy and community in the diocese informing them that a local priest has been removed from serving as a priest, following his arrest on juvenile pornography and bestiality charges.  

Seby Chemmampallil, known in the Catholic community as the Rev. Seby Shan, CMI (Carmelites of Mary Immaculate), associate pastor of Christ the King Catholic Church in Bossier City, was arrested in Bossier City and charged with two counts of possession of pornography involving juveniles under the age of 13, two counts of distributing pornography involving juveniles under the age of 13 and two counts of sexual abuse of animals.

In his letter, Malone wrote that Chemmampallil is accused of “violating the Diocese of Shreveport’s Police Concerning Sexual Abuse of Minors,” noting that although the current allegations don’t involve…

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Pope Francis has ordered the minor seminary that is located inside the Vatican and currently at the center of a criminal sex abuse trial to move to a new location in Rome before classes begin in the fall.

The idea of moving the seminary had been under study “for some time,” said a statement May 25 from Matteo Bruni, director of the Vatican press office. The idea, he said, was to find a building closer to where the students go to school in Rome and where they play.

Fr. Angelo Magistrelli, rector of the St. Pius X Pre-Seminary and superior of the Opera Don Folci, which runs the institute, told the Vatican court April 14 that the current enrollment is 26 boys and young men and that the number of inquiries about admissions had been increasing.

Boys as young as 12 live at the seminary, act as altar servers at…

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The Vatican announced Tuesday that Pope Francis has decided to move a pre-seminary at the center of an abuse and cover-up trial out of Vatican City.

The Holy See press office said May 25 that the pope had told Fr. Angelo Magistrelli, rector of the St. Pius X Pre-seminary, during a recent audience that the institution would move to a new location in September.

The 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 press office said: “His Holiness did not fail, on this occasion, to express his deep gratitude to Fr. Magistrelli for the work done in these 75 years since the foundation of the institution, recognizing that it retains its educational validity and asking that it may continue the appreciated liturgical service performed by the young students…

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Pope Francis has decided to move a youth seminary outside Vatican City, taking action before the Vatican’s criminal tribunal renders a verdict in a sex abuse trial involving a former seminarian and an ex-rector.

The Vatican made no mention of the ongoing trial in its announcement Tuesday that the St. Pius X pre-seminary would relocate somewhere in Rome starting in September. The facility serves as a residence for altar boys ages 12-18 who serve at papal Masses in St. Peter’s Basilica.

The Vatican did not say why Francis made the decision. It said the move had been under study for some time and would also put the boys closer to their schools and recreational activities in Italy’s capital.

The presence of the residence inside the Vatican city-state’s walls posed a legal headache for the Vatican after a former seminarian came forward in 2017 to accuse a more senior one of…

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Catholics around the world have their eyes on Germany as it works for change through its “Synodal Path,” which is debating the issues of power, sexual morality, priestly life and the role of women in the church.

Although some Catholics fear schism, the head of the German bishops’ conference has said he wants Synodal Path reforms to be decided and implemented in close coordination with the Vatican. Pope Francis has told German Catholics to make sure their Synodal Path was guided by the Holy Spirit, with patience for change.

Limburg Bishop Georg Bätzing, conference president, has been walking a bit of a tightrope. The theologian has been careful to ensure things are done in accordance with Vatican teaching, yet during the Third Ecumenical Convention in Frankfurt in May, he reiterated calls for change. For instance, he said he hoped that, with the Synodal Path, the Catholic Church could reach an…

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One day after a prosecutor in western Massachusetts publicly accused a recently deceased former priest of murdering an altar boy a half-century ago, there was a call for the Springfield Diocese to release its files. 

   Standing across the street from the headquarters of the Springfield Diocese, Robert Hoatson called for Bishop William Byrne to open the archives that might show what Catholic church officials knew about the sexual abuse and 1972 murder of 13-year-old Danny Croteau by then-priest Richard Lavigne.

“And tell us the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth about what was known for 49 years about father Richard Lavigne and other priests and clergy in the Diocese of Springfield,” Hoatson said.

  A former priest, Hoatson is co-founder and president of Road to Recovery, Inc., a New Jersey-based non-profit that assists victims of clergy sex abuse and their families.  He said he was a…

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A Catholic priest who was the prime suspect in the 1972 killing of an altar boy died as law enforcement was preparing to arrest him for the murder. We hope that the closure of the police investigation brings some measure of comfort to the boy’s grieving family.

After many years of fighting for justice for their brother Daniel “Danny” Croteau,  the end of the nearly 49-year-old case must be a bittersweet development for his family.  With new evidence brought to light, the Hampden District Attorney was prepared to arrest Richard Lavigne on murder charges, but the defrocked priest died before he could be charged. 

Lavigne, a former Springfield priest, had many accusations of sexually abusing minors lodged against him. He was removed from ministry following his arrest on criminal charges of child sexual abuse in the early 1990s. The clergyman pleaded guilty to two of the…

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The Rev. Michael Pfleger, 71, will return to his position as senior pastor of the Faith Community of St. Sabina in Chicago on June 5, according to a letter from Cardinal Blase Cupich.

Five months after allegations of past sexual abuse first were made against him, the Catholic Archdiocese of Chicago has concluded there is “insufficient reason to suspect” the Rev. Michael Pfleger is guilty of allegations of past sexual abuse.

The result of the investigation by an independent review board was announced Monday (May 24) in a letter from Cardinal Blase Cupich to the church Pfleger has led for years, the Faith Community of St. Sabina in Chicago’s Auburn Gresham neighborhood.

“I’m so relieved and glad this nightmare is over,” Pfleger said later that day at a press conference.

“If anything, I’m more emboldened, and I’m stronger, and I’m ready to fight more than ever in my life,” he added.

…

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When Sorry Day comes around each year it is a day of reflection for me, as the wounds which are still healing, resurface along with the memories of my immediate family whose lives were displaced and cut short.

The promise of self-determination was not around in my parents’ time, nor did they get to hear former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd give the apology in parliament on February 13, 2008. Like many across the nation, I watched and listened, my tears turning to sobs, partly relief of finally being recognised, and part deep sorrow and anger for losing my family.

I was two-and-a-half when I was removed from my family, along with five other siblings. All of us ended up in Ballarat’s Catholic homes, where some of my siblings endured unimaginable child abuse, of which they are forever scarred and broken. I too endured child abuse while being shunted around between…

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Court accused of breaching rules by repeatedly postponing the trial of American Richard Daschbach

Lawyers for alleged victims in a sexual abuse case involving an ex-priest in Timor-Leste are to lodge an official complaint against officials at a district court where the case is being heard after the trial was postponed for a third time.

On May 24, the Oecusse District Court decided to again postpone the trial, which began on Feb. 22, after the defendant Richard Daschbach, his lawyer and a prosecutor failed to appear in court, supposedly because of travel restrictions imposed in the capital Dili to curb the spread of Covid-19.

The first postponement came just after the trial opened in February and the second came in late March. The next hearing is scheduled for June 7.

In a statement issued on May 25, lawyers representing 15 alleged victims said they intended to make a complaint to…

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The House Judiciary Committee postponed a vote on legislation that would give victims of past sexual abuse access to the justice system, after its sponsors requested more time to negotiate amendments in response to concerns about liability for the government and the difficulty of defending against decades-old misconduct.

Both proponents and critics of Senate Bill 88 conceded during a nearly three-hour hearing on Tuesday that the landmark victim rights measure would ultimately end up before the Colorado Supreme Court.

“Colorado has a legitimate right and interest in empowering its people to hold wrongdoers and institutions accountable for this criminal conduct,” said Rep. Matt Soper, R-Delta, one of the SB88’s sponsors. “In my view, this bill is constitutional. It implements legitimate public policy.”

Supporters of SB88 have touted it as a unique solution to a problem that has gradually risen in the public’s consciousness: whether to allow victims of…

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The Jesuit congregation of Chile has acknowledged that its priests sexually abused 64 people, including 34 children, between 2005 and 2020, according to a report from the Catholic order obtained by AFP Tuesday.

Eleven Jesuit priests were found guilty following an internal investigation of “abusive situations with a sexual connotation” involving underage victims, according to the report by the Society of Jesus, known colloquially as the Jesuits.

Of the perpetrators, “five have died, three are currently under strict professional supervision plans, and another three are no longer part of the Society of Jesus,” said the order.

The Jesuit order said that since 2018 it has been providing authorities background to the abuse allegations.

It added that 31 of the victims have received financial compensation.

Amongst those found guilty was Renato Poblete, the late former Jesuit leader who allegedly abused four minors and 19 adults over four decades from 1960.

Poblete,…

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Sonoma County residents victimized decades ago by Catholic priests are still awaiting their day in court. 

Public outcry following a Boston Globe investigation–popularized by the movie Spotlight led California lawmakers… in 2019… to reopen the statute of limitations for civil cases involving sexual abuse by clergy. Victims must file by the end of next year.

Multiple suits now accuse the Catholic Diocese of Santa Rosa of failing to protect children from Gary Timmons, a former priest now 80 who joined the diocese in the late 60s. According to the Megan’s Law database, Timmons was convicted of committing lewd or lascivious acts with children in 1996. He was released from custody four year later, in 2000.

Attorney Mike Reck represents 10 local plaintiffs. Six have formally filed suits.

Reck says rather than dismiss Timmons, the diocese reassigned him from one community to another and placed him in charge of a summer camp. Reck said the alleged abuse occurred over decades…

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The suspect, Richard Lavigne, died in the hospital May 21 at age 80.

A Massachusetts prosecutor announced Monday that a convicted sex offender who had been dismissed from the clerical state, and who died last week, was responsible for the death of an altar boy nearly 50 years ago. 

The suspect, a former priest, Richard Lavigne, died in the hospital May 21 at age 80. 

On May 24, Hampden County District Attorney Anthony Gulluni announced at a press conference that the  district attorney’s office’s investigation had concluded that Lavigne had killed Daniel Croteau, 13, who was found beaten and floating in a local river in April 1972. 

Lavigne, who was reportedly a family friend of the Croteaus and would often take the Croteau children on outings alone, was pegged early on as a suspect in the Springfield altar boy’s death. 

According to the Daily Hampshire Gazette, Lavigne pled guilty in 1992…

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BOSSIER CITY, La. (KSLA) – A pastor from Bossier City is facing charges after being accused of possessing and distributing images and videos of sexual abuse of children, and sexually abusing animals.

Attorney General Jeff Landry’s office made the announcement Friday, May 21.

“My office and I will continue doing everything we legally can to protect the children of Louisiana. We will continue working with our law enforcement partners to bring child predators to justice,” Landry said.

Seby Chemmampallil, 36, is charged with the following:

• Possession of pornography involving juveniles under the age of 13 (2 counts)
• Distribution of pornography involving juveniles under the age of 13 (2 counts)
• Sexual abuse of animals (2 counts)

Chemmampallil was booked in the Bossier Parish Maximum Security Jail.

The Diocese of Shreveport released a statement Friday on Chemmampallil’s arrest.

“Father Seby Shan, CMI, associate pastor of Christ the King Church, Bossier City has been…

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I will help the Church bring in some of the toughest safeguarding measures in the country – failure to protect children will not be tolerated

The sexual abuse of children is a scourge found in many communities, institutions and situations within society. During my career I have come across situations where it appears to have been happening on an industrial scale.

Over three decades I have learned that victims have been failed by every institution responsible for safeguarding them, and seen how often reputation was thought to be more important than exposing abusers. Yet for the victims, suffering can be intense and lifelong, filled with shame, guilt and fear. This has to change.

My work in the successful prosecutions of those such as Stuart Hall, the cronies of Jimmy Savile and gangs grooming children in Rochdale has made clear that much remains to be done to protect children across every strata…

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“Today’s news that Hampden District Attorney Anthony Gulluni was prepared to charge Richard Lavigne in the murder of Danny Croteau in 1972 brings sad closure to a tragic event which I know has hung over our faith community for decades. I was angered and sickened to hear Lavigne’s unapologetic admissions in the heinous murder of this innocent child.

It is incredibly disheartening to learn that a priest, a person ordained to care for God’s people, would have committed such an evil crime and then not taken responsibility for his actions. This is all totally contrary to the teachings that we as Catholics believe in and hold sacred.

It is also another reminder of our past failures as a Church and a diocese to protect children and young adults from such terrible predators in our midst. Although we have made great strides in improving our child protection efforts, that is little…

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A defrocked Roman Catholic priest has died on the same day he was due to be formally charged with the 1972 murder of a 13-year-old boy in Chicopee, Massachusetts.

On Monday, Hampden District Attorney Anthony Gulluni announced that he had called state troopers to his office on Friday, May 21, to seek a warrant to arrest 80-year-old Richard Lavigne for the murder of 13-year-old Danny Croteau, but confirmed that the former priest died just a few hours later.

“Based on the accumulation of evidence, and in particular those admissions, as a prosecutor I believe that I was fulfilling my ethical duties by moving toward the charge of murder against Richard Lavigne…and I believe we could prove it,” Gulluni said.

According to a death record obtained by The Boston Globe, Lavigne’s death was listed as “acute hypoxic respiratory failure,” with the underlying cause of “COVID-19 pneumonia.”

“Regrettably, due to Lavigne’s…

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Hampden District Attorney Anthony D. Gulluni on Monday announced he was about to charge former Catholic priest Richard R. Lavigne with the 1972 murder of 13-year-old Danny Croteau in Chicopee when Lavigne died last week at the age of 80.

Croteau, a former altar boy at St. Mary’s in Springfield when Lavigne was assigned there, died from multiple blunt force injuries to his head, records show.

And Lavigne, though he never confessed to killing the boy, told an investigator in the weeks before his death that he gave Croteau “a good shove” by the river and then left, before returning to the scene to find him floating in the water.

Here are key revelations from a 15-page statement of facts prepared by State Police Trooper Michael T. McNally to obtain an arrest warrant charging Lavigne, who died of COVID-19 related complications, with the slaying of Croteau, a Springfield…

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Greenfield attorney John J. Stobierski had words of praise for Hampden Country District Attorney Anthony Gulluni with the announcement Monday that Gulluni planned to charge former Springfield priest Richard Lavigne with the 1972 murder of altar boy Daniel “Danny” Croteau.

However, Stobierski, who represented the now-deceased parents of Croteau, other of their family members as well as dozens of victims who came forward with sexual allegations against Lavigne, called the fact it took decades to bring forth such a charge “a travesty.”

Lavigne, who pleaded guilty to molesting two boys in 1992 and was removed from the ministry in 2004 after the settlement of scores of civil suits, died May 21, before he could be charged with the Croteau murder.

Gulluni on Monday declared the case, which has been the subject of books and on-and-off investigations, closed.

“It is a travesty that it has taken 50…

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Word that Hampden District Attorney Anthony D. Gulluni was poised to criminally charge former Catholic priest Richard R. Lavigne with the 1972 murder of 13-year-old Danny Croteau when Lavigne died last week tore open a painful chapter for Croteau’s family and many of Lavigne’s other sexual abuse victims.

Attorney John Stobierski, a Greenfield attorney who represented Croteau’s late parents for decades as they urged prosecutors to hold his killer accountable, said Monday that Gulluni’s announcement that there was overwhelming evidence linking Lavigne to the slaying marked a “good day,” but it was sad that it had taken so long.

“There’s a great injustice done here,” said Stobierski, who has represented more than 25 of Lavigne’s abuse victims.”This helps, but it has not told us why it happened and how the levels of power kept it silent.”

He urged Gulluni’s office to publicly release all of the investigative materials…

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There is “insufficient reason to suspect” that the Rev. Michael Pfleger is guilty, the Archdiocese of Chicago announced.

The Rev. Michael Pfleger, an influential Roman Catholic priest who temporarily stepped aside from his parish on the South Side of Chicago in January after he was accused of sexually abusing a minor more than 40 years ago, will be reinstated after an internal investigation found “insufficient reason to suspect” he was guilty, the Archdiocese of Chicago announced on Monday.

In a letter to the Faith Community of St. Sabina, the parish where Father Pfleger is assigned, Cardinal Blase J. Cupich said that the archdiocese’s Independent Review Board and its Office of Child Abuse Investigation and Review, as well as outside investigators, had “conducted a thorough review of the allegations.”

“The Review Board has concluded that there is insufficient reason to suspect Father Pfleger is guilty of these allegations,” the cardinal wrote….

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May 24, 2021 -Springfield- Hampden District Attorney Anthony D. Gulluni announcedthe investigation into the murder of Danny Croteau has been officially closed. The investigation began after Danny was found deceased on April 15, 1972, in the Connecticut River in Chicopee, still dressed in his clothes from his previous school day at Our Lady of the Sacred Heart school. The search for answers and proof of what happened to Danny has ensued for over 49 years.

This past Friday, detectives with the Massachusetts State Police Detective Unit assigned to the Hampden District Attorney’s Office were authorized by DA Gulluni to present the case against Richard Lavigne to a magistrate in order to obtain an arrest warrant for the murder of Danny Croteau. However, Lavigne died this past Friday evening, May 21, in a hospital facility in Greenfield.

Hampden District Attorney Anthony D. Gulluni stated, “Danny’s parents, Carl and Bernice, told reporters that they just…

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The killer was only ever going to be Richard Lavigne, who as a priest groomed 13-year-old altar boy Danny Croteau to rape him, then murdered him and tossed him in the Chicopee River when Danny became a nuisance.

Mike McNally is a Massachusetts State Police detective who asks the questions the dead need answered.It took him a few meetings this time, but finally 80-year-old, bedridden Richard Lavigne could hear Death’s footsteps and was ready to unburden himself of a dark secret he had carried in his dark heart for a half century.

Still, being a narcissistic sociopath, Lavigne couldn’t quite bring himself to explicitly admit he murdered 13-year-old altar boy Danny Croteau. Like everything else he did in his sorry life, Lavigne repeatedly framed his homicidal callousness in the best possible light, a gauzy haze that sought to minimize his vain and vile awfulness.

Hampden District Attorney Anthony Gulluni announced…

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In a dispassionate voice, defrocked Catholic priest Richard Lavigne told a state trooper about Daniel “Danny” Croteau’s final hours before the boy was found dead in the Chicopee River in 1972.

Lavigne was the last person to see Croteau alive — and had long been the prime suspect in his murder — but managed to evade prosecution up until his death on Friday as investigators closed in.

“What did you do after you saw the body in the water?” Massachusetts State Trooper Michael McNally asked Lavigne, who agreed to 11 hours of interviews from a hospital bed in Greenfield over five days in April and early May.

“I don’t remember what I did. I don’t remember telling anyone,” Lavigne responded slowly.

“Did you tell the police?” McNally pressed.

“I don’t believe I did,” Lavigne said.

“I don’t believe you did either,” the trooper said.

“I just remember…

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A Massachusetts district attorney announced the closure of the Danny Croteau cold case and said Richard Lavigne caused the death of the 13-year-old boy.

Authorities in Massachusetts say a defrocked priest was responsible for the death of a child in a cold case from 1972 — but the suspect died last week before he could be arrested.

In a press release, Hampden District Attorney Anthony D. Gulluni announced that the death of Danny Croteau, a 13-year-old boy from Springfield whose body was found floating in a river in 1972, was caused by his then-priest, Richard Lavigne, who pleaded guilty to child molestation in 1992 and was defrocked in 2003.

Rev. Richard R. Lavigne, a Roman Catholic priest, pleads guilty to two counts of indecently assaulting two adolescent boys at Newburyport Superior Court in this June 25, 1992 in Newburyport, Mass.Scott Maguire / AP file

The district attorney said…

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Investigators were preparing to seek an arrest warrant for a defrocked Roman Catholic priest long considered a suspect in the 1972 killing of a western Massachusetts altar boy shortly before his death last week, a prosecutor said Monday.

Incriminating admissions Richard Lavigne made in a series of recent interviews while in a medical facility further implicated the longtime suspect in 13-year-old Danny Croteau’s death, Hampden District Attorney Anthony Gulluni told reporters.

Gulluni said his office was prepared to prosecute Lavigne for Croteau’s killing, but he died Friday at the age of 80 before he could be arrested.

Lavigne indicated in interviews this year with investigator that he had brought Croteau to the riverbank, physically assaulted him, left him there and returned sometime later to see the boy floating in the river, Gulluni said.

“I just remember being heartbroken when I saw his body going down the river knowing I was…

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BOSSIER CITY, La. (KTAL/KMSS) – A Bossier City man and associate pastor at a local church arrested last week on child pornography and bestiality charges made his first appearance in court Monday.

Seby Chemmampallil, 36, was arrested Friday and charged with two counts of pornography involving juveniles under the age of 13 (possession), two counts of pornography involving juveniles under the age of 13 (distribution), and two counts of sexual abuse of animals.

The Bishop of the Catholic Diocese of Shreveport issued a letter to the Catholic clergy and the community shortly after the arrest announcing that Chemmampallil, known in the Catholic community as the Rev. Seby Shan, had been removed from serving as priest in the diocese. Chemmampallil served as associate pastor of Christ the King Catholic Church in Bossier City.

“While the allegations against him do not, at this time, involve physical contact with minors, they nonetheless…

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Cindy Leech’s voice broke, then it broke again, as she talked about the lives ruined, and the lives lost, to childhood sexual abuse — including her son’s.

“We’re not going away. We are going to fight,” Leech, of Johnstown, her husband at her side, said, as she and other survivors of childhood sexual abuse by clergy and others called on the No. 2 Republican in the state Senate to finally hold a vote on a long-sought bill opening a two-year window in civil court allowing them to sue in cases where the statute of limitations has expired.

Legislation authorizing such a change cleared the Republican-controlled state House in April on a 149-52 vote, but the legislation remains in park in the majority-GOP state Senate, where Senate Majority Leader Kim Ward, R-Westmoreland, has said such a bill is unconstitutional.

Ward, whose office controls the flow of legislation to the floor, said…

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A long-awaited update to a murder investigation some thought would never come.

The Hampden District attorney claims he knows who killed 13-year-old Danny Croteau all those years ago, but now defrocked priest Richard Lavigne died while the arrest warrant was being written up.

While this chapter has finally closed, advocates are claiming there’s more to this story and they want to get to the bottom of it.

The founder of Road to Recovery, an organization that helps victims of sexual abuse said he wants answers as to why Danny Croteau’s murder took nearly 50 years to solve.

“Release all the documents let us see the documents,” Road to Recovery President Dr. Robert Hoatson said.

After nearly 50 years, the Hampden County District Attorney’s Office said the investigation into the 1972 death of an altar boy, Danny Croteau is closed.

Former priest Richard Lavigne was named a suspect in the case…

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Nationally known activist Chicago priest the Rev. Michael Pfleger will be reinstated as the leader of his parish after an investigation found “insufficient reason to suspect” he sexually abused children, the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Chicago announced Monday.

The decision from the archdiocese comes more than four months after it asked Pfleger to step aside and told his parish that its Office for Child Abuse Investigations and Review had received an allegation that the priest had sexually abused a minor more than 40 years ago. Three accusers ultimately came forward, with one saying he was 18 when Pfleger sexually abused him.

Pfleger, who is white, had fierce support from leaders and parishioners at St. Sabina, a Black church in the city’s largely Black and low-income Auburn Gresham neighborhood on Chicago’s South Side. Parishioners cheered as he arrived for a news conference outside St. Sabina on Monday afternoon, and Pfleger jokingly said…

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Pfleger, who has led St. Sabina since 1981, is set to return to the pulpit June 5. “I’m so relieved and glad that this nightmare is over,” he said.

AUBURN GRESHAM — Father Michael Pfleger has been reinstated at St. Sabina Church, the Archdiocese of Chicago announced Monday, as church leaders found “no reason to suspect” the longtime pastor is guilty of sexual abuse.

The Catholic priest was asked to step down from the ministry in January, when two brothers accused Pfleger of inappropriate sex abuse stemming from incidents that occurred decades ago when they were underage. A third man came forward with allegations in March.

In a letter to the St. Sabina parish, Cardinal Blase Cupich said Pfleger can return to the pulpit the weekend of June 5, coinciding with the Feast of Corpus Christi. Cupich said he’s asked Pfleger to take…

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[Includes link to audio recordings shared by Hampden District Attorney Anthony D. Gulluni from interviews Richard R. Lavigne had given in the weeks before his death.]

Ever since the body of 13-year-old Danny Croteau was found floating facedown in the Chicopee River in 1972, investigators had set their sights on Richard R. Lavigne, the priest at the Catholic church where the Springfield youngster was an altar boy.

The day after Danny’s body was found, Lavigne was spotted walking alone along the riverbank as police surveyed the crime scene. When questioned, Lavigne posed a chilling question.

“If a stone was used and thrown in the river, would the blood still be on it?” he asked, according to a police report. Danny had been killed by a crushing blow to his head, likely with a rock.

Lavigne was never charged in the boy’s death, although he was convicted of crimes against other…

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A popular Southside pastor in the Archdiocese of Chicago will be returned to his parish months after being accused of child sexual abuse. We hope that Catholic officials will provide a detailed explanation as to how the allegations of three men were deemed  “insufficient” to determine that the priest was guilty of the accusations. 

CardinalBlasé Cupich announced today that Fr. Michael Pfleger would return to active ministry next month at theparish where he had worked for years. Since we know that a false allegation of sexual abuse is extremely rare, and that there were at least three allegations in this case, we urge the Archdiocese to provide more information on the investigation.

In January of this year, Fr. Pfleger stepped down following an allegation of sexually abusing a minor over 40 years ago. Later that same month, a second…

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Cardinal Blase Cupich is reinstating the Rev. Michael Pfleger as senior pastor at St. Sabina Parish after the archdiocesan board that investigates sexual abuse claims found “there is insufficient reason to suspect” the iconic South Side priest is guilty of allegations of abuse dating back decades, according to a letter released to parishioners Monday.

Two adult brothers from Texas in January lodged complaints that in the 1970s each was molested by Pfleger, the high-profile pastor of St. Sabina Catholic Parish in the Gresham neighborhood who has clashed with a succession of Catholic leaders over many matters including his unusually long tenure at the same parish.

The allegations had been under investigation by the Archdiocese of Chicago’s Independent Review Board. In a letter, Cupich told parishioners Pfleger will return June 5.

“The review board has concluded that there is insufficient reason to suspect Father Pfleger is…

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Fr. Michael Pfleger has been the pastor of St. Sabina Church in Chicago’s Auburn Gresham neighborhood since 1981, most widely known for his activism against violence in the city.

Father Michael Pfleger will be reinstated as senior pastor at St. Sabina Church after an investigation by the Chicago Archdiocese review board found that allegations of abuse against Pfleger were unfounded, Cardinal Blase Cupich wrote Monday in a letter to parishioners.

“In accordance with our policies for the protection of children and youth, the archdiocese Independent Review Board assisted by our Office of Child Abuse Investigation and Review and outside investigators conducted a thorough review of the allegations,” Cupich said in the letter. “The Review Board has concluded that there is no reason to suspect Father Pfleger is guilty of these allegations.”

Pfleger will be reinstated the weekend of June 5-6, Cupich said.

“I have asked Father Pfleger to take the…

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CHICAGO (WLS) — Father Michael Pfleger has been reinstated as pastor of Saint Sabina Catholic Church on Chicago’s South Side.

Pfleger had been under investigation by the Chicago Archdiocese after two men came forward claiming they there were sexually assaulted by Pfleger when they were board.

An Archdiocese Review Board has found that there is “no reason to suspect Father Pfleger is guilty of these allegations.”

An emotional Pfleger spoke through tears Monday in front of the church where he has worked for decades.

“I’ve been discouraged at times. I’ve wanted to give up,” Pfleger said. “And to be honest with you, there were some times I would’ve gived up. But I love this church too much to walk away from it. Your support and love and my faith have kept me going. I’m so relieved and glad that this nightmare is over.”

Back in January, two adult brothers from Texas filed…

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Cardinal Blase Cupich is reinstating the Rev. Michael Pfleger to his post as senior pastor at St. Sabina Catholic Parish.

A letter to the community from Cupich says a review of abuse allegations against Pfleger shows “no reason to suspect” he is guilty of the accusations.

Cupich has asked Pfleger to take a couple weeks to prepare himself to return and he has agreed. He will be reinstated as pastor the weekend of June 5 and 6.

St. Sabina scheduled a news conference at 3 p.m. Monday in which Pfleger gave his first public statement in months.

“I am innocent of those charges and accusations and I cannot tell you how grateful I am to God and all those who supported me and prayed to me during this time,” Pfleger said. “This has been the most difficult and trying time of my life. I have been frustrated, I have been…

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Cardinal Blase Cupich reinstated the Rev. Michael Pfleger on Monday as senior pastor of St. Sabina Catholic Church after an investigation of allegations of sexual abuse of a minor more than 40 years ago “concluded that there is insufficient reason to suspect Father Pfleger is guilty of these allegations.”

In a letter to the St. Sabina Church and school community, Cupich said the archdiocese’s Independent Review Board, assisted by the Office of Child Abuse Investigation and Review and outside investigators conducted “a thorough review” of the allegations.

The first version of the letter published on the archdiocese’s website said the probe “concluded that there is no reason to suspect Father Pfleger is guilty of these allegations” before being updated — without explanation — 90 minutes later. 

The letter was changed because officials from the archdiocese wanted “to be precise in repeating the language of the Independent…

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CHICAGO — Cardinal Blase Cupich is reinstating the Rev. Michael Pfleger to his post as senior pastor at St. Sabina Catholic Parish.

A letter to the community from Cupich says a review of abuse allegations against Pfleger shows “no reason to suspect” he is guilty of the accusations.

Cupich has asked Pfleger to take a couple weeks to prepare himself to return and he has agreed. He will be reinstated as pastor the weekend of June 5 and 6.

St. Sabina has scheduled a news conference at 3 p.m. Monday at which Pfleger will make a statement.

The entire letter from Cardinal Blase Cupich below:

Dear Members of the Faith Community of St. Sabina,

Thank you for your patience and prayers during the absence of your senior pastor. Father Michael Pfleger. As you know, earlier this year the archdiocese received allegations of child sexual abuse against Father Pfleger. In accordance with…

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CHICAGO (CBS) — Cardinal Blase Cupich is reinstating Rev. Michael Pfleger as pastor of Saint Sabina parish, four months after he was asked to step aside from his duties, after an Archdiocese review board cleared him of allegations of sexual abuse.

Pfleger will hold a news conference Monday afternoon at 3:00 to address announcement.

“In accordance with our policies for the protection of children and youth, the archdiocese Independent Review Board assisted by our Office of Child Abuse Investigation and Review and outside investigators conducted a thorough review of the allegations. The Review Board has concluded that there is no reason to suspect Father Pfleger is guilty of these allegations,” Cupich wrote in a letter to the Saint Sabina Parish.

Pfleger was removed from St. Sabina in January, after two brothers accused him of sexually abusing them decades ago. A third accuser later came forward.

After the review board…

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[Note from BishopAccountability.org: Cardinal Cupich’s letter was revised shortly after its publication on May 24, 2021. Initially, the first sentence of the second paragraph read: “The Review Board has concluded that there is no reason to suspect Father Pfleger is guilty of these allegations.” The word “no” was changed to “insufficient,” but not before the “no reason” version had appeared in early reports by WGN and CBS 2. See our caches of these initial reports by WGN and CBS 2.]

Dear Members of the Faith Community of St. Sabina,

Thank you for your patience and prayers during the absence of your senior pastor. Father Michael Pfleger. As you know, earlier this year the archdiocese received allegations of child sexual abuse against Father Pfleger. In accordance with our policies for the protection of children and youth, the archdiocese Independent Review Board assisted by our Office of Child Abuse Investigation and…

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A Pillar longread

Bishop Rick Stika, who is only 63, has had both a heart attack and major heart surgeries. A few years ago he lost sight in his right eye. He has severe diabetes, which gives him chronic pain, and he’s walked with a limp since he fractured his foot in five places, falling from a curb while on vacation. He says he should have surgery on the foot, but because of the diabetes, there is risk that surgery could turn into amputation. 

“So I live with that. I tell people, you know, you’ve gotta laugh a little bit at life. I’ve trained this eye to close and leave this one open so I can take snoozes at meetings,” the bishop jokes. 

The limp gets more pronounced when he’s tired, I notice.

“Yeah. The limp kinda bothers me. So I just kinda pace myself, and I’ve taken some meds…

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As accusations mount, victim advocates question police commitment to investigation. Rush has denied all allegations.

Note: This story contains depictions of sexual and physical abuse that may be disturbing.

A former member of the Inspiring Body of Christ Church says he was 13 when Pastor Rickie Rush raped him, an allegation Dallas police say they are investigating.

Marcus Bell Jr., 26, described the assault in recent interviews with The Dallas Morning News, saying it came after a week of beatings by Rush in 2007 that left him bruised and barely able to walk. At least six former members of the church told The News that Rush often targeted him for whippings in the name of discipline.

The News also recently obtained an affidavit that another former IBOC member submitted to Dallas police two years ago, alleging Rush touched her inappropriately around 2006.

Bell and the woman are among 12 former church members The News has reported…

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A Catholic priest charged with indecently assaulting 12 boys in a NSW Southern Highlands boarding school in the 1980s allegedly wrote if he could change something about himself it would be “this feeling I have towards young boys”, a court has heard.

Father Anthony William Peter Caruana, 79, allegedly assaulted the boys when he was a dormitory manager, rugby coach and band teacher at Chevalier College, in Burradoo, between 1982 and 1988.

He has pleaded not guilty to 29 charges, including four counts of homosexual intercourse with a student and several counts of indecent assault of a person aged under 16.

In her opening statement at the Sydney Downing Centre on Monday, crown prosecutor Nerissa Keay outlined the allegations and told the jury what they could expect to hear from the 12 complainants over the course of the eight-week trial.

Among the allegations, is the indecent assault of a student…

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The first accusations came in 2018, when two alleged victims and the father of a third alleged victim told police a prominent Kalamazoo, Michigan, pastor and his wife, both of whom worked for the local school district, had paid local boys for sex with the pastor and his wife. One claimed the pastor gave him a car.

The case has only grown more complex and controversial over the last three years. Rev. Stricjavvar “Strick” Strickland, pastor of Second Baptist Church, was also charged with assaulting a church elder. He was found not guilty on that charge.

In 2020, when he failed to show up for court dates, police called him a fugitive from the law. His attorney said Strickland was at a home in Mississippi and was having problems traveling due to a hurricane and other weather issues. He later turned himself…

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A shocking case is set to go before a judge today.

Beginning Monday morning at 9:00 A.M. is the trial of the former priest who was caught making a pornographic video on the altar.

Father Travis Clark, 37, and the two women he was caught with making a pornographic video, each faces up to two years imprisonment if found guilty.

These are the three who stand trial today [see photo below], Father Clark (middle), on the left is Mindy Dixon, 41, and to the right Melissa Cheng, 28. They’re facing criminal charges in St. Tammany Parish.

Happening last year at St. Peter and Paul Catholic Church in Pearl River, Father Clark was caught having sex with the two women on the altar. A local resident saw the lights were still on in the church and looked through the windows to find the priest and two dominatrices.

Archbishop Gregory Aymond helped…

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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,…

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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…

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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…

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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…

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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…

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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…

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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…

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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.

…

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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…

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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…

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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…

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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…

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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…

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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…

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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…

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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…

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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…

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[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…

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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…

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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…

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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…

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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…

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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…

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[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…

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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…

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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…

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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…

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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…

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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.

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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. 

…

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[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…

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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…

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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…

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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…

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[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…

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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